The Berlin Wall Reconstructed by Computer

“Walled In!” is a 10-minute computer-animated documentary, in which the Berlin Wall and the East German-West German border (Inner-German border) have been reconstructed in incredible detail.

It was produced by Deutsche Welle – Germany’s international broadcaster.

You can really get a sense of how scared the Communist government was of letting its citizens flee its repression. Amongst the most gruesome booby traps installed inside the no-mans land include:

• “Stalin’s Lawn” – sheets of vertical metal spikes, usually placed underneath the balconies of buildings that reached over the East German side of the Berlin Wall./li>
• SM-70 Antipersonnel Mines – a spring gun that fires lethal shots at defectors trying to climb the wall on the West German side of the Inner-German border.

Also fascinating were the measures taken to reduce the likelihood of the East German border guards defecting themselves.

Here is another link for more information:

• Berlin Wall Memorial

Lunatic North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Il Dies

The death of the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il at age 69 has made news all over the world. Apparently, he had a heart attack whilst on a train.

He will be remembered for his skillful use of nuclear brinkmanship to protect his tyrannical regime and how he starved and brutalised his people, whilst lavishing the country’s limited wealth on himself and the military.

Here are a few sites with collections of reputed crazy facts about his lunatic, eccentric and brutal rule:

• http://abcnews.go.com/International/kim-jong-il-dead-top-10-crazy-facts/story?id=15187293#
• http://www.11points.com/news-politics/11_craziest_kim_jong-il_moments
• http://listverse.com/2010/05/30/top-10-crazy-facts-about-kim-jong-il/
• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/kim-jongil-school-days-of-a-tyrant-904130.html

His son Kim Jong-Un has taken over. No-one really knows what to expect – he is young and baby-faced, in his late 20’s. Some in the media hope that he may be more modern-minded as he was educated in Switzerland, and so he may liberalise North Korea. I don’t buy this type of wishful thinking.

I recall the case of another long-ruling dictator – Syria’s Hafez al-Assad. When he died in 2000, his son Bashar al-Assad took over. Prior to becoming leader, Bashar was an opthamologist who spent several years studying in the UK – a democratic society. People believed he would bring democratic ideals to Syria. They were proven wrong.

The fact is, Bashar had to maintain the loyalty of the old guard of military men and politicians, and act ruthlessly to prevent civilian unrest from toppling his regime, so he had to continue in his father’s tyrannical ways. It is only due to the momentum of the “Arab Spring” that began at the end of 2010 that Bashar’s rule is now at risk, with popular protests fueled by the Islamic movement.

The people of North Korea are far more isolated that the people of Syria and do not have a passionate political or religious movement to rally the population. Nonetheless, we will see what happens.

Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid Dies

The former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has died in hospital at the age of 69, after a prolonged illness. His presidency commenced after the fall of dictator Suharto in 1999.

Wahid’s leadership and policies attracted much controversy amongst Indonesians. Eventually, he was alienated within his own party and removed from office in 2001.

During and after his presidency, he promoted religious and ethnic tolerance. He wrote a seminal article published in the Wall Street Journal on December 30, 2005 titled “Right Islam vs. Wrong Islam” in which he called on “people of good will of every faith and nation” to unite to defeat the ideology of religious hatred that underlies and animates terrorism. He advocated for relations with Israel. When the Iranian government held a Holocaust Denial Conference in 2006, President Wahid convened a counter conference in Bali to promote the true historical view.

ClimateGate: What It Means

‘ClimateGate’ is the name given to the controversy surrounding the leaking of emails belonging to the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia that took place in late November. This institute is a major research centre that played a key role in promoting Global Warming Alarmism and contributing to the IPCC report on Global Warming.

There has been some coverage in the Australian mainstream media, but most of it has completely ignored the meat of the issue, and instead focussed on ‘computer hacking’ or how it could impede the Copenhagen climate summit. The most thorough coverage has been in the Australian newspaper and the blogs of News Ltd. columnists Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair.

For those of you that are unfamiliar, emails contained in these archives strongly suggest that academics at CRU have prepetrated widescale scientific fraud and engaged in highly unprofessional, if not criminal conduct. Furthermore, it casts a strong shadow of suspicion and doubt on their conclusions of future global climate catastrophe.

These practices include:

• Suppressing the views of dissenting scientists
• Mathematically manipulating climate data to hide features of the curve that disagree with alarmist opinions
• Knowingly incorporating poor quality, unreliable data into their research
• Subverting the peer review process
• Withholding and destroying information in response to Freedom of Information requests

I have no doubt that ClimateGate played a significant role in increasing opposition to the Australian ETS legislation and the fall of Opposition Leader  Malcolm Turnbull.

Plenty of great posts have been written that explain the content of these emails and surrounding issues in depth, so I will just include the links:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/global_warming_fraud_and_the_f.html

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html

http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/23/media-missing-the-plot-on-climate-gate-its-the-fraud-stupid/

http://uddebatt.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/climate-gate-%E2%80%93-all-the-manipulations-and-lies-revealed-15/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/climategate-hide-the-decline-codified/

http://fascistsoup.com/2009/11/25/more-on-the-climategate-source-code/

Aspiring Egyptian Book Burner Loses Bid To Head UNESCO

Long-serving Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosny has lost his bid to become the new Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation – UNESCO. The position was instead won by former Bulgarian Minister Irina Bokova, who received a majority of the final vote 31-27, amongst the 58 delegates.

Farouk Hosni’s campaign was hampered by a threat he made in the Egyptian parliament last year to personally burn any Israeli book he found in Egypt’s famous Library of Alexandria.

According to the linked article, “Critics also said that Mr Hosni was unfit to be UN guardian of culture because he censored books and films and stifled media freedom to support the authoritarian Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarak”.

In true Arab Muslim style, he blamed his election loss on a “Jewish Conspiracy, cooked up in New York”.

Crazed Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi to tell UN to Abolish Switzerland

A year ago, Gaddafi’s youngest son, Hannibal Gaddafi, and his wife were arrested in a Geneva luxury hotel after beating two servants with a belt and a coat-hanger.

According to a New York Times article, “Hannibal Gaddafi had previously been busted in France and Italy for beating a woman and fighting a cop, and once for driving drunk down Paris’ Champs Elysee at 90 mph  – the wrong way.”

How do you think Hannibal’s dad Muammar reacted? By issuing an apology to the Swiss? By taking some perks away from his son? By paying compensation to the beaten servants?

No, of course not! He reacted like a typical Arab Dictator – he threw a tantrum like a 3-year old boy – that is, a 3 year old boy with money and autocratic power. Gaddafi’s regime did the following:

• Recalled Libyan diplomats From Switzerland
• Suspended visas for Swiss citizens
• Withdrew funds from Swiss banks
• Blockaded the Tripoli office of the Swiss food company Nestlé

And the Old Arab Favourite trick:

• Threatened to cut off oil deliveries to Switzerland.

Oh and also they kept two Swiss businessmen as ‘guests’ [hostages] until Libya received an apology for poor little Hannibal’s arrest.

Now as you can imagine, such financial pressure can even crack most principled of people, especially the Swiss who are known for their love of other people’s gold. Two weeks ago, Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz travelled to Tripoli to issue a grovelling apology, hoping to pacify madman Gaddafi and get their businessmen back.

In true Arab style, Libya reneged and the businessmen are still there. Now Merz, having made a fool out of himself, is apparently facing calls for his resignation from outraged Swiss citizens.

But that’s not all. Gaddafi is still angry as hell and he now plans to demand the dissolution of Switzerland when he next addresses the United Nations. If Gaddafi can sway enough of his fellow Arab, Muslim and African dictatorships, maybe he’ll muster a UN majority to pass a Switzerland dissolution resolution.

After all, similar tactics got Taiwan kicked out of the UN in 1971, and get Israel criticised every other week for defending itself from destruction at the hands of its Arab Muslim Neighbours. That’ll teach the Swiss who’s boss!

Barack Obama wins US 2008 Presidential Election

I’m sure it came as no surprise to many that the Democratic candidate Barack Obama, defeated his Republican opponent, John McCain in the US general elections last week.

As an outsider I will make the following comments:

It appears that McCain’s faux pas was having Sarah Palin as his running mate. In my opinion, the Republican’s decision to have a female vice president was a gimmick needed to counter the Democrat’s choice of a black president, i.e. promoting the emancipation of black people vs promoting the emancipation of women. Unfortunately, the Republicans did not appear to choose a suitably qualified person and Palin quickly became an object of ridicule in the media.

Considering the current financial crisis and ongoing international conflicts, the incumbent party would have needed to make a superhuman effort to retain power – that made things easier for the Democrats.

I do hope that Barack Obama will prove to be a good leader and not just the outcome of an ‘affirmative action’ mindset.

My concerns at the moment are that the new Government will go soft on fighting religious fundamentalism and preventing the nuclear arming of fanatical regimes like Iran. Russia and China may continue to gain power and influence, unhindered by US intervention.

Satirical US Election Campaign Videos

I found these satirical US election propaganda videos earlier today. The first, I’m Voting Republication,  was released by Democrat supporters a while ago. The latest video, I’m Voting Democrat, was released in response by Republican supporters a few days ago.

For those of us outside the USA, we can poke fun at both sides.

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