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Ecuadorean Preacher Fined $3,000, Banned From Politics for Calling Homosexuality ‘Immoral’ March 14, 2013 | Filed under: Highlights,Law & Government,Life & Society,Persecution,Top Stories,World | By: Heather Clark <p> An evangelical preacher in Ecuador who ran for president earlier this year has been sentenced after he was found guilty of violating the country’s electoral code by speaking against homosexual behavior.Nelson Zavala has been fined for more than $3,000 and banned from running for office or being involved with any political party for one year because of his speech, which reportedly occurred in February.Zavala is being penalized for comments that he made...

Video/more at Reaganite Republican (should be SFW, some bikini shots... rated 'PG') _________________________________________________ facebook 

"IRAN SPY NETWORK 30,000 STRONG Pentagon report: Iranian intelligence linked to spying, terror attacks" SNIPPET: "Iran’s intelligence service includes 30,000 people who are engaged in covert and clandestine activities that range from spying to stealing technology to terrorist bombings and assassination, according to a Pentagon report." SNIPPET: "“MOIS provides financial, material, technological, or other support services to Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), all designated terrorist organizations under U.S. Executive Order 13224,” the report said. The spy service operates in all areas where Iran has interests, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Central Asia, Africa, Austria, Azerbaijan, Croatia, France,...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange plans to address a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly via a videolink from his hideout at Ecuador's London embassy, seeking to draw new attention to his efforts to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex crimes allegations. Ecuador's mission to the United Nations said Tuesday that Assange was scheduled to speak Wednesday alongside foreign minister Ricardo Patino at a specially convened event to discuss his asylum case. The Australian activist is seeking to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning over sex crimes allegations and has been sheltered inside Ecuador's...

They just can’t help themselves. Today it’s John Pilger in the New Statesman: “The pursuit of Julian Assange is an assault on freedom and a mockery of journalism”. One by one the cream of the intellectual left (and George Galloway) are lining up, in well-disciplined rows, to hurl themselves lemming-like onto the rocks of WikiLeaks. Tony Benn: “the charges are that it was a non-consensual relationship. Well that's very different from rape”. Galloway: "Even taken at its worst, if the allegations made by these two women were true, 100 per cent true, and even if a camera in the room...

SNIPPET: "I. When considering the matter of jihadis online, remember that most of what we think we know is based on analyses of the comments made by an handful of vocal activists. The vast majority of jihadis online, be they on forums or social networking sites[i], say nothing. Skillful translations and insightful analyses by definition tell us little about this potentially lethal yet silent majority."

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange calls on Obama to end 'witch hunt' WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange urged President Barack Obama to end a so-called "witch hunt" against his secret-spilling website, appearing in public Sunday for the first time since he took refuge two months ago inside Ecuador's Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex crimes allegations. The 41-year-old Australian, who has fought for two years against efforts to send him to Sweden for questioning over alleged sexual misconduct against two women, addressed several hundred supporters and reporters as he spoke from the small balcony of Ecuador's mission, watched...

(LONDON) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared Sunday for the first time since he took refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, calling for the release of Bradley Manning, who is accused of leaking documents to the whistlebowling website, and urging President Obama to "do the right thing" and end the "witch-hunt" against WikiLeaks. For the past two years, Assange, 41, has fought extradition efforts to send him to Sweden, where he faces questioning over alleged sexual assaults against two women. The Australian has said he fears Swedish authorities will hand him over to U.S. officials. Ecuador granted Assange political...

One was an Australian computer hacker; the other a head of state. They did not speak each other’s language; and their first encounter was a videolink conversation across 6,000miles. ....“Welcome to the club of the persecuted!” a beaming Mr Correa[President of Ecuador]told the grinning Australian. ...on Mr Assange’s Russian television chat show in May, the Ecuadorean discussed at great length his resentment of American“imperialism”, and his vehement dislike of big business, media barons and “elites”. ..........Mr Assange nodded knowingly....... The two men laughed and joked as they congratulated each other on their pariah status. ......On Thursday, Mr Correa’s government announced...

BEHIND THE ECUADORIAN DECISION TO GRANT ASSANGE ASYLUM: A LONG HISTORY OF ECONOMIC RAPE AT THE HANDS OF THE FINANCIAL POWERS OF THE WEST Two days ago – that is to say, Thursday August 16, 2012 – I spoke in my News and Views from the Nefarium about the decision of the Ecuadorian government to grant celebrated (or depending on one’s lights, infamous) Wikileaks founder Julian Assange political asylum in its embassy in London. In that talk, I suggested that the Ecuadorian government and foreign ministry had probably done a bit of shrewd geopolitical calculation, and that there was more...

thnocentrism is under-rated. Most college students are exposed to the concept only if they take a course in Introductory Sociology or if they should chose to major in sociology. Even then, the concept of ethnocentrism is presented as an evil to be extinguished by fostering the value of anti-ethnocentrism. For those who are not well-versed in the language of sociology, ethnocentrism refers to the tendency to judge other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture. Since this is a natural human tendency, the task of fostering anti-ethnocentrism is difficult, to say the least. But it is also self-defeating. Technically...

Hot Air Balloon? Crane? Balloon Boy-style saucer/balloon? Thoughts?

Britain threatened to storm Ecuador’s London embassy on Wednesday in order to arrest WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is seeking political asylum in the South American country. Quito said a decision would be announced Thursday. The diplomatic standoff over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange escalated on Wednesday after Britain threatened to raid Ecuador’s embassy in London if Quito did not hand over Assange, who has been taking refuge there for two months. The Ecuadorean government said such an action would be considered a “hostile and intolerable act” as well as a violation of its sovereignty. “Under British law we can give...

When archaeologists discovered thousands of medieval skeletons in a mass burial pit in east London in the 1990s, they assumed they were 14th-century victims of the Black Death or the Great Famine of 1315-17. Now they have been astonished by a more explosive explanation – a cataclysmic volcano that had erupted a century earlier, thousands of miles away in the tropics, and wrought havoc on medieval Britons. Scientific evidence – including radiocarbon dating of the bones and geological data from across the globe – shows for the first time that mass fatalities in the 13th century were caused by one...

The total revenue of the 11 members of the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) soared to $624.8 billion in 2011, according to the latest data. OAPEC data for the oil income generated in the year 2010 was announced as $450bn. In real terms, the combined Arab income stood at $479bn in 2011 taking into account the real dollar value and global inflation. While the nominal price of OPEC's basket of crudes stood at around $107 per barrel in 2011 its real value averaged about $88 in 1995 prices. The oil price in 2010 also averaged nearly $60 far...

SARITA (Kiii News) - A traffic stop on Highway 77 landed a Kenedy County woman in hot water with the federal authorities. Sandra Lee Miller, 41, is the wife of a Justice of the Peace, and has recently run for public office herself. She has been charged with bringing in and harboring illegal immigrants. Miller's arrest all started with a traffic stop around 6 a.m. Monday. It happened on Highway 77, about a quarter-mile south of 285. The Hummer Miller was in was stopped by the Department of Public Safety for a license plate light violation. The U.S. Border Patrol...

The scattered islands of the vast Pacific Ocean were settled by seafarers who set out from the eastern coasts and islands of Asia and traveled thousands of kilometers by boat. Meanwhile pre-Columbian South America was populated by people who crossed a now-vanished land bridge far to the north. Did these two groups ever meet in the New World? There's a good chance of that, according to a new study, which finds evidence that Easter Islanders may have reached South America and mixed with the Native Americans already there. University of Oslo immunologist Erik Thorsby first began analyzing the people of...

ISLE OF WIGHT, England - A 100-year-old wooden paddle used in Polynesian dance ceremonies before becoming a household ornament fetched nearly $340,000 at a British auction. Bidders in London and Brussels quickly upped the price on the paddle after bidding started at just $4,629, The Times of London reported. The ceremonial paddle, known as a rapa, originated on Easter Island in the southeastern Pacific, where performers used the paddles to accentuate movements in dances and ceremonies. Tim Smith of Isle of Wight auctioneers Island Auction Rooms in Shanklin set a guide price of $15,341. "When the money started going up,...

Archaeologists have disproved the fifty-year-old theory underpinning our understanding of how the famous stone statues were moved around Easter IslandArchaeologists have disproved the fifty-year-old theory underpinning our understanding of how the famous stone statues were moved around Easter Island. Fieldwork led by researchers at University College London and The University of Manchester, has shown the remote Pacific island's ancient road system was primarily ceremonial and not solely built for transportation of the figures. A complex network of roads up to 800-years-old crisscross the Island between the hat and statue quarries and the coastal areas. Laying alongside the roads are dozens...

A team of British archaeologists has solved the mystery of how the famous statues dotting the landscape of Easter Island acquired their distinctive red hats. Dr Sue Hamilton from University College London and Dr Colin Richards from the University of Manchester believe the hats were constructed in a hidden quarry and then rolled down from the slopes of an ancient volcano. They are the first archaeologists ever to have excavated the Puna Pau quarry on the tiny Pacific island. The team have discovered the mystery behind the red hats worn by the Easter Island statues Around 70 intact giant red...