Monday, November 5, 2007

$taying the Cour$e in Paki$tan


American taxpayers, believing and dreaming that they live in a democracy, will continue to contribute through their daily sweat Billions of dollars to Pakistan's military government.


Read the story here.


Then go see "Rendition," the new movie playing in town.


This is a huge and fast-paced entertainment with a great cast, but, more importantly it is a debate wrapped in a drama - Are torture and detainment without counsel reasonable tools in a democracy? Do we throw out the very principles by which we claim to live when we behave like "the enemy?"

REBA IN SOUTH PACIFIC



Check out these pipes!

Reba - You're the Best



I think Reba is one of the most extraordianry 3-barreled performers alive today. Her portrayal of Nellie Forbush in the concert version of "South Pacific" is the best I've ever seen. She's not only a helluva singer, she's a marvelous actress.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Well, Here's an Amazing Little Essay

Remarkable article by a Muslim.

By: Dr Farrukh Saleem



The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist
There are only 14 million Jews in the world; seven million in the
Americas , five million in Asia, two million in Europe and 100,000 in Africa.

For every single Jew in the world there are 100 Muslims. Yet, Jews
are more than a hundred times more powerful than all the Muslims put together.

Ever wondered why?

Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish.

Albert Einstein, the most influential scientist of all time and

TIME magazine's 'Person of the Century', was a Jew.

Sigmund Freud - id, ego, superego -- the father of psychoanalysis was a Jew.

So were Karl Marx, Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman.

Here are a few other Jews whose intellectual output has enriched the whole humanity:

Benjamin Rubin gave humanity the vaccinating needle.

Jonas Salk developed the first polio vaccine.

Alert Sabin developed the improved live polio vaccine.

Gertrude Elion gave us a leukaemia fighting drug.

Baruch Blumberg developed the vaccination for Hepatitis B.

Paul Ehrlich discovered a treatment for syphilis (a sexually transmitted disease).

Elie Metchnikoff won a Nobel Prize in infectious diseases.

Bernard Katz won a Nobel Prize in neuromuscular transmission.
Andrew Schally won a Nobel in endocrinology
(disorders of the endocrine system; diabetes, hyperthyroidism).

Aaron Beck founded Cognitive Therapy
(psychotherapy to treat mental disorders, depression and phobias).

Gregory Pincus developed the first oral contraceptive pill.

George Wald won a Nobel for furthering our understanding of the human eye.

Stanley Cohen won a Nobel in embryology (study of embryos and their development).

Willem Kolff came up with the kidney dialysis machine.

Over the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 15-dozen Nobel
Prizes while only three Nobel Prizes have been won by 1.4 billion Muslims
(other than Peace Prizes).

Why are Jews so powerful?

Stanley Mezor invented the first micro-processing chip.

Leo Szilard developed the first nuclear chain reactor.

Peter Schultz, optical fibre cable;

Charles Adler,traffic lights;

Benno Strauss, stainless steel;

Isador Kisee, sound movies;

Emile Berliner, telephone microphone

and Charles Ginsburg, videotape recorder.


Famous financiers in the business world who belong to Jewish faith include
Ralph Lauren (Polo), Levis Strauss (Levi's Jeans), Howard Schultz (Starbuck's), Sergey Brin (Google), Michael Dell (Dell Computers), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Donna Karan (DKNY), Irv Robbins (Baskins & Robbins) and Bill Rosenberg (Dunkin Donuts)

Richard Levin, President of Yale University, is a Jew.

So are Henry Kissinger (American secretary of state),

Alan Greenspan (fed chairman under Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush),

Joseph Lieberman, Madeleine Albright (American secretary of state),

Casper Weinberger (American secretary of defence),

Maxim Litvinov (USSR foreign Minister),

David Marshal (Singapore's first chief minister),

Issac Isaacs (governor-general of Australia), Benjamin Disraeli (British

statesman and author), Yevgeny Primakov (Russian PM), Barry Goldwater,

Jorge Sampaio (president of Portugal), John Deutsch (CIA director),

Herb Gray (Canadian deputy PM), Pierre Mendes (French PM),

Michael Howard (British home secretary), Bruno Kreisky (chancellor of Austria)

and Robert Rubin (American secretary of treasury)



In the media, famous Jews include Wolf Blitzer (CNN),
Barbara Walters (ABC News), Eugene Meyer (Washington Post),

Henry Grunwald (editor-in-chief Time),

Katherine Graham (publisher of The Washington Post),

Joseph Lelyyeld (Executive editor, The New York Times),

and Max Frankel (New > York Times).


Can you name the most beneficent philanthropist in the history of the world?

The name is George Soros, a Jew, who has so far donated a colossal $4 billion
most of which has gone as aid to scientists and universities around the world.
Second to George Soros is Walter Annenberg, another Jew,who has built a hundred libraries by donating an estimated $2 billion.


At the Olympics,


Mark Spitz set a record of sorts by winning seven gold medals.

Lenny Krayzelburg is a three-time Olympic gold medalist.

Spitz, Krayzelburg and Boris Becker are all Jewish.



Did you know that Harrison Ford, George Burns, Tony Curtis,

Charles Bronson, Sandra Bullock, Billy Crystal, Woody Allen,

Paul Newman,Peter Sellers, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Douglas, Ben Kingsley,

Kirk Douglas,Goldie Hawn, Cary Grant, William Shatner, Jerry Lewis and Peter

Falk are all Jewish.


(Note: One of the Greatest Hollywood producers in the !950s was Cecil B. DeMill, a Jew)
As a matter of fact, Hollywood itself was founded by a Jew.


Among directors and producers, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Oliver

Stone, Aaron Spelling (Beverly Hills 90210), Neil Simon (The Odd Couple),

Andrew Vaina (Rambo 1/2/3), Michael Man (Starsky and Hutch), Milos Forman

(One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest), Douglas Fairbanks (The thief of Baghdad)

and Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) are all Jewish.


To be certain, Washington is the capital that matters and in Washington the lobby that matters is The American Israel Public affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Washington knows that if PM Ehud Olmert were to discover that the earth is flat, AIPAC will make the 109th Congress pass a resolution congratulating Olmert on his discovery.

William James Sidis, with an IQ of 250-300, is the brightest human who ever existed.
Guess what faith did he belong to?

Question:

So, why are Jews so powerful?

Answer:

Education.

Why are Muslims so powerless?

There are an estimated 1,476,233,470 Muslims on the face of the planet:

one billion in Asia, 400 million in Africa, 44 million in Europe and six million in the Americas.

Every fifth human being is a Muslim; for every single Hindu there are two Muslims,
for every Buddhist there are two Muslims and for every Jew there are one hundred Muslims.

Ever wondered why Muslims are so powerless?


Here is why:


There are 57 member-countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference OIC),
and all of them put together have around 500 universities; one university for every
three million Muslims.

The United States has 5,758 universities and India has 8,407.

In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an Academic Ranking of World Universities
and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top-500.

As per data collected by the UNDP, literacy in the Christian world stands at nearly 90 per cent
and 15 Christian-majority states have a literacy rate of 100 per cent.

A Muslim-majority state, as a sharp contrast, has an average literacy rate of around 40 per cent and
there is no Muslim-majority state with a literacy rate of 100 per cent.

Some 98 per cent of the 'literates' in the Christian world had completed primary school,
while less than 50 per cent of the literates' in the Muslim world did the same.

Around 40 per cent of the 'literates' in the Christian world attended university while no more than two per cent of the literates' in the Muslim world did the same.

Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims. The US has 4,000 scientists per million and Japan has 5,000 per million.

In the entire Arab world, the total number of full-time researchers is 35,000 and there are only 50 technicians per one million Arabs (in the Christian world there are up to 1,000 technicians per one million).

Furthermore, the Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and development, while the Christian world spends around five percent of its GDP.


Conclusion:

The Muslim world lacks the capacity to produce knowledge.

Daily newspapers per 1,000 people and number of book titles per million are two indicators of whether knowledge is being diffused in a society.

In Pakistan, there are 23 daily newspapers per 1,000 Pakistanis while the same ratio in Singapore is 360.

In the UK, the number of book titles per million stands at 2,000 while the same in Egypt is 20.

Conclusion:

The Muslim world is failing to diffuse knowledge.

Exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports are an important indicator of knowledge application.

Pakistan's exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports stands at one per cent.

The same for Saudi Arabia is 0.3 per cent; Kuwait, Morocco, and Algeria are all at 0.3 per cent while Singapore is at 58 per cent.



Conclusion:

The Muslim world is failing to apply knowledge.

Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't producing knowledge.

Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't diffusing knowledge.

Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't applying knowledge.

And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies.



Interestingly, the combined annual GDP of 57 OIC-countries is under $2 trillion.

America , just by herself, produces goods and services worth $12 trillion;

China $8 trillion, Japan $3.8 trillion and

Germany $2.4 trillion (purchasing power parity basis).

Oil rich Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods and services (mostly oil) worth $500 billion;

Spain alone produces goods and services worth over $1 trillion,

Catholic Poland $489 billion and

Buddhist Thailand $545 billion



(Muslim GDP as a percentage of world GDP is fast declining).

So, why are Muslims so powerless?


Answer: Lack of education.

Quality education to be exact.

Uncontaminated education to be precise.

David's Complete Rotary Speech on the Failure of Drug Policy


Robert Werner came to the Rotary Club meeting in Chinatown at the Floata Restaurant last Wednesday. He did more than listen. He videoed my entire speech, which was called, 'THE TRUTH ABOUT ADDICTIONS: HOW GOVERNMENT ARE WASTING YOUR MONEY AND HELPING NO ONE."


You can watch the video by clicking on the link below.




If you find anything therein that you agree with, send it to your friends and enemies. The Nutty mayor and his cronies have the stage these days and we need all the help we can get to counter their lies.

Oh, The Times They Are A-Changing


"LONDON — Disputes over mosques have broken out across Europe. Residents from Belgium to France to Germany have expressed unease at minarets competing in the urban landscape with the spires and stones of centuries-old cathedrals.

But the fight raging over an abandoned lot in London’s East End is of an altogether grander scale. A large and secretive Islamic sect proposed building what would have been the largest mosque in Europe, smack at the gateway to the 2012 Olympic Games, and within sight of London’s financial district."


Those are the first two paragraphs of a story in the NY Times this morning with the ominous title: A Battle Rages in London Over a Mega-Mosque Plan.


Read the entire piece and try to come to a reasonable, balanced and useful opinion. Not as easy as you might think.


This story illustrates one of the great challenges of the 21st century - world-wide immigration and migration of large populations.


The Vancouver Sun yesterday reported that the most "popular" surname in town is neither Smith nor MacDonald, but Lee...or Li.


London is fast becoming a Muslim city, or at least, so many people fear.


The Mega-Mosque in question is said to be an incubator for terrorists. Truth? Or Fear-mongering? Or both?


US-Pakistan Alliance a Mess


Pakistan was never really on my radar.


You'll forgive my ignorance, but that is the only word that sufficiently describes my awareness of Pakistan.


Now that the country is under military rule I am slowly learning a thing or two.


For instance, I didn't know that the US, which doesn't have health insurance for its children and 45 Million other citizens, has been feeding $10 Billion Plus into the military in Pakistan in recent years.


It turns out that, as usual, the Americans thoroughly blinkered in their solipsism, have no real idea of Pakistan. So once again, as in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, they are now caught with their government issue khaki pants down.


Read the current debacle in this morning's NY Times.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

This Comment Deserves the Full View


Life in Pakistan has become increasingly scary (perhaps that sounds ironic considering what has been going on there for so long, however, daily life can be "normal", maybe just not our normal. ). At any rate, even in cities such as Rawalpindi (a suburb of Islamabad) that normally are relatively safe, things are changing rapidly. I am not a Pakistani nor am I a Muslim, but I have family there -- I worry daily about the increased suicide bombings and the "disappeared". And now this, which will only strengthen the extremist element. It will get much worse before (or perhaps if) it gets better. Most of the Pakistani people are against the militant element -- most of the Pakistani people are smart enough to understand what the Taliban are doing. In the cities, Muslims are moderate and not fundamentalist. The Taliban make inroads through fear, they rule through fear. The corruption and lack of democracy in Pakistan allow the extremist element to flourish. What is their political future? -- Bhutto, who is not a particularly smart politician, is not liked or trusted in the Punjab (the most populace province) and her husband's corruption is well remembered. A possibility would be reinstated Supreme Court Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, however, he would need to resign from his government appointed position (for a two year period) before he would be eligible to run for office. Musharaf, if he wants to hang on to power, needs to have fair elections, not declare martial law.

New Link to Al Jazeera Video

Here is a better link for that Al Jazeera video, thanks to Robert:

http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv

Golden Oldie - Gene Vincent

Bartoli + Bellini = Heaven

Carole James, Social Engineer


"The consitituency will automatically be desdignated for women candidates..."


I've got a few ideas, Carole.


How about Jewish ridings only?


Chinese, Hindu, Nigerian?


Left-handed gay with a purple birth mark on the right cheek only candidates?


Go back to the eighties, Carole.


This kind of (non)thinking has been thoroughly discredited.


There are no silver bullets in life or politics.


You want women elected to office? Do all the usual hard ground work that is required.

Fennie Fudge


Mr. Fabulous Chef gets thrown out of his own eatery.


I'm supposed to care?
Go make another White Spot commerical, so I can really believe in you some more.

Chapters Valentine to Me


Chapters loves me.


They care deeply about my feelings.


How do I know this?


Well, they bought a full page ad in all the papers in the Canadian firmament to tell me.


Thanks, Chapters.


But here's my ungrateful response.


Stop the bull and the excuses and the rationalization and cut all the retail prices to reflect the Canadian dollar, period.


I don't need your baffle gab. I need reasonably priced books.

The Mom Song - Nutty Novelty Act du Jour

NEWS BREAK: Pakistan Under Martial Law


The NY Times reported early ths morning this recent development in the struggle between Gen. Musharraf and his own people.


Read the item here.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Astonishing Statement from Al Jazeera


This is an astonishing video.


Here is a powerful statement that was broadcast on Al Jazeera television.


The woman is Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American psychologist from Los Angeles. Watch it ASAP because the link may not be active for long.



and watch it all the way through it full 5 minutes.


Our thanks to Jonathan Baker for this.

MY EMAIL TO THE MINISTER


Dear Minister Tim Christensen,

Have you no shame, Sir?

The Ministry is hopelessly underfunded. There are not enough case workers to prevent children and infants "in care" (God help us.) from injury, abuse and death.

And you spend $560,000 on Victoria office renovations?

$40,000 for design consultancy and $8,500 for a totem pole?

Do you know what your job is?

Do you know what your family name means and responsibility it carries?

I want to hear your rationalization on this one. I can't wait to be told that I don't really understand the "big picture."

Get out of "public service." You sully the very notion.

David Berner

This is the Sickest Yet...You Can't Make up Stuff This Evil




INTERNATIONAL DRUG USERS DAY 2007

The Australian Injecting and Illicit Drug Users League (AIVL), the national peak body representing the state and territory drug user organisations and issues of national significance for people who use or have used illicit drugs, is proud to support and celebrate International Drug Users Day on Thursday 1 November 2007.

“Across Australia, a range of events will be held including local barbeques, information sessions and media campaigns” said Ms Madden, AIVL’s Executive Officer. “Additionally, events will be held across the globe including campaigns in the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria and Russia along with many other countries. The range of activities being held is extremely diverse. For example, in Warsaw a spiritual eucharist will be held to coincide with a candle light march in acknowledgement of local monks who provide harm reduction and support services for street-based outreach workers”.

One of the main aims of the day is to acknowledge the positive contribution people who use illicit drugs have made have made to public health policy and practice. The involvement of people who use illicit drugs in Australian public health policy over the last 15 years has resulted in Australia maintaining one of the lowest rates of HIV/AIDS in the developed world amongst people who inject drugs. “Australia’s much heralded low rate of HIV among people who inject drugs could not have been achieved without two equally important ingredients - the implementation of best practice harm reduction approaches and the direct involvement of people who inject drugs in the form of peer-based organisations and programs” Ms Madden stated.

International research evidence shows that harm reduction approaches including needle and syringe programs (NSP), safer injecting education and opioid substitution programs have not only improved the health of people who inject drugs but they have done so in a highly cost effective manner. Between 1991 and 2000 the Australian Government has saved more than $370 million due to their investment in NSP and the associated prevention of tens of thousands of HIV and hepatitis C cases. “There are very few if any public health initiatives that could demonstrate such a clear and significant return on the Government’s investment” stated Ms Madden.

Despite the positive contributions made by peer-based drug user organisations over many years, individuals who use illicit drugs continue to be marginalised, stigmatized and criminalized by society. Such treatment benefits no-one and often results in negative outcomes for people who use illicit drugs, their families and ultimately the entire community. “We believe the slogan on the International Drug Users Day postcard perfectly sums up what the day is really all about… Drug users are people. Drug users have families. Drug users are part of your community.”

On International Drug Users Day 2007, ‘just say no’ to treating people who use illicit drugs as second class citizens.

For further information on International Drug Users Day, please contact Ms Annie Madden, AIVL Executive Officer on (02) 6279 1600 or mobile 0414 628 136.

Australian Injecting & Illicit Drug Users League (AIVL)
Phone: (02) 6279 1600
Fax: (02) 6279 1610

Transclunk Bosses Use Cars - We Pay


Our good friend Martin snet this one in.


TransLink executives rack up hefty car expense bill

Friday, November 02 - 05:15:00 AM News1130 Staff


VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - Executives at TransLink have racked up more than $150,000 worth of car expenses in 2006, and you paid for it.


There are 14 members of TranLink's executive team. CEO Patricia Jacobson racked up the biggest bill. She spent more than $14,000 on her car.


Chief Officer Robert Kind had the second highest bill, spending more than $13,000. And Director of Communications, Ken Hardie, ran up the third-highest bill. Even though he doesn't lease, he receives a car allowance of more than $6,000. Including gas, repairs and insurance, he spent more than $13,000 keeping his 1997 Chrysler Cirrus on the road.


Jacobson isn't making any apologies for the fact that the publicly funded TransLink subsidizes car use for its executives.