iBite

An article from the Ovi magazine

“King of Tort” lawyer who squeezed billions out of tobacco and asbestos industries will soon be known as “Queen of Tart” for trying to bribe judge

No comment!

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Four webcams and a funeral; farewell services come to the Internet, for those who live too far or can’t find a thing to wear.

Or …nothing to wear! This is a bit creepy!

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British nurses told to address patients in more formal, correct manner, as in: “Mr. Smith, I’ve come to shave your willy.”

Call me anything you like, as long you are careful with these razors!

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New mothers in America demanding “push presents” including diamonds and expensive trips after giving birth.

I demand a “Bush present” after 10 years of George’s administration!

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US Vice-President Dick Cheney has said peace between Israel and the Palestinians will require painful concessions on both sides. He said the creation of a Palestinian state was long overdue, but rocket attacks against Israel hindered peace.

Oh man, he’s gone to increase the oil prices again!

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The United States will never pressure Israel to take steps to threaten its security

Which translates, Palestinians you are …doomed!

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Final preparations have been taking place in Greece for the lighting of the Olympic flame for the Beijing games. Cloudy skies meant the flame could not be lit in the traditional way – using the Sun’s rays – at the final dress rehearsal on Sunday. If the weather fails to play its part in the ceremony on Monday, a back-up flame will be used to light the torch that will be carried to China.

I have the suspicion that the storms and the winds are coming from …Tibet!

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International Olympic Committee chief Jacques Rogge believes the games could be a changing factor in China. “We believe that China will change by opening the country to the scrutiny of the world through the 25,000 media who will attend the games,” he said in a statement. “Awarding the Olympic Games to the most populous country in the world will open up one fifth of mankind to Olympism.”

Is this is his excuse? It is rather poor and I hope the next few months he will come with a better one … at least for the thousands shot on the head in China!

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Police in south-eastern Turkey have clashed again with Kurdish protesters marking the Newroz spring festival, resulting in the deaths of two people. Doctors in the town of Yuksekova said a man had died of bullet wounds. A second man also died after suffering bullet wounds in Saturday’s clashes in Van.

How many they must kill to start calling it the Kurd’s genocide? These people have no right in anything; they can hardly breathe under the Turkish boot!

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Zimbabwe’s main opposition party has accused the government of printing millions of surplus ballot papers for the presidential and legislative polls. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says leaked documents show nine million papers have been ordered for the country’s 5.9 million voters.

Mugabe, how many you killed today, you little Hitler caricature!

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Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has pledged full support to the incoming coalition government, which will be made up of his political opponents. At a military parade to mark Pakistan’s national day, Mr. Musharraf said a new era of democracy was beginning.

Talking about dictators and criminals here is …Musharraf!

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You might see a copycat Ovi magazine

Remember that whoever copycats Ovi magazine shows how limited and untalented some parasites can be! But the legal system prevails, even the Mexican one!

 

The Saudi Witch

An article from Ovi magazine

The following story is not a joke, fiction or a rumour; it is a true story and it is not the first time the story has reached the media. There is a woman named Fawza Falih in a prison in Saudi Arabia waiting for her execution after being convicted of witchcraft!

The woman was arrested by the Saudi religious police after being accused by her husband that she made him …sexually impotent using witchcraft! The woman was beaten and forced to sign a confession despite the fact that she could not read! I’m sorry for what I’m going to say but it seems to me that when a Saudi hasn’t got an erection or he has a small penis he calls in the religious freaks and blames a woman for witchcraft! The woman was led to the court without any proof of her alleged witchcraft actions apart from the testimony of her husband and that is called ‘justice’ in Saudi Arabia! The confession she had to sign was not even read to her!

I cannot stop reading this story in horror and the reason I’m writing it here, despite the fact that it has already been publicly known for a few months due to the efforts of the Human Rights Watch and their failed attempts to meet with the Saudi King Abdullah or any high judges of the country, is because you should not forget it among all the information we get daily. More importantly, we must also remember who our allies are. I’m really sorry to say but if these decisions and practises are led from religion then their religion is truly inhumane and barbaric, and I’m even sorrier to say that there is no tolerance there.

A few months ago a young woman was raped and after that she had to suffer a public lashing because, according the Sharia law, she should never be out of the house without the company of a male family member.

So let me see if I understood well, our peaceful friends, who believe in the peaceful and fair contributing of Muslim traditions and judgment, are talking about a world where women can be executed for witchcraft because somebody’s dick wasn’t erecting, they can be lashed when they are …raped and they can contribute to society by staying locked at home cooking and giving birth. I’m sorry again, but even the Dark Ages offered a more equitable and humanitarian existence for women!

Why doesn’t the United Nations do anything about it? Why doesn’t the USA, EU or Russia do anything about it? How many barrels of oil is a human life worth? Or is her life cheaper because she is a Saudi?

The Salem witch trials that cost the lives of twenty-nine people and became a negative example of inhumane behaviour and criminal justice for centuries is a dark side of our history and is it showing us how to avoid these sorts of mistakes again. Saudi justice is here and now, the Salem trial was four centuries ago. The US administration is ready to endanger bad relations with Russia, Cuba or China for human rights and does nothing with Saudi Arabia where things are much worse – the same goes to the European Community, to Australia and Japan, to India and South Africa. How can we be proud of our democracies when we stand still when things like that happen? And how much more we don’t know!

What really happens to a woman in Saudi Arabia or Iran if she goes out forgetting to put on her headscarf? No, the question should go much further; do women count for humans in these countries? Cats and dogs definitely have more rights than a woman in Saudi Arabia.

When I first read the story of Fawza Falih I was terrified and found it difficult to believe but on the internet you can find more and more horrifying stories like that, more stories about the ‘fair’ Sharia laws and justice in the dark ages of Saudi Arabia and how ironic it sounds when we are expecting their transition to democracies.

Read my lips: No Subtitles

An article from Ovi magazine

Here at Ovi magazine we try to champion many causes and issues, bringing attention to the forgotten, the ignored, the downtrodden and the outcast, and there are numerous ways these topics come to our attention. However, it isn’t often that we are directly affected by an issue that, at first, is merely personal irritating, yet you then realise it is massively discriminatory against one group of people; this time it is the deaf.

Whenever my Finnish wife watches a DVD she always has either the English or Finnish subtitles activated. She is not deaf or hard of hearing; she just misses the occasional word perhaps delivered by a strong accent, drowned out by a loud sound effect or it is just garbled too quickly for her to catch. Subtitles have never been an issue for me, but now I am particularly aware of how many DVDs are released without them.

Currently there is no legal obligation in the United Kingdom to provide subtitles on DVDs released in the UK, despite there being 8,945,000 deaf and hard of hearing people in the country. Almost nine million people are being discriminated against through this simple omission on discs and even the DVDs that do offer subtitling for the movie then ignore the extras, such as interviews and commentaries.

Last night we watched a free DVD that came with a magazine, a promotional tactic now regularly employed by many weekend newspapers, and, like them all, the disc didn’t have a subtitle option – of course, we could choose between Dolby 5.0 and Dolby 2.0. Comedy acts, sporting events and concerts rarely receive the subtitle treatment, but there is no reason why such a large potential market is ignored; surely the cost of adding the subtitles will be offset by the increased number of purchases.

In the April/May 2007 edition of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People’s (RNID) magazine One In Seven, the BBC’s Director General Mark Thompson was asked why DVDs that state ‘as seen on the BBC’ are often not subtitled, such as “The Vicar of Dibley” and “Auf Wiedersehen Pet”. He answered that some shows are produced by independent producers who make programmes for the BBC but retain the rights to exploit them afterwards, “We will always encourage independent producers to include subtitles in their DVDs but we can’t oblige them to do so.”

In Finland there are approximately 8,000 registered deaf and they benefit from DVDs coming with basic Finnish subtitles on every disc – in fact, there’s always Finnish, but no English – and the national broadcaster YLE provides a news broadcast with sign language. Sorry to go slightly off-topic, but why isn’t sign language taught in school? There are 70 million deaf people across the globe and sign language crosses all other language barriers – there are 61 million speakers of Italian, so signing could certainly become an alternative global language.

The RNID are currently campaigning to change the law regarding subtitles on DVD releases and the BBC recently promised that all DVDs of future programmes commissioned by the BBC will be subtitled. Until then, I suggest you use this fantastic website to check if a DVD comes with subtitles: www.DVD-subtitles.com.

If you want to take further action, then simply click on the link, enter your name and email, and send the pre-filled email to Lavina Carey, the Director General of the British Video Association (BVA).

Everybody loves …Robbie

This is an article published in Ovi magazine.

Mugabe hits again by banning all the observers from the elections, especially all the western observers. I’m sorry if once more I’m writing about this notorious dictator of Zimbabwe but, as I have said before, we should not stop reminding that people like Mugabe, criminals of the worst kind, people that have the right of life or death over thousands of thousands of people are around, they are not a myth, they are not the boogie men but the reality for nations like Zimbabwe, Iran and Pakistan.

Since I’m talking about Iran, according to the Zimbabwe Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, Iran and China, among other African ally countries, are allowed to send monitors for the democratic elections. I presume the “one party” China and “non party in the name of Allah” Iran and its clerics are the right countries to have opinions on democracy and elections.

Robert Mugabe excused his decision saying that he suspects that the western countries are trying to remove him from government! Really? Saddam had the same suspicions and I wonder why, and Idi Amin before them was suspecting the same and again I have to wonder why and how they get these ideas? After all, everybody loves Robbie, especially in Zimbabwe. Apparently the people in Zimbabwe who don’t love Mugabe and they don’t show it ten times a day are either in prison with their tongue cut or dead!

“Clearly, those who believe the only free and fair election is where opposition wins have been excluded since the ruling party, Zanu-PF, is poised to score yet another triumph,” Simbarashe Mumbengegwi added. Man, that says everything! I mean you invite Iran to monitor. I mean, it is like going to the polls and thinking, “What am I voting today? Ayatollah, Ayatollah or Ayatollah?” In China things are more clear – the other monitoring democracy, I vote for the Chinese Communist Party otherwise my family pays the bullet!

Apparently Mugabe’s opposition Mr. Tsvangirai commented on the above by saying that the move showed that Mugabe has a lot to hide! Is a wonder how he managed to say that and he added that “those who have been invited will hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil and endorse a flawed election.” Please, it is not so simple and, on the contrary, they are going to take lessons and practise them in their own countries, don’t forget Iran has …elections soon!

Mugabe has offered a lot to Zimbabwe, 100,000% inflation and over 80% unemployment, actually the only ones who have work in Zimbabwe are Mugabe’s torturers and killers. The man is an angel. Even his caricature small moustache, Hitler style, is an irony. He believes that it makes him look like his Nazi idol while he reminds more the grotesque character Chaplin had created in The Great Dictator. That’s the reality of Zimbabwe, a grotesque caricature is ruling the country, talks about democracy and leads the elections.

Death Screaming in Darfur

This is an article published in Ovi magazine.

This week seven trucks with food on their way for the refugees in the camps of Darfur were stolen and their drivers were abducted. The UN’s World Food Programme announced that less than 50% of the deliveries actually reach the camps and the people of Refuges and, of course at the same time, the UN General Secretary is still negotiating who is going on a peace mission that hasn’t started yet and this ‘yet’ lays too heavily on humanity.

How many more are going to die? I would really like to finish this article exactly here hoping that Ki-Moon might read this and do something but I think I’m screaming in the desert, there is nobody there! Perhaps somebody didn’t make it clear to him that this is part of his job description, to take care of these people, to stop death, obviously they forgot to tell him and he thinks that he is a tourist with a cool title.

WFP says that 37 trucks and 23 drivers are missing and naturally drivers are refusing to risk their lives into a drive to Darfur. So it is not enough that less than 50% reaches the camps in Darfur due to bandit attacks soon there will be no drivers willing to drive what is left to these people. The WFP warns that the Humanitarian Air Service, which transports aid workers and medicines, might be forced to stop due to lack of funding. Mr. General Secretary if you take off the headphones with the music from your ears you might hear the people screaming, death screaming in Darfur.

Five years and the death-toll piles more and more bodies in Darfur and the responsibility is international, we cannot hide our heads in the sand, we are all aware of what’s going on in Darfur. For five years none, absolutely none, of the powers has done any move for the peacekeeping, including the African powers in the neighbourhood, the African Union is just watching!

Diplomacy has failed in every single way and I feel that we have become so cynical that pictures of kids with skull faces and swollen bellies don’t touch us anymore; we are just turning the page of the paper or zap to the next channel to avoid the advert. It’s not the case that diplomacy was not enough, diplomacy has failed, UN diplomacy has failed and the General Secretary holds full responsibility for that.

Even the International Criminal Court tried to get involved and despite the fact that Yugoslavia is blackmailed in dichotomy for not arresting the wanted war criminals, the people who actually acted genocide in Sudan are …free warlords controlling areas and plot in politics. It gets even worse when one of these warlords, responsible for a series of crimes after being appointed Defence Minister by the Sudanese government, was put in charge of the government refugees camps and responsible of monitoring the deployment of the AU-UN forces. This is the reality of Sudan, this is the reality the refugees of Darfur have to deal with, and this is the reality we deny to see. This is the damn reality the General Secretary of the United Nations deludes of seeing.

What comes next? We are all giving up, since miracles do not happen, and that’s the only way to save lives in Darfur, with a miracle. We’ve given up on human lives, we have given up on children’s lives, we have given up on our existence as humanity, since we are losing the elemental differences: our humanity!

How Bizarre!

From Ovi magazine 

Browsing the news daily we often miss the little bits of news at the bottom of the page. They are often funny, sometimes weird, and they give us a new perspective on life, so here’s the next in our new column series: How Bizarre!

A vat of liquid cow manure covering the area of five football fields and 33 feet deep is California’s most alternative new energy. On a dairy farm in the Golden State’s agricultural heartland, utility PG&E Corp began on Tuesday producing natural gas derived from manure, in what it hopes will be a new way to power homes with renewable, if not entirely clean, energy.

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A certified nurse’s assistant has been arrested on suspicion of indecent exposure after “mooning” two co-workers while on the job at the Frasier Meadows Assisted Living Center, according to Boulder police. Two nurses told police that Suzanne Mueffelmann, 42, of Longmont, flashed her buttocks outside the room of a Frasier Meadows resident, according to an arrest report.

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The SwissMiniGun is the size of a key fob but fires tiny 270mph bullets powerful enough to kill at close range. Officially the world’s smallest working revolver, the gun is being marketed as a collector’s item and measures just 2.16 inches long (5.5cm). It can fire real 4.53 bullets up to a range of 367ft (112m). The stainless steel gun costs £3,000 although the manufacturers also produce extravagant, made-to-order versions made out of 18-carat gold with customised diamond studs which sell for up to £30,000.

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People who do not drink alcohol may finally have a reason to start — a study published on Friday shows non-drinkers who begin taking the occasional tipple live longer and are less likely to develop heart disease. People who started drinking in middle age were 38 percent less likely to have a heart attack or other serious heart event than abstainers — even if they were overweight, had diabetes, high blood pressure or other heart risks, Dr. Dana King of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston and colleagues found.

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An art display which invited the public to put live goldfish through a food blender did not constitute cruelty to animals, a Danish court has ruled. The goldfish were placed on display swimming in the blenders, and visitors were told they could press the “on” button if they wanted. At least one visitor did, killing two goldfish.

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Police wrangled a gigantic pink bunny from atop an overpass above Interstate-95 in Palm Beach Gardens this morning. “He was a hazard,” said a Gardens dispatcher, and apparently causing quite a traffic back up to boot. The fuzzy culprit turned out to be the Buzz Bunny, who is promoting Buzz 103.1 FM’s upcoming adult Easter egg hunt.

my cancer and the copycat parasites

To see an article I wrote and has been printed in Agenda magazine in Finland and came online with Ovi magazine be stolen from a blog which copycats Ovi magazine should make me angry especially when the untalented blogger uses a series of my articles and cartoons to excuse his miserable existence. But then the only thing I feel is sorry.

How untalented and miserable this person can be, how no life creature to get so low is a wander.

Of course I’m going to get legal action and regarding his copycat to my cancer article I can wish him only one thing, never happen to him, and never have to go through this adventure and the same time having to deal with parasites like himself.

Follows the original article printed in Agenda Magazine and Ovi magazine

My Cancer and The Others
by Thanos Kalamidas

If I’d written about World Cancer Day a few years ago it would have been quite different from my thoughts today and I would have definitely focused more upon the stats and the warnings. I would definitely have overlooked the human part, but now I know better because I was diagnosed with cancer.

There were all the warnings by the book, but I always had something else to do than checking with a doctor; a favourite excuse is too busy… no time at the moment. It took twelve hours in real pain, an ambulance and twenty-four hours in the emergency room of a hospital to face my new situation – be careful, I said face my situation not deal with it. What followed is pretty predictable; I left myself in the hands and the knowledge of the doctors.

My generation grew up in the times when nobody ever said the word ‘cancer’, when somebody died from cancer it was “it hit him/her” or it was “that” and that “that” was taking mythic dimensions; it was the darkest side of evil itself and if “that” found you there was no way out, no escape from death. I have a very vivid memory from my early youth when a neighbour woman was hit by “that”. When she was out on her balcony everybody was taking this characteristically sad face, pointing at her and saying quietly, “Poor girl, who knows for how long “that” will let her live” – the poor woman soon died leaving behind two young children, something that made “that” even more hateful in my neighbourhood.

However, I now live in the early 21st century and, as I mentioned before, I have great faith in science, especially medical science. Doctors and medications, over the last few decades, have found their way through cancer and they make miracles, especially in the early stages of cancer treatment, such as mine; it is also good that doctors take care to inform the public of their new discoveries. I have to admit from the very beginning of my adventure I felt safe and somehow reassured and comfortable. At the same time my wife and I have no superstitions, so we felt it proper not to hide my situation from family and friends, talk openly about it in a sense to adjure “that” and we did so from the very beginning. This helped me to start dealing with it.

A few days after my departure from hospital and having set the first series of tests and preparations for the first treatments in motion we had an early evening dinner with very close friends and, as usual, my three-year-old daughter monopolized our entertainment. During dinner and afterwards I had the feeling that something was not right, something was missing, but it wasn’t until our friends left that I had the chance to rethink about what had happened.

This was the first of a series of similar incidents. Part of the ceremony when friends come to dinner is sharing news about friends and family, and the news is not always good. There is a variety between good and bad, and sometimes it can be …spicy; well, that evening the whole world was a happy clean world with everybody living as though in a fairytale. Suddenly I realized that “that” had invaded my life uninvited via the back door.

For weeks and months, even at this very minute, everybody we meet avoids talking to me about anything that would bring bad thoughts, including illnesses, accidents or any kind of negative news ignoring that it would make me more suspicious about what is going on around me and sometimes makes me wonder if I am delusional about my situation: I mean, I look worse than I feel. On top of that, living abroad and far from close family and friends made things worse; I always keep in touch with my family and friends through mail or telephone, yet after my diagnosis it seemed that these occasional monthly telephone calls became nearly daily with me spending most of my time on the phone talking about the good weather and how wonderful everything is. Suddenly, despite all the effort from family and friends, I started getting depressed, distant and isolated.

In their huge effort to cheer me up they had managed to isolate me from real life, put me away in a clean place where nothing is wrong and everybody is healthy and happy, while every day I still had to be with doctors and other patients at different stages of cancer, giving a fight for my life – how ironic and schizophrenic. They had missed the point, what I really needed was to feel that in my every day life everything is as usual and life goes on.

Cancer is like a war with many battles, both small and big, even some side battles that have nothing to do with cancer itself. I have won most of these battles and the war is not over yet, but I’m sure I’m winning. The best ally in this battle is good psychology and the will to win; this comes by feeling that the world around you hasn’t changed and that every day life hasn’t isolated you placing you inside a safe plastic bubble. While I should totally focus on my battle I spent too much time thinking about what is really going on and all because suddenly everybody around me saw “that” and they tried hard to hide it from me.

February 4th is World Cancer Day and there are over 25 million people living with cancer; year after year the number of people who die from cancer decreases, mainly because of early diagnosis and treatment in the early stages. If and when cancer comes, please remember to avoid being overprotective to the patient because, without wanting it, you isolate them and that’s the last thing they need and want. They want to feel that they are not alone and putting them in that bubble manages exactly the opposite. Give them strength by standing beside them without isolating them from their life.

 

Merry Christmas

Geseënde Kersfees, Een Plesierige Kerfees, Rehus-Beal-Ledeats, Gezur Krislinjden, Milad Majid, Feliz Navidad, Shenoraavor Nor Dari yev Pari Gaghand, Tezze Iliniz Yahsi Olsun, Selamat Hari Natal Zorionak eta Urte Berri On! Shuvo Naba Barsha, Vesele Vanoce. Feliz Natal, Nedeleg laouen na bloavezh mat, Tchestita Koleda; Tchestito Rojdestvo Hristovo, Bon Nadal i un Bon Any Nou! Feliz Navidad, Gun Tso Sun Tan’Gung Haw Sun, Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan (Catonese) Gun Tso Sun Tan’Gung Haw Sun, Yukpa, Nitak Hollo Chito, Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo, Nadelik looan na looan blethen noweth, Pace e salute, Rot Yikji Dol La Roo, Mitho Makosi Kesikansi, Sretan Bozic, Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok, Glædelig Jul, Christmas-e- Shoma Mobarak, Vrolijk Kerstfeest en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar! or Zalig Kerstfeast, Merry Christmas, Jutdlime pivdluarit ukiortame pivdluaritlo! Gajan Kristnaskon, Ruumsaid juulup|hi, Melkin Yelidet Beaal Gledhilig jol og eydnurikt nyggjar! Cristmas-e-shoma mobarak bashad, Hyvaa joulua, Zalig Kerstfeest en Gelukkig nieuw jaar, Joyeux Noel, Noflike Krystdagen en in protte Lok en Seine yn it Nije Jier! Bo Nada, Nollaig chridheil agus Bliadhna mhath ùr! Fröhliche Weihnachten, Kαλά Χριστούγεννα! Jwaye Nowel or to Jesus Edo Bri’cho o Rish D’Shato Brichto, Barka da Kirsimatikuma Barka da Sabuwar Shekara!, Mele Kalikimaka, Mo’adim Lesimkha. Chena tova, Shub Naya Baras, Barka da Kirsimatikuma Barka da Sabuwar Shekara! Mele Kalikimaka ame Hauoli Makahiki Hou! Kellemes Karacsonyi unnepeket, Gledileg Jol, Selamat Hari Natal, Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah, Nollaig Shona Dhuit, or Nodlaig mhaith chugnat, Ojenyunyat Sungwiyadeson honungradon nagwutut. Ojenyunyat osrasay. Buone Feste Natalizie, Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto, Mithag Crithagsigathmithags, Sung Tan Chuk Ha, souksan van Christmas, Natale hilare et Annum Faustum! Prieci’gus Ziemsve’tkus un Laimi’gu Jauno Gadu!, Wjesole hody a strowe nowe leto, Priecigus Ziemassvetkus, Linksmu Kaledu, Heughliche Winachten un ‘n moi Nijaar, Sreken Bozhik, IL-Milied It-tajjeb, Nollick ghennal as blein vie noa, Meri Kirihimete, Shub Naya Varsh, Merry Keshmish, God Jul, or Gledelig Jul, Pulit nadal e bona annado, Bon Pasco, Bikpela hamamas blong dispela Krismas na Nupela yia i go long yu, En frehlicher Grischtdaag un en hallich Nei Yaahr!, Feliz Navidad y un Venturoso Año Nuevo, Maligayan Pasko! Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia or Boze Narodzenie, Feliz Natal, Christmas Aao Ne-way Kaal Mo Mobarak Sha, Mata-Ki-Te-Rangi. Te-Pito-O-Te-Henua, Bellas festas da nadal e bun onn, Legreivlas fiastas da Nadal e bien niev onn!, Sarbatori vesele or Craciun fericit, Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom, Buorrit Juovllat, La Maunia Le Kilisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou, Bonu nadale e prosperu annu nou, Hristos se rodi, Sretan Bozic or Vesele vianoce, Buorrit Juovllat, La Maunia Le Kilisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou, Nollaig chridheil huibh, Hristos se rodi., Subha nath thalak Vewa. Subha Aluth Awrudhak Vewa, Vesele Vianoce. A stastlivy Novy Rok, Vesele Bozicne Praznike Srecno Novo Leto or Vesel Bozic in srecno Novo leto, Feliz Navidad,God Jul and (Och) Ett Gott Nytt År, Maligayamg Pasko. Masaganang Bagong Taon, Nathar Puthu Varuda Valthukkal, Neekiriisimas annim oo iyer seefe feyiyeech!, Sawadee Pee Mai or souksan wan Christmas, Noeliniz Ve Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun, Srozhdestvom Kristovym or Z RIZDVOM HRYSTOVYM, Naya Saal Mubarak Ho, Chuc Mung Giang Sinh, Nadolig Llawen, E ku odun, e ku iye’dun!

World Diabetes Day

From the original Ovi magazine (Ovi lehti in Finnish)

According to the World Health Organization, in 2006 at least 171 million people were diagnosed as suffering from diabetes. Diabetes in one of the top five most significant diseases and, in combination with the other two ‘developing countries’ diseases, high blood pressure and heart problems can be proven lethal.

In just the United States alone, 20.8 million people were diagnosed with diabetes in 2005, while another 6.2 million people were undiagnosed and another 41 million people were in pre-diabetic status. These scary numbers are the reality of our modern world. Diabetes, especially Type II, is the combination of heritable situation and the life style that includes a bad diet and little exercise. We must understand that diabetes, Type, I and II, is chronic and there’s no cure – the only defence is the lifestyle of the diabetic.

I’m not a doctor myself, so you’ll have to find the doctors and institutions to give you all the help and information you may need, plus the internet can also provide forums for diabetics suffering from both types; they can give you some help but most of all support. As I said, I’m not a doctor and I’m certainly not pretending to be one, on the contrary I am a diabetic and I found out my situation in 1994. All the signs were there I just didn’t see them or never had the right information to even recognise them.

Not that there was lack of information, there was plenty available in hospitals and doctor’s surgeries. It was just nowhere around, nobody had told me that being forty, having a lifestyle full of stress, an uncontrolled diet and no exercise was asking for problems. For over two years I had all the symptoms by the book, I was constantly thirsty and hungry, I was gaining weight quickly and, at the same, I was then losing it just as fast. However, I always had the excuse of being too busy all the time. I started having problems with my eyes and kept thinking I must check them… when I’m not too busy. I always had something more important to do, but then two years after I found myself in hospital bed following a cardiac episode and a diabetes waiting in the corner.

Since then my life has changed. It had to change by force and over a decade later it still has its ups and downs. For many of these ups and downs I am to blame because I had to learn new tricks and that was not always easy – especially for an old dog like me. It would have been definitely easier and much simpler if I had the right information at the right time.

I’m not going to tell you the differences between diabetes I and II, but there are many and they are both dangerous, especially if we don’t take the right precautions. As I said, there is no cure for diabetes but there is definitely management that can lead to a normal life – don’t forget that one of the strong symptoms in diabetes is physiological, such as depression and manias.

In the case of diabetes II, doctors practice an operation called gastric bypass surgery that treats patients with 80-100% severely obese diabetes, but again you must ask a doctor, who can give you better information.

November 14th is World Diabetes Day and a good chance to find some more information about one of the worst contemporary diseases.

www.worlddiabetesday.org

Polish report

From the original Ovi magazine (Ovi lehti in Finnish)

No more Mr. Nice Guy

Poland’s opposition leader has mocked the prime minister for lacking a driver’s license, compared him with a notorious communist and accused him of forcing two million Poles from their homeland. Donald Tusk, a trim, sandy-blonde economic liberal, is showing a new toughness as he fights to unseat Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski in elections this Sunday, revealing steel unseen when he failed to win power in 2005.

Polls show a tight contest between Tusk’s pro-business and socially conservative Civic Platform, and Kaczynski’s Law and Justice, which is also conservative, but favors greater social spending to help the needy and is more skeptical of the European Union.

The bitter truth is that the amazing twins must go out from power in Poland but what remains causes more wonders. Their anti-communist menace has often led their policies to the limits of fascism and Poland has been often under criticism from the European Parliament, not to forget all the problems the twins caused in the last summit.

Poland may block Russia’s entrance to WTO

Poland warned on Monday that it would block Russia’s entrance to the World Trade Organization if Moscow did not cancel an embargo on exports of Polish meat and produce. Russia imposed the ban in late-2005 after uncovering what it said were violations of food safety regulations. Polish officials maintain that the country’s food quality standards meet EU norms and that the embargo is political.

“If Russia’s position toward Poland doesn’t change, we will have to vote against Russia’s membership in WTO,” Deputy Agriculture Minister Jan Krzysztof Ardanowski told a news conference in Moscow, according to Russian news agencies.

Poland also warned it would continue to block a strategic EU-Russia agreement if the embargo was not lifted. “Poland has to link these two issues — the embargo and the signing of a new agreement between Russia and the European Union,” Ardanowski was quoted as saying.

The question that arises is not if Russia will stop banning Polish meat but if Polish meat meets the standards of food safety regulations and if the EU can guarantee that they do.

Polish Church Advises People How To Vote

The Polish Catholic Church reminded Poland’s voters that they have an obligation to vote in keeping with the fundamental values taught by the Church. In a letter by Polish Bishops that was read to congregations all over Poland this weekend, people were told that they should pay attention to the moral condition of political candidates, their identity, values and readiness to cooperate with others.

Prime Minister Kaczynski’s voter base rests primarily in the countryside among the older population and followers of Radio Maria’s Father Taduesz Rydzyk. These voters are devoutly Catholic and tend to support Kaczynski. How much some of them support him and his party was made reported today in the Polish Weekly Gazeta Wyborcza.

In Lublin, after a church service yesterday, PIS flyers were distributed on the church’s premises and when a Gazeta Wyborcza reporter started taking pictures, some people surrounded him, started calling him names, and told him to “f**k off!” – One woman even hit him in the face. Finally a man urged people to calm down and the reporter was able to get away.

The candidates whose fliers were distributed said that they had no idea about what happened. They said that people take their flyers and distribute them any way they want. Candidates have no control over what they do.

It seems that the Vatican will never stop getting involved in Polish politics despite the fact that the wall has fallen and the Polish Pope is dead.