Researchers Grow Human Organs In Pigs. Dr. Frankenstein Lives

Did Ancient Greeks Perform Human-Animal Experiments Too?

In a 1990 film, Death Warrant, Jean Claude Van Damme goes undercover into a prison where inmates are killed and their organs sold. This is not a new idea. 

[From article]
Scientists in the United States are trying to grow human organs inside pigs.
They have injected human stem cells into pig embryos to produce human-pig embryos known as chimeras.
The embryos are part of research aimed at overcoming the worldwide shortage of transplant organs.
The team from University of California, Davis says they should look and behave like normal pigs except that one organ will be composed of human cells.
The human-pig chimeric embryos are being allowed to develop in the sows for 28 days before the pregnancies are terminated and the tissue removed for analysis.
[. . .]
  Pablo Ross, a reproductive biologist who is leading the research told me: "Our hope is that this pig embryo will develop normally but the pancreas will be made almost exclusively out of human cells and could be compatible with a patient for transplantation."
But the work is controversial. Last year, the main US medical research agency, the National Institutes of Health, imposed a moratorium on funding such experiments.
[. . .]
His team has previously injected human stem cells into pig embryos but without first creating the genetic niche. Prof Ross said although they later found human cells in several parts of the developing foetus, they "struggled to compete" with the pig cells. By deleting a key gene involved in the creation of the pig pancreas, they hope the human cells will have more success creating a human-like pancreas.
Other teams in the United States have created human-pig chimeric embryos but none has allowed the foetuses to be born.
[. . .]
Walter Low, professor in the department of neurosurgery, University of Minnesota, said pigs were an ideal "biological incubator" for growing human organs, and could potentially be used to create not just a pancreas but hearts, livers, kidneys, lungs and corneas.
He said if the iPS cells were taken from a patient needing a transplant then these could be injected in a pig embryo which had the key genes deleted for creating the required organ, such as the liver: "The organ would be an exact genetic copy of your liver but a much younger and healthier version and you would not need to take immunosuppressive drugs which carry side-effects."
But Prof Low stressed that the research, using another form of gene editing called TALENs, was still at the preliminary stages, trying to identify the target genes which must be removed in order to prevent the pig from developing a particular organ.
His team is also trying to create dopamine-producing human neurons from chimeric embryos to treat patients with Parkinson's disease.
[. . .]
In the mid-90s there were hopes that genetically modified pigs might provide an endless supply of organs for patients, and that cross-species transplants were not far off.
But clinical trials stalled because of fears that humans might be infected with animal viruses.
Last year, a team at Harvard Medical School used CRISPR gene editing to remove more than 60 copies of a pig retrovirus.
Prof George Church, who led the research, told me: "It opens up the possibility of not just transplantation from pigs to humans but the whole idea that a pig organ is perfectible.
"Gene editing could ensure the organs are very clean, available on demand and healthy, so they could be superior to human donor organs."
[. . .]
But organisations campaigning for an end to factory farming are dismayed at the thought of organ farms.
Peter Stevenson, from Compassion in World Farming, told me: "I'm nervous about opening up a new source of animal suffering. Let's first get many more people to donate organs. If there is still a shortage after that, we can consider using pigs, but on the basis that we eat less meat so that there is no overall increase in the number of pigs being used for human purposes."
In Greek mythology, chimeras were fire-breathing monsters composed of several animals - part lion, goat and snake. The scientific teams believe human-pig chimeras should look and behave like normal pigs except that one organ will be composed of human cells.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-36437428

Scientists grow human organs for transplant inside pigs
By Fergus Walsh
Medical correspondent
June 5, 2016

* * *


Supporters claim it could spell an end to the shortage of donor organs – which means 1,000 people in the UK die every year while waiting for a transplant.

Cambridge, MA City Council remains non committal, issuing no comment.

[From article]

Pig-human embryos have been created in a dramatic bid to solve the organ transplant shortage.
Scientists have successfully combined human stem cells and pig DNA - with the aim of growing a human organ inside a pig.
But critics say the development of such hybrids is ‘offensive to human dignity’.
The ‘chimera’ embryos have been implanted in living sows and allowed to grow for 28 days before being tested and destroyed.
Supporters claim it could spell an end to the shortage of donor organs – which means 1,000 people in the UK die every year while waiting for a transplant.
But others have described it as terrifying ‘Frankenscience’.
The technique is being trialled on pig foetuses by US scientists who are experimenting with the genes involved in creating a pancreas.
Strict rules mean that, for now, the embryos cannot be matured past 28 days and no birth of a hybrid animal is allowed.
[. . .]
The latest breakthrough has been made at the University of California, Davis, where scientists have implanted pig-human hybrids into sows. Doctors have long discussed using pigs for human transplants, as the organs are roughly the same size as a human’s.
But they have repeatedly failed to overcome two hurdles – that the human body would instantly reject the foreign tissue, and that there is a risk of passing animal viruses into people.
[. . .]
Those challenges have been surpassed by gene-editing technology called CRISPR, which allows scientists to alter DNA with remarkable precision.
They have worked out how to remove from a strand of pig DNA the exact gene responsible for making a pancreas. This creates a void, which they hope will be filled when they inject the embryo with human ‘blank’ stem cells, capable of forming any form of tissue.
The hybrid embryo is then implanted into an adult sow – and as it grows into a foetus it develops a human pancreas.
Dr Pablo Ross, leading the research, told BBC Panorama: ‘Our hope is that this pig embryo will develop normally but the pancreas will be made almost exclusively out of human cells and could be compatible with a patient for transplantation.’
But the work is intensely controversial. The main concern is that the human stem cells might migrate to the developing pig’s brain, giving it some human characteristics.
Dr Ross insists: ‘We think there is very low potential for a human brain to grow, but this is something we will be investigating.’
[. . .]
Professor Walter Low of the University of Minnesota, which is researching a similar project, said pigs were an ideal ‘biological incubator’, adding: ‘The organ would be an exact genetic copy of your liver [for example] but a much younger and healthier version and you would not need to take immunosuppressive drugs which carry side-effects.’
Professor Low admitted that human cells spreading to the brain was a concerning prospect, but he added: ‘With every organ we will look at what’s happening in the brain and if we find that it’s too human-like, then we won’t let those foetuses be born.’
But Josephine Quintavalle, of campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: ‘These experiments are absolutely offensive to human dignity, and no utilitarian justification whatsoever can ever bypass such opposition. We are absolutely horrified at this arrogance.’
Professor Stuart Newman, of New York Medical College, said: ‘You’re getting into unsettling ground that I think is damaging to our sense of humanity.’
Peta UK’s Julia Baines condemned the research as ‘Frankenscience’, adding: ‘Creating human-animal hybrids is bad for people and worse for animals.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3626562/Scientists-let-hybrid-embryos-develop-lab-28-days-bid-solve-transplant-shortage.html

Human organs grown in pigs: Scientists let hybrid embryos develop in lab for 28 days in bid to solve transplant shortage
Scientists have successfully combined human stem cells and pig DNA
Embryos put in living pigs and made to grow for 28 days before destroyed
Critics have dubbed it ‘Frankenscience’ and ‘offensive to human dignity’
1,000 people in the UK die every year while waiting for a organ transplant
By BEN SPENCER MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 17:57 EST, 5 June 2016 | UPDATED: 13:21 EST, 6 June 2016

Return of Paganism, Phoenician Tribalism

[From article]
At its core, Europe has abandoned its Christian heritage in favor of the Canaanite side of the family tree.
One is amazed, when one studies history, how much of human conflict originates in a family or clan feuds. The present Mideast crises have their origins in the biblical feud between Jacob and Esau. Looking further west, we can see that the Punic Wars can be thought of as feuds between the Carthaginian Barca family and the Scipios of Italy. The wars between Scotland and England often involved feuding family claims on the Stone of Scone -- a rock of questionable origins, so steeped in myth that it is beyond the scope of this article to assess the veracity of any of the various and competing legends.
Yet, we know these myths are often based on a germ of truth. Troy did exist; and hence the Trojan War did occur, though Homer certainly exaggerated it for poetic effect. If there was a Helen, and if she was as beautiful as the myth says, she must have been a stunner. We are still singing about Helen, three millenia later.
[. . .]


Updated Europa and The Bull Myth Symbol of The EU

We do know from history that the Phoenicians brought literacy and civilization to the Europeans through trading with the early Minoans and Myceneans.
[. . .]
What is clear is that these Phoenicians shot out to the West, and jump started our civilization. Later on, migrating Indo-European (IE) tribes would absorb them. Oddly enough, willingly. The Celts got along well with the Phoenicians. Gaelic legends [Irish and Scottish] speak of a mixed European and Phoenician ancestry.
[. . .]
So, it is no small leap to conclude the Phoenicians/Carthaginians brought bullfighting to Spain when they migrated to Spain from Carthage, after having moved to Crete from Lebanon. They set up all over the Mediterranean.
What we notice is that Mediterranean European culture is heavily Phoenician in origin, and partially Phoenician in genetic bloodline as well, though obviously diluted into the Indo-European (IE) tribes.
[. . .]
More astoundingly, in front of the European Parliament is a statue of this woman [Europa] riding the bull. A celebration of a maiden being carried off to be raped by a deceptive god, Zeus.
Why would any modern polity embrace a mythological rape as their inspiration? There has to be something amiss in the European mind. Where are the leftist feminists? Why aren't they upset? Yet, Europeans have embraced this gruesome legend and plaster it all over their culture.
More astoundingly, in front of the European Parliament is a statue of this woman [Europa] riding the bull.
A celebration of a maiden being carried off to be raped by a deceptive god, Zeus.
Why would any modern polity embrace a mythological rape as their inspiration? There has to be something amiss in the European mind. Where are the leftist feminists? Why aren't they upset? Yet, Europeans have embraced this gruesome legend and plaster it all over their culture.
[. . .]



The Europeans could have chosen El Cid, Richard the Lionheart, or better yet, Leonidas I, the hero of Thermopylae. What is wrong with Europe?! Bestial Rape?
One of America's Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin, wanted America's image to be Moses leading the tribes of Israel to liberty across the parted Red Sea. That alone sheds insight into the difference between European and American mindsets, at least two centuries ago. I suspect, the difference has eroded.
[. . .]
Just who were these Phoenicians who brought civilization, and this inspiration, to Indo-European (IE) tribes in Southern Europe?
They were the Canaanites, the ancient enemies of Israel.
[. . .]
The Canaanites had a very dark civilization. This is glossed over, as history books mention only their achievements; but there was a reason Moses wanted them obliterated. Yes, the Phoenicians brought the alphabet to Europe (probably learned it from the Hebrews, and took credit for it); and yes, they brought mercantilism, and seafaring knowledge; but they came with baggage, lots of baggage: child sacrifice, temple prostitution, and animal cruelty, at least to bulls.
[. . .]
The ancient Jews, and their sages, were quick to notice that European civilization had embraced much of the Canaanites' cultural affectations.
[. . .]
The problem is that Europe's embrace of Christianity was only superficial -- they did not embrace Christianity strongly enough. Had they, the Canaanite Phoenician influence would not have survived.
[. . .]
but a deeper insight would indicate that at the time of the writing of the Book of Revelation, everyone who heard it would have immediately associated the image with the foundation myth of Europe. The Greeks at that time were all familiar with the legend of the Rape of Europa. However, one understands the verse and chapter, it certainly applies to European Civilization in general, not just Rome.
[. . .]



This ancient feud between the Hebrews and the Canaanites would resurface between the Jews and the Europeans at times. This is no accident. It is a family rivalry, albeit attenuated by intermarriage. As Europe continues to de-Christianize, this pagan core will begin to reassert itself,
[. . .]
The last time this happened was under Hitler, who tried to re-paganize Germany. The shock of WW I had started to de-Christianize the continent and Hitler strolled in with his neo-pagan Nordicism. Europe is less Christian today, so the potential for even worse is there.
Under stress, the retro-virus has broken out again in Europe's abandonment of Israel.
These arcane myths are the subconscious echo of an ancient feud driving European policy. At its core, Europe has abandoned its Christian heritage in favor of the Canaanite side of the family tree. The result is frightening.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/europe_and_the_phoenician_virus.html

June 4, 2016
Europe and the Phoenician Virus
By Mike Konrad

Shipwreck Yields Secret to First Computer 2,000 Years Ago

[Don't know when this feature will be rebroadcast. Check with local PBS schedule.]
Scientists decide it was Archimedes who invented the first computer with accurate ability to predict sun and moon eclipses. Prime numbers play a role. One more contribution from the ancient Greeks, though Archimedes lived in Syracuse in Sicily.  


PBS
Ancient Computer

http://www.pbs.org/video/2364988981/

52:51Aired: 04/03/13Rating: TV-G
A Greek shipwreck holds the remains of an intricate bronze machine that turns out to be the world’s first computer.

Spectacular Archeological Find In Greece

A golden chain found inside an ancient tomb dated circa 1500 B.C in the southeastern city of Pylos, Greece.

Photo: (Left) ZumaWire, (right) Reuters

[From article]

University of Cincinnati archaeologists have discovered a treasure trove of more than 1,400 objects including gold chains, semi-precious stones and Bronze Age weapons — a find that’s being touted as one of the most “magnificent displays of prehistoric wealth” found in mainland Greece in the past 65 years, according to UC Magazine.
The summer findings ranged from solid-gold rings, a three-foot bronze sort covered in gold and more than 1,000 beads, in an unopened shaft grave of a wealthy 30-something-year-old Mycenaean warrior, dating back 3,500 years, according to Shari Stocker, a senior researcher at the university.
[. . .]
The discovery was made at the former site of Palace of Nestor, a large complex with connections to the Homeric legend that was destroyed in a fire around 1200 B.C.

http://nypost.com/2015/10/27/archaeologists-find-weathly-prehistoric-warriors-grave-full-of-riches/

Archaeologists find weathly prehistoric warrior’s grave full of riches
By Sophia Rosenbaum
New York Post
October 27, 2015 | 5:39pm

* * *


http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-warriors-grave-greece-20151026-htmlstory.html

Here's what archaeologists found in a warrior's grave that's been untouched for 3,500 years
By Christine Mai-Duc
October 26, 2015 6:04 PM

Europe and The Middle East Refugees

[From article]
(It is regrettable to have to say “regrettably” when talking about this, but Muslims pose a unique threat to free people everywhere.)
[. . .]
Breitbart reports:
“…amidst cries for Europe to do more, it has transpired that of the five wealthiest countries on the Arabian Peninsula, that is, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, not one has taken in a single refugee from Syria. Instead, they have argued that accepting large numbers of Syrians is a threat to their safety, as terrorists could be hiding within an influx of people….”
[. . .]
But there is likely another factor at play, which is hijrah, the Islamic doctrine of immigration whereby societies are overwhelmed with Muslims such that Muslims become the dominant force.
[. . .]
As Robert Spencer writes in Front Page Magazine:
[. . .]



This will transform Germany, and Europe, forever, overtaxing the welfare economies of its wealthiest nations and altering the cultural landscape beyond recognition….
[. . .]
why is it incumbent upon Europe have to absorb all these refugees? Why not Saudi Arabia or the other Muslim countries that are oil-rich and have plenty of space? The answer is unspoken because non-Muslim authorities refuse to believe it and Muslims don’t want it stated or known: these refugees have to go to Europe because this is a hijrah.
[. . .]
Daniel Greenfield, who, also writing for Front Page Magazine, describes the heart of the problem in a brilliant piece
[. . .]
This is an Islamic war fought to determine which branch of Islam will be supreme. It is not a war that started last week or last year, but 1,400 years ago.
We can’t make it go away by overthrowing Assad or supporting him, by giving out candy or taking in refugees. This conflict is in the cultural DNA of Islam. It is not going anywhere.
[. . .]



the two Muslim sects whose militias are murdering each other are not victims, they are perpetrators. Just because Sunnis are running from a Shiite militia or Shiites from a Sunni militia right now doesn’t make them victims.
[. . .]
The refugees aren’t fleeing a dictator. They’re fleeing each other while carrying the hateful ideologies that caused this bloodshed with them.
We aren’t taking in people fleeing the civil war. We’re taking in their civil war and giving it a good home.
And then there is the matter of so much hysteria over Syrian refugees when Christians persecuted in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East have been refused entry to the United States. Where has been our outrage and where has been the world’s commitment to make sure they are given safe haven in the West?
[. . .]
it’s also about the unique threats posed by Muslim immigrants – a threat no candidate appears willing to address.
[. . .]
We must close our borders to Syrians and all Muslims who want to live in the United States. There’s no room at the inn. We’re all filled up with mega mosques and Muslim schools that teach hate; with Muslim Brotherhood front groups, lawfare, and creeping Sharia. With beheadings and honor killings. And prison converts. And terror training camps. And deadly acts of jihad.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/09/expediting_national_suicide_with_refugees.html

September 9, 2015
Expediting National Suicide with 'Refugees'
By Carol Brown

Migrants To Greece, Riot Demanding Food, Documents

Policemen try to disperse hundreds of migrants by spraying them with fire extinguishers, during a registration procedure which was taking place at the stadium of Kos town, on the southeastern island of Kos, Greece, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2015. Fights broke out among migrants on the Greek island of Kos Tuesday, where overwhelmed authorities are struggling to contain increasing numbers of people arriving clandestinely on rubber dinghies from the nearby Turkish shore. 

(AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis)

These migrants think Greece is like the United States. Surprise!

[From article]
Fights broke out among migrants Tuesday on the Greek island of Kos, where overwhelmed authorities are struggling to contain increasing numbers of people arriving clandestinely on rubber dinghies from the nearby Turkish shore.
Hundreds of protesting migrants demanding quick registration began blocking the main coastal road in the island's main town, staging a sit-in.
"We want papers, we want to eat!" they chanted.
Hundreds of people arrive on Greece's eastern Aegean islands daily, many after fleeing conflict in Syria and Afghanistan. Authorities, locals and charity groups are struggling to provide registration, food and shelter to the new arrivals, many of whom are children.
Many of those on Kos, a popular tourist destination, had been camping in the main town's parks and squares.
[. . .]
Similar protests and tension have occurred on several of the islands bearing the brunt of the migrant influx in recent weeks, including Lesbos, where the majority of new arrivals land.
[. . .]
In all, Greek police said Monday that 156,726 migrants had been arrested for entering or remaining in the country illegally from January through July 2015, compared to 32,070 for the same months in 2014.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150811/eu--greece-migrants-29910f0dda.html

Fights among migrants break out on Greek island of Kos
Aug 11, 5:55 AM (ET)
By YORGOS KARAHALIS

Growing Anti Semitism in Greece

[From article]
Greece owes colossal amounts of money, estimated to be about $330 billion. About 60% is owed to the nations of the Eurozone, mostly Germany (56 billion euros), France (42 billion euros), and Italy (37 billion euros). Some 10% is owed to the IMF, 6% to the European Central Bank, and the rest to Greek banks (11 billion euros), foreign banks (2.4 billion euros), and private lenders who owe Greek government bonds.
Greece only owes the IMF 32 billion euros. In July 2015 it did not pay the $1.8 billion payment it owed the IMF, which is owed another $3.9 billion.

[. . .]

The record of Greece regarding its Jewish population is an inglorious one. During World War II, 65-67,000 (92 per cent) of the Jews living in Greece were sent to their deaths. More than 46,000 Jews from Thessalonika were deported; it is shameful that in 2011 the Holocaust memorial in the town was desecrated.
Today there are 5,000 Jews in the Greek population,
[. . .]

A recent public opinion survey found that Greece was the most anti-Semitic country in Europe, twice as anti-Semitic as France. It showed that 85 per cent of Greeks surveyed thought Jews had too much power in the business world, 82 per cent in the international financial markets, and 74 per cent too much control over global affairs. Anti-Semitism has cut across political lines and been transmitted from the Church, from political parties, from the newspapers, and TV channel Tele-Asty, and from well-known personalities.
[. . .]

the Good Friday liturgy of the Orthodox Church still includes anti-Jewish references. The Greek Orthodox Bishop Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus in 2010 told his people that Jews controlled the international banking system. Earlier in 1980 the Metropolitan of Corinth, in an anti-Semitic book, had written of the “power of the Jews who suck the blood of the people.”
[. . .]

An unusually large number of political figures from different parties have uttered anti-Semitic remarks. In 1982 Prime Minister Andreas Papendreou, leader of the PASOK party and a friend of Yasser Arafat, compared the State of Israel to the Nazis; to his credit he later apologized. As early as the 1990s, political parties, such as PASOK, the Greek Social Democratic Party, propounded the assertion of Zionism as a Jewish plot for world domination. Anti-Semitism increased, accompanied by anti-Israeli manifestations, with desecration of synagogues, Jewish cemeteries, monuments, and Holocaust memorials.
[. . .]

Prime Minister Tsipras has taken an anti-Israeli stance for some time. In 2014 he called on the world to make every possible effort so that Israel ended its criminal attack and brutality against Palestinians. His party Syriza was on record to end Greek’s defense cooperation with “aggressive Israel,”
It is particularly disturbing that the well-known, politically leftist composer, Mikis Theodorakis, has spoke on many occasions of Israel as the root of evil. One can admire the music he wrote for the films Zorba the Greek and Serpico. But his political utterances are less endearing. He pronounced himself both anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/07/greece_and_its_jewish_problem_.html

July 10, 2015
Greece and its Jewish Problem
By Michael Curtis

Greek City Refuses To Open Holocaust Museum With Star of David On Display

[From article]

Several Jewish organizations revealed over the weekend that local officials in the Greek town of Kavala canceled a Sunday ceremony meant to mark the official opening of a Holocaust memorial museum in the city, where nearly 1,500 Jewish people were killed by the Nazis.
The ceremony was canceled at the last minute after Greek officials demanded that the Jewish Star of David “be removed before the monument can be displayed,” according to the American Jewish Committee (AJC), which became aware of the controversy following an alert from its partner organization, the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece.
Only two days before the ceremony, the mayor and a majority of the city council are insisting that the image of the Star of David be removed before the monument can be displayed,” the AJC said in a statement.
“There are no words to express adequately our shock and dismay at this news,” said AJC executive director David Harris was quoted as saying in the group’s statement.
Greece, like other countries in Europe, continues to be plagued by growing anti-Semitism. Nearly all of Greece’s once-vibrant Jewish population was murdered during the Holocaust.

http://freebeacon.com/issues/greek-officials-demand-jewish-star-be-removed-from-holocaust-museum/

Greek Officials Demand Jewish Star Be Removed from Holocaust Museum
BY: Adam Kredo
May 18, 2015 1:09 pm

Archeologists Find Tomb From Era Of Alexander the Great

[From article]
Archaeologists unearthed bones from at least five people, including a woman aged over 60, a newborn baby, two men aged between 35 and 45 and another adult of indeterminate age.
The bones of one of the men bore cut marks which were likely to have come from a sword or a dagger, the Greek culture ministry said, adding a new twist to the occupants of the necropolis.
The fifth person, whose gender and age has not been identified so far, had been cremated.
Since the tomb was discovered at Amphipolis in northern Greece last year there has been intense speculation that it may have been built for Alexander the Great, or failing that one of his generals or his mother.
[. . .]
Alexander forged one of the largest empires the world had ever seen, a sprawling mosaic of territories that stretched from the Mediterranean to the Indus.
He is believed to have died in 323 BC, at the age of 32, after an all-night drinking bout in Babylonia, with his body then transported to Alexandria, a city that he founded, for burial.
After his death, his generals fought over control of the empire he had established.
During those wars, Alexander’s mother, widow, son and half-brother were all murdered - most of them near Amphipolis.
Inside the huge tomb – the largest ever to have been found in Greece - archaeologists have found two marble statues of sphinxes and a beautiful mosaic pavement which depicts the abduction of Persephone, the daughter of Zeus, by Hades, king of the underworld.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/11355324/Mystery-of-Greeces-Alexander-the-Great-era-tomb-deepens-with-body-discoveries.html

Mystery of Greece's Alexander the Great-era tomb deepens with body discoveries
Remains of five people found in vast, ancient tomb dating back to Alexander's era, around 300-325 BC
By Nick Squires
5:21PM GMT 19 Jan 2015

Greece To Italy Ferry Catches Fire, Ten Dead

Photo: AP

[From article]
The Italian Defense Ministry said 165 of the 478 people on the ferry had been evacuated by Sunday evening, more than 14 hours after the fire erupted.
“It will be a very difficult night. A night in which we hope we will be able to rescue all on board,” Greek Merchant Marine Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis said in Athens.
He said 10 merchant ships were in the area assisting rescue efforts, and that those who had already taken on dozens of passengers from the stricken ferry would remain in the area until the operation was over. Only then would it be determined where they would go, Varvitsiotis said.
The fire broke out before dawn Sunday on a car deck of the Italian-flagged Norman Atlantic, traveling from the western Greek port of Patras to the Italian port of Ancona on the Adriatic, with 422 passengers and 56 crew members on board.

http://nypost.com/2014/12/28/1-dead-1-injured-in-greek-ferry-disaster/

Fatal fire erupts on ferry, trapping hundreds
By Associated Press
New York Post
December 28, 2014 | 11:53am

Politicians, Journalists Exhibit Hypocrisy, Cluelessness, and Double Standard

[From article]
Cyprus is a beautiful island. But it has never recovered from the Turkish invasion of 1974. Turkish troops still control nearly 40 percent of the island -- the most fertile and formerly the richest portion.
Some 200,000 Greek refugees never returned home
[. . .]
Why, then, is the world not outraged at an occupied Cyprus the way it is at, say, Israel?
Nicosia is certainly more divided than is Jerusalem. Thousands of Greek refugees lost their homes more recently, in 1974, than did the Palestinians in 1947.
[. . .]
Greeks know that Turkey worries little about what world thinks of its occupation.
[. . .]
In the racist habit of assuming low expectations for non-Westerners, European elites do not hold Turkey to the same standards that they do Israel.
We see such hypocrisy when the West stays silent while Muslims butcher each other by the thousands in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya and Syria. Only when a Westernized country likeIsrael inflicts far less injury to Muslims does the West become irate. The same paradox seems to hold true for victims. Apparently, Western Christian Greeks are not the romantic victims that Palestinian Muslims are.
[. . .]
Resurgent anti-Semitism both in the Middle East and in Europe translates into inordinate criticism of Israel. Few connect Turkey's occupation of Cyprus with some larger racist commentary about the supposed brutal past of the Turks.
[. . .]
accept that the Middle East is not just about a dispute over land. Israel is inordinately damned for what it supposedly does because its friends are few, its population is tiny, and its adversaries beyond Gaza numerous, dangerous and often powerful.
And, of course, because it is Jewish.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0814/hanson081414.php3

Occupation of Cyprus underscores hypocrisy of Gaza outrage

By Victor Davis Hanson
Published August 14, 2014

Obama Believes In Magic

[From article]
Historians commonly date the birth of Western civilization from the Greek development of mathematics. Greek mathematics was the first point of view able to regard the world as potentially comprehensible. While computational methods to solve practical problems existed as far back as the Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations they were always ad hoc; a way of solving problems rather than of understanding the universe.
The Western revolution was based on the semi (and often frankly) religious goal of understanding the universe. From that world view flowed the ‘how’ as a byproduct — the technology we often mistake for the spirit of inquiry itself – of the quest for truth. The great empires of the time did not trouble themselves with the Western world view, with the source of the Fire, content with appropriating the results. They could simply keep their own cultural context and still use the borrowed fruit.
The Romans, the Hellenistic world and later the Arabs were content to simply adopt the technology. They copied mathematical results and physics and with it learned enough to slay and conquer — even the Greeks — an incident encapsulated in the death of Archimedes at the hands of a Roman soldier, who finding the deaf old abstracted man in his path solving a problem in the sand, stabbed the philosopher where he sat.
[. . .]
The Middle East that Obama inherited in 2009 was largely at peace, for the surge in Iraq had beaten down the al Qaeda-linked groups. U.S. relations with traditional allies in the Gulf, Jordan, Israel and Egypt were very good. Iran was contained, its Revolutionary Guard forces at home. Today, terrorism has metastasized in Syria and Iraq, Jordan is at risk, the humanitarian toll is staggering, terrorist groups are growing fast and relations with U.S. allies are strained.
How did it happen? Begin with hubris: The new president told the world, in his Cairo speech in June 2009, that he had special expertise in understanding the entire world of Islam—knowledge “rooted in my own experience” because “I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed.” But President Obama wasn’t speaking that day in an imaginary location called “the world of Islam;” he was in Cairo, in the Arab Middle East, in a place where nothing counted more than power.
[. . .]
The Left is contemptuous of costs because they don’t believe it matters. With the certainty of those who are devoted to magic, like those who burned the library of Alexandria, costs don’t matter because the government will pay for it. Like barbarians they don’t really see the connection between Truth — or God if you prefer — and consequences. Goodies are simply there. Arithmetic is only useful for convincing people, for making the spell work.
[. . .]
How could Obama admit to error, when having built his power on sorcery he must now cling to infallibility? The power of magicians to command the weather is destroyed once the magician is exposed as fake. For a sorcerer a mistake is not mere error but catastrophe. So the idea that reality can be trumped by perception is now the ultimate in modern sophistication, a necessary device to support the world of magic.

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2014/06/23/sword-and-sorcery/

Sword and Sorcery
June 23rd, 2014 - 4:33 pm
Richard Fernandez

Has Greece Found The Real Hell

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2240430/Alepotrypa-Incredible-cave-experts-believe-inspired-Greek-legend-Hades.html

Is this the real Hell? Incredible cave which experts believe inspired
the Greek legend of Hades
The cave - named Alepotrypa - dates back to the Neolithic Age but laid
undiscovered in southern Greece until the 1950s
Archaeologists have uncovered tools, pottery, obsidian, silver and
copper artifacts
Findings suggest cave dwellers might have connected the cave with Hades
By SUZANNAH HILLS
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 11:32 EST, 29 November 2012 | UPDATED: 17:07 EST, 29 November 2012

Not Enough People To Run a Country

[From article]
"If the problem with socialism is, as Mrs. Thatcher says, that eventually you run out of other people's money, much of the West has advanced to the next stage: it's run out of other people, period.
[. . .]
For most of human history, functioning societies have honored the long run: It's why millions of people have children, build houses, plant trees, start businesses, make wills, put up beautiful churches in ordinary villages, fight and, if necessary, die for your country. A nation, a society, a community is a compact between past, present and future, in which the citizens, in Tom Wolfe's words at the dawn of the "Me Decade," "conceive of themselves, however unconsciously, as part of a great biological stream."
Much of the developed world climbed out of the stream. You don't need to make material sacrifices: The state takes care of all that. You don't need to have children. And you certainly don't need to die for king and country. But a society that has nothing to die for has nothing to live for: It's no longer a stream, but a stagnant pool."

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/people-332895-women-percent.html

Published: Dec. 23, 2011 Updated: 2:52 p.m.
Orange County Register
Mark Steyn
An upside-down family tree

Euro Doomed To Failure May Bring Down Good Economies

[From article]
"In Europe the past couple of decades, this hasn’t been a fanciful hope, it’s been a reality. A political and financial overclass engineered the adoption of the euro, based on one of the world’s most foolhardy delusions since the fall of the Berlin Wall: that you can have a common currency without a common country.
[. . .]
True to form, Greece lied about its fiscal indicators to get accepted into the euro, and kept right on lying once it joined the currency. Its national motto could be a paraphrase of the famous “Animal House” line: “You messed up -- you trusted us.”

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_expert_road_to_ruin_RZdmH6674pMwlki7PSTg3J

The ‘expert’ road to ruin
Behind the euro catastrophe
Rich Lowry
New York Post
Last Updated: 2:54 AM, August 19, 2011
Posted: 10:10 PM, August 18, 2011

The Greek Economy and Financial Bailout

The Greeks!
There is no way the Greeks will be able to control their economy and meet the terms of the bailout by the EEC and the IMF. They can't even enforce the No Smoking regulations !

The new law bans smoking in eateries since 7/1/09.

Look how many cigarettes are in the ashtray in this restaurant ...

Hey!

Look in the ashtray, the ashtray, the ashtray! Jeez...you're worse than the Greeks !

Greece Raids Rich Tax Cheats

[From article]
"Agents then went knocking on the doors of 990 well-to-do individuals identified by the Ministry of Finance as tax cheats who owe more than $8.5 million in back real estate taxes on their vacation homes and seaside hideaways, on which they failed to report their values totaling $721 million, the ministry said.

[. . .]

In recent weeks, such storm-trooper methods have shaken out $2.33 billion from businesses that failed to report sales taxes -- double the amount collected for the entire prior year, the ministry said."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/greece_tax_agents_raid_rich_cheats_93K2bimOZKHjEyurAcKACO

Greece tax agents raid rich cheats

By PAUL THARP

New York Post

Last Updated: 12:35 AM, July 11, 2010

Posted: 12:35 AM, July 11, 2010

Greek Crisis Threatens USA

[From Article]

"Here is the chilling fact: the average external debt as a percent of GDP among countries in their sample the year before a sovereign debt crisis was 54.7 percent, and 71.4 percent in the crisis year. The U.S. external debt on Dec. 31, 2009, was $13.77 trillion, or almost 100 percent of GDP. For much of Europe, the story is worse."

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-16/greece-s-bailout-heroes-arrive-in-leaking-boats-kevin-hassett.html

Bloomberg.com

Greece’s Bailout Heroes Arrive in Leaking Boats: Kevin Hassett

May 16, 2010, 9:20 PM EDT

Greek Economic Crisis

[From article]
"Reality isn't easy.
[. . .]
they've given us political shows and token actions.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/big_fat_greek_budget_Bh4sQGi4J3tRy9FvgvC8rJ

A big, fat 'Greek' budget

NYC's permanent problems

Nicole Gelinas
New York Post
Last Updated: 5:35 AM, May 11, 2010

Posted: 11:29 PM, May 9, 2010

Greek Government Admits Corruption


"George Papandreou, Greece’s prime minister, acknowledge to his fellow European Union leaders that the Greek public sector was riddled with corruption."

Americans are fortunate that their state and US governments are free of corruption.

"The socialists blamed the misreporting on faulty statistics and the errors of the previous conservative government.:

Americans are fortunate that their new administration is the same as the Greek's.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/54f4983e-e637-11de-bcbe-00144feab49a.html

Greece admits it is riddled with corruption
By Tony Barber in Brussels
Financial Times
Published: December 11 2009 10:31
Last updated: December 11 2009 20:53