Artist: Exile Di Brave Tracks: 24 (Double Box) Genre: Dancehall – Reggae .. Album: Tymez Up (Rymez Nuff) Label: TechnoAgent Labelcode: LC-23280 Rel. Date: 30th Dec 2009 Cat: TA 002A ID: 1506326 MVP: Del Productions Store(s): Juno
Tracklist CD 1
01 – Intro
02 – Unleash
03 – Run up and down
04 – Climax Raw
05 – Contract (ft. Kim Kartina)
06 – A Milli Milli
07 – 1 Life 2 Live
08 – The Dagger Her
09 – Clap Clap
10 – Braveheart (Remix)
11 – Dawg Bite
CD2
12 – Braveheart (My Time)
13 – No One Knowz
14 – Promise No More
15 – Coming Home Soon
16 – Security
17 – Final War
18 – Cash Flow
19 – P@#$y Good
20 – Ruff Sex
21 – Mr. Workout
22 – Renaissance Time
23 – Concrete Jungle
24 – Jump Up
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Feat. Tracks
05 – Contract
Exile Di Brave feat. Kim Kartina ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
EXILE DI BRAVE, Tymez Up (Rymez Nuff) () is approved and live on Juno Download with a release date of 30/12/2009.
Almost everything about it was fine and attractive to us; it was clean, organised, mannerly and progressive, even the weather was pleasant – clear and crisp. Mars Hill Church was very interesting too, we loved it. Although, the pastor’s message was much too long and slightly superflous, but other than that, well worth a visit.
Its off to snowy Michigan now to stay for New Year. Pop is doing a great job of driving here through the white roads while I type this message. Besides the precious minutes of family lounging and small talk, we are taking prolonged breaks to finish the last of our college essays due when we return.
Next week we finish our trip with our friends in Washington DC – National Community Church. Heather Zemple and her husband Ryan are our hosts and we hope to meet the rest the team who visited Derry last year. Other than that, we have no idea what they have planed for us. It really doesn’t matter though cos’ we really love these people and their Christ centred-community.
All for now, hope Christmas and New Years is proving to be a treat. Don’t forget to let us know if you want any US specialties back.
Global development and improvement in lifestyle has made a major difference in how people think. Religious, cultural and sectarian motives rarely become the driving force for modern insurgencies and the most important and sole WEAPON/ MOTIVE/ DRIVING FORCE is none other than MONEY.
The breed of terrorists which the world is confronted with and spending huge amounts on fighting out, is mostly composed of mercenaries. One might argue that what about the mercy less suicide bombers – my answer would be that it might not be him, but, his handler who indoctrinated him for choosing and believing in such a senseless option is definitely motivated by monetary motives.
WHERE LIES THE PROBLEM — THE WORLD IS INVESTING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION E.G. PUBLICIZING A TERRORIST ACT SERVES THE VERY AIM OF THE PERPETRATORS OR USING BRUTAL FORCE AGAINST INVESTED SOCIETIES WOULD HELP TERRORISTS CULTIVATE MORE AND MORE RECRUITS, IF THE PROCESS LACKS A POVERTY ALLEVIATION COMPONENT.
Now lets support the argument :-
NWFP/ FATA. The backward province of Pakistan is home to ferocious Pashtun fighters known to be supporting and getting recruited in different versions of Taliban movement. The Taliban pay them salaries ranging from Pak Rupees 2000 to 25 thousand apart from compensation for grieved families of martyrs. This salary is much more than what a common tribal earns in these areas. Solution : Development i.e. Factories, Agricultural tools and micro financing for cottage industry.
Balochistan. Balochistan is also home to several insurgencies and is believed to be the next center stage for terrorism in the region. Balochistan is 43% of Pakistan’s landmass and has a population of less than 10 Million, home to world’s largest natural gas, oil and copper/ gold reserves. The stake holders are investing in landlords and the landlords inturn hire mercenaries ( average pay ranging from Pak Rs 2000 to 25000). Balochistan lacks both agriculture and industry, what do you think the people are supposed to earn their living from. Solution: Industry, mega agricultural projects and micro financing for cottage industry/ small business.
Afghanistan. The Afghan based Taliban groups also thrive on similar rules i.e. manipulating the economic weaknesses of masses. Same rules apply as Afghan agriculture and Industry have been destroyed with decades of war. Give people something to live on.
We need to think that if the International community and the local governments find it financially impossible to generate jobs and feed the people who are being hired by the militants, THEN HOW COME THE MILITANTS AFFORD IT AND WHO IS FUNDING THEM.
We also need to think that basic human needs remain the strongest and most lucrative motive, make people dependant on facilities and they will find it difficult to form part of any revolution/ radicalism. A newly born child in every corner of the world is equally innocent and harmless, we must thus invest in protecting him from being manipulated by the terrorists we all hate and fear.
The average yearly expenditure on War on terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan is close to 100 Billion US $. These are poor countries and if the world decides that lets spend 70% of the said budget for social uplift and development in the same region, it would tame them and convert them into useful members of the global community.
Few Thrust Lines for consideration could be:-
Present focus on weapons trade/ security industry can be shifted to other less harmful sectors which would convert said region in to a more lucrative and sustainable market.
As an immediate measure about $ 180 Billion may be invested over next 3 years in developing/ erecting industry and agriculture.
Sustainable development in Education and energy sectors.
El abogado del astro del cine señaló que la denuncia es basura. (People.com)
¿Tom Cruise involucrado en ‘chuponeo’? El actor estadounidense, que aún no se pronuncia sobre esta acusación, es acusado de espionaje por intervenir las llamadas de Michael Davis Sapir, el editor de una revista estadounidense.
El protagonista de Misión Imposible contrató al detective privado Anthony Pellicano para ‘chuponear’ la línea telefónica del periodista, que hoy exige el pago de US$5 millones como reparación por el daño causado, informó el portal Examiner.
Pero las diferencias entre Cruise y Sapir no son nuevas. En 2001, el actordemandó al periodista por US$100 millones luego que este dijera tener un video que demostraba la homosexualidad de la estrella de Hollywood. El caso no llegó a mayores tras el acuerdo de ambas partes.
Sin embargo, ahora Sapir sostiene que el investigador privado hizo grabaciones ilegales a su número de teléfono durante el tiempo en que duraron los juicios de 2001. “Estas acusaciones son basura, nosotros nunca contratamos a Pellicano para que trabajara en el caso Sapir”, dijo Bert Fields, abogado del actor.
After years of heating up, most expectations related to Copenhagen have not been met at all. The climax of the Copenhagen Climate Conference has been the political row between the USA and China, leaving most solutions in shatters. After that the two giants have not been able to come to a compromise, even that analysts are still keeping optimism alive, economic analysts are now taking their prominent place in the discussion again. At last, I would like to say, without real economics and technical solutions, all future scenarios are not relevant. One main issue that has been hit by the unwill and financial problems in the world is the issue of Carbon Capture and Storage. In stark contrast to former statements made in the press, the CCS option as one of the main solutions to global warming and CO2 removal is taken of the list of prominent issues by most climate change supporters. What nobody had expected, CCS is currently not even anymore listed on the UN lists of technologies that rich (developed) countries are embracing to tackle the percieved global warming. In Copenhagen, several high profile countries, including the EU, have taken a low profile stand regarding CCS as CO2 emission mitigator. Delegates have been discussing the CCS option in full, as this is one of the options available for CO2 removal at industrial plants. After lengthy discussions, no real solution has come forward for CCS. Analysts even expect that it is not really clear if CCS will be on the priority list of the UN next year.
For some mainstream players, such as British-Dutch Shell, which is one of the forerunners of CCS in their own project in the Netherlands, Barendrecht, this should have come as a surprise. Shell and others have been lobbying for a positive outcome on CCS in Copenhagen. Some countries even have been asking to give CCS the same role as the UN Clean Development Mechanism, which has the full support of the UN at present. The latter means that by buying CDM rights, developed countries can partly compensate their own CO2 emissions. The same could be targeted for CCS, as this is one main technology to mitigate and remove CO2 emissions without delay. However, a UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) report has stated that CCS will not have the same role. Some countries, as reported in the press, have still very large concerns regarding technology and risks involved in CCS. At present, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Norway are fully targeting CCS, but this now could be under extreme pressure if this Copenhagen news emerges in the press. CCS critics have always been venting their concerns regarding technology and experience with the CCS projects. For some, CCS technology has not been proven enough. The latter is according to myself a lot of cr…., as the technology is there, to be put in place in full, without real issues or risks. If not under populated areas, first major projects could be implemented in offshore gas fields, which have been storing the same kind of gasses for millions of years. If necessary, there are several other options available, but investors, politicians and NGOs need to be willing to take this step.
Some analysts have already indicated that the main anti-CCS movement policies are based on the fact that some parties believe that CCS will constrain the current international move towards electricial transportation or alternative energy sources. The latter is not based on facts but on the analysis that CCS could give ‘old sources of energy’, such as oil, gas and coal, could be reaping the rewards of a CCS strategy. For real analysis, have a look at the economics. Without most subsidies or government plans to force alternative energy sources through the throat of consumers and industries, no real changes would have been made until now. Without the fact that expensive energy production is being subsidized or mandatory, consumers would have been not interested in putting up solar panels in Holland, or windfarms. No real free market approach will ever make alternative energy sources attractive as long as there is an abundance of other energy supply available.
Secondly, consumers are kept in the dark by most alternative energy promotors. No party has come clear about the financial impact of CO2 emission reductions, CCS or other so-called Climate Change policies. As some mainstream consultancies have indicated, at a price of EUR34 per ton CO2 (ETS), a 300MW power plant will have to put in place an own investment (after using the EUR34) of between US$500 million to US$1.1 billion during the life time of the plant to have all its CO2 be put in a CCS project. The latter means that consumers will be paying the price, electricity will become very expensive. This only will be even more expensive if other issues, such as decentral generation, smart grids and other energy policies, will be put in place. Additionally, it should be understood that CO2 removal at any plant or industry will also result in a lower efficiency of the latter’s production. Just for the idea, CO2 postcombustion at a power plant reduces efficiency between 6-11%. This means, as we all want the light to be on, more electricity generation is needed for the same end result, aka more oil, gas, coal or nuclear is being used. This also will increase the total bill of a consumer even further.
It is now the time to react to the ZERO POINT of the Copenhagen road show. The world has stated that it does not like the current approach. Lets make clear to all parties that there is a need for change, but this will have a price. Take first the real possibilities to change some of the CO2 emission volumes in the developed world. There is no time for a slow down but only for a pro-active approach. This should be made clear to all parties, including the consumers/clients, as they will be paying the price. Dont always use the Ice Bear approach to change the views of people, but make it financially clear what all will cost. This not only will be necessary for the USA, EU or Japan, but also for the upcoming or emerging markets. It is a fallacy to state that we produce more CO2 per person, for the world it counts how much CO2 in total is being produced. To remove the risk, take a birds view, but also include all possible solutions available at present. CCS is one big option, NIMBY is not a valid statement. If we all want it, this also will mean below your own territory!
Summary: When a low-budget porno director decides to shoot his next film in a shady ghost town somewhere in Mexico, things take a turn for the worst. It seems this ghost town was once the home of the masked wrestler-turned murderer, El Maskerado. No one will escape!
Impressions: The biggest problem of this film is that the director forgot to make us like the protagonists. At no point in this movie are we ever told anything about them other than they’ve driven all the way to Mexico to shoot five minutes of pornography. The rest of the time, they’re insulting each other and generally making very bad choices with their lives.
There’s actually a fairly interesting but ludicrous backstory behind El Maskerado, the killer of this flick, but only one of the characters really cares about it, and the rest are too busy doing drugs or having sex with each other to notice anything. What’s really sad is that throughout the film the wrestling affecianado character is constantly touting the “one weakness” of El Maskerado, something that is dangled in front of us but never serves a purpose. Why even put it in the film if you weren’t going to use it?
Unfortunately, by the time you reach the climax of the film, the only character worth caring about is already dead and with them goes any interest viewers will probably have in the story, since at this point all that’s left is to kill the remaining fodder. Realizing this, the director threw as much T&A as he could into the final scenes, hoping you wouldn’t notice how boring the story has become.
The most confusing part of the film is the final scene. It’s obvious that El Maskerado has been murdering people for some time. So, where are the bodies? Where are their possessions and vehicles? Why does El Maskerado choose this time to leave El Sangre de Dios? My only rationale is that he was planning to dispose of the bodies in a place where he didn’t live.
This movie gets one star for one humorous moment and a couple clever shots near the end but it’s mostly out of pity for the wrestling fan who gets it in the end.
1 out of 5
Note: To all you wrestling fans out there, El Maskerado was played by Rey Misterio, Sr., the uncle of WWE wrestler Rey Mysterio, Jr.
by Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com, December 22, 2009
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The Lithuanian Parliament released its findings into a probe of CIA activities in the nation today, confirming that the American spy agency in fact operated two “black sites” inside the Lithuanian capital city of Vilnius.
Povilas Malakauskas
The probe further showed that at least five CIA planes landed in the city and that Lithuania’s own domestic spy agencies prevented border guards from inspecting them. Lithuania’s civilian government denies ever having been informed of any such actions beforehand, and Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius called it a “matter of great concern.”
Rather the requests are said to have gone directly to Lithuania’s State Security Department, which approved the CIA’s requests establishing both a single-cell “interrogation” facility and later a larger site. A former stable on the outskirts of the city served as the CIA’s interrogation center.
The US has declined all comments into this probe so far, but the Lithuanian government seems determined not to allow the activity to damage relations at any rate. The State Security Department’s chief, Povilas Malakauskas, resigned last week in anticipation of the results of the probe.
Obama Ordered U.S. Military Strike on Suspected “Terrorists”
By BRIAN ROSS, RICHARD ESPOSITO, MATTHEW COLE, LUIS MARTINEZ and KIRIT RADIA
December 18, 2009 “ABC News“
On orders from President Barack Obama, the U.S. military launched cruise missiles early Thursday against two suspected al-Qaeda sites in Yemen, administration officials told ABC News in a report broadcast on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.
One of the targeted sites was a suspected al Qaeda training camp north of the capitol, Sanaa, and the second target was a location where officials said “an imminent attack against a U.S. asset was being planned.”
The Yemen attacks by the U.S. military represent a major escalation of the Obama administration’s campaign against al Qaeda.
In his speech about added troops for Afghanistan earlier this month, President Obama made a brief reference to Yemen, saying, “Where al Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold — whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere — they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships.”
Until tonight, American officials had hedged about any U.S. role in the strikes against Yemen and news reports from Yemen attributed the attacks to the Yemen Air Force.
President Obama placed a call after the strikes to “congratulate” the President of Yemen, Ali Abdallah Salih, on his efforts against al Qaeda, according to White House officials.
A Yemeni official at the country’s embassy in Washington insisted to ABC News Friday that the Thursday attacks were “planned and executed” by the Yemen government and police.
Along with the two U.S. cruise missile attacks, Yemen security forces carried out raids in three separate locations. As many as 120 people were killed in the three raids, according to reports from Yemen, and opposition leaders said many of the dead were innocent civilians.
American officials said the missile strikes were intended to disrupt a growing threat from the al Qaeda branch in Yemen, which claims to coordinate terror attacks against neighboring Saudi Arabia.
The al Qaeda presence in Yemen has been steadily growing in the last two years. “Al Qaeda generally has been pushed into these ungoverned areas, whether it is the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area [or Yemen],” said Richard Barrett, coordinator of the U.N.’s Taliban al-Qaeda Sancitions Monitoring Committee. “I think many of the key people have moved to Yemen.”
The U.S. embassy was attacked by suspected al Qaeda gunmen last year.
And the presumed leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Qaaim al-Raymi, has frequently appeared on internet videos, offering an alternative to the training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“If they can go to Yemen just as easily or easier and get training there and come out again,” said Barrett, “all your efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan are a waste of time.”
Qaaim al-Raymi was considered a prime target of the attack Thursday but was reported to have escaped the attack. However, U.S. officials believe one of his top deputies may have been killed.
I am told that the pool in this picture is the highest in the western hemisphere not sure if that is true or not but it is incredibly high.
Hancock Centers Pool and Lake Shore Drive
I would imagine this claim to fame is based on height from ground not height above sea level. In which case I am pretty sure there are none higher. We are fortunate enough to have a pool in our building which is on the 24th floor and with some stunning views. I reckon the pool in the Hancock must be on the 50th or higher.
Still this picture blown up is fascinating, you can’t enlarge it on this blog but I may use it as a subject for a piece as it is a fabulous enlarged picture. You can even make out the people laying by the pool although of course you can’t make out faces. That would be a step too far with invasion of privacy.
We wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR. The best wishes for a lovely 2010.
The Wu Tang Clan, the most critically and commercially successful Hip Hop group of all time emerged in the mid 90s with a distinct style of kung-fu-movie-inspired, spectacular rhymes and gritty street Hip Hop.
The group’s most consistent and one of the most acclaimed lyricists RAEKWON returns to Europe after both successful Hot Wheelz tours in May + September/October and presents his critically successful album “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx part II“.
The new album debuted at number 4 on the Billboard 200, at number 2 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop albums chart and number 1 on iTunes album sales charts (beating Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3!! which went to number 3!). … …
As the only Hip Hop artist on the list, Raekwon joins The-Dream and Lady Gaga, who also make the list.
Singles:
Videos:
July tour 2010: 16 – 31 23 + 24 TBC
Travel Crew:
7, fee, European transport, hotel, catering, ground transport + rider
hosted by HOT WHEELZ
All tour enquiries (fee, artist service,…) please contact:
Faruk Akilli: ffa@technoagent.de
Lothar Kumhala ( Vienna office): lothar@hot-wheelz.com
Adnan Akill (Berlin office): calimerorox007@web.de
All promotional and press inquiries please contact: office@hot-wheelz.com
The clue that links definitely March 11th terror attacks with Al-Qaeda appeared 4 yearsa go, although it is here and now, in this article, when it will be published for the first time. It happened in a remote place located on North-West Pakistan, near Afghanistan’s frontier. During the night of Nov 30th to Dec 1st, 2005, a missile fell in a building located in a little village near Miran Shah, North Waziristan’s capital. This is one of the seven agencies belonging to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) where the main AQ leaders and an important number of its members established between the last months of 2001 and the beginning of 2002, after losing Afghan sanctuary where they have been at their leisure till the US military intervention just weeks after Sept. 11th.
The missile I am referring to, was launched from one of those unmanned drones that US CIA uses since some time ago to kill AQ leaders whose presence is detected in the area. North Waziristan is, on the other hand, the place where 2004 and 2005, AQ had to place their operatives and the terrorist training camps, after fleeing from the invasion that the Pakistani Army made in South Waziristan between spring and autumn 2004. In their North Waziristan’s base, AQ has been profiting from the protection given by talibanised sectors of the native Pashtun tribes, in this case of Utmanzai Wazir and Dawr.
As a consequence of the mentioned attack, 5 individuals were killed. One of them was Hamza Rabia, then AQ external operations’ chief and the last responsible of the planning of terrorist attacks in North America and Europe. In the beginning of 2002, Osama Bin Laden had decided to divide in two AQ’s operative structure. The other chief, the one related to internal operations, was dedicated to Afghanistan and Pakistan in full. Its chief was Mustapha al Uzayti, widely known as Abu Faraj al Libi. The external operations’ leadership was given then to Sept 11th’s mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. But he was arrested in Rawalpindi on March 2003. From that moment on, Abu Faraj Al Libi also implicated himself on external operations, whose leadership was given to the Egiptian Hamza Rabia. They worked closely from that moment on.
But what has this to do with March 11th bombings? Well, one of those other 4 individuals who were killed with Hamza Rabia in the referred selective targeting of AQ operatives, was identified thanks to foreign intelligence services as Amer Azizi. His identification was confirmed by some facts dicovered later in Pakistan and the United Kingdom to which I will not refer on the present article. Amer Azizi, a Moroccan national, had been a very outstanding member of the AQ cell stablished in Spain in the mid 90s, whose leader was Imad Eddine Barakat Yarkas, aka Abu Dahdah, who recruited him and sent him to a training camp in Afghanistan. He was judged in absence on terrorism charges related to that cell, because he fled successfully from Spain after the police operation that closed it definitely on Nov. 2001. This happened when it was discovered that Abu Dahdah’s cell was directly linked to another European cell, this time based in Hamburg, directly linked with Sept. 11th bombings.
Amer Azizi was mentioned in, at least, 141 of the 241 books related to the policial and judicial investigation carried on by National Court after March 11th bombings. His name also appears in 8 of the 30 separate processes related to March 11th bombings, that completed its investigation. Considering them in full, these references underline, on the one hand, that there were very closed links between individuals who carried on leading roles in the preparation and later development of the local terrorist plot which prepared and placed the bombs that exploded in the 4 Atocha trains. And on the other hand, they reveal the relations Amer Azizi had with North-African organizations, which are now inside global terrorism nets, which he used to reach relevant positions in the closed circle of AQ’s leadership.
It was precisely Amer Azizi, when he returned from Afghanistan on the summer of 2001, who recruited Mustapha Maymouni, also a Moroccan national, who in 2002 created the red core which perpetrated March 11th bombings. Another Moroccan nationals, Driss Chebli, and Serhane ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, The Tunisian, already Mustapha’s brother-in-law, ended by being named leaders of that net when Maymouni was arrested temporarily on Morocco on Feb. 2003. When Driss Chebli was also arrested 4 months later, accused of being part of Abu Dahdah’s cell, The Tunisian became the local leader of the March 11th terrorists. Well, The Tunisian was also recruited by Amer Azizi. As the indictment 20/2004 uncovers, a protected witness maintained that they communicated back in 2002 and 2003 by e-mail. That same investigation shows the links of Amer Azizi with other well-known material authors of Madrid’s bombings, as Jamal Zougam or the fugitive Said Berraj.
Amer Azizi’s links with North-African entities belonging to AQ’s net were consolidated during his time in Afghanistan, because the training camp in which he spent time there, named Martyr Abu Yahyia, was one the Lybian Fighting Islamic Group’s (LFIG) main facilities. There, both members of LFIG and of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (MFCG) were indoctrinated and trained, after both organizations decided in the late 90s to coordinate their activities. It was there also that Amer Azizi met Abdulatif Mourafik, aka Malek the Andalousian, a member of LIFG. As a result of his stay there and of the contacts he maintained, Amer Azizi became integrated into the LFIG, but with strong ties with MIFG or even being an operative of both groups.
It is now then that the meeting held on Feb 2002 in Istambul by delegates from LFIG, MICG and from a Tunisian similar organization, some of whose leading operatives have had a relationship with Abu Dahdah’s cell, acquires an special meaning. They agreed then to perpetrate Jihadi acts in their countries of origin or in those they were living then. About that meeting and the strategic decision adopted in it, there is an intelligence note inside indictment 20/2004. The facts are the Casablanca attacks happened on May 2003, and those of Madrid on March 2004, and that both plots were deeply connected. Moreover, the already mentioned Malek the Andalousian was the one who entrusted Mustapha el Maynouni, the one who began March 11th bombings’ net, to build a cell to plot a terrorist attack in Morocco afterwards.
Even if what happened in Atocha trains continues to be presented as an example of what an independent cell, only integrated by auto-radicalised Muslim immigrants, can do, evidence suggests a different interpretation of its authors, leadership and strategy. In the March 11th bombings’ execution, there were some criminals who were just common offenders and it’s very reasonable to consider that some members from LIFG took part. But that’s not all. The close relationship between those who had important roles in March 11th plots and Amer Azizi, who in 2004 had an key post in the external operations’ AQ leadership, as I have mentioned in this article, obliges us not to look to a Madrid’s quarter, not even to the Maghreb, when we ask ourselves where the March 11th plot was approved, but to North Waziristan.
Thanks to Barcepundit for the tip.
So in the end it was not Iraqi war what was linked to March 11th bombings, but Afghan NATO operation which began only some weeks after Sept 11 attacks, while Iraqi military intervention began in 2003. Zapatero took back the troops shortly after he won the March 14th elections because he didn’t want Spain to be an AQ’s target. But if we read carefully this article, we see tht the same groups that plotted March 11th bombings, had reunited in the now Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and had kidnapped 3 Spanish and a French national, who were volunteers in Mali. At the same time, they have mentioned Islamist prisoners in Spain in the same press release where they announced the kidnappings. In fact, Spain has been a recruitment and funding area traditionally since the 90s, after France, and the wider movement this terrorist group belongs to, the Salafists, has an important net to provide both recruits and money in really big quantities, although officials can only guess it, because hawala is employed to send it (around 1 million euros on recent years, according to experts).
The interesting thing is that the kidnapping has taken place around the same time as Obama announced the US troops’s surge for Afghanistan. Just today Spanish Defense Minister Chacón has announced that Spain will send 511 more soldiers to Afghanistan. There are people who are beginning to write on Internet forums that Zapatero is just as depending on Obama as Aznar was from Bush (of course, the opposition this time is backing the Government, although I can’t say if it’s because they are convinced of doing what’s right or because of something else). Before March 1th there was Casablanca plot.
I only hope that the volunteers’ kidnapping is not another step towards a new terrorist plot on Spanish soil, under the pretext that we are in Afghanistan. Not because I am worried about Zapatero’s ass, but because of the devastation, pain and horror that this kind of attacks bring.
A new gay application for iPhone is revolutionizing the possibilities of meeting people within your community or when you travel. PinkMap is a system of encounters that works with an interactive map that shows you who’s logged in and where. In the U.S. it’s available also with information about bars, night clubs and saunas. If someone tries it out in Europe, please tell us about it. There’s also a chat application incorporated to it.
Developed by LocaMap
To use this gay-app, you should download it to your iPhone and register with a classic profile: Age, sex, similar to Facebook, where you can upload photos and events.
Great reception tonight in honour of our friend, Adam Brooks, who’s one half of the Industry of the Ordinary; who (as you’ll see from their website here) are dedicated to exploring and celebrating the customary, the everyday and the usual … and in the process “challenging pejorative notions of the ordinary”.
I love that notion. Just as I love the “I want to be ordinary” glasses (above), which were a take-away from the evening (we didn’t steal them … honest … although we did cause a slight fracas on exit when Tony pointed to a woman – who had eight of them in her handbag – and said “oh my God! … and I felt bad because we had two …!” I don’t think she knew where to look …)
Anyway: it’s all very thought-provoking. In a number of ways. As you’ll see if you look at the website, the Industry of the Ordinary’s work, far from being cozy, stretches the boundary of what’s ‘ordinary’. And while – for all sorts of reasons – I love the notion, for myself, of wanting just to be ordinary … yearn for it … there is a tension between that and wanting also to have done extraordinary things.
Added to that: if I’m ordinary, who (and what) else is …? How do I feel about everything else that could be included within that boundary?
Anyway: all of these are questions it’s probably unwise to try and answer at 9.30 on a Tuesday evening. I’ll close with a throw-back to our last (formal) meet-up with Industry of the Ordinary, when Tony contributed a picture (below) to their “39 Verbs” show (it’s number 55 under the ‘projects’ tab on their website). His verb was ‘Drink’ … now what do you do with that if you’re an architectural photographer …?
A much better version can, of course, be found on his website.
I just finished The Guest by Hwang Sok-Yong, a notable author in both North and South Korea.
It follows a younger brother as he traces his life back home to North Korea and away from the Korean peninsula, his life before the civil war, and the cultural identity issues he and his family had as Christians in a Buddhist society.
With any other book I most likely would be complaining about the jumping around from first person perspective to third person and the different narrators in the first person. But for this particular book, it works, to see the same situation from different eyes and memories.
I don’t doubt that during the 1940s there was a backlash against Christians, and not just the Catholics, but that’s completely opposite of today’s religious life in South Korea, where it seems like one out of every three people that you meet are evangelical Christians. And the comparisons of the outbreak of smallpox to the explosion of Christianity in Korea were eye-opening.
By the time I finished the book, I wanted to read the author’s autobiography, because I’m now extremely curious how much of The Guest is based off of his personal life and experiences. If you’re interested in life before, during and after the Korean Civil War, this is a must read.
Apparently yellow school buses are an American thing made famous by Hollywood TV and films. Gaby was so excited to see her very first live yellow school bus in San Francisco and took this photo. I didn’t really know how to begin to explain to her that it was a “short” bus and just what the “short” bus really signifies. Sometimes you realize just how cruel your own culture’s humor can be.
Nicely and succinctly put by Ralph Nader…and it is pretty much exactly the same process as in most allegedly democratic countries…
“You have a tug of war with one side pulling. The corporate interests pull on the Democratic Party the way they pull on the Republican Party. If you are a ‘least-worst’ voter you don’t want to disturb John Kerry on the war, so you call off the anti-war demonstrations in 2004. You don’t want to disturb Obama because McCain is worse. And every four years both parties get worse. There is no pull. That is the dilemma of The Nation and The Progressive and other similar publications. There is no breaking point. What is the breaking point? The criminal war of aggression in Iraq? The escalation of the war in Afghanistan? Forty-five thousand people dying a year because they can’t afford health insurance? The hollowing out of communities and sending the jobs to fascist and communist regimes overseas that know how to put the workers in their place? There is no breaking point. And when there is no breaking point you do not have a moral compass.”
oh hai!
Yeah, a little late to the party, but just in case anyone doesn’t already have this, ya know.
Just in case there’s someone who doesn’t know what this is, Nile is basically the best death metal band currently in existence, both in terms of musicianship and song writing, and they’re still putting out top notch albums, as Those Whom The Gods Detest proves.
I as scanning through few of my pictures to see if there was anything that would cheer me up this morning. Not that I am miserable I just meant to lift my spirits as I look out of the window over the dark lake and Navy Pier on this cold winter day.
Trees at the ready
I loved this picture I took up near Belmont harbour on one of our long walks on a sunday. It looks, to me, like 4 different trees that someone had planted side by side and at differenst stages of growth. The dandelions are just sprouting providing a bed of colour all the way along this part of the lake front. It was a delicious site.
Anyone can say “I told you so” and crow, right? But sometimes there’s no jubilation in having been right, just a wearying sadness.
Anyway, on with the show: “I told you so!” (Often enough, too …)
Top marks for perspicacity if you can guess the subject before I tell you—
” … Americans are turning against the war. Congress is fretting over its mounting costs: US $300 billion for 2009 in a $1.4 trillion deficit year. This war is being waged on money borrowed from China … some Democrats are rightly calling for a special war tax on all Americans rather than continuing to conceal the war’s huge expenses on the national credit card … It costs the US $1 million to keep each American soldier in Afghanistan. Renting Pakistan’s assistance will cost $3 billion per year (overt and black payments combined) … “
Well done. The question that now floats lightly on my New Zealand lips: “Why is China funding the US ‘war’ in Afghanistan?” but the answer is possibly just a little too obvious.
China is feeding a fool rope* .
How much rope is enough rope, and is it rope if the fool can’t see that it’s rope? And now for the bit that delights me even more—is China likewise a fool? What would you call a maladroit who tries to juggle a razor sharp scimitar in a darkened room?
Of course, when I say ‘China’ (or ‘America’ for that matter) I don’t refer to the country per se, I refer to the leadership of that country.
No part of the human race has a monopoly on idiots, they are found as much at the top as the bottom. Humanity is homogenous in idiots, we humans are sort of democratic like that. I get the image of a fool halfway along a branch a hundred feet up a tree, he has his enemy cornered way out on the branch and has started sawing through it … behind him, cutting through the bit between him and the trunk. It takes all sorts and I await the next installment.
However, would the Chinese people — you know, all the millions of little guys scratching a living from the soil — be happy to know they are funding the Americans their gas guzzlers, plasma TVs (made in China, is that ironic or what) and jolly little wars? I doubt it.
Thank heavens, then, for the Chinese leadership without which the Yanks would have to print their own war-chest funds.
What? They’re going to?
A new ‘Special War Tax’? you say? Naaaa … I can’t see that working. If the American people had to fund their own wars they’d very quickly stop bombing the snot out of everybody and sober up. Supplying a few sons and daughters is in the main a winnable lottery, but actually fronting up with cash, everybody having to do it, is an entirely different thing.
Would that we did the same in Godzone, and would that our own wars (we have wars? No, we take part in wars. Other people’s wars. American wars) were funded only by voluntary contribution.
KISMET
* Old saying: “Feed a fool enough rope and eventually he will hang himself.”
I’ve been looking forward to the return of the snow, although I am sure I won’t be saying that for long. Looks like Mother Nature has taken a major dump all over the city and it’s still snowing.
Of course living in an apartment it’s easy to like winter weather. I feel incredibly sorry for those people with drives and those that have to drive to work, it will be a complete nightmare and we will have this for month to come. However, as I do live in an apartment I can go yippeeeeeee.
On October 16, 1933, Franklin Roosevelt granted diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union. The Communist government was about to collapse for lack of financing. Granting them diplomatic recognition literally saved the Soviet government which had been ostracized by virtually every other government in the world.
Throughout the rest of the 1930s and the 1940s, two disparate groups infiltrated dozens of agents or members into the executive branch under Roosevelt. Those two groups were the Communist Party and the Council on Foreign Relations. While these two groups had radically different motivations, they both had the same ultimate goal, i.e., to weaken and eventually destroy American freedom and independence.
Very few people today remember that World War II started in 1939 because Germany AND RUSSIA invaded Poland at the same time.
The Soviet Union was exactly as responsible for STARTING that war as Germany was. This was known and condemned at the time. However, in 1941 when Hitler attacked Russia, suddenly our mass media made a 180 degree about face and Russia became our “noble ally” in fighting the war. Of course, it was up to the United States to supply Russia with the armament to fight the war.
The world went to war to “save” Poland and the other countries of Eastern Europe. Yet, at Yalta, before the war was over, the United States State Department AGREED that the Soviet Union would be allowed to add Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, half of Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Bulgaria to its territory in Europe. Before the addition of those countries and peoples, at the end of the war, Russia had a population of about 160 million people and controlled a land area smaller than the Russia of the Czars. Soviet industry had been almost totally destroyed by the Nazi war machine. Communism was a third rate power, militarily, industrially and economically. There was, literally, no reason for Eastern Europe to be handed over to the Communists other than the influence of the Communist agents in OUR State Department.
Operation Keelhaul
In Operation Keelhaul what we see follows “During World War II, some 2.5 million Soviet citizens found themselves in Germany and the occupied countries as prisoners of war, slave laborers, or refugees. From 1944 to 1947, these people were forcibly repatriated in a number of operations, the best known of which many committed suicide rather than return to Soviet slavery.
To the best of my recollection, I have NEVER seen ANY still or moving pictures of similar trainloads of men, women and children which OUR government was responsible for shipping off to a similar fate.
In 1945, General Dwight Eisenhower ordered that “Operation Keelhaul” be put into effect. This involved rounding up and shipping back to “their countries of origin” ALL the refugees from communism: men, women and children, soldier or civilian, male or female — even though many of them had been fighting on OUR side during the war.
Since all of Eastern Europe was then under Communist domination, sending these people back was, quite literally, a sentence of death, some by immediate execution and the rest by slow extermination from overwork and malnutrition in the Soviet slave labor camps in Siberia.
These people were rounded up at bayonet point, forced into freight cars and shipped off to a terrible fate. There was no accurate count kept but the MINIMUM figure was 2,000,000 people and a maximum of 5,000,000. The elimination of all these anti-Communist people made the Communist domination of Eastern Europe MUCH easier. And the American people were kept blissfully unaware of this action which Eisenhower enforced rigidly, even though it violated international law, the laws of his own country and laws of humanity.
Germans were prosecuted at Nuremberg for similar crimes but control of the news ensured that Eisenhower, and those under his command who took part in this outrage, were never even officially accused of wrong doing. Ike carried out Operation Keelhaul deporting innocent refugees from eastern Europe to Stalin’s clutches. The Communists often machine-gunned these people as they arrived in Soviet territory -sometimes while still on the trains. Most of these people were nothing more than White Christian refugees, who didn’t want to live in a communist tyranny.
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Climate change: Before Copenhagen; (Nov. 29, 2009)
Before 1992 six States accounted for over 80% of the total accumulated 6 gases related to environment global temperature increase such as CO2 and methane. These countries are USA (27%), Europe’s major States (23%), China (10%), Russia (9.25%), Germany (5.5%), and Japan (5%). In 2005, the same countries emit more than 70% of the gases. They are: China (19.5%), USA (18.5%), The EU (13.5%), Russia (5.25%), India (5%) and Japan 3.5%).
Only three countries have managed to reduce their CO2 equivalent emissions since the Kyoto agreement reference of 1992. They are: Russia by 40%, Germany and England by almost 20% each.
The major themes in the coming conference are eight:
First, the long term objective for 2050 is to staying below 2degrees increase in global temperature. This is not acceptable: it means that the world community has already condemned 30% of animal and vegetable species to go extinct, 30% of sea shore swamps will disappear, and a qualitative jump in desertification and rate of inundations; potable water will become scarce resource. For that purpose, the most industrialized States should reduce by 80% the equivalent CO2 emissions. The overall reduction is to be 50% with the contribution of the developing countries in going green. To that effect, the target is not to exceed 450 particles of CO2 concentration. This is not acceptable. Currently we have a concentration of 390 particles and the temperature just increased by 0.8 degrees in the last three decades and we are already witnessing the melting of the Arctic Pole.
The target should be to drop to 350 particles at most. The main reason is the emission of methane (a gas worse by 20 times the effect of CO2) that the hard frozen ground are emitting and which kept this nasty gas trapped underground before this melting phase.
Second, the medium term objective is a reduction of CO2 equivalent to 30% in reference to the year 1990. The actual engagement is 13%. The US administrations are not ready for even that modest reduction of 13%.
Third, an engagement to adopting industrial processes with low CO2 emissions.
Fourth, reducing deforestation by 50% and replanting new trees. Brazil has already started policies of saving the Amazon forest areas from further plantations.
Fifth, pumping $3 billions a year into the poorest States to encourage them switching to alternative cleaner energy resources.
Sixth, pumping additional $ 2 billions a year for innovative green technologies.
Seventh, allocating $ 10 billions, each year, till 2012 to finance green alternatives.
Eight, developing an alternative program that will substitute the “Carbon market” due to terminate in 2012.
According to the Bangkok Post the US President Obama and China Hu Jintao have agreed to lower expectation in Copenhagen. Most probably, the reference for lowering gas emission will be of 2005 instead of 1992, a move that will encourage accepting raising the CO2 concentration beyond the 400 particles. All indicates that the US is going to the Copenhagen conference empty handed in home legislations. Many leaders are encouraging President Obama to raise the standard unilaterally as a sign of personal commitment and set the psychology of the US people in motion. Everything might restart from scratch.
The Kyoto agreement had for purpose to encouraging the heaviest state polluters to invest in the poorer States with less polluting technologies to stabilize the overall concentration of gases. The idea was to deter the emerging economies from emulating the same industrial processes that the developed countries have previously used and thus, saving future deterioration of the environment. A tax of 2% on the heaviest industrial polluters was to generate $1.6 billion by 2012. Nothing was done so far and the US administrations refused to sign the Kyoto agreement on the basis that climatic changes are mostly a myth.
The hardest hit states are located in Africa (the western and eastern states), Afghanistan, Bangladesh (17% of its land will be submerged). The next worst hit states are Mexico, Pakistan, Iraq, India, the western states in Latin America, and many States in South East Asia. The actual facts and trends are changing priorities for the worst hit states; for example, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, North of China, and India are witnessing the lowest rain precipitations in decades for two consecutive years.
One of the few shining lights in the grim, hamster-wheel professional/ social-obligation darkness that is the October – December period is The Dredge, otherwise known as the Great Lakes Dredge and Philharmonic Society (don’t ask …). It’s a male voice choir, celebrating its 75th Anniversary this year, which is rooted in this part of Chicago. It forms up every October and rehearses a repertoire of Christmas carols, which we then perform in hospitals, retirement communities and other venues throughout December.
I love it. Unabashedly. I admit that, when invited to join, I at first approached it with some caution: (a) never having sung in a choir before; and (b) being a perfectionist, I wasn’t at all sure I’d be ‘good enough’. Now: who cares?!
Tonight was great: I hosted the last rehearsal of the year at home; and Tony took some photos and video. If I manage to work out how to post a snippet of video, I’ll do so … but in the meantime you’ll just need to make do with a (silent) still …
One of my favorite spots in San Francisco is Golden Gate Park, a mere eight minutes walk from where I used to live. Some guidebooks cite this rectangular piece of land as one of the top must-sees in the city, and rightfully so. Unfortunately, its location away from the main tourist areas makes it less frequented by tourists.
While most locals wouldn’t be caught dead near many of the city’s top attractions – for example, walking around Fisherman’s Wharf, visiting Lombard’s “Crooked Street” or riding one of those touristy cable cars are no-nos for San Franciscans; Golden Gate Park today is a living, functioning landmark which is visited by tourists and locals alike. As a 1000 acre park that is 3 miles long, Golden Gate is larger than New York’s Central Park and dare I say, more varied. Aside from the usual trees and park benches that are mainstays of city parks anywhere in the world, Golden Gate houses a music concourse, museums, windmill, botanical greenhouse, beach chalet plus a roaming ground for bison.
Walking from one end of the park to another is possible, although tiring. Allow at least 4 hours of walking in order to see all the main sights. From the western end, people usually start at the windmill. A curious sight in San Francisco, it was actually built in 1903 as a functional supplier of water.
windmill at the park
the bisons have been here since 1891
From the windmills moving eastward, the next stop is usually the bison paddock, which contain these grazing animals usually associated to the United States. A number of artificial lakes are also located in this section of the park, including Stow Lake and the man-made island in the middle.
the japanese tea garden
Towards the eastern side of the park is the public Japanese Tea Garden, reputedly the oldest Japanese garden in the United States. The five-acre enclosure is a chargeable area, at $5 a pop.
conservatory of flowers
flower beds
The main highlight of the park is probably the grand, white-colored conservatory. It is the oldest building within the compound. During summer, the main lawn facing the greenhouse is filled with elaborately-designed flowerbeds.
de young museum inside the park
I was fortunate to be in San Francisco when the De Young Museum was opened right after the new building was built. They offered free admission as well as souvenirs to the visitors during the first week. There is a viewing deck at the topmost floor that has good views of the park’s long expanse.
street performers during museum launch
SF Botanical Gardens
Other activities: biking, rollerblading, rent a boat, play frisbee, enjoy a free concert
How to get there: Take Bus 5 from downtown San Francisco and get off at Fulton Street. The bus goes through the whole length of the park.
is big here with many houses being decorated with huge spiders and webs, grave stones & skeletons. The best one that we didn’t take the picture of was a gravestone to ‘Lehman brothers’ and another one to ‘Bankers’.
The was a party on our street with residents cooking and drinking until darkness. Children kept coming with ‘trick or treat’ until 11 pm! Face drawing artists worked on everyone, including me.
Paul Rogers, OpenDemocracy, 26 November 2009
The war in Afghanistan may now be beyond the point where any military-centred United States strategy can work.
Barack Obama is after a lengthy period of consultation moving towards the announcement of a revised strategy towards the war in Afghanistan, now scheduled to take place in a live broadcast from the West Point military academy on 1 December 2009. It is highly likely that the United States president will order a substantially increased deployment of troop numbers to Afghanistan, probably over 30,000 if not as high as the upwards of 40,000 requested by the senior US general in the country, Stanley A McChrystal (see “Obama May Add 30,000 Troops in Afghanistan”, New York Times, 24 November 2009).
Gênero: Comédia Romântica Censura: 12 anos Duração: 100 min Direção: Anne Fletcher Com: Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson, Betty White, Denis O’Hare, Malin Akerman, Oscar Nuñez, Aasif Mandvi. Local de Filmagem: 225 Franklin Street, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Bearskin Neck, Rockport, Massachusetts, USA – (internet cafe); Beverly Municipal Airport – 46 L.P. Henderson Road, Beverly, Massachusetts, USA; Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA; Manchester, Massachusetts, USA; Myopia Hunt Club – 435 Bay Road, South Hamilton, Massachusetts, USA – (woods); Newport, Rhode Island, USA; Rockport, Massachusetts, USA e Walt Disney Studios, Burbank, California, USA – (studio). Produção: Alex Kurtzman, Mary McLaglen, Roberto Orci Roteiro: Pete Chiarelli Fotografia: Oliver Stapleton Trilha Sonora: Aaron Zigman
SINOPSE Sandra Bullock [Speed (1994), The Lake House (2006) e Bridesmaids (2010)]interpreta Margaret Tate, uma executiva bem sucedida do ramo de publicações. Fechada, intragável, competente, odiada e imigrante canadense, Margaret tem um assistente chamado Andrew Paxton, interpretado por Ryan Reynolds [Definitely, Maybe (2008), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) e Deadpool (2011)] que faz de tudo para agradá-la profissionalmente.
Quando chega a notícia de que ela está prestes a ser deportada para seu país, Margaret (Bullock) apressa-se em conseguir um casamento de conveniência com seu jovem assistente Andrew Paxton (Reynolds) para impedir que seu cargo na editora seja preenchido por outro.
No elenco ainda contamos com a atriz, que particularmente adoro, Mary Steenburgen [In the Electric Mist (2009), Four Christmases (2008) e Clifford (1994)], ela interpreta a mãe de Andrew (Reynolds).
CRÍTICA
Da mesma diretora de 27 Dresses – Vestida Para Casar (2008) e Step Up – Ela, Dança Eu danço (2006), Anne Fletcher, aos 43 anos, chega ao seu terceiro longa metragem, dirigindo Sandra Bullock e Ryan Reynolds em seus melhores estilos protagonizando a comédia romântica The Proposal – A Proposta, filme cuja temática é bem previsível, mas acaba por surpreender, arrancando boas risadas através de um roteiro bem escrito, excelentes atuações e direção impecável.
Sandra Bullock aos 44 anos, está novamente atuando em comédias românticas. Mesmo sendo considerada uma atriz mediana, é indiscutível que nesse gênero ela é imbatível. Outro ponto forte da atriz é a química que a mesma desenvolve com seus pares.
Nesse longa, Ryan Reynolds e Sandra Bullock são a perfeita harmonia, é uma delícia assistir aos dois entre tapas e beijos nos conduzirem de Nova Iorque ao Alaska. Ainda assim, são inesquecíveis os pares de Bullock, que foram elogiados tanto quanto seu par com Reynolds, são eles e com eles:
Hugh Grant – em "Amor à Segunda Vista" – Two Weeks Notice (2002); Keanu Reeves - em "A Casa do Lago" – The Lake House (2006); Benjamin Bratt – em "Miss Simpatia" – Miss Congeniality (2000); Ben Affleck – em "Forças do Destino" – Forces of Nature (1999).
O longa é bem humorado, no tom certo, sem exageros, cativante e me arrisco a dizer, uma comédia elegante, daquelas que agradam os maridos, namorados e homens em geral!
Destaque para a cena em que Margaret (Bullock) está no palco com Ramone, interpretado por Oscar Nuñez [Reno 911!: Miami (2007), Beethoven's Big Break (2008) e "The Office" como Oscar Martinez (80 episodes, 2005-2009)], um sujeito que mora na cidade da família de Andrew (Reynolds) e que faz de tudo um pouco, garçom atendente de loja e striper para festas de despedida de solteiras. Sim, é hilário ver Margaret (Bullock) fazendo caras e bocas com nojo e aflição do “corpanzil” de Ramone, que diga-se de passagem, é lastimável! Daí a graça toda da cena, é preciso ver para chorar de rir com a cena, é fantástica! Sandra com algumas caretas e aquele famoso “olhar 43” nos passa exatamente toda sua aflição com Ramone, imperdível.
O desfecho do longa deixa a desejar um pouco, mas só um pouquinho, é que, com tanto entusiasmo durante toda a história, os finalmentes ficaram entre as cenas que a diretora resolveu economizar… Sabem, no orçamento…
Sendo assim, apesar do famoso “happy end” que é o recurso mais tradicional do cinema não ter sido fabuloso, a fotografia e a trilha sonoro compensam esse deslize e nos faz sair das salas de cinema no maior alto astral.
Não deixem de assistir essa comédia romântica ao estilo elegante que nos mostra que o amor pode estar onde você menos imagina! Em cartaz em todo território nacional. Levem lencinhos, pois rola umas lágrimas. Boa semana a todos!
bom filme! roberta vieira http://www.movies.co.jp/ana-muko/
By Robert Naiman, ZNet, Nov 25, 2009
Source: t r u t h o u t
Robert Naiman’s ZSpace Page
Is it just me, or is the pontification of Western leaders about corruption in Afghanistan growing rather tiresome?
There is something very Captain Renault about it. We’re shocked, shocked that the Afghans have sullied our morally immaculate occupation of their country with their dirty corruption. How ungrateful can they be?
But perhaps we should consider the possibility that our occupation of the country is not so morally immaculate – indeed, that the most corrupt racket going in Afghanistan today is the American occupation.
US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon’s logistics contracts in Afghanistan consists of protection payments to insurgents, Aram Roston reports in The Nation. In southern Afghanistan – where General McChrystal wants to send more troops – security firms can’t physically protect convoys of American military supplies. There’s no practical way to move the supplies without paying the Taliban. So, like Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22, we’re supplying both sides of the war.
Meanwhile, two thirds of the nearly $30 billion in international aid to Afghanistan has been routed through foreign consultants, companies and organizations hired by the US government and its allies, Farah Stockman reports in the Boston Globe. Afghan officials complain that American civilian advisers are often overpaid, underqualified and unfamiliar with the culture of the country. A typical US adviser earns about $500 per day – several times what the average Afghan earns in a month, Stockman notes. That’s about $125,000 a year – not a bad chunk of change, even by US standards. It’s more than the household income of about 85 percent of American families. The total cost of such an adviser, including security and accommodations (note that most people – in Afghanistan, like the US – have to pay for their own accommodations out of their salaries or wages) is about $500,000 a year.
The Afghan government now has a program to hire its own advisers from friendly Muslim countries like Turkey and the UAE. The US supports this program with a $30 million contribution. But that contribution represents 1.1 percent of the $2.7 billion that the US plans to spend on economic assistance to Afghanistan next year. The vast majority of the funds will be used to hire US contractors. So for every dollar we spend on paying American contractors, we spend a penny on a much cheaper program that allows Afghanistan to hire people who know the culture, speak the language, have more expertise and can move around Afghanistan with less security because they aren’t Americans.
What do you call that? Afghans call it corruption. As Diogenes might say, the big thieves are giving lectures to the little thieves.
Now consider an Afghan policeman making $120 a month – half the cost of supporting a family, Western officials concede, who sees all this going on. Do you think that guy might take a bribe? Bertolt Brecht wrote, in Marc Blitzstein’s translation: “First feed the face, and then tell right from wrong: for even saintly folk may act like sinners, unless they’ve had their customary dinners.” But in practice, our aid bureaucracy in Afghanistan has not yet won this most trivial insight.
Yet the biggest corruption of all is the occupation itself, because it is all based on a big lie: the claim that our continued occupation of Afghanistan is justified by the threat of an al Qaeda “haven” in Afghanistan. This is a lie because: 1) as former counterterrorism official Paul Pillar has pointed out, “the case has not been made” that “such a haven would significantly increase the terrorist danger to the United States” and 2) Mullah Mohammed Omar’s “Quetta Shura” Taliban have been signaling for months that they are done with al Qaeda and there has been no US response. McChrystal wants to send reinforcements to Kandahar. That’s Mullah Omar’s home turf. If McChrystal is given troops to go to Kandahar, then it’s not about al Qaeda.
The great thing about having a camera on you all the time these days is the ability to upload these to Facebook. My Palm Pre has this feature and I love it. It also gives me the ability of course to take snaps and upload them to my blog. Initially when I started this blog I was taking the pictures with a Canon EOS 5D2 which I have now sold and downgraded or swapped out for a Canon EOS T1i. The 5D2 was a fantastic camera but to be honest it was too bulky and heavy for me to take out and about on a daily basis.
The Trump Tower with it's head in the Clouds
The T1i I have yet to take an opinion on. I had it for a month and it started freezing on me at the most horrendous time i.e. at my sister in laws graduation. I was mortified. I was hoping to get some great shots of her for her album and the damn thing kept freezing while using the flash. The camera is due back from the, in warranty, repair shop tomorrow. I hope it arrives in time as I want to take it down to our friends for Thanksgiving.
Clearly the quality of the images I am taking for this blog has dropped. Here is one I took last December. I suppose ultimately I am just trying to show a sample of my day or a taste of it rather for me and for you. Who are you? Not sure really. I seem to get steady traffic to this blog, although I don’t advertise it but it’s nice you come along to view it anyway. I suppose it panders to the exhibitionist in me such as it is.
The Reflecting Pool
Once I get my Canon T1i back I want to throw myself back into my photography and get out there again taking pictures. It’s been a while and winter approaches. I hope it’s a snowy one.
By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor, The Independent/UK, Nov 20, 2009
AFP/Getty
The judgement revealed Binyam Mohamad was treated the same way as an al-Qa’ida suspect tortured by the CIA
Britain knew that American agents were using barbaric torture techniques on terror suspects, including British resident Binyam Mohamed, it emerged yesterday. Secret reports sent between MI5 and the CIA in 2002 reveal that the American security services were using torture practices which included waterboarding, facial slaps and stress positions.
The extent of Britain’s knowledge was made clear in the latest High Court judgment in the case of Binyam Mohamed, who claims Britain actively colluded in his torture while he was being unlawfully held by the Americans in Morocco seven years ago. Mr Mohamed alleges that his torture included the cutting of his genitals with a razor blade.
Yesterday’s judgment says the treatment of Mr Mohamed was similar to that of Abu Zubaydah, allegedly a high-ranking al-Qa’ida terrorist who was subjected to the 10 torture practices used by the CIA at Guantanamo Bay.
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, had argued that revealing details of the 10 torture techniques would threaten Britain’s intelligence-sharing relationship with the US. But President Barack Obama ordered their publication earlier this year and the judges concluded they could refer to them. The first of the two reinstated paragraphs reads: “One of those memoranda dated August 1 2002, from Mr J S Bybee, Assistant Attorney-General, to Mr John Rizzo, acting General Counsel of the CIA, made clear that the techniques [the alleged torture of Binyam Mohamed] described were those employed against Mr Zubaydah, alleged to be a high-ranking member of al-Qa’ida.”
The rest of the paragraph, which remained redacted from public versions of the judgment, is a quotation from the memo made public by Mr Obama.
In their latest ruling in the former Guantanamo detainee’s case against the Foreign Office, the judges said: “Of itself, the treatment to which Mr Mohamed was subjected could never properly be described in a democracy as ‘a secret’ or an ‘intelligence secret’ or ‘a summary of classified intelligence’.”
The human rights group Reprieve accused Mr Miliband of using an “Alice in Wonderland” argument to suppress the details of the torture of Mr Mohamed. Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Edward Davey said: “David Miliband must end this shameful episode now.”
Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones had redacted passages from a previous judgment after hearing argument on behalf of Mr Miliband that disclosure could jeopardise the UK’s intelligence-sharing relationship with the US. They said the redacted material should be put back in because it was “essential” to their reasoning and no threat to national security. But the passages, apart from two paragraphs to which the Foreign Office no longer objects, will still not be made public yet because Mr Miliband is taking the issue to the Court of Appeal next month.
Povilas Malakauskas
這是由一位八十多歲的老婆婆跟我說的一句話
Gênero: Comédia Romântica 
