UK Police are investigating an election that was held in Woking, Surrey back in May 2012, when the Liberal Democrat Mohammed Bashir defeated the Labour candidate, Mohammad Ali (Note: an English election with a Mohammed Coefficient of 100%). A judge has ruled that Mr. Bashir committed electoral fraud in order to win by 16 votes.
In other news, Anders Behring Breivik has applied to the University of Oslo to study political science, but some staff members at the university are reportedly refusing to teach him.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, McR, Papa Whiskey, Steen, The Observer, 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.
How Taxpayers Will Bail Out Detroit
Detroit is proposing an effort to offload much of its bloated healthcare costs onto the American taxpayer, using ObamaCare
No city epitomizes that squeeze better than Detroit. Two-thirds of the city’s ambulances are out of service. Police take an average of 58 minutes to respond to emergencies, five times the national average. Forty percent of the city’s streetlights don’t work, and 210 of its 317 public parks are closed down. The city’s public schools are also on the verge of bankruptcy, and remain some of the worst in the nation. The city’s mass-transit system is virtually non-functional. The murder rate is the highest in nearly 40 years. Yet the most telling statistic is the reality that Detroit’s retired city workers outnumber active city workers by a more than 2 to 1 ratio.
That is the burden Detroit would like to “cost shift” to the American taxpayer.
Not just Detroit. As the New York Times notes, while Detroit’s restructuring must be approved by a federal judge, the plan being presented there “is being watched closely by municipal leaders around the nation, many of whom complain of mounting, unsustainable prices for the health care promised to retired city workers.” The Times further notes efforts are in the process of being “planned or contemplated” in Chicago, IL, Sheboygan County, WI and Stockton, CA.
Timothy S. Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University, illuminates the implications, noting that such a shift would amount to “a huge cost for the United States government, and it’s mandatory spending.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
3 Men Indicted for Food Stamp Fraud
Three Brook Park men have been indicted for defrauding the food stamp program out of $2 million at four Cleveland stores.
The United States Attorney’s Office of Northern Ohio said brothers Saed and Maher Wahdan, along with the help of Nidal Jaber, accepted food stamps for ineligible items like beer and cigarettes.
All three men have been indicted on counts of conspiracy to commit food stamp fraud, food stamp fraud and unlawful redemption of food stamps.
U.S. Attorney for Northern Ohio Steven Dettelbach said that attempts will be made to recover stolen money.
“The food stamp program has provided nutritious food to thousands of hungry families over the years,” he said. “We will continue to work to recover money stolen from the program and eradicate waste, fraud and abuse of government programs.”
Between January 2008 and March 2012, the three men attempted to commit more than $2 million in food-stamp fraud through four of their businesses that were held under different names to conceal Saed Wahdan’s prior food stamp convictions, authorities said. Those stores were One Stop Beverage, 5105 Franklin Blvd.; Bridge Deli and Beverage, 4700 Bridge Ave.; Franklin Beverage and Deli, 4719 Franklin Blvd., and Scott Food Mart, 951 Linn Drive.
The three men used their businesses to exchange customer food stamps for cash and other unauthorized items. They also bought food stamp cards from customers to use at other grocery locations to get inventory for their stores and for their personal use, according to the indictment.
The indictment seeks to forfeit the businesses run by the Wahdans.
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Are We Still the Land of Red, White and Blue or, Are We Now Just Red?
We see the labels, “made in China” — and now it is our pork?
The news has been all over the Internet and even a little on mainstream media — China buys Smithfield for $4.7 billion! Shuanghui International Holdings is buying Smithfield Foods Inc., the world’s largest hog producer to feed a growing Chinese appetite for U.S. pork. Needless to say, this deal is stirring a lot of concern among U.S. politicians.
Let’s think about this a bit… We are in debt to China for trillions of dollars! We’ve heard numerous reports in the last several months of Chinese hackers stealing American military sensitive weapon designs… And in a recent report there has been an unprecedented agreement, the U.S. Treasury has agreed to give China direct access to its auctions. Never before in the 237-year history of this nation has any foreign government been granted such intimate access to Capitol Hill… No laws have been broken but I believe the trust of the American people has been!!!
This nation is losing its independence and sovereignty to none less than China???
[…]
* Five executives who run one of the worst-performing large U.S. food makers are set to reap at least $85.4 million from its sale…
The transaction with Smithfield would be the largest Chinese takeover of a U.S. company — to be financed by a combination of cash, debt rollover, and a commitment from Morgan Stanley.
Morgan Stanley is serving as financial advisor to Shuanghui.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) The Centers for Disease Control recently published valuable information about polio vaccines on their site, but afterwards retracted the information. Why has that information been taken down? Regardless, a Google snapshot of this information as it appeared on July 11, 2013 is cached here: [url]
The saved CDC information comes right out and admits that more than 98 million Americans during a span of eight years were injected with a cancer-causing polyomavirus called SV40.
This fact alone should serve as a testament to anyone: always question medical professionals who say that you or your child needs a certain vaccine or prescription. So much “medicine” today is actually poison. Professionals are often duped into believing in the safety of a vaccine or prescription, when all along it may be laced with cancer-causing, health ravaging virus, heavy metals, fungus, formaldehyde, or neurotoxins.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How Your Local Officials Are Using Stealth to Implement Agenda 21 and ICLEI, Part 2
How your local officials are using stealth to put Agenda 21 and ICLEI into every city, town and county in America.
A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation. — Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies
In our previous article, How your local officials are using stealth to implement Agenda 21 & ICLEI, we showed how Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero and former mayor and now Tennessee Governor, Bill Haslam are embedding Agenda 21 into Knoxville and the state while pretending they never heard of Agenda 21. From that article you might not have realized the depth of their duplicity or the full extent of the embedding of Agenda 21. Here we will show that there is no wiggle room on the issue, they are both proponents, and implementers, of the globalist plan to surreptitiously land and our liberty.
[…]
How did we get to this? How did every state in the United States end up with planning that makes our cities have the exactly same design as every other city? And that plan being so egregiously anti-property rights, anti-human, anti-freedom? To put it succinctly I quote one of the designers of Agenda 21 Sustainable Development, Professor Maurice King: “Global sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Huma Abedin’s Rich, Glowing Hair Draws Looks of Envy From Many Women, Scandal or Not
It’s style by fire.
Mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner’s latest sexting scandal once again turned him into a political sideshow act — but as his wife, Huma Abedin, stood by his side and defended him at a hastily planned press conference, her hair emerged as the mane event.
Abedin wore her glossy, dark locks in a messy-but-artful bun. The up-do looked cool, sophisticated and totally under control — when she needed it most.
“She’s not hiding behind her hair,” says famed stylist and midtown salon owner Louis Licari. “Picking up her hair lifts her face. She is a pretty chic girl — she’s got it going on.”
New York women are embracing Abedin’s hair, even if the controversy that made it famous makes them cringe.
[What OUGHT to make New York women cringe is Abedin’s role as an agent of influence for the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization dedicated to the worldwide imposition of shar’ia — under which women are little more than veiled, genitally mutilated livestock. But that will continue to go unreported by such as the New York Daily News. Pathetic. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Huma Abedin Dines With Clinton Spokesman
Washington (CNN) — Huma Abedin was spotted having dinner Monday night with Hillary Clinton’s spokesman, Philippe Reines, in Washington.
The two were seen sitting outside at Meiwah Restaurant, a bustling area located between the neighborhoods known as Dupont Circle and Foggy Bottom.
Meiwah is a favorite spot of Reines’ and is considered a place to see and be seen.
Their public outing comes after a source pushed back against a report that Bill and Hillary Clinton have political concerns about their association with New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, Abedin’s husband.
[Isn’t this just too special? Endless gossip about this Saudi woman’s hair and dinner dates, and not ONE WORD about her long career as an agent of influence for the Muslim Brotherhood. The media’s ghastly abdication of its journalistic responsibility makes a complete mockery of their prattling about “the people’s right to know.” — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Liberty and Safety: The Government’s Satanic Bargain
Andrew Napolitano: Notion the State should ‘balance’ 2 concepts is gross misconception
When Edward Snowden revealed that the federal government, in direct defiance of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, was unlawfully and unconstitutionally spying on all Americans who use telephones, text messaging or emails to communicate with other persons, he opened a Pandora’s box of allegations and recriminations. The allegations he unleashed are that Americans have a government that assaults our personal freedoms, operates in secrecy and violates the Constitution and the values upon which it is based. The recriminations are that safety is a greater good than liberty, and Snowden interfered with the ability of the government to keep us safe by exposing its secrets, and so he should be silenced and punished.
In the course of this debate, you have heard the argument that we all need to sacrifice some liberty in order to assure our safety, that liberty and safety are in equipoise, and when they clash, it is the government that should balance one against the other and decide which shall prevail. This is, of course, an argument the government loves, as it presupposes that the government has the moral, legal and constitutional power to make this satanic bargain.
It doesn’t.
Roman emperors and tribal chieftains, King George III and French revolutionaries, 20th-century dictators and 21st-century American presidents all have asserted that their first job is to keep us safe, and in doing so, they are somehow entitled to take away our liberties, whether it be the speech they hate or fear, the privacy they capriciously love to invade or the private property and wealth they salaciously covet.
This argument is antithetical to the principal value upon which America was founded.
[Comment: Highly recommended article.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Manning Not Guilty of Aiding the Enemy But Convicted of Multiple Other Counts
A military judge on Tuesday found Pfc. Bradley Manning not guilty of aiding the enemy, but convicted him of multiple counts of violating the Espionage Act.
Private Manning had already confessed to being WikiLeaks’ source for the files, which included videos of airstrikes in which civilians were killed, hundreds of thousands of front-line incident reports from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, dossiers on men being held without trial at the Guantánamo Bay prison, and about 250,000 diplomatic cables.
But while Private Manning has pleaded guilty to a lesser version of the charges he is facing, which could expose him to up to 20 years in prison, the government decided to press forward with a trial on a more serious version of the charges, including “aiding the enemy” and violations of the Espionage Act, which could result in a life sentence.
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Monsanto Teaming up With US Military to Target GMO Activists
A hard-hitting investigative report recently published by a prominent German newspaper has uncovered some shocking details about the tactics being used by chemical giant Monsanto in assuming control of global agriculture. According to this thorough analysis, Monsanto appears to be aggressively targeting independent researchers, scientists, activists, and others opposed to genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) by utilizing the vast resources and manpower of both the United States federal government and the American military-industrial complex
The report, which recently appeared in the July 13 print edition of Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), explains in rigorous detail how both individuals and groups opposed to GMOs and other chemical-based crop technologies have been threatened, hacked, slandered and terrorized for daring to digress from the pro-GMO status quo. On numerous documented occasions, pertinent information about the dangers of GMOs or lack of GMO safety data has been effectively blocked from timely release by mysterious forces that many say are the chemical industry in disguise.
“A conspicuously large number of Monsanto critics report regular attacks by professional hackers,” explains an English-translated snippet from the SZ report. “There are (Monsanto) ties with the U.S. secret services, the U.S. military, with very hard operating private security companies and of course, with the U.S. government.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) Forget “gun control.” That’s old news. The city of Oakland, California now wants to ban any object that could be used as a “tool of vandalism,” including hammers, wrenches, slingshots, shields and presumably anything else with a blunt edge such as garden rakes or sticks.
It’s all part of Oakland’s response to recent protests in which angry mobs of people caused significant damage to local businesses (because angry mobs tend to loot and burn their own neighborhoods first).
So the Oakland City Council is considering a proposed ordinance that would criminalize the possession of everyday objects, including objects of professional tradesmen such as hammers, large screwdrivers, walking canes and mechanic’s tools.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
ObamaCare Call Center Employees Not Offered Health Care Benefits
(NaturalNews) News reports of late have declared that, despite it being passed nearly three years ago, Americans are “still confused” over Obamacare and its myriad of regulations, requirements and provisions.
Confused yes, but increasingly angry as well.
Why? Because as the time draws near for most of the law’s remaining provisions to kick in, the roaches who created this monstrosity are scurrying for the darkness in a bid to distance themselves from the law they helped draft and pass. Their actions are creating an unprecedented environment of utter hypocrisy that would make even the most cynical, seasoned political observer wince.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Privacy be Damned — The Imminent Health-Exchange Scandal.
The Privacy Act is a general prohibition, subject to narrow exceptions, on disclosure of records between agencies or to the public. The “routine use” exception allows disclosure when the use of a record is “for a purpose which is compatible with the purpose for which it is collected.” Privacy being essential to patient care, it is impossible to justify a “routine use” exception for a system knowingly built in a way that will permit disclosure of intimate health care data.
In this regard, the administration is not only preparing to violate the law, it is also holding itself to a far lower privacy standard than that to which it is trying to hold the private sector. In announcing the administration’s “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights,” last year President Obama himself said, “American consumers can’t wait any longer for clear rules of the road that ensure their personal information is safe online.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
by Robert H. Jackson
“The priceless heritage of our society is the unrestricted constitutional right of each member to think as he will. Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism, and we have no claim to it. It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.
[…]
I have protested the degradation of these constitutional liberties to immunize and approve mob movements, whether those mobs be religious or political, radical or conservative, liberal or illiberal, or to authorize pressure groups to use amplifying devices to drown out the natural voice and destroy the peace of other individuals. And I have pointed out that men cannot enjoy their right to personal freedom if fanatical masses, whatever their mission, can strangle individual thoughts and invade personal privacy.”
[This man was a U.S. Supreme Court justice and the chief prosecutor at the Nazi war-crimes trial at Nuremburg. To paraphrase William Wordsworth: “Jackson! Thou shouldst be living at this hour: America hath need of thee …” — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
The U.S. Outsources Yet Another Project to China, Further Contributing to Our Economic Decay
The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has awarded a $235 million renovation project on Staten Island’s Verrazano Bridge to China. Even though American workers are ready and able to perform the task.
Members of the U.S. steel industry believe that irresponsible actions by public agencies like the MTA will only continue to make things worse for the U.S. economy. After all, China already owns much of America as it is. The U.S. trade deficit with China is off the charts at $27.9 billion and our debt to China is upwards of $1.2 trillion dollars!
But the United States produces it’s own steel. We even have a steelmakers union! So why are our leaders signing off on allowing imported steel from China to fix our bridges instead of using U.S. Steel?
It’s because Chinese steel is cheaper.
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, U.S. steel companies argue that the price of imported Chinese steel is unfairly subsidized.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
A Toronto police officer fired nine shots in 13 seconds at a young man wielding a knife in an empty streetcar killing him on the spot, police said Monday.
Hundreds in Canada’s largest city protested the shooting that was caught on video and posted on YouTube.
Some protesters called it unnecessary police force, and a former Toronto police detective who saw the video said it appeared that ‘excessive’ force had been used.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bulgaria Reveals Identities of Hezbollah Perpetrators of Burgas Bombing 7-18-12
Was it coincidence last week that the Bulgarian Interior Ministry identified the Hezbollah perpetrators of the July 18, 2012 Burgas terror bombing and the EU finally listed the military wing as a terrorist group? On July 18, 2012 five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian tour bus driver were killed in a bomb blast in the Black Sea resort that occurred on the 28th anniversary of the 1994 Jewish AMIA Center bombing in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A bomb blast that may have been organized by the late assassinated Hezbollah terrorist mastermind, Imad Mughniyah and incoming President Iranian Hassan Rouhani may have participated in the planning. The Long War Journal (TLWJ) of the Washington, DC based foundation for the Defense of Democracies issued a report on July 25th by David Barnett based on Bulgarian investigation that identified the two perpetrators as Australian and Canadian nationals of Lebanese origin. Benjain Weinthal in today’s Jerusalem Post reports that the two perpetrators may have smuggled the bombs used in the attack in Bulgaria via train from Warsaw. in late June 2012. The terrorists identified are:…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Cyprus: ‘Turkish Blockade to the West of the Exclusive Economic Zone’
Politis
Last week a warship from the occupied part of Cyprus prevented an Italian ship from entering the Republic of Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) which is currently the site of undersea gas exploration, reports Politis.
The Italian craft Odin Finder, which was to participate in the laying of undersea optical fibre to link Cyprus and other Mediterranean countries, was finally obliged to withdraw from the area. Nicosia has complained about the incident to both the Italian and American embassies.
This is the third serious incident of this type in so many months, notes the daily. Turkey refuses to recognise the agreements on maritime borders which Cyprus has concluded with other neighbouring countries, and is threatening to deploy warships to prevent drilling for gas in the EEZ.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Police Protection for VIPs 2,000 Euros Monthly Per Officer
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, JULY 30 — Seeking to make up for many years during which VIPs were protected by police at taxpayers’ expense, new legislation calls for wealthy Greeks to pay 2,000 euros per month into the public coffers for each officer assigned to guard them. The plan, as Kathimerini online reports, has been approved by Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias and applies to individuals with annual incomes above 100,000 euros and whom authorities deem as being at risk. The legislation, which needs Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras’s approval, outlines the costs of additional police services, which include hiring a patrol car for 40 euros per hour, a police helicopter for 1,500 euros per hour and a trained police dog with its handler for 50 euros per hour. The ministry intends to withdraw protection if its bills are not paid. Also, 4% of revenues will go toward the police pension fund.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Ireland: Missing Boys, 10 and 5, Found Dead in Car Boot After Father Crashes Car
[WARNING: Disturbing content.]
The bodies of two brothers were found dead in the boot of a car driven into a wall by their father a day after their disappearance sparked a nationwide search in Ireland.
Sanjeev Chada, 43, went missing with his two sons Eoghan, 10, and Ruairi, five, after leaving the family home in County Carlow in south east Ireland, on Sunday evening.
But police found the bodies of the two boys in the boot of Mr Chada’s car following the crash around 300km away near Westport, County Mayo, yesterday.
Detectives believe that the boys were dead before the crash with a post mortem set to be carried out later today.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Woman Said She Was Forced to Commit Honour Murder
VLAARDINGEN, 31/07/13 — A 37 year old Turkish woman who murdered her lover in the clear light of day last February did that under threat from her husband, her lawyer said Tuesday in Algemeen Dagblad newspaper.
In Vlaardingen last February, Serma K. shot her 44 year old lover several times in the head. After the murder, the confused woman shouted that she had cleansed her ‘namus’ (Turkish for honour). The woman told her lawyer later that her husband had put her under heavy pressure.
The secret love affair between the woman and her later victim came to light via text messages on her telephone. “Since then, she has gone through inhuman things,” says her lawyer. Her husband shaved her head. She was also assaulted, degraded and raped by him. “You can ask yourself whether she is not also a victim.”
The husband of Serma K. is meanwhile in custody for incitement to murder. As a result, the woman finally feels safe enough to tell the truth, according to her lawyer.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Criminals’ Union Angry About Photos of Thieves
THE HAGUE, 31/07/13 — Criminals have warned the government that it must not allow photos of suspected shop thieves to be put on the Internet.
The Union of Lawbreakers (BWO) said Tuesday that Justice State Secretary Fred Teeven must guard against the dangers and consequences of business people and citizens putting photos of suspected shop thieves online. The distribution of pictures of suspects is in violation of privacy, declares the organisation, which defends the interests of criminals and ex-criminals.
The warning was prompted by auto sector organisation Bovag and retail trade body Detailhandel Nederland’s call to Teeven on Monday to hurry up with a proposed bill to increase the opportunities for camera surveillance by private persons. Teeven has for years been working on a proposed bill that would make pictures from private security cameras more readily useable for tracking down thieves and house-breakers.
According to BWO chairman Pieter Vleeming, it is “not up to citizens but to police and judiciary to track down suspects.” Further relaxation on the deployment of cameras is “in violation of our privacy legislation and criminal law.”
The BWO was set up in 1972 as a lobby group for squatters and anarchists. Rita Verdonk, who later became integration minister, was active in the BWO during her student days, around 1980. The organisation is supported by 45 subsidised lawyers.
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Norway Mass Killer Applies to University to Study Political Science
Norway mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has applied to study political science at the University of Oslo, triggering a debate among some educators who reportedly refuse to teach him.
“We cannot refuse anyone the chance of studying at the University of Oslo,” Ole Petter Otterson, an official at the school, told The Local. “We have to follow the technical rules for admission.”
On July 22, 2011, Breivik, an anti-Muslim fanatic, killed 77 and wounded 242 in attacks on a government building in Oslo and at a youth camp on Utoya Island.
Breivik is serving a 21-year-sentence at Ila prison. The prison’s director, Knut Bjarkeid, says he encourages Breivik’s application as a way to get a job when he is released, according to TV 2.
But several University of Oslo political science department staff members, who wished to remain anonymous, told TV 2 that they object to teaching Breivik.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Racial Discrimination Reports Up 61% in Italy
‘Could suggest increased public sensitivity’ says UNAR
(ANSA) — Rome, July 30 — Italy’s National Office against Racial Discrimination (UNAR) investigated 1,283 cases in 2012, up 61% on the year, according to its Contact Center. The UNAR emphasized that the data does not necessarily mean incidents have increased, but could indicate a higher sensitivity to possible discrimination by the public at large and a greater tendency to report. The majority of complaints, 19.6%, came from the northern Lombardy region around Milan, followed by 14.4% in the central Lazio region around Rome.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: London Fire Brigade to Handcuffs Users: “Don’t Get Stuck”
LONDON (AP) — London firefighters say they have freed hundreds of people with body parts trapped in household objects in the last three years, including 18 children with heads stuck in potties or toilet seats and 79 people trapped in handcuffs.
The London Fire Brigade speculated that the popularity of erotic novel “Fifty Shades of Grey” may account for a rise in handcuffs-related emergencies.
“I don’t know whether it’s the ‘Fifty Shades’ effect, but the number of incidents involving items like handcuffs seems to have gone up,” said Third Officer Dave Brown.
Since 2010, London firefighters have treated almost 500 people with rings stuck on their fingers, nine with rings stuck on their penises, and one man with his penis stuck in a toaster.
Rescue crews also helped five people with hands stuck in shredders and 17 children with their hands trapped in toys.
The brigade released the list of incidents Monday to encourage people to be more careful. It advised people to exercise common sense — and always to keep the keys nearby when using handcuffs.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Investigate Woking Poll Illegal Practices
Police are carrying out a criminal investigation into corrupt and illegal practices during elections in Woking.
Liberal Democrat Mohammed Bashir defeated Labour candidate Mohammad Ali by 16 votes in Woking’s Maybury and Sheerwater ward in May 2012.
On Monday, High Court judge Richard Mawrey ruled corrupt and illegal practices had been committed by Bashir and through his agents.
A by-election will be held in the ward, with Bashir banned from proceedings.
A spokeswoman for the force said: “Surrey Police is currently investigating an allegation of electoral fraud around the local government election in May 2012 in the Maybury and Sheerwater area.
“The investigation is currently ongoing and the force is unable to comment further on the matter at this time.”
The judgement, by Election Commissioner Richard Mawrey QC on Monday, said Labour candidate Mr Ali had alleged Bashir and his electoral team had caused false names to be entered on the electoral register, using the names of people who did not live at the stated address, or never existed at all.
He said there had been an “abnormally high” number of late registrations, multiple registrations in the same property, and abnormally high turnout figures.
“Sadly, therefore, this is yet another case where the United Kingdom’s shambolic electoral system has led to an election being challenged on the ground of widespread fraud,” his judgement added.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
A spy plane equipped with a thermal imaging camera has found that more than 6,000 outbuildings in one town could be ‘beds in sheds’ converted by rogue landlords.
Slough Borough Council is the first local authority in the country to pay for the specially-adapted aircraft to fly over streets picking up heat from sheds and garages.
It spent £24,000 on flights to build up a precise 3D map of every building in the Berkshire town. The results mean thousands could be living there without planning permission or contributing council tax.
The plane criss-crossed streets, picking up heat signals from outbuildings which could signify they are being used as ‘sheds with beds’.
Analysis of the images captured in the two-hour night flight has now revealed a staggering 6,350 suspicious dwellings in the borough.
Although many of the outbuildings are habitable, some are described as being unsafe, with little or no heating, or do not comply with building or fire safety regulations.
Landlords face £200 fines and the prospect of their so called ‘beds in sheds’ being demolished if caught illegally renting them out…
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Freezes EU Ties in Retaliation for Cash Cut
The Guardian, Le Soir
Israel has “frozen” relations with the European Union and is blocking EU humanitarian workers from entering Israeli controlled districts of the Palestinian territories in retaliation for the EU’s ban on funding Israeli organisations based in the territories, reports The Guardian.
“No permits have been issued to EU humanitarian aid workers to enter Gaza for several days,” reports the daily, before quoting an Israeli official who said the Jewish state was “freezing the relationship [with the EU] on everything.”
Israel was furious at last week’s EU announcement and the boycott by two Dutch grocery stores of Israeli products that come from the Palestinian territories.
In Le Soir’s editorial, the Belgian daily condemns Israel’s reaction —
Israel is sending Europe a very simple message: “Pay up and shut up.” Naturally, this is unacceptable. We should pay homage instead to the European Union and its executive in Brussels, so often criticised for their diplomatic spinelessness, now that they’ve finally matched their actions to their words. Israel, for its part, is playing a very dangerous game. Through such reactions, the Jewish State is furnishing new proof of the contempt in which it holds any laws which do not help it. In so doing, it is stubbornly entrenching itself in its own isolation. This isolation is, regrettably, exalted in Israel by the most extremist elements, who systematically draw the anti-Semitism card on anyone who, in the name of the law or compassion, will no longer contribute to a reprehensible occupation.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli-Palestinian Accord Possible in Next 9 Months, Kerry
Israeli steps expected to improve Palestinian living conditions
(ANSAmed) — NEW YORK, JULY 30 — A final agreement between Israelis and Palestinians may be reached in the next nine months, Secretary of State John Kerry said at the end of Tuesday’s meeting in Washington.
The negotiators of the two sides involved — Israeli minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat — also met U.S. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House as well, and the meeting was “very positive”, said the U.S. Secretary of State. Kerry said that Israel is willing to take concrete steps forward in the coming days to improve the living conditions of Palestinians in the occupied territories, in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. The U.S. head of diplomacy was speaking on the sidelines of the latest round of talks that got underway Tuesday in Washington. The Israeli and Palestinian delegations, he added, will meet again within the next two weeks, either in Israel or in the Palestinian Territories. The Quartet for the Middle East (EU, US, Russia and UN) has said that it is “determined to give effective support” to the “shared commitment” of Israelis and Palestinians “to achieve a negotiated two-state solution within the next nine months”.
The Quartet went on to call on all parties involved to do everything in their power to make the talks a success.
After a three-year stalemate and inflexible positions taken by both sides, Israelis and Palestinians are therefore once again to resume direct talks: talks which would lead to a peace accord sought for decades that is, in the eyes of President Obama (who has played a substantial role as mediator in the latest phase), “possible and necessary”, and which can no longer be postponed. The deadlock was broken by the Israeli government’s decision on Monday to release 104 Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons for over 20 years for violent crimes.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Conviction Upheld for Turkish Scientist Opposing Headscarves
A Turkish astrophysicist faces two years of jail for forbidding access to a university building to a student wearing a headscarf. On Thursday, Ankara’s Supreme Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s verdict against Esat Rennan Pekünlü, an astronomer at Ege University in Izmir.
Pekünlü was first sentenced in September 2012, after student Fatma Nur Gidal accused him of violating her right to education by barring her access to the university building. She also said he had violated her right to privacy, by taking pictures of her and other students who were wearing headscarves on campus. Pekünlü was fined by Ege University, and after the first conviction, four more students filed similar complaints about him.
A group of eight academic organizations released a statement in support of Pekünlü, raising concerns about the fairness of the trial and framing it as an attack against secular academicians. They wrote that his case should have been handled by an administrative rather than a criminal court. Moreover, Pekünlü cannot avoid prison by paying a caution, since he has been sentenced to 25 months of jail. Under Turkish law, sentences of up to 24 months can be avoided by paying a fine.
In 2010, Turkey’s Higher Education Board ordered university administrations to lift a ban over headscarves on university campuses, although Turkish law still forbids the display of religious symbols on the premises of government institutions.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Jesuit Dall’Oglio Abducted by Al Qaida-Linked Militia
Activists report. Italian Foreign Ministry verifying
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, JULY 30 — Expelled last year from Syria, where he had spent 30 years of his life, openly opposed the regime and worked for a peaceful solution to the conflict, Italian Jesuit Father Paolo Dall’Oglio was allegedly kidnapped on Monday by a militant group close to Al Qaida which is part of the uprising against President Bashar al- Assad.
Activists in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, which is controlled by insurgents, told Reuters news agency that the priest was abducted while he was walking in the street. The Italian foreign ministry has said it is verifying the information.
According to the sources cited by Reuters, the abductors are members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an organization linked to Al Qaida and Syrian jihadist groups fighting the regime.
The only certainty is that Dall’Oglio is not answering his phones, as verified by ANSA — neither his Syrian number, where voicemail says the device is switched off, nor his Italian number which gives no signal.
After he was expelled by Syrian authorities in June 2012, Father Dall’Oglio had returned at least once in rebel-held areas in northern Syria.
It is not the first time Christian priests end up hostages of rebels in northern Syria. On April 22 two Orthodox bishops were abducted near Aleppo as they were returning to the Syrian city from the Turkish border after they had gone on a mission the details of which are still unknown. They are Syriac Yohanna Ibrahim and Greek Orthodox Boulos Yazij, who according to sources with the Greek Orthodox Church in Aleppo were abducted by jihadists from Chechnya, one of many nationalities of fundamentalists who are fighting a ‘holy war’ in Syria against President Bashar al Assad. No news yet on the two priests.
One of the reasons that could help understand the action against the two prelates is the apparent support to the Assad regime provided by Orthodox Churches which fear a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist regime in Damascus if Assad is ousted.
It is instead unclear why insurgents would kidnap Father Paolo, who has promoted inter-faith dialogue between Muslims and Christians for decades while he was in Syria and has openly sided against the regime.
On July 24 the Jesuit, a native of Rome, had personally called on Pope Francis to promote an ‘urgent and inclusive diplomatic initiative for Syria’ to ensure ‘the end of a regime which tortures and is responsible for massacres’.
There is also no news from Syria of another Italian, La Spampa journalist Domenico Quirico who has been missing since April 9. On June 6 he called his wife and told her during a brief conversation that he was fine. But nobody has heard from him ever since.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syria — Vatican: Fears Over Possible Kidnap of Jesuit Fr. Dall’oglio. Damascus Nunciature in Shock
In Syria since the 1980s, where he established an Islamo-Christian monastic community, Fr. Paolo dall’Oglio had been expelled by Assad in 2012. He returned occasionally to rebel-controlled Syria where he had friends. News still being verified. The country is in chaos and few see “any light at the end of the tunnel.”
Damascus (AsiaNews) — Shock, surprise and caution abound in the Vatican Nunciature in Damascus following reports — yet to be confirmed — of the kidnapping of the Jesuit Fr. Paolo dall’Oglio (see photo).
“Usually, when he is in Syria, we speak over the phone — Nuncio Msgr. Mario Zenari tells AsiaNews. “So far I haven’t heard from him at all. I only learned the news this morning and I am shocked. We will have to wait to see if it is true” .
The Italian Foreign Ministry is also checking the news.
According to some agencies, Fr. Paolo entered Syria through the north, in an area controlled by the rebels and was kidnapped in Raqqa, by fundamentalist groups, part of the group for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, enemies of Assad.
“I’m surprised — adds the nuncio — that this happened to him. He is known in those areas, and enjoys some respect in rebel held areas.”
Since 1982, the Roman born Jesuit of 58 has worked for the restoration of Catholic monastery Mar Musa (Monastery of Saint Moses the Abyssinian), in the desert north of the Syrian capital, establishing a monastic community open to dialogue with Islam . At the outbreak of the so-called “Arab Spring” in Damascus, Fr. Dall’Oglio took a position that was critical of the Assad regime and so, in 2011, Damascus decreed his expulsion, which took place later in 2012. Since leaving the Country, Fr. Dall’Oglio has often returned to the north controlled by the Syrian rebels.
Archbishop Zenari pushes for caution: “Here in Syria news has often been reported that has later been proven false or inaccurate, such as the reports of three monks having been beheaded, they were not monks, or reports of the release of the two Orthodox bishops, also proven false.”
“In the end — said the nuncio — nothing really surprises us anymore here in Syria, given the chaos that reigns. Earlier the situation was clear enough, but now is very complicated and the conflict has become incredibly interwoven. What is really shocking is the suffering of the poor, human rights violations. We must try to understand the intentions of all parties involved, how they move, who is behind what, who is most in the right and who in the wrong and what their main aim is. This is an immense task, and in the meantime the country is falling apart and we can no longer see a light at the end of the tunnel. “
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian Kurds Call to Arms Against Jihadists
After Kurdish leader’s death; Damascus, Homs, Aleppo fatalities
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, JULY 30 — Kurdish People’s Defence Units (YPG) called Tuesday for mass mobilization against the jihadist groups vying with them for power. The Kurdish group, which controls part of Syrian territory along the border with Turkey, issued the call in response to a Kurdish leader’s assassination.
The YPG’s statement was circulated by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) and asked for help to protect the zones they control from attacks by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the Al-Nusra Front.
The call came a few hours after the assassination of Isa Huso, a member of the Kurdish Supreme Council (an umbrella group encompassing most of the Kurdish movements active in Syria) in Qamishli, northeastern Syria. Huso had just got into his car when a bomb placed in it exploded, reports the Kurdish news agency Firat. Two weeks ago the YPG took control of the Ras Al-Ayn border crossing with Turkey, but battles against the jihadists continue in the region.
Four other people were killed today and another 17 injured in mortar shelling in Damascus, reports the state-run agency SANA, which accused “terrorist” groups (the term they use for armed rebel fighters) of being behind the attacks. At least 11 children were also killed in several raids by the Syrian army in Homs and the Aleppo region, reports the SOHR, which is linked to the opposition. An air strike near Aleppo killed 7 girls and 3 women, while 4 children lost their lives in Homs.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian Army and Hizballah Capture Homs — Opening Way to Aleppo and Decisive Assad Victory
Three months after winning the strategic town of Al Qusayr, the combined Syrian and Hizballah armies have captured the historic Muslim Brotherhood city of Homs, 162 kilometers northeast of the capital Damascus. DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that Sunday, July 28, jeeps with recoilless guns, pick-up trucks with anti air guns — all loaded with defeated rebel Farouq Brigades fighters were to be seen fleeing the city. As they fled, Syrian and Hizballah army tanks facing no resistance rolled into the center of Homs, the old city and the Khladiyeh district and hoisted images of President Bashar Assad.
The fall of Homs, which the rebels designated from the start of the uprising “capital of the revolution,” opens the way for Syrian-Hizballah forces to move north on Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Top Saudi Investor Says US Energy Boom Could Doom Kingdom’s Economy
America’s energy boom is putting a scare into Saudi Arabia.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal warned in a letter to Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi and others that the U.S. boom of shale oil and gas will reduce its thirst for Saudi crude oil.
“With all due respect to your Highness’ viewpoint about shale gas and that it poses no danger on Saudi economy at ‘the present time,’“ read a translation of the letter, dated May 13 but only recently tweeted on a Twitter page previously used by Alwaleed. “I was hoping that your Highness would also shed light and focus on the danger of this matter in the ‘not-so-distant future,’ especially that America and some Asian countries made big discoveries in shale gas extraction which will affect the oil industry around the world in general and Saudi Arabia in particular…”
The prince, who is worth an estimated $20 billion and founded Kingdom Holding, warned that the nation’s near total reliance on oil revenues could leave it vulnerable when demand drops due to other nations’ domestic production.
“Our country is facing a threat with the continuation of its near-complete reliance on oil, especially as 92 percent of the budget for this year depends on oil,” wrote Alwaleed, who owns seven percent of the voting shares in News Corp, the former parent company of Fox News. “It is necessary to diversify sources of revenue, establish a clear vision for that and start implementing it immediately.”
News of the letter comes after a newly published report from OPEC which showed that the group’s export revenue hit a record high of $1.26 trillion in 2012. Forecasts have questioned whether that earning level can be sustained amid competition from fracking in countries that import OPEC oil and gas.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkish Border City Boosts Syria Ready Wear Exports
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JULY 30 — Turkey’s ready wear exports to Syria, currently torn by civil unrest and violence, increased eight-fold in the first six months of the year as Anatolia news agency reports. The exports from the southern province of Kilis, near Turkey’s border with Syria, have multiplied by an even more incredible 85 times, according to data obtained by the Turkish Exporters Council (TIM). Exports from Kilis reached USD 4.5 million in the first six months, from USD 53,000 of last year.
During the period, when Turkey’s overall ready wear exports surged by almost 7%, its exports to Syria jumped to USD 22 million from USD 2.6 million during the same period last year.
Abdulkadir Cikmaz, chairman of Southeast Anatolia Exporter Unions (GAIB), said particularly in the regions controlled by Syrian opposition groups, clothes and food needs were at a critical level. “Tradesmen buy the goods at issue (garment goods) from us by paying cash,” he said, explaining the reason behind the remarkable rise in Turkey’s exports in general and those from Kilis in particular. Cikmaz noted that this rise shouldn’t be perceived as temporary, as the need of opposition-controlled regions would be permanent.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Nepal Follows China’s ‘Advice’ And Clamps Down on Tibetan Refugees
As of today, 19 security cameras are active in the majority Tibetan areas of Boudhanath and Jorpati. Monks and activists for human rights define the move “anti-democratic” and accuse Kathmandu of satisfying Beijing in return for economic aid.
Kathmandu (AsiaNews) — As of today Nepal has initiated a program of control and surveillance of Tibetan activists and refugees present in the country. The government in Kathmandu has installed security cameras at Boudhanath Stupa and Jorpati, high-density Tibetan areas in the capital. The goal, say the authorities, is to monitor the activities of refugees, human rights activists and supporters of the Tibetan cause, to avoid any kind of anti-Chinese plan or campaign. According to AsiaNews sources, anonymous for security reasons, “the control program is the result of pressure by the Chinese government. Beijing has promised economic aid in exchange for this security service.”
The program has cost the government 2.5 million Nepali rupees (about 19,800 Euros). As explained by the police, 19 CCTV cameras will monitor the activities in the Tibetan-majority areas, while 16 more cameras will be concentrated in one area of ​​the Boudhanath Stupa, a sacred place of Buddhism located in Kathmandu. According to the authorities in fact, Boudhanath and Jorpati are “the hot zone of the Free Tibet movement and anti-Chinese activities”.
The Nepalese security agencies will record everything: from road and pedestrian traffic, to religious activities, even going on in the temples. Many Tibetan monks and activists have criticized the move. According to Ananda, a Buddhist religious leader, “recording prayer activities within the Boudhanath Stupa violates democratic rights.”
Nepal has 1,414 kilometer long common border with Tibet and from 1990-2006 the parliamentary monarchy, on the advice of India, allowed the free movement of Tibetan exiles in the country. The Dalai Lama and members of the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala (India) visited the country several times, which is home to more than 20 thousand refugees. After the abolition of the monarchy in 2006 and the rise to power of communist and Maoist formations Nepal has changed course, abandoning its historic ally India and tying closer relations with China. In exchange for economic aid, Beijing has called for the closure of the borders with Tibet and the repression of any anti-Chinese demonstration.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Two Charged Over Northbridge Tourist Bashing
POLICE have charged a man and a woman over the bashing of four tourists in Northbridge on Monday night, which left two of the victims in hospital.
The four tourists from Sweden and New Zealand were attacked about 9.30pm in the Perth Cultural Centre near James Street.
A 35-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman from Sweden were taken to Sir Charles Gardiner Hospital for treatment for head and facial injuries.
They had only arrived in Perth just a few hours before they were attacked.
A 31-year-old woman and a 27-year-old man both from New Zealand received minor injuries in the assault and were treated at the scene.
Late yesterday Perth City Detectives took three people in for questioning over the incident. Two of them, a 31-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman, were later charged.
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The man of no fixed address has been charged with assault occasioning bodily harm, acts or omissions causing bodily harm and stealing.
The woman, also of no fixed address, has been charged with two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm.
Both were refused bail and will appear in the Perth Magistrates Court today.
A 27-year-old woman was released without charge.
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
Amnesty Will End Republican Party
Los Angeles , CA International Security expert Alex Alexiev is predicting that amnesty for 11 million illegal immigrants in America is destined to destroy the Republican Party. He believes that the Senate Bill 744 amnesty program, if approved by the House of Representatives, will spark the creation of a new political party or by empowering a “One Party Rule” system of government in the Unted States. European Immigration Disaster Looming: He points to the current immigration disaster in Europe where violence and unrest between Muslim immigrants and the European population has been escalated to raise the speculation that Civil War could come to European countries soon. A six segment FDN interview series featuring Alex Alexiev is soon to be released online and to public cable channels througout California and in major cities across the country.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Coast Guard Rescues 116 Syrians, Somalis, Iraqis Off Sicily
Migrants include 37 children, 22 women
(ANSA) — Rome, July 30 — The Italian Coast Guard rescued a giant raft with 116 migrants off the coast of Sicily on Tuesday.
Among those on board were 37 children and 22 women, two of whom were taken to hospital. The passengers identified themselves as Syrian, Somali and Iraqi who had departed from Greece.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Kyenge Calls Racist Attacks ‘Intolerable’
Demands Northern League chief put immediate end to them
(ANSA) — Rome, July 30 — Italian Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge — Italy’s first black cabinet minister — on Tuesday called continued attacks by militants of the anti-immigrant Northern League “intolerable” and demanded the party’s national chief, Lombardy Governor of Roberto Maroni, do something to put an end to them.
“I consider the continued and repeated attacks by members of the Northern League to be intolerable,” Kyenge told reporters on Tuesday.
“Despite having different ideas,” people and political leaders must “face each other with the ideas, and not through insults or antics like those that took place in the council area of the municipality of Cantu’,” Kyenge said.
On Monday the Congo-born minister was invited to speak to the town council by the mayor of the town near Lake Como. Two Northern League councillors and an ex-Northern League councillor subsequently left the hall in protest.
“Maroni must immediately call on militants to stop attacking me now. If he doesn’t, I will be forced to decline the invitation to the Northern League festival,” said Kyenge.
She is scheduled to debate Veneto’s Northern League governor, Luca Zaia, at an event on the northeastern Italian coast.
The Cantu’ incident came the same day Lower House MP Giulia Narduolo of the Democratic Party (PD) denounced Andrea Draghi, a Northern League councillor in Montagnana in Veneto, for a Facebook photo and television ad slogan comparing Kyenge to a gorilla.
Narduolo, who called on local politicians in Montagnana to expel Draghi, said that when she saw the post, “I thought ‘here we go again’“.
“After the insults…the launching of bananas…Cecile Kyenge undergoes another vulgar and boorish act of aggression and after the orangutans and monkeys, is compared to a gorilla,” said Narduolo.
In some of the latest attacks against Kyenge, mannequins smeared with blood-red paint and anti-immigrant messages were found in the town of Cervia just as she arrived there for political meetings on Friday.
Later, during her speech, someone in the audience threw a banana, a likely reference to comments by a Senator from the anti-immigration Northern League who compared her to an orangutan.
That was followed by slurs against Kyenge, some in support of the banana-thrower, posted on the Facebook pages of local politicians in Tuscany and the Veneto region.
Meanwhile, Enrico Rossi, the governor of Tuscany, called for legal action Monday against a councillor from the city of Prato for comments about Kyenge posted on Facebook.
He said the comments were not jokes, but incitements to hate crimes.
And police said Monday a man was under investigation after threatening violence against Kyenge. Police searched the home of the 61-year-old in Verona but found no weapons.
The continued attacks and racial slurs have “outraged many citizens and raised concern about the racist feelings (expressed by certain national leaders),” House Speaker Laura Boldrini said on Monday.
Kyenge commented Tuesday that “in addition to hurting (me)” the attacks and insults “injure the civil conscience of the majority of this country”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
United Kingdom: ‘Ministers Feud Over Migrants Message’
The Daily Telegraph
The Conservative-Liberal Democrats governing coalition is under fresh pressure over the issue of immigration policy amid the recent launch of a Tory campaign to urge illegal migrants to go home or face arrest, writes The Daily Telegraph.
Lib Dem business secretary Vince Cable slammed the pilot campaign currently operating in London in which trucks bearing banners threatening illegal immigrants with arrest circulate the streets, as “stupid and offensive”.
The parties are keenly divided on the immigration issue, with Lib Dems believeing their coalition partners are too focused on the matter. In March, it emerged that the government was considering a plan to require schools to check the immigration status of their pupils, while Prime Minister David Cameron unveiled a plan to cut benefit payments to jobless EU immigrants after six months.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Minister Brings Muslims Along to Gay Parade
THE HAGUE, 30/07/13 — Campaigners for gay rights within Muslim groups will sail through the Amsterdam canals with Emancipation Minister Jet Bussemaker in the annual Gay Parade on 3 August.
The recognition and acceptance of homosexuality is particularly low within Turkish and Moroccan communities, research by the Social and Cultural Planning Bureau (SCP) shows. Bussemaker wants to signal that people have the right to be gay, “no matter what your roots.”
The SCP study showed that three-quarters of the Turkish and Moroccan Dutch would have a problem if their child had a same-sex partner. Less than one-third would accept gay marriage.
Invited passengers on Bussemaker’s boat will include representatives of Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese, Antillean and Hindustani consultative bodies and partnerships and support points for homosexual immigrant youths. Additionally, the Turkish-Dutch homosexual activist Döne Fil will be on board.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
Last year, Entertainment Weekly magazine honored the arrival of a viciously anti-Catholic tilt on the FX show “American Horror Story: Asylum” by promoting how actress “Jessica Lange returns, this time as a terrifying nun.”
Bigotry sells — big — in Tinseltown. This year, after that “Asylum” season aired, Hollywood has honored the show again by showering it with 17 Emmy nominations. There’s a reason Hollywood revels in Catholic-bashing. The Catholic Church best represents for them an ancient organization with a creed, which refuses to genuflect before the modern god of La La Land: untrammeled whims of lust and greed.
Ryan Murphy, the gay-activist “genius” behind “Horror Story” and Fox’s “Glee,” proclaimed, “I’m just writing what I would like to see. I’m scared of aliens, and I’m scared of Nazis, and I’m scared of nuns. So it’s the perfect stew of horror and fear.” Does that comment make this man controversial? Not at all. Murphy was “mainstream” enough to host a $25,000-a-head Democratic fundraiser at his home in June of 2012 starring that staunch Christian, Barack Obama.
Murphy’s warped psyche created a mental asylum named Briarcliff and put Lange’s perverted and deranged character, “Sister Jude,” in charge of the lunatics. The vomit came spewing from the first episode on Oct. 17, with a fantasy sequence where Sister Jude fantasized about stripping to a small red nightie and straddling Monsignor Howard, the priest assigned to the asylum, as they gazed into each other’s eyes longingly.
In episode two, a nymphomaniac patient named Shelley taunted a psychiatrist: “I saw you flirting with Our Lady of Perpetual Virginity. Want to see my candy apple?” Later, the psychiatrist hired a prostitute who dressed up in a nun’s habit. In an attempted exorcism, a demon-possessed man declared that Lange’s Sister Jude had performed oral sex on 53 men before becoming a nun. “You were the town pump, weren’t you, Sister?”
In episode three, the young nun Sister Mary Eunice became possessed by a demon, so she could have all the Catholic-taunting fun: “Your little bride of Christ has had an awakening, not to the Lord, but to the power of sex, lust, desire.”
Later in the episode, a psychiatrist shattered a statue of the Virgin Mary as he yelled, “Whore, whore, whore!”
When the Catholic League tried to protest the show before it aired with full-page advertisements in the trade publications Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, they were spurned, and told their ad was — ready? — “inappropriate.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Self Defense, Wrong; Killing Babies, OK?
[WARNING: Disturbing content.]
It appears that this country is clearly going downhill fast. More and more people want the government to take care of them while they sit around and do nothing. More and more people won’t take the time to see the media’s negative influence in matters of race (such as the Zimmerman trial). And more and more people are becoming numb to the liberal agenda that human life, if in the form of an infant or unborn child, is not precious at all.
There has been much debate over the abortion issue over the years. Every time I write about it or my web site posts a column about it, we get tons of response. Some will write in saying the abortion issue is a “loser” for Republicans. They write that we should all just stay out of the lives of women. This type of comment continues to amaze me, because these people act as if there is only one person involved: the woman. What about the unborn child?
To be clear, a sperm cell is alive. An egg is alive. When they come together, the human being is alive. Those are simply the facts, and no one can argue otherwise. So, the abortion debate really becomes this: At what point in the development of a human being is it still ok to kill the child and not feel that it is morally wrong?
[…]
Apparently, to some on the left, there is NO point at which it is morally wrong. As pointed out in an article last year in the Journal of Medical Ethics, the authors argue that it should be legal to murder the child AFTER birth, because the child does not “possess a moral right to life.” The authors claim the newborn child is not actually a “person” yet.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Same Sex Marriage of Convenience Between David Cameron and Barack Obama
British Prime Minister David Cameron wants to “export” same sex marriage around the world so other countries can follow suit.
Cameron, whose latest main claim to fame seems to be ‘boldly’ turning up barefoot when attending local fairs and grandfather-like slippered when he’s vacationing in Portugal, had made the boast at a reception for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans-sexual community at 10 Downing Street that Britain was now “the best place to be gay, lesbian or transgender anywhere in Europe”.
A good thing he said Europe because Canada and the U.S. are in the same self-styled race.
Western leaders like Cameron and America’s President Barack Obama use their election to public office as their authority to go beyond the countries they were elected to serve by imposing their agendas on the world. It’s exporting gay marriage around the world for Cameron and imposing socialism and forcing taxpayers to pay for abortion in foreign countries for Obama.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
@Norway Mass Killer Applies to University to Study Political Science
Political reality engages political science engages political reality that would be fascinating.
When did Woking turn Pakistani? It used to be a typical English middle class commuter town. Actually, I think I sense another of Churchill’s gathering storms. If not then soon there will be nothing left of England that is English at all. Several people have predicted civil war in 20 years’ time. I think it may come sooner. Columnist Peter Hitchens recently accused Enoch Powell of being a bigot, although Hitchens, a one time 1960s Marxist student who wanted mass immigration to smash the England he hated, has now begun to see that perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea after all. Powell was not a bigot, just a realist and a man of an iq greatly in excess of that of Mr Hitchens or any of our other politicians either bar Churchill. Was he a bigot because, as he wrote to me shortly before he died, he foresaw the day, as we all can now, when the indigenous English – no such thing according to David Cameron – will be a minority in their own land and vastly outnumbered by those of South Asian and African descent? Dead on track at the moment Enoch.