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Ten reasons British parliament should vote No to bombing Iraq: Very short memory dudes?

Posted by: on: September 30, 2014

 

Ten reasons why the British parliament should vote no to bombing Iraq

Is this an excuse to test more upgraded Tornadoes jet planes on Iraqi people?

Chris Nineham 24 September 2014. Posted in News

On Friday 26 September, David Cameron will ask MPs to vote in favour of joining the US bombing campaign in Iraq and take the UK into yet another Middle East war.

Not in my name

1) The West’s last operation in Iraq ended just three years ago. For those with a short memory it didn’t go well. More than half a million people died, millions fled the country and Iraq’s infrastructure was devastated. The operation generated deep resentment against the West.

2) The current chaos in Iraq – including the rise of the reactionary Isis – is largely the result of the 8 years of that occupation. On top of the trauma of the assault, sectarian division was built into the operation.

Elections were organised along communal lines and the authorities used sectarianism to undermine resistance.

By 2006, Baghdad had been turned from an integrated, modern city into a patchwork of ruined communal ghettoes.

The open discrimination of the Western-backed Maliki government detonated a Sunni insurgency last year that helped fuel the rise of Isis in Iraq.

3) Bombing always kills and terrorises civilians. Recent coalition bombing raids on Raqqa in Syria have brought death and panic to its residents. One civilian there told western reporters ‘I would not wish them on my worst enemy’.

4) All three of Britain’s major military interventions in the last thirteen years have been disasters. In 2001 we were told an invasion of Afghanistan would rout the Taliban.

Thirteen years and tens of thousands of deaths later the Taliban have grown in strength and the country is broken.

The bombing of Libya in 2011 was justified as essential to stop a massacre by Gaddafi. After it began an estimated 30,000 were killed in a terrifying cycle of violence. The country is now a failed state with no real government.

5)  The coalition that has been put together for the bombing of Syria – apparently in an effort to give the attacks legitimacy – comprises some of the most ruthless and benighted  regimes in the region.

Human Rights Watch reports that nineteen people were beheaded in Saudi Aarbia in August.

Qatar and UAE have notorious human rights’ records that include the use of forced labour. All three have funded violent Jihadi groups in the region.

6) Bombing raids will increase hatred of the west. One of the wider results of the ‘War on Terror’ has been to spread Al- Quaida and other terrorist groups across whole regions of the world. In 2001 there were relatively small numbers of such militants, centred mainly on Pakistan. Now there are groups across the middle east, central Asia and Africa.

7) The timing is cynical. David Cameron has recalled parliament to debate an attack on Iraq just two days before the start of the last Tory Conference before the general election. This at a time when he is engaged in pushing a right wing, nationalist agenda for party political purposes.

8) Mission creep is almost inevitable. There are already more than a thousand US military active in Iraq and senior US military figures are arguing they should now be openly involved in fighting. In Britain a growing number of voices from Tony Blair to Lieutenant General Sir Graeme Lamb are recommending British boots on the ground.

9) The attack will cost money much needed for other things. One Tomahawk cruise missile costs £850,000, enough to pay the annual salary of 28 NHS nurses.

The US has already fired about 50 of these missiles at Isis targets in Syria. It is estimated Britain spent between £500 million and one billion pounds bombing Libya in 2011. This was roughly the same as the savings made by ending the education maintenance allowance (EMA); or three times the amount saved by scrapping the disability living allowance.

10) The vote will have a global impact. On Friday, MPs have a chance to make a real difference on matters of peace and war. The US wants Britain on board to prove it is not isolated.

When MPs blocked Cameron’s last push for airstrikes, on Syria a year ago, they stopped Obama launching attacks too. A no vote could help reverse the drift towards another full scale western war in the middle east.

Note: The US led “coalition” on terrorism is giving legitimacy to ISIS on the ground that the US is perceived in the Islamic countries as the nemesis, particularly its consistent and blattant support of apartheid and racist Zionist State of Israel.

And why the US wants to bomb? Just to please the absolute obscurantist monarchy in Saudi Arabia that is paying the tab.

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If you have nothing to say. Say nothing.

Posted by: on: September 30, 2014

 

“If you have nothing to say. Say nothing.”

That’s what Mark Twain wrote.

So what is this Twaddle tendency many of us exhibit?

Ambiguous ideas transform into vacant ramblings.  It is hard to speak when your ideas are confused and confusing.

The best speakers are those who harshly critiqued their copies and spend plenty of efforts and time to clarify their ideas and subject matter.

If you are afraid to be viewed as a simpleton, refrain from saying your clear and simple statements.

Otherwise, clear and simple statements are the domain of the courageous people who have a purpose and passion.

The worse off a company is the greater the talk of the CEO

The fewer results in a scientific field the more babble is necessary in the published works

The more voluminous the book the more irrelevant chapters and paragraphs are inserted.

The more eloquent the haze of words, the more easily we fall for them.

Useless chatter is what characterize the volumes of philosophers.

 

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“It was always clear all along to us Israelis that the Palestinian state would not have full sovereignty” said Israel Justice Minister Tzipi Livni

Posted by: on: September 30, 2014

No full sovereignty darling Abbass, and you knew it, and Obama also told you to bug off…

Israel’s insistence on ongoing security precautions in the West Bank does not constitute an insurmountable obstacle to Palestinian statehood and sovereignty, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni told The Times of Israel.

But it was always clear, from the start of negotiations, she added, that due to Israel’s security needs a Palestinian state would not enjoy “full and complete sovereignty.”

David Horovitz published this Sept. 23, 2014

In an interview ahead of Rosh Hashanah, Livni, who led Israel’s negotiating team in this year’s failed negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, said the collapse of the peace process was deeply disappointing, but that it was “not too late” to restart talks. (The full interview appears here.)

“Always, from the first day of the negotiations, it was clear that any agreement (on Palestinian statehood) would not include full and complete sovereignty,” the Hatnua party leader said.

“We are speaking in terms of a sovereign Palestinian state, but it’s clear that the sovereign Palestinian state must accept limitations. Certainly demilitarization. By the way, that’s also what we’re demanding now for Gaza. Limitations and arrangements that will ensure, in the long term, that no threat is created of the kind we have been witnessing.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, she went on, had accepted the need for a demilitarized Palestinian state, “though there’s an argument about what demilitarization entails… That’s why you negotiate. This all has operational expression on the ground: How is it overseen? Who’s at the border crossings? Who deploys along the border?”

Then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni with Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, September, 2008 (photo credit: AP Photo /Keystone/Alessandro della Valle)

Then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni with Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, September, 2008 (photo credit: AP Photo /Keystone/Alessandro della Valle)

Livni was clarifying Israel’s position in the wake of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declarations this summer about the imperative to maintain Israeli security oversight in the West Bank under any agreement with the PA.

“Germany also took upon itself military restrictions after World War II. To this day, there’s a British military base in Cyprus. Sinai is demilitarized in accordance with the Israel-Egypt peace agreement,” Livni said. “Therefore the idea that there is a necessary contradiction between Israel’s security and Palestinian sovereignty is incorrect. They get the state and, by virtue of their independence, they take upon themselves certain limitations. One goes with the other.”

The justice minister also revealed details of what she said was an initiative agreed upon with the Palestinians to foster a “culture of peace” on both sides — a bid to change the tone and content of media, religious leaders’ statements, education, and more — in order to create a climate that would encourage compromise. “We had an agreed text,” she said. “Had we extended the talks (last spring), I think we were going to implement (the initiative) during the extended negotiations.”

Speaking days before Abbas was set to address the UN General Assembly, with an anticipated demand that Israel be required to set a timetable for withdrawing from the West Bank, Livni criticized the PA leader for turning to the UN rather than continuing peace negotiations with Israel.

Abbas had taken the easier route of going to the UN and forgoing negotiations, she charged, “because in negotiations you have to pay a price and concede things, whereas when you go to the UN, you can get everything you want.” (Apparently, Israel feels no obligations to concede anything)

“But it won’t give you a state,” she warned. “There’s no state via the UN.” (Why? Because of the US perpetual veto?)

She also said she was sorry the US had chosen not make public the framework document it drew up “which provided answers on all the core issues” of dispute between Israel and the Palestinians.

“It was very fair. It gave expression to both sides… We wanted to advance the negotiations on that basis. Israel essentially accepted this framework,” she said, while Abbas did not. “I have grievances with him — over how the negotiations ended, over his turning to the UN, his joining up with Hamas, in the Palestinian unity government.” (All along, Israel claimed that Abbas cannot deliver because the Palestinians had no unified government. Now, it is not possible simply because they united)

Livni expressed profound concern that the anti-Israel public opinion in the Arab world was also spreading to Europe, and partially blamed the settlement enterprise.

“The problem is that what we’ve seen in the Arab world — where public opinion is anti-Israel and it is very hard for the leaderships to deal with — is also happening now in Europe,” she said. “I have discussions with world leaders. It’s very hard for them. They say, ‘We understand why you have to hit Hamas. We’re with you. But the issue of the settlements renders Israel incomprehensible and shorn of credibility when it says it wants peace.’”

“In the eyes of Europe, the European street,” she went on, “the settlement enterprise is a kind of old-style colonialism. Not self-defense, which would be acceptable.

“That mix is not good for Israel,” she stressed. “I seek to ensure that we retain the legitimacy to defend ourselves against those extremist terrorist forces. And Israel’s policy as regards what it wants in these areas (of peacemaking and settlements) is not clear. And ultimately that harms Israel’s security.”

She said that she does not share the ideology “that believes we need to stay in all of the Land of Israel.” And “to the best of my knowledge,” she added, “the prime minister does not share that ideology.”

Regarding international attitudes to Israel over this summer’s conflict with Hamas, the justice minister said, “I don’t expect the world not to judge us. It should judge us — but on the same basis as it judges itself or any democracy. Fatalities on the Palestinian side are accidental, after we have made every effort to prevent them. By contrast, the terrorists are deliberately aiming at civilians. And I expect the world to make that distinction.” (How in denial!)

Unfortunately, she went on, “as time passes since the establishment of Israel, what was taken for granted in 1948 is no longer taken for granted. We see ourselves, satellite view, as a tiny state surrounded by enemies. The world looks from the Google Earth perspective, and sees a soldier with his weapon and a Palestinian boy or girl. And that viewpoint is deepening. It is a skewed picture of the conflict. The sorrow over seeing civilians killed, a sorrow that I share, skews the judicial perspective of the reality.”

Note: Abbass did visit Obama and he turned his suggestion down for a Palestinian State. Abbass addressed the UN and demanded a timetable for a Palestinian State. It is not in Israel ideology to give Palestinians any kinds of recognition: They still insist on calling them “Arabs“.

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House-Money effect: Money is not neutral, it is not naked. Money is colorful and emotional

Posted by: on: September 29, 2014

House-Money effect: Money is not neutral, it is not naked and it is colorful

Do you think money is money?

Are cash money, checks, traveler checks, stocks, bonds… equivalent?

Is the money you saved from hard work equivalent in value from what you find in the street?

Is money inherited similar in value from hard work?

Which kind of money you tend to spend quickly, swiftly and on unnecessary items?

Does the emotional shroud adds value to money?

Does money earned in a lottery ticket change your decisions when compared to hard earned money?

Which kinds of money gives you this urge to take a postponed long vacation? Or to improve your property?

Suppose you won $1,000 on a roulette game and then lost it. How great is your regret and suffering? I guess it won’t last long compared to hard earned saving.

Here is an experiment:

Two groups are randomly selected. Group A is given $30 in cash and then asked to bet: You win $9 if head or lose $9 if tail in a coin toss.

Group B is not offered any money. The subjects are told that they will receive $30 or take part in a coin tossing. The subject win $39 if head or $21 if tail.

Which group felt incited to gamble? 70% of Group A gambled compare to 43% in group B. Why?

The expected value is the same, but group A got readily in hand $30?

Marketing strategists expect to benefit from your sheer exuberance by rewarding you with upfront cash money if you apply to their programs (credit cards, airlines, phone companies…).

Eventually, you’ll quickly spend the money and accrue exorbitant interest rates on your credit card.

For the same expected value, which money you prefer: cash money, checks, traveler checks, stocks, bonds, inheritance, lottery…?

Does the term “added value” is of purely a monetary connotation?

 

 

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A few dictators’ bed games: Even role playing?

Posted by: on: September 29, 2014

A few dictators’ bed games

The Arab world has long been plagued with less than perfect representation and ruling.

Many of the kings and presidents of the region end up being the oppressive dictator types.

However, with rumors of their extremely romantic sides surfacing, there seems to be more than the eye can see regarding these rulers, Wives and mistresses of these infamous dictators weigh in to reveal the true nature of these powerful men.

Muammar Qaddafi

(Image via The Guardian)

Known for his strength on the streets of Tripoli, President Qaddafi is also gaining a reputation as the world’s biggest Casanova.

An oppressor on the streets, but a devil in the sheets, his Excellency always manages to put his girls’ needs first.

“I feel like his very open-minded approach on unreciprocated oral is good enough to cancel out his war-crimes, something for the International Criminal Court to consider,” shares his live-in girlfriend, anonymous.

Omar al-Bashir

 (Image via Star FM)

This Sudanese president took a page from Qaddafi when it comes to fashion, but the charm is all his.

“He enjoys cuddling, like, a lot,” says his girlfriend – who also chose to stay anonymous. “I call him my big teddy bear,” she says, chuckling, “he also loves role-playing in the bedroom, we don’t shy away from playing South-North Sudan, political incorrectness kind of gets him off.”

Husni Mubarak

 (Image via Telegraph)

Sure he may have caused the unraveling of an entire country, but according to his wife, Egyptian President Mubarak is actually a dreamboat.

“I think he’s just really misunderstood, would such a horrible man have bought me roses at least three times in the past year? I think not.”

Mrs. Mubarak goes on to detail how on several occasions, her husband postponed important national security meetings just to be with her, citing that he was an incurable romantic. “He can’t get enough of me, he says that the genocide rumors can wait,” she says with a dreamy smile, adding, “I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.”

Jamal Basha

 (Image via Wikipedia)

Personally responsible for the demise of the region during World War I, Jamal Basha has a fairly lousy reputation.

However, newly uncovered letters from him to his young mistress at the time reveal his boyish charm and seductive ways.

Below is an excerpt of one of the tamer letters: “Yellow diamonds in the sky, and we’re standing side by side, as your shadow crosses mine…we found love in a hopeless place.” Pure poetry.

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A few catchy statements

Posted by: on: September 29, 2014

A few catchy statements

1. For every “remote miss” that renders a person stronger, there are countless near-misses that crush people and render them disabled to function properly in society.

2. Every success disguises an abdication (Simone de Beauvoir)

3. Success flees between my fingers… and it is my own life that counts the most. (Marguerite Yourcenar)

4. Love is what people torture you in order to force you to say “I love you”. All people lie. (Orhan Pamuk)

5. My leg is sufficiently cured to know that it will never be all right

6. No act is too superficial until we covers it with a decent word.

7. There are always music during an execution

8. Fear preserves you by your dread of punishment, which never fails.(Niccolo Machiavelli)

9. Love is preserved by the links of obligation, which is broken at most opportunity for its advantage. Lay it on the baseness of mankind.

10. Do you know of an unhappy person writing a “self help” book? About their failures and unhappiness?

11. Should mankind stick to ancestral traditions that no longer work or are valid?

12. Nothing can ever be as shocking as life. Except writing. (Ibn Zerhani)

13. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think feeling a little different… And must a name mean something? (Lewis Carroll)

14. Never use epigraphs: They kill the mystery in the work (Adli)

15. If that’s how it has to die, go ahead and kill it. Then kill the false prophets who sold you on the mystery in the first place (Balti)

(I couldn’t help but think that all these extremists should eventually kill their caliph or cult leaders)

16. It is perfectly childish. People separate for a reason. They do not run away without telling you their reason. They even give you a chance to reply. (Marcel Proust)

17. If you wanted to be cheerful, melancholic, wistful, thoughtful or courteous… you simply had to act those behaviors with every gesture (Patricia Highsmith)

18. Idle men, chasing after fairy tales (Rumi)

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Looks bad and genetically modified virus? This Ebola plaguing western Africa

Posted by: on: September 28, 2014

Looks bad and genetically modified virus? This Ebola plaguing western Africa

And manufactured by Western Pharmaceuticals, and US DoD?

Ebola virus destroys peoples’ internal organs and the body deteriorates rapidly after death.
The organ softens and the tissues turn into jelly, even if it is refrigerated to keep it cold. Spontaneous liquefaction is what happens to the body of people killed by the Ebola virus!
I have read a number of articles from your Internet outreach as well as articles from other sources about the casualties in Liberia and other West African countries about the human devastation caused by the Ebola virus.
About a week ago, I read an article published in the Internet news summary publication of the Friends of Liberia that said that there was an agreement that the initiation of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was due to the contact of a two-year old child with bats that had flown in from the Congo.
That report made me disconcerted with the reporting about Ebola, and it stimulated a response to the “Friends of Liberia,” saying that African people are not ignorant and gullible, as is being implicated.
A response from Dr. Verlon Stone said that the article was not theirs, and that “Friends of Liberia” was simply providing a service.
He then asked if he could publish my letter in their Internet forum. I gave my permission, but I have not seen it published.
Because of the widespread loss of life, fear, physiological trauma, and despair among Liberians and other West African citizens, it is incumbent that I make a contribution to the resolution of this devastating situation, which may continue to recur, if it is not properly and adequately confronted. I will address the situation in five (5) points:
Dr. Cyril Broderick, Professor of Plant Pathology published this 09/09/2014 –

Scientists allege deadly diseases such as Ebola and AIDS are bio weapons being tested on Africans.
Other reports have linked the Ebola virus outbreak to an attempt to reduce Africa’s population. Liberia happens to be the continent’s fastest growing population.
1.    EBOLA IS A GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISM (GMO)
Horowitz (1998) was deliberate and unambiguous when he explained the threat of new diseases in his text, Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola – Nature, Accident or Intentional.
In his interview with Dr. Robert Strecker in Chapter 7, the discussion, in the early 1970s, made it obvious that the war was between countries that hosted the KGB and the CIA, and the ‘manufacture’ of ‘AIDS-Like Viruses’ was clearly directed at the other.
In passing during the Interview, mention was made of Fort Detrick, “the Ebola Building,” and ‘a lot of problems with strange illnesses’ in “Frederick [Maryland].”
By Chapter 12 in his text, he had confirmed the existence of an American Military-Medical-Industry that conducts biological weapons tests under the guise of administering vaccinations to control diseases and improve the health of “black Africans overseas.”
The book is an excellent text, and all leaders plus anyone who has interest in science, health, people, and intrigue should study it.
I am amazed that African leaders are making no acknowledgements or reference to these documents.
2.  EBOLA HAS A TERRIBLE HISTORY, AND TESTING HAS BEEN SECRETLY TAKING PLACE IN AFRICA
I am now reading The Hot Zone, a novel, by Richard Preston (copyrighted 1989 and 1994); it is heart-rending.
The prolific and prominent writer, Steven King, is quoted as saying that the book is “One of the most horrifying things I have ever read. What a remarkable piece of work.”
As a New York Times bestseller, The Hot Zone is presented as “A terrifying true story.” Terrifying, yes, because the pathological description of what was found in animals killed by the Ebola virus is what the virus has been doing to citizens of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in its most recent outbreak: Ebola virus destroys peoples’ internal organs and the body deteriorates rapidly after death.
The organ softens and the tissues turn into jelly, even if it is refrigerated to keep it cold. Spontaneous liquefaction is what happens to the body of people killed by the Ebola virus!
The author noted in Point 1, Dr. Horowitz, chides The Hot Zone for writing to be politically correct; I understand because his book makes every effort to be very factual.
The 1976 Ebola incident in Zaire, during President Mobutu Sese Seko, was the introduction of the GMO Ebola to Africa.
3.    SITES AROUND AFRICA, AND IN WEST AFRICA, HAVE OVER THE YEARS BEEN SET UP FOR TESTING EMERGING DISEASES, ESPECIALLY EBOLA
The World Health Organization (WHO) and several other UN Agencies have been implicated in selecting and enticing African countries to participate in the testing events, promoting vaccinations, but pursuing various testing regiments. The August 2, 2014 article, West Africa: What are US Biological Warfare Researchers Doing in the Ebola Zone? by Jon Rappoport of Global Research pinpoints the problem that is facing African governments.
Obvious in this and other reports are, among others:
(a) The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), a well-known centre for bio-war research, located at Fort Detrick, Maryland;
(b) Tulane University, in New Orleans, USA, winner of research grants, including a grant of more than $7 million the National Institute of Health (NIH) to fund research with the Lassa viral hemorrhagic fever;
(c) the US Center for Disease Control (CDC);
(d) Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French name, Medicins Sans Frontiers);
(e) Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company;
(f) The UK’s GlaxoSmithKline; and
(g) the Kenema Government Hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone.
Reports narrate stories of the US Department of Defense (DoD) funding Ebola trials on humans, trials which started just weeks before the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone.
The reports continue and state that the DoD gave a contract worth $140 million dollars to Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company, to conduct Ebola research. This research work involved injecting and infusing healthy humans with the deadly Ebola virus.
Hence, the DoD is listed as a collaborator in a “First in Human” Ebola clinical trial (NCT02041715, which started in January 2014 shortly before an Ebola epidemic was declared in West Africa in March. Disturbingly, many reports also conclude that the US government has a viral fever bioterrorism research laboratory in Kenema, a town at the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
The only relevant positive and ethical olive-branch seen in all of my reading is that Theguardian.com reported, “The US government funding of Ebola trials on healthy humans comes amid warnings by top scientists in Harvard and Yale that such virus experiments risk triggering a worldwide pandemic.” That threat still persists.
4.    THE NEED FOR LEGAL ACTION TO OBTAIN REDRESS FOR DAMAGES INCURRED DUE TO THE PERPETUATION OF INJUSTICE IN THE DEATH, INJURY AND TRAUMA IMPOSED ON LIBERIANS AND OTHER AFRICANS BY THE EBOLA AND OTHER DISEASE AGENTS. 
The U. S., Canada, France, and the U. K. are all implicated in the detestable and devilish deeds that these Ebola tests are. There is the need to pursue criminal and civil redress for damages, and African countries and people should secure legal representation to seek damages from these countries, some corporations, and the United Nations. Evidence seems abundant against Tulane University, and suits should start there. Yoichi Shimatsu’s article, The Ebola Breakout Coincided with UN Vaccine Campaigns, as published on August 18, 2014, in the Liberty Beacon.
5.   AFRICAN LEADERS AND AFRICAN COUNTRIES NEED TO TAKE THE LEAD IN DEFENDING BABIES, CHILDREN, AFRICAN WOMEN, AFRICAN MEN, AND THE ELDERLY. THESE CITIZENS DO NOT DESERVE TO BE USED AS GUINEA PIGS! 
Africa must not relegate the Continent to become the locality for disposal and the deposition of hazardous chemicals, dangerous drugs, and chemical or biological agents of emerging diseases.
There is urgent need for affirmative action in protecting the less affluent of poorer countries, especially African citizens, whose countries are not as scientifically and industrially endowed as the United States and most Western countries, sources of most viral or bacterial GMOs that are strategically designed as biological weapons. It is most disturbing that the U. S. Government has been operating a viral hemorrhagic fever bioterrorism research laboratory in Sierra Leone. Are there others?
Wherever they exist, it is time to terminate them. If any other sites exist, it is advisable to follow the delayed but essential step: Sierra Leone closed the US bioweapons lab and stopped Tulane University for further testing.
The world must be alarmed. All Africans, Americans, Europeans, Middle Easterners, Asians, and people from every conclave on Earth should be astonished. African people, notably citizens more particularly of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone are victimized and are dying every day.
Listen to the people who distrust the hospitals, who cannot shake hands, hug their relatives and friends. Innocent people are dying, and they need our help.
The countries are poor and cannot afford the whole lot of personal protection equipment (PPE) that the situation requires.
The threat is real, and it is larger than a few African countries. The challenge is global, and we request assistance from everywhere, including China, Japan, Australia, India, Germany, Italy, and even kind-hearted people in the U.S., France, the U.K., Russia, Korea, Saudi Arabia, and anywhere else whose desire is to help. The situation is bleaker than we on the outside can imagine, and we must provide assistance however we can.
To ensure a future that has less of this kind of drama, it is important that we now demand that our leaders and governments be honest, transparent, fair, and productively engaged. They must answer to the people. Please stand up to stop Ebola testing and the spread of this dastardly disease.
About the Author:
Dr. Broderick is a former professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Liberia’s College of Agriculture and Forestry.  He is also the former Observer Farmer in the 1980s.
It was from this column in our newspaper, the Daily Observer, that Firestone spotted him and offered him the position of Director of Research in the late 1980s.
He is a scientist, who has taught for many years at the Agricultural College of the University of Delaware.
Note: Why Obama is sending 3,000 US troops to Liberia? To contain a civil unrest and protect the US bioterrorism research centers?
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As in any selection: Beauty and body are the main factors. And the Aptitude traits

Posted by: on: September 28, 2014

As in any selection: Beauty and body are the main factors. The Aptitude traits

Model-like women are selected because they were born attractive and tall. It is never the cosmetics that made them attractive. All the cosmetics cannot help before or after selection.

It is the swimmer body, slim, streamlined and attractively built, that made them be selected, including big and large feet and hands for displacing more water. Swimmers were selected because they exhibited the kinds of bodies most readily performing with training.

Taking swimming as a hobby to render your body attractive will not do: Though it is a better sport to keep fit.

I’m talking of when you are young. As the years go by, it is how you take care of your health and how you keep your mind agile that aid you in your activities.

Without the illusion of confounding selection factors with results, most advertising companies would falter.

Is Harvard a good university?

Somehow, historically, the elite and rich classes sent their children to top selected universities and institutions.

These institutions could afford to have the most rigorous programs for selecting applicants according to the mental aptitude They enjoyed plenty of funding from state and private rich donors.

It is this rigorous selection process favoring students with high aptitude levels and the strength character to withstand rigorous programs that graduate top smart people.

Mind you that the IQ scores for the bottom tier of selected student in top universities are higher than the top tier students in normal university.

And yet, these bottom tier fail to graduate while the top tier in normal university become successful people: The Big Fish in Small Pond paradox.

When you are competing with highly smart people and starting to collect B minus, grades that you have never received in high school, it dawn on you to drop out and move to normal universities where effective interactions with classmates are possible.

Generally, the MBA graduates from the top institutions exhibit a wide gap in earning income compared to non-graduates. This gap has nothing to do with the MBA programs or what students learn:

Those who insist on investing big to attend an MBA program are already the achievers who could have made it anyway.

Cheerfulness, a trait shared by people who see a half full glass, is largely a personality trait that remains constant throughout life.

“Try to be happy is as futile as trying to be taller”

Do you know of an unhappy person writing a “self help” book? (About their failures and unhappiness?)

Can you be honest about what you see in the mirror?

Would what you see be “selection material”?

Best, rely on outside observers to tell you what you are blind to,

More probably, it is the reaction of other people that give you the proper hints about you aptitudes.

If not a selection material, forget selection tests and tedious processes that are meant to humiliate, and plug on with what life best offers to you.

Read: “The Art of Thinking Clear” by Rolf Dobelli

 

 

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Obscurantist absolute Wahhabit monarchy in Saudi Arabia has done it again: Traitor to Palestinians and “Arab” reforms since 1920

Posted by: on: September 28, 2014

Obscurantist absolute monarchy in Saudi Arabia has done it again:

Traitor to Palestinians since 1920

It is tough work being the Saudi ambassador to the UK.

First, you have to stir yourself into action to deny the undeniable: The Israeli attack on Gaza comes with Saudi backing.

That, in itself, is demeaning. But no sooner has your wrath been righteously expressed, than a colleague Prince contradicts you.

Worse still, he’s the boss’s brother. What is a prince to do?

In his reply to my column, Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf Al Saud wrote:

“To think that Saudi Arabia, which has committed itself to supporting and protecting the rights of all Palestinians to self-determination and sovereignty would knowingly support the Israeli action is quite frankly a grotesque insult.”

He then admits “dealings” between the Kingdom and Israel but claims those “limited to bring about a plan for peace.”

Then he says:

“The Palestinian people are our brothers and sisters -whether they are Muslim Arabs or Christian Arabs. Be assured we, the people and Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, will never ever give up on them, we will never do anything to harm them, we will do all we can to help them in their rightful claim to their own homeland and return of lands taken illegally from them.”

Hardly was the ink dry on this official news release, when Prince Turki al-Faisal, Bin Nawaf’s predecessor as UK ambassador, former intelligence chief and the brother of the current foreign minister wrote in al-Sharq al-Awast that Hamas was to blame for firing rockets and for refusing to accept Egypt’s ceasefire plan (which would have disarmed them). This is Israel’s and Egypt’s view too.

So which is it?

Does the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia support Palestinians in their resistance to the occupation?

Or does it support the siege manned by Israel and Egypt, until Gaza is demilitarized?

These are two clear policies — support for the Palestinian resistance to the occupation and ending the siege of Gaza, or keeping the siege in place until all factions in Gaza are disarmed.

Either Israel is engaging in genocide (strong words, Mr. Ambassador) or the resisters are terrorists who must be disarmed.

Decide what it is you want the Kingdom to say. You can’t say both.

You can’t swear allegiance to the Palestinians and give a nod and a wink to their killers.

And are the kingdom’s dealings with Israel really “limited to bring about a plan for peace”?

You are privy to the cables, Mr. Ambassador. Tell us what passed between Prince Bandar and the Mossad director Tamir Pardo at that hotel in Aqaba in November last year.

The Jordanians leaked it to an Israeli newspaper in Eilat. Were Bandar and Pardo:

1. soaking up the winter sun,

2. talking about the Arab Peace Initiative, or

3. plotting how to bomb Iran?

And why are your new friends the Israelis being so loquacious?

Why, to take the latest example, did Dan Gillerman, Israeli ambassador to the UN 2003-08, say at the weekend that “representatives from the Gulf states told us to finish the job in Gaza time and again.”

Finish the job?

Killing over 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilian and injuring 11,000?.

Is that what you meant when you said “we will never do anything to harm them”?

The carnage in Gaza at least gives the world clear sight of the protagonists. The wonder of it is that all are American allies, three have US bases on their soil and a fourth is a member of NATO.

America’s problems in the Middle East have more to do with their sworn allies than their sworn enemies.

On one side, stands Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Jordan. They consider themselves the voice of reason and moderation, but their methods are violent — the military coup in Egypt and the attack on Gaza have all happened in the space of 12 months. On the other, stands Turkey, Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood and its affliate Hamas.

We should, however, talk of governments rather people, because one reason why the government of Saudi Arabia has such an extreme position on Hamas and the Brotherhood in general, is that it knows full well that its own people don’t share their view.

Saudi Arabia’s leading pollster Rakeen found that 95% out of a representative sample of 2,000 Saudis supported the continuation of the Palestinian resistance factions.

Only three per cent did not.

82% percent supported the firing of rockets into Israel and 14 percent opposed it.

The kingdom’s hatred of Islamism stems not from the fact that it presents a rival interpretation of Islam. It is that it presents to a believer, a democratic alternative. That is what really scares the monarchy.

The proof of all those secret Saudi-Israeli meetings is to be seen in the behavior of Egypt.

It is impossible to believe that its new president Abdel Fattah al Sisi could act towards Hamas in Gaza independently of his paymasters in Riyadh. He who pays the piper — $5 billion after the coup, $20 billion now — calls the tune.

Sisi sees Hamas entirely through the prism of the Muslim Brotherhood he deposed last year.

Hamas is villified in the lickspittle Egyptian press as the enemy of Egypt. A trickle of aid has been allowed through the border crossing at Rafah, and it is sporadically opened to a few thousand wounded Palestinians.

The Israeli Army is not alone in blowing up Hamas’ tunnels. The Egyptian army announced recently they had blown up 13 more, a deed which earned them the title of being “a sincere neighbor” of Israel.

Sisi is content to let Hamas and Gaza take a hammering, and make no efforts to get a ceasefire. The last initiative was not even negotiated with Hamas.

Mubarak made a similar miscalculation during the 2006 incursion into Lebanon, supporting an operation which he believed would cripple Hezbollah. In the end he was forced to send his son Gamal to Beirut to express Egypt’s support for the Lebanese people.

Both the kingdom and Sisi know that dropping the Palestinian card is a risky business.

Saudi Arabia is treading a fine line. According to my sources, Netanyahu’s rejection of Kerry’s peace initiative over the weekend was due in part to the full support of its Arab allies. Saudi Arabia’s active support is keeping this brutal war going.

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Natural Gas agreement among Israel-Egypt-Jordan

Posted by: on: September 27, 2014

 

The Israel-Egypt-Jordan Natural Gas Agreement and the July 2014 War in Gaza

The Financial Times article of 21st Mai 2014, reported that Israel was very close to signing agreements with Egypt and Jordan for exporting Israeli natural gas to these countries, from Leviathan, Israel’s largest natural gas field.

What happened in the time between the Financial Times article on 21 Mai 2014, which reported that Israel was close to signing the agreements and the Haaretz article on 30 June, which reported the actual 30 billion dollar agreement between Egypt and Israel?

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/02ea38aa-e0e2-11e3-a934-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl

(you can click on the picture to enlarge it)

Israel Egypt Jordan PA

 Posted on September 16, 20

At the following article of Haaretz, which is as you can see at the following Wikipedia link, Israel’s oldest newspaper, and its English version is published with the New York Times,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haaretz

It was reported on 30 June 2014 that Israel did finally sign an agreement to export to Egypt 30 billion dollars of natural gas in the next 15 years. That is 2 billion dollars of natural gas each year, and it amounts to 20% of Leviathan’s capacity.

http://www.haaretz.com/business/.premium-1.601980

At the following article of the Times of Israel, an electronic newspaper that is published in 3 languages, it was reported on 3 September 2014, that Israel did finally sign an agreement to export to Jordan 15 billion dollars of natural gas in the next 15 years.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-signs-15-billion-gas-deal-with-jordan/

What happened in the time between the Financial Times article on 21 Mai 2014, which reported that Israel was close to signing the agreements and the Haaretz article on 30 June, which reported the actual 30 billion dollar agreement between Egypt and Israel?

Well what happened is that Israel claimed that the 3 Israeli teenagers were abducted by Hamas on 12 June 2014, as you can read at the first line of the following Wikipedia link, in section “Immediate Events”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict#Immediate_events

At the first paragraph of the following Wikipedia link, you can read that on 7 July 2014, one week after the agreement between Israel and Egypt, Hamas took responsibility for the teenagers’ abductions (I recall that Hamas denied any involvement in that affair) and at the same time it launched 40 rockets to Israel (in reaction to Israel bombing Gaza first)

One day later, on the 8 July 2014, the Israeli army entered Gaza.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict

It is well known that Hamas is funded by Qatar. Hamas won the elections in 2006 by providing financial help to the people of Gaza. In a sense Qatar bought a military camp at the Israeli borders. Qatar is the 3rd richest country in the world in terms of proven natural gas reserves, after Russia and Iran, and could have easlily provided the natural gas to Egypt and Jordan instead.

One of the main reasons that Qatar funded and wholeheartedly supported  the Muslim Brootherhood candidate in Egypt, Muhammad Morsi, is that if Morsi was in power he would have never made a deal with Israel, since the Muslim Brotherhood is supported by Qatar.

At the following Wikipedia link, section ‘Aftermath’, 2-3 lines before the end of the section, where the consequences of the Arab Spring on the Egypt-Israel 1978 Peace Agreement are examined, you can read that the deputy chief of the Muslim Brotherhood said that the Brotherhood does not recognize Israel’s right to exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt%E2%80%93Israel_Peace_Treaty#Aftermath

At the following BBC article you can read how much Qatar supported the Muslim Brotherhood and its candidate Morsi. In the 6th and 7th paragraph you can read that Qatar did not give all that money for nothing, but instead to make sure that Egypt would buy natural gas from Qatar. I copy these two paragraphs.

“….But this was not a charitable giveaway. It was in the nature of an investment. A Qatari economist told the BBC: “We couldn’t stand by and let Egypt collapse”, but the billions came with an expectation – “I’ll give you the money, show me the outcome,” he said.

The Qataris had already secured a lucrative deal to sell their gas to the Egyptians and they were proposing to heavily invest in the redevelopment of the Suez Canal…”.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-23185441

Many socialists that are financed by Qatar say that the Brotherhood was democratically elected. As you can read in the 3rd paragraph of the following Wikipedia link, as soon as he was elected, Morsi started changing the law to rule as a dictator. I copy from the link.

“…As president, Morsi granted himself unlimited powers and the power to legislate without judicial oversight or review of his acts….”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Morsi

You can read at the following Haaretz article that the Israelis have agreed to sell to the Palestinian Authority in West Bank 1.2 billion dollar in natural gas.

But this is a small amount compared to the 45 billion dollar deals with Egypt and Jordan, and Qatar would have not probably minded.

As you can see the deal was singed in January 2014 and there was no war in Gaza. It was before the agreements with Egypt and Jordan that the war broke out. Nobody starts a war for 1.2 billion dollars.

http://www.haaretz.com/business/1.567216

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