Friday - November 11, 2011

Made It Back

Got home around midnight last night. Up this morning and have a million things to do. Had a very interesting time on Abaco. Plenty of good, plenty of bad: that’s what makes vacations interesting, right? All sorts of first impressions still sinking in. The island is a most unusual place, a huge expanse of fertile land left fallow and reverted to primeval conditions; a 120 mile long strip of land with only one road outside of the towns, and that road goes from one end of the island to the other; driving on the left in left hand drive American cars; going 65mph down the empty sandy road at night in the van with headlights that were hardly better than nightlights; gorgeous late spring weather in the late fall that was dry and mild even though we were mere feet from the ocean; the brilliant sunshine that bursts into the sky before 5am and falls just as fast by 6pm, the dry bay that was less than a foot deep at low tide; the outrageous price of everything; the Robinson Crusoe feeling of isolation and quiet because we seemed to be just about the only people on the lower half of the island; the juxtaposition of wealth and squalor and brightly painted colorful homes and decaying shacks and million dollar yachts next to rotting rusting hulks. A near total absence of water pressure, but an island with abundant fresh water. The Big Empty - what Pratchett fans would call MMBU (Miles and Miles of Bloody Überwald) - that had no animals, no people, and hardly even a bird. Only biting flies and mosquitoes. Just millions and millions of tall skinny pines growing in with the coconut palms, bay laurels, and other scrub in an absolutely impenetrable flat and endless underbrush that covers the whole island right down to the surf-free beach. And the placid turquoise waters teeming with fish. Teeming. And not a boat in sight, or hardly ever even a glimpse of another fisherman.

Digital cameras can’t deal with the intensity of the light. Make this pic about 10 times brighter in your mind. Brilliant sunshine.
The little island is Duck Cay, about 2 miles from our beach. You can walk there at low tide if you have the stamina.



What I call The Big Empty goes at least 40 miles, from Marsh Harbour in the north all the way down to Sandy Point in the south.
And the knotted mangrove marsh to the west called The Marls makes this look like Eden.

Oh, and the flight home was hellish and rough. After leaving Florida half an hour late and making great time as far north as Washington DC, the pilots cut power and just dawdled their way in to NJ while the plane bounced around the stormy sky as if we were flying across corrugated cardboard. Wouldn’t want the flight to be early, heavens no! And I swear the pilots landed at Newark on one wheel and did half pirouettes down most of the runway, leaping from wheel to wheel and bouncing all over the place. It was a very rough and wobbly landing. Thank God for Bonine: a double dose of that and not only did I have no physical unease or motion sickness, I didn’t have a care in the world. Mellowed out totally. Then I got the TSA hassle - hey, welcome home!! - because a damp cake of Dial soap in a plastic bag in my luggage set off their drug/bomb/whatever detectors. Oh Joy. And this was after “airport security” in Abaco had snagged my bottles of booze, which I had mistakenly put in my “carry on” luggage, even though for that flight, in that little airplane (2 seats across by 12 or 15 deep) there was no “carry on” and everything went in the hold. And you can’t “check through” any luggage coming into the US on a connecting flight. Bastiges. I lost 3 ways on the booze this trip, but that’s another story for another time.

But hey, did I mention the conch? Conch chowder, conch fritters, conch curry, conch sandwiches, conch ceviche salad, conch everything, conch everywhere, conch even for fish bait?

Posted by Drew458     on 11/11/2011 at 10:02 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life •  
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   Wednesday - November 09, 2011

Pt.Two final. For now. Immigration USA Really kind folk. NOT

I have been up since 2am and so this is going to be a very short computer day.
Yesterday I started writing on a subject that I want to finish here.

We are facing a bit of an immigration problem, easily solved.  Just return to the USA but only as a three-month visitor, or say the hell with it and never return.  I am not the ‘visitor,’ but the wife is.  Never mind that my wife is married to an American and has been for 42 years.  Never mind that she worked and paid taxes in the USA before we ever met, and worked there for approx. 40 of our 42 years. And never mind that she collects Soc. Security.  She is still a foreigner and subject to the laws of the USA as such.  But wouldn’t any reasonable person, with knowledge of that and our present circumstances concede that there are times when some slack should be allowed.  The folks at immigration have no problem with my entry, no matter how long I’ve been away.  But they just can’t seem to allow for a 42 year marriage. So, I’m welcome but she isn’t except under strict guidelines.  And forget dual citizenship. Yeah, that was explored.  But in spite of having spent all those years working in the USA, the rules to qualify for DC are impossible to comply with.  They sure do not make it easy. Of course, they shouldn’t.  But in the case of someone who has already spent half a lifetime and done everything but vote, heck.  I thought (dumbly) that my natural born citizenship might cover her.  Well apparently not. But hey, shouldn’t some kind of allowance be made for someone having lived in and been married for say 25 years and with no criminal record?  Not even a parking ticket.

Yesterday, I ended this story with the following.

In 2006, we set ourselves up for the trouble that followed in 2010, and worse this year on our trip back home on Sept. 13, 2011, when she was pulled aside and taken to an interrogation room like some sort of illegal.  And technically, she may have been.

By 2006, the mil was totally bedridden and as already explained, the wife wasn’t exactly running the minute mile anymore.  Injuries from accidents and the stress and the very hard work of moving dead weight to change diapers on an aged mother, had taken its toll.

There is a rule with regard to foreigners who are out of the USA for long periods.
You must return every year just to get your passport stamped by US Immigration.  Never mind the cost, which is not small even with so called cheap flights.
The greater cost is the physical inability of doing that when you are wracked by pain and the worry of a dying parent you’re afraid to leave.  At one point in late ’05, my wife was making use of a cane for some months.  But there was nobody at the embassy or at Homeland Security who was able to offer any kind of advise or help.

The wife’s mother finally passed away in 2009 at the age of 93, thus giving us back our own lives which had been on hold for so long.  Although it was expected, as always the loved one left behind is devastated.  I of course felt relief.  The bondage was over at last.

I could not help myself and wondered if that was how the freed slaves felt after the unCivil War.
So, we went through all the usual things after a death in a family, the mortuary, the lawyer(s) the will, yadda,yadda.  And of course months of probate.  Then another disaster (for my wife) when her brother suddenly died of a brain tumor in Australia.

Finally in 2010 with some things more or less settled , we flew to the US for a three month visit.  And ran into US Immigration who pointed out that my wife’s passport had not been stamped since 2004, and here it was 2010.  Oh boy.  The guy at the booth was not interested in the wife’s story but instead had her escorted to the room where they question folks coming into the country.  Reasonable enough I guess, they wanted answers to questions which they got.  Sort of.  She spoke to a supervisor who told her that a decision had to be made as to which country she was going to live in.  As well, he gave her an extension and allowed her into the USA but with the warning that she had to return in a year.  It may look like an excuse but I can tell you for sure that my wife was in no condition to make decisions of any kind at that point in time.  We could not leave an empty house here for long; we cannot maintain two separate houses in two countries and who knows how long it will take to sell this place.  Yeah, we wanted to come home (USA) but the problem was when.  It all looks so easy and so simple on paper. 
And then her uncle died, her mom’s last sibling. 

Well, for lots of reasons I can’t explain, although we should have returned to the states by July, making it one year, we could not.
I filled out that ESTAS thingy that does not guarantee a person can get in, but must be done (at a cost btw) before you fly.
On Sept. 13th, two months later then the rule, we arrived at LAX.

Now I must make a confession here in order not to give the wrong impression.  I had warned the wife that we needed to return in July if we were going, as that month made the year.  But she was under the impression based on what she said she was told at the interrogation in 2010, that it wasn’t a calendar year.

I’m still not clear on what her thinking was, it could have been wishful thinking.  But I was not allowed into that room with her and so don’t know.  Here’s what I do know.  If you ever made an international flight and had to wait for customs and immigration, you know the wait can be an hour at a minimum at LAX. An hour? You are lucky if it’s that short.

So after an 11 hour cramped flight, another hour (at least) in a slow moving line and then taken to an interrogation room where she had another hour to wait to be interviewed, she wasn’t at her best back in 2010 and I sure don’t know what was said. But she came away thinking that coming back every year meant 2010,2011,2012 etc. You get the idea.  Add to all that, on a transatlantic flight, we’d been up and moving for a very long time. Up at 6am for a 7am pick up for the hour drive to London airport. Then three hours of waiting there, a loooong walk to the gate with carry on baggage. By the time we arrived at LAX, I don’t really know how long we’d been up. And hey, we are not spring chickens anymore. 

So naturally coming through LAX this year, going by the rule, she was two months over the limit.  We left the USA last year in July and so had to return in July of this year.  But we returned in Sept.
Big mistake.

The line to wait after deplaning was a long one. It was a full plane and there were not that many immigration booths operating. The line went at a snail’s pace, I don’t think there was any air conditioning running. Didn’t feel like it.  Two sights I will never ever forget. One was a joke.  While waiting in that line and in plain view are posters showing smiling, helpful and happy looking snappy dressed officials waiting to greet visitors with a caption that said, “The face of America.” Yeah?  Not there surely.  Not at LAX. Not one person looked anything like that poster and certainly there weren’t any smiles.  The other thing I cannot forget is the inspector with the rubber mouth.  Think I’m cracking wise?  Nope.
I’d never seen anything quite like that before. So, picture this.

A long snaking line, people being called one at a time as a booth becomes clear for the next victim.  You’re still some distance from the front of that line but have a clear view. You wait along with a couple of hundred others for your turn to clear immigration. And there at one booth sits an officer who decides to stop processing ppl and waving other ppl on to other booths, while he very,very,very
s l o o o o l y munches on a bag of potato chips.  He was very slow and very deliberate in his chewing, and his lips seemed made of rubber as they extended and retracted and twisted round and round his face.  He sat there chewing and looking at the exhausted, sweaty travellers shuffling in place, almost as if he were daring any of us to say anything.  Of course none did except to each other.

When it was finally our turn he waved us on to the next unoccupied inspector as he was still making circles with those large ugly lips.
He wasn’t finished with his chips.

We got an inspector I was hoping to avoid. None of them are exactly pleasing to the eye, but this one guy was kinda scary.
With a complete stone face he asked the wife a question she wasn’t prepared for. He looked at her passport and asked if she wanted to surrender her green card?  That threw her cos she didn’t understand why he would want it. It didn’t expire till 2014. So she (in error) said no and that’s when he asked her to step aside and she would be escorted to the interaction room.
Here we go again and it doesn’t get any better.

Once again I am not allowed in that place with her, and so grab a baggage trolley and gather all our luggage, and sit down outside the closed off area she’s in. Behind closed glass doors.  She’s about the 11th and last person in the waiting area.  We are already very late and I’m now worried about the hired car that’s supposed to pick us up and take us to Palm Desert, a three hour drive at least, depending on traffic and accidents etc.  Pretty soon, little by little a little later, the terminal empties itself of humanity as even the inspector booths are now vacant.  And still no sign of my wife.
So I push the trolley to the far end, almost to the exit and find a water fountain. I tried to empty the reservoir.  Then I made my way to the exit thinking maybe I could find our ride and let em know we’re delayed. But no such luck because if you exit, you can not go back in. What if I got stuck on the outside and the wife finally got through?  What if there was going to be a problem and they wouldn’t let her in?  All sorts of crazy things going thru my tired worn out brain. I couldn’t leave the baggage unattended in a terminal. Even if it wasn’t stolen, it would surely be seen as abandoned and a possible threat. But I had to get out to the waiting area. Not a chance.  So I wheeled the trolley back to the waiting area, stopping on the way to make another attack on LA’s water supply.  Still no sign of my wife.  But she wasn’t in the waiting room so presumably she was being interviewed.
Outside of the glass door and sitting at a desk armed with a clipboard was a small Asian woman, I thought perhaps Vietnamese.
At any rate, from that general area.  By now, there was total silence. The rumble of the baggage carousal was gone, the place was empty and quiet.  Anxious to try and find a way to alert our driver (if they were even there, I had no cell phone) I told the woman I had a problem, knew I couldn’t just leave luggage even there, and could she keep an eye on our baggage for a couple of minutes?  Her reply was,
“I’m not paid to baby sit people’s luggage.” Well heck, I was the only one there by that time, she was sitting there doing nothing that I could see.
I think I used the word “shit” and sat down to wait for my wife to exit KGB HQ. 
During her interview, the officer was she tells me polite, but aggressive at the same time.  He told her that she was told last year she had a year in which to return and that she was told she should have got an extension.  Tired and confused she thought she had used the extension in ’04 and wasn’t allowed another. She said she didn’t recall that. She says he asked her if she was saying that the officer was lying.  She said no, she wasn’t saying that at all. Only that she didn’t remember anything about another extension. That came as a surprise.  She’d been up for many hours, many more in lines, was exhausted and just didn’t know. But she accepted what he told her.  He then told her that by holding on to her green card, she was denying entry to some other immigrant who might qualify for one and do America some good.
He had a point.  My wife had her time and paid her taxes and wasn’t living in the USA and so her time is up.  Need to make way for new blood I guess.  Like the folks coming in across the borders of Tx,Az,Nm,Ca, etc. And then there are the amnesties from the dark past.

She told the inspector that we had hoped to settle in Ca. and were going to look for a home on this trip, try and sell the house in the UK and return next year.  He told her that might be a problem.

So here we are and I guess until I can sort things out, here we’ll remain.  The supermarkets are better here then those in our home state and town, plus they deliver.  And while it ain’t perfect cos nothing man made is, national health for all it’s problems isn’t as bad as has been reported in the states. I don’t drive here and that’s a bit of a handicap but … we have bus service and it’s free to those over 65.  So we’re having to play this one out one day at a time. Or in our case, one year at a time, and time sure grows short at my age.

Do miss Sun City, CA.  tho.

Posted by peiper     on 11/09/2011 at 03:07 PM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
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   Tuesday - November 08, 2011

Part One … the compassionate, understanding and warm hearted folks at US Immigration.

Pt. one of two

The article by the brilliant MELANIE PHILLIPS in the Daily Mail really hits home due to a recent experience with the KGB, or as it’s known in the USA, US Immigration.
Our ppl appeared to me to be a cross between the Gestapo and the KGB altho I hardly know the difference if there was one, between the two.  One thing I do know for sure.
Our guys don’t have the sartorial good taste in uniforms that the Nazis did.  Just the bad manners and bully boy attitude.

This has been gnawing away at me for more then a month.  While the wife is over it, I’m still greatly bothered. Would it kill anyone at US Immigration to be helpful? OK, forget helpful. They don’t get paid for that.  How about ‘civil?’ I’d settle for that.

As I wrote Drew at the time, I had never met so many stone faced, unhelpful, unkind, unfriendly, unsympathetic, unyielding and moronically aggressive people all at once under one roof. 

There are a few here at BMEWS who know a bit about my circumstances and so some of this is a re-telling. That’s because those who aren’t aware will see our story for the first time and I have to go to the beginning, which is 2004.

My wife was the only daughter of the mil, who with old age could no longer live alone.  She had not yet become bedridden, that was in the near future. She was a burden which later became a curse.  If there’s one thing to be understood, it’s that there isn’t any substitute for an only daughter.  Just ask any mother who has a good relationship with her daughter.  I understood that, and didn’t think twice when it became apparent that the wife and I would have to move to England to care for her mother.  And before anyone asks, no.  It was not even remotely possible to have the old lady move in with us in America.  So in 2004 we pulled up stakes in CA., sold everything and stored what needed saving, and arrived here in the rain and cold on April 28 of ’04.  I kept a journal over the years we cared for the mil, one of these days I may post them.

There are rules and laws and sometimes we may not understand the logic of them, but we always assumed and especially after 9/11, that rules were in place for a good reason. Among our many rights, we never believed it was right to circumvent a law just because it wasn’t convenient.  Not only that, but there are fines and jail and who needs that, for people who flaunt the law.

One of the very strict rules of Homeland Security is that any foreigner who leaves the USA and stays away for a year, must return in that year to simply get their passport stamped. The USA didn’t care if you returned on the next plane, but you must get that passport stamped. Which meant of course that the wife would have to fly to NY to do that at US Customs and Immigration.  Now then …. we applied for and the wife got a years extension on that, which you can get one time only.  And I think we paid for the privilege, altho my memory on that is a bit murky. The wife says we did.

I won’t go into detail here with all we found upon arrival, the things that had to be tossed (secretly) to make room in this small place, and the leaking roof which resulted in the removal of one of the two chimneys.  There was a mountain of work to be done, and for those who do not know, this house was built in 1924, and hadn’t been maintained by the mil to the degree needed for house this old. But again, that’s for another time.  I’m simply trying to convey the idea that things weren’t as simple as just moving in. Far from it. 

At first, the mil could make it into the kitchen on her own with the aid of a walker.
She could use the bathroom with no help. Sadly, that didn’t last long.  By the end of ’04 she could no longer do those things and had a portable potty in her room. By Mid December of 2005, she was entirely bedridden.  We did have help from social services after having to spend down some of her savings, which really weren’t much to begin with.  Depending on which team came to the house, they weren’t always easy to get along with and I posted about them a few years ago.  They changed the old dears diapers twice a day.  My wife, on her own, did the other two changes. And that was not easy on her.

A word is necessary about my wife’s health so you’ll know why she decided to not to comply with the return rule in 2006, when she was due to return to the USA, just to have her passport stamped.  When folks here would ask how my wife was coping, I’d tell them she was “committing suicide by mother” Ha Ha. Dark American humor. Or so they thought. But I wasn’t kidding.

Some years before, the wife had a couple of accidents which resulted in broken bones and torn ligaments.  One was the result of being hit by a small pick up truck carrying fire wood. The kid went through a stop sign and demolished the wife’s car.  She was lucky to be hit on the passenger side. The car was totalled and she had all sorts of damage to herself.  The other accident years before that was in a fall on stage at the Grand Ole Opry.  They used to have these bleachers on stage behind the performers.
It was dark up there, you could hardly see the ppl on stage in the bleachers from the audience.  (No, we didn’t sue the Opry) She was coming down the stairs when her ankle turned on the last step or the one above it. She was badly hurt and in a cast on one leg almost up to her hip for months.  This old scratchy photo was taken during that first recovery. 
She has never fully recovered, has continuous pain, and there’s arthritis as well.

So then, here she is changing diapers, doing the shopping cos I can not drive here, and more or less playing mother to her mother.  By the time 2006 rolled around, she was just not in any shape to be getting in a car or worse yet a bus and making the trip to the airport in London.  She also had the very real worry that her mother could pass away and she wouldn’t be here for her. 
If you try and explain all that to officialdom, you very quickly discover that not only aren’t they listening, they don’t care.  They really do not.  There is no such thing as
Extenuating Circumstances. They wanted her passport stamped. Period.
Since the American Embassy is US soil, we asked if she could go there, given her health and circumstances.  Nope. Can’t do.
And so in 2006, we set ourselves up for the trouble that followed in 2010, and worse this year on our trip back home on Sept. 13, 2011, when she was pulled aside and taken to an interrogation room like some sort of illegal.  And technically, she may have been. 

It’s late, I’m tired and so ....

CONCLUSION TOMORROW

Posted by peiper     on 11/08/2011 at 02:52 PM   
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are libya’s good guys turning bad, or only reverting to type? time will tell but meanwhile

Gaddifi is gone and not many will miss the cartoonish buffoon.  One of the things that surprised me about him for a very long time, was how seriously he took himself.
I used to think he never looked in a mirror. If he had, he might have died laughing. But for all his loony tune antics, he was a dangerous man and perhaps mad as well.

So he’s gone and unlamented.  Eight months ago when France and England decided it was of earth shaking importance (along with nato) to defend civilians against him, I thought their excuse for their crusade was a crock and still do.  I was peeved that the powers aligned against him weren’t willing to call a spade a spade and launched that dumb propaganda war.  Come on. How many of us truly and honestly believed that all of a sudden, after all those many years, four decades in fact, suddenly nato (with a small ‘n’) led by the nose by Sarkozy and Cameron, all of a sudden they have an epiphany. All of a sudden they wet their collective pants over his supposed attack against his own people. Like it was something new to them.

At the time I wondered, as did many other far smarter and better informed people then myself, just who were these ‘civilians’ Cameron and company were so worked up about.  Well, according to some reports coming from the area, reports I’ve no reason to doubt, perhaps the guys Gaddifi was at war with weren’t all boy scouts or innocent civilians yearning to breathe free.  You don’t say.

Here’s some belated news from last week.  Just in case you missed it.

Libya: revolutionaries turn on each other as fears grow for law and order

Hundreds of revolutionaries fought each other at a hospital in Tripoli early on Monday, in the biggest armed clash between allies since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.

By Nick Meo, in Tripoli

The fighting fuelled growing fears that nobody is in control of thousands of swaggering armed men who are still based in Tripoli and that the country’s interim government will struggle to impose law and order.

Two people died from bullet wounds and at least seven fighters were injured during a battle that started when militia from the town of Zintan were stopped by guards from the Tripoli Brigade from entering the city’s Central Hospital to kill a patient.

The hospital front door and entrance hall were afterwards left pocked with bullets, doctors and patients had to flee the building and two elderly patients died of heart attacks during the shooting, which lasted from about 1am until dawn. Heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft guns were used by both factions, supposed allies who in reality nurse a dangerous rivalry.

READ MORE

And now there is this update which won’t surprise anyone.

Libya dispatch: as lawlessness spreads, are the rebel ‘good guys’ turning bad?

Once welcomed as liberators, Libya’s rebel fighters are beginning to outstay their welcome in Tripoli.

By Nick Meo, Tripoli

Abdul Mojan’s moment of realisation came when the good guys threw him into the boot of their car, slammed it shut and drove off with him a prisoner inside.
When they finally stopped and hauled him out, he asked them: “What are you doing? I’m a revolutionary just like you! I’ve never supported Gaddafi.’”

But the former rebels didn’t care. They had taken a liking to the new office block in western Tripoli that Mr Mojan managed and they wanted the keys and ownership documents. He tried to reason with them, pointing out that there were plenty of government buildings standing empty.
To no avail, however. “We have sacrificed for this revolution and you haven’t, and now we will take what we want,” he was told by a cocky 18-year-old. “You can have the building back when the revolution is over.”
A week later Mr Mojan was still incredulous as he recounted his tale toThe Sunday Telegraph, admitting that he felt lucky to escape without a beating although there was nothing he could do about the 5,000 dinar (£2,550) they stole from his car.

Many of Tripoli’s residents have had a similar moment of grim awakening in recent weeks. Their liberators, still swaggering around the city in Che Guevara-style berets and armed to the teeth, have not gone back to their home towns as they promised. Nor have they started handing in the guns they used to fight against Gaddafi, as they said they would.

“When they said Libya Free, they meant the cars, the refrigerators and the flat-screen television sets,” runs one joke doing the rounds in Tripoli’s cafes. Stories of gunmen taking expensive cars at checkpoints, giving receipts saying they will be returned after the revolution, are nervously swapped over cups of tea.

More alarming than the looting have been the armed clashes between militias. There have been three big fights in the capital alone in the past week; shoot-outs at a hospital, Martyr’s Square, and the military airport, which have left several dead and dozens wounded.
Then there are the detentions. With the fighting over, the revolutionaries have not been idle. They have kept busy rounding up hundreds of suspected Gaddafi supporters in a wide-scale witch-hunt, often on the basis of little more than rumour and accusation.

One man, a supporter of the revolution who was full of hope a month ago, described how his brother-in-law, Omar, had been grabbed by gunmen from Misurata. They were acting for a wealthy businessman from the city, with whom Omar had a dispute several years ago.
“They came to his house and Omar went with them because he believed in the revolution and thought it was a misunderstanding that would soon be sorted out,” the man said.

“But when they arrived in Misurata they threw him in their private prison and said they would beat the soles of his feet until he confessed. It is an old Turkish torture called the falakha. He was really scared, and he managed to escape by persuading one of them who felt uneasy about this to let him go.
“Next day they turned up at his house, and threatened his wife and children. Can you believe this? We have hundreds of little Gaddafis now.

SOURCE AND MORE

“are the rebel ‘good guys’ turning bad?” No ... they are only reverting to type.

Posted by peiper     on 11/08/2011 at 09:19 AM   
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   Monday - November 07, 2011

eye candy

Have to shut down ... another long and cold, damp day.
Will leave you with this , cos I think she’s cute. But not too crazy about that flower on her head.

Cheers All.

Would love to fly Singapore Airline to see more like this. This was one of their ads, but I bet not all their attendants look like this. Some are prolly even guys. Have you ever noticed that all the airlines feature (generally) really pretty ladies?  But I’ve never seen a guy that I recall, until we board a flight. And then the stews aren’t as pretty and no where near as glamorous as they were in my yoot.  That’s when planes few by winding them up.

Posted by peiper     on 11/07/2011 at 02:04 PM   
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We accept cash, gold, silver, and used guns

Oh, I’m still laughing…

Posted by Christopher     on 11/07/2011 at 01:34 PM   
Filed Under: • FREEDOM •  
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immigration,Serbia and multi-culture

H/T islam versus Europe

Where islam spreads ..... freedom dies.

We don’t hear too much from these folks these days. We especially don’t hear a lot and not once did I see or read anything on the subject, while visiting home in the USA recently.

There folks are having a bit of a multi-culture problem. Ah diversity. Does wonders for a people. Ya think?

This country is kinda hampered cos it’s either now in the EU or wants to be.  And since the end of their war which ended well for nobody with the possible exception of muzzies .... they can no longer toss em out or the riff-raff coming in from turd world countries.

H/T ISLAM VERSUS EUROPE. SEE THE BLOG

Posted by peiper     on 11/07/2011 at 10:11 AM   
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they never run out of things to be offended by.

These are long articles and so I won’t post everything. Interesting material and but no surprises here.
People coming from places with stone age thinking demanding that the folks already here and native born, knuckle under to a foreign way of life.  That’s not even news anymore. Is it?

A Satire Draws Fire

FrontPage Magazine 7 November 2011
By Mark Tapson

Here we go again. Charlie Hebdo, a humor magazine in Paris which had produced a spoof issue “guest edited” by, as The New York Times and other media outlets refer to him, the “Prophet Mohammed?,” was firebombed early Wednesday just as the special edition was on its way to the newsstands. Hackers had also disrupted its website with a message in English and Turkish cursing the magazine: “You keep abusing Islam’s almighty Prophet with disgusting and disgraceful cartoons using excuses of freedom of speech.

The magazine had announced the special issue in satirical salute to the “Arab Spring” victory of an Islamist party in Tunisian elections: “Charlie Hebdo has asked Mohammed to be the special editor-in-chief of its next issue,” the magazine said in a statement. “The prophet of Islam didn’t have to be asked twice and we thank him for it.” It renamed itself Charia Hebdo, a pun on the word “shariah,” for the occasion, and featured an editorial by Mohammed entitled “Halal Aperitif” and a women’s supplement called “Madam Sharia.” On the cover was a cartoon of Mohammed announcing, “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter.”

But Islamic law forbids depictions of its prophet, and as Iran’s glowering Ayatollah Khomeini? once famously remarked, “There is no fun in Islam.” Muslim fundamentalists were apparently not amused by the magazine’s mocking tone, and a Molotov cocktail was thrown through the window of Charlie Hebdo’s offices in the wee hours of the morning, devastating the premises.

Its editor, Stephane Charbonnier, said,

We can’t put out the magazine under these conditions. The stocks are burned, smoke is everywhere, the paste-up board is unusable, everything is melted, there’s no more electricity.

But the issue will appear as scheduled and the magazine’s website appears to have been restored.

read more here

Europe’s veil of fear

Ynetnews 7 November 2011
By Giulio Meotti

The office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was badly damaged by a firebomb on Wednesday, after it published a spoof issue “guest edited” by the Prophet Muhammad to salute the victory of the Islamist party in Tunisia’s elections.

The magazine had announced a special issue for publication, renamed “Charia Hebdo,” a play on the French word for Islamic law. The magazine’s website has also been hacked with a message in English and Turkish. The fatwa said: “You keep abusing Islam’s almighty Prophet with disgusting and disgraceful cartoons using excuses of freedom of speech. Be Allah’s curse upon you!”

Charlie Hebdo is the latest in a series of “blasphemous pencils” – European cartoonists, writers and journalists threatened with death for their criticism about Islam. They are people who need a level of personal protection unconceivable even in Israel, a country well-known for its attention to security. And it happens all over Europe.

Kurt Westergaard is the most famous of them. I spoke with him immediately after the attack in Paris. Westergaard is the Danish artist who created the controversial cartoon of the Prophet wearing a bomb in his turban: “Few days ago the police discovered another terrorist plan to attack my newspaper, the Jyllands Posten,” Westergaard said. “My house is protected as a bunker with cameras. I am always guarded by the policemen. Few months ago I had to attend a book presentation in Oslo. But the day before the Norwegian police asked me to cancel the event due to the terrorist threats.”

Five years after the publication of the cartoons, Westergaard still needs the same level of security of a Danish prime minister.

VEIL OF FEAR CONT.

I guess it may a bit harder for these stone age lunatics to get away with as much in the USA.

For Now.

Posted by peiper     on 11/07/2011 at 09:25 AM   
Filed Under: • muslims •  
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   Sunday - November 06, 2011

SQUATTERS BY ANY OTHER NAMES? DEMONSTRATORS, PROTESTERS

This left wing nut case

who is the leader of the Labour Party ... thinks people should listen to these folks .....

whose years and experience and wizdumb hold all the answers to what ails society.

Ed Miliband: We should listen to St Paul’s protesters
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Labour leader Ed Miliband today warned of the ‘crisis of concern’ in mainstream Britain brought on by the St.Paul’s Cathedral protesters, which must be addressed by politicians, the business community and the Church of England.
In an article for The Observer, he said that the activists spoke to a wider frustration about the disparity between people’s values and the way the country was run.
He said: ‘The warning lights on the dashboard are flashing. And only the most reckless will ignore or, still worse, dismiss the danger signals.’
Miliband also acknowledged that those camped outside St Paul’s felt alienated from the Britain’s leaders and called for immediate changes in order to alleviate the protestors’ frustrations.

Now why they’re called protesters or demonstrators is beyond me since they appear more like squatters who shout slogans to justify their squatting.

St Paul’s staff have to clean up human waste INSIDE the cathedral as protestors ‘use it as a latrine’

Cleric: ‘This is desecration of a very holy place’
By CRAIG MACKENZIE

Staff at St Paul’s have been forced to clear up human waste inside the cathedral, it emerged today.

They have made several trips with mops to remove the mess found on a carpet inside the church near the West Steps - just yards from the anti-capitalist protest camp.

One cleric furious at the use of the building ‘as a latrine’ said: ‘ This is desecration of a very holy place. it hurts me and it hurts the staff.’

The cathedral workers have met senior clergy to vent their feelings over the clean-up.

St Paul’s has blamed ‘hangers on’ and not protesters at the tented camp which closed one of London’s most iconic attractions for a number of days last month.

A LOT MORE HERE

Right. Hangers on.  The church has been supporting these squatters and the man at the head of the church, has defended them.  Many churchmen have spoken in terms of total appeasement to this rabble without a cause.

But here’s one voice (of many) who have it exactly right.

Everyone’s terribly sweet… but what a festival of drivel!
By PETER HITCHENS

Every crank, dingbat and fanatic in Southern England has found his or her way to the camp by the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral. Given time, every faddist in Europe will arrive.

There are already plenty of North American accents.

Whatever your cause, it has a pavilion here, especially if it is a lost cause. The poor Kurds are represented. There are lots of those infuriatingly smug, self-satisfied Guy Fawkes masks.

There’s a Buddhist shrine next to an arrow marking the direction of Mecca.
Che Guevara, that old mass murderer, has his image on display.

There’s propaganda against the ‘persecution of sex workers’. The Socialist Workers Party, those latchers on to every passing procession, have a stall that looks a little too neat and tidy for the occasion.

Bolshevik discipline doesn’t really mesh with the world of Twitter and dope.

As George Orwell once said, such things attract the people he jeered at as ‘sandal-wearers’, ‘nudists’, ‘sex-maniacs’ and ‘vegetarians with wilting beards’ .  .  . the sort who are drawn to ‘progressive’ causes ‘like bluebottles to a dead animal’.

There really are signs against ‘capitalism’, a word used only by people who still think you can change human nature, which you sort of can if you have concentration camps and an effective secret police.

And there are other placards enquiring rather aggressively: ‘What would Jesus do?’ People who ask this question always assume that Jesus would agree with them. Well, I suppose it’s possible. But what would He agree with, exactly?

Stand here long enough and you will be pinned to the wall, or to a pillar, by lots and lots of nice but rather silly people. There’s the man who thinks we invaded Iraq to punish it for not having a central bank.

They are thrilled to have discovered that the City of London Corporation is so fantastically undemocratic. They had no idea that such wickedness still survived, and that they can be against it.

There’s the slender public schoolboy with the looks of a tragic Thirties poet who, handed a megaphone, emits five minutes of the higher drivel about nothing in particular.

‘We are the people,’ he claims, adding: ‘We have forgotten what and who we are.’ He can speak for himself.

I’m sure that if I had waited long enough, I would have been taken to one side by enthusiasts for flatulent diets, speakers of Esperanto, or persons who think that The Key To Everything is to be found in the measurements of the Great Pyramid.

MORE HITCHENS HERE

Posted by peiper     on 11/06/2011 at 02:39 PM   
Filed Under: • Commies • Stoopid-People • UK •  
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a gun story, among the charges, possession of a bullet.

There has to be more to this story then told here.  Who gave him away? Why?  It just seems like something is missing from the article. Cops must have been on to him right?  I mean, they don’t go eenymeeny miny moe and then simply pick out a house.
Whatever ....  What gets me is the number of violent crimes committed by feral kids who get house arrests and “cautions” and even adults quite often manage to get two yrs or less for doing worse.

Or ... are the streets here a bit safer now?  Might he have been up to something not said here?
On the funny side is this line.

and two charges of possessing a bullet.

Hey Drew. You out there someplace with a PC?

Antique firearms collector with more than 140 guns is jailed for two years for owning four air rifles without licence
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

An antiques firearms collector was jailed for two years after he was found to have four air rifles and ammunition without the correct licences.
When police raided Karl Blennerhassett’s luxury flat in Up Holland, West Lancashire, they found more than 140 guns, including racks of rifles and revolvers, a court heard.

Expert examination found that the vast majority were classed as antiques and legally owned but it was the other items which landed him behind bars.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that Blennerhassett, who works for his father’s tarmacking business, had previously held a firearms certificate.

However, it was revoked in 2008 after he was convicted and fined for failing to comply with its conditions.
Blennerhassett admitted possessing one air rifle without a certificate, which was just over the permitted velocity limit, and was convicted by a jury of illegally possessing three others which had been modified, and two charges of possessing a bullet.

‘Each of these three rifles are deemed specially dangerous under the legislation,’ said Judge Mark Brown.

‘Each was of high specification in that each had been fitted with a sound moderator and telescopic sight. Each had been modified and modified in a very professional way.’

The judge accepted that Blennerhassett had not modified the weapons himself but he did not accept that he had not known they were modified.

‘This is a serious case and I am satisfied you were deliberately flouting the provisions of the Firearms Act,’ he said.

The judge said Blennerhassett had decided to sidestep the legislation by having the air rifles modified so that it appeared they were legal when in fact they were not.

The police raid last December also uncovered what was described as an “air rifle kit” involving magazines, pellets and compression springs.

Nick Doherty, defending, said that there was ‘no suggestion of any nefarious use of any of these items.’

However, Judge Brown asked the prosecution to write to the Home Office expressing his concerns over the need for legislation for antique firearms.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Posted by peiper     on 11/06/2011 at 01:41 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
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Unemployed, and uninsured

Just an update on being uninsured vis unemployed.

My experience so far just shows the need for medical savings account coupled with a high deductible catastrophic insurance account.

First example: I broke a tooth, my dentist did repair work for $198. Granted, and I agree, I can afford it, I need a crown on that tooth. That’ more ‘iffy’. Granted that if I was employed at all, I’d have had the crown done.

Anyway, the dentist did what he could to keep the tooth from falling apart until a crown is set. Cost: $300. Remind you that most insurance don’t cover dental. Certainly doesn’t cover crowns.

Next up: I had an appointment with my regular internist. No insurance? No problem. I paid $60 for an office visit that I would have paid $20 for anyway. $20 being my copay. No insurance.

My point? Give me a medical savings account, and I’ll shop around for catastrophic health insurances. Decouple from my employer.

Posted by Christopher     on 11/06/2011 at 11:15 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials •  
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   Saturday - November 05, 2011

Remind me to never do that again!

I’m sure Macker will like this…

Sorry I haven’t posted as promised, but I did something stupid: I upgraded to Mac OSX 7 ‘Lion’.

Not that there was anything actually wrong with the upgrade itself, I like it… but

…over half of my favorite third-party software no longer worked. ‘Lion’ drops support for Power PC programs. I had no idea I had so many Power PC programs. I thought I’d gotten rid of those when I switched from OS 9 to OS X. Suddenly, my video ripping editing software didn’t work. Nor did most of my audio software. Most importantly, my financial software was out! I really need that!

So, I decided to restore the previous OSX 6 ‘Snow Leopard’ from my Time Machine backup. That didn’t work! Got this really scary grey screen with a lot of text on it about a kernel error and I must reboot! Yikes!

I’ll spare you the gory details. I’ve now got an external hard drive that I can boot from in ‘Snow Leopard’. It has all the stuff that doesn’t run under ‘Lion’. So if I need to do some A/V editing, I’ll use it. It’s also where my finances are…(with ‘I tell you three times’ backup!)

Updating the main hard drive. It’s still on Snow Leopard until iTunes finishes importing my music, audiobooks, movies, etc. After that is done, then I’ll do the upgrade to Lion again. Gosh I got a lot of music, audiobooks, movies…

I’ve got some posts for BMEWS, but let me take some time to see if anybody covered my topics while I was OOC.

Posted by Christopher     on 11/05/2011 at 08:58 PM   
Filed Under: • Computers and Cyberspace •  
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a rant on music in stores and some other news

Some news from old blighty that strikes me as odd. A few items that frankly defy logic.

As Will Rogers famously said, “I only know what I read in the papers.” Or in my case, the radio too. I happen to hear or read the following.

This fellow’s 4 year old daughter was refused a place at a nearby school.  The article didn’t say why.  It also makes no mention of a wife so we don’t know if he’s just a single dad, a widow, divorced er what. 

The little girl was assigned to a school more then 3 miles away ( no mention of bus) that she doesn’t want to attend.  Also, there’s a problem in that daddy does not drive and so can’t take her there anyway. The article seemed to me to be leaving out things but the one thing that really stood out was the following.

Dad met with his local conservative MP and explained his problem and also doesn’t know why his daughter can’t attend the local school near home.
The advice he got seems weird to me, even as a non parent.
His MP suggested that daddy should buy his girl a bike and let her bike the three miles or so to the other school.

Is it just me because I have no experience as a parent?  Would any of you feel safe letting a four year old bike three plus miles to school?  I wouldn’t feel good about one mile, never mind three.

Finally, the usual statement from the office of his local MP.

“We’re sorry if Mr. Johnson did not find the discussion helpful.”

No they aren’t.

Complaints, complaints and nothin’ new.
In this case it’s a number for the health service (NHS) for non emergency help.

They’ve been testing a pilot scheme and apparently the wait times are running fairly long.  Like as much as 35 minutes for some folks. A report said that 12 percent of 33,000 calls across four areas, went unanswered.
Seems like some work needs to be done.  Gee, and I thought the wait time when calling our local pharmacy was longish at 8 or 9 minutes.  Sometimes they get tired I suppose of the ringing and disconnect us.  Doh, it’s a major pharmacy chain. Boots.
What would it cost them to install a hold on the line?
Of course the downside to that would mean god awful music being pumped down a distorted copper line and being forced to listen to rap or some other equally awful uninspired un musical garbage.

Finally …. an article in today’s Daily Mail proves conclusively that the ppl responsible for forcing loud background music on us in stores, restaurants and even public toilets, don’t listen and don’t care when they do. And the background really isn’t background at all in too many places. But the generation that has grown up with things LOUD, have lost much of their hearing and so now they’ve grown up and are in charge of what we must listen to in public places they control.

How half of us have left a shop because of its muzak

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Presumably, a little background muzak is designed to make you stay in the shop longer so you buy more.

But half of shoppers have become so irritated by it that they have walked out.
A survey found that three-quarters of shoppers notice the songs played in a store.

(of course we notice. how can we not when the level is so high you can’t think.)

When they liked it, 49 per cent said they had stayed longer as a result. But overall, 50 per cent of shoppers had left because they didn’t like what was playing or they found it annoying.
And 23 per cent said they would be less likely to return to a retailer if they didn’t like its choice of soundtrack.

This shows the danger that stores face by not developing a suitable ‘sound’ for their brand, according to Immedia Plc, which carried out the survey of 1,000 shoppers. 

(and why do they think they need a “suitable sound” to begin with? Does Sainsbury or Waitrose or Tesco need a suitable sound? Don’t think so. And thank heaven our local Tesco does not have a music track running.)

Audio is the single most effective way to capture the attention and imagination of people who are on the move inside your shop or restaurant,’ he said.

(Really?  If I’m already in your damn restaurant, I’m there for a meal. Not a loud concert. And what sort of attention does the manager expect of me? I want to see the menu. I’m already there. But restaurants like Palm Desert’s Elephant Bar, which otherwise has an outstanding menu, and they aren’t alone, just simply do not give a damn.  So we took our money on last month’s trip to other places. They got our attention alright.)

‘This is supported by numerous scientific studies that demonstrate how an effective music strategy does everything from improve staff morale to enhance the customer experience, to crucially increase sales.

‘Especially given the challenging economic environment, it is important to optimise every element of a customer’s sensory experience.’

Immedia’s scientific adviser Dr Vicky Williamson added: ‘Music can profoundly affect our mood, emotions and energy levels. Studies have shown that we naturally exploit these effects every day by using music to optimise our state of mind.
‘This survey demonstrates how similarly important “background music” is to our shopping experiences.

TAKE A LOOK THE COMMENTS LEFT BY 218 PPL SO FAR.

Here’s mine among the many.

This article proves without doubt that the folks who force feed us what they say is background music (it isn’t, it’s foreground more like), do not much care what we think as a general rule. I’ve been in places and requested what passes for music be turned down only to be lied to and told that the music volume is controlled by computer in another state. (in the USA) And even here you can’t get away from it. Not even in a public loo in some places. And please tell me why any brand must have any sound at all. This line shows how out of touch they are. ‘This survey demonstrates how similarly important “background music” is to our shopping experiences.’ No it isn’t. It’s always too loud, and because of that it is distracting and annoying. We can’t get out fast enough. And forget impulse buying. Stores lose out on folks like my wife and I who simply walk out as soon as our list is complete. No hanging about to look. But they count on many of you who will put up with the noise.

Posted by peiper     on 11/05/2011 at 02:04 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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no more squatter/gypsy/traveler stories … except for this.

For a few years now I have shared with some great frustration, the many stories about squatters, travellers and gypsies.  They all do basically the same thing and all pretty much cause havoc and great expense to innocent property owners.

It isn’t that the problem has gone away in the short time I was gone.  Trust me. It hasn’t.  But to be honest, I am bone tired of the story and I bet you are too. 

Damn if it isn’t reported so often (cos it happens so often) that you’d get the impression nothing else happens here except that subject.  So in the future, I am going to ignore (or will do my best to ignore) any more articles on that subject. 

I can report however that Parliament has met to discuss legislation to outlaw squatting.  I’m not clear on the traveller/gypsy thing though.  Whatever, I have discovered I’m brilliant because what I’ve been ranting about seems to have been said publicly by some politician who has said, that folks do things like squatting and taking property simply because they have faith that they will get away with it. Which is what I’ve been saying for so long.  So I guess maybe now I’m a rocket scientist er sompthin.  Jeesh.  Wouldn’t you think that was self evident?  Why has it taken these folks so damn long to discuss the topic in govt.? 

Anyway, I think the law will change but I don’t yet know when it will take effect.
Why not now?  What’s wrong with now?  Or first thing Monday morning. Why wait?
But I guess better late then not at all.

Posted by peiper     on 11/05/2011 at 12:32 PM   
Filed Under: • Government • Travelers/Gypsies/Squatters •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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