COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Turkey and the history of the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Turks

Armenia marks centenary of mass killings by Ottoman Turks


Ceremonies have been held in Armenia and around the world to mark the centenary of the start of mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.
The presidents of France and Russia joined other leaders for the memorial in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.
Armenia says up to 1.5 million people died, a figure disputed by Turkey.
Turkey strongly objects to the use of the term genocide to describe the killings and the issue has soured relations between the nations.
Turkey accepts that atrocities were committed but argues there was no systematic attempt to destroy the Christian Armenian people. It says many innocent Muslim Turks also died in the turmoil of war.
A memorial service was held in Turkey on Friday and its prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said the country would "share the pain" of Armenians. But he reiterated Turkey's stance that the killings were not genocide.

Turkey also hosted ceremonies on Friday to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Gallipoli.
However, the actual fighting there began on 25 April, and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has accused Turkey of "trying to divert world attention" from the Yerevan commemorations.

'Never again'

After a flower-laying ceremony in Yerevan, Mr Sargsyan addressed the guests, saying: "I am grateful to all those who are here to once again confirm your commitment to human values, to say that nothing is forgotten, that after 100 years we remember."
In his address, French President Francois Hollande said: "We will never forget the tragedies that your people have endured."
France has been a strong advocate of recognising the killings as genocide and President Hollande has pushed for a law to punish genocide denial.
Russian President Vladimir Putin described the killings as "one of the most tragic disasters in the history of humankind" which "shook the whole world".
"There cannot be any justification for mass murder of people," he said. "Today we mourn together with the Armenian people."
Commemorations in Yerevan drew to a close with a candlelit procession. People carried flowers to the city's memorial late into the evening. 
Elsewhere:
  • In Lebanon - home to one of the largest Armenian diasporas - tens of thousands of people attended a march and commemoration service in Beirut 
  • In Jerusalem, Armenian priests held a two-hour mass in the Old City. Posters outside the church called on Turkey to recognise the mass killings as genocide
  • And in Tehran, hundreds of Armenian-Iranians attended a rally from an Armenian church to the Turkish Embassy.

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At the scene: BBC's Rayhan Demytrie in Yerevan

Forget-me-not

The purple forget-me-not is the symbol of the centenary. It can be seen everywhere in Yerevan: from window shops and windscreen stickers, to lapel pins that many are proudly wearing.
There is also a centenary slogan which reads "I remember and demand".
But what is it that the Armenians are demanding? I asked some of the people in Yerevan's Mashtotz Avenue.
"We demand fairness from the world community, that's it," said Sergey Martirossyan, "but for me personally it won't make any difference. What we actually need in Armenia is for the government to take serious steps towards economic growth."

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Friday marks the 100th anniversary of the day the Ottoman Turkey authorities arrested several hundred Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople, today's Istanbul, most of whom were later killed. 
Armenians regard this as the beginning of the Ottoman policy of mass extermination of Christian Armenians suspected of supporting Russia, the Ottoman Empire's World War One enemy.

Lebanese Armenians march in Beirut on 24 April 2015
Tens of thousands of Lebanese-Armenians marked the centenary with a march in Beirut
Ceremonies at the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial in Yerevan, 24 April
Ceremonies were held at the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial in Yerevan
Francois Hollande, 24 April
France, represented by Francois Hollande, has been a strong advocate of recognising the killings as genocide

US President Barack Obama issued a carefully worded statement for the anniversary, referring to "one of the worst atrocities of the 20th Century", without using the term genocide.
During his 2008 presidential election campaign, then senator Obama had vowed to "recognise the Armenian genocide" and in his new statement said: "I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view has not changed."
However, his phrasing has angered Armenian Americans.
Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America, said in a statement: "President Obama's exercise in linguistic gymnastics on the Armenian genocide is unbecoming of the standard he himself set and that of a world leader today."

President Vladimir Putin at the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial in Yerevan, 24 April
President Vladimir Putin said the events of 1915 "shook the whole world"
March by Armenians in Jerusalem. 23 April 2015
Armenians around the world, like here in Jerusalem, insist the killings were genocide

German MPs are meanwhile debating a non-binding motion on the genocide issue, a day after President Joachim Gauck used the word to describe the killings.
Turkey reacted angrily to Mr Putin's address. 
"Considering the mass killings, exiles... that Russia has carried out in the Caucasus, Central Asia and in eastern Europe over the past century... we think it should be the one that knows best what a genocide is and what its legal dimensions are," a foreign ministry statement said.
Earlier this month, Turkey recalled its envoy to the Vatican after Pope Francis also used the word genocide.
In Turkey on Friday, the media largely focused on Gallipoli, but one newspaper, Cumhuriyet, carried a surprise headline in Armenian - "Never Again".
"The wounds caused by the events which took place during the Ottoman Empire are still fresh. It is time to face up to this pain which paralyses the human mind, the feeling of justice and the conscience," it said.

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What happened in 1915?

Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died in 1915 at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, whose empire was disintegrating. 
Many of the victims were civilians deported to barren desert regions where they died of starvation and thirst. Thousands also died in massacres.
Armenia says up to 1.5 million people were killed. Turkey says the number of deaths was much smaller.
Most non-Turkish scholars of the events regard them as genocide - as do more than 20 states, including France, Germany, Canada and Russia, and various international bodies including the European Parliament.
Turkey rejects the term genocide, maintaining that many of the dead were killed in clashes during World War One, and that many ethnic Turks also suffered in the conflict.

79 comments:

  1. I remember it like it was yesterday. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was Obama's fault - something to do with the Affordable Care Act.

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    2. Small potatoes compared to what the Moslems have done to the Hindus.

      80 to 100 millions of deaths over the centuries by the Moslems to the Hinuds.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus

      Delete
    3. Muslims Slaughtered 100 Million Hindus

      By Bernie on 08 Apr 2014

      Muslims Slaughtered 100 Million Hindus

      Muslims Slaughtered 100 Million HindusBy Bernie on 08 Apr 2014

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    4. ENDNOTES

      (1):

      Time Magazine, 2 Aug 1971, Pakistan: The Ravaging of Golden Bengal

      The Hindus, who account for three-fourths of the refugees and a majority of the dead, have borne the brunt of the Moslem military's hatred. Even now, Moslem soldiers in East Pakistan will snatch away a man's lungi (sarong) to see if he is circumcised, obligatory for Moslems; if he is not, it usually means death. Others are simply rounded up and shot. Commented one high U.S. official last week: "It is the most incredible, calculated thing since the days of the Nazis in Poland."

      http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2010/10/the_muslim_slaughter_of_the_hindus_of_bangladesh.html

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  2. Republicans vying to out-stupid each other

    WASHINGTON — Rep. Bill Flores, chairman of the powerful Republican Study Committee, called today for Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act through a seldom-used budget procedure.

    Along with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Flores issued a statement supporting reconciliation, which the Senate could use to repeal the ACA with a simple majority. President Barack Obama would almost certainly veto such a measure.

    Flores and Lee said in a joint statement that they “both support using narrow reconciliation language which is focused on the full repeal of Obamacare.”

    “We urge the budget conferees to consider the concerns of the American people who want to see this unpopular and detrimental law repealed once and for all,” they said.

    Lee heads the Senate Steering Committee, which is sometimes referred to as the RSC’s counterpart in the upper chamber.

    Republicans are on the cusp of coming to a budget agreement, but there are competing views on how to use reconciliation. Repealing the ACA seems to be the main objective, but other policy priorities, such as tax or entitlement reform, also have advocates in Congress.

    Flores listed repealing the ACA as a top priority of his RSC chairmanship. The House voted to repeal the law in February again, as it has dozens of times since the ACA was enacted in 2010

    ReplyDelete
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    1. The numbers

      PRINCETON, N.J. -- Americans' views about the Affordable Care Act are more positive now than they were last fall, although overall attitudes remain more negative than positive. Half of Americans now disapprove of the 2010 law, while 44% approve -- the narrowest gap since October 2013. By comparison, last November, just after the strong Republican showing in the midterm elections, 56% of Americans disapproved and 37% approved.

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    2. The Affordable Care Act remains controversial. Obama and many Democrats point to the demonstrable decrease in the percentage of Americans who are uninsured as an indicator of how successful the law has been. In contrast, Republicans continue to criticize the law, including Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who last month asked his listeners in his announcement speech to "imagine in 2017 a new president signing legislation repealing every word of Obamacare."

      Throughout this controversy, Americans as a whole remain more negative than positive about the Affordable Care Act and its impact on their lives and the national healthcare situation. Views of the ACA, however, are modestly more positive than they were last fall.

      Americans who are more likely to be affected by the ACA, including young people, lower-income groups and minorities, are at least slightly more likely than others to be positive about the impact of the ACA on their healthcare situations, although significant percentages of most of these groups still say the ACA has hurt them.

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    3. Affordable Care Act approval rising slowly

      By Paul Demko | April 21, 2015
      For the first time in nearly three years, more Americans approve of the Affordable Care Act than disapprove of it, according to the latest tracking poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The difference between the opposing views was small—just one percentage point— and statistically insignificant.

      But the trend lines seem to indicate growing acceptance of the landmark healthcare law. Approval of the Affordable Care Act bottomed out at 33% in November 2013, shortly after the disastrous launch of HealthCare.gov, and has risen slowly ever since. Similarly, disapproval spiked at 53% in July of last year, but has since dropped by double digits.

      Views continue to vary starkly along partisan lines. The law is favored by 70% of Democrats, compared with just 16% of Republicans. Self-identified independents disapprove of the law 46% to 42%.

      http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20150421/NEWS/150429984

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    4. Public opinion on what the Affordable Care Act provides or has achieved so far is divided. In March, a Kaiser Health Tracking Poll found that 41 percent of respondents viewed the health care law favorably, while 43 percent viewed it unfavorably. Nevertheless, some surveys also suggest that Americans generally favor changing Obamacare instead of repealing it entirely, with more than half of respondents in a Rasmussen poll in December saying they would rather have the law improved and only 30 percent supporting a full repeal.

      But despite the law’s apparent lack of popular support, the rate of uninsured people in the U.S. is at an all-time low of 11.9 percent, a poll released Monday showed, and experts suggest that one reason Americans oppose the law is that they don’t fully understand it. In the middle of 2013, before the health insurance exchanges established by the law went into effect, an estimated 18 percent to 20 percent of American adults lacked health insurance.

      Pete Damiano, director of the Public Policy Center at the University of Iowa, said that according to the center’s surveys of consumers, “when you ask them about the various pieces and parts of the Affordable Care Act, like keeping people on their parents’ plans … there’s pretty much universal support,” Damiano said. It’s when people are asked about their feelings about the law overall that they start to dislike it, he explained, and “even though they like the pieces and parts, because of the political rhetoric, there’s a lot of confusion.”

      http://www.ibtimes.com/2016-republicans-obamacare-gop-presidential-hopefuls-repealing-affordable-care-act-1885065

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  3. Ahaha!

    So most people are still against the law, then.

    Figures then that Demorats would all be for it.

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    1. Dale got done in by it, and possibly my Jack, whose remaining relative I do not know how to contract.

      It's gonna get me one of these days, and you all too.

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    2. Not so fast Jack. The trend is your friend. Think a second. What happens if the Republicans repeal it? What will replace it and how will that mess impact the party that ended it?

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  4. In early 2009, healthcare employment had grown 22 percent since the day President George W. Bush took office in 2001. In that same time, overall employment had grown zero percent. Ze-ro.

    This discrepancy was among the more dramatic symptoms of growing healthcare costs. As debt piled up, Washington forecasters projected a not-so-distant future when Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security would exceed all collected tax revenues. Even less lugubrious projections agreed that healthcare spending was just totally out of control, and this was even before some predicted that the Affordable Care Act (or, more commonly: Obamacare) would hasten the country’s medical bankruptcy.

    Meanwhile, five years after the passage of Obamacare, reality has intervened. Healthcare job growth fell throughout the Great Recession and has continued to fall, then stagnate, and then fall again. The labor market’s runaway horse is clearly getting tired.

    The deceleration of healthcare employment matches the slowdown in medical costs. After a roller-coaster ride through the last quarter of the 20th century, healthcare inflation looks like it’s pumping the brakes to park near the 2 percent line, the lowest mark since the year Medicare and Medicaid were signed into law: 1965.

    With slowly growing prices, even rising demand for healthcare has led to less-than-projected spending, in just about every category. (To be clear: This doesn't mean healthcare is getting cheaper; it means healthcare is getting more expensive slower than we anticipated.) The government is casually saving hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare thanks to both direct cuts and other reforms. Insurance companies, despite a rough year due to the arrival of some expensive new drugs, have been spending less than the actuaries projected in 2010. Even with growth in high-deductible plans, out-of-pocket spending is actually coming in below projections from five years ago.

    Forecasts of medical spending have undergone round after round of major surgery. Six years ago, the Urban Institute projected that the country would spend $23 trillion between 2014 and 2019. After Obamacare became law, it raised its forecast by half-a-trillion dollars. But the latest projections, published this month, are lighter by $2 trillion and $2.5 trillion, respectively.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. ...That leaves healthcare's $2 trillion question: What's going on exactly? Just about everybody agrees that the answer is "the recession and ..." followed by a smattering of variables, such as cost control measures in Obamacare, the rise of high-deductible plans, and reforms undertaken by doctors and insurance companies, independently, to curb over-treatment. It's strange to think that the recession, which technically ended in 2009, would still have its fingers around the neck of medical cost growth in 2015. But as you can see if you scroll back up to the second chart in this article, healthcare costs tend to follow the rest of the economy with a bit of a lag; prices were still decelerating years after the 1980s and 1990s recessions were over. There might even be signs that the slowdown is entering a new phase: Healthcare employment ticked up in the first quarter of 2015.

      It's too early to predict how Obamacare will shape the U.S. healthcare system in the decades to come, especially given the upcoming Supreme Court decision. But as the U.S. enters the last quintile of Obama's term, the administration presides over a surprising historical moment. This was always going to be the Healthcare Presidency. But it wasn't obvious, even to the best actuarial oracles around, that the president who did the most to grow the government's role in healthcare since 1965 would preside over the period of slowest-growing healthcare spending since ... 1965.

      http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-america-reduced-health-care-spending-by-2-trillion/390771/

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    2. That, Jack, is what you call a political tar baby.

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    3. Having a guaranteed healthcare plan with increased deductible and co-pay is making people more aware of the cost of health care while providing the critical care when they need it.

      Rufus had it right. Step to the back Jack.

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    4. :) By the way, about half of that 11.9% are illegal aliens, that aren't eligible for coverage under the ACA.

      And, about 5 Million of them would be Medicaid-eligible if their states would take the dirty, old, nasty Obamacare money.

      At some point in the next couple of years we will probably be looking at something like 4.5% uninsured. That's nudging right up against full coverage.

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    5. As stated previously, my two main reasons for supporting the Democrats in the last go-around was Healthcare, and Renewable Energy. As for the second,

      California obtained 25% of its electricity from non-large hydro Renewables, yesterday

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    6. Well, what me worry, I can always get some help from the Max Planck Institutes in Europe.

      Besides, I'm eating right now, and have given up following the advice of Doctor Oz.

      Delete
    7. .

      ...and experts suggest that one reason Americans oppose the law is that they don’t fully understand it.

      APAB.

      Americans won't see its effects until after Obama leaves office. I doubt this was an accident.

      .

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    8. Americans got grubbered.

      To the extend that they understand it, it is through the lens of Mr. Gruber.

      And we know his opinion of the American people -

      'They are dumb enough to actually buy this cold porridge I have served up to them'

      Gruber's opinion of the American people comes from that long line including 'a fool is born each minute' etc...

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  5. Modern Turkey is determined to avoid being branded with the shame of genocide because it tends to demote the bearer to a second-rate nation forever begging forgiveness, like eternally cringing Germany.

    But what really galls the Turks is being singled out as genocidal mass killers when so many other similar perpetrators are ignored.

    Begin with Spain, which wiped out its Muslim population then inflicted mass murder on West Indian native islanders, then in its Latin American colonies. No one even remembers the Arawak Indians, for example, wiped out by the Spaniards, British, and French.

    In the United States, the mass killing and ethnic cleansing of its native people is a horrific crime rarely talked about today. Here, the historic record is loud and clear, unlike that of the chaotic Ottoman Empire. White-men’s diseases finished off what bullets and starvation failed to accomplish.

    Why don’t we commemorate Stalin’s ghastly solution to independent-minded Ukrainians? During 1932-33, the Soviet secret police murdered by bullets and famine six million or more Ukrainians – the Holdomor.

    Not long after, Roosevelt and Churchill allied themselves to the author of this historic crime, Stalin, who killed four times more people than Adolf Hitler. His crimes against Jews and other peoples are widely recognized and commemorated. No one today in the West commemorates Stalin’s murder of many millions of Soviet citizens.

    Nor is the plight of East Europe’s ethnic Germans recalled. Between 1945-1948, 12 million were expelled at gunpoint from their ancestral homes, 500,000-600,000 being killed in the process. The majority came from former German territory annexed by Poland, the USSR, and Czechoslovakia.

    Largely unknown was the genocide of the Soviet Union’s Muslims. Some four millions were murdered or starved to death under Stalin’s orders. Stalin, a Georgian or Ossetian, hated Muslims with the same ferocity that Hitler hated Jews – but he was a US-British ally.

    Mao Zedong’s crazy “Great Leap Forward” during 1958-1960 caused the deaths of at least 30 million Chinese peasants, mostly by starvation. The Great Leap was not a carefully planned genocide, as with the Germans and Soviets, but the result of totalitarian dementia and Marxist folly, but the victims were just as dead.

    Next, the “Mfakane.” During the 1820’s, the Zulu moved south into what is today South Africa, slaughtering 1-2 million local tribesmen. It’s worth noting that the Dutch-Flemish Boer inhabitants of the Cape were there long before the Zulu, who dominate today’s South Africa. Belgium’s mass murders in its Congo colony are branded genocide by some historians.

    A million or more Cambodians were slaughtered by the demented, Maoist Khmer Rouge. The details of the murder of up to one million communists in Indonesia during a 1965-1966 US-backed coup remain obscure.

    History is filled with forgotten genocides – all part of our inhumane tribal culture. So blame the Turks, but don’t forget all the other mass killers.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/eric-margolis/is-mass-murder-endemic-to-humans/

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  6. Read 'A Study of History' by Toynbee

    Plenty of blood runs there -


    >>>Arnold Joseph Toynbee CH (/ˈtɔɪnbi/; 14 April 1889 – 22 October 1975) was a British historian, philosopher of history, research professor of International History at the London School of Economics and the University of London and author of numerous books. Toynbee in the 1918–1950 period was a leading specialist on international affairs.

    He is best known for his 12-volume A Study of History (1934–61), through which he

    ...examined the rise and fall of 26 civilizations in the course of human history, and he concluded that they rose by responding successfully to challenges under the leadership of creative minorities composed of elite leaders.[1]

    With his endless output of papers, articles, speeches and presentations, and numerous books translated into many languages, Toynbee was perhaps the world’s most read and discussed scholar in the 1940s and 1950s. Yet Toynbee's work lost favor among both the general public and scholars by the 1960s, due to the religious and spiritual outlook that permeates the largest part of his work. His work has been seldom read or cited in recent decades.[2] <<<

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_J._Toynbee

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Woodstock, and the New Atheism, and Q Products pushed his books off the shelves.

      Too long, too dense,Toooooooo hard.....

      Delete
  7. . . . . . . Around this year's Earth Day, it is time to explode this harmful myth. It's time to accept that the key to dealing with both poverty and climate change is energy security. And that energy security can be achieved without fossil fuels.

    On a global level renewable energy is winning the race against fossil fuels as more clean-power capacity is being installed than coal, oil and gas together. Solar power is growing faster than even we at Greenpeace predicted, and renewables are now the cheapest way to provide more electricity in an ever-growing number of countries.

    Dharnai, a solar-powered village in India, shows how we can make the renewables boom deliver for all -- including the rural poor. Dharnai is located in Bihar, one of the poorest provinces in India. It did not have access to electricity for 30 years before a solar mini-grid was installed with the support of Greenpeace India in July last year.

    The village faces extreme poverty, deep caste divisions and very high illiteracy rates. But life in Dharnai has been transformed in the last 10 months since an affordable solar-energy grid arrived. Dharnai is the first village in India where all aspects of life are powered by solar. The 100-kilowatt (kW) system powers the 450 homes of the 2,400 residents, 50 commercial operations, two schools, a training center and a health-care facility. A battery backup ensures power is available around the clock.

    Solar-powered lighting means children can now go out and play after school and finish their homework after sunset. Women feel safer venturing out after dark and families at home do not have to spend time in darkness. The arrival of solar-powered water pumps has brought new hope to many farmers in improving access to fresh-water resources. With solar energy, more villagers have been able to recharge their mobile phones regularly, and so the solar grid has also opened up Dharnai to the world of the Internet.

    This is just the beginning. Improvements in the quality of life of Dharnai's residents have become the talk of neighboring villages that are eager to understand and replicate the Dharnai model. India has 80,000 other villages that also need solar micro-grids.

    That is why it is so important that Greenpeace India continues to work for a better life for India's citizens and to help deliver clean, reliable electricity for all. Dharnai shows what real development -- development that doesn't cost the Earth -- looks like. It is this kind of sustainable development that Greenpeace India stands for. And it shows the absurdity of recent suggestions that Greenpeace in India is acting against India's national interest.

    Ironically, Greenpeace India's work to bring energy to Dharnai has been rewarded with brickbats rather than bouquets by India's recently elected government. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has suspended Greenpeace India's ability to receive foreign donations and has also frozen the organization's domestic accounts.

    Even as my Indian colleagues prepare to answer the MHA's allegations, in court if necessary, the Indian government's actions beg the question -- how does delivering electricity to a village that had none, or advocating for clean air, safe food, protecting forests and legally sanctioned rights equate to undermining economic interests?

    But the story of Dharnai goes well beyond India. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide live without electricity. For them, the Dharnai solar-powered micro-grid could be a game-changer, a model for bringing clean, reliable energy to all.

    Communities without electricity, and their governments, can make a leap forward by setting up their own renewable-power systems. They can . . . . .

    Acting against India's interests

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sounds good.

      Change comes slowly in rural India.



      Delete
  8. "History is a nightmare, from which I'm trying to awake."

    J. Joyce

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    1. I think it was Stephen Daedalus that said that, the words put in his mouth by James Joyce.

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    2. Stephen had a remarkable moment when he realized that Mr Bloom, the older Jewish character, was actually his spiritual father, and the recognition was returned.

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  9. Hillary is waging class war fare full bore now.

    She is out to do away with the 'top 1 %'.

    And the rhetoric doesn't stop there, believe you me.

    She is though just playing politics to her far leftie base.......

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    1. The 'top 1 %' doesn't include anyone here, nor even anyone that anyone here might know, so we can all get out our kettles and skillets and bang away against the 1% !

      Delete

  10. Genocide

    The crime of destroying or conspiring to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

    Genocide can be committed in a number of ways, including killing members of a group or causing them serious mental or bodily harm, deliberately inflicting conditions that will bring about a group's physical destruction, imposing measures on a group to prevent births, and forcefully transferring children from one group to another.

    Genocide is a modern term. Coined in 1944 by Polish scholar of International Law Raphael Lemkin, the word is a combination of the Greek genos (race) with the Latin cide (killing). In his book, "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe", Lemkin offered the definition of
    "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves"
    (Lemkin 1944, 79).
    ...
    Following the exterminations of World War II, the United Nations passed a resolution in an effort to prevent such atrocities in the future. Known as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (78 U.N.T.S. 278 [Dec. 9, 1948]), the resolution recognized genocide as an international crime and provided for its punishment. Proposed and partially formulated by Lemkin, who had lobbied nations tirelessly for its adoption, the convention also criminalized conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, attempted genocide, and complicity in genocide. Its definition of genocide specified that a person must intend to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Thus, casualties of war are not necessarily victims of genocide, even if they are all of the same national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
    ...
    The unclear definition of genocide makes its prevention and punishment difficult.
    Whether massive, and often barbaric, loss of life within ethnic, national, religious, or racial groups rises to the crime of genocide—or is simply an unpleasant by-product of war—is open to debate.

    ...
    http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Genocide

    Mass murder, in and of its does not a genocide make.
    Indeed, mass murder is not even a required ingredient of genocide.
    It is a political crime, not a physical one.

    Intent must be proven, motive ascertained, genocide is similar to a 'Hate Crime' in that regard.

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    1. Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy a group
      includes the deliberate deprivation of resources needed for the group’s physical survival, such as clean water, food, clothing, shelter or medical services. Deprivation of the means to sustain life can be imposed through confiscation of harvests, blockade of foodstuffs, detention in camps, forcible relocation or expulsion into deserts.


      http://www.preventgenocide.org/genocide/officialtext.htm

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  11. Is the denial that a people are a people a precursor to genocide?

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    1. You are the guy that would know.

      You have denied that the Israelis are a 'people' hundreds of times.

      And you support Gaza and the West Bankers whose main point is to push the Israelis into the Med Sea one day.


      So you can answer you own question.

      Now that you have arrived it's nap time for me.

      It's not worth it with you around.

      Cheers !!

      Delete
    2. Wrong, again "Chattel Boy"
      I have said that the Ashkenazi have no historical genetic claim to that land.
      Not that the Ashkenazi were not Jewish, not that the Ashkenazi did not exist, as a people, even when they did not have a modern state to call their own.

      Just that they were not the genetic progeny of the people Moses led out of Egypt.

      Delete
    3. Which is not at all what you just claimed I have stated, in the past.
      If, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson you can prove otherwise, I suggest you do so.
      If you cannot, well, I still own you.

      Or so you have told us, previously.

      Delete
  12. 'Palestinians" breeding like house flies -

    >>>According to a 2008 article in The Guardian, using PCBS census figures, the Palestinian territories have one of the fastest growing populations in the world, with numbers surging 30% in the past decade (2008). There were 3.76 million Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, up from 2.89 million 10 years earlier.[8]

    According to the U.S. Census, population growth mid-1990-2008 in Gaza and West Bank was 106% from 1.9 million (1990) to 3.9 million persons.[9]

    According to UN (2010) Palestinian population is 4.4 million.[10] According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) population density in 2009 was 654 capita/km2, of which 433 capita/km2 in the West Bank including Jerusalem and 4,073 capita/km2 in Gaza Strip.[11] In the mid-2009, the share of population less than 15 years was 41.9% and above 65 years 3%.[11]<<<


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Palestinian_territories

    Lots of dead beat dads in the mix, lot of free range kids......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson not taking the Zionist line

      There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state?
      It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.

      - Golda Meir


      As quoted in Sunday Times (15 June 1969), also in The Washington Post (16 June 1969)

      Delete
    2. Ms Meir attempting genocide, without firing a shot?

      Delete
    3. Doe a 'people' require a state to be a people?

      Do you have a flag?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTduy7Qkvk8

      Delete

  13. U.S. Says It Won’t Back Off Its Drone War, Despite Hostages’ Deaths


    The United States’ controversial campaign of drone strikes will continue despite the accidental killing of a pair of Western hostages, four U.S. officials told The Daily Beast. These sources said they don’t expect the rules governing the strikes to change significantly.

    Defense officials told The Daily Beast there was no immediate discussion to suspend their drone program, including the use of “signature strikes,” which target people based on patterns of behavior, even if their identity is unclear. American contractor Warren Weinstein and Italian hostage Giovanni Lo Porto were killed in one such signature strike in January.
    ...
    “It’s a war. Tragedies unfortunately happen,” one U.S. official said.
    ...
    The White House announced on Thursday that the CIA’s inspector general has undertaken a “review” of the January strike. But a former senior U.S. intelligence official with experience in such inquiries told The Daily Beast that they are notoriously ineffective at holding officials accountable for wrongdoing.
    ...
    As of now, no hearings about the drone strike have been scheduled by the CIA’s oversight committees in Congress.


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTduy7Qkvk8

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/24/u-s-says-it-won-t-back-off-its-drone-war-despite-hostages-deaths.html

      Delete

  14. Was there an Armenian genocide? It depends on Turkish 'intent.'


    On the 100th anniversary of the massacres of Armenians during World War I, the debate is not simply a he-said-she-said between modern Turks and Armenians.


    ...
    In one sense, the debate is primarily academic. The concept of genocide as a crime did not exist during World War I, and was not formalized until after World War II, 30 years later. As such, there's no liability at stake for the Ottoman Turks or their heirs. Rather, the main consequence would be recognition for Armenians (and a stigma upon the Ottoman Turks).
    ...
    The Armenians were clearly a national, ethnic group, and there is ample documentation of the mass deaths they suffered under Ottoman control during World War I. So how does Turkey argue that the Armenian massacres do not fall within the UN definition?

    The key element that is missing, they say, is evidence that the Ottoman Empire had "intent to destroy" the Armenians.

    The existent case law on genocide predominantly interprets "intent to destroy" as meaning what lawyers call "specific intent." That is, those who committed the crime didn't simply intend to act they way they acted, but rather that they intended a specific result as well. It's like the difference between firing a gun and firing a gun to kill a specific person. The former was an intentional act, but it wasn't necessarily meant to result in that specific person's death. The latter was specifically aimed at an end result of that person's death.

    A good example is the difference between the crimes of murder and manslaughter. In both cases, someone has died. But it is only the first case where there was a targeted intent to kill someone – the latter may have been a reckless accident.

    In essence, Turkey argues that what happened to the Armenians during the war was more like manslaughter than murder. As the Turkish Foreign Ministry argues on its website, "no direct evidence has been discovered demonstrating that any Ottoman official sought the destruction of the Ottoman Armenians as such."


    http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2015/0424/Was-there-an-Armenian-genocide-It-depends-on-Turkish-intent.-video

    ReplyDelete

  15. Is the evidence that the ISraeli were and are attempting to destroy the Palestinians, as a people, enough for the ISraeli be guilty of attempting genocide, even if they were not committing mass murder to do it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Attempted Genocide?

      Heck, Jack, your buddies have grown from an inflated 700,000 in 1948 to over 7 million today....

      I guess your definition of what is "genocide" is like all your word meanings, made up...


      Genocidal statements made by Israelis about Palestinians?

      Wow, you have actual STATEMENTS?

      Show me the 700,000 dead Palestinians in piles or shut the fuck up...

      Delete
  16. While in iraq it appears the battle has moved towards the outskirts of Fallujah.


    Fierce clashes are being waged to the north of Fallujah between the Iraqi Army and Islamic State (IS) militants, a day after an ambush killed an Iraqi general and three staff officers.

    IS militants used a bulldozer packed with explosive to kill the commander of the army's 1st Division, General Hassan Abbas Toufan, and the officers on April 24.

    Ten Iraqi soldiers also were killed in an attack against the nearby battalion headquarters.

    IS militants on April 25 paraded another officer and three captured Iraqi soldiers through the streets of Fallujah in a pickup truck.

    As army troops and tanks rushed to the battle on April 25, IS militants took partial control of a dam at the southern end of Lake Thirthar.

    A militant video posted online shows IS fighters moving about freely on the Al-Thirthar dam, which serves as a flood control for Baghdad and other cities.


    http://www.rferl.org/content/iraq-islamic-state-kills-general-takes-dam/26978196.html

    ReplyDelete

  17. Army snipers kill 3 ISIS elements in central Ramadi
    By Amre Sarhan -
    Apr 21, 2015
    0
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    Representational file photo.
    Representational file photo.

    (IraqiNews.com) Anbar – Commander of the 2nd brigade of the Rapid Intervention Forces Col. Mahdi Abbas announced, that the brigade managed to kill 3 ISIS elements in central Ramadi.

    Colonel Mahdi Abbas said in an interview for IraqiNews.com “Today, snipers of the 2nd brigade of the Rapid Intervention Forces had managed to kill 3 elements of the ISIS group after following them to a place in southern al-Houz area; located in central Ramadi” pointing out that, “The special forces were monitoring the movements of the ISIS group militants in the city of Ramadi.”

    http://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/army-snipers-kill-3-isis-elements-central-ramadi/

    Is this good enough for you, Rufus?

    Can I get my cool $1,000 now ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Army snipers kill 3 ISIS elements in central Ramadi
      Apr 21, 2015
      (IraqiNews.com) Anbar – Commander of the 2nd brigade of the Rapid Intervention Forces Col. Mahdi Abbas announced, that the brigade managed to kill 3 ISIS elements in central Ramadi. Colonel Mahdi Abbas said in an...
      3000 displaced families resided in Rahaliyah, Ramadi
      Apr 21, 2015
      (IraqiNews.com) Anbar – On Tuesday, Head of al-Rahaliyah district announced, that the district received 3000 displaced families coming from other parts of Ramadi city, noting that the government provided them with some of the...
      ISIS attacks Ramadi General Hospital with mortars
      Apr 21, 2015
      (IraqiNews.com) Ramadi - A security source in Anbar province announced on Tuesday, that ISIS bombed Ramadi General Hospital with mortar shells which caused material damage to the hospital without leaving casualties. The source said in an interview for...
      Ramadi is under control of Iraqi Security Forces, says Abadi to US General Austin
      Apr 21, 2015
      (IraqiNews.com) Baghdad - Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and Prime Minister Haider Abadi announced on Monday, that the situation in Ramadi is under control, pointing out that preparations are underway to rid the city...
      Refugees return to their homes near Ramadi after ISIS expelled
      Apr 21, 2015
      (IraqiNews.com) Ramadi - On Monday, the President of the Khalidiya District Council announced the return of hundreds of families to their homes after escaping conflict zones near Ramadi. The president of the council Ali Dawood stated in an interview for...
      IAF kills 35 ISIS fighters in central Ramadi
      Apr 20, 2015
      (IraqiNews.com) Anbar - The commander of al-Haq Police Department in Ramadi city, Maj. Omar Khamis, announced on Monday that 35 ISIS fighters were killed during an air strike that was carried out by the Army Air Force against ISIS sites in central Ramadi. Maj....

      http://www.iraqinews.com/tag/ramadi/

      Delete
  18. As I said earlier, I really don't want the $1,000 dollars for myself. Began thinking of my Niece though. Things are expensive in Germany, her rent is high, her income not all that great even though she has a wonderful job and works her heart out. And, she could use a new bike.

    Consider paying the cool $1,000 dollars to my Niece in Germany, Rufus. You are a gentleman.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Memorial Day 2015 just one month away !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And we all know what that means - Epic 'rat Doctrine' Fail Day.


      BwbwahahahohohoohoootHootHOOT

      Delete
    2. No, "Draft Dodger", it is just a misplace prediction.
      The Iraqi are not moving with dispatch.
      It is not a failure of the tactical application of Coalition air support for the local Iraqi troops.

      Or Tikrit would still be in the control of the Islamic State.
      Erbil would have fallen to the Islamic State.

      Both are "Rat Doctrine" success stories.

      Delete
    3. Also the success of the "Rat Doctrine" in Kobane, Syria, cannot be denied.

      Delete
    4. Bullshitty.

      You are a bullshittyer

      Some 'rat Doctrine' whawhahwhwabbaaaHA !!

      Delete

  20. only 9.1 percent of Turks wish to admit the killings were genocide, according to a January opinion poll by theIstanbul-based Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM)


    https://news.vice.com/article/thousands-gather-in-istanbul-to-demand-turkey-recognize-armenian-mass-killings-as-genocide

    ReplyDelete
  21. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces targeted Islamic State militants in Syria with four air strikes from Friday to Saturday morning and conducted 11 strikes against the group in Iraq, the U.S. military said.

    All of the strikes in Syria hit targets near Kobani, destroying four fighting positions and a boat, and also hitting an Islamic State tactical unit, according to a military statement on Saturday.

    In Iraq, five strikes near Fallujah hit tactical units, disabled a fighting position and destroyed vehicles, machine guns and an improvised explosive device. Four strikes near Mosul destroyed three buildings as well as machine guns and vehicles. Coalition forces also struck targets near Ramadi and Tal Afar, the statement said.

    (Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Frances Kerry)


    Every Day the ISIS team (you know who you are) loses another 40 or 50 Players.

    Mo' Dead Men, No Longer Walking

    ReplyDelete
  22. Plenty of ISIS folk still walking around INSIDE Ramadi.....


    Send the $1,000 check to my Niece.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. O I will, sooner or later. Just haven't come on a good one yet.

      Not sure where to look for photos.

      Mostly finding print articles.

      You could help search, too.

      :)

      Delete
  23. >>>With local police forces now returning and reinforcements arriving, officials said the security situation has improved but warned that it remains precarious. Although some families that fled have been able to return to areas in the heart of the city, other neighborhoods remain under ­Islamic State control or are engulfed by fighting.
    Ramadi families face dilemma amid fierce fighting(1:21)
    The recapture of parts of Ramadi by Iraqi forces has sown fear and confusion among thousands who have fled the fighting with some returning while others run away. (Reuters)

    “We still need more forces,” Saeed said, even as he acknowledged gains made in recent days. “Before, it was a real crisis. Thank God we were able to withstand.”<<<

    With local police forces now returning and reinforcements arriving, officials said the security situation has improved but warned that it remains precarious. Although some families that fled have been able to return to areas in the heart of the city, other neighborhoods remain under ­Islamic State control or are engulfed by fighting.
    Ramadi families face dilemma amid fierce fighting(1:21)
    The recapture of parts of Ramadi by Iraqi forces has sown fear and confusion among thousands who have fled the fighting with some returning while others run away. (Reuters)

    “We still need more forces,” Saeed said, even as he acknowledged gains made in recent days. “Before, it was a real crisis. Thank God we were able to withstand.”

    Four regiments of federal police and counterterrorism forces have arrived in recent days, and traffic is now moving in both directions on the footbridge that represents the main crossing point between the province and Baghdad. Last week, the crossing was jammed with fleeing families.

    “The situation has now stabilized,” said Muhannad Haimour, a spokesman for Anbar’s governor. “Some families are heading back, and hardly any are leaving.”

    [The Islamic State’s atrocities]

    Tough conditions in Baghdad, where displaced families from the largely Sunni province are viewed with suspicion and require a sponsor to gain entry, mean that many are desperate to return home, he said. Both Sunni and Shiite mosques have opened their doors to help with the influx, but assistance remains limited at a time when Iraq is struggling with about 2.7 million internally displaced people.

    About 2,500 Ramadi police officers have returned to duty after escorting their families to safety, Saeed said. Most had been desperate to get their families out, he said.

    “Some police stations were completely empty,” said Abdullah Zebar al-Alwani, a tribal fighter in the city. “Now the officers are starting to come back, but counterterrorism are the only forces doing a good job here.”

    Zamil Adnad, a 28-year-old police officer, said he had returned to the police station in Ramadi’s ­al-Hoz district on Wednesday with 15 of his colleagues after fleeing earlier in the week. He left his family in the capital.

    “I was being humiliated in Baghdad,” he said, complaining about the sponsor system. “I’d rather die here than go back there.”

    The system requires a Baghdad resident to travel to the border of the province to vouch for an entering family. But families from ­Anbar also receive extra scrutiny at checkpoints, he said, because they are considered security risks.

    Since the return of local police personnel, he said, a maternity hospital in al-Hoz has been recaptured from militants. Other small advances have been reported in eastern Ramadi.

    Nonetheless, “the situation is still dangerous,” said Maj. Omar Khamis al-Dahl, a police officer in the city. “There’s a bad situation in central Ramadi, and we can’t move forward because of roadside bombs and snipers. We don’t receive any support from the army, and the reinforcements are not enough.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/police-personnel-residents-return-to-iraqi-city-of-ramadi-as-panic-subsides/2015/04/22/6f8e7b44-e8f0-11e4-8581-633c536add4b_story.html

    ReplyDelete

  24. World | Wed Apr 22, 2015 2:19pm EDT
    Related: World, Iraq
    Iraqi forces fight to rout Islamic State militants from Ramadi
    BAGHDAD

    (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces fought to rout Islamic State militants from the western city of Ramadi on Wednesday, slowly regaining some ground from the militant group, security and local officials said.

    The insurgents began encroaching on Ramadi two weeks ago and local officials warned it was about to fall, sending more than 100,000 people fleeing their homes in and around the provincial capital of Anbar.

    Security officials said Islamic State were being pushed back from sections near the military's Anbar operation command but booby-traps, snipers and suicide attacks were hindering government troops from recapturing other areas they lost last week.

    "We’re engaged in tough guerrilla warfare in Ramadi," said an Iraqi security officer whose unit is fighting in Ramadi. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said the militants had dug tunnels between houses so they could carry out hit and run attacks.

    Anbar provincial council member Falih al-Essawi said security forces were taking their time in advancing to avoid exposing themselves to sniper fire.

    A spokesman for Iraq's counter terrorism forces, which are taking a lead role in the battle, told Reuters the troops had managed to recapture positions near the city center but were still fighting to drive the militants from the city.

    "Our main goal is to drive Isis terrorists away from residential parts of the city toward open areas to make them an easy target for our forces," Sabah al-Noamani said.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/22/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-idUSKBN0ND1WQ20150422

    Plenty of print evidence for ISIS IN Ramadi, but still no photo.

    One will turn up sooner or later.

    ReplyDelete
  25. The Battle for Ramadi 2015 - pictures

    https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrTcdJK2TtV84AAbcUnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTBsOXB2YTRjBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkAw--?_adv_prop=image&fr=yhs-mozilla-002&va=The+Battle+for+Ramadi+2015&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-002

    How 'bout these ?

    ReplyDelete
  26. I got to run. You look them over Rufus.

    An Honest Judge would say they are good enough.

    Cheers !!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. (there are plenty good ones of the clothed headed folk in the bunch)

      Delete
    2. And don't try to recover your loses down at Doyle's !!

      Delete
  27. I first read the article, dated the 25th, several days ago.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Wasn't the bet made several days ago?

      No one but a nut or an English major would expect to collect on such a bet but I couldn't help myself.

      Photos?

      Laughable.

      .

      Delete
    2. A couple of snipers sneaking into town isn't "controlling" the town.

      Delete
    3. Surely, you have noticed that when the headcutters take control of a valued target they post videos all over the place of their troops walking around, talking, patrolling, jacking off, playing grab-ass, and akbarring allah.

      I've seen no such pictures of Ramadi.

      Delete
    4. I can run down to Grand Ave. and shoot the place up, but that means nothing much more than that I am getting ready to die.

      Delete
    5. .

      Sorry.

      I must have missed the part about IS 'controlling' the town. I thought the bet was that the allies had cleared the town which obviously wasn't true according to the reports.

      .

      Delete
  28. I used the word "patrol" for a reason. If you own territory, you patrol it.

    It was obvious, from the start, that the headcutters (who have owned some of the suburbs for several months) had attacked the center of town, but that their success was very transitory (hours, not days.)

    ReplyDelete
  29. Rufus is pulling a 'rat' on us here.

    He is shifting his goal posts.

    Poor old devil, out there shifting the goal posts.

    He already made a world class fool of himself with the Iraq ISIS free by the 4th of July, 2015, and he doesn't want to be shown wrong again.

    So, he is making a world class fool out of himself by shifting the goal posts.

    The poor old devil !

    ReplyDelete