What's your top news/conspiracy story of 2011?

I was listening to a news program on the radio this evening and they were talking about top news stories/makers of 2011. It was a call in show and there were a pretty wide variety of stories chosen by the callers. So I thought I'd see what ATSer's thought was there top story of the year. Can be anything you want. There has been a lot of major happenings this year from Rep Giffords being shot and the start of the Arab Spring in Tunisia in January to the last troops leaving Iraq this week. The years not over yet though and as the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 showed, bad( and good ) stuff can happen at anytime.

I have a few choices but I'll start off with these two particular to Canada. I'll add some more later.

First, the death of Jack Layton back in August.

www.ctv.ca...

"We deeply regret to inform you that The Honourable Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, passed away at 4:45 a.m. today, Monday, Aug. 22," the statement said.

"He passed away peacefully at his home surrounded by family and loved ones."

This is a major story for me because, although I didn't agree with much of what Jack Layton stood for in politics, I respected him and felt, to me personally anyway, he was one of the few politicians in Canada that actually gave a damn about the people. He had high hopes for our country and he held true to his ideals to the very end. This is the last letter he wrote to all Canadians, an inspiring call to join together for the betterment of the country and it's people.

Dear Friends,

Tens of thousands of Canadians have written to me in recent weeks to wish me well. I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughtful, inspiring and often beautiful notes, cards and gifts. Your spirit and love have lit up my home, my spirit, and my determination.

Unfortunately my treatment has not worked out as I hoped. So I am giving this letter to my partner Olivia to share with you in the circumstance in which I cannot continue.

I recommend that Hull-Aylmer MP Nycole Turmel continue her work as our interim leader until a permanent successor is elected.

I recommend the party hold a leadership vote as early as possible in the New Year, on approximately the same timelines as in 2003, so that our new leader has ample time to reconsolidate our team, renew our party and our program, and move forward towards the next election.

A few additional thoughts:

To other Canadians who are on journeys to defeat cancer and to live their lives, I say this: please don’t be discouraged that my own journey hasn’t gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope. Treatments and therapies have never been better in the face of this disease. You have every reason to be optimistic, determined, and focused on the future. My only other advice is to cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey, as I have done this summer.

To the members of my party: we’ve done remarkable things together in the past eight years. It has been a privilege to lead the New Democratic Party and I am most grateful for your confidence, your support, and the endless hours of volunteer commitment you have devoted to our cause. There will be those who will try to persuade you to give up our cause. But that cause is much bigger than any one leader. Answer them by recommitting with energy and determination to our work. Remember our proud history of social justice, universal health care, public pensions and making sure no one is left behind. Let’s continue to move forward. Let’s demonstrate in everything we do in the four years before us that we are ready to serve our beloved Canada as its next government.

To the members of our parliamentary caucus: I have been privileged to work with each and every one of you. Our caucus meetings were always the highlight of my week. It has been my role to ask a great deal from you. And now I am going to do so again. Canadians will be closely watching you in the months to come. Colleagues, I know you will make the tens of thousands of members of our party proud of you by demonstrating the same seamless teamwork and solidarity that has earned us the confidence of millions of Canadians in the recent election.

To my fellow Quebecers: On May 2nd, you made an historic decision. You decided that the way to replace Canada’s Conservative federal government with something better was by working together in partnership with progressive-minded Canadians across the country. You made the right decision then; it is still the right decision today; and it will be the right decision right through to the next election, when we will succeed, together. You have elected a superb team of New Democrats to Parliament. They are going to be doing remarkable things in the years to come to make this country better for us all.

To young Canadians: All my life I have worked to make things better. Hope and optimism have defined my political career, and I continue to be hopeful and optimistic about Canada. Young people have been a great source of inspiration for me. I have met and talked with so many of you about your dreams, your frustrations, and your ideas for change. More and more, you are engaging in politics because you want to change things for the better. Many of you have placed your trust in our party. As my time in political life draws to a close I want to share with you my belief in your power to change this country and this world. There are great challenges before you, from the overwhelming nature of climate change to the unfairness of an economy that excludes so many from our collective wealth, and the changes necessary to build a more inclusive and generous Canada. I believe in you. Your energy, your vision, your passion for justice are exactly what this country needs today. You need to be at the heart of our economy, our political life, and our plans for the present and the future.

And finally, to all Canadians: Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world’s environment. We can restore our good name in the world. We can do all of these things because we finally have a party system at the national level where there are real choices; where your vote matters; where working for change can actually bring about change. In the months and years to come, New Democrats will put a compelling new alternative to you. My colleagues in our party are an impressive, committed team. Give them a careful hearing; consider the alternatives; and consider that we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

All my very best,


Jack Layton

source

continued...

Second is Canada leaving Kandahar province, Afghanistan and the end of our combat mission.

www.huffingtonpost.ca...

OTTAWA - The Maple Leaf flag was hauled down for the last time in Kandahar on Thursday.

The quiet ceremony at Kandahar Airfield marked the end of Canada's military presence in the war-wasted province.

The task force of Canadian troops assigned to pack and move the army's combat gear has completed its job and aside from a few clean-up details, the last soldiers will be out of the southern region by Dec. 12

We fought for 5 years in the worst part of the country, the heart and spiritual birthplace of the Taliban. It seemed at times we were there alone. Us being there gave the US more of a chance to focus on Iraq with their surge. Without us there, the way both wars went and are going may have been very different. We didn't defeat the Taliban, hell we only had a small force there, but we did hold them in check and helped pacify large parts of the region, the most violent and bloody part of the country for those 5 years. We lost a total of 158 soldiers during this war so far. I know that doesn't seem like a large number to some but when you put it into context, we only have a military of about 75 thousand in total and we only kept about 1500 troops in Kandahar at any time. That's a very small number and we were engaged in direct combat with the Taliban for those five years. I have friends who have done 5 tours there. Also, we actually lost very few of those 158 to direct enemy fire. Most were lost through IEDs.

So what's your picks ATS? What do you deem the most important stories of 2011?

Well, its still 2011. There is still time for something else to happen.

For me, it was probably OWS. without being near one, All I have are the various sources from the internet.

And I'm still on the fence as to what it actually is for.

Biggest news story/conspiracy to me: The obvious fake killing of Osama Bin Laden .. and subsequent dumping of the evidence in the middle of the night off the deck of an aircraft carrier.

reply to post by calnorak


I know it isn't over yet, hence this part of my post...

The years not over yet though and as the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 showed, bad( and good ) stuff can happen at anytime.

Thank you for replying though and yes, OWS was and is a huge story this year..

Great idea.


My vote is on the end of deployments to Iraq.
They say the war is over, but for many of us it never will be.

Mine is Clinton calling an emergency meeting of all ambassadors back in the US. What was that all about eh?

All the confusion surrounding the destruction of Fukushima reactors, the greedy officials, the misinfo and disinfo of the amounts of radiation and where it's going. (And ongoing.)

www.naturalnews.com...

reply to post by Rockpuck


I figure that would be many peoples choices and it is one of my top picks for the year. The circumstances surrounding it all are very odd, and I am with you. I am not sure that it was OBL that died that night or got tossed over the side into the Arabian Sea.

Have to say the BS that the Japanese gov't threw at it's people, I lost much respect regarding their ethics.


Jim Stone Journalism

NEW INFO: Japan offered to enrich uranium for IRAN!

HERE ARE THE LINKS: Ynet news... Inside Japan News Network...The New American...Rianovosti news...Hindustan Times...Zee News

AND FOUR MONTHS LATER, THE DIMONA DOZEN SHOWED UP WITH A REALLY FANCY CAMERA!!

This report uses classified leaked high resolution photos of the destruction of Fukushima originally posted on Pink Tentacle to support its claims.

and more so...

I thought the end of the Shuttle Program was fairly epic.

Originally posted by Saucerwench
All the confusion surrounding the destruction of Fukushima reactors, the greedy officials, the misinfo and disinfo of the amounts of radiation and where it's going. (And ongoing.)

www.naturalnews.com...

edit on 18-12-2011 by Saucerwench because: add

That would be my choice too,including the devastation caused by tsunami and lives lost,but,IMO,that has been lost and forgotten,sad to say.

reply to post by kdog1982


I did find that yahoo news listed it as #2 on the list.

Japan is earthquake country. The archipelago nation sits on the junction of four plates: the Pacific and Philippine plates to the east and the North American and Eurasian plates to the west. Its worst temblor, the Great Kanto Earthquake, hit in 1923 and left 143,000 dead. Memories of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, which killed more than 5,200, are more recent. Japan's vulnerability has brought about extensive disaster plans and sophisticated earthquake-prediction technology. It was therefore that much more terrifying that a nation as prepared as Japan lost swaths of land to roaring tsunamis and raging fires. A 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck the Tohoku region on March 11. It was more powerful than Hanshin or Kanto, and 900 times greater than the January 2010 tremor that devastated Haiti. It rattled the planet on its axis and shifted parts of Japan's main island 3 to 16 feet. Then came the waves, at times 30 feet high and sweeping 6 miles inland, tearing towns apart and pulling them into the ocean. Tsunami warnings went out to 50 countries and territories, including the United States.

yearinreview.yahoo.com...-earthquake-and-tsunami

And still ongoing,with the details here on ATS.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Well, my top 2 have already been listed (The blatent and obvious hoax of the US killing bin Laden and providing ZERO evidence to support it combined with the idiocy of the masses shown actually believing that bowl of horse crap was vanilla ice cream would be Number 1. Number 2 is Fukushima.). I'll run down a slightly different path and say the US' clandestine war on Libya and the subsequent US financed and supported Al Qaida assassination of Kaddafi. What did Kaddafi know that the administration went to such lengths to eliminate and silence him about?

Kim Jong's Death.

It's still breaking news though ....

Originally posted by burdman30ott6
Well, my top 2 have already been listed (The blatent and obvious hoax of the US killing bin Laden and providing ZERO evidence to support it combined with the idiocy of the masses shown actually believing that bowl of horse crap was vanilla ice cream would be Number 1. Number 2 is Fukushima.). I'll run down a slightly different path and say the US' clandestine war on Libya and the subsequent US financed and supported Al Qaida assassination of Kaddafi. What did Kaddafi know that the administration went to such lengths to eliminate and silence him about?

YEA! what you said...

Really, that was well said!!

My top conspiracy story involves the assasination attempt on Congress woman Giffords, the "accidental" death of the lobbyist in WashintonDC...don't recall her name now, but she died in her SUV backing out of the garage... it caught fire, she died...while her family slept inside,...and the death of the former Clinton NASA advisor whose body was found in a dumpster in NJ.

All three had ties to NASA... all three dealth with NASA budgets... all three had ties to DUKE Energy.. and were thus involved at some level with the Duke-Progressive Energy merger...( which was recently declined)...

Being involved with monies and budgets at NASA and Duke Energy... they would have known about the experimental drones being developed...using experimental power sources... and flying from a new airfield in Tennessee

The kind of drones that can fly almost indefinitely... like the kind that are coming into use over the USA for surveillance and law enforcement

I am not sure of the central truth here, but there sure is a lot going on and too many coincidences and too much money to be had

OWS for certain. It's an historical event that highlighted people from all walks of life banding together to protest the economic disparities of the people who are supposed to be helping the public but who instead have ripped them off at every turn.

OWS and all of its' incarnations is not over by a long shot and will likely be my favorite story in 2012 as well...should the world fail to end...

reply to post by MemoryShock


I'll be surprised if the OWS story isn't in the top 3 choices for members. Saying that though, there are many, many other stories that are, imo, equally important.

Appreciate the response.

Although it has yet to happen it seems to me that before months end the death of the pope will be at the top of this list.