Saturday, April 14, 2007
Sunset in Fredericton.
I'm surprise the pics turned out this way. It was beautiful tonight. You can barely see the reflection of the clouds on La Riviere de Saint-Jean.
SAINT JOHN - THIS IS JUST WAY TOO FUNNY!!!!!
This should say- Come back to Saint John so you'll die faster!!!! Come on now,......If you even jog in the City...you'll meet meet a quicker death.
All those chemicals in the air...Yes...clean up the City and maybe people will return????
Calling upon all Saint Johners
Dave MacLean
Telegraph-Journal
Published Saturday April 14th, 2007
Appeared on page B2
It's time for Saint Johners to speak up.
The Citizens Advisory Group officially launched its consultation process Friday morning, the first step in gathering information and opinions from people on how they feel about the city and its future.
"It was a great turnout," Beaulieu said of the crowd of about 150 politicians, community leaders and regular citizens who attended the gathering at the Hall of Great Whales in the New Brunswick Museum. "When (forecasters) were saying (Thursday) there was going to be a storm, I was worried, but the amount of people we had here this morning shows us that this community wants to get involved in the future of Saint John."
The large crowd confirmed Beaulieu's optimism that Saint Johners are eager to share their feelings about the city's future.
"Once people know about the tools that we have to listen to them and they see that we're out there in the community trying to get their input, they're going to want to participate. It's important - it's their future."
Among the 'tools' he mentioned are a website (wwwsaintjohn.ca/vision2015) and phone number (633-2015) that allow citizens to share their thoughts on the five questions the group is asking, ranging from how people feel about the city to the changes they want to see, to their hopes and dreams for Saint John in the next century.
Beaulieu, a lawyer with Clark Drummie who co-chairs the 11-member committee along with local businessman Mike Schulze, praised common council for establishing the committee last December as part of Vision 2015, a long-term program to reform the municipality.
"Essentially when you look at it, the process that we're doing right now will change the way common council interacts with the community. That's what's important," he said. "They're opening their ears to the people and saying 'Listen, we want your help to shape the future of the city.'"
Committee member Ross Galbraith said there's no doubt Saint Johners care about the city's future and he's certain the group will receive plenty of feedback.
"This is all about defining a vision - where is it that we want to go?" said Galbraith. "So many times today folks just think about the next budget cycle or the next election "... that's not long-term vision.
"We want the citizens to say 'Here's what we want for Saint John,'" he said. "We want to create a shared vision and put it out there and say this is what the citizens want. If we do a good job and we create an interest in that and the citizens are buying into it, everyone will agree that's our vision."
Galbraith says the group will come up with a consensus and present it to local leaders.
"That holds our leaders accountable as we go forward, whether they be elected leaders or business leaders or community leaders," he said. "When we get out there and see that we all have this shared vision, no one will be able to hold us back. It's proven; it works and that's what we want for Saint John."
The youngest speaker at the launch was also the most captivating and engaging.
Twelve-year-old Kyle McNeil, a Grade 7 student at Princess Elizabeth School, spoke on behalf of the next generation, reminding the adults in the room that children also have priorities.
"Definitely more activities for youth - that's the most important for me," said Kyle, who also spoke passionately about the need to protect the environment and to increase multicultural activities in the region.
Blog with pictures is two years old this week!!!!
This was the first picture posted in this blog. Now we got audio blog. I wonder what's in store for this blog during the next year?
God knows?
God knows?
AFGHANISTAN: TIME FOR TRUTH!!!!
Charles, you should blog this, its from: http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2006/09/afghanistan_tim.php
AFGHANISTAN: TIME FOR TRUTH
Do not believe what OUR media and politicians are telling us about Afghanistan. Nearly all the information we get about the five-year old war in Afghanistan comes from US and NATO public relations officers or `embedded’ journalists who merely parrot military handouts. Ask yourself, when did you last read a report from a journalist covering Taliban and other Afghan resistance forces?
Now, the official rosy view is being flatly contradicted by impartial observers.
The respected European think-tank, Senlis Council, which focuses on Afghanistan, just reported the Taliban movement is `taking back Afghanistan’ and now controls that nation’s southern half.
This is an amazing departure from claims by the US and its NATO allies that they are steadily winning the war in Afghanistan. Or, more precisely, winning it again, since the Bush Administration claimed to have won total victory in Afghanistan in 2001. At the time, this column predicted that victory was an illusion and the war would resume in force in 4-5 years.
According to the Senlis Council, southern Afghanistan is suffering `a humanitarian crisis of starvation and poverty…caused by `US-British military policies.’
Deflating optimistic western reports, Senlis investigators found, `US policies in Afghanistan have re-created the safe haven for terrorism that the 2001 invasion aimed to destroy.’ This is a bombshell.
The US and NATO have been insisting any withdrawal of their forces from Afghanistan - or from Iraq - will leave a void certain to be filled by extremists. These claims are nonsense, given that half of Afghanistan and a third of Iraq are already largely controlled by anti-western resistance forces.
Were it not for omnipotent US airpower, American and NATO forces would be quickly driven from Afghanistan and Iraq. If Afghan and Iraqi resistance forces ever manage to obtain effective man-portable anti-aircraft weapons, such as the US Stinger or Russian SA-18, the US-led occupation of those nations may become untenable. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980’s was doomed once mujahidin forces obtained American Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.
Last week, Canadian and British commanders boasted they were about to annihilate Taliban forces `surrounded’ around Panjwai and Zahri. They crowed an `estimated 500 Taliban,’ had already been killed.
A storm of bombing and shelling did kill many Afghans, but most of the dead `suspected Taliban militants’ turned out, as usual, to be civilians. NATO failed to show bodies of dead enemy fighters to back up its absurd claims.
When NATO forces entered Panjwai after weeks of air strikes and shelling, the supposedly `surrounded’ Taliban had vanished. Embarrassed British and Canadian commanders admitted `we were surprised the enemy had fled.’ Surprised?
Doesn’t anyone remember the Vietnam War’s fruitless search and destroy missions and inflated body counts? Don’t NATO commanders know their every move is telegraphed in advance to Taliban forces? Don’t they see what’s going on now in Iraq?
Did Canadian officers making such fanciful claims really believe Taliban’s veteran guerillas would be stupid enough to sit still and be destroyed by US air power?
Now, Canadian-led NATO forces are crowing about having finally occupied Panjewi. `Taliban has fled!’ they proudly announced. Don’t they understand that guerilla forces don’t hang on to fixed positions? Occupying ground is meaningless in guerilla warfare.
Seemingly immune to history or common sense, Canada is sending a few hundred more troops and a handful of obsolete tanks to Afghanistan. Poland, which will send troops anywhere for the right price, is adding 1,000 more soldiers next year.
US, British and Canadian politicians say they are surprised by intensifying Taliban resistance. They have only their own ignorance to blame.
Attacking Pashtuns, renowned for xenophobia, warlike spirits, and love of independence is a fool’s mission. Pashtuns are Afghanistan’s ethnic majority. Taliban is an offshoot of the Pushtun people. Long-term national stability is impossible without their representation and cooperation.
What the west calls `Taliban’ is actually a growing coalition of veteran Taliban fighters led by Mullah Dadullah, other clans of Pashtun tribal warriors, and nationalist resistance forces led by Jalalladin Hakkani and former prime minister, Gulbadin Hekmatyar, whom the CIA has repeatedly tried to assassinate.
Many are former mujahidin once hailed `freedom fighters’ by the west, and branded `terrorists’ by the Soviets. They represent national resistance to foreign occupation. In fact, what the US and its NATO allies are doing in Afghanistan today uncannily mirrors the brutal Soviet occupation during the 1980’s.
The UN’s anti-narcotic agency reports Afghanistan now supplies 92% of the world’s heroin. Production has surged 40% last year alone. Who is responsible? The US and NATO. They now own narco-state Afghanistan.
Dominating the main oil export route from Central Asia was a primary objective of the US invasion of Afghanistan. Ironically, instead of an anticipated oil bonanza, the US now finds itself mired deep in the Afghan drug trade.
Washington and NATO can’t keep pretending this is someone else’s problem. Drug money fuels the Afghan economy and keeps local warlords loyal to the US-installed Kabul regime.
Afghanistan’s north has become a sphere of influence of Russia and its local allies, the Uzbek-Tajik Northern Alliance led by notorious war criminals and leaders of the old Afghan Communist Party.
The US and its allies are not going to win the Afghan war. They will be lucky the way things are going not to lose it in the same humiliating manner the Soviets did in 1989.
In recent week, near panicky calls by British PM Tony Blair for more NATO troops to be sent to Afghanistan show that western occupation forces are on the defensive, fighting to hold their bases, and facing the specter of eventual defeat. Just, in fact, like every other invader that has ever occupied Afghanistan.
A final point. US and NATO forces are not fighting `terrorists,’ as their governments claim. They are fighting the Afghan people. In the 1980’s, I saw mujahidin too poor to afford shoes strap 110lbs of mortar shells on their backs, and climb 6-8 hours over mountains through snow to bombard a Communist base, then trudge home. These are the people we are fighting. Anyone who knows Afghans know they will not be defeated, even if they must resist for an entire generation.
copyright Eric S. Margolis 2006
AFGHANISTAN: TIME FOR TRUTH
Do not believe what OUR media and politicians are telling us about Afghanistan. Nearly all the information we get about the five-year old war in Afghanistan comes from US and NATO public relations officers or `embedded’ journalists who merely parrot military handouts. Ask yourself, when did you last read a report from a journalist covering Taliban and other Afghan resistance forces?
Now, the official rosy view is being flatly contradicted by impartial observers.
The respected European think-tank, Senlis Council, which focuses on Afghanistan, just reported the Taliban movement is `taking back Afghanistan’ and now controls that nation’s southern half.
This is an amazing departure from claims by the US and its NATO allies that they are steadily winning the war in Afghanistan. Or, more precisely, winning it again, since the Bush Administration claimed to have won total victory in Afghanistan in 2001. At the time, this column predicted that victory was an illusion and the war would resume in force in 4-5 years.
According to the Senlis Council, southern Afghanistan is suffering `a humanitarian crisis of starvation and poverty…caused by `US-British military policies.’
Deflating optimistic western reports, Senlis investigators found, `US policies in Afghanistan have re-created the safe haven for terrorism that the 2001 invasion aimed to destroy.’ This is a bombshell.
The US and NATO have been insisting any withdrawal of their forces from Afghanistan - or from Iraq - will leave a void certain to be filled by extremists. These claims are nonsense, given that half of Afghanistan and a third of Iraq are already largely controlled by anti-western resistance forces.
Were it not for omnipotent US airpower, American and NATO forces would be quickly driven from Afghanistan and Iraq. If Afghan and Iraqi resistance forces ever manage to obtain effective man-portable anti-aircraft weapons, such as the US Stinger or Russian SA-18, the US-led occupation of those nations may become untenable. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980’s was doomed once mujahidin forces obtained American Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.
Last week, Canadian and British commanders boasted they were about to annihilate Taliban forces `surrounded’ around Panjwai and Zahri. They crowed an `estimated 500 Taliban,’ had already been killed.
A storm of bombing and shelling did kill many Afghans, but most of the dead `suspected Taliban militants’ turned out, as usual, to be civilians. NATO failed to show bodies of dead enemy fighters to back up its absurd claims.
When NATO forces entered Panjwai after weeks of air strikes and shelling, the supposedly `surrounded’ Taliban had vanished. Embarrassed British and Canadian commanders admitted `we were surprised the enemy had fled.’ Surprised?
Doesn’t anyone remember the Vietnam War’s fruitless search and destroy missions and inflated body counts? Don’t NATO commanders know their every move is telegraphed in advance to Taliban forces? Don’t they see what’s going on now in Iraq?
Did Canadian officers making such fanciful claims really believe Taliban’s veteran guerillas would be stupid enough to sit still and be destroyed by US air power?
Now, Canadian-led NATO forces are crowing about having finally occupied Panjewi. `Taliban has fled!’ they proudly announced. Don’t they understand that guerilla forces don’t hang on to fixed positions? Occupying ground is meaningless in guerilla warfare.
Seemingly immune to history or common sense, Canada is sending a few hundred more troops and a handful of obsolete tanks to Afghanistan. Poland, which will send troops anywhere for the right price, is adding 1,000 more soldiers next year.
US, British and Canadian politicians say they are surprised by intensifying Taliban resistance. They have only their own ignorance to blame.
Attacking Pashtuns, renowned for xenophobia, warlike spirits, and love of independence is a fool’s mission. Pashtuns are Afghanistan’s ethnic majority. Taliban is an offshoot of the Pushtun people. Long-term national stability is impossible without their representation and cooperation.
What the west calls `Taliban’ is actually a growing coalition of veteran Taliban fighters led by Mullah Dadullah, other clans of Pashtun tribal warriors, and nationalist resistance forces led by Jalalladin Hakkani and former prime minister, Gulbadin Hekmatyar, whom the CIA has repeatedly tried to assassinate.
Many are former mujahidin once hailed `freedom fighters’ by the west, and branded `terrorists’ by the Soviets. They represent national resistance to foreign occupation. In fact, what the US and its NATO allies are doing in Afghanistan today uncannily mirrors the brutal Soviet occupation during the 1980’s.
The UN’s anti-narcotic agency reports Afghanistan now supplies 92% of the world’s heroin. Production has surged 40% last year alone. Who is responsible? The US and NATO. They now own narco-state Afghanistan.
Dominating the main oil export route from Central Asia was a primary objective of the US invasion of Afghanistan. Ironically, instead of an anticipated oil bonanza, the US now finds itself mired deep in the Afghan drug trade.
Washington and NATO can’t keep pretending this is someone else’s problem. Drug money fuels the Afghan economy and keeps local warlords loyal to the US-installed Kabul regime.
Afghanistan’s north has become a sphere of influence of Russia and its local allies, the Uzbek-Tajik Northern Alliance led by notorious war criminals and leaders of the old Afghan Communist Party.
The US and its allies are not going to win the Afghan war. They will be lucky the way things are going not to lose it in the same humiliating manner the Soviets did in 1989.
In recent week, near panicky calls by British PM Tony Blair for more NATO troops to be sent to Afghanistan show that western occupation forces are on the defensive, fighting to hold their bases, and facing the specter of eventual defeat. Just, in fact, like every other invader that has ever occupied Afghanistan.
A final point. US and NATO forces are not fighting `terrorists,’ as their governments claim. They are fighting the Afghan people. In the 1980’s, I saw mujahidin too poor to afford shoes strap 110lbs of mortar shells on their backs, and climb 6-8 hours over mountains through snow to bombard a Communist base, then trudge home. These are the people we are fighting. Anyone who knows Afghans know they will not be defeated, even if they must resist for an entire generation.
copyright Eric S. Margolis 2006
GOD'S MINUTE!!!
INCLINE YOUR EAR TO ME, AND COME TO ME. HEAR, AND
YOUR SOUL SHALL LIVE; AND I WILL MAKE AN EVER-
LASTING COVENANT WITH YOU.
( ISAIAH 55:3 *NKJV )
Dear Charles,
Our Heavenly Father appears to us in many different ways, and
often we may not even notice. So today, I wish to share with you
a message that I received this week from one of our very first
subscribers. So I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.
Now it is written: WHEN HE UTTERS HIS VOICE--THERE IS
A MULTITUDE OF WATERS IN THE HEAVENS: "HE CAUSES
THE VAPORS TO ASCEND FROM THE ENDS OF THE EARTH;
HE MAKES LIGHTNING'S FOR THE RAIN; HE BRINGS THE
WIND OUT OF HIS TREASURIES." For, THE VOICE OF THE
LORD IS OVER THE WATERS; THE GOD OF GLORY
THUNDERS. ( Jer 51:16 ) & ( Ps 29:3 )
Now, Today's Message...
The man whispered, "God, speak to me," and a meadowlark
sang.
But, the man did not hear. So the man yelled, "God, speak to
me" and the thunder rolled across the sky.
But, the man did not listen. The man looked around and said,
"God let me see you." And a star shined brightly.
But the man did not see. And, the man shouted, "God show
me a miracle." And, a life was born.
But, the man did not notice. So, the man cried out in despair,
"Touch me God, and let me know you are here." Whereupon,
God reached down and touched the man. But, the man brushed
the butterfly away ...and walked on.
The man cried, "God, I need your help!" And an e-mail arrived
reaching out with good news and encouragement. But, the man
deleted it and continued crying.
I have found this to be a great reminder that God is always
around us in the little and simple things that we take for granted
.... even in our electronic age ...
So don't miss out on a blessing because it isn't packaged the
way that you expect.
My instructions were to send this to people that I wanted God
to bless and I picked you, Charles. Please pass this to
people you want to be blessed as well.
Expect the unexpected...and Have A Happy Day!
---Author Unknown
With My Love & Prayers,
your servant Allen
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Apostle Paul Ministries, P O Box 55996, Hayward, CA 94545
(c) Copyright 2007 by Apostle Paul Ministries
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