Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/5/2014

Israeli naval commandos boarded and seized a ship carrying advanced rockets from Iran that were bound for the Gaza Strip. The Panamanian-flagged cargo ship will be escorted to the Israeli port of Eilat within the next few days.

In other news, according to the latest census figures, the foreign-born population of Wales rose by 82% between 2002 and 2011.

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

Thanks to ESW, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, 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.

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Waitin’ for That Train

As you may have noticed if you tried to open this blog during the last two or three hours, Gates of Vienna was down for a while. The hosting service has been working on the problem, and just brought the site back up.

At the moment we don’t know what caused the outage. But, thanks to our generous readers, we now have a more robust service package that mitigates these outages (whether caused by DoS or other problems), reducing both their frequency and duration.

So we’re back on the tracks once more…

“Easy Meat”: Child Sex Slavery in the UK

As we reported here a few days ago, Gavin Boby of the Law and Freedom Foundation has been working intensively on the issue of child sex slavery in the UK. The activities of the largely Muslim “grooming and pimping” gangs have been known for decades to the police and the social service agencies, but the perps went largely unpunished before 2012.

The LFF has just published a comprehensive report on the grooming issue, “Easy Meat”: Multiculturalism, Islam and Child Sex Slavery by Peter McLoughlin (download a copy here [pdf]).

Mr. Boby notes:

The report examines in detail:

  • What these gangs do
  • The chronology of the problem
  • Institutional failure and the abuse of the narrative of racism
  • The Islamic cultural background
  • The scale of the problem

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/4/2014

An Egyptian court has outlawed all activities of the terror group Hamas — the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood — within Egypt. In the months since the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi, the Egyptian army has destroyed most of Hamas’ smuggling tunnels leading from Sinai into Gaza.

In other news, the Islamic terror group Boko Haram burned eleven people to death inside their homes. A Roman Catholic bishop in Nigeria says that Boko Haram jihadists have burned down twenty churches in their attacks.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Erick Stakelbeck, 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.

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Grover Must Go!

The Center for Security Policy has launched a petition demanding that the American Conservative Union (ACU) expel Grover Norquist, whom CSP identifies as the center of a Muslim Brotherhood influence operation in the organization:

Tell the ACU: Grover Norquist Must Go

On February 11, 2014, ten influential national security practitioners sent a letter to American Conservative Union board member Cleta Mitchell, urging her and her colleagues to take action against Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan, two ACU members who have for years been running influence operations against conservatives on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist causes. She ignored it.

Both Norquist and Khan have had relationships with a bevy of individuals with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood — including jailed al-Qaeda and Brotherhood member Abdurahman Alamoudi and onetime head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad Sami al-Arian — that make their participation in the American Conservative Union anathema to the organization’s supposed vision. It behooves true conservatives, Republicans — and, indeed, the American people as a whole — to resist such subversive operations and to expose and counter those who enable them.

The time has come for the American Conservative Union to disassociate itself from Norquist and Khan. Nothing less than the Board of Directors’ repudiation of these individuals will suffice. The coming together of thousands of conservative activists at this year’s CPAC offers an opportunity for mainstream conservatives to demand the ACU distance itself from Norquist and Khan.

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The Maximum Freedom to be Maximally Offensive

The Canadian journalist Ezra Levant is in court again this week. This time it’s not the Human Rights Commission that’s after him, but the Canadian Islamic Congress, who have forced him to defend himself (at enormous expense) against a defamation lawsuit in a Toronto courtroom.

Last Saturday Trykkefrihedsselskabet (the Danish Free Press Society) presented Mr. Levant with the Sappho Award for 2014. Many thanks to Henrik Ræder Clausen for recording this video of the event, and to Vlad Tepes for processing and uploading it:

For more details on the CIC’s lawsuit, see this clip from Ezra Levant’s SUN TV program.

Visit Steen’s place for lots of photos and text (in Danish).

The following excerpts are from the prepared text of the introduction to Mr. Levant’s speech given by Katrine Winkel Holm, the acting President of the Free Press Society, as published by Dispatch International:

In February 2006, Ezra Levant’s news magazine, The Western Standard, was the first media in Canada to reprint the Danish Muhammed cartoons.

Trouble was to follow.

An imam was so incensed at these — as he described them — “hateful” drawings that he went to the police and demanded that Ezra Levant be arrested. When the police refused to comply, the imam went on to one of Canada’s numerous “human rights commissions” empowered to implement the country’s hate speech laws.

“I am expecting a formal apology … from The Western Standard. Please help,” the imam said.

Instead of rebuffing the imam with a condescending smile, the human rights commission took his complaint dead seriously.

The entire apparatus was mobilized against Ezra Levant. Later he found out that the commission had spent 900 days and secured the services of no less than 15 government employees to prepare the case against him.

When Ezra Levant contacted his lawyer, he was told that faced with the might of the human rights commission, most people give up, pay up and apologize.

Nobody had ever been acquitted after being accused of a human rights violation.

Ezra Levant could have chosen to cave in. He did the opposite: The human rights commission would get all the opposition he could muster.

In early 2008, he was summoned to a preliminary interrogation based on the imam’s complaint that he had violated the Koran’s proscription on blasphemy.

In Levant’s own words: “It was really happening: I had become the first journalist in the free world to be grilled by a government inquisitor about the cartoons.”

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Looking Back, Looking Forward

The Winter Fundraiser ends here. Instead of a bang or a whimper, let’s go out in full voice with hope for the future, whatever it holds…

We ran out of time before we ran out of Odd Jobs. Interesting ones remain, but I’ve asked the Baron to save the best of them for another time. The tale is worth the telling, but we’ve past the right time — the kairos moment — to pass it on. However, it could well serve as the foundation for another theme in another quarter — closer perhaps to Christmas.

Looking Back One Last Time

We also ran out of time before I was able to adequately ‘end’ my own recitation of Odd Jobs. We (rightly I think) focused on the enormous changes which occurred when the Baron’s good friend invited him to do real work — you know, the kind where you dress up in business clothing and go to an office to work with grown-ups? This new job required new clothing, and even where men’s attire was concerned, discovering what they now wore had a learning curve. Many years before, when this same friend got married, the Baron was woefully ill-dressed for their wedding; our friends always had great forbearance. They could have said, “Hey, you know those two paintings we bought at the last show? How about you take some of the proceeds and get some threads for our wedding, dude… oh, wait. Maybe not “threads”. He was already wearing those. But you get the idea.

The start of that job was an abrupt right turn in the Garden of Forking Paths and it happened just in time. The future Baron’s college expenses loomed, and there was that last piece of high school tuition to get through. I am still amazed at the way things seemed to just ‘happen’… even though, in hindsight, each step of the way seemed to follow naturally from the previous decision.

I was still working in town, but it was getting harder and harder to make the drive. I began to fall asleep at the wheel. Sometimes I would get to a job — a big house to clean — haul in my equipment and then sleep on the floor for an hour before I could start. Running up and down the stairs with my favorite heavy vacuum cleaner became harder and then it became impossible. I finally had to tell all my customers goodbye. I saw this as temporary and had no idea what was wrong except that I was sooo VERY tired. I couldn’t get enough sleep.

The exact order of things is gone now, but it probably took about seven years until we understood what was wrong. I began to have strange body aches and my doctor referred me to physical rehab. The exercises made my condition worse, so I’d sleep it off. By then our son was driving himself to school and the Baron was home twice a week to spend the night before returning to work. He had moved on from that first contract to consulting work in Richmond so it was easier for him to stay with family than make that long drive each day…

… After long months of fatigue I began to feel a bit better. Garden work before the weather turned very hot seemed to help, though I noticed I was losing my depth perception and even my proprioception. So I tripped over my own feet. A lot. If I remember correctly we went on vacation several times with friends but I mostly slept while they went out and did things. Thus began my years of “I’ll feel better tomorrow”…

The doctor nagged me to get a mammogram and they found a lump. Not a small lump, mind you, but one big enough for its own zip code. Within two weeks I’d had a full mastectomy, “just to be sure”. There was no hormonal involvement and no the nodes were free of any cancer cells. They tried to shoehorn me into a series of radiation treatments but I refused. I knew the chances of leukemia down the road if I were to agree to their “gold standard” of treatment. When I mentioned my concern about leukemia, the radiologist left mad, slamming the door behind her. I did reluctantly agree to chemotherapy and I regret doing so. In cases like mine, it’s a scam. In others, it might help but the whole Breast Cancer Awareness hype gave me the creeps. Chemo permanently altered/poisoned my brain and my ability to perceive. I never fully recovered from that “treatment”.

But to the extent I did recover, I wanted to try working again. This Odd Job was advertised in the paper — imagine, a job the old-fashioned way. The Drop-In Center for the chronic but stable mentally ill adults was looking for a case worker. Any previous mental illness would be considered a plus… I almost fell off the chair laughing. These people were going to love my PTSD.
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Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/3/2014

The crisis in the Crimea intensified today, with Ukraine reporting that the Russian navy had threatened its warships, demanding that they surrender. The Russian stock market and the ruble took a tumble because of fears of the turmoil in Ukraine, but President Vladimir Putin shows no sign of backing down.

In other news, terrorist gunmen opened fire outside a Pakistani courtroom, killing at least eleven people.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Egghead, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, 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.

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Betrayal of Islam? Or Betrayal to Islam?

If you appreciate this essay by Fjordman, please consider making a donation to him, using the button at the bottom of this post.

On 22 May 2013, two militant African Muslims armed with knives and Koranic quotations beheaded a British soldier in broad daylight in the streets of Woolwich, London. The murderers praised Allah and stated that the British would never be safe in their own streets anymore. The unarmed man beheaded by the two Islamic fanatics was Lee Rigby — a 25-year-old serviceman described as a “loving father” to his two-year-old son Jack.[1] Witnesses said the suspects hacked and chopped at his body and shouted the Islamic phrase “Allahu akhbar!”

British Prime Minister David Cameron stated in 2013 that this murder was a “betrayal of Islam.”[2] Cameron further claimed that “There is nothing in Islam that justifies acts of terror.”[3] Similar sentiments were echoed by London Mayor Boris Johnson as well as other Western political leaders and media outlets.

On 26 February 2014, Rigby’s attackers Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale were sentenced to life imprisonment for this brutal public murder. Adebolajo responded by shouting “Allahu akhbar” (God is greater). Justice Sweeney, coincidentally echoing the exact words used by the country’s Prime Minister, stated that their crime was a “betrayal of Islam.”[4] That sounds nice, but it’s unfortunately not true. This mantra is based on wishful thinking, not facts.

As noted by the scholar Lawrence A. Franklin, the medieval Muslim warrior Saladin has long been romanticized. Yet the historical Saladin choreographed the mass execution of prisoners of war. He even personally ordered clerics in his Jihadist army to behead at least one Christian knight. Only a few prisoners saved themselves by “converting” to Islam.[5]

For centuries Muslim writers have commented on the psychological impact of beheadings upon their enemy’s fear factor and will to resist. This is indicated by Koran 8:12: “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks and smite them over all their fingers and toes.”[6]

Professor Timothy R. Furnish explains that during nearly 1,400 years of Islamic history, beheading has been a recurring theme.[7] A variation upon this theme would be slitting the throats of infidels, as happened to the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam in 2004. The practice of beheading non-Muslims extends all the way back to Islam’s founder. Ibn Ishaq, the earliest biographer of Mohammad, is recorded as saying that the Prophet ordered the execution by decapitation of 700 men of the Jewish Banu Qurayza tribe in Medina.

Centuries later, the Turks of the Ottoman Empire were quite enthusiastic about decapitating Christian Europeans and others. Decapitation has also been used against those deemed to commit blasphemy or seen as apostates from Islam. Over the past decades, modern Saudi Arabia has decapitated hundreds of people for alleged crimes ranging from drug running to witchcraft and apostasy.

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The True Merchandise

En Svensk Håller Truten: “A Swede Holds His Mouth Shut”; or alternatively: “A Swede Holds a Gull”.

Our Swedish correspondent Mårten Gantelius (who is sometimes known as “Styrbjörn”) wrote last month about Lena Hellblom Sjögren, a Swedish psychologist who wrote a book, The Child’s Right to a Family Life, about the damage done to children when they are alienated from their fathers by their mothers. Dr. Sjögren’s book was suppressed (the publisher discontinued it), and the author was condemned by the Swedish establishment for her heresy against Orthodox Feminism.

Mårten sent me this follow-up on the case (and its implications in the larger scheme of things) last week, but its posting was delayed by the fundraiser:

Baron,

I wrote about “The True Merchandise” — what individuals and organizations really intend to accomplish, as opposed to their ostensible, stated intentions — in “The Breivik Ideology and Media Disinformation”. But regarding the late Danish sociologist Torben Bo Jansen, I wasn’t quite honest: I had presented the way of thinking to him, and not the other way around.

In 1993, I realized that TTM of the Family Law Industry — with the support of many “average” people, too — was to destroy a person mentally and make him/her of minor value in the society. And that they would go on torturing until the goal was achieved. This understanding is absolutely necessary for survival, but not sufficient. In 1993, I laid out a strategy which I’ve stuck to strictly since. In this twenty-year period, I’ve been down to nine in the count four times. One of the times, I was saved by the gong-gong. The other times, I miraculously managed to get back on my feet again.

At this time, many Swedes (and Danes!) have discovered that I have cheated them. The only thing they regret is that they didn’t kill me physically when they had the chance.

In 1996, I had developed a model for recruiting top leaders. The idea arose when I read one idiotic ad after another where they asked for “dynamic persons with social competence”. When I presented the concept to Torben, naturally he immediately understood what I was talking about, and we had some good laughs together.

What is the most favorable for a client? 400 applications weighing one kilo each, or 15 highly interesting applications, each on a maximum of three A4 pages? Here’s the “tip of the iceberg”:

1.   The applicant is supposed to make a speech to the personnel of the company/organisation. Maximum 5 minutes, and the topic is of his/her own choice. The speech will be video-recorded.
2.   The applicant has to perform a set of practical tasks — for example building a house with Lego bricks. Some of the tasks will be under time pressure. Video-recording.
3.   The applicant will be asked questions where he/she is asked to characterize himself/herself (Multiple choice). Based on the material, we will measure a “D” — the difference how we judge the person and how he/she characterizes himself/herself.
4.   We’ll pick three applicants for the final judging. At this point, the backgrounds of these three persons will be meticulously examined.
5.   Any application of more than three A4-pages will be rejected.
 

By providing this information in advance in the ad, unserious persons would be chased away.

I made a thirty-minute presentation of the concept to Coopers & Lybrand in Copenhagen — they had announced that they wanted to expand their recruiting department. Of course I knew the result in advance. My concept was highly threatening to TTM of a big and powerful branch.

As I wrote in “The Breivik Ideology and Media Disinformation”, TTM of the MSM is disinformation and witch-hunting. With this in mind, you can actually get information out of them. Their approach is probably diametrically opposite the truth. The items of information they omit are the most interesting ones. Sorry, but I’m not inclined to pay for that product.

Consider the case of Lena Hellblom Sjögren, the Swedish psychologist who was recently defended at GoV (“The Swedish Model”):

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More Like a Snowy Air

Before dawn this morning I heard the liquid climate change pounding on the roof, but by the time I got up, we had passed through pelletized climate change and entered a phase of powdered climate change. So, at the moment, it looks like we probably won’t lose our electricity.

There are four or five inches of snow on the ground, and it’s still coming down hard. NOAA says it will continue this way all day, so there will be nothing to do but make hot drinks and watch the whiteout through the windows.

Last week, when the temperature rose into the 60s (c. 18°C) and the remains of the earlier blizzard had almost entirely melted away, I thought we were done with all this nonsense. Oh yes, I know readers in Norway and Finland are probably laughing at us for being paralyzed by such trivial amounts of snow, but you’re at what? 60°N? 62°N? We’re at 38°N, for crying out loud! In other words, further south than Lisbon, Naples, and Athens.

This is supposed to be, as Wallace Stevens put it, “the end of winter when afternoons return.” Instead it looks like this afternoon will be pretty dim and powdery.

Below is the “world of white and snowy scents” on the grounds of Schloss Bodissey, out by the gnarled old Pawlonia tree:

Wallace Stevens’ poem is quite appropriate for a day like today. For those who are interested, it is reproduced in its entirety below the jump.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/2/2014

Our Winter Fundraising Week has finally closed. Now maybe I’ll be able to devote my time to some serious blogging! A big thank-you to everyone who dropped a groat in the cup — I’ll have more to say tomorrow (assuming the ice storm doesn’t nobble us).

The big news story today concerns yesterday’s terror attack in the Chinese city of Kunming. It has now been determined that the attack was carried out by knife- and sword-wielding Islamic terrorists from Xinjiang. The death toll has risen to thirty-three, with four of those being terrorists killed by police. One of the alleged assailants was captured and is in custody, and at least five more are believed to have escaped.

In other news, 675,000 Ukrainian citizens have reportedly fled to Russia to escape the chaos and unrest in their country. Meanwhile, in response to the movement of Russian forces into the Crimea, Ukraine has mobilized its reserve troops.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, 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.

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