• Home
  • About
  • Concepts, Coins, and Terms
    • Anthropolitical Psychology
      • Civilizational Narcissism
      • Conflict – Language Uptake – Social Programming and Scripting – A Suggestion
        • Language Uptake – Programming – On Learning to Listen
        • Mouth –> Ear –> Mind –> Heart System
        • Social Grammar
      • Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy
      • Malignant Narcissism
      • Narcissistic Scripting
      • Normative Remirroring
      • Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation
    • FTAC – “From The Awesome Conversation”
    • God Mob
    • Intellectual Battlespace
    • Islamic Small Wars
    • New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left
    • Political Spychology
    • Shimmer
  • Library
    • About Language
    • Russian Section
  • Comments and Contact

BackChannels

~ Conflict, Culture, Language, Psychology

BackChannels

Tag Archives: crime

Also in Media: “Keeping Up with CAIR’s Islamic Radicalism” – Capital Research Center – by Andrew E. Harrod, October 18, 2016.

24 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, American Domestic Affairs, Islamic Small Wars

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

CAIR, crime, Hamas, political methodology

Ghassan Elashi, a co-founder of Texas CAIR, was convicted in 2005 of terrorism-related offenses and sentenced to almost seven years imprisonment. CAIR civil rights director Randall Todd Royer was given 20 years for federal weapons and explosives convictions in 2004. Bassem Khafagi, a community affairs director at CAIR, was convicted in 2003 on bank and visa fraud charges and shipped back to Egypt. Rabih Haddad, a fundraiser for CAIR’s chapter in Ann Arbor, Mich., was detained in 2001 for overstaying his visa. Authorities found a firearm and considerable ammunition in his home. He served 19 months in prison and was then deported to Lebanon in 2003. CAIR board member Abdurahman Alamoudi was sentenced to 23 years imprisonment for directing at least $1 million to al-Qaeda. (See Foundation Watch, December 2015.)“

Contending that American Muslims are the victims of wholesale repression, CAIR has provided sensitivity training to police departments across the United States, instructing law officers in the art of dealing with Muslims respectfully,” according to DiscoverTheNetworks. The estate of 9/11 victim John O’Neill Sr., a senior FBI counter-terrorism agent, filed a lawsuit claiming that CAIR’s goal “is to create as much self-doubt, hesitation, fear of name-calling, and litigation within police department and intelligence agencies as possible so as to render such authorities ineffective in pursuing international and domestic terrorist entities.”

Source: Keeping Up with CAIR’s Islamic Radicalism – Capital Research Center – 10/18/2016.

FTAC -Of Potential “False Flag Operation” in the Beating of a Ukrainian Rabbi

08 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

21st Century Neo-Feudalism, anti-Semitism, crime, false flag operations, medievalism, Russia, Ukraine

http://forward.com/culture/202181/my-hunt-for-the-cossacks-in-ukraine/

The “Maidan” was deeply integrated as regards Christian and Jewish relations in the effort to oust the President Yanukovych.

http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/1.577114

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2014/02/25/ukraine-russia-and-the-jews-dueling-attitudes/

As we live in the age of “false flag operations” — e.g., http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439060/vladimir-putin-1999-russian-apartment-house-bombings-was-putin-responsible !!! — I would suggest this may be the kind of crime designed to whip up fear of Ukrainian Cossacks to weaken western resolve in opposition to Putin’s invasion of Crimea.


Source of inspiration:

https://www.algemeiner.com/2016/10/07/chabad-rabbi-found-unconscious-bleeding-after-brutal-beating-at-ukrainian-train-station/ – 10/7/2016:

He has previously served Jewish communities in France and Israel, and, according to the report, has been instrumental in aiding Jews of the former Soviet Union. He is believed to have been in Haditch at the gravesite over Rosh Hashanah.

The motive for the attack remains unknown. According to the report, violent antisemitic attacks in Ukraine are rare, and there is no indication at this time that the assault was antisemitic in nature.

BackChannels wishes not to become “Yellow Press”, but given the mysterious elements in the crime described in The Algemeiner, both Ukrainian detectives and global public now need to be aware of the possibility of being fooled by old KGB method in placing a cooked-up image before “the masses”.

Let the detectives do their work, and may they do it with exemplary conscience and integrity.

–33–

 

Also in Media – Op-Ed: Pakistani man condemns anti-Semitic mobs who gang raped Jewish man – | JerusalemOnline

01 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by commart in Also in Media, Anti-Semitism, Great Britain and United Kingdom, Political Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

anti-Semitism, crime, East London, fascism, Great Britain, immigrant community, policing, terrorism

After the Gaza war in 2014, the Jewish community all around the world especially in the UK was targeted by extremists. Some cases were highlighted in the media and many disappeared as usual but the Police tried hard to bring the offenders to justice. One of the cases was about 52 year old Mr. Yisro’el Shalom, who brought his case to me. Mr. Shalom had been living in the Borough of Newham in East London for nearly 22 years and in the last three years, he was attacked 340 times and verbally abused nearly 60 times. He was physically tortured, kicked and punched in his face by a gang of Asians (most probably Pakistanis) because he was a Jew living within the Muslim community.

Continue reading at  Op-Ed: Pakistani man condemns anti-Semitic mobs who gang raped Jewish man – | JerusalemOnline – 9/1/2016.

Amok in Syria – Unearthly Crimes

17 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Syria

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

barbarism, commentary, conflict, crime, political, Syria

Those hunting for war porn may find it on Live Leak.

The variety of insults to humanity evident in the Syrian theater have horrified and numbed this observer, albeit not in the action immediately — although throwing civilians into baking ovens would seem as bad as it gets: from there, the numbers subject to similarly depraved behavior may climb, God rest their souls, but the character of the crime could not be worse, well, perhaps with the exception of being boiled in exploding nuclear plasma — but in the consideration that this dive down into the criminal depths has been going on, and one may say this today with a straight face, for years.

While Putin and Obama may try to keep at their own arms length the depravity exhibited by the Assad regime (from the outset) and the Al Qaeda affiliates that have carried into the fray their own intellectual poisons as well as a demonstrated lack of self-restraint, the two remain visible at the outer boundary of the melee, would that either could untie themselves from what keeps them in an opposition fast losing its equilibrium.

The Syrian Civil War as a furnace, in the larger sense, continues drawing fuel from Islamist ranks worldwide.  In fact, as we head into the New Year, Syria would seem the go-to place for fighting to establish the global caliphate, to chat freely about offing the Jews, once and for all, and for throwing innocents into baking ovens.

______

Syria today is a country of blurred facts and wild rumors, but the abduction and in some cases murder of Christian clerics is real enough.

Forced Exodus: Christians in the Middle East | World Affairs Journal – 12/17/2013.

* * *

It is believed that more than 30 journalists are currently being detained in Syria.

Many kidnappings have been downplayed in the hope of aiding negotiations.

On Tuesday the Spanish newspaper El Mundo decided to publicise the abduction of two journalists in Syria in September after indirect communications with their captors led to “no result”.

BBC News – Media urge Syrian rebels to stop journalist kidnappings – 12/12/2013.

Related: 2 Spanish journalists kidnapped in Syria, newspaper says – CNN.com – 12/10/2013.

______

Rise of Islamic Front a disaster for Syria – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 12/15/2013.

Growing strength of Syria’s Islamist groups undermines hopes of ousting Assad | World news | The Observer – 12/14/2013.

______

BBC News – Briton Ifthekar Jaman ‘killed fighting in Syria’, family says – 12/17/2013.

BBC News – The Chechen Jihadists fighting in Syria – 12/16/2013.

Syria: Islamists Find a New Way to Behead – Middle East – News – Israel National News – 12/8/2013.

Assad’s crimes pale in comparison to atrocities by Syrian radical groups – Today’s Zaman, your gateway to Turkish daily news – 11/3/2013.

Testing a US ’empathy deficit’ in Syria – CSMonitor.com – 12/16/2013.

Syria: ‘Unparalleled human suffering’ – Inside Syria – Al Jazeera English – 12/1/2013.

BBC News – Syria conflict: Women ‘targets of abuse and torture’ – 11/26/2013.

Related PDF: “Violence against Women, Bleeding Wound in the Syrian Conflict.”  Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network, November 2013.

Human rights at war in Syria – Opinion – Al Jazeera English – 8/8/2012.

Syria turning into ‘World War II scenario’ | World | DW.DE | 04.12.2013

______

▶ Syria: Executions, Hostage Taking by Rebels – YouTube – Posted 10/11/2013.

# # #

FTAC – On Civilized Firearm Ownership in Pakistan

28 Thursday Nov 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

American, crime, firearms ownership, Pakistan, Pakistani, personal defense, USA

L., in our so-far cooperative, democratic, open society (let’s all memorize the phrase), Americans may purchase just about any firearm they wish — and then some.

Note that I said “just about” because efforts by gun-control advocates may (or have) imposed some limits on high-magazine automatic firearms, a move that immediately spurred sales of the AR-15 class of weapons and related munitions.

___

Peterson inquired about the tank on the lawn. “It’s an M1A1, from World War II,” Clancy said, gazing over at it. “My wife gave it to me for Christmas.”

“Geez,” Peterson said, “how much does a tank cost?”

“I don’t know,” Clancy replied with a slight smile. “Do you ask your wife what your Christmas presents cost?”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/what-ticks-tom-clancy-off/2013/10/02/66a20b38-2b7b-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_story.html

___

The American landscape is dotted with militia and sporting gun clubs and their ranges, and that includes private Muslim compounds as well as the enclaves of good ol’ Christian boys. In principle, what is legal and allowed for one group must apply equally to all, and that’s what we do. It takes the commission of a crime for the government, any level, to get into the business of a person or organization, gun owner or gun club.

___

Where there are brakes involving the private ownership of firearms, the laws focus on behavior (required registration, training certification, etc.) rather than ownership.

___

Finally, for the Facebook short-form of writing, lol, small home defense to corporate security involves a lot more than the mere possession of a weapon. As we have a reliable police force, outbound emergency communications count a great deal in any incident; as most American violence of interest involves domestic and personal issues (and alcohol), the paths to battery and murder may get far along and out of reach of both a weapon or telephone device; as regards break-ins, the fearful-with-guns often make mistakes involving their perception of intrusion and fatal accidents involving loved ones take place.

Perhaps the underlying threats in a peaceful land are largely psychological — and so are the comforts of owning some hardware.

In Pakistan, you are perhaps out on the edge of a wild frontier, but even so, what are the crimes that would be forestalled by the robed man of the house descending a staircase with a revolver? Would it not be better to call the police and retire to a safe room?

______

It may be a fair test of American democracy and the values of the people that, overall, we are armed to the teeth and haven’t even one mainline domestic issue sufficient to launch even one general internecine low-intensity conflict.  Instead, from time to time, organizations on the political fringe arm up, go “off the hook”, commit a crime or several — assassinations, bank robberies, bombings, etc. — bringing on a thorough reaming by the FBI and the invitation to sit in an electric chair or look forward to “three hots and a cot” for life.

_____

▶ Light Engineering In Darra Adam Khel, Pakistan amazig) – YouTube – Posted 8/24/2013.

Watch out Beretta, Remington, and Ruger — Darra Adam Khel‘s been getting practice on knock-offs for years.

______

From Russia with good humor —

▶ Ultimate Glock Torture Test – YouTube – Post4ed 1/13/2012.

______

What ticks Tom Clancy off? – The Washington Post – 10/2/2013.

How Glock Became America’s Favorite Legal Handgun – ABC News – 3/22/2013.

AR-15 – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

# # #

Ecuador – Fighting Continues On Colombian Border – FARC Known – Hezbollah? A Question Mark

14 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Regions, South America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

conflict, crime, dark space, Ecuador, FARC, Hezbollah, narcoterrorism

I have been assured by my contact in Guayaquil, Ecuador, that fighting reported in the Miami Herald last Thursday is still ongoing but with one changed note: the hint that Hezbollah has banded with the FARC “to move their operations to neighboring countries, Peru, Venezuela and Ecuador, seeking new territory to plant opium  . . . .”

That coca and poppy cultivation have taken place, or takes place, in certain areas isn’t news, but whether or not Hezbollah’s is in on that enterprise — or a part of this most recent fighting — that might be something worth the watching.

Excerpts From an Exchange

Sunday, August 11, 2013:

“We are worried about a war against Israel from many terrorist groups, we have information that Mexico and Peru are increased production of cocaine and opium are sowing now, it is likely that drug traffickers with this money can finance violent groups worldwide, in exchange for weapons and as part of the drug trade, then they can make terrorist attacks with Opium money.”

* * *

“This is a battle with two front of war to Ecuador, because the drug traffickers control the jungle between Colombia and Peru, where the government of Colombia, Peru and Ecuador have no presence, the state have no presence with roads, village, school, hospitals in remote places of the country, far away from the Andes mountains all this place remain alone.”

Dark Space

From back rooms to board rooms to “secure compartmented information facilities”, any space may be made and kept “dark” in terms related to privacy and the keeping of secrets, but remote rural space affords another dimension in dark space: the opportunity to develop criminal and, in essence, criminal political enterprise with impunity.

Reference

Bargent, James.  “Discovery of Coca Plantations in Ecuador Points to FARC.”  InSight Crime, April 8, 2013.

Levitt, Matthew.  “Exporting Terror in America’s Backyard.”  Foreign Policy, June 13, 2013.

Levitt, Matthew.  Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God.  To be published September 3, 2013, Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.

McDermott, Jeremy.  “Shootout on Colombia-Ecuador Border Claims 6 Lives.”  InSight Crime, August 9, 2013.

Torres, Diego.  “Ecuador soldier slain in firefight with Colombians.”  Miami Herald, August 8, 2013.

Edward Snowden Tells on Big Brother

10 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

crime, Internet, NSA, privacy, terror

Poitras, Laura and Glenn Greenwald.  “NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: ‘I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things’.”  Video.  The Guardian, June 9, 2013.

Expect Edward Snowden’s breach of his NSA nondisclosure agreement to burn its way around the world.

What is freedom if it is not the ownership of one’s communications with assumed privacy?

What is security if it is not the state’s ability to operate “listening posts” to detect malice against those it has been charged to defend?

I have said of the Islamic Small Wars, and as much may be said of all organized crime and political terror, that they are wars for poets and detectives, the former because 1) what takes place in the mind takes place in language, and 2) what takes place in real space involves the most private forms of collusion and operational communication.

The recapitulation of international web traffic that starts at the Internet’s trunk lines, the robotic sifting for strings and patterns or known quantities, one might call them .  . . I’m not sure that bothers me so much.

I am more concerned when the FBI ignores or overrides a valid and reliable Russian intelligence tip-off and Boston marathoners and their families and friends lose their lives or legs: what motivated that negligence before the fact?

I’m also annoyed a little bit about the web bots watching my online shopping and pressing me to buy whatever I’ve browsed on every other Facebook or online news page.

In the end, if we don’t like so much electronic snooping, we can, I suppose, resume living locally and hope the bar, the coffee shop, the barber’s chair, and the local park are not infested with bugs that never bite but only listen.

# # #

  • Compassion
  • Empathy
  • Justice
  • Humility
  • Inclusion
  • Integrity
____________

Caution: The possession of anti-Semitic / anti-Zionist thought may be the measure of the owner's own enslavement to criminal and medieval absolute power.
___________

Recent Posts

  • Over Coffee–Opinion, Reading, and Viewing Recommended: Russian Payoffs to European Politicians; Chinese Balloon; Ilhan Omar
  • Ukraine Defense: Courageous, Righteous, and Tough People
  • Nicolas Tenzer On A Russia That Must Be Condemned, Defeated, Taken Apart, and Taken Down
  • FTAC: Why Putin Won’t Stop Until Stopped
  • KGB FSB ROC M-O-N-E-Y
  • FNS: Morning Lies

Categories

  • 21st Century Feudal
  • 21st Century Modern
  • A Little Wisdom
  • Also in Media
  • American Domestic Affairs
  • Anti-Semitism
  • Asides
  • BCND – BackChannels News Day
  • Books
  • Conflict – Culture – Language – Psychology
  • COVID-19
  • Epistemology
  • Events and Other PSA's
  • Extreme Brown vs Red-Green
  • Fast News Share
  • foreign aid
  • Free Speech
  • FTAC
  • FTAC – From The Awesome Conversation
  • International Development
  • Islamic Small Wars
    • Gaza Suzerain
  • Journal
    • Library
  • Journalism
  • Links
  • Notes On Reading BackChannels
  • Philology
  • Philosophy
  • Poetry
  • Political Psychology
  • Political Spychology
  • Politics
  • Psychology
    • Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy
  • Qualities of Living (QOL)
  • Referral
  • Regions
    • Africa
      • Central African Republic
      • Guinea
      • Kenya
      • Libya
      • Mali
      • Morocco
      • Nigeria
      • South Africa
      • Sudan
      • Tunisia
      • Zimbabwe
    • Asia
      • Afghanistan
      • Burma
      • China
      • India
      • Myanmar
      • North Korea
      • Pakistan
      • Turkey
    • Caribbean Basin
      • Cuba
    • Central America
      • El Salvador
      • Guatemala
      • Honduras
      • Mexico
    • Eastern Europe
      • Serbia
    • Eurasia
      • Armenia
      • Azerbaijan
      • Russia
      • Ukrain
      • Ukraine
    • Europe
      • France
      • Germany
      • Hungary
      • Poland
    • Great Britain and United Kingdom
    • Iberian Peninsula
    • Middle East
      • Egypt
      • Gaza
      • Iran
      • Iraq
      • Israel
        • Palestinia
      • Jordan
      • Kurdistan
      • Lebanon
      • Palestinian Territories
      • Qatar
      • Saudi Arabia
      • Syria
      • United Arab Emirates
      • Yemen
    • North America
      • Canada
      • United States of America
    • Norther Europe
    • Northern Europe
      • Sweden
    • South America
      • Argentina
      • Brazil
      • Columbia
      • Ecuador
      • Venezuela
    • South Pacific
      • Australia
      • New Zealand
      • Papua New Guinea
      • West Papua
  • Religion
  • Spain
  • Syndicate Red Brown Green
  • transnational crime
  • Uncategorized
  • Visual Data

Europe

  • Defending History
  • Hungarian Spectrum
  • Yanukovych Leaks

Great Britain

  • Stand for Peace

Israeli and Jewish Affairs

  • Chloe Simone Valdary

Journals

  • Amil Imani
  • New Age Islam

Middle East

  • Human Rights & Democracy for Iran
  • Middle East Research and Information Project

Organizations

  • Anti-Slavery
  • Atlantic Council
  • Fight Hatred
  • Human Rights First Society
  • International Network Against Cyberhate
  • The Center for Victims of Torture

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

Archives

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • BackChannels
    • Join 352 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • BackChannels
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar