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Monday, February 29, 2016

Leap Year



Taken from Writer's Almanac:

Today is Leap Year Day, when the month of February has 29 days instead of 28. This happens every four years and only in years that are divisible by four, such as 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016.
The length of time it takes the Earth to completely orbit the sun is 365 days and six hours. Most calendars only list 365 days. An extra 24 hours accumulates every four years, requiring an extra calendar day. If we didn't account for this extra day, eventually, we'd have Christmas in July.

The Egyptians were the first to calculate the need for this type of regulation, but it wasn't put into practice until Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator, consulted with the top astronomers of the day and in 46 B.C. began adding one day (known as an intercalary day, or "leap" day) every four years to make up for the discrepancy. At the time, the ancient Roman calendar system was based on a total of 355 days, a full 10 ¼ days shorter than a solar year. Not one to waste an opportunity, he also decided to rename "Quintilis," the fifth month of the year (counting from March), which is how we got the month named "July."

Unfortunately, Caesar's new calendar system wasn't strictly enforced, and by the 16th century, it was almost 10 days off track, so in 1582, Pope Gregory reformed the Julian calendar. The calendar system we now use is called the Gregorian calendar.
According to British historical tradition, a leap day is the only day of the year a woman can propose marriage to a man.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

John Steinbeck Quote


Stein

"Adlai, do you remember two kinds of Christmases? There is one kind in a house where there is little and a present represents not only love but sacrifice. The one single package is opened with a kind of slow wonder, almost reverence. Once I gave my youngest boy, who loves all living things, a dwarf, peach-faced parrot for Christmas. He removed the paper and then retreated a little shyly and looked at the little bird for a long time. And finally he said in a whisper, "Now who would have ever thought that I would have a peach-faced parrot?" 

Then there is the other kind of Christmas with present piled high, the gifts of guilty parents as bribes because they have nothing else to give. The wrappings are ripped off and the presents thrown down and at the end the child says—"Is that all?" Well, it seems to me that America now is like that second kind of Christmas. Having too many THINGS they spend their hours and money on the couch searching for a soul. A strange species we are. We can stand anything God and nature can throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick. And then I think of our "Daily" in Somerset, who served your lunch. She made a teddy bear with her own hands for our grandchild. Made it out of an old bath towel dyed brown and it is beautiful. She said, "Sometimes when I have a bit of rabbit fur, they come out lovelier." Now there is a present. And that obviously male teddy bear is going to be called for all time MIZ Hicks.

When I left Bruton, I checked out with Officer 'Arris, the lone policeman who kept the peace in five villages, unarmed and on a bicycle. He had been very kind to us and I took him a bottle of Bourbon whiskey. But I felt it necessary to say—"It's a touch of Christmas cheer, officer, and you can't consider it a bribe because I don't want anything and I am going away..." He blushed and said, "Thank you, sir, but there was no need." To which I replied—"If there had been, I would not have brought it."
Mainly, Adlai, I am troubled by the cynical immorality of my country. I do not think it can survive on this basis and unless some kind of catastrophe strikes us, we are lost. But by our very attitudes we are drawing catastrophe to ourselves. What we have beaten in nature, we cannot conquer in ourselves.

Someone has to reinspect our system and that soon. We can't expect to raise our children to be good and honorable men when the city, the state, the government, the corporations all offer higher rewards for chicanery and deceit than probity and truth. On all levels it is rigged, Adlai. Maybe nothing can be done about it, but I am stupid enough and naively hopeful enough to want to try. How about you?"

Yours,
John

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Observing Sweden - News Update


A 17-year-old Swedish girl arrested - Update.
Swedish Isis seeking girl comes home.

The Austrians are were more forgiving I thought, or maybe just happy to get her out of Austria. She will be turning over a new leaf now. No more videos of chopping heads off. She will feel a loving kindness towards Jews and Buddhists, Protestants, and white people who destroyed her homeland - them and the Taliban, and Isis.

She will not do prison time which is perhaps a good thing. What might she have learned in prison in the company of others who held similar intentions?

One has to admire Sweden for the efforts they are making with the thousands who are coming in. 100,000 more expected next year.

"I am happy that my client is free, that was the goal,” her lawyer said. “My client is happy to leave Austria." Wolfgang Blaschitz argued that his client was not guilty, and suggested she ran away from home because she was "naive" and unhappy, and had no final destination in mind.” Ah, these lawyers.

Elisabeth Gustafsson, who chairs the city's social welfare committee told the TT news agency that she would also be helped by local authorities following her return to Sweden. "Social services will give her the support and help we can give. What we wish is that she can come home as quickly as possible after this, and there is good preparation for that as well.”
Under Swedish law preparing for a trip to join the jihad is not currently a criminal offense.

*           *          *
There are also problems with young boys. We hear about the incidents and at the Cologne New Year, and Sweden’s Summer Music Festival celebration. But these incidents - most often committed by refugees and teens arriving in Sweden alone - continue at other times and places to small to make news, or ignored in favor of political correctness. It has happened here, in this small town I live in. The gym I go to has a swimming pool where girls have also been harassed - more than once.
The Swedish government is considering launching a nationwide course on gender equality, directed at the Nordic country's record-large group of refugees and minors arriving in the country alone.
Integration has become an increasingly thorny issue in Sweden, a country famed for its openness and gender equality, but which has struggled to accommodate a record number of asylum seekers in the past six months.

“In some countries where unaccompanied children are from, I know that you perhaps have an upbringing that is gender segregated, where girls and boys hardly ever meet each other,” Sweden's children and equality minister Åsa Regnér told the TV4 broadcaster.
“It is clear that you then need knowledge about how Sweden works,” she said and added that the government would discuss the idea further later this spring.

*           *           *

In A Small Swedish Town, Residents Welcome Migrants
Eleanor Beardsley/NPR

Zahra Jafari and her 4-year-old daughter arrived in Sweden after fleeing Afghanistan on foot. Their lives were threatened by the Taliban and ISIS. "I came here for my daughter," Jafari says.
Temperatures hover around freezing outside, but it's warm inside this university building that now serves as a migrant reception center in the southern Swedish town of Ronneby. Migrants come in out of the cold to join Swedish volunteers, who show up twice a week to help them fill out forms or study the language.

One of those volunteers is 77-year-old Mia Gustafsson. She says the migrants are very eager to learn, and the experience is rewarding.

"Here in Ronneby, we have a very old population and it's very stimulating to get to know other cultures," she says.

In the past three years, her town of 30,000 people have taken in nearly 2,500 migrants — including 200 unaccompanied minors. Refugees now make up nearly 12 percent of the population of this 18th century spa town, known for its mineral waters and baths. It also has a university and strong IT sector.

Per capita, Sweden has taken in more migrants than any other country in Europe. It accepted 160,000 refugees in 2015. With a population of only 10 million, that's the equivalent of the U.S. taking in around 5 million migrants. Because of this, the Parliament recently enacted a law mandating that all municipalities take in their share of migrants.

In Ronneby, two families are gathered around the table learning Swedish words with Gustafsson. They're from Afghanistan's Bamyan province. Twenty-seven-year-old Zahra Jafari arrived in Sweden seven months ago with her 4-year-old daughter — on foot.

"We walking in Afghanistan, next Turkiya [Turkey], next Yunan [Greece], next Autriche [Austria], next Denmark. One month — one month walking," she says. Jafari says she had no choice. Her life was threatened by the Taliban and ISIS. She says she decided to come to Sweden for her child's future. "People say Sweden is very good for children. I'm coming to Sweden just for my daughter."

Sweden has long had a generous refugee policy, which includes a vast network of welfare benefits for asylum seekers. But many say the recent numbers are straining the system. The far right has surged in the polls. And for the first time, Swedish officials talk about setting a limit.
These mirror feelings in Germany, which has taken in the most number of total migrants. Sexual assaults, suspected to have been carried out by foreigners and perhaps migrants over the new year, further dampened German enthusiasm for migrants.

Some people in Ronneby get upset by the number of migrants coming. People get scared and worried and think that it will be — that it will influence their life. Sweden has always absorbed its newcomers. But Waldolf admits this time, things may be more difficult — especially with the hundreds of unaccompanied minors. She says some people fear an increase in crime.

"Youngsters who arrive here, they have been brought up with no parents, maybe. They are kind of street children," she says. "Wild. And that can be difficult. Make problems."
Kent Norman, a retired Swedish engineer, is helping Syrian teenager Mohamed Obai with language study. "They're here now," he says, "so the only thing you can do is to help them."
"They are here now," he says. "So the only thing you can do is to help them. And I have a lot of time to do it. That's why I'm sitting here."

*         *          *

Swedish PMs to be called to scrutiny committee
Published: 30 Jan 2016 15:29 GMT+01:00

Swedish prime minister Stefan Löfven and his centre-right predecessor Fredrik Reinfeldt will be called before a scrutiny committee to explain their handling of the refugee influx of recent years, a committee member said on Saturday.

Jonas Millard, an MP for the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats and member of the Constitutional Committee (KU), confirmed the plans as he announced that his party would report both men to the committee.

“In a sense it is both the present and the previous government who bear responsibility for the situation that has arisen,” he said.

“We will send a battery of questions to both the current and previous governments," he told the Dagens Industri newspaper. "Ultimately, it may also be the case that we call both Stefan Löfven and Fredrik Reinfeldt to hearings. We may also request documents which are not public."
The Sweden Democrats’ move follows similar actions from the centre-right Moderate Party, whose parliamentary leader Jessica Polfjärd, on Friday morning reported Stefan Löfven and a several other government ministers to be investigated.

The Sweden Democrat's referral came as party activists organized a street protest in central Stockholm where they called on the government to resign over its handling of last year’s refugee crisis. The so-called “People’s Demonstration”, was organized by Sweden Democrat activists Johan Widen and Therese Larsson. According to Expressen newspaper several demonstrators were restrained by handcuffs, and ten police vans and a police helicopter were present to monitor the protest. .

Speakers at the demonstration included Gothenburg priest Axel W Karlsson, who was in 2014 expelled from the Sweden Democrats for his articles in the far Right Nya Tider magazine, and Hans Erling Jensen, who was expelled from the party for his extreme views on Islam.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Observing Sweden - News & Views



Observing Sweden - 18 Feb 2016

The dog ate our remote last week and I was stuck with just one channel, news in Swedish, most of it beyond my limited vocabulary. Honor killings, that I understood. Women murdered for reneging on a marriage, or a dowry less than one desired. Honor killings here in Sweden, Oy. What next?

Girl Photo 

A 17-year-old Swedish girl was arrested in Austria last year. Austrian law seem less forgiving than the law it Sweden. She was found guilty of planning to join Isis militants and was sentenced to a year in prison by the court in Vienna.

"It has been the worst time of my life. Now I just want to go home." Home where the heart is I suppose . . . or not.

The girl was tracked down by Austrian police last December, after her parents reported her missing from her home in Linköping, in southern Sweden, They told police they suspected she had become radicalized after watching Isis videos. The mind boggles.
Her lawyer argued that his client was not guilty, and suggested she ran away from home because she was "naive" and unhappy, and had no final destination in mind. Are there teenagers who are not naive and unhappy? There must be some, somewhere.

The girl's mobile phone records formed a core part of the evidence given at the trial. They included messages such as "but if they cannot be converted, they must be killed," and texts in which she expressed happiness about the Paris terror attacks in November 2015. Isis propaganda photos were also discovered, including images of beheadings.

Interesting, now the thing with Apple’s fight against opening up cell phone data to Homeland Security. Easy to see both sides of the picture - not so easy to come up with a solution.
Sweden has not requested she be extradited, because under Swedish law preparing a trip to join the jihad is not currently a criminal offence. It’s difficult for me to understand this - Swedish law. It is a criminal offense in Austria.

She was attending a high school in Skäggetorp, an area of Linköping with a growing proportion of immigrant families and higher than average unemployment.
Elisabeth Gustafsson, who chairs the city's social welfare committee, said she would be helped by local authorities following her return to Sweden. She would attend a youth programmed designed to help her question and leave behind any radical beliefs.

I keep thinking people should be held responsible for what they do, no matter what their age, or reason. But that’s just me. Compassion never my long suit.

Meanwhile, a possible housing solution.

The government here is thinking about using cruise ships to help with housing for the record number of asylum seekers who arrived last year,

The Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet has reported one of the country’s housing contractors has agreed to provide floating accommodation. US Ship Managers, has applied for permission to dock, The Ocean Gala, in Härnösand, on the east coast of northern Sweden.

We don't have any opinions about where it should be docked, they said. It's all about finding a harbor that suits.

Gala 2

The Ocean Gala - Not Too Shabby!

Some local councilors are opposing the bid due to the size of the ship, which could provide living space for approximately 1,500 people. It would become Sweden's largest accommodation hub for asylum seekers if the plans go ahead, but proposal will be abandoned unless space at an appropriate port is secured within the next two months.

Fred Nilsson, who represents the center-left Social Democrats on the Härnösand council board, told TT news wire, “The housing for 1,000-1,800 people should be preceded by proper planning, even if the installation is of a temporary nature.”

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Observing Sweden - Proverbs



Swedish Proverbs:
1. I have a rooster in my throat / jag har en tupp i halsen
Means that you need to clear your throat.

2. You’ve crapped in the blue cupboard / Nu har du skitit i det blå skåpet
You have done something wrong.

3. Don’t drag everyone over the same comb / Dra inte alla över en kam
For instance – Swedes are known for being shy but don’t drag all Swedes over the same comb by assuming that ALL Swedes will run and hide if you try to talk to them.

4. To slide on a shrimp sandwich / Att glida på en räkmacka
To “glida på en räkmacka” is in fact something to envy. It describes a person who tends to be a bit too lucky – or perhaps a bit like someone who gets things served on a silver platter.

7. Only dead fish follow the stream /Bara döda fiskar följer strömmen
Describes someone who lacks his/her own will and just follows the general consensus.

8. A close shot doesn’t kill the hare / Nära skjuter ingen hare
Used to describe a situation where you were close to a goal but didn’t quite get all the way.

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Bette Midler's Trump Tweet




Bette 

Bette Midler’s Trump Tweet:

“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” — Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Monday, February 8, 2016

Observing Sweden - Immigration News - 8 Feb 2016



Exerpt from: The Local.se & Dagnes Nyheter.

Sweden For Immigration concerns swell among Swedish voters

Published: 08 Feb 2016 07:49 GMT+01:00
Updated: 08 Feb 2016 12:49 GMT+01:00
40 percent of Swedes now believe ‘integration and immigration’ is the biggest issue facing the Nordic nation. Immigration has overtaken education as the single most important issue for voters selecting a political party, a new poll for Swedish newspaper, Dagnes Nyheter (DN) by Ipsos suggests.

The poll shows that 40 percent of Swedes selected ‘integration and immigration’ as the key political topic when deciding who they would vote for if there was an election. This compares to 20 percent in June 2015 and just five percent in 2010.

“It’s the biggest change for an individual issue we’ve ever seen in our measurements,” Johanna Laurin Gulled, a spokesperson for Ipsos, told DN.
The poll also suggests that only 17 percent of voters think that Prime Minister Stefan Löfven’s Social Democrat party has the best policies on immigration. Meanwhile, 21 percent favor the approach of the nationalist Sweden Democrats.

“There is a favorable position for the Sweden Democrats, who own the question which now ranks as the most important to voters,” said Gulled.
The poll comes as Sweden’s center-right parties seek to toughen their approach to immigration, with the largest opposition party, the Moderates, last week suggesting an “asylum pause”.

However according to Ipsos’ results, this is not having an impact on their popularity in this area, with just 13 percent of voters suggesting the Moderate party has the best immigration policies.
Education was bumped into second place in the list of concerns, with 18 percent selecting ‘schools and training’ in the survey.

The representative survey was carried out at the end of January, following a year in which Sweden took in a record 163,000 asylum seekers.

Around 100,000 more refugees are expected to travel to the Nordic country in 2016, according to a recent forecast by Sweden’s migration agency.

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Chinese New Year - 8 February 2016








Fire oney 2

Year Of The Fire Monkey


The Year of the Fire Monkey is good for taking risks and being rebellious, a year where agile, inventive minds, sheer guts and bravado will win out. Now is the time of courage, action, anarchy, and true devotion to even the wildest of schemes. New endeavors are destined to succeed under Monkey’s influence. But a word to the wise: those who can hang on for the wild ride, outsmart the confidence-trickster, and bluff their way through will come out unscathed. Those who are dull or slow witted, and can’t handle the stress will come unglued.

The Fire Monkey holds many surprises.

Do you feel lucky?

The five elements are Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth, make it possible to determine the date of a particular year's date. For example: Metal Tiger – 1950, Water Tiger 1962, Wood Tiger – 1974, Fire Tiger – 1986, Earth Tiger– 1938, 1998, etc.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Observing Sweden - Pendulum Swings



Swedish PMs to be called to scrutiny committee
 
Published: The Local.se  30 Jan 2016 15:29 GMT+01:00


Swedish prime minister Stefan Löfven and his centre-right predecessor Fredrik Reinfeldt will be called before a scrutiny committee to explain their handling of the refugee influx of recent years, a committee member said on Saturday.

Jonas Millard, an MP for the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats and member of the Constitutional Committee (KU), confirmed the plans as he announced that his party would report both men to the committee. “In a sense it is both the present and the previous government who bear responsibility for the situation that has arisen,” he said.

“We will send a battery of questions to both the current and previous governments,” he told the Dagens Industri newspaper. “Ultimately, it may also be the case that we call both Stefan Löfven and Fredrik Reinfeldt to hearings. We may also request documents which are not public.”
The Sweden Democrats’ move follows similar actions from the center-right Moderate Party, whose parliamentary leader Jessica Polfjärd, on Friday morning reported Stefan Löfven and a several other government ministers to be investigated.

The Sweden Democrat’s referral came as party activists organized a street protest in central Stockholm where they called on the government to resign over its handling of last year’s refugee crisis. The so-called “People’s Demonstration”, was organized by Sweden Democrat activists Johan Widen and Therese Larsson. According to Expressen newspaper several demonstrators were restrained by handcuffs, and ten police vans and a police helicopter were present to monitor the protest.

Speakers at the demonstration included Gothenburg priest Axel W Karlsson, who was in 2014 expelled from the Sweden Democrats for his articles in the far Right Nya Tider magazine, and Hans Erling Jensen, who was expelled from the party for his extreme views on Islam.