Sunday, February 26, 2012

Syrian Intervention



There’s a lot of talk about military intervention in Syria these days. Clearly the situation has gone from bad to worse. I’ll be the first to admit that military intervention in Libya and not Syria was suspect. Syria was firing on unarmed civilians. Libya was firing back at armed rebels. There was a huge difference. Even Saudi Arabia was firing on unarmed protesters at one point. Oh but they let US troops in and contribute massive amounts of money to US presidential campaigns. That means it’s OK if they shoot unarmed civilians. The bottom line was Libya had oil and Syria didn’t.

It was shocking that China and Russia both vetoed military intervention at the UN when Syria started firing on unarmed protesters. The allies didn’t wait for China and Russia’s approval to overthrow Gadaffi. They went in under the guise of enforcing a cease fire and started bombing one side. Why? Because Gadaffi was a socialist and he had oil just like Kuwait and Iraq did.

I remember arguing with someone during the Gulf war. They claimed the US went in to liberate Kuwait because they had oil. I said you’re crazy. Iraq invaded another country. Then I found out that not only did the CIA put Saddam Husseinin power, but Saddam asked the US what their position was if he invaded Kuwait before he did. They told him the United States has no position on that matter. Then when he goes in, the US freak out and lead a huge coalition of the willing while Saddam is scratching his head saying what the hell? They set me up.

So now we’re looking at Syria and it’s a mess. Russia argues that the protesters have now taken up arms and the UN is encouraging them. The UN is telling them if you keep fighting we will support you just like in Libya. That kinda makes sense but if I was protesting and the government started shooting at me, I think I’d take up arms too.

No one likes to stand by and watch a dictator kill civilians. Rwanda was a horrible genocide. Where was the UN there? Oh right, they didn’t have oil either. Clearly we are free to choose and we don’t have to wait for the UN’s permission to do anything.

Yet I’m not sure if military intervention in Syria is timely. We can say we oppose you killing civilians. We can say we won’t do business with you if you do that. That is the first step. The Arab League is meeting and discussing the matter and well they should. They are able to do something themselves. They don’t have to wait for our approval and they don’t have to wait for us to do it for them. One minute they’re burning flags and saying F the USA then the next minute they’re crying please help us.

The news showed footage of Syria and locals saying where is the UN? My response is where is the Arab League? It’s their neighborhood. The problem with using our military to overthrow a foreign dictator who hasn’t invaded any other countries, is that we don’t know who we are supporting in his place. In Libya, the rebels had ties to the Taliban. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just if you are trying to convince the world the Taliban is bad, supporting them in a separate conflict is somewhat hypocritical.

Don’t get me wrong, if Hitler hadn’t invaded any other countries and just started killing Jews or Muslims in his own country, we would still have been morally bound to stand against him. The situation in Syria does concern me greatly. I just think we should let the Arab League lead the way while we support them in trying to bring peace to that war torn nation.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Koran burning in Afghanistan



I was shocked to hear that US soldiers had accidentally burned a couple copies of the Koran that were accidentally placed in an incinerator. I realize that the Koran is a holy book just like the Bible. Burning it intentionally is offensive. Just like burning a country's flag is.

When that wacko false preacher in the States sent out press releases about his intent to intentionally burn a copy of the Koran, that was offensive. That is not something a Christian is supposed to do. Yet to kill someone over the burning of a holy book is in itself the epitome of hypocrisy.

The Koran and the Bible both teach thou shalt not kill. Historically, Jerusalem and Belfast have both misunderstood the old law of an eye for an eye. That primitive law meant that if you commit murder, you were to be put to death. It did not mean if someone commits murder that you randomly take some innocent person from the same race, religion or country and execute them. That would be another murder. That is what Martin Luther King meant when he said the old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.

The BBC is reporting 20 people have died since the protests began. The whole idea of murdering an innocent person because someone burned a holy books is disturbingly hypocritical. I don't think that is something the Dalai Lama or a Buddhist would do. Although burning a Bible is also sacrilegious to a Christian, I don't think you'll find many Christians who will murder someone, especially murder some innocent person, just because someone burnt a Bible. I think that says a lot about the two different religions.

The "activists" in Pakistan foaming at the mouth while they burn an effigy of the US look like crazed animals. They don't look like inspired holy men to me. So what does an enlightened sage really look like? Like Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King perhaps. Someone who's life is evidence of a peaceful enlightened mind. Not a crazed lunatic foaming at the mouth in a drunken rage of vengeance.

The whole mission in Afghanistan was tainted from the beginning. Bin Laden was found in Pakistan not Afghanistan and there is a huge amount of evidence questioning his involvement in 9/11. Osama and Colonel Gadaffi were both executed without a fair trial. Something a democratic society promises.

Three months before 9/11 the Texas oil barons were wining and dining the Taliban trying to win the contract for the oil pipeline. As soon as the contract for the oil pipeline was taken from UNOCAL and given to an Argentina firm named Bridas, Afghanistan was invaded and that decision was reversed.

Canada has been significantly involved in the Afghanistan mission. We have lost many good soldiers who went there to help the people of Afghanistan and gave their lives in their service. One name stands out in my mind. He was a reservist from Edmonton named Bill Turner. He was involved with the kites for kids program there. At his eulogy they said he was the type of soldier who would say "Hi, my name is Bill. I'm here to help." That was a good soldier. Just like the soldier who took his helmet off as a sign of trust meeting with some local elders and a crazed assailant attacked him from behind with an axe. That was a good soldier. He had also written about the missing women from the DTES.

Burning any holy book is disrespectful just like burning any country's flag is. Yet killing someone for doing so is shamefully hypocritical. We need to aspire to something higher.

UN arrests in Mexico



We haven’t heard much from the UN after the arrest of Clayton Rouche and the crack down after the UN were charged with shooting at the Bacon brothers outside Tbarz in Surrey. Other than the recent UN member who was murdered in Mexico.

One reader sent me these articles about two UN members they claim were arrested in Mexico for money laundering. I can’t read Spanish and the pdf files won’t cut and paste in a online translator but I will link to the articles for your reference. Basically, the UN do what the Hells Angels do but are more on the radar so to speak.

This is a copy of the news article and this is a copy of the police report. The peanut gallery will claim that this wasn't sent in from any source at all and that I just made it up. Although I don't know Spanish.

BC Teachers Strike – Mediation or Legislation?



Nobody likes to see schools shut down from job action. Yet removing free collective bargaining rights from Canadians is a bad precedent for everyone. Throwing out collective agreements and rewriting them through acts of legislation is not only wrong, it is illegal. If you deem something to be an essential service, which may well apply to teachers in schools, then you need to adapt mediation and arbitration. Unilateral acts of legislation changing the status quo to impose a settlement are wrong. Education is important.

Friday, February 24, 2012

From coast to coast a toast to the host we hate the most



Well here it is. In Stargate a host was a tapeworm or parasite that lived in someone else’s body. Yet unlike Stargate, this parasite doesn’t keep the person alive, it lives off of and sucks the life out of him just like Catherine Austin Fitts described in the tapeworm economy.

In the Rocky Horror Picture Show, everyone throws toast at the screen during the part when they make a toast. This gang war certainly is a Rocky Horror Picture show of lies and betrayal all in the name of greed.

The recent murder of a Hells Angel associate in Nova Scotia is timely. It comes not long after the Jeff Lynds suicide in prison. Jeff Lynds is the Hells Angel who admitting to shooting Randy Mersereau for the group many years ago and has now turned informant. Some speculate his prison suicide was part of a cover up to put him into protective custody. Some speculate that is why his sister recently tried to kill herself by overdosing on insulin. Because she’s afraid the Hells Angels are going to kill her to punish her brother. Now that is really messed up. Harming someone’s family for any reason is really messed up.

There’s an interesting connection between Vancouver and Halifax and it leads to Kelowna. David Giles. The rusty vibrator was originally from the Halifax Hells Angels chapter. He came to Vancouver then Kelowna after the Halifax Hells Angels were charged in the Lennoxville Massacre in Montreal.

Turns out the Halifax chapter was invited to the same party to witness the execution of their brothers from Laval. For some reason the police thought they were involved with the murder. Those charges didn’t stick so the spoils of war were divided between the surviving chapters.

The Halifax chapter was originally known as the 13th Tribe. For some strange reason they thought there was a legend about a 13th tribe of Israel that was bad so they named themselves after that tribe. Actually it was one of the 12 tribes that was predicted to fall which resulted in one of the other tribes receiving a double portion keeping the number of tribes at 12 but that’s besides the point.

The 13th tribe named themselves after a group of people they thought were bad. Turns out the 13th tribe lived up to their reputation and patched over to become Hells Angels thus once again securing the Hells Angels control of the local drug trade.

One news source claims they got a little too rough with a prostitute and ended up getting charged with living off the avails of prostitution which they were convicted of. So David Giles, a member of that chapter comes to Vancouver with Mike Christiansen, another member of that chapter who ends up in Kelowna with Giles.

Although Giles certainly isn’t as repulsive as Robert Thomas from the Kelowna Hells Angels who was nothing but a petty thief from Ontario who’s saggy ass and a few associates used baseball bats and hammers to murder Dain Philips in public. He has nonetheless been involved behind the scene in leadership roles of the club’s business for years.

When Revell and Remple were convicted of cocaine trafficking in Kelowna, Giles was caught on wiretap saying Revelle made him $30,000 in the previous few months. Although his lawyer argued in court that only proved Revelle worked for Giles not that Giles was involved in any criminal activity, his lawyer failed to show what legitimate business they did that earned him that much money in that short a period of time.

Likewise, the day Juel Stanton was murdered, one blog reader from Kelowna recognized Giles from the website and said they saw him having a heart to heart with a younger kid explaining something serious to him. Obviously the kid was wondering why Stanton was murdered. Another source claimed there was a court disclosure that connected Giles to Stanton that was not only embarrassing for the police but showed that Giles shad been hiding things from Bryce. Yet that disclosure has yet to materialize.

Giles’ trip back east right before Bacchus and the Darksiders expanded into Nova Scotia was somewhat suspicious. According to Neil Hall's book, Giles was the one the 2 1/2 tons of cocaine that was seized from the Western Wind was going to although no charges were ever laid. Speaking of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, how is his DUI charges going?

Gang rape victim speaks out



After the crown stayed the charges against one of the guys accused of participating in a gang rape at a Maple Ridge rave, the under age victim is speaking out. She is making an appeal for witnesses to come forward because she says there is no doubt in her mind that she was raped. She has been bullied after the assault.

Dropping the charges was a shocking turn of events. The accused's lawyer was quoted as saying the accused did nothing wrong and the victim accompanied him to MacDonald’s after the party. That kind of statement is so bizarrely offensive it diminishes all of us. The crown dropped the charges or more accurate the charges were stayed because of what they claim to be an unlikelihood of conviction.

Upon hearing the news one father I know said that’s it, I’m buying a gun. There is no justice in our system. When something happens you call the police. They have guns. Yet they can’t do anything and the courts won’t press charges. I’m buying a gun. No doubt it’s easy to see this father’s frustration.

There is a long list of disturbing events in this case. Dropping the charges is just the final straw. It’s not like the victim choked and didn’t want to press charges out of fear of retaliation. We know that does happen in cases of rape, especially in cases of date rape. Instead we have a victim that says I was raped and I want to press charges and we have a video proving it. There is no reason those charges shouldn’t proceed. It’s time for the Attorney General to step forward and make sure those charges do proceed.

The defense’s claim that it was consensual is absurd. It does not pass the test of believability. No doubt in the case of a single date rape, the accused will always try to get off by claiming it was consensual. The use of date rape drug or some other intoxicant over rides that argument. Yet the victim raised a very good point in her appeal. No one in their right mind would consent to that. Being raped by half a dozen guys at once at a party.

The idea of one guy sharing his girlfriend with others is disturbing in itself. Gang rapes are in themselves deranged. I’m going to share this woman with someone else or I’m going to have sex with this woman right after someone else has. That is messed up all on it’s own. Filming it and posting it on the internet adds to the depravity. Having witness stand around and not intervene diminishes all of us. This case makes us all look like criminals for not intervening and not proceeding with charges. It has set human rights back in this country 300 years. Not just woman’s rights but human rights. When we let something like that happen to any aspect of our society, we are all diminished.

Since the gang rape happened in Maple Ridge and since this blog if primarily about the Hells Angels I will point out that the Haney Hells Angels which are located in Maple Ridge were caught with the largest date rape seizure in the country. Supplying that drug to anyone is wrong. Profiting from that is deranged. Maple Ridge is also close to the location of the Pickton farm which involved the Haney Hells Angels.

Toronto Police Officer charged with Murder



Charges against a Toronto police officer have been upgraded from manslaughter to second degree murder where a suspect was found shot in the back. The police claim this is a bad precedent and might cause officers to second guess themselves in a life or death situation. Although there is some merit to that argument, if an officer second guesses himself before he shoots a suspect in the back, that might not be a bad thing.

Compare that to the murder that set off the London riots. Here we have not just one officer who committed the murder of an unarmed suspect, but two different departments caught lying about the events in an attempt to cover it up.

An anti gang task force from the Scotland Yard was accompanying the London police when they went to arrest a suspect from the Broad Water Farm Estates. I’ve been there. I used to live in Brixton right by the front line when I was in London but did visit the Broad Water Farm Estate in the north once. They claimed that when they tried to arrest the suspect, the suspect opened fire on them, hitting an officer in the chest. They claimed that the bullet hit the officer’s police radio which saved his life and said that after he shot the officer the task force used deadly force to shoot him dead.

Only the ballistic report showed that the bullet that hit the police radio was fired from a police issued gun. So here we had the police shoot an unarmed suspect dead, plant a gun on his possession then claim he fired on them first only to be caught in a bold faced lie. That is what set off the London riots. Although there is no excuse for looting, harsh charges against those rioters without charging the police with breach of trust for killing an unarmed suspect then lying about it is a shameful injustice from the motherland.

Irans’ death row



Although I am the first one to agree Iran persuing the use of nuclear energy is concerning in the event that they use that technology to make nuclear weapons is concerning, I also find it concerning that Canada has been selling nuclear technology to China, India and Pakistan for years which has helped them develop nuclear weapons. It is hypocritical for Canada to support nuclear technology in China, India and Pakistan but not in Iran because Iran might do the same thing with it, India and Pakistan has.

Although I am aware and somewhat concerned about England and American’s meddling in Iran’s politics to gain financial control of their oil through Operation Ajax, I am also concerned about Iran’s bizarre extremism regarding their death row. We can argue about capital punishment until the cows come home. Many are shall we say, deathly opposed to any form of capital punishment for any reason. Personally, I’m more concerned with capital punishment for stupid reasons.

Stoning a woman for adultery may be biblical but it is extreme. Especially when they only stone the woman and not the man she committed adultery with. Yet this recent case of a Canadian on death row in Iran for creating a software program for the Internet is so extreme it’s bizarre.

No one like an extremist. Whether it be a religious extremist telling us we have to do things their way or a secular extremist telling us we have to do things their way, no one likes being told what to do.

The latest news is about a Canadian resident named Saeed Malekpour who created a software program that let people upload pictures to the Internet. No doubt similar to facebook or photobucket. Then someone else used that program to upload porn. So they take the guy who created the program and put him on death row. They’re going to kill him. Holy Marc Emory Batman that is insanely extreme. That is not the example of a model society the rest of the world aspires to. It is the example of a backward nation we should avoid.

CARPe Diem



Looks like there is a new political activist group called CARP lobbying to protect pensions and public medical. More power to them.

Lenscrafter - The eyeglass monopoly



Last night there was a guy on the news from Ontario. He owns an eyeglass store and claims that producing eye glasses is much cheaper than they want us to realize. He just got out of jail because he was imprisoned for making eye glasses without a license to do so. The documentary is going to follow up on the monopoly that is gouging consumers.

Turns out that Lenscrafter is owned by a transnational that owns several other eye glass companies and their annual profit is in the billions. It reminds me of the monopoly and the political control the pharmaceutical companies have. How they exert control of rigid patents and gouge consumers. Unlike the man who found the polio vaccine and donated it to the public for free. Now transnational pharmaceutical companies gouge and exploit consumers all in the name of the almighty dollar.
Which also reminds me of the Rockefellers and their corporate control of oil company monopolies that gouge us at the pumps. We are starting to see it again recently how they are scamming us at the pumps with more daily increases just because they can. Vancouver’s intent to set up more electric car charging stations is a welcome incentive. As long as they don’t continue to turn BC Hydro into another Enron that is.

A traditional conservative supports small business not transnational monopolies. Transnational monopolies leads to something else. The removal of individual rights Which the neo cons claim they oppose but really support.