Spy Images Reveal Iran’s “Secret Missile Site”

Spy Images Reveal Iran’s “Secret Missile Site”: ”

Times Online:

The secret site where Iran is suspected of developing long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching targets in Europe has been uncovered by new satellite photographs.

The imagery has pinpointed the facility from where the Iranians launched their Kavoshgar 1 ‘research rocket’ on February 4, claiming that it was in connection with their space programme.

Analysis of the photographs taken by the Digital Globe QuickBird satellite four days after the launch has revealed a number of intriguing features that indicate to experts that it is the same site where Iran is focusing its efforts on developing a ballistic missile with a range of about 6,000km (4,000 miles).

A previously unknown missile location, the site, about 230km southeast of Tehran, and the link with Iran’s long-range programme, was revealed by Jane’s Intelligence Review after a study of the imagery by a former Iraq weapons inspector. A close examination of the photographs has indicated that the Iranians are following the same path as North Korea, pursuing a space programme that enables Tehran to acquire expertise in long-range missile technology.

Geoffrey Forden, a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that there was a recently constructed building on the site, about 40 metres in length, which was similar in form and size to the Taepodong long-range missile assembly facility in North Korea.

Avital Johanan, the editor of Jane’s Proliferation, said that the analysis of the Iranian site indicated that Tehran may be about five years away from developing a 6,000km ballistic missile. This would tie in with American intelligence estimates and underlines why President Bush wants the Polish and Czech components of the US missile defence system to be up and running by 2013.

The Czech Republic has now agreed to have a special radar system on its soil and the Polish Government is still negotiating with Washington over the American request to site ten interceptor missiles in Poland.

The Kavoshgar 1 rocket that was launched in the presence of President Ahmadinejad of Iran was based on the Shahab 3B missile, a version of the North Korean Nodong liquid-propellant missile.

Dr Forden said that the Kavoshgar launch did not demonstrate any significant advances in ballistic missile technology. ‘But it does reveal the likely future development of Iran’s missile programme,’ he said.

At a meeting on February 25 between the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Iranians, UN inspectors confronted them with evidence of design studies for mounting nuclear warheads on long-range missiles. The Iranians denied any such aspirations.

However, according to Jane’s Intelligence Review, the satellite photographs prove that the Kavoshgar 1 rocket was not part of a civilian space centre project but was consistent with Iran’s clandestine programme to develop longer-range missiles.

The examination of the launch site revealed that it was part of a large and growing complex ‘with very high levels of security and recent construction activity’. It was clearly ‘an important strategic facility’, Dr Forden said.

The former Iraq weapons inspector said that Iran was benefiting from the North Korean missile programme and following its designs. The Taepodong 1 consisted of a liquid-propellant Nodong (like the Shahab 3) first stage, a liquid-propellant Scud second stage and a solid-propellant third stage.

‘The production and testing facility next to the Kavoshgar 1 launch site would seem well positioned to contribute to this third stage,’ Dr Forden said.

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Beware of Imposters

Beware of Imposters: ”

I received this as an e-mail today. I thought it was very funny.

Seeing as I live in the UK, I take it this has already done the rounds in the States. If so, I apologise for rehashing old jokes.

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(Via avideditor’s shared items in Google Reader.)</

Iran: Top Shia cleric says unveiled women turn men into beasts

Iran: Top Shia cleric says unveiled women turn men into beasts: ”

In other words, the uncovered meat is the source of all evil.

Mashad, 10 April (AKI) – A top Shia cleric in Iran has said that unveiled women are a serious danger to Iranian society as they cause men to be ‘transformed into beasts’.

‘Women without the veil are a danger that the authorities underestimate,’ said Hojatolislam Seyyed Ahmad Elmalhoda, a powerful cleric who leads the Friday prayers in Mashad, a site considered sacred for Shia Muslims as it houses the shrine of Imam Reza.

‘This situation is very serious in that if men see these bad women, they will turn into beasts, and then the whole of society will have to pay the consequences.’

According to the Shia cleric, women who do not respect conservative Islamic dress rules are ’sources of all that is bad in society.’

More…

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Indonesian Government Censoring Web Access – Yahoo Helping?

Indonesian Government Censoring Web Access – Yahoo Helping?: ”

Just received a very troubling email from a reader in Jakarta, Indonesia (confirmed with a trace), where the government is apparently trying to block web sites that have posted Geert Wilders’ Fitna video.

The Indonesian authorities have put the clampers on several sites like YouTube over the Fitna movie, this morning your blog and several others critical of this censorship have been shut down.

Now the freaky thing is I think they are also able to block Yahoo email inboxes, I regularly communicated with one of the shut down blogs using one of my Yahoo accounts, I received an email linking to an article criticising the censorship yesterday today I cannot access my email, in other Yahoo accounts there is no problem.

Can you find out if Yahoo is assisting the Indonesian government in this censorship?

I’m accessing your site via Babelfish. I’m in Jakarta now and I need to know if the government has access to my Yahoo email.

I don’t know if Yahoo is helping the Indonesian Islamists do this, but unfortunately there’s a lot of precedent with both Yahoo and Google of knuckling under to demands from totalitarians.

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(Via avideditor’s shared items in Google Reader.)</

Free Speech in the Age of Jihad

Free Speech in the Age of Jihad: ”

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center for Law and Counterterrorism and the New Criterion co-hosted a conference in New York on Free Speech in an Age of Jihad. At the event were a number of Jawa regulars: Ezra Levant, Robert Spencer, Stanley Kurtz, Steven Emerson, Ibn Warraq, Andrew C. McCarthy, and Mark Steyn.

Pamela from Atlas Shrugs was liveblogging the event with pictures and should have video up soon.

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(Via avideditor’s shared items in Google Reader.)</

Shin Bet Thwarts Mass Poisoning Of Israeli Restaurant Patrons

Shin Bet Thwarts Mass Poisoning Of Israeli Restaurant Patrons: “

The jihadists will do anything …anything to kill Jews. Shin Bet uncovered a plot by two palestinians illegals working at an Israeli restaurant to lace a number of dishes with an odorless, tasteless toxin. There were also plans to bring a suicide bomber into the area. Here’s some of the details from the report here at YNET:

The men, Eihab Abu Rial and Anas Salum, both 21-year-old residents of the West Bank city of Nablus, had planned to lace dishes served at the establishment with a powerful toxin without odor or taste, in the hopes of killing as many patrons as possible.
The two did not have working permits and were residing in Israel illegally. While in Nablus, they had been recruited to the al-Aqsa Martyr’s Bridges, the military wing of Fatah, under the guidance and funding of Hizbullah.

These are desperate times with jihadists pulling out all of the stops to kill Israelis and create terror and chaos. Hopefully, these two will give up much needed info on al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades leadership.

I’m afraid, there will come a day when there will flat out be too many of these types of attacks for the Israelis to uncover them all. As always, an example needs to be made of these plotters and the chain of command that brought them to this mission needs to be identified, located, confirmed and eradicated.

Shin Bet thwarts mass restaurant poisoning

The thwarting of an alarming terror plot was cleared for publication on Thursday, almost three weeks after a joint Shin Bet and police operation led to the arrest of two Palestinian employees of the ‘Grill Express’ restaurant in Ramat Gan.

The men were arrested by police investigators following information obtained by the Shin Bet, several
short days before they planned to carry out the attack.

Toxin was to come from West Bank
In their questioning the men told interrogators they were to receive the poison from two operatives in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus – Husseini Salag and Hani Quabi – who are still wanted by security forces.

The white substance is virtually undetectable and affects its victims approximately four hours after being ingested.

Salag, they said, also sought to use them to bring a suicide bomber across the border.
Defense officials say they are concerned Quabi continues to seek the means to carry out an attack in Israel using illegal Palestinian residents.

A similar incident occurred five and a half years ago in Jerusalem. At the time, three Arab residents of east Jerusalem were arrested before their plan to poison Israeli patrons at the Rimon Café in central Jerusalem could be realized. The three had also planned to carry out a suicide bombing during a right-wing demonstration. The cell had been found to operating under Hamas.

Some four years ago a Fatah cell was arrested in Qalqiliya, the group had been planning to detonate an explosive device encased in HIV-infected blood in a crowded Tel Aviv area.

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(Via avideditor’s shared items in Google Reader.)</

Rev. Wright: Keynote Speaker for NAACP Dinner

Rev. Wright: Keynote Speaker for NAACP Dinner: ”

The Detroit chapter of the NAACP has invited none other than the Reverend Jeremiah Wright to give the keynote address at the annual NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner: Guess who’s coming to town for dinner?

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(Via avideditor’s shared items in Google Reader.)</

OBAMA SLEEZE ALERT-SENATOR TO BREAK FIRST CAMPAIGN PROMISE

OBAMA SLEEZE ALERT-SENATOR TO BREAK FIRST CAMPAIGN PROMISE: “
We always remember our firsts, first day of college, first love, first day in a real job…etc. It looks as if the Junior Senator from Illinios the one that is running on a platform of changing the political landscape is about to celebrate a first–breaking his first presidential campaign promise. The Senator has said that if the Republican Candidate went the route of federal campaign financing he would also…but that was until he raised a ton of cash, because now he is not so sure:

Obama May Bypass Public Financing

MALVERN, Pa. — Barack Obama, whose fundraising prowess has set records, appears to be paving the way to bypass the public financing system in the fall without yet spelling out his intentions.

Last year, Obama indicated he would accept public funds if his Republican opponent did as well. But as John McCain takes steps to accept the $84 million available in federal money for the general election, Obama has been hedging.

This week, he appeared to be making a case that his broad base of small dollar donors is as egalitarian as the government’s public subsidy.

‘We have created a parallel public financing system where the American people decide if they want to support a campaign they can get on the Internet and finance it,’ he told donors at a Washington fundraiser Tuesday night. ‘And they will have as much access and influence over the course and direction of our campaign that has traditionally reserved for the wealthy and the powerful.’

Campaign communications director Robert Gibbs said Wednesday that Obama’s remarks were ‘not a policy statement.’ He said Obama merely was trying to underscore the grassroots nature of his fundraising.

But Obama’s point is an echo of an argument made privately by a number of Democratic strategists who believe that if he were to raise his own money in the general election, his base of nearly 1.3 million donors could easily deliver in excess of the amount available from the federal treasury.

While presidential candidates have rejected public financing in primaries, no major party candidate has bypassed the system in the general election since the program was created in the wake of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s.

At the same time, the invitation to Obama’s fundraiser Tuesday specifically asked donors to contribute money only to the primary election effort. Obama has raised more than $8 million for the general election, out of a total $234 million raised though the end of March.

‘Our focus has always been on primary money,’ Gibbs said.

McCain, meanwhile, has returned money he raised for the general and is taking steps to build up the Republican Party’s fundraising to assist him in the campaign.

Obama rival Hillary Rodham Clinton has raised nearly $22 million for the general election, out of a total of about $176 million. But Clinton has never suggested she would rely on public financing in the fall.

In response to a questionnaire in November from the Midwest Democracy Network, which is made up of nonpartisan government oversight groups, Obama said: ‘Senator John McCain has already pledged to accept this fundraising pledge. If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.’

‘Barack Obama publicly promised the American people that he would accept public financing if he is the nominee of his Party. Launching his campaign by going back on a promise to voters would be dishonest, and exposes his politics of hope as empty rhetoric out of a typical politician,’ McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.

Gibbs dismissed the criticism, noting that McCain is at an impasse with the Federal Election Commission regarding questions over a $4 million loan McCain obtained last year to help jump-start his campaign. The loan has been paid back and McCain and his lawyers have said they abided by campaign finance laws.

‘We’re not going to be lectured about public financing and campaign finance by somebody who the FEC believes serious questions have been raised about the conduct with which they have financed their campaign, questions that remain unanswered today,’ Gibbs said.

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Science, Bureaucracy and Global Warming-a Scary Combination

Science, Bureaucracy and Global Warming-a Scary Combination: “Science has learned so much throughout the last century but the one thing it hasn’t leaned is to recognize the extent of its hubris. Lets face it–scientists have enabled technological progress and at the same time has said, things ‘if God wanted man to fly he would have given us wings,’ or there is no market for anyone to ever want a computer in their homes. Today their hubris is telling us that the earth is warming…the ice caps are melting and we are heading to an Ice Age because of it–all this despite the fact that according to the UN Weather Forcast–Global Tempatures to FALL.

Last week candidate Barack Obama announced that, should he be elected he will invite former VP Al Gore to bring his ‘global warming money machine’ to his administration. Nothing could be scarier, a combination of Science, Bureaucracy and Global Warming–we see how well it has done with creating alternate energy–if there is a global warming problem, THAT particular combination will do little to solve it:

Vanities of the Warmists By Jon Caruthers

The conceit that scientists and bureaucrats can use the power the state to manage nature has lead to disaster in the past, and will again if the global warmists keep getting their way.

When Yellowstone National Park was first created, park officials believed they had to ‘save’ the native fauna as well as protect the visitors by killing off the native wolf population. This they did in grand form. Additionally, they noticed the yearly occurrences of wildfires which, according to the then ‘modern’ and ‘progressive’ thought of the day, should be stamped out at all cost.

The net result of these notions was that 110 years or so later half the park burned down. It turns out that without the wolves the ruminants ran wild and ate up the deciduous trees, leaving only the pine trees to go forth and multiply. Anyone who’s started a campfire knows what happens when you compound this with 110 years of pine needles and flotsam and jetsam — you end up with the perfect firestorm. This is nothing natural. This situation was created by us — by human intervention into a formerly pristine ecosystem that was supposedly ‘managed’ by the federal government – and the result was that half the park burned down.

Once again, on the issue of ‘global warming’ we’re faced with government control — in this case not of the national park system, but of the entire globe. The ‘progressives’ and their ‘grand thoughts’ of the age seek to ‘manage’ the globe in the same ‘modern’ way our ancestors ‘managed’ Yellowstone. Like our ancestors of yore, today’s environmentalists believe the government can control the environment better than Mother Nature can. Are we to suppose that the people who give us the DMV and the IRS are going to ‘manage’ the globe in the same efficient and benevolent manner? In the grand scheme of things are we supposed to believe that we humans are actually better than Mother Nature at ‘managing’ the global environment? For some reason, the enviro-nazis of the age seem to believe that Mother Nature is some kind of octogenarian Alzheimer’s patient and they’re the designated colostomy bag.

Take the great debate over the ‘Atlantic Conveyor Belt’ e.g. the Gulf Stream. Recent studies have shown that glacial melting from Greenland has created a massive pool of freshwater over the Gulf Stream that has disturbed the salinity of the Atlantic Ocean and is shutting down the Gulf Stream. Oh no, this must be a horrible event with calamitous consequences, right? According to the Ecopalyptics, if the Gulf Stream is shut down, Europe won’t receive its relatively warm currents that mean the difference between Shropshire and Winnepeg — which are roughly on the same latitude. As a result, Europe would be thrown into a new Ice Age, right? Actually no. It’s all about negative feedback. The earth is a stable system, if it weren’t life would have disappeared billions of years ago. It’s the negative feedback that makes life possible in the first place — if things get out of whack, there’s a system for getting them back to normality. If the Gulf Stream fades, Arctic winds will sink south and cover Greenland, thereby cooling the island and stopping the glacial melt — thus stopping the runaway insanity of the eco-warriors’ worst nightmares.

The part these people miss – in both their mathematical projections and in their current hysterical projections — is that Mother Nature is far craftier than we give her credit for. She’s not some old tottering Betty but rather a spry 40-something working mother with trillions of mouths to feed, and the last thing she needs is a bunch of second borne dysfunctional ‘Rebel Children’ raising hell and getting in her way. To paraphrase the great George Carlin: Think of the insults she (Mother Earth) has had to deal with over the billions of years of her existence – comets, asteroids, worldwide fires, worldwide floods, worldwide glaciations, magnetic reversal of the poles — and we’re to think that some SUVs and some plastic bags are going to make a difference? Mother Nature has had to deal with far worse than us.

Let’s look at those mathematical models that all seem to claim that by mid-century we’re going to be living through climactic hell for a minute. As we know, the climate is a chaotic system — meaning that even minor variations in the starting conditions can drastically affect the outcome of the model. This is known as the ‘Butterfly Effect’ with the observation that according to the models, a minor and completely unpredictable perturbation like a butterfly flapping its wings in Rio de Janeiro can bring sunshine instead of rain as an outcome on a given day in London. As a result, these models tend to break down over time, wildly diverging in their final result because of this effect. This is the reason why meteorologists can’t reliably forecast the weather beyond seven days. The farther out you want to forecast — reliably — the more certain you need to be about the initial conditions, and the more certain you need to be about the variables of your equation.

As for those initial conditions, if we’re talking about global warming from greenhouse gasses, we need to know something about those gasses — how much of each type are produced, and how much of each type are consumed, in a given year. The production of man-made greenhouse gasses is easily, though tediously, quantified. The amount produced naturally is another story. In January, for instance, the Kilauea volcano started producing greenhouse gasses at an alarming rate, and for no apparent reason. One can estimate the amount of such gasses produced, but again, these ‘assumptions’ are what invalidates the mathematical models, as you need absolute accuracy to forecast reliably.

Despite what the ‘experts’ may say, consumption, as described above, is completely unknown. Look into the field of metagenomics. Scientists discovered that if they sampled sand from one area of a beach near Torrey Pines, they discovered literally hundreds of thousands of new species of organisms. Even more surprising, if they moved the probe one meter right or left they discovered hundreds of thousands more species as unrelated to the original crop as we are to the original crop. In short, we have no idea — not even remotely — of the number of species on the planet, and how many of those are consuming greenhouse gasses, and how many are producing the stuff. Since we have no idea of how much of a given gas is being consumed or produced, the estimates going into those models are only that — estimates — and eat away at the efficacy of the model (as again, it’s all about accuracy).

Now for the second part — the variables. The big fallacy of these climate models is twofold: Le Chatelier’s Principle and evolution. The first can be summed up by the Predator-Prey equation: whether it’s lions on the Serengeti or bacteria in a Petri dish, the idea is that the more prey you pump into a system — either in the above examples, wildebeest or yeast extract and milk proteins — the more predators you’ll produce. In terms of the globe, the entire plant kingdom, as well as a good portion of the uni-cellular world, consumes greenhouse gasses to some degree (and again, we have no idea to what degree).

What is known, however, is that if you put more greenhouse gasses into the system — the globe — the more these organisms will consume until equilibrium is reached. The rate of which is a complete unknown. We don’t have any idea of the number of species on the planet, so how can we know anything of their metabolisms and the resulting impact on the environment?

Further, the reproduction of a single-celled diatom or algae is significantly shorter than ours (20 minutes in the best of circumstances). This means they experience evolution on a vastly accelerated scale, and that if the world has an increased level of greenhouse gasses, the organisms that consume the majority of them will react the fastest to the increase, modifying their genomes to become more efficient in their consumption. Again, there’s no way to even begin to account for this variable, so the modelers conveniently ignore its contribution.

The result is that we’re trying to base policy on flawed models that are no better than ancient shamans reading tea leaves. The enviro-nazis are no better than the medicine man of lineage ancient during a lunar eclipse who could claim that the great night spirit was eating the moon goddess, and if only the tribal elders would hand over the virgins he’d perform his incantations and make him spit her out again.

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Facing the Truth About Jihadist Violence

Facing the Truth About Jihadist Violence: “They emphatically cite the Koran.”

The global jihad is unpleasant. Consequently Fitna, the controversial new film about the Koran and jihadist violence produced by the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, is also unpleasant. Parts of it are graphic and violent, and you might find it difficult to watch.

But watch it you should (you can readily access it online), if only to remind yourself of two things the media are
Jihadists are waging a bloody and barbaric war, and they are waging it with explicit reference to their religion.
generally too intimidated or politically correct to dwell on: jihadists are waging a bloody and barbaric war, and they are waging it with explicit reference to their religion.

Wilders’s 16-minute film intersperses quotations from the Koran with scenes of Islamist atrocities, such as the Al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Madrid, the beheading of Nick Berg, and the “honor killing” of women. To drive home the point that such horrors are committed in the name of Islam by fervent Muslims, Fitna includes footage of Islamic preachers exhorting their followers to crush the infidels and win the world for Allah. (“Throats must be slit and skulls must be shattered,” urges one. “This is the path to victory.”) There are also clips indicating how pervasive such hateful indoctrination can be: In a scene aired on Saudi TV, a 3-year-old girl repeats what she has been taught: that according to the Koran, Jews are apes and pigs.

Yet, what has been controversial about Fitna is not the abhorrent behavior it depicts, but that Wilders links such behavior to the Koran. Why that should be so notorious is unclear – after all, the jihadists themselves emphatically cite the Koran to justify their violence.

Nevertheless, Fitna has been widely condemned. The Dutch prime minister issued statements in Dutch and English saying the film “serves no other purpose than to cause offense.” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pronounced it “offensively anti-Islamic.” The European Union’s Slovenian presidency blasted it for “inflaming hatred.” Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith described it as “an obvious attempt to generate discord between faith communities.”

There were denunciations aplenty, of course, from the Muslim world as well. Reuters reported that Iran’s foreign ministry labeled the film “heinous, blasphemous, and anti-Islamic,” while the Indonesian government declared it “an insult to Islam.” In Jordan, 53 members of parliament demanded the expulsion of the Dutch ambassador. The Organization of the Islamic Conference denounced Fitna as “a deliberate act of discrimination against Muslims” meant to “provoke unrest and intolerance.”

Granted, there is nothing subtle about Wilders’s film. Anyone who didn’t know better might think after watching it that Islam is irredeemably violent, or that all Muslims seethe with religious hatred. Neither is true. “Like all great religions,” the scholar Daniel Pipes has written, “Islam is subject to a number of interpretations, from the mystical to the militant, from the quietist to the revolutionary…. The terroristic jihad against the West is one reading of Islam, but it is not the eternal essence of Islam.” Zealots who insist that Islam itself is the enemy condemn us, in effect, to a war without end. They also betray the anti-Islamist moderates of the Muslim world, who are as repelled by the fanatics as non-Muslims are.

Still, it isn’t as though Wilders had to invent anything. The violence Fitna portrays is horribly real, and the fanatics who commit it are explicit in saying they do so as Muslims. Where is the Islamic world’s outrage against that? When has Iran’s foreign ministry ever excoriated the beheading of a hostage, or the poisonous sermon of a jihadist imam, as “heinous, blasphemous and anti-Islamic”? How often has the Organization of the Islamic Conference
They ostentatiously deplored Wilders’s exercise of free speech instead of defending it.
thundered its disapproval of “honor killings” or Islamist anti-Semitism? When Theo van Gogh was murdered in public, when the Taliban turned Afghanistan into a repressive terror state, when fatwas were issued for the murder of Danish cartoonists – where was the chorus of Muslim anguish then?

Nor is Fitna, whatever its flaws, as dangerously misguided as the eagerness with which Western governments rushed to denounce it. Panicked at the prospect of Islamist violence, desperate to appease extremists who respond to “insults” with mobs and mayhem, they ostentatiously deplored Wilders’s exercise of free speech instead of defending it. They would never have reacted that way to a film that criticized Christianity or the United States or European tradition – and the Islamists know it.

Cringing before bullies is not the way to defend Western civilization. There is room for Fitna in the marketplace of ideas. Heaven help us if we are too timorous to say so.

This article first appeared in the Boston Globe on Wednesday, April 2, 2008.

Muslims Leaving Islam In Droves

Muslims Leaving Islam In Droves: ”

Related Video Here

PJ Media:

Pope Benedict’s choice to publicly baptize the most prominent Muslim in Italy, Egyptian-born Magdi Allam, highlights a quiet worldwide exodus from Islam. In recent years, millions have moved on. With this high-profile action, Pope Benedict demonstratively blesses this massive conversion from the highest levels of the Church.

Interviewed by al-Jazeera in 2006, Ahmad al-Qataani, leader of the Companions Lighthouse for the Science of Islamic Law in Libya, explains the decline:

Islam used to represent … Africa’s main religion and there were 30 African languages that used to be written in Arabic script. The number of Muslims in Africa has diminished to 316 million, half of whom are Arabs in North Africa. So in the section of Africa that we are talking about, the non-Arab section, the number of Muslims does not exceed 150 million people. When we realize that the entire population of Africa is one billion people, we see that the number of Muslims has diminished greatly from what it was in the beginning of the last century.

On the other hand, the number of Catholics has increased from one million in 1902 to 329 million 882 thousand (329,882,000). Let us round off that number to 330 million in the year 2000.

As to how that happened, well there are now 1.5 million churches whose congregations account for 46 million people. In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. These numbers are very large indeed.

Allam’s public baptism came just ten days after the body of Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, Iraq, was found in a shallow grave after being kidnapped by al-Qaeda February 29. The ceremony came just three days after an al-Qaeda tape threatening the pope and condemning cartoons of Mohammed. Muslims who convert to other religions or abandon religion entirely are subject to a standing order of death for apostasy. The baptism of Allam is an act of defiance in the face of Islamic threats.

The baptism of Allam also comes in the midst of papal ‘dialogue’ with Muslims. The dialogue began unpromisingly with the catcalls from Islam and its secularist allies which greeted the now-famous September 20, 2006, papal address at the University of Regensburg. In October, 138 Islamic leaders presented the pope with ‘A Common Word Between Us and You’ — nailed by critics as a craftily written call for conversion. On March 4, Pope Benedict approved formation of a permanent ‘Catholic-Muslim forum’ scheduled to meet in November. And now he has thrown his own call for conversion into the discussion. Islam’s secularist allies were quick to echo Muslims, calling the baptism ‘provocative.’ While accepting the Islamic death penalty for apostasy as a given, they complain the pope’s action could set back dialogue.

While the secularists wring their hands, Allam writes that his mind ‘has been freed from the obscurantism of an ideology that legitimizes lies and deception, violent death that leads to homicide and suicide, blind submission to tyranny, permitting me to join the authentic religion of Truth, Life, and Liberty. … I realize what I am going up against but I will confront my fate with my head high, with my back straight, and the interior strength of one who is certain about his faith.’

Allam, author of numerous books and deputy editor of Milan’s Corriere della Sera, joins a list of converts from Islam which includes many other public intellectuals and millions of average people from all over the world. This is more than the normal flow between two large religious communities. Islam can point to little in the way of recent conversions. Its claim to be the world’s fastest-growing religion stems mostly from the high birth rate in Islamic countries, whose infant mortality rates have been cut by the introduction of Western medicine. Christian growth is based on adult conversion. As leading Christian evangelist Wolfgang Simpson writes, ‘More Muslims have come to Christ in the last two decades than in all of history.’

Although al-Qataani points to Africa, there is another phenomenon based on repulsion from Islamist dictatorship, corruption, and terrorist violence. In Iran as many as 1 million people have surreptitiously converted to Evangelical Christianity in the last five years. Pastor Hormoz Shariat claims to have converted 50,000 of them through his U.S.-based Farsi-language satellite ministry. He contrasts the upswing to the efforts of evangelical missionaries in Iran between 1830 and 1979, whose 149 years of work built a Christian community of only 3,000. One Iranian religious scholar believes youth are abandoning Islam because it is identified with the corrupt Iranian government. Now the Iranian Majlis (parliament) is debating the death penalty for conversion.

After years of al-Qaeda war on Iraq, a similar phenomenon is growing. The New York Times March 4 reports: ‘After almost five years of war, many young people in Iraq, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.’ A high school girl tells Times reporters: ‘I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us. Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers.’ A 19-year-old man says: ‘The religion men are liars. Young people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore.’ A Baghdad law professor explains that her students ‘have changed their views about religion. They started to hate religious men. They make jokes about them because they feel disgusted by them.’ A 24-year-old female college student says, ‘I used to love Osama bin Laden. Now I hate Islam. Al-Qaeda and the Mahdi Army are spreading hatred. People are being killed for nothing.’

In southern Russia the same pattern is emerging. According to Roman Silantyev, executive secretary of the Inter-religious Council in Russia, freed from atheist control, two million Muslims converted to Christianity. Repulsed by bloody terrorist attacks, those living in areas such as Beslan have converted to Christianity in the greatest numbers of all. As many as 100,000 have converted to Christianity in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan.

After decades of Islamist war, evangelicals report thousands of sub-rosa converts in rural areas of Kashmir. Says one churchgoer: ‘I am interested in this religion. I hate violence. I hate fundamentalists in Islam. I come here to seek peace.’ An Indian newspaper headline reads: ‘Urban Muslim Youth Out to Junk Faith.’

Following decades of terrorist rule, Palestinians are being quietly converted, holding in-home services to avoid detection. Says one evangelist: ‘I’ve been working among these people for thirty years, and I promise you I’ve never seen anything like this.’

Islam is also losing adherents in areas where Islamist harassment is heavy on the streets. The London Times estimates 15% of Muslims living in Western Europe have left Islam — 200,000 in the UK alone. Those who leave often face harassment, threats, and attack.

The mufti of Perak, Malaysia, estimates about 250,000 people have abandoned Islam, making formal application for apostasy to the state — a right allowed to Malaysian citizens who are not ethnic Malays. Says he: ‘This figure does not include individuals who don’t do solat, doesn’t fast and breaks [sic] all the tenets of Islam.’ Borrowing from the communist playbook, Malaysia operates ‘reeducation camps’ for any ethnic Malay found guilty of apostasy. Unsurprisingly, ethnic Malays are at the bottom of the economic ladder in Malaysia.

In a letter published in Corriere della Sera on Easter Day, Allam points out the pope ‘sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a church that until now has been too cautious in the conversion of Muslims … because of the fear of being unable to protect the converted who are condemned to death for apostasy.

‘Thousands of people in Italy have converted to Islam and practice their faith serenely. But there are also thousands of Muslims who have converted to Christianity who are forced to hide their new faith out of fear of being killed by Islamist terrorists.’

Allam describes Islam as a system for taking and holding power. Threat of violence is its enforcement mechanism. Allam also points out: ‘Beyond … the phenomenon of extremists and Islamist terrorism at the global level, the root of evil is inherent to a physiologically violent and historically conflictual Islam.’ So it is not coincidental that Muslims are abandoning the faith as U.S. and coalition soldiers smash al-Qaeda in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Islamist terrorists and street thugs are beginning to look impotent.

Appeasement-oriented opinion explains Islamic violence as a response to Western policy. For them, reality is incomprehensible. But in a 1998 ABC News interview with John Miller, Osama bin Laden explained his motivation: Allah had given the jihadis victory over one superpower (the USSR) and Allah would grant them victory over the other. But a decade later it is not coming to pass on the battlefield. The defeat of the Islamists puts the lie to the claim that Allah will cause the infidels to desire submission. As a result, the Islamists’ ability to intimidate their captive populations is weakened. More and more it is Muslims who no longer desire submission to Islam.

“

(Via avideditor’s shared items in Google Reader.)</

Geert Wilders Editing Fitna – Stay Tuned

Geert Wilders Editing Fitna – Stay Tuned: ”

No ‘Fair-Use’?
Shrug…maybe not under Dutch law.

LiveLeak statement

This media item has been removed by the uploader!
Reason from user ‘Geert_Wilders’: ‘deleted due to copyright issues…will upload edited version shortly…’

Dutch Lawmaker to Edit Anti-Quran Film

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) – A Dutch lawmaker whose anti-Quran film drew worldwide condemnations will edit out a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad after complaints of copyright infringement, his office said Monday.
Geert Wilders used the cartoon by Danish artist Kurt Westergaard twice in the film ‘Fitna.’ The drawing, which depicts Islam’s prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban with a lit fuse, provoked violent protests in Muslim countries when it was published by European newspapers two years ago.

The Danish Union of Journalists has said it would sue Wilders for copyright infringement.

Wilders’ spokeswoman Daphne Rozenboom said in an e-mail that Wilders would replace the cartoon and make other minor edits. She could not give details on how Wilders would change a film that has been dispersed widely over the Internet and downloaded millions of times since its release late Thursday.

In Denmark, Westergaard said he was happy with Wilders’ decision and believed the lawsuit would be dropped.

He added that Wilders might have won his permission to use the cartoon if he had asked.

‘I don’t want my drawing to be used in something that I don’t know anything about. Had Mr. Wilders contacted me, we could have talked together and I could have found out what he wanted with the drawing,’ he said.

The 15-minute film showed verses from the Quran juxtaposed with scenes of violence and terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists.

It led to protests in Pakistan and drew condemnations from Muslim countries and politicians around the world. The Dutch government also denounced the film, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called it ‘offensively anti-Islamic.’ = TRUTH

About 40 hard-line Muslims demonstrated outside the Dutch Embassy in Indonesia in a protest that began Monday and continued Tuesday, calling for Wilders’ death. The protesters from Islamic Defenders Front – a small group that has occasionally staged violent protests against Western targets – threw plastic bottles and eggs at the compound before dispersing.

Malaysia’s Islamic opposition party delivered a protest note to the Dutch Embassy and urged Muslims worldwide to boycott Dutch products.

In Kuala Lumpur, a supermarket chain marked Dutch products with red labels, giving customers the option of boycotting them.

Ameer Ali Mydin, managing director of Mydin Mohamed Holdings Bhd., told The Associated Press on Tuesday that 40 of his stores would take part in the nationwide campaign.

‘I think as a Muslim, we have to take a stand,’ he said.

Mydin buys $18.8 million worth of Dutch goods a year, from dairy and cosmetics to electronics.

Wilders, whose party holds nine seats in the 150-member Dutch parliament, said the film was intended to warn the West of the dangers posed by Islam.

On Monday, Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen met with ambassadors of countries belonging to the Organization of the Islamic Conference to assure them the film ‘in no way reflects the opinion of the Dutch government,’ spokesman Rob Dekker said.

He said the diplomats inquired whether Wilders would be prosecuted for violating hate speech laws. Prosecutors have said they have not yet decided whether to take action.

<— Slimey Dutch Islamic Federation attorney Ejder Kose.

_{Dutch Islamic Federation lawyer Ejder Kose adresses the media outside the courtroom in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Friday, March 28, 2008. A court in Rotterdam said it would deliver its decision on April 7 on a petition by the Dutch Islamic Federation seeking to gag Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders and order him to publicize an apology for his anti-Quran film.’My clients are not attacking freedom of speech. This is about ending the unjustified insulting of Islam,’ said lawyer Ejder Kose. Wilders’ lawyer Serge Vlaar countered that the federation ‘wants to ban a point of view. (AP Photo/ Fred Ernst)}

Free speech is a fine concept as long as you do not speak out against Islam. So feel free to say as you please but be good little dhimmis and do not tell the truth about Islam.
The ‘Dutch Islamic Federation’ has no website that I can find. Anyone know of one?

Complaint lodged against Wilders’ film

Thursday 27 March 2008

A lawyer from Lelystad has lodged a police complaint against Dutch MP Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam film which was released on the internet on Thursday evening, reports ANP news service.

Els Lucas made the complaint on Thursday evening, claiming the leader of the anti-immigration PVV party breaks the law by creating a link between the number of Muslims and the increase in violence in society. That is the point twit!

She believes the film Fitna incites discrimination and violence (from arrogant barbarians), reports ANP. ‘I have lodged a complaint because I do not believe this contributes to a peaceful society,’ she told ANP.

© DutchNews.nl

Neither does Islam but why nit pick… /sarc

Dutch Gov’t Repudiates Koran Film

By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
March 28, 2008

(CNSNews.com) – Bracing for reaction, the Dutch government late Thursday distanced itself from a lawmaker’s newly released film linking the Koran to violence and terrorism, saying the problem was ‘not religion, but the misuse of religion to sow hatred and intolerance.’

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, whose government earlier urged Geert Wilders not to release the provocative film, said he rejected its equation of Islam with violence. [eye roll] The film was posted on the Internet on Thursday (see related story).

‘The vast majority of Muslims reject extremism and violence,’ Balkenende said in a statement read during a press conference. ‘In fact, the victims are often also Muslims.

‘We therefore regret that Mr. Wilders has released this film. We believe it serves no purpose other than to cause offence. But feeling offended must never be used as an excuse for aggression and threats.’

Wilders late last month accused the prime minister of cowardice, saying he appeared to be so fearful of the consequences of the film that was willing to capitulate, rather than defend democratic freedoms.

On Thursday, he conceded that Muslims may be unhappy with his film, and said he hoped it would not spark disturbances.

Radio Netherlands quoted him as saying the film was not intended to provoke disruption, but to make clear the dangers, and he hoped it would lead to debate in the Netherlands and elsewhere.

Wilders is the leader of the Freedom Party, a small right-wing party he formed in 2004 under the slogan ‘Stop the Islamization of the Netherlands.’ It holds nine seats in the 150-member Dutch parliament, the Tweede Kamer.

Wilders has lived with security protection since the 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was targeted for making a documentary about the treatment of women under Islam.

Dutch security officials this month raised the national risk level to ‘substantial’ and Dutch embassies have been circulating statements on the government’s view of the film, amid concerns about a possible backlash against Dutch nationals and business interests. Place the blame where it belongs!

The Dutch Council of Churches Thursday called the film a ‘caricature’ of Islam, and a Dutch lawyer, Els Lucas, lodged a legal complaint against Wilders, accusing him of inciting violence and discrimination. Lucas has in the past filed complaints against Wilders, charging that his stance on Islam violates Dutch law.

In a separate legal challenge, a Dutch court Friday is due to consider a petition, brought by the country’s Islamic Federation before the film’s release, asking whether the material breaches hate-speech laws. Hate speech (sharia law) laws put in place for Muslims

Early reactions among Dutch Muslims to the film’s release reportedly were muted.

When the film went online, it was late at night or early Friday morning in large parts of the Islamic world — including Pakistan and Indonesia, where protests against the film took place earlier.

The Web sites of many major newspapers in the Middle East and South Asia were slow to pick up the story, although leading Arabic television networks al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya on their English-language sites carried wire service reports on the release of the film.

There was no immediate reaction from key Islamic bodies such as the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which has been leading a drive to have the ‘defamation’ of Islam outlawed.

(Hours before the film was released, the U.N. Human Rights Council Click link to read statement of dhimmi cow ‘UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour < – Example of her dhimmified hypocrisy here. in Geneva passed a resolution, proposed by Islamic states, urging governments to prohibit the defamation of religions, and expressing ‘deep concern at attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations.’ For God’s sake! Islam is terrorism, violence and riddled with human rights violations. Under islamic (sharia) law! The vote was 21-10, with European countries and Canada leading the opposition.) Note free societies opposed this attempt to enforce sharia law across the globe.

Reaction may be forthcoming this weekend from the Arab League, which begins a summit in Damascus. Some key leaders are staying away because of Lebanon’s drawn-out political crisis, but the Koran film’s release could provide the participants with an issue to rally round.

The Arab European League (AEL), a Belgium-based party, accused Wilders of collaborating with ‘Zionists’ to make the movie.

‘His political agenda and his attacks against Islam and Muslims co[m]bined with his unconditional support to the Zionist project in occupied Palestine is welcomed and supported by the majority in the Zionist camp.’

The AEL was founded in 2000 by a Lebanese-born political activist. Recent postings on its Web site praise the assassinated Hizballah terror chief Imad Mughniyah, and call last month’s murder of eight Israeli religious students ‘a heroic attack,’ congratulating the ‘resistance martyrs’ responsible. Oh but that is ok?! Maggot!

‘Unfair translation’

Comments by Muslims carried on the Islam Online Web site reacting to the film’s release included accusations of Islamophobia, warnings of the fate awaiting ‘infidels,’ and allegations about ‘unfair’ translations of the Koran used in the film.

The film does not indicate what translation Wilders used.

Some Islamic scholars say that any translation of the Koran from the original Arabic is no longer the literal word of Allah. That is how they trick Non-muslims not fluent in Arabic.

A short film speaking the truth about Islam is offensive?
I’ll give them OFFENSIVE!

Protesters torch the Danish embassy in Lebanon in protest over the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.
They demand RESPECT by TORCHING a Danish Embassy!
Barbarians! Respect is earned!

This is the first I had heard of the impending sale of Westergaard’s original (Muhammad turban bomb.) drawing. I would love to have that for myself! Oh yeah! Anyone want to buy it for me, my BD is in June. lol Just playin’.

Muhammad ‘bomb’ cartoon for sale

A DANISH cartoonist whose drawing of the Prophet Muhammad sparked riots across the Muslim world wants to sell the original drawing ‘to make something out of a difficult situation’.

The small, ink cartoon is locked in a bank vault as Kurt Westergaard, 72, hides from Islamic militants who have vowed to kill him.

His drawing, featuring a bomb in the prophet’s turban, is by far the most famous of a dozen ‘Muhammad cartoons’ published three years ago by Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper for which Westergaard works.

It could command great interest at auction. But auction houses were voicing doubts about the wisdom of putting such a controversial item on sale.

‘It’s too hot to handle,’ said Franck Lombrail, an auctioneer in Paris. ‘It would represent a risk for the public at the sale.’

Flemming Rose, cultural editor of the Jyllands-Posten, called the cartoon ‘a great cultural icon of the 21st century’ and thought it was only fair for Westergaard to make money out of it.

Rose said that on a visit to the US last year, he had autographed posters of the cartoon collection, which had sold for £500 ($1079) each.

One option might be to put the cartoon up for sale on the internet.

The Indonesian Government is strong arming YouTube. How shocking! Not.

Indonesia Gives Ultimatum to YouTube: Remove Fitna or We Will Block Access – Doctor Bulldog & Ronin

Islam is such a lovely way of life. Freedom is the cornerstone. No thought police. No facisim. Everyone should give slavery under Islam a whirl. You will no longer have to think for yourselves. Sharia will do it for you. How freeing is that! Whoopie! /sarc

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
- Winston Churchill

Related:
The Audacity of Hypocrisy
Islam 101
Bowing and Scraping Like Good Little Dhimmis
LiveLeak Pulls Fitna: ‘Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature’
Fitna has arrived!
Imagine…
Video: Geert Wilders Interview on Danish Television
Fitna? or No Fitna?
UAC Documentary ‘An Inconvenient Religion’
It’s in the Qur’an…
Another Anti-Islam Film in the Wings
Do As We Say, Not As We Do…
Mo’s Dog Days of Summer
Mo Cat Got Your Tongue
mo cat protests
‘Bloody Cartoons’
No More Tantrums
Feeding Frenzy
Still Waters Run Deep
‘Above all else, the Devil cannot stand to be mocked.’
The Muslim Ego is Writing Checks It’s Reputation Can Not Cash
Video: Appeasing Islam – Pat Condell
Jordanian Islamonazi Group Filing Mo-Toon Lawsuit Includes time line of Muslim Mo-toon outrage Sept. 30 2005 – October 26 2006
Another Islamic / UN Obscenity
IHEU ‘ambushed’ by Whiny Sanctimonious Islamists at Human Rights Council
The Vast Islamic Conspiracy
The United Caliphate of The United Nations
The UN Has Lost Their Dhimmi Status…
ALERT! A Fatwa has been placed on Dr. Wafa Sultan
Savage Kicks It Up A Notch & Launches Full Frontal Assault Against CAIR
Sour Grapes
Sunday Toonage – (New) Kurt Westergaard
Muslims allowed to rape and murder all non-muslims

Browse My Amazon Shop

Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign!

“

(Via avideditor’s shared items in Google Reader.)</

Guess the Religion, Toxic Toothpaste & ICE Edition; UPDATE: Did Muslims on Our Soil Deliberately Target Americans w/ Toxic Toothpaste?

Guess the Religion, Toxic Toothpaste & ICE Edition; UPDATE: Did Muslims on Our Soil Deliberately Target Americans w/ Toxic Toothpaste?: ”

By Debbie Schlussel

**** SCROLL DOWN For More Disturbing News on This – Did Muslim Counterfeiters Purposely Send Toxic Toothpastes to America? Plus e-mail for News Director ****

Recently, Detroit-based Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided a warehouse full of smuggled counterfeit merchandise in suburban Detroit’s Oakland County. The merchandise is sold at cut-rate prices to operators of dollar stores throughout the Detroit area who then pass on the phony stuff on their customers, mostly poorer people looking for a bargain in a tough Michigan economy.

But the merchandise is not only phony, it’s poisonous. That includes toxic toothpaste containing ‘Diethelen Glycol [which] can cause paralysis of your facial muscles and cause brain swelling and can make your kidney’s fail.’

Last night, Detroit’s NBC affiliate, WDIV/LLocal 4, reported on the warehouse, but reporter Kevin Dietz left out one detail, which is almost always included–the names of the people who own and operating the warehouse and the stores that sell their counterfeit merchandise. That’s because all of them are Arab Muslims. Watch the video–on the middle right side of the link–closely. It’s hard, on the small screen, to tell the identity of the owners of the warehouse, but on the big screen, it’s quite clear, they are Arabs and they are laughing about their toxic toothpaste . . . all the way to the bank. (The Black man shown is their worker and not an owner of the business.)

What’s more, my sources tell me they are Muslim Arabs and are believed to be selling the smuggled counterfeit merchandise for money laundering to terrorists, specifically Hezbollah. But none of that is mentions, even though that’s why ICE is involved and it’s an ‘international investigation.’

It’s well known that Hezbollah has Arab Muslims selling counterfeit Nikes, hip-hop clothing, and other fakes like the toothpaste for profit to fund terrorist operations. I’ve written about it on this site many times, and it’s been documented in the L.A. Times and elsewhere.

Just Monday, yet another Muslim, Moustapha Moussa Amadou of South Carolina, pleaded guilty selling the fake Nikes and other clothing in Pennsylvania. On the same day, Ziad Assed Ismail of North Carolina was charged with selling counterfeit clothing at his ‘Hip Hop Spot’ store. Last week, in Indiana, Sharif Saleh was arrested for selling as many as 2,000 counterfeit Nikes in his foodmart. Also last week, Salim Muhammad a/k/a Sam Khan of Greenville, pleaded guilty to trafficking counterfeit goods for selling counterfeit clothing on his 33Urban website. And in Central Florida, Omar Amazinae and Abdessamad Farih, were arrested by federal agents for selling fake Nikes and counterfeit clothing at their respective stores.

There are so many Muslims selling fake hip-hop gear and engaging in the hip-hop lifestyle to respectively fund and pimp their kinship with terrorists that a friend of mine in Dearbornistan calls them Hezbollah’s Hip-Hop-bollah.

In those cases, it’s fake Nikes and hip-hop clothing, but in the case of the warehouse in my area, it’s toxic, counterfeit toothpaste. Many different phony products. Yet the perpetrators are all Muslims, mostly Arabs, and all for the same cause. Yet, you’d never know it if you watched my local newscast.

I went to high school with WDIV/Local 4 News Director Bob Ellis. He and I were in journalism class together and both wrote for the high school newspaper, ‘The JAY.’ All the way back in high school, both Bobby Ellis and I were emphatically instructed by our teacher, Dr. Ken Siver, that the most important things in reporting were ‘The Five Ws’–Who, What, Where, When, and Why. So, why is Ellis’ operation now omitting the first ‘W’–the ‘Who’–a basic tenet of objective journalism?

Well, apparently because–in the mainstream media, especially Detroit’s media–two other letters, P and C, too frequently trump that W.

Kudos to the ICE agents who raided the place. But will they really thoroughly investigate where the funds for the fake and poisonous merchandise are going–ie., likely to Hezbollah? The absence of ICE Michigan Special Agent in Charge Brian Moskowitz a/k/a ‘Abu Moskowitz’ from the media report was glaring. He usually grabs onto whatever media spotlight he can get to bolster his greater ambitions to run ICE. But this time, he was notable absent.

That’s probably because he was too busy–as is his usual tack–meeting with his buddy, FBI award revokee ‘former’ Islamic terrorist Imad Hamad, to apologize for the raids on the counterfeit-pushing Muslims. Agents tell me that any time they ever raid or arrest Muslims, they’re worried that Moskowitz has tipped off Hamad and his gang in advance. And they all know that he always calls Hamad, afterward, to apologize for their doing of their jobs.

**** UPDATE: Yet another set of Muslims caught pushing counterfeit merchandise, this time in Austin, Texas. Brothers Sahejad and Safiq Karedia, along with their mother, were charged with selling $83,000 in pirated CDs and DVDs and also sold counterfeit clothing along with Nike shoes. Which terrorist group will get the profits?

**** UPDATE #2: Did Muslims deliberately put toxic toothpaste into the American consumer stream? Reader Jim, who knows a lot about this says yes, and I believe he’s onto something:

Deb,

Diethelen Glycol is highly toxic. It is more commonly known as antifreeze. It takes only a small dose of DG to kill someone, and the death it causes is excruciatingly painful.

Diethelen Glycol is not an approved additive to anything for public consumption. I think perhaps the authorities are not telling the whole story here. The probability that this accidently got into toothpaste is low. There is a hell of a lot more to this story than meets the eye.

Keep up the good work.

Jim

While it’s true that the toothpaste is primarily made in China, the Muslim Arab purveyors of it–from their warehouse–had been warned about their poisonous, counterfeit products, yet they continued to sell them. That should tell you a little something about their intentions and agenda.

**** UPDATE #3: E-mail WDIV/Local 4 News Director Bob Ellis and ask him why he won’t report the names of the Muslim Arabs inserting toxic toothpaste into America.

“

(Via avideditor’s shared items in Google Reader.)</

Saudi King Offers Dhimmitude NOT Dialogue

Saudi King Offers Dhimmitude NOT Dialogue: “Last week Saudi King Abdullah, shocked the world as he ‘made an impassioned plea for dialogue among Muslims, Christians, and Jews’ — going so far as to refer to the latter two as ‘our brothers.’ Before you light the campfire and start singing Kumbaya lets examine who we are talking about. Enough of this Politically Correct nonsense !! Lets call a spade a spade, Saudi Arabia the home of Islam, where millions of Muslims went on Haj (pilgrimage) last week, an anti-Semitic and anti-Christian state. Remember how the government airlines warned Christians NOT to bring a bible into their country with their personal effects? Maybe before he calls for a group-hug the Saudi King should change the law in his country that BANS the practice of any other religion. Hey I am all for dialog, but maybe his government controlled media can stop calling for the killing of Jews before we invite our BROTHERS over for Shabbos dinner:

Real Talk?
The Saudi king ought to stop killing non-Muslims first.
by Raymond Ibrahim
National Review Online

According to the Associated Press, Saudi King Abdullah, in an unprecedented move last week, ‘made an impassioned plea for dialogue among Muslims, Christians, and Jews’ — going so far as to refer to the latter two as ‘our brothers.’ The Jerusalem Post states that such talks would be geared to developing ‘respect among religions.’

The Arabian kingdom, however, is famous for tenaciously upholding and exporting ‘Wahhabism/Salafism,’ that literalist brand of Islam that preaches absolutely no tolerance — murdering apostates and condemning all non-Muslims as infidels — and famous also for having supplied 15 of the 19 hijackers of 9/11, ‘educating’ fellows such as Osama bin Laden, and boasting a sword on its national flag. One can’t help but question the old monarch’s motives.

More tellingly, days before the king’s call for dialogue, prominent Saudi Sheikh Abdul Rahman Barack issued a death-fatwa against two Saudi writers. Their crime? They wrote articles in the Saudi paper Al-Riyadh questioning the Muslim position that holds all non-Muslims — whom the Saudi king would otherwise call ‘brothers’ — as infidels. According to the Arab News, Barack said: ‘Anyone who claims this [that non-Muslims are not infidels] has refuted Islam and should be tried so that he can take it back. If not, he should be killed as an apostate from the religion of Islam.’

Does this mean that King Abdullah truly believes Christians and Jews are not infidels, and if so, does that also mean a fatwa for his life is forthcoming?

At any rate, is the Saudi king aware that ‘dialogue’ is supposed to be held by two or more singular participants who nonetheless genuinely believe that they share some basic human rights — such as the freedom to practice whatever religion they wish without being molested? Only civilized peoples who are agreed to such fundamentals can move on to more temporal matters, such as territorial disputes (e.g., Israel/Palestine). But what is the point of having ‘dialogue’ over secondary matters when the primary issues — basic human rights — are not endorsed by all participants?

In Saudi Arabia, the facts remain: native citizens who dare convert to Christianity must be slain; absolutely no churches or any other ‘symbol’ of non-Muslim worship (e.g., crosses, rosaries, Bibles) is permitted on the peninsula; non-Muslims are barred from entering Mecca or Medina.

These are just the visible forms of intolerance practiced in the home of Islam and its founder. Theoretically — or rather, theologically — speaking, the worldview of Wahhabism/Salafism is even worse: whenever the opportunity presents itself, the whole world must be brought under Islamic rule, either willingly or by the sword, following the pattern of the Islamic prophet and the first ‘righteous’ caliphs. What is even more troubling is that this Muslim view of world conquest isn’t merely a product of certain obscurantist schools of Islamic thought; rather it is the codified worldview of all four schools of jurisprudence in Sunni Islam. In fact, it is a communal duty (a fard kifaya) imposed on Muslims.

So where exactly does Abdullah get the gall to call for ‘dialogue’? The measure of any community’s sincerity and tolerance toward nonmembers is how well that community treats nonmembers under its suzerainty. The West treats all religions roughly equally (in fact, Christianity often seems to be the most under attack).

In the United States, for example, Muslim minorities have the exact same rights — to build places of worship (mosques), publicly carry their scriptures (Korans), to worship and proselytize, and, simply, to be Muslim — as do Christians and others. That is proof that the West is prepared for dialogue over ancillary matters: it has already visibly demonstrated that it firmly believes all humans are guaranteed basic rights.

Countries like Saudi Arabia evince no respect for basic human rights and freedoms. The contrast is amply demonstrated by the recent comments of one high ranking Saudi who said that ‘It would be possible to launch official negotiations to construct a church [note the singular] in Saudi Arabia only after the Pope and all the Christian churches recognize the prophet Muhammad’ — which of course would make all Christians Muslim. How would Muslims react to a requirement that, to build mosques in the U.S., they must first publicly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?

Perhaps the greatest proof that the old king was being insincere is the fact that, in his ostensibly ‘multi-culti’ speech, polytheists are conspicuously left out. Abdullah continuously stressed that this dialogue is to be only with ‘our brothers in all religions which I mentioned, the Torah [Jews] and the Gospels [Christians].’ If the Saudi king was honestly trying to promote religious tolerance around the world, why weren’t polytheists invited to the talks? Specifically, why weren’t Hindus invited, who also have a long and often bloody history with Islam, including territorial disputes (e.g., Kashmir) that continue to this day?

The theological reason is that polytheists (‘al-mushrikun’) are held in an even worse position than Christians and Jews (whom the Koran refers alternatively to as ‘people of the Book,’ but in the latter chapters and verses — which take precedence, according to most systems of Islamic jurisprudence — as ‘infidels’ who must be fought in perpetuity). So while Abdullah’s ‘brothers,’ Jews and Christians, can in fact keep their religion (once subdued and made to live according to second-class, ‘dhimmi’ status), polytheists must either convert, or die.

It is impossible to see the Saudi king’s motives in this monotheistic-faith ecumenism as completely sincere. His ‘impassioned plea for dialogue’ is certainly worthy of support. However, the starting point of that discussion must be the Muslim world’s treatment of the non-Muslims in their midst. Once Saudi Arabia affords basic human rights to Christians and Jews — not to mention Saudi citizens who wish to convert — then dialogue over secondary matters can ensue. Until then, the Saudis have no place at the negotiation table.

Raymond Ibrahim is the editor of the Al-Qaeda Reader, translations of religious texts and propaganda.

Please email me at yidwithlid@aol.com to be put onto my mailing list.
Feel free to reproduce any article but please link back to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com

“

(Via avideditor’s shared items in Google Reader.)</

1849: England grants protection to Russian Jews in Palestine

1849: England grants protection to Russian Jews in Palestine: “(Part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here.)

We continue our look at excerpts from James Finn’s ‘Stirring Times: Or, Records from Jerusalem Consular Chronicles of 1853 to 1856‘.

In consequence of this and some other circumstances taking place in Jerusalem [referring to the persecution of Jews by Muslims and Christians described in parts 1 and 2 - EoZ], another instruction was issued by the Foreign Office, to the effect that whenever any Austrian, French, or other European Jew should be suffering under persecution or injustice, and should be repudiated by his own Consul, the English Consul might take up his case, unless the repudiating Consul, when applied to, should assign some strong and sufficient reason for objecting to that action. The spirit herein contained, notwithstanding the establishment since of other Consulates, was in conformity with the rule in 1839 ‘to afford protection to Jews generally.’ The Russian Jews had of late increased considerably in number among us — notwithstanding the stringent laws of that empire for keeping its population at home. Even for leaving the country for brief periods, vexatious formalities and fees had to be submitted to by all classes of Russian subjects, and sureties were required to answer for the reappearance of the travellers in order to satisfy the requisitions of taxes and military conscription, at the date written on the passport ; and besides all these conditions when fulfilled, the license to travel abroad was discountenanced rather than encouraged.

All this was felt more keenly by Jews than by other classes of the Russian population, for they entertained a peculiar horror of the Russian conscription, which entailed violations of their laws for Sabbath and diet, with compulsory attendance at church image-worship. Still, when the wit and determination of a Jew have only to grapple with the venality or obtuseness of Russian officials, obstacles often displace themselves. Jews were smuggled over the frontier, and the numbers repairing to Jerusalem for the inestimable privilege of being buried there became alarming. At length the Imperial Government resolved upon assuming fresh vigour of action within its dominions, and to get rid of the troublesome responsibility involved in looking after people who never meant to return, and whose sureties had no sufficient means for paying up the arrears of the home-taxes ; this trouble was all the greater since there was no Russian Consul at Jerusalem.

It was, therefore, determined to set adrift all the Russian Jews then found in Palestine, furnishing them with papers of dismissal, which also allowed them to resort for protection to any European representatives they might think proper to select, but recommending the English Consulate. These papers were written in French and Arabic, and delivered by the Russian Vice-Consul in Jaffa. This was in 1848, at a period of entente cordiale between England and Russia, and when no cloud had appeared in the sky intimating peril to Turkey.

Only those who have ever known the sentiments of Jews within the Russian dominions can adequately imagine the joy of these emancipated people — they were ‘As those that dream,’ and they flocked in large numbers to the English Consulate for protection, though some, on account of family connections or transactions of business, took Austrian or other protection. A register of names, dates, etc., of these prottgis was duly kept in the consulate, the business of which was consequently much augmented.

As one of the many tokens of gratitude, from the people so benefited, will be found in the Appendix the translation of an address in Hebrew to Her Majesty the Queen, received in Jerusalem in July, 1849. It was a beautiful specimen of penmanship on parchment. The translation, although exact, affords but a feeble idea of the gracefulness of the composition with its Oriental peculiarities.

Translated Extract from an Address of Russian Jews in Safed on their coming under English protection, 1849, After compliments to the Consul in Jerusalem to the people of Israel and to succour them with every kind of aid, for great and small, and to defend them from those who rise up against them:

With a perfect heart
Of mercy and loving kindness ;
And with the tips of the wings of Mercy
And the grace of her Righteousness
She has extended and caused to shine upon us,
Who dwell in our own land,
The holy (be it established in our days),
Us, who are burdened with troubles —
Sinking into distress,
Poverty and calamity,
But loving the land of our Fathers,
The place of our honour.
We here are those
Who are the sons of the provinces of Russia,
And this is the day we have looked for :
We have found it, we have seen it —
For she has bent down her pity to receive us
Under the shade of her wings of compassion,
And to comfort us with shade of her mighty rule,
For a name, for a praise, and for glory !
Yea, our souls within us are bound
To implore Him, who is fearful in mighty acts,
With praises and prayers,
That He may prolong her days
In rest and satisfaction ;
That the Lord may hedge her in,
And all that are hers :
The princes around her,
With her nobles,
And all those comforted in her shadow.
May they rise on wings of elevation, of prosperity,
In fulness of joy ;
And may her kingdom be established
Until the coming of Messiah !
May the Lord bless their lives and their substance,
And increase their honour,
And crown their praise !
Amen, so be Thy will !

Finn noticed, outside of this poem, the feelings that Jews had to the Land of Israel:

The intense attachment of a believing Israelite to the Holy Land can be but faintly appreciated by others. In proportion to the bitterness of soul and to the sufferings attendant on the exile, so is the affection, the yearning of heart towards the beautiful Land of Promise where sleep the fathers of the people. ‘ I long to return there as a child to its mother,’ are literally the words used by a Jew who had visited Jerusalem. The miracles which attended the deliverance from Egypt, the giving of the law, the forty years in the desert, the entrance into and possession of the Land ; the splendour of David’s kingdom, and the culminating glory of the Divine Presence in the Holy House : all these are for ever present to the mind of a pious Israelite, kept fresh and vivid by the constant recital of their Liturgies, by the never-ceasing study of the sacred writings, the law, the prophets, the psalms. What wonder that in far distant lands the living messengers from the ruins cf the Holy City and Temple should be looked upon with veneration, that willing hearts are moved to give liberally for the support of brethren who, for love of God and their nation, have been ready to go and suffer among ‘ the heathen,’ in order that they may offer supplications where alone they believe they can be completely effectual — at the Sanctuary itself — for the termination of the long tribulation, for the fulfilment of all the glorious promises of restoration that have during centuries past nerved the people of Israel to eudure, and to look forward through present agonies — undespairing, uncrushed — to the coming glory, the final bliss that are to outshine all the past by a splendour scarcely to be conceived!

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Anti-dhimmitude: New York passes Libel Terrorism Protection Act

Anti-dhimmitude: New York passes Libel Terrorism Protection Act: “A most welcome update on this story.

Saudi billionaire Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim Bin Mahfouz, who successfully sued Cambridge University Press last July, has failed in his efforts to silence Rachel Ehrenfeld.

Saudi billionaire Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim Bin Mahfouz, who successfully sued Cambridge University Press last July, has failed in his efforts to silence Rachel Ehrenfeld.

The American Center for Democracy in Defense of Freedom, which Ehrenfeld directs, has just issued the following press release. The New York State legislature today passed the ‘Libel Tourism Protection Act,’ which will help protect American writers from the likes of Bin Mahfouz, who uses his millions to silence critics of his own past and of others who work to spread Wahhabi Islam around the world. For the likes of Bin Mahfouz, the inability to convince people of the merits of your arguments leads instead to efforts to sue them into silence. That underhanded assault on our freedom of speech has now become more difficult, as this new legislation corrects holes in New York’s law that had left Ehrenfeld, and other authors, open to suits from foreigners like Bin Mahfouz.

Here’s the press release:

Legislature Passes Libel Terrorism Protection Act To Protect American Journalists and Authors From

Overseas Defamation Lawsuits

Albany, NY (March 31, 2008) – The New York State Legislature today unanimously passed the ‘Libel Terrorism Protection Act’ (S.6687/A.9652), sponsored by Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) and Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos (R-Rockville Centre).

When signed into law by Governor David Paterson, this legislation will protect American journalists and authors from foreign lawsuits that infringe on their First Amendment rights.

In Ehrenfeld v. Mahout, New York State’s highest court held that it would not protect Dr. Ehrenfeld from a British lawsuit filed by Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim Bin Mahfouz, where she was ordered to pay over $225,000 in damages and legal fees to Bin Mahfouz, as well as apologize and destroy existing copies of her books.

Dr. Ehrenfeld sought a court order in November of 2006 to protect her constitutional rights, but in a ruling with national First Amendment implications which sent legal shockwaves throughout newsrooms across America, as well as potentially undermining our ability to expose terrorism’s financial and logistical support networks, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that it does not have jurisdiction to protect Americans – on U.S. soil – from foreign defamation judgments, which contradict the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Libel Terrorism Protection Act declares overseas defamation judgments unenforceable in New York unless the foreign defamation law provides, in substance and application, the same free speech protections guaranteed under our own constitution, and it gives New York residents and publishers the opportunity to have their day in court here in New York.

‘This is a great day for free speech and freedom of the press, and I urge Governor Paterson to quickly sign this legislation into law. This law will protect our journalists and authors from trumped up libel charges in kangaroo courts in overseas jurisdictions which don’t share our commitment to free speech and freedom of the press,’ said Lancman.

‘This law will give New York’s journalists, authors and press the protection and tools they need to continue to fearlessly expose the truth about terrorism and its enablers, and to maintain New York’s place as the free speech capitol of the world,’ Lancman concluded. Lancman’s remarks on the Assembly floor are viewable here .

‘The truth is a critically-important component in the War on Terror,’ said Senator Skelos. ‘This important new law will protect American authors and journalists who expose terrorist networks and their financiers. In its decision, the Court of Appeals called upon the State Legislature to revise the law. Today, we made clear that New York State will safeguard the First Amendment and these courageous writers.’ #####

— Winfield Myers-Democracy Project“

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Govt Refuses to Link Merkaz HaRav Murder and Guns Given to PA

Gov't Refuses to Link Merkaz HaRav Murder and Guns Given to PA: “Hillel Fendel

Likud Knesset faction chairman MK Gideon Saar submitted an ‘urgent query’ to the Knesset regarding last month’s terrorist slaughter in which eight Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav students were gunned down. He wanted to know if Israel supplied the murder weapon to the PA – and did not receive an answer.

Saar asked where the terrorist, a resident of eastern Jerusalem who did not have a license to carry a weapon, received the Kalachnikov that he used for the murders. ‘Does the security establishment know from where the terrorist received his weapon?’ Saar asked. ‘Was this a weapon that was given to the Palestinian Authority by the Government of Israel?’ In accordance with accepted Knesset procedure, the Minister Responsible for Liaison with the Knesset, Ruchama Avraham-Belila, took the forum to respond, and said as follows:

‘This was a murderous and lowly attack by an evil degenerate who came in to murder students while they were studying Torah. This was a shocking and appalling incident. After checking your question with the relevant bodies, I can answer you the following at this point, though it might not be enough for you: The General Security Service is currently in the middle of investigating the attack, and now, at this stage, all the details are under the veil of the censor. As soon as the investigation concludes, MK Saar, I will be happy to transmit to you all the details of what I know.’

In response, Saar said, ‘I will suffice at this stage by expressing my hope that the Government of Israel will not carry out its intention of submitting thousands more Kalachnikov rifles to the Palestinian Authority, until the answer to my question as to how the terrorist obtained his weapon is answered.’

Hero Blames Peres
It will be recalled that just minutes after the murderous attack, Yitzchak Dadon – one of the two heroes who killed the terrorist – was interviewed on several TV and radio stations, and each time he blamed President Shimon Peres and the Israeli government for having given to the PA the rifle that was used to murder the students.

Ever since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, Israel has given thousands of weapons such as Kalachnikov rifles to the PA. The Rabin-Peres government of those days felt that the Palestinian Authority needed to instill law and order, especially with the influx of tens of thousands of PLO terrorists into Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Justifying Israel’s giving them thousands of guns, Rabin said at the time, ‘Fatah will fight Hamas without [the restrictions of] the Supreme Court and B’Tzelem.’

Despite the many deaths of Israelis at the hands of Kalachnikov-toting terrorists since then, and despite several ‘Don’t give them guns!’ campaigns by the nationalist camp, the government continues even now to either provide guns or to allow Egypt to send guns to the Palestinian Authority. “

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Jonah Goldberg on Fitna

Jonah Goldberg on Fitna: “Geert Wilders’ film could very, very easily get him killed. (He’s already guarded around the clock.) It essentially picks up the work of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered in 2004 by a jihadi for criticizing Islam.

‘Fitna’ is certainly provocative, yet it has good reason to provoke. A cancer of violence, bigotry and cruelty is metastasizing within the Islamic world. It’s fine for Muslim moderates to say they aren’t part of the cancer; and that some have, in response to the film, is a positive sign. But more often, diagnosing or even observing this cancer — in film, book or cartoon — is dubbed ‘intolerant’ while calls for violence, censorship and even murder are treated as understandable, if regrettable, expressions of well-deserved anger.

It’s not that secular progressives support Muslim religious fanatics, but they reserve their passion and scorn for religious Christians who are neither fanatical nor inclined to use violence.

For more on Fitna, the Darwin Fish, and rollicking good times in a Turkish café, “

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Liberal Apocalypse Now!

Liberal Apocalypse Now!: “

‘We’ll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals. Civilization will have broken down.’

Ted Turner

Millennial fever is a well known phenomenon. The last time it happened around 1000 CE, portions of Europe decided the apocalypse was nigh, began selling their possessions and preparing for the end.

Around 2000, the media and people with fallout shelters managed to convince a sizable amount of the public that the Y2K bug would cause everything from nuclear disasters to bank failures were imminent. Of course none of that came about.

While liberals like to paint a picture of conservative Republicans as crazed doommongers eagerly anticipating the apocalypse, it’s liberals who have given us the two great apocalyptic panics of the last 50 years.

‘Not doing it is suicide. Just like dropping bombs on each other, nuclear weapons is suicide. We’ve got to stop doing the suicidal two things, which are hanging on to our nuclear weapons and after that we’ve got to stabilize the population.’

Ted Turner

When liberals don’t like a policy, they turn it into a giant boogeyman. The liberal response to the cold war was to run around screaming for 30 years that the nuclear missiles were about to fall and wipe out the entire planet. Endless tedious novels, movies and songs were produced based on the premise that we were all about to die. At the heart of that obsession was the idea of ‘Nuclear Winter’, a concept which had as little credibility as human centered global warming does.

Nuclear Winter and the liberal understanding of Global Warming had one important thing in common, they were both pseudoscientific theories that postulated that humans could somehow destroy the earth for our sins, those sins being the sins of fighting Communism and buying consumer products. In a certain light of course both Nuclear Winter and Global Warming were the punishment for a single sin, capitalism. It isn’t that liberals don’t like their luxuries, their large homes, their luxury goods and their cars. It’s just that they don’t like the idea of widescale prosperity or a system where there is no real deprived underclass. And so is born Global Warming, which proclaims in short that if we don’t start driving up the cost of products fast so as to price them out of the range of working people, the world will end.

‘We already have too much economic growth in the United States. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease, not the cure.’

Paul Erlich (Al Gore advisor)

The same liberals who routinely pooh pooh the idea that Islamic terrorism is a grave threat despite the thousands dead, expect us to believe that the real threat involves the extinction of the non-extinct polar bears. Forget fighting a war, they cry, the real problem is that if we don’t do something soon, we’ll be all reduced to eating each other soon enough and wandering the land trying to bite out each other’s brains.

If conservatives like their war movies, it’s clear that liberals like their Science Fiction.

For thousands of years of recorded history the earth has gone through warming and cooling periods. The fossil records back it up. We’ve gone from hippos in the Thames to Londoners buttoned up against the cold, long before the Industrial Revolution came along. Humans can kill each other, we can wipe out entire forests, but we can no more destroy the earth than we could win a boxing match with an elephant.

Liberals know that too.

‘If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.’

Prince Philip, WWF

The goal of Nuclear Panic and Global Warming was to create within Americans a twinned sense of great power and impotence through the belief that we were so powerful that any wrong move by us will destroy everything including ourselves. The goal was to make us believe that we were a bull and the world was a china shop and that any use of our power would destroy everything.

That in a phrase sums up the liberal mindset on every American issue from foreign policy and national defense to industry. America is just too dangerous. The only solution is to diminish, to shrink within ourselves, to feel guilty and ashamed for everything we’ve done and for everything we’re set to do.

And at the heart of that is the real faith of liberalism, not in hope but in fear. Forget the positive slogans and the upbeat messages. Behind them all is the propaganda of naked raw fear. And the message is simple, ‘Stop what you’re doing or we’ll all die.’

‘Stop showering. Stop using toilet paper. Stop carrying plastic bags. Stop drinking bottled water. Stop driving. Stop flying. Stop going anywhere except to global warming rallies. Stop doing anything. Just stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.’

There’s nothing positive left about the environmental movement which runs as much on guilt and fear as any middle ages cleric. It’s become a horde of Chicken Littles crying that the sky is about to fall, not because they believe it, but because they want us to believe it. They need us to believe it so that we’re afraid.

‘I think if we don’t overthrow capitalism, we don’t have a chance of saving the world ecologically. I think it is possible to have an ecological society under socialism. I don’t think it’s possible under capitalism.’

Judi Barri
Earth First

Problems require solutions. Frighten people with a seemingly plausible threat, never mind that it doesn’t exist, and you can harness the power of nightmares to implement your agenda. It’s what liberals have repeatedly accused conservatives of, and they should know because they are the biggest practitioners of it.

There is nothing positive about liberalism. Subtract the guilt and fear and nothing is left. All liberalism comes down to is government control, social conformity and political terror. And to get the public to accept those three, you need a grave threat. You need to convince them to ignore the social crises and real threats created by their policies and focus on the nightmare they have created. You need to recirculate and distribute that nightmare wholesale to the public through TV shows, books, movies and films.

You need to convince the public that they’re going to die, that their children will starve and eat each other… unless they vote a liberal in.

You need to convince them that they’re at fault. That they’re guilty. That their very existence is a toxic plague. And then they’ll bow their heads, hate themselves and surrender to a higher power. Not God. But the men in charge.

Welcome to socialism.

‘Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.’

Dave Forman
Founder of Earth First!

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China provides data against Iran

China provides data against Iran: ”

Despite Beijing’s opposition to harsh sanctions against Iran, China has provided the UN nuclear watch dog with data against Iran.

Read and react

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The Waheed Saleh Story: America Will Become a Muslim Nation Because . . .

The Waheed Saleh Story: America Will Become a Muslim Nation Because . . .: ”

By Debbie Schlussel

. . . Shenanigans like that of illegal alien Palestinian Muslim criminal Waheed Saleh is not only tolerated but allowed to go on in spades.

Saleh, though he’s not supposed to be in this country, is a New York City cabbie. He’s gotten in repeated fights over parking spots and cigarettes. Originally from the HAMAS terrorist hotbed of Jenin, Saleh is now suing the City of New York and two of its cops because they ‘violated’ Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s sanctuary city executive order, by tipping off Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to Saleh’s presence, after he constituted a continuing law enforcement problem. And he’s also suing on the grounds that he feels the NYPD is trying to squelch his ‘First Amendment speech rights.’

Um, what rights? He’s not even supposed to be here. Hello . . . ?

Catch & Release: What ICEs Princess Julie Myers
Did With Palestinian Muslim Illegal Alien Waheed Saleh
(Julie Myers Diet Coke by David Lunde/Lundesigns)

Moreover, Saleh is being represented by the high-priced law firm of OMelveny & Myers, one of the most expensive firms in New York (and other major cities in which it has offices). Just who is paying Mr. Salehs legal fees? And if Mr. Saleh is paying them himself, which is doubtful, one wonders where he amassed such amounts of money as a cab driver. Did he fail to declare and pay adequate federal taxes on the cash fares he collected? Apparently, he didnt pay federal–or any other–taxes at all (see below).

But here’s the kicker–which shows us what a great job Julie L. Myers a/k/a ‘The ICE Princess’ is doing:

At one point, Mr. Saleh had been released from federal custody on bail. His current whereabouts could not be verified.

Yup, ICE let him go, despite being a flight risk and a repeated violator of federal immigration laws. Thanks, ICE Princess.

There’s even more absurdity to this story. Read the whole ’saga’ of Waheed Saleh.

Because we allow this kind of stuff to happen on a daily–no, make that hourly or per-minute–basis, we are losing our country, irretrievably. There are gazillions of Waheed Salehs. Tons of them.

Oh, and one other thing, Saleh is not even a legal cab driver, so he’s not even supposed to be collecting fares. He’s doing so illegally. But The New York Times has a PC-term for that. The ‘newspaper of record’ calls him a ‘gypsy-cab driver.’

Hmmm . . . If I were the Gypsies, I’d give them the fair play of turnabout and sue both the Times and Saleh for defamation.

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There are no Unicorns, No Monsters Under the bed, and DEFINITELY NO MODERATE Palestinians In Fatah

There are no Unicorns, No Monsters Under the bed, and DEFINITELY NO MODERATE Palestinians In Fatah: “

Growing up we all believe what we want to. For years my son believed that there were monsters under his bed at night, my daughter believed that a unicorn would show up for her to ride away. Both of them believed in the tooth fairy (it was me in a costume). Part of the growing process is that we realize that these childish myths are not real by any means.

Surprisingly there is one childish myth that many otherwise intelligent adults cling on to. That’s the myth that the Palestinians in the West Bank are ‘moderate’. People believed that Arafat turned into one and were disappointed. People ignore what Abbas says and does so they can cling on to the myth that he is a moderate, sadly they are just being immature. Let me suggest you are more likely to look up into the winter sky and see a fat guy with a red coat and white beard on a sled being pulled by flying reindeer, than see a Moderate Palestinian Terrorist

PALESTINIAN POLITICS: ONWARD AND DOWNWARD

By Barry Rubin
A recent Washington Post column, entitled, ‘Let’s Help the Good Guys in the West Bank,’ provided what it thought of as good news: ‘Fortunately, there is a smart and honest leader of these forces: Salam Fayyad, an apolitical economist (with a doctorate from the University of Texas) who is prime minister of the Palestinian Authority.’

The tip-off is the word ‘apolitical’ which, in this case, means: completely lacking any political base or armed support and thus totally ineffectual.Unfortunately, Fayyad is not Palestinian politics’ future. Those who really control Fatah, shape Palestinian public opinion, and carry guns aren’t impressed by Fayyad’s diploma.

For many in the West, moderation is like gravity: it’s impossible to reject. Yet that’s precisely what Palestinian politics do. Three factors fuel this trend.

First, Fatah and the PA continue to be corrupt, incompetent, and incapable of self-reform.
Second, given the cult of violence and total victory dominating Palestinian political culture Hamas is inevitably seen as heroic because it fights and rejects compromise. Based on underestimating Israel (always seen on the verge of collapse) and overestimating their own forces (heroic martyrs aided by history and deity), they expect to win. Compromise is treason; moderation is cowardice. This is the daily fare of Palestinian ideology and politics, purveyed by leaders, clerics, media, and schools.

Abbas tells his people and others that, as he said recently to an Islamic summit, Palestinians ‘are facing a campaign of annihilation’ by Israel. The U.S. State Department merely calls this ‘overheated political rhetoric,’ not comprehending that such talk by Abbas incites terrorism and forecloses his own options.

It’s easy to justify violence but hard to rationalize making peace with those you say are committing genocide against you. That’s why the PA does things like letting ‘imprisoned’ terrorists who murdered two Israeli hikers to ‘escape.’ Every such terrorist is seen by both the PA and public opinion as a hero.

Third, due to its own weakness and the strong political culture it never challenges, the current leadership cannot make peace. They know, contrary to Western claims, that negotiating a political solution would destroy them, and act accordingly.

For all these reasons, Fatah has been working harder to negotiate a deal with Hamas than it has to fight it in Gaza. In addition, Fatah is undergoing a radicalization process which may not displace Abbas but will install his successor. Public opinion is also more extreme, with support for terrorism zooming upward. Fatah both heeds and feeds the trend.

Ahmad Dahbour, former high-ranking PA Culture Ministry official, now top writer for the official PA newspaper, explains: ‘The treacherous Zionist enemy will never permit us to lessen our revenge towards him, or to stray from our confrontation against him, until he is wiped off this land, which is saturated with the blood of the martyrs.’

What is significant is not the language’s bloodthirstiness but its open use from someone at the heart of ‘moderate’ institutions. Both Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the PA newspaper defined the killer of eight Jewish students in Jerusalem as one of those heroic martyrs.
We’re now seeing the birth of a new Fatah all right but not the one heralded by such people as former British prime minister Tony Blair or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice but rather an even more extremist version. It’s coming from those who wield guns not pens, namely the Al-Aqsa Brigades. Contrary to much reportage, it is not an ‘offshoot’ but essential part of Fatah. Its leader, Marwan Barghuti, would be Fatah and PA head within two years if not in an Israeli prison for past terrorist activities.

The brigades demand Fayyad’s firing and replacement by, ‘A new government that would not abandon the armed struggle.’ Like others in the Fatah leadership their strategy is not to fight but to ally with Hamas. Despite Hamas’s bloody expulsion of Fatah from Gaza, killing Israelis wipes out all sins in Palestinian politics. That’s the kind of thinking that makes the movement so impossible to change or to move toward peace.

Both Barghuti and Hamas’s political front-man, Ismail Haniyya, run ahead of Abbas in the polls. The main thing keeping Fayyad in office is not honesty or moderation but because removing him would kiss good-bye to almost $7 billion in Western aid, which will no doubt be squandered or worse. Worse means that much money, like the U.S. arms abandoned by Fatah in fleeing Gaza, could end up in Hamas’s hands. Or it will pass to Abbas’s successor.
One reason why many Westerners misunderstand the conflict and countries adopt ridiculously irrelevant policies is ignorance of how extremism is attractive in its own right. After all, if people are all alike and universally pragmatic, Palestinians must want to end the conflict and get an independent state through negotiation and compromise. Why go on suffering? No ‘rational’ person would act that way.

Therefore, many in the West reach one of two conclusions:

• Either Palestinian leaders want to act rationally but cannot make peace and achieve a better life for their people because Israel won’t let them. This is the anti-Israel stance.

• They are eager to do so and if Europe and America only put in lots of effort and money peace can be quickly achieved. This is the ‘even-handed’ position which always ends up demanding Israeli concessions in hopes of enabling Palestinian moderation.

These are articles of unshakeable faith, impermeable to evidence or experience. Whenever Palestinian leaders reject peace it must be because they weren’t offered enough. Westerners think Fatah and the PA merely need raise Palestinian living standards and get a state to show their people Hamas is a failure, the PA is a success. Naturally, everyone prefers success.
Well, it depends on how you measure success. As horrible as it sounds, in Palestinian politics success is still measured by the number of Israelis killed and by the ability to assert that one has never given up the chance for total victory and Israel’s disappearance some day. Sad, regrettable, but also true.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Abbas, ‘We must keep our eye on what we’re trying to achieve.’ In U.S. diplomatic circles this passes for tough talk. But what Abbas is trying to achieve is quite different from what Rice wants.

Given the strategic realities, Israel must deal with the PA and try to keep Fatah in power on the West Bank. But there should be no illusions. Solving the conflict won’t happen. Putting it atop of Western governments’ agenda, blaming Israel for Palestinian intransigence, or romanticizing Fatah and PA is a big mistake.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://www.gloriacenter.org and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal http://meria.idc.ac.il. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur; The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan) and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).

Professor Barry Rubin, Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center <http://www.gloriacenter.org>; Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal <http://meria.idc.ac.il>; Editor, Turkish Studies

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FOX News Documentary: Jihad USA: Homegrown Terror (4 parts)

FOX News Documentary: Jihad USA: Homegrown Terror (4 parts): ”

Hosted by E.D. Hill

(FOX News) Six years after 9/11, are we again failing ‘to connect the dots’ that point to a new kind of jihadist menace? This Fox News investigation exposes the homegrown Islamic terror threat: Muslim extremists radicalized in the U.S. and plotting against Americans.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

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Rice to blame for attempted attack against Jews?

Rice to blame for attempted attack against Jews?: “Aaron Klein
WorldNetDaily

JERUSALEM – The removal of a series of Israeli anti-terror roadblocks yesterday was overseen directly by the U.S. and was carried out under heavy pressure from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, defense officials in Jerusalem told WND.

The removals also may have enabled an attempted terrorist attack against two Jewish civilians. The foiled attack yesterday, in the northern West Bank, was carried out just hours after Israel began lifting the roadblocks and was in an area where a major roadblock had been removed.

Defense officials here strongly opposed the roadblock removals, saying the obstacles impede the mobility of terrorists. Palestinians complain the roadblocks also make it more difficult for them to travel throughout the West Bank. The majority of West Bank roadblocks were established in the late 1990’s following repeated terrorist attacks from the territory. In yesterday’s incident, an Israeli man shot and killed a Palestinian armed with a knife after he approached the Israeli and a teenager at a popular hitchhiking stop between the West Bank Jewish communities of Shiloh and Eli, about 20 miles from Jerusalem.

Senior leaders of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group, the so-called military wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah organization, told WND the attacker, a Palestinian from Hebron, worked on behalf of their organization. They said the foiled attack was not an attempted stabbing but part of a planned kidnapping operation that included a car waiting nearby.

Yesterday’s attempted attack came just hours after Israel began removing a series of anti-terror roadblocks throughout the West Bank in line with Israeli gestures toward Abbas.

Uri Ariel, chairman of the National Union-National Religious Party, explained to reporters, ‘Hours after the IDF began removing roadblocks and began easing restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, a terrorist tried to murder Israelis only a few kilometers west of a roadblock that had been removed from Shiloh Junction.’

The roadblock removals were specifically called for by Rice in a series of meetings with Israeli leaders.

At a news conference here on Sunday, Rice said that the U.S. expected the roadblocks would be removed ‘very, very soon’ and stated American diplomat William Fraser would oversee the removals.

Fraser was deployed to the region to monitor implementation of agreements pledged by Israel and the PA during last November’s U.S.-sponsored Annapolis summit, which seeks to create a Palestinian state before the end of the year.

‘Fraser will ensure that 50 roadblocks will be removed and that this will actually have an effect on the freedom of movement in the West Bank,’ Rice said in Jerusalem.

‘The Israeli Ministry of Defense had identified the roadblocks that will be removed, but we will ensure that they carry it out,’ she added.

Rice announced the U.S. ‘wants to monitor and ensure that their removal will begin. This is a very specific commitment on the part of Israel.’

She said that while in the past the U.S. did not micromanage the implementation of Israeli and Palestinian commitments, ‘this time we want to be a lot more systematic concerning the territories and what is being carried out on the ground.’

Aside from overseeing the roadblock removal, defense sources said Rice urged the Israeli government to reopen major crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip. The crossings were closed after Hamas took over the Gaza Strip last year and in response to what Israel said were a high number of warnings about terrorist attacks at the border.

Terrorists in the Gaza Strip regularly have been firing rockets from the territory aimed at nearby Jewish communities. During Rice’s hour-long meeting on Sunday with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, one rocket was fired from Gaza.

The roadblock controversy is not the first time defense officials here have been frustrated with security deals brokered by Rice.

In November, 2005, Rice brokered an agreement in which Israel transferred all security control at the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip to the PA and outside countries.

Israeli security officials speaking to WND in 2006 labeled the deal an ‘abject failure’ threatening the Jewish state’s national security.

Rice’s deal restricted Israel to monitor the Egypt-Gaza crossing by camera, called for a European presence at the border station, and gave the Palestinians some veto power on vehicles and persons entering Gaza.

The Europeans many times fled their duties in response to threatened violence. Israeli security officials charged the Palestinians tampered with the names of entrants, accusing Palestinian border workers of deliberately disguising the personal information of terrorists crossing the border.

Rice’s border deal went up in smoke last year when Hamas completely took over the Gaza Strip and expelled the PA monitors from the border. Hamas-backed gunmen multiple times breached the border, including an episode in January when a large chunk of the border fence was destroyed and hundreds of thousands reportedly passed between Egypt and Gaza.

Egyptian security forces did not interfere as massive quantities of weapons were transported across the Egyptian border into the Gaza Strip in January, according to Palestinian militant sources who were speaking to WND then from the border scene.“

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In Gaza, Hamas’s Insults to Jews Complicate Peace

In Gaza, Hamas’s Insults to Jews Complicate Peace: “While the Palestinian Authority has made efforts to end incitement against Israel and Jews, Hamas feels no such restraint.”

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