Germany said on Wednesday that it wants a financial transaction tax outlined by Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to apply to the whole European Union, not just the 17 euro zone states.
With euro zone banks and exchanges worried about being put at a disadvantage to EU financial centres outside the currency zone, notably London, Merkel's spokesman made clear that the intention was to make the tax apply to all 27 EU members. If the tax is harmful then they shouldn't apply it ANYWHERE. Worst political class ever. Makes The Zero look proficient Continued on Page 47
The ruthlessness and daring of the Masin Gang, as they were known, continues to divide opinion in the Czech Republic, with some regarding them as resistance heroes, and others (including around half the Czech population, according to a recent poll) regarding them as murderers.
Masin, his brother Josef, and their friend Milan Paumer became part of a resistance cell after the communists took power in Czechoslovakia in 1948. In 1951, determined to get weapons for their struggle, they robbed two police stations, killing two policemen. In one case Ctirad subdued the man with chloroform, before slitting his throat. We wanted to show the communists what could be done, that we could kill, that we could fight back too, Paumer recalled.
In 1953 the Masins donned military uniform and flagged down a van carrying a large sum wages for local factory workers. When the clerk in the van pulled out a gun, Josef Masin grabbed the mans hand, pushed the weapon into his chest and forced him to pull the trigger.
Paumer was subsequently called up into the military, but in early October he received a telex from the Masin brothers The wedding is next Saturday a coded message that the time had come to escape.
To begin with the Masins, Paumer and two other gang members, Zbynek Janata and Vaclav Sveda, made good progress, but a few days after crossing the border into East Germany a railway ticket inspector reported the presence of five suspicious-looking foreigners to the police. As their train rolled into the next station, the Czechs found a posse of East German policemen waiting for them. When ordered to put their hands up, the gang opened fire, killing one policeman and wounding another. Zbynek Janata was captured, and the remaining four fled into the night.
There followed a dramatic chase across East Germany. Pursued by perhaps as many as 25,000 policemen, secret agents and Soviet troops, the Czechs made their way through snow-covered forest towards Berlin, hiding at night in branch-covered holes and stealing whatever food they could. The journey of 200 miles took them 28 days. More than once they had to fight their way out of trouble, leaving three policeman dead.
On one occasion, near the town of Waldow, the group found itself surrounded by hundreds of security personnel; but, after waiting until nightfall, they managed to sneak through the police lines. The next day Vaclav Sveda was forced to surrender after being wounded in a gun battle and later, as the group neared Berlin, Paumer was shot in the hip during a struggle with a policeman.
I nearly gave up the last few miles of the journey, I was so tired and weak, he recalled. But Joe [Josef Masin] aimed a gun at me and said: 'Either I will kill you or they will kill you you choose.
Eventually the three men managed to struggle to a railway siding where they stole away in the undercarriage of a train that took them the last few miles to Berlin. Once in the German city, they crawled along a ditch into the American sector on the night of November 2.
Ctirad Masin was born in Prague on August 11 1930, the eldest son of Josef Masin, a Czechoslovak army officer who would be tortured and executed by the Nazis in 1942 for his activities in the Czech resistance and as part of retaliatory measures for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. His wife Zdena was imprisoned for several months.
After the war Josef Masin received a posthumous promotion to brigadier-general and his sons Ctirad and Josef, then 15 and 13 years old, were awarded medals for personal bravery during the war by President Edvard Benes.
The boys attended school in Podebrady, but as the communists tightened their grip on power, some of their family friends vanished without a trace or were sentenced to death in public show trials. Believing that the Americans would soon come and wipe out Communism they formed a resistance group with a few friends. The Masins uncle, Ctibor Novak, a former Secret Service officer, became their adviser; when the Americans did not arrive the group decided to break out to the Free World, learn how to stage an insurgency, and return to carry it out.
After arriving in the American zone of West Berlin, the Masins and Paumer turned themselves over to the police. Paumer was put in a military hospital. All three subsequently joined the US Army. Paumer served in the Korean War and then settled in Miami. Josef Masin moved to Germany and then to Santa Barbara, California, where he started an aviation business and became a millionaire. Ctirad Masin moved to Cleveland and set up in business selling heaters.
Back in Czechoslovakia, while the prosecution of the Masins on charges of sabotage, murder, attempted murder, embezzlement, defection, espionage and treason was suspended in 1954, people who had any association with them were rounded up. Vaclav Sveda, Zbynek Janata and Ctibor Novak were executed, their bodies thrown into common graves. Farewell letters to their families were found 45 years later, after the Velvet Revolution. The Masins mother, Zdena, died in prison in 1956. Even their little sister was thrown into jail.
While Milan Paumer returned home after the fall of communism and died last year in Prague, the Masin brothers refused to return because, they said, the Communist Party had not been banned. A proposal in the Czech Senate that the three men be awarded a state medal for their fight against communism came to nothing. Meanwhile the Czech Communist Party continued to demand that they be tried for their crimes.
Continued on Page 47
#1
Stories like this all over eastern Europe. Especially Yugoslavia and the Balkans. WWII was just the culmination of the bitter fight between everybody else and the communists.
In 1919, for example, Béla Kun foreshadowed Pol Pot, with his "Caravan of Death", slaughtering any number of his innocent Hungarian countrymen for five months until Hungary was invaded by Romania, in response to Kun's invasion of Czechoslovakia, and threat to invade Romania, to set up Soviet Republics there as well.
A Mexican student was arrested in Madrid on Tuesday after posting his intention to attack anti-papal protestors with toxic gases, including sarin, on the internet.
A staunch Catholic, the man said that he could not allow protests against the pope. Benedict XVI is due to arrive in Madrid on Thursday ahead of a weekend of events to mark World Youth Day 2011.
Hundreds of thousands of Catholic faithful have already descended on the capital. The pontiff is scheduled to attend a welcome ceremony in the downtown Cibeles area on Thursday evening and to hold a Mass at the Cuatro Vientos aerodrome on Saturday night.
World Youth Day 2011 officially began on Tuesday, with a Mass in Cibeles presided over by the archbishop of Madrid, José Antonio María Rouco Varela. World Youth Day runs until Sunday August 21.
Since Tuesday, many of the city's main roads have been closed off due to the papal visit.
Continued on Page 47
#4
A funny kind of Catholic whose Internet trail leads to far left and pro-abortion sites. Did I mention that this highly opportune for the embattled Socialist Party?
It would be third time not second. THe was 311 in 2004 (there are enough funny things in the investigation to write several books) when the conservatives seemed poised for an easy win. And in 2008 a socialist city counselor was murdered by ETA just before the elections who seems to have tilted what looked to be a close race.
But given that the socialist candidate is traing by over 10% I fear something as big or bigger than in 2004.
#10
BP -- great quote from Roger L. Simon the other day:
So what this agnostic observes is a general atmosphere of religious phoniness a baseline hypocrisy on the liberal side and what is often genuine religious faith on the conservative side. (Not all, of course. A number of libertarians are agnostic.).
Frankly, I prefer honesty. So I respect Perry for his faith. And, again as we all know, this country was founded on bedrock principles of religious tolerance, which some modern liberals tend to forget includes people who actually believe in God. Personally, I admire Perrys belief, even envy it to some extent, because I am reaching the point in life at which I would be delighted if someone could convince me of an afterlife.
#11
I claim no exclusivity to any particular argument regarding rationality of belief in God (and thus the afterlife) - the theology and philosophy tomes are filled with masterful (Chriustian and otherwise) arguments for it -- I recommend you read "The Case For Faith" by Lee Strobel - someone who started exactly where you are, asking for the exact things you are asking. If you insist on something a bit more simple, apply Pascal's Wager as a starting point and simply give it a try.
I am reaching the point in life at which I would be delighted if someone could convince me of an afterlife.
In my personal experience, there is your problem. You need to decide to believe (or not). Its called faith for that very reason - its personal, an act of your own will, your "heart" as it were. I know that may not be what you wanted to hear.
I know, because I was in your shoes myself - and am a "late in life" Catholic convert (baptized and all that) from scientific "soft" atheist (in college) to Zen dabbler (loved mind games and koans) to agnostic (too lazy/coward to cut clean and either declare atheist or believer).
All you need to do is decide to believe, and commit to yourself to try to stand by it; and make a habit of belief and prayer. Expect to have doubts, expect to have severe ones sometimes. Myself, made me doubt a loving God would allow such evil as I have seen especially in the past decade. But keep your word to at least try to come back to believing.
In Christianity, remember "Doubting Thomas" as one example of how even an original apostle of Christ had doubts and lacked faith. And in the book of Mark, Ch 9 verse 24 there is the quote of the father of a boy who says to asks Christ to cure his son and is questioned about his belief by Jesus, with which the father answers "I do believe; help my unbelief!". As you can see belief is difficult, which is what you are encountering first hand.
It is said that faith is not achieved, it is given - and by asking for it, even in such an indirect method, you are already on the path there should you decide to keep going that way. Keep asking for faith, and you may be surprised that one day if you are willing to believe and make that "leap of faith", the opportunity will present itself.
My experience is that it aint easy but it is worth it.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
