ADIOS

I am now totally out of touch with Mike Pechar, owner of this blog.  So I have no idea about when he might resume posting, if ever he does.  My best guess from what I know is that he has gone blind.

I have tried to keep the blog going for him but it has got too much for me.  I put up six blogs of my own six days a week so my energies are already pretty stretched.

My general interest blog is A Western Heart and I think a lot of readers here might find that something of an alternative to this blog

Best wishes to all the readers here

John Ray

An incorrect sailing ship?

The appearance of a Chilean naval vessel in Sydney Harbour, which had been used as a “torture chamber” by the Pinochet regime, has sparked protests from Chilean-Australians who say it should be removed from service.

The Esmeralda, a four-masted tall ship that is nearly 400ft long, is in Sydney as part of its 61st training cruise and has been docked at Garden Island since Thursday morning.

Considered a national symbol of Chile, it is used as a sail training vessel by the country’s navy and spends about half the year sailing around the world.

But its tours have sparked controversy after a series of human rights reports revealed that the ship was used to detain victims of the Augusto Pinochet’s regime in September 1973.

A 1986 US Senate report suggesting that as many as 112 people – including 40 women – were held on the ship, with rape, electric shocks, mock executions and beatings among the crimes reportedly carried out on board.

The Chile Solidarity Committee, a Sydney-based organisation of about 50 people, intends to protest against the vessel’s appearance on Saturday.

“Regardless of what the present purpose of the ship is, crimes were committed there,” he said. “People got killed there".

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That Pinochet was just giving Communists some of their own back is not mentioned.   Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. Allende had just burnt the electoral rolls so it wasn't hard to see what was coming. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason

Asylum chief is fired in Denmark after lurid details emerge of several female workers having sex with 'children' at migrant centres



An asylum chief has been fired after lurid details emerged of several female workers having sex with children at a refugee centre.

Sisi Eibye, head of the asylum programme at Langeland Municipality in Denmark, was shown the door yesterday after it was revealed at least three officials knew for months that one employee of the Børnecenter Tullebølle children's asylum centre had engaged in sex acts with underage residents.

The acts were photographed and videoed showing her having oral sex with at least one refugee and full intercourse with one of the boys at the centre in Tranekær.

Officials believe the woman had sexual relationships with at least three boys at the centre, while two other female workers are believed to have violated boys at the centre.

The two women were sacked and police are investigating while Funen Police said it was looking into the details of the first woman, The Local reports.

Although there has been some debate over the ages of many migrants from the Middle East travelling with no papers and no way to verify their dates of birth, the Danish Immigration Service (DIS) last week announced it would shut down the children's centre amid the claims.

The initial details were leaked to Radio 24syv and yesterday police said: 'It is clear that we are taking this case very seriously.

'When one's role is to protect vulnerable children, this is a very serious allegation,' spokesman Sten Skovgaard Larsen told Radio 24syv.

Ms Eibye was not one of the three women involved in the sex acts.

Documents obtained by the radio station showed the claims were first reported to the DIS last week, but that at least three top municipal employees knew about them as early as June 10.

The troubled centre houses around 40 boys, and residents sparked a mass brawl last month in which an employee was hit with a metal pipe by a 15-year-old brawl.

In the summer, five teenagers from the centre were charged with sexual assaults at the Langelandsfestival where they allegedly groped and raped a 16-year-old girl.

A month before in July, there was another huge fight, this time involving boys from the centre and more than 100 other asylum seekers during a football match against another centre.

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Married teaching assistant, 37, admits performing a string of sex acts on a boy, 15, during a four-day school trip  



A married teaching assistant and mother-of-two has been warned she faces jail after admitting performing a string of sex acts on a 15-year-old boy during a school trip.

Jill Meldrum-Jones, 37, wept in the dock today as she pleaded guilty to a string of sex offences involving the teenage pupil over a four-day period last summer.

The mother, who has two children aged 12 and seven, worked at the victim's secondary school in Warwickshire, which cannot be named for legal reasons.

Today, Meldrum-Jones, of Kineton, Warwickshire, admitted five charges of sexual activity with a child between July 11 and July 14 last year at Warwick Crown Court.

One of the charges relates to the teacher performing oral sex on the boy while the court heard another two relate to her masturbating him.

She also pleaded guilty to two charges of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity on July 12 and July 13 last year. The court heard these charges involved her allowing the boy to perform sex acts on her.

Meldrum-Jones, who had dyed her blonde hair to brunette and wore a white blouse in the dock, was told she would be sentenced on November 28.

Adjourning the case for a pre-sentence report, Judge Sylvia de Bertodana warned her a jail term was 'likely'.

She added: 'You have pleaded guilty to the majority of these matters, you will have to be dealt with by way of sentence.

'Clearly there needs to be a pre-sentence report for your benefit. 'I'm going to make a condition of your bail that you co-operate with probation in the preparation of that report.

'You need to come back here for sentence on November 28. If you don't attend you are committing an offence.

'Please don't take any indication that it won't be a custodial sentence, I'm afraid that it is a likely outcome so prepare yourself for that. 'Before you go you're going to have to sign the sex offenders' register.'

Meldrum-Jones sobbed in the dock as her barrister told the court she was only allowed supervised contact with her own two children.

But Judge de Bertodano amended her bail conditions to allow her to see her children unsupervised. She added: 'It's hard to see she is any risk to her own children from what I have read about this case. 'I really can't see why she can't take her own children out for a walk on her own.'

The court heard Meldrum-Jones, who is believed to have been suspended from work earlier this year, still lived with her husband and two children. Asked by the judge if she was staying at the family home, Daniel Oscroft, defending, said: 'She is but the husband is always there.'

Meldrum-Jones also denied one charge of sexual assault against a different teenager, also aged 15, between February 1 and February 28 this year.

Prosecutor Stefan Kolodynski asked the court for two weeks to 'canvass the complainant's family' before deciding whether to ask for it to be left on file.

Meldrum-Jones was released on bail with a condition not to approach colleagues at the school or the teenage victim. She is also not allowed unsupervised access with children under the age of 16, except her own, unless approved by social workers.

The teaching assistant refused to comment as she left court and got into a waiting car outside the main entrance.

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Irresponsible peddlers of a Green/Left scare story get their just desserts

Fronted by Maryanne Demasi, the Australian ABC "Catalyst" program aired  a scare story saying that mobile phones and Wi-Fi caused health impacts including brain tumours. That caused an immediate outcry from the scientific community who know the evidence on such a hoary old nonsense.

The Catalyst staff should have known better.  The effect of electromagnetic radiation on health has been a big boogeyman for many years but the contrary evidence is huge. Notably: From the early days of mobile phones until now there has been no upsurge in brain cancer.  Now that mobiles are very widely used, we should be swimming in brain cancer cases by now.  But we are not. High or low levels of mobile phone use and the resultant radiation makes no difference. It's all just attention-seekers big-noting themselves

Staff on the ABC’s Catalyst program staff have been told by the ABC’s director of television Richard Finlayson that they will all be made redundant.

In a meeting at Ultimo attended by TV management and human resources the presenters and producers were told the magazine style program was ending.

A last-minute bid by senior ABC staff on Wednesday to overturn the board’s decision to axe Catalyst failed, sources told Guardian Australia.

The board had been presented with reasons why the ABC should continue to cover science properly with an in-house science unit.

An internal review after Catalyst presenter Maryanne Demasi’s Wi-Fried? program was found to have breached the ABC’s impartiality guidelines recommended the program be axed and Demasi and all the other staff be made redundant.

Finlayson told staff that nine people will lose their jobs and that the changes to Catalyst were not driven by the Demasi incident alone.

“For 2017, Catalyst will move from the current half-hour, magazine-style program structure to a one-hour documentary format, focused on high-impact, single-issue programs or series,” he said.

“It will be presented by leading science experts, chosen for the various programs. This shift will align Catalyst with world’s best practice for science programming. An embedded digital capability will deliver short-form content around each program and throughout the year to increase the ABC’s digital science offering on ABC and third party social platforms.

“Finally, we must recognise that Catalyst and its team have served our audiences and the science community well for many years. However, we need to do what we believe is best for audiences, and that means adjusting our approach to best meet their needs and the realities of a changing market. We will work closely with those staff impacted by these changes to ensure they are treated respectfully throughout this transition.”

Under the baord’s plan the award-winning program will be replaced by 17 one-hour science specials, mainly from the independent production sector, commissioned by new staff the ABC is going to hire.

The ABC staff union, the Community and Public Sector Union, was holding meetings with management and staff on Thursday morning.

A letter from the ABC section secretary, Sinddy Ealy, to management fell on deaf ears.

“Catalyst fills a unique and important place in Australian science journalism and we share concerns that a longer-format replacement would mean important and exciting scientific work was ignored,” Ealy said.

“It would be a huge disservice to the Australian public if the ABC’s strategy is to intentionally dumb down specialist content in favour of ratings.

“The changing media landscape means the importance of ABC’s specialist content has never been greater. We recognise that ABC should review its programs regularly, but they also need to ensure that quality specialist content and the staff behind that content are retained.”

Senior ABC program makers warned that ditching the weekly half-hour program and disbanding the science unit would lead to a dumbing down of science programming and in effect kill off Australian science on television.

Demasi has been on leave since a review of her Wi-Fried? program – which linked Wi-Fi and mobile phones with health risks including brain cancer – was found to have breached the ABC’s impartiality guidelines.

The discredited program was the second Catalyst story by Demasi to be found in breach of the ABC’s editorial policies and to be removed from the website. In 2013 Demasi kept her job despite an editorial breach for a program about statins.

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Substitute teacher, 28, at private prep school 'plied student, 16, with alcohol and had sex with him after exchanging lewd messages over Snapchat'



A substitute teacher and administrator at a private Florida school was arrested on Friday after her co-workers told authorities that she had sex with one of her students.

Alicia Bromfield has been charged with unlawful sex with a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor after an official at The Crenshaw School in Gotha notified welfare workers at the Department of Children and Families about the alleged relationship, who in turn contacted the Orlando police.

WFTV reports that the 28-year-old allegedly picked up the student, 16, from his home in Kissimmee and then drove him to her Orlando apartment where she drank vodka with him before the two had sex.

Prior to that Bromfield, who divorced her husband of just over two years in June, had allegedly exchanged lewd photos with the boy on Snapchat.

The incident between Bromfield and the student occurred last month, and soon after she told some of her fellow workers what happened between the two.

Those individuals then told the attorney for the school, who contact the DCF hotline.

'There was alcohol involved. She provided the alcohol, he consumed it. Both parties were probably under the influence,' said Orlando police Sergeant Tami Edwards.

Bromfield, who is related to the student account manager at The Crenshaw School, began working at the prep school in August.

She was a substitute teacher for a brief while, and twice had the young boy she is accused of sleeping with in her class.

Bromfield then moved into a more administrative role at the school and began working in the front office.

The school has yet to comment on Bromfield's arrest.

After her arrest on Friday, Bromfield was released from the Orange County Jail when she posted $5,100 bail.

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Mother, 59, paralysed by back pain is cured by 20mile hikes wearing just a swimsuit



A mother who was inspired by a near-death experience to get 'body confident' and go on 20-mile hikes in just a bikini and boots is facing a backlash from other women.

Ann Wheeler, from Clayton-le-Woods, Lancashire, suffers from Cauda Equina syndrome - a rare spinal condition that can cause paralysis. The 59-year-old claims that the post-op experience motivated her to take up walking and wild swimming as natural pain management as she believes it is as strong as traditional painkillers.

However, since taking up hiking, Ann has encountered criticism online with some wives ordering their husbands to steer clear of her. 'I took a week off work and was due to hike with some male walkers from Essex but they said they couldn't because their wives had got wind of it.

The exercise has also helped Ann lose weight and she has gone from a size 16 to a slinky size 12.

Source

Sir David Attenborough: ‘Shoot’ Donald Trump and Leave Politics to the Experts

Why not shoot David Attenborough?  If he thinks murder is an appropriate solution to political disagreements he should perhaps be careful that someone does not apply that principle to him.  Looking at his comments below, it's hard to decide whether Sir David is a Fascist or a Communist

Sir David Attenborough, the veteran broadcaster and climate change alarmist, has attacked the involvement of voters in politics beyond elections, suggesting the only way to stop Donald Trump is to “shoot him” and that complex political questions like Brexit should be blocked by “wiser” politicians.

Condemning Mr. Trump’s climate-scepticism, Sir David asked: “Do we [foreigners] have any control or influence over the American election? Of course we don’t. We could shoot him… it’s not a bad idea.”

Whilst the Radio Times journalist conducting the interview suggested it was a joke met with “giggles”, such violent rhetoric from this liberal establishment figure and cultural icon may bbe seen as hypocritical.

Furthermore, Sir David went on to explain that he was deadly serious about his desire to block popular, elected individuals and decisions via undemocratic means.

“There’s confusion, isn’t there, between populism and parliamentary democracy,” he told the Radio Times, one of Britain’s widest-read and oldest magazines. “I mean, that’s why we’re in the mess we are with Brexit, is it not?”

“Do we really want to live by this kind of referendum?” he asked of the European Union (EU) plebiscite.

“What we mean by parliamentary democracy is surely that we find someone we respect who we think is probably wiser than we are, who is prepared to take the responsibility of pondering difficult things and then trust him – or her – to vote on our behalf,” Sir David continued.

He said he was concerned by Michael Gove’s EU referendum claims that the British people have had enough of experts. “That’s why politicians getting up and saying, ‘We’ve had enough of experts’ is so catastrophic,” he added.

Donald Trump may not be the only person Sir David believes would be better off dead. As a patron of the Population Matters, the veteran climate change alarmist is a subscriber to an organisation which in 2011 stated their goal of reducing the global population to a “sustainable” 5.1 billion. The present population is presently an estimated 7.4 billion.

Speaking in support of the aims of the group in 2012, the television personality said: “I can’t think of a single problem that wouldn’t be easier to solve if there were less people”.

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Feminist witches are casting hexes on Donald Trump



American witches have come a long way since Salem and the trials of 1692, when the accusation of witchcraft got a lady hanged. Today, witching is in and sorceresses in the US and beyond are practicing magical activism to thwart The Donald’s bid for presidency.

Vermont’s Feminists Against Trump, a group of college professors in the state, is holding a pre-Halloween “witch-in” today in Burlington. They have issued a call to all crones and their black pussycats to join in the mass hexing to “cast magical spells of love and feminism to destroy the Great Orange One and the racism, xenophobia and sexism he feeds on.”

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Global cooling coming

From his study of climate cycles, prominent Russian climatologist Habibullo Abdussamatov can see signs that we are already on a cooling trajectory.  His latest paper below

The New Little Ice Age Has Started

H.I. Abdussamatov

Abstract

Since 1990, the Sun has been in the declining phase of the quasi-bicentennial variation in total solar irradiance (TSI). The decrease in the portion of TSI absorbed by the Earth since 1990 has remained uncompensated by the Earth's long-wave radiation into space at the previous high level because of the thermal inertia of the world's oceans. As a result, the Earth has, and will continue to have, a negative average annual energy balance and a long-term adverse thermal condition. The quasi-centennial epoch of the new Little Ice Age has started at the end 2015 after the maximum phase of solar cycle 24. The start of a solar grand minimum is anticipated in solar cycle 27 ± 1 in 2043 ± 11 and the beginning of phase of deep cooling in the new Little Ice Age in 2060 ± 11. The gradual weakening of the Gulf Stream leads to stronger cooling in the zone of its action in western Europe and the eastern parts of the United States and Canada. Quasi-bicentennial cyclic variations of TSI together with successive very important influences of the causal feedback effects are the main fundamental causes of corresponding alternations in climate variation from warming to the Little Ice Age.

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