Leading To Barbarity

Imagine a poll with questions deliberately designed to obtain a specific result. Such polls do exist. So how much credence can be placed in what results from them? With questions that skirt an issue, but make skewed references to that issue in the most ambiguous manner to elicit a particular response certain to gladden the hearts of those whose purpose in parsing those responses to obtain a designed outcome has been a roaring success.

The Canadian-Ukrainian community and the Canadian-German community, for their own reasons, have been decidedly uncomfortable with the initiative originally undertaken by the Jewish owner of a news conglomerate, to make plans to engage the public and receive government support in the building of a Holocaust Museum. Those ethnic communities have been outspoken and vociferous in their rejection of a Museum to commemorate the Holocaust though the concept of that museum was altered to reflect a presence as a Museum of Human Rights.

That museum would of necessity reflect the issue of genocide, and the single most extreme example of an ethnic-religious-cultural group of people singled out for systematic social isolation, mass incarceration and finally annihilation on a carefully calibrated and designed scale that would see success in the extinguishing of six million lives of men, women, children of all ages would be front and centre. What united the victims as victims was their Jewishness.

Others suffered a similar fate under the Nazis during World War Two; political prisoners, the mentally and physically impaired, gypsies, homosexuals and many clerics who defied the fascists. But it was for Europe's Jews that special attention in weeding them out of the general population, removing their human rights entitlements, slandering them, pauperizing them, and systematically murdering them that makes this attempt at eradicating Jews from the face of the Earth special.

There were others who suffered grievously throughout modern history; the Russians, Chinese, Poles, Ukraines, Rwandans, Cambodians; the list is long and dreadful. Many still suffer, in North Korea, Burma, Sudan and elsewhere in the world as they are exploited and torn from their land, maimed and slaughtered. They will have their place in The Canadian Museum for Human Rights which is also designed to offer a special place to commemorate the Holocaust and the Aboriginal experience in Canada.

This afflicts its critics with the angst of having their particular dreadful political, social, existential experiences take second place. All the other miseries and dread occurrences experienced by other people in other times and other places are meant to have their place in the Museum. Its critics demand that all be given equal space and equal place; that there be no special memorial for any one dire event.

Ignoring the reality that many other countries of the world consider the Holocaust to represent a unique and dreadful event in human history, needful of its own memorial as a remembrance to what human beings are capable of descending to. So in their need to succeed in turning public opinion to their support, the poll was designed to elicit a desired response. The poll, undertaken by NANOS Research, commissioned by Canadians for Genocide Education.

Canadians for Genocide Education describes itself as a coalition of 50 associations representing 27 different ethno-cultural communities. There is no Internet presence, and its volunteer chairman is an Ontario lawyer who was once head of the Canadian Arab Federation, James Kafieh. The 44-member group he claims to represent is a peculiar one. Some when contacted claim never to have heard of him or the coalition.

Others could not be contacted as the contacts were 27 years stale, others had no working telephones or contact information. But Mr. Kafieh is adamant that the focus of the Museum is quite wrong, and represents the result "of politicians pandering to a special interest group". Of course Mr. Kafieh would be intimately familiar with the considerations and agendas of 'special interest groups'.

Lybomyr Luciuk, director of research for the Ukrainian Civil Liberties Association, another staunch detractor of the main focus of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and which aided in the funding of the poll, insists the results of the poll confirms that a museum funded by taxpayers must not give 'preference' to one group's suffering over that of another's.

"I know this will sound harsh, but there is fundamental ignorance [on the museum board] of history and a preoccupation with their own community's suffering", Mr. Luciuk explained, neatly summing up his own and his partners-in-adversarial denial of the original purpose of the Museum's own singular, self-involved agenda.

"This is not a genocide museum", clarified Angela Cassie, director of communications for the Museum. "It's a museum about human rights. And, she points out, the Holocaust is the most meticulously documented genocide in history, and as such is eminently capable in its presentation of teaching in the most absolute manner how abuse of human rights leads to dreadful barbarity.

So let's hear it like it is. The Winnipeg museum, a federally-funded institution, which will also be funded by private and corporate subscriptions is meant to have an area dedicated to the carefully planned and executed murder of six million Jews. It is intended that atrocities committed against Canadian Aboriginals will receive similar treatment. Other atrocities will be housed collectively in an adjacent area of the Museum.

This is not a display of the hierarchy of suffering, it is an object lesson in the degradation of humankind, using as its focal point the most singular descent into the black hole of nihilistic destruction through meticulous state and ideological planning ever documented. The poll that asked a few relatively innocuous questions about preferences, never once referencing the Museum itself, resulted in 60.3% of Canadians polled expressing a preference for "one exhibit which covers all genocides equally".

More than adequately reflecting the Canadian spirit of egalitarian compassion. Without informing those whose opinion was being solicited any of the inconvenient details. Which leads one to the indelible and damning impression that a rather nasty, hidden agenda to have a conclusion reached that would reflect the demands of a disparate, grudging group afflicted with anti-Semitism will stoop to any means to validate their point of view.

Recruits For Al-Shabab

Canada's immigrant quotient from Muslim countries has placed us in a rather uncomfortable position. Where radicalized elements from abroad regularly obtain visitors' visas to come to this country to spread their vicious messages of hatred. Finding a ready enough audience among the disaffected young, like those from Somalia whose parents fled the chaos and unrest to find safe haven in Canada. It would appear that many young men of Somalia extraction are fascinated by Islamism.

They have become Canadian citizens, but have obviously not found a comfortable place for themselves within Canadian society. It's estimated that Canada now has between 150,000 and 200,00 ethnic Somalis making this country their home. For the older Somalis, it meant making a new life for themselves very far from their origins. It means living among a pluralist population in large part made up of immigrants like themselves.

Not necessarily like themselves as far as culture, geographic heritage and religion was concerned. Making it desirable for older immigrants to sequester themselves, to live within enclaves where they found comfort in the presence of those who did share their heritage and their religion. Their children, however, may find that same comfort eluding them.

They are 'different' than the prevailing indigenous population with whom they do not share a cultural affinity nor the religion most familiar to them through daily exposure at home. They find interest in the darker, seamier areas of city life, where the petty crime, clubs and taverns offer another, forbidden attraction. And they run afoul of the law in greater numbers than their demographic percentage might warrant.

"There are people in the community who are openly cheerleading for this nonsense", claims Ahmed Hussen, president of the Canadian Somali Congress, referencing the issue of Somali youth being recruited through the Internet blog postings of American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, inciting young Muslims to join the global jihad and become martyrdom material in the name of Islam. And the messages of visiting clerics.

Obviously the cheerleading community people are those who agree with the messages that al-Awlaki and al-Qaeda and its affiliates feed in a steady stream of encouraging jihad among Muslim youth conflicted about their loyalties. The choice to join the jihadists and go abroad for weapons training with Al-Shabab, speaks to the end of the inner conflict and the decision to join the violent jihad.

Which addresses the ongoing problem Canada is experiencing with jihadist radicalization and successful recruitment of Muslim youth living in Canada. A handful of Somalians have left North America to travel to Somalia to take up the Islamist cause, and now Canadian security agents have interdicted a young Somalian-Canadian, arresting him on suspicion of terrorism support en route to Somalia.

This is cultural dissonance at a lethal level, threatening a back-lash against Canada and Canadians as those in terror training join their jihadist brethren on the battlefield abroad, and there is always the prospect of their returning to continue trading on what they have become skilled at, right here in the country that gave their parents safe haven.

Emily Deschanel is Expecting First Child

Because of the sensitive nature of this information, please only post your most respectful comments, or they will not be allowed to be published. Thanks! I'm posting because it may have an affect on the Bones storyline. Also, we love Emily. ;)TVLine Items: Emily Deschanel's Preggers (Is Brennan, Too?), and Other TV News to KnowCould Bones‘ big game-changer be a pregnancy?...CLICK TO READ MORE AT

"Israeli map pinpoints more than 1,000 Hezbollah sites in Lebanon": THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS SCOOPS HOT AIR AND THE AP BY A DAY

HOT AIR AND AP TODAY.

TAB YESTERDAY.

REGULAR READERS KNOW THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME. SPREAD THE WORD.

AFDI WINS IN DETROIT

Pamela Geller's movement for helping Muslims to leave their violent religion has scored in their case against the transportation company in Detroit. It's also a score for the 1st Amendment. Their next destination is San Francisco.

GERMANY'S DOUBLE STANDARDS WITH IRAN, AND VIKING MENTALITY IN SCANDANAVIA

Two items of note here: First, P. David Hornik reports about Germany's still entrenched anti-semitism, and besides the disturbing poll taken recently, there's also the government's willingness to allow business with Iran to continue without opposition:

Whatever the case, it would be pleasant to report that, despite popular antipathy to the Jewish state and the Jews, the current conservative government of Angela Merkel is doing much better. But its record, too, at least toward Israel, is fraught with problems.

Much of this concerns a Hamburg-based entity called the European-Iranian Trade Bank, or EIH. As Fox News reported last month, the U.S. Treasury Department states that “EIH has acted as a key financial lifeline for Iran as one of Iran’s few remaining access points to the European financial system.” Earlier in February, eleven U.S. senators wrote to the German foreign minister “asking that he stop EIH from doing business with Iran” and expressing concern about EIH’s “continued financial support of Iran’s nuclear proliferation activities.” To no avail.

Iran’s geopolitical aggression and nuclear program are recognized by now as a threat to the West and not just to Israel — hence the U.S. effort to coordinate sanctions against Iran. But, considering that Tehran has often boasted of its imminent annihilation of Israel and is sponsoring terrorist activity on its borders, the threat to Israel is most acute — making Germany’s abetting of that threat all the more striking.

Indeed, Fox News also reports that Treasury says “EIH facilitated the sale of more than $3 million in materials for Iran’s missile programs.” And it goes beyond EIH, since “Germany is Iran’s biggest European trade partner. German exports to Iran totaled $4.7 billion from January through November of last year. This was a 5 percent increase over the same period in 2009.”

Israelis could be forgiven for wondering if, the more things seemingly change, the more they stay the same.

And on the diplomatic front, too, Germany — Holocaust remembrance and education events notwithstanding — has been doing Israel harm. Late last month, the United Nations Security Council voted on a resolution that would have condemned all Israeli building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as “illegal.” The resolution originated with the Palestinian Authority as part of an effort to eventually force Israel out of the West Bank without a peace agreement ensuring Israel’s security and rights. It was sponsored by Lebanon, a country dominated by Hezbollah — an Iranian-backed terrorist organization also sworn to Israel’s destruction.

Only a U.S. veto — reluctant, and under pressure from Congress — stopped the resolution. Israel, however, was reportedly under the impression that Germany, too, would oppose it, and dismayed when Germany voted in favor. Branding Israeli communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as “illegal” is not only false but intensifies the atmosphere of delegitimization surrounding them. It was within that context of delegitimization that earlier this month an Israeli family of five, including three young children, were butchered on the West Bank.

And I ask myself, why exactly are Israelis for some still willing to buy German products when the public mindset is so disturbing, and their businesses so willing to do anything for money, putting higher value over that than human life? See, this is why I would very much appreciate it if the Israeli/Jewish public were to call it quits on German imports/exports. Stop buying Volkswagens, Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs, for example; we don't need their junk littering up our streets.

Then, we've got the case of Norway and Sweden's vicious anti-semitism, which Giulio Miotti writes about over here:

During the Second World War, the German universities banned many famous Jewish intellectuals such as T.W. Adorno and Albert Einstein. Now, three universities in Norway turned down the Jewish lawyer and author Alan Dershowitz, who had offered free lectures on Israel and international law.

Jews in Norway are just 0.003 percent of the total population, but Oslo is a bulwark of global anti-Semitism and Israel- slandering. What is the root of the Nordic hatred? Norway is the paradise of political correctness, multiculturalism and anti-war feelings. It's the country that, according to the Global Peace Index, for years has topped the list of the most “peaceful” places in the world. Oslo is, after all, the capital of the "Israeli-Palestinian Peace Accord".

But last year, the Norwegian government divested from two Israeli economic giants who work in Judea and Samaria. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund (that administers the oil profits) divested from the Israeli company Elbit, because it has worked on the Israeli fence that blocked the suicide bombers.

The author of the global literary phenomenon “Sophie’s World”, the national hero Jostein Gaarder, wished for the disappearance of Israel.

For years, anti-Semitic cartoons featured in the largest Norwegian newspapers. In the daily Dagbladet, the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appeared as the leader of a Nazi death camp.

Socialist leader Kristin Halvorsen is leading the campaigns to boycott Israel.

The state owned TV NRK has announced that it will screen the movie “Tears over Gaza”. The film’s director, Vibeke Løkkeberg, said in an interview, “I cannot see any difference between the Israeli warfare in Gaza and the massacres Qaddafi is conducting against Libyan insurgents”.

The hatred against Israel is spreading also in Sweden, another Scandinavian utopia, the ultra-secularized, ultra-liberal and anti-nationalistic beacon (the Danes are detested there as “chauvinists”), proud of its “lack of prejudice”.

Sweden handled its Soviet neighbour with kid gloves, despite the lack of civil rights there. This is the country that the Guardian described as “the greatest success the world has known”. Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are the dark side of the “folkhemmet”, which in Swedish means “the house of all the people”. It’s the multicultural ideology on which Stockholm has built its model of integration.

Sweden is a country that liked to call herself a “moral superpower” and where the welfare state pays for equipment for women who decide to change gender.

Sweden not only ranked among the world’s handful of richest countries, but also provided the world’s most lavish welfare state. It married solidarity to prosperity. But in the suburbs of the largest cities there are now “intifada against the police”.

Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city, the capital of the prosperous province of Scania, has 270.000 inhabitants. But the city has a population that is almost 40 percent foreign and the Jews are leaving the city.

The Israeli national team of Taekwondo was forced to cancel its trip to Sweden due to “security reasons”.

If the burgeoning of anti-Semitism in Norway has a long tradition, in the twentieth century Sweden was one of the most welcoming lands to Jews. Many Jews took refuge in Sweden fleeing the Third Reich and almost all the Danish Jews found a safe haven in Sweden.

Now the slandering of the Jews and Israel is part of the national consensus. The Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet has even suggested that Israeli soldiers are transplanting organs from dead Palestinians.

In the Swedish streets we hear again “Jävla jude”, whch means “damn Jew”. Meanwhile, the most famous Swedish writer, Henning Mankell, who spends much of his time working to fight AIDS and illiteracy in Mozambique, sailed to Gaza aboard the ship of Turkish terrorists.

In all due honesty, who knows if Sweden ever had any common sense to begin with? Raoul Wallenberg was a wonderful man, but he was but one person, and though Jews in Scandanavia during WW2 may have found a lucky place to live thanks in part to his efforts, it's possible that long term, the public mindset wasn't entirely to their favor.

I call this whole case "Viking mentality", because, let us consider, Scandanavia was the part of Europe where the Viking barbarians came from, including Iceland. I would wager that their vicious culture from remote times is what led to their modern anti-semitism. The Vikings were also a fairly sexist society, and if Sweden is actually going to pay for transvestism operations, let's just say that this too could stem from that ancient culture they had.

And aside from that, I think it's high time a boycott of their imports/exports was in order too. We could do without their Volvos, Saabs and Scanias, for example. And, we could do well to avoid buying clothes at H&M, a department store chain owned in Sweden, which now operates a chain in Israel. Indeed, why are Israelis not avoiding their products too?

News Worthy

• Israel is studying plans to create an artificial island along the Gaza Strip with sea and air ports to be controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The project, under development for three months by Yaakov Katz, the Transport Minister, proposes building a man-made island four kilometres long and two km wide, Israel's Channel 2 television reported. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, backs the plan for the island, which would also contain a tourist area, a marina, hotels and a desalinization plant for sea water. It would be linked to Gaza by a 4-km bridge. The project is estimated to cost $5-billion to $10-billion and take six to 10 years to complete. The project's backers in the government would like to see the island managed by Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, freezing out the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. Agence France-Presse
• 
  
• Iraq: At least 53 people were killed Tuesday when gunmen took hostages at a provincial council headquarters in Saddam Hussein's hometown, precipitating a battle with security forces. It was one of the deadliest attacks in Tikrit since a suicide bombing killed up to 60 police recruits in January and was the first hostage incident since 52 people were killed in a Baghdad church raid by al-Qaeda-linked gunmen in October. The assailants set off car bombs, explosive belts and hand grenades as they stormed the building and grabbed hostages. Those who did not die as a result of explosions were executed by the gunmen. Sabah al-Bazee, a freelance Iraqi journalist, and three council members were among those killed. Reuters
• 
  
• Ivory Coast appeared to have succumbed to full-scale civil war on Tuesday after six key towns fell to forces opposed to the sitting president. Fighting that has already killed 460 people and forced one million from their homes had been contained to the country's far west and some suburbs of the main city Abidjan. But on Tuesday armed groups swept south of the ceasefire line drawn after the end of the last civil war in 2004, taking several towns in succession. Those fighters support Alassane Ouattara, the former World Bank executive internationally recognized as the winner of November's elections. But his rival, Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent president, has refused to step down. The Daily Telegraph
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• Brussels: Guards blocked the sealed offices Tuesday of disgraced MEPs after a fresh resignation in a string of corruption scandals engulfing the European Parliament. Hella Ranner, an Austrian conservative, became the latest to quit after a newspaper report alleged she planned to clear a $9.8-million business debt using expenses meant for staff and office running costs. Three other lawmakers are already facing probes after a sting by Britain's Sunday Times newspaper showed them agreeing to take bribes of up to $140,000 to draft new laws. Last week, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ordered Dan Dover, a veteran British Conservative MEP, to repay $540,000 in unjustified expenses. Agence France-Presse
• 
  
• Pakistan has agreed to establish a counter-terrorism hotline and allow Indian detectives investigating the 2008 Mumbai terror plot to visit the country, in the most significant confidence-building measures since the massacre. After two days of talks in New Delhi, India's home secretary and Pakistan's interior secretary said Tuesday the hotline would help "facilitate real-time information sharing with respect to terrorist threats". Security analysts said the moves were a major concession by Pakistan, aimed at persuading India of its sincerity in tackling terrorism and preventing any further attacks being plotted from its territory, like the Mumbai attacks, which were planned by the hardline Islamist Lashkar-e-Taiba. The Daily Telegraph
• 
  
• Italy: A woman was paid to say she was a victim of Italy's 2009 earthquake and praise the government's reconstruction efforts. Marina Villa, 50, appeared Friday on a popular television program on Canale 5, one of the television channels owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. "L'Aquilla is going back to what it was before [the earthquake]. I'd like to thank, if I can, the Prime Minister", she said. "Those who are still staying in hotels, it's convenient for them. They eat, they drink and they don't do anything". Messages left by acquaintances on social networking sites revealed she was not from L'Aquila, but from a small town in the Abruzzo region. The woman admitted Monday she had been paid $420 to appear and read a statement. Reuters
• 
  
• United States: Three inmates and their loved ones have been charged with attempting to smuggle drugs into a New Jersey jail on the pages of a children's colouring book. Subozone, which is used to treat heroin addiction and classified as a controlled dangerous substance, was dissolved into a paste, then painted into the colouring book, Sheriff Gary Schaffer of Cape May county, Philadelphia said Tuesday. Pages with "To Daddy", scribbled on top were sent to the prisoners. The New Jersey drug bust was the second this month involving Suboxone smuggling behind bars. Authorities at a prison in Pennsylvania arrested 11 people in what they said was a scheme to hide the drug beneath postage stamps on letters to prisoners. Reuters
• 
  
• Tokyo: France and the United States are to help Japan in its battle to contain radiation from a crippled nuclear complex where plutonium finds have raised public alarm over the world's worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl in 1986. The high-stakes operation at the Fukushima plant has added to Japan's unprecedented humanitarian disaster, with 27,500 people dead or missing from a March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
• 
  
• Syria may be in the throes of a major power struggle as the country's Cabinet stepped down Tuesday in a last desperate bid to curb nearly two weeks of increasing unrest. The resignation of the 32-member Cabinet led by Naji al-Otari, may clear the way for President Bashar al-Assad to lift a state of emergency that has been in place since 1963 in order to introduce some of the reforms demanded by increasingly restive Syrians. For the last two weeks, while security forces gunned down anti-government demonstrators, state-owned news media have blamed the killings on "armed gangs" who have been sending and receiving more than 1 million text messages "mostly from Israel". National Post
• 
  
• A Canadian government's Integrated Threat Assessment Centre stated that "several Islamist insurgent groups" were based in eastern Libya and mosques in Benghazi were urging followers to fight in Iraq. The intelligence report, written in late 2009, called the anti-Gadhafi stronghold of eastern Libya an "epicentre of Islamist extremism", and said "extremist cells" operated in the region, now being defended by a Canadian-led NATO coalition. National Post
• 
  
• Canada: A Parti Quebecois government would not hesitate to use public funds to promote sovereignty, party leader Pauline Marois said Tuesday. Ms. Marois said a PQ government would use public money to achieve sovereignty, once in power, notably by commissioning studies on the impact of an independent Quebec. Ms. Marois also noted she would adopt a tougher language law, a citizenship law and a Quebec constitution in preparation for sovereignty before a referendum. Postmedia News
• 
  
• China is reinforcing fences and has stepped up patrols along its border with North Korea as fears mount of a catastrophic famine in the secretive state. Fences more than four metres high, topped with barbed wire, are now being erected along a 12-kilometre stretch of the Yalu river around Dandong, a popular entry point for North Korea refugees. "It's the first time such strong border fences are being erected here. It looks like it is related to the unstable situation in North Korea", a resident said of the work, which began in November. The Daily Telegraph

ABC NEWS EXPOSES OBAMA'S CRONY CAPITALISM AND HIS BREZHNEV SOCIALISM...‏

...AND HOW THE "GREEN ECONOMY" IS REALLY ALL ABOUT MAKING OBAMA'S RICH LIBERAL PALS RICHER - IOW: THE CHICAGO MACHINE AT ITS WORST:

ABC TV NEWS:

When the White House announced the federal government would loan $465 million to Tesla, a California start-up company with plans to develop an all-electric sedan, President Obama called it an "historic opportunity to ensure that the next generation of fuel-efficient cars and trucks are made in America."

The loan also represented a lucrative opportunity for Steve Westly, a major investor in the car company who had raised more than $500,000 for the president's campaign.

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy directed more than half a billion dollars in loans and grants to companies backed by Westly's California venture capital firm. In 2010, the White House tapped Westly for a seat on a special energy advisory panel that gives him regular access to Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Westly boasts on his website that his firm is "uniquely positioned" to take advantage of the Obama administration's interest in green energy.

Congress has given the Energy Department authority to distribute billions of dollars in public funds to help stimulate the economy and seed a new generation of clean energy firms. A joint investigation by ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity that will air on World News with Diane Sawyer tonight has found that Westly is just one of several political allies of the president who have ties to companies receiving chunks of that money through loans, grants, or loan guarantees.

OBAMA IS THE MOST CORRUPT POTUS IN HISTORY.

Frankton Memorial Dedication - Cockleshell Heroes - Pointe de Grave - 31/3/11

My wife and I were lucky enough to be invited today, by the Royal Marines, to the unveiling of the new Frankton Memorial, at the northernmost point of the Medoc, Pointe de Grave.

The most moving moment of the ceremony for us, was the moment when two elderly French ladies who had assisted some of the marine commandoes in their escape from the Nazi murderers, who against all rules of warfare, had already slaughtered many of their comrades. This photograph of mine captures the  touching moment after these brave ladies had laid their wreaths:

Another very personal highlight of the ceremony honouring Anglo-French harmony, was the complete absence of any of the blue, yellow starred, EU flags, symbol of the present latest danger to our freedoms.
 
A BBC report is linked here, while a more personal tribute from BBC Scotland is here.

'Bones': Tina Majorino to guest as part of sniper arc

File this under "people we love doing things that are awesome":Tina Majorino, fresh off of the final season of "Big Love" and a guest appearance on "Castle," is heading to "Bones."...CLICK TO READ MORE AT ZAP2ITTipster: lysaleelee

Blazing Cat Fur: March 30- Buy Israeli Goods Day!

Blazing Cat Fur: March 30- Buy Israeli Goods Day!

Bones Exclusive: Veronica Mars Star Puts Booth in the Line of Fire

Tina Majorino Former Veronica Mars actress Tina Majorino will guest-star in an upcoming episode of Bones, TVGuide.com has learned exclusively...CLICK TO KEEP READING AT TV GUIDETipster: lysaleelee

Fail Compilation March 2011

Make tomorrow English Fools Day

The following is a press release received from the English Democrats Party:

English Fools Day (1.4.11; 10.00am to 12.00 noon)

On the 1^st April England becomes the last nation within the UK not to have free prescriptions because Scotland joins Wales and Northern Ireland in having, Barnett Formula funded, free prescriptions. To add insult to injury the British Government has announced that it will be putting up English prescription charges from £7.20 to £7.40!

The English Democrats will therefore be organising a colourful and jokey demonstration, in keeping with April Fools Day, to make the point that this April Fools Day is really English Fools Day. 

This demonstration will be held outside the (English) Department of Health, Richmond House, Whitehall London from 10.00 to 12.00 (Police permission has been obtained). 

The theme is that we English are the fools for not fighting our corner with sufficient vigour! The English Democrats intend to change that! 

 

Much Ado

Semantics, timing and deliberate misinterpretation. Mischief. An attempt to make a scandal out of a story that should have had no legs. A simple observation that made eminently good sense given a sinister spin. The result being that seniors everywhere sat up to take notice and definitely did not appreciate what they heard. What they heard is not what was said, nor intended.

Inconvenient details have a habit of getting in the way of a good story that has ongoing repercussions.

An interview with a political rival, making a simple observation. That, in her opinion an incumbent running for re-election in the next riding to hers was coasting along, not really doing her job of representation. Global news reporter Nelly Gonzalez interviewed Winnipeg MP (Conservative) Shelly Glover. Prompting Ms. Glover to her opinion on MP (Liberal) Anita Neville.

Plainspoken and direct:

"I think Anita Neville is in trouble. I've only been in Parliament for two-and-a-half years, Nelly, and I'll tell ya, there are a lot of shenanigans going on in Parliament. We need some fresh blood, we need some new people who have some new ideas and who are willing to stand up for their constituents. And I'm afraid Ms. Neville has passed her expiry date. Her constituents are constantly coming to my office because they can't receive service in French, because they can't get a call back. I think Ms. Neville is going to be defeated."

Clear enough: ..."Her constituents are constantly coming to my office because they can't receive service in French, because they can't get a call back." In office far too long, due diligence evaporated, time for a change.

But ripe for being deliberately misconstrued because that's where the story is. It shouldn't be there, it should be in the statement that constituents were clearly dissatisfied with the lack of service on their behalf by someone whom they had elected to represent their interests. The quote by MP Glover was taken from a transcript based on raw video.

But then Nelly Gonzalez, four hours later, appears to talk about a story about an insulting ageist 'gaffe'. Ms. Gonzalez is introduced by Anchor Peter Chura on Global Winnipeg Evening News with the statement: "A high-profile Tory suggested that a Liberal MP is just too old for the job". The transcript of the aired segment is far different from the original:

"We need some fresh blood, we need some new people who have some new ideas and who are willing to stand up for their constituents. And I'm afraid Ms. Neville has passed her expiry date."

A damning little excision there. It's what you call taking something out of the context of its original explicating content. And the response from MP Neville upon hearing the truncated version of the interview?

"It's typical of the Conservative party when they don't have anything real or substantive to say to resort to name-calling and personal attacks, it's typical of the party and Shelly."

Now who is being objectionable? It's like reacting to hearsay. Someone feels they've been spurned and denigrated and they respond acerbically. Unfairly too, as the instance indicates. But that's not all. The segment is posted to YouTube. And elder hysteria erupts, with CARP demanding a retraction, characterizing MP Glover and the Conservative Party as ageist.

Another opportunity for MP Neville to express her indignation: "I am not so much offended for myself as I am outraged on behalf of all seniors - especially senior women - whom the Conservatives seem to think are past their 'expiry' dates." And so, she does not feel obligated to respond to her constituents' dissatisfaction, but she does feel justified in rousing public opinion on her side.

It's called political opportunism. And it seems to work. Despite Ms. Glover's assertion of innocence of sinister intent in further clarifying her statement: "My remarks were clear: I was referring to Ms. Neville's performance as an MP, and only that."

Not good enough for the Liberal Party, issuing another statement to the trial-by-media: Which claims that Ms. Glover launched a "personal, ageist attack" on Ms. Neville, proffering a "weak attempt to cover up her gaffe", in insisting on claiming she referred to an unsatisfactory long-time tenure.

Balderdash and unholy crap!

Political Interpretation

The NDP scorns the Conservatives' determination to lower corporate tax rates as "corporate hand-outs". The Liberals, who before they lost power, incrementally lowered the federal corporate tax rate under the Chretien government from a high of 30% to 23%. They were lowered subsequently, and when the Conservatives came to power they stood at 19.5%.

Under a Conservative plan to continue lowering the corporate tax rate to make Canada more competitive, the rate was steadily lowered to its current 16.5% which became effective at the turn of 2011. The Liberals now claim that if they win the election they'll raise the corporate tax rate back to 18%. Which will give them enough revenue to pay for some of their expensive electoral promises.

The Conservatives promise that if returned to power they'll further reduce the rate to 15% by 2012. The Ignatieff-led Liberals consider this to be absolutely revenue-ruinous. When Stephane Dion led the federal Liberals he pledged to cut corporate taxes below the then-proposed Conservative rate of 18.5%, arguing that lower rates represented powerful incentives for investing and job creation.

It would seem that leading economists believe that Canada is heading in absolutely the right direction lowering corporate tax rates. The co-ordinated plan between the federal and most provincial governments is to have a much reduced total corporate tax rate; combined to 25%, which would render this country an impressive investment opportunity.

The plan is considered to be revenue-neutral in its result of expanding the tax base. Some experts appear to estimate that $50-billion in new investment would be attracted in the space of seven years, helping enormously to grow the Canadian economy. Which means more employment opportunities and more Canadians back to work.

What is really paradoxical is the polarizing opinions of the Ontario provincial Liberal government and that of the federal Liberals. These are considered to be "competitive business taxes" by the Ontario Liberals, not "handouts for Canada's wealthiest corporations", as the federal Liberals characterize them.

The federal Liberals contend that cutting the corporate tax rate while the country is in deep deficit is insane. Contrarily, the provincial Liberals, while carrying a multi-billion deficit consider slashing the corporate tax rate, good business sense. "A more competitive business climate is creating more jobs and higher incomes for people", claimed the just-presented Ontario budget.

Which also adds that the improved business climate has directly led to a 7.4% increase in private-sector investments in infrastructure, machinery and equipment from 2009 to 2010. More than validating the Ontario government's decision to reduce general corporate income-tax rate to 12%, scheduled to be cut to 10% by 2013.

A move, claims Ontario's Finance Minister, that "will position Ontario as one of the most attractive jurisdictions in the industrialized world for new investment. Increased business investment will lead to more jobs and higher incomes for Ontarians."

So which is it then, great fiscal management into the future, or "corporate tax giveaways"?

What If?

It's not all that far a stretch of probability. It happened in Afghanistan with the U.S. and Pakistan conspiring to aid the mujahadeen, training and arming them to confront Soviet forces in the invasion of Afghanistan. And those mujahadeen formed the core of the Taliban which then ruled Afghanistan when the Soviet troops left.

And from among the mujahadeen another corps was formed, that of al-Qaeda. The alliance between the Taliban and al-Qaeda was a natural one.

And the flaming enmity of al-Qaeda toward the West and specifically the United States became the most evident turning point of the Islamist revival. Which has since spread incorrigibly throughout the Muslim world. The Islamists have succeeded in overturning moderate Islam to reflect a fundamentalist, fanatic version of Islam which conducted its own internal war within the ummah.

Islamists who fought in Afghanistan were recruited from all over the Muslim and Arab world. Many of them returned to their source, and one of those sources was eastern Libya. In 2009 a Canadian intelligence report described eastern Libya as an "epicentre of Islamist extremism", where "extremist cells" were well represented.

Canada's Integrated Threat Assessment Centre identified "several Islamist insurgent groups" based in mosques in Benghazi, urging its members to fight in Iraq. They are suspected of having infiltrated the ranks of the rebel forces now battling Moammar Gadhafi's forces. And, like a nightmare recurring, the United States, Britain , France and Qatar are considering arming the rebels.

A recently-convened conference of 40 governments and international bodies reached agreement to continue the NATO-led aerial bombing of Libyan forces, hoping to force Gadhafi to comply with the United Nations resolution to end its violence against its civilians. The conflict in Libya is between the West and the East of the country; a tribal conflict.

In many of the cities that rebound from government control to rebel occupation and then back again, there are citizens who battle on the government side, against the rebel forces. This is a country that has been riven by clan warfare and tribal antipathies, a reflection of what exists in every Arab and Muslim country globally.

It is into this melee that the West has intervened, focusing on the presence of a maniacal tyrant determined to continue his personal ownership of a country, violating the human rights of his own exploited people, celebrating his ownership of the proceeds of the country's natural resources. In the West this is considered moral anathema; in the Middle East it reflects tradition.

International aid agencies are on the scene, concerned that the conflict has cut off medical supplies, water, electricity and food to countless civilians. The focus of concern from within the international community and the reason for their involvement has been the security and safety of the civilian population. But the civilian population appears fractionated by loyalties, further complicating matters.

And through all of this, while the West and their Arab and African state allies remain anxious to have Western powers involved and commit to what they will not, Moammar Gadhafi keeps insisting that he is concerned for his peoples' welfare: "Stop your brutal and unjust attack on our country ... Hundreds of Libyans are being killed because of this bombardment. Massacres are being mercilessly committed against the Libyan people."

And on their part, the spokesmen for the rebels deny al-Qaeda links, despite damning admissions seen elsewhere. And the head of the U.S. European Command informs the U.S. Senate that American intelligence on rebel forces, while demonstrating some involvement of al-Qaeda or Hezbollah, they are lacking "detail sufficient to say there is a significant al-Qaeda presence."

Student Prerogatives

A vociferous, outraged group of sanctimonious students dedicated to their vision of social justice on the international scene busy on campus at Carleton University to highlight their disgust with Israel through their committed action as Students Against Israeli Apartheid. Wholly focused on one small country encircled by other, hostile countries.

Where, since its birth 60 years ago, it has had to contend with wars of conquest and obliteration which all failed, and then violent and bloody terrorist attacks on its citizens. The State has distinguished itself by insisting on its universal right to existence, and upon its major focus, that of a homeland and a haven for the world's Jewish populations.

To protect itself and its people it has been forced by circumstances it cannot control to police its borders. And to mount a protective ring of its military around the Palestinian Territories from whence violent opposition to its existence emanates from various terrorist militias. While at the same time attempting to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority.

These students have no interest in protesting the situation in Zimbabwe, in Sudan, in Somalia, in Democratic Republic of Congo, in Ivory Coast, in Kenya, where dictatorial regimes violate their peoples' rights and those of their neighbours. They evince no interest in the tyrannical autocracies of the Middle East. China's internal affairs, and Burma's and North Korea hold no interest for them.

They are entirely invested in expressing their passionate hatred for Zionist Israel, the Jewish homeland. And they insist that it is their right to zealously confront Carleton's executive administration, to debate with them their demand that the university divest all money from companies they claim to be doing business with Israel; a total boycott and nothing less.

The university's administrators had little option but to cancel a scheduled meeting of their board of governors because 200 unruly students yelled, chanted and shouted slogans about democracy in the process of blocking access to the meeting site. They were outraged that the administration invited them to select representatives from among their numbers to attend the meeting, that the chamber designated could not accommodate all of them.

"Unfortunately, the student demonstrators would not allow a number of the board members to get through [the crowd] to attend the meeting", explained a university spokesman. Which effectively forced the cancellation of the meeting. A spokesman for the SAIA student group claimed the meeting represented an "illegitimate process", since all the students were unable to attend the meeting due to fire code regulations.

The university's offer to permit a self-selected representative number of the student group was rejected. And as they rejected the conciliatory offer, the group threatened that if not every student who wished to attend the meeting was enabled to, then "hundreds" would gather to "disrupt" the meeting. Which was what occurred.

"There is no way we can allow the university to be run by threats. When you get to the point where you have groups of students telling the administration, 'We intend to disrupt your operations', that's frustrating because it interferes with people's efforts to focus their energies on making Carleton the best place it can be for students" explained an administration spokesperson.

How's that for understatement, for mealy-mouthed convention? An administration fearful of once again facing an inconvenient confrontation by obstreperous and bullying students, certain of their entitlement as progressive social arbiters of justice in their ideological war to position the university's affairs to suit their political agenda.

Major Bones Spoiler Alert: Are Booth and Brennan 'Going There' in the Finale?

Bones fans, you know that emergency kit you’ve had tucked away all these years? The one with the oxygen mask and the Xanax lollipop? Yeah, you’re gonna want to grab that right about now and lay it beside you before proceeding any further. I have just obtained the title of the Bones season finale — place the mask over your nose and mouth — and it’s…KEEP READING AT TV LINETipsters: lysaleelee,

HOW CAN I BLASPHEME ???

Barrage of swear words and blasphemy strafe like AK-47, and all in the name of Islamic terrorists. Many police and sniffer dogs were deployed to sniff out traces of the suspect as far as the author does not know which ones where the police dog. He hehe he he he.

Suddenly a black hat and simultaneous dad dressed in white like a ghost kuntilanak, looking for attention in public by inviting the enemy terrorists. Things that make me wonder why the father of the black hat is never to invite the community to clearly hostile to the United States which capitalist grip makes people poor, make youth feel more prestigious dining at Pizza Hut in the shop than eat meatballs and mother hanged dangdutan (My wife and the wives of officials from other chic) ​​more proud to buy a kilo of eggs in Carrefour than at the village corner shop.

Read more »

IDF LEAKS LOCATION OF 1000 HIZBALLAH MILITARY SITES TO WASHINGTON POST

BREAKING:

The IDF has released an aerial map of Lebanon revealing the location of some 1,000 different Hizbullah military sites and facilities. The map was published on Wednesday in The Washington Post.

According to the map, which the newspaper said it obtained from the Israeli military, Hizbullah has around 550 underground bunkers throughout Lebanon, around 300 surveillance sites and another 100 or so additional installations.

The bunkers are likely being used by Hizbullah as command posts as well as storage centers for the large amounts of weaponry Syria and Iran have transferred to Lebanon since the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

According to the map, most of the facilities are located in southern Lebanon where Hizbullah stores most of its short and medium-range rockets inside close to 200 different villages. Hizbullah is believed today to have over 40,000 rockets and missiles, including several hundred long-range missiles that can hit targets in Tel Aviv with superior accuracy.

... Israel’s interest in revealing the information is part of a public diplomacy campaign aimed at preparing the world for the widespread devastation that will likely occur in Lebanon in the event of a new Israeli war with Hizbullah due to its decision to station its assets inside populated villages.

AND THE NEXT WAR MIGHT BE COMING VERY SOON - LIKE HIZBALLAH WILL ATTACK IF ASSAD GETS IN ANY MORE TROUBLE.

STAY TUNED.

MORE PROOF THAT TOM FRIEDMAN IS A MORON

TOM FRIEDMAN:

There is an old saying in the Middle East that a camel is a horse that was designed by a committee. That thought came to my mind as I listened to President Obama trying to explain the intervention of America and its allies in Libya — and I don’t say that as criticism.

WIKI:

a camel is a horse designed by committee; this has been attributed to Vogue magazine, July 1958, to Sir Alec Issigonis and also to University of Wisconsin philosophy professor Lester Hunt.^[3]

TOM FRIEDMAN IS A MORON.

WHY I'D RATHER NOT HAVE A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT

There's been a just outrage this week over a page formed by anti-Israelists, calling for palestinians to take up weapons against Israel. As told here, it's been removed:

JERUSALEM (AP) - Facebook on Tuesday removed a page calling on Palestinians to take up arms against Israel, following a high-profile Israeli appeal to the popular social-networking site.

The affair highlighted how Facebook is increasingly involved in charged political conflicts, balancing between protecting freedom of expression and defending against hate speech.

The page, titled "Third Palestinian Intifada," had more than 350,000 fans when it was taken down. It called on Palestinians to take to the streets after Friday prayers on May 15 and begin an uprising. "Judgment Day will be brought upon us only once the Muslims have killed all of the Jews," a quote from the page read.

Facebook said the page began as a call for peaceful protest, even though it used the term "intifada," which it said has been associated with violence in the past.

"However, after the publicity of the page, more comments deteriorated to direct calls for violence," said Andrew Noyes, Facebook's public policy communications manager. He said the creators of the page eventually made calls for violence as well.

"We monitor pages that are reported to us, and when they degrade to direct calls for violence or expressions of hate - as occurred in this case - we have and will continue to take them down."

Or do they? As the following info tells:

Palestinian Authority activists have recreated the Third Intifada page that was banned by Facebook on Tuesday in response to thousands of member requests.

An Israeli Cabinet minister, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and a massive Internet campaign were only some of the measures used to pressure the popular social networking site into removing the page, which promoted violence against Jews in Israel.

But the story doesn't end there, because angry Palestinian Authority sponsors of the page ensured the fight would continue.

A Muslim page similarly entitled "Subscribe now to the Palestinian Intifada," on its logo but which is innocuously entitled "Make the Prophet Number One on Facebook" on the heading is listed under Non-profit Organizations.

Easily the largest and most popular Muslim page on Facebook, it espouses peace and offers myriad beneficent comments about Allah and Islam's founder, the Prophet Muhammed. But the Rassoul Allaah page also directs readers to directs readers to a wealth of links to other pages promoting the Third Intifada and a massive attempt to carry out the destruction of the State of Israel.

By Wednesday afternoon, the page had garnered more than three million -- 3,293,252 -- votes of support from Facebook members around the world.

Organizers have summoned millions of Arabs from across the Middle East to march into Israel and forcibly attempt to implement a de facto “Right of Return,” the Arab euphenism for the mass immigration of several million Arabs.

The date for this march has been set for May 15 – the anniversary of what the Arabs refer to as the “Nakba” or “Tragedy“ -- the date of the establishment of the State of Israel.

Although some of the pages promoting this campaign have warned its readers to maintain a peaceful demeanor, others do not bother with such niceties.

At least one is a complete re-creation of the original Third Palestinian Intifada page that was removed.

If Facebook hasn't removed this new page yet, and more importantly, the offending "activists" behind it, then how do we know they're serious? Facebook's interface discourages me already since it's got very complicated controls, but this news is the real problem.

And that's why I don't think I'll ever want a Facebook account, because I can't bring myself to support a social network site that's allowing this kind of monstrous activism to run around.

And of course, there's also this matter here. If they're going to forbid videos detailing horrific murders in the name of jihad, yet allow calls for jihad instead, then what's the use of supporting Facebook?

Nigel Farage MEP on Elmar Brok MEP

More on Elmar Brok's EU Parliamentary immunity from prosecution by Mary Ellen Sinon, is linked here.

The "Arab Spring" Smells Like a Pile of Camel Crap

From Yahoo News:

Al Qaeda: Arab revolts herald "great leap forward"

Al Qaeda's most influential English-language preacher said revolts sweeping the Arab world would help rather than harm its cause by giving Islamists freed from tyranny greater scope to speak out.

Western and Arab officials say the example set by young Arabs seeking peaceful political change is a counterweight to al-Qaeda's push for violent militancy and weakens its argument that democracy and Islam are incompatible.

But al Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, in an article published online on Tuesday, said the removal of anti-Islamist autocrats meant Islamic fighters and scholars were now freer to discuss and organize.

"Our mujahideen brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and the rest of the Muslim world will get a chance to breathe again after three decades of suffocation," he wrote, using a term that refers generally to Islamic guerrilla groups or holy warriors.

WE CAN END THE LIBYAN WAR WITHOUT ANOTHER MISSILE LAUNCHED OR ANOTHER BOMB DROPPED OR BULLET FIRED: PAYOFF KHADAFFYTO GO INTO VOLUNTARY EXILE

Instead of waging war against Gadafi, we should offer him $2 billion to split, and give him and his clan transportation out of the country.

This would be cheaper than waging war and lose fewer lives. And take less time.

Of course, once out of the country we couldn't guarantee his safety.

UPDATE: Britain, Italy hold out Gaddafi exile prospect

Apparently Gaddafi is a bad enough guy that the UN will bomb this piss out of him but his crimes are not bad enough for an arrest.

If Gaddafi is allowed to go into exile how much of Libyas weath will go with him and if this happens how much money from the taxpayers of the west be required to “rebuild” and “stabalize” Libya?

YAHOO NEWS

LONDON (Reuters) – More than 40 governments and international bodies gathered in London on Tuesday to plan for a Libya without Muammar Gaddafi, with Italy and Britain suggesting he might be allowed to go into exile.

With fighting raging between rebels and Gaddafi loyalists, Italy has put forward a proposal for a political deal to end Libya’s crisis, including a quick ceasefire, exile for Gaddafi and dialogue between rebels and tribal leaders.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague also implied exile might be a way to take Gaddafi out of the picture and settle the six-week-old uprising against his 40 years in power.

“We want him to leave power and that’s what we’ve consistently said to the Libyan regime. We are not in control, of course, of where he might go,” Hague told the BBC, adding he believed Gaddafi should face the International Criminal Court. Read More »

I THINK THIS WOULD BE OKAY.

Living in the EU Loony Bin!

The following dose of rare common sense comes from an article in the Telegraph this morning, linked here:

Mark O'Sullivan at Currencies Direct pours scorn on the ESM. He says:

“The irony of asking both Greece and Ireland, who both had to be rescue last year, to contribute €31 billion to the newly formed ESM did not seem to bother eurozone leaders.

“This once again showed that eurozone leaders just do not get it: asking sovereign states who are in effect insolvent to actually borrow in the debt markets to contribute to their own rescue fund.

“The Portuguese are a classic case. They still refuse to ask for a bail-out, but are more than happy to bring down the government when the austerity measures that are needed are voted down, forcing the prime minster to resign, and pushing them ever closer to the bailout they are trying to avoid.

“So Portugal - now a government-free zone - is also being asked to stump up €18 billion towards the ESM, despite the fact they could be weeks away from themselves being bailed-out. The eurozone would be much better suited if the next rescue package had the acronym HELP, as until bondholders are forced to take a haircut the problems in Europe are being either ignored or compounded into an unworkable mess.”

NB This blog editor added the emphasis to the last sentence of the quote!

Gormless Governance by Milksop Ministers!

Fittingly George (née Gideon) Osborne had a recurrance of what appeared to me to be teenage acne for his appearence before the Commons Finance Committee yesterday. The spectacular blunder over the two billion pound tax grab against the North Sea oil and gas industry was covered on Channel Four TV News, last evening as may be read about and viewed from this link, amusingly titled, "Crude awakening for Osborne's refuelling of the economy". More from Aberdeen on that topic this morning from here.

This blog immediately pointed out the grossness of Osborne's budget misjudgement, read here, when the  details were known. Many years spent analysing the feasibility of commercialising North Sea oil fields allowed me to immediately recognise the potential and pointless disaster Osborne had created. Obtaining an acceptable annual average rate of return on such huge investments is always stunningly adversely affected by apparently small changes to tax legislation. All such tax regimes result in percentage returns based on the realised hydrocarbons sales price, it is therefore completely disingenuous of Osborne to argue, as he did yesterday, that changing the tax regime was the only means the government (not necessarily synonymous with the people of the country) would gain its share of rising market prices. As I stated in my posting of last Thursday in the link above:

Furthermore and even more critically at present, North Sea energy (is) in a declining phase (and) thus needs extra tax incentives as it provides a protection against the ever growing middle-east chaos.

Is immaturity sufficient excuse for Britain's milksop ministers getting everything so clearly wrong, read this on the RAF pilot shortage for example?  Is David Cameron as big a moron as his daily actions now increasingly indicate and can Nick Clegg really be as cretinous as he is allowing himself to appear?

Whatever the answer, as set out in my posting of yesterday immediately beneath this, it is clear that with Gordon Brown these two set out to deliberately bankrupt our country in a vain and hopeless bid to save the doomed Euro, immediately following the last General Election. It has since appeared that action might well prove to be be the worst they could achieve, however, daily growing evidence now throws even that assumption into doubt!

WHY DID THE THREE MAIN PARTY LEADERS AUTHORISE ALISTAIR DARLING TO SIGN UP FOR THE EFSF, KNOWING THE PROCEDURE WAS ILLEGAL, THE UK LACKED ANY GOVERNMENT WITH THE POWER SO TO DO AND THAT IT WOULD MERELY WASTE BILLIONS TO DELAY THE INEVITABLE?

Images of the Post-Apocalypse, Or China's Booming Economy?

You be the judge.

Entire cities are uninhabited in China.




One sentence tells you everything you need to know about the "booming" Chinese economy, and possibility that China will one day eclipse the United States as the world's economic powerhouse:

"All the shops in this mall are empty, not that that worries the government, because they're simply more concerned with maintaining economic growth, and one way of achieving that is building cities like this one."

Mayerthorpe Report

All aggregate places of residence have their good people and their bad. There are sociopaths and psychopaths and those whose simmering anger against the world and their rejection of societal values render them amenable to psychotic outbreaks. They become petty criminals, they prey on the society around them.

And they resent and hate authority and those tasked with the security of society.

In Mayerthorpe, Alberta, James Roszko was generally recognized as someone who lived on the outskirts of polite society just as he lived on his farm outside Mayerthorpe. He had a criminal record ranging from shoplifting to harassment and threats, and sexual assault. Of the six convictions on his record 4 dated back 26 years, 1 was 14 years old, the last 9 years old.

No reason to continue considering him a real threat to society. He had served his time for his offences, and legally he had the right of any other free citizen in a free society. But the RCMP were investigating stolen vehicles, and entered his property for the purpose of looking around. While there they also discovered a marijuana grow operation.

They secured the property, awaiting the man's arrival back from wherever he had fled to. At nightfall, assisted by two friends who lived in Mayerthorpe, who dropped him off at his farm where four RCMP officers had settled in for the night to wait for his eventual appearance, he entered his Quonset hut to retrieve the semi-automatic markman's rifle he wanted.

And then he shot all four constables to death. And to finalize the violently bloody drama he shot himself. The gruesome discovery of the slaughter sunk the RCMP into a deep depression of self-doubt. How might they have prevented this horrible event from occurring? Four Mounties dead, in one fell swoop by a psychotic petty criminal.

Who might ever have suspected such a dreadful occurrence might happen? No one.

And finally a report issued by Judge Daniel Pahl released to Alberta's Justice Minister and Attorney-General clarified the situation in terms of its unavoidability. That a criminal mind could outfox the best-trained law-and-security officers through the sheer inability of normal minds to apprehend a psychotic break with reality.

Grudge-driven satisfaction in murdering police constables before taking his own life, a final revenge, withdrawing the possibility of closure for a stunned and grieving community.

Capricious Fate

Patrick Chareka, a quiet man, not much like his ebullient wife. They were both scholarly individuals, well educated and employed at St.Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. They were both originally from Zimbabwe. Otillia Chareka was a village girl determined to become educated. From a poverty-stricken family and village she stubbornly did receive an education.

First of her small village's clan to finish high school, first to attend university, obtaining a master's then a doctorate. When she arrived in Canada in early 1990 her teaching credentials were not recognized, so she furthered her education at the University of New Brunswick, paying her way through work as a hotel maid.

She thought of Canada as a country full of opportunities. She had a dynamic personality. "She was always laughing. In any type of situation she laughed. She entered a room with light." And she exited life with the darkness of an evil act.

For her husband, Patrick Chereka, father of the five daughters that Ottilia Chareka brought into the world, murdered his wife. He was an instructor at St.Francis Xavier's math department until his arrest on a charge of first-degree murder. No previous records of domestic violence in the home were on the books.

Professor Chereka was described by some of his students as "entertaining", "passionate", a "stylish dresser" and hard to "understand". To the entire town and the many people who knew and admired Ottilia Chareka, "understanding" Patrick Chereka and what drove him to murder his wife is a true dilemma.

Their daughters, all five of them, Praymore 23, Patience 18, Patricia 16, Primrose 14, and Prisca 3, will miss their mother dreadfully. Doubtless they will also miss their father. They are now, effectively, orphans. Their mother, who lectured as an associate professor of education, sent funding to a small village in Zimbabwe for medication and clothing for the indigent.

The girls have been left a legacy of unparalleled virtue. The town has been left to care for five young women instilled with the promise of their mother's character and the memory of their father's failure.

Mega Buzz Bones Scoop - March 29

When will Bones wrap up the serial killer story arc? — JeffADAM: Executive producer Stephen Nathan promises that the hunt for Jacob Broadsky will be resolved in this season's penultimate episode. Helping (or hurting?) Booth and Brennan will be a female twentysomething special agent whose inexperience ultimately puts Booth directly in Broadsky's crosshairs.Tipster: ChoebeSource: TV Guide

The Human Dimension

Canadians have no wish to welcome refugees or immigrants who will not respect officially sanctioned processes whereby this country is able to vet new prospects for landed immigrant status. We have no interest in reluctantly welcoming people whose desperation may be real and may be feigned, but which compels them to strike illegal bargains with the devils who live handsomely over the avails of human smuggling.

This country's official complaints to Thailand, the country that has been used as a transit point for Tamils seeking to escape Sri Lanka and enter Canada, a country where thousands of their compatriots have long since escaped to for the purpose of finding a welcoming berth, has resulted in that country becoming alert to the necessity to halt the traffic. Not by detaining the smugglers who are too crafty and self-preserving, but those who fall prey to their smuggling offers.

Who take thousands of dollars from desperate people, pack them into cargo ships and transport them over a long and dangerously arduous ocean voyage to the shores of Canada. That voyage is a real risk to the lives of those who choose to hazard the vicissitudes of a treacherous ocean voyage. Little realizing what they submit themselves to. And, on arriving in Canada, are sequestered in an incarceration setting until they have been cleared for discharge into the general public.

The result being that hundreds of Tamil Sri Lankans now languish in bare and miserably crowded holding cells before being eventually dispatched in some manner back to Sri Lanka from whence they fled. Men, women and children. Somehow managing to endure the confines of incarceration in dreadfully confined spaces; subsistence endurance. Not quite resembling the more humane circumstances encountered on arrival in Canada.

Sri Lankans well established in Canada have sent descriptions of their lives in this country back to their yearning relatives in Sri Lanka, anxious to escape a country and a government that has violated their human rights. They were helped not one iota in their plight by the viciously brutal Tamil Tigers who fought for a Tamil homeland. And whom a brutal civil-war-like conflict finally vanquished.

The Canadian Tamil Congress deplores the situation and the conditions under which their fellow Tamils live, anxious to have them come to Canada. It urges Canada to resettle those fleeing Sri Lanka. Among whom, indubitably, are former Tamil Tigers, members of a terrorist group. Whom no country will take for fear of their past agitating the present into the future.

One of whom in an interview begged for the mercy of kindness: "Please understand our difficult situation and please create a way for us to live peacefully and freely in whatever country it might be. Except Sri Lanka."

UN Effectiveness

"There is rarely a vision beyond fundraising, and rarely an organizing narrative that draws together disparate capacities. What is needed is a complete overhaul of strategic and operational leadership in the UN. Regrettably, the leadership, management and co-ordination of the international community's efforts have not risen even to the challenges we currently face. Unless we radically improve the quality of the leadership of the international effort in humanitarian crises, we will not succeed in dealing with what is ahead. In all but one of the case studies for this review, UN leadership was poor. This was especially true in the larger disasters." Paddy Ashdown, Humanitarian Emergency Response Review

So much for the salvation of the world at the dedicated and faithful hands of the experts assembled by that great world body, the United Nations. Acquiring the required operating funds to launch humanitarian missions all around the Globe on behalf of global citizenry, those who live in countries who are advantaged by good governance and wealth, transferring funding to the world body on behalf of the disadvantaged has not resulted in needed resource delivery.

Raising funding is evidently no problem; those member countries who can afford the tariff cough it up, leaving it to the expert panels working on behalf of humanity under the auspices of the United Nations, to spend it wisely. Spending the funding raised by UN appeals to its membership to ameliorate natural disasters, bringing medical and food aid and shelter where it is required; operating refugee camps; diplomatically intervening in calamitous conflicts.

The world depends on the work of the United Nations. That august body was organized, established and is trusted to launch missions to rescue humanity from nature's disasters, and more tellingly from humanity's own folly. The study just concluded on the effectiveness of the UN's various humanitarian missions studied responses to recent humanitarian disasters; famine in Niger, flooding in Pakistan, earthquake in Haiti.

The conclusion reached is dispiriting and most definitely unflattering to the purported professionalism of the world body. While governments regard the United Nations as the "only legitimate authority" in grave and desperate situations where a specific government of a country affected by some kind of disaster proves incapable of mounting its own humanitarian response, the result of the study indicates the authority's effectiveness is sadly lacking.

Only the UN's World Food Program is exonerated for the extent and value of its effectiveness in its ability to "rapidly deliver[ing] food to seven million people in flood-hit Pakistan". And UNICEF is pointed out as another success story, supplying infant food throughout Niger. But the failure of the UN seen in its "inability to treat and contain" Haiti's cholera outbreak does not reflect well on its capabilities and dedication.

The report points out the communication dysfunctionality of the various UN agencies, commenting on their need to work together "more collegially". Critics of the United Nations - and there are many, mostly those drawing their conclusions from the political sphere of diplomatic influence and ingrained corruption - will not be surprised that this aspect of the world body's vital work is also horribly impaired by incompetence.

The United Nations has become a lobby emporium for some of the world's most human-rights-abusing nations; its effectiveness is stifled by bureaucratic ennui and moral corruption. Its submission to the ideological dictates of member-countries outnumbering democratic, forward-looking countries of the world merely reflect its unforgivable inadequacies.

Canada's Shame

A responsible, progressive, civilized country like Canada - exporting death to socially under-developed, less concerned countries of the world. For whom the use of asbestos in building represents a convenient, low-cost and useful product. Canada is concerned about the welfare of its own citizens to the extent that the use of asbestos in this country is not permitted, and costly work to carefully remove asbestos from public buildings is seen as a responsible antidote to having people affected by it.

The Government of Canada authorized an expert panel to look into the matter and to produce a report on the use of asbestos and its safety. It was concerned with the mining of Canada's special kind of natural resource, chrysotile asbestos which those who support the ongoing mining and export of insist it is unlike other asbestos and perfectly safe when used properly.

Proper use and workplace handling of chrysotile asbestos is not a concern, however, to the importing countries which have no record of investing in worker safety.

In 2009 at their annual meeting the Canadian Medical Association along with the Canadian Public Health Association and the National Specialty Society of Community Medicine recommended that the Canadian government ban the mining and export of asbestos

"It's inconceivable that we would restrict the use of asbestos in our own country, but continue to export this hazardous product around the world." CMA President Anne Doig

It's not that asbestos mining represents big business. But it is in the Quebec towns of Thetford Mines and Asbestos that the mining still takes place, despite that 52 countries around the world have outlawed it. China and India are two countries where it is still used, and where the health of workers has never been much of a concern to the governments of those vast populations.

Only four hundred workers in Quebec are involved in asbestos mining. The critical health risks of working with asbestos are asbestosis, lung cancer, representing a premature and painful sentence of death. Asbestos mining and construction use are responsible for dreadfully impacting the health and longevity of workers; those who mine it and those who install it.

Finally, the Confederation of National Trade Unions in Canada voted its disapproval for a loan from the Government of Quebec to assist a consortium determined to revive asbestos production by opening a new mine in Thetford Mines. But the governments of Quebec and Canada remain mute on the dread effects of asbestos and its export.

That report that the federal government commissioned was not released to the public. The government sat on it. The report pointed out the "strong relationship" between lung cancer and chrysotile asbestos. The MP representing Thetford Mines is none other than Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis.

Who spoke to the media declaring that the government has "adopted a clear position and there have been no new facts since then. Our position remains the same, that of promoting the safe use of asbestos. We have done our homework in this area. We assembled a panel of international experts and we came to this conclusion."

Which has occasioned one of those experts, Leslie Stayner of the University of Illinois's school of public health, to complain in a letter to Paradis that his statement on the report was a misleading one, for the expert panel was not tasked to reach a conclusion about whether chrysotile asbestos could be safely used.

"Had we been asked this question, I would certainly not have supported the argument that the continued production and use of asbestos in any form, including chrysotile, is safe."