Gates of Vienna News Feed 7/8/2013

Twenty-two employees of the Egyptian branch of Al Jazeera have resigned, citing pressure from the head office to bias their coverage of current events in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, the Egyptian opposition group Tamarod has called for the banning of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In other news, statistics from the Department of Agriculture reveal that 101 million Americans receive some sort of food aid. That number exceeds the total number of private sector employees in the United States.

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

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

Financial Crisis
» 101m Americans Get Food Aid From Federal Gov’t; More Than the Number of Private Sector Workers
 
USA
» 15 Signs That the Quality of Jobs in America is Going Downhill Really Fast
» 71% Agree Founding Fathers Would be Ashamed of Country Today, And They’re Right
» Another Problem With Mass Spying: Centralized Data Creates an Easy Mark for Hackers
» AT&T Joins Verizon, Facebook in Selling Customer Data
» Berlusconi Mulls New York Race
» Bin Laden Raid Files Reportedly Purged From Pentagon Computers, Sent to CIA
» Eighty Percent of the Packaged Foods on Our Grocers Shelves Are Banned in Other Countries
» Incredible Technology: How to See a Black Hole
» Is Barack Obama Mentally Unstable?
» None Dare Call it Fascism: How the NSA Has (Already) Privatized Tyranny
» Obama Ducks Criticism of His Support of Muslim Brotherhood Morsi With Lies
» Obama’s NSA Operates on Two Sets of Books. Who is Watching the Watchers?
» ObamaCare Individual Mandate Still on
» The U.S. Border: A Constitution-Free Zone
» ‘Train Wreck’ ObamaCare Begins to Unravel; Massive Government Boondoggle Set to Self-Destruct by 2015
» TSA Conducted Pat Downs on Family Members of Plane Crash Victims
 
Canada
» Ancient Native Americans’ Living Descendants Revealed
 
Europe and the EU
» Britain’s Powerful Enemies of Freedom
» Forget Paris: Stymied by Socialist Policies, The French Start to Quit France
» Italy: Swiss Money Flight Prelate Talks to Investigators
» Italy: LVMH Buys 80% of Loro Piana for 2 Billion Euros
» UK: A Vicious Crime Boss, His Corrupt Police Cronies and a Scandal That Could Have Been Buried for Ever
» UK: Man Covered in Blood is Arrested by Police Inside York Minster Within Yards of the Archbishop of Canterbury ‘After Disrupting Church General Synod Service’
» UK: New Crisis for Scotland Yard as it Faces Claims Gangster Boss Infiltrated Intelligence Unit by Paying Corrupt Officers
» UK: Staffordshire Bull Terrier and Dog Walker Pictured Covered in Blood After Animal Ripped Head Off Family’s Pet Dog in Horrific Attack
» UK: Teenage Girls Who Commit Serious Crimes Will Not be Jailed Because Government is Slashing Prison Places to Save Money
 
North Africa
» Al Jazeera Staff Resign After ‘Biased Coverage’
» Egypt: Activist Criticises Father Al Qaradawi Over Pro-Mursi Fatwa
» Egyptian Opposition Calls for Brotherhood to be Outlawed
» Egypt: Dozens of Morsi Supporters Killed
» Massacre in Cairo Deepens Egypt Crisis
» Obama Tells Egyptian Minister That He is a Muslim
» Tunisia: Jailed FEMEN Activist Slapped With New Charges
 
Middle East
» Syria: Assad’s Army Set to Reconquer Homs
 
South Asia
» Osama Bin Laden Was Stopped by the Police for Speeding Just a Year After 9/11, Reveals Stunning Secret Pakistani Report Into Raid That Killed Him
» Pakistan: 3 Christian Boys Were Killed by Police Due to Love Affair With Muslim Girls
 
Far East
» China’s Coal Burning Cutting Lives Short by Years
» Japan Withdraws Support for HPV Vaccines Due to Infertility Side Effects
 
Australia — Pacific
» Australian Outback is Much Like Mars, Opals Suggest
 
Immigration
» Congressman: Obama ‘Jamming’ Amnesty on House
» Denmark: Venstre to Unhappy Muslims: “Find Somewhere Else to Live”
» Germany: Old ‘Guest Workers’ Much More Likely to be Poor
» Italy: Callers to Anti-Immigrant Radio Show Denounce Pope’s Visit
» Italy: Union of Islamic Communities Pleased With Pope’s Words
» One Hundred Children Missing in Norway
» Our Last Hope for Justice in the Illegal Aliens Bill the Senate Has Approved
» Pope Francis Visits Migrant Island of Lampedusa
» Pope Holds Mass for Perished Migrants
 
Culture Wars
» Bestiality Brothels Are ‘Spreading Through Germany’ Warns Campaigner as Abusers Turn to Sex With Animals as ‘Lifestyle Choice’
» ‘Hail Satan!’: The New Pro-Choice Mantra
» Traditional Marriage and Equal Rights
 
General
» Chemtrails, Nanoaluminum and Neurodegenerative and Neurodevelopmental Effects
» Martyr Myth: Inside the Minds of Suicide Bombers
 

101m Americans Get Food Aid From Federal Gov’t; More Than the Number of Private Sector Workers

(CNSNews.com) — The number of Americans receiving subsidized food assistance from the federal government has risen to 101 million, representing roughly a third of the U.S. population.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that a total of 101,000,000 people currently participate in at least one of the 15 food programs offered by the agency, at a cost of $114 billion in fiscal year 2012.

That means the number of Americans receiving food assistance has surpassed the number of private sector workers in the U.S.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 97,180,000 full-time private sector workers in 2012.

The population of the U.S. is 316.2 million people, meaning nearly a third of Americans receive food aid from the government.

Of the 101 million receiving food benefits, a record 47 million Americans participated in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps. The USDA describes SNAP as the “largest program in the domestic hunger safety net.”

The USDA says the number of Americans on food stamps is a “historically high figure that has risen with the economic downturn.”

SNAP has a monthly average of 46.7 million participants, or 22.5 million households. Food stamps alone had a budget of $88.6 billion in FY 2012.

The USDA also offers nutrition assistance for pregnant women, school children and seniors.

The National School Lunch program provides 32 million students with low-cost or no-cost meals daily; 10.6 million participate in the School Breakfast Program; and 8.9 million receive benefits from the Woman, Infants and Children (WIC) program each month, the latter designed for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women, as well as children younger than 5 years old.

In addition, 3.3 million children at day care centers receive snacks through the Child and Adult Care Food Program.

There’s also a Special Milk Program for schools and a Summer Food Service Program, through which 2.3 million children received aid in July 2011 during summer vacation.

At farmer’s markets, 864,000 seniors receive benefits to purchase food and 1.9 million women and children use coupons from the program.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

15 Signs That the Quality of Jobs in America is Going Downhill Really Fast

Trying to find a job in America today can be an incredibly frustrating experience. Most of the jobs that are available seem to pay very little, and there is intense competition for just about any job that is open. But it wasn’t always like this. When I was in high school, I was immediately hired when I applied for a job at McDonalds because they were so desperate for workers that they would hire just about anyone that could flip a burger. But in this economic environment, a single nationwide hiring event conducted by McDonalds resulted in a million job applications, and only a small percentage of those applicants were actually hired. Our economy simply does not produce enough jobs for everyone anymore, and the percentage of “good jobs” continues to decline. That means that it is getting really hard to find a job that will enable you to support a family, and a lot of people end up doing jobs that they are massively overqualified for. But when times are tough, people are going to do what they have to do in order to survive.

One thing that we have seen in recent years is an explosion in the number of “temp workers” in America. Even some of the largest companies in America are using them. They like the flexibility of being able to bring in workers when they need them and of being able to dump them the moment they don’t need them anymore. Sadly, those that work in the “temp industry” often work in deplorable conditions for very little pay. The following is a brief excerpt from an absolutely outstanding Pro Publica article[url]…

In cities all across the country, workers stand on street corners, line up in alleys or wait in a neon-lit beauty salon for rickety vans to whisk them off to warehouses miles away. Some vans are so packed that to get to work, people must squat on milk crates, sit on the laps of passengers they do not know or sometimes lie on the floor, the other workers’ feet on top of them.

This is not Mexico. It is not Guatemala or Honduras. This is Chicago, New Jersey, Boston.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

71% Agree Founding Fathers Would be Ashamed of Country Today, And They’re Right

From Orwellian spying tactics employed by the NSA to warrantless searches and a police force turned militaristic, a new Gallup poll finds that 71% of Americans agree that the nation’s Founding Fathers would be truly ashamed of what the country has become. And they’re right.

In 2013 the United States represents virtually everything that those who framed the nation’s doctrine attempted to protect against — and it’s all thanks to a small group of corrupt politicians who are devastating the home of 313 million US citizens. Whether we’re talking about the utterly hated NDAA which allows for the indefinite (and unconstitutional) detention of Americans as if they were combatant terrorists or the bloated presence of the Federal Reserve banking system, the signers of the Declaration of Independence would not even recognize this country at this point in time.

But it’s not just the founders who would be rightfully upset. Thankfully, this Gallup poll indicates that an overwhelming majority of citizens are aware of the rampant downfall that this nation has taken during the fight against ‘terrorism’ and rise of ‘safety regulations’ that are hitting our struggling nation like a recurring avalanche. One unconstitutional law or regulation after another is pushed through using the guise of ‘safety’ while ignoring not only the consequences but the blatant disregard for our rights.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Another Problem With Mass Spying: Centralized Data Creates an Easy Mark for Hackers

By Gathering Data On Americans In One Place, The Government Is Creating An Attractive Target For Hackers

As if we needed another reason to oppose mass spying on the American public, Zdnet reports that the NSA database could be hacked by Chinese or -other lurkers:

What’s missing in this discussion [of NSA spying] is this: how secure is the NSA’s spying system?If a foreign entity wanted to spy on US companies or individuals, would it try to tackle the problem directly by targeting the specific company or individual in its electronic spying attempts? It might, but that’s a lot of work for an uncertain payoff.

A much more efficient approach would be to hack into a surveillance system that already has access to the information. Far better to hack into the NSA spying system at Google, or at Facebook, or at Microsoft (if such an NSA system exists, of course)…

Information is safest when it is diversified in many different places. By gathering data on Americans in one place, the government is creating an easy mark for hackers.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

AT&T Joins Verizon, Facebook in Selling Customer Data

AT&T has announced that it will begin selling customers’ smart phone data to the highest bidder, putting the telecommunications giant in line with Verizon, Facebook and other competitors that quietly use a consumer’s history for marketing purposes.

The company claims its new privacy policy, to be updated within “the next few weeks,” exists to “deliver more relevant advertising” to users based on which apps they use and their location, which is provided by GPS-tracking. Apparently recognizing the natural privacy concerns a customer might have, AT&T assured the public that all data would be aggregated and made anonymous to prevent individual identification…

“Instead of merely offering customers a trusted conduit for communication, carriers are coming to see subscribers as sources of data that can be mined for profit, a practice more common among providers of free online services like Google and Facebook,” the Wall Street Journal wrote about the matter in May.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Berlusconi Mulls New York Race

by Andy Borowitz [satire]

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—In a stunning bid for a political comeback, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said today that he was considering running for office in New York City.

Mr. Berlusconi announced his intentions after several local polls showed him with a higher approval rating than the candidates currently on offer in the city.

For the disgraced former Prime Minister, the chance to start over again in New York is “like a dream come true.”

“In Italy, you make one little mistake, they throw you in jail seven years,” he said. “New Yorkers are much more forgiving.”

Mr. Berlusconi said that he had not yet decided what office to run for, but was leaning toward public advocate.

“Once they see how good Silvio does at that, they make him mayor or governor, no?” he said, with a booming laugh.

Mr. Berlusconi said that he was unconcerned by rumors of a possible bid for office in New York by another former European politician, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

“Just let him try,” he said. “Do I look worried? I am not worried. I walk down street, people tell me thumbs up. New York loves Silvio.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Bin Laden Raid Files Reportedly Purged From Pentagon Computers, Sent to CIA

The nation’s top special operations commander ordered military files about the Navy SEAL raid on Usama bin Laden’s hideout to be purged from Defense Department computers and sent to the CIA, where they could be more easily shielded from ever being made public.

The secret move, described briefly in a draft report by the Pentagon’s inspector general, set off no alarms within the Obama administration even though it appears to have sidestepped federal rules and perhaps also the Freedom of Information Act.

An acknowledgement by Adm. William McRaven of his actions was quietly removed from the final version of an inspector general’s report published weeks ago. A spokesman for the admiral declined to comment. The CIA, noting that the bin Laden mission was overseen by then-CIA Director Leon Panetta before he became defense secretary, said that the SEALs were effectively assigned to work temporarily for the CIA, which has presidential authority to conduct covert operations.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Eighty Percent of the Packaged Foods on Our Grocers Shelves Are Banned in Other Countries

(NaturalNews) According to the new book Rich Food, Poor Food, ingredients commonly found in up to 80 percent of all pre-packaged foods on grocers shelves in the U.S. have been banned in other countries. As alarming as such information is, our food safety outlook becomes even bleaker when we consider other banned and toxic food items.

The toxic banned ingredients in our food

In the book, authors Mira and Jason Calton provide a list of banned ingredients which they term “Banned Bad Boys” as well as the countries which have banned them. Among the items is Olestra — commonly used in low/no-fat snack foods and known to cause serious gastrointestinal issues — which has been banned in the United Kingdom and Canada.

Worse is brominated vegetable oil, a substance found in Mountain Dew and Fresca which has been banned in more than 100 countries. As the authors state, brominated vegetable oil “has been linked to basically every form of thyroid disease — from cancer to autoimmune diseases — known to man.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Incredible Technology: How to See a Black Hole

Black holes are essentially invisible, but astronomers are developing technology to image the immediate surroundings of these enigmas like never before. Within a few years, experts say, scientists may have the first-ever picture of the environment around a black hole, and could even spot the theorized “shadow” of a black hole itself.

Black holes are hard to see in detail because the large ones are all far away. The closest supermassive black hole is the one thought to inhabit the center of the Milky Way, called Sagittarius A* (pronounced “Sagittarius A-star”), which lies about 26,000 light-years away. This is the first target for an ambitious international project to image a black hole in greater detail than ever before, called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).

The EHT will combine observations from telescopes all over the world, including facilities in the United States, Mexico, Chile, France, Greenland and the South Pole, into one virtual image with a resolution equal to what would be achieved by a single telescope the size of the distance between the separated facilities.

“This is really an unprecedented, unique experiment,” said EHT team member Jason Dexter, an astrophysical theorist at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s going to give us more direct information than we’ve ever had to understand what happens extremely close to black holes. It’s very exciting, and this project is really going to come of age and start delivering amazing results in the next few years.”

From Earth, Sagittarius A* looks about as big as a grapefruit would on the moon. When the Event Horizon Telescope is fully realized, it should be able to resolve details about the size of a golf ball on the moon. That’s close enough to see the light emitted by gas as it spirals in toward its doom inside the black hole.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Is Barack Obama Mentally Unstable?

Who is Barack Hussein Obama, the man in the White House? Without a doubt, Obama is the most un vetted, unaccomplished, unqualified person to ever to occupy the Oval Office in American history. Bill Clinton (in reference to Obama’s inexperience) is reported to have told Ted Kennedy during the 2008 campaign, “A few years ago this guy (Obama) would have been carrying our bags.” Aside from Obama being completely and totally unqualified to be the leader of the free world do we even know for sure that Obama is mentally stable?

Dr. Sam Vaknin the world’s leading expert on narcissism and the author of “Malignant Self Love “ has said that “ Obama’s language, posture and demeanor and the testimonies of his closest, dearest and nearest suggest that Obama is a narcissist or he may have Narcissistic Personality Disorder.” Narcissists have a grandiose, inflated, messiah like self image and cannot stand to be criticized. Obama’s Christ like view of himself is very clearly revealed in his Democratic nomination victory speech in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 3, 2008 in which he tells a worshipping audience, “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” Clearly, this is a delusional statement. At the end of Barack’s Super Tuesday speech in Chicago on February 5, 2008 Obama makes another ludicrous and insane pronouncement telling his followers “We are the ones that we have been waiting for.” This is narcissistic double speak; in translation what Obama is really saying is, “I am the one the world has been waiting for.”…

With so much of Obama’s past hidden and shrouded in secrecy, how can we find out who Barack Obama really is? There is no better way to know a person than by what he says. So let us see what is revealed about Obama by his own words, in his own book “Dreams from My Father.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

None Dare Call it Fascism: How the NSA Has (Already) Privatized Tyranny

So let’s break it down, shall we? What’s the biggest secret exposed by Snowden so far? That the NSA engages in ubiquitous surveillance on pretty much all forms of communication in the US, of both domestic as well as internationally-bound traffic? Well, we kinda knew that already. Back in 2005 AT&T Telecom engineer Mark Klein blew the whistle on the NSA’s “secret room” in the Folsom Street CO (Central Office). Any kind of analysis of that setup (and Klein even included the connection diagrams) would give you a decent idea of what was going on. So no, ubiquitous surveillance wasn’t much of a surprise, not if you were paying careful attention.

What IS a surprise was just how ed up and sloppy the whole NSA operation is. In fact, during his live chat via The Guardian’s website on June 17th, Snowden said this:

Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications.

In other words, the National Security Agency just let a bunch of freelance contractors more or less run wild with unlimited access to the most sensitive conceivable data of any and every US citizen along with a goodly portion of communications of non-US residents as well.

Monitoring? Controls? Audits? Are you shittin’ me? But how can we be absolutely sure, you might ask, that Snowden was telling the truth? Precisely because even a low-level contractor was able to access and download highly classified PowerPoint presentations and a whole smorgasbord of super secret spy stuff and then leak it to the world! (In modern computer networks this is trivial to control.)

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama Ducks Criticism of His Support of Muslim Brotherhood Morsi With Lies

A lie is a lie in any language. A lie is a lie in any country.

And on today’s political front there is no bigger liar than President Barack Hussein Obama.

Obama, who reiterated only yesterday that the U.S. is not aligned with and is not supporting any particular political party or group while condemning the ongoing violence across Egypt, is lying and his condemnation of the violence merely the far away mewlings of a paper tiger.

Obama gave Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi $250-million only last March 5th. Obama also gave Morsi 200 Abrams tanks and 12 F-16s delivered in 2013 with the promise of another eight by the end of this year.

That’s hardcore support of the Muslim Brotherhood of which Morsi is a member in good standing…

Moreover, as Egyptians prepare for massive protests against the U.S. government-backed Muslim Brotherhood regime of Mohamed Morsi, the Obama administration is set to deploy hundreds of American troops to Egypt.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama’s NSA Operates on Two Sets of Books. Who is Watching the Watchers?

Washington and the National Security Agency (NSA) are operating on two sets of books. One that everyday Americans have to go by and a second set for President Barack Obama, his benefactors and political allies. It’s the U.S. Constitution versus Executive Orders. The U.S. citizens and journalists versus President Obama.

Can anyone cite one executive order that has been overturned by Congress or the Judiciary? If not, then where’s the balance of power? Wake up. It doesn’t exist.

Corruption and abuse cannot be detected and exposed when there are no constitutional checks and balances in play. Otherwise freedom of speech and a free press operate in name only. They are dead when our system is operated exclusively or more precisely — tyrannically by executive orders, in this case signed by one person — the President, who is currently Barack Obama. This voids constitutional protections, operations and jurisdictions. Congress and the Judiciary are merely rubber stamps for executive mandates. This is un-American.

Not only is Obama’s National Security Agency (NSA) under fire for targeting U.S. citizens inside the United States and their worldwide espionage practices, they are stonewalling journalists’ ability to expose abuses within the spy agency itself by denying Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by hiding behind Executive Order 13526. Even more disturbing, the NSA dismisses its U.S. victims who seek redress from NSA misconduct, and the journalists who try to expose it, as potential national security threats to the United States. Who is watching the watchers?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

ObamaCare Individual Mandate Still on

The Obama administration may have delayed a key provision of the Affordable Care Act concerning businesses last week, but another provision that would affect those businesses’ employees — the mandate that they must have health insurance next year — is still in place.

The trouble is, the majority of those people are unaware of that mandate.

To turn that disadvantage around, businesses, nonprofits and government officials are undertaking a massive outreach effort this summer, one that will accelerate as Oct. 1 — the beginning of the open enrollment period — approaches.

It’s a big job. A national poll of the people who could most benefit by the act, also called Obamacare, shows that nearly three out of four respondents were not aware that they’ll have options to buy health coverage, or even that they have to buy it.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The U.S. Border: A Constitution-Free Zone

Where Officials Can Grab Your Computer And Copy Your Hard Drive

Did you know that the U.S. government considers the U.S. border to be a “constitution-free zone”? Did you know that customs officials can take your computer away from you, keep it for 30 days or more, and make a copy of everything that is on your hard drive? Sadly, this is actually true. According to the government, when you choose to cross the U.S. border you temporarily give up your constitutional rights. They can look at anything on your computer that they want to, and if they find anything that violates any law, they can use it against you in court. You may think twice about taking your computer out of the country after you read the rest of this article.

A lot of people think that it is the TSA that is doing this, but they are not supposed to be doing these kinds of searches. According to the official TSA blog, only customs officials are authorized to search laptops and other electronic devices…

Our officers might visually inspect your laptop and perform anexplosives trace detection test, but that’s it. Our officers don’t even turn computers on during inspection.

So where are the reports coming from? They’re coming from people who have had their laptops searched by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

According to the Fourth Amendment, U.S. citizens are never supposed to be searched without probable cause. But the U.S. government has decided to throw out the Fourth Amendment, and the courts have gone along with it. So now customs officials can search anything that you bring across the border — including your computer.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

‘Train Wreck’ ObamaCare Begins to Unravel; Massive Government Boondoggle Set to Self-Destruct by 2015

(NaturalNews) Even before it is fully implemented, Obamacare is already starting to self-destruct. The White House announced last week it will simply invent its own interpretation of the law and “delay the enforcement” of the employer Obamacare mandate for another year, to 2015. This, we are told, is to allow businesses more time to “smooth” compliance with the law, but that’s only the cover story. In reality, the entire private sector economy was preparing to fire tens of millions of workers, cut their hours and radically downsize companies in order to avoid going bankrupt under Obamacare mandates that no one can afford.

Described as a “train wreck” by one of its original authors (Sen. Baucus), and called a “fiasco for the ages” by the Wall Street Journal, Obamacare is a massive government boondoggle that’s headed for complete disaster.

In a desperate effort to get out of the way of that oncoming train, insurance companies are scrambling to flee the market entirely. America’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealth, has just announced it’s closing shop in California and walking away from all health insurance customers there.

That’s how bad Obamacare really is, even for the insurance companies: it’s better to close up shop than even attempt to serve customers under the government’s onerous rules.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

TSA Conducted Pat Downs on Family Members of Plane Crash Victims

Federal agency made life “more difficult” for both victims and loved ones

Instead of helping both victims and their loved ones who were involved in the tragic Asiana Airlines plane crash at San Francisco International Airport, the TSA made life “more difficult” for both by delaying victims for hours and conducting pat downs on grief-stricken family members who were still unaware of whether their loved ones were dead or alive…

In many ways this represents the worst example of TSA abuse ever recorded, underscoring the depth to which the federal agency’s regulations are mindlessly enforced with no consideration for circumstances whatsoever.

Even the incredibly rare event of a plane crashing at an airport is not enough for the TSA to employ some semblence of common sense and basic human compassion.

Hundreds of family members in the throes of emotional trauma unlike anything they have ever experienced before rush to the airport not knowing whether their loved ones are dead, alive or critically injured, and the TSA’s first thought is to carry out grope downs on all

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Ancient Native Americans’ Living Descendants Revealed

Ancient people who lived in in Northern America about 5,000 years ago have living descendants today, new research suggests.

Researchers reached that conclusion after comparing DNA from both fossil remains found on the northern coast of British Columbia, Canada, and from living people who belong to several First Nations tribes in the area.

The new results, published today (July 3) in the journal PLOS ONE, are consistent with nearby archaeological evidence suggesting a fairly continuous occupation of the region for the last 5,000 years.

“We’re finding links that tie maternal lineages from as far back as the mid-Holocene 5,000 years ago to living descendants living today in Native American communities,” said study co-author Ripan Malhi, a molecular anthropologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Ancient genomes

Past research showed that almost all of today’s Native Americans trace ancestry to six women who crossed the Bering Strait around 20,000 years ago. But getting a more detailed picture of history prior to colonization has proven difficult.

That’s partly because after colonization, European men often mixed with Native American women, meaning DNA from the genome as a whole, and from the Y chromosome (the male sex chromosome), contained a significant fraction of European markers.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Britain’s Powerful Enemies of Freedom

By Bruce Bawer

While ignored by all but a handful of major media, the decision to ban Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller from Britain received considerable coverage at the relatively small number of websites (this one, it seems, more than any) where it was recognized as an outrage. One detail that has perhaps been given insufficient attention, however, is the fact that this disgraceful betrayal of the traditions of British democracy came in response to a complaint by an organization called Hope Not Hate. (Or, as the group writes its name, “HOPE not hate.”)

What is Hope Not Hate? Founded in 2004 as a “positive antidote” to the British National Party, it “has the support of the Daily Mirror, trade unions, celebrities and community groups across the country.” I wrote about it here last year, after it issued a particularly odious piece of propaganda and character assassination entitled Counter-Jihad Report. The “report’s” release was timed to coincide with the trial of Anders Behring Breivik, for its whole point was to link the Norwegian mass murderer with the several dozen people around the world (myself included) who were included in the report’s list of critics of Islam — the idea being that those critics were purveyors of hate, pure and simple, and that Breivik’s killing spree was a natural consequence of their vile rhetoric.

About jihad itself — about 9/11, 7/7, and every other jihadist atrocity of recent decades — the “report” had absolutely nothing to say; on the contrary, the picture it painted was of a bunch of out-and-out hatemongers all of whom, in recent years, had resolved, for perverse reasons of their own (or, perhaps, without any reason at all), to despise and denounce a quarter of the earth’s population. An uninformed reader of the report might easily have concluded that these hatemongers’ common preoccupation — this thing they called jihad — was nothing more than a product of their twisted, feverish minds.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Forget Paris: Stymied by Socialist Policies, The French Start to Quit France

Ernest Hemingway once described Paris in spring as a time when “there were no problems except where to be happiest.” Clearly Hemingway did not foresee the springtime of 2013. For many of Paris’ residents right now — in fact, for many French in general — the answer to the question of where to be happiest is: pretty much anywhere but France.

The French, to be sure, are famous for their grumbling, regularly ranking near the bottom of global happiness indexes. Malaise, after all, is French for ill at ease. Yet even given the usual predilection to gloom, this year has been a standout. For months now, there has been a steady rumbling of people packing up and moving out. There are few reliable figures of the numbers of people leaving, in part because many are moving within the E.U., where there are no immigration requirements for Europeans.

Yet for those of us living in France, the exodus has been notable. Around New Year, a moving truck rolled up to our building and loaded the worldly possessions of the couple and four children living below us as they headed off to Singapore where better prospects awaited the father of the family. Earlier last week, a woman flopped on to a bench next to me in the schoolyard of the school our children both attend, fatigued from apartment-hunting in London, where she is moving with her family next month — driven out by what she describes as the aggravation of running a small business with 35-hour work weeks and by tax hikes introduced by President François Hollande, who was elected last May. “I resisted the move, but it’s become impossible,” she says.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Swiss Money Flight Prelate Talks to Investigators

Scarano linked to money-laundering scheme

(ANSA) — Rome, July 8 — Msgr Nunzio Scarano, the disgraced prelate at the centre of a money-laundering scandal, has been cooperating with prosecutors, officials said Monday.

They added Scarano, who was questioned for about three hours on Monday, has provided information that could be helpful in other probes.

The prelate was arrested last month on suspicion of planning to elude customs with 20 million euros in cash. He has denied charges that he conspired with a former Italian spy and a financial broker to try to secretly repatriate 20 million euros of laundered money from Switzerland to Italy.

At the same time, authorities also arrested Giovanni Maria Zito, an agent in the AISI intelligence agency, and Rome broker Giovanni Carenzio.

Police said Scarano and Zito got a private jet to fly back from Switzerland to Italy 20 million euros in cash for a family who were friends with Scarano.

Zito is suspected of getting 400,000 euros for arranging cover for the flight.

Scarano has been named in a separate probe into receiving money in Salerno near Naples.

The arrests have been linked by the Italian media to past probes into alleged irregularities at the Vatican Bank, IOR.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: LVMH Buys 80% of Loro Piana for 2 Billion Euros

Cashmere dynasty to retain company leadership

(ANSA) — Milan, July 8 — Italian cashmere and fine wool dynasty Loro Piana has sold 80% of the brand to French holding LVMH for two billion euros, according to a statement Monday.

Sergio and Pier Luigi Loro Piana will hold onto 20% of the family business and reserve their posts as directors. LVMH is the world’s largest luxury group.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

UK: A Vicious Crime Boss, His Corrupt Police Cronies and a Scandal That Could Have Been Buried for Ever

The Metropolitan Police is descending into what is possibly the most serious crisis in its existence.

It is being all but swamped by one claim of misconduct or cover-up after another, which add up to a devastating and fundamental indictment of the force.

In recent months, there has been a relentless series of scandals involving the police, with most of them swirling around the Met.

One of the most sickening was the claim that undercover officers had hunted for information to smear the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, in order to head off the damaging inquiry into the botched police investigation of that racially motivated crime.

There have been other claims of malpractice. The police are now said to be about to apologise for the use they made of the identities of dead children to create fake IDs for undercover officers.

In another development last week, a public inquiry found that a police marksman had no lawful justification for shooting dead 24-year-old gang member Azelle Rodney in London eight years ago.

And last May, in yet another deeply troubling case, the Home Secretary set up an inquiry into the murder of private detective Daniel Morgan in 1987.

There have been suspicions he may have been killed because he had uncovered evidence of corruption within the Metropolitan Police. In 2011, Scotland Yard confirmed that corrupt officers had obstructed the original investigation into the killing.

At the weekend, a fresh set of revelations surfaced which were no less shocking.

As the Sunday Times revealed, three Met detectives are claiming that David Hunt, an East End businessman named by a judge last week as the head of an organised crime network, had used corrupt officers inside Scotland Yard to help him evade justice for some three decades.

[Commenter: This is partly why, in 2004 and with 20 years service, I resigned. I was fortunate — I had a small business to set up, so the pension, whilst an incentive, could not overwhelm my disgust at what the Met. — and policing, in general — had become. The Met had a huge recruiting drive in 2000/2001 and the low quality of the recruits was staggering. Add to this: The malaevolence of political correctness, the marginalising of white, heterosexual male officers; the promotion (not just in rank) of woman and ethnic minorities at any cost as long as the diversity quotas are met; a tortuous procedural and justice system that saps the motivation of policeman and women who want to police/prevent/detect crime; truly self-serving senior officers led by a series of title-seeking commissioners whose priority is politics; and, the paramilitary-style uniform of some of our constables which alienates further a wary public. There’s a lot more, but space prevents my airing it. — JSteele , London, United Kingdom, 08/7/2013 ]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Man Covered in Blood is Arrested by Police Inside York Minster Within Yards of the Archbishop of Canterbury ‘After Disrupting Church General Synod Service’

[WARNING: Graphic Content.]

A man violently attacked Church of England officials within yards of the Archbishop of Canterbury at a special service yesterday.

The man scuffled with stewards at the doors of York Minster as Justin Welby led a procession to the altar.

The tall, white man shouted over the start of the service as staff tried to pin him down…

Dave Smith, an aide to Archbishop of York John Sentamu, was left with blood streaming from his nose and a steward received a minor head wound.

Both injuries happened as stewards tried to usher the blood-smeared man out of the archbishop’s path. Mr Smith was treated by ambulance crews and rejoined the service after changing his shirt. Archbishop Welby later left his seat to speak to him.

The protester was said to be a local man who is known to minster officials and the police. The Church said he had ‘personal health issues’ and was not known to be championing any particular cause.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: New Crisis for Scotland Yard as it Faces Claims Gangster Boss Infiltrated Intelligence Unit by Paying Corrupt Officers

Scotland Yard is facing a fresh crisis over claims its most sensitive units were ‘infiltrated’ by corrupt officers in the pay of a crime boss.

David Hunt, one of Britain’s leading organised criminals, is accused of bribing officers to help him evade justice.

Three whistleblowers have come forward to claim the 53-year-old compromised the work of teams dealing with informants, intelligence and protected witnesses.

They allege corrupt serving and former officers helped Hunt locate and intimidate a man into dropping his evidence.

And it is claimed that when senior officers were alerted they launched an internal inquiry into the whistleblowers that only served to help the gangster.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Staffordshire Bull Terrier and Dog Walker Pictured Covered in Blood After Animal Ripped Head Off Family’s Pet Dog in Horrific Attack

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

A woman was photographed dragging away her blood spattered Staffordshire bull terrier — just moments after it beheaded a tiny family pet in a horrific attack.

The woman — whose arms were also smeared with blood — pulled off her animal and fled down a street in Warrington, Cheshire, after it ripped off the head of a Pomeranian dog.

As the Pomeranian’s owner Gemma Antell, 30, looked on in horror, the bull terrier’s mistress was alleged to have defiantly said: ‘It’s not his fault — he’s only a baby’, before strolling off with friends…

‘Our little dog Elvis was brutally killed by another dog. The dog literally ripped his head off. It ripped Elvis in half. It is my son’s birthday and my kids are in tears and my whole family are traumatised.

‘I have had to leave a family party and take our dead family pet to the vets in a bag to be cremated — it was beyond horrific’

‘I have had to leave a family party and take our dead family pet to the vets in a bag to be cremated — it was beyond horrific.

‘The worst part of this is the dog “owners” witnessed the attack and just walked off. She said: “It’s not his fault, he’s only a baby”. She’s worse than the dog, because the dog doesn’t know any better.

‘It was on the lead the whole time. It dragged her in the garden she couldn’t control it. Elvis was attacked in his own garden and he is the size of a rat.’

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Teenage Girls Who Commit Serious Crimes Will Not be Jailed Because Government is Slashing Prison Places to Save Money

Teenage girls who commit serious crimes will no longer be jailed under controversial plans to cut costs.

The Youth Justice Board (YJB) is axing all prison places for girls and will instead house them in secure training centres.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage said the move showed ‘a deep lack of seriousness’ in the Government’s approach to tackling youth offending.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Al Jazeera Staff Resign After ‘Biased Coverage’

Anchor accuses management in Doha of provoking Egyptians

Cairo: The news channel Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr saw 22 members of staff resign on Monday in Egypt over what they alleged was coverage that was out of sync with real events in Egypt.

Anchor Karem Mahmoud announced that the staff had resigned in protest against what he called “biased coverage” of the events in Egypt by the Qatari broadcaster.

Mahmoud said that the resignations had been brought about by a perceived lack of commitment and Al Jazeera professionalism in media coverage, adding that “the management in Doha provokes sedition among the Egyptian people and has an agenda against Egypt and other Arab countries.”

Mahmoud added that the management used to instruct each staff member to favour the Muslim Brotherhood.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt: Activist Criticises Father Al Qaradawi Over Pro-Mursi Fatwa

Cairo: Leading Egyptian activist Abdul Rahman, the son of prominent Sunni cleric Yousuf Al Qaradawi, has criticised his father over issuing a fatwa or a religious edict labelling the army’s overthrow of Islamist president as invalid and urging Egyptians to restore him to power.

“The man (Mursi) promised to produce a constitution based on consensus, but did not keep his promise,” wrote Abdul Rahman in an article published in the independent newspaper Al Youm Al Saba Monday. “He promised to set up a national unity government, but did not keep his promise and to be president of all Egyptians, and did not fulfill the promise.”

The military unseated Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood last week, one year after taking office, after millions of Egyptians took to the streets demanding he resign and call early presidential elections.

Abdul Rahman, a critic of the Muslim Brotherhood to which his father belongs, accused the former Islamist president of acting to promote his group’s interests — echoing a charge frequently hurled by the secular opposition against Mursi.

“He was no more than a democratic facade of new autocracy,” said Abdul Rahman, referring to Mursi, who was Egypt’s first democratically elected president.

Al Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born TV preacher staying in Qatar, said in his fatwa released on Saturday that Mursi must be restored to power.

“Sharia (Islamic law) imposes on all believers allegiance to the elected president, to carry out his orders and adhere to his directives,” said the 86-year-old cleric.

“I call on all Egyptians, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, Muslim and Christian, liberal and Islamist to join ranks to protect the gains of the revolution,” he added, referring to a 2011 revolt that ousted Hosni Mubarak.

“This is not a mere political opinion, but a fatwa issued by the imam of moderation, a matter that has stunned, confused and pained me,” Qaradawi’s son said in his critique. “We all wished that the president (Mursi) would have completed his term and that the experiment of Egypt’s first elected civilian president would have succeeded, but he insisted on ending his legitimacy by allowing himself to be manipulated.”

The Brotherhood’s leaders have vowed that their followers will continue to camp out in Egypt’s major squares until Mursi regains power. They have called Mursi’s overthrow a “coup against democracy”.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Egyptian Opposition Calls for Brotherhood to be Outlawed

Egyptian opposition group Tamarod calls for an outlaw of the Muslim Brotherhood after weapons are found in its Cairo headquarters.

The Egyptian opposition group Tamarod, which led the recent protests that resulted in the ousting of President Mohammed Morsi, on Monday called on the country’s interim president Adly El-Mansour to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood to which Morsi belongs.

Tamarod’s demand came as Egyptian security forces closed and sealed the offices of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party in Cairo after finding in it weapons and materials that can be used to make explosives.

A similar demand was also made by Baha Anwar, spokesman for the Shiite Muslim community in Egypt which numbers one million and is subject to persecution by extremist Islamic organizations.

Anwar claimed that the authorities should ban the Muslim Brotherhood because its members threaten security, cause the deaths of protesters and provoke internal conflicts and violence in Egyptian society.

He also called for the prosecution of the Muslim Brotherhood, the former prime minister appointed on its behalf and of other ministers who were responsible for Egypt’s current situation.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Monday morning’s clashes between the Egyptian army and pro-Morsi protesters at the Republican Guard headquarters in Cairo has risen to 51 civilians and two soldiers, according to Al Ahram. 435 people were injured in the clashes, said the report.

Armed supporters of Morsi later kidnapped two Egyptian soldiers in the Ain Shams area of Cairo.

An army official, cited by state news agency MENA, confirmed the news, adding that the soldiers were pushed into a vehicle and forced to make pro-Morsi and anti-military statements on a loudspeaker.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt: Dozens of Morsi Supporters Killed

[WARNING: Graphic Content.]

Dozens of supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi are reported to have been killed outside a military facility and a nearby mosque in Egypt.

The latest death toll, according to Reuters, citing state TV, is 42. In addition to that, more 300 people have been injured, according to AFP.

Accounts vary of what exactly happened.

The Military contends that “an armed terrorist group” affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood tried to storm the Republican Guard headquarters — where Morsi is belived to be held — with live ammunition and firebombs shortly after dawn.

Here’s what Mohemed Saber el-Sebaei, who was praying outside the Republican Guard facility before suffering a head wound, told Patrick Kingsley of The Guardian:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Massacre in Cairo Deepens Egypt Crisis

At least 51 dead after gunmen open fire at Muslim Brotherhood protest against military coup in Egyptian capital.

A deadly shooting at the site of a sit-in by Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Cairo, demanding the reinstatement of ousted President Mohamed Morsi, has left dozens of people dead.

The Egyptian health ministry said at least 51 people had been killed and more than 300 injured in the incident early on Monday morning.

Egypt’s interim administration has expressed “deep regret” for those killed in violence in Cairo on Monday, it said in a statement carried on the state news agency.

The transitional administration also said it had formed a judicial committee to investigate the events. The statement called on protesters not to approach any military or “other vital installations”.

Mohamed Mohamed Ibrahim El-Beltagy, a Brotherhood MP, described the incident during dawn prayers after police had stormed the site, as a “massacre”.

About 500 people were also reportedly injured.

A doctor told Al Jazeera that “the majority of injured had gunshot wounds to the head”.

The Brotherhood said the dead and the injured have been taken to a makeshift hospital in the the Nasr City neighbourhood.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Gehad Haddad, a spokesman for Muslim Brotherhood, said that at around 3.30 in the morning, army and police forces started firing at sit-in protesters in front of the Republican Guard headquarters in Cairo.

“We have people hit in the head, we have bullets that exploded as they entered the body, cluttering organs and body parts” said Haddad.

“Every police force in the world understands how to disperse a sit-in. This is just a criminal activity targeting protesters.”

However, the military, which has set up checkpoints around Nasr City, said a “terrorist group” was responsible, adding that two officer had also been killed…

[Return to headlines]
 

Obama Tells Egyptian Minister That He is a Muslim

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said, “Obama told me he is still a Muslim, who supports the Muslim agenda.”

Aboul Gheit made this statement on Nile-TV. Here is a report on the incident by Israeli Today, an Egyptian magazine:

“Aboul Gheit said he had a one-on-one meeting with Obama, where the US President told him that He was still a Muslim, the son of a Muslim father, the step son of Muslim stepfather, that his half brothers in Kenya are Muslims, and that he was sympathetic towards the Muslim agenda.

“Aboul Gheit claimed Obama told the Arabs to show patience. Obama promised that once he overcame some domestic issues, like the Health care reform, he would show the Muslim World how to deal with Israel.”

For obvious reasons, most American media is ignoring this news event in Egypt.

Obama is the mainstream media’s darling. God forbid they expose him for being a Muslim. Imagine: If what Adul Gheit says is true, American voters have elected a Muslim as the Commander in Chief of the United States of America.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Tunisia: Jailed FEMEN Activist Slapped With New Charges

Amina Sboui faces trial for indecency and criminal association

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, JULY 8 — A Sousse appeals court slapped young FEMEN activist Amina Sboui with additional charges of criminally associating with three recently expelled fellow activists.

Sboui is in detention awaiting trial on indecency charges.

She was arrested in Kairouan on May 19 for spray-painting the word FEMEN on a wall near the mosque and for possession of a can of pepper spray.

The other three FEMEN activists, two French and one German, staged a topless protest demanding Sboui’s liberation. They were convicted of indecency and subsequently expelled. Sboui could face a stiff prison sentence if found guilty of the new charges.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Syria: Assad’s Army Set to Reconquer Homs

About 70 per cent of rebel-held areas have been destroyed. According to Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the ground and air offensive against Homs, the country’s third largest city and a symbol of rebellion since March 2011, continues.

Damascus (AsiaNews/Agencies) — On the tenth day of the regime’s offensive in Homs, at least two-thirds of rebel-held areas is destroyed, this according to Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, who added “Of all Syria’s cities, Homs has suffered the highest levels of destruction . . . . Images of Homs make it look like a world war has hit the city,”

With a population of around 800,000, Homs is Syria’s third largest city. Located 140 km north of Damascus, it is situated at a central strategic crossing.

State media and anti-government sources agree that, following recent attacks, the regular army controls much of the districts of Khaldiyeh and Bab Hud, as well as numerous buildings in the city centre.

For many activists, the regime is engaged in its most violent offensive since hostilities broke out in 2011.

“We are staring at a real humanitarian disaster in Homs. Assad, whose military machine was on the verge of defeat, became propped up by Iran and its Hezbollah proxy,” Syrian National Council (SNC) head Assi Jarba said.

Jarba, who offered Assad’s forces a truce for the duration of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins on Tuesday, was elected on Saturday to lead the SNC, replacing Moaz al-Khatib. He won by three votes with Saudi backing, over Mustafa al-Sabbagh, considered close to Qatar.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Osama Bin Laden Was Stopped by the Police for Speeding Just a Year After 9/11, Reveals Stunning Secret Pakistani Report Into Raid That Killed Him

Dr. Shakeel Afridi, now imprisoned in Pakistan for helping the U.S., wasn’t arrested for three weeks following the raid, allowing the CIA time to help him escape if U.S. officials had wanted to help him

A secret Pakistani report leaked online Monday provides a series of stunning revelations about the life and death of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, the long-time Al-Qaeda leader responsible for the 9/11 attacks against the United States in 2001.

The report, placed online by the Al Jazeera news network, recounts the testimony of more than 200 witnesses including bin Laden’s family members.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Pakistan: 3 Christian Boys Were Killed by Police Due to Love Affair With Muslim Girls

April 2013 up till now three Christian boys were killed by police due to love affair with Muslim girls. Afzal Masih s/o khadam 20 years old his cousin Ifftikhar Masih S/o. Amanat Masih 20 Moran Walla Sharkpur on 29th April 2013. On 10th of June Adnan Masih S/o. Riaz Masih was also tortured by Punjab police and killed him without any written complaint.

Now yesterday Farhad Masih 16 Years old Shibli town Gulshan Ravi Lahore was arrested by the Complaint (FIR) 579/13.PPC, 380/496 A. of Sakina Bibi mother of Rabia 16 Years old. The Local Muslims try to burnt Farhad’s house and willing to loot his house.

We observed that in this cases police constable and Investigation officers miss behaving with non Muslims and abusing them as well as threaten them about the love relation with Muslim Girls…

Due to huge pressure the S. P. Iqbal town Imtiaz Sarwar serenaded and made condition of life safety of Farhad Masih and his family. The conditions are:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

China’s Coal Burning Cutting Lives Short by Years

Historical study links higher levels of pollution to higher mortality.

by Richard A. Lovett

In the same northern areas of China where government used to provide free coal for heating, particulate matter in the air was 55% higher — and respiratory ailments shortened life expectancy by five years.

High levels of particulates from coal burning in China’s highly polluted north may have cut more than five years from life expectancy for the 500 million people who lived there in the 1990s, scientists report today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study can help to forecast the health effects of pollution in present-day China — where air quality has only gotten worse — as well as in other countries.

Chinese air pollution made global headlines during the 2008 Beijing Olympics and again this winter, when particulate levels in Beijing exceeded 700 micrograms per cubic metre — more than 50 times higher than those allowed by US air-quality standards.

But prior efforts to quantify the long-term risks of living in such conditions have been problematic, says Michael Greenstone, an environmental economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and a co-author of the latest study. That’s because earlier studies attempted to extrapolate health effects from US data, where even in the most polluted cities particulate levels are an order of magnitude lower than those found in China. Data for the health effects of high pollution levels are scarce, he says.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Japan Withdraws Support for HPV Vaccines Due to Infertility Side Effects

(NaturalNews) The government of Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is speaking out about the destructive side effects coming from popular, worldwide-promoted HPV vaccines Gardasil and Cervarix. Gardasil is Merck’s opus and Cervarix is manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.

As of today, an estimated 3.28 million Japanese people alone have been inoculated with these HPV vaccinations. So far, 1,968 adverse cases have been presented to the Japanese government, detailing severe medical side effects.

The Japanese people are reporting side effects ranging from “long-term pain and numbness to infertility and paralysis.” In the wake of these complaints, the Japanese government has decided to withdraw its support for these widely pushed and controversial HPV inoculations…

The HPV vaccinations have not been stalled or suspended in Japan. The government is just not actively promoting the use of them anymore. These HPV vaccines are still available for free to girls provided through subsidies, mandated by law. The only difference now is that Japanese medical institutions must now inform the young girls the government health ministry does not recommend the vaccines any longer…

Global pharmaceutical giant Merck isn’t listening to the ground reports of the vaccination’s awful side effects either, stating in a public decision, “While direct causal relationship between the vaccines and serious symptoms observed after inoculation has not been established at this time…We will continue to collaborate with all stakeholders, including (the health ministry), to monitor and verify safety data toward resumption of active promotion for HPV vaccination as soon as possible.”…

A Candadian medical study, conducted by the University of British Columbia’s Neural Dynamics Research Group, first reported by the Washington Examiner, included a list of Gardasil side effects that entailed, death, convulsions, paraesthesia, paralysis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, transverse myelitis, facial palsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, anaphylaxis, autoimmune disorders, and deep vein thrombosis,” among others.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Australian Outback is Much Like Mars, Opals Suggest

The red dirt in central Australia might be a close mimic for the red surface of Mars, suggests research that sheds light on how opals formed in the land Down Under.

Precious opal is Australia’s national gemstone. Both precious opal and common opal are made of amorphous spheres of silica 150 to 400 nanometers or billionths of a meter wide, but in precious opal, these spheres are arranged in highly orderly arrays, resulting in scintillating colors.

The main source of the world’s gem-quality opal is the red dirt of the Great Artesian Basin in central Australia, one of the largest continental basins on Earth. Precious opals have been mined there for more than a century, where they occur just within 165 feet (50 meters) of the surface.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Congressman: Obama ‘Jamming’ Amnesty on House

GOP risks kowtowing to president who ‘ignores oath of office’

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, is warning that the House of Representatives should pass no immigration bill at all rather than risk a terrible bill coming out of conference.

King told WND pro-amnesty Republicans are operating under a false premise, and he wants House Speaker John Boehner to be more clear on what he would allow to move forward on the House floor.

He joins other conservative House members who believe they could never support a bill that is embraced by Senate Democrats, so trying to find common ground now is fruitless.

“If the House passed border security and interior security and sent that over to the Senate, Harry Reid is not going to take that up. Chuck Schumer has said that citizenship has to be part of the deal. It’s not going to go to the president’s desk, so why would the House take up anything if there’s no prospect that we’re going to improve the immigration situation, just the prospect that they’re going to jam amnesty on us?” asked King, who cautioned that the Democratic agenda is transparent.

“It is about documenting undocumented Democrats. Jay Leno was right. That’s why every Democrat supports this, and that’s why Republicans should step back and wonder why it is that Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama are trying to help the political futures of Republicans. They are not,” he said. “We’re better off not to pass a bill out of the House because we leave ourselves vulnerable, plus we don’t accomplish anything that’s good. I don’t want to bring anything through the House. I don’t want to do that until we have at least a Republican majority in the United States Senate again and probably a president in the White House that has respect for his own oath of office.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Denmark: Venstre to Unhappy Muslims: “Find Somewhere Else to Live”

Venstre’s immigration spokesperson argues that it is a misguided attempt at tolerance to condone Islamic practices that contradict Danish values

Muslims who show no interest in adopting Danish values ought to think about why they settled in Denmark in the first place, the immigration spokesperson for leading opposition party Venstre argued in an opinion piece published in Politiken newspaper today.

In her piece, Inger Støjberg criticises Danish Muslims who actively try to shield themselves from Danish values and norms and who think that their religious beliefs should not be allowed to be mocked.

Støjberg pointed to a study of Danish Muslims in which 55 percent responded that criticising religion should be banned and 64 percent thought that free speech should be limited in particular circumstances.

“Denmark is the land of the Danes and you are more than welcome to become a Dane and take part in the work and community,” Støjberg wrote. “But to those Muslims who constantly work against us, constantly question us, are unsatisfied, encourage going to holy war in Syria, commit honour killings, belittle our values, flag or way of living — to all of you: Go and find somewhere else to live. No one is forcing you to stay. We accepted you and now it’s up to you to show the necessary respect for our society and the values it is built upon.”

Støjberg recently met with the Islamic faith group Det Islamiske Trossamfund for a debate, and in her article she criticised them for not condemning the use of stoning as a punishment or the practice of parents arranging marriages for their children.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Germany: Old ‘Guest Workers’ Much More Likely to be Poor

Foreigners are more than three times as likely to be poor in their old age as Germans, new data shows. Former “guest workers” are the most likely to be living in poverty.

Politicians are calling on young people across the European Union to migrate to Germany to escape the high unemployment rates at home and fill empty work places. But their predecessors who answered a similar call 40 and 50 years ago have ended up largely struggling, a new study shows.

Eric Seils from the Economics and Social Science Institute of the Hans Böckler Foundation said that 41.5 percent of foreign pensions in Germany were living in poverty — compared with 15.1 percent of the population in general.

Single people with €848 a month to live on are considered “in danger” of poverty, he said in a statement.

His study of recent data showed that 12.7 percent of foreigner pensioners were also receiving emergency top-up social security payments, while the figure for German pensioners was just 2.1 percent.

The Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper suggested that people who moved to Germany as “guest workers” from Italy, Turkey, Spain and the former Yugoslavia during the 1950s often worked for large industrial companies. Yet they mostly took on jobs that were not very skilled and thus were poorly paid. And many lost their jobs in the 1960s when the economy stalled.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Callers to Anti-Immigrant Radio Show Denounce Pope’s Visit

‘If Francis likes migrants they should live in the Vatican’

(ANSA) — Milan, July 8 — While Muslim groups and Vatican officials cheered Pope Francis’s visit to an immigration centre Monday, callers to the anti-immigrant Radio Padania Libera radio station in northern Italy were less pleased.

Several denounced immigration and said if the pope liked immigrants so well, he should invite them to live in Vatican City.

Others suggested immigrants are responsible for violence in society.

“I would have expected a few words for those who are killed and raped by them,” said Giovanni.

Another woman called herself a “very indignant Catholic,” complaining that Pope Francis and his predecessors should denounce immigrant violence.

Radio Padania Libera is the official station of the anti-immigrant Northern League party.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Union of Islamic Communities Pleased With Pope’s Words

‘Beautiful’ for interfaith relations, says Elizr

(see related) (ANSA) — Rome, July 8 — Pope Francis delivered “beautiful words that have a very important meaning” during his visit to an historic migrant stop in southern Italy, a spokesman for Italy’s Islamic communities said Monday.

Ezzildin Elzir, president of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy, said he hoped that the pope’s comments reaching out to the Islamic community at the opening of the holy month of Ramadan means continued interfaith dialogue.

Earlier in the day Francis saluted Muslim immigrants during a visit to the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, a stepping stone to Europe.

The pope chose Lampedusa, closer to Africa than Italy, as his first trip as pontiff to focus attention on the many asylum seekers who die trying to cross the Mediterranean.

“To the dear, Muslim immigrants who today, this evening, are beginning the fast of Ramadan, with wishes for abundant spiritual fruit,” Francis said. “The Church is close to you in the search for a more dignified life for you and your families”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

One Hundred Children Missing in Norway

With more than a hundred children gone missing without a trace from asylum seekers’ residences across Norway, Save the Children has sounded the alarm and expressed fears the minors have fallen victim to human trafficking.

In the past year, 106 children have been reported as missing from various shelters for asylum seekers in Norway. In the past four years, that tally comes up to a total of 237 minors.

“When a Norwegian child dissaperas, huge search-and-rescue operations are arranged and all the authorities are involved,” Thale Skybak at Save the Children Norway told the Dagbladet newspaper on Monday.

“That is not the case when an asylum child goes missing.”

The children and teenagers in question had all travelled to Norway as unaccompanied minors. Many were living at asylum residences in wait for their interviews with the Norwegian Directorate of Immigrations (Utlendingsdirektoratet — UDI), while some were also waiting to have their biological age verified to establish whether they were in fact minors.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Our Last Hope for Justice in the Illegal Aliens Bill the Senate Has Approved

The Country’s Future Hangs On the Congress House

Sometime this week beginning July 08, 2013, when our Congress returns from their Independence Day (week) vacation, the last hope for Conservatives to stop a wholesale abandonment of guiding nation’s founder’s principles will happen when the House of Representatives gather and hopefully stop the national suicide of granting amnesty to untold millions of illegal aliens who broke our laws coming here and now DEMAND to be granted citizenship which our unprincipled Congressional Senate socialistic liberal Democrats plus FOURTEEN turncoat traitor Republicans chose to act in conspiratory agreement.

Our national debt, thanks to the excessive generosity of our Usurper president and his profligate spending socialist liberal Democrats, has skyrocketed to a point very close to SEVENTEEN TRILLION DOLLARS; an amount that is obscenely irrational and extremely certain to eventually result in out and out national BANKRUPTCY.

But even with this knowledge of sure doom if allowed to continue, these Democrat spendthrifts want to break the camel’s back by heaping more billions and trillions of indebtedness just for the sake of gaining more votes in upcoming elections which will SURELY cause the absolute downfall of our country. The ultra sad part of this dichotomy is the mainstream body of the Democrat Party which believes and goes along with the principle of total bankruptcy for the entire nation just on their Party leaders verbal assurance all will rosy and peachy. One wonders just how much crud they’ll believe.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Pope Francis Visits Migrant Island of Lampedusa

Pope Francis made his first visit outside Rome Monday to Lampedusa where he criticised what he called the “globalisation of indifference”. At least 40 migrants from Africa and the Middle East have died trying to reach the Sicilian island this year.

Pope Francis traveled Monday to the tiny Sicilian island of Lampedusa to pray for migrants lost at sea, going to the farthest reaches of Italy to throw a wreath of flowers into the sea as yet another boatload of Eritrean migrants came ashore.

Pope Francis laid a wreath in the port of Lampedusa on Monday in memory of the thousands of migrants from Africa who have died trying to reach the tiny Sicilian island in unsafe and overcrowded boats.

Francis’ choice of Lampedusa for his first official trip outside Rome is highly symbolic for the new pontiff, who has placed the poor and dispossessed at the centre of his papacy and has urged the Church to return to its mission of serving them.

His trip comes at the start of the summer months when for the past two decades the island has seen a steady stream of migrant boats arriving on its shores.

Thousands of banner-waving islanders welcomed Francis at the port where he arrived aboard a coast guard vessel accompanied by a flotilla of fishing boats. He spoke with some young African migrants in T-shirts before heading off to celebrate mass.

At the mass, due to take place in a sports field which served as a reception centre for thousands who fled Arab Spring unrest in North Africa in 2011, he was to use a wooden chalice carved out of the wood of a migrant boat by a local carpenter.

Christopher Hein, director of the Italian Council for Refugees, told the Catholic newspaper Avvenire the pope’s visit was “an extremely important gesture” that would help keep attention on the migrant issue.

Only 113 kilometres (70 miles) from Tunisia, Lampedusa, a sleepy island which normally lives off fishing and tourism, has become one of the main points of entry into Europe for poor and desperate migrants willing to risk the crossing in overcrowded and unsafe fishing vessels and small boats.

Thousands are known to have died over the years and unknown numbers of others are presumed lost without trace.

With the Church struggling to get to grips with fresh accusations of financial shenanigans at the Vatican bank and memories of the paedophile priests scandal still fresh, the visit to Lampedusa is designed to be sober in tone, in keeping with the pope’s drive to get past the upheavals of recent years.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Pope Holds Mass for Perished Migrants

Pope Francis arrived on Monday on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, a key destination of tens of thousands of would-be immigrants from Africa, in a visit the Vatican hopes will raise awareness of their plight.

In his first trip outside of Rome since his election in March, Pope Francis will hold a mass of mourning for those who have lost their lives trying to reach Europe.

Just hours before he touched down, 166 migrants arrived in Lampedusa, joining tens of thousands of others who have fled northern Africa in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions that began in 2011.

Pope Francis boarded a boat to cast a wreath into the sea and met with a group of recent arrivals on the same pier where they first set foot on dry land after long voyages often begun in impoverished and war-torn parts of Africa and the Middle East.

The pope will also celebrate mass with a cross and a chalice made from the wood of rickety fishing boats that migrants typically arrive on, mainly from Libya and Tunisia.

The pope, formerly the archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio, is himself the son of Italian immigrant parents in Argentina and frequently makes reference to this heritage.

Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, head of the Vatican’s migrant department, said he hoped the visit would prompt “concrete concern and solidarity to improve situations that have become inhuman and unacceptable”.

The pope will also meet with the local population — a fishing community of 6,000 — on an island of 20 square kilometres (eight square miles).

Local mayor Giusi Nicolini said she wanted more help in dealing with migrant arrivals from “the rest of the country and Europe”, denouncing the deaths at sea as “a great injustice in the Mediterranean”.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Bestiality Brothels Are ‘Spreading Through Germany’ Warns Campaigner as Abusers Turn to Sex With Animals as ‘Lifestyle Choice’

[WARNING: Disturbing Content. ]

Bestiality brothels are spreading through Germany faster than ever thanks to a law that makes animal porn illegal but sex with animals legal, a livestock protection officer has warned.

Madeleine Martin told the Frankfurter Rundschau that current laws were not protecting animals from predatory zoophiles who are increasingly able to turn to bestiality as a ‘lifestyle choice’.

She highlighted one case where a farmer in the Gross-Gerau region of southwest Germany, noticed his once friendly flock of sheep were beginning to shy away from human contact.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

‘Hail Satan!’: The New Pro-Choice Mantra

In the war between life and death, all eyes are on Texas as the Lone Star State legislature is poised to pass a sweeping late-term abortion ban. Gov. Rick Perry has pledged to sign the bill into law. The lines have been clearly drawn surrounding this progress toward equality and civil rights for pre-born Americans. Not surprisingly, as the pro-abortion side loses legislative battle after legislative battle, its “true colors” are coming into focus. Those colors are darker than many might have imagined.

During all civil rights struggles there occurs, it seems, some flashpoint in time that indelibly sears into the conscience of a culture, with clarity, the profound realization that one side represents good and the other side evil. Who can forget the images in the 1960s of law enforcement officials turning the hoses — and the dogs — on peaceful African-America demonstrators for merely petitioning their government for racial equality? Millions of fence-sitters across America witnessed this gross injustice on television, sat up in their chairs and finally said: “This is wrong. I will not stand for it.”

Although, our pro-abortion media will not likely give it much coverage, a similar such flashpoint of clarity occurred this past Tuesday in the Texas State House as pro-abortion activists, throughout the day, shouted “Hail Satan!” in an effort to drown out pro-life speeches and an impromptu rendering of “Amazing Grace.” CNN’s Josh Rubin confirmed this astonishing display by tweeting on site: “Crowd of anti-abortion activists giving speeches while a group of people chant hail Satan in the background.”

I would like to take a moment to pause and personally thank our Satan-hailing friends for their brutally wicked honesty. What may have seemed, at the time, a glib bid to mock the peaceful Christians in attendance has, instead, demonstrated to the world exactly from whom (or what) derives the revolting inhumanity that is all things “pro-choice.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Traditional Marriage and Equal Rights

Redefining marriage threatens religious liberty

The existence of orderly society is based on reproduction resulting from the union of a man and a woman. The resulting children need both a man and woman in order to be successful, well protected, cared for, loved, and for society to survive over time and grow independent of government.

Marriage predates government but the government conveniently recognizes, protects, and promotes marriage in order to insure its survivability and the survivability of our species.

When marriage is promoted and protected, other relationships are not banned. There are common-law couples, heterosexual couples who never marry, homosexual couples, and single individuals who choose not to be in a relationship. The government does not force these adults to make the choice of marriage and thus no one should have the right to redefine marriage for everyone else.

Ryan T. Anderson said, “Redefining marriage would legislate a new principle that marriage is whatever emotional bond the government says it is.” (The Heritage Foundation, March 11, 2013)

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Chemtrails, Nanoaluminum and Neurodegenerative and Neurodevelopmental Effects

By Russell L. Blaylock, M.D.

What Chemtrails Are Doing To Your Brain — Neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock Reveals Shocking Facts

The Internet is littered with stories of “chemtrails” and geoengineering to combat “global warming” and until recently I took these stories with a grain of salt. One of the main reasons for my skepticism was that I rarely saw what they were describing in the skies. But over the past several years I have notice a great number of these trails and I have to admit they are not like the contrails I grew up seeing in the skies. They are extensive, quite broad, are laid in a definite pattern and slowly evolve into artificial clouds. Of particular concern is that there are now so many dozens every day are littering the skies.

My major concern is that there is evidence that they are spraying tons of nanosized aluminum compounds. It has been demonstrated in the scientific and medical literature that nanosized particles are infinitely more reactive and induce intense inflammation in a number of tissues. Of special concern is the effect of these nanoparticles on the brain and spinal cord, as a growing list of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s dementia, Parkinson’s disease and Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) are strongly related to exposure to environmental aluminum.

Nanoparticles of aluminum are not only infinitely more inflammatory, they also easily penetrate the brain by a number of routes, including the blood and olfactory nerves (the smell nerves in the nose). Studies have shown that these particles pass along the olfactory neural tracts, which connect directly to the area of the brain that is not only most effected by Alzheimer’s disease, but also the earliest affected in the course of the disease. It also has the highest level of brain aluminum in Alzheimer’s cases.

The intranasal route of exposure makes spraying of massive amounts of nanoaluminum into the skies especially hazardous, as it will be inhaled by people of all ages, including babies and small children for many hours. We know that older people have the greatest reaction to this airborne aluminum. Because of the nanosizing of the aluminum particles being used, home filtering system will not remove the aluminum, thus prolonging exposure, even indoors.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Martyr Myth: Inside the Minds of Suicide Bombers

Portraying suicide bombers as psychologically normal is wrong and plays into the hands of their leaders, says criminal-justice researcher Adam Lankford

IN THE aftermath of 9/11, terrorism experts in the US made a bold and counter-intuitive claim: the suicide terrorists were psychologically normal. When it came to their state of mind, they were not so different from US Special Forces agents. Just because they deliberately crashed planes into buildings, that didn’t make them suicidal — it simply meant they were willing to die for a cause they believed in.

This argument was stated over and over and became the orthodoxy. “We’d like to believe these are crazed fanatics,” said CIA terror expert Jerrold Post in 2006. “Not true… as individuals, this is normal behaviour.”

I disagree. Far from being psychologically normal, suicide terrorists are suicidal. They kill themselves to escape crises or unbearable pain. Until we recognise this, attempts to stop the attacks are doomed to fail.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

4 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 7/8/2013

  1. For further information on the status of Indians in North America…….read about the fly in the ointment the size of an albatross……poses a real difficulty for land claims enthusiasts and proponents/parasites attached to the “Indian Industry”…..

    Read……”The Riddle of The Bones” by Roger Downey, its the story of “Kennewick Man”

    http://www.amazon.ca/Riddle-Bones-Politics-Science-Kennewick/dp/0387988777

    Seems there was a fellow wandering around on the banks of the Columbia river area near the Tri-Cities in Oregon/Washington state areas…..back in those heady Clinton days of ’96…..

    Lo and behold his skull was found and a huge wave of huffing and puffing expoded in Indian band offices across the area……seems it was their “long lost brother”……the skull was carbon dated and it was an oldie…..over 5000 years oldie……..and then the anthropologists got in on the action and thats when the shit hit the fan………not only was the skull and oldie…..it belonged to Whitey!!!!!!

    Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh……….

    Regards, Don Laird
    Dogtown Bastard
    Alberta, Canada

  2. It seems we have food banks in America on a large scale as well. Shocked at the figure of 101m, isn’t that a third of the population? Food banks are all over Britain and on the Continent as well. And yet America and Britain are run by multi-millionaires if not billionaires. The richest man in Britain was the Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and yet Cameron is sending billions of pounds in aid to India whilst we starve. Why not just go round to see Mr Mittal and ask him to stump up? Or do Hindus not do Christian charity?

  3. Russia Today has just informed me that the new governor of the Bank of England, former Canadian Central Bank chief, Mark Carney, is a former employee of Goldman Sachs, as RT’s Max Keiser says, another one. Keiser thinks, therefore, that Carney will do nothing to revive the British economy but everything to benefit the banksters, as he calls them. They really have us by the short and curlies; but of course the New World Order is nothing to do with them. The world is at a standstill, in a sort of limbo as the third world continues to flood into the first. I can but compare the situation with what I remember of my teens in the 1960s. Then the world was still governed by white as opposed to third world hegemony. It was full of energy and vitality. Now it seems to be slowing down to zero. Somebody told me that there is a theory that our weather pattern now is the result of the sun slowing down too, going into a sort of hibernation. This is a bit worrying but I expect it will see me out. However, it is almost as if the whole activity of the world as well is following the same pattern. There is something that isn’t just quite right and I can’t put my finger on it; but perhaps Mr Carney can.

  4. I question the conclusion of the “Martyr Myth” article that terrorists are just suicidal. It sounds like just another evasion of the real issue, militant Islam.
    Consider the left’s previous evasion, that poverty or “oppression” causes suicide bombings. It’s been amply disproved by the wealth, education and status of the 9/11 terrorists, the underwear bomber, and others.
    So now they’re trying to complain that the well-educated Atta, a 9/11 terrorist, may have been suicidal even without Islam? Just because he was relatively socially isolated? Let me ask you this – In what non-Islamic countries do suicidal, mentally ill people work together in groups of 19 or more to kill not only themselves, but hundreds of innocent bystanders? The vase majority of mentally ill people cannot form a working partnership with even one other person. A few, like the Colorado school shooters, band together in groups of 2 or 3 to achieve destruction. But we’re supposed to believe that Islamic nut jobs regularly band together in groups of 19, or even 100’s, and that their ill deeds are purely the result of mental illness? Please.
    The difference is Islam, Islam, Islam.
    (This is not say that Islam doesn’t make good use of the mentally ill. Perfectly sane leaders of Islamic terrorist groups often solicit among the mentally ill or maladjusted to try to find volunteers for suicide missions. One British Muslim woman encouraged her sons to rape or seduce young Muslim girls; she then counseled the disgraced young women that, by becoming suicide bombers, they could bring honor instead of shame to their families.)

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