The UK police spent an estimated £100,000 investigating a former government minister from the Conservative Party for purported “racism”. Tim Loughton had referred to one of his constituents as “unkempt” without realizing that the man was of Roma descent. The “unkempt” fellow filed a complaint, and the police questioned Mr. Loughton, and then investigated for six months before dropping the probe.
In other news, Hamas has warned President Obama in no uncertain terms that he must not visit the Temple Mount during his trip to Israel next month.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Blue Ridge Forum, C. Cantoni, Insubria, JD, Nilk, The Observer, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Capitulation in the Capitol: Boehner: Republicans Will Yield on Budget
Fearing a loss in the 2014 midterm elections that would hand Democrats control of the House of Representatives, Republicans on Capitol Hill have settled on a unique strategy: let President Barack Obama fail.
Speaker of the House John Boehner told NBC News’ Meet the Press on Sunday that he did not know whether the budget sequester would hurt the economy, but that it was clearly Obama’s fault; and that he was committed to passing a continuing resolution this week to keep the federal government running through the end of the fiscal year in September, essentially approving current levels of spending as set by the Obama administration.
Last week, Senate Republicans attempted to grant President Obama the power to decide on his own how to allocate spending reductions equal to the amount mandated by the sequester—an offer he later refused.
In the 112th Congress, with dozens of freshman members elected through the efforts of the Tea Party, House Republicans passed groundbreaking new budgets that tackled entitlement reform as well as discretionary spending.
Those budgets were simply ignored by the Democrat-controlled Senate, which has failed to pass a budget for four years—but the same budgets were used by Obama and the Democrats to attack Republicans throughout the 2012 election.
In the same way, Democrats—with the help of the media—had portrayed Tea Party Republicans as “terrorists” in 2011 for objecting to a debt ceiling deal that did not include commensurate spending cuts. Though the Tea Party opposition to the eventual Budget Control Act—which created the sequester—has since been partially vindicated, the negative impression of the Tea Party has lingered.
That has convinced Republican leaders to place the burden of leadership on President Obama and the Democrats, with the intent of demonstrating their failure to lead.
However, that strategy prevents the GOP from articulating its own policy agenda. Republican leaders in both houses of Congress seem to have calculated that the White House is so committed to confrontation, and the media is so biased against conservatives, that it is better not to offer any alternative in the hope that blame will eventually settle on the White House.
The hope is that a managed retreat will prevent major political losses that could swing the House in 2014. The result, however, is that Democrats are in complete control of the policy agenda, despite controlling only one of the two houses of Congress.
On issue after issue, the Republican caucuses are reduced to reacting to the proposals of the other side—or capitulating, piece by piece, to policies that they might otherwise have opposed, fearing the confrontations that President Obama so earnestly seeks.
[Tipster says: We must contrive ways to replace the House GOP leadership with a savvy fighting team very soon. We in the grass-roots must get on the House GOP case now.There is no U.S. cavalry or general George Patton who is coming to save us.]
| — Hat tip: Blue Ridge Forum | [Return to headlines] |
China Banker: Beijing ‘Fully Prepared’ For Currency War
Fears fuelled by recent steep decline in Japanese yen
(London Telegraph) A top Chinese banker said Beijing is “fully prepared” for a currency war as he urged the world to abide by a consensus reached by the G20 to avert confrontation, state media reported on Saturday.
Yi Gang, deputy governor of China’s central bank, issued the call after G20 finance ministers last month moved to calm fears of a looming war on the currency markets at a meeting in Moscow.
Those fears have largely been fueled by the recent steep decline in the Japanese yen, which critics have accused Tokyo of manipulating to give its manufacturers a competitive edge in key export markets over Asian rivals.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Euro Zone Unemployment Rises to Record
The unemployment rate in the euro zone edged up in January to a new record, official data showed Friday, as the ailing European economy continued to weigh on the job market.
That, and new data showing a decline in inflation in the euro zone, could prompt the European Central Bank to take steps to stimulate the economy when its Governing Council meets this week, analysts said.
Unemployment in the 17-nation euro zone climbed to 11.9 percent in January from 11.8 percent the previous month, according to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Monte Paschi Starts Legal Action Against Nomura, Deutsche Bank
Siena, 1 March (AKI/Bloomberg) — Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena said it filed legal action seeking damages from Deutsche Bank and Nomura Holdings on derivatives deals dubbed Alexandria and Santorini.
Italy’s third-biggest lender also sued former Monte Paschi managers Antonio Vigni and Giuseppe Mussari, according to a stock-exchange statement today. The bank didn’t specify how much it’s seeking in damages.
MPS, Italy’s third largest bank, is at the centre of a derivatives scandal that led to 730 million euros of losses announced in February by MPS, which is to receive a 3.9 billion euro government bailot.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: SME Group Says One Small Firm in Two Can’t Pay Wages
(AGI) — Rome, March 2 — Small Italian companies are now on the brink of generalised insolvency with at least one small enterprise in two unable even to pay its workers on time, being obliged to settle by instalments or delay payments because of lack of liquidity. The alarm was launched by the CGIA of Mestre, a SME association, which revealed that since the beginning of the crisis, the number of credit instruments defaulting at expiry has grown by 12.8 percent while the banks’ bad loans to enterprises have soared a dizzying 165 percent.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
It’s Official: California Gas Tax Going Up
The tax you pay on a gallon of gas will rise by 3.5 cents in California come July 1.
The state Board of Equalization voted 3-2 on Thursday to increase the excise tax about 10 percent, from 36 cents per gallon to 39.5 cents per gallon.
The increase is partly due to a $157 million shortfall in gas-tax revenue in fiscal 2012, and also a projection of less consumption by California drivers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Sequester Smokescreen Explained
[…]
“Sequester” is an awkward word for automatic spending reductions that were decided during negotiations for the 2011 debt ceiling deal, and it is problematic. The reductions leave the largest part of federal spending — entitlements — virtually untouched while deeply cutting into defense priorities. This compromises national security by undermining military readiness and capabilities, while doing nothing to make defense more efficient and effective. This is a poor substitute for real budgeting. The President and Congress have had a year and a half to come up with a smarter way to reduce spending, and they have failed.
But you must remember that we live in a world where Harry Reid’s Senate has not passed a budget in 1,402 days. The sequester is a symptom of Washington’s fiscal cluelessness.
Yet, recall why we are having this conversation in the first place. We’re facing a serious debt crisis that has already led to America’s credit rating being downgraded. It is driven by these massive spending increases — resulting in even more debt — which, if left unresolved, will cripple our children’s future with higher interest rates, inflation, and even fewer jobs. It’s time to put our nation on the path to a balanced budget within the next 10 years.
So why is President Obama leading a scare campaign filled with untruths about how sequestration will necessitate firing firefighters, cops, and teachers?
…Because liberals know the Obama tax hikes forced through in January will really hurt the economy. It’s preemptive damage control. The President is trying to blame the sequester for the economic problems his tax hikes will spawn.
But our struggling economy is the President’s own creation. His tax hikes — in income taxes, payroll taxes, and Obamacare taxes — will take $150 billion out of the economy this year alone. The $150 billion doesn’t magically appear in Washington’s bank account without real consequences. It comes out of your paycheck. It means less money for your boss to give you a raise. Small businesses won’t have the money to hire new employees. You’ll have less money to save for your retirement or your child’s college fund.
The impact of the tax hikes on the economy is nearly twice as big as the impact of sequestration. Over 10 years, Obama’s tax hikes will suck $2.9 trillion out of the economy.
Excess taxation hurts working families, but cutting government spending helps spur jobs and economic growth. As Heritage economist J.D. Foster has explained, reducing the rate of spending growth “may even provide a modest short-term lift while improving the economy’s performance in future years.”
Washington has a problem with spending and debt. It needs immediate action. A paper by Heritage researcher Romina Boccia pointed out just last month that U.S. publicly held debt, not even counting state and local government debt, will exceed 76 percent of GDP this year, and chronic deficits are projected to push U.S. debt to 87 percent of the economy in 10 years. Recent economic research confirms that “federal debt at such high levels puts the United States at risk for a number of harmful economic consequences, including slower economic growth, a weakened ability to respond to unexpected challenges, and quite possibly a debt-driven financial crisis.”
These are the real consequences of Obamanomics. The President’s spending spree is the real problem.
| [Return to headlines] |
The one thing the “sequester” did was to get people asking why government spending could not be reduced. Adding to the drama of the automatic cuts was the sky-is-falling, government-services-will-stop, and comparable lies the President and his cabinet secretaries told until it became obvious that the public was not buying it.
What the President did not talk about was the incredible, obscene waste of taxpayer’s money that goes on every day in every department and agency of the U.S. government. Americans are so accustomed to hearing everything described in the billions and trillions, they have lost sight of what these numbers really mean and this is particularly true in light of the nation’s huge, growing debt and deficit.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sequestration: Another Band Aid While U.S. Economy Exsanguinates
Why do I call all of those “Acts” nothing more than Band Aids? Because they represent nothing more than feeding the cancer instead of killing it. They are akin to a surgeon putting a Band Aid on a patient bleeding out on the operating table and that is exactly what the Outlaw Congress has done to this economy while they steal from we the people on a daily basis funding unconstitutional cabinets, agencies and programs.
America was highly prosperous before all the alphabet soup agencies and cabinets were birthed. A virtually debt free nation now teetering on the brink of financial collapse. Once the poltroons in Congress deliberately created programs that created dependence upon the General Government instead of encouraging independence and self-reliance, the rapacious mobs have demanded more and more from your wallet.
Calls for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is just more meaningless political rhetoric that will accomplish nothing as long as the American people keep demanding the thieves in Congress continue spending using debt to fund unconstitutional cabinets, agencies and programs. THAT is why the national debt is $16.5 TRILLION unpayable dollars.
The waste on unconstitutional spending has not stopped because the American people once again reelected the same thieves who have devastated the middle class while keeping the poor on the plantation. The same incumbents from both parties who have been draining the lifeblood of this country for decades. Constitutional solutions are never even talked about, much less proposed. Several million Americans work for the General Government — most in jobs that are unconstitutional. Those people vote for their jobs and could care less about the U.S. Constitution. The same as tens of millions of Americans who are now desperate and in deep financial trouble. They beg from their destroyers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Officially, since June 2009 the US economy has been undergoing an economic recovery from the December 2007 recession. But where is this recovery? I cannot find it, and neither can millions of unemployed Americans.
The recovery exists only in the official measure of real GDP, which is deflated by an understated measure of inflation, and in the U.3 measure of the unemployment rate, which is declining because it does not count discouraged job seekers who have given up looking for a job.
No other data series indicates an economic recovery. Neither real retail sales nor housing starts, consumer confidence, payroll employment, or average weekly earnings indicate economic recovery.
Neither does the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy. The Fed’s expansive monetary policy of bond purchases to maintain negative real interest rates continues 3.5 years into the recovery. Of course, the reason for the Fed’s negative interest rates is not to boost the economy but to boost asset values on the books of “banks too big to fail.”
The low interest rates raise the prices of the mortgage-backed derivatives and other debt-related assets on the banks’ balance sheets at the expense of interest income for retirees on their savings accounts, money market funds, and Treasury bonds.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Savers Miss Out on £100 Billion in Interest in Four Years Thanks to Slashing of Interest Rates
Savers have missed out on more than £100billion of interest since the Bank of England slashed the base rate to its lowest level in history, a report reveals today.
On the fourth anniversary of the controversial policy, the study lays bare the crippling impact on savers, including millions of pensioners and hard-working families.
Experts warn that Britain’s long-established culture of savings is being ‘destroyed’ by a strategy designed to make borrowing easier, which has punished savers with the worst interest rates in history.
It was on March 5, 2009, that the Bank cut the base rate to 0.5 per cent, the lowest level since it was founded in 1694.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why the “Balanced Budget Amendment” Is a Hoax and a Deadly Trap
You can not responsibly support a proposed Amendment to Our Constitution unless you have read and understand the proposal and how it would change our Constitution. You must look behind the nice sounding name! Will the Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) really “reign in” the federal government? Will it really “show them” that they have to balance their budget the same as we do?
Or does it actually legalize spending which is now unconstitutional? Is it actually a massive grant of new constitutional powers to the President and the federal courts — a grant which will cut the Heart out of The Constitution our Framers gave us?
Amending the Constitution is serious business — and you are morally bound to get informed before you jump on The Amendment Bandwagon.
So, lay aside your giddy joy at the fact that all 47 U.S. Senate Republicans are co-sponsoring the Balanced Budget Amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 10 (March 31, 2011). Let’s go through it. What you believe the BBA will do, and what it will actually do, are two very different things indeed.
[…]
But Section 3 of the BBA does more than merely legalize the unlawful. It actually transfers the constitutional power to make the appropriations and to determine taxes to the President. Congress will become a rubber stamp.
Footnote 3. Are you aware that federal executive agencies are forming their own SWAT teams? Are you aware that DHS is federalizing our local police and using their fusion centers to turn them into a national secret police — America’s version of the STAZI? Building Obama’s “civilian national security force” which is “just as powerful just as strong just as well funded as the military” takes money. Lots of it! The BBA will permit the President to write into the Budget the funding needed to build this armed force; and it will be under his sole & personal control.
[Comments: READ IT ALL.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Beretta Exec Likens Gun Ban to Book Ban
Beretta USA, one of the nation’s largest firearms manufacturers, compared a Maryland gun-control bill to a book ban Friday and warned it may consider leaving the state if the legislation passes.
Beretta general counsel Jeffrey Reh said Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley’s Firearm Safety Act of 2013 is “tantamount to a legislative effort to ban certain books” during testimony before the Maryland House Judiciary Committee.
“That might seem like a provocative statement but the parallels are apt,” Reh said, according to testimony obtained by the Free Beacon. “The possession and use of firearms and printed materials are both protected by the Constitution. Both rights come from the only legislation in U.S. history that was voted on and approved directly by the citizens of our country.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bob Woodward is a White House Appeaser
If the White House will push Bob Woodward around on such a mundane matter as Obama’s role in a budget stand-off, what else will they do? A look at Wikipedia’s page on Obama’s communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis might give us some indication. It is apparent that Obama supporters and Internet “trolls” have sanitized the page in order to eliminate any hint that Obama’s Marxist policies are being driven by the relationship he had for almost 10 years with a Communist Party operative under surveillance by the FBI.
In the current controversy involving Washington Post reporter Woodward and Obama White House official Gene Sperling, the email exchange publicized by Politico shows Woodward referring to “Gene” and being called “Bob” in return. This is a friendly exchange of views.
Alluding to how “Gene” had yelled at him and apologized, Woodward said, “You do not ever have to apologize to me. You get wound up because you are making your points and you believe them. This is all part of a serious discussion. I for one welcome a little heat; there should [be] more given the importance. I also welcome your personal advice. I am listening.”
Can you imagine famed Watergate reporter Woodward referring to Nixon Administration officials in such friendly terms?
This exchange has all the earmarks of a “journalist” who, rather than being threatened, is being fed a line by the Obama White House and wants more of it. Woodward comes across not as a tough reporter engaged in an adversarial relationship with the White House but rather a whiner who wants more access to Obama.
Sadly, it is all too typical of how the liberal media do Obama’s bidding. The treatment of Frank Marshall Davis is a case in point.
The 600-page FBI file on Frank Marshall Davis covers the years 1944-1963, meaning that he was under investigation or surveillance for at least 19 years. One document refers to Frank Marshall Davis having CPUSA affiliations dating back to 1931. Davis was included in the FBI’s security index, meaning that Davis could be arrested or detained in the event of a national emergency. The FBI material also documents Davis’s anti-white and pro-Soviet views, and the Communist infiltration of the Hawaii Democratic Party.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Breakdown of Law and Order: “We Can’t Depend on the Police Department”
Budget cuts across the country have stripped local police departments of personnel at an alarming rate. So much so that Americans from coast-to-coast are now being forced to fend for themselves.
Our latest example comes from East Oakland’s Arcadia Park, where law and order have broken down to such an extent that residents have been been left with no other choice but to band together to police their own streets.
According to one member of this neighborhood watch on steroids, it’s turning into the Wild West.
With criminals running rampant, when seconds count, police are often minutes away:.
[Comment: The “budget cuts” of police are a fraud. There is no need for local communist officials to cut police forces. Local officials CHOOSE to cut police over social spending. It is all part of the destabilization of the US. Free up the criminals until the public begs for military aid.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cause of Florida Sinkhole Tragedy: Human Activity or Revenge of the Karst?
[WARNING: Disturbing content.]
One of the most heavily developed states is also one of the most geologically hazardous — two facts that are not mutually exclusive in creating dangerous sinkholes.
Yet the tragic series of events that began Thursday as a 30-foot hole swallowed Jeff Bush as he slept and continues Saturday as rescue crews tiptoe around an “extremely unstable” house also highlights just how geologically hazardous the Sunshine State is, and how human activities have likely increased the number of sinkholes — essentially geological plumbing breaks as the ceilings of carved-out limestone caverns buckle.
Within a mile of Mr. Bush’s home, which apparently sits atop a 100-foot-wide cavern, are 16 verified sinkholes, compared to over 15,000 known sinkholes throughout the state.
Known as a “karst” landscape, Florida, which was once part of the seafloor, sits on a vast limestone bed cratered with caverns dug out over eons of tidal and chemical weathering. About 10 percent of the earth’s landmass is karst, meaning land shaped by eroding bedrock…
Sinkholes affect so many properties in Florida that the legislature in 2011 changed the law to make it harder to claim sinkhole damages.
“Over the years the [sinkhole] costs to insurance companies have been increasing at an extraordinary rate, because the legislature prevented companies from charging rates in line with the risk,” says Mr. Randazzo. “It finally reached the point where the insurance companies won the day and got the legislature to change the law, significantly weakening the sinkhole protections in the state of Florida.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Coal Plants Likely the First Targets of Climate-Change Executive Orders
In a contentious effort to bypass the Republican-led House of Representatives, President Obama has embarked on a unilateral campaign to curb the impact of so-called climate change, in what could be a potentially fatal blow to the coal industry. The president’s new energy policy, and the forthcoming regulations that will accompany it, could in fact terminate all blueprints for new coal-fired plant facilities.
The president’s apparent desire to bankrupt the coal industry is part of a two-step process.According to James McGarry, a policy analyst at the environmental activist group the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, the EPA “is probably going to set standards that any new power plant that’s built in the U.S. has to achieve a certain carbon dioxide emissions rate per unit of energy produced.”
Those likely standards, which will potentially be unveiled in the coming weeks, could stamp out all plans to build new coal-fired power plants. “That’s huge, because just to look at the numbers, coal fired power plants emit around 2,200 pounds per megawatt hour where a new gas-fired, natural gas power plant is about 900 pounds per megawatt hour,” McGarry notes. “So in order for any new coal to be built in the U.S. in 2013-2014, they would have to have some sort of carbon-capture technology, which at the moment is economically unrealistic.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Colorado Gun Bill Could Ban Standard Shotguns
A popular hunting shotgun could be banned under one of the bills moving through the state Capitol.
A pump or semi-automatic shotgun is the gun most hunters in Colorado use. It’s a gun state Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, says could be banned under a bill that’s already passed the House and Gov. John Hickenlooper says he’ll sign.
“They’re coming after the standard shotgun,” Brophy told CBS4 Political Specialist Shaun Boyd.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Court to Consider Whether Speedy Approval of NY Gun Controls Violated Constitution
A New York state judge agreed Friday to consider whether the state’s tough new gun restrictions were rushed into law in violation of the state constitution.
State Supreme Court Justice Gerald Connolly signed an order granting the request for a hearing by plaintiffs who are challenging Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s decision to waive the three-day review usually required before votes on bills, according to LoHud.com.
The plaintiffs argue the law violates the guarantees of free speech, property ownership and the right to petition the government guaranteed under the state and federal constitutions.
Plaintiff Robert Schulz called Cuomo a “king” for pushing through the nation’s toughest gun law by suspending the three-day vetting period by submitting a “message of necessity” on the law, which allows the constitutional waiting period to be suspended.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
DHS Built Domestic Surveillance Tech Into Predator Drones
Homeland Security’s specifications say drones must be able to detect whether a civilian is armed. Also specified: “signals interception” and “direction finding” for electronic surveillance.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has customized its Predator drones, originally built for overseas military operations, to carry out at-home surveillance tasks that have civil libertarians worried: identifying civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones, government documents show.
The documents provide more details about the surveillance capabilities of the department’s unmanned Predator B drones, which are primarily used to patrol the United States’ northern and southern borders but have been pressed into service on behalf of a growing number of law enforcement agencies including the FBI, the Secret Service, the Texas Rangers, and local police.
Homeland Security’s specifications for its drones, built by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, say they “shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not,” meaning carrying a shotgun or rifle. They also specify “signals interception” technology that can capture communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones, and “direction finding” technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.
[Comment: Under the pretext of border patrol the entire drone infrastructure was setup. Now it is only a matter of “retasking” the drones. Doubling the size of border patrol would have been a far better idea.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Former Secret Service Agent Speaks Out Against Gun Control (Video)
Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent for the Obama Administration, comes out in defense of the 2nd Amendment and admonishes Obama for attempts to disarm and subjugate the American people. The only point I would add to his excellent observations on this vital issue is that the Obama White House is only a PART of a greater threat. The buildup to tyranny has been aided by numerous administrations from both parties over the past several decades. That said, Obama has carried the torch of totalitarianism farther than any other political puppet before him, which leads me to believe he may be the one designated to send this country over the edge…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
John Kerry Learns From the Enemy
Secretary of State John Kerry is reading up, learning that Islam is “not represented by a lot of jihadists and others,” but is, rather, “a beautiful religion.” He said this a few days ago in Berlin:
“And unfortunately, in too many parts of the world, some religions — not — and I’m not just speaking of one religion or another. You have intolerance in a number of different kinds of religions or points of view in different things. I know that Islam is not represented by a lot of jihadists and others. I know it’s a beautiful religion. I’ve read more and more about it.
“I’ve been reading a book recently called No god but God, which is the history of the Prophet and where he came from and how it developed as a religion. It’s fascinating. If I went back to college today, I’d probably go back and be a comparative religion major and a comparative literature major, because those are the things that help you understand what makes people tick and how they’re working and how they think. But the important thing is to have the tolerance to say you can have a different point of view.”
What could possibly go wrong? This: No god but God is a whitewash of Islam written by none other than the childish Islamic supremacist pseudo-academic Reza Aslan. Aslan is Board member of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). In 2008, NIAC chief Trita Parsi sued Seid Hassan Daioleslam for defamation after Daioleslam’s investigative reporting exposed Parsi’s and NIAC’s deep and incontrovertible ties to high-level agents of the Iranian regime. Parsi lost the case, and NIAC was establish as a front group for the bloody mullahcracy in Tehran.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Maryland Senate Passes Governor O’Malley’s Gun Control Bill
After 10 hours of intense debate, the Maryland Senate passed Governor Martin O’Malley’s gun control measure handily late Thursday afternoon, 28-19, with all 12 Republicans and a handful of Democrats voting against the bill. The measure will be debated in the House next week, with passage nearly certain. After O’Malley signs the bill into law it will make Maryland’s gun laws among the most restrictive in the nation, putting the lie to the state’s moniker, “The Free State.”
Maryland is also the nation’s wealthiest state, and its citizens currently have registered more than 1,200,000 of their firearms with the state under previous law. The new legislation will require gun owners, as well as new purchasers of firearms, to get fingerprinted, take eight hours of classroom study, and pay for a more extensive background check. In addition, no one will be able to buy a so-called “assault weapon” or purchase a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds. The bill will also tighten up limits on gun ownership by residents committed against their will for mental health treatment…
What’s really happening in Maryland has little to do with controlling crime but possibly everything to do with O’Malley. The Baltimore Sun exulted that the bill passed by the senate contained the licensing provision which is “the centerpiece” of the governor’s bill and the one they believe would be most effective in reducing gun violence. Instead, it looks as if passage will be most effective in promoting O’Malley’s run for the presidency in 2016.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Monsanto and the FDA: 2 Crimes Families Working a Trillion-Dollar Hustle
Imagine this. A killer is put on trial, and the jury, in a surprise verdict, finds him not guilty. Afterwards, reporters interview this killer. He says, “The jury freed me. It’s up to them. They decide. That’s what is justice is all about.”
Then the press moves along to members of the jury, who say: Well, we had to take the defendant’s word. He said he was innocent, so that’s what we ruled.
That’s an exact description of the FDA and Monsanto partnership.
When you cut through the verbiage that surrounded the introduction of GMO food into America, you arrive at two key statements. One from Monsanto and one from the FDA, the agency responsible for overseeing, licensing, and certifying new food varieties as safe.
Quoted in the New York Times Magazine (October 25, 1998, “Playing God in the Garden”), Philip Angell, Monsanto’s director of corporate communications, famously stated: “Monsanto shouldn’t have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”
From the Federal Register, Volume 57, No.104, “Statement of [FDA] Policy: Foods Derived from New Plant Varieties,” here is what the FDA had to say on this matter: “Ultimately, it is the food producer who is responsible for assuring safety.”
The direct and irreconcilable clash of these two statements is no accident. It’s not a sign of incompetence or sloppy work or a mistake or a miscommunication. It’s a clear signal that the fix was in.
Passing the buck back and forth was the chilling and arrogant strategy through which Pandora’s box was pried opened and GMO food was let into the US food supply.
In order for this titanic scam to work, the media had to cooperate. Reporters had to be a) idiots and b)sell-outs.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Green Money Scheme Exposed — Part One
Few realize that the “ green movement” is about building large personal fortunes for an elite few. As with all robber barons, it is about the money. It is why President Barack Obama laid out his threat to again bypass Congress and ignore the American people during his 2013 State of the Union address. Mr. Obama will attempt to force his ill-conceived green energy plans into existence with the stroke of his pen via Executive Orders:
“ .I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.” — President Barack Obama, February 12, 2013
Obama is determined to resurrect his green energy schemes by drying up America’ s access to oil and gas no matter the pain inflicted on American families and businesses. Having put the coal industry on life-support, his next target — restricting power plants that generate electricity to homes and businesses.
What the President hides behind the curtain and does not reveal is his alliance with international green elites, White House and Wall Street cronies and energy regulatory czars who have orchestrated a CO2 carbon-taxing scheme that puts billions of dollars into their own hands. It’ s a money scheme. Three years ago, the global-warming money transfer scam surfaced and named not only this president, but a former Democrat president and vice-president as participants planning to accumulate vast personal wealth as a result. One need only ask, why did Al Gore so confidently tout that he was destined to become the “ first global-warming billionaire?”
Long in the designing, the elements were close to being in full play. The plans were drawn, the carbon-credit trading exchange registered as the Chicago Climate Exchange was formulated (New York Times — Click here // Trading symbol CCX — Click here.), set to both transfer and stash cash, the green barons’ privately-owned Chicago bank was on the ready and the right president was in office to perpetrate the scam on the American people. That is, until the great global-warming-climate-change fraud stopped the United Nations-supported, elite cadre of well-connected political, banking and Wall Street associates in their tracks. British Freedom quotes The Times of India:
“ Billionaire globalists like George Soros fund green groups and seek to promote the globalist ‘ climate change’ scam as a way to enrich themselves and infiltrate developing nations in order to financially exploit them and their natural resources for profit.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
School Suspends 7-Year-Old for Shaping Breakfast Pastry Into ‘Shape of a Gun’
A seven-year-old boy was suspended from school on Thursday after biting his breakfast pastry into a shape that his teacher thought looked like a gun.
Josh Welch, a second-grader at Park Elementary School in Baltimore, said he was trying to nibble his strawberry snack into a mountain.
But when his teacher saw what he had done, the boy says she got ‘pretty mad’ and he knew he was ‘in big trouble.’ Josh was suspended for two days.
Josh’s dad was called by the school and informed that his son had been suspended for two days.
The school sent home a letter with every student informing parents that: ‘A student used food to make an inappropriate gesture.’
[Comment: PAVLOVIAN conditioning; using the child’s fear response of angry authority figures to condition the children to dislike even the thought of a firearm. Proper response for all parents — get your kids out of government schools.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obamerica: Oligarchy is the inevitable outcome of an economic climate where the governments acts as a gatekeeper to the country’s customer.
Regardless of how many wars on poverty are declared and how often calls are issued to make the rich pay their fair share, neither the rich nor the poor will be going anywhere anytime soon. The question is what forces will keep the poor impoverished and where the rich will derive their wealth from.
The founder of Subway recently said that he could not have started up his company today. Similar messages have come from the founders and heads of other major companies. That isn’t to say that companies will cease to exist. What we think of as business has been changing for some time. In most countries, starting a business does not begin with a great idea. It begins with connections. Knowing the right people is still important, but in most places it’s the most important thing.
Under the current American model, a company becomes successful and then begins to lobby Washington to gain a competitive advantage or to avert hostile lobbying directed at negating its existing competitive advantage. That is a perversion of free enterprise, but in much of the world companies begin lobbying first and then become successful. This is the model that has evolved under Obama. And it’s a familiar model to anyone doing business in Russia or China. Political connections come first and then the business becomes feasible.
Oligarchy is the inevitable outcome of an economic climate where the governments acts as a gatekeeper to the country’s customers. Measures that began as limited safety and fraud regulations have become a comprehensive political economic system that controls every aspect of every economic transaction.
The government creates markets. It creates companies and customers. It sets prices and taxes industries that it does not favor out of business.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
TSA Apologizes for Traumatizing 3-Year-Old in Wheelchair (Video)
[Warning: disturbing content]
The Transport Security Administration has apologized following yet another incident involving a wheelchair bound child who became distressed when screeners stopped her and confiscated her stuffed toy.
Three-year-old Lucy’s parents questioned the screening procedure and were told, wrongly, by TSA workers that it was illegal to film at checkpoints.
The Missouri couple took exception to TSA screeners at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, on what should have been a trip of a lifetime to Disney World for the young girl, who has Spina bifida.
When the child’s mother, Annie Schulte, told agents that they could not touch her daughter unless she was filming the incident on her mobile phone, the TSA screeners said “it’s illegal to do that.”
That comment was caught on the camera and the subsequent footage uploaded to YouTube by the parents, creating yet another viral TSA infringement video, as Lucy is seen weeping and saying “I don’t want to go to Disney World any more.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Warned: Al-Qaida Hit-Squads Coming
Source IDs water, transportation, power lines, cell towers, lawmakers as targets
A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander has warned America and Europe that al-Qaida operatives will soon attack them.
And a source in the Islamic regime’s Intelligence Ministry told WND that another terror team is about to enter the United States. Should the West not accept Iran’s rights to its nuclear program within six months, the terrorists will attack, he said.
The potential targets in the U.S. include high-voltage towers to create blackouts, cell towers, water supplies, public transportation and various buildings belonging to the Defense Department and military.
The source said six U.S. politicians who have promoted tougher measures against the regime are on the hit list, along with such targets as the Washington National Cathedral and Lincoln Memorial in D.C. and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
You Can Never Have Enough Progressivism
One of the many solicitations I received in the mail today asked for $5 donation in order to meet their modest $15,000 goal. The letter was asking me to help them support the not-so-modest “progressive vision for America.” Their vision for America was spelled out in the first line:
Voting rights (When did we lose the right to vote? We’ve been voting freely for many years, give a few incidents here and there, like the voter intimidation in Philadelphia by the Black Panthers; even the women’s suffrage was successful in 1920; we are so successful, we allow illegal aliens to vote, and some poll workers in Illinois boast about voting six times. They must be referring to photo IDs. It is so evil to require someone to prove that they are who they say they are; after all, we have to produce photo ID everywhere else in society, why require low information voters to be inconvenienced by a silly photo ID.)
Health care (Did our President and the Democrats not pass the Affordable Care Act that nobody can afford? Did they not fundamentally change how our health care will be delivered to all citizens, non-citizens, and illegal aliens? Are they not gutting Medicare and Medicaid as a result of this law? Do we not have to pay now a minimum $20,000 a year premium for the Bronze level insurance and the Supreme Court says it is a tax? Is the IRS not the enforcer and overseer? How much more can we change health care that would satisfy the socialists?)
Gun Reform (Are progressives not pleased until everybody is disarmed except the elites in power, Hollywood, and hardcore criminals?)
[…]
To show again that CAP does not support or oppose political parties, the letter chastises conservatives — “Just when we thought conservatives had learned their lesson in November, eight more states introduced invasive and medically unnecessary anti-abortion bills.” The anti-abortion bills are “invasive and medically unnecessary” but the killing of innocent unborn is not invasive and unnecessary. Really?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A consortium from the Middle East has launched the biggest ever takeover bid for a football club with an offer of £1.5bn for Premier League side Arsenal.
The group, made up of investors from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, hope to tempt American owner Stan Kroenke with the world record sum, reports the Sunday Telegraph.
The mystery consortium members, who are apparently being backed by funds from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, are to bid for every share in the club and have promised the money will be invested in the faltering team, who face a battle to qualify for next season’s lucrative Champions League competition.
It blows out of the water the world’s previous highest bid for a football team the £800m was made by the American Glazer family for Manchester United and reinforces the growing power wielded by the Middle East in the European game.
Qataris already own another leading Premier League side, Manchester City, who are bankrolled by billionaire Sheik Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, while French club Paris St Germain, who recently signed David Beckham, are backed by the Qatar Investment Authority.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
British Spies ‘Tempted to Cut Corners’ In Bid to Catch Terrorists and Foreign Agents Says MI5 Boss
New recruits to MI5 have been warned to behave within the law in order to maintain the public’s trust in the security service.
MI5 head Sir Jonathan Evans claimed that many spies were tempted to ‘cut corners’ in their attempts to bring terrorists threatening the UK to justice.
The Director General of the intelligence agency said he had to warn spies to behave proportionally, ethically and legally to keep the the trust of both members of the public and ministers, and that cutting corners could result in longer term problems for the service.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Different parts of Europe, same story.
Let’s start with France, where a new report by a Jewish community group, Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive (SPCJ), says that anti-Semitism in that country has gotten so much worse in the wake of last year’s Toulouse school massacre that the number of Jews who are “crossing the Channel to find safe haven in the U.K.” is skyrocketing.
One sign of the trend: “St John’s Wood Synagogue in London has set up a separate French minyan, attended regularly by 120 people on Shabbat,” with new faces showing up every week. A February 21 piece in the Jewish Chronicle about the SPCJ report noted that while anti-Semitic “incidents” in Britain and France are roughly comparable in number, those in France “are far more likely to involve violence.” It also quoted Britain’s Chief Rabbi as warning that “the position of Jews in Europe today is very difficult…Jews in Europe have begun to ask, is there a place for us here?”
Perhaps the most telling detail in the Jewish Chronicle article was this: while the SPCJ report “originally stated that in over three-quarters of the antisemitic incidents the perpetrators were reported as being of North African origin,” this fact was later deleted from the text.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. We are seeing this now in Europe. Oh, the media has not twigged yet (they never do until it’s far too late), but the markets have. Capital flight from Italy was already running strongly. This week it became an avalanche.
The Swiss and Singaporeans are doing well.
1922 was a very bad year in Italy. The economy was in free-fall, unemployment was soaring, even the Navy was being shut down to save money. In the south, the mafia was essentially running the place. Benito Mussolini got 25% of the vote in the elections of that year. In 1924 he exceeded 50% of the vote.
We all know the rest.
2012 was a very bad year in Italy. The economy was in free-fall, unemployment was soaring, even the Navy was being shut down to save money. In the south, the mafia was essentially running the place. In the elections of 2013, Beppe Grillo received 24% of the vote. Instead of settling for coalition, and relying on his control of the Senate, he has blocked formation of a coalition government and demanded another election in June. Why won’t he exceed 50% of the vote?
Here’s how he did it. Beppe Grillo ran as a jokey-blokey comedian in Italy. He used all manner of tricks including conspiracy theories (‘chemtrails” poisoning people for the profit of Jews and the Templars, Jewish fiscal control through the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, with central control via the Illuminati, ‘truther’ conspiracies that 9/11 was a Jewish plot and so-on). These he made more credible by linking them to things every Italian knows is true: massive corruption, the Mafia, corrupt politicians, EU plots to use the Euro to kill Italian exports and so forth. Anyone seeing a pattern here?…
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Four Islamic Terrorists Planned Attack on British Soil With Guns and Home-Made Bombs
Four Islamic extremists admitted plotting a terrorist attack on British soil armed with guns and home-made bombs.
The men were caught after in a massive multi-million pound surveillance operation by police and the security services.
Hidden bugs recorded them discussing methods, materials and targets for a terrorist attack, including using improvised explosive devices.
They downloaded illicit online terrorist instructions, purchased survival equipment and collected thousands of pounds to fund the plot.
Investigators looked on as they organised and undertook physical training and prepared to send others to Al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan.
But they were arrested at their homes in Luton, Bedfordshire, following a huge operation by the police and the security services.
The men involved were Zahid Iqbal, 31, Mohammed Sharfaraz Ahmed, 25, Umar Arshad, 24, and Syed Farhan Hussain, 21.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Grillo Favours on-Line Referendum for Italy in Euro
(AGI) Berlin — Beppe Grillo told “Bild”, “I am a staunch supporter of Europe — I’m in favour of an on-line referendum on the Euro.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Insult to Religion Charges for ‘Blasphemous’ Pope Site
(AGI) Bologna — A 30-year-old man has been placed under investigation by the Emilia Romagna prosecutor’s office for insulting the Catholic religion. The man had created a website on which blasphemous comments and images of Pope Benedict XVI appear. The judge has ordered the preventative seizure of the site, on which investigators say there were Photoshopped images of the pope alongside nude women .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: M5S Grillo Comments on Sel Vendola’s New Look
(AGI) Rome — Beppe Grillo, leader of the anti-establishment movement M5S, has charged Nichi Vendola, leftist SEL leader, with having undergone a ‘grillo-like’ change. “He looks like another person” Grillo wrote on his blog. “He is using a different register, still a very diversified one, and seems keen on addressing very picturesque propositions to M5S.
“Vendola loves us,” he concluded.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi Announces Anti-Judiciary Street Protest March 23
Claims part of judiciary uses law to ‘combat’ political enemies
(ANSA) — Milan, March 1 — Italian ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi announced to journalists in a Milan court on Friday that a street protest will be held on March 23 “against the judiciary’s activity”. “There is a part of the judiciary that uses justice to combat and eliminate political adversaries that can not be eliminated with the democratic system of elections,” said the leader of the Italian centre-right. On Thursday, judicial sources said Berlusconi is being probed in Naples for allegedly paying three million euros to Senator Sergio De Gregorio to switch sides from the centre-left to the centre-right. De Gregorio defected from the left during Romano Prodi’s 2006-2008 government and eventually joined Berlusconi’s party.
Also on Thursday, prosecutors in the northern city of Reggio Emilia said they had opened a probe into a letter Berlusconi sent to millions of Italians about an election pledge to pay back the IMU property-tax. Berlusconi was accused of attempting to buy votes with the pledge by rival politicians, who complained the letter was deceptive as it looked like an official document informing people about how to obtain a rebate, rather than an election pamphlet.
Rome prosecutors are also investigating after a similar petition.
Berlusconi is on trial in Milan over accusations he paid for sex with an underage Moroccan dancer, and is accused of abuse of office in the same case.
Berlusconi is also appealing against a one-year conviction he was handed last year for tax fraud on film rights for his Mediaset TV group.
The ex-premier has also been indicted over accusations he was involved in the publication of an illegally obtained wiretaps.
In the on-going and several other previous trials, Berlusconi has always denied wrongdoing, claiming he is the victim of a minority group of allegedly left-wing prosecutors and judges who he says are persecuting him for political reasons.
Berlusconi has been tried some 30 times but has only been convicted three times — verdicts that were either timed out by the statute of limitations or overturned on appeal — prior to the Mediaset fraud verdict
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
London Hosts Conference on Islamophobia in Europe
Britain is losing its identity and way of life because of Muslims and immigration. That is the narrative being sold as fact by a new wave of far right groups.
You won’t find the media debunking the myth; nor the politicians — who have firmly placed the over-exaggerated risk of immigration on their agenda.
The consequence of all these factors is that islamophobic attacks are on the rise, immigrants are unfairly targeted, and fascist groups like the EDL flourish. But there is a fight back. And united against fascism is on its front line.
The conference discussed how the recession has fuelled the rise in the far right, as politicians try and divert attention away from austerity.
In a society like Britain, racism has never been far from the helm. Although the victims have changed. Jews, Asians, Blacks…now Muslims.
But why do the media play such a role?
In many ways, the creation of this apathy among the general public facilitates racism. That’s why organizations like United Against Fascism, say it is their duty to get the message out there; to ordinary citizens, to the media and to politicians.
| [Return to headlines] |
Mayor of Florence Says Italians Have Spoken Loud and Clear
(AGI) Florence, March 2 — Mayor of Florence and PD politician Matteo Renzi said:” Our citizens have spoken loud and clear but maybe their message has not been fully grasped.” Addressing a conference near Florence, Mr. Renzi went on to say that regardless of what percentage of the votes each party got, “Italians have grown fed up with the situation, as simple as that.” In his opinion the voters’ message has rung a bell and proves they have fallen out of sympathy with the country’s politicians.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Our Italian Future: Atop a Political Volcano
Michael Ledeen
Italy has long been the political laboratory of the West. From Roman republics and tyrannies through the city-states of the Renaissance, into the Counter-Reformation and on to fascism, Eurocommunism, and homegrown terrorism, the Italians have provided us with advance looks at our future. We should keep that in mind when sifting through the flotsam and jetsam of the Italian elections at the end of February.
[…]
The easiest way to describe these events is to say that the two colorful characters did much better than expected, while the boring party apparatchik flopped. Berlusconi’s story verges on the miraculous, as one of his associates admitted. Left for dead last November with his popularity around 22 percent, he damn near carried the day outright. Indeed, as Berlusconi staggered from gaffe to gaffe in the final days of the campaign, and canceled scheduled rallies on very flimsy grounds, Roman insiders whispered that he was terrified of winning and was trying to depress his vote. They believe there is no way he can be prime minister again—all hell would break loose, both in Italy and across the eurozone—and yet he’s the only figure in his People of Freedom party with any national standing. Whatever his intentions, he’s much better off where he is, not in the government, but strongly represented in parliament.
Grillo is the crude vessel into which the long-simmering popular rage has been poured. Most Italians have had it, up to their enviable hair, with the political/business/intellectual class, and Grillo doesn’t hold anything back in his denunciations of the ruling elite. He demands a purge. Out with the long-termers in parliament and the ministries. Slash their salaries and pensions. Reduce their numbers. Take the savings and distribute the cash to normal people. Enough with the relentless tax increases. Et cetera.
These elections actually accomplished part of the purge. Many famous names will vanish from the next parliament, including Grillo’s celebrated precursor, Antonio di Pietro, the crusading judge who decimated the political establishment during the Tangentopoli purge trials in the 1990s and then formed a party, Italy of Values, ostensibly based on high morality. He and it are gone, having been caught in financial scandals. Grillo would do well to take note, but probably won’t. Such types, from Savanarola to today, generally get sent to the stake, and Grillo has a flair for overstating his importance, as when he claimed, apparently falsely, that the Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz supported Grillo’s program.
In any event, Grillo can’t lead from inside the government, because he’s barred from parliament, having been convicted of manslaughter in an automobile crash.
The other big losers include President Obama, who warmly welcomed Italian president Giorgio Napolitano to Washington a few days before the vote and spoke enthusiastically about the great accomplishments of the “technicians’ government” that had been installed last year in an amazing move that produced a council of ministers in which nobody had been elected to anything…
[…]
So whither Italy? If you’re superstitious—as Italians tend to be—the most dramatic augury for the immediate future came from Naples. There’s a volcanic area known as the Phlegraean Fields, where the ground is hot, and sulphurous smoke emerges from fissures. The ancient Romans had no doubt that Hell lay beneath. The National Vulcanological Institute just confirmed that, since the beginning of the year, the ground of the Phlegraean Fields has been rising by more than a centimeter a month.
There’s going to be Hell to pay.
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Steinbrueck Should Apologise, Think German Majority
(AGI) — Berlin, March 3 — The majority of Germans think that Peer Steinbrueck of the SPD should apologise for having called Berlusconi and Grillo “two clowns”, an Emnid Institute survey revealed. According to 56 percent of respondents, the SPD candidate for chancellor should apologise while 40 percent thought he shouldn’t. A comprehensive 72 percent of Germans, which rises to 78 percent among SPD supporters, think that a candidate wishing to become chancellor cannot make offensive remarks about politicians of allied countries as Angela Merkel’s challenger did.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: ** EXTREMELY DISTURBING CONTENT **]
A male British nurse last night denied plotting to help a New York policeman to kidnap, rape and eat female victims as police dug up his garden for clues.
Kent Police swooped on Dale Bolinger, 57, after it emerged that ‘Cannibal Cop’ Gilberto Valle, currently on trial on sensational charges of conspiring to murder and cook a series of women, had been corresponding online with a cannibalism guru in England.
The English cannibalism enthusiast claimed in sick exchanges with Valle, 28, last summer that he had previously eaten a white boy aged five and a black woman — and in a grotesque British twist advised using the fat from female breasts to make Yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes.
The emailer also had a recipe for ‘human haggis’ using the lungs and stomach.
As he spurred his American associate on, he used the aliases MeatMarket Man and Moody Blues, and even recommended eating a victim alive, saying ‘I think of it as eating her to death.’
The emailer also offered to fly to Valle to help him kill and butcher a woman, offering to bring anaesthetic gas and a meat cleaver. By kidnapping and eating a variety of women they could evade capture, unlike the Yorkshire Ripper, he added, saying, ‘Girls go missing all the time’.
Kent Police following up the reports from America have arrested two men from Canterbury aged 57 and 30 — one of them male nurse Bolinger, and have searched and dug in his garden seeking clues.
Both of the British pair were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy offences, grooming and the possession of child abuse images, and are now on police bail…
New York policeman Valle is being tried on suspicion of conspiracy to kidnap, after being caught by his wife Kathleen Mangan, 27, looking as obscene fetish websites focusing on cannibalism.
Among his intended victims was his wife and other acquaintances, one a New York primary school teacher. He is also said to have discussed his plans with a co-defendant from New Jersey, and a butcher in India who said there was an oven to cook Valle’s wife in in Pakistan.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Theresa May Vows to Take UK Out of the European Court of Human Rights
Britain is set to pull out of the discredited European Convention on Human Rights that has allowed dangerous criminals and hate preachers to remain in the UK.
It marks a triumph for The Mail on Sunday’s campaign against the ludicrous abuses of justice carried out in the name of human rights.
The historic move, to be announced soon by Home Secretary Theresa May, would mean foreign courts could no longer meddle in British justice.
The European Convention has led to such hugely controversial decisions as banning the deportation of radical cleric Abu Qatada and giving British prisoners the right to vote.
Mrs May’s bold proposals to include the move in the next Tory Election manifesto reflect the party’s growing hostility towards Europe. If enacted, her policy would leave British judges free to interpret the law without interference from the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Mrs May wants to withdraw from the convention before the next Election in 2015, but Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, a keen pro-European, has made it clear he will veto the initiative.
As a result, it is set to be a manifesto promise to be put into action if David Cameron wins an overall majority. Together with the Prime Minister’s vow to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, it will give the Tory manifesto a strong anti-European theme to combat the increasing appeal of UKIP.
[Comment: Scroll down to see a screenshot of some headlines on newspapers.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Fifteen people were arrested today as smoke bombs were hurled at police during a rally by the far right English Defence League.
About 700 EDL demonstrators gathered in Albert Square, Manchester, with about 350 people taking part in a counter protest.
Hundreds of officers from Greater Manchester Police penned in the demonstrators as the left wing Unite Against Fascism held a counter demonstration.
A green smoke bomb and then a white one was thrown as police kept the groups apart at opposite ends of Albert Square in the city centre.
Some comments to the article (reproduced below in case they get deleted)
The EDL were formed because the Police allowed militant Islamists to shout insults at our serviceman when they were marching through towns and cities after coming back from war torn countries.For years the authorites and police have been frightened to upset the Moslems in this country and allowed the Islamists to do what they wanted. — shedender , Kingsbridge, United Kingdom, 02/3/2013 21:44
UAF. Biggest traitors to the UK at present. Apart from our home grown Muslim terrorists. I fought for my country and these people call me a Nazi??? — Sidney , Swansea, 02/3/2013 21:42 Click to rate
As the Establishment continues to ignore the wishes of British Indigenous population they can expect more of the same, methinks. AGPCUK , Bournemouth, United Kingdom, 02/3/2013 21:39
The comments and red/green arrows say everything any political party needs to hear. The EDL have our support. Ignore us at your peril. — Jo , Birmingham, 02/3/2013 21:38
Looks like we have had enough!! — Ian Beds Uk , Bedfordshire, 02/3/2013 21:38 Click to rate
We had these people in norwich not long ago. They were both as bad as each other. But, if the EDL had been left alone, they would have finished the march and gone home. The UAF were determined not to let them do that. Before you judge, go along to one of these marches and watch what happens. You may be surprised at where the trouble starts. – Tom Paines bones , utopia, United Kingdom, 02/3/2013 21:37
I agree with the EDL that the spread of ISLAM must STOP — Happy Harry , LA LA Land, United Kingdom, 02/3/2013 21:32
Stalinist style UAF, somewhat a contradiction in ideals one would think. That lot most certainly don’t seem as if they have a brain cell between them. — st , spain, Spain, 02/3/2013 21:31
Its going to get worse and the police aren’t going to stop it and the way things are going we wont have an army either. — Im Backing Britain , Selby, United Kingdom, 02/3/2013 21:31
UAF=The enemy within. Keep up the good work EDL. Perhaps one day someone in power will start to understand the ever growing number of Sharia law supporters and the imminent dangers from them here. The way we are going there will b e trouble on the streets soon. — Stag , Notts, United Kingdom, 02/3/2013 21:29
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: * Disturbing Content * ]
A young company boss who smashed a glass over a father’s head while his two-year-old son was nearby has been spared prison- after the judge said he had a bright future.
Anthony Tomlinson, 25 — head of a ‘substantial internet company’- launched a ‘horrifying’ attack on Karl Wichlacz as he celebrated his 30th birthday with wife Lisa in a pub, a court heard.
The couple were waiting for a taxi with their two-year-old son, who was asleep in his pram, when they were both assaulted.
Tomlinson, who runs internet marketing firm Tycoon Media Ltd, in Manchester, and lives in a road in Stockport where homes are worth more than £400,000, smashed his glass over Mr Wichlacz’s head, showering shards of glass over his wife and cutting her arm.
But Tomlinson walked free — despite having three previous convictions — after Judge David Hale told him: ‘You’ve got a very, very good future. You’ve got a substantial business.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Hospital Hired Me to Fiddle Death Figures: Expert Claims NHS Ordered Cover-Up
A whistleblower claimed last night that she was hired by an NHS hospital to fiddle its shocking death rates.
As hundreds of patients died needlessly, Sandra Haynes Kirkbright says she was headhunted by hospital bosses and asked to ‘fix’ the figures.
She claimed they offered to almost double her salary to £54,000 a year to distort mortality figures, mistakenly believing she had been doing the same at her former employer, Stafford.
She claims ‘every rule in the book’ was broken to try to improve mortality rates — without saving lives.
The data recorder says she was suspended after refusing to take part in a cover-up, and even claims she was ordered not to put her concerns in writing in case they reached the Press.
The astonishing allegations — which are denied by the hospital — have emerged days after the chief executive of another NHS Trust, in Bolton, was forced aside over a possible cover-up of high death rates.
Experts have warned similar incidents could be happening in hospitals across the country.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: MP Subjected to 6-Month ‘£100,000’ Police Racism Probe for Telling Man He is ‘Unkempt’
A former Government Minister has been subjected to a ‘humiliating’ six-month racism investigation by police after describing a voter who claims to have a Romany Gipsy background as unkempt.
Conservative MP Tim Loughton was summoned to a police station where he was questioned under caution by detectives for 90 minutes.
The MP, an Education Minister at the time, had to mingle with drug dealers and was asked if he could read or write or had mental health problems, an experience he said was ‘unsettling and intimidating’.
The investigation was sparked by a strongly worded email in which Mr Loughton backed his local council’s description of someone he considered a troublesome constituent.
In the email, the MP told the constituent, Kieran Francis, that he agreed with the description of him as ‘unkempt’.
But Mr Francis claimed this was racist because he has ‘Romany Gipsy origins’ and said his MP was ‘being disrespectful’ by calling him ‘dirty’.
Mr Loughton later made clear to the police he had no knowledge of Mr Francis’s background.
During the investigation, which is likely to have cost taxpayers up to £100,000, Mr Loughton’s staff were also interviewed and hours were spent trawling through archives for evidence before it was abruptly dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service last month…
‘I have enormous respect for the police. But this has knocked my confidence in the police and made me wonder whether there are certain elements for whom political correctness has become too much of a driving force.
‘Because of the merest hint of something to do with racism and the sensitivities about travellers, the police go into overdrive.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Thousands of families could be at risk of having a fire in their homes because of faulty appliances.
White goods manufacturer Beko yesterday admitted nearly 138,000 of its fridge-freezers, cookers and tumble-dryers may pose a safety risk.
It has already been accused of making death trap machines linked to at least 11 deaths.
Yesterday, the firm admitted it was aware of several incidents in which an electrical component in their appliances failed, causing a fire hazard.
The three products affected are 6kg and 7kg tumble-dryers manufactured between May and October 2012, fridge-freezers manufactured from 2000 to 2006 and gas cookers produced before 2009…
This is not the first time the Turkish-owned company has made headlines for causing fires.
A Beko fridge-freezer was found to be at the centre of a fire in a tower block in Bermondsey which forced 40 people out of their homes.
Beko is the subject of a £1.5million legal action by Jennifer Benjamin, a paediatrician, who lost her husband in a fire at their home in Wealdstone, North London.
The firm was warned by London Fire Brigade in a letter in June 2010 that its fridge-freezers were a ‘potential threat to life’ after a series of fires.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: * Disturbing Content. *]
A girl of 14 who ordered a teenager to be stabbed for being ‘disrespectful’ was found guilty of manslaughter yesterday.
The teenager said 15-year-old Junior Nkwelle ‘should be punished’ following a row over a game of football and he died after her 16-year-old boyfriend thrust a carving knife once into his chest.
Both were cleared of murder by a jury at the Old Bailey yesterday, but they are facing long prison terms after being found guilty of manslaughter.
Junior’s mother, Stella Muma, collapsed in tears after the verdicts and had to be comforted by friends and relatives.
She said afterwards: ‘All he wanted to do was play football with his friends and be left alone. He certainly didn’t deserve to have his young, innocent life taken away.’
The court heard how Junior lost his life following a ‘trivial’ argument as he played football with friends on a patch of grass near his home in Brixton, South London.
The girl claimed Junior had insulted her during the row, which broke out after she walked across the middle of the pitch with her friends.
She then called her boyfriend, who is now 17, and ordered him to ‘teach Junior a lesson’, the court was told.
Witnesses said they heard the girl boasting that she had arranged for someone to stab the teenager and she later went home to fetch a kitchen knife.
When her boyfriend arrived on the scene, he was handed the blade and used it to stab Junior once, piercing his heart and lung.
[Comment: Pre-arranged, pre-meditated (she went to get a knife) How is this ‘not murder’? — Bill , Sheffield, 02/3/2013 09:21]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Voters Turn on Main Parties and Give UKIP a Breakthrough
David Cameron last night faced backbench demands to reconnect with ‘ordinary people’ after voters turned to UKIP to deliver a stunning bloody nose for ‘politics as usual’.
The Prime Minister was accused of being ‘out of touch’ with his grassroots after being humiliatingly pushed into third place by the anti-EU party in the Eastleigh by-election.
But polling last night suggested that much of the UKIP support came from voters from all the major parties, keen to deliver a stinging rebuke to the Westminster elite.
An incredible 83 per cent of those spoken to after casting their vote for Nigel Farage’s party said they had sent a ‘message that I’m unhappy with the party that I usually support.’
The poll also showed 75 per cent said they did so ‘as a general protest’ against all the main parties.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hamas Warns Obama: Don’t Visit Temple Mount
Designated terrorist group Hamas has warned President Obama against visiting the holy Temple Mount site in Jerusalem when he visits Israel next month, saying the action would be “a diplomatic catastrophe.”
Mr. Obama hasn’t confirmed a visit to the Temple Mount. But Muslim leaders have heard rumors and have issued a blunt statement nonetheless, The Times of Israel reports.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Rules Separate Buses for Palestinians in West Bank
(AGI) Jerusalem — The Israeli government has ruled that as of Sunday Palestinians will ride on separate buses in the West Bank .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Ex-Member: Muslim Brotherhood Has Secret Societies in 80 Nations, Including U.S.
Tharwat Al Kherbawy told a conference in Abu Dhabi that the Brotherhood, with headquarters in Egypt, was infiltrating Western and Arab states by recruiting their Muslim citizens. Al Kherbawy said the Brotherhood established secret societies in more than 80 countries, with recruits pledged to violence.
“So these novices are raised on obedience and allegiance to the supreme guide, accepting no criticism of him or his actions,” Al Kherbawy told the conference, entitled “Challenges and Threats posed by the Muslim Brotherhood to UAE and Countries of the Region.”
“They are taught to regard the movement as their home and that standing to the national anthem of their country is polytheism.”
In an address to a conference on Feb. 24, Al Kherbawy said the Brotherhood has rejected loyalty to any host country. He cited the refusal of new Brotherhood parliamentarians to stand during the playing of the Egyptian national anthem in 2011. Instead, the Islamist deputies stood during the United States anthem when they later met the American ambassador in Cairo.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
One Dead and Four Injured in Clashes With Aden Separatists
(AGI) — Aden, March 2 — One person died and four were injured in clashes between security forces and armed separatists in Aden, in south Yemen. The city had been restored to calm after the uprisings between 21 and 26 February, which cost the lives of nine people. Security forces had been dispatched to Aden to clean up of stones and tyres positioned across the streets by the supporters of Yemen’s former president Ali Salem al-Baid, and came face to face with armed separatists calling for civil disobedience.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Suicide Bombing Near Two Major Shia Temples in Iraq
(AGI) Kerbala, March 3 — A suicide bomber blew himself up near two Shia temples in Kerbala, in southern Iraq. Ten people were injured in the explosion, said a police source. The suicide bomber was an engineer who was working on a restoration project for the Shrine of Imam Husain and that of Imam Abbas, both of which are major destinations for Iraqi and foreign Shia pilgrims.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian Rebels Manage to Storm Police Academy Near Aleppo
(AGI) Beirut, March 3 — Syrian rebels stormed a police academy near Aleppo, in northern Syria, after an eight-day battle in which 200 people were killed, reported the opposition’s Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. At dawn rebels took control of the building in the town of Khan al-Assal following days of battles against regime loyalists. The building was one of the regime’s few remaining strongholds in the western part of Aleppo province.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad has launched an astonishing attack on Britain, accusing the ‘arsonist’ government of being ‘naive, confused and unrealistic’ in its approach to the ongoing conflict in his country.
He went on to warn of ‘grave’ consequences if the West armed its rebels.
Assad said that Britain has been unconstructive in its attempts to militarise the rebels
In an interview with the Sunday Times he said Britain was sacrificing peace talks to push for an end to an EU arms embargo, which would allow rebels to be armed.
Warning this would accelerate the road to war, he rejected the possibility of help from Britain to end the conflict, saying: ‘We do not expect an arsonist to be a firefighter.’
He added: ‘How can we expect to ask Britain to play a role when it is determined to militarise the problem?
‘How can you ask them to play a role in making the situation better, more stable?
‘How can we expect them to make the violence less while they want to send military supply to the terrorists and don’t try to ease the dialogue between the Syrian(s).
‘To be frank, Britain has played famously in our region (an) unconstructive role in different issues, for decades, some say for centuries.
‘This Government is acting in a naïve, confused, and unrealistic manner. If they want to play a role they have to change this, they have to act in a more reasonable and responsible way.’
Assad warned that if the West made moves that ended up with rebels being armed, there would grave consequences.
‘Syria lies at the fault line geographically, politically, socially and ideologically. So playing with this fault line will have serious repercussions all over the Middle East
‘Any intervention will not make these things better. It will only make them worse. Europe and the United States and others are going to pay the price sooner or later with the instability in this region. They do not foresee it.’
Today, foreign secretary William Hague dismissed Assad’s criticism of Britain as ‘delusional’ and said Britain could not afford just to ‘sit on the sidelines’ and watch the slaughter continue in Syria.
[Comment: Any replacement for Assad will end up just like Egypt — another muslim brotherhood tyranny. It is almost as if that is the goal — a MB crescent across Africa and Middle East.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Too Risky to Fund Syrian Rebels, Canada Says
The United States has shifted course to provide aid directly to Syria’s rebels, but Canada doesn’t have enough confidence in them to follow suit.
It is a rare international question where the two allies are taking different views: Canada, which was gung-ho about helping rebels in Libya, thinks it’s too risky to fund those in Syria.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Steps Up Aid, But Syria’s Rebels Want Arms
It should come as no surprise that Syria’s rebels were underwhelmed by Thursday’s U.S. pledge of $60 million in direct aid: Although the announcement by Secretary of State John Kerry in Rome marked Washington’s first direct assistance to the Western backed opposition coalition and reportedly may be accompanied by non-lethal equipment such as body armor and night-vision gear for rebel forces, the pledges fell short of the rebels’ principal demand: weapons.
“Nothing has changed,” the Wall Street Journal was told Thursday by Mohammad Sarmini of the Syrian National Council, the largest bloc in the Western-backed opposition Coalition. “The U.S. position of no arming [the rebels] is crystal clear.” While Sarmini’s group had boycotted the Rome meeting at which Kerry spoke in protest at the limited support on offered to the rebels, the Secretary of State had managed to persuade Coalition leader Moaz al-Khatib to reverse his own plan to stay away. Still, even Khatib, during a media appearance with Kerry, reportedly complained of “an international decision to prevent arming Syrian rebels with quality arms.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Will Iraq be Next to Have an Arab Spring?
Massive protests by Sunnis in Baghdad against the government have raised the prospect of a new uprising in the Arab world.
It has all the outward trappings of another Arab Spring: tens of thousands of demonstrators, a permanent protesters’ “camp”, and megaphoned demands for the removal of another “dictator”.
Yet the slogans that now ring out on the streets of Iraq each Friday are the voice of a community not best known for championing civil rights — be it for themselves or anyone else.
Instead, they are the disenfranchised members of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni minority — the Muslim sect that enjoyed three decades of privileged status under his rule, and which spearheaded the long and bloody insurgency against British and American troops.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Australian Troops Mistakenly Kill 2 Children in Afghanistan
(AGI) Kandahar, March 2 — Australian troops mistakenly killed two children while responding to Taliban fire in southern Afghanistan. The news was reported by the governor of Uruzgan province, Amir Mohammad Akhundzada. The two children, one seven and the other eight, were killed on Thursday morning while they were taking oxen to pasture. The incident is bound to rekindle the controversy on the number of civilian victims caused by international forces. According to a preliminary police reconstruction of the facts, local Taliban had opened fire on a helicopter.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Christians, Sikhs and Hindus Demand Electoral Reform for Better Representation
Minorities demand a change in the law, with the transition from a “unified” to “dual” vote. The current law does not encourage participation and effectively excludes non-Muslims from political life. Christian activist also calls for “quotas” for women from religious minorities.
Faisalabad (AsiaNews) — A reform of the electoral system, which allows greater representation of religious minorities in Pakistan, according to the principle of equality enshrined by the founding father Ali Jinnah. This is what Christians, Hindus, Bihai leaders are asking ahead of the next general election in 2013, to be held between April and May. For the promoters of the reform, the government — before going to the polls — should amend the law by deleting the current “joint electoral system” in favor of a system with “dual voting”. Added to this is the demand of most parties to support candidates from minorities in the national and provincial assemblies, as well as the entry of “non-Muslim” women among the seats reserved for quotas for women, banning “any form of discrimination.”
On 25 February in Faisalabad, Punjab, a public forum on “Elections 2013 and reserves of minorities” was held which was attended by about 250 people from different religious communities, as well as priests, catechists, politicians and members of civil society. The debate focused on the electoral law, the “separate” system in force in the past and the current “joint” system a source of discontent and dissatisfaction, which prompted the creation of a united front that is pushing for the approval of the “Dual Voting Electoral System “, which would allow greater participation.
In 2002, former President Musharraf introduced the “joint electoral system”, which allows non-Muslims to vote for the Islamic candidates of the respective constituencies. It does not allow, however, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, etc power of decision on the seats reserved for minorities, thereby removing the theoretical equality of rights, in access to the Assemblies (lower house and senate). This lack of representation has in fact relegated the non-Muslim political component within the national parliament and in the different provinces to the margins. The “dual” vote thus appears to many leaders the best way to ensure a greater presence, reinforcing the concept of the “multicultural” nation outlined by the founding father of Qaid-e-Azam.
Naveed Walter, President of Human Rights Focus Pakistan (Hrfp), explains that with the separate electoral system “we only vote for people of our own religion”, and this “keeps us away from the active center of politics”, but for now “we can only vote for Muslim and this leads [the Christians] to lose interest in politics. “ And a handful of seats, he adds, cannot guarantee “more political rights” and this is why a “dual vote” to elect “direct” representatives is needed. The former lawmaker George Clement calls “a collective effort” to reform “all discriminatory practices” against minorities, including the electoral law. Finally, the Christian activist Rehana Yasmeen asks that “seats be reserved for women belonging to religious minorities,” for a true equality.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
British Judge Hired by Samsung After Ruling Against Apple
(AGI) London — The judge who ruled in favour of Samsung in its dispute against Apple is reported to have been hired by the Koreans.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China Executes 4 Foreigners, Televises Death March
[WARNING: Disturbing content.]
China executed four foreigners on Friday for killing 13 Chinese sailors in an attack on the Mekong River, following a live nationwide broadcast showing them being led to their deaths that harkened back to the mass public execution rallies of past years.
The attack on the sailors on the Mekong highlighted drug smuggling and extortion rackets along the vital waterway and led to a major expansion of Chinese police powers in the region.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EU and Japan to Launch Free Trade Talks
(AGI) Tokyo, March 3 — The European Union and Japan will start negotiating a free trade agreement on March 25. According to the financial daily Nikkei, this is the most likely date for a summit meeting to be held between the Japanese premier Shinzo Abe, the EU Council president, Herman Van Rompuy and the EU Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, which should herald the start of negotiations. EU and Japan together control almost one third of the world’s GNP. The negotiations between Tokyo and Brussels are aiming to liberalise trade and remove barriers on services and investment.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Australia’s Hottest Summer on Record
The historic summer of 2012 — 2013 is now in the books in Australia as the hottest summer on record, beating the previous mark set in 1997 — 1998 by more than 0.1°C. Australia also roasted through its hottest month on record this summer, with January 2013 topping out as Australia’s warmest month since record keeping began in 1910. The oceans surrounding Australia were at their second warmest levels on record during January, contributing to the exceptional heat over the nation. The summer heat peaked during a remarkably long and widespread heatwave in late December and the first half of January, when fourteen of the 112 sites used by the Bureau of Meteorology for long-term monitoring had their hottest day on record. Sydney’s 45.8°C (114.4°F) on January 18 and Hobart’s 41.8°C (107.2°F) on January 4 were among the places which set new records. The highest temperature during the heatwave was 49.6°C (121.3°F) at Moomba in the far northeast of South Australia—Australia’s highest temperature since 1998. The extreme Australian heat helped push the average land temperature over the entire Southern Hemisphere to its warmest value on record during both December 2012 and January 2013. Many parts of southern Africa also had their warmest January on record.
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Al-Qaeda Leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar ‘Killed in Mali’ As Chadian Armed Forces Destroy Terrorist Base
Al-Qaeda leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar has reportedly been killed by Chadian soldiers in Mali.
The veteran Al-Qaeda leader, nicknamed ‘Mr Marlboro’ for his illicit cigarette empire, is said to have ordered January’s attack on an Algerian gas plant where 37 hostages were killed.
He is believed to be one of several extremists killed today when Chadian armed forces in northern Mali ‘completely destroyed’ a terrorist base around midday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
On the broiling shores of Lake Victoria, a man in Islamic garb is making a politician’s sales pitch to a group of baffled villagers and the resident witch doctor — a wild-eyed character with green and pink parrot feathers in his hair. He is pontificating on an oddly familiar theme: a time for change.
Yet the man on the election stump in this remote part of Africa perhaps has more right than most to appropriate the message that helped Barack Obama become America’s first black president. For the tall, paunchy figure trying to win over the villagers is 55-year-old Roy Abong’o Malik Obama, half-brother of the U.S. President and now following his famous sibling into politics.
Today, Kenya goes to the polls to choose a president, members of parliament and senators, county governors and members of the newly-formed county assembly. Malik is standing for the position of governor of Siaya County, a role which would see him leading nearly a million people. Average earnings here are 100 Kenyan Shillings (about 80p) a day.
Not that hardship looms for their putative new leader. If he wins, the newest Obama on the political block will hit the jackpot — earning an annual salary of more than £100,000, which would take an average Kenyan 66 years to earn, and is the equivalent of £3?million in Britain, as well as perks which include a ‘retirement bonus’ of £75,000, a car, driver, VIP travel and bodyguard for life.
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
In my view, the most frustrating phenomenon relative to the reign of President Barack Obama is the unreserved sycophantic dedication held for him by the media. Indeed, a plethora of actions taken by his administration should have been enough to have him voted out of office, impeached, or indicted by now, but he has been shielded by the press and lionized by the entertainment media.
The intellectual dishonesty and outright duplicity of the press is not restricted to on-air deceptions regarding Obama, or even domestic issues. The aggregate compromise of America’s representation globally is being misrepresented, as are international events.
One of the most tragic and dramatic examples of this is the transformation that has taken place in the Republic of South Africa since the end of minority white governance in 1994. “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa” by author and columnist Ilana Mercer reveals not only how the conceit of Western liberal elites served to bring down one of the most prosperous nations in the West, but how the same motivations and methods are at work in America’s decline.
Mercer was born in South Africa, and her father was a staunch and active opponent of the policy of apartheid; it is for this reason that her family was forced to leave in the 1960s. She returned in the 1980s, and now bears witness to how Marxists and liberal elites worldwide conspired to destroy this nation under the pretext of Social Justice.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Nigerian Army Kills Twenty Boko Haram Militants
(AGI) Kano — The Nigerian army has announced killing twenty militants from the extremist group, Boko Haram.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Third French Soldier Killed in Mali
(AGI) Paris, March 3 — A French soldier was killedl in fighting in northern Mali, the Elysee Palace said on Sunday. This is the third death of a French serviceman since the launch of military operations in mid-January. The young soldier, from the First Parachute Chasseur Regiment, was killed in combat on Saturday night. French President Francois Hollande commended the value of French troops who fight alongside the Malian army against armed terrorist groups to restore Mali’s sovereignty.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
How the U.N. Caused Haiti’s Cholera Crisis — And Won’t be Held Responsible
If a multinational corporation behaved the way the U.N. did in Haiti, it would be sued for stratospheric amounts of money. And that’s just for starters: Were Unilever or Coca-Cola responsible for a cholera outbreak that killed 8,000 people and infected 640,000 more, and for subsequently covering up its employees’ failure to adhere to basic sanitation standards, it is likely their executives would have difficulty visiting countries claiming universal legal jurisdiction. They would have to contend with Interpol red notices, along with the occasional cream pie attack. And the companies themselves would go into damage control mode, akin to BP’s post-oil-spill public relations blitz, or Wal-Mart’s pivot toward promoting American-made products. They’d acknowledge the need to convince skeptical consumers that their corporate behavior had changed.
The U.N. and its leadership won’t have to worry about any of this. But maybe it should.
As award-winning journalist Jonathan Katz established in a bombshell chapter of his recent book, The Big Truck That Went By, a base for Nepalese U.N. peacekeepers next to the Artibonite River was the origin of the cholera epidemic that swept through Haiti in October of 2010. There had been no reported cases of cholera in Haiti for a century; now, the disease is endemic, and it is projected to kill as many as 1,000 people a year until it is eradicated, according to Brian Concannon, director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and a lawyer representing Haitian claimants against the U.N. Former president Bill Clinton, the U.N.’s special envoy for Haiti, has admitted that U.N. peacekeepers were responsible for the outbreak. But Katz, the AP’s Haiti correspondent in the years after the country’s devastating 2010 earthquake, was at the receiving end of a bungled U.N. cover-up of the epidemic’s cause. The World Body actively discouraged and even impeded journalists and public health investigators attempting to trace the causes of the pestilence. The U.N. never admitted responsibility, even as a U.N. commissioned-report left little room for doubt (the entire saga is recounted in Katz’s chapter, which should be read in full).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
More than a quarter of a million Bulgarians and Romanians have come to Britain over the past five years — even before the jobs market is fully opened to them.
About half that number were allowed in as farm workers on short-term contracts and thousands more got permanent posts.
In total, more than 175,000 National Insurance numbers were handed out to workers from the two countries. The remaining 75,000 people settled here with their families.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Eases Visa Process for Chinese Despite Their Cyber Attacks
On the same day that a report revealed that Chinese military officials perpetrated the cyber theft of an enormous amount of U.S. government confidential information and private corporate trade secrets, the Obama administration on Wednesday announced it will make it easier for Chinese citizens to obtain American visas.
According to officials familiar with the plans, the White House released a new report on Wednesday that describes steps the U.S. military, intelligence community, law enforcement agencies and private-sector security directors may take to turn the tide against cyber stealing linked to the Chinese government.
At the same time, according to New York Police Lieutenant Stanley Rodgers, the U.S. State Department is planning to launch a new application policy for non-immigrant visa applicants from China in spite of the cyberterrorism and corporate espionage alledgedly perpetrated by the Chinese government.
The Embassy of the United States in Beijing announced on Wednesday that the new policy will begin in March 2013.
According to Ambassador Gary Locke, the State Department will make the application process easier for applicants from China including a reduction in the cost of visa processing for Chinese citizens.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Liberalism: A Basic Primer — Or, Why Leftism is Failure Incarnate
Liberalism is the West’s unique gift to human freedom. While the roots stretch back to antiquity, it is only recently that liberty was assumed a basic human right. The great expansion of intellectual, artistic, scientific, political and economic growth coincides with the establishment of modern constitutional democracies based upon liberal theory, achieving all through freedom. This was delivered by such incomparable geniuses as John Locke and America’s Founders, like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.
And yet, no sooner had this great human achievement been accomplished when critics, such as Karl Marx and Vlad Lenin appeared demanding the theories of classical liberalism be put aside and its fruits shared by force. On the verge of a new dark age, liberty lovers must now fight back against the forces of tyranny or watch as our great achievements for freedom and prosperity are liquidated. This essay is the beginning of a two-part expose on Liberalism, which first explores its history.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Prehistoric Man Had Much Healthier Teeth and Gums Than Modern Humans
Our modern stereotype is that — until recently — people were plagued with rotting teeth, cavities and gum disease.
But the truth is that prehistoric people had much better oral health than we do today.
As NPR reports:
Prehistoric humans didn’t have toothbrushes. They didn’t have floss or toothpaste, and they certainly didn’t have Listerine. Yet somehow, their mouths were a lot healthier than ours are today.
“Hunter-gatherers had really good teeth,” says Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. “[But] as soon as you get to farming populations, you see this massive change. Huge amounts of gum disease. And cavities start cropping up.”
And thousands of years later, we’re still waging, and often losing, our war against oral disease.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Re: Coal Plants Likely the First Targets of Climate-Change Executive Orders
Good, the sooner coal is excised from energy generation the better. Shame that people are idiots and so terrified of nuclear energy.