Take a look at the Islamic terror plot uncovered in Arizona, with a connection to the “Flying Imams”.Also look at the financial news from Spain — not good. Unemployment over 11%.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Insubria, JD, Paul Green, TB, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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1 of California Wildfires ‘Human Caused’
‘We need the public’s help in identifying any activity’
MONTECITO, California (CNN) — One of three major wildfires burning in southern California appears to be “human caused,” a spokesman for the state’s fire agency said Sunday.
Investigators have eliminated “all accidental causes” of the fire that has destroyed 210 homes and injured two people in Santa Barbara County since Thursday, and arson is suspected, spokesman Doug Lannon said.
“We need the public’s help in identifying any activity in or around the afternoon of November 13,” Lannon said.
The fire has burned 1,940 acres, including a monastery and several mansions in the Montecito community, where celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey, have homes. It was 80 percent contained Sunday, the state fire agency said.
Authorities believe the fire started in the Tea Garden Estate, a privately owned multi-acre property, about one mile north of Santa Barbara’s exclusive Westmont College.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
150 Florida Professors in Misconduct Since ‘06
‘Our children are not there for the sexual pleasures of teachers’
At least 150 Florida teachers have been disciplined in the past three years after being accused of sexual misconduct with students, an Orlando Sentinel review has found.
Some of the most severe cases resulted in arrests and criminal convictions for offenses such as secretly watching a boy change and shower, tricking elementary-school girls into touching a man’s genitals and having sex with minor students. But the Sentinel’s case-by-case review of teacher-discipline records from the Florida Department of Education found that a lot of the alleged misconduct did not rise to the criminal level.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Arizona Muslim Leaders Face Increased FBI Scrutiny
Monitoring grew after charity probe, 2 incidents
The FBI has sharpened its scrutiny of some Phoenix-area Muslim leaders because of their links to two controversial incidents and a federal probe into the financing of terrorist groups.
No Arizonan has been accused of supporting terrorist groups or actions. However, a Mesa man was charged with lying to the FBI during the financing investigation.
The events that triggered the stepped-up scrutiny were the federal probe into a Muslim charity accused of funneling money to the Palestinian group Hamas; a target-shooting episode in Phoenix this year involving a large group of Muslim men and boys firing hundreds of rounds from AK-47s and other guns; and the high-profile removal in 2006 of six Arizona-bound imams from a jetliner after passengers and crew complained of their behavior.
Although some Islamic leaders say they understand the scrutiny, they also view it as another sign that innocent Muslims unjustly fall under suspicion because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
| — Hat tip: Paul Green | [Return to headlines] |
Author: America’s Parents Raising Liberal Crybabies
By Reb Bradley
As the author of the new book, “Born Liberal, Raised Right: How to Rescue America from Moral Decline — One Family at a Time,” here’s my hypothesis: All humans are born with the same predisposition toward life. We may each be born with our unique personalities, but we have the same bent: by nature we are all born liberal.
I propose that liberalism is, in fact, the natural condition of the human heart. For us to grow into conservatives, we must be trained against our nature.
In this age of technology, one might say that liberalism is our “default” operating condition. Throughout our childhoods, our parents must work hard and change our settings to keep us from operating in our default mode. If parents are successful, we enter adulthood with our new settings fully locked in. Left untrained, all children would grow up liberal in their outlook, which is something government schools seem hell-bent on ensuring.
I researched more than a dozen dictionaries in preparing my book, and I believe it is accurate to say that to be politically “liberal” is to be freed from restraints, liberated from moorings, ever-changing, having an evolving basis for values, not bound by tradition or orthodoxy.
In American politics, this means that pure liberals have an expanding view of the Constitution — a “living document” they call it — that should not be bound by the intent of its framers.
Does that sound familiar?
Why, it’s a portrait of Barack Obama and the constituency that made him president.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Chuck Norris: if Democracy Doesn’t Work, Try Anarchy
Exclusive: Chuck Norris scolds bitter activists for intimidating, harassing Prop 8 supporters
Protestors of California’s Proposition 8 (the marriage amendment) shoved aside a 69-year old woman bearing a cross, reportedly spit on her and stomped on her cross. They then aligned themselves in a human barricade, blocking the media from getting to or interviewing the elderly woman
Prop. 8 supporter, Jose Nunez, 37, was brutally assaulted while distributing yard signs to other supporters after church services at the St. Stanislaus Parish in Modesto.
Calvary Chapel Chino Hills was spray painted by vandals, after they learned that the church served as an official collection point for Prop 8 petitions. Letters containing white powder (obviously mimicking anthrax) were sent to the Salt Lake City headquarters of the Mormon church and to a temple in Los Angeles. (Thankfully, the FBI, said the substance tested nontoxic.)
[…]
No matter one’s opinion of Proposition 8, it is flat out wrong and un-American to intimidate and harass individuals, churches and businesses that are guilty of nothing more than participating in the democratic process. Of course activism is anyone’s political right, but cruel coercion and repression is not. One can’t demand tolerance and show none in return. Sadly, many of these activists have become the very thing they accuse of their opponents: being hatemongers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Communist Party Strategist Maps Out Obama’s Agenda
Powerful unions, socialized medicine 1st crucial steps for long-term plans
Just days after the party’s official newspaper lauded the role of labor unions in Obama’s election victory, another article in the Communist Party’s Political Affairs magazine by leading party member and Rutgers University history professor Norman Markowitz outlined the kind of “change” he expects Obama to bring to the U.S.:
“For the people who elected Obama and the increased Democratic majority,” Markowitz writes, “‘change we can believe in’ isn’t about bailouts for corporations and banks. It isn’t about wearing American flag pins on your lapel. …
“It is about ending the post-World War II policies that led to the long-term stagnation and decline of the labor movement,” Markowitz writes. “It is about creating a national public health care program more than 50 years after it was established in other major industrial nations, and handling a national debt which has increased 10 times since Ronald Reagan became president in 1981.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Focus Puts Retailers on a Naughty and Nice List for Christmas
On Thursday the Colorado Springs-based ministry’s political action arm launched its second-annual holiday campaign by posting an online shoppers guide with three categories: “Christmas-friendly” retailers, “Christmas-negligent” retailers and “Christmas-offensive” retailers.
The “friendly” retailers are so designated because they prominently use “Merry Christmas” and other Christmas-specific references in their catalogs and in-store promotions. Those on the Christmas-offensive list use secular phrases such as “happy holidays” and have “apparently abandoned” the use of the word “Christmas,” Focus said. Christmas-negligent companies “marginalize” their message by using “Christmas” in some cases and “holidays” in others.
[…]
One corporation that has two companies labeled “Christmas-offensive” and another designated “Christmas-negligent” received the Focus letter but has no plans to alter its holiday advertising.
“We are a diverse global retailer, aware that our customers come from many faith backgrounds,” said Melissa Swanson, spokeswoman for San Francisco-based Gap Inc., which owns Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy. “We honor that by not advertising toward people of any one faith. We want all of our customers to experience a warm and friendly shopping experience.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Inhofe: Cancel the ‘Blank Check’
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe said Saturday that Congress was not told the truth about the bailout of the nation’s financial system and should take back what is left of the $700 billion “blank check’’ it gave the Bush administration.
“It is just outrageous that the American people don’t know that Congress doesn’t know how much money he (Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson) has given away to anyone,’’ the Oklahoma Republican told the Tulsa World.
“It could be to his friends. It could be to anybody else. We don’t know. There is no way of knowing.’’
Inhofe’s comments, unusually pointed even for a senator known for being blunt, come on the heels of Paulson’s shift in how he thinks the bailout funds should be spent.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama: Fear and the Security Force
….I’ll now give you my prediction as to how Obama’s Universal Voluntary Public Service program will evolve.
With his oratorical skills and a complicit media, the president-elect will be able to sell this scheme with talk about security, equality and liberating the downtrodden. ‘It’s the best way to combat crime, hopelessness and a lack of opportunity in the inner city,’ he will say. ‘And I know this well from my days as a community organizer on Chicago’s mean streets.’ He will tout how it provides health care, education and skills to the have-nots, and his media-oiled silver tongue’s salesmanship will prevail. It will be sold with a low-end price tag, and his fellow-traveler controlled Houses will echo the message and deliver the votes. Of course, just like Social Security and a trove of other government programs, its cost will make a mockery of predictions. But Uncle Sam’s budget projections aren’t designed for budgets, but for marketing.
As always happens with such groups, program members will eventually be identified with some colloquial and catchy label. I can’t tell you what it will be, only that it won’t be Brownshirts or Blackshirts. And the official name of the program itself may even be changed a few years hence.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Biggest Bank Heist Ever
With every passing day of economic woe, the scale of the heist just perpetrated against America’s taxpayers by the country’s largest banks becomes more apparent.
In the shadow of the presidential election, the nine biggest banks were given $125bn of taxpayer money with the understanding they would send this fresh capital coursing into the economy in the form of loans. It was a plan inspired by Gordon Brown’s decision to recapitalise Britain’s main banks.
Unfortunately, the US government forgot to get the lending requirement in writing. Instead, the banks are sitting on the money, earning interest and mulling mergers and acquisitions and replenishing bonus pools for their employees.
A stinging letter from Leo Gerard, the president of the United Steelworkers and a bullhorn from traditional American industry, to Hank Paulson, the Goldman Sachs banker-turned-Treasury Secretary, is now in wide circulation and its contents should have Wall Street barricading its doors.
Gerard makes several devastating points. The first is that the Treasury grossly overpaid for the stakes it has taken in these nine major banks. Twenty days before Paulson invested $10bn in Goldman Sachs, the investor Warren Buffett invested $5bn for a stake of equal value. Thus Paulson paid twice as much as he should have to his old employer.
This pattern, Gerard argues, was repeated across the board. Again and again the Treasury paid double what it should have, giving away half of its investment as a gift to shareholders. “This is no different than if you paid me $10,000 for a car for which no one else would pay more than $5,000,” Gerard wrote. “If this deal is the model for how you intend to spend the whole $700bn that you got from Congress, then it would appear that you intend to reward the institutions that have driven our nation, and now it appears the whole world, into its most serious economic crisis in 75 years, with a gift of $350bn from the American taxpayers, who have watched 760,000 of their jobs disappear over just the past nine months.”
He concluded: “Out in the real economy, we need our government to invest in creating sustainable shared prosperity — not play Santa Claus to the scoundrels who have laid waste to the American Dream.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Road to Serfdom
by John Stossel
It’s exciting that the world is so excited about Barack Obama. I’m excited, too. That he achieved the presidency says something good about America.
But the excitement also frightens me. It reinforces the worst impulse of the media and political class: the assumption that all progress comes from Washington. In a free society, with constitutionally limited government, the president would be a mere executive who sees to it that predictable and understandable laws are enforced. But sadly, the prestige and power of the presidency have grown, and liberty has contracted. That is not something to celebrate.
The infatuated chattering classes now demand “action” on the economy. They use positive words like “bold steps.” The insufferable New York Times suggests the choice is “between a big-bang strategy of pressing aggressively on multiple fronts versus a more pragmatic, step-by-step approach …. “ There is endless talk about how FDR ended the Great Depression and how Obama will apply similar “stimulus.”
Please. FDR’s “bold” moves didn’t end the Depression. They prolonged it by discouraging capital investment. Hoover and Roosevelt turned what might have been a brief downturn into 10 years of double-digit unemployment.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Albanian Murder Suspect Siblings to Stay in Sweden
Swedish prosecutors have elected not to extradite two siblings suspected of carrying out several murders in Albania because of concerns that their safety can’t be guaranteed.
Both were taken into custody in western Sweden on international arrest warrants and have been caught up in the Swedish legal system as courts have tried to determine whether the 45-year-old woman and her 70-year-old brother should be sent back to Albania.
The woman, who was arrested in Sweden in April, had previously been sentenced by a judge in Albania to 25 years in prison for crimes carried out in 2002, including the killing of two men to avenge her brother’s death.
The head public prosecutor in Sweden has decided against extraditing the woman, however, because of concerns that Albania won’t be able to protect her from further acts of revenge.
The government had made a similar decision earlier about the woman’s brother, who is also suspected of murder in Albania.
He had been held in detention centre near Alingsås in western Sweden but was released after the government ruled that he should not be extradited.
The woman and her brother are believed to have been committed a total of five murders and seven attempted murders related to an ongoing feud in the Albanian town of Bajram Curri, according to the Borås Tidning newspaper.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Demonstrators Honour Stockholm’s ‘Romario’
A large crowd gathered in central Stockholm on Sunday for a demonstration in honour of Ahmed “Romario” Ibrahim Ali, a 23-year-old footballer stabbed to death in a Stockholm suburb last month.
Ibrahim Ali was a talented footballer who played for Djibouti’s national side. In the predominantly immigrant suburb of Husby, he was known affectionately as “Romario” in honour of the Brazilian star, and wore the number ten jersey for local club Atletico Husby.
“The heart with the ten will be a symbol in the battle for non-violence,” Ibrahim Ali’s close friend Faizal Luttamaguzi told Svenska Dagbladet.
Social Democrat leader Mona Sahlin and Culture Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth were among the estimated 600 people assembled in the central square, as a range of speakers addressed the crowd and spoke warmly of the 23-year-old victim.
Also in attendance was Anton Abele, 16, who formed the high profile Stoppa Gatuvåldet (‘Stop Street Violence’) network following the brutal assault that led to the death of 16-year-old Riccardo Campogiani in 2007.
Ibrahim Ali died of knife wounds suffered in the early hours of Saturday, October 18th. His body was later dumped from a black Audi in front of Karolinska University Hospital.
Eight suspects aged 16 to 25 remain in custody as police continue their efforts to piece together the events which led to Ibrahim Ali’s stabbing.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Estonian Spy Scandal Shakes NATO and EU
By Holger Stark
For years an Estonian government official has apparently been collecting the most intimate secrets of NATO and the EU — and passing them on to the Russians. The case is a disaster for Brussels.
Communications between the suspected top spy and his commanding officer seemed like a throwback to the Cold War. Investigators allege that in order to send messages to his Russian contact, Herman Simm, 61, used a converted radio which looked like a relic from yesteryear’s world of consumer electronics. But there was nothing old-fashioned about what Simm, a high-ranking official in the Estonian Defense Ministry in Tallinn, reportedly transmitted to Moscow over the years. It was the very latest intelligence information.
Although Simm was arrested with his wife Heete in the Estonian capital Tallinn on Sept. 21, this spy story — which has been largely kept under wraps until now — primarily concerns the European Union and NATO based in faraway Brussels. Since Simm was responsible for dealing with classified information in Tallinn, he had access to nearly all documents exchanged within the EU and NATO. Officials who are familiar with the case assume that “virtually everything” that circulates between EU member states was passed on to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR — including confidential analyses by NATO on the Kosovo crisis, the war in Georgia and even the missile defense program. Investigators believe that Simm was a “big fish.”
Meanwhile, a number of investigative teams from the EU and NATO have flown to Tallinn to probe the extent of the intelligence disaster…
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Europe Considers Unifying Anti-Prejudice Legislation
The Council of Europe will consider over the next few years a new convention meant to standardize and unify anti-prejudice legislation throughout the council’s member states.
The European Framework Convention on Promoting Tolerance and Combating Intolerance was presented in the European Parliament last week at a formal gathering commemorating 70 years since Kristallnacht. Its architects hope it will be adopted by the 47-member Council of Europe, a body that advocates for human rights and democracy, within four years.
The convention was developed by the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation, a group formed at the initiative of the European Jewish Congress that includes many ex-heads of state, including its chairman former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski and former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar.
The ECTR conceived of the convention because of a serious gap in European law, explained Dr. Ireneusz Bil, the secretary-general of the group and the architect of the draft version.
“The legal basis for tolerance is very dispersed. Europe still lacks technical legal definitions for tolerance, discrimination, anti-Semitism and xenophobia,” Bil said.
In a world where each state has different and often incompatible legislation on tolerance and intolerance, while borders are porous and filtering of objectionable or illegal content is nigh impossible, efforts to fight xenophobic and anti-Semitic groups are severely crippled.
The convention aims to change that reality, creating a process of careful examination that its architects hope will culminate in unified Europe-wide legislation outlawing many of the forms of intolerance that plague Europe’s minorities today.
“The draft [presented last week] is just the first step of coordination,” Bil said. The final result will be “a binding agreement for member states,” who would be required to adopt appropriate national legislation to be part of the convention.
European Parliament President Dr. Hans-Gert Pottering has agreed to bring the convention to the parliament as a “citizens’ proposal.”
In parallel, Luis Maria de Puch, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, will bring it to the council.
Pottering’s and de Puch’s endorsements are seen as promising early signs, say the campaigners for the initiative, focusing political attention on the document.
That sort of attention even brought ambassadors from Muslim and Arab countries to the parliamentary commemoration of Kristallnacht — though none but the Egyptian representatives spoke to the Israeli press.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Greens in Germany Pick Son of Turks as Leader
1st time any party in Berlin has chosen captain with immigrant background
BERLIN: The Green party, one of Germany’s main political parties, has elected the son of Turkish immigrants to its top political post, the first time any party here has chosen a leader with an immigrant background.
The election Saturday of Cem Ozdemir, 42, born in southern Germany of parents who had come from Turkey to work as “Gastarbeiter,” or guest workers, during the 1960s, marks a major turning point not only for the opposition Greens, but also for the country as a whole.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
If I Am a Terrorist, So is the UK Govt: Iraqi Doctor
An Iraqi doctor accused of plotting attacks in London and Scotland said on Monday he had not planned to kill or injure anyone and added if British law defined him as a “terrorist” than the government was also a terrorist.
Bilal Abdulla, 29, who is on trial for his role in the attack in June last year, when a car packed with gas and petrol canisters was rammed into Glasgow Airport, denied he had told a police officer he was a terrorist after his arrest.
“ Everyone was saying you are a terrorist, you are arrested under the Terrorism Act and so forth. That is my case in a nutshell. I am told I am a terrorist, but is your government not a terrorist, is your army not a terrorist? “
Abdulla”I said something along those lines, but it was more like a question,” he told Woolwich Crown Court.
“Everyone was saying you are a terrorist, you are arrested under the Terrorism Act and so forth. That is my case in a nutshell. I am told I am a terrorist, but is your government not a terrorist, is your army not a terrorist?” Abdulla said.
“By the definition of the Act, according to English law, yes. That is my aim — to change opinion using violence, using fire devices,” he added…
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Male Circumcision Should be Cut
While there are laws preventing female genital mutilation in Denmark, there are none preventing male genital mutilation. Demands for action.
The Children’s Council and the Chair of the Ethical Council say it is objectionable and ethically indefensible that while there is a law preventing female genital mutilation, no such law exists for males.
Both the Jewish, Muslim and other traditions call for the circumcision of males. In Denmark, the Chief Rabbi Bent Lexner carries out the circumcision of Jewish boys. Muslim circumcisions are often carried out in clinics or hospitals.
Religious links
The Children’s Council Chair Charlotte Guldberg says the practice should be stopped.
“There is a deep problem here. Society is in no doubt that the genital mutilation of girls is unacceptable — but we accept it with boys and have tolerated it for many years because it is linked to religion. It is gender discrimination from birth that we make a distinction between boys and girls,” says Gulberg, who adds that circumscision should be banned for boys under 15 years of age. According to tradition, young Jewish boys are circumcised at the age of eight days.
Voice
The Ethical Council does not have a general view of circumcision, although Chairman Peder Agger does not immediately reject the notion of legislation.
“There is an ethical problem. I would prefer people to wait until the child is 15, thus respecting his right to choose and so that he knows what is going on. I believe that one should not undertake physical procedures that leave lasting scars or have lasting effect until a child is 15. And there should be some discussion as to whether the procedure should be ritualised in another way. In Denmark we have also stopped putting a child’s head completely under water during baptism,” says Agger.
Symbolic
In the United States there is an increasing tendency to carry out symbolic male circumcision by simply pricking the foreskin to draw blood. But in Denmark, as in many other countries, boys have the entire foreskin removed.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Manchester Being ‘Bullied’ by Government Into Accepting Road Tolls
The Government is threatening to withhold £1.5 billion of public funding for public transport in Manchester unless the city agrees to become a guinea pig for pay-as-you-drive road pricing.
Geoff Hoon, the Transport Secretary, said funding for new tram lines, extra buses and trains would be cancelled unless a majority of Greater Manchester’s 1.8 million population voted “yes” in next month’s road pricing referendum.
Mr Hoon’s comments, in an interview with The Times, angered opponents of Manchester’s proposed charging scheme. They accused the Government of trying to bully the city into voting for a tax on commuting by car.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama: Berlusconi, Opposition Should Let US Work
(AGI) — Brussels, 7 Nov. — The opposition “has really nothing to do. And they don’t give in. They’ve lost the elections, they should let us govern” said Premier Silvio Berlusconi in response to a demand on the criticism expressed by the opposition regarding his words on Barack Obama. “The opposition” he added “should not go after votes continuously because that way they show they don’t have the country’s interest at heart and that they only want to wage war on the government keeping it from working in the interest of the country”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Pepper-Spray Pistol Aims to Replace Tasers
Police and security forces around the world are buying Swiss pistols that fire a crippling burst of pepper spray, which the company claims is safer than a Taser.
But human rights group Amnesty International Switzerland questions this, saying both are dangerous and their effects unpredictable.
Unlike a can of pepper spray, the JPX Jet Protector pistol fires two 9.4-gram bursts of oleoresin capsicum, a cayenne pepper extract, with the help of a pyrotechnic charge. The solution rockets out of the barrel at 450 kph and has a range of about seven metres.
Raphael Fleischhauer, Piexon’s director of technology and manufacturing, volunteered to be shot with the device during its testing phase.
“It’s like getting a slash in the face,” he told swissinfo. “It’s a very strong pain. You can’t see for 30 minutes. It stops you completely.”
Since introducing the JPX 18 months ago, Piexon has now sold more than 1,000 copies of the device in about 20 countries, including Switzerland, where police in the southern canton of Ticino use it.
It is also part of the arsenal of German and Japanese police forces and used by the security staff of brewer Anheuser-Busch.
One JPX Protector pistol costs €300 (SFr439).
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Relatives as Slaves: Rumanian Man Arrested in Trapani
(AGI) — Trapani, 6 Nov. — They had turned their relatives into slaves: a Rumanian man was arrested in Alcamo (Trapani) under this charge. The investigating judge of the Court of Trapani ordered the arrest on request of the public prosecutor’s office. In six months of investigating, the police found also other crimes, among which sexual violence and extortion. The suspect was sent to the San Giuliano prison in Trapani, while the police station of Alcamo started the procedures which allow the expulsion of EU citizens from Italy for reasons of public order
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Banks to Ask for More Controls at Washington Summit
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 10 — Managers of the main Spanish financial bodies asked Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to highlight at the Washington summit the need for increased controls and supervision in the international financial system, government sources say in a statement. In the meeting, which took place yesterday and was also attended by the deputy prime minister and the minister for the economy, Pedro Solbes, the presidents of the Santander, BBVA, La Caixa and Caixa Madrid banks pointed out the experience of more than 30 years of control and supervision in the Spanish financial system and the solvency and good practices of Spanish banks.Evaluating the document approved on Friday by the European Union which brings together the proposals to put forward at the summit, the bank representatives said that it “conformed to the current economic situation” even if they consider that some aspects should be “more precise”. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Unemployment to 11.3%; Government, Tough Situation
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, OCTOBER 24 — The employment situation in Spain, as announced yesterday by the government, is “very tough” — confirmed by the data of the Survey on the labour force, published today by the National Statistical Institute (Ine) -. The number of persons out of work has gone up by 217,200 in the previous quarter, taking it to a total of 2,598,800, equal to 11.33%, from the 10.44% registered in the previous quarter. It is the highest level of unemployment since 2004, indicating that, for the first time in 14 years, employment is being destroyed. In his comment on the figures, State Secretary of Economy David Vergara recognised that the rising unemployment was caused “by the considerable growth of the labour force” and that the increase of jobs in the service sector has not been able to compensate for the collapse of the construction sector. The speed at which unemployment is rising could make it come out higher than the most negative forecasts on next year, which the government expects to close with an unemployment rate of 12.5%. The total number of unemployed persons, close to 2.6 million, increased by 806,900 in the past 12 months, equal to an annual increase of 45%, the highest in ten years. The destruction of jobs regards men, 330,700 lost their job in the past year; 166,500 more women on the other hand found a job this year, 1.9% more than in 2007. Over 50% of women are working, reducing the gap in unemployment rate between men (-10.32%) and women (12.66%), confirming the trend of the past quarters. In the third quarter again the construction sector registered most unemployed, with 57,600 people losing their job between July and September; followed by the service sector, hit by falling consumption due to the economic crisis, in which 47,700 persons remained without work. In the past 12 months, the service sector registered an increase of 133,400 employed, the construction sector registered a decrease of 134,800 jobs. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Lisbon Treaty Will be Pushed Through by Stealth
How, then, will the Eurocrats get their treaty? By a combination of parliamentary ratification, executive fiat and judicial activism. Chunks of the Lisbon Treaty will be unanimously decreed by the 27 governments to be in force, without any formal treaty changes.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Twelve-Euro Dose of Coke
Prices plummet as demand rises. Consumption among young people 60% higher
Report on drugs says Italy is Europe’s second-largest market. One Italian in three has smoked cannabis at least once
ROME — It’s a full-scale marketing campaign with price cuts to increase consumption. Sadly, this particular marketing operation seems to be more successful each year, to judge by the figures published yesterday by Palazzo Chigi, the Prime Minister’s Office, in the national report on drug dependency. Italy’s drug market is now the second-largest in Europe after Spain, and on a par with the United Kingdom. Consumption of cocaine and cannabis in particular is on the rise, or rather cocaine consumption is booming, as demand among young people has risen by 60% in the past two years. The figure peaks at 62% among males aged 25-34 and averages 50% among women aged 15-24. In contrast, the street price of cocaine has plummeted. Literally. “Nowadays drug prices are low enough for anyone to afford them”, says the minister for Social Solidarity, Paolo Ferrero, who has responsibility for narcotics. Yesterday, he warned, “It’s this affordability that is making drugs even more popular”…
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
‘Too Many Doctors Can’t Speak Swedish’
Doctors in Sweden from other European Union countries don’t speak Swedish well enough, according to patients and other healthcare personnel.
More than half of Sweden’s county councils, which are responsible for running the country’s healthcare system, report problems with doctors who lack sufficient command of the Swedish language.
According to a study by Sveriges Television, complaints about the Swedish language skills of doctors from other EU countries have come from both their Swedish colleagues and patients.
When Reino Pönni visited a local clinic recently to have doctors examine a pain in his foot, he was sent home with a prescription for heavy sedatives because of miscommunication with the doctor.
“This is bad. It shows that if you can’t master the language it can, in the worst case, endanger patient safety,” said Thomas Tegenfeldt of the authorization and patient safety division of the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen), upon viewing the Sveriges Television report.
Some claim that Socialstyrelsen is to blame for the prevalence of doctors with poor language skills in the Swedish healthcare system because doctors from other EU countries don’t need to take a language test in order to receive a licence to practice in Sweden.
However, officials at the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) say the county councils are at fault for hiring doctors who can’t speak Swedish.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Willing European Women and Backward Moroccans?
A debate on stereotypes and misinformation
What is the underlying cause of the tensions between the so-called young Moroccan scoundrels and contempt-filled Dutch? This past weekend, Radio Netherlands Worldwide held a debate about this topic in the Moroccan capital Rabat on the occasion of the official launching of its radio programmes in Arabic. Dutch Deputy Social Affairs Minister Ahmed Aboutaleb spoke of the importance of providing information in Arabic.
Sanae el Aji, a reporter for the critical weekly Nichane, says the Dutch belief that every Arab objects to the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad is nothing but a stereotype.
She also objects to the way Arab media often portray Western women — as willing and available. On the other hand, she thinks Europeans look upon Moroccans as backwards. El Aji also cannot understand why Europeans only look upon the hijab (headscarf) as a symbol of oppression.
Lashing
As if she wanted to stress El Aji’s point, a female student with a headscarf headscarf stood up in the packed conference room and gave the editor of a Moroccan radio station a lashing.
She said the station had refused to let her work there as a trainee because of her hijab.
In an interview before the debate, the Dutch deputy social affairs minister of Moroccan origin, Ahmed Aboutaleb, said the Netherlands underestimated the importance of the role it played.
“We call ourselves a small country. Which we are, as far as size and population. However, we have the world’s 16th largest economy. It is no coincidence that the Netherlands was invited to the G20 summit in Washington.”
In any event, the Netherlands was repeatedly mentioned when it came to the media and stereotypes. The union of Moroccan journalists condemned the anti-Islamic film Fitna, which was produced by the populist politician Geert Wilders. It said: “Extremism leads to extremism.” It was also concerned about the way Moroccan migrants are treated in the Netherlands.
Drinking tea too often
The director of the Al-Jazeera television news station in Morocco, Hassan Rachidi — whose license was revoked by the Moroccan authorities earlier this year — spoke of a hardening in attitudes in the Netherlands, particularly concerning the image of migrants. Mr Rachidi, who worked in Hilversum for Radio Netherlands Worldwide 20 years ago, has seen a change in the Netherlands since the attacks of 11 September 2001 and the murder of Theo van Gogh.
He says the forced resignation of Housing and Integration Minister Ella Vogelaar on Thursday is an example. He thinks the main reason she resigned was because “she spent too much time drinking tea with Moroccans”.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Lost in Conversion?
By Christopher Deliso
When Kosovo’s Albanians celebrated the major Muslim holiday of Bajram, at the end of September, more than a few worshippers were conspicuous for their absence.
A trickle of media articles over the past few months have dealt with the issue of religion in Kosovo from a relatively unreported angle: the curious phenomenon of conversion. Apparently, Albanians in this Muslim-majority statelet have been increasingly ‘returning’ to the Catholic religion, which their ancestors had forsaken centuries ago.
This story is interesting and relevant in its own right, but has become particularly revealing in light of the way it has been developed in the media, something that raises another set of issues. Whereas early reports of a new trend towards conversion mentioned the fact that Albanians had been Christians before the Ottomans arrived in the 14th century, and converted thereafter, only recently have reports begun adding an element of victimology to the narrative.
For example, a Sept. 28 Reuters report that took the pulse of recently reborn Catholics in Kosovo claimed that ‘…the majority of ethnic Albanians were forcibly converted to Islam, mostly through the imposition of high taxes on Catholics, when the Ottoman Empire ruled the Balkans.’ This almost seems to imply that other Christians were threatened with taxation by the Turks, but did not convert. It also ignores that in several places at different times, Christians seeking to convert were actually prevented from doing so because the Ottomans prudently sought they would lose a local tax base for relatively little in return…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Mideast: Gaza, More Rockets Into Negev
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, NOVEMBER 17 — A hail of at least seven rockets were fired from Gaza toward Jewish settlements in west Negev Monday, local sources reported. No report yet of casulaty or damage. The rockets went on in dropped in the fields in the regional council of Eshkol, close to the Gaza Strip, without causing any death. Local people remained in shelters for fear of fresh Palestinian shelling. Owing to the rapidly deteriorating situation around Gaza in the past two weeks, crossing points into Israel remained closed also Monday. But military sources reported some 30 trucks loaded with basic goods were allowed into Gaza. Reports from the Strip said power supply to the population of one million and a half was increasingly difficult owging to a lack of diesel oil. Local estimates said 70% of the population suffered, at least temporary, blackouts last night. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
‘Mother of All Suicide Bombers’ Warns of Rise in Attacks
A captured Iraqi terrorist known as the “mother of the female suicide bombers” has taunted interrogators that her network of volunteers is too big to be destroyed by her arrest.
Itisam Adwan, who is accused of grooming young and vulnerable women for bomb attacks, has told police in Baquba that so many others are following her lead that they will not be able to stop them.
Last week a suicide bomber who blew herself killing five Iraqi guards at a checkpoint was revealed by police to have been just 13 years old — making her the youngest such attacker so far in a spate of such bombings in the city, capital of the troubled Diyala province.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Aviation: Greece and Russia to Create New Airliner
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, NOVEMBER 12 — According to an industrial cooperation agreement in the aeronautical sector signed in Athens, Greece and Russia will work together to create a new airliner to compete with the Airbus and Boeing liners. The accord — signed by the Greek national aerospace industry and by Russiàs Irkut Corporation in the presence of government ministers from both countries — stipulates that Greece will also take part in the realisation of various Russian aeroplane parts. In particular, Greece will work on the fire fighting plane, the Beriev-200, for which it will provide a maintenance and repair centre. The new airliner which will be designed and built by both countries, the MC-21 (already in the development phase), will hold between 150-200 seats and has “very good” prospects for absorbing some of the Greek and Russian markets, according to official sources. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Confrontation or Cooperation?
The New Russia Is no Longer a Crippled Giant
Many of the world’s up-and-coming new powers neither embrace nor aspire to the Western model of liberal democracy. This makes the idea of an “alliance of democracies” a nonstarter. The new powers include authoritarian regimes and they demand a role in global governance. Russia is ready to cooperate, if the West is ready to take it seriously…
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Oil: New Pipeline From Russia to Greece Ready in 2011
(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 13 — “The Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline, under construction, should be ready in 2011” was the prediction of Michail Barkov, Vice President of Transneft, market leader in Russia for oil transportation, during the Rome Energy Meeting under way in the capital, speaking about the end of work on the new pipeline which will connect Russia with Greece, via Bulgaria. The project “estimated to cost 1.5 billion euros a year ago, will definitely cost more” sail Barkov, explaining that the pipeline would carry “30 million tonnes of oil per year in the first phase, and 50 million tonnes in the second phase”. The oil transported will be “light Siberian oil” said the Vice President, saying that the investors involved were the three Russian companies Transneft, Gazpromneft and Rosneft, along with more than one company from Greece and a Bulgarian State company, as well as banks. Whether this oil could arrive to Italy “depends on market conditions and the price-quality relationship. The distance from Greece to Italy is certainly short”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
India: Focus — the Paucity of Hope — Pleaders Can’t be Leaders
New Delhi, 11 Nov. (AKI) — By M.J. Akbar — While the world is entranced by hope, I find myself more impressed by audacity. Barack Hussein Obama could not have found the first without an oversized dose of the second.
Since there is no leader without a listener, Obama could not have reached the White House, built partly by black slaves bought and sold a few blocks away, unless his nation had also changed. In three decades, America has moved from Reagan’s good morning to Clinton’s saucy, sun-lit afternoon, to Bush’s eerie twilight. Appropriately, it took a dream to end a nightmare. Since success is the father of sycophancy, Obama will now be compared to every icon short of divinity. He reminds me of Paul Newman in a different skin: a Cool Hand Luke, thirsting to break out of the prison that is his destiny, scornful of the warden, and confident of eventual victory long before the script is written.
Obama rose above the comfort of victim status. He had to transcend the traps shackling his own community before he could inspire others to rise with him, on the wings of American democracy.
To the question, then, that has been hovering around the table but cannot find the respectability to join the dinner conversation: when will a ‘Hussein’ become prime minister of the world’s largest democracy? Indian democracy has the space; Mayawati has proved this. Why can’t Indian Muslims produce their own Obama?…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Abducted B.C. Journalist Was Working for Al Jazeera
VANCOUVER — Beverly Giesbrecht, a West Vancouver woman who converted to Islam in 2002 and adopted the name Khadija Abdul Qahaar, was on a freelance assignment for the Al Jazeera network when she was abducted in northern Pakistan this week.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Taliban Robin Hood
CAIRO — Taliban fighters attack convoys carrying supplies to US-led foreign forces, confiscate the shipments and sell them to poor Afghans for meager prices.
“We will continue to seize convoys carrying goods for NATO and American troops,” Taliban commander Mustafa Kamran Hijrat told the Times in an interview published on Sunday, November 16.
Taliban fighters have mounted several attacks on NATO and American supply convoys crossing from Karachi to Peshawar and through the Khyber Pass.
Last week, they seized two American Humvee trucks and 10 lorries laden with food and grains.
The lorries were driven to local markets where Taliban fighters used loudspeakers to invite locals to buy at knockdown prices.
“We are waging holy war and we shall continue the struggle by every means,” said Hijrat.
The Times likened the Taliban strategy to the famous story of Robin Hood, an archetypal figure in English folklore.
Hood, whose story originates from medieval times, is painted as a man known for robbing the rich to give to the poor and fighting against injustice and tyranny.
The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks and toppled the ruling Taliban regime.
Taliban has since been engaged in protracted guerrilla warfare against US-led foreign forces and the Kabul government.
A recent report by the Senlis Council think-tank said Taliban has permanent presence in more than half of Afghanistan.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
UN, China Under Scrutiny for State Torture
The session of the UN commission against torture is underway in Geneva. International groups for the defense of human rights denounce dozens of cases of imprisonment and psychological and physical violence in China, against human rights activists and ethnic minorities. The case of Ji, sentenced to three months in prison for asking for permission to demonstrate.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Ji Sizun has been in prison since August 11 for asking for permission to hold a demonstration in an area of Beijing set aside for public demonstrations during the Olympics. The charge comes from the group Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), while the work of the UN commission against torture proceeds in Geneva. The commission has to decide whether China has made progress in the abolition of “state” torture.
During the Beijing Olympics, in order to demonstrate the freedom that exists, public demonstrations were permitted in three specific areas. On August 9, Ji, an inhabitant of Xhangzhou (Fujian), accompanied by dozens of Chinese and foreign journalists, asked — according to CHRD — to be allowed to hold a peaceful protest on “social and political questions.” The police did not grant the request, because it was presented on a Saturday, outside office hours. He returned on August 11 to make the request again, and since then he has “disappeared.” Then it became known that he was arrested for “falsification of an official stamp.” Since that time, his friends have been unable to visit him. The police rejected the lawyer hired by his friends, because he did not have authorization from Ji’s family (also unavailable since then), and appointed a public defender.
From now until November 21, the 41st session of the United Nations committee against torture is taking place in Geneva. From November 7-10, it examined the situation in China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Beijing wants to avoid new official censure, after being the object of this in recent years, and it has announced with great fanfare the institution of a commission to create a “plan of state action” for the respect of human rights.
International NGO’s for the defense of human rights, in their reports to the commission, have recalled the systematic use of torture and harassment, both against detainees and with the system of “reeducation through work,” which permits extending “administrative” penalties of up to two years in prison without a real trial, a system already described in 2006 by the special UN envoy against torture as “an inhumane and degrading form of treatment or punishment, if not psychological torture,” recommending its abolition.
Underground Christians and Catholics suspect that torture is also being used on bishops, priests, and pastors in prison (see Catholic’s doubts on the death of Msgr. Han Dingxian, underground bishop of Yongnian).
The NGO’s have recalled dozens of specific cases, with names and circumstances. The China Human Rights Lawyer Concern Group has recalled the numerous lawyers and activists who have been beaten or sentenced to prison for defending human rights, such as: Xu Zhiyong, from Beijing, beaten for denouncing the existence of “phantom” prisons (unofficial prisons for detaining people not officially arrested); Gao Zhisheng and Chen Guangcheng (in the photo), who defended the inhabitants of Linyi (Shandong) against forced abortions; Guo Feixiong, who denounced the corruption of authorities in the village of Taishi (Guangdong), often beaten in prison; Zheng Enchong, who defended citizens against forced expropriation, first sentenced to prison, and then, after his release, frequently beaten by the police or summoned for interrogation. Hu Jia was sentenced to prison for criticizing forced expropriation in order to build Olympic projects.
It is also claimed that systematic detention and beatings have also been used against Tibetans and Uyghurs, again with lists of names and circumstances.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
South Africa Was Pressured Not to Host World Conference Against Racism
It will now take place in Switzerland next year
There is still some confusion surrounding the venue of the second World Conference Against Racism. Many media reports have indicated that the conference will once again be held in Durban and some have dubbed it Durban 2. This is in spite of an announcement by the South African government in April that it will not host the conference. At that time the spokesperson for the government, Ronnie Mamoepa, said that no confirmation was given that South Africa will host the event.
Sources in South Africa informed Fact International that the South African government was put under intense pressure to decline any request to host the conference. Pro-Israel lobby groups did not want a repeat of what happened in Durban in 2001. There were huge anti-Israeli demonstrations outside the venue attracting up to 10,000 people. Observers commented that the whole conference was turned into an anti-Zionism event.
“The supporters of Israel both in South Africa and the US worked hard to ensure that there will be no Durban 2. They lobbied the South African government hard and in the end they succeeded,’ said the source.
The pro-Israel groups preferred that the conference takes place in a more controlled environment such as at a United Nations facility. It has been confirmed that the conference will now take place at UN headquarters in Geneva in April 2009.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Violent Criminals in US Illegally, Go Free in Houston
Federal immigration officials allowed scores of violent criminals — some ordered deported decades ago — to walk away from Harris County Jail despite the inmates’ admission to local authorities that they were in the country illegally, a Houston Chronicle investigation found.
A review of thousands of criminal and immigration records shows that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials didn’t file the paperwork to detain roughly 75 percent of the more than 3,500 inmates who told jailers during the booking process that they were in the U.S. illegally.
Although most of the inmates released from custody were accused of minor crimes, hundreds of convicted felons — including child molesters, rapists and drug dealers — also managed to avoid deportation after serving time in Harris County’s jails, according to the Chronicle review, which was based on documents filed over a period of eight months starting in June 2007, the earliest immigration records available.
Other key findings in the investigation include:
- In 177 cases reviewed by the Chronicle, inmates who were released from jail after admitting to being in the country illegally later were charged with additional crimes. More than half of those charges were felonies, including aggravated sexual assault of a child and capital murder.
- About 11 percent of the 3,500 inmates in the review had three or more prior convictions in Harris County. Many had repeatedly cycled through the system despite a history of violence and, in some cases, outstanding deportation orders. The investigation found that the federal government’s system to identify and deport illegal immigrants in Harris County Jail is overwhelmed and understaffed. Gaps in the system have allowed some convicted criminals to avoid detection by immigration officials despite being previously deported. The problems are national in scope, fueled by a shortage of money and manpower.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gay Marriage: Parliamentary Bill Rejected in Portugal
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, 13 OCTOBER — Homosexual couples will continue to not be able to marry in Portugal, after the legislative assembly rejected two bills for the legalization of gay marriage, presented by two left wing minority parties, Bloco de Esquerda and i Verdi. In both votes, according to what was reported today in the media, the Socialist party, which has an absolute majority, voted against the bills, lining up with centre-right wing parties. The socialists sustain that gay marriage is not a pressing issue and that the reform would require a consensus in Parliament and in society that, in their opinion, does not currently exist. According to a survey published by the Correo de Manha, 59.3% of Portuguese citizens are against the modification of the law, compared to 32.9% who are in favour. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
At U.N., Bush Says Faith Leads to ‘Common Values’
Bush’s remarks came on the second day of a gathering championed by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who later met privately with Bush. Abdullah opened the conference Wednesday by calling for moderation in the Middle East, saying that religious differences in the region have “engendered intolerance, causing devastating wars.”
Human rights groups assert that the event gives undue credibility to Abdullah even as his country enforces some of the world’s harshest restrictions on religious practices. During his address, Bush instead argued that religious faith can bring people together.
[…]
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the “cartoon crisis” — a reference to the satirical Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, first published in 2005 — was too provocative to be justified by free speech rights. “This freedom should be exercised responsibly,” he said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The World Has Never Seen Such Freezing Heat
The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs — run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious “hockey stick” graph — GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new “hotspot” in the Arctic — in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.
A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen’s institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.
If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. (He was recently in the news here for supporting the Greenpeace activists acquitted of criminally damaging a coal-fired power station in Kent, on the grounds that the harm done to the planet by a new power station would far outweigh any damage they had done themselves.)
Yet last week’s latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen’s methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
2 comments:
Arizona Muslim Leaders Face Increased FBI Scrutiny
Shahin has served as a Muslim community liaison with the FBI and the Phoenix police. A book released by Shahin last year advocated that Muslims living in Western society follow a strict version of conservative Sharia law.
"A Muslim must try his best to abide by the rulings of Sharia whenever possible as much as he can. He should not allow himself to be liable to those western laws that contradict the clear-cut Islamic rulings," Shahin wrote. [emphasis added]
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?!?
We have an openly avowed advocate of shari'a law whose central duty is to overthrow America's constitution and this scumbag SOB is a "community liaison with the FBI and the Phoenix police"?!?
Can our law enforcement officials be any more brain dead? (Don't answer that!)
"The fire has burned 1,940 acres, including a monastery and several mansions in the Montecito community, where celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey, have homes."
Of course. There are celebrities, and then, there is Oprah Winfrey. An all different level...
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