Pauly Fuemana is dead

Who???

Remember OMC?
Only had one hit but what a song! It's always in one of my playlists. It's one of the songs I love to sing at top volume, as I drive.



Thanks for the music, man. I'm sorry life wasn't better for you.
40 is far too young to die.

News item here.

The Netherlands, today

It's a pretty world, when it snows.

Palestine

Robert Fisk thinks it is a dead dream, and so do I.

Both the United States and Europe now stand idly by while the Israeli government effectively destroys any hope of a Palestinian state; even as you read these words, Israel's bulldozers and demolition orders are destroying the last chance of peace; not only in the symbolic centre of Jerusalem itself but – strategically, far more important – in 60 per cent of the vast, biblical lands of the occupied West Bank, in that largest sector in which Jews now outnumber Muslims two to one.

This majority of the West Bank – known under the defunct Oslo Agreement's sinister sobriquet as "Area C" – has already fallen under an Israeli rule which amounts to apartheid by paper: a set of Israeli laws which prohibit almost all Palestinian building or village improvements, which shamelessly smash down Palestinian homes for which permits are impossible to obtain, ordering the destruction of even restored Palestinian sewage systems. Israeli colonists have no such problems; which is why 300,000 Israelis now live – in 220 settlements which are all internationally illegal – in the richest and most fertile of the Palestinian occupied lands.

When Obama's elderly envoy George Mitchell headed home in humiliation this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated his departure by planting trees in two of the three largest Israeli colonies around Jerusalem. With these trees at Gush Etzion and Ma'aleh Adumim, he said, he was sending "a clear message that we are here. We will stay here. We are planning and we are building." These two huge settlements, along with that of Ariel to the north of Jerusalem, were an "indisputable part of Israel forever."
Source

There is no justice in all of this, only shame. The saddest thing is that most of the Americans are blithely unaware of what is being done with their tax dollar, in their name. I truly believe a good many of them would be horrified.

But this is so very underreported in the West that it might as well be happening on another planet. It is something we all bear some responsibility for.

"We'll see it, our kids will live it

and it's a question about whether our grandchildren will live through it"

So says Dan Miller. I hold this opinion as well.

This talk should be required for everyone in the industrial world to watch, so the public can understand how very serious this really is!




In a way, I've given up, I think we won't do what needs to be done to avert this climate change. I realise any action I take (energy savings, lightbulbs, small car) won't make a difference, it needs to happen on a massive, global scale. And yet, I can't stop hoping that if enough people are informed, we'll act in time.

So don't yawn, watch the damn video!

Oh ja. Echt.

Vandaag op nu.nl:



(geloof er niets van!)

Follow the money

I have been.
For a while, I looked very carefully at how much came in, how much was swallowed up in sundry expenses, overheads, consultancy fees, and so on. And, how much in the end landed in the communities that needed aid. AND, how much of that actually was effective.

Some switch in my head flipped, and I stopped with most of my memberships and contributions after that. Now, I give money to the very small projects, and whenever possible I donate directly.

So much of the aid circus is a scam. Some of this, I have seen from a front row seat. It makes me quite furious.

This bit in an article on Haiti, reminded me again of the innate dishonesty that permeates so much of the NGO world. The only thing that keeps the system going, is the untrammeled idealism of so many hard working volunteers and fundraisers, who make sure it won't fail.

Haitians are now paying the price for this feeble and corrupt government structure because there is nobody to co-ordinate the most rudimentary relief and rescue efforts. Its weakness is exacerbated because aid has been funnelled through foreign NGOs. A justification for this is that less of the money is likely to be stolen, but this does not mean that much of it reaches the Haitian poor. A sour Haitian joke says that when a Haitian minister skims 15 per cent of aid money it is called "corruption" and when an NGO or aid agency takes 50 per cent it is called "overheads".

Many of the smaller government aid programmes and NGOs are run by able, energetic and selfless people, but others, often the larger ones, are little more than rackets, highly remunerative for those who run them. In Kabul and Baghdad it is astonishing how little the costly endeavours of American aid agencies have accomplished. "The wastage of aid is sky high," said a former World Bank director in Afghanistan. "There is real looting going on, mostly by private enterprises. It is a scandal." Foreign consultants in Kabul often receive $250,000 to $500,000 a year, in a country where 43 per cent of the population try to live on less than a dollar a day.

source

Wat een ongelofelijke komedie wordt hier gespeeld!!

Smoke and mirrors. Misdirection 101.

Ons hele kabinet speelt een cynisch spel met het volk. De conclusies van Commissie Davids liegen er niet om. In plaats van deze punten van kritiek te confronteren, komt Balkenende met een meesterlijk set: Hij snoeft en gooit alle negatieve conclusies resoluut in de goot met een paar koele woorden. Onmiddelijk hoog drama bij de coalitiepartner PvdA, die toch nog de schijn van links hoog moet houden. Vervolgens een hyperventilerende drama tot laat in de nacht waar Balkenende een soort van knieval maakt, om vervolgens toch te zeggen dat hij dus toch blijft staan bij wat hij eerst zei.

Selectieve doofheid preveleert. Iedereen in de pers roept dat een crisis is afgewend. Opluchting alom.

...en bijna niemand merkt dat met geen woord gesproken wordt over de bevindingen van Commissie Davids, die zeer ernstig zijn en die toch ten minste zouden moeten leiden tot het opstappen van Balkenende.

Zo luchtig wordt er omgegaan met zulk diepgaande onderwerpen als internationaal volkerenrecht.

Inmiddels gaat het over dooien en ijs. En Haiti.

Hoezo, democratie.

Blijf maar roepen dat de economische crisis over is

... want als je het gelooft, wordt het zo.

Toch?

Steeds meer kleine zelfstandigen kloppen aan bij de voedselbanken in Nederland voor gratis levensmiddelen.

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