Good music, weird dude, bad behavior...

KABUL – In the shadow of a Soviet-era apartment block, 10-year-old Fazillah Shrindil hops on a skateboard and cruises the banked edge of an empty concrete fountain, her turquoise scarf trailing behind.

Class is in session and Fazillah is offering instruction.

"You put your front foot here," Fazillah tells her companion, a 5-year-old girl. "And then you just push off like this."

Afghanistan's national sport is buzkashi, a game similar to polo that's played on horseback with a goat carcass, and serious players train from youth. But the age-old sport is being nudged aside by about 100 kids in Kabul for a more Western passion: skateboarding.

They are learning all about Ollies and other moves at a school, Skateistan, started two years ago by Oliver Percovich, a 34-year-old from Melbourne, Australia. The school is not only intended to teach kids dexterity on wheels, but also to provide health and education programs for young people in Kabul.

"You can already see what it does for their self-esteem," says Percovich. "Look at Fazillah. I remember the first day she came here in January. She was walking through the park with a pile of sticks on her back. Her family had her quit school and she was selling chewing gum in the streets for $2 (U.S.) a day. Now she's far more confident, and we pay her the same as she made on the street to stay in school and come here afterwards and teach skateboarding to the younger children."

In a country where it's difficult enough for humanitarian-themed non-profits to raise funds, Skateistan's financial success has been impressive.

The organization in October asked the Canadian government for $5,000 and was given $15,000. The German embassy has invested $140,000 and Denmark has contributed $125,000. Percovich has raised enough to build a 1,750-square-metre indoor skate park, a $200,000 steel-roofed building that will be completed this August. He hopes to attract hundreds of children and teenagers.

"The contractor gave us a real break," he says, chuckling. "They'd charge the U.S. Army $1.2 million for the same thing."

The facility will include rooms for language and music classes as well as other training, and it will be possible to segregate the skate park's concrete surface and ramps so girls can continue to skateboard after they hit puberty – when they begin to wear head-to-toe burqas.

"We can use this as a great tool to find out what skills they want to acquire, whether that's English training or learning the guitar," says Percovich, who abandoned an organic bakery business he started in Melbourne to move here in 2007 with a former girlfriend who worked for a think-tank in Afghanistan.

While none of the children who have embraced skateboarding have started wearing baggy jeans or flat-brimmed baseball hats, there's been an uproar from critics who see this as a western indulgence.

One of the girls who attends the skateboarding sessions says she's been beaten by her brothers for partaking in the activity.

One of Skateistan's Afghan employees, 21-year-old Mirwais Mohsen, said he and his family were threatened with death by a Taliban taxi driver for teaching kids to learn to skateboard.

He says: "This is a city where you have to take that kind of threat seriously."

So he and his family moved across town. But he keeps working at Skateistan because he gets a great salary: $500 (U.S.).

Percovich insists he's not using Skateistan to bring Western culture to Afghanistan.

"No kid here has any idea who Tony Hawk is," he says, referring to the U.S. skateboarding legend. "It's just about giving them some sort of physical activity that they enjoy and using that to improve their lives in other ways."

One afternoon, not far from a busy street where a suicide bomber blew himself up a few months back, Percovich held a girls-only session. "I like to make sure the younger kids are included, the girls especially," he says.

"This is really fun," says Fazillah, who has two brothers and six sisters and plans to be a doctor some day. "Why do I like coming out skateboarding?

"It's just a great time passer."

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/648290

On top of that, this fall we're going to see an extremely serious situation with the commercial real estate market. So far all we really know is we're going into a MASSIVE amount of debt, but haven't seen much in the way of recovery. This maufactured "jobs saved or jobs created" crap is just useless propaganda - who even MEASURES "jobs saved or jobs created"? Why don't we just stick to the unemployment rate, which is what we've judged every other president by?

"Everything that I see about the economy is that we've had no bounce... in terms of the economy coming back, it takes a while." Although Buffett said that measures taken in the fall of 2008 to stabilize the financial system had worked, the stimulus efforts had not made an immediate difference. He said that weak demand still existed across all business areas he receives data on, including retail, manufacturing, and even electricity.

As speculation is rising over whether or not Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will be reappointed, Buffett weighed in, praising his actions overall. "I don't see how you could do better" than Bernanke's decisive actions in a time of great crisis, he added, and extended his approval to former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and current Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Paulson has been widely criticized for his handling of the TARP program, and for forcing banks -- including Wells Fargo (WFC), which Buffett owns -- to take government capital and issue warrants. Wells Fargo has not returned TARP funds yet, and although Buffett is somewhat disappointed by its forced issuance of warrants, he believes Wells will do fine over time.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/06/24/buffett-says-economy-is-in-shambles-but-still-likes-stocks/

BUFFETT: Well, it's been pretty flat. I get figures on 70-odd businesses, a lot of them daily. Everything that I see about the economy is that we've had no bounce. The financial system was really where the crisis was last September and October, and that's been surmounted and that's enormously important. But in terms of the economy coming back, it takes a while. There were a lot of excesses to be wrung out and that process is still underway and it looks to me like it will be underway for quite a while. In the (Berkshire Hathaway) annual report I said the economy would be in a shambles this year and probably well beyond. I'm afraid that's true.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31526130

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

“We continue to expect economic activity to bottom out, then to turn up later this year,” Bernanke testified.

Key to the economic turnaround is that the housing market is beginning to stabilize, and that the sharp inventory liquidation that has been occurring will slow over the next few quarters, he said.

But Bernanke warned that the forecast assumes the gradual repair of the financial system continues. “A relapse in financial conditions would be a significant drag on economic activity and could cause the incipient recovery to stall,” he said.

Bernanke also said the recovery will gain momentum only gradually and that economic slack will decline slowly. And he said that businesses are likely to be cautious about hiring new workers, which means the unemployment rate could remain high for a time, even after economic growth returns. Normally, employment follows the economy, but does not lead it.

Inflation in this type of economic environment is expected to remain low, he said.

“A sustained recovery in economic activity depends critically on restoring stability to the financial system,” he said. “However, financial markets and financial institutions remain under considerable stress, and cumulative declines in asset prices, tight credit conditions, and high levels of risk aversion continue to weigh on the economy.”

http://www.america.gov/st/business-english/2009/May/20090505115000dmslahrellek0.4212152.html

The already dour mood turned angry when an AIG executive took the stage at one panel discussion. The insurance giant's missteps helped put the global economy at risk, and other panel members were quick to push for answers.

The idea that this particular financial contagion can never be allowed to do so much damage again has been a constant refrain at the forum, both in sessions and in the hallways.

That has given much of this risk management talk a rear-view-mirror sensibility. Typical was a remark by Angel Gurria, secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, who told a group he was seated with Thursday morning that "there was a massive failure of regulation and a massive failure of risk management that we can't let happen again."

http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/30/davos-risk-assessment-leadership-governance_0130_risk.html

Roubini: Well, some people say this might be the price of capitalism and market economies. To paraphrase Churchill--market economies and capitalism is the worst economic system apart from the alternative. But I think one of the lessons is that free markets, without appropriate rules and regulation, this kind of laissez-faire unregulated free market fundamentalism, has led to massive failures and these failures have led to a damaging financial and economic crisis.

So nobody wants to be adding excessive regulation, but financial markets require regulatory supervision. Therefore, this ideology of self-regulation is no regulation of market discipline doesn't not work; when there is irrational exuberance and over-relying on internal risk management, that doesn't work. When the music's playing at the dance and nobody's listening to the risk manager and everybody's going with the risk takers. This has led to excesses of credit, of bubbles, of leverage that has become dangerous.

So, we have to have an appropriate role of the government, otherwise, there will be a backlash against trade, against globalization, against free trade.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/29/roubini-regulation-davos-intelligent-investing_0130_davos.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a41:g2:r18:c0.055485:b21503027:z0&partner=loomia

I happen to think finally ridding the region of Hussein and his Baathists, giving Iraqis free elections, and providing the country a chance at even a seminal form of democracy isn’t all bad? (I’d ask the leaders of Iraq’s neighbors, like Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, in a moment of complete candor and honesty, if they concur with the first point, and ask ordinary Iraqis if they concur with the following two.)

Another question - how did this deregulation come about? Is it realistic to assume these guys just walked into Congress and said, "We want to make more money?" It's difficult for me to imagine that selling very well. Isn't it more realistic to imagine them walking in saying, "If we ease these regulations, we can help more American's buy homes?" Doesn't that argument satisfy the left if they are pushing for "affordable housing for all"?

Although Reagan entered the White House promising to reduce government spending and return more power to the states, he ironically became the biggest spender in American history. Not even Roosevelt’s New Deal during the Depression or Johnson’s Great Society had dumped so much money into the economy as Reaganomics. Between 1980 and 1988, Congress overspent its budget by more than $200 billion every year, while the national debt soared from roughly $1 trillion to $2.5 trillion.

http://www.sparknotes.com/101/us_history_two/carter_and_reagan/the_reagan_revolution.html

In 1933, a few years following the stock market crash, Congress passes the Glass-Steagall Act, in hopes that regulating banks will help prevent market instability, particularly amongst Wall Street banks. The purpose of the act is to separate commercial banks that focus on consumers from investment banks, which deal with speculative trading and mergers.

The Glass-Steagall Act provided the proper oversight and entity separation that would prohibit banks and other financial companies from merging into giant trusts (conflict of interests) -- giant trusts or corporations being more powerful, naturally, and having the seemingly limitless capital to lobby their corporate interests, however, with a very myopic scope (particularly when it comes to factoring in potential losses -- most banks, as seen in contemporary times, chose not to anticipate losses in the mortgage market; they presumed home prices would continue to appreciate).

In 1999, former Senator Phil Gramm (who is, incidentally, Senator John McCain's economic adviser and cochairs his presidential campaign) set out to completely gut the Glass-Steagall Act, and did so successfully, replacing most of its components with the new Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act: allowing commercial banks, investment banks, and insurers to merge (which would have violated antitrust laws under Glass-Steagall). Sen. Gramm was the driving force behind the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, as he had received over $4.6 million from the FIRE sector (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate donations) over the previous decade, and once the Act passed, an influx of "megamergers" took place among banks and insurance and securities companies, as if they had been eagerly awaiting the passage of Gramm's Act. Everything in between Glass-Steagall and Gramm-Leach-Bliley (i.e. Savings and Loan crisis/bust) was, in large part, the incubation period for what would take place over the nine years that would follow the passage of Gramm's Act: an experiment in deregulation.

http://losangeles.injuryboard.com/miscellaneous/the-subprime-mess-and-phil-gramm-an-experiment-in-deregulation.aspx

Imprudent real estate lending

In an effort to take advantage of the real estate boom (outstanding US mortgage loans: 1976 $700 billion; 1980 $1.5 trillion)[citation needed] and high interest rates of the late 1970s and early 1980s, many S&Ls lent far more money than was prudent, and too-risky ventures which many S&Ls were not qualified to assess. L. William Seidman, former chairman of both the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Resolution Trust Corporation, stated, "The banking problems of the '80s and '90s came primarily, but not exclusively, from unsound real estate lending."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_Loan_crisis

In 2003, Gramm left the Senate to join UBS, which had acquired investment house PaineWebber due to his deregulation bill. At UBS, Gramm lobbied Congress, the Fed and the Treasury Department. During Gramm's tenor at UBS and as a lobbyist, Congress passed the Responsible Lending Act, billed as an anti-predatory-lending measure, but was called the "Loan Shark Protection Act" by consumer advocates, as it was designed to preempt stronger state laws against anti-predatory lending. The Fed largely ignored the underlying and growing problems within the subprime mortgage/housing markets, as Bernanke famously acknowledged the housing market in April, 2007 as, "[showing] signs of softening," but said that a "sharp slowdown," is unlikely. Then, according to Mother Jones magazine, Henry Paulson became the Treasury Secretary in July, 2007, when, "In 2005, [at] Goldman [he] securitized $68 billion in residential mortgages and $23 billion in 'other assets' primarily related to CDOs," (Mother Jones, August, 2008). With such self-interest, and a lack of the nation's interest, we can see how this subprime mess was allowed to escalate to such great proportions.

Some justice was served, however, this spring, as UBS became one of the subprime debacle's biggest losers, having to write down $37 billion -- the same amount as their previous four years of profits combined. UBS also made the public aware that two-thirds of its losses were due to reckless investing in collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).

-Ibid

With well-timed tax cuts, we fought our way out of recession and back to economic growth. And now, with a tough new law, we will act against those who have shaken confidence in our markets, using the full authority of government to expose corruption, punish wrongdoers and defend the rights and interests of American workers and investors.

My administration pressed for greater corporate integrity. A united Congress has written it into law. And today, I sign the most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

This new law sends very clear messages that all concerned must heed. This law says to every dishonest corporate leader: You'll be exposed and punished. The era of low standards and false profits is over. No board room in America is above or beyond the law.

This law says to honest corporate leaders: Your integrity will be recognized and rewarded, because the shadow of suspicion will be lifted from good companies that respect the rules.

This law says to corporate accountants: The high standards of your profession will be enforced without exception. The auditors will be audited. The accountants will be held to account.

This law says to shareholders that the financial information you receive from a company will be true and reliable, or those who deliberately sign their names to deception will be punished. This law says to workers: We will not tolerate reckless practices that artificially drive up stock prices and eventually destroy the companies and the pensions and your jobs.

And this law says to every American, there will not be a different ethical standard for corporate America than the standard that applies to everyone else. The honesty you expect in your small businesses or in your workplaces, in your community or in your home will be expected in force in every corporate suite in this country.

America's system of free enterprise, with all its risk and all its rewards, is a strength of our country and a model for the world. Yet free markets are not a jungle in which only the unscrupulous survive or a financial free-for-all guided only by greed. The fundamentals of a free market -- buying and sell, saving and investing -- require clear rules and confidence in basic fairness.

The only fair risks are based on honest information. Tricking an investor into taking a risk is theft by another name.

Corporate executives must set an ethical tone for their companies. They must understand the skepticism Americans feel and take action to set clear standards of right and wrong.

Those who break the rules tarnish a great economic system that provides opportunity for all. Their actions hurt workers who committed their lives to building the company that hired them. Their actions hurt investors and retirees who place their faith in the promise of growth and integrity. For the sake of our free economy, those who break the rules of fairness, those who are dishonest, however wealthy or successful they may be, must pay a price.

- July 30, 2002
Bush Signs Corporate Accountability Law

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0207/30/bn.07.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. President George W. Bush, saying "our entire economy is in danger," urged Congress to approve his administration's $700 billion bailout proposal.

"We're in the midst of a serious financial crisis, and the federal government is responding with decisive actions," Bush said in a televised address Wednesday night from the White House.

Bush pointed out that the collapse of several major lenders was rooted in the subprime mortgage market that thrived over the past decade.

He said passage of the $700 billion bailout proposal was needed to restore confidence in the market.

"I'm a strong believer in free enterprise, so my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention," he said. But "these are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly. There has been a widespread loss of confidence.

"Without immediate action by Congress, America can slip into a major panic."

-President George Bush
September 25, 2008

Dec 22 2008
The auto-industry bailout saga came to an end, at least temporarily, on December 19th, 2008, when President Bush announced a $13.4 billion bailout from TARP funds. While still against the notion of using TARP funds for such a bailout, the President acknowledged the unique circumstances affecting the Detroit auto companies and the disastrous consequences that could result from their disorderly bankruptcies.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/24/bush.bailout/index.html

Obama blamed the crisis on "a culture of irresponsibility" that he said had taken root from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street, and he said regulations crafted to deal with the depression of the 1930s were "overwhelmed by the speed, scope and sophistication of a 21st century global economy."

U.S. opponents to President Obama's announced re-regulation of the financial sector are billing the issue as capitalism versus socialism or even communism.

It is not the case. This is not the economic version of the Cold War and the search for a new architecture does not mark the death of capitalism.

In fact, free enterprise was nearly murdered by Wall Street, AIG and other reckless financial institutions.

They did not meet their defined responsibilities.

They bent the law to bypass rules governing their behaviour.

Many of them abandoned traditional banking and got into the gaming business. And they brought the world to the brink in the fall.

The role of government is appropriate in the financial sector because of its importance to sustaining a healthy capitalist system.

Banks, brokers, insurers and others are licensed by the government to benefit society by being astute gatekeepers to success: They deploy their own capital and savings from the public honestly by investing in worthy individuals and entities which will create wealth then repay their loans.

Government's role is necessary because these institutions, in turn, exist as a result of deposits from the public and shareholders' money. They have a fiduciary obligation to responsibly use other peoples' money for the benefit of all. The rules dictate who, what and how they lend or insure as well as how they leverage.

But what Wall Street and the others did was lend, or insure, obscene amounts of money to inappropriate entities for inappropriate reasons without any market discipline. There were no clearing houses for the trillions in derivatives they created, no markets for them, no pricing mechanisms, no leverage restrictions, no capital allocation and no transparency or proper accounting.

They were not players in a free enterprise system but were gamblers rigging the system for their own benefit.

America's financial punters sank the legitimate and regulated credit system. They collected upfront fees and played fast and loose with credit instruments, witness estimates that the notional value of credit default swaps, and other risky "derivatives", could total up to US$600 trillion, or 10 times' the world's GDP.

Last fall, Washington was told by AIG and Lehman Brothers the world was bust. Thanks to trillions in bank bailouts and shotgun marriages, total collapse was averted.

Months later, there are positive signs. Consumer confidence has a pulse, at long last, but this has yet to translate into spending. Some 53 million people have lost their jobs worldwide and governments are in hock to the tune of trillions.

Innocent victims also include the world's poorest nations and their citizens, including those who ran their fiscal and monetary houses in a responsible way.

Wall Street's recklessness, and in some instances criminality, has destroyed credit which continues to afflict third party, real-economy businesses from Detroit (which already had problems) to retailers and most others.

The fix will take years, and require international co-operation, and wasn't the fault of government or the rest of us.

So the next time some Wall Streeter or financial sector apologist is blabbing about how re-regulation will kill capitalism, just remember it was so-called capitalist "champions" in pinstripes who destroyed free enterprise by driving it into the wall.

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/Business/Wall+Street+turned+into+Vegas/1722831/story.html

The message is simple: Disarmed people are neither free nor safe - they become the criminals' prey and the tyrants' playthings. When the civilians are defenseless and their government goes bad, however, thousands and millions of innocents die.

C.I.A. interrogators used waterboarding, the near-drowning technique that top Obama administration officials have described as illegal torture, 266 times on two key prisoners from Al Qaeda, far more than had been previously reported.

The C.I.A. officers used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum. Abu Zubaydah has been described as a Qaeda operative.

A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.

The 2005 memo also says that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The New York Times reported in 2007 that Mr. Mohammed had been barraged more than 100 times with harsh interrogation methods, causing C.I.A. officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and to halt his questioning. But the precise number and the exact nature of the interrogation method was not previously known.


A footnote to another 2005 Justice Department memo released Thursday said waterboarding was used both more frequently and with a greater volume of water than the C.I.A. rules permitted.

The new information on the number of waterboarding episodes came out over the weekend when a number of bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler of the blog emptywheel, discovered it in the May 30, 2005, memo.

The sentences in the memo containing that information appear to have been redacted from some copies but are visible in others. Initial news reports about the memos in The New York Times and other publications did not include the numbers.

Michael V. Hayden, director of the C.I.A. for the last two years of the Bush administration, would not comment when asked on the program “Fox News Sunday” if Mr. Mohammed had been waterboarded 183 times. He said he believed that that information was still classified.

A C.I.A. spokesman, reached Sunday night, also would not comment on the new information.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/world/20detain.html

How? Show me where we have a national policy of supporting terrorist organizations?

The ejection of Western oil companies from their Iranian refineries triggered the Abadan Crisis and nearly caused a war. Britain accused Mosaddeq of violating the legal rights of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and mobilized a worldwide boycott of Iran's oil that plunged Iran into financial crisis. The British government tried to enlist the United States in planning a coup, but President Harry S. Truman refused. However, his successor Dwight D. Eisenhower allowed the CIA to embark on its first covert operation against a foreign government.The British and U.S. spy agencies replaced the government of the popular Prime Minister Mosaddeq with an all-powerful monarch, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi who ruled for the next 26 years until he was overthrown in 1979.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

The School of the Americas (SOA), in 2001 renamed the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation,” is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Initially established in Panama in 1946, it was kicked out of that country in 1984 under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty. Former Panamanian President, Jorge Illueca, stated that the School of the Americas was the “biggest base for destabilization in Latin America.” The SOA, frequently dubbed the “School of Assassins,” has left a trail of blood and suffering in every country where its graduates have returned.

Over its 59 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. These graduates have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, “disappeared,” massacred, and forced into refugee by those trained at the School of Assassins.

http://www.soaw.org/type.php?type=8

The worst of the military's violent purging from society of thousands of Chilean Leftists and suspected Leftists — by killing or forced disappearance — occurred in the first months after the U.S.-sponsored coup d’état. The military imprisoned 40,000 of their political enemies in the National Stadium of Chile; among the tortured and killed desaparecidos were U.S. citizens Charles Horman , and Frank Teruggi. Chilean song-writer Víctor Jara, and other 70 political killings were perpetrated by the death squad, Caravan of Death (Caravana de la Muerte) in October 1973.

Some 130,000 people were arrested in a three-year period; the dead and disappeared numbered thousands in the first months of the military government. Those include the British physician Sheila Cassidy, who later brought awareness to the UK public of human rights violations in Chile. Among those detained was Alberto Bachelet (father of incumbent Chilean President Michelle Bachelet), an air force official; he was tortured and died on 12 March 1974, . The right-wing newspaper, El Mercurio (The Mercury), reported that Mr Bachelet died after a basketball game, citing his poor cardiac health. Michelle Bachelet and her mother were imprisoned and tortured in the Villa Grimaldi detention and torture centre on 10 January 1975.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

"The declassified record shows that Secretary Kissinger was briefed on Condor and its 'murder operations' on August 5, 1976, in a 14-page report from Shlaudeman. 'Internationally, the Latin generals look like our guys,' Shlaudeman cautioned. 'We are especially identified with Chile. It cannot do us any good.' Shlaudeman and his two deputies, William Luers and Hewson Ryan, recommended action. Over the course of three weeks, they drafted a cautiously worded demarche, approved by Kissinger, in which he instructed the U.S. ambassadors in the Southern Cone countries to meet with the respective heads of state about Condor. He instructed them to express 'our deep concern' about 'rumors' of 'plans for the assassination of subversives, politicians and prominent figures both within the national borders of certain Southern Cone countries and abroad.'"

Kornbluh and Dinges conclude that "The paper trail is clear: the State Department and the CIA had enough intelligence to take concrete steps to thwart Condor assassination planning. Those steps were initiated but never implemented." Shlaudeman's deputy Hewson Ryan later acknowledged in an oral history interview that the State Department was "remiss" in its handling of the case. "We knew fairly early on that the governments of the Southern Cone countries were planning, or at least talking about, some assassinations abroad in the summer of 1976. ... Whether if we had gone in, we might have prevented this, I don't know," he stated in reference to the Letelier-Moffitt bombing. "But we didn't."

Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations, was closely involved diplomatically with the Southern Cone governments at the time and well aware of the Condor plan. According to the French newspaper L'Humanité, the first cooperation agreements were signed between the CIA and anti-Castro groups, fascist movements such as the Triple A set up in Argentina by Juan Perón and Isabel Martínez de Perón's "personal secretary" José López Rega, and Rodolfo Almirón (arrested in Spain in 2006)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor#U.S._involvement

STEVE COLL: It’s interesting to go back and look at the public discourse about this. During the Reagan years in particular, it was a very superficial, certainly, Reagan often used the terminology of his, you know of freedom. These were freedom fighters. These were noble freedom fighters. I don’t want to overstate this, but the Afghans were regarded with some distance almost as noble savages in some sort of a state of purity fighting for an abstract idea of freedom. The idea that Afghanistan was a messy place filled with complexity and ethnicity and tribal structures and all of the rest of what we now understand about Afghanistan was it was generally not part of American public discourse.

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/10/ghost_wars_how_reagan_armed_the

If you or anyone outside the U.S. chooses to simply believe what you hear and read from the media and not hear what law abiding American's like myself have to say, then stay in your own country and hide behind the false belief that because your country has banned gun ownership, that you are safe.

BAER: I'd always been fascinated by Saudi Arabia. And I'd always noticed that on general intelligence reports that are sent around in the field, and in Washington, there's virtually nothing said about Saudi Arabia. Every Arab that I talked to , and I know a lot of them , kept on talking about the disputes in the royal family, huge contracts, the Wahhabi's funding Lebanese politics. It became clear to me, even though I wasn't seeing much in the CIA traffic, or State Department, or anywhere else, that this was a key country.

So when I got back to Washington in 95 and I stayed there until I resigned from the CIA , I said, all right, I don't know a whole lot about Saudi Arabia. What about Saudi Arabia? And I got onto the computer and I took a look around, and there just wasn't anything useful. I mean, you, as a journalist, would have looked at this and said: It�s junk. There�s nothing here. And especially nothing that goes deep into the problems in Saudi Arabia.

BAER: There's a lot that we really don't know. There are a lot of people in the royal family that sympathize with bin Laden. There are people in the royal family that feel humiliated by colonialism -- call it what you want -- by the United States, by Israel. And they're humiliated that they are citizens or subjects of a country that has never fought a war, and yet spends so much money on defense. They're humiliated that they don't take the Israelis on, because their army is worthless. And maybe they're not humiliated but rather disenfranchised because they can never advance up the ranks of the family, and it's a very tough culture. They sit around and they read the Koran. And they get on these Islamic websites, and they watch Al-Jazeera. And they go to the mosque, and I think they're believers.

BAER: I could have sat down and done a list of all my former colleagues from the CIA who ended up on the Saudi Arabian payroll. Some of them are known, like Ray Close. Others have gone public, but there are others that haven't. A bunch of my colleagues went to work for a public consulting firm where the initial capital was paid for by the Saudi embassy to lobby the Hill for the Gulf countries. A former member of the National Security Council under Reagan set this up. And it's not like it's a secret. Even Bandar [Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi prince and U.S. ambassador] has said, according to the Washington Post, that if I take care of people coming out of office, the new ones coming in are going to be a lot friendlier to Saudi Arabia once it gets known.

- Robert Baer, Former CIA Case Officer and Author of "Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude."
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/09/12_baer.html

A democracy is direct rule by the people. We do not have that. We elect Representatives who vote on our laws. That is a Republic.

Democracy means rule of the people. The two most common forms of democracy are direct democracy and representative democracy. In direct democracy everyone takes part in making a decision, as in a town meeting or a referendum. The specific rules may vary: perhaps everyone must agree, perhaps there must be consensus, perhaps a mere majority is required to make a decision. The other, better known form of democracy is a representative democracy. People elect representative to make decisions or laws. Again, specifics vary greatly.

Fortunately (for the democrats), the early federal government was not very powerful. In state after state it became easier for white males to qualify to vote. And slowly, decade after decade, our republic became a democratic republic.

At the national level the major steps toward democracy can be marked by amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Bill of Rights guaranteed limits to the power of the federal government. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment effectively extended the vote to all adult male citizens, including ex-slaves, by penalizing states that did not allow for universal male suffrage. The Fifteenth Amendment explicitly gave the right to vote to former slaves. After the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments did not extend suffrage to women, a vigorous campaign for the vote was launched by women, who received the vote through the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.

But the main Amendment that tipped the scales from the national government of the United States being a mere republic to being a true representative democracy was the often-overlooked Seventeenth Amendment, which took effect in 1913. Since 1913 the U.S. Senate has been elected directly by the voters, rather than being appointed by the state legislatures. That makes the national government democratic in form, as well as being a republic.

http://www.williampmeyers.org/republic.html

....and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

- Abraham Lincoln

The definition of socialism, while seemingly a compromise between the twin extremes of capitalism and communism, is far closer to communism than it is to capitalism. Socialism is perhaps best described as Marxism in the conceptual phase. While socialists recoil from the totalitarian reality of communism, they are nevertheless convinced that everyone's needs can be met and everyone's potential fulfilled without the restriction of freedom.

The definition of socialism, then, may be said to be a formal economic system in which society exerts considerable control over the nation's wealth and property in the pursuit of social justice. "Considerable control" may or may not entail public ownership, while "social justice" usually depends upon the whims of a bureaucratic elite. Generally speaking, a market-based economy is antithetical to socialist principles, and some form of benevolent planning is advocated.

Of course, such a definition of socialism is exceedingly vague, but the pursuit of "fairness"—the ultimate goal of socialism—is necessarily vague, given that each of humanity's several billion individuals has a unique view of what "fairness" entails.

And it is precisely in this lack of specificity that the danger of socialism consists.

http://www.conservative-resources.com/definition-of-socialism.html

Influences of socialism on American society today

The effects of socialism in America can still be felt today. According to the Future of Freedom Foundation, any government-owned, -funded, or -subsidized operation is considered to be a socialist program. For example, publicly owned airports, sports arenas or government-funded universities would be considered socialist operations by that definition.

The Social Security Act of 1935, one of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal creations, is seen by many as a socialist program because it is a government-organized and -regulated system. Social Security was designed to provide retirement benefits to citizens through mandatory donations to the program during one's employment years.

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1669.html

Efforts to improve society were not new to the United States in the late 1800s. A major push for change, the First Reform Era, occurred in the years before the Civil War and included efforts of social activists to reform working conditions, and humanize the treatment of mentally ill people and prisoners.

Others removed themselves from society and attempted to establish utopian communities in which reforms were limited to their participants. The focal point of the early reform period was abolitionism, the drive to remove what in the eyes of many was the great moral wrong of slavery.

The second reform era began during Reconstruction and lasted until the American entry into World War I. The struggle for women's rights and the temperance movement were the initial issues addressed. A farm movement also emerged to compensate for the declining importance of rural areas in an increasingly urbanized America.

As part of the second reform period, Progressivism was rooted in the belief, certainly not shared by all, that man was capable of improving the lot of all within society. As such, it was a rejection of Social Darwinism, the position taken by many of the rich and powerful figures of the day.

Progressivism was also imbued with strong political overtones and rejected the church as the driving force for change. Specific goals included:

The desire to remove corruption and undue influence from government through the taming of bosses and political machines;
the effort to include more people more directly in the political process;
the conviction that government must play a role to solve social problems and establish fairness in economic matters.

The success of Progressivism owed much to publicity generated by the muckrakers, writers who detailed the horrors of poverty, urban slums, dangerous factory conditions, and child labor, among a host of other ills.

The successes were many, beginning with the Interstate Commerce Act (1887) and the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890). Progressives never spoke with one mind and differed sharply over the most effective means to deal with the ills generated by the trusts; some favored an activist approach to trust-busting, others preferred a regulatory approach.

A vocal minority supported socialism with government ownership of the means of production. Other Progressive reforms followed in the form of a conservation movement, railroad legislation, and food and drug laws.

The Progressive spirit also was evident in new amendments added to the Constitution, which provided for a new means to elect senators, protect society through prohibition and extend suffrage to women.

Urban problems were addressed by professional social workers who operated settlement houses as a means to protect and improve the prospects of the poor. However, efforts to place limitations on child labor were routinely thwarted by the courts. The needs of blacks and Native Americans were poorly served or served not at all — a major shortcoming of the Progressive Movement.

Progressive reforms were carried out not only on the national level, but in the states and municipalities of the country as well. Prominent governors devoted to change included Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin and Hiram Johnson of California.

Such reforms as the direct primary, secret ballot, and the initiative, referendum and recall were effected. Local governments were strengthened by the widespread use of trained professionals, particularly with the city manager system replacing the all-too-frequently corrupt mayoral system.

Formal expression was given to progressive ideas in the form of political parties on three major occasions:

The Roosevelt Progressives (Bull Moose Party) of 1912
The La Follette Progressives of the 1920s
The Henry Wallace Progressives of the late 1940s and early 1950s.

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1061.html

Posted Thu Jun 4, 2009 3:00pm AEST
The SA Govt says crime rates have fallen for the sixth consecutive year. (ABC News)

The South Australian Government says crime rates have fallen for the sixth consecutive year, despite an increase in the number of homicides and related offences of more than 20 per cent.

Figures from the Bureau of Statistics show there were 25 murders in 2008, almost double the 13 murders reported the previous year.

The Police Minister, Michael Wright, says the crime rate fell last year by 6.7 per cent overall and has dropped by 38 per cent in the past six years.

Mr Wright says last year there were decreases in the number of robberies, break-ins, motor vehicle thefts, sexual assaults and attempted murders.

The State Opposition says the figures show a disturbing increase in the number of violent crimes.

Figures show more than 17,000 assaults were reported in 2008, about 200 more than in the previous year.

The Opposition's police spokesman, David Ridgway, says the number of assaults has jumped by about four per cent over the past six years.

"We're now seeing more than 50 people a day victims to violent assaults in South Australia," he said.

"The Government claims we have the greatest number of police in the state's history, yet we simply don't see them out where the community wants them and as a result violent crime and violent attacks on individuals are rising."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/04/2589436.htm

. Australia's urban crime rate is on a par with most large cities in the U.S. Residential burglaries are common throughout Australia and are among the most likely crimes encountered by Australians and foreign residents alike. Some burglars can, at times, be confrontational if they enter an occupied residence. Armed robberies have been reported in the Canberra area as well as throughout Australia. In these cases, the weapon of choice is usually a knife. Although firearms are sometimes used, they are the exception rather than the rule. Australia has extremely restrictive firearms legislation and the purchase, licensing and storage of a firearm is very difficult when compared to U.S. standards. Local police have attributed a majority of these burglaries and robberies to the growing problem with heroin and methamphetamine (ICE) addiction.

Violent crime in Australia is low, with under 100 reported cases of armed robbery, homicide or sexual assault per 100,000 persons nationally. Basic assault statistics are higher, with approximately 700 cases per 100,000 persons. Most of these are attributed to fighting and alcohol related incidents. Travelers should exercise the same level of caution and security awareness as they would in any major city in the U.S.

https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=101186

Tuesday 31 March 2009
AUSTRALIAN CRIME REPORT 2008

The Minister for Home Affairs Bob Debus said today’s release of the annual Australian Crime:
Facts and Figures 2008 by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) has found that property
crime rates were the lowest in the 12-year period since 1996 but some violent crimes are
continuing to rise.

“While there have been increases in some types of violent crime, recorded homicides have
decreased in the past 12 months and are now at the lowest level in 12 years.

“Rates of other violent crimes such as robbery and assault have also increased since 2004 but
are still fewer than those occurring in the early 2000s.

“A key trend from the publication is the very significant decline in arrests for cannabis and heroin
offences. However, this has been offset by increases in arrests for amphetamines, an issue
which has been of concern for governments and law enforcement agencies for some time.”

The Minister said it was also a concern that 15 percent of robberies still involved the use of
firearms.

“While some of the increase in recorded violent crime has been attributed to increased reporting
to police, increased community awareness, changes in the way the justice system manages
violent offences and the greater willingness of victims to report violence have all influenced
national crime statistics.”

http://www.ag.gov.au/www/ministers/ministerdebus.nsf/Page/MediaReleases_2009_FirstQuarter_31March2009-AustralianCrimeReport2008

Australian Institute of Criminology research manager Judy Putt says crime researchers around the world are aware of the contradiction between the public view and the reality of the extent of crime and what happens to offenders.

Dr Putt said the survey showed a large majority would like more spent on law enforcement.

The survey showed a significant majority believed crime had increased during the past two years with 41.7 per cent saying there was a lot more crime and 23.2 per cent saying a little more.

Just under three per cent said there was less crime. Actual crime statistics show a decrease in four major categories - murder, break-ins, car theft and theft - during the same time, the study said.

Australians also over-estimated the rate of violent crime. Almost a quarter said violence accounts for up to 80 per cent of all crime, yet the true figure is 10 per cent.

Respondents also under-estimated the rate of conviction for those charged with violent crime. The real conviction figure is between 91-100 per cent, correctly nominated by just 1.8 per cent.

Similarly, almost 70 per cent estimated that under 30 per cent of home burglars go to jail. The real figure was 31-40 per cent.

The results revealed a public sceptical about the criminal justice system, the commission said.

They perceived criminal victimisation to be a much greater risk than it really was, and the criminal justice system as being softer than it really was.

"These misperceptions are generally attributable to the main source of information respondents rely on for their picture of crime and criminal justice - the popular media," the study said.

ttp://www.livenews.com.au/news/australians-overestimate-crime-rate-underestimate-justice-system-study/2009/5/25/207691

Preliminary 2008 Crime and Arrests in Wisconsin
Crime offenses dropped in all index crime categories in 2008, highlighted by a near-record 20.7 percent drop in homicides. The number of homicide offenses, 146, was the lowest since 1988. Arrests for violent offenses increased 1.1 percent and arrests for property offenses increased 3.5 percent.

2007 Crime in Wisconsin
Between 2006 and 2007, the state of Wisconsin experienced relatively stable crime rates. The violent crime rate decreased by 0.2%, while the property crime rate increased by 0.2%. Murder experienced the most notable change (10% increase), yet one must be cautious when interpreting these results due to the small number of incidents. The crime rate for Aggravated Assaults also increased (2%) while the rates for both Forcible Rape and Robbery decreased (2% and 4%, respectively).

2006 Crime and Arrests in Wisconsin Report
Based on monthly crime and arrest reports submitted by 373 Wisconsin law enforcement agencies to the Statistical Analysis Center, the 2006 report includes an 18.8 % increase in reported violent offenses and a 3.7% increase in property offenses as compared to 2005. Total arrests increased by 1.7 % from the previous year.

2005 Crime and Arrests Report
Based on monthly crime and arrest reports submitted by 370 Wisconsin law enforcement agencies, the 2005 report includes a 3.8% increase in reported Crime Index Offenses, a 7.1% decrease in total adult arrests and a 4.1% decrease in total juvenile arrests as compared to 2004.

2004 Crime and Arrests Report Cover2004 Crime and Arrests Report
Based on monthly crime and arrest reports submitted by 370 Wisconsin law enforcement agencies, the 2004 report include a 5% decrease in reported Crime Index Offenses from 2003. Total adult arrests increased by 5.2% and total juvenile arrests decreased by 3.1% compared to the previous year.

http://oja.wi.gov/category.asp?linkcatid=1324&linkid=709&locid=97

National Picture

From 1977 to 2006, the total rate of both violent and property crime declined from 5,039 to 4,539 incidents per 100,000 Canadians. The rate rose between 1977 and 1982 and again after 1989, peaking in 1991 at 7,220, and declining after that point, reaching its lowest level in almost 30 years in 2006.

http://www4.rhdsc.gc.ca/.3ndic.1t.4r@-eng.jsp?iid=57

Pre-1892
Justices of the Peace had the authority to impose a six-month jail term on anyone carrying a handgun, if the person did not have reasonable cause to fear assault against life or property.

1892
The first Criminal Code required individuals to have a basic permit, known as a 'certificate of exemption,' to carry a pistol unless the owner had cause to fear assault or injury. It became an offence to sell a pistol to anyone under 16. Vendors who sold pistols or airguns had to keep a record of the purchaser's name, the date of the sale and information that could identify the gun.

1913
Carrying a handgun outside the home or place of business without a permit could result in a three-month sentence. It became an offence to transfer a firearm to any person under the age of 16, or for a person under 16 to buy one. The first specific search, seizure and forfeiture powers for firearms and other weapons were created.

1919-1920
A Criminal Code amendment required individuals to obtain a permit to possess a firearm, regardless of where the firearm was kept. These permits were available from a magistrate, a chief of police or the RCMP. British subjects did not need a permit for shotguns or rifles they already owned; they only needed one for newly acquired firearms. Permits were valid for one year within the issuing province. The Criminal Code did not provide for a central registry; records were maintained at the local level.

1921
A Criminal Code amendment repealed the requirement for everyone in possession of a firearm to have a permit. Instead, only 'aliens' needed a permit to possess firearms. (British subjects still needed a permit to carry pistols or handguns).

1932-1933
Specific requirements were added for issuing handgun permits. Before this, applicants only had to be of 'discretion and good character.' They now also had to give reasons for wanting a handgun. Permits could only be issued to protect life or property, or for using a firearm at an approved shooting club. The minimum age for possessing firearms was lowered from 16 to 12 years. Other changes included the creation of the first mandatory minimum consecutive sentence - 2 years for the possession of a handgun or concealable firearm while committing an offence. The punishment for carrying a handgun outside the home or place of business was increased from 3 months to a maximum of 5 years.

1934
The first real registration requirement for handguns was created. Before then, when a permit holder bought a handgun, the person who issued the permit was notified. The new provisions required records identifying the owner, the owner's address and the firearm. These records were not centralized. Registration certificates were issued and records were kept by the Commissioner of the RCMP or by police departments that provincial Attorneys General had designated as firearms registries.

1938
Handguns had to be re-registered every five years, starting in 1939. (Initially, certificates had been valid indefinitely). While guns did not require serial numbers, it became an offence to alter or deface numbers (S.C.1938, c.44). The mandatory 2-year minimum sentence provision was extended to include the possession of any type of firearm, not just handguns and concealable firearms, while committing an offence. The minimum age was raised from 12 to 14 years. The first 'minor's permit' was created to allow persons under 14 to have access to firearms.

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/pol-leg/hist/con-eng.htm

1836: Two duelling politicians from Lower Canada were lucky to have sensible seconds. Clément-Charles Sabrevois de Bleury, a member of the Lower Canadian Legislative Assembly, insulted fellow politician Charles-Ovide Perreault. Perreault then struck de Bleury, and a duel was set. Both men were determined to settle the matter with pistols, but their seconds came up with a unique solution. The two foes would clasp hands and de Bleury would say, "I am sorry to have insulted you" while at the same time Perreault would say, "I am sorry to have struck you." They would then reply in unison, "I accept your apology." The tactic worked, and the situation was resolved without injury.

1840: Joseph Howe was called out by a member of Nova Scotian high society for his populist writing. When his opponent fired first and missed, Howe fired his shot in the air and won the right to refuse future challenges.

1873: The last duel in what is now Canada occurred in August 1873, in a field near St. John's, Newfoundland (which was not Canadian territory at the time). The duellists, Mr. Dooley and Mr. Healey, once friends, had fallen in love with the same young lady, and had quarrelled bitterly over her. One challenged the other to a duel, and they quickly arranged a time and place. No one else was present that morning except the two men's seconds. Dooley and Healey were determined to proceed in the 'honourable' way, but as they stood back-to-back with their pistols raised, they must have questioned what they were doing. Nerves gave way to terror as they slowly began pacing away from each other. When they had counted off the standard ten yards, they turned and fired. Dooley hit the ground immediately. Healey, believing he had killed Dooley, was seized with horror. But Dooley had merely fainted; the seconds confessed they had so feared the outcome that they loaded the pistols with blanks. Although this was a serious breach of duelling etiquette, both opponents gratefully agreed that honour had indeed been satisfied.

in the case of pistol duels, each party would fire one shot. If neither man was hit and if the challenger stated that he was satisfied, the duel would be declared over. A pistol duel could continue until one man was wounded or killed, but to have more than three exchanges of fire was considered barbaric and, if no hits were achieved, somewhat ridiculous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_duels

It's also tooo dang cold to BE a criminal in Canada for about half the year or more...depending on how far north you are. A crook standing outside in the snow in a dark alley tends to freeze to death before long ;)

But this does raise a question: Bin Laden was a Saudi. All of the 9/11 bombers were Saudis. Not a one was an Afghan. Are we starting to build a picture about who really was behind 9/11?

His pocket litter contained two bank cards which showed he had access to Saudi and Kuwaiti bank accounts, which was considered rare since most al-Qaeda members used the preferred untraceable hawala banking.

According to James Risen

"It is not clear whether an investigation of the cards simply fell through the cracks, or whether they were ignored because no one wanted to know the answers about connections between al Qaeda and important figures in the Middle East -- particularly in Saudi Arabia." One of Risen's sources chalks up the failure to investigate the cards to incompetence rather than foul play: "The cards were sent back to Washington and were never fully exploited. I think nobody ever looked at them because of incompetence." When American investigators finally did get around to looking into the cards, they worked with "a Muslim financier with a questionable past, and with connections to the Afghan Taliban, al Qaeda, and Saudi intelligence." He reported back that "Saudi intelligence officials had seized all of the records related to the card from the Saudi financial institution in question; the records then disappeared. There was no longer any way to trace the money that had gone into the account."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Zubaydah

Author Gerald Posner, controversial for his books dismissing JFK assassination and other conspiracy theories, will claim that a remarkable interrogation of al-Qaeda prisoner Abu Zubaida begins at this time. Zubaida, arrested three days earlier (see March 28, 2002), is flown to a US Special Forces compound outside of Kandahar, Afghanistan. There, he is tricked into thinking the US has handed him to the Saudis for a more brutal interrogation, but in fact “the Saudis” are still American agents. Zubaida expresses great relief at this and, under the influence of the “truth serum” sodium pentothal, tells his interrogators to call Prince Ahmed bin Salman, a nephew of the Saudi king. He provides telephone numbers from memory and says, “He will tell you what to do.”

http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=fahd_bin_turki_bin_saud_al-kabir

On January 15, 2000, future 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar flew to Los Angeles, California from Bangkok, Thailand, just after attending the 2000 Al Qaeda Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The final 9/11 Commission Report noted:

Hazmi and Mihdhar were ill-prepared for a mission in the United States. . . Neither had spent any substantial time in the West, and neither spoke much, if any, English. It would therefore be plausible that they or [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] would have tried to identify, in advance, a friendly contact for them in the United States. . . We believe it unlikely that Hazmi and Mihdhar. . . would have come to the United States without arranging to receive assistance from one or more individuals informed in advance of their arrival."

Al-Bayoumi met the hijackers at a restaurant after their landing; he claims he met them by accident. He invited the two hijackers to move to San Diego with him, and they did. Al-Bayoumi found them an apartment, co-signed the lease, and gave them $1500 to help pay for their rent. Al-Bayoumi also helped the two obtain driver's licenses, rides to Social Security, and information on flight schools. Al-Bayoumi says he was being kind to fellow Muslims in need, and had no idea of their plans. But according to Newsweek magazine a former top FBI official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, "We firmly believed that he had knowledge [of the 9/11 plot], and that his meeting with them that day was more than coincidence."

Al-Hazmi and al-Mihdar's neighbors later reported that the two struck them as quite odd. They had no furniture, they constantly played flight simulator games, and limousines picked them up for short rides in the middle of the night.[8] [9] During this time, al-Bayoumi lived across the street from them. Throughout this period, the payments from Dallah Avco, his titular employer, greatly increased. Al-Hazmi and al-Mihdar later moved into the house of Abdussattar Shaikh, a friend of al-Bayoumi's, who was secretly working as an FBI informant at the time.

In July 2001, Omar al-Bayoumi moved to England to pursue a PhD at Aston University. Ten days after the September 11 attacks he was arrested by British authorities working with the FBI. He was held on an immigration charge while the FBI and Scotland Yard investigate him. His phone calls, bank accounts, and associations were researched, but the FBI says they found no connections to terrorism. He was released, and went back to studying at Aston,and later moved to Saudi Arabia. Anonymous British officials suggest al-Bayoumi must have been protected by the FBI, because "giving financial aid to terrorists is a very serious offense and there is no way [the FBI] would have let him go scot-free."

The issue was reopened when the potential links between al-Bayoumi and the Saudi Embassy were reported in the press. Under pressure from Congress, the FBI re-examined the case. They concluded that the allegations were "without merit," and they "abandoned further investigation." But contemporary news accounts reported that "countless intelligence leads that might help solve [the case] appear to have been under investigated or completely overlooked by the FBI."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_al-Bayoumi

Seven months after Barack Obama defeated him in the U.S. presidential election, the Republican senator from Arizona said Sunday he thinks his former Senate colleague is making things happen in the White House.

"I think he's done well," McCain said on the CBS program "Face the Nation."

"He has achieved literally every one of his legislative accomplishments," McCain noted in reference to the economic stimulus package and other measures passed by Congress in recent months.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

But Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist with Charles Schwab & Co., believes that the recession ended sometime in the past two months and that the market is doing what is usually does, heading higher before it's common knowledge that the economy is recovering.

Sonders noted that the Leading Indicators Index, a report that looks at consumer goods orders, stock prices, building permits and seven other key economic data points, rose sharply in May for the second consecutive month.

The report, released Thursday, showed a 1.2% increase last month, following a 1.1% rise in April. Sonders thinks this is significant because it's the largest two-month consecutive jump since November and December 2001 -- the first two months that followed the end of the 2001 recession.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/19/markets/thebuzz/index.htm?postversion=2009062008

One thing that I notice about Americans, and I have been one my entire life, is that they DON'T like the idea of change, especially if they don't know if it tried and true... Especially if it is something that would be nation wide, and people don't know how it is going to affect them, and their bottom financial line...

Fareed Zakaria: One of the first things that strikes me is we are watching the fall of Islamic theocracy.

CNN: Do you mean you think the regime will fall?

Zakaria: No, I don't mean the Iranian regime will fall soon. It may -- I certainly hope it will -- but repressive regimes can stick around for a long time. I mean that this is the end of the ideology that lay at the basis of the Iranian regime.

The regime's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, laid out his special interpretation of political Islam in a series of lectures in 1970. In this interpretation of Shia Islam, Islamic jurists had divinely ordained powers to rule as guardians of the society, supreme arbiters not only on matters of morality but politics as well. When Khomeini established the Islamic Republic of Iran, this idea was at its heart. Last week, that ideology suffered a fatal wound.

CNN: How so?

Zakaria: When the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a "divine assessment," he was indicating it was divinely sanctioned. But no one bought it. He was forced to accept the need for an inquiry into the election. The Guardian Council, Iran's supreme constitutional body, met with the candidates and promised to investigate and perhaps recount some votes. Khamenei has subsequently hardened his position but that is now irrelevant. Something very important has been laid bare in Iran today --- legitimacy does not flow from divine authority but from popular support.

CNN: There have been protests in Iran before. What makes this different?

Zakaria: In the past the protests were always the street against the state, and the clerics all sided with the state. When the reformist president, Mohammed Khatami, was in power, he entertained the possibility of siding with the street, but eventually stuck with the establishment. The street and state are at odds again but this time the clerics are divided. Khatami has openly sided with the challenger, Mir Hossein Moussavi, as has the reformist Grand Ayatollah Montazeri. So has Ali Larijani, the speaker of the parliament and a man with strong family connections to the highest levels of the religious hierarchy. Behind the scenes, the former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, now head of the Assembly of Experts, another important constitutional body, is waging a campaign against Ahmadinejad and even the supreme leader himself. If senior clerics dispute Khamenei's divine assessment and argue that the Guardian Council is wrong, it is a death blow to the basic premise behind the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is as if a senior Soviet leader had said in 1980 that Karl Marx was not the right guide to economic policy.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/19/zakaria.iran.elections/index.html

Canada's system is known as a single payer system, where basic services are provided by private doctors (since 2002 they have been allowed to incorporate), with the entire fee paid for by the government at the same rate. Most family doctors receive a fee per visit. These rates are negotiated between the provincial governments and the province's medical associations, usually on an annual basis. A physician cannot charge a fee for a service that is higher than the negotiated rate — even to patients who are not covered by the publicly funded system — unless the physican opts out of billing the publicly funded system altogether. Pharmaceutical costs are set at a global median by government price controls. Other areas of health care, such as dentistry and optometry, are wholly private.

It was not until 1946 that the first Canadian province introduced near universal health coverage. Saskatchewan had long suffered a shortage of doctors, leading to the creation of municipal doctor programs in the early twentieth century in which a town would subsidize a doctor to practice there. Soon after, groups of communities joined to open union hospitals under a similar model. There had thus been a long history of government involvement in Saskatchewan health care, and a significant section of it was already controlled and paid for by the government. In 1946, Tommy Douglas' Co-operative Commonwealth Federation government in Saskatchewan passed the Saskatchewan Hospitalization Act, which guaranteed free hospital care for much of the population. Douglas had hoped to provide universal health care, but the province did not have the money.

In 1950, Alberta created a program similar to Saskatchewan's. Alberta, however, created Medical Services (Alberta) Incorporated (MS(A)I) in 1948 to provide prepaid health services. This scheme eventually provided medical coverage to over 90% of the population.

In 1957, the federal government passed the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act to fund 50% of the cost of such programs for any provincial government that adopted them. The HIDS Act outlined five conditions: public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability, and accessibility. These remain the pillars of the Canada Health Act.

By 1961, all ten provinces had agreed to start HIDS Act programs. In Saskatchewan, the act meant that half of their current program would now be paid for by the federal government. Premier Woodrow Lloyd decided to use this freed money to extend the health coverage to also include physicians. Despite the sharp disagreement of the Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons, Lloyd introduced the law in 1962 after defeating the Saskatchewan Doctors' Strike in July.

Medical Care Act
The Saskatchewan program proved a success and the federal government of Lester B. Pearson, pressured by the New Democratic Party (NDP) who held the balance of power, introduced the Medical Care Act in 1966 that extended the HIDS Act cost-sharing to allow each province to establish a universal health care plan. It also set up the Medicare system. In 1984, the Canada Health Act was passed, which prohibited user fees and extra billing by doctors. In 1999, the prime minister and most premiers reaffirmed in the Social Union Framework Agreement that they are committed to health care that has "comprehensiveness, universality, portability, public administration and accessibility."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada

Doctors in Canada make an average of $202,000 a year (2006, before expenses). Alberta has the highest average salary of around $230,000, while Quebec has the lowest average annual salary at $165,000, creating interprovincial competition for doctors and contributing to local shortages.

- Ibid

Canada's shortage of medical practitioners causes problems.With 2.1 doctors per thousand population in 2006, Canada is well below the OECD average of 3.1. Canada's 8.8 nurses per thousand was also below the OECD average of 9.7. Suggested solutions include increasing the number of training spaces for doctors in Canada, as well as streamlining the licensing process for foreign doctors already in the country.

In 1991, the Ontario Medical Association agreed to become a province-wide closed shop, making the OMA union a monopoly. Critics argue that this measure has restricted the supply of doctors to guarantee its members' incomes.

According to a 2007 article from CTV News, the Canadian medical profession is suffering from a brain drain. The article states, "One in nine trained-in-Canada doctors is practising medicine in the United States...If Canadian-educated doctors who were born in the U.S. are excluded, the number is one in 12."

-Ibid

n Canada they have the same drugs we have they just pay much less for them it appears that UHC is working there and has not driven out the drug companies, where do you think the doctors are going to go to find better wages then they have right here? Maybe to China where the average hourly wage is 48 cents per hour.

Satan in the Christian cosmology allegedly had the free-will to rebel against God. Well if he has the free will to do that, why stick with the program. If he allegedly knows he is doomed...if he has seen an all-powerful God and knows he is but a sub-ordinate creature and knows that he is but a tool of prophecy, then why not ask for forgiveness?

It would be the height of absurdity not to. It would be a bit like a melodrama villain from central casting with even less than one dimension and not a spiritual entity that has been around since the beginning of time to not know which way the wind is blowing...

Christ Himself ordered His disciples to preach the Gospel to all nations and to baptize those who accept the message of the Gospel. In His encounter with Nicodemus (John 3:1-21), Christ made it clear that baptism was necessary for salvation: "Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." For Catholics, the sacrament is not a mere formality; it is the very mark of a Christian, because it brings us into new life in Christ.

The baptism of desire applies both to those who, while wishing to be baptized, die before receiving the sacrament and "Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do His will as they know it through the dictates of conscience" (Constitution on the Church, Second Vatican Council).

The Minister of the Sacrament of Baptism:

Since the form of baptism requires just the water and the words, the sacrament, like the Sacrament of Marriage, does not require a priest; any baptized person can baptize another. In fact, when the life of a person is in danger, even a non-baptized person—including someone who does not himself believe in Christ—can baptize, provided that the person performing the baptism follows the form of baptism and intends, by the baptism, to do what the Church does—in other words, to bring the person being baptized into the fullness of the Church.

The Effects of the Sacrament of Baptism:

Baptism has six primary effects, which are all supernatural graces:

1. The removal of the guilt of both Original Sin (the sin imparted to all mankind by the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden) and personal sin (the sins that we have committed ourselves).

2. The remission of all punishment that we owe because of sin, both temporal (in this world and in Purgatory) and eternal (the punishment that we would suffer in hell).

3. The infusion of grace in the form of sanctifying grace (the life of God within us); the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit; and the three theological virtues.

4. Becoming a part of Christ.

5. Becoming a part of the Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ on earth.

6. Enabling participation in the sacraments, the priesthood of all believers, and the growth in grace.

http://catholicism.about.com/od/beliefsteachings/p/Sac_Baptism.htm

In Catholic teachings, Saint Michael is viewed as the leader of the army of God. From the time of the apostles, he has been invoked and honored as the protector of the Church. Scripture describes him as "one of the chief princes" and the leader of Heaven's forces in their triumph over the powers of hell.

Saint Michael defeats Satan twice, first when he ejects Satan from Paradise, and then in the final battle of the end times. In his classic book Lives of the Saints, priest and hagiographer Alban Butler, defined the role of Saint Michael as follows:

"Who is like God?" was the cry of Archangel Michael when he smote the rebel Lucifer in the conflict of the heavenly hosts. And when Antichrist shall have set up his kingdom on earth, it is St Michael who will unfurl once more the standard of the cross, sound the last trumpet, bind together the false prophet and the beast and hurl them for all eternity into the burning pool.

It was Saint Michael who vanquished Satan and drove him out of Heaven. In the Book of Revelation (Rev 12, 7-9) Saint John wrote of Archangel Michael's role in the War in Heaven where he hurls Satan and the Fallen angels out of heaven to earth:

"And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down — that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him."

In Catholic teachings, Saint Michael will also triumph at the end times when Antichrist will be defeated by him. In the Bible, The Book of Daniel states:

"At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people - everyone whose name is found written in the book - will be delivered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=22396049

I'll go a little more into your "options". What if that person who is breaking in isn't after you stuff, what if they are after you? Leaving you're home is one of the worst things to do. Again, LE probably isn't going to get their quick enough unless they happen to be a block away. Even then, by the time it goes through dispatch you may be dead. As far as home security, I'll say again that unless you've spend thousands of dollars on it, and I'm not talking about lights and alarms, then you aren't keeping anyone out. I've seen safety glass at an institution break with one hit from a bare hand. Granted they'd need more than that one hit to get through it, but they could have been inside rather quickly if they wanted to. Houses have regular glass in them that can be gotten through in a matter of seconds.

“Scenarios that combine the sense of action/equipment/risk with compassion would appear to be of the greatest interest,” the study concludes.

The Canadian Forces launched the “fight” recruiting campaign, which marries grainy images to the words “fight fear,” “fight distress” and “fight chaos,” in September 2006. It has helped increase applications by up to 40 per cent.

One that shows Canadian Forces personnel helping a woman found the least resistance, but also attracted few strong supporters.

The other two yielded polarized opinions. Some disliked one ad because the pilot depicted in an image “had a ‘facelessness’ that was seen as too aggressively militaristic.”

In general, says the Decima report, the “fight” concept was fairly well received by the focus groups. Unlike some earlier ads, none of the new scenarios pictures Canadian troops in combat.

One that shows a Canadian Forces team responding to a civilian air crash in the North was judged most effective. Next most popular was a scenario showing CF-18 jets intercepting a civilian aircraft and escorting it out of restricted airspace.

On the other hand, “visuals of a soldier holding a gun can work,” the study says.

“However, this would be more effective if it were part of a group of pictures, with a soldier in a more defensive position. As a prime visual, in a more aggressive stance, a soldier holding a gun can evoke negative reactions.”

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=022ce363-c17c-42c9-ad77-e2d81e5f4de9

Obviously, if deadly force isn't needed, it shouldn't be used, but it should always be an option to have on the table in case it is needed.

Retired FBI agent: Waterboarding produced 'crap' information from detainee

Contradicting the assertions of President Bush and waterboarding advocates at the CIA, federal investigators say a suspected al Qaeda operative who was subjected to the simulated drowning technique produced increasingly unreliable information after his interrogators began treating him harshly.

Abu Zubaida was captured in 2002 and moved through the CIA's secret prison system for much of that year. Although the FBI says Zubaida was a fairly low-level associate of some al Qaeda players, the CIA was convinced that he actually was a high-level terrorist who simply was holding out on them.

They turned to waterboarding and other unknown harsh interrogation techniques in an attempt to break the suspect, but ended up producing little more than a stream of specious claims delivered under duress from a suspect who was having water forced into his lungs, according to a former investigator who reviewed his case file.

In his first month of captivity, report the Post's Dan Eggen and Walter Pincus, Zubaida handed over information that led to the capture of Jose Padilla and identified Khalid Sheik Mohammed as a 9/11 plotter.

That was all before the CIA turned to harsh techniques. Instead of continuing what appeared to be working, though, the CIA was convinced Zubaida was holding out on them, and they decided to begin "not torturing" him by keeping him naked in his cell, subjecting him to extreme cold and playing loud rock music at all hours.

FBI agents had been pleased with Zubaida's earlier disclosures but were dismayed by the harsh treatment he was then subjected to.

"They said, 'You've got to be kidding me,'" Coleman told Eggen and Pincus, recalling accounts from FBI employees who were there. "'This guy's a Muslim. That's not going to win his confidence. Are you trying to get information out of him or just belittle him?'" Coleman helped lead the bureau's efforts against Osama bin Laden for a decade, ending in 2004.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Retired_FBI_agent_Waterboarding_produced_crap_1218.html

"The journalist was taken to the Pakistan city of Karachi, driven five miles into the countryside, blindfolded, then brought to a clandestine rendezvous on the fourth floor of a sparsely furnished flat. He believes that it was in Karachi."

"There he met Mr Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a former flatmate of Mohamed Atta, the hijack ringleader. Mr bin al-Shibh is a suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole, when 17 sailors were killed in the port city of Aden in Yemen in October 2000. He described himself as head of al-Qaeda's military committee. "

"The two men spoke of September 11 as "Holy Tuesday". They described the attacks using the Arabic word ghazwah, which means a raid against enemies of the Prophet, Mr Fouda wrote in The Sunday Times."

"It had taken 2 years to plan the attacks, the men disclosed. Al-Qaeda's military committee had decided there must be a "martyrdom operation" inside America. Nuclear targets were the first choice, but they were ruled out for now, Mr Mohammed said. "

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/3/15/13351/2245

After he was waterboarded, KSM provided the CIA with information that allowed the U.S. government to close down a terror cell already “tasked” with flying a jet into a building in Los Angeles.

“You have informed us that the interrogation of KSM — once enhanced techniques were employed — led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the ‘Second Wave,’ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles,” says the memo, referring to information CIA provided to Justice.

“You have informed us that information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemaah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the ‘Second Wave,’” said the memo.
http://www.luxlibertas.com/cia-waterboarding-produced-intel-that-stopped-attack-on-los-angeles/

Hambali used a series of safe-houses throughout Southeast Asia, especially Thailand and Cambodia to move around. While he was in Ayutthaya, Thailand, 75 kilometers north of Bangkok, he was planning a terrorist attack against several Thai hotels and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit (APEC) in Bangkok on October 2003. Hambali had used a false Spanish passport to enter Thailand while his wife used her Malaysian passport.

Thai police found him as part of a joint operation between the Thai police and the CIA on August 11, 2003. The twenty uniformed and undercover police smashed down the door to his one bedroom apartment in Ayutthaya, and arrested him and 33-year old Noralwizah Lee Abdullah, a Chinese Malaysian who was considered to be his wife. Hambali was wearing a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, a baseball cap, and a pair of sunglasses. Police also seized explosives and firearms in the property. It marked the end of a 20-month hunt for Hambali, who was 37 years of age when he was captured.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambali

By July 2002, Roche had finally realised the enormity of what he was being asked to do, and went to the US consulate in Sydney.

The embassy directed him to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), where "nobody seemed particularly interested in what was going on", Roche claimed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3757017.stm

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- A Malaysian recruited by al-Qaida to pilot a plane in a second wave of Sept. 11-style attacks on the United States has been in custody in his homeland since December 2002, Southeast Asian security officials said Friday.

The recruit, Zaini Zakaria, pulled out of the plot after seeing the carnage at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and was unwilling to die as a martyr for Islam, the officials said.

Bush said cooperation between Washington and several Asian countries helped expose the plot, which he said was derailed when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key al-Qaida operative. Bush did not name the country or the operative.

The plan never appeared close to the stage where it could be put into execution. Scores of arrests after Sept. 11, 2001, severely curtailed al-Qaida and its Southeast Asian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiyah.

Zaini, a 38-year-old engineer, was among three men al-Qaida was preparing to take part in an attack on the U.S. West Coast, according to security officials and terrorism experts in Southeast Asia.

The two other men implicated in the alleged plans were Zacarias Moussaoui, who is now in U.S. custody, and Abderraouf Jdey, who remains at large.

After returning to Malaysia the same year, Zaini enrolled in a flight school and obtained a license to fly a small plane. He then began making inquiries in Australia about getting a license to fly a jet, the official said.

But Zaini apparently was never told what his mission would be. When he saw media coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks, he severed his ties with the militants, according to the official.

Zaini told Malaysian interrogators that he "didn't want that kind of jihad," the official said.

A second Malaysian security official said Zaini told the interrogators "he was not prepared to die as a martyr, so he backed out."

The report quoted Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the reputed Sept. 11 mastermind who was captured in 2003, as saying "three potential pilots were recruited for the alleged second wave." It identified them as Moussaoui, Jdey and Zaini.

However, Mohammed told his U.S. interrogators that "he was too busy with the 9/11 plot to plan the second wave of attacks," the report said.

Zaini, a native of the northeastern state of Kelantan, was doing some odd jobs before he surrendered to Malaysian authorities in Kelantan in 2002, apparently because he was worried about an ill relative, said his former lawyer, Saiful Izham Ramli.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20060211/ai_n16062261/

Once they get a foothold in these countries the mandate is to spur further radicalization and unrest for the purpose of overthrowing the existing government and installing their brand of religious theocracy.

In particular, the unfairness of the yawning gulf between the haves and the have-nots has engendered the outrage that has led Islamic militants to pursue their restrictive interpretation of religious law. But in conversations with militants from both modest and privileged backgrounds, I have heard a common theme: many militants would relinquish their arms if the laws already in existence were applied fairly and equally.

A comparison to the U.S. youth movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s--when, similarly, super-size cohorts of impatient, idealistic young people felt largely left out of the political process--is tempting. No, Egyptian youth are not staging sit-ins and crashing the gates of the political arena. But the reason they aren't may have more to do with the class barrier and the skewed demographics of sitting politicians than any lack of political will. A substantial number of Egyptian ministers are more than sixty-five years old, belonging to an age group that makes up just 2.2 percent of the population. Most youths cannot visualize themselves to positions of power. What they hope for is that someone they trust, whether judge or religious leader or someone else in tune with their needs, will demand and achieve for them the fairness that, in principle, the law asserts.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_4_113/ai_n6026418/pg_4/?tag=content;col1

Egypt's workers are too numerous and desperate. More than 40% of the country's 80 million people live under the UN poverty line of $2 per day.

http://www.challenge-mag.com/en/article__212

The time he had spent doing business in Northern Ireland confirmed Bruder's notion that the path to peace and democracy lay not in military intervention or political overhaul but in gainful employment for the people. Jobs, he believed, would produce a middle class; jobs would buttress faltering economies; and jobs would give young people hope, income and something to do other than succumb to extremist dogma.

But jobs are scarce and growing scarcer in Arab countries. The region already faces 15% unemployment, and 90 million new jobs will be needed by 2020 to accommodate the swell of young workers, according to the World Bank.

http://www.efefoundation.org/index.php?m=5&s=2&t=8

Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say "I am strong." — Joel 3:10

Seems we all live in a bubble of sorts, ~ some being larger then others.

The Invasion of Canada in 1775 was the first major military initiative by the newly-formed Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. The objective of the campaign was to gain military control of the British Province of Quebec, and convince the French-speaking Canadiens to join the revolution on the side of the Thirteen Colonies.

For example, the authorization by the Second Continental Congress to General Philip Schuyler for the campaign included language that, if it was "not disagreeable to the Canadians", to "immediately take possession of St. John's, Montreal, and any other parts of the Country", and to "pursue any other measures in Canada" that might "promote peace and security" of the colonies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Canada_(1775)

Out of this momentous decision came one of the most amazing military expeditions of all time: Colonel Benedict Arnold's birch bark-canoe invasion of Canada, the first amphibious military assault in our nation's history. Arnold was to lead 1,100 soldiers from Massachusetts to Maine, then up the Kennebec and Dead Rivers into Canada by way of the Chaudiere River to Quebec City. Another army under Generals Phillip Schuyler and Richard Montgomery was to invade from New York, take Montreal, then meet Colonel Arnold at Quebec. This all came about, but ended in defeat for the Americans inasmuch as the British were well-positioned at Quebec, and Arnold's small army had been reduced by half by desertions. The French-Canadians did not rally to the American flag. Montgomery, replacing an ill Schuyler, was killed early in the attack; Arnold was wounded; and the campaign dissolved into disaster and retreat for the dejected remnants of the invading army.

http://www.theamericanrevolution.org/battles/bat_queb.asp

While Wooster at first had decent relations with the community, he took a number of steps that caused the local population to come to dislike the American military presence. After promising American ideals to the population, he began arresting Loyalists and threatening arrest and punishment of anyone opposed to the American cause. He also disarmed several communities, and attempted to force local militia members to surrender their Crown commissions. Those who refused were arrested and imprisoned at Fort Chambly. These and similar acts, combined with the fact that the Americans were paying for supplies and services with paper money rather than coin, served to disillusion the local population about the entire American enterprise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Canada_(1775)

The majority of the inhabitants of Upper Canada (Ontario) were either exiles from the United States (United Empire Loyalists) or postwar immigrants. The Loyalists were hostile to union with the U.S., while the other settlers seem to have been uninterested. The Canadian colonies were thinly populated and only lightly defended by the British Army. Americans then believed that many in Upper Canada would rise up and greet a United States invading army as liberators, a now-discredited belief. The combination suggested an easy conquest, as former President Thomas Jefferson seemed to believe in 1812: "The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us the experience for the attack on Halifax, the next and final expulsion of England from the American continent."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812

It's not a discussion of right or wrong but rather the outcomes.

It was the first expressly codified law that expressly forbade giving "no quarter" to the enemy (killing prisoners of war), except in such cases when the survival of the unit that held these prisoners was threatened. It forbade the use of poisons, stating that use of such puts any force who uses them entirely outside the pale of the civilized nations and peoples; it forbade the use of torture to extract confessions, or for any purpose; it described the rights and duties of prisoners of war and of capturing forces. It described the state of war, the state of occupied territories, the ends of war, and discusses permissible and impermissible means to attain those ends; it discussed the nature of states and sovereignties, and insurrections, rebellions, and wars. As such, it is widely considered to be the first written recital of the customary law of war, in force between the civilized nations and peoples since time immemorial, and the precursor to the Hague Regulations of 1907, the treaty-based restatement of the customary law of war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieber_code

"In 1776," wrote historian David Hackett Fischer in "Washington's Crossing," "American leaders believed it was not enough to win the war. They also had to win in a way that was consistent with the values of their society and the principles of their cause. One of their greatest achievements … was to manage the war in a manner that was true to the expanding humanitarian ideals of the American Revolution."

The fact that the patriots refused to abandon these principles, even in the dark times when the war seemed lost, when the enemy controlled our cities and our ragged army was barefoot and starving, credits the character of Washington and the founding fathers and puts to shame the conduct of America's present leadership.

Fischer writes that leaders in both the Continental Congress and the Continental Army resolved that the War of Independence would be conducted with a respect for human rights. This was all the more extraordinary because these courtesies were not reciprocated by King George's armies. Indeed, the British conducted a deliberate campaign of atrocities against American soldiers and civilians. While Americans extended quarter to combatants as a matter of right and treated their prisoners with humanity, British regulars and German mercenaries were threatened by their own officers with severe punishment if they showed mercy to a surrendering American soldier. Captured Americans were tortured, starved and cruelly maltreated aboard prison ships.

Washington decided to behave differently. After capturing 1,000 Hessians in the Battle of Trenton, he ordered that enemy prisoners be treated with the same rights for which our young nation was fighting. In an order covering prisoners taken in the Battle of Princeton, Washington wrote: "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren…. Provide everything necessary for them on the road."

John Adams argued that humane treatment of prisoners and deep concern for civilian populations not only reflected the American Revolution's highest ideals, they were a moral and strategic requirement. "I know of no policy, God is my witness, but this — Piety, Humanity and Honesty are the best Policy. Blasphemy, Cruelty and Villainy have prevailed and may again. But they won't prevail against America, in this Contest, because I find the more of them are employed, the less they succeed."

Even British military leaders involved in the atrocities recognized their negative effects on the overall war effort. In 1778, Col. Charles Stuart wrote to his father, the Earl of Bute: "Wherever our armies have marched, wherever they have encamped, every species of barbarity has been executed. We planted an irrevocable hatred wherever we went, which neither time nor measure will be able to eradicate."

In the end, our founding fathers not only protected our national values, they defeated a militarily superior enemy. Indeed, it was their disciplined adherence to those values that helped them win a hopeless struggle against the best soldiers in Europe.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1217-30.htm

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

Ronald Reagan
signing statement, ratifying the UN Convention on Torture from 1984

It is simply not true that the US had not used water boarding in the past .

It is an interrogation method that date back to the 14th century. The interrogation method was used by the Japanese in World War II, by U.S. troops in the Philippines and by the French in Algeria.

As one counterinsurgency study noted:

Officially, the Army condemned the water cure, which fell under [General Order]
100's prohibition of torture. Unofficially, many officers winked at the practice,
and military courts proved exceedingly reluctant to punish officers charged with
applying coercive methods. As the war progressed the number of incidents of
abuse grew as officers...came to believe that the “cure” was the only way to uproot
the guerilla infrastructure. Even well-known champions of the policy of
attraction... conceded that the water cure “might be a good thing if judiciously
administered in occasional doses, provided that the antis [anti-imperialists] at
home did not find it out.”

Andrew Birtle, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1860-1941,
U.S. Army Center of Military History (1998)

Spanish-American War

Major Edwin Glenn of the United States was suspended from command for one month and fined $50 for using the water cure. The Army judge advocate said the charges constituted "resort to torture with a view to extort a confession" and recommended disapproval because "the United States cannot afford to sanction the addition of torture."

Philippine-American War
Water cure was among the forms of torture used by American soldiers on Filipinos during the Philippine-American War.President Theodore Roosevelt privately assured a friend that the water cure was "an old Filipino method of mild torture. Nobody was seriously damaged whereas the Filipinos had inflicted incredible tortures on our people." The President went further stating "Nevertheless, torture is not a thing that we can tolerate." However, a report at the time noted its lethality; "a soldier who was with General Funston had stated that he helped to administer the water cure to one hundred and sixty natives, all but twenty-six of whom died". See the Lodge Committee for detailed testimony of the use of the water cure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cure
===========================================
On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post ran a front-page photo of a U.S. soldier supervising the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier. The caption said the technique induced "a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk." The picture led to an Army investigation and, two months later, the court martial of the soldier.

Cases of waterboarding have occurred on U.S. soil, as well. In 1983, Texas Sheriff James Parker was charged, along with three of his deputies, for handcuffing prisoners to chairs, placing towels over their faces, and pouring water on the cloth until they gave what the officers considered to be confessions. The sheriff and his deputies were all convicted and sentenced to four years in prison.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15886834
==========================================

Also the US did not simply prosecute Japeanese prisoners for water boarding rather one soldier was sentenced to 15 years for brutalities which included water boarding.

"McCain is referencing the Tokyo Trials, officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as 'water cure,' 'water torture' and 'waterboarding,' according to the charging documents. It simulates drowning." Politifact went on to report, "A number of the Japanese soldiers convicted by American judges were hanged, while others received lengthy prison sentences or time in labor camps."

The folks at Politifact interviewed R. John Pritchard, the author of The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Complete Transcripts of the Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. They also interviewed Yuma Totani, history professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and consulted the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, which published a law review article entitled, "Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts."

http://patriciashannon.blogspot.com/2009/04/us-executed-japanese-soldiers-for.html

The United States was not alone in prosecuting water torture before national tribunals, nor were the Japanese its sole practitioner. It is worth comparing those trials with Norway’s prosecution of German defendants for the same form of misconduct, and the
United Kingdom’s trial and execution of Japanese interrogators who used the method.

DROP BY DROP:
FORGETTING THE HISTORY OF
WATER TORTURE IN U.S. COURTS

http://tinyurl.com/mf3kbb

I suspect he won't go on national tv and tell the American people we were wrong, our policies contributed to the attack, and we're to blame, not the terrorists. He'll strike back. He may not do it in full view, but he'll instruct our military and intelligence services to find the culprits, their bases, and their leaders, and take some action. Bet on it.

Officials said Johns didn't have a chance to draw his weapon before von Brunn pulled the trigger. Other guards returned fire, hitting von Brunn and stopping the assault moments after it began.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105247692&ft=1&f=1001

A frustrated artist and an angry man, the gunman in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting once tried to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve board, a caper thwarted when a guard captured him outside a board meeting carrying a bag stuffed with weapons.

James von Brunn, 89, a white supremacist and Holocaust denier, describes the assault with apparent pride on his Web site, the source of fulmination against Jews and races other than his own.

Despite the revolver, sawed-off shotgun and knife found in his bag that day, von Brunn insisted he was trying to place the board under legal, non-violent citizens-arrest.

A self-described artist, advertising man and author living in Annapolis, Maryland, von Brunn wrote an anti-Semitic treatise, 'Kill the Best Gentiles', that he said no one would publish. He decries the 'browning' of America and claims to expose a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the White gene-pool.

Von Brunn also wrote, "The 'Holocaust' Religion is destroying Western Civilization. The Aryan gene-pool dies, 'unwept, unhonored and unsung.'"

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1091987.html

He remained hospitalized in critical condition Thursday from shots fired by other security guards. The complaint says he was shot in the face and fell backward outside the museum's front door.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/11/museum.shooting/index.html

The current US passport population stands at 18% of US adults. Source : European Travel Commission.
Recent research indicating that Britain is the most popular overseas destination (excluding Canada & Mexico) for US residents. Source: Travel Industry World Yearbook 2000. The top cities for passport ownership are: New York, 38%; San Francisco, 37%; Miami/Fort Lauderdale, 33%; West Palm Beach, 31%; San Diego, 29%; Los Angeles, 27%; Washington DC, 27%. Source: US Office of Central Statistics
http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2003/01/31/how_many_america.php

On average, European employees get four weeks of vacation. It would take the typical American employee 15 years or longer to attain the same vacation privileges, says Ann Leeds, a Hewitt consultant who specializes in global benefit practices. And as job-hopping becomes more common, fewer Americans ever qualify for such extended vacations. To add insult to injury (at least for leisure-deprived Americans), employers in certain European countries are required to provide a cash "vacation bonus," equal to one-half to one month's pay.

The numbers

Here's the lowdown on how many vacation days the rest of the world enjoys.

According to Hewitt Associates, the country with the most vacation days is Denmark with 31, followed closely by Austria and Finland at 30 days. France and Norway are at 25 days, Germany at 24 days, Belgium, Ireland, the U.K., the Netherlands and Switzerland each at 20 days. Non-European countries measured include Brazil at 22 days, Australia at 20 days and Colombia and New Zealand each at 15 days. The U.S. is second from the bottom with 10 days, tied with both Canada and Japan. Only Mexico, with a piddly six days, offers employees less vacation time.

http://www.vault.com/nr/newsmain.jsp?nr_page=3&ch_id=420&article_id=3810101&cat_id=1223

But the problem is that when Americans start reacting to all over the world, then they start having an image of supposedly being an "exemplary" country, while USA is anything but an "exemplary" country. I mean it's not bad country at all, but is the only developed country looking very strange among all developed countries.

Shortly, too much power, too much interest in other countries creates huge arrogance, I would say childish arrogance, and it does create problems within USA.

When times aren't so critical, either after the fact, or leading up to the next disaster, we feel the constant bickering over what may or may not be causing the problems is more important than solving any of those problems. We play the blame game, refuse to concede anything, throw roadblocks up, and wonder why nothing ever changes for the better.

Well, American's have reached a point they need to close ranks and come together, it's not a frontier anymore. ~

As you might notice, ~ we have 20% being very bullheaded about it, refusing to accept the realities of it.

I think that the Civil War had the nature of that kind of experience for the country. Anybody who's looked into it at all realizes that it truly is the outstanding event in American history insofar as making us what we are. The kind of country we are emerged from the Civil War, not from the Revolution. The Revolution provided us with a constitution; it broke us loose from England; it made us free. But the Civil War really defined us. It said what we were going to be, and it said what we're not going to be. It drifted away from the Southern, mostly Virginia, influence up into the New England and Middle Western influence, and we became that kind of nation instead of the other kind of nation.

- Shelby Foote

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq -- Stephen Colbert left no doubt about his solidarity with American troops when he taped the first of four Comedy Central shows he'll produce in Iraq this week.

Colbert, wearing a business suit made of the same camouflaged material used for soldiers' desert uniforms, submitted to a regulation military haircut as hundreds of U.S. troops cheered wildly Sunday.

The comedian, who satirizes conservative TV pundits on his "Colbert Report," began his "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando" USO tour Sunday in the Baghdad headquarters of the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq.

"It must be nice in Iraq, because some of you keep coming back again and again," Colbert said, joking about the multiple tour many troops have had in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. Some troops had accumulated enough frequent flyer miles to earn them a free ticket to Afghanistan, he joked.

Colbert told his guest, Gen. Ray Odierno, he felt "a little intimidated" by him, not because he was he top U.S. commander in Iraq, but because it felt like he was "interviewing Shrek." Odierno is an imposing bald figure at 6-feet, 5-inches tall.

Odierno said the military is "not yet ready to declare victory" in Iraq and that there was a little more work to be done for long-term stability.

"I, Stephen Colbert, by the power invested in me by basic cable, officially declare we won the Iraq war," Colbert said, as his audience broke out into applause.

The interview was interrupted when President Obama appeared on large television screens. The commander-in-chief told his general it was time to "cut that man's hair."

With white electric hair clippers in his hand, Ordierno stood up and began shaving Colbert's trademark thick dark hair. The troops stood and cheered as a female member of Colbert's staff finished the job.

After the haircut, Colbert ran through the audience, high-fiving the troops as he showed off his new military look.

One Army major said that "shaving of the hair is an amazing show of support" that was "very touching."

Former Republican presidential nominee John McCain also made a pre-taped appearance on the show, jokingly reminding the troops to "take time to clean your muskets."

Lt. Col. Debra Shoemaker, a native of Colbert's hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, said the show was a "nice break" from the monotony of service in Iraq.

USO Senior Vice President John Hanson said the shows are an important diversion for the troops.

Colbert's USO tour is unusual because it's the first time it has been a show taped in a combat zone has been edited and aired so quickly. The Sunday show will be televised on the Comedy Central network .

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/07/colbert.iraq/index.html

These folks don't expect or look for help outside the family unit for the more part. This is whats at the root of many die hard GOP rank and file in the more rural areas of our nation and this" independence" and self reliance still runs very deep to this day.

I hope my story offers some perspective ~ of "why" we are the way we are.

I've not been there, but my guess Canada is more European, perhaps a little more "civilized" yet I know the nation was forged out of the wilderness as well.

Perhaps the Canadians more use to the yoke of government.

In summary, “This crossing was made in broad daylight using British canvas assault boats. Each wave cost numerous casualties in both infantry and engineers, due to point blank enemy fire of small arms and automatic weapons. The crossing was highly successful; the Nijmegen highway and railroad bridges were secured intact” (307th).

http://www.usaaftroopcarrier.com/Holland/H-Waal%20River%20Crossing.htm

Polder Model
A third explanation refers to a unique aspect of the Netherlands, largely consisting of polders, land regained from the sea, which requires constant pumping and maintenance of the dykes. So ever since the Middle Ages, when this was started, different societies living in the same polder were forced to cooperate because without unanimous agreement on shared responsibility for maintenance of the dikes and pumping stations, the polders would have flooded and everyone would have suffered. Crucially, even when different cities in the same polder were at war, they still had to cooperate in this respect. This supposedly taught the Dutch to set aside differences for a greater purpose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder_Model

Firearms also save countless lives each year. Millions of people use them without incident. Why punish millions because of a few?

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A police officer was shot to death by another officer as he was chasing a man he saw breaking into his car in New York's East Harlem neighborhood, authorities said.

New York Police Department Officer Omar Edwards, 25, was shot twice about 10:30 p.m. Thursday just blocks from the precinct where he had finished his shift. He was pronounced dead less than an hour later at Harlem Hospital.

Edwards, in plainclothes, had just left the Housing Bureau Station House on East 124th St., said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. As Edwards approached his car, he saw a man rummaging through it.

"We believe that at this point, Officer Edwards, with his gun drawn, chased the individual north to 125th Street and east toward First Avenue," Kelly said at a news conference in New York early Friday at Harlem Hospital.

Edwards was not wearing a bulletproof vest and did not fire a shot, Kelly said.

Plainclothes officers patrolling the neighborhood in an unmarked vehicle saw the chase and went after Edwards and the suspect.

"One of the officers, after exiting the vehicle, fired six times from a 9 mm Glock," Kelly said.

Edwards was shot in the chest and arm. It was not clear whether any of the officers had identified themselves as law enforcement.

The officer who fired the shots has four-and-a-half years' experience, authorities said. The shooting is under investigation, Kelly said.

A man was later arrested on suspicion of breaking into Edwards' car.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/29/ny.officer.killed/index.html


MIDLAND — Midland County sheriff’s deputies were investigating the accidental shooting death of a 48-year-old Midland man.

Michael W. Laursen was alone at the outdoor range of the Midland Sportsman’s Club in Larkin Township when he slipped and fell to the ground, and the handgun he was carrying fired, fatally wounding him, deputies said.

Laursen, a financial adviser for Hantz Financial Services, 2621 W. Wackerly in Midland, was carrying a .454-caliber Freedom Arms Model 83 Casull revolver when he fell. He also had two other handguns with him, said Sheriff Jerry Nielsen.




The Hays County Commissioners court may weigh in on a gun ordinance instituted after a 7 year-old-boy was accidentally shot and killed.

The commissioners will consider whether to ban shooting on lots smaller than two acres.

A citizens committee has been working on a recommendation since last June, when 7-year-old Daniel Galicia was killed in an accidental shooting.

He was jumping on a trampoline with other children when he was hit in the neck with a stray bullet.

The boy’s neighbor, Jose Espitia, was target shooting on his property.

http://www.cynical-c.com/?p=10120

It is astonishing that the U.S. is the only developed country that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation or holidays. In the EU countries, workers are entitled to at least four weeks’ annual leave each year, with additional time for national holidays. In France and Finland, thirty days is the minimum standard. Other counties including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan also provide guaranteed paid leave for their workers.

According to a recent study entitled “No-Vacation Nation” by the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, Americans get an average of 15 total paid days off per year, comprised of nine vacation days and six holidays. This falls well below the required standard in the nineteen other countries studied.

http://www.savingadvice.com/blog/2007/05/17/101440_did-you-know-you-have-no-legal-rights-to-your-vacation.html

* Switzerland has one of the lowest murder rates in the world, and it requires all able-bodied males between the ages of 20 and 50 to have a military-issued automatic weapon, ammunition and other equipment in their dwellings.

* Israel, which has an extremely low crime rate but is vulnerable to enemies including terrorists, depends on the defensive value of widespread civilian gun possession.

* Denmark and Finland also have high rates of gun ownership and low crime rates.

Swiss males grow up expecting to undergo basic military training, usually at age 20 in the Rekrutenschule (German for "recruit school"), the initial boot camp, after which Swiss men remain part of the "militia" in reserve capacity until age 30 (age 34 for officers). Each such individual is required to keep his army-issued personal weapon (the 5.56x45mm Sig 550 rifle for enlisted personnel or the SIG 510 rifle and/or the 9mm SIG-Sauer P220 semi-automatic pistol for officers, medical and postal personnel) at home with a specified personal retention quantity of government-issued personal ammunition (50 rounds 5.56 mm / 48 rounds 9mm), which is sealed and inspected regularly to ensure that no unauthorized use takes place. The issuing of ammunition was however abolished after a family shooting, in which the victim was a former ski champion.

A "shooting society" somewhere in Switzerland; people come to such ranges to complete mandatory training with service arms, or to shoot for sport and competition.

When their period of service has ended, militiamen have the choice of keeping their personal weapon and other selected items of their equipment. In this case of retention, the rifle is sent to the weapons factory where the fully automatic function is removed; the rifle is then returned to the discharged owner. The rifle is then a semi-automatic or self-loading rifle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

Switzerland: Opponents of gun control often use Switzerland as evidence that access to guns is not linked to crime or violence. They argue that since virtually all adult males are members of the army and have military weapons, there is nearly universal access to deadly weapons yet few gun-related problems in Switzerland. However, Swiss criminologist Martin Killias, of the Université de Lausanne, argues that the rate of households with firearms is actually comparable to that of Canada (27.2%). There is strict screening of army officers and ammunition is stored in sealed boxes and inspected regularly. Despite these controls, Switzerland has rates of gun suicide second only to the US among the countries Killias surveyed and a gun murder rate comparable to Canada's. Although firearms regulations in Switzerland is fragmented and controlled at the regional level, wide ranging reforms are being undertaken to establish national standards.

http://www.guncontrol.ca/Content/international.html

In answer to your queries about gun laws in Israel: [bold]The gun control laws in Israel are draconian. [/bold]

You must have a "valid reason" to keep a gun at home. Sadly in the West Bank our cousins (the Arabs) give that reason. All of Israel law is a combination of Ottoman Empire, British occupation, and Israeli passed laws, also the radical leftist Supreme Court which has empowered itself to strike down laws it does not agree with and to generate law by judicial declaration. We do not have a constitution for the state of Israel.

These rules may change as the firearms regulation is moving to the police ministry from the ministry of interior. By law they are already empowered but interior still has the funding so police will not take over.

[bold]Competitive shooters must now lock up weapons at the club vault.[/bold]

[bold]You used to be able to own two long guns for hunting but insurance is unavailable so no new long gun permits. However, current holders can still keep these guns.[/bold]

[bold]Here are basics on handguns: Three years of citizenship, doctor's letter, one day of class, and shooting exam required, you must have what is deemed a "valid reason" to get this permit.

Valid reasons for handgun permit include: three years with police reserve unit, military officer over captain, or residence in "higher risk" area like the West Bank.

http://www.survivalblog.com/2006/07/david_in_israel_re_on_gun_laws.html

In very condensed form, here are the danish gun laws, with a bias to the competion side of things.

Licence: Either on a hunting permit or as member of a rifle club. Hunters are dealt with by the police, comp shooters by SKV, their own registering body (plus police approval.)

Limits: semiautomatic hunting rifles has to be limited to two shots, no semi rifles allowed in competition.

Under 25 rifles or under 10 pistols: Gun cabinet of approved type, over 25/10 active alarm system required.

Ammo/calibers: (rifle) up to but excluding 20 mm. 1000 cartridges long range, i.e. rifle; 5000 carts short range, i.e. pistol. Pistols and revolvers are limited to .38 cal.

Pistol permits are only given when 2 years of shooting in a club has been succesfully (i.e. without any 'episodes') completed, A certain number of training sessions with small caliber as well as large caliber (.32 and up) required.

Reloading requires a licence. At the moment new reloading permits are not issued due to certain mistakes by the authorities.
Moderators/"silencers" are strictly forbidden. Muzzle brakes allowed.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=8&f=49&t=334479

Firearms can only be obtained with an acquisition license, which can be applied for at the local police for a fee. A separate license is required for each individual firearm. With the primary licensee's consent, parallel licenses to his firearms can be granted to other persons. According to law, the firearms must be stored in a locked space or otherwise locked, or with vital parts removed and separated. Even then the weapon or any of its separated parts must not be easily stolen. If an especially dangerous firearm or more than 5 pistols, revolvers or self-loading rifles or other-type firearms are being stored, they must be stored in a certified gun safe or in a secure space inspected and approved by the local police authority.

They may be carried only when they are transported from their place of storage to the place of use (shooting range, hunting area or such). Even then they must be unloaded and concealed or kept in carrying pouches. Aside from law enforcement agents and military personnel, only security guards with closely defined working conditions, special training and a permit are allowed to carry a loaded gun in public places. The ownership of air-rifles is not regulated but carrying or firing them in public places is not permitted. A crossbow is paralleled to an air rifle in legal matters.

To obtain a firearms license, an individual must declare a valid reason to own a gun. Acceptable reasons include hunting, sports or hobby shooting, profession related, show or promotion or exhibition, collection or museum, souvenir, and signalling. It is worth noticing that self- or home defence are not considered valid reasons. The applicant must provide evidence supporting the acquisition license application to prove that he or she is actually using firearms for the stated purpose(s). Such proof may consist of written declarations from other license holders as referees, shooting diaries or certificates from a shooting club.[5]

The applicant is also subjected to an extensive background check from police accessible databases and even citations for speeding or DUI can be grounds of not granting the license.

Collectors can have special licenses for firearms otherwise not permitted (e.g. pocket guns or select fire weapons). These are usually issued based on the collector's previous record of gun ownership, but ultimately the issuing of licenses is at the local police's discretion.

Conversely, a license for a pistol or a rifle is relatively easy to obtain, although the police usually require that the first gun is suitable for a beginner (usually a gun chambered in .22LR or single shot shotgun).

Possession of destructive devices such as automatic weapons, rocket and grenade launchers, breech loading cannons, artillery rockets, or missile systems is generally not permitted. The Finnish Ministry of the Interior has discretion to license such devices to collectors, for motion picture production or exhibition use.

The firearms certificate may be cancelled if a person has committed any crimes (in addition to violent crimes, simple theft and traffic offences are also considered) or has broken certificate rules. Physical and mental problems or reckless behavior are solid grounds for canceling the certificate.

Possessing a firearm without a license is a punishable offence. Unlicensed firearms may be confiscated by the police without punishment under a gun amnesty law, provided this happens under the individual's own initiative. Firearms surrendered in this manner are auctioned to the public or destroyed.

Sound suppressors, a firearm accessory strictly regulated in many other jurisdictions, are also available in Finland. Their use is not regulated. Their use can be considered to reduce the noise pollution that firearms otherwise produce. Noise pollution is to some extent a problem, since although most ranges are located in relatively remote locations, many ranges may be closed down if the noise becomes a problem for the nearest inhabitants. Suppressors also reduced the risk of hearing damage while shooting. Silencers are not a major topic in Finnish gun control debates as they are almost never used in crimes.

Private ownership of tear gas or pepper spray is licensed for the purposes of personal protection, collection, training, or education. These are not valid reasons to get a licence for a private person, however, but apply only to security companies. There are some circumstances where a private person can obtain a license for carrying an incapacitating agent, such as when obtaining a restraining order against an aggressive person.

Any usual need for professional use of guns should be covered with incapacitating agents, but for high risk facilities such as nuclear plants, security guards may get a firearm license.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Finland