Monica Lewinsky has resurfaced in the media more than fifteen years after the Drudge Report revealed her dalliance with President Bill Clinton, setting in motion a train of events that led to the impeachment of the president. The apparent presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton is thought by many to have contributed to Ms. Lewinsky’s decision to reopen the discussion about her alleged affair.
In other news, recent media leaks of government files reveal that Chinese intelligence agencies have been reading the emails of Australian MPs, possibly for as long as a year.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Diana West, Fjordman, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JD, JP, Kitman, MC, 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.
Financial Transaction Tax to be Introduced by Year’s End
Tobin Tax to be levied on shares and derivatives, Padoan says
(ANSA) — Brussels, May 6 — The controversial tax on financial transactions (FTT), commonly referred to as Tobin Tax, will be introduced this year in some countries, Italian Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said following a meeting of European Union finance ministers Tuesday.
The tax will be introduced gradually starting from the end of 2014 by the 11 European Union countries — including Italy — that signed up to so-called enhanced cooperation in 2012. Initially the FTT will be applied to shares and some derivatives, Padoan said.
Britain, which has always been opposed to the levy, said it would appeal to the European Court of Justice against the decision should it affect countries that have not signed up to enhanced cooperation. “The tax repels investments, we are concerned about its extraterritorial impact,” said Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. The FTT is nicknamed after Nobel Laureate economist James Tobin, who in 1972 proposed a tax on all spot conversions on currencies to prevent attacks inflicted by short-term speculation.
Since then it has come to refer to taxes on other financial transactions, like equities or securities, intended to dampen speculative forays or raise more money for governments from the financial sector.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
France Was ‘On Verge of Bankruptcy’, Hollande Says
Marking the two-year anniversary on Tuesday since being elected and facing the lowest opinion polls in modern French history, President François Hollande urged his countrymen to reserve judgement until the end of his mandate in 2017.
He also partly blamed his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, for France’s current financial woes, saying the country “was on the verge of bankruptcy” when he took over the reins at the Elysée Palace.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Spread Down to 154 Points
(ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — The yield on Italy’s 10-year BTP State bond dropped below the 3% mark to a record low of 2.99% on Tuesday. The spread between the 10-year BTP and the ultra-safe German bund, a key measure of Italy’s borrowing costs and of investor confidence, stood at 154 basis points, the lowest level since May 2011. Italy risked a Greek-style financial meltdown later that year when the spread went over 500 points with yields above 7%.
The country’s borrowing costs have been falling since Premier Matteo Renzi unseated his Democratic Party colleague Enrico Letta in February and took the helm of government promising to revive the economy and reform the country’s slow and expensive political system
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Western World is in Crisis and Democracy is on the Brink
In the United States and Europe, rising taxes, increased government expenditures, high unemployment, massive debt, and looming bankruptcies paint a picture of a system gone wrong
Have the democratic foundations of the West truly begun to vote themselves to the brink of resolution?
And more importantly, is there anything that can pinpoint what has gone wrong and whether or not it can be fixed?
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
10 Examples of How Big Brother is Steadily Creeping Into Our Everyday Lives
Virtually everything that you do is being watched. Do you drive a car? Do you watch television? Do you use a cell phone? As you do any of those things, information about you is being recorded and tracked. We live at a time when personal privacy is dying. And it is not just governments that are doing this.
In fact, sometimes private companies are the biggest offenders. It turns out that gathering information about all of us is very, very profitable. And both government entities and private companies are going to continue to push the envelope when it comes to high tech surveillance until people start objecting to what they are trying to do. If we continue down the path that we are currently on, it is inevitable that we will end up living in an extremely restrictive “Big Brother” police state where basically everything that we do is very closely watched, monitored, tracked and controlled. And such a day may be much closer than you think. The following are 10 examples of how “Big Brother” is steadily creeping into our daily lives…
#1 Our cars are rapidly being transformed into high tech “Big Brother” surveillance devices. In fact, a push is being made to require all new vehicles to include very sophisticated black box recorders.
Yet strip away the glib Orwellian doublespeak, and what you will find is that these black boxes and V2V transmitters, which will not only track a variety of data, including speed, direction, location, the number of miles traveled, and seatbelt use, but will also transmit this data to other drivers, including the police, are little more than Trojan Horses, stealth attacks on our last shreds of privacy, sold to us as safety measures for the sake of the greater good, all the while poised to wreak havoc on our lives.
#2 A new Michigan law will ban thousands of preppers and small farmers from owning farm animals. What are they going to do next? Ban us from growing our own food?…
#5 Do you watch television? Well, if you have a newer television there is a very good chance that your television is watching you as well…
In November, the British tech blogger Doctorbeet discoveredthat his new LG Smart TV was snooping on him. Every time he changed the channel, his activity was logged and transmitted unencrypted to LG. Doctorbeet checked the TV’s option screen and found that the setting “collection of watching info” was turned on by default. Being a techie, he turned it off, but it didn’t matter. The information continued to flow to the company anyway.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Alibaba Files to Go Public in the U.S.
The e-commerce behemoth Alibaba filed in the United States on Tuesday to sell stock to the public for the first time, in an embrace of the global capital markets that represents a coming of age for the booming Chinese Internet industry.
In the filing, Alibaba said it intended to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering — a figure used to calculate its registration fee. But the company is expected ultimately to raise $15 billion to $20 billion — which would make it the biggest American I.P.O. since Facebook’s $16 billion offering May 2012.
| [Return to headlines] |
Banks Get Break on New Tax-Evasion Enforcement
Treasury Will Delay Some Rules If Firms Make Good-Faith Compliance Efforts
WASHINGTON—The Treasury Department said it would ease of a sweeping U.S. law aimed at curbing offshore, in a victory for banks worried about the costs and possible disruptions to the financial system.
The law, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or Fatca, will go into effect July 1, but the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service won’t rigorously enforce many of its requirements in 2014 and 2015, as long as firms are making a good-faith effort to comply, officials said…
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Busted: Harry Reid Owns 93 Acres Next to Bundy Ranch
Harry Reid has run 52 ranchers out of business so far, just like their recent efforts with Cliven Bundy, because of his ownership in Reid Bunkerville, LLC, which holds 93 acres in Nevada.
The parcels seem to be in the way of future development with the Chinese, which may even involve a freeway interchange and loop, and all sit west of the same general area as the land where all these ‘trespassing cattle’ graze.
We all know that the Reid crime syndicate had ulterior motives for the attacks on Cliven Bundy. Here’s the proof.[…]
[This guy is a worthy successor to Himmler and Goering at their most aquisitive… — MC]
| — Hat tip: MC | [Return to headlines] |
California Sen. Introduces Bill to Test Out Taxing Motorists for Every Mile They Drive
The California Legislature is looking at a voluntary program that would tax motorists for every mile they drive.
KCAL9’s Bobby Kaple reports that Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, introduced a bill to test out the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax because the state’s gas tax was no longer bringing in the revenue it used to due to people driving more fuel efficient vehicles.
The program is modeled after ones in Oregon and Washington.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Calif. Bill Banning State Sale of Confederate Flag Passes
California state government departments will be prohibited from selling or displaying items with an image of the Confederate flag under a bill that passed the Assembly on Monday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
FBI: We Need Wiretap-Ready Web Sites — Now
The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance.
In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities, CNET has learned.
The FBI general counsel’s office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.
[Comment: This would compromise security for everyone, not just “persons of interest”. Also, if the FBI can listen in — so can States hostile to the US. Companies recently experienced the “heartbleed” backdoor security risk — have they learned nothing? ]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Five US Internet Providers Are Slowing Down Access Until They Get More Cash
If you’re the customer of a major American internet provider, you might have been noticing it’s not very reliable lately. If so, there’s a pretty good chance that a graph like this is the reason:
These graphs comes from Level 3, one of the world’s largest providers of “transit,” or long-distance internet connectivity. The graph on the left shows the level of congestion between Level 3 and a large American ISP in the Dallas area. In the middle of the night, the connection is less than half-full and everything works fine. But during peak hours, the connection is saturated. That produces the graph on the right, which shows the packet loss rate. When the loss rate is high, thousands of Dallas-area consumers are having difficulty using bandwidth-heavy applications like Netflix, Skype, or YouTube (though to be clear, Level 3 doesn’t say what specific kind of traffic was being carried over this link).
This isn’t how these graphs are supposed to look. Level 3 swaps traffic with 51 other large networks, known as peers. For 45 of those networks, the utilization graph looks more like this:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hitler Survivor: Obama Making U.S. Totalitarian
Holocaust survivor Anita Dittman, whose story is told in the project being released Tuesday, “Trapped in Hitler’s Hell,” lived through Hitler’s rise to power, dictatorship, and death.
She is warning America that she sees now the same conditions she saw then… “It’s a similar time,” Dittman said. “We are financially in a problematic time. So was Germany. Hitler came in, and he made himself the savior, and people ate it all up because he made it sound wonderful how he would straighten everything out … and that is happening today, too.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Homeland Security Does Everything — Except Thwart Terror
To an outside observer, it might appear that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has taken on too many missions. But a series of articles appearing recently in the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico suggests that the DHS has but a single mission: one called “everything.”
Created by an act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush in November 2002, just over one year after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the DHS merged 22 federal agencies into one vast department charged with the task of preventing terrorist attacks, reducing the nation’s vulnerability to terrorism, and assisting in the recovery from any terrorist acts that might occur and from any other disasters, natural or man-made. That might seem like a large enough task for any organization, even one that is currently the third largest department of the U.S. government. But DHS is also involved in many law enforcement and crime prevention efforts that appear far removed from combating terrorism and terrorist-related activities. In New Mexico, the Albuquerque paper reported, Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) officers have been working with local police and the state attorney general’s office on investigations regarding gang activity, missing and exploited children, pickpocket rings, and stolen and fraudulent Native American art.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Infiltration of the U.S. Government, Part 2
The first part of solving the problem is to recognize there has been Russian penetration of the West, not just through espionage operations — which continue to be uncovered — but by agents of influence. Perhaps the investigations of the Obama administration, as it relates to Benghazi and the Muslim Brotherhood, will open this door.
As we have repeatedly pointed out, President Obama had well-documented links to such figures as Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party member and suspected Soviet espionage agent. It’s an old story that we have been telling again and again since 2008. To this day, it’s still not known who in the intelligence community was aware of Obama’s foreign connections when he became President. As a federal candidate, of course, he didn’t have to undergo a background check. Equally significant, Congress doesn’t have an internal security committee to probe such questions. Perhaps they just didn’t want to know the awful truth.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Influence and the Experts, Part I
by Diana West
One question I continue to be asked is what motive could possibly have driven the tiny band of anti-American-Betrayal extremists in their “disinformation campaign” — Jed Babbin’s phrase — against the book (debunked here) and their “mugging” — M. Stanton Evans’ term — of me (recently re-imagined by J.R. Nyquist as “a bungled mugging in which the mugger was seriously injured by blows from the victim’s purse”).
Having received input from Old Leftists, psychologists, intelligence professionals and others on what still remains a subject of wide and intense consideration, I can say the various theories are fascinating but, naturally, inconclusive.
I would like to address a different vector of criticism that I have to date left mainly unanswered, except for a tangential attempt to unravel this (see also “Harry Hopkins, Diana West and Me” by M. Stanton Evans.) This critique comes from John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, highly regarded experts on Moscow-directed spying in America through their studies of key areas of the intelligence archives made available by the US and Russian governments: notably, the Venona archive, 2,900 intercepted WWII-era Soviet diplomatic (including KGB and GRU) cables declassified by the US government beginning in 1995, and the “Vassiliev Notebooks,” a collection of KGB documents copied into notebooks by Alexander Vassiliev, working in Moscow under the auspices of post-Soviet Russian intelligence, beginning in early 1994.
When it comes to that area of espionage known as influence, however; when it comes to the creation and manipulation of Big Lies (discussed by Robert Conquest); the subtle shading and unsubtle shaping of policy to Communism’s advantage (explained by Whittaker Chambers and, recently, further documented by M. Stanton Evans and the late Herbert Romerstein); when it comes to the subversion of the culture itself — all of which is the fixed focus of my own interest and mutli-sourced exploration in American Betrayal — Haynes and Klehr have recently made a staggering admission.
This admission comes in their letter-entry in what amounted to a backdoor symposium on American Betrayal in the January issue of The New Criterion (overall discussed here), which opens with a caveat: “…it would be mistaken to believe our work aligns us with Diana West’s conclusions or arguments.”
Aside from the wafting chill, I’m not certain what they are trying to convey. Their published compendia of document caches are invaluable tools for researchers, whether the results of such research end up in “alignment” with Haynes and Klehr or not. Then again, what does being in alignment — a regrettably party-line concept — with the “work” of Haynes and Klehr actually mean? If by “work,” they mean their collections of historical cables and other documents, it is difficult to imagine what alignment might look like. If they mean the cables, etc., plus their own subjective analyses, there is little to fear of confusion given that areas of interpretative divergence are made quite clear in American Betrayal.
After all, American Betrayal is one long, documented repudiation of the conventional wisdom as rewritten and continually taught by mainstream historians on the subjects of FDR, WWII, Joseph McCarthy, Soviet infiltration (“occupation “), the Cold War and more. In this academic mainstream, of course, we find Soviet espionage experts Haynes and Klehr.
That said, there is still a place or two where American Betrayal veers into what might be construed as “alignment” with Haynes and Klehr and Vassiliev. This is not a matter of joy; it’s a matter of the record. For example, there is their ultimate conclusion at the end of Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America.
They write:…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
Internet Citizens: Defend Net Neutrality
Youtube video producer CGP Grey has made it easy to understand why net neutrality should be one of the primary focuses of our generation, as creating “internet fast lanes” would give cable providers the ability to regulate the flow of information and allow them to give preferential treatment to certain websites, while limiting access to others.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
IRS to Expand Financial Surveillance With Crackdown on Offshore Accounts
Crackdown will completely destroy financial privacy
A U.S. tax law taking effect this summer will completely destroy financial privacy in America by forcing many Americans to keep their investments inside the U.S. where they can be easily monitored by regulators.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Jay Carney Refuses to Answer if White House Will Cooperate With Select Committee
In today’s White House press briefing, Jay Carney was asked if the administration intended to cooperate with any ongoing investigation by Congress of the events surrounding Benghazi or the release of pertaining documents, the focus of the new select committee that Congressman Trey Gowdy will be chairing.
ABC’s Jon Karl asked the Carney point blank, “is the White House going to cooperate with this investigation, yes or no? Carney responded:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kids Traumatized, Have Nightmares After Cops Raid Wrong House
Cops give kids stuffed animals to make up for three hours of terror
A Michigan SWAT team provided a small family fresh inspiration for nightmares after they broke down the door to the wrong home and turned the place upside down looking for drugs.
Police in Kalamazoo apologized for mistaking Jeremy Handley’s home for that of an armed drug dealer, and hoped giving his children stuffed animals would make up for the terror-filled night.
Handley, his wife Becky and his two children were home last Thursday when he heard sounds making him believe his home was being burglarized. His kids ran to hide in a closet, hoping the thieves wouldn’t find them.
“I thought it was somebody either trying to rob us, or hurt us,” Handley recounted to CBS affiliate WWMT.
He says police entered through the back door and ordered him and his wife to the floor, handcuffing and searching them.
“He had me sprawl out right here on the floor, and then he had me put my hands behind my back,” Handley said, pointing to the area in his home where police held him at gunpoint.
Handley’s kids were also ferreted out of the closet, claiming they “were staying quiet, because we thought they were bad guys coming in.”
The Handleys were cuffed and interrogated for three hours, while police rummaged through their belongings looking for controlled substances, Federal Reserve notes and firearms. “Every drawer, every cabinet, every piece of paper,” Handley says of the SWAT team’s thorough search.
Police were apparently more thorough during their search, rather than prior. When all was said and done, they realized it was their mistake, as they were looking for the tenant who used to rent the Handley’s home about a year ago, a man by the name of Chum…
Police raids on wrong houses are occurring with such frequency that one wonders whether the raids are being carried out as a means of intimidating the public, or if their intelligence can really be so bad as to cause this many frequent mistakes.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Monica Lewinsky Breaks Silence About Affair With Bill Clinton
Monica Lewinsky says she became reclusive during Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign for president in 2008 for fear that she would be used for political purposes and that she feels “gun-shy” even now as Mrs. Clinton considers another run in 2016.
Ms. Lewinsky, now 40, broke her yearslong silence about her affair with President Bill Clinton in the article to appear in the May 8 edition of Vanity Fair.
In excerpts released by the magazine on Tuesday — which include a photograph of her wearing a white dress and lying casually on a sofa — Ms. Lewinsky sounds off about her regrets, her feelings of humiliation and the effect that the scandal has had on her career.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New Democracy Alliance Donors Revealed
Why the Left’s secretive group of millionaires and billionaires thinks it’s morally superior to the Koch brothers
The highly secretive Democracy Alliance (DA), which takes great pains to keep its work disbursing millions of dollars to left-wing causes beyond public scrutiny, has made a foolish mistake.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, a document left on the floor following the DA’s latest meeting at Ritz Carlton hotel in downtown Chicago reveals the names of a number of wealthy individuals committed to moving U.S. policies to the left.
Wealthy might be an understatement. The document has a list of new DA “partners” who must each contribute $30,000 in dues per year, plus an additional $200,000 in spending to groups supported by the DA. It also reveals the identities of DA “advisors,” foundation participants and other individuals who are getting a “sneak peek” at the DA’s activities. These partners include top labor, financial and business leaders as well as heirs to billion dollar fortunes, all of whom are recognized as large Democratic campaign contributors.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Biographer: ‘The World Seems to Disappoint Him’
David Remnick, an Obama biographer and the editor of the New Yorker, said this morning on national TV that President Obama is disappointed in the world.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
I recently decided to do some research to learn when America turned from the Republican form of Government to democracies — United Nations administrative government regulated and controlled by unelected government workers in unconstitutional agencies. In the 1957 book THE COMING CAESARS by Amaury de Riencourt states our Western world, America and Europe, is threatened with Caesarism on a scale unknown since the dawn of the Roman Empire. In order to see this threat in its proper perspective, we have to assess the relationship between America and Europe, and define their historical destinies.
It is the contention of this book that expanding democracy leads unintensionally to imperialism and IMPERIALISM inevitably ends in destroying the republican institutions of earlier days; further, that the greater the social equality, the dimmer the prospects of liberty, and that as society becomes more equalitarian, it tends increasingly to concentrate absolute power in the hands of one single man.
Caesariam is not dictatorship, not the result of one man’s overriding ambition, not a brutal seizure of power through revolution, it is not based on a specific doctrine or philosophy…It is not…but ends in a slow, often-century old unconscious development that ends in a voluntary surrender of free people escaping from freedom to one autocratic master…a rising democracy demands a strong EXECUTIVE. President Obama said recently if Congress doesn’t do what he wants, he’ll work around them. Class warfare, not Caesar killed the Roman Republic. In the 2013 book GROVER CLEVELAND, the forgotten conservative, he sent his 4th annual message to Congress expressing concern over a perceived polarization of American society: The gulf between employers and the employed was constantly widening, and classes were rapidly forming, one comprising the very rich and powerful, while in another are the toiling poor and it’s gotten worse since Barack Obama was elected.
Dr. Sam Vaknin, an Israeli psychologist claims our president has a mental disorder and labels him a pathological narcissist that can project such an imposing personality that it overwhelms those around him and charmed by the charisma of the narcissist, people become like clay in his hands. They cheerfully do his bidding, which makes him extremely dangerous. The doctor believes Barack’s chaotic childhood and child abuse was a determining factor in the development of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). And while he makes many more statements in this regard, time will not allow me to list them all;…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Trey Gowdy Can do an End Run on Benghazi Liars With Video Maker on the Stand
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R., S.C) who heads the select committee leading the probe into the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attack is in a position to end run the lying Democrats heading for hide-y-holes by subpoenaing the man who likely knows the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That man is Mark Basseley Youssef, the elusive writer, producer and promoter of Innocence of Muslims.
Since his release from a halfway house on Sept. 26, 2013, Youssef, whose YouTube video was blamed by Obama administration officials for the Benghazi attack, has faded into obscurity.
Why?
What if Youssef, who served several months in prison for an unrelated 2010 bank fraud before being imprisoned for a year for Innocence of Muslims, was paid to disappear?
It wouldn’t be the first time a corrupt government administration brokered a deal with a straw man to spend time in the slammer before being retired to a life of quiet luxury in an island paradise.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
US Government Begins Rollout of Its ‘Driver’s License for the Internet’
An idea the government has been kicking around since 2011 is finally making its debut. Calling this move ill-timed would be the most gracious way of putting it.
A few years back, the White House had a brilliant idea: Why not create a single, secure online ID that Americans could use to verify their identity across multiple websites, starting with local government services. The New York Times described it at the time as a “driver’s license for the internet.”
Sound convenient? It is. Sound scary? It is.
Next month, a pilot program of the “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace” will begin in government agencies in two US states, to test out whether the pros of a federally verified cyber ID outweigh the cons.
The NSTIC program has been in (slow) motion for nearly three years, but now, at a time when the public’s trust in government is at an all time low, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST — itself still reeling a bit from NSA-related blowback) is testing the program in Michigan and Pennsylvania. The first tests appear to be exclusively aimed at accessing public programs, like government assistance. The government believes this ID system will help reduce fraud and overhead, by eliminating duplicated ID efforts across multiple agencies.
But the program isn’t strictly limited to government use. The ultimate goal is a replacement of many logins and passwords people maintain to access content and participate in comment threads and forums. This “solution,” while somewhat practical, also raises considerable privacy concerns.
Beyond the privacy issues (and the hints of government being unduly interested in your online activities), there are the security issues. This collected information would be housed centrally, possibly by corporate third parties. When hackers can find a wealth of information at one location, it presents a very enticing target. The government’s track record on protecting confidential information is hardly encouraging.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
We Now Serve a People’s Warrant for Arrest on Albuquerque Police Chief Gordon Eden
Angry protesters took over Albuquerque City Council Monday night calling for immediate change at APD and the ousting of both Albuquerque’s Police Chief, Mayor and more.
Protesters even called for the arrest and issued a “people’s warrant” to APD Chief Gordon Eden.
“This is no longer your meeting, this is the people’s meeting,” protester David Correia, an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, said into a commandeered microphone as shown in the KRQE video below. “We now serve a people’s warrant for arrest on Albuquerque Police Chief Gordon Eden.”
This type of action is incredibly heartening! As more and more people refuse to accept such brutality, we will begin to see some very real change.
These protests stem from a string of police involved shootings, and the subsequent Justice Department investigation.
“Officers used deadly force against people who posed a minimal threat, including individuals who posed a threat only to themselves or who were unarmed,” the report stated. “Officers also used deadly force in situations where the conduct of the officers heightened the danger and contributed to the need to use force.”
| — Hat tip: MC | [Return to headlines] |
Wide Impact of Climate Change Already Seen in U.S., Study Says
The effects of human-induced climate change are being felt in every corner of the United States, scientists reported Tuesday, with water growing scarcer in dry regions, torrential rains increasing in wet regions, heat waves becoming more likely and more severe, wildfires growing worse, and forests dying under assault from heat-loving insects.
Such sweeping changes have been caused by an average warming of less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit over most land areas of the country in the past century, the scientists found. If greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane continue to escalate at a rapid pace, they said, the warming could conceivably exceed 10 degrees by the end of this century.
“Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” the scientists declared in a major new report assessing the situation in the United States.
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Cold Turkey: How Germany Could End Russian Gas Dependency
The crisis in Ukraine has made painfully obvious just how dependent Germany and other European countries are on Russian natural gas. There are serious alternatives for supplying the vital natural resource, but they all come at a price.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Euroskeptic Finns Party Has ‘Changed the Political Landscape’
Finland sees itself as Europe’s star pupil. But the upstart Finns Party, with its euroskeptic party line, is polling at about 20 percent and is influencing the views of the country’s more established parties.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Nigel Farage will take Ukip into an alliance with a host of extreme right wing parties, one of the EU’s most controversial politicians has claimed.
Anti-EU Dutch politician Geert Wilders said Mr Farage will ditch a promise never to work with France’s National Front — led by Marine Le Pen.
Mr Wilders and Miss Le Pen have joined forces to create a ‘European Freedom Alliance’. Like Ukip, both are leading in the polls ahead of the crunch May 22 European Parliament elections.
Mr Farage has refused to join the alliance — and pledged never to work with the French nationalists because of their ‘anti-Semitism and general prejudice’.
But Mr Farage has refused to rule out working with Mr Wilders — despite the Dutch politican’s controversial views on Islam and immigrants,
Mr Wilders, who leads the Dutch Freedom Party, sparked controversy this year by joining in chants demanding ‘fewer Moroccans’ at a campaign rally.
But the Dutch politician dismissed criticism of his behaviour — and insisted he could persuage Mr Farage to work with Miss Le Pen’s Front National.
He told The Telegraph: ‘I am optimistic that Mr Farage will have more room to work together than he does today after the elections.
‘He is not excluding my party and there is still an opportunity but he is tougher on the Front National for now.
‘I understand he is a politician but I hope after elections both Miss Le Pen, Mr Farage and myself will be able to work together.
‘I respect Mr Farage a lot. I think he is a very charismatic and excellent politician I understand he has a lot of support.
‘But I also respect Marine Le Pen a lot. She is a very charismatic leader as well doing well in the polls with almost the same message when it comes to Europe.’
Mr Wilders said Mr Farage would join the far-right alliance after the elections — where Eurosceptic parties are expected to get a third of the vote across the Continent — because it would hand the anti-EU parties much more power.
He said: ‘I hope we can overstep our differences to represent the all the millions of people who elected our parties to be as strong as possible a countervailing power against all the Europhiles in Brussels.
‘It is not helpful to have two leaders of two important parties [Mr Farage and Miss Le Pen] fighting publicly. I hope I can play a role in bringing them both together. I would like to work together very closely with Ukip and Front National.’
Polls put the French Front National and Dutch Freedom Party in a strong position to form a far-Right bloc in the European Parliament. They are expected to end up with at least 38 MEPs from at least seven countries…
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Trans-Atlantic Supplicant: Merkel Chooses Unity Over NSA Truth
There was a time when Angela Merkel was committed to investigating the extent of NSA spying in Germany. Now, though, the chancellor has made an about face. Trans-Atlantic unity is her new priority, and the investigation has been left to languish.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: The Wrong Impression: Schröder’s Russia Ties Are Bad Politics
With his close ties with Vladimir Putin, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has the potential to create serious problems for his country’s foreign policy. Many are questioning whether his Social Democrats are overly loyal to Russia.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Northern League Secretary Flees Naples
‘Fool, swine’ shout Neapolitan protestors
(ANSA) — Naples, May 6 — Northern League leader Matteo Salvini came to Naples for a rally Tuesday only to immediately leave the southern Italian city after being greeted with shouts of “fool, go away”. The anti-immigrant party’s chief was visiting Naples as part of a tour ahead of the May 25 European elections on pet topics like leaving the euro and stopping illegal immigration.
The spell on the stump is also intended to raise support for a referendum revoking controversial pension changes introduced by the 2011-2012 technocratic government of Mario Monti. Upon arriving in Piazza Carlo III, just outside the city centre, Salvini was greeted by residents shouting insults such as “Fool, go away, you are the true swine, go wash yourself with fire”. The League leader answered reporters’ questions and then immediately left the city by car.
Naples residents’ vitriol was in response to a tweet made by Salvini following Sunday’s Italian Cup shooting of a Napoli fan in Rome. The match, which Napoli won 3-1, was delayed for almost an hour before the head of Napoli’s ultras, Gennaro De Tommaso aka ‘Genny a carogna’ (Genny The Scumbag), gave the OK for the game to go ahead once he was reassured that no fan had been killed.
Salvini tweeted that “a state which gets laws from Genny the Scumbag while in the presence of (Italian Premier Matteo) Renzi and (Interior Minister Angelino) Alfano is a failed state.” Both Renzi and Alfano were present at the stadium.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Rome Employees Protest Over Possible Wage Cuts
‘I can only operate within the law’, Marino says
(ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — Rome city employees protested Tuesday over alleged plans by mayor Ignazio Marino to slash their auxiliary pay. Thousands of nursery school teachers, municipal police officers, administrative staff and other employees gathered in Piazza del Campidoglio, the seat of city government, to voice their anger over the possible cuts announced in light of a finance ministry report describing auxiliary wages as ‘illegitimate’. “It is not possible to cut salaries of 1,200 euros as this would mean putting our survival in question,” protesters said. “Auxiliary wages? We are not paid irrespective of merit but for services provided to this city,” they continued.
However, Marino of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) defended his position, saying he had raised the issue at the national level but that he could only act within the law.
“If the response (from the government) is positive I will be very happy to include auxiliary wages in the May pay packet according to law,” continued the mayor.
“But no one, not even the trade unions, can ask me to go against the law of the State”.
On Tuesday Italy’s three main trade union confederations, CGIL, CISL and UIL, sent Marino an injunction inviting him to refrain from “enacting the threatened unilateral initiatives and all other actions aimed at unscrupulously affecting the legal treatment and remuneration of workers”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Madeleine McCann Dig Will Start Beside Ocean Club Where She Vanished
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
Specialist search teams will start by scouring sites across Praia da Luz — including this waste ground (highlighted in red, centre, and right) near the Ocean Club apartment complex from where she disappeared seven years ago, shortly before her fourth birthday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Stiglitz Calls Euro ‘Big Mistake’
Nobel Laureate invites reflection on how to make amends
(ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz on Tuesday described the single European currency as the European Union’s “one big mistake” and invited reflection on how to make amends.
The European Union “has made one big mistake: the euro, which hasn’t worked,” said the American Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2001. This observation gives rise to two questions, he continued.
“Why hasn’t it worked? And how is it possible to make amends?”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden, Finland Plan Closer Military Ties
The Swedish and Finnish armed forces have developed a new cooperation plan, Swedish Defense Minister Karin Enström and her Finnish counterpart Carl Haglund announced Tuesday at a press conference outside of the Finnish capital.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Threats Common for Politically Active Youths
More than half of the political youth organization members who were included in a survey have been subjected to threats, harassment or violence because of their political affiliation, according to Swedish Radio News.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Third Time’s a Charm: Airbus Has Fewer Headaches With New A350 Jet
The new A350 from European airplane manufacturer Airbus is expected to go into service this year. The long-haul plane, which can carry up to 300 passengers, is experencing far fewer problems than the A380 or its Boeing competitor, the 787 Dreamliner.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: A Nation So Many Are Proud to Call Their Own
by Telegraph View
A majority of members of ethnic minorities in this country consider themselves British — a reminder of how important and splendid a concept Britain is
On the face of it, new research by the Policy Exchange think tank into modern Britain suggests that our country is changing at a staggering rate. By 2050, it says, one in three people in England and Wales will come from an ethnic minority, a demographic change driven by higher birth rates as well as immigration. Further, the report also suggests that, among the five largest minority groups, only 20 per cent of those surveyed identified themselves as English, compared with more than 60 per cent of white people. Among many, those figures will understandably prompt a concern that our sense of national solidarity is being eroded…
[Reader comment by mybackyard on 6 May 2014]
Sad, isn’t it? They have to wheel out the contents of a think tank in an effort to prove that we should all be nice and friendly to our New Britons, and be pleased that so many of them think of themselves as British. If it were true, why do so many of them live in colonies, run their own legal systems in parallel to the perfectly serviceable domestic one, then actively subvert and suborn the local education system to the point that it accommodates their particular cultural and religious dogma to the exclusion of any other?
[Reader comment by totusporcus on 6 May 2014]
The DT is the New Guardian!
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Ethnic Minorities ‘Shouldn’t be Treated as Single Group’
Black and minority ethnic (BME) communities are expected to account for up to 30% of the UK’s population by 2050, research suggests.
The Policy Exchange think tank says they will become an “ever more significant part of Britain, especially in future elections”. So politicians must stop treating the various communities as if they are “one homogeneous” group, it adds. There are “striking differences” between them, its report says…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
THE first woman to be appointed president of the Islamic Society of Britain, Sughra Ahmed, will give the next Ferguson Lecture at Bishop’s Stortford College. She will give an insight into Islam, Christianity and British Muslims…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Mosque Welcomes Indian Visitor for Special Ceremony
Members of an Islamic movement from across the globe met at a special event in Huddersfield.
Several people came together to meet an Indian member Janab Peer Syed Mahfuzur Rahman Burraqui at the Minhaj- Ul-Quran mosque in Thornton Lodge as part of a commemorative service for deceased loved ones…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: MoD Accused of Keeping Soldiers in ‘Condemned’ Barracks
Troops are being kept in barracks where ‘condemned’ living accommodation is so bad it is undermining morale
The Ministry of Defence has been accused of keeping soldiers in a “condemned” barracks where the standard of accommodation is so low it is sapping morale. Rooms are falling apart and there is no hot water, according to one complaint.
A letter to the Army’s Soldier magazine said single soldiers of 1st Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment were living in accommodation “that has been classified as condemned”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Ofcom Investigates Top Gear After Complaint of ‘Casual Racism’
Ofcom is to investigate Top Gear after allegations Jeremy Clarkson used a racist term during its Burma special
Top Gear is to be investigated by Ofcom following complaints presenter Jeremy Clarkson used a racist term, it has been announced. An episode of Top Gear, broadcast on BBC Two on March 16, showed Clarkson using the word “slope”, as an Asian man walked over a bridge in Burma.
The scene led to a complaint of “casual racism”, with Clarkson accused of referring to “people of different races in pejorative terms”. The complaint will now be investigated in full by watchdog Ofcom, which will consider whether the broadcaster breached its codes…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Cooperation: UAE to Invest in Greek Construction
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS — Officials from the United Arab Emirates are set to announce in Athens on Tuesday the UAE’s participation in the share capital of a major Greek construction company active in the sectors of energy and real estate as daily Kathimerini online reports. The UAE is also close to a deal for the implementation of a similar cooperation with a smaller construction company, while its officials will sign agreements on Tuesday with Lamda Development, Fosun of China and Al Maabar regarding the investment in the development of the plot at the old airport in Elliniko, southern Athens.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt’s El-Sissi: No Future for Muslim Brotherhood
Egypt’s ex-army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has said the Muslim Brotherhood will no longer exist if he becomes president. In a television interview, he also rejected claims that he long harbored a plan to seize power.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt : Sisi Says the Muslim Brotherhood is ‘Finished’
Egyptian presidential candidate Abdel Fatteh al-Sisi says the banned Muslim Brotherhood group will never return. The former military chief was speaking in the first television interview of his election campaign.
Sisi led the ouster of the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi from the presidency last year after mass protests against Mursi’s rule.
When asked whether the Brotherhood would cease to exist during his presidency, the former military chief said: “Yes. That’s right. It’s not me that finished it — the Egyptians have. The problem is not with me, it was with the Egyptian people. They have said ‘No’ twice (to the Brotherhood rule). They have said ‘No’ on June 30th (2013, protests that lead to the ousting of the former President Mohammed Morsi) and they are saying ‘No’ to the Brotherhood now.”
Sisi is favourite to win the election scheduled for the end of this month.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood to ‘Continue to Exist Despite Sisi’
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, MAY 6 — Muslim Brotherhood leader Ashraf Adbel Ghafar said on Tuesday that presidential candidate Abdel Fattah El-Sisi ‘‘must understand that the previous Egyptian presidents are gone, but the Muslim Brotherhood is still here despite being oppressed’’.
The comment was a response to El-Sisi, who will be running in the May 26-27 elections and who said in a televised interview on Monday evening that the Muslim Brotherhood would cease to exist if he is elected president, and was reported on the Al-Ahram website.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The sighting of a Syrian opposition flag in a 2001 episode of The Simpsons is proof the United States is behind the country’s civil war, an Egyptian television channel has claimed.
A report on Al-Tahrir TV featured an episode of the Fox show called New Kids On The Blecch which originally aired more than 13 years ago.
It shows a boy band that includes Bart Simpson and his friends dropping bombs on men in Arabic attire in a music video.
One of the trucks blown up has an image of the Syrian revolutionary flag on the side.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Islamist Group Forms to Destabilize Egypt
by Anna Mahjar-Barducci
Unless the U.S. helps Cairo to contain civil chaos in Libya, it is likely to become “fertile ground for religious extremism.” — Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s former army chief.
U.S. and NATO members need to stop the growth of terrorism in Libya now, before the Islamist groups get organized enough to ignite the region and target Western interests.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mission Accomplished: Libya Now “Scumbag Woodstock”
“One U.S. military contractor working on counter-terrorism in Africa summed up the situation in Libya today as simply, ‘Scumbag Woodstock.’ The country has attracted that star-studded roster of notorious terrorists and fanatics seeking to wage war on the West,” writes Eli Lake for Newsweek’s Daily Beast…
The objective in Libya, and now in Syria, is not establishing some sort of fanciful Arab Spring democracy project. The objective is to dismantle political and social institutions. Creative destruction, what Michael Ledeen called “the democratic revolution,” is designed to dismantle Arab and Muslim societies and produce failed states offering little resistance to globalist domination. After “blood borders” are established, a new subset of ethnic tension and conflict will exact the imperial rule of divide and conquer.
“It was ‘divide and conquer’ that made it possible for an insignificant island in the north of Europe to rule the world. Division and chaos, tribal, religious and ethnic hatred, were the secret to empire,” writes Conin Hallinan. It is, as well, secret to global corporate domination.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Rand Paul’s Support for Israel
Republican Senator Rand Paul is an isolationist. This ought to make him a natural ally for appeasers like Steve Walt and John Mearshimer and the whole blame Israel first crowd.
And indeed, he has taken positions, like opposing additional sanctions on Iran that placed him in their camp.
But Paul is a mixed bag.
Last week, following the PLO’s unity deal with terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Paul introduced the Stand With Israel Act. If it had passed into law, Paul’s act would have required the US to cut off all funding to the Palestinian Authority, including its security forces. The only way the administration could have wiggled out of the aid cutoff would have been by certifying that the PLO, Hamas and Islamic Jihad had effectively stopped being the PLO, Hamas and Islamic Jihad…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Expresses Commitment to Two-State Solution on Israel’s Independence Day
Obama: “US was first nation to recognize Israel” and is now the first to come to Israel’s defense.
WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama is sent his “warmest wishes” to the Israeli people as Israel celebrate 66 years of independence, pledging to work with Israel “to support a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict” with the Palestinian people…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
24 Killed in Violent Attacks in Iraq
BAGHDAD, May 5 (Xinhua) — A total of 24 people were killed and 29 wounded in separate violent incidents across the country on Monday, police and medical sources said.
In Salahudin province, two soldiers and a civilian were killed and 16 people wounded when a car bomb parking near a popular restaurant was detonated in the city of Tuz-Khurmato, some 90 km east of the provincial capital city Tikrit, a provincial police source said.
Also in the province, two policemen were gunned down by armed men near the city of Baiji, some 30 km north of Tikrit, the source said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Former Dutch Military Chief ‘Understands’ Syria Fighters’ Drive
Former Dutch military chief Pieter van Uhm said in a radio documentary that he understands Dutch youngsters who go to fight with rebel forces in Syria but does not support their vision of the world.
They are youths who ‘one way or another, feel they have to do something to make the world a better place’, the former general is quoted as saying by the Volkskrant. According to the Dutch security service, some 100 Dutch nationals are fighting with rebel forces in Syria.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
HRW Blasts Lebanon for Rejecting Palestinian Refugees
UNWRA also concerned, calls on world to take Syrian refugees in
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, MAY 6 — Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday criticized Lebanon for sending some 40 Palestinian war refugees back to Syria and for “putting many others in grave danger” by denying them entry.
“The Lebanese government bears an unprecedented burden in terms of Syrian refugees coming across its border, but denying entry to Palestinians coming from Syria is not the right way to deal with the situation”, HRW Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa Joe Stork said in a statement.
The United Nations agency in charge of Palestinian refugees (UNWRA) also issued a statement expressing “concern over restrictions on entry into Lebanon by Palestinian refugees. Beirut authorities have said these restrictions are just temporary, according to UNWRA.
Lebanon, population four million, hosts 12 Palestinian refugee camps sheltering some 400,000 people, in addition to more than one million Syrian refugees that have been driven out of their homes by civil war over the past three years.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres on Sunday called on countries around the world to open their borders to Syrian war refugees in an effort to alleviate the burden on Syria’s neighbors, which already harbor three million of its citizens.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Religious Police Member ‘Fired’ After Party
A member of the Saudi religious police, known as the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, was fired after it was revealed that he attended a mixed party in the city of Madinah, the Saudi Gazette reported on Monday.
The man, whose identity was not revealed, fled the party when he heard the police force was present.
The Saudi religious police moves to enforce Sharia law in the kingdom. Members patrol the streets to enforce strict separation of men and women, dress code, and prayer by Muslims.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Dismantles ‘Terror’ Group: Ministry
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has dismantled a “terrorist organisation” that was plotting attacks against government installations and foreign interests, the interior ministry announced Wednesday.
Authorities have arrested 62 suspected members of the group, among them three foreigners, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Al-Ekhbariya satellite channel.
Those arrested include 35 Saudis who had previously been detained on security-related allegations and released, it said.
Members of the organisation have “links with extremist elements in Syria and Yemen,” it said, adding that authorities are still hunting down 44 others whose names have been submitted to Interpol.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
US Upgrades Syrian Opposition Coalition
Washington has granted the Syrian opposition diplomatic status. The US government also plans an increase in non-lethal assistance to the rebels seeking to put an end to three years of civil war.
The US announced it would now recognize the Syrian National Coalition representative offices in Washington and New York as “foreign missions” under the Foreign Missions Act. This will help the representatives with banking and security issues, but it will not give them diplomatic immunity.
State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said that this largely symbolic move was intended to “empower the moderate Syrian opposition.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
30 Pro-Russian Militants Die in Sloviansk Clashes
Hollande warns of ‘chaos and civil war’ if elections fail
(ANSA) — Kiev, May 6 — Over 30 pro-Russian militants were killed and dozens more were injured Monday in heavy clashes with Ukraine forces in the east of the country, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on Tuesday.
The rebels had earlier reported a dozen dead and between 20 and 25 wounded in the fighting just outside the separatist stronghold of Sloviansk.
The victims included numerous fighters from the eastern Crimea region, which seceded from Ukraine and was subsequently annexed by Russia in March, as well as Russians and citizens of the Chechen Republic, Avakov said.
The minister also confirmed that four Ukraine soldiers died and a further 20 were wounded in Monday’s clashes. Meanwhile French President Francois Hollande warned of “chaos and the risk of civil war” in Ukraine if presidential elections do not go ahead as planned on May 25.
On that day Ukrainians are due to elect a replacement for Russian-backed Viktor Yanukovych, who was toppled in February following months of increasingly violent protests over his decision to spurn the European Union in favour of closer ties with Russia.
The problem, said Hollande, is to “ensure that the president who wins the elections is legitimate in everyone’s eyes”.
This, he added, is something that “(President) Vladimir Putin and the Russians don’t want”.
Putin “needs to come under pressure from the whole of Europe”, Hollande concluded.
On Tuesday Ukraine media reported that 48 people were still unaccounted for following the May 2 clashes between pro-Russian activists and government supporters in the eastern city of Odessa. The clashes culminated in a fire in a trade union building in which dozens of people died.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Another NYT ‘Sort of’ Retraction on Ukraine
The New York Times, which has asserted for weeks that the Russian government is behind the unrest in Ukraine’s east, finally sent some reporters to the region to dig up the proof, but all they found were eastern Ukrainians upset by the coup regime in Kiev that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych…
The reality was that Putin was caught off-guard by the events in Ukraine, in part, because he was preoccupied with the Sochi Winter Olympics and the threat that the games would be marred by a major terrorist attack. He spent a great deal of time in Sochi personally overseeing the security.
Meanwhile, the Maidan uprising was unfolding in Kiev, cheered on by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and partly financed by American entities, such as the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy, whose longtime president Carl Gershman deemed Ukraine “the biggest prize” in a Washington Post op-ed published in late September, months before the current crisis erupted.
Though many of the protesters from western Ukraine had legitimate grievances over the pervasive corruption in Ukrainian politics and the inordinate power of a handful of wealthy oligarchs, the final violent coup was carried out by well-trained neo-Nazi militias organized in 100-man brigades, known as “the hundreds.”
After the Feb. 22 putsch when Yanukovych and many of his officials were forced to flee for their lives, Putin began reacting to this deteriorating situation on Russia’s border. What he was doing was “crisis management,” not implementing some Machiavellian scheme that had long been contemplated.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Berlusconi Warns of ‘Cold War Against Russia’
Ex-premier sees relations with US strained over Ukraine
(ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — Ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday said there was a possibility of a new Cold War in light of strained relations between the United States and Russia over the deepening crisis in Ukraine.
“I see the risk of resuming a Cold War against Russia,” the three-time premier told Italy’s Radio Anch’io. The media magnate has made no secret of his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who many accuse of backing the pro-Russian separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
G7 Consults on Alternatives to Russian Gas
Energy ministers of the G7 group of the world’s wealthiest industrial nations are meeting in Rome on Tuesday to discuss alternatives to Russian natural gas supplies. Europe buys about a third of its gas from Russia.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
G7 Energy Meeting ‘No Forum’ For Russia Sanctions — Renzi
Energy ministers to discuss alternatives to Russian oil and gas
(ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — Tuesday’s meeting of G7 energy ministers in Rome “is not the appropriate forum” for agreeing new sanctions against Russia, Italian Premier Matteo Renzi was quoted by Bloomberg as saying. Energy ministers of the G7 group of the world’s wealthiest industrial nations were due to meet in the Italian capital to discuss alternatives to Russian oil and gas in light of the deepening crisis in eastern Ukraine in which Russia is alleged to be playing an active part. Europe is highly dependent on Russia for its energy supplies, which are piped through Ukraine.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Russia to Beef Up Black Sea Fleet
MOSCOW, May 6 (Xinhua) — Russia plans to allocate more than 86 billion rubles (2.4 billion U.S. dollars) to strengthen its Black Sea fleet by 2020, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday.
“New air defense and marine units will be formed at our fleet bases this year. New submarines will be supplied to the Black Sea fleet this year alongside next-generation surface ships,” Shoigu told a teleconference.
He said the fleet had always been supplied appropriately, but adjustment to its development program was needed “due to the recent incorporation of Crimea and Sevastopol,” the Interfax news agency reported…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Ukraine Close to War, Says Germany
Germany has formally advised its citizens to leave east and south Ukraine because it is just a “few steps” away from war.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
10 Police Killed in W. Afghan Bomb Attacks
HERAT, Afghanistan, May 6 (Xinhua) — Ten police were killed while three others wounded in two bomb attacks in western Afghan province of Herat, police said on Tuesday.
In one attack, three Afghan Civil Order Police cops were killed and two police officers were wounded when their jeep was struck by a roadside bombing in Obe district on Tuesday Morning…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Indian Murders Sexually Abusive Dad by Ripping Out Pacemaker
Woman admits to killing of parent in bid to end years of rape
(ANSA) — New Delhi, May 6 — An Indian woman admitted to killing her father by ripping out his pacemaker after she said she endured years of sexual abuse at his hands.
The 23-year-old said she used a piece of glass to cut into his chest and pull out his pacemaker to ensure he was dead, after two friends beat him with a cricket bat and then strangled him during his sleep.
She said the abuse, including rape, began after her mother’s death three years earlier.
Police, who found the 58-year-old man’s body in a channel in West Delhi, said the murder occurred sometime during the night of April 29 and early-morning hours of April 30.
They said the young woman confessed, justifying her actions by describing the abuse she said she endured.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesian Woman Gang-Raped for Having Affair Will Now be Caned in Public Under Sharia Law
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
The pair were caught after vigilantes stormed into a house in the Banda Aceh province, northern Indonesia. They now face nine strokes of the cane each.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Malaysia: Undercover Christian Priests Here as Football Coaches, Muslim NGO Tells Forum
A Muslim non-governmental organisation has warned of undercover Christian priests who have been sent to Malaysia under different guises to proselytise and convert Muslims.
Pertubuhan Muafakat Sejahtera Masyarakat Malaysia (Muafakat) president Abdul Karim Omar said these “undercover priests” worked with Muslim children as football coaches and others…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Malaysia: In UiTM, Lecturer Gives 10 Reasons Why Christians Should be Muslims
SHAH ALAM, May 6 — Christians are betraying God unless they convert to Islam, an Indonesian Muslim convert told a seminar on the use of the word “Allah” and Christology at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) here today…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra Appears in Court Ahead of Corruption Ruling
Thailand’s caretaker premier has appeared in the nation’s top court ahead of a ruling on whether to remove her from office. Yingluck Shinawatra is accused of illegally replacing a civil servant for political gain.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Thailand: Two Bombs in Hat Yai Wound 8 People
Eight people, two policemen and six civilians, were injured by two bomb explosions in the heart of Hat Yai city of Songkhla province on Tuesday afternoon, police said. Pol Col Passakorn Klanwan, the Hat Yai police chief, said the two bombs both went off about 2pm.
The first one exploded in front of a 7-Eleven convenience store on Polpichai road, injuring five civilians. The second bomb exploded very shortly after on Phetkasem road in front of a police apartment building near the Hat Yai police station. Two policemen and one civilian were wounded.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China Plans for North Korean Regime Collapse Leaked
Beijing’s lack of faith in rule of Kim Jong-un exposed in contingency plans to detain key North Korean leaders, set up border refugee camps and respond to “foreign forces.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Contingency Plan if North Korean Regime Collapses Leaked
Chinese contingency plans of action following the hypothetical collapse of North Korea’s Communist regime have reportedly been leaked to the Japanese media, offering an intriguing look at how Pyongyang’s staunchest ally would respond to such a cataclysmic event.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Diver Dies in South Korea Ferry Search
A diver looking for victims from last month’s South Korean ferry sinking has died. Search efforts for the dozens of missing people are continuing.
The vessel sank off South Korea’s southwestern coast en route to Jeju island on April 16, carrying 476 passengers — 339 of whom were school children. The confirmed death toll so far stands at more than 260, with up to 40 still missing. Only 174 survived the disaster.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
In China’s Xinjiang, Economic Divide Seen Fuelling Ethnic Unrest
By Michael Martina
May 7 (Reuters) — Hundreds of migrant workers from distant corners of China pour daily into the Urumqi South railway station, their first waypoint on a journey carrying them to lucrative work in other parts of the far western Xinjiang region.
Like the columns of police toting rifles and metal riot spears that weave between migrants resting on their luggage, the workers are a fixture at the station, which last week was targeted by a bomb and knife attack the government has blamed on religious extremists.
“We come this far because the wages are good,” Shi Hongjiang, 26, from the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, told Reuters outside the station. “Also, the Uighur population is small. There aren’t enough of them to do the work.”
Shi’s is a common refrain from migrant workers, whose experience finding low-skilled work is very different to that of the Muslim Uighur minority.
Employment discrimination, experts say, along with a demographic shift that many Uighurs feel is diluting their culture, is fuelling resentment that spills over into violent attacks directed at Han Chinese, China’s majority ethnic group.
The apparent suicide attack on the station, which killed one bystander, was the latest violence to hit Xinjiang, despite a pledge from China’s President Xi Jinping to rain “crushing blows against violent terrorist forces”.
Many of the nearly 80 people wounded in the incident were likely to have been brought to Xinjiang, where Uighurs once formed the majority, by Han-controlled businesses to be construction workers or cotton-pickers.
That made the Xinjiang capital’s southern station a “powerful symbol”, said Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch. “In any colonial setting you have people amongst the colonised who are ready to use violence against the coloniser,” he said…
| [Return to headlines] |
A middle-aged Westerner is among six victims wounded in a knife attack at a Chinese train station today, according to witnesses. Two women and three men, including a European man his 50s, were said to be among those injured by assailants wielding foot-and-a-half-long knives at Guangzhou Railway Station in Guangdong province…
A group of men sat on steps outside the station for two hours this morning before, at 11 o’clock, they let out a shout, pulled 20in knives from their bags and began attacking people, said a shopkeeper who witnessed it. He told the Guangzhou Daily that police were on the scene within a minute and began shooting…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Spies May Have Read All MPs’ Emails for a Year
In March 2011, The Australian newspaper and other media outlets reported that China was suspected of accessing, for more than a month, the email system used by federal MPs, their advisers, electorate staff and parliamentary employees. The perpetrators accessed several thousand emails, reports said.
Senior sources said the breach was much more serious. Australian intelligence reached the “absolutely clear conclusion” that Chinese intelligence was responsible and informed their political masters the identities of the intruders.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Boko Haram Kidnaps Eight More Nigerian Schoolgirls
Suspected Boko Haram Islamists abducted at least eight more girls from northern Nigeria on Tuesday, police said, a day after the group claimed responsibility for kidnapping 276 schoolgirls in the region last month, threatening to sell them.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dutch Nationals Were Target of Kidnappers, Freed Nigeria Activist Says
Nigerian activist Sunny Ofehe, released after being kidnapped with three Dutch people on Sunday in Nigeria, told Nos the Dutch nationals appeared to be the target. The kidnappers shouted ‘where are the white people?’ when they boarded the boat, Ofehe told the broadcaster in an interview.
The Dutch nationals are still being held and a €10m ransom demand has been made for their release, Nigerian police told RTL news on Tuesday morning. Ofehe, who lives in the Netherlands, said the ransom demand was for 10 million naira which equates to €45,000.
It is not clear who took the four, but Nigerian police say it was not the Muslim extremist group Boko Haram. Spokesman Alex Akhigbe told RTL news the Dutch people will still be alive. ‘The kidnappers are only after money,’ he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Gunmen in Northeast Nigeria Abduct 8 More Girls: Police
Suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped eight girls aged 12 to 15 from a village near one of their strongholds in northeast Nigeria overnight, police and residents said on Tuesday.
“They were many, and all of them carried guns. They came in two vehicles painted in army color. They started shooting in our village,” said Lazarus Musa, a resident of Warabe, where the attack happened.
A police source, who could not be named, said the girls were taken away on trucks, along with looted livestock and food. The Islamist rebels are still holding more than 200 girls they abducted from a secondary school on April 14.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya: Bus Bombings in Nairobi and Mombasa Shake Citizen Confidence in Security Forces
Nairobi — A string of deadly terrorist attacks that struck Nairobi and Mombasa at the weekend left at least six victims dead, scores wounded and Kenyan citizens wondering if the country’s security forces will ever be able to stem the growing problem of insecurity…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Boko Haram: Backward But Brutal
The horrific abduction of more than 200 girls by Nigerian Islamists is a stain on humanity’s conscience — and a reminder of a security threat to Britain
Boko Haram, the name of the Islamist group that has terrorised Nigeria, roughly translates as “Western education is forbidden”. The title nicely sums up its philosophy: aggressively anti-Western, backward-looking and fuelled by ignorance. Among its more quirky views are that the Earth is not spherical and that Darwinian evolution is a nonsense.
But Boko Haram is far from a joke. Since 2002, it has claimed an estimated 10,000 lives through attacks on Christians and government targets. And last month, its members abducted an estimated 276 schoolgirls under cover of darkness. It is thought that they were kidnapped for the purpose of selling them into sexual slavery to men in Chad and Cameroon…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria Militants Kidnap More Girls From Village
Armed men in Nigeria have abducted eight girls from the north east of the country, as the government struggles to find 276 schoolgirls kidnapped three weeks ago
Suspected Boko Haram gunmen have kidnapped eight girls aged between 12 and 15 from a village near one of their strongholds in northeast Nigeria. “They were many, and all of them carried guns,” said Lazarus Musa, a resident of Warabe, where the attack happened. They came in two vehicles painted in army colour. They started shooting in our village.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigerian Islamists Kidnap School Girls
(AGI) Lagos, May 6 — Eight girls have been kidnapped overnight from a village in Borno state in what appears to be another attack by the Islamist militants of Boko Haram. The incident took place in the village of Waranbe, near Gwoza, which is about 130 km from Borno’s capital of Maiduguri. Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 school girls three weeks ago from Chibok and has threatened to sell them. Sources report that Boko Haram has attacked police road blocks in Gamboru, Ngala and Shanni, towns near the Cameroon border.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Nigerian Jihad Leader: “There is a Market for Selling Humans. Allah Says I Should Sell.”
Here is the video referred to in this post. Note that while Abubakar Shekau is gleefully and fiendishly celebrating his abducting of the Nigerian schoolgirls, he continually refers to Islam to justify his deeds. His nervous motions are jarring. Does he still have a conscience somewhere in there, and realizes just how evil what he is doing really is?
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Afghan Immigrant Saved After Attempt to Cross Channel on Raft
Afghan immigrant rescued while trying to cross the Channel on a makeshift raft
A young Afghan man has been rescued by French coastguard after risking his life trying to reach Britain on a makeshift raft fashioned from three planks and propelled by a bed sheet sail. Asif Hussainkhil, 33, was picked up less than two nautical miles off Sangatte near Calais, when he was spotted by a ferry as he tried to make the 21-mile Channel crossing.
Rescuers said he was lucky to escape being capsized and killed and had “zero per cent chance of making it to Britain” on the flimsy craft. He had spent three weeks building the vessel behind sand dunes, constructing a mast from a table leg and fishing rod, but not including rudder. The man had no compass or food when he was saved and was dressed in only a tracksuit and hooded top with no coat.
The attempt at the perilous voyage came amid reports of increasing desperation among migrants trying to get illegally from France to Britain…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
EU Must Share in Italy’s Efforts, Says Mogherini
‘Italy committed to saving lives’
(ANSAmed) — VIENNA, MAY 6 — Europe must shoulder part of the burden of rescuing migrants at sea, Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini told ANSA on Tuesday.
Italy is making “significant efforts in terms of lives saved, of migrants taken in, and in financial terms” to avert another tragedy such as the mass drowning off Lampedusa island last year.
After that disaster, policy in Italy and in Europe changed from rejecting migrants to saving their lives.
“But our European partners who share this priority must also share in our efforts”, the minister said in Vienna, where she is attending Council of Europe talks on clandestine migration, among other issues.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
An immigrant drug baron will finally be thrown out of Britain after he exploited human rights laws to legally stay in the country and commit more crimes for eight years. Mahmoud Jaber, 31, had been peddling heroin and crack cocaine in Lancashire to live a lavish lifestyle and served three jail terms…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 887 Refugees Arrive in Trapani
Caltagirone mayor says 250 minors sent without notification
(ANSAmed) — PALERMO, MAY 6 — An Italian navy ship arrived in the Trapani port on Tuesday morning carrying 887 refugees rescued the previous day south of Lampedusa. There were 191 minors among them. Migrant reception centers in Trapani are full and on Monday Prefect Calogero Falco announced that he would be asking the national government to transfer the migrants to other centers. The Caltagirone municipal administration has meanwhile criticized the arrival in the city “without notifying local authorities” of 250 migrants under age 18, housed in a building on the southern outskirts of the city that seems “utterly unfit” for the purpose. Tests ruling out the presence of tuberculosis have been ordered for 49 of them. “We understand that it is an emergency,” Mayor Nicola Bonanno said, “but it is unacceptable that the burden is placed entirely on the town council and other local authorities, without taking into consideration the impact on our community.
Alongside the public health authority and the police, we have set up an operations room to deal with the situation.” The town councillor for citizen services, Chiara Gulizia, said that “it seems that the facilities were neither authorized nor in possession of the necessary requirements. We will ask the juvenile prosecutors offices of Catania and Caltagirone to ascertain responsibility for the situation.” Councillor for safety Egidio Sinatra said that the city “has facilities that are almost ready and once operative will be able hold 88 non-accompanied minors. However, the ministry has not been paying for the work since January.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Non-White People Almost 30 Per Cent of Population by 2050
Non-white people will make up almost 30 per cent of the population by 2050, according to a report by Policy Exchange
Almost one in three people in Britain will be from an ethnic minority within a generation, a report suggests. Non-white people will make up between 20 and 30 per cent of the population by 2050, Policy Exchange says. The current share is around 14 per cent.
The report could also raise questions about the future of the English national identity, which it found is primarily adopted by white people. The think tank, which has close links to the Conservative Party leadership, also highlights differences in the political leanings of different ethnic groups, advising politicians not to treat minority voters as a bloc…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Up to ‘A Third of UK Population Will be Black or From Another Ethnic Minority’ By 2050
Up to a third of the population will be black or from another ethnic minority by 2050, new research forecasts today.
There are currently eight million non-white people — 14% of the total — across England and Wales, according to the study by the Tory think tank Policy Exchange.
But the so-called BME (black and minority ethnic) population has doubled in the past decade and now accounts for 80% of growth while the white population has remained constant.
While ethnic minorities make up just 5% of the over-60s, they account for a quarter of under fives. That means between 20% and 30% of people will be black or ethnic minority by the middle of the century.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Children Inundated With ‘Constant Doomsday Talk About Climate Change’ Warn Psychiatrists
(NaturalNews) Child psychiatrists and other mental health experts say they are seeing an increase in anxiety among today’s youth over the constant doom-and-gloom atmosphere they are presented regarding so-called global warming/climate change.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
by Ed West
‘This book is an attempt to understand the world as it is, not as it ought to be.’ So writes Nicholas Wade, the British-born science editor of The New York Times, in his new book A Troublesome Inheritance.
For some time the post-War view of human nature as being largely culturally-formed has been under attack just as surely as the biblical explanation of mankind’s creation began to face pressure in the early 19th century. What Steven Pinker called the blank slate view of our species, whereby humans are products of social conditions and therefore possible to mould and to perfect through reform, has been undermined by scientific discoveries in various areas.
But the most sensitive, and potentially troubling to the modern psyche, is the difference between human population groups that have evolved over the past 50,000 years. As Wade writes: ‘The fact that human evolution has been recent, copious, and regional is not widely recognized, even though it has now been reported by many articles in the literature of genetics. The reason is in part that the knowledge is so new and in part because it raises awkward challenges to deeply held conventional wisdom.’
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kennedy School Students Call for Training to Combat Privilege in Classroom
Students at the Kennedy School of Government gathered in the school’s courtyard on Friday for a “moment of solidarity” in support of a movement lobbying the school’s administration to create a mandatory orientation program to help incoming students and faculty better recognize and address race and gender in the classroom.
The movement, called HKS Speaks Out, began in October after students expressed having “really negative classroom experiences,” according to Reetu D. Mody, a first year Master in Public Policy student and an organizer of the movement. She said the group has amassed about 300 student signatures, or about a fourth of the school’s student population, on a petition that calls for mandatory privilege and power training.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Top Singapore Official Attacks Goldman Sachs Over LGBT Student Event
Goldman Sachs’ recruitment of LGBT students in Singapore has attracted the ire of the country’s conservative government in the latest collision between increasingly pro-LGBT global business norms and conservative local governments.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Teachers Are Nowhere Near as Diverse as Their Students
Almost half the students attending public schools are minorities, yet fewer than 1 in 5 of their teachers is nonwhite.
New studies from the Center for American Progress and the National Education Association are calling attention to this “diversity gap” at elementary and secondary schools in the United States. The groups want more to be done to help teachers more accurately mirror the students in their classrooms.
“We project that this fall, for the first time in American history, the majority of public school students in America will be nonwhite,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said last week.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Emily Letts, a 25-year-old abortion counselor who works at a New Jersey abortion clinic, decided she wanted to be an inspiration to other women by filming her own abortion.
A story on Letts from ThinkProgress focuses on her insistence on how pain-free and safe the procedure was — for her.
Of course, it wasn’t so pain-free and safe for the baby, but there is no mention of the baby in the entire article — or, for that matter, his or her father.
Letts published an essay on Cosmopolitan.com describing how wonderful the whole experience was for her. Letts wrote:
We talk about abortion so much and yet no one really knows what it actually looks like. A first trimester abortion takes three to five minutes. It is safer than giving birth.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Woman Celebrates Her “Cool” Abortion on YouTube
Abortion clinic advisor wanted to treasure “special memory”
A counselor at a New Jersey abortion clinic celebrated her own abortion by posting it on YouTube in order to treasure her “special memory”.
Emily Letts recorded the lead up to the procedure and some of the abortion itself as part of an effort to inspire women who may feel guilty or scared about terminating their pregnancies…
This story underscores the worst aspect of abortion advocates which is the fact that many of them celebrate killing babies as if it’s an ‘empowering’ and ‘positive’ procedure. Is it too much to ask for them to at the very least be somber and regretful? Letts truly deserves whatever onslaught of public condemnation is heading her way.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A Beautiful Mind: Brain Injury Turns Man Into Math Genius
In 2002, two men savagely attacked Jason Padgett outside a karaoke bar, leaving him with a severe concussion and post-traumatic stress disorder. But the incident also turned Padgett into a mathematical genius who sees the world through the lens of geometry.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dinosaurs are not extinct, but have simply shrunk to become the 10,000 species of birds that are alive today, academics at Oxford University have claimed. A study of the evolution of 426 dinosaur species over millions of years revealed that dinosaurs gradually became smaller in size until they evolved into birds.
Researchers have shown that shrinking was key to their survival and allowed them to become one of the most diverse and abundant families of animals alive today.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Forget Dark Matter — Embrace My MOND Theory Instead
It supposedly makes up 80 per cent of the matter in the universe, but we still have no direct evidence that dark matter exists. Physicist Mordehai Milgrom tells Marcus Chown that it’s time to abandon the idea — because he has a better one.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Milky Way’s Magnetic Fingerprint
Our Galaxy’s magnetic field is revealed in a new image from ESA’s Planck satellite. This image was compiled from the first all-sky observations of ‘polarised’ light emitted by interstellar dust in the Milky Way.
Light is a very familiar form of energy and yet some of its properties are all but hidden to everyday human experience. One of these — polarisation — carries a wealth of information about what happened along a light ray’s path, and can be exploited by astronomers.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Dangerous, Mindslaughtered Fraudulence of Joy Brighton’s “Sharia-ism”
by Andrew Bostom
Robert Conquest, the preeminent historian of Soviet Communism’s genocidal depredations, characterized the “mental aberration” of all varieties of Western apologists for Communism, as “mindslaughter.”
The term mindslaughter is an apposite description of what activist Joy Brighton is currently promoting (see here, and here) by coining the absurd—and dangerous—idea of “Sharia-ism.” No matter how clumsy and counterfactual her presentation, what Brighton is attempting to foist upon uninformed audiences, i.e., “educating” them about the alleged “difference between Islam and the political ideology behind sharia law,” is profoundly and dangerously misleading.
From my serious compendium on the Sharia, Sharia Versus Freedom, pp. 110-115, here is but a brief corrective to Brighton’s obfuscating and destructive drivel:…
| — Hat tip: Andy Bostom | [Return to headlines] |
1.Geert Wilders should be careful about any claims he makes about a partnership between PVV, Le Front Nationale and UKIP prior to the EU elections. UKIP is being severely slandered and smeared by the main stream gutter press in the UK and any prospective partnership announcements are certain to be twisted by the media and could cost Mr Farage votes.
2.UK A nation so many are proud to call their own? I suppose any country that not only takes in multitudes of strays but feeds them, houses them, gives them medical treatment and educates their burgeoning broods – all for free can expect a little gratitude but it isn’t much. Anglophobic race hate is more the norm.
@Darwin’s Unexploded Bomb
Thought it was called genetic memory?
The entire article is fascinating, JR, and I hope our friend Takuan will comment.
“Genetic memory” is a slippery concept. The Jesuits famously claimed: “Give me the education of the child, and I will answer for the opinions of the man”. I have neither the intellect nor the education to state to what extent this may be true, but it is certainly an issue which should interest all GoVers, especially where it concerns the education- and indoctrination- of children by religious practitioners (and not only Muslims).
Quote:
Further, the report also suggests that, among the five largest minority groups, only 20 per cent of those surveyed identified themselves as English, compared with more than 60 per cent of white people.
end
The “ethnic minorities” are not English.
Even if they became majorities they would still not be English.
They are British citizens of foreign descent.
Every document naming them should make this point.
Europe is not the United States.
It never will be.
The USA now has many different minorities who actively refuse to assimilate in various ways – some obvious, some less obvious.
There is the California high school where American students were forbidden to wear t-shirts with the American flag on the ‘alcohol company-idea-not-practiced in Mexico-holiday’ of Cinco de Mayo because ‘resident’ Mexicans threatened to beat up the Americans.
http://www.wnd.com/2014/05/americans-now-racist-for-waving-u-s-flag/
There is the Michigan high school where the football team practices at night because of Muslim fasting during Ramadan.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/preps/football/2010-08-17-michigan-football-ramadan_N.htm?csp=usat.me
There are various minorities who send their children to summer camps and/or extended foreign vacations designed to create allegiance among minority groups instead of assimilation into the general population.