Swedish Green Party leader more concerned about the effect on Muslims after 9/11 “accidents”

April 19, 2016

The Swedish Green Party is living in some fantasy dream world of its own. The 9/11 atrocities were merely “accidents” and their concern is more for Muslim communities who felt the backlash after the attack than for the 3,000 victims of the Islamic terror attacks.

"An accident" according to Åsa Romson

“An accident” according to Åsa Romson

Their leader, Åsa Romson, euphemistically called a “spokesperson” (in Swedish literally a “mouthpiece”!), was on TV this morning defending her party member Mehmet Kaplan who resigned yesterday as Housing Minister. He resigned (actually was fired) because it was revealed that he was in the habit of hobnobbing with Islamic extremists and neo-fascists and for his rather stupid comparisons of Israelis to Nazis. Åsa Romson, this morning, was still in admiration of his “values” and then revealed her own mind-set when she applauded him for helping the Muslim community during the backlash after the “9/11 accidents”.

It was almost unbelievable that she could so nonchalantly dismiss the almost 3,000 people who were murdered by islamic terrorists (Al Qaida) on that day as being the victims of an accident. She later defended her ridiculous statement by saying that she was focusing on the travails of the Muslim community and their isolation and on the difficulties of integration.

In her warped and twisted world, it seems the backlash against Muslim communities was more important than the terrorist atrocity that claimed  3,000 victims and the effects on their families. That Muslim communities (not all but many) celebrated the 9/11 atrocities was of little concern.

She also has the dubious distinction of claiming that the plight of refugees to Europe was to be compared to Auschwitz (but she actually thought that Auschwitz was somewhere in southern Germany). Even for a Green politician – who all lack common sense – she is/was remarkably uninformed, callous and insensitive. The terrorists and extremists can never be challenged with the Åsa Romsons of this world sitting in government.

Stefan Löfven and the ruling Social Democrats in Sweden do not have the courage to dump the Greens from the coalition government – though many would like them to. Unfortunately the Moderate Party in opposition does not either have the courage to do what they are supposed to  – oppose.

And so we are left with the Greens continuing in government while inhabiting their own rose-coloured, fantasy world. And Sweden’s reputation for being a place where extremists and terrorists are not jut tolerated, but actively protected by politicians in government, grows. Åsa Romson is Deputy Prime Minister and her stupidities cannot be construed as anything but being a representation of the Government’s views.

Her position is untenable. She really does have to go.

 

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Obama “has been the world’s best gun salesman”

April 19, 2016

The US gun industry has prospered as never before under Barack Obama’s watch. With Obama as their enemy they have needed no friends. The industry has added 120,000 jobs while he has been in office.

On Obama's watch

On Obama’s watch

Infowars:

Record-breaking gun sales under Obama’s watch have created tens of thousands of jobs with good wages.

Jobs related to the manufacturing and sale of guns increased 73% since 2008 to a nationwide total of 287,986, the National Shooting Sports Foundation revealed.

“These are good jobs, paying an average of $50,180 in wages and benefits, and today every job is important,” the foundation reported. “Not only does the manufacture and sale of firearms and hunting supplies create good jobs in the United States but the industry also contributes to the economy as a whole.”

“In fact, in 2015 the firearms and ammunition industry was responsible for as much as $49.29 billion in total economic activity in the country.”

Ironically, California is second only to Texas in firearm job growth, and another anti-gun state, Illinois, is also in the top 10.

And considering that the surge in gun sales resulted from President Obama’s war on the Second Amendment, the president can finally claim he has indirectly created jobs in the U.S. – although that wasn’t his intent.

“He’s been the world’s best gun salesman,” said Michael Cargill, owner of Central Texas Gun Works. “Everything’s up compared to last year due to the threats of executive actions President Obama has made.”

“When he steps up to the microphone to talk about gun control and the legislation he thinks Congress should approve, gun sales actually soar.”

 

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Obama caves to Saudi pressure (what else?)

April 19, 2016

It was only to be expected.

Saudi Arabia did not like proposed legislation which would have allowed the government of Saudi Arabia to be sued in US courts for possible 9/11 involvement and would, in turn, have allowed US courts to attach Saudi accounts and assets in the US. So they made some threats of selling off their US assets. And the President of the United States, in good democratic style, caved in to the demands of a dictator. President Obama wasted no time in telling the legislators that he would veto any such legislation.

The Hill: The White House on Monday signaled President Obama would veto legislation to allow Americans to sue the government of Saudi Arabia for any role officials played in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. ……

The legislation drew widespread attention after Saudi officials reportedly informed the Obama administration that they would sell off $750 billion in U.S. assets if the bill became law, a threat that carries widespread economic consequences if the Saudis follow through.

Earnest appeared to strongly caution the Saudi government against taking such a step.

“A country with a modern and large economy like Saudi Arabia would not benefit from a destabilized global financial market, and neither would the United States,” he said.

The fierce debate over the legislation has bubbled up at a precarious time for Obama, who is set to land in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to meet with King Salman.

 

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Protein injections could reverse Alzheimers

April 19, 2016

While life expectations have been increasing across the globe, the time spent suffering from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia have also been increasing. In the last decade this increase has not been checked by any breakthroughs in drugs to brake the onset of, or reverse the progression of, dementia. While life expectancies are approaching 90 years, the period at the end of life with serious disability is approaching 10 years. Among the elderly there is now a greater fear of the degradations at the end of life than of the end itself.

Now, the IL-33 protein is showing the potential of actually reversing some of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Injections of the protein succeeded in restoring the memory of mice which had been debilitated by an Alzheimer’s like affliction. The potential is that injections – if the protein acts in a similar way with humans – could restore the memory of Alzheimer’s patients within a week. It is hoped to start clinical trials by the end of the year and that could leave to approved drugs becoming available within 5 years.

The Scotsman:

A protein which can reverse symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in mice could provide a key to potential treatments, Scottish scientists said.

Researchers from Glasgow University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) discovered that injections of the protein IL-33 could improve cognitive function in mice with Alzheimer’s-like disease. …

….. Glasgow expert Professor Eddy Liew discovered the IL-33 protein could digest existing plaque deposits and prevent the build up of new ones, which led to an improvement in memory and brain function among mice within a week. Professor Liew said: “The relevance of this finding to human Alzheimer’s is at present unclear. But there are encouraging hints. For example, previous genetic studies have shown an association between IL-33 mutations and Alzheimer’s disease in European and Chinese populations. Exciting as it is, there is some distance between laboratory findings and clinical applications.”

The IL-33 protein is produced mostly in the nervous system but patients with Alzheimer’s had less IL-33 than people without the condition, he said. The study, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAS), also found the IL-33 curbed the inflammation in the brain tissue, which has been shown previously to increase plaque and tangle formation.

alzheimer's brain scan

alzheimer’s brain scan (image BBC)

IL-33 is made in the body and the highest concentrations are found in the brain and the spinal cord. Those with Alzheimer’s have depressed levels. Alzheimer’s disease is widely believed to be driven by the production and deposition of the β-amyloid peptide (Aβ). The IL-33 protein is thought to activate the body’s immune system which in turn attacks the β-amyloid which causes the characteristic Alzheimer’s plaque.

 

 

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Monday morning funnies

April 18, 2016

Baltic Face-off: The US is protesting that one of their spy planes (RC-135) flying over the Baltic Sea and spying on Russia was subjected to acrobatics (a barrel roll) by a Russian fighter jet (Su-27). That a peaceful plane going about its normal spying duties be threatened by irresponsible aerobatics is quite shocking.

Baltic face-off

Baltic face-off

 

Socialist elitism: The lower house in Brazil voted by a two-thirds majority to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff, who is the darling of her Worker’s Party. She now faces a vote in the Senate in early May where a simple majority could set off formal impeachment hearings. The political maneuvering by those opposed to worker’s enjoying some of the fruits of power is quite shocking.

rousseff lula (reuters)

rousseff lula (reuters)

 

Saudi demands rejected by Iran: After starting the oil wars by recklessly increasing their oil output over the last 18 months, Saudi Arabia now wants all oil producers to freeze production. The Iranians who are ramping up their production and their exports after years of sanctions, refused to listen and indicated (though they were not even present) their intention to keep increasing their production at a meeting of oil producers. This irresponsible behaviour by Iran when Saudi Arabia and other innocent oil producers are facing economic difficulties is quite shocking.

 

Speaking in tongues is a dangerous pastime: It could only happen in the US. “A college student who came to the United States as an Iraqi refugee was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight in California earlier this month after another passenger became alarmed when she heard him speaking Arabic.” The airlines made no comment.  It is an absolute right to refuse service to anybody (except if they are black, or too fat, or female, or gay, or transgender, or a politician) and it is quite shocking that the airline could be criticised for an exercise of this right.

 

A christian God may be gay or female or transgender or black but he is certainly not male. It all makes sense if Mary had IVF and was just the surrogate mother of Jesus. A straight, male, god? Shocking.

 

Monica Lewinsky is still being subjected to public shaming while her boss at the time Bill Clinton, gets away with “murder”. He has been trashing Obama lately but Obama is still supporting Hillary.

lewinsky clinton (NYdailynews)

lewinsky clinton (NYdailynews)

 

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Kaplan in deep s**t as film emerges of him equating Israelis to the Nazis

April 17, 2016

UPDATE 2: Well, he resigned.

But the Green Party have not distanced themselves from him. He remains in parliament and in the Party. Their “principles” are fundamentally compromised.

The Prime Minister reacted very late and not very decisively. He too refrained from condemning Kaplan’s thoughtless language and his hobnobbing with extremists.

 

UPDATE to previous post on Green Party and antisemitism:

Today Sunday 17th April, SvD reported that Kaplan has been caught on film from 2009 on Somali Star TV where he equates the Nazi treatment of Jews in the 1930s to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

His position is untenable and he will have to go.

He does not have any good options left.

  1. He can resign as Minister and from parliament and resign from the Green party — this is the best outcome for the Greens who will still be tarred by the anti-semitism brush.
  2. He can resign as Minister and remain in Parliament as a Green representative – which will only prove the Green indecisiveness and their unsuitability for government.
  3. He can be sacked by Stefan Löfven which will win Löfven some brownie points.

M Kaplan

The critical thing is that both the Greens and the Social Democrats need to distance themselves – fast – from Kaplan. The longer the Greens remain supporting him the greater the hit they will take. The longer Löfven does not speak out publicly against Kaplan the more indecisive and weak he will appear. The Greens and the Social Democrats have to wake up to the fact that the damage has already been done. Now it is how good they are at damage control which is the question.

But Mehmet Kaplan is toast.

Good riddance (one, because he is an apologist for islamist extremism; two, because he is apparently incompetent: three, because he is a token of multiculturalism with the Greens; and four, because he is a Green).

 

 

 

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Is Sweden’s Green party fundamentally anti-semitic?

April 16, 2016

The Green Party’s Mehmet Kaplan who is the housing minister in the Swedish coalition government is currently in hot water after photographs were released showing him hobnobbing with Turkish, far right, neo-fascist extremists. He is seen at the same table as Barbaros Leylani (“death to the Armenian dogs”) and president of the Swedish branch of the neo-fascist Grey Wolves Ilhan Senturk.

This is not the first time Kaplan has been linked to extremist, islamic and anti-semitic organisations. As housing minister he is seen as incompetent and has also surrounded himself with an unprofessional personal staff. He is still in government as part of the price that Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and the Social Democrats have to pay for keeping their coalition going with the Greens.

(The Green Party leader is environment minister. She along with the culture and education ministers, who are also from the Greens, have not distinguished themselves particularly. But they cannot be accused of being extremist or anti-semitic – only of being incompetent and desperate to stay in government).

Kaplan however has been linked to islamic militants for some time.

  1. In 2014, Turkish-origin former Social Democrat member of parliament Nalin Pekgul accused Mr. Kaplan of being an “Islamist” with a “hidden agenda”. Writing a scathing editorial in a Swedish newspaper, the politician said that with Kaplan’s appointment to the ministry the government had “sent a clear signal to Sweden’s Muslims that the Islamists now have the support of the Swedish establishment”.
  2. Kaplan was also unthinking enough to equate Swedes joining IS with Finns fighting against Russians during WW2. Also a remarkable display of ignorance of history and an apologist remark – in any interpretation – for the IS.
  3. Mehmet Kaplan was arrested in 2010 by Israeli forces after participating in the Mavi Marmara flotilla, which was headed to the Gaza Strip. The Turkish-born MP was later deported from Israel over his involvement.
  4. During Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, Kaplan called for the “liberation of Jerusalem” at a pro-Palestinian rally.
  5. When the Mohammed cartoons were published in Denmark, he thought it was deplorable and not applicable as an expression of freedom of speech.
  6. Kaplan hosted a conference in the Swedish parliament where he invited Yvonne Ridley, a member of the English Respect Party and a rabid anti-semite. He also invited hate preacher Riyadh ul Haq.

The Green Party leader Åsa Romson is also – like Jeremy Corbyn’s extreme labour supporters – so enamoured of the Palestinian cause that she often strays into anti-semitic territory.

Green party “co-spokesperson” (a euphemism for “leader”) Åsa Romson has once again demonstrated that the greens have great difficulty in making the transition from being demonstrators on the streets to actually being in government. Åsa Romson is even the Deputy Prime Minister. She has been silly enough to first compare the Mediterranean to Auschwitz and then to refer to the Roma as “zigenare” which means gypsy and as a term has officially been declared to be “offensive”.

Anti-semitism crops up regularly among local Green politicians. Birgitta Hansen of the Stockholm Greens has said the Israelis “behave like the Nazis – only worse”. Another local Green politician Jerker Nordlund has called Israel “mentally sick” and called for a global war against Israel.

The Greens claim that they have no more than a “usual” number of anti-semites among their members. But I note that 17 of 21 local Green parties have expressed their support for Kaplan. They try to excuse themselves by saying they are pro-Palestine and anti-Israel and not anti-semitic, but methinks they do protest too much.

Green Parties around the world have become a safe haven for former communists and far-left extremists. And among the far left (as with the far right) there is very hard core of fascists and anti-semites. Unfortunately the sanctimonious, self-righteous sections of the Greens are often too naive – or too stupid – to realise when they have been hijacked. The Green Party in Sweden contains a hard core of anti-semites. In Kaplan they also seem to have an apologist for islamic extremism and a not particularly good minister.

 

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That iPhone the FBI (Israelis) cracked – “contains nothing of significance”

April 15, 2016

Much ado …. full of sound and fury … signifying nothing.

So, Syed Farook’s iPhone that Apple refused to unlock, which the FBI took Apple to court for, which was finally cracked by an Israeli company working for the FBI, contained nothing of any significance. Still, I suppose the FBI and Apple (and the Israeli security company Cellebrite) have all had their time strutting and fretting on the stage, and all publicity is good publicity.

But the FBI come out of this looking petty and silly.

CBS News: 

A law enforcement source tells CBS News that so far nothing of real significance has been found on the San Bernardino terrorist’s iPhone, which was unlocked by the FBI last month without the help of Apple.

It was stressed that the FBI continues to analyze the information on the cellphone seized in the investigation, senior investigative producer Pat Milton reports. Investigators spent months trying to gain access to data on the locked iPhone used by San Bernardino gunman Syed Rizwan Farook, believing that it might hold information on the plans or contacts of the attackers, who killed 14 people on December 2, 2015.

Apple was fighting a court order to assist the FBI in bypassing the phone’s security measures. On March 28, the FBI announced that it had managed to unlock the phone and was dropping the court fight with Apple.

The FBI has not disclosed what method it used to access the data on the iPhone but the method is believed to have been developed by a third party, a private entity, the government has refused to identify.

FBI Director James Comey said last week that the bureau has not decided whether to share details with Apple about how it hacked into Farook’s iPhone 5c. “If we tell Apple, they’re going to fix it and we’re back where we started,” Comey said. “As silly as it may sound, we may end up there. We just haven’t decided yet.”

As The Register points out the FBI were more interested in attacking Apple and actually did not expect to find anything. They probably always knew that Cellebrite could get into the phone but dinät reveal that to support their position in court:

The news will not come as much of a surprise to anyone who has followed the case: the phone in question was one of three used by Farook. It was his work phone and was owned by his employer, the health department.

His two personal phones were found by investigators, crushed and dumped in a trash can at his house. Since Farook had clearly gone to some trouble to destroy any digital evidence (he also smashed up hard drives and other digital media), the fact that the iPhone in question was recovered intact made it highly unlikely that it held anything of real value.

Regardless, the FBI used the existence of the phone and the shocking nature of the crime to wage a public war with Apple over encryption and access to electronic goods. Having mistakenly caused the phone’s cloud storage to be reset (some doubt it was a mistake), the FBI applied through the courts to force Apple to develop a way for it to pull all the information of the phone.

The court served an injunction but Apple refuse to honor it, claiming that the request effectively obliged it to break its own product’s security and would have implications far beyond the single phone.

Following a very public spat in which Apple refused to back down, and voices in Washington starting to criticize the FBI for trying to seek a legal precedent rather than solve a crime, the day before a legal hearing on the matter, the FBI suddenly announced it had found a third party that was able to grant it access to the phone’s data.

 

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UN cholera which killed 9,000 could have been prevented for $2,000

April 14, 2016

The UN peace keeping force which moved to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake introduced cholera which killed 9,000 people. Haiti had not, for at least 100 years, and possibly never before, had a cholera outbreak. A new Yale study shows that it could have been prevented if the UN had spent just $2,000 for advance health checks and preventive antibiotics for their troops from Nepal who carried the disease. The cost of the UN incompetence in addition to the 9,000 lives lost is now estimated to be over $2 billion.

Of course, Ban Ki-moon spent months spinning the story and denying responsibility. (Just as he is still denying UN responsibility for the sexual predations of UN troops in Africa). Naturally anybody on UN duty is immune from any prosecution – even for blatant incompetence or gross negligence.

It can only be considered incompetence on the part of the UN when the study states “Prior to the outbreak, there were no biomedical interventions in place to prevent its occurrence despite the recognized risk for spread of infectious diseases from military to civilian populations”.

JA Lewnard et al, Strategies to Prevent Cholera Introduction during International Personnel Deployments: A Computational Modeling Analysis Based on the 2010 Haiti Outbreak, January 26, 2016, http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001947

One of the most severe cholera epidemics of the modern era began in Haiti in 2010, causing over 700,000 reported cases and nearly 9,000 deaths to date. Prior to the outbreak, cholera had been absent from Haiti for over a century. Several pieces of evidence have contributed to widespread acceptance that the epidemic resulted from contamination of the Artibonite watershed with infected sewage from a United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) base. The causative Vibrio cholerae strain was imported from Nepal and diverged from strains circulating in that country around the time 454 Nepalese troops were deployed to Haiti, and the first cholera cases in Haiti were seen downstream from the base days after troops arrived.

…. The cholera outbreak in Haiti arose from a confluence of preventable circumstances. Systemic inadequacies in sanitation infrastructure made Haiti vulnerable to water-borne disease, like other disaster-affected settings where peacekeeping operations are undertaken. Mass personnel movements from a cholera-endemic country and deficient waste management practices at a MINUSTAH base led to the introduction of V. cholerae to a susceptible population. Prior to the outbreak, there were no biomedical interventions in place to prevent its occurrence despite the recognized risk for spread of infectious diseases from military to civilian populations. While the UN has been reluctant to implement interventions in the wake of the epidemic in part due to uncertainties surrounding their effectiveness, our findings suggest antimicrobial chemoprophylaxis reduces the risk of disease introduction by over 90%. The low costs and minimal logistical burden of chemoprophylaxis relative to the other interventions suggest this approach warrants consideration as a strategy to limit risk for cholera introduction in future peacekeeping operations.

The Guardian writes:

The devastating Haiti cholera epidemic that has claimed thousands of lives and will cost more than $2bn to eradicate could have been prevented if the United Nations had used a basic health kit for a total of less than $2,000, scientists have found.

A team of Yale epidemiologists and lawyers has looked at how the cholera bacterium was introduced to Haiti by United Nations peacekeepers relocated there in the aftermath of its 2010 earthquake. Yale’s startling finding is that simple screening tests costing $2.54 each, combined with preventive antibiotics at less than $1 per peacekeeper, could have avoided one of the worst outbreaks of the deadly disease in modern history.

The Yale experts warn that the catastrophe in Haiti could be repeated as the UN appears to have failed to learn the lessons of its lack of preventive screening of peacekeepers. Some 150,000 UN peacekeepers are deployed from cholera-endemic countries each year but there is still no routine procedure to ensure they are free of the infection before being moved.

At least 9,000 Haitians, and possibly many more, have died in the continuing cholera epidemic that erupted in October 2010, it is thought as a result of untreated sewage from UN peacekeeping camps being dumped straight into a river. It was the first outbreak of the disease in Haiti in 150 years, and was almost certainly caused by the relocation of UN peacekeepers from Nepal, where cholera is present, to Haiti for emergency earthquake assistance.

Related:

UN’s own experts chastise Ban Ki-moon over handling of Haiti cholera outbreak

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Democracies are condemned to a pursuit of the mediocre

April 14, 2016

For any human characteristic or behaviour, and applying whatever set of values, the “best” are always in – and must always be – a minority.

A majority view – on anything – therefore cannot – ever – be the “best” view.

Which must mean therefore that a democracy can never be “best”. It may be good enough – but it can never be best. A democracy does not even lead to the pursuit of the “average” or even the “median”. If anything it tends to the “mode”. A democracy is inherently then for the pursuit of the nondescript, for being unexceptionable, for conformity. It is for sustaining the mediocre.

mode median mean

mode median mean

If the human objective is the pursuit of excellence – by whatever standard and for whatever characteristic – then a democracy is not the way to go. Excellence requires the selection, and the promotion, of minorities. In fact a democracy is incompatible with the quest for excellence.

Socialist democracies try to level down while capitalist democracies try to level up. But both favour mediocrity to excellence.

 

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