Major Nidal Hasan, the Killer Shrink of Fort Hood, was convicted today by a military jury on all 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. The sentencing phase of the trial will begin on Monday.
In other news, a study in Norway has discovered that people who are afflicted by neurosis have smaller brains with fewer neural connections.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Fjordman, Frontinus, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, KP, LS, 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.
India’s Richest Man Loses 5.6 Billion Dollars Amid Rupee Collapse
Mukesh Ambani, who heads the parent company of the largest oil refineries in the world, still has net assets of 17.5 billion dollars. In August, the Indian currency has reached its lowest ever against the dollar, bringing down even the Mumbai Stock Exchange.
New Delhi (AsiaNews / Agencies) — Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in India, has become one of the “poorest” billionaires in the country: the collapse of the rupee to a historic low burnt 24% of his fortune. From May 1st to present the president of Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), operator of the largest oil refinery complex in the world, has lost 5.6 billion dollars. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the 56-year old billionaire is “left” with net assets of 17.5 billion dollars.
Last month, the Indian rupee has touched record lows against the dollar, causing the collapse of more than 3% of the Mumbai Stock Exchange. A reduction of monetary stimulus by the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) had negative repercussions on the local market.
“With the depreciation of the rupee — Munesh Khanna, senior partner of Grant Thortnton Llp in Mumbai told Bloomberg — the value of investments of Indian billionaires is worth less in dollars. Foreign institutional investors are invested in the larger-cap companies and are pulling out money from India. That is putting a lot of pressure on those companies”.
The wealth of Anil Ambani, Mukesh’s younger brother, was also hit: he has lost 1.3 billion dollars (17%). His fortune is estimated at 6.3 billion dollars and he is considered the eighth richest man in India.
Much of the production of the two refineries at Jamnagar Reliance — in the Indian state of Gujarat — is for export and sale in U.S.. A stronger dollar increases earnings in rupees the Mukesh company.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Confidential Memo at the Heart of the Global Financial Crisis
When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn’t believe it.
The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak’s fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3 percent unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.
The Treasury official playing the bankers’ secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama’s leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world’s central bank…
But what was the use of turning US banks into derivatives casinos if money would flee to nations with safer banking laws?
The answer conceived by the Big Bank Five: eliminate controls on banks in every nation on the planet — in one single move. It was as brilliant as it was insanely dangerous.
[Comment: Highly recommended reading. ]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
They Actually Expect us to Have Faith in These Financial Markets After This Week?
What in the world is happening to our financial markets? Trading on the Nasdaq was halted on Thursday for more than 3 hours, and the only formal explanation that we got was that it was a “technical issue”. On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs made thousands of “erroneous trades” that are now being canceled. If those trades had not been canceled, it could have cost Goldman “hundreds of millions of dollars” according to the Wall Street Journal. How nice for them that they get a “do over”. When Knight Capital made a similar “trading error”, they were not so fortunate. Our financial system has become completely and totally dependent on computers, and that means that it is extremely vulnerable. After what we have witnessed this week, how can they actually expect us to have faith in these financial markets? And what happens if these “technical issues” get even worse?
The stoppage on the Nasdaq on Thursday was unprecedented. Trading in literally thousands of stocks and options was halted. Big names like Apple, Netflix, Intel and Facebook were affected.
As of right now, officials are not telling us what caused the “technical issue”, but there are rumblings that hacking was involved.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Allen West: The Gangster Culture is the Real Race Conversation That We Need to be Having
By Bryan Preston
Excerpt: [Allen West] noted that “when I was 15, when I was 16, my parents ensured that I was not bored.” The teens accused of shooting Chris Lane in the back claim that they killed him out of boredom. Juan Williams responded, “Let me be blunt, where are the civil rights leaders?
| — Hat tip: KP | [Return to headlines] |
As Predicted, Chris Lane Murder Was Gang Initiation Yet No Calls for ‘Justice’
As predicted in my article on the day the news broke over the Chris Lane two days ago, the three teenagers murdered the rising student via an impersonal gunshot to the back as part of a gang initiation. And Obama and other talking heads who were screaming from the rooftops over the Trayvon Martin case do not care.
The father of one teenager who turned down recruitment from the boys to join in their gang is now confirming my investigation into the event that the mainstream media once again utterly failed to even mention.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Resetting US Foreign Policy
Aside from the carnage in Benghazi, the most enduring image from Hillary Clinton’s tenure as US secretary of state was the fake remote control she brought with her to Moscow in 2009 with the word “Reset” in misspelled Russian embossed on it.
Clinton’s gimmick was meant to show that under President Barack Obama, American foreign policy would be fundamentally transformed. Since Obama and Clinton blamed much of the world’s troubles on the misdeeds of their country, under their stewardship of US foreign policy, the US would reset everything.
Around the globe, all bets were off.
Five years later we realize that Clinton’s embarrassing gesture was not a gimmick, but a dead serious pledge. Throughout the world, the Obama administration has radically altered America’s policies..
And disaster has followed. Never since America’s establishment has the US appeared so untrustworthy, destructive, irrelevant and impotent…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
CIA Author’s ‘Secret Key’ Unlocks CIA Redactions
“I was in the belly of the beast. I began to see the lengths to which the CIA will go to conceal unconstitutional operations, hide information from Congress and silence anyone inside who challenges it.” Those are the words of Kevin M. Shipp, a former category 1, highly decorated CIA agent who held positions as an agent on the protective detail of the director and deputy director of the CIA, a manager of ongoing operations, an internal Security Officer, a counterintelligence investigator tasked to ferret moles out of the CIA, a Counter Terrorism Center (CTC) officer, a protective operations team leader and a polygraph examiner.
While working to identify moles inside the agency in the wake of the 1994 Aldrich Ames spy scandal, Mr. Shipp uncovered a significant global vulnerability that if left uncorrected, allowed the personal identities of CIA agents working undercover to be disclosed to our enemies. Every day, every hour that this vulnerability was allowed to remain, the lives of countless undercover agents were in real jeopardy. “The more I looked into this, the worse it became.”
Upon concluding his lengthy investigation, he submitted an extremely detailed report of his findings to the top channels of the CIA. In fact, he submitted his explosive findings three times, only to learn that each time the report was “lost” or destroyed, with no record of it existing anywhere within the internal system. It was then he realized that something was terribly wrong. The third time he submitted his findings, he hand carried the report to the highest levels of the CIA. Yet, the hole remained unplugged and the lives of his fellow agents working undercover remained at risk.
[Comment: You’ll be stunned at what happened next to Mr.Shipp.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Daniel Ellsberg: US on Verge of Becoming Police State Under Obama
Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, says the United States is on the verge of becoming a police state as evidenced by the National Security Agency’s data collection programs and the treatment of secret document leakers Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning.
“We have not only the capability of a police state, but certain beginnings of it right now,” Ellsberg told The Huffington Post Wednesday. “And I absolutely agree with Edward Snowden. It’s worth a person’s life, prospect of assassination, or life in prison or life in exile — it’s worth that to try to restore our liberties and make this a democratic country.”
He cited the NSA’s phone- and Internet data collection programs as evidence that the nation has reached the “capability” of becoming a police state.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Drugs, Steel, And MKUltra: Engineering the Super-Soldier
The reference here is a January 2013 report funded by the Greenwall Foundation titled: “Enhanced Warfighters: Risk, Ethics, and Policy.”
The report utilized military consultants, and reflects what the National Security State is promoting as “the wave of the future.”
Of course, this is a done deal. Enhancement is already an overall experiment.
Here is a key quote from the report: “…cognitive and physical enhancements aim to create a super-soldier from a biomedical direction, such as with drugs and bionics.”
This indicates pharmaceutical attempts to increase endurance, focus, and pain threshold, but also to alter states of mind: mood, emotional range (restricted), attitude (controlled, stepped up aggression).
Whatever mad chemists can fantasize about — for instance, the boosting of leadership traits — they’ll try to induce it in the lab…
With utter frankness, the Greenwall report continues: “For battle, we want our soft organic bodies to perform more like machines.”
[Comment: “Rise of the BORG”. (BORG: name of aliens in Star Trek that assimilated biological beings into the machine collective.)]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Florida Imam Gets 25 Years in Prison for Aiding Pakistani Taliban
(Reuters) — A 78-year-old south Florida imam was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a judge on Friday for funneling more than $50,000 to the Pakistani Taliban.
Hafiz Kahn was convicted in March on four counts of providing money and support to the group, which the United States considers a terrorist organization. He had faced a maximum of 60 years in prison, and prosecutors sought a 15-year sentence.
“The seriousness of what he did and the potential harm it could have caused is something this court takes seriously,” U.S. District Judge Robert Scola said.
A U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, Khan was the imam at the Flagler Mosque, one of Miami’s oldest mosques. He was arrested in 2011 along with two of his sons.
Prosecutors said Khan sent money to family and friends in Pakistan between 2008 and 2010 that was funneled to the Taliban, which they say used some of the funds to buy weapons.
“Mr. Khan took a list of his contacts and his desire to have sharia law in Pakistan and brought his mosque into this effort,” said prosecutor John Carlton Shipley Jr. “He brought his family into this effort.”
Evidence against the elder Khan included bank records and wiretapped phone calls in which he solicited money and expressed support for Pakistani Taliban efforts to overthrow the Pakistani government and attack Americans.
Khan said the money was intended to help support relatives, war victims and a school he had founded in his hometown in the Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan.
“Whatever money I sent was for the Islamic faith and to help poor people,” Khan said through a translator. “I was never sympathetic to terrorists.”
Prosecutors dropped charges against one of Khan’s sons last year, citing a lack of evidence. A judge acquitted the other son for the same reason after prosecutors finished presenting their case in court in January.
Khan testified in court that he lied about supporting the Taliban because he wanted a $1 million donation from a purported Taliban sympathizer, a man who was actually an FBI informant…
| — Hat tip: LS | [Return to headlines] |
Ford Hood Shooter Convicted on All Counts
Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan was found guilty on all 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder Friday, making him eligible for the death penalty.
The sentencing phase of his trial was set to begin Monday.
A military jury deliberated for roughly one day before announcing the verdict.
Hasan sat emotionless, stroking his beard when the judge announced a verdict had been reached. He stood and looked at the juror panel president when the verdict was read, then turned and looked back down.
A few family members of the victims cried and hugged each other at the announcement, but there were no courtroom outbursts.
Hasan was charged with 13 counts of pre-meditated murder and 32 counts of attempted pre-meditated murder in the Nov. 2009 shooting attack at the sprawling Texas military base.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Fort Hood Gunman Found Guilty on All Counts
A military jury on Friday found Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan guilty of carrying out the largest mass murder at a military installation in American history.
The verdict, delivered by 13 senior Army officers, came 17 days after Major Hasan’s court-martial began on Aug. 6, and nearly four years after the day that Major Hasan killed and wounded dozens of unarmed soldiers at a medical deployment center at Fort Hood here.
Major Hasan, a psychiatrist who turned on the very soldiers he devoted much of his 15-year military career to helping, sat in a wheelchair in combat fatigues, an American flag patch on his upper right sleeve. Inside a Fort Hood courtroom filled with soldiers, military police and the relatives of those he killed, but none of his own family members, he had no reaction when the verdict was announced.
| [Return to headlines] |
Fort Hood Trial: Don’t Say the “T” Word
by Deborah Weiss
The Fort Hood shootings constituted the largest massacre on a military base in the history of the United States. There is overwhelming evidence that the defendant’s motivations were religious in nature. But as the trial ensues, the US government continues to bend over backwards to avoid calling the massacre an act of Islamic terrorism, consistent with Islamist demands not to associate Islam with terrorism…
| [Return to headlines] |
If Obama Had an Employee, Would He Look Like “Hate-Filled” Ayo Kimathi?
Given the so-called ‘random’ incidents of white victims killed by blacks over the last few days, the stony silence of the Obama administration on their employee Ayo Kimathi, aka ‘Irritated Genie’ is telling a frightening story.
Kimathi, a branch manager at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), works for for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Kimathi moonlights as “Irritated Genie” with a website “War on the Horizon”, brazenly dedicated to “properly educating Black people to prepare for Racial Warfare”.
The website, purchased in 2008 and up and running since 2009 openly declares: “Warfare is eminent, and in order for Black people to survive the 21st century, we are going to have to kill a lot of whites — more than our christian hearts can possibly count.” (Fox News, August 22, 2013)
If Kimathi were just your average blogger, threats like that would be frightening enough, but Avo Kimathi is listed as a Department Head of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSBDU) on official DHS documents.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In About-Face, Walter Reed Opens Dining Hall to Wounded Warriors After Fox News Reporting
The U.S. military has reversed a string of decisions that would have restricted access for severely wounded troops to a popular dining hall at Walter Reed hospital, after Fox News began reporting on complaints from veterans and their families.
The military earlier this month decided to invalidate meal tickets and reduce hours for the Warrior Cafe, the sole dining facility in building 62 — home to all multiple amputees and long-term, recovering patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
[…]
Initially, the military moved to close the cafe on weekends, shorten its hours and invalidate meal tickets. The decision would mean wounded warriors who would normally have a government-funded meal just down the hall would have to walk, wheel or limp nearly a half-mile across the Walter Reed campus to the temporary “food trailer” for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Josh Wetzel, who lost both his legs when he stepped on a pressure plate IED outside Kandahar, Afghanistan in May 2013, had earlier spoken out in an interview with Fox News about the initial decision.
“I mean it’s called the Warrior Cafe, you would think it is for us,” he said.
“It makes a lot of people mad that they can’t get into their wheelchair and wheel down to the Warrior Cafe,” Wetzel said. “Now they have to wheel all the way across base to use their meal cards.”
The patients of building 62, many of whom have endured 50 surgeries or more and are expected to spend up to two years recovering at Walter Reed, were told of the initial decision to end meal tickets at the Cafe in an Aug. 7 text message from their squad leader. The message explained that the changes to the meal tickets would take place on Sept. 3. That message was followed by a heated town hall meeting last week.
Officials in the Pentagon and at Walter Reed did not respond to questions about why the changes were made, but congressional sources with knowledge of the decision say it was based on concerns that government funds for the warrior meals were being misappropriated. They said that because the cafe is listed as a “self sustaining” business, it is not allowed to receive government subsidies, such as the meal tickets and appropriated funds. So the military decided the cafe could no longer accept the government meal cards.
The families and patients had a slightly different take. Many of them who spoke to Fox News are under the impression that the government didn’t like paying for the higher prices that come with the better food.
“The food quality is not nearly as good (at the trailer) as it is at the Warrior Cafe,” Josh Wetzel said. “The Warrior Cafe has something for everyone like a grill, hot food, salad bars, sandwiches and drinks.”
| [Return to headlines] |
Is the Media Covering Up the Beginnings of a Race War?
No national debate over spate of black on white crimes
Despite engaging in a seemingly endless and racially-charged national debate about the Trayvon Martin case, the US corporate media has shown no interest in reviving this obsession despite a spate of black on white murders, at least two of which indicate a racially-charged hate crime motivation behind the killings.
George Zimmerman’s acquittal last month drew a line under nearly 18 months of hand-wringing over the threat posed to black people by racially-charged hate crimes. Black ideologues like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and others were constantly in the headlines holding up the Trayvon case as a dire warning that African-Americans could now be targeted for murder merely as a result of the color of their skin.
In light of several high profile black on white murders in recent days, the invective has been noticeably less verbose. The most anger Jesse Jackson could muster over the gang-initiation hate crime slaying of Australian student Chris Lane was a tepid tweet stating that the incident should be “frowned upon.”
Lane was slaughtered by a gunshot to the back as part of a gang initiation by three juveniles, an incident which the media initially tried to downplay as “bored teens.” Two of the suspects are black. It subsequently emerged that one of the suspects had posted racist tweets on his account before the murder, stating “90% of white ppl are nasty. #HATE THEM.” Another reads, “Ayeee I knocced out 5 woods since Zimmerman court!.” “Woods” is a racist term for white people…
Meanwhile, in Spokane Washington, 88-year-old World War Two veteran Delbert Belton, who survived being wounded during the Battle of Okinawa, did not survive a brutal beating carried out by two black teens outside a pool hall.
As one respondent to the story remarked, “If this had been 2 white kids beating up an old black dude, it’d be all over the national news by now.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Media Ignores ‘Trayvon Revenge Killing’ of Young Man
The absurd bias of the American media is on display in regards to a slew of recent murders that have received virtually zero coverage compared to the Trayvon Martin case. One such outrageous murder occurred in Memphis, Tenn., on Aug. 12, 2013, when a young man named David Santucci was killed in what is being pinned as a potential Trayvon Martin revenge killing.
Like Trayvon Martin, Santucci’s death was related to being in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time, and Santucci was not found to initiate any dispute when killed in downtown Memphis. The difference is that Santucci was white and Martin was black, so Santucci’s killing was ignored by the media. As Anthony Gucciardi has highlighted while predicting verbatim the outcome of the Chris Lane murder, where three teenagers murdered the budding athlete for gang initiation purposes, Oprah and Obama are not drawing attention to these disturbing cases as they did Trayvon Martin.
Trayvon Revenge Killing
Police have arrested three suspects: Mario Patterson, Dondre Johnson and Jerrica Norfleet. Police claim that the motive of the killing was robbery, but Santucci’s brother Miguel De Diago told The Blaze website he thinks the killing was a hate crime. All three of the suspects are African American. He also thinks that local authorities in Memphis are trying to cover up the truth about the killing because it occurred near Beale Street, a popular local tourist attraction.
The Santucci killing doesn’t sound like a robbery when considering he was killed with one 9 mm bullet to the head. That actually sounds like a professional hit, rather than a hate crime or a robbery. De Diago believes the killing might have been a revenge killing for the Martin killing. It occurred on the same day that Trayvon’s killer, George Zimmerman was acquitted.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Microsoft Says Steve Ballmer Will Retire as C.E.O.
Within 12 Months Steve Ballmer, who succeeded Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as chief executive of the company, will retire within the next 12 months, the software giant said Friday.
“There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time,” Mr. Ballmer said in a statement on the company’s Web site.
Mr. Ballmer will stay on until a successor is chosen by a special committee of the board of directors that includes John W. Thompson, the board’s lead independent director, and Mr. Gates, chairman of the company. The committee will consider both internal and external candidates, the company said.
| [Return to headlines] |
NSA Analysts Intentionally Abused Spying Powers Multiple Times
Some National Security Agency analysts deliberately ignored restrictions on their authority to spy on Americans multiple times in the past decade, contradicting Obama administration officials’ and lawmakers’ statements that no willful violations occurred.
“Over the past decade, very rare instances of willful violations of NSA’s authorities have been found,” the NSA said in a statement to Bloomberg News. “NSA takes very seriously allegations of misconduct, and cooperates fully with any investigations — responding as appropriate. NSA has zero tolerance for willful violations of the agency’s authorities.”
The incidents, chronicled in a new report by the NSA’s inspector general, provide more evidence that U.S. agencies sometimes have violated legal and administrative restrictions on domestic spying, and may add to the pressure to bolster laws that govern intelligence activities.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
NSA Program Secretly Ruled Unconstitutional in 2011
The National Security Agency illegally gathered as many as 56,000 emails and other electronic communications between Americans with no connection to terrorism as part of a collection program that was ruled unconstitutional by a secret spy court in 2011.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court rendered its decision in an 86-page opinion on Oct. 3, 2011. It was declassified Wednesday by U.S. intelligence officials, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper authorized the release of the opinion.
“This is not an egregious overreaching by a greedy agency seeking to spy on Americans,” a senior intelligence official said. “This is a technological problem that resulted in an inadvertent collection of a relatively small number of U.S. personal communications.”
In the opinion, Chief Judge John Bates found that the government had “advised the court that the volume and nature of the information it has been collecting is fundamentally different from what the court had been led to believe.“
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sergeant Sentenced to Life Without Parole in Killing of Afghan Civilians
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who pleaded guilty to slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians inside their homes, will spend the rest of his life in prison, a military jury decided on Friday.
The jury’s decision came after three days of wrenching testimony that painted a moment-by-moment, bullet-by-bullet account of one of the worst atrocities of the United States’ long war in Afghanistan.
The six-member military jury considering his fate had two options: sentence him to life in prison with no possibility of parole, or allow him a chance at freedom after about 20 years behind bars. His guilty plea in June removed the death penalty from the table.
| [Return to headlines] |
Terrorist Admits He Was ‘Defending’ His Muslim Faith in 2009 Fort Hood Shooting
A Muslim terrorist who killed thirteen people in a shooting rampage has told a local newspaper that he was “defending his religion” in the ruthless attack.
On November 5th, 2009, former Army Major Nidal Hasan opened fire in Texas’ Fort Hood army base, killing thirteen people and injuring over 30. One of the slain individuals was a pregnant mother; the unborn baby died also. Hasan fired over 200 bullets during the rampage.
Following the shooting tragedy, many media outlets and high-ranking government officials were hesitant to describe the shooting as an example of Islamic terrorism. Even today, the U.S. Defense Department maintains that the Fort Hood massacre was simply a case of “workplace violence.”
However, a recent letter Hasan mailed to a local Texas newspaper indicates that his motive in the murders was in fact his Muslim faith. On Sunday, the Killeen Daily Herald published the note from Hasan, explaining that the correspondence was sent from his jail cell and postmarked July 31st. Though the latter portion of the 6-page letter is identical to a message Hasan mailed to Fox News last month, the first three pages contain fresh information about the shooter’s motives.
“What was your motive on November 5?” Hasan asks in his note. Then he answers: “I was defending my religion.”
Following this statement, Hasan spends several lines advocating for Shariah law in the United States.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The US Government Bankrolls the Engineering of Humans
If you still remember a piece of paper called the US Constitution, you might wonder under what section of that document the government is permitted to alter the human species.
A current Pentagon plan to create a biological platform inside the human body, using it to deliver new genetic information, and thus changing what the human body is and does… well, that is about as outrageous as you can get, when it comes to the violation of permitted federal powers.
Yet, the White House doesn’t care, nor does Congress, nor does the Supreme Court, nor does any federal agency or oversight department. It’s all right. It’s not a problem. It’s a “medical” program, you see. And therefore it will help people, and the government’s job is to help people.
This is the new version of the Constitution: “the government is here to help you, and anything it does in that regard is legal.” Sign up now. Get on the list. Help overrides anything written into the Constitution…
DARPA plans to insert a 47th chromosome into human cell lines. That chromosome will serve as a kind of platform that will make subsequent delivery of new genetic information much easier.
New genetic information means alterations in the body, at the level of DNA.
Engineering humans.
DARPA will justify these experiments on the basis of improving soldiers’ performance on the battlefield, their general health, their capacity to recover from illness, injury, exhaustion. They can justify it any way they want to, but it adds up to the same thing.
“We will change you. We will make you better. And, ahem, uh, easier to control.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
University Panel Discusses Cutting Off Food, Bioweapons to Reduce Population
Edible vaccine supporter and head of the Biodesign Institute for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, Dr. Charles Arntzen has recently responded to questions about the issue of overpopulation with the following sardonic remarks, “Has anybody seen Contagion? That’s the answer! Go out and use genetic engineering to create a better virus [to wipe out the population]”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
White House Spokesman ‘Not Familiar With’ Chris Lane Murder
Josh Earnest, principal deputy White House press secretary, said he was not familiar with the murder of Australian jogger Chris Lane during Wednesday’s White House briefing.
When asked by Fox News chief White House correspondent Ed Henry about the Chris Lane case, Earnest responded, “I’m not familiar with it, actually.”
Henry explained the case in brief to Earnest looking for reaction to the Oklahoma shooting death of Lane at the hands of “bored” African-American teens who thought it would be “fun” to kill somebody…
“Why hasn’t [the president] spoken out about this? In this case, you said there was a judicial proceeding. There was one in the Trayvon Martin case. He spoke out extensively on that one,” Henry said.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
WWII Vet Beaten to Death in Parking Lot
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
An 88-year-old man who survived the Battle of Okinawa in World War II died Thursday after police say two teenagers beat him and left him for dead in his parked car.
Delbert Belton, nicknamed “Shorty” by his friends for his 5-foot-tall stature, was waiting for a friend Wednesday night at the Eagles Lodge on 6410 N. Lidgerwood St. Two men approached him in his car at random and beat him, police said. He was found with serious head injuries and was transported to the hospital, where he later died.
“I was going to surprise him last night and show up there, then I got the phone call telling me he was dead at Sacred Heart,” said Ted Denison, a friend of Belton.
Police launched a search Thursday for two black males 16 to 19 years old, releasing surveillance images of the suspects. Both are of average height and build and were dressed all in black at the time of the incident. One was wearing a do-rag. As of late Thursday, neither had been arrested.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Danish Landmark Little Mermaid Statue Celebrates 100 Years on Her Harbor-Side Perch
Bikini-clad women have jumped into Copenhagen harbor as part of the 100-year anniversary celebration of the landmark Little Mermaid statue — the Danish capital’s top tourist attraction. The bronze statue, which draws at least 1 million visitors every year, was created as a tribute to fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: There Once Was a Little Statue … Only She Isn’t So Little Anymore
Ahead of the Little Mermaid’s 100th birthday on Friday August 23, Through the Looking Glass takes a look at the colourful history of Denmark’s most recognisable national symbol
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ex- Imam Akkari in Copenhagen Says “ All Danish Mosques Run by Extremists”
Credit Lars Hedegaard, executive editor of Dispatch International and the Danish Free Press Society (DFPS) with a scoop. Yesterday the DFPS held a press briefing with former Danish Imam Ahmed Akkari who pierced the veil of taqiyya revealing that virtually all Danish Mosques are run by extremists. Akkari should know that as he was one of the two Danish Imams who stoked the fires of the Jyllands-Posten Mohammed cartoons controversy by traveling to the Middle East following their publication. Akkari and his colleague were classic agent provocateurs who lit the match to a veritable firestorm of protests, hundreds of deaths, destruction and closure of Danish and Western embassies throughout the Muslim Ummah. The reaction was to stifle free expression and criticism of Islamic totalitarian doctrine. Their actions also resulted in Danish political cartoonist Kurt Westergaard and Swedish artist Lars Vilks becoming targets of attempted murder by Muslim extremists who attacked their homes in both Denmark and Sweden. Will Akkari’s telling comments at yesterday’s DFPS briefing in Copenhagen jar Danish officials from their PC multiculturalist stupor to address critical matters of homeland security and tolerant Muslim immigration policies? Akkari’s revelations should also not be lost on its Scandinavian neighbors across the Skagerrak in Sweden and Norway. Sweden’s third largest city run by a part-time Social Democrat mayor has allowed violent Muslim youth to accost and rape women and terrorize its local Jewish population. We suspect that Norway, whose Labor Party government has fostered similar views, will persist in denial of Muslim extremism similar to that of its Scandinavian neighbors. Those official Norwegian Labor Party policies included indoctrinating youths, scores of whom were killed by Breivik at the party’s Utoya youth camp in 2011, The story of former Islamist Imam’s transformation is contained in the DI’s, lead story published today, “The imam who defected: Extremists run all Danish mosques”
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
French Breivik Book Flies Off the Shelves
A French book on Anders Behring Breivik’s twin terror attacks in 2011 has become a publishing sensation, according to Aftonbladet, with critics comparing it to Truman Capote’s non-fiction classic In Cold Blood.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Tax Cheating Still Rampant on Islands
46,6% of businesses checked broke the law
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, AUGUST 23 — Tax evasion at tourist resorts continues to be a key problem for Greek authorities, as more than 1,200 checks by the Financial Crimes Squad (SDOE) between August 6 and 18 on islands and other destinations revealed that one in two businesses was cheating the state, as daily Kathimerini reports. Although other offenses, such as trading in contraband alcohol, were recorded, tax evasion was the most common misdemeanor recorded by inspectors. More than 100 teams carried out 1,256 checks on bars, restaurants and other establishments, during which 586 businesses were found to have fallen foul of the law, a rate of 46.6%. A total of 5,668 offenses were recorded, with the avoidance of issuing receipts and improper use of cash registers being the most common. The highest offending rates were on the islands of Amorgos, Paxoi and Symi, where all the businesses checked were found to be breaking the law. They were followed by Santorini with a rate of 96.4%, Evia with 85%, Rhodes with 81% and 80% for Myconos and Andros. In Athens, the offending rate was at 54%, while the lowest was in Halkidiki, northern Greece, where 34% of businesses checked were flouting tax regulations. Thirteen business — three nightclubs, four beach bars and six restaurants — were closed for 48 hours as a result of the offenses recorded.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Neurotic People Have Smaller Brains: Study
The brains of people suffering from neurosis have less total volume, smaller surface area and reduced connectivity between different areas, researchers at Oslo University have said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Solar Energy: ‘Danish Tax Rebates Build EU Solar Farms’
Berlingske Tidende, 20 August 2013
Danish entrepreneurs are investing significant sums in photovoltaic power stations in other countries, while benefiting from tax rebates stipulated by Danish law.
In a nutshell, the Danish state is footing the bill for investment abroad, notes Berlingske.
This year the rebates in question will amount to 300 million kroner (approximately €40m), even though not one kilowatt of the green energy produced will ever reach Denmark.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
A judge told a Muslim woman she must remove her burkha in court before she can enter a plea after she refused to reveal her face.
Judge Peter Murphy said the principle of open justice overrode the 21-year-old woman’s religious beliefs, and warned there was a risk a different person could go into the dock pretending to be her.
The woman, from Hackney, east London, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, appeared before Blackfriars Crown Court today charged with intimidating a witness.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iran’s Hidden Scourge: Widespread Drug Abuse at All Levels of Society
From the southern slums, past the fancy shopping avenues like Vali Asr, where a glassy-eyed young man in expensive clothes is bundled into an ambulance, to the high-end parties behind walls of fancy houses in North Tehran, addiction infests every strata of society. Coping with the massive problem while still denying it poses a serious threat, unmasks the sort of wildly improbable paradox that sometimes seems to define this proud, embattled, society.
“For a long time nobody wanted to admit it but drug abuse was ravaging our society,” said Abbas Deylamizade, the managing director of Rebirth, an Iranian non-governmental organization dealing with drug addiction and abuse. “But now the scourge is so bad that we are finally reaching the point where the government is getting really involved.”
[…]
Mr. Deylamizade estimates that Iran, with a population of roughly 80 million, may have as many as five million hard-core addicts and millions more occasional users. Drug use sometimes seems endemic among the young. At a stoplight in Tehran, a pair of young women driving a late-model car blithely pulled out a glass pipe and passed it back and forth until the light turned green. “It’s so much worse than when I was a teenager,” says a young man who works at a central mosque that hosts a self-help group for addicts.
Tall and lean in a blue suit that looks a couple of sizes too big, Mr. Deylamizade, 41, knows what he is talking about. He, too, was an addict, sliding from party use in Shiraz as a youth into long, dark years of addiction. Now he runs the largest drug treatment NGO in the country with more than 140 centres and 600,000 clients.
[…]
A wide array of government, private, community and mosque-based programs are belatedly tackling the problem.
But they can get tangled up in Iran’s other problems. For instance, while big businesses and traders seem to have no difficulty moving lots of money in and out of the country despite the sanctions on dealing with Iran’s major banks, funding flows to help NGOs have been trapped.
For more than five months, Rebirth has been waiting a stalled €400,000 ($516,000) payment from the European Union. Some smaller drug treatment programs have closed, cut off by sanctions from foreign funding. “The EU won’t just hand-carry the money in, which is what businesses do,” said Mr. Deylamizade.
[…]
| [Return to headlines] |
OIC Head Ihsanoglu to Address a Conference in Turkey After Row With Govt
Ihsanoglu is among speakers of the “International Conference on Islamophobia: Law and Media” to take place in Istanbul on Sept. 12 and 13. He will make the opening speeches of the conference along with Directory General of Directorate General of Press and Information Murat Karakaya and Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arinç.
| — Hat tip: Frontinus | [Return to headlines] |
Syria Possesses Mideast’s Largest Secret Chemical Arsenal
4th largest worldwide, with four production plants, RID reports
(ANSAmed) — ROME, AUGUST 22 — Syria has acquired what is the world’s fourth largest secret chemical weapons arsenal and the largest in the Middle East to compensate for its military inferiority with regards to Israel, according to a recent report by the Italian Defense Review (RID).
The embattled nation reportedly possesses 500-1,000 cubic tons of “aggressive chemicals” produced in plants spread over vast areas throughout the country to reduce vulnerability in case of air raids.
These have the capacity to produce “a few hundred tons a year” in case of “maximum commitment”. There are four suspected chemical weapons sites in Syria: one north of Damascus; the second near the industrial city of Homs; the third in Hama, and a fourth near the town of Cerin, on the coast, according to RID.
While it is a 1968 signatory of the Geneva Protocol banning chemical weapons, Syria never signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and refused to accede to disarmament or inspection proposals by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), saying it cannot unilaterally renounce chemical arms as long as Israel continues to deny it is holding nuclear weapons.
Syria reportedly built up its chemical arsenal during the 1980s and into the early 1990s. It beefed up its production capabilities in the mid-2000s, when Iran “permitted the building of more efficient plants to produce nerve and vesicant agents”.
While RID emphasized it is impossible to verify Syria’s chemical arsenal with absolute certainty, the fact that President Bashar al-Assad threatened to use such arms in case of external attack may point to the fact that Syria does in fact possess them.
The weapons, including an estimated 50-100 ballistic missiles with chemical warheads, are allegedly stockpiled in Homs, Latakia, Palmyra, Hama and al-Safira, near Aleppo, according to RID. The Free Syrian Army which has been fighting to oust Assad since 2011 has officially denounced the use of chemical weapons at least 18 times during combat in Damascus, Idlib, Homs and Hama. No international organization has yet been able to confirm any of these episodes.(
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Expert: Chemical Weapons Victim Footage Appears “Set-Up”
Behavior of victims not consistent with alleged injuries
Another chemical weapons expert has cast doubt on video footage which appears to show victims of a “gas attack” in Syria, noting that images of people foaming at the mouth appears “set-up” and is not consistent with the effects of a real chemical attack.
Stephen Johnson, an expert in weapons and chemical explosives at Cranfield Forensic Institute, told Euro News that the video footage looked suspect.
“There are, within some of the videos, examples which seem a little hyper-real, and almost as if they’ve been set up. Which is not to say that they are fake but it does cause some concern. Some of the people with foaming, the foam seems to be too white, too pure, and not consistent with the sort of internal injury you might expect to see, which you’d expect to be bloodier or yellower,” Johnson said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Thousands Demonstrate in Bahrain Against Government During Permitted Protest in Gulf Kingdom
Thousands of people have taken to the streets in Bahrain to demonstrate against the government in a permitted protest in the Gulf kingdom.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
US-Trained Rebels Moved Towards Damascus Days Before ‘Chemical Attack’
300 handpicked rebel militants trained by the US, Israel and Jordan entered Syria and began advancing towards Damascus in the days before an alleged chemical weapons attack, the French newspaper Le Figaro is reporting.
“The rebels were trained for several months in a training camp on the Jordanian-Syrian border by CIA operatives, as well as Jordanian and Israeli commandos,” reports the Jerusalem Post.
Four days before the announcement that a chemical weapons attack had taken place near Damascus, a group of FSA fighters crossed into the Deraa region, followed by a second contingent on August 19th.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
War Looms: Hundreds of American Troops and CIA Operatives Have Entered Syria
While the media panicked over the halting of NASDAQ stock trading due to a reported bug in the system (more on that shortly), one critical development went under-reported. In fact, it wasn’t reported at all.
If the following from France’s second largest newspaper Le Figaro is accurate, then we must assume that war is now a foregone conclusion.
“According to our information, the regime’s opponents, supervised by Jordanian, Israeli and American commandos moving towards Damascus since mid-August. This attack could explain the possible use of the Syrian president to chemical weapons.
“According to information obtained by Le Figaro, the first trained in guerrilla warfare by the Americans in Jordan Syrian troops reportedly entered into action since mid-August in southern Syria, in the region of Deraa. A first group of 300 men, probably supported by Israeli and Jordanian commandos, as well as men of the CIA, had crossed the border on August 17. A second would have joined the 19. According to military sources, the Americans, who do not want to put troops on the Syrian soil or arming rebels in part controlled by radical Islamists form quietly for several months in a training camp set up at the border Jordanian- Syrian fighters ASL, the Free Syrian Army, handpicked.” (Translation via Zero Hedge)
What’s equally as intriguing as boots on the ground inside of the Syrian border is the fact that these troops and intelligence officers reportedly made their way into the country on August 17th, fully four days before reports and images surfaced showing hundreds of men, women and children killed by a chemical weapons attack allegedly at the hands of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad…
This time, the Russians and the Chinese have a stake in the game, and they too have been positioning pieces on the Grand Chessboard. Not only have the Russians already advised western nations that the Syrians will be armed with weapons never before seen in the middle east, but they have warned that any military confrontation in the region could potentially go nuclear.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
India: Woman Journalist Gang Raped in Mumbai
NEW DELHI (AP) — Police say a young woman photojournalist has been gang raped while her male colleague was tied up and beaten in India’s business hub of Mumbai. The case was reminiscent of the December gang rape of a young university student in the Indian capital.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
India: Woman Photojournalist, 22, Gang Raped in Mumbai
A young photojournalist was gang raped while her male colleague was tied up and beaten in an isolated, overgrown corner of India’s business hub of Mumbai, police said Friday. The case was reminiscent of the December gang rape and death of a young university student in the Indian capital that shocked the country.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italian NGO Emergency Opens 5 New Afghan Medical Centres
Areas where Taliban most active
(ANSA) — Kabul, August 23 — Italian NGO Emergency has opened five new medical centres in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand district, the Pajhwok news agency reported Friday.
Helmand public health chief Inayatullah Ghafari said they were well-equipped centres in areas where the Taliban insurgency is most active.
Emergency, based at Helmand capital Lashkargah, has treated more than 3.753 million people since it started Afghan operations in December 1999.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
“TEPCO Has Lost Control” — What is Really Happening at Fukushima in Four Charts
After a self-imposed gag order by the mainstream media on any coverage of the Fukushima disaster (ostensibly the last thing the irradiated Japanese citizens needed is reading beyond the lies of their benevolent government, and TEPCO, and finding out just how bad the reality is especially since the key driver behind Abenomics is a return in confidence at all costs), the biggest nuclear catastrophe in history is once again receiving the attention it deserves. This follows the recent admission by TEPCO of the biggest leak reported at Fukushima to date, which forced the Japanese government to raise the assessment of Fukushima from Level 1 to Level 3, even though this is merely the catalyst of what has been a long and drawn out process in which Tepco has tried everything it could to contain the fallout from the exploded NPP, and failed. And today, in a startling and realistic assessment of Fukushima two and a half years after the explosion, the WSJ finally tells the truth: “Tepco Has Lost Control.”
Here is how the mainstream media, in this case the Wall Street Journal, catches up with a topic covered extensively in the “alternative” media for the past several years:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Insurgents Kill 35 in Attack in Northeast Nigeria: Military
Islamist insurgents dressed as soldiers opened fire on worshippers leaving a mosque in Nigeria’s far northeast this week, killing at least 35 in the second such attack this month, officials said on Friday. “Boko Haram people attacked the village on the ground that they have refused to cooperate with them, that they refused their message,” defence spokesman Brigadier General Chris Olukolade told AFP of the incident in Dumba, referring to Islamist extremist group Boko Haram.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
400 British Citizens Emigrate Every Day
More than 400 British citizens are leaving the country every day in a drain on talent that is leading to the “disappearance” of skilled middle-class professionals, a senior Conservative MP has warned.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Boat Carrying 125 Refugees Rescued Off Siracusa
Including 20 women and 25 minors who said they are Syrian
(ANSAmed) — SIRACUSA — A boat carrying 125 refugees, including 20 women and 25 minors who said they are Syrian, was rescued off the coast of Siracusa, in Sicily, by a finance police cutter. The old, 15-meter-long vessel was intercepted about four miles from the seaside resort of Ognina.
A man reportedly tried to steer the boat away from the “Puleo” cutter which was however able to board the dinghy in spite of rough sea. Tax police took it to the port of Siracusa.
Migrants had not arrived in Sicily for days due to bad weather after a spate of arrivals from North Africa this summer.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Europe’s Immigration Challenge (2/5): The Problem With Swedish Integration
NRC Handelsblad Amsterdam
Sweden wants to be a homogeneous and egalitarian society, but in reality it is a country with wide segregation and has great difficulty integrating its minorities, writes a Dutch journalist.
Maartje Somers
Nazanin Johansson has never personally experienced any trouble with this. Yes, she was stared at, because of her dark hair, brown eyes and Persian appearance, and she knew she had to try harder than others. Yet for her, Sweden is a country where you can work your way out of a disadvantaged position. And where you can become a bold intermediary for an employment office in a notorious neighbourhood, just like her.
But it must be something you really want. And Nazanin sometimes has doubts about this when she talks to young people. “They want to have a job, but only if it’s a cool one. They don’t want to start at the bottom. It’s easy to forget that it is also the mentality of many of these young people that is the cause.” Nazanin works at the employment office of Kista, a suburb of Stockholm, and the technical hub of the Swedish capital. But Kista is also situated between Rinkeby, Husby and Tensta, neighbourhoods that were in the news in May when young people there rioted.
For a week, cars went up in flames and there were fights with the police. The images from Sweden were seen around the world. Anger in the country where the government takes care of you from your first nappy change until your last breath? Racism and segregation in the most egalitarian country in the world?
The fastest-growing inequality in Europe
It soon became clear that this is indeed the case. While the world was not paying attention, the Swedish model had started to go downhill. After an economic bubble in the 1990s, the centre-right coalition of Fredrik Reinfeldt in 2006 cut back on public services, while at the same time lowering the top rate of taxes. Sweden still is an egalitarian society, but inequality here is growing fastest in Europe. As in the rest of Europe, migrants, low-skilled people and young people, especially boys, are in the worst position. And just like in the rest of Europe the rioters came from all these categories….
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Napolitano: DHS Has ‘Deferred’ Deportation of 430,000 Illegals
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says that over the past year the Obama Administration has exercised what she calls “prosecutorial discretion” in allowing 430,000 self-declared illegal aliens to stay in the United States without any worry that her department — which is charged by law with enforcing the immigration law — will take action against them.
Napolitano calls this non-enforcement of the law “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” (DACA). Under the program, the administration considers anyone who had not yet turned sixteen when they first entered the United States illegally, or first overstayed a visa, to be a “childhood arrival.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Reince Priebus joins the White House in pandering to the open-borders crowd.
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus had a message last week for outspoken conservatives who support strict immigration-enforcement policies: Shut up.
Yes, the head of the RNC is more concerned about protecting the party’s Hispanic vote-pandering campaign than about protecting law-abiding citizens from the devastating consequences of illegal immigration.
At the RNC’s annual summer meeting in Boston, Priebus complained that openly advocating self-deportation policies during last year’s election season was “horrific” and that rule-of-law rhetoric “hurts us.” Yes, really.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
No More Christmas? Berlin Tries Neutrality
Will Berlin cancel Christmas this year? Germany’s multicutlural capital is experimenting with religious neutrality to make all its residents feel more at home. DW’s Louise Osborne is all for it.
It may be too early to start talking about Christmas in August unless you work in the chocolate industry, but as summer slowly eases into fall, it is already cropping up in casual conversation as plans are being made.
That’s not because people are particularly looking forward to the festive season. Personally, I’m hoping to stave of winter as long as possible with an Indian summer. But it is, nevertheless, now occupying the thoughts of Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain’s district officials due to a row over religious terms — such as “Christmas” — when referring to the annual, um, winter markets that are legendary well beyond Germany’s borders.
It seems that some in Berlin’s more alternative district have chosen to refer to the Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas markets) taking place in the neighborhood under the more neutral and non-religious term Winterfest (winter festival).
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Planned Parenthood ‘Navigators’ Will Have Access to Americans’ Personal, Medical, Tax Information
WASHINGTON, D.C., August 21, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) — Planned Parenthood employees will soon have access to a vast federal database of sensitive information, including the Social Security number, tax form, bank account, and medical records of every single American citizen as the president seeks their help in implementing ObamaCare.
Consumers purchasing health insurance through health care exchanges will speak to “navigators,” whose job is to help them find the best coverage and determine if they are eligible for a federal subsidy.
The Obama administration has awarded Planned Parenthood more than $655,000 of taxpayer funds to hire “navigators” for the president’s health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). State affiliates in Iowa, Montana and New Hampshire were among the 105 organizations receiving $67 million in federal grants.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Feminist ‘Hijab Solidarity’?
By Bruce Bawer
Europe is awash in dhimmitude, but Sweden is a case unto itself. There’s something desperate and demented about the levels of dhimmitude on display in Ikea-land. In no other European country, moreover, is there so little pushback in the media.
As I wrote just yesterday, Sweden has the highest percentage of rapes in the Western world. And the problem is getting steadily worse. Given the progressive Swedish establishment’s fondness for earnest rhetoric about women’s rights, you might think this rape crisis would be a subject of deep concern in the nation’s media. But no — it’s a non-topic. It’s unmentionable. And for one reason: because everyone understands that the ever-increasing incidence of Swedish rapes is directly related to the ever-increasing number of Swedish Muslims. And in Sweden, you can’t talk critically about Islam. You just can’t — not publicly, anyway. When the subject is Islam, nothing is permitted other than the usual mindless multicultural mantras.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Progress in race relations isn’t achieved by having minority leaders.
I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.
Apparently other Americans also recognize that the sources of racism are different today from what they were in the past. According to a recent Rasmussen poll, 31 percent of blacks think that most blacks are racists, while 24 percent of blacks think that most whites are racist.
The difference between these percentages is not great, but it is remarkable nevertheless. After all, generations of blacks fought the white racism from which they suffered for so long. If many blacks themselves now think that most other blacks are racist, that is startling.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Two quite different 21st-century Americas are emerging. The nation is not so much divided by “wars” between the rich and poor, men and women, or white and non-white. Instead, there is the world of reality versus that of triviality.
In the vast plains of the Dakotas and the American West, thousands of men and women of all classes and colors are fracking oil and gas to create new energy for millions of homeowners and commuters — while giving America a second chance at strategic energy independence.
Yet the beneficiaries mostly ignore these elemental efforts. They instead prefer to fixate on the alleged sexual creepiness of big-city political mediocrities like Bob Filner and Anthony Weiner.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
by Wretchard
Ari Shavit’s evocative lede in today’s Haaretz is a reaction to the horror in Syria, He writes, “The End of the World is starting in Damascus … if civilians can be gassed to death in 2013, we face the end of the world that purports to be moral and enlightened”. Well perhaps the world was never really that enlightened to begin with: not even during the peace after the Second World War. People had simply had a bellyful of war and were momentarily intimidated into pacifism by the power of the hegemon, the United States.
[…]
One of the most sobering things about reading history is realizing the ease with which the deaths of a millions can be forgotten in only a few decades. I am currently reading Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze, by Peter Harmsen. I recommend it heartily. Even if you thought you knew all there was to know about the Second World War, if you haven’t read up on the Sino-Japanese conflict, you’ve missed one of its principal roots.
The comparison to Stalingrad is by no means far-fetched. Nine hundred thousand troops on both sides fought a three month battle for the city. Almost 93,000 Japanese troops perished. A third of million of Chiang Kai-Shek’s best troops died opposing them. That’s without counting the civilians who did in Nanjing, which fell as part of the battle.
You might be interested to learn that the Battle of Shanghai was arguably the start of World War 2 in the Pacific and the decisive battle of the as-yet-unfought Chinese Civil War. For one thing, it shifted the Japanese war effort south away from the Soviets. For another the battle doomed the Kuomintang because Chiang expended and destroyed his carefully built army in that tremendous furnace. Unable to find respite in the war years that followed, the KMT never recovered to fight Mao’s Red Army, which stayed away from major conflict with the Japanese and so was tanned, rested and ready by the end of it.
Perhaps even more astonishingly, the Japanese were in real danger of losing the Battle of Shanghai, in part because the Chinese Army was advised by German officers, some of whom were Jewish and fleeing from Hitler.
[…]
In the last few weeks it has seemed as if the pillars were coming down. Not the columns of marble or girders of steel that uphold the buildings of our great cities; but the things that once supported our mental universe. Rationality, honesty or even simple gratitude to those to who’ve lost their limbs in our defense seemingly count for nothing; replaced by a kind of manic obsession with psychological fulfillment, the need to be amused at casting off all the old taboos.
| [Return to headlines] |
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2013/08/24/is-this-what-ryan-julison-intended-all-along/#more-68357