Romantic Interlaken
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Swiss Ride
It was a trip of a life time. Many thanks to Brokerbelle and Shan Tora for letting me go. It was a dream come true.
Four days on a Harley in Switzerland. I rented a Harley Road King from Pelican Harley Davidson. The people were really nice. Info about them is below:
Harley-Davidson Zurich
Mullerstrasse 34a
CH 8004 Zurich
I contacted them by writing to www.harleydavidson-zh.ch They are great people and will help you in everyway possible.
The ride began in Zurich then to Bonn and then to romantic Interlaken. After Interlaken I went up Grimsel pass then up the Fuerka Pass to see the Rhone glacier and then back down again and then over the Nufenen pass down to Locarno where I stayed on Lake Maggiore.
Then I rode to Lugano and down by Lake Lugano into Italy. I next followed Lake Como through the small Italian villages to San Moritz in Switzerland. By accident I went up the Bernina pass had lunch and then back down again. Next I went over the Fluela pass and then to Valduz, Liechtenstein for the night. Next I went to Appenzel and then back to Zurich.
My trip took four days and extended over 1000 kilometers.
My wife and I have always loved Switzerland and it was a wonderful opportunity to see a beautiful country and to visit Leichtenstein for the first time.
It was the ride of a life time. However, quite frankly, I have seen enough passes for now.
Will the small hills of the Ozark be boring now? I think not. I am a great lover of the Ozarks and find that there are pleasant places to pull off and shoot photograps. Here in Switzerland the riding is challenging enough (at least for a flatlander like me) that it is hard to do both. I am posting just a few pictures.
HarleyDad
Four days on a Harley in Switzerland. I rented a Harley Road King from Pelican Harley Davidson. The people were really nice. Info about them is below:
Harley-Davidson Zurich
Mullerstrasse 34a
CH 8004 Zurich
I contacted them by writing to www.harleydavidson-zh.ch They are great people and will help you in everyway possible.
The ride began in Zurich then to Bonn and then to romantic Interlaken. After Interlaken I went up Grimsel pass then up the Fuerka Pass to see the Rhone glacier and then back down again and then over the Nufenen pass down to Locarno where I stayed on Lake Maggiore.
Then I rode to Lugano and down by Lake Lugano into Italy. I next followed Lake Como through the small Italian villages to San Moritz in Switzerland. By accident I went up the Bernina pass had lunch and then back down again. Next I went over the Fluela pass and then to Valduz, Liechtenstein for the night. Next I went to Appenzel and then back to Zurich.
My trip took four days and extended over 1000 kilometers.
My wife and I have always loved Switzerland and it was a wonderful opportunity to see a beautiful country and to visit Leichtenstein for the first time.
It was the ride of a life time. However, quite frankly, I have seen enough passes for now.
Will the small hills of the Ozark be boring now? I think not. I am a great lover of the Ozarks and find that there are pleasant places to pull off and shoot photograps. Here in Switzerland the riding is challenging enough (at least for a flatlander like me) that it is hard to do both. I am posting just a few pictures.
HarleyDad
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Pakistan and al Qaeda
Pakistan and Al Qaeda
On Friday, September 8, The Wall Street Journal published an important article entitled: Pakistan Prioritizes Its Battle at U.S. expense.
In that article, it reports that Pakistan is ending its offensives against militants in Pakistan’s Northwest areas. As I have blogged before, Pakistan and its President Musharraf, do not control large parts of Pakistan.
The Pakistan government is ending a three year campagn Islamic militans in Waziristan. The government set free hundreds of prisoners and granted amnesty to others, including some with links to al Qaeda. Advance outposts have been abandoned to tribal leaders including a number to the Pashtun tribe which made up the Taliban. Waziristan borders the Paktia and Khost provinces of Afghanistan where there is intense Taliban activity.
In short, Pakistan has pulled its soldiers out of the area and have turned over key areas to the Pashtun tribe that constitutes much of the Taliban.
Pakistan is moving its soldiers into the Baluchistan area. The Baluchistan area borders both Souther Afghanistan and and Iran. Baluchistan is a haven for separatists and is in rebellion after their leader Akbar Khan Bugtiwas killed by Pakistani security forces.
Baluchistan is the largest in size of the Pakistani provincs and contains 40% of the country’s natural gas resources. Despite having 40% of the gas, they get the use of about 12% and want more There are about 6 million people in Baluchistan or about 4% of the country’s population.
The capital of Baluchistan is Quetta.. Baluchistan has the country’s only deep water Gwadar and there is a strong central government presence in that city.
Thirty percent of Baluchistan is made up of the Pashtun tribes. The people of this Persian oriented tribe can be found in both southern Iran (the Iranian province is called Baluchestan and in Pakistan where the province is called Baluchistan. This tribal people speak Baluchi which has Persian similarities. The tribes in both Southern Iran and Pakistan are Sunnis whereas most of the rest of Iran is Shiite.
The Taliban are Sunnis and Pashtun and Baluchis are very supportive of the Taliban.
So what does it all mean. The new controllers of the borders of Paktia and Khost are Taliban or have strong Taliban sympathies. They won’t be keeping the Taliban out and will open the door and welcome them back after incursions into Afghanistan. We have lost much of the support of Pakistan who is fighting to regain more control over their own southern provinces.
Harley Dad
On Friday, September 8, The Wall Street Journal published an important article entitled: Pakistan Prioritizes Its Battle at U.S. expense.
In that article, it reports that Pakistan is ending its offensives against militants in Pakistan’s Northwest areas. As I have blogged before, Pakistan and its President Musharraf, do not control large parts of Pakistan.
The Pakistan government is ending a three year campagn Islamic militans in Waziristan. The government set free hundreds of prisoners and granted amnesty to others, including some with links to al Qaeda. Advance outposts have been abandoned to tribal leaders including a number to the Pashtun tribe which made up the Taliban. Waziristan borders the Paktia and Khost provinces of Afghanistan where there is intense Taliban activity.
In short, Pakistan has pulled its soldiers out of the area and have turned over key areas to the Pashtun tribe that constitutes much of the Taliban.
Pakistan is moving its soldiers into the Baluchistan area. The Baluchistan area borders both Souther Afghanistan and and Iran. Baluchistan is a haven for separatists and is in rebellion after their leader Akbar Khan Bugtiwas killed by Pakistani security forces.
Baluchistan is the largest in size of the Pakistani provincs and contains 40% of the country’s natural gas resources. Despite having 40% of the gas, they get the use of about 12% and want more There are about 6 million people in Baluchistan or about 4% of the country’s population.
The capital of Baluchistan is Quetta.. Baluchistan has the country’s only deep water Gwadar and there is a strong central government presence in that city.
Thirty percent of Baluchistan is made up of the Pashtun tribes. The people of this Persian oriented tribe can be found in both southern Iran (the Iranian province is called Baluchestan and in Pakistan where the province is called Baluchistan. This tribal people speak Baluchi which has Persian similarities. The tribes in both Southern Iran and Pakistan are Sunnis whereas most of the rest of Iran is Shiite.
The Taliban are Sunnis and Pashtun and Baluchis are very supportive of the Taliban.
So what does it all mean. The new controllers of the borders of Paktia and Khost are Taliban or have strong Taliban sympathies. They won’t be keeping the Taliban out and will open the door and welcome them back after incursions into Afghanistan. We have lost much of the support of Pakistan who is fighting to regain more control over their own southern provinces.
Harley Dad
A Sorry Apology
He did it. He apologized. I guess His Holiness was not speaking ex cathedra.
Below is a Reuters Report on the Papal apology.
Pope Benedict told Muslims on Saturday he was sorry they had found his speech on Islam offensive, expressing his respect for their faith and hoping they would understand the "true sense" of his words.
"The Holy Father is very sorry that some passages of his speech may have sounded offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers,"
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a statement.
The statement came amid mounting anger from Muslims over remarks by the Pope in a speech in his native Germany on Tuesday that was seen as critical of their faith. Calls for him to apologize had spread beyond the Islamic world.
In that speech, the Pope appeared to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that the early Muslims spread their religion by violence. Islamic fury erupted on Thursday and has cast doubt on a visit the Pope plans to Turkey in November
But the Vatican statement said: "Confirming his respect and esteem for those who profess the Islamic faith, he (the Pope) hopes they will be helped to understand his words in their true sense."
Before the statement, the tide of Muslim criticism of the Roman Catholic leader swelled on Saturday.
Yemen's president became the first head of state publicly to denounce him and threatened to review ties with the Vatican unless he apologized. Ali Abdullah Saleh, campaigning for re-election, told voters at a rally Benedict had wronged Islam.
Two churches -- neither of them Catholic -- were fire-bombed in the
West Bank' , although no one was hurt.
But Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German politicians defended his comments, saying he had been misunderstood.
"It was an invitation to dialogue between religions, she told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper in an interview. "What Benedict XVI emphasized was a decisive and uncompromising renunciation of all forms of violence in the name of religion."
CALLS FOR APOLOGY
"He should apologize to Muslims," the president of the German Council of Muslims, Ayyub Axel Koehler, told the Neue Presse newspaper on Saturday. "That would be a contribution toward unwinding the tension and creating clarity."
Support for that view came from the New York Times, which said in an editorial on Saturday he must issue a "deep and persuasive" apology for quotes used in his speech.
"The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly," it said. "He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal."
The Pope on Tuesday repeated criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
The Pope, who used the terms "jihad" and "holy war" in his lecture, added "violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul."
Muslim figures continued to assail those comments.
"How can (the Pope) imply that Muslims are the creators of terrorism in the world while it is the followers of Christianity who have aggressed against every country of the Islamic world?" prominent Saudi cleric Salman al-Odeh said.
"Who attacked and who invaded Iraq? ... The Pope's statements are an attempt to put a religious cover on injustice and political aggression practiced by the American administration against Muslims."
Turkey's nationalist paper Vatan quoted Salih Kapusuz, head of the ruling Justice and Development Party's parliamentary group as saying: "The mentality of the Crusades has returned.
"(Benedict) will go down in history in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini."
But Turkey's English-language Daily News, while deploring the Pope's comments, said: "We just disagree with this vendetta-like approach of continuing to abuse the Pope after his spokesman made a statement saying that he respected Islam and did not intend to offend Muslims."
It looks like the New York Times and the Islamic media now have found something that they can agree about.
After all, we need to be careful not to make any bad statements about Islam or more churches will be burned.
Worse than that we might be viewed as being politically incorrect or intolerant of other faiths.
It is a sad day when truth takes a backseat to political expediency.
At least the Jesuits must have written the apology which in essence says : "I am sorry you misunderstood me."
HarleyDad
Below is a Reuters Report on the Papal apology.
Pope Benedict told Muslims on Saturday he was sorry they had found his speech on Islam offensive, expressing his respect for their faith and hoping they would understand the "true sense" of his words.
"The Holy Father is very sorry that some passages of his speech may have sounded offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers,"
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a statement.
The statement came amid mounting anger from Muslims over remarks by the Pope in a speech in his native Germany on Tuesday that was seen as critical of their faith. Calls for him to apologize had spread beyond the Islamic world.
In that speech, the Pope appeared to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that the early Muslims spread their religion by violence. Islamic fury erupted on Thursday and has cast doubt on a visit the Pope plans to Turkey in November
But the Vatican statement said: "Confirming his respect and esteem for those who profess the Islamic faith, he (the Pope) hopes they will be helped to understand his words in their true sense."
Before the statement, the tide of Muslim criticism of the Roman Catholic leader swelled on Saturday.
Yemen's president became the first head of state publicly to denounce him and threatened to review ties with the Vatican unless he apologized. Ali Abdullah Saleh, campaigning for re-election, told voters at a rally Benedict had wronged Islam.
Two churches -- neither of them Catholic -- were fire-bombed in the
West Bank' , although no one was hurt.
But Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German politicians defended his comments, saying he had been misunderstood.
"It was an invitation to dialogue between religions, she told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper in an interview. "What Benedict XVI emphasized was a decisive and uncompromising renunciation of all forms of violence in the name of religion."
CALLS FOR APOLOGY
"He should apologize to Muslims," the president of the German Council of Muslims, Ayyub Axel Koehler, told the Neue Presse newspaper on Saturday. "That would be a contribution toward unwinding the tension and creating clarity."
Support for that view came from the New York Times, which said in an editorial on Saturday he must issue a "deep and persuasive" apology for quotes used in his speech.
"The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly," it said. "He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal."
The Pope on Tuesday repeated criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
The Pope, who used the terms "jihad" and "holy war" in his lecture, added "violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul."
Muslim figures continued to assail those comments.
"How can (the Pope) imply that Muslims are the creators of terrorism in the world while it is the followers of Christianity who have aggressed against every country of the Islamic world?" prominent Saudi cleric Salman al-Odeh said.
"Who attacked and who invaded Iraq? ... The Pope's statements are an attempt to put a religious cover on injustice and political aggression practiced by the American administration against Muslims."
Turkey's nationalist paper Vatan quoted Salih Kapusuz, head of the ruling Justice and Development Party's parliamentary group as saying: "The mentality of the Crusades has returned.
"(Benedict) will go down in history in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini."
But Turkey's English-language Daily News, while deploring the Pope's comments, said: "We just disagree with this vendetta-like approach of continuing to abuse the Pope after his spokesman made a statement saying that he respected Islam and did not intend to offend Muslims."
It looks like the New York Times and the Islamic media now have found something that they can agree about.
After all, we need to be careful not to make any bad statements about Islam or more churches will be burned.
Worse than that we might be viewed as being politically incorrect or intolerant of other faiths.
It is a sad day when truth takes a backseat to political expediency.
At least the Jesuits must have written the apology which in essence says : "I am sorry you misunderstood me."
HarleyDad
Pope Apologize?
I hope not.
Evidently Pope Benedict has offended Muslims by alleging that they used the sword to spread the Muslim faith. This goes against current attempts by Muslims to sanitize their history and to rewrite it.
That is not to say that Muslims and Christians should not ever apologize to each other. There have been many episodes in history warranting apology.
I am still waiting for an apology for Ground Zero. Then there are apolgies for celebrating American deaths. How about for chanting "Death to America"; "Death to the UK". How about apologies for all the bombs. How about personal apologies to the victims of September 11 and to the families of soldiers whose sons and daughters have died.
What did the Pope say that so enraged everyone?
Below is a quip from Yahoo:
The Pope on Tuesday repeated criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
The Pope, who used the terms "jihad" and "holy war" in his lecture, added "violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul."
It seems to me that Truth is an absolute defense to what Islam purports to be slanderous. Now I think it may be too far to say that everything Mohammad brought was evil. However it is clear that Mohammed had little fear to use the sword when he needed it. Some of the Turks have taken offense to what the Pope said .
Now the Turks are a brave people. In the Korean War the Turks did not have one of their soldiers defect to the North Koreans; and believe me, when I say that they were the only country that did not have defections. Further the Turks are far and away the most advanced and enlightened Islamic country, in my opinion. And there are many good and fine Turkish people that I know personally. Nonetheless in the Topaki Palace is a museum with many wonderful relics of Mohammed. One is a letter written in his own hand to Christians which warns them that their death and blood and the death of their families will be on their own heads if they resisted Islam. I have seen it myself.
Further in Constantinople was the greatest Roman church in the Eastern Empire. It is called St. Sophia. When Islam took over the church was converted to a mosque and prior to that the Islamic conqueror rode his horse into the church. How many Christian churches are left in Islamic countries. Did people in those countries simply see the truth of Islam or was more involved.
So I guess if it is apologies people want, they need to get into line. It would seem that apologies these days are a one way street.
We all need to be more sensitive. But believe me there is nothing sensitive when people in the streets are yelling "Death to America" and then strapping bombs upon themselves.
HarleyDad
Evidently Pope Benedict has offended Muslims by alleging that they used the sword to spread the Muslim faith. This goes against current attempts by Muslims to sanitize their history and to rewrite it.
That is not to say that Muslims and Christians should not ever apologize to each other. There have been many episodes in history warranting apology.
I am still waiting for an apology for Ground Zero. Then there are apolgies for celebrating American deaths. How about for chanting "Death to America"; "Death to the UK". How about apologies for all the bombs. How about personal apologies to the victims of September 11 and to the families of soldiers whose sons and daughters have died.
What did the Pope say that so enraged everyone?
Below is a quip from Yahoo:
The Pope on Tuesday repeated criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
The Pope, who used the terms "jihad" and "holy war" in his lecture, added "violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul."
It seems to me that Truth is an absolute defense to what Islam purports to be slanderous. Now I think it may be too far to say that everything Mohammad brought was evil. However it is clear that Mohammed had little fear to use the sword when he needed it. Some of the Turks have taken offense to what the Pope said .
Now the Turks are a brave people. In the Korean War the Turks did not have one of their soldiers defect to the North Koreans; and believe me, when I say that they were the only country that did not have defections. Further the Turks are far and away the most advanced and enlightened Islamic country, in my opinion. And there are many good and fine Turkish people that I know personally. Nonetheless in the Topaki Palace is a museum with many wonderful relics of Mohammed. One is a letter written in his own hand to Christians which warns them that their death and blood and the death of their families will be on their own heads if they resisted Islam. I have seen it myself.
Further in Constantinople was the greatest Roman church in the Eastern Empire. It is called St. Sophia. When Islam took over the church was converted to a mosque and prior to that the Islamic conqueror rode his horse into the church. How many Christian churches are left in Islamic countries. Did people in those countries simply see the truth of Islam or was more involved.
So I guess if it is apologies people want, they need to get into line. It would seem that apologies these days are a one way street.
We all need to be more sensitive. But believe me there is nothing sensitive when people in the streets are yelling "Death to America" and then strapping bombs upon themselves.
HarleyDad
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)