Dutch mobile euthanasia units to make house calls

Kate Connolly
1 March 2012

A controversial system of mobile euthanasia units that will travel around the country to respond to the wishes of sick people who wish to end their lives has been launched in the Netherlands.

The scheme, which started on Thursday , will send teams of specially trained doctors and nurses to the homes of people whose own doctors have refused to carry out patients' requests to end their lives.
The launch of the so-called Levenseinde, or "Life End", house-call units – whose services are being offered to Dutch citizens free of charge – coincides with the opening of a clinic of the same name in The Hague, which will take patients with incurable illnesses as well as others who do not want to die at home.

The scheme is an initiative by the Dutch Association for a Voluntary End to Life (NVVE), a 130,000-member euthanasia organisation that is the biggest of its kind in the world.

"From Thursday, the Life End clinic will have mobile teams where people who believe they are eligible for euthanasia can register," Walburg de Jong, a NVVE spokesman, said.

"If they do comply, the teams will be able to carry out the euthanasia at patients' homes should their regular doctors be unable or refuse to help them," he added.

The Netherlands was the first country to legalise euthanasia in 2002 and its legislation on the right to die is considered to be the most liberal in the world.

But doctors cannot be forced to comply with the wishes of patients who request the right to die and many do refuse, which was what prompted NVVE to develop a system to fill the gap.

Sick people or their relatives can submit their applications via telephone or email and if the patient's request fulfils a number of strict criteria, the team is then dispatched.

Legal guidelines state that the person must be incurably sick, be suffering unbearable pain and have expressed the wish to die voluntarily, clearly and on several occasions.

According to De Jong, the team will make contact with the doctor who has refused to help the patient to die and ask what his or her reasons were.

More often than not, he said, the motivations are religious or ethical, adding that sometimes doctors were simply not well enough informed about the law.

If the team is satisfied that the patient's motives are genuine, they will contact another doctor with whom they will start the euthanasia process.

"They will first give the patient an injection, which will put them into a deep sleep, then a second injection follows, which will stop their breathing and heart beat," De Jong said.

Every year 2,300 to 3,100 mercy killings are carried out in the Netherlands, although opponents of the practice claim the figure is much higher because many cases are not registered. The Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) supports euthanasia in principle if there is no alternative, but has distanced itself from the NVVE initiative, arguing that giving it the name Life End will foster the idea that it is for those who it said are simply "weary of life" rather than those who are sick.

It has also questioned whether Life End doctors will have the chance to forge the necessary relationship with a patient to be able to ascertain whether or not his or her life should be ended.
But Jan Kuyper, of the Life End Clinic Foundation, said: "We're not trying to push any boundaries here." He said it was quite possible that the mobile teams would not end up carrying out a mercy killing, either due to medical questions about the case or if doubt is cast on the patient's motives.
Little is known about the Life End teams. But one of the team leaders is believed to be a 67-year-old retired doctor who carried out 20 mercy killings during his medical career.

The teams would be limited to one house visit a week to minimise the psychological burden on them.
In neighbouring Germany, where mercy killings are strictly illegal, euthanasia opponents were particularly vocal in expressing their outrage at the developments. "This is an inhumane proposal," said the German Hospice Foundation, while the group Life Rights for Everyone called it a "warped understanding of [the meaning of] autonomy".

Breitbart: “Wait ‘Til They See What Happens March 1st”

Breitbart died hours before planned release of damning Obama footage

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
March 2, 2012

In a stunning coincidence, It appears Andrew Breitbart suffered his untimely death just hours before he was set to release damning video footage that could have sunk Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.

Around three weeks ago on February 9 during the ‘Blog Bash’ event in Washington DC, Breitbart made a prophetic comment that takes on a somewhat chilling nature given the fact that he died in the early hours of March 1st. Speaking to Lawrence Sinclair of Sinclair News, Breitbart stated, “Wait til they see what happens March 1st.” It’s almost certain that Breitbart was referring to his plan to release damning footage of President Obama that he had been promising to reveal throughout the month of February.

As we reported yesterday, Breitbart spoke of his intention to release the tape during his CPAC speech last month. The footage shows Obama in his college days appearing alongside former Weather Underground terrorists Bill and Bernardine Dohrn. Observers had speculated that the footage could have derailed Obama’s hopes for a second term.

“I’ve got video from his college days that show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008 – the videos are going to come out,” said Breitbart, adding that Obama would be vetted.

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to appreciate the downright weirdness of Breitbart predicting a major event to occur on March 1st, only for him to end up dying on that very date. Breitbart was officially pronounced dead at 12:19am.

Although the cause of Breitbart’s death was hastily reported to be of “natural causes,” the Los Angeles County coroner’s office have refused to confirm anything until an autopsy has been performed.

According to marketing executive Arthur Sando, Breitbart spent his final hour in a bar near his home called the Brentwood sipping red wine and talking politics. After leaving the bar at around 11:30pm, Breitbart began to walk home before apparently suffering a fatal heart attack.

Although it is reported that Breitbart was rushed to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, when Lawrence Sinclair called the hospital, they denied that anyone by that name had been admitted within the previous 72 hours.

Watch the CPAC video below where Breitbart mentions the Obama footage he had seemingly planned to release just hours before his death.

Sheriff Arpaio: Obama birth certificate a ‘forgery’

By Stephen Dinan

March 1, 2012

PHOENIX — Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Thursday he suspects the birth certificate President Obama released last year is a “computer-generated forgery” — and also raised questions about the authenticity of the president’s Selective Service card.

“Based on all of the evidence presented and investigated, I cannot in good faith report to you that these documents are authentic,” Sheriff Arpaio said. “My investigators believe that the long-form birth certificate was manufactured electronically and that it did not originate in paper format as claimed by the White House.”

Questions over Mr. Obama’s birth certificate have been a political sideshow for the last four years, and have persisted despite repeated denials by the White House, and despite the release of evidence he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Aug. 4, 1961. That evidence included both a certificate of live birth released during the 2008 campaign and the long-form certificate last year.

Fact-check organizations have concluded the certificates are authentic, and Mr. Obama has joked about those who questioned his birth. At last year’s White House Correspondents Association Dinner, soon after releasing his long-form certificate, he mocked Donald Trump, who had said his own investigators were looking into the matter.

Now Sheriff Arpaio, who first built his national profile by creating tent cities for jail inmates and later by taking a tough stance on illegal immigration, could reignite questions among those who continue to believe Mr. Obama was born outside the U.S., and therefore is ineligible to be president under the Constitution’s provision that the officeholder be a natural-born citizen.

Sheriff Arpaio said at least two crimes could have been committed in his view through the forgery. He repeatedly said he is not questioning whether Mr. Obama was born in the U.S., but instead is challenging the authenticity of the documents themselves.

He released a 10-page report detailing what his investigators said were “inconsistencies” in the text characters of the birth certificate image the White House released, and also questioned details of the computer file itself.

Some of those claims had earlier been raised on the Internet as well, and both the White House and independent fact-checkers have dismissed those questions, saying the computer file is consistent with the version of events the White House has detailed.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It released the long-form certificate last year after repeated questions were raised by conservative activists and conspiracy-theory websites questioning the authenticity of the short-form certificate Mr. Obama released during the 2008 campaign.

The Justice Department has accused Sheriff Arpaio of civil rights abuses within his department, but he said he began his investigation before that — in August 2011, after tea party members from Surprise, Ariz., a town within Maricopa County, signed a petition challenging the certificate.

Sheriff Arpaio detailed former law enforcement officers who constitute what he called his “cold case posse” to do the investigation. He said no taxpayer dollars were spent.

He was joined in his press conference by Jerome Corsi, an author who has been critical of Mr. Obama. He was also one of those who took a critical look at Sen. John Kerry’s military service during his 2004 presidential bid.

Mr. Corsi made headlines when he traveled to Kenya, saying he wanted to track down where he thought Mr. Obama was really born.

Sheriff Arpaio said he went into the investigation with an open mind, and would have been happy to clear Mr. Obama.

Influential conservative US blogger Andrew Breitbart dies

The conservative American journalist, author and blogger Andrew Breitbart died in Los Angeles of natural causes on Thursday morning, according to an announcement posted on his Big Journalism website. He was 43 years old.

[ed. We've lost a champion of conservative & patriotic ideals today, much too soon. Condolences to Andrew's family but also a heartfelt thank you for his years of service to the cause...]

Mosques in America nearly double since 9/11

by Joel Gehrke

Mosques in the United States have doubled in number since the September 11 attacks, with urban and suburban centers seeing an uptick in mosque construction over the last decade, according to a new report.

"This is a growing, healthy Muslim community that is well integrated into America," Ihsan Bagby, who headed the research project -- which was sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, among other groups -- told The Washington Post. "Researchers conducting the national count found a total of 2,106 Islamic centers, compared to 1,209 in 2000 and 962 in 1994," The Washington Post reported.

The Washington Post offers the statistic as a sign of the Muslim-American community triumphing over the anti-Muslim "backlash" supposed to be demonstrated by the opposition to the so-called Ground Zero mosque in New York City. But maybe the data vindicates those critics of the mosque who claimed to oppose the Ground Zero mosque construction not out of bigotry, but a very particular sensitivity regarding that mosque's proximity to Ground Zero of the World Trade Center attacks.

"When I look over there and see a mosque, it’s going to hurt," the New York Times quoted C. Lee Hanson, who lost a son in the September 11 attacks, as saying in 2010 about the Ground Zero mosque. "Build it someplace else."

Apparently, Muslim-Americans have been doing just that for the last decade.

[ed. Remember when reading that Mosques are a symbol of conquest...]

Media finally paying attention to eligibility?

PHOENIX, Ariz. – Poll after poll in recent months has indicated that Americans have a high level of concern over Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president, with one poll showing fully half of the nation wants Congress to investigate the question.

But reporters for the traditional media – networks, major newspapers, major news corporations and conglomerates – mostly have giggled when talk turns to the serious question of just what the U.S. Constitution requires of presidents.

Nevertheless, media organizations from all political persuasions are seeking admittance to a news conference to be held by Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz.

The event is tomorrow at 1 p.m. Mountain Standard Time in Phoenix, 3 p.m. Eastern, and will be live-streamed by WND.

http://www.wnd.com/arpaio-report/

The topic of discussion will be an investigation by Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse into concerns about Obama’s eligibility. It’s the first time an official law enforcement report has addressed many of the allegations about the presumptive 2012 Democratic nominee for president.

The issues include Obama’s eligibility under the U.S. Constitution’s requirements, questions about his use of a Connecticut Social Security number and the image of his purported birth certificate from Hawaii.

In addition to the live-streaming, WND will make available to the public, the same day by email, the official report distributed to media by Arpaio’s investigators. Those interested in receiving the report can sign up for the free service.

Top national media organizations have indicated their plans to attend, and bookings for radio and television reports are in the works. Expected are reporters from the Associated Press, Reuters, Univision, the Washington Times and NBC, CBS and ABC affiliates, as well statewide radio networks, among many others.

Because of the circumstances, a decision was made to hold the press conference at the sheriff’s training center on the outskirts of Phoenix, rather than at the downtown office.

The event is expected to draw protesters who object to the sheriff’s office review of allegations that Obama may attempt to use a fraudulent document to have his name placed on the 2012 presidential election ballot in Arizona.

Without releasing any details, Arpaio has said the findings “could be a shock.”

He constituted a special five-member law enforcement posse last year to investigate allegations brought by members of the Surprise, Ariz., Tea Party that the Obama birth certificate released to the public by the White House on April 27 might be a forgery.

The posse is made up of three former law enforcement officers and two retired attorneys with law enforcement experience. Members have been examining evidence since September concerning Obama’s eligibility to be president under Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, which requires a president to be a natural-born citizen.

Among other issues, there also have been allegations of Obama’s use of a Social Security number that corresponds to a Connecticut address, even though the president apparently had no links there.

WND earlier reported a private investigation found that the Social Security number being used by Obama does not pass a check with E-Verify, the electronic system the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has created to verify whether or not someone is authorized to work legally in the country.

Arpaio’s investigation is the first official law enforcement look at the allegations surrounding Obama’s eligibility. Many of the private investigators who have examined it contend there are too many questionable circumstances to believe that everything regarding Obama is above-board.

Arpaio previously told WND that when he launched his Cold Case Posse it was with the possibility that he would clear Obama.

He said it wasn’t an issue he could ignore, after 250 members of the tea party organization “came to me and asked their sheriff to investigate Obama and the birth certificate.”

Future of the euro again thrown into doubt after Irish announce referendum on new EU cash rules

By Jason Groves
29th February 2012

Efforts to prop up the euro were again thrown into doubt last night after Ireland announced plans for a referendum on whether to accept new European spending rules.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny announced the decision following legal advice that a referendum was likely to be needed under Ireland’s constitution. No date has been set for the poll.

Public anger over austerity measures is running high in Ireland and many observers were last night predicting a ‘No’ vote. That would not prevent the strict budget controls coming into force, but would leave Ireland unable to access future EU bailouts.

The move will dismay European leaders, who had been desperate to avoid a public vote in any of the 25 countries that have agreed to the contentious ‘fiscal compact’.

Despite the announcement, Mr Kenny is expected to join other European leaders in Brussels on Friday to sign the new treaty.

Downing Street declined to comment in detail last night, but said the referendum was ‘not a great surprise’.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: ‘We have always known that those countries in the Eurozone who would be bound by the new fiscal rules would be pooling economic sovereignty to some extent.

‘The possibility of a referendum in Ireland has been talked about so I don’t think it is a great surprise.’

Britain is not signing up to the new deal after David Cameron vetoed an agreement at EU level in December because of fears about its impact on the City. However, the Prime Minister later dropped his opposition to plans for the European Commission and European Court of Justice to police the new deal.

Tory MP Douglas Carswell last night said the Irish referendum showed the deal was going ahead despite Mr Cameron’s veto.

Mr Carswell said: ‘I am pleased that democracy is alive and well in at least one part of the EU. But it does raise questions for the Government, which first of all said the treaty did not represent a significant change and then said it had vetoed it.

‘The fact that EU leaders are going ahead and signing it on Friday is just further evidence of the contempt they have for their own people.’

Ireland has twice rejected plans for EU reform in referendums, only for the votes to be overturned under intense pressure from Brussels.

Eurosceptics in Ireland are expected to use the latest referendum to highlight Ireland’s dire economic problems, which have required a £70 billion bailout from the EU and International Monetary Fund.

George Osborne: UK has run out of money

Rowena Mason
26 Feb 2012

In a stark warning ahead of next month’s Budget, the Chancellor said there was little the Coalition could do to stimulate the economy.

Mr Osborne made it clear that due to the parlous state of the public finances the best hope for economic growth was to encourage businesses to flourish and hire more workers.

“The British Government has run out of money because all the money was spent in the good years,” the Chancellor said. “The money and the investment and the jobs need to come from the private sector.”

Mr Osborne’s bleak assessment echoes that of Liam Byrne, the former chief secretary to the Treasury, who bluntly joked that Labour had left Britain broke when he exited the Government in 2010.

He left David Laws, his successor, a one-line note saying: “Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left”.

Mr Osborne is under severe pressure to boost growth, amid signs the economy is slipping back into a recession.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies has urged him to consider emergency tax cuts in the Budget to reduce the risk of a prolonged economic slump.

But the Chancellor yesterday said he would stand firm on his effort to balance the books by refusing to borrow money. “Any tax cut would have to be paid for,” Mr Osborne told Sky News. “In other words there would have to be a tax rise somewhere else or a spending reduction.

“In other words what we are not going to do in this Budget is borrow more money to either increase spending or cut taxes.”

The strongest suggestion of help for squeezed family budgets came from the Chancellor’s claim that he was “very seriously and carefully” considering plans to help lower earners by raising the personal allowance for income tax, a proposal that has been championed by Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister.

But he implied there would be no more help for motorists struggling with record petrol prices this spring. “I have taken action already this year to avoid increases in fuel duty which were planned by the last Labour government,” he said.

The Chancellor’s tough words were echoed by Liberal Democrat Jeremy Browne, the foreign minister, who warned that Britain faced “accelerated decline” without measures to tackle its debt and increase competitiveness.

In an article published today in The Daily Telegraph, he writes that Britain’s market share in the world used to be “dominant” but was now “in freefall” compared with the soaring economies of Asia and South America. “This situation has been becoming more acute for years,” he adds. “It is now staring us in the face. So we need to take action.”

Mr Browne writes that reform of pensions, welfare and defence is essential to stop the departments “collapsing under the weight of their own debt”. “Just because the spending was sometimes on worthy causes does not in itself mean it was affordable,” he says.

“Doing nothing when your prospects are at risk of declining is not the safe option. More of the same may be superficially more popular in the short-term but that does not make it right.”

Amid warnings that Britain urgently needed to adopt a more pro-business outlook, senior Conservatives have urged the Government to get rid of the 50 pence top rate of tax.

Figures from the Treasury last week suggested the policy was not raising the expected amount of revenue and was threatening to drive leading business people and entrepreneurs away from Britain. Dr Liam Fox, the former Conservative Defence Secretary, yesterday argued for the top tax rate to be scrapped, but added that cutting taxes on employment was even more important.

“I would have thought the priority was getting the costs of employers down and therefore I would rather have seen any reductions in taxation on employers’ taxation rather than personal taxation,” he told the BBC’s Sunday Politics show.

Any efforts to scrap the rate this parliament would face severe opposition from within the Coalition.

Simon Hughes, Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said yesterday that keeping the current 50p rate was “the right thing to do”. He told the BBC: “I represent people in a pretty solid working-class community. What they’re concerned about is what happens to ordinary people out of work and where they get jobs.”

Last night, Labour argued Mr Osborne needed to take a more proactive stance on boosting growth by increasing public spending.

Chris Leslie MP, the shadow Treasury minister, said it was wrong of the Chancellor to argue that Britain was broke and to rely on business alone to create economic growth.

“George Osborne can’t complacently wash his hands and claim the lack of jobs and growth in the economy is nothing to do with him,” he said.

“He needs to realise that government has a vital role to play in creating an environment where the private sector can grow and create jobs.”

Harriet Harman, Labour’s deputy leader, urged Mr Osborne to cut VAT.

Meanwhile, the Chancellor made it clear he was resisting pressure to hand over up to another £17.5billion in taxpayers’ money to help bail out struggling European Union countries.

He said Europe had not “shown the colour of its money” by taking measures to help itself tackle its debt problems.

Until that happens, Britain will not give any extra funds to the International Monetary Fund.

The Chancellor was speaking as finance ministers from the world’s 20 most powerful economies met in Mexico.

Mr Osborne said: “While at this G20 conference there are a lot of things to discuss; I don’t think you’re going to see any extra resources committed (to the IMF) here because eurozone countries have not committed additional resources themselves, and I think that quid pro quo will be clearly established here in Mexico City.”

[ed. This is repeated all over the western world. But either the UK is flush with cash and he is lying or he is negligent in his duty to ensure that there is plenty of money for services at home. Could start by trimming back on FOREIGN AID, like any household budget would when in debt...]

Hitler Rant - Global Warming (video)

The Trap - Part 1 (video)

Fireman Sam creator detained at airport for veil comment at security gate

By Jason Lewis
26 Feb 2012

As David Jones arrived at the security gates at Gatwick airport, he was looking forward to getting through swiftly so he could enjoy lunch with his daughters before their flight.

Placing his belongings, including a scarf, into a tray to pass through the X-ray scanner he spotted a Muslim woman in hijab pass through the area without showing her face.

In a light-hearted aside to a security official who had been assisting him, he said: “If I was wearing this scarf over my face, I wonder what would happen.”

The quip proved to be a mistake. After passing through the gates, he was confronted by staff and accused of racism.

As his daughters, who had passed through security, waited in the departure lounge wondering where he was, he was subjected to a one hour stand-off as officials tried to force him to apologise.

Mr Jones, 67, who is the creator of the popular children’s character Fireman Sam, said: “Something like George Orwell’s 1984 now seems to have arrived in Gatwick airport.

"I feel that my rights as an individual have been violated. What I underwent amounts to intimidation and detention. I was humiliated and degraded in full public view.

"I am a 67-year-old pensioner and have lived my life within the law. I do not have even one point on my driving licence.”

He said that when he made his initial remark the security guard had appeared to agree with him, saying: “I know what you mean, but we have our rules, and you aren’t allowed to say that.”

As he went through the metal detecting arch, his artificial hip set off the alarm, prompting a full search from a guard. It was after this, and as he prepared to rejoin his two grown-up daughters, that he was confronted by another guard who said he was being detained because he had made an offensive remark.

“I repeated to her what I had said and told her that I had said nothing racist,” he said. “She took my passport and boarding pass and I was then escorted back through the security zone into the outer area. Here the female security guard proceeded to question me further, inferring many things that I had not said.

“It was impossible to get her to listen to reason. We were then joined by a second female security guard who stated that she was Muslim and was deeply distressed by my comment.

“I again stated that I had not made a racist remark but purely an observation that we were in a maximum security situation being searched thoroughly whilst a woman with her face covered walked through. I made no reference to race or religion. I did not swear or raise my voice.”

According to Mr Jones, who was due to board a British Airways flight to Portugal, where he now lives and runs a restaurant on the Algarve, the British Airways duty manager was then called in and sided with the security staff.

He continued: “I had now been detained for some time and my daughters were worried, calling me on my phone asking what was happening. We were going around in circles. I maintained that I had said nothing offensive and the security guard was continuing to accuse me. This had taken about 15-20 minutes and looked as though it was not going to be resolved.

“I asked the security guard if she was going to charge me to which she said no but I could not leave until I had apologised to the Muslim guard.

“At this point I asked for the attendance of a police officer. After some time he arrived but it was also plainly evident that he was keeping to the politically correct code. I told him that if there was a case then he should arrest me.

“I was told that we now live in a different time and some things are not to be said. They decided again that I would only be allowed to continue on my journey if I were to apologise to the Muslim guard. My reply was that as I had not made a racist remark it would be impossible for me to apologise.”

Mr Jones, a former member of the Household Cavalry and retired fireman, added: “I felt that I made a logical observation. That while everyone was being subjected to an invasive search it was illogical that someone should be let through with their face covered. I am not opposed to having this level of security but it must be equal for all.”

Eventually, Mr Jones said, the BA manager suggested that he should agree that what he had said “could” be considered offensive by a Muslim guard.

With his flight departure time now fast approaching Mr Jones agreed to the compromise. Escorted by the police officer, he was taken through security where he was again subjected to a full search after his hip replacement set off the metal detector alarms.

Mr Jones said he intended to complain formally to the Gatwick airport authorities and British Airways about the incident last Sunday.

Department for Transport rules do not prevent people covering their faces at UK airports for religious reasons.

However, all passengers must show their faces to UK Borders officials when they pass through passport control. Muslim women who wear hijabs can request that their identity is checked by a female immigration officer and they can also ask that they be taken to a private room before they remove their head wear.

A spokesman for Gatwick airport said: “The security team are examining the incident to ensure that the issue was managed in the right way.

"They are talking to the people involved to understand what the issue was and how it came to have the police involved.”

Richard Dawkins: I can't be sure God does not exist

John Bingham
24th February, 2012

He told the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, that he preferred to call himself an agnostic rather than an atheist.

The two men were taking part in a public “dialogue” at Oxford University at the end of a week which has seen bitter debate about the role of religion in public life in Britain.

Last week Baroness Warsi, the Tory party chairman, warned of a tide of “militant secularism” challenging the religious foundations of British society.

The discussion, in Sir Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre, attracted attention from around the world.

As well as being relayed to two other theatres, it was streamed live on the internet and promoted fierce debate on the Twitter social network.

For an hour and 20 minutes the two men politely discussed "The nature of human beings and the question of their ultimate origin" touching on the meaning of consciousness, the evolution of human language – and Dr Williams’s beard.

For much of the discussion the Archbishop sat quietly listening to Prof Dawkins’s explanations of human evolution.

At one point he told the professor that he was “inspired” by “elegance” of the professor’s explanation for the origins of life – and agreed with much of it.

Prof Dawkins told him: “What I can’t understand is why you can’t see the extraordinary beauty of the idea that life started from nothing – that is such a staggering, elegant, beautiful thing, why would you want to clutter it up with something so messy as a God?”

Dr Williams replied that he “entirely agreed” with the “beauty” of Prof Dawkins’s argument but added: “I’m not talking about God as an extra who you shoehorn on to that.”

There was surprise when Prof Dawkins acknowledged that he was less than 100 per cent certain of his conviction that there is no creator.

The philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny, who chaired the discussion, interjected: “Why don’t you call yourself an agnostic?” Prof Dawkins answered that he did.

An incredulous Sir Anthony replied: “You are described as the world’s most famous atheist.”

Prof Dawkins said that he was “6.9 out of seven” sure of his beliefs.

“I think the probability of a supernatural creator existing is very very low,” he added.

He also said that he believed it was highly likely that there was life on other planets.

At one point he discussion strayed onto the theoretical question of whether a traditional cut throat razor could be described as a more complicated thing than an electric shaver.

There was laughter as the Archbishop said he would attempt an answer before adding: “Not that I know much about razors.”

During a wide-ranging discussion the Archbishop also said that he believed that human beings had evolved from non-human ancestors but were nevertheless “in the image of God”.

He also said that the explanation for the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis could not be taken literally.

“The writers of the Bible, inspired as I believe they were, they were nonetheless not inspired to do 21st Century physics,” he said.

When Prof Dawkins suggested that he believed the Pope took a rather more literal interpretation of the origins of humans, the Archbishop joked: “I will ask him some time.”

The picture that shames Britain: As a man's body floats in three feet of water, 25 emergency workers stand and watch because they aren't 'trained' to go in water

By Ian Gallagher And Matt Sandy
26th February 2012

The busy scene on the banks of the lake appears to show our emergency services at their dynamic best.

An air ambulance stands by as two specialist officers in yellow ‘immersion suits’ deliver a man who has collapsed into the water to paramedics at the water’s edge.

They attempt to resuscitate him inside an inflatable tent. A queue of ambulances and fire engines stands by ready and waiting near a small crowd of shocked onlookers. Yet the story behind this picture is anything but impressive.

This was Walpole Park in Gosport, Hampshire, on an overcast lunchtime last March when no fewer than 25 members of the emergency services, including a press officer, descended on a 3½ft-deep model boating lake minutes after Simon Burgess, 41, fell into the water when he suffered a seizure. But as an inquest heard last week, he lay floating face-down for more than half an hour while firemen, police and paramedics watched and did nothing.

The reason? Even though they could all swim, the first fire crew to arrive hadn’t been ‘trained’ to enter water higher than ankle-deep. Instead they waited for ‘specialists’ to arrive to retrieve his body. They had decided Mr Burgess must surely be dead because he had been in the water for ten minutes. When a policeman decided to go in anyway, he was ordered not to. A paramedic was also told not to enter the water because he didn’t have the right ‘protective’ clothing and might be in breach of the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992.

The tragic incident made headlines around the world, held up as a shocking example of ludicrously risk-averse Britain. And it prompted a coroner to demand that fire, police and ambulance services improve training to prevent a repeat.

Following the inquest, a Mail on Sunday investigation has now discovered that:

The ‘ankle-deep’ rule was meant for fast-flowing water and is taken from guidelines drawn up to deal with floods.
Other rescue agencies believe people can survive submerged for much longer than ten minutes – some will still try resuscitation at 90 minutes.
The incident happened despite a previous reassurance from the Health and Safety Executive that firefighters would not face prosecution if they performed acts of heroism that break rules.
Mr Burgess could have been reached within two minutes of emergency crews arriving at the scene – as proved by our reporter who went into the lake and waded 25ft to the spot where his body had been floating.

Mr Burgess had been feeding swans from a plastic bag that blew into the lake. He went in to retrieve it and while he was in the water he had a fit and fell unconscious. Last week, Coroner David Horsley ruled his death was an accident on the balance of probabilities, but said there was a chance, ‘albeit a slim one’, he could have been saved had the emergency services intervened sooner.

Fire station watch manager Tony Nicholls arrived at the scene within five minutes but refused to try to rescue Mr Burgess because, he told the inquest, his crew’s ‘Level 1’ training only allowed them to go in the water up to their ankles.

Hampshire Fire and Rescue said all its firefighters were trained to Level 1, which includes ‘general water safety awareness and basic land-based rescue techniques’. To comply with the guidelines, they had to wait for a specialist water rescue team to arrive. Mr Nicholls said these officers were ‘Level 2-trained’, meaning they could ‘go in chest- high’. Only those who had completed the Level 3 course would be allowed to swim, however.

Although it wasn’t made clear at the inquest, the rule about not entering water more than ankle-high is based entirely on guidelines drawn up by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for tackling flood emergencies.

A Hampshire Fire and Rescue spokesman admitted the service knew the guideline was originally intended as advice to be followed at flood incidents – but the service insists firefighters apply it in ALL water-related incidents.

A Defra spokeswoman explained: ‘Our guidance is only ever to be used by the emergency services in response to a flood. This is because floods by their very nature are highly unpredictable, unlike existing bodies of water. Our guidance should never be used in any other instance.’

However, the Government’s Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser, Sir Ken Knight, has included the Defra training recommendations in an ‘operational guidance’ document on water safety.

One of the police officers at the scene, PC Tony Jones, told the inquest that he volunteered to go in, but was ‘strongly advised’ not to by Mr Nicholls. The PC also told the inquest that Mr Nicholls refused to let him borrow his lifejacket.

Then PC Jones was told by his control room that ‘under no circumstances’ should he attempt a rescue. Asked to explain that decision, Hampshire Police said yesterday: ‘The fire service were already there and they were recovering a body.’ The decision to downgrade the incident from a rescue to a ‘body retrieval situation’ reflected the confusion over submersion victims.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution said the only instances in which its rescuers would not attempt resuscitation would be if a body was already decomposing, or had been submerged for more than 90 minutes. Rescuers in the US believe a person can be revived after being immersed in water for up to an hour.

Professor Mike Tipton, of Ports–mouth University, concluded in a report for the emergency services last year that if ‘water temperature is warmer than 6C [42F], survival is extremely unlikely if submerged longer than 30 minutes’.

Chances of survival are much higher if water temperature is lower than this, but not if the body is submerged for more than 90 minutes.

He produced examples of people who had been saved after submersion of between 20 and 60 minutes.

Despite the safety rules, those at the scene could have entered the water under Health and Safety Executive guidelines that exempt 999 workers from prosecution if they perform acts of heroism. This follows Lord Young’s report, Common Sense, Common Safety, which called for an end to ‘senseless’ rules and regulations.

Last night, Fire Minister Bob Neill said: ‘Health and safety rules should be there to save lives, not put them at risk.’ He added that the Government would review existing guidance and take into account lessons learnt from recent incidents.

Gingrich says Obama "surrendered" by apologizing to Afghans

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said President Obama "surrendered" Thursday when he apologized to the Afghan government for the burning of several Qurans at an American military base near Kabul.

Referring to the burning of "radical Islamic material" that included the Qurans, the former House speaker said the situation had been "blown into a huge incident by various fanatics in Afghanistan." He told a crowd gathered at a campaign rally at the Bing Crosby Theater that while the president had apologized for the burning, he had not called on the Afghan government to issue an apology for the deaths of two NATO soldiers who were killed by a man wearing an Afghan army uniform during increasingly violent protests of the desecration of the Muslim holy book.

"There seems to be nothing that radical Islamists can do to get Barack Obama's attention in a negative way," Gingrich said, "and he is consistently apologizing to people who do not deserve the apology of the president of the United States, period."

Obama sent a letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai in which he wrote, "I wish to express my deep regret for the reported incident. I extend to you and the Afghan people my sincere apologies," according to the New York Times, quoting Karzai's press office. Obama did not release the text of what it called a three-page letter on a "host of issues" between the two countries, "several sentences of which relate to this issue," the Times reported.

Although Presidential apologies are rare, they are not unheard of. President George W. Bush offered an apology to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki after a U.S. soldier fired several bullets into a Quran in 2008. And Bush also said he was "sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation suffered by their families" following the Abu Ghraib scandal.

But Gingrich, who consistently accuses Obama of minimizing the threat of radical Islamic terrorists, accused the president of "(refusing) to defend the integrity and the lives of the people who serve under him."

" If Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, doesn't feel like apologizing, then we should say, 'Goodbye and good luck, we don't need to be here risking our lives and wasting our money on somebody who doesn't care.'"

Gingrich also slammed the president on his energy policy, calling it "so funny that it ought to be on Saturday Night Live as a skit." The candidate has increasingly focused on the high price of gas, telling crowds that he will bring the cost down to between $2 and $2.50 a gallon by embracing all forms of American energy. His plan includes an expansion of drilling on federal lands and off U.S. coastlines, continued support of alternative energy sources, and employment of new technologies in shale exploration and hydro-fracking, the process of extracting oil from rock with pressurized water.

Feeling the pressure from Gingrich and the other GOP presidential candidates on the issue, Obama Thursday promoted an "all-of-the-above" strategy that would focus on more domestic oil production, the development of alternative energies and stricter fuel efficiency standards.

[ed. Once again we've got to go into a volatile situation with two hands and feet tied behind our backs. Time to get the hell out of there...]