The IDF search and rescue delegation landed in Haiti on January 15th and the Medical and Rescue Team immediately set up a field hospital in Port-Au-Prince and began to treat patients there.  In addition, the forces started locating and rescuing survivors trapped in ruined buildings, including many who were injured during the collapse of the UN headquarters.

The IDF field hospital is currently the most advanced medical facility in the area, with intensive care units, operating rooms and maternity/delivery rooms, as well as over 40 doctors and specialists.  The field hospital has been set up on a football pitch:

Link to Google Maps – here

So, what are the stats? Well, as of writing this post it has been reported that the IDF Field Hospital has so far treated 383 people including dozens of children.  140 life saving operations were executed and seven babies were delivered. As of now, approximately 60 patients are being treated in different departments of the hospital.  Last night, two children who were trapped under the ruins of a building for seven days and then rescued by an American team were brought to the IDF hospital for treatment.

So, this is just a taster of how the Israelis have responded to the crisis in Haiti.  Please remember this when people start telling you that Israel is an evil country and abuses human rights.

You can find out more information from Twitter, YouTube and the IDF Blog.

I’ll leave you with a video produced by Neil Lazarus of Awesomeseminars.com

Please forward a link to the post to at least 5 people.

Martyn

So what is wrong with British society? Well, I could list issues such as rising knife crime, younger pregnancies, increasing amounts of intrusions into civil liberties and ludicrous financial mis-management by the government.

Today in the news I read the story of Samantha Orobator, who could potentially face death by firing squad in Laos if found guilty of trying to smuggle heroin out of the country. So, now charities and her family are demanding that the British Government does something about it and tries to get her released and brought back to Britain. I’m sorry, what? Hard earned tax payers money is going to be spent on sending over the best lawyers to a foreign country to try to secure the release of a women who knew what she was getting into before carrying out the (alleged) crime.

Answer me this, would we not expect a foreigner to be suitably punished by the laws of this land should they commit a crime here? Or would we be ok with them being sent back to their country to go about their life with all the freedom they can wish for.

This and other events over the last six months have got me thinking – how can we Fix Broken Britain? Has it got the point of no return? Can anything be done to restore this country to it’s correct standing in the world?

I’d like to throw my answer into the hat for consideration by the powers that be.

We should make a return to the Victorian era for manners, discipline in our schools and general etiquette within society.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be blogging about how a return to some Victorian principles can help fix broken Britain.

Well, I’ve just seen the funniest news story, that could only come out of that quirkiest of countries; Italy!

That’s right – the hypnotoad hint may have given it away. By the way, all hail the glory of the hypnotoad :-p

I’ve just noticed on the BBC News website, a story that makes me think of Derren Brown and Little Britain more than anything.

This just goes to show the power of NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming). I prefer to call it this than hypnosis.

I’d love to have been that poor woman’s boss. Can you imagine the conversation when she tilled up:

Manager: “You’re £800 down!”

Worker: “Huh, how’d that happen?”

Manager: “Well you must’ve stolen it”

Worker: “No, I’m telling you I really don’t know how it’s happened. One minute I’m talking to this guy and the next the money has gone.”

Manager: “Oh right, so I’m supposed to believe that this guy blanked your mind, like he hypnotised you or something.”

Security Guard: “Ummm boss, you may want to have a look at this CCTV video!”

The first story this week is a UK story that is tragic yet humorous (yes, I have a sick sense of humour). BBC Wales are reporting that a man has died in a cake eating competition that was held in Swansea over the weekend. It almost enough to put you off of fairy cakes – however, it will be interesting to find out what he actually died of. Nobody has reported that, just that it wasn’t suspicious. Did he choke etc.? I want to know!

The second story speaks for itself in the clip below – legendary outburst – no chance in getting a passport now!

The last story is an international and technical one – that Pakistani authorities have ordered all local ISPs to block access to Google as blasphemous images of the Prophet Mohammed had made their way onto the file-sharing site. The really funny thing about this story is that, because an over zealous ISP in Pakistan got something wrong, not only was youTube taken off-line for 40 minutes, but the whole of Pakistan was removed from the Internet as well!

Firstly, the ASA claims that a picture of a fully clothed model, which ran in three UK daily newspapers “appeared to link teenage girls with sexually provocative behaviour and was irresponsible and likely to cause serious or widespread offence”.

The response by Peter Sherrard, head of communications for Ryanair, was fantastic – “This isn’t advertising regulation, it is simply censorship. This bunch of unelected, self appointed dimwits are clearly incapable of fairly and impartially ruling on advertising.” He also goes on to describe the ASA as Pythonesque!

The ASA’s second ruling claims that, even though Ryanair’s advertisement confirmed that its (Lowest Fares from Britain, all-inclusive) £10 seats were “subject to availability” this somehow “suggested wrongly that the quoted price applied to every seat.”

Sherrard responds with such class – “This is yet another clear example of a ridiculous ruling by the ASA quango whose council must consist of Alice, the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter. Only in the ASA’s fairytale world could someone claim that a fare, which is ‘subject to availability’, should be available on every seat on every flight. Clearly, the ASA needs English lessons as the normal use of the language confuses them.”

I won’t spoil it all, catch the press releases here:

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=08&month=jan&story=reg-en-300108-2

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=08&month=jan&story=reg-en-300108

Superb!

While some of the media may have given Neturei Karta unwarranted airtime and newspaper columns, the Jewish world has made it abundantly clear that this extreme fringe represents nobody but themselves.

The Satmar, the largest Ultra-Orthodox movement published an unprecedented statement calling on the public to disassociate themselves from those Neturei Karta who attended the Iranian conference, while Israeli Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger also called for a boycott.

British Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks also condemned Neturei Karta, saying:

“Lest those unfamiliar with Neturei Karta take it to represent a significant strand within Jewry, it should be made clear that it is an extremely small and unrepresentative sect whose views are rejected by the overwhelming majority of Jews, religious and secular alike.”

HonestReporting urges subscribers to ensure that the media does not mislead the general public into thinking that Neturei Karta is the legitimate face of world Jewry despite this group’s existence far beyond the accepted and recognized framework of the Jewish people. Neturei Karta is definitely not Kosher.

The Walt Disney characters have issued a hard-hitting statement after the world’s top astrononomical body decided on Thursday to relegate Pluto to the lowly status of a “dwarf planet”.

School textbooks will have to be rewritten – and Mickey Mouse’s faithful companion is said by Disney insiders to be anguished over the fate of his planetary namesake.

But the Seven Dwarfs are not taking it lying down.

“Although we think it’s DOPEY that Pluto has been downgraded to a dwarf planet, which has made some people GRUMPY and others just SLEEPY, we are not BASHFUL in saying we would be HAPPY if Disney’s Pluto would join us as an eighth dwarf,” they insisted.

“We think this is just what the DOC ordered and is nothing to SNEEZE at.”

Pluto the dog made his debut in 1930 – the same year that a 24-year-old American astronomer, Clyde Tombaugh, discovered what until now was called the ninth and outermost planet.

A white-gloved, yellow-shoed source close to Disney’s top dog said: “I think the whole thing is goofy.

“Pluto has never been interested in astronomy before, other than maybe an occasional howl at the moon.”

Mickey Mouse was unavailable for comment.

[tag]pluto, disney, seven dwarfs, mickey mouse, Clyde Tombaugh, planet, solar system[/tag]

Jews for Jesus thought it was amusing to put comedian Jackie Mason’s image on a pamphlet aimed at converting Jews to Christianity, but Mason found it no laughing matter and has sued the group for $4 million (2.1 million pounds).

“I found it disgusting and obnoxious, and I find it even more disgusting and obnoxious that the spokesman for that organisation says, ‘Why doesn’t he have a sense of humour about it?’” Mason, 75 and famously Jewish, told Reuters on Friday.

“It’s like if they kidnap my children and say, ‘So what, you never saw a child before?’”

Mason’s lawyer filed the suit in New York Supreme Court on Wednesday, and Jews for Jesus on Friday asked a federal court to take the case. It is now up to a federal judge to decide which court should have jurisdiction.

It’s the quotes from his affidavit that make me smile though.

“As everyone knows, I am as Jewish as a matzoh ball or kosher salami (not to mention that I was an ordained rabbi),”

“He’s a public persona. It postulated that even someone as Jewish as Jackie Mason could come to faith in Jesus if he wanted to,” said Susan Perlman, a spokeswoman for the group. “It’s humorous, hardly labelling him a Jew for Jesus. … We thought it would be flattering to him,” she said.

Mason was having none of that though. “First of all there’s no such thing as a Jew for Jesus. If you believe in Jesus you’re a Christian. That’s the point of Christianity. You can’t be a table and also a chair.

“I have to develop a whole new act now,” said Mason, who accused the group of stealing his “schtick” of poking fun at the differences between Jews and Gentiles.

[tag]Jackie Mason, Jews for Jesus, gentiles, jews, comedian, legal[/tag]

Salman Schocken was a Jewish department store magnate-turned-publisher who fled Germany for pre-state Israel after the Nazis took power. Now, his Israeli heirs have sold 25 percent of their liberal Haaretz newspaper to a German publisher with a Nazi past.

The DuMont Schauberg Group, one of Germany’s largest media concerns, recently paid €25 million for its stake in the Israeli daily.

In Nazi times, the publishing house was headed by Kurt DuMont, a member of the Nazi party who was decorated by the Nazi regime, company executive Peter Pauls told Haaretz in an interview published Wednesday.

The DuMonts, Pauls said, “had to keep operating a company when the Nazis came to power, and they did the minimum required to survive at that time.”

Kurt DuMont’s 78-year-old son, Alfred, the group’s current owner, has no Nazi ties, and shouldn’t be tarred by his father’s deeds, Amos Schocken, Salman’s grandson, told the Yediot Aharonot newspaper on Wednesday.

“There is no reason to foist upon him, or upon the company he now heads, responsibility for an earlier era,” Schocken said.

Haaretz, Israel’s third-largest newspaper, had been wholly owned by the Schocken family since Salman Schocken founded it 89 years ago.