Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/18/2013

A Saudi cleric has issued a fatwa via Twitter instructing women not to turn on the air conditioner when they are at home. The imam says that a running air conditioner could alert passersby to the presence of a woman in the house, and thus lead to possible sexual immorality.

In news from France, the Front National announced that its party leader Marine Le Pen accidentally fractured her spine when she fell into an empty swimming pool.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Diana West, Fjordman, Heresy Today, Insubria, JD, LS, Mary Abdelmassih, McR, RR, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Financial Crisis
» 10 Amazing Charts That Demonstrate the Slow, Agonizing Death of the American Worker
» CBO: Obama Vastly Exaggerated Deficit Cuts in Budget
» Debt Becoming Serious Problem in Netherlands
» We Have Blown the Largest Bubble in the History of Mankind
 
USA
» “Big Brother” Is Big Business?
» Cell Phone Users ‘Have No Legitimate Expectation of Privacy’ — Judge
» Chechen Refugee Friend of Tsarnaev Interviewed by FBI in Manchester New Hampshire
» CIA-Connected SAIC Awarded Government “Cyber Security” Contract
» Colorado Sheriffs Sue the State Over New Gun Control Laws
» Diana West: A Preface to “Afterwords”
» Flashback: Watergate, Nazis, Nixon, Rockefeller
» Infowars Exclusive: IRS Form Sent to Patriot Groups
» IRS Demanded Info on Pro-Life Group’s Prayers
» IRS Targeted Billy Graham Ministry and Other Christian Groups
» IRS Wasn’t Only Agency Hassling True the Vote
» It’s Bigger Than Obama — We’re Witnessing What Happens When Liberalism Rules
» Last Week’s Conspiracy Theories Are This Week’s Reality
» Minnesota: Somali Women Sentenced in Terror-Funding Case; Get Stiff Sentences
» New English Review Does Thorough Report on Boston Bombers
» Obama IRS Asked Tea Party Groups for Back-End Access to Their Websites (Video)
» Obama’s Federal Gestapo is Going Down
» Rep. Mike Kelly Rips IRS Chief a New One, Gets Standing O From Gallery
» What Are These Weird Street Signs Being Installed in Las Vegas?
 
Europe and the EU
» Denmark: School Experiment Discovers Garden Cress Won’t Germinate Near a [Wireless] Router
» Fancy Dipping Your Bread in Some Olive Oil? Not Anymore! EU Vows to Ban Jugs and Dipping Bowls From Restaurants to ‘Protect Customers’
» Far-Right French Politician Marine Le Pen is Seriously Injured After Fracturing Her Spine in Swimming Pool Fall
» Hunters on Horseback Revive Ancient Tradition of Spearing Wild Boar in Spain
» Italy: Venice Has Europe’s Priciest Hotel Rooms
» Italy: ‘Manners Police’ To Keep Venice Tourists in Line
» Italy: Verona Considering Entry Fee to See Juliet’s Home
» Italy: Child Protection Agency Says Condition for Roma ‘Shameful’
» Italy: Hundreds Attend Funeral of Pickaxe Killer Victim
» Italy: Beppe Grillo Condemns ‘Idiots in Government’
» Muslim Association of Greece Receives Letter Containing Sick Threats
» Nazi Slogans: Has Berlin’s Gentrification Feud Gone Too Far?
» ‘Scottish Nationalists Are Fascist Scum’: Nigel Farage Hounded by Mob Says They Were Driven by Hatred of the English
» UK: Grieving Husband Accused of Attacking Traffic Warden After He Caught Him Ticketing Cars Outside His Home as He Waited for Wife’s Funeral Cortege
» UK: I Think I’ve Killed Him… He Was Getting on My Nerves: What Pensioner Said After She Throttled Dying Man — But Court Still Rules it Was a ‘Mercy Killing’
» UK: Loving Parents. An Utterly Respectable Home. So How Did Rachel, 11, Fall Prey to the Oxford Sex Gang?
 
North Africa
» Egypt: Over 20,000 Muslims Screaming “Allahu Akbar” Attack Christian Church With Birdshot and Bricks
» One Dies in Muslim-Christian Clashes in Egypt
» Two Christian Churches in Egypt Attacked by Muslims This Week
 
Middle East
» Halal Mark a Must for All Food Products in UAE
» Saudi Cleric: Prohibit Women From Using Air Conditioning
» Several Bombings in Tripoli and Benghazi in Last 24 Hours
» Syria: U.S. Adds Sanctions Against 4 Ministers, TV
» US Condemns Russian Shipment of Missiles to Syria
 
South Asia
» Chinese Man Held in Pakistani Kashmir Over Quran Abuse
 
Far East
» All Eyes on the Arctic Council
» China: Internet’s First Victories Over “Princes” Of Communist Power
» Japan Angered by China’s Claim to All of Okinawa
» Three New Suicides in Apple’s Chinese Supplier Foxconn
» U.S. Seizes Operator Accounts of Major Japanese Bitcoin Exchange
 
Australia — Pacific
» Welcome to Websites Being Blocked in Australia
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Horrendous Death of Construction Worker Held Hostage in Nigeria Recounted to Family at Inquest
 
Immigration
» Have We Forgotten That “Undocumented Citizens” Are in Our Country Illegally?
» It is Confirmed! Idaho Uzbek Arrested on Terror Charges is a Refugee
» Italy: Northern League Organises Petition Against Naturalisation
» Obama Takes Pro-Amnesty Road Show South of the Border
» Trade Deal Could Open Canada for More Asylum Seekers
 
Culture Wars
» Croatia: Petition for Anti-Gay Marriage Referendum Underway
» France: The Word ‘Race’ To be Struck From Constitution
» Italy: Legal Protection ‘Inadequate for Homosexual Discrimination’
» Italy’s ‘Macho: Homophobic’ Culture Persists, Says Speaker
» Italy: Fight Gay Discrimination Says President on Homophobia Day
» Italy: Church ‘Flunks’ Marino on Civil Partnerships and Euthanasia
» Michael Barone: In Defense of Jason Richwine and Charles Murray
» New Court Action, Legislation, In Mt. Soledad Cross Case
» No Such Thing as ‘Race’, Say French Lawmakers
» Should Research on Race and IQ be Banned?
 

10 Amazing Charts That Demonstrate the Slow, Agonizing Death of the American Worker

The middle class American worker is in danger of becoming an endangered species. The politicians are not telling you the truth, and the mainstream media is certainly not telling you the truth, but the reality is that there is nothing but bad news on the horizon for workers in the United States. In the old days, when the big corporations that dominate our society did well, that also meant good things for American workers since those corporations would need more of us to work for them. But in the emerging one world economic system that our economy is being merged into, those corporations have other choices now.

For instance, the big corporations can now choose to limit the number of “expensive” American workers that they employ by shipping millions of jobs to the other side of the world. And from their perspective, it makes perfect sense. They can make much bigger profits by hiring people on the other side of the planet to work for them for less than a dollar an hour. If they can get good production out of those people, then why should they hire Americans for ten to twenty times as much, plus have to give those Americans health insurance and other benefits?

Another major factor in the slow, agonizing death of the American worker is technology. We live during a period when technology is advancing at a pace that is almost unimaginable at the same time that it is steadily becoming cheaper and cheaper. That means that it is going to become easier and easier for companies to replace workers with robots and computers. As I have written about previously, it is being projected that our economy will lose millions of jobs to technology in the coming years. Yes, some of us will still be needed to help build the robots and the computers, but not all of us will. And of course the overall general weakness of the economy is not helping matters either. The American people inherited the greatest economic machine in the history of the world, and we have wrecked it. Decades of very foolish decisions have resulted in the period of steady economic decline that we are experiencing now.

America is simply not the economic powerhouse that it once was. Back in 2001, the U.S. economy accounted for 31.8 percent of global GDP. By 2011, the U.S. economy only accounted for 21.6 percent of global GDP. That is a collapse any way that you want to look at it.

Today, American workers are living in an economy that is rapidly declining, and their jobs are steadily being stolen by robots, computers and foreign workers that live in countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages. Politicians from both political parties refuse to do anything to stop the bleeding because they think that the status quo is working just great.

So don’t expect things to get better any time soon.

The following are 10 amazing charts that demonstrate the slow, agonizing death of the American worker…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

CBO: Obama Vastly Exaggerated Deficit Cuts in Budget

Plan’s tax hikes would outweigh spending cuts by nearly 6 to 1

(Investor’s Business Daily) President Obama vastly exaggerated the spending cuts and deficit reduction his budget plan would produce, while dramatically undercounting the level of tax hikes, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of his budget released Friday.

When Obama put out his budget in mid-April he said that it “will reduce our deficits by nearly another $2 trillion,” and “does so in a balanced and responsible way, a way that most Americans prefer.”

But the CBO report finds that Obama’s budget will cut 10-year deficits by just $1.1 trillion, with annual deficits starting to rise again after 2017.

And far from being balanced, the CBO found that his plan’s tax hikes would outweigh spending cuts by nearly 6 to 1.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Debt Becoming Serious Problem in Netherlands

Warning that debt now a ‘broad social problem’ which is ‘firmly rooted in society’

With the third highest inflation rate in the EU, one household in seven in the Netherlands is unable to pay its bills, while the main earners are facing health problems due to worry and sleepless nights, according to a new survey from the country’s Association of Court Bailiffs.

Although the Netherlands is one of the five EU countries to retain its AAA international credit rating, a blizzard of worrying statistics this week led the Association for Debt Relief and Social Banking to warn that debt was now “a broad social problem” which had become “firmly rooted in society”.

The latest inflation figures show that although there was a drop from 3.2 per cent in March to 2.8 per cent in April, this remained well above the euro zone average of 1.2 per cent — leaving the Netherlands behind only Estonia on 3.4 per cent and Romania on 4.4 per cent.

Contributory factors

Ironically, the Central Bureau of Statistics says increases in insurance tax and value added tax — both introduced when the new Liberal-Labour coalition government came to power last October — have been significant contributory factors to the high inflation rate.

An increase in the excise duty at the same time also means that the Netherlands now has the most expensive petrol in Europe, averaging €1.78 a litre, according to the German motoring organisation, ADAC.

The cost of diesel is the third highest in Europe at €1.44 ($1.89) a litre.

The mood of economic gloom is not being helped either by the fact that more than one million of the country’s 4.2 million owner-occupied houses is now in negative equity — with six in 10 of the owners of those “underwater” properties under the age of 40.

The estate agents’ association, NVM, said the number of houses changing hands fell a massive 30 per cent in the first quarter of 2013, making it the worst quarter on record. The number of properties sold in April fell 26.6 per cent compared to March and 20.4 per cent compared to April 2012.

Uncertainty in the workplace is also increasing, as King Willem-Alexander acknowledged on the day of his investiture three weeks ago.

New figures last night showed that 10 per cent of the working population was now self-employed, with another 16 per cent on short-term or flexible contracts. This means that for the first time, more than a quarter of the Dutch workforce does not have a traditional permanent employment contract.

Immigration decline

Due to this faltering economy, total immigration to the Netherlands declined last year for the first time since 2006.

Despite that, the Government parties say they will begin talks in the next few days to “toughen up” the country’s asylum policy — a move immigrants’ groups say is designed to “divert attention away from the real economic issues”.

           — Hat tip: McR [Return to headlines]
 

We Have Blown the Largest Bubble in the History of Mankind

According to Peter Schiff, who is well known for his dire economic warnings leading up to the crash of 2008, the government is involved in a wide array of manipulations and fuzzy-math in an effort to convince us that the price increases we’ve seen in stores, restaurants and gas stations over the last decade are merely a figment of our imagination.

“What we get from the government when it comes to inflation is not information, it’ s propaganda.”

Citing anecdotal evidence because of a complete lack of transparency from the Fed, BLS and government as a whole, Schiff points to the “Big Mac Index,” which has tracked the price of a McDonald’ s Big Mac at restaurant chains across the world for decades.

Because McDonald’ s caters to tens of millions of customers yearly and offers food at a fairly low cost compared to others in the food service industry, it is a fairly insightful gauge of consumer activity.

According to the Big Mac Index, and contrary to the government’ s claims of stable prices, since 2003 when the Federal Reserve really began cranking hundreds of billions of dollars into an already troubled financial system, the price of inflation is more than double what is being claimed.

The Big Mac has gone up by over 6% per year, yet the government claims CPI is only 2.5% per year. So something’ s wrong. Either something’ s changed at McDonald’s, or something has changed in the way we report inflation. And I trust a hamburger more than I trust the U.S. government.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

“Big Brother” Is Big Business?

The odds are you are not just a face in the crowd any longer. Even if your picture isn’t plastered all over social networking and photo-sharing sites, facial recognition technology in public places is making it harder if not impossible to remain anonymous. Lesley Stahl reports on the new ways this technology is being used that even has one of its inventors calling it too intrusive. Her 60 Minutes report will be broadcast Sunday, May 19 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Professor Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon, who researches how technology impacts privacy, stunned Stahl with an experiment. He photographed random students on the campus and in short order, not only identified several of them, but in a number of cases found their personal information, including social security numbers, just using a facial recognition program he downloaded for free. Acquisti says smart-phones will make “facial searches” as common as Google searches in the future. And nearly everybody can be subject to such prying, even those who are careful about their Internet use.

“One of the participants, before doing the experiment, told us, ‘You’re not going to find me because I’m very careful about my photos online.’ And we found him,” says Acquisti, “Because someone else had uploaded a photo of him.”

Watch the Segment[url]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Cell Phone Users ‘Have No Legitimate Expectation of Privacy’ — Judge

A federal judge recently ruled that if someone has their cell phone turned on, their location data does not deserve protection under the Fourth Amendment, meaning law enforcement can track individuals without a search warrant.

New York magistrate judge Gary Brown decided in favor of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents who were seeking his approval over a warrant on a doctor who they suspected was being paid for issuing thousands of prescriptions. The warrant would have compelled the physician’s phone company to provide real-time tracking data from his cell.

Brown, certainly to the delight of police, issued a 30-page brief outlining his opinion that, by carrying a cell phone, someone is essentially waiving their Fourth Amendment right to due process.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Chechen Refugee Friend of Tsarnaev Interviewed by FBI in Manchester New Hampshire

Longtime readers know that Manchester, NH is one of the (few!) cities

fighting back against the refugee resettlement industry for

overloading their city with needy third-worlders. We have dozens of

posts at RRW on Manchester. [go to URL, above]

Now the residents have one more reason to be up in arms. It seems

that Tamerlan Tzarnaev was a regular visitor, and that he went

shooting with a wheelchair-bound Chechen there who had clearly come as

a refugee (although there is only an oblique reference to the UN

bringing him to Manchester). I’ll bet you a buck that, adding insult

to injury, Musa Khadzhimuratov is living off the generosity of US and

New Hampshire taxpayers in addition to “helping” Tsarnaev.

And, btw, do we give gun permits to former Chechen rebels? (just wondering)

Sheesh, I want to get back to more mundane topics like the State

Department meeting this past week, but all of these refugee terrorist

stories keep getting in my way.

[Return to headlines]
 

CIA-Connected SAIC Awarded Government “Cyber Security” Contract

SAIC’s expertise and its involvement in the Department of Homeland Security’s misnamed “cyber security” operation is particularly worrisome now that the Obama administration has authorized “a new government program involving the interception of communications on Internet service providers, including AT&T — one of the key players in the NSA warrantless wiretapping program,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation noted last month. The initiative eschews the Fourth Amendment and provides transnational telecoms with immunity from prosecution for crimes against the Constitution and the republic.

The secretive and largely covert high-tech surveillance state apparatus was never intended for the likes of Osama bin Laden. It was built for the American people who are considered the real enemies of the national security state. This fact was underscored by former NSA crypto-mathematician and whistleblower William Binney. In 2012, Binney said the high-tech surveillance state now going online is not about foreign terrorists. It is about Americans “who could be a threat to national security” as defined by a centralized federal government. “Even if they think they aren’t doing something wrong, if their position on something is against what the administration has, then they could easily become a target,” Binney warned.

In March, we quoted Richard Davis, the director of the Arkansas State Fusion Center, who said the fusion center in Little Rock does not waste its time surveilling al-Qaeda and other supposed foreign terror threats. “We focus [on] domestic terrorism and certain groups that are anti-government. We want to kind of take a look at that and receive that information.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Colorado Sheriffs Sue the State Over New Gun Control Laws

A consortium of plaintiffs led by 54 of Colorado’s 62 elected county sheriffs filed a lawsuit in federal court against the state Friday in an effort to overturn two new gun control bills that are set to go into effect on July 1.

The plaintiffs have in their sights one law that effectively bans all firearm magazines, and one that requires a background check for every gun transfer when the gun will be in the possession of someone other than the owner for more than 72 hours.

“On one hand, I’m proud to be part of this historic case,” said Weld County Sheriff John Cooke, who spoke on behalf of 18 sheriffs who attended a press conference announcing the suit.

“But on the other hand, it saddens me that we have to be here at all,” he added. “It should never have gotten to this point in the first place.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Diana West: A Preface to “Afterwords”

A preface to my appearance on Afterwords this weekend, airing on C-SPAN2 on Saturday May 18 at 10pm, Sunday May 19 at 9pm, and Monday May 20 at midnight and 3am. It will re-air on C-SPAN2 next Sunday May 26 at noon.

Every author wants to go on C-SPAN Book TV’s Afterwords, and why not? Book TV audiences actually tune in to hear about books they might like to read. I was elated to have my new book, American Betrayal, chosen for the Afterwords show and went to tape the program yesterday with high hopes.

It is a most civilized setting, produced by lovely people, and it provides an author, who has spent years alone in a hole, reading, writing, toiling, thinking, with the chance, faciliated by an informed interviewer, to tell the world what it’s all about. Lay out the themes. Hit the highlights. Even defend the controversial bits and emit some sparks along the way just for fun.

But no. That is, this was not exactly my experience as you’ll see if you tune in. It was tough at times to get a word in edgeways (especially before the off-camera intervention took place midway through) so there are times when the interview is more like a battle for airtime-space — more Senate filibuster meets Hunger Games than convivial let-the-author-cut-loose-and-talk-about-baby…

           — Hat tip: Diana West [Return to headlines]
 

Flashback: Watergate, Nazis, Nixon, Rockefeller

Watergate eventually became the story of two young rookie reporters who exposed and took down a president.

Try to think of another major story in your lifetime where the reporters themselves took center stage, and in the process nearly eclipsed their own work. Odd.

One of them, Bob Woodward, expanded his fame. The powers-that-be permitted him to go on and, with extraordinary access, write books criticizing future presidents. Woodward became the in-house attack dog. Mr. Limited Hangout.

The other reporter, Carl Bernstein, faded into relative obscurity. Well, he began connecting journalists to the CIA. That wasn’t a smart career move. That was, perhaps, a case of biting the hand that had fed him.

To learn why Richard Nixon was really blown out of the White House, you could begin with the infamous Nazi chemical/pharmaceutical cartel, IG Farben. The cartel that pushed Hitler over the top into power in Germany. One of its lasting legacies is the multinational corporation ballooning out into titanic proportions. Farben didn’t just buy smaller companies, it forged favorable agreements with huge corporations all over the world: Standard Oil (Rockefeller); Rhone-Poulenc; Imperial Chemical Industries; Du Pont; Dow.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Infowars Exclusive: IRS Form Sent to Patriot Groups

Alex Jones and Infowars.com received a copy of the form sent to Tea Party and patriot groups. The form queries applicants on the following:

  • A detailed narrative on the organization’s political activity
  • Who conducted the activity and where
  • How organization members were recruited
  • Detailed information on political events
  • Detailed information on speeches, forums, panels, and speakers (including credentials)
  • Names of organization members
  • Copies of all communications, pamphlets, advertisements, etc., distributed
  • Copies of all radio, television or internet advertisements

Although the corporate media has portrayed the intrusive IRS behavior as harassment, the content the government demanded the organizations turn over to the taxation agency to gain tax-exempt status reveals something far more ominous — the IRS was in the business of collecting sensitive political data on organizations ideologically opposed to the Obama administration.

See the form in PDF format here.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

IRS Demanded Info on Pro-Life Group’s Prayers

The Internal Revenue Service allegedly told two pro-life to reveal the content of their prayers and prayer meetings, according to the Thomas More Society.

An IRS office in California ordered Christian Voices for Life of Fort Bend County, Texas to explain the content of prayers “as if they were engaging in highly offensive or criminal behavior,” the Thomas More Society charged.

Agents also ordered Coalition for Life of Iowa to provide detailed information about the group’s prayer meetings.

Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) demanded that outgoing IRS commissioner Steven Miller answer questions about the incidents during Friday’s House Ways and Means Committee hearing. “Their question, specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: ‘Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers.’“

Shock wanted to know if that was an appropriate question for the IRS to ask.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

IRS Targeted Billy Graham Ministry and Other Christian Groups

Even as the president was assuring the American people, more revelations were coming out about the extent of the targeting of organizations that could be broadly categorized as opposing the Obama agenda. Among the organizations the IRS investigated and audited were the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and the 180-year-old Baptist newspaper the Biblical Recorder, published by the North Carolina Baptist State Convention. The IRS reportedly also targeted the humanitarian relief group Samaritan’s Purse. Both it and the BGEA are run by Franklin Graham, son of famed evangelical preacher Billy Graham.

In the run-up to last year’s presidential election, the BGEA took out ads in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other newspapers encouraging Christians to vote in line with biblical values. Shortly after the ads were published, both the BGEA and Samaritan’s Purse were notified that they were being audited by the IRS.

On May 14 Franklin Graham shot off a letter to President Obama concerning the targeting of the organizations he oversees, telling the president that he believes “someone in the administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us. This is morally wrong and unethical — indeed some would call it ‘un-American.’“ Added Graham: “I do not believe that the IRS audit of our two organizations last year is a coincidence — or justifiable.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

IRS Wasn’t Only Agency Hassling True the Vote

TRUE THE VOTE: Catherine Engelbrecht’s organization has revealed multiple cases of voters casting ballots in two states in the same election.

HOUSTON — Since filing for tax exemption at a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2010, the founders of True the Vote, a Houston-based group that tries to prevent elections fraud, have been overwhelmed with scrutiny from a host of government agencies, in particular, by the Internal Revenue Service. .

Catherine and Bryan Englebrecht have suffered through 18 separate encounters with five government agencies, from surprise audits to FBI visits to never-ending demands for paperwork.

The government has been scrutinizing True the Vote, the Engelbrechts’ tea party group, which is called King Street Patriots, and the family’s oil services manufacturing business.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

It’s Bigger Than Obama — We’re Witnessing What Happens When Liberalism Rules

I have a story in the Stack here about the government, ladies and gentlemen. “Homeland Security Guidelines Advise Deference to pro-Shariah Muslim Supremacists.” This is the Daily Caller. Now, I think this is an important point to make. “The Department of Homeland Security, which under Secretary Janet Napolitano has shown a keen interest in monitoring and warning about outspoken conservatives, takes a very different approach in monitoring political Islamists, according to a 2011 memo on protecting the free speech rights of pro-Shariah Muslim supremacists.”

The Obama regime, the federal government, has more tolerance, more deference, more respect for Islamic extremist Muslims than they do for their own citizens who happen to be conservative or Christian. This administration considers conservative Americans and Christians and pro-lifers and people who care about the social issues, to be greater enemies of the state and not worthy of respect or deference. However, militant Islamists and extremist Muslims are accorded all of that.

“The Homeland Security document also seems to discount evidence unearthed by the Justice Department about the aims of some mainstream Muslim organizations..” Instead, Big Sis sends out memos warning everybody at DHS: Make sure you do not infringe upon the free speech rights — the constitutional free-association right, whatever — of pro-Sharia Muslim supremacists. But when it comes to American conservatives and American Christians, this administration is willing to trample all over their constitutional rights and continue denying them — and then warn everybody that it is they, these conservatives and these Christians, who pose the real threat to America…

           — Hat tip: LS [Return to headlines]
 

Last Week’s Conspiracy Theories Are This Week’s Reality

Obama and his co-conspirators aren’t liberals; they’re Maoist-Leninists. Comprehending what that means will be the difference between life and death.

It is now safe to say that if one cannot see the abject evil of the Obama administration as well as the endemic corruption and criminality in our federal government, it is only because they are refusing to look. Due to what some are calling a “perfect storm of circumstances, three scandals have rocked Washington, but these are only the grossest symptoms of the systemic infection that has been festering there for decades.

Those such as myself who suspected on September 12, 2012 that the Obama administration’s narrative relative to the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya was a false one were mocked and ridiculed (as was I personally in 2008 upon claiming that a communist was in the running for the White House). We now know that not only was the narrative false, but that President Obama and his cabinet are probably guilty of criminal action surrounding their responses and subsequent coverup of the actual events in Benghazi that night.

On the heels of whistleblowers’ testimony before Congress last week, the monumentally egregious practices of the Internal Revenue Service pertaining to conservative nonprofit applicants, and the Department of Justice’s collection of communications records from reporters and editors at the Associated Press have emerged. These have given us the opportunity for an unvarnished glimpse into the machinations of the Obama administration — and into our possible future.

…Let us examine just a few of the established facts attendant to recent revelations about the IRS:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Minnesota: Somali Women Sentenced in Terror-Funding Case; Get Stiff Sentences

I wonder if the stiffest sentence has anything to do with what one of the women told the court back in 2011? Amina Ali, after being found guilty of sending money to al-Shabab, declared that we infidels would go to hell.

After the verdicts, one of the women, Amina Farah Ali, told the judge through an interpreter that she was happy because she was “going to heaven no matter what,” and condemned those in authority, saying: “You will go to hell.” She was ordered into custody pending her sentencing.

Although in December 2011 we reported that Minnesota’s hard lefties were coming to the women’s defense, I guess it didn’t amount to a hill of beans when it came to sentencing the pair.

I would have deported them and both of their families because now they will cost the US and Minnesota taxpayers a boatload of money while in prison, not only for their care but in the cost of welfare for their families.

Be sure to see the “peace and love” crowd’s publication entitled, Fight Back News, here. ***UPDATE*** Fight Back News calls them “humanitarian heroes!”

Here is the sentencing news from CBS (hat tip: Ed). I guess refugee terrorism stories are starting to break out of the local press and are going national!

Two Minnesota women convicted of conspiring to send money to al-Shabab in Somalia were given prison sentences in federal court Thursday, ending a week of punishments tied to long-running investigations into terrorism recruiting and financing for the terrorist group.

The ‘go to hell infidel’ girl gets 20 years!

Amina Farah Ali was sentenced to 20 years in prison on 13 terrorism-related counts, and Hawo Mohamed Hassan received a 10-year term on one terror-related count and two counts of lying to the FBI.

Ali insisted during her 3-and-a-half-hour hearing in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis that she was only trying to help the poor in the war-torn East African country of which she is a native.

Chief Judge Michael Davis asked Ali whether those who she collected money from knew that it would be going to al-Shabab. The al Qaeda-linked group is at the heart of much of the violence in Somalia in recent years.

“I did not send the money to al-Shabab. Al-Shabab was a vehicle used to get the money to the needy. It was not used for their own purposes,” Ali said.

[…..]

Ali and Hassan were among nine people sentenced this week for their roles in the federal government’s long-running investigations into terrorism recruiting and financing for al-Shabab.

Let the civilians die!

The government’s key evidence included hundreds of hours of recorded phone calls, obtained during a 10-month wiretap on Ali’s home phone and cellphone. In one call, Ali told others to “forget about the other charities” and focus on “the jihad.” In another, she said, “Let the civilians die.”

[…..]

“A significant sentence would serve as a warning to others among the diaspora lest they believe that similar grass roots fund raising on behalf of a designated terrorist organization is a viable avenue to bringing stability and humanitarian relief to Somalia,” prosecutors wrote in documents filed before the sentencing.

Note to refugee advocates who want to make refugee resettlement available to all Afghan women: Women are just as likely to be Islamic troublemakers as are the men. Have we already forgotten about the charming Mrs. Tsarnaev?

Why so many Somalis in Minnesota? Because the US State Department and “church” contractors began a seed community there—see one of our most-read posts here at RRW.

[Return to headlines]
 

New English Review Does Thorough Report on Boston Bombers

Gordon, writing at the New English Review, has put together a must-read report on the Tsarnaev’s road to becoming the most successful Islamic terrorists in America since 9/11.

Gordon details the role refugee resettlement plays in the seeding of American communities with Islamic supremacists, and he reports on something many of you may not have seen—-the possible involvement of one or both Tsarnaev brothers in the ritualistic murder of three Jewish men in Massachusetts on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. One was a “friend” of the elder brother, Tamerlan.

Gordon (a few snips to pique your interest):

Bostonians may be relieved that the week of terrorism perpetrated by the Tsarnaev brothers which began at 2:49PM April 15, 2013 at the Boston Marathon Finish Line ended dramatically on April 20, 2013 with the capture of surviving younger brother Dzhokhar. However, the nation is perplexed about why this heinous and cowardly act occurred and what can be done to prevent possible re-occurrences in America.

[…..]

In this report, we shall explore why this domestic Jihad, perpetrated by refugees with Chechen Muslim origins from Russia’s troubled Caucasus, occured and the modalities of the alleged radicalization of the Tsarnaev brothers in the Boston Community. Why did the post 9/11 counter-terrorism intelligence system fail to detain Tamerlan Tsarnaev given Russian security requests for investigation prior to his sojourn in Dagestan? There is evidence that this is not an isolated phenomenon among Muslim refugees resettled in the U.S. It has been suggested that a moratorium must be imposed to prevent a reoccurrence of Jihad In America.

Then this:

Were the Tsarneav Brothers Perpetrators of a Triple Murder In Suburban Waltham?

We inquired of the Middlesex County Massachusetts District Attorney about whether they had made a match between the forensic DNA samples found at the murder of three Jewish men that occurred on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and the Tsarnaev brothers. I was told that the matter was under investigation. An intrepid ABC free lancer, Michele McPhee, posted the stunning news that indeed possible matches of DNA samples had been indicated between the forensic evidence from the crime scenes and those of both Boston Jihadi bombers.

Read it all.

I think that the failure of Homeland Security to head off the Boston bombing should be right up there with the three Obama Administration scandals the public is now fixated on (IRS, AP phone records, and Benghazi). Personally, I think the reason it isn’t is that, of all four scandals, it is the most painful to contemplate

[Return to headlines]
 

Obama IRS Asked Tea Party Groups for Back-End Access to Their Websites (Video)

IT GETS WORSE! The Obama IRS demanded that several Tea Party groups provide back-end access to their websites.

And, from reliable sources: This happened to several Tea Party groups!

The source has this in writing. It states they wanted access to everything the members had access to, which would be chats, email, contact information, etc. The group raised less than $600. She was targeted as early as October 2010.

Central Texas 912 President, Maria Acosta joined Kristina Ribali from FreedomWorks to discuss being singled out by the Feds.

The IRS asked for back-end access to the group’s website. And this is a tax question?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama’s Federal Gestapo is Going Down

White House propaganda secretary Jay Carney finally said something that was true, which I can agree with… “This is not a scandal” referring to the IRS gestapo operations run by Obama henchmen.

He’s right, it isn’t a scandal. A scandal is something to read in the supermarket tabloid for entertainment value. No, this is a full-blown conspiracy to use the full weight and power of all federal agencies to go after and destroy all political opponents of “the one” Barack Hussein Obama.

No matter who you ask about what in this administration, you get the same answer… “We know nothing!”

The current story involving Obama’s use of the IRS to target political opposition via going after more than 500 patriotic action groups, their donors and their volunteers, is but one piece of a much larger conspiracy to destroy the United States beginning with all who would stand in the way of that agenda.

Yes, the administration has been using the IRS to target all political opposition since taking office in 2009. They went after Tea Party, 912, Patriot, Liberty, Christian, conservative, republican, constitutional, pro-life and anti-global governance organizations.

These efforts were aimed at blocking “tax exempt” fund raising by placing the groups 501 status on hold. But they were also used to acquire lists of donors, officers and volunteers, individual American citizens who were then targeted for audits and delays in their individual tax refunds, a deeper attempt to cut-off the life blood of any political movement, the funding, and intimidate those who stand opposed to Obama.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Rep. Mike Kelly Rips IRS Chief a New One, Gets Standing O From Gallery

Appearing before the House Weighs and Means Committee today, exiting IRS chief Steven Miller couldn’t do much more than just squirm in his chair as Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa vented the frustrations felt by millions of Americans.

Miller was immediately intimidated by Kelly’s tone and after a few “erms” and “uh-uh-uhs” Kelly let ‘er rip:

“If you think it’s uncomfortable sitting over there you ought to be a private individual when the IRS is across from you asking you questions!”

Here’s a few of Kelly’s best punches:

“I have a grandson who’s afraid to get out of bed at night because he thinks there’s someone under the bed that’s going to grab him. And I think most Americans feel that way about the IRS.”

“It’s always these are low-level people that pushed the wrong button.”

“Yes or no, does it come back to DC?” (Yes — one of Miller’s few coherent responses.)

“So DC and Cincinnati are pretty well connected?”

“This kind of reconfirms that, you know what, they [the IRS] can do almost anything they want to anybody they want, anytime they want. This is very chilling for the American people.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

What Are These Weird Street Signs Being Installed in Las Vegas?

Part of ‘Intellistreets’ rollout?

Strange new street signs being installed across Las Vegas are prompting suspicions from concerned readers, one of whom sent us the following images. Are these new signs part of the nationwide ‘Intellistreets’ rollout of so-called “smart” hubs that eavesdrop on conversations?

As we previously reported, the Intellistreets system which is currently being installed in cities across the US relies on “smart” street lamps connected by a ubiquitous wi-fi network that have numerous “homeland security applications,” including the ability to “engage captive audiences” via a loudspeaker system and give audible warnings to individuals.

The system is “also capable of recording conversations,” according to a report by ABC 7.

The lights can also be fitted with a digital display similar to the one seen in the photos below which can be used for both advertising and security announcements.

The company behind the street lights, Illuminating Concepts, responded to the controversy over ‘Intellistreets’ last year by ludicrously claiming the system did not represent a “big brother” intrusion. ABC 7 confirmed that the company was “working with Homeland Security” to implement the high tech network.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Denmark: School Experiment Discovers Garden Cress Won’t Germinate Near a [Wireless] Router

Garden cress is a fast growing and edible herb that will sprout in just a small amount of slightly alkaline water. But there is one exception to that rule, and is has scientists scratching their heads.

A group of 5 girls have carried out a science experiment at Hjallerup School in North Jutland, Denmark that saw garden cress seeds placed in 12 tubs and split into two batches. Both batches were placed in different rooms that remained the same temperature, and were given the same amount of water and sunlight over the course of 12 days.

You’d expect both batches of 6 tubs to grow equally well, but one set didn’t even germinate. The reason? They were placed next to two routers. Although it’s unclear exactly why this happened, it is thought that the radiation produced by the routers is what stopped the seeds germinating.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Fancy Dipping Your Bread in Some Olive Oil? Not Anymore! EU Vows to Ban Jugs and Dipping Bowls From Restaurants to ‘Protect Customers’

They are a staple on restaurant tables across the country, but the EU has decided to ban olive oil jugs in order to ‘protect customers’.

The controversial move means that customers will now only be able dip their bread or garnish their food using oil from non-refillable and labelled bottles.

A decision to ban the classic jugs and dipping bowls was made by a little-known Brussels committee earlier this week.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Far-Right French Politician Marine Le Pen is Seriously Injured After Fracturing Her Spine in Swimming Pool Fall

Far-right politician Marine Le Pen has fractured her spine after falling into an empty swimming pool in France, it emerged tonight.

News of the 44-year-old’s ‘rather serious’ accident will send shockwaves around nationalist groups, not just in France but across Europe.

Le Pen, who is leader of the National Front (FN), is one of the most high-profile right-wing politicians on the continent, with her hardline anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim agenda regularly winning a huge number of votes at elections.

A poll in May showed that the current president, Francois Hollande, would lose to her if France were to vote tomorrow.

Miss Le Pen has been capitalising recently on growing discontent in over economic gloom, record unemployment levels and President Hollande’s personal unpopularity.

News of her accident was broken by her notorious father, the convicted racist and anti-Semite Jean Marie Le Pen, who was runner-up in the French presidential elections of 2002.

Explaining his daughter’s absence from an FN meeting in Limoges today, Le Pen senior said: ‘Marine could not come because she was the victim of a rather serious accident that prevented her from moving. She fell into an empty pool and got a fracture of the spine.’

A statement released by the FN said Le Pen had a fracture of the sacral — the triangle-shaped bone at the bottom of the spine.

It is a particularly painful condition which severely limits movement and may require surgery to put right.

Le Pen’s accident happened a week ago but, said the FN, she was determined it would not stop her fulfilling future engagements.

           — Hat tip: Heresy Today [Return to headlines]
 

Hunters on Horseback Revive Ancient Tradition of Spearing Wild Boar in Spain

‘Pigsticking’ is the practice of hunting wild boar on horseback with spears. The sport dates back to Roman times and is making a comeback in Spain. Animal rights activists are outraged.

In northern Spain, prehistoric cave paintings depict early humans stalking wild boar with spears. Later, the Romans hunted boar on horseback across the Spanish meseta, or central plateau.

Now that same landscape hosts Madrid’s mirrored skyscrapers. But in their shadow, a handful of ancestral landowners are reviving the ancient hunting ritual of pigsticking, which is hunting wild boar on horseback with spears.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Venice Has Europe’s Priciest Hotel Rooms

Average night 281 euros, Geneva, London, Paris cheaper

(ANSA) — Rome, May 13 — Venice is the most expensive city for tourists to spend the night in Europe, researchers said Monday. According to the Trivago Hotel Price Index, average room rates in May shot up 38% in the lagoon city, more than three times the 12% increase recorded across Europe. The average Venice hotel stay now costs 281 euros, according to the report, beating out Geneva, London, Stockholm and Paris at 278, 204, 200 and 193 euros respectively per room. Rates in Florence went up 20% in May, with an average room costing 165 euros per night. The only Italian city whose rates dropped in May was Milan, down 14% compared to April, at 145 euros per night. Average rates across the country were down 17% compared to the same month last year, while cities such as Bologna, Naples and Venice bucked the trend, with rates up 16%, 5% and 8% respectively.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: ‘Manners Police’ To Keep Venice Tourists in Line

Squads to crack down on feeding pigeons, swim suits in St Mark’s

(ANSA) — Venice, May 15 — ‘Decorum monitors’ will soon be deployed in Venice’s St Mark’s Square to keep summer tourists in line with local customs and manners, officials announced Wednesday. Known as the San Marco Guardians, the civilian etiquette squad will be marked by its orange uniforms and will work alongside police asking visitors not to feed pigeons, not to wear swimsuits away from the beach, and to avoid sitting on the ground in front of busy landmarks. The effort is sponsored by Costa Crociere, a major Italian cruise company responsible for bringing on large numbers of tourists to the lagoon city who often outnumber Venetians on peak days. The cruise industry has been under fire since the Costa Concordia crashed off the coast of Tuscany last year, killing 32 people. Many locals in Venice fear that cruise ships pose a risk to to both the lagoon ecosystem, the surrounding architecture and citizens, and that the influx of tourists aboard those ships are threatening local customs and decorum. Last month, Venice launched a campaign called ‘Venice Yours Too, Respect It’, which consists of 10 guidelines for tourists to respect the city printed in seven languages: Italian, English, Spanish, Japanese, French, Russian and German.

The campaign is also using a mascot, a cartoon winged lion, the symbol of the city.

By some estimates Venice attracts 20 million tourists each year, making the day average in summer up to 90,000, dwarfing the dwindling local population of under 60,000.

The city has implemented a number of good-manners initiatives over the years.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Verona Considering Entry Fee to See Juliet’s Home

‘Honeymoon suite’ would go for up to 5,000 euros

(ANSA) — Verona, May 15 — Romance in the city of star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliette may soon get a bit more expensive.

The City of Verona is considering charging visitors two euros each to enter the courtyard that legend says belongs to the home of Shakespeare’s wretched Juliet, who died for love.

The entrance to the courtyard, where visitors come to see Juliet’s balcony and imagine Romeo standing beneath, is slated for redevelopment.

City officials want to create a new entry linked to other Verona sights.

Another idea being floated is creating a special suite on the top floor of the building where Juliet reportedly lived, to be leased to rich honeymooners at a rate of as much as five-thousand euros per night.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Child Protection Agency Says Condition for Roma ‘Shameful’

Municipal camps force ethnic minority to ‘edges of society’

(ANSA) — Rome, May 15 — Conditions in Roma encampments in and around Italy’s capital are a “painful social shame to no longer be tolerated,” Vincenzo Spadafora from the national child protection agency said on Wednesday.

Spadafora, accompanied by human rights association 21 Luglio, visited several of Rome’s municipally organized container camps designated for 6,000 ethnic Roma living in the city.

“I am speechless. It is shameful that in 2013 people are forced to live on the extremes of society, stripped of their fundamental rights, in these conditions,” Spadafora said.

“Authorities have spent 62 million euros since 2009 on these camps. Thirteen were supposed to be completed by 2011, but today there are only 8 (organized villages),” association president Carlo Stasolla said.

Spadafora said that he would “immediately request a meeting with (Equal Opportunity and Sports) Minister Josefa Idem to ask what the government intends to do”.

According to 21 Luglio, the city’s camps are subject to frequent police raids, struggle with rat and parasite infestations and many are lacking hot water, as well as other basics.

“They say we live here for free, but it isn’t true. We pay 50 euros a month for electricity, but it has been cut off,” said Emil, a Romani man living in the Ceserina camp.

“This is supposed to be an equipped camp. Every year the city spends 587,000 euros for it, but if you look at the conditions, it is evident that the money is being spent elsewhere,” Stasolla said.

According to the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) in a statement released Wednesday, “Italian policies towards the Roma and Sinti violate the basic human rights of thousands of families, and do not encourage their social integration”. “Segregated settlements…constructed and authorised by the authorities are supposed to ensure that camps are built in areas beneficial to the Romani community. In practice, these camps are often isolated and segregated, making it extremely difficult for Roma to access their basic rights to education, employment and healthcare,” the ERRC wrote.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Hundreds Attend Funeral of Pickaxe Killer Victim

(AGI) Milan — Hundreds of people attended the funeral of Alessandro Carole, 40, one of the people killed by Mada Kabobo .

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Beppe Grillo Condemns ‘Idiots in Government’

(AGI) — Rome, May 18 — Writing on his blog, Beppe Grillo said: “It’s all ridiculous and nothing more. The only measure the idiots in government were capable of was a three-month postponement of IMU (property tax).” .

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Muslim Association of Greece Receives Letter Containing Sick Threats

The Muslim Association of Greece (MAG) has asked authorities to investigate a letter sent to its head offices in Neos Cosmos, central Athens, threatening violence against Muslims in Greece if they “don’t shut down their brothels and go to hell” by June 30.

The letter, which was unsigned but typed on paper bearing the insignia of the extreme-right Golden Dawn party, says — in Greek, English and Arabic — that “from July 1 onwards those who are still here will be slaughtered like chickens on the road.”

MAG called on authorities to “ensure that all citizens can enjoy equality in the eyes of the law and that we are not prey to every asymmetric threat.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Nazi Slogans: Has Berlin’s Gentrification Feud Gone Too Far?

By Charly Wilder

It may have begun as a joke, but with the adoption of slogans used by the Nazis, an ongoing feud pitting long-time Berliners against newer residents from southern Germany may have crossed a line.

On Monday morning, residents of Berlin’s central Mitte district awoke to find a memorial bearing a bust of the 19th-century German philosopher Georg Hegel smeared with ketchup and currywurst, a local fast-food specialty, under a banner reading “Expatriate Swabians.” This probably didn’t come as a big surprise, however, given that in the past year, graffitied messages like “Shoot Swabians” and “Swabians Out” have become commonplace in the city — particularly in the former working-class neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg in what was once East Berlin.

Germans from the southwestern region of Swabia — with their hefty savings accounts and distinct accents — have become the unfortunate poster children for the city’s rapid gentrification. Proudly rough-around-the-edges Berliners like to complain that the well-heeled arrivals from the south are bourgeois and pedantic types who are not only causing rents to spike, but molding the German capital in their own provincial image.

An anonymous group claimed responsibility online for defacing the bust of Hegel, who hailed from Stuttgart, Swabia’s largest city. “The Swabians have until December 31, 2013 to leave the transitional quarter. They will be expatriated from Berlin and sent to the south,” reads their website.

Though most of the intimations of the “Expatriate Swabians” group and those like it are probably meant to be tongue-in-cheek, many feel the mock-nativism is in poor taste — especially in Berlin, where mass pogroms were carried out by the Nazis only a few generations ago. Berlin’s interior minister, Frank Henkel, called the most recent incident “tasteless” and “unspeakable.” On Tuesday, he told the mass-circulation daily Bild: “If anybody doesn’t fit into Berlin, then it is not the Swabians, but these intolerant factions.”

It Began as a Joke

The act is the latest in a series of incidents — often referred to as the “Spätzle Wars” in the local press — that at first seemed like harmless pranks. In January, a group known by the name of “Free Swabylon” splattered spätzle — a traditional Swabian egg noodle dish — on a statue of the artist Käthe Kollwitz and called for an autonomous Swabian district in Berlin.

A few days earlier, Wolfgang Thierse, a long-time Prenzlauer Berg resident as well as the vice president of Germany’s federal parliament, the Bundestag, had commented to a local newspaper that he felt he’d become an “endangered species” in his neighborhood and complained that many local bakeries now use the Swabian terms for various pastries, instead of the Berlin ones…

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

‘Scottish Nationalists Are Fascist Scum’: Nigel Farage Hounded by Mob Says They Were Driven by Hatred of the English

Nigel Farage was caught in a war of words with Scottish nationalists last night after he accused them of being ‘fascist scum’.

The UK Independence Party leader said the left-wing extremists who trapped him in an Edinburgh pub were the ‘ugly face of Scottish nationalism’ pursuing an anti-English agenda.

He challenged Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond to condemn the protesters who had chanted ‘Nazi, Nazi’, jostled him and told him to ‘go back to England’.

Mr Farage also hit out at the BBC after a Radio Scotland presenter appeared to question his right to debate Scottish issues.

In the extraordinary scenes on Thursday night the police forced Mr Farage to take refuge in the Canons’ Gait pub on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile for his own safety after the mob of supposedly anti-racist protesters launched the hostile demonstration against him, preventing him from leaving a press conference.

Dozens of activists from the Radical Independence group, most of them students, had gathered on the street outside the press conference, where a giant ‘Vote Yes for Scotland’ banner was held up. Offensive chants included ‘you can stick your Union Jack up your a***’ and ‘go back to England, you’re not welcome here’.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Grieving Husband Accused of Attacking Traffic Warden After He Caught Him Ticketing Cars Outside His Home as He Waited for Wife’s Funeral Cortege

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

A grieving husband has been accused of assaulting a traffic warden who tried to ticket cars outside his home while he waited for his wife’s funeral cortege.

Angry relatives confronted the warden as he was allegedly preparing to issue them fines while they waited for the hearse carrying the body of cancer victim Rena Page, 64.

Her stunned husband Mac Page, 66, challenged the official who later reported him to the police for assault.

Four cars were briefly parked on a single yellow line outside Mr Page’s home in Hunstanton, Norfolk, as the funeral cars moved into position.

The family confronted the official who allegedly carried on noting the cars’ details. A funeral director is also reported to have tried to intervene.

Angry family members admit they challenged the warden but were stunned to later learn he had reported widower Mr Page for assault.

Mr Page, a self-employed gardener, said yesterday: ‘I can’t describe how I felt really. It was bad enough to bury someone at 64 after 48 years of marriage. This bloke didn’t show any compassion at all.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: I Think I’ve Killed Him… He Was Getting on My Nerves: What Pensioner Said After She Throttled Dying Man — But Court Still Rules it Was a ‘Mercy Killing’

[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **]

A pensioner who killed her ex-partner because he was ‘getting on her nerves’ walked free yesterday after a judge likened her actions to a mercy killing.

Joyce Evans, 69, put a Tottenham Hotspur carrier bag over the head of retired soldier Colin Ballinger before throttling him for up to 30 seconds.

When shocked neighbours discovered the scene, Evans told them: ‘I think I’ve killed him. He was getting on my nerves.’

But the retired furnisher polisher later changed her story, claiming that terminally-ill Mr Ballinger, 66, had begged her to help him end his life. She was cleared of murder at the Old Bailey yesterday but convicted of manslaughter.

Judge Gerald Gordon handed her a suspended sentence, saying that there were ‘clear similarities with mercy killing’. The case was described as tragic for all involved…

The judge said the killing was clearly a ‘grave and serious matter’ but noted that Evans had already spent nine and a half months remanded in prison awaiting trial.

She was handed a 12-month sentence, suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 80 hours’ unpaid work.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Loving Parents. An Utterly Respectable Home. So How Did Rachel, 11, Fall Prey to the Oxford Sex Gang?

[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **]

On a Tenerife holiday with her parents to celebrate her 11th birthday, the little girl in the pink sun-dress smiles at the camera. She looks so innocent as her blonde hair blows in the wind and she happily waves a glass of cola in the air.

When this picture was taken, Rachel was in her final year at primary school. Her favourite pastimes were taking the family’s three terriers out for walks near her home in Oxford and inviting her friends round for tea.

As her mother, Georgina, says today: ‘Rachel loved school and was the teacher’s pet. She was excited about going to the big secondary with her friends. She is the youngest of our big family and we doted on her. We called her our baby.’

Yet five months after the holiday picture, Rachel’s childhood was abruptly ended. Instead of returning home straight after school, she started staying out in the park with the same group of girls who used to come to her home for tea.

She would arrive late for the 7.30pm family supper. And — after a time — she often did not come home at night and went missing for days on end.

Now her horrified mother knows the reason for her daughter’s worrying behaviour. She was being seduced by a predatory gang of paedophiles, who lured her into a life of sex slavery by giving her gifts of cocaine, cannabis, cigarettes and vodka.

By the age of 13, Rachel had more than 700 men’s names on her Facebook page. Hundreds of others were sending text messages and even naked photos of themselves to her pink mobile phone…

One of the myths perpetuated by police and social services is that the girls are the wild progeny of feckless parents or sexually precocious youngsters in the care system.

In fact, many come from decent, loving homes — as does Rachel.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt: Over 20,000 Muslims Screaming “Allahu Akbar” Attack Christian Church With Birdshot and Bricks

More fruit of the glorious Obama-endorsed “Arab Spring.” And look at how the Associated Press covered this atrocity.

“Two Christian Churches in Egypt Attacked By Muslims This Week,” by Mary Abdelmassih for AINA, May 18:

(AINA) — The escalation of Muslim attacks on Christian churches in Egypt continues unabated. This week two attacks were carried out, one in Alexandria and one in Menbal in Upper Egypt — both allegedly prompted by harassment of Muslim women. Yesterday the church of St. Mary, in the Dakhela district, west of Alexandria, was attacked by Molotov cocktails and bricks, causing the gate to burn and the breaking of most of the stained glass windows. One Copt was killed and several injured.

According to the official police explanation, the Copt Basem Ramzy Michael was seen by the Muslim Hamada Alloshy, a registered criminal, allegedly extending his body from his balcony to gaze at the flat of Alloshy’s sister, who lives on the ground floor. A quarrel broke out and when the church was attacked, hundreds of Copts hurried to the area to defend the church, among whom was 36-year-old Sedky Sherif, a father of three children. According to his nephew Rabah, who was with him at the time of his death, 1000 Copts were present and were attacked by over 20,000 Muslims, who were firing bird shots at them and throwing bricks. While the church was being attacked the Muslims were shouting “Allahu Akbar.” Security forces were sent out to diffuse the situation and disperse the crowd. They made several arrests on both sides.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

One Dies in Muslim-Christian Clashes in Egypt

(AGI) Alexandria — One person died in renewed clashes between Muslims and Christians in Alexandria .

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Two Christian Churches in Egypt Attacked by Muslims This Week

by Mary Abdelmassih

(AINA) — The escalation of Muslim attacks on Christian churches in Egypt continues unabated. This week two attacks were carried out, one in Alexandria and one in Menbal in Upper Egypt — both allegedly prompted by harassment of Muslim women. Yesterday the church of St. Mary, in the Dakhela district, west of Alexandria, was attacked by Molotov cocktails and bricks, causing the gate to burn and the breaking of most of the stained glass windows. One Copt was killed and several injured.

According to the official police explanation, the Copt Basem Ramzy Michael was seen by the Muslim Hamada Alloshy, a registered criminal, allegedly extending his body from his balcony to gaze at the flat of Alloshy’s sister, who lives on the ground floor. A quarrel broke out and when the church was attacked, hundreds of Copts hurried to the area to defend the church, among whom was 36-year-old Sedky Sherif, a father of three children. According to his nephew Rabah, who was with him at the time of his death, 1000 Copts were present and were attacked by over 20,000 Muslims, who were firing bird shots at them and throwing bricks. While the church was being attacked the Muslims were shouting “Allahu Akbar.” Security forces were sent out to diffuse the situation and disperse the crowd. They made several arrests on both sides.

According to the Security report, the Copt “died of fright,” suffering a heart attack after hearing the sound of gun fire. According to his family and those who saw him, his body was full of bruises and marks from bird shots.

The family and relatives of Sedky Sherif waited this morning at Kom el Dekka morgue to receive his body and the results of the autopsy. A death certificate was issued quoting cause of death as “under investigation.” Weesa Fawzy from Al-Kalema Human Rights Center said that this was the first time that a death certificate is issued and the cause of death is still under investigation. “Has he been seen by the forensics team or not, so how are they still investigating when the body is already buried?”

Coptic Mina Milad Saber, 19 years, was severely injured in yesterday’s attack and underwent brain surgery, but this morning he was found shackled to his bed by the police for fear he might escape, although he is still in a coma.

Most Christians who were injured during the attack either went privately for treatment or quietly left hospital, “as it will end by them being arrested too,” said Weesa Fawzy.

On May 13, in the village of Menbal, district of Matay, north of Minya province, a Muslim mob stormed the village church of Prince Tadros el-Mashreki and assaulted a person inside. They hurled stones and broke everything inside the church, including doors and windows. The mob then went along the streets looting and destroying all Coptic-owned businesses and pharmacies and torching cars. The Copts were also threatened to be expelled from the village. According to witnesses, any Copt who was met by the mob in the street was beaten up.

Attorney Dr. Ehab Ramzy, former MP, said that Menbal has a Muslim majority while Manshiet Menbal, 10 kilometers away, has a Coptc majority. In the afternoon of that day three Muslim youths went to Manshiet Menbal and harassed Coptic girls as they came out of church. “As they drove by, the Muslims threw plastic bags filled with urine at the girls,” Ramzy said. “The Coptic youth defended the girls and, being outnumbered, the Muslims left.” A couple of hours later Muslims congregated and attacked the church and the Coptic minority in village of Menbal.

“The two villages have nothing to do with each other, and Copts in Menbal have nothing at all to do with the quarrel that took place in Manshiet Menbal. They were attacked just because they are Christians,” said Ramzy. Two Muslims were arrested from Menbal, and there is talk of a “reconciliation” meeting to be held. “Now security are looking for Christians to arrest them as a bargaining chip for this forthcoming “reconciliation” meeting,” said Dr Ramzy.

           — Hat tip: Mary Abdelmassih [Return to headlines]
 

Halal Mark a Must for All Food Products in UAE

New certification system from next year

Dubai: All food products claiming to be halal need to have a halal mark and certification from next year, a senior official from the Emirates Standardisation and Metrology Authority (Esma) has said.

The announcement comes as part of a halal regulations package, which will also include halal certification for cosmetics and perfumes as well as clothes and accessories.

“It is His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai’s dream to make Dubai the capital of the halal economy and this initiative is part of that project. Through this process we will make sure what people consume assuming it is halal is actually halal,” said Mohammad Saleh Badri, Director-General of Esma.

According to Badri, there is currently a system in place to verify halal compliance of food products but it has very limited scope.

Article continues below

Recently mandated by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to formulate halal codes for cosmetics and perfumes to be implemented in all Islamic countries, Esma hopes the halal food standards will also be adopted by other countries.

“Each emirate has its own system to verify halal compliance at municipal level but there are no general standards and regulations. We will be putting a whole new system in place which will not only be a point of reference for firms in the UAE but also for other Islamic nations,” added Badri.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Saudi Cleric: Prohibit Women From Using Air Conditioning

A man who claimed to be a Salafist-Wahhibist cleric put the word out on Twitter that women should not flip on air conditioners at home because it sends the signal they’re home and that could lead to moral depravities.

The cleric said “turning on the cooler ventilator is prohibited for women in the absence of their husbands [because] the woman’s act is very dangerous, and may bring about immorality in the society. When she turns the cooler on, someone may notice her presence home, and this might bring about immorality,” International Business Times reported.

           — Hat tip: RR [Return to headlines]
 

Several Bombings in Tripoli and Benghazi in Last 24 Hours

(AGI) Tripoli, May 18 — Amid mounting tension in Libya, several bombings shook Tripoli and Benghazi in the last 24 hours.

Fortunately, nobody was killed, security forces announced. On Friday, there were four explosions in different areas of Benghazi. The bombers’ objectives were a military checkpoint, an orthodox church, a wheat warehouse and a police patrol unit.

In Tripoli, two homemade bombs exploded in the district hosting the embassies of Cyprus, Palestine and Saudi Arabia, damaging several parked vehicles.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Syria: U.S. Adds Sanctions Against 4 Ministers, TV

Syrian Arab Airline and a private satellite TV also targeted

(ANSAmed) — NEW YORK — The US Treasury Department on Thursday imposed new sanctions on Syria, blacklisting four ministers, an airline and a television broadcasters. The cabinet members involved are Defence Minister Fahd Jassem al-Freij, Health Minister Saad Abdel-Salam al-Nayef, Industry Minister Adnan Abdo Al-Sukhni and Justice Minister Naim Hamad al-Ahmad.

The carrier is state-owned Syrian Arab Airlines which, according to US authorities, carried weapons, ammunitions, rockets and anti-aircraft artillery sent by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to Syria.

Private satellite broadcaster al-Dunya TV, created in March 2007, is charged with assisting al-Assad’s propaganda by airing forced confessions.

The United States has already imposed sanctions on Syria’s government, central bank, oil companies and over 100 regime members.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

US Condemns Russian Shipment of Missiles to Syria

The United States has expressed disapproval at Moscow for sending a missile shipment to the Syrian government. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is considering a plea to allow aid into the country.

Top US military official General Martin Dempsey said on Friday that Moscow’s most recent delivery of anti-ship missiles was “ill-timed and very unfortunate.”

Russia’s decision to allow the arms consignment, Dempsey added, risked protracting the civil war within Syria.

“It’s at the very least an unfortunate decision that will embolden the regime and prolong the suffering,” Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon.

The Yakhont missiles, which were recently delivered by Moscow, have advanced radar. That makes them more effective against ships, the New York Times reported Friday, quoting US government sources familiar with classified intelligence reports.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Chinese Man Held in Pakistani Kashmir Over Quran Abuse

A Chinese man working on an energy project in Pakistan-administered Kashmir was being held Saturday after hundreds of protesters attacked his company offices over the alleged desecration of a Quran, officials said.

Lee Ping, administration manager of a Chinese consortium building the Neelum Jhelum Hydropower project, was accused by co-Pakistani workers of throwing the Quran on the ground.

“We have taken Ping into protective custody after protests erupted in the company when Pakistani labourers saw him throwing the belongings of a Pakistani worker including the Quran,” Sardar Gulfraz, a senior police official, told AFP.

Blasphemy is a very sensitive issue in Pakistan, where 97 percent of the 180 million population are Muslims, and even unproven allegations can spark a violent public backlash.

Rights campaigners argue the blasphemy laws, for which the maximum penalty is death, are often abused to settle personal scores and should be reformed.

“(Ping) will be charged under the blasphemy law only after this commission confirms that he was involved in a serious violation,” Gulfraz said.

In March, more than 3,000 furious Muslims rampaged through the Joseph Colony area of Lahore, looting property and burning buildings after a Christian was accused of blasphemy.

Pakistan and China have close friendly relations and Chinese firms and engineers are working in development and energy projects across Pakistan.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

All Eyes on the Arctic Council

The Arctic Council has accepted China and other Asian states as permanent observers. With climate change making the region more accessible to shipping and commercial exploitation, countries are lining up to join.

Asian countries China, India, Japan,South Korea and Singapore have been granted permanent observer status on the Arctic Council, which coordinates research and development activities in the far North. Canada, Iceland, Norway, Russia, the USA and EU members Denmark, Finland and Sweden are currently members, while six indigenous groups are permanent participants. An application from the EU was blocked by Canada. Although numerous EU countries are already represented in the forum as members or observers, the EU is seeking permanent observer status for itself as a bloc.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

China: Internet’s First Victories Over “Princes” Of Communist Power

In recent weeks the cyber users in China, increasingly engaged in denouncing abuses and distortions of the system of national power, fought and won even against prevailing nepotism in the Communist Party: at least 4 cases of “hereditary power” were discovered and defeated via the internet .

Beijing (AsiaNews) — A “prince” of the wealthy southern province of Guangdong has been removed from his post and returned to the rank of government clerk after a group of internet users questioned his rapid rise to power. Jiang Zhongyong, 29 year-old son of the vice president of the local Chinese Political Consultative Conference (CCPC) was degraded by the central authorities after a number of complaints posted on the web called his appointment into question.

Jiang joined the government of the municipality of Paotai in March 2007 as a clerk. After just four months he was promoted to vice president of the Communist Youth League of the area. In November 2011, when his father retired and entered the CCPC (consultative body, but of great influence), his son gets a new job: county vice president at just 27.

The virtual community balked at the decision and began to demand justice from national leaders: according to the internal regulations, in fact, the jump between clerk and executive requires at least 3 years of service. The campaign achieved its result, and the Party removed Jiang announcing that “all those who violate the codes of conduct will be punished.”

The internet’s electronic control of China’s political and social scene seems to be growing in power. While there are increasing cases of medical malpractice and civil persecution reported by the network — especially through Weibo, the most popular microblogging site in the country — these days there’s also other victories against the system of patronage and nepotism in the ruling Communist Party. 3 cases, all in the province of Hunan, were in fact discovered and reported by cyber users.

On 10 May, the portal Chengdu.cn denounced the ties of kinship between Wang Fang — 29 years and secretary of the Youth League of Leiyang — and you Qiusheng, former head of the local propaganda who is his father. Again in Leiyang Wang Qing, 31 (pictured), was appointed vice mayor without having the necessary credentials for the role: instead she has influential relatives.

Finally there is the case of Xu Tao, 27, who was appointed vice president of Xiangtan County without having the right qualifications. His father is the former head of the People’s Congress of the district of Yuhu, while his mother is the deputy director of the Office of the Prosecutor of the same district. The young man was promoted 7 times in 5 years after his graduation, but was forced to resign after the online denunciation.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Japan Angered by China’s Claim to All of Okinawa

Tokyo has rebuffed an effort by Beijing to claim sovereignty over more than 100 Okinawa islands, although some analysts are warning that this is merely the latest gambit by China to seize Japanese territory by force.

The Japanese government has lodged a strong protest with its counterpart in China after an article in a Chinese state-run newspaper suggested that Okinawa was previously a “vassal state” of China and that its sovereignty should be reconsidered.

The protest was passed to Beijing through diplomatic channels, officials at the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo told DW.

The lengthy article appeared in Wednesday’s edition of the People’s Daily newspaper, a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, and was written by Zhang Haipeng and Li Guoqiang. The two are scholars at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the nation’s leading state-run think-tank, and the commentary stated that China had a historical and genuine claim to what used to be the Kingdom of the Ryukyus and was annexed by Japan in the late 1880s.

As well as previously being a “vassal state,” China has strengthened its claim by stating that Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II nullified a treaty signed in 1895 under which China ceded territory to Japan.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Three New Suicides in Apple’s Chinese Supplier Foxconn

(AGI) Beijing — Three new suicides have been reported at Foxconn, the Chinese firm assembling products for Apple, Sony and Nokia ..

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

U.S. Seizes Operator Accounts of Major Japanese Bitcoin Exchange

U.S. authorities have seized two accounts linked to a major operator in the booming Bitcoin digital currency market, Tokyo-based exchange Mt. Gox. The move may prevent the firm from facilitating the purchase and sale of Bitcoins in U.S. dollars at a time when use of the currency and its value has mushroomed.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Welcome to Websites Being Blocked in Australia

An interesting article today in the news paper, sadly I don’t think its going to get the attention it deserves.

http://www.news.com.au…

“MORE than 1200 websites were accidentally blocked after ASIC tried to bar access to a fraudulent website. “…

Here is the most critical statement in the news piece

“ASIC said it had exercised the power extended to it by the Telecommunications Act “numerous times over the past nine months”.

Let’s go back a few quotes

“The university said it was informed by its ISP Exetel that its website had been blocked by Australian authorities. “The Attorney General’s office, ACMA, and the AFP all said they weren’t involved but they still couldn’t or wouldn’t give us any information about why we were blocked,”

See the point?

The Government now has the ability to instruct ASIC to block certain websites under the “fraudulent” banner, without having to give any information into how, why or who.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Horrendous Death of Construction Worker Held Hostage in Nigeria Recounted to Family at Inquest

[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **]

A British hostage was executed by Islamist kidnappers moments after UK Special Forces launched a rescue mission in Nigeria, an inquest heard.

Construction worker Chris McManus, 28, was shot six times as he sought refuge in a toilet while the Special Boat Service joined Nigerian soldiers in a battle to save his life.

His Italian colleague, Franco Lamolinara, 48, was also killed in the raid last March. The pair had been held for ten months.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Have We Forgotten That “Undocumented Citizens” Are in Our Country Illegally?

On top of everything else Congress is arguing about in the great Immigration Debate, now there’s a lawyer and a lawyer-wannabe who think we also need to include language to help protect the immigrant’s consumer rights once he becomes a legal U.S. citizen. It’s too much. Doesn’t anyone out there remember that these “undocumented citizens” are actually in our country illegally? By their own choice?

Huffington Post bloggers Joseph Sanderson and Norman I. Silber believe there looms on the horizon a “positive change” for the estimated 12 million Americans whose “immigration status is unauthorized.” (Sounds like they both got the AP memo about “illegal aliens,” right?) But they also believe that once these “Americans whose immigration status is unauthorized” become legal American citizens, they’re going to be plagued by consumer difficulties and we need to do everything within our power to help them make the transition as smoothly as possible.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

It is Confirmed! Idaho Uzbek Arrested on Terror Charges is a Refugee

by Ann Corcoran

This is an update of my post this morning where I only surmised that Boise’s Uzbek terror suspect is a refugee.

In the case of Boston’s Tsarnaevs, they came here seeking political asylum and in Fazliddin Kurbanov’s case we actually brought him to America. The refugee resettlement program and our asylum program are basically two sides of the same coin. We “welcomed” both to America. But, one thing the resettlement contractors can’t seem to grasp is that with most Muslims their Jihad imperative trumps the American ‘good life’ and it’s just a matter of time before Allah calls.

Are we seeing the beginning of a trend? I suspect we will see other young bucks seeking fame and martyrdom having been emboldened by the Tsarnaev’s ‘succesAP confirms Kurbanov’s immigration status here at USA Today:

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — He was a Russian-speaking truck driver who came to Idaho in 2009 to join hundreds of other Uzbekistan refugees for whom the state has become a sanctuary from violence in their home country.

But federal officials say in an indictment that Fazliddin Kurbanov also was teaching people to build bombs that would target public transportation.

It’s unclear whether those alleged targets were domestic or abroad — or how far Kurbanov would have gone. Prosecutors said Friday only that they believe he is no longer a threat.

[….]

Kurbanov is among about 650 Uzbeks living in Idaho. He was admitted to the U.S. as a refugee in August 2009, the same month he moved to Boise, said Jan Reeves, director of the Idaho Office for Refugees, citing immigration records. Kurbanov was here legally, federal officials said.

He didn’t just move to Boise! A federal refugee contractor, possibly Boise’s office of the International Rescue Committee, was paid by the US State Department (paid by you!) to get him hooked up with social services, find him an apartment and get him a job.

Uzbeks began coming to Idaho’s two refugee settlement centers, in Boise and Twin Falls, in 2003, Reeves said. The centers connect refugees with services such as language classes and help finding work.

The flow of Uzbeks to the state escalated around 2005, when a violent clash between protesters and the government left hundreds dead. [We took in the troublemakers in a special airlift! Now we are reuniting families in sanctuary cities like Boise—-ed]

[….]

About 90 percent of Uzbeks in their home country are Muslim. Representatives of the Islamic Center of Boise, a meeting area for the region’s Muslim community, didn’t immediately return a phone call Friday.

Radical Uzbeks have a broader mission now! Don’t they all!

Although the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan started in the 1990s with the stated aim of overthrowing the Uzbek regime and establishing an Islamic government, its goals have expanded to create a broader Islamic influence in Central Asia.

There is more, read it all.

[Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Northern League Organises Petition Against Naturalisation

(AGI) Milan — The regionalist Northern League has organised a petition against naturalisation in Milan and around the North.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Obama Takes Pro-Amnesty Road Show South of the Border

President Barack Obama took his pro-amnesty road show down south of the border, and guess what, they liked it there.

Well, not entirely. Some Mexicans are angry about the illegal aliens Obama has deported, and some are impatient that he hasn’t gotten amnesty enacted already.

You can’t please everybody. But, we know where his heart is — the amnesty proposal hasn’t even passed the Senate and Obama is already promoting it south of the border. You think that’s not going to encourage more emigration?

The Obama trip to the region lasted from May 2nd to May 4th. The president arrived to Mexico on the 2nd of May, and departed on the 3rd of May for Costa Rica in Central America, from whence he returned to the U.S. on May 4th.

The visit displayed a lot of PR and hot air, but it also showcases the growing integration between the U.S. and Mexico, of which immigration is an important part…

Obama also spoke about the guns in Mexico:

And we also recognize that most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States. (Applause.)

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Trade Deal Could Open Canada for More Asylum Seekers

Around the world countries are struggling with the flow of asylum seekers. I have stories to post from South Africa and Australia where both countries are struggling to cope with tens of thousands who want in. Canada has been trying to deal with its asylum overload by throwing out asylum requests for those citizens of so-called “safe” countries.

For new readers, ‘refugees’ are brought into a country by the government largely with the “help” of the UN, but asylum seekers get across a country’s border somehow (visa overstays are common) and then ask for asylum. Asylum technically is for people who have been persecuted or fear they will be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, and/or membership in a particular social group or because of a political opinion.

Canada has said that there are “safe” countries and will not accept asylum claims from those countries, nonetheless, Stephen Harper will soon have to decide if he will be pressured into opening Canada’s borders to several countries with whom they wish to engage in a special trade deal.

From the Globe and Mail:

In Cali, Colombia, next week, Stephen Harper will ponder a choice driven by the forces of globalization. Trade talks are increasingly applying pressure on Canada to lower restrictions on foreigners entering the country, and in turn, squeezing the refugee-protection system.

Mr. Harper will travel to Colombia to meet the leaders of a new trade bloc, the Pacific Alliance, to consider whether Canada should join. The alliance might be the next big thing in Pacific Rim trade, quickly reducing barriers between emerging Latin American nations and then with Asia.

But the biggest obstacle for Canada isn’t reducing barriers on goods crossing the border, it’s lowering restrictions on people.

The members of the Pacific Alliance — Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru — have dropped visa requirements so their citizens can travel freely within the bloc without forms and fees. They’d expect Canada to do the same if it joins, letting their citizens visit without getting a visa in advance. They find Canada’s visa-application process onerous, and say it rejects too many tourists and business people.

But for Canada, it’s not a straightforward decision on paperwork. Ottawa imposes visas on some countries so they can screen out people who might claim refugee status here. The pressure to lift them forces choices about the asylum system.

[….]

But visas are a tricky hurdle. Lifting them immediately would raise concerns about a flow of refugee claimants from Colombia or Peru.

Read on. Canada has already given refugee status to some Mexicans so this surely would open the door to ‘visitors’ who then apply to stay in Canada.

[Return to headlines]
 

Croatia: Petition for Anti-Gay Marriage Referendum Underway

450,000 signatures necessary, half that many gathered already

(ANSAmed) ZAGREB, MAY 17; A segment of Croatian society has launched a petition for a referendum to amend the country’s Constitution so it will define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

While the Croatian Family Code specifies that marriage is a union between people of opposite sexes, the Constitution does not include gender in its definition.

Called “In the name of the family”, the initiative is supported by the Croatian Catholic Church and opposed by the center-left government of Social Democratic Premier Zoran Milanovic, who a year ago promised but has not yet introduced a special bill that would recognize gay couples. The petitioners, who have already gathered 215,000 signatures as of Sunday, have 15 more days to collect a total of 450,000 signatures, or 10% of the electorate. They will probably make the deadline for what will be Croatia’s first popularly demanded referendum, analysts said.

The idea is “to keep Croatia from ending up like France”, organizers said. Croatia becomes an EU member nation as of July 1.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

France: The Word ‘Race’ To be Struck From Constitution

President Francois Hollande fulfills 2012 campaign promise

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, MAY 17 — The word “race” is on the verge of disappearing from the French constitution, as parliament on Friday adopted a bill introduced by Left Party (PG) leader Jean-Luc Melenchon and supported by the Socialists.

Written in 1946, the French charter stipulates that “France is an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It guarantees that all citizens are equal before the law, without distinction of origin, race, or religion”. In the amended version, the term “race” will be struck, and a text will be added specifying that “the Republic fights racism, antisemitism and xenophobia. It does not recognize the existence of any supposed race”.

President Francois Hollande promised during his victorious campaign, in March 2012, to strike the word “race” from all current legislation. “The Republic has no room for race”, he said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Legal Protection ‘Inadequate for Homosexual Discrimination’

Senate Speaker says state must take action

(see related) (ANSA) — Rome, May 17 — Juridical protection for same-sex couples in Italy is “disproportionate” to the level of discrimination that homosexual pairs face, Senate Speaker Pietro Grasso said on Friday.

“Parliament will have to learn how to effectively deal with these social dynamics with clarity,” Grasso, the country’s former national chief anti-Mafia prosecutor, said.

“The state must take action, not only for recognition, but also for the protection of homosexuals’ rights,” Grasso said.

“It may be a politically controversial theme, but one with which the institutions will have to deal,” he said.

Grasso was speaking on the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT), set up in 2004 to mark the day in 1990 when homosexuality was removed from the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization (WHO).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy’s ‘Macho: Homophobic’ Culture Persists, Says Speaker

Boldrini says rights must be guaranteed

(ANSA) — Rome, May 17 — Italy is still overrun by a widespread “macho and homophobic culture,” the country’s House Speaker said on the International Day Against Homophobia Friday.

It is a culture that reduces “women to objects and homosexuals to caricatures, making them isolated groups who are simply tolerated as long they do not claim their rights and their identity,” Boldrini said.

When women and homosexuals ask for their rights to be respected is when they become open to “attacks at all levels, verbal and physical,” Boldrini, a centre-left former United Nations refugee chief, said.

According to Boldrini, homophobia is fought in three ways. “By implementing more guarantees for rights, punishing perpetrators of homophobic violence or aggression and by battling cultural prejudices and stereotypes,” Boldrini said.

Recognizing women’s and homosexuals’ rights “does not mean stripping them from others,” she said.

“Are we equal or not? The Constitution says we are,” Boldrini said.

The International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) was set up in 2004 to mark the day in 1990 when homosexuality was removed from the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization (WHO).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Fight Gay Discrimination Says President on Homophobia Day

‘Constant commitment’ from govt, society, Napolitano says

(ANSA) — Rome, May 17 — Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Friday urged Italian citizens and lawmakers to wage a “constant” battle against homophobia.

“Reporting (cases) and combatting homophobia must be a firm and constant commitment not only by the institutions but also by the whole of society,” he said on International Anti-Homophobia Day.

The International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) was set up in 2004 to mark the day in 1990 when homosexuality was removed from the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization (WHO).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Church ‘Flunks’ Marino on Civil Partnerships and Euthanasia

(AGI) Rome — The Roman Vicariate gave thumbs down to candidate-mayor Ignazio Marino over civil partnerships and euthanasia ..

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Michael Barone: In Defense of Jason Richwine and Charles Murray

My American Enterprise Institute colleague Charles Murray came to the defense of our former colleague Jason Richwine, who resigned from the Heritage Foundation amid protests about his Harvard Ph.D. thesis, on nationalreview.com. Charles was entirely accurate in stating that Richwine’s conclusion that Hispanics have lower-than-average IQs is accurate and, among specialists in this area, non-controversial. Richwine was careful to say that the average Hispanic IQ might rise over time, as has been observed of other groups’ average IQs.

And the Heritage Foundation paper co-authored by Richwine estimating the fiscal cost of legalizing current illegal immigrants (of which the Hoover Institution’s Keith Hennessey has written a sharp critique on other grounds) did not advocate screening immigrants by IQ. He does seem to favor shifting our system toward admitting more high-skill applicants, as do I and many others, and as do the immigration systems of our Anglosphere cousins Canada and Australia. This is not racist; it has resulted in rapidly growing Asian populations in those two countries. It is discrimination based on skills. No nation has an obligation to admit every foreigner who wants to move there.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

New Court Action, Legislation, In Mt. Soledad Cross Case

As the fight against the ACLU to save the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial cross continues in its 24th year, I forward a link to a Fox 5 news report in San Diego on the Mt. Soledad Memorial getting “more space to expand” to allow for more plaques honoring veterans to be added to the some 3,400 plaques already dedicated.

The report also references the ongoing legal battle against the extremist ACLU, which has become the Taliban of American liberal secularism, to save the memorial “as it is where it is,” i.e., with the Cross honoring veterans intact.

The importance of the Mt. Soledad Memorial Cross case cannot be overestimated. Since the battle to save the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial Cross from destruction by the ACLU was won in 2012, the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial Case is the single most important Establishment of Religion case affecting veterans memorials. It will set a precedent affecting not only this generation, but generations of Americans far into the future.

What is really at stake is whether 300-million Americans will continue to have the ability to honor their war dead and the service of other veterans as those Americans choose; or whether ideologically motivated special interest groups, atheists, agnostics, intolerant secular extremists epitomized by the ACLU, or intolerant Muslims striving to transform America from a free republic under the U.S. Constitution into an Islamic republic under Sharia Law, will have the right to veto those decisions.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

No Such Thing as ‘Race’, Say French Lawmakers

French lawmakers approved a bill on Thursday to completely remove the word “race” from the country’s law books, but the initiative has been blasted as naïve and useless by right-wing opponents.

France’s National Assembly voted on Thursday to strike out the word “race” in any existing legislation that governs the country, even as members of the main opposition Union for Popular Movement labelled the move as overly idealistic.

“In eliminating the legal category of race, the Assembly has helped our country move forward on ideological and educational levels,” said the text’s author, MP Francois Asensi, a member of the far-left Left Front coalition that sponsored the bill.

The bill’s supporters argued that the term, which appears at least six times in France’s penal code and other legal texts, could be interpreted as a category of people.

“The word ‘race’ has no scientific validity and it has been the basis for racist ideologies,” the preamble to the bill declared.

Under the new law, France will not recognise the existence of any distinct race or races.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Should Research on Race and IQ be Banned?

The old issue of genes, race and intelligence has exploded once again. The trigger this time is social scientist Jason Richwine, who recently co-authored a study of immigration for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The study contended that granting amnesty to illegal immigrants could cost the U.S. more than $5 trillion.

After the study’s release, The Washington Post reported that Richwine asserted in his 2009 Harvard Ph.D. thesis, “IQ and Immigration Policy,” that the average IQ of U.S. immigrants “is substantially lower than that of the white native population.” Arguing that “the totality of the evidence suggests a genetic component to group differences in IQ,” Richwine added, “No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.” Richwine proposed that IQ be considered as a factor for screening immigrants.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

5 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/18/2013

  1. When I think of pornography, I must admit I don’t immediately picture an AC unit. Hardly what I’d call a turn-on.

  2. Quote from: Pam Gellers blog.

    chap schrieb…
    Israel protection starts with historical facts.

    Looking for truths and …

    detecting Lies, with its Central lies having been made somewhere in former Syrian Regions ….. this is where – according to historic sights – the Matthewsgospel has been made.

    Writing about the lies in the Matthewgospel opens minds for the lies sets partially infiltrated in Lukes scripts and deletions and manipulations to small amounts in Marks and Johannaans Scripts.

    ….then: Showing how the parts of early Quoran and later “early Quoran” have been built mainly on the Matthewgospel and parts on changing contents in the Luke Gospel.

    Then: Showing why so many in “Western Elites” are so in favour of Islam and that this has in their hearts rarely to do with “inner security” (because this is a hypocrite lie of SELF-deception for their innermost feelings…), but has mainly to do with this: (Islam)-DSCHIHAD is a warfare cult – and SUCH are WARFARE SOULS, TOO.
    Eagle Cult !

    When not fighting against OUTSIDE …. such fight INSIDE their own people. They see Dschihadist Eagle Cult Souls only then “sort of disturbing” when they murder “officially”. This is felt by Western Eagle Cult Souls as “not appropriate”.

    For sure: Western Eagle Cult souls “look out” for the time, when Muslims do reach such a high percentage in the “West”-population that Western Eagle Cult souls could say in their hypocrite hearts then: “OK now they are no more an easy to be killed minority. Now “we” can have honour in seeing whose “Eagle Cult” is the “best”.” Such are the disturbing feelings of Western Eagle Cult souls…..

    AND: They tend to get (Islam)-Dschihad involved in fighting Israel (as the Dschihads wish by their believe – so this is not difficult) by “studying” on that “warfield” to which degree they could let Muslims in Europe grow not to have sorrows about finally THAT THOSE COULD WIN.
    To generate war Merkel delivers tanks to Saudi Arabie. To generate war against Israel such and Crow Cult Journalists try to give a pic as if not Israelis were the Minority in the region, but the “Palestines”, which is a “history lie” since they are no “Philistines” (Palestina was the Latin Name for the region where once Philistines settled and which had by far never the extent of Israel. Philistines assimilated, disappeared as a Entity in about 800 BC) …. they try as Obama to lie-achieve a pic as if Muslim Arabs are in need for “freedom”.

    WHICH THEY REALLY ARE – BUT NOT THE SORT OF “FREEDOM” WHICH LIE SOULS WISH FOR SUCH AND WHICH IS TO STAY AND “PROSPER” IN THE MENTAL-CAGE AND FEELINGS-CAGE OF ISLAM.

    The knowledge about the Matthewsgospel. The knowledge about the influences of this script on “early” Islam and its influence on the deeper lieing “streamings” in “Islam”-Dschiad does destroy LIES, DOES SHOWS THE MIND SETS OF EAGLE CULT SOULS, DOES END THEIR DECEPTIONS AND LIE-COVERS.

    BY SHOWING THEIR REAL INNER MOVEMENTS, BY GIVING THEM THE VIEW UNDER THEIR OWN CARPETS OF SELF BETRAYAL – THEY CAN TAKE THE START FOR TRUE LIVE – BY FEELING ASHAMED FOR WHICH THEY PLANNED !

    THIS WILL SAVE ISRAEL ! …..and many more.

  3. Two major German Anti-Dschihad Blogs have been “suspended”:

    Michael Mannheimer Blog

    Europäische Werte Blog (Kybeline.com)

    Only Months ago there were several attacks on the Blog “Politically Incorrect”.

    • Michael Mannheimer is one of the most profound knowers of “Islam” and its bloodsheds throughout history.

      The woman who is doing “Europäische Werte” is less in knowledge though her motivation to fight the Ideology “Islam” is also strong.

      THERE MUST BE A SERIOUS CASE BEHIND THIS that these two blogs “vanished”…….

      These blogs – especially Michaels – with his argumentative strings is important for the “wake up call” for so many in Europe who are “still sleep”, not even feeling the full scale change and diminishings on freedom which “Islam” inevitably brings for all who disbelieve in a system which orders to hate for the reasons of male narcistic purposes and which leads women to “bring up” suicide murderers which is the only close to Quoran, but unwritten, “chance” that they might not be thrown into hell ……. which is according to Moh almost complete filled with woman.

      Merkel soon visits the Pope. The official line of the Pope is clear: “Allah” is also their “God” … I have no reasons to doubt that this is also is “inside” line, though he KNOWS that this is in many aspects absolute contrary to which is written in the Bible.

      The Quoranic model “Isa” is a non historical lie fake essentially based on the set of Matthews lies which are in many means lesser lies ….

      One question which I try to get answered is a tip from Avi Lipkin about a Jewis Rabbi and a Oriental Christ having been imprisoned by Muslims about 70 to 80 years after Moh`s Death and told to “write (re-write)-change Quoran”. Both were told to be let alive if they to so …… but were finally murdered which is even more showing that both might have had some influence in the “making of present days Quoran version”, which might have differed from versions at Moh`s death quite much.
      I think the possible gap between “peaceful” verses of early Meccan Quoran making and the then following cruel Verses of “Medina” was maybe to “much” for later “Muslims” …. so it could have been that the “story” was somehow partly re-written to bring it more to the level of “see how often “Allah” did try to convince the Meccans and how patient he was”….. and “because his patience after so loooong ended there was “need for fight”” …..

      In fact, when Moh achieved to get the “Ansars”, who also needed “assistance” for they alone were to weak, the “patience of Allah” ended apruptly ……. together these forces under Moh had got the strenght to fight and so they did quickly start with fighting, with most of the “Ansars” still being “unbelievers”.

      …. quite similar reactions as the “Ansar” in todays “Western Elites” in their fighting against their own peoples ?

      And again to the before: The “point in history” from which Islam spread the biggest warfield on this planet has been started when Islam was supported by traitors to their own relatives – these were the Ansars of Medina.

      This process holds on until today ……. there are bunches of traitors today in Europe which lie for the purposes of Islam …. whichs sole reason was – behind close doors – from the soon beginning the get a warfare ideology, the sort of motivs which German Nationalist Socialist do admired so much on Islam …… and why Hitler in his Eagle Cult heart hated true Jeschua connected thinking – and the reason is, because this is peace thinking !

  4. Perhaps the fear of being beaten, or the fear of being arbitrarily divorced, left penniless and without access to their children – these fears are insufficient to keep Saudi women smiling and feigning delight at the sight of the husbands to whom their fathers have sold them?
    Well, turning off the air conditioning until hubby comes home during 130 degree F Saudi summers should do the trick!
    Incidentally, this is an old practice. A few years ago I was researching passive solar, and came across the ancient Middle Eastern custom of building wind chimneys. Tall chimneys painted black drew hot air up out of the building. Irrigation tunnels were opened up in the buildings to allow cooler air from below. A smart system! However, the article went on to add that the practice of using wet cloths to further cool the air flow was limited to male-only buildings. Too much comfort was thought to be a corrupting influence on the women and children.

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