Monday Post

In the middle...


It was a busy week-end in history.

On July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong became  the first man to walk on the moon. A French soldier serving under Napoleon found the Rosetta Stone on July 19th, 1799. On July 18th, 1969, Ted Kennedy let Mary Jo Kopechne die in Chappaquiddick.

History: not just a rich and fascinating subject but a lesson for us all.


Four days after Russian separatists shot down a Malaysia Airlines flight 17, Ukrainians hand over the black boxes of the downed air craft:

A senior separatist leader, Aleksander Borodai, handed over two black boxes from an airliner downed over eastern Ukraine to Malaysian experts in the city of Donetsk in the early hours of Tuesday.

"Here they are, the black boxes," Borodai told a room packed with journalists at the headquarters of his self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic as an armed rebel placed the boxes on a desk.

Both sides then signed a document, which Borodai said was a protocol to finalise the procedure after lengthy talks with the Malaysians. 

"I can see that the black boxes are intact, although a bit damaged. In good condition," Colonel Mohamed Sakri of Malaysian National Security Council said in extending his thanks to "His Excellency Mr.Borodai" for passing on the recorders.

Borodai also said a train carrying the remains of the victims of the Malaysia Airlines plane catastrophe has reached Donetsk. It is on its way to Kharkiv, some 300 km (186 miles) north-west.

The Malaysian experts and a Dutch delegation also on site in Donetsk will travel along with it, he said.

Meanwhile, Russian separatists have been tampering with evidence and bodies, one Russian rebel leader claimed the bodies were somehow planted, a Dutch politician issued some vague threat to Putin (which I'm sure was ignored and forgotten) and a Sky reporter rifles through the belongings of the deceased.

Question: why wasn't this treated as a crime scene and sealed off?

Oh yeah- Europe.


Israel continues to destroy Hamas' tunnels through which it infiltrated Israel, kidnapped soldiers and ran weapons. As each dead sandbag Palestinian is somehow seen as a victory for the emotionally retarded Hamas, the death toll has climbed to five hundred.

There are now five hundred more reasons for thugs all across the globe to attack Jews and Israel supporters (though the numbers of the indignant are quite questionable).







Moving on...


Asian opinion of the Chinese has soured greatly:
 

A more interesting item, noted in The Washington Post, is a graphic of Pew Research polling data from Asian countries showing that majorities (or strong majorities) throughout the region are afraid of China’s bad touch. In all, 83% of South Koreans, 85% of Japanese, 84% of Vietnamese, and 93% of Filipinos are either “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” that “territorial disputes between China and its neighbors will lead to a military conflict.” Most shockingly of all, 62% of Chinese agree.

Taiwan was not surveyed.

Why are we trading with them?

McDonald's and KFC in China faced a new food safety scare Monday after a Shanghai television station reported a supplier sold them expired beef and chicken.

The companies said they immediately stopped using meat from the supplier, Husi Food Co., Ltd. The Shanghai office of China's food and drug agency said it was investigating and told customers to suspend use of the supplier's products.

Dragon TV said Sunday that Husi, owned by OSI Group of Aurora, Illinois, repackaged old beef and chicken and put new expiration dates on them. It said they were sold to McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants.

The report added to a series of food safety scares in China that have battered public confidence in dairies, fast food outlets and other suppliers.

There's audacity and then there's this:

A standoff is brewing between the City of Vancouver and a group of protesters camped out in a Downtown Eastside park — but in a twist, the city itself has been handed an eviction notice. 

On Sunday, just over a dozen tents stood at Oppenheimer Park. Those living in them tell CBC News they're homeless with nowhere else to live. 

In the past three days, the campers have received two eviction notices from the city, which has bylaws prohibiting sleeping in parks and erecting structures on public property. ...

But the deadline to leave, 7 a.m. Sunday, came and went without the city taking any action to remove the tents. 

Now, some members of a local First Nation have stepped forward to challenge the city's right to issue the eviction orders — and issued an eviction notice of their own.

I hope they issued an eviction notice for water and electricity, as well.



(With thanks to one and many)