Apple Steve Jobs Buddhist

Fascinating, never realize that till the day read that he resigned. learning new things everyday ;)wish him all the best as he continue his battle with cancer...

http://americanbuddhist.blogspot.com/2010/05/steve-jobs-is-buddhist-and-tangent-on.html

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Steve-Jobs/113529011990795?sk=wiki

http://www.allaboutstevejobs.com/being/being.html

http://www.minyanville.com/special-features/articles/steve-jobs-apple-buddhism-beginners-mind/5/19/2010/id/28278

http://mumonno.blogspot.com/2011/03/apple-steve-jobs-zen-practice-and.html

http://www.japanese-buddhism.com/steve-jobs-buddhist-celebrities.html

Inflation Versus Hyperinflation, The Crucial Difference

I wish I was as optimistic as this writer. The plain fact is that the Fed is already dialing hyper-inflation into our future and it is coming like a freight train.

Congress has to cut spending immediately, massively, and yet using judgement. If the Debt Ceiling is increased, the Fed will just do QE3 because they don't have any choice. They don't have a choice because no one is going to lend them $100 Billion per month because QE2 already poisoned the well. The results of QE2 will create Hyper-Inflation this year and it cannot be stopped. See the Chart below. This is the Commodities Future Index and the first of the 6 month futures from September 2010 are just coming due, so April will start showing this in the month to month inflation numbers, of which we just had a taste in the shocking March numbers.

CRB Index for the last 6 months.. (Future Freepers Sorry, this is a snapshot URL) this post won't make sense a month after the current date.)

This exactly matches the chart presented by Russ Winter at Minyanville.

The last 40 years have nothing to do with the current situation because folks had the good sense to go Ape Sh%$t when Nixon gave up the Gold Standard. What they are doing now.. the BASELESS STANDARD, the NOT EVEN GREEN ANYMORE.. standard.. heck.. it isn't even paper. Just electrons representing lies that our children have to make real by living in bondage.

If the Debt Ceiling is increased, the Fed will do QE3 to keep Treasury auctions from failing. Something immediate and substantial needs to be done, and Congress just punted.

Some say, "If interest rates on Treasuries skyrocket then everyone, including China and Saudi will jump back into dollars with wild abandon." But, more likely, there will be no takers for $100 Billion per month.. but the interest rates may rise anyway.. rather... it is much more likely that QE3 occurs for the same reasons as QE2 but the situation is more desperate.

The problem with that.. is that the US is deep into short term borrowing which means that the Deficit will balloon insanely the minute interest rates begin to rise..

You get into a trap, there is no interest rate high enough that overcomes the real likelihood of loss of the original principle. Equity works because it based on the analysis of the risk vs reward of appreciation or loss of the capital investment. Bond work on the assurance that the capital invested is safe, over a certain level of risk, they are considered junk because they are inherently not safe.

What foreign companies will do is use the fake dollars we have given them to purchase real US assets leaving us in an inflationary spiral and vassals in our own land. They will at some point soon, months, insist that all of our borrowing be done in their currency rather than ours and this is when our goose is cooked.

This is a story as old as Joseph, the Pharaoh and the 7 years of famine. It ended with all of Egypt in Slavery including the Israelites whom only God could save.

What is sick is that Beck warned of this 6 months ago and we just couldn't see it back then.. but now it is obvious.. and yet we are not doing anything to stop it.

There comes a point in every PONZIE scheme where the new members cannot sustain the deal and it all comes tumbling down. Social Security is the Ponzie scheme and we all know it. It has failed we are selling our very lives and putting our children into the fire of slavery and death and oppression. This has to end worse than Greece and Obama and crowd know it and are cheering with the torches in their hands. This is the Clovin-Pevin crisis they have been working for, but we don't have to go there willingly.

In case you have any doubt in your heart..


Chart h/t Doug Ross

Goodbye, AmeriCorps. Hello, FoodStampCorps.
By Michelle Malkin • April 15, 2011 10:14 AM

So much for the new era of fiscal responsibility. The federal government’s dependency drones have been spared the chopping block. After vowing to eliminate funding for President Obama’s bloated $6 billion AmeriCorps social justice army, House Republicans retreated — and will shrink the AmeriCorps budget by a minuscule 6.7 percent.

Yes, across the Internet, the feds are recruiting AmeriCorps VISTA (“Volunteers in Service to America”) workers to apply for jobs as publicists for the welfare state. Their mission: to sign up as many people to federal food stamp rolls as possible. Because, you know, the record-breaking 12 million that have been added since Obama took office is apparently not good enough.

These people are serious and using Cloward-Piven like a Bible and they are on a mission.

First and foremost, people have been lied to and they are not ready for dealing with the reality of this. Beck and Palin see Trump's big mouth as a distraction but people are sick of lies. I am.

It starts here first. We quit lying to ourselves. I saw the charts that I posted here this weekend and they made me sick. The guy at www.endofamerica93.com has seen this for a while.. and unfortunately decided to make this a sales pitch with a 20 minute clouded presentation at the beginning.

The crisis doesn't come from "Bankruptcy" as Hannity keeps saying.. but the loss of "Reserve Currency Status" and the meetings are going on around the world to get this accomplished. I am sure they would like to do this without destroying the value of the dollars they already have.. but QE3 will destroy this value anyway.. so after June 2011, a crisis is assured soon no matter what if the DEBT CEILING IS INCREASED without substantial immediate and draconian cutting and a mechanism to absolutely end the deficit borrowing in 24 months.

Trump on Libya, Iraq: Take the Oil

Tax Nomo Tuesday, April 12, 2011

It's official. I'm starting to develop a man-crush on Donald Trump. He's saying pretty much exactly the kind of stuff I think most conservatives wish the GOP had the balls to say, and he's saying it all over the damn place. He's even saying nice things about Sarah Palin. That's a personal litmus test for me.

If this does turn out to be some kind of a network stunt, then it's a brilliant one. Any debate featuring Donald Trump will be must-see TV.

To the reporter: "I would never ask a stupid question like that."

On politics: "I'm very conservative."

On other candidates: "I'd rather have any of these people than Obama."

On trade: "If it's a bad deal for us, I'm not signing it."

On Libya: "I'm only interested in Libya if we take the oil....Nobody knows who these rebels are"

On China: "China gets its oil from Libya and we get nothing but dead soldiers."

"I would tell China that you'd better shape up or we're going to start taxing you at 25%. We're talking $300 Billion dollars. China has been taking advantage of our leaders for years."

On Iraq: "As soon as we leave Iran is going to go in and take the oil... I would take the oil... I would not want to be the one who told someone whose son or daughter died over there that Iran took the oil and their child died for nothing."

"We will make a fortune. They have $15 Trillion of oil in Iraq. We are not going to hand that oil to Iran."

Best line of all... "We need oil. We don't need China."


Donald Trump will “probably” run as an independent candidate for U.S. President in 2012 if he does not receive the Republican party’s nomination, he told the Wall Street Journal in a video interview on Monday.

“I hate what’s happening to the country,” said Mr. Trump, a real estate tycoon and host of the NBC show “Celebrity Apprentice.” He will not formally make a decision until June, however, when this season of his television show is over. “I can’t run during the airing of that show,” Mr. Trump said, “I’m not allowed to.” But he said he would make an announcement “by June” and his candidacy looks increasingly likely....

Tsunami-hit towns forgot warnings from ancestors

By JAY ALABASTER, Associated Press Jay Alabaster, Associated Press – Wed Apr 6, 2:47 pm ET

MIYAKO, Japan – Modern sea walls failed to protect coastal towns from Japan's destructive tsunami last month. But in the hamlet of Aneyoshi, a single centuries-old tablet saved the day.

"High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants," the stone slab reads. "Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point."

It was advice the dozen or so households of Aneyoshi heeded, and their homes emerged unscathed from a disaster that flattened low-lying communities elsewhere and killed thousands along Japan's northeastern shore.

Hundreds of such markers dot the coastline, some more than 600 years old. Collectively they form a crude warning system for Japan, whose long coasts along major fault lines have made it a repeated target of earthquakes and tsunamis over the centuries.

The markers don't all indicate where it's safe to build. Some simply stand — or stood, until they were washed away by the tsunami — as daily reminders of the risk. "If an earthquake comes, beware of tsunamis," reads one. In the bustle of modern life, many forgot.

More than 12,000 people have been confirmed dead and officials fear the number killed could rise to 25,000 from the March 11 disaster. More than 100,000 are still sheltering in schools and other buildings, almost a month later. A few lucky individuals may move into the first completed units of temporary housing this weekend.

Workers at the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power complex finally halted a leak of radioactive water into the Pacific on Wednesday, but it may take months to bring the overheating reactors under control.

A natural disaster as large as last month's 9.0 earthquake and tsunami happens perhaps once in a person's lifetime, at most. Tokyo Electric Power Co., the nuclear plant operator, clearly wasn't prepared. Many communities built right to the water's edge, some taking comfort, perhaps, in sea walls built after a deadly but smaller tsunami in 1960.

Many did escape, fleeing immediately after the quake. In some places, it was a matter of minutes. Others who tarried, perished.

"People had this crucial knowledge, but they were busy with their lives and jobs, and many forgot," said Yotaru Hatamura, a scholar who has studied the tablets.

One stone marker warned of the danger in the coastal city of Kesennuma: "Always be prepared for unexpected tsunamis. Choose life over your possessions and valuables."

Tetsuko Takahashi, 70, safe in her hillside house, watched from her front window as others ignored that advice. She saw a ship swept a half-mile (nearly a kilometer) inland, crushing buildings in its path.

"After the earthquake, people went back to their homes to get their valuables and stow their 'tatami' floor mats. They all got caught," she said.

Her family has lived in Kesennuma for generations, but she said those that experienced the most powerful tsunamis died years ago. She can only recall the far weaker one in 1960, generated by an earthquake off Chile.

Earlier generations also left warnings in place names, calling one town "Octopus Grounds" for the sea life washed up by tsunamis and naming temples after the powerful waves, said Fumihiko Imamura, a professor in disaster planning at Tohoku University in Sendai, a tsunami-hit city.

"It takes about three generations for people to forget. Those that experience the disaster themselves pass it to their children and their grandchildren, but then the memory fades," he said.

The tightly knit community of Aneyoshi, where people built homes above the marker, was an exception.

"Everybody here knows about the markers. We studied them in school," said Yuto Kimura, 12, who guided a recent visitor to one near his home. "When the tsunami came, my mom got me from school and then the whole village climbed to higher ground."

Aneyoshi, part of the city of Miyako, has been battered repeatedly by tsunamis, including a huge one in 1896. Isamu Aneishi, 69, said his ancestors moved their family-run inn to higher ground more than 100 years ago.

But his three grandchildren were at an elementary school that sat just 500 feet (150 meters) from the water in Chikei, a larger town down the winding, cliffside road. The school and surrounding buildings are in ruins. The bodies of his grandchildren have not been found.

Farther south, the tsunami washed away a seven-foot (two-meter) tall stone tablet that stood next to a playground in the middle of the city of Natori. Its message was carved in giant Japanese characters: "If an earthquake comes, beware of tsunamis."

That didn't stop some people from leaving work early after the earthquake, some picking up their children at school en route, to check the condition of their homes near the coast.

Many didn't make it out alive. More than 820 bodies have been found in Natori, some stuck in the upper branches of trees after the water receded. Another 1,000 people are still missing.

Hiroshi Kosai grew up in Natori but moved away after high school. His parents, who remained in the family home, died in the disaster.

"I always told my parents it was dangerous here," said the 43-year-old Kosai, as he pointed out the broken foundation where the tablet once stood. "In five years, you'll see houses begin to sprout up here again."

A Revolting Middle East Policy

Sultan Knish a blog by Daniel Greenfield ^ | April 5, 2011 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 1:08:02 PM by 6ft2inhighheelshoes

In the last three months we played a role in overthrowing nearly every Middle Eastern government we were allied with-- that wasn't supporting terrorism.

We pushed out Ben Ali in Tunisia, but let the Saudis move tanks into Bahrain. Egypt's Mubarak was a monster who had to go, but Syria's Assad is a reformer. Now Yemen's Saleh who let us hunt terrorists in his country is on our hit list, but the Qatari royal family which is linked to Al-Qaeda and finances Al-Jazeera are our best friends. Gaddafi who cut a deal to give up his nukes got bombed, Iran which is pushing hard for a nuclear bomb has clear skies.

Middle Eastern leaders who support and finance terrorists got a pass, but our own allies in the War on Terror got creamed. Iran, Syria and the Gulf Arab states who are responsible for most of the terrorism against us have nothing to worry about. Saleh and Mubarak who aided the War on Terror got shown the door.

Want good relations with the US? Start funding terrorists and building nukes. That's the only lesson any Middle-Eastern leader can take away from this disaster. The message we have put out there is that the worse they treat us, the better we will treat them. We will tolerate enemies and allies abusing us and plotting to kill us. But allies who actually go out on a limb to support us and act as if they have common interests with us. That we won't put up with. They have to go.

The tally of stupidity in what fanciful pundits called the 'Arab Spring' is almost endless. Not only did we mistake factional protests for democratic change and the will of the people, but we got behind groups and organizations overtly hostile to us and took their side against governments that had actually been friendly to us.

Obama intervened politically in Egypt on behalf of Islamists and Anti-American leftists, bringing down the government of the only major Muslim country in the region that was not actively funding terrorists. A government that not only offered significant help during the War on Terror, but was the only non-Islamist bulwark against Iran. All that is almost certainly gone now.

Bush's bloodless deal with Gaddafi got him out of the nukes and terror business. That too is gone now. The rebels are losing and Gaddafi isn't going to be intimidated by us ever again. The US went in like a lion and out like a lamb. Bush's invasion of Iraq intimidated Gaddafi into giving in. Obama's botched assault on Libya has reassured every thug from Syria to Iran that they have nothing to fear from us.

On any threat level map, North Africa which was reasonably quiet under Bush has just gone dark red. And it won't take much for it to go bright red now. From Tunisia to Libya to Egypt-- the Islamists have gotten a major shot in the arm on the other side of the Mediterranean. Al-Qaeda fighters are swarming within sight of Italy. In a day, Libyan fighters can travel by boat to Italy's Pelagie islands. When Eisenhower wanted to invade Italy from North Africa, he began with the islands as a jumping off point. Muslim 'refugees' have been doing their own version of 'Operation Corkscrew' by using the islands to invade Italy. And once inside Italy they have access to the entire European Union.

The 'revolutions' have targeted North Africa. Half of North Africa has either has either been wholly or partly overthrown. Morocco and Algeria are the sole holdouts. If the Brotherhood takes Egypt then they won't be holding out for long. And then there will be a Caliphate within striking distance of Southern Europe.

But Europe supported all this in the name of democracy and human rights. And European leaders organized a bombing campaign against Gaddafi when he was the only thing keeping half of North Africa from moving to Europe. America, which could have saved Mubarak with a word, instead called for his removal in the name of a protest movement organized by the Muslim Brotherhood and the leftist Kefaya group which had gotten its start protesting against the American overthrow of Saddam.

What country in its right mind backs the overthrow of any ally by an enemy? We do. When Egyptian socialist thug Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, and England and France sent in the troops, we threatened to destroy the British economy unless they withdrew. Our reward for that was that Nasser's Egypt became the chief Soviet spearhead in the region. For the last two decades, our number one foreign policy priority in the Middle East is to force Israel to hand over territory to PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, a graduate of the KGB's Patrice Lumumba University, whose other famous alumnus was Carlos the Jackal.

Carter backed the leftists and Islamists over the Shah of Iran. Then he backed the Islamists over the leftists. That's what turned Iran into the paradise it is today. This time around we backed the leftists and Islamists over Mubarak. Now the leftists are being swallowed up by the Islamists who have been waiting 80 years for this moment.

From the halls of power to the front page, no Egyptian was a bigger enthusiast of the January 25 protests than our own political and cultural leaders. The press was full of posed photographs, glowing descriptions of a people's revolution and denunciations of Mubarak. Activists whose chief political experiencing was retweeting memes got full page interviews. Governments and Soros' pet NGO's got behind Kefaya and Iranian puppet El Baradei. Columnists glowingly portrayed the pathetic El Baradei as the democratic future of Egypt.

Then Mubarak stepped down and the 'heroes' of Tahrir Square got stomped flat by the military and the brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood's successful referendum campaign was an explicit mandate for Islamism over secularism. Protests have been banned, curfews imposed and the army is arresting and humiliating the remaining pro-democracy activists. And El Baradei and Kefaya are playing the only card left in their empty deck. Israel.

El Baradei is vowing war with Israel. Mahmoud Salem, aka Sandmonkey, the favorite Egyptian activist of so many neo-conservative bloggers, is encouraging Egyptians to support El Baradei over Amr Moussa, by tweeting that Amr Moussa is a Yankee-Zionist puppet and El Baradei is the only man Israel is afraid of. There's your liberal Democratic Egypt trotting out xenophobia and warmongering in a futile bid to get ahead of the Muslim Brotherhood. And its campaign slogan sounds a lot like the cries of "Jew, Jew" by the men who beat and raped Lara Logan.

Baradei is the darling of the same pundits and politicians who denounce nationalist Israeli candidates as extremists. Yet no Israeli party runs on a platform of war with Egypt. And there's your fundamental difference, not just between Egypt and Israel, but between the Muslim and non-Muslim world. A clash of civilizations between cultures with radically different moral codes and understanding of the value of human life. Much as Western pundits would like to believe that El Baradei is on their side of this moral equation, he isn't.

Egypt's problem was never Mubarak. It isn't Israel or America or globalism. It was always Egypt. And the problem will go on being Egypt no matter who is at the wheel six months or six years from now. The fundamental problem of the Muslim world is not a lack of democracy. That is only the symptom. Just as our fundamental problem is not Obama. He too is only the symptom.

Changing governments may improve matters, but without altering the underlying dynamic, the big picture will not change. And that dynamic is rooted in the culture. It cannot be changed by elections. Leaders reflect the culture, and even the occasional ruthless leader who imposes change is a product of historic forces at work. Egypt does not have a political problem, it has a cultural problem. And the US does not have a political problem, it has a cultural problem. Problems are reflected in destructive behavior.

Imagine if the Soviet Union had aided in the overthrow of Cuba, East Germany and the rest of the Warsaw Pact. That might have happened if Reagan had been put in charge of the USSR. And putting Obama in charge of America was like putting Reagan in charge of the USSR. But who put Obama in charge of America? For all the Soros money, fraud and the maneuvering behind the scenes-- it took a major cultural shift for that to be possible. The crisis of America can be found in that shift. And that of our revolting Middle East policy.

We can no longer rely on debt-laden US

THE European welfare state is in extremis. Its death throes are playing out before our eyes in an economic danse macabre of fiscal crises, banking bailouts and savage budget cuts.

From Lisbon to Latvia, governments are slashing public spending and going cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund. And from Athens to Aberdeen, students and trade unionists take to the streets in a sometimes-violent, last-ditch defence of their accustomed privileges.

But the end result of this economic Greek tragedy is pre-ordained by the cold hard calculus of budgetary maths. The European welfare state model that evolved after World War II has proved economically unsustainable: the account is coming due.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the US is afflicted by a similar malady. This year, the US government will borrow 40c out of every budget dollar it spends and will run a mammoth $US1.65 trillion ($1.59 trillion) deficit.

When Washington's current extravagance is piled upon profligacy from years past, this spend-a-thon brings the US's cumulative public debt to a whopping $14.2trillion. That sum represents 96 per cent of the $US14.8trillion gross domestic product of the US. In other words, the US government owes virtually the annual total worth of all goods and services produced by every US firm and individual. And that's not counting another $US6.3 trillion in state and local government debt and pension obligations.

Remarkably, military spending plays a minor role in the US's looming sovereign debt crisis. For all of its image as a free-market bastion, the US has become much more of a welfare state than is perceived. The real culprits in Washington's fiscal woes are government health and social programs.

Federal and state government payments and subsidies constituted fully one-third of all US wages and salaries paid last year. Medicare, the US government healthcare program for senior citizens, consumed 22.5 per cent of GDP that same year. By contrast, US defence spending - including on the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan - constituted less than 5 per cent of GDP.

The grim upshot of this number crunching is that the US is on a fiscally unsustainable trajectory towards national insolvency. These are the wages of the country's long-standing economic sins. There are only two options for Washington to stave off catastrophe: draconian budget cuts or reducing the real value of its debt by debasing the dollar through inflation. Either way, the economic and strategic consequences for the world will be profound.

Last June, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff portrayed the US's debt burden as "the most significant threat to our national security". Former US Treasury secretary and Harvard University president Lawrence Summers asked in 2009: "How long can the world's biggest borrower remain the world's biggest power?" The answer is: not long. We can't know precisely when the US's fiscal day of reckoning will arrive, but when Moody's warned a few months ago that US Treasury bonds were facing a downgrade from AAA status, you can be sure it's coming.

It was Cicero who said money forms the sinews of war. And in straitened economic circumstances, defence spending is usually the first item to go. We see this in Britain, where the Royal Navy has been cut to the bone and beyond. Without carrier air capability in the fleet until 2019 at the earliest, Britannia won't be ruling the waves anytime soon.

With its own debt burden that mandates both fiscal restraint and an inflationary devaluation of the dollar, the US's strategic wings will be clipped as well. The first round of defence cuts came in January, with $US78 billion over five years sliced from the $US680bn level spent by the Pentagon last year.

But that's only a bit of foreplay to the serious business of getting the US's fiscal house in order. It's inevitable more radical cuts to the US defence budget loom. Given that near certainty, it's time for debate about what a militarily diminished US means for Australia.

Since the end of WWII, we've enjoyed the benefits of stability provided by a Pax Americana in the western Pacific. Even during the worst Asian flare-ups of the Cold War - Korea and Vietnam - the international sea lanes upon which Australia depends were never threatened.

As a result, Australia has consistently short-changed its military establishment, getting away this year with spending a paltry 1.8per cent of GDP on defence.

Australia Defence Association head Neil James notes: "There are three generations of Aussies who've grown up under America's protective wing. They've never even had to consider the possibility that one day they might not be able to rely on US strategic supremacy, free of charge".

But with the US well down the road to economic perdition, Australia can no longer rely on the presumption that the US will have our back. It's extremely unlikely that a decade hence we'll see a US navy of 10 carrier battle groups. Currently, projections for a US air force fleet of 2400 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters will almost certainly never fully materialise. Costing more than $US100m a plane, the F-35 is a budget-buster, as are the new Ford-class aircraft carriers that cost $US9bn a pop. To an increasingly cash-strapped US, they will be unaffordable in quantity.

In politics, as in physics, a vacuum will be filled. In global affairs, this applies with redoubled force. For Australia, the $64,000 question is who will step in to the breach of strategic equilibrium triggered by the recession of US power from the western Pacific.

Will a resurgent China expand its strategic footprint by developing a real blue water navy? Will Japan, South Korea, India The Philippines and other Asian countries join in coalition to counterbalance the renascence of the Middle Kingdom? Or will these nations choose a path of "Finlandisation", opting for neutrality and passive accommodation with their giant neighbour?

These are the questions being mooted within Australia's strategic studies community. They form the subtext to the Rudd government's 2009 Defence white paper that called for a massive expansion of the Royal Australian Navy and RAAF.

But there are certainties of which we can still be confident, even within the haze of future Rumsfeldian 'unknown unknowns'. Without the intelligence support and military largesse produced by our close alliance with the world's superpower, we'll have to spend more on our national defence. Much more.

Australian governments of both persuasions will have to fill some of that US-less strategic vacuum with a greatly enhanced Australian Defence Force. On this point, the mainstream of the ALP is in agreement with the Coalition.

According to James, the most restrained estimates predict Canberra's military spending in such a scenario would need to rise by at least 60 per cent. Other strategic analysts say our defence outlay in such circumstances would more than double, or perhaps triple.

Or course, there's a great political irony to all this. In its hatred of all things US, the Left fails to understand that it is the US military umbrella that has enabled Australian governments to spend billions on butter rather than guns. All those schools, hospitals and welfare programs so beloved of progressives are, in essence, being subsidised by the 82nd Airborne.

Retired Major General Jim Molan, former chief of operations for the coalition in Iraq, declared: "America's allies - Australia included - have been freeloading for years and now they'll have to face the burden of their own national defence. And it's about time."

Ted Lapkin is a research fellow at the Institute for Public Affairs

sleeping on the wheel

was waiting it to go higher when bad news announced, but did not. can short now?

Put Options Expiring Friday, March 18, 2011
Symbol Last Change Bid Ask Volume Open Int
30.00 GMCR110319P00030000 4.80 Up 0.60 4.40 4.50 10 2,328
call
GMCR110319C00030000 4.40 Down 0.10 4.25 4.50 72 387 30.00

Put Options Expiring Friday, January 21, 2011
Symbol Last Change Bid Ask Volume Open Int
30.00 GMCR1110122P00030000 0.25 0.00 0.07 0.19 22 67
call
GMCR1110122C00030000 139.10 0.00 102.85 105.70 22 23 30.00



izit to early to short? wait an uptick or a rebound
Put Options Expiring Friday, May 20, 2011
Symbol Last Change Bid Ask Volume Open Int
40.00 APOL110521P00040000 6.85 Down 0.20 7.20 7.45 100 121
call
APOL110521C00040000 3.85 Down 0.30 3.80 4.00 38 233 40.00

Put Options Expiring Friday, February 18, 2011
Symbol Last Change Bid Ask Volume Open Int
37.00 APOL110219P00037000 4.50 0.00 4.45 4.60 30 175
call
APOL110219C00037000 3.85 Down 0.53 4.00 4.15 131 11 37.00

Father Driven To Pick Through His Son’s Remains (Just imagine the horror)

he Burn Pit (American Legion) ^ | 20 Sept 2010 | Mike Warner AOCS, USN Ret.

Posted on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 9:32:33 AM by OCCASparky

On September 15, 2010 at around 0800 in the morning, a family makes their way into Arlington National Cemetery for the Disinterment of a Marine Private killed by an IED in Al Anbar Province Iraq on 22 November 2006 killing him and two others.

As they stood at the grave site, a forklift arrives to raise a coffin from the vault that had interred it for nearly four years. Arlington knew at this point that the vault and coffin had been opened. When the family became aware of this action, an unsettling air of distrust settled upon the gathering. The father yells “you lied” as family members hold and calm him. The father already marred and angry by the uncooperative atmosphere and insensitivity of Arlington’s leadership; his grief now changes to anger. Another promise broken! Arlington, to seemingly cover their asses had breached the coffin the night before to ensure the Marine Private and the dog tags were in the assigned plot.

With a rotting corpse and the putrid stench of death permeating the air, a worker removes a dog tag from the coffin lid, wipes off the dirt, and hands it to the father. The forklift begins to raise the coffin; putrid water begins streaming out and those in attendance gasp as the fear of body parts falling from the unstable casket grips them.

Once removed, the coffin is lowered onto the bed of a truck and driven to a maintenance building where the verification process is to be held. In attendance inside were the father, a fellow Marine and friend of the Private who was to verify the remains, a Colonel, a Catholic Priest (arriving later), a Funeral Director, and some cemetery workers.

The father was already grieving and reeling from yet another confrontation with Arlington personnel the day before. He demanded and Arlington agreed the vault inside the grave would not be opened until he arrived the morning of the 15th. The father apprehensive about the day’s events was anxious if they would find his son inside. He fumed from yet another breach of trust. The father rejects the dog tags offered to him as verification by Arlington. The dog tags may have been sufficient had the integrity of the coffin not been breached. However, since it had been prior to the family’s arrival; the father then requested visual verification. The staff at Arlington appeared unprepared for what was to come next, thus tipping the father’s hand.

His adrenalin already maxed and because of Arlington’s ineptness, the father instinctively jumps onto the truck in his dress clothes despite the rancid odor. The father begins digging through the water soaked; stench filled rotting dismembered remains of his son, in search of the severed arm with a tattoo on it. Meanwhile the Funeral Director is standing to the side, gagging. The father looks at the Funeral Director and tells him, “Get over here and do your job!”

Arlington’s assistance during this time consisted of providing him with latex gloves. The father removes his rancid dress gloves used in digging through the soupy carnage and discards them in the trash. He also removes his jacket, hat and sunglasses, and continues to search for the missing arm. This arm with the tattoo would positively confirm that the unrecognizable severely decomposed corpse was his son’s. The father still searching as he inhales the pungent stench of rotting flesh discovers for the first time since his son’s death, that only a torso, arm, and leg were there.

Finally, after frantically searching the carnage, the arm is found under the torso with the tattoo mostly intact. The father in a gesture of love carefully and gently wipes away the dirt. He verifies his son. The veil of doubt is lifted. His son now placed in a new casket, the family looks on as the Private is reinterred, and now all are at peace.

Mammon, more than God, caused the Christchurch earthquake 'miracle'

By Geoffrey Lean World Last updated: September 5th, 2010

It’s an “absolute miracle” that no deaths have yet been reported from the earthquake that struck New Zealand early yesterday, says Bob Parker, mayor of the stricken city of Christchurch. You can see what he means – but Mammon may have had more to do with it than God. For it underlines how wealthy countries and communities suffer much less from a given natural disaster than poor ones.

The quake was the same magnitude, 7.1 on the Richter Scale as the one that hit Haiti in January, and its epicentre was slightly closer to Christchurch than the Caribbean one was from Port au Prince (13, as against 16, miles).But the latest estimates reckon that some 230,000 people died in Haiti, compared to no-one in New Zealand.

Of course there were differences. Yesterday’s quake hit at 4.35 in the morning – when almost everyone was indoors, asleep – for example, while January’s, with almost exact symmetry, occurred at 4.53 in the afternoon. But main difference is that New Zealand is just short of the top 30 countries in the world, listed by per capita GDP, while Haiti is firmly in the bottom 30.

Eighty per cent of earthquake deaths are caused by collapsing buildings and so properly built ones save lives in even the fiercest shocks, while poorly constructed ones become killers. Eighty six per cent of the people of Haiti live in tightly packed slums, and – besides those killed – two million were made homeless when buildings collapsed.

It has long been so, even in richer countries. Most of the 100,000 people who perished in a 1988 earthquake in Armenia – then part of the Soviet Union – were in cheap concrete buildings. And even in Japan, most of the structures that collapsed in the 1995 Kobe earthquake, which killed 5,000, were substandard constructions rushed up after the Second World War.

An 1976 earthquake in Guatemala City, which killed 23,000, was even dubbed the “class quake” because of the accuracy with which it hit the city’s poorest communities and spared the richer ones. So let’s be glad of the miracle in Christchurch – but recognise that world poverty is the greatest disaster of all.

Obama governing as promised, so what's wrong? (Yes, they're serious)

The New London Day ^ | September 5, 2010 | The Editors

Posted on Monday, September 06, 2010 3:37:58 PM by 2ndDivisionVet

It is hard to recall another president who so aggressively pursued the policies he campaigned on only to see his popularity plummet as a result. But such is the case with President Barack Obama.

It is understandable why those who voted for Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona would be so disenchanted with the Obama administration. Sen. McCain, after all, sought a far different, more modest approach to health care policy. The Arizona senator made fiscal and social conservatism a priority, talked of tax cuts and emphasized gun rights. As expected, the president has followed a much different agenda.

Harder to understand are the many who voted for Mr. Obama, only to now abandon him. This quick change of heart is most apparent among the growing ranks of unaffiliated voters who tend to float back and forth each election cycle, fingers to the wind. Their disenchantment with the president and his Democratic Party will likely mean big losses for the Democrats in the congressional elections.

As Americans prepared for their Labor Day weekend, the Rasmussen presidential tracking poll showed only 27 percent strongly approving of the president's performance, 43 percent strongly disapproving.

No one, certainly, should have been surprised that President Obama sought a dramatic overhaul of the health care system, with an increased government role to play. It was a centerpiece of the Obama campaign, a regular in his stump speech. Did those backing Mr. Obama not expect it to be expensive, complex and result in a bitter political fight? Democratic leaders going back to President Truman had attempted health care reform and failed.

The prize for President Obama achieving it was lowered approval ratings for him and his party.

As for the war in Iraq, the president achieved his goal of ending combat operations. How things play out from here, as the U.S. military transitions to a support and advisory role, remains to be seen. But the president seemingly scored no political points on an issue that once dominated the national debate, but now is an afterthought for voters.

In fiscal matters, candidate Obama made ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans a priority and is pushing forward with that plan, which no longer appears very popular. He also promised to put the cost of two wars back in the budget, knowing it would make the fiscal situation look far worse. It has.

He did not campaign on bailing out auto industries, or launching a nearly $1 billion stimulus program, but the severity of the economic crisis demanded drastic action. The auto industry was saved and the stimulus mitigated the seriousness of the recession.

President Obama has not ended wasteful government spending or improved efficiency, as he advertised, but will get the chance when dealing with a next Congress in which Republicans will likely hold a stronger hand.

Cap-and-trade to reduce carbon emissions, a financial carrot to encourage education reforms, tougher regulation of Wall Street, were all policies the president campaigned on.

Perhaps many who voted for Mr. Obama never supported these policies. Maybe they just wanted change after eight years of the Bush administration and didn't read the fine print. Certainly the lack of a vigorous recovery from the Great Recession is dragging down the president's popularity, but no economist predicted a rapid rebound.

In many ways, he's exactly who he said he'd be, and many of those who voted for him apparently don't like it.

Lenin's New Economic Policy

The NEP of the 1920s Permitted a Soviet Version of a Market Economy

With the Soviet territory suffering from famine and deprivation, Lenin enacted a New Economic Policy that promoted trade, privatization, and enterprise.

Lenin's New Economic Policy, also known as the NEP, was a tacit acknowledgement of previous failures to socialize the Soviet economy. However, the New Economic Policy of the 1920s encouraged privatization and capitalism – the very thing the Bolsheviks rallied against. This caused confusion and resentment among some who had suffered from or believed in the Bolshevik's ideals.
Why Did Lenin Establish the New Economic Policy?

In 1921, lands and people under Soviet control were in desperate need of relief of the famine that was killing citizens in scores. Additionally, necessary goods, like cooking implements and clothing, were scarce. While Lenin had once admitted that he felt hungry people would spur on the Russian Revolution, now he knew that the country was collapsing under the weight of its residents' need.
What Did Lenin's New Economic Policy Do?

Lenin's New Economic Policy was, on a most basic level, a relaxation of strict socialism into a loose market society. Free trade was hesitantly encouraged. Lenin hoped that this injection of capitalism into the economy would drag Soviet Russia up by its bootstraps and pave the way for pure socialism after an adequate waiting period.

What Were the Results of Lenin's New Economic Policy?

Trade, manufacturing, and even agriculture began to boom. Eateries and shops were set up quickly and offered goods that had previously been absent from market stalls. Peasants who worked the land began to innovate with new technologies and procedures to offer market crops.

Enterprising individuals were everywhere; of course this meant that there were cutthroat businessmen who could buy and sell anything for profit, specifically for their own gain. These were the so-called Nepmen who flaunted their quick-won wealth and of whom the Bolsheviks were especially wary. The Nepmen were representative of everything the Revolution had meant to destroy – flagrant displays of wealth, extreme gaps between rich and poor, and the power that walked hand-in-hand with moneyed individuals.
The New Economic Policy's Affects on Foreign Trade and Finance

The NEP opened up Soviet Russia to limited international trade. Because citizens were making money both through domestic and international trade, there was greater need for banks, credit, and a stable form of currency. Lenin temporarily reversed his dismissal of the need for gold and used bullion to produce a new ruble currency.

Many hard-core Bolsheviks resented the NEP, but would-be businessmen reveled in the sudden market economy of the 1920s. While the New Economic Policy was not within keeping with the revolutionary ideals preached by politicians and intellectuals, for those who knew how to utilize the system, capitalism was a welcome change from severe deprivation.

References

Dziewanowski, M.K. A History of Soviet Russia. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989.

Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924. New York: Penguin Books, 1996

Obama Administration Reverses Course, Forbids Sale of 850,000 Antique Rifles

The South Korean government, in an effort to raise money for its military, wants to sell nearly a million antique M1 rifles that were used by U.S. soldiers in the Korean War to gun collectors in America.

The Obama administration approved the sale of the American-made rifles last year. But it reversed course and banned the sale in March – a decision that went largely unnoticed at the time but that is now sparking opposition from gun rights advocates.

A State Department spokesman said the administration's decision was based on concerns that the guns could fall into the wrong hands.

"The transfer of such a large number of weapons -- 87,310 M1 Garands and 770,160 M1 Carbines -- could potentially be exploited by individuals seeking firearms for illicit purposes," the spokesman told FoxNews.com.

"We are working closely with our Korean allies and the U.S. Army in exploring alternative options to dispose of these firearms."

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Gun control advocates praised the Obama administration for taking security seriously.

"Guns that can take high-capacity magazines are a threat to public safety," said Dennis Henigan of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "Even though they are old, these guns could deliver a great amount of firepower. So I think the Obama administration's concerns are well-taken."

But gun rights advocates point out that possessing M1 rifles is legal in the United States -- M1s are semi-automatics, not machine guns, meaning the trigger has to be pulled every time a shot is fired -- and anyone who would buy a gun from South Korea would have to go through the standard background check.

"Any guns that retail in the United States, of course, including these, can only be sold to someone who passes the National Instant Check System," said David Kopel, research director at the conservative Independence Institute. "There is no greater risk from these particular guns than there is from any other guns sold in the United States."

M1 carbines can hold high-capacity ammunition clips that allow dozens of rounds to be fired before re-loading, but Chris Cox, chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, noted that is true about any gun in which an ammunition magazine can be inserted -- including most semi-automatics.

"Anything that accepts an external magazine could accept a larger capacity magazine," Cox said.

"But the average number of rounds fired in the commission of a crime is somewhere between 1 and 2 … this issue just shows how little the administration understands about guns."

He called the administration's decision "a de facto gun ban, courtesy of Hillary Clinton's State Department."

Asked why the M1s pose a threat, the State Department spokesman referred questions to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. ATF representatives said they would look into the question Monday afternoon, but on Wednesday they referred questions to the Justice Department. DOJ spokesman Dean Boyd referred questions back to the State Department.

According to the ATF Guidebook on Firearms Importation, it would normally be legal to import the M1s because they are more than 50 years old, meaning they qualify as "curios or relics." But because the guns were given to South Korea by the U.S. government, they fall under a special category that requires permission from the State Department before any sale.

Kopel said that he hopes the State Department spokesman's statement that it is working to "dispose" of the guns does not mean they want to melt them down.

"It seems to have this implication of destruction, which would be tremendously wasteful," he said. "These are guns that should be in the hands of American citizens for marksmanship and safety training."

Asked whether melting the guns down would be a good option, Henigan said: "Why let them into the country in the first place? If there is a legally sufficient way to keep them out, we think it's perfectly reasonable to do so."

Past administrations have also grappled with the issue of large-scale gun imports.

The Clinton administration blocked sales of M1s and other antiquated military weapons from the Philippines, Turkey and Pakistan. It also ended the practice of reselling used guns owned by federal agencies, ordering that they be melted down instead.

In contrast, 200,000 M1 rifles from South Korea were allowed to be sold in the U.S. under the Reagan administration in 1987.

A decision like that would be better for everyone, Cox said.

"M1s are used for target practice. For history buffs, they're highly collectible. We're going to continue to make sure that this backdoor effort that infringes not only on lawful commerce but on the Second Amendment is rectified."

Henigan disagrees.

"They clearly were used as military guns, and the fact that they likely can take high-capacity magazines makes them a special safety concern," he said.

The White House referred questions on the issue to the Pentagon, which referred questions to the U.S. Embassy in South Korea, which deferred back to the State Department.

'Islamization' of Paris a Warning to the West

PARIS - Friday in Paris. A hidden camera shows streets blocked by huge crowds of Muslim worshippers and enforced by a private security force.

This is all illegal in France: the public worship, the blocked streets, and the private security. But the police have been ordered not to intervene.

It shows that even though some in the French government want to get tough with Muslims and ban the burqa, other parts of the French government continue to give Islam a privileged status.

An ordinary French citizen who has been watching the Islamization of Paris decided that the world needed to see what was happening to his city. He used a hidden camera to start posting videos on YouTube. His life has been threatened and so he uses the alias of "Maxime Lepante. "

His camera shows that Muslims "are blocking the streets with barriers. They are praying on the ground. And the inhabitants of this district cannot leave their homes, nor go into their homes during those prayers."

"The Muslims taking over those streets do not have any authorization....so it's completely illegal," he says.

The Muslims in the street have been granted unofficial rights that no Christian group is likely to get under France's Laicite', or secularism law.

"It says people have the right to share any belief they want, any religion," Lepante explained. "But they have to practice at home or in the mosque, synagogues, churches and so on."

Some say Muslims must pray in the street because they need a larger mosque. But Lepante has observed cars coming from other parts of Paris, and he believes it is a weekly display of growing Muslim power.

"They are coming there to show that they can take over some French streets to show that they can conquer a part of the French territory," he said.

France's Islamic Future?

If France faces an Islamic future, a Russian author has already written about it. The novel is called "The Mosque of Notre Dame, 2048," a bestseller in Russia, not in France.

French publisher Jean Robin said the French media ignored the book because it was politically incorrect.

"Islam is seen as the religion of the poor people, so you can't say to the poor people, 'You're wrong,' otherwise, you're a fascist," Robin explained.

The book lays out a dark future when France has become a Muslim nation, and the famous cathedral has been turned into a mosque.

Whether that plot is farfetched depends on whom you ask. Muslims are said to be no more than 10 percent of the French population, although no one knows for sure because French law prohibits population counts by religion.

But the Muslim birthrate is significantly higher than for the native French. Some Muslim men practice polygamy, with each extra wife having children and collecting a welfare check.

"The problem of Islam is more than a problem of numbers," said French philosopher Radu Stoenescu, an Islamic expert who debates Muslim leaders on French TV. "The problem is one of principles. It's an open question. Is Islam an ideology or just a creed?"

"It doesn't matter how many there are," he aded. "The problem is the people who follow Islam; they're somehow in a political party, which has a political agenda, which means basically implementing Sharia and building an Islamic state."

In Denial or Fed Up

From the 1980s until recently, criticizing or opposing Islam was considered a social taboo, and so the government and media effectively helped Islam spread throughout France.

"We were expecting Islam to adapt to France and it is France adapting to Islam," Robin said.

About the burqa controversy, one French Muslim man told a reporter that Europeans should respect Muslim dress. One Parisian woman wearing a headscarf said "the veil is in the Koran" and "we only submit to God and nobody else."

But even if many government elites are in France are in denial over Islam, the people in the streets increasingly are not. Some have become fed up with what they see as the growing Islamization of France.

They've started staging pork and wine "aperitifs," or cocktail parties in the street. They're patriotic demonstrations meant to strike back against Islam. Another national demonstration is planned for Saturday, Sept. 4.

A Warning to the West

The French parliament is expected to debate the burqa law in September. Jean-Francois Cope, president of the Union for a Popular Movement political party, has a warning for the West and for America.

"We cannot accept the development of such practice because it's not compatible with the life in a modern society, you see," he said. "And this question is not only a French question. You will all have to face this challenge. "

For more insight on the slide toward a post-Christian Western society, check out Dale Hurd's blog Hurd on the Web.

For more insight on 'Islamization' around the world, check out Stakelbeck on Terror.

Islam Explained in Layman's Terms

Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat.

Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life.

Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other components.

Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges.

When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well.

Here's how it works:

As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens. This is the case in:

United States -- Muslim 0.6% Australia -- Muslim 1.5% Canada -- Muslim 1.9% China -- Muslim 1.8% Italy -- Muslim 1.5% Norway -- Muslim 1.8%

At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs. This is happening in:

Denmark -- Muslim 2% Germany -- Muslim 3.7% United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7% Spain -- Muslim 4% Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply. This is occurring in:

France -- Muslim 8% Philippines -- 5% Sweden -- Muslim 5% Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3% The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5% Trinidad & Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%

At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.

When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris , we are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam , with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections in:

Guyana -- Muslim 10% India -- Muslim 13.4% Israel -- Muslim 16% Kenya -- Muslim 10% Russia -- Muslim 15%

After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in:

Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%

At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:

Bosnia -- Muslim 40% Chad -- Muslim 53.1% Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%

From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels, such as in:

Albania -- Muslim 70% Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4% Qatar -- Muslim 77..5% Sudan -- Muslim 70%

After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in:

Bangladesh -- Muslim 83% Egypt -- Muslim 90% Gaza -- Muslim 98.7% Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1% Iran -- Muslim 98% Iraq -- Muslim 97% Jordan -- Muslim 92% Morocco -- Muslim 98.7% Pakistan -- Muslim 97% Palestine -- Muslim 99% Syria -- Muslim 90% Tajikistan -- Muslim 90% Turkey -- Muslim 99.8% United Arab Emirates -- Muslim 96%

100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House of Peace. Here there's supposed to be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the Madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word, such as in:

Afghanistan -- Muslim 100% Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100% Somalia -- Muslim 100% Yemen -- Muslim 100%

Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states the most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons.

"Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; the tribe against the world, and all of us against the infidel." -- Leon Uris, 'The Haj'

It is important to understand that in some countries, with well under 100% Muslim populations, such as France, the minority Muslim populations live in ghettos, within which they are 100% Muslim, and within which they live by Sharia Law. The national police do not even enter these ghettos. There are no national courts, nor schools, nor non-Muslim religious facilities. In such situations, Muslims do not integrate into the community at large. The children attend madrasses. They learn only the Koran. To even associate with an infidel is a crime punishable with death. Therefore, in some areas of certain nations, Muslim Imams and extremists exercise more power than the national average would indicate.

Today's 1.5 billion Muslims make up 22% of the world's population. But their birth rates dwarf the birth rates of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and all other believers. Muslims will exceed 50% of the world's population by the end of this century.

BBC Chief Admits 'Massive' Left-wing Bias, Vows to Remedy Imbalance

By Lachlan Markay

BBC Director General Mark Thompson admitted to the UK Daily Mail in an article today that Britain's state-run news outlet has had a "massive" left-wing bias. He insisted, though, that the network is taking steps to remedy the ideological slant.

BBC has a history of promoting the ultra-leftist agenda on most issues. But to see the channel's top dog admit it in an interview with the Daily Mail was quite a sight.

Now if only some television outlets on this side of the pond would do the same.

While Thompson pleaded guilty to a liberal slant, he insisted that a new crop of journalists is changing the political face of the BBC.

The Daily Mail's Paul Revoir reported today:

The TV chief also admitted there had been a 'struggle' to achieve impartiality and that staff were ' mystified' by the early years of Margaret Thatcher's government.

But he claimed there was now 'much less overt tribalism' among the current crop of young journalists, and said in recent times the corporation was a 'broader church'.

He claimed there was now an 'honourable tradition of journalists from the right' working for the corporation.

His comments, made in the New Statesman magazine, are one of the clearest admissions of political bias from such a senior member of its staff.

The BBC has long been accused of being institutionally biased towards the Left, and an internal report from 2007 said it had to make greater efforts to avoid liberal bias.

Talk about honesty!

But while the BBC is looking into ways to remedy its "massive" slant to the left, swaths of the American news media have yet to even acknowledge that that slant exists.

First, do no harm...

Malaysian blogger faces jail over satirical post

A Malaysian journalist was charged Thursday over a satirical blog which made fun of the state power firm Tenaga, and faces a year's jail if convicted.

State media said that Irwan Abdul Rahman, a 36-year-old sub-editor with a Malay-language daily, pleaded not guilty in the Sessions Court to a charge of posting a fictitious comment.

It said he was accused of "intent to hurt" over the posting, entitled "TNB to sue WWF over Earth Hour" which jokingly said Tenaga would take action over the World Wildlife Fund's annual energy-saving initiative.

In an entry earlier this week, Irwan said on his blog http:nose4news.wordpress.com that he was hoping "for cool heads and a developed sense of humour to prevail".

He has deleted the offending item, which he said was merely "a stupid joke that does no one harm".

Malaysia's opposition condemned the prosecution as "not only harsh but ridiculous".

"Does this mean a satire or a joke is now illegal in Malaysia? What has become of our country?" said Lim Guan Eng, secretary-general of the Democratic Action Party which is a member of the opposition alliance.

Lim said Malaysia had a great tradition of satire, which was also used in the independence struggle against British colonial rule, and that the government must respect freedom of expression.

Irwan's prosecution has caused a stir because unlike the mainstream press, the web and online media in Malaysia have remained relatively free, despite occasional raids, bans and government criticism.

Major newspapers and broadcasters are closely linked with the ruling coalition, so the Internet has become a lively forum for dissent and debate.

The government in 1996 pledged not to censor online content as part of a campaign to promote its information technology sector.

Can Preschoolers Be Depressed?

Kiran didn’t seem like the type of kid parents should worry about. “He was the easy one,” his father, Raghu, a physician, says. “He always wanted to please.” Unlike other children in his suburban St. Louis preschool, Kiran (a nickname his parents asked me to use to protect his identity) rarely disobeyed or acted out. If he dawdled or didn’t listen, Raghu (also a nickname) had only to count to five before Kiran hastened to tie his shoes or put the toys away. He was kind to other children; if a classmate cried, Kiran immediately approached. “Our little empath!” his parents proudly called him.

But there were worrisome signs. For one thing, unlike your typical joyful and carefree 4-year-old, Kiran didn’t have a lot of fun. “He wasn’t running around, bouncing about, battling to get to the top of the slide like other kids,” Raghu notes. Kiran’s mother, Elizabeth (her middle name), an engineer, recalls constant refrains of “Nothing is fun; I’m bored.” When Raghu and Elizabeth reminded a downbeat Kiran of their coming trip to Disney World, Kiran responded: “Mickey lies. Dreams don’t come true.”

Over time, especially in comparison with Kiran’s even-keeled younger sister, it became apparent that guilt and worry infused Kiran’s thoughts. “We had to be really careful when we told him he did something wrong, because he internalized it quickly,” Raghu says. He was also easily frustrated. He wouldn’t dare count aloud until he had perfected getting to 10. Puzzles drove him nuts. After toying with a new set of Legos, he told his father, “I can’t do Legos.” He then roundly declared: “I will never do them. I am not a Legos person. You should take them away.”

One weekend when he was 4, Kiran carried his blanket around as his mother ferried him from one child-friendly place to the next, trying to divert him. But even at St. Louis’s children’s museum, he was listless and leaned against the wall. When they got home, he lay down and said he couldn’t remember anything fun about the whole day. He was “draggy and superwhiny and seeming like he was in pain.” Elizabeth remembers thinking, Something is wrong with this kid.

After talks with the director of Kiran’s preschool, who was similarly troubled by his behavior, and a round of medical Googling, Kiran’s parents took him to see a child psychiatrist. In the winter of 2009, when Kiran was 5, his parents were told that he had preschool depression, sometimes referred to as “early-onset depression.” He was entered into a research study at the Early Emotional Development Program at Washington University Medical School in St. Louis, which tracks the diagnosis of preschool depression and the treatment of children like Kiran. “It was painful,” Elizabeth says, “but also a relief to have professionals confirm that, yes, he has had a depressive episode. It’s real.”

Is it really possible to diagnose such a grown-up affliction in such a young child? And is diagnosing clinical depression in a preschooler a good idea, or are children that young too immature, too changeable, too temperamental to be laden with such a momentous label? Preschool depression may be a legitimate ailment, one that could gain traction with parents in the way that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (A.D.H.D.) and oppositional defiant disorder (O.D.D.) — afflictions few people heard of 30 years ago — have entered the what-to-worry-about lexicon. But when the rate of development among children varies so widely and burgeoning personalities are still in flux, how can we know at what point a child crosses the line from altogether unremarkable to somewhat different to clinically disordered? Just how early can depression begin?

The answer, according to recent research, seems to be earlier than expected. Today a number of child psychiatrists and developmental psychologists say depression can surface in children as young as 2 or 3. “The idea is very threatening,” says Joan Luby, a professor of child psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, who gave Kiran his diagnosis and whose research on preschool depression has often met with resistance. “In my 20 years of research, it’s been slowly eroding,” Luby says of that resistance. “But some hard-core scientists still brush the idea off as mushy or psychobabble, and laypeople think the idea is ridiculous.”

For adults who have known depression, however, the prospect of early diagnosis makes sense. Kiran’s mother had what she now recognizes was childhood depression. “There were definite signs throughout my grade-school years,” she says. Had therapy been available to her then, she imagines that she would have leapt at the chance. “My parents knew my behavior wasn’t right, but they really didn’t know what to do.”

One third of parents think playing with their children is BORING

As any parent will know, keeping your little ones entertained isn't exactly child’s play.

But in a surprising trend computers seem to have become the new electronic babysitter.

One in three parents play computer games with their children instead of the more traditional ball games in the garden or visit to a playground.

Yet nine out of ten children said electronic games were something they would rather play on their own.

And three quarters of the children surveyed said they would prefer to spend time with their parents actually interacting with them in some way challenging each other, for example, at board games.

The report also reveals that in today’s time-starved society one in five parents forget to play with their children as they are too busy or can’t think of anything to do.

It seems play is in danger of becoming a lost art for families as almost a third of parents even think that spending time with their children is boring.

Professor Tanya Byron, a child psychologist, interviewed 2,000 parents and 2,000 children aged five to 15 to examine the play habits of the nation for her ‘State of Play, Back to Basics’ report.

She found that although children still enjoy the same pursuits as their parents did when they were growing up, there was a widening gulf between what children wanted to do and what their parents thought they wanted to do.

Lack of communication between the generations was a key problem, and that meant that both adults and children were left dispirited and less likely to talk to each other.
30 per cent of parents admitted that they think playing with their children is boring, and over one in ten children (16 per cent) picked up that they feel this way.

Professor Tanya Byron said of the findings: ‘There are four key ingredients to a successful playtime between parents and children namely: education, inspiration, integration and communication.

‘Parents need to take a step back and think back to how their own childhood games used these four pillars and how they can implement them now. The key thing is to have an open and honest dialogue between parents and children and to embrace play environments which provide a great training ground for parents to practice the art of imaginative play by using objects and experiences that are recognisable whatever your age.

‘Cross generational enjoyment, where no family member feels inhibited, under pressure, bored or stressed are key to making these four pillars become part of everyday play.’

She recommended that parents go ‘back to basics’ by remembering what they liked doing when they were young, such as dressing up or playing games, to inspire their playtime with their young.

The report was commissioned by Disneyland Paris which has just opened a new Toy Story themed ‘Playland’.

Un-bull-ievable! Calf saved from the farmer's shotgun grows into towering 6ft 5in, one-tonne beast

Amazingly, the seven-year-old bullock is still growing meaning he could smash through the current British record in a matter of months.

When Shaun, a carpet fitter, saved Trigger he had no idea his new black and white friend would grow up to his magnificent size.

Trigger's enormous weight means he could potentially make 7,665 Big Macs or even 6,137 Burger King Whoppers.

But family pet Trigger lives a life far removed from that of your average livestock.

Instead he enjoys a relaxed lifestyle in a field at Kingswood, Herefordshire, where he eats a daily diet of grass, cattle cake, mineral lick and a packet of apples every week.

Shaun said: 'When you get up close to him, he really is quite imposing.

'He's growing steadily and he's gained an inch in the last 12 months, so he's coming towards the British record, which is about 6ft 7in.

'A friend who owns a couple of fields said I could borrow them for as long as I wanted, so I grasped the opportunity and got a little calf, and fed him up.

Cheating hubby exposed thanks to saman ekor

KUALA LUMPUR: A man who was caught on camera for speeding turned out to be having a joyride with his lover.

His wife found out about the affair by accident after she and her husband went to MCA public services and complaints department head Datuk Michael Chong to complain about a saman ekor they had received.

The retired couple, in their 60s from Petaling Jaya, vehemently maintained that the police had mistakenly issued a summons to them, Chong said.

“They claimed they were never on the Karak Highway, so it was impossible for them to have been caught speeding there.

“The wife said they only drove the car to nearby places. Besides that, she was with her husband most of the time,” said Chong yesterday.

Upon hearing their dilemma, Chong advised them to get from the police a photo of the alleged offence although the husband was reluctant to do so.

“However, the wife decided to pay the RM10 that was required to check out the photo,” he said.

Chong said the couple came back to check the photo two weeks later, but the husband quickly grabbed the envelope with the photo.

“The husband refused to open the envelope and said they would open it at home as they did not want to waste my time,” he said.

However, Chong said the wife insisted on opening it in front of him because the wife was confident that there was a mistake in the summons and wanted him to settle the matter for them.

“To the wife’s shock, the photo clearly showed the husband driving the car with another woman sitting beside him,” said Chong.

Chong said the wife was furious and grabbed her umbrella to hit the husband.

“I quickly stood between them and asked the husband to leave. I do not know what happened to them after the incident,” he said.

Miracle mum brings premature baby son back to life with two hours of loving cuddles after doctors pronounce him dead

It was a final chance to say goodbye for grieving mother Kate Ogg after doctors gave up hope of saving her premature baby.

She tearfully told her lifeless son - born at 27 weeks weighing 2lb - how much she loved him and cuddled him tightly, not wanting to let him go.

Although little Jamie's twin sister Emily had been delivered successfully, doctors had given Mrs Ogg the news all mothers dread - that after 20 minutes of battling to get her son to breathe, they had declared him dead.

Having given up on a miracle, Mrs Ogg unwrapped the baby from his blanket and held him against her skin. And then an extraordinary thing happened.

After two hours of being hugged, touched and spoken to by his mother, the little boy began showing signs of life.

At first, it was just a gasp for air that was dismissed by doctors as a reflex action.

But then the startled mother fed him a little breast milk on her finger and he started breathing normally.

'I thought, "Oh my God, what's going on",' said Mrs Ogg.

'A short time later he opened his eyes. It was a miracle. Then he held out his hand and grabbed my finger.

'He opened his eyes and moved his head from side to side. The doctor kept shaking his head saying, "I don't believe it, I don't believe it".'

The Australian mother spoke publicly for the first time yesterday to highlight the importance of skin-on-skin care for sick babies, which is being used at an increasing number of British hospitals.

But the 'kangaroo care' technique, named after the way kangaroos hold their young in a pouch next to their bodies, allows the mother to act as a human incubator to keep babies warm, stimulated and fed.

Pre-term and low birth-weight babies treated with the skin-to-skin method have also been shown to have lower infection rates, less severe illness, improved sleep patterns and are at reduced risk of hypothermia.

Mrs Ogg and her husband David told how doctors gave up on saving their son after a three-hour labour in a Sydney hospital in March.

'The doctor asked me had we chosen a name for our son,' said Mrs Ogg. 'I said, "Jamie", and he turned around with my son already wrapped up and said, "We've lost Jamie, he didn't make it, sorry".

'It was the worse feeling I've ever felt. I unwrapped Jamie from his blanket. He was very limp.

'I took my gown off and arranged him on my chest with his head over my arm and just held him. He wasn't moving at all and we just started talking to him.

'We told him what his name was and that he had a sister. We told him the things we wanted to do with him throughout his life.

'Jamie occasionally gasped for air, which doctors said was a reflex action. But then I felt him move as if he were startled, then he started gasping more and more regularly.

'I gave Jamie some breast milk on my finger, he took it and started regular breathing.'

Mrs Ogg held her son, now five months old and fully recovered, as she spoke on the Australian TV show Today Tonight.

Her husband added: 'Luckily I've got a very strong, very smart wife.

'She instinctively did what she did. If she hadn't done that, Jamie probably wouldn't be here.'