Now this is something I have been waiting for. At last found an article with some facts about the drug companies and how they deal. This is a good lesson for any young enterprising drug dealers.
This is about a drug called Satins.
"How could this be, if statins lower the risk of heart attack, at least for some people? Preventing a heart attack does not necessarily mean that a life is saved. In many statin studies that show lower heart attack risk, the same number of patients end up dying, whether they are taking statins or not. "You may have helped the heart, but you haven't helped the patient," says Dr. Beatrice Golomb, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and co-author of a 2004 editorial in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology questioning the data on statins. "You still have to look at the impact on the patient overall."
"The letter we sent to the NHLBI also called for an independent panel to review the evidence," Goozner notes, "since the NLHBI panel that made the recommendations had been dominated by physicians with ties to statin manufacturers." Indeed, the National Institutes of Health later admitted that eight of the nine experts on the panel had received financing from one or more of the companies that make statins. (None of the panelists had publicly disclosed their ties to manufacturers when they made their recommendations.)
Just how much "financing" were the panelists receiving? According to the Los Angeles Times, from 2001 to 2003 Dr. Bryan Brewer, a leader at the National Institutes of Health, and "part of the team that gave the nation new cholesterol guidelines in 2004," had accepted "about $114,000 in consulting fees from four companies making or developing the cholesterol-lowering drugs."
But "this is relative peanuts compared to Dr P. Trey Sunderland III, a senior psychiatric researcher at the NIH, who took $508,500 in fees from Pfizer, Inc. whilst collaborating with them and endorsing their drug [Lipitor]," says Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, who is a member of The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS) -- a growing group of scientists, physicians, other academicians and science writers from various countries.
Dr. Abramson, who is a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, charges that the study that accompanied the updated 2004 guidelines "knowingly misrepresented the results of the clinical trials that they supposedly relied upon to formulate their recommendations. The problem is that the experts claimed to rely on scientific evidence, but they act as if empowered to ignore the evidence when it is not consistent with their beliefs."
This is a serious allegation. Keep in mind that statins are the most popular drugs in the history of human medicine. Worldwide sales totaled $33 billion in 2007. More than 18 million American now take them."
Learn the lot here.
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Saturday, March 01, 2008
An invention called 'the Jewish people'
An invention called 'the Jewish people'
By Tom Segev
Tags: Israel
Israel's Declaration of Independence states that the Jewish people arose in the Land of Israel and was exiled from its homeland. Every Israeli schoolchild is taught that this happened during the period of Roman rule, in 70 CE. The nation remained loyal to its land, to which it began to return after two millennia of exile. Wrong, says the historian Shlomo Zand, in one of the most fascinating and challenging books published here in a long time. There never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also never happened - hence there was no return. Zand rejects most of the stories of national-identity formation in the Bible, including the exodus from Egypt and, most satisfactorily, the horrors of the conquest under Joshua. It's all fiction and myth that served as an excuse for the establishment of the State of Israel, he asserts.
According to Zand, the Romans did not generally exile whole nations, and most of the Jews were permitted to remain in the country. The number of those exiled was at most tens of thousands. When the country was conquered by the Arabs, many of the Jews converted to Islam and were assimilated among the conquerors. It follows that the progenitors of the Palestinian Arabs were Jews. Zand did not invent this thesis; 30 years before the Declaration of Independence, it was espoused by David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and others.
If the majority of the Jews were not exiled, how is it that so many of them reached almost every country on earth? Zand says they emigrated of their own volition or, if they were among those exiled to Babylon, remained there because they chose to. Contrary to conventional belief, the Jewish religion tried to induce members of other faiths to become Jews, which explains how there came to be millions of Jews in the world. As the Book of Esther, for example, notes, "And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them."
Zand quotes from many existing studies, some of which were written in Israel but shunted out of the central discourse. He also describes at length the Jewish kingdom of Himyar in the southern Arabian Peninsula and the Jewish Berbers in North Africa. The community of Jews in Spain sprang from Arabs who became Jews and arrived with the forces that captured Spain from the Christians, and from European-born individuals who had also become Jews.
The first Jews of Ashkenaz (Germany) did not come from the Land of Israel and did not reach Eastern Europe from Germany, but became Jews in the Khazar Kingdom in the Caucasus. Zand explains the origins of Yiddish culture: it was not a Jewish import from Germany, but the result of the connection between the offspring of the Kuzari and Germans who traveled to the East, some of them as merchants.
We find, then, that the members of a variety of peoples and races, blond and black, brown and yellow, became Jews in large numbers. According to Zand, the Zionist need to devise for them a shared ethnicity and historical continuity produced a long series of inventions and fictions, along with an invocation of racist theses. Some were concocted in the minds of those who conceived the Zionist movement, while others were offered as the findings of genetic studies conducted in Israel.
Prof. Zand teaches at Tel Aviv University. His book, "When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?" (published by Resling in Hebrew), is intended to promote the idea that Israel should be a "state of all its citizens" - Jews, Arabs and others - in contrast to its declared identity as a "Jewish and democratic" state. Personal stories, a prolonged theoretical discussion and abundant sarcastic quips do not help the book, but its historical chapters are well-written and cite numerous facts and insights that many Israelis will be astonished to read for the first time.
The mosquito from Kiryat Yam
On March 27, 1948, a meeting was held in Hiafa concerning the fate of the Bedouin of Arab al-Ghawarina in the Haifa area. "They must be removed from there, so that they, too, will not add to our troubles," Yosef Weitz, of the Keren Kayemeth (Jewish National Fund), wrote in his personal diary. Two months later, Weitz reported to the organization's director, "Our Haifa Bay has been evacuated completely and there is hardly a remnant of those who encroached our border." They were probably expelled to Jordan; some were allowed to remain in the village of Jisr al-Zarqa. The fate of the Arab al-Ghawarina Bedouin has recently made the headlines thanks to Shmuel Sisso, mayor of the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Yam. He has filed a complaint with the police against Google. The reason is the addition that one of the site's surfers, a resident of Nablus, attached to the center of Kiryat Yam in the world satellite photo, stating that the city is built on the ruins of a village that was destroyed in 1948, Arab al-Ghawarina. Sisso's complaint says that this is slanderous.
The facts are as follows: The lands of the Zevulun Valley were purchased in the 1920s by the JNF and by various construction companies, among them one called Gav Yam. The Zionist Archives have the plan for the establishment of Kiryat Yam, dated 1938, and a letter from 1945 states that there were already 100 homes there. Government maps from the British Mandate period identify the territory on which Kiryat Yam was built by two names: Zevulun Valley and Ghawarina. Thus it appears that this was not a settlement but an area in which Bedouin resided.
The Web site of the Israeli organization Zochrot (Remembering) states that there were 720 people at the site in 1948 and that the area was divided among three kibbutzim: Ein Hamifratz, Kfar Masaryk and Ein Hayam, today Ein Carmel.
This story has been making the rounds on the Internet and drawing responses, which can be summed up as follows: "If Sisso is suing Google because they stated that he is living on a destroyed Arab village, the implication is that he thinks this is something bad." Sisso, a lawyer of 57 who is identified with Likud and was formerly Israeli consul general in New York, says, "I don't think there is anything bad about it, but other people might think it is bad, especially people abroad, and that is liable to hurt Kiryat Yam, because people will not want to invest here. Since we are not sitting on a Palestinian village, why should we have to suffer for no reason?"
Moroccan-born, Sisso arrived in Israel in 1955. "I wandered around the whole region and I saw no trace of anyone's having been here before us and supposedly expelled." He asked an American law professor how, if at all, Google could be sued for slander or for damages. This, he says, is the contribution of Kiryat Yam to the struggle against the right of return (of the Palestinian refugees).
It could turn out to be the most riveting trial since Ariel Sharon sued Time magazine, but mayor Sisso has no illusions: "Me against Google is like a mosquito against an elephant," he said this week.
Who America belongs to
Two professors, Gabi Shefer and Avi Ben-Zvi, were guests this week on Yitzhak Noy's "International Hour" current events program on Israel Radio. The anchor, sounding slightly concerned, asked whether the achievements of Barack Obama show that the United States no longer belongs to the white man. Prof. Shefer confirmed this: Obama is an immigrant, he said. Prof. Ben-Zvi asked to add a remark: Gabi Shefer is right, he said. They are both wrong. If Obama were an immigrant, he would not be eligible to be elected president. He was born in Honolulu, some two years after Hawaii became the 50th state of the union.
I hope the author do not mind my putting his article here. Please give credit to Tom Seqev in Haaretz.com. Thank you.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
By Tom Segev
Tags: Israel
Israel's Declaration of Independence states that the Jewish people arose in the Land of Israel and was exiled from its homeland. Every Israeli schoolchild is taught that this happened during the period of Roman rule, in 70 CE. The nation remained loyal to its land, to which it began to return after two millennia of exile. Wrong, says the historian Shlomo Zand, in one of the most fascinating and challenging books published here in a long time. There never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also never happened - hence there was no return. Zand rejects most of the stories of national-identity formation in the Bible, including the exodus from Egypt and, most satisfactorily, the horrors of the conquest under Joshua. It's all fiction and myth that served as an excuse for the establishment of the State of Israel, he asserts.
According to Zand, the Romans did not generally exile whole nations, and most of the Jews were permitted to remain in the country. The number of those exiled was at most tens of thousands. When the country was conquered by the Arabs, many of the Jews converted to Islam and were assimilated among the conquerors. It follows that the progenitors of the Palestinian Arabs were Jews. Zand did not invent this thesis; 30 years before the Declaration of Independence, it was espoused by David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and others.
If the majority of the Jews were not exiled, how is it that so many of them reached almost every country on earth? Zand says they emigrated of their own volition or, if they were among those exiled to Babylon, remained there because they chose to. Contrary to conventional belief, the Jewish religion tried to induce members of other faiths to become Jews, which explains how there came to be millions of Jews in the world. As the Book of Esther, for example, notes, "And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them."
Zand quotes from many existing studies, some of which were written in Israel but shunted out of the central discourse. He also describes at length the Jewish kingdom of Himyar in the southern Arabian Peninsula and the Jewish Berbers in North Africa. The community of Jews in Spain sprang from Arabs who became Jews and arrived with the forces that captured Spain from the Christians, and from European-born individuals who had also become Jews.
The first Jews of Ashkenaz (Germany) did not come from the Land of Israel and did not reach Eastern Europe from Germany, but became Jews in the Khazar Kingdom in the Caucasus. Zand explains the origins of Yiddish culture: it was not a Jewish import from Germany, but the result of the connection between the offspring of the Kuzari and Germans who traveled to the East, some of them as merchants.
We find, then, that the members of a variety of peoples and races, blond and black, brown and yellow, became Jews in large numbers. According to Zand, the Zionist need to devise for them a shared ethnicity and historical continuity produced a long series of inventions and fictions, along with an invocation of racist theses. Some were concocted in the minds of those who conceived the Zionist movement, while others were offered as the findings of genetic studies conducted in Israel.
Prof. Zand teaches at Tel Aviv University. His book, "When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?" (published by Resling in Hebrew), is intended to promote the idea that Israel should be a "state of all its citizens" - Jews, Arabs and others - in contrast to its declared identity as a "Jewish and democratic" state. Personal stories, a prolonged theoretical discussion and abundant sarcastic quips do not help the book, but its historical chapters are well-written and cite numerous facts and insights that many Israelis will be astonished to read for the first time.
The mosquito from Kiryat Yam
On March 27, 1948, a meeting was held in Hiafa concerning the fate of the Bedouin of Arab al-Ghawarina in the Haifa area. "They must be removed from there, so that they, too, will not add to our troubles," Yosef Weitz, of the Keren Kayemeth (Jewish National Fund), wrote in his personal diary. Two months later, Weitz reported to the organization's director, "Our Haifa Bay has been evacuated completely and there is hardly a remnant of those who encroached our border." They were probably expelled to Jordan; some were allowed to remain in the village of Jisr al-Zarqa. The fate of the Arab al-Ghawarina Bedouin has recently made the headlines thanks to Shmuel Sisso, mayor of the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Yam. He has filed a complaint with the police against Google. The reason is the addition that one of the site's surfers, a resident of Nablus, attached to the center of Kiryat Yam in the world satellite photo, stating that the city is built on the ruins of a village that was destroyed in 1948, Arab al-Ghawarina. Sisso's complaint says that this is slanderous.
The facts are as follows: The lands of the Zevulun Valley were purchased in the 1920s by the JNF and by various construction companies, among them one called Gav Yam. The Zionist Archives have the plan for the establishment of Kiryat Yam, dated 1938, and a letter from 1945 states that there were already 100 homes there. Government maps from the British Mandate period identify the territory on which Kiryat Yam was built by two names: Zevulun Valley and Ghawarina. Thus it appears that this was not a settlement but an area in which Bedouin resided.
The Web site of the Israeli organization Zochrot (Remembering) states that there were 720 people at the site in 1948 and that the area was divided among three kibbutzim: Ein Hamifratz, Kfar Masaryk and Ein Hayam, today Ein Carmel.
This story has been making the rounds on the Internet and drawing responses, which can be summed up as follows: "If Sisso is suing Google because they stated that he is living on a destroyed Arab village, the implication is that he thinks this is something bad." Sisso, a lawyer of 57 who is identified with Likud and was formerly Israeli consul general in New York, says, "I don't think there is anything bad about it, but other people might think it is bad, especially people abroad, and that is liable to hurt Kiryat Yam, because people will not want to invest here. Since we are not sitting on a Palestinian village, why should we have to suffer for no reason?"
Moroccan-born, Sisso arrived in Israel in 1955. "I wandered around the whole region and I saw no trace of anyone's having been here before us and supposedly expelled." He asked an American law professor how, if at all, Google could be sued for slander or for damages. This, he says, is the contribution of Kiryat Yam to the struggle against the right of return (of the Palestinian refugees).
It could turn out to be the most riveting trial since Ariel Sharon sued Time magazine, but mayor Sisso has no illusions: "Me against Google is like a mosquito against an elephant," he said this week.
Who America belongs to
Two professors, Gabi Shefer and Avi Ben-Zvi, were guests this week on Yitzhak Noy's "International Hour" current events program on Israel Radio. The anchor, sounding slightly concerned, asked whether the achievements of Barack Obama show that the United States no longer belongs to the white man. Prof. Shefer confirmed this: Obama is an immigrant, he said. Prof. Ben-Zvi asked to add a remark: Gabi Shefer is right, he said. They are both wrong. If Obama were an immigrant, he would not be eligible to be elected president. He was born in Honolulu, some two years after Hawaii became the 50th state of the union.
I hope the author do not mind my putting his article here. Please give credit to Tom Seqev in Haaretz.com. Thank you.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Ben Griffin, Eric Estenzo & tHE bAD aPPLES
At last some good humans in the armed forces are breaking ranks annd breaking out in the news..
"Ben Griffin, the ex-SAS trooper who this week revealed the extensive British collaboration with US rendition and torture, was served with an injunction immediately after speaking at the London World Against War rally last night. The government is trying to gag Ben to prevent any more revelations about British involvement in the US policy of kidnapping people and sending them to secret centres for interrogation and torture."
That was about UK and now about US:
"U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are planning to descend on Washington from Mar. 13-16 to testify about war crimes they committed or personally witnessed in those countries.
"The war in Iraq is not covered to its potential because of how dangerous it is for reporters to cover it," said Liam Madden, a former Marine and member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. "That's left a lot of misconceptions in the minds of the American public about what the true nature of military occupation looks like."
Iraq Veterans Against the War argues that well-publicised incidents of U.S. brutality like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha are not the isolated incidents perpetrated by "a few bad apples", as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the group says, of "an increasingly bloody occupation"."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19442.htm
http://ivaw.org/index.php
Then there is this boffin who did an experiment in 1970's, where in Stanford University students did a role play with some students as prisoners and others as wardens. The experiment went bad because the wardens became very sadistic and the prisoners very cowed and was called off early for the concern for the students.
Now he comes into this argument about torture in prisons and says hat it is not a few bad apples but the prisons were left without oversight by higher ranking officers not by accident but intentional.
"“If you give people power without oversight it is a formula for abuse,” Zimbardo said to a stunned audience the included famous actors, entrepreneurs and politicians"
“Abu Ghraib abuses went on for three months … Who was watching the store? Nobody, and it was on purpose.”
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/29/7370/
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"Ben Griffin, the ex-SAS trooper who this week revealed the extensive British collaboration with US rendition and torture, was served with an injunction immediately after speaking at the London World Against War rally last night. The government is trying to gag Ben to prevent any more revelations about British involvement in the US policy of kidnapping people and sending them to secret centres for interrogation and torture."
That was about UK and now about US:
"U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are planning to descend on Washington from Mar. 13-16 to testify about war crimes they committed or personally witnessed in those countries.
"The war in Iraq is not covered to its potential because of how dangerous it is for reporters to cover it," said Liam Madden, a former Marine and member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. "That's left a lot of misconceptions in the minds of the American public about what the true nature of military occupation looks like."
Iraq Veterans Against the War argues that well-publicised incidents of U.S. brutality like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha are not the isolated incidents perpetrated by "a few bad apples", as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the group says, of "an increasingly bloody occupation"."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19442.htm
http://ivaw.org/index.php
Then there is this boffin who did an experiment in 1970's, where in Stanford University students did a role play with some students as prisoners and others as wardens. The experiment went bad because the wardens became very sadistic and the prisoners very cowed and was called off early for the concern for the students.
Now he comes into this argument about torture in prisons and says hat it is not a few bad apples but the prisons were left without oversight by higher ranking officers not by accident but intentional.
"“If you give people power without oversight it is a formula for abuse,” Zimbardo said to a stunned audience the included famous actors, entrepreneurs and politicians"
“Abu Ghraib abuses went on for three months … Who was watching the store? Nobody, and it was on purpose.”
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/29/7370/
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Did You Know.......
that "In his 2006 autobiography, In the Line of Fire, President Musharraf boasted that, in return for handing over 369 terror suspects (including many transferred to Guantánamo), "We have earned bounty payments totaling millions of dollars.""
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child#United_States
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child#United_States
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Did You Know.......
that “because the USA is one of only two states that have not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which recognizes that children need special safeguards and care, it feels free to trample on the human rights of juveniles in its ‘war on terror,”’
See it Here
"The United States has not so far ratified the CRC, in part due to possible conflicts with U.S. law and because of opposition by some political and religious conservatives to the treaty.[20]
The administration of president George W. Bush has explicitly stated its opposition to the treaty:
"The Convention on the Rights of the Child may be a positive tool for promoting child welfare for those countries that have adopted it. But we believe the text goes too far when it asserts entitlements based on economic, social and cultural rights. ... The human rights-based approach ... poses significant problems as used in this text." [21]
Active opposition to the Convention in the United States has been concentrated in politically conservative groups.[22] Senator Jesse Helms, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, described it as a “bag of worms,” an effort to “chip away at the U.S. Constitution”.[23]
Legal concerns over ratification have mostly focused on issues of sovereignty and federalism.[24] The United States generally does not sign treaties that it believes would impair its sovereignty.[25] Most United States laws for the protection of children are state rather than federal laws, and the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution restricts some of the authority of the United States government to pass legislation or ratify treaties that will protect children. The US Constitution not only limits federal jurisdiction over children, the US Supreme Court has held that to some significant degree, no government, federal, state, or local may interfere with the parent-child relationship.[26][27].
The Heritage Foundation sees the conflict as an issue of national control over domestic policy: "Although not originally promoted as an entity that would become involved in actively seeking to shape member states’ domestic policies, the U.N. has become increasingly intrusive in these arenas."[28] They express concern about "sovereign jurisdiction over domestic policymaking and preserving the freedom of American civil society",[29] and argue that the actual practice of some UN Committees has been to review national policies that are unrelated, or are marginally related to the actual language of the Convention.[30] Supporters of homeschooling express concern that the Convention will "subvert the authority of parents to exercise important responsibilities toward their children. Under the UN Convention, parental responsibility exists only in so far as parents are willing to further the independent choices of the child."[31]
David Smolin argues that the objections from the religious and political conservatives stem from their view that the U.N. is an elitist institution, which they do not trust to properly handle sensitive decisions regarding family issues.[32] He suggests that legitimate concerns of critics could be met with appropriate Reservations, Understandings and Declarations by the U.S. [33]"
From Wikipedia
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
See it Here
"The United States has not so far ratified the CRC, in part due to possible conflicts with U.S. law and because of opposition by some political and religious conservatives to the treaty.[20]
The administration of president George W. Bush has explicitly stated its opposition to the treaty:
"The Convention on the Rights of the Child may be a positive tool for promoting child welfare for those countries that have adopted it. But we believe the text goes too far when it asserts entitlements based on economic, social and cultural rights. ... The human rights-based approach ... poses significant problems as used in this text." [21]
Active opposition to the Convention in the United States has been concentrated in politically conservative groups.[22] Senator Jesse Helms, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, described it as a “bag of worms,” an effort to “chip away at the U.S. Constitution”.[23]
Legal concerns over ratification have mostly focused on issues of sovereignty and federalism.[24] The United States generally does not sign treaties that it believes would impair its sovereignty.[25] Most United States laws for the protection of children are state rather than federal laws, and the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution restricts some of the authority of the United States government to pass legislation or ratify treaties that will protect children. The US Constitution not only limits federal jurisdiction over children, the US Supreme Court has held that to some significant degree, no government, federal, state, or local may interfere with the parent-child relationship.[26][27].
The Heritage Foundation sees the conflict as an issue of national control over domestic policy: "Although not originally promoted as an entity that would become involved in actively seeking to shape member states’ domestic policies, the U.N. has become increasingly intrusive in these arenas."[28] They express concern about "sovereign jurisdiction over domestic policymaking and preserving the freedom of American civil society",[29] and argue that the actual practice of some UN Committees has been to review national policies that are unrelated, or are marginally related to the actual language of the Convention.[30] Supporters of homeschooling express concern that the Convention will "subvert the authority of parents to exercise important responsibilities toward their children. Under the UN Convention, parental responsibility exists only in so far as parents are willing to further the independent choices of the child."[31]
David Smolin argues that the objections from the religious and political conservatives stem from their view that the U.N. is an elitist institution, which they do not trust to properly handle sensitive decisions regarding family issues.[32] He suggests that legitimate concerns of critics could be met with appropriate Reservations, Understandings and Declarations by the U.S. [33]"
From Wikipedia
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Another Scare Raises Its Ugly Head: WHEAT
"THE world is only ten weeks away from running out of wheat supplies after stocks fell to their lowest levels for 50 years.
The crisis has pushed prices to an all-time high and could lead to further hikes in the price of bread, beer, biscuits and other basic foods."
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article3423734.ece
AND
"Consumers usually reduce their purchases of goods and services if prices become too high. Buyers of United States corn, soybeans and wheat seem to be ignoring that economic principle, however, as the nation‘s grain stocks reach critically low levels, said Chris Hurt, a Purdue University agricultural economist. With global demand for grain and oilseeds at record levels and a weak U.S. dollar, foreign buyers are outbidding domestic buyers for American grain. While the higher commodity prices are good for crop agriculture there are disconcerting downsides, Hurt said. "Food consumers worldwide are going to have to pay more," Hurt said. "We ended 2007 with our monthly inflation rate on food nearly 5 percent higher. I think we‘ll see times in 2008 where the food inflation rate might be as much as 6 percent. "I also think we‘ll have discussions about food security in 2008. We‘ll have discussions about whether we should allow the foreign sector to buy our food. Is food a strategic item that we need to keep in our country?""
"Wheat prices have been near $10 a bushel, more than $6 a bushel higher. Cash prices for soybeans are about $13 a bushel, up more than $7 a bushel. Corn is pricing at near $5 a bushel, an increase of greater than $3 a bushel."
http://www.hoosieragtoday.com/wire/news/00392_World-Grain-Demand-Straining-U_S_-Supply_171358.php
AND then BBC has it's say.
"The price of higher-quality spring wheat jumped almost 25% on Monday - the biggest one-day increase to date.
The rise comes as the UN's World Food Programme warns that it will have to start cutting rations or feeding fewer people if it does not get more money to cope with the higher cost of food.
Wheat is used to make staple foods such as bread, pasta and noodles."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7264653.stm#subject
Feed The World? We Are Fighting a Losing Battle, UN Admits
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
The crisis has pushed prices to an all-time high and could lead to further hikes in the price of bread, beer, biscuits and other basic foods."
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article3423734.ece
AND
"Consumers usually reduce their purchases of goods and services if prices become too high. Buyers of United States corn, soybeans and wheat seem to be ignoring that economic principle, however, as the nation‘s grain stocks reach critically low levels, said Chris Hurt, a Purdue University agricultural economist. With global demand for grain and oilseeds at record levels and a weak U.S. dollar, foreign buyers are outbidding domestic buyers for American grain. While the higher commodity prices are good for crop agriculture there are disconcerting downsides, Hurt said. "Food consumers worldwide are going to have to pay more," Hurt said. "We ended 2007 with our monthly inflation rate on food nearly 5 percent higher. I think we‘ll see times in 2008 where the food inflation rate might be as much as 6 percent. "I also think we‘ll have discussions about food security in 2008. We‘ll have discussions about whether we should allow the foreign sector to buy our food. Is food a strategic item that we need to keep in our country?""
"Wheat prices have been near $10 a bushel, more than $6 a bushel higher. Cash prices for soybeans are about $13 a bushel, up more than $7 a bushel. Corn is pricing at near $5 a bushel, an increase of greater than $3 a bushel."
http://www.hoosieragtoday.com/wire/news/00392_World-Grain-Demand-Straining-U_S_-Supply_171358.php
AND then BBC has it's say.
"The price of higher-quality spring wheat jumped almost 25% on Monday - the biggest one-day increase to date.
The rise comes as the UN's World Food Programme warns that it will have to start cutting rations or feeding fewer people if it does not get more money to cope with the higher cost of food.
Wheat is used to make staple foods such as bread, pasta and noodles."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7264653.stm#subject
Feed The World? We Are Fighting a Losing Battle, UN Admits
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Is EU buying up charities
I wrote to all my MEPs to object to the EUs policy on bio-fuels. One of the MEPs; BOOTH Graham H, The UK Independence Party (UKIP), is the only one so far who has written to me. He is against the legislation, which is good. And he is explaing about the charities like the Friends of Earth who are been bought by the EU. Bought means been funded by EU. Well the whole letter I recieved is below.
"Dear Enquirer,
Thank you for your message regarding the EUs policy on bio-fuels. Wewill be voting against any legislation, which is based on those policies.
The UK Independence Party (UKIP) has always condemned these targets asirresponsible, and we have tried to highlight the dangers of ploughingforward with them. As usual our protests went unheard, but yet again, wewere proved to be correct. We are the only party in the Parliament thathas consistently voted against these targets, and the EU's drive (at anycost)for such legislation.
It may interest you to learn that a number of "green" charities, such as Friends of the Earth - even though they have the integrity to opposethese biofuel-targets (and GMO's, for that matter)- receive substantialamounts of EU funding. It has been suggested that part of the reason theEU is "buying up" charities like this, is that they will then call foraction, which the EU has already decided to take. Indeed, this isusually what happens. The appearance is of a democratic and responsiveEU. In fact, the EU is the paymaster of its own lobbyists. In this case,however, everyone agrees that the Commission's position is indefensible.Even the "captive NGO's" cannot be seen to be supporting it.The target of a 5.75% market share for bio-fuels, in the overalltransport-fuel supply, is wholly un-reasonable and un-sustainable for anumber of reasons:
(i) The damage caused in developing nations, by cultivation of oil-palmand soya etc - for the purposes of the export of bio-fuels toEU-controlled markets - is destroying precious, tropical habitats, and
(ii) This expansion would be contributing more to carbon-imbalance (werethat possible) than the substitution of bio-, for fossil-, fuels wouldredress it.
(iii) Given increasing food-shortages, it is not a good idea to beproducing bio fuels at the expense of food production.
It may also interest you to learn that the EU has a number of otherpolicies, which are devastating for the environment. For example, itsCommon Fisheries Policy sees countless dead fish thrown out of nets torot on the ocean surface, as the CFP only allows fishermen to catchcertain types of fish, and nets are not renowned for their ability to discriminate between types of fish. The EU also has its Common Agricultural Policy, which vindictively condemns poor farmers in theDeveloping World to poverty - and an inability to compete withsubsidised, European farmers - and obliges them to exploit their environment more ruthlessly. Incidentally, the EU also funds farmers inSpain, whose consequent expansion threatens the habitat of the IberianLynx, one of Europe's rarest animals.
We at UKIP feel that the inherently remote, un-democratic and corrupt,nature of the EU, coupled with its laughable attempts to cloak its cynical intentions in altruistic camouflage ("environmental protection","health and safety", "human rights" etc) mean that it deserves nothingbut contempt. We look forward to the day we can abolish the EU (inBritain, to begin with) take our billions of pounds with us, and spendthem on serious and sensible measures to support public services,including the protection of the environment.
Thank you for your message. Please rest-assured that UKIP MEPs willcontinue to vote against the biofuel-targets.
Yours sincerely,
Michael McManus
Office of Graham Booth MEP"
So I wrote toFOE like this:
Is it true that the EU is funding FOE? If that is true, then, when the EU is discussing about Bio Fuels, the FOE will be taking a positive posture towards the coming legislation. Is that what most of the members of FOE want? What is your position towords the up-coming legislation. I wrote to my MEP Mr Booth and he says that FOE is not aggressively lobbying against the Bio Fuel quotas for 2020. Thank you for your time ,patience and an early reply.
I will post anything which comes from them.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"Dear Enquirer,
Thank you for your message regarding the EUs policy on bio-fuels. Wewill be voting against any legislation, which is based on those policies.
The UK Independence Party (UKIP) has always condemned these targets asirresponsible, and we have tried to highlight the dangers of ploughingforward with them. As usual our protests went unheard, but yet again, wewere proved to be correct. We are the only party in the Parliament thathas consistently voted against these targets, and the EU's drive (at anycost)for such legislation.
It may interest you to learn that a number of "green" charities, such as Friends of the Earth - even though they have the integrity to opposethese biofuel-targets (and GMO's, for that matter)- receive substantialamounts of EU funding. It has been suggested that part of the reason theEU is "buying up" charities like this, is that they will then call foraction, which the EU has already decided to take. Indeed, this isusually what happens. The appearance is of a democratic and responsiveEU. In fact, the EU is the paymaster of its own lobbyists. In this case,however, everyone agrees that the Commission's position is indefensible.Even the "captive NGO's" cannot be seen to be supporting it.The target of a 5.75% market share for bio-fuels, in the overalltransport-fuel supply, is wholly un-reasonable and un-sustainable for anumber of reasons:
(i) The damage caused in developing nations, by cultivation of oil-palmand soya etc - for the purposes of the export of bio-fuels toEU-controlled markets - is destroying precious, tropical habitats, and
(ii) This expansion would be contributing more to carbon-imbalance (werethat possible) than the substitution of bio-, for fossil-, fuels wouldredress it.
(iii) Given increasing food-shortages, it is not a good idea to beproducing bio fuels at the expense of food production.
It may also interest you to learn that the EU has a number of otherpolicies, which are devastating for the environment. For example, itsCommon Fisheries Policy sees countless dead fish thrown out of nets torot on the ocean surface, as the CFP only allows fishermen to catchcertain types of fish, and nets are not renowned for their ability to discriminate between types of fish. The EU also has its Common Agricultural Policy, which vindictively condemns poor farmers in theDeveloping World to poverty - and an inability to compete withsubsidised, European farmers - and obliges them to exploit their environment more ruthlessly. Incidentally, the EU also funds farmers inSpain, whose consequent expansion threatens the habitat of the IberianLynx, one of Europe's rarest animals.
We at UKIP feel that the inherently remote, un-democratic and corrupt,nature of the EU, coupled with its laughable attempts to cloak its cynical intentions in altruistic camouflage ("environmental protection","health and safety", "human rights" etc) mean that it deserves nothingbut contempt. We look forward to the day we can abolish the EU (inBritain, to begin with) take our billions of pounds with us, and spendthem on serious and sensible measures to support public services,including the protection of the environment.
Thank you for your message. Please rest-assured that UKIP MEPs willcontinue to vote against the biofuel-targets.
Yours sincerely,
Michael McManus
Office of Graham Booth MEP"
So I wrote toFOE like this:
Is it true that the EU is funding FOE? If that is true, then, when the EU is discussing about Bio Fuels, the FOE will be taking a positive posture towards the coming legislation. Is that what most of the members of FOE want? What is your position towords the up-coming legislation. I wrote to my MEP Mr Booth and he says that FOE is not aggressively lobbying against the Bio Fuel quotas for 2020. Thank you for your time ,patience and an early reply.
I will post anything which comes from them.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Monday, February 25, 2008
Somalia The History
Somalia is situated in the Horn Of Africa in the coast surrounded by from North Djibouti, Ethiopia and then Kenya.
This part from Wikipedia
Long time ago around - we only know because the greeks wrote it - The Horn Of Afrika was known as the Berber Coast and Azania. reeks went there by boat to buy Myrrh and Frankincense, both highly valuable commodities as they were required for many religious ceremonies and in perfumes, in great demand throughout the Roman Empire, Asia, India and China.
Next written accounts of the region comes from two famous Muslim explorers Ibn Battuta and Zheng He, in the 13th and 14th centuries. Ibn Battuta and Zheng He are both travellers and recorded their travels. Zheng He's sea travels can be found in this website. I have read Dr Menzies book called 1421, and it blew my mind and had to wash my memory about the naval history of the world and start a-new. I asdvise you to buy a copy. Ibn Battuta was a walker really but had did go on ships and junks. He describes Mogadishu in 1331 as "a town of enormous size and its merchants possessed vast resources; they owned large numbers of camels, of which they slaughtered hundreds every day for food, and also had large quantities of sheep." Wonder what they did with the sheep!
This is from Somalia: From The Dawn of Civilization To The Modern Times
Somalians as lots of other nations has a tradition of hospitality. So if you visit a Samalian in Somalia they say, "Somalidda" or "Somedida" which, in fact, meant "milk the domestic animal" in order to present fresh milk to the visitors. So the ancient Greeks and Egyptian understood stupidly as the name for the country. And that is how the country started been called Somalia instead of Puntland. Hmmmm nice init the falk-fucking-lore? But I am reserving my judgement on some of the arguments this auther brings out. You see he brings out unprooved arguments to bring out somethings as facts. Check this for a while:
"'The News Week" the International News Magazine of January 11, 1988 carried a very thrilling article "The Search for Adam and Eve" by John Tierney et al.1 It reported that geneticist Rebecca Cann, formerly of the University of California, Berkeley who is now at the University of Hawaii, and her erstwhile colleague Allan Wilson of the University of California, have proved through their startling mitochondrial DNA research that all human beings in the world are descended from a common single woman ancestress Eve who lived two million years ago in Sub-Saharan Africa."
It is not prooved. It is a hypothesis; "Come out of Africa". Anyway he says this in the third chapter.
"As we have seen earlier, the ancient people inhabiting north-eastern Africa or the Horn of Africa (Somalia) about 50,000 years ago were stone-age hunters. Around 35,000 years ago these stone-age hunters specialised in making "finely retouched leaf-shaped points and scraping equipments (of stone"
So we have proof that peeople lived in that are as far as 50,000 years ago. That is long time ago init? But not as long as our brothers down under the Ausie Abos hmmmm....is it?
Now I have a problem with the following statement.
"The closing millennia of the Paleolithic period were marked by a wet phase in the Sahara, and other followed approximately 5500 and 2500 B.C. The well-watered Sahara was afforded attractions to flora and fauna alike and man followed plants, and other animals to establish himself as a skilled hunter and fisherman along the many Saharan water courses.
From the north came the Caucasoids, ancestors to such modern people as the Berbers and Tuaregs of North Africa and the desert, the Galla, Somali and Beja of the East African "Horn", and most Egyptians of the Pharaonic times."
So if we are to beleave in "Out of Africa" theory. The people who lived in Africa went to middle East and the Europe and became white skinned and blue eyed
around 10,000 to 6,000 ago, and came back to this area because it got wetter. Why? because Caucasoids are ......hmmmm......
Caucasoid:- caucasoid [Adjective] (comparative more caucasoid, superlative most caucasoid)
(anthropology) a member of the racial classification of humanity composed of peoples indigenous to Europe, the Northeast Atlantic, North Africa, West Asia, South Asia and parts of Central Asia, as well as their diaspora in other parts of the world.
Retrieved from "http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caucasoid"
Bind Moggles! No not really I am trying my best to simplify this as I go along. Sorry if you think it is a bit screwed up. That is me, as I am myself a bit screwed up. And that is why I try to simplify the shite init?
So this tiny little scrawny Asian guy walks to a Canadian Forestry compound and was looking for a job. So he goes to the foreman and says "I want to work as a lumber-jack."
The foreman lookes at the man and says,"Ok do that 100 acres and come back when you finish."
In an hours time the little bugger is back without any sweat. So the foreman goes to have a look and sees the whole 100 acres flattened. He says, "Where the hell did you work before to get experience like that?"
Little man says," Sahara forest".
The foreman goes, "You mean the Sahara Desert?".
Little man surprised, "Is that what they call it now."
Seriously now:
This is very complcated business ...the history is... as everyone looks at it in different ways. Astonished I am; that there is no unique system of recording history all these years of historian boffinhood eh eh eh huh?
Now we go back to the 1 BC, and find this.
"Robin Hallett in "Africa to 1975", however, states that:
"Many centuries later other Caucasoid groups, arriving in East Africa around 1000 B.C., introduced domestic cattle and possibly also cereal cultivation. By the first millennium A.D. these "Ancient Azanians", as some historians have termed them (Azania was the name give by Greek writers to the coast of East Africa), had come to populate most of the Kenyan highlands and adjoining areas in northern Tanzania.""
So we can see that there were people there before but "the pastoral tribes of Galla and Somali did not exist in the area now called Somalia till the end of the first millennium B.C."
Now I am gettig some sense outa this huh! There were tribe of people called Sabeans who comes from Yemen. They migrated to the Horn Of Africa in the 1st century BC or so, due to the lush mountain range of Ethiopia. But most of them lived along the coast trading goods to the Greeks etc. Greeks called them Barberi, to confuse everyone. At the same time there were aboriginal people in the area like the Midgans, Hawaltarits, Azhurans etc.
"Midgan
It is likely that the Midgan, who number about 50,000 people in Somalia today, have perhaps for more than 7000 years, been a very serious and ferocious hunting and catching nomadic tribe. They have been great experts in archery, spear-throwing, and catching all kinds of animals even big animals like leopards, geopards, wild elephants, giraffe, ostrich, and snakes etc. by using traps made of ropes, nets and by making holes or pits in the earth. They have since ancient times not only been catching but killing animals, cleaning and selling their skins and drying their meat. Perhaps, their ancestors used to provide goods to the Puntite merchants of the coasts to be sold to the Egyptians of the Pharaonic period and other trading countries all through the last four thousand years."
"Hawaltiryat
They are builders of graves. (hawal: cemetery and Tiriyat: builders) These were the first Somali people who made concrete development in the land in the hoary past. They used to build small conical pyramids of stone on graves. The graves made by the Hawaltiryats thousand of years ago are still found at many places in Somalia.
Ajhuran
These ancient people were pure specimens of the Somali people. They were very intelligent and skilled in engineering works. They could build wells even in hard rocks, make caves and also draw figures in the caves in the mountains in ancient times. They were very beautiful and good people. Some of their descendents are still living in the central region of Somalia and in the Galla Sadame region of Ethiopia. They have a sense of nobility and beauty. Their ancient techniques of boring wells in the rocks is not lost; we do not know anything about them now. Whenever any archeological place is discovered, the Somali believe that the Ajhurans may have built it. The first President of independent Somalia, Ahmed Abdulla Osman, was an Ajhuran; his sub-tribe was Ogaden.
Galla
In ancient times they lived in southern Somalia and some also lived in north Somalia, but they gradually moved to western and south-western Somalia. They have been pastoralists for the last 3,000 years, and they have inhabited Somali since approximately 2,500 years ago. They have been driven away by the Somali tribes during the last ten centuries to Ethiopia and Kenya. Now they are mostly concentrated in Addis Ababa, Chima and Neghelee regions of Ethiopia and Kenya. The Gallas did not have an advanced civilization. A part of Galla population might have amalgamated with Azuran and Hawaltiryat."
There is a problem here, the people this auther refers to as Gallas is also known as Oromo. And to make life difficult for everyone the wikipedia says this:
"Galla can refer to:
The Ethiopian ethnic group known as the Oromo. (The name Galla is now often considered derogatory.)"
If any of the Oromo people read this please don't kill me!
Now we know simply that the Somalia was known as Puntland by the Egyptians from about 2350 BC to 600 BC. There is recorded history to that effect.
So the Puntites were quite sophisticated society by the end of Egyptian Pharoah rule. The Egypt went down to the Persian empire in 525 BC and 200 years later got taken over by the great Greek king Alexander of Macedonia. Hmmm... now I can see.
""Egypt, occupied by him in 332 B.C., was entrusted to Ptolemy, one of the generals of the victorious army. When the empire of Alexander broke after its founder's death, Ptolemy made himself ruler of an independent kingdom and founded a dynasty that lasted for nearly three hundred years... Gradually, the Red Sea became a regular highway of maritime commerce, by the end of first century B.C., Greek merchants from Egypt had developed a regular trade with India and were beginning to feel their way down the East African coast."1
This shows that they reached the ports of Puntland in the first century B.C."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
This part from Wikipedia
Long time ago around - we only know because the greeks wrote it - The Horn Of Afrika was known as the Berber Coast and Azania. reeks went there by boat to buy Myrrh and Frankincense, both highly valuable commodities as they were required for many religious ceremonies and in perfumes, in great demand throughout the Roman Empire, Asia, India and China.
Next written accounts of the region comes from two famous Muslim explorers Ibn Battuta and Zheng He, in the 13th and 14th centuries. Ibn Battuta and Zheng He are both travellers and recorded their travels. Zheng He's sea travels can be found in this website. I have read Dr Menzies book called 1421, and it blew my mind and had to wash my memory about the naval history of the world and start a-new. I asdvise you to buy a copy. Ibn Battuta was a walker really but had did go on ships and junks. He describes Mogadishu in 1331 as "a town of enormous size and its merchants possessed vast resources; they owned large numbers of camels, of which they slaughtered hundreds every day for food, and also had large quantities of sheep." Wonder what they did with the sheep!
This is from Somalia: From The Dawn of Civilization To The Modern Times
Somalians as lots of other nations has a tradition of hospitality. So if you visit a Samalian in Somalia they say, "Somalidda" or "Somedida" which, in fact, meant "milk the domestic animal" in order to present fresh milk to the visitors. So the ancient Greeks and Egyptian understood stupidly as the name for the country. And that is how the country started been called Somalia instead of Puntland. Hmmmm nice init the falk-fucking-lore? But I am reserving my judgement on some of the arguments this auther brings out. You see he brings out unprooved arguments to bring out somethings as facts. Check this for a while:
"'The News Week" the International News Magazine of January 11, 1988 carried a very thrilling article "The Search for Adam and Eve" by John Tierney et al.1 It reported that geneticist Rebecca Cann, formerly of the University of California, Berkeley who is now at the University of Hawaii, and her erstwhile colleague Allan Wilson of the University of California, have proved through their startling mitochondrial DNA research that all human beings in the world are descended from a common single woman ancestress Eve who lived two million years ago in Sub-Saharan Africa."
It is not prooved. It is a hypothesis; "Come out of Africa". Anyway he says this in the third chapter.
"As we have seen earlier, the ancient people inhabiting north-eastern Africa or the Horn of Africa (Somalia) about 50,000 years ago were stone-age hunters. Around 35,000 years ago these stone-age hunters specialised in making "finely retouched leaf-shaped points and scraping equipments (of stone"
So we have proof that peeople lived in that are as far as 50,000 years ago. That is long time ago init? But not as long as our brothers down under the Ausie Abos hmmmm....is it?
Now I have a problem with the following statement.
"The closing millennia of the Paleolithic period were marked by a wet phase in the Sahara, and other followed approximately 5500 and 2500 B.C. The well-watered Sahara was afforded attractions to flora and fauna alike and man followed plants, and other animals to establish himself as a skilled hunter and fisherman along the many Saharan water courses.
From the north came the Caucasoids, ancestors to such modern people as the Berbers and Tuaregs of North Africa and the desert, the Galla, Somali and Beja of the East African "Horn", and most Egyptians of the Pharaonic times."
So if we are to beleave in "Out of Africa" theory. The people who lived in Africa went to middle East and the Europe and became white skinned and blue eyed
around 10,000 to 6,000 ago, and came back to this area because it got wetter. Why? because Caucasoids are ......hmmmm......
Caucasoid:- caucasoid [Adjective] (comparative more caucasoid, superlative most caucasoid)
(anthropology) a member of the racial classification of humanity composed of peoples indigenous to Europe, the Northeast Atlantic, North Africa, West Asia, South Asia and parts of Central Asia, as well as their diaspora in other parts of the world.
Retrieved from "http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caucasoid"
Bind Moggles! No not really I am trying my best to simplify this as I go along. Sorry if you think it is a bit screwed up. That is me, as I am myself a bit screwed up. And that is why I try to simplify the shite init?
So this tiny little scrawny Asian guy walks to a Canadian Forestry compound and was looking for a job. So he goes to the foreman and says "I want to work as a lumber-jack."
The foreman lookes at the man and says,"Ok do that 100 acres and come back when you finish."
In an hours time the little bugger is back without any sweat. So the foreman goes to have a look and sees the whole 100 acres flattened. He says, "Where the hell did you work before to get experience like that?"
Little man says," Sahara forest".
The foreman goes, "You mean the Sahara Desert?".
Little man surprised, "Is that what they call it now."
Seriously now:
This is very complcated business ...the history is... as everyone looks at it in different ways. Astonished I am; that there is no unique system of recording history all these years of historian boffinhood eh eh eh huh?
Now we go back to the 1 BC, and find this.
"Robin Hallett in "Africa to 1975", however, states that:
"Many centuries later other Caucasoid groups, arriving in East Africa around 1000 B.C., introduced domestic cattle and possibly also cereal cultivation. By the first millennium A.D. these "Ancient Azanians", as some historians have termed them (Azania was the name give by Greek writers to the coast of East Africa), had come to populate most of the Kenyan highlands and adjoining areas in northern Tanzania.""
So we can see that there were people there before but "the pastoral tribes of Galla and Somali did not exist in the area now called Somalia till the end of the first millennium B.C."
Now I am gettig some sense outa this huh! There were tribe of people called Sabeans who comes from Yemen. They migrated to the Horn Of Africa in the 1st century BC or so, due to the lush mountain range of Ethiopia. But most of them lived along the coast trading goods to the Greeks etc. Greeks called them Barberi, to confuse everyone. At the same time there were aboriginal people in the area like the Midgans, Hawaltarits, Azhurans etc.
"Midgan
It is likely that the Midgan, who number about 50,000 people in Somalia today, have perhaps for more than 7000 years, been a very serious and ferocious hunting and catching nomadic tribe. They have been great experts in archery, spear-throwing, and catching all kinds of animals even big animals like leopards, geopards, wild elephants, giraffe, ostrich, and snakes etc. by using traps made of ropes, nets and by making holes or pits in the earth. They have since ancient times not only been catching but killing animals, cleaning and selling their skins and drying their meat. Perhaps, their ancestors used to provide goods to the Puntite merchants of the coasts to be sold to the Egyptians of the Pharaonic period and other trading countries all through the last four thousand years."
"Hawaltiryat
They are builders of graves. (hawal: cemetery and Tiriyat: builders) These were the first Somali people who made concrete development in the land in the hoary past. They used to build small conical pyramids of stone on graves. The graves made by the Hawaltiryats thousand of years ago are still found at many places in Somalia.
Ajhuran
These ancient people were pure specimens of the Somali people. They were very intelligent and skilled in engineering works. They could build wells even in hard rocks, make caves and also draw figures in the caves in the mountains in ancient times. They were very beautiful and good people. Some of their descendents are still living in the central region of Somalia and in the Galla Sadame region of Ethiopia. They have a sense of nobility and beauty. Their ancient techniques of boring wells in the rocks is not lost; we do not know anything about them now. Whenever any archeological place is discovered, the Somali believe that the Ajhurans may have built it. The first President of independent Somalia, Ahmed Abdulla Osman, was an Ajhuran; his sub-tribe was Ogaden.
Galla
In ancient times they lived in southern Somalia and some also lived in north Somalia, but they gradually moved to western and south-western Somalia. They have been pastoralists for the last 3,000 years, and they have inhabited Somali since approximately 2,500 years ago. They have been driven away by the Somali tribes during the last ten centuries to Ethiopia and Kenya. Now they are mostly concentrated in Addis Ababa, Chima and Neghelee regions of Ethiopia and Kenya. The Gallas did not have an advanced civilization. A part of Galla population might have amalgamated with Azuran and Hawaltiryat."
There is a problem here, the people this auther refers to as Gallas is also known as Oromo. And to make life difficult for everyone the wikipedia says this:
"Galla can refer to:
The Ethiopian ethnic group known as the Oromo. (The name Galla is now often considered derogatory.)"
If any of the Oromo people read this please don't kill me!
Now we know simply that the Somalia was known as Puntland by the Egyptians from about 2350 BC to 600 BC. There is recorded history to that effect.
So the Puntites were quite sophisticated society by the end of Egyptian Pharoah rule. The Egypt went down to the Persian empire in 525 BC and 200 years later got taken over by the great Greek king Alexander of Macedonia. Hmmm... now I can see.
""Egypt, occupied by him in 332 B.C., was entrusted to Ptolemy, one of the generals of the victorious army. When the empire of Alexander broke after its founder's death, Ptolemy made himself ruler of an independent kingdom and founded a dynasty that lasted for nearly three hundred years... Gradually, the Red Sea became a regular highway of maritime commerce, by the end of first century B.C., Greek merchants from Egypt had developed a regular trade with India and were beginning to feel their way down the East African coast."1
This shows that they reached the ports of Puntland in the first century B.C."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Did You Know.......
that Americans More Likely to Identify Themselves as Creationists Than as Evolutionists?
Check this.
"God created man in present form", is in 40 to 50% range in the years 1982 to 2007.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Check this.
"God created man in present form", is in 40 to 50% range in the years 1982 to 2007.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Does History Repeat Itself or Are the West Stupid?
I remember back in late 1990's Israel supplying aerial maps of Iraqi Nuclear sites to West and getting the International Atomic Energy Agency all fired up to go into the private palaces of Sadam Husseign and his underlings. I remeber Mr Husseign kicking the International Atomic Energy Agency out of the country stating that there are spies among the inspectors, which was true - our man who "commited suicide" and Scott Ritter from US.
Now there is another one been waged against the Iranian regime. Change the frigging offending barstards.
"On 21 August, 2007, Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency came to an "understanding" with Iran on a "work plan" for resolving outstanding "issues" tangentially related to the implementation of Iran’s Safeguards Agreement.
On the eve of what is expected to be the issuance of the final IAEA report on that resolution, the National Council of Resistance on Iran – the "political arm" of a U.S. State Department designated "terrorist organization" – has gone public with highly inflammatory charges that Iran (a) has recently established a "new command and control center" at a military site at Mojdeh, a suburb of Tehran, for a program code-named Lavizan-2, and (b) is actively pursuing "production of nuclear warheads" at a military site at Khojir, code-named B1-Nori-8500.
Great Zot!
The Iranian military is producing nuclear warheads in a suburb of Tehran?
The Iranian military has established a command and control center just outside Tehran for its burgeoning nuke-armed ballistic-missile force?
Hard to believe?
Well, at a Brussels news conference, NCRI "foreign affairs chief" Mohamad Mohaddessin presented space-satellite photo-images of the two alleged military sites.
Mohaddessin further charged the Khojir site was under the command of "missile expert" Mehdi Naghiyan Fesharaki.
So there!"
Read it all here.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Now there is another one been waged against the Iranian regime. Change the frigging offending barstards.
"On 21 August, 2007, Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency came to an "understanding" with Iran on a "work plan" for resolving outstanding "issues" tangentially related to the implementation of Iran’s Safeguards Agreement.
On the eve of what is expected to be the issuance of the final IAEA report on that resolution, the National Council of Resistance on Iran – the "political arm" of a U.S. State Department designated "terrorist organization" – has gone public with highly inflammatory charges that Iran (a) has recently established a "new command and control center" at a military site at Mojdeh, a suburb of Tehran, for a program code-named Lavizan-2, and (b) is actively pursuing "production of nuclear warheads" at a military site at Khojir, code-named B1-Nori-8500.
Great Zot!
The Iranian military is producing nuclear warheads in a suburb of Tehran?
The Iranian military has established a command and control center just outside Tehran for its burgeoning nuke-armed ballistic-missile force?
Hard to believe?
Well, at a Brussels news conference, NCRI "foreign affairs chief" Mohamad Mohaddessin presented space-satellite photo-images of the two alleged military sites.
Mohaddessin further charged the Khojir site was under the command of "missile expert" Mehdi Naghiyan Fesharaki.
So there!"
Read it all here.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Food I Eat
For a while I been thinking and working towords a proper diet for myself. First I should not have any tabboos. And I should not have my favourtes. Those are mind made. If I listen to my body with an analytical mind then decide what to eat everyday then I should be alright.
"The human digestive tract has about the same number of neurons as the spinal column."
Why did I start this rant?
"Paul Rozin is a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, and I call him the psychoanalyst of our eating disorder in America. He's done wonderfully creative experiments like conducting word/image association tests with different cultures. For example, he showed a picture of a slice of chocolate cake to an American audience and a French audience. The Americans look at it and their response is "guilt" or "calories," and that seems very understandable to us until you realize that there's another way to look at that. When he shows it to a French audience, their first response is "celebration." How much healthier is that?
We have this very narrow lens through which we're looking at our food, and I think it's robbing us of pleasure. Perhaps it would be worth looking at food in this guilt/health way if it actually made us healthier, but there is no evidence that worrying about your nutritional health makes you any healthier. In fact, we are the great food worriers of the world, and our nutritional health is really very poor. Why is that? I think a lot of our obsession with nutrients ends up becoming just another license for eating badly. When all those products became no-fat, people felt they could eat as much of them as possible, and we ended up getting very fat on that low-fat diet."
I went off butter due to my lazyness. I forget to put the bugger in the fridge and rancid butter is a vomit facter in the morning when you come into the kitchen to make your first cup of coffee. So I still buy the bloody marge init? It has become a thing I cannot control at the moment.
"In fact, when the government decided to tell people to stop eating fat or cut down on saturated fat, the science was very thin then. But the net result of that public health campaign was to essentially get people off of saturated fat or try to get them onto trans fats, and we've since learned that that was really bad advice because the link between trans fats and heart disease is the strongest link we have of any fat to heart disease. They told us butter is evil and margarine is good, and it turned out to be the opposite."
Do you like eating weeds? That is what our man says in this article I am reading. Because if we take care of everything for the plant to survive, it stops producing some of the ingredients it normally has. Now these ingredients are the ones which we need to absorb into our bodies as nutritional stuff. So if we do not stress the tomato plant by not giving it enough water it tastes better. How cruel? Bloody farmers init?
Hang on there is something funny here. Farmer tend to the plants and waters them regular and he produces say some tomatoes which have less nutrients. Now as the tomatoes have less nutrients we have to eat more tomatoes to get the same amount of nutrients. No wonder we got a problem of obesity?
Read this for more.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"The human digestive tract has about the same number of neurons as the spinal column."
Why did I start this rant?
"Paul Rozin is a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, and I call him the psychoanalyst of our eating disorder in America. He's done wonderfully creative experiments like conducting word/image association tests with different cultures. For example, he showed a picture of a slice of chocolate cake to an American audience and a French audience. The Americans look at it and their response is "guilt" or "calories," and that seems very understandable to us until you realize that there's another way to look at that. When he shows it to a French audience, their first response is "celebration." How much healthier is that?
We have this very narrow lens through which we're looking at our food, and I think it's robbing us of pleasure. Perhaps it would be worth looking at food in this guilt/health way if it actually made us healthier, but there is no evidence that worrying about your nutritional health makes you any healthier. In fact, we are the great food worriers of the world, and our nutritional health is really very poor. Why is that? I think a lot of our obsession with nutrients ends up becoming just another license for eating badly. When all those products became no-fat, people felt they could eat as much of them as possible, and we ended up getting very fat on that low-fat diet."
I went off butter due to my lazyness. I forget to put the bugger in the fridge and rancid butter is a vomit facter in the morning when you come into the kitchen to make your first cup of coffee. So I still buy the bloody marge init? It has become a thing I cannot control at the moment.
"In fact, when the government decided to tell people to stop eating fat or cut down on saturated fat, the science was very thin then. But the net result of that public health campaign was to essentially get people off of saturated fat or try to get them onto trans fats, and we've since learned that that was really bad advice because the link between trans fats and heart disease is the strongest link we have of any fat to heart disease. They told us butter is evil and margarine is good, and it turned out to be the opposite."
Do you like eating weeds? That is what our man says in this article I am reading. Because if we take care of everything for the plant to survive, it stops producing some of the ingredients it normally has. Now these ingredients are the ones which we need to absorb into our bodies as nutritional stuff. So if we do not stress the tomato plant by not giving it enough water it tastes better. How cruel? Bloody farmers init?
Hang on there is something funny here. Farmer tend to the plants and waters them regular and he produces say some tomatoes which have less nutrients. Now as the tomatoes have less nutrients we have to eat more tomatoes to get the same amount of nutrients. No wonder we got a problem of obesity?
Read this for more.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Study links heavy cell phone use to cancer
Scientists claim to have found a link between heavy cell phone usage and cancer of the salivary gland. The researchers suggest people use hands-free cell phones to avoid a risk...........................
Read it at the link
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Read it at the link
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
There is trouble ahead........
It is the Kosovo problem I am talking about. According to the countries who oppose the independance the EU did a sleight of hand to get the necessary agreement from the EU. It is a bit complicated; but I want to Make It Simple here.
I think the two former world wars staarted in that area. Then the west is trying to create a disturbance there. Why?
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
I think the two former world wars staarted in that area. Then the west is trying to create a disturbance there. Why?
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Message from the Burma Campaign UK
Dear Friend
I am writing today with very sad news. On Thursday 14th February Padoh Mahn
Sha, the father of one of our staff members, Zoya Phan, was assassinated by
agents of the military regime in Burma. Two gunmen came to his house and
shot him in the chest.
Padoh Mahn Sha was General Secretary of the Karen National Union, which
represents the Karen ethnic group in Burma in their struggle for democracy
and human rights.
He was a greatly respected leader who had dedicated his life for the
struggle for freedom. He was killed because of his effective and principled
stand against the regime.
His assassination is yet more evidence, as if it were needed, that the
regime is determined to cling on to power, no matter what. They see leaders,
such as Padoh Mahn Sha, who speak out for freedom and justice, as a threat
to their survival.
Many of you will have seen Zoya Phan speak at events and on television news
or seen her articles in our magazine. You can view some of her speeches on
our website.
Zoya and her brothers and sister have set up a fund in memory of their
father. Donations can be made online. The fund
will be used to tackle poverty and provide education in Karen state, two
issues very close to Padoh Mahn Sha¹s heart. Please visit
. You can donate by credit card from any country or
you can send a cheque made out to ŒBurma Campaign UK¹ and post it to Padoh
Mahn Sha Fund, care of Burma Campaign UK, 28 Charles Square, London N1 6HT,
UK.
A statement from the children of Padoh Mahn Sha, released on the day of his
death, follows below.
Anna Roberts
Director, The Burma Campaign UK
Statement from the children of Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan
We are very sad to lose a great father and a great leader.
We were lucky to have a father who was caring and full of love. He gave us
guidance and support, and taught us tolerance and to stand against
injustice. He could not give us wealth or luxury, but ensured that we had an
education and the opportunity to fulfill our potential
He was always humble, yet a strong and brave leader. He dedicated his life
to the struggle, and always put the welfare of his people and his country
before himself. His example of determination and self-sacrifice to win our
freedom won him the love and respect of not just the Karen people, but also
the Burmese democracy movement and of freedom loving people around the
world.
He will be remembered by many not only as an inspirational leader, but also
on a personal level for the many acts of kindness he performed for those who
needed help.
We are proud to be his children, as all Karen people and all people who long
for freedom in Burma are proud of him.
Our father may be dead, but we will remember him. He taught us that it was
our duty to work for the Karen people, and as his children we will continue
his dedicated work towards true freedom for our people and peace in our
country.
His determination for freedom and democracy lives on within us and within
the Karen people. He did not live to see freedom for our people, but his
dream will be fulfilled. The Karen, and all the people of Burma, will be
free.
We will be establishing a foundation in memory of our father.
Saw Say Say
Nant Bwa Bwa Phan
Nant Zoya Phan
Slone Phan
A brief biography of Padoh Mahn Sha
Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan was born in Rangoon on 5th July 1943.
He graduated from Rangoon University in 1966 with a degree in history.
He joined the Karen National Union (KNU) in 1963. In 1964 he became a member
of the KNU Central Committee, and was elected Joint General Secretary in
1995. He was elected General Secretary in 2000, and is also a member of the
Secretariat of the National Council of the Union of Burma, the umbrella
organisation representing organisations in the Burmese democracy movement.
Padoh Mahn Sha married Nant Kyin Shwe in 1976. She passed away on 31st July
2004. He is survived by four children, two sons and two daughters; Saw Say
Say, Nant Bwa Bwa Phan, Nant Zoya Phan, Slone Phan
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
I am writing today with very sad news. On Thursday 14th February Padoh Mahn
Sha, the father of one of our staff members, Zoya Phan, was assassinated by
agents of the military regime in Burma. Two gunmen came to his house and
shot him in the chest.
Padoh Mahn Sha was General Secretary of the Karen National Union, which
represents the Karen ethnic group in Burma in their struggle for democracy
and human rights.
He was a greatly respected leader who had dedicated his life for the
struggle for freedom. He was killed because of his effective and principled
stand against the regime.
His assassination is yet more evidence, as if it were needed, that the
regime is determined to cling on to power, no matter what. They see leaders,
such as Padoh Mahn Sha, who speak out for freedom and justice, as a threat
to their survival.
Many of you will have seen Zoya Phan speak at events and on television news
or seen her articles in our magazine. You can view some of her speeches on
our website.
Zoya and her brothers and sister have set up a fund in memory of their
father. Donations can be made online. The fund
will be used to tackle poverty and provide education in Karen state, two
issues very close to Padoh Mahn Sha¹s heart. Please visit
you can send a cheque made out to ŒBurma Campaign UK¹ and post it to Padoh
Mahn Sha Fund, care of Burma Campaign UK, 28 Charles Square, London N1 6HT,
UK.
A statement from the children of Padoh Mahn Sha, released on the day of his
death, follows below.
Anna Roberts
Director, The Burma Campaign UK
Statement from the children of Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan
We are very sad to lose a great father and a great leader.
We were lucky to have a father who was caring and full of love. He gave us
guidance and support, and taught us tolerance and to stand against
injustice. He could not give us wealth or luxury, but ensured that we had an
education and the opportunity to fulfill our potential
He was always humble, yet a strong and brave leader. He dedicated his life
to the struggle, and always put the welfare of his people and his country
before himself. His example of determination and self-sacrifice to win our
freedom won him the love and respect of not just the Karen people, but also
the Burmese democracy movement and of freedom loving people around the
world.
He will be remembered by many not only as an inspirational leader, but also
on a personal level for the many acts of kindness he performed for those who
needed help.
We are proud to be his children, as all Karen people and all people who long
for freedom in Burma are proud of him.
Our father may be dead, but we will remember him. He taught us that it was
our duty to work for the Karen people, and as his children we will continue
his dedicated work towards true freedom for our people and peace in our
country.
His determination for freedom and democracy lives on within us and within
the Karen people. He did not live to see freedom for our people, but his
dream will be fulfilled. The Karen, and all the people of Burma, will be
free.
We will be establishing a foundation in memory of our father.
Saw Say Say
Nant Bwa Bwa Phan
Nant Zoya Phan
Slone Phan
A brief biography of Padoh Mahn Sha
Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan was born in Rangoon on 5th July 1943.
He graduated from Rangoon University in 1966 with a degree in history.
He joined the Karen National Union (KNU) in 1963. In 1964 he became a member
of the KNU Central Committee, and was elected Joint General Secretary in
1995. He was elected General Secretary in 2000, and is also a member of the
Secretariat of the National Council of the Union of Burma, the umbrella
organisation representing organisations in the Burmese democracy movement.
Padoh Mahn Sha married Nant Kyin Shwe in 1976. She passed away on 31st July
2004. He is survived by four children, two sons and two daughters; Saw Say
Say, Nant Bwa Bwa Phan, Nant Zoya Phan, Slone Phan
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Monday, February 18, 2008
Did You Know.......
Did you know that during WW1 the collateral damage to civilians in the theater of war was 10%.
WW2 it went upto 50%
Vietnam war 70%
Iraq war 90%
Makes you think init?
The whole thing is all the time the bombs are getting more and more sophisticated and they are supposed to be smarter haha.
Makes me weep.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
WW2 it went upto 50%
Vietnam war 70%
Iraq war 90%
Makes you think init?
The whole thing is all the time the bombs are getting more and more sophisticated and they are supposed to be smarter haha.
Makes me weep.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Ave a laugh for a change
Salary rise
I, the Penis, hereby request a raise in salary for the following reasons:
I do physical labour.
I work at great depths.
I plunge headfirst into everything I do.
I do not get weekends or public holidays off.
I work in a damp environment.
I work in a dark workplace that has poor ventilation.
I work in high temperatures.
My work exposes me to contagious diseases.
Sincerely,
P. Niss
The Response :
Dear Penis:
After assessing your request, and considering the arguments you aave raised, the administration rejects your request for the following reasons:
You do not work 8 hours straight.
You fall asleep after brief work periods.
You do not always follow the orders of the management team.
You do not stay in your designated area and are often seen visiting other locations.
You do not take initiative - you need to be pressured and stimulated in order to start working.
You leave the workplace rather messy at the end of your shift.
You don't always observe necessary safety regulations, such as wearing the correct protective clothing.
You will retire well before you are 65.
You are unable to work double shifts.
You sometimes leave your designated work area before you have completed the assigned task.
And if that were not all, you have been seen constantly entering and exiting the workplace carrying two suspicious-looking bags.
Sincerely,
V. Gina
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
I, the Penis, hereby request a raise in salary for the following reasons:
I do physical labour.
I work at great depths.
I plunge headfirst into everything I do.
I do not get weekends or public holidays off.
I work in a damp environment.
I work in a dark workplace that has poor ventilation.
I work in high temperatures.
My work exposes me to contagious diseases.
Sincerely,
P. Niss
The Response :
Dear Penis:
After assessing your request, and considering the arguments you aave raised, the administration rejects your request for the following reasons:
You do not work 8 hours straight.
You fall asleep after brief work periods.
You do not always follow the orders of the management team.
You do not stay in your designated area and are often seen visiting other locations.
You do not take initiative - you need to be pressured and stimulated in order to start working.
You leave the workplace rather messy at the end of your shift.
You don't always observe necessary safety regulations, such as wearing the correct protective clothing.
You will retire well before you are 65.
You are unable to work double shifts.
You sometimes leave your designated work area before you have completed the assigned task.
And if that were not all, you have been seen constantly entering and exiting the workplace carrying two suspicious-looking bags.
Sincerely,
V. Gina
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Blue Eyed People, Persuade People,
Did you know that before 10,000 to 6,000 years ago there were no blue eyed people in the world. According to the boffins it all started with this some one going mutant with blue eyes. Before that we were all brown eyed. The gene called OCA2 codes the colour of melanin.
Comes out of "A common ancestor for all blue-eyed people"
When your other half is feeling powerful do not try to convince that person on a new idea. It will not work according to the Boffins. They say wait until they feel defeated over some crap. Good init?
Read it all here.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Comes out of "A common ancestor for all blue-eyed people"
When your other half is feeling powerful do not try to convince that person on a new idea. It will not work according to the Boffins. They say wait until they feel defeated over some crap. Good init?
Read it all here.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Friday, February 15, 2008
Damn it I suffered,
Nice to be back and with the news; but without the internet connection for a bit, I say, I did enjoy somethings I have not been doing for a while as I had more important other-things to do, and I never thought I will ever say these words with conviction to boot. Say no more I do understand. Hmmmmm.....
Now and again I get this wistful thinking that there are others who read thease little ..... yeah rumblings, an old famous One called them but who am I to do that eh? But it is nice to imagine that sonmeone else is listening to what you figer into the keyboard.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Now and again I get this wistful thinking that there are others who read thease little ..... yeah rumblings, an old famous One called them but who am I to do that eh? But it is nice to imagine that sonmeone else is listening to what you figer into the keyboard.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
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