About a thousand “anti-fascist” protesters descended on the Swedish city of Malmö today in advance of a demonstration by the Swedish Defence League. The anarchists and antifas clashed with police before the SDL demonstrators — about twenty of them — arrived in the center of the city.
In other news, a bill is before the Texas state legislature that calls for the repatriation of Texas’ gold assets from the Federal Reserve. The state of Texas owns about $1 billion in gold bullion, which is currently being stored by the Fed. The bill would return the gold to Texas, where it would be stashed in a newly-constructed secure facility.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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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.
Cyprus ‘Eurogeddon’: Deserted Streets of a Country Closed for Business
Ever since the credit crunch turned into a currency crisis, Europe has asked: what will it all look like when the cash dries up? Now we know the answer: Cyprus.
Eurogeddon is sweeping the island. Its leaders are still working to avert catastrophe, but for residents, it had already struck. Unlike a Hollywood film, there is no stampede out of town. No-one can afford to waste the petrol. The motorway that traverses the island connecting Paphos in the west to Limassol and Larnaka in the east and the capital Nicosia in the north is nearly deserted…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Is Excel the Most Dangerous Piece of Software in the World?
Is Excel the most dangerous piece of software in the world? Baseline Scenario’s James Kwak reports on a little-mentioned aspect of the notorious “London Whale” debacle at JPMorgan, where Bruno Iksil headed a proprietary trading team which made losses of up to $9bn.
It turns out, Kwak writes, that Excel was partly to blame:
To summarize: JPMorgan’s Chief Investment Office needed a new value-at-risk (VaR) model for the synthetic credit portfolio (the one that blew up)… The new model “operated through a series of Excel spreadsheets, which had to be completed manually, by a process of copying and pasting data from one spreadsheet to another”… After the London Whale trade blew up, the Model Review Group discovered that the model had not been automated and found several other errors. Most spectacularly,
“After subtracting the old rate from the new rate, the spreadsheet divided by their sum instead of their average, as the modeler had intended. This error likely had the effect of muting volatility by a factor of two and of lowering the VaR…”
Kwak wonders if the very ease of use that Excel offers — allowing people with no programming experience to knock together what are, in effect, relatively advanced applets — also makes it dangerous to use in most sensitive situations. There’s no debug, no audit trail, and no way to test why a spreadsheet returns the value it does.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Senate Passes $3.7 Trillion Budget, Its First in 4 Years
After an all-night debate that ended close to 5 a.m., the Senate on Saturday adopted its first budget in four years, a $3.7 trillion blueprint for 2014 that would fast-track passage of tax increases, trim spending gingerly and leave the government deeply in debt a decade from now.
The 50-49 vote sets up contentious — and potentially fruitless — negotiations with the Republican-dominated House to reconcile two different visions for dealing with the nation’s economic and budgetary problems. No Republicans voted for the Senate plan, and four Democrats, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mark Begich of Alaska, and Max Baucus of Montana, also opposed it. All four are Red State Democrats up for re-election in 2014.
In contrast, the House plan ostensibly brings the government’s taxes and spending into balance by 2023 with cuts to domestic spending even below levels the automatic “sequestration” levels roiling federal programs now, and it orders up significant changes to Medicare and the tax code.
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Southern Europe Lies Prostrate Before the German Imperium
by Charles Moore
Cyprus is only the first victim of a one-size-must-fit-all policy that is made in Berlin
Othello. “What’s the matter, think you?”
Cassio. “Something from Cyprus, as I may divine;
It is a business of some heat.”
Shakespeare is on the money. Then, as now, Cyprus was the toy of foreign powers. Othello was sent there from Venice to repel the Turks, though luckily they all got blown away in a tempest. Since then, Russia, Britain, Greece and, always, Turkey, have taken an interest. Even today, Britain has an important listening post for the Middle East there, 60,000 expatriates, 3,500 troops in our sovereign bases and a continuing role as a guarantor power. Cypriots still drive on the left. Lord Salisbury, who won control of Cyprus for Britain from Turkey in 1878, once sent an envoy there. People complained that the man knew neither Greek nor Turkish. “Good,” said Salisbury, “then he will hear fewer lies.”…
And possibly, one distant day, it will be. Possibly, just as people all over the known world could once say “Civis Romanus sum” (“I am a Roman citizen”), so they will be able to say, “I am a European”, and know that they are safe and free under the blue flag with its golden stars. It may be for that reason that the eurozone decision-makers decided to make an example of Cyprus. They knew that it was puny. They believed, probably correctly, that it would have to obey. They hoped to show the world, which doubts, that they mean what they say…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Texas Moves to Repatriate Its Gold From the Federal Reserve
Call it the Rick Perry gold rush: The governor wants to bring the state’s gold reserves back from a New York vault to Texas.
And he may have legislative support to do it. Freshman Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, is carrying a bill that would establish the Texas Bullion Depository, a secure state-based bank to house $1 billion worth of gold bars owned by the University of Texas Investment Management Co., or UTIMCO, and stored by the Federal Reserve.
The idea isn’t entirely new. Some Republicans worked on a gold bill last session that was never filed. And gold-standard-backing Ron Paul, the former Lake Jackson congressman, has raised repeated concerns about the safety of states’ gold supplies.
“If you think gold is a hedge, or a protection, you always want it as close to the individual and the entity as possible,” Paul told The Texas Tribune on Thursday. “Texas is better served if it knows exactly where the gold is rather than depending on the security of the Federal Reserve.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Cost of Gold-Plated Pensions for Public Sector Workers to Jump by 60% Over Next Five Years
The cost of paying gold-plated pensions to Britain’s public sector workers will balloon by nearly 60 per cent over the next five years, official forecasts revealed this week.
Experts warned it makes a mockery of the Government’s claim to have tackled the problem of the crippling cost of paying such generous pensions to the State workforce.
Under the deal, hammered out by ministers, public sector workers will have to work longer and pay more for their pensions and many will get less when they retire.
But they remain among the most generous retirement payouts in the country, according to the forecast from the Government’s independent financial watchdog published this week…
And the OBR’s analysis, published in the Budget’s so-called Red Book, does not even include the full cost to the taxpayer of paying the pensions it does include.
This is because it deducts the amount contributed by the employer into their workers’ pensions — but the ‘employer’ is the State, paid for by taxpayers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
15 Members of Congress Demand Investigation of Obama’s Ammo Horde
Californian Congressman Doug LaMalfa and 14 of his House peers have written a letter to the Department of Homeland Security demanding to know why the federal agency is buying so many rounds of ammunition and whether the purchases are part of a deliberate attempt to restrict supply to the American people.
The DHS has committed to purchasing around 2 billion rounds of ammunition over the course of the last year. Many believe the purchases are exacerbating bullet shortages across the country, supplies already strained by record sales prompted as a result of the Obama administration’s gun control agenda.
“The extraordinary level of ammunition purchases made by Homeland Security seems to have, in states such as my own, created an extreme shortage of ammunition to the point where many gun owners are unable to purchase any,” LaMalfa wrote in the letter.
“Are these purchases being conducted in a manner that strategically denies the American people access to ammunition,” the Congressman added.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
3 Marines, Including Gunman, Dead in Shooting at Marine Base Quantico
Authorities say an active-duty Marine shot and killed two fellow service members at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia before killing himself.
Investigators say the male shooter was found dead of a self inflicted gunshot wound and two others, one man and one woman, were pronounced dead at the scene.
The shooter and the two victims were all identified as active duty Marines, but their names were not released pending family notification. Sgt. Christopher Zahn tells Fox News authorities cannot yet speculate on a motive for the killings.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A Week in Which Washington Had Intimations of Barack Obama’s Political Mortality
by Peter Foster
It’s always a strange week in Washington when the President’s out of town — a bit like those days at school when the head teacher calls in sick and everyone breathes a little easier, works a little less hard and allows their minds to wander to other things. But this week has also provided a reminder of how difficult it is for second-term presidents to maintain momentum as their power ebbs away — a fact demonstrated by the political stories which fired the imagination of the newspapers and cable networks this week…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Bitcoin Alert: The U.S. Treasury Announces Money-Laundering Rules Apply to “Virtual Currencies”
You didn’t think the Treasury was going to just let the bitcoin business develop outside the system, did you?
WSJ reports:
The U.S. is applying money-laundering rules to “virtual currencies,” amid growing concern that new forms of cash bought on the Internet are being used to fund illicit activities.
The move means that firms that issue or exchange the increasingly popular online cash will now be regulated in a similar manner as traditional money-order providers such as Western Union Co. WU 0.00% They would have new bookkeeping requirements and mandatory reporting for transactions of more than $10,000.[…]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Department of Education Promotes Mao Zedong
Quote by Greatest Mass Murderer in History Pushed on NCES “Kids’ Zone” Website
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) “Kids’ Zone” website quoted mass murderer Chairman Mao Zedong for its “The Quote of the Day” earlier today.
Buzzfeed posted a screenshot of the initial quote:
Apparently, NCES took the quote down after news of it went viral on social media networks like Twitter. First the quote was memory-holed with the message, “Sorry there is no quote of the of the today” (the typo here likely a signal of their rush to take it down):
For those who still aren’t clear on the reality that America’s education system has been purposefully set up to systematically destroy millions of children’s minds with the ultimate goal of indoctrinating them into a socialist one-world government, check out former Senior Policy Advisor for the U.S. Department of Education Charlotte Iserbyt’s book, “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America” available in the Infowars Shop.
[Comment: see url for screenshots.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Disarm Subjects and Make Them Spy on Each Other: New York State’s Totalitarian Formula
Benjamin M. Wassell of Silver Creek, New York, a wounded Iraq war veteran, is the first resident of that state to be arrested and face prosecution under its draconian new firearms law. He was arrested during an undercover operation by state police in which he sold an AR-15 rifle and six large-capacity clips on January 24.
“By selling these illegal firearms, Mr. Wassell’s actions [sic] had potentially dangerous consequences for New Yorkers,” insisted Eric Schneiderman, procurator for the New York State Politburo. “We have seen far too much gun violence in our state in recent months, and the same of illegal semiautomatic weapons will not go unpunished.”
Cutting himself in for a portion of what he mistakenly believes to be glory, Joseph D’Amico, Commissar of the New York State Police, gloated that “our partnership with the Attorney General’s office has resulted in taking a dangerous criminal off the streets.”
Like most things that dribble down the tax-fattened chins of functionaries like D’Amico, that was a lie. Wassell has no criminal record, and although what he did violates the new gun law, it isn’t legitimately a crime, since it didn’t involve injury or fraud on his part. Indeed, the only fraud involved in that transaction was that perpetrated by officials in Schneiderman’s office and the New York State Police, who arranged the sale on false pretenses. If he had conducted those sales just days earlier, they would have been perfectly legal.
Wassell has been charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor — yet released on his own recognizance, an implicit acknowledgement of the fact that he is not an actual criminal. If they have their way, New York police officials will be doing a brisk business in incarcerating innocent gun owners. The State of New York has established an anonymous tip line encouraging people to report suspected “illegal gun owners” for a $500 reward.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Elia Kazan & the Ongoing Communist Whitewash
One only needs to read three books to be totally convinced that Marxists dominated the US government for much of the 20th century:
- Witness, by Whitaker Chambers,
- The Communist, by Paul Kengor, about Obama’s mentor Frank Marshall Davies,
- The Naked Communist, by W. Cleon Skousen.
What in the world is going on here? At the time that Kazan gave his testimony [in 1952,] we only knew a small part of the evils of Soviet Communism under Joseph Stalin. The Soviet historian Roy Medvedev hadn’t published his exposé of Stalin entitled Let History Judge. Most importantly, The Gulag Archipelago and the other great writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn were still in the distant future.
On the American political scene, the revelations of former Communists had just been published in the form of a book entitled The God That Failed three years before, in which the insidiousness of the Communist Party in the United States was put on full display.
Former Communist spies Elizabeth Bentley and Whittaker Chambers had given their Congressional testimony, and one of the people Chambers accused of being a Soviet spy, Alger Hiss, had been convicted of perjury, but there were still a lot of people who believed that he, Lauchlin Currie, Owen Lattimore, and other high level Communists and Communist sympathizers were just victims of a witch hunt.
Allen Weinstein, previously a Hiss defender, had not yet written Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, showing to the satisfaction of almost everyone in the history community how right Chambers was about Hiss and the Communist infiltration of the government.
When it comes to the question of the principles involved, there is no better authority than Kazan himself. Here, in the full text of an advertisement he purchased in The New York Times on April 12, 1952:…
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Energy Roulette Week — The Antithesis of Earth Hour
The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on electricity consumers to boycott Earth Hour grandstanding by pampered people too silly to recognise the realities and benefits of reliable electricity.
The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, is supporting an alternative proposal that “Earth Hour” be replaced by “Energy Roulette Week”.
The Earth Hour people turn off a few lights on a balmy night for a romantic hour in candle-light (incidentally generating twice as much CO2 as light bulbs for the same amount of light.) This is unrealistic green tokenism.
Energy Roulette Week” is a reality game designed to illustrate what the future holds if green governments continue to undermine 24/7 power (generated by coal, gas, hydro or nuclear), by increasing our dependence on fickle winds, the peek-a-boo-sun or smart-meter rationing.
“Energy Roulette Week” will give all players a real insight into what life without reliable electricity would be like. The lack of power can be due to insufficient generating capacity or merely the inability to pay the power bill. The result is the same.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Farmer Under Attack for Signs on Semi Trailers Criticizing Obama
GAINES TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — A cattle farmer is fighting a Gaines Township zoning ordinance to keep a couple of trailer-sized political signs on his property.
A crowd is expected in 63rd District Court Friday as Vern Verduin takes on Township officials who are trying to force him to remove his signs.
The signs, which are visible from M-6, are posted on two semi-truck trailers parked in Verduin’s pasture.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Feds Pay Millions Due to Deadly HPV Shot
Thousands of adverse reactions include seizures, paralysis, blindness, memory loss
After declaring a popular vaccine to prevent a sexually transmitted disease safe for girls and boys as young as 11, the federal government has now paid almost $6 million to victims of the shot — including at least two who died after receiving it.
And the government hasn’t even settled half of the 200 claims against it…
As WND has reported, the federal government has recommended the HPV vaccination for girls and boys as young as 11. But it has caused thousands of adverse reactions, including seizures, paralysis, blindness, pancreatitis, speech problems, short-term memory loss, Guillain-Barré syndrome and even death.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Government Cover-Up of Ammo Buys Implodes
The failure on behalf of the federal government to provide any explanation for why the Department of Homeland Security is arming to the teeth with high powered weapons and billions of hollow point bullets, as well as crude efforts by mainstream media mouthpieces to debunk the war-like preparations, have backfired massively, propelling the story to a viral status.
As we reported today, 15 Congressmen have written a letter to the DHS demanding to know why the federal agency is buying so many rounds of ammunition and whether the purchases are part of a deliberate attempt to restrict supply to the American people.
Big Sis has remained silent on the issue, refusing to answer questions from reporters and even from multiple elected representatives, about the ammo buys.
The continued huge orders for weapons and bullets have prompted attendances at gun shows to explode, as gun store owners say they are having to contend with significant national shortages.
Efforts to portray the very real stockpiling by the federal agency as a conspiracy theory have fallen flat on their face, and have only served to further highlight how suspect the DHS’ actions are…
As we have tirelessly noted, however, hollow point bullets are completely unsuitable for training purposes because they cost significantly more money compared to standard firing range bullets. In one fell swoop, this fact debunks claims that the agency was attempting to save money argument and is intending to use the ammo in training exercises.
Military veterans and ammunition experts have also confirmed that they have never used hollow points for training purposes, expressing confusion at why the DHS is buying up so many of them.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gun Owners Sue New York Government to Restore 2nd Amendment
The New York affiliate of the National Rifle Association on Thursday requested an injunction to stop the state from denying residents their Second Amendment right and 14th Amendment right to equal protection under the law.
Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg rally in favor of expanded gun laws at the New York City Hall on Thursday.
Governor Andrew Cuomo and State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman are named in the lawsuit.
The NRA lawsuit claims New York’s recently enacted anti-gun legislation violates the constitutional rights of “law-abiding citizens to keep commonly possessed firearms in the home for defense of self and family and for other lawful purposes.”
The lawsuit neglects to mention the primary reason the founders included the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights — as a bulwark against tyranny.
“It protects the right to shoot tyrants, and it protects the right to shoot at them effectively, with the same instruments they would use upon us,” a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Andrew Napolitano, wrote in January before the New York governor and the state legislature pushed through the most restrictive and draconian anti-Second Amendment law in the nation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mayor Bloomberg Plans $12 Million Ad Blitz on Gun Control
Determined to persuade Congress to act in response to the shooting in Newtown, Conn., Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Monday will begin bankrolling a $12 million national advertising campaign that focuses on senators who he believes might be persuaded to support a pending package of federal regulations to curb gun violence. The ads, in a dozen states, will blanket those senators’ districts during an Easter Congressional recess that is to be followed by debate over the legislation.
But in a telling sign of how much the white-hot demands for gun control have been tempered by political reality, the commercials make no mention of an assault weapons ban once sought by the White House and its allies, instead focusing on the more achievable goal of universal background checks.
The advertising, which will saturate television screens in states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arizona, represents by far the biggest escalation of Mr. Bloomberg’s attempts to become a one-man counterweight to the National Rifle Association in the political clash over guns.
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New Xbox Reportedly Won’t Let You Play (Unless it Can Spy on You)
People throughout the world could soon be voluntarily outfitting their homes with indefinitely active cameras, infrared sensors and microphones if they purchase Microsoft’s new Xbox video game console, slated for release sometime next year.
According to leaked screen captures, the new console, codenamed “Durango,” will be “Always On, Always Connected,” meaning it will require a perpetual Internet connection, in addition to a new high-fidelity Kinect Sensor, “which will be required for the system to operate,” representing a huge win for Big Brother in infiltrating homes across the across the world under the guise of trendiness.
Being touted as a measure to ensure “software and games are always current,” the new Xbox will not allow users to play games unless a permanent Internet connection is established, according to leaked screenshots obtained by the website Vgleaks…
The website Beta Beat reported last year that “Back in 2011, Microsoft applied for a patent that would allow cameras and sensors, much like the ones embedded in the Kinect, to track how many people are in a room. Developed by Microsoft’s ‘incubation team,’ which is where they test new approaches to hardware, the patent was recently made public. They’re calling the invention a ‘consumer detector’ and it’s just as frightening as it sounds.”
Beta Beat goes on, “Once it has identified how many people are there — and even who is there — the device will charge for content accordingly. If you pay for one content license but then more viewers join the room, it could halt playback and request that you pay for a different license. That means if you plan to have a movie marathon sleepover, Microsoft would like to charge you extra copyright money for the pleasure of snuggling and watching horror movies.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s answer? Pretend none of it is happening and spend more of the taxpayer’s money on lavish vacations, parties, and world humiliation tours. Let them eat cake… Obama Just Don’t Get it…
The latest waste of taxpayer money, following close on the heels of the way over-hyped sequester, has been Obama’s so-called Charm Tour. It just hasn’t gotten through his thick skull and massive, personality disorder-driven ego that the American people are not buying his lies like they used to. They’re starting to connect the man to his mindless Marxism, their economic and social pain to his policies. They are finally, though probably way too late, realizing that the Fraud-in-the-White House is just that.
B. Hussein, however, insulated from the nastiness of reality as he is by the Ministry of Propaganda, tried to take the tour overseas. The result, as with all his incredibly inept and incompetent attempts at diplomacy, statesmanship, and foreign policy, has been another embarrassing failure. This one, though, has been worse than most.
In spite of his pandering to Muslims, especially those with radical, fundamentalist views, it’s coming out very publicly that they hate him even more than they did George Bush. He’s been trying to play both sides against the middle, straddling the fence, and it apparently has PO’d a whole lot of Muslims all over the globe. The demonstrations by “Palestinians” against him were far worse than the Israeli ones, and the Israelis left no doubt of their dislike for him and his duplicity. The “peaceful Palestinians” who B. Hussein, Hillary Clinton, and the Democrat Party of Latter Day Marxism constantly kiss up to, showed their respect for Obozo and his pandering by violating the phony ceasefire, and showering Israel with rockets while the Messiah was in the country, only a few miles away.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Presses Congress to Vote on Gun-Control Measures
President Obama in his weekly address urged both chambers of Congress to hold a vote on a series of gun-control measures, including the controversial assault weapons ban and a limit on magazine sizes.
“These ideas shouldn’t be controversial — they’re common sense,” Obama said. “They’re supported by a majority of the American people. And I urge the Senate and the House to give each of them a vote.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Police Departments Beg and Barter for Ammo While DHS Buys Up 1.6 Billion Rounds in Past Year
The nationwide shortage of ammunition has left many police departments scrambling to get their hands on the necessary rounds — with some even bartering among each other.
Meanwhile, Rep. Timothy Huelskamp (R-Kansas) says the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has failed to respond to multiple members of Congress asking why DHS bought more than 1.6 billion rounds in the past year.
Police Chief Cameron Arthur of Jenks, Oklahoma says, “Ammunition and assault weapons in general have skyrocketed…In addition to the fact, not only is it a lot more expensive, but the time to get it could be six months to a year, or in some cases even longer.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rand Paul to Filibuster Over Big Sis Arms Build-Up?
Big Sis continues to stonewall lawmakers on ammo buys
Senator Rand Paul’s successful effort to get answers concerning the Obama administration’s drone strike program by staging a dramatic marathon filibuster earlier this month should be the template for a similar attempt to force the DHS into divulging the reasons behind its domestic arms build-up.
During his 13 hour filibuster on March 6, the Kentucky Senator mentioned the unprecedented ammo purchases, expressing alarm at how Americans were being treated as terrorists for owning guns while the government was simultaneously stockpiling bullets at breakneck speed.
WIth the federal agency having committed to purchasing around 2 billion bullets over the course of the last year, concerns that Big Sis is preparing for civil unrest have spread like wildfire as Americans fear a repeat of scenes already witnessed in places like Greece and Cyprus in the aftermath of an economic collapse.
Despite over a dozen members of Congress demanding an explanation as to why the agency has purchased enough ammunition to wage a 20 year-plus war, answers have not been forthcoming, with the only response arriving in the form of a glib statement made by a DHS official, Peggy Dixon, who blithely claimed that the bullets were bought in bulk to save money and that they were for training purposes only.
However, most of the bullets are hollow point rounds and therefore more expensive than standard firing range bullets — making them unsuitable for training purposes. As former Marine Richard Mason told reporters with WHPTV News in Pennsylvania earlier this month, “We never trained with hollow points, we didn’t even see hollow points my entire four and a half years in the Marine Corps.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Hoax at the Bottom of Autism and Alzheimer’s
For the medical cartel, Autism and Alzheimer’s are big, big business. Profits are soaring.
These two conditions are promoted as specific diseases. That’s where all the trouble starts.
If you read the Alzheimer’s and Autism definitions, which are the criteria for diagnosis contained in the psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), you find there are no physical tests of any kind.
No blood tests, no saliva tests, no urine tests, no genetic tests, no brain scans.
Instead, what you see are lists and menus of behaviors.
What does this mean?
First of all, it means researchers haven’t found the cause of these conditions. If they had, they would state it.
So how do you say you’ve located a specific disease if you don’t know the cause? Answer: you can’t.
Take four people who are 70 years old and are experiencing severe memory loss. You’re a researcher. You don’t know why these people have this problem. You can guess, you can talk about maybe-this or maybe-that, but you don’t know.
Therefore, you can’t say the cause of the memory loss in each case is the same. It might well be different for each person.
Should you make up a label like Alzheimer’s and slap it on all four people? Of course not. A single label means a single cause. Otherwise, why use the label?
But you don’t know the cause. No matter how many behavioral characteristics of memory loss you name, you don’t know the cause.
Therefore, you have no business applying a single label to those four people. That’s not science. It might be marketing for drugs, it might be a lot of things, it might be about obtaining grant monies, but it isn’t science.
Take four young children who have suddenly withdrawn from the world. Same principle applies. If you slap them with the Autism label, you’re lying. You don’t know the cause of that withdrawal in any of the children.
Now, if you were the parent of one of these children, and you noticed that soon after the child was stuck with multiple vaccines, he developed a fever and then he withdrew from the world, you would, indeed, know something vital.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Is there anyone remaining with an IQ above room temperature who actually believes that the Republican Party believes in limited government, as defined by the U.S. constitution? If so, they have either been hibernating or have been in complete self-denial…
The answer, plain and simple is that the party elites are far more concerned with retaining power than they are with standing on anything as risky as principle. The two-party system has become nothing more than a dog and pony show — complete with public grandstanding in order to distract Joe Six-Pack into thinking that voting for a “party” has anything to do with a “choice.” The media has been complicit as well. Take for example their characterizations of the current GOP as being “extreme far right” when nothing could be further from the truth. The Democrats have moved so far to the left in the last several years that George McGovern would now be viewed as a “moderate”. It is only by comparison with the Dems that the GOP could in any way appear “extreme far right.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
“Zero Tolerance for Anti-Semitism”: Austrian State Secretary
VIENNA, March 22 (Xinhua) — Austrian State Secretary Reinhold Lopatka on Friday called for increased vigilance against anti-Semitism, following a meeting with Jewish Community leaders in Vienna. “There is no place for anti-Semitism in our society. The political system must not look the other way when it comes to anti-Semitic remarks,” Lopatka said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Anti Right-Wing Demonstration Sweden 23 March
Today there was a clash between police and protesters in Malmö, Sweden. The demonstration was against SD (Sverige Demokraterna, swedish democrats, a right-wing party that is the most extremist right wing party in the Swedish parliament) SD held a speech at the location where the clash broke out.
There is trouble in Sweden at the moment. Beatrice Ask the Swedish minister of justice has approved the “REVA” bill. In short, police in all of Swedens main cities are stopping people based on the colour of their skin and ask for their ID papers. This is a hunt for illegal immigrants. But this is against the Swedish law to do such a thing, and you can’t just stop anybody based on their skin colour and ask for papers. So if you are born in sweden, but has parents from a foreign country, you take the subway everyday to your job, the police stop you twice a day and ask you about your paper. It is inhuman and a infringement against human rights and freedom. This has led to a lot of demonstrations and anti REVA campaigns over the country.
[Comment: In this persons mind, Sweden is the same today as 20 years ago, and the evil ones are the SD party.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Easter Bunny Smashes Chocolate Santa Record
The Easter Bunny has taken on Father Christmas and won, at least in chocolate form. Record numbers of German-made chocolate bunnies will hop their way into shops this year, millions more than the number of Santas made at Christmas.
A record-breaking 190 million chocolate Easter Bunnies have been produced in Germany in the run-up to Easter, said the German confectionery association (BDSI) on Friday.
That’s around 50 million more edible bunnies than chocolate Santas made last Christmas and three million more bunnies than last year.
“The production of chocolate Easter Bunnies has hit a new record,” said Torben Erbrath, head of the association’s chocolate products department.
Many of the chocolate Easter rabbits, linked in pagan and Christian traditions with the coming of spring, will not stay in Germany, but will be sold elsewhere.
44 percent will be sent abroad, mainly to other EU countries, but also to shops in the US and Australia.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Global Wine Consumption Rises With U.S. And China Leading
Italy is world’s largest exporter of wine
(ANSA) — Rome, March 22 — Global wine consumption rose in 2012 by 0.6% to 245.2 million hectolitres compared to the previous year, lifted by demand in the United States and China, according to the latest data released by the “Office International Du Vin”. China last year boosted wine consumption by 9% in 2012, while the US sales gained 2% in the year. European consumption meanwhile remained stable. Despite the slight increase “2012 goes to confirm the negative situation of consumption as a result of the financial crisis, as the sector has yet to return to the growth levels it was enjoying in terms of global demand that existed prior to the crisis”, the ODV said. Exports were stable at about 101.4 million hectolitres, with Italy making up the largest portion with 21.5 million hectolitres and Spain and France following closely with 19.1 million hectolitres and 15 million hectolitres respectively.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mother of Norwegian Confessed Killer Breivik Dies, Unclear Whether He Will Attend Funeral
The lawyer of confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik’s mother says she has died at the age of 66.
Ragnhild Torgersen says Wenche Behring Breivik died Friday after “a long sickness.”
Torgersen declined Saturday to say whether Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bomb attack and shooting rampage in 2011, met his mother before she died. No date had been set for a funeral and it was unclear whether Breivik would seek to attend the ceremony. Calls to Breivik’s lawyer were not returned.
Five years before the massacre, Breivik had moved back to live with his mother and ended all social contacts. The mother never attended Breivik’s trial for health reasons, but in a statement read in court she said Breivik had fabricated information.
This message has been removed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Scottish Church That Let Muslims in to Pray Hit by ‘Satan’ Abuse on Facebook
A priest who has allowed Muslims to pray in his church has told how he has been hit by a barrage of abuse by internet ‘trolls’.
St John’s Episcopal Church became the first church in the UK to share their building with Muslims after Rev Isaac Poobalan saw members of a neighbouring mosque praying outside in the snow because of a lack of space.
Hundred of Muslims now pray in the Aberdeen Church’s main hall and chapel every week, but the news has not been well received by some Christians, who have taken to the church’s Facebook page to blast the decision.
One user said that the church were “sharing Christ’s table with Satan” before others another predicted a “flood” of Muslims moving to Aberdeen to convert the church into a mosque and said Rev Poobalan needed to be given the “boot” before it was too late.
Another posted: “I would leave this so called ‘church’. Allah is Satan, and no God.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: SDL Rally in Malmö Sparks Violent Demo
Counter demonstrators clashed with Swedish police ahead of a public rally by the anti-Muslim group Swedish Defence League (SDL) in Malmö on Saturday.
“There were angry skirmishes after the anti-racists marched from Möllevångstorget square to the Stortorget square around noon, a lot of people seemed ready for a fight,” said The Local’s Patrick Reilly from the scene.
“They were pushing over barricades, setting off flares and some threw bottles, and went up against the police,” he said.
“There was also the odd snowball tossed at police.”
An officer on the ground said there were “in excess” of 100 police present, while our reporter numbered the actual SDL members at only about 20.
“The SDL were waving a Swedish flag on their way to the square and gave the counter-demonstrators the finger,” Reilly said.
The Local’s reporter numbered the counter-demonstrators to just shy of 600. Some demonstrators used a Eurovision awning on the square to beat out a rhythm, which alongside the chants “No racist on our streets” drowned out most of the words from the SDL speakers.
One banner hoisted above the march read “No Breivik Soldiers on our streets,” according to the TT news agency.
Mounted police, police dogs and helicopters were part of the security measures.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Boris Johnson: I’d Love to be Prime Minister if the Public Called Me to Serve
Boris Johnson has declared he “wouldn’t say no” to being Prime Minister if he were urged to help rescue the country like the Roman leader Cincinnatus.
The Mayor of London gave yet another strong sign that he has leadership ambitions, telling school children that he would be happy to run the country if called upon in a crisis. He compared himself to the Cincinnatus, who was asked to lead Rome after an invasion even though he was living simply as a farmer at the time…
[JP note: Absurdistan.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Council Byelection Results From Yesterday and Last Week
The following results are from contests that took place yesterday:
Adeyfield West Ward, Dacorum
Lib Dem 363 (32.6%, +18.1), Lab 278 (25%, -17.5), Con 229 (20.6%, -22.4), UKIP 193 (17.3%,
+17.3), Eng Dem 51 (4.6%, +4.6).
Lib Dem gain from Lab. (Swing of 17.8% from Lab to Lib Dem since 2011.)
Gooshays Ward, Havering
UKIP 831 (39%, +24.6), Lab 569 (26.7%, -1.8), Con 280 (13.1%, -12.6), Harrold Hill Res Assoc 227 (10.6%, +1.2), BNP 202 (9.5%, -12.5), Res Assoc of London 24 (1.1%, +1.1).
UKIP gain from Con
[…]
Foxhills Ward, Runnymede
UKIP 336 (40.2%, +17.4), Con 318 (38.1%, -8.5), Lab 181 (21.7%, -0.3).
UKIP gain from Con. Swing of 13% from Con to UKIP since 2012.
So two gains for UKIP in two weeks. Given their opinion poll position they have surprisingly few councillors (about 30 out of 22,000 compared to the Green Party with over a hundred.) Could this be about to change in the county council elections? I suspect their gain in Runnymede may be partly due to the Conservative council increasing Council Tax…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A senior hospital doctor who groped a trainee surgeon telling her: ‘well that’s what juniors are for isn’t it?’ was struck off the medical register in disgrace.
Dr Humayun Iqbal, 40, had been conducting a private anatomy lesson when he forced himself upon the woman and attempted to kiss her whilst trying to put his right arm down the inside of her blouse.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
by Mary Jackson
So farewell, then,
W12 8QT.
AKA BBC
TV
Centre
The first postcode
I ever knew. From Blue
Peter. Now you’ve
Petered out.
W12
8QT
RIP
(c) E. J. Throbb, aged 173/4
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Jewish Identity Project Will Stand the Test of Time
On Wednesday March 6 I attended a Jewish burial. It wasn’t at Bushey, Willesden or Waltham Abbey, and no, I wasn’t consigning a sefer Torah to its final resting place either.
It was, in fact, a joyous occasion; the burial of a time capsule under the piazza on the site of the new JW3 Jewish Community Centre on London’s Finchley Road. In true old-school Blue Peter-style, we gathered a range of items that represented who we are today, and buried them with an instruction not to be opened until March 2113.
As part of this project, regular readers will have been following the progress of the Jewish identity campaign that JW3 has been running with the Jewish Chronicle since December last year. Our aim was to spark a community-wide conversation about what being Jewish means to us all, and to provide future generations with an insight into what it was like to be Jewish in London in 2013…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Russian Oligarch Boris Berezovsky Found Dead in His Bath
A close friend confirmed to The Telegraph that Mr Berezovsky had died at his home in Ascot, Berkshire.
Police are treating in the death as unexplained and a cordon is in place around the property while detectives and forensic officers investigate.
The circumstances of the death remain unknown but the 67 year-old businessman is thought to have been found dead in his bath.
A source close to Mr Berezovsky told RIA Novosti, the Russian state news agency, that he died from a heart attack and had recently been in Israel for medical treatment.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Silly Comment’s Consequences
by Mark Gardner
Thanks to Lord Ahmed, over the past week we have seen antisemitism subjected to the ridicule that it so richly deserves. Within hours of reports of his alleged comments in Pakistan emerging, there was even a website where you filled in the blank space next to a mocking graphic of Lord Ahmed’s face and the punch-line: “blame the Jews!” My submission, “too many people coming for Seder night? — blame the Jews,” was quite well-received, but this latest antisemitism controversy is actually no laughing matter…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Salvation Army, Captain Peacock and the Lefty Megabores Who Hate Michael Gove
by Damian Thompson
Last Monday, an old lady rang the buzzer outside the Salvation Army headquarters in Elephant and Castle, London. They opened the door for her because she seemed in need of help and the Sally Army doesn’t turn people away. But the old lady was not what she appeared: she was a decoy for Boycott Workfare, a gang of Left-wing activists who were hiding behind her. As soon as the door was opened, they burst into the HQ in order to “occupy” it.
The Salvation Army’s crime? It employs benefit recipients who are required to do work experience as a route back to employment. This so-called “workfare” scheme means they help the charity for a maximum of four weeks — and some of them are so impressed by its Christian witness that they stay on as volunteers while they find real jobs. In the eyes of Boycott Workfare, however, the Salvation Army is “collaborating” in a Tory conspiracy to exploit benefit claimants. Hence their charming old-lady decoy trick, which enabled a bunch of scumbag protesters to push past the reception staff, manhandling them…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: We Have the Newspapers We Deserve
by Douglas Murray
The worst behavior of the press did not only occur in a legal vacuum, it occurred in a society staggering through a moral vacuum.
I have just finished studying a diagram aimed at explaining Britain’s new press laws. After having a lie-down, one single line keeps running through my head. Oddly enough it isn’t “recognition appointments panels,” “regulatory appointments panels” or even “standards and compliance arms,” memorable though all these are. The line is from T.S. Eliot, who almost eight decades ago derided those people who spend their days “dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.”…
Lord Justice Leveson has opened a very public conundrum. And all the committees in the Kingdom would not be able to close it.
Mr. Murray is associate director of the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think-tank.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UKIP to ‘Target Labour Voters’ At May Local Elections
The UK Independence Party will be “actively targeting” Labour supporters in upcoming local elections in England and Wales, its leader says.
Nigel Farage will tell activists at their spring conference later that the party has an appeal beyond disaffected Conservative voters. He is expected to focus on what he sees as the impact of immigration in working-class communities. He is also due to voice his criticism of recent press regulation changes. The three main parties — the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and Labour — struck a deal this week to establish a new press regulator by royal charter. Mr Farage is expected to condemn the idea as unnecessary state interference in a free press…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Up to 1,000 Protest in Sweden Against Far-Right Rally
Stockholm (dpa) — Up to 1,000 pro-diversity activists rallied in south Sweden on Saturday in a noisy counter-demonstration to a smaller far-right protest against “political Islam.”
The larger rally in Malmo targeted a small demonstration by about 20 members of the Swedish Defence League, which is affiliated with the far-right English Defence League.
Police detained some protesters after activists threw stones, set off fireworks, lit flares and tried to tear down a police cordon around the Defence League rally.
The far-left and anarchist activists waving black and red flags shouted slogans, booed and whistled, drowning out the Defence League speakers, local media reported.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt Without Justice: Angry Mobs and Vigilantes, Criminals Hanged From Trees
These are some of the fruits of the police strike. The Attorney General Talaat invites people to stop the criminals. In the villages, private guards administer justice. In the Nile Delta, the “vigilantes” hang and torture two men suspected of kidnapping.
Cairo (AsiaNews / Agencies) — The clash between the Muslim Brotherhood and the police on strike for weeks, has further transformed an already unstable Egypt into a land of anarchy where the only law that applies is sharia. The appeal made a few days ago by the Attorney General Talaat Abdullah, who encouraged civilians to arrest the criminals and bring them to police, has sparked hangings, lynchings, mutilations and attempted crucifixion in villages and suburbs. In a few weeks the Islamists have organized groups of “vigilantes” to administer justice. Most of them belong to Gamaa al-Islamiya, which recently asked the authorities for permission to carry arms. In a press conference, Interior Minister Ahmed Mekki described the recent lynchings as “the death of the state” criticizing the appeal launched by Talaat Abdullah.
The security vacuum that started with the police strike is throwing the country into chaos. The cases of beatings and attempts at private justice are increasing day by day. Yesterday in the village of el-Guindiya in the province of Sharqiya (500 km north of Cairo), in the Nile Delta region, an angry mob tied a man suspected of stealing to a tree beating him to death. On 17 March, a group of “vigilantes” in the village of Sammound in the governorate of Gharbiya hanged two people accused of trying to kidnap a girl who was on board a rickshaw. They were first lynched, then stripped naked and then hanged from a tree. Once dead improvised guards them hung upside down as a warning to criminals. The incident occurred in front of the whole village who shouted “Kill them, kill them.” A photographer who witnessed the scene told The Associated Press (AP) that he had received death threats if he took pictures of the lynchings. Another case occurred on the following day in Mahallah Ziad in the same governorate. A crowd of hundreds of people surrounded one of the few active police stations trying to capture and execute a man suspected of kidnapping a local girl. Al-Muneer, spokesman for the Gharbiya Muslim Brotherhood stresses that the lynchings are the result of a wave of rapes and robberies by criminal gangs, who have been plaguing the region for months. The man explains that police are too few in the governorate and fail to administer justice, so the people have decided to take matters into their own hands.
There is a similar situation in Upper Egypt, where crime is compounded by clashes between Muslims and Coptic Christians. To “restore” order the Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya and the Muslim Brotherhood have offered to replace the police with private security gangs with the right to bear arms and make arrests.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Bearded Officers Protest at Abdeen Palace
Scores of bearded soldiers and officers flocked on Friday to the vicinity of Abdeen Palace to take part in demonstrations to demand their return to work. The bearded policemen have been calling for a presidential order that obliges Minister of Interior Mohamed Ibrahim to return them to their posts following a court ruling in their favour. The protesting policemen set up a platform in front of the palace in preparation for the demonstration, the Middle East News Agency said.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Social Media Jihad: Mohammed Al Zawahiri’s New Facebook Page
Earlier this week, Mohammed al Zawahiri, the younger brother of al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri, began posting to his own Facebook page. Several members of his al Qaeda-linked clique in Egypt were already using Facebook to push their message, and the younger Zawahiri already had his own Twitter feed. But now Mohammed al Zawahiri has his own Facebook page, too…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Egyptians Clash at Muslim Brotherhood Offices
‘Morsi must be tried for killings of protesters just like Mubarak’
(Associated Press) Egyptian protesters clashed with the president’s Muslim Brotherhood backers and ransacked three offices nationwide Friday as anger over allegations of beatings and power-grabbing boiled over into the largest and most violent demonstrations yet on the doorstep of the powerful group.
Anger erupted a week ago when Brotherhood members beat journalists and liberal and secular activists during a protest outside the group’s Cairo headquarters.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Brotherhood Sets Up ‘Brown Shirts’ To Enforce Rule
Protests against the Muslim Brotherhood continue to rock Egypt without a word being said from the White House. Now, the Brotherhood and allied Islamists are taking a cue from their Shiite counterparts in Tehran and have announced they are setting up a civilian force with the power to arrest those they deem to be criminals.
The Muslim Brotherhood first hinted at setting up a militia on December 16 when Vice Chairman Essam Erian of its Freedom and Justice Party said it needed defenses in the wake of clashes. “They would have defended themselves in front of the presidential palace and killed the other [anti-Brotherhood] protesters,” he said. At around the same time, Jama’a al-Islamiya threatened to set up a pro-Brotherhood militia to “protect private and public property and counter the aggression on innocent citizens.”
The Brotherhood and Jam’a al-Islamiya have announced their intention to set up a joint civilian police force with other Islamists.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisian Woman Who Posted a Topless Picture Should be Stoned to Death
From Al Arabiya:
Quarantine her!’ Top Tunisian Islamist says topless girl needs stoning
19 year old Amina poses topless and then posts her photo’s on Facebook. (FEMEN)
A Tunisian Salafi preacher has called for a 19-year old girl who posted her topless pictures on Facebook to be “quarantined” and stoned to death before she starts “an epidemic.” Tunisian newspaper AssabahNews quoted Salafi preacher Alami Adel, who heads the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, saying: “According to God’s law, she deserves 80 to 100 lashes, but what she committed is worth much more than that. She deserves to be stoned to death and she must be quarantined because what she did is an epidemic.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Barack Obama a ‘World Class Hunk’ Says Miss Israel
The first-ever black Miss Israel has declared Barack Obama a “world-class hunk”.
Yityish Aynaw, 22, was part of a gala dinner hosted by Shimon Peres, Israel’s president during Mr Obama’s Middle East trip. She recently became the first Israeli of Ethiopian origin to win Israel’s premier beauty queen contest…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
As Obama landed in Ramallah, the city’s central Al-Manara square was filled with 200-300 angry protesters demonstrating against the US president’s visit. Many are shouting slogans such as, “We don’t want anything peaceful, only bullets and missiles,” and, “Go home you devil, we don’t want to see Americans here,”
Many protesters are holding up signs calling for Palestinian prisoners to be released, including Fathiya Ajaji, whose son Ahmed is in jail in the US for involvement in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
Before Obama’s trip to Israel, he met with two organizations that support Hamas. And one of those organizations provided him with pro-Hamas proposals. During his trip, his language suggested that his administration was softening its line on Hamas, calling on it not to engage in violence, rather than condemning it.
On the other hand when it came to Hezbollah, Obama offered a strong condemnation.
What’s the difference? Focus on the last 10 words. “[Hezbollah] supports the massacre of men, women and children in Syria.” Hamas is part of the Sunni coalition and linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s on the “right side” of the Syrian Civil War. Hezbollah is part of the Shiite coalition. It’s on the “wrong side” of the Syrian Civil War.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Seeks to Resume Peace Talks With Palestinians
JERUSALEM, March 22 (Xinhua) — Israel is engaged in substantial efforts to revive long-stalled peace talks with the Palestinians and remains committed to far-reaching concessions, an Israeli official said Friday. “We are at the pre-breakthrough stage. I hope to see direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians resume as soon as possible,” Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told reporters…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Abdullah to Obama, Watch Out for Brother Mursi
King Abdullah II of Jordan, a member of the dwindling band of Arab leaders who have somehow stayed in power despite the rise of what he calls a “Muslim Brotherhood crescent” across the Middle East, made an acute observation to me recently about the tactical immaturity of the Brotherhood’s leadership.
We were talking about the rise of political Islam in the region when the king made an unflattering comparison between Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Islamist prime minister of Turkey, and Mohamed Mursi, the Muslim Brother who is president of Egypt. The Brotherhood is an international movement, but it was founded in Egypt, and its leader, the supreme guide, sits there today.
Abdullah made it clear that he doesn’t particularly like either Erdogan or Mursi but that he distrusts the Turk more because he is cannier. Both men seek absolute power, Abdullah believes, but Erdogan is taking a slower, more deliberate approach than Mursi. “Instead of the Turkish model, taking six or seven years — being an Erdogan — Mursi wanted to do it overnight,” he said.
The king, among other Arab leaders, is worried that the Obama administration has an overly naive view of the Brotherhood and of other Islamist leaders. This is one of the main subjects he will address when he has dinner tonight with U.S. President Barack Obama, who is visiting him in Amman, the Jordanian capital. (Another main issue, of course, is the disintegration of Syria, to Jordan’s north.) The king was careful not to criticize Obama to me, but he did lament that U.S. officials discount warnings about the Brothers as the empty complaints of Arab liberals or those vested in the status quo. Some Westerners, he said, argue that “the only way you can have democracy is through the Muslim Brotherhood.”
He made these comments to me a couple of months ago.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
CIA Supplies Syrian Rebels With Intelligence Against Government Forces
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has been aiding the opposition in Syria by providing it with information that could be used against President Bashar Assad’s forces, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The actionable intelligence is being supplied to small, well-vetted rebel units, current and former U.S. officials told the WSJ.
According to the report, the U.S. has initiated the effort in order to strengthen secular forces in the country amid concerns that Assad’s fall could empower Islamist extremists — including al-Qaida — in the country.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Daniel Pipes: An Israeli Apology to Turkey
On Feb. 27, Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a conference in Vienna, “Just like Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, Islamophobia must be regarded as a crime against humanity.” His calling the Jewish nationalist movement that built the State of Israel a “crime against humanity” prompted widespread criticism, including by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
On Mar. 19, Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced, “I stand behind my remarks in Vienna.” Nonetheless, on Mar. 22, Binyamin Netanyahu issued the long-awaited apology to Turkey for the Mavi Marmara incident. His statement made it clear “that the tragic results regarding the Mavi Marmara were unintentional and that Israel expresses regret over injuries and loss of life. In light of the Israeli investigation into the incident, which pointed out several operational errors, Prime Minister Netanyahu apologized to the Turkish people for any errors that could have led to loss of life and agreed to complete the agreement on compensation.”
My take: Erdogan’s government has mastered the art of provocation and is being rewarded for it. The Israelis should not have apologized but should have demanded an apology from Ankara for its support to the terrorist-connected group that undertook this aggressive act.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Najib Mikati, the prime minister of Lebanon, has announced the resignation of his government, calling for the formation of a national unity government.
Lebanon is currently buckling under the pressure of the conflict engulfing neighbouring Syria. Tensions in the country have been exacerbated, as the violence from across the border spills into Lebanon. “I announce the resignation of the government, hoping that this will open the way for the major political blocs to take responsibility and come together to bring Lebanon out of the unknown,” Mr Mikati said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
South African Professor Not Guilty, UAE Court Finds
An elderly doctor who has been detained in the United Arab Emirates since August, was finally found not guilty by an Abu Dhabi judge yesterday. Professor Cyril Karabus, from South Africa, who had his trial postponed 15 times, is waiting for his passport to be returned so he can travel home in time for Pesach. Professor Karabus was convicted in absentia of manslaughter by a UAE court more than 10 years ago. The prosecution claimed that in 2002 the doctor, who had previously worked in the UAE, had mistreated a terminally ill Yemeni girl who had leukaemia.
Professor Karabus, unaware of his conviction, stopped off in Dubai on August 18 last year as he travelled back to South Africa from his son’s wedding in Toronto. The 78-year-old doctor has been in detained in Abu Dhabi since then. The court decision on Thursday came after 10-strong medical committee found that Professor Karabus had not mistreated the patient…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Al Nusrah Front, Allies Impose Sharia in Aleppo
The Washington Post reports that the Al Nusrah Front, which is al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, is teaming up with other Islamists to impose sharia, or Islamic law, in Aleppo. Read the entire article. It is clear that the Al Nusrah Front is operating from a position of strength and is dominating the sharia council in the city. The other two major groups involved in Aleppo’s sharia council are the Ahrar al-Sham, a Syrian Salafist-jihadist group, and the Tawhid Brigade, which is said to be the largest fighting group in Aleppo. The Tawhid Brigade is also part of the Free Syrian Army, which is often held up by the West as a secular military force (it is anything but, given how closely it works with the Al Nusrah Front in multiple theaters in Syria). Even the head of the Syrian Opposition Council, which backs the Free Syrian Army, opposes the US government’s designation of the Al Nusrah Front as a Foreign Terrorist Organization…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Syria’s Assad Vows to Cleanse Nation of Extremists
President Bashar Assad vowed Friday to “wipe out” Muslim extremists in Syria, blaming them for a suicide bombing at a mosque that killed dozens of people, including a top cleric who supported the embattled regime in the civil war.
The death toll from Thursday night’s bombing — the first suicide attack on a mosque in two years of violence in Syria — rose to 49 after seven of the wounded died overnight, the Health Ministry said.
Sheik Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti, a top Sunni preacher, was killed as he was giving a sermon in the mosque in the heart of the capital, Damascus. The blast, which also wounded nearly 80 other people, was one of the most brazen assassinations of the civil war, which has seen a number of suicide bombings blamed on Islamic extremists.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UN Chief Hails Normalized Ties Between Israel, Turkey
UNITED NATIONS, March 22 (Xinhua) — UN Secretary-General on Friday welcomed the agreement between the Israeli and Turkish governments to restore normal bilateral relations, hailing the move “an important and hopeful signal for the stability of the region.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia May Outlaw Unmarried Sex With Jail Threatened for Offenders
Indonesian Justice and Human Rights Ministry director general for legislation Wahiduddin Adams reportedly confirmed penalties for pre-marital sex were being considered as part of a revision of the criminal code.
The revision to the criminal code would also make it illegal for couples living together to have sex, with a potential sentence of up to one year in jail.
But single people would be dealt with more harshly.
“It (would be) liable for up to five years in jail,” Mr Wahiduddin said, according to the news website Tempo Interaktif.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Security Beefed Up in Indian-Controlled Kashmir Following Militant Attacks
SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, March 23 (Xinhua) — Authorities beefed up security Saturday across Indian-controlled Kashmir following surge in militant attacks, officials said.
The security has been tightened especially in Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir. Police and paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) have set up checkpoints and intensified frisking in the city. “It is a precautionary measure aimed at stopping militants from carrying out attacks,” said an unnamed police officer. The men in uniform were seen checking vehicles and frisking travelers for the explosives and weapons. Reports said police has intelligence inputs that militants might try to stage another attack in the city…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Half of Philippine Police Have No Pistols: Aquino
MANILA, March 22 (Xinhua) — Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III said Friday that shortage of guns among the 148,000 personnel of the Philippine National Police (PNP) will be addressed before the end of the year. Aquino, in a speech during the commencement of the Philippine National Police Academy, admitted that 50 percent of the PNP personnel do not own pistol issued by the PNP…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Ubuntu to Become ‘Standard Operating System’ For China
This could potentially be quite big for Ubuntu and Linux in general. Canonical and the Chinese government have announced a collaboration to build a version of Ubuntu specifically for the Chinese market, which will become the reference architecture for standard operating systems in the country.
The first version will be released next month, and will be named Ubuntu Kylin. This first, initial version will already contain a number of China-specific tweaks, such as Chinese input methods and the Chinese calendar, and search support for the most popular Chinese music services will be built straight into the Dash, Ubuntu’s global search thing. Future releases will expand to include integration with Baidu maps, the Taobao shopping service, Chinese payment processors, and local public transport information. The collaboration will move past desktops in the future.
[Comment: Ubuntu — a derivative of Debian Linux -is one of many flavours of Linux.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ghana: Government Does Not Sponsors Muslims to Hajj
It’s about time government of Ghana tell the good people of this country how much its putting into the organisation of hajj in Ghana. Hajj is the largest annually occurring pilgrimage in the world, and one of the pillars of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so at least once in his/her lifetime. “And hajj (pilgrimage to Makkah) to the House of (Kabah) is a duty that mankind owes to Allah, those who can afford the expenses (for ones conveyance, provision and residence); and whoever disbelieves (i.e. denies Hajj (pilgrimage to Makkah), then he is a disbeliever of Allah), then Allah stands not in need of any of the Alameen (mankind and Jinns). (Quran 3:97)” It must to be put on record that government does not subsidise nor sponsor religious trips to Mecca…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Brazil: Rio Police Forcibly Evict Indigenous Group Near World Cup Stadium
RIO DE JANEIRO, March 22 (Xinhua) — Police on Friday forcibly evicted a group of indigenous people from a building in Rio de Janeiro to give way to the 2014 FIFA World Cup, it is reported. The building, a deserted museum, had been occupied by an Indian tribe for more than six years. Last October, the Rio state government decided to demolish it and use the site as a car park for the nearby Maracana Stadium where the final match of the World Cup would be held. Earlier this week, the government obtained a court order to evict the tribe. Some tribesmen left the premises but others refused as negotiations for their exit started early Friday…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Comet, Not Asteroid, Killed Dinosaurs, Study Suggests
The rocky object that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago may have been a comet, rather than an asteroid, scientists say.
The 112-mile (180 kilometers) Chicxulub crater in Mexico was made by the impact that caused the extinction of dinosaurs and about 70 percent of all species on Earth, many scientists believe. A new study suggests the crater was probably blasted out by a faster, smaller object than previously thought, according to research presented this week at the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.
Evidence of the space rock’s impact comes from a worldwide layer of sediments containing high levels of the element iridium, dubbed the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary, which could not have occurred on Earth naturally.
The new research suggests the often-cited iridium values are incorrect, however. The scientists compared these values with levels of osmium, another element delivered by the impact.
Their calculations suggested the space rock generated less debris than previously thought, implying the space rock was a smaller object. In order for the smaller rock to have created the giant Chicxulub crater, it had to have been going exceedingly fast, the researchers concluded.
“How do we get something that has enough energy to generate that size of crater, but has much less rocky material? That brings us to comets,” study author Jason Moore, a paleoecologist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, told BBC News.
Comets are balls of ice, dust and rocky particles that are distinguished from asteroids by their highly eccentric orbits and thin, fuzzy atmospheres, called comas or tails. The Chicxulub impact is more compatible with a long-period comet, the results indicated, which can take hundreds, thousands or sometimes millions of years to orbit the sun once.
It is possible that a rapidly moving asteroid could have caused the Chicxulub impact crater, the researchers said, but the fastest-moving objects that have been observed are mostly comets.
“I think it’s some very interesting work,” physicist Brandon Johnson of Purdue University, In., who was not involved in the research, told LiveScience. If the impact were in fact a comet, “it could change things quite a bit,” he said — a comet would have rained down a lot more material than an asteroid.
But the findings are debatable: “There’s a possibility that lot of the impacted material could have been ejected at escape velocity, so we couldn’t find it on Earth,” Johnson said. This means the remnants of the impact could be just a fraction of the mass of the space rock, suggesting it could still have been an asteroid.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
“Comprehensive Immigration Reform” With “A Path to Citizenship”: Don’t Call it Amnesty
Amnesty is bad. Everyone agrees on that. Even the senators who support amnesty claim not to support it. Instead they support “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” with “A Path to Citizenship”. They support a comprehensive solution that will be compassionate and work as an immigration policy for the 21st century.No one uses the term “amnesty” anymore except opponents of amnesty for illegal aliens and their more vociferous advocates. This makes for some confusing speeches and press conferences.
The most bizarre argument that advocates of amnesty are making is that we have “de facto amnesty” now. The argument goes that since we have de facto amnesty now, we should just have the real thing and get it over with.A lack of proper enforcement is not de facto amnesty. Amnesty is legalization. What Rubio and Rand Paul call de facto amnesty is the difference between not arresting a drug dealer and legalizing heroin.
The big sales pitch for 2012 was overall electability. The sales pitch for 2016 is Latino electability. The GOP only wants someone who has a shot with the Latino vote. And Marco Rubio and Rand Paul are busy polishing their Latino vote credentials. It’s a stupid way to run a political movement, but a great way to get ahead.Even if amnesty is good for Rubio or Paul, it’s not good for the Republican Party, for America or for Latino immigrants for that matter, who are entitled to a legal system of entry, rather than being told that their best route into the country is by bribing a coyote and trying to make it across the border.And during an economic downturn, championing mass immigration is insensitive to the majority of American workers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Shows No Interest in Enforcing Immigration Law
Any way you cut it, President Barack Obama and Congress refuse to enforce immigration laws within the United States. Additionally, they refuse to secure the borders.
With over 20 million illegal alien migrants working and residing within the United States, many Hispanic Americans have worked into key governmental positions. Such individuals encourage more immigration into America — even at the expense of Hispanic poor minorities that cannot secure jobs in an overwhelmed market. The more immigration, the less jobs. Simple mathematics provides a despairing future for all Americans.
Report Shows Senior Administration Official Has No Interest in Enforcement
Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, http://www.fairus.org , spoke to me about the predicament of high level sympathizers for endless immigration.
“A report written by President Obama’s top domestic policy advisor more than 20 years ago, when she served as a senior immigration policy analyst for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), ought to raise some serious red flags with members of Congress,” said Stein. “In 1990, Cecilia Munoz published a report that was sharply critical of the 1986 IRCA amnesty because it failed to maximize the number of illegal aliens who “were theoretically eligible for legalization.” Of course, there is virtual universal acknowledgement that the 1986 was widely abused and that many illegal aliens obtained amnesty fraudulently.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Seventh Suspected Illegal Immigrant Confirmed Dead From Texas Truck Crash
HOUSTON, March 22 (Xinhua) — Authorities in Texas confirmed on Friday that one more woman died Thursday, bringing the death toll to seven after a pickup truck carrying suspected illegal immigrants crashed into a security barrier at a U.S. Navy base in the lone star state during a police chase. The Houston Chronicle quoted Border Patrol spokesman Henry Mendiola as saying that the woman, who was not identified, died at a local hospital…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
The stay-at-home mothers used to be the watchdogs for their communities. Remember the old saying about “The hand that rocked the cradle ruled the world” so their honorable God-ordained occupation had to be defamed by the radical feminist movement . Enter the devil on a black horse named Betty Friedan, the Big MS. of Women’s Liberation who traded her home and husband for a life of shrieking activism. In a 1978 NOW-ERA Fund Raising letter, she said, “No deity will save us, we must save ourselves. Promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful.” Her former husband says 60% of the women she brought to their home were lesbians. [1] The “feminatzies,” as radio host Rush Limbaugh calls them claimed they were fighting the masculine establishment and for “independence from men” and the term “victimization” was birthed. The Equal Rights Movement was introduced along with birth control which included the 1973 Roe — vs- Wade Supreme Court decision right up to the morning after pill today. It was later revealed Friedan was a professional propagandist for the Soviet-controlled Communist Party to help create a United States Soviet America. In order to do this, it would be necessary to eradicate the traditional family and to supplant the family with the state, i.e. working mothers and day care. What do we do when home sweet home is no longer so sweet?
Karl Marx called for the “abolition of the family” in the communist Manifesto…
Margaret Sanger who founded the Birth Control League — later renamed Planned Parenthood — in 1916 was a devoted socialist. She once wrote that she eagerly anticipated “seeing humanity free someday of the tyranny of Christianity no less than capitalism,” but the hypocrite had no qualms about using capitalist money to promote her fiendish death causes in the promotion of the perfect society like Hitler envisioned with natural selection. In the same manner the homosexual movement has used to “normalize” its alternative life style, with diabolical guile she used the social upheaval fomented by her radical comrades to illustrate the supposed need for totalitarian population control measure.
And who were her radical comrades? Probably the most familiar would be John D. Rockefeller 3rd and his family and other powerful elites using their tax-exempt foundations to provide much of the money to advance the designs of the eugenicist movement and the depopulation movement…
Just how far down the slippery slope are we? Can I say DEATH PANELS for the elderly and disabled in the Obamacare legislation. Now deceased Joan M. Veon in 1996 reported on the United Nations World Food Summit which she attended and said Sustainable Development is found in the 1977 U.S.S.R. Constitution and it embodies the Leninist/Marxist concept of “production/consumption” which means you don’t eat unless you can produce. Today we are hearing stories about how Medicare is cutting off heart and diabetic medicine supplies to the elderly, but thousands can still get food stamps even for their dogs. And if you are over 75 and have to go the emergency room in the middle of the night, be prepared for the total cost to be paid by you if you can’t reach your primary provider and ask him/her to make the arrangements.
Christians on a daily basis are demoralized, called names and accused of “hate” crimes while the Director of CAIR in Missouri wants to use Sharia law to prosecute Americans who insult Islam.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
British Judge Upholds Ban on Christian Group’s “Gay Cure” Ads
(Reuters) — A British judge upheld on Friday a decision to ban a Christian group from placing adverts on London buses that suggested people could be cured of homosexuality.
The group, Core Issues Trust, wanted to place adverts on the side of London’s distinctive red double-decker buses that read: “Not gay! Ex-gay, post-gay and proud. Get over it!” The proposed adverts were a response to a campaign by gay rights group Stonewall, which had run adverts on London buses that read: “Some people are gay. Get over it!”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Communism Alive and Well Through UN Agenda 21 and Fabian Socialism of the West
I will never forget the misery and torture the dictator Ceausescu had subjected my people to during his reign of socialist/communist terror. Some individuals have short memories though, especially those who try to excuse the horrible treatment of a nation as a “fatherly,” well-intentioned attempt to rid the country of the national debt to the west.
A professor who used to be the communist party secretary to the university system during Nicolae Ceausescu tried recently to blame Ceausescu’s demise on his announcement in 1989 that Romania had paid off all its debts to the west; additionally, Ceausescu allegedly forbade the Romanian government to seek any foreign credit. In other words, Romania had become such a threat to the one world government bankers and their ill-gotten interest-based fortunes that they were able to get rid of Ceausescu and “punish him physically for his insolence.” Perhaps this professor forgot that Ceausescu did not consult the Romanian people if they were willing to suffer so much hunger, cold, poverty, neglect, misery, torture so that Romania would owe no money to the west. He also forgot the brutal abuse, imprisonment, and swift punishment citizens suffered if they dared to criticize the communist party.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Here’s mine: the authorities have failed on a long-term basis to address the concerns of Cambridge (England) residents surrounding nuisance and threats related to a mosque. If these concerns aren’t addressed, they’ll be magnified if Muslims move to a planned megamosque. http://300wordtheses.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/give-and-take-council-mosque-and-locals.html
No to Islam and No to Minarets in the Western World.