After the reunion lunch, I fired off an email to United Airlines, as that is where Brett Egarr is likely to be, according to one web page. It was an innocent message on their feedback form.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I would like to get a message to Capt Brett Egarr. Capt Egarr, I believe, is with your airline flying A320s. He and I were at school in New Zealand till 1985. We had a reunion lunch today and his name came up. I’d like to reconnect with him and see if he has any plans to venture to his homeland in the near future. Please pass on my contact details to him if he wishes to be in touch.
Sincerely,
Jack Yan, LL B, BCA (Hons.), MCA
PS.: Your form insists on a 'State' even if one feeds in 'Outsie [sic] US and Outside Canada'.
Pretty simple, right? I stated my purpose. I asked for my information to be passed on. I did not want any private contact information for Brett.
United Airlines responded:
Dear Mr. Yan,
Thank you for taking the time to contact United Airlines Customer Relations regarding a message for Capt. Brett Egarr.
Mr. Yan, I am sorry to disappointment you but Federal privacy guidelines prohibit us to contact a United employee on behalf of a passenger or any other person. Each of our employees and customers has the right to decide who may know about them.
Also, we are aware regarding the "State" field while submitting a concern to Customer Relations and our technical team is working for a resolution. I hope this will be corrected soon.
Your understanding is appreciated. Thank you for your email.
Regards,
Bhupendra Singh Bisht
United Airlines Customer Relations
Nothing wrong with Mr Bisht’s courtesy but surely this is ridiculous? Federal privacy what?
If United doesn’t understand the law, then it shouldn’t be quoting it. I responded (making a mistake on the first line, dammit):
Dear Mr Singh [sic]:
I appreciate your prompt response though I must comment that I find the guidelines' interpretation questionable.
I realize you are doing your job and I do not criticize you for that or for your courtesy, for which I thank you.
If I may give you an analogy: if I were to write a letter to any company in the world, even in the United States, addressing it to an employee's attention, it is generally accepted in everyday, international commercial practice that it will get there.
You say that each United employee has the right to decide who may know about them. I fully agree. But you are denying Capt Egarr the opportunity to make that choice.
I can understand blocking an abusive passenger or one expressly requesting private information.
I do not wish to know Capt Egarr's contact information or any particulars covered by any US privacy legislation.
I had expected that the internet was to make our lives easier. I had also expected common sense, if you consider that written correspondence would likely find its way to Capt Egarr.
If you cannot help me with the above then I request that you provide me with your company's head office address so I may pursue this matter offline.
Yours faithfully,
Jack Yan, LL B, BCA (Hons.), MCA
There was a link at the end of the email for a customer survey—you bet your bottom dollar I filled that out. I accused the airline of holding a feather and pretending it was an arrow. I gave Mr Bisht good marks for courtesy and timeliness though.
Genesis 9:5,6 "Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man's brother I will require the life of man. "Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man."
New King James ver.
Spirit Filled Life study helps.
Kingdom Dynamics
The sacredness of life, human worth. Life was breathed into man by God. Man was made in the "image" of God, and after God's "likeness" (1:26; 9:6). Man was God's unique, spiritual, immortal, intelligent creation. Thus, God commands, "You shall not murder" (Ex. 20:13). To take human life is to assault the image of God in man. Human life should be respected and reverenced. Life, even prenatal life, is always a miracle; and no one should feel he has the right to shed the blood of an innocent human being. The word "require" (Gen 9:5) indicates God was doing more than simply stating a rule. He was saying that He will actually "pursue" (Hebrew darash) or "seek" a man's life in payment for the innocent life he has taken. Let no disrespect for human life invade any mind. Let us proclaim the value and the sacredness of life. (Gen 3:17, Acts 17:26)
Exodus 22:2-4 "if the thief is found breaking in and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed. "if the sun has risen on him, (if he is found out or was identified and arrested) there shall be guilt for his bloodshed. He should make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft. If the theft is found alive in his hand, whether it is an ox or donkey or sheep, he shall restore double."
Nehemiah 4:14 And I looked, and arose and said to the nobles, to the leaders, and to the rest of the people, "Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, great and awesome, and fight for your brethren, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses."
Acts 25:11 "For if I am an offender, or have committed anything deserving of death, I do not object to dying; but if there is nothing in these things of which these men accuse me, no one can deliver me to them. I appeal to Caesar."
Time and time again, I hear from the anti-death penalty and anti-war proponents that Christians are hypocritical for supporting these two very necessary elements of civilized society. Mike Farrell accused Dennis Prager of licking his lips at the eminent death of convicted murderer Tookie Williams. The exact quote was, "You disgust me. You sit there licking your lips about the death of another human being. You sicken me. You people are dragging us back into the caves." Dennis Prager is not a Christian but is a practicing Jew and so holds many of the same values since Jews and Christians study the same Holy Book until you get to the New Testament. Without getting into the debate over corporal punishment and the merits of the war option, I wanted to defend the Christian perspective that these are not the equivelant of murder.
Murder is the unjust taking of life and is entirely different in definition from killing in the scope of war and criminal justice. So, wherever you stand on the issues, please stop obfuscating the discussion with false charges against Christianity. Christianity is reliant upon the scriptures in the Bible (taken as a whole) for its standard of operation. And the scriptures support both venues (war and corporal punishment) for killing in both the Old and New Testaments. This is yet another case of non-Christians trying to judge Christians according to the Christian doctrines and standards when they have no understanding and very little knowledge of them but feel compelled to inform us of our doctrines. I, for one, am unwilling to allow the double standards to continue in our culture where secularists attempt to hold Christians to a standard to which they will not hold themselves. The irony here is that most believe they are holding to the principals taught in the same scriptures though they have never read them.
I knew about Sharia Finance strategies through ACT! For America's regular newsletters. Today I learned that America's financial institutions are in a clearance sale. Of course the customers are those countries and despots we've been transferring our wealth to for the past 30 years or more. With the exception of FreddyMac and FannieMae and perhaps IndyMac, all of the giant financial organizations are publicly traded. With the current crises in the financial industry, they've been selling at bargain basement prices and the petrodollars are buying them. So what?
Imagine the world's financial institutions being governed by Sharia compliant financiers. Imagine those institutions refusing to finance any business or government that insults or opposes Islam in any way. Imagine them refusing to do business with any manufacturer which produces a product or service non-compliant with Sharia's restrictive ideology. More importantly, imagine them supporting a despot like Ahmadenijad or Habbas.
Dollars for Dinars
(IsraelNN.com) First it was Citibank. Now it's Barclay's and New York City's Chrysler Building skyscraper. Muslim Arabs are buying out collapsing Western banks and businesses and gaining growing international power, but some Arab investors are worried their investments may go down the drain with the American economy.
The current financial crisis in the United States has spread to other countries because of a massive debt that was not backed by enough real and liquid collateral. Banks and businesses gasping for financial breath are up for sale at basement prices, but no one is certain if the basement is the bottom.
Read the full article here.
http://shariahfinancewatch.wordpress.com/shariah-compliant-banks/
Shariah Compliant Banks
Alpha Natural ResourcesAsset Acceptance Capital Corporation
Aviva Plc
AXA
Barclays PLC
BNP Paribas Group
Citibank, N.A.
Credit Agricole, S.A.
Deutsche Bank AG
Dow Jones & Company Inc.
Equity Insurance Group Limited
Goldman Sachs Group
HBOS plc
HSBC Holdings plc
INVESCO Perpetual
Julius Baer Group
Maersk Logistics
Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.
Morgan Stanley
NYSE Euronext
Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Singapore Power
National Security and Financial Risks: Islamists are attempting to impose Shariah Compliant Finance (SCF) on Western institutions to use our own financial strengths against us. The most serious problem with SCF is that it legitimates and institutionalizes Shariah law (i.e., Islamic law), a theo-political- legal doctrine violently opposed to Western values. With $1 -$2 trillion petrodollars annually looking for an investment home, blind exuberance is driving financial institutions to adopt SCF, without even a minimal baseline for legal compliance. This willful blindness, and lack of both transparency and due diligence may cause SCF to be the next sub-prime crisis, but this time with deadly consequences.
Legal Risks: Western financial institutions which adopt SCF may have criminal and civil exposure to claims of aiding and abetting sedition and the material support of terrorism, securities fraud, consumer fraud, racketeering, and antitrust violations, as well as exposure to tort claims for sedition and terrorism, and for the violation of internationally recognized norms of the law of nations.
Terror Financing Mechanism: SCF as monitored by paid Shariah law advisors to U.S. banking institutions must “purify” certain return on investment (ROI) dollars that do not meet Shariah law standards. This money must be donated to Islamic charities - including some that promote Jihad and support suicide bombing. Investment disclosures state that these profits can be as high as 6% of profits of investments. With $800 billion already in SCF assets, the potential for billions of dollars to be siphoned off for terrorism is real. This would be a serious criminal violation of U.S. law.
Consider this example: Shariah Mutual Funds promote themselves as “ethical funds.” To be Shariah-compliant, they donate “tainted” revenues to Shariah-compliant “charities.” A post 9-11 U.S. investor in a Shariah-compliant “ethical investment” is not told that Shariah law also requires imposing Shariah as U.S. law, execution of gays and female apartheid. Is he a victim of consumer fraud? Is this same post 9-11 investor unwittingly funding terror? The government has shut down the three largest Shariah-compliant charities in the U.S. - the Holy Land Foundation, Benevolence International Foundation, and the Global Relief Foundation - after proving they funded terrorist organizations. The American taxpayer deserves answers to these questions. The Center for Security Policy (CSP) is meeting directly with members of Congress, U.S. regulatory agencies and Wall Street financial institutions in order to ensure the enforcement of existing U.S. laws on sedition, disclosure, material support of terrorism, and money-laundering. CSP is committed to revealing the civil liability and criminal exposure of Shariah law and Shariah-compliant finance.
WHAT IS SHARIAH LAW?
Understanding Shariah law is integral to understanding the dangers
of Shariah-compliant finance. Shariah law is Islamic law dating back to
the 7th century and is today the law of the land in Saudi Arabia, Iran,
Sudan and the law under which the Taliban operates. Recent polls reveal
that only 10-15% of Muslims worldwide want to live under this
all-encompassing system of Islamic jurisprudence that covers all
aspects of a Muslim’s life including religious, social, political, and
military obligations. However, with a current population of 1.5 billion
Muslims, this translates to a huge pool of Jihadist recruits and
supporters - a base of approximately 150 - 225 million Muslims. Shariah
law authorities, some of whom are now being paid handsomely by
Barclays, Dow Jones, Standard & Poors, HSBC, Citibank, Merrill
Lynch, Deutschebank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Credit Suisse
and others have the power to dictate Shariah compliance as deemed by
“scholarly consensus” on matters of finance, family, penal law,
apostasy, and war. Examples of authoritarian Shariah law
include: requirement of women to obtain permission from husbands for
daily freedoms; beating of disobedient woman and girls; execution of
homosexuals; engagement of polygamy and forced child marriages; the
testimony of four male witnesses to prove rape; honor killings of
those, principally women, who have dishonored the family; death to
apostate Muslims who chose to leave Islam; inferior status of
non-Muslims, and capital punishment for those “slander Islam.”
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- American Congress for Truth P.O. Box 6884 Virginia Beach, VA 23456 member@americancongressfortruth.org http://www.americancongressfortruth.org Every day, American Congress for
Truth (ACT) a 501c3 non-profit organization is on the front lines
fighting for you in meeting with politicians, decision makers, speaking
on college campuses and planning events to educate and inform the
public about the threat of Islamofascism. To maintain and
bolster our efforts, we need your continued solidarity, activism and
financial support. We are only as strong as our supporters. We thank
you for helping us carry on this important work. |
I organized a reunion lunch with a few of the folks from my Form II year. Since Knight Rider is coming back, so are we.
We have not sat down together in 23 years. And everyone was instantly recognizable.
The five of us are: Deborah McGuire, Mark Rees-Thomas, Krishna Magan, Jessica Stephens (née Beyeler) and myself (trying to photograph myself by inverting the phone-camera; it does have two modes but the other one gives a reflected image).
We are still wrinkle-free though we have a few more grey hairs. Mark, Krishna and Jess have kids.
A whole bunch of names came up from the past, some of which I had forgotten, and we all had some great goss.
But we did have a few remarks and info about other folks—Jason Maling, Tracey Heemi, Ishara Goonawardne, Tom Pacza, Anita Balakrishnan, Barry Lei, Laura Hayvice, Chris Mardon, David Irvine, Corbett Stace and more. If you folks are reading, we still remember you. There were a few other names that came up that I am ashamed I have already forgotten tonight.
If United Airlines passengers are told that they are being flown by Capt Brett Egarr, let him know he was in our thoughts, too.
We have no info on Dane Alchorne, Cadell Macmillan, Neil McDonald, David Garland, Claudia Iten (though we suspect she could be an opera singer) and numerous others. If you guys ever read this, please get in touch with me via my main site or join the St Mark’s Alumni and Friends group on Facebook.
We did wonder whatever happened to that guy Karl Urban who was in our year.
We’ve decided to do another one in August so anyone from the class of ’85 who missed this, you still have a chance!
General Motors provided us with these videos today from the British Motor Show. Still thinking about whether to put them on to the Lucire site as the aspect ratio is wrong and everyone looks 12 ft tall. They include the launch of the Opel Insignia, and scenes from Cadillac, Bentley, Lotus, Renault and Alfa Romeo.
Estelle Getty has died—farewell to The Golden Girls’ Sophia.
Although her character was the oldest, I think Estelle was one of the youngest actresses in the cast. She was 84 at the time of her passing, but 20-plus years ago, her character’s age was in the 80s.
I’ll remember her well for The Golden Girls and not for Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.
These are the most recent photos I've used as wallpaper on my iPhone:
Currently, my wallpaper is this:
Gimme a V! Gimme an O! Gimme an X! What's that spell? VOX!
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I haven't done this for a few weeks now...
Loves:
- Leaving Saturday for our holiday to the US. Flying into Seattle and as of now we are planning on spending time near Mt. Rainier and Mount St. Helens and then driving up the coast to the western side of the Olympic National Park. After that we are headed back to Minneapolis where Sofia and I will head to ND to see family and Tom will be off to do work stuff.
- Planning future holidays: As of now we are booked to Wrocław, Poland in September, Washington DC in October, Chile and Argentina in December/January and South Africa in April. Whew. I can't even keep it all straight. V. excited, though.
- I am so happy that Sofia is a good sleeper. Love, love, love that she goes to sleep without any issues and sleeps all night. I don't even care much that she wakes at 5:30am.
- Sorting out the clutter in my house little by little. Feels good to have some organisation.
Loathes:
- Packing.
- Leaving holiday details to last minute. I just this morning booked rooms for our aforementioned holiday.
- Not knowing where our future lies. It can be unsettling to not know when or where we will be going from here. Tom is convinced it is sooner rather than later. It starts to eat away at me to not know.