Thursday - August 18, 2011

Big Mistake

We had an off night at league, and managed to win only 1 game last night. This was the first week of position rounds, and we played the 2nd place team who was trailing us by 7 points. Now they are only trailing us by 4 points, which means we will have to face them again next week. If they win all 3 games they get the championship. If we win just 1 game then we get it. Yikes. Too much drama.

I went to the kick off meeting for the Tuesday night league. The motion was made to raise the weekly dues by $2, with the reason given that all the other Big Money leagues charge at least that much and that this league hasn’t raised it’s dues in several years. Funny thing is, this league is not advertised as a Big Money league, and it may not be working as one either.

So I made a serious mistake. I sat down and tried to figure out what the goals of this league are, and how they can be accomplished by the prize fund. Which means I started playing with spreadsheets. Big Mistake. Excel is a dangerous toy to give to an obsessive/compulsive like me. I’ve spent 2 days now running numbers, but the truth is “you can’t get there from here”. At the meeting it was said that this league historically tries to award the 1st place team enough cash so that they wind up bowling for free for the year. That’s great, but what about everyone else? Are we “big money"-ish in that the top places are awarded as best as possible at the expense of the bottom places? Or do the winners bowl free, and everybody else splits the remaining money as closely as possible?

I’ve been running those scenarios, which means I’m plugging away at a 70 page long spreadsheet. And honestly, it looks to me like “winners bowl free” can be done for $5/wk LESS than the current cost. Sure, sure, the more money everybody puts in, the more we can all get out. But it also turns out that the less we put in, the less we get out while at the same time having more in our pockets every week!  And then I realized I really am a Tea Party person at heart, because what I’m doing is no different than what Congress does, just in miniature. Give them enough tax money to fund the most important goals, and leave the rest in my wallet.

Now I want to run the “winners bowl free, but everyone else gets a really tight split on what’s left” scenario. Spreadsheets are dangerous.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/18/2011 at 01:21 PM   
Filed Under: • Bowling Blogging • Economics • Government •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Wednesday - August 17, 2011

caste discrimination in Britain? lawyers say you bet and sue

Oh isn’t this wonderful. Just what the public and the victims want to hear from the future King of England. Chinless wimp.

Incredibly, the Prince of Wales put the criminal actions of looters and rioters down to an excess of of youthful ‘energy and natural aggression’. His verdict is bound to cause anger by those hit by marauding swarms of looters last week and people living in areas at the centre of violent gang wars. Charles was visiting a leisure centre in Tottenham, north London, offering shelter and advice to riot victims.

And here’s a new wrinkle to add to the legal system. And leave it to lawyers. Right?  Hey ... UK ...  deep pockets.

Indian couple who lost their law firm jobs due to ‘forbidden love’ at centre of first caste discrimination tribunal

Home Secretary Theresa May considering whether to add the ancient Indian class system to British equality law

By ANDY DOLAN
Last updated at 9:20 PM on 17th August 2011

An Indian couple who met at a legal firm have become the first in Britain to claim ‘caste’ discrimination, saying they were forced from their jobs following their marriage.

An employment tribunal was told that solicitor Amardeep Begraj, 33, was from a higher caste than her husband Vijay, 32, the practice manager.

He belonged to the Dalits, formerly known as the Untouchables because of the nature of their work in roles such as cleaning, pest control or scavenging, and the lowest class of people according to the ancient Indian caste system.

Mrs Begraj has told the tribunal that a senior colleague warned her against marrying Mr Begraj because people of his caste were ‘different creatures’, while he was told his position at the firm was ‘compromised’.

The case throws a spotlight on how the hereditary caste system, for centuries used to categorise people according to occupation or social standing in India, has gained a foothold in a contemporary Britain where five per cent of the population originates from the sub-continent.

more

Notice the words ... “a foothold.” That’s always how it starts. With a foothold.

Posted by peiper     on 08/17/2011 at 03:44 PM   
Filed Under: • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • UK •  
• Comments (7) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Old School

Posted by Drew458     on 08/17/2011 at 09:16 AM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Rise of the Fourth Reich

My world is suddenly collapsing. A doctor in Ca. who is top notch and needed by me, has moved to another state.
Then I find Simon Heffer is now writing for the Daily Mail.  Good Lord. How the mighty have fallen.  Although I’m sure he doesn’t see it that way.  Heffer is one of my favorite conservatives. Even when, from time to time, he may be a bit critical of things in the USA. He is still one smart man, a good writer, and he is not con.-lite.  I think the Mail now has quite a few conservative writers on board.
But never mind all that.
This caught my eye in today’s paper. 

Be in no doubt what fiscal union means: it is one economic policy, one taxation system, one social security system, one debt, one economy, one finance minister. And all of the above would be German

Well ... it’ll be a well ordered place. Maybe.

und dann ve take back Danzig
but first .... see to the gypsy problem.

Rise of the Fourth Reich, how Germany is using the financial crisis to conquer Europe

By SIMON HEFFER
Last updated at 7:44 AM on 17th August 2011

Yesterday’s crisis meeting between Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy was arranged before the participants knew of the disastrous growth figures in the Eurozone that emerged in the morning.
The background to the meeting was last week’s tumult in the world financial markets. Shares had gone into freefall after the downgrading of America’s credit rating.
Worse than that, however, were the tremors rattling some of Europe’s most important banks, notably in France, caused by further evidence of the utter failure of even the more developed European economies to live anything like within their means.

Chancellor Merkel has managed to use the hard-earned money of German taxpayers to bail out profligate Eurozone countries without suffering any political fall-out. This is unlikely to remain the case and Mrs Merkel knows it.
That is why yesterday she played down talk of the European Central Bank — funded by German-backed Eurobonds — paying off the debts of these all-but-bankrupt nations.

Instead, there was forceful talk of Eurozone countries being coerced into balancing their budgets and reducing their debt through what Merkel and Sarkozy called a ‘true European economic government movement’ made up of all the heads of state and led, initially, by the EU President Herman Van Rompuy.
Frau Merkel called for a ‘stronger coordination of policy’ and ‘a new quality of cooperation’ within the Eurozone.
Although she will not yet admit it, this all suggests the first step has been taken towards a fiscal union that will leave Germany dictating the financial terms for the rest of Europe.

more at the source

Posted by peiper     on 08/17/2011 at 03:28 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

the curse and the cancer in the form of the gypsy

You people lucky enough to be living outside this country, and especially you in the USA, don’t face this sort of problem.
You won’t I know understand a law that says vermin who take your home aren’t prosecuted under criminal law because the law in this blighted place, calls this a “civil matter.” For now anyway.

A thought comes to mind on the subject of Europe’s cancer. And that is.

The Nazis did NOT have everything wrong.
Their round up, where able, of these vermin was quite correct. Too bad they didn’t manage to eradicate this disease before the fall in ‘45. It’s perhaps the one good thing they might have done for civilization.

(The Proms is a musical event)

Gipsies move into immigration officer’s home while she spent night away at Proms

An Immigration officer told of her distress last night after she returned home from a night out at the Proms to discover a group of Roman gipsies “squatting” in her house.

Julia High, who works at the UK border agency, found the family of eight living illegally in her home of 30 years in Leytonstone, east London, a fortnight ago.
Despite her furious protests, they insisted their bogus tenancy documents were legal, claimed neighbours had told them she was dead and that they had rented the house from her “son”.

While the women were wearing her clothes, the rest of her belongings had been stuffed into garbage bags and dumped in her back garden.
She was even offered a glass of her own wine after being “invited” her back into her own home.
After Miss High, 55, secured an eviction order the following day, the group proceeded to trash her house, leaving most of the rooms uninhabitable.

“These people have just trashed 30 years of my life and thrown it into bin bags,” Miss High said last night.
“It is soul destroying.”
Miss High had been out at a Proms performance on a Monday evening earlier this month at the Royal Albert Hall when neighbours raised the alarm.
She had left for work the previous Friday morning and had then spent the weekend visiting her elderly parents in Guildford, Surrey.
She returned home to find the Romanians sitting around the dining table.

The front door had been levered open but she admitted she had no way of proving the Romanians were to blame.
“The women came to the door dressed in my clothes, they were sitting around my dining room table, drinking my wine out of my glasses,” she said.
“They even offered me a drink and told me they were from Romania.

“They said I was dead and my son had rented the house to them. I am very much alive, single and I don’t have a son.”
The following day Ms High secured a county court eviction order, which the police served that evening.

But by that stage, the group had destroyed much of her home. The kitchen and bathroom suffered water damage due to removal of the lead roofing.
A computer, containing valuable pictures of her two-month-old grand-niece, and digital cameras have been taken, the carpets have been removed and food taken from her fridge.

Squatters packed her clothes into in her suitcases. Only her two beds and her wardrobes were not damaged.
Last night, members of the gipsy family abused reporters after being confronted at the house they were currently staying at around the corner.
They chased reporters down the street, spat at them and also hurled abuse.

Later a woman, who gave who her name as Carmen, came out to the street and denied being the family behind the destruction.
The 35 year-old said she lived in the house with her four children, aged, 4, 12, 14 and 16 as well as her 54 year-old aunt and her two children aged 16 and 14.
The house cleaner, who came to Britain from Romania a month ago, said she rented the house from “a man who stopped me on the street and asked if I wanted to rent this house”.
She declined to answer detailed questions.

Neighbours of Miss High became suspicious of the claims she was dead and called her parents Jean and Bernard, who are in their 80s, to confirm.
Her frail mother said: “As far as I am aware she is very much alive and she certainly was when she left our house this morning.”
Outside Miss High’s home were several garbage bags and a note pleading with people not to ransack the rubbish.
Neighbours said the gipsies had come back and collected clothes Miss High had thrown away.
Miss High had switched off her mobile phone last night.

photos and more story

I can’t find enough words or expressions to describe the threat and menace of this hated breed of sub humans. And btw, the idea that someone approached
the gypo filth and offered a house is the usual excuse they all use when taking over someone’s home. It’s like something from a script. We’ve read this comment a hundred times over the years from different gypo families. They should never be allowed to thrive or to breed or to even be allowed in other countries outside their own pigsties where they all originate.  And the major reason they do these things of course is .... simply because they can.
Nobody since the war has done anything about them.  Nobody has made any examples of them.  And I fear nobody will. And so it will continue.
Not in the USA of course. Cos Americans would not put up with this for any longer then it takes to pull a trigger.

Posted by peiper     on 08/17/2011 at 01:22 AM   
Filed Under: • Travelers/Gypsies/Squatters •  
• Comments (5) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Tuesday - August 16, 2011

ok … what’s wrong here aside from the obvious?

okay .. I am not holding my breath that I will find the answer.

Normally I really like Kodak, their tech help has usually been very good, haven’t had any Indian call center, thankfully.  Also haven’t had to call them in a couple of years. But last time I did, it was about just this problem you see here. And it has nothing to do with the camera picking up anything of like color and then reproducing it.

Kodak once explained something over the phone to me, after my emailing them another shot with the same problem. Thing is, I did not understand one technical word they said. Really.  I was overwhelmed by the explanation and so just gave up. Just shoot lots of pix and dump any that reproduce the problem.  Overall, I have not been plagued by it for a long time.  That is, until Monday when I shot this.

I just do not understand what’s happening or why I should see that color.

Would anyone with knowledge of photography have an answer for this that can be put into English?

Posted by peiper     on 08/16/2011 at 11:31 PM   
Filed Under: • Art-Photography •  
• Comments (10) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

stop thief? among a large group of thieves. uk riot

It’s 5 in the morning here and I don’t have anything I want to say. Mind and body a wreck, been up since 3:30. Freekin doctor. More worried that I might become addicted to a medication that works, then what a vicious cough is doing to the body. Have to call in when office opens in three hours.
Anyway, I came downstairs for a hot soothing drink and thought, hell with it. I’m up. I’ll boot.
And found this.

Pack of looters caught on camera pulling biker off his scooter and stealing it

By CHRIS PARSONS
Last updated at 1:09 AM on 17th August 2011

It may look at first like this scooter rider is simply trying to negotiate his way through a busy High Street.

But once it becomes clear the rider was weaving his way through a crowd of looters in Croydon last week, the outcome is sickeningly predictable.

Seconds after being spotted, the learner rider is dragged from his scooter by a thuggish gang at the peak of last week’s breakdown of law and order - before another thief makes off with the vehicle.

see more

And even with all the evidence available via street cameras and personal stories coming out, there are still idiots on the left looking for understanding for the behavior of criminal minded scum.

In Birmingham, West Midlands Chief Constable Chris Sims called for ‘compassion’ for some of the rioters.

He said: ‘There are tragic offenders as well as tragic victims. Young people who have been in care for most of their lives. We need to show some compassion and be pragmatic about how we deal with these people.’

However, he added: ‘There has to be a deterrent to stop people thinking they can behave like this in future.’

Posted by peiper     on 08/16/2011 at 11:16 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime • CULTURE IN DECLINE • UK •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

New Digs For The Murderer Down The Street

Ex-Net star Jayson Williams is preparing to move from a prison in rural New Jersey to Rikers Island.

He is expected to be transferred from Wrightstown’s Mid-State Correctional Facility next Friday after doing 18 months for aggravated assault. Then he’s to begin serving a one-year sentence for DWI in New York City.

Williams, 43, drove his SUV into a tree in lower Manhattan a week after accepting a plea deal in the accidental shotgun death of a limo driver in his New Jersey mansion in 2002.

Back in 2002 Jayson Williams, a resident of Alexandria NJ (right down the road here ... in Michigan, right Peiper?? ) was partying with his home boys and showing off, and snapped the action closed on a very expensive Browning Citori O/U shotgun. Which just happened to be loaded, and the gun “accidentally” discharged. Because $3000 shotguns are such crap you know.Limousine driver Gus Christofi, the only white guy in the house, just happened to be standing where the gun was pointing. As he lay on the floor bleeding to death, Williams and his pals panicked and tried to create a cover-up, at first trying to claim that the driver had committed suicide. The trial was a disaster, another OJ-ish deliberate fiasco, where it was “found” that the shotgun, utterly jammed solid with dirt, grease, and sawdust inside, might just actually have accidentally discharged. What wasn’t “found” was that that “forensic” examination was one of the most ham-handed and poorly done affairs ever. Which was just so convenient, that other people couldn’t resist playing that riff. And thus Williams got off, but the jury hung on the lesser charges.

(2/23/2010) ALEXANDRIA TOWNSHIP (actually Somerville NJ)—Former New Jersey Net Jayson Williams apologized in tears at his sentencing today for fatally shooting a limousine driver in 2002.

The 42-year-old retired athlete pleaded guilty last month to fourth-degree aggravated assault for the death of Costas “Gus” Christofi, 55, at the estate Williams owned in Alexandria Township.

“I know there’s nothing I can do to bring Mr. Christofi back,” Williams said to Christofi’s family. “I am deeply deeply sorry… I pray that today brings you some comfort.”

“To my family, please forgive me for the pain I’ve caused you,” Williams said, his voice cracking. “You deserve a better father, son, brother than I have been.”

As part of a deal, the State Attorney General’s Office asked Superior Court Judge Edward Coleman, sitting in Somerville, to give Williams 18 months in prison for the assault charge. The state also recommended up to five years in prison for trying to cover up the shooting that occurred in a bedroom of the Hunterdon County mansion. He would have to serve 18 months before he is eligible for parole.

Williams first went to trial in 2004, and a jury acquitted him of aggravated manslaughter, the most serious offense. He was convicted of the four charges related to the cover-up. Reckless manslaughter was the only charge on which jurors could not agree. He was slated to be retried this year, but pleaded guilty Jan. 11. During that hearing, Williams admitted that he pulled a shotgun from his gun collection on Feb. 14, 2002. He failed to check whether the safety mechanism was on, or if the gun was loaded, and he didn’t pay attention to where the muzzle was pointed. When he snapped the gun shut, it discharged and hit Christofi in the chest.

Sucks to be rich, don’t it? Murder a guy in cold blood, have your lawyers spin some fancy bullshit, have somebody else doctor the evidence, and you just about walk. 18 months for murder. But, gosh, Jayson has Found Jesus in jail, and preaches there daily. Hallelujah.

(news item from 2002) An autopsy on the body of the limousine driver gunned down in the New Jersey mansion of former NBA star Jayson Williams confirmed the death was not a suicide, a medical examiner said yesterday. But the ruling was little comfort to the grieving family of Costas (Gus) Christofi as they gathered for his funeral - while Williams remained out of sight.

Kneeling before the gray coffin holding her slain brother’s body, Andrea Adams shook as she quietly wept at St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Piscataway, N.J. Christofi, 55, a bachelor who lived in Washington Township, N.J., was eulogized by Father John Theodosion as a man who turned his life around after a bout with drug addiction that landed him in prison.
...
Published reports have contended Williams accidentally shot Christofi as he haphazardly twirled a shotgun while giving friends a tour of the 40-room Alexandria Township home last Thursday.

(from the first trial) SOMERVILLE, N.J. - Limo driver Costas (Gus) Christofi was still breathing when Jayson Williams wiped his own fingerprints off a still-hot shotgun, a prosecution witness testified yesterday.

It was only after the former Nets star tried to press the dying man’s prints onto the 12-gauge, double-barrel Browning that a 911 call was made, said witness Craig Culuko.

The damaging testimony came during a day-long prosecution barrage against Williams, who is accused of recklessly shooting Christofi early Feb. 14, 2002, in the master bedroom of his rural New Jersey mansion, then trying to make it appear the man had committed suicide.

Witness John McPartland of Mahwah, N.J., said he was playing basketball on the retired NBA star’s indoor court when he heard a commotion upstairs.

He said when he reached the living room, a flustered Curly (Boo) Johnson, a member of the famed Harlem Globetrotters, told him, “Jayson shot the limo driver.

(more from the first trial) A drunken Jayson Williams angrily cursed at a limousine driver in his mansion before snapping closed a loaded shotgun - and fatally shooting the man, prosecutors charged yesterday.

“What the [expletive] are you doing in my mother[expletive] room, you [expletive] stoolie?” Williams asked the driver, according to a witness.

Another guest at the ex-Net’s elaborate New Jersey home told authorities the former NBA star called the driver a “mother [expletive]” seconds before the gun fired.

The stunning statements were revealed in court documents filed yesterday by prosecutors.

They provided the most detailed account yet of what happened the night Costas Christofi bled to death on Williams’ bedroom floor.

Me, carry a grudge? Not hardly. But I knew Gus, in passing. We both used the same gas station down the street here, and we’d chatted at the pumps a couple times. Have fun on Rikers, Jayson. Hope Jesus can save your ass in that place. Maybe your ex-wife will come visit when she’s not too busy being on a reality TV show. Don’t count on it.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/16/2011 at 12:45 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Flash Mobs At Sea

Location detail: Around 60nm WNW of Al Hudaydah, Yemen
Type of Attack : Boarded
Narrations: 11.08.2011: 1115 UTC: Posn: 15:09N - 041:55E, Around 60nm WNW of Al Hudaydah, Red Sea.
A bulk carrier underway noticed a mother ship at a distance of 0.5nm. Suddenly three skiffs appeared from behind the mother ship and approached the bulk carrier at high speed - one from port side, one from starboard side and one from astern. The vessel commenced evasive manoeuvres. The pirates were able to hook on their ladder and board the vessel. The Master ordered all the crew to retreat into the citadel and called the CSO, who informed the navies in the region. Later a warship arrived and marines boarded and searched the vessel. No pirates found. Crew and ship safe.

Location detail: Gulf of Aden
Type of Attack : Fired Upon
Narrations:09.08.2011: 0226 UTC: Posn: 13:08.8N - 048:41.6E, Gulf of Aden.
Five pirates armed with RPG and guns in a 12 meter white plastic skiff chased and fired upon a general cargo ship underway. Onboard security team fired warning shots resulting in the pirates moving away. A warship in the vicinity carried out a search in the area.

Location detail: Around 20nm ENE of Assab, Eritrea
Type of Attack: Fired Upon
Narrations: 06.08.2011: 1505 UTC: Posn: 13:07.2N - 043:04.9E, Around 20nm ENE of Assab, Eritrea, Red Sea.
Twelve skiffs with five to eight pirates in each skiff approached a bulk carrier underway. As the skiff closed in, guns and ladders were noticed. Warning flares were deployed by the onboard security team. The skiffs continued to approach the vessel at 17 knots. At a distance of around 300 meters, on the command of the Master, the onboard security team fired warning shots resulting in most of the skiffs falling back and circling the vessel. Two skiffs continued to chase the vessel and returned fire. The skiffs and the security team exchanged fire and after 30 minutes and numerous approaches the skiffs aborted and moved away.

Looks like the Somali pirates are trying attacks en masse to overwhelm shipboard security. So far, it isn’t working. While piracy off of Malaysia and off of the West African coast has seen some success, the Somalis are still batting 0. Now that the insurance companies have jacked up the rates enormously, and declared nearly half the Indian Ocean a high-risk zone, the combination of rough seas from a long monsoon season and the presence of armed security on many merchantmen has ground pirate victories almost to a halt. That doesn’t mean that all the hijacked ships and crews have been released, just that the pirates aren’t bringing home any new ones right now:

(report from mid-July) Pirate attacks on the world’s seas totalled 266 in the first six months of 2011, up from 196 incidents in the same period last year, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) revealed today.

More than 60% of the attacks were by Somali pirates, a majority of which were in the Arabian Sea area said the report, Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships. As of 30 June, Somali pirates were holding 20 vessels and 420 crew, and demanding ransoms of millions of dollars for their release.

“In the last six months, Somali pirates attacked more vessels than ever before and they’re taking higher risks,” said IMB Director Pottengal Mukundan. . “This June, for the first time, pirates fired on ships in rough seas in the Indian Ocean during the monsoon season. In the past, they would have stayed away in such difficult conditions. Masters should remain vigilant.”

In the first six months, many of the attacks have been east and north-east of the Gulf of Aden, an area frequented by crude oil tankers sailing from the Arabian Gulf, as well as other traffic sailing into the Gulf of Aden. Since 20 May there have been 14 vessels attacked in the Southern Red Sea. “It is necessary that shipboard protection measures are in place as they sail through this area,” said Mr Mukundan.

But although Somali pirates are more active – 163 attacks this year up from 100 in the first six months of 2010 – they managed to hijack fewer ships, just 21 in the first half of 2011 compared with 27 in the same period last year. This, the report says, is both thanks to increased ship hardening and to the actions of international naval forces to disrupt pirate groups off the east coast of Africa.

Don’t worry about those poor pirates going hungry and having nothing to do. Right now they’re busy stealing half or more of the millions of tons of food aid the UN is shipping the Poor ‘n Starvin’ in that fly-bitten land:

Thousands of sacks of food aid meant for Somalia’s famine victims have been stolen and are being sold at markets in the same neighbourhoods where skeletal children in filthy refugee camps can’t find enough to eat, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The UN’s World Food Program for the first time acknowledged it has been investigating food theft in Somalia for two months. The WFP said that the “scale and intensity” of the famine crisis does not allow for a suspension of assistance, saying that doing so would lead to “many unnecessary deaths.”

And the aid is not even safe once it has been distributed to families huddled in the makeshift camps popping up around the capital. Families at the large, government-run Badbado camp said they were often forced to hand back aid after journalists had taken photos of them with it. Ali Said Nur said he received two sacks of maize twice, but each time was forced to give one to the camp leader.

“You don’t have a choice. You have to simply give without an argument to be able to stay here,” he said.

The UN says more than 3.2 million Somalis — nearly half the population — need food aid after a severe drought that has been complicated by Somalia’s long-running war. More than 450,000 Somalis live in famine zones controlled by al-Qaeda-linked militants, where aid is difficult to deliver.

An official in Mogadishu with extensive knowledge of the food trade said he believes a massive amount of aid is being stolen — perhaps up to half of aid deliveries — by unscrupulous businessmen.

The percentage had been lower, he said, but in recent weeks the flood of aid into the capital with little or no controls has created a bonanza for businessmen.

The official, like the businessmen interviewed for this story, spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals.

The AP could not verify the official’s claims. WFP has not said how much food aid it believes is being diverted.

At one of the sites for stolen food aid, about a dozen corrugated iron sheds are stacked with sacks. Outside, women sell food from open 110-pound sacks, and traders load the food onto carts or vehicles under the indifferent eyes of local officials.

Stolen food aid is not new in Somalia — it’s the main reason the U.S. military become involved in Somalia during the country’s 1992 famine, an intervention that ended shortly after the military battle known as Black Hawk Down. There are no indications the military plans to get involved in this year’s famine relief efforts.
...
In Mogadishu markets, vast piles of food sacks are for sale with stamps on them from the World Food Program, the U.S. government aid arm USAID and the Japanese government. The AP found eight sites where aid food was being sold in bulk and numerous smaller stores.

Among the items being sold were corn, grain, and Plumpy’nut — a specially fortified peanut butter designed for starving children.

Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman said the government does not believe food aid is being stolen on a large scale but if such reports come to light, the government “will do everything in our power” to bring judicial action.

The AP investigation also found evidence that WFP is relying on a contractor blamed for diverting large amounts of food aid in a 2010 U.N. report

Eight Somali businessmen said they bought food from the contractor, Abdulqadir Mohamed Nur, who is known as Enow. His wife heads Saacid, a powerful Somali aid agency that WFP uses to distribute hot food. The official with extensive knowledge of the food trade said at some Saacid sites it appeared less than half the amount of food supplied was being prepared.

Attempts to reach Enow or his wife for comment were not successful.

Plumpy’nut? What on earth is that?

Pronounced Plum-pea-nut, Plumpy’nut is a miracle worker. Known across Africa simply as Plumpy, it’s the magic goo that saves children’s lives by the millions. It is what is known as RUTF, a Ready To Use Theraputic Food. It is all natural, needs no cooking, needs not water to be added, has a shelf life of years, and children love the taste. It allows aid workers, totally overwhelmed in their health centers, to simply distribute the packages and ward off several malnutrition without the presence of hospitals or even doctors. A few 3.5oz packs of Plumpy and some clean water are all it takes to save lives.

When an Antonov An-12 airlift took off from Marseilles, heading for a famished region of Niger, it carried several tons of oil and sugar, supplies you would expect would be used to feed starving people. But it also carried tons of a 92g, 500-calorie foil sachet that is a household name in hungry countries and almost unknown in well-fed ones.

The sachets are packed with Plumpy’nut - known to millions of hungry and formerly hungry children as Plumpy - a peanut-butter food for the acutely malnourished which may have transformed the way hungry people are treated. The French newspaper Libération called it “this magic potion”.

The ingredients of this revolution are simple: peanut paste, vegetable oil, milk powder, vitamins and minerals, combined in a foil pouch with red lettering and an apostrophe shaped like a peanut. Cut the corner of the pouch, feed to a severely malnourished child two to three times a day for about 40 days, and the child will usually be up and about. Normally, a quarter of severely malnourished children do not survive, even in clinical conditions. With Plumpy’nut, death rates can be cut by half.

Because it contains a range of vitamins – A, B-complex , C, D, E, and K – and minerals calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, zinc, copper, iron, iodine, sodium, and selenium, in 92-gram packets that deliver 500 kilocalories of highly specialized nutrition, Plumpynut works where local food and even family food fails. This is because, past a specific stage of malnutrition, children are unable to digest “regular” food and need intense nutrition.

Plumpy’nut is a patented food, and the patent is owned by Nutriset. While they have allowed local production in many of the really awful African nations, they have held on to their legal rights in all other world markets. This has lead to some ethical problems, as other folks feel that a monopoly on a humanitarian product is a bad idea, and if the stuff was produced by numerous companies the price would drop (it costs about $1 a day for the 3 packets needed to feed a starving child). Nutriset feels that quality control would become an issue, and that black-hearted commercialism could lead to the substitution of harmful ingredients, like the Chinese did when they added Melamine to exportable foodstuffs. Even though Plumpy’nut would make a superb backpacker food or MRE, Nutriset sells their product only to hunger relief agencies.

Read more

PS - in case it’s been a long time since Chemistry class, what Americans call a Calorie is what science terms a kcal, or kilocalorie. Thus a pack of Plumpy’nut does actually contain 500,000 calories, but to us that’s only 500 Calories. 1 calorie is not much energy: it’s the energy required to heat 1cc (1/5 tsp) 1 degree Centigrade.

GET ME OUT OF HERE ...

Posted by Drew458     on 08/16/2011 at 11:12 AM   
Filed Under: • Pirates, aarrgh! •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

no english spoken here

OK, fun’s over. Riots have stopped for now and authorities are getting serious.  Nothing like locking the barn door, eh.

UK riots: Home Secretary considering new general curfew powers
Police could be handed new curfew powers to clear the streets of rioters, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said today.

Oh good. So somebody noticed. Meanwhile ......

So what DOES it take to deport a criminal? Judge cuts drug-dealing migrant’s sentence so he won’t get kicked out

* Vincent Miller had already been deported twice

* Stole identities so he could get work

* Decision provokes fierce backlash from critics

* Home Office insists it will seek to deport Miller

By JACK DOYLE and JAMES SLACK

A judge cut the sentence of an illegal immigrant and drug dealer yesterday to help him escape deportation.

Vincent Miller was kicked out of the UK twice but managed to return and stay for more than a decade by stealing the identities of British citizens.

Yet when the 33-year-old was sentenced, the judge said sending him home to Jamaica would be ‘devastating’ for his three children.

Incredibly, he deliberately shortened the sentence Miller would have received from a year to 11 months. Criminals given 12 months face automatic deportation proceedings.

Recorder Farook Ahmed told Miller: ‘The sentence I have had in mind was 12 months, but it seems to me that it isn’t necessary for me to pass a sentence of 12 months because a sentence of 11 months will have the same effect, and it would take away the automatic triggering of deportation. I have taken into account that if you were to be deported it is bound to have a devastating effect on your three children, who I’m told are lawfully here in the UK.’

The judge’s decision provoked a fierce backlash.

SOURCE FOR MORE

A huh .. the judges name is what? Farook? Ahmed?  Well Farook you dummy. Gotta wonder where that guy’s head is. But then, why should he care. Bet his loyalty isn’t English based. Yeah I know. I’m being stroppy. No, more mean spirited I think. Just tired of the BS is all. Tired also of seeing names in papers no English speaking person could pronounce. Not talking about this judge but others in the news most days. Both good and bad but all sharing a grouping of letters that pass for names. And we’re all suppose to become linguists I guess.

Well I suppose that official wanted to guard his human rights to a family. All very understandable. Right? 

Now take a look at this one.  It’ll probably get buried under all the riot news and the latest murders of a family of 6 stabbed to death by angry immigrant husband. 

The old fellow in the story here is married to miss piggy. See the link below.

It’s racist to bar me from your country! Meet the Indian husband in immigration battle who refuses to learn English and is calling on others to join him
By SANJAY JHA and DAVID WILLIAMS

The Indian man challenging immigration laws which block non-English speakers from coming to live in Britain said yesterday he hopes ‘many other people’ will come if he wins.

Talking about his case for the first time, Vali Chapti, a farmer who wants to join his wife in Leicester, also insisted that he would never learn English.

Speaking to the Daily Mail in his remote village, he said he could easily ‘get by’ without English because there were many Gujarati speakers in Leicester and it would be the main language where he would live.

The 57-year-old also branded Britain’s immigration system ‘racist and discriminatory’ and said his human rights had been breached in a ‘disgraceful way’ by rules introduced by Home Secretary Theresa May requiring immigrants to have a basic command of English.

His wife Rashida, 54, has begun a court challenge funded by legal aid against the rules, which are aimed at ensuring immigrants can integrate into British society.

Mr Chapti said he was confident his case would be successful and added that hoped to bring one of his sons with him to the UK.

‘How can the British Government deny me the right to live with my wife at this late stage of my life because I am unable to speak the language?’ asked Mr Chapti, who has been married for 37 years.

He said several of their seven children had previously applied for visas to join their mother but they too had been turned down.

Mr Chapti, who has seen his wife once in the past six years, said: ‘I have faith in the right of a husband and wife to be together. I want to come as soon as I can to England.

‘However long it takes we will fight until we receive justice in this case. If we are rejected, we will appeal again and again for our human rights to be respected.’

And he claimed that if the challenge is successful, it will set a precedent that will ‘open the gates’ for other spouses around the world kept apart by the rules introduced as part of the Government’s attempts to curb net immigration.

‘My wife may be fighting for me, however when we win the victory it will help so many other people who want to come to the UK but can’t due to the present immigration law making English mandatory.’

Mr Chapti said he had dropped out of school aged nine – he can barely read or write in his mother tongue, Gujarati – and has no intention of trying to learn English.

‘It’s not easy to learn a foreign language late in life especially when I have not even finished my proper education at school in India and, except Gujarati, I don’t speak any other language properly.’

source

Perhaps at his age and level of education, it might not be possible to learn a new language. But his wife could always move back to where he is.

Posted by peiper     on 08/16/2011 at 07:38 AM   
Filed Under: • UK •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Monday - August 15, 2011

mommy claims rights violation & police brutality for rioter son

Well folks, the govt. is now promising to get tough and address the problem of crime and streets taken over by gangs.  Everything the govt. is now promising is so darned overdue. Why?  Why did it take what happened last week for those jerks to wake the hell up? A violent rape and robbery by a 15 year old, homes burned to the ground and businesses destroyed, people beaten senseless and four needless deaths.  And now the powers that leech come up with plans and suggestions.

It is not at all like the general public has been silent for the last dozen years.  Editorials in papers have been calling, no begging more like, to turn things around. Scrap the damned European human rights legislation, for starters. Now they are talking about it. Talking. Talking isn’t enough. Do it! 
People have been begging for years (all the time I’ve been here anyway) for stiffer penalties for criminal behavior. Punishment that means something other then a bragging trophy to share with friends.

When I first visited England many years ago as an artist’s agent and road manager, I was amazed at how safe some of the streets seemed to be here.  Sure, every city in the world has places that are not safe.  But we covered hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles criss-crossing the UK from England to Scotland and Wales and one of our tours took in Land’s End.  By the time we finished we covered a few thousand miles. Take a look at this island and a few thousand miles is a heck of a lot.
Travelling all those miles through various towns and cities, I never saw the things that are commonplace today. Even in our out of the way (to a degree) area. The mindless public drunkenness by very young girls now called ladettes who match the lads drink for drink and violence for violence.  Ladettes. The word has even entered the dictionary.

I saw places I thought might be wonderful to live in.  Devon, The Cotswolds, Cornwall, The Yorkshire Dales, Cumbria. Oh god. Cumbria! I’d love to go back there again. And Dorset. And our own county of Hampshire, which includes The New Forest, which of course is a thousand years old.  I have been to all these places and had fallen madly in love with them, as you might too if only you could personally experience their beauty for yourself.  Breathtaking doesn’t even begin to describe it.

There are more beautiful places on this island then there are ugly.  The dismal part of this country is where people of no vision have built. 

So the Brits have a beautiful place to call home, and for all the mistakes of empire they still have a history they should be damn proud of.  Hundreds of years of it.
And it’s only taken about 30 years to toss it all down the drain.
It’s all come down to last week’s bloody riots by young people, many well educated and even from wealthy homes. Riots and the attending mayhem seen as a fun night out by the lowest sort of world scum outside killer terrorists.
Has it all come down to this?

My son’s the victim, says mother who faces eviction from her taxpayer-funded flat
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

The mother of an alleged looter who faces eviction from her flat now says her son is the victim of police brutality.
Daniel Sartain-Clark, 18, was photographed bleeding outside a branch of Currys in Clapham Junction, South London, after it had been ransacked by looters.
It is alleged he was attempting to steal electronic goods and attempted to resist arrest.

But his mother, Maite De La Calva, 43, claims police pushed him to the ground and struck him on the head with a baton, leaving a deep gash.
She said his 18-year-old girlfriend, J-Niel Starkei, who was also arrested, was hit in the face and suffered a cut lip.

Sartain-Clark denies burglary and violent disorder, and is in custody awaiting a further hearing on Wednesday.
In the first case of its kind, he and his mother have been served with an eviction notice as council bosses seek to turf them out of their £225,000 taxpayer-subsidised flat in Battersea.

mom claims rights violation

Mommy says son and girl friend were stupidly curious and just wanted to see what was happing and so there they were when cops arrived.
Should the kid be given the benefit of the doubt? See the photos at link and a bit more of the article.

Meanwhile, David Starkey, the historian I posted about yesterday is still coming under attack from the usual libtard sources, who do not even have the brains or the common courtesy to quote him correctly. In at least one case in a major paper, someone has even managed to quote something he did not say.

Posted by peiper     on 08/15/2011 at 10:12 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • CULTURE IN DECLINE •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Sunday - August 14, 2011

What a riot!

Pat Condell, as only Pat Condell can do it.

Posted by Christopher     on 08/14/2011 at 07:53 PM   
Filed Under: • Stoopid-People •  
• Comments (7) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Cancelled!

I received a Notice of Cancellation of Insurance.

It’s from my new homeowner’s insurance company. They cite me for three things. Two of which I’m not ever gonna comply with:

A) Front steps lack a railing
B) Dwelling porch lacks a railing
C) Tree touching the house.

I’ll fix the tree. I have to prune it every three or four years. It’s time anyway…not only is it touching the house, but I’m tired of ducking when I mow the front yard.

As for railings, my house was built in the 1930s. It has never had railings. Nobody on my block has railings. In the 21 years I’ve lived here I’ve never had railings. Railings are ugly, and would diminish the character of the home.

If you are too stupid to stay on the porch without falling off, then Darwin wins.

Of course I got this letter on Saturday. Nobody is available until Monday.

Posted by Christopher     on 08/14/2011 at 11:53 AM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
• Comments (7) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

New Steyn Column

Mark Steyn: Lessons From London

Good writing!

Within two generations of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain, a significant proportion of the once-free British people entrusted themselves to social rewiring by liberal compassionate Big Government and thereby rendered themselves paralytic and unemployable save for nonspeaking parts in “Rise of The Planet Of The Apes.” And even that would likely be too much like hard work.

...

Anyone who has so much as glanced at British policing policy over the past two decades would be hard pressed to argue which party on the streets of London, the thugs or the cops, is more irredeemably stupid.

...

This is the logical dead end of the Nanny State. ... As I write in my book: “Want has been all but abolished. Today, fewer and fewer Britons want to work, want to marry, want to raise children, want to lead a life of any purpose or dignity.” The United Kingdom has the highest drug use in Europe, the highest incidence of sexually transmitted disease, the highest number of single mothers, the highest abortion rate. Marriage is all but defunct, except for William and Kate, fellow toffs, upscale gays and Muslims.

...

Big Government means small citizens: it corrodes the integrity of a people, catastrophically. Within living memory, the city in flames on our TV screens every night governed a fifth of the Earth’s surface and a quarter of its population. When you’re imperialists on that scale, there are bound to be a few mishaps along the way. But nothing the British Empire did to its subject peoples has been as total and catastrophic as what a post-great Britain did to its own.

There are lessons for all of us there.

source

Posted by Drew458     on 08/14/2011 at 10:14 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• 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