Apr 5, 2016 09:51 PM
Sharia Villages: Bosnia's Islamic State Problem
http://www.spiegel.de/international/euro...85326.html
EXCERPT: . . . Bosnia, says the American Balkan expert and former NSA employee John Schindler, "is considered something of a 'safehouse' for radicals," and now harbors a stable terrorist infrastructure. It is one that is not strictly hierarchical and is thus considered "off-message" within IS, but it nonetheless represents an existential threat to the fragmented republic. According to findings by the Bosnian Ministry of Security, not only were munitions from Bosnia used in the January 2015 attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, but some of the weapons used in the November 13 Islamic State attack on Paris were also from former Yugoslav production. It increasingly looks as though a new sanctuary for IS fighters, planners and recruiters has been established right in the middle of Europe. In some remote villages, the black flag of IS is flown and, as a share of the population, more fighters from Bosnia-Herzegovina have joined IS than from any other country in Europe, except for Belgium. Around 30 Bosnians have lost their lives in the Middle Eastern battlefields, with some 50 having returned home....
Tax avoidance is an expression of basic British freedoms
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/...-freedoms/
EXCERPT: It was said of Robert Nozick, the libertarian philosopher and author of Anarchy, State and Power, that he could never decide whether taxation merely felt like slavery or was actually slavery itself. His point was that by garnishing your wages through income tax the state was making you work for it whether you chose to or not. That forcible confiscation is, of course, backed up by extremely punitive powers. Not unreasonably, there is strong opposition by the public to taxation - particularly very visible taxation like the council tax or its predecessor the rates. Income tax and National Insurance, which are silently removed from pay before receipt are far more burdensome but less painful in immediate impact. Which is why Jean Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's Minister of Finance, said: "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing". The Left, traditionally, have believed that you can build a consensus of support for public services or specific institutions like the NHS and in that basis justify and raise taxation. The problem has been that for at last 40 years voters have disagreed with them....
http://www.spiegel.de/international/euro...85326.html
EXCERPT: . . . Bosnia, says the American Balkan expert and former NSA employee John Schindler, "is considered something of a 'safehouse' for radicals," and now harbors a stable terrorist infrastructure. It is one that is not strictly hierarchical and is thus considered "off-message" within IS, but it nonetheless represents an existential threat to the fragmented republic. According to findings by the Bosnian Ministry of Security, not only were munitions from Bosnia used in the January 2015 attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, but some of the weapons used in the November 13 Islamic State attack on Paris were also from former Yugoslav production. It increasingly looks as though a new sanctuary for IS fighters, planners and recruiters has been established right in the middle of Europe. In some remote villages, the black flag of IS is flown and, as a share of the population, more fighters from Bosnia-Herzegovina have joined IS than from any other country in Europe, except for Belgium. Around 30 Bosnians have lost their lives in the Middle Eastern battlefields, with some 50 having returned home....
Tax avoidance is an expression of basic British freedoms
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/...-freedoms/
EXCERPT: It was said of Robert Nozick, the libertarian philosopher and author of Anarchy, State and Power, that he could never decide whether taxation merely felt like slavery or was actually slavery itself. His point was that by garnishing your wages through income tax the state was making you work for it whether you chose to or not. That forcible confiscation is, of course, backed up by extremely punitive powers. Not unreasonably, there is strong opposition by the public to taxation - particularly very visible taxation like the council tax or its predecessor the rates. Income tax and National Insurance, which are silently removed from pay before receipt are far more burdensome but less painful in immediate impact. Which is why Jean Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's Minister of Finance, said: "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing". The Left, traditionally, have believed that you can build a consensus of support for public services or specific institutions like the NHS and in that basis justify and raise taxation. The problem has been that for at last 40 years voters have disagreed with them....