Let Freedom Ring... and
let this be a warning about the perils of letting those
freedoms go...
I got this in an email, and thought it was interesting...
1. You can’t
turn off the government radio installed in your home, only
reduce the volume.
2. Idolatry in North Korea is such
that it is second-nature for ordinary citizens to “rescue”
portraits of Kim Il Sung before all else in the case of a
house fire (there are even special bunkers for statues in
case of war)
3. Many people don’t even know that man
has walked on the moon.
4. There is no Internet,
cell-phones have been banned.
5. A main cause for all
problems are Americans. Mothers teach their children to sing
songs about bad Americans, there are many postage stamps
showing the death of “U.S imperialists”
6. A six-day
work week, and another day of enforced “volunteer” work,
ensures that the average citizen has virtually no free time.
7. The very first thing you do when you visit North
Korea’s capital Pyongyang is visit and give a flower to a
big statue of “Dear Leader”.
8. About 0.85% of the
population are held in prison or detention camps.
9.
Most traffic control is performed by female traffic
directors (reportedly handpicked by Kim Jong-Il for their
beauty), as the lights are switched off to save electricity.
10. Dogs are banned in Pyongyang to keep it clean.
11. Avarage wage in 2005 was 6$ a month.
12.
Visitors of North Korea are given special guides and can’t
go anywhere without them.
13. North Koreans are used
to often disappearing electricity and have many candles
prepared.
14. North Korea has the fourth-largest
military in the world, at an estimated 1.21 million armed
personnel
This striking picture came
with it... this is the two Koreas from Space... one look,
and you'll see where the capital is. This is the
country with the 4th largest Army, remember.
A nice wide road... with no
traffic, because no one can afford the gas... or the car.
In the capital during the day,
they turn off the lights - even the street lights, and use
traffic officers... who don't have a whole lot to do.
The usual government sponsored
billboard... children killing US Soldiers
A little boy posing with a
game at a fair for kids... with the usual target, of course
They leave the one light
on...
It looks like the loneliest condominium dweller in Fort
Myers will stay lonely for awhile longer.
Victor
Vangelakos is the only buyer to take possession of his unit
in the 32-story Tower 1 of the Oasis high-rise project in
downtown Fort Myers.
Only a handful of purchasers who
put down deposits closed on their condos in the building,
and except for Vangelakos, they've accepted deals with
developer The Related Group to swap for units in Tower 2.
But Vangelakos, who paid $430,000 for the home, closed
in November 2008 and insisted on taking possession. He, his
wife Cathleen, and their three children use the condo as a
vacation home when he can get away from his job as a
Weehawken, N.J., firefighter.
Neither side is happy
with the arrangement - the company is spending money because
it can't shut down the building altogether and the
Vangelakos family considers the arrangement creepy,
especially at night.
But neither side wants to give
in to the other's demands. Vangelakos is suing Related to
get out of his contract. But Related vice president and
general counsel Betsy McCoy said he's not entitled to that
because he already closed on the property.
Vangelakos
said he doesn't get down much, although the family did stay
there over the Christmas holidays.
MORE:
http://www.news-press.com/article/20100308/NEWS0110/3080347
Be careful of who you
friend on Facebook...
Questions were last night raised about the monitoring of
the online activity of sex offenders after it emerged that a
convicted rapist was able to use the social networking site
Facebook to befriend a vulnerable teenager he then raped and
murdered.
Peter Chapman, 33, was pretending he was
19 years old when he convinced student Ashleigh Hall, 17, to
be his Facebook friend. Chapman, who had previously received
a seven-year prison sentence for raping two prostitutes,
collected the girl in his car from her house before driving
to a lay-by where he tied her up, raped and strangled her.
Yesterday, after changing his plea to guilty on the
first day of what would have been his trial, Chapman was
sentenced to life in prison and told he must serve a minimum
of 35 years. Police officers also raised the possibility
that he was responsible for other, unsolved, sex crimes. But
the revelation that he was on the sex offenders' register at
the time of the offence – which happened in October 2009 –
has raised questions about how, while supposedly being
monitored by the police, he was able to use the internet to
find a victim for an even more horrific attack.
And
it has prompted police to issue further warnings to
youngsters highlighting the dangers of using social
networking sites to meet people.
MORE:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facebook-fears-after-sex-offender-logged-on-to-murder-1918330.html
The Dems are trailing by
double digits in national polls... 2012 is going to be
brutal!
A
majority of Americans say the United States is less
respected in the world than it was two years ago and think
President Obama and other Democrats fall short of
Republicans on the issue of national security, a new poll
finds.
The Democracy Corps-Third Way survey released
Monday finds that by a 10-point margin -- 51 percent to 41
percent -- Americans think the standing of the U.S. dropped
during the first 13 months of Mr. Obama's presidency.
"This is surprising, given the global acclaim and Nobel
peace prize that flowed to the new president after he took
office," said pollsters for the liberal-leaning
organizations.
On the national security front, a
massive gap has emerged, with 50 percent of likely voters
saying Republicans would likely do a better job than
Democrats, a 14-point swing since May. Thirty-three percent
favored Democrats.
"The erosion since May is
especially strong among women, and among independents, who
now favor Republicans on this question by a 56 to 20 percent
margin," the pollsters said in their findings.
A May
2009 survey by the pollsters found the public saw the
Democratic and Republican parties as equally able to handle
national security (41 percent trusted Democrats more, and 43
percent trusted Republicans more.) On conducting the war on
terrorism, the two parties were tied at 41 percent.
MORE:
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/08/poll-obama-dems-losing-ground/
The first carbon
billionaire?
Last
year Mr Gore's venture capital firm loaned a small
California firm $75m to develop energy-saving technology.
The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces
hardware and software to make the electricity grid more
efficient.
The deal appeared to pay off in a big way
last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion
in smart grid grants, the New York Times reports. Of the
total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which
Silver Spring has contracts.
Critics, mostly on the
political right and among global warming sceptics, say Mr.
Gore is poised to become the world's first "carbon
billionaire," profiteering from government policies he
supports that would direct billions of dollars to the
business ventures he has invested in.
MORE:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/6491195/Al-Gore-could-become-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire.html
Meanwhile:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/7401422/Barcelona-hit-with-heaviest-snowfall-in-25-years.html
Greetings!
