Category Archives: Uncategorized

ISIS Conspiracy Theories Include One That It’s an American Plot – NYTimes.com

The former secretary of state explains that she tried to reassure members of Egypt’s Coptic Christian community, during discussions at the United States Embassy in Cairo. “In our meeting, one of the more agitated participants brought up an especially outrageous canard,” Mrs. Clinton writes. “He accused my trusted aide Huma Abedin, who is Muslim, of being a secret agent of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

As Mrs. Clinton explains, this conspiracy theory “had been circulated by some unusually irresponsible and demagogic right-wing political and media personalities in the United States, including members of Congress,” and had spread to Egypt via the Internet ahead of her visit.

“I wasn’t going to let that stand and told him in no uncertain terms how wrong he was,” Mrs. Clinton recalls in her book. “After a few minutes of conversation the embarrassed accuser apologized and asked why a member of the U.S. Congress would make such an assertion if it wasn’t true. I laughed and said that unfortunately plenty of falsehoods are circulated in Congress.”

via ISIS Conspiracy Theories Include One That It’s an American Plot – NYTimes.com.

Is 53 seconds long enough to gather my soul? — New Internationalist

To a close friend to whom I promised to stay alive:

I promised you I would stay alive in spite of them – and you know who ‘they’ are. You responded by saying that you wanted me to live for my own sake; not for someone else’s, or in spite of someone else. You said you would miss a part of your soul if I died. I’m sorry that I’m keeping my promise in the worst way possible, but I cannot handle a slow death any more.

My friend, I only want them to leave us alone, and let us continue the journey of our lives peacefully.

I’m still alive, my friend, and keeping my promise. Do you know why? I will only answer you because I know you can keep a secret: I’m still alive because death is the easiest way out of war, and life is the hardest way of all.

Life is precisely the hardest way of all.

Rana Mourtaja lives in Gaza.

via Is 53 seconds long enough to gather my soul? — New Internationalist.

A Hot cinema night on Crete

matteringsofmind

There is always something magical about going to a cinema in a foreign land.

Never did I feel that more than on a hot and balmy August night in the mid 1970’s when I first saw the film “Zorba the Greek”        Now, I am not in the habit of seeing a movie when on holiday but I couldn’t resist the little open air cinema in the town of Heraklion on the Greek Island of Crete.

Little did I realise it, but  that night  I had stumbled onto a minute bit of cinema and political history in the making. “Zorba the Greek” – released in 1964, was adapted from the book of the same name written by the Greek national literary hero Nikos Kazantzakis. Born in this small seaside hamlet, he now lies beneath a modest monument on a hill high above the town.

“Zorba” is one of those late sixties…

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Egyptian Aak 2014 – Week 34 ( Aug 18-24)

Nervana

 Main Headlines

Monday

Tuesday

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Widespread Coal Burning in Amity Hall – Portland Bight Protected Area

Petchary's Blog

This is a disturbing development taking place – apparently unchecked – in a Protected Area that is already under threat from the proposed construction of a transshipment port at Goat Islands. I hope the National Environment and Planning Agency takes swift action to prevent further deforestation.

By the way, the Director of the Caribbean Maritime Institute, Dr. Fritz Pinnock, took a large group of media and members of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) to Goat Islands on Sunday, August 17.  Dr. Pinnock took the group to a degraded area, apparently to prove that complete destruction of the area to build a transshipment port would be no great sacrifice of Jamaica’s environmental biodiversity (“See! It’s already messed up!”) He observed during a radio interview this morning, “There’s nothing there!”

I hope that similar arguments will not be used to justify the destruction of  this part of the Portland Bight Protected…

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Facebook to add “reality” tag to Iain Duncan Smith

Pride's Purge

(satire?)

Facebook has begun labelling comments and speeches from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith with a “reality” tag, just in case people think he might be a parody.

The move comes after many people thought Mr Duncan Smith was taking the p*ss when he claimed people were now “better off” after his welfare and pension reforms.

Other comments by Mr Duncan Smith that the government was creating a “fairer society” by cutting school and NHS budgets while at the same time giving tax cuts to multi-millionaires were also regarded by many people as a joke.

Facebook said the “reality” label was meant to appease users who have apparently complained that they can’t always tell the difference between a caricature of a nasty, heartless, out-of-touch Tory who would sell his own grandmother at the drop of a hat and Duncan Smith.

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Related articles by Tom Pride:

Iain Duncan Smith claimed expenses for his…

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