[todes] sensual cocktail from russia

In between the mud and the grime, Russia can be a sensual cocktail and nobody embodied this more than dance group Todes [pronounced Tor' dess] who used to tour the country and came to our city one year.

My girlfriend of the time was in just such a dance group and one evening I went to one of her training sessions, watched this high kicking and the multiple back flips and wondered from where she found the energy.  Predictably, she burnt out fairly quickly though  and swung over to salsa, which is still her pet thing today.

Strangely, I never saw Todes with her as we'd had a bit of a split at that point and I actually went with another girl but not to worry.  She saw them the following year with a different man, so we were square.  This dance group did conceptual dances and I don't think youtube has the best of them but the one below is close to being good.

You have to imagine that there was a lot of ballet in there as well, pas de deux, a lot of sensual stuff and some quite atmospheric numbers.  One thing for sure was that they gave their all, displayed their talent and you can't ask more than that.  There was also a lot of humour in some numbers and they were clearly enjoying themselves, let alone what the audience were feeling.

Hope you enjoy this:

[for a lady] sky's the limit

From Long Distance Voyager, the video's for the boys and the words are for a lady but all can enjoy.

[which country] five clues

This country:

1. has a dependency - Clipperton Island;

2. has won the 4th most summer Olympic medals;

3. has the iris as its national flower;

4. gave the world denim;

5. had an author, who, in 1969, wrote a novel without the letter "e".

Clue for no points: The bikini was invented here.

[the real eu] this is how they operate

Admittedly, this is a UKIP promotional, courtesy of Trixy but it needs to be viewed by all Brits. This is what Ireland is probably going to vote in next year - democracy, EU style:

Assuming that this man standing over Hannan, browbeating him, is Christopher Beazley, then wtf is he doing? He was supposed to have been elected on a eurosceptic platform. Iain Dale and commenters give a possible clue.

Further, from Daniel Hannan's blog:

A few minutes later, Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader, rose to make a similar point. He reminded the Speaker, Hans-Gert Pöttering, that, when 14 MEPs were fined for demanding a referendum in the chamber, the stated reason was that they had misbehaved in the presence of a national leader: José Sócrates of Portugal. Yet when Cohn-Bendit and others behaved with outrageous boorishness to another national leader, Hans-Gert not only ostentatiously declined to restrain them, but joined in, upbraiding the Czech leader for daring to mention Communist Czechoslovakia (the complete transcript is available at the splendid EU Referendum blog).

People, this is lawlessness and blatant disregard for their own rules.

[post offices] why they are closing

Ian Parker Joseph gives the real reason for the Post Office turmoil.

My calm and reasoned response below:

[blog contacts] quick few lines

Have you noticed an increase in your blog contacts lately? I've been delighted the new [to me] faces and plan to visit them as much as poss. One of the things I've been meaning to do too is go down the Witanagemot list and visit all of them. Pity there is only so much time we can use to visit but the holiday period will give us some more.

[whistler] gondola tower breaks in two

The pic above is not so clear but the pic in the mind is:

Click pic

There were the skiers enjoying bumper conditions, long queues to get into the gondolas, mucho expenso, when suddenly ... c-r-r-r-r-a-a-a-c-c-k-k! One of the towers breaks in two.

Gondolas are brought to a shuddering halt, swinging around in the breeze then the cable and all sag and bottom out, bouncing a few times, then the realization comes that skiers are stuck up there over the forest way below.

Intrawest, which owns the resort, released a statement last night, saying all 53 guests were evacuated from the gondola shortly before 6 p.m.

You can imagine that operation.

Bryn Hughes, a professional photographer in Whistler, was driving near the Excalibur gondola when he saw the cars start to bounce up and down.

“It was violent for sure,” he said of the yo-yo motion of the cars. “They were going anywhere from 15 to 20 feet down to 15 to 20 feet up.”

Mr. Hughes said he stopped to see whether he could help and saw a young man jump out of one of the cars, which had come to rest about two-and-a-half metres above the ground.

“He was fine. He had a bump on his head and a sore back. He didn't say much, he just wanted to get away from there,” he said.

Mr. Hughes said the top half of a cable tower near the lift station appeared to have sheered off and was lying on the ground.

“It was completely detached, and it was lying near the base [of the tower].”

I've been a few times on a stopped lift but the most frightening of all was the time going down from Mt Pilatus to the town and the gondola, in which I was the only passenger, was swinging sideways and bouncing in a strong wind.

Shudder. Still, it goes with the territory, I suppose.

[playing with space] bring on cancer

You've probably read this, this morning. You probably didn't read this.

It's precisely what this blog has been going on about. The arrogant bstds felt it was their right to bombard the fields surrounding the earth and to hell with the people below. The profit margin and military advantage are everything.

Naturally, the Telegraph article did not mention the second part of it.

Under national socialism, which we have in Britain, the situation is not going to be any better. That's what PFIs are for. What we have here, readers, is a group of people, employed by the various states, who have damaged the atmosphere. It can't be undamaged because you and I have neither the technology, the money or the clout to be able to alter it.

These people will get off completely scot free and your children will develop asthma, cancer and skin lesions. This is not an exaggeration - holes in the fields will allow it to happen.

People, we have to take control of our nations before those with a stranglehold on them decimate us.

ESP, Do You All Believe In It?

I originally published this under the title "Bay of Pigs Revisited" at my blog, Buckeye Thoughts.

As a preface, before we get started, how many of you believe in ESP? I personally, (as I point out in the post) having had several real life experiences with it, do and am curious about others' opinions. With that said, onward!

Last night I had probably what I would rank as one of my craziest dreams ever. The basic premise was this: one of my good friends and I along with a large contingent of Cuban exiles were sent in to overthrow the Castro government, much like the Bay of Pigs.

What I distinctly remember was my group which consisted, of among others in our zodiac, of my friend and one Cuban. As we landed on the beach, we had total surprise. A few minutes inland and all hell broke loose. Although we only took fire from the front, it seemed like a wall of lead was flying towards us. I, myself, was hit as was our Cuban guide. We somehow managed to carry her, our Cuban guide, between the two of us (my friend and I) till we arrived at, of all places, a hotel.

By this time our force had been utterly destroyed; we were the only survivors left. The G2, Cuba's version of the KGB, was hot on our trail. As we slowly made our way into the hotel, it was clear we were out numbered. My friend guarded her while I desperately tried to kill as many of MININT's (the Cuban Ministry of Interior, which has the best weaponry and training available in Cuba) soldiers without getting killed myself. After having cleared an entire floor, I staggered (clearly feeling the effects of the bullet wounds I had sustained) and opened a stairwell door only to be greeted by a member of the SVR (the Russian equivalent of CIA). He attempted to capture me alive by throwing a blanket on my head which automatically binded the moment it gets around a solid object. I pushed him down the stairs, the blanket falling with him, and shot him in the head. I then proceeded to make it back to my friend and our guide, who by this time was looking less than 100%.

The three of us made it out of the hotel alive, carrying her, whilst more MININT troops stormed the building. We made it to an autobus station near the beach. My friend and I were both exhausted and our guide was nearly dead. Then, probably the strangest part of the whole dream happened.

"¿Me quieres?" (Do you love me?) she asked me.
"Sí, no tienes ninguna idea del tanto que te quiero." (Yes, you have no idea how much I love you) I said back to her.

We then kissed once and I asked my friend what he planned to do, since we were unsure if MININT had been able to follow us or not. He said, "Get the hell out of here." I seconded the motion but then turned to our guide and asked, looking at her angelic face, what was going to happen to her. She looked at me and told me that everything would be ok. We kissed once more and my friend and I left towards the zodiac, trying to get there before MININT realized we had an operational means of escape at our disposal. I woke up shortly after this, feeling really blue.

Now, granted this was a dream and a bizarre one at that, I would like to point out the effects of ESP (extra sensory perception, dreaming about events before they happen). I highly doubt this dream was such an instance but wish to bring to your attention of such occurrences happening to me this semester, mainly regarding school work and presentations. For instance, in one class, when a group gave a presentation, I tried to think about where I had seen this before and then it hit me: I had dreamed about this specific event a month prior to it happening in the real world.

Bizarre, indeed.

[mystery country] the ancient world

Same rules as before - try to get it on the first clue:

1. had the tallest building in the world from 1280 to 1549;

2. invented the tin can;

3. its top university once had rules that specifically forbade students from bringing bows and arrows to class;

4. home to the Gytrash;

5. is not officially recognized as a country.

Clue for no points: Its lowest land point is getting even lower each year.
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[nice people] what's in a name

Beslan

I'll have to ask Germaine Lindsay for clarification:

These names - Bilal Abdulla, Mohammed Asha, Kafeel Ahmed, Hasib Hussain, Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Mohamed Atta, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Khaled al-Harbi, Shamil Salmanovich Basayev, Osman Larussi, Yacine Benalia, Kamel Rabat Bouralha, Imam Samudra - they're all Jewish names, aren't they?

Or are they French? As we're assured by the MCB and a multitude of other organizations that all Muslims are peaceful people, then obviously the above names could not be Muslim.

I ask only for information.


"We killed too many," the Bali bomber laughed.


Last night I was reading quite a few articles on the Black Pope, currently Adolfo Nicolás, and about the Jesuits and all the naughtiness they're meant to have got up to. If all that were true [and Eric Jon Phelps does not seem the most reliable of writers, being almost obsessively anti-Jesuit], then where does that leave the Zionists? After that, where does that leave the Jihadis?

Seems to me that Phelps might well have part of the jigsaw right, Jones another, the anti-Zionists another and so on. It seems logical to me that any committed organization, be it the CIA or the Anglican church, is going to follow the same pattern.

At the "sheep level", e.g. the Masonic blue orders, things run fairly well according to the publicity and these are the people seconded to write it, in innocence and with conviction. As you move up the order, you're going to run into the more ambitious types, the more committed and the separation begins between the black and the white.

In any organization there are the genuine troopers and also the quislings who follow another agenda from above. Even Jesus once referred to the wheat and the tares. Thus you could have Donald Segretti doing his dirty tricks from the White House but something vastly more worrying in Anton le Vey at the CIA. I've read of quite a few "good" CIA men like Miles Copeland but I've also read of Scapitz and Ewen Cameron [who was convicted] and companies Sandoz and Eli Lilly.

In "Science Digest, April 1971", G.H. Estabrooks wrote an article called "Hypnosis Comes of Age". This led to far more than hypnosis, in fact DID and they knew this was beyond the CIA charter:

Following the conclusion of the general discussion, all technical apparatus was removed from the premises, and all participating personnel left the area. Checks were made and apparently indicated that the subject, although not having specific amnesia for the Artichoke treatment, nevertheless was completely confused and his memory was vague and faulty."

Now we're in an area where the middle echelons, hungry for success and advancement, are not above breaking people's identities apart and regressing them to incontinence, if it is going to earn them brownie points above. These are the Lieutenant Calleys, the Lynndie Englands, the oven stackers at Auschwitz, even von Stauffenberg in the early years. The really vicious pieces of work who seem to relish it are noted from above and certain overtures are made to them.

They advance.

So there are two distinct threads running through any organization - the career officers and the vicious. By the time you get to the very top - the Cheneys, Wolfowitzes, Kissingers, we're into the outward manifestation of the real power, alongside the career officers like the Eisenhowers who seem, to the world, to have the power but in fact are limited. The good are always marginalized at the top. To the world, they all seem part of the same team until things start to come out.

So, to say that, per se, The Masons, The CIA, The Jesuits, The Zionists and The Muslims are all bad is just not so - it's not borne out by the history of organizations. It's just that the bad element has got itself entrenched and the bile trickles down. That's why Lynddie England did what she did with impunity - it wasn't directly specified from above but by the very lack of consequences, of what she was given to understand, she saw that she could overstep the mark and it would hardly matter.

Ditto Calley.

Now there is no way you'll convince me that that did not trickle down from on high or else the middle echelons did what they did to please the brass. Where did the idea come from that they could set aside common decency and act like animals? And the higher and higher you go, the deeper and deeper you delve, the more it turns clandestine, the more it resembles Salon Kitty, with the high camp omnisexuality, bizarre grotesqueness, pleasure children and the whole shenanigans.

Somewhere along the line, this needs to be called true evil, in its practical manifestation.

There are no loyalties up there - percentage and pleasure are the only rules. The nature of the particular organization they're in gives their spiritual desolation a peculiar flavour, e.g. the Imams who call for jihad, meaning the extermination of women and children, who pervert Islam and the Islamic youth into false readings of the Koran, their thing is religious obsession, whereas the Cheneys are just into dissolution but at the highest levels, they're all serving the same master.

So, to return to the Muslim extremists, what they did was heinous and they deserve the hell they're going to but meanwhile, the truly guilty sit in the mosques and continue the bile. Amongst the Zionists, the kabbalists are the ones to watch, especially the masters of the lore. They're the true criminals who have always misused their power, throughout the ages, on poor humanity. Ditto the Druids. The 32nd degree Masons. The Archbishops, the Jimmy Swaggarts.

On and on it goes.

And who are they looking for to fill the key roles in education, the law, religion, medicine and the arts? "Talent", as Common Purpose and the Bilderbergers put it. Talent. Meaning the likely types who respond to promotion and perks and will walk over their grandmothers to get them. It's no accident that the whole fabric of society is white-anted, riddled through and through, the way it is. Go to any blog and read about it.

Solution? Tom Paine says:

Our problem is not with the leaders but with their clients; the state employees and the economically inactive who now (together) exceed thirty million. They would ensure that if you killed this mob, you would get one just as bad.

This thing runs right down through the society but in the end, it does all emanate from the head, from on top. A perfect example was Nixon's White House. with the head corrupt, there was virtually no chance for virtue below.

Solution? I don't know of any right now.

[blitz antimafia] in diverse città della sicilia e in toscana

This would strike the average non-Italian as par for the course:

Un maxi blitz dei carabinieri del Comando provinciale di Palermo è in corso in diverse città dell'isola. I militari stanno eseguendo 99 fermi ordinati dai pm della Direzione distrettuale antimafia. Si tratta di capimafia, reggenti di mandamenti e gregari che farebbero parte delle famiglie mafiose, coinvolti da alcuni boss palermitani in un progetto criminale che ha come obiettivo quello di "rifondare Cosa nostra".

I wanted to know where exactly they'd struck and it seems it came from Palermo and targetted all over Sicily. Hope Welshcakes wasn't arrested or didn't get caught in the crossfire but I think she's a law-abiding citizen.

Basically, the old mafia heads were trying to set up a new cosa nostra after Bernardo Provenzano fell in 2006. Interesting that the carabinieri had this success this time around. Wonder where Berlusconi was in all of this? Italian politics runs deep.

By the way, Italian is not so difficult in written form, is it? Could you get the gist of the quote above?

[tyranny] at what point is its removal legitimate

Don't know why, as I'm not crazy about Tom Cruise but I really hope Valkyrie succeeds.

He seems to have tried to rehabilitate himself and the type of driven character which was von Stauffenberg, the plotter to kill Hitler, is also present in Cruise. So to the story of those days.

Bishop Preysing of Berlin from 1935 on and close friend and associate of Bettinger, saw as others after the Nazis assasinated Rohm, one of their own, that the Nature of the Reich was inherently vile, and changing for the worse. He was an outspoken voice against the true nature of the Nazis, warning Catholics that they were not the conservative negotiators of the 1933 concordat. Preysing was also the Bishop to whom von Stauffenberg and others pleaded to intercede with the Vatican , asking questions regarding the ethics of killing a tyrant. Reports Catholic Herald:

Von Stauffenberg reportedly met with Cardinal Count Preysing of Berlin to discuss this matter, and his eminence honored the motives and offered no theological objection to restrain him. In so doing, Cardinal Preysing placed his own life in jeopardy with the Gestapo, but was never implicated in the plot.

Many saw von Stauffenberg's purpose as self preservation and for that of the nobility, which was more than likely a factor after Rohm; however, after Major Kuhn:

... became a POW of the Soviets after the 20 July plot, he led the Soviets to the hiding place of the documents in February 1945. In 1989, Gorbachev presented these documents to then-German chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl. These documents, produced by Stauffenberg and his fellow officers in 1943 in Berlin, evince the idealistic motivation of the resistance group.

The plot was not carried out terribly well. For a start, von Stauffenberg had too much responsibility, both to arm the bomb and then call the forces to support the coup. He did not arm the second bomb at the meeting place, his three fingers barely equal to the task, the first bomb was moved under the most solid part of the room - a thick oak table and then he proceeded as if he'd succeeded, without confirmation.

They didn't seem to have a good exit plan either.

The most enduring theme to come from this was the eternal question of when a patriot can officially commit high treason and kill a legitimate head of state [in terms of process, if not moral right]. This was the theme of V for Vendetta and is an appropriate question for discussion within a Britain now under severe duress from Gordon Brown's Nu-Labour who have inexorably tightened the screws on the society ever since Nu-Labour came to power.

At what point is it legitimate for a patriot to set in train a series of events which would remove the decimator of the society? Also, is the head of state actually the main culprit? He may be just a pawn. Maybe the EU itself should be the target. That both are morally bankrupt and have done great damage to the society is beyond doubt in the minds of the majority of pundits.

The same thing could be said about non-President Obama. At what point would removing him be a legitimate act in defence of the peoples of the United States?

One remaining question is at what point someone would have the nerve to be labelled "insurgent", "terrorist" and be set upon by the very forces which he/she would consider it was being done for. Who would appreciate the action?

Would it not be better for the Ragnarök to just take its course?

Longrider gives an answer here.

[aussie state quiz] can you do it on the first clue

.

Here's the promised Australian state quiz, accessible even for Brits, Yanks and Canucks. [Sorry if your land was left out here.] So - 5 points for an answer on the first clue, 4 points on the second and so on.

This Australian state:

1. has a capital, formerly called Bearbrass, which went on to become the capital of Australia from 1901 to 1927;

2. had Mick Jagger play one of its favourite sons;

3. is the most densely populated;

4. was the birthplace of popular democracy in 1850-52;

5. has the largest airport in the country [by physical size].

Clue for no points: Eureka

[blogfocus] more sites than you can poke a stick at

Image shamelessly stolen from Cherie

This is not a very good blogfocus as I don't go into details about the sites. I should. I can't, as I have to do RL stuff and it's all I can do to post. Sorry this time round.

Also, blogroundups make more enemies than friends, as they often leave out regular friends like Pisces, Cherie, Uber, Matt, Dragonstar, Rob, Jailhouse Lawyer, Bob, Lord Somber, and Angus, let alone those who RSS read and occasionally drop by by way of comments. Then there are the inaccessible dearieme and ScotstoryB. then there are those appreciated souls who visit quietly.

By the way, the difficult to define Uber has a nice piece just now on songs she'd want played at her funeral.

So, knowing it will offend some by omission, nevertheless, here are some interesting sites to check out:

Babyhold

What's going on

Shrewd mammal

Toronto runner

Marksany

Observations from the hillside

Blog right reading

John Ward

Old Holborn

Dave Cole

Devika

Charon QC and his podcasts

Vox Day

... and here's a piece you won't want to miss. Or this about the Tartan McFuehrer. Not forgetting the site where I am a guest blogger.

Time for action not inaction

Time for action not inaction by the Jailhouse Lawyer




It's the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg, France. Once the Court passes judgment on a High Contracting Party, for example, the UK, under Article 54 of the European Convention: "The judgment of the Court shall be transmitted to the Committee of Ministers which shall supervise its execution".

The Committee of Ministers has recently started a new website.

Why might Jack Straw be seeing red right now?

"The Committee of Ministers' essential function is to ensure that member states comply with the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights".

Could it be because I have his nuts in an uncomfortable position?

Maggie Thatcher Nutcracker

“The Committee of Ministers shall consider any communication from the injured party with regard to payment of the just satisfaction or the taking of individual measures”.

"Individual measures: On 25/05/2004, the applicant was released from prison on licence. He may therefore vote".

Problem solved?

I'm alright, Jack. But, what about all those convicted prisoners I left behind in an undemocratic state?

"General measures:

1) The Action Plan: On 07/04/2006, the United Kingdom authorities supplied an action plan for the execution of this case. The UK authorities committed themselves to undertaking consultation to determine the measures required to implement the judgment (written ministerial declaration of 02/02/2006). A consultation paper setting out the principles, context and options should have been distributed and responses to that paper should be collected by September 2006.

Between September 2006 and February 2007, analysis of those responses should take place, and if appropriate, further consultation should take place and the drafting of a second document containing the preferred option and detailed implementation issues. Further analysis should then take place, and if appropriate, the drafting and publication of another document might take place between March and June 2007.

If legislation is chosen as the method of executing the judgment, then the drafting of legislation will commence at that time. Draft legislation would then be introduced from October 2007 onwards, its timing being subject to parliamentary business.

a) The First Consultation Paper: The consultation paper on “Voting Rights of Convicted Prisoners Detained within the United Kingdom” was published on 01/12/2006. It sets out, inter alia, a summary of the European Court’s judgment, the relevant international documents, the practice of the Council of Europe member states and the proposals that the government believes merit careful consideration:

i) retaining the ban (the Consultation Paper notes that this is the preference of some people and the government but recalls the European court’s finding that retaining a blanket ban falls outside the margin of appreciation of contracting states; however, comments are invited on it);

ii) enfranchising prisoners serving less than a specified term;

iii) allowing those responsible for sentencing to decide; and

iv) enfranchising all tariff-expired life sentence prisoners.

The paper does not set out full enfranchisement as a realistic option, as the government is opposed to it. Proposals were also made specifically concerning prisoners found guilty of election offences and convicted offenders and non-offenders detained in mental hospitals.

b) Information from civil society: It should be noted that on 03/04/2007, the Committee of Ministers received a communication from a non-governmental organisation, the AIRE Centre, under Rule 9. That communication notes that despite the government’s indication that it would engage in a proper debate, it states in the Consultation Paper that it remains wholly opposed to full enfranchisement.

Although the Consultation Paper offers the option of retaining the blanket ban (and welcomed receiving the views of those who agree with this position), it excludes from consideration the possible option of abolishing disenfranchisement of prisoners altogether.

c) The response of the UK authorities: The United Kingdom government recalls that the Consultation Paper did state that views on total disenfranchisement were welcome but nonetheless made it clear, as noted above, that retaining the total ban is outside the margin of appreciation given by the Convention, and is therefore not an actual proposal.

When expressing its belief that an offence serious enough to warrant a term in prison should entail a loss of voting rights while in prison, the government was simply repeating what its position was prior to and throughout the Court proceedings in this case. However, government recognises its obligation to comply with the judgment and has set out a range of options to achieve this.

The United Kingdom government does not interpret the judgment as creating an obligation to enfranchise all prisoners, and has indicated its opposition to such an option, which is why it is omitted from the list of possible options for change in the consultation document. The government indicates that to amend UK law will require primary legislation, and that proposals and resulting draft legislation would be laid before, and thoroughly debated in, both Houses of Parliament.

2) The revised Action Plan: A revised Action Plan has been furnished, which includes a revised timetable. If a second consultation period is required, it would take place from July to September 2007. If legislation is chosen as the method of executing the judgment, the introduction of draft legislation would take place from May 2008 onwards, with its timing being subject to parliamentary business.

The first stage of consultation ended on 07/03/2007, and analysis of the responses is under way. There has been no slippage from the revised plan.

On 25/10/2007, the authorities of the United Kingdom indicated that the government was still considering the responses to the Phase 1 Consultation paper.

• Additional information awaited: Information is required on a regular basis on the progress made in the consultation process and the follow-up to that process.

• Recent development: by letter of 14/04/2008 the authorities provided further information on general measures. The Secretariat is currently assessing this information.

The Deputies decided to resume consideration of this item at the latest at their 1043rd meeting (2-4 December 2008) (DH), in the light of the information already provided on general measures.

Latest development

By letter of 11/04/2008 the authorities provided information on general measures".

Actually, there are a couple of later developments. On 2-4/12/2008 the Committee of Ministers further visited the case of Hirst v UK (No2). And, Jack Straw sat right down and wrote himself a letter.

What the government called "The Action Plan" and the Committee of Ministers used the same language, in my view, amounts to nothing more than an inaction plan!

Under Rule 9.2 of the Rules of the Committee of Ministers for the supervision of the execution of judgments and of the terms of friendly settlements:

“The Committee of Ministers shall be entitled to consider any communication from non-governmental organisations, as well as national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights, with regard to the execution of judgments under Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention”.

Both Gordon Brown and David Cameron have stated that a battleground for the next General Election will be the Human Rights Act 1998. As this is my territory, I am happy to do battle on this ground. Whilst they both try to woo the editors of the Sun and the Daily Mail, they have forgotten something. The US Secret Service responsible for bodyguarding the President and President Elect are not concerned with the editors of tabloids. What they fear most is the lone assassin.

One of the arguments the government put to the Grand Chamber, is that convicted prisoners should not have a say in politics and who should govern the country. However, irony of ironies, "Prisoners may hold the key to the legal validity of the next General Election, the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) concluded in its Annual Report published on 31 October 2008".

Today I was speaking on the phone to Duncan Campbell (Guardian journalist), and I said that Jack Straw is embarrassed and does not know which way to turn.

He agreed.

I then asked the question, "Would he be more embarrassed if he had to press to get a law passed by Parliament to allow convicted prisoners the vote, or if he had to explain to the taxpayers why thousands upon thousands of prisoners are to receive millions upon millions of their pounds as compensation for being denied the vote?

He said he felt that the latter would be more embarrassing.

[canadian province quiz] five clues

Same procedure - 5 points if you can answer on the first clue, 4 points if you had to highlight the second clue and so on. Here we go:

1 The people are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic;

2 The coat of arms has a gold lily on a blue background, a lion on a red background and maple leaves;

3 June 24th is its national holiday;

4 It's the world's largest producer of maple syrup;

5 It has a national insect - the white admiral butterfly.

Gimme clue for no points: The name comes from the Algonquin word kepék, meaning "it narrows".

[baby factory] what's in a name

Bronx Mowgli, out of Ashlee Simpson, by Pete Wentz and Sophocles Iraia, out of Miranda Manasiadis, by Jermaine Clement, are two of the wackier names of 2008.

They join a long tradition of Moon Unit Zappa, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, Audio Science, out of actress Shannyn Sossamon and some man, Pilot Inspector, out of Beth Riesgra, by boyfriend actor Jason Lee, Saffrom Sahara, out of Yasmin Parvaneh, by Simon Le Bon and God'iss Love Stone, out of rapper Lil' Mo, by husband Al Stone.

Still, that pales by comparison to boxer George Foreman's children George Jr., George III, George IV, George V, and George VI plus daughters Michi, Freeda, Georgetta, Natalie, and Leola.

If I was starting over again, I'd probably name my son Indon Barack Obama Kenya and my daughter Paris Madonna Jolie, asking Gordo to be their godfather and Polly Toynbee their godmother.

Nah, I'm lying. I'd call him Rotten Little Rodent and her Man Magnet II. You have to love your kids, you know.

[salvos] nobbled by the pc maniacs

Eh? Salvos are banned from rattling their tins?

Members have been issued with guidelines stating that they must keep their tins still even when music is playing. One volunteer with the Christian charity said she had been told that rattling could also offend other religions.

Again and again I say - you might not be Christian, you might have a jaundiced view of the Salvos and what they preach but if you sit back and let this go with ne'er a murmur, then one day the PC maniacs are going to turn on you.

This sort of thing requires letters to be written and petitions to be signed, not particularly for the Salvos but for any of us caught in this mindless, do-gooder, wet blanket PC madness. Rattling tins offends other religions? Give me a break.

The other day there were Romanians around our area, playing the accordion. Fine, what was the problem? Or is the problem only that it is a Christian group who are causing the "offence"?

For Boomers and younger, it might be as well to know that before the proliferation of help organizations, hotlines and so on, a very good thing, by the way, it was mainly the Salvos who were on the front line of domestic violence victims, addicts, derelicts and the like.

Kokoda trail, 1942 - salvos on hand


They were at the forefront of helping women and families and had a revolutionary notion of women before the feminists co-opted it ... the Foundation Deed of the Christian Mission, stated that women had the same rights to preach as men.

In America, the Salvation Army's first major forays into Disaster Relief resulted from the tragedies of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Their soup kitchens, thrift shops, family tracing and shelters are just some of the things they do.

Yes, they have a Christian slant and I have a problem with their ideas on alcohol. The music is not something I could listen to all day. However, if I found myself down and out in the coming depression, I'd not say no to a kindly face offering me some soup and sustenance and they could preach all they liked.

[ferry disaster] greed and ignorance

.

First, the news:

A wooden ferry carrying about 100 passengers has sunk in the Philippines, with at least 22 people drowned and about another 30 missing.

The ferry Maejan was approaching Aparri in Cagayan province in the north of the country when its bamboo outrigger broke in heavy seas off Ballesteros.

Passengers panicked and some leapt into the sea, creating instability on the vessel, which then capsized.

As you'll see in the top photo, the outrigger consists of two parts. The spindly arms extending outwards are called the akas and the long log in the water is the ama.

Now look at the photo above of a Hawaiian outrigger under sail. You can see that the ama has very little inherent buoyancy and far less weight, so it's only a balancing act of the crew which keeps the whole platform upright.

It acts in much the same way as poles do in skiing – they’re not designed for pushing hard against the snow – they’re only there for delicate balance.

There is designed to be one ama only, which skims a metre above the water on the "upwind" side [ignore the tiny float on the other side for now] and this long plastic float is kept there, skimming, only by the crew's skill and constant movement.

Furthermore, this ama is designed to be used in conjunction with sail, which gives it nice counterbalance and therein lies the stability. It's not designed for use on a power boat which has no sideways, sail assisted stability.




The south-east Asian variety of the ama really does use an actual log, joined by spindly akas, which don't need to be strongly made because as mentioned already, they are not designed to absorb pressure - they're designed only for delicate balance.

If any downwards pressure were to be put on these amas, then they would instantly go under the water and the boat would roll.

Now, the moment you design amas either side of the central hull [the boaty part of the boat], you have created a trimaran, not an outrigger any more. You are asking the amas for something completely different – you are asking them to absorb sideways and downwards pressure.

Therefore spindly akas and non-buoyant amas are no longer of any use [check the ferry in the top photo again] and must be discarded in favour of far more buoyant and sturdy amas, as in photos 3 and 4.

Also, in 4 below here, you can see that the central hull has no inherent stability whatsoever. It is of concave design near the waterline, [by comparison with a normal convex shaped hull] and the trimaran hull is, by definition, top heavy above.




The reason it is designed this way is that if you have a narrower beam [width] at the water line, this in turn means a more efficient, longer shape and less wetted area, which in turn means either more speed or in the case of a commercial craft, more fuel savings.

Clearly, a ferry company is interested in that.

Where the ferry company makes its mistake is in choosing the western trimaran central hull, a wedge shape balancing on its sharp end, combined with a south-east Asian, spindly, log design ama either side, designed to be used with a normal hull shape and not to be used as waterline balancing floats.

In other words, they want a trimaran for fuel efficiency reasons, plus speed, but are not prepared to use the key design component of that – the buoyant amas, which are expensive to build and add weight.

Any expert could tell them that as long as the weather is fine, they may survive but in bad weather, with passengers on board, they're all dead.




Now look at the commercial ferry above. Even with a normal, rounded shape, stabilizers below and a wide beam [width], this boat is rolling in the heavy seas.

So can you imagine what the ferry in the top photo would be doing in such seas? The moment high seas alter its balance, over goes the ferry and in the Philippines region - they do go over and people do die quite regularly.

[state quiz] which of the fifty is it

The way it works is this: 5 points if you can name the state on the first clue. If you need to highlight the second clue but you can then name the state: 4 points and so on.

NOTE ON MONDAY: Some people didn't realize they needed to highlight the blank looking lines with the mouse to reveal the clue.

So, here we go:

1. There is no sales tax and household goods are exempt from property taxes.

2. On January 20, 1954, -70 °F was recorded at a gold mining camp.

3. Its rivers form parts of three major watersheds.

4. The native Americans' last effort to keep their land was here.

5. It’s the fourth largest state in the United States.

Clue [for no points]: Hannah is not the state’s favourite daughter.

[shipping zones] do you know your british coast

In the map below, the zones immediately surrounding the main island have been blanked out, except for their initials. Can you identify the zones?

Answers here.

[weather] giving nature some assistance

One of the chief difficulties in researching sensitive issues is establishing the bona fides of the sources. For the post below, one source was Dr Rosalie Bertell PhD GNSH who wrote of nuclear fission and electro-magnetic pulses.

That was fine except that clearly, powerful interests were going to wish to debunk her and so we got: “Doctor” Rosalie Bartel is a nun of a fringe splinter group from the catholic church with some very strange views." I looked further and found her degree was from a Catholic college and was for biometry.

Does that disqualify her? Well, to answer that, does it disqualify me that my degree was in linguistics, sub-majoring in "issues in the biological sciences"? Does that negate everything I've written in this blog so far? What of you? Are you qualified to write on politics? Do you hold a degree in political science?

All this began with the news:

As many as 1m people have been left without power in the north-eastern US after one of the worst ice storms in a decade crippled the electricity grid.

"What is facing us is the apparent need to rebuild the entire infrastructure of some sections of the electrical delivery system," Martin Murray, a PSNH spokesman, told the Associated Press.

This led to the train of thought that hey, there's been a lot of freak weather occurring in the last decade and it seems to be getting worse:

In Europe, much of center of the continent enjoys balmy, temperate days. The temperature in Prague set a 230-year record of 13.8 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, the north has just been ravaged by floods and gales. A weekend storm which raged eastwards from the Atlantic led to the worst flooding in decades in parts of northern Britain.

That sort of thing, along with that tsunami, can lead one to conclude that things are changing, which shouldn't be too hard to prove or disprove, using meteorological records. Also, we should be a bit circumspect at laying the blame at the door of Climate Change, especially as this is a political tool of the elite at this time.

There are certainly unusual things happening. In a recent post, I mentioned my friend in Russia who reports plus ten degrees in Moscow and rain in his home town, when the whole place should be covered in snow - and this is just a worsening of the past few years.

In Britain, one writer commented:

Increasing storminess across the UK will probably mean more frequent storms on the scale of the great storms of October 1987 and January 1990, and indeed March 2008, while the sweltering 2003 summer, which took more than 35,000 lives in the UK and Europe, will be the norm by 2040, and regarded as "cool" a few decades later.

It's not so much the warming/cooling [depending on which camp you are in] but the seeming increase in freak weather which is quite interesting. The BBC published this about 2007 and it appears to have continued into 2008.

Add to this phenomena like the "upside down rainbow" in September, causing reactions like:

[A] picture was reportedly captured on camera by astronomer Dr Jacqueline Mitton near her home in Cambridge last Sunday.

"I've never seen anything like it before - and I'm 60. The conditions have to be just right: you need the right sort of ice crystals and the sky has to be clear. We're not sure how big an area it was visible over, but it was certainly very impressive."

A spokesman for the Met Office confirmed the inverted rainbows are occasionally spotted in British skies.

There are commercial implications as well:

Canadian insurers are warning that climate change is forcing them to re-examine their coverage policies as costs spiral upward from floods, wind storms and other natural phenomena.

This got me to thinking how damned convenient it all was for bodies like FEMA. What's the point of having an emergency body if you have no emergencies? This, in turn, recalled to the memory human intervention in the weather and the cloud seeding prior to the last Olympics are as good a place as any to start down this path:

The idea is for the peasant gunners to work with meteorologists watching radar in the capital. Together, they will hunt pregnant rain clouds and pound them with rockets containing silver iodide. The hope is that any moisture will fall before the clouds can threaten the parade of athletes and lighting of the Olympic flame at the new National Stadium.

So, if this works for one city, multiply that by the exponential factor required to cover the whole of China, add the coal burning tradition across that country and you have a large question mark about what humans are doing.

Eventually we get to the HAARP and Woodpecker projects, not to be confused with the current HAARP project, addressed further here:

Press releases and other information from the military on HAARP continually downplay what it could do. Publicity documents insist that the HAARP project is no different than other ionospheric heaters operating safely throughout the world in places such as Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Tromso, Norway, and the former Soviet Union. However, a 1990 government document indicates that the radio-frequency (RF) power zap will drive the ionosphere to unnatural activities.

" ... at the highest HF powers available in the West, the instabilities commonly studied are approaching their maximum RF energy dissipative capability, beyond which the plasma processes will 'runaway' until the next limiting factor is reached."

One patent taken out by physicist Bernard Eastlund stated:

"Thus, this invention provides the ability to put unprecedented amounts of power in the Earth's atmosphere at strategic locations and to maintain the power injection level particularly if random pulsing is employed, in a manner far more precise and better controlled than heretofore accomplished by the prior art, particularly by detonation of nuclear devices of various yields at various altitudes... "

... and:

"... large regions of the atmosphere could be lifted to an unexpectedly high altitude so that missiles encounter unexpected and unplanned drag forces with resultant destruction."

"Weather modification is possible by, for example, altering upper atmosphere wind patterns by constructing one or more plumes of atmospheric particles which will act as a lens or focusing device ... molecular modifications of the atmosphere can take place so that positive environmental effects can be achieved. Besides actually changing the molecular composition of an atmospheric region, a particular molecule or molecules can be chosen for increased presence. For example, ozone, nitrogen, etc., concentrations in the atmosphere could be artificially increased."

... and:

For example, Air Force documents revealed that a system had been developed for manipulating and disturbing human mental processes through pulsed radio-frequency radiation (the stuff of HAARP) over large geographical areas. The most telling material about this technology came from writings of Zbigniew Brzezinski (former National Security Advisory to U.S. President Carter) and J.F. MacDonald (science advisor to U.S. President Johnson and a professor of Geophysics at UCLA), as they wrote about use of power-beaming transmitters for geophysical and environmental warfare.

Carter's Brzezinski wrote of the mindset in the upper echelons which can access this technology:

"Unhindered by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping society under close surveillance and control. Technical and scientific momentum would then feed on the situation it exploits."

In effect, it's like the military-industrial complex saying to you, in your home:

"Trust us. We'd never use this technology for military or commercial advantage over our rivals. We're completely transparent and above board. Besides, we have a history of altruism and efficiency, after all."

Researchers have warned of this for some time:

Among other researchers quoted is Paul Schaefer of Kansas City. His degree is in electrical engineering and he spent four years building nuclear weapons. "But most of the theories that we have been taught by scientists to believe in seem to be falling apart," he says. He talks about imbalances already caused by the industrial and atomic age, especially by radiation of large numbers of tiny, high-velocity particles "like very small spinning tops" into our environment.

He adds:

"One might compare the abnormal energetic state of the Earth and its atmosphere to a car battery which has become overcharged with the normal flow of energy jammed up, resulting in hot spots, electrical arcing, physical cracks and general turbulence as the pent-up energy tries to find some place to go."

Naturally, spin-offs from this include weather control and more pinpointed modification in a given region. None of this stuff is an accident - it's been going on for quite some time. Here I invoke Bertell [mentioned at the start], not for her opinion but for her listing of projects leading up to the current Alaskan scheme:

Project Argus (1958)

Project Starfish (1962)

SPS: Solar Power Satellite Project (1968)

Saturn V Rocket (1975)

SPS Military Implications (1978)

Orbit Maneuvering System (1981)

Innovative Shuttle Experiments (1985)

Mighty Oaks (1986)

Desert Storm (1991)

High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program HAARP (1993)

Poker Flat Rocket Launch (1968 to Present)

Conclusions

Further References

Though there are undoubtedly fiendish hawks in uniform who see the opportunity of exploiting the new destructive technologies, it is not so much that which will cause the catastrophe but the analogy I read of, of an experimenter sticking a firecracker up a grizzly bear's bottom to measure its effects. The effects could be other than allowed for in original calculations.

It's the arrogance of people labelling themselves the elite playing about with "dial in" technology they have not fully explored, for short term gain and damn the consequences. It's the essential short-sightedness of these grand planners and their incompetence [see Brown's lackeys for evidence of that].

It's the unmitigated gall of playing around with our future and that of our children's children, all in the name of some slick new fashionable scheme which will, as it always has in the past, go sadly awry, simply because what was possible is now in the hands of the criminally incompetent.

[greece] gateway to powerful forces

The sacred and beloved apocalyptic future. Let the game begin.

There’ve been enough analyses of the ongoing Greek riots but many of the explanations either fail to mention or else deliberately ignore key factors and so all we have is a series of “60% correct” summations from different agendas.

On this second page here are the summaries of and links to the material I base this post on. You can always read through this material if you need confirmation of what is said here.

The thing which struck many from the outset was:

1. the rapid response of the rioters to the shooting;
2. the way it spread up and down Greece so quickly and in such a co-ordinated way.

In short, it was both organized and funded. The question was – by whom? Time to look at a bit of history and the players in the arena:

This is the old Byzantine Empire, the portal to Europe and the gateway to Asia Minor and striding about in it are:

New Democracy, the ruling party. They are trying to maintain relations with the EU, the Americans, Turkey and global business, each with its own agenda. On top of this, it has issues with FYROM to the north-west and the increasingly co-ordinated unrest in the major centres.

By the very fact of what they’re trying to achieve, they are part of the global capital/national socialism emanating from the inner circle of the EU, the round table groups, the Bilderbergers et al. Look at Mandelson and Sutherland and you’re looking at the face of this clandestine force, for whom national breakdown is a precursor to greater things.

PASOK The rump of the old socialists and the highest placed orthodox opposition.

The traditional Greek communists. Still a force to be reckoned with, hankering after the Glorious Revolution but also involved in collusion.

The new underclass of foreigners, mainly Muslim, expelled at intervals by the Turks and others and assisted by a network of professional agitators.

Turkey, who, behind their agreements with Greece, e.g. supporting their accession to the EU, continue to pour unrest into Greece plus the Arab nations associated with them, plus Iran, plus the Albanians and the Balkan Muslims.

The people behind the EU [not necessarily the EU itself]. Enough has been written in Britain about their agenda and that’s whom the Greek government have invited in to their country. These are the people behind the current depression, insurgencies everywhere, especially in Africa and the middle and near east.

The U.S. Tied in with the global elite at leadership level, there are nonetheless national agendas. The U.S. is tied, in Greek minds, with the discredited regime of the Colonels.

Summary

They’re all at it hammer and tongs in the area and what is being seen in Greece now but also all over Europe is a power game where the global elite find it to their advantage to allow the Muslim jihadi forces in to wreak havoc, creating extreme reactions from the so-called Christian populations and getting a nice scapegoat [albeit, in this case, a guilty one] to launch a new crusade against.

This convinces the banyuls that the state and population are both against them [which they are] and so they welcome the cynically organized and funded, internet aided and co-ordinated professional protesters up and down Europe, which half-unwittingly gives the necessary mandate for state strong-arm tactics and “temporary” suspension of freedoms.

The Greeks like to think that their troubles are unique. They’re not.

They’re part of a global game which utilizes memories of the old games of islamization of Europe, the Marxist rising of workers of the world and all the other useful agendas which can be pressed into service for the ultimate goals of the holders of the money.

This game is about global money, unrest and the reduction of populations to serfdom. Feel free to look at some of the raw material on the issue here.

UPDATE on the university situation, courtesy Cassandra:

What no one mentions is that the Karamanlis Government wants to put an end to the anomaly of university campuses being legalized free houses from criminal prosecution - a leftover from a spade of hyper corrections that took place under previous Socialist Governments in a reaction to the military regime's political persecution of Leftist students.

[ufo] becoming more mainstream

The 1991 near miss of the Alitalia plane and a UFO represents a slight hardening of the line on these things:

Secret documents released for the first time reveal that British Ministry of Defence staff accept that an Unidentified Flying Object zooming above Lydd caused the near miss. The incident took place at 7.58pm on April 21, 1991, and was investigated by the British Civil Aviation Authority and military experts.

Then there was the Turkish photo which I've been searching for debunkings on. If we can assume we've moved on from the "absolute rot - there are no such things" head in the sand position, it seems to me that the explanations fall into three main categories, ranging from an attempt to be reasonable through to on-the-edge:

1. They do exist, they are unidentified but they are foreign powers' clandestine technology. Hey, there's a lot of harware shooting about up there these days;

2. There are other worlds, it seems, so why shouldn't these people come over for a gander, just as we've done in reverse;

3. There is an entire other mystical thing going on, involving other dimensions, Ancient Egypt, Stonehenge, Ascended Masters and so on.

This blog dismisses none of them, simply because I don't know. As one who claims to "know" G-d exists from a given confirmation in the past, I'm hardly likely to dismiss such things as ufos out of hand although I feel the vast majority of "sightings" are explainable.