Friday Post

It's time for the week-end.


More on the inexplicable loss of Malaysia Airlines flight 370:

First, Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 was suspected of disappearing 100 miles off the east coast of Malaysia, in the Gulf of Thailand. Initially, the time was reported as 2:30 a.m. Then, it was confirmed at 1:30 p.m., about 45 minutes after take off.

And the search and rescue mission was on. At last count, there were at least eight nations contributing some 43 ships and 39 aircraft to scour an area of 92,600 square kilometers (35,800 square miles).

Then, on Monday, a Malaysia military officer told Reuters that military radar had tracked Flight 370 to a location over the small island of Pulau Perak in the Strait of Malacca - west of Malaysia. That would suggest that after civilian air traffic control lost contact with the plane, it had turned around and flown west for an hour and 10 minutes.

Then, today, Malaysia’s Air Force Chief Tan Sir Rodzali Daud said that the last military radar signal from MH370 was at 2:15 a.m.Saturday, 200 miles northwest of Penang, Malaysia. So, Malaysia alerted the Indian military to begin search and rescue operations, because that signal would indicate that the plane was heading toward the Andaman Sea, and Indian waters.

This latest radar report raises questions about timing too. How could Flight 370 have flown over Pulau Perak at 2:40 a.m. if it was heading northwest toward India at 2:15 a.m. Or did Flight 370 fly northwest toward the Andaman Sea, and then turn south toward Pulau Perak?

Does anyone have any ruddy idea what is going on? Planes like that don't just go missing.


Putin has the Crimea. The US, still the only superpower on Earth to challenge Russia, is having a hard time convincing anyone of its resolve with words like "regrettable":

 Russia's failure to take steps to ease the crisis in Ukraine is "regrettable" and the United States is ready to respond quickly following a referendum planned for Sunday on whether Ukraine's Crimea region should join Russia, the White House said on Friday.

(Sidebar: why not do what Canada has done and refuse to recognise the Russian-led referendum entirely? Oh yeah... no spine or scruples. Try visiting Ukraine. Harper is.)

Is anyone going to apply sanctions that really hurt Putin? No?

Also: Putin has blocked access to independent blogs and sites:

Russia's government moved to tighten its control of the media today, cracking down on independent news sites, bloggers and dissident politicians.

Russia's Prosecutor General issued a directive to all Internet service providers (ISPs) late on Thursday night, demanding that they block an extensive list of major news sites, and system administrators have been ordered to take the offending media sites offline.

The sites are ostensibly blocked for "distributing calls for unauthorised mass events".

The banned sites include the online newspaper Grani, as well as the Anti-Putin information site kasparov.ru, run by chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, and even the site of Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow), a radio station which is majority owned by the state.

Popular anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny also had his livejournal blog blocked, with the government claiming it violated the terms of his house arrest, which places stringent restrictions on his access to the Internet.

Remember- Ukraine hasn't been invaded, Putin is not only there to help,but he is a Christian force for good in Russia and everyone against him is evil.

Now let's have no more talk about this bizarre cover-up.


Any attack ad against Liberal douchebag leader Justin Trudeau need only consist of his many, many, many gaffes.


Things are not looking good for Alberta Premier Alison Redford:

Calgary-Foothills MLA Len Webber quit the PC caucus Thursday and will sit as an independent to protest the leadership of Redford.

"She's just really not a nice lady — I can be honest with you there. I cannot work for an individual who treats people poorly, who treats our taxpaying dollars poorly," the 53-year-old backbencher told reporters Thursday morning.

Webber said the premier is prone to tantrums and fits of rage.

Redford declined comment on Webber's resignation yesterday as she left Government House, where her caucus was meeting without her to hash out matters in a private discussion.

On the North Korean front:

The left wouldn't even let the North Koreans eat cake. Michael Kirby responds to vicious criticism:

Am I “talking rubbish”? I asked myself. Have I sold out to the capitalist oppressors? Have I been taken in naively by “human scum” giving fake testimony?

These are the questions that recent media comments on the UN report on human rights violations in North Korea have presented to my mind.

There have been many media stories since the UN report first went online on February 18, 2014. But two articles struck a jarring note.

The first report in question was an editorial in a newspaper called The Guardian. Its headline declared that the recent UN report was “Demonising the DPRK”. DPRK are the initials of the official title of North Korea. So I read the anguished opening words with concern. They declared that: “from the day of its foundation” the DPRK “hasn't had a moments rest from outside interference. Sabotage, invasion, mass destruction, germ warfare, nuclear threat, encirclement and crippling economic blockade have all been used in the US-led attempt to remove this impediment to regional domination…”.

The writer denounced my analogies to the Nazi atrocities stating they drew a long bow. But he made no reference to the witness, quoted in the report, who complained of having to burn hundreds of bodies of prisoners who starved to death, and buried the ashes and remains in the nearby fields as fertiliser. Nor reference to other horrors recounted on virtually every page of the report.

When I looked more closely, I found that this Guardian was published by the Communist Party of Australia. I thought that CPA had been wound up in the 1990s, when the fall of the Berlin Wall put an end to defence of Stalinist oppression in the face of overwhelming evidence of gross wrongdoing. But not so. This was not, after all, the English Guardian newspaper: successor to the Manchester Guardian: a professional journal with a generally liberal tradition. What a relief.

This is the left and this is what they stand for. Who else would attack eye witness testimony or defend the dead monster, Kim Jong-Il?

The Chong Chon Gang was seized in late August of last year. What has been uncovered on it is quite surprising:

72. The Panel found that the hidden cargo (see figure XI, a complete list at annex VII and detailed analysis at annex VIII) amounted to six trailers associated with surface-to-air missile systems and 25 shipping containers loaded with two disassembled MiG-21 aircraft, 15 engines for MiG-21 aircraft, components for surface-to-air missile systems, ammunition and miscellaneous arms-related materiel. This constituted the largest amount of arms and related materiel interdicted to or from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea since the adoption of resolution 1718 (2006)

 
Sanctions?


Read the whole thing.


(Kamsahamnida)


In sad news, the "kissing sailor" from Alfred Eisenstadt's famous photograph has died:

The sailor kissing the nurse in the famous end of World War II celebration of V-J day photo taken Aug. 14, 1945 in Times Square has died.

Glenn Edward McDuffie died on Sunday at the age of 86. Lois Gibson, a forensic artist, proved positively McDuffie was the sailor in August 2007 after many men had claimed to be the man in the photo.

McDuffie was born in Kannapolis, N.C. on Aug. 3, 1927. He joined the U.S. Navy at age 15 in 1942 after he found a friend to forge his mother’s signature and amenable notary public.