tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-371024592012-03-25T17:37:57.742-04:00A blog of regularly updated news and views generally not receiving prominent play through so-called mainstream or conventional media outlets. So we're "dispelling illusions," as it were. Click on headlines to go to original source. Links were valid at time of posting.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comBlogger2008125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-11761661437573769002009-08-29T23:51:00.001-04:002009-08-29T23:51:43.435-04:00World-famous microbiologist Sir Macfarlane Burnet, the Nobel prize winner revered as Australia's greatest medical research scientist, secretly urged the government to develop biological weapons for use against Indonesia and other "overpopulated" countries of South-East Asia. The revelation is contained in top-secret files declassified by the National Archives of Australia, despite resistance from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-59079752876408568172009-08-27T11:04:00.000-04:002009-08-27T11:05:34.296-04:00Famed Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke, who was at the Sarajevo Film Festival last week, told a Bosnian newspaper that he thanks God and his Catholic faith for giving him a “second chance” in life to overcome his addictions, which almost led him to commit suicide. Speaking to the Bosnian daily “Avaz,” Rourke said, “God gave me a second chance in life and I thank Him.”TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-47187459384984556762009-08-27T10:55:00.000-04:002009-08-27T11:02:52.223-04:00In the last six years, the Patients Association claims hundreds of thousands have suffered from poor standards of nursing, often with 'neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel' treatment. The charity has disclosed a horrifying catalogue of elderly people left in pain, in soiled bed clothes, denied adequate food and drink, and suffering from repeatedly cancelled operations, missed diagnoses and dismissive staff.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-24761525428232058172009-08-27T10:54:00.000-04:002009-08-27T10:55:10.124-04:00The majority of transplanted organs in China come from executed prisoners, state media reported today in a rare disclosure about the country's problem of dubious organ donations. Despite a 2007 regulation barring donations from people who are not related to or emotionally connected to the transplant patient, the China Daily newspaper said 65 per cent of organ donations come from death row.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-70412536720190495832009-06-17T12:05:00.000-04:002009-06-17T12:06:35.621-04:00In the aftermath of the shooting of late-term abortionist, Dr. George Tiller, American pro-life leaders have been receiving death threats prompting round-the-clock protection from authorities. Jill Stanek ... said that she, along with Troy Newman of Operation Rescue and Fr. Frank Pavone at Priests for Life, had been receiving credible threats from a "troubled man involved in the abortion industry" ... Federal agents are currently monitoring his movements.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-71157762144586661012009-06-16T09:49:00.000-04:002009-06-16T09:50:42.172-04:00Since I began my quixotic campaign to uncover Barack Obama's birth certificate, many have asked me about the president's possible motives for hiding it with such tenacity and diligence. I think there are many plausible motives: Perhaps something in that birth certificate, if it indeed exists, would contradict assertions Obama has made about his life's story ... Perhaps it reveals a foreign birth, as Hawaii allowed for in 1961 while still issuing the "certification of live birth" we have seen posted on his website ... Or perhaps it will show just what Obama has claimed all along – a birth in Hawaii to two officially non-citizen parents, for the purpose of establishing "natural born citizenship" under the Constitution.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-28156661265940705832009-05-15T12:32:00.000-04:002009-05-15T12:33:46.168-04:00People who have concerns about the adoption of children by gay couples are 'retarded homophobes', the state-funded national adoption agency said yesterday. Those who protest over controversial gay adoption laws are merely 'whinging', according to the British Association for Adoption and Fostering. Its insulting description angered senior MPs and former Cabinet Ministers, Roman Catholic and Church of England leaders.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-32406263131013116072009-05-15T12:18:00.000-04:002009-05-15T12:19:40.254-04:00Outside of politics, sports, and popular entertainment, how many living Germans, or French, or Austrians, or even Brits can you name? Even well-informed people who love art and literature and who follow developments in science and medicine would be hard pressed to come up with many, more often any, names. In terms of greatness in literature, art, music, the sciences, philosophy, and medical breakthroughs, Europe has virtually fallen off the radar screen.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-20503564946546872002009-04-30T00:36:00.000-04:002009-04-30T00:38:11.750-04:00Local officials in China are using secret "black jails" to imprison citizens who threaten to report corruption to central authorities, an Al Jazeera investigation has revealed. At one location Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan found a woman being held by three men. As they slammed the door shut, the woman was heard screaming: "You're here to save me! I'm trying to get out!" Another woman, Shan Yajuan, said that she had previously been held in a "black jail" where she was beaten and shocked with cattle prods.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-46359243601749841322009-04-30T00:34:00.000-04:002009-04-30T00:35:51.459-04:00For the most part, they are the products of alleged institutions of higher learning presided over by a professoriate composed of devout Marxists who float above the grim precincts of reality while concentrating on expressing their hatred of America and inflicting their venom on their impressionable students. Convinced they have been elevated into an elite by virtue of having spent four years under such informed and inspired tutelage they go forth into the ranks of the nation's print and broadcast media harboring the virus of imagined superiority over the citizenry of the despised United States of America.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-66139363558753797582009-04-30T00:29:00.001-04:002009-04-30T00:34:19.744-04:00The catered gatherings also sound rather cozy, like some secret-handshake gathering of an entrenched elite ... Among those in regular attendance are David Brooks and Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Gene Robinson and Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post, NBC's David Gregory, ABC's George Stephanopoulos, PBS's Gwen Ifill, the New Yorker's Jane Mayer, Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum, former Time managing editor Walter Isaacson and staffers from Bradley's Atlantic and National Journal, including Ron Brownstein, Andrew Sullivan and Jonathan Rauch.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-3538780540548567032009-04-29T01:34:00.001-04:002009-04-29T01:34:49.957-04:00Pupils as young as 11 will be taught about homosexuality and civil partnerships in compulsory sex education classes. All secondary schools - including faith schools - will have to teach children about same-sex relationships as well as traditional families. Previously, heads could decide to opt out of teaching the controversial subject.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-11638149242605233472009-04-29T01:27:00.000-04:002009-04-29T01:33:09.899-04:00The government has announced plans to make sex education compulsory for pupils aged five to 11, dividing faith groups and safer sex campaigners. Under the plans all secondary schools will have to teach teenagers about contraception, safer sex and relationships, but faith schools will also be free to preach against sex outside of marriage and condoms.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-77694318838725368382009-04-29T01:22:00.000-04:002009-04-29T01:26:44.357-04:001. "Obama criticized pork barrel spending in the form of 'earmarks,' urging changes in the way that Congress adopts the spending proposals. Then he signed a spending bill that contains nearly 9,000 of them, some that members of his own staff shoved in last year when they were still members of Congress. 'Let there be no doubt, this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business, and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability,' Obama said." -- McClatchy, 3/11TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-18094679528340523672009-04-28T11:58:00.000-04:002009-04-28T11:59:24.239-04:00As the world grapples with the worst economic downturn in decades and the possibility of a flu pandemic, a growing body of research suggests the complexity of the modern global economy may make us more vulnerable than ever to catastrophe. The financial crisis began as turmoil in one small segment of the US mortgage market. Within months it had morphed into a global meltdown affecting almost everyone on earth.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-60532392861561131432009-04-16T11:27:00.000-04:002009-04-16T11:30:14.989-04:00A specter is haunting Russia today. It is not the specter of Communism—that ghost has been chained in the attic of the past—but rather of depopulation—a relentless, unremitting, and perhaps unstoppable depopulation. The mass deaths associated with the Communist era may be history, but another sort of mass death may have only just begun, as Russians practice what amounts to an ethnic self-cleansing.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-83430347866585204042009-04-15T23:11:00.000-04:002009-04-15T23:15:39.747-04:00In our investigations, we have concluded that China's re-education camps, as well as its other detention facilities, often contain forced organ donor banks. (More information can be found in our report, available at www.organharvestinvestigation.net.) Imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners who refuse to recant their faith sometimes are blood-tested, organ-examined and killed for their organs ... Some vestiges of the totalitarian socialist state remain, including administrative detention and re-education through labour camps.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-59583301979026328022009-04-15T23:10:00.000-04:002009-04-15T23:11:44.926-04:00One would expect neoconservatives to be friendless and circumspect, grumbling about Obama’s inevitable failure as they slump away from Washington. Instead, they are jubilant, palling around with liberals again, enjoying renewed respect. Obama is their hero.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-53165613355608160252009-04-15T23:07:00.000-04:002009-04-15T23:09:42.674-04:00Jean Chrétien is part of a team wagering on a resort and casino project in another region in Asia. As part of the largest foreign investment in Vietnam, the former prime minister is involved in building a multibillion-dollar five-star resort and Las Vegas-style casino south of Ho Chi Minh City. The Ho Tram project, located on pristine white-sand beaches on the South China Sea, is the largest foreign investment in the country ... The 75-year-old former politician, who acts as counsel to national law firm Heenan Blaikie, has been travelling the world making business deals and money.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-14611616033545056192009-04-08T21:09:00.005-04:002009-04-08T21:15:56.744-04:00A vehicle that has been specially developed to make executions more cost-effective and efficient ... This former member of the China People's Party will be handcuffed to a so-called 'humane' bed and executed inside a gleaming new, hi-tech, mobile 'death van.' After trials of the mobile execution service were launched quietly three years ago - then hushed up to prevent an international row about the abuse of human rights before the Olympics last summer - these vehicles are now being deployed across China.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-48322925350335791862009-04-08T21:04:00.000-04:002009-04-08T21:09:43.492-04:00Voters in the small northeastern Missouri town of Winfield re-elected their mayor for a fourth term on Tuesday, about a month after his death. Ballots had already been printed and absentee voting had already begun when Harry Stonebraker died of a heart attack at age 69 on March 11. He won easily in Tuesday's general election with 206 votes, or 90 per cent.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-39205795692304690902009-04-08T21:00:00.001-04:002009-04-08T21:03:49.579-04:00The Government minister responsible for the revived EU constitution made an astonishing gaffe by admitting she had never read it. Europe Minister Caroline Flint admitted she had only been 'briefed' on parts of a document that surrenders a raft of British powers to Brussels ... During a Commons debate, Ms Flint confessed she had not read all of the despised charter. Critics said it was an 'extraordinary admission' to make.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-43698326160806343792009-04-08T20:56:00.002-04:002009-04-08T21:17:05.871-04:00The Honduran National Congress has passed a law banning the sale of so-called "emergency contraception," which in fact causes abortions as well as preventing pregnancy, according to local news reports. Also known as the "morning after pill," the drug contains a hormone that, if received after a new human life has been created, prevents it from attaching to the uterine wall, resulting in its death soon afterward. It is washed out in the following period.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-60620977416037188802009-04-08T20:55:00.000-04:002009-04-08T20:56:06.527-04:00The White House mail office has confirmed it received a "deluge" of as many as 2.25 million red envelopes symbolizing the empty promise of lives snuffed out in abortion in a massive campaign that was larger than most White House mailing movements in the last 35 years. White House mail worker "Steve" has handled letters for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for more than three decades ... Asked if he has seen a flood of red envelopes bound for the White House, Steve chuckled. "Uh, yes," he said emphatically. "Believe me, they made it here."TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37102459.post-91497471757577305492009-04-08T20:53:00.000-04:002009-04-08T20:54:55.976-04:00The teenage gangs in inner cities; the increasing knife culture; the angry 19-year-old who lashed out and killed the boy in a bakery; the shocking case of an 18-year-old youth who, when in foster care, raped the two-year-old in the family and abused the nine-year-old; the extensive survey earlier this year that expressed a widespread anxiety about the state of the nation's children and the fact that childhood ends too quickly; the finding that a teacher suffers a violent attack almost every school day; the growth in childhood obesity, in teenage and pre-teenage binge drinking, in under-age sex and under-age pregnancies – there is a sense of a growing crisis in childhood, certainly a crisis in the way that we think of children.TGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08273989015154428668noreply@blogger.com