Two female foreign journalists have described harrowing sexual assaults carried out by crowds or police as they tried to cover demonstrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy said she was sexually assaulted by police during hours under detention after taking part in protests on the sprawling square that has become a landmark of the Arab Spring.
"Besides beating me, the dogs of [central security forces] subjected me to the worst sexual assault ever," Eltahawy said on her Twitter account........
Later, a French journalist working for public television channel France 3, said she had been violently beaten and sexually assaulted while covering the protests.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Journalists reveal harrowing sexual assaults in Egypt
You can't buy that lime... it could be classed as a weapon
Via Survival
A chef was stunned to find she was almost banned from buying two limes from a supermarket - because they could be classed as a weapon.
Marisa Zoccolan, 31, popped into the new Asda supermarket close to her home in Wallsend, North Tyneside, to pick up some groceries, including the citrus fruits.
But when she tried to pay for them at the self-service checkout, the message 'amount exceeded, authorisation required' flashed up.
An assistant then came over and told her that more than one lime was deemed a weapon - because the citric acid could be squirted in someone's eye.
Popular Mom-and-pop water purification business shuttered by DEA's meth-hunting "knotheads"
Via Survival
Here's a Mercury News profile of Bob Wallace, an 88-year-old chemist who started a very successful cottage business selling iodine crystals under the "Polar Pure" brand new, used by hikers and disaster relief workers for water purification. Wallace has been put out of business by the Drug Enforcement Agency, who say they once busted a meth lab that was using Wallace's iodine in their process. The DEA says it's not their fault: "If Mr. Wallace is no longer in business he has perhaps become part of that collateral damage, for it was not a result of DEA regulations, but rather the selfish actions of criminal opportunists. Individuals that readily sacrifice human lives for money."
"This old couple, barely surviving old farts, and we're supposed to be meth dealers? This is just plain stupid," Wallace said, as he sat in the nerve center of his not-so-clandestine compound surrounded by contoured hiking maps, periodic tables and the prototypes of metal snowshoes he invented a few years ago. "These are the same knotheads that make you take your shoes off in the airport..."
For Wallace to comply, the state Department of Justice fingerprinted the couple and told Wallace he needed to show them such things as a solid security system for his product. Wallace sent a photograph of Buddy sitting on the front porch.
"These guys don't go for my humor," Wallace said. "Cops are the most humorless knotheads on the planet." Even so, Marco Campagna, Wallace's lawyer, promised to strengthen security and make other improvements to allay the government's concerns.
My advice:
Via Survival
"My advice: We are moving closer and closer to what I call 'survival period' -- the period where the magic of compounding turns into what will be the poison of compounding. This isn't a time for timing. This is a time for action. Reduce your exposure to bonds and all items that provide fixed interest rates. Similarly, reduce your exposure to stocks except the gold miners. Look to expand your positions in inflation-protected assets, especially gold."
"Those who are holding stocks in the hopes of the usual rebound are going to be terribly disappointed in the years ahead. This bear market is going to be unlike anything we've ever seen before. In the end my survival vehicle will be gold. I say again, timing is hopeless. Gold will have purchasing power and true wealth as almost everything else is destroyed by this unprecedented bear market. The US Government is now so loaded with ever-growing debt that it has become a mathematical freak. We return to different times, when rising interest rates will eat up the US government. With $55 trillion in assorted debts, the US is in no shape to deal with rising interest rates. We are in a state of reverse compounding, leading to inevitable bankruptcy on a massive scale."
-- Richard Russell, Editor of The Dow Theory Letters.
English Defence League to enter electoral politics after signing pact with British Freedom Party
Via Gates of Vienna
The English Defence League plans to field candidates for the first time in local elections after an alliance is finalised between the far-right group and the British Freedom Party, which was set up by disgruntled members of the British National Party.
Senior figures said that the EDL, which has become known for its protests in English towns with Muslim populations, needed to "detoxify" its name by moving into politics with an existing party. Their new partners hope to capitalise on the EDL's ability to mobilise a large number of supporters.
Both groups will retain a measure of independence but will support each other. EDL members will be invited to join the newly affiliated political wing and stand as candidates under its name. "There is a gentleman's agreement in place, we are looking at the EDL becoming political early next year," said Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the leader of the far-right group. Mr Yaxley-Lennon, who also goes by the name Tommy Robinson, confirmed he had met the British Freedom Party leader Paul Weston and that discussions were at an advanced stage.
Mr Weston confirmed the plans and revealed he would offer Mr Yaxley-Lennon a place on the party's executive committee. He added: "We are going to say we support the principles of the EDL. We will get a lot of people who can stand in local constituencies and they will get a genuine political party in return.
Happy Thanksgiving
What Would The Founders Think?
Verbatim Post
Verbatim Post
In this, the season of our discontent, we are reminded of why we should be thankful. At the top of the list is that we live in America. Whether our progenitors arrived on the Mayflower or were among one of the later waves of immigrants, we should be grateful just to be here.Those of the first generation in their family to be American borne grew up with the stories of what was suffered and why their parents and grandparents traveled thousands of miles for the privilege of starting over.
Perhaps the delusional and deluded mobs who call themselves occupiers never heard those stories. Maybe no one thought it was important to retell them.
It is almost certain that no college course informed them that, current dislocations not withstanding, “Americans at the very bottom of the income scale are still richer than most of the rest world: That is, the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants.”
So they don’t know how fortunate they are not to be among the 68%.
Finally, politics and economics aside, we need to be grateful for what no government can provide; the love of family and friends who enrich our lives and are the true measure of our wealth.
The Deadliest Handgun in History?
Via T
With a total of 35 million casualties, there is little doubt that the First World War was one of the costliest conflicts in history — and it was all started by just two well-placed 7.65mm (.32 ACP) rounds from a John Browning-designed auto pistol.This is not to say that the Great War wasn’t imminent, anyway — it had almost begun almost a decade earlier for other reasons — but when Bosnian nationalist Gavril Princip assassinated heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, with just two shots from his Model 1910 FN Browning (pictured here), the juggernaut towards war began its irrepressible journey.
In brief, it happened like this:
Winning? Ron Paul Helps Lead Mounting Opposition to SOPA Internet Censorship
Against the Blacklist Bills: Congressmen and Senators Speak Up ... Citizens nationwide have spoken out against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP, its counterpart in the Senate — and they're not alone. A large and growing bi-partisan group of legislators have told their colleagues in the Capitol that Internet censorship is a very bad idea ... Since the House Judiciary Committee hearing on SOPA last Tuesday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi has come out against the bill, tweeting "#DontBreakTheInternet." In opposing the bill, she stands alongside Representative Darrel Issa and the ten congressmen who submitted a letter to their colleagues: Representatives Anna Eshoo, Jared Polis, Mike Doyle, Doris Matsui, Mike Thompson, Zoe Lofgren, Ron Paul, Lloyd Doggett, Mike Honda, and George Miller. – Electronic Frontier Foundation
Dominant Social Theme: The Internet simply needs to be shut down. There are few benefits to it. Plus it is upsetting to us, the power elite.
Free-Market Analysis: For years, we've been trying to explain that the Internet is not going to be easy to remove or tame. Those enablers and associates of the Anglosphere power elite can try to shut it down but there seems to be a kind of hive mind at work that won't quickly allow it.
The article, excerpted above, shows us once again that Draconian moves against the Internet are running into trouble as they have before. Yes, of course, the Internet is under attack, and of course it may not have the physical discreetness of the Gutenberg Press, but it is a change-maker nonetheless. It is has now informed millions and millions of the way the World Really Works.
Humans are primates, naturally curious and driven by instinct to use tools. Humans are also driven to build on what has been made available to them by previous generations. These two impulses are among the most powerful that human beings have. Laws and regulations that do not recognize these instincts are likely doomed to failure, whether or not they are passed.
While the freedom to communicate can gradually be whittled away, it likely cannot be removed easily or all at once, not unless the authorities wish to impose the kind of command-and-control culture that was common in Eastern Europe and the USSR in this past century.
Nonetheless, efforts will continue to be made. The power elite that evidently and obviously hopes to rule the world will continue to work against the Internet's role in helping people understand the matrix in which they are trapped.
Northerners v. Yankees
Via Bazz
Franklin Sanders (The Moneychanger) Gold and Silver market report.
Several Northern readers wrote yesterday chastising me for referring to Washington as the "yankee government." I need to make plain the exactness of that expression, for I fear that I might otherwise unwittingly and unwillingly give offense to some Northern folk of good will and sound sense, which would deeply grieve me.Northerners v. Yankees
So I'll take a minute here before Thanksgiving to explain.
There are two kinds of people from up North: Northerners and yankees, not at all the same thing. Not even all New Englanders are yankees.
Northerners are normal human beings who mind their own business, and are pretty much like us except they don't eat grits, collards, or turnip greens and sometimes wear black socks with shorts. Yankees, on the other hand, are tyrants who must re-make everyone in the world to their own self-righteous image, who know better than anyone what is good for everyone and don't mind killing you to enforce it. Behind them, they leave a desert and call it peace. Most if not all the politicians sent to Washington from the South are yankees.
I will momentarily drop my mask of the unlettered fool -- Oh, I still don't claim to be anything but a natural born fool, but in fact I am not an uneducated fool -- and try to explain the tragedy playing out in history, the destruction of human freedom under the guise of liberty.
Lincoln's war against the South was based on One Idea alone: if a man insists on his right to self-government, he has earned a death sentence. That is the heart of all Revolution, and the root of freedom's annihilation in this country. Washington today believes The Idea as strongly as Lincoln and the Radical Republicans. If you don't understand this root, you won't understand events: why Janet Reno was willing to kill the children at Waco to save them, or why the US had to destroy Iraq & kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to spread democracy, or why the War on Terror overseas means the end of rights at home, or why sellers of raw milk must be raided with SWAT teams.
I don't think most Northerners believe in The Idea, but still it runs America, in the hands of yankees (remember my definition above). So if you are from the North and not a yankee, don't let me rile you when I use the word yankee to describe the tyrants in Washington, because I'm not referring to you. I have as good a will toward you as I do toward any Southerner.
With sorrow I concede that the myths of American history inculcated in government schools contradict everything I've written, & that may make you mad, but I'm not trying to make you mad, only to tell you the truth.
On 4 November 1866 that great English lover of freedom, Lord Acton, wrote to Robert E. Lee, "I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction, but as the redemption of Democracy. . . I believed that [the Confederacy's] example would have blessed all the races of mankind by establishing true freedom. . . Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization, and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo."
On 15 December 1866 Lee replied to Acton, that he considered the "maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people" as the "safeguard" of a free government's survival, "whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it."
Truth is the daughter of time. What is the United States today but "aggressive abroad & despotic at home"? Abroad its armies wage countless wars. At home, its agents steal your money, fondle your wives and daughters at airports, stop and search your cars without warrants, and meddle and regulate every act and even every thought of your life.
So if you are one of those criminals who insist on your right to self-government, even if you were born north of Mason & Dixon's line, you are my friend and ally, but I would never call you a yankee.
And y'all don't bother writing me one of those "The War's over, get over it" letters, because I have a handy delete key on my computer, & I will use it. Besides, the War is NOT over, & they're still waging it -- against YOU and me.
Y'all have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving, & remember that the FIRST American Thanksgiving was not celebrated in New England in 1621, but farther south at Berkeley Plantation in Virginia on 4 December 1619.
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State Sovereignty: America's Final Solution to Tyranny
At the end of this article is a copy of the proposed state sovereignty amendment that Ron and Donnie Kennedy are promoting as the final solution to federal abuse. They believe that anything less will only continue the course of federal supremacy and the ultimate destruction of real American liberty. I sadly agree with them.
Just following Congress, the 2012 presidential campaign and the inability of citizens to influence government policy makes it clear to every American how broken the US political system has become. A few powerful interests run the entire show and the American people are being forced down a dark road to economic destruction. History shows us that Washington is immune to conventional national political action under the present system. What can freedom loving Americans do?
• We can't change Washington because Congress is owned and controlled by special interests.
• Neither can we take over the establishment control of either political party as the media elites can break, sideline or ignore any candidate that threatens the elite interests.
• Third party efforts at the national level are doomed to failure and an ineffective tool for promoting freedom principles when compared to the successful Ron Paul campaign effort inside the GOP.
• Finally, education, although important, is not a fast enough solution to save our nation when more than 50% of the electorate lives off the looting of taxpayers through government benefits or make-work jobs.
So do freedom advocates just give up or wait for the eventual collapse of the economy and the US political system? While this is a prevalent view in freedom circles, hyperinflation and economic collapse even if you are invested to financially benefit from this outcome is certainly not a recipe for restoring limited government and liberty to our country. Fascism and wealth confiscation are the probable result, just look at what followed the failed German Weimar Republic in the 1930's.
There is only one effective, democratic and peaceful tool left to Americans to defend their liberties and restore the original republic of our founding fathers. It is the right of state sovereignty and nullification, so effectively explained by Tom Woods in his book Nullification: How To Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century. http://www.tomwoods.com/books/nullification
First evidence that dinosaurs ate birds
The world was a dangerous place for the first birds. Palaeontologists have found a fossil bird preserved where the stomach of a dinosaur would have been – the first direct evidence that dinos preyed on their feathered relatives.
Palaeontologists have long suspected that birds made up part of the predatory dino diet, but proof has been lacking. No longer: Jingmai O'Connor and colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing found the near-intact skeleton of a primitive bird nestling suspiciously inside a fossilised predator.
The bird belonged to an extinct group called Enantiornithes and was lying in the ribcage of an early Cretaceous winged theropod called Microraptor gui. They were part of the prehistoric ecosystem known as the Jehol biota, which existed in what is now China and has also yielded numerous spectacular feathered dinosaurs.
Afghan woman jailed for being a rape victim offered release if she MARRIES her attacker
- Gulnaz was convicted of adultery because she had sex outside of marriage by being raped
- After falling pregnant by her attacker, she and the baby were jailed for 12 years
- She has been given the choice to marry her rapist and be freed from jail
An Afghan woman raped by her cousin’s husband has revealed how she is faced with a horrific dilemma – marry him or spend the next 12 years in jail.
Gulnaz was aged just 19 when she was convicted by a court of adultery, even though she tried to prevent the attack.
Now she is in Kabul's Badam Bagh jail, serving out her sentence with her rapist’s child.
Albuquerque Police Monitor Racial Tensions at Highland High
Police say they were called Friday to help calm things down among Hispanic and African American students at Highland High School.Rumors about outsiders coming to the school to fan the flames have APD stationing gang officers on campus next week.
KOB Eyewitness News 4 spoke to students and parents who want to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.
One student describes what he saw at school Friday.
"Everybody is lined up to go to war basically...It's just a lot of fear because people are scared for their lives...people are crying and running and basically scared to death. I know I was,” the student said.
Albuquerque Public Schools said a fight between two boys on Wednesday caused two different groups to become at odds with each other.
This student said it boils down to a racial conflict.
"All the black people want to fight the Mexicans and all the Mexicans want to fight the black people - it's as simple as that, that's as simple as you can put it," she said.
Tax Dollars for Slutty Teachers
Godfather Politics
Verbatim Post
Verbatim Post
“Our public school is different.” Most probably that’s what the parents of students who go to Lincoln High School in Stockton, California thought about their school. Of course it is different. Stockton CA is not one of those low-end neighborhoods with minorities and troubled families. Why should it have any problems with its public schools?
Except that Heidi Kaeslin is a special education teacher at Lincoln High. And Heidi Kaeslin has another career as well: she runs several porn sites from her work lap-top, bought with tax dollars. One of the web sites’ name is mysluttyteacher.com. According to a local male student, the ad on the web-site said:
“Have you ever seen your teacher’s breasts before? Well now you can see them.”
Yummy, isn’t it. Little Johnny may not be able to read when he graduates from high school but he will certainly have a good visual knowledge of female anatomy. Thank a teacher. May be not only visual but first hand experience also. You never know.
Of course, Kaeslin targeted the boys. A teacher at McLoud Elementary in McLoud OK had a game for the girls. Third and fourth grade. Early education never hurts. To make sure they did understand the lessons, the victims were pulled into the Superintendent’s office and questioned without any parent present or even notified. Parents never go well together with sex ed; they disrupt the education process. Better keep them away. What happens at the public school, stays at the public school.
The public school system, designed by liberals, run by liberals, and used by liberals for their agenda, is finally achieving its perfect state: no education, lots of promiscuity. It doesn’t produce literacy, nor intellectual skills. But it certainly produces oversexed boys and girls who by the age of 18 already have a couple of abortions. It gives jobs to slutty teachers at taxpayers’ expense. And it destroys families.
It’s about time for America to open its eyes and clearly see the true nature of the public schools. And shut them down. We can’t afford government education; for one, there is no education in the government schools; and two, the moral and the social ills created by the public schools far outweigh even the best illusory hopes of any positive fruit coming from them. America needs to return education where it belongs: to the families and the free market. Before it’s too late.
Old Soldiers’ Day in Catawba County
A wonderful late-nineteenth century recollection of North Carolina’s Senator Sam Ervin, Jr.=======
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
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Old Soldiers’ Day in Catawba County:
“During the 1890s the people of Newton, the county seat of Catawba County, North Carolina, set aside a day in August of each year which they designated as Old Soldiers Day, to pay tribute to Confederate veterans. After all the Confederate veterans had pitched their tents on fame’s eternal camping ground, the people of Newton continued to celebrate Old Soldier’s Day, and to this day use it as an occasion for honoring all the soldiers who have served in all America’s wars.
Charles F. McKesson, a beloved member of the Morganton bar during my youth, was affectionately called “Cousin Charlie” by all the people of the community. He was a silver-tongued orator, in the parlance of the day, and was in great demand as a public speaker on occasions of patriotic rejoicing.
I told Cousin Charlie that he always spoke with grace and ease and that I sometimes wondered if he had ever lost his composure while speaking. He responded, “Yes,” and added, “I lost it completely years ago when I was keynote speaker at the Old Soldiers’ Day in Newton.”
“At that time multitudes of Confederate veterans were still in the land of the living. Before the speaking, the Daughters of the Confederacy provided them with a bountiful barbeque on the courthouse square. Others added to their pleasure by bringing a supply of moonshine from the Catfish section of Catawba County.
“After the eating and drinking, the old soldiers repaired to the auditorium in the courthouse, and I delivered my speech, which I had prepared with meticulous care. An old soldier who sat on the front bench gave me the most rapt attention I have ever received from any member of an audience. He seemed to hang on every word I uttered.
“I reached the climax of my speech. I said, “I saw you undergo your baptism of blood at Bethel, I saw you storm Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, I saw you fight the Battle above the Clouds on Lookout Mountain.”
At this juncture the most attentive member of the audience staggered to his feet and shouted, “That’s a damned lie. You weren’t there!”
I lost my composure completely, and had the greatest difficulty regaining it.”
(Humor of a Country Lawyer, Sam J. Ervin, Jr., UNC Press, 1983, pp. 45-46)
Old Soldiers’ Day in Catawba County
Update: Michelle Obama’s “All this for a damn flag” shown at three different speeds
Verbatim Post
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Yes, folks, that is what she said, according to an instructor at a School for the Deaf and Blind who watched the video. The video is shown at normal speed, 3/4 speed, and 1/2 speed with no banners obstructing her lips.
It should come as no surprise that she and Barack have no clue about America’s reverence for, nor reference to, our flag, or that both want to eliminate all memorials and ceremonies commemorating the 9/11 attacks.