World Affairs

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Libyan government forces retake Zawiya

Rebels may be in trouble.

http://www.cnn.com/2....war/index.html

Yes, and Canada should be leading the charge in view of the resolutions we got passed at the UN fifty years ago instead of playing footsie with the rest of the world. Shame on us.

Reuters Newswire Roundup

  Edited March 11, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Update on Libya: Arab League requests no-fly zone.

Somebody better get this done. People are being killed by the minute. The Arab League should send in peacemakers/peacekeepers.

Qaddafi forces snapping back.

Full military might against his own people. Sound familiar? Who was that guy? Oh yes, Pol Phot.

  Edited March 12, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Bahrain:

My link

Religious civil war?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Libyan civil war: Nearing the end.

Well, the called-for no-fly zone is now too late. The madman of Libya is going to win because there are no world powers worthy of the name. Everybody is afraid of what everybody else will think of them and are afraid that trade relations and oil prices will be further upset, I suppose.

Congratulations, Mr. Chamberlain, after eighty years or so, you've won another 'Peace in our time'.

The procrastination at the UN has now put paid to that organization in the same manner as the League of Nations. It has talked itself into the status of a toothless old lion, and is now prey to any jackal that comes along. The Arab League is not interested in peace, only stability at any price, and it really isn't NATO's patch. The OAS is a set of like-minded satraps, so sat on its hands, or maybe found ways to beef up the new Hitler. We seem to get one of these creeps early in every century. The current triplet of Bonaparte, Hitler, and Qaddafi will live in infamy forever. The question now is will Qaddafi stop at the border, or is Egypt next?

The United States has now abdicated its position as "world policeman".

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[Cobraroll 138]

If Ghadaffi goes for Egypt, things will happen. Unlike in Libya, where the rebels grabbed whatever weapons they could find and went up against the regime, Egypt has a fully-functional army and a country full of people who just have overthrown a dictator. Granted, I don't know a lot about the armed forces of Egypt, but I bet they've been doing their best to avoid another humilitation like the six-day war, and the army would surely be able to throw a few nasty surprises at an eventual Israeli invation. The Libyan army, outdated and split in its view on its current regime, wouldn't get far into Egypt, never mind take over the entire country.

Actually, I wonder more about which country will invade Libya. First.

[Odainsaker 2,135]

There is light at the end of the tunnel...

We are, in conjunction with our foreign representative counterparts, actively considering a multilateral discussion on the draft resolution to the amendment to the resolution to authorize continued serious monitoring of the situation in Libya. If Libyan government forces do not immediately move to express safeguards for the protection of the Libyan civilian population, we may later further circulate a sealed diplomatic cable to the capitals of the other Security Council members suggesting the scheduling of a meeting of a G-8 emergency conference to issue a joint-communiqué wherein we may concertedly call tentatively for the involved parties to voluntarily observe a potentially proposed, non-binding, bilateral cease-fire agreement. If the Libyan government then continues to remain provocatively intransigent, we may furthermore defer the issue to a special advisory sub-commission of the UN Human Rights Council chaired by Sudan for consultation in the future drafting of a later inter-governmental committee report to the UN Secretary General. We warn the Libyan government that such a report may be strenuously worded.

Nevermind, Russia and China already automatically object, Europe has gotten cold feet, donor and underwriter Japan has other pressing issues, and the U.S. will no longer do this alone with its back exposed.

Peace in our time, indeed! Ah well, switching back to more gripping coverage on NHK now, which no doubt suits Gadhafi and his offensive plans just fine.

  Edited March 17, 2011 by Odainsaker  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I wanted to ROFL, but it is too serious. Such a load of bafflegab! You must have studied amphigory in your youth. I think your light is the oncoming train.

But seriously, do you suppose after Qaddafi has killed all his opposition he will require personal oaths of allegiance to him? I think he has been reading Mein Kampf.

On the Afghanistani mess: There was an interview on last night's CBC national with one of the terrorists who shot and killed 40 people in a bank in Kabul. He is young, illiterate, and pretty much mind controlled by someone else. He said he thought all the people in the bank were westerners wearing native clothing. He admitted he had never seen a westerner. I'd link it, but trying to link from that site hangs my browser. You can try it yourself at cbc.ca/national. The Afghans will execute him, but that is not a solution. If things were less messy over there, I'd like to try to deprogram him and see if I could get to the controllers. The whole business is revolting.

  Edited March 17, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Update on Libya: Sorry for a double post on the same day, but this is important. The UN Resolution text disallows boots on the ground. It does do some pretty stringent things and invites interested members to assist with the No-Fly zone, and sets out the rules for it. The Guardian site also says there is a party going on in Benghazi at the moment. I don't blame them. It was very close.

Now we see what happens next.

I think some of the boots that are not on the ground should capture Qaddafi and his clan, and spirit them to the Hague.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Too late?

One wonders how many people died while Nero fiddled in New York.

_____________________________________________________________________

Update: 04:59 PM

French aircraft have made strikes on armored vehicles and the Brit and Yank boomers have sent a few tomahawks to take out critical points in the monster's command and control systems. It only goes to show that everyone was champing at the bit.

Six CF18's have just arrived in Italy and are in turn around after arrival. Since they left last evening from Bagotville, Quebec, I suspect the pilots need to sleep now. They touched at Gatwick for refueling.

Idle threats are being made by the sycophants of Qaddafi. "Repercussions" they say? What did they have in mind? Are they going to encourage more terrorists than they have in the past? The propaganda BS has started. We should have got that S.O.B. after the Lockerbee bombing.

  Edited March 19, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[iuri99 48]

To everyone:

Do you believe UN can solve someday the world conflict troubles?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

To everyone:

Do you believe UN can solve someday the world conflict troubles?

Only after the moon collides with the earth.

[airman15 4,111]

To everyone:

Do you believe UN can solve someday the world conflict troubles?

The UN was formed after WWII to try and prevent future conflicts. Unfortunately, there will always be political conflicts every year. The reason why the US gets involved these types of conflicts is because out of the 5 permanent members (USA, PRC, GB, Fr. and Russ.) for the security council, USA leads operations while the others help with coalition. Despite efforts to try and end these conflicts, fighting will still continue, even if its trying to prevent military forces from attacking civilians.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Libyan civil war update: The UN coalition is now shilly-shallying over whether to arm the rebels. This is a natural consequence of trying to wage a "little war". God help us! We seem to have bought into another Afghanistan.

Some American fear mongers are talking about Al Q'eida influences among the rebels. News people on the ground have said nothing about this, and I don't believe they are unobservant.

I cannot sanction putting boots on the ground in Libya, but this appears to be the French (and American) position. If we can ship them arms (nothing major) without setting foot on the ground, then maybe. However, the action by the UN was to prevent a genocide, and we probably should not take sides in a civil war.

[airman15 4,111]

We all have been fighting for too long. Everybody dreams of world peace, yet some people want to rule the world (exaggeration). In the previous millennium (1000ad-2000ad) humankind only saw a total of 180 days of peace. When we are supposed to work together for a better society, we are all too busy fighting eachother...

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Story. Notice the spin on this. The Yanks are no longer in command, so they try to wash their hands of the whole thing. BS for home consumption?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

How fundamentalist Christian stupidity can erase all the work done by a years long UN mission in which we have all sacrificed lives.

They don't burn our holy books, or any books for that matter. Burning books went out with Hitler.

Americans must feel very safe inside their own little world when they take the freedoms granted by their constitution to be license to outrage the rest of us. People who cause international unrest by such actions should be taken before the world court to explain what they thought they were doing when they got all those people killed.

I am not amused.

[-Lexus- 2]

How fundamentalist Christian stupidity can erase all the work done by a years long UN mission in which we have all sacrificed lives.

They don't burn our holy books, or any books for that matter. Burning books went out with Hitler.

Americans must feel very safe inside their own little world when they take the freedoms granted by their constitution to be license to outrage the rest of us. People who cause international unrest by such actions should be taken before the world court to explain what they thought they were doing when they got all those people killed.

I am not amused.

Yeah they should hang that idiot for being responsible for the death of several people.

At the other hand, those Muslims need to take a chill pill. I mean seriously, I get that they are angry and outraged by it, but cutting of the head of a bunch of UN workers (who werent even American!) is not good publicity for their religion and will only cause more people to see them as backward barbarians. In a way, they just totally justified the whole argument behind that guy burning the Quran.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

From my perspective, Islam is in the "deus vult" stage that Christianity was in about 700 years ago. History is busily repeating itself. The only thing missing in the Muslim world is a Grand Inquisitor, and an official hierarchy.

Since there is no central authority in Islam, much like Judaism, there is no good way to fix this short of world literacy and general education. Most of these people are illiterate, and I would be surprised if they can even read their holy book. All those signs and banners they carry were written by some other literate persons, then they were turned loose. The fault is in their Imams.

[airman15 4,111]

I have always been skeptical of religion. Religion is like a double-sided sword. Yes religion brings peace of mind and brings out the good in many people (Thou shall not kill, Thou shall not sleep with thy neighbor's wife) but then you have they type of people who are judgemental or how about the people who say non-believers should all die. I personally believe that there is a higher power somewhere in the universe and I read through scriptures of multiple religions. But I don't believe people, even innocent people deserve to burn in hell because they weren't perfect. We are all human, we are all imperfect in one way or another

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Amen.

However, the concept that I can throw mud on you without consequence is one of the dangers of living in a "free" country. In the case of the Islamic community, who is going to throw mud at the "Rev" Jones? Burning a Bible wouldn't matter to us, it is just print. In Islam, the physical Koran has the standing of a sacramental, so it is like urinating in the communion cup.

However, the Koran is just a printed book. And the ashes of it have blown away on the wind. Beheading people in retaliation, no matter who, is an act of barbarism. Should we all pull out, and leave the barbarians to themselves to sort themselves out? Can we do without them? Of course we can. It is just a matter of a slight adjustment n life style on our part.

One of the benefits of completely isolating Afghanistan is the drop in availability of illegal opiates. What do you suppose the down side would be?

No one, not Alexander the Great, the Romans, the Holy Roman Empire, the British Raj, the Russians, nor we have ever subdued Afghanistan, and we never will. Why do we feel we must climb that old mountain again and again? Let the Islamic world sort itself out.

[Cobraroll 138]

^Thing is... how would you isolate Afghanistan? There are mountains practically everywhere, and where would you get enough personnel to look over the borders? If opiates are grown in the country, somebody will find a way to get it out of it. I mean, look at Gaza: Even Israel, in conjunction with Egypt, can't prevent the traffic in and out of the place, and its size can be measured in soccer fields. Now how would you lock down the Afghani borders (5,529 kilometres)? Litter them with radioactive waste? Deploy the entire US army? Loads and loads of barbed wire? Mines? In reality, protecting such a huge area from people who know the terrain is an impossible task.

Just ignoring Afghanistan, preventing that "there's nothing there, and they who live there will have to make things work themselves", would just make the situation worse. Al-Qaeda would return and keep tyrannizing the population, and they would be free to use the entire country as a training ground for terrorists.

I'd say, invest in Afghanistan instead of oppressing it. People fight for Taliban because they have no argument against being recruited by force, and they grow opiates because that's what makes money. The occassional non-Taliban bandits fight out of necessity; nobody will give them work, so they have to take what they need.

Too bad that the West have managed to corner themselves. Thanks to massive propaganda, anything west of Turkey is regarded as a large evil empire by most native Afghani. Nobody will trust Western corporations any more, they are just the same "evil Americans" fighting without uniforms. China finds itself in a good position here. First employing the Afghani, giving them a relatively safe and stable source of income, then making them dependant on the corporations to live, all the while making profit and building infrastructure. Any vocal extremists can be silenced; after all the Chinese have quite a bit of experience with this... and starting an armed rebellion against the PLA is definite suicide.

[Easy Bakes 253]

I don't think he wants to lock down the borders.

Just leave to them alone. eventually people get sick of tyranny and do something about it themselves.

The worlds big powers keep trying to subdue this area and have been for a 1000+ years.

China will have no better luck then we or the soviets in the hight of thier power did.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Quite correct, EB. Just butt out. The Taliban and friends are just a passing fancy, because they can never subdue the mountain tribes nor the Pushtuns. There probably is nothing there worth the labor and bloodshed. I could care less who rules the area around Kabul, which is all a takeover would get any one trying to rule the country.

The dope trade you will always have with you, but we can hamper it by not giving them any modern means of transportation. Let them pack it over the mountains. If we just closed the Khyber Pass, it would cut their commerce considerably. I gather that could be done with a big enough dynamite explosion. It would be up to the Pakistanis, Russians and Chinese to interdict their borders, though I doubt the Pakistanis could do it considering they can't control that area very well.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, let's all pick up our balls and go home. The budgetary savings alone would pay for a health care system in the U.S. and pay for our new fighter jets that Stevie says we need. We might even be able to afford some submarines that worked, torpedoes for them, and a few new ships to replace the old boats that have reached the end of their seaworthiness.

In 1945 Canada had the third largest navy in the world. Blech! Look at it now.

  Edited April 9, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Cobraroll 138]

I still don't see what good it would be to ignore Afghanistan. I mean, until 9/11, the West largely did just that, and Taliban used the country as their pwn playground, and had numerous training camps for their "holy warriors" out in the open. The guys who took down the WTC, the London bombers, the Madrid bombers, and numerous others... trained by Taliban/Al-Qaeda in their Afghan training camps. If there was nothing to lose going out of Afghanistan, why do you think we're still there?

Sadly, the war in Afghanistan is a money drain, it's close to unwinnable, and people die, but the alternative - increased risk of terror operations all over the globe (mind you, not every government can pay for the security measures we have everywhere in the West), the propaganda effect similiar to the one Viet Cong enjoyed, and a generally worse way of life for the civilian population. When the country is chock full of soldiers, at least we kan keep Taliban at bay until the Western propaganda machine takes effect. In a few years, those who were born after the fall of Taliban will finish education, gain the right to vote, and serve in the armed forces. Perhaps even moderate Islam will start to spread through the Arab world as an effect of the Northern African uprising, and the kids will learn of a peaceful way of life from somebody else than the "evil Westerners". We are still needed in Afghanistan. We will manage to change things for the better there, given enough time. If we quit now, things will be worse than ever before. The generation growing up now is the moderatist "foothold" we're building there.

The British failed because they kept Afghanistan for exploit only, and did little good for the people living in the country. The Soviets failed because all they were after was a military conquest. The West will fail if we don't give the slow-moving mechanisms time to work. When the civilian population benefit from the system, things will happen automatically - but again, it will take time.

[hym 358]

Sadly, the war in Afghanistan is a money drain, it's close to unwinnable, and people die, but the alternative - increased risk of terror operations all over the globe (mind you, not every government can pay for the security measures we have everywhere in the West), the propaganda effect similiar to the one Viet Cong enjoyed, and a generally worse way of life for the civilian population. When the country is chock full of soldiers, at least we kan keep Taliban at bay until the Western propaganda machine takes effect. In a few years, those who were born after the fall of Taliban will finish education, gain the right to vote, and serve in the armed forces. Perhaps even moderate Islam will start to spread through the Arab world as an effect of the Northern African uprising, and the kids will learn of a peaceful way of life from somebody else than the "evil Westerners". We are still needed in Afghanistan. We will manage to change things for the better there, given enough time. If we quit now, things will be worse than ever before. The generation growing up now is the moderatist "foothold" we're building there.

Collectively, that part of the world has an extremely long memory, and for the world to realize the benefits you are speaking of, we would need to commit to literally 50-100 years of occupation, with hardly a single screw up during all those years, and no I'm not exaggerating that claim in the least. When the US started sending troops to build support with various tribal leaders in the areas of military interest, soldiers reported finding myriad tribes who were still engaged in warfare with other tribes over a goat that was stolen over 60 years ago (or some other such thing).

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The problem is not Afghanistan. Left to itself, it would be fine.

The problem is those criminal organizations that are taking general advantage of the low literacy rate among Muslims in the Middle East and Far East. There never was a high rate, even at the time of their greatest glory during the Moorish Empire period. The general populace has always depended on the "educated" to look after their communications needs, like writing letters and so forth.

The problem we have now stems from their general ignorance, and the fact that the criminals pretending to be Muslims are taking advantage of them and the Qu'ran by misinterpreting Islam to them. This is aggravated by the global village that has sprung up due to the communications net. This allows the puppet-masters to move more freely among us, and among the Muslim general populace.

The Christian crusades set the tone, and were partially responsible for the fall of the Moorish Empire. The greed of the Spaniards was insatiable, and here were all those nice palaces and treasuries just to the south in Granada. To top it all off, the Moors were all heretics, and the Inquisition had a great old time toasting people.

Clots like Richard Coeur de Leon didn't help this, nor popes who screamed "deus vult" (God wills it.). How a medieval pope would know that is a good question, considering they had people like the Borgias running the Holy See. The Christian hierarchy simply took the main chance, and now we are partially reaping the third or fourth crop that they have sewn. They sewed the wind.

There is no point in talking about the contents of the Qu'ran. Unless you read Arabic perfectly (I don't) there is no way to know what's really in there. In fact, all holy books were written in a vernacular that is no longer spoken by anyone alive, including the Bible, which was written in not one, but several ancient languages, by many authors, some of whom had the previous texts open in their laps. John the Evangelist is a good (bad) example. So, other than tolerating others religious preferences, let us leave all that out of the argument.

About Osama bin Laden: Whether he is alive seems to be a matter of conjecture, but Al Jezeera thinks he is. Whether he is or not is no longer relevant. Al Qu'eida is a full scale cell-oriented guerrilla system now, and it doesn't need him, dead or alive. If he were proven dead, he would be "The Great Martyr", and if anyone on our side caught him, they should be very quiet about it, and just put him away in the nearest oubliette. Nothing we could do to him publicly would do anything except to exacerbate things.

Islam is set up so that every Muslim can talk to Allah without any intermediary. Imams and Ayatollahs are inventions of the Shi'a, and are really just the priests of a schism. The rest of Islam seems to get along without them, but they do have scholars similar in rank to a Jewish Rabbi. Both the Moorish and the Ottoman empires, needing structure, invented a lot of titles we don't see any more. When was the last time we saw someone with the title of Khalif? The title Sheik (pronounced shake I believe) denotes a tribal leader. The Saudis have abandoned the Moorish titles for the titles of Kings and Princes. The whole business is a horrible mess.

The problems of an insular people such as the Muslims are many, but literacy of the masses would solve a lot of them. It is, in my humble opinion, the only good approach. Remember, the Christian community was in the deep clutches of the literate clerics until the invention of the printing press and the translation of the Bible into the vernacular, together with more wide-spread literacy. Let us quit shooting at them, put up shields, and start teaching all of them to read and write.

[krbe 193]

There is no point in talking about the contents of the Qu'ran. Unless you read Arabic perfectly (I don't) there is no way to know what's really in there.

What kind of argument is that? Are you suggesting that Arabic cannot be conveyed in another language?

In fact, all holy books were written in a vernacular that is no longer spoken by anyone alive,

Or are you rather arguing, that despite our ability to read the Koran in Arabic (which, if I remember right, hasn't been revised lately), and our ability to translate it, is all imagination?

including the Bible, which was written in not one, but several ancient languages, by many authors, some of whom had the previous texts open in their laps.

Including Aramaic, which is still spoken, and Hebrew, which was revived 1500 years after it died out – which must mean it was revived from something.

When was the last time we saw someone with the title of Khalif? The title Sheik (pronounced shake I believe) denotes a tribal leader. The Saudis have abandoned the Moorish titles for the titles of Kings and Princes.

The Caliph was last seen in 1924. Fittingly for a religious leader, many Muslims deem no man to be worthy enough to be leader of all Muslims, though of course the Caliphat is the end goal for some Muslim movements, including al-Qaida. Sheikh is one who's either a learned Muslim -- or a host of other things. In Pakistan, it's just a surname. And the Saudi king is not a king; in Arabic he's a Maleek I believe. Whatever he's called in Arabic doesn't matter, because it is the function that is translated. See for example the English title The Prince of Monaco -- a title I always feel is awkward, because in my Germanic language a prince is something else. It doesn't mean it is a wrong translation for that matter.

[-Lexus- 2]

It remains to be seen though how effective occupying Afghanistan is in the fight against terrorist organizations. I mean, Al Qaida isnt bound to Aghanistan, its not like a normal government that can be destroyed or conquered. Chase them out of one country, and they will go to the next one. Without a significant change in the Muslim attitude towards the west and the things it stands for, I doubt it really matters what countries you invade. All it will do is cause more people to join Al Qaida.

Then how to change the attitude towards the Islam? Total indifference towards the whole region would be the best. That means no more cheap oil by being good friends with the local dictator and no more supporting Israel in any way. Leave the whole region to rot. Only do something if they are so stupid to attack Europe or another non Islamic country or when they ask for our support like in Libya. Otherwise, treat them like we dont care what they do as long as they dont bother us. That would require a drastic change in US foreign policies and energy policies though, and I dont think the US has the will left to reinvent itself.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

A guerrilla movement is like a virus disease. You have to stamp it out cell by cell, and can never be sure you've wiped out the last one because they often don't communicate with each other except by indirect means. I am very much afraid that Al Qu'aida will always be with us, just as the anarchist movement has never really gone away. In fact, the anarchists seem to be having a revival right now if the behavior of their adherents at the Toronto G20 are any example.

So, that is one (or two) of the current international problems. The unrest in Islam is another. Dare we ignore the middle east? I doubt it since both Turkey and Greece are members of NATO, and as far as I am concerned are both middle eastern countries, though Greece is not Islamic.

The present unpleasantness in Libya could not be avoided. Qaddafi was taking pages from Hitler's notebook, and that can't be allowed under any circumstances. Recent events over there with the OAS have shown that the rebels can be just as intransigent as any other group in that part of the world. One of the real problems in Libya with the rebel faction(s?) is that they have no military leadership of any kind. They have no idea about strategy and tactics. Another problem is that the troops are prone to firing of "joy shots", which not only is dangerous to people around them since what goes up must come down, but also wastes hard won ammunition. This will have to be sat on pretty soon and they need to be impressed that cartridges are not free.

The Egyptian people are having a problem now that the real rulers of Egypt (the army) have shown their colors. All this yelling about democracy would be fine, if they knew what it was, eh? I still thing the pundits are right to say what what they really want is economic freedom. Even if the generals wanted to give it to them, it will take a long time, but I expect they are running out of patience on both sides. They want it NOW! and will have a tantrum if they don't get it. They might want to see what switches are in the closet before they get carried away.

The middle east seems to be coming to a boil everywhere. Many of the "rulers" are attempting to lance this boil by force of arms, and will probably succeed for a while. However, they have forgotten that who ever rules, does so with the consent of the ruled. Sooner or later, they will be removed, forcibly or otherwise. None of them is immortal.

Turning to the Japanese, they seem to be having a series of after shocks that are around magnitude 7. In ordinary cases, a magnitude 7 shock is quite serious, but compared to a magnitude 9, it is a little shake. Meanwhile, they have stopped their radioactive leaks and are now going through a power crisis. Some Japanese automobile manufacturers are having problems keeping up with supply orders for JIT plants in North America with the result of lost shifts and plant shutdowns. So not only is their economy in a mess, but it is affecting the rest of the world as well. Any business that is dependent on supply from a Japanese source without an alternative is now in real trouble. Since the rest of the world is just recovering from the financial banditry that occurred, this is a serious blow and may stop the recovery in some countries.

The IMF has blathered on about restoring continued growth. The whole idea of growth without limit is illogical and dangerous. Things that do that tend to eventually collapse of their own weight. Continued inflation is a positive feedback loop that will eventually break the machine. The best example extant is Germany after the Treaty (Treatment?) of Versailles. Inflation was running many percent per day, with the result that the mark wasn't even good for toilet paper. It is a cautionary tale, and the follow on is a horror story we cannot afford to repeat.

The Canadian election is all about spending and whom do you trust. As a Canadian, I want to elect Mr. None of the Above. We need a new set of hoods and boodlers to run the Ottawa show.

In the U.S., the 2011 presidential election is now officially on, as the candidates have registered and are now campaigning. I think the whole thing is a slippery slope for whoever wants to redecorate the White House. It is starting to look like a money argument or (hope not) a battle over the birthplace of one of the candidates. I thought Canadians were good a mud slinging, but these guys are off to a very fast start.

So, that about wraps up world affairs from my perspective at the moment. There is other excitement going on, but it hasn't caught my eye today.

[zahrul3 472]

BBC News Headlines:

Nato 'not doing enough' in Libya

Well, peace is a better solution to end civillian deaths. The rebels decline every ceasefire talks with them, though its extremely unlikely to end that way. A small solution is to give independence to Cyrenia(an area dominated by rebels).

Japan nuke leak

The leak is still leaking though the operator hasn't found a way to close the tiny leak. It should be covered in a 30cm thick concrete sarcophagus like in Chernobyl. It hasn't happened yet now...