Saturday, August 12, 2006

Nude Newz 08/2006

I spent the long weekend sun worshiping in our record breaking heat,so I can relate to this article; Notes on Nude-Beach Season Being naked out of doors and in the water can be blissful.

It appears I am not alone....Uncovering the naked truth in NottinghamThe 350-acre park was founded by Robert and Mary Bonser in 1950. The feisty World War II vet was stationed in the South Pacific. Due to the moist climate and military fatigues he developed a skin fungus that was cured when the natives encouraged him to sunbathe in the nude.Robert was fond of saying, "If God wanted us to wear clothes, we would have been born with them."Today the village is operated by his son Terry and wife Mary. She greeted me at check-in dressed in a blue summer outfit. Mary always dresses for first-time guests. She informed me that if I cared to tour the village I would have to take my clothes off "¦ just as she was doing right in front of me.

Nudism as they say is family fun....Family Of 3 Run Naked On Canadian Beach

And its not just at Wreck Beach in B.C. apparently there is a nude beach on Lake Eire.... Naked truth of beach exposed

In Albania however its a rather shocking experience to see folks doffing their clothes at the beach even if its only to go topless......Naked women shock police

Albanian police were speechless when around 30 Scandinavian women went topless, shocking local bathers and causing an uproar in an Albanian beach resort. "Police only watched ... they could not approach the tourists because they spoke no English," a local newspaper in the southern Albania coastal town of Sarande said.


But apparently it shocks even sophisticated Paris..... Nude sunbathing, g-strings banned on Paris beach but its ok at the rest of Frances beaches. Defending the decree, city hall sports official Pascal Cherki told Le Parisien that indecent clothing "could have led to temptations and dangerous behaviour on the banks of the river." Topless sunbathing and g-strings are common on real beaches around France in the summer. And it doens't lead to lewd or lascivious behavior. Perhaps its something in Paris water?

Fun with arts and crafts.
The Saskatoon Exhibition has pulled an entry in its art show because of a complaint about the embroidered portrait of a nude woman dancing. Censoring embrodiery how low can ya go? Truly PC. Guess they figured one should only embroider flora or fauna.

And speaking of flora this story is really about flowers.....THERE ARE NAKED LADIES in my garden. I know of no old area a garden where they do not cavort, and they are too common in the area to be thought a rarity. It is too early for them, for they generally don't show until late August or early September, but they are out now. Really the plant is called Naked Ladies.Colchicums, aka naked ladies, provide instant gratification.

It would be all so much easier and less hassle for airline travelers.....

The naked solution to flying in safety
Stripped, searched, probed and quarantined, the weary travellers gladly embark on their holidays, grateful to have done their bit in The War Against Terror

Grateful travellers embark in safety

Of course the reason that the UK police found out about the bomb plot was.....


Your hidden secrets revealed by the Rapiscan scanner
Liquid explosives revealed by 'naked' Heathrow scans



That is not a smart place to keep a gun......








RANTS AND RAVES: Nude protest dubious defense
For the straight-faced claim by a DeKalb County man that he was protesting the war in Iraq when he walked naked along a highway in Hammondville waving an American flag. He faces a charge of public lewdness. We're all for the freedom to protest, but it's hard to see just what message a nude parade along a public thoroughfare is meant to send. The defendant, although obviously not shy in other ways, has not been forthcoming on that point. Well it was effective it got this editors attention. Oh I get it he wasn't wearing a sign.

However it appears to becoming a mass movement as Arlo Gutherie said in Alices Resteraunt.
US Man Walks Nude to Protest Iraq War Gerald Lynn Kelley decided to protest the war in Iraq by walking along a highway in a cowboy hat and boots. Just a cowboy hat and boots. Well at least he was wearing something. Wait he was also waving the American Flag Valley Head man says he waved flag in the nude as a war protest

Of course it is not only in America where nude protests occur.....

The 'naked' truth


'They want to take their clothes off to show Mugabe they are tired of him'

The latest issue of the government mouthpiece, the Manica Post, has an article in which they claim that I have been enlisting the services of elderly women from the Makoni area to strip naked in front of law enforcement agents, during our planned non-violent protests. This, they claim, is taboo.
This response to the MDC's largely successful rural outreach programme in Manicaland leaves no doubt that the regime knows its time is up. It does not question why the people would want to protest but only the method, thus acknowledging the opposition's political influence in the province.
What is really taboo is the way Zanu (PF) has abused the rural folk for so long, with its show of contempt for the elderly through its policies that have left this constituency marginalized. In fact, our culture stipulates that we respect the elderly. We have an obligation to look after them into the old age till they die.

Dear Abby: Don't sleep with nude sister This is not so much about a nude sister as much as about a rude sister.

Well at least she only sleeps in the nude. A 17-year-old boy was referred to the district attorney's office Wednesday after a neighbor complained she had seen him repeatedly walking around naked in his open garage and in his yard on Sunray Lane. I would say MYOB, this is a case of a peeping thomasina who didn't .


He was panting too hard.
A bodybuilder seeking the right to bring his dog to a nude beach on Fire Island is throwing in the towel on his federal lawsuit.Mark DelCore withdrew his legal action against the Fire Island National Seashore, citing his poor health. "I do not possess the stamina or physical continuity necessary to continue this complaint," he wrote in an Aug. 7 letter to Federal Judge Joseph Bianco of U.S. District Court in Central Islip,

Lets run away to the circus.... The warped burlesque circus show "Absinthe" is Cirque du Soleil's younger sister — more brash, less inhibited and more naked. Because they both attempt to update the traditional circus with modern artistic sensibilities, its easy to draw comparisons between the two. However, "Absinthe" — playing at the Spiegeltent through September — is far raunchier


And the headline writer had fun with this story.....cheeky,very cheeky...
Stiff contest for Eric Dias Cup


Don't Stay Naked (right), ridden by Paul Francis, leads narrowly from the favourite on the outside, Nijinsky's War (Wesley Henry) and Exclusively, with Trevor Simpson aboard in the centre, early in the straight in race seven over 1500 metres at Caymanas Park at Monday's Independence Day race meet. Don't Stay Naked (2-1) proceeded to win by half-a-length from Nijinsky's War. - Colin Hamilton/Freelance Photographer

CELEBRITY NUDE NEWZ

And now a bust to remember, too bad Bill didn't.

The so-called
The so-called "presidential bust" of Hillary Rodham Clinton features the former First Lady and current New York senator dressed in a lacy, low-cut gown. (Daniel Edwards)

Wait a Minute when did she get covered up. Hillary Nude at Museum of Sex
According to Reuters, the artist said he wanted to capture Clinton's age and femininity in the sculpture and that he wants to show the senator "as a woman -- not a covered up person, but as a woman." Clinton`s office had no immediate comment. Guess you couldn't show Hillary's bust in Saskatoon.

They issue a press release for a Celebrity Nude Spa that has a secret location....
Celebrity Nude Resort Opens in Palm Springs

Here is one celebrity that won't be showing up though Michael Douglas, done with nude scenes in movies now

Some girls just wanna be nude for a good cause Fashion Scoops: In The Nude

In Indian the scandal of misappropriation of celebrities images continues.
Half nude Sonia Another heroine to get embroiled in the MMS scandal is Sonia Agarwal. She is seen given poses semi nude in internet circles.

It even occurs to American celebrities
Richie's nude photo fear

But this up and coming star is using her nudity for self promotion.
More Nude Pictures Emerge From ROCK STAR Contestant Storm Large

While Bollywood waits with baited breathe Vidya will go nude for future films
She is after all younger than Michael Douglas

'I want to live nude' Shakira, in her garden she says with the nude vegetables.

The trouble with Harry....
Harry Potter star to go nude on stage

And some celebrities are just shy....Pregnant supermodel HEIDI KLUM and husband SEAL have naked portraits of themselves dotted all over their home. But the nudes aren't for all guests to see - they're hidden in a private wing of the couple's house.

While others expose themselves tastefully...EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW: SEE HILARY SWANK DANCE NAKED FOR GUERLAIN

Of course when in jail you don't get a choice about not wearing the prison uniform...Survivor's 'fat, naked guy' isn't comfortable in prison

Maybe the fat naked guy sent her pictures......
Kate Beckinsale's naked shock

And then again some folks like to frolic nude.....Naomi Harris: My naked Foxx fun Turns out not to be true...just a fanatsy...she used a body double....Naomi Harris regrets not getting naked with Jamie Foxx

While for others its a chilling experience....
Longoria begs bosses to axe naked scenes
Eva Longoria has begged her bosses on Desperate Housewives to stop making her take baths on the TV show -- because she hates spending all day naked in water.

And some become the character....Naked ambition

Gretchen Mol's naughty-but-nice portrayal of 1950s pin-up Bettie Page is a shrewd career move, finds Tim Robey

The Notorious Bettie Page
Looking back over her shoulder in a pose both coy and come-hither, Mol does nudity like a naturist. Her Bettie looks uncomfortable in any kind of clothing, and she's disarmingly sweet, even modest, as she wiggles her bits for the cameras, giving the period's magazine readers a whole new appetite for essentially harmless smut.

Sharon Stone To Shock Audiences With Her Aging, Naked Body

stone-naked.jpgNot one to be outdone by Madonna's recently adopted habit of sporting a leotard-induced cameltoe wherever she goes, that other blond, pushing-50 icon of showbiz pertinaciousness, Sharon Stone, would like for the world to take a long, hard look at her rapidly degenerating ladyparts, too.


Ho hum yet more Reality TV

Naked Chef trainees home and raring to go

Nude dance show is what market will bare
Fuse's 'Pants-off Dance-Off': 'Dumbest show on TV' unlikely hit
"Why hasn't anybody put naked people and rock music together on television before?" said Low, who created the "Pop-Up Videos" series for VH1. "It seems so obvious, like peanut butter and jelly."

A teacher at a £7,000-a-year private school has drawn a mixed reaction from parents and staff after appearing naked on television. Emma Wright, 37, who teaches at Streatham and Clapham High School, in south London, took her clothes off for a Channel 4 series called How To Look Good Naked. Some parents said Miss Wright's decision to take part in the programme did not affect her performance in the classroom but others were critical that she had taken time off during the term to do so.

NAKED LOVE ISLAND SOPHIE TIED ME TO HER BED.. Sophie, 29, has been wowing fans of ITV1's reality show Celebrity Love Island with her sultry antics. Millions of viewers have watched her snogging old flame Chris Brosnan and getting cosy with him between the sheets. And this week the sex-starved babe caused a sensation by threatening to quit the hit show unless programme chiefs let her have her favourite vibrator, dubbed The Bone.


Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt to Wrestle Naked with Tom Cruise for SEX

LAS VEGAS - Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt will grapple naked with Tom Cruise for SEX, with Jennifer Aniston, Katie Holmes, and Angelina Jolie also participating. And this is merely part of the just-scheduled October 31 cage-match mud-wrestling event, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has announced. More.


Ahem this last item is satire.


ART

In New Zealand they take a break from the traditional artist model


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Of course in New Zealand they tend to be outspoken too.A response to the modern nude One of my favourite things to say to friends a few years ago was 'Why don't you come home and see my c**t?' I'd follow this up by explaining it wasn't actually my c**t, but a woman in Wellington's. And it was taller than me and pinned on my bedroom wall.

In prudish America you get fired for that sort of thing......As Naked as You Wanna Be Hoover is, of course, Texas' infamous "naked teacher," awaiting AISD's final judgment after a fellow art teacher exposed a classroom full of students to Danger's Flickr photo archive containing pictures of Hoover in various states of undress and life.The school board's reaction (to deem Hoover "ineffective" and essentially fire her) cast a pall on the artists' creations. But that didn't last long. To expect that two women so dedicated to the love of self-expression could turn it off on command is to deny the nature of self-expression, isn't it? What better time to put on a show?


A nude who dunnit
MOTORISTS got a shock when a life-size statue of a male nude appeared by the side of a main road

At least it was a statue......
There was nothing out of the ordinary about Cecil and Denise Allred’s Sunday evening … besides the naked muddy woman in their yard who wouldn’t leave.

And speaking of statues of nekkid people..... Colorado city deals with nude statues

What we need here in Greeley is more nekkid people.

Loveland has them.

Boulder has them.

Everybody in the world now knows about the Nekkid People Statue going up in Loveland, and all the Angry People who don't want it. But the Loveland Councilguys went ahead and put the Nekkid Statue up where EVERYONE driving past can stare at it.

And what's even better, the Loveland People are putting it in a Roundabout, fer gosh sakes, which is one of those traffic things where you start going around in a circle with about a hundred other cars, and sooner or later you break free and escape. Or you starve to death.




FASHION

In the buff: nude lips Get your mind out of the gutter it's not what you think its about cosemtics.

This is about not showing too much skin in the office.....
Naked truth on office wear After fielding a barrage of calls from regional managers this summer, Steve Keyes, human-resources officer at Nationwide Mutual Insurance, faced a quandary: what to do about exposed midriffs in the office.Employees of the Columbus, Ohio, insurer were increasingly showing up for work in low-cut tank tops, flip-flops and blouses with spaghetti straps. Managers worried that this attire was creating an unprofessional work environment. So three weeks ago, Nationwide rewrote its dress code, banning its 35,000 employees from wearing midriff-baring tops, T-shirts and flip-flops. Keyes says the revision was necessary to keep up with changing styles. "Fashion trends impact the workplace," he says.

File this under Nude Chic.... but really thats pushing it to claim Nudity is the social equivalent of civil rights for Afro-Americans....

Naked: The New Black?

Ms. Moss appears naked, or partly naked, in ads for Louis Vuitton, David Yurman, Stella McCartney, Longchamp and Calvin Klein Jeans. In Vanity Fair’s first style issue, Ms. Moss is inducted into the International Best-Dressed List hall of fame, but on the cover she is not wearing any clothes, save for a white fox hat, white gloves and black boots. Inside she appears with her breasts exposed.

The decisions to show Ms. Moss unclothed were coincidental, executives behind some of those images said. But that coincidence is jarring, considering the number of naked people in editorials and ads in W (the models Carolyn Murphy and Malgosia Bela) and Harper’s Bazaar (fall’s luxe looks are accessorized with a naked man on a motorcycle).

“There has been a very conservative presence around fashion advertising for a while,” said Raul Martinez, the chief executive of the creative agency AR. “I think people are just now starting to branch out.”

We WILL make you look good...even naked! Alexandra Burns is Director and creator of FYEO Portraits, an innovative all female company offering sexy, modern, creative photography for women.


POP CULTURE

A provocative question.....Back-to-school can mean a lot of things, notebooks, pads, pens, the latest fashions in order to look as good as your new supplies.But would you go back to school naked? Of course not! So why send your computer or cell phone back to school naked?

Female gamer trashed by boys club....
Don't Mind All My Naked Pictures... I'm Just A Gamer! Really!

THE NAKED AND THE DEAD
Pakistan’s resistance to Bollywood is motivated by fears of backlash from the anti-entertainment clergy


Seafood: the new album, the music press and... naked wrestling?



THE NAKED CITY


Website features nude women Nothing unusual about that, why is this a headline? Well because the website uses a city logo as if it were 'offically' promoting red light tourism.

Maybe they should change their name
American Bush can keep offering exotic dancing, but the dancers must wear G-strings and pasties over their nipples. UT Supreme Court Rules Against Nude Dancing Appeal

Club With Nude Women Plans To Open In Church-Owned Building That's cheeky.

Update: Nude Juice Bar Debate It could be dangerous around all those blenders. This is another stupid exploitation idea like nude maid services, nude bartenders, etc. In this case the juice bar is a front for a strip club. The attorney for the Waterloo Board of Adjustment requested the court reconsider an earlier ruling that cleared the way for the nude dancing business on Airline Highway during a brief hearing Friday afternoon.

I guess they should have just xeroxed their butts......
Four 'naked civil servants' fired by RPA The inquiry into reports of shenanigans at the Rural Payments Agency has resulted in four staff being booted out of their Newcastle jobs. A further five have received written and verbal warnings.The controversy was sparked by reports of staff vaulting filing cabinets nude, which the investigation said were derived from a prank where staff took photos of each other for a colleague's leaving present. It compared the incident to a "student rag week" gag.

But its not just English civil servants that get busted nude.....
The Royal Welsh Show shed where the impromptu strip was staged
The Royal Welsh Show shed where the impromptu strip was staged
A young woman who caused a scandal by allegedly dancing naked during a party in a cattle shed at the Royal Welsh Show has left her job
The Welsh Black Cattle Society launched an inquiry into the alleged performance which "upset" some members
Yeah but did it upset the cattle, I think not.....



And its not just at the office anymore as more folks are working from home...
Telecommuters reveal the naked truth
MONTREAL -- With the growing number of employees trading in their corporate offi ces for the comforts of working from home, there's an equally increasing possibility the company person you're phoning is in his or her birthday rather than business suit.




Naked Politics

Democratic sleaze and the Clean Money campaign

Tony Blair: The Orator is Naked

Huntly Gordon: The policy makers are naked

Naked Aggression
Not Israel but apparently Lebanon...go figure...


NAKED CRIME OR THE CRIME OF BEING NAKED

Damn fine homegrown, unfortunately it sounds like he tasted a bit too much of his product. Robert Ferranti probably has more than the usual regrets of someone found rolling around naked on a neighborhood street, babbling, immune to pepper spray and accused of punching a police officer. Investigators following up on the Monday fracas said they discovered a well equipped marijuana growing operation in the house Ferranti rented with another man in a normally quiet community in southern Orange County.

Well at least he wasn't armed, A Broward sheriff's deputy shot an armed man who was driving nude Saturday after he got out of his 1997 Nissan Sedan and yelled, ''Shoot me or I'll shoot you,'' according to the Broward Sheriff's Office.

And here is another stoned nutbar....Whether it was the influence of the full moon or a two-day drug binge, a naked and bleeding Morgan Hill man was arrested early Friday morning

These folks are more of a danger to themselves than others...And this poor fellow got shot for his efforts.....A naked gunman was caught on home video roaming the streets in Atlanta. According to residents the pistol-wielding man appeared drunk or mentally unstable and had no clothes on. At one point the crazed man lunged at a passing car. When police arrived the man dropped his weapon but police still shot him with a stun gun.

In Georgia they use Tasers....Police Taser Naked Man

It seems Americans have a fascination with getting stoned and taking their clothes off even abroad....Naked Massachusetts man high on ‘shrooms terrorizes the Swiss

Oh I get it its summer so guys just wanna take their clothes off.....
Man Admits To Standing Naked On Highway Overpass

Ohio Man Stopped Walking Naked Along Interstate 64
Maier says the naked walker is from Manchester, Ohio, and told officials he was trying to get to Kentucky to visit some family members.

Americans will defend your right to bear arms but not to bare yourself.....
A naked man who was sleeping in a family’s car was arrested Sunday after a loud, chanting mob crowded around him as he scrambled to get dressed, gather his belongings and then hobble away on crutches, police said.

Wonderful thing about America is that guns are legal but being nude ain't.....hmmm I think we have a problem here.....

Search for nearly naked man with gun nets only a towel

BSO deputy shoots naked, bleeding man who charged him with gun

Wait till winter and we will have less naked crime but no reduction in gun crimes in the U.S. Naked is normal — then the temperature drops

Of course male exposure is not limited to the United States.....

A man who stripped naked at a Christchurch laundrette has been remanded for pre-sentence reports.

Naked man shuts Oakville QEW

Buit in Sweden the cops don't shot or taser you....Swedish police help naked men get homeThree naked men found walking in Orebro, Sweden told police their clothes were snatched from them by some unknown females.


NUDE FINANCE


US court blocks Utah's curb on naked short selling
A federal court judge on Friday temporarily blocked a Utah law aimed at curbing a controversial investment practice known as naked short selling, in a move welcomed by Wall Street broker dealers.

Here's the skinny on 'naked shorts'

Selling short is a tried and true investment technique that's legal and useful in the marketplace. An investor borrows some shares of stock from a broker and sells them, expecting the price to fall. If it does, the investor buys the shares back at the lower price, returns them to the broker and pockets the difference. The problem, says the Economist, is when investors sell shares without first borrowing them. These are called "naked shorts" and are the object of a new crop of lawsuits

What are naked puts and why take the risk?
Yeah what are they?

You won't see these guys advertising on TV
The Naked Investor: Portfolio defence case of hedging your bets

Also See:

Nude

Naked

Sexuality

Gender



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Good Question

SF Signal: Is SF Too Geeky?

Dave Itzkoff, SF reviewer for The New York Times, recently listed his favorite SF books. But he is also making waves with some comments about the SF genre he makes in his review of David Marusek's Counting Heads. "HERE'S a question I don't expect to come anywhere close to answering by the end of this column: Why does contemporary science fiction have to be so geeky?"


Cause it always has been. Sheesh when I went to school the geeks wore glasses, pocket protectors and carried slide rulers to the daily chess club meeting. And they read sci-fi. I know I was one.


The Writers

Having Isaac Asimov at a Star Trek convention might seem odd. After all, Asimov may have been one of the grand old men of SF but he had no connection to the series at all. (He acted as a technical advisor to Space: 1999 around this time, which to True Believers was another strike against him.) On the other hand, he was local, he was willing and he was a hero to those of us who had discovered science fiction (and nonfiction) long before the Enterprise ever left dry dock. Best of all Asimov was one of the nicest people I've ever met, the kind of person who'd sit and sign autographs and trade jokes with the fans for hours on end. He was like that lovable uncle you always wanted but few of us get. (Apologies in advance to my uncles should they ever read this comment. You're wonderful and all but you're no Isaac Asimov!)

Harlan Ellison was once the angry young man of SF, the writer who had the nerve to write a script about drug dealing on the Enterprise called The City On The Edge Of Forever. Ellison had a reputation, probably deserved, of being touchy and unapproachable at conventions. Which is funny, because the few times I've met him I have found him exactly the opposite. He even agreed to pose with a friend of mine for a picture, which sadly didn't turn out. And whatever else you think about him, the man can surely write.


Also See:

Science Fiction



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Humanitarian Relief = Terrorist Funding

Instead of searching bank accounts in North America perhaps those fighting the so called war on terror should be checking into Muslim trusts in Pakistan.

Quake money' sent to Pak used to finance UK plane bombing plot

Money sent to Pakistan for quake rehabilitation was used to fund the Heathrow bomb attack plot that was foiled by British authorities following inputs from their Pakistani counterparts, if an investigation by a leading Pakistani daily is to be believed.

According to The Daily Times, the Muslim Charity of UK remitted a huge amount of money to three individuals in three different bank accounts in Mirpur, Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) in December last year as earthquake relief.

But the money in the three accounts in Saudi Pak Bank, Standard Chartered and Habib Bank Ltd was solely for the purpose of financing the foiled bomb plot, the paper said.

According to the report, two of the recipients are British citizens of Kashmir.



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Enron E Texts Wiped

Ok conspiracy freaks this ones for you. It's Deja Vu, this is like the missing minutes off the Nixon tapes.

The company handling electronic document production in the Enron civil suits says a software bug may have erased text in e-mails produced for discovery in the case over an 18-month span.

Software Bug my ass. This is what happens when you outsourcee/privatize your email and IT services.

Applied Discovery Inc., a Bellevue, Wash.–based division of LexisNexis, says one client has reported a problem so far. And lawyers handling the Enron litigation said it was too early to predict the potential impact. But several of the lawyers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that if the problem was widespread and had corrupted the discovery process, it could cost tens of millions of dollars to fix and could foul up both pending and settled Enron litigation.

Convienant that. No alleged bribery was reported.



Alsop See:

Enron



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Privatization Reform in India

He appears at first to be a compasionate captialist, but then he lets the cat out of the bag.
Reforms have not benefited poor: Narayana Murthy

Bangalore, Aug 12: Software icon N R Narayana Murthy, who has often termed Infosys a shining example of economic reforms initiated in 1991, said economic liberalisation has not touched the poor and makes no sense unless it addressed their basic needs.

"I keep telling my colleague Nandan (Nilekani, CEO of Infosys) that it's funny in this country that we can buy whatever...BMWs...we can have 800 channels on TV...All of that," the Chairman and Chief Mentor of Infosys said.

"But the real progress in India has not taken place simply because the reforms have not touched the poor people," he said at a book release function here today.

"Unless you address the basic needs of the poorest of the poor, which are decent primary and secondary education, decent health care and decent nutrition...All of this (reforms) makes no sense".

"Unless, we completely delicense the primary and secondary education, unless we create an environment where more and more investment get into primary health care, I don't think we can truly claim to have embraced reforms".


There ya go privatization is a failure in India because they have not privatized education and health care. Like the WTO, World Bank, and IMF this compasionate capitalist sees only one solution to poverty, increasing privatization. Which of course by the real world example of Bolivia was and is a complete failure.

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The Navvies

The Navvies were traveling labourers who built the Great Lakes Canals, the railroads and the mines in Canada and England. They were exploited by the upper classes in body and spirit even after death. This is an excerpt from an online biography of the Navvies. Those in Canada were Irish labourers, Catholics whose bosses were Orangemen. In England they came from the North, Scotland and Ireland. They were the epitome of the English proletarianized peasantry.
In Canada they are celebrated in song by Gordon Lightfoot with his Great Canadian Railway Triology.




Navvies built canals, railways, dams and then pipe tracks, the big nineteenth century sea-port docks, and the Manchester Ship Canal.

Navvying began suddenly in 1763 in the Bridgewater Canal: it ended around 1943, after a twenty-year fade-out. Along with the rest of Britain there was a kind of kink in the navvy's history in the 1870s when things began changing, generally for the better.

At first they were just skilled earth shifters digging canals at prodigious speed. Later they were skilled in tunnelling, mining, timbering — skilled enough to set up as one-man contractors employing local unskilled labourers to shift their muck. You could set a gang of prime navvies down in an untouched valley, they said of themselves, and they'd build you a dam without aid of an engineer. At times they slotted into the pay scales at twice a common labourer's wages, though they never equalled apprenticed craftsmen like masons.

It is easy for the urbanised and pensionable to romanticise them. They seem free, fearless above the humdrum conventions of shopkeepers, clerks, factory workers, vicars, and the legally wed. Perhaps we glamorise cowboys, blue-water sailors and the hell-bent navvy for the same reasons. In reality, isolation was the biggest thing in a navvy's life. They were perpetual outsiders: a people apart. Sub-working class. Sub-the-bottommost-heap of English working society. Sub-all, almost.

Navvies Navvies

Left: Railway Navvies. Right: Navvies, 1890s

Click on thumbnails for larger images.

The navvy never called a spade a spade, always a bloody shovel. Everything he shovelled he called muck. Earth, blasted rock, clay, all were generically and indiscriminately muck. With the muck he created new landscapes and changed old societies. It was mass transformation by muscle and shovel.

To do so navvies worked in geographical and social isolation; crude, muck-caked men on a helix spiralling down from prejudice [4/5] to more isolation, isolation to more prejudice. Eighty per cent were English, most of their work was in England, yet they lived like aliens in their own country, often outside its laws, usually outside its national sense of community. They were their own country's non-belongers. They belonged to themselves only tenuously. Mostly they lived apart in navvy settlements. New habits of life, thought, dress, speech, and a tightening of the ring against outsiders came out of their isolation. Their own countrymen were terrified of them, and despised them. Heavy drinking was normal, death by alcohol common. Drink was a common cause of riot, along with an unhesitating hatred for their own Irish minority. Their accident and death rates were higher than any other group in Britain, including colliers, including soldiers fighting nineteenth-century wars. Often they were nameless, known to each other only at second-hand by nickname. They were a homeless, wandering itinerant people belonging nowhere except to the island as a whole.

They survived the Great War as a separate community, but not for long. Nawying was killed by a lack of large scale public works (worsened by the Slump), by bureaucracy and by the petrol engine. Probably in that order. By the mid-1950s they were quietly ending as a recognisable separate community. Individuals did live and work on. Their descendants still do (at their height, just before the Great War, there may have been as many as a hundred and seventy thousand of them).



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Selling Harper's Middle East Policy

Liberal MP Wajid Khan is going to try and sell Harpers Middle East policy to those in the Middle East and to Canadians. Good thing he has experience. Middle East advisor has experience in sales

Like the PM's Emerson deal this one has the Liberals all in a tither . Interestingly neither the Blogging Tories nor the Liberalbloggers have made much of a fuss over this.

Perhaps because, as at least one Liberalblogger admits , it is a very smooth move by Harper. While gaining Jewish Liberals with his unconditional support for Israel, Harper mollifies Arab and Muslim Canadians with a special envoy who is a Liberal.

Khan of course is espousing a Lieberman type of bi-partisanship. And why shouldn't a Liberal promote Harpers foreign adventurism, it originated with them in the first place.

For Liberal MP's to criticize the Harpocrites over Afghanistan or heck the evacutation of Lebanon, is the hieght of hypocrisy.

They would like us to forget that the Liberals voted with the government to support the Harpocrites. And to forget the two week waiting period before the dithering Liberals launched DART to help the survivors of the the Indonesian Tusanami.


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