Big Banks to Attend Eurozone Summit: Report
Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann and other European banking sector heavyweights have been invited to the latest eurozone summit to discuss new strategies for handling the Greek debt crisis.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Curse the Geniuses Who Gave us Bank of America
Ask anyone what the most immediate threats to the global financial system are, and the obvious answers would be the European sovereign-debt crisis and the off chance that the U.S. won’t raise its debt ceiling in time to avoid a default. Here’s one to add to the list: the frightening plunge in Bank of America Corp. (BAC)’s stock price.
At $9.85 a share, down 26 percent this year, Bank of America finished yesterday with a market capitalization of $99.8 billion. That’s an astonishingly low 49 percent of the company’s $205.6 billion book value, or common shareholder equity, as of June 30. As far as the market is concerned, more than half of the company’s book value is bogus, due to overstated assets, understated liabilities, or some combination of the two.
That perception presents a dangerous situation for the world at large, not just the company’s direct stakeholders. The risk is that with the stock price this low, a further decline could feed on itself and spread contagion to other companies, regardless of the bank’s statement this week that it is “creating a fortress balance sheet.”
It isn’t only the company’s intangible assets, such as goodwill, that investors are discounting. (Goodwill is the ledger entry a company records when it pays a premium to buy another.) Consider Bank of America’s calculations of tangible common equity, a bare-bones capital measure showing its ability to absorb future losses. The company said it ended the second quarter with tangible common equity of $128.2 billion, or 5.87 percent of tangible assets.
Investor Doubts
That’s about $28 billion more than the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company’s market cap. Put another way, investors doubt Bank of America’s loan values and other numbers, too, not just its intangibles, the vast majority of which the company doesn’t count toward regulatory capital or tangible common equity anyway.
So here we have the largest U.S. bank by assets, fresh off an $8.8 billion quarterly loss, which was its biggest ever. And the people in charge of running it have a monstrous credibility gap, largely of their own making. Once again, we’re all on the hook.
As recently as late 2010, Bank of America still clung to the position that none of the $4.4 billion of goodwill from its 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp. had lost a dollar of value. Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan also was telling investors the bank would boost its penny-a-share quarterly dividend “as fast as we can” and that he didn’t “see anything that would stop us.” Both notions proved to be nonsense.
Acquisition Disaster
The goodwill from Countrywide, one of the most disastrous corporate acquisitions in U.S. history, now has been written off entirely, via impairment charges that were long overdue. And, thankfully, Bank of America’s regulators in March rejected the company’s dividend plans, in an outburst of common sense.
Last fall, Bank of America also was telling investors it probably would incur no more than $4.4 billion of costs from repurchasing defective mortgages that were sold to investors. Since then the company has recognized an additional $19.2 billion of such expenses, with no end in sight.
The crucial question today is whether Bank of America needs fresh capital to strengthen its balance sheet. Moynihan emphatically says it doesn’t, pointing to regulatory-capital measures that would have us believe it’s doing fine. The market is screaming otherwise, judging by the mammoth discount to book value. Then again, for all we know, the equity markets might not be receptive to a massive offering of new shares anyway, even if the bank’s executives were inclined to try for one.
No Worries
We can only hope Bank of America’s regulators are tracking the market’s fears closely, and have contingency plans in place should matters get worse. Yet to believe Moynihan, there’s nary a worry from them. When asked by one analyst during the company’s earnings conference call this week whether there was any “pressure to raise capital from a regulatory side of things,” Moynihan replied, simply, “no.”
If that’s true, the banking regulators should share blame with Moynihan for the current mess. It would be impossible for any lender to have too much capital in the event that Europe’s debt problems, for example, morph into another global banking crisis. It’s also hard to believe Bank of America has enough capital now, given that the market doesn’t believe it.
There undoubtedly are plenty of brave investors eyeing Bank of America’s stock price who trust the numbers on the company’s books and see a buying opportunity. Perhaps they’ll even be proven right. We should hope so, for our own sakes. There’s more at stake here, however, than whether Bank of America’s shares are a “buy” or a “sell.”
The main thing the rest of us care about is the continuing menace this company and others like it pose to the financial system, knowing we never should have let ourselves be put in the position where a collapse in confidence at a single bank could wreak havoc on the world’s economy. Here we are again, though. Curse the geniuses who brought us this madness
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Eurozone Leaders No Longer Exclude Greek Default
Eurozone leaders entered a critical summit on Thursday eyeing a deal to reduce Greece’s debt mountain, but without excluding a default to save the euro from its worst crisis. A draft agreement was put on the table for the 17 leaders following an 11th hour deal reached between the eurozone’s two powerbrokers, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a European diplomat said. The leaders dropped the idea of a special tax on banks to help fund a second Greek bailout, the European diplomat said. The draft opens the door to German calls for private sector involvement in the bailout, even at the risk of triggering a default.
“We cannot exclude any possibility and everything should be done to prevent (a default),” Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, said on arrival. Juncker insisted that the euro was “not in danger” after weeks of market turbulence fuelled by fears that the Greek debt crisis will spread to Italy and Spain and across the global financial sector. Merkel and Sarkozy met European Central Bank (ECB) chief Jean-Claude Trichet in Berlin to hammer out a compromise. Germany, backed by the Netherlands and Finland, had been at odds with the ECB and Paris over Merkel’s demands for private investors to shoulder some of the bill for the second Greek rescue.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Exclusive: Fed Planning for Potential Default
The Federal Reserve is actively preparing for the possibility that the United States could default as a deadline for raising the government’s $14.3 trillion borrowing limit looms, a top Fed policymaker said on Wednesday. Charles Plosser, president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, said the U.S. central bank has for the past few months been working closely with Treasury, ironing out what to do if the world’s biggest economy runs out of cash on August 2. “We are in contingency planning mode,” Plosser told Reuters in an interview at the regional central bank’s headquarters in Philadelphia. “We are all engaged. … It’s a very active process.”
Plosser said his “gut feeling” was that President Barack Obama and Congress will come to an agreement to increase the Treasury’s borrowing authority in time to avert a default on government obligations. Obama was due to meet with top Republicans in Congress on Wednesday to discuss the latest attempts to end the dispute over raising the country’s debt ceiling, a row which has raised the prospect of the Treasury Department running out of money to pay its bills next month. The Treasury has repeatedly said default was unthinkable and that there was no alternative to raising the debt ceiling. Plosser’s remarks marked the most extensive public comments yet on preparations for a default from a U.S. official.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Federalism or Retreat? Eurozone is Divided Over Its Future
The eurozone, having failed to contain a raging debt crisis for the past year, now faces stark choices for its future: a radical leap towards federalism or a step backwards in the European project. Quarrels over crafting a new bailout for Greece — technical disputes over debt restructuring or private sector involvement — hide deep political divisions between nations over where to take Europe and the euro. “The leaders of Europe are refusing to address the only real challenge: how do we move towards real federalism, that has become obligatory since the introduction of our federal currency, the euro, which is now demanded by the financial markets,” said Jean-Dominique Giuliani, president of the Robert Schuman Foundation think tank.
Under the leadership of the then French president Francois Mitterrand and German chancellor Helmut Kohl, Europeans made a risky bet in the 1990s by paving the way for the creation of the euro. The single currency area was born in 1999, but without a common budgetary policy, other than debt and deficit rules, to prevent wayward spending as each state jealously guarded its fiscal sovereignty. A decade later, the global financial crisis plunged Europe into the worst recession since World War II and public deficits began to mushroom. The bloc’s Stability and Growth Pact, designed to ensure governments keep deficits under 3.0 percent of national output, demonstrated it lacked the teeth to dissuade the type of over-spending that led to Greece’s budget blowout.
The European Union and IMF were forced to rescue three eurozone nations: first Greece with a 110-billion-euro ($157-billion) bailout in May 2010, then Ireland in November with 85 billion euros and finally Portugal in June with 78 billion euros. In addition, the eurozone created a 440-billion-euro financial stability fund in an effort to reassure markets that the single currency area will not let any of its members collapse into bankruptcy. EU states also agreed to have their national budgets reviewed by the European Commission before they are adopted by national parliaments. Nearly every time, Europe’s leaders were criticised for moving too slowly, one step behind the markets.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France and Germany Reach Deal Ahead of Crucial Summit
Germany and France were able to overcome their differences and reach an agreement on a second rescue plan for Greece following a seven hour meeting on Wednesday evening. “Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy worked very constructively for seven hours on a common position on the debt situation in Greece,” German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert said in a statement. European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet also attended the meeting, while the plan was discussed by telephone with EU council president Herman Van Rompuy. No details of the agreement have been made available but it would have to square Berlin’s demand for private sector involvement with the ECB’s insistence that any solution must not be viewed as a credit default.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany’s Green Party on the Euro Crisis: ‘Merkel Must Put Politicians Back in the Driver’s Seat’
In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Cem Özdemir, the co-leader of Germany’s Green Party, talks of the challenges that Greece faces in sorting out its finances, argues in favor of a debt restructuring and calls on Chancellor Merkel to push for resolute action at Thursday’s EU summit.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greek Selective Default ‘Potentially Inevitable’: Minister
A selective debt default by Greece is “potentially inevitable”, Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager said on Thursday. “A selective default is not a purpose in itself, it’s certainly not something we are looking for, but we cannot exclude it beforehand: it is potentially inevitable,” De Jager told the Dutch Parliament. European leaders are to start an emergency eurozone summit later on Thursday in Brussels, to discuss a new bailout deal for Greece amid a spreading eurozone debt crisis. De Jager told a parliamentary committee that Greece would need an additional 90 billion euros ($127 million) by 2014. As part of the bailout, the Dutch government aimed for the private sector to contribute 20 to 30 percent, he said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced optimism that eurozone leaders would reach a deal to settle Greece’s debt crisis and stop it spreading, at the crucial summit to look at the second bailout plan for Greece. But Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker said on Thursday that eurozone leaders would not rule out a Greek debt default.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
HS Poll: Half of Finns Want Greece Out of Euro
Nearly half of Finns would like Greece to leave the euro zone, according to a poll for the daily broadsheet Helsingin Sanomat. A fifth of respondents want Finland to leave the euro. More than half, though, wanted Finland to assist eurozone countries in economic difficulty.
Some 44 percent of those questioned were of the opinion that Greece undermines the whole euro zone, and the country should therefore leave the currency union. Expulsion of Greece from the euro is supported by some 70 percent of True Finns supporters.
“People have a short-term perspective on these issues,” said Aalto University economics professor Matti Pohjola in a Helsingin Sanomat interview. They don’t really consider alternatives to the euro.”
A return to the Markka was supported by 23 percent of respondents, while 52 percent would offer assistance to the crisis countries in one way or another.
TNS Gallup conducted the survey for Helsingin Sanomat. They interviewed 1,006 people by telephone in the first week of July. The margin of error is three percentage points.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Stocks Rise as EU Looks at Greek Rescue Plan
European leaders meet in Brussels
(ANSA) — Brussels, July 21 — As European leaders met in Brussels to consider a “Marshall Plan” to rescue Greece from bankruptcy, Italy was praised for its austerity package.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi and other leaders at the eurozone summit.
A draft of the summit’s conclusions said “we appreciate the recent Italian budget which will bring the budget deficit under 3% (of GDP) in 2012 and balance the budget in 2014”.
Italian stocks rallied and so did the euro on Thursday after European leaders moved closer to endorsing a new rescue plan.
Milan stocks closed up 3.76% to close at 19,490 points and the euro rose to $1.44 for the first time since July 6 when the debt crisis struck.
In another encouraging sign, the spread of Italian 10-year bonds fell below 250 points against German bonds for the first time in two weeks. The 70-billion-euro austerity budget approved by the Italian government aims to cut Italy’s budget deficit to 0.2% of GDP by 2014, from almost 4% this year
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Katainen: Finland Will Not Compromise on Greek Loan Guarantees
Finland will not compromise in demanding guarantees for any new Greek bailout loan. Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen says that the European economic situation is extremely difficult, but Finland will nevertheless reject any new loans for Greece if EU countries do not vote unanimously to accept guarantees. However, opposition parties in Finland remain sceptical over Katainen’s view.
Finland is seeking long-term solutions from Thursday’s summit. According to Katainen, decisions need to be made quickly to prevent the financial crisis coming to a head worldwide.
“We are trying to avoid a total catastrophe, that is, Greece’s insolvency which would most likely be highly contagious. The economic situation in Europe is at least as serious as in spring of 2010,” Jyrki Katainen told reporters.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Katainen says that Finland remains inflexible on the guarantees demanded for a new bailout loan.
Finland would accept property or shares in a property company as surety for the loans. The sum covered by guarantees remains an open question.
Prime Minister Katainen is in Brussels on Thursday for an EU leaders’ crisis summit. They are aiming to stabilize the economic situation in Europe and will discuss new bailout loans for Greece.
Opposition remains sceptical
Opposition parties in the Finnish parliament reacted unfavourably to Katainen’s statement. In the view of The True Finns, giving more cash to Greece will just exacerbate the problem. Parliamentarian Pietari Jääskeläinen said Greece will inevitably face debt restructuring or leave the euro zone.
For its part, the Centre Party said it was important to see what actions Greece would take. Grand Parliament Committee Deputy Chair, Centre MP Antti Kaikkonen also feared Greece could face debt restructuring.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Liberals Invoke Reagan to Sell Debt Deal
Desperate to sell the American people on a yet-to-be-determined plan to raise the debt ceiling, increase taxes, and avoid necessary reforms to rein in government, liberals are turning to an unlikely ally to make their case—former President Ronald Reagan. Their utterly transparent tactic reveals a larger truth: Despite all the rhetoric, liberals have failed to convince America that their way is the best way to move Washington forward.
The offending invocation of Reagan’s legacy comes from the House Democrats in the form of a 54-second video featuring audio from a September 1987 radio address in which the former President called on Congress to raise the debt ceiling, warning that the United States “has a special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations.” The House Democrats fashioned those words into a bludgeon aimed at Republicans, attempting to lay the blame for Washington’s failure to reach a debt limit deal squarely at their feet.
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank parroted that message in a column this morning, calling Democrats “The new party of Reagan” and claiming that conservatives’ demands for restraining the growth of government is at odds with the policies enacted under Reagan’s tenure.
All of the clever rhetoric and recasting of history is designed to distract from the reality on the ground. The U.S. government has racked up $14 trillion in debt. For more than 800 days, the U.S. Senate has failed to pass a budget. President Obama continues his calls for “compromise” and “shared sacrifice,” all while insisting on tax increases to fund spending—a philosophy that was roundly rejected at the polls last November. That is not a manner of governance that President Reagan would have endorsed.
It’s also a line of argument that has no grounding in reality. Last night, the U.S. House passed the Cut, Cap, and Balance plan, which would impose a cap on federal spending and allows for an increase in the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion on the condition that the House and Senate approve a balanced budget amendment. To date, it is the only plan to raise the debt limit that has passed either chamber, and it is the only plan whose details can be seen in the light of day.
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Obama and Boehner Close to Major Budget Deal, Officials Say
The Obama administration has informed Democratic Congressional leaders that President Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner were starting to close in on a major budget deal that would enact substantial spending cuts and seek future revenues through a tax overhaul, Congressional officials said Thursday.
With the government staring at a potential default in less than two weeks, the officials said the administration on Wednesday night notified top members of Congress that a bargain with Mr. Boehner could be imminent. The Congressional leaders, whose help Mr. Obama would need to bring a compromise forward, were told that the new revenue tied to the looming agreement to increase the debt limit by Aug. 2 would be produced in 2012 through a tax code rewrite that would lower individual and corporate rates, close loopholes, end tax breaks and make other adjustments to produce revenue gains.
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Passage of Obamacare Killed the Economic Recovery
Private-sector job creation initially recovered from the recession at a normal rate, leading to predictions last year of a “Recovery Summer.” Since April 2010, however, net private-sector job creation has stalled. Within two months of the passage of Obamacare, the job market stopped improving. This suggests that businesses are not exaggerating when they tell pollsters that the new health care law is holding back hiring. The law significantly raises business costs and creates considerable uncertainty about the future. To encourage hiring, Congress should repeal Obamacare.
In May 2010, the job situation stopped improving. Employers created just 48,000 net jobs, and the trend in job creation changed. Starting in that month, private-sector hiring took a new course, improving by only 6,500 jobs per month—less than one-tenth the previous rate.[8]
This change in course is statistically measurable. Econometric testing shows that a structural break in job growth occurred between April and May 2010. The Heritage Foundation used the Bai—Perron breakpoint test to test for both the likelihood and location of a structural break in job growth. [9] That test showed that both the level of and the trend in job growth changed between April and May 2010.
The Obama Administration also altered its post—Obamacare economic estimates to forecast a significantly slower recovery. The Administration now projects unemployment of 9.1 percent at the end of 2011 and 8.2 percent by the end of 2012.[10] The widely expected labor market recovery never happened.
Businesses Say Obamacare Is Holding Them Back
The fact that improvements in the job market ground to a halt after Congress passed Obamacare does not prove that the health care law caused it—correlation cannot prove causation. However, the fact does lend strong weight to the voices of businesses who say that the law is preventing hiring.
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“The War Against Drugs Has Failed”
A report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy has concluded that the war on drugs has failed, triggering a heated debate in the United States. The report, written by a high-profile panel including former Swiss cabinet minister Ruth Dreifuss, criticises the repressive approach in the US and calls for the legalisation of some drugs and an end to the criminalisation of drug users. Instead of prohibition, the commission recommends “regulation models of illicit drugs designed to undermine the power of organised crime and safeguard the health and safety of their citizens”. “Drug addicts are patients rather than criminals — they are in fact patients exploited by criminals and it’s the role of society to protect them,” Dreifuss, a member of the centre-left Social Democratic Party and interior minister from 1993 to 2002, told swissinfo.ch.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Airbus Wins Big With American Airlines
Planemaker Airbus has not only won a huge order from American Airlines, but has also forced its US archrival Boeing to shelve plans for a new model that could have made the European company’s A320 look a little old. Loss-making American Airlines aims to lower operating costs and improve earnings by trading in its gas-guzzlers for new energy-efficient aircraft from Airbus and Boeing. The third-largest US airline by traffic has agreed to order 460 new planes, including 260 from Airbus. The order is split between current-generation Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s, as well as future versions of both planes equipped with new, more efficient engines, which are expected to be in the air later this decade. To win a chunk of the business, Boeing shelved its plan of creating an all-new 737 short-haul jet and followed in Airbus’ footsteps by choosing the cheaper and quicker route of developing new engines.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Allen West Calls Out Dem Natl Committee Chairwoman for Unparliamentary Behavior — With Ccs to All
Florida GOP Congressman Allen West this afternoon dispatched a scathing personal email to Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, calling her “vile, unprofessional ,and despicable,” “a coward,” “characterless,” and “not a Lady,” and demanding that she “shut the heck up.”
Wasserman Schultz, in whose neighboring South Florida district West lives, provoked his tirade with remarks after he left the House floor today, in which she responded — without naming him — to the Tea Party freshman’s support for “Cut, Cap, and Balance” legislation to raise the debt ceiling.
[Things are heating up. Doug Ross says;
Wasserman-Schultz is — provably — a Marxist hack. She is unconcerned with her constituents and seniors in particular. According to its Chief Actuary, Medicare is set to collapse in just ten short years. Instead of working to save it, this ludicrous excuse for a politician instead demonizes Paul Ryan’s courageous plan and the heroic Rep. Allen West.
Instead of working to save Medicare, she intones platitudes like “shared sacrifice”, “winning the future” and “giving tax breaks to big oil and millionaires.”
[…]
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Dept of Homeland Security’s Contempt of Congress & Constitution
Last week, DHS officials chastised Representative Jason Chaffetz (R — Utah) for disclosing sensitive security information to the press:
“In a letter, Joseph Maher, DHS’s deputy counsel, scolded Chaffetz, the chair of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense, and Foreign Operations, for openly discussing ‘sensitive security information’ provided by the Transportation Security Administration(TSA). Maher wrote, ‘This document was marked as [Sensitive Security Information] and provided clear notice that unauthorized disclosures of the document violated federal law.’
The letter comes in response to Chaffetz’s comments last week that revealed that there have been more than 25,000 security breaches at U.S. airports since November 2001.”
Take out your Constitutions, kids. There, in Article I, you’ll see the words that create the Congress and establish its authorities. Now go look for the language that authorizes a sprawling executive branch with agencies like the Department of Homeland Security. Enough searching will suggest to you that the DHS is a subordinate of Congress. It exists by the grace (and/or mistake) of the legislative branch of the government.
You’ll also see the Speech or Debate Clause, which bars Members of Congress from being “questioned in any other Place” for anything they say in Congress. The clause exists to insulate Members of Congress from outside authority trying to influence their deliberations—outside authorities like DHS deputy counsel Joseph Maher.
Did Representative Chaffetz reveal SSI, or “sensitive security information”? So what? …that’s a designation DHS officials throw around cheaply and easily. Here, it’s being used more to hide the agency’s failings than to protect the public.
Representative Chaffetz is entirely correct to air publicly the failings of the TSA. The more aware we are of the government’s security fakery, the more sensible will be our estimate of risks to airline security and how to respond to them.
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Genome Maps May Spot Disease in African-Americans
Two independent teams of researchers have come up with the most accurate genetic maps ever made — a feat that should make the search for genes associated with diseases easier. To understand why an accurate genetic map is useful, imagine you are trying to locate a house in Topeka, Kan., but the only map you have is one of the Interstate Highway System. You could probably find Topeka, but finding the specific house you want would take a lot of trial and error. That’s basically the situation researchers find themselves in when they are searching for a particular gene in the long stretches of DNA that make up our chromosomes. The trick to making a genetic map is to make road signs in DNA to tell you where you are.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
How to Raise a Global Kid
Taking Tiger Mom tactics to radical new heights, these parents are packing up the family for a total Far East Immersion.
“I’m doing what parents have done for many years,” Jim Rogers says. “I’m trying to prepare my children for the future, for the 21st century. I’m trying to prepare them as best I can for the world as I see it.” Rogers believes the future is Asia-he was recently on cable television flogging Chinese commodities. “The money is in the East, and the debtors are in the West. I’d rather be with the creditors than the debtors,” he adds.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Huffington’s Craven Corruption
AOL’s purchase of The Huffington Post for $315 million was a shot heard around the Dallas BoomTown room in which it was announced on February 6, 2011. America was too tied up in Super Bowl XLV fever to notice the decision of a failed relic of the dot com boom to scoop up the “Big Dog blog.”
The Huffington Post brought in $31 million in 2010 and, according to company executives, it is on course to bring in $60 million in 2011. At that rate of growth, Arianna Huffington’s blog site was already on track to earn $315 million in two or three years. Why would a breakout success like HuffPo hitch its wagon to an anchor like AOL? Time Warner’s disastrous merger with AOL, after all, ended in over $100 billion in losses.
When the news of the AOL acquisition hit the mainstream media the following day, criticism was immediate. The $315 million sales tag led a clutch of bloggers to call out The Huffington Post for not paying its contributors. By February 10, a HuffPo editor explained that bloggers were provided a forum for their ideas in lieu of salary, pesky assignments and freedom-sapping things like deadlines. An e-mail from The Huffington Post’s executive editor, Nico Pitney, compared the content provided by its bloggers to the content provided to Facebook and Twitter by its users. The criticism soon subsided.
To date, the American media has by and large failed to recognize is that the AOL-Huffington deal has placed Arianna Huffington on the fast track to global media mogul status.
Global Expansion
In the purchase, AOL sacrificed its flagging, non-partisan badge for a blast of hot air from the left. Nine out of ten people know what AOL is. However, a strong brand without any content amounts to failure in today’s online market. Overnight, The Huffington Post transformed itself from a blog into Huffington Post Media Group and Arianna Huffington became the face of one of the most recognized brands in the world. Moreover, as president and editor-in-chief of Huffington Post Media Group, she took control of the entirety of AOL’s local, national, global and financial news content, as well as its editorial content. In addition, Huffington gained content oversight on all of AOL’s media ventures, such as Patch.com.
On July 15, 2011, in another shot heard virtually nowhere, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and Arianna Huffington mounted the stage at the National Press Club to discuss their shared vision for the road ahead. America’s media was again engrossed in another spectacle — FOX News media mogul Rupert Murdoch on the ropes in a phone hacking scandal that led to the shuttering of the 168-year-old tabloid News of the World.
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[NOTE: RTWT. Investigation at its best. “crawling the sewers”, indeed.]
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Migraine Revelations Afflict Michelle Bachmann’s Campaign
Although some polls had identified Bachmann as a frontrunner in the race for the G.O.P. nomination, commentators have now begun to speculate about her medical fitness to be president of the U.S., and to wonder whether voters would abandon her candidacy on the basis of this new information. Widespread misunderstanding of migraines and their treatment may cloud the issue, unfortunately. More than 300 million people around the world are afflicted with migraines, but the severity of their symptoms varies considerably: the excruciating head pain and sensitivity to light and sound that commonly characterize migraines can last anywhere from a few hours to several days. Stress is a common trigger for the attacks, but almost anything-allergies, alcohol, hunger, or the weather-can be. Migraine costs the U.S. economy an estimated $17 billion annually in lost work, medical expenses and disability pay.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Murdoch’s Influence Extends to U.S., Global Politics
The phone hacking scandal currently plaguing News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch, began in London, and because of rumors that his employees hacked the phone messages of 9/11 victims as well, the scandal has made it’s way to the U.S.—where the media mogul has far-reaching political interests and is a considered a major political contributor.
In the weeks since it was reported that employees of News Corp’s tabloid operation, News of the World, may have hacked phone messages belonging to a 13-year-old girl who was abducted and murdered, Murdoch has closed NOTW, he and his son James have appeared before Parliament, one of Murdoch’s key employees resigned and was then arrested and the Federal Bureau of Investigations has started an investigation into charges that his employees also hacked the phones of victims of the 9/11 terror attacks.
It’s been reported that Murdoch has close, and sometimes inappropriate, relationships with conservative politicians in the U.K. It’s also commonly believed that he has close ties to what we consider conservative politicians here in the U.S. as well, but campaign finance records suggest he has ties to both sides of the aisle. According to the Sunlight Foundation’s Influence Explorer, News Corp’s political givings are actually split pretty evenly between Democrats (51 percent) and Republicans (49 percent).
The biggest all-time recipient of contributions from News Corp is President Obama. It should be noted that the totals for News Corp’s contributions also include money from employees of the organization and their family members. Obama being listed as the company’s top recipient might surprise some people because of its highly publicized involvement with his political rivals, like Sarah Palin who was the vice presidential candidate in 2008 and reportedly still under contract with Murdoch-owned Fox News as a paid commentator.It’s also been reported that Fox News also has contracts with Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, all having run for president either in the past or currently, to appear on the network as commentators. It’s said that these contracts prohibit these three and Sarah Palin from appearing on other networks.
News Corp has made contributions to the Republican Senatorial Leadership Council annually since 2007, with the exception of 2008. Last year, Murdoch’s soft money contribution to the Republican Governor’s Association made news because of its large amount: $1 million. That donation, while commonly known to be true and not denied by Murdoch, can’t be found in IRS or Federal Election Commission records.
News America Holdings, also known as Fox Political Action Commitee, is News Corp’s PAC. The PAC’s top recipients for the 2009-2010 election cycle were Democrats Nancy Pelosi from California, Howard Berman from California and Chuck Schumer from New York.
Murdoch and his media companies also take advantage of their powerful position by lobbying Congress on policy issues that affect the business they do. Since 1997, News Corp has spent $8.2 million lobbying highly debated issues such as net neutrality and privacy.
Murdoch’s multiple businesses have also had their share of government revolvers, with a total of 5 five people having worked for the government and News Corp at some point, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Only one of those people is currently working for Murdoch — Paul Jackson— and he is listed as a lobbyist for the corporation.
Part of News Corp’s corporate profile is the book publisher Harper Collins, who in 1994 offered Newt Gingrich a $4 million book advance. Gingrich declined, reportedly because of political pressure. News Corp also owns the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in addition to a number magazines and community news papers. And as the current phone hacking scandal suggests, Rupert Murdoch is a very powerful media force around the world in addition to the UK and Australia. That power seems be threatened now and Murdoch has displayed that by his withdrawal of a bid to take complete control of BSkyB, a major satellite broadcasting corporation based in London. There have also been reports that Murdoch’s control over News Corp might be taken away.
With operations that large and that successful it’s no wonder that rich people like John Kerry, the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, would have investments in Murdoch empire. Kerry’s investments in News Corp are listed at somewhere between $600,000 and $1.25 million, according to CRP.
See URL for a list Murdoch’s top recipients.
[…]
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NASA’s Retired Space Shuttle Fleet’s Next Stop: A Museum Showcase
The shuttle Atlantis returend to Earth for the final time today (July 21), but the orbiter has one more mission left on its docket — teaching and inspiring the public as a museum showpiece. Atlantis landed at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center at 5:57 a.m. EDT (0957 GMT), officially ending NASA’s iconic shuttle program after 30 years of operation. But Atlantis and the other surviving orbiters — Discovery, Endeavour and the prototype Enterprise usewd in landing tests — won’t fade into obscurity. Rather, they’ll occupy pride of place at museums around the country, serving as ambassadors for the shuttle program for years to come.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
NASA’s Space Shuttle by the Numbers: 30 Years of a Spaceflight Icon
NASA’s space shuttles have racked up an amazing set of accomplishments over the last 30 years, not to mention the miles and statistics
NASA’s space shuttles have racked up an amazing set of accomplishments over the last 30 years, not to mention the miles and statistics. But after three decades and 135 flights, the era of the NASA space shuttle is at an end. The final shuttle flight, NASA’s STS-135 mission aboard Atlantis, will land Thursday (July 21) to cap a 13-day trip that delivered supplies and spare parts to the International Space Station. With NASA’s reusable space plane fleet retiring, here is a by-the-numbers look at the iconic 30-year spaceflight icon: $209 Billion: The estimated total cost of NASA’s 30-year space shuttle program from development through its retirement. 3,513,638: The weight in pounds of cargo that NASA’s space shuttles have launched into orbit. That’s more than half the payload weight of every single space launch in history since 1957 combined.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New Reactor in Tennessee: Safety Concerns Cloud US Nuclear Renaissance
Watts Bar 2, the US’s newest nuclear power plant, is being built in Tennessee and is expected to go online next year. It has a history of safety concerns that goes back decades. Nevertheless, many local people support nuclear power and are welcoming the reactor with open arms.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Police Seek Robbers in Baseball Bat Beatings
Police are trying to identify a gang of men who are beating couples with baseball bats and robbing them in downtown Denver. Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson said there have been two attacks, each involving the robbery of a couple leaving restaurants or bars at closing time. Just before 2 a.m. on July 16, a couple was walking home from a restaurant-bar near East 10th Avenue and Pennsylvania Street when they were surrounded by a group of men, according to a police report.
Two men wielding baseball bats hit the man and woman in the head, “causing major bruising and swelling,” the report said. Then a robber grabbed the woman’s purse. The man and woman were transported to Denver Health Medical Center for treatment, police said. On June 26 near 1000 Broadway, a couple was in an alley near their vehicle when a group of men walked up and “assaulted them with a baseball bat and demanded money,” a police report said. The robbers grabbed the woman’s purse and ran to a waiting car, police said. The attackers are “not nice people,” Jackson said. Police describe the attackers as four to five black men, ages 18 to 21 years.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Twitter Suspends Conservative Groups’ Accounts
Today the conservative group Empower Texans lead by Michael Quinn Sullivan twitter accounts were suspended along with staff member’s personal accounts and affiliated conservative organizations.
Empower Texan twitter accounts and staff accounts that were suspended include @EmpowerTexans, @mqsullivan and @DustinMatocha.
An affiliated conservative organization, @agendawise, was also shut down along with a staffer’s account, @Daniel_Greer.
Is this a massive twitter conspiracy to attack conservatives (Unlikely…), did some fed up liberals en mass report the accounts as spam, did the accounts in question engaged in actions violating the Twitter Rules (Mass following or unfollowing, using unapproved third party applications), or something else. We shall see. In the mean time since you can’t follow them on twitter, you should follow @RightSideAustin!
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http://empowertexans.com/social/without_notice_twitter_suspends_empower_texans_staff_accounts
Empower Texans, a conservative group, respond to silencing by Twitter: ‘Tweetless’
By Empower Texans (07/19/2011)
Yesterday, without warning or notification, social media mini-blog site Twitter simultaneously “suspended” the main Empower Texans feed along with the personal accounts of all staff.
It is unsettling, to say the least, given the way the entity sells itself as a great equalizer for personal and public discourse.
The Empower Texans team has clearly not sought to violate Twitter Rules, and have yet to receive any official notice or clarification of the action. Furthermore, a simple examination of our accounts clearly shows the Empower Texans team have not run afoul of Twitter’s guidelines.
Twitter, which offers no phone numbers or the ability to appeal a decision directly, has been notified through their process of this issue, and the necessary appeals have been submitted online. But, again, we have received no information from Twitter.
Of course, Empower Texans is going strong on Facebook. We have more than 18,700 friends on our main page — making us the largest independent, Texas-based policy/political group operating there with a vibrant community and on-going dialogue. (Our Facebook reach is also bigger than the state’s various news organizations!)
While the Empower Texans team members engage in political conversations and advocacy using the Twitter medium, they certainly do not use the medium to sell particular products or to generate spam. Empower Texans uses the Twitter medium in good faith to engage and actively contribute to the social media/networking experience. We talk about political ideas, Texas issues, as well as topics of personal interests from Aggie football to UT baseball, families and vacations to history and pop-culture.
Individual Twitter accounts are suspended everyday for a litany of reasons only to be reinstated after a quick review. The fact that an organizational feed, along with the personal accounts of all those associated with the organization, were suspended at the same time is odd and raises concern. Even more so that they were suspended with no notice or warning.
What is certainly more unsettling is the effect this action could have on the greater “social media” experience in regard to political discourse.
If this series of unfounded suspensions prove to be the result of a political prank, Twitter’s automated system — confounded by the byzantine nature of its appeals process — has proven highly susceptible to those wishing to manipulate it.
[…]
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When Rahm’s Temper Made a Comeback
In dealing with the press, Mayor Rahm Emanuel often tries to emulate his former boss, President Barack Obama. But Emanuel can’t match Obama’s calm demeanor. In fact Emanuel’s temper can get the best of him. I found out yesterday when I asked him a question about where his children would go to school, and he let his famous temper emerge. For some background, I had the chance to ask Barack Obama a similar question in 2008, just after he had won election and was transitioning to the White House. Since the president had sent his own children — Malia and Sasha — to private schools in Chicago we wondered how he might relate to the nation’s public education struggles.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
WSJ Editorial: Government-Mandated PLAs “Deserve to be Outlawed”
The editorial board at The Wall Street Journal has again come out against wasteful and discriminatory government-mandated PLAs. Here are the highlights from the editorial (“Project Labor Revolt: The states ban union political bid-rigging. Obama demurs,” 7/19/11):
One benefit of the squeeze on state and local budgets is that politicians are finally having to confront their sweetheart deals with labor unions. The latest reform movement is moving against project labor agreements, or PLAs, that limit bids on construction projects to contractors that agree to union representation.
Only about 13% of construction workers belong to unions, and PLAs are a union invention to use their political muscle to organize more companies. Proponents argue that PLAs ensure the speed and quality of construction plans. But PLAs are one of the reasons that Boston’s Big Dig was estimated at $2.8 billion but eventually cost $22 billion. Studies show that projects under PLA contracts on average cost 12% to 18% more than projects awarded by open, competitive bidding. Taxpayers pick up much of this tab.
[snip]
In response to this evidence, states have been pulling away from PLAs. Louisiana passed a law this month that prohibits state entities from mandating the use of PLAs. Tennessee, Arizona and Idaho passed similar legislation earlier this year, and Iowa’s Governor Terry Branstad, in one of his first acts after inauguration, signed an executive order ending a state PLA requirement. Legislatures in Maine and Michigan recently passed bills along these lines that governors are expected to sign. These states are joining Utah, Montana, Missouri and Arkansas, which enacted bans in recent years.
The new wave of Republican state officials is leading this reform, but the public seems to support the effort even in Democratic-leaning areas. Seven localities in California have passed ballot initiatives to end mandated PLAs in the last decade, including five since 2009. This includes places like Chula Vista, where President Obama received 61% of the vote. As Andy Conlin of Associated Business and Contractors notes, wherever PLAs are subject to popular referendum, they’re rejected.
This editorial touches on a couple of key points. In addition to detailing how PLAs increase construction costs and discriminate against the 87 percent of the construction workforce that chooses not to join a labor organization, it outlines what has become a national trend in the last 12 months. In state after state and community after community, Americans are standing up to demand the best construction at the best price for their hard-earned tax dollars. These demands are showing up at the ballot box in places like Chula Vista and San Diego County in California, where voters overwhelmingly approved ballot initiatives banning government-mandated PLAs on local projects. In places like Iowa, Maine and soon Michigan, taxpayers’ desire for fair and open competition is being expressed through their governors and state legislators. Regardless of the method, sensible taxpayers are taking important steps to guarantee value on public construction projects.
[…]
[NOTE: See original text at URL for embedded links]
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Ontario Extortion Racket Has Ties to Hezbollah
TORONTO — Aline Ajami’s nightmare began when a stranger appeared at the Toronto apartment where she lived with her parents. He said his name was Kamal Ghandour and that he was connected to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
There was a problem, he said.
Ms. Ajami’s uncle owed him money. As a result, the uncle was being held hostage by Mr. Ghandour’s associates in south Lebanon. He would be killed, Mr. Ghandour warned, unless Ms. Ajami did exactly what she was told.
That encounter in February 2008 was the start of what an Ontario judge, in language more reminiscent of a book jacket than a legal ruling, would call a “strange and harrowing tale of international intrigue” involving “gangsters with known ties to terrorists.”
The remarkable case has so far gone unreported, but the National Post has pieced the story together for the first time from documents and interviews. It suggests that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah is linked to a fraud and extortion racket in southern Ontario.
Ms. Ajami was 24 and employed by a Toronto marketing firm when Mr. Ghandour came to see her. Aside from threatening her uncle, Mr. Ghandour had also said he would kill Ms. Ajami’s sister, who lived in Lebanon.
After he left her apartment, Ms. Ajami did not tell police — not at first.
Mr. Ghandour had shown her the business cards of several RCMP officers. He had friends in law enforcement, he told her. If she reported him to the authorities, he would find out.
His stated ties to Hezbollah caused Ms. Ajami to take his threats seriously. She was born in Lebanon and knew the Shia Muslim militants controlled the country’s south. They had killed the prime minister, Rafik Hariri. They could kill her uncle and sister, too.
So she did what she was told.
For the next two months, Mr. Ghandour and his son Karim appeared almost daily at the Ajamis’ apartment not far from York University.
They would take Ms. Ajami and her father Elia out to open credit and chequing accounts, she said. The Ajamis immediately handed the credit cards and cheques to the Ghandours, who maxed them out — even using one to pay for a wedding in Lebanon.
Then the Ghandours wanted luxury cars. On April 19, 2008, Ms. Ajami’s father went to the Mercedes dealership on Mavis Road in Mississauga and, using bogus credit information, left with a 2007 VS class Mercedes Benz for $93,000. Four days later, it was Ms. Ajami’s turn. Accompanied by Karim Ghandour, she bought a 2006 Lexus from the same dealership for $45,000.
When Ms. Ajami’s $5,500 deposit cheque bounced and her credit history proved fake, the dealership activated a tracking device in one of the cars. Both were found in a shipping container at the Port of Montreal, awaiting delivery to Lebanon. Ms. Ajami had been caught in a fraud, but by then, she had left the country. The Ghandours had forced her to go back to Lebanon, she said.
She spent a month in Beirut before deciding to do something. She called Crime Stoppers in Ontario and reported what the Ghandours had done to her.
The police were very interested in what she had to say…
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: 13-Year-Old Stabbed to Death Over Girl
Two young boys’ competition over a girl turns fatal
A squabble between two thirteen-year-old boys from the south Jutland town of Sønderborg ended with one boy being stabbed to death Wednesday evening. “Apparently it was a case of jealousy, where the two boys were interested in the same girl,” deputy assistant commissioner Hans Roost of the Southern Jutland Police told public broadcaster DR. Police were called to the scene of the attack at 8:35 in the evening on Wednesday. “There were other kids there, whom we have questioned,” said Roost. The victim had been stabbed several times, including once in the lung. He died at the hospital after doctors were unable to save him. The 13-year-old alleged assailant, who apparently used his own knife, ran away from the crime scene and told his family that he had been in a knife fight. The boy was arrested and turned over to Sønderborg Council social services on account of his young age. He is being held in custody by social services.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Eurozone No More Hide and Seek
20 July 2011 Ta Nea Athens
The extraordinary Eurozone summit on 21 July is supposed to put an end to the Greek crisis. A well-known Athens columnist argues that decisive action is long overdue, because the Greeks are tired of doing what they are told and obtaining nothing in return.
Dimitri Mitropoulos
The German approach to the Greek problem is a bit like a game of hide and seek. In response to several requests, Angela Merkel has finally agreed to participate in tomorrow’s European summit. But she has already ensured that decisions taken by the meeting will have absolutely no meaning. She has even said that there will be no “spectacular” solution to the problem of Greek debt. And reading between the lines, this means piecemeal measures.
The nation state has been one of the main victims of globalisation. We no longer have the freedom to take action against industries which transfer their operations to places where labour is cheaper or environmental standards are lower. Worse still: we have no way of stemming the flow of hot money in and out of markets, where bond prices plunge and soar, or embark on a roller coaster ride between two extremes. And now we have to contend with credit default swaps (CDS) — instruments that Warren Buffet has accurately described as “financial weapons of mass destruction.”
For months, we have been watching a tug-of-war between European states and the markets, which are sceptical about the solidity of the euro because they believe that a monetary union is unsustainable in the absence of a common policy. What began as a Greek problem has emerged to plague Ireland and Portugal, and is now spreading like a cancer across Europe.
The forces of economic and monetary capitalism are not fooling around. They want Europe to make its position clear. But the trouble is politicians prefer poorly defined positions that don’t oblige them to commit to future initiatives. The Germans have always said that they would support the euro, but they are much more lukewarm on the issue of support for Greece. Not to put to fine a point on it, Berlin has spent the last 18 months dragging its feet. And the problem has come to head over the last six weeks.
Even the worst possible solution is nonetheless a solution
The Papandreou government came under pressure to vote in another austerity package in exchange for another loan of 125 billion euros to keep the country going until 2015. The pressure was such that it very nearly resulted in a unity government, but finally a simple reshuffle was enough. So the package has been approved by parliament, but we have yet to see the loan that was supposed to accompany it. If there is no comprehensive solution announced tomorrow, Europe will have forced the Athens government to pay a very high political price without offering anything in exchange.
The Greek debt crisis has resulted in a situation in which someone is going to have to take some losses. Either we will be funded by taxpayers in northern Europe, or the banks and insurance companies that bought our bonds will have to take a haircut — and this is the solution favoured by Berlin, which wants them to participate in the bailout.
However, the European Central Bank has vetoed this option, arguing that it would amount to de facto restructuring and default, which would effectively prevent it from accepting Greek bonds in exchange for cash transfers to Athens. And that is the reason for the current deadlock. As the Minister for Finance has said, even the worst possible solution is nonetheless a solution. In spite of everything, we can only hope for a pleasant surprise from Germany.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Four Hundred Missiles Mysteriously Disappear From La Maddalena
Arsenal of weaponry removed from base
TEMPIO PAUSANIA — Missiles, anti-tank projectiles, Katyusha rockets, kalashnikovs and ammunition stored in the Italian navy’s cave armouries on Santo Stefano, in the La Maddalena archipelago, have vanished. The weaponry, enough to kit out an army, was on a vessel sailing from the former Soviet Union to the war-torn Balkans when it was intercepted in the Channel of Otranto. The weapons were seized and the court of Turin ruled that they should be destroyed. Instead, two months ago the assorted missiles, rockets and kalashnikovs were removed from storage, handed over to the army and taken to Lazio, where they vanished. Meanwhile for the past few days, Tempio Pausania magistrates, who had begun to investigate whether the arms had perhaps gone to Libya or Afghanistan, have been up against a wall of state secrecy. The Prime Minister’s Office has blocked all further inquiries into the weapons’ destination.
INTERNATIONAL INTRIGUE — From the start, this was an international intrigue. The James Bond-style plot moved from Ukraine to Croatia with tip-offs to the British and Italian intelligence services and shadowy east European businessmen pulling strings. Alexander Borisovich Zhukov, one of the new Russian oligarchs, ended up in jail. Now, the intrigue has become a mystery. Four Italian army-escorted containers boarded a Saremar ferry from La Maddalena to Palau, and then left from Olbia on a Tirrenia ferry — with 600 passengers — for Civitavecchia. What armaments were removed from the store? Was this the first such trip or the last? Why risk of transporting missiles on a passenger ferry?
NUCLEAR WARHEADS — For thirty-six years before the Americans left in 2008, Santo Stefano was a US nuclear submarine base. Near where the submarine servicing vessel was moored, there is a cave in the rock which was used — it was rumoured but never confirmed — to store missiles with nuclear warheads. That was where the weapons seized in the Adriatic were held, an armoury of 400 Fagot missiles with fifty firing points, 30,000 AK-47 machine guns, 5,000 Katyusha rockets, 11,000 anti-tank rockets and 32 million rounds of machine gun ammunition. All this was packed away, stacked in neat rows, and listed on a lengthy inventory. The original is held by the court of Turin and the military authorities have copies…
English translation by Giles Watson
www.watson.it
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Preventing Neo-Nazi Pilgrimages: Town Removes Grave of Hitler Deputy Hess
For years it has been a pilgrimage site for right-wing extremists who wanted to celebrate Rudolf Hess as a martyr. It was also the object of shame among many locals. But now the controversial gravesite of Hitler’s right-hand man has been removed from the Bavarian town of Wunsiedel. Until such gatherings were banned in 2005, each year hundreds, and sometimes even thousands, of neo-Nazis would gather in the northern Bavarian town of Wunsiedel to march in honor of Rudolf Hess on Aug. 17, the anniversary of his death. But tired of the embarrassment and trouble caused by the marches and pilgrimages to his gravesite there, the community removed the grave this week, daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported Thursday.
With permission from members of Hess’s family, workers exhumed the body and took down the headstone before dawn on Wednesday morning, the paper said. His remains will now be cremated for a sea burial, in hopes of discouraging further interest by neo-Nazis. His gravestone, which read “Ich hab’s gewagt,” or “I have dared,” was taken down. Hess, who was Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s deputy and personal secretary, is seen as a martyr by the far-right. During the Nuremberg Trials he was sentenced to life in prison. He later committed suicide in 1987 at the age of 93 as the only inmate at Berlin’s Spandau Prison.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: How Jehovah’s Witnesses Meet Their Match
No premarital sex and countless hours of Bible study. These are just some of the conditions those who fall for a Jehovah’s Witness must adhere to. Members of the sect in Germany prefer to pair off their children within the faith community, and regional congresses make for prime matchmaking territory.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ireland: Taoiseach Lambasts the Pope
Irish Independent, 21 July 2011
“Kenny accuses Pope of playing down rape, torture of children,” headlines the Irish Independent. Just a week after the publication of the Cloyne report on clerical child abuse, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has launched a historic attack on the Vatican. The report, which scrutinised allegations of child abuse against 19 priests in the diocese of Cloyne, in southern Ireland, unearthed a culture of cover-up and obstruction of justice that led all the way to Rome. Speaking before the Dail (Irish parliament) Kenny said: “The rape and torture of children were downplayed or ‘managed’ to uphold instead, the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and ‘reputation’.” In what the Dublin daily describes as being “the strongest speech in his tenure as Taoiseach — and possibly his career” he declared that the revelations “have brought the Government, Irish Catholics and the Vatican to an unprecedented juncture”. With no comment forthcoming from the Vatican, the Irish Independent notes that “Mr Kenny’s speech is certain to send shockwaves through the Catholic hierarchy and the Vatican. Ireland has traditionally had a subservient relationship with the Holy See.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Irish Prime Minister Blasts Vatican Over Child Abuse
Ireland’s premier Enda Kenny has issued a stinging attack on the Vatican, accusing Rome of putting its own interests ahead of victims of child sexual abuse. His comments follow a report highly critical of the Holy See. Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny launched a scathing attack on the upper echelons of the Roman Catholic Church on Wednesday, accusing its leaders of failing to properly address a string of sex abuse scandals.
Kenny claimed the Vatican had put church interests ahead of those of child abuse victims on a routine basis and described its hierarchy as “out-of-touch.” Kenny also claimed that the Vatican had tried to frustrate an inquiry into abuse held “as little as three years ago.” His hard-hitting comments came in a parliamentary debate on a government report last week which accused the Roman Catholic Church of failings in its handling of abuse allegations against 19 clerics in the diocese of Cloyne, southern Ireland.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Amsterdam Brothels Have to Close at 10 PM
AMSTERDAM, 21/07/11 — The brothels in the famous Amsterdam Red Light district De Wallen must in future be closed after 10.00 p.m. The sex business owners have lost their appeal against the decision of the city council to introduce the closing times. For 40 years, it was tolerated that brothels, peep shows and sex shops in the Red Light district could stay open until 2.00 a.m. At the beginning of the current year, however, the city council decided that the Shop Opening Times Act had to be enforced ant all sex shops had to close at 10.00 p.m.
Fourteen owners of 23 sex shops brought a case against the city council, but saw their argument rejected. “With the appeal court ruling the collective route is now closed. Individually, a business can however still look and see if it is possible to remain open for longer,” said lawyer Rob IJsendijk. In Alkmaar, north of Amsterdam, 92 prostitute windows have to close permanently. They are all owned by businessman Koos Nool.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: New Superbug Deaths in Rotterdam Hospital
Four patients in the Maasstad Hospital In Rotterdam died after contracting the multiple resistant bacteria the hospital has been battling since September. The bacteria is an oxa-48 producing Klebsiella pneumoniae. Oxa-48 is the name of the enzyme which makes the bacteria resistant against practically all antibiotics. So far, 70 patients have been infected, 25 of whom have since died.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Penalising Women Who Wear the Burqa Does Not Liberate Them
Islamophobia and anti-Muslim prejudices continue to undermine tolerance in Europe. One symptom is the debate about banning the burqa and niqab in public places. In Belgium a law will enter into force on Saturday 23 July, which besides a fine provides for up to seven days of imprisonment for women wearing such a dress.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Portrait of a Bog Man
Like hundreds of other bodies found in Europe’s peat bogs, this man poses haunting questions. Who is he? And how did he die? The body was discovered on 6 May 1950 by a family from the village of Tollund who were digging for peat near Bjældskovdal, Denmark. They thought they had stumbled over a murder victim. In fact, the man dated from the 4th century BC — the Iron Age. Examination at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen revealed he was 30 to 40 years old. Archaeologist Peter Glob christened him “Tollund Man”. The braided leather noose seen around his neck was strong enough to suspend a grown man. The loose end, which is about 1 metre long, was found rolled up and had been cut with a knife. Tollund Man had been hanged. Yet he had been placed in the sleeping position, and his eyes and mouth had been closed after death — not what you would expect for a murder victim. This suggests he was sacrificed, says the Silkeborg Museum, where he now resides.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spanish Women ‘Most Stressed-Out in Europe’
SPANISH women are among the most stressed-out in the world, according to a recent survey by Nielsen market researchers. They come fifth out of a total of 21 countries where women were questioned. The world’s most stressed-out women are from India, the survey says, followed by Mexico, Russia and Brazil, in that order. Between February and April this year, a total of 6,500 women were interviewed in both developed and developing countries, and found that 66 per cent of Spanish women were suffering from stress and 87 per cent of Indian women were. Eight in 10 women interviewed say they never had time to relax.
The reasons were found to be difficulties in balancing their multiple roles, says the survey. Whilst companies are advancing rapidly, societal values remain stagnant in most countries, meaning that whilst women are increasingly expected to give their all at work, they still have to do the same at home — particularly in countries heavily rooted in tradition. Although less pronounced in Europe than in Asia and Latin America, women are still expected to take on most of the responsibilities in the home and with the family, says a leading Spanish psychologist Julia Vidal.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Bachelor Party ‘Kidnap’ Prompts Police Probe
Police in western Sweden were surprised to find out on Wednesday that the dramatic abduction they were investigating was nothing more than bachelor party prank. “Of course we are terribly sorry and apologize if anyone was offended. It was never our intention,” said local resident Joakim Karlsson, one of the guys behind the bachelor party prank, to the local Borås Tidning (BT) daily. Police in Borås, in western Sweden, on Wednesday appealed to the public for anyone who may have witnessed the dramatic abduction of a man in a parking garage on Saturday to come forward, according to BT.
Several men had been seen attacking a man and forcing him into a car in one of the city’s parking garages. However it didn’t take long before the perpetrators themselves made contact with the police. And instead of being kidnappers, they turned out to be the organisers of a bachelor party. “I guess someone saw us and thought it looked nasty,” Karlsson told BT. Karlsson explained that it is quite common for the bride and groom to be kidnapped prior to their bachelor or bachelorette parties. “But we shouted ‘lie down’ and maybe there was an echo in the garage,” he said to BT.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Anti-Goyism and Martin Bright
Apologies for two pieces in one day involving Martin Bright, but here’s something worth reading in full:
I have been working for the JC for nearly two years now and in that time no one within the Jewish community has ever questioned whether my ethnicity affected my ability to report the news.
Until this week that is, when it was suggested over dinner that my reporting of the controversy over the relationship between certain synagogues and the ‘community organisers’ London Citizens might have been better if I had been more involved in the community.
This took place at a dinner to which a number of liberal-left pro-Islamist Jews and anti-Islamist Muslims were invited to break bread together. One of the other attendees told me about what had been said to Martin Bright. Martin Bright was told that he didn’t understand and wasn’t qualified to voice an opinion, because he wasn’t Jewish. My friend was shocked and pretty horrified.
First of all, the issue of London Citizens and its alliance with the Islamist far Right isn’t a exclusively a Jewish matter. It is a threat primarily to Muslims, who are the first and overwhelming targets of hate preachers and Islamist parties. It is also an issue of national concern.
Secondly, even if this was a “Jewish matter”, why should only Jews be qualified to have an opinion?
Martin admits that he doesn’t “get it”:
It is baffling to me that people who would consider themselves on the left of the Jewish community have chosen to make common cause with people on the extreme right of Islamic politics.
But it is not my non-Jewishness that makes me baffled. Even my fiercest critics can’t believe DNA has a part to play in this.
Nor is it cultural. It is not because I do not send my children to a Jewish school or mark the high holy days.
It is baffling because the well-educated, enlightened Jews of north London should know better than anyone that it is unwise to forge alliances with authoritarian political movements.
What is all the more peculiar to me is that this criticism has come from the left.
I don’t “get it” either. Neither do the Muslim liberals I know, who are right in the firing line from the Islamist far Right, both by virtue of their faith and because they defend Jews against antisemitism. But in any event, what a nasty thing to say to Martin Bright.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: London Citizens Stands by Their Man
Martin Bright at the JC reports:
London Citizens, the “community organisers” feted by Ed Miliband and David Cameron, has chosen to stand by a trustee who expressed his support for Hamas.
The issue was raised with the board of London Citizens at the end of June, after video footage emerged of Junaid Ahmed, the deputy chair of the organisation, expressing his support for Hamas fighters at the height of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.
…
He is also a trustee of Islamic Forum Trust, the charitable arm of Islamic Forum of Europe, a community organisation which encourages “spiritual and social renewal” through the promotion of Islamic values.
A Dispatches programme broadcast in March 2010 suggested that IFE had a radical Islamist agenda and played an important role in the election of George Galloway as MP for Bethnal Green and Bow.
You can read all about it here, and watch the video. London Citizens is a behemoth which seeks to act as the hub of every religious, community and voluntary organisation in London. It repeatedly uses that authority to protect and defend supporters of some of the worst political extremism in Britain. Not the BNP or the EDL, mind you — just its Islamist equivalent. This is just another example of the same thing.
London Citizens has two explanations for its conduct. The first is that their participants “leave politics at the door”. Except that, actually, they don’t. Neil Jameson, who runs London Citizens, consistently uses the name of his organisation to vouch for the East London Mosque, the Islamic Forum Europe and the London Muslim Centre: three organisations at the heart of London Citizens, which are also connected to the South Asian Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami. Secondly, they sometimes argue that by “engaging” with extremists, they help to bring them into the mainstream and moderate their politics. But if they “leave politics at the door”, then how can they possibly be moderating extremists?
There’s a simpler explanation. Neil Jameson has committed London Citizens to a defence of an organisation whose politics is in some respects more extreme than the BNP. That is because he is personally close to the UK Jamaat-e-Islami network. His alliance will destroy London Citizens and will taint anybody who is involved with this sordid business. The expulsion of iEngage from its Parliamentary gig has undermined Stephen Timms, Jack Straw and Sadiq Khan who initially backed them. It also undermines the Labour Party — in precisely the same way that the discovery that some Tories had been involved in racist or homophobic politics hurt the Tory Party. This is yet another example of the same problem in action. London Citizens is not exclusively a Labour Party project, but it is seen as such, because it involves a number of prominent Labour figures. Labour needs to take control of this problem, or it will be hurt.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Sikh Man ‘Was Beaten Up by Gang in Street’
A Sikh man told a jury he was beaten up by a group of Muslim-looking men who knocked off his turban and pulled off his necklace and religious pendant.
The 25-year-old alleged victim suffered a cut head and other injuries after being hit to the ground and struck with a weapon, possibly a spanner, it was claimed.
He said he was at home with his mother, in Evington Valley Road, Leicester, at 1.40 pm when he heard banging on his door and shouting.
He looked out to see five or six Asian males, of Muslim appearance and dress, whom he did not know.
A black Audi was also outside.
The man said he felt “scared,” and left through the back door, getting into his car at the rear and drove off.
He said at the Evington Valley Road traffic light junction with Ethel Road a man banged on his car bonnet and shouted at him to stop.
He said he also realised the men from outside his home were pursuing him in the Audi and carried on.
The alleged victim told Leicester Crown Court he pulled into the forecourt of a nearby tyre factory hoping to get help.
The Audi blocked him in and as soon as he got out of his car, he was attacked by several men, including one with a “rod or spanner.”
The complainant said: “I fell on the ground and felt someone pulling my chain, which had a religious pendant on.
“They were hitting me.”
He said he got up and pushed one of them, but ended up back on the ground being hit.
He added: “I don’t know who was hitting me on my head with the spanner.
“I can’t remember how many times I was hit.
“Someone was twisting my (gold) bangle but it didn’t come off.
“While they were hitting me, it (his turban) was knocked off.
“They were saying something like ‘killing you’ and swearing.”
The prosecution allege that one of the assailants was Moshin Khan (20), of Evington Drive, Leicester.
Khan denies jointly causing actual bodily harm or damaging a gold necklace belonging to the alleged victim on Friday, April 23, last year.
He claims that it is a case of mistaken identity and the complainant had wrongly picked him in a police video identification procedure.
The prosecution say the black Audi’s registration number was linked to the defendant’s address.
Giving evidence, the complainant said he was “sure” he correctly identified Khan as one of the group.
He alleged that after he managed to stand up, the defendant came towards him (unarmed) and tried to hit him.
He told the jury: “I tried to hit him back.
“Then he hit me back and I went back onto the ground.”
The court heard the necklace and religious pendant were later found and returned to the complainant.
Mark Achurch, prosecuting, said one of the witnesses claimed he heard members of the group shouting “Allah, Allah” during the alleged attack.
The complainant’s injuries included a swollen right eye, a cut to the back of his head and tenderness to his arms and body.
The trial continues.
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Sikh-man-beaten-gang-street/story-12981155-detail/story.html
| — Hat tip: MF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: University Graduate Who Masterminded £5m Heroin Empire Thanks to His Business Degree is Busted After Meticulous Accounts Fell Into Police Hands
A graduate who used his business degree to oversee an international heroin operation is due to be sentenced for his part in the plot.
The criminal network was rumbled after a detailed ledger recording the plot was found by police.
Akbar Bukhari, who studied business at Liverpool University, laundered at least £5 million of criminal gains over two years, trafficking more than 420kg of heroin.
He was due to be sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday, but the case was adjourned until next month. Six other men involved in the operation were jailed.
The conspiracy unravelled in May 2009, when one of Bukhari’s underlings was arrested by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) in Birmingham after being given a bag by the mastermind.
Inside was a handgun, a silencer and bullets, weighing scales and fake bank notes, along with the all-important ledger.
The records kept by former student Bukhari, 28, contained in-depth profit accounting and specified when batches of drugs were in stock, as well as the quantities supplied to particular customers at a given time.
‘Sale or return’ information was written down and the ledger set out a coding system to disguise telephone numbers as they were swapped with fellow crooks.
The book led Soca to the five other gang members, as well as their partners in Holland, who oversaw the cutting of the heroin to increase eventual profits.
Four men, including Bukhari’s university housemate, were enlisted to divide the drugs into blocks, package them for sale, store and transport them.
The other two men to have been jailed were used to distribute drugs around the country through their criminal contacts. The six have been given jail sentences of between five and 21 years.
A Soca spokesman said: ‘This is the end of the road for a crime group which did major damage to communities.
‘It was led by an individual who chose to apply his business aptitude to drug trafficking and the sheer scale of his gang’s criminal dealings show how important it was this network was identified and dismantled.
‘The lesson for criminal gang members is clearly that no matter how intelligent, educated or professional your associates are, you can never trust them to keep you out of trouble with the law.’
Bukhari is already serving 6 years for being caught in possession of the gun which was in the bag intercepted by police.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: War Veteran ‘With a Warm Heart’, 93, Died After He Was Burgled Five Times in Just Nine Weeks
A ‘good Samaritan’ Home Guard veteran died after being burgled five times in nine weeks.
Following the fourth break-in, Leslie Ashton, 93, developed fatal pneumonia after a callous thug threatened him with a hammer and terrorised him for an hour.
During his final stay in hospital, the widower was burgled again by the same man, Mohammed Nawaz, whom a judge said had caused his ‘eventual deterioration and death’.
Mr Ashton’s terraced home in Sparkhill, Birmingham, where he had lived for most of his life, was targeted three other times by different offenders.
The victim’s devastated niece, Vivian Allen, said: ‘He would still be alive today had it not been for the burglaries.
‘He had been living for 67 years at the property and he had never had any problems.
‘He was determined to stay there because it was his home and he had his pets.’
Judge William Davis QC, sitting at Birmingham Crown Court, yesterday gave Nawaz, 42, an indeterminate sentence for public protection and ordered that he remain behind bars for a minimum of six years.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco: Foreign Minister: Queen Never Gave Tzipi Livni Gift
(ANSAmed) — RABAT, JULY 20 — Through an official statement, today the Moroccan Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Ministry “categorically denies” that Princess Lalla Salma, wife of King Mohammed VI, ever “gave a gift to Tzipi Livni”.
The rumour had first been published on a website and then picked up by Israeli the press, which claimed the Moroccan princess had gifted Israeli politician and head of the Kadima party a gold and diamond necklace during a secret trip Tzipi Livni allegedly made to Rabat in 2009.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Libya: TNC Envoy Meets Zapatero in Madrid
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JULY 21 — The header of the Libyan rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) , Mahmoud Jibril, has begun his first official visit to Spain today and will be received in Madrid by the Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Foreign Minister, Trinidad Jimenez and the leadership and international relations coordinator of the opposition People’s Party, Jorge Moragas, diplomatic sources report. Jimenez has stated in recent days that Jibril’s visit represents a new step forward in Madrid’s political support for the opposition in Libya and for aid to be provided in the future by Spain for the process of democratic transition in the country. Madrid, similarly to other governments that are part of the international contact group on Libya, considers the NTC to be the “legitimate government authority” until an interim government is launched in the country. Spain broke off links with Muammar Gaddafi in June, sending back the Libyan ambassador in Madrid and withdrawing its own diplomatic personnel from Tripoli. The only Spanish diplomat still in the country is José Rera, a special envoy to the rebel stronghold Benghazi.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Why the Left Seems to Mind That I Am Not a Jew
by Martin Bright
When I took the job as political editor of the JC in 2009, I wondered if it might be an issue that I was not a Jew. A reasonable concern, you might think, given the title of the publication. I would not have been surprised if I had encountered a certain amount of suspicion. In the event, I was met with a mixture of curiosity and generosity. At my first meeting with the Board of Deputies I was asked who I considered my readership to be. I answered that I intended to report Westminster politics in much the same way as I had always done. At the same time, I would take guidance from my editor and my Jewish colleagues about areas of policy that particularly concerned or affected the community. I have been working for the JC for nearly two years now and in that time no one within the Jewish community has ever questioned whether my ethnicity affected my ability to report the news.
Until this week that is, when it was suggested over dinner that my reporting of the controversy over the relationship between certain synagogues and the ‘community organisers’ London Citizens might have been better if I had been more involved in the community. If there is one thing I have grown to understand in my time at the JC, it is the importance of a heated discussion over dinner and I remain grateful to my hosts for their hospitality. The food was excellent and the conversation at the impeccably liberal gathering was lively. I will breach no confidences by revealing we were in north London. I have grown a thick skin about criticism of my journalism over the years. But I was genuinely shocked when someone suggested that that fact that I was not Jewish played a part in the way I reported the story and the tone I had taken. Shocked and upset.
As I see it, the facts of the case are clear. London Citizens has on its board of trustees a man called Junaid Ahmed, who in January 2009 expressed his support for the leaders of the terrorist organisation Hamas. Mr Ahmed represents East London Mosque and is also closely associated with Islamic Forum Europe, both of which have been linked to the sectarian politics of radical Islam. It struck me that Jews who wished to get involved with London Citizens (in their undoubtedly worthy campaigns on low pay and asylum) should at least understand that these controversial connections existed and make their own decisions on that basis.
As I report this week, London Citizens has continued to back Junaid Ahmed and voted to retain him as a trustee at a board meeting at the end of June.. The organisation’s association with East London mosque is well-established. The institution is a founder member of London Citizens. It is baffling to me that people who would consider themselves on the left of the Jewish community have chosen to make common cause with people on the extreme right of Islamic politics. But it is not my non-Jewishness that makes me baffled. Even my fiercest critics can’t believe DNA has a part to play in this. Nor is it cultural. It is not because I do not send my children to a Jewish school or mark the high holy days. It is baffling because the well-educated, enlightened Jews of north London should know better than anyone that it is unwise to forge alliances with authoritarian political movements.
What is all the more peculiar to me is that this criticism has come from the left. I have never made any secret of my own party sympathies. I was the political editor of the New Statesman, a Labour-supporting magazine and before that I worked at the centre-left Observer and at the Guardian. I don’t think journalists can ever be neutral but I hope I am fair to the Conservatives and to their Liberal Democrat allies in the Coalition. At times, I know the stories I have covered in these pages have been uncomfortable for the government. In comment and analysis I have been critical of William Hague and Tory foreign policy. I have written about divisions within the Conservative Party over Israel and radical Islam. I was deeply critical of David Cameron’s alliance with the far-right in Europe and the decision to invite Polish ultra-nationalist Michal Kaminski to Conservative Party conference.. I have not always been positive about the government’s approach to pushing new legislation on universal jurisdiction through parliament. I have, on occasion, exchanged sharp words with officers of Conservative Friends of Israel. But not once has anyone on the right suggested that I don’t ‘get it’ because I am not Jewish, or counselled me to tread more carefully with the sensitivities of more politically conservative members of the community. It seems they realise, unlike my comrades on the left, that this is one hurdle I simply cannot be expected to jump.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Billionaire Sheikh Carves His Name in Desert So Big it Can be Seen From Space
Workmen scoured “HAMAD” into the sand on the orders of Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan.
The name is two miles across — with letters a kilometre high. It is so huge that the “H”, the first “A” and part of the “M” have been made into waterways.
The mega-rich sheikh, 63 — a member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi — in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates — boasts a £14billion fortune that is second only to the Saudi king’s.
His fleet of more than 200 cars — including seven Mercedes 500 SELs painted in different colours of the rainbow — is housed in a custom-built pyramid.
His name is etched on to an island he owns called Al Futaisi.
[…]
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
CSI Riyadh: “Severed Head of a Wolf Wrapped in Women’s Lingerie” Calls for Investigation by Saudi Witchcraft Police
When the severed head of a wolf wrapped in women’s lingerie turned up near the city of Tabouk in northern Saudi Arabia this week, authorities knew they had another case of witchcraft on their hands, a capital offence in the ultra-conservative desert kingdom. Agents of the country’s Anti-Witchcraft Unit were quickly dispatched and set about trying to break the spell that used the beast’s head. Saudi Arabia takes witchcraft so seriously that it has banned the Harry Potter series by British writer J.K. Rowling, rife with tales of sorcery and magic. It set up the Anti-Witchcraft Unit in May 2009 and placed it under the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPV), Saudi Arabia’s religious police.
“In accordance with our Islamic tradition we believe that magic really exists,” Abdullah Jaber, a political cartoonist at the Saudi daily Al-Jazirah, told The Media Line. “The fact that an official body, subordinate to the Saudi Ministry of Interior, has a unit to combat sorcery proves that the government recognizes this, like Muslims worldwide.” The unit is charged with apprehending sorcerers and reversing the detrimental effects of their spells. On the CPV website, a hotline encourages citizens across the kingdom to report cases of sorcery to local officials for immediate treatment.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Young People Addicted to Porn Sites and TV
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JULY 21 — Young Saudis are becoming increasingly addicted to pornographic websites and television channels, with fears rising in the ultra-conservative Islamic kingdom that the phenomenon could be linked to the growing number of sexual crimes in the country.
The Al Riad newspaper says that young people in Saudi Arabia — where there are very few chances for girls and boys even to meet in everyday social life — are among the most frequent users of satellite television stations and websites dedicated to pornography. The newspaper cites frustration and a lack of supervision, both from the state and from the family, as the reasons for the increase, as well as the rise in unemployment and growing numbers of unmarried Saudis.
Easy access to porn films through inexpensive online purchases and the wide range of free videos available on the internet have contributed to the growth of this phenomenon in Saudi society, especially among couples and in teenagers of both sexes.
“Forcing wives to watch pornographic films is an act devoid of morality and decency,” according to the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Azeez Al Ashaikh. “Watching pornographic films is a sort of crime”, he warns. “Today’s generation is facing psychological and social problems caused by the ease of exchanging pornographic films and photos across a number of media sources,” says Abdulmunim Al Husain, the Imam of a Saudi mosque. “Censorship is technically incapable of tackling this problem”.
“The lack of a religious deterrents for some people, the absence of official control and the lack of awareness among parents of the seriousness of the problem are some of the main reasons behind the widespread nature of this dependence,” says Samira Al Musa, the director of information at the Ministry of Education. “The sex trade is very lucrative and must be tackled with the Interior, Culture and Information ministries all joining forces with the various appropriate organisations in civil society,” Al Musa adds.
Wafa Al Hawaj, a professor of literature at King Faisal University, believes that the sentimental void, unemployment and the absence of a clear sexual culture is leading young people to satisfy their curiosity in such a way that it can translate into dependence and moral crime. Salman Al Hajji, a member of the local council in Al Ahsa province, is in no doubt: “The material offered by certain satellite television channels and websites is nothing but a plot to corrupt the youth”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Calls Last Orders on Excessive Beer Consumption
While vodka is the alcoholic drink most would associate with Russia, beer is also a big favorite. With health concerns about excessive drinking on the rise, the government aims to stem consumption of the beverage. Dmitry Medvedev has decided that beer consumption has gone out of control in his country. The Russian president signed a law on Wednesday that will restrict the sale of beer, ban all commercials for the beverage and prohibit its consumption except in private homes, bars or restaurants. Russian men drink more alcohol per year than most other Europeans, a large percentage of it in the form of beer. Alcohol abuse is one of the main causes of the high mortality rate in Russia.
The current life expectancy of Russian men is 60 years — and not only due to chronic problems such as liver disease. Many die from alcohol poisoning, traffic accidents, murders, suicides and work accidents linked to alcohol consumption. Dmitry MedvedevMedvedev believes that the problem needs tackling That makes beer just as bad as any other alcoholic drink, according to parliamentarian Sergei Mironov, who supported the law. “Unfortunately, today Russia is drinking too much. Alcoholism among youth resulting from beer consumption is very dangerous, and we think that it’s high time to restrict its sale and consumption,” said Mironov.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
India: Kandhamal Christians: Authorities Now Guilty of Discrimination
A young widow, 16 years old, receives no government subsidies. A young man can not register as unemployed. The Bankingia Catholic community can not build its own church, despite being in possession of the certificate of ownership.
Bhubaneswar (AsiaNews) — No benefit to young widows, property rights revoked, intimidation: Christians in Kandhamal, the epicentre of the 2008 pogrom in Orissa continue to suffer all kinds of harassment, now even at the hands of the district authorities.
Mithun Digal, a Christian from the village of Beladadi can not register as unemployed in the district of Kandhamal, because the office of the competent police station G. Udayagiri denies him the certificates of residence, caste and income. The reason given is that his father does not have a regular legal land deed, property rights. In fact, after anti-Christian violence in 2008, the office no longer accepted the rent for their land from Mithum’s father.
In the village of Bankingia, completely destroyed during the pogroms, the Catholic community has been prevented from rebuilding its church because of continuing threats from Hindu fanatics. “This — brother KJ Markos, a lawyer, says — though they are in possession of the land deeds.”
Snehal Behera, 16, became a widow four months ago. But the banking authorities of the village — where she lives — deny her the pension for widows of 10 thousand rupees (about 158 euros), because her card does not have BPL (Below Poverty Line). “Snehal and her mother-in-law — says brother Markos, who is also an activist for human rights — have been from the sub-collector and collector at least three times but nobody paid attention to them.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Hands Over Local Command to Afghans
‘First step towards Afghan autonomy’ says Italian military
(ANSA) — Kabul, July 21 — Italian forces in the western Afghan city of Herat handed control to local military and police Thursday. “It represents a first step towards full autonomy for this country,” an Italian military statement said.
Herat is one of seven cities and provinces where Afghan forces are set to take over security responsibility this month.
Italy has lost 40 soldiers in Afghanistan since the start of the Italian mission in 2004.
US and NATO-led international troops are scheduled to gradually hand over the responsibility for security and safety in the country to Afghan forces with the completion of the transfer set for 2014.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Muslim Woman Forced to Flee for Marrying a Christian
A couple comprising a Christian and a Muslim is forced to live hiding: society condemns their love, for an Islamic scholar it “is punishable by death.” The bishop of Islamabad: “The State must defend them, or it will soon disappear.”
Islamabad (AsiaNews) — The religious intolerance that is destroying Pakistan continues unabated. The latest case in point is that of a couple comprising a Christian and a Muslim, who married without the consent of the families of origin and are now forced to live on the run from one place to another for fear of violence. The bishop of Islamabad has defended them: “Marriage should be free. The state must guarantee them freedom of choice. “
The pair is composed of Asthma Zubaida, a Muslim, and Basharat Masih, a Christian. Both lived in the town of Gujranwala, where they met and fell in love: the first was a teacher in the local government school, while Masih was an official of the Department of the school administration. Without parental consent, they were married in September 2010: since then have started to receive frequent death threats forcing them to flee.
The newlyweds have sought police help. Malik Arif, a police officer, said: “We have been contacted for assistance, they claimed the situation was life threatening. In fact, their complaint explains that her family attacked Masih a couple of months ago, when they discovered the marriage. The attacks also targeted the family of Christians. “ “They too have been forced to flee.”
One of Masih’s relatives, anonymous for security reasons, said: “We have been threatened, our home came under attack, they have even arrived at throwing stones at us from the street That Basharat is obviously more at risk: they want him dead. We asked for help, but nobody paid any attention to us: neither the police nor the local politicians. “ Despite the fact she gave police a statement confirming that the marriage took place without any constraint.
Maulana Muhammad Sultan Haider, a Muslim scholar in Islamabad says that this “does not change anything. Only a Muslim man can marry a non-Muslim woman, because it would water down future generations. I condemn this marriage, I call it illegal, these two could be killed for what they did. “
Diametrically opposed to the opinion of Mgr. Rufin Anthony, bishop of Islamabad and Rawalpindi: “This is a case of intolerance. Marriage is a sacrament between two people, others have nothing to do with it. A state that fails to guarantee its citizens freedom of choice, religious or family, will not survive long. Why should a Muslim girl not marry a non Muslim? Why do marriages with non-Muslims aim to convert. They see it as a great victory, but is only coercion”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Two Arrested in Indian ‘Cash for Votes’ Scandal
Police in New Delhi, India, have made a second arrest in connection with the ‘cash for votes’ scam from 2008 in which the ruling coalition allegedly tried to bribe opposition members in return for votes.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Africans Want More Respect From China
In Uganda and elsewhere, people and governments want Beijing to respect agreements, including workers’ rights, as well as provide aid for economic development. Sources speak to AsiaNews about the situation. Some voices suggest that renewed cooperation with Western democracies is possible.
Beijing (AsiaNews) — “There is a great deal of resentment among Ugandan workers against the Chinese firm, which won the contract to build the new road, but employed only Chinese workers in violation of the deal. The situation changed later.” China has become an essential partner in the development of African nations, yet Beijing has been accused of economic colonialism. Sources talk to AsiaNews about the daily problems associated with a Chinese company operating in Uganda.
China-Africa trade increased from US$ 10 billion in 2000 to 115 in 2010. Beijing has signed agreements with 45 African countries, especially in infrastructures and services (roads, dams, bridges, railways, as well as pipelines, refineries and phone services) and natural resources (oil and precious metals). The latter constitute 90 per cent of China’s imports from the continent, but the mainland also buys coffee from Uganda, olives from Tunisia and sesame from Ethiopia.
The West has spent around US$400 billion in aid to Africa over the past 50 years, insisting on “transparency” and “good governance”. China has never had this problem. It has always shown a willingness to work with repressive or corrupt governments, providing aid in exchange for oil (from Sudan and Angola) and raw materials without taking into consideration how its aid is used.
Chinese firms have also shown a capacity to invest in places and operations deemed too dangerous by the West.
Yet, African nations have come to realise that China’s assistance is not always good for development and that it creates a dependency on Chinese trade and investments.
Chinese companies are accused of labour exploitation, paying low wages and allowing terrible working conditions. Equally, Chinese exporters have been accused of flooding African markets, stifling incipient local industries.
In the mining sector, African workers are forced to work without adequate safety protection for inadequate salaries. On several occasions, Chinese companies have had to face open unrest by African workers tired of their condition.
This has led African governments to criticise Chinese corporations, which have been forced to pay more attention to the needs of the local population.
On the border between Uganda and Congo, between the town of Fort Portal and the region of Bundibugyo, a road is under construction. Once completed, it will play a crucial role in local development because at present vehicles must spend three hours driving on an animal track to cover 25 kilometres.
Despite the importance of the work, an anonymous source told AsiaNews that locals complain that the Chinese company that won the contract “did not keep the promises it made to the Ugandan government because it only used Chinese workers. Some people actually believe that the workers are prisoners who are not being paid for the work done.”
Eventually, the Chinese company, “perhaps under pressure from the government, hired some Ugandan workers. Nevertheless, the number of Chinese workers is very high. Now many Chinese are training Ugandan workers. But employees have to work night and day shifts.”
For another source, Ugandans are divided. Some believe that Chinese companies are violently colonising their country, winning contracts by submitting extremely low offers. Others think the country is benefitting because the Chinese, “unlike the Europeans”, work hard, quick and without red tape.
China is in Africa to stay. Every future aid and development plan must take this into consideration.
At the same time, as Paul Letters points out in the South China Morning Post that whilst “China demands a torrent of natural resources,” it “also craves peace and political stability in Africa. To that end, China increasingly finds itself tacitly sharing Western democratic concerns regarding good governance.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Al Qaeda in Maghreb Enrols Black Africans
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS — Al Qaeda in Maghreb, managed, despite itself, in the “miracle” of driving the Sahel countries (Algeria, Mauritania, Mali e Niger) to unify their anti-terrorism units, reacted to the first defeats and played its wild card represented by the African black people, setting up a new and in certain ways revolutionary, because of its composition, “phalange” that could be placed under the direct command of Abdelhamid Zeid, another one of the “emirs of terror”, second in the area only to Algerian Abdelmalek Droukdel, who already led the Salafite group for preaching and fighting, later turned into Al Qaeda in Maghreb (Aqim). The decision to set up this new group, perfectly organic to Al Qaeda in Maghreb, was taken during a meeting between leaders that took place in the Mali desert under the personal direction of Zeid (who was believed to have died during a pitched battle against Mali’s army in recent weeks), which is now being talked about by websites traditionally close to the terroristic universe.
The new group will be made up of a few hundred jihad fighters coming from Mali, Nigeria, Chad, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Senegal and will be called “Beyt el Ansar”, the same name coined by Osama bin Laden 25 years ago for a group of Arab militiamen making their way back from Afghanistan. And the terrorist cell should also follow bin Laden’s tactics and strategies, while probably acting with great independence, with the role of “sweeper” in Aqim’s broader action.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Famine and Abundance Rub Shoulders in Ethiopia
While millions of people in the Horn of Africa suffer a terrible drought, foreign investors are harvesting tonnes of cereals to be exported to Asia and the Gulf states.
Since 2008 there has been an unprecedented rush to secure farmland in Africa, South America and Asia as a result of rises and fluctuations in prices of foodstuffs on world markets and food riots in a number of countries. Countries including India, China and the Gulf states want to feed their own growing populations but are also looking to position themselves in the race to produce biofuels. The World Bank says 45 million hectares of farmland were negotiated in 2009 — up from four million a year between 2006-2008. It is estimated that by 2030 another six million hectares will be leased annually in developing countries, two-thirds in sub-Saharan Africa and South America.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ships Turn to Private Security to Fight Pirates
German ships braving the waters off Somalia will now be able to officially employ private security firms to fight off attacks by pirates, after the government admitted it could not provide the protection itself. State secretary in the economics ministry responsible for maritime affairs, Hans-Joachim Otto, said on Thursday that he could not answer the repeated calls from shipping companies for soldiers or armed police officers to accompany their boats.
“We don’t want desperadoes, so we are looking into a certification,” said Otto. He said security firms offering protection would have to meet certain standards. The government had until now always rejected such a solution, unwilling to give up the state’s monopoly on the use of legitimate force. He said the number of pirate attacks on German ships had risen from 100 to 163 during the first half of 2011. The number of successful hijackings had dropped though, from 27 in the first half of 2010 to 21 in the first six months of this year. State efforts to offer protection have not made much of a splash, with the European Union mission ‘Atalanta’ offering two operation teams — a German and an Estonian — but German ships alone undertake around 1,700 trips through pirate-infested areas each year.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Europe Needs Migrants Despite the Crisis, Says Commissioner
Migrants are often an unexploited asset that national governments should be using to help lift their economies out of crisis, EU home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmstom has said. “Many member states have failed in migrant integration. There is so much competence around us, trained physicists, engineers cleaning our stairs, doing jobs they are clearly overqualified for,” Malmstrom told reporters when presenting the results of an EU-wide survey on the integration of migrants. Noting that integration is firstly a matter of local and then national authorities, with the EU able only to facilitate the sharing of good practices, she recalled how the region of western Sweden recruited 65 doctors among existing migrants who were working as bus drivers and in other jobs for which they were over-qualified.
“With one year of language training and a little updating of their skills, these people were able to be hired as doctors. In the end it was much cheaper than educating for six-seven years someone, giving him or her training and waiting to have enough experience to be hired,” she said. But Malmstrom admitted that things have changed in the past ten years and that xenophobia is on the rise even in the traditionally migrant-friendly Scandinavian countries. “We can see out of the analysis that there is a fear of migrants. The scepticism towards migration is there and big,” she said
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Divorce and Cohabitation Are Wrecking Britain, Says Judge
Sir Paul Coleridge took the opportunity of a BBC radio interview to drive home a message he has repeated more than once: divorce is wrecking the lives of British children and the whole of society. If all parties agreed, he said, a couple could get a divorce in six weeks — in less time than it takes to get a driving licence — simply by filling out a form, but the result was 3.8 million children whose fate was at the mercy of the courts.
And there was no sign that the misery of large numbers of children hit by family break-up was diminishing. If anything the trend was getting worse. It affected everyone from the Royal Family down and rippled out into the whole of society, the Daily Mail reported.
The judge, who has been married to his wife Judith for 38myears and has two sons and a daughter, was highly critical of the cohabitation trend, which has accelerated the breakdown of relationships where there are children:
On the day official figures showed that nearly half of all babies are now born to unmarried mothers, Sir Paul blamed family break-up on social changes including the shift in attitudes towards cohabitation and increasing numbers of children born outside marriage.
He said that 50 years ago ‘on the whole cohabitation was regarded as something you didn’t do, to have a child outside marriage, so that created a framework that stopped very much breakdown.
‘We’ve had a cultural revolution in sexual morality and sexual behaviour,’ the judge said. ‘We need to have a reasonable debate about it and decide what needs to be done — and I don’t mean Government,’ he said. ‘They didn’t cause the problem.’
He added that the change in social attitudes over the past five decades had given people ‘complete freedom of choice’.
This was ‘great’ when they behaved responsibly, he added, but some seemed to think it was a ‘free-for-all’. Sir Paul said the rate of family breakdown among unmarried couples was far higher than among married ones.
It was statistically proven parents were far more likely to stay together until their children’s 16th birthday if they were married, he said.
Official figures suggest that an average marriage lasts around 11 years, but a cohabitation is likely to break up in three if the partners do not marry.
[…]
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Does Religion Rot Your Intelligence?
“Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have higher IQs than the general population,” says Ulster University academic Richard Lynn. “Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQs tend not to believe in God.”
Hmmm. What are we to make of this? Professor Lynn and colleagues wrote a paper in 2008 in the journal Intelligence which has been widely discussed. Here is a summary of its claims:
Evidence is reviewed pointing to a negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief in the United States and Europe. It is shown that intelligence measured as psychometric g is negatively related to religious belief. We also examine whether this negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief is present between nations. We find that in a sample of 137 countries the correlation between national IQ and disbelief in God is 0.60 [a high correlation].
The highlight of the paper is the chart of 137 nations. And it looks pretty convincing until you study it carefully. Then, picturing the data is a cart for the theory, wheels start wobbling.
I first became suspicious when Lynn et al. tried to explain why the United States is anomalous “in having an unusually low percentage of its population disbelieving in God (10.5 percent) for a high IQ country [98].”
One factor that could provide a possible explanation for this is that many Americans are Catholics, and the percentage of believers in Catholic countries in Europe is generally much higher than in Protestant countries (e.g. Italy, 6 percent; Ireland, 5 percent; Poland, 3 percent; Portugal, 4 percent; Spain, 15 percent). Another possible contribution to this has been continued high immigration of those holding religious beliefs. A further possible factor might be that a number of emigrants from Europe went to the United States because of their strong religious beliefs, so it may be that these beliefs have been transmitted as a cultural and even genetic legacy to subsequent generations. Parent—child correlations for religious belief are quite high at 0.64 (fathers—sons) and 0.69 (mothers—daughters) (Newcomb & Svehla, 1937). It has been found that religious belief has a significant heritability of around 0.40—0.50 (Koenig, McGrue, Krueger & Bouchard, 2005), so it could be that a number of religious emigrants from Europe had the genetic disposition for religious belief and this has been transmitted to much of the present population.
Good thing it’s easy to test that oe. Canada has a similar history, and features average IQ 99, with 22 percent not believing in God. So twice as many Canadians don’t believe in God but exhibit no statistically significant reward in IQ. That’s one wheel off — but it’s still a tricycle.
Looking at the chart closely, I noticed another anomaly: The Czech Republic and Slovakia split on January 1, 1993. In 2008, the Czech republic clocked IQ 98, 61 percent disbelieving in God, and Slovakia at IQ 96, with only 17 percent disbelieving in God. The difference is obviously cultural. Second wheel gone. We now have a bicycle.
The third wobbly wheel was the fact that Israel and Portugal -with very different culture and histories — both feature IQ 95. But in Israel 15 percent disbelieve and in Portugal 4 percent. So tripling or quadrupling the number of atheists did nothing for IQ when culture and history are different. Will the data at least give us a unicycle for the theory to wobble on?
Perhaps. The reader may protest, after all, that these are individual cases. Very well, let’s be daring. Let’s drop from the list all nations where government either enforces or forbids religion or is known to be generally unrepresentative. Most such countries report lower average IQ. But the centralized thinking of authoritarian culture could well cause lower IQ.
So here’s the trimmed list, with countries listed by IQ — in alpha order when showings are equal. The only serious purpose of this list is to demonstrate that the case for “a negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief” is nonsense:
Countries by IQ and percent not believing in God
- Singapore 108 13
- South Korea 106 30
- Japan 105 65
- Taiwan 105 24
- Italy 102 6
- Iceland 101 16
- Switzerland 101 17
- Austria 100 18
- Netherlands 100 42
- Norway 100 31
- United Kingdom 100 41.5
- Belgium 99 43
- Canada 99 22
- Estonia 99 49
- Finland 99 28
- Germany 99 42
- New Zealand 99 22
- Poland 99 3
- Sweden 99 64
- Australia 98 25
- Czech Republic 98 61
- Denmark 98 48
- France 98 44
- Hungary 98 32
- Latvia 98 20
- Spain 98 15
- United States 98 10.5
- Russia 97 27
- Ukraine 97 20
- Moldova 96 6
- Slovakia 96 17
- Slovenia 96 35
- Israel 95 15
- Portugal 95 4
- Romania 94 4
- Bulgaria 93 34
- Ireland 92 5
- Lithuania 91 13
- Croatia 90 7
- Mexico 88 4.5
- Philippines 86 0.5
- Trinidad and Tobago 85 9
- Saudi Arabia 84 0.5
- India 82 3
- South Africa 72 1
- Kenya 72 0.5
- Jamaica 71 3
Note, for example, that four nations scored an even IQ 100. Arranged by level of atheism, they are:
- Netherlands 100 42
- United Kingdom 100 41.5
- Norway 100 31
- Austria 100 18
In other words, the level of atheism could range from 18 percent up to 42 percent, with the average IQ at 100. Maybe it’s time to turn that unicycle into a plant stand. There is no consistent relationship between religion and IQ.
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In New Zealand, Girls Sleep Around to Keep Up With the Boys
[..]
…gynaecologist Dr Albert Makary…last week asked national leaders, sports stars, schools and the media to start a national campaign against promiscuity.
Dr Makary, who is based in Timaru, told a Forum on the Family in Auckland on Friday that Kiwi society normalised drunkenness and promiscuity and young women were now wearing their sexual popularity as a badge of honour.
He said the problem had now become so bad there were “thousands and thousands” of cases each year of women not being able to remember who they slept with the previous day.
A survey by a condom maker Durex found New Zealand women were the most promiscuous in the world, having on average 20.3 sexual partners. The world average was 7.3 while Kiwi men had 16.8.
Mrs Hodson said “sexual freedom” was part of the problem in New Zealand.
She said times have changed so much that the fear of getting pregnant or catching a sexually transmitted disease were no longer seen as reasons for not having sex.
“We don’t even call them sexually transmitted diseases anymore, we’ve changed that to infections which kind of downgrades it and makes it not as serious as they can be.”
“It’s the attitude that we don’t have to worry about them anymore.”
Drinking too much was another reason why some women, especially very young women, were sleeping with so many people.
“We need a campaign about women keeping themselves safe,” she said.
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Obama’s Ministers of Culture and Agitprop
Immediately after President Obama took office, his Hollywood benefactors clamored for the creation of a “Secretary of Culture.” Tinseltown was disappointed in the administration’s crony arts czar choice (Chicago lawyer Kareem Dale), but left-wing artists and entertainers have now been mollified.
Instead of one government-supported arts czar, the White House has designated an entire herd of them.
On Tuesday, as part of Obama’s “Winning the Future” initiative, the president designated members of the liberal activist group Creative Coalition as official “America’s Champions of Change for the Arts.” This is the latest in a series of “public engagement” efforts overseen by Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and her high-paid, tax-funded staff of thinly-veiled campaign workers operating out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Honored guests at the event included ardent Obama supporters and Hollywood stars Patricia Arquette, Omar Epps, Minnie Driver, and Rachael Leigh Cook. Creative Coalition CEO, Robin Bronk…
[…]
When the Creative Coalition — comprised of some of the entertainment world’s most zealous and wealthy Obama donors — talks of the need to “make the arts a topic of priority,” it means massively increased funding for the National Endowment of the Arts and National Endowment for the Arts. It means using the power of government to turn artists and entertainers into Obama policy lobbyists. And it means buying access not for “ordinary Americans,” but for the out-of-touch elitists who use all public channels and platforms to denigrate traditional values and principles.
[…]
RTWT
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Sweden: Firefighters Fear Female ‘Threat’: Study
Many firefighters fear that letting women into the profession will undermine the camaraderie necessary to do a god job in a work environment full of risk, a new study from the University of Gothenburg shows. “They are worried as to whether they’d be able to act as naturally around each other if there were women present in the ‘family life’ at the station,” said the study’s author Mathias Ericson to The Local on Thursday. According to the firefighters themselves it is this camaraderie, this closeness, which enables them to do the job they do — it breeds trust and understanding for each other.
According to Ericson, although most were sceptical to letting women into the male dominated community, there were generational differences between what was perceived as the problem. The younger firefighters who had the physical recruitment tests fresh in mind, were worried that the women wouldn’t be able to perform their duties to the same standards as their male colleagues due to physical weakness. The older, more experienced firefighters, some past their physical prime themselves, thought that it was the trust and closeness necessary for the group to function as a team that would be lost if there were women in their midst.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
White House: Obama Supports Bill to Repeal Federal Gay Marriage Ban
As a leading Senate Democrat prepares for hearings this week on repealing the federal law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman, the White House on Tuesday threw its support to overturning the Defense of Marriage Act.
The Obama administration has already said it won’t defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court because it concludes it’s unconstitutional. But Press Secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday went further, saying President Obama is “proud to support” the Respect for Marriage Act, legislation by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to overturn the 15-year-old law.
[…]
The Defense of Marriage Act passed both chambers of Congress by overwhelming margins and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Feinstein was one of 14 senators to oppose the legislation.
Feinstein is now one of 27 co-sponsors, none Republican, supporting repeal. She said with a GOP-dominated House, she understands repeal may not happen anytime soon.
“If we don’t succeed this session, we will try again next session,” she said. “Believe me, we will continue this effort until the battle is won.”
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An Insider’s Guide to Eco-Warriors
When the mischievous, tea-drinking environmentalist Marina Pepper says she’s been accused of “domestic extremism”, she’s not talking about meticulous recycling. She means breaking into power stations, setting up illegal camps in the heart of London, sprinting through police barriers to deliver fish and chips to the lads occupying a wind turbine factory. She’s talking about what she calls “civilised disobedience”. Marina is one of the subjects of a new documentary that gives a remarkable insiders’ account of a set of climate activists who are not afraid to get arrested for what they believe in. Just Do It: a tale of modern day outlaws follows members of UK direct action groups such as Plane Stupid and Climate Camp for 18 months as they hatch increasingly radical plans in the face of societal apathy and heavy-handed policing, giving viewers a rare insight into the clandestine world of environmental direct action.
On one occasion the camera is rolling as protestors sit up late into the night, discussing who is prepared to break which laws in a swoop on a bank that invests in fossil fuels. This incredible access allows director Emily James to build up a thoughtful, rich picture of the activists’ lives. But the embedded, sympathetic perspective won’t delight everyone — especially not those hoping to see the activists asked some challenging questions about their actions.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Drone Usage on the Rise in Conflicts Worldwide
Drones are becoming more widespread throughout the world — be it in Pakistan, Iraq, in Yemen or Somalia. These unmanned planes, currently mainly piloted remotely, may eventually engage each other on their own.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hell of a Choice: Cerberus Leads for New Pluto Moon Name
A fourth moon orbiting the dwarf planet Pluto has just been discovered. The tiny satellite — it’s a mere 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 km) across — showed up as a faint dot on new, long-exposure photos of the Pluto system taken by NASA’s Hubble Telescope. But enough with the technical details: What will we call the newest member of the solar community?
In an unofficial poll of SPACE.com readers, the top choice is “Mickey.” Unfortunately for them, though, this won’t satisfy the IAU’s official naming conventions. According to the IAU guidelines, “Objects crossing or approaching the orbit of Neptune … notably [Pluto and its moons], are given mythological names associated with the underworld.” Pluto was the god of the underworld in Roman mythology. Charon, Pluto’s largest moon, is named after the ferryman who carried the souls of the newly deceased across the River Styx, which divided the world of the living from that of the dead. Nix, Pluto’s second moon, was the Greek goddess of darkness and night, and Charon’s mother. Hydra, the third, was a many-headed serpent that guarded a back entrance to the underworld located deep below the surface of a lake.
In choosing a name along these hellish lines for P4, the IAU nomenclature committee will try to honor the wishes of its discoverer: planetary astronomer Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in California. What’s his choice? “This is a topic under discussion,” Showalter told Life’s Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience. “We have a lot of colorful names to choose from because all the moon names come from, essentially, the minions of Hades [the Greeks’ name for Pluto]. One name that seems to come up most is Cerberus, the dog who guards the gates to hell.” Three-headed Cerberus is Hydra’s sibling.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Human Ancestor Had ‘Modern’ Feet 3.7 Million Years Ago, Study Says
New research suggests that our ancestors’ feet took on modern features nearly 2 million years earlier than previously thought — literally laying the groundwork for hominid migration beyond Africa.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UN Initiative Declares Global Warming a Threat to World Peace
The United Nations Security Council has declared that global warming is a threat to world peace and stability, in what has been greeted as a diplomatic triumph by the current council chair Germany. The declaration means UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon will take global warming matters into account in his reports in the future. Although this in itself does not mean that specific action will be taken, it will give global warming a far greater profile. German diplomats said they had been patient and had worked hard to get all 15 members of the Security Council — the most powerful body in the UN — to sign up to the declaration.
“The Security Council is concerned that the loss of land of small island nations from a rise in sea levels could have security policy consequences,” says the statement. Berlin had to overcome particular opposition from permanent Security Council members Russia and China to pass the initiative. “It was important to us to get all the Security Council members on board — and we made considerable and generous compromises to secure that,” said Peter Wittig, Germany’s ambassador to the UN.”Now it is up to the Secretary General to turn this call into practice,” he added.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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