Sunday, May 07, 2017



Demi Moore sued after man drowned in her pool: Personal responsibility anyone?

I understand there is good sense in holding people liable for causing harm to others and for gross negligence.... But I find this sort of thing sad. Yes the lost of their son’s life is awful for the family, but death is part of life, as are all sorts of unpleasantries, and people should accept that and not always look for someone to blame and sue.

The man who could not swim and fell in the pool and drowned was 21, an adult, not an infant. If he could not swim he should have watched where he was walking, like all of us should do all the time. If we step into a pool, off a river bank or a cliff, fall down a stairwell, walk into a wall or into traffic, it is our self who does it.

Surely the parents taught the man when he was a little boy to watch where he is putting his feet. Or maybe they didn’t teach him that?

Judging by the parents attitude in suing the pool owner they probably didn’t teach their son that he is responsible for himself, no one else. They didn’t teach him how to swim and yet now when as an adult he falls in a pool and drowns they sue the owners of the pool.



TWO years after a 21-year-old man drowned in Demi Moore’s swimming pool, his family is going after her.

In July 2015, Edenilson Steven Valle was found at the bottom of Moore’s pool after a party hosted at her Los Angeles home. Moore, 54, was out of town at the time, and when Valle’s body was discovered, she told press she was “in absolute shock” over the “unthinkable tragedy.”

Valle’s parents, Jorge and Maria, initially filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Tree House Trust, which owns the property, and Moore’s assistant and another person, who both threw the party.

Moore has now been added as a defendant in the case because there were no depth markers near the pool and had rocks by its edges, which the deceased man’s parents claim was a tripping hazard, TMZ reported Friday.

The Valles also claim that the temperature in the swimming pool was 101 degrees at the time of the drowning, which they say can compromise brain function.

Law enforcement sources told the site that Edenilson told fellow guests and hosts that he didn’t know how to swim and that he allegedly fell in the pool after fellow guests left the property.
A rep for Moore didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

SOURCE





The EU must reform or face a Frexit, says Emmanuel Macron

The European Union must reform or face Frexit, Emmanuel Macron, the frontrunner in France's presidential election, has warned.

The 39-year old centrist made the comments as he and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen entered the last week of campaigning ahead of the May 7 runoff, with Ms Le Pen calling her rival "the people's adversary".

Ms Le Pen has promised a referendum on France's membership of the EU and said this weekend that the "euro is dead", although she has toned down calls to swiftly leave the single currency.

Her pledge to reclaim sovereignty from the EU, help French workers and protect French borders has won support in rural and former industrial areas.

Mr Macron, pro-business leader of the recently created En Marche! movement, said: "I'm a pro-European, I defended constantly during this election the European idea and European policies because I believe it's extremely important for French people and for the place of our country in globalisation."

"But at the same time we have to face the situation, to listen to our people, and to listen to the fact that they are extremely angry today, impatient and the dysfunction of the EU is no more sustainable," he told the BBC. "So I do consider that my mandate, the day after, will be at the same time to reform in depth the European Union and our European project."

The French would take a "business as usual attitude" as a "betrayal" he warned. "And I don't want to do so, because the day after, we will have a Frexit or we will have (Ms Le Pen's) Front  National(FN) again."

Both Mr Macron - who is leading in the polls by 20 percentage points - and Ms Le Pen are holding major campaign rallies in the Paris area.

Mr Macron will seek to consolidate his lead with a future-oriented message of optimism to an electorate wracked by unemployment and fears of globalisation in a meeting near La Villette science complex in north-east Paris.

Ms Le Pen is taking her case as "the people's candidate" to the working-class suburb of Villepinte.

Taking to the stage in Villepinte, Ms Le Pen declared: "Emmanuel Macron is François Hollande who wants to remain (in power). We are going to throw out this outgoing candidate."

She laid into Mr Macron, an ex-investment banker and economy minister, reminding the French of Mr Hollande's campaign speech in which he accused "the world of finance" of being the main enemy of the French people.

"Today," she told a crowd of several thousand, "the adversary of of the French people is still the world of finance, but this time it has a name, it has a face, it has a party, it is fielding its candidate who could be elected. He is called Emmanuel Macron".

While a string of high-profile figures have come out in support of Mr Macron in recent days - from Zinedine Zidane, the footballer, to Thomas Enders, head of Airbus - the far-Right candidate received a boost over the weekend when Eurosceptic 'sovereignist' Nicolas Dupont-Aignan threw his weight behind her.

Mr Dupont-Aignan scored just under five per cent in the first round, when he received the backing of ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

Opening the Villepinte rally, he accused the "immature and agitated" Mr Macron of wishing to "definitively shut the French inside the prison of the EU".

The rallies come as unions stage a series of marches across the French capital for workers' rights.

However, splits emerged within the major unions over what stance to adopt regarding the presidential candidates. Some factions are going against their leadership to call for members to vote "neither (for Ms Le Pen) nor (for Mr Macron)" - seen by many leftists as an enemy of the worker. A banner of one dissenting faction of the CGT union reportedly read: "Neither plague nor cholera."

Philippe Martinez, CGT leader, said he was in "deep disagreement" with this stance, saying the official union line is "not a single vote for Marine Le Pen."

Meanwhile FN founder Jean-Marie Le Pen led a march from the statue of Joan of Arc, a long-time FN icon.

SOURCE





Germany Grapples with Integration Debate: ‘We Don’t Do The Burqa’

As Germany continues to grapple with questions of migrant integration and national identity, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere stoked a row this week when he presented a ten-point concept of what he argues constitute German cultural values.

The announcement prompted renewed debate, and criticism from some quarters, over the notion that immigrants must assimilate to a set of shared “dominant” cultural values.

Germany has taken in more migrants and asylum seekers – around 1.2 million since 2015 – than any other European Union member-state.

Complaining that countries like Germany are “shouldering the greatest burden of the consequences of flight and migration in Europe,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier during a visit to Rome this week called for a greater sharing of the load among E.U. partners.

In an earlier op-ed in the Bild newspaper, de Maizière put forward ten points representing his personal view of a “leading culture” (Leitkultur) – characterizing Germany as a multicultural, accepting nation but one that also retains its sense of identity.

“We shake hands, show our faces, and tell people what our names are,” he wrote. “We don’t ‘do’ the burqa,” he added, in reference to apparel designed to conceal a woman’s head and body, favored by many Muslims.

“Germany is part of the West, culturally, spiritually and politically speaking,” de Maizière argued. While “synagogues and mosques” are part of German society, the country, he said, has been “shaped by Christianity.”

The comments came as political parties prepare for a general election in September, in which the issue of integration will likely be a key topic.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is running for her fourth term. The latest Emnid poll shows her Christian Democrat (CDU) party in the lead, at 36 percent, with her current coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD), at 29 percent. The far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) sits at nine percent, down from a 16 percent high last year.

De Maizière is a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the CDU’s sister party.

While not commenting directly on the interior minister’s comments, Merkel was quoted by the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland newspaper as calling for discussion over “how we humans should live as early as our own way, our basic law, our values.”

CDU deputy leader Thomas Strobl voiced support for de Maizière’s points, as did CSU general-secretary Andreas Scheuer, who said a debate over Leitkultur was overdue.

“Integration does not mean that the local population and the immigrants meet halfway, and a new culture emerges,” the Passauer Neuen Presse quoted him as saying.

Political groups such as the SPD and the Greens, meanwhile, outright opposed de Maizière’s concept of a German “leading culture,” with SPD deputy leader Ralf Stegner calling it “a cheap attempt” to get votes.

Greens co-chairman Simone Peter said Germany doesn’t need Leitkultur, but instead “a new domestic policy that promotes integration, inspects right-wing networks and keeps a tight surveillance on people considered potential Islamic terrorists.”

“A society is always changing – and one of the reasons for that is migration,” Deutsche Welle quoted Greens spokesperson Jamila Schaefer as saying. “I don't think finding a way to live together peacefully is about preserving one culture.”

The anti-immigration AfD appeared to favor de Maizière’s comments, saying on Twitter he was playing the role of “the big defender of culture.”

Leitkultur is a highly controversial concept that has been part of social and political debate in Germany in recent years.

The term was coined around the turn of the millennium, when CDU politician Friedrich Merz said that immigrants should conform to the “liberal German leading culture.”

Last year, the state of Bavaria passed a new integration law, requiring all migrants in the state to respect the “dominant culture.”

The issue is a sensitive one due to Germany’s Nazi past, and some feel Leitkultur moves the nation backwards, towards nationalism and oppression.

Integration has been an issue in particular for the country’s large Turkish population. Resentment over a perceived lack of respect from German society and politicians was seen as a key factor when more than 63 percent of the Turkish population in Germany voted last month in support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s proposals for sweeping new powers as president.

In a poll last February, about two-thirds of respondents felt that being German has nothing to do with being born in the country. Only 11 percent of respondents felt that being Christian was important.

SOURCE






Greek Orthodox Bishop Calls on Turkey's Erdogan to Convert or Face 'Unending Hell' With Muhammed


I like this guy.  He's definitely got the best hat

The Greek Orthodox bishop, Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus, sent a lengthy letter to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in which he detailed some of the differences between Christianity and Islam and called on Erdogan to convert to Orthodoxy or face "eternal and unending" suffering in Hell, along with Muhammed and his followers.

In the letter, Metropolitan Seraphim criticizes Islam and says Muhammed was a "false prophet" and that the Quran is not a "holy" or "sacred" book. He presents examples of where the Quran uses material from the Bible and other religious texts, and he also discusses some of the more controversial aspects of Muhammed's life, including that one of his wives, Aisha, was only nine-years-old when she married the prophet.

Near the end of the letter, Metropolitan Seraphim pleads with President Erdogan and his family to convert to Christianity. He calls on them to "renounce all errors, heresies, and innovations of Islam" and "repent, to weep bitterly, be humble, and believe in Christ, the God-Man, Savior and Redeemer of the world."

Metropolitan Seraphim further advises Erdogan to be instructed and then baptized in the Orthodox church and to ask his ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, to be his godfather.

As translated by the European Union Times, Metropolitan Seraphim says to Erdogan,  “If you want to save yourself and your family you should convert to the Greek Orthodox Church, the only real faith."

“We propose and we advise you to come to the arms of the Greek Orthodox Church before the end of your life on Earth," he writes. “Otherwise, you will unfortunately find yourself, your family and your people in the same place where Allah, Muhammad and his followers are, i.e.,  in the place of suffering, eternal and unending Hell.”

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 63, is a Sunni Muslim. He is married and has four children. He became president of Turkey in August 2014. His parents followed Islam and reportedly were devout, practicing Muslims.

SOURCE




Australian Christians feel under siege for expressing opposition to same-sex marriage

A Melbourne IT specialist engaged to work on the Safe Schools program was sacked after privately expressing concerns about the contentious initiative during a staff meeting, with his employer later accusing him of “creating an unsafe work environment”.

Lee Jones, a Christian who was general manager of a business at the time, had told his boss he would work on the project despite his views but was dismissed regardless, according to a submission to a federal inquiry into the status of religious freedom.

His predicament is just one of several cases of discrimination ­alleged by Christians or opponents of same-sex marriage that have come to light as part of the inquiry, which, in the wake of the Coopers Brewery fiasco, has heightened concerns about free speech and a growing intolerance towards traditional views.

Other cases include a Victoria-based commonwealth pub­lic servant who was given a warning for complaining about being pressured to take part in a gay pride march.

The man, who was also a Christian, later asked to be taken off the email list of the department’s LGBTI network as he found emails “offensive by reason of his religious background”.

According to the submission of the Wilberforce Foundation, which is a coalition of lawyers committed to common law ­values, rights and freedoms, the public servant was issued a notice to show cause why he should not be disciplined.  That was challenged and there was a finding that there had been no breach of the APS Code of Conduct.

The foundation also cites Alice Springs teacher Ian Shepherd, who was threatened with disciplinary action last year for expressing opposition to same-sex marriage on a Facebook forum.  Despite the comments being made outside school hours, he was issued a notice to show cause. The Northern Territory Education Department has since dropped the action.

Meanwhile, an Adelaide ­university student was suspended last year after offering to pray for a student who was stressed over her workload and later voicing his opinion about homosexuality.

The student had said that he would treat a gay person kindly “but (didn’t) agree with their choice”.  He was ordered to undergo “re-education” but sought legal advice and the university withdrew the allegations.

Human Rights Law Alliance managing director Martyn Iles, who was involved with some of the cases, said they were evidence of the “purging of certain ideas in public discourse”.

Mr Iles said people with traditional views on same-sex marriage and the Safe Schools program were not being permitted to express them publicly.

In Mr Jones’s case, he was in a staff meeting when asked his opinion about Safe Schools, which had been generating significant media due to its promotion of contested ideas around gender fluidity and sexuality.

His response was that he would not want his own children to be taught some of the more controversial elements of the program. No representatives from Safe Schools were at the meeting.

Mr Jones did not want to discuss details of his situation.  However, he said his sacking — “a brutal over-reaction” — had opened his eyes to attempts to censor those opposed to “rewriting the law and morality”.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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