 is because there are too many extremists involved…there are too many women that feel society has to be “taught a lesson” by undermining the status quo instead of working to positively change it through education and respect to naysayers. No one wants to hear how disgusting they are for drinking milk or why formula babies are statically dumber than breastfed babies…I’m actually amazed at the lack of respect people show their causes by acting like complete jerks…and I must say this statement applies to most of the moms on this forum. I don’t agree with how “eats on feets” is implemented, and not because I am uneducated or miseducated. It is a personal preference, and that does not make me a bad parent. I think that breastfeeding a four-year-old is inappropriate FOR MY CHILDREN, but if a mother chooses to do it that’s her own thing. I have quite a few friends on the breastfeeding militia on Facebook, and all they do, literally is try to show their boobs online and complain when Facebook deletes them, or criticize those who don’t agree with their POV. THAT is why there is a debate…because breastfeeding proponents have gone out of their way to make other mothers feel inferior and to take a harsh stance against anyone who disagrees with anything they say. And as long as the breastfeeding militia conducts their business in such a manner, they can expect strong opposition.

  94. Paige says:

    So interesting, read this in The Guardian…seems like Brits are as progressive as the folks at Eats on Feats…

  95. emom says:

    AAAHHHH gulible trusting niave fools, When someone desides to SUE over what should be a “SAFE” and healthy substance ,,, welll, I can image what someone will say.,,,, I was assured it was safe, free of all chemicals, medications, alchohol, it was dye free, nothing but pure clean healthy milk, we checked out the persons diet, she showed us a diary of what she eat, how she lived, who she was exposed to , when anyone got sick and gave details of her life,, with that we felt it was the best breastmilk to give to our adopted new born.. But within a few weeks she developed a rash and then a respitory problem, come to find out all that was disclosed was not as true as it should be, I feel I was lied to and decieved. I am sueing for damaged to my babies immune system and the cost of medical bills, and the pain and suffering my baby may have to deal with in the future, she is only 3 months old and she is scared for life, Now this sounds like a real case but its not, its merely a possible scenerio,,, but hey sounds extremely plausible,
    Yeah guilible fools need to wake up from your healthy comas and get real, the world lies and you need to get reall…

  96. emom says:

  97. emom says:

    There are some real niave folks on this story, gee, still cant wait for when someone is wronged and BOOM a brand new story,,, If You think this is good then so be it , but many of us seem to think is dangerous, HEY BUY CARRY ON AS USUALL<<< in 20 years or so lets have a conversation on the benifits of someone elses stuff, fools still will be fools.

  98. Paige says:

    If you look at the Guardian on-line they have an article about a restaurant in Covant Garden that serves breastmilk ice cream. Endangering the lives of Britons and tourists everywhere! And they screen there milk mamas the same way I do for my daughter! Whoa! LOL!

    1. emom says:

      hey guess what britain is now looking into the safety of this breast milk icecream saw it on line today seems even they beleive this may not be a good idea.. yeah get back to me in 20 years to see if the benifits outway the risks,,, spreading your germs is not a good idea…its like sneezing on your friends food,, talk about risks

  99. neither friend nor foe says:

    another reason not to get married. womens iqs are just too low. quite sad. this headline made me cringe. poor children they always get it worse.

  100. Samantha Putnam says:

    Okay, I have a question. So I can walk in my kitchen and thaw a bag of MY breast milk to feed to MY baby, and that’s perfectly okay (recommended even!). But if another woman were to feed that same bag of milk to HER baby, it’s EXTREMELY RISKY? Why? Seems like a double standard to me.

    This isn’t as dangerous as some people want to make it out to be. My medical records show that I’m disease free and healthy. My baby’s medical records show that he is exclusively breastfed by me, and he’s also disease free and healthy. So what’s the problem?

    I’ll tell you what the problem is: there’s no monetary profit to be had for ANYONE. I don’t charge anything for my milk, I GIVE IT AWAY. That’s right FOR FREE. That’s what’s got so many people’s feathers ruffled: the fact that they can’t profit from this in some way.

  101. emom says:

    YEAH you still dont get it, You know its ok, but truely , the rest of the world DOES NOT. with so much that people come in contact with , its very difficult to be absolutly sure with out haveing it tested prior to use, and sorry that is a huge expense for wither party.. You may think your fine, oh but wait what about your partner, truth be told the other person can transmitt a disease, what about those you are exposed with ,, aaahhh like measles, colds, it happens and you may not even be aware of it, there are way to many scenerios of what could happen. so as for all this safetly its not safe to say that its totally safe,, but if some rather have the risks over safety , whos stopping them,,

  102. blue says:

    man…there are some sick, neurotic, paranoid people posting here.

  103. savings says:

    lortzea nire duzu beti gogorra, baina zer definitly merezi izan zela. Dut behar hi esan eta esango dizu i atzera izango

  104. Full Sheet Sets says:

Leave a Reply to Angel_B Cancel reply

Google+ photo

Twitter picture

Facebook photo

Connecting to %s<|endoftext|>From The Vaults

03 July 2017
Remembering Drewy Stoddart - ‘the most famous sportsman in Queen Victoria’s empire’

Name: Andrew Ernest Stoddart

Birthplace: Westoe Position: Threequarter
Total Caps: 10
Calcutta Cups: 1 retained
Triple Crowns: 0 Outright
Championship Victories: 0
Grand Slams: n/a
World Cups: n/a

The man dubbed 'the most famous sportsman in Queen Victoria's empire' was born in County Durham in 1860. His sporting proficiency was quickly recognised and he became only the second man in history to captain England at both cricket and rugby. Brilliant as a wing but equally adept amongst the centres, Stoddart was described as a dashing individualist who, once in his stride, was practically unstoppable. A fierce competitor, he won many matches with the accuracy of his drop-kicking and is known to have regularly hurdled opponents in search of the try-line. He was first selected for England in 1885. Between 1885 and 1889 he played in six tests without defeat. He then captained his side four times over the following four seasons. Away from the national side he became the first captain of the Barbarians invitation side and also captained the side that would become the British and Irish Lions during their first tour in 1888. He is also on record as being the first player to have scored an underwater try for Harlequins on a waterlogged Chislehurst Common. He reportedly played his last games for England with elastic knee caps on both knees, anklets on both ankles and a rubber bandage on his elbow. The following is an extract from a poem printed in Punch magazine after Stoddart had captained the English cricket team to their ashes victory in 1894/5:

Then wrote the Queen of England,

Whose hand is blessed by God,

I must do something handsome,

For my dear victorious Stod'

About the Author: This article is an extract from the book One of Us: England's Greatest Rugby Players, available here. Phil McGowan has been a member of the World Rugby Museum team since 2007. Follow the World Rugby Museum on Facebook and Twitter<|endoftext|>Eric is a crafter of many things, Leslie is not a crafter at all therefore _ knows little about glue.
Option 1: Eric
Option 2: Leslie
Answer: 2<|endoftext|>

Quote# 47957

I live in the pathetic country that is England, Well I'll rephrase that It is a lovely country that is a mess!

people are

 to debate, and the only reason their is a debate is because there are too many extremists involved…there are too many women that feel society has to be “taught a lesson” by undermining the status quo instead of working to positively change it through education and respect to naysayers. No one wants to hear how disgusting they are for drinking milk or why formula babies are statically dumber than breastfed babies…I’m actually amazed at the lack of respect people show their causes by acting like complete jerks…and I must say this statement applies to most of the moms on this forum. I don’t agree with how “eats on feets” is implemented, and not because I am uneducated or miseducated. It is a personal preference, and that does not make me a bad parent. I think that breastfeeding a four-year-old is inappropriate FOR MY CHILDREN, but if a mother chooses to do it that’s her own thing. I have quite a few friends on the breastfeeding militia on Facebook, and all they do, literally is try to show their boobs online and complain when Facebook deletes them, or criticize those who don’t agree with their POV. THAT is why there is a debate…because breastfeeding proponents have gone out of their way to make other mothers feel inferior and to take a harsh stance against anyone who disagrees with anything they say. And as long as the breastfeeding militia conducts their business in such a manner, they can expect strong opposition.

  94. Paige says:

    So interesting, read this in The Guardian…seems like Brits are as progressive as the folks at Eats on Feats…

  95. emom says:

    AAAHHHH gulible trusting niave fools, When someone desides to SUE over what should be a “SAFE” and healthy substance ,,, welll, I can image what someone will say.,,,, I was assured it was safe, free of all chemicals, medications, alchohol, it was dye free, nothing but pure clean healthy milk, we checked out the persons diet, she showed us a diary of what she eat, how she lived, who she was exposed to , when anyone got sick and gave details of her life,, with that we felt it was the best breastmilk to give to our adopted new born.. But within a few weeks she developed a rash and then a respitory problem, come to find out all that was disclosed was not as true as it should be, I feel I was lied to and decieved. I am sueing for damaged to my babies immune system and the cost of medical bills, and the pain and suffering my baby may have to deal with in the future, she is only 3 months old and she is scared for life, Now this sounds like a real case but its not, its merely a possible scenerio,,, but hey sounds extremely plausible,
    Yeah guilible fools need to wake up from your healthy comas and get real, the world lies and you need to get reall…

  96. emom says:

  97. emom says:

    There are some real niave folks on this story, gee, still cant wait for when someone is wronged and BOOM a brand new story,,, If You think this is good then so be it , but many of us seem to think is dangerous, HEY BUY CARRY ON AS USUALL<<< in 20 years or so lets have a conversation on the benifits of someone elses stuff, fools still will be fools.

  98. Paige says:

    If you look at the Guardian on-line they have an article about a restaurant in Covant Garden that serves breastmilk ice cream. Endangering the lives of Britons and tourists everywhere! And they screen there milk mamas the same way I do for my daughter! Whoa! LOL!

    1. emom says:

      hey guess what britain is now looking into the safety of this breast milk icecream saw it on line today seems even they beleive this may not be a good idea.. yeah get back to me in 20 years to see if the benifits outway the risks,,, spreading your germs is not a good idea…its like sneezing on your friends food,, talk about risks

  99. neither friend nor foe says:

    another reason not to get married. womens iqs are just too low. quite sad. this headline made me cringe. poor children they always get it worse.

  100. Samantha Putnam says:

    Okay, I have a question. So I can walk in my kitchen and thaw a bag of MY breast milk to feed to MY baby, and that’s perfectly okay (recommended even!). But if another woman were to feed that same bag of milk to HER baby, it’s EXTREMELY RISKY? Why? Seems like a double standard to me.

    This isn’t as dangerous as some people want to make it out to be. My medical records show that I’m disease free and healthy. My baby’s medical records show that he is exclusively breastfed by me, and he’s also disease free and healthy. So what’s the problem?

    I’ll tell you what the problem is: there’s no monetary profit to be had for ANYONE. I don’t charge anything for my milk, I GIVE IT AWAY. That’s right FOR FREE. That’s what’s got so many people’s feathers ruffled: the fact that they can’t profit from this in some way.

  101. emom says:

    YEAH you still dont get it, You know its ok, but truely , the rest of the world DOES NOT. with so much that people come in contact with , its very difficult to be absolutly sure with out haveing it tested prior to use, and sorry that is a huge expense for wither party.. You may think your fine, oh but wait what about your partner, truth be told the other person can transmitt a disease, what about those you are exposed with ,, aaahhh like measles, colds, it happens and you may not even be aware of it, there are way to many scenerios of what could happen. so as for all this safetly its not safe to say that its totally safe,, but if some rather have the risks over safety , whos stopping them,,

  102. blue says:

    man…there are some sick, neurotic, paranoid people posting here.

  103. savings says:

    lortzea nire duzu beti gogorra, baina zer definitly merezi izan zela. Dut behar hi esan eta esango dizu i atzera izango

  104. Full Sheet Sets says:

Leave a Reply to Angel_B Cancel reply

Google+ photo

Twitter picture

Facebook photo

Connecting to %s<|endoftext|>From The Vaults

03 July 2017
Remembering Drewy Stoddart - ‘the most famous sportsman in Queen Victoria’s empire’

Name: Andrew Ernest Stoddart

Birthplace: Westoe Position: Threequarter
Total Caps: 10
Calcutta Cups: 1 retained
Triple Crowns: 0 Outright
Championship Victories: 0
Grand Slams: n/a
World Cups: n/a

The man dubbed 'the most famous sportsman in Queen Victoria's empire' was born in County Durham in 1860. His sporting proficiency was quickly recognised and he became only the second man in history to captain England at both cricket and rugby. Brilliant as a wing but equally adept amongst the centres, Stoddart was described as a dashing individualist who, once in his stride, was practically unstoppable. A fierce competitor, he won many matches with the accuracy of his drop-kicking and is known to have regularly hurdled opponents in search of the try-line. He was first selected for England in 1885. Between 1885 and 1889 he played in six tests without defeat. He then captained his side four times over the following four seasons. Away from the national side he became the first captain of the Barbarians invitation side and also captained the side that would become the British and Irish Lions during their first tour in 1888. He is also on record as being the first player to have scored an underwater try for Harlequins on a waterlogged Chislehurst Common. He reportedly played his last games for England with elastic knee caps on both knees, anklets on both ankles and a rubber bandage on his elbow. The following is an extract from a poem printed in Punch magazine after Stoddart had captained the English cricket team to their ashes victory in 1894/5:

Then wrote the Queen of England,

Whose hand is blessed by God,

I must do something handsome,

For my dear victorious Stod'

About the Author: This article is an extract from the book One of Us: England's Greatest Rugby Players, available here. Phil McGowan has been a member of the World Rugby Museum team since 2007. Follow the World Rugby Museum on Facebook and Twitter<|endoftext|>

Quote# 47957

I live in the pathetic country that is England, Well I'll rephrase that It is a lovely country that is a mess!

people are dwelling on my past, before I was a Christian I was evil, now I have changed but everyone dwells on my past and say horrible


When washing clothes, Jeffrey's turn out less clean than Michael's because _ uses a high-priced detergent.
Option 1: Jeffrey
Option 2: Michael
Answer: 2<|endoftext|>

Monday, July 7, 2008

The Giant Wheel

It scares me.
It makes my heart beat faster than I never knew it could, and brings it to a standstill that I feel I'm no longer alive.

A long time back, someone shared this secret with me, on enjoying the ride on a Giant Wheel.
He said: breathe in when it goes up.. hold your breath while you are up there, and breathe out when it comes down.

A good 11 years later, I got onto a giant wheel again, on impulse.. well, to be honest, the reason I got into it was that, it was the tiniest giant (kindly notice the irony) wheel I bumped into, in a real long time! :P
I did exactly what was advised.. and I did have a joy ride.

What I realised this time around is that, the Giant wheel trick applies to Life as well..
1. Breathe it all in when the good times come.. hold on to them while they are there.. and just breathe out the tough times.
because the giant wheel will always keep turning no matter what, and it's better to have a good ride while you're at it!
2. Be wary when something takes you on a high too fast, 'coz before you could realise, you'll be let down from a height, as fast as it took you there!
3. Whatever goes around, comes around. Also, whatever comes around, goes around.

on a not-so-philosophical note:

Why am I talking about giant wheels today?
This is an eerie incident that happened last week.
And today, it's another nightmare.
I wonder why they are called joyrides, afterall?

Anyways, now that I'm in the 'getting scared-and scaring others' mode, lemme share one of my most dreaded nightmares.. [the roller coaster video clip from Final Destination 3]
Njoy! *evil grin*

Thursday, July 3, 2008

so, what changed your life?

I've been going through one of those metamorphosis phases in life. Things happen, take you offguard, sweep you off your feet before you could even realise, and thud! your are thrown down with a bang.. and then you pick yourself up, brush off the dust, nurse your wounds, think over it, promise yourself to be more careful, and without realising, end up altering your life and outlook towards it to an extent. Most of the time, this metamorphosis happens without awareness..

And then today, someone at work just caught me offguard: 'Hey!! Good Morning. So Usha, WHAT changed your life?'
Me: 'umm.. well.. ahem.. ??!'

Change is good.

other updates: went to the Infant Jesus church today, after a real long time. Experienced 'peace in chaos' for one more time. Loved it.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

That's exactly where I was a few months back..
Miserable, and in denial mode after being pushed in to committing to something I've been running away from, for more than a decade now.

My certification exam voucher's validity was till June 30, and as any typical adiyal bachha, I was just putting it off to the (n-2)nd day. Actually, I realised I'm better off, as I just bumped into quite a few folks who put it off to the nth day.. I'm proud of you, my buddies!! no, really!

So, I've been making real honest efforts to get out of my mental block, you know..
Tried several silly tactics to trick my brain into learning it.
One of them was to go learn something I've always wanted to, so that I could balance it with something I've never wanted to learn.. n so, enrolled myself for the Guitar classes.. It was super fun. Though a few 'Bonnies' and '500 miles' later, I had to take a break from it.. (no, not forever. I'm definitely going to get back to it sooon!)
After the carrot trick, it was the turn of the stick.. so I've been putting off all those short trip plans, the very inviting trekk plans, postponing meeting up with all my lovely dost log until after June.

But in spite of all this, like any typical loser, I had 101 excuses to put off the preps for until the last couple of months.. and then, suddenly life went topsy turvy at all fronts possible.. and here I am, at the last one week of my deadline, with another couple of very important deadlines coinciding with the same.. and for toppings, the 7 year itch at work. wow! how better could that get!

But I'm not a loser, Am I? The countdown showed 2 more days to go, and I decided to pull up my sleeves, and go for it. Result? I got the certification and made it with a clear 75%. yay!!
It might not be a great score, but for someone who was so unsure about clearing the test, this definitely is like an icing on the cake!

I might have cracked tougher tests and fought tougher fights, but this success is soo soooo special to me, for its perfect timing.. This is exactly what I wanted right now for a kick-start.
Gee.. I can't stop grinning today!

I can't remember the last time I rode through Brigade road, with the crawly Bangy weekend traffic + the messy Bangalore rain, and still crooning away :

Have a super duper week ahead, people!! :)

PS: It would be unfair if I don't give due credit to Mummy's prayers.. God, really.. how d'you always listen to her prayers and not mine? well newys, as long as you listen to hers, I'm fine with it! :)
One beeg hug to Hem for putting up with all my dumb quirks and being my guardian angel, Anubha for pinging me with all the study materials, Dimples for all those memory tapping tricks she taught me a decade back. Suni, for re-kindling my trust in the 'power of mind' and Meg for that line: 'I want you to stand up and fight'. Su, Shals and Lalit, for being there for me. Love you, honeys! muah!
errmmm.. okies, that sounds more like an award speech.. well ahem.. kindly excuse, peopleses. I just got carried away.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

When somebody shoot you in the head it make you think

The lesson I've been trying to learn over and over again (and still learning) is that quickfixes never really solve any problem. Workarounds are just about turning a blind eye to the issue. So people, when I said having an ice-cream could cure me of a cold, it was just a quickfix. The cold monster is back again with all its might and for once I've decided to let it have it's way and don't play around it with my self-medications.

Yesterday, I went home with a heavy head and a heavier heart, and watched a movie, though the title wasn't too appealing for my state of mind then.. 'I love you to death' . 1st scene, 1st shot, was a pizza. So there we go craving for our favorite 'Saas bahu special' pizza from Sweet Chariot's.. (People who haven't tried that, please do.. again, a quick and easy way to clear a congested nose! :P) and top it up with a couple of mocha cakes..

The movie is a dark comedy.. A queer one.. It's hilarious in a certain way.. More to do with the way the story is told and is enacted.. the fake Italian accent.. and the underlying sarcasm.. A good watch for a tired weekday evening.

Why am I blogging about it anyways? Because I liked a line in that which I would like to quote in here:
'When somebody shoot you in the head, it make you think'
Very true, no?

Thursday, June 19, 2008

The 'I' factor

Tadaa!! another 'tag' time!
Dhanya just passed on this tag, and I was more than happy to take it up.. When one is facing a bloggers' block, tags are the best things that can happen to her.
It's more of an 'I, Me, Myself' one, and I must confess it wasn't too easy doing it, as it seemed at first.. So, there you go!!

I am: blessed (touchwoood!!)
I think: rationally (how I wish i could suffix it with 'always'. sigh!)
I know: not much.. there's always more to know!
I want: to dig my teeth deep into a sinful chocolate eclair.. slurrrp...
I have: my sanity intact (no, really! tee hee)
I wish: I could have a pair of wings to fly around.. but i have my own functional specifications for them, though.. they should make no regular fluttering sounds.. well, will that

Monday, July 7, 2008

The Giant Wheel

It scares me.
It makes my heart beat faster than I never knew it could, and brings it to a standstill that I feel I'm no longer alive.

A long time back, someone shared this secret with me, on enjoying the ride on a Giant Wheel.
He said: breathe in when it goes up.. hold your breath while you are up there, and breathe out when it comes down.

A good 11 years later, I got onto a giant wheel again, on impulse.. well, to be honest, the reason I got into it was that, it was the tiniest giant (kindly notice the irony) wheel I bumped into, in a real long time! :P
I did exactly what was advised.. and I did have a joy ride.

What I realised this time around is that, the Giant wheel trick applies to Life as well..
1. Breathe it all in when the good times come.. hold on to them while they are there.. and just breathe out the tough times.
because the giant wheel will always keep turning no matter what, and it's better to have a good ride while you're at it!
2. Be wary when something takes you on a high too fast, 'coz before you could realise, you'll be let down from a height, as fast as it took you there!
3. Whatever goes around, comes around. Also, whatever comes around, goes around.

on a not-so-philosophical note:

Why am I talking about giant wheels today?
This is an eerie incident that happened last week.
And today, it's another nightmare.
I wonder why they are called joyrides, afterall?

Anyways, now that I'm in the 'getting scared-and scaring others' mode, lemme share one of my most dreaded nightmares.. [the roller coaster video clip from Final Destination 3]
Njoy! *evil grin*

Thursday, July 3, 2008

so, what changed your life?

I've been going through one of those metamorphosis phases in life. Things happen, take you offguard, sweep you off your feet before you could even realise, and thud! your are thrown down with a bang.. and then you pick yourself up, brush off the dust, nurse your wounds, think over it, promise yourself to be more careful, and without realising, end up altering your life and outlook towards it to an extent. Most of the time, this metamorphosis happens without awareness..

And then today, someone at work just caught me offguard: 'Hey!! Good Morning. So Usha, WHAT changed your life?'
Me: 'umm.. well.. ahem.. ??!'

Change is good.

other updates: went to the Infant Jesus church today, after a real long time. Experienced 'peace in chaos' for one more time. Loved it.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

That's exactly where I was a few months back..
Miserable, and in denial mode after being pushed in to committing to something I've been running away from, for more than a decade now.

My certification exam voucher's validity was till June 30, and as any typical adiyal bachha, I was just putting it off to the (n-2)nd day. Actually, I realised I'm better off, as I just bumped into quite a few folks who put it off to the nth day.. I'm proud of you, my buddies!! no, really!

So, I've been making real honest efforts to get out of my mental block, you know..
Tried several silly tactics to trick my brain into learning it.
One of them was to go learn something I've always wanted to, so that I could balance it with something I've never wanted to learn.. n so, enrolled myself for the Guitar classes.. It was super fun. Though a few 'Bonnies' and '500 miles' later, I had to take a break from it.. (no, not forever. I'm definitely going to get back to it sooon!)
After the carrot trick, it was the turn of the stick.. so I've been putting off all those short trip plans, the very inviting trekk plans, postponing meeting up with all my lovely dost log until after June.

But in spite of all this, like any typical loser, I had 101 excuses to put off the preps for until the last couple of months.. and then, suddenly life went topsy turvy at all fronts possible.. and here I am, at the last one week of my deadline, with another couple of very important deadlines coinciding with the same.. and for toppings, the 7 year itch at work. wow! how better could that get!

But I'm not a loser, Am I? The countdown showed 2 more days to go, and I decided to pull up my sleeves, and go for it. Result? I got the certification and made it with a clear 75%. yay!!
It might not be a great score, but for someone who was so unsure about clearing the test, this definitely is like an icing on the cake!

I might have cracked tougher tests and fought tougher fights, but this success is soo soooo special to me, for its perfect timing.. This is exactly what I wanted right now for a kick-start.
Gee.. I can't stop grinning today!

I can't remember the last time I rode through Brigade road, with the crawly Bangy weekend traffic + the messy Bangalore rain, and still crooning away :

Have a super duper week ahead, people!! :)

PS: It would be unfair if I don't give due credit to Mummy's prayers.. God, really.. how d'you always listen to her prayers and not mine? well newys, as long as you listen to hers, I'm fine with it! :)
One beeg hug to Hem for putting up with all my dumb quirks and being my guardian angel, Anubha for pinging me with all the study materials, Dimples for all those memory tapping tricks she taught me a decade back. Suni, for re-kindling my trust in the 'power of mind' and Meg for that line: 'I want you to stand up and fight'. Su, Shals and Lalit, for being there for me. Love you, honeys! muah!
errmmm.. okies, that sounds more like an award speech.. well ahem.. kindly excuse, peopleses. I just got carried away.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

When somebody shoot you in the head it make you think

The lesson I've been trying to learn over and over again (and still learning) is that quickfixes never really solve any problem. Workarounds are just about turning a blind eye to the issue. So people, when I said having an ice-cream could cure me of a cold, it was just a quickfix. The cold monster is back again with all its might and for once I've decided to let it have it's way and don't play around it with my self-medications.

Yesterday, I went home with a heavy head and a heavier heart, and watched a movie, though the title wasn't too appealing for my state of mind then.. 'I love you to death' . 1st scene, 1st shot, was a pizza. So there we go craving for our favorite 'Saas bahu special' pizza from Sweet Chariot's.. (People who haven't tried that, please do.. again, a quick and easy way to clear a congested nose! :P) and top it up with a couple of mocha cakes..

The movie is a dark comedy.. A queer one.. It's hilarious in a certain way.. More to do with the way the story is told and is enacted.. the fake Italian accent.. and the underlying sarcasm.. A good watch for a tired weekday evening.

Why am I blogging about it anyways? Because I liked a line in that which I would like to quote in here:
'When somebody shoot you in the head, it make you think'
Very true, no?

Thursday, June 19, 2008

The 'I' factor

Tadaa!! another 'tag' time!
Dhanya just passed on this tag, and I was more than happy to take it up.. When one is facing a bloggers' block, tags are the best things that can happen to her.
It's more of an 'I, Me, Myself' one, and I must confess it wasn't too easy doing it, as it seemed at first.. So, there you go!!

I am: blessed (touchwoood!!)
I think: rationally (how I wish i could suffix it with 'always'. sigh!)
I know: not much.. there's always more to know!
I want: to dig my teeth deep into a sinful chocolate eclair.. slurrrp...
I have: my sanity intact (no, really! tee hee)
I wish: I could have a pair of wings to fly around.. but i have my own functional specifications for them, though.. they should make no regular fluttering sounds.. well, will that make me a bat-woman then? a vampire? i don't need no blood, though.. only chocolate for me please, thankyou! :) geez.. that sounds


In class, Aaron made fun of the art Derrick had made, making _ feel superior.
Option 1: Aaron
Option 2: Derrick
Answer: 1<|endoftext|> the Maraytas said, another family in town had accused Kamal Marayta of helping the Israelis kill one of their sons. Palestinian police investigated but ultimately pronounced him innocent.

No one has been arrested in the Feb. 1 slaying, and the police will not divulge details of their investigation. But the Maraytas suspect that a member of the other family was not satisfied with the police judgment and decided to mete out his own punishment.

Now the Maraytas have another worry. The family they suspect has good connections in the security forces, they say, and they fear that the police may be persuaded not to press charges.

Copyright © 2020, Chicago Tribune<|endoftext|>Is Inglourious Basterds director Quentin Tarantino all washed up—or just hitting his stride?

Arts, entertainment, and more.
Aug. 20 2009 1:13 PM

Quentin Tarantino

Has one of the most overrated directors of the '90s become one of the most underrated of the aughts?

Illustration by Charlie Powell. Click image to expand.

Quentin Tarantino concludes his seventh feature, the Nazi-bludgeoning fantasy Inglourious Basterds, with a grisly flourish and a self-satisfied review. Having performed one of his signature mutilations, a character peers down at his handiwork and into the camera and declares: "This might just be my masterpiece." This is typical Tarantino bluster, in keeping with the image of the bratty wunderkind that he worked hard to cultivate and that, even at 46, he refuses to outgrow. But as the rare filmmaker who's also an avid reader of film reviews, he also surely knows that it's been a while since the critical establishment thought of him as a maker of masterpieces.

Since it premiered at Cannes in May, Basterds has met with some wildly conflicting reactions (some of them—no surprise given its breezily outrageous approach to a loaded subject—highly negative and morally accusatory). Tarantino's career since Pulp Fiction continues to seem like one long backlash. Could it be that one of the most overrated directors of the '90s has become one of the most underrated of the aughts?

Tarantino's filmography is split in two by the six-year gap that separated Jackie Brown (1997) and Kill Bill Vol. 1(2003), during which, among other things, he worked on the notoriously unwieldy Basterds screenplay (which was at one point supposed to be a miniseries). The received wisdom has it that he never quite made a comeback. But the criticisms most frequently leveled against him these days—he's a rip-off artist, he makes movies that relate only to other movies, he knows nothing of real life, he could use some sensitivity training—apply equally, if not more so, to the earlier films. (Reservoir Dogs lifted many of its tricks directly from the Hong Kong film City on Fire; Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown are the Tarantino movies with the most flamboyant use of racist language.) Reviewers and audiences may have wearied of the blowhard auteur, but there's an argument to be made that Tarantino, far from a burnout case, is just hitting his stride, and that his movies, in recent years, have only grown freer and more radical.

Taken as a yin-yang whole, Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 constitute a globe-spanning feat of genre scholarship, blithely connecting the dots from Chinese kung fu to Japanese swordplay, from blaxploitation to manga to spaghetti Western. Tarantino's reference-happy method is often dismissed as know-it-all geekery or stunted nostalgia, the video-store dreams of an eternal fanboy. But there is something strikingly of the moment and perhaps even utopian about Kill Bill's obsessive pastiche, which at once celebrates and demonstrates the possibilities of the voracious, hyperlinked 21st-century media gestalt: the idea that whole histories and entire worlds of pop culture are up for grabs, waiting to be revived, reclaimed, remixed.

First released as part of Grindhouse, 2007's double-header exercise in retro sleaze, Death Proof confirmed that Tarantino has no interest, or maybe is incapable of, straightforward homage, even when that's the nominal assignment. While partner in crime Robert Rodriguez tossed off a scattershot bit of zombie schlock for his contribution (Planet Terror), Tarantino borrowed a few motifs from sorority slashers and car-chase zone-outs and fashioned a curious formal experiment that would have given a '70s exploitation producer fits. Death Proof (on DVD in an unrated, extended version) is split down the middle into mirror-image halves. In each segment, the same scenario unfolds (with very different outcomes): a group of young women has a scary run-in with Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), a killer in a muscle car, and the exhilarating final burst of action is preceded by a provocatively long bout of directionless yapping.

Like their creator, Tarantino's characters never shut up and are plainly enthralled by the sound of their own voices. More than the spasms of violence, the lifeblood of his movies is their ornate dialogue, which tends to unfurl at great, meandering length. (Tarantino was sly enough to call attention to this hallmark early on: In Reservoir Dogs, when Tim Roth's character, an undercover cop, is handed the scripted anecdote that he will have to perform to pass as Mr. Orange, he balks at the sheer level of detail: "I've got to memorize all this? There's over four fucking pages of shit here.") Tarantino movies are known for two kinds of verbal expulsions: the stem-winding monologue (Samuel L. Jackson's Old Testament shtick in Pulp Fiction) and the micro-observational tangent (Steve Buscemi's anti-tipping tirade in Reservoir Dogs). In Death Proof, which revels in a buzzed, leisurely camaraderie, he quietly masters a third kind: the language of downtime and hanging out, not exactly naturalistic (his most subdued chatter retains a heightened quality) but less baroque and truer to the rhythms of actual human interaction. Modest as it seems, Death Proof is in fact a clear-cut demonstration of Tarantino's gifts. By so pointedly breaking the film into long, alternating sections—talk, action, talk, action—he distends the normal rhythm of his movies, weighing aural against visual spectacle and pushing each to its limit.

But it's in Inglourious Basterds that the relationship between language and action becomes truly charged. Though the violence (much of it perpetrated by Jews against Nazis, with baseball bats and bowie knives) is graphic and memorable, the film consists largely of one-on-one verbal showdowns. As in Death Proof, but with greater purpose, Tarantino gives the conversations room to soar and stall and double back on themselves (especially in two agonizingly tense and protracted scenes, in a farmhouse and a basement tavern). Language is the chief weapon of the insinuating villain, brilliantly played by Christoph Waltz, a Nazi colonel fluent in German, English, French, and Italian. Power resides in the persuasiveness of speech; the success of undercover missions hinges on the ability to master accents; and as characters strive to maintain false pretenses, words are a means of forestalling death.

Inglourious Basterds addresses head-on many of the standard anti-Tarantino criticisms. You say he makes movies that are just about movies? You think they present violence without a context? Luring the elite of the Third Reich to an Art Deco cinematheque in Nazi-occupied Paris, Basterds gleefully uses film history to turn the tables on world history; its context is nothing less than the worst atrocity of the 20th century. This only seems to have further infuriated Tarantino's detractors, some of whom are appalled that this terminal adolescent would dare to indulge his notorious penchant for vengeful wish fulfillment on such sensitive and sacrosanct material.

Needless to say, Tarantino's movie shares little common ground with—and, indeed, is probably a direct response to—your typical Holocaust drama. It has no interest in somber commemoration, and it refuses to deny the very real satisfactions of revenge. Like all of Tarantino's films, Inglourious Basterds is about its maker's crazy faith in movies, in their ability to create a parallel universe. His films have always implicitly insisted that movies are an alternative to real life, and with Inglourious Basterds, for the first time, he has done something at once preposterous and poignant: He takes that maxim at face value and creates his own counterfactual history. It may not be his masterpiece, but for sheer chutzpah, it will be hard to top.<|endoftext|>Make a blog

2 years ago

Trade Your Traditional Souvenirs With The Treasure Hunters Roadshow

Deer hunting is a complex sport that's been created through ages of training. In ancient times, naturally, any way

 the Maraytas said, another family in town had accused Kamal Marayta of helping the Israelis kill one of their sons. Palestinian police investigated but ultimately pronounced him innocent.

No one has been arrested in the Feb. 1 slaying, and the police will not divulge details of their investigation. But the Maraytas suspect that a member of the other family was not satisfied with the police judgment and decided to mete out his own punishment.

Now the Maraytas have another worry. The family they suspect has good connections in the security forces, they say, and they fear that the police may be persuaded not to press charges.

Copyright © 2020, Chicago Tribune<|endoftext|>Is Inglourious Basterds director Quentin Tarantino all washed up—or just hitting his stride?

Arts, entertainment, and more.
Aug. 20 2009 1:13 PM

Quentin Tarantino

Has one of the most overrated directors of the '90s become one of the most underrated of the aughts?

Illustration by Charlie Powell. Click image to expand.

Quentin Tarantino concludes his seventh feature, the Nazi-bludgeoning fantasy Inglourious Basterds, with a grisly flourish and a self-satisfied review. Having performed one of his signature mutilations, a character peers down at his handiwork and into the camera and declares: "This might just be my masterpiece." This is typical Tarantino bluster, in keeping with the image of the bratty wunderkind that he worked hard to cultivate and that, even at 46, he refuses to outgrow. But as the rare filmmaker who's also an avid reader of film reviews, he also surely knows that it's been a while since the critical establishment thought of him as a maker of masterpieces.

Since it premiered at Cannes in May, Basterds has met with some wildly conflicting reactions (some of them—no surprise given its breezily outrageous approach to a loaded subject—highly negative and morally accusatory). Tarantino's career since Pulp Fiction continues to seem like one long backlash. Could it be that one of the most overrated directors of the '90s has become one of the most underrated of the aughts?

Tarantino's filmography is split in two by the six-year gap that separated Jackie Brown (1997) and Kill Bill Vol. 1(2003), during which, among other things, he worked on the notoriously unwieldy Basterds screenplay (which was at one point supposed to be a miniseries). The received wisdom has it that he never quite made a comeback. But the criticisms most frequently leveled against him these days—he's a rip-off artist, he makes movies that relate only to other movies, he knows nothing of real life, he could use some sensitivity training—apply equally, if not more so, to the earlier films. (Reservoir Dogs lifted many of its tricks directly from the Hong Kong film City on Fire; Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown are the Tarantino movies with the most flamboyant use of racist language.) Reviewers and audiences may have wearied of the blowhard auteur, but there's an argument to be made that Tarantino, far from a burnout case, is just hitting his stride, and that his movies, in recent years, have only grown freer and more radical.

Taken as a yin-yang whole, Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 constitute a globe-spanning feat of genre scholarship, blithely connecting the dots from Chinese kung fu to Japanese swordplay, from blaxploitation to manga to spaghetti Western. Tarantino's reference-happy method is often dismissed as know-it-all geekery or stunted nostalgia, the video-store dreams of an eternal fanboy. But there is something strikingly of the moment and perhaps even utopian about Kill Bill's obsessive pastiche, which at once celebrates and demonstrates the possibilities of the voracious, hyperlinked 21st-century media gestalt: the idea that whole histories and entire worlds of pop culture are up for grabs, waiting to be revived, reclaimed, remixed.

First released as part of Grindhouse, 2007's double-header exercise in retro sleaze, Death Proof confirmed that Tarantino has no interest, or maybe is incapable of, straightforward homage, even when that's the nominal assignment. While partner in crime Robert Rodriguez tossed off a scattershot bit of zombie schlock for his contribution (Planet Terror), Tarantino borrowed a few motifs from sorority slashers and car-chase zone-outs and fashioned a curious formal experiment that would have given a '70s exploitation producer fits. Death Proof (on DVD in an unrated, extended version) is split down the middle into mirror-image halves. In each segment, the same scenario unfolds (with very different outcomes): a group of young women has a scary run-in with Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), a killer in a muscle car, and the exhilarating final burst of action is preceded by a provocatively long bout of directionless yapping.

Like their creator, Tarantino's characters never shut up and are plainly enthralled by the sound of their own voices. More than the spasms of violence, the lifeblood of his movies is their ornate dialogue, which tends to unfurl at great, meandering length. (Tarantino was sly enough to call attention to this hallmark early on: In Reservoir Dogs, when Tim Roth's character, an undercover cop, is handed the scripted anecdote that he will have to perform to pass as Mr. Orange, he balks at the sheer level of detail: "I've got to memorize all this? There's over four fucking pages of shit here.") Tarantino movies are known for two kinds of verbal expulsions: the stem-winding monologue (Samuel L. Jackson's Old Testament shtick in Pulp Fiction) and the micro-observational tangent (Steve Buscemi's anti-tipping tirade in Reservoir Dogs). In Death Proof, which revels in a buzzed, leisurely camaraderie, he quietly masters a third kind: the language of downtime and hanging out, not exactly naturalistic (his most subdued chatter retains a heightened quality) but less baroque and truer to the rhythms of actual human interaction. Modest as it seems, Death Proof is in fact a clear-cut demonstration of Tarantino's gifts. By so pointedly breaking the film into long, alternating sections—talk, action, talk, action—he distends the normal rhythm of his movies, weighing aural against visual spectacle and pushing each to its limit.

But it's in Inglourious Basterds that the relationship between language and action becomes truly charged. Though the violence (much of it perpetrated by Jews against Nazis, with baseball bats and bowie knives) is graphic and memorable, the film consists largely of one-on-one verbal showdowns. As in Death Proof, but with greater purpose, Tarantino gives the conversations room to soar and stall and double back on themselves (especially in two agonizingly tense and protracted scenes, in a farmhouse and a basement tavern). Language is the chief weapon of the insinuating villain, brilliantly played by Christoph Waltz, a Nazi colonel fluent in German, English, French, and Italian. Power resides in the persuasiveness of speech; the success of undercover missions hinges on the ability to master accents; and as characters strive to maintain false pretenses, words are a means of forestalling death.

Inglourious Basterds addresses head-on many of the standard anti-Tarantino criticisms. You say he makes movies that are just about movies? You think they present violence without a context? Luring the elite of the Third Reich to an Art Deco cinematheque in Nazi-occupied Paris, Basterds gleefully uses film history to turn the tables on world history; its context is nothing less than the worst atrocity of the 20th century. This only seems to have further infuriated Tarantino's detractors, some of whom are appalled that this terminal adolescent would dare to indulge his notorious penchant for vengeful wish fulfillment on such sensitive and sacrosanct material.

Needless to say, Tarantino's movie shares little common ground with—and, indeed, is probably a direct response to—your typical Holocaust drama. It has no interest in somber commemoration, and it refuses to deny the very real satisfactions of revenge. Like all of Tarantino's films, Inglourious Basterds is about its maker's crazy faith in movies, in their ability to create a parallel universe. His films have always implicitly insisted that movies are an alternative to real life, and with Inglourious Basterds, for the first time, he has done something at once preposterous and poignant: He takes that maxim at face value and creates his own counterfactual history. It may not be his masterpiece, but for sheer chutzpah, it will be hard to top.<|endoftext|>Make a blog

2 years ago

Trade Your Traditional Souvenirs With The Treasure Hunters Roadshow

Deer hunting is a complex sport that's been created through ages of training. In ancient times, naturally, any way kill and to capture a deer was the right way, as long as it provided and suffered town. On the other hand, worrying possible recreation off, or firing a go and


William yelled at Jason when _ told them how much they charged to the credit card.
Option 1: William
Option 2: Jason
Answer: 2<|endoftext|> any possibility of achieving social justice and a humane attitude. This is something essential in every democratic society toward every man, woman and child, irrespective of origin, race, religion and sex.

For 42 years we have been occupying, oppressing and stealing lands that are not ours. To be free in our land do we need to become thieving Cossacks, uprooters of trees, burners of fields and harassers of women, the elderly and the very young? "We have this land, we have it," goes the song, but what should have been said is "We have the power, we have it, we have the money, we have it, and we are allowed, we are," to starve an entire population, imprison it and annihilate it using air strikes, cluster bombs and white phosphorous. Because we are the lords of the land and God has chosen us to rule. For the shame of it.

"A unique people," wrote David Ben-Gurion. Alas, for that uniqueness. Instead of a Jewish and democratic state they have delivered us a Jewish state controlled by religious fanaticism, one that maintains the purity of the race. They have delivered a democracy in the most primitive sense - not the preservation of democratic values but rule by the demos, the populace that is dictating the transformation of Israel into a totalitarian ethnocracy.

Hooray for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman - they are eradicating everything we built, everything we dreamed about and everything we fought for.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

For 300 years Britain has outsourced mayhem. Finally it’s coming home

[It is a great day in the Western media when the British confess that their government is the biggest, longest-running criminal enterprise in human history. For humanity's sake let us pray that The Crown is finished.]

Opium, famine and banks all played their part in this country’s plundering of the globe. Now it’s over, we find it hard to accept

The past 15 years have produced the cash-for-questions racket, the Hinduja and EcclestoneBAE corruption probe, the cash-for-honours caper and the cash-for-amendments scandal. By comparison to the outright subversion of the functions of government in some of these cases, the is small beer. Any one of them should have prompted the sweeping political reforms we are now debating. But they didn’t. affairs, the lies and fabrications that led to the invasion of Iraq, the forced abandonment of the

The expenses scandal, by contrast, could kill the Labour party. It might also force politicians of all parties to address our unjust voting system, the unelected Lords, the excessive power of the executive, the legalised blackmail used by the whips, and a score of further anachronisms and injustices. Why is it different?

I believe that the current political crisis has little to do with the expenses scandal, still less with Gordon Brown’s leadership. It arises because our economic system can no longer extract wealth from other nations. For the past 300 years, the revolutions and reforms experienced by almost all other developed countries have been averted in Britain by foreign remittances.

The social unrest that might have transformed our politics was instead outsourced to our colonies and unwilling trading partners. The rebellions in Ireland, India, China, the Caribbean, Egypt, South Africa, Malaya, Kenya, Iran and other places we subjugated were the price of political peace in Britain. After decolonisation, our plunder of other nations was sustained by the banks. Now, for the first time in three centuries, they can no longer deliver, and we must at last confront our problems.

There will probably never be a full account of the robbery this country organised, but there are a few snapshots. In his book Capitalism and Colonial Production, Hamza Alavi estimates that the resource flow from India to Britain between 1793 and 1803 was in the order of £2m a year, the equivalent of many billions today. The economic drain from India, he notes, “has not only been a major factor in India’s impoverishment … it has also been a very significant factor in the industrial revolution in Britain”. As Ralph Davis observes in The Industrial Revolution and British Overseas Trade, from the 1760s onwards India’s wealth “bought the national debt back from the Dutch and others … leaving Britain nearly free from overseas indebtedness when it came to face the great French wars from 1793″.

In France by contrast, as Eric Hobsbawm notes in The Age of Revolution, “the financial troubles of the monarchy brought matters to a head”. In 1788 half of France’s national expenditure was used to service its debt: the “American War and its debt broke the back of the monarchy”.

Even as the French were overthrowing the ancien regime, Britain’s landed classes were able to strengthen their economic power, seizing common property from the country’s poor by means of enclosure. Partly as a result of remittances from India and the Caribbean, the economy was booming and the state had the funds to ride out political crises. Later, after smashing India’s own industrial capacity, Britain forced that country to become a major export market for our manufactured goods, sustaining industrial employment here (and avoiding social unrest) long after our products and processes became uncompetitive.

Colonial plunder permitted the British state to balance its resource deficits as well. For some 200 years a river of food flowed into this country from such places as Ireland, India and the Caribbean. In The Blood Never Dried, John Newsinger reveals that in 1748 Jamaica alone sent 17,400 tons of sugar to Britain; by 1815 this had risen to 73,800. It was all produced by stolen labour.

Just as grain was sucked out of Ireland at the height of its great famine, so Britain continued to drain India of food during its catastrophic hungers. In Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis shows that between 1876 and 1877 wheat exports to the UK from India doubled as subsistence there collapsed, and several million died of starvation. In the North-Western provinces famine was wholly engineered by British policy, as good harvests were exported to offset poor English production in 1876 and 1877.

Britain, in other words, outsourced famine as well as social unrest. There was terrible poverty in this country in the second half of the 19th century, but not mass starvation. The bad harvest of 1788 helped precipitate the French revolution, but the British state avoided such hazards. Others died on our behalf.

In the late 19th century, Davis shows, Britain’s vast deficits with the United States, Germany and its white dominions were balanced by huge annual surpluses with India and (as a result of the opium trade) China. For a generation “the starving Indian and Chinese peasantries … braced the entire system of international settlements, allowing England’s continued financial supremacy to temporarily co-exist with its relative industrial decline”. Britain’s trade surpluses with India allowed the City to become the world’s financial capital.

Its role in British colonisation was not a passive one. The bankruptcy, and subsequent British takeover, of Egypt in 1882 was hastened by a loan from Rothschild’s bank whose execution, Newsinger records, amounted to “fraud on a massive scale”. Jardine Matheson, once the biggest narco-trafficking outfit in history (it dominated the Chinese opium trade), later formed a major investment bank, Jardine Fleming. It was taken over by JP Morgan Chase in 2000.

We lost our colonies, but the plunder has continued by other means. As Joseph Stiglitz shows in Globalisation and its Discontents, the capital liberalisation forced on Asian economies by the IMF permitted northern traders to loot hundreds of billions of dollars, precipitating the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. Poorer nations have also been strong-armed into a series of amazingly one-sided treaties and commitments, such as trade-related investment measures, bilateral investment agreements and the EU’s economic partnership agreements. If you have ever wondered how a small, densely populated country which produces very little supports itself, I would urge you to study these asymmetric arrangements.

But now, as John Lanchester demonstrates in a fascinating essay in the London Review of Books, the City could be fatally wounded. The nation that relied on financial services may take generations to recover from their collapse. The great British adventure – three centuries spent pillaging the labour, wealth and resources of other countries – is over. We cannot accept this, and seek gleeful revenge on a government that can no longer insulate us from reality.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

And so - the dictator announces - there will be no trial, just a death sentence. Indeed, the prisoner is Christian, and the dictator says that the prisoner has asked for martyrdom according to his religious beliefs.

Would the rest of the world believe this is fair?

As the New York Times reports:

Raw Story clarifies that:

Does Innocence Matter?

According to NBC news:

The self-confessed "mastermind" of 9/11 also confessed to crimes which he could not have committed. He later said that he gave the interrogators a lot of false information - telling them what he thought they wanted to hear - in an attempt to stop the torture. We also know

 any possibility of achieving social justice and a humane attitude. This is something essential in every democratic society toward every man, woman and child, irrespective of origin, race, religion and sex.

For 42 years we have been occupying, oppressing and stealing lands that are not ours. To be free in our land do we need to become thieving Cossacks, uprooters of trees, burners of fields and harassers of women, the elderly and the very young? "We have this land, we have it," goes the song, but what should have been said is "We have the power, we have it, we have the money, we have it, and we are allowed, we are," to starve an entire population, imprison it and annihilate it using air strikes, cluster bombs and white phosphorous. Because we are the lords of the land and God has chosen us to rule. For the shame of it.

"A unique people," wrote David Ben-Gurion. Alas, for that uniqueness. Instead of a Jewish and democratic state they have delivered us a Jewish state controlled by religious fanaticism, one that maintains the purity of the race. They have delivered a democracy in the most primitive sense - not the preservation of democratic values but rule by the demos, the populace that is dictating the transformation of Israel into a totalitarian ethnocracy.

Hooray for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman - they are eradicating everything we built, everything we dreamed about and everything we fought for.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

For 300 years Britain has outsourced mayhem. Finally it’s coming home

[It is a great day in the Western media when the British confess that their government is the biggest, longest-running criminal enterprise in human history. For humanity's sake let us pray that The Crown is finished.]

Opium, famine and banks all played their part in this country’s plundering of the globe. Now it’s over, we find it hard to accept

The past 15 years have produced the cash-for-questions racket, the Hinduja and EcclestoneBAE corruption probe, the cash-for-honours caper and the cash-for-amendments scandal. By comparison to the outright subversion of the functions of government in some of these cases, the is small beer. Any one of them should have prompted the sweeping political reforms we are now debating. But they didn’t. affairs, the lies and fabrications that led to the invasion of Iraq, the forced abandonment of the

The expenses scandal, by contrast, could kill the Labour party. It might also force politicians of all parties to address our unjust voting system, the unelected Lords, the excessive power of the executive, the legalised blackmail used by the whips, and a score of further anachronisms and injustices. Why is it different?

I believe that the current political crisis has little to do with the expenses scandal, still less with Gordon Brown’s leadership. It arises because our economic system can no longer extract wealth from other nations. For the past 300 years, the revolutions and reforms experienced by almost all other developed countries have been averted in Britain by foreign remittances.

The social unrest that might have transformed our politics was instead outsourced to our colonies and unwilling trading partners. The rebellions in Ireland, India, China, the Caribbean, Egypt, South Africa, Malaya, Kenya, Iran and other places we subjugated were the price of political peace in Britain. After decolonisation, our plunder of other nations was sustained by the banks. Now, for the first time in three centuries, they can no longer deliver, and we must at last confront our problems.

There will probably never be a full account of the robbery this country organised, but there are a few snapshots. In his book Capitalism and Colonial Production, Hamza Alavi estimates that the resource flow from India to Britain between 1793 and 1803 was in the order of £2m a year, the equivalent of many billions today. The economic drain from India, he notes, “has not only been a major factor in India’s impoverishment … it has also been a very significant factor in the industrial revolution in Britain”. As Ralph Davis observes in The Industrial Revolution and British Overseas Trade, from the 1760s onwards India’s wealth “bought the national debt back from the Dutch and others … leaving Britain nearly free from overseas indebtedness when it came to face the great French wars from 1793″.

In France by contrast, as Eric Hobsbawm notes in The Age of Revolution, “the financial troubles of the monarchy brought matters to a head”. In 1788 half of France’s national expenditure was used to service its debt: the “American War and its debt broke the back of the monarchy”.

Even as the French were overthrowing the ancien regime, Britain’s landed classes were able to strengthen their economic power, seizing common property from the country’s poor by means of enclosure. Partly as a result of remittances from India and the Caribbean, the economy was booming and the state had the funds to ride out political crises. Later, after smashing India’s own industrial capacity, Britain forced that country to become a major export market for our manufactured goods, sustaining industrial employment here (and avoiding social unrest) long after our products and processes became uncompetitive.

Colonial plunder permitted the British state to balance its resource deficits as well. For some 200 years a river of food flowed into this country from such places as Ireland, India and the Caribbean. In The Blood Never Dried, John Newsinger reveals that in 1748 Jamaica alone sent 17,400 tons of sugar to Britain; by 1815 this had risen to 73,800. It was all produced by stolen labour.

Just as grain was sucked out of Ireland at the height of its great famine, so Britain continued to drain India of food during its catastrophic hungers. In Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis shows that between 1876 and 1877 wheat exports to the UK from India doubled as subsistence there collapsed, and several million died of starvation. In the North-Western provinces famine was wholly engineered by British policy, as good harvests were exported to offset poor English production in 1876 and 1877.

Britain, in other words, outsourced famine as well as social unrest. There was terrible poverty in this country in the second half of the 19th century, but not mass starvation. The bad harvest of 1788 helped precipitate the French revolution, but the British state avoided such hazards. Others died on our behalf.

In the late 19th century, Davis shows, Britain’s vast deficits with the United States, Germany and its white dominions were balanced by huge annual surpluses with India and (as a result of the opium trade) China. For a generation “the starving Indian and Chinese peasantries … braced the entire system of international settlements, allowing England’s continued financial supremacy to temporarily co-exist with its relative industrial decline”. Britain’s trade surpluses with India allowed the City to become the world’s financial capital.

Its role in British colonisation was not a passive one. The bankruptcy, and subsequent British takeover, of Egypt in 1882 was hastened by a loan from Rothschild’s bank whose execution, Newsinger records, amounted to “fraud on a massive scale”. Jardine Matheson, once the biggest narco-trafficking outfit in history (it dominated the Chinese opium trade), later formed a major investment bank, Jardine Fleming. It was taken over by JP Morgan Chase in 2000.

We lost our colonies, but the plunder has continued by other means. As Joseph Stiglitz shows in Globalisation and its Discontents, the capital liberalisation forced on Asian economies by the IMF permitted northern traders to loot hundreds of billions of dollars, precipitating the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. Poorer nations have also been strong-armed into a series of amazingly one-sided treaties and commitments, such as trade-related investment measures, bilateral investment agreements and the EU’s economic partnership agreements. If you have ever wondered how a small, densely populated country which produces very little supports itself, I would urge you to study these asymmetric arrangements.

But now, as John Lanchester demonstrates in a fascinating essay in the London Review of Books, the City could be fatally wounded. The nation that relied on financial services may take generations to recover from their collapse. The great British adventure – three centuries spent pillaging the labour, wealth and resources of other countries – is over. We cannot accept this, and seek gleeful revenge on a government that can no longer insulate us from reality.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

And so - the dictator announces - there will be no trial, just a death sentence. Indeed, the prisoner is Christian, and the dictator says that the prisoner has asked for martyrdom according to his religious beliefs.

Would the rest of the world believe this is fair?

As the New York Times reports:

Raw Story clarifies that:

Does Innocence Matter?

According to NBC news:

The self-confessed "mastermind" of 9/11 also confessed to crimes which he could not have committed. He later said that he gave the interrogators a lot of false information - telling them what he thought they wanted to hear - in an attempt to stop the torture. We also know that he was heavily tortured specifically for the purpose of trying to obtain false information about 9/11 - specifically, that Iraq had something to do with it.


Her transgender speech wasn't really admired by the whole group despite the fact the _ wasn't choosy.
Option 1: group
Option 2: speech
Answer: 1<|endoftext|>'s views on the Presidency as a constitutionally unique institution--his view of the unitary executive as centered in the very person of the President.

But that leaves all Executive Branch subordinates fair game--as long as prosecutions of their actions are prosecutions of "clear crimes" rather than the product of DoJ "insert[ing itself]  into the political process based on the flimsiest of legal theories." I'm quite sure that Barr does not believe that's what his investigation of the Russia Hoax is. And I'm also quite sure that an Attorney General who is able to consider prosecuting of the mayor of a major city for sedition--for allowing the erection of a so-called "autonomous zone"--is also fully up to prosecuting DoJ officials, the heads of intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and White House officials for a very real conspiracy against the Executive Branch that he clearly reveres and is determined to defend.

It is only after coming that distance that Barr drops the remark about "local or state" officials and the possible application to them of federal law.

I may yet be wrong in my hopes and, yes, expectations, but at this point and based on Barr's public statements at Hillsdale College, I believe our former federal prosecutor's theory is a shipwreck.

  1. Following SWCs reading -- if Barr does take the virtuous approach of not being a third world country who prosecutes their rivals you can bet your last dollar that the far left communists won't care one bit. I'm pretty certain President Trump will be dogged until the day he (or Hillary) dies. Hillary as shown much scorn and I don't expect that to stop. I mean, look at Flynn.

    So since I do not expect any dem President/AG to be as upstanding as Barr we're pretty much at that point now in our country. May as well fire the first shot.

    1. "May as well fire the first shot"

      The first shot was fired a long time ago, and after that came many successive shots, over and over.

      Should be thinking about firing the final shot.

  2. Whatever outcomes arise from the prosecution (or non prosecution) of the coup conspirators, the follow-on act of pissing and moaning about it won't change this country for the better. Screaming outrage is a great way to vent, but it does solve any real problems. If the DOJ disgraces itself by letting the perps skate (and thereby codifying the DC double-standard), then an appropriate and civil response should include a widespread and grassroots movement to cast the DOJ/FBI as corrupt institutions deserving of scorn, suspicion, a presumption of evil. No one should ever cooperate with any federal agent for any purpose ever, and this wisdom should be taught to young children as a critically necessary warning. And if Barr chooses to make that his legacy, so be it. That's on him.

  3. I'll bet that you meant "Barr does not believe that's what his investigation of the Russia Hoax IS."

    "scream that it violates DOJ policy to comment on people not charged".
    Like Comey did about Hillary?

    "in the public interest to know what DOJ is doing/not doing, AND because many of the actors *worked* for DOJ."
    Which Hillary didn't.

    Finally, I'm with you, that Barr's stuff on "DoJ insert[ing itself] into the political process based on the *flimsiest* of legal theories", does *not* imply a ducking of prosecution of one of the most *egregious* plots in our nation's history.
    It shouldn't be that hard, for literate people to see such a sharp distinction.

    1. It shouldn't be that hard, but it seemed to be hard for Breem's Legal Eagle team last nite, with John Yoo fussing about how any of Barr's Sedition busts would be compariable with placeHolder's years ago.

  4. I think Barr would and will stay silent and run deep on Durham's work up until it becomes public, and I think Barr's been bit hard by the bug of straight-shooting and calling it like he sees it, so I wouldn't read tea leaves to interpret a speech such as this. In this speech, Barr seems intent on establishing a 'relationship' in DOJ among US attorneys, and trying to establish accountability at the same time, by saying he's accountable, and they're not. I'll just wait and see what happens with the Durham investigation.

  5. There's another way to interpret Barr's remarks: it's not so much an indication that he won't bring a broad conspiracy case against those who did this, but rather that he's laying the ground work so that IF Durham brings conspiracy indictments against any of the "Big Fish," you'll know it isn't DOJ "criminalizing politics," but rather true criminal conspiracy to commit very real crimes.

    OTOH, if a case is iffy, Barr will probably tell Durham not to bother.

    One more possibility: on Big Fish, for whom the evidence just isn't sufficient to prove their role in a conspiracy, instead of prosecuting them, DOJ (or the Senate!) could immunize them, and force them to testify against the rest of the scoundrels, and about their own role, truthfully, or face perjury charges if they lie, or face contempt if they refuse.

    I almost wonder if these upcoming Senate hearings are all about doing just that with some key Big Fish players in the conspiracy to commit coup; the moment one of them tries to invoke the 5th Amendment, Senate votes to immunize them, and force them to testify truthfully.

    Done strategically, with the right players, it could be devastating.

    One can hardly accuse Barr of "criminalizing politics" if he (or the Senate) hands out immunity to get the truth out.

  6. What's that old saying? Oh, yes: You only get one bite at the apple. AG Barr would do well to remember this sage advice. If Biden wins, he may well end up being charged as an enemy of the state. And that is where we are today in this country founded on individual liberty and freedom...

    1. If Kamala Biden decides to make Barr an enemy of the state, there won't be much of the state left to prosecute.

  7. Everything Mark’s post said. Times ten.

    A shipwreck of a theory, indeed.

    1. Brad, in fairness, in SWC's latest article, which I link in my update to the Barr/Sedition post, he pretty much lays out all the reasons why no one should expect Barr to back down if he sees the way forward to prosecute a conspiracy:

    2. Thanks, Mark. That was fun to read. And I didn't mean to sound like I was dumping on SWC, just that, like you, I took Barr's words a lot differently than he did. I heard Barr talking more about the wrongdoing already done & "let's not let it happen again" than I did "and we're going to set an example for the future by not charging conspiracy and letting all these seditious rat bastards off the hook."

  8. A lot of ordinary people are rightly outraged by numerous Soros-funded local DAs that routinely release arsonists and looters that have been arrested during the hundreds of riots manufactured across the country. And Barr is pushing his AUSAs to consider sedition-based charges stemming from the organized origins of much of this activity. OK, that's how the Feds will de facto treat criminals in the general population.

    So how will it all look to average Americans if DOJ grants a pass to the DC-based insiders who were up to their eyeballs in an actual serious long term coup attempt against a duly elected president?

    That level of hypocrisy and double-standard is sufficient to warrant real insurrection for cause. No different really that the revolution of 1776.

  9. The whole thing is “iffy.” It was done under counter intel which, as far as I can tell, the Constitution is void.

    Funny thing is, the Constitution makes no distinction between counter intelligence or plain criminal law. That is a function of judges.

    - TexasDude

  10. Mark, I'm wondering if the word "capacious" was not the word Barr actually used. I think "capricious" fits what I see as his meaning better.

    His sentence, as transcribed: "Taking a capacious approach to criminal law is not only unfair to criminal defendants and bad for the Justice Department’s track record at the Supreme Court, it is corrosive to our political system."

    Capricious: Characterized by, arising from, or subject to caprice; impulsive or unpredictable.
    Characterized by caprice; apt to change opinions suddenly, or to deviate from one's purpose; unsteady; changeable; fickle; subject to change or irregularity: as, a man of a capricious temper.

    1. capacious - Capable of containing a large quantity; spacious or roomy.

      I thought that too but on reflection decided it was intentional usage. What he's saying is that if Rule of Law becomes so all encompassing by the National gov't that every tit and tattle is considered worthy of prosecution then you essentially negate the Rule of Law and enter into the

's views on the Presidency as a constitutionally unique institution--his view of the unitary executive as centered in the very person of the President.

But that leaves all Executive Branch subordinates fair game--as long as prosecutions of their actions are prosecutions of "clear crimes" rather than the product of DoJ "insert[ing itself]  into the political process based on the flimsiest of legal theories." I'm quite sure that Barr does not believe that's what his investigation of the Russia Hoax is. And I'm also quite sure that an Attorney General who is able to consider prosecuting of the mayor of a major city for sedition--for allowing the erection of a so-called "autonomous zone"--is also fully up to prosecuting DoJ officials, the heads of intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and White House officials for a very real conspiracy against the Executive Branch that he clearly reveres and is determined to defend.

It is only after coming that distance that Barr drops the remark about "local or state" officials and the possible application to them of federal law.

I may yet be wrong in my hopes and, yes, expectations, but at this point and based on Barr's public statements at Hillsdale College, I believe our former federal prosecutor's theory is a shipwreck.

  1. Following SWCs reading -- if Barr does take the virtuous approach of not being a third world country who prosecutes their rivals you can bet your last dollar that the far left communists won't care one bit. I'm pretty certain President Trump will be dogged until the day he (or Hillary) dies. Hillary as shown much scorn and I don't expect that to stop. I mean, look at Flynn.

    So since I do not expect any dem President/AG to be as upstanding as Barr we're pretty much at that point now in our country. May as well fire the first shot.

    1. "May as well fire the first shot"

      The first shot was fired a long time ago, and after that came many successive shots, over and over.

      Should be thinking about firing the final shot.

  2. Whatever outcomes arise from the prosecution (or non prosecution) of the coup conspirators, the follow-on act of pissing and moaning about it won't change this country for the better. Screaming outrage is a great way to vent, but it does solve any real problems. If the DOJ disgraces itself by letting the perps skate (and thereby codifying the DC double-standard), then an appropriate and civil response should include a widespread and grassroots movement to cast the DOJ/FBI as corrupt institutions deserving of scorn, suspicion, a presumption of evil. No one should ever cooperate with any federal agent for any purpose ever, and this wisdom should be taught to young children as a critically necessary warning. And if Barr chooses to make that his legacy, so be it. That's on him.

  3. I'll bet that you meant "Barr does not believe that's what his investigation of the Russia Hoax IS."

    "scream that it violates DOJ policy to comment on people not charged".
    Like Comey did about Hillary?

    "in the public interest to know what DOJ is doing/not doing, AND because many of the actors *worked* for DOJ."
    Which Hillary didn't.

    Finally, I'm with you, that Barr's stuff on "DoJ insert[ing itself] into the political process based on the *flimsiest* of legal theories", does *not* imply a ducking of prosecution of one of the most *egregious* plots in our nation's history.
    It shouldn't be that hard, for literate people to see such a sharp distinction.

    1. It shouldn't be that hard, but it seemed to be hard for Breem's Legal Eagle team last nite, with John Yoo fussing about how any of Barr's Sedition busts would be compariable with placeHolder's years ago.

  4. I think Barr would and will stay silent and run deep on Durham's work up until it becomes public, and I think Barr's been bit hard by the bug of straight-shooting and calling it like he sees it, so I wouldn't read tea leaves to interpret a speech such as this. In this speech, Barr seems intent on establishing a 'relationship' in DOJ among US attorneys, and trying to establish accountability at the same time, by saying he's accountable, and they're not. I'll just wait and see what happens with the Durham investigation.

  5. There's another way to interpret Barr's remarks: it's not so much an indication that he won't bring a broad conspiracy case against those who did this, but rather that he's laying the ground work so that IF Durham brings conspiracy indictments against any of the "Big Fish," you'll know it isn't DOJ "criminalizing politics," but rather true criminal conspiracy to commit very real crimes.

    OTOH, if a case is iffy, Barr will probably tell Durham not to bother.

    One more possibility: on Big Fish, for whom the evidence just isn't sufficient to prove their role in a conspiracy, instead of prosecuting them, DOJ (or the Senate!) could immunize them, and force them to testify against the rest of the scoundrels, and about their own role, truthfully, or face perjury charges if they lie, or face contempt if they refuse.

    I almost wonder if these upcoming Senate hearings are all about doing just that with some key Big Fish players in the conspiracy to commit coup; the moment one of them tries to invoke the 5th Amendment, Senate votes to immunize them, and force them to testify truthfully.

    Done strategically, with the right players, it could be devastating.

    One can hardly accuse Barr of "criminalizing politics" if he (or the Senate) hands out immunity to get the truth out.

  6. What's that old saying? Oh, yes: You only get one bite at the apple. AG Barr would do well to remember this sage advice. If Biden wins, he may well end up being charged as an enemy of the state. And that is where we are today in this country founded on individual liberty and freedom...

    1. If Kamala Biden decides to make Barr an enemy of the state, there won't be much of the state left to prosecute.

  7. Everything Mark’s post said. Times ten.

    A shipwreck of a theory, indeed.

    1. Brad, in fairness, in SWC's latest article, which I link in my update to the Barr/Sedition post, he pretty much lays out all the reasons why no one should expect Barr to back down if he sees the way forward to prosecute a conspiracy:

    2. Thanks, Mark. That was fun to read. And I didn't mean to sound like I was dumping on SWC, just that, like you, I took Barr's words a lot differently than he did. I heard Barr talking more about the wrongdoing already done & "let's not let it happen again" than I did "and we're going to set an example for the future by not charging conspiracy and letting all these seditious rat bastards off the hook."

  8. A lot of ordinary people are rightly outraged by numerous Soros-funded local DAs that routinely release arsonists and looters that have been arrested during the hundreds of riots manufactured across the country. And Barr is pushing his AUSAs to consider sedition-based charges stemming from the organized origins of much of this activity. OK, that's how the Feds will de facto treat criminals in the general population.

    So how will it all look to average Americans if DOJ grants a pass to the DC-based insiders who were up to their eyeballs in an actual serious long term coup attempt against a duly elected president?

    That level of hypocrisy and double-standard is sufficient to warrant real insurrection for cause. No different really that the revolution of 1776.

  9. The whole thing is “iffy.” It was done under counter intel which, as far as I can tell, the Constitution is void.

    Funny thing is, the Constitution makes no distinction between counter intelligence or plain criminal law. That is a function of judges.

    - TexasDude

  10. Mark, I'm wondering if the word "capacious" was not the word Barr actually used. I think "capricious" fits what I see as his meaning better.

    His sentence, as transcribed: "Taking a capacious approach to criminal law is not only unfair to criminal defendants and bad for the Justice Department’s track record at the Supreme Court, it is corrosive to our political system."

    Capricious: Characterized by, arising from, or subject to caprice; impulsive or unpredictable.
    Characterized by caprice; apt to change opinions suddenly, or to deviate from one's purpose; unsteady; changeable; fickle; subject to change or irregularity: as, a man of a capricious temper.

    1. capacious - Capable of containing a large quantity; spacious or roomy.

      I thought that too but on reflection decided it was intentional usage. What he's saying is that if Rule of Law becomes so all encompassing by the National gov't that every tit and tattle is considered worthy of prosecution then you essentially negate the Rule of Law and enter into the realm of Rule by Prosecution, that is the very definition of tyranny.

      Rule of Law is a tricky proposition that has two sides. One side says, "Every offensive thing