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We moved about 8 months ago and we took our thrice-saved-from-death bougainvilleas with us. When we left, both were beaming and full of flowers [one is bright red & one is the fuschia, & I'm very sorry that I don't more than that about them - I'm not a very knowledgeable gardene...I just LOVE looking at them!]. They were both near a fence which allowed them plenty of sun from morning till about 1-2PM and by then the sun was on the other side of the fence so it was filtered a bit. We moved to a 2nd-floor apartment with a 6x20 balcony facing the bay (i.e., lots of wind and afternoon sun) which, at the time we moved, I figured would not bother these now-hardy survivors; but not long after we brought them (end of June), they both started losing flowers & their leaves started looking a little the worse for wear ...*sort of* like leaf curl, but not. They're hanging on --one even burst out with a little bouquet of gorgeous pink-- but the red one isn't buying it. I think it misses its sheltered spot by the fence, even though the nasty neighbor downstairs used to pour dirty dishwater and leftover whiskey on it from time to time.
=8-\ Should I be doing something in particular to help them both revive and thrive as they were last year, or is it just not a good spot for bougainvilleas? My red grass is not exactly thrilled either, although it's doing better than the 2 flashy favorites. ANY ideas/help would be so very much appreciated - I don't want to lose these two, especially after I've brought them back from the brink a few times already. I haven't given them any fertilizer at all, as yet, either. |
Follow-Up Postings:
- Posted by jenny_in_se_pa USDA7 Sunset 32 (My Page) on Sat, Mar 10, 07 at 11:46
I had one for a bit before mealies got to it. :-\ But I have found that the leaves were sortof thin and fragile and in a very windy spot, if it's not large and well established yet, it can take a beating. They seem to like to be potbound and will bloom the best like that. However note that they bloom on new growth and usually go through a cycle of forming their colorful bracts (with a tiny flower in the middle), then resting for a bit, then they'll go through a vegetative period (new leaf and stem growth), and then finally the ends will color up to form the new colored bracts and flowers. So on smaller plants, they will appear to just sit there for awhile with nothing going on. For the large in-ground plants, the same goes on but those are so big that parts of it are always going through some sort of flowering cycle so the whole thing looks like it is flowering. Anyway, although many suggest not fertilizing bougies, I would still put a little in a potted one - enough to get it back into a growth cycle so that it will eventually form bracts. Try to put it in as much sun as possible as less than ideal sun will mean much less flowering if any at all. And if it is small, try to keep it out of the worst of winds... Hope your babies will get settled! |
- Posted by whytephoenix z9a Houston (My Page) on Mon, Mar 12, 07 at 23:06
They seem to like to pout sometimes, especially if you molest their roots. I bought one not long ago. After repotting and being moved during our frosts a few times, it shed every single leaf and bract it had. it looked like a stick for a month, but it is finally getting some new leaves. If there's a way to give it some shelter without blocking the sun, do it... other than that, it will probably adjust to the new spot with time. Good luck! |
- Posted by dunnybocter (My Page) on Fri, May 11, 07 at 19:00
They definitely prefer being rootbound in pots, and are tempermental. I've found if I fertilize much it will go completely vegetative for a while before it flowers, so I only fertilize lightly once or twice a year. I have one that is 12 years old and hasn't been repotted since I bought it. My other one is in a hanging basket and probably needs to be moved where it won't get much wind. The flower bracts get blown off sometimes, and I'm sure it dries out faster than its bigger friend. They also take well to cutting back once they are well established. Then you get bushier plants instead of leggy ones, which is nice on a balcony. Mine soak up as much sun as I can get them, and as long as they are well drained, definitely enjoy regular thorough water. If you can keep them alive, they are definitely rewarding. |
As a houseplant, it needs a LOT of sun, 6 hrs wasn't quite enough. Can you bring it in out of the wind, and give it extra lighting, and maybe a mirror? Water it once with some weak tea, as it may be fighting fungal problems. What can be used as an airy windbreak? How about a bucket fountain? The wind may be striping humidity. Take a peak at the soil in the pot, is it appropriate? Struggled with one for years, with almost enough light. It was only happy in the summer. Moved to much more light, and humidity, it did well. They dont like sudden temp. changes-at all, it may get wind chills. |
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I am about to begin installing a small 6 inch high dry stack stone wall and wanted to know if anyone had any advice. I'm thinking of using mortar to help keep the stones in place but I am not sure if it worth it as the stones will probably be stacked 3 or 4 high. Do I need to do any prep work for example should I dig out a path and add pea gravel to lay the stones on. |
Follow-Up Postings:
Pea gravel is named pea gravel because it is the size and shape of peas. Little round balls. Slate will not stay put when stacked on it. Use aggregate. It has sharp edges and locks together, making a better, more stable base. Keep the back of the slate just a tiny bit lower than the front so any settling will go back into the fill rather than bulging out the face and collapsing. |
- Posted by spazzycat_1 z7 NC (My Page) on Thu, May 13, 10 at 10:32
I would recommend that you read one of David Reed's books (see link). He explains the basics quite well. Here's a pic of our dry-stacked stone wall: We had the wall done by a contractor, but it could have been a DIY project. We did lay the patio by ourselves after paying the contractor to grade the base and spread the crusher run. The wall is 3' tall and leans back a little for every foot of height. It is set on compacted crusher run. |
Here is a link that might be useful: David Reed
Six INCHES? No, you don't need mortar or a base, or at least you wouldn't in my climate (zone 8). If you do use a base, heed the advice of Botann, above. Or you can use sand, but again, use sharp sand, not the one with rounded particles. The question that determines whether or not to do a base has to do with what happens if you get frost heave or any sinkage. How difficult will it be to repair the wall and do you want to be bothered with that? Me, on such a small wall, I'd far rather have to do some spot repairs from time to time than mess with gravel and mortar to build it. But definitely, there are some great books out there on building with stone. Is this wall going to be a retaining wall, or free standing? KarinL |
I have found that the keys to a dry stack wall are keeping the courses level and using gravel (57 stone/crusher run) on the back side to keep the rocks stable and level. Fieldstone should be fine for a 6" high wall and no base is required. There are some good instructions on the net. You will just need a small trench to put the top of the first course at ground level. |
If you use mortar then it's no longer a dry stacked wall. It's a mortared wall. 6" is totally doable. *snerk* (sorry. I must be chaneling a certain deviant designer...) |
- Posted by mad_gallica Z5 Eastern NY (My Page) on Thu, May 13, 10 at 18:59
You do understand that this seriously challenges my claim to the World's Smallest Retaining Wall. Mine is about 12" high, and three feet long. It's been there for at least five years, or since I put in the brick edging for the bed, and the dry laid stone path extension that runs underneath it. I"m not even sure I bothered with burying much of the first course. Unless it's a very long wall, just pile them up. |
... what KarinL said. All of it. |
Spazzcat. Very nice! There is a book by Barbra Pleasent called Stone Gardening. I recomend this also as well as the one mentioned above. Well written and takes out the doubt of how to build stone walls, patios and paths etc... karinl nails it for this type of wall. Once you start using stone in garden design you will find many more uses for it. Get creative! |
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subset: commoncrawl


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From your perspective, what are three key recommendations regarding the social determinants of health that you would like to suggest for the Regional Position Paper?
1. Poverty is critical to focus on as a social determinant of health.
2. United States corporations and their impact on health, living, and working conditions throughout the region needs to be examined.
3. Look deeply within diverse communities and listen to diverse voices.


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A few of months ago, our neighbors and us put up a cinder-block wall between our two yards. Since putting it up, we had recently started to clean up the left over mess (such as picking up bits of concrete and leveling out the dirt). When we first started tackling the job about 2 months ago, I noticed what looked like two spindly looking vines trying their hardest to grow out of the hard concrete mixed dirt. Their roots semi exposed and winding around as much dirt as they possibly could. One was fairly larger than the other (neither longer than 12"), so I grabbed some left over pots and pulled them both up. I placed them up on little perches on the fence underneath our front tree, they get heavy shade. Since doing so they have taken off! This morning it gave me a wonderful surprise, a single bloom and low and behold, they are morning glories! Where the seeds came from I have no idea because I haven't seen Morning Glory vines in neighbor's yards. So my main question is, I know they are highly invasive and I would hate to plant them in the ground and they take over, but I would also hate to destroy these two. Should I put them in pots? If so, how big of a pot should I get? I am ultimately hoping that they behave nicely in gardens here in California's Central Valley. Please help! :) |
Follow-Up Postings:
- Posted by ron_convolvulaceae 6a/5b (My Page) on Sat, Sep 7, 13 at 5:34
Can you post photos of the plants so we can see what species you have (?)...the leaves , flowers, sepals would be very helpful... There are thousands of different species in The Morning Glory Family of Convolvulaceae and they are NOT all invasive... The people who 'automatically state that all Morning Glories are all invasive have experience with at best a couple of species (which they usually cannot even properly identify) and then proceed to apply their experience of 'invasive' upon the entire Family...which isn't exactly accurate... The web is full of vast amounts of dis-information about Morning Glories... Look forward to your photos which are worth a thousand words... |
- Posted by realityfaery none (My Page) on Wed, Sep 11, 13 at 11:37
Thanks so much for the reply! This was something I was trying to explain to my mother the other day, she had been informed that all were invasive weeds that should be destroyed. She even suggested I destroy these little beauties, if they so happen to be an invasive species, I would love to attempt to still grow them in a more quarantined area. Here is a picture of what they look like: |
- Posted by ron_convolvulaceae 6a/5b (My Page) on Thu, Sep 12, 13 at 7:03
Thank you for the photo as it certainly doers assist the ID substantially. The plant is the photo you posted is Ipomoea purpurea....and although frequently grown by many gardeners, they usually produce many seeds and can create many volunteers where you might not want them. I'd suggest growing it in a container and / or deadheading to limit the number of seeds produced to collect for your own purposes. Please click onto my homepage if you care to contact me via private message for any more specific recommendations which may not be warranted for posting here in the forums... Hope the info helps... regards, Ron |
- Posted by realityfaery none (My Page) on Thu, Sep 12, 13 at 11:41
Thank you so much Ron! |
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The release party for Olamide's sophomore album, YBNL held last Saturday, with the likes of Chidinma, Dammy Krane & Reminisce in attendance.
View footage of the party below, courtesy of Videowheels.
About Wana
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Completed LouisCyphre and EndQuote in a crypt!
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Unstructured by Clarks® Men's Big & Tall Un.penny Loafers
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SAN DIEGO, November 6, 2012 – After a full year of campaigning, televised debates, hundreds of interviews, thousands of articles and millions of air time minutes covering the issues facing the country today on Election Day, voting should not have snuck up on you by surprise this morning.
So what the heck are the searches "Am I registered to vote" and "Where do I vote" doing at the top of the Google Hot Trends list today? Seriously?
People in areas hit by Hurricane Sandy get a pass. As for the rest of you, if you don't know the answers to these questions, please don't vote. I'm begging you, stay home.
I don't want you voting because it's likely from these questions you don't know enough about the issues to render a decent opinion. I don't mean an ill-informed one – i.e., one that is the opposite of mine. I mean someone who hasn't got a clue until getting into the voting booth, who doesn't really know what questions are on the ballot or anything about his or her local candidates or measures.
And Oh My God, what are all those names doing at the top of the ballot under President and Vice President? Aren't there supposed to be just two choices?
Voting is a right, but it's not a duty. You have the right to free speech and the right to worship but you have the equal right not to participate in any of these activities.
Plenty of pundits engage in hand wringing over the low voter turnout in the United States compared to other democracies. Suggestions surface occasionally that voting be made a legal requirement. Holy ballot box, what a disaster that would be. Leave those people alone.
Not voting is a perfectly valid choice if you can't do a good job. It's a whole lot smarter to put the decision making into the hands of your better-informed, responsible neighbors and fellow citizens like me who know what the hell they are voting for. Even well-informed voters are smart enough to occasionally skip a question on the ballot if they don't believe they have enough information to make a good choice.
I don't believe in Get Out The Vote efforts. If you don't want to vote, you have the right and the duty as an American to stay home. If you don't know the issues, stay out of our way. You're not doing the country a favor, you're screwing over the rest of us.
Don't think you're informed because of a celebrity endorsement or a performance in a debate. You need to invest some actual time to research the candidates' basic positions. You also need to have read the ballot, and checked long before today whether you are even registered.
This is my personal threshold test: You need to have spent as least as much time on this election as you did the last time you watched "Dancing With The Stars" or "American Idol" before you cast your votes. You know that's two hours if you watched the whole show. Two hours, is it truly too much to ask?
Gayle Lynn Falkenthal, APR, is President/Owner of the Falcon Valley Group in San Diego, California. Read more Media Migraine in the Communities at The Washington Times. Follow Gayle on Facebook and on Twitter @PRProSanDiego.
Please credit "Gayle Falkenthal for Communities at WashingtonTimes.com" when quoting from or linking to this story.
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Let José González make your Monday a little dreamier.
The Swedish indie guitarist and singer and his group Junip have released a new song from their upcoming self-titled album, and you can listen to the American premiere here.
"Your Life, Your Call" will be the first major single from the trio's sophomore effort (due April 23). It's a bit of a departure from the album's previously released teaser, the ethereal "Line of Fire."
The new song finds Junip tapping into its rhythmic side, with a snaking grove undercutting lyrics like "It's over now/You've been taking your time/But you can't stay here/Boy dry up your tears."
Take a listen to "Your Life, Your Call" below:


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Tue, Sep 27, 11 at 14:03
Thought this was a cute little guy that I picked up at a GS. VERY simple to copy. Just a terra cota pot- some paint and and a tree branch And this is the right time of the year for making him! |
Follow-Up Postings:
Great project to do with kids if you seal both inside & out so paint doesn't come off. Kids could each make up the kind of face they want- happy or sad etc. Wouldn't take too long either! Jan |
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Selecting the right water softener can be a difficult task. Not all softeners are created equal and vary in the amount of water and salt they consume. Our environment is currently suffering from heightened levels of sodium chloride and water softeners are a contributor to that problem. By selecting a softener that uses less water and salt, we can help to conserve and protect our precious water resources while lowering expenses at the same time.
This website aims to help you understand what key items you should be looking for when selecting a water softener for your home. It also will serve as a resource to attain results of testing conducted by the Region of Waterloo and City of Guelph on locally available residential water softeners. These units were tested over time to accurately record their salt, water and energy consumption under consistent parameters. Please click here for the Region of Waterloo Residential Softener Report.


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Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
In the age of global terror only Churchillian statesmen imbued with the wisdom and fearless spirit of the goddess of war Minerva can save Western civilization
Those "whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." The Greek middle classes, who, with inimitable stupidity, voted for the multi-factional neo-communist party of Syriza, deserve their fate. Like Hitler's Nazi party in 1933, a communist Nazi party has taken power in 2015, not through revolution, not through the bullet but through the ballot of a moronic electorate that fell victim to the blandishments of populism.
Con George-Kotzabasis January 25, 2015
7.30 pm Greek time
Those "whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." The Greek middle classes, who, with inimitable stupidity, voted for the multi-factional neo-communist party of Syriza, deserve their fate. Like Hitler's Nazi party in 1933, a communist Nazi party has taken power in 2015, not through revolution, not through the bullet but through the ballot of a moronic electorate that fell victim to the blandishments of populism.
Con George-Kotzabasis January 25, 2015
7.30 pm Greek time
Those "whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." The Greek middle classes, who, with inimitable stupidity, voted for the multi-factional neo-communist party of Syriza, deserve their fate. Like Hitler's Nazi party in 1933, a communist Nazi party has taken power in 2015, not through revolution, not through the bullet but through the ballot of a moronic electorate that fell victim to the blandishments of populism.
Con George-Kotzabasis January 25, 2015
7.30 pm Greek time
By Con George-Kotzabasis November 19, 2014
The Greek Opposition and the media in general by demonizing The Memorandum with its austere measures that has been imposed upon Greece by the Troika, i.e., the European Commission, the ECB, and the IMF, as a condition for the flow of funds from the latter to the Greek Treasury for the purpose of saving the country from insolvency and gradually placing it on a trajectory of economic recovery, has made it impossible for anyone to reasonably argue, or even to imply, that this necessary austerity, after a mindless profligate spending by previous governments that sunk Greece into an unfathomable debt and debarred it from the financial markets and threw it into an unprecedented spin of economic crisis since the ending of World War II, would generate beneficent results and would pull the country eventually out of its economic crisis.
History has repeatedly shown that countries in critical situations, almost like a law of nature, give rise to extraordinary men/women of stupendous wisdom, mettle, and will power that saved their nations from destruction. Themistocles at the battle of Salamis that saved Greece from Xerxes' despotism and his barbarian myrmidons, Lincoln in the American Civil War, and Churchill in World War II, are outstanding examples. Likewise in contemporary Greece from the ashes of its economic holocaust, a phoenix, in the figure of Antonis Samaras, had risen to salvage the country from its tragic economic mess. In the short space of two years the Samaras government accomplished an unprecedented feat, that no other government in the world was ever able to consummate, i.e., to draw the country from the edge of a precipitous calamity and place it by gradual firm steps on the solid ground of inchoate economic recovery. This was achieved by a series of structural reforms that made the country more competitive, and by painful cuts in the budget that generated for the first time a primary surplus in the current year, after many years of budget deficits that was the embedded malaise of the policies of previous governments and were the major cause that pushed Greece into bankruptcy. Also, for the first time after forgetting, but not forgiving, many years of negative growth, the country's GDP in 2014 has increased by 0.7%, and unemployment has decreased from 28% to 25.9%, in the same year, and is estimated to decrease to 25% by the end of 2014.
It is because of these achievements of the Samaras government, that I believe that the TROIKA will be compelled to back down from its severe and apparently unyielding demands, in its impending negotiations with the Greek government in a few days, and will render a positive review of the policies implemented by the latter as stipulated in the Memorandum, which is the sine qua non of Greece's exit from the strictures of the Memorandum by the end of 2014. It is inconceivable that the TROIKA will persevere with its hard position and put in jeopardy these successes of the Samaras government, that after all, emanated from its own austerity measures that were contained in its own directives as designated in the Memorandum. The TROIKA cannot so foolish as to throw a spanner in its works! Hence, the nonsensical fear, that has been so gloomily and frivolously fanned by the Greek media that the TROIKA will continue its hard-line toward the government and place in predicament, and waste, all the sacrifices Greeks had made to turn their country into a modern economy and fecund with prosperity, will dissipate with the softening and compulsion of the TROIKA to withdraw its hard stand.
I rest on my oars: your turn now.
By Con George-Kotzabasis
Brief reply to: An Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) First Strategy
By Robert Bunker Small Wars Journal August 30, 2014
One has to make a clear distinction between real existent hostility (ISIS) and potential hostility (by other uncertainly defined actors), so one has to be decisive in one's choice which hostility to confront first. Robert Bunker is correct in stating, "an Islamist state has to be considered more dangerous than a secular autocratic state." The latter is "ideologically bankrupt" whereas the former because of its "spiritual ideological component" has "a very real expansionist potential" and therefore is "more dangerous." According to this logic therefore, one has primarily to confront and ELIMINATE this danger emanating from ISIS and not merely weaken the latter for the purpose of maintaining it as a force that would prevent other forces inimical to the United States from filling the "political and institutional vacuum" left by the decimation and total defeat of ISIS. First, ISIS in its short reign, other than verbally and ceremonially as true believers of the Koran, has hardly established a "political and institutional" framework that with its ousting would be occupied by other belligerent and hostile forces. The area upon which its so called Caliphate was established, from which thousands of people fled to save their lives, will once again, with the total defeat of ISIS, revert back to its original occupiers, Syrians, Kurds, and Iraqis, who with the exception of Syrian supporters of Assad, the latter two groups are hardly enemies of the USA.
The defeat of ISIS by American airpower and by forays of its Special Forces and its allies of Kurds and Iraqis on the ground will be a decisive blow to all Islamist terrorists, including those of al Qaeda. And it will put an end to the flow of its recruits from internal and external sources. I would suggest therefore that to achieve this great victory one must adopt the strategy that will defeat and eliminate ISIS and not the strategy that will degrade and weaken it.
By Con George-Kotzabasis August 10, 2014
Reply to 'Recruiting Muslims to Team Australia' by Waleed Aly
The Age, August 8, 2014
Waleed Aly, since his acquisition of celebrity status by his prominence, but not cerebral preeminence, on the screens of the ABC and the pages of The Age, has prudently hidden his past implicit, if not explicit, support and justification of Muslim terrorism, although in his above piece on the Fairfax press could not as prudently conceal his crypto justification of the holy warriors of Jihad. In his attempt to turn the "short bow" of the government's new counter-terror laws into a 'long bow' of the connection between section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act and counter-terrorism—despite the fact that the government ultimately dropped its amendments, unwisely in my opinion, to section 18C on the false assumption that they would be communally and nationally divisive—he exposed himself, not only to a fallacious argument by not taking in consideration that in the long fight against terror one also has to be able freely to criticize the religion, as interpreted by its radical imams, from which the ideology of jihadism emanates, but also revealed himself as an insidious furtive espouser of Jihad by trying to conceal the connection of 18C and counter-terrorism.
The defeat of terrorism is ineluctably twofold, since it is an engagement both in the field of battle and in the realm of ideas, of criticism and counter-criticism. Hence, free expression is an indispensable and necessary 'weapon" against the devotees of terror. The dumping, therefore, by the Abbot government, of the amendments to section 18C of the Act in the name of the interests of 'national unity', is an action of shallow thinking whose unwitting egregious constrain of free expression is a serious error that will gravely weaken the government's fight against terrorism.
Waleed Aly with his tinsel pop idol status is not squeamish and has no reservations in entering and delving in the abstruse rarefied affairs of philosophy. He insists, that 'to draw a…connection between 18C and counter-terrorism requires a long bow. But the…attempt to do so (by the government) has intriguing philosophical consequences' (M.E.). He claims that by this connection, 'the government is implicitly accepting the social dimensions of terrorism.' The latter, 'gathers around feelings of alienation and social exclusion; that intelligence flows best from communities that feel valued and included rather than surveilled and interrogated. This…accords with the best research we have on the psychology of radicalisation and effective counter-terrorism policing.' But what are these real 'social dimensions,' and not the fabricated ones, of Waleed Aly, that are endeavouring to put the blame for terrorism on Western societies whose discriminatory conduct toward Muslims is the cause of their alienation and exclusion, according to Aly? Why this same "discriminatory conduct" to other migrants, such as Chinese, Hindus, and southern Europeans, has not alienated them to the same degree and induced them to become terrorists? Aly in his studious endeavour to shift the blame oddly disregards, or rather hides, the fact, that this 'alienation' and 'social exclusion' on the part of most Muslims is voluntary and is an outcome of their culture and religion, which according to them is by far superior to Western culture and Christianity, and therefore makes them repugnant to adopt the principles of Western culture or integrate into it; as such assimilation would entail for them the replacement of their superior culture with an inferior one. He also ignores and overlooks the fact that a great number of the perpetrators of terror come from well-to-do families and are mostly well educated. The leader of the suicidal squad of 9/11 was the son of an Egyptian teacher and was educated in a Western university, and the terrorist, who had failed to blow-up Heathrow airport in London, was a medical doctor, who, when he was arrested called Allahu Akbar, God is Great, not to mention others. These people were hardly alienated and excluded by Western societies as all of them received their degrees from western universities. What recruited them to terrorism was their deep hate of Western societies and its Great Devil, America, a hate that was incubated in Mosques and Muslim schools by fanatical imams and teachers, respectively. These are the roots of terrorism, and not the specious psychology of Waleed Aly that connects the "radicalisation' of Muslims to discriminatory exclusion and alienation by Western societies, as a result of his poverty of thought or his sinister and clandestine espousing of terrorism.
It is also erroneous on his part to believe 'that intelligence flows best from communities that feel valued and included rather than surveilled, suspected and interrogated.' The truth is that in free societies all communities are 'valued and included,' and Muslims are no exception to this principle and there is hardly any evidence of discrimination against them. The surveillance and interrogation is an outcome of past and imminent terrorist actions as broadcasted by terrorists themselves. It would be gigantically foolish to take these ominous threats not seriously. The government has a huge responsibility to protect its citizens from the fanatical death squads of Islamist terror. It must take relentless and most severe measures to protect Australians from future actions of terror that could kill thousands of them in shopping malls and football grounds. The threat of Muslim fanatics to kill in the future thousands of Australians is an act of war. It is therefore incumbent on the government to enact emergency legislation, as in war, to deprive the right of all Australian jihadists, who had fought in Syria and Northern Iraq to establish a caliphate, to return back to Australia by annulling their passports. As a return of these fanatics back to Australia will incalculably pose a menacing threat to the country and to the lives of its citizens. It would be fanciful and inane to think that once these fanatics return to Australia they will be remorseful and repent about the atrocities they committed on their adversaries in Syria and Iraq and declare their mea culpas for the beheadings on which their rudimentary Caliphate was established.
The Abbot government is beholden therefore to reconsider its withdrawal of the amendments to section 18C if it is prepared to seriously confront the future threats of terror on its soil, because, as I have argued above, free expression is a decisive weapon in the government's arsenal against terror. This it must do even if the chances of these amendments to pass the Senate are slight. And if the Greens and the Labour Opposition chose to oppose these amendments they will reveal themselves as being derelicts of their duty to protect Australia and playing havoc with the security of the country and the lives of its citizens. The palmy days of Team Australia and its complacency are rapidly ending, as Islamist fanatics are recruiting to terrorism.
I rest on my oars: Your turn now.
I'm republishing the following paper for the readers of this website hoping to find it to be of some interest.
By Con George-Kotzabasis
The following paper was written on September 20, 2006, and was sent to President Bush on the same date. The reason why it's republished here in The...Journal, is that the Pentagon has now a secret plan to attack Iran within twenty four hours, according to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker magazine.
Distinguished former diplomats, like Warren Christopher, Clinton's Secretary of State, remain at their "postless", no new messages on diplomacy, posts, and continue to argue on the virtues of old diplomacy. In his piece on the Washington Post, July 28, 2006, he calls for "negotiation of an immediate cease-fire between the warring parties" in Lebanon, and asserts that a "permanent" and "sustainable" solution to the root causes of the conflict—which is the goal of the Bush administration—"is achievable, if at all, by protracted negotiations." As an example of such successful diplomacy that occurred under his tenure as Secretary, he refers to the rocket attacks by Hezbollah in April 1996 against Israel and the countering of the latter with Operation Grapes of Wrath, that the Cagliostro like arts of diplomacy successfully stymied this confrontation and ushered a truce between the parties that lasted for ten years. He claims, that only by such broad-minded diplomacy that involves all the players in the region could America stop its "tattered reputation." But he is completely mindless of the fact that this long Truce was neither permanent nor sustainable, but, merely, a respite for the Hezbollah during which the latter would militarily train and proselytize its militia with its fanatic deadly ideology and arm it with Katyusha rockets for a deadlier future confrontation with its mortal enemy, the Jewish State, as we now see.
To repeat therefore the diplomacy of the past in the present context in the face of these lessons given by this flauntingly failed diplomacy, is not only to repeat the mistakes of the past, but more grievously still, to weaken Israel and its Western allies against greater impending dangers in the future. As the upshot of another long Truce between the belligerents now would only benefit Hezbollah by making it politically, ideologically, and militarily even stronger, and loading this time the tips of its rockets with weapons of mass destruction, including tactical nuclear weapons, thus fulfilling President Ahmadinejad's apocalyptic foreboding of wiping Israel off the map. And needless to say, such an outcome would be a tremendous victory for global terror and a serious strategic reversal of the West's war against it.
Furthermore, it would set in concrete the ambition of Iran to become the dominant power of the region, whose present trailblazing two-pronged strategy to forge an axis between Shi'ites and Sunnis, as the present pact between Iran and Syria illustrates, against their arch enemy Israel and to paralyze the EU and the US as a condominium to formulate an ironclad policy that would prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, are the means by which it will achieve its aim. Since, according to the Ahmadinejad regime, the grand diversion that Lebanon has provided will ease its task to acquire a nuclear arsenal, as the divisions that would be spawned by the Lebanon crisis among the Western countries and within the UN about how to handle the situation on the ground, would be of such a nature that would completely enervate the US and EU condominium from forging a position that would stop Iran from joining the nuclear club.
Hence the war in Lebanon may initially appear to be a local conflict between Israel and Hezbollah but in reality is a geopolitical conflict between Iran and the Western powers since the former will be using the conflagration of Lebanon as a fulcrum to achieve its strategic goals (a) to acquire nuclear weapons, (b) to emerge as the predominant power in the region, (c) to become the leader of the Muslim world, and (d) to establish in the world the millenarian regime of the twelfth imam Mahdi. As the respected Middle East analyst Amir Taheri wrote in The Australian, on August 7, 06, "to Ahmadinejad to wipe off Israel is the first step toward defeating the 'infidel' West". He furthermore quotes Iran's state controlled media as saying "that Lebanon would become the graveyard of the Bush plan for a new Middle East". And Tehran believes, "that a victory by Hezbollah…will strengthen Ahmadinejad's bid for the leadership of radical Islam". And Taheri comes to the conclusion "all the talk of a ceasefire, all the diplomatic gesticulation may ultimately mean little in what is an existential conflict".
Will the "new" diplomacy, as embodied in the unanimously approved resolution by the UN Security Council, in its stylishly dashing French clothes, but worn, by the old decrepit body of diplomatic thinking, bring the long desired, but up till now evanescent, permanent and sustainable solution to the region that so many attempts in the past failed to do? The auguries for such an outcome however, are far from favorable. The Council's resolution calls for a halt to the fighting and Israel's withdrawal "in parallel" with the deployment of UN peacekeepers and 15,000 Lebanese troops who will attempt to create a buffer zone in South Lebanon free of the Hezbollah militia. However, the resolution vaguely refers to the disarmament and dismantling of the latter, that is pivotal to a permanent and sustainable peace between Israel and Lebanon and whether such international force and the Lebanese army--which is riddled with Hezbollah sympathizers--even if they had a clear mandate to disarm Hezbollah, would have been able to accomplish this task, given the unambiguous statements of Hezbollah that it will not disarm. Nor does the resolution take a firm and implacable stand in stopping the supply of weapons to Hezbollah by Iran and Syria.
Hence, the dragon teeth of Hezbollah are still planted deep in Lebanon's soil, presaging an even greater and more dangerous conflagration in the future between the warring parties, especially if Iran stealthily slips into the nuclear club. The UN resolution therefore is merely a soporific. It will provide a couch to Israel and Hezbollah so they can both lay down in a temporary state of dormancy until Hezbollah feels strong enough, in its never ending act, to wipe Israel off the map. Thus, the future confrontation will be by far more deadly than the present one, as possibly hundreds of thousands will lose their lives.
America's New Strategic Diplomacy
Surely the American leadership must be aware of this lugubrious scenario that has been staged by this toothless resolution of the Security Council. Unless they have in mind a second stronger swift resolution that will be addressing the complete disarmament and dismantling of Hezbollah and irrevocably stopping Syria and Iran from supplying weapons to its proxy, they will entangle and compromise their up to now clear strategic position in the strategically myopic, unimaginative, fickle, and flabby diplomatic stance of their allies in continental Europe. It will be the ultimate folly, post 9/11, once you have identified your irreconcilable, implacable, and mortal enemy, as the Bush administration has done, to render the enemy and its proxies respites that will strengthen their military capability and make them even more dangerous as well as more difficult to defeat in the future, instead of destroying them at their weakest moment, as no kind of diplomacy ante 9/11, no matter how brilliantly conceived, can achieve the complete destruction of this infernal enemy.
The Bush administration being presumably aware of this fact, i.e., of the complete inadequacy of the old diplomacy, of which so many of its "encoreists", such as Richard Holbrooke and Madeleine Albright, are continuing to give it "standing ovations", does seem to be willing--despite its tactical errors in Iraq that have given rise to a rampant insurgency making the war more difficult to win and as a result of this making some members of the Administration more circumspect to launch another attack, this time on Iran--to take leave of its circumspection and embrace a more hawkish diplomacy that would be much more successful than the effete and barren diplomacy of the past. Such robust diplomacy will not be draped in the smooth velvety apparels of "old" Europe or in the tattered garments of the United Nations, but will be draped in the bristling carapace of a porcupine. While there will not be a scarcity of carrots in the exercise of this armed diplomacy, the sticks will be deadly in their threatening application against those intransigent nations that continue overtly or covertly to sponsor terrorists and use them as proxies to achieve their geopolitical and millenarian goals. The axis of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah will have the kiss of death planted on its forehead by this no "frills" American diplomacy. But the angel of death in this new diplomacy will be last in the queue. Before the US deploys as a last resort its lethal arsenal against the axis, it will in the incipient stages of this diplomacy call for the de-legitimatization of Iran and Syria as states that sponsor terror. Iran and Syria will become pariah states and will be isolated from the rest of the world. The only avenues that will remain open between the former and the latter will be the economic ones. But the economic transactions between de-legitimate states and the rest of the world will proceed not through individual states but through an intermediary channel, an international consortium whose representatives will be enlisted from the de jure states of the world who will deal with the economic representatives of the outlaw states. Such procedure will place the free world in a powerful negotiating position to impose its own economic regime on the outlaw states.
Needless to say, some nations will not accept, and will not abide, this "outlawing" of Iran and Syria and will continue to have their relations with the latter unchanged. But as long as the major nations of the world hold the line, this recalcitrance of these nations will in no way loosen the tightness of the noose around the throats of the outlaws, as the latter will be banned from attending all international forums where the important decisions in the affairs of the world are made.
The chances that the call for the de-legitimatization of states that sponsor terror, as a diplomatic move to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, are quite high that it will rally many nations to support such a call as the best alternative to an American military attack against Iran, particularly, when such an attack would result in a great loss of lives as well as have the potential to throw the world's economy into the doldrums, as it's the latter as well as their electoral base that many European nations are mainly concerned with in the advent of an American attack on Iran. The exercise of this new adroit American diplomacy will address therefore both the concerns of the Europeans and the fears of Iran. It will have, on the one hand, enough carrots in its diplomatic basket to feed the Europeans and to entice them to the idea that the outlawing of Iran is the better option for all concerned than a devastating military confrontation with the latter, and on the other, it will have enough sticks to coerce Iran to abandon its goal to acquire nuclear weapons. In the intense pressure of the vice that the Ahmadinejad regime will find itself both as a possibly ostracized de-legitimate state or as a military target of the Americans, the odds are that the regime will succumb to this pressure. In the event that it sticks to its guns, then it will play Russian roulette with its own people, as such a stand will strengthen the internal opposition against the "mullahcratic" regime. And as the majority of Iranians shift behind the Opposition parties this could lead to the fall of the theocratic regime of Ahmadinejad by an army revolt that would act in the name of such strong opposition from the people.
The success of this diplomacy will depend entirely on the Bush administration making it unambiguously clear to its European allies, as well as Russia and China, of its utter determination that in the event the proposal to de-legitimatize states that sponsor terror is not adopted by the major nations of the world, then the US will have no other option but to attack militarily the rogue states that sponsor terror, and Iran will be the first one and more likely than not the only one, as the other ones will follow the example of Libya and cave in. It's inconceivable to imagine, that the European nations, as well as China, for which the sine qua non for its present stratospheric economic development is the economic stability of the world, will be so dim-witted not to accept the American proposal and risk the chance that the Bush administration will not deliver on its threat.
Hence, this hawkish US diplomacy is far from being a long shot in persuading the major nations of the world to outlaw states that sponsor terror. Moreover, it has the great potential as a dual realizable threat to outlaw Iran or attack it militarily, to coerce the latter to unequivocally abide by the demands of the international community. In the event that the Ahmadinejad regime remains unwilling to discard its obsession to possess nuclear weapons and continues to defy the European Union and the United States in their demand to stop supplying its terrorist proxies, such as Hezbollah, with weapons, then the call will be on "the angel of death", draped in stars and stripes, to jump the queue and put an end to this apocalyptic threat that stems from the regime of the mullahs.
Hic Rhodus Hic Salta
By Con George-Kotzabasis May 17, 2014
On the 18th and 25th of May respectively, Greeks will be voting in the country's municipalities and prefectures, and for the European Parliament. According to all polls, the contest between the major parties of the Coalition Government of New Democracy/Pasok and Syriza will be very close, and apparently the indecisive voters, who comprise 12% of the electors, will determine which of the major parties will win the elections.
In my opinion, the majority of this indecisive section of the electorate will cast their vote in favour of the Samaras Government—especially in the European parliamentary elections--and thus the latter will be the winner of the triple elections. My reasoning is that if this part of the electorate was inclined and had a strong feeling to protest against the government, for the harsh austerity measures the latter had to implement, it would already have shown this inclination by intimating to the pollsters that it would vote for the Opposition Party of Syriza. It seems therefore to me that the undecided voters are more concerned about the political stability of the country and the slow but robust steps that the Samaras government is taking in pulling the country out of the crisis, which all serious international observers acknowledge and most economic indicators show, and thus will vote for the security the government accomplished in keeping Greece within Europe, than the insecurity the left-wing Opposition Party of Syriza represents with its dangerous and foolhardy policies that could lead to the ousting of Greece from Europe and to the economic catastrophe of the country.
Greece, after its forced exile, four years ago, from the international financial markets, has returned, this week, back to them with aplomb to reap the confidence of the markets of its future economic development. In 2010, Greece, by numerous prominent economists and analysts and top economic journals, such as the Economist, was sentenced to death for its economic maladies that had brought the country into bankruptcy. This dire and calamitous situation however was overturned by the advent of Antonis Samaras as prime minister in June 2012, who, by selecting a constellation of bright stars as ministers, was able to accomplish by his strong and sagacious leadership, in the short space of two years, this reversal of misfortune that had engulfed the country as a result of the ill-fated fiscal policies of past governments. This achievement is unprecedented, as no country in the world was able to transform itself from the brink of economic ruin to economic recovery in such a short time. In the annals of economic history this illustrious outcome will be registered as the economic miracle of Greece.
The following paper was written on April 2012 and is republished for the readers of this blog.
By Con George-Kotzabasis December, 2012
The most respectable German newspaper Handelsblatt, proclaimed Antonis Samaras as the greatest European politician for the year 2012. At the same time the illustrious former Foreign Minister of Germany Hans-Dietrich Genscher, also praised Samaras in glowing terms as the politician, who after admitting his own mistakes and the disastrous economic policies of Greece that brought the latter to the brink of insolvency, brought the country with remarkable celerity and unsurpassable decisiveness on the right course that would rekindle the economy and lead the country toward economic development. Goldman Sachs is predicting that in the next 10 years Greek GDP will increase by 30%. The rating agency Moody's increased the financial status of Greece by six points.
''Things grow at the right time, i.e. the right moment and the right perseverance. 'For', as [the German poet] Holderlin said, 'the mindful God abhors untimely growth' "
Martin Heidegger
History has shown that at critical moments, in countries of advanced and high culture, men of stupendous ability, imagination, foresight, and fortitude, sprang, like phoenixes from the ashes, to salvage their countries from mortal threats. Themistocles at the battle of Salamis that saved Greece from the barbarian Persian invasion, is one example, the other is Charles Martel, who at the battle of Poitiers stopped the barbarian Muslim invasion from conquering Europe. In our modern contemporaneous times, Greece, on the verge of being devoured and crashed by the 'hungry fangs' of default and economic poverty, is just as promptly to be saved by a modern-day Periclean statesman, Antonis Samaras.
In the early 1980's, with the advent of Andreas Papandreou's socialist government to power, which proved to be the destructive force that brought Greece to its present catastrophe, that immediately started implementing the serial economic crime of a policy of deficits, the country entered the vicious circle of government spending without economic development. By the early 90's it was glaringly clear that the debt of the country was reaching astronomical heights that would lead it to the precipice of default and bankruptcy. In 1994, Constantinos Mitsotakis, the former prime minister of Greece, in a prophetic speech in Parliament, predicted that the economically crass and thoughtless policies of Pasok would send Greece as a mendicant to the International Monetary Fund to spare it from pauperism. Andreas Papandreou himself was shocked when at a sober moment glanced at the unfathomable debt that the country was in, as a result of his dirigisme economic policies. It was in his presence when his minister of finance Kostas Simitis remarked, in an accusatory and pungent phrase, that this was "the revenge of the economy."
The false prosperity that had engulfed Greece turned a sizable part of its population to indulge in the charms and seductions of dolce vita at the expense of government largesse. A whole generation of Greeks had been spoiled and became kaloperasakides (the easy life of prodigally good-timers) under the perpetual munificence of the State. In such a social situation the New Democracy party, though imbued with the precepts of The Austrian School of economics versus Keynesianism, and realising, as its leader Constantinos Mitsotakis did, that the country was approaching in a rapid pace the edge of insolvency, had its hands politically manacled and could not implement decisively and with celerity, and with the necessary degree required, policies of economic restraint that would have prevented the transformation of Greece into a mendicant status, since there did not exist even a small constituency on the political landscape of Greece that would contemplate, least of all accept, policies of austerity. The Greeks had been 'pathologically' conditioned to the 'benefits' accruing from big government, introduced by Andreas Papandreou, and any attempt to small government by any party in power or any opposition propagating such an idea, could neither hold or win government. Who would give up the 'free tans' in sunny Greece that so profusely and generously the State was providing? And who would give up the cushy and loafing jobs in the public sector that the party boys and girls of Pasok and New Democracy were enjoying and relishing? This is the point from which the economic tragedy of Greece had started and would continue to its tragic end.
Thirty years of frivolous public spending brought debt-to-GDP ratio of 120%. Since October 2009 when the son of Andreas Papandreou, George, became prime minister and implemented measures of severe austerity as directed from Brussels in the first memorandum, debt reached 168% of GDP. With the continued recession of the country for the fifth year, Greece lost 16%–18% of its GDP since 2009.
From early 2010 the Opposition leader, Antonis Samaras, few months after his election as leader of the New Democracy party, was warning the Papandreou government of the danger that the austerity measures without economic recovery would lead the country into recession. But his was a lone voice in the wilderness. And for his bold and insightful decision to oppose and vote against the first memorandum replete with the leaden heaviness of austerity that would sink the Greek economy as it did, he was vehemently reprimanded both from within and outside the country. The Economist magazine severely criticised him for his stand against the memorandum but only to lament its critique two years later and concede that Samaras was right. Likewise, Chancellor Merkel and many European ministers with whom Samaras had quarrelled and pointed out to them that austerity measures without rekindling the economy would not resolve Greece's problem but would make it more abstruse and harder to crack. It took two years for the top brains of Europe to realize that the austerity pills that they were forcing into Greece's mouth to remedy its ills would have the effect of poisoning its body. (In two years of the severe austerity of the Memorandum, as we indicated above, Greece increased its debt to GDP by a great amount and lost a substantial part of its Gross Domestic Product as enterprises closed and unemployment ravaged the country.) And in turn, like The Economist, admitting that Samaras had won the argument, as all Europeans now are calling for economic recovery and development, supplemented by austerity measures that are necessary, as the way to restore a country's economic strength.
The May 6 Elections of Greece Crucial for the Future of the Country
The impending election that has been called by the interim government of Lucas Papademos for May 6 is of momentous significance for the future course of the country. Greeks will be called to be partisans of the hard climb to the peak of Mt Olympus from where the sun of hope will rise once again over Greece or be partisans to a free fall in a long twilight of despair. The first is the thunderous call of the New Democracy Party under the Gulliverian and imaginative political leadership of Antonis Samaras, and the second is the deathlike mute call of a congeries of small parties from the left and the right led by Lilliputian politicians. These politically 'pigmy' parties, among which is the Communist Party, have no policies of rescuing Greece from its woes, except policies that would lead to the exiting from the European Union and return to the drachma that would lead in turn to the absolute poverty of the country, deliberately drop the curtain on all hope on Greece as their sole aim is to sordidly profit politically by their investment in hopelessness.
The socialist party, Pasok, the main opponent of New Democracy, although on the side of hope, even under the new leadership of Evangelos Venizelos, is totally discredited, as it has been the party that led Greece to its present catastrophe by a bout of unbelievable and unprecedented economic and political mistakes, that Venizelos himself was involved in and responsible, during the last two years that was in government. Moreover, the latest decision of the High Court of Greece to apprehend and charge a former luminary of Pasok and right-hand man of Andreas Papandreou, the founding father of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, Akes Tsohatzopoulos, his wife and daughter, and some of his relatives, with bribery and corruption and with being the receiver and beneficiary of millions of dollars as paid commissions, during his tenure as minister of defence, from German and Russian companies to which he had authorized major assignments and projects of his department, has indelibly marked Pasok as venally corrupt; particularly when its present leader Venizelos, at the initial investigations of Tsohatzopoulos, with the stentorian voice of the lawyer, that he is, was defending and exculpating from any knave dealings, and with the usual catch-all alibi of the typical politician, that the "accusation against Tsohatzopoulos was politically motivated." Hence, inconceivable political incompetence and culpability, and unfathomable corruption on the part of Pasok, will be two major themes that will dominate the elections and which will ineluctably lead to new lows in the polls for the socialists.
In this critical economic and political setting that the country is in and the looming threat of the breaking of social cohesion, Samaras is asking the Greek people to give New Democracy the "auto-dynamism," by a majority of votes in the elections, so he can have his hands untied to govern the country with decisiveness and clear uncompromised policies that would put Greece on the trajectory of economic recovery and development. He argues cogently, that in the present political situation of Greece when consensus about the necessary economic policies among parties of how to regenerate the economy of the country is absent, a coalition government–which is the designated position of Pasok and according to the polls at this moment the desire of a majority of the electorate–will be politically impracticable, and more importantly, would not drag out the country from its peril but would further engulf it into profounder depths; as one could not govern effectively a country in a crisis and gradually bring it out of it by being compelled to make compromises to one's political partners, but only by a well-defined plan and decisive and prompt action to implement it without compromises, by a leader who has a strong mandate from the electorate.
Samaras believes, and reasonably hopes with the confidence of a statesman, that during the electoral period and closer to election date, there will be a dramatic shift of voters toward polarized positions, once the crucial issues of the country are spelled out clearly and without lies to the people by New Democracy and by foreshadowing the practical economic policies backed by real numbers that would put Greece on the track of economic recovery, there is a great chance that the majority of Greeks will give New Democracy a strong mandate to govern on its own for the benefit of all Greeks and for the salvation of the country.
Samaras contended long ago, that only through a clear strong authorization given to him by a majority of the people he would be able to radically change Greece. For real economic development entails not only good policies and incentives but a transformation in the views and customs of people toward such development. He puts great emphasis on the value of human capital and entrepreneurship as the prerequisites for the economic recovery of the country. That is why he has promised to re-legitimize private enterprise and effort that for many years now has been delegitimized in the country by communist-led unions, to whom profit has been, as always, the devil-incarnate of the capitalist free market.
The present high unemployment of more than 20% Samaras contends, will not be reduced by mere lower labour costs which already have been decreased by 15% in the private sector while the tax burden on the latter has increased by 50% and energy costs by 450%. Even if Greeks worked for free no one would hire them with such high taxes and energy costs. Samaras in his Zappeio III speech few days ago declared that he would cut corporate tax to a flat rate of 15%, sharply cut pay-roll tax, lower personal income-tax to 32% maximum, and reduce taxes substantially on fuel and tourism. This would make harder rampant tax evasion and would unleash the creativity of the private sector and hence commence the gradual reduction in unemployment. He also announced, that he would increase the lowest pensions to 700 euros per month–that were reduced drastically by the second Memorandum under the austerity measures–and would increase the endowment of families with many children which would not only correct an injustice inflicted upon these two weak sections of society but would also have favourable economic consequence as they would increase consumer demand, which is so important in rekindling the economy, as both recipients of this government assistance spend their money in consumer goods. He would do these two things without increasing public expenditure and hence worsening the deficit, but by cutting government wastage that is so massive and profligate in the State's spending. Further, he will provide incentives to private enterprise in areas where Greece has almost unchallengeable comparative advantage, i.e., in the merchant marine sector, ship building, and tourism; and in the production and merchandise of olive oil and other agricultural goods by the local producers themselves, not by foreign ones as is the case presently, whose development in all the above sectors will vitally affect the resurgence of the economy. He also proposes to provide incentives to entrepreneurs to exploit the rich mineral resources of the country and to give priority to find and tap the vast natural gas deposits under the Aegean Sea, by declaring the Greek AOZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) that could transform the export dynamic of Greece. He intends further, to reverse the present dryness of liquidity in the country by proffering amnesty from any legal penalties to those who withdrew their cash holdings from Greek banks during the height of the crisis and deposited them overseas once they bring them back to the country; and also by immediately paying back the 6.5 billion euros that the government owes to domestic enterprises; these two measures would increase the liquidity of the banks and hence their ability to provide loans to the private sector, especially to small businesses, that are the backbone of the country's economy. Moreover, the re-capitalization of the banks, Samaras argues, will enable them to borrow funds at low interest rates from the European Central Bank, that were set up by it last December, which would be used to put Greece on the track of recovery and economic development.
It is by this method of supply-side economics, as that wunderkind Alders Borg the Swedish Finance Minister illustrated for his own country that Greece's economy will rise again. The necessary austerity measures stipulated in the new Memorandum that Greece has to implement must be accompanied by the rejuvenated "animal spirits" of private enterprise. Samaras, consistently has been saying for the last two years that "we need a recovery to jump-start the economy," and in conditions of recession austerity measures cannot stimulate the economy but on the contrary sink it deeper into stagnation.
The vision and plan of Samaras is to plant radical changes on the whole landscape of Greece. In his Zappeio speech he adumbrates constitutional changes that would separate the three branches of government the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary and thus prevent a member of parliament from being a minister, which has been in the past a malignant link of political corruption and has bestowed 'asylum' to members of parliament for their malfeasances. He pledges to bring changes to educational institutions that would reclaim the proud heritage of Greece that tragically has been eroded by the cultural relativists of a left coterie of pseudo-intellectuals and led to the disconnection of many young Greeks from their great cultural origins. He also promises to take drastic measures against illegal migrants, whom he calls "unarmed invaders" of Greece that under the soft immigration policies of Pasok they have occupied the main centres of cities, and remove them to provincial hostels until their eventual expulsion. Another important commitment of Samaras is to transform the bon vivant ethos of many Greeks, which up till now its tab has been picked up by the government, into a creatively productive one. On the new green tree planted by New Democracy, the singing cicadas will be replaced by fecund working bees. As Samaras is fully aware that sustainable economic development cannot be accomplished without transformative changes in the thinking and the mores of the people, especially of the younger generation.
Samaras is "framed in the prodigality of nature," to quote Shakespeare. He is endowed charismatically both with a high intellect and remarkable moral strength along with the will and determination—all the stuff out of which statesmen are made–to change all things in Greece. But whether this lightning bolt of creative destruction will strike Greece or not depends on the strong mandate that he needs from the people. If Greeks do not fail, at this critical juncture, from fulfilling their historical duty to render to New Democracy a majority of seats in Parliament, then Antonis Samaras, in turn, will consummate the cultural, political, and economic Renaissance of Greece.
Hic Rhodus hic Salta
As the superb and strong statesmanship of Antonis Samaras is pulling decisively Greece out of its economic crisis, I'm republishing this piece that was written in the midst of 2012, for the readers of this blog.
Government intervention always wills the good and works the bad.
By Con George-Kotzabasis
The European Union's sovereign debt crisis was neither an act of fate nor an act of a free self-dependent man but an act of deluded ideology whose sails were blown by the long-lasting winds of government dirigisme, i.e., intervention, and welfare dependency. Once again it was the work, the social engineering, of the bien pensants in the form of a state directory of planning that would put a floor of security for the masses and protect them from falling into abject economic privation that was always, according to their thinking, the omnipresent and inevitable result of the unjust, harsh, and unequal regime of the capitalist competitive free market. The trouble was that this floor was made out of straw and at the first jump of an economic crisis--whose seeds were planted by government intervention, loose monetary policy and low interest rates--would open a gaping hole through which this security would disappear and drown in a massive pool of unemployment and poverty.
The Eurozone's one dimensional foundation of monetary union without banking and fiscal union could not sustain the European edifice in the long run with the differentiating regime of taxes, social benefits, and pensions that existed among its constituent states. The proliferation and prodigality of unsustainable Entitlement Economies, which have been the characteristics of the welfare states of Europe especially in the south, could not have been continued without cracking the economic underpinnings of the Eurozone. Also, the European Central Bank's enabling of low risk premiums on interest rates of government debt, encouraged Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Ireland to go on an orgy of borrowing and overspending. The inevitable outcome was a stampede of budget deficits that were unsustainable and the eventual loss of all credibility in the financial markets that the afflicted States would be able to pay back their debts and thus the shutting out of the latter from the global financial lending pool.
Since no private person would hazard to lend money to states lassoed in sovereign debt the only alternative left was for the richest countries in the Eurozone, such as Germany, to become the lenders and continue to finance the former for their economic survival. But such help would be given under very severe terms encapsulated in strict Memoranda to the receiving countries with the stipulation that the latter would adopt and implement stringent austerity measures that would decrease substantially government expenditure, would restructure and reform their economies making them more competitive, and privatizing public enterprises, whose inefficiency and lack of a diligent working ethos can only be sustained by a continuous expensive staple of government subsidies.
These austerity measures, however, whose formulators have been the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, the so called Troika, are forcefully rejected by the people of those countries who for decades have been inured to the social and economic comforts and benefits engendered by the reckless spending of their governments, and are refusing to accept any cuts to these benefits even when some are aware that the latter can no longer be provided since the governments' coffers are empty and the convenience of funding these benefits by borrowing, as they have done in the past, is no longer available due to their nation's sovereign debt. Moreover, these austerity measures initially had not being complemented with policies of economic development and thus led to the worsening of the economic conditions of those countries that adopted them, such as Greece, leading to unprecedented massive unemployment by the closure of large and small business enterprises and to the smashing of the middle class which is the cornerstone of free societies.
This situation is dangerously engendering the fragmentation of social cohesion in those countries and giving rise to political parties of the extreme right and left, coming out of the foam of waves of violent demonstrations that imminently threaten democracy. A latest illustration of this danger are the attacks by petrol bombs and other incendiary devices by hooded youths of anarchists and extreme leftists in Greece against the homes of outspoken journalists, offices of the governing coalition of New Democracy, Pasok, and the Democratic Left, and the burning of Bank's ATMs. And of particular significance are the attacks on journalists, which are a blatant violation of free speech and a sinister attempt to intimidate them from expressing their opinion about events and criticizing politicians of Syriza, the official opposition, of whom obviously the fire carrying mobs are its ardent supporters.
This will be the tragic legacy of European big government and its ill-considered, indeed, destructive intervention in the processes of the free market that for at least two centuries have delivered prosperity and an unprecedented increase in the standard of living of the masses; as the socialist politicians from Francois Mitterand to Jaques Delors--the architects and enforcers of the European Monetary Union that forced Germany to succumb and pay the price of the unity of west and east Germany as demanded by France--and their present disciples of etatisme are in the process of killing the goose that laid the golden egg, i.e., the unimpeded free market, and by doing so unconsciously and unwillingly are generating and unleashing the brutal forces of fascism and leftist directorates of totalitarianism on the landscape of Europe.
To avoid this slide to the hell of totalitarianism only the rise of statesmen who "can act beneath heaven as if they were placed above it" is consummated. The fiscal and balance of payments crisis can only be remedied by substantial cuts in government spending and the euthanasia of big government, and by the privatization of debt ridden public enterprises--that are the last strongholds of obtuse and doctrinaire unions-- and by the freeing of private enterprise to pursue profit by competition and entrepreneurial creativity and dynamism, respectively. These 'bitter' remedies can only be administered by statesmen of the calibre of Lee Kuan Yeu and Antonis Samaras. The latter, indeed, might not only be the progenitor of the Greek Renaissance but also the paradigmatic leader of other European politicians to imitate for their own European Renaissance. The Newtonian apple that will stop the European 'discord' that currently threatens the demise of the EU will fall to the gravitational force of such statesmanship.
Hic Rhodus hic salta


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As Player Development Consultant, Roushandel oversees franchise development and strategic partnerships internationally and domestically for USL. His addition to the USL staff in January of 2010, served as another example of growth and expansion for the leader of player development in North America. "Massoud's wealth of knowledge throughout the soccer world immediately bolsters United Soccer Leagues' business development initiatives, said USL CEO Alec Papadakis. "Having worked with Massoud before, I am confident he will become an invaluable addition to USL on several fronts."
Also a Head Coach in the PDL, Roushandel will provide support for all franchises currently under the USL umbrella. He will also look to expand the USL's geographic footprint in the USL First Division, USL Second Division, PDL and W-League. His combination of playing experience, eye for developing elite soccer players and years of coaching high-level youth and PDL teams will contribute to the overall success of USL.
Prior to joining the Atlanta Blackhawks, Roushandel was a successful head coach with the PDL's Augusta Fireball in 2005 and as an assistant coach in 2006. In their first official season he led the expansion Augusta Fireball into the playoffs with a roster that included a majority of the players from his 2002 USYSA National Champion Atlanta Fire youth team. "Having enjoyed my time at the PDL team level, I look forward to working closer with United Soccer Leagues on the league level," said Roushandel. "I have witnessed the high level of player development going on in USL first hand. I am certain we can successfully expand upon those values in the PDL, W-League and USL professional tiers."
A success at the youth level, Roushandel will also be able to provide insight to USL's vertically-integrated player development system, which begins at the USL Super Y-League level and continues up through the USL professional divisions.
Involved with youth soccer in Georgia for over 20 years, Roushandel is considered one of the most successful youth soccer coaches in Georgia soccer history. He has compiled a list of accomplishments that includes two National Champions, five Region III Championships and 13 State Championships in Georgia. Roushandel has helped to place dozens of players on NCAA Division I soccer teams, US Youth National Teams and in Major League Soccer.


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Pros - gorgeous dark black colour (I have black smoke)
- very easy application; just glides on
- convenient packaging; twist to wind up or down and its own sharpener in the bottom
- easy to smudge when creating a smoky eye effect
Cons - when I wear it to school on my waterline it is sometimes smudged almost halfway down my face by the end of the day
- can only really be used for bold eyeliner; doesn't really go on softly
Overall, this is a great eyeliner and I will be sure to repurchase.
First of all, in regards to anyone who thinks this has a dry texture or poor pigmentation, you surely got a bad batch or very old product, because my first thought in applying this was literally, "This is the single smoothest thing I have ever used on my eyes." It glides on effortlessly and is deep, inky black. I got it during CVS's last clearance for maybe $2 and am incredibly impressed. I wish I could have found more! Yes, it can smudge, since it is a "smokey eye crayon" but I find if I apply it and blend it evenly around the eye (as eyeliner only), it wears perfectly. The only time I had smudges was when I built it up too much in the outer corners of the eyes. I love how it looks and feels and doesn't fade and would absolutely repurchase.
Love this product. Loreal used to make a HIP Color Crayon and then sadly discontinued it. This seems very similar. It smudged a little bit on me, but I would buy it again with a coupon. At $10 for one, thats a little high for my cheapo self! I have the Bronze one and would like to try another color.
This is the honestly the worst eyeliner I have ever used. It smudged horribly on me, left me looking like a raccoon. I could not believe that an eyeliner could look that horrilble. Admittedly, I do have oilier eyelids so most eyeliners do smudge a bit on me but definitely not at these levels. I had to remove it within half an hour of putting it on it looked that bad. I also felt like it tugged more on my eyelid when i was applying it compared to other liners i have used. I think that maybe if you used it as an eyeshadow it would be better but as an eyeliner it was a huge disappointment.
I have this in black, and I can say it glides on easily, it's highly pigmented but.... It does smudge and worst of all, it flakes a lot!!! I also used this in my waterline but makes my eyes burn so badly. I'm using it in my upper eyelid with a really thin line so the smudge is minimal. I'm trying to use it as much as I can so I don't waste my money. Definitely I won't repurchase it.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this eyeliner and hope that Revlon never stops making it! I have both the brown and black ones. This eyeliner does not tug and glides on smoothly. It stays on all day long. You can apply it as thin or thickly as you'd like. I use the brown for a subtle day look, and because it is so creamy smooth I can apply it right into the lash line, so it does not look overly done or fake...it's a very natural look when applied with a light hand. The brown liner has a little bit of a frost to the color, so it illuminates the lash line quite well. It used to take me quite a bit of time to apply eyeliner and get a nice, natural, yet smoky, eye look. I spend one tenth of the time that I used to when I started using this eyeliner. Bottom line is, it's fabulous!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No
Glides on smoothly, pigmented, lasts the whole day without fading and smudging. It's a retractable pencil so it saves you time compared to gel and liquid eyeliners. Perfect for me.
i love these crayons! so much nicer than the nyx ones. they stay put and are so blendable. great for a quick an easy smokey eye or just to line your eyes. i have all the colors.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No
I just got this eyeliner and so far I really like it. It is quite pigmented and applies smoothly, and I absolutely love the thick crayon style as I prefer thicker, heavier eyeliner. It also seems to apply evenly and have good staying power provided a primer is worn. My only possible issue with it is that the packaging feels a bit lower quality...like the crayon might fall out of it or break. But this hasn't happened yet, so I'm happy with this eyeliner.


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Holyoke Medical Center offers a variety of informational health programs to the community. All programs are free and require pre-registration, unless otherwise noted.
ONGOING - Beginning the First Thursday of Each Month | Living with Chronic Heart Disease |
April 20, 2015 | Look Good, Feel Better |
Support Groups |
Alcoholic Anonymous | |
Al-Anon | |
Al-Anon: Blueprint For Progress | |
Breast Cancer Support Group (Spanish-Speaking) | |
Business Debtors Anonymous | |
Cancer Support Group | |
Depression & Bipolar Support Group | |
Gamblers Anonymous | |
MotherWoman Postpartum Support Group | |
Narcotics Anonymous | |
Narcotics Anonymous | |
Overeaters Anonymous | |
Stroke Support Group |
This is an educational program for outpatients living with Chronic Heart Disease. The four week series will consist of understanding heart diseases such as heart failure, hypertension, atrial fibrillation, and others; nutrition for your heart; medications for your heart; and physical activity and your heart. A question and answer period will occur the first Thursday of every month with an HMC Cardiovascular Specialist. The series will be repeated monthly.
Start Dates: February 5, March 5, April 2
Time: 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Place: HMC Cardiovascular Specialists (HMC 1st Floor)
Registration is required: please call 413-534-2870
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In conjunction with the American Cancer Society, Holyoke Medical Center will present a beauty lesson, with a cosmetologist, free make-up kit (value of $250) and a great time, during a very special program designed to help cancer patients. "Look Good, Feel Better" is an American Cancer Society program for women who are in treatment for cancer and may be experiencing hair loss and skin changes. Find out more about wig care, styling and tips on how to utilize scarves and turbans at the program. The group will be small and intimate – limited to 8 women in treatment.
Date: Monday, April 20, 2015
Time: 2:30 p.m.
Place: Fran Como Conference Room
To Register: please call Jolene Lambert (413) 534-2501
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Alcoholic Anonymous -
Days/Times: Friday - 8:30 - 9:30 p.m. Sunday - 7:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Location: HMC Outpatient Behavioral Health
Contact: www.alcoholics-anonymous.org
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Al-Anon -
Beginners meeting at 5:45 p.m.
Days/Times: Tuesday - 6:00 - 7:30 p.m.
Location: HMC Outpatient Behavioral Health
Contact: www.alanon.org
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Al-Anon Blueprint For Progress-
4th step workshop meeting using Al-Anon's Blueprint For Progress Workbook
Al-Anon members and newcomers welcome.
Days/Times: Wednesday - 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Location: HMC Outpatient Behavioral Health
Contact: TracyL 413.575.8446
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Breast Cancer Support Group (Spanish-Speaking) -
Spanish-speaking breast cancer support group open to all breast cancer patients and their caregivers.
Days/Times: Third Thursday of each month at 4:30 p.m. (transportation available if needed)
Contact: For information and location, contact Breast Cancer Patient Navigator, Jolene Lambert at (413) 534-2501
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Business Debtors Anonymous -
For business owners who have problems with debt. Others are welcome, but asked just to listen.
Days/Times: Saturday 8:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
Location: HMC Outpatient Behavioral Health
Contact: www.debtorsanonymous.org
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Cancer Support Group -
Open to all cancer patients and their families and care givers.
Days/Times: Second Tuesday of each month from 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.
Location: Fran Como Conference Room
Contact: Jolene Lambert at (413) 534-2501
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Depression & Bipolar Support Group -
An open ended support group for anyone experiencing depression / bipolar symptoms.
Days/Times: Monday - 6:00 - 7:45 p.m.
Location: HMC Outpatient Behavioral Health
Contact: (413) 626-7627 or email@example.com
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Gamblers Anonymous -
Closed meeting for problem gamblers. Gam-anon Meeting also available in a separate room.
Last Saturday of the month is a speaker meeting
Days/Times: Saturday - 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Location: HMC Outpatient Behavioral Health
Contact: Mass. Hotline Number: 855.2CALLGA (855.222.5542) or www.gamblersanonymous.org
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MotherWoman Postpartum Support Group -
For women with baby blues, postpartum stress, anxiety and depression to discuss managing the stress and adjustment to motherhood. This group is bilingual.
Days/Times: every Wednesday from 1:00 - 2:45 p.m.
Location: Midwifery Care of Holyoke, 230 Maple St., Holyoke
Contact: Lisa Pack at The Birthing Center at Holyoke Medical Center at (413) 534-2700
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Narcotics Anonymous -
Miracles Can Happen
Days/Times: Tuesday - 7:45 - 9:00 p.m.
Location: HMC Outpatient Behavioral Health
Contact: www.na.org
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Narcotics Anonymous -
Days/Times: Monday - 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Location: HMC Outpatient Behavioral Health
Contact: www.na.org
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Overeaters Anonymous -
Days/Times: Sunday - 7:00 - 8:15 p.m.
Location: Fran Como Conference Room
Contact: www.oawmass.org
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Stroke Support Group -
Open to all stroke patients and their families and care givers. A speech-language pathologist will conduct a focused language/memory/therapeutic activity for part of each session; however, the primary goal is socialization and an opportunity for patients and families to share experiences and ideas.
Days/Times: Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Location: South 4 Conference Room
Contact: Speech and Hearing (413) 534-2508
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CBS 2 - Search Results
Emergency Landing At Eastern Iowa Airport
CEDAR RAPIDS (CBS 2/FOX 28) -- A plane was forced to make an emergency landing Friday evening at the Eastern Iowa Airport.
Officials say as the private plane was coming in for a landing, its front landing gear wouldn't retract. The pilot was able to safely land the plane without the gear, leaving the plane sitting on its nose on the runway.
Officials tell CBS 2/FOX 28 News all arriving and departing flights were put on hold until they knew everyone on the plane was okay.
There were no significant delays caused by the emergency landing.