Steven Miller, the acting director on the IRS, has resigned under pressure from the White House in the face of the latest scandal. Mr. Miller reportedly was aware that his agency was being used to target Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations.
In other news, in anticipation of summer riots, the British government is said to be secretly training police in the use of powerful water cannons, the same kind that were used to great effect in Northern Ireland.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to DS, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, McR, Steen, 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.
40,000 Apartments Repossessd in Spain
83% families unable to pay, says survey
(ANSAmed) — Madrid, 15 May — Almost 40,000 apartments were repossessed in Spain in 2012 due to the economic crisis. According to a survey by the Spanish central bank, 83% of the residents were families unable to pay their housing loans due to the impact of the crisis.
The evictions were reportedly linked to around 15 suicides since January last year. The rise in insolvency has been accelerated by an unemployment rate of 26.5%. There are now six million people without work but 57% of young people are jobless in Spain.
Of the total number of 39,167 homes, 32,490 were the families’ only residence.
At least 2,405 families were evicted and in 355 cases police were called to enforce the measures.
More than half the repossessions (20,972) took place voluntarily and of those 75% were considered payment to extinguish outstanding housing debt.
To deal with this phenomenon, the centre-right government of Mariano Rajoy last year presented a legislative proposal to delay the evictions for two years in cases where people were particularly disadvantaged.
That was approved by a few votes due to the Partito Popolare’s majority in the parliament.
A proposal backed by the opposition and eviction support groups and more than 1.5 million signatures called for a total block on evictions and other forms of payment including rental or social services payments.
A new law was approved two weeks ago with a single vote from the PP but does not contain any of the recommendations contained in the petition.
The law says the block on evictions should not be retroactive and that banks cannot directly carry out repossessions after three months of payment breaches by loan recipients.
The largest eviction association (PAH) last year blocked 650 repossessions and recently occupied a Barcelona bank to raise awareness in support of people facing eviction.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
There are many signs of gangster state America. One is the collusion between federal authorities and banksters in a criminal conspiracy to rig the markets for gold and silver.
My explanation that the sudden appearance of an unprecedented 400 ton short sale of gold on the COMEX in April was a manipulation designed to protect the dollar from the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policy has found acceptance among gold investors and hedge fund managers.
The sale was a naked short. The seller had no gold to sell. COMEX reported having gold only equal to about half of the short sale in its vaults, and not all of that was available for delivery. No one but the Federal Reserve could have placed such an order, and the order came from one of the Fed’s bullion banks, one of the entities “too big to fail.”
Bill Kaye of the Greater Asian Hedge Fund in Hong Kong and Dave Kranzler of Golden Returns Capital have filled in the details of how the manipulation worked. Being sophisticated investors of many years of experience, both Kaye and Kranzler understand that the financial press runs with the authorized story planted to serve the agenda that has been put into play.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 40% of Italians Cut Food Spending, Research Says
Great majority influenced by price
(ANSA) — Milan, May 14 — In the past year, 40% of Italian consumers hit by the economic crisis cut down food spending and one in 10 reduced portions and started recycling leftovers for meals, according to a study conducted by Astra Ricerche for food company Granarolo released on Tuesday.
Some 80% of consumers started choosing which product to buy based on price; health security was the second most important issue for 62% of consumers and the product’s origin was important for 57%, the study found. Quality was key in the choice of a product only for 50% of those polled. Restaurant meals were also drastically cut with 64% saying they only ate at home.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: House Approves 40-Billion-Euro Debt Payback Decree
Plan to repay money owed to businesses moves to Senate
(ANSA) — Rome, May 15 — A plan to pay 40 billion euros of the money that the public sector owes private companies over the next year was approved by the House on Wednesday. The decree, which passed by former premier Mario Monti’s technocrat administration before Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s government was sworn in last month, is already effective but needs to be ratified by parliament.
It now moves to the Senate after clearing the Lower House with 450 votes in favour, 107 abstentions and no votes against.
It is hoped that the debt payback will help jump-start growth in the eurozone’s third-largest economy, which has been mired in recession for almost two years.
The State actually owes the private sector more than 40 billion euros, but it is not clear how high the debt level is.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Monte Dei Paschi Shows Signs of Emerging From Troubles
Troubled bank reports 100 mln euros Q1 loss, revenues stable
(By Emily Backus) (ANSA) — Milan, May 15 — After months of bad news, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) saw its fortunes turn on the markets Wednesday. Stocks for the financially creaking, scandal-mired Italian bank rose 7.7% to 0.22 euros after issuing better-than-expected first-quarter results. The world’s oldest bank — and Italy’s third-largest lender — said it was just 100 million euros in the red, whereas analysts expected losses of 154 million euros. It also said it had staunched a decline in revenues despite scandal and controversy that have swirled around Italy’s third-largest lender since January. MPS CEO Fabrizio Viola told analysts in a conference call the bank will work “belly to the ground up to the last day of the year to try to pay off the interest on the Monti bonds” to ward off the threat of state control. MPS said in late April it might not be able to repay the controversial government bailout, commonly called “Monti bonds” after ex-premier Mario Monti whose technical government shepherded the deal through. The president of the Tuscan bank, Alessandro Profumo in April said it was “not certain” that MPS be able to refund the four-billion-euro package, which allows the state to take bank equity if it defaults.
Repaying the government bailout is “the main challenge” facing the bank, Profumo said.
However Profumo, who previously served as chief executive of Italy’s biggest commercial bank UniCredit, said the lender was on the right track.
“The bank has totally turned a corner with respect to the past in terms of transparency and capital solidity,” Profumo said.
Profumo also signaled that restructuring had improved competitiveness, though the bank still needed to work on profitability.
MPS in recent months revealed losses of more than three billion euros last year, and is at the centre of a huge fraud probe after a scandal over shady derivatives operations exploded in January.
It has since emerged that a previously undisclosed series of derivative and structured-finance deals produced losses of around 720 million euros. Senior officials from MPS are facing penalties totalling as much as five million euros from the Bank of Italy for alleged fraud and corruption.
In late April, an Italian judge rejected a prosecutors’ order for 1.8 billion euros of assets held by Japanese investment bank Nomura to be seized as part of the probe into the scandal.
Prosecutors ordered the seizure earlier this month and said they had put Nomura’s former chief executive in Europe, the Middle East and Africa under investigation. Nomura was involved in one of a series of suspect derivative and structured-finance deals involving MPS.
Prosecutors said Sadeq Sayeed, the former head of Nomura International plc, was being probed along with another manager from the Japanese investment bank, Raffaele Ricci.
The prosecutors said the Nomura seizure regarded 88 million euros of hidden commissions received by Nomura and 1.7 billion euros of funds deposited with Nomura by MPS by way of collateral for a loan.
But a judge said there was no urgent need to seize the assets.
The judge also overruled an order to seize 14 million euros belonging to former MPS chairman Giuseppe Mussari, former general manager Antonio Vigni and former finance chief Gianluca Baldassarri.
Sayeed, Ricci, Mussari, Vigni and Baldassarri are being probed for crimes including usury, aggravated fraud, obstructing banking watchdogs and issuing false statements.
The judge on Saturday expressed doubts about the validity of the possible charges of usury and fraud. Mussari last year resigned from MPS and stepped down from his subsequent post as chairman of the banking association ABI after the scandal exploded in January. Baldassarri is under house arrest. There are also suspicions senior MPS managers were involved in alleged corruption in the nine-billion-euro acquisition of rival bank Antonveneta, at least two billion above its market value, in 2008.
David Rossi, MPS’s communications chief, committed suicide in March by throwing himself out of a window at the bank’s headquarters in Tuscany. He was not being probed.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Acting Chief of I.R.S. Forced Out Over Tea Party Targeting
President Obama announced Wednesday night that the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service had been fired, and he pledged that his administration would cooperate with Congressional investigations into the targeting of conservative groups that are building momentum.
Speaking in the White House’s formal East Room, the president said Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had asked for and accepted the resignation of Steven Miller, who was aware of the agency’s efforts to single out conservative groups for special scrutiny in early 2012 as a deputy I.R.S. commissioner.
Mr. Miller is scheduled to testify on Friday before the House Ways and Means Committee in the first of a series of hearings on the I.R.S. targeting scandal.
| [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) Angelina Jolie announced yesterday that she had both of her breasts surgically removed even though she had no breast cancer. She carries the BRCA1 gene, and she has been tricked into believing that genetic code is some sort of absolute blueprint to disease expression — which it most certainly is not. Countless millions of women carry the BRCA1 gene and never express breast cancer because they lead healthy, anti-cancer lifestyles based on smart nutrition, exercise, sensible sunlight exposure and avoidance of cancer-causing chemicals.
Jolie, like many other women who have been deluded by cancer quackery, decided the best way to prevent the risk of breast cancer was not to lead a healthy, anti-cancer lifestyle, but rather to surgically remove her breasts in what she describes as “three months of medical procedures.”
…just in case, you know. Because you can never be too careful these days, with the cancer industry scaring women half to death at every opportunity. “My breasts might murder me!” seems to be the slogan of many women these days, all of whom are victims of outrageous cancer industry propaganda and fear mongering.
Let me set the record straight: Your breasts are not your enemy! The cancer industry is far more likely to kill you than your breasts. (But more on that later…)
Worse than merely maiming herself in an act of outright medical quackery, Angelina Jolie has positioned her decision as some sort of women’s liberation crusade, acting and talking as if her “choice” to remove her breasts somehow blazes a new path of female power for all women. (How sick is this, really?)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Are You Ready for RFID Chips Built Into Your Money and Documents?
North Dakota State University. researchers have developed a new way of embedding traceable chips within “smart” paper — raising the possibility of banks and governments guarding against counterfeiting and even tracking the usage of paper money, IEEE Spectrum reports.
The new method of embedding radio frequency identification chips (RFID) in paper uses a patent-pending technology called Laser Enabled Advanced Packaging (LEAP) to transfer and assemble the traceable RFID chips on paper. Such “smart” paper could lead to new types of banknotes, legal documents, tickets and smart labels.
The European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan to launch separate projects based on that possibility,a and Saudi Arabian researchers have begun their own efforts to embed RFID chips in Saudi Arabian currency.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Associated Press Feels the Wrath of the Orwellian Police State Government it Helped Put Into Power
(NaturalNews) Associated Press reporters are outraged over recent revelations that the Obama administration engaged in a “sweeping seizure” of the private phone records of AP reporters as part of a Justice Department investigation. No probable cause was given to anyone, and hundreds of AP reporters were simply deemed guilty by the government as their phone call records were confiscated without explanation.
Politico is now reporting:
The behind-the-scenes anger — and heads-down determination of the AP staff members to keep doing their jobs amid the extraordinary public flap — comes as top executives from the wire service have mounted an aggressive public pushback against DOJ, calling its snooping a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” in a letter fired off to Attorney General Eric Holder. And yet something of a bunkerlike atmosphere has taken hold at the AP in Washington with no bureau-wide meetings or announcements about the DOJ’s action, AP sources told POLITICO.
But what’s not being reported is that the Associated Press helped create the very police state it now condemns for violating its freedoms and privacy.
Over the last several years, AP has come down on the side of big government on practically every story, routinely attacking the Bill of Rights, demonizing protectors of the Constitution and endorsing government monopolies over everything from health care to the money supply.
The AP, in fact, falsely refers to itself as a “news organization” when the truth is that it has functioned far more like a big government propaganda mouthpiece that anything resembling independent news reporting.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Beemageddon’ Threatens US With Food Disaster
Honey bees pollinate more than 100 US crops, including apples, zucchinis, avocados and plums, that are worth more than $200 billion a year. Since 2006, about 10 million bee hives at an average value of $200 each have been lost in what scientists call the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), according to a new report by the US Department of Agriculture.
There are currently about 2.5 million honey bee colonies in the US, which is a drastic decrease from the 6 million that existed in 1947 and the 3 million that existed in 1990. Last winter alone, the honey bee population declined by 31.1 percent, with some beekeepers reporting losses of 90 to 100 percent. In the previous two winters, beekeepers lost about 22 percent of their populations.
“Currently, the survivorship of honey bee colonies is too low for us to be confident in our ability to meet the pollination demands of US agricultural crops,” the USDA report states.
California’s almond crop, which blooms toward the end of winter, would suffer the most. About 80 percent of the global almond supply comes from the Golden State’s orchards, and 70 percent of the state’s crop is marketed overseas.
US beekeepers truck about 1.5 million out-of-state colonies to the almond orchards each year, which depend on the insect’s pollination. The colonies are tasked with pollinating about 760,000 acres of almond trees at the end of each winter. It takes 60 percent of all US bee colonies to pollinate the $4 billion crop.
Zac Browning, a beekeeper, told NPR that the almond orchards have become “ground zero in commercial beekeeping” and that many beekeepers drive over from their home base in the Midwest.
But with a bee shortage that gets worse every year, many of the almond orchards will never be pollinated, which could eventually cause a global almond shortage and economic consequences for the US.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Biotech’s Next Big Disaster: Seeds That Emit Multiple Pesticides
Tom Laskawy, writing at Grist, points out how the next generation of GMOs is following in the track of present disasters:
“…the growing pest and weed problems for GMOs have caused farmers to turn to seeds that are coated with a different pesticide — a neonicotinoid. If that name rings a bell, it’s because these pesticides… have been implicated in the increasing epidemic of bee deaths.
“And that’s aside from the evidence that biotech’s ‘next big thing’ — seeds that emit multiple pesticides — may be doomed to fail. An international team of researchers, including USDA and biotech scientists, found what they termed ‘cross-resistance’ to these pesticides in [predatory] bugs exposed to the next-generation GMO seeds. Evidence, in other words, that GMO seeds are hitting a bug-covered wall.” The seeds don’t knock out the plant pests…
For those who continue to parrot the company/government line that there is no difference between GMO and conventional crops, and claim “that’s good science,” here are smoking gun data from Mosanto’s own researchers.
The data were uncovered by science writer Barbara Keeler in 2000. Keeler published pieces in the Whole Life Times and the LA Times. The Whole Life Times piece was titled: “Buried Data in Monsanto’s Study on Roundup Ready Beans.”
Keeler discovered that, in 1994, when Monsanto submitted studies to the FDA, to win approval for GMO soybeans, highly significant data were hidden.
Roundup Ready (RR) Monsanto beans contained 29% less choline than conventional non-GMO beans.
RR beans contained “27% more trypsin inhibitor, an allergen that inhibits protein digestion, can retard growth in animals fed raw soybeans, and has been connected to enlarged cells in rat pancreases.”
In data Monsanto failed to submit to the FDA, from its Puerto Rico field trials, RR beans “were significantly lower in protein and the amino acid phenylalanine.”
In retoasted RR soy meal, “levels of allergens called lectins…almost doubled the levels [found] in controls [non-GMO meal].”
n other words, there was quite enough evidence, in 1994, to halt the whole FDA approval process of Monsanto soy. It was there in Monsanto’s own studies. And it was ignored and buried.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Dark Matter — “The Tip of an Iceberg of Another World Unrelated to Ours”
Answering the observation that the dark matter particle might not be detectable at a colloquium organized by the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, Michael Turner, a theoretical cosmologist trained in both particle physics and astrophysics who coined the term “dark energy,” said that for 20 to 30 years, this idea that dark matter is part of a unified theory has been our Holy Grail and has led to the WIMP hypothesis and the belief that the dark matter particle is detectable. “But there’s a new generation of physicists that is saying, ‘Well, there’s an alternative view. Dark matter is actually just the tip of an iceberg of another world that is unrelated to our world. And I cannot even tell you about that world. There are no rules for that other world, at least that we know of yet. “Ten years ago,” Turner says, “I don’t think you would’ve found astronomers, cosmologists, and particle physicists all agreeing that dark matter was really important. And now, they do. And all of them believe we can solve the problem soon. It’s wonderful listening to particle physicists explain the evidence for dark matter, and vice versa — astronomers explaining WIMPs as dark matter. “
“As cosmologists,” said Rocky Kolb, who studies the application of elementary-particle physics to the very early Universe, and is the co-author with Michael Turner of The Early Universe, the standard textbook on particle physics and cosmology, “one of our jobs is to understand what the universe is made of. To a good approximation, the galaxies and other structures we see in the universe are made predominantly of dark matter. We have concluded this from a tremendous body of evidence, and now we need to discover what exactly is dark matter. The excitement now is that we are closing in on an answer, and only once in the history of humans will someone discover it. “
“Nothing in cosmology makes sense without dark matter, says Turner. “We needed it to form galaxies, stars and other structures in the Universe. And so it’s absolutely central to cosmology. We also know that none of the particles known to exist can be the dark matter particle. So it has to be a new particle of nature. Remarkably, our most conservative hypothesis right now is that the dark matter is a new form of matter — out there to be discovered and to teach us about particle physics.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Downfall Coming Through Coalition of Islamists and Marxists? (Video)
‘If we’re going to get a grip on this, we have to know their narrative and understand it’
A noted specialist on Islamic law and ideology from the Center for Security Policy, who has been cited as an expert for the Pentagon, says a coalition of Islamists and Marxists is working to destroy the United States.
The comments come from Stephen Coughlin, a lecturer for leading Department of Defense institutions such as the Naval War College, Marine Corps HQ-Quantico and for the FBI. Coughlin is a retired major in the U.S. Army reserves and was assigned to USCENTCOM, with a military intelligence specialty.
His assignments included the Pentagon’s National Military Joint Intelligence Center, the National Security Council’s Interagency Perception Management Threat Panel and the intelligence staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, so he has the credentials required for such assessments.
He recently addressed the Northern Virginia Chapter of ACT! for America, where he quoted terrorist Carlos the Jackal, who said, “Only a coalition of Islamists and Marxists can destroy the United States.” Thus, Coughlin said, “If we’re going to get a grip on this, we have to know their narrative and understand it. We know that when the other side has language that’s locked into doctrine, we need to hold them to it.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Fossils Indicate Common Ancestor for Two Primate Groups
Find suggests Old World monkeys and apes diverged 25 million years ago.
Palaeontologists working in Tanzania have discovered the oldest known fossils from two major primate groups — Old World monkeys, which include baboons and macaques, and apes, which include humans and chimpanzees. The study, published online today in Nature1, reveals new information about primate evolution.
A team led by Nancy Stevens, a palaeontologist at Ohio University in Athens, recovered a lone tooth and a jaw fragment with three teeth from a site in the Rukwa Rift Basin in southwestern Tanzania. Precise geological dating of nearby rocks indicates that the fossils are 25.2 million years old, several million years older than any other example from either primate group.
This dating places the discovery in the Oligocene epoch, which extends from about 34 million to 23 million years ago. “Before the discoveries from Rukwa, only three primate genera had been described from all of the late Oligocene, globally,” says Stevens. The new find “underscores the importance of palaeontological reconnaissance in under-sampled regions.”
More importantly, the fossil trove “fills in a roughly 10-million-year gap in primate evolution,” says John Fleagle, an anthropologist at Stony Brook University in New York.
The discovery also reconciles the fossil record analyses of ‘molecular clocks’ — mutations in DNA that can be traced back to estimate how long ago two species diverged. Molecular clocks suggest that Old World monkeys and apes split from their common ancestor 25 million to 30 million years ago.
“It’s a confirmation that the molecular-clock studies are decent estimates for what’s going on in geological time,” says Michael Steiper, an anthropologist at Hunter College of the City University of New York.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Gen. Vallely: White House in ‘Collusion’ With Other Agencies on Benghazi (Video)
The White House is guilty of employing “Chicago-style tactics’’ to quash the true story behind the deadly attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, retired U.S. Army Major Gen. Paul Vallely says.
“The Obama administration uses heavy-handed Chicago-style tactics to put the lid on people and they threaten them,’’ Vallely told “The Steve Malzberg Show’’ on Newsmax TV.
Vallely charged the White House with being in “collusion’’ with other top agencies in allegedly covering up the mistakes that led to a lack of security and intelligence that allowed the attack to take place.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Government Lab Reveals it Has Operated Quantum Internet for Over Two Years
A quantum internet capable of sending perfectly secure messages has been running at Los Alamos National Labs for the last two and a half years, say researchers.
One of the dreams for security experts is the creation of a quantum internet that allows perfectly secure communication based on the powerful laws of quantum mechanics.
The basic idea here is that the act of measuring a quantum object, such as a photon, always changes it. So any attempt to eavesdrop on a quantum message cannot fail to leave telltale signs of snooping that the receiver can detect. That allows anybody to send a “one-time pad” over a quantum network which can then be used for secure communication using conventional classical communication.
That sets things up nicely for perfectly secure messaging known as quantum cryptography and this is actually a fairly straightforward technique for any half decent quantum optics lab. Indeed, a company called ID Quantique sells an off-the-shelf system that has begun to attract banks and other organisations interested in perfect security.
These systems have an important limitation, however. The current generation of quantum cryptography systems are point-to-point connections over a single length of fibre, So they can send secure messages from A to B but cannot route this information onwards to C, D, E or F. That’s because the act of routing a message means reading the part of it that indicates where it has to be routed. And this inevitably changes it, at least with conventional routers. This makes a quantum internet impossible with today’s technology
Various teams are racing to develop quantum routers that will fix this problem by steering quantum messages without destroying them. We looked at one of the first last year. But the truth is that these devices are still some way from commercial reality.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hillary & Bill Clinton Redux: Obama’s IRS Scandal From Clinton Playbook
Knock me over with a whisper. The mainstream press and politicians are outraged to discover that the Obama administration has been misusing the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) for political gain by deliberately targeting and harassing Conservative and Tea Party groups who applied for tax-exempt status.
These same people are also shocked that a government agency would illegally leak out confidential information to the media. Where have you been all these years? Did you not think it wouldn’t happen to you or anyone else? This is what happens when corrupt politicians are not held accountable. They are emboldened. Their abuse of power grows like cancer and more innocent people are caught in their crosshairs. Newsflash: the Obama administration has taken a page out of the Clinton playbook.
Misusing the IRS to intimidate and harass anyone who disagreed with them or dared to speak truth to power worked superbly and was an effective tool during the Hillary and Bill Clinton White House years — and they got away with it. So why wouldn’t the Obama White House do it as well?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
IRS Scandal Reaches to White House
Cleta Mitchell, one of Washington’s most respected elections attorneys, told Newsmax she has tangible proof that high-ranking IRS officials in Washington were fully aware of the agency’s campaign to target conservative groups for heightened scrutiny, despite their denials.
And she thinks the president knew about the practice, too. If proven, she said, it could be an impeachable offense.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mainstream Media Tactic: Label All Opposing Views as ‘Conspiracy Theories’
What does the mainstream media do when they don’t want to discuss a real issue that diverts away the topic from political theater? Simply deem it a wild ‘conspiracy theory’ and pretend it doesn’t exist.
It’s a tried and true method. It has worked for a long line of question-dodging politicians, with both Bush and Obama each speaking out against ‘conspiracy theories’ and those who warn against corruption and tyranny in government. As I detailed last week, in fact, Obama recently spoke to the graduating class of Ohio State University and repeated such warnings. He told the class to ignore and reject those warning of government tyranny, and went on to praise the new United States government system he called ‘brave’ and ‘unique’.
And anyone who decides to attack this ‘brave and unique’ government, or anyone who even questions reports by the government? They must be conspiracy nuts. I joined John B. Wells of Coast to Coast AM a couple weeks ago to discuss how this media tactic works and how I decided to turn to reality over media theater:
Government Criticism Now Equals ‘conspiracy Theories’
The easiest way to deal with real issues certainly isn’t to refute the questions or discuss the information. No, it’s to brand those asking questions as conspiracy theorists. That, or just censor them altogether. Even Google employees have issued warnings on the official company blog regarding the continued requests initiated by governments around the globe to ‘pull’ content from Google’s massive search and blog service. From Google Plus (their Facebook equivalent) posts to legitimate search rankings, Google says that governments are demanding all forms of government criticism be taken down immediately.
Right now, over 24,000 pieces of content may disappear if Google caves. That’s 24,000 pieces of content that likely includes my articles and other alternative news pieces that criticize our ‘brave’ new government. And expect thousands to be added to that list very quickly.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Marine Officer Steve Klein Says: Benghazi Cover Up Began at the Top
As U.S. lawmakers continue to peel away layers of the Benghazi cover up, the partisan politics involved during the Congressional probes that have been twisted and maligned by members of the news media appear to be the only stories most news organizations are covering.
For example, little attention is being paid to the mysterious filmmaker who created the motion picture, “Innocence of Muslims,” which President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other administration minions blamed for the deaths of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, according to a former U.S. Marine, who worked on the now famous motion picture, in an exclusive interview with NewsWithViews.com.
While the filmmaker was first identified as Sam Bacile immediately following the terrorist attack in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, it was later learned, through court documents from a 2009 indictment and conviction for bank fraud, that the filmmaker’s real name is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.
Sam Bacile is a pseudonym and he uses aliases — Mark Basseley Youssef, Yousseff M. Basseley, Nicola Bacily and Malid Ahlawi — to avoid being victimized by Muslims from his homeland, which many believe is Egypt, according to former Marine Captain Steve Klein in an exclusive interview with NewsWithViews.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Miami Artist Uses His Own Body Fat to Make Soap
Miami-based performance artist Orestes de la Paz has put his heart, soul and fat into 20 bars of special soap made with his liposuctioned blubber. The bars of human soap are available for purchase and priced at $1,000.
Orestes de la Paz underwent a liposuction procedure in December of last year, and decided to turn the removed fat into soap to prevent it from going rancid. He came up with the idea for his art thesis after realizing that “clients are willing to try anything to feel and look beautiful, even to the extent of buying products with human elements in them (stem cells, placenta, semen; you name it, it’s out there.)” Working as a hairstylist and make-up artist, Orestes loves combining the worlds of art and beauty together, so the unusual project sort of made sense to him. Apart from coconut oil, organic vegetable shortening, lavender and tree tea oils, as well as other cosmetics ingredients, his unique soap bars are 25% human fat, which apparently leaves the user’s hands soft after washing.
“There’s always a certain amount of blood, sweat, and tears that goes into any artwork. I just make it more explicit,” the artist said about his bizarre project.
When he first got the idea to use fat from his liposuction in an art piece, he was going to turn into some kind of acrylic memoir, but his doctor told him that in order to keep it he would have to convert the blubber into something else. That’s when all the extensive biology classes he took during college finally came in handy — he remembered soap is made with fat. “There’s something about converting the notions about how we approach fat that can sometimes be seen as dirty or repulsive … Being able to convert it into something that is cleansing and also potentially healing reflects off of the phrase ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness.’ Cleaning the outside with stuff from the inside. Converting something that was dirty and putting it into something that was clean, and then putting that thing that I saw as dirty onto my body and reclaiming what I was ashamed of before, “ de la Paz told the Miami New Times.
“Making Soap”, Orestes’ art thesis, is currently displayed at Miami’s Frost Museum, where attendees can actually wash their hands with his lipo-soap. “The museum-goers were so at ease, that the idea of the soap being from human fat escaped their minds and they simply enjoyed the soap for it’s lavender, tree tree scent and the way it left the hands soft after washing,” the artist told HuffPost Miami. “Those brave enough to wash ended up inspiring others to simply to try a good product. No one seemed disgusted by the soap demo even after having watched the video in the gallery.”
People interested in this organic human fat soap can buy a bar for $1,000, but he has extended a special invitation to the all-thing-weird lover we all know as Lady Gaga. “I challenge ladygaga to try my human fat soap. You down, homie?” Orestes de la Paz wrote on Twitter.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Michigan Federal Judge in Michigan Supports Muslim Violence Against Christian Protected Speech
Yesterday, in the Eastern Michigan Federal District Court, Judge Patrick Duggan struck down a complaint brought by the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) on behalf of a Christian Group physically assaulted at an Arab Festival in Dearborn, Michigan in June 2012 for exercising their protected speech rights under our First Amendment. In the words of AFLC counsel, Robert Muise, Esq. this amounted to granting a ‘Heckler’s Veto’ to the predominately Muslim community in Dearborn to suppress Free speech through violent actions. The Judge’s ruling violated existing Constitutional case law. Muise and co-counsel David Yerushalmi, Esq. of ACFL within minutes of the Federal District Court ruling made application for appeal to the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. According to co-counsel Muise, the AFCL is prepared to take the matter to the US Supreme Court, if necessary to redress this patent wrongheaded decision. This ruling by Judge Patrick may emboldens Muslim advocacy groups in America to commit violence elsewhere until voided by Federal Appellate and, if need be, US Supreme Court action. The Supreme Court has established precedents in rulings preserving protected speech rights under our First Amendment. This ruling by Judge Duggan yesterday should buttress the case for passage of American Law for American Courts at the state level.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Plotted to Kill 100,000 in Chemical Attack
Plan was to contaminate air or water supply in major U.S. city
A Muslim man arrested last month in a terror plot in New York was planning to kill as many as 100,000 people by contaminating the air or water supply in a major U.S. city, the FBI alleges.
Ahmed Abassi, 26, was studying chemical engineering at Laval University in Quebec City, reports Canada’s CBC News.
Abassi’s plan did not materialize beyond discussions, but he is also being linked to Chiheb Esseghaier, one of two Canadian residents arrested in the alleged plot to derail a Via passenger train.
CBC News said American investigators have accused Abassi of fraudulently applying for a visa to stay in the U.S. to “facilitate an act of international terrorism.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
NASA’s Kepler Spacecraft in Jeopardy After Malfunction, Astronomers Say
NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has been crippled by the failure of one of the reaction wheels that keep it pointed, the space agency is announcing this afternoon, according to astronomers close to the situation.
If engineers cannot restore the wheel or find some other way to keep the spacecraft’s telescope pointed, it could spell a premature end to one of the most romantic and successful of NASA’s missions: the search for Earth-like planets in habitable orbits around other stars. Just last month, astronomers reported that Kepler had found two planets only slightly larger than Earth orbiting in the “Goldilocks” zone, where liquid water is possible, of a star 1,200 light-years from here. More planet candidates, even smaller and closer to being Earth-like, lurk in the pipeline, astronomers say, but they have not yet been confirmed.
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Obama Tells Wealthy Gathering He Wants to “Institutionalize” Crisis Atmosphere
Cites aftermath of Boston terrorism as way of moving agenda forward
Complaining about a lack of community spirit in Washington DC, the president said Sunday that he wishes to see institutionalized the kind of atmosphere that emerged in Boston following the recent terrorist bombings, so his administration can get things done.
Obama made the comments while speaking to wealthy millionaires at a fundraiser inside a five-story mansion owned by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Only 60 guests were present at the event, with names from banking, fashion and entertainment, including singer Justin Timberlake, actress Jessica Biel, and designer Tommy Hilfiger.
“More than anything, what I will be striving for over the next three and a half years is to see if that spirit we saw in Boston and West Texas, to see if we can institutionalize that [and] if we can create a framework where everybody’s working together and moving this country forward,” Obama is quoted as saying in a press pool report highlighted by The Daily Caller.
Obama is clearly referring to the Boston attacks, as well as the explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas last month. In both situations, communities were reduced to states of confusion, panic and fear in the face of crisis.
Obama is said to have noted that such events have a positive impact of rallying Americans together, and that such an impact should be made commonplace.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ooops… Hot Mic Reveals Lawmakers Intent to Confiscate Guns
Every American gun owner, regardless of the state in which you live, is presently or will be the target of gun confiscation. A state-by-state framework of confiscation is being erected in front of us all to strip us of our rights under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Proof of this nefarious intent of disarming citizens was serendipitously caught by a “hot” microphone at the conclusion of the May 9, 2013 meeting of the New Jersey State Legislature.
At the conclusion of the New Jersey Senate Budget & Appropriations Committee meeting last Thursday, an open microphone caught three state senators, identified by voice as Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, Assistant Majority Leader Sandra Cunningham, Senate Majority Whip Linda Greenstein, and at least one staff member talking candidly about their intent to confiscate all guns from the people they serve. It should be noted that Senator Loretta Weinberg is the chief proponent of the anti-gun legislation being moved through the New Jersey State Senate.
Although some of the candid conversation is a bit difficult to discern due to the ambient noise, their message is clear. “We need[ed] a bill that was going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate,” stated one high ranking senate member. “They don’t care about the bad guys. All they want to do is have their ‘little guns’ and do whatever they want with them,” added another in an obviously demeaning manner. Another conceded that gun owners do, in fact, want to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, but added that “they don’t have any regulations to do it.” Oh really?
For anyone doubting the bitter contempt these legislators hold for gun owners and pro-Constitutionalists, a YouTube video that captured the “open microphone moment” is available for review .
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Planet-Hunting Kepler Spacecraft Suffers Major Failure, NASA Says
The planet-hunting days of NASA’s prolific Kepler space telescope, which has discovered more than 2,700 potential alien worlds to date, may be over.
The second of Kepler’s four reaction wheels — devices that allow the observatory to maintain its position in space — has failed, NASA officials announced Wednesday (May 15).
If one or both of those failed wheels cannot be brought back, the telescope likely cannot lock onto target stars precisely enough to detect orbiting planets, scientists have said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Progressive Group: IRS Gave US Conservative Groups’ Confidential Docs
The progressive-leaning investigative journalism group ProPublica says the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office that targeted and harassed conservative tax-exempt groups during the 2012 election cycle gave the progressive group nine confidential applications of conservative groups whose tax-exempt status was pending.
The commendable admission lends further evidence to the lengths the IRS went during an election cycle to silence tea party and limited government voices.
ProPublica says the documents the IRS gave them were “not supposed to be made public”:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rand Paul: AP Phone Spying Proves Obama is “Drunk on Power”
Senator Rand Paul responded to the barrage of scandals to hit the Obama administration, from Benghazi, to the IRS targeting conservatives, to the Justice Department spying on Associated Press reporters, by accusing President Obama of being “drunk on power.”
Scoffing at an upcoming House Committee on Ways & Means inquiry into how the IRS targeted those who mentioned the Constitution, the bill of rights, or even making “America a better place to live,” Kentucky Senator Paul said he would introduce a resolution today calling for the IRS agents involved to be fired for abusing their power in targeting people for their political activities.
“The President says he’s going to do something if they’re guilty, well it sounds like there’s already been an investigation and no one’s been fired,” Paul told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “I’m afraid he’s going to do about as much as he did after Benghazi,” he added, noting that those involved in the botched security operation still work for the State Department.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Scandals Expose Truth About Obama
Our president must find his happy place again, away from irritating controversies.
Like Benghazi, where four Americans died and he stood before the United Nations and made a phony reference to a ridiculous video in order to save his politics at the expense of the truth.
And now it’s known that his Internal Revenue Service was used to threaten conservative and tea party groups and quash political dissent. The IRS also leaked damaging information from secret files against his political enemies to the media, prompting some to call him President Barack Milhous Obama.
Another scandal, involving the Justice Department seizing reporters’ phone records hoping to find administration leaks, is a chilling assault on the First Amendment that would have made Nixon or J. Edgar Hoover smile.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Shock Video: California Police Break Into Home, Taze Victims
In perhaps one of the most shocking police brutality videos of recent years, police in Cotati, California respond to a call about “domestic violence” by kicking down the door of a man’s home before tazing him and his wife as they scream in agony.
The video begins with the cops standing on the man’s front lawn looking in through the window having responded to a report of a noise disturbance called in by neighbors. Despite the fact that the couple are obviously not at loggerheads and no harm is coming to anybody, the police announce that they are going to break into the house without a warrant.
“Why are you guys not coming out?,” asks one of the officers, bemused at the fact that someone wouldn’t follow orders.
“Because we don’t live in a police state, sir. Martial law has not been established in this country,” responds the homeowner.
The officer then orders the couple to get down on the ground and put their hands behind their backs, adding, “We’re gonna kick in the door.”
The cops kick down the door and enter the home with guns drawn as the homeowner exclaims, “You have no right to be in here!”
Despite the fact that the woman clearly has her hands in the air, a cop tazes her as she screams out in pain. The man is then also tazed.
The video clip has caused shockwaves across the Internet and has already gone viral along with an outpouring of support for the family.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Terrorist Super-Axis to Strike Within U.S. (Video)
Imminent attacks planned by al-Qaida, Quds Forces, Hezbollah
Update: On Tuesday, the source provided additional new information on the terrorists’ plan for a major attack — that it is to take place within weeks and is planned to be “spectacular,” using a new method. The information was immediately passed on to the appropriate U.S. agency.
Iran has given the go-ahead to operatives of three terrorist groups that have infiltrated the United States to carry out missions, including what is expected to be a Mumbai-style attack on a hotel where innocent bystanders would be killed, WND has learned.
A full report with many details of the missions has been passed on to U.S. officials.
Three targets have been chosen within America for imminent attack, and the terror teams have now cut communications with the operational center in Iran, a sign that they are moving ahead with the attacks, according to a high-level intelligence officer within the Islamic regime.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Wit and Wisdom of Herbert Romerstein
(Tribute to the late Herbert Romerstein)
Five months before Barack Obama was elected to his first term as president, Herbert Romerstein and I finished a Washington, D.C. briefing on “The Stealth Candidate” — Barack Obama — and his communist connections. I opened it up for questions. “I’m Dana Milbank from The Washington Post,” said the questioner. “So what’s the upshot? Do you think that Barack Obama is a communist?”
Not wanting to fall into an obvious trap, I replied, “We have no way to judge.”
But Herb told Milbank: “No, let’s answer that one a little differently. We’re telling you that you’re not doing your job. We didn’t say Obama was a communist. We said that you have to do due diligence in tracking down what Obama really is because right now he’s a stealth candidate. So, if you don’t do your job, that’s your problem. “
“Herb, you just got us a bad story in The Washington Post, for crying out loud,” I said. To which Herb responded, “I don’t remember ever seeing a good story in The Washington Post.”
Milbank promptly did write a story, labeling Herb “a living relic from the House Committee on Un-American Activities.” It was this committee, of course, that uncovered the treason of State Department official Alger Hiss and his service to the Soviet Union.
Herb’s family, friends and admirers paid tribute to him at a graveside burial service on May 9. This veteran of the Korean War fought for his country not only in wartime but also in peacetime, when the communists continued their onslaught against the West through other means. His wife Pat accepted the American flag in his honor. His daughters talked about their father’s dedication to the cause of freedom and family, as they recounted how he would question and challenge their own beliefs and statements. They cried but also laughed. Herb could be serious but funny, as he showed in that exchange with Milbank.
Herb did the serious research Milbank and his associates did not want to do. He helped unmask one of their icons, I.F. Stone, as a Soviet agent, and exposed Senator Ted Kennedy’s collaboration with the Soviet KGB.
It’s true that Herb worked for the House Committee on Un-American Activities. He also worked for the House Internal Security Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, and headed the Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation and Active Measures of the United States Information Agency. He was part of the Reagan Revolution that safeguarded our freedom and turned back the Soviet Union and its proxies in the 1980s. As a result of his research in the archives of the Communist International in Moscow, which were briefly opened for outside inspection after the Soviet collapse, Herb ascertained that Harry Bridges of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union had been a secret member of the Communist Party USA. Bridges had always denied party membership.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Thousands of Airline Pilots Witness UFOs
WASHINGTON — Airline pilots see unidentified flying objects but very few report it because of ridicule.
According to the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena, (NARCAP) there have been over 3,500 documented sightings of “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” by military, commercial, and civilian pilots. But Captain Jim Courant, a commercial pilot for over 31 years, says there are many more sightings that are just not reported.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In an interview with ABC News/Yahoo! News last Friday, former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) said statements by U.S. Air Force nuclear missile launch officers — regarding mysterious aerial objects interfering with the functionality of American ICBMs — make clear that top government officials are lying to the public when they claim to have no knowledge of national security-related UFO incidents.
Gravel first gained national recognition in 1971, by placing the still-classified Pentagon Papers — which documented U.S. government malfeasance during the Vietnam War — into the public record.
Gravel said the revelations by former/retired Captains Robert Salas, Bruce Fenstermacher, and David Schindele, as well as retired Security Policeman Sgt. David Scott, are “the smoking gun of the whole issue” of government secrecy on UFOs.
The interview may be viewed at at //news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/former-sen-mike-grave l-says-white-house-suppressing-112957111.html?vp=1.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Z Street’s Suit Against IRS for Viewpoint Discrimination Gains Media Attention
After we posted on the kerfuffle over IRS attacks on conservative Tea Party, Patriot groups and Z Street for viewpoint discrimination, I spoke with my colleague, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, President of the pro-Israel group. We discussed the distinctions between Z Street’s legal action against the IRS versus IRS targeting of conservative groups. The latter had applied for 501 (c) (4) status as social welfare groups while the original Z Street application was for tax exempt status under 501( c) (3). We chanced to view a PBS News Hour program featuring a discussion about these important differences. The segment featured Duke Law School Professor, Richard J. Schmalbeck, an expert on non-profit tax law, and Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). Sekulow is representing Tea Party and Patriot groups in litigation with the IRS. He and Marcus had met in Israel at a conference during which she explained the facts and basis for the Z Street law suit. It wa soriginally filed original in August 2010 in the Eastern Pennsylvania District Court and since transferred to the DC District Court, where it will be heard in early July. See our June 2009 NER Article, “Zakat and Terrorism”. Gerstein of Politico would have us believe that there may be an emerging alliance of conservative Tea Party Groups and Muslim charities whose raison d’etre is supporting the way of Allah, Jihad. Nothing could be further from the truth. That amounts to terrorism sponsoring Islamic charities attempting to horn in on the current IRS litigation by the ACLJ and Z Street and Department of Justice investigations. Bizarre.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Canadian PM Must be Held to Account for Dangerous Climate Change Policy
Why is Harper allowing Canada to be sucked into another Kyoto Protocol?
Canadians are frustrated by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s non-answer to critical questions about the world-wide climate change agreement his government supports. Those attending his presentation to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City on Thursday should ask the Prime Minister why he promotes what is in effect another Kyoto Protocol, even though he condemns the first protocol as worse than useless.
Most developed nations, Canada and the U.S. included, support the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as the body to coordinate an international, legally-binding greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction agreement. The current foundation for UNFCCC climate negotiations are the Cancun Agreements; virtually all nations have agreed to these documents, although they are not yet legally-binding. Since their creation in December 2010, the Agreements have been strongly boosted by both the Canadian and American governments as the solution to our supposed climate woes.
Unknown to most people is the fact that developing nations were effectively given an opt-out clause in the Cancun Agreements. This would allow them to agree to legally-binding emission cuts but then never actually have to carry them out. Developed nations do not have this option. In other words, any agreement based on Cancun would become another Kyoto Protocol in which the developed world would be held to rigid GHG reduction targets while developing nations would not be.
Here are two of the applicable clauses from Cancun:
[…]
In other words, if a Cancun-based treaty ever became international law, GHG reduction would proceed in developing nations only to the extent that it does not interfere with their “first and overriding priorities” of “social and economic development and poverty eradication.” Developed countries would be held to their emission reduction obligations regardless of the impact on their societies.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bonino Confirms 200 NATO Troops in Sicily Over Libya Concern
U.S. forces near in case of escalating violence
(ANSA) — Rome, May 15 — Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino on Wednesday confirmed that only 200 American NATO troops were being moved to Sicily to be ready for rapid deployment if any new attacks occur in Libya.
“It is taking place in accordance with bilateral agreements (with the US),” Bonino told a joint session of the House and Senate foreign commissions. Earlier reports said 500 soliders were being transferred from Spain to the Sigonella NATO Base. Sigonella, which is southwest of Catania, is a major NATO base used by the US navy and air force as well as the Italian air force. On Monday up to 15 people were killed when a car bomb exploded outside a hospital in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi.
The country has shown increasing signs of turmoil since strongman Muammar Gaddafi was removed from power and killed by rebels in 2011.
Last week three police stations were bombed in Benghazi, causing no casualties.
A car bomb exploded outside the French embassy last month in the capital Tripoli, wounding several residents and two French guards.
Last September, the American diplomatic facility in Benghazi was attacked by gunmen, leading to the killing of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other consular officials.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Cameron Says Calls for U.K. To Quit EU Now ‘Very Strange’
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron rebuked lawmakers in his Conservative Party who have already decided that Britain should withdraw from the European Union.
Cameron said it was “very, very strange” for leading members of his party to say Britain should pull out of the 27-nation bloc before he has had a chance to change the terms of Britain’s relationship.
“The idea of throwing in the towel before the negotiation’s started I think is a very, very strange opinion,” the prime minister told reporters on an airplane to Washington for talks with U.S. President Barack Obama. “What all Conservative Cabinet ministers agree is we should be spending the next period improving the European Union and improving our relations with the EU and putting that to the British public in a referendum.”
[Comment: It is not strange. They realize that all these “reforms” will do is shuffle the deck chairs on the Titantic.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cardinal O’Brien Leaving Scotland for ‘Renewal’ Says Vatican
Disgraced archbishop admitted sexual conduct with priests
(ANSA) — Rome, May 15 — Disgraced Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien, the archbishop emeritus of Edinburgh, will leave Scotland for “a few months of spiritual renewal, prayer and penance” after he admitted to inappropriate sexual conduct with clergy, the Vatican said Wednesday. “For the same reasons he decided not to participate in the last conclave, and in agreement with the Holy Father, (he) will be leaving Scotland for several months for the purpose of spiritual renewal, prayer and penance,” said a statement, which did not disclose his destination.
O’Brien, 75, was forced to step down early by retired pope Benedict XVI just days before the start of the conclave that went on to elect Pope Francis. “Any decision regarding future arrangements for (O’Brien) shall be agreed with the Holy See,” added the statement.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
These are the first pictures of water cannon ready for use on the streets of Britain this summer.
The German-made weapon is at an Army base in Hampshire where, shielded from public view by several vast warehouses, police officers are being trained in its use.
Dozens of Met officers have been travelling to Longmoor base, near Petersfield, every day over the past fortnight. Resistance: Police train with water cannon at Longmoor Army camp near Petersfield in Hampshire.
The cannon, a custom-built Ziegler Wasserwerfer 9000, was quietly brought in from Northern Ireland ahead of the G8 talks next month.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Bayern Munich Build Mosque for Muslims
(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) — Helping their players to fulfil their religious duties, German football giants Bayern Munich have decided to build a mosque to help Muslim footballers to perform their prayers. The German football club agreed to a request to build a mosque in the Allianz Arena stadium to serve its Muslim players and fans. The request was made by the club’s Muslim midfielder Bilal Franck Ribery, who asked for specifying a small room for players to perform their prayers…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Research Shows Boom in Hired Household Help
10% of families use cleaning service, caretakers
(ANSA) — Rome, May 14 — The number of people engaged in some sort of household assistance work — such as babysitting and caretakers for the elderly — has increased by more than 50% over the past 10 years in Italy, according to research published Tuesday by the Censis research institute.
According to the study, the number of domestic helpers in Italy has increased from about 1.1 million in 2001 to almost 1.7 million in 2012.
Some 2.6 million families, about 10.4% of the total, pay someone to help out with some aspect of household life, according to Censis.
However, this “informal welfare” is costly — on average about 667 euros per month — and only one third of Italian families manage to claim some sort of state funds.
Such welfare costs soak up about 30% of an average family’s income, the study said. Figures show just over 56% of families say they can’t do without at-home help.
In order to pay for these services, about half of Italian families cut back on consumer spending, the data said. Some 20% of families have had to take money out of their savings to pay, while almost 3% have had to take on debt, according to Censis.
Many families where both parents work were considering whether one breadwinner should surrender his/her job in order to take on the household activities in place of hired help, said the study. According to Censis, 15% of families in the south and 20% of families in the north were considering this option.
While up to 44% of families feel they will need more paid assistance at home in the coming years, 50% think it will be difficult to meet the expenses and almost 42% think that they will have to give it up altogether, the study said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Prosecutors Put 14 Under Investigation in Fonsai Probe
Investigators suspect 600-million-euro hole hidden in balance
(ANSA) — Turin, May 14 — Prosecutors in Turin on Tuesday officially placed 14 people under investigation in relation to a probe into alleged financial crimes at troubled insurance company Fondiaria Sai. The suspects are 13 members of the board of directors of Fondiaria Sai in March 2011 and Salvatore Ligresti, the patriarch of the Ligresti family who was in charge of the company’s budget at that time.
They are suspected of, among other things, market manipulation, withholding information from investors, and financial fraud. Members of the Ligresti family, the former majority owners of the Milano Assicurazioni and Fonsai insurance companies, are accused of causing major damages to the companies’ former shareholders.
Prosecutors suspect board members of Fondiaria Sai hid from investors a 600-million-euro hole in a claims fund in the 2010 balance sheet.
The 2010 budget was also taken into consideration in a prospectus on a 450 million increase in Fonsai’s capital in July 2011, further misleading the market, prosecutors say.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Unpopular IMU Property Tax to be Debated by Cabinet Friday
Berlusconi insisting on homeowner rebates
(ANSA) — Rome, May 15 — Italy’s cabinet will consider whether to suspended a hated property tax on primary homes during meetings on Friday, sources said Wednesday.
A discussion about business taxes will be held at a later date, the sources added.
Premier Enrico Letta has pledged that dealing with the IMU property tax would be one of the top issues of his new government.
Ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi has demanded that for his party to continue to support Letta’s government, it is crucial that the IMU property tax be scrapped in future, and the billions of euros collected last year be rebated to Italian homeowners.
Letta has pledged to suspend June IMU payments but has not said he will abolish the tax completely.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Must ‘Find a Way’ To Bring Marines Home, Says Bonino
Ship guards accused of killing Indian fishermen
(ANSA) — Rome, May 15 — Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino vowed on Wednesday that two Italian marines held in India for allegedly killing two fishermen last year must come home to Italy.
We must “find the way to bring the two marines home,” Bonino told the Italian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, adding that she believed “the path of dialogue and firmness can allow us to find a fair solution”.
“We will do no less than assert our convictions on international law,” Bonino said.
She explained that the new investigation into the case “should last two months, applying not the law of terrorism on the seas but of the NIA (India’s National Investigation Agency), which thus excludes the death penalty”.
Bonino also indicated that she was in contact with the Indian foreign minister on the matter. On Tuesday, Italian Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura said the Indian police investigation “will be carried out rapidly and within the agreed time span”.
In response to reports that authorities needed more time, de Mistura said “there will be no delays and the investigation will be swift and fair”.
Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone are currently waiting for a new investigation to be completed by India’s NIA anti-terrorism police into charges of shooting and killing Valentine (aka Gelastine) and Ajesh Binki after allegedly mistaking them for pirates while guarding a merchant ship off the Kerala coast in February 2012.
The two countries have been in a diplomatic row and relations have been tense since the incident.
Italy has contested India’s claim that it has jurisdiction over the case, arguing that the deaths occurred in international waters.
But Rome agreed to send the pair back to India after home leave to vote when India said they would not face the death penalty.
At the height of the spat, when Italy reneged on a pledge to return the marines, India blocked the Italian ambassador from leaving the country and the BRICS nations were said to be considering sanctions.
De Mistura arrived in New Delhi on Monday to meet with Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid and to follow the investigation, which is scheduled to take two months.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Modena Prosecutor Investigates Racial Slurs Against Minister
Facebook comments probed as incitement to racial hatred
(ANSA) — Modena, May 15 — Prosecutors in Modena in central Italy have opened an investigation into racial remarks on Facebook about Italy’s first black cabinet minister.
The investigation, by the Digos terrorist unit, is looking into whether the racial remarks about Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge constitute an incitement to racial hatred.
Kyenge has been the target of numerous remarks about her race since her appointment just a few weeks ago.
Kyenge, 48, was born in Congo and moved to Italy three decades ago to study medicine.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The earliest known cave paintings fuel arguments about whether Neanderthals were the mental equals of modern humans.
In a damp Spanish cave, Alistair Pike applies a small grinder to the world’s oldest known paintings. Every few minutes, the dentist-drill sound stops and Pike, an archaeologist from the University of Southampton, UK, stands aside so that a party of tourists can admire the simple artwork — hazy red disks, stencilled handprints, the outlines of bison — daubed on the cave wall tens of thousands of years ago. He hopes that the visitors won’t notice the small scuff marks he has left.
In fact, Pike’s grinder — and the scalpel that he wields to scrape off tiny samples — is doing no harm to the actual paintings, and he is working with the full approval of the Spanish authorities. Pike is after the crust of calcite that has built up over the millennia from groundwater dripping down the wall. The white flecks that he dislodges hold a smattering of uranium atoms, whose decay acts as a radioactive clock. A clock that has been ticking ever since the calcite formed on top of the art.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **]
Their civil servant father brought them to Britain from Eritrea to give them the best chance in life.
Abdu Karrar, 78, chose Oxford in the hope his sons might one day win a place at its prestigious university.
Instead, Mohammed and Bassam are facing long jail sentences after being found guilty of raping and trafficking young vulnerable girls.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Asian Grooming Gang Convicted of Appalling Acts of Depravity on Children
Police and social services have apologised for the failings and missed opportunities that allowed a gang of men to carry out appalling abuse on young girls in Oxford for six years.
When Thames Valley Police was first made aware of allegations of rape and sexual assault against teenagers in August 2006 — and on at least three further occasions — it failed to pursue the investigations after the terrified victims withdrew their complaints.
Seven men of Asian or North African origin were found guilty of grooming six vulnerable white girls before putting them through a “living hell” during which they were forced to commit acts of “extreme depravity”. In a case that bears harrowing similarities to the Rochdale grooming scandal, carefully chosen victims were showered with gifts and plied with alcohol and drugs before being subjected to years of terrifying abuse…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: An Apology for Letting Down Girls Who Should Have Been Protected
THE head of Oxfordshire County Council has apologised for not stopping the abuse of vulnerable girls in its care.
Joanna Simons, chief executive since 2005, said it was “beyond comprehension” an organised gang was acting on the scale it was…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Cameron and His Party Conspire to Create a European Shambles
The Prime Minister’s concessions over the EU referendum have eroded his authority
In the summer of 2001, when David Cameron had only been an MP for a matter of weeks, he went to see Iain Duncan Smith in his office at Westminster. In that year’s general election, Tony Blair had just wiped the Conservatives off his shoe for a second time, securing another landslide victory. Dazed Tories wondered what on earth to do next.
When in doubt, the modern Conservative Party tends to have a leadership contest. So it was that IDS, Ken Clarke, Michael Portillo, David Davis and Michael Ancram came to compete for the right to succeed William Hague. IDS, now Work and Pensions Secretary in Cameron’s Cabinet, would eventually draw the short straw, but in July, the leadership election was still ongoing. “Raging” would be too strong a word for such a desultory campaign, taking place against a backdrop guaranteed to depress Tories: Tony Blair was triumphant, the Iron Chancellor, Gordon Brown, said boom and bust had been ended, and it was fashionable to wonder whether the Conservatives could ever win power again…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **]
One of the youngest victims of the Oxford paedophile ring has accused Oxfordshire County Council of lying about the support it has offered to her and her family.
The girl, who was first abused at 13 by the gang, who threatened to cut the head off the baby she had by one of them, says she was repeatedly let down by social services, despite their claiming they were ‘closely involved’ in supporting her.
The accusation comes as seven men were found guilty at the Old Bailey of a catalogue of offences including conspiracy to rape, child prostitution and trafficking over an eight-year period in the university city of Oxford.
Police and social workers have apologised to their victims for failing to rescue the vulnerable schoolgirls who were plucked from the streets and care homes to be drugged, raped and sold into prostitution.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Oxford Sex Abuse Victim: ‘At First They Treat You Like a Princess’
In an exclusive interview, one of the victims who spoke at the Oxford child abuse trial tells Amelia Hill of her years of torment
One of the victims who gave evidence in court against the Oxford child sexual exploitation ring has told the Guardian how she was groomed, raped and trafficked while in the care of Oxfordshire county council. Girl C’s abuse began just after her 13th birthday. By the age of 14, the gang had got her addicted to hard drugs and was regularly trafficking the teenager across the country to be raped by strangers.
By 16, Girl C was pregnant by one of her abusers. She finally managed to escape only after her son was born, when the gang threatened to murder the baby if she did not start recruiting younger girls into the same cycle of abuse. Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, Girl C revealed that her adoptive mother spent two years begging the council for help with her daughter, first contacting the council when Girl C was 12 years old and starting to stay out all night, returning home drunk and dishevelled. “Mum wrote to all the key people in social services, called her own case conferences, invited agencies and got them sitting around the table, but they just passed the parcel between them — and all the while, I was getting increasingly under the power and influence of the gang,” said Girl C…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Sean Thomas
Sometimes, amidst the bleakness, it is important to acknowledge that a few people did the right thing. In the hideous example of the Oxford gang rape case, which ended yesterday in the conviction of seven Pakistani and Somalian men for “sexual torture” of girls as young as 11, one of those people is a Muslim prosecutor.
When Nazir Afzal was appointed head of the Crown Prosecution Service for the North West in 2011, he looked again at the files of a case that had previously been dropped by the CPS. What Afzal saw was an obvious pattern: a tiny, unrepresentative subset of Muslim British males, who were targeting and grooming underage white girls…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Oxford Gang Skillfully Groomed Young Victims Then Sold Them for £600 a Time
Vulnerable girls were plied with drugs and alcohol and offered to men who subjected them to extreme sexual violence and torture
Wild flowers run between the gravestones in the churchyard of St Mary and St John on the outskirts of Oxford. It is, the sign says, a place for prayer, for contemplation, for wildlife and natural beauty. Yet for the young girls who were lured here to be subjected, among the headstones and the holly trees, to sexual atrocities at the hands of a pack of men, it was nothing short of a living hell…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **]
A primary school teacher attempted to rape a young girl and sexually assaulted seven other pupils, a court heard.
John Alway, 60, of Bradley Stoke, Bristol, is said to have touched all the children, the youngest of whom was nine, over a seven-year period while he was working as a supply teacher.
He allegedly attempted to rape one youngster as he pinned her down naked in a locked classroom, Bristol Crown Court heard.
He initially stood trial in June but the case was halted when five more complainants came forward after reading newspaper reports of the trial.
Alway, who worked as a substitute teacher at a number of schools in and around Bristol, denies the 23 charges against him.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Missed Numerous Opportunities to Stop Asian Grooming Gang
A police call-out to an Oxford flat one summer’s evening in 2006 should have been the beginning of the end for the Asian sex gang’s reign of terror.
Officers were called to the property, off Rectory Road, and, after first noticing the distinctive smell of cannabis, found a young girl in the company of a man. The police had not been there for long when brothers Akhtar and Anjum Dogar arrived, one of them carrying a large bundle of money and a condom in his pocket. Concerned about what might be happening, the officers spoke to the girl some distance away from the men. She admitted she was only 14 and had run away from her children’s home.
She went on to describe having sex with several men and even pointed out two of them in the street. She also took the officers to the Nanford Guest House in Oxford, where she said some of the abuse had taken place. However, the teenager, identified only as Child B, was too scared of the men to press charges and the police did not pursue the matter further…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Universities Fall Victim to Campus Segregation Trend
Women on UK university campuses are being discriminated against as more and more events force separate attendance and seating arrangements
A new report has revealed disturbing statistics regarding enforced segregation on UK university campuses. The briefing, entitled, “Unequal Opportunity“ by campus watchdog ‘Student Rights’, shows that out of nearly 200 events hosted on UK unversity campuses over the past year, over a quarter have been ‘segregated’ by gender — with female students being forced or encouraged to sit separately from their male colleagues. The study into events hosted by student societies included 180 with speakers who had “a history of extreme or intolerant views” in the year until March…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: What Can Society Learn From the ‘Grooming’ Scandals?
by Douglas Murray
The verdicts have been delivered in the Operation Bullfinch trial. Seven of the nine men have been found ‘guilty’. The case involved the highly organised sexual and physical abuse of underage girls in the ‘care’ system. This was carried out by a gang of men in Oxfordshire over the course of nearly a decade…
As with the Tia Sharp murder case Rod wrote about here, debate will now divide between those who think some societal lessons can be taken from this and those who say that it is of no wider significance.
[Reader comment johnslattery on 15 May 2013.]
“There is bound to be considerable debate now around this case.” — No, there won’t, don’t worry, Mr. Murray. The cowards of the mainstream media know when to keep their traps shut, just as our useless police (aka the PC enforcement brigade) know when to turn a blind eye. After all, there are always ageing white celebs to persecute for unprovable molestation allegations dating from 1976. That’ll keep you guys happy, and deflect attention away from what some immigrants are doing to our society.
Though you somehow failed to mention it, I believe the “gang of men” involved (as opposed to what? “Troupe of orang utans” or “flock of penguins” perhaps?) were mostly Muslim, Mr. Murray, a fact which might possibly have a bearing on their attitudes and behaviour towards nonbelievers. As for the Ramadhan Foundation, calling the perps “Asians” is just insulting. Japanese or Koreans would never do things like this. I have lived in countries where news is deliberately misrepresented, to hide things from and deceive the public, and it is pretty sickening finding British journalists stooping to the same depths.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A UKIP councillor has announced he will probably have to step down after less than two weeks because he posted a series of offensive messages about Jews and Muslims online.
Eric Kitson, 59, has admitted ‘I don’t see how I can possibly carry on’ after sharing racist cartoons and messages on Facebook…
But he denied being racist and claimed he had shared the material to expose the ‘unacceptable’ views they contained.
He said: ‘I thought I could handle politics, but I can’t — I don’t see how I can possibly carry on.
‘I’m not a racist, all my friends know me better than that.
‘What I wrote was stupid, but it wasn’t racist. I am not racist. I’m the only white guy on my local five-a-side football team.
‘I wanted to show people this is bad, this is wrong. What I should have done is write something on them about how bad it is but I didn’t.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Benghazi: Hillary Clinton’s Consulate to the Jihadists
Want proof that the Obama administration is pulling out all the stops to help with the rise of Islamic jihad in the Middle East? Then look no further than Benghazi. While the lion’s share of the attention has been focused on security failures leading up to and following the terrorist attacks on the anniversary of 9/11, the potentially bigger scandal for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is what was a diplomatic facility doing in middle of jihadist country in the first place?
Benghazi has been a hotbed of Islamic extremism (or otherwise known in the Middle East as Islam) ever since the execution of former Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi. The location in eastern Libya also offers a clue as to the purpose of the consulate and adjoining CIA annex namely, if you’re not there to talk to the jihadists, then you’re in the wrong place.
You don’t set up shop in al-Qaeda’s backyard unless you’re looking to do business with terrorists, and that is exactly what Clinton was doing. According to the House GOP Interim Progress Report, the Benghazi diplomatic facility relied on the February 17 Martyrs Brigade for security and as a “quick reaction force” for the State Department in the city. What is the February 17 Martyrs Brigade you ask? According to Wikipedia, which doesn’t’ exactly require Top Secret clearance to access, they fly “the al-Qaeda flag on their Facebook page, and have been al-Qaeda sympathizers for a very long time.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Nakba: Erekat: Ending 65 Years of Israeli Impunity
Chief PLO negotiator, Kerry initiative should be backed
(ANSAmed) — RAMALLAH — PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said Tuesday that Palestinians needed to ‘end 65 years of impunity’ for Israel, the local Maan news agency reports. Erekat was speaking on the 65th anniversary of Nabka, ‘catastrophe’, the name Palestinians use to refer to the creation of the state of Israel on May 15, 1948. Erekat was also quoted as saying by Maan he thought a recent initiative by US Secretary of State John Kerry to restart peace negotiations with Israel ‘should be supported’ and that ‘65 years after the Nabka, the only message the international community should give is ‘stop”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
PA Official: ‘If We Had Nuke, We’d Have Used it This Morning’
A senior Palestinian Authority has praised the use of violence against Israel, asserting that if the PA had the military wherewithal to rise up against the Jewish state, it would not hesitate to do so.
“I swear that if we had a nuke, we’d have used it this very morning,” vowed Jibril Rajoub during an interview with the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV channel, as reported by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).
Jibril Rajoub is the Deputy Secretary of the Fatah Central Committee and Chairman of the PA Olympic Committee.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Palestinians Stick to Right of Return on Nakba Anniversary
RAMALLAH, May 14 (Xinhua) — “As if all had happened yesterday. . Since we left our village in 1948, we still believe that we are returning to our village as soon as tomorrow,” said Um Omer, 75, a resident of Jenin refugee camp in northern West Bank. “The Nakba was the biggest catastrophe we had passed through, but since then, we have been passing through hundreds of daily Nakbas,” Omer recounted, “I remember when we left our house in the village, we were not allowed to take any of our precious stuffs.” On May 15, the Palestinians will mark the 65th anniversary of the Nakba day when thousands of Palestinians were forced to leave their homes during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Canada Urged to Step Up Aid to Millions of Syrians Affected by Civil War
OTTAWA — Humanitarian aid groups say it’s time for the Canadian government to lead by example and do more to help the millions of people affected by the ongoing civil war in Syria.
The Humanitarian Coalition — comprised of CARE Canada, Oxfam Canada, Oxfam-Quebec, Plan Canada and Save the Children — appealed to all Canadians on Tuesday for donations to help the millions of people displaced within Syria and the 1.4 million who have fled to refugee camps in neighbouring countries during the two-year conflict.
The United Nations appealed to its member states for $1.5 billion earlier this year in emergency funding, but less than half that amount has been raised. In addition, the UN is expected to set a new, higher target as the crisis worsens.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Not to Tolerate Further Israeli Attacks on Damascus
TEHRAN (FNA)- Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, while in Shanghai, was given a sharp dressing-down by Russian President Vladimir Putin, a warning that Russia would not tolerate further Israeli attacks on Damascus and would respond.
Putin did not say how, but he did announce he had ordered the acceleration of highly advanced Russian weapons supplies to Syria.
Israeli Debkafile’s military sources disclosed that the Russian leader was referring to S-300 anti-air systems and the nuclear-capable 9K720 Iskander (NATO named SS-26 Stone) surface missiles, which are precise enough to hit a target within a 5-7 meter radius at a distance of 280 kilometers.
In his phone call to Netanyahu, the Russian leader advised the prime minister to make sure to keep this in mind.
Since Syrian air defense teams have already trained in Russia on the handling of the S-300 interceptor batteries, they can go into service as soon as they are landed by one of Russia’s daily airlifts to Syria. Russian air defense officials will supervise their deployment and prepare them for operation.
Moscow is retaliating not just for Israel’s air operations against Syria but in anticipation of the Obama administration’s impending decision to send the first US arms shipments to the Syrian rebels.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian Rebel ‘Cuts Out Soldier’s Heart and Eats It’ in Horrific Propaganda Video
[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **]
A video that appears to show a Syrian rebel cutting out and eating the heart of a dead government soldier has been posted online in a horrific new propaganda stunt.
The unverified clip, posted by a pro-government campaign group, claims to show a man — believed to be Abu Sakkar, the well-known founder of Homs’ Farouq Brigade — standing over the uniformed corpse in a ditch while ranting against President Bashar al Assad.
Using a knife, the man hacks open the torso and removes two organs before holding them up to the camera and declaring: ‘I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog.’ He then raises one to his mouth and takes a bite.
His rant is greeted by offscreen cheers of his comrades shouting ‘Allahu akbar (God is great)’.
It comes as David Cameron warned today he may still sanction military intervention in the war-torn nation amid growing evidence that Assad is using chemical weapons against his own people.
[Comment: These are the same “rebels” the West is funding and supporting. This is insane — Western governments are helping to build a Muslim Brotherhood caliphate.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Showcases Military Pomp for Victory Day
Fighter jets screamed over Red Square and heavy tanks rumbled over its cobblestones on Thursday as Russia flexed its military muscle on the anniversary of its victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
The first decision to hold Victory Day parades was taken by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin himself after the country lost an estimated 27 million people defending its territory and the Eastern Front.
The tradition has been given extra fanfare by President Vladimir Putin — an ardent nationalist whose patriotic fervour has helped him win strong backing from the middle class.
The Victory Day parades have expanded during Putin’s 13 years in power to include heavy intercontinental missiles and Tu-95 bombers that can easily reach the shores of the United States…
Putin’s military plan has put pressure on other sectors of Putin’s budget and on outdated Soviet-era military factories that are unable to cope with the sudden surge in demand for a new generation of weaponry.
Putin has expressed repeated frustration at the military churning out products such as tanks and weapons systems that cost more than their Western rivals while often failing in reliability tests.
The Kremlin chief said on Thursday that the extra military spending was needed to secure Russia’s role as a guarantor of peace across the world.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **]
The family of a British schoolgirl who died at a doctors’ clinic in India fear she could have been ‘murdered’ by medics intent on harvesting her organs.
Gurkiren Kaur Loyal’s parents took her to see doctors in the Punjab when she began suffering from dehydration 11 days into her first foreign holiday.
Her father, Santokh Ghatoara, and mother, Amritpal Kaur Loyal, claim that their eight-year-old daughter was ‘fine’ until she was given a mystery injection.
Yesterday they told how, within seconds of receiving the jab, Gurkiren’s ‘eyes rolled back into her head and her face drained of colour’ before she collapsed and died. ‘I knew they had killed her on the spot,’ said her mother.
Mr Ghatoara, a 57-year-old postal worker, and his wife were so fearful that their daughter’s organs could be taken and sold on for transplant that they insisted on taking her body back to a relative’s home.
The body was kept for four days in a freezer borrowed from a local Sikh temple before it was taken to a local hospital. There, a ‘medieval’ post-mortem examination was carried out.
Gurkiren’s parents had been told they would not be allowed to fly their child home without one. During the post-mortem, Gurkira’s organs were removed and have not been returned.
The Birmingham coroner, Aidan Cotter, has told the family that without them, or the Indian post-mortem report, he is at a loss to determine a cause of death.
The family say Dr Pardeep Moudgill, who ran the clinic, disappeared following the tragedy and did not return messages.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
China Questions Japan Rule Over Okinawa
BEIJING (AP) — China is trying to strengthen its claim on tiny, uninhabited, Japanese-controlled islands by raising questions about the much larger Okinawa chain that is home to more than a million Japanese along with major U.S. military installations. The tactic, however, appears to have done little but harden Tokyo’s stance.
Japan refuses to offer any concessions to China over Tokyo’s control of the uninhabited East China Sea islands, which are called Diaoyu by China and Senkaku by Japan. Tokyo issued a formal protest to Beijing over the comments about Okinawa, made last week in the ruling Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, the People’s Daily.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Off the beaten path from Australia’s wildlife preserves and pristine beaches is a little-known country that has quietly prospered for 43 years. The Principality of Hutt River sits on 75 square kilometers of land five hours north of Perth in Western Australia. Its stark landscape is not unlike a stretch of Nebraska farmland, except for the occasional stray marsupial and the wild roadside melons, scattered like hundreds of abandoned softballs. The country’s stamps, passports, and currency all bear the likeness of its ruler, Prince Leonard.
Hutt River’s secession and heraldry are neither a political statement nor a publicity stunt. They resulted from one man’s determination to save his wheat farm from ruinous government mandates. In 1970, after fighting a losing battle to repeal a stifling wheat quota, Leonard Casley and several of his neighbors declared independence from Australia. “We seceded to protect our lands,” says Casley, “to stop our lands from being taken from us.”
For more than four decades the self-made monarch has matched wits with irritated bureaucrats and politicians. So far, he’s come out ahead.
A year before Hutt River seceded, the Western Australian legislature sought to stabilize wheat prices by enacting strict caps on how many bushels farmers could sell. By limiting the supply of wheat, they reasoned, the overall price would be exempted from the laws of supply and demand. Like many such heavy-handed measures, the quota bore unintended consequences. The harvest limits stood to cripple larger farms unable to eke by on so little produce. For Casley, the quota meant he could only harvest 100 of his 10,000 acres. A 99 percent reduction in projected output did not strike him as sound financial planning.
As the leader of a group of families affected by the quota, Casley lodged a protest with the governor of Western Australia, Sir Douglas Kendrew. Kendrew summarily denied the group’s request for a waiver. Casley filed suit against the crown and Gov. Kendrew for A$52 million on the grounds that the wheat regulation was an unlawful imposition, as the quota had not yet passed into law. Casley intended for his tort gambit to force a revision of the new rule, but he instead drew the ire of the authorities. Two weeks after his lawsuit was filed, the Western Australia government introduced a bill to Parliament which, if passed, would “resume” his and the other protesting farms under compulsory acquisition. In other words, their land would become the property of the government.
His Royal Highness Prince Leonard of Hutt
Rather than scuttling his farm or funneling excess crops into a cereal black market, Casley took the novel approach of declaring independence from the Commonwealth of Australia. He drafted an official declaration of secession and sent copies to Western Australia’s premier and governor…
| — Hat tip: DS | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Emergency Rule — Whoever, Wherever You Are, We’ll Get You — Jonathan
Abuja — President Goodluck Jonathan, last night, declared a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states with an order to the military high command to use extra-ordinary measures to quell the insurgency that has bedeviled the states.
Dr Jonathan in a nationwide address said the decision to impose the state of emergency followed the failure of other options, including dialogue that had been employed. The president in an unusually stern address, however, pledged that ongoing efforts at seeking dialogue would not be aborted…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Police Raid Enugu ‘Baby Factory, ‘ Rescue Six Pregnant Girls
Operatives of the anti-kidnapping unit of the Enugu State Police Command Tuesday raided a baby factory in the state and rescued six pregnant young girls allegedly detained by operators of the illegal home for the purpose of making babies. The young girls who gave their names as Chioma Eze, Amarachi Okoro, Gloria Okoye, Uzoamaka Lawrence, Nneji Faith and Akpan Juliana are between the ages of 16 and 17 years…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria Declares State of Emergency in Three States
Nigeria has declared a “state of emergency” in three states where the Islamist group Boko Haram is rife.
President Goodluck Jonathan declared the states of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, the three hardest hit by the insurgency. He said more troops would “immediately” be deployed to the areas…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican Cardinal Says Mexico’s Folk Death Saint is Blasphemous, Decries Its Worship by Gangs
MEXICO CITY — The Vatican’s culture minister says Mexico’s folk Death Saint is a blasphemous symbol that shouldn’t be part of any religion.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi says worshipping such an icon is a degeneration of religion.
The Santa Muerte is a skeletal figure of a cloaked woman with a scythe in her bony hand. It is worshipped both by drug dealers in Mexico and by the terrified people who live in drug-torn neighbourhoods.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Coulter: Here’s That ‘Dynamic Scoring’ You Asked for, Senator
The Heritage Foundation recently issued a comprehensive report showing that Sen. Marco Rubio’s plan to instantly legalize 11.5 million illegal immigrants would add $6.3 trillion to the nation’s budget deficits over the next 50 years. Heritage assumed there are 11.5 million illegals, but other estimates put the number at 33 million, which would mean adding another $18 trillion to the deficit. To put that in perspective, the largest U.S. budget deficit in history was $1.4 trillion in 2009.
Currently, the average illegal alien gets about $24,721 in taxpayer-funded benefits and pays about $10,334 in taxes. After full legalization, they will be eligible for a whole new panoply of government benefits such as direct welfare payments, Obamacare, Social Security and Medicare. Heritage concludes that the total government benefits to these former illegal aliens will then rise to about $43,900 per household, while the taxes paid by them will increase only modestly to around $16,000.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Facebook’s Zuckerberg Wants Instant Gratification in Washington, At Your Child’s Expense
Only a month ago, Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive and co-founder of Facebook, decided he was going to put together a dream team of backers and together they would influence immigration policy decisions in Washington. Today, after a series of questionable ads, Zuckerberg’s backers are backing out faster than you can say, “Global Warming.”
On April 11, 2013, Zuckerberg launched FWD.us, a group of advocates pushing for immigration reform. Among their list of reforms the group is asking for better tools and support for law enforcement guarding our borders, a simple and effective employment verification system, and a clear pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already living in the United States.
The main focus of FWD.us, however, is modifying the guest worker program, namely the H-1B visa system…
Zuckerberg and his group would like to increase the number of H-1B visas and streamline the process “to attract the world’s best and the brightest workers.” They also want to implement reforms that would make it easier and more attractive for these “best and brightest” to stay in the U.S. permanently.
Make no mistake, Zuckerberg isn’t lobbying for the sake of America. He’s not looking at this effort as a way to improve America’s economy or our competitive standing in the global marketplace, like all the talking heads are spouting in Washington. He doesn’t think that far ahead.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ron Paul: Gang of 8 Hiding National ID Card in Immigration Reform
Ron Paul calls the current proposals “by far the worst national ID card the statists have come up with yet.” And he blames the “Gang of 8,” which includes Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and Chuck Schumer, for working with Obama to “sneak a national ID” into an immigration reform bill. “A statist’s dream,” Paul decries.
According to Paul, the national ID would create a new federal database with biometric information on all citizens and those who work within the United States. He claims that, in short time, it would be illegal for anyone to have a job without an ID card. “Every time any citizen applies for a job, the government will know…[and] once the government bureaucrats know exactly how we run our lives, they will try and control them.”
He warns that “the government will know what you eat, drink, and read. Once they know this information, they will regulate everything” from your food to your education, depriving us of our freedom. Issues like amnesty are just being used as cover. The National ID is what the “statists” really want.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A lesbian couple were told they could not rent a flat — because they did not constitute a ‘family’.
Church minister Keith Price allegedly refused to let Kira Izzard and Laura Cull rent a flat next to Ms Cull’s sister and nephew because of the pair’s sexuality.
[Comment: Another case…makes one wonder if activists are intentionally seeking out Christian landlords.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sex-Ed Cartoons ‘Too Graphic’ For N.Y. Times
Newspaper shies from material Planned Parenthood gives … to kids
While Americans debate how to best keep school children safe from violence, at least one group is asking why the media won’t help pressure the education system into keeping kids safe from another child predator the group dubs “Sex Incorporated” — also known as Planned Parenthood.
The American Life League, or ALL, issued a statement questioning why major news outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post have declined their recent request to run ads highlighting the methods Planned Parenthood uses to target young kids.
ALL claims the content of the ads came straight out of Planned Parenthood publications ALL says are used to “hook kids on sex.”
“This week, both the New York Times and Washington Post rejected a full-page advertisement from American Life League as ‘too graphic’ and ‘shocking’ for their adult readers,” says an ALL report.
Judie Brown, president and co-founder of ALL, agrees that the images are shocking, but says that the images come directly from Planned Parenthood materials funded by American taxpayers and aimed at those taxpayers’ own children.
“Parents tax dollars are being used to turn their own children into Planned Parenthood’s future sex customers,” says Brown. “Their abortion business is based on exploiting young minds and filling those minds with all manner of sex instruction.
“It is a grisly trail, but it leads from sex instruction to contraception to abortion when contraception fails,” she says. “That is the Planned Parenthood recipe, and the media likes it.”
ALL tells WND it simply wants the world to know what Planned Parenthood has planned for American school children.
[Comment: NYTimes didn’t want Americans to see what Planned Parenthood produces for brainwashing kids.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Before Babel? Ancient Mother Tongue Reconstructed
The ancestors of people from across Europe and Asia may have spoken a common language about 15,000 years ago, new research suggests.
Now, researchers have reconstructed words, such as “mother,” “to pull” and “man,” which would have been spoken by ancient hunter-gatherers, possibly in an area such as the Caucuses or the modern-day country of Georgia. The word list, detailed today (May 6) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help researchers retrace the history of ancient migrations and contacts between prehistoric cultures.
“We can trace echoes of language back 15,000 years to a time that corresponds to about the end of the last ice age,” said study co-author Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom.
Tower of Babel
The idea of a universal human language goes back at least to the Bible, in which humanity spoke a common tongue, but were punished with mutual unintelligibility after trying to build the Tower of Babel all the way to heaven. [Image Gallery: Ancient Middle-Eastern Texts]
But not all linguists believe in a single common origin of language, and trying to reconstruct that language seemed impossible. Most researchers thought they could only trace a language’s roots back 3,000 to 4,000 years. (Even so, researchers recently said they had traced the roots of a common mother tongue to many Eurasian languages back 8,000 to 9,500 years to Anatolia, a southwestern Asian peninsula that is now part of Turkey.)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Daniel Pipes Still Insisting That “Moderate Islam” Is the “Solution”
by Hugh Fitzgerald
The end of an article that once again upholds the false — and dangerous — distinction between “Islam” and something Pipes calls “Islamism.” He apparently cannot figure out all the ways that Islam can be, not “defeated” but weakened sufficiently, in both the lands of the Infidels, and within the Camp of islam in Dar al-Islam — beginning with the exploitation of the pre-existing fissures, sectarian, ethnic, and economic, and continuing with a deliberate campaign, among Infidels, to explain to ourselves how Islam is a vehicle for Arab imperialism, and how it is Islam that explains the many failures — political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral — of societies and peoples suffused with Islam. Not being able to figure these things out, or not being willing to accept the suggestions made by others or perhaps unaware of those suggestions, made repeatedly over the past decade, Pipes continues to harp on this business of “moderate Islam” being the “solution.” The very word “solution” is misplaced. There is no “solution” to the threat of Islam. There is the possibility of diminishing that threat, of weakening the Camp of Islam and diminishing the hold of Islam on the minds of many — especially non-Arabs — of its adherents, through a hundred sundry ways, and I’ve set out those hundred sundry ways again and again…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Genetically-Modified Humans Are Already Walking Among Us
(NaturalNews) An undated article discussing the invention of genetically-modified (GM) human beings that was published by the U.K.’s DailyMail at least 10 years ago is gaining fresh attention from the online community these days. And even though the heinous practice, which is known as cytoplasmic transfer, is technically illegal in the U.S., the current regulatory framework offers little in the way of enforcement capacity against those that breach this moratorium.
Because the DailyMail article is not dated, some have mistakenly taken it to be current, and have adopted the position that GM babies may potentially become the next big thing in reproductive medicine. But it appears as though this is not actually the case, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) apparently banned this form of genetic manipulation back in the early 2000s after declaring it to be under its regulatory jurisdiction.
According to the original DailyMail article, Jacques Cohen, a former employee at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine & Science of Saint Barnabas in New Jersey, came up with a way to blend the genes of multiple mothers into a single egg that can then be fertilized with sperm from a male. The end product is a child with a genetic blueprint from three different parents, a process of human manipulation known as “germline” alteration.
This unscrupulous discovery, which only further taints the natural order of life with man-made genetic modifications, reportedly led to the development of at least 15 GM babies at that time, which are presumably still alive and now progressing through their adolescent years. And according to the original report, any children born to these GM individuals will also bear these modified GM traits, as they are inherently passed down from generation to generation.
“The fact that the children have inherited the extra genes and incorporated them into their ‘germline’ means that they will, in turn, be able to pass them on to their own offspring,” wrote Michael Hanlon for the Daily Mail back at that time. “Altering the human germline — in effect tinkering with the very make-up of our species — is a technique shunned by the vast majority of the world’s scientists.“
This is admittedly a very frightening development, as it has the potential to unleash untold horrors on the human genome.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Tuesday May 2013
My University in London used to be a Polytechnic. Before that, it was a parking lot. By gradients then, the same space has become progressively less functional over the ages, and it now blights the cultural life of an otherwise charming town.
In appearance, the main building resembles a very old-fashioned, inner-city high-school. The campus is tiny relative to normal universities. There is no green space nearby and we are surrounded on all sides by busy roads. The website calls it ‘cosy, modern and artful’. In reality it is compact, ugly and depressing.
I didn’t need to attend this place. I received very good A-level results. Warwick University was among the first institutions to offer me a place. I turned them and others down because I wanted to attend somewhere further away from the small, boring town in which my parents live. More specifically, I was determined to live and study in London.
What I had in mind was the London I saw on television, a stuffy, slightly upmarket New York in effect, with intelligent men and aspirant women supping cocktails and espresso, you know the kind of place. What I have become used to since I arrived here is a city of burkas, terrorism, homophobia, black-tar Heroin, and prostitution; a magnificent metropolis half-destroyed by a single cultural minority.
You may think, dear general reader, that the panic and hysteria over Islam is unwarranted or driven by third-party interests (oil politics, Jewish Nationalism, Racism etc…). The ‘me’ just a day or two into freshers week would completely agree with you. The ‘me’ now wants you to listen carefully and without prejudice as to why this is not the case.
I realise now that the present epoch is a contest between two starkly different futures: One in which the West is Islamised and the other in which the West is restored. The first is a nightmare of which some of us already have a taste, and which we are fully prepared to fight to prevent.
I’ll give you three examples of the trend from personal experience…
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Paypal Exec Aims to “Obliterate Passwords From the Face of the Planet”
Forget passwords — let your phone scan your fingerprints or eyes.
PayPal’s top security official is on a quest to kill passwords.
“Our intention is to really obliterate, within a certain number of years, both passwords and PINs and see the whole Internet — including internally in enterprises — obliterate user IDs and passwords and PINs from the face of the planet.”
That’s what Michael Barrett, chief information security officer at PayPal, told the network industry today at the Interop conference in Las Vegas. Barrett’s second job is as president of the FIDO Alliance, a recently unveiled consortium trying to create an open standard that could replace passwords. Google, Lenovo, and other companies have representatives on FIDO’s board of directors.
FIDO, which stands for Fast Identity Online, would work by requiring users to authenticate to their smartphone or other personal device, which then authenticates to a website (such as PayPal) using FIDO’s protocols.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
….” in anticipation of summer riots, the British government is said to be secretly training police in the use of powerful water cannons”…..
and the water companies will screw it all up by banning hosepipes and prosecuting plod for wasting water.
water that could have been used to wash water company executive’s cars.
The 2011 London riots were primarily the action of those of West Indian and African descent stirred up by the Socialist Workers’ Party. Historian David Starkey was lambasted for saying the the few native youths left were now being reverse assimilated. The cockney accent has been replaced by a West Indian/Asian patois which even the remaining white children copy. The Windrush bringing the first West Indians to England docked in 1948. By the early 1950s the first of the new arrivals had already rioted, a pattern which has been repeated with each generation. If London burns again like it did in 2011 will the English finally say enough is enough. As you say, due to mass immigration we are facing a water crisis, along with every other crisis. And we are due to have another 10 million added to our population in the next two decades.
Apparently, the new voter on the block for UKIP was not the traditional Tory voters of the home counties but a 60-year-old native from Edgbaston, part of Birmingham, who is more concerned about the survival of the English national identity than the EU. When he was born in 1952 or 1953 his native city and that of Enoch Powell was 100% native English. Within the next decade at the latest it is due to have an Afro-asian majority. I think the English have finally found their backs against the wall.
The primary school I attended in the 1950s in a northern mill town is now about 90% Pakistani muslim whereas they were only a twinkle in the multiculturalists’ eye then, not a brown face to be seen. And now I learn that the grammar school in that same town that I attended in the 1960s is 40% Pakistani muslim. The town itself must now be edging towards a Pakistani muslim majority. This is the town of which Jack Straw is the Labour mp, he who said that England and the English are not worth saving. Well it is all going your way, Jack. I am surprised that he is still the mp and has not been ousted by anti-semitic muslims. There was a moment of farce when he took Condoleeza Rice to visit his constituency. The muslims gave the American lady a bit of a rough ride.