Sunday, October 11, 2015



Actor dressed as Hitler on the streets of Germany tells how people were pleased to see him

In a country being swamped by aggressive and hate-filled Muslims that the German government is just accepting, Hitler comes to be seen as the reasonable leader they now lack. It is not impossible for a moderate Western government to keep out incompatible minorities.  Australia has done it  -- see below.  But most Western governments are not moderate.  They bow down to head-in-the-sand Leftist thinking. They are extremists in their attitudes to differences between people -- they act as if there are no differences at all.  No wonder Hitler seems a reasonable man in that context.  Extremism begets extremism -- JR

An actor dressed as Hitler on the streets of Germany was begged to bring back labour camps, kissed and made to feel like 'a pop star' - casting an uncomfortable light on growing support for right-wing extremism in the country.

Oliver Masucci plays the Nazi leader in 'He's Back' ('Er ist wieder da'), a biting social satire by author Timur Vermes which was released in German cinemas this week.

However, it is not his performance, but the reactions of people on the street to 'Hitler' which have got the country talking as it prepares to welcome hundreds of thousands of refugees this year alone.

The film imagines what it would be like if Hitler was transported to the 21st century, and is interspersed with documentary footage which captures people's real reactions to seeing the 'dictator' on the streets

'He's Back' is based on Vermes' 'what-if' best-seller of the same name, published three years ago. In it, Hitler is baffled to find himself in a multicultural Germany led by a woman, Chancellor Angela Merkel.

He discovers TV chefs, Wikipedia and the fact that Poland still exists before he ends up a small-screen star, in a social commentary on society, mass media and celebrity hype.

But the film goes a step further than the novel, and intersperses the action with real life documentary footage - including footage of people welcoming back the despotic mass murderer with open arms.

In real life, Masucci - walking through the streets with a Hitler moustache and uniform - got rousing receptions from ordinary people, many of whom pose for 'selfies' with him.

The reaction horrified the actor, who revealed to the Guardian how he was made to feel like a 'pop star' when he arrived at the Brandenburg Gate.  'People clustered around me,' he said. 'One told me she loved me, and asked me to hug her. One, to my relief, started hitting me.'

Older people began pouring their hearts out to him, often voicing extremist views.  'Yes, bring back labour camps,' one person says to the 'dictator' in the film.

Masucci, best known as a stage actor, also told German daily newspaper Bild about his mixed feelings while shooting the unscripted scenes with people on the street.

'During shooting, I realised: I didn't really have to perform - people felt a need to talk, they wanted to pour their hearts out to a fatherly Hitler who was listening to them,' he said. 'I found it disturbing how quickly I could win people over. I mean, they were talking to Hitler.'

In the film, his character chillingly notes 'a smouldering anger among the people, like in the 1930s,' with visible satisfaction.

Masucci's Hitler also meets members of the populist-nationalist Alternative for Germany party and the neo-Nazi NPD, while the final scenes show news footage of far-right mobs and a rally by the PEGIDA movement, short for 'Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident'.

The release of the movie has touched off broad debate in a country where guilt over World War II and the Holocaust continues to influence political debate.

'A fake Hitler, a small moustache clearly helped people lose their inhibitions and... allowed insights into Germany's dark side,' found the daily Berliner Morgenpost, which added:  'The far-right ideology smoulders to this day and has found new forums... in the form of the Alternative for Germany and the PEGIDA movement.'

At the public premiere Thursday, a Berlin audience roared with laughter during the funnier moments, but quietened during some of the real-life footage.  One viewer, who gave her name as Angela, said: 'It was all a bit too forced. The film is playing too hard on the fear about Nazi ideology, and they only picked out the worst sequences.'

Another viewer, Tobias, was more disturbed.  'This is real,' he said. 'We need to debate this. It shows how easily people can be manipulated. This is the right moment, because the danger is here now.'

SOURCE

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Australia is not much different from the USA but has become completely successful in keeping out illegal immigrants

All it needs is some real conservatives in power

AUSTRALIA’S tough border protection regime has stopped more than 650 “potentially ­illegal immigrants” arriving by boat in less than two years.

Federal Immigration Minister Peter Dutton revealed the figure yesterday as he warned that people smugglers were using Australia’s change of leadership from Tony Abbott to Malcolm Turnbull as an opportunity to drum up business.

Mr Dutton said the Turnbull Government remained committed to the existing policy and would “stare down” the threat posed by people smugglers.

“I want to reiterate today — in the strongest possible terms — that the resolve of the Prime Minister and myself, the whole Government, is to make sure that we don’t allow deaths at sea to recommence,” Mr Dutton said.

Operation Sovereign Borders commander Major-General Andrew Bottrell said it was now more than 430 days since the last successful people smuggling venture to Australia and nearly two years since the last known death at sea.

He said the most recent attempt was in August but the passengers and crew on that vessel were “safely returned” to their country of departure.

Mr Dutton, who visited the Christmas Island detention centre this week, said there had been a “transformation” in the make-up of the detainee population.

He said of the 285 people being held on Christmas ­Island, 125 were there as a result of visa cancellations, 57 were overstayers and just 96 were now “illegal maritime arrivals”. The largest nationality group was Iranians — 21 per cent of those detained.

Forty New Zealanders [Maori?] with criminal convictions are being detained on the island and face deportation. Several are appealing against their visa cancellations.

He added the Government was also in discussions with a number of countries about resettling those seeking asylum on Manus Island, but would not speculate on a possible deal with the Philippines.

“I think we’re best to discuss those issues in private with those partners,” he said.

SOURCE

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ObamaCare Program Shorts Insurance Companies Billions

ObamaCare’s risk corridors were a lot more risky than what the federal government let insurance providers believe. In order to accomplish the goal of increasing the number of Americans covered with health insurance, the federal government created risk corridors, assuring insurance companies that they could sign up people usually too old, sick or poor for the level of insurance they were buying. ObamaCare would reimburse those losses, the government promised.

Last year, insurance companies asked to be reimbursed for $2.9 billion. On Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services said it would only pay out $362 million.

Oops. Who will pay the ultimate price? It’s not the government, and nor will it be the insurance companies. CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans Marilyn Tavenner said, “Stable, affordable coverage for consumers depends on adequate funding of the risk corridor program. It’s essential that Congress and CMS act to ensure the program works as designed and consumers are protected.”

Add this to the list of problems that both sides of the aisle want to fix with Obama’s signature legislation. Better yet, scrap it and start over.

SOURCE

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Another blow to the antioxidant religion

"Settled science" bites the dust again

Compounds hailed for their cancer-fighting abilities could in fact increase the risk of the disease, experts have warned.  Antioxidants could double the rate at which the most dangerous form of skin cancer - melanoma - spread, they said.

The findings come in the wake of other recent studies, which showed antioxidants hasten the progression of lung cancer.

Professor Martin Bergö, from the Sahlgrenska Academy, warned those people with cancer, or an elevated risk of developing the disease, should avoid nutritional supplements that contain antioxidants.

In January 2014, a study at the academy, part of the University of Gothenburg, demonstrated that the compounds aggravated the progression of lung cancer.  Mice that were given antioxidants developed additional, and more aggressive tumours.  Furthermore, experiments on human lung cancer cells confirmed the findings.

Given the well-established evidence that free radicals can cause cancer, the research community had simply assumed antioxidants, which destroy them, would provide protection against the disease.

They are found in many nutritional supplements, and are widely marketed as a means of preventing cancer.

However, follow-up studies at the academy have now found that antioxidants double the rate of metastasis - spread - in malignant melanoma.

Professor Bergö said: 'As opposed to the lung cancer studies, the primary melanoma tumour was not affected.  'But the antioxidant boosted the ability of the tumour cells to metastasize, an even more serious problem because metastasis is the cause of death in the case of melanoma.

More HERE

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For decades, governments steered millions away from whole milk. Another backflip coming up?

"Settled science" bites the dust again

U.S. dietary guidelines have long recommended that people steer clear of whole milk, and for decades, Americans have obeyed. Whole milk sales shrunk. It was banned from school lunch programs. Purchases of low-fat dairy climbed.

“Replace whole milk and full-fat milk products with fat-free or low-fat choices,” says the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the federal government's influential advice book, citing the role of dairy fat in heart disease.

Whether this massive shift in eating habits has made anyone healthier is an open question among scientists, however. In fact, research published in recent years indicates that the opposite might be true: millions might have been better off had they stuck with whole milk.

Scientists who tallied diet and health records for several thousand patients over ten years found, for example, that contrary to the government advice, people who consumed more milk fat had lower incidence of heart disease.

By warning people against full-fat dairy foods, the United States is “losing a huge opportunity for the prevention of disease,” said Marcia Otto, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas and the lead author of large studies published in 2012 and 2013, which were funded by government and academic institutions, not the industry. “What we have learned over the last decade is that certain foods that are high in fat seem to be beneficial.”

In 2013, New Zealand researchers led by Jocelyne R. Benatar collected the results of nine randomized controlled trials on dairy products. In tallying the tests on 702 subjects, researchers could detect no significant connection between consuming more dairy fat and levels of “bad” cholesterol. (Four of the nine studies included in the tally were funded by the industry. Those results were consistent with those of the trials funded by government entities.)

The same year, Otto and Mozaffarian, then both at the Harvard School of Public Health, conducted another study on the effects of milk. Their study sought to address a key weakness in the previous research.

One of the flaws of nutrition studies is that they rely on people to accurately recall what they’ve eaten over the course of a year. Those recollections are vulnerable to inaccuracy, especially for dairy fats which can be found in small amounts in many different foods. This inaccuracy may be one of the reasons studies have yielded contrary results on the link between milk and heart disease.

To improve estimates, Otto and Mozaffarian used a blood sample for each of more than 2,800 U.S. adults. Using the blood sample, they could detect how much dairy fats each had consumed. And over the eight-year follow up period, those who had consumed the most dairy fat were far less likely to develop heart disease compared to those who had consumed the least.

More HERE

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