Nostalgia.
from SunnySkyz
Captain Kirk as Rocket Man – 38 years on
March 15, 2016How does Breivik qualify for “human” rights?
March 13, 2016There is something obscene in the manner in which so called “human rights” are being exploited by the mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik in suing the Norwegian government for keeping him in isolation. Apart from the fact that he has been sentenced to just 21 years in prison for the murder of 77 people (which is less than 100 days in prison for every person murdered), I find it objectionable that
- he is considered “human”, and
- he is allowed to sue
Of course it is up to any society to make whatever rules it wants and to decide what it wants to consider “human rights”. It is also up to any society to be as stupid as it wishes, and if the Norwegian people wish to treat Breivik with the respect due to a human then they can do so.
But surely they don’t have to treat a criminal lunatic as a sane rational being?
Breivik
Mass killer Anders Behring Breivik is about to return to court – but this time it is to sue the Norwegian state, claiming it is violating his human rights by keeping him in isolation.
The right-wing extremist will appear in a gym-turned-courtroom within the prison in which he is being held on Tuesday. It will be a testing time for his victims’ families and survivors of his attacks.
“Personally I think it is a little bit hilarious but many of the others…the support group, doesn’t like him being in the media again,” said Dag Andre Anderssen, who survived Breivik’s island shooting massacre.
“That is actually the most important thing for us – that he gets to be in the spotlight again – and we don’t like that. We would rather that he be forgotten.”
It was 2011 when Breivik detonated a bomb at Oslo’s central government building, killing eight people and injuring more than 200. He then headed to the island of Utoeya where his gun rampage killed 69 people at a Labour Party camp, most of them teenagers.
Jailed for 21 years, Breivik has his own cellblock at Skien prison, south of Oslo as well as access to a computer, TV and Playstation.
“Human rights” are not absolute and certainly not some divine right. They are just privileges afforded by societies to their members. There is no reason for them not to be subordinate to common sense. There is no reason for stupidity in the name of “human rights”.
Hillary Clinton’s health is suspect after fourth coughing fit
March 13, 2016When one has a coughing fit one can’t do anything much and neither can Hillary Clinton. But she has now had her fourth major coughing fit in 3 months while making a public speech. She is left completely incapacitated. There has always been a question about her health (68 going on 69) and these questions are now coming to the fore. The speech incapacitation lasts for over 2 minutes and it is embarrassing to watch.
She is clearly in distress which lasts much longer than the actual coughing fit itself. I have acid reflux and asthma and I think I can recognise how she feels.
Maybe it is just acid reflux reaching the throat. But I doubt that.
The risk is that she is a lot sicker than she is letting on.
Inquistr: In July (2015), her campaign released medical records pronouncing her sufficiently healthy to serve as president and that also indicated that the Democratic front-runner in election 2016 is taking medicine for an underactive thyroid as well as another prescription for the above-mentioned blood clots following a concussion suffered in December 2012.
There are claims that the media is covering up the fact that she is suffering from hypothyroidism/Hashimoto’s disease.
The liberal press believes that these health concerns are a right wing conspiracy.
Gawker: These theories are promulgated by far-right fringe figures like Jerome Corsi at World Net Daily, but they’ve been amplified by people as mainstream as Karl Rove. They’re common knowledge to regular readers of Breitbart and the Daily Caller. The “Hillary Clinton is hiding a serious medical condition” theory has rapidly become an alternate conservative narrative of the election—it is, in other words, already the birtherism of 2016. How did that happen?
It is easy to dismiss over the top reports about Benghazi flu or brain injury or a heart problem, but it is not just a simple cough due to acid reflux.
Six months of Russian intervention shows up 5 years of Obama’s ineptitude in Syria
March 13, 2016Russia began its current intervention in Syria on September 30th last year, whereas the US began its anti-Assad campaign in 2011:
……… with the financing, training and encouragement of selected “moderate rebels”. They have no doubt weakened Assad but have also been instrumental in creating ISIS.
The Russian intervention has had a focus and an end-game in mind, both of which were missing from the US/NATO “strategy”. The “ceasefire” that is currently in place allows Russia (and Assad) to continue operating against the “terrorists” (ISIS, Al Nusra…) who are not party to the ceasefire. The US is now just following Russia’s lead much to the chagrin of the many Sunni opposition groups and of Saudi Arabia.
The only objective which Obama and Kerry ever had in Syria was to remove Assad but they had no strategy either for that or for what would follow. In Syria, Vladimir Putin has highlighted Obama’s ineptitude.
On February 27, 2016, a ceasefire went into effect in Syria between the forces of the Assad regime and the opposition. The ceasefire was achieved after the United States and Russia reached understandings regarding the terms of the agreement; Bashar al-Assad and the representatives of the opposition who took part in the contacts accepted its terms; and the ceasefire was grounded in a UN Security Council resolution.
The Islamic State, Jabhat al-Nusra, and other jihadist rebel groups are not party to the ceasefire, and Russia and the United States have agreed that they would continue fighting them in cooperation with one another. In actuality, the ceasefire was reached as a result of the combined efforts of the two superpowers currently engaged in leading the campaign for a political solution to the Syrian crisis. All the other actors are dependent on the assistance of these two powers and are subject to their influence.
In order to translate its military achievements in the Syrian arena into achievements in the realm of international politics, Russia worked intensively to advance the ceasefire along two parallel channels. The first channel was operational – specifically, a joint air and ground offensive against rebel forces aimed at exhausting them, carried out by a pro-Assad coalition including Iran, Syrian military forces that are loyal to Assad, Hezbollah, and Shiite militias. The severe damage sustained by the rebel forces is what brought them to the negotiating table. The second channel focused on advancing a political process, primarily vis-à-vis the United States, but also Saudi Arabia.
Moscow sought to promote the political dialogue while it enjoyed the upper hand on the military battlefield and was able to dictate the outcome of the process. Russia translated its achievements on the ground into a political roadmap for a cessation of hostilities and the establishment of a transitional period toward a solution to the conflict within 18 months. Russian policy with regard to the Syrian crisis was also motivated by Russia’s aspiration to promote its standing within the international arena and reduce the Western foreign and economic pressure leveled against it following its actions in Ukraine. In this context, Moscow led the joint offensive of the forces of the pro-Assad coalition in an effort to demonstrate its determination and to create pressure on the West and on Turkey by means of a massive flight of refugees toward Turkey from the embattled areas. It is unclear whether Russia received anything in return from the contacts that took place behind the scenes between Washington and Moscow, such as an easing of the Western sanctions.
Syria conflict map 13th March 2016 Carter Center
The Russian intervention has seen the ISIS expansion halted and reversed. They have secured breathing space for the Assad regime though they expect to have him replaced in an orderly manner in time. ISIS will shift (is already shifting) to Libya which is in chaos (for which Obama passes the buck to Cameron and Sarkozy). The EU with its shambles of a refugee policy is providing the sink which swallows the bulk of those displaced.
The real Middle East end-game is a very long way away but Russia is reaching its immediate objectives of supporting the Syrian regime, halting the march of Sunni- groups, restraining the ambitions of Saudi Arabia and of getting in the good books of Iran.
The US and Europe will still have to handle ISIS in Libya but here they will not have the Russians to rescue them.
The “niqab” is a pre-Islamic, Jewish tradition
March 10, 2016I didn’t know that.
In Egypt, a Member of Parliament has introduced a bill to ban the niqab in public places and in government institutions:
The Egyptian parliament is drafting a law banning women from wearing the niqab veil. The ban will apply to wearing the clothing in public places and government institutions, it has been reported.
……..
MP Amna Nosseir, professor of comparative jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University, who has backed the ban, said that wearing the veil is not a requirement of Islam and in fact has non-Islamic origins. She has argued that it is a Jewish tradition which appeared in the Arabian Peninsula prior to Islam and that a variety of Quran passages contradict its use. Instead, she has advocated that the Quran calls for modest clothing and covered hair, but does not require facial covering.
Jewish niqab (image – Faisal Kutty)
There are some Jewish sects which today use the niqab or something similar – a frumka, (a Haredi sect and some Sephardic women). There are references in the Old Testament which refer to women putting on a veil before meeting with strange men.
Certainly there seems to be strong evidence that the full-face veil was in use for at least a 1000 years before Islam was invented. Even in Islam, the Qur’an seems to call for modesty rather than specifying a particular mode of dress.
Saudi Arabia seeks bank loans for first time in a decade
March 9, 2016I am still of the opinion that the oil price war that Saudi Arabia has been waging against shale oil, Russia and Iran, was misguided and due primarily to a geopolitical machismo that was grossly overestimated. It was misguided because shale fracking is not a technology that is going to go away. In the short term some of the more expensive shale wells may close, but they can very soon start up again. But more importantly, shale gas and oil are available all over the world. They just haven’t been developed yet. And those that don’t have access to shale – like Japan – will have access to gas from methane hydrates within a decade. And there is more gas available from methane hydrate than from shale which, in turn, is more gas than all the natural gas resources known.
In the long run I expect the Saudis to be the losers. Their budget deficit climbed to approach $100 billion last year and now, for the first time in a decade, they are looking to borrow.
Saudi Arabia is seeking a bank loan of between $6 billion and $8 billion, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, in what would be the first significant foreign borrowing by the kingdom’s government for over a decade.
Riyadh has asked lenders to submit proposals to extend it a five-year U.S. dollar loan of that size, with an option to increase it, the sources said, to help plug a record budget deficit caused by low oil prices.
The sources declined to be named because the matter is not public. …
The kingdom’s budget deficit reached nearly $100 billion last year. The government is currently bridging the gap by drawing down its massive store of foreign assets and issuing domestic bonds. But the assets will only last a few more years at their current rate of decline, while the bond issues have started to strain liquidity in the banking system. ……..
…… Analysts say sovereign borrowing by the six wealthy Gulf Arab oil exporters could total $20 billion or more in 2016 – a big shift from years past, when the region had a surfeit of funds and was lending to the rest of the world.
All of the six states have either launched borrowing programs in response to low oil prices or are laying plans to do so. With money becoming scarcer at home, Gulf companies are also expected to borrow more from abroad.
In mid-February, Standard & Poor’s cut Saudi Arabia’s long-term sovereign credit rating by two notches to A-minus. The world’s other two major rating agencies still have much higher assessments of Riyadh, but last week Moody’s Investors Service put Saudi Arabia on review for a possible downgrade. …….
The pricing of the loan is likely to be benchmarked against international loans taken out by the governments of Qatar and Oman in the last few months, according to bankers. Because of banks’ concern about the Gulf region’s ability to cope with an era of cheap oil, those two loans took considerable time to arrange and the pricing was raised during that period.
Oman’s $1 billion loan was ultimately priced at 120 basis points over the London interbank offered rate (Libor), while Qatar’s $5.5 billion loan was priced at 110 bps over, with both concluded in January.
MH370 – Two years on
March 8, 2016Two years ago, today, MH370 disappeared. There were 239 people on board and not a trace of any thing has so far been found. After enormous search efforts – which still continue – we are no closer to knowing how or why this modern jetliner vanished without trace.
The theories are many. A new theory which I have seen recently is that the lithium-ion batteries on board over-heated, knocked out all electronic and electric systems, and started a fire which eventually caused the plane to crash.
Maybe the “burning plane” that an oil rig operator thought he saw over the South China Sea was MH370. But still no remains or debris has been found.
The search continues.
Narnia this morning
March 7, 2016Winter hasn’t quite finished with us yet.
It was pure Narnia this morning.
The “Oh God! Anybody but Hillary” effect could take Trump all the way
March 3, 2016The US Presidential election is getting to be extremely entertaining and well beyond my expectations. It looks like it is going to be Trump (85%) versus Hillary (98%) in November. An additional and quite unexpected source of entertainment has emerged as Republicans become contortionists to escape from their previous criticisms of Trump and find a convoluted way to align themselves behind him.
(I note also that many of Trump’s critics in Europe are beginning to realise that it might not be very healthy to be too loud in their criticism and disdain of somebody who could be the next President of the US. The Pope has already backtracked. Some Scottish Nationalists are also becoming intellectual contortionists.)
The Republican “elite” are in abject disarray it seems (but they have been in disarray ever since the Tea Party gained ground). As an opposition they have been pathetic. Even with a resounding majority in the House their establishment chinless wonders (guess who I mean?), have been remarkably ineffective. “Stop Trump” is their new game, but they can’t. They can – possibly – dislodge him from being the GOP nominee but then he goes independent and then the GOP disintegrates.
For a Trump – Clinton battle in November, all conventional thinking is going to be of little use. The play-book for that game does not yet exist. It will be written from now on. It would, I think, be quite wrong to assume that the Trump then (in the mind’s eye of the electorate) will be the Trump we see now. It will be the perceptions he creates from now on, not those he has created so far, which will turn out to be decisive. Trump is turning out to be a rather smart – and clever – operator, in a clown’s clothing. He is becoming the champion of common sense and seems immune to attacks from “liberal McCarthyism” and from the tyrants of “political correctness”.
The conventional wisdom seems to be that Hillary Clinton would beat Trump easily. Her grass-roots organisation and the “Clinton brand” would, it is thought, rally the hordes to her cause and Trump would be wiped away. But I think conventional wisdom will turn out to be conventional folly in such a battle. Even on the feminism front, Clinton does not appear to have any decisive edge over Trump’s over the top support of being “feminine” (as opposed to feminism), which is sexist only to the most ardent of feminists. Clinton versus Trump will not be about ideologies but will be a battle of perceptions engendered and the emotions that are aroused. Clinton versus Trump will be black-and-white TV versus colour, it will be Blackberry versus the iphone, it will be – put simply – boring but known versus exciting if unknown. Normally unknown would be frightening – but not if the status quo is even more hopeless.
I have a sneaking suspicion that in a Clinton – Trump match-up, Clinton will defeat herself. Boring but known has its attractions when things are going well and the voter wants the status quo to be maintained. But for an electorate wanting “change” there will be little enthusiasm for Hillary. She projects the antithesis of “change”. She represents the worst of the establishment entrenched in their towers of elitism. Even adopting some of Bernie Sanders’ socialist ideas does not lift her up from “boring”. Obama promised “change” and “hope” and delivered neither. “American values” which made America “great” seem to have been diluted by too many years of wishy-washy liberalism.
“Oh God! Anybody but Hillary” and an anti-establishment tsunami could make Donald Trump President of the United States.
