The Supreme Court denied an appeal by high school students in California who had been ordered to turn their American flag t-shirts inside out on Cinco de Mayo. The school administration felt that avoiding racial violence that day was more important than free speech, and the court agreed.
In other news, the latest report on Germanwings Flight 9525 says that Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot who crashed the plane deliberately, had been under treatment for “suicidal tendencies”.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Fjordman, JD, MC, RL, 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.
Broke? You May Now be Entitled to a Free Home
There are tens of thousands of homeowners who have missed more than five years of mortgage payments, many of them clustered in states like Florida, New Jersey and New York, where lenders must get judges to sign off on foreclosures.
However, in a growing number of foreclosure cases filed when home prices collapsed during the financial crisis, lenders may never be able to seize the homes because the state statutes of limitations have been exceeded, according to interviews with housing lawyers and a review of state and federal court decisions…
So a bit of poetic justice we suppose for an investment banking community and a complicit Federal Reserve who facilitated the creation of a modern day tulip mania which lined Wall Street’s pockets even as it put Main Street (which was itself all too eager to finance a McMansion and a Hummer) on a path to ruin.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Greek Markets Show All at Risk Should Mistake Trigger a Default
In Athens, the unspeakable is at risk of becoming the inevitable.
Market metrics show Greece is in danger of sinking under the burden of its debt, putting repayments of about 500 billion euros ($542 billion) owed to European taxpayers, rescue funds, banks and bondholders in jeopardy.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is locked in talks with creditors over measures attached to Greece’s bailout loans and a government official said on Friday the country won’t service its debt if creditors don’t release more funds. The government has also floated a restructuring that would link some future payments to economic growth, reduce interest rates and allow more time for repayments. While its intention is to exclude private bondholders, the danger is that talks collapse and Greece leaves the euro, saddling all parties with losses.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
by Ron Paul
A responsible financial institution would not extend a new loan of between 17 and 40 billion dollars to a borrower already struggling to pay back an existing multi-billion dollar loan. Yet that is just what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) did last month when it extended a new loan to the government of Ukraine. This new loan may not make much economic sense, but propping up the existing Ukrainian government serves the foreign policy agenda of the US government.
Since the IMF receives most of its funding from the United States, it is hardly surprising that it would tailor its actions to advance the US government’s foreign policy goals. The IMF also has a history of using the funds provided to it by the American taxpayer to prop up dictatorial regimes and support unsound economic policies.
Some may claim the IMF does promote free markets by requiring that countries receiving IMF loans implement some positive economic reforms, such as reducing government spending. However, other conditions imposed by the IMF, such as that the country receiving the loan deflate its currency and implement an industrial policy promoting exports, do not seem designed to promote a true free market, much less improve the people’s living standards by giving them greater economic opportunities. The problem with the IMF cannot be fixed by changing the conditions attached to IMF loans. The fundamental problem with the IMF is that it is funded by resources taken forcibly from the private sector. By taking resources out of private hands and giving them to IMF bureaucrats, government distorts the marketplace, harming both American taxpayers and the citizens of the countries receiving the IMF loans. The idea that the IMF is somehow better able to allocate capital than are private investors is just as flawed as every other form of central planning. The IMF must be repealed, not reformed.
The IMF is not the only US institution that manipulates the global economy. Over the past several years, a mysterious buyer, identified only as “Belgium,” so named because the buyer acts through a Belgian-domiciled account, has become the third-largest holder of Treasury securities. Belgium’s large purchases always occur at opportune times for the US government, such as when a foreign country sells a large amount of Treasuries. “Belgium” also made large purchases in the months just after the Fed launched the quantitative easing program. While there is no evidence this buyer is working directly with the US government, the timing of these purchases does raise suspicions.
It is not out of the realm of possibility that the Federal Reserve is involved in these purchases. The limited audit of the Federal Reserve’s actions during the financial crisis that was authorized by the Dodd-Frank Act revealed that the Fed actively intervenes in global markets.
What other deals with foreign governments is the Fed making? Is the Fed, like the IMF, working to bail out Greece and other EU countries? Is the Fed working secretly to aid US foreign policy as it did in the early 1980s, when it financed loans to then-US ally Saddam Hussein? The lack of transparency about the Fed’s dealings with overseas central banks and foreign governments is one more reason why Congress needs to pass the audit the fed bill.
By taking money from American taxpayers to support economically weak and oftentimes corrupt governments, the IMF distorts the market, enriches corrupt governments, and harms both the American taxpayer and the residents of the counties receiving IMF “aid.” It is past time to end the IMF along with all instruments of American interventionist foreign policy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Thousands Protest Against Austerity in Brussels
Thousands of people have taken to the streets in the Belgian capital city of Brussels to protest against the government’s austerity measures.
Some 17,000 Belgians coming from various cities participated in the protest rally on Sunday, police sources said.
A number of the protesters shouted slogans like, “Yes, there is an alternative” to government savings. They also called for a fair tax system and a better distribution of government spending.
The demonstration came a day before a series of strikes which are scheduled to be staged across the country.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why Greek Shipping Billionaires Are Sweating
“Shipping together with tourism are the two main sources of income for the country,” said Eurofin’s Zolotas. “The government would be ill-advised to make it less attractive for ship owners to remain in Greece because ship owners are providers of a lot of employment.”
But it is not just the internal threats of a ultra-leftist government with wealth-redistribution ambitions that is forcing Greek shippers to sweat. So is the Baltic Dry index, which as extensively covered here in recent months, has plunged to record low levels, indicative of a global demand recession, and is slamming the profitability of any, especially unhedged, dry-bulker.
“With limited demand from their domestic market, Greek ship owners have long looked beyond home shores for business. While it’s helped shelter them from the worst of the Greek crisis, the industry is still fraught with challenges.
“The Baltic Dry Index, a blended measure of rates for dry vessels, is down 51 percent this year to record lows. Meanwhile, low oil prices have caused the tanker market, another area that’s been a traditional Greek strength, to undergo a renaissance, though the market typically reverses within three to six months, according to Michail Kokkinis, founder of Piraeus-based ship broker Golden Destiny.”
Which is why, faced with threats of further wealth redistribution internally, and a collapse in foreign demand in their end markets, the Greek shipping billionaires are now sweating… and doing their best to prevent the public opinion tide turning against them.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
This article is the first in a series that covers hardening your home and some easy, low-budget alternatives for early-warning systems and fortifications. For all the prior service members (especially 11-Bravos), parts of this will be basic: this info is especially for those who haven’t been in the military to introduce them to some fundamentals. Please bear with me and do not feel insulted.
We need to define a few terms that I hope you’ll come to use: cover, concealment, and camouflage.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A Group of Chicago Hospitals Have Found a Groundbreaking New Way to Battle a Deadly ‘Superbug’
With painstaking effort, a group of Chicago hospitals has managed to cut by half the number of infections caused by an especially deadly type of superbug. Now U.S. health officials want that kind of campaign to go national.
The White House on Friday told the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slash rates of infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria by 2020 as part of a plan to prevent patient deaths and curb overuse of antibiotics administered to humans and animals.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
America: A Nation Divided Against Itself
It is painfully obvious what the statist, anti-Christian, anti-freedom leftists have decided is their ruthless intent.
Abraham Lincoln, while campaigning for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, made a now-famous speech on June 16, 1858 in which, citing the irreconcilable North-South division of America on the eve of the civil war, said, “ a nation divided against itself cannot stand “; The Dred Scott decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the prior year 1857, is regarded by many historians to be the tipping point to the Civil War, because the ruling dictated that a slave was the property of the owner, even if that slave stepped onto free soil. Anti-slavery abolitionists were outraged that a slave on free territory could now be forcibly removed by the law of the land, back to his or her owner in a slave state.
Therefore, Lincoln foresaw that the question could no longer be sidestepped by “ popular sovereignty”, wherein each individual state’s voting citizens would decide whether to allow or to prohibit slavery within its borders. In this speech, Lincoln continued further, to predict, that America would not remain “ divided against itself “; that it “ could not stand “….” it (America) will either become all one thing, or all the other “. He was essentially predicting two specifics: (1) America as a nation would either allow slavery in all of the states nationwide, or (2) America would abolish slavery nationwide. Had the war gone the other way, America would be two separate nations.
In our America of 2015, many of us have studied the electoral maps of the Presidential Election of 1860 against the electoral maps of the Presidential elections of the early 21st century, and after 150 years, our nation is essentially divided along very similar lines to just prior to the Civil War. I believe that to a majority of Americans, both in 1860 and in present-time 2015, the slavery question was a moral issue, not just a political or economic issue. Present-day America is sharply divided, morally, politically, socially and economically, and this divide has been steadily widening for the past 25 years. If a student of history, government or sociology seriously studies our history since 1990, the divide began to accelerate after President Reagan left office.
[Comment: Lincoln quote is adapted from the Bible: Mark 3:25 King James Version (KJV) “And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
On the heels of National False Flag Month in America (April), we get one of the weirdest stories of the year thus far.
It appears that armed transgenders drove their vehicle into the gates of the NSA’s Maryland headquarters at Fort Meade. One of the men is dead and the other hospitalized.
This is the second time this month that the NSA has been attacked.
The FBI was quick to point out that the incident was not related to terrorism. Had this been men wearing Gadsden flags or “End The Fed” t-shirts the feds would have been crying terrorist attack.
Stay tuned for more updates
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Boston Marathon Hero Cop Shot in Face; Sheriff David Clarke Calls Out the Real Culprits
A decorated Boston police officer and former Army Ranger remains in a medically-induced coma after being shot in the face during a traffic stop Friday.
The assailant was killed by other responding officers, according to Fox News.
Milwaukee County Sheriff David C. Clarke Jr. said the dead man is not the only one to blame for the attack on Officer John Moynihan. He also pointed the finger at three race-baiting public officials.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Brain Health — Why Some Football Players Are Retiring Early
NaturalNews) We often hear that professional football players are in the best shape of their lives. Their level of fitness cannot be denied, but what about their overall health, specifically their brain health? There has been increasing concern over the long-term effects of the concussions football players routinely suffer from collisions on the field. A professional football player will receive 900-1500 blows to the head during a single season and will have a 75% chance of suffering a concussion.
Previously, players sacrificed their brain health for the love of the game, for money and opportunities, or because they felt they had no choice. Now a 24-year-old professional football player named Chris Borland has decided the risks of football aren’t worth it. He’s not the first, but he is the youngest and the one who has shocked a country that is still actively resisting the idea of putting their health first until it’s too late. There is an important distinction between a young athlete protecting himself and an aging athlete trying to preserve whatever brain function he has left. It’s an example of a new mindset, one concerned with health and armed with more information than ever before.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
David and Goliath: What Do We Do About Surveillance?
In the US and Europe, police are also seeking information on phones linked to specific places and times — and always without a warrant. We’re all spied on. Our phones are bugged, our laptops inveterate informants. Reports on activities that define you — where you go, who you meet, what you buy — are sold to the highest bidder. But do we notice? And do we care?
There are brilliantly creepy examples. Take Cobham, a UK company that sells a system which allows “blind” calls to be sent to your phone. It won’t ring, so you won’t know you received it, but it makes your phone send a signal so callers can track it within a metre.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Enough is Enough, It’s Time to Downsize the Federal Government
The size of the federal government has exploded over the last century. The legislative and judicial branches of government have grown to serve the increased number of states and its growing population. The size and scope of the executive branch has grown to reflect an expanded role of the federal government over the last 100 years.
Apparently the staffing of fourteen separate Cabinet Departments were not enough to manage the current executive branch, so Barack Obama felt the need to appoint a number of “czars” to focus on special emphasis areas. Recent studies have found that economic growth rates decline when relative government spending exceeds 26% of GDP, and the United States government current spending is close to 40% of GDP. The Republican Party claims the core principle of limited government, but has actively participated in this growth in both size and scope of the federal government. There is still the question of constitutionality why the federal government has expanded into areas not explicitly called out for in the 10th Amendment. Ronald Reagan diagnosed this problem with “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Floridians Speak Out Against Video Showing Practicing Internment of Citizens
The exercise was accompanied by very little media coverage. A Sun-Sentinel report said that Broward County police would be “assisting members of the U.S. Special Operations Forces who are undergoing urban warfare training.”
[Comment: Check out the video, “dissidents” are rounded up and put into vans with blackhawks providing cover. PsyOp to ensure soldiers follow unconstitutional orders when the time comes and to acclimatize public to a new “normal”.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Former Monsanto Employee Fired From Major Scientific Journal’s Editor Position
Ex-Monsanto employee Richard Goodman has been removed from the Editorial Board of the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology. Goodman was appointed Associate Editor shortly before the Seralini study was retracted by the journal. Former Editor-in-Chief, A. Wallace Hayes will be replaced by someone else as well.
It looks like one scientific journal has decided to get real, replacing a pro-GMO editor in a major scientific journal. An ‘unbiased’ Editor-in-Chief will be replacing the completely biotech-biased A. Wallace Hayes, who retracted the controversial paper by the Seralini team which showed the toxicity of GMOs beyond any shadow of doubt.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Giant Alien Planet Has 4 Suns in Its Sky
Planets with four suns in their sky may be more common than previously thought, a new study suggests.
Astronomers have spotted a fourth star in a planetary system called 30 Ari, bringing the number of known planet-harboring quadruple-sun systems to two. Numerous two- and three-star exoplanets have been identified.
“Star systems come in myriad forms. There can be single stars, binary stars, triple stars, even quintuple star systems,” study lead author Lewis Roberts, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. “It’s amazing the way nature puts these things together.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) I’m always amazed at how people can be programmed by the mainstream media to ignore the obvious reality happening right in front of their eyes. Right now, America is being lulled into a hypnotic sense of denial while military training for martial law is happening right in their own neighborhoods and city streets. Yet, strangely, no one is allowed to refer to this exercise as training for martial law… even though that’s obviously what it is.
Most Americans remain totally unaware of the fact that a massive military drill spanning 10 U.S. states will soon put military troops, helicopters, armored transports and military weapons directly on the streets of communities across the nation. “Operation Jade Helm begins in July and will last for eight weeks,” reports the Daily Mail. “Soldiers will operate in and around towns in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado where some of them will drop from planes while carrying weapons loaded with blanks in what military officials have dubbed Realistic Military Training.”
The military drill labels Texas and Utah “hostile territory,” where military special ops personnel are supposed to try to covertly move among the public, undetected. As reported in the Houston Chronicle:
[Comment: Read it all.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
March to Martial Law? Undercover Special Forces to Sweep US Southwest
As elite branches of the US military prepare to hold military training in seven southwest states, with some troops operating incognito among civilians, some Americans fear the training is actually preparation for imposing martial law.
Operation Jade Helm, which is scheduled to kick off in July and run for eight weeks, will involve the participation of 1,200 troops from the US military’s most elite fighting forces, including Green Berets, Navy SEALS and Special Operations from the Air Force and Marines.
The troops will be participating in what has been called Realistic Military Training in towns in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas and Utah.
In an effort to simulate the type of battlefield conditions soldiers may face in foreign countries, the US military has designated the remote training areas where they will operate as in a “hostile” territory, a description that has irked some residents.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Marxist Van Jones Praises Koch Brothers
When he left the Obama Administration in disgrace, the expectation was that “former” communist Van Jones would return to Oakland, California, and resume his duties as an anti-police street activist. Instead, Jones, a former activist with the group, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), was hired as a “liberal” co-host of a new version of CNN’s debate show “Crossfire.” Now, Jones has emerged as a point man for Koch Industries in a multi-million dollar campaign for “criminal justice reform.”
The spectacle of Jones appearing at a podium emblazoned with the company name “Koch Industries” became a reality last Thursday when the ACLU and the billionaire Koch brothers joined forces to sponsor an all-day “Bipartisan Summit on Criminal Justice Reform.” Jones orchestrated most of the conference, serving as a moderator and speaker.
While the conference included a few Republicans, there was clear evidence that the new “bipartisan” campaign is being directed from the Obama White House. Attorney General Eric Holder and senior White House officials had met with several prominent leaders of the effort on March 2…
The campaign to target the prisons for revolutionary purposes is actually an old one. The House Internal Security Committee in 1973 published a report, “Revolutionary Target: The American Penal System,” which examined how “groups committed to Marxist revolutionary theories and tactics were exploiting the popular issue of prison reform and had become a source of the unrest then afflicting many of the nation’s prisons.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Nationwide ‘Emergency Alert’ Test Causes Panic, Confusion
The test began at around 11am EST and was broadcast in Washington DC, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. The emergency alert contained no details and merely listed the states it affected and said the alert would run from 11am until 12 midnight.
Viewers in Sacramento, CA also reported seeing the test, which lasted for about 10 minutes before the regular TV broadcast resumed. At no point were viewers advised that the alert was only a test.
Some said the alert made them panic…
AT&T blamed a “nationally syndicated radio station” for sending the alert message by mistake, despite the fact that only the federal government can send out EAS alerts. The alert system, “can only be activated by the President in times of emergency,” reported Fox 5.
[Comment: Coincidentally the same time as the practice roundup of dissidents.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Navy Vet: Sign Papers Swearing to Disarm Americans or Else
Former Navy SEAL named “Landshark” calls to talk about his experience in the military (1995-1996) being handed a stack of papers to sign in order to keep their positions.
The documents required that, if the SEALs were asked, they would agree to go door to door in America to confiscate firearms.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
By Trading Terrorists for a Traitor
President Barack Obama is being called out for dishonoring the United States of America by trading five Islamic terrorists for a known military deserter, former U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Project Veritas, Progressive Academia, And Our National Security
James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas has unveiled a new shocking video. Officials from Barry University in Florida, a private and Catholic institution founded in 1940, appear more than willing to approve the inception of a campus club that would raise money to support ISIS, the very terrorists who are killing indiscriminately Muslims, Christians, and gays in Iraq, taking over regions that were formerly freed by our American soldiers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Reid Calls Whistleblowers ‘Bunch of Whiners’
An inspector general called them courageous, but Sen. Harry Reid said Friday that the government whistleblowers who accused him of using political pressure to try to win special treatment for a Las Vegas casino were “a bunch of whiners.”
Mr. Reid, a Nevada Democrat who announced he will retire at the end of this Congress after 30 years in the Senate, said it’s his job to press the federal government to speed up decisions on his constituents’ needs, and said that’s what he was doing when he made the appeal to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to act on the casino’s request to expedite processing of investors’ visas.
“If I had to do over again, I would do it again. If I did it over again, I’d probably be stronger than I was,” he told KNPR radio in an interview just after he announced his impending retirement.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Son Says Police Crushed Dad to Death
Bay Area Rapid Transit police officers Tasered and crushed a man to death though they knew he was injured, his son claims in court.
Joseph James Greer sued the City of Hayward and BART in Alameda County Court for the wrongful death and assault and battery of his father, James Greer.
In his March 23 lawsuit, Greer claims that BART officers pulled over his father at a sobriety checkpoint and asked him to get out of the car on May 23, 2014.
He says his father complied, and told the officers that he was healing from gunshot wound and had a protruding hernia in his stomach.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal by US Flag-Wearing Students
The Supreme Court has denied an appeal from former California high school students who were ordered to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out during a celebration of the Cinco de Mayo holiday at school.
The justices did not comment Monday in leaving in place an appellate ruling that found that school officials acted appropriately because their concerns about racial violence outweighed students’ freedom of expression rights. Administrators feared the American-flag shirts would enflame the passions of Latino students celebrating the Mexican holiday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Your Location Has Been Shared 5,398 Times in Last 14 Days
Do you realize how often your smartphone is sharing your location data with various companies? It is more than 5000 times in just two weeks. That is little Shocking but True!
A recent study by the security researchers from Carnegie Mellon reveals that a number of smartphone applications collect your location-related data — a lot more than you think.
The security researcher released a warning against the alarming approach: “Your location [data] has been shared 5,398 times with Facebook, GO Launcher EX, Groupon and seven other [applications] in the last 14 days.
During their study, researchers monitored 23 Android smartphone users for three weeks.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Alps Crash: Lubitz ‘Had Treatment for Suicidal Tendencies’
The co-pilot of the crashed Germanwings plane, Andreas Lubitz, had received treatment for suicidal tendencies before getting his pilot licence, investigators say, but not recently.
Lubitz, 27, is suspected of deliberately crashing the plane in the Alps, killing all 150 people on board.
Officials in Duesseldorf said the investigation to this point had revealed no clue to any motive.
So far, DNA strands of 80 of the victims have been found.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Are Saudi-Swedish Relations Now Back to Normal?
Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Sweden will return to Stockholm, it was confirmed over the weekend.
After a delegation from Sweden travelled to Riyadh to meet Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud and Prince Mohammed bin Salman with official messages from the Swedish King and Prime Minister Stefan Löfven there are differering reports as to what those messages contained.
Saudi sources interpret them as apologies for Swedish statements on human rights in the kingdom, while Swedish representatives say they contained “regret that there have been feelings of misunderstanding around what has been said on the Swedish side”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Britain’s UKIP Demands Swedish TV Apology
Sweden’s media watchdog has given public broadcaster SVT a rap on the knuckles for labelling Britain’s Ukip an “extreme right-wing populist party” and the party has told The Local it now wants a public apology from the broadcaster.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Britain to Offer All Infants Meningitis B Vaccine
Britain says it will become the first country to offer all babies a vaccine for potentially fatal meningitis B after it reached a price deal with GlaxoSmithKline PLC.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Budget Restrictions Bite for Europe’s Space Mission Hopefuls
Plans to capture an asteroid and travel to other planets are culled from European Space Agency shortlist.
An ambitious proposal to grab a chunk of asteroid and return it to Earth has been ditched by the European Space Agency (ESA) as it chooses its next €450-million (US$487-million) space mission, scheduled to launch in 2025. The agency also dropped plans to travel to other planets, in total cutting 17 out of 27 possible projects after its first round of review, according to an unofficial list seen by Nature.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark’s ISIS War Bill Adds Up
Denmark spent 213 million Danish kroner fighting against terror group Isis during a four-month period ending in February this year, according to Ritzau.
Between October last year and the end of February 2015, Denmark’s costs related to the fight against Isis added up to some 213 million Danish kroner, according to a right to access of documents obtained by Ritzau from the Danish Ministry of Defence.
During the four-month period starting on October 2nd 2014, Danish military planes had been on some 250 missions and had thrown some 200 bombs, according to Ritzau. The total costs of ammunition was 44 million kroner.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germanwings Flight 9525 Co-Pilot Was Treated for ‘Suicidal Tendencies, ‘ Say Prosecutors
The co-pilot believed to have intentionally crashed a plane into the French Alps last week, killing all 150 aboard, had been treated for “suicidal tendencies,” German prosecutors said Monday.
Andreas Lubitz, the 27-year-old co-pilot who investigators say locked the Germanwings Flight 9525 pilot out of the cockpit and crashed the Airbus A320 last Tuesday, received psychotherapy “with a note about suicidal tendencies” for several years before becoming a pilot, according to Ralf Herrenbrueck, spokesman for prosecutors in Dusseldorf. Still, Herrenbrueck said no motive has emerged to explain the act, and said Lubitz showed no sign of a physical illness.
Herrenbrueck said that since Lubitz received his license, documentation had shown no such treatment.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Golden Dawn No 2 Released, As Protests Over Trial Linger
Just weeks before the leadership and around 70 members of Golden Dawn are to go on trial, the neo-Nazi party’s second-in-command, Christos Pappas, was released from jail on Sunday as the 18-month limit of pretrial detention expired.
A council of appeals court judges banned Pappas from leaving the country, while ordering him to spend nights at his residence and report to his local police station three times a month.
Meanwhile, reactions continue from locals and activists in Korydallos, southeastern Athens, against plans to hold the trial of GD MPs and members at a special court within the local prison. Protesters cite safety reasons.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greenland: Brain Drain to Denmark
Just a few years back, Greenland rode on a wave of optimism as untapped oil and gas-resources seemed to secure that long-wanted independence from Denmark. Today it looks different and young people are leaving.
As hopes fade for a commodities boom in Greenland, there is growing concern that an exodus of young people could cripple the economy of a territory already facing an uncertain outlook.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
More Danish Women Choosing to Become Solo Mothers
The number of Danish women who choose to become solo mothers via artificial insemination is on the rise, according to new figures from the fertility company Dansk Fertilitetsselskab.
In 2014, 478 children were born to single women via artificial insemination, compared to 449 the year before. Some 90 percent of the solo mothers said they had hoped to become parents with a partner, but had then decided to go it alone.
“It is very clear that having a child alone is a plan B,” Lone Schmidt, a lecturer at the Department of Public Health at the University of Copenhagen, told DR Nyheder.
“Most of the women had imagined having a child with a partner — they’ve often been in a relationship where the man hasn’t wanted children, either because they already had some from a previous relationship, or for some other reasons.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Chatshow Host ‘Too Hard’ On Returning Åkesson?
Chatshow host Fredrik Skavlan’s weekend interview with Sweden Democrat party leader Jimmie Åkesson has attracted viewers’ complaints of “bullying”, as well as being called “distasteful” and “reprehensible”.
After the Friday night interview with the leader of the xenophobic Sweden Democrats, who was announcing his return to politics after a period of sick leave, hundreds of comments poured in to SVT’s viewers’ service site, as well as reactions on social media like Facebook and Twitter.
“We’ve received about 800 posts to our viewing service, in addition, we have also been tagged in social media. It’s more than what we usually get for other programmes,” says Sabina Rasiwala, communications director at SVT. She says SVT “stands behind Fredrik Skavlan and his way of conducting the interview,”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Remembers Poet Tranströmer
Newspapers, radio programmes, and other media outlets in this country were filled with eulogies about Swedish Poet Tomas Tranströmer over the weekend. Tranströmer died last week, aged 83.
He was Sweden’s most famous poet, and became the 104th Nobel literature laureate in 2011, recognition of his work which was acclaimed by the Swedish Academy for ‘condensed translucent images’ which give us ‘fresh access to reality’.
His poetry, comprising 15 collected works, addresses themes of nature, everyday life and death. His works have been translated into over 60 languages and has influenced poets across the World.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Multiple Unsolved Gangland Murders in Gothenburg
Gangland warfare in Gothenburg has led to the murders of 14 men since 2011. But not a single person has been convicted, writes newspaper Göteborgs-Posten.
Since 2011, 14 men have been killed in Sweden’s second biggest city in what police describe as battles between criminal networks. Most of those killed are young men, but not a single case has been solved, even though police believe they have a good idea of who the killers are in about half of the cases, writes Göteborgs-Posten.
One problem is that few dare to testify.
“The prevailing culture of silence means that, unfortunately, we rarely succeed. We often get lots of good tips. When it is a question of giving evidence though before a court, it stops,” says Klas Friberg, regional police chief in Västra Göteland and Halland, to Göteborgs-Posten.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Controversial Data Traffic Storage Law to Remain
The law forcing telecom and broadband operators to save customers’ traffic data for six months is ‘good’ and should remain, says a government investigator. But operators are upset and think that important privacy issues have been brushed aside.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Talk Show in Åkesson Storm
Friday night’s prime time interview with returning Sweden Democrat head Jimmie Åkesson on the Swedish TV talk show Skavlan has resulted in a storm of complaints over the weekend both on home soil and in Norway, where the programme is also broadcast.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Majority of Voters Doubt That Islam is Compatible With British Values
As a recent survey by the YouGov-Cambridge Programme shows, a striking 55 per cent of British voters currently think “there is a fundamental clash between Islam and the values of British society”, compared with just 22 per cent — little over one in five — who say Islam and British values are “generally compatible”.
Among Tory supporters, this gap increases to 68 per cent who say “clash” versus 17 per cent who think “compatible”. Ukip supporters look almost unanimous on the issue (89 per cent “clash” versus 4 per cent “compatible”) while roughly half of Labour supporters take the negative view (48 per cent “clash” versus 27 per cent “compatible”) and Lib Dems are divided (38 per cent “clash” versus 39 per cent “compatible).
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: 1,000-Year-Old Onion and Garlic Eye Remedy Kills MRSA
A 1,000-year-old treatment for eye infections could hold the key to killing antibiotic-resistant superbugs, experts have said.
Scientists recreated a 9th Century Anglo-Saxon remedy using onion, garlic and part of a cow’s stomach.
They were “astonished” to find it almost completely wiped out staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as MRSA.
Their findings will be presented at a national microbiology conference.
The remedy was found in Bald’s Leechbook — an old English manuscript containing instructions on various treatments held in the British Library.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Bethnal Green Academy Where Four Pupils Have Left to Join ISIS to be Investigated
The probe by at Bethnal Green Academy, in east London, has been launched after four girls left their homes to join ISIS — and four of their friends had their passports confiscated.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Schools to Parents: If You Let Your Kid Play ‘Call of Duty’ We’ll Call CPS on You
Several schools in England are threatening to call child protective services and have parents arrested by police if they allow their children to play video games such as ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and ‘Call Of Duty’.
The London Times reported that a group of Principals from 16 schools penned a letter to parents stating that in their belief, the games were directly responsible for the kids displaying “oversexualized behavior” in school.
[Comment: GTA games series are rupgnant.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Allegations Against Enoch Powell Are Lies Beyond Contempt, Writes Simon Heffer
Four years before he died in 1998, Enoch Powell did me the honour of asking me to write his biography. I spoke to almost everyone alive who knew him. When he died, I had unique access to a vast collection of private papers, including numerous intimate letters. If there is anyone alive other than Enoch’s widow and daughters who knows more about him than I do, I’d like to meet him.
I never detected the slightest whiff of scandal about Powell. His probity in personal and financial matters was rock solid. When on Saturday evening a fellow journalist told me of the allegations made by the Church of England, my first instinct was to laugh: but that soon changed into utter outrage when I realised he was serious.
The Church has publicly accused Enoch of being involved in ritual satanic abuse on hearsay, without the slightest evidence. They might as well accuse him of having been a war criminal or an armed robber, for there would be as much truth in either allegation.
The appalling slurs are just like those made against 91-year-old Lord Bramall, a D-Day veteran and former chief of defence staff, whose homes in London and North Yorkshire were gratuitously raided by police recently on the back of an unspecified allegation of a sexual nature dating back to the 1970s.
It is not just that the bishops who have made these accusations are behaving in a remarkably un-Christian fashion by putting this smear into the public domain. But that they do not appear even to have engaged what passes for their brains, or consciences, before behaving in this grotesque and offensive fashion.
Their brains should have told them that a man of Enoch’s controversial reputation would never for a moment have got away with the type of behaviour they are alleging he indulged in during the 1980s. The Establishment turned against Enoch in 1968 after the so-called Rivers of Blood speech; it would never have protected him for a second had it detected the slightest whiff of scandal.
[Comment: Likely the slur is elitists attempt to squash the growing discontent over mass migration.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: We Know Everything About You: Sinister Boast of Data Boss
We know everything about you: Sinister boast of data boss who says he has 5,000 pieces of personal information on EVERY British family — from your salary to your health products and ages of your children…
It is a firm you will never have heard of — but it boasts that it knows everything about you.
From your salary to the ages of your children and even which DVD you rented last weekend, B2C Data has a ‘rich and complex’ picture of every family in Britain.
Minutes into a phone conversation with our undercover reporter, the firm’s sales director boasted it held 5,000 pieces of personal information for every household.
‘Literally we know what clothes they buy, what health products they buy, where they go on holiday, how many times they go on holiday, what income they’ve got, whether they have children,’ sales director Gareth Doran — a convicted fraudster — boasted from his home in Marbella.
Days later, over a pot of tea in a London hotel, his silver-haired colleague Nick Sayer casually revealed how this shadowy company had compiled such an extraordinary amount of data. Flashing his expensive silver watch as he sipped, he said he had persuaded 250 British companies trusted by millions to pass on detailed information about their customers.
Perhaps most shockingly of all, he claimed to have access to individuals’ financial information — including confidential details of the size of their pension pots.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egyptian Pilot Arrested for Not Bombing Yemen
“I joined the army and studied to become a pilot to strike Israel and not Yemen…”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Bardo Museum Reopens to Public
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, MARCH 30 — The Bardo museum in Tunis at the center of the deadly attack on March 18 reopened to the public on Monday. In front of the museum’s entrance tourists, including many westerners, took pictures of the memorial stone inaugurated yesterday by political leaders to commemorate the victims of the attack. A delegation representing the foreign affairs commission of the Italian Lower House, led by president Fabrizio Cicchitto, is expected to visit.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Biden: American Jews Can Only Rely on Israel, Not US
US Vice President makes shocking statement, telling American Jews ‘no matter how involved you are in the US, the only guarantee is Israel.”
An incredible admission by US Vice President Joe Biden has been revealed, in which he told Jewish leaders that should the American Jewish community be in danger, it has only Israel to rely on — and not America.
Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg reveals in the April issue of The Atlantic how at a Rosh Hashana event in Biden’s home last fall, the vice president told Jewish leaders and Jewish officials in US President Barack Obama’s administration how he met former Prime Minister Golda Meir when he was a young Senator.
“I’ll never forget talking to her in her office with her assistant — a guy named (Yitzhak) Rabin — about the Six-Day War,” he recalled. “The end of the meeting, we get up and walk out, the doors are open, and…the press is taking photos. …She looked straight ahead and said, ‘Senator, don’t look so sad…Don’t worry. We Jews have a secret weapon.’“
Biden states he asked Meir what the weapon was, noting “I thought she was going to tell me something about a nuclear program” — an ironic comment given the US’s recent declassification of documents revealing Israel’s nuclear program in a breach of understandings with the Jewish state.
But according to Biden, “she looked straight ahead and she said, ‘We have no place else to go.’“ Addressing his guests at Rosh Hashana, Biden paused for effect and repeated, “we have no place else to go.”
“Folks, there is no place else to go, and you understand that in your bones,” Biden said. “You understand in your bones that no matter how hospitable, no matter how consequential, no matter how engaged, no matter how deeply involved you are in the United States…there’s only one guarantee.”
“There is really only one absolute guarantee, and that’s the state of Israel,” he stated.
Responding to the statement, Corey Robin of Salon wrote how disturbing the statement is, given that it consists of “a sitting vice president telling a portion of the American citizenry that they cannot count on the United States government as the ultimate guarantor of their freedom and safety.”…
| — Hat tip: RL | [Return to headlines] |
Op-Ed: Pesach in Jerusalem 1920: Tragedy and Challenge
By Larry Domnitch
During the Passover holiday on April 4, 1920, local Arabs were primed for confrontation in Jerusalem. Tensions had already been escalating since the battle of Tel Chai in the Northern Galilee, and demonstrations against the Yishuv (Jewish community Palestine) which followed. Near the Jaffa Gate outside Jerusalem’s Old City, thousands had gathered brandishing weapons.
It was also the Muslim holiday of Nebi Mussa which drew crowds to Jerusalem. Araf el-Aref, the editor of the Arab nationalist newspaper, Al-Surria al-Janubiyya (the Southern Syria) whipped up the crowd, warning that if force is not used, “We will never be rid of the Jews.” The crowd responded that they “will drink the blood of the Jews.” Local Arab leader, Musa Kazim Husseini, shouted that, “The Jews are our dogs,” adding, “The Muslim religion was born with the sword.”
The riot soon began as the mobs entered the Old City and set upon the terrified Jewish community. Pillaging, abuse, and murder, ensued while the British police stood by with minimal reaction. When they did respond and made arrests, the rioters were allowed to attend prayer services the following morning, and then released while the violence continued. Synagogues were desecrated, shops were looted, and homes were ransacked. When members of the recently disbanded Jewish Legion attempted to intervene, they were arrested. Following almost three days of mayhem, five Jews were murdered, and two hundred and eleven were wounded, some critically.
The authorities did arrest one of the instigators, Amin Al-Husseini, but he managed to escape to Syria. Otherwise, British policy in the immediate aftermath showed little change. They rejected the Jews’ demands to dismiss the Arab police who participated in the pogrom. The British authorities would not even allow over 30 people to accompany remains of victims for burial.
The British also arrested twenty members of the group of Jewish defenders including the leader Zev Jabotinsky. Three-year jail sentences were meted out to 19 members of the Jewish Defense Units. Jabotinsky was tried on the trumped up charges of “banditism, instigating against the people of the Ottoman Empire” and received a fifteen year sentence. The sentences were eventually dropped due to an international outcry.
The Jews as a whole accused local British rule of complicity in the pogrom. They attributed their inaction to their own anti-Semitic behavior. In a statement, the Achdut HaAvodah-Labor party accused British administration officials, “For allowing agitators to incite the Arab people,…
[Does it ever change? a religion of peace which is “born with a sword”, so who is kidding whom? ]
| — Hat tip: MC | [Return to headlines] |
Arab League to Create Joint Military Force
Leaders of the 22 countries that make up the Arab League are vowing to defeat Iranian-backed Shiite rebels in Yemen, and other countries, by creating a joint Arab military force that is setting the stage for potential Middle East clashes between U.S.-allied Arab nations and Tehran.
Members of the Arab League met in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, to discuss the growing threat to the region’s Arab identity by what they called moves by “foreign” or “outside parties” who have stoked sectarian, ethnic or religious rivalries in Arab states.
The Arab League is made up of 22 independent Arab states — including Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Assad ‘Open’ To Negotiations With US, Says ISIS Strengthening Despite Airstrikes
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Sunday that he’s “open” to negotiations with the United States and that airstrikes conducted by a U.S.-led coalition in the region are not defeating the Islamic State terror group.
“We didn’t attack the American population. We didn’t support terrorists who did anything in the United States,” Assad told CBS’ “60 Minutes.” “We always wanted to have good relation with the United States. We never thought in the other direction.”
Assad has presided over Syria during a devastating civil war that has lasted for four years, claimed over 200,000 lives, and seen the rise of jihadist groups like Islamic State, or ISIS. The Obama administration has repeatedly insisted that any solution to the conflict would involve Assad’s removal from power.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Commencing Jihad: ISIS Tweets Photos of Military ‘Graduation’
The black-clad graduates listened intently as speakers inspired them to change the world, but instead of caps and gowns, they wore masks and fatigues, and in place of diplomas, they clutched AK-47s.
Photos tweeted out from the Islamic State in Syria in the last few days showed the terror group’s latest “graduating class,” which included dozens of foreign fighters who came to Syria to join the Islamic caliphate.
“There are two messages being sent by ISIS besides the obvious shock factor: First, their caliphate is an actual functioning and legitimate state. Second, this is long-term struggle,” said Ryan Mauro, national security analyst and adjunct professor of Homeland Security for the Clarion Project. “This is a way of saying that ISIS has succeeded (in creating a state) where Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists have failed.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Down to the Wire’: US Races Clock for Iran Nuke Deal Despite Warnings
The Obama administration is charging into a Tuesday deadline for striking a nuclear deal with Iran — despite mounting warnings about Tehran’s role in the deadly Yemen unrest, the Arab League uniting against Iran-aligned forces there and worries that a weak deal could trigger a regional arms race.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
How the Yemen Conflict Risks New Chaos in the Middle East
The meltdown in Yemen is pushing the Middle East dangerously closer to the wider regional conflagration many long have feared would arise from the chaos unleashed by the Arab Spring revolts.
What began as a peaceful struggle to unseat a Yemeni strongman four years ago and then mutated into civil strife now risks spiraling into a full-blown war between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran over a country that lies at the choke point of one of the world’s major oil supply routes.
With negotiators chasing a Tuesday deadline for the framework of a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program, it seems unlikely that Iran would immediately respond militarily to this week’s Saudi airstrikes in Yemen, analysts say.
But the confrontation has added a new layer of unpredictability — and confusion — to the many, multidimensional conflicts that have turned large swaths of the Middle East into war zones over the past four years, analysts say.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Like a Modern Day Nazi Germany: Ex-CIA Chief
Iran is trying to expand its empire much like Hitler’s Germany before World War II, former CIA Director James Woolsey said Monday, citing Tehran’s moves to exert its influence in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.
“They are doing it on a highly ideological basis. They never cease chanting ‘Death to Israel’ and ‘Death to the United States,’“ Woolsey said in a CNBC “Squawk Box” interview. “They are an imperial power and trying to become more of an imperial power.”
Woolsey called for a halt in the six-nation nuclear talks with Iran, which include the U.S. “Given Iran’s aggressiveness and the fanaticism of its leaders, I don’t think we can do a reasonable deal with them. They’ll cheat.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Unveils Video to Recruit Deaf & Mute Jihadists
While some may ISIS is ‘deaf’ to the new world as it spreads its message of Shariah Law across The Middle East, the terrorist organization appears to be trying to broaden the appeal of the militant group. As Newsweek reports, ISIS has released a video in which a pair of disabled sibling militants use sign language in an apparent bid to recruit fighters from the (apparently under-served) deaf and mute community.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian President Says Islamic State Has Grown Despite US Airstrikes
In a US television interview, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said the “Islamic State” (IS) has continued to grow during the last six months, despite US air strikes. The terrorist group has also expanded over land.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkish Cypriots Say They Will Halt Gas Search as Greek President Visits Nicosia
Turkish Cypriots said on Monday they were suspending their gas exploration off the coast of Cyprus and that the Barbaros seismic vessel, whose presence within the Mediterranean island’s maritime zone caused Nicosia to pull out of peace talks last year, will soon return to Turkey.
The decision, announced to The Associated Press by Ozdil Nami, who is responsible for foreign affairs in the breakaway state in the Turkish-occupied section of Cyprus, came as Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos started a two-day visit to Nicosia.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
What’s Really Going on in Yemen
Confused about the war in Yemen?
Here’s what’s really going on …
Yemen — previously called “Aden” — has one of the oldest civilizations in the Middle East. But it has been racked with violence for a long time. In the 1960s, a pro-Arab nationalist faction clashed with the British — who wanted Yemen to become a Western-controlled natural resource hub — and devolved into brutal fighting, with both sides using terrorism.
Yemen’s first president — Saleh — was in power from 1990 to 2012. The U.S supported Saleh, but Saleh was a double-dealing scoundrel.
The Arab Spring protests ousted Saleh, and America helped broker immunity for prosecution in return for his leaving office.
Saleh was corrupt and tyrannical. As the Telegraph reports:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Yemen Ports Under Blockade as Saudis Say Airstrikes to Intensify
The Saudi-led coalition that’s fighting against Shiite rebels in Yemen said it completed a blockade of the country’s ports and is ready to step up airstrikes.
Bombing missions are seeking to stop the Shiite Houthis from moving forces between Yemen’s cities, Ahmed Asseri, a Saudi military officer, told reporters in Riyadh on Monday. Coalition aircraft and warships targeted the rebels as they advanced toward Aden, the southern port that’s the last stronghold of Saudi Arabia’s ally in Yemen, President Abdurabuh Mansur Hadi. Shipping routes to and from the ports are under the coalition’s control, Asseri said.
The conflict in Yemen has escalated the regional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which has ties to the rebels. It has further destabilized a region that holds more than half the world’s oil and is already wracked by wars in Syria and Iraq.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Yemen Lumbers Toward Civil War With Increasing Saudi and Iranian Influence
The military intervention in Yemen by Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies raises the risk of fighting by proxy, with strings being pulled by the Saudis on one hand, the other being the main regional Shiite power Iran.
US regional researcher Katherine Zimmerman underscored that the Saudi intervention was not a decision taken in haste.
In Yemen, the different groups of faithful have prayed side by side for centuries — not like in Iraq or Syria. Around 60% of Yemenis are Sunni, 40% Shiite.
There are subgroups, of Sunni Shafi’i, Maliki and Hanbali.
The Shias are mostly Zaidi but also Twelver, Ismaili and Houthi, who are a smaller minority.
The Houthis seized the capital Sanaa last September and extended their control southward to Aden, claiming to be leading a non-religious revolution on behalf of the whole Yemeni population.
One Houthi militia fighter told journalists: “We are here to provide security and stability and to protect freedom and services for everyone.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Special Report: Inside Hungary’s $10.8 Billion Nuclear Deal With Russia
Its currency is wounded and its economy besieged by sanctions, yet Russia still has money to spare for potential allies overseas. Even as it scrabbles for foreign funds, Moscow is poised to make a 10 billion euro ($10.8 billion) loan to Hungary, one of the European Union members most sympathetic to it.
Budapest plans to draw on the first tranche of the loan this year, a Hungarian government commissioner told Reuters.
Officially the loan is to finance the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant, Hungary’s only atomic power station, which supplies about 40 percent of the country’s electricity. But critics say there is another motive as well: Russia buying favor with a European Union (EU) government.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Atheists Are Being Hacked to Death in Bangladesh, And Soon There Will be None Left
“Words cannot be killed”. This is the Facebook cover page of Bangladeshi blogger Washiqur Rahman. It’s a statement of solidarity with Avijit Roy, the Bangladeshi-American atheist blogger who was murdered last month in the capital of Dhaka by religious extremists.
Just this morning, Rahman suffered a similar fate to Roy’s. He was surrounded and stabbed to death by suspected extremists while on his way to work, in the middle of a busy street. He was 27 years old.
Far from just being two random murders, these attacks are the methodical work of vigilante extremists working through a list of atheist bloggers. The list was drawn up last year when 100,000 protestors called on the government to introduce the death penalty for blasphemy. The government refused to introduce death penalty, but it did begin a crack down on the country’s free-thinking blog community. It shut down some of its most popular sites, and imprisoned bloggers accused of “offending religious feelings”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Threatens to Kill Yoga Instructors and Their Students
Via Hindu Existence:
To curb the increasing influence of Indian Yoga and spirituality in the global sphere including some section of Muslims, the Islamic terror organisations are giving threats to various organisations attached with Yoga propagation. In this row, the Malaysian chapter of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living has received threatening letters from the Islamic State (IS) terror group, a close aide of the spiritual leader claimed on Saturday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Second Blogger Killed in Bangladesh
Another Bangladeshi blogger has been hacked to death in the country’s capital Dhaka. Police arrested two suspects near the scene after the latest attack targeting atheist writers in the predominantly Muslim country.
Three men attacked blogger Washiqur Rahman Babu near his home in Bangladesh’s capital just weeks after a prominent Bangladeshi-American blogger Avijit Roy was killed by unidentified assailants.
The 27-year-old, who was attacked with machetes, was declared dead when he arrived at Dhaka Medical College Hospital early Monday morning (local time).
“Blogger Washiqur Rahman Babu was brutally hacked to heath this morning…just 460 meters (500 yards) from his home at Dhaka’s Begunbari area,” deputy police commissioner Wahidul Islam said.
“They hacked him in his head and neck with big knives and once he fell on the ground, they then hacked his body,” he added.
Babu was an atheist blogger who wrote under the pen name Kutshit Hasher Chhana, meaning Ugly Duckling, on Facebook.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Thousands of Indian Farmers Protest GMO Corporate Imperialism in Delhi
(NaturalNews) The massive insurrection against the Modi Government and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition on March 18, 2015 by the major agricultural unions of India has led to a widespread launch of lobbying regarding farmer’s rights and farmer cost of living allocations in the capital city.
According to the All India Coordination Committee of Farmers Movement (AICCFM), Modi and the NDA came to power by way of funding from the GMO lobby. The latter represents the patent holders of genetically modified seed inputs which are now promoted by programs focused on agribusiness in many emerging and developing market countries.
Arguing that a lack of transparency about political campaign funding, and that standing anti-farmer policies reflect corruption at all levels of agricultural governance, the AICCFM is requesting amendment of the Land Acquisition Ordinance that ultimately protects their property rights. They’re also requesting the revision of commercial-growing guidelines which now include mandated adherence to patent rules assigning apportioned proprietary ownership of GM crops, including percentages of sales owed to the genetic patent registrar.
While the lack of fair and remunerative pricing for farm produce is not a new demand by the AICCFM, the request for restructuring fair trade agreements (FTAs) in the interest of establishing a farm income commission is. Elimination of agriculture from the World Trade Organization (WTO) free trade agreement, indemnity for farm disaster relief and open air field trials of GM crops are cited as other issues that the farm unions wish to change.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Uzbekistan Vote: Huge Win for President Islam Karimov
Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov has been re-elected president by a landslide, according to preliminary results of Sunday’s election.
The widely-predicted outcome saw Mr Karimov, who has led the country for more than 25 years, secure 90% of the vote.
But international observers have criticised the poll, saying that it fell short of international standards.
Uzbek officials said that there was a 91% turnout for the vote.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Cambodia: A Struggle to Save the Scaly Pangolin
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — With its scaly exterior, peculiar body shape and propensity for rolling into an armored ball when threatened, the pangolin has invited comparison to the artichoke and the pine cone.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Australia to Start Taxing Bank Deposits
Up until now, the world’s descent into the NIRPy twilight of fiat currency was a function of failing monetary policy around the globe as central bank after desperate central bank implemented negative and even more negative (in the case of Denmark some four times rapid succession) rates, hoping to make saving so prohibitive consumers would have no choice but to spend the fruits of their labor, or better yet, take out massive loans which they would never be able to repay. However, nobody said it was only central banks who could be the executioners of the world’s saver class: governments are perfectly capable too. Such as Australia’s.
According to Australia’s ABC News, the “Federal Government looks set to introduce a tax on bank deposits in the May budget.”
Ironically, the idea of a bank deposit tax was raised by Labor in 2013 and was criticized by Tony Abbott at the time. Much has changed in two years, and as ABC reports, assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has indicated an announcement on the new tax could be made before the budget.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
American Communists Travel to Cuba to Increase Support for Castro Dictatorship
A delegation from the Communist Party USA, led by new National Secretary John Bachtell, recently visited Cuba. On Feb. 27th, the delegation stopped by the the Cuban Intelligence connected Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples to “discuss building friendship, cooperation and people to people exchanges in light of the Dec. 17 announcement to reestablish diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba.”
Among those who warmly greeted the delegates were Fernando Gonzalez, one of the infamous “Cuban 5” who was jailed in the U.S. in 1998 as part of a “mission to monitor right-wing Cuban terrorist activities in Miami being directed against Cuba.” Several people died as a result of Gonzalez’s espionage.
According to Bachtell:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mexican Growers Offer 15 Percent in Baja California Farm Strike, State Claims Workers Return
Export-oriented commercial farms in Mexico’s Baja California state say they have offered farm workers a 15-percent wage increase to end a two-week-old strike.
But leaders of the farmworkers called the offer unacceptable, and said they want assured benefits, higher wages and an end to abuses.
The strike by an estimated 50,000 farmworkers has featured intermittent blockages of the main north-south highway in Baja, confrontations with police and the arrest of dozens of strike supporters.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Child Hate Speech Allowed to Flourish
I visit many different Internet sites, blogs, etc. and everywhere I look, I see the disgusting anti-children drivel.
There’s this new subculture that’s emerged and it’s called “childfree.” A lot of people make not having or wanting children their main identity. They frequent bulletin boards and forums dedicated to their “childfree life” where they trash talk children and parents alike.
I’m not exaggerating. This is literally all these people talk about on their sad little forums. They treat children like they are subhuman scum, the worst things to happen to this planet, seriously.
Here are a few of the colorful (read: disgusting) names these “childfree” morons have used to refer to children in their little forums: crotch fruit, crotch spawn, poop larvae, walking tumor, toadler ( a play on “toad” and “toddler”).
These people also rage against parents. They refer to parents as: Moo (referring to mothers, calling them cows) and Duh (for fathers, because fathers are “stupid.”)
Parents are referred to as “breeders” as if they were subhuman for DARING to have children. For example, I was posting in a thread on Reddit once, and the topic of children came up. Out of nowhere, one little puke piped up with “Why don’t you not have children and enjoy life instead?”
As if you can’t enjoy life if you have kids? Seriously?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
France: Gay Support for National Front on the Rise
A recent survey shows gay support for the National Front is rising. Some gays say the far-right party is more open to minorities than France’s mainstream parties, despite a history of homophobia.
Gay support for the FN is rising: a recent Ifop poll showed 26 percent of homosexuals in Paris supported the party, compared with 16 percent of heterosexuals.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Shutterstock’s Suggestions for “American Family” Stock Photos: All Black Families
By Steve Sailer
Shutterstock.com is a vendor of stock photos for editorial purposes. You can search their vast library of copyrighted pictures, find the one you want, and pay them to get the image without the “Shutterstock” watermark.
A friend points out that if you go to Shutterstock.com and search for “American family,” the top choices are all black families. Above is a screenshot of the top 15, but they go on like this for hundreds and hundreds of pictures of black families. After a couple of hundred black (or mixed race) families (most of them fairly light-skinned), there is finally a picture of a white guy and his Asian wife and Eurasian baby.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Loud Last Gasp That Should be Heard Around the World
[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **.]
“A 911 call of audio from the woman whose 7-month-old unborn baby was cut out of her womb by someone she met to purchase an item off of Craigslist reveals the baby took a “gasping breath” before she died. The victim was seven-months pregnant and was visiting Dynel Catrece Lane’s home to buy baby clothes advertised on Craigslist.” (Lifesite, March 19, 2015)
“After an examination of the 7-month-old unborn baby who was cut out of a Colorado woman’s womb this week, county officials say they will not charge the woman who cut the baby out of her mother’s womb with murder for killing the baby. That’s because the state lacks an unborn victims law to hold criminals accountable when they kill or injure unborn children in such criminal attacks.” (Lifesite)
How is it possible in the absolute myriad of Colorado state laws on the books, the state “lacks an unborn victims law to hold criminals accountable when they kill or injure unborn children in such criminal attacks?
How is it that President Barack Obama gets away with partial birth abortion which allows babies, who are partially delivered, to be killed?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Every President in the World is a Manchurian Candidate — Video
Presidents are puppets for global elite. The greatest conspiracy in world history is being carried out by the real-life “Manchurian Candidate”: President Barack Obama.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Supreme Court decision regarding the flag-wearing students is truly disgusting. The only positive is that we now have a clear marker indicating the First Amendment is well and truly dead.
I don’t find the gay support for the FN very surprising. There was going to be a point where people of that minority began to realize they would live far better under an FN government versus the Euro-phate that the left is trying to create.
Yes, the problem with the culturally marxist zero-sum conflict theory based “social justice” policy of trying to give minority groups different degrees of privilege based on how victimized they’re assumed to be is that eventually a point is reached where conflict is created among minorities. One really has to wonder if “divide and conquer” is the real objective here.