A billionaire heiress in Australia has called for poor people to be sterilized. Given their genetic predisposition to a lower IQ, she says the only way to alleviate poverty is to prevent poor people from reproducing.
In other news, the European Commission is hauling Britain before the European Court of Justice because the UK provides inefficient unemployment and welfare benefits for EU immigrants.
Meanwhile, a Saudi writer of self-help books urges men to molest female sales clerks as a means of inducing them to give up working and stay at home.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, McR, TV, Vlad Tepes, 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.
$1 Billion Loss: Tesla Worse Than Solyndra for Taxpayers
Feds’ bungled investment in car company cost by not demanding stock options
(Slate) In 2009, as the financial crisis raged and General Motors and Chrysler plunged toward bankruptcy, Tesla Motors faced a seemingly impossible task: raising half a billion dollars to build an electric-car factory. Tesla had just staggered through a year of layoffs, canceled orders, and record losses. Then suddenly, salvation. The U.S. Department of Energy offered to lend the company $465 million at rock-bottom interest rates.
Four years later, Tesla Motors offers a remarkable example of how a well-timed government investment in the right company can pay off. Every week, 400 all-electric Model S sedans roll out of Tesla’s factory in Fremont, Calif., which the government’s loan financed. Motor Trend named the Model S its 2013 Car of the Year. Tesla’s stock is the toast of Wall Street, giving the company a market value topping $12 billion. And in sharp contrast to Solyndra, the solar panel maker that defaulted on its $528 million loan from the Energy Departtment, Tesla last week paid the government back early, with interest.
Yet despite all the public celebration, both Solyndra and Tesla stand as warnings of the dangers in deputizing bureaucrats to play bankers and venture capitalists. In both loans, the government walked away laughably undercompensated for the risk it accepted in the startup companies. In fact, the Tesla deal was arguably far more costly for America than the Solyndra fiasco.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Fraud and Corruption at the World Bank: Infowars Nightly News Talks With Karen Hudes (Video)
The former Senior Counsel to the World Bank and whistle-blower Karen Hudes told Infowars Nightly News on Tuesday the globalist loan sharking operation is rife with corruption.
Hudes was terminated and retaliated against after she reported on a scheme to takeover the second largest bank of the Philippines and an underhanded effort by the World Bank to cover-up rampant corruption and a subsequent bailout of the looted bank totaling $500 million.
She told David Knight that this predatory system of unprecedented corruption and fraud is controlled by the Federal Reserve and its interlocking directorship of international banksters.
Financial corruption and fraud at the World Bank and the IMF are normal business practices. Most people are kept in the dark because the establishment media refuses to report on endemic corruption and fraud at the international financial institution.
“While the U.S. press is apt to portray the IMF and World Bank as selfless Good Samaritans, the reality is that these 50 year-old institutions function more like global loan sharks,” write Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Student Loan Delinquency Rate in the United States Has Hit a Brand New Record High
37 million Americans currently have outstanding student loans, and the delinquency rate on those student loans has now reached a level never seen before. According to a new report that was just released by the U.S. Department of Education, 11 percent of all student loans are at least 90 days delinquent. That is a brand new record high, and it is almost double the rate of a decade ago. Total student loan debt exceeds a trillion dollars, and it is now the second largest category of consumer debt after home mortgages. The student loan debt bubble has been growing particularly rapidly in recent years.
According to the Federal Reserve, the total amount of student loan debt has risen by 275 percent since 2003. That is a staggering figure. Millions upon millions of young college graduates are entering the “real world” only to discover that they are already financially crippled for decades to come by oppressive student loan debt burdens. Large numbers of young people are even putting off buying homes or getting married simply because of student loan debt.
So why is this happening? Well, a big part of the problem is that the cost of college tuition has gotten wildly out of control.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
“Conservative” Magazine Counsels Rand Paul to Join the CFR
Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is currently on his nationwide “I’m probably running for president” tour. He’s made the requisite stops in the early election states of Iowa and New Hampshire, courting the GOP faithful and bringing the figurative freezers full of red meat to throw their way. Demonstrating impressive political savvy, he’s also making a habit of making bold statements that set him apart from potential Establishment competitors from both sides of the aisle.
He may be making the right rounds, shaking the right hands, and firing at the right targets, but if he’s serious about being elected president, Senator Paul should join the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). At least that is the incredibly bad advice offered by Jacob Heilbrunn to the freshman senator and scion of the libertarian-leaning Paul family.
In an article published on May 19 in The National Interest — a foreign policy journal — senior editor Heilbrunn suggests not only that Paul “put as much distance between himself” and those who consider the CFR and its globalist policies to be a threat to liberty and U.S. sovereignty, but, “for good measure” he should add CFR president Richard N. Haass as a consigliore…
Perhaps the best evidence of the influence of this organization was revealed during a speech delivered at CFR headquarters in New York City in 2009, by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In her remarks, Clinton offered an accurate and chilling assessment of the relationship between the CFR and American foreign policymakers: “We get a lot of advice from the Council, so this will mean I won’t have as far to go to be told what we should be doing and how we should think about the future.”…
The CFR’s goal was formation of an incrementally stronger world government. Admiral Chester Ward, former Judge Advocate of the U.S. Navy, was a CFR member for 16 years before resigning in disgust. He stated: “The main purpose of the Council on Foreign Relations is promoting the disarmament of U.S. sovereignty and national independence, and submergence into an all-powerful one-world government.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
2 Anti-Gun Control Letters Addressed to Bloomberg Contain Ricin
False flag in the making?
A gun rights supporter allegedly sent two letters containing the poison ricin to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the director of his Mayors Against Illegal Guns campaign, Mark Glaze, according to reports.
The letters are said to make references to Bloomberg’s gun control efforts, saying something to the effect of, “This is a taste of what’s to come if you come to take my gun,” although law enforcement, for some reason, is not releasing the exact wording.
“The FBI has an investigation ongoing and so things like the exact wording and the postmarks, etc. we’re not going to disclose,” NYPD deputy commissioner Paul Browne told CBS News stations WCBS 880 and 1010 WINS.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Alaska Man Murders Great-Grandparents, Rapes Their 2-Year-Old Great-Granddaughter
Yes, Virginia, the Devil does exist, and his name is Jerry Andrew Active. Just hours after being released from jail in Anchorage, Alaska, Active went on a diabolical rampage that ended in the brutal death of an elderly Alaska couple and the horrifying rape of their 2-year-old granddaughter.
Jerry Andrew Active, 24, had been serving time for a probation violation. Released from the Anchorage Correctional Complex shortly after 8 a.m. On Saturday, May 25, he wormed his way through an open window in the victim’s home less than 12 hours later.
The victims, 71-year-old Touch Chean and his 73-year-old wife, Sorn Sreap, were discovered when the couple’s grandson and his wife arrived home. At the same time, they also discovered Active raping their 2-year-old daughter.
Active was arrested at the scene and has been charged with murder, sexual assault, sexual abuse of a minor and burglary. Bail has been set at $1.5 million.
According to The Blaze, Active has been in and out of jail since 2007. In 2009, he was arrested for sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl while the family slept, then assaulting three other members of the household.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Asteroid Miners to Launch World’s 1st Crowdfunded Space Telescope
A private company that plans to mine asteroids unveiled a new venture today (May 29), an ambitious plan to launch the world’s first crowdfunded telescope.
The company, Planetary Resources, is developing a suite of spacecraft, dubbed Arkyd, to study solar-system asteroids as a precursor to mining missions. Now, the firm has launched a crowdfunding campaign to make an Arkyd available for the public’s use. Students, scientists and interested citizens would be able to direct this space telescope toward any space objects they wished.
“We’re very excited to bring this out and make the opportunity available for everyone who’s interested in it,” said Chris Lewicki, Planetary Resources’ president and chief engineer. “We’ve got people — educators, science groups, researchers — who are all very excited for it.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Can One Imagine Will Travis & Davy Crockett Surrendering Their Guns?
Pressing events in the country, namely, Barack Obama and Dianne Feinstein’s attempted gun confiscation proposals, made it necessary for me to devote my column to specifically addressing that issue. Accordingly, the anniversary of the fall of the Alamo passed without my annual tribute. I will rectify that with today’s column. Plus, the story of the Alamo only augments the need for strict adherence to the Second Amendment and the rejection of Obama and Feinstein’s Machiavellian gun-control measures.
It was on March 6, 1836, that the Alamo fell. For more than 13 days, 186 brave and determined patriots withstood Santa Anna’s seasoned army of over 4,000 troops. To a man, the defenders of that mission fort knew they would never leave those ramparts alive. They had several opportunities to leave and live. Yet, they chose to fight and die. How foolish they must look to this generation of spoiled Americans.
It is difficult to recall that stouthearted men such as Davy Crockett (a nationally known frontiersman and former congressman), Will Travis (only 23 years old with a little baby at home), and Jim Bowie (a wealthy landowner with properties on both sides of the Rio Grande) really existed. These were real men with real dreams and real desires. Real blood flowed through their veins. They loved their families and enjoyed life as much as any of us do. However, there was something different about them. They possessed a commitment to liberty which transcended personal safety and comfort.
Liberty is an easy word to say, but it is a hard word to live up to. Freedom has little to do with financial gain or personal pleasure and everything to do with a commitment to duty. Accompanying Freedom is her constant and unattractive companion, Responsibility. Neither is she an only child. Patriotism and Morality are her sisters. They are inseparable: destroy one and all will die.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is nullification — the idea that states can limit the enforcement of federal laws within their borders.
Supporters of nullification see it as a necessary and effective tool to protect states and citizens from the ever-growing power of the federal government. Detractors think this debate was settled by the Civil War, painting proponents of the idea as “neo-Confederates.” In fact, nullification is a growing movement with support on both sides of the political aisle.
As author and historian Thomas Woods notes, nullification is as old as the republic. Its first advocates were Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who drafted the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, which declared, “whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.” Jefferson and Madison acted out of dismay over the Alien and Sedition Acts, which Congress adopted to make it a misdemeanor to speak out against the government, bringing Congress and the president into “contempt or disrepute.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Fort Worth PD Guns Down Senior Citizen in His Own Driveway
Man reportedly shot five times by police while attempting to help neighbor he likely thought was in distress
Two police officers in Fort Worth are claiming the reason they gunned down a 72-year-old man in his own drive-way is because they “felt threatened.”
Early Tuesday, Jerry Wayne Waller heard his neighbor’s home alarm system sound, so he grabbed his gun and began walking over to investigate what the problem was.
“The 72-year-old man didn’t even make it to the house across the street before he was shot. He died on his own property,” reported CBS Fort Worth.
Waller was reportedly shot five times attempting to help a neighbor he likely thought was in distress.
“We were disturbed by suggestions that police may have felt threatened by a man in his own garage faced with unknown trespassers wielding flashlights,” the family remarked in a statement released today.
Waller’s family says police have also been feeding misinformation to local news stations and the public. They are calling for an independent investigation into yesterday’s deplorable police actions…
Earlier this year, we covered how police were being conditioned not to hesitate to shoot when confronted with a gun-toting member of the public.
In February, we reported the Department of Homeland Security held a $2 million dollar contract with Law Enforcement Targets, Inc., a shooting range target manufacturer that produced shooting targets depicting armed elderly citizens, pregnant women and children in residential settings.
Dubbed “No More Hesitation” targets, one of the company’s phone representatives told a caller the targets were produced at the request of law enforcement for training purposes. Undoubtedly, the targets were intended to desensitize police to the idea of shooting gun-owning American citizens, as police in Fort Worth so excellently demonstrated.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gibson Guitar CEO Responds to Government Raid
Raid on company early effort to isolate Obama’s opponents?
(Fox News) The CEO of Gibson Guitars is reviving a claim that his company was unfairly targeted by the government, on the heels of the scandal over the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups.
Gibson boss Henry Juszkiewicz, who has donated in the past to Republicans, told Fox News on Wednesday he doesn’t know whether a series of raids on his company were tied at all to his political leanings. But he said “I clearly believe that someone targeted our company inappropriately.”
Gibson was the subject a high-profile investigation involving disputed fingerboard shipments. Juszkiewicz said the legal fees and seizure of merchandise cost his company roughly $5 million.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) The genetic apocalypse we’ve been warning about for years may have already begun. The USDA just announced they found a significant amount of genetically engineered wheat growing in farm fields in Oregon. As the USDA announced yesterday, “…test results of plant samples from an Oregon farm indicate the presence of genetically engineered (GE) glyphosate-resistant wheat plants.”
Why is this a big deal? Because GE wheat has never been approved for commercialization or sale. These strains of GE wheat escaped from GMO field experiments conducted across 16 states by Monsanto from 1998 to 2005. As the USDA states, “Further testing by USDA laboratories indicates the presence of the same GE glyphosate-resistant wheat variety that Monsanto was authorized to field test in 16 states from 1998 to 2005.”
And that means genetic pollution is already out of control. The GE wheat for which Monsanto claims patent ownership is now invading farms that never planted GE wheat…
Why is the USDA moving so quickly on this issue? Because they know the discovery of GE wheat growing in “the wild” puts the entire credibility of the U.S. wheat supply at risk. GMOs are banned in at least 27 countries around the world, and those countries will not likely allow genetically-contaminated wheat to be imported from the United States.
Depending on what happens next, we could be looking at a global embargo of U.S. wheat exports, meaning the U.S. wheat market would all but collapse.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Holder Heat Intensifies Judiciary Chair Rips AG’s Testimony ‘Flip’
WASHINGTON — Maybe Attorney General Eric Holder should subpoena himself.
Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, charged yesterday that Holder’s approval of a warrant against Fox News correspondent James Rosen is “at odds” with Holder’s sworn testimony that he wasn’t going after journalists who report on national-security leaks.
Goodlatte hit Holder with a scathing letter expressing “great concern” about Holder’s May 15 testimony before the committee — when Holder made statements about press snooping after reports surfaced that the administration had gone after Associated Press phone records in a leak probe.
The Justice Department confirmed last week that Holder himself signed off on a court-approved FBI search warrant that gained access to Rosen’s personal e-mails.
But just days earlier, Holder had told the committee, “With regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material, that is not something that I have ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be a wise policy.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kindergartner Forced to Apologise for Brandishing Tiny Lego Gun
6-year-old given detention for “traumatizing” other kids
A six-year-old kindergarten student was punished by school officials and forced to apologise after he “caused quite a disturbance” on the school bus by playing with a tiny plastic toy gun Friday.
Mieke Crane, the child’s mother, told reporters at WGGB-TV that she received a letter from teachers at Old Mill Pond Elementary in Palmer, Mass. explaining that another child on the bus had yelled to the driver that her son had a gun.
The letter noted that other children on the bus were “traumatized” by the experience.
The offending item turned out to be around the size of a quarter, as depicted in the letter that the school sent. It is believed to be a Lego army figure gun.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kissinger: U.S. And China to Collaborate on Globalist “World Order”
In the video below, Rockefeller protégé and operative Henry Kissinger calls for the United States and the authoritarian government of China to work together to create a globalist totalitarian government.
“The challenge is,” Kissinger told the Asia Society last week, “how to build a world order for the first time in history on a global basis. We talk a lot about world community but the fact is there has never been a world community before” and he then suggested China and the U.S. collaborate on such an effort.
David Rockefeller has paid homage to the communist Chairman Mao, the most prolific mass murderer of the 20th century (responsible for the liquidation of between 49-78,000,000 Chinese).
Rockefeller regards Mao as an ideal leader and the communist revolution and its murderous political purges as a template for world government.
“Whatever the price of the Chinese revolution [an indirect reference to millions killed] , it has obviously succeeded not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also in fostering high morale and community of purpose… The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao’s leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history,” Rockefeller wrote for the New York Times on August 10, 1973.
Rockefeller lavished praise on Mao and the communists three years before the end of the Cultural Revolution in China. Conservative estimates of the death toll exacted by Mao’s cultural purge exceed 30 million people.
Rockefeller’s trusted minion, Henry Kissinger, believes now is the time to export what Mao did in China to the entire world.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Lawsuit accuses IRS of violating the Bill of Rights
A defense for the Bill of Rights came alive yesterday as 25 Tea Party groups struck back at the Internal Revenue Service for the gross persecution of their rights.
A constitutional law firm representing these groups sued the Internal Revenue Service and top Obama officials, claiming the IRS effectively denied their tax-exempt status by unlawfully delaying their applications. In its district court filing, the Washington-based American Center for Law and Justice accused the IRS of a “comprehensive, pervasive, invidious, and organized scheme” to violate the First and Fifth Amendments rights of Tea Party members in a spectacle of suppression more fitting to the Dark Ages.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Teacher Disciplined for Advising Students of Constitutional Rights
Students forced to take survey about “drug use,” “emotions”
A high school teacher in Chicago was disciplined by a school board after he warned students that they should assert their 5th amendment right not to self-incriminate in response to a survey which demanded students provide details about their drug use and “emotions,” leading to a possible visit with a social worker.
Despite receiving support from eighteen speakers at a Batavia school board meeting yesterday, school officials hit social studies teacher John Dryden with a “letter of remedy,” which threatens more consequences if he fails to fulfil a list of demands.
“Dryden told three of his classes that they had a Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate themselves when they took a social-emotional learning survey April 18,” reports the Daily Herald. “Some of the 34 questions asked students about their drug and alcohol use, as well as about their emotions. Their names were on the surveys, as it was intended to identify students who could use help, according to school district officials. Those whose answers raised red flags were called in to the school’s student services workers, including social workers and counselors.”
The survey, the first of its kind in the school district, was part of state-mandated “social-emotional learning standards” and asked students about “drug, alcohol and tobacco use, and emotions,” in order to target specific students who may have required “help” from social workers, counselors and psychologists…
Despite the school claiming parents were informed that they could withdraw their children from taking the survey on privacy grounds, several insisted that no such notification was received.
“I was not made aware a survey was going to be issued to my son, and basically was not given any opportunity to protect his privacy rights,” said Meg Humphrey, a biology teacher at the high school and parent of a student.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Chinese Elephant in the Room — Clean the Traitors Out of Our Government
Over the past couple of years, the Obama administration has allowed — he’s supposedly “Commander-in Chief,” and thus responsible for all national security issues, including breaches — the Communist Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to hack into our military computer system and steal virtually all our military weapons designs.
What Obama got in return is not clear, since like everything else in his “most transparent administration ever,” his political donors have been largely kept secret. However, given the massive amounts of money Bill Clinton got from the Chinese, it is unlikely that the greedy pigs in the Obama campaign machine didn’t take even more.
Clinton’s quid pro quo included giving the Communist Chinese all sorts of help getting established in places like both ends of the Panama Canal and the Bahamas, selling them the technology to actually get their missiles to hit their targets, and enabling them to continue to steal all of our top-secret nuclear technology. By 2002, they had the capability to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles, armed with cutting edge atomic warheads, and hit what they were aimed at. It appears that Obama’s quid pro quo is allowing them to set up Special Enterprise Zones across America, and giving them the information to make all our weapons systems totally vulnerable. Yet none dare call any of this treason.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
While Americans remain focused on the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups applying for tax exempt status, two recently filed lawsuits reveal a far deeper level of alleged corruption at the agency. On May 2, a group of small businesses challenged the IRS’s attempt to illegally implement health insurance subsidies contained in the Affordable Healthcare Act, aka ObamaCare.
On May 14, it was revealed that a class action suit has been filed by a California-based HMO, accusing the IRS of stealing 60 million medical records belonging to 10 million Americans.
The small business group’s suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is the direct result of the Supreme Court’s decision that the part of the healthcare bill requiring Americans to purchase health insurance was constitutional. At the same time, the Court ruled that the federal government could not require states to set up the state-run exchanges necessary to facilitate the purchase of such insurance. As a result, 27 states have opted not to set up exchanges, forcing the federal government to fill the vacuum…
It appears the IRS is running roughshod over the rule of law, a reality pointed out in a paper written by Jonathan Adler and Michael Cannon last July, in which they anticipated lawsuits being filed in this regard. They noted that an IRS rule “purports to extend these tax credits and subsidies to the purchase of health insurance in federal exchanges created in states without exchanges of their own,” they wrote. “This rule lacks statutory authority. The text, structure, and history of the Act show that tax credits and subsidies are not available in federally run exchanges. The IRS rule is contrary to congressional intent and cannot be justified on other legal grounds. Because the granting of tax credits can trigger the imposition of fines on millions of individuals and employers, the IRS rule is likely to be challenged in court.”
It is worse than that. As the Washington Post’s Michael Gerson explains, the IRS “seized the authority to spend about $800 billion over 10 years on benefits that were not authorized by Congress.” By law, only Congress can authorize such spending. Michael Cannon notes the political implications. “It doesn’t look good from the road when IRS employees violate the clear language of federal law in a matter that just happens to rescue the top domestic policy achievement of their boss, the president,” he contends. Sam Kazman, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is coordinating the lawsuit, echoed that sentiment. “ObamaCare is already an incredibly massive program,” he said. “For the IRS to expand it even more, without congressional authorization and in a manner aimed at undercutting state choice, is flagrantly illegal.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Understanding Muslim Brotherhood Deception (Video)
Erick Stakelbeck interviews Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the terror group founder
Erick Stakelbeck, a WND-TV video blogger, is host of CBN’s “Stakelbeck on Terror” and author of “The Terrorist Next Door: How the Government is Deceiving You About the Islamist Threat.” He’s also a GBTV contributor.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Was Michele Bachman Betrayed by Peter C. Waldron and Unification Church Interests?
I have never belonged to the Tea Party or any of its affiliates. That is not to say that I oppose many of their aims. Their tactics, rhetoric and strategies have often not coincided with my own notions of effective advocacy. That being said, today I find myself in the deepest sympathy with one of their most prominent personages — Congressman Michele Bachmann. I strongly suspect she has been set up and betrayed by a skilled political operative who has skillfully worked the Christian world while simultaneously enjoying financial backing from Unification Church interests. His name is Peter C. Waldron. He was on the news A LOT today bragging about the complaints he had filed against the same boss he claimed the Holy Spirit had sent him to — Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Will Free Speech be Upheld in Manchester, Tennessee on June 4th?
On June the 4th at the Coffee County Conference Center in Manchester, Tennessee, Bill Killian the US Attorney for Eastern Tennessee, a political appointee of the US Department of Justice, and Kenneth Moore, an FBI special agent in the Knoxville office, are joining hands with a Tennessee Muslim Advocacy group the American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee (AMACTN) to stifle your free speech under the First Amendment. So what should the good citizens of the Volunteer State do on the evening of June 4th? They might consider attending the Manchester Coffee County Conference Center AMACTN program primed to ask questions during the Q+A. Some might chose to parade on the sidewalks outside with posters and handouts rebutting the misinformation inside. Still others might organize a press conference out front and invite the AMACTN organizers, the US Attorney and FBI Special Agent to a separate event to learn about the foreign threats to our protected free speech under the US Constitution. These actions would demonstrate that Tennesseans and all Americans will not be intimidated. Maybe then the message will get across that free speech was the first right guaranteed in the Bill of Rights of our Constitution. It is first above all amendments guaranteeing our liberties and freedoms against government tyranny.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Zuckerberg in Obama’s Back Pocket, FB Unsafe for Obama Opponents
A St. Louis TV Anchor claims everything was going along swimmingly until he asked President Obama about the First Family’s many vacations. After that, he says, things took a turn for the worse and not only is Larry Conners now a former anchor for KMOV in St. Louis, he’s also being harassed by the IRS.
During an interview last year with President Obama, Conners asked the President a few harmless questions about government spending. He says everything was going fine until he explained to the President that “some KMOV viewers were concerned about the First Family ‘jetting around on different vacations’ and wondered if he was ‘out of touch.”
Conners said the warm demeanor of President Obama and his staff suddenly went cold. Conners believes that, as a result of the interview, he became a target for the IRS.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Canada to Expel Eritrean Diplomat
OTTAWA, May 29 (Xinhua) — Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird announced Wednesday that Ottawa has declared an Eritrean diplomat stationed in Toronto persona non grata and ordered him to leave by June 5. Baird said that Canada has taken steps to expel Semere Ghebremariam O. Micael, consul and head of the Eritrean Consulate General in Toronto, effective immediately. “Mr. O. Micael must leave Canada no later than noon Eastern time on June 5, 2013,” Baird said in a statement without providing any reason for the action. “Today’s actions speak for themselves.” However, Baird said that the Eritrean government is welcome to propose another candidate to represent it in Canada, but that person must be prepared to play by the rules. Our resolve on this matter should not be further tested,” Baird said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Al-Arifi Banned From Switzerland and the E.U.
JEDDAH: ARAB NEWS MONDAY 27 MAY 2013
Saudi Sheikh Mohammad Al-Arifi has been banned again from entering Switzerland and all European Union countries, according to a Swiss official. Jourg Walban, Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that Swiss authorities issued a new decision that bans Al-Arifi from entering all EU states for five consecutive years. Al-Arifi is known for his controversial statements and has a large following on Twitter and YouTube.
The decision denies Al-Arifi entry to 26 European countries included in the Schengen Agreement that allows a visa holder entry to an EU country. The Schengen also allows the visa holder to travel to other EU member countries without restrictions. Al-Arifi was due to participate in the second annual meeting of the Swiss Islamic Council…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
“Professor Mary Louise Roberts, from the University of Wisconsin, said within months of D-Day ordinary French women came to fear their American ‘liberators’. She tells how, by the summer of 1944, large numbers of women in Normandy filed complaints about rapes by US soldiers. And their arrival prompted a wave of crime all over France, with American soldiers caught committing robberies and petty thefts.
Professor Roberts said: ‘My book seeks to debunk an old myth about the GI, thought of as a manly creature that always behaved well.
The GIs were having sex anywhere and everywhere. ‘In the cities of Le Havre and Cherbourg, bad behaviour was common. ‘Women, including those who were married, were openly solicited for sex. Parks, bombed-out buildings, cemeteries and railway tracks were carnal venues.
The book also claims the US army ‘demonstrated a deep and abiding racism’, suggesting they pinned a disproportionate number of rapes on black GIs. Documents show that of 152 troops disciplined by the army for rape, 130 were black.”
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
British Taxpayers to Pay ‘Millions’ Towards Secretive Bilderberg Meeting Security
The clandestine meeting of royalty, prime ministers and business chiefs is taking place in Britain for the first time since 1998, sparking fears of “violence and disturbance.”
The Bilderberg organisers, who include Tory Cabinet minister Ken Clarke, do not release a guest list but a roll-call of luminaries are expected to descend on a luxury Watford hotel from June 6, forcing police to step up security.
Hertfordshire police have refused to release the cost of security for the event, which has previously drawn anti-capitalist protests in other locations around the world.
However, they are in talks with the Home Office about a grant for “unexpected or exceptional costs” that is only given out if it threatens the stability of the force’s policing budget. The final bill would have to total more than one per cent of the police force’s overall spend — or about £1.8 million — for the grant to be successful.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Supermarket Chain Lifts Headscarf Ban
Dansk Supermarked ends its decade-long practice of barring employees from wearing headscarves
As of today, employees will no longer be barred from wearing headscarves at some of the nation’s largest grocers.
Dansk Supermarked, which operates Netto, Føtex and Bilka stores, has decided to end its policy of banning employees from wearing headscarves, a company spokesperson told public broadcaster DR.
Dansk Supermarked has for the past ten years forbidden employees who interact with customers from wearing anything on their heads, unless it was necessary for hygiene purposes. The company won a legal battle in the the Supreme Court in 2005 that upheld its right to enforce a dress code at its stores.
The headscarf ban came up in the media again recently when a 26-year-old Muslim was told not to apply for a job at a Netto store in Odense because of her headscarf. That led a group of Muslim women to encourage a boycott against Netto, Føtex and Bilka, and according to the company’s director of communications, Mads Hvitved Grand, it worked.
“(The protests) caused us to separate the issue of headscarves from the rest of our dress code regulations because it doesn’t really make sense to maintain this old regulation when we decided to update our dress code,” Grand told DR.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
European Council Promises to Comb U.S. Wheat for Monsanto GMO Strains
The European Commission said Thursday it has asked EU member states to check imports of wheat from the United States which may be tainted with a genetically modified strain made by US agrochemicals giant Monsanto.
The Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, said it had informed the 27 member states of the problem, “recommending (they) test the consignment of soft white wheat” in question.
“In case of a positive confirmed result, the consignment shall not be placed on the market,” it said in a statement.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Museums Free to All Kids, Not Just EU Citizens
Kyenge applauds culture minister’s ‘concrete example’
(ANSA) — Rome, May 28 — Italy’s culture minister announced Tuesday that free child admission to public museums would no longer be limited to European Union citizens.
Massimo Bray issued a statement calling on museum and cultural event staff “to comply immediately with these assessments”. Free admission had been limited to Italian children only until 1997 when the law was broadened to include all minors from the EU. Bray said the policy had led to innumerable “unpleasant and embarrassing situations unworthy of a country looking to integrate the people, and who sees its cultural heritage as one of its prime resources”. Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge gave “an applause” to the move by the culture minister, calling the new policy “a concrete example of what we need to do in order to achieve true social cohesion”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Half a Million ‘Dangerous’ Chinese-Made Trinkets Seized
Operation Skull 2 centred on Prato
(ANSA) — Prato, May 29 — Italian police on Wednesday seized half a million allegedly dangerous Chinese-made trinkets in the Tuscan city of Prato as well as Rome and Milan.
Police cited 24 Chinese-born businessmen in the operation, codenamed Skull 2.
Skull 1 last year led to the seizure of 130,000 “extremely toxic” cheap jewelry and other articles which were found to contain cadmium, a banned substance, and nickel above permitted levels.
Prato has one of the biggest Chinese communities in Italy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait Controls Amsterdam’s Blue Mosque
AMSTERDAM, 28/05/13 — Kuwait holds the power in the Blue Mosque in Amsterdam. A top civil servant from the Ministry of Religious Affairs in that country has been appointed board chairman of the mosque, Het Parool newspaper reports.
“Since Tuesday, Mutlaq Alqarawi, affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood, has been registered at the Chamber of Commerce as chairman of Europe Trust Nederland, the owner of the building, which runs the mosque,” according to the report. Alqarawi, called Doctor Mutlaq by those involved, is assistant undersecretary in Kuwait.
According to insiders, Alqarawi has held the sceptre at the mosque in the district of Slotervaart for some time. In minutes from a board meeting of August, obtained by Het Parool, he is named as mosque chairman. At this meeting, Alqarawi pressed for the recruitment of Dutch Islam converts.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Nearest Exoplanet to Earth May be a Ghost World
What unreliable neighbours we have. Last year astronomers announced the discovery of a planet with a similar mass to Earth’s just 4.3 light years away in the nearby Alpha Centauri system. Another look suggests the planet may not be there after all.
Xavier Dumusque of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland and colleagues identified the planet, known as Alpha Centauri Bb, from around 450 observations of Alpha Centauri B, the smaller of the two stars in the system.
The team looked for changes in the star’s light that could be caused by an orbiting planet, whose gravitational tug would induce a slight wobble in the star. This method, known as radial velocity, is often successfully used to hunt exoplanets. But smaller planets have less of a gravitational tug, so finding such worlds in this way is more difficult. That is because noise from the star can obscure the subtle signal and so must be carefully filtered out.
Dumusque filtered the data by removing any periodic signals, such as dark sunspots, that synced up with the rotation of the star. The remaining signal was interpreted as an orbiting planet.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Set aside the fact that our Queen is the Defender of the Christian Faith. Ignore the 26 Church of England bishops who sit in the House of Lords. Pay no attention to the 2011 Census that told us 33.2?million people in England and Wales describe themselves as Christians. For if you want a more telling insight into religion in the United Kingdom today, just look at these photographs. The story they tell is more revealing than any survey. What they show are three acts of worship performed in the East End of London within a few hundred yards of each other at the end of last month. Two of the photos show Sunday morning services in the churches of St George-in-the-East on Cannon Street Road, and St Mary’s on Cable Street. The third shows worshippers gathered for Friday midday prayers outside the nearby mosque on the Brune Street Estate in Spitalfields. The difference in numbers could hardly be more dramatic. At St George’s, some 12 people have congregated to celebrate Holy Communion.
When the church was built in the early 18th century, it was designed to seat 1,230. Numbers are similar at St Mary’s, opened in October 1849. Then, it could boast a congregation of 1,000. Today, as shown in the picture, the worshippers total just 20. While the two churches are nearly empty, the Brune Street Estate mosque has a different problem — overcrowding. The mosque itself is little more than a small room rented in a community centre, and it can hold only 100. However, on Fridays, those numbers swell to three to four times the room’s capacity, so the worshippers spill out onto the street, where they take up around the same amount of space as the size of the near-empty St Mary’s down the road.
What these pictures suggest is that, on current trends, Christianity in this country is becoming a religion of the past, and Islam is one of the future. In the past ten years, there has been a decrease in people in England and Wales identifying as Christian, from 71.7 per cent to 59.3 per cent of the population. In the same period the number of Muslims in England and Wales has risen from 3 per cent of the population to 4.8 per cent — 2.7 million people. And Islam has age on its side. Whereas a half of British Muslims are under 25, almost a quarter of Christians are approaching their eighth decade. It is estimated that in just 20 years, there will be more active Muslims in this country than churchgoers — an idea which even half a century ago would have been utterly unthinkable. Many will conclude with a heavy heart that Christianity faces a permanent decline in Britain, its increasingly empty churches a monument to those centuries when the teachings of Christ governed the thoughts and deeds of the masses. A study in devotion: The tiny mosque on the Brune Street Estate, Spitalfields, holds only 100 people, so the local Bangladeshi community throng the street for Friday midday prayers.
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
A known radical Islamist was today arrested on suspicion of attempting to murder a French soldier — and images of the man suspected of carrying out the attack an hour earlier have been released.
The home of the 22-year-old, who has not been named, was raided by armed anti-terrorist police in La Verriere, a commuter town near Versailles, in the early hours of the morning.
Images believed to be of him were caught on CCTV around the time of Saturday’s attack in Paris’s La Defense business district. He can be seen carrying a shopping bag believed to be filled with knives he had just purchased.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rainfall in Northern Italy Highest Recorded in 150 Years
Cold temperatures from March to May justify complaints
(ANSA) — Rome, May 30 — Although everyone complains about the weather, northern Italians really were justified in their gripes this year as the region suffered its rainiest spring in at least 150 years, authorities said Thursday.
In many parts of the Emilia Romagna region, as well as Veneto, Tuscany and Liguria, rainfall between March and May was among the highest since records were kept at least 150 years ago.
And temperatures in the area will likely prove to be the lowest since 1991, added Daniele Cat Berro of the Italian Meteorological Society.
“In cities like Parma, Piacenza and other areas of the northeast, record rainfall was recorded in the last three months…overall, in fact, rainfall in these locations was the highest ever recorded,” said Cat Berro.
But things are looking up for June, said Antonio Sano’ director of the webpage www.ilmeteo.it.
He thinks that although temperatures in May might have hit lows not seen since the 1980s, the mercury should rise in Italian thermometers to normal, hot levels by the first week of June.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Rome Leads Italy in Cocaine Use, Waste-Water Tests Show
But consumption down overall
(ANSA) — Rome, May 28 — Waste-water analysis shows that Milan has slipped into third place behind Rome and Naples in terms of cocaine use in Italy, the drug czar said Tuesday. “The data analysis of wastewater shows that the highest consumption of cocaine is in Rome, followed by Naples then Milan,” said Giovanni Serpelloni, head of the national anti-drug department, citing tests in which city sewage was analyzed across the country. But overall consumption appears to be down. According to the European Drug Report 2013, released Tuesday, Italy is among five countries on the continent that witnessed a steady drop in cocaine use in 2011. The others are Denmark, Ireland, Spain and Britain. The study, compiled by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), said treatment requests for cocaine abuse were also down in these countries. Cocaine seizures were down across the EU, from 100,000 in 2008 to 86,000 in 2011, while the quantities of those seizures were cut in half. Heroine and cannabis use was also down in Europe.
“But drug use in Europe remains high,” the report said, citing one in four adult Europeans, or roughly 85 million people, who used an illegal drug in 2011.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland: Government Orders Midwives to Spy on ‘Racist’ Parents
Spy program part of Orwellian plan to have children report on their mother & father
The Scottish government has ordered midwives in hospitals to spy on potentially racist parents as part of an Orwellian program that will also encourage children to report their parents to social workers by giving them a rating out of ten.
“The project is part of the sinister Big Brother-style system of state meddling called Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC) which is being quietly rolled out across Scotland,” reports the Express.
Parents are “being secretly judged on their views on race and diversity” by maternity staff to assess their suitability for bringing up their child. If alarm bells are raised, a further investigation asks if the parents “respect and value diversity” and give “due prominence to their racial, ethnic and cultural heritage”.
In other words, if parents express opinions that are deemed politically incorrect or racist by government-trained snoops, they could have their baby seized by the state.
[Comment: Just recently Scotland assigned a government minder for each child born.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Survey: Three-Quarters of Dutch Muslims Applaud Syrian Rebels
THE HAGUE, 29/05/13 — Nearly three-quarters of Dutch Muslims welcome the fact that fellow-believers from the Netherlands travel to Syria to join the fight against the Assad regime, according to a survey carried out by Motivaction and commissioned by public broadcaster NCRV’s TV programme Altijd Wat.
The Syria fighters are seen by an overwhelming majority of 73 percent of the Muslims as heroes. These boys are, in their view doing what the United Nations is neglecting to do: Providing active support for the rebels.
Motivaction only polled the biggest groups of Muslims, and those most closely involved with the conflict. Moroccan and Turkish Dutch were approached, but not Islamic Surinamese and Indonesians. Indigenous Islam converts were filtered out of the “representative sample survey,” according to the bureau.
Most Dutch Muslims consider that no obstacles should be put in the way of potential Syria travellers. They do not want them to be subject to preventive arrest, let alone persecution.
The majority of the Muslims see the Syrian travellers as fighters for the right. Only one quarter see them as Jihadists.
The specific Muslim groups identify strongly with the battle raging in Syria. They follow the news via Turkish and Arabic broadcasters, which show gruesome pictures. Among the Turkish Dutch, the fact that Turkey is a neighbour of Syria also plays a role.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Strike Deal With U.S. Over Tax Evasion
Switzerland has accepted a United States demand to settle a dispute over the alleged complicity of Swiss banks in tax evasion by Americans, Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf announced Wednesday.
“This is both a good and a practical solution,” Widmer-Schlumpf told reporters after a cabinet meeting approved the draft accord.
She indicated that the Swiss government had been presented with a take it or leave it offer by Washington.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Anger at Plan for Anti-Islam Mosque Demo
Plans for an anti-Islam protest rally in Lincoln have been condemned as ‘disgraceful, ill-timed and provocative’.
The relatively-unknown East Anglian Patriots are expecting 400 people at the protest at the site of a new mosque in Boultham Park Road on Saturday, June 8.
The Patriots argue the rally is to oppose the “increasing Islamic encroachment on our way of life” and are using Facebook to promote it. Police have promised a “robust” response if there is any trouble on the day. And nearby residents say the group has merely hijacked what was a very local issue. Jean Flannery, chairman of the Boultham Residents’ Association, said: “It is disgusting. It is incredibly offensive and verges on incitement of religious hatred. It’s not representing our association or residents in general.”
The protest was arranged before the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich, but has rapidly gained support since.
Lincolnshire Police said: “Should a protest event take place, ample resources will be in place to ensure public safety. “Any public disorder, or offences related to inciting racial and religious hatred or violence at such an event, will be met with a robust response.” The force also warned people about the use of social media leading up to the event.
Dr Tanweer Ahmed, of the Islamic Association of Lincoln, has told the Muslim community to stay away. “It’s their democratic right to protest but only if they have support from local residents. It is inappropriate to come down and cause tension between communities. We are asking Muslim communities to ignore the protest, keep calm and continue working with local residents to build the mosque.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Both Left and Right Underestimate Political Islam
by Peyvand Khorsandi
The concerns of EDL supporters are ill-informed and badly expressed but they are not invalid
The English Defence League’s Tommy Robinson is known for running a sunbed shop where white people go to turn orange. He’s of Irish stock but pretends to be English — his real name is Stephen Lennon. He is a convicted criminal who counts Anders Breivik as a fan. At Monday’s EDL march on Downing Street, this worthy son of immigrants wore Army camouflage replete with an ISAF badge — a uniform braver souls have lost their lives in — in a shameful bid for what marketers call brand association: Think Our Boys. Think EDL.
Robinson told more than 1,000 people there that this was “a day of respect for our Armed Forces” — insofar as you can honour a murdered soldier by throwing missiles and shouting belligerently, beer in hand. In January, Robinson landed himself in jail after travelling to the US with a false identity. Even the sentencing judge had doubts about his true name; false identity is exactly what he is offering his ill-informed followers. It’s as if Englishness cannot be unpacked to reveal stark differences in class, literacy and food intake, and propensity to throw bottles at those we disagree with. How welcome that Help for Heroes has refused £3,500 in donations from EDL supporters…
[Reader comment by Proud kafir on 29 May 2013.]
You should THANK Tommy Robinson for taking a stand for the UK … he risks his life to do so. Who cares what his name is I DONT 🙂 All I know is he is correct to do so … you on the other hand instead of trying to belittle a man who is working HARD to stop his country from being ISLAMIC 3rd world hell hole YOU should write about HOW TO HELP THE EDL …
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
With 17 whiplash accidents in eight years, Mohammed Saeed might have been considered the unluckiest motorist in Britain.
But after hearing details of a recent compensation claim, a judge decided the 30-year-old may really be an unscrupulous fraudster riding the ‘crash for cash’ bandwagon.
And in an unprecedented move, Judge Simon Brown QC ordered a perjury inquiry into the previous payout bids of the serial claimant and his gang, who may have made thousands of pounds from 23 ‘bogus’ accidents.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: East Lancashire Military Cadets to Wear Plain Clothes ‘Off Duty’ In Wake of Woolwich Killing
MILITARY cadets have been ordered not to wear uniforms on the streets of East Lancashire over terrorism fears. Navy and army cadets in Blackburn, Accrington and Burnley have been told to either cover their uniform when walking to cadet detachments, or to change when they arrive. The move follows the murder of soldier Lee Rigby in south east London on Wednesday. Drummer Rigby, from 2nd Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was wearing a Help for Heroes sweatshirt when he was hacked to death in a Woolwich street…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Forget ‘Islamophobia’. Let’s Tackle Islamism
by Douglas Murray
“The good news is that government is finally dealing with the issue and it is now a priority,” said the government minister in a BBC film last month. And of which of the panoply of issues currently facing our country was this speaker thinking? The stalled economy? Youth unemployment? No. The words were spoken by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the “minister for faith”, and the issue she was happy to report as a UK government “priority” was the tackling of “Islamophobia”.
Coming just days after the bombing of the Boston Marathon by two young radical Muslims, Baroness Warsi’s comments were not just poorly timed — they were poorly thought through. The killing of three people and injury of more than 260 others would have been the perfect time for Britain’s only Muslim cabinet minister to address and assault the ideology which causes such attacks: radical Islam. B Days later, a soldier was beheaded by Islamists on the streets of Woolwich. But — aside from attacking the most irrelevant, fringe extremists like Al-Muhajiroun — Warsi has never taken up this role. This is not just her own failing. It is an exemplar of a wider cultural failure.
In the first years after 9/11 there was some success in turning the global spotlight onto what Islamic fundamentalists believed, taught and aimed to achieve. But then — at some point in the last five or more years — that spotlight was turned around. It was not on the extremists but on the rest of us — Muslim and non-Muslim — that it settled. It became all of us who were the problem — not the crimes of the fundamentalists but our response to them. The primary problem was no longer Islamic fundamentalism but “Islamophobia”. This narrative has not only become pervasive in our societies — it has become dominant. It is stopping us from dealing with the most severe challenge to our security. It is time to unfold the lie.
I have long argued — in this magazine and elsewhere — that the very word “Islamophobia” is a nonsense term. A “phobia” is something of which one is irrationally afraid. Yet it is supremely rational to be scared of elements of Islam and of its fundamentalist strains in particular. Nevertheless the term has been very successfully deployed, not least because it has the aura of a smear. “Islamophobes” are not only subject to an irrational and unnecessary fear; they are assumed to be motivated (because most Muslims in the West are from an ethnic minority) by “racism”. Who would not recoil from such charges?
[…]
Deal with radical Islam and what is rightly or wrongly called “Islamophobia” will disappear.
[JP note: Let’s.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Hay Has Gone Political; If Only Politics Would Go Hay
by Peter Hoskins
Clouds swell against the Welsh hills, projecting rain on to the trees, tents and bookshops below. But the thunderstorms — the really furious, electric thunderstorms — they’re not so much breaking over this year’s Hay Festival as around it. You’ve probably seen the stories already. David Goodhart, previously angry at not being invited to discuss his book on immigration, The British Dream, has accused the festival’s director of denying Charles Moore a chance to speak about his Thatcher biography. In response, Peter Florence has sighed, “It’s getting a little tedious wasting time on David’s PR campaign”. There’s a full-blown literary spat a-brewing.
For those of us stuck under the dour skies of Westminster, it’s all too familiar — and not just because this row involves members of our extended family. Spats are something that set the political media drooling with ink and excitement. And so, too, are questions about platforms and whom they should be extended too. Were Newsnight and Channel 4 News right to spread Anjem Choudary across the airwaves last week? Were there too many trade unionists on teevee after Margaret Thatcher’s death? Allegations of bias, and of editorial impropriety, hover around every corner.
But there is much else about Hay that is less familiar to political onlookers. Just consider: every year, thousands of people from around Britain — from around the world, even — decamp to a small town on the English-Welsh border to indulge their love of books. It can be done expensively, with a room in one of the area’s smartest hotels and tickets to the main, blockbusting events. Or it can be done relatively economically, from a tent, going to the many free events. The fact is, it is done both ways and everything in between. It’s an open sort of get-together.
Politics also has its festivals, its gatherings for the faithful, but they tend to be of a very different sort. The exemplar here, of course, is the party conference — and what to say about them? They may feature fewer grand quarrels over speakers than Hay, but that’s because all of their speakers come from the same primordial soup bowl, and they’re more shut-off in other ways, too. If you can’t stump up around £700*, then you may as well never pack your bags for Manchester, Birmingham or wherever. And that’s exactly what activists are choosing to do. By many counts, there are now more non-party members at conferences than party members. The suits are outnumbering the geeks.
But even where political get-togethers are cheaper and more open, they’re still not quite like Hay. The insightful debates hosted by think-tanks in Westminster? They only last an hour or two. The televisual roadshow that is Question Time? The audience is only a couple of hundred people strong. Even ConservativeHome’s excellent Victory 2015 conference — which had the benefit of being both interesting and affordable — was narrowed by its own Conservative-ness, even though people from all across the political universe did attend. It was, so to speak, a convention for Austen fanatics against Hay’s world of literature.
There is an argument that all this matters less in an age of social media; that our political commune and argument can be done across Facebook and Twitter. But I reckon this downplays the importance of meeting up. Douglas Carswell’s recent article for the Financial Times — highlighted by Mark Wallace on this site — was instructive in this regard. Mr Carswell may be a doyen of iPolitics, but he also takes care to do the good, old-fashioned, face-to-face stuff. He writes, for instance, of “a recent meet-up evening” at which “120 local residents got together for an evening of fish and chips”. “Such events,” he says, “have helped increase my local association membership by 59 per cent.”
So imagine, for a crazy, fleeting instant, a political festival drawn along the same lines as Hay. It would be open to all political geeks, not just those of one party. It would be cheap, with some — if not all — events free to attend. Visitors would flit between a Q&A session with David Cameron, a discussion of defence spending between Jim Murphy and Philip Hammond, karaoke with Nigel Farage, and a raffle organised by the Socialist Workers’ Party. Lambs would gambol around the tents pitched outside. Tea and cake would be served.
Okay, my tongue’s partially in my cheek, but only partially. For all the impracticalities surrounding such a festival — How would security work? Who would fund it? Where would it be held? — I suspect that something like it would prove popular. After all, by all available evidence, the public is as politically engaged as ever, it’s just that they lack trust in mainstream politics and its participants. A cross-party conference, out in some green and pleasant corner of Britain, may not be the way to restore that trust completely, but it’s the sort of drastic measure, like those I’ve advocated before, that may help.
But here’s the real impediment: the party leaderships probably wouldn’t sign up to such a festival of politics, particularly if it meant having to work together. One of the saddest leitmotfs of this Parliament has been the defeat of measures to restore trust by the exigencies of party politics. A proper recall mechanism? Curbs on parliamentary perks? Less “Punch and Judy”, as someone once put it? There’s probably more chance of David Goodhart being booked for Hay next year.
* According to a ConservativeHome survey from a couple of years ago.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Mohammed Amin: Calling Terrorists Jihadis Helps Them
Mohammed Amin is Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum. He is writing in a personal capacity.
We all like conciseness. The ideal is a short name such as “Higgs boson” that specifies exactly what you mean, and which conveys that precise meaning to everyone who hears the name. However in politics names are rarely as precise and the same words can mean very different things to different listeners. Accordingly some words can be very damaging to use.
I want to explain why we should never call people such as the Woolwich killers or the insurgents in Mali “jihadis” or “jihadists”.
Some words are inherently good
In the English language, calling someone a “cleric” tells you their role, but does not specify their character. He or she may be a virtuous cleric or an evil cleric. However if you call someone a “saint”, then you are specifying their character as virtuous. There are no “evil saints”; the phrase is an oxymoron.
“Crusade” is another such word. Regardless of how much we learn about the actual conduct of the Crusaders, in English a crusade is always a virtuous activity. That is why after 9/11 President George W Bush found it is entirely natural to refer to his personal mission to combat Al Qaeda as his crusade. He never repeated the word because his advisers pointed out that Crusaders are seen differently by Middle East Muslims! Similarly “freedom fighters” are always good people. That is why our government has never once referred to the IRA as freedom fighters.
Jihad
The Arabic word jihad means struggle or striving. It has two meanings in Islam.
The inner struggle to resist temptation and to live your life in accordance with God’s teachings.
Military struggle to defend the Muslim community against aggression. There are various rules within Islam regarding when such a jihad can be declared.
In Islam, both forms of jihad are inherently good things. Accordingly to a Muslim the phrases “evil jihadi” or “evil jihadist” are oxymorons. Against this background there are two good reasons why insurgents such as those in Mali should not be referred to be referred to as jihadis…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Hunting Man Over War Memorial Vandalism
This is the man police are hunting after a war memorial for members of the RAF’s Bomber Command was daubed with graffiti following the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby.
In the wake of tensions over the brutal murder of 25-year-old Drummer Rigby, vandals painted the word Islam in large red letters on the structure remembering those killed in the Second World War, and also on the nearby Animals in War memorial.
Jim Dooley, chairman of the Bomber Command Memorial Fundraising Committee, said: “I’m hoping for three things — firstly that we catch the perpetrator, secondly that people will realise that if they desecrate memorials they are going to be seen on TV and thirdly that we can repair the damage as quickly as possible. The men whose sacrifice is commemorated by the memorial died to win the freedoms we all enjoy today, and sometimes, sadly, there are people who don’t respect that. What has happened is a real sickener.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Tories Must Learn Once More How to Express Patriotism, Or the Future Belongs to UKIP
By Andrew Gimson
Conservatives have somehow lost what should be the natural and instinctive art of appealing to our patriotism. Edmund Burke was not so inhibited. As he says in a famous passage in his Reflections on the French Revolution:
“To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and to mankind.”
Burke recognised that patriotism is not an exclusive emotion: it comprehends many others attachments, including the love of mankind. But he also prized and wished to show others how to prize the ancient liberties which we have seen since Magna Carta as our inheritance
[…]
[JP note: Soon to be replaced by the Medina Charter.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Woolwich Attack: Michael Adebowale Charged With Murder of Soldier Lee Rigby
Police have charged Michael Abedowale with the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby who was hacked to death last week as he returned to his army barracks.
Adebowale, 22, from Greenwich, South East London was arrested at the scene in Woolwich after he was shot by armed police. Detectives from Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command have been authorised to charge him with the murder of Drummer Rigby, 25, as well as possession of a firearm.
Sue Hemming, head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter-Terrorism Division, said: “Crown prosecutors have been working with the investigators of Counter Terrorism Command since the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby on 22 May. Following the release of Michael Adebowale from hospital, we have authorised the police to charge him with the murder of Drummer Rigby. We have also authorised police to charge him with possession of a firearm, contrary to section 16A of the Firearms Act 1968. There is sufficient evidence to prosecute Michael Adebowale and it is in the public interest to do so.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Woolwich Attack: Anti-Terror Funding Cut in Borough Where Drummer Lee Rigby Was Killed
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, withdrew funding to combat terrorism in the area where Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered, because it was deemed at low risk of extremism, it has emerged.
The London borough of Greenwich, where Drummer Rigby was hacked to death as he returned to his Army barracks last Wednesday, lost its financial support for anti-extremist measures after a risk assessment carried out by the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism. Among the projects cut was a programme which brought together young people aged 14 to 19 with Muslim soldiers, Gurkha warriors and veterans of World War Two, according to The Times (£). Greenwich, home to Michael Adebowale, who has been charged with Drummer Rigby’s murder, was originally part of the Government’s Prevent strategy and received more than £500,000 during the first four years of the programme…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Macedonia Announces Cancellation of South-East European Cooperation Process Summit
SKOPJE, May 29 (Xinhua) — Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov on Wednesday announced cancellation of the 16th Summit of the Heads of State and Government of SEECP (South-East European Cooperation Process) Participating States that had been scheduled for June 1 in Ohrid, Macedonia. The announcement was made after several heads of state canceled their participation.
At a press conference at the president’s residency in Skopje, Ivanov said it was a hard decision that had to be taken.
“We did everything we could to bring all the leaders from the region on one table. That is why we set topic that is very important in the global agenda. Macedonia doesn’t want to be observer or participant in the games with vetoes and boycotts,” said Ivanov, whose country got the SEECP presidency in June 2012. Apart from the summit in Ohrid, a meeting titled “Dialogue of the civilizations” initiated by Macedonia was supposed to be held in Struga and was also canceled…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
The U.S. Helps Reconstruct the Ottoman Empire
by Robert E. Kaplan
Each of these United States military interventions occurred in an area that had been part of the Ottoman Empire, and where a secular regime was replaced by an Islamist one. So far, the German policy of keeping hidden its leadership role in its attempt to reconstitute the Ottoman Empire has succeeded.
Since the mid-1990s the United States has intervened militarily in several internal armed conflicts in Europe and the Middle East: bombing Serbs and Serbia in support of Izetbegovic’s Moslem Regime in Bosnia in 1995, bombing Serbs and Serbia in support of KLA Moslems of Kosovo in 1999, bombing Libya’s Gaddafi regime in support of rebels in 2010. Each intervention was justified to Americans as motivated by humanitarian concerns: to protect Bosnian Moslems from genocidal Serbs, to protect Kosovo Moslems from genocidal Serbs, and to protect Libyans from their murderous dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Other reasons for these interventions were also offered: to gain for the United States a strategic foothold in the Balkans, to defeat communism in Yugoslavia, to demonstrate to the world’s Moslems that the United States is not anti-Moslem, to redefine the role of NATO in the post-Cold War era, among others.
Each of these United States military interventions occurred in an area that had been part of the Ottoman Empire. In each, a secular regime was ultimately replaced by an Islamist one favoring sharia law and the creation of a world-wide Caliphate. The countries that experienced the “Arab Spring” of the 2010s without the help of American military intervention, Tunisia and Egypt, had also been part of the Ottoman Empire, and also ended up with Islamist regimes.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ancient Egyptian Jewellery Carved From a Meteorite
THINK iron jewellery is down-to-earth? Not for the ancient Egyptians, it wasn’t. A 5300-year-old necklace bead found in an Egyptian tomb was made with iron from a meteorite.
Evidence for iron smelting in Egypt dates back to the 6th century BC, but archaeologists have found much older iron artefacts in the region, including in Tutankhamun’s tomb. Such artefacts are “pretty much exclusive to high-status tombs”, says Diane Johnson of the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK. Previous analyses of the oldest of these — nine iron beads from a cemetery near the Nile — proved inconclusive on their origins.
Now Johnson and colleagues have taken another look at one of the beads (pictured) and concluded that it is indeed from a meteorite. The surface of the bead had low levels of nickel, but the levels inside were as high as they would be in a meteorite.
But the clincher was evidence of a distinctive crystal structure — known as the Widmanstätten pattern — that only forms when iron and nickel cools very slowly, as it does in meteoroids (Meteoritics & Planetary Science, doi.org/mmb).
It is “very convincing” that the beads come from a meteorite, says Meenakshi Wadhwa of the Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University in Tempe.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Femen Activists Arrested for ‘Obscene Acts’ After Topless Protest
Tunis, 29 May (AKI) — Three feminists from the Ukrainian group Femen were arrested Wednesday in Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, after baring their breasts outside the justice ministry in support of detained Tunisian feminist Amina Tyler.
The trio, one German and two French women, were hustled away police. They face a criminal investigation and up to six months in jail for committing ‘obscene acts’, an unnamed source at the justice ministry told Adnkronos International (AKI).
“They committed a provocative act against the authorities,” the source added.
An indignant crowd of around 200 people tried to cover up the three women after they took off their coats to reveal naked torsos scrawled with “Breasts Feed Revolution” and and holding signs saying “F**k your morals!” alongside the Femen logo.
Wearing jean shorts only, the women chanted in English “Free Amina” and “Women’s spring is coming” while a group of lawyers joined the crowd, singing the Tunisian national anthem and shouting “Get out!” at the women.
The crowd also attacked journalists attempting to cover the event and police took several into custody to take statements from them as witnesses.
It was the first protest by Femen members in an Arab country.
Ninteen-year-old Tyler was on Thursday due to appear before a court where she faces being charged with graffiti, carrying a pepper spray, and desecrating a cemetery, which carries a maximum two-year prison sentence.
She was arrested on 19 May in the central Tunisian city of Kairouan after painting the word “Femen” on a wall near a cemetery in protest at hardline Islamists from Ansar al-Sharia who had hoped to hold a conference before it was banned by police.
Tyler earlier received death-threats and had to go into hiding when she posted topless pictures of herself online in March in a Femen-inspired protest in which she scrawled “my body is my own and not your honour,” on her breasts.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Security Forces, Unlicensed Street Vendors Clash in Bizerte
Bizerte — Violent clashes between security forces and illegal street vendors broke out, on Tuesday in the city of Bizerte.
Seventeen security officials were injured and many illegal street traders were arrested.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Bahrain: Attack Against Police, Seven Wounded
Four in serious conditions
(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, MAY 30 — Seven policemen were wounded in an attack last night in Bani Jambra, a suburb of Bahrain’s capital, for which 10 people have been arrested, the Interior ministry was quoted as saying by Gulf News. The officers were removing debris in the street from recent clashes between the Shiite community and security forces after a handmade bomb, apparently detonated by remote control, exploded, seriously wounding one policemen. Another three officers are in serious condition.
Bahrain is headed by a Sunni royal family ruling over a Shiite-majority population. It has recently been at the centre of clashes, especially in villages around Manama. The highest peak in protests was registered in 2011 when authorities repressed with violence an uprising by the Shiite population.
Some 40 people died in two months. Ever since then, another 40 people have been reported dead in sporadic clashes.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: Evening Bomb Blasts Kill 30 in Baghdad
QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
Associated Press= BAGHDAD (AP) — Bomb blasts tore through two Baghdad neighborhoods Wednesday evening, killing at least 30 people including several members of a wedding party, and extending a relentless wave of bloodshed roiling Iraq.
The attacks come as the country is experiencing its most sustained bout of violence since the 2011 U.S. military withdrawal. More than 500 people have been killed since the start of May…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
McCain Visited Kidnappers in Syria (Photos)
A shocking report from pan-Arab TV station Al-Jadeed reveals America’s Republican Senator, John McCain, visited kidnappers of Lebanese pilgrims.
Elizabeth O’Bagy, political director for the “Syrian Emergency Task Force” and , a U.S.-based nonprofit providing support to the opposition, allegedly organised the visit which brought McCain just half a mile inside Syria on Monday 27 May.
Soon after or during the snap visit, at least three photos surfaced showing McCain posing with various individuals.
In the following images, McCain is posing with senior members of the Asifat al-Shamal Brigade as well as the chief of the “Free Syrian Army”, Salim Idriss.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rev. Shomali: Peace Increasingly an Illusion
Syria? Assad is a dictator but instability better than chaos
(by Nina Fabrizio) (ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, MAY 30 — Peace in the Middle East ‘has increasingly become sheer utopianism as we are watching the harshening of an ideological conflict between two sides, Israeli and Palestinian’, said Bishop William Shomali, vicar general of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, during a gathering with journalists with Italian media outlets including ANSA. ‘It is not easy to find a solution when there are two such strong fundamentalisms’. Reverend Shomali continued saying that ‘the political difficulty comes from insecurity caused by the Israeli occupation in 1967 which however Israel does not recognize as an occupation’. ‘Here is where the ideological conflict comes from’, he added, a conflict which spans all issues ‘from borders to refugees, from a dispute on airspace to water, to the settlements built in the occupied territories which make an international solution on two states along 1948 borders increasingly difficult’.
The Church, explained the bishop, should not engage in a ‘direct mediation’ because ‘we are not a political entity’.
However, he continued, ‘it must do so indirectly because ideas are free and it is on this level that we can exercise an influence like, for example, Benedict XVI when he visited the Holy Land and spoke about a solution of two states and two populations’.
‘Peace is not arriving but hope remains although it decreases every year because the general situation becomes increasingly complex, with an ideological imprint and we fear it will become increasingly difficult to overcome it’, he said.
Reverend Shomali, who complained about the fact that the percentage of Christians in Israel, Jordan and Palestine has decreased to the lowest level ever, spoke about his concern over the evolution of the so-called Arab Spring. ‘In order to really attain democracy, there is a need for faith, as occurred in Poland after the fall of the wall’, he said. ‘But in the Arab world there is a culture of violence, as we see in Syria’.
‘Assad is a dictator but it is better to have a dictator maintaining stability than chaos, between two evils, we must choose the better one. We now have a dramatic situation, people die of hunger and if the ‘revolution’ failed in Egypt where there was a moderate Islam, in Syria we must expect a situation that is ten times worse with minorities who, after Assad, will be even more persecuted and victims of terrible revenge’, he noted. ‘We must give up on the American dream to export democracy in five weeks. Much more time is needed to go from one state to the other as shown by Iraq, while in Egypt the Muslim Brothers robbed the people of the revolution and gave it an Islamic imprint’.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Russia accused the British Government of behaving like ‘hotheads’ as Downing Street indicated it will begin arming the Syrian rebels if dictator Bashar al-Assad refuses to stand down.
Foreign Secretary William Hague led the way in tearing up the European Union arms embargo on Syria at a meeting in Brussels on Monday night.
But Moscow announced that it would send anti-aircraft missiles to the Assad regime to deter other countries from intervening in the civil war, which has already cost 70,000 lives.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Self-Help Writer Urges Men to Molest Women to Make Them Stay Home
A Saudi writer of self-help books has urged his 97,000 Twitter followers to sexually molest women cashiers in order to dissuade them from working.
Abdullah Mohammad Al Dawood, author of “The Joy of Talking,” stirred fierce debate this week with a series of tweets including the hashtag “harass_female_cashiers,” Financial Times reports…
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Seven Policemen Injured in Blast in Bahrain
MANAMA, May 30 (Xinhua) — Seven Bahraini policemen were injured in a blast in the Shiite neighborhood of Bani Jamra, the police said Thursday. Some seven policemen were injured, one of them in critical condition, after a home-made bomb believed to be placed by terrorists exploded in Bani Jamra, said the general director of the Northern Governorate Police.
The wounded have been referred to the hospital for treatment and an investigation is underway, the source added.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: MSF: No Sign of Chemical Arms Use in Our Hospitals
President De Filippi, ‘ready to act’
(refiling with corrected headline, text) (ANSAmed) — ROME, MAY 30 — No wounds caused by chemical weapons have been found on patients treated by Medecines Sans Frontieres in northern Syria, according to Loris de Filippi, president of the Italian division of MSF. ‘We did not see injuries caused by chemical weapons among patients we are treating at our hospitals in northern Syria’, said de Filippi, who has just returned from a mission in the North where the humanitarian organization awarded with a Nobel peace prize in 1999 has five hospitals and a number of mobile clinics.’Our organization is present only in some areas’, he added.
‘We are ready to intervene, we have studied the protocol in the smallest details but so far there is no sign of chemical weapons’ at the organization’s hospitals, he said on the sidelines of a press conference held in Rome on Thursday by MSF to discuss the situation in northern Syria where it currently is the only humanitarian organization present.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
One Foreign Soldier Dies in Afghanistan
KABUL, May 30 (Xinhua) — One foreign soldier of the NATO-led coalition forces was killed Thursday in a blast in eastern Afghanistan, the military alliance confirmed in a statement. “An International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) service member died following an improvised explosive device attack in eastern Afghanistan today,” the NATO-led ISAF said in the statement…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Japan Cancels U.S. Wheat Order on GMO Fear
A strain of genetically modified wheat found in the United States fuelled concerns over food supplies across Asia on Thursday, with major importer Japan cancelling a tender offer to buy U.S. grain.
Other top Asian wheat importers South Korea, China and the Philippines said they were closely monitoring the situation after the U.S. government found genetically engineered wheat sprouting on a farm in the state of Oregon.
The strain was never approved for sale or consumption.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Thinthread Spy System Secretly Tested on New Zealand Population
The author Tim Shorrock revealed that the US spy system ThinThread was tested on the unsuspecting population of New Zealand from 2000 to 2001
ThinThread is the name of a project that the National Security Agency conducted during the 1990s, the program was focused on sophisticated techniques for wiretapping and intelligence analysis. The program was discontinued after the September 11, 2001 attacks when Director of NSA Gen. Michael V. Hayden promoted a new system known as Trailblazer Project. For the project were awarded to a consortium led by Science Applications International Corporation around $280 million to develop Trailblazer in 2002.
ThinThread operated in three distinct phases:
| 1. | First phase: ThinThread intercepts all call conversation, email and internet traffic on a network and automatically focus analysis on specific targets using specific patterns of information. | |
| 2. | Second phase: ThinThread automatically anonymize the collected data so the identities stayed hidden “until there was sufficient evidence to obtain a warrant”. | |
| 3. | Third phase: ThinThread uses the raw data “to create graphs showing relationships and patterns that could tell analysts which targets they should look at and which calls should be heard.” |
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Navy Warns Pirates to Keep Off Nigeria’s Maritime Area
In the wake of the recent piracy attacks in Nigeria’s maritime domain, the Nigerian Navy (NN) Wednesday warned pirates to desist from their nefarious activities or face the consequences. The Flag Officer Commanding, Western Naval Command (WNC), Rear Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas, made this disclosure during the ongoing 57th anniversary of the NN, held at Beecroft, Apapa, Lagos…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Hezbollah Armoury Discovered in Kano City
An armoury belonging to the Lebanese group Hezbollah has been discovered in northern Nigeria, the West African nation’s army and spy agency has said.
Three Lebanese nationals have been arrested, an army spokesman, Brig Gen Ilyasu Isa Abba, said.
The cache, including rifles, anti-tank weapons and an RPG, were found in a warehouse in the city of Kano, he said.
Nigeria’s State Security Service said they were intended for use against “Israeli and Western interests”.
“This is the handwork of Hezbollah,” Bassey Ettang, director of the State Security Service in Kano said.
“What has just been discovered is a cell of Hezbollah and what you have seen here is a Hezbollah armoury,” he told journalists in Kano on Thursday.
Brig Gen Ilyasu Isa Abba said 11 anti-tank weapons, four anti-tank mines, a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) and 21 RPG missiles, 17 AK-47s, two sub-machine guns and 76 grenades had been amongst the weapons found.
The Lebanese owner of the warehouse where “the weapons of mass destruction” had been stored in sawdust was out of the country, he said
There is a large business Lebanese community in Kano city, the commercial hub of in northern Nigeria.
Kano and north-eastern Nigeria has suffered multiple attacks in the last three years since the home-grown Islamist militant group Boko Haram launched an insurgency.
Mr Ettang added: “You can also be sure that if a group like this is existing then it may even lend support to some of the local terrorists we have on the ground.”
Hezbollah is a Shia military and political movement based in Lebanon considered by the US to be a terrorist organisation.
Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden”, says its quest is to overthrow the Nigerian government and create an Islamic state.
There has been growing concern that Boko Haram could be receiving backing from al-Qaeda-linked militants in other countries.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Study — Small Senegal Minority Supports Mali Jihadists
Dakar — Researchers in Senegal say that despite the country’s reputation for stability and religious tolerance, a small minority of Senegalese support last year’s takeover of northern Mali by al-Qaida-linked jihadist groups. The researchers say the results of their study are further evidence of the risk that violent extremism poses to West Africa in the wake of the French-led military intervention that began in January. Islam is practiced by more than 95 percent of Senegal’s nearly 13 million people…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Trinidad and Tobago: Muslims Okay With by-Election During Ramadan
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday met with members of the Muslim community who said that they have no objections to the Chaguanas West by-election being held in the month of Ramadan. However, they appealed that it not be held in the last ten days of the holy period which takes place from July 29 to August 7. Constitutionally, the by-election must be called by August 9. Ramadan, subject to the sighting of the moon will begin on July 9 and end on August 7. Former Chaguanas West MP and government minister Jack Warner has repeatedly requested that the Prime Minister not call the election date during the Ramadan period…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Brussels Takes Britain to EU Court Over Immigrant Benefits
The European Commission is taking Britain to court over accusations it is denying EU immigrants their right to claim unemployment and family welfare benefits.
Brussels has objected to Britain’s application of an extra and “discriminatory” residency test that has stopped eligible migrants from EU countries getting benefits to which they are entitled under European free movement legislation.
Commission officials told the Telegraph that repeated meetings with the Government, including “informal contacts, had failed to bridge the impasse leading to the court challenge to British law. “The commission believes that the UK’s so-called ‘right to reside’ test fails the EU legal ‘habitual residence’ requirement. As a result of this discriminatory test EU citizens cannot receive social security benefits, such as child benefit, to which they are entitled under European law,” said an official. The commission asked Britain to end this discrimination against EU nationals in September 2011 but no measures have been notified to us.”
The commission will argue that welfare benefits “unfairly and illegally” denied to EU migrants include, child benefit, child tax credit, income based jobseeker’s allowance, state pension credit and income based employment and support allowances…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Brussels to Britain: Give More Benefits to Immigrants or We’ll See You in Court
by Michael Heaver
Don’t you dare make the mistake of thinking that the British Government runs Britain. If the Government elected by the British people doesn’t fully comply with the wishes of unelected officials in Brussels, it will be taken to court. A European court, naturally. As The Telegraph reports this morning:
Brussels will object to Britain’s application of an extra test that could have stopped eligible immigrants from EU countries getting benefits. European officials believe thousands of EU nationals that have lived and worked in Britain could have been discriminated against and unfairly denied the right to welfare payments.
In other words, the European Union is demanding that our Government becomes even more lax (if that’s possible) in handing out welfare payments to “EU citizens”. This is despite a political climate in Britain in which the vast majority of people want to see a crackdown on state handouts to people born and bred here, let alone those coming in to abuse our soft-touch system to make a fast buck…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Coulter: Send us Your Violent Bigots, Yearning to Butcher Our Citizens
It’s been a bad few weeks for cultural assimilation. Last month, two welfare-receiving immigrants in the United States, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, set off bombs at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring hundreds. By the end of the week, they had murdered a cop and engaged in a wild shoot-out and bomb-throwing melee with the police.
Last week, a couple of ethnic Nigerians butchered a British soldier with meat cleavers in broad daylight on a bustling street in a London suburb, then boasted about the murder in video interviews with bystanders. (On the bright side, they did not claim to be princes and ask for your life savings.)
Also last week, immigrants, mostly Muslims, began rioting in peaceful Sweden — burning schools to the ground, torching cars and throwing rocks at the police. (Who among us hasn’t lost his temper trying to assemble an Ikea china cabinet?)
Supporters of the West’s current immigration policies can’t keep ducking reality. So they try to shut down debate by calling their opponents racists, xenophobes, know-nothings and fascists.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Expert: Islam Taking Over, Europe Soon to be Unrecognizable
According to Dr. Mordechai Kedar, European softening, together with demographics, is leading to ‘abysmal’ change. Dr. Avika Libman: Riots start with preachers demanding Muslim state
The murder of a soldier in London, the stabbing of a soldier in Paris and the violent outbreak in Sweden — Europe’s alarm clock has been ringing once again over the past week. The negative birthrate compared to the increase in Muslims, the heavy unemployment and the social-religious isolation of European immigrants are all back on the agenda.
“Europe has lost its will to live as Europe,” said Mideast expert Dr. Mordechai Kedar to Ynet. “It is gathered into museums, into history. If the leaders will not put an end to immigration, we will soon be hearing the death throes of the continent as we know it.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Foreigners Can’t Always Get Spanish Health Care’
A recent spate of stories about foreigners being refused medical treatment in Spain has drawn attention to the ways in which Spain’s health-care system is being squeezed by austerity measures.
In mid-May, a visit to a medical centre turned into a headache for the British parents of a Spanish-born baby.
The couple, both registered Spanish residents, went to the Aragonese town of Caspe to seek medical attention for their eight-month old baby.
Their child, who had a temperature of 41C, was refused treatment because she only had a provisional national health service card, despite having been born in the Spanish city of Denia.
Both of the child’s parents had valid health cards but this was deemed insufficient and they were asked to pay €132 before a doctor would attend to the baby.
Then, in late May, Alpha Pam, a young Senegalese man, died of tuberculosis after repeatedly being denied treatment for the serious but treatable condition.
After going to an outpatient’s clinic on seven occasions, Pam was finally sent to Comarca de Inca hospital to receive treatment.
Pam was then made to sign a guarantee of payment slip and finally given a general check-up. However, on May 22nd he passed away.
Pam’s death may have been the first official case linked to new rules introduced last year which prevent undocumented immigrants from having a health card and only allow for their treatment in an emergency room, regardless of whether they have registered at their local town hall.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Is Brussels Trying to Force the UK Out of the EU?
by Mats Persson
Congratulations Nigel Farage. You’ve just gained a bunch of new supporters. The European Commission will today take the UK to the European Court of Justice — the body meant to police the EU treaties — over its rules on EU migrants’ access to benefits. The Commission says the UK’s so-called “right to reside” test — a filter used to make sure that EU migrants are eligible to claim benefits — is illegal under EU law as British citizens pass it automatically. The UK Government is disputing this claim saying it is clear that the UK rules “are in line with EU law.” In other words, the folks in Brussels are about to throw a hand grenade into the already red-hot domestic EU debate…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Italians Emigrating Again, +5% Over Past Year
Foreign ministry data presented at public admin forum
(ANSAmed) — ROME, MAY 28 — The Italian Foreign Ministry released data from its statistical yearbook Tuesday showing that the number of Italians living abroad had risen by 5% from 2011 to 2012 and is now at 4,662,000 total. The data was presented at the Public Administration Forum which began this morning at Rome’s Palazzo dei Congressi.
“The statistical yearbook tells of the Foreign Ministry’s work through figures,” said the head of the Foreign Ministry’s Office of Statistics, Sabrina Ugolini. “This document aims to be not only an informational tool for those working in the sector, but also a means of communication addressed to a broader public. This is why, for the first time, we decided to bring it to the Public Administration Forum, even though it will not be officially published until late June.” In addition to the growing community of Italians residing abroad, especially interesting are the figures concerning consular and administrative services. Between 2011 and 2012, for example, the number of identity cards issued almost doubles (47%). Ugolini said that this rise shows “an increase in mobility at the European level. And compared with passports, identity cards are almost free of charge and those who travel in Europe prefer them”. The number of visas issued also rose over the past year, by 9%, in line with the trend seen the past few years. In 2012 Italy granted almost 1.9 million visas, becoming the third top European country after France and Germany in terms of number of visas issued, with the main applicants being Russia, Chinese, Turkish, Indian and Ukrainian nationals. Almost striking is the rise in the number of interventions coordinated by the Foreign Ministry’s Crisis Unit: a 51% increase from 2010 to 2012. The Arab Spring and the resulting socio-political tensions — as well as the need to shore up security for some embassies — contributed in large part to this sharp rise.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Chinese Immigrants Laundered 4.5 Bn in China in 5 Years’
287 probed, 24 for mafia conspiracy
(ANSA) — Florence, May 30 — A slew of businesses owned by Chinese immigrants in Italy are alleged to have illegally sent 4.5 billion euros home between 2006 and 2010, Italian police said Thursday. Florentine prosecutors said they had informed 287 immigrants, “almost all Chinese”, that they had ended a tax-evasion and money-laundering probe into them, and 24 are facing possible charges of mafia conspiracy.
The suspects allegedly used money-transfer agencies to dodge controls, never sending more than the 2,000-euro limit at which checks are triggered, and sometimes sending cents, police said.
Police called it a “huge money-laundering operation”.
The suspects, resident in cities with large Chinese communities like Rome, Padua, and Prato north of Florence, allegedly made the money off the books and often by exploiting co-nationals on illegally low wages, police said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Poll: Most Greeks Are Against Idea of Emigrating
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, MAY 30 — More than 70% of Greeks would not like to emigrate, although the majority of those aged between 18 and 24 would like to leave the country, daily Kathimerini reports publishing the results of an opinion poll carried out for Athens University. Overall, 72% of Greeks are against and 5.9% “probably” against the idea of becoming migrants. However, in the 18-24 age bracket, 52.6% said they would like to leave Greece. Questioned about the presence of migrants and whether this makes it harder to find jobs, 21% of under-24s said it did, as did 37.9% of those aged 25-34. In older age groups this view is more widely held, taking the overall figure to 49.8%. The sample for the OpinionPoll survey was 1,011 people.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia Deports 200,000 Workers in Three Months
Authorities in Saudi Arabia have deported more than 200,000 illegal workers over the past three months, it was reported on Wednesday. English language newspaper Arab News, citing the kingdom’s Passport Department, said that an unspecified number of Syrians were among those that had been forced out of the Gulf country due to invalid work visas. However, the department said that those who were deported were not necessarily repatriated back to their own country. Syria is currently amid a two-year long bloody uprising against the rule of Bashar Al-Assad. “Saudi Arabia will not force violating workers to travel to a certain country,” spokesman Badr Al-Malik was quoted as saying. Saudi Arabia has been deporting illegal foreign workers as part of labour market reforms designed to reduce unemployment among its own citizens, which is about 12 percent. Measures include the Ministry of Labour hiring more than 1,000 inspectors to root out illegal workers in the Gulf’s most populous nation, which is highly dependent on foreign labour. In order to boost employment among Saudi nationals, authorities have also begun dishing out fines to private sector companies that employ below a certain quota of citizens.
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UK Faces European Court Over Immigrants’ Benefits
The UK is to be taken to the European Court of Justice over its alleged failure to correctly assess whether EU migrants are entitled to benefits.
Britain is accused of discriminating against those from EU member states who have been living and working in the UK.
It is alleged an extra residency test applied by the UK to see if migrants are eligible to claim breaches EU law. A source close to Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith told the BBC he would not “cave in” to the commission. A government spokesman added the test was a “vital and fair tool” to ensure benefits were paid only to people who were legally allowed to live in the UK…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Furious Iain Duncan Smith today vowed to go into battle with Brussels over demands that Britain change rules paying benefits to immigrants.
The Work and Pensions Secretary insists he will not ‘cave in’ to the European Commission which wants to relax the rules on welfare payments to EU nationals.
He accused Brussels of launching a ‘land grab’ by over-reaching its areas of responsibilities into policy which is controlled by national governments.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gina Rinehart Calls for Sterilization of the Poor
Billionaire Gina Rinehart called for the sterilization of the poor today, arguing that the only way to alleviate poverty is to stop the “underclasses” from multiplying.
In a video uploaded to her official YouTube account, the Australian mining heiress said that income inequality is caused by differences in intelligence, and eugenics is the only answer.
“Our nation faces a grave economic crisis as the combination of a strong Australian dollar and falling commodity prices sap our ability to compete globally,” she explained. “The only logical solution to this crisis is to strengthen the quality of our most precious resource: human capital.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Neuroscience May Hold Cure for Religious Fundamentalism, Says Researcher
MUSLIM fundamentalism may one day be seen in the same way as mental illness is today and be “curable”, according to a leading neuroscientist.
Kathleen Taylor, a science author and research scientist at the University of Oxford, said that strong, negative beliefs could be eradicated using techniques that were already under development. She was speaking at the Hay Literary Festival in Wales, once described by Bill Clinton, the former US President, as the “Woodstock of the mind” as it celebrated diverse ideas. However, recent developments in neuroscience mean that we may be able to control not only our minds and order our dreams but also prevent the formation of powerful beliefs that can come to dominate an individual’s life.
Sixty years after the discovery of DNA, Dr Taylor was asked what positive developments she foresaw in the next 60 years. She said: “One man’s positive can be another man’s negative. One of the surprises may be to see people with certain beliefs as people who can be treated. Somebody who has for example become radicalised to a cult ideology — we might stop seeing that as a personal choice that they have chosen as a result of pure free will and may start treating it as some kind of mental disturbance. In many ways that could be a very positive thing because there are no doubt beliefs in our society that do a heck of a lot of damage, that really do a lot of harm. I am not just talking about the obvious candidates like radical Islam or some of the more extreme cults.”…
[JP note: For more on Kathleen Taylor see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Taylor_(biologist) and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing:_The_Science_of_Thought_Control ]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Opponents of gay marriage have been likened to Christians who used the Bible to support slavery, by a senior Anglican bishop.
The Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Rev Nicholas Holtam, suggested it was time to ‘rethink’ attitudes towards allowing same-sex couples to marry, as Christians did with slavery and apartheid.
He argued that attitudes towards homosexuality have changed ‘considerably’ over the last fifty years and that the development of gay marriage would be a ‘very strong endorsement of the institution of marriage’.
In the letter to Labour peer Lord Alli, published by The Telegraph, he wrote: ‘Sometimes Christians have had to rethink the priorities of the Gospel in the light of experience,’ he wrote…
In the letter to Lord Alli, Bishop Holtam wrote: ‘You, as a gay Muslim, will not be surprised that there are a variety of views within the Church of England where we are experiencing rapid change similar to that in the wider society.
‘This is complex to express, partly because there are those who see this issue as fundamental to the structure of Christian faith.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why Do Some Blond Kids Go Dark?
Some children start life as platinum blonds — often called “towheads” — but experience a darkening of hair color before they reach puberty. Just what causes this change in hue?
To begin: Your hair color is determined by the amount of natural pigment, called melanin, you have in your hair. Two distinct types of melanin exist — eumelanin and pheomelanin — and the ratio of these pigments guides hair color.
Eumelanin can be further broken up into two flavors: black and brown. Essentially, the more eumelanin you have in your hair, the darker it will be.
Pheomelanin regulates the redness of your hair, similar to the way eumelanin controls the darkness of your hair. The more pheomelanin you have, the redder your hair will be, though the color may not be entirely visible if you also have a large amount of eumelanin as well.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
World Wide March Against Monsanto Was Widely Censored by Mainstream Media
Event took place in over 400 cities in 52 countries around the world
(NaturalNews) It’s nowhere to be found in the big newspapers or on the “network” TV news, but why? The highly successful, world wide “March against Monsanto” is nowhere to be found in mainstream media, and it wasn’t covered live either. Far bigger than any cancer march, or any MS drive, people came out in droves, to cities all across the globe, and their children made signs about how GMO food, yes, genetically modified (mutated) organisms are infecting the main food supply of America, and you know how kids are, they tell it like it is! Nope, the big TV reporters and the “Big City” event reporters didn’t come out to cover the great awareness march and the newspapers wanted no part in it. Again, why? (www.naturalnews.com/040497_war_on_food_Monsanto_poisons.html)
Millions of people world wide came out to march Saturday, May 25, 2013, and declare that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! The FDA and the CDC and Monsanto are all working together to try to fool the adult masses that Biotech is a good word, that Agricultural “Engineering” means making food better, and the children of this universe are screaming in a peaceful, protest way that Monsanto, the KING of seed deception and seed tampering has created a monster that causes diseases and disorders.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gina Reinhart may be an heiress, but she has made the billions her self.
She inherited about AUD56 million and has turned that into about AUD20 billion.
She also has a couple of low IQ drone children herself.
I do hope everyone realizes that article about Gina Rinehart is from a satirical website. For example, another article is “Pope Benedict Comes Out as Gay”…
Oh, Baron. You’ve been suckered. The Daily Currant is a satire.
The problem is that Gina Rinehart is a conservative who turned a large inheritance into something stupendously big.
In mining, which our Greenfilth absolutely hate with mindless, senseless and unceasing passion.
They pushed for (and got) extra tax on mining activities, which has seen our mining boom slowing right down. There are billions of dollars worth of developments which have been canned purely because of the new taxes, and it has been doing all sorts of damage to the economy.
The minority (hung) Parliament has been dancing to the Greens’ tune for a couple of years now, and it’s beyond a joke.
That said, google Melinda Gates and sterilising poor people. There are those out there who would tie aid money to sterilisation, and the British Government was caught out attaching those sorts of strings not too long ago.
I’m Australian and was taken aback by Gina Rhinehart calling for eugenics. The woman is nearly constantly under fire from the lefty-press and by Australians with what we call “tall poppy syndrome”. It seems moronic to say something like that, especially when every little thing you say is misconstrued by a hostile media.
Great piece on the World Bank. I’m surprised GoV hasn’t been taken down over those revelations. Karen Hudes is so clear about this pandemic of corruption at the top end of US [World ?] banking that it’s pretty obvious who is behind it all. Had she mentioned those names, [ one beginning with R and ending in D] she would
probably been shot by now, like the two Kennedys.
Nilk —
I wasn’t suckered; our tipster JD was.
The tipsters send the articles. I look at them to see they’re not obscene, nasty, obviously bogus, etc. , and then I pass them through into the database for the news feed. In other words, they only have to meet minimal criteria to be included.
Good satire is never obviously bogus to those unfamiliar with the context, so it passed my (very cursory) scrutiny.
Besides, I have heard far wackier things emerge from the land of koalas and vegemite — this one was far from the wackiest.
As far as the news feed is concerned, I take to heart the late John Gardner’s epigram: “Since the truth is ultimately unknowable, what matters is not what is true, but what is entertaining.”
Point taken, Baron. 🙂 That article had already done the rounds, and the baying for Gina’s blood continues unabated here anyway.
For a look at what the next generation will be spouting once they are released from university, young Markkoh has this gem (among others). You’ll particularly enjoy the bit about how rich people are taxed and how much they should pay in tax.
(Answers: I don’t know and more than they are currently paying)
The U.S. Helps Reconstruct the Ottoman Empire
“Why the government of the United States would actively promote German aims — the destruction of Yugoslavia (both World Wars I and II saw Germany invade Serbia) and the re-creation of the Ottoman Empire — is a question that needs to be answered.”
Would have thought the answer to the United States hankering for the re-creation of the Ottoman Empire was a simple one – to confine Russian and counterbalance the possibility of a future continental European superpower that could easily challenge the United States.