Hello Everyone!!!!  

   This is one of those group e-mails that are shot out at the last minute to wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS or whatever you celebrate and a HAPPY NEW 2016!!! Sort of just realised that Christmas is this FRIDAY!! For those of you who are new to my mailing list I do this year-end review every year.I have been doing this for every year since 2004.These reviews are fairly lengthy so I reckon most of you probably don't even read it.

   Those of you who do thank you.This year like last year

 AMERICAN WOMAN

   This year Canada got a new Prime Minister,Justin Pierre James Trudeau (he was born on Christmas Day in 1971) who I will discuss in more detail further down.He is the son of Pierre Elliot Trudeau.His father was the Prime Minister of Canada in the late 1960s and 1970s and many Americans were moving to Canada.Perhaps this will happen again.As the Americans were going to Canada when Trudeau's dad was Prime Minister,they were probably singing a song that went to #1 for three (3) weeks on the US Billboard Hot 100 in May of 1970 by a Canadian rock band from Winnipeg called the "Guess Who" with their song titled "American Woman". You can follow the link below and listen to the tune in the background as you read my year-end review.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl4GWOkvDeM

 NEWS

  GUNS AND MASS SHOOTINGS IN THE USA

  This year 57 year old Robert Lewis Dear shot up a Planned Parenthood Clinic in Colorado Springs on November 27th.Dylan Storm Roof shot and killed nine (9) people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston,South Carolina on June 17th.Four (4) white supremacists were charged with the November 23rd shooting of five protesters at a "Black Lives Matter" rally and  26-year-old Christopher Harper-Mercer,fatally shot an assistant professor and eight students in a classroom in Oregon.Seven to nine others were injured on October 1st.

    Although these assailants were white.Fox so-called News,the mainstream media and conservative politicians do not consider these people terrorists.They do not say because of them all white or Christian people are bad.According to mainstream media when a white person kills a lot of people he is perceived as misguided or deranged or just an isolated case.But if a black person or someone of Middle Eastern origin commits a mass murder suddenly the media considers all of the blacks or all the Muslims as bad people.Just look at the Friday,November 13 mass murders in Paris. As a result of this incident 31 US governors have refused to accept refugees from Syria,a country which America created the chaos. This country also has a secular government.While an FBI report shows that only a small percentage of terrorist attacks carried out on U.S. soil between 1980 and 2005 were perpetrated by Muslims. According to this data,there were more Jewish acts of terrorism within the United States than Islamic (7% vs 6%).These radical Jews committed acts of terrorism in the name of their religion. These were not terrorists who happened to be Jews:rather,they were extremist Jews who committed acts of terrorism based on their religious passions,just like Al-Qaeda and company. See:http://www.globalresearch.ca/non-muslims-carried-out-more-than-90-of-all-terrorist-attacks-in-america/5333619

     In December 2012,a gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,Connecticut, and killed 20 children,six adults and himself.Since then,there have been at least 1,029 mass shootings,with shooters killing at least 1,300 people and wounding 3,699 more.

  The counts come from the Mass Shooting Tracker,a crowdsourced database that tracks shootings since 2013 in which four or more people were shot.As with any crowdsourced database,it's likely missing some shootings and some of the shootings are missing details.

   Are these types of shootings increasing" It depends on which definition you use.Using the definition many people operate under "shootings at a public place in which the shooter murdered four or more people,excluding domestic,gang and drug violence"they appear to be getting more common, according to an analysis from Harvard School of Public Health researchers.

   But not everyone agrees with this definition.Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox,for example,defines mass shootings as any shooting in which at least four people were murdered.Under those terms,mass shootings don't appear to be increasing.Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health call that definition too broad, since it catches domestic,gang and drug-related shootings that aren't usually considered mass shootings in layman's terms.

See:http://www.vox.com/a/mass-shootings-sandy-hook

   But the Mass Shooting Tracker is even broader"counting not just shootings in which four or more people were murdered,but shootings in which four or more people were shot at all.The database's organizers explained their reasoning on their website: "For instance, in 2012 Travis Steed and others shot 18 people total.

  Miraculously,he only killed one. Under the incorrect definition of mass shooting, that event would not be considered a mass shooting!Arguing that 18 people shot during one event is not a mass shooting is absurd."

   Even under this broader definition,it's worth noting that mass shootings make up a tiny portion of America's firearm deaths,which total more than 32,000 each year.And the US has way more gun violence than its developed peers:According to UN data compiled by the Guardian's Simon Rogers,the US had 29.7 firearm homicides per 1 million people in 2012,while Switzerland had 7.7,Canada had 5.1 and Germany had 1.9.

   But why does the US have so many more gun homicides than other advanced countries? One possible explanation:Americans are much more likely to own guns than most of the world,the US makes up about 4.4 percent of the global population,but owns 42 percent of the world's civilian-owned guns.And the empirical research shows places with more guns have more homicides.

    Criminal justice experts widely recognize this is a result of cultural and policy decisions that have made firearms far more available in America than in most of the world.For the US,that means not just more mass shootings,but more gun violence in general.

  There's roughly one gun for every person in America.It's pretty hard to count up all the guns in the United States, especially given how varied different states' licensing and registration policies are.A 2012 Congressional Research Service report estimated that there were 310 million civilian guns in 2009:114 million handguns,110 million rifles and 86 million shotguns.The Small Arms Survey, which measures gun prevalence internationally,estimated that there were 270 million in 2007.The latter estimate suggests there were 88.8 guns for every 100 people in the US in 2007;there were about 307 million people in the US in 2009,which would mean the CRS estimated there were more guns than people in America.

  Gun crime is more prevalent in the US than in other rich countries.Gun homicides are considerably more common in the US than in peer countries.There were 29.7 gun homicides per million people in the US in 2012,compared to only 5.1 per million in Canada and 1.4 per million in Australia,according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

  Places with more guns have more homicides.Protestations of gun rights supporters aside, public health researchers who study firearms generally agree that increased firearm ownership rates are associated with higher rates of homicide.

  There are more gun suicides than gun homicides in America.Gun homicides get far more attention in the popular press,but most gun deaths are the result of suicide. In 2013, the last year for which the CDC provides numbers, 21,175 people committed suicide by firearm,while 11,208 people died in gun homicides.Historical data shows it's been this way for a while.

  Suicide is more common in places with more guns.The relationship between gun prevalence and suicide is stronger than the relationship between guns and homicide, as the Harvard Injury Control Research Center's Means Matter project shows. People who die from suicide are likelier to live in homes with guns than people who merely attempted suicide, and states with higher rates of gun ownership have higher rates of gun suicide.This isn't proof of causality,but many of the complicating factors that would disprove a causal relationship" say, the possibility that people in rural areas are both likelier to own guns and likelier to be depressed "don't check out;depression actually isn't higher in rural areas,for example.

And the causal mechanism by which guns would disprove a causal relationship say,"the possibility that people in rural areas are both likelier to own guns and likelier to be depressed " don't check out; depression actually isn't higher in rural areas, for example. And the causal mechanism by which guns would increase suicide rates is plausible. Studies suggest that suicide attempts using guns are fatal in the vast majority of cases,while attempts using cuts or poisoning are only fatal 6 to 7 percent of the time.

   Furthermore, there's evidence that gun control can reduce suicide rates. A buyback program that wound up taking a fifth of Australia's guns off the street wound up reducing firearm suicides by 74 percent without affecting non-firearm suicides. When the Israeli Defense Forces stopped letting soldiers bring their guns home over the weekend, suicides fell 40 percent, primarily due to a drop in firearm suicides committed on weekends. Firearm suicides are less common in US states that check if potential gun purchasers are mentally ill or criminal fugitives.

  Living in a house with a gun increases your odds of death. Guns can kill you in three ways: homicide, suicide, and by accident. Owning a gun or having one readily accessible makes all three more likely. A recent meta-analysis "found strong evidence for increased odds of suicide among persons with access to firearms compared with those without access and moderate evidence for an attenuated increased odds of homicide victimization when persons with and without access to firearms were compared." The latter finding is stronger for women, a reminder that guns are also a risk factor for domestic violence.

   The same thing is true for accidents.States with more guns see more accidental deaths from firearms, and children ages 5 to 14 are 11 times more likely to be killed with a gun in the US compared to other developed countries, where gun ownership is much less common. About half of gun accident fatalities happen to people under 25, and some recent analyses suggest that the official count of gun accident deaths among children is understated.

  "When 34 injury prevention experts were asked to prioritize home injury hazards for young children, based on frequency, severity, and preventability of the injury, the experts rated access to firearms in the home as the most significant hazard," Harvard gun expert David Hemenway writes. The American Academy of Pediatrics has stated that "the absence of guns from children's homes and communities is the most reliable and effective measure to prevent firearm-related injuries in children and adolescents."

Guns contribute to domestic violence.While everyone is at a greater risk of dying by homicide if they have access to a gun,the connection is stronger for women.

In a survey of battered women,71.4 percent of respondents reported that guns had been used against them, usually to threaten to kill them.A study comparing abused women who survived with those killed by their abuser found that 51 percent of women who were killed had a gun in the house. By contrast,only 16 percent of women who survived lived in homes with guns.

   Jacquelyn Campbell,a Johns Hopkins professor responsible for much of what we know about guns and domestic violence (and domestic violence in general),developed a set of screening questions to ask abused women to determine who's at the most risk of being killed by their abuser. Among the questions in the screen, which has been adopted by Maryland police and appears to be working, are a couple about the abuser's access to guns, emphasizing that gun access is a risk factor for homicide in abusive relationships.

US POLICE BRUTALITY-OUT OF CONTROL-NO ONE STANDS UP TO THE POLICE

  On November 22,2014 Tamir Rice a 12 year old boy was shot to death by two police officers,26-year-old Timothy Loehmann and 46-year-old Frank Garmback who responded after receiving a police dispatch call "of a male black sitting on a swing and pointing a gun at people" in a city park.A caller reported that a male was pointing "a pistol" at random people in the Cudell Recreation Center.At the beginning of the call and again in the middle he says of the pistol "it's probably fake."Toward the end of the two-minute call, the caller stated "he is probably a juvenile." The officers reported that upon their arrival, Rice reached towards a gun in his waistband. Loehmann fired two shots before the zone car came to a halt and within two seconds of arriving on the scene,hitting Rice once in the torso.Neither officer administered any first aid to Rice after the shooting. He died on the following day.

  This year in October S. Lamar Sims,the senior chief deputy district attorney in Denver, was assigned to investigate the incident.

In one of the reports he wrote and concluded Loehmann's decision to shoot Rice as he approached the officers was "objectively reasonable" "There can be no doubt that Rice's death was tragic and,indeed, when one considers his age,heartbreaking," Sims writes in his report. "However,for all reasons,I conclude that Officer Loehmann's belief that Rice posed a threat of serious physical harm or death was objectively reasonable as was his response to that perceived threat."

   Sims added just because he was 12 years old doesn't mean the officer was in any less fear had he been an adult.

  According to that logic would he have the same belief of a threat had Rice been three years old.

    Further,every 28 hours a black man is shot to death by a police officer and less than .01% of them ever get convicted.Even President Obama supports the police and like the prosecutor in the Darren Wilson case not to charge him in the death of Michael Brown.He supported the decision of Lamar Sims not to charge Loehmann in the death of Tamir Rice. Like I say the President,the Courts,the Congress or the state legislatures won't stand up to the police. They literally have a license to kill in the USA.

  Along with a license to kill they have a license to steal.Last year the police stole more than all the criminals combined.

See:http://usuncut.com/news/police-stole-citizens-burglaries-combined-last-year/

  Yes,police are also stealing and they steal more from citizens annually than criminals,thanks to civil asset forfeiture's or "stop and seize" and the value of the theft is in the billions. 

     Civil asset forfeiture allows cops to seize cash and/or property from those deemed guilty until proven innocent, and in some cases, all they need is a thin veil of probable cause to do so. They don't even need a warrant.What's more, authorities are not only able to take what they like from these presumed criminals,they're also legally allowed to keep it "anything from money,to vehicles,to entire homes" and the practice has been on the rise,showing a "meteoric, exponential increase" over the last decade, according to a recent report by the non-profit civil liberties law firm Institute for Justice.

   Perhaps the most problematic aspect of the chronic civil asset forfeiture is that one does not even need to be charged with a crime,much less convicted of one.

   Asset forfeiture funds collected at the federal level by the Department of Justice and the U.S. Treasury tripled from $1.5 billion in 2008 to $4.5 billion in 2014,as compared with an FBI report stating "victims of burglary offenses suffered an estimated $3.9 billion in property losses in 2014."

   Institute for Justice report co-author Dick Carpenter believes at least one explanation for the dramatic rise in civil asset forfeitures is due to the "lean economic years" 2008 to 2014 have posed, stating, "Forfeiture is an attractive way to keep revenue streams flowing when budgets are tight."

    "With government unable to pay police as much as they need or would like, police are confiscating their revenue directly from the populace," Bloomberg reports, and as far as a 2014 Washington Post report is concerned, "a little-known cottage industry of private police-training firms" is behind it all.

  That same Washington Post report quotes Deputy Ron Hain of Kane County, Ill., as stating in a self-published book he wrote under a pseudonym, "All of our home towns are sitting on a tax-liberating gold mine." In that book, Hain urges "turning our police forces into present-day Robin Hoods."

   The same failure in funding our infrastructure that sends our public schools begging for their very survival now has our police forces robbing from the citizens they are designed to protect in order to pay their own wages, and somewhere along the line, they started getting carried away.

   Thousands upon thousands of citizens have been forced to either suck it up and take the loss or attempt fighting the issue in court,attempting to regain their seized assets. Frequently, the value of the assets seized is of such a small amount, however, that a pricey court battle is not worth the effort,so cops win by default.Though the value of seized assets can vary, forfeitures can average anywhere from $650 to $1,250, but even be as small as a single dollar.Done enough,however,it adds up quickly.

    Furthermore,authorities found to have seized assets unjustly almost never receive any form of discipline for their actions.

    There are double-standards,too.In Washington D.C.,for example,owners of seized property only have 30 days to contest their forfeiture;whereas, the city has an entire year to file its civil forfeiture action against an alleged suspect and they can sit on the owner's assets the entire time.Nor do they even have to take good care of it.Sean Day, co-counsel to a class-action lawsuit against D.C. for its civil asset forfeiture practice, says, "It's become a cash cow for a lot of jurisdictions, frankly."

   There is also a federal loophole commonly known as "equitable sharing" that police departments can use to sidestep state and local civil forfeiture laws,allowing them to tap into a slice of the economic pie by utilizing federal civil forfeiture laws. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-MI., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY., put forth legislation in 2014 in the hopes of restricting, or even eliminating equitable sharing, however, with Walberg calling his bill "common-sense" because it "does not detract from good law enforcement," adding that Americans should be able to live "without the fear of overweening government."

   Even more aggravating is the fact that victims of civil asset forfeiture in places like D.C. who wish to fight for their right to win back their own property may be faced with a fee to even begin the process. They must pay 10 percent of the value of their seized assets before they can begin proceedings, ranging from $250 up to $2,500.Failure to pay means the authorities automatically win and get to keep the seized property.

   Additionally,once one pays the 10 percent fee and makes it into court, the burden of proof then rests on the shoulders of the robbed citizen, who has to prove by a "preponderance of the evidence" that they have absolutely no connection to criminal activity in order to win back their property, which is a great deal more evidence than a department, such as D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), needs to show in order to keep it. Citizens also do not have a right to any form of court-appointed counsel since these matters play out in civil, rather than criminal court. If you're too broke to pay to fight,you lose by default.

   Fortunately,36 states ask for a little more evidence than Washington D.C. before the system is willing to look the other way regarding citizen's pilfered property,but the fact remains that U.S. citizens are being robbed blind,and the greater culprits are not bandits in black masks and knit hats,but our good old boys in blue.

 THE US MEDIA IS AN ECHO CHAMBER FOR THE US GOVERNMENT AND MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

  Many people from the military-industrial complex are now members on the "board of directors of most major media outlets in the USA.No surprise why "FOX so-called NEWS",CNN and MSNBC are nothing more than echo chambers of the US government.In the United States today, the rift between reality and reporting has peaked.There is no longer a mere credibility gap,but rather a literal "Truth Emergency" in which the most important information affecting people is concealed from view.Many Americans,relying on the mainstream corporate media, have serious difficulty accessing the truth while still believing that the information they receive is the reality. A "Truth Emergency" reflects cumulative failures of the fourth estate to act as a truly free press.

This truth emergency is seen in inadequate coverage of fraudulent elections,pseudo 9/11 investigations,illegal preemptive wars,torture camps,doctored intelligence and  domestic surveillance.Reliable information on these issues is systematically missing in corporate media outlets,where the vast majority of the American people continue to turn for news and information.

   Consider these items of noteworthy conditions.US workers have been faced with a thirty-five year decline in real wages while the top few percent enjoy unparalleled wealth with strikingly low tax burdens.US schools,particularly in the west,are more segregated now than half a century ago.The US has the highest infant mortality rate among industrialized nations,is falling behind in scientific research and education,leads the world as a debtor nation,and is seriously lacking in healthcare quality and coverage,which results in the deaths of 18,000 people a year.America has entered another Gilded Age.Someone should alert the media.

   The Free Press or Media Reform Movement is a national effort to address mainstream media failures and the government policies that sanction them.During the 2008 National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR) in Minneapolis,Project Censored interns and faculty conducted a survey,completed by 376 randomly selected NCMR attendees out of the 3,500 people registered for the conference.This survey was designed to gauge participants "views on the state of the corporate news media and the  effectiveness of the media reform movement.The survey also sought to determine the level of belief in a truth emergency,a systematic hiding of critical information in the US. Not surprisingly,for a sample of independent media reform activists, majorities in the 90% plus range agreed on most criticisms of mainstream media, that corporate media failed to keep the American people informed on important issues facing the nation and that a truth emergency does indeed exist in the US.Regarding the reasons,87% of the participants believed that a military-industrial-media complex exists in the US for the promotion of the US military domination of the world and most agreed with research conclusions by Project Censored,and others,that a continuing powerful global dominance group inside the US government,the US media and the national policy structure is responsible.

What was clear from the survey is that media democracy activists strongly support not only aggressive reform efforts and policy changes but also the continuing development of independent,grassroots media as part of an overall media democracy movement.

   While most progressive media activists do not believe in some omnipotent conspiracy,an overwhelming portion of NCMR participants do believe the leadership class in the US is dominated by a neo-conservative group of some several hundred people who share a goal of asserting US military power worldwide. This Global Dominance Group (GDM) continues under both Republican and Democratic rule. In cooperation with major military contractors,the corporate media and conservative 

     A long thread of sociological research documents the existence of a dominant ruling class in the US, which sets policy and determines national political priorities. C. Wright Mills, in his 1956 book The Power Elite, documented how World War II solidified a trinity of power in the US that comprised corporate,military and government elites in a centralized power structure working in unison through "higher circles" of contact and agreement.This power has grown through the Cold War and, after 9/11, the Global War on Terror.

   At present,the global dominance agenda includes penetration into the boardrooms of the corporate media in the US.Only 118 people comprise the membership on the boards of director of the ten big media giants.These 118 individuals in turn sit on the corporate boards of 288 national and international corporations.Four of the top 10 media corporations share board director positions with the major defense contractors including:

FOX (so called) NEWS-USES FAKE CIA AGENT AS AN EXPERT CONTRIBUTOR

    In November,a man named Wayne Simmons was arrested by the FBI for what the agency called "major fraud" lying about having worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for nearly 30 years,and then using that lie to obtain government security clearances.

 Before his arrest,though,Simmons was a frequent contributor on Fox so-called News,which billed him as a "former CIA operative." And as might be expected,he used his claimed experience to make provocative assertions about U.S. national security policy particularly America's vulnerability to terrorism.Probably because his assertions were so well embraced by FOX so-called NEWS,the right-wing wackos didn't bother to do a proper background check.

In light of his indictment, many social media outlets reviewed his appearances on Fox News.Simmons was regularly featured on the network since at least 2002,so there were a lot to choose from.

  For example in 2008 he said Obama expires terrorism.He made other assertions like,Democrats would cause "9-1-1s unabated, the missing Malaysian airliner was a "state-sponsored attack",America will be attacked because of "pathological liar" Nancy Pelosi,he claimed to have personally witnessed a narco-terrorist cut someone's tongue off and he claimed he had a plan to destroy ISIS in one week.

  The best claim he made was when he criticized the FBI for being bad at background checks.

  He may be regretting this criticism now,but in 2007,Simmons criticized the FBI for allowing a security breach that resembles the situation he is currently in,for not properly vetting their staff.

    At the time of his criticism,the agency had hired a woman who faked a marriage to win U.S. citizenship,and then used that citizenship to get a job at the FBI.When employed by the agency,the woman then used an FBI computer to search for information about her relatives.

   "Somewhere along the line of course Douglas,someone,whoever was responsible for the background check at the FBI really, really fell down," Simmons said on Fox News,as he himself was being described as a "former CIA officer."

 read more about this at:http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/10/16/3713099/fox-news-wayne-simmons/

COMMIT CRIMES AGAINST THE POOR NOT THE RICH IN THE USA

  Martin Shkreli,entered public consciousness in September, 2015 after he raised the price more than 55-fold for Daraprim from $13.50 per pill to $750. It is the preferred treatment for a parasitic condition known as toxoplasmosis,which can be deadly for unborn babies and patients with compromised immune systems including those with HIV or cancer.His company,"Turing Pharmaceuticals AG",bought the drug,moved it to a closed distribution system and instantly drove the price into the stratosphere.

   He drew shocked rebukes from Congress,doctors and presidential candidates and brought public attention to the rising prices of older drugs.Donald Trump called Shkreli a "spoiled brat," and the BBC dubbed him the "most hated man in America." Bernie Sanders,the Democratic presidential candidate, rejected a $2,700 campaign donation from him, directing it to an HIV clinic.A spokesman said the campaign would not keep money "from this poster boy for drug company greed."

  Well after being arrested on Thursday,December 17,2015 on fraud charges which he denied he was freed on a $5 million bond.

   He is accused of repeatedly losing money for investors and lying to them about it,illegally taking assets from one of his companies to pay off debtors in another.

    "Shkreli essentially ran his company like a Ponzi scheme where he used each subsequent company to pay off defrauded investors from the prior company," Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said at a press conference.

   Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Shkreli at his Midtown Manhattan apartment at about 6:30 a.m. and forced him to walk through a gaggle of photographers outside FBI headquarters.

   No legal action was taken against Shkreli when he priced gouged. But when he tried to defraud rich people then he gets into trouble.

  U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings show Blankenship was paid $17.8 million in 2009,the highest in the coal industry.His 2009 pay represents a $6.8 million raise over 2008 and almost double his compensation package in 2007. Blankenship also received a deferred compensation package valued at $27.2 million in 2009.

   If you notice Blankenship is not being charged with anything related to the death of these 29 miners in 2010. He is being charged for defrauding rich people.

   Similar with Bernie Madoff. He went to prison in 2009 not for the peoples who's pensions he robbed but when he started to rob from wealthy people that's when he got into hot water.

  Mark Chapman has spent 35 years in prison for shooting for "Beatle" John Lennon. Sirhan Sirhan has now spent 47 years in prison for shooting Robert F.Kennedy.Both Chapman and Sirhan are model prisoners who murdered rich people. Most murderers serve only on average eight (8) years in prison.If Chapman and Sirhan Sirhan murdered a poor person they'd be free by now.

  John Hinckley,Jr. has also spent almost 35 years in a mental hospital for an attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981. He has been considered by psychiatrists to be healthy enough to be released. But he still lingers in the hospital. He tried to shoot a rich American president.

  The conclusion is,if you are planning a life of crime in the USA.Then you should steal and kill poor people. Don't mess with rich people.

 CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS ARE FASCISTS

  With the upcoming US presidential election in 2016 only one candidate has any real credibility.That is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Although,he takes no money from big businesses and he attracts some of the biggest crowds at his speeches. It is highly unlikely he will get the Democratic nomination. Hilary Clinton has the wheels of the Democratic political machine too well waxed.

  Democrats up until the 1980s got most of their support from Organized Labor.But in the 1980s Ronald Reagan busted up many of the labor unions and now their support is somewhat weak. Along came the 1990s and Bill Clinton. He thought about getting support from bankers.He thought they're not bad people they just give money to people.So since the 1990s the mainstream of the Democratic party has been in bed with the bankers (Obama-"too big to fail")and the mainstream of the Republican party cozies up with big corporations. While Bernie Sanders is really the only candidate speaking out for the common American.But like I said Hilary pretty well has the nomination all under her control.The mainstream media gives very little attention to Sanders and focuses much attention on Hilary.They even provide false information like claiming Hilary won debates when Bernie actually did.Debbie Wasserman Schultz the Chair of the Democratic National Committee scheduled only six debates for the Democrats. They have one debate on the weekend the new "Sta Wars" movie premiers and another debate on Superbowl Sunday.Wasserman did this to prevent Bernie Sanders from having the opportunity of having many viewers watching if he up stages Hilary in any of the debates and possibly winning the nomination.On the other hand the Republicans are having 12 debates.

  During all their debates so far one candidate after another take their turn trying to convince Republican viewers that their policies are more conservative than any of their opponents.

  They disagree on immigration policy,they disagree on the role of the US military in world affairs,and they disagree about how best to gut Obamacare and what agencies to gut in order to balance their budget.

   But they could all agree on a few things.For example,they all attacked Dodd-Frank with claims that it's killing community banks and making it easier for big banks to get bigger.

   And they all have their own ideas for how to reform the tax code to even further line the coffers of corporations and the superrich.But those ideas aren't really "conservative", and the Republican party isn't really a conservative party anymore.

  This Republican party isn't the party of Dwight D. Eisenhower conservatives anymore, it's not even the party of conservative Federalist John Adams. It hasn't been "conservative", ever since the so-called "Reagan Revolution".Oh sure,they all call themselves conservatives, Donald Trump even evoked Dwight Eisenhower's conservatism during one debate.

But if you look at the history of American conservatism,it's clear that this Republican party isn't Dwight Eisenhower's conservative Republican party.

    Before the Reagan Revolution,for literally hundreds of years, conservatives and liberals differed mainly in their understanding of human nature and the role of government in society.But conservatives and liberals were still basically similar in that they still promoted improving the quality of life for working people in America.

    The major difference between conservatives and liberals for hundreds of years wasn't whether government had a role to play in improving society.The major difference was that conservatives wanted very slow, gradual improvements and liberals argued for rapid social changes.The vast majority of our Founding Fathers were liberal progressives,heck,they were revolutionaries,they took up arms and fought a bloody revolution to rapidly establish independence and fundamentally transform the agricultural American colonies into a self-sustaining independent country.Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine both argued for rapid and frequent changes,Jefferson famously supported a new constitutional convention every generation,every 19 years,so that the Constitution could reflect how society's values change over time.America's original conservatism really has its roots in Europe,mainly in Britain,with Sir Edmund Burke being one of the more outspoken supporters of conservatism during America's early years.Burke was a British aristocrat though,one who supported low taxes on the rich to ensure the exact opposite of what Jefferson wanted.Burke argued that laws and customs of England should never really change and the way to do that is to make sure that the richest families in a country were allowed to pass their wealth from generation to generation,thus "conserving" Britain's aristocracy and the status quo at the time.

    But it wasn't until the 19th century that the American conservative movement really emerged, mostly in reaction to anti-slavery movements at first,and later against child labor laws,women's suffrage, and racial integration.

    It's not that conservatives were always 100% against all of those issues,but they never supported rapid changes to America's norms and laws. Conservatives weren't obstructionist,but they were circumspect and slow-to-action.Conservatives weren't totally against change,but they didn't want to try and improve society too quickly and risk destabilizing everything.They wanted to make sure that any changes happened gradually,slowly and without disrupting the status quo too much.That, by the way, is pretty much the definition of "conservative".

   Barry Goldwater's Republican party wasn't completely against integration,but they didn't want it to happen all at once for fear of destabilizing society.But America's 200-year tradition of conservatism all changed with the election of Ronald Reagan.Suddenly the Republican Party was the party of rapid change,rapid deregulation, extreme and rapid tax cuts for the rich and for corporations and a new focus on increasing the volume and speed of global trade in goods and services.Suddenly the Republican party wasn't conservative in how it saw America's place in the world and Reagan wasn't conservative about the speed of social and economic changes he pushed through.if anything,he was a revolutionary radical.Reagan's tax cuts took place almost overnight and they followed Burke's conservatism in only one way,by concentrating the wealth in the hands of a few hundred corporations and the billionaires,the new aristocracy that bought Reagan to power.

     Thirty-four years on,the post-Reagan Revolution reality is that the Republican party is no longer " conservative" and has no interest in improving society anymore.Instead,the entire focus of the party is enriching the rich and impoverishing the working class and the poor.

They want to give tax cuts to the rich and the corporations and they want to pay for it by gutting social services to the elderly and the poor,like Social Security and Medicaid.Or,like Ted Cruz proposes,they want to make more room in the budget for corporate giveaways by gutting government agencies like the EPA and HUD,agencies that protect our commons and help the least among us get housing.

    And going back to Dodd-Frank,they want to gut any financial regulations that keep the banks from defrauding the public and making unimaginable profits as a result.This isn't "conservative", it's a coup by the super-rich.

    For the modern Republican,government is no longer here for the benefit of the nation or its working people.For the modern corporatist Republican,society and individuals are just pawns used to maximize profits for corporations and to increase the amount of wealth concentrated in the hands of the new aristocracy.

   Today's Republicans aren't conservative.They're corporatists-what Benito Mussolini called "fascists"-the takeover of the state by corporate power.It's time to call them out for what they are and stop the charade.

See more at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2015/11/todays-republicans-arent-conservative#sthash.Zlj28nTq.dpuf

END OF THE COLD WAR-USSR WILL FALL OUT OF A ONE STORY WINDOW WHILE THE USA WILL FALL OUT OF A 20 STORY WINDOW

  In the early 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union many political scientists predicted the demise of both communism and capitalism in the world.The believe both forms of government were destined to colapse.However,they predicted that the USSR would be falling out of a one story window while the USA will be falling out of a 20 story.The USA has already begun it's descent.

   Several years after the Wall Street-ignited crisis began,the nation's top bank CEOs (who far out-accumulated their European and other international counterparts) continue to hobnob with the president at campaign dinners where each plate costs more than one out of four US households make in a year.Financial bigwigs lead their affluent lives,unaffected,unremorseful and unindicted for wreaking havoc on the nation. Why? Because they won. They hustled better.They are living the American Dream.

   This is not the American Dream that says if you work hard you can be more comfortable than your parents;but rather,if you connive well,game the rules, and rule the game,your take from others is unlimited.In this paradigm,human empathy, caring,compassion and connection have been devalued from the get-go. This is the flaw in the entire premise of the American Dream:if we can have it all,it must by definition be at someone else's expense.

    In Why America is failing,noted historian and cultural critic Morris Berman's brilliant,raw and unflinchingly accurate postmortem of America, he concludes that this hustling model,literally woven into the American DNA,doomed the country from the start and led us inevitably to this dysfunctional point.

    It is not just the American Dream that has failed,but America itself, because the dream was a mistake in the first place.We are at our core a nation of hustlers;not recently,not sometimes,but always. Conventional wisdom has it that America was predicated on the republican desire to break free from monarchical tyranny and that was certainly a factor in the War of Independence;but in practical terms,it came down to a drive for "more" -- for individual accumulation of wealth.

    In comparing contemporary US and the late Roman Empire.One should identify factors that were central to the fall of Rome and showed that

they were present in the US today.If politicians didn't address this, the nation doomed.I didn't believe for a moment they would,of course,and now the results are obvious.

   After 9/11,I realized that my comparison with Rome lacked one crucial component:like Rome,the USA was attacked from the outside.Dark Ages America (2006),the sequel to Twilight,is an analysis of US foreign policy and its relationship to domestic policy,once again arguing that there had to be a serious reevaluation of both if we were to arrest the disintegration of the nation.Of course,no such reevaluation took place and we are now in huge economic trouble with no hope of recovery and stuck in two wars in the Middle East that we cannot seem to win.

    The argument is that the USA failed for reasons that go back more than 400 years.As a result,the historical momentum to not undertake a reassessment,and just continue on with business as usual,is very powerful.At this point we can no more reverse our downward trajectory than we can turn around an aircraft carrier in a bathtub.

    Most political analysts place the blame for our current situation on major institutions,whether it is Wall Street,Congress,the Bush or Obama administrations,and so on.You agree with them to a great extent,but you would also place a lot of emphasis on the American people themselves' on individual values and behavior.

    The dominant thinking in America,I suppose,is some variety of a "false consciousness" argument,that the elite have pulled the wool over the eyes of the vast majority of the population, and once the latter realizes that they've been had, they'll rebel, they'll move the country in a populist or democratic socialist direction. The problem I have with this is the evident fact that most Americans want the American Dream,not a different way of life" a Mercedes-Benz, as Janis Joplin once put it. Endless material wealth based on individual striving is the American ideal, and the desire to change that paradigm is practically nonexistent. Even the poor buy into this, which is why John Steinbeck once remarked that they regard themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Hence I would argue that nations get the governments they deserve; that the wool is the eyes.

    In addition,all of the data over the last 20 years show that Americans are not very bright,and not even the bright ones are very bright"it's not merely a question of IQ. A Marist poll released on July 4, 2011 showed that 42 percent of American adults are unaware that the U.S. declared its independence in 1776,and this figure increases to 69 percent for the under-30 age group.Twenty-five percent of Americans don't know from which country the United States seceded.A poll taken in the Oklahoma public school system turned up the fact that 77 percent of the students didn't know who George Washington was and the Texas Board of Education recently voted to include a unit on Estee Lauder in the history curriculum,when they don't have one on the first president. Nearly 30 percent of the American population thinks the sun revolves around the earth or is unsure of which revolves around which.Etc. etc. How can such a population grasp a structural analysis of American history or politics" They simply aren't capable of it.

    At this point,absolutely nothing can reverse the situation.If every American carries these values,then change would require a different people,a different country.In dialectical fashion,it is precisely those factors that made this nation materially great that are now working against us,and that thus need to be jettisoned.What the USA needs now is a large-scale rejection of the American Dream.

    Decline takes time; an empire doesn't come to an end on August 4, A.D. 476, at two in the afternoon. Similarly, declinist analysis also takes time. Professor Hacker in writing to Richard Hofstadter in 1948 called the US a "democracy of cupidity";and C. Vann Woodward in 1953 wrote that the USA was probably doomed because they had put all of our eggs in one ideological basket,namely laissez-faire economics.During these years the country hasn't just "gone on"; what it has done is progressively fallen apart and these writers have made it their business to document the process.

    You know, the air is really "thin" in the United States,because the value-system is one-dimensional.It's basically about economic and technological expansion,not much else;the "else" exists at the margins, if it exists at all.I first discovered this when I traveled around the world in my mid-30s.I saw that the citizens of other countries talked about lots of things,not just about material success.Money is of course important to the citizens of other countries,but it's not necessarily the center of their lives.

    Here's what the US lacks,which I believe other countries have: community,friendship,appreciation of beauty,craftsmanship as opposed to obsessive technology,and"despite what you read in the American newspapers" huge graciousness;a large,beating heart.I never found very much of those things living in the US;certainly,I never found much heart.American cities and suburbs have to be the most soulless places in the world.In a word,America has its priorities upside down and after

decades of living there,I was simply tired of being a stranger in a strange land.In A General Theory of Love,Thomas Lewis and his colleagues conclude that happiness is achieved only by those who manage to escape the American value-system.Well, the easiest way to escape from that value-system, is to escape from America.

See:http://www.alternet.org/story/154453/why_the_american_empire_was_destined_to_collapse

THE INTERVIEW:A FILM ABOUT THE ASSASINATION OF THE NORTH KOREAN LEADER KIM JONG-UN

  Due to the fact that my year-end reviews are released on December 23.News from 2014 between December 23 and December 31 will be included in the 2015 year-end review.As is the case with this next story.

    In December of 2014 Sony Pictures Entertainment released a movie titled "The Interview".It was an American political satire comedy film directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.The screenplay was by Dan Sterling,based upon a story he co-authored with Rogen and Goldberg.The film stars Rogen and James Franco as journalists who set up an interview with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (Randall Park) and are recruited by the CIA to assassinate him.

   Rogen and Goldberg developed the idea for "The Interview" in the late 2000s,with Kim Jong-il as the original assassination target.In 2011, after Jong-il's death,Jong-un replaced him as the North Korean leader.Rogen and Goldberg re-developed the script with the focus on Jong-un's character. The announcement for the film was made in March 2013,along with the beginning of pre-production. Principal photography took place in Vancouver from October to December 2013.

  In June 2014,the North Korean government threatened action against the United States if Columbia Pictures released the film.Columbia delayed the release from October to December,and reportedly re-edited the film to make it more acceptable to North Korea.In November,the computer systems of parent company

Sony Pictures Entertainment were hacked by the "Guardians of Peace",a group the FBI claims has ties to North Korea.The group also threatened terrorist attacks against cinemas that showed the film.Major cinema chains opted not to release the film, leading Sony to release it for online rental and purchase on

December 24, 2014,followed by a limited release at select cinemas the next day.   "The Interview" grossed $40 million in digital rentals,making it Sony's most successful digital release and earned over $11 million at the box office.

It received mixed reviews for its humor and subject matter,with critics praising the performances of Rogen,Franco,Park and Diana Bang.

    How do you think the US would have reacted if someone in another country made a movie about the assassination of President Obama.

        GREEK ELECTIONS

  In 2015 we saw two elections in Greece. On Sunday,January 26 Alexis Tsipras' was elected Prime Minister on the promise he would end austerity in Greece.

However,he was unsuccessful and cow-towed to the European Union.So onn September 20th Greece held a second election and Tsipras' was once again victorious.

  However,like other countries the USA had their hands in on these elections.In 2008 the CIA tried to assassinate the Greek Prime Minister.A Russian counter-surveillance team operating in Athens in 2008 confronted a foreign team from "a country allied to Greece", which planned to kill Kostas Karamanlis,then Greece's Prime Minister.The revelation,published in the current issue of Greek weekly newsmagazine Epikera,is allegedly based on a Russian briefing contained in a classified document authored by the Greek National Intelligence Service (EYP).According to the document,the assassination plot was code-named Pythia and was hatched by the intelligence agency of "a country allied to Greece".It was aimed at preventing Athens from signing on to a series of energy pipeline deals with Moscow.The 19-member Russian counter-surveillance team mentioned in the EYP document had allegedly been set up a few months earlier by the FSB, Russia's primary foreign intelligence agency.The team was deployed after the Russians realized that Prime Minster Karamanlis' telephone calls with Russian leader Vladimir Putin were being intercepted by foreign spies,at least two of which were allegedly British citizens.According to the Epikera article,between April 20 and 25,while shadowing the Greek Prime Minister in the Nea Makri area,just north of Athens,a four-member Russian counter-surveillance team faced off two spy operatives of "a country allied to Greece".Thirty seconds into the face-off,the foreign operatives,who were well built, spoke Greek and did not appear to be carrying weapons,abandoned a car they were riding and left the scene using a motorcycle that did not bear license tags.According to the EYP document quoted in Epikera magazine,Russian officials notified the Greek government of the incident,as well as the alleged assassination plot. Russia,Bulgaria and Greece are currently working on plans to construct the trans-Balkan oil pipeline,which would enable Russia to transfer oil from Novorossiysk to the Aegean Sea while bypassing the Turkish Straits.If completed, the project,known as the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline,will facilitate an alternative oil route to the Western-sponsored Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and will constitute the first-ever Russian-controlled pipeline on European Union territory.Mr Karamanlis' conservative government,which ruled Greece from 2004 until 2009,actively pursued strong energy partnerships with Russia.

See: http://intelnews.org/2011/06/17/01-739/

CANADA HAS A NEW PRIME MINISTER

  On Tuesday October 20th Justin Pierre James Trudeau,the Leader of the Liberal Party,was elected as Canada's 23rd Prime Minister.The son of the 15th Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau,become Canada's new leader after a dramatic federal election that ended the divisive ten year reign of the Conservative Prime Minister,Stephen Harper.

  Born on December 25, 1971 he is The second-youngest Canadian Prime Minister after Joe Clark,he is also, as the eldest son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau,the first child of a previous Prime Minister to hold the post.

  Trudeau was born in Ottawa and attended College Jean-de-Brabeuf.He earned a BA in English literature from McGill University in 1994 and a BEd from the University of British Columbia in 1998.He gained a high public profile in October 2000,when he delivered a eulogy at his father's state funeral.After graduating,he worked as a teacher in Vancouver,British Columbia,then studied engineering,and began a master's degree in Environmental Geography.He used his public profile to advocate for various causes and acted in the 2007 TV miniseries The Great War.

   After becoming more involved in politics after his father's death,Trudeau was elected in the 2008 federal election to represent the riding of Papineau in the House of Commons.In 2009, he was appointed the Liberal Party's critic for Youth and Multiculturalism and the following year became critic for Citizenship and Immigration.In 2011, he was appointed as critic for Secondary Education and Youth and Amateur Sport.Trudeau won the leadership of the Liberal Party in April 2013 and went on to lead his party to victory in the 2015 federal election,moving the third-placed Liberals from 36 seats to 184 seats,the largest-ever numerical increase by a party in a Canadian election.

  Since being elected Trudeau is following in his father's footsteps.Unlike his predecessor "Stephen Harper" he's not sucking America's dick.After being elected he removed Canadian troops from Syria and refuses to join in any coalition there. Just like his dad who refused to follow America to Vietnam.His father also introduced Canada to the metric system to give Canada a separate identity from the USA.

    Also next year the new PM plans to make Canada be the first G7 country to legalize marijuana.

See:http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/world/785593/canada-to-become-first-g7-nation-to-legalise-marijuana

 Perhaps their will be a rendition of life during his father's time as Prime Minister when many Americans were making an exodus to Canada.

 Good luck Justin!!

AUSTRALIA TOO GETS A NEW PRIME MINISTER

  On September 14th,2015,after consistently poor opinion polling for the Australian Government,Malcom Turnbull challenged Tony Abbott for the leadership of his Liberal Party and won the subsequent ballot by 10 votes.He was sworn in as the 29th Prime Minister of Australia the following day and formed the Turnbull Government.

  Malcolm Bligh Turnbull was born on October 24,1954 and has been a member of the Australian Parliament for Wentworth since 2004.

  Turnbull attended Sydney Grammar School before going to the University of Sydney,where he received a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws.He then attended Brasenose College,Oxford,as a Rhodes Scholar,where he attained a Bachelor of Civil Law.Before entering politics,Turnbull worked as a journalist, lawyer,investment banker and venture capitalist.In 1993, he became the Chair of the Australian Republican Movement,serving in the position until 2000.

   Briefly Minister for the Environment and Water in the Howard Government in 2007,Turnbull was elected Leader of the Liberal Party in September 2008,becoming Leader of the Opposition.In November 2009,his support for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme proposed by the Rudd Government split the Liberal Party,and in a ballot the following month Turnbull lost the leadership to Tony Abbott by one vote.Initially intending to leave politics,Turnbull remained in Parliament and eventually became Minister for Communications in the Abbott Government in September 2013.

  As previously stated In 2015 Turnball got his revenge on Abott for ousting him as leader in 2009,when he became PM.

  Inter-party ousting is rather common in Australia. In the opposition Labour party in 2010 Julia Gillard ousted Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister. Three years later in 2013 Rudd ousted Gillard as Prime Minister.

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER DAVID CAMERON HAS SEX WITH A DEAD PIG

  "Piggate" refers to an anecdote that during his university years British Prime Minister David Cameron put a "private part of his anatomy" into a dead pig's mouth as part of an initiation ceremony for the Piers Gaveston Society.The anecdote was reported by Lord Michael Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott in their unauthorized biography of Cameron,"Call Me Dave",attributing the story to an anonymous Member of Parliament who was a "distinguished Oxford contemporary" of Cameron's.Extracts from the book were published in the Daily Mail on September 20th,2015,prior to its publication.

    Downing Street sources responded by saying that Cameron would not dignify the anecdote with a response while friends reported him saying that the claim was "utter nonsense".Cameron said later that "a very specific denial was made a week ago".

     In September,Susanna Reid and Kate Garraway weren't thrilled to have journalist Isabel Oakeshott on the program "Good Morning Britain".The pair made it clear from the get-go that they weren't impressed with the new book she's written with Tory mega-donor Lord Ashcroft about David Cameron.As previously mentioned in the biography,titled "Call Me Dave",it claims the Prime Minister put his private parts into a dead pig's mouth and took drugs during his boozy student days at Oxford University.

   "You got these stories from single sources," said Kate. "As a journalist, I'd expect you to have more sources for claims like this.I would have expected you to have done more research." With that, Isabel look visibly offended and hit back:"Hang on,this isn't Watergate. I don't think you would have put a team of researchers on one little anecdote." However, Kate and Susanna both insisted otherwise."There are people out there now who think the Prime Minister can't do his job," stressed Susanna. "His authority may have been damaged." But Isabel went on to defend the accusations she made in the book with her co-author."It's just a small anecdote- a few paragraphs in a very big book," Isabel stressed. "We did think about whether we should include this story and we decided we should because we wanted to get a balance."There is so much serious material in the book that we thought it would be good to have some colorful, entertaining stories." Commenting on whether she has damaged the Prime Minister's image and reputation, Isabel added: "He is used to allegations like that. I don't think he will be taken back by any of this."But I live in the Prime Minster's constituency and I'm not looking forward to bumping into him."As a writer though, I can't complain about all the coverage we've had.

    Cameron and his Ne-con friends a few days earlier called Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn a threat to British national security.Who really is the threat to British security (especially to harmless animals).

AFGHAN TRANSLATORS DENIED VISA-EVEN TRANSLATOR FOR DAVID CAMERON

   Staying in the UK,In August David Cameron's Afghan translator who was threatened by the Taliban (for being a translator) was prevented from moving to the UK.He said his attempts to move to Britain were denied.

  Calls for an Afghan translator who helped David Cameron to be given asylum in Britain were growing in August,after the 26-year-old told of the threats he had

received from the Taliban.Shaffy,as he was known to the British forces,said that he felt "abandoned" by Britain,after repeated attempts to move to Britain were denied."The area where I have lived with my family now has a Taliban governor," he told The Daily Mail. "I cannot resume my life there,people point to me and call me a spy. "I tried to move to the north and was recognised,I moved to Kabul and the same thing happened.I went to my uncle's home in July and when we woke there was a letter on Taliban headed paper from a commander named Mullah Assif."

    Johnny Mercer,the Conservative MP for Plymouth who served three tours of Afghanistan,running a commando unit before going on to become a joint firearms controller,said he had sympathy for the case.

  Mr Mercer,one of a group of newly-elected MPs to have served in the army,said he had relied heavily on translators while scouting in Taliban territory to identify and destroy enemy targets.

   "They were some of the bravest people I know," he told The Sunday Telegraph. "I don't know the particulars of Shaffy's case,but I do in general think we need to do more to support translators."They have invested a huge amount in building their country and helping Britain."

   He cautioned that the answer was not necessarily bringing them all to the UK."They are often the brightest and the best,and Afghanistan really needs them," he said. "But certainly we should do more."

    General Sir David Richards,chief of defense staff until 2013, said:"Shaffy served our country superbly.Of course he should be allowed to come to the UK.

 No ifs, no buts-we owe him."I am ashamed that there is even a debate about it."

  Shaffy,one of the British army's top Afghan interpreters said he was targeted by the Taliban after working for Mr Cameron in 2011.Photographs online of him and the British prime minister have been used as evidence he was a spy,he said,while his alerting of British troops to an impending attack has made him a source of hatred for the Taliban.

   "The Taliban told me I stood with Mr Cameron,helping the British as they killed their mujahideen "and that I would die because of it," he said."I told them that it was a mistake and not me but they said I was a liar,that my pictures and video was on Google and they were looking as we spoke at me beside Mr Cameron.

   Shaffy,who worked for the army until January 2013,said he was told by UK forces that they would look after him.But the father-of-three says the British have left and after six years with the military" three on the front lines,when he was twice blown up in armoured vehicles and three working for senior officers" the threats have grown and the Taliban have almost seized him twice.

   "I have changed my telephone many times and have frequently moved house but every time their messengers find where I am and taunt me that I will die for helping the British."The British authorities know all about my case.I have asked to be allowed to come to the UK because my life and that of my wife and three young daughters is in danger, as a direct consequence of working loyally for them. But they just say "sorry,no" and give no reason." Australia and the US is also facing similar demands from Afghan translators, who feel they have been abandoned by the West.

   Shaffy said he had letters from army officers highlighting his "outstanding courage" in the face of threats. Another letter said that,out of 100 translators,Shaffy was "the outstanding interpreter who was  thoroughly battle hardened and loyal to British forces."

   Yet despite the accolades,he was still turned down by a scheme that allowed interpreters who worked for a year after December 2011 to move to Britain.

"Mr Cameron and the UK government have forgotten us," he said."They have nothing in their hearts."

    A government spokesman said:'Whilst we cannot comment on this individual case,we recognise the contribution of all local civilian staff,including interpreters, who worked for the UK. They played a very important part in our efforts towards a more secure, stable and prosperous Afghanistan.

   "The UK Government believes that its policy towards locally engaged staff in Afghanistan is legal, honourable and fair, and we are committed to delivering generous support that properly reflects their work and the risks involved,especially to patrol interpreters and translators who worked alongside us in the most challenging and dangerous roles."

AFTER 13 YEARS IN PRISON WITHOUT CHARGE SHAKER AAMER IS FINALLY RELEASED

   Still staying in the UK.Shaker Aamer,born 21 December 1966,a Saudi citizen who was held by the United States in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba for more than thirteen years without charge.He was the last British resident held in Guantanamo,released to Great Britain on October 30, 2015.

   Aamer was seized in Afghanistan by bounty hunters,who handed him over to US forces in December 2001 during the United States invasion of the country.

Two months later, the US rendered Aamer to the Guantanamo camp;he was held there without trial or charge.Aamer had been a legal resident in Britain for years before his imprisonment;the UK government repeatedly demanded his release,and many people there called for him to be released.

   According to documents published in the Guantanamo Bay files leak,the US military Joint Task Force Guantanamo believed that Aamer had led a unit of fighters in Afghanistan,including the Battle of Tora Bora,while his family was paid a stipend by Osama bin Laden.The file asserts past associations with Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui.Aamer denies being involved in terrorist activity and his lawyer,Clive Stafford Smith,said the leaked documents would not stand up in court.He claimed that part of the evidence came from an unreliable witness and that confessions Aamer made had been obtained through torture.Aamer's father-in-law,Saaed Ahmed Siddique,said: "All of these claims have no basis.If any of this was true he would be in a court now." The Bush administration acknowledged later that it had no evidence against Aamer.

    Aamer has never been charged with any wrongdoing,was never on trial and his lawyer says he is "totally innocent." He was approved for transfer to Saudi Arabia by the Bush administration in 2007 and the Obama administration in 2009.He has been described as a "charismatic leader" who spoke up and fought for the rights of fellow prisoners.Aamer says that he has been subject to torture while in detention. Campaigners allege that the US refused to release Aamer because it feared he would expose torture inside the Guantanamo prison.

    Aamer has suffered decline in his mental and physical health over the years,as he participated in hunger strikes to protest his detention conditions,and was held in solitary confinement for much of the time.He claims to have lost 40 per cent of his body weight in captivity,but did not state his weight.

After a visit in November 2011,his lawyer said, "I do not think it is stretching matters to say that he is gradually dying in Guantanamo Bay." In 2015,despite Aamer's deteriorating health,the US denied a request for an independent medical examination. On 25 September 2015 the US government announced that Aamer would be released to the UK within the following thirty days.He was released to the UK on October 30,2015.

  Along with Shaker there are still 107 detainees being held at Guantanamo who have never been charged with a crime. America always talks about adhering to the "rule of law". Which begs the question which is worse Nazi Germany or the present US Empire. Under Nazi Germany a person would go to a concentration camp and within 90 days he or she would be dead.He or she would be put out of their misery. But if you go to Guantanamo you will be tortured,stay there for 14 years not knowing your fate and living in misery unable to put yourself out of it.

US BOMB A HOSPITAL IN AFGHANISTAN

  On October 3rd,2015 a United States Air Force AC-130U gunship attacked the Kunduz Trauma Centre operated by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) (English name: Doctors Without Borders) in the city of Kunduz,in the province of the same name in northern Afghanistan.It has been reported that at least 30 people were killed and over 30 were injured.

      Medecins Sans Frontieres condemned the incident,stating that all warring parties had been notified of the hospital's location ahead of time,and that the airstrike was deliberate a breach of international humanitarian law and MSF is working on the presumption of a war crime.

     The United States military initially stated the airstrike was carried out to defend U.S. forces on the ground.Later, the United States commander in Afghanistan, General John F. Campbell,stated the airstrike was requested by Afghan forces who had come under Taliban fire.Campbell stated that the attack was "a mistake", saying "We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility." Campbell stated that the airstrike was a US decision, made in the US chain of command.

    On October 7,2015,President Barack Obama issued a rare apology.Three investigations have been begun into the incident by NATO,a joint United States-Afghan group and the United States Department of Defense,all of which are conducted by United States government and military officials.Doctors without Borders has called for an international and independent probe,stating that the armed forces who carried out the airstrike cannot conduct an impartial investigation of their own actions.

   Clearly the USA committed war crimes but will they ever be held accountable.

  PARIS MASS SHOOTING IN JANUARY-CHARLES HEBBO

  On January 7th the world witnessed the tragedies that occurred in Paris where 17 innocent people died.The media gave full coverage to the two hostage situations unraveling in the French capital.While on the same day while the western media was focused on Paris 2000 people mostly woman & children were slaughtered to death by  Boko Haran in the northeastern Nigerian town of Baga.The western media paid very little attention to this massacre.I guess 17 white people getting murdered in Paris is more important to them than 2000 black people getting slaughtered in Africa.

  Further one of the policeman that got murdered at the "Charlie Hebdo" massacre was a Muslim. Also a Muslim man working at the Jewish supermarket the site of the second hostage situation on Friday,January 9th helped people avoid detection by hiding them in a freezer during the ordeal.The western media makes little mention of these two facts.

  In the aftermath of the attacks in Paris,the French government provided extra security for synagogues in France but none for mosques.While many mosques get fire bombed through out France during the aftermath.

  Following the Paris tragedy FBI director James Comey released a statement saying that this was the worse tragedy in Europe since the July 7,2005 London bombings (perpetrated by Muslims) where 52 people died. Mr, Comey seems to forget about July 22,2011 when Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people (mostly teenagers) and injuring 209 in Utoya,Norway.Mr. Breivik is a white Christian.So Mr. Comey probably doesn't consider him a terrorist.Mr. Comey probably believes white people can't be terrorists.

  Timothy McVeigh kills 168 people in a 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City and he's considered by the media as just a wild card but not a terrorist. Last summer those yahoos who pointed guns at US federal agents on the Clyde Bundy Ranch in Nevada are not terrorists.According to Sean Hannity of FOX News they are freedom fighters.Also,the media gives very little attention to the bombing of the NAACP building in Denver.The western media also downplays the Israel slaughter and murder of about 2000 Palestinians in Gaza during the summer of 2014.

  The western media does not criticize,pry or prod on our world leaders.It is nothing more than an echo chamber for western governments like the US,UK & France. Only black people,Muslims and people who are residents of governments the US doesn't like are considered terrorists.It is no wonder people are looking for alternative sources to get their news.

FRIDAY THE 13th IN NOVEMBER ANOTHER MASS SHOOTING IN PARIS

   On the evening of Friday,November 13th,2015 a series of coordinated terrorist attacks occurred in Paris,the French capital,and its northern suburb,

Saint-Denis.Beginning at 21:20 CET,three suicide bombers struck near the Stade de France in Saint-Denis,followed by suicide bombings and mass shootings at cafes,restaurants and a music venue in Paris.

    The attackers killed 130 people,including 89 at the Bataclan theatre,where they took hostages before engaging in a stand-off with police.There were 368 injuries,80-99 serious.Seven of the attackers also died,while authorities continued to search for accomplices.The attacks were the deadliest on France since World War II,and the deadliest in the European Union since the Madrid train bombings in 2004.France had been on high alert since the January 2015 attacks in Paris that killed 17 people, including civilians and police officers.

   The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks,saying it was in retaliation for the French airstrikes on ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq.The President of France,Francois Hollande,said the attacks were an act of war by ISIL planned in Syria,organized in Belgium and perpetrated with French complicity.

   In response,a state of emergency was declared, and temporary border checks were introduced.On November 15,France launched the biggest airstrike of Operation Chammal,its contribution to the anti-ISIL bombing campaign,striking ISIL targets in Al-Raqqah. On November 18,the suspected lead operative of the attacks,Abdelhamid Abaaoud,was killed in a police raid in Saint-Denis,along with at least two other people.

WHY ARE SAUDI ARABIA,ISRAEL AND THE US CONGRESS REALLY TRYING TO TORPEDO THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR DEAL

  On July 14th of this year the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),a nuclear agreement was signed in Vienna between Iran,the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: China,France,Russia,United Kingdom,United States (plus Germany) and the European Union.The agreement is a comprehensive agreement on the nuclear program of Iran.Under the agreement,Iran will eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium,cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98%,and reduce by about two-thirds the number of its centrifuges for at least fifteen years.For the next fifteen years,Iran also agreed not to enrich uranium over 3.67% or build any new uranium-enriching or heavy-water facilities.Uranium-enrichment activities will be limited to a single facility using first-generation centrifuges for ten years.Other facilities will be converted to avoid proliferation risks.

 To monitor and verify Iran's compliance with the agreement,the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will have regular access to all Iranian nuclear facilities.The agreement provides that in return for verifiably abiding by its commitments,Iran will receive relief from U.S., European Union, and United Nations Security Council nuclear-related sanctions.

  On July 20th,2015 the Security Council of the United Nations adopted Resolution 2231 (2015),endorsing the Joint Comprehensive Agreement on Iran's Nuclear Program.

  First a little history.When most Americans think about Iran they think about November 4,1979 when Iranians stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and held 52 US citizens hostage for 444 days.This action severed diplomatic relations between the US & Iran and has remained so since.

  However,not surprising because all the crap they are fed to by CNN and FOX so-called News Americans are rather short sighted.When Iranians think about the US they think about the 1953 Iranian coup d''etat.

  The 1953 Iranian coup d'etat,known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup,was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of the Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh on August 19,1953,orchestrated by the United Kingdom (under the name "Operation Boot") and the United States (under the name TPAJAX Project).So much for the USA trying to spread democracy.The USA likes a country having democracy as long as the country votes for someone who they like.

  After the coup,the Shah of Iran ruled as an monarch for the next 26 years while modernizing the country using oil revenues,until he was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution in 1979.The tangible benefits the United States reaped from overthrowing Iran's elected government included a share of Iran's oil wealth and ensuring the Iranian nation remained under the control of an allied dictator.Washington continually supplied arms to the increasingly unpopular Shah and the CIA-trained SAVAK,his repressive secret police force;however by the 1979 revolution,his increasingly independent policies resulted in his effective abandonment by his American allies,hastening his downfall.The coup is widely believed to have significantly contributed to anti-American and anti-British sentiment in Iran and in the Middle East.The 1979 revolution deposed the Shah and replaced the pro-Western monarchy with a largely anti-Western authoritarian theocracy.After the Iranian 1979 Revolution the US Embassy was seized.

  Now back to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement.Israel's reaction to the agreement was harsh to say the least.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said:"Israel is not bound by this deal with Iran,because Iran continues to seek our destruction,we will always defend ourselves." Netanyahu called the deal a "capitulation" and "a bad mistake of historic proportions.

   "Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely called the deal an "historic surrender" and said that Israel would "act with all means to try and stop the agreement being ratified" indicating that it would try to use its influence to block the agreement in the U.S. Congress,while U.S.  Secretary of State John Kerry said a rejection of the deal by the Congress could cause Israel being "more isolated and more blamed".Naftali Bennett,leader of the Bayit Yehudi party (which is a member of the government coalition), said: "The history books have been rewritten again today, and this period will be deemed particularly grave and dangerous."

  Is this the real reason Israel rejects the agreement.Israel's position is rather hypocritical.Iran has had many nuclear inspectors enter their country.But Israel who has nuclear weapons will not allow any inspectors into their country.Further,Iran had nuclear power when the Shah was in power and then you heard no complaints from the west.

  Also the US and Israel's relationship wasn't always so cheerful.In the 1956 Suez Crisis the US backed Egypt over Israel.It wasn't until when the US was tied down with their war in Vietnam and Israel had the "6 Day War",that Israel became America's henchman in the Middle East.

  Since 1967 the US always supported Israel in the UN and allows them to commit war crimes and violate human rights with impunity. Now with this nuclear agreement tensions may ease between the US and Iran and Iran may become America's henchmen in the Middle East.Both Israel and Saudi Arabia will not like this.Could this be the real reason Israel and Saudi Arabia are opposed to the Iran nuclear agreement?

  Like Israel,Saudi Arabia because of its cozy relationship with the USA gets a free pass on it's human rights violations too.

  Now to the US Congress.Both houses of the US Congress are now controlled by the Republicans who are puppets of the Military Industrial complex.The military industrial complex does not want peace.They want war. The military-industrial complex makes money hy selling things like bombs and tanks. If there is no war they do not make any money.Former Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker said if he is elected president that he would bomb Iran on his first day in office. I was watching TV a few days ago and there was a program on,talking about how through robots and artificial intelligence (AI) by 2050 could be replacing combat troops.Rather pathetic how the US government with all its money would prefer to invest in products that kill and destroy civilizations rather than investing in products that help build and restore civilizations.

  So anyway,the bottom line is the Republicans in the US Congress want war.If the Tran agreement is ratified.People will start to think. If we can sit down and negotiate with Iran,why can't we talk to Russia,China or North Korea. Also now Iran wants to join the WTO and become a participating member of the world community.The Republicans in the US Congress can not have this.Israel and the US Congress must continue to demonize Iran,continue to instill fear into Americans because peace with Iran is not what they want.They want war,war,war and more war!!!!

  Now,the US Congress has failed to get enough votes to destroy the JCPOA. However,if a Republican is elected in 2016,they said they will trash the JCPOA. If that happens the whole world will see the Republicans for the scumbags that they are.With or without the USA's approval the UN and other nations of the world will lift the sanctions against Iran and welcome Iran into the world community and the USA can eat it's lunch alone.

SEPT. 3-CHINA HAS A MILITARY PARADE ASSERTING ITSELF AS A MILITARY SUPERPOWER

  On September 3rd with swarms of fighter jets and helicopters flying overhead,some 12,000 troops marched through the center of Beijing as China marked the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II with its biggest ever display of military might.

   Presiding over the extravaganza on September 3rd,President Xi Jinping,the country's most powerful leader in decades said that China would remain committed to "the path of peaceful development" and unexpectedly pledged to cut 300,000 troops from its 2.3-million strong military.

    The parade was the first since Xi came to power in 2012--but it was largely shunned by Western leaders,including China's former wartime allies,the United States and UK.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin,President Park Geun-hye of South Korea and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon were the highest-profile dignitaries to take their seats on a podium in Tienanmen Square,in the ancient heart of Beijing.

   Xi,standing up in a black,Chinese Red Flag limousine,drove past and greeted troops stood in neat formation along Chang'an Avenue before the parade began in earnest.

  Hundreds of ballistic missiles,tanks,amphibious assault vehicles,drones and other military equipment were paraded past the gathered leaders,veterans and guests.

   To cap the celebration,some 200 fighter jets took to the skies and 70,000 doves and balloons were released above Tienanmen Square.

   Among the 12,000 troops were contingents from Russia,Pakistan and 15 other countries.Yvonne Chiu,assistant professor of politics at the University of Hong Kong,said that Xi's pledge to cut troop numbers was relatively insignificant given that China's military budget would likely continue to rise at a double-digit pace.

   "China's military is huge.It's an easy gesture for him to make."

   No effort was spared to ensure the landmark event proceeded without a hitch.

Hundreds of factories were shut in the build up to the event to ensure crystal blue skies,flights in and out of Beijing were canceled for the parade's duration and, just to ensure that the city's airspace was safe,monkeys,falcons and dogs were deployed to scare away birds.

  One leader whose absence was never in doubt was Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The Japanese leader's failure to offer a new apology for Japan's brutal invasion and occupation of much of China in the 1930s and 1940s has prompted new denouncements from Beijing.

    In his speech,Xi said that China's victory "crushed the plot of the Japanese militarists to colonize and enslave China" and "put an end to China's

national humiliation of suffering successive defeats at the hands of foreign aggressors in modern times."

    On Thursday,Yoshihide Suga,Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary,said his country would like to see China look to the future."As 70 years has passed after World War II, we would like China not to excessively focus on the unfortunate history of China and South Korea in in the past,instead would like to see the future-looking attitude to tackle common issues facing the international community."

    While China has said that the victory parade wasn't aimed at Japan,it's clear that anti-Japanese sentiment underpins the celebrations.TV dramas about the war against Japan were shown that week despite a nationwide ban on entertainment programming.

   And in Shanghai,an ice cream chain is giving away popsicles that resemble Hideki Tojo,Japan's wartime Prime Minister who was hanged as a convicted war criminal.

   In his address to the nation,Xi stressed China's peaceful rise and pledged to slash troop numbers but the weaponry that rolled past him sent a different message, said Chiu at the University of Hong Kong.

     "All this new equipment -- fighter jets,carrier killing missiles,drones -- give China force projection capability.If all you need is regional defense you don't need all this," she said."It signals China's ambition to be a global military force."

UKRAINE-CANADIAN PIANIST BANNED FOR SPEAKING OUT AGAINST UKRANIAN GOVERNMENT

    In April Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa was not allowed to perform with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra because of what the TSO called "provocative comments."

    In a statement written by the pianist and posted on Facebook on April 6,Lisitsa said she has been accused of "inciting hatred" on Twitter because of her comments on the conflict in Ukraine.

   Lisitsa,an ethnic Russian born in Ukraine who has lived in the United States and Paris said she has been speaking out against the "atrocities"

of the civil war,particularly those committed against the Russian minority in the country's eastern and southern regions.

   Lisitsa wrote about the people of Ukraine "raising in fury against their corrupt rulers." But she said "the ruling class doesn't let go easily"

and the "same rich people" remain in power amid misery and poverty,thousands of deaths and over a million refugees.

   She accused Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of calling Russian-speaking Ukrainians "subhumans," in official documents and called at least one member of the nation's armed forces a "neo-Nazi." She has also posted photos of what she calls  "Nazi torchlight marches."

  She said she has been "watching helplessly" as her country slides "ever faster into the abyss" and had taken to Twitter to get the "other side of the story" heard, "the one you never see in the mainstream media " the plight of my people,the good and bad things that were happening in Ukraine."

    TSO president and CEO Jeff Melanson said in a statement Lisitsa has been replaced due to "ongoing accusations of deeply offensive language by Ukrainian media outlets."

    "As one of Canada's most important cultural institutions,our priority must remain on being a stage for the world's great works of music,and not for opinions that some believe to be deeply offensive," he said.

     Lisitsa wrote that someone in the TSO decided she should not be allowed to play "likely after the pressure from a small but aggressive lobby claiming to represent (the) Ukrainian community."

    She added that the TSO will pay her not to perform because she exercised her right to free speech.The TSO said Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2

will go ahead Wednesday and Thursday as planned,but will be performed instead by Toronto pianist Stewart Goodyear.

   In her statement,Lisitsa said she has received death threats for denouncing the Ukrainian government's actions and that her critics have now tried to "teach her a lesson" by convincing the TSO to cancel her performance.

    "My haters didn't stop there," she wrote. "Trying, in their own words,to teach me a lesson,they have now attempted to silence me as a musician."

The controversy sparked a public debate online,with many defending Lisitsa's right to free speech while others hailed the orchestra's decision.

"The decision to cancel @ValLisitsa's concert in Toronto is a black stain upon the @TorontoSymphony and Canada. #LetValentinaPlay," one wrote.

"Good job Toronto  Symphony! Ban those hate and propaganda spreaders," another message read.

GENOCIDE IN GAZA

   Earlier this year I was watching an interview on TV with American author,journalist and blogger Max Blumenthal. While in Israel during the bombing of Gaza during Operation Protective Edge,Blumenthal was asked by authorities to go into Gaza and tell them if he can find Palestinians who are using human shields.Later upon his return he was asked did you find any Palestinians using human shields.Bluementhal replied that he didn't but he found Israelis who were using Palestinians as human shields.

   On another channel this year during the course of an interview with an Israeli soldier,he stated that the Israeli military will not negotiate with Palestinians. He said if an Israeli soldier gets captured you prepare to die. The Israeli military will kill all the hostage captors and captives.

   On July 8 in 2014 Israel launched Operation Protective Edge. It was a seven (7) week attack on Gaza.Between 2,142 and 2,310 Gazans were killed and between 10,626 and 10,895 were wounded (including 3,374 children, of whom over 1,000 were left permanently disabled).66 Israeli soldiers,5 Israeli civilians (including one child) and one Thai civilian were killed and 469 IDF soldiers and 261 Israeli civilians were injured. The Gaza Health Ministry,UN and some human rights groups reported that 69-75% of the Palestinian casualties were civilians;Israeli officials estimated that around 50% of those killed were civilians.On August 5,2014 OCHA stated that 520,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip (approximately 30% of its population) might have been displaced, of whom 485,000 needed emergency food assistance and 273,000 were taking shelter in 90 UN-run schools.The UN calculated that more than 7,000 homes for 10,000 families were razed, together with an additional 89,000 homes damaged,of which roughly 10,000 were severely affected by the bombing. Rebuilding costs were calculated to run from 4-6 billions dollars,over 20 years.The economic cost of the operation is estimated at NIS 8.5 billion (approximately 2.5 billion USD) and GDP loss of 0.4%,Reconstruction costs were estimated at approximately $11 million.

    What is sad is that the Americans fully supported the Israelis both financially and militarily,while the rest of the world sat back and watched Gaza be demolished.Gazans moves are rather restricted.The Israeli government prohibits them from leaving the Gaza strip.No reconstruction since the ending of Operation Protective Edge has been done.Operation Protective Edge has contaminated much of the water.Much of the water in Gaza is not potable.

   Israel and Egypt have blockaded the Gaza Strip from land air and sea from 2007 to the present.The list of what is not allowed into Gaza changes constantly. At times there has been a ban on light bulbs,mattresses,sheets,musical instruments, crayons, clothing,candles,matches,books,shoes,blankets,coffee,chocolate,nuts,pasta,tea,shampoo and conditioner,books and paper.There is a permanent ban on concrete for rebuilding the infrastructure that the Israeli army destroys through bombings and airstrikes and any item that could conceivably be used as a weapon or as material in the building of a weapon. 

    The statistics below represent the living conditions in Gaza BEFORE the latest round of Israeli assaults,during its so-called "Operation Protective Edge," on the Gazan people. 

*38 percent of Gazans lives below the poverty line.

*45.2 percent of Gazans are unemployed

*54 percent of households are food insecure, which is defined as inadequate access to food. Gazan households spend 56 percent of their expenditures on food.

    *The Gaza aquifer provides 90 percent of Gaza's water. Only ten percent of that water is suitable for consumption.Water-borne diseases cause 26 percent of illnesses in Gaza.Two-thirds of Gaza's population receives clean water only once every three to four days.

*Power shortages and blackouts last up to 12-16 hours a day.

*An average of 900 truckloads of goods weekly entered Gaza.Before the blockade,2,807 truckloads entered weekly.

*95 percent of Gaza's industrial/construction businesses have closed.The other five percent are only operating at 20 to 50 percent of their previous capacity.

*Israel blocks Palestinian access to 35 percent of agricultural land in Gaza.

*Fishermen can only fish 3 nautical miles from the shore.

*Gaza has run out of 42 percent of essential medicines.

  Now since Operation Protective Edge the conditions have worsen.Similar to South Africa this is a repressive system of apartheid except it is worse in Gaza. In South Africa the white majority needed the blacks for providing menial labor.Israelis do not need the Palestinians for anything.

Israelis just as soon would like to see them wiped off the map.With no reconstruction being done many Gazans have no homes and are living out in the cold.With very little potable water to drink many analysts are predicting that by 2021 there will be no more Gazans in Gaza.

  Someone once said to me "You know, the Jews have been persecuted for over 5000 years". Then I heard someone reply "There must be a reason!!!"

AMERICANS SHOOT DOWN A MALAYSIAN AIRLINER AND THEY WILL GET AWAY WITH IT

  On October 13 the Dutch Safety Board released its findings on the downing of MH17 that was flying over eastern Ukraine on July 17,2014.

The Board concluded that Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 crashed as a result of a Russian-made Buk missile.The missile hit the front left of the plane causing other parts to break off,it said in their final report into the disaster,which killed 298 people.The West and Ukraine say Russian-backed rebels brought down the Boeing 777,but Russia blames Ukrainian forces.

The report does not say who fired the missile,but says airspace over eastern Ukraine should have been closed.

   The plane-flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur-crashed at the height of the conflict between government troops and pro-Russian separatists.Most of the victims were Dutch-196,including some with dual nationality.The other passengers and crew were nationals from 10 countries.

   A separate Dutch-led criminal investigation is under way.The report says the three crew members in the cockpit were killed by the missile explosion instantly.However,it adds,it was unclear at which point the others died and the possibility of some remaining conscious for some time during the one-and-a-half minutes it took for the plane to go down could not be ruled out.

   Presenting its findings at the Gilze-Rijen military base in the Netherlands,the safety board showed plane parts that had been brought back from the rebel-held Donetsk region and reconstructed.Board president Djibbe Joustra said the impact pattern could not have been caused by a meteor,an air-to-air missile or an internal explosion.Instead,he said,a warhead carried by a surface-to-air missile had detonated above the left-hand side of the cockpit,causing structural damage.

  Mr Joustra said the missile was a Buk-which experts say both Russian and Ukrainian armies possess.He added that paint had been found on metal fragments within the plane that matched with missile fragments on the ground.Mr Joustra also said there had been sufficient reason to close off Ukrainian airspace but Ukraine did not do that-and on the day of the crash, 160 flights flew over the area in question.

  The board does not have the authority to apportion blame, under the rules governing international crash investigations.But speaking to reporters after the news conference,Mr Joustra said pro-Russian rebels were in charge of the area from where the missile that hit MH17 had been fired.The government in Ukraine and several Western officials have said the missile was brought from Russia into the rebel-held part of Ukraine.The Dutch-led criminal investigation has already published photos of the launcher being transported around rebel areas.

  In the report,the Dutch Safety Board says the weapon used was a 9N314M-model warhead carried on the 9M38M1 missile,as installed on the Buk surface-to-air missile system.It adds that the type of fragments found in the wreckage and bodies of crew members in the cockpit were bow-tie or cube shaped-only found in the 9N314M warhead.

  However,the Russian side disputed the Dutch findings insisting that only older warheads and missiles of the 9M38 type still in the hands of the Ukrainian army could have been used as they were the only weapons with "butterfly or bow-tie" fragments. The Russian army had phased them out."The 9M38M1 missile has no H-shaped striking elements," Yan Novikov, the head of Buk missile company Almaz-Antey said.

    In their submission to the Dutch report,the Russian experts argue that investigators should not have discounted other potential reasons for plane's destruction, such as an air-to-air rocket.This is completely rejected by the Dutch Safety Board.

    Earlier, Russian officials from Almaz-Antey - the state firm that manufactures Buk missiles - said the evidence suggested the plane had been shot down by a Buk missile fired by Ukrainian forces.

   Using their own simulation, the officials said the missile had been fired from Zaroshchenke in Ukrainian-controlled territory, some 20km (12 miles) away from the area highlighted by the Dutch report.They argued the missile used was a decades-old model no longer used by Russian forces.

   There are several facts that make me suspect the Americans were behind this attack. The Kremlin's immediate reaction after the plane was downed was lets get all the facts before you start making accusations. However,before investigators even arrived on the scene newspapers in the west had their front pages pointing fingers at Russia.In July of 2014 the European Union had been reluctant to impose sanctions on Russia.The US had been trying to twist the EU's arm.However,after the crash the EU stepped into line and imposed sanctions.

  Further,since the crash the UK has not revealed the conversations from the black boxes.Russia has revealed its satellite data.While the Ukraine and USA have not revealed their satellite data. I believe if the USA had satellite data or any evidence that would incriminate Russia they would have revealed it to the world. Especially a country that spies on all its citizens.

  You know when I was watching TV I saw Ray McGovern a retired CIA officer speaking saying that telling a lie will quickly obscure the truth. He added if you do not have any evidence you just lie lie lie.Then if in a year or two the truth is revealed it won't matter to anyone.This is what is happening with Flight MH 17.

MANY MIGRANTS HEADING TO EUROPE

   Both the US & European countries wrecked havoc in countries like Libya,Syria,Iraq and Afghanistan.They destroy the countries without bothering to rebuild these countries. So, these people now have no homes.So,it is only fair that the people who destroyed these peoples homes should now take care of them.

  This has created The European Migrant Crisis or European Refugee Crisis.This crisis of 2015 arose through the rising number of refugees and migrants going to the European Union,across the Mediterranean Sea,or through Southeast Europe and applying for asylum.They come from areas such as the Middle East (Syria, and Iraq),Africa (Eritrea, Nigeria,Somalia,Sudan and Gambia),South Asia (Afghanistan,Pakistan and Bangladesh) and the Western Balkans (Serbia,Kosovo and Albania). According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,as of December 2015,the top three nationalities of the almost one million Mediterranean Sea arrivals since the beginning of the year are Syrian (50%),

Afghan (20%) and Iraqi (7%).Most of the refugees and migrants are adult men (60%).The phrases "European migrant crisis" and "European refugee crisis" became widely used in April 2015,when five boats carrying almost two thousand migrants to Europe sank in the Mediterranean Sea, with a combined death toll estimated at more than 1,200 people.

    The shipwrecks took place in a context of ongoing conflicts and refugee crises in several Middle Eastern and African countries,which brought the total number of forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2014 to almost 60 million,the highest level since World War II.Amid an upsurge in the number of sea arrivals

in Italy from Libya in 2014,several European Union governments refused to fund the Italian-run rescue option Operation Mare Nostrum,which was replaced by Frontex's Operation Triton in November 2014.In the first six months of 2015,

Greece overtook Italy as the first EU country of arrival,becoming,in the summer 2015,the starting point of a flow of refugees and migrants moving through Balkan countries to northern European countries, mainly Germany. Since April 2015, the European Union has struggled to cope with the crisis, increasing funding for border patrol operations in the Mediterranean,devising plans to fight migrant smuggling,launching Operation Sophia and proposing a new quota system to relocate and resettle asylum seekers among EU states and alleviate the burden on countries on the external borders of the Union.Individual countries have at times reintroduced border controls within the Schengen Area and rifts have emerged between countries willing to accept asylum seekers and others trying to discourage their arrival.

     According to Eurostat,EU member states received 626,000 asylum applications in 2014,the highest number since the 672,000 applications received in 1992,and granted protection status to more than 185,000 asylum seekers.Four states-Germany, Sweden, Italy and France received around two-thirds of the EU's asylum applications and granted almost two-thirds of protection status in 2014;while Sweden,Hungary and Austria were among the top recipients of EU asylum applications per capita.In the first nine months of 2015,EU member states received 812,705 new asylum applications.On December 9th Germany reported receiving it's one millionth refugee.

SPEECHES AT THE UN ON SEPTEMBER 28

  On September 28th both President Putin and President Obama gave speeches before the UN General Assembly in New York.Obamas speech was rather laughable while Putin's speech was rather moving.Obama's speech was laughable.Obama made comments like "Big countries shouldn't bully small countries".

The remark was aimed at Russia. But "Hello" how many small countries has the USA bullied (i.e. Vietnam,Iraq,Haiti,Libya,Afghanistan...). While Putin's famous remark was "Do you realize what you have done". A remark directed at the USA and Europe for their invasions of Libya and Syria which have now created the humongous refugee crisis in Europe.

   The Russian president showed up at the United Nations on Monday,September 28 for the first time in a decade,proposing a coup against U.S. global leadership and seeking to wrest control of a coalition battling ISIS away from America's grip.

    And he wasn't the only leader of a country challenging the United States to effectively upstage Obama at the annual global meeting,which a U.S. president traditionally uses to command the spotlight.

   Speeches by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the 70th anniversary of the creation of the world body also left Obama defending not only his personal foreign policy legacy,which is already under assault at home from Republican presidential candidates,but the entire concept of a world order based on seven decades of U.S. global leadership.

    The day of speech-making,which also included an address by Cuban leader Raul Castro and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi,underscored the multipolar challenges to U.S. power,as slumbering empires seek a resurgence and America faces military challenges from Eastern Europe across the Middle East to Asia.

    Obama has embraced a policy of encouraging other actors to address threats in their region,for instance pulling Saudi Arabia and Jordan into the coalition to fight ISIS.But the approach means that other forces joining the fray-including Iran and now Russia in Syria-may not necessarily agree with America's preferred end game.

      Obama offered a full-throated justification of his policies-particularly emphasizing diplomacy over the use of force-in his own U.N. address,but he seemed on the defensive amid claims by critics that his policies have emboldened U.S. adversaries.

   The most ardent challenger was Putin,who appears to be probing openings in Ukraine and Syria where he believes the U.S. president will not resist.He recently ordered a military buildup in Syria apparently in support of President Bashar al-Assad,a longtime Russian client, and went behind Washington's back to conclude an anti-ISIS intelligence alliance with Iran,Syria and Iraq just this weekend.

    Putin's message at the U.N. podium ON September 28 was a simple one:U.S. interventions and unilateralism have backfired in the Middle East,and it is time to try something new.

    His speech will do little to undercut a widespread impression in many Western capitals that his aim in Syria is not just to bolster a Moscow ally but,primarily,to thwart U.S. power and influence in the Middle East.

   Putin took particular aim at U.S. involvement in Iraq and Libya,which he said fostered a power vacuum filled with "extremists and terrorists."

"Do you realize now what you've done"" he asked.

      He called for a ministerial conference and then a U.N. resolution to reorient strategy against ISIS-even though many U.S. observers believe his real aim is to prioritize attacks against rebels opposed to al-Assad and to thwart U.S. aspirations in a region in which Obama has shown little appetite of becoming embroiled.

   Like Russia,China is also a nation that once enjoyed great power and is now seeking a rebound.Xi,president of a nation that Washington faults for stoking tensions in Asia with its territorial claims at sea while increasingly elbowing the United States in the Pacific,hit out at criticism of China's communist system.

And in a thinly veiled warning against new U.S. military adventures,he warned that "those who adopt the high-ended approach of using force will find that they are only lifting a rock to drop on their feet."

   And Iran,which the United States accuses of supporting terror throughout the Middle East,portrayed its deal with world powers over its nuclear capabilities

as an example of U.S. capitulation and blamed "incorrect actions of newcomers to the region and naive transregional actors"-a clear reference to Washington-for the chaos in the Middle East.

    Sensing the rising challenges to U.S. power that were all too evident at the U.N. on September 28,Obama openly faulted the perception-fueled by Republican presidential candidates-that he is a weak leader who has emboldened American adversaries.

BY 2017 THERE WILL BE WORLD WAR III (OR IT MAY HAVE ALREADY STARTED)

  Syria may be the epicenter for World War III. The current civil war in Syria is an ongoing multisided armed conflict with international interventions taking place in Syria.The unrest began in the early spring of 2011 within the context of Arab Spring protests,with nationwide protests against President Bashar al-Assad's government.The conflict gradually morphed from prominent protests to an armed rebellion after months of military sieges.

   The Syrian government initially primarily relied on its armed forces,but since 2014 local protection units made up of volunteers known as National Defence Force have come to play a larger role,gradually becoming the primary military force of the Syrian state.From the early stages, the Syrian government received technical, financial,military and political support from Russia,Iran and Iraq.In 2013, Iran-backed Hezbollah entered the war in support of the Syrian Army.Due to foreign involvement,the conflict had been called a proxy war between the regional powers.In September 2015,Russia,Iraq,Iran and Syria set up a joint operation room (information centre) in Baghdad to coordinate their activity in Syria.On September 30th, 2015,Russia started its own air campaign on the side and at the request of the government of Syria.The resultant proxy war between the U.S. and Russia led some commentators to characterize the situation as a "a proto-world war with nearly a dozen countries embroiled in two overlapping conflicts".

    In July 2013,the Syrian government was said to be in control of approximately 30-40% of the country's territory and 60% of the Syrian population; in August 2015,the territory fully controlled by the Syrian Army was reported to have shrunk to 29,797 km2,roughly 16% of the country.The Syrian government enjoys high levels of support in certain areas under its control;according to a poll organized by British ORB International,up to 73% of the population in government-controlled areas support the government effort.

  A United Nations report in late 2012 described the conflict as being "overtly sectarian in nature", between mostly Alawite government forces,militias and other Shia groups fighting largely against Sunni-dominated rebel groups, although both opposition and government forces have denied this.As of January 2015,the death toll had risen above 220,000 with estimates in April 2015 as high as 310,000.The majority of casualties are Syrian soldiers and popular resistance fighters,followed by Islamist fighters,the two groups together making up to as much as 90 percent of all casualties.

   The severity of the humanitarian disaster in Syria has been outlined by the UN and many international organizations.More than 7.6 million Syrians have been internally displaced, more than 5 million have fled to nearby countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan,Iraq,Egypt and Kuwait, and a few hundred thousand have fled to the European Union becoming refugees.Millions more have been left in poor living conditions with shortages of food and drinking water.

   In 2014 Daesh formed a caliphate occupying much of Syria and Iraq. The USA illegally invaded Syria in the summer of 2014 and began bombing campaigns against Daesh.Since that time both France and the UK have also violated the sovereignty of Syria by beginning their own bombing campaigns.

   After the US bombed Daesh in Syria for a year.The caliphate had grown both numerically and geographically. Then in September of 2015 Russia began it's legitimate bombing campaign of Daesh. The Russians were asked by the Syrian government to protect their sovereign nation.The Russians did more damage to Daesh in one week then the Americans did in a year.The Russians even began bombing trucks that were transporting stolen oil to Turkey.

  On November 24 Turkey shot down a Russian airplane which they claim flew into Turkish airspace for 17 seconds. The USA defended the Turks.What hypocrisy while the USA constantly illegally invades Syria's airspace.

  Which begs the question is the USA really serious about fighting Daesh? The USA has a very powerful military.They could have gotten Turkey to close their borders and within a year easily could have demolished Daesh. The US claims they did not know Daesh was selling oil to Turkey.(ha ha). Daesh is heavily funded by Saudi Arabia.Just like 19 of the 20 hijackers on September 11 were Saudi nationals.Then the US invades Afghanistan and Iraq.

    Further,the US has been hell bent on removing President Bashar al-Assad. Probably explains why during the year long US bombing campaign all the USA really did was nothing more than destroy Syria's infrastructure while allowing Daesh to prosper. Then the USA creates this characterization of moderate terrorist. What a joke some of these so-called moderate terrorists are the same people who supported the September 11 attacks.Also, who ever said it was legitimate for a government to sponsor people to overthrow a legitimately democratically elected government.

   Perhaps everyone is ignoring the elephant in the room. What is this conflict in Syria really about. It is about AMERICAN HEGEMONY. The USA wants to control the world economically,politically and militarily. American exceptionalism is ingrained in the American psyche. Americans think  they are god's gift to the world and everyone else is shit.

   However,American Hegemony has two obstacles-Russia and China. Russia has an espionage center located near Lattakia in Syria.Russia and Syria have a long established close relationship dating back to the cold war. If Syria becomes a vacuum state or falls into the hands of some puppet government of the USA it would be a devastating blow to Russia. Russia feels that America crossed a red line when they tried to overthrow the Syrian government. Russia will defend Syria to the fullest extent possible. On the other hand their is something called HUBRIS. The Americans do not like to be told "no".Americans think they can just piss and shit over anybody at any time they want. They already have shot down that Malaysian Airliner in Ukraine killing 298 people just to get the Europe Union  to turn it's back on Russia. The US created Daesh (their bombings of Muslim countries is Daesh's best recruitment tool) and supports them.The US is so HUBRIS they will go to any extreme to try to topple the Syrian government. If not now, but if next year Hilary Clinton or one of those right-wing wacko Republicans is elected World War III will be in full swing. Rather than not toppling the Syrian government the arrogant bastards in the USA would rather blow Syria and the entire Middle East right off the map.

KING ABDULLAH OF SAUDI ARABIA DIES

  On January 23rd Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud,King of Saudi Arabia,died.US President Barack Obama hailed the monarch as "a candid leader and man of convictions",while US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel called him "a powerful voice for tolerance, moderation, and peace in the Islamic world". British Prime Minister David Cameron was "deeply saddened to hear of the death of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques" and German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised him for "a cautious modernization of his country".The New York Times described the King as "a cautious reformer",The Washington Post as "a wily king, and The Wall Street Journal as "a leader who promoted stability".Well, really" Does the despotic ruler deserve this over-the-top show of affection and admiration from world leaders and the Western press"

   While the world may sing songs of praise for the dictator for what he apparently did for Saudi Arabia and the Western world,we present to you a different picture altogether:examples of tyranny are aplenty"

 Abdullah regime's was profound misogynic.International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde has hailed him as "a strong advocate for women".Here are some examples of his virulent feminism:

   Four of Abdullah's daughters live under house arrest.In May 2014,Saudi royal princesses Sahar,42, Jawaher,38, Maha,41 and Hala,39 were found to be kept in 13-year isolation by their father,King Abdullah.They shared their horrible condition in an interview to RT:they were deprived of food for over 60 days and had very little access to water.Their crime-They spoke against the ill treatment of women in the Gulf kingdom,resisted its strict rules mandating male guardianship over women and their mother failed to give the King a son.

  In 1977,his granddaughter Princess Mishaal bint Fahd was blindfolded,made to kneel and executed in a car park in Jeddah by the King for having the audacity to fall in love. Her lover was forced to watch her execution and later was beheaded with a sword;it took five blows to sever his head.The documentary Death of a Princess told the story of this brutal act.

   In January 2015 in holy Mecca,four Saudi police officers chopped off the head of Laila Bint Abdul Muttalib Basim,a woman from Burma "accused of killing her seven year old step daughter using a broom stick in her vagina and anus". The video showed her begging for mercy as she was dragged off to the street to get beheaded.The case highlighted the crude brutality of King's justice system.

    Saudi Arabia's draconian laws ban women from driving in the country.On October 26, 2013,60 women took to the streets of Saudi Arabia driving cars and posting videos online of them singing to Bob Marley's hit "No Woman No Cry" with the words "No Woman No Drive".Their website was blocked and Saudi Arabia's top cleric retorted,"women who drive risk damaging their ovaries and bearing children with clinical problems".Two Saudi Arabian women"Loujain al-Hathloul 25 and Maysa al-Alamoudi 33,a UAE-based journalist,flouted the bizarre ban in 2014 and were referred to a terror court in Riyadh.

   "After years of false promises to end its absurd restrictions on women,Saudi authorities are still arresting them just for getting behind the wheel.The Saudi government's degrading restrictions on women are what bring shame to the country,not the brave activists standing up for their rights," said Sarah Leah Whitson,Middle East and North Africa director for Human Rights Watch.

   In Saudi Arabia,freedom of speech is not a human right but a threat to Kings" existence.Over the last few years,King Abdullah issued decrees cracking down on freedom of expression to strengthen the grip that the royal family and religious establishment hold on the country.He criminalized defaming the reputation of the state,insulting a member of the royal family or religious clerics.This prevented reporting on anything that contradicts Islamic law,or serves "foreign interests and undermines national security".

     Writer and activist Raif Badawi was arrested in 2012 for insulting Islam through electronic channels and brought to court on charges of apostasy.He was sentenced to 7 years in prison and 600 lashes in 2013 and then re-sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes,along with a fine of 1 Million Riyal,in 2014.Badawi,who created a liberal,secular website,Free Saudi Liberals,had suggested Imam Muhammad ibn Saudi Islamic University had become a den for terrorists.He was publicly flogged on January 9, 2015.

    King Abdullah's rule saw regular public beheadings and floggings.In 2014 alone,Saudi Arabia is reported to have carried out 87 beheadings that highlights the kingdom's harsh laws on dissent.Allan Hogarth,Amnesty International's UK head of policy and government affairs told The Guardian:

"Amnesty has serious concerns about Saudi Arabia's justice system,given its use of the death penalty,the prevalence of torture in detention and its use of cruel and degrading punishment".

     Under Abdullah's watch,authorities rounded up scores of human rights activists who dared to criticize the government.The peaceful protesters were subjected to unfair trials in terror court on vague charges such as "breaking allegiance with the ruler". Waleed Abu al-Khair was sentenced to 15 years in prison for criticizing the government's human rights record. Fadhil al-Manasif is serving a 14-year sentence for helping journalists cover 2011 protests by Saudi Shia citizens.Reformists Mohammed al-Qahtani and Abdullah al-Hamid are serving 10 and 11 year sentences on similar charges.

    Human Rights Watch says:"Saudi Arabia has stepped up arrests,trials, and convictions of peaceful dissidents and forcibly dispersed peaceful demonstrations by citizens.Authorities continued to violate the rights of Saudi women and girls and foreign workers.Authorities subjected thousands of people to unfair trials and arbitrary detention.Courts convicted human rights defenders and others for peaceful expression or assembly demanding political and human rights reforms".

  According to the diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks in 2010,the US regards Saudi Arabia as the biggest source of Sunni terrorism funding in the world and a crucial piggy-bank for Al-Qaida and other radical groups.King Abdullah knew the sources of this funding,but he did nothing to rein in his family members.

    Saudi royal family has promoted the puritanical ideology which is practically the same ideology of Islamic extremists such as Al-Qaeda,the Taliban and ISIS.Saudi Arabia's preaching of misogyny,intolerance and extremism at home and abroad has resulted in the creation of an even greater extremism that threatens even the monarchy itself.The Saudis love public beheadings as their mortal enemy ISIS,who keeps beheading Western hostages.

    Saudi Arabia sent Osama bin Laden and other young Saudis to fight in Afghanistan,creating a worldwide jihadist movement.As a devoted Wahhabi,Laden developed a very close relationship with the Saudi royal family (Read King Abdullah).The same family once paid the most famous terrorist in the world's construction company billions of dollars to build mosques and palaces in Saudi Arabia,making him one of the richest men in the country.Those who helped the hijackers of four airliners used in suicide attacks on 9/11,included wealthy Saudi hardliners,high-level diplomats and intelligence officers employed by Saudi Arabia.By serving as the world's largest producer and exporter of oil,Saudi Arabia made a lot of friends who turned a blind eye to its support to terrorist activities.

   Though Saudi Arabia outlawed slavery in 1962,the appalling treatment of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia is actually a form of modern slavery.Many Filipino and Hindu workers have suffered appalling physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their Saudi employers.There are numerous cases of foreign workers being publicly beheaded for murdering abusive employees.Rape,murder,apostasy, drug trafficking and armed robbery are all punishable by death under the Kings' law.

    Worst,the Saudi government does not inform the foreign embassies and even the prisoners in advance of the execution dates.The official notices are sent after the execution.

     Saudi Arabia is home to nine million migrant workers;however,the country does not have a standard contract for these workers.In 2013,Ethiopian migrant workers became the victims of physical assaults,some of them fatal,following a government crackdown on foreign workers.Hundreds of thousands of workers who sought to return home were kept in detention centers without adequate food or shelter;many reported abuses by prison authorities.

   Any religion other than Islam is effectively banned in Saudi Arabia. Non-Muslim places of worship are illegal.The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia,Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah,the highest official of religious law,head of the Supreme Council of Ulema and of the Standing Committee for Scientific Research and Issuing of Fatwa,in 2013 had declared that it is "necessary to destroy all the churches of the region". Christians must go to Mass in foreign embassies.

The wearing of a cross is banned.The country in 2014 passed a law that imposes death penalty for anyone caught smuggling a bible into Saudi Arabia.

    In October 2014,Saudi Arabia's Special Criminal Court sentenced Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr'a popular Shi'ite cleric and outspoken political dissident to death for disobeying the king,waging violence against the state,inviting "foreign meddling" in the kingdom,inciting vandalism and sectarian violence and insulting the Prophet Muhammad's relatives.

    Witchcraft is still an offense in Saudi Arabia.In 2007,Egyptian pharmacist Mustafa Ibrahim was beheaded in Riyadh after his conviction on charges of "practicing magic and sorcery as well as adultery and desecration of the Holy Quran".In 2013, two Asian maids were sentenced to 1,000 lashings and 10 years in prison after their bosses claimed that they had suffered from their magic.In a country where public observance of any religion besides Islam is strictly forbidden,foreign domestic workers who bring unfamiliar traditional religious or folk customs from Sri Lanka,Indonesia,Africa or elsewhere can make especially vulnerable and easy targets.

    In October 2007,during a state visit to the United Kingdom,King Abdullah was accused by protesters of being a murderer and a torturer. Concerns were raised in the UK about the treatment of women and homosexuals by the Saudi kingdom.

   King Abdullah thwarted pro-democratic and revolutionary movements in neighboring nations by giving financial and military assistance to friendly regimes with revolutionaries at the gates.Saudi forces crushed an uprising that threatened Bahrain's House of Khalifa.

   During the Egyptian Revolution of 2011,where the protesters demanded the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in order to usher in democratic and socioeconomic reforms and the US,the UK,France and Germany called for reform and an end to violence against peaceful protesters,King Abdullah slammed protesters as "infiltrators who sought to destabilize their country".King Abdullah played a guiding role in Saudi Arabia's support for Egypt's government after the military intervened in 2013,and drove his country's support for Syria's rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad.

    When human rights and social justice advocates sent King Abdullah a petition seeking an elected parliament,term limits on princes holding government positions and public access to the trials of accused terrorists,most of the signers were jailed briefly and the king granted none of their requests.

    Open criticism of the King within the country is forbidden.

    The world is pretty much better off without him.Although the new king is no Mr. Nice Guy either.

OBITUARIES-WHO DIED IN 2015?

January 2015

January 1 - Mario Cuomo, 82, American politician, Governor of New York (1983-1994), heart failure.

January 1 - Donna Douglas,82,American actress (The Beverly Hillbillies,The Twilight Zone), pancreatic cancer.

January 2 - Little Jimmy Dickens, 94, American country music singer ("May the Bird "), cardiac arrest.

January 11 - Anita Ekberg, 83, Swedish actress (La Dolce Vita, Paris Holiday, Back from Eternity).

January 19 - Anne Kirkbride, 60, British actress (Coronation Street), breast cancer.

January 23 - Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, 90, Saudi royal, King (since 2005), complications from pneumonia.

January 24 - Joe Franklin, 88, American television and radio talk show host, prostate cancer.

January 27 - Rocky Bridges, 87, American baseball player (Cincinnati Reds, Washington Senators).

January 29 - Rod McKuen, 81, American poet, singer and songwriter ("Jean"), respiratory arrest.

January 30 - Geraldine McEwan,82,English actress (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves), stroke.

January 31 - Lizabeth Scott,92,American actress (Dead Reckoning) and singer,congestive heart failure.

February 2015

February 1 - Aldo Ciccolini, 89, French pianist.

February 6 - Norm Drucker, 94, American basketball referee.

February 6 - Alan Nunnelee,56,American politician, member of the U.S. House of Representatives,brain cancer.

February 10 - Naseer Aruri, 81, Palestinian scholar and human rights activist, Parkinson's disease.

February 16 - Lesley Gore, 68, American singer ("It's My Party") and actress (Batman), cancer.

February 16 - Lasse Braun, 78, Italian porn movie director and producer.

February 24 - Maurice Hurley,75,American television writer and producer (Baywatch, Miami Vice).

February 26 - Tom Schweich, 54, American politician, Missouri State Auditor (since 2011), suicide by gunshot.

February 27 - Mykhailo Chechetov, 61, Ukrainian politician, suicide.

March 2015

March 1 - Minnie Minso,92,Cuban baseball player (Chicago White Sox),complications from COPD.

March 3 - Ernest Braun, 89, Austrian-born British academic and author.

March 8 - Sam Simon, 59, American writer and producer (The Simpsons, The Drew Carey Show), colorectal cancer.

March 12 - Sir Terry Pratchett, 66, British author (Discworld series), chest infection.

March 14 - Valentin Rasputin, 77, Russian writer.[

March 15 - Xu Caihou, 71, Chinese general, bladder cancer.

March 16 - Bruce Crump, 57, American rock drummer (Molly Hatchet), throat cancer.

March 23 - Lee Kuan Yew, 91, Singaporean politician, Prime Minister (1959-1990), pneumonia.

March 26 - Tomas Transtremer, 83, Swedish poet and translator, awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature.

March 27 - B.J. Crosby, 63, American singer and actress (Smokey Joe's Cafe), diabetic stroke.

April 2015

April 2 - Manoel de Oliveira, 106, Portuguese movie director and screenwriter, heart failure.

April 2 - Robert H. Schuller, 88, American televangelist (Hour of Power), esophageal cancer.

April 4 - Elmer Lach, 97, Canadian ice hockey player (Montreal Canadiens), stroke.

April 5 - Richard Dysart, 86, American character actor (L.A. Law, Being There, The Thing).

April 6 - James Best,88,American actor (The Dukes of Hazzard,Ride Lonesome,),complications from pneumonia.

April 7 - Stan Freberg,88,American actor (Looney Tunes, Lady and the Tramp) and author, pneumonia.

April 9 - Nina Companeez, 77, French movie director and screenwriter.

April 10 - Paul Almond, 83, Canadian movie director (The Act of the Heart, Journey, Isabel), heart disease.

April 10 - Richie Benaud, 84, Australian cricket captain and television commentator, skin cancer.

April 13 - Gunter Grass,87,German novelist,Nobel Prize in Literature laureate (1999),lung infection.

April 13 - Eduardo Galeano, 74, Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist, lung cancer.

April 14 - Percy Sledge, 74, American R&B singer ("When a Man Loves a Woman"), liver cancer.

April 17 - Francis George,78,American,Archbishop of Chicago (1997-2014),bladder cancer.

April 22 - Dick Balharry, 77, Scottish conservationist, cancer.

April 26 - Jayne Meadows,95,Chinese-born American actress (I've Got a Secret,Song of the Thin Man).

April 27 - Verne Gagne,89,American professional wrestler and promoter (AWA),complications from dementia.

April 30 - Ben E. King, 76, American soul and R&B singer ("Stand by Me"), coronary heart disease.

May 2015

May 1 - Grace Lee Whitney, 85, American actress (Star Trek, Some Like It Hot, Irma la Douce).

May 2 - Ruth Rendell, 85, English crime novelist (Inspector Wexford series), stroke.

May 2 - Maya Plisetskaya, 89, Russian ballet dancer, heat attack.

May 6 - Jim Wright,92,American politician,Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (1987-1989).

May 9 - Kenan Evren, 97, Turkish military officer, President of Turkey (1980-1989).

May 9 - Elizabeth Wilson, 94, American actress (The Birds, The Graduate, 9 to 5), Tony Award winner (1972).

May 14 - B.B. King, 89, American Hall of Fame blues guitarist,complications from Alzheimer's disease.

May 19 - Happy Rockefeller,88,American socialite,Second Lady of the United States (1974-1977).

May 21 - Twinkle, 66, British singer-songwriter ("Terry"), cancer.

May 21 - Louis Johnson, 60, American bassist (The Brothers Johnson, Michael Jackson).

May 23 - John Forbes Nash, Jr., 86, American Nobel Prize-winning mathematician, car accident.

May 23 - Anne Meara,85,American comedian (Stiller and Meara) and actress (Archie Bunker's Place,Like Mike).

May 26 - Vicente Aranda, 88, Spanish movie director (Amantes).

May 27 - Nils Christie, 87, Norwegian criminologist.

May 29 - Betsy Palmer, 88, American actress (I've Got a Secret, Mister Roberts, Friday the 13th).

May 29 - Doris Hart, 89, American tennis player.

May 30 - Beau Biden, 46, American politician, Attorney General of Delaware (2007-2015), brain cancer.

June 2015

June 1 - Charles Kennedy,55,British politician,MP (1983-2015), hemorrhage.

June 1 - Jacques Parizeau, 84, Canadian politician, Premier of Quebec (1994-1996).

June 1 - Nicholas Liverpool, 80, Dominican politician, President (2003-2012), heart attack.

June 2 - Irwin Rose, 88, American biologist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2004).

June 5 - Alan Bond,77,Australian businessman,figure of the WA Inc scandals,complications from heart surgery.

June 5 - Tariq Aziz, 79, Iraqi politician, Foreign Affairs Minister (1983-1991), heart attack.

June 7 - Sir Christopher Lee,93,British actor and singer (The Lord of the Rings,Star Wars),heart failure.

June 11 - Ron Moody, 91, British actor (Oliver!, The Animals of Farthing Wood, EastEnders).

June 14 - Zito,82,Brazilian footballer,World Cup-winning team member (1958,1962),complications of a stroke.

June 17 - Seleyman Demirel, 90, Turkish politician, President (1993-2000), lung infection.

June 17 - Roberto M. Levingston, 95, Argentine politician, President (1970-1971).

June 22 - James Horner,61,American composer (Titanic,Field of Dreams),Oscar winner (1998),plane crash.

June 25 - Patrick Macnee, 93, English-American actor (The Avengers, This Is Spinal Tap, A View to a Kill).

June 27 - Chris Squire,67,English bass guitarist (Yes), acute erythroid leukemia.

July 2015

July 1 - Sir Nicholas Winton,106,British humanitarian,respiratory failure.

July 1 - Val Doonican, 88, Irish singer and television presenter (The Val Doonican Show).

July 5 - Yoichiro Nambu, 94, Japanese-born American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate, heart attack.

July 9 - Saud bin Faisal,75,Saudi royal,complications from Parkinson's disease.

July 10 - Omar Sharif, 83, Egyptian actor (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Funny Girl), heart attack.

July 11 - Satoru Iwata,55,Japanese businessman,president and CEO of Nintendo (since 2002),bile duct cancer.

July 17 - Jules Bianchi, 25, French Formula One driver, injuries sustained in competition collision.

July 21 - Theodore Bikel,91,Austrian-born American actor (My Fair Lady,), folk singer and composer.

July 21 - E. L. Doctorow,84,American author (Ragtime,Billy Bathgate),complications from lung cancer.

July 27 - A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, 83, Indian scientist and politician, President (2002-2007), heart attack.

July 30 - Lynn Anderson,67,American country singer ("(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden"), heart attack.

August 2015

August 1 - Cilla Black,72,British singer ("Anyone Who Had a Heart","You're My World") & actress,stroke.

August 3 - Robert Conquest, 98, American historian (The Great Terror), pneumonia.

August 7 - Frances Oldham Kelsey,101,Canadian-born American physician, Food and Drug Administration reviewer.

August 15 - Julian Bond,75,American civil rights activist,chairman of the NAACP (1998-2010), heart disease.

August 17 - Yvonne Craig,78,American actress (Batman, Star Trek: The Original Series, Olivia),breast cancer.

August 20 - Egon Bahr, 93, German politician, co-creator of the Ostpolitik.

August 22 - Ieng Thirith,83,Cambodian politician,complications from Alzheimer's disease.

August 28 - Al Arbour,82,Canadian ice hockey player (Detroit Red Wings) & coach (New York Islanders).

August 30 - Oliver Sacks,82,British neurologist and author,liver cancer.

August 30 - Wes Craven,76,American movie director,writer and producer, brain cancer.

September 2015

September 1 - Dean Jones,84,American actor (The Love Bug),complications from Parkinson's disease.

September 2 - Simo Salminen, 82, Finnish comic actor.

September 3 - Chandra Bahadur Dangi,75,Nepalese primordial dwarf,shortest man in recorded history,pneumonia.

September 6 - Martin Milner, 83, American actor (Adam-12, Valley of the Dolls, Route 66).

September 10 - Dick Moore,89,American actor (,Sergeant York,Miss Annie Rooney), complications from dementia.

September 13 - Moses Malone,60,American Hall of Fame basketball player (Houston Rockets),heart disease.

September 16 - Guy Beart, 85, French singer-songwriter, heart attack.

September 19 - Jackie Collins, 77, English novelist, breast cancer.

September 22 - Yogi Berra,90,American Hall of Fame baseball player,natural causes.

September 27 - Pietro Ingrao,100,Italian politician,journalist and partisan.

September 27 - Denise Lor, 86, American singer and actress.

September 28 - Ignacio Zoco, 76, Spanish footballer (Real Madrid).

September 28 - Frankie Ford, 76, American singer ("Sea Cruise").

September 29 - Phil Woods, 83, American saxophonist ("Just the Way You Are"), emphysema.

October 2015

October 1 - Don Edwards,100,American politician, member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1963-1995).

October 3 - Denis Healey,98,British politician,Secretary of State for Defence (196401970.

October 5 - Henning Mankell, 67, Swedish writer, cancer.

October 6 - Irpid Gincz, 93, Hungarian writer and politician, President (1990-2000).

October 9 - Geoffrey Howe,Baron Howe of Aberavon,88,British politician,heart attack.

October 10 - Richard F. Heck,84,American chemist,Nobel laureate in Chemistry (2010).

October 20 - Michael Meacher, 75, British politician, MP for Oldham West (1970-1997) (since 1997).

October 24 - Maureen O'Hara,95,Irish-American actress (Miracle on 34th Street,The Parent Trap).

October 30 - Al Molinaro,96,American actor (Happy Days),complications from infected gall bladder.

October 31 - Gregg Palmer, 88, American actor (Gunsmoke, Death Valley Days, The Virginian).

November 2015

November 1 - Fred Thompson,73,American politician and actor,U.S. Senator (1994-2003), lymphoma.

November 1 - Gunter Schabowski,86,German politician,,complications of a stroke.

November 3 - Ahmed Chalabi,71,Iraqi politician,Deputy Prime Minister (2005-2006,heart attack.

November 6 - Yitzhak Navon,94,Israeli politician, President (1978-1983).

November 10 - Andre Glucksmann, 78, French philosopher and writer.

November 10 - Helmut Schmidt,96,German politician,complications from surgery.

November 18 - Jonah Lomu, 40, New Zealand rugby union player (All Blacks), kidney failure.

November 22 - Kim Young-sam, 87, South Korean politician, President (1993-1998), heart failure.

November 23 - Douglass North,95,laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1993).

November 28 - Maurice Strong, 86, Canadian businessman and diplomat.[82] (death announced on this date)

November 30 - Greg Fisk,70,American politician,Mayor of Juneau,Alaska (2015),complications from a fall

December 2015

December 2 - George T. Sakato,94,American soldier, Medal of Honor recipient.

December 3 - Scott Weiland, 48, American musician (Stone Temple Pilots, Velvet Revolver,The Wondergirls).

December 4 - Robert Loggia,85 American actor (Scarface,Big),complications from Alzheimer's disease.

December 10 - Dolph Schayes, 87, American basketball player and coach (Philadelphia 76ers),cancer.

SPORTS

2015 WORLD SERIES

2015 SUPERBOWL

     Super Bowl XLIX was an American football game played to determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2014 season.The American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots defeated the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Seattle Seahawks, 28-24,to earn their fourth Super Bowl title. The game was played on February 1, 2015, at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.It was the second time the stadium has hosted a Super Bowl,and the third one held in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

    The Seahawks finished the regular season with a 12-4 record and made their second consecutive appearance in the Super Bowl,having defeated the Denver Broncos,43-8, in Super Bowl XLVIII,while the Patriots,who also posted a 12-4 record,joined the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers as one of the three teams to have made eight appearances in the Super Bowl For the second straight season,but only the third time in the prior 21 seasons,the number one seeds from both conferences met in the league championship game.Seattle became the first team to appear in consecutive Super Bowls since New England won two straight (XXXVIII and XXXIX).

After the teams were tied 14-14 at halftime,the Seahawks built a ten-point lead to end the third quarter.The Patriots,however,rallied to take a 28-24 lead with roughly two minutes left in the game.Seattle threatened to score in the final moments,driving the ball to New England's 1-yard line.With 26 seconds remaining in the game,they decided to pass the ball in a highly scrutinized play that resulted in Patriots rookie Malcolm Butler making a game-saving interception of Russell Wilson's throw. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was named the game's Most Valuable Player (MVP) after a Super Bowl-record 37 completions on 50 attempts for 328 yards,four touchdowns and two interceptions.

2015 NBA FINALS

   The 2015 NBA Finals was the championship series of the 2014-15 season of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the conclusion of the season's playoffs.The Western Conference champion Golden State Warriors defeated the Eastern Conference champion Cleveland Cavaliers in six games (4-2) for the Warriors' first title in 40 years and their fourth in franchise history, becoming the first team since the 1990-91 Chicago Bulls to win a championship without any prior Finals experience from any player in their roster.Golden State's Andre Iguodala was named the Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP).

   The Warriors were led by 2014-15 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) Stephen Curry, while the Cavaliers featured four-time league MVP LeBron James.Both teams entered the series with title droughts of four decades,with the Cavaliers having never won since their 1970-71 inception and the Warriors' last title having been in 1975.This was also the first time that both participating teams had first-year head coaches since the inaugural league finals in 1947,when the NBA was known as the Basketball Association of America. It was the fifth consecutive finals appearance for James who played for the Miami Heat the previous four seasons,making him the first NBA player since the Boston Celtics dynasty of the 1960s to achieve this.

      James also became the first player in NBA Finals history to lead both teams in points, assists and rebounds for the entire series.He averaged 35.8 points,13.3 rebounds and 8.8 assists for the series, although he shot below 40% throughout the series.

    For the second straight year, the Finals was played in the 2-2-1-1-1 format (Games 1,2,5 and 7 at Golden State,Games 3, 4, and 6 at Cleveland).The series began on June 4,2015 and ended on June 16,2015, and was televised in the United States on ABC and in Canada on TSN.

AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL GRAND FINAL 2015

ENTERTAINMENT

UPTOWN FUNK

  "Uptown Funk" by Bruno Mars & Mark Ronson was the #1 song for the entire year of 2015 in the USA,UK,Canada and Australia."Uptown Funk" is off of Ronson's fourth studio album,Uptown Special (2015). RCA Records released the song as the album's lead single on November 10,2014.Jeff Bhasker assisted the artists in co-writing and co-producing the track,with additional writing from Philip Lawrence.This is Mars' fourth collaboration with Ronson (following Mars' own songs "Locked Out of Heaven","Moonshine" and "Gorilla") and sixth with Bhasker (after "Talking to the Moon", "Young Girls" and the three previously mentioned songs).

    The single received widespread critical acclaim from music critics,receiving two Grammy Award nominations for Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. The song was also a global commercial success, spending fourteen consecutive weeks at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 (only one song in the over 75 year history of Billboard singles charts has spent more time at #1), seven non-consecutive weeks at number one on the UK Singles Chart,and topped the charts in several other countries including Australia,Canada,France,Ireland and New Zealand.In the week of January 25,2015,the song was streamed a record 2.34 million times in a single week in the UK,a record later surpassed by Ellie Goulding's "Love Me like You Do" (2.58 million streams).The latter song also beat "Uptown Funk" for the highest number of streams in one week worldwide,with 15.5 million."Uptown Funk" also set a new record for the highest number of streams in one week in the US,with 4.8 million streams.Worldwide,the song has accumulated an estimated 15.2 million points from sales and streams.In 2015,

"Uptown Funk" won Ronson the Brit Award for British Single of the Year.The video for "Uptown Funk" was also nominated for five MTV Video Music Awards in 2015,winning Best Male Video.According to US Billboard magazine,the song has earned $2.7 million in publishing royalties (excluding TV and film synchronization revenue),$1.9 million of which went to the writers based on their respective publishing deals.On June 24,2015,it was reported that Trinidad James earned over $150,000 USD in royalty earnings from Uptown Funk's interpolation.

    The song features heavy inspiration from the Minneapolis sound of 1980s-era funk music,having a spirit akin to works by Prince as well as Morris Day and The Time. Copyright controversies about "Uptown Funk" have dogged Ronson and Mars,with The Gap Band's three core members being added on as songwriters as part of a mutually settled agreement given the inspiration given to the track by "Oops! Upside Your Head".Serbian pop artist Viktorija has also argued that "Uptown Funk" infringed on her track "Ulice Mracne Nisu Za Devojke".

  The video received its billionth view on YouTube on September 15,2015 (UTC),becoming the ninth video on YouTube to receive over 1 billion views.

LEAN ON

  On my website I follow the music charts from five countries.Four of the countries (US,UK,Canada & Australia) ranked "Uptown Funk" as the number one song of 2015.But,the fifth country,New Zealand,ranked "Lean On" by the American electronic music group Major Lazer and French producer DJ Snake as the #1 song of 2015.

  "Lean On" is a song recorded by  Major Lazer,taken from the Lazer's third studio album,"Peace Is the Mission" (2015),featuring vocals from Danish singer Mo.It was produced by Major Lazer and DJ Snake and written by M0,Major Lazer member Diplo,DJ Snake,Jr. Blender and Martin Bresso."Lean On" was released through Mad Decent independently (Because Music for Europe WMG for Australia) as the lead single from the album on March 2,2015.It is a dance and electronic song being also described as a house music ballad.

    "Lean On" was a commercial success,peaking at number four on the US Billboard Hot 100 and at number two on the UK Singles Chart. It reached number one in several other countries including Australia,Syria,Ireland,the Netherlands,New Zealand,Denmark and Switzerland.In November 2015,"Lean On" was named by Spotify as the most streamed song of all time,with over 526 million streams, globally.The accompanying music video for "Lean On" was filmed in ND Studios,Karjat and Kaul Heritage City,Vasai in Maharashtra, India and premiered on March 23,2015.The video has over 910 million views on YouTube as of December 2015.

PLAYBOY'S PLAYMATE OF THE YEAR FOR 2015

      Dani Mathers born on January 5,1987 in Tarzana,California,is a model and an actress who is the Playboy Playmate of the Year for May 2015.Her Playmate pictorial was photographed in Cabo San Lucas,Mexico.Since 2005,she has appeared in a recurring role (as "Danica") on the CBS soap opera "The Bold and the Beautiful".She has also been a Playboy CyberGirl of the Month in January 2013 and appeared on the cover of Playboy Girls of Summer and she has also appeared on Playboy TV's Badass,Playboy Trip:

Patagonia,Playboy's Beach House and Camp Playboy.Mathers has also appeared on The Playboy Morning Show and had a role in a 2014 short film titled Thrilling Contradictions.

    Mather's says of her upbringing, "I'm from a big Jewish-Italian family.I was brought up playing in the mud,cheer leading and playing volleyball." She also

enjoys playing video games and recreational shooting.In 2014,along with Playmates Amelia Talon,Val Keil,Kimberly Phillips,Anna Sophia Berglund and Hugh Hefner's

son,Cooper,Mather's took part in an Ice Bucket Challenge in support of the ALS Association.In 2015,she was featured on the cover of Guitar World magazine's annual

Buyers Guide with fellow Playmates Nikki Leigh and Gemma Lee Farrell.

   Her measurements are: Bust: 33D

                         Waist: 22

                         Hips: 31

                         Height 5 ft 1 in (1.55 m)

                         Weight 100 lb (45 kg) 

                   CLOSING

      So much for the world in 2015.As for my world I started 2015 living in Chianyai,

Thailand and I will end 2015 living in Nakhon Sri Thammarat province in Thailand.I spent every day of 2015 except for 2 on Thailand soil and the other two days sorting out my visa in Malaysia.I am still a school teacher and still live in a house.All of my 20,000 Cds,records and tapes,Plus my huge Playboy collection are with me in my house.

I will probably (unless I am kidnapped by the CIA) be in Thailand for almost all of 2016.I now have not been on US soil in over 6 years (I left the USA on September 15th, 2009).If things go as I would like them to there is a good chance I may never see the USA again.I don't need the USA's war machine,I don't need their ghetto scenes.

   I met some new and interesting people in 2015.I also managed to hook up with some people who I haven't seen in quite some time.It was a pleasure to have all of them being part of my life this year.

  As far as the future goes I plan to continue to teach,work on my website and live in Thailand.For how much longer I do not know.I take life one day at a time.

  I have also not been busy writing my novel (book) about my travels.It is taking quite awhile because I have had many interruptions (i.e. working on my website www.hitsofalldecades.com).I might start working more diligently on my novel in about another 10 years.I am hoping for this book to be my bonanza.As Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones said back in 1967 "Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind".  

    Anyway,that is my year-end review for 2015.I hope you all had a cool year too and that you have lots of dreams to aim for in the next 12 months or so.Remember every second of your life you spend thinking of bad and negative thoughts is one second less your are spending thinking of good and positive thoughts and you don't get that one second back.So even if life does not deal you the cards you wanted just remember to

keep on dancing and enjoying the party.Have a fantastic Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate and I will e-mail you all individually when the time frame is not so narrow!! It's been great to have you all in

my year and my life!!!!

         Joyeaux Noel,Feliz Navidad,Frohliches Weihnachten,Merry Christmas  et la prochain

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