An African American Buddhist and former Naval reservist named Aaron Alexis went on a shooting spree in the Washington Navy Yard this morning, killing twelve people and injuring at least twelve more. Police officers eventually shot and killed Mr. Alexis. No motive for the attack has as yet been determined. The incident prompted congressional Democrats to renew their calls for stricter gun control.
In other news, a United Nations inspectors’ report confirmed that chemical weapons have indeed been used in Syria, without assigning any blame for who used them. Meanwhile, Italy reports that 3,300 Syrian refugees landed on its shores in the past month.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Apollon Zamp, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, KP, 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.
25 Fast Facts About the Federal Reserve — Please Share With Everyone You Know
As we approach the 100 year anniversary of the creation of the Federal Reserve, it is absolutely imperative that we get the American people to understand that the Fed is at the very heart of our economic problems. It is a system of money that was created by the bankers and that operates for the benefit of the bankers. The American people like to think that we have a “democratic system”, but there is nothing “democratic” about the Federal Reserve.
Unelected, unaccountable central planners from a private central bank run our financial system and manage our economy. There is a reason why financial markets respond with a yawn when Barack Obama says something about the economy, but they swing wildly whenever Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke opens his mouth. The Federal Reserve has far more power over the U.S. economy than anyone else does by a huge margin. The Fed is the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world, and if the American people truly understood how it really works, they would be screaming for it to be abolished immediately. The following are 25 fast facts about the Federal Reserve that everyone should know…
#1 The greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history was when there was no central bank.
#2 The United States never had a persistent, ongoing problem with inflation until the Federal Reserve was created. In the century before the Federal Reserve was created, the average annual rate of inflation was about half a percent. In the century since the Federal Reserve was created, the average annual rate of inflation has been about 3.5 percent, and it would be even higher than that if the inflation numbers were not being so grossly manipulated.
#3 Even using the official numbers, the value of the U.S. dollar has declined by more than 95 percent since the Federal Reserve was created nearly 100 years ago.
[…]
#7 It was not an accident that a permanent income tax was also introduced the same year when the Federal Reserve system was established. The whole idea was to transfer wealth from our pockets to the federal government and from the federal government to the bankers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EU Funding Cuts to Hit Portugal’s Poorest
Portugal may lose out on €20 million in annual EU food aid aimed to help feed the poorest, reports Reuters. The EU fund is set to replace another which has earmarked fewer resources for EU food programmes. Unlike other member states, Portugal has made preparations to replace the funding shortfall.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU: Cost of Labour in Slovenia Hits Record Low in 2nd Q, -5, 9%
Cyprus, Croatia, Spain also down. Up 0,9% in Eurozone
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 16 — The cost of labour in Slovenia hit a record low in the second trimester of 2013, plunging 5,9%, Eurostat reported on Monday. The negative data followed a 3,8% drop in the first quarter. Eurostat also reported that in the second trimester of the year the cost of labour dropped in Cyprus by 4,6%, followed by Croatia’s 0,6% drop and Spain’s 0,3% decrease.
It grew instead in Estonia, up 7,7%, Lithuania, up 6,5% and Romania, up 6%. Germany maintained a 1,8% growth while Italy registered a more modest 0,6% increase, followed by France, up 0,5%.
Overall the Eurozone registered in the same period a 0,9% increase of the cost of labour against the 1,7% growth recorded in the first quarter of the year. The 28-member Union also registered a 0,9% increase while in the previous trimester the cost of labour had instead grown by 2%.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Athens’ Houses Lose Half Value in 5 Years
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 16 — The economic crisis and extremely sluggish demand in the Greek real estate market have resulted in house prices nosediving by more than 50% since 2008, daily Kathimerini reports quoting experts. While there are plenty of great bargains to be found all around the Greek capital, funding real estate purchases is where the real problem lies as banks have all but given up on issuing new mortgages, even in cases when a house is clearly a bargain. In most cases, meanwhile, asking prices are below the rate used by tax authorities, known as the “objective value,” meaning that buyers would be taxed on the estimated rather than the actual value of the purchase. Lefteris Potamianos, vice president of the Athens-Attica Estate Agents’ Association, says that “interest is minimal, while there may even be some more margin for negotiation,” even in houses offered at a discount of more than 50% compared with 2008. A typical example concerns a 70-square-meter first-floor apartment currently on sale for just 38,000 euros when its objective value is set at 50,000 euros.
The flat is on Asclepiou Street, at the foot of Lycabettus Hill in central Athens, and was built in 1970. A similar flat on the market in 2008 was going for 80,000 euros, meaning a 52.5% drop in the current asking price. In upscale Kolonaki in central Athens, another first-floor apartment built in 1975 and with an area of 114 sq.m. is currently on sale for 250,000 euros. Before the crisis such a property would have cost some 400,000 euros, i.e. 37.5% more than it does today. In Zografou, east of the city center, a two-story maisonette on the second and third floors, covering 138 sq.m. in total, represents something of a bargain. Built in 1996, it includes parking and storage spaces, and costs 150,000 euros, while a few years ago it would have cost 250,000 euros — a 40% decline. A similar maisonette, of 170 sq.m. and with access to a 100-sq.m. terrace, is on sale in Neos Cosmos for 90,000 euros, against the 190,000 that it would have cost in 2008, i.e. a drop of 52.6%. Finally, in Neo Psychico, north of the center, a third-floor flat complete with parking and storage spaces, is on sale for 220,000. A few years ago such a property would have cost around 370,000, or 40.5% more.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spanish Public Debt Hits New Record
Public debt in Spain hit a historic high of €942.8bn in June, reports the BBC. Spain’s central bank notes the figure is equal to 92.2% of economic output and is 15% higher compared to the same period last year. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy wants to reduce public spending by €150bn.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
At Least One Reported Dead in Shooting at Washington Navy Yard
At least one person was fatally shot at a naval headquarters in Washington on Monday, according to the Navy. The shooting also left several people injured, including one police officer, according to the police.
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At Least 13 Dead in Navy Yard Shooting; Possible Suspect at Large
At least 13 people are dead and several others were wounded after a gunman opened fire at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, police said, spreading fear and chaos across the region as authorities sought to contain the panic.
The incident, in which the death toll rose almost hourly, represents the single worst loss of life in the District since an airliner plunged into the Potomac River in 1982, killing 78.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier and Mayor Vincent C. Gray announced the mounting number of casualties in a series of news conferences. The suspected shooter, identified by the FBI as Aaron Alexis, 34, living in Fort Worth, is among the 13 dead. Alexis was a military contractor, one official said.
But even hours after the rampage began, it was still unclear whether the shooting was the act of a lone gunman, or if other shooters were involved. Lanier initially said authorities were looking for two more potential shooters dressed in military style clothing. But shortly after she announced a detailed description of two suspects, city officials said one had been located and cleared.
Gray said no motive is known yet. He said there is no reason to believe it was an act of terrorism, though he added that he could not rule it out.
Gray said that in addition to those killed, about a dozen people were hurt. It was not clear whether those people were shot or suffered other injuries, he said.
Lanier described the other possible suspect, who has not been located, as a black man in his 40s with gray sideburns, wearing an olive-drab military-style uniform. He, and the man who was cleared, came under suspicion when they were seen on surveillance videos.
Police are asking anyone with information on the suspect to call 202-727-9099…
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Breaking: US Navy Yard Shooting: Is it Possible to Learn the Truth?
I’ve covered a number of mass shootings. Assuming the people arrested or killed had anything to do with them, one of the top questions is: was the shooter on psychiatric meds?
The mainstream press doesn’t push for answers.
It’s a vital question. In school shootings, we’ve learned that the answer is often yes. For example, Eric Harris at Columbine in 1999 was on Luvox, an SSRI antidepressant. These SSRIs are well known for pushing people over the edge into violence; and the manic effects can also motivate them to form grandiose plans for destruction. (See the website “SSRI stories” for documented accounts.)
In the last few years, the US Armed Forces have loaded down their personnel with psychiatric meds, which have led to suicides and killings.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cloud Cover Grounds Search-and-Rescue Helicopters in Colorado
Helicopter search teams have been grounded until clouds lift in Colorado, where more than 1,000 people are unaccounted for following massive flooding.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Cops Shoot Two Bystanders on Broadway
Cops trying to subdue an emotionally disturbed man with a long rap sheet accidentally shot two female bystanders outside Port Authority Bus Terminal on Saturday night, source said.
One victim, 54, was struck in her leg — breaking two bones in her calf — as she stood leaning on her four-wheeled walker across from the terminal; a second woman, 35, was grazed in her buttocks.
Two cops pulled off a total of three shots in the mistaken belief that the deranged man was armed after he reached into his pocket as they approached him, officials said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Daughter’s Brutally Honest Obit for Her Mom Goes Viral
On Sept. 10, the Reno Gazette-Journal published the obituary of Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick, who passed away at age 78 in Reno, Nevada. But this was not your typical fond remembrance for a loved one. It was penned by her daughter, Katherine Reddick, who described a childhood of abuse and neglect.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
End Game of Obama Dictatorship: Tyranny Rising — Part III
Obama is arming and militarizing all of his governmental agencies to come against us
As each day passes and Obama becomes bolder in his foreign policy insanity, his actual personal membership in the Muslim Brotherhood seem increasingly obvious. Yet, those who know it in the media and Congress refuse to allow any of its members to speak the truth that is directly in front of them. And, with his favorable numbers on the wane in a distinct downward slide, The Obama syndicate must work even more quickly to establish its Police State and subjugate the population of the former United States of America.
On the Domestic Front
The ObamaGov has, for the last several years, been buying up hundreds of thousands of guns and billions of rounds of ammo. Why? Virtually all of his government departments have now been armed to the teeth with said guns and ammo. Obama’s Gestapo will be the biggest “private army” of any dictator in the history of the world. In August, the now fully-militarized and heavily armed EPA raided an Alaska gold mine with SWAT teams, under the guise of enforcing the Clean Water Act.
Fully armed US National Park Rangers are now being used in cities to stop protests and opposition to any of Obama’s policies. There have been others but, the most recently reported is that of Army Iraq-war veteran Emily Yates, who was violently arrested by 4 armed Park Rangers for playing her banjo and singing a song opposing Obama’s planned invasion and attack on Syria. While she was calmly talking to the camera, the rangers pounced on her from behind, jerked her arms behind her back and shoved her against a bench. The police shout “stop resisting and stop kicking!!!” The video clearly shows she is offering little if any resistance and is certainly in no position to kick anyone. The USA IS a police state now, folks. And we-the-people seem to be going along with it on the same path the Germans took while Adolph Hitler was vanquishing all of Germany and then went after other countries. In fear, the German people willingly gave up their guns and when trains transporting Jews to the camps and their deaths rolled by Christian churches on Sundays the congregations simply sang louder so they drowned out the cries for help!
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Former NSA Director Advocates Chinese-Style Internet
During a speech at St. John’s Episcopal Church yesterday, former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden advocated a move towards a Chinese-style world wide web where users are forced to identify themselves before posting online content.
Comparing the Internet the the wild west and Somalia, Hayden indicated that he would like to see the United States adopt a system of web policing similar to that used in Communist China, where users are mandated to submit to real name registration before they can use services like Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter.
“The problem I have with the Internet is that it’s anonymous,” remarked Hayden.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Fort Worth Man, 34, Accused of Shootings in Navy Yard
FORT WORTH — The man suspected of killing 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard, identified as Aaron Alexis of Fort Worth, left the Navy in 2011.
Alexis, 34, was fatally shot after a gunbattle with police at the site of Monday’s shooting in Washington, D.C., The Associated Press reported. Police say they do not have a motive for the shootings.
Nutpisit Suthamtewakul, owner of Happy Bowl Thai in White Settlement, said Alexis was “my best friend.”
“He lived with me three years,” Suthamtewakul said Monday afternoon. “I don’t think he’d do this. He has a gun, but I don’t think he’s that stupid. He didn’t seem aggressive to me.”
Upon learning of his death, Suthamtewakul said, “ ‘Wait, he’s dead? I call him, but he doesn’t answer phone.”
Alexis had been in the Navy from 2007 to 2011 and was most recently stationed at Naval Air Station Fort Worth, according to Lt. Cmdr. Sarah Blansett, a Navy spokeswoman in McLean, Va.
He worked as an aviation electrician’s mate, 3rd class, in the Navy Reserve’s Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 46, according to the Navy.
Friends said he left the Navy because he didn’t like to get up early and had complained about getting underpaid.
Alexis also worked at times as a waiter and deliveryman at Happy Bowl, customers said.
Alexis had recently visited Thailand and had been to Japan with a computer defense contractor, where he worked in information technology, said Sandy Guerra-Cline, a customer at Happy Bowl and copy editor at the Star-Telegram.
“He is not a guy that talked about guns or talked about anything violent,” Guerra-Cline said. “As a matter of fact, my best memories of him were of him sitting at one of the tables at Happy Bowl trying to teach himself Thai.”
Firearms charge in 2010
But a police report filed in September 2010 painted a different picture of Alexis.
Records show that he was arrested for discharging a firearm within a municipality…
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Government Seeking Inclusion of ‘Social and Behavioral’ Data in Health Records
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) wants to require health care providers to include “social and behavioral” data in Electronic Health Records (EHR) and to link patient’s records to public health departments, it was announced last week.
Health care experts say the proposal raises additional privacy concerns over Americans’ personal health information, on top of worries that the Obamacare “data hub” could lead to abuse by bureaucrats and identify theft.
The CMS currently covers 100 million people through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Hospital Insurance Program and is tasked with running Obamacare.
[Comment: Building a database that would have been the envy of Stalin.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How the Feds Have Turned Forests Into Tinderboxes
Over the last one hundred years, Forest Service fire suppression operations in public parks have transformed millions of acres of public parks into enormous forest tinderboxes that ignite each Spring and Summer when lightning strikes or when even one hunter, camper, or Park Service employee fail to extinguish adequately camp fires.
Since the 1990’s, while ridding the West of logging, ranches, and even county roads, the Forest Service and Department of Interior have simultaneously discontinued most of their own underbrush elimination programs. The result has been overgrowth of flammable underbrush and a dramatic rise in the number, frequency, and severity of fires. That, in turn, adds hundreds of millions of dollars in government expense for emergency fire rescue and suppression activities.
The Forest Service admits that fire suppression is not working and that reduction in underbrush (such as occurred when four decades ago ranches and livestock traversed public lands) is a critical missing factor. Indeed, the Service is now advocating increased taxpayer funding for “Hazardous Fuels Reduction” programs. When ranches and cattle were more numerous in the West and when state and local authorities were allowed to keep and maintain historic rights of way over federal lands, the excess fuel problem was eliminated without need for a single federal tax dollar to be spent and without the kind of mismanagement that has characterized federal regulation over the last forty years.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Maryland Startup Lands $1.2 Million Seed Round to Monitor and Predict Government Decisions
It’s the million-dollar question in Washington: What is the government going to do next?
In Tim Hwang’s case, though, the answer is worth closer to $1.2 million.
That’s the amount of seed funding Hwang and his two co-founders got last week for their technology start-up, FiscalNote, which uses data-mining software and artificial intelligence to predict future government actions; for instance, whether legislation will pass or a regulatory proposal will be approved.
For the past three months, the company has been working out of an office in Silicon Valley, pitching to investors and recruiting computer engineers. Now, with funding in hand and a team of nine, they are moving their venture back to Maryland.
“On the West Coast, the advantages are definitely financing and talent,” Hwang said in an interview, noting that his company recently closed up shop in California and is moving into its new office in Bethesda — a short drive from where all three founders went to Rockville’s Wootton High School.
“Now, we’re coming back to D.C. and the East Coast because that’s where our customers are,” he said. “We can always fly back to the Bay Area if we need more engineers or more funding, but during the early days for a start-up, it’s critical to be close to your customers.
Hwang started working on FiscalNote after serving as president of the National Youth Association, a lobbying group for millennials, and working as a field organizer for the Obama presidential campaign in 2008. Keeping track of all the developments at various local and state governments, he said, meant stationing dozens of interns at computer screens, asking them to continuously refresh the feeds from every government Web site…
| — Hat tip: Apollon Zamp | [Return to headlines] |
Mass Shooting Follows Obama’s Latest Anti-Second Amendment Push
Obama pitched his latest effort to disarm the American people hours before a deadly shooting at the Washington Navy Yard.
Appearing on “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” Obama insisted 90 percent of Americans support gun control but that a “faction of the Republican Party” prevented Democrats from passing anti-Second Amendment legislation.
“The problem we have is we have a faction of the Republican Party, in the House of Representatives in particular, that view compromise as a dirty word, and anything that is either remotely associated with me, they feel obliged to oppose,” said Obama. “And my argument to them is real simple. That’s not why the people sent to here.”
Following a defeat to pass draconian anti-firearms legislation back in April, Obama and Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pledged to continue the effort to diminish gun rights in the United States.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
By Doug Hagmann
The innocuously sounding ‘Media Shield Law,’ also referred to as a bill to provide the free flow of information to the public, is not what it is presented to be. It is an integral plank of the Progressives and Globalists who have been advancing the Communist agenda for decades, using it to ultimately seek control under global governance.
The bill, should it become law, will have a chilling effect on free speech, especially any negative discourse against the people in power, their policies and plans. Everyone needs to pay very close attention to this bill and take a stand to assure its defeat.
Instead of offering legal protections to journalists and their confidential sources who expose governmental corruption, this law will provide the ‘legal’ means long sought by the Executive branch to instead compel journalists to identify their sources based on a fluid and arbitrary definition of national security and the narrow ‘definition’ of a journalist. It is a direct attack on the First Amendment and a stealth attack against political dissidence. It is a stepping stone to the reimplementation of the Fairness Doctrine and a step toward controlling the information accessible on the internet.
[…]
…They are doubling down to prevent the exposure of their nefarious plans of subjugating the world’s populace to global domination, and have no intention of disclosure.
You don’t have to believe me, though. Instead, let the words of David Rockefeller, talking at the June, 1991 Bilderberger meeting in Baden, Germany speak for themselves:
“We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years.”
“It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto determination practiced in past centuries.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Military Brass: We Prefer Our Active Duty as Disarmed Slaves
Policies requiring unloaded firearms and gun-free zones turn our troops into defenseless victims in mass shootings
Since at least the 1950s, “political motivations” have left American service members systematically disarmed during various military duties, which has led to mass casualties in “gun-free” zones.
On May 16, 2011, a poster on the Firing Line forum named BarryLee said that during the Cold War, his late father in the Military Police Corps was not always issued ammunition for his sidearm.
“This meant that sometimes they went on patrol with unloaded weapons,” he said.
BarryLee asked the other forum members if this was a common practice in the U.S. military.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Navy Yard’s “Shelter in Place” Order Leaves Victims Sitting Ducks
The Navy has issued a “shelter-in place” order for personnel, which seems to fall right in line with the notion that you’re not supposed to adequately defend yourself in the event of a mass shooting, but instead put your life and safety completely in the hands of police and other local authorities.
Just a month after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted a video on their website titled “Options for Consideration Active Shooter Training Video” that provided instructions on how to deal with a mass shooting at work. In January, Infowars covered the story pointing out the ridiculousness of advising victims to bring scissors, or a fire extinguisher to a gun fight.
Sheltering in place is just as ridiculous as the DHS advising victims to use scissors to defend themselves. Of course, nowhere in the video does DHS mention that victims should own or use a firearm, because that would mean victims aren’t relying on police or government to keep them safe.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Navy Yard Shooting: Right on Time, Gun Control Advocates Blame AR-15
Major media outlets are now reporting that one of the Washington Navy Yard shooters was armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.
No doubt that this will lead to a continued push by the establishment to completely ban “assault rifles,” especially in the heels of California passing a bill to stop new sales of semi-automatic rifles…
As the mainstream media continues to cover the navy yard shooting throughout the day, pay particular attention to the wording and tone that they will use to try and condition you into believing that there is a surging wave of mass murders and AR-15s are to blame.
This isn’t the case at all.
Again, according to the FBI statistics, for the past 20 years violent crime has been trending downwards even though the U.S. population has increased by over 56 million.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
ObamaCare Will Question Your Sex Life
“Are you sexually active? If so, with one partner, multiple partners or same-sex partners?”
Be ready to answer those questions and more the next time you go to the doctor, whether it’s the dermatologist or the cardiologist and no matter if the questions are unrelated to why you’re seeking medical help. And you can thank the Obama health law.
“This is nasty business,” says New York cardiologist Dr. Adam Budzikowski. He called the sex questions “insensitive, stupid and very intrusive.” He couldn’t think of an occasion when a cardiologist would need such information — but he knows he’ll be pushed to ask for it.
The president’s “reforms” aim to turn doctors into government agents, pressuring them financially to ask questions they consider inappropriate and unnecessary, and to violate their Hippocratic Oath to keep patients’ records confidential.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Police: 1 Gunman Dead, 2 More Possible Suspects in Navy Yard Shooting
WASHINGTON (AP) — At least one gunman opened fire inside a building at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday morning, and officials said six people were killed and at least four were wounded, including a law enforcement officer.
Police were looking for two other potential gunmen wearing military-style uniforms, including one who had on a beret, chief Cathy Lanier said. One had a long gun and the other was also armed, she said. One of the three gunmen had died, though Lanier didn’t say how.
Witnesses described a gunman opening fire from the fourth floor, aiming down on people in the first-floor cafeteria. Others said a gunman fired at them in a third-floor hallway. It wasn’t clear whether the witnesses on different floors were describing the same gunman.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Washington Navy Yard gunman who killed 12 today has previously claimed to be suffering from PTSD after helping rescue efforts in New York following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Gunman Aaron Alexis was shot dead by responding officers after he opened fire inside a Navy facility around 8am on Monday morning.
Since he was identified as the shooter, reports have come out revealing that it was not the first time that he was involved in a shooting.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Diplomat on Navy Yard Shooting: “A Clear Case of American Exceptionalism”
Excerpt: Awkward, but imagine how much more awkward it’ll be if the shooter — or shooters — turns out to be a pro-Assad fanatic angry at American threats against the regime. (It’s naval assets, after all, that are expected to lead a potential U.S. attack against Syria.) If you’re going to gloat over a mass murder that’s been committed against your new “partner in peace” while it’s in progress, at least wait until you know for sure that you’re not allied with the perpetrator.
| — Hat tip: KP | [Return to headlines] |
By Mike Jensen
Excerpt: For a Mormon, the battle for liberty is not unique to this life; it is the core battle of the ages. Lucifer lost the war in heaven (he really thought he could beat God?), but the war continues on earth. So seeing the government become more and more tyrannical is not just a political concern; it’s a fundamental, eternal concern.
| — Hat tip: KP | [Return to headlines] |
State Alters Woman’s Name After it Fails to Fit on Driver’s License
For the past 20 years, Janice “Lokelani” Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele has had to carry two identification cards. “The county has never accommodated my name on my driver’s license,” Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele said.
Instead, it drops the 36th letter of her last name and doesn’t print her first or middle name. So she also carries a state ID, which in the past, included her full name.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Dark Solipsism of Barack: Why a “Leadership” Vacuum May Not Bother Him at All
Consider an entirely contrary scenario — that Obama is using his power and influence to repeatedly create confusion, chaos and decline — all the while playing himself off as progressively — either a stunningly astute political magi, an idealistic genius of a professor, or now a bumbling nincompoop of a leader approximating Barney Fife in the Oval Office. Yet, all the while underneath a glowering and highly committed Marxist revolutionary. Solipsism is, by the way, the sense that only one person’s opinion exists, that only one way of seeing things matters. It is malignant monomania — the default worldview of the tyrant.
Having now heard the universe of opinion on Barack — anywhere from being a messiah to a devil, what do his actions suggest? In a word, a Marxist Revolutionary. That is at least one informed guess with corresponding evidence. Deferring to the famous standard of science icon Thomas Kuhn — the events of Obama’s public life and past are much more easily explained by a Marxist worldview (paradigm) than any other, including sheer incompetence (see Structure of Scientific Revolutions).
Now, adding another layer one might interpolate the baleful designs of supra-nationalists who desire to see a one-world government, for whom — according to this theory, Obama could be carrying water. This angle is well explained in Ted Flynn’s Hope for the Wicked, The Master Plan to Rule the World, which details the type of thinking which demands one central source of authority to which all mankind must bend the knee…
This essay suggests that Obama could be a classic Fellow Traveler, meaning a secret Marxist ally who does what he can to further the progressive agenda.
[Comment: Highly recommended article.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Man in Charge of the NSA Modeled His Office After the Bridge of the Starship Enterprise
Privacy: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the NSA, as it enters every computer and pries whatever data can be stolen and recorded in perpetuity. Its ongoing mission: to explore the internet and all TCP/IP packets, to seek out new emails, phone records, backdoors, webcams and bank accounts, to boldly go where no man with or without a search warrant has gone before.
Those who will recall our brief biopic on the “Meet The Man In Charge Of America’s Secret Cyber Army” remember that before Keith Alexander was put in charge of the NSA, he “was a one-star general in charge of the Army Intelligence and Security Command, the military’s worldwide network of 10,700 spies and eavesdroppers. In March of that year he told his hometown Syracuse newspaper that his job was to discover threats to the country. “We have to stay out in front of our adversary,” Alexander said. “It’s a chess game, and you don’t want to lose this one.” But just six months later, Alexander and the rest of the American intelligence community suffered a devastating defeat when they were surprised by the attacks on 9/11. Following the assault, he ordered his Army intercept operators to begin illegally monitoring the phone calls and email of American citizens who had nothing to do with terrorism, including intimate calls between journalists and their spouses. Congress later gave retroactive immunity to the telecoms that assisted the government.”
That much is known. What may come as a surprise is that during his tenure at the AISC, Alexander made it quite clear that he perceived himself as none other than Star Trek’s James T. Kirk, or to a lesser extent, Jean-Luc Piccard, if only based on how he decorated his “office” — the amusingly titled “Information Dominance Center.” Amusingly, because said information dominance failed completely to foresee the events of September 11.
[Comment: Be sure to view the photos in the article.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Rockefellers: Nazis or Communists?
Robert Minor’s 1911 cartoon in THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH summarizes the goal of the PE, as it depicts PE [Power Elite] members like John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie welcoming Karl Marx to Wall Street, saying “Dee-lighted.” And under Marx’s arm is not his COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, but rather a book titled SOCIALISM. A World Socialist Government is the PE’s ultimate goal, and what one must remember about the PE is that they don’t care about liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, capitalists, Nazis or communists. They see themselves as a “secret cabal” of global managers or controllers, using their power to bring about, as DR said in his MEMOIRS, “a more integrated global political and economic structure — -one world, if you will.”
The Rockefellers were quite clear about this in their Rockefeller Brothers Fund Special Studies Project 1959 panel report, “The Mid-Century Challenge to U.S. Foreign Policy,” in which one reads: “We cannot escape, and indeed should welcome, the task which history has imposed on us. This is the task of helping to shape a new world order in all its dimensions — -spiritual, economic, political, social.”
Since about 10% of the world is capitalist, about 30% communist, and about 60% socialist, the Rockefellers and other PE members (e.g., George Soros, Maurice Strong, etc.) see their task as using a dialectical process to merge or synthesize the capitalist and communist countries and join them with the already existing majority socialist countries into a WSG [World Socialist Government]. The PE believes that if they can actually do this, the world would be a better place, economically, politically, and spiritually, like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund panel report said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Top Voted Comment on CNN Calls for Total Gun Ban, Hillary 2016
Frenzied readers already begin calls to disarm America following shooting in gun free zone DC
Move over Piers Morgan. Even before the tired mainstream media talking heads have gotten a chance to come out of the woodwork to blame firearms for the Navy Yard shooting incident, it seems that some of the most highly voted comments on CNN’s Navy Yard shooting article are already calling for a complete ban on guns.
In a case of talking point regurgitation like I’ve never seen before, one such comment truly exemplifies everything that the dying media would desperately love for you to believe. Written by none other than a user named ‘HillaryClintonFor2016’, the comment has been voted up by 460 other readers (and downvoted by around 500 logical thinkers). Sitting among the top three of the 11,000-strong comment section, the comment reads:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
William C. Thompson Jr. To Concede to Bill De Blasio in New York Mayoral Primary
William C. Thompson Jr. will withdraw from the mayor’s race on Monday morning at City Hall, ending his second bid to run the city, according to people told of the plan.
Mr. Thompson, a Democrat, will endorse his rival, Bill de Blasio, after making the announcement, these people said. Mr. de Blasio is leading in votes counted thus far from last week’s mayoral primary, with a little more than 40 percent of the vote.
Thousands of ballots remain uncounted, with many of them to be tallied today. But Mr. Thompson realized, those close to him said, that even if he were to qualify for a runoff against Mr. de Blasio, his chances of victory were slim.
| [Return to headlines] |
Costa Concordia Salvage Operation: Live
Follow live as the Costa Concordia, which capsized off Giglio Island, Italy, is raised in the biggest salvage operation of its kind in maritime history.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: High-Speed Rail Protesters Blamed in Fresh Attack
Storage container set on fire, ‘No TAV’ message scrawled on site
(ANSA) — Turin, September 12 — Protesters against the controversial high-speed TAV rail project between France and Italy were blamed Thursday for a fresh attack on a company involved in the project.
Tear-gas shells were also found at a construction site in the Susa Valley east of Turin where a storage container with plastic items inside was set on fire.
Attackers also tried to set the tires of a piece of heavy equipment on fire, but were unsuccessful, police said.
The words ‘No TAV’ were found scrawled on the equipment, police said. The Lyon-Turin high-speed link in the Susa Valley, a joint Italy-France project, has triggered protests throughout Italy for several years, some involving violent clashes with police, vandalism, threats and disruption of highway traffic.
Opponents say the project threatens sensitive environmental areas and will cost too much public money, while supporters argue it will cut down on vehicle traffic and pollution.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Woman Blackmails Priest She Slept With for 350,000 Euros
Arrested for extortion with risqué videos, photos
(ANSA) — Turin, September 16 — Police on Monday arrested a woman for allegedly blackmailing a priest she had sex with for 350,000 euros. The suspect, a 32-year-old ethnic Rom, threatened to divulge photographs and videos of her relations with the elderly Turin priest if he failed to pay her instalments of 50,000 euros, police said. She was arrested upon re-entering Italy from Romania.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Letta Gets Lourdes Water
‘Present from a friend’ says embattled premier
(ANSA) — Rome, September 16 — Premier Enrico Letta posted a picture on Twitter Monday of a bottle of Lourdes water, saying “this is the present a friend brought me this morning”.
Letta’s unprecedented left-right coalition is racked by strains over an upcoming vote to remove ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi from the Senate after a tax-fraud conviction.
He confided last week that keeping the government on its feet was “a huge effort”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Fiat to Reabsorb All Mirafiori Workers on Leave
Maserati SUV to roll out Q2 2015, Marchionne tells FT
(see related) (ANSA) — Turin, September 16 — Fiat Group’s plan to retool the loss-making Mirafiori auto plant in Turin means all workers currently on leave due to production cuts will be reabsorbed, CEO Sergio Marchionne told the Financial Times in an interview published Monday.
“The plan that we have in place in terms of the full development of the site…is that all the people employed at the plant will be absorbed,” Marchionne said.
The FT reported that the Mirafiori plant is currently operating at roughly one tenth of the plant’s 300,000 car per year capacity. Earlier this month Fiat told unions it is investing a little less than one billion euros to outfit Mirafiori to manufacture a Maserati SUV model, after signing a deal with seven unions on flexible work rules.
Marchionne told union representatives that 5,300 workers at Mirafiori would be temporarily laid off in October and put on CIG benefits while production lines are made ready.
Marchionne confirmed to the FT that the carmaker also planned to produce another, unnamed model at Mirafiori in addition to Maserati SUV to optimize production. “(The investment) buys a full assembly-line and a brand new product that will compliment the Maserati line-up. I think it is in desperate need of an SUV,” Marchionne told the FT.
Marchionne explained that the investments were already being lined up for the plant and car surfaces designed for the new model.
“(Mirafiori) starts making the body in the third quarter of 2014 and the idea is to enter the market in the second quarter of 2015,” Marchionne said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Marine Le Pen Backs European Election Alliance With Wilders
French nationalist politician Marine Le Pen is interested in forging a joint campaign for next year’s European elections with Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration PVV.
Le Pen said in an interview with the NRC on Saturday that she could see merit in such a campaign. ‘It is important that voters see we are not alone, and that there are similar patriotic movements in every EU country,’ she said.
Le Pen said she and Wilders differ in their approach to Islam. ‘I am against the visibility of Islam in society. We have a tradition of a strict division between church and state so I think religious symbolism has no place in the street. But I have nothing against Islam per se.’ Wilders regards Islam as a backward religion and has likened the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
Lunch
Wilders had lunch with Le Pen earlier this year to discuss his plans for a common approach to next year’s EU vote.
He told Nos in July he had contact with the Eurosceptic Sweden Democrats and will also meet officials from the Lega Nord in Italy.
These are parties which share a lot of similar attitudes to Europe as the PVV and now is a good time to work together, the PVV leader said. Elections for the European parliament take place next spring.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Mr Abou Jahjah is House-Hunting in Belgium
16/09/2013 The enfant terrible of Muslim activism in Belgium is to return to the country after a break of nearly a decade. Dyab Abou Jahjah, who campaigned against discrimination of the immigrant community and racism with his Arab-European League (AEL), announced his intention on Twitter and Facebook.
Dyab Abou Jahjah has been living in Lebanon for nearly a decade. He told the daily De Standaard: “I’m coming back to Belgium. It could happen quite soon. It’s a question of weeks. We are house-hunting.”
The activist also revealed some of his plans: “These are connected to several dossiers and social issues that I attempted to put on the agenda a decade ago linked to the problems of racism and discrimination.”
“We have no plans to make a carbon copy of the Arab-European League. I’m ten years older, you know. What we are going to do could be a lot bigger, stronger and more efficient than the AEL ever was.”
It was in 2000 that Mr Abou Jahjah set up the AEL to attack the discrimination of the ethnic minorities in Europe. The activist courted controversy. He was convicted of incitement during the Borgerhout riots in Antwerp in 2002, but his conviction was overturned by an appeal court.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Woman Allowed to Wear Veil at UK Trial
A Muslim woman will be allowed to go on trial in Britain wearing a full-face veil but must take it off while giving evidence, in what is thought to be a legal first, a judge ruled Monday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Progress Party Calls Press to Protest Breivik Link
Norway’s Progress Party has called an international press conference to protest articles linking them to Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik, and depicting them as anti-Immigrant populist party.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Breivik’s Mother Tried to Block Book on Deathbed
The mother of Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik fought to block a soon-to-be released book about her and her terrorist son, even as she lay in hospital on her deathbed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
President Van Rompuy’s Haikus Are Being Set to Music
Will we soon be able to rush out to the few remaining record stores to buy a Herman Van Rompuy CD? It is quite possible after the Flemish composer Dirk Brossé revealed plans to set some of the haikus written by the President of the European Council to music.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Drugs Trade Behind Gothenburg Shootings
The drugs trade is thought to be the reason behind the recent escalation of violence in Gothenburg in western Sweden.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
An armed policeman who had sex on duty with a loaded gun in a holster attached to his belt has kept his job after a tribunal concluded it was similar to an officer taking a break to buy a cup of tea.
PC Shaun Jenkins, 36, was on patrol with Gwent Police in 2010 when he picked up another man’s wife for a 40-minute tryst.
He took his mistress back to his home in Caerphilly, South Wales, while a colleague waited outside.
But a report into his conduct found the act did not pose a risk to public safety because he could have been back within ‘a minute or two’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
One in seven murders in Britain is committed by suspects freed on bail while awaiting trial for other crimes, according to disturbing new figures.
Last year 56 murders — more than one a week and a shocking 37 per cent rise on 2011 — were carried out by people bailed by the courts.
If they had been remanded in custody, the victims’ lives may have been saved.
Criminals on bail also committed an average of two rapes a week, and were responsible for tens of thousands of less serious offences, the Ministry of Justice figures reveal.
Overall, suspects who have been released by the courts commit a crime every ten minutes.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A conman tricked several elderly victims out of £19,000 under the guise of selling stairlifts and other mobility equipment.
Businessman Basharat Bashir, 33, admitted stealing the money from 11 vulnerable pensioners and spending the money on Sky TV, phones and flashy cars.
Birmingham Crown Court heard Bashir, from Sheldon, West Midlands, ripped off the OAPs who paid him for mobility items which never arrived.
Bashir was jailed for three years after he admitted 19 charges, including 17 fraud offences and also pleaded guilty to fraudulent trading and money laundering.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Religious veils should not be allowed in the classroom, Nick Clegg suggested today as Lib Dems called for a national debate on the issue.
The Deputy Prime Minister said it was ‘inappropriate’ for students to wear a full veil during lessons because teachers needed to see their faces.
It came after Tory MP Sarah Wollaston called for a ban in all schools because ‘they make women invisible.
The issue has erupted after a college’s U-turn last week on banning students wearing veils.
A judge is due to decide today on whether a Muslim woman can stand trial while wearing one.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Muslim Woman Rebekah Dawson Must Remove Niqab While Giving Evidence, Judge Rules
A Muslim woman has been given permission to wear a niqab during a criminal trial but must remove it while giving evidence, a judge has ruled.
Judge Peter Murphy made the ruling in the case of Muslim convert Rebekah Dawson, who is facing trial for allegedly intimidating a witness.The 22-year-old had claimed her religious beliefs dictated that no male other than her husband could see her face. Lawyers for the defendant had argued that forcing the 22-year-old convert to remove her niqab in court would be a breach of her rights under Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights. But in a lengthy ruling, Judge Murphy said it was of “cardinal importance” to the adversarial system that a jury could see a defendant’s face while giving evidence…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
As World Watches Syria, Egypt Launches Major Campaign Against Jihadists in Sinai
While the eyes of the world are on Syria, Egypt’s military is routing jihadists from the vast and lawless Sinai Peninsula — and, according to some regional observers, showing the U.S. how to conduct a war on terrorists.
Under orders from Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the military leader governing Egypt since the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi was ousted, the Egyptian military is stepping up the fight against the growing coalition of Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and other radical Muslims gathering in the massive desert peninsula. Although the jihadist activity in the Sinai could be as big a threat to regional stability as the civil war in Syria, Sisi’s effort to confront terrorism at his doorstep comes without endorsement from the Obama administration, which has denounced the military takeover in Egypt.
“I am more than sure that the Muslim Brotherhood and its leadership in Egypt were actually encouraged by the Americans — and not just in Egypt,” Mordechai Kedar, a highly respected analyst of Islamic groups, and a former Israeli military intelligence officer, told FoxNews.com. “The State Department sympathized with the Muslim Brotherhood because they wanted Islamists to love America. They will do anything in order to look nice in the eyes of these Islamists.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Why Did the CIA Let a Crazed Al-Qaeda Mob Kill America’s Ambassador?
Fumbling in the dark, the American ambassador hurriedly pulled on bullet-proof body armour over his blue trousers and T-shirt. A shrill warning siren was sounding and the crash of gunshots could be heard, getting closer by the second.
‘Follow me, sir,’ urged a diplomatic bodyguard, gripping his M4 assault rifle, shouldering an additional pump-action shotgun and looking anxiously around him as they set out along blacked-out corridors. ‘We are under attack.’
It was 9.40pm in the United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi, the second city of strife-torn Libya, a country trying to re-build itself in the aftermath of civil war and the ousting and killing of its mad dictator, Colonel Gaddafi.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
War on Terrorism: Start in Egypt … End in America
End of terrorism in Egypt, will also be the end to the terrorism-first-supporter in the U.S.: Barack Hussein Obama
There has been solid union and cooperation among these various terrorist groups because of a shared main goal, which is to ignite sedition between Muslims and Christians, make a negative impact on the Egyptian economy to portray Egypt as an unsafe destination for tourists and investors.
With the successive crackdowns by the army and police on these groups, which have resulted in the deaths and arrest of more than 1,000 leaders of the terrorists in the Sinai alone, secret demands began within these groups to move their terrorist operations inside major Egyptian cities such as Cairo and Alexandria.
And that was after the failure of the terrorists in killing Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim with a car bomb last week, which a group called ‘the Brigades of Jerusalem’ claimed responsibility for, as well as the last bombing which targeted government buildings in El-Arish in northern Sinai, including the intelligence and the security of state buildings. The attack killed 11 people, 6 military and 5 civilians.
Analysts say that these demands of moving terrorist operations inside the cities is an important indicator of the weakness of such groups. This shift is a propaganda tactic intent on indicating that they are able to reach the depth of Egyptian cities at any time, which is not realistic as it is just a propaganda show. Later leaks from the security services all say that good news will be released in the next coming few days about the elimination of a large number of terrorism gatherings and the arrest of important terrorists leaders.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Commits to Ending Water Fluoridation by 2014, Citing Major Health Concerns
(NaturalNews) Israel’s Ministry of Health has made a bold ruling against artificial water fluoridation, reversing more than 15 years of forced poisoning via public water supplies in the Middle Eastern country. A recent announcement by Israel’s Supreme Court has declared that a 1974 law permitting — and a later 1998 law requiring — all public water supplies in Israel to be fluoridated are both outdated and invalid, and that all current fluoridation programs in the country will have to end by April 9, 2014, in order to comply with new public safety requirements.
The welcomed ruling came after a petition filed last year by two dedicated individuals, including a representative of Israel’s Association for Dissemination of Health Education, brought to light numerous dangers associated with water fluoridation. These include lowered IQ, brittle bones and teeth and damage to the thyroid gland, serious side effects that are hardly justified by the flimsy and antiquated arguments claiming that ingested fluoride somehow helps prevent tooth decay.
The three Israeli Supreme Court justices who heard the case, along with Israeli Health Minister Yael German, took all this information to task and ultimately concluded that fluoride is, indeed, a public health threat and provides minimal, if any, health benefit to society. In his ruling, Justice D. Barak-Erez ordered the cessation of all water fluoridation programs throughout Israel by 2014, emphasizing the fact that water fluoridation is dangerous, and the science defending it is outdated and “no longer widely accepted.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Al-Qaida-Linked Syrian Rebels Claim Responsibility for Sectarian Killings in Central Province
An al-Qaida-linked rebel group says it killed at least 30 members of President Bashar Assad’s Alawite sect during an attack on three villages in central Syria last week.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
As Navy Yard Shooting Distracts, France Fuels Syria War Machine
Amid the turmoil over the recent Navy Yard Shooting in DC, France is now greasing up the wheels of the international war machine by using the latest UN report on the August 21 Syrian chemical attack to claim that there is ‘no doubt’ that Assad’s government used the weapons to kill innocents.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hollande Says Primary Goal in Syria is to Remove Assad
(AGI) Paris — French President Holland said dismantling Syria’s chemical arsenal is important but the main goal is to remove Assad .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Jordan Denies Training Syrian Rebels After Paris Statement
(ANSAmed) — AMMAN, SEPTEMBER 16 — Jordan today denied training Syrian army defectors on its territories, one day after France announced that Amman will join other nations in supporting rebels seeking to topple the Syrian regime.
The Paris announcement of last week has been surprising to Jordanian officials, who until very recently distanced themselves from openly showing support for rebels.
Following a meeting in Paris of foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France and Jordan an official announcement indicated Jordan will participate in arming and supporting rebels. No details were disclosed to the nature of support, but rebels told ANSA they are expecting “game changing” weapons that could balance the war in their favour.
The announcement has been described as “an important shift” in Jordan policies towards Syria crisis.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Hussein Majali said today the kingdom is home to more than two thousand defectors, who arrived since the crisis erupted early 20111. He, however strongly rejected reports that defectors and rebels are receiving training.
But several official sources have confirmed that Jordan did provide training to rebels.
“Since the start of the Syrian crisis, Jordan has always stressed that political solution is the only way to end the crisis. Killing brings only more killings,” Majali said.
But officials and rebel sources have confirmed the kingdom provided training to dozens of rebels during the past two years.
Rebel leaders told ANSA that training takes place in the eastern part of Jordan desert and includes Arab and foreign instructors.
Jordan has been walking on the rope regarding the Syrian crisis by avoiding to take sides.
Majali, however stressed his country borders will remain open for refugees, after number of Syrian asylum seekers reached 1.3 million, 135,000 are registered refugees.
Majali said during an interview with al Rai newspaper that the government has recently formed a ministerial committee to count the exact number of Syrians in the country.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait Funding Muslim Brotherhood Growth in Western Mosques
by Abigail R. Esman
The completion of a new mosque in Amsterdam is doing more than opening the doors of worship to Dutch Muslims; it is opening new windows into unexpected avenues of terrorist financing and funding for the growth of radical Islam in the West.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: The best thing to believe about Syria is nothing. Both sides are engaged in epic levels of fakery. And if we are going to bomb Syria, the least we can do is sort through real life evidence.
| — Hat tip: KP | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Says U.S. Prepared to Strike Iran
President Obama declared Sunday that the United States is still prepared to act militarily to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons despite the decision to pursue a diplomatic deal and not strike Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons.
Obama spoke in an interview broadcast on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos,” taped Friday before the United States and Russia agreed on a plan to bring Syrian chemical weapons under international control in order to avoid military strikes.
But Obama said Iran should not interpret the diplomatic response — coming after he threatened to use strikes — as suggesting that the United States wouldn’t attack Iran to stop the development of nuclear weapons.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Funding Syrian Rebels Beheading Christians, Using Child Soldiers (Flashback)
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
– — From the report in The Washington Times:
“A priest and another Christian were beheaded before a cheering crowd by Syrian insurgents who say they aided and abetted the enemy… The reported beheading of the two Christians comes about the same time America has started sending arms to rebel fighters, the Wall Street Journal revealed this week.”
In other words the supposedly ‘Christian’ (a laughable declaration) Obama not only allows for these rebels to kill all Christians who do not convert and pay excessive taxes to the rebel army, but is the driving force behind it. How truly Christian of him. In fact, let’s look at the options innocent Christians are given by the Syrian rebels who wield CIA-given weaponry as according to the missionaries who have been to the Christian communities in Syria:
| 1. | Renounce their Christian faith and convert immediately to Islam (to potentially have your life spared after swearing to the Syrian rebels and Islam). | |
| 2. | Pay an extremely heavy tax to the Syrian rebels to potentially save your life and be able to secretly continue being a Christian (unless they decided to behead you anyway). | |
| 3. | Immediately choose death, likely via beheading in the center of town to scare off your friends and family from challenging the Syrian rebel army. | |
| 4. | Flee for your life and hope the Syrian rebels don’t find you or kill your family. All of your belongings left behind now belong to the Syrian rebels. |
As you can see, these are the truly ‘humane’ options supported by the United States government. And they’re getting away with this thanks to the general public having no idea what’s going on.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Qatar: In Country’s First, School Bus Drivers Go on Strike
Promoters reported as walkouts are illegal
(ANSAmed) — DOHA, SEPTEMBER 16 — For the first time ever, workers organized a walkout in Qatar, a country where strikes and unions are banned. According to local press reports, over 100 school bus drivers with Al Watan International and Contracting Company organized a strike on Sunday to protest against the fact that their monthly salary of 260 euros has not been raised in five years.
Some 4,000 students with four schools were reportedly left without transport because of the walkout and their parents were informed hours later. Authorities at the schools affected by the strike reported the workers to the police.
Qatari newspaper reports however focused more on the inability of schools to inform parents on time rather than on the fact that workers had staged a strike for the first time in the country’s history.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Rise in Crimes by Jihadist Groups in Syria, Says UN
(AGI) Geneva — There has been a significant rise in crimes by jihadist groups, said the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Maaloula Refugees Celebrate the Exaltation of the Cross, Pray for Their Martyrs
“The small town conquered by the rebels is now deserted,” sources told AsiaNews. In the capital, refugees organised celebrations-Mass, Eucharistic adoration and vigils-in lieu of traditional processions and bonfires. “The event was dedicated to our martyrs and the suffering of Syria,” a Maaloula Christian said.
Damascus (AsiaNews) — Christian refugees from Maaloula and Damascene Christians celebrated the feast day of the Exaltation of the Cross on Saturday with a Mass, prayer vigils for the martyrs and small celebrations outside churches across the capital.
The celebration dates back to 320 AD, when Saint Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, sent officials to Jerusalem to find the Holy relic of the cross on Mount Golgotha, which they did on 14 September.
In order to inform the emperor and his mother, who lived in Constantinople, bonfires were lit on every peak located along the 1,170 km that separate the two cities.
For centuries, Maaloula was the centre of this celebration, with pilgrims and faithful gathering each year from around Syria and the world.
“Preparations [this year] have been very sober,” sources (anonymous for security reasons) told AsiaNews.
“This is a far cry from peace time when the whole town of Maaloula, now in the hands of Islamic extremists, was dressed up to the nines with bonfires burning until dawn.”
“This year the festival was dedicated to our martyrs, the suffering of Syria.”
A vigil was also organised in the Church of the Holy Cross in Damascus in memory of the three Christians killed by extremists, attended by all refugee families and hundreds of people.
Since extremists attacked on 5 September, Maaloula has been a ghost town. “Islamists are holed up in the small town and are involved every day in violent clashes with the army. Everything has now been destroyed-our homes, our places of worship, everything.”
In recent days, the last families that had been held by shelling managed to escape. None of the town’s 10,000 Christians are left. Only the nuns at the Greek-orthodox monastery of Saint Tecla have chosen to remain to pray and defend the sacred place. (S.C.)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian Rebels Brainwashing Population to Accept Extremist Islam
The new study by IHS Jane’s, a defence consultancy, estimates there are around 10,000 jihadists — who would include foreign fighters — fighting for powerful factions linked to al-Qaeda.
Another 30,000 to 35,000 are hardline Islamists who share much of the outlook of the jihadists, but are focused purely on the Syrian war rather than a wider international struggle.
ISIS has also begun a programme of “indoctrination” of civilians in rebel-held areas, trying to educate Syria’s traditionally moderate Sunni Muslims into a more hard-line interpretation of Islam.
In early September, the group distributed black backpacks with the words “Islamic State of Iraq” stamped on them. They also now control schools in Aleppo where young boys are reportedly taught to sing jihadist anthems.
“It seems it is some sort of a long-term plan to brainwash the children and recruit potential fighters,” said Elie Wehbe, a Lebanese journalists who is conducting research into these activities.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.N. Inspectors’ Report Confirms Chemical Weapons Were Used in Syria
Rockets armed with the banned chemical nerve agent sarin were used in an Aug. 21 mass killing near Damascus, United Nations chemical weapons inspectors reported Monday in the first official confirmation by scientific experts that such munitions had been deployed in the Syria conflict.
Although the widely awaited report did not ascribe blame for the attack, it concluded that “chemical weapons have been used in the ongoing conflict between the parties in the Syian Arab Republic, also against civilians, including children, on a relatively large scale.”
The inspectors, who visited the Damascus suburbs that suffered the attack in August and left the country with large amounts of evidence 10 days later, said “the environmental, chemical and medical samples we have collected provide clear and convincing evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve agent sarin.”
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UN Report Cites ‘Convincing Evidence’ of Chemical Attack in Syria
U.N. inspectors said Monday there is “clear and convincing evidence” that chemical weapons were used on a relatively large scale in an attack last month in Syria that killed hundreds of people.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Yet Another Massacre in Iraq as Car Bombs Kill 46 People
(AGI) Baghdad, Sept 15 — The war between Sunnis and Shi’ites in Iraq rages on, and several bombings took place throughout the country on Sunday, with 17 car bombs killing at least 46 people and injuring over 130 in a dozen cities. The worst attack was in Hilla, a Shi’ite stronghold in the province of Babil, south of Baghdad, where four car bombs killed at least 19 people. A bomb attack on the Provincial Council speaker in Baghdad was thwarted.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
India: Rising Anti-Christian Violence in Karnataka
Over the past three months, Hindu extremist groups have carried out at least 15 attacks against the state’s Protestant communities. According to Christian leader Sajan George, this is part of an “ominous plan by ultra-nationalist forces to discredit the Congress-led Karnataka administration” and win back power.
Mumbai (AsiaNews) — Security has become an issue in Karnataka. In the past three months, ultra-nationalist Hindu groups have carried at least 15 attacks against Christian communities. This comes on top of threats, insults and those incidents that have gone unreported to the authorities.
The latest incident occurred on Sunday, marking a “worrisome” upward trend, said Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC). Speaking to AsiaNews, he said, “These militants seem to flout the rights enshrined in the Indian Constitution.”
On Sunday, 25 Hindu militants from the Rashtriya Savayamsevak Sangh (RSS ) and the Bajrang Dal disrupted a prayer service at the Living Hope Church, an independent Pentecostal community in Yelahanka New Town (north of Bangalore). After they stormed the venue shouting “no prayer and no church”, they prevented Church members from continuing their meeting.
Rev William John went to the local police station and filed a complaint against the attackers. Police inspector Ashok Kumar, who took the pastor’s statement, promised to provide the Christian leader and his community with the necessary protection.
However, a week earlier, the same Pentecostal Church suffered a similar attack. On 1 September, the same militants interrupted another prayer meeting. They accused the clergyman and the members present of carrying out forced conversions from Hinduism to Christianity and then beat them.
“These attacks,” Sajan George noted, “seem to be part of ominous plan by Hindu ultra-nationalist forces to discredit the Congress-led Karnataka administration ahead of parliamentary elections in 2014.”
After nine years in power, the Hindu ultra-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) year lost in the state elections in May to the secularist Congress, the largest party in the country.
Since its defeat, the BJP has continued to fuel tensions and support attacks against minorities in the state.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Malaysia: Beauty Queens Issue Apology
Three of the four Muslim finalists of the Miss Malaysia World pageant who were barred from competing in the pageant and deemed to have insulted Islam have issued an apology.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The training centre in Mustang is located near the border with Tibet, one of the most sensitive areas in the world. Beijing is concerned about the presence of officers and soldiers from other countries, and points out that the CIA provided aid to Khampa rebels from this district. Nepal appears ready to accommodate the Chinese, but its army offers alternative solution.
Kathmandu (AsiaNews) — The Chinese government has asked Nepal to shut down its military training facility in Mustang District, where troops from seven foreign nations are currently training.
Beijing is concerned about the presence of foreign soldiers so close to its border-Mustang borders Tibet-and points out that several anti-Chinese actions began in the area.
Nepali authorities appear inclined to listen to Beijing’s demands since China has become the country’s most important economic and trading partners.
In 1990, the Nepali Army opened military facilities to foreign troops and officers, including some from the United States, India and s number of European countries, to train in high risk mountainous areas, deemed ‘perfect’ for unconventional war games.
In the past, pro-independence Khampa, ethnic Tibetans from China’s Kham region found helped in the district in their fight against China. The Central Intelligence Agency, the US foreign counterintelligence, apparently provided support to their revolt from Mustang.
The Nepali government in Kathmandu appears willing to heed Beijing’s demands, and has asked the army to close the training centre. “The presence of foreign troops in such a sensitive area may not be appropriate for our country’s security,” said Defence Minister Atma Ram Pandey.
However, under the new constitution, the military are not required to submit to the government’s will. “We are aware of the Nepali government’s concern and of the strategic importance of the training centre in the area.” Army spokesman Jagadis Chandra Pokharel said.
However, “We have requested our government not to stop the training but rather monitor the activities of foreigners to ensure that nothing is done against the security of the country,” not to mention that of China.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Diabetes Ailing 114 Million Chinese Risks Ravaging Budget
Diabetes may consume $22 billion, or more than half of China’s annual health budget, if all those afflicted with the condition get routine, state-funded care. The disease is putting an “overwhelming burden” on the country, according to the International Diabetes Federation, which says China spent $17 billion, or about $194 a patient, on diabetes last year. A study released last week found China has 114 million diabetics or 21.6 million more than the Brussels-based federation estimated in November.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Laotian Authorities Take Aim at Christian Families With Threats of Expulsion and Abuse
Eleven families in a village in the central province of Bolikhamsai risk expulsion because they converted to Christianity. Their village chief told them to return to their traditional religion, but they refused, choosing instead to continue to worship as they wish. A struggle for religious freedom is underway in a country where this principle has been often violated.
Vientiane (AsiaNews) — Eleven Laotian families, about fifty people in all, face eviction and expulsion from their land because they converted to Christianity, Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF) reported.
The organisation said that at the end of August, the authorities in Nongdaeng village (Borikan District, central province of Bolikhamsai) issued an expulsion order to each head of the family.
To avoid it, they have to abjure their faith and return to the local traditional religion (animism). However, as time goes by, the possibility of violent eviction is getting more likely.
Local sources note that on 30 August, village authorities, led by the chief, summoned the Christian families to address issues related to religion.
During the meeting, they ordered them to abandon Christianity and return to animism, making (spurious) accusations that had embraced a “foreign religion” linked to “Western powers”, which they deemed was destructive to Laotian national unity.
To make their point, both village chief and village council insisted that they would not tolerate “the presence of Christians, or the practice of that worship” in Nongdaeng.
Families were given three days to comply with the order. However, the latter refused and continued to practice their faith, claiming that it was a right guaranteed under the constitution of Laos.
The problem emerged between April and May, when three families began practicing the Christian faith. They were later joined by dozens of other people attracted to the practice and teachings inspired by the life of Jesus.
Since the Communists came to power in 1975, and the resulting expulsion of foreign missionaries, the Christian minority in Laos has been under strict controls, its right to worship limited.
In a country of six million people, most people (67 per cent) are Buddhist. Christians make up about 2 per cent of the total, 0.7 per cent Catholic.
Protestant communities have suffered the most from religious persecution, a situation AsiaNews documented in the past. Cases include peasants deprived of food for their faith and clergymen arrested by the authorities.
Since April 2011, tighter controls have been imposed, following a violent crackdown against protests led by some groups within the country’s Hmong ethnic minority.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy to Give Somalia 9 Million Euros for Projects
(AGI) Brussels, Sept 16 — Italy will give Somalia 9 million euros for projects this year, announced Foreign Minister Emma Bonino. It was important there was political progress between central government and local authorities to ensure stability, and for state construction projects and economic development, she told a high-level conference on Somalia in Brussels on Monday.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Noma Chef Shows Some Solidarity for Somali Peer
Rene Redzepi launches fundraiser for Mogadishu restaurant owner
René Redzepi, the co-owner and head chef of Noma in Copenhagen, has started a fundraiser to help a fellow restaurant owner, Ahmed Jama, to rebuild his Somali-based establishment following a recent attack by Islamist militants.
“He’s a cook who has a bigger mission than any of us,” Redzepi told the Guardian.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Announces Multi-Billion-Dollar Plan to Bring Electricity to Africa (Flashback)
A cornerstone of Obama’s efforts to expand opportunity is the new “Power Africa” initiative unveiled ahead of his speech. The venture is supported by $7 billion in U.S. investment and $9 billion from the private sector, and will seek to bring electricity to at least 20 million new households and commercial entities in an initial set of six countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania.
The White House did not set a specific deadline for achieving that goal, but Obama advisers said it could happen within a decade. However, the first round of contributions still fall well short of the $300 billion the International Energy Agency says would be required to achieve universal electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
103 Migrants Landed in Lampedusa on Sunday Night
(AGI) Palermo — Another 130 migrants were rescued by Coast Guard vessels off the coast of Lampedusa on Sunday night ..
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
3,300 Syrians Land in Italy Over Past Month
Around 3,300 Syrians have arrived in Italy by boat over recent weeks, many fleeing troubled Egypt where they had first found a haven from war, the UN refugee agency said Friday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Boat Lands 150 Syrian Immigrants in Sicily
(AGI) Syracuse — A boat carrying 150 Syrian immigrants landed on the coast at Noto, in Sicily, at 5 a.m. on Monday .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Hundreds of Syrians Rescued Off Italian Shores
Nearly 500 boat people, mainly Syrian, have been rescued off of Italian coasts in the past 24 hours, the coastguard said Saturday. A first group of 170 saying they were Syrian were rescued after their boat began taking on water around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the coast of Calabria, in southern Italy.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Immigrants Continue to Arrive in Italy as Another 250 Land
In Lampedusa and close to Siracusa
(ANSAmed) — ROME — Immigrants are continuing to land on Italy’s coasts. After 36 Nigerians, including six women, were rescued on Sunday night by coast guards some 40 miles south of Lampedusa and then transferred to the island, others arrived. While the first rescue operation was still ongoing, another vessel sent an SOS and was reached by two coast guard boats 75 miles south-east of Lampedusa. Onboard were 68 migrants from sub-Sahara, including four women, who were transferred to Lampedusa.
Another 150 migrants then landed shortly before 5 am on Monday on the island of Vendicari, a few miles from the coast of Siracusa, Sicily.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Celebrity Swedes Back Call to Fight Xenophobia
A long list of prominent Swedes within politics, media, business and the arts have declared their support for a new campaign aimed at combating xenophobia in society.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Green Leader Linked to Pro-Paedo Manifesto
Less than a week until the general election and Germany’s Green party leader faces part of his past he thought forgotten. The politician put his name to an election manifesto in 1981 pushing for paedophilia to be legalized.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Abortion Rate Falls, Doctor Objections Rise
Report to parliament shows rate among lowest
(ANSA) — Rome, September 13 — The number of abortions performed in Italy has been decreasing while the number of doctors who are conscientious objectors to the procedure has been on the rise, a report to parliament showed Friday.
The Ministry of Health report found that Italy’s abortion rate is one of the lowest among industrialized countries.
In 2012, 105,968 abortions were performed, a decrease of 4.9% compared to the previous year, the report said.
The report also found that the number of abortions dropped dramatically — by almost 55% — compared with the figures for 30 years ago, while the percentage of doctors refusing to do them rose by 17.3% between 1982 and 2012.
The report said that the number of abortions peaked at 234,801 in 1982.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |