Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has fled the presidential palace, and is rumored to holed up in the northeastern part of the country after being prevented from flying to Russia. His rival, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, addressed a crowd in Kiev after being released from detention. The Ukrainian parliament has voted to remove Mr. Yanukovych’s presidential powers.
In other news, nineteen people were killed and dozens more wounded after gunmen clashed with security forces in Iraq.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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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.
Extolling the Faults of Minimum Wage Makes Liberals More Dense
Our biggest and probably best known shyster politician currently using this outright ploy to get votes for himself and his fellow dunderhead Liberals is none other than Barack Hussein Obama. You know him, the slickster from Chicago, home of the country’s biggest bed of “now you see it; now you don’t” when it comes to your income and unfortunately all those young people trying to get a foothold in the corporate world…
In this minimum wage situation there is another factor that is not attractive for America and that is job loss, as in increases in the unemployment rolls which the CBO estimates will reach 500,000 jobs in the long term or by 2016 as reported by CNS News Terence P. Jeffrey. But the devious Mr. Obama can always “seasonally adjust” those numbers (wink, wink) in any direction, as he says, “he can do anything he wants”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Inflation in Italy Stays Flat at 0.7%
Rate remains at lowest level in four years
(ANSA) — Rome, February 22 — Italy’s annual inflation rate remained flat at 0.7% in January, the same as December and November and the lowest level since November 2009, national statistics agency Istat said in its preliminary estimate Tuesday.
At the start of 2013, Istat recalled, it was more than triple at 2.2%.
Italy’s long recession has dampened price rises.
A two-year run of negative growth ended in the third quarter of last year, when GDP was flat with respect to the April-June period. It then rose 0.1% in the final quarter.
Istat said prices were 0.2% higher in January than in December.
Istat’s index for the ‘trolley’ of most-frequently bought goods such as food and fuel dropped to 1.1% in January on an annual basis, compared to 1.2% in December.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obamaville Homeless Camp Springs up in Baltimore
A sheet of plastic laid over a clothesline. A mini-fortress of milk crates stacked under a tree. A thin mattress on a flimsy crate lying in a dark tunnel.
On the edge of Baltimore’s woodlands, dozens of the city’s transients live in makeshift homes which they consider safer than homeless shelters.
Photographer Ben Marcin has captured some of the shanties in his thought-provoking photo essay, ‘The Camps’, documenting the struggle, loneliness and ingenuity of Maryland’s people of the woods.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Soaring Demand for Free Handouts Has Nothing to Do With Benefit Cuts, Says Food Bank Founder
Robin Aitken (pictured) spoke out the day after 27 Anglican bishops claimed that benefit cuts had led to many going hungry, and that as a result 500,000 people have used food banks since last Easter.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Brooklyn Man Says Surveillance Video Shows NYPD Tried to Set Him Up
A Brooklyn man says he was framed, and blamed for an accident involving a squad car — seen here on surveillance video (Credit: CBS 2)
A Brooklyn man claims he was blamed and framed by police for an accident involving a squad car.
He says surveillance video proves he’s innocent, and the officers concocted a story to protect themselves, CBS 2’s Don Champion reported Friday.
Robert Jackson said he was saved by the tape.
“I was gonna get screwed. I was gonna get railroaded. I knew it,” Jackson said.
Surveillance video helped get criminal charges against him dropped. He said he hopes it also helps him win a lawsuit against the city.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cell Phone Kill Switches Are a Slippery Slope for Abusive Governments
Last Spring, wireless carriers and the government jointly announced that they’d be collaborating on building a new nationwide database to track stolen phones (specifically the IMEI number). The goal was to reduce the time that stolen phones remain useful, thereby drying up the market for stolen phones and reducing the ability of criminals to use the devices to dodge surveillance. The move came after AT&T was sued for not doing enough to thwart cellphone theft, the lawsuit alleging AT&T was intentionally lax on anti-theft practices because stolen phone re-activations were too profitable. After regulator pressure, AT&T launched new stolen device blocking tools and re-vamped their website with security tips.
Law enforcement has complained that none of these efforts have done much to stop cell theft and resale, in large part because phones stolen here are simply taken overseas and used there. This in turn prompted a push for new “kill switch” legislation in both New York and most recently San Francisco, in addition to a new bill proposed by Senator Amy Klobuchar we discussed last month. While perhaps well-intentioned, all of the bills have one thing in common: they forget that if you can kill your phone remotely, so then can governments, hackers, and anybody else.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Preface: Liberals might assume that it is Republicans who are cheerleaders for global corporations at the expense of government. But, as shown below, liberal politicians have been just as bad … or worse.
Matt Stoller — who writes for Salon and has contributed to Politico, Alternet, Salon, The Nation and Reuters — knows his way around Washington.
Stoller — a prominent liberal — has scoured the Congressional Record to unearth hidden historical facts. For example, Stoller has previously shown that the U.S. government push for a “New World Order” is no wacky conspiracy theory, but extensively documented in the Congressional Record.
Now, Stoller uses the Congressional Record to show that “free trade” pacts were always about weakening nation-states to promote rule by multinationals:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Knock Out Criminals Hit a Home Run in New Orleans
The knock out game has come to New Orleans with a vengeance in recent weeks. Despite police denials, there have been several recent attacks that have all of the hallmarks of the vicious knock out game. In the past several weeks, in the tourist hotspot of the French Quarter, innocent individuals were targeted by black youngsters. These victims were not robbed, but were severely beaten and sent to the hospital in a coma.
It is bad enough to be attacked by roaming mobs of street thugs, but it is even worse when they are carrying weapons, like baseball bats. Last Friday, two bicyclists were attacked by baseball wielding black youths on Esplanade Avenue, on the edge of the French Quarter. Again, the victims were not robbed, only brutally beaten. One of the victims had a jaw fracture; the other suffered a skull fracture. They are both lucky to be alive and could have easily been killed. If apprehended, these criminals should be charged with attempted murder.
Again, the undermanned New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) downplayed the incidents and claimed that they were not examples of the type of knock out attacks that have been going on in cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and St. Louis. The police maintain that since the thugs used baseball bats it was a typical aggravated battery case. In reality, these crimes were an example of the knock out game carried to a more dangerous level.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Legoland Seeks Children Ambassadors for Discovery Center
Think your child has what it takes to become one of Boston’s inaugural Lego ambassadors? From now until March 14, LEGOLAND Discovery Center Boston will be accepting applications from children ages 5 to 12 to participate on a team to help LEGOLAND become the best attraction of its kind…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nearly Half of Water Taps May Contain Bacteria That Causes Legionnaires’ Disease
The data is scary: Nearly half of water faucets sampled across the United States tested positive for the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease.
While the study was small — researchers only sampled 67 public and private water sources such as kitchen sinks and drinking fountains — it’s the first one to chart the presence of the potentially deadly bacteria in water taps.
According to the EPA, the organization that conducted the research, 32 taps contained the bacteria, and 11 of those contained it in multiple samples.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Pushes for $1b Climate Resilience Fund After ‘One of Least Extreme Weather Years Ever’
President Obama plans to include a new $1 billion taxpayer-funded Climate Resilience Fund in his 2015 budget to help communities deal with weather-related disasters caused by climate change. But the president’s proposal comes less than two months after the end of 2013 — which has been called “one of the least extreme weather years ever.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ron Paul: ‘Government’ Reveals Its True Colors
My understanding is that espionage means giving secret or classified information to the enemy. Since Snowden shared information with the American people, his indictment for espionage could reveal (or confirm) that the government views you and me as the enemy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Universities in FCC Newsroom Probe Have Close Ties to Soros, Got $1.8m in Funding
The FCC may have suspended its invasion into American newsrooms, but the controversial “Critical Information Needs” study also has George Soros’ fingerprints all over it.
While disturbing, this should come as no surprise since Soros’ gave more than $52 million to media organizations from 2000-2010.
Two schools were working with FCC on the project, according to Byron York of The Washington Examiner. The University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Communication and Democracy, were tasked by the FCC with coming up with criteria for what information is “critical” for Americans to have. The FCC study would have covered newspapers, websites, radio and television, according to The Washington Post.
On top of the 1st Amendment problems with this proposal, the schools involved have strong ties to liberal billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and have gotten more than $1.8 million from since 2000.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Calling Someone ‘Foreign Swine’ Or ‘Filthy Asylum Seeker’ Is Not Racist, Rules Swiss Court
The Federal Tribunal, examining the case of a Swiss policeman who appealed against his conviction for racial discrimination, ruled the expressions were not racist because they were ‘widely used expressions’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Dem Bones: Winter Storms Threaten Orkney’s Archaeological Treasures
Orkney has over 30 archaeologists—in a population of just 21,000—and a capable local authority. Yet they are hopelessly inadequate to the task of preservation. Even before this winter, more than a third of the ancient sites were threatened by coastal erosion. It was, indeed, how many were discovered in the first place: Skara Brae came to light in 1850 after the sand dune that had covered it for millennia was shifted by a sea storm. Inevitably, the council can defend only a handful of the sites.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Top Pollster Facing Charges Over Unpaid Taxes
Renato Mannheimer ‘dodged 10 mn between 2005 and 2010’
(ANSA) — Rome, February 21 — One of Italy’s top political pollsters, Renato Mannheimer, could be facing criminal charges after police said Friday they had wrapped up a probe into an alleged 10-million-euro 2005-2010 unpaid tax bill.
When he learned of the probe just after Christmas, Mannheimer promised to pay back the undeclared income uncovered by the tax police.
“I have fully realised the gravity of what I did and will pay everything I owe,” said the head of the Ispo survey agency, who appears regularly on Italian TV.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Alemanno, Polverini Probed for Illicit Funding
‘Set up bogus fund for school survey’
(ANSA) — Rome, February 21 — Former Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno and former Lazio governor Renata Polverini have been placed under investigation for suspected illicit party funding when they were members of Silvio Berlusconi’s now-defunct People of Freedom party, police said Friday. Polverini, now part of Berlusconi’s revised Forza Italia party, resigned after a series of funding scandals while post-Fascist Alemanno, beaten in his re-election bid by centre-left Democratic Party member Ignazio Marino last June, has since set up a small right-wing party.
They deny the allegations. A former Alemanno aide, Fabio Ulissi, and a former Accenture consultancy executive, Giuseppe Verardi, are under house arrest.
Police said the probe centres on a bogus 30,000 euro kitty set up with false Accenture invoices to fund a fake survey on the quality of school services, ahead of regional elections Polverini won in March 2010.
She quit in September 2012 after one of the many funding scandals that have hit local administrations of all stripes across Italy in recent years. Nine people are under investigation in all, seven for alleged fraud.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Court Clears Zorzi Definitively of Piazza Della Loggia Bomb
Former right-wing extremist now successful Japanese businessman
(ANSA) — Rome, February 21 — Italy’s top appeals court confirmed an earlier sentence that had cleared former right-wing extremist Delfo Zorzi, who is currently a successful businessman in Japan, from any involvement in a deadly bomb blast that killed eight and wounded 100 others in Brescia 39 years ago.
The Court of Cassation rejected the attempt by Brescia prosecutors and by the civil parties in the case to counter the original sentence. But the court did overturn the acquittals of two other people in relation to the case, Carlo Maria Maggi and Maurizio Tramonte, and ordered a retrial.
The Brescia bombing took place on May 28, 1974 during a union rally in the northern city’s Piazza della Loggia. It marked an important event in Italy’s ‘years of lead’ of political violence in the 1970s and 1980s.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Napolitano Denies ‘Arm Wrestling’ With Renzi
President dismisses reports of tension with premier-in-waiting
(ANSA) — Rome, February 21 — President Giorgio Napolitano on Friday denied reports of tension between himself and premier-in-waiting Matteo Renzi, after longer-than-expected talks of almost three hours when the Democratic Party leader presented his new government Friday. “There was no arm wrestling,” Napolitano said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
New Evidence Suggests That Neandertals Buried Their Dead
In their treatment of the dead, Neandertals were a lot like us
Some archaeologists have long argued that a number of Neandertal sites preserve evidence of burials, a practice considered to be a key feature of modern human behavior. But critics have countered that the sites were excavated long ago using outmoded techniques that obscure the facts.
In recent years researchers have found compelling evidence that Neandertals had other modern practices, such as decorating their bodies and making sophisticated tools. They did such things before anatomically modern humans invaded their turf, suggesting that Neandertals developed cultural traditions independently, rather than learning them from savvy newcomers.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pier Carlo Padoan Named Italian Economy Minister
Chief economist of global agency headed to Rome to join cabinet
(ANSA) — Rome, February 21 — Pier Carlo Padoan, chief economist of the OECD, was named Italy’s economy minister Friday as part of premier-in-waiting Matteo Renzi’s new cabinet.
Padoan, a former economics professor in Rome, has also worked for the International Monetary Fund.
In addition to the chief economist post, Padoan has been deputy secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) since June 2007 and previously served as an economics advisor to Italian premiers Massimo D’Alema and Giuliano Amato, in charge of international economic policies. Renzi presented his cabinet Friday, with a swearing-in scheduled for Saturday morning and confidence votes in parliament on Monday and Tuesday.
Padoan faces a tough job as Italy struggles to emerge from its worst recession since the Second World War.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
PM Renzi Vows to Do His Best for Italian Marines in India
(AGI) Rome, Feb 22 — Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has tweeted: “I have just spoken over the phone to Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone. We will do all we can”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Police Clash With Pillaging Anarchists in Western France as Airport Protest Degenerates
Riot police have moved into the western French city of Nantes, clashing with hundreds of anarchists who broke shop windows, destroyed bus stops and pillaged the city center.
The regional prefecture says that six police officers were injured in confrontations on Saturday with up to 1,000 “radicals” who joined an estimated 20,000 people protesting plans to build an airport in the Loire-Atlantique region. Four people were detained, the prefecture said.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls said the delinquents were from the “radicalized ultra-left” and were waging an “urban guerrilla” campaign. Valls said on iTele TV station that “these are individuals who are very violent.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Policeman Exonerated; ‘Foreign Pig’ Does Not Violate Racism Law
Calling someone a “foreign pig” and “filthy asylum seeker” is an insult but does not violate Swiss anti-racist legislation, the country’s highest court has ruled in a judgment published on Friday.
The Federal Court had been considering an appeal by a policeman against a suspended fine imposed by a court in Basel for using the words to an Algerian whom he had detained on suspicion of bag-snatching.
The incident occurred at the Basel Watch Fair in April 2007. The suspect had been handcuffed, and when the policeman was going through his papers and discovered that he was an asylum seeker he used the words in the presence of numerous bystanders.
The court found that the terms did not violate the anti-racist law because they were not directed at a specific ethnic group or religion. It also said that using the word “pig” (Sau-) or “filthy” (Dreck-) followed by mention of a person’s nationality was not a violation of the law either.
The two prefixes have long been used in the German-speaking world as terms of abuse, the court said. Although they are insulting, they cannot be regarded as an “attack on human dignity”, as defined by the law.
As long as the expressions target individuals, third parties would simply see them as a “somewhat crude” insult motivated by xenophobia, it said.
The court described the insults as “out of order and unacceptable”. It is now up to the Basel court to decide whether to bring charges against the policeman in this connection.
The deputy president of the Federal Commission against Racism, Sabine Simkhovitch-Dreyfus, told the Swiss News Agency that the commission was worried by the ruling that “pig” and “filthy” were not covered by the anti-racism law. She said that this led to a “trivialisation” of expressions of a racist nature.
Awareness-raising
A report by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) presented earlier this week called for the Swiss to launch national awareness-raising campaigns that reach deep into rural areas to counter negative perceptions of foreigners.
“While positive measures made by Switzerland were welcome, an impression persisted that racial discrimination was not being dealt with at the same level as gender and other types of discrimination,” the UN rapporteur said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Jacob Heilbrunn
There are things to admire about Tony Blair.
But then there are the things that are not so admirable, like the troublesome fact that he increasingly looks like one of the most mendacious prime ministers in British history.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Branson Says Space Flight Ready This Year
UK businessman Sir Richard Branson has reiterated his claim that the first Virgin Galactic flight into space will take place later this year. The launch date for the much-delayed project has been put back repeatedly from the original 2007 forecast, but the Virgin entrepreneur has confirmed he will fly with his children on the inaugural flight later in 2014…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Breitbart London’s Managing Editor Awarded ‘Islamophobe of the Year’
The UK-based Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) — which is noted for its support for Hezbollah — yesterday announced the winner of their risible ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ prize. The winner was none other than our own Managing Editor, Raheem Kassam!…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Asha Khan was involved in a plot to cover up her father’ s repeated lies after he was caught breaking the law in 2010 as he drove along Jesmond Road in Newcastle.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: There Are Bad Articles and Then There is the Richard Littlejohn One
By Asif Mahmud
How in 2014 can a national British newspaper feature an article so distasteful and so anti-Muslim is beyond me. Richard Littlejohn article entitled ‘Jolly Jihadi Boy’s Outing to Legoland’ must go down as one of the worst anti-Muslim pieces to be featured in a national newspaper…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A teenage girl was groomed and raped by up to 30 Asian men — including a father and his schoolboy son — during an horrific sex attack lasting six hours, an inquiry heard. Campaigner Shaista Gohir MBE detailed abuse of the young vulnerable Asian girl in a shocking report highlighting how rife grooming was within ethnic communities…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Three Held Over Waterloo Bridge ‘Drive-by Shooting’ While Man Remains in Hospital
Police have appealed for witnesses following a drive-by shooting on London’s Waterloo Bridge. A black Ford Focus is thought to have been shot at while travelling on the bridge by someone on a motorcycle at about 8pm last night. A 22-year-old man was taken to an east London hospital with head injuries but has since been discharged…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Thieves Caught After Posting Pictures Posing With Stolen Cars and Bikes on Facebook
Jonathan Dougan, 26, and Matthew Murphy, 23, took photographs of the loot they stole in raids across north Manchester, Bury and Salford.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria President Bouteflika to Stand for Fourth Term
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika will run for a fourth term in April’s election, according to the country’s prime minister. Bouteflika has been in power for 15 years and suffered a mini-stroke last year.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia to Tighten Niqab Controls
The Tunisian interior ministry on February 14th announced stricter controls on people wearing the niqab.
“The measure is being taken because of the threat the country faces and because of terrorist suspects using the niqab… to disguise themselves and escape justice,” the interior ministry said. The ministry urged citizens to be understanding and help security units do their work.
Security forces have recently arrested a number of terrorists and criminals wearing niqabs. Authorities also pointed out that the terrorists who were hunted down in Raoued as well as those arrested in Ariana moved from Jebel Chaambi to the capital wearing niqabs…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Army Signs Up ‘Rain Man’ Image Analysts
Unit 9900 recuits autistic youth for their exceptional abilities
(by Massimo Lomonaco) (ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, FEBRUARY 20 — The Israeli army has decided to continue enlisting autistic youths to take advantage of the extraordinary visual abilities some of them have to spot even the most imperceptible change in images. The young recruits are placed in Unit 9900: an elite, highly specialized corps of military intelligence. Its task is to study data and images transmitted by Israeli satellites orbiting the earth and provide detailed, sensitive information to field commanders to enable them to make the best decisions possible. The program — part of a plan to integrate autistic youths into society — was drawn up by the Tel Aviv Ono academic center with the involvement of the army after getting approval from Mossad chief Tamir Pardo. For the past four years the Tzahal (the Israeli army) has been enlisting autistic youths. The first was Zohar Peer, 21, who in 2010 was the first to wear an Israeli military uniform — to his immense joy and that of his family, the media reported at that time. An investigative report by Channel 10 found, however, that it was in November that the decision was made to use some of the youths in Unit 9900 due to their incomparable abilities to analyze images. The televised report noted that the results were seen immediately, giving truth to the saying by well-known British military strategist and historian Sir Basil Liddel Hartel, who once said that “the profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men”.
The work of the young ‘Rain Men’ (title of a film starring Dustin Hoffman, who plays an autistic man with prodigious mathematical abilities) in uniform consists in studying satellite images of buildings, zones, and objectives on a computer — most of the time the same but from different angles and at different times. The recruits have proved that they are able to pick up on the tiniest changes that would not have been noticed by their fellow soldiers. “In this way,” their commander has said, “they save human lives”, since the fighters get more accurate information. The training lasts a few months, in which the youths are taught how to go on their own between the base and their homes, in order to make them feel as autonomous as possible and to enable them to gain greater faith in their abilities.
Channel 2 reports that the project seems to make many people happy: the recruits, who no longer feel marginalized; their families, who struggle against social discrimination; the army, which gains important information; and the directors of the Ono academic center, who have been able to see their theories put into practice.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lady Gaga to Play Tel Aviv in September
The upcoming Lady Gaga concert has an official date and location: September 13th in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park. The news was announced Wednesday on the Israeli show “Good Evening with Guy Pines.”
Other acts set to perform in the Holy Land over the next few months include the Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber, the Pixies, and more. Get busy Roger Waters—looks like you have some serious open letter writing ahead of you.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
The plans proposing to erect a modern complex on the house of the Prophet’s birth are part of a multi-billion-dollar redevelopment of the pilgrimage city of Mecca.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Car Bomb Attack in Hermel, Hezbollah Stronghold in Lebanon
(AGI) Balbeek (Lebanon), Feb 22 — A powerful car bomb was detonated at a military checkpoint in Hermel, in eastern Lebanon, security forces reported on Saturday. Hermel is a Hezbollah stronghold in the Bekaa Valley and has been targeted frequently in recent months, with many of the attacks tied to the war in neighbouring Syria.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Daniel Pipes: Iran’s Nuclear Buildup and American Irrelevance
The Menendez-Kirk “Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013” (S. 1881) threatens the Iranian regime with additional sanctions and appears to be the only way to counter the Obama administration’s flaccidity vis-à-vis Tehran.
I am skeptical, however, that it can do much good.
* Like the megalomaniacs in North Korea, the mullahs are dead-set on building a nuclear arsenal regardless of the toll this takes on their long-suffering subject population. Yes, sanctions increase economic privation which could lead to a counter-revolution but the odds of that happening in time are very small. Thus, the Menendez-Kirk bill is more symbolic than real.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Success on Nuclear Issue Abroad, Defeats at Home for Rouhani
A political adviser to Rouhani is slammed for wearing a tie at an international meeting. A reformist newspaper is shut down for describing as “inhumane” Islam’s law on vengeance. Nuclear talks resumes are set to resume on 17 March.
Tehran (AsiaNews) — Current talks in Vienna on Iran’s nuclear programme are “very positive,” said EU chief Catherine Ashton.
Iran and the 5+1 group (also known as the E3+3: Great Britain, Germany, France for the EU, plus the United States, Russia and China) have agreed on a number of issues to be addressed starting next 17 March.
Talks on a comprehensive agreement over Iran’s nuclear programme follow a temporary deal worked out last November in which Tehran agreed to curb uranium enrichment in exchange for an easing of sanctions.
Such positive results are due to the new style introduced by President Hassan Rouhani who has pursued a path of dialogue and not of confrontation with the international community, especially with the United States and Europe.
At home however, his attempts at reform have been stopped. When he was elected president last June, he promised greater cultural freedom and a more open society.
For most young Iranians the state apparatus run by the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guards is corrupt and phoney and for this reason many of them have started to reject Islam.
Last Saturday, Rouhani had to disavow his senior foreign policy adviser, Mahmood Sariolghalam, who wore a tie at a meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Sariolghalam, a professor at Iran’s National University, was harshly attacked by state TV and right-wingers for breaking a rule established by Khomeini, for whom the tie was a symbol of “Western decadence.”
A second punch came yesterday when reformist newspaper Aseman (sky in Persian), was shut down for offending Islamic law when it published an article in which qesas, the Islamic law on vengeance, was described as “inhumane”.
The paper’s editor, Abbas Bozorgmehr, was arrested and brought to Evin Prison.
Aseman was published as a weekly paper for two years before it was rebranded as a daily a few days ago.
Last October, another reformist newspaper, Bahar, was shut down for allegedly questioning Shia beliefs.
For Shia cleric Mohammadreza Baqerzadeh, the “attacks” against Islamic law are the result of the “cultural atmosphere” created by the new government, the Fars news agency reported.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq Blasts: 19 Killed in Wave of Attacks by Gunmen
Baghdad: Nineteen people were killed and 29 others wounded in attacks by gunmen mainly targeting Iraqi security forces in central and eastern Iraq Saturday, police said.
In Iraq’s northern central province of Salahudin, gunmen attacked several police checkpoints in the early hours of the day in the town of Seiniyah, some 50 km north of provincial capital Tikrit, resulting in fierce clashes that left four policemen dead and six others injured, a provincial police source told Xinhua…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Report: Turkey Financing Top Global Terror Groups
Turkey has become a principal financial hub for terrorists under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government has helped Iran skirt sanctions, supported jihadi groups in Syria, and provided financial backing to Hamas, according to a new report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
Turkey, a key U.S. ally, “has turned a blind eye” to terror financing and is potentially on the verge of crossing the line to becoming an official state sponsor of terrorism, according to the Friday report, which cites the Erdogan government’s close ties to some of the world’s top terror organizations and operatives.
The report comes just a day after 84 U.S. lawmakers and former government officials urged President Barack Obama to confront Erdogan over his harsh repression of political opponents.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Who Punched His Mother in the Jaw is Ordered to Have the Same Tooth Broken
An unnamed Saudi man, in his 30s, has been sentenced to have a tooth broken after he punched his mother in the mouth and knocked out one of hers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Rain Prayer ‘Cheaper’ Against Drought, Says Minister
Ruling out using drastic methods such as artificial rain bombs
(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, FEBRUARY 21 — As Western Turkey and Central Anatolia experience one of the driest winters in recent years, Waterworks Minister Veysel Eroglu has dismissed resorting to drastic methods such as artificial rain bombs, suggesting that prayers for rain are a more affordable option, as daily Hurriyet reports. “We are not considering using artificial rain bombs because this does not have a significant yield,” Eroglu said, noting that the technique was tested in Istanbul at the beginning of the 1990s under former Mayor Nurettin Sozen, the predecessor to Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “In the end, it was us who paid the bill for the rain bombs that were been unsuccessful. So this is not an option. But we can still go for rain prayers, at least that does not have any cost,” he added. Eroglu’s statements came as the water levels in Istanbul’s reservoirs continued to drop, at danger of dropping below 30% overall, the lowest level in 10 years, according to data from the Istanbul Waterworks Authority (ISKI). Data show that water levels in Istanbul have mostly stayed above 50%, except for a drop in 2009 to 30%. Experts have been warning that the lack of rain and snowfall in January and February could cause a significant water shortage in the summer if precautionary measures are not immediately implemented.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Finland Routs US 5-0 for Bronze in Men’s Olympic Hockey
Teemu Selanne scored two goals and Tuukka Rask had a 26-save shutout, helping Finland rout the United States 5-0 Saturday to win hockey bronze at the Sochi Games.
Finland has won four medals in the last five Olympics, more than any other nation in the NHL era.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko Addresses Kyiv Crowd
Ukrainian opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko has addressed protesters in Kyiv, hours after her release from custody. President Viktor Yanukovych is reported to have been stopped from boarding a plane to Russia.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Lenin Statues Toppled Across Ukraine
Protesters in Bila Tserkva, Khmelnitsky, Zhytomyr in western Ukraine used ropes and crowbars to bring down statues of Lenin which are seen as a symbol of Moscow’s rule across the former USSR. (Feb. 22)
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Soros Funded “Libyan Scenario” Now Unfolding in Ukraine
Libya suffered from an order out of chaos plan. A similar design on Russia’s frontier is now underway
Back in 2011 the Party of Regions warned that if left unchecked the globalist financier George Soros would unleash a “Libyan scenario” on Ukraine.
“I even have information that Soros has allocated certain funds in order to prepare a certain group of young boys here in Ukraine who could launch any existing projects based on the North Africa examples,” said Aleksandr Yefremov, head of the Party of Regions parliamentary faction.
A “certain group of young boys,” namely violent gun-toting hooligans from the Right Sector and associated neofascist groups, are reportedly in control of Kyiv as of Saturday. Members of 31st Hundred, an opposition group from Lviv, were said to be in control of Ukraine’s Parliament building, The New York Times reports, and the president, Viktor Yanukovych, has fled the capitol. Protesters have taken control of his home.
The United States and NATO supported mercenaries in Libya who overthrew the government and murdered its leader, Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi. Libya is now paralyzed by factional, regional, tribal and ideological divisions, a fate Ukraine now confronts as stores are looted, cash machines emptied, and a mass exodus departs the capitol for Odessa, Simferopol and Kharkov, Ukrainian cities largely loyal to the government and less affected by the turmoil, according to Russia Today.
In 2008 the now imprisoned former prime minister, Yulia Timoshenko, talked about the role George Soros played in Ukrainian politics and the advice he gave following the financial crisis.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ukraine’s President Flees Palace as Protesters Widen Control
An opposition unit took control of the presidential palace outside Kiev on Saturday, as leaders in Parliament said Ukraine’s president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, had fled the capital a day after a deal was reached aimed at ending the country’s spiral of violence.
Members of an opposition group from Lviv called the 31st Hundred — carrying clubs and some of them wearing masks — were in control of the entryways to the palace Saturday morning. And Vitali Klitschko, one of three opposition leaders who signed the deal to end the violence, said that Mr. Yanukovych had “left the capital” but his whereabouts were unknown, with members of the opposition speculating that he had gone to Kharkiv, in the northeast part of Ukraine.
Protesters claimed to have established control over Kiev. By Saturday morning they had secured key intersections of the city and the government district of the capital, which police officers had fled, leaving behind burned military trucks, mattresses and heaps of garbage at the positions they had occupied for months.
| [Return to headlines] |
Ukrainian President Insists He Won’t Resign; Slams Opposition
KIEV, February 22 (RIA Novosti) — Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych insisted Saturday that he would neither resign nor sign any agreement with what he called “bandits terrorizing the country.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Ukrainian Parliament Votes to Oust President, Sets Early Elections
The Ukrainian parliament voted to set early elections for May 25 after declaring President Viktor Yanukovych unable to carry out constitutional duties.
The decision comes just hours after embattled Yanukovych said he wouldn’t respect any decisions made by parliament. Yanukovych stated Saturday that he has no intention to resign, and called the political crisis a coup while saying it resembles the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s.
Parliament also arranged the release of Yanukovych’s arch-rival, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, by voting to decriminalize the count under which she was imprisoned.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Afghan Child Killed, 5 Women Injured in Clinic Attack
MEHTARLAM, Afghanistan, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) — One child and two policemen were killed while five women were wounded Saturday when militants opened fire on women, who line up to receive food at a maternity and women’s clinic in eastern Afghan province of Laghman, sources said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Dozens Hurt as Anti-Government Rally in Thailand Attacked
Police in eastern Thailand say at least 35 people were hurt when an anti-government rally was attacked by armed men. Police Lt. Thanabhum Newanit said assailants in a pick-up truck attacked a Saturday night rally held by the People’s Democratic Reform Committee in the province of Trat, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) east of Bangkok.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU’s Ambassador in India Worried About Italian Marines
Cravinho expresses hope for solution to big diplomatic row
(ANSA) — New Delhi, February 21 — The European Union’s ambassador to India has said he is worried about two Italian marines facing charges for allegedly killing two Indian fishermen, local media reported Friday.
Indian prosecutors could seek to apply an anti-terrorism, anti-piracy law against Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone. The two marines stand accused of killing fishermen Valentine (aka Gelastine) and Ajesh Binki after allegedly mistaking them for pirates and opening fire on their fishing trawler while guarding the privately owned Italian-flagged oil-tanker MT Enrica Lexie off the coast of Kerala in 2012.
The hope is that “it will be possible to find a solution” to the Italy-India crisis, Indian news agency Pti reported EU Ambassador Joao Cravinho as saying.
Cravinho went on to add he was “very worried” about the possibility that the anti-terrorism and anti-piracy law may be used in the case.
He also raised the issue that “two years have already passed since the accident and no charges have been drawn up yet”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Indian Man Commits Suicide After Killing American Wife
An Indian man fatally stabbed his American wife before killing himself near the Taj Mahal, four months after the couple married near the legendary monument of love, police said Saturday. Erin W. Willinger’s body was found with multiple stab wounds late Thursday night in a deserted part of the city, said Agra police chief Shalabh Mathur. Her husband Bunty Sharma committed suicide by igniting cooking gas and causing a massive explosion in his home, Mathur said.
Willinger and Sharma met last year when she visited the Taj Mahal with friends. She and Sharma fell in love and got married in October, police said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Alexander We Forgot: Indian Archaeology Owes Much to Sir Cunningham
In the mid-19th century, a young British officer arrived in India as a 19-year-old to work with the Bengal Engineers and participate in the military campaigns of the East India Company. But as it turned out, that officer would be forever remembered for a lot more than his military prowess. That officer was Sir Alexander Cunningham (1814-1893), the founder of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the man India’s historians and history lovers should thank, but have probably forgotten.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pollyannaville: Dying Starfish Article Never Once Mentions Fukushima or Radiation
Incredibly, a San Luis Obispo, California “mainstream” newspaper — The Tribune — published a 408-word article Tuesday about the widespread epidemic of dying starfish in coastal tidepools and not one of those words was “Fukushima,” or “radiation.”
“The cause of the disease is an unidentified pathogen that causes the animals to look deflated or have unnatural twisting to its arms. The disease then progresses to a bacterial infection that often leads to loss of arms and death.”
The University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) website that The Tribune linked to for “more information” also did not mention Fukushima, or radiation.
“As of Summer, 2013, there is evidence that we are at the onset of another Wasting event and one that is particularly troubling because of its spatial extent. MARINe monitoring groups have documented Wasting in Pisaster ochraceus from Alaska through California…”
I’m particularly troubled, too, because a simple search for:
dying starfish fukushima
Brought up this 2011 report from Yale:
“With contaminated water from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear complex continuing to pour into the Pacific, scientists are concerned about how that radioactivity might affect marine life. Although the ocean’s capacity to dilute radiation is huge, signs are that nuclear isotopes are already moving up the local food chain.” ~ Elizabeth Grossman, “Radioactivity in the Ocean: Diluted, But Far from Harmless”
Grossman mentions a previous massive starfish die-off in the White Sea in the 1990s, which was “variously attributed by Russian scientists to pollution or nuclear contamination.”
[Comment: Check out the graphic showing the plume headed for US.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sydney’s G20 a Far Cry From the Drama and Protests of Years Gone
Downtown Sydney went about its usual business on Saturday, seemingly indifferent — if not oblivious- to the meeting of the world’s most powerful financial minds taking place just a few blocks from Circular Quay…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
The ‘A’ In ABC, It Must be for ‘Alien’
By Peter Smith
It came to me in a dream: The same extraterrestrials who polished their English skills by monitoring the ABC on their long, intergalactic journey to Earth are now in charge of the national broadcaster. No wonder they still can’t grasp the world the rest of us inhabit…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Zimbabwe: Mugabe Celebrates 90th Birthday, Says He Does Not Want to Retire, Claims He is Still Fit
Marking his 90th birthday, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe said he isn’t ready to consider retirement.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Caracas-Based Blogger: Venezuela Has Imploded, Video Shows Cops Shooting Civilians
There is a scandal in the United States, and this one is not about anything the government has done. This one is squarely on the media, which is virtually ignoring what’s going on in Venezuela. There, the population is rising up en masse against the socialist government of Nicolas Maduro — the successor to the late anti-American strongman Hugo Chavez.
An on-the-scene blogger named Francisco Toro, writing for the online Caracas Chronicles, excioriates the international news media for its dereliction of duty, making clear that the situation in Caracas has reached the point of a violent meltdown, while the news media dithers:
Dear International Editor:
Listen and understand. The game changed in Venezuela last night.What had been a slow-motion unravelling that had stretched out over many years went kinetic all of a sudden.
What we have this morning is no longer the Venezuela story you thought you understood.
Throughout last night, panicked people told their stories of state-sponsored paramilitaries on motorcycles roaming middle class neighborhoods, shooting at people and storming into apartment buildings, shooting at anyone who seemed like he might be protesting…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Networks Minimize Coverage of Anti-Socialist Protests in Venezuela
ABC, CBS, and NBC have largely punted in covering the protests against the leftist government in Venezuela. Since Monday, only NBC Nightly News has devoted a full report on the demonstrations in the South American country. Altogether, NBC has aired just over two minutes of reporting on the story.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Protests in Venezuela, Maduro Accuses US
Crowds have gathered in cities across Venezuela for another day of rival pro- and anti-government rallies. High inflation and soaring crime have fueled protests while government disputes with the US continue.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Venezuela Orders Troops Into Border City Amid Fierce Clashes
Paratroopers sent into San Cristobal in the border state of Tachira and an internet blackout imposed, as residents say they are living in a ‘war zone’
President Nicolas Maduro has ordered paratroopers into the restive Venezuelan border city of San Cristobal amid fierce clashes between government forces and opposition protesters, as the leftist leader warned the US to stay out of the country’s growing unrest…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Protests in Ceuta Against Spanish Government
Ministers of Spain and Morocco boost cooperation
(ANSAmed) — MADRID — Over 300 people protested in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta against the government of Premier Mariano Rajoy, accused of treating migrants “like suitcases”. Demonstrators also denounced incidents on February 6, when 15 migrants drowned and others were chased away by the Guardia Civil as roughly 1,400 people tried to get into the enclave. Guardia civil officers used anti-riot gear including rubber bullets against the immigrants.
Meanwhile, the interior ministers of Spain and Morocco, Jorge Fernandez Diaz and Mohamed Hassad, agreed to boost cooperation between the two countries to confront the immigration emergency in the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
I have a wonderfully informative slide presentation for you that documents just about everything you didn’t know about Agenda 21 and “Sustainable Development,” and confirms everything you do know about Agenda 21 and “Sustainable Development.” It is detailed, yet easy to read and understand, and should be a handy tool in your arsenal against the long-sought control of our natural resources and our minds. If you have friends or contacts in your city government or schools, please consider sharing this presentation with them. I have outlined a few points to demonstrate the depth of the material.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: *** Disturbing Content.*** ]
Demetrious Panton was just one of hundreds of vulnerable children who were systematically raped and sexually abused in care homes run by the London borough of Islington in the Seventies and Eighties.
‘I thought: “He’ll hurt me if I ever tell anyone’ — Demetrious Panton
He was targeted by a now notorious paedophile ring, whose members at some point ran every one of the council’s 12 care homes.
For more than a decade, the group was able to prey on children with virtual impunity, convincing Labour-run Islington’s political elite that anyone who attempted to blow the whistle on their crimes was motivated by homophobia.
Complaints were systematically brushed under the carpet by officials who appeared to give more weight to the so-called human rights of paedophiles than those of children.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kenyan Cardinal Hits Back at Obama Over Homosexuality: Progressives ‘Already Ruined Their Society’
Among the chorus of African leaders responding to Obama last week after the president urged Africans to accept homosexuality was a Kenyan Cardinal, who strongly urged Obama to “forget” his promotion of homosexual behavior.
“Those people who have already ruined their society…let them not become our teachers to tell us where to go,” said Cardinal John Njue, Archbishop of Nairobi and president of the Kenyan Episcopal Conference.
“I think we need to act according to our own traditions and our faiths,” he added…
The cultural clash on homosexuality has often been exacerbated because Western nations frequently threaten African nations with a loss of foreign aid over the issue.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Calls Homosexuality One of Our ‘Fundamental Freedoms’ In Statement Slamming Ugandan Bill
President Barack Obama has elevated the right to have sex with a member of the same sex to the level of universal “fundamental freedoms” in a new presidential statement criticizing Uganda. But critics say his promotion of homosexuality in a continent that overwhelmingly opposes that behavior amounts to a form of liberal “cultural imperialism.”…
His reaction came after Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said last Friday that, after nearly two months deliberation, he would sign legislation that makes conducting a same-sex “wedding” punishable with seven years in prison. Infecting others with AIDS, having sex with minors, or repeated homosexual acts may earn life imprisonment. An earlier version of the bill called for the death penalty, but the provision was removed.
According to a spokesman, Museveni decided to sign the bill after scientists told him “there is no definitive gene responsible for homosexuality.” He added that homosexual prostitution is “what the president wants to prevent,” especially after Presidential Adviser on Science Dr. Richard Tushemereirwe said that all homosexuality had “serious public health consequences.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Words Matter — Combating Hate Crime in Europe
Norway is a key partner of this year’s Fundamental Rights Conference through the EEA and Norway Grants. The conference is a high level annual event, organised by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA).
The 2013 conference, taking place 12-13 November in Vilnius and hosted in cooperation with the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the EU, is focusing on the issue of ‘Combating hate crime in the EU’.
Ahead of the event, Børge Brende, Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, said “The rule of law and strong democratic institutions are key to foster societies to challenge hate speech and hate crime. If victims of hate crime suffer from lack of response from authorities and offenders are not prosecuted the whole society suffers and ultimately democracy fails.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
http://world.time.com/2014/02/04/ukraine-dmitri-yarosh-kiev/
Interview with far right leader in Kiev
Your blog is biased & not worthy of any persons attention. Ran by a Yorkshire American.. Both thick as 2 short planks.
Why do you follow it then? And while I’m sure the Baron is quite capable of defending himself, he doesn’t strike me as thick- indeed I often admire his erudition (that’s a word with four syllables: hope you understand it).
@ Mark H: I shall follow what I want, and if I am unhappy with how certain websites are ran and if I think they are biased and economical with the truth I shall say so.
Good for you Scottish Infidel, never let anyone tell you what blogs you can follow. That is a god given right that no mere man can take away.
I admire your resolve and I wish more blogreaders would show that kind of mettle when they are told to move on by some anonymous poster.
If more people were like you, the world would be a more peaceful place.
~Please all take minute to listen to Imagine by John Lennon.
I didn’t tell Scottish Infidel to move on, just wondered why he stays (and took exception to his rudeness).
If indeed the Baron is biased, it must be selective, as I stick out here like the proverbial sore thumb.
Only thing I hate is liars and those who are economical with the truth or who bend the truth to their own ends….
Scottish Infidel, what do you consider to be biased about this blog and how do you justify your view that it is not worthy of any person’s attention? It appears to have caught yours.
But this blog IS biased. I make no bones about it. Everyone knows what my bias is.
I’m biased, and proud of it.
What’s the problem?
The problem is you have a responsibility to air all views no matter how bias you are, this is an imperative part of running a website that deals with important issues.
By the way I have nothing against Yorkshire or America, having spent some time in Sheffield and my own brother is shacked up with a chick from Leeds after his relationship in Preston went to the wall.
America to me is many things I admire such as muscle cars, the culture, the cityscapes, the countryside, the food and in many cases the people.
I don’t know you personally and have nothing against you personally, though I can say I am not happy with the fact that if you plainly disagree with what someone says you shall fail to publish it.
Everyone has something to bring to the table on here, denying them their points of view is basically the same as what the government agencies and MSM etc are doing across the globe .
I am against the encroachment of Islam, assisted by those who endeavour to replicate Marxian critical theory, this involves many people from many races, nationalities and cultures as well as ideologies.
As soon as Zionism is mentioned it seems you clam up and don’t want to know, I have nothing against the Jewish peoples, though there is people in that faith who practice supremacy and even hate against non Jewish peoples, white gentiles call them what you may?
This is part of the problem, the White Christian Leftards are another, the Islamic supremacists are another. I don’t give any special favours or treatment to anyone, I am open minded and speak the truth, if I can be corrected on these I shall endeavour to eat humble pie.
Well, McInfidel, I’ll answer a few of your points.
No, I don’t, and no, it isn’t.
My responsibility is to run this site in a manner that seems to me to serve our mission in the best way possible. No more and no less. That means I exclude anything that seems detrimental to our mission, according to my own best judgment. Neither you nor anyone else (besides my wife) gets to tell me how to run this blog.
Those readers who are satisfied with the way we run it contribute their hard-earned money to enable us to keep it alive. Those who don’t save their money for what they consider a more worthwhile cause. Or, better yet, they get disgusted with my high-handed ways and go somewhere else.
You obviously haven’t been paying attention, or you’d have noticed that I approve innumerable comments I don’t agree with — including many of your own.
It’s not whether I agree with them, it’s whether I consider them detrimental to the value of this site. If I do, then out they go. It doesn’t disturb me in the slightest if I am “biased”, engaging in “censorship”, or committing any of the other offenses imputed to me by irate commenters whose words have been deleted.
After what I’ve been through over the past six years running this enterprise, such matters are of no consequence to me.
I most definitely am not doing what the government does, since this is a private enterprise. I’m like the barman at the Rose & Crown — when I see a patron staggering around and getting belligerent, I say, “Looks like you’ve had enough, laddie! Out wi’ ye!” Then I pick him up by his virtual collar and belt and pitch him down the front steps onto the rain-soaked cobbles, with no right of appeal.
As for the MSM — they are biased in one direction, and I’m biased in the opposite direction. Big deal. I don’t care.
You’re damned right I don’t want to know! I can’t tell you how sick I am of the endless antagonistic blah-blah about Zionism and those perfidious Jooooos. I’ve heard it all before, ten thousand times over.
When I post something I consider important that breaks new ground — say, for example, the al-Shabaab connection with the building in Minneapolis that blew up — it gets about six comments. But if a post mentions the word “Jews”, the Zionist-obsessed commenters kick off immediately and continue, comment after comment, drooling down the page for days or even weeks, sometimes a hundred or more of them, fifty or sixty thousand words of the same old schist, repeated over and over again, ad nauseam.
I know it all by heart. I could write it out in advance myself. Everybody knows it; we’ve all heard it before. And except for the Jew-obsessed, everyone is heartily sick of it.
That’s why I start deleting those comments. There’s only so much of it I can take. Not only that, it ruins the comment thread for those who would prefer to discuss something else.
Leftist activists aim to decriminalize paedophilia in nearly all Western countries. As moral relativism became accepted by most left wing intellectuals, criminals were increasingly seen as criminals instead of offenders. In the United States, the left wing academics and more recently Hollywood have celebrated biologist Alfred Kinsey. In 2004 Hollywood released the film Kinsey, which ‘ hilariously’ portrayed him discussing sexual taboos with prudish Americans. This is the same man who worked together with a man referred to him as Rex King, a man who travelled the country for his work and through his contacts with paedophile networks across the USA, was able to abuse children, even toddlers everywhere he went. He reported hundreds of these cases to Alfred Kinsey, who used the results for his study and never notified authorities. He cooperated with other paedophiles and his former employees state Kinsley himself slept with everything that walked,including his own male and female staff. The results on his studies can still be found in his books. In a documentary about Kinsey they discuss how Mr.King reported how the smaller children [disturbing details redacted]. Its absolutely disgusting.
In the Netherlands, former chairman of Groenlinks, a leftist party which can always count on favorable press in the Dutch media, worked together with a group of deviants called RozeLinks(pink left), to abolish all age boundaries and consider all non violent sex with children as consensual and legal. In Belgium, the leftist establishment employs a vast network of judges, policemen and journalists who, according to a documentary which can be found on YouTube(serial killers Dutroux) are intimately connected to the Dutroux network. The documentary presents officers complaining about their superiors preventing them from following up on leads and evidence when it could have exposed this network. Whether the allegations are true, you should judge on your own, but the other examples I mentioned are completely factual.
“Leftists” is far too general. We’re not an amorphous blob of enablers of child abuse.
There are leftist activists and there are those who believe in their logical fallacies. The left is much closer knit then the right, they rarely oppose each other and disagreements tend to be about the manner and the extent to which leftist ideals are implemented. The right is not unified by a single worldview. I consider the left an amorphous blob, if the academics, the politicians, the journalists and the educators wouldn’t have been so in tune with eachothers beliefs, we would not be in the mess we are currently in. Concerning child abuse, I often discussions with leftists, where they either believe they can be cured and are willing to take enormous risks for their right to rehabilitate or they consider them simply mentally ill, washing away their guilt.
@UK: Soaring Demand for Free Handouts Has Nothing to Do With Benefit Cuts, Says Food Bank Founder
“He said the accusation was politically motivated and those who claim the reforms have left people hungry do so on the basis of their beliefs and not because of any evidence.”
Only a former BBC reporter could spew that comment, Robin Aitken obviously set up his food bank so the unproductive middle class could play at being poor and swap their food stuffs. What is a food bank for if is not for the poor?
Hundreds of thousands have had their welfare sanctioned, an act that in fact does not automatically give access to the food banks as access is usually by other agency – client based referral – most sanctioned claimants are not clients of other Gov/NGO agencies.
There is nothing politically motivated about the welfare hunger games it is a war of enslave the white man borne out of pure self-loathing.
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