Monday, May 25, 2009

AFGHANISTAN WAR OVERFLOWS DURATIONS OF WW1 & WW2

First world war: 1914-1918
Second world war: 1939- 1945
Afghanistan: 2001-2009
2 US presidents, 2 British prime ministers and still going.....

Just stats, thats all, who's winning? Would be great to see the back of this though, let me spin a conspiracy theory- the indian bombings were a tactic to draw further confusion in the region, thank God the Indian government did not take the bait otherwise Afghanistan, India and Pakistan would all be festering with warring hot-points, not a beautiful sight at all, now who would that benefit? I'll leave that to you but definitely not the NATO.

Thats what happens when coins overflow in the wrong pockets, funding chaos, destabilisation. New World order! My foot! The games humans play..... in the meanwhile


Saturday, May 23, 2009

THE MISSING HUMAN LINK

10:16pm UK, Wednesday May 20, 2009

Alex Watts, Sky News Online
Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossilised skeleton of a monkey hailed as the missing link in human evolution.


Fossil

This 95%-complete 'lemur monkey' is described as the "eighth wonder of the world"

The search for a direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom has taken 200 years - but it was presented to the world today at a special news conference in New York.

The discovery of the 95%-complete 'lemur monkey' - dubbed Ida - is described by experts as the "eighth wonder of the world".

They say its impact on the world of palaeontology will be "somewhat like an asteroid falling down to Earth".

Researchers say proof of this transitional species finally confirms Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and the then radical, outlandish ideas he came up with during his time aboard the Beagle.

Sir David Attenborough said Darwin "would have been thrilled" to have seen the fossil - and says it tells us who we are and where we came from.

Pictures From Atlantic Productions



"This little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of the mammals," he said.

"This is the one that connects us directly with them.

"Now people can say 'okay we are primates, show us the link'.

"The link they would have said up to now is missing - well it's no longer missing."

A team of the world's leading fossil experts, led by Professor Jorn Hurum, of Norway's National History Museum, have been secretly researching the 1ft 9in-tall young female monkey for the past two years.

And now it has been transported to New York under high security and unveiled to the world during the bicentenary of Darwin's birth.

Darwin caused storm with his theory

Later this month, it will be exhibited for one day only at the Natural History Museum in London before being returned to Oslo.

Scientists say Ida - squashed to the thickness of a beer mat by the immense passage of time - is the most complete primate fossil ever found.

With her human-like nails instead of claws, and opposable big toes, she is placed at the very root of human evolution when early primates first developed features that would eventually develop into our own.

Another important discovery is the shape of the talus bone in her foot, which humans still have in their feet millions of lifetimes later.

Ida was unearthed by an amateur fossil-hunter some 25 years ago in Messel pit, an ancient crater lake near Frankfurt, Germany, famous for its fossils.


She was cleaned and set in polyester resin - and incredibly, was hung on a mystery German collector's wall for 20 years.

Sky News sources say the owner had no idea of the unique fossil's significance and simply admired it like a cherished Van Gogh or Picasso painting.

But in 2006, Ida came into the hands of private dealer Thomas Perner, who presented her to Prof Hurum at the annual Hamburg Fossil and Mineral Fair in Germany - a centre for the murky world of fossil-trading.

Prof Hurum said when he first saw the blueprint for evolution - the "most beautiful fossil worldwide" - he could not sleep for two days.

A home movie records the dramatic moment.

"This is really something that the world has never seen before, this is a unique specimen, totally unique," he says, clearly emotional.

The missing link fossil

He says he knew she should be saved for science rather than end up hidden from the world in a wealthy private collector's vault.

But the dealer's asking price was more than $1 million (£660,000) - ten times the amount even the rarest of fossils fetch on the black market.

Eventually, after six months of negotiations, he managed to raise the cash in Norway and brought Ida to Oslo.
Attenborough: The Link Is No Longer Missing


Prof Hurum - who last summer dug up the fossil remains of a 50ft marine monster called Predator X from the permafrost on Svalbard, a Norwegian island close to the North Pole - then assembled a "dream team" of experts who worked in secret for two years.

They included palaeontologist Dr Jens Franzen, Dr Holly Smith, of the University of Michigan, and Philip Gingerich, president-elect of the US Paleontological Society.

Researchers could prove the fossil was genuine through X-rays, knowing it is impossible to fake the inner structure of a bone.

Through radiometric dating of Messel's volcanic rocks, they discovered Ida lived 47 million years ago in the Eocene period.

This was when tropical forests stretched right to the poles, and South America was still drifting and had yet to make contact with North America.

During that period, the first whales, horses, bats and monkeys emerged, and the early primates branched into two groups - one group lived on mainly as lemurs, and the second developed into monkeys, apes and humans.

The experts concluded Ida was not simply a lemur but a 'lemur monkey', displaying a mixture of both groups, and therefore putting her at the very branch of the human line.

This little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of the mammals. This is the one that connects us directly with them.

Sir David Attenborough

"When Darwin published his On the Origin of Species in 1859, he said a lot about transitional species," said Prof Hurum

"...and he said that will never be found, a transitional species, and his whole theory will be wrong, so he would be really happy to live today when we publish Ida.

"This fossil is really a part of our history; this is part of our evolution, deep, deep back into the aeons of time, 47 million years ago.

"It's part of our evolution that's been hidden so far, it's been hidden because all the other specimens are so incomplete.

"They are so broken there's almost nothing to study and now this wonderful fossil appears and it makes the story so much easier to tell, so it's really a dream come true."

Up until now, the most famous fossil primate in the world has been Lucy, a 3.18-million-year-old hominid found in Ethiopia in 1974.

She was then our earliest known ancestor, and only 40% complete.


But at 95% complete, Ida was so well preserved in the mud at the bottom of the volcanic lake, there is even evidence of her fur shadow and remains of her last meal.

From this they concluded she was a leaf and fruit eater, and probably lived in the trees around the lake.

The absence of a bacculum (penis bone) confirmed she was female, and her milk teeth put her age at about nine-months-old - in maturity, equivalent to a six-year-old human child.

This was the same age as Prof Hurum's daughter Ida, and he named the fossil after her.

The study is being published and put online by the Public Library of Science, a leading academic journal with offices in Britain and the US.

Dr Hurum also found Predator X

Co-author of the scientific paper, Prof Gingerich, likens its importance to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, an ancient Egyptian artefact found in 1799, which allowed us to decipher hieroglyphic writing.

One clue to Ida's fate - and her remarkable preservation as our oldest ancestor - was her badly fractured left wrist.

The team believes this stopped her from climbing and she had to emerge from the trees to drink water from the 250-metre-deep lake.

They think she was overcome by carbon dioxide gas from the crater, and sunk to the bottom where she was preserved in the mud as a time capsule - and a snapshot of evolution.

But amazingly this final piece of Darwin's jigsaw was almost lost to science when German authorities tried to turn Messel into a massive landfill rubbish dump.

Eventually, after campaigning by Dr Franzen, the plans were rejected and the fossil-rich lake was designated a World Heritage Site.

But no doubt there would have been one person happy for the missing link to have remained hidden.

When Darwin famously told the Bishop of Worcester's wife about his theory of evolution, she remarked: "Descended from the apes! My dear, let us hope that it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known."

Now, it certainly is.

:: Ida's discovery has been made into an Atlantic Productions' documentary, presented by Sir David Attenborough. See more at www.revealingthelink.com/.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Treasury Agrees To Aid US Insurers

Treasury Agrees To Aid Insurers, Six Firms Gain Access to Funds- Washington Post.

By David S. Hilzenrath and David Cho, Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 15, 2009

The Treasury yesterday granted preliminary approval for some of the nation's largest insurance companies to receive capital infusions under the government's Troubled Assets Relief Program, Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams said.

Recipients are Hartford, Prudential, Allstate, Ameriprise, Lincoln National and Principal Financial Group, he said. The insurers notified yesterday are among hundreds of financial institutions in the pipeline "that are being reviewed and funded as appropriate on a rolling basis," Williams said.

The money could shore up the life insurance industry, which plays a major role in the economy and has been weakened by the financial crisis. In addition to paying death benefits, life insurers deliver retirement income in the form of annuities. They are big investors in corporate bonds and commercial real estate.

However, the erosion of their investments -- and the possibility of further declines in the value of stocks, bonds and mortgages -- raised concern in some quarters about the outlook for the industry.

"These funds would further fortify our capital resources and provide us with additional financial flexibility during one of the most volatile market climates in our nation's history," Hartford chief executive Ramani Ayer said in a statement.

Hartford said it received preliminary approval for an infusion of $3.4 billion, the full amount it estimated last year that it might obtain.

Until now, the government had used the capital purchase program to support the struggling banking industry. With the recent completion of stress tests assessing the continued needs of the banking system, the government was in a clearer position to address insurers.

Insurers applied for the federal support last year and had been in suspense for months as to whether they would get it. The Treasury had been evaluating their applications in consultation with state regulators.

Though the legislation creating TARP suggested that insurers could participate, the Treasury said that to qualify they had to be bank or thrift holding companies, which would put them under federal supervision.

The federal money has strings attached. If they take it, insurers would have to submit to restrictions on executive pay and other matters.

Spokesmen for Lincoln and Prudential declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Principal Financial, Susan Houser, said by e-mail yesterday afternoon that Principal had received no response from the Treasury to its application.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

UK POLITICIANS LOSE MORAL HIGHGROUND PERHAPS IRREPARABLY

They are quick to label as negative other parts of the world especially developing nations, they blast corrupt regimes out of the water, they talk of regime change with clout of all manner etceteras, The Daily Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/ has however revealed that UK parliamenterians are not quite squeaky clean. The British public are hopping mad.

Faith is lost, people talk of never voting again, labels such as fraud by abuse of postion, sleaze, fraud by failing to disclose information, 'flippin' are tossed around. Its a right total mess and a shame really......adult movies , gardeners, non-existent mortgages charged to the taxpayer. What will the world say? the next few days will tell, meanwhile MP's issue apologies, repayment cheques and get suspended. Its a whole darn mess!


Did Martin Luther King know about Gandhi’s racism?

Did ML King know about Gandhi’s racism? Excerpt from: http://www.zimbio.com/Ghandi%2Bquotes/articles/23/ML%2BKing%2Bknow%2BGandhi%2Bracism
Written by moinansari
From: rupeenews.com

We think that Martin Luther King was one of the greatest heros of our time. He accomplished more than any of his contemporaries. Martin Luther King lived during troubled times. He was in search of turth and find a mentor in Thoreau. He was a Christian minister so he did believe in Jesus Christ.

Martin wanted to keep up the family tradition, so he decided to become a minister. He graduated from Morehouse College in 1948 and then went to Crozer Seminary to become a minister. It was at Crozer that Martin learned about the Disneyland version of Gandhi. He must have learned that Gandhi was an important leader in India. It is very doubtful if Dr. King did any depth study of Gandhi’s action in South Africa.

It is doubtful if The Reverend Martin Luther ever heard about Gandhi’s support for all the British wars, and that Gandhi was the self-proclaimed “Recruiter in Chief” for the Empire sending thousands to be used as connon fodder.

GANDHI ON BLACKS AND RACE RELATIONS (Zulus and Kaffirs were African tribes in South Africa)

  • A general belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than the savages or natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir.(Reference: The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Government of India (CWMG), Vol I, p. 150)
  • Regarding forcible registration with the state of blacks: “One can understand the necessity for registration of Kaffirs who will not work.” (Reference: CWMG, Vol I, p. 105)
  • Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian Location should be chosen for dumping down all the Kaffirs of the town passes my comprehension…the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location.” (Reference: CWMG, Vol I, pp. 244-245)
  • His description of black inmates: “Only a degree removed from the animal.” Also, “Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized - the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals.” - Mar. 7, 1908 (Reference: CWMG, Vol VIII, pp. 135-136)
  • The Durban Post Office: One of Gandhi’s major “achievements” in South Africa was to promote racial segregation by refusing to share a post office door with the black natives.
  • Sergeant Major Gandhi: Learn how Gandhi became a Sgt. Major in the British Army and eagerly participated in the 1906 British war against the black Zulus.
  • Gandhi and South African Blacks: Gandhi wrote extensively about his experiences with the blacks of South Africa. He always termed them “Kaffirs” and his writings reveal a deep-seated disdain for these African natives.

If Dr. King had known about about the Zulus (African tribe) and the Kaffirs (African tribe), he surely would have voiced his concern.Gandhi condones Zulu massacres and defends the British. Aug 4 1906

Dr. King may not have read Time Magazine and the explosive stories about Mr. Gandhi’s personal life. The sex life of Mr. Gandhi, and his failures as a politician

Dr. King probably knew only about the propoganda clips of Mr. Gandhi and never really knew the man. The myth of Mohandas K. Gandhi debunked. He gets an “F” on South Africa, Salt Match, Non-Violence, and independence

Dr. King on moral high ground condemned wars. He would have been shocked to find out that Gandhi supported the British wars extending the British empire. Which war did Mohandas Gandhi support. All of them. There wasn’t a war that the prophet of Non-Violence did not support. He was Sergeant Major in the British Army and won a medal for his war duties

Dr. King was probably unaware about Gandhi’s open racism.Gandhi’s racism. The truth behind the mask. Behold Sergeant Major Gandhi who supported the British during the Boer war, Zulu rebellion. Behold the prophet of peace who worked to stratify the South African society.

Dr. King did not know that Gandhi did not bring the British Empire down.

Dr. King would have been appalled if he knew that Gandhi insisted on calling Hitler his “friend” and that his advice to the Jews was horribe piece of Anti-Semitism Gandhi’s letter to his friend Hitler.

!! Shocking!! Astonishing!! The more I read, the more this world turns out to be a different place altogether.......

INDIAN RACISM.

I watched a documentary on Indian Daliks in SKY news yesterday, extremely disturbing is the level of poverty in India but most disturbing is the type of apartheid they still practice.....explains a lot really.

Indian Racism: Are we racists? Excerpts from the blog: http://sujaiblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/indian-racism.html
Saturday, June 14, 2008

"I have always maintained that Indians are one of the most racist people on this planet. It is just that many of us don’t know that we are racist, and those who do know never acknowledge it. We have been practicing racism for ages and have institutionalized it into our daily lingo and even the religion.

When the word ‘racism’ was introduced into Indian media, most Indians thought it was an ‘artificial Western construct’, that is applicable only to the White people of the West when treating the people of other color, but definitely not applicable to Indians. It is something people in the West do to people like us and not the other way around. Their ideas on lofty ideas on Sanatana Dharma have deluded them into believing that we are not racist and definitely not discriminatory.

Indians are not racist

The golden rule is – We Indians are not racist. If we said something racial, it’s just the cultural and linguistic differences. However, when somebody does it to us, we feel really bad, get onto the TV and protest and cry till you apologize. [Refer to Shilpa Shetty’s case on Big Brother].

Cheerleaders at IPL

Now, in a new incident, few black cheerleaders were pulled out of a IPL cricket game at Mohali. The organizers pulled them out saying ‘the people here don’t want to see the dark people’. According to the cheerleaders, they used ‘n’ word and wanted see only ‘beautiful white girls’.

One of the cheerleaders said, "We were offended. This shouldn't be happening - especially after they made such a fuss over Big Brother."

To start with, the whole idea of hiring black cheerleaders for our IPL games is a gross mistake. It is too much of politically-correctness to handle for Indians. I mean, ‘Come on! Can we cut the crap, stop all this politically-correct bullshit and get back to enjoying the beautiful white girls? Why do we have to put up with these black girls?’

Look at our heroines in the South India. We all know we have many dark women here, but do we allow them to get onto the screen? NO! Why? Because we don’t want to pay money to see dark women on screen! The same holds for IPL cheerleaders. We just want to see fair women. And if that means we have to import them from the North India, so be it. We have been doing this in our Cinema for many years now. And if we have to import them from other countries, it’s even better. That way we can ogle at them without having to worry about blemishing our sacred Bharat Nari.

And look at us in the North India. Why do you think we treat these dark girls this way? Do you see us vying for them ever? There are some dark girls in the North and we are usually ashamed of it. And yes, gori pari from firang is any day welcome in our midst.

Too much of politically-correctness

I think this whole globalization is taking a toll on us. It is putting too many demands on being politically-correct. I don’t think we can keep straight face for too long.

Hiring these black cheerleaders and asking them to dance on national TV is like making the village Brahmin sit next a Dalit. It’s just too uncomfortable. The village Brahmin can tolerate it for few minutes, to be politically correct, but you can’t push it too far. Eventually, he will just burst out and use the language that he is really used to, kick that Dalit out and show him his place.

I don’t think we should try to break or change the natural order of things. Didn’t you know that our caste system and our preference for color schemes actually bring order to the nature? Do you want to upset the natural harmony our villages? Do you want us to go against all our teachings for all these centuries to see the distasteful black women dancing around on TV?

You must be kidding.

Thank you, but no thanks. Please take this political correctness to your West. It’s not for us Indians. We are like this only. And don’t try to change us!"


Holy crap!!!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Quotations from the inimitable Oscar Wilde.

I have nothing to declare except my genuis.

The only difference between a saint and a sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.

Those whom the gods love grow young.

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else.

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them as much.

Talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season, you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.

It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

The English have a miraculous power of turning wine into water.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.

The English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.

Elections- The price for peace.


Elections must never be taken for granted, elections are an ingenious invention, they are the price for peace, they enable a population to buy into a feeling of being important from time to time by virtue of their vote, they allow for a renewal of direction, a check on overruns and excess, a measure of suitability of elected office bearers and much more.

Malawi runs its elections in a week, which I won't participate in but whatever the result, the main players both fit the technical profile of what I would want in a leader of a nation that seeks economic empowerment, both can read economics, so I leave the task to my countrymen and will respect their choice. Which horse will win? the odds say horse Bingu, but as Kenny Rogers sang "You never count your money when youre sittin' at the table, there'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done". I on the other hand will try the MEP elections for EU Parliament come June 4th.

Let peace and prosperity prevail. A better future must be the motto.