A Yemeni-born woman in South Florida has been arrested for burning marks into her 17-year-old daughter’s forearms. The girl was punished for an online friendship with a boy by having identical marks burned into each arm with a heated knife. The mother is out on bail, but has been ordered to keep away from her daughter, who is staying in a shelter for victims of domestic violence.
In other news, Muslim leaders in Germany have demanded that the government officially designate two Islamic holidays a year.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, DS, Fjordman, JD, Jerry Gordon, McR, RR, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
‘It’s Robbery!’ New Cyprus Bombshell as Britons Are Told They May Lose Everything Over £85k
British expats in Cyprus face a near-total wipe-out of any deposits over £85,000 as the full nightmare of the stricken island’s EU bailout became clear yesterday.
Although it was known that the wealthiest savers would take a large hit from last week’s €10 billion (£8.5 billion) EU rescue deal, the loss is far greater than feared.
The blow will fall on customers of the country two biggest banks — Bank of Cyprus and Laiki Bank.
Bank of Cyprus savers will see 37.5 per cent of any deposits over €100,000 (£85,000) converted into shares in the bank, with a strong possibility that these will prove worthless. Another 40 per cent will be repaid only if the bank does well in future, while 22.5 per cent will go into a contingency fund that could be subject to further write-offs.
Laiki Bank customers are also reported to be facing the loss of 80 per cent of their deposits above the £85,000 limit.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Cyprus Model for Canada’s Big Banks
I started asking on Monday, and again on Tuesday, whether the confiscation of money from private bank accounts could happen in Canada the way it has happened in Cyprus. My argument was that yes it could, especially given that Cyprus is a modern European nation and that the decision to dip into accounts was made by finance ministers and officials from countries such as Germany, France and Italy.
This was not a Robert Mugabe theft of cash. If it can happen there then it can happen here.
Little did I know that the answer was already in the budget on page 145 (155 of the PDF).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A Real Man-Made Climate Crisis
By Paul Driessen
America faces a climate crisis, we are repeatedly told, and must do everything possible to avert it.
It’s true. However, the crisis has nothing to do with alleged human contributions to planetary climate systems that have always been chaotic, unpredictable and often disastrous: ice ages, little ice ages, dust bowls, droughts and monster storms have ravaged and sometimes even toppled cities and civilizations.
Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and British Meteorological Office now recognize that average global temperatures haven’t budged in almost 17 years. Little evidence suggests that sea-level rise, storms, droughts, polar ice or other weather and climate events and trends are statistically different from what our Earth has experienced over the past 100-plus years.
The real man-made climate crisis is our responses to the illusory crisis.
Over the past three years, the Tides Foundation and Center alone poured $335 million into environmentalist climate campaigns, and $1 billion into green lobbies at large, notes “Undue Influence” author Ron Arnold. All told, U.S. foundations have “invested” more than $797 million in climate campaigns since 2000, Mr. Arnold calculates, and more than $19.3 billion in “environmental” efforts since 1995.Moreover, this cash does not include the tens of billions that environmental activist groups, universities and other organizations have received from individual donors, corporations and U.S. government agencies to promote “man-made climate disaster” theories; European Union and United Nations contributions to climate cataclysm institutes; or U.S. and global spending on wind, solar and biofuel energy schemes.
This corrupting cash has feathered careers, supported entire companies and industries, and sullied our political, economic and ethical systems. It has taken countless billions out of productive sectors of our economy and given it to politically connected institutions that promote climate alarmism and renewable energy. Some of the crony-capitalist cash has gone to help re-elect their political sponsors.It’s a simple formula. If you toe the line, you pocket the cash and bask in the limelight. If you question the dogma, though — you get vilified, harassed and even dismissed from university or state climatologist positions for threatening the grants pipeline…
| — Hat tip: DS | [Return to headlines] |
America’s “Gone With the Wind” Government
Now, seventy-seven years later, new winds of change have blown not only through the South but also through the North. Unfortunately, as a result of these new winds of change, the United States government has “Gone with the Wind,” too. But, how has the United States government “Gone with the Wind” and possibly changed America’s society forever? First, the current government does not have the personal interest of the citizens that it represents at heart, as did the government sixty years ago. As a result, more and more of the freedoms of law-abiding American citizens have been eliminated, with the rationale that giving up certain freedoms will insure the safety of the masses. However, in reality, this is possibly the greatest myth put forth by the United States’ government and its elected politicians…
I believe in the United States of America, as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.
I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.
Therefore, in discussing how the winds of change have affected the American government in a negative manner, several questions should be asked by everyone concerning what Americans say they believe about their government and what they actually believe. The questions are as follows:
| 1. | Is the American government, as it exists today, truly a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people?” | |
| 2. | Are all the powers of the American government, as it exists today, derived from the consent of the governed? | |
| 3. | Do all Americans and their elected leaders promote the sovereignty of the United States or are they attempting to eliminate America’s sovereignty for the purpose of globalism and a one world government? | |
| 4. | Is America a perfect union, one and inseparable? | |
| 5. | Are the principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity still part of the American society? | |
| 6. | Do all Americans really love their country or do they just want the benefits of it? | |
| 7. | Do all America’s elected leaders really support the Constitution written by the Founding Fathers or do they continually attempt to circumvent its authority as the Supreme Law of the Land? |
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ancient History and Modern Constitutional Powers of American Sheriffs (Part 2)
This essay offers the second part of the history of the American sheriff. The first essay contained a history of the original sheriffs — England’s shire reeves — “the oldest appointment of the English crown.” America’s own sheriffs are a continuation of Britain’s, after which the British variety lost almost all of its power as the US type blossomed.
Now that the federal government has announced ambitions to limit gun rights, amongst many other new powers, a constitution-oriented group of sheriffs — the Oath Keepers — has decided to nullify these laws instead of applying them. It is quite possible that these Rogue Sheriffs represent the last vestiges of federalism and separation of powers meant to protect the citizens from an American tyranny. It is therefore quite fitting that the old West, independent lawman is being revived and updated to help save the American Republic. This article describes their rise, establishment and continuation as perhaps the last bulwark against Washington, DC tyranny…
Many Americans are today worried with federal overreach on legislation and police powers. For example, the Rand Paul drone filibuster illustrated concern with safety of drone attacks against stateside Americans. American sheriffs are now standing up to this overreach with scintillating constitutional muscularity. This is occurring in the West, where US sheriffs have had their most memorable role.
B. Sheriffs Under US Constitution: 10th Amendment
A sheriff is the top elected local law enforcement official in a county. Upon entering office, they traditionally take an oath of office swearing to defend the Constitution. For example, here is the Polk County, FL Sheriff’s Oath:
[…]
The position taken by most American sheriffs is that they, not the federal government, are the top law enforcement officials in their locale. This agrees with America’s doctrine of federalism, as described by Constitution author James Madison in Federalist Paper 51, The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments. This states:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Big Government: An Unnecessary Evil That Should be Abolished
There are two types of people in this world; those who worship the ideal of centralized command authority, and those who do not. Those who value freedom regardless of risk or pain, and those who value slavery in a desperate bid to avoid risk and pain. When I consider the ultimate folly of man, in the end I look to the meek and unquestioning masses who strive to avoid risk, because it is they who always end up feeding the machines of war, despair, and tyranny. The power thirsty halls of elitism surely instigate and manipulate the tides of this wretched ocean of quivering souls, but ultimately, the weak-hearted and weak minded make all terrible conquests possible.
They live by the rule of fear, and their fear drives them to seek control; control of their environment, control of others, and by extension they believe, control of the future. They attempt to mitigate their overwhelming fear by containing the world and sterilizing it of everything wild, untamed, and unknown. They dream of a society of pure predictability, and zero responsibility. They are willing to sacrifice almost anything to attain this position of artificial comfort.
The concept of “big government” appeals to such people for many reasons…
Government in most cases is nothing but an abstraction. It is merely a tool that serves the interests of a particular group of people at any given time. Modern politics is an expression of the foolish cat fight between factions of people to decide who gets to wield the weapon of government and impose their ideology on the rest of us. At least, that’s what it almost always devolves into. The great illusion of the system, though, is that ANY group of average people ever actually wields any power. The truth is, big governments are always operated by very small and exclusive clubs of root beneficiaries out of the sight of the population.
[…]
Even in the face of unmitigated government theft, I still hear the occasional rationalization of the Cyprus debacle. Defenders of the bailout measures (which the EU demanded) allowing the confiscation of private citizen savings to pay off government mismanaged debt, argue two things:
1) The banks that were targeted contained “Russian blood money” and hidden funds, so confiscation really amounted to a “punishment of rich criminals” rather than the Cyprus public.
2) It is “better” that the citizens go along with the confiscation of a percentage of their accounts, rather than lose everything through collapse.
Just to be clear, any sizable Russian funds being stored in Cyprus were removed before the bailout measures were instituted. Therefore, the assertion that such people were “punished” is a lie and a distraction. The Russian scapegoat was merely being promoted by global financiers and political elites in order to con people around the world (not just those in Cyprus) to accept the concept of government theft of private funds as being “moral” under “certain extraneous circumstances”. When a government wants you to set aside your conscience in support of an immoral action that serves their interests, they will almost always conjure a false villain and engineered consequences for you to direct your fear and anger at. Once they can convince you to abandon your own principles to smite an imaginary enemy or avoid a manufactured threat, even if only one time, it will be much easier for them to convince you again a second time.
Large and corrupt governments love to use the magic of the false choice. For instance, “…it is better to sacrifice some of your money and your principles to the establishment than it is to live through total collapse of the nation…” This false choice process, though, never ends. The offending government will demand more property and more freedom from the citizenry everyday while constantly warning that if we do not submit, the alternative will be “far worse”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
DARPA Developing Sensor Tattoos for Monitoring Vital Signs
Military scientists believe that using the device — preferably a tattoo — to track heart-rate, temperature or bio-electric response during various training situations will help them crack the code of combat fatigue. The solicitation, which opened last month, hopes new technologies can transcend the current paradigm of patient monitoring of needles, gels and electrodes. And advanced materials make it possible to integrate everything from the sensors to the transmitter into thumb-sized membranes that can stick to skin — like temporary tattoos.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
DARPA to Begin 4-Year Project on Improving Artificial Intelligence
The Pentagon is readying a four-year project to boost AI systems by building machines that can teach themselves and get smarter over time while also making it easier for ordinary people to build them.
The Pentagon is using its research division, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, to back this project. DARPA is inviting scientists to a Virginia conference to brainstorm on April 10.
Machine learning can be used to make better systems for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; a core military necessity. It can also be used for making better speech recognition systems, self-driving cars and to keep pace against internet spam filling up search engines and e-mail inboxes.
“Our goal is that future machine learning projects won’t require people to know everything about both the domain of interest and machine learning to build useful machine learning applications,” DARPA program manager Kathleen Fisher said in an announcement.
[Comment: Brilliant. What could possibly go wrong? ]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How “Kill the Pigs” Became “Only the Police Should Have Guns”
In the fabled 1960s, the cops were called pigs, and anybody on the political Left who wanted a ticket to the show knew that and mouthed it often.
At rallies, protests, and riots, people said: are the pigs here yet? I heard they were three blocks away. Wonder how many pigs they’re sending today? There! There they are! The pigs!
Now, on the Left, that tradition has morphed into: repeal the 2nd Amendment; turn in your guns; citizens with guns are satanic; the police will protect us; a private citizen with a gun is a killer and needs psychiatric lockdown; suspend that five-year old with the gun screen-saver.
What happened?
[…]
The political Left promoted rebellion against the State as long as they saw themselves outside in the cold. But when they began to realize that they were, in fact, becoming the State, with all the power of the federal government, they dropped the idea of genuine rebellion like a hot potato. They praised big government, they assured everybody it was the solution, not the problem.
They shed bottom-up revolution because they were top-down.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mother Arrested for Burning Daughter
PLANTATION, Fla. (WSVN) — A Middle Eastern South Florida resident was arrested Friday for allegedly burning her teenage daughter with a heated knife.
Authorities said 35-year-old Sahar Thabit, who was born in Yemen, was punishing her 17-year-old daughter for befriending and talking to a boy online in defiance of her family, who want her to marry her cousin. She has been charged with three counts of child abuse causing grave bodily harm.
“This was pretty bad, because there were burn marks on both arms,” said Somy Ali, president of No More Tears, a non-profit organization that assists victims of domestic violence. Ali said the victim had three identical burn marks on each forearm.
Hollywood Police said Thabit burned her daughter in early January. Officials at South Broward High School became aware of the victim’s burns when the teenager’s classmate told the assistant principal her parents were furious when they found out about their daughter’s online friendship.
School resource officers contacted police detectives. A report filed by Hollywood Police Detective Chris Christianson reads, “The child advised that both of her parents had knowledge of the incident, but it was the mother who actually placed the knife on her arm.” The report reveals that “the victim told … her parents were upset because she did not want to marry her cousin in an arranged marriage.”
The victim’s grandfather insisted the burns were accidental. “She burned herself because we have an oven,” said Ali Thabit.
When 7News pointed out her granddaughter’s burns were identical, he replied, “I swear to God, I didn’t see anything.”
Police brought the victim to No More Tears, which specializes in domestic violence cases involving Middle Eastern women. Somy Ali said the teenager did not want her mother to be blamed. “I’ve dealt with it myself when I was a teenager, I’ve been there,” Ali said. “She felt bad about bringing her mother and dad to court. She was not intending for her friend, whom she confided in, to tell the authorities,” she continued.
Sahar Thabit was released Saturday after posting $22,500 bond but has been ordered to stay away from her daughter.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Petition to Get GMOs Out of Girl Scout Cookies Goes Viral
(NaturalNews) For more than 100 years, the profits generated by their sale have helped make it possible for young girls all across the country to develop valuable life skills and make their communities better places. But today’s Girl Scout cookies are loaded with health-destroying ingredients like genetically-modified (GM) beet sugar, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), and transgenic soy derivatives, and one young girl scout from California has had enough…
On its frequently asked questions (FAQ) page, the Girl Scouts organization admits that its cookies contain GMOs, stating the following: “Our bakers determine whether to use genetically modified agricultural crops (GMOs) in Girl Scout Cookies based on a range of market-related factors.” The organization goes on to claim that it “feel[s] confident in the safety of all the ingredients in Girl Scout Cookies, including GMO ingredients.”
Apparently the Girl Scouts organization is unaware of the many recent studies showing the dangers of GMOs, including the widely-circulated review out of Europe showing that GMOs and the pesticides used to produce them can cause severe cancer tumors and early death. Surely those in charge of the Girl Scouts do not intend for their cookies to harm customers, but their insistence upon the alleged safety of GMOs without evidence is deeply concerning.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Scientists Want to Begin Bringing Back Dozens of Extinct Creatures
Last weekend at a TEDx conference in Washington DC sponsored by National Geographic, scientists met to discuss which animals should be brought back from extinction. They also discussed the how, why and ethics of doing so. They called it ‘de-extinction’. A cover story for this month’s National Geographic explains how de-extinction rests on a relatively simple premise: it involves taking old DNA samples, reassembling them into a full genome which is then injected into embryonic cells which have had their own DNA taken out, and then finding a suitable living surrogate to give birth. The Washington Post reports that ten years ago, a team of scientists from France and Spain almost brought back an extinct wild goat — but it only lived for 10 minutes. It raises a host of issues, including how scientists can get a good enough sample of DNA from the extinct animal — and whether or not they should.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Stomp Jesus and Modern Blood Libel at Florida Atlantic University
Florida Atlantic University (FAU) has two problems in the combined Passover Easter Holy Week: “Stomp Jesus” and a modern blood libel perpetrated by Muslim Student extremists in blatant anti-Semtic and anti-Israel incidents. The “Stomp Jesus” incident furor has led to a request for an investigation by Florida Governor Rick Scott in a letter to the Florida State University System Chancellor this past week, while the other matter deserves equal and immediate attention. BizPac has a follow up story to the “Stomp Jesus” story at troubled FAU. Dr. Dandre Poole, the intercultural communications professor has been placed on ‘administrative leave’ The reports of the “stomp Jesus” had gone viral and the FAU administrative was caught in a fire storm, of protests. The furor led to a rebuke in a letter to the Chancellor of the Florida State University System from Governor Rock Scott sent this past Tuesday. This roiling FAU problem deserves another letter from Governor Scott, who was quick to react to the outrageous “Stomp Jesus” incident, sent to the Florida State University System Chancellor. . . Both problems are emblematic of abuses of Protected Speech under the First Amendment of the US Consitution. As the FAU Administration appears only to respond to higher authorities we hope an appropriate letter from Governor Scott would soon follow.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Two Fifth-Graders Face Trial in Alleged Washington (State) Murder Plot
SEATTLE (Reuters) — Two Washington state fifth-grade boys, accused in a foiled plot to rape and kill a girl and kill or harm six other classmates, will stand trial as juveniles, a prosecutor said on Friday.
Stevens County Prosecutor Tim Rasmussen said the boys, 11 and 10, pleaded not guilty during an arraignment on Friday over the alleged murder-rape plot that also targeted other children in Colville, Washington, about 215 miles east of Seattle.
One of the boys wanted the girl dead because “she’s rude and always made fun of me and my friends,” according to court documents.
“There are very few prosecutions of a crime of this magnitude with boys of this age,” Rasmussen told Reuters.
Stevens County Superior Court Judge Allen Nielson determined during the hearing that the boys had the capacity to understand right and wrong, Rasmussen said.
Under Washington state law, children ages 8 to 12 are presumed not to have the mental capacity to form an intention to commit a crime. Juvenile court is typically reserved for defendants between ages 12 and 18.
The 10-year-old suspect was charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, juvenile firearm possession and witness tampering, Rasmussen said.
The younger boy had taken a gun that originally belonged to his grandfather from his older brother’s room, according to a declaration of probable cause.
The 11-year-old was charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, possession of a dangerous weapon, a knife, at school and tampering with a witness, Rasmussen said.
The boys planned to lure the girl away from school in Colville, a town of 4,600 people in eastern Washington, according to court documents.
A teacher found a list of six more targeted classmates, prosecutors said.
The fifth-graders had boarded a school bus on February 7 with a knife, a semi-automatic pistol and ammunition in a backpack on their way to Fort Colville Elementary School, prosecutors said.
A fourth-grader on the bus saw the knife and reported it to a teacher’s aide, prosecutors said. One of the suspects later said he would kill the student who told school officials about the weapons, they said.
If convicted of all charges, the boys could each be sentenced to 103 to 127 weeks unless a judge finds “manifest injustice” and orders a longer sentence, Rasmussen said.
The boys have been expelled from the school district indefinitely. A status hearing is set for April 8.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Why Do We Ignore the Threat of Islam?
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
In New York and man raped his wife and when he went to court he told the judge that under shariah the wife could never refuse him for any reason, so the judge did nothing to him. What he did was declare ‘religious freedom’ even though that ‘freedom’violates our laws. Why did that court disregard the laws of the United States? But because there was such an outcry about that decision the decision was reversed but that judge is still sitting on the bench. He should have been removed!
We see muslims pushing their shariah all over America in different ways and the most dangerous aspect of that is even city officials won’t do anything about it. Take Dearborn, MI where the largest concentration of muslims reside. In the city of Dearborn it is illegal to ring church bells! Why? Because church bells are offensive to muslims. Yet they have loud speakers all over the city where you here the call to prayer five times a day. Remember they believe that they are above the law. In American, where we supposedly have the freedom of religion, we are not allowed to ring church bells. This was approved by the city council. In Hartford, CN the muslim leaders met with the city leaders and told them that there would be no proselytization within a four block radius of a mosque yet they can go anywhere in the city and seek converts! Remember, they believe that they are above the law.
We see muslims doing everything they can to keep the truth about islam from being taught in schools or in any meetings. They have forced many meetings by those that know islam and the dangers it presents to be cancelled. Pamela Geller, founder of Atlas Shrugs, is constantly being attacked when she has a meeting. If you tell the truth about islam the muslims claim that you are islamophobic and holler ‘hate crimes’…
We are seeing islam beginning to be taught in the public schools in America. The CSCOPE program which is in 45 States and 80% of the schools in Texas are teaching that our Founders were terrorist, The Boston Tea Party, and that the jihadists, the ones that flew the planes into the World Trade Centers, are ‘freedom fighters’. That system is teaching that allah is god. That system requires the girls to wear burkas, learn quotes out of the quran, learn muslim chants, but in those same schools you can’t even have a picture of Jesus hanging in the hallway because of separation of church and state. Governor Rick Perry approved of this curriculum.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rockefeller vs. Canada: U.S. Billionaires Pour Millions Into Anti-Oilsands Shell Organizations
See, the real money in Canadian environmentalism — the most radical money — isn’t Canadian.
It’s from U.S. billionaires and their foundations.
So they need to camouflage it.
Take the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, out of New York. Back in 2008, they wrote a 48-page campaign plan targeting Canada’s oilsands.
They committed to a whopping $7 million yearly budget for this battle, now in its fifth year.
Page 36 of their plan couldn’t be more clear: They need to put a non-billionaire, non-New York face on their campaign.
They needed the help of groups like the IEN.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
France: Chainsaw Thief Hacks Off Louis XIV Elephant’s Tusk
French police arrested a man as he tried to flee the Paris National History Museum early on Saturday after hacking off a tusk of a skeleton of an elephant given to French King Louis XIV in 1668.
An intruder in the Paris Natural History Museum who sawed off a tusk of a skeleton of an African elephant given to French King Louis XIV was apprehended early on Saturday, according to French authorities.
The suspect, about 20 years old, had the tusk in his possession when the police arrested him outside the museum as he tried to flee the premises.
The vandalism occurred early Saturday in the palaeontology section of the historic Paris Natural History Museum after the man managed to enter the building through a window.
“The elephant that was damaged was given to Louis XIV as a present by the king of Portugal in 1668,” Jacques Cuisin, head of restoration at the museum, told reporters over the weekend. “He was cutting the tusk with a chainsaw until the tusk actually fell. The noise from the security alarm was so unbearable that he left,” explained Cuisin.
The animal’s tusks are not the original ones, but were added to the skeleton in the 19th century.
According to Cuisin, the three-kilogram tusk did not have great monetary value, but it did have major historic and scientific value.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Twitter Sued for $50m for Refusing to Identify Anti-Semitic Users
“After a French civil court ruled on Jan. 24 that Twitter must identify anyone who broke France’s hate speech laws, Twitter has since refused to identify the users behind a handful of hateful and anti-Semitic messages, resulting in a $50 million lawsuit. Twitter argues it only needs to comply with U.S. laws and is thus protected by the full scope of the First Amendment and its free speech privileges, but France believes its Internet users should be subject to the country’s tighter laws against racist and hateful forms of expression.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Ten Reasons Technocrats Should Stay Out of Politics
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti was called on to lead a caretaker government. His expertise was welcome, but then the economics professor was bitten by the bug of political ambition…
Italy finds itself at what seems to be another all-time political low. After inconclusive February elections, center-left leader Pierluigi Bersani has been desperately trying to form a new government coalition; followers of comic-turned-politico Beppe Grillo stonewall in Parliament; and Silvio Berlusconi lingers amidst endless judicial inquiries.
Meanwhile, the Parliament must choose a new President of the Republic, as respected head of state Giorgio Napolitano’s seven-year term ends — and the country’s diplomatic corps is reeling from the resignation of Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi, who fell out with interim Prime Minister Mario Monti over a dispute with India…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Ramadan Relief: Islam Leader Calls for Muslim Holidays in Germany
Germany is home to some 4 million Muslims. With the long Easter weekend around the corner, a leading member of the country’s Muslim community has called for legal recognition of two Muslim holidays, drawing criticism from among Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling conservatives.
In 2010 former German President Christian Wulff made the assertion that, “Islam belongs in Germany,” provoking something of a conservative backlash. Now, Germany’s Central Council of Muslims (ZMD) is bringing the topic back into the public eye — and suggesting the introduction of statutory Muslim holidays throughout Germany.
Council chairman Aiman Mazyek told the Thursday edition of the regional daily Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ) that granting one day during the holy month of Ramadan and another on the fast-breaking day of Eid would be “an important sign of integration” and “would emphasize tolerance in our society.”
These holidays would not be work-free days for all citizens, specified Mazyek, but rather would serve to give Muslims the legal right not to work on these days. He added that Muslims in public services such as police could stand in for colleagues over Christian holidays like Easter.
The legal recognition of Islam has been a controversial issue in Germany, home to a population of 4 million Muslims which it has been accused of not doing enough to integrate. Public unease with this growing population came to the fore in 2010 when a book by former German central bank board member Thilo Sarrazin, in which he accused Muslims of sponging off welfare and refusing to integrate, was a huge commercial success.
Wolfgang Bosbach, a prominent member of Merkel’s traditionally Catholic Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told WAZ that he sees “far and wide no need” for the legal recognition of Muslim holidays, adding that Germany has “no Muslim tradition.” The current public holidays — such as the Easter holidays this Friday and Monday — are part of a Christian-Western heritage, Bosbach told the WAZ.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Other important information derived from the results of the STURP measurements are as follows: The blood is human, and there is no image beneath the bloodstains; the gradient color contains three-dimensional information of the body; colored fibers (image) are more fragile than undyed fibers; surface staining of the fibrils of the image derive from an unknown process that caused oxidation, dehydration and conjugation in the structure of the cellulose of the linen”. In other words, the color is a result of an accelerated linen aging process”.
As already mentioned, until now all attempts to reproduce an image on linen with the same characteristics have failed. Some researchers have obtained images with a similar appearance to the image of the Shroud, but nobody has been able to simultaneously reproduce all microscopic and macroscopic characteristics. “In this sense, the origin of the Shroud image is still unknown. This seems to be the core of the so-called “mystery of the Shroud”: regardless of the age the Shroud, whether it is medieval (1260 — 1390) as shown by the controversial dating by radiocarbon, or older as indicated by other investigations, and regardless of the actual importance of controversial historical documents on the existence of the Shroud in the years preceding 1260, the most important question, the “question of questions” remains the same: how did that body image appear on the Shroud?”…
The first attempts made to reproduce the face on the Shroud by radiation, used a CO2 laser which produced an image on a linen fabric that is similar at a macroscopic level. However, microscopic analysis showed a coloring that is too deep and many charred linen threads, features that are incompatible with the Shroud image. Instead, the results of ENEA “show that a short and intense burst of VUV directional radiation can color a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin, including shades of color, the surface color of the fibrils of the outer linen fabric, and the absence of fluorescence”.
“However, Enea scientists warn, “it should be noted that the total power of VUV radiations required to instantly color the surface of linen that corresponds to a human of average height, body surface area equal to = 2000 MW/cm2 17000 cm2 = 34 thousand billion watts makes it impractical today to reproduce the entire Shroud image using a single laser excimer, since this power cannot be produced by any VUV light source built to date (the most powerful available on the market come to several billion watts )”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A policewoman who answered a midnight call to a suspected burglary is suing the man who dialled 999 — because she tripped over a kerbstone.
WPC Kelly Jones is seeking a potential five-figure payout after claiming the owner of a petrol station failed to keep her safe as she investigated the possible break-in.
Her claim that the 999 call exposed her to ‘an unnecessary risk of injury’ raises new questions about the extent of Britain’s compensation culture, and has wide-reaching implications for anyone who calls the emergency services to their property.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The official watchdog that advises the Government on greenhouse gas emissions targets has launched an astonishing attack on The Mail on Sunday — for accurately reporting that alarming predictions of global warming are wrong.
We disclosed that although highly influential computer models are still estimating huge rises in world temperatures, there has been no statistically significant increase for more than 16 years.
Despite our revelation earlier this month, backed up by a scientifically researched graph, the Committee on Climate Change still clings to flawed predictions.
Leading the attack is committee member Sir Brian Hoskins, who is also director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College, London. In a blog on the Committee on Climate Change’s website, Sir Brian insisted: ‘The scientific basis for significant long-term climate risks remains robust, despite the points raised … Early and deep cuts in emissions are still required.’
He also claimed our report ‘misunderstood’ the value of computer models. Yet in an interview three years ago, Sir Brian conceded that when he started out as a climate scientist, the models were ‘pretty lousy, and they’re still pretty lousy, really’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
By Peter Hitchens
Was this Britain? Every group of people I passed was speaking Russian. The shops were full of black bread, pickled cucumbers and vodka, the faces were Slavic. The advertisements in the windows were in the Cyrillic script I had come to know so well when I lived, many years before, in Moscow.
Yet here I was in the shadow of a lovely English Gothic church tower, half-way to dear old Skegness, surrounded by fields of English turnips, leeks and sugar beet, under an English heaven.
This was Boston, Lincolnshire, which I had first seen three decades ago as a somnolent, slightly shabby market town where a kindly traffic warden had found me a parking space, saying: ‘We can always find room for a foreigner.’
In those days, a visitor from London was about as foreign as it got in Boston. Now they were talking Portuguese in the pubs, Polish in the cafes, Latvian and Estonian on the buses. If I had fallen into the river and called out ‘Help!’, I couldn’t even have been sure that anyone would have understood.
Somehow this transformation was more of a shock, more disturbing and perplexing, than any of the other migration-driven changes I had seen. And that tended to be the attitude of the older residents — not anger, hatred or hostility, we are not like that — but bafflement that such a huge thing could have erupted into their peaceful lives, without anyone warning or asking them.
We had all got used to London being different, long ago. The former mill towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire, with their huge new mosques and veiled women, were a place apart. But Lincolnshire? If it could come here, into Deep England, then it would come to everywhere.
It really is not much good the Prime Minister turning round now and saying to the people of Boston ‘this must stop’. Even if anyone believed he can or will do anything (and his various schemes are as firmly based as Theresa May’s promises to get rid of Abu Qatada), the event has happened.
The greatest mass migration in our history has taken place. The newcomers are lawfully here. They have the jobs, live in the houses, use the NHS. Their children are in the schools. Come to that, they are paying tax.
Our leaders only had to go to Boston, any time in the past five years, and they would have known. But all our leading politicians were afraid of knowing the truth. If they knew, they would at least have to pretend to act. And the truth was, they liked things as they were.
And it was at least partly my own fault. When I was a Revolutionary Marxist, we were all in favour of as much immigration as possible. It wasn’t because we liked immigrants, but because we didn’t like Britain. We saw immigrants — from anywhere — as allies against the staid, settled, conservative society that our country still was at the end of the Sixties. Also, we liked to feel oh, so superior to the bewildered people — usually in the poorest parts of Britain — who found their neighbourhoods suddenly transformed into supposedly ‘vibrant communities’. If they dared to express the mildest objections, we called them bigots.
Revolutionary students didn’t come from such ‘vibrant’ areas (we came, as far as I could tell, mostly from Surrey and the nicer parts of London). We might live in ‘vibrant’ places for a few (usually squalid) years, amid unmown lawns and overflowing dustbins.
But we did so as irresponsible, childless transients — not as homeowners, or as parents of school-age children, or as old people hoping for a bit of serenity at the ends of their lives. When we graduated and began to earn serious money, we generally headed for expensive London enclaves and became extremely choosy about where our children went to school, a choice we happily denied the urban poor, the ones we sneered at as ‘racists’.
What did we know, or care, of the great silent revolution which even then was beginning to transform the lives of the British poor? To us, it meant patriotism and tradition could always be derided as ‘racist’. And it also meant cheap servants for the rich new middle-class, for the first time since 1939, as well as cheap restaurants and — later on — cheap builders and plumbers working off the books.
It wasn’t our wages that were depressed, or our work that was priced out of the market. Immigrants didn’t do the sort of jobs we did. They were no threat to us. The only threat might have come from the aggrieved British people, but we could always stifle their protests by suggesting that they were modern-day fascists.
I have learned since what a spiteful, self-righteous, snobbish and arrogant person I was (and most of my revolutionary comrades were, too).
I have seen places that I knew and felt at home in, changed completely in a few short years. I have imagined what it might be like to have grown old while stranded in shabby, narrow streets where my neighbours spoke a different language and I gradually found myself becoming a lonely, shaky-voiced stranger in a world I once knew, but which no longer knew me.
I have felt deeply, hopelessly sorry that I did and said nothing in defence of those whose lives were turned upside down, without their ever being asked, and who were warned very clearly that, if they complained, they would be despised outcasts. And I have spent a great deal of time in the parts of Britain where the revolutionary unintelligentsia don’t go. Such people seldom, if ever, visit their own country. Their orbits are in fashionable London zones, and holiday destinations. They are better acquainted with the Apennines of Italy than with the Pennines of their own country.
But, unlike me, most of the Sixties generation still hold the views I used to hold and — with the recent, honourable exception of David Goodhart, the Left-wing journalist turned Think Tank boss who recognises he was wrong — they will not change.
The worst part of this is the deep, deep hypocrisy of it. Even back in my Trotskyist days I had begun to notice that many of the migrants from Asia were in fact not our allies. They were deeply, unshakably religious. They were socially conservative. Their attitudes towards girls and women were, in many cases, close to medieval.
Many of them were horribly hostile to Jews, in a way which we would have condemned fiercely if anyone else had expressed it, but which we somehow managed to forgive and forget in their case.
We have recently seen this in the distressing and embarrassing episode of Lord Ahmed’s outburst against a phantom Jewish conspiracy.
But I recall ten years ago, in a Muslim bookshop in the backstreets of Burnley, seeing on open display a modern edition of Henry Ford’s revolting anti-Jewish diatribe The International Jew, long ago disowned by Ford himself. It is unthinkable that any mainstream shop in any High Street could sell this toxic tripe.
Many of these new arrivals, though we revolutionaries welcomed them, knew and cared nothing of the great liberal causes we all supported. Or they were hostile to them.
Many on the Left still lie to themselves about this. George Galloway, the most Left-wing MP in Parliament, owes his seat to the support of conservative Muslims. Yet he voted in favour of same-sex marriage. It would be interesting to be at any meetings where Mr Galloway discusses this with his constituents.
Of course, all political parties are compromises, but there is a big difference between splitting the difference and flatly ignoring a profound clash of principles.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Jobless Iraqi ‘Benefit Queen’ Sublets Taxpayer Funded £2m Flat for £4,000 a Week
An unemployed Iraqi ‘benefit queen’ charged £4,000 a week to sublet a taxpayer funded £2million flat, it has been claimed.
Bushra al-Rahimi is claimed to have rented out the flat to a family of Kuwaiti tourists, while also being in receipt of housing benefits from Westminster city council to cover the cost of the city centre five-bedroom property.
Al-Rahimi and her family have now been re-housed at taxpayers’ expense in nearby Islington, in a block of flats where another property is let at £5,000 a month.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Police are given bouquets of flowers to victims in an attempt to ‘soften the blow’ of hard to solve crimes burglaries and muggings.
Success rates for the detection of burglaries are as low as 12 per cent in the areas where forces are giving out flowers, including London and west Mercia.
Victims told The Sunday Telegraph that while they appreciate the thought, they would rather that police focused on solving their crimes.
The Met has sent out 300 bouquets in the north London borough of Barnet since November, including one to 55-year-old Sarah Miller.
She had two laptops, a camera and other valuables stolen from her home.
The day after the burglary Mrs Miller received a card apologising as the lack of evidence made it unlikely that her crime could be solved.
But the following day she received a £25 bouquet of flowers as well as a £5 voucher for the florist that donated them.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Acclaimed author Anthony Horowitz believes parts of the internet are ‘foul, disgusting and cruel’ and that ‘evil is getting the upper hand’.
In a powerful speech yesterday, the best-selling children’s adventure writer said the web ‘unlocked something quite dark in humanity’.
He said: ‘There is so much in the internet that is foul and disgusting and cruel. It’s an interesting mix.’
Speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival, the Foyle’s War and Midsomer Murders author conceded that the internet was the greatest invention of his lifetime but said it was also frightening.
The 57-year-old creator of the Alex Rider and The Power of Five series said there is a ‘constant struggle within people themselves and society for good and evil’ and that the internet is part of this.
He said his passionate feelings on the subject arose in part from vicious online comments he received after a recent television appearance.
Using the examples of church sex scandals, politicians’ expenses and phone-hacking, he added: ‘In the last few years every single pillar of society has collapsed one after the other.
‘I can’t remember as a boy growing up that so many pillars were found to be so rotten.
‘It does bother me that evil is getting the upper hand.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egyptian TV Satirist Turns Himself in to Police
Popular television satirist Bassem Youssef turned himself over to prosecutors on Sunday after an arrest warrant was issued against him for allegedly insulting Islam, the country’s leader Mohamed Morsi and the ruling Muslim Brotherhood party.
Prosecutors in Egypt were questioning popular satirist Bassem Youssef on Sunday over alleged insults to the president and to religion, reigniting calls for freedom of expression in post-revolt Egypt.
Youssef, whose weekly programme Albernameg (The Show) has pushed the boundaries of local television with its merciless critique of those in power, continued to challenge the authorities even as he arrived at the prosecutor’s office.
He made his way through a throng of cameras and supporters, wearing an enormous version of a hat worn by President Mohamed Morsi earlier this month when he received an honorary doctorate from a university in Pakistan.
Youssef had worn the hat on his show a week earlier.
The heart surgeon turned comedian took to Twitter during his questioning, at one point saying: “The officers and the prosecution lawyers want to have their photo taken with me. Maybe that’s the reason for my summons?”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: A Stoned Cop Explains Why He Doesn’t Stop Crime in Dystopian Cairo
When a crime occurs in the part of Cairo near Tahrir Square and American University, people here have no one to call for help, a police officer explained to me Friday night.
The cop owns a 1958 Hungarian 9mm pistol, which he leaves with a friend so thugs don’t take it from him.
Mohammed (not his real name) joined the police in 2003 when he was 19 and says the job was more dangerous than he expected. After the Egyptian revolution two years ago, it’s gotten so dangerous he can’t even do his job.
That’s why he’s at my hotel at all, on the community balcony watching the gunfire in Tahrir Square, pointing out known troublemakers to us with a green laser pointer that had been making me very jumpy on the street when I’d been down there moments before.
A friend of my translator, Mohammed supposedly smokes a lot of marijuana, like many Egyptians.
The outlaws of the city have so much power over the police that Mohammed doesn’t even carry his gun with him after he leaves the station, he drops it off with a friend who owns a clothing store. Though the 9mm FEG Hungarian pistol is a 55-year-old antique with half the serial number scratched off, if it were stolen it would mean his job.
And it would take little to steal a police officer’s gun here. He could be overwhelmed by a small group of men at any time, he says, and have no recourse at all but to hand it over or be killed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hillary Clinton Snagged in Benghazi Cover-Up
New reports prompt questions about perplexing security decisions after attack
JERUSALEM — As media reports present evidence the U.S. has played a central role in arming Syrian rebels, new questions now emerge about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s involvement in the controversial scheme.
The questions prompt a second look at the perplexing security decisions made by Clinton and other top Obama administration officials the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on American facilities in Benghazi.
One of those key decisions reportedly delayed an investigative FBI team from arriving at the Benghazi site for 24 days. The site was widely reported to have contained classified documents.
WND raised the Thursday of whether Clinton was telling the truth when she claimed in a Senate hearing that she had no information about whether the U.S. mission in Libya was procuring or transferring weapons to Turkey and other Arab countries.
Her claim appears to contradict a New York Times report that the CIA has been aiding Arab governments and Turkey in obtaining and shipping weapons to the Syrian rebels.
The goal of the alleged weapons shipments was to arm the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Any training or arming of the Syrian rebels would be considered highly controversial. A major issue is the inclusion of jihadists, including al-Qaida, among the ranks of the Free Syrian Army and other Syrian opposition groups
Now a closer reading of two separate reports from the New York Times paints a picture of Clinton as the ring leader of the plan to arm Syrian rebels.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Claims 2013 Will be ‘Fall of American Empire’
The “American empire” will fall this year, the head of Iran’s Basij forces claimed Sunday, a message that was approved by the Islamic regime’s supreme leader.
“America should not think that with some diplomatic dialogue it can solve its dossier (problem) with the nation of Iran,” Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naghdi said. “The path of this land is directed by the martyrs. America with its hollow slogans … thinks the Iranian nation will believe it.”
The Basij commander was speaking to an audience of the 10th conference of “Journey of Enlightened Land” commemorating the “martyrs” of the eight-year war with Iraq, according to the Journalist Club, an outlet run by the Revolutionary Guards intelligence division.
Naghdi called President Obama’s actions deceitful, saying, “Obama in letters sent to the Islamic Republic promised to put an end to the Iranian nuclear dossier but … reacted in a different way.”
The Basij commander called Obama the most seditious president in the history of America: “Within this period, nothing but betrayal has been witnessed by Obama as the president of America. … America with its enmity toward Iran … has surrounded the country with sanctions.” Under the supreme leader’s request, Naghdi warned that “The epic political movement this year will be the fall of the American empire and the revealing of its true face of cruelty by its politicians.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Karzai Discusses Afghan Peace Process in Qatar
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has held talks with the Qatari government. Karzai was in the Gulf state reportedly to discuss the opening of a Taliban office there.
Karzai met on Sunday with ruling Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, after Kabul had agreed in principle to support the opening of a Taliban office in the Gulf state, under the condition that the militant group severs ties with al Qaeda and ends its support for terrorism.
Although no details were released from Karzai’s meeting with al-Thani, the Qatari state news agency QNA reported that the two leaders discussed “issues of mutual interest.” Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister were also present for the talks.
Prior to Karzai’s departure for the Gulf state on Saturday, presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi had told the news agency AFP that the discussions would focus on peace talks with the Taliban.
“We will discuss the peace process, of course, and the opening of an office for the Taliban in Qatar,” Faizi told the AFP news agency.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
by Abdallah Bwair
It seems that assaults, both verbal and physical, on students in campus have become a daily routine in Kuwait. A student suffered a perforated eardrum, according to a recent report that came only two days after a similar case was reported elsewhere. In both cases, the students were injured after they were physically assaulted in class by none other than their teachers who are supposed to be role model for their students. In another incident that was reported recently in the press, a child’s arm was fractured after he was assaulted in a Jahra private school by his teacher.
The expatriate teacher later explained that she wanted to discipline the student for disobeying her instructions. After reading this case, perhaps students should enroll themselves in martial arts classes so that they can learn to defend themselves from assaults that happen inside their schools. A story also appeared in the press recently about a teacher who beat up his student so bad that he had to be carried back home after school. The case only came to light when the student’s father was shocked to see his son arrive from school in a bad shape.
The child said that his Arab teacher hit him repeatedly with a stick and kicked him until he fell to the ground. He added that the school failed to provide him proper medical attention, and only asked a teacher to take him home. The father is quoted in the report as vowing to take legal action against the assailant.
Meanwhile, a female citizen recently complained against a teacher who reportedly assaulted her daughter both physically and verbally. This happened despite instructions to avoid hitting students that the Ministry of Education issued after the death of a student who collapsed in class last month. In the most recent case, as told by the girl’s mother, the 17-year-old was reportedly assaulted by a teacher when she entered the class and sought to take back her scarf which her sister had borrowed. The teacher reportedly grabbed the girl by her arm, dragged her into the class and beat her up repeatedly with the other hand until other teachers stepped in to stop the assault.
The teacher also assaulted the girl verbally by saying that her parents ‘failed to raise her properly’. And in Al-Riqqa, an assistant principal of an elementary school came up with a novel way to discipline her students — she called out three of them to the front during the morning assembly and cut off their hair in front of other students. When she was confronted later by the students’ parents, the ‘educator’ reportedly dared them to report the case to police.
Where is the Ministry of Education at a time when such events have been happening with such frequency? What steps does the Ministry plan to take against the oppressive teachers? Will favoritism, wasta (unlawful mediation) and other things work in such cases?
| — Hat tip: RR | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Gate to Hell Discovered
Italian archaeologists have announced the discovery of Pluto’s Gate amongst ruins in southwestern Turkey. The gate was said to be a portal to the underworld and was located in the ancient Phrygian city of Hierapolis. Records tell of a cave filled with deadly vapors that meant certain death to anyone who stepped inside.
“This space is full of a vapor so misty and dense that one can scarcely see the ground,” wrote the Greek geographer Strabo in around 24 AD. “Any animal that passes inside meets instant death. I threw in sparrows and they immediately breathed their last and fell.”
The discovery was made by a team led by Professor Francesco D’Andria who had conducted extensive research at the site. “We could see the cave’s lethal properties during the excavation,” he said. “Several birds died as they tried to get close to the warm opening, instantly killed by the carbon dioxide fumes.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Western-Backed FSA Use Child Soldiers in Syria (Video)
Footage shows 8-year-old boy carrying AK-47, smoking cigarettes.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mao’s Disneyland: ‘Red Tourism’ Is Golden for Chinese Economy
China’s leaders have responded to waning interest in ideology by setting up a vast “red tourism” industry. While celebrating the great members and moments of the Communist Party of China, it also helps the economy.
Wu Yongtang’s great advantage is having a mole on his chin almost exactly where Mao Zedong did. The 56-year-old actor pulls at the bandage covering the spot, then carefully peels it off and touches the scab with his fingertip. He saw a doctor to have the size of the mole reduced, and now it is exactly as large Mao’s was. Wu is pleased. He looks like Mao, he speaks like Mao and his mole might be his ticket to landing movie roles as Mao. There’s demand for Mao look-alikes in China — and especially now. “People have deep feelings for the chairman,” Wu says.
Wu spent a full theater season playing Mao at the open-air theater in Yanan, a city in central China described locally as the “Holy Land of the Chinese Revolution.” Yanan is where the Long March ended in 1935, the military retreat that marked Mao’s ascent to power, and where the Communist Party of China established its headquarters for the province of Shaanxi. Every morning, visitors can watch a performance here called “The Defense of Yanan,” complete with fake tanks and real horses. A model airplane even drops from the sky at the end of the show, a moment captured by all the mobile-phone cameras of audience.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New Zealand: Scientist Warned of GM Food Dangers
A Government agency was warned 10 years ago about the potential risks of new genetically modified molecules creeping into our food. In 2002, Canterbury University geneticist Professor Jack Heinemann first tipped off the new defunct Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) about the type of GM molecules which are now in the spotlight. New Zealand foods containing modified soybeans, such as margarines, chocolate and mayonnaises, contain the double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) material which researchers say has not been properly scrutinised by regulator Food Standards Australia-New Zealand (FSANZ). The concern is that the molecule can survive heating and digestion and potentially switch off human genes from functioning normally.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
3,035 South African Farmers Murdered Since 1994
The mutilated body of South African game-farm owner’s wife Sandy Gordon, 56, was found in their homestead near South Africa’s very first goldmine in the historic region north of the capital city of Pretoria today. She was farm murder victim number 3,035..
This latest mysterious so-called ‘farm murder’ in South Africa — in which nothing was robbed and as usual, massive violence, often including torture and mutilation, was used against the unarmed victim, brings the total of ‘white’ South African farm-dwellers killed since 1994 to 3,035 people. South Africa only has 11,500 commercial farmers left due to this massive violence. Dr Gregory Stanton of Genocide Watch already started warning in 2002 that the South African farmers are the single group of people most targetted by mindless murders in the entire world.
According to Dr Gregory Watson, an American genocide expert who founded the organisation Genocide Watch, says that these mysterious murders on South African farmers fall under genocidal attacks — even though such a small group of people is involved. He already issued a call in 2002, warning that these attacks were increasing in intensity, accompanied by growing hate-speech by government officials targetting white farmers, and would eventually culminate in an all-out genocide unless the authorities intervened.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Two islamic holidays a year eh?
May I suggest a Battle of Tours day as the first one.
And the other sept 11th, lifting of the Seige of Vienna.
The above choices for islamic holidays are appropriate for Europe, but I’m still partial to the NAKBA.
Hey how about evicting them all and giving the locals a holiday? and has anyone else noticed the similarity of the behaviour of muslims and zombies?