Please naviagate to my new page Photo Gallery, where you will find photos of various places and things visited during my time in the UK and Europe.
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Readers of this blog may have noticed a distinct lack of activity on the site.
The simple reason is that I’m on holiday in the UK and Europe and I wont be back at home until November 1.
I will try upload up some photos as time and free wifi allow, but please excuse me if I’m a bit slow. 🙂
After the bloody suppression of a patriotic demonstration in Warsaw in 1861, Alexander Herzen wrote to Tsar Alexander II: “You have become a common murderer, an ordinary thug.” He also described the Russian press as “shameless” and “unscrupulous.”
Today, perhaps we should repeat the words of this great Russian, and direct them at Vladimir Putin and his Russian press-men who are lying ceaselessly and insolently. First we hear that Poland trained the Ukraine fascist squads that terrorized the Maidan; next we are told that Putinist conquerors of the Crimea bought their weapons and uniforms in stores and that the Kremlin had nothing to do with it. Now we are once again hearing about the Ukraine state’s responsibility in the MH-17 disaster.
The 298 victims of the shoot down of the Malaysia Air flight are a result of Putin’s ruthless and cynical imperialist policies. It was his decision to arm and finance the so-called “separatists” who in reality are the Kremlin’s spy network and fifth column in the Donbass region. They were armed with Putin’s knowledge, approval and money. And these people are the ones who killed random, innocent individuals.
Putin—with his KGB polkovnik mentality—does not want to let Ukraine follow its own path toward democracy and Europe. He wants to reconstruct the Russian empire. Inciting, upholding and supporting ethnic conflicts in Latvia and Estonia serves this aim, as does the creeping dismantling of Moldova, and maintenance of conflicts around Upper Karabakh. Indeed—this great power, this great Russian chauvinism is the final and highest stage of communism. And Putin understands progress as gradual and complete annexation of successive former Soviet states.
The European Union—accustomed to peace and quiet—has neither determination nor an understanding of the growing threat. The clichéd faith in the possibility of placating the beast is replaying over and over again. The blindness and loyalty of European political and business elites gives reason for concern. But there is nothing that releases us—intellectuals active in culture, scholarship, and media—from the duty to say clearly, stubbornly, and emphatically: This is very dangerous. We must not be allowed to repeat the naiveté once displayed by intellectual elites toward Hitler and Stalin. And back then we were not allowed to close our eyes to the annexation of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the Baltic States.
My friend from Moscow says that there are two scenarios in which the Russian army will leave Ukraine: One realistic and the other miraculous. In the realistic scenario, Saint George will ride in on a dragon and use his fiery sword to chase this band of scoundrels away. That’s the realistic scenario. And the miraculous one? They’ll just up and leave on their own.
The policy of successive concessions leads nowhere. Putin is not a European-style politician; he’s a politician of permanent belligerence and aggrandisement. Much seems to suggest that he has already let the genie out of the bottle—crowds of mercenaries are moving from Russia to Ukraine, crowds of sentimental monarchists, Orthodox fascists, National-Bolsheviks, and the like. Arming these bandits with first-class weapons is simply criminal. It is a good thing that Poland’s current government has taken an honest and judicious stance—it’s not flexing its muscles but it’s also not succumbing to illusions or hypocrisy.
Source: Adam Michnik – a leader of the anti-Communist opposition in Poland in the 1970s and 1980s, is the editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, where this piece originally appeared (as edited). Translated by Agnieszka Marczyk.
While there are various questions that have already emerged from what was supposed to be Ukraine’s irrefutable proof confirming Russian rebel involvement in today’s MH-17 tragedy, perhaps one just as important question emerges when one considers what is clearly an different flight path in today’s tragic flight of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777.
Perhaps the best visualisation of what the issue is, comes from Vagelis Karmiros who has compared all the recent MH-17 flight paths as tracked by Flightaware and shows that while all of the ten most recent paths pass safely well south of the Donetsk region, and cross the airspace above the Sea of Azov, it was only the last flight that passed straight overhead Donetsk.
How and why did the diversion from the accepted diversion flight path and passage over the war zone occur? The above map shows precisely where the restricted airspace is, and how MH-17 flew straight over it on the 17/07/2014.
Also, had airlines and pilots been made aware of the recent and previous missile attacks on Ukraine air force aircraft in this area? While MH-17 may well have been mistaken for a military aircraft of the Ukraine air force, there was always a significant risk that this exact type of incident would occur.
Of course the most burning question still remains as to why this civilian aircraft was targeted, and who is responsible (directly and indirectly) for firing the missile. Those who supplied the missile system are just as guilty as those who pressed the button!
See the previous blog on that issue here.
Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca
An interesting review of Queen Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great (Aleksander Veleki)
Olympias (c.375-316): Epirote princess, married to the Macedonian king Philip II, and mother of Alexander the Great.
The girl who was later to be called Olympias was the daughter of Neoptolemus, the king of the Molossians, one of the greatest tribes in Epirus. They lived in the neighborhood of modern Ioannina in Greece. During Neoptolemus’ reign, the tribe became more sedentary; urbanization started and we hear about scribes and other administrative officials. In 358, the Molossians became the allies of the Macedonian king Philip II (360-336); the alliance was strengthened by a diplomatic marriage. In 357, Olympias became Philip’s wife.
Next year, a chariot that Philip had sent to the Olympic games, was victorious. Therefore, the queen received the name Olympias. In the same summer, she gave birth to her first child: Alexander. According to the Greek author Plutarch of Chaeronea (46-c.122), these events took place on the same day…
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Here’s an ingenious battery operated ice bucket that is capable of moving up to six bottles of beer to your co-drinkers so you don’t need to fetch another cold one. The RC Remote Control Cooler has a large 5 litre capacity – simply load it up with drinks and ice, and away it goes!
This RC cooler operates on the 2.4GHz frequency, allowing up to 6 units to work in the same time and place. So why not buy a couple more for your mates and you can have a terrific time trying to race each other to see who can get their beer the fastest! Easy to navigate – move the RC Cooler forwards, backwards, left and right with the bottle top shaped controller.
The RC Drinks Cooler features four sure-grip wheels great for both indoors and outdoors, made exclusively with the intention to speed up the delivery of cold lager. Now you can put your feet up as you transmit its beer contents to your fellow boozers by means of a bottle top motivated handheld transmitter.
Drinks are not included and are for illustration purposes only. Video shown is for demo purpose only and is not representative of the actual item or the general attitude of users of the product.
CONCERNS about the air quality on planes are nothing new, but a recent lawsuit reignites a debate over whether it could potentially be harmful. British Airways (BA) defended its safety protocols after a posthumous court case was filed on behalf of one of two former pilots who claimed that they had been poisoned by toxic cabin fumes.
The BA pilots, Karen Lysakowska and Richard Westgate, believed they had fallen victim to “aerotoxic syndrome” towards the end of their lives. They accused BA of breaching health and safety guidelines for monitoring cabin air quality—a claim that the airline strenuously rejects. Aerotoxic syndrome is the name given to a mixture of physical and neurological symptoms that some experts believe could arise from exposure to toxic fumes on passenger jets. This could happen, it is alleged, if there is a malfunction in the aircraft’s bleed air supply, which compresses air from the engines and uses it to pressurise the cabin. Almost all commercial aircraft use these systems, with the notable exception of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
The alleged risk comes from “fume events”, whereby faulty seals allow oil particles to enter the bleed pipe. When the air is subsequently compressed and heated, additives present in the fuel allegedly form neurotoxic aerosol particles. The British Civil Aviation Authority says flight crews have to don oxygen masks around five times a week in response to such fume events. So far, efforts to establish whether these incidents pose a threat to aircraft operations or long-term health have proven inconclusive.
Westgate’s lawyers are suing the airline. His doctor told the British Sunday Express: “Some of the symptoms are like the early onset of Parkinson’s Disease or MS. There needs to be an understanding of this, but it’s wilfully not recognised. The airline industry knows how huge the implications would be.”
BA cites independent studies commissioned by Britain’s Department for Transport which found “no evidence that pollutants occur in the cabin air at levels exceeding available health and safety standards”. It added that numerous peer-reviewed research papers found “no increase in overall cancer or mortality rates amongst cabin and flight crew”. The British government concurs, saying “concerns about significant risk to the health of airline passengers and crew are not substantiated”.
There have been other instances of pilots claiming ill effects from fumes. In December 2010, for instance, two Germanwings pilots became disorientated after smelling fumes while on approach to Cologne. Germany’s air accident authority later confirmed that the pilots, who described their own mental state “as surreal, and as within a dream”, had abnormally low blood oxygen levels. Whatever the current thinking, further research into this condition would be welcome.
If the latest information on Jetstar NZ is true, full service carriers might start sending teams from all over the world to study and if possible replicate the benefits that the Qantas budget subsidiary is unintentionally delivering for Air New Zealand.
Consider the fundamentals behind this story:
- Jetstar NZ can’t give its seats away at around $NZ 100 for a short one way flight, leaving Air NZ to charge up to $340 for the same trip.
- Yet on the face of it, New Zealand, comprising two islands, and one mobile and prosperous society, could not have been better set up to suit the advent of high frequency short distance low cost flying.
It is the last place on earth that a full service carrier could successfully compete with a low fare carrier, especially where some fares may be three times as high on the former as on the latter.
It is the last place where a low cost carrier could fail. But while we can’t measure the monetary extent to which Jetstar NZ is a failure, its Head of New Zealand, Grant Kerr, says in the interview that at best on some major routes he has only 24 per cent of the market.
What this means is that Jetstar NZ has mopped up the lowest paying quarter of the passenger uplift on those routes, thus lifting the average fare being collected by Air NZ for the other three quarters of sector in terms of head count.
Air NZ has every reason to be grateful to Qantas for the manner in which it is conducting its business in New Zealand, a golden windfall which it must wish will continue indefinitely.
The article suggests that unpunctuality is the major reason business travelers avoid the huge savings to be made flying Jetstar NZ. The incident in which a check in clerk jumped the counter to punch out a passenger, a radio station shock jock, in 2010 seems to have faded with time.
However the real lesson from Jetstar NZ’s admitted lack of traction with higher yielding passengers may be that the unintended value of low cost competitors is to lift average yields for those carriers that have developed a strong brand following among customers who will not shift their support just because of price.
If this lesson is applicable in Australia it means that over time Qantas and Virgin Australia would be better off letting someone else compete in the low fare domestic market rather than their self owned or controlled budget brands of Jetstar and Tigerair respectively, and deal with that external competition from the position of strength that comes from keeping the higher paying customers for themselves.
At the moment in NZ, everything Jetstar does can be seen as directly benefiting Air New Zealand.
Source: http://www.crikey.com
Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey
IF the Abbott government thought that removing $80 billion from state health and education budgets over the next 10 years would prompt the states to mildly request an increase in the rate and coverage of the GST, it was mistaken.
That would have been preferable, of course, from the federal Coalition’s point of view. Because, under the proposed plan, Mr Hockey would get to keep the $80 billion for federal coffers and then look like a white knight, riding to the rescue of the struggling states when they begged for a higher GST to be imposed on the entire Australian population.
There are obvious problems with that, however, from the states’ point of view.
For a start, the cuts are more or less immediate, while any boost from extra GST funds would take years to appear. Trying to get re-elected when they’ve had a massive budget cut foisted on them would be challenging for the state governments, to say the least.
Not only that, but the state governments would also then be cast as the villains behind the push for a GST increase – another bad look.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the idea of raising the GST or with broadening its application to cover some goods and services – such as food – that are currently exempt.
But any changes in the GST should occur in the context of broad tax reform. They should not be enacted in isolation and they should certainly not be enacted as the result of what many will see as a piece of bullying by the federal Coalition.
Prime Minister Abbott appears to believe that he can afford to make enemies in his first budget, since he has the rest of his term to make up lost ground in the popularity stakes.
This too, may prove to be a miscalculation.
The states’ mostly Liberal premiers and chief ministers appear unanimous in their condemnation of the federal government’s tactic, which they insist contradicts everything they were led to believe before the budget.
NSW Premier Mike Baird, who has described the cuts as ‘‘a kick in the guts’’, will host his interstate counterparts at a weekend meeting to discuss a response. Mr Abbott has already hinted at some form of compromise, but it isn’t yet clear what this might be.
Meanwhile, the widespread backlash against a number of aspects of the budget may have emboldened the government’s parliamentary opponents, some of whom have sworn to block particular measures in the senate.
Mr Abbott has also stated that if the Senate (which his Party does not control) do not pass the budget (or parts thereof) then he will petition the Governor-General for a double dissolution of parliament. This may prove to be the biggest miscalculation he could make. Since coming to power, Mr Abbott has made few friends on either side of the House, with continued gaffes, unfortunate comment and sexist attitudes. Mr Abbott cannot afford a double dissolution. Such an action may well end his Prime Ministership and would certainly would cost some of his Liberal Party colleagues their places in Parliament!
Such a move would be surprising if even as bold a punter as the Prime Minister would risk a gambit with such an uncertain outcome.
Source: http://www.theherald.com.au
The NSW Ambulance has introduced mandatory anti-violence training for ALL operational officers. This training involves face-to-face training with an education officer and a 20 minute video to impart skills and knowledge to identify and avoid high-risk situations which may lead to violence.
Health Services Union Hunter ambulance sub-branch president Peter Rumball slammed a 20-minute video being used to train paramedics in the region to cope with and avoid violent situations following another attack against paramedics in Newcastle.
It comes after a paramedic was assaulted in Civic Park on Wednesday night – the ninth attack to occur in the Hunter this year.
Police say the 26-year-old woman was receiving treatment for a laceration above her eye, at about 6pm, when she struck a paramedic in the rib area before fleeing. She will face Newcastle Local Court in June.
Mr Rumball said ‘‘It’s becoming more frequent and we need the ambulance service to step up and provide greater training than a 20-minute video,’’ he said. ‘‘The members have described it as ticking a box and that’s coming directly from the members.’’
Mr Rumball called for paramedics to get training more akin to what police received. ‘‘We need full awareness and more concern of what we’re sending our officers into,’’ he said. ‘‘We’ve got patients who are affected by LSD, ice and PCP. ‘‘We’ve also got people with mental health problems who would normally be in institutions out in the community.’’ This suggestion lacks merit as paramedics are not exposed to the same level of violence as police. Paramedics have the option to “stand off” from locations were violence is occurring or suspected, the police do not.
Mr Rumball also said he was disappointed by the lack of offenders being sent to jail for assaulting paramedics. ‘‘No one will go to jail for assaulting an ambulance officer,’’ he said. ‘‘It is going to take a paramedic to get killed for someone to go to jail. This may be so, but this is his opinion. This is still a matter for the courts and the judicial officers involved. Furthermore, ambulance has demonstrated that they will appeal a sentence that they perceive as being too lenient.
Lewis’ View – Cartoon: Peter Lewis
NSW Ambulance deputy chief executive Mike Willis said they didn’t consider Mr Rumball’s comments as representative of the greater paramedic population. ‘‘This criticism of the video is surprising given that the paramedic unions – HSU and EMSPA – were shown the video and had no issue with it,’’ he said. ‘‘Internally, NSW Ambulance is currently providing anti-violence training for all paramedics. ‘‘The training assists with situational awareness, de-escalating difficult situations, and understanding patterns of behaviour to help a paramedic avert violent situations. ‘‘NSW Ambulance also produced a video to assist paramedics with decision making in circumstances that could become volatile.’’ Mr Willis acknowledged paramedic assaults were increasing. He said criminal charges had been laid in 35 of the 67 alleged assaults that have occurred in the state between January and April this year. ‘‘With the majority still before the NSW courts,’’ he said. ‘‘NSW Ambulance has a zero tolerance policy towards any form of abuse, be it physical or verbal. ‘‘We are committed to ensuring the health and well-being of our entire workforce, with support provided to all of our paramedics.’’
Mr Rumball has a long history of opposing steps taken by ambulance to improve the service to the public, and also to training provided for officers to improve their already difficult and stressful occupation. It is likely that this view is not a true representation of paramedics views. Membership in the HSU has been decimated in Newcastle and indeed throughout the NSW as a result of the corrupt practices demonstrated by HSU senior management. Paramedics have deserted the HSU in droves, some moving to EMSPA, and with many others deserting the union movement all together. This incident would appear to be the Hunter HSU trying to discredit an effective training program provided to combat increasing risk of violence to paramedic officers.
I personally applaud the efforts of ambulance to better prepare officers to manage potentially violent situations that may confront them.
Acknowledgments: The Newcastle Herald; Cartoon: Peter Lewis
Words, By George! 