Canadians appear to be striving to make up for lost time in realizing the dream of George Orwell’s “1984.” The most oppressive aspect of the life of Winston Smith in Oceania, Airship One was the televisions that allowed Big Brother to watch you 24/7. Ottawa airport is now wired with hidden microphones to allow the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to continually eavesdrop on travellers’ conversations.
Category: International
The Obama Administration again waited for a Friday afternoon to announce a major new policy change — repeating its practice of timing important announcements to reduce media and public attention. The latest change is obviously controversial. The Administration will no longer deport illegal aliens under 30 who came to this country as children — effectively negating part of the federal law. It raises some troubling questions, again, about President Obama assertion of executive power. While liberals again celebrate the unilateral action, they ignore that danger that the next president may also simply chose to ignore whole areas of the federal law and criminal code in areas ranging from the environment to employment discrimination. It is one more brick in the wall of the Imperial Presidency constructed under Barack Obama — a wall that may prove difficult to dismantle for citizens in the future.
Continue reading “Obama Administration Declares It Will Not Deport Young Illegal Immigrants”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
We have previously discussed how black magician Pandit Surinder Sharma repeated attempted to kill rationalist Sanal Edamaruku (the James Randi of India) with a death-causing tantra, here. The still very much alive Edamaruku recently went to an Irla (suburb of Mumbai) Catholic church where he debunked a “miracle” where water was seen trickling down Jesus’ feet. Edamaruku identified the source of the water as a leaky drainage pipe and explained that capillary action was the cause of the water reaching Jesus’ feet.
Continue reading “Indian Rationalist Arrested For Blasphemy”
If only Butch Cassidy (left) and the Sundance Kid (right) went to an economics class. Economists at the Royal Statistical Society and American Statistical Association have published a study on the economics of bank robbery and determined that crime doesn’t pay after all . . . . at least not bank robbery.
Continue reading “It’s Official: Crime (At Least Bank Robbery) Doesn’t Pay”
As the Obama Administration objects to the Russian government selling attack helicopters to Syria in the midst of that civil war, another deal to buy the same Russian helicopters has surfaced: our own contract to buy Russian copters for the Afghan military from the same country. I share the disgust over Putin’s continued support for the Assad regime, but I am equally dismayed by Obama’s continuing to spend billions on the corrupt Karzai government to use in its own civil war.
It is now official: a dingo did eat her baby. The terrible story of the disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain in 1980 became an international sensation with a movie, “A Cry In The Dark,” and the famous tag line “A Dingo ate my baby.” Azaria’s mother Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton was jailed for murder and her husband Michael given a suspended sentence as an accessory after the fact. However, both were cleared in 1987. Now a coroner says the mother was telling the truth from the start and that dingoes were likely responsible. The finding confirms the view of many and confirms the chilling nightmare created by the state for this grieving family. We previously discussed the new investigation and evidence.
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the commonlaw of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.
~John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, Ch. III, (kudos to Bron)
On the night of February 13th, 773 RAF Avro Lancaster bombers swept in low and fast on the Saxony railway town of Dresden. It was early 1945, The Third Reich was collapsing and some 600,000 people had taken refuge in the city to avoid the Allied onslaught. The presumed target was the military complex on the outskirts of town known as the Albertstadt. Dresden, itself, was riddled with military garrisons intermingled among the civilian population. In two waves, the RAF dropped 650,000 incendiaries and 8,000 lbs of high explosives and hundreds of 4,000 pounds bombs on the city center, all with little to no resistance. The entire city was ablaze. RAF crews reported smoke rising to a height of 15,000 ft. Fires were seen 500 miles away from the target.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
In a 2007 report, entitled Underlying Reasons for Success and Failure of Terrorist Attacks (pdf) and prepared for Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate by Homeland Security Institute (and recently scrubbed from their web site, here) notes: “a favorite tactic of Hamas, the “double tap;” a device is set off, and when police and other first responders arrive, a second, larger device is set off to inflict more casualties and spread panic.”
It has been documented that this terrorist tactic has been embraced by President Obama.
An antiquated system and poor management in China may have created a potentially disastrous epidemic for the world: a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis. A combination of poor testing and treatment appears to have created both a multidrug-resistant or MDR tuberculosis. Of million TB patients, 110,000 now have MDR TB.
Continue reading “China Reports New Epidemic Of Drug-Resistant TB”
For years, the United States has danced around the fact that it has repeatedly enter the sovereign territory of other countries with drone attacks and in some cases small unit attacks without the permission of countries like Pakistan. Such acts violate international law and would be viewed by the United States as an act of war if committed on U.S. territory. This week,Defense Secretary Leon Panetta finally responded directly to those objections and said that the attacks would continue unabated. Panetta essentially stated that we can invade other nations because we can and that countries will have to come to accept that — using the same concept as “floggings will continue on ship until morale improves.”
Continue reading “Panetta: The Drone Strikes Will Continue Until Morale Improves”
This report in Haaretz details a highly disturbing account of how Israel’s Shin Bet security service interrogated American citizens with Arab backgrounds for hours and demanded access to their personal email accounts at Ben Gurion Airport. After spending a night in custody, they were denied entry into Israel in May. If these accounts are true, why has there been no formal and public objection from the Obama Administration?
The celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee was filled with traditions going back hundreds of years — including, it appears, the use of serfs. The Guardian is reporting that the government bused in dozens of unemployed citizens to work at the Jubilee from out of town and then directed them to sleep under the London Bridge without access to bathrooms or changing areas. It was a good ole fashioned Jubilee with a diamond-encrusted sovereign floating by in splendor with yeomen and “villeins” working in their menial existence. Some radicals (and suspected Jacobites) are questioning the conditions for the workers and calling for an investigation.
Today in China, unlike twenty-three years ago, nothing happens. Nothing at all. Now check out the latest Panda pics! That appears the message going out to a billion Chinese. The government has blocked any mention of the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown on June 1989. In addition, the country is rounding up dissidents and anyone else who might mention the anniversary or utter thoughts of freedom.
Continue reading “June 4th: Just Another Day In The Worker’s Paradise”
I have repeated complained about the runaway copyright and trademark laws — and the failure of politicians to protect the public from draconian penalties and thug-like actions by the industry. Now, the industry is targeting weddings — retroactively — to impose fees for playing that rendition of “Because You Loved Me” to be sure that Celine Dion gets her cut from the happy couple.
The Saudi Royal family has long been accused of not paying their bills, but few have acquired the reputation of Maha al-Sudani, the former wife of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Nayef ben Abdel Aziz. The princess was stopped trying to flee the Shangri-La hotel in Paris at 3:30 am without paying her six million euro ($7.4 million) bill. It is hard to sneak out of a hotel with an entourage 60 people.