Is Russia back to being Russia??

Not for nothing did President Putin observe that his years as a KGB
agent were good training for his new career as ruler of Russia.

Spy's death-bed Putin accusation

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6180068.stm

Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko has accused Russian President
Vladimir Putin of involvement in his death, in a statement dictated before he
died.
Mr Litvinenko, 43, who died in a London hospital on Thursday evening and
is thought to have been poisoned, said his killer was "barbaric and ruthless".

Protest from around the world "will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears
for the rest of your life," he said.

The Kremlin has dismissed allegations it was involved as "sheer
nonsense".

Scotland Yard said officers were now investigating "an unexplained
death".

Anti-terror police are leading the investigation, and it is still
unclear what killed the former KGB agent.

Friends have said he was poisoned because of his criticism of Russia.

'Barbaric and ruthless'

In the statement, read out by his friend Alex Goldfarb outside
University College Hospital, London, Mr Litvinenko said he had a "message to
the person responsible for my present condition".

"You may succeed in silencing me, but that silence comes at a price.

"You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most
hostile critics have claimed."

"The howl of protest from around the world will reverberate Mr Putin in
your ears for the rest of your life," the statement added.

The statement was dictated on 21 November, when Mr Litvinenko realised
he could die.

Mr Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated the Kremlin's earlier
dismissal of allegations of involvement in the poisoning as sheer nonsense.

"Any death is always a tragedy," he said.

"Now it's up to the UK law enforcement agencies to investigate what
happened."

'Excruciating death'

After Mr Goldfarb had read out the statement, Mr Litvinenko's elderly
father, Walter - who flew to the UK from Russia this week - said his son had
been killed by a "tiny nuclear bomb".

"It was an excruciating death, he was taking it as a real man," he said.

"Even before his death, in such a state, he never lost his human
dignity."

Mr Litvinenko had recently been investigating the murder of his friend,
Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of the Putin government.

Russian dissident Oleg Gordievsky, a former KGB colonel and friend of Mr
Litvinenko, maintained that the poisoning had been the work of the Russians.

The Russian security service had "sent a man with a poisonous pill to
Britain", put a pill into Mr Litvinenko's tea and killed him, he told BBC
News.

Intelligence analyst Glenmore Trenear Harvey said Mr Litvinenko had
"made a lot of enemies" when he had been tasked with fighting corruption
during his time with the Federal Security Service (FSB) - the KGB's successor.

Mr Harvey also said the poisoning could have been carried out by the
"Russian mafia", made up of former-KGB men who had formed the group when the
service broke up.

"So I think that while one could say they were trained by the KGB this
is not in any way a Russian intelligence service hit," he told BBC News.

London meetings

Before Mr Litvinenko's death, police said they suspected "deliberate
poisoning" was behind his illness.

Investigators have been examining two meetings he had on 1 November -
one at a London hotel with a former KGB agent and another man, and a later
rendezvous with Italian security consultant Mario Scaramella, at a sushi
restaurant in London's West End.

Mr Litvinenko, who was granted asylum in the UK in 2000 after
complaining of persecution in Russia, fell ill later that day.

In an interview with Friday's Telegraph newspaper, former KGB bodyguard
Andrei Lugovoi said he had met Mr Litvinenko at the Millennium Hotel in
Grosvenor Square but vigorously denied any involvement in the poisoning.

Mr Scaramella, who is involved in an Italian parliamentary inquiry into
Russian secret service activity, said they met because he wanted to discuss an
e-mail he had received.

Speaking in Friday's Times, film-maker Andrei Nekrasov said that, before
he fell unconscious for the last time, his friend had told him: "I want to
survive, just to show them. The bastards got me but they won't get everybody."

Sexual Consent

Too bad Hayim Ramon, Bill Clinton and Israeli President Moshe Katsav didn't
see this one:

http://www.glumbert.com/media/consent

They should see this. Bill Clinton too.

Group scraps attempt to smoke biggest joint

Group scraps attempt to smoke biggest joint
Wed Nov 22, 2006 9:29 AM ET

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2006-11-22T142913Z_01_L22903935_RTRUKOC_0_US-DUTCH-CANNABIS.xml&WTmodLoc=OddNewsHome_C1_%5bFeed%5d-8

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A plan to roll and smoke the world's largest joint was cancelled at short notice in Amsterdam when the organizers realized they could be breaking the law.

"We have now read the small print and realize there could be problems," Thijs Verheij, one of the organizers, was quoted as saying by ANP news agency after consulting Dutch drugs laws.

The group had wanted to roll a five-foot-long pure-weed joint, stuffed with more than a pound of marijuana and containing no tobacco, and smoke it in a bar.

It had initially thought the attempt would be legal if 100 people each brought along the five grams of the drug tolerated by Dutch authorities for personal use.

"Unfortunately it looks like this will not be possible," Verheij said. The attempt had been planned for Wednesday.

A police spokesman said: "We would definitely have investigated this. If you make a single joint with half a kilo of cannabis in it, it would cross the line."

Verheij said the group had hoped to beat a record set with a joint containing 100 grams of marijuana.

Pervert Power

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Google & Sex

Notice that in some blogs it says "blogthis" in the bar  Google  places at the top of the blog? That bar is there by force majuer of course. Even Google has the "We know better than you what is good for you" big corporation syndrome it seems. Well if you look at the bar at  the top of this blog it says "Flag This" - so you can rat on me if you find the content objectionable.

 

Of course, Google has no problem listing Stormfront and similar Web sites. That's free speech. I wonder what is "objectionable content" that they would not host?  

 

Is Google on the Pacific coast in the 21st century or back in Salem in the 17th century?

 

Hmm.....

 

 

Khamenei: Beware of watching non-Muslim women - Don't Masturbate during Ramadan

This is more about the Sex part of this site... I promissed...

 

Khamenei: Beware of watching non-Muslim women

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3321137,00.html

In new web ruling, Iran's supreme leader warns of 'vile consequences' of
looking at non-Muslim women

Yaakov Lappin Published: 10.29.06, 22:01

Looking at non-Muslim women can lead to "vile consequences," Iran's supreme leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei warned a reader on his website.

The question and answer session is the most recent in a series of online religious rulings made by the Islamic Republic's highest religious and
political authority.

The questions sent in by readers cover a wide range of topics, and illustrate the intervention of the Iranian government in the everyday affairs of its
citizens.

"Is it permissible to look at the body parts — excluding the two private areas — that a non-Muslim woman used to show? And in this regard is there a
difference between seeing in the flesh or in movies?" a reader asked Khamenei.

"There is no objection to unintentional looking at the non-Muslim woman's body regarding the amount they are used to uncover," Khamenei said. He added: "Of course, It is even haram (forbidden) to intentionally look at that in case it is sexually exciting, is associated with fear of falling victim to that which is haram or leads to vile consequences."

Sexual intercourse with a Christian woman?

Another reader asked Khamenei whether he could hold sexual intercourse with a Christian woman who was still married: "I am a young man living in a foreign country. Sometime ago I contracted a temporary marriage with a Christian girl, but after a while I came to know that she was (already) married. What about my relationship with her?"

"…She is permanently forbidden for you no matter whether she finishes divorce matters in the court of law after that or not," Khamenei told the reader.

Another reader told Khamenei: "I heard that it is allowed to eat meat which has been slaughtered by a Jew, is it correct?"

"The meat of the animal slaughtered by a non-Muslim is not halal (permissible to eat) even though all other conditions required for Sharia (Islamic law) slaughtering are observed," the supreme leader said.

Khamenei also went on to rule against providing "children with musical instruments to be used in songs," and "singing/humming to oneself."
---
Khameini: Don't masturbate during Ramadan

Iran's supreme leader answers questions on masturbation and other topics on his website

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3311189,00.html

Yaakov Lappin Published: 10.04.06, 19:55

Deliberate masturbation during the month of Ramadan renders a fast invalid, Iranian Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khameini has ruled.

Khameini, who is Iran's most powerful political and religious figure, was asked on his website : "If somebody masturbates during the month of Ramadan but without any discharge, is his fasting invalidated?"

"If he do not intend masturbation and discharging semen and nothing is discharged, his fasting is correct even though he has done a ḥarām (forbidden) act. But, if he intends masturbation or he knows that he usually discharges semen by this process and semen really comes out, it is a ḥaram intentional breaking fasting," the Iranian leader said, posting the reply on his website.

Another reader asked: "Once in the holy month of Ramadan, I forgot to brush my teeth, and some tiny bits of food remained in my mouth. I swallowed the bits unintentionally. Do I have to perform the qaḍa (repent) for that day's fast?"

"If you did not know that some bits of food remained between the teeth, or you did not know that they would reach the throat, and they were swallowed
unknowingly and unintentionally, then you are not liable to make (repent) of the fast," said Khameini.

'Drink water while standing'

On the website, Khameini also tells Iranians that only jockeys are permitted to gamble on horse races.

He is also asked whether it is permissible for a man to marry a woman only in order to be able to live in his wife's country. "Can a man conclude a marriage
contract for a year with a European girl after getting her agreement with the purpose of going to her country?" A reader asked.

"There is no problem in that if they are serious in contracting marriage and  it is done with her father's permission if she is virgin," Khameini ruled.

The Iranian leader also told readers they were allowed to "to drink water while standing" at nights. It was "not permissible" to take part in meetings attended by both men and women, he told another reader.

....

A Nation is born.. Quebec

Admission and denial:

"Do Quebecers form a nation within a united Canada? The answer is yes,"
Harper on Wednesday told a cheering House of Commons to numerous standing
ovations. "Do Quebecers form an independent nation? The answer is no -- and
it will always be no."

Once the right of self determination is admitted, how could it not be implemented?

 

Coming up next - Popular Front for the Liberation of Quebec;Katyusha rockets on Toronto.

 

PM declares Quebec nation 'within Canada'

November 23, 2006

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/11/23/canada.quebec.ap/index.html

TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's stunning
motion recognizing Quebec as a nation within Canada has reignited a debate
over the divisive issue, with some supporters cautiously viewing it as a
bold political step while critics described it as a recipe for tearing apart
the country.

Harper's comments in Parliament seemed to pre-empt a planned motion by the
Bloc Quebecois that states the French-speaking province is a nation. The
wording of that motion, however, does not include the words "within Canada,"
leaving federalists worried it could be misinterpreted.

Harper said the Bloc Quebecois motion was an "unusual request" that could
lead to another referendum for Quebec independence.

"Do Quebecers form a nation within a united Canada? The answer is yes,"
Harper on Wednesday told a cheering House of Commons to numerous standing
ovations. "Do Quebecers form an independent nation? The answer is no -- and
it will always be no."

Newspaper editorials weighed in on the issue Thursday, with the liberal
Toronto Star saying that Harper's "intervention" in the debate simply fuels
it.

"The surprise bombshell that Harper dropped yesterday ... will never placate
Quebec separatists, even as it potentially weakens Canada by handing them
another argument the next time -- and there almost certainly will be a 'next
time' -- they seek to break up this country," said the newspaper.

"Harper's unwise intervention in this debate promises to embolden
separatists and create division and bitterness."

While Quebecers have twice voted down referendums seeking independence from
Canada, the last one -- in 1995 -- was narrowly defeated, and separatists
rumblings continue in the province.

The issue resurfaced when Michael Ignatieff, a front-runner for the Liberal
Party leadership, said the French language, history and culture mark
Quebecers as a separate people who should be recognized as a nation under
the constitution.

The Quebec wing of the Liberals adopted a resolution last month recognizing
Quebec as a nation "within Canada" and called for the creation of a task
force to advise the next leader on how to make that status official.

Harper's motion, which will be debated later in the week, comes as his
Tories languish in third place in Quebec polls, behind the Bloc Quebecois
and the Liberals.

On the provincial government level, the response was guarded. Alberta
Premier Ralph Klein dismissed Harper's announcement, saying he had no idea
what the prime minister's motivation was and that it "might be politics."

"First of all it's not legislation," Klein said. "He can say what he wants
to say, as I say what I want to say from time to time, and until it's
legislation, there's no need to worry about it."

Manitoba Premier Gary Doer appeared to not be supportive of Harper's motion.

"To me Canada is one nation, one country," said Doer. "I understand Quebec
is unique in terms of language, culture and law, but Canada is one country."

Some people in francophone communities on the Prairies said that they have
always recognized Quebec as a distinct part of the country.

"Quebec is really the center of the francophonie in Canada, and I don't
think there's any problem with that," said Daniel Boucher, president of the
Societe Franco-Manitobaine.

"I think it's important for Canada to have a strong Quebec, and it's also
important for Canada to have strong [francophone] communities outside
Quebec."

The liberal Toronto Sun voiced a measure of caution, saying that Harper
"made a brilliant political move" by putting forward the motion. "But
whether it will be good for national unity is another matter."

"... Is this a backdoor way of recognizing Quebec as a 'distinct society?'
If not, if it's merely a token gesture to make Quebecers 'feel good' about
Canada, how will that help?" the editorial said.

"... Harper's move may make the Conservatives more popular in Quebec, for
now. But it's long term consequences are unknown and therefore cause for
major concern."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press