By late 2015 this led to the appearance of the “Sun Ladies” (former sex slaves now armed, trained and seeking revenge) and now there are enough of them to form a separate battalion. ISIL is still holding at least 3,000 Yazidis captive and one objective of all these Yazidi militias (and Kurds in general) is to free the slaves.
the article also notes women who served as soldiers in history...often using smaller weapons because of lower body strength.
--------------------
This long Strategypage article is mainly about Pakistan and one item noted is that the Chinese are working on a port there, and building a pipeline for natural gas/petroleum...and Pakistan is trying to keep them safe from terrorists.
Two notes: I remember when Reagan helped the Taliban throw out the Russians, it was claimed he was doing so to be able to build a pipeline for the evil American oil companies. Presumably the same peacenik type people in the west won't notice as the Chinese take over the oil reserves in the Silk road region, any more than they protested the takeover of the oil reserves and the sea lanes by destroying the reefs and shoals in the west Philippine sea by the Chinese.
Second note: This essentially gives China a port on the Indian Ocean.
America only gets 10-20 percent of their oil from the Middle East, but this is another way for China to block the shipping lanes for Japan and Korea and the other Asian tiger countries.
related item: MomJones reports China plans to shut down a lot of their coal driven electric plants. Since China's coal is high sulfur, this should help pollution. But you see why the pipeline would be a big help for energy hungry China.
---------------------
this is not going to help the number of people willing to donate organs:
People magazine reports that one victim of the Uber shooter woke up and did a "thumbs up" to her mom after being declared brain dead and being prepared to get her organs transplanted.
Headsup WSmith, who notes that this isn't the first highly publicized case of misdiagnosing brain death: Jahi, who is legally dead, still refuses to die.
----------------
the lady behind twittergate AKA Stacygate, is the same one who was behind Gamergate. (caution: NSFW language at link)
Libertarian links at Instapundit defend twitter's right to do anything they wish because they are a private company.
Best comment:
David Burge
Twitter is a private firm & perfectly free to ban/shadowban me or anyone else. It's not like I'm asking them to bake me a gay wedding cake.
the Supreme court to decide if a presidential candidate is a "natural born citizen" and eligible to run. No, not Cruz, Grace Poe.
She was a foundling so can't establish if her parents were Philippine citizens... which makes everyone laugh here because....LINK
------------------------
My friend in Zimbabwe reports they had a bad harvest so there will be a lot of hungry people, and they will need food aid.LINK
it's a combination of drought (which happens periodically in the area) and bad management (the productive white owned farms confiscated in the name of land reform: some given to local farmers which was good, but alas most given to political cronies who don't know how to farm.
The dirty little secret about Africa is that these places, managed with irrigation and modern farm techniques, could be another bread basket. Zimbabwe has an advantage here, since most of the veldt is free of tsetse flies...Socialist politics, green policies, and the collapse of the economy, are to blame.
some news stories hint the land could be given back to the white farmers, or maybe sold to the Chinese.
In the meanwhile, thanks to the animal lovers making a kerfuffle about Cecil the lion, hunters are afraid to go there. That means a lot of lost tourism money, and now we read that the gov't will cull the excess population by killing 200 lions.
