Wednesday - July 06, 2011

kindergarten to reject migrant kids in israeli school

When I found this story, which btw is a week old by now, I hadn’t seen Drew’s post on schools that follows.  Different stories and unrelated, but funny how this fell out.

I guess now Israel haters are gonna point the ‘R’ finger at them and complain.  Let em.  I can darn well understand the concerns here. 

Odd though that until recently, I hadn’t thought about migrant workers in that place as I assumed (wrongly I know) that Israelis could fill the void where needed.  I guess they have too many chiefs and not near enough Indians.

MULTICULTURALISM – EDUCATION, ISRAEL

kindergarten to reject migrant kids

A new kindergarten in Hatikva neighborhood in Tel Aviv has declared that it will have at least one classroom that will not accept foreign workers’ children, municipality sources said. The move is unprecedented in Israel.

Residents were pleased, as was Gal Sharabi, chairman of the neighborhood committee. “The kindergarten will be intended for the veteran residents of the neighborhood,” he said.

Hatikva neighborhood, in southern Tel Aviv, has become famous for its ire against migrants who have taken up residence in the city.

Over the past few years, residents have been pressing the city council to keep foreign children out of kindergartens, claiming they lower the level of teaching. They also claim the kids carry a risk of disease.

“We are extremely pleased with this decision. The foreign workers have a language problem and this makes studying difficult and keeps our kids from progressing,” said a neighborhood mother. “This makes the gaps between children of the north and south (of Tel Aviv) even greater.”

The mother added that the request has nothing to do with racism. “We love them and learn with them in elementary school, and we’ve been living in peace for years ... All we ask is that our children not be harmed and for the gaps (between north and south) not to be perpetuated,” she explained.

A neighborhood father also rejected allegations of racism: “Only the children of southern Tel Aviv are forced to study with migrant kids. Everyone knows it’s problematic, that there is a risk of disease because they were not inoculated in Israel, but when we protest they call it racism,” he said.

“I feel that the municipality’s decision is a victory in the battle we’ve been waging in the past few years. Even they understand that this is a problem.” ...

The municipality responded officially to the report by stating that placement of children in kindergartens has not yet been completed for next year, but senior officials say at least two local kindergartens will be set aside to accept only kids of Israeli descent.

ISRAEL SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 07/06/2011 at 09:36 AM   
Filed Under: • Israel •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Liberal Insanity

Mac McClelland, a civil rights reporter who has seen the impact of sexual violence around the globe, couldn’t shake the image of Sybille, a woman who said she had been raped at gunpoint and mutilated in the aftermath of Haiti’s catastrophic 2010 earthquake.

While on assignment for Mother Jones last September, McClelland said she accompanied Sybille to the hospital when the woman saw her attackers and went into “a full paroxysm—wailing, flailing” in terror.

Something snapped in McClelland, too. She became progressively enveloped in the classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress—avoidance of feelings, flashbacks and recurrent thoughts that triggered crying spells. There were smells that made her gag.

McClelland, 31, sought professional help but said she ultimately cured herself by staging her own rape, which she writes about in a haunting piece for the online magazine Good. The title: “How Violent Sex Helped Ease My PTSD.”

Her sexual partner mercilessly pinned her, beat her about the head and brutally violated McClelland—at her request.

”I was not crazy,” she told ABCNews.com.

To “cure” herself of this syndrome that she picked up second hand, she got back together with an old lay of hers with whom she had had violent sex with in the past, and in “a controlled situation” had him beat the crap out of her and abuse her sexually. According to her, she’s fine now, and dating a nice and normal United Nations Peacekeeper. Because we all know how civilized those guys behave.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/06/2011 at 09:24 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Teaching The Wrong Lesson

State inquiry into Atlanta test scores finds widespread cheating
by Philissa Cramer

Reporter Maura Walz’s journey from Gotham Schools to Georgia placed her in the South just in time to cover the education scandal of the century— or at least the summer.

Atlanta’s steadily increasing state test scores were, at least in part, driven by cheating, according to investigators appointed by former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue. Today, Perdue’s successor, Nathan Deal, released the results of the two-year investigation.

Investigators looked at more than half of Atlanta’s 100 public schools and found evidence of cheating in the vast majority of them. They found that more than a third of the city’s principals had knowledge of or input into cheating at their schools; thousands of students had been denied extra help after being given scores they didn’t deserve; and “a culture of fear, intimidation, and retaliation” inhibited whistle-blowing.

State officials say criminal charges are likely to follow for some of the 180 teachers, principals, and district officials named in the report.

America’s biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta

At least 178 teachers and principals in Atlanta Public Schools cheated to raise student scores on high-stakes standardized tests, according to a report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Award-winning gains by Atlanta students were based on widespread cheating by 178 named teachers and principals, said Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday. His office released a report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that names 178 teachers and principals – 82 of whom confessed – in what’s likely the biggest cheating scandal in US history.

This appears to be the largest of dozens of major cheating scandals, unearthed across the country. The allegations point an ongoing problem for US education, which has developed an ever-increasing dependence on standardized tests.

The report on the Atlanta Public Schools, released Tuesday, indicates a “widespread” conspiracy by teachers, principals and administrators to fix answers on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT), punish whistle-blowers, and hide improprieties.

It “confirms our worst fears,” says Mayor Kasim Reed. “There is no doubt that systemic cheating occurred on a widespread basis in the school system.” The news is “absolutely devastating,” said Brenda Muhammad, chairwoman of the Atlanta school board. “It’s our children. You just don’t cheat children.”

On its face, the investigation tarnishes the 12-year tenure of Superintendent Beverly Hall, who was named US Superintendent of the Year in 2009 largely because of the school system’s reported gains – especially in inner-city schools. She has not been directly implicated, but investigators said she likely knew, or should have known, what was going on. In her farewell address to teachers in June, Hall for the first time acknowledged wrongdoing in the district, but blamed other administrators.

The Atlanta cheating scandal also offers the first most comprehensive view yet into a growing number of teacher-cheating allegations across the US, reports of which reached a rate of two to three a week in June, says Robert Schaeffer, a spokesman for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, which advocates against high-stakes testing.

It’s also a tacit indictment, critics say, of politicians putting all bets for improving education onto high-stakes tests that punish and reward students, teachers, and principals for test scores.

The 55,000-student Atlanta public school system rose in national prominence during the 2000s, as test scores steadily rose and the district received notice and funding from the Broad Foundation and the Gates Foundation. But behind that rise, the state found, were teachers and principals in 44 schools erasing and changing test answers.

I seem to recall a whole lot of attitude about “teaching to the test” when Bush unveiled his “No Child Left Behind” program. It looks like the teachers - union employees all, I guarantee - took the easy way out. Lots of boo-hoo that the federal government wasn’t drowning the schools in free funding (which isn’t their job, nor is it within their proper power to do so). Looks like the lazy lefty loons found an easy way out. At least until they got caught. Why put in any extra effort to actually do your job properly when you can just go in later and fudge the grades? Besides, look at all the free money the government is willing to dish out as bonuses when the scores go up?

I hope this is just the tip of the iceberg. I hope that there is a HUGE public furor. I hope that investigations go on in every school district in the country, and that cheating teachers and administrators are fired and prosecuted.  And when it turns out that the vast majority of that cheating happened in “inner city schools” - a code phrase we all understand - and was done by left leaning school employees of any shade, that people will make the connection. These children were ripped off. The taxpayers were ripped off. We need a purge, nationwide. Let’s start with the unions and the curriculum and go from there.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/06/2011 at 09:04 AM   
Filed Under: • Education •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

left wingers who control the debate

One of my favorite editorial writers is a lady I often hear on the radio on a program called The Moral Maze.  It was a pleasant surprise to also find her doing her conservative thing being interviewed on Fox last year, when we visited home.

It isn’t just because she’s very conservative that I like her so much.  She would not approve of all my methods for fixing problems I’m sure, as she is far more civilized then I am.  Thing is, she is exactly right darn near all of the time.  Really, she is.

I have heard her on radio as mentioned, and one of the things that really impresses is how she can maintain her cool when confronted by an idiot.  Doesn’t shriek,
doesn’t talk over people (as a rule) and has a great radio voice. She honestly is a delight to read and listen to.

This is a little excerpt from a recent op-ed.

We are living through a terrifying erosion of freedom of expression

MELANIE PHILLIPS

Adherents of the ‘one view’ agenda lose their ability to tell right from wrong and truth from lies — and so end up justifying their own wrongdoing as a moral act.

This was vividly illustrated by the scandal over the leaked emails from the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, which revealed that prominent proponents of man-made global warming theory had tried to suppress the evidence that the world was getting cooler rather than warmer.

What was so remarkable was that they did so because they believed unshakeably that any challenge to their own viewpoint was simply impossible. So faced with evidence that actually busted their theory wide open, they felt morally justified in manipulating the data to shore up their own agenda.

The point about the Left-wingers who police and thus control our public debate is this: they believe above all else that they alone occupy the moral high ground.
They thus divide the world into good and bad. Only their own view is to be permitted; any dissent is by definition evil.
So all dissenters are Right-wing, all Right-wingers are evil and all who oppose the liberal consensus are therefore evil Right-wingers who must be damned as beyond the pale.

This is, of course, a totally closed thought process, similar to the totalitarian tyrannies imposed by the medieval Church or Stalinism.
Yet this monstrous repudiation of reason has effectively hijacked public debate.  So how on earth can this have happened to Britain?

In brief, it has been caused by a number of factors.

There was the onslaught by secularism upon Christianity and the moral codes of the Hebrew Bible.
There was the demoralisation of the political and intellectual elites after World War II, caused by the near bankruptcy of Britain and the end of Empire.
There was the resulting loss of belief in the nation. And so the elites were vulnerable to the ultra-Left ‘long march through the institutions’ that aimed to capture the citadels of the culture and turn all its values upside-down and inside-out.
The outcome was that Britain’s whole centre of political gravity shifted, as what was formerly considered ultra- Left thinking became deemed mainstream while what was formerly mainstream was labelled ‘Right-wing’.
You have only to listen to BBC group- think to realise how completely all this has been achieved.
One result is that language itself has been hijacked. Words such as ‘rights’, ‘justice’, ‘tolerance’, ‘liberal’ and ‘centre ground’ have come to mean their precise opposite.

And argument has been replaced by gratuitous abuse and insults, such as ‘institutionally racist’, ‘homophobic’, ‘fundamentalist’, ‘extremist’ or ‘mad’.
There is, of course, nothing remotely extreme or bigoted about wanting your country to govern itself, or for the justice system to protect people against wrong-doers, or for your country to uphold its ancient traditions and laws.
On the contrary, these are all main- stream aspirations that have been denied systematically.

We are, in short, living through a terrifying erosion of freedom of expression and dissent of any kind, and an attack on thought and reason itself.
If ever there was an agenda for which conservatism was fitted, then dealing with all this is surely it.
Conservatives spent much of the last century fighting off Soviet-style communism. But this bastard child of that creed is even more dangerous because it has undermined us from within.

The great task of politics is to reclaim politics for the long-suffering mainstream voters who find themselves disenfranchised.
Unfortunately, the Conservative Party has gone in the opposite direction, choosing instead to plant its standard on that Left-wing terrain masquerading as the centre ground.

The Government cannot deal with issues such as the EU or human rights law unless it addresses head-on this hijacking of language, morality and politics that threatens to engulf Britain and the west.
The prize would be great indeed for the politician who meets this, the supreme civilisation challenge of our times.

Melanie Phillips

“ it has undermined us from within. “

In other words, a fifth column.  My hobby horse for some years now.

Posted by peiper     on 07/06/2011 at 07:26 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

over $300,000 and that’s only the beginning

No tellin how long I’ll be at the puter today but wanted to get at least this one in.

On Monday I mentioned a couple of scroungers ripping off the Brit system with the permission (though not happily) of the Brit system.

One of the articles and only a very short comment from me, concerned yet another nig ... whoops.  That’s Nigerian, who came here to give birth and present this country with five more of her kind, along with the all the burden present and future that entails.

I was missing the boat Monday as I mentioned only her last name and for some odd reason only find today, that I didn’t share with you her very funny first name.

It’s the only that is funny about this story.  Anyway ... I now present to you for your consideration, amusement and gasp of disbelief ..... a Nigerian beauty who I call, BIG MA-MOO.

BIMBO AYELABOLA

Nigerian mother who cost NHS £200,000 after coming to Britain to have quintuplets is working illegally as an Avon Lady

(in USA dollars, that’s $319,930.39. Is any Nigerian worth that?)

Bimbo Ayelabola came into the UK on visitor’s visa after discovering she was pregnant

She spent two weeks in hospital at taxpayers’ expense after having quintuplets

By NICK MCDERMOTT

The Nigerian who cost the NHS up to £200,000 after travelling to Britain while expecting quintuplets has been illegally working as an Avon lady.

Bimbo Ayelabola, 33, applied for a six-month visitor’s visa soon after discovering she was pregnant, travelling to the UK without her husband to visit her three sisters.

She gave birth to two boys and three girls in April after a complex Caesarean section and remained in hospital for almost two weeks, paid for by the taxpayer.

But under the terms of her visa, which expired last month, she is unable to work in the UK or claim benefits.

She is now fighting to remain in the country.

The multiple births are likely to be a result of double doses of fertility drug Clomid, which she took for eight times longer than recommended after buying the pills over the counter in her home city of Lagos.

The total bill to the taxpayer for Mrs Ayelabola’s care is expected to reach £200,000.

Foreign nationals should be charged for the full cost of their treatment, but Mrs Ayelabola is not able to pay. The five babies, who were born prematurely at 32 weeks, were treated in a special-care unit, where the cost of a week’s stay for the family would be £35,000 alone.

The case has once again raised the issue of ‘health tourism’, in which foreigners come to take advantage of Britain’s state-funded health system. It is estimated to cost the NHS £200million a year.

Treated: Bimbo Ayelabola, who had quintuplets in Britain, was treated at Homerton Hospital in Hackney, east London

Mrs Ayelabola was treated at Homerton hospital in Hackney, east London.

Andrew Boff, Hackney resident and Conservative member of the Greater London Authority, said: ‘You can’t refuse to give someone treatment once they’re in the country, as we’re talking about human life.

read more here

“we’re talking about human life.”

No we damn well are NOT!  Just cos she walks upright?  And btw ... she still has a husband back there in Nigeria. A nice comfy dung hut all ready for her return. Or maybe they actually live in a house of some kind. Or a warm cave. Whatever.  Here’s something to think about.

See if in time it won’t come to this.

Husband will come here on a visitor pass to see his little apelets.  Just a visit.  Uh huh. 
And before you can say Little Black Sambo three times, he’ll be in court claiming a right to a family life plus benefits.

Posted by peiper     on 07/06/2011 at 05:53 AM   
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Tuesday - July 05, 2011

The inspiration for Indiana Jones

Who inspired Indiana Jones? Why none other than Charleton Heston in Secret of the Incas.

The whole movie is available on YouTube, in 10 parts. Up to you to find all the parts.

I only looked it up because I was listening to Xtabay; Yma Sumac’s debut album. Yma Sumac was allegedly an Inca princess directly descended from Atahualpa, the Incan king murdered by Pizzaro. I remember watching this movie as a child and Yma Sumac was in it. I was surprised when Mom pulled her debut album, Xtabay, out of her record collection. Her claim to fame was not only did she popularize some native Peruvian songs, she had a range of 5 octaves. For comparison, Sir Elton John has a range of about a half-octave. He really can’t sing worth a damn. Hell, my piano only does 4.5 octaves if it is in tune.

Anyway, I was listening to Yma Sumac’s Xtabay album and wondered: That movie starred Charleton Heston. I haven’t seen it since I was a kid. A quick check showed my library didn’t have it, even on VHS. Turns out that Paramount has the rights to release it on DVD, which they’ve yet to do.

Enjoy. Just remember, Harrison Ford owes Indiana Jones to Charleton Hestons’ character Harry Steele.

Posted by Christopher     on 07/05/2011 at 11:49 PM   
Filed Under: • MOVIES •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Looks like Holly

Posted by Drew458     on 07/05/2011 at 03:43 PM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Sadly Funny

Smoke belching from Asia’s rapidly growing economies is largely responsible for a halt in global warming in the decade after 1998 because of sulphur’s cooling effect, even though greenhouse gas emissions soared, a U.S. study said on Monday.
...
World temperatures did not rise from 1998 to 2008, while manmade emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuel grew by nearly a third, various data show.

The researchers from Boston and Harvard Universities and Finland’s University of Turku said pollution, and specifically sulphur emissions, from coal-fueled growth in Asia was responsible for the cooling effect.

Sulphur allows water drops or aerosols to form, creating hazy clouds which reflect sunlight back into space.

“Anthropogenic activities that warm and cool the planet largely cancel after 1998, which allows natural variables to play a more significant role,” the paper said.

Natural cooling effects included a declining solar cycle after 2002, meaning the sun’s output fell.

The paper raised the prospect of more rapid, pent-up climate change when emerging economies eventually crack down on pollution.

So ... man-made pollutants are causing the earth to warm up, but man-made pollutants are causing the earth to cool down. The ozone hole, caused by man-made pollutants, has healed itself because people switched to other pollutants, but that healing caused the earth to warm up. And now we have all this extra carbon dioxide in the air, which is warming the planet (at lower altitudes) and cooling the planet (at higher altitudes) at the same time. And acid rain, which we fought so hard against back in the 70s, and is caused by atmospheric sulfur forming sulfur dioxide, is actually pulling heat from the planet and causing it to rain more! And where does this planet saving sulfur come from? It comes from burning evil coal!!!! It’s enough to drive a Gaia worshiper insane!

And of course, Mother Nature is just biding her time, waiting to get revenge! “… pent-up change when economies eventually crack down on pollution.”

So even though the sun has entered a long term cooling era according to solar experts, and right now one kind of air pollution vs another kind of air pollution has tipped the scales to the cold side, and no matter what kind of Kyoto-esque climate agreement the world can come up with China will continue to burn WTF it feels like, so the sulfur pollution isn’t going to lessen ever, things are about to get worse because ... [insert magic here] ... ie, 1) collect underpants, 2) , 3) profit!!!

Other climate scientists broadly supported Monday’s study, stressing that over longer time periods rising greenhouse gas emissions would over-ride cooling factors.

“Long term warming will continue unless emissions are reduced,” said Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at Britain’s Met Office.

But reducing those emissions (SO₂) contributes to warming! But when acid rain falls (on limestone) it releases CO₂ which contributes to warming!!!!

Aaaaaaaaaggggghh!!!!111!!!1!

Posted by Drew458     on 07/05/2011 at 11:58 AM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Not Exactly Port Royal Jamaica

File this one under “Well duh, no kidding”, but the island itself is rather fascinating.

15-23 million years ago, when the Red Sea was barely even a river, and the Himalayas were just little hills, the island of Socotra was already old. And lonely. Situated 150 miles past the very point of the Horn of Africa, and 200 miles south across the Arabian Sea from Yemen, Socotra is one of the closest Ends of the Earth, but also one of the least accessible. High seas and Monsoons make it hard to get to, and for the longest time there hasn’t been all that much there. It is not a volcanic island but a continental one, a tiny piece of Africa lost at sea, riding the very edge of the African plate as it twists away from the Arabian plate. This is the land where the Dragon’s Blood Tree still thrives, and one of the most alien looking places on the entire planet.

It is also home to the lowly begonia, a flower whose worldwide popularity began with a single flat of them taken by botanists when Victoria reigned.

Halfway up the rocky path to the ancient cave, I had a sudden glimpse of how the world must have looked twenty million years ago. Stark against the skyline was a strange mushroom-shaped growth about fifteen feet tall, with tangled branches and a canopy of spiky green leaves. It was a dragon’s blood tree—born, according to legend, from blood shed in a battle between an elephant and a dragon. In a distant age, ancestors of the tree (botanists tell us that it is in the same taxonomic order as lilies and tulips) carpeted the earth from Russia to Morocco.

Those great forests are long vanished. But here on the island of Socotra, bounded by the Arabian Sea to the north and the Indian Ocean to the south, the dragon’s blood still mantles the high plateaus and the misty valleys, hidden between the crags of the Hajhir Mountains.

Since the earliest times, people have known Socotra as a place apart. Herodotus wrote that this was where the immortal phoenix came to be reborn twice every thousand years. The frankincense burned in the temples of ancient Egypt and Greece grew here, guarded, so it was believed, by flying snakes.

The island isn’t unknown, there just isn’t any great reason to go there. It’s been known about forever. Literally.  While Lucy was down in Olduvai Gorge grubbing around for ... grubs, her cousin Ricky and his friends built themselves a sailboat and set off over the eastern horizons, getting the hell out of Africa ASAP. First stop, Socotra Island. 1.4 million years ago.

Human ancestors left Africa not only by land but also by sea, recent findings of Russian archeologists on Socotra island show.

Homo habilis: Sinbad the First

Russian scientists found stone artifacts, which belong to Oldowan culture and date back 1.4 million years. The main sensation is geography the Socotra island, now belonging to Yemen, is located in the Gulf of Aden 200 km away from the closest point on the African coast, and Oldowan culture originates from Tanzanian Olduvai Gorge.

Now the challenge is in understanding how Oldowan stones, which belonged to Homo habilis, arrived to Socotra. No anthropologist has even been so brave to imagine that this ancient half-monkey-half-human being could not only follow antelopes, but also travel to neighbouring islands by sea.

However, large amount of discovered stones indicates that ancient men were natural-born sailors. Socotra had been an island long before the stones appeared there, so human ancestors couldn’t have got there by land.

Yup, they had to get there on boats. Through rough seas. Even when Ice Ages lowered sea levels, the water is just too deep. It’s way too far to swim. And that’s about the most exciting thing that has ever happened there. Ever. No wars, no great military campaigns, no heroes, no fabled golden cities. Just a few people living there, getting by with a bit of fishing and a bit of date farming, doing a bit of trading with the rare ship that stops by. Since forever. The greatest claim to fame Socotra has is it’s singular biodiversity; more than a third of the plants and animals on the island are indigenous and exist nowhere else on earth. Even the people there are linguistically and genetically isolated from the rest of the world. It’s no garden of paradise, but the 80 mile long island is home to about 45,000 inhabitants. After eons of isolation, Yemen put in an 11,000 foot heavy duty runway in 1999, and now Socotra is somewhat open to the world. 12 years later though, and there is still barely any tourist industry, even though the rough-hewn island enjoys a more temperate climate than the desert lands to the north and west, has a large network of ancient and interesting caves in it’s windswept karst cliffs, and all that unusual flora and fauna. Maybe it’s because the island only has two roads.

So much for the travelogue. Today that bit of trading means supplying the Somali pirates, and that nice runway with it’s daily flights to the mainland has people thinking that they’ve discovered something like a Missing Link; an information and finance channel that links pirate activity back to mainland sources in the more “civilized” world. As if Yemen counts as civilization.

LONDON (Reuters) - Somali pirates have been using Yemen’s remote Horn of Africa island of Socotra as a refueling hub enabling their attack craft to stay restocked for longer periods at sea and pose a greater hazard to shipping, maritime sources say. Despite an international naval presence in the region, seaborne gangs have been exploiting political turmoil in Yemen to pick up fuel, and possibly other supplies including food, sources told Reuters.

“Socotra has been used for months if not longer,” said Michael Frodl, with C-LEVEL maritime risk consultancy and an adviser to Lloyd’s of London underwriters, citing intelligence reports he was privy to. “It is perhaps the most important refueling hub for hijacked merchant vessels used as motherships, especially those operating between the Gulf of Aden and India’s western waters, mainly off Oman and increasingly closer to the Strait of Hormuz.” “A hijacked merchant vessel, unlike a hijacked dhow, has a voracious thirst for fuel and needs a very well stocked refueling station,” Frodl said.

A Yemen government official said authorities around a month ago had captured 20 people believed to be pirates on the island and handed them over to authorities in Yemen’s nearby southern port city of al-Mukalla on the mainland. A source said separately the 20 people had been on a regular commercial ship, but added that 16 Somali pirates were taken into custody in recent days and were being detained on Socotra.

“There was a lot of piracy north of Socotra during the north east monsoon and it is likely they have been using the island,” the source said. “Pirates use the beaches on the mainland not too far from Mukalla to collect fuel, and presumably other equipment.”

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) watchdog said the pirate support systems had to be promptly stopped.

“Socotra is strategically located because it is right up there against the Gulf of Aden and also along the eastern seaboard of Yemen,” said IMB director Pottengal Mukundan.  “If it is true that the pirates are using Socotra, then it is an extremely disturbing development and it requires immediate investigation.”

I have hardly run any Somali pirate stories in the past couple of months, because there really haven’t been any. Between the rough seas of the monsoon season and the seemingly universal defensive steps taken by large merchant ships, the Somali pirates are about 0-30 in their hijacking attempts. Every time they get near a ship they get shot at, and if they’re so fortunate as to get a ladder up the side of one they get hung up on the coils of razor wire that guard the decks. Losing! It’s just not working any more. Or at least right now. Good! Effective piracy still occurs far to the east in Indonesia, though that’s mostly robbery instead of hijacking, and now West African piracy is ramping up mugging ships off the coasts of Benin, but the Somali pirates are all ... at sea. Gee, too bad.

I’d hate to see war come to Socotra Island. That probably won’t be necessary. Nothing I’ve read says the Somali pirates are setting up a pirate town there. With just one airstrip and only 4 or 5 villages, I’d hope a small military presence and a few Coast Guard cutters would be enough to keep the pirates at bay.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/05/2011 at 08:50 AM   
Filed Under: • Pirates, aarrgh! •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Monday - July 04, 2011

One Down, Four To Go

I finished off George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, the first book in the 4, soon to be 5, book series A Song of Ice and Fire. Knights and swords, intrigue, murder, and battle. A little challenging because there are just so many different characters to meet, and they don’t sit still to tell you their biographies. By the end of the first book half the cast has been killed off in one way or another, because the real story is the passing of rule from one generation to the next. Very Medieval, quite violent, but there’s some underlying sci-fi, dark horror, and magic that has just barely begun to show up. Very engaging novel. I could hardly put it down and found excuses to steal away for an hour here and there to read. Took me a week and a half, but I’m ready for the next one. So far it’s refreshingly down to earth fantasy sci-fi; there are no magic swords, talking dragons, fairies, elves, godlings, spotty little twee wizards or any of that crap that made me put this genre away for two decades. No council of senior all-knowing lesbians who stop the world for the dance. Gak. There is minor reference to a previous Age of Heroes, but none of that Silmarillion business, or several made up languages you have to decipher a word at a time. Nor are there endless boring pages of insight, back story, and the musings inside the character’s minds. They think, they speak, they act and interact; it’s fairly fast paced without being nothing but action. Lots of palace intrigue and political maneuvering. In other words it’s the right mix for a book to keep your interest, neither boring you to tears with academic twaddle nor exhausting you with non-stop cinematic blasts.

There will be dragons. Eventually. Three of them. They won’t be pets. There will be more evil Zombies. There will be a Gathering Darkness and a Great Enemy. Winter is coming.

I’m reminded of Robert Silverberg’s series A Book of Swords from 20+ years ago, but this is better. More action, better dialog, less magic so far. Better sword fights. It’s a good big read.

This one was the “little” book, only 800 pages. The next book in the series is a bit over 1000 pages, the one after that 1100 and some. The 4th book is equally long, and the 5th one promises to be a bit over 1000 pages as well. Call it an epic fantasy of epic length; I’d guess about 5300 pages and 3 million words when all is read and done. And that means at least a month of good reading to the avid reader.

OTOH, by the end of all of this, I’ll probably need another decade break from Sword & Fate novels.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/04/2011 at 08:10 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

milking the system and screwing taxpayers. open borders and national health

When this country first introduced national health care, and looking at their past I suppose they thought it a great idea at the time, not one of them could have seen what it would become today.  Or perhaps someone did and was simply ignored. I wouldn’t know.  But what I do know, and it surely is not rocket science or any great depth of understanding on my part, is that these folks are allowing themselves to be royally screwed by forces outside their country as well as in.

Not being diplomatically minded in any way, in my own bumbling way I just do not understand why authorities here who do acknowledge that things are wrong, can’t simply say FUCK YOU to the outsiders who are telling them what and how to think.
I don’t understand why when things come to this pass, those in power won’t simply refuse to accommodate the cheaters or the people who insist they have a ‘human right’ to the money earned by others.

Two stories covered both sides of the middle spread in one morning paper.
It just is not possible to read this crap and not see that old RCOB.  It’s the lunacy that is accepted and that will bankrupt the system totally one day.  And it’s in enough trouble already. 

True enough that in the USA there are serious problems in health care that need to be addressed, and not next month or next year or as a talking point only at elections.
But heaven forbid anything like this should ever take hold in America.  And we know in some respects there might be some similarities.

In one case there’s a woman whose bio-clock is ticking. She desperately wants a baby.  At your expense. Cos she says, she has the human right to a baby, even if someone else is called upon to pay for it.

So then, the white trash sponger pictured here, decided that she would have IVF to achieve the wanted baby.  She’s single, no job and wants to be a mother. So, she threatened a law suit in the European court, the system caved in to her and bingo.
Out pops taxpayer sponsored baby.

Link above has both stories. 

The other case involves a Nigerian, Mrs Ayelabola.  This darkie knew what she was about, came to England and gave birth to 5 niglets and now says she intends to stay.
She has no job and no right to stay here BUT … the fugitive from a mud hut in some jungle does have …. Lawyers!  They do know the system, and they do plan ahead.

Posted by peiper     on 07/04/2011 at 01:34 PM   
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine • Outrageous • UK •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

On this 4th of July, let us honor true love

On this day when we celebrate our Declaration of Independence from British tyranny, I just want to point out that there is something we former Colonists can admire in the British royal family.

Yes, not all the royals are as mad as King George III. I thought peiper might enjoy the pic.

Happy Independence Day!

Posted by Christopher     on 07/04/2011 at 01:11 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (9) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

4th of July

The same 6th Circuit court that ruled the other day that the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (ie no Affirmative Action) was unconstitutional was the same court that ruled that Obamacare was constitutional. They are out of their minds.

Doug Ross writes a short and telling essay on that one in On the Road to Totalitarianism With the Sixth Circuit:

How is the health care industry segregated from other industries to prevent the federal government from encroaching upon every other segment of human activity? The judges spare but a few words on this critical issue, stating “...unlike nearly all other industries, the health care market is governed by federal and state laws requiring institutions to provide services regardless of a patient’s ability to pay.”

In other words, the only “firewall” the judges construct to shield other industries from the Orwellian reach of the government is one made of cardboard. In essence, because the health care market is already regulated, the industry is said to be unique and therefore can be utterly controlled by the central government.

What we are celebrating today is the concept of freedom from oppressive government. And the ONLY way we can have that freedom is with a severely limited government. A government limited both in power and in scope. And while it may look like that limitation is being eroded faster and faster these days - see the Kelo v. New London decision, these two decisions, et al - it’s been going on a long long time. The snowball that started the avalanche was when that pinko FDR put the screws to the Supreme Court and leveraged them into declaring that “regulating” commerce no longer meant the “ensuring or normalizing” that the Founders intended, it meant “empowering the government to stick it’s nose in everywhere”. America died right then and there, and 76 years or so later the corpse continues to fester. And government continues to grow and to take over every single aspect of your life while it bankrupts you and your children’s children’s children.

Overturning that one decision, that one statement, would allow generations of encroaching federal control to be erased. Whatever else the goals of the Tea Party are, this has to be their core. Their raison d’etre. Without that we are but paper tigers growling at the campfire.

And obviously, We The People need a way to quickly throw out corrupt and activist judges, from the bottom right up to the top. Term limits is not sufficient. More and more I am seeing legislation from the bench that follows party doctrine to the letter, and that doctrine is the Progressive one. Communist. Statist. That is so wrong as to be a hanging offense. They have to go.

235 years ago a piece of paper recognized the existence of a revolution that was already ongoing. Today a digital version needs to go viral to act as an alarm clock that wakes up the befuddled masses. It is long past time to press the Reset button.

Happy Freedom Day. Now let’s get real. Let’s roll.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/04/2011 at 11:08 AM   
Filed Under: • FREEDOM •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Rebuilding the list

I know a whole bunch of BMEWS readers have their own blogs. I took down the blogroll here some time ago when it was hopelessly outdated. It was suggested that I rebuild it. I can do that. But why should I put in links to places that don’t have a connection to this place? Ok, maybe a few of them, but just a few.

So if you have a blog or web page and you’re a member/reader here, send me an email with the URL, and I’ll rebuild that list with some meaning. Kind of an extended family tree thingy.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/04/2011 at 10:12 AM   
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner