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Sunday, November 30, 2014

Cartoon: Christmas layoffs



World War 3 news and updates .... November 30


USA, UK, Canada,  Australia, New Zealand, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Jordan, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan, Yemen, Nigeria, France with (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad ) Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Albania, Estonia, Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Japan, Republic of Korea, Ireland, Spain, Slovakia, Norway, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Novorussia, Ukraine, Russia, Chechnya, Somalia, Iran, India, South Korea, North Korea,  Central African Republic, Kenya, Tunisia, The Philippines, Egypt,  Albania, Serbia, China, Sudan, South Sudan, Bukina Faso, Palestine, Georgia, Chad, Spain, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Nepal, Congo, Uganda, Romania .....

This is not confirmed, Canadian govt investigating.
From CP24:
Israeli-Canadian woman kidnapped in Syria, Israeli newspaper reports
An Israeli newspaper report says Islamist websites are claiming extremists have kidnapped an Israeli-Canadian woman who joined Kurdish fighters overseas.
The Jerusalem Post says reports of Gill Rosenberg's capture surfaced Sunday on websites "known to be close" to Islamic State extremists.
The newspaper says the websites give few details on the alleged kidnapping, only that it occurred after three suicide attacks on sites where Kurdish fighters were holed up....

Anglo nations have monopoly on word "terrorist"   ... China's claim is suspect.  See the quotation marks in the below report from UK newspaper.
From TelegraphUK
Chinese 'terrorist attack' kills at least 15  
Eleven 'mobsters' are gunned down by police in Xinjiang after they allegedly launched a 'terrorist' assault on civilians with knives, explosives and axes
At least 15 people were killed and 14 others injured in the latest outbreak of bloodshed to hit China's violence-stricken northwest, according to state-controlled media.
Details of what official reports immediately dubbed a "terrorist attack" remained sketchy on Saturday afternoon, one day after the incident took place in Xinjiang's Yarkand county....

From MNews24:
Gunmen in a car shot dead an Egyptian army brigadier  general and wounded two soldiers in eastern Cairo on Friday, the military said.
The attack came hours ahead of planned Islamist protests that have prompted the police and military to boost their presence in the capital and other cities.
The identity of the assailants was not clear, but militants have killed scores of policemen and soldiers since the army overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July last year.....

From Reuters:
An American, a Briton and a South African  were among several hostages Yemeni forces sought to free from al Qaeda this week, the defense ministry said on its website, describing a raid that a U.S. defense official said also involved U.S. special forces.

In Monday night's assault on a cave in remote Hajr as-Say'ar district in the eastern province of Hadramout, Yemeni security forces rescued six Yemenis, a Saudi and an Ethiopian, and killed seven al Qaeda kidnappers, Yemeni officials have said.
Late on Wednesday the defense ministry's 26sept.net website quoted a soldier who had participated in the rescue as saying an American, a Briton and a South African held there had been moved elsewhere two days earlier.
Another foreign hostage, who may have been of Turkish nationality, was also apparently moved along with the three, the soldier was reported as saying. ......

From DailyStar:
Shiite rebels push on toward Aden: Yemen officials
emen's Shiite Ansarullah militia is advancing in Taez province towards the main southern city of Aden as it seeks to expand its influence after taking the capital, officials said Friday.
Overnight, a 16-vehicle convoy of militiamen entered an eastern suburb of Taez, the country's third city, and deployed near its airport and a local radio station, the local officials said.

Ansarullah militiamen, also called Houthis, have captured many communities in western and central Yemen since taking Sanaa on September 21.
However, they had not entered Taez, a city of around half a million people some 250 kilometers southwest of Sanaa, under an accord struck with local authorities.
"This agreement no longer stands because the local authorities have not honoured their commitment to arrest 14 extremists in Taez province," a source close to Ansarullah told AFP.......

From GulfNews:
Twin bombings kill 45 in Nigeria    with one involving a female suicide bomber
Maiduguri, Nigeria: More than 45 people died Tuesday in twin bomb blasts, including one by a female suicide bomber, at a packed market in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri.
The explosions in the Borno state capital targeted the same Monday Market area where at least 15 people died on July 1 in a blast blamed on the Boko Haram militant group.
Tuesday’s attack came after the militants seized control of another town in Nigeria’s restive northeast.....

Ukraine's Christian priests calling for peace in their land.


From Asianage:
Jammu and Kashmir gunfight ends, militant killed  
The gunfight between the Army and suspected militants near the border with Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir’s Arnia area, which had started Thursday morning, ended at around 9.30 am on Friday with the killing of the lone surviving gunman. “The firing has stopped and searches are underway,” an Army official said over the phone from Ranbir Singh Pura, the nearest town.
Army sources said that a gunship helicopter and a couple of tanks were used to “neutralise the holed-up militant as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) named Tohi Viman maintained surveillance over the abandoned Army bunker in which militants had taken positions”. An earlier report has said that the Army officials also used mortar guns to destroy the abandoned Army bunker in Pind Khote village which is located about three kilometres from the border with Pakistan and where the lone surviving militant was hiding.
An official said 12 people five civilians, three soldiers and four militants were killed in the 25-hour-long gun-battle. The fighting had started at 8.15 am on Thursday, a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state where elections to the 87-member state Assembly are being held.
The Army says the heavily-armed militant had sneaked in J&K from Pakistan, most probably during the intervening night of November 26 and 27, to carry out “fidayeen” attacks aimed at disrupting the election process but were confronted by Army troops, leading to the encounter. An Army official said that he suspected the slain militants belonged to the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.....

From Reuters:
About 400 killed in past six weeks  of fighting in Libya's Benghazi: medics
About 400 people have been killed in six weeks of heavy fighting between Libyan pro-government forces and Islamist groups in Libya's second-largest city Benghazi, medical staff said on Saturday.
Backed by forces led by a former general, the newly formed government army launched in mid-October an offensive against Islamists in Benghazi, expelling them from the airport area and from several camps the army had lost during the summer........

Turkey, the nation that is primed to be a member of  EU in near future, will also be the nation that will accelerate the caliphatization of the EU. 


From BBC:
Kenya bus killings  claimed by Somali group al-Shabab
Gunmen from the Somali militant group al-Shabab say they have attacked a bus in northern Kenya, killing 28 people.
The bus was travelling to the capital, Nairobi, when it was stopped in Mandera county, not far from the Somali border.
Gunmen separated out non-Muslims by asking passengers to read from the Koran, officials and witnesses said. Those who failed were then shot in the head.
Al-Shabab has carried out a series of attacks in Kenya since 2011.
A statement on a website linked to the Islamist group carried a statement saying the attack was carried out in retaliation for security raids on mosques in the coastal city of Mombasa earlier this week.....

From AlJazeera:
 'Scores dead' in air strikes on Syria's Raqaa 
Government raids on ISIL-held northern city have mainly killed civilians, with scores more injured, activists say.
Syrian government air raids on the city of Raqqa, which the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has proclaimed as its capital, have killed 135 people, activists have said.
Scores more people were reported to have been injured in the air strikes on Tuesday, which targeted a number of residential districts in the northern city.

The majority of the dead and injured are believed to be civilians, including women and children.
Local activists reported on Facebook that the Raqqa Red Crescent had transferred scores of bodies to the national hospital........

From BBC:
'Boko Haram' kills 48 Nigerian fishermen near Chad  
Islamist militants from Nigeria's Boko Haram have reportedly killed 48 people in an attack on fish sellers near the border with Chad.
A fish traders' group said some victims had their throats slit whilst others were tied up and drowned in Lake Chad.
The attack took place on Thursday, but the news took several days to come to light because Boko Haram has destroyed mobile phone masts in the area.
It was the second major attack in two days by Boko Haram......



From MaktoobNews:
Suicide blast at Afghan volleyball game kills 50: official
Around 50 people were killed and 60 others injured when a suicide blast ripped through crowds gathered to watch a volleyball game in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, officials said.
"The suicide attacker was on a motorcycle, he detonated himself in the middle of a volleyball match," Attaullah Fazli, deputy governor of Paktika province, told AFP
"A lot of people including some provincial officials and the police chief were there. About 50 people have been killed, and 60 injured, a lot of them seriously.".......

From VICEnews:
Kabul Suicide Attack on UK  Embassy Vehicle Kills Five
A suicide attack on a UK embassy vehicle in Kabul killed at least five people, including one British citizen, and wounded more than 30 others on Thursday, the UK Foreign Office said.

An assailant detonated what was initially reported to be a motorbike, but now believed to be a car, filled with explosives by the British vehicle in the Afghan capital. The subsequent blast destroyed at least four other vehicles and was heard across the city, eye witnesses told Sky News.

Five were killed in the incident and as many as 34 injured, according to the Afghan Health Ministry. A British Foreign Office spokesman told VICE News that the dead included one British national who was a civilian security team member and an Afghan national working for the embassy. A second security team member was injured.....

From SBS:
Taliban attack Kabul guesthouse and Brits
A foreign guesthouse in central Kabul has been attacked by the Taliban, hours after six people died in a blast targeting a British embassy vehicle.
Taliban militants have attacked a foreign guesthouse in central Kabul, hours after a suicide bomber targeted a British embassy vehicle in a blast that killed six people.

Attacks across the Afghan capital have increased in recent weeks as US-led NATO forces wrap up their 13-year combat mission against Taliban insurgents at the end of this year.
Afghanistan faces a major security challenge as the NATO military presence declines, with the police and army struggling to prevent attacks and suffering high casualties in the battlefield.
Two militants were killed by police inside the guesthouse on Thursday and one Nepalese guard was wounded in the fighting, Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanakzai told AFP.

Wazir Akbar Khan district is home to several international contractor firms, development agencies and embassies, but officials did not confirm which foreign guesthouse was attacked.
After an initial suicide blast, sporadic gunfire and grenade blasts erupted for at least 45 minutes as security forces fought to clear the building.........

From AlJazeera:
'Scores killed' in northeast Nigeria blast  
At least 40 people killed, including five soldiers, in attack on bus station in Nigeria's northeast.
A bomb blast has hit a bus station in northeastern Nigeria killing at least 40 people, according to witnesses and security personnel.

At least five soldiers were among the victims of Thursday's attack in a village just outside of Mubi, the second largest city in Adamawa state.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but the area has been repeatedly targeted by the rebel group Boko Haram.

Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh, reporting from Yola, said Mubi was a key town for Boko Haram and was one of the largest areas captured by the group after it launched its offensive in Adamawa State.....

From TimesOfIndia:
TV channel claims abducted Indians killed by ISIS in June
Concerns about the safety of 39 Indians kidnapped in Iraq in June heightened on Thursday after a news channel claimed that only one of them was still alive.

The channel sourced its story to two Bangladeshis who claimed to have spoken to the only survivor Indian, Harjeet. Government sources were quick to dismiss the claims saying their current information did not corroborate the claim.
The channel said that 39 out of 40 Indian workers who went missing in Iraq in June may have been killed by Islamic State militants. The claim was based on interview of two Bangladeshi workers whom the channel spoke to in Kurdistan's capital Erbil.........

From AlAlam:
The United States continues to escalate  its aerial campaign against ISIL terrorists in Iraq and Syria, shifting more attack and surveillance aircraft from Afghanistan to a base in Kuwait
Military officials say that a dozen A-10 ground-attack planes have been moved from Afghanistan to Kuwait to support Iraqi ground troops battling the ISIL militants, the New York Times reports.
Half a dozen missile-firing Reaper drones are also expected to be redeployed from Afghanistan to be used in the war against ISIL.
However, as the US steps up the air campaign against the ISIL terrorist organization, military planners are finding it increasingly more difficult to pick up targets for the American air power.
“When we target a nation-state, we’ve typically been looking at their capability for decades, and have extensive target sets,” said Maj. Sonny Alberdeston, the targeting chief at an Air Force base in South Carolina, where military planners analyze and select targets that US and coalition warplanes strike in Iraq and Syria.
“But these guys are moving around. They can be in one place, and then a week later, they’re gone,” Alberdeston told the Times.......

From BBC:
The Kenyan military   has killed more than 100 al-Shabab militants linked to a deadly attack on a bus, Kenya's deputy president says.
William Ruto said the armed forces had carried out two operations in Somalia, destroying equipment and a camp from which the bus attack was planned.
However, al-Shabab refuted this, and said that its fighters were safe.
In Saturday's attack, gunmen pulled non-Muslims passengers from a bus in northern Kenya, killing 28 of them......

From WashingtonTimes:
The Islamic State group   launched an attack Saturday on the Syrian border town of Kobani from Turkey, a Kurdish official and activists said, although Turkey denied that the fighters had used its territory for the raid.

The assault began when a suicide bomber driving an armored vehicle detonated his explosives on the border crossing between Kobani and Turkey, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for Syria’s powerful Kurdish Democratic Union Party....

Saturday, November 29, 2014

3000 Miles to Graceland


Please click over to YouTube to watch the movie, unless you want the original posters to scream at me for stealing their effort.



120-miles to Jefferson City


I see a movie coming with that title

Daniel Wallis and Edward McAllister writing at Reuters:
Ferguson demonstrators begin 120-mile march to Missouri state capital  

Activists in Ferguson, Missouri, on Saturday began a 120-mile march to the state capital to protest the killing of an unarmed black teen by a white police officer, a case that has rekindled a national debate over U.S. race relations.

The seven-day march to Jefferson City, organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, began with more than 150 people setting out from the Canfield Green Apartments, where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed on Aug. 9 by Officer Darren Wilson.

The NAACP is calling for a reform of police practices, a new police chief in Ferguson and a national law to prevent racial profiling by police.

The "Journey for Justice," which is reminiscent of the civil rights marches of the 1960s, began with some people singing the decades-old protest song "We Shall Overcome." Participants carried signs proclaiming "Black Lives Matter" and "Equality Now!".......

Christmas Cartoon: Santa is promised a low-wage, part-time, seasonal job ....


by the filthy rich.



Yup, it's true! America's MSM is full of warmongers


Very hard to find pacifists in the American MSM.  In fact, IMO, it's the MSM that propels America into wars every single time. 

Andrew Jerell Jones writing at FirstLook:
THE SUNDAY SHOWS ARE COMPLETELY INFATUATED WITH WAR  

The likes of Chuck Todd and Candy Crowley must have a hard time finding pacifists to interview.

In a two-week, three-episode span in September, America’s prominent Sunday news talk shows featured 89 guests talking about U.S. military options in Syria and Iraq. Only one of those guests, The Nation’s editor Katrina vanden Heuvel, would count as “anti-war.” The situation barely improves if you add in cable talk shows: Out of a total 205 guests discussing military options in the same period, just six opposed intervention, versus 125 who spoke in favor of it.

The numbers, compiled by progressive media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), show how out of touch these shows are with the country as a whole, even as they remain Beltway obsessions. They also illustrate in stark terms how little has changed in the decade since monotonous, stenographic journalism paved the way for the Iraq War. Apparently, for these DC programs, being perceived as “serious” still trumps the opportunity to introduce fresh voices and contrarian perspectives.

FAIR’s research, which was the period from September 7 to September 21, included the Sunday shows Meet The Press, from NBC; CBS’ Face The Nation; ABC’s This Week; Fox News Sunday; and CNN’s State of the Union. Weekday cable shows surveyed include MSNBC’s Hardball, CNN’s The Situation Room, and MSNBC’s Special Report.......

Dhimmi do-gooder lands in Turkey ....


the land of Erdogan the wannabe new Caliph of the Sunni Muslim Empire.   





2.8 tonnes of drugs seized in Australia ....


worth a staggering $1.5 Billion at street value.  Although the Customs police discovered the shipment in Germany, they let it proceed to the address in Australia to catch the crooks red-handed. Wonder if the origin of the drugs shipment was Afghanistan? Who exactly are the 6 individuals arrested in this raid?  All arrested are from 23 - 34 years of age.  Dealing in drugs can either make you a millionaire many times over or land you in jail for life ... at least in Australia.

From SBSnews:
'Second largest in Australian history':
Crime squad hailed for seizing $1.5 billion drug haul
The seizure of $1.5 billion worth of drugs in Sydney has seen 2.8 tonnes of MDMA and ice taken off the streets.....

.....Six men were arrested in the early hours of Saturday morning after police conducted a sting and detained them as they unloaded the drugs in Smithfield in Sydney's west.

The men, all Australian residents aged from 23 to 34, were due to appear at Parramatta Local Court later on Saturday......

.....The 2.8 tonnes of MDMA and ice was discovered by Australian Customs and Border Protection Service officers hidden amongst furniture in a container at the German port of Hamburg earlier in November following a large-scale operation.

The drugs went on to arrive in Australia on November 19, with investigators continuing to track the consignment and conducting a "controlled delivery" to an address in Blacktown before it was moved on to Smithfield.....



Friday, November 28, 2014

582 First Nations in Canada?


This number is news to me.  I am floored.  So many First Nations and First Nations communities in Canada? What does it all mean?  
Love the names ... tried pronouncing a few of the tongue twisters,  failed miserably.

As far as the "transparency law" goes, that's a good thing.  It's a known fact that many of those at the top in First Nations are siphoning the Govt. funds, meant for their communities, into their own private pockets. 

Susana Mas writing at CBC:
52 First Nations risk losing funding  for not complying with transparency law.
Kashechewan First Nation given more time to comply; sanctions will not target 'essential' services....

....Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt said in a statement that 529 out of 582 First Nations — over 90 per cent — have met the new requirements, appearing to leave 53 that are not in compliance.....

.......In a letter obtained by CBC News and sent by Aboriginal Affairs, the government said it would consider cutting funding to essential services beginning Dec. 12. 
But in his statement today, the minister said the government would only consider cutting new or existing funding to "non-essential" programs.
"I have directed that the sanctions not target essential services that support band members," Valcourt said in a written statement Thursday afternoon.......

The 52 First Nations on the government's revised list are:

Quebec
Algonquins of Barriere Lake

Ontario
Wahta Mohawks
Weenusk First Nation
Wabauskang First Nation
Ginoogaming First Nation
Gull Bay First Nation
Whitesand First Nation
Bearskin Lake First Nation
Fort Severn First Nation
Chapleau Ojibway First Nation
Kashechewan First Nation

Manitoba
Hollow Water Band
Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation Government
Little Saskatchewan Band
Norway House Cree Nation
Ebb And Flow Band
Dakota Tipi Band
Wasagamack First Nation
Bunibonibee Cree Nation
York Factory First Nation
Fox Lake Band
Shamattawa First Nation
Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation
Northlands Band
Wuskwi Sipihk First Nation
Lake St Martin

Saskatchewan
Onion Lake Cree Nation
Poundmaker Band
Thunderchild
Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation
Cowessess Band
Ochapowace Band
Fishing Lake First Nation Band
Ministikwan Lake Cree Nation
English River First Nation Band

Alberta
Sawridge Band
Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation
Cold Lake First Nations Band

British Columbia
Skatin Nations
New Westminster Indian Band
Semiahmoo Indian Band
Chawathil Indian Band
Popkum Indian Band
Peters Indian Band
Takla Lake First Nation
Gitxaala Nation
Oregon Jack Creek Indian Band
Boston Bar First Nation
High Bar Indian Band
Tl'etinqox Government

Yukon
Liard First Nation

Northwest Territories
Acho Dene Koe First Nation...........

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Discussion on some issues of recent days


Breaking the Set talks about Ferguson, Israel, Iran and Black Friday shopping.



Russia Invades Afghanistan


How's that for a title, eh?

Tom Engelhardt writing at TomDispatch:
Russians Invade Afghanistan (Again!),  Chinese Fight Iraq War (Again!) 
What If It Weren’t Us?

Let’s play a game, the kind that makes no sense on this single-superpower planet of ours. For a moment, do your best to suspend disbelief and imagine that there’s another superpower, great power, or even regional power somewhere that, between 2001 and 2003, launched two major wars in the Greater Middle East. We’re talking about full-scale invasions, long-term occupations, and nation-building programs, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq.

In both countries, that power quickly succeeded in its stated objective of “regime change,” only to find itself mired in deadly conflicts with modestly armed minority insurgencies that it simply couldn’t win. In each country, to the tune of billions and billions of dollars, it built up a humongous army and allied “security” forces, poured money into “reconstruction” projects (most of which proved disasters of corruption and incompetence), and spent trillions of dollars of national treasure.

Having imagined that, ask yourself: How well did all of that turn out for this other power?  In Afghanistan, a recent news story highlights something of what was accomplished.  Though that country took slot 175 out of 177 on Transparency International’s 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index, though its security forces continue to suffer grievous casualties, and though parts of the country are falling to a strengthening Taliban insurgency, it has for some years proudly held a firm grip on one record: Afghanistan is the leading narco-state on planet Earth.

In 2013, it upped its opium poppy cultivation by 36%, its opium production by almost 50%, and drug profits soared. Preliminary figures for this year, recently released by the U.N., indicate that opium cultivation has risen by another 7% and opium production by 17%, both to historic highs, as Afghanistan itself has become “one of the world’s most addicted societies.”

Meanwhile, where there once was Iraq (171st on that index of kleptocracies), there is now a Shiite government in Baghdad defended by a collapsed army and sectarian militias, a de facto Kurdish state to the north, and, in the third of the country in-between, a newly proclaimed “caliphate” run by a terror movement so brutal it’s establishing records for pure bloodiness.  It’s headed by men whose West Point was a military prison run by that same great power and its bloodthirstiness is funded in part by captured oil fields and refineries.

In other words, after 13 years of doing its damnedest, on one side ......

Mount Aso volcano eruption disrupts flights




From StraitsTimes:
Flights in Japan were cancelled or diverted  on Thursday to avoid a cloud of ash and smoke spewing from an erupting volcano in the south.

Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways warned passengers of "a number of cancellations and changed destinations" on routes involving Kumamoto airport because of the 800-metre column of debris from Mount Aso......

Saudi Arabia is the evil incubator that raised Wahhabism which in turn has given the world AlQaeda/ISIS/ISIL/IS


Good informative read by Karen Armstrong at the NewStatesman lays the blame at the door of the nation where our heavily bribed and compromised politicians, each with their own special agenda where Saudi Arabia is concerned, will never ever do.  

Wahhabism to ISIS: how Saudi Arabia exported the main source of global terrorism
Although IS is certainly an Islamic movement, it is neither typical nor mired in the distant past, because its roots are in Wahhabism, a form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia that developed only in the 18th century.

As the so-called Islamic State demolishes nation states set up by the Europeans almost a century ago, IS’s obscene savagery seems to epitomise the violence that many believe to be inherent in religion in general and Islam in particular. It also suggests that the neoconservative ideology that inspired the Iraq war was delusory, since it assumed that the liberal nation state was an inevitable outcome of modernity and that, once Saddam’s dictatorship had gone, Iraq could not fail to become a western-style democracy. Instead, IS, which was born in the Iraq war and is intent on restoring the premodern autocracy of the caliphate, seems to be reverting to barbarism. On 16 November, the militants released a video showing that they had beheaded a fifth western hostage, the American aid worker Peter Kassig, as well as several captured Syrian soldiers. Some will see the group’s ferocious irredentism as proof of Islam’s chronic inability to embrace modern values.

Yet although IS is certainly an Islamic movement, it is neither typical nor mired in the distant past, because its roots are in Wahhabism, a form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia that developed only in the 18th century. In July 2013, the European Parliament identified Wahhabism as the main source of global terrorism, and yet the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, condemning IS in the strongest terms, has insisted that “the ideas of extremism, radicalism and terrorism do not belong to Islam in any way”. Other members of the Saudi ruling class, however, look more kindly on the movement, applauding its staunch opposition to Shiaism and for its Salafi piety, its adherence to the original practices of Islam. This inconsistency is a salutary reminder of the impossibility of making accurate generalisations about any religious tradition. In its short history, Wahhabism has developed at least two distinct forms, each of which has a wholly different take on violence.

During the 18th century, revivalist movements sprang up in many parts of the Islamic world as the Muslim imperial powers began to lose control of peripheral territories. In the west at this time, we were beginning to separate church from state, but this secular ideal was a radical innovation: as revolutionary as the commercial economy that Europe was concurrently devising. No other culture regarded religion as a purely private activity, separate from such worldly pursuits as politics, so for Muslims the political fragmentation of their society was also a religious problem. Because the Quran had given them a sacred mission – to build a just economy in which everybody was treated with equity and respect – the political well-being of the umma (“community”) was always a matter of sacred import. If the poor were oppressed, the vulnerable exploited or state institutions corrupt, Muslims were obliged to make every effort to put society back on track.........

Spot the difference contest sponsored by Real Madrid


Fuck you Real Madrid!  Hope the money you make from the Arabs will buy better coffins for you and your dear ones.

From TelegraphUK:
Real Madrid lose Christian cross from club crest to appease Abu Dhabi bank  
Real Madrid remove Christian cross from logo to appease Muslim sensibilities and seal lucrative 'strategic alliance' with Abu Dhabi bank....




Real Madrid have removed the cross from their club crest as part of a lucrative three-year deal with the National Bank of Abu Dhabi.
It is believed the European champions' new crest, minus the Christian cross, was created so as not to offend Muslim sensibilities in the United Arab Emirates, where a marketing drive will take place.
Club president Florentino Perez labelled the deal as a "strategic alliance with one of the most prestigious institutions in the world".
But the redesigning of the famous club badge shows, according to Spanish sports paper Marca, how far top clubs are willing to go, including sacrificing part of their famous identity, to generate new revenue streams.....

Nice rant on the Ferguson madness ....


I found at ZeroHedge.  
Below, a few extracts I especially enjoyed. HAHAHAHHAHAAH
Go read the whole thing.

Hope@ZeroKelvin writing at TheBurningPlatform:
What I Learned from Ferguson ...

1. Several generations of liberal progressive policies RE the black community have created a critical mass of impoverished, illiterate and perpetually aggrieved black folks that can be ginned up and pointed at the enemies of the Regime – or just let loose to wreak havoc/chaos on anybody unlucky enough to be in their way. Please note that Ferguson and all the other big protests last night were in BLUE cities/counties.....

......4. There are good people of all races/creeds/colors/whatever that want to just live and let live. Seek out those people, give them a voice, cherish them. Or, as we say in the prepper community – prep, train and form teams.

5. Now that the economic heart of the Ferguson community has been burned to the ground, we will likely see yet another self serving black politician like Maxine Waters (Watts riots) come to power promising all kinds of rainbow pooping unicorn lollipop goodies while Ferguson morphs into Detroit.....

......Here’s a thought: When black people riot they burn down their own neighborhoods. When white people riot, they burn down entire continents........

....8. Events in Ferguson are a great cover to avoid talking about the holocaust that has consumed so many black lives, a holocaust of crime, illegitimacy, poverty and dysfunction that can be laid solely and completely at the feet of those supporters of The Great Society. Racism? You bet. The soft racism of diminished expectations, no demands for accountability and lack of personal responsibility for a person solely based on the color of their skin. .......

.......10. Embrace the Doom. The (FU) USA is a powder keg into which the Obama Admin and the libtard proglodytes are throwing as many sparks as possible. Toss in a pinch of radical Islam and it’s gonna be Epic. In their hubris and their insanity, they truly believe they can burn it all down and build something better. They cannot be reasoned with, they cannot be bargained with and they will not stop until the advocates of Western Civilization are all metaphorically and literally dead.....

Step by step the Rome of our times is losing its might


The bigger you are, the harder the fall and we know the fall is past due. There comes a time when even those you consider to be in the fold of the family, are no longer able to stomach the bullying and blackmail in return for the bribes you shower on them for their fake smiles and hugs.

Although, I like Google a lot, I can also see the multiple dangers of letting USA mammoths roam freely all over the earth and wage a monopoly on smaller businesses in countries other than the US. On this issue, the EU, amazingly for once, is doing the right thing.

Christopher Williams writing at TelegraphUK:
The European Parliament
approved a controversial motion in support of a break-up off Google over fears of its growing power on Thursday.
Europe's elected body has no direct power to intervene and the motion is viewed as mostly symbolic. MEPs' vote 384 to 174 in favour will, however, put pressure on the European Commission to act against Google.
The executive arm of the EU acts as the competition regulator and enforcer for the bloc and has been investigating alleged monopoly abuse by Google for several years.
Google has a roughly 90pc share of the general web search market in Europe and is accused by rivals of using that dominance to supress competition in related digital markets such as price comparison.
The "unbundling" proposed by the motion would formally split Google's main search engine from its other services, potentially including the Android smartphone operating system, which is also increasingly dominant.........

.......American politicians have leapt to the company's defence. A bipartisan letter from senior Senate and House of representatives figures emerged on Monday warning against the motion.
It said: "This and similar proposals build walls rather than bridges [and] do not appear to give full consideration to the negative effect such policies may have on the broader US-EU trade relationship."....

World War 3 news and updates .... November 27 .... Focus on Afghanistan


Obama and his mad administration in all their lunatic glory, have decided to continue keeping combat forces in Afghanistan and have strong-armed other NATO nations to do likewise.  In fact, the USA and others are increasing the combat forces in that country. 
IMO, the second phase, a very, very bloody phase of the Afghanistan war has now started and this plunges another dagger into the Rome of our times. 
The USA is suicidal  ...  even more so than the jihadi suicide bombers!

From DemocracyNow 
After Vowing to End Combat Mission in Afghanistan, Obama Secretly Extends America’s Longest War
President Obama has secretly extended the U.S. role in Afghanistan despite earlier promises to wind down America’s longest war. According to the New York Times, Obama has signed a classified order that ensures U.S. troops will have a direct role in fighting. In addition, the order reportedly enables American jets, bombers and drones to bolster Afghan troops on combat missions. And, under certain circumstances, it would apparently authorize U.S. air-strikes to support Afghan military operations throughout the country. 

The decision contradicts Obama’s earlier announcement that the U.S. military would have no combat role in Afghanistan next year. Afghanistan’s new president Ashraf Ghani has also backed an expanded U.S. military role. Ghani, who took office in September, has also reportedly lifted limits on U.S. airstrikes and joint raids that his predecessor Hamid Karzai had put in place. We go to Kabul to speak with Dr. Hakim, a peace activist and physician who has provided humanitarian relief in Afghanistan for the last decade. We are also joined by Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, who has just returned from Afghanistan.

From MaktoobNews:
Suicide blast at Afghan volleyball game kills 50: official
Around 50 people were killed and 60 others injured when a suicide blast ripped through crowds gathered to watch a volleyball game in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, officials said.
"The suicide attacker was on a motorcycle, he detonated himself in the middle of a volleyball match," Attaullah Fazli, deputy governor of Paktika province, told AFP
"A lot of people including some provincial officials and the police chief were there. About 50 people have been killed, and 60 injured, a lot of them seriously.".......

From VICEnews dated November 27
Kabul Suicide Attack on UK Embassy Vehicle Kills Five
A suicide attack on a UK embassy vehicle in Kabul killed at least five people, including one British citizen, and wounded more than 30 others on Thursday, the UK Foreign Office said.

An assailant detonated what was initially reported to be a motorbike, but now believed to be a car, filled with explosives by the British vehicle in the Afghan capital. The subsequent blast destroyed at least four other vehicles and was heard across the city, eye witnesses told Sky News.

Five were killed in the incident and as many as 34 injured, according to the Afghan Health Ministry. A British Foreign Office spokesman told VICE News that the dead included one British national who was a civilian security team member and an Afghan national working for the embassy. A second security team member was injured.....

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Something rotten going on in USA Swimming


Are parents putting their trust in coaches and teachers that can do no wrong and thus ignoring the tell-tales signs of their children's abuse by some of these ghouls? 

Rachel Sturtz writing at OutsideOnline:
At thirteen, Anna Strzempko was nine years into her amateur career when she reached the finals of the 2008 YMCA Long Course National Championship, swimming for the Greater Holyoke YMCA Vikings in western Massachusetts. Over the past five years, only one other female Viking had made it to the individual finals at nationals, and this was a turning point, that quiet moment when Strzempko’s potential went from competitor to contender. The curly-haired middle-distance freestyler was the baby of the swim team, and in a sport where young promise follows a quick route to glory, she now had her start.

The coach was good at spotting talent, and on an August day in 2008, Strzempko says, he called her into his office and told her she had the potential to compete in the 2012 Olympic Trials, four years away. Like any athlete who has performed under a no-bullshit authority figure, she was thrilled, because nothing the coach said was said lightly.

Toward the end of their discussion, the coach asked the eighth-grader where she was planning to go to high school. After she told him, he informed her that swimming came before education and that she needed to be prepared for this reality. Strzempko said education came first in her family, and this set him off. Strzempko recalls him saying “Not this again” and then slapping her face. Next, she says, he ordered her into a storage room adjoining his office.

There, according to an account she would give years later to her parents and police, her coach anally and vaginally raped her. Strzempko’s brain couldn’t piece together what was happening. She was unable to cry or scream. Her body bled from two orifices. When the coach was finished, she says, he left her lying faceup on the room’s cement floor.

Lightheaded and unsteady, Strzempko got to her feet and walked through the YMCA to the lobby, where her mother was waiting. Monica Strzempko, a self-described helicopter parent who was then 49, asked her subdued daughter why she wasn’t more excited about the news of her Olympic prospects. Strzempko said she was happy, just shocked.............

Wanna take one of the Rorschach Ink Blot tests?


I don't believe that this stuff can really tell whether you are normal, eccentric or just plain crazy. However, it's fun to see how different people can see different things.  IMO, the more you see in the blots, the more imaginative you are.  What's wrong with that?
Moreover, once you learn how these things work, someone who wants to fool the tester will know the kind of responses to give, just like those spelling tests, etc.



Jihadis in Syria display victims' heads in shop windows to terrorize citizens


From what a woman tells the reporter from ITV, he  presumes that the jihadi army is putting photographs of beheadings in shop windows to terrorize citizens but when the woman tells him "not pictures, heads" you can see the controlled horror in his face.

John Ray writing at ITVNews:
What it's like for a woman under Islamic State in Raqqa The road to Raqqa is the narrow artery upon which the survival of the Syrian regime depends.

Along its route, from Damascus in the south to Aleppo in the north, it is lined with army encampments.
But where the road reaches the borders of the Islamic State, this secure corridor ends.
It takes a brave - or desperate - soul to travel the road beyond.
When you see them at the last government checkpoint, very few want to talk about life in the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State

But today we met one young woman with the courage to speak.
I can’t tell you her name or even tell you her job. She still has family in the town and fears for their safety.

It’s soon clear why.

We can't leave...there's no life. You are dead there.
...I have to dress in black, I cover all my body, all my face.
I can't go anywhere and if there is a man with me they would ask him 'Who are you?'
– A FEMALE RESIDENT OF RAQQA

A driver who has brought a coachload of passengers from Raqqa, again insisting he masks his face before we roll our camera, tells me the town is full of foreign fighters. Many are Europeans...........

CrossTalk discusses the "No" vote by Canada, USA and Ukraine at the UN to combat nazism





Canadian veterans made to wait half a year and more for mental health help


Canadians are supposedly getting the best health care possible, right?  WRONG!
If veterans who should be at the very front of the queue are made to wait for months on end, what do you think is the waiting time for the rest of the citizens?   

Lee Berthiaume writing at OttawaCitizen:
One in five Canadian veterans  suffering from a mental illness and injury is being forced to wait more than eight months before the government approves a request for help, Canada’s auditor general says.

In an explosive report Tuesday, Auditor General Michael Ferguson says bureaucratic red tape and other barriers are preventing hundreds of veterans from getting timely access to the mental health services they need.

“These delays may jeopardize a veteran’s stabilization and/or recovery,” the report says.

The finding appeard to confirm complaints voiced by a number of injured veterans in recent years. It will also turn up the heat on the Conservative government, which has faced a litany of criticism for its treatment of those who have served in uniform.

Ferguson takes specific aim at Veterans Affairs’ disability benefits program, which helps pay for various health services not covered by provincial health plans. These can include specialized psychological care, residential treatment and some medications.

About 15,000 veterans and serving military personnel were eligible to receive mental health support from Veterans Affairs through the program at the end of March. That number is expected to increase as more Afghan vets leave the military for civilian life in the coming years.

Ferguson’s report did find the government “has put in place important health supports for veterans,” including a rehabilitation program that was providing timely support to about 4,600 veterans with mental health conditions who had recently been released from the military.

“However, access to the disability benefits program – the program through which most veterans access mental health services – is slow, and the application process is complex,” the report reads.....

Cartoons: The Ferguson story boils down to ....


this.



How politicians exploit surge in patriotism


Have you noticed how certain bills and rules and regulations that would have us screaming "No" get passed after we have been threatened by "enemies"  and made to think what the powers-that-be are doing is done for us and on our behalf?

Ron Paul writing at InstituteForPeaceAndProsperity:
 Defeat of USA FREEDOM Act is a Victory for Freedom
It will not shock readers to hear that quite often legislation on Capitol Hill is not as advertised. When Congress wants to do something particularly objectionable, they tend give it a fine-sounding name. The PATRIOT Act is perhaps the best-known example. The legislation had been drafted well before 9/11 but was going nowhere. Then the 9/11 attacks gave it a new lease on life. Politicians exploited the surge in patriotism following the attack to reintroduce the bill and call it the PATRIOT Act. To oppose it at that time was, by design, to seem unpatriotic. 

At the time, 62 Democrats voted against the Act. On the Republican side there were only three no votes: former Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), former Rep. Butch Otter (R-ID), and myself. 

The abuses of the Constitution in the PATRIOT Act do not need to be fully recounted here, but Presidents Bush and Obama both claimed authority based on it to gut the Fourth Amendment. The PATRIOT Act ushered in the era of warrantless wiretapping, monitoring of our Internet behavior, watering down of probable cause, and much more. After the revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden, we know how the NSA viewed constitutional restraints on surveillance of American people during the PATRIOT Act period.

After several re-authorizations of the PATRIOT Act, including some cosmetic reforms, Congress last October unveiled the USA FREEDOM Act. This was advertised as the first wholesale PATRIOT Act Reform bill. In fact, the House version was watered down to the point of meaninglessness and the Senate version was not much better. The final straw was the bill’s extension of key elements of the PATRIOT Act until 2017. 

Fortunately, last week the USA FREEDOM Act was blocked from further consideration in the US Senate. The procedural vote was significant and important, but it caused some confusion as well. While some well-meaning pro-privacy groups endorsed the FREEDOM Act as a first step to reform, some anti-liberty neoconservatives opposed the legislation because even its anemic reforms were unacceptable. The truth is, Americans should not accept one more extension of the PATRIOT Act and should not endorse its continued dismemberment of our constitutional liberties. If that means some Senators vote with anti-liberty colleagues to kill the extension, we should still consider it a victory. .......

The world is ruled by psychopaths


Is it any wonder our world is screwed up?



Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Worst scandal possible brewing in the top echelons of British politics


Top politicians are suspected of not only having been members of a paedophile ring but also having murdered three young boys in the 1970s and 80s. 

Tom Whitehead and David Barrett writing at TelegraphUK:
Westminster paedophile ring allegations: timeline  
Here are the key events in the claims around an alleged VIP paedophile ring in Westminster

November 1983 – Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens sends 40-page dossier to then Home Secretary Leon Brittan detailing alleged child abusers within the British Establishment. It contains the names of Cyril Smith and other senior politicians.
November 1983 – Mr Dickens tells his family “That’s it now. Let it all begin. This is going to blow it all apart.”
March 1984 – Mr Brittan writes to Mr Dickens to say the dossier has been assessed by prosecutors and handed to the police.
May 1995 – Mr Dickens dies with knowledge that no arrests or prosecutions have ever been bought as a result of his dossier.
September 2010 – Rochdale MP Cyril Smith dies having never been charged with any child abuse offences.
September and October 2012 – The Jimmy Savile child abuse scandal breaks fuelling a litany of historical sex abuse allegations.
October 2012 – Labour MP Tom Watson claims during Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons that there is “clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No10”.
November 2012 – Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk uses parliamentary privilege to claim that Cyril Smith was a “29-stone bully” who sexually abused boys. He says new alleged victims have come forward in the wake of the Savile scandal.........



George  Keate London writing at TheAustralian:
British pedophile ring of top politicians  may have killed boy, 15
POLICE investigating an alleged pedophile ring at Westminster have told the family of a missing boy he may be one of the three children claimed to have been murdered by establishment figures.

Martin Allen, the son of the Australian high commissioner’s chauffeur, went missing in 1979, aged 15. His brother, Kevin, 51, has said he was called on Friday by Detective Chief Inspector Diane Tudway of the Metropolitan police, who said she was investigating whether Martin’s disappearance was linked to an alleged VIP ring.

Operation Midland, the investigation into the deaths, was set up this month. Officers said intelligence from Operation Fairbank, which is looking into whether high-profile figures were involved in organised child sex abuse in the 1970s and 80s, suggested that murders had taken place.

A man known as Nick, who said he was abused by MPs and establishment figures, had alleged he saw three boys being murdered by the pedophile network. He said one was deliberately run over, a second was strangled by a Conservative MP and the third was killed in front of a government minister.

The case of Martin Allen’s disappearance was closed in the 80s, but reopened in 2009 and shut again last year. Mr Allen and his brother, Jeffrey, 61, have described how police said in 2009 the files had been destroyed in a flood.

“We had to give evidence over again to the police,” Mr Allen said. “But then later, when the case was still open, the two detectives on it told us that a retired police officer had withdrawn the files and gone to Spain.

“They said they had tried to get a warrant to question the......

From YahooNews:
Home Secretary Theresa May has warned that allegations surrounding historical cases of child abuse linked to Westminster could be merely "the tip of the iceberg" on the issue. She spoke after fresh allegations surrounding the murder of an 8-year-old boy by a paedophile ring, which included politicians, emerged in recent weeks. The ring organized a series of parties attended by two Conservative MPs, according to a man who claims to have been victimized at the gatherings. As many as three boys were killed by the ring's members, he alleges.
In an interview with the BBC, May said there were serious questions still remaining about how "the very institutions of the state that should be protecting children were not doing so"..........