Gates of Vienna News Feed 9/29/2013

350 Syrian migrants were picked up in the Mediterranean by a Romanian Frontex ship. They are being brought to Sicily. Meanwhile, more than 500 refugees, most of them Syrian, landed on Lampedusa in two different boats.

In other news, a bank in Azerbaijan has launched Europe’s first sharia-compliant Islamic credit card.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, Kitman, KP, Mary Abdelmassih, Steen, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Financial Crisis
» Canadian Billionaire Predicts the End of the Dollar as Reserve Currency; Warns “It’s Likely to Get Ugly”
» Pelosi Celebrates Loss of Full-Time Jobs
» The Global Financial Death Spiral?, Part 5
 
USA
» 7th-Grader Suspended for Having Gun Keychain
» A View and a Price, Both Astounding
» Administration: Colleges Should Seek Diversity
» Alex Jones Guesses Liberal Caller is a Social Worker, Just by How Much He Worships Obama (Video)
» Army Document Describes Technology That Can Transmit a Voice Into Someone’s Head
» Aussies Shine Light on TWA Flight 800
» Brainwashing: Scientists Have Discovered How to Erase and Create Brand New Memories
» DARPA Funds a Stealthy, Bulletproof, Robotic Walker
» Desperate MSM Moves to Kill Off Article Comments
» Don’t Let This Happen to Your Profession: AMA Culpable in Our Government Healthcare Fiasco
» Families of Benghazi: Sue for Wrongful Death
» Forty-Four Pct of US Disapproves of Obama’s Foreign Policy
» Golden Rice Exposed as Fraud: Genetically Engineered Crop Nothing More Than Biotech Battering Ram to Crush GMO Regulations
» Government Targets Private Bank Accounts: Seizes Funds of Innocent Americans Without Charge or Trial
» Highly Toxic Squalene MF59 Adjuvant That Caused Gulf War Syndrome in Military Servicemen Now Being Added to Some Civilian Flu Vaccines
» House Republicans Propose Delay of Health Law as Condition to Avoid Government Shutdown
» House Passes Bill Linking Government Financing to Health Law Delay
» If You Have a LinkedIn Account, You Should Probably Know About These Accusations
» Let ObamaCare Collapse
» Mercury Exposure Linked to Homosexuality in Birds
» Muslim Woman Discomforted by Truth at the Bartlett Festival in Tennessee
» N.S.A. Examines Social Networks of U.S. Citizens
» N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens
» Only Six Arrests Made in $40,000.00 Vandalism of Ex-NFL Player Brian Holloway’s NY Vacation Home, More Expected
» Police Debut Stun Cuffs: Electroshock Restraints More Powerful Than Tasers
» Public-School Mosque Field-Trippers Are Taught the Virtues of Islam
» Real-Life Rambo, Mercenary Joseph Manuel Hunter, Arrested Over Assassination Plot, Drug Smuggling
» Senator Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels
» The Coming Battle Over Brain Scans in the Courtroom
» White House to Announce $300m in Aid Friday to Make Detroit Safer, Erase Blight
 
Canada
» Are Syrian Rebels Being Trained in Rural Ontario Towns?
 
Europe and the EU
» Belgium: Man Diagnosed as ‘Comatose’ For 23 Years Was Actually Fully Conscious, But Paralyzed
» Denmark: Öresund Bridge Lights Up in Nazi Flight Memorial
» France: Crime in Paris Rivals Marseille
» Italy: Five-Star Movement Founder Attacks Lower House Speaker
» Italy: Berlusconi Recuses 10 Senate Committee Members
» Norway’s New Premier to Meet Anti-Immigrant Party
» Swedish Passport Black Market “Growing”
» Swiss Canton Ticino Votes to Ban Burqa
» UK: ‘Tosh’: Second Worcester Park Mosque Plan Rejected Amid Gridlock Fears
» UK: The State School Where Girls Are Forced to Wear Hijabs in Classrooms and Outside School
» ‘We Must be Able to Chuck Out People Who Threaten Our Country’: Cameron Reveals Britain Could Leave Human Rights Convention
 
North Africa
» Egypt Threatens to Sharply Cut Soaring Fruit, Vegetable Prices
» Has the Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood Waned in the Arab Spring?
» Moroccans Protest Against Muslim Brotherhood Government
» Muslims Expel 6 Christian Brothers From Village in Egypt
 
Middle East
» I’m Sorry, But We Have to Talk About the Barbarism of Modern Islamist Terrorism
» International ‘Islamophobia’ Conference Promotes Sharia Agenda
» Is Iranian News Outlet More Believable Than CNN?
» Matthew Fisher: It’s Open Season on Christians in Syria and Across the Muslim World
» McCain’s Al Qaeda Moderates Busy Planning Next Terror Attacks, Thankful for US Government Support
» Obama Says He Spoke to Iran’s President by Phone
» Syria: Franciscans at the Forefront Helping Christian and Muslim War Victims
» Syria: Maaloula Christians Say Town Muslims Took Part in Attack
» Top Saudi Cleric Says Women Who Drive Risk Damaging Their Ovaries
 
Russia
» Putin: Defending National Identity, Based on Religious Values
» Russian Muslim Clerics Warn of Unrest Over Ban of Translation of Koran
 
Caucasus
» Azerbaijani Bank Launches Europe’s First Islamic Credit Card
 
South Asia
» Sectarian Tensions Flare in Myanmar Town
 
Far East
» Yale Professor: Fukushima Will ‘Threaten Humanity for Thousands of Years’
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» How Flamboyant Terrorists Like Samantha Lewthwaite Keep Outfoxing Capture
» Kenya: Some Got Warning to Avoid Westgate Before Bloody Siege
» Kenya: ‘Eyes Gouged Out, Bodies Hanging From Hooks’
» Kenya: Separating the Kafirs From the Muslims
» Kenya: White Widow Samantha Lewthwaite ‘Plotted Nairobi Mall Massacre From Secret Lair Just 100 Yards Away’
» Kenya: Terrorists Used New Tactic to Spare Some Muslims
» Nigeria: Militants Kill Students in College Attack
 
Immigration
» 350 Migrants Heading for Sicily
» Gohmert: ‘Amnesty’ And ObamaCare Are a Plot for ‘Firing Every Fulltime American’ (Audio)
» Illegal Aliens Demand Free Organ Transplants
» Over 500 Refugees Land in Lampedusa
» PCP-Smoking Illegal Immigrant Who Stabbed College Student 13 Times After She Stopped to Give Him a Ride is Found Guilty of Her Murder
 
Culture Wars
» Facebook Promotes Vulgar Hate of Religion and Hetero-Normalcy
» Lovers to Have Sex in Front of Studio Audience on New Mariella Frostrup Show
» New Jersey Court Rules That State Must Allow Gay Marriage
» Scottish Police Arrest Preacher Again for Proclaiming Gospel in Street
» Serbia’s Gay Pride March Banned in the Wake of Security Concerns
» Transgender Student Named Homecoming Queen
» Why Gays Cannot Speak for Ex-Gays
 
General
» The Big Lie of Genetics Exposed: Human DNA Incapable of Storing Complete Blueprint of the Human Form
 

Canadian Billionaire Predicts the End of the Dollar as Reserve Currency; Warns “It’s Likely to Get Ugly”

Beginning with how Kissinger and Nixon enabled the USD as the world’s de facto reserve currency through oil, Canadian Billionaire Ned Goodman explains in the brief but far-reaching clip how it is both inevitable (and rapidly approaching) that the rest of the world will turn its back on the dollar. With China and Russia (among many others that we have detailed in the past) agreeing on non-USD swap terms for energy, the cracks are starting to show and as Goodman details, “in the 1930s, everyone wanted USD (backed by silver),” but today, backed by nothing, “everyone wants to get rid of them.” Buying hard assets is crucial (he has never been more bullish of gold) as we head into a period of stagflation or even high inflation; and as Goodman previously commented “the world is totally upside down right now — it’s completely crazy,” in fact, he adds, “I’m keen on anything that’s going to live with higher inflationary numbers, because I can’t see the world getting out of the problems that it’s in.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Pelosi Celebrates Loss of Full-Time Jobs

“The 73-year-old former House Speaker then indicated that a work force dominated by part-timers is a good thing for employees, indicating ObamaCare will give workers more free time. “Overwhelmingly, for the American people, this is a liberation,” she contended, adding that the monstrous law will give citizens “the freedom to pursue [their] happiness.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Global Financial Death Spiral?, Part 5

The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus… The only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. (Keynesian economics) Milton Friedman in a 1979 interview with Phil Donahue.

Annual median household income has dropped by 7.3 percent since the beginning of the Obama administration. Source: Reason Magazine

We are told we are in a recovery. Yet, unemployment is still well above seven percent, down slightly in the past year. However, this is primarily due to discouraged workers who want to work, but have dropped out of the labor force. If they were included, (called U6) unemployment would be over 14 percent. A July 2013 Gallup poll shows the unemployment rate to be even worse; over 17 percent underemployed. Since January, 2013, 77 percent of all jobs created have been part time.

Full-time employment is down by over five million since 2007, while part-time employment is at an all-time high. This represents a tectonic shift, primarily due to Obamacare. Total employment is 2.2 million below the 2007 level in spite of 13 million more people of working age. Job participation has plummeted to 63 percent, the lowest in 60 years. A Pew study revealed that 36 percent of 18 to 31 year olds are living in their parents’ home. Only 25 percent of that age group was married, down from 30 percent in 2007.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

7th-Grader Suspended for Having Gun Keychain

COVENTRY, R.I. — A 12-year-old boy was suspended from a Coventry middle school after his parents said he brought a small gun keychain to school.

Joseph Lyssikatos said the keychain was in his backpack at Alan Shawn Feinstein Middle School on Thursday when it fell out. A classmate picked it up and started showing it to other students.

A teacher confiscated it and before Joseph knew it, he was suspended.

“This boy was the one waving it or showing it to other kids. Not Joseph. Joseph wasn’t doing that so why weren’t both of them reprimanded,” said Bonnie Bonanno, Joseph’s mother.

[Comment: Conditioning the children to “fear” guns — even mini toy models of guns.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

A View and a Price, Both Astounding

River House Aims to Turn Its Private Club Into New York’s Largest and Most Expensive Home

River House, a 1930s co-op apartment tower on the East River, wants to turn its private club into New York’s largest and most expensive home, a 62,000-square-foot residence with a price of $130 million.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Administration: Colleges Should Seek Diversity

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration told colleges and universities Friday they can continue to use admissions to increase diversity among their students, even in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that could potentially open the door to more challenges.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Alex Jones Guesses Liberal Caller is a Social Worker, Just by How Much He Worships Obama (Video)

In the following clip, a stunned liberal caller admits to being a social worker that…(wait for it)…works with children “over 18”…

“I help them get into school, I help get them a place to live, I help them get set up in apartments, I help them get cars, I help them get their school paid for — yeah!”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Army Document Describes Technology That Can Transmit a Voice Into Someone’s Head

A declassified Army document titled “Bioeffects of Selected Nonlethal Weapons” describes a series of technologies that the military has developed, including one with the ability to transfer radio-frequency (RF) energy into a human target. The energy is perceived by the brain as sounds inside the target’s head as the microwaves are absorbed by the target’s body. This technology has already been proven capable of carrying modulated frequencies that sound like recognizable speech to the recipient. If fully developed, such a technology could be a powerful tool — for good, by silently transmit messages to hostages surrounded by captors — or for evil, by driving an unwitting man insane with voices in his head. Has the U.S. government ever used it?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Aussies Shine Light on TWA Flight 800

In an utterly convincing 20-minute piece on the tragic fate of TWA Flight 800, Australian reporter Charles Wooley and producer Steven Burling have shown their American counterparts what real reporting looks like.[url]

The piece aired Friday on the Australian version of “60 Minutes.” It draws heavily from “TWA Flight 800,” a new documentary on the destruction of the Paris-bound 747 that blew up off the coast of Long Island in July 1996.

Producers of “TWA Flight 800” Tom Stalcup and Kristina Borjesson did their homework. They persuaded a half-dozen highly credible whistleblowers from within the investigation to tell their stories on camera. They also interviewed any number of eyewitnesses.

The unmistakable conclusion of both the documentary and the “60 Minutes” segment is that the plane was shot down, possibly by as many as three proximity-fuse missiles. The producers choose not to say who did the shooting, but their evidence points to an accidental strike by the U.S. Navy.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Brainwashing: Scientists Have Discovered How to Erase and Create Brand New Memories

Scientists have figured out how to make a nightmare that is only found in comic books, movies, and spy thrillers a reality. University of California at Irvine (Orange County) researchers have discovered how to use chemicals to wipe or erase memories from the brains of rodents. If that wasn’t scary enough, scientists at the Scripps Research Institute have figured out how to implant false memories in rats. The same scientists have also figured out how to eliminate the false memories without affecting other memories. What’s really frightening is that these aren’t the only scientists doing such work. MIT neuroscientist Susumu Tonegawa has figured out how to encode false memories in mice by manipulating neurons using a technique called opotgenetics. That supposedly gives Tonegawa control of individual brain cells.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

DARPA Funds a Stealthy, Bulletproof, Robotic Walker

Boston Dynamics has long been known as an innovator in the world of advanced robotics. Leveraging that reputation the company has just been awarded a $10M contract to create a next-generation stealthy, bulletproof walker whose missions would likely see it support troops in surprise operations.

According to the DARPA contract, the advanced research agency expects to see a robot that has “increased reliability and usability, enhanced survivability against small arms fire and a quiet power supply to support stealthy tactical operations.”

Both Boston Dynamics and DARPA plan to have this new stealthy walker completed by March 31, 2015. When this machine might be ready for operations is anyone’s guess.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Desperate MSM Moves to Kill Off Article Comments

New wave of online censorship as establishment panics about losing ability to dictate reality

Desperate to cling onto their ability to dictate reality, the crumbling mainstream media is beginning to kill off article comment sections in a cynical bid to silence dissenting voices.

Studies confirm that article comment sections — for better or worse — are heavily swaying public opinion. How many times have you read a mainstream news article about NSA spying, drones, gun control or any other other hot button issue where the author sides with the establishment, only to have their argument completely eviscerated by a deluge of irate respondents in the comment section?

[…]

As an excellent Daily Tech piece highlights, Popular Science admitted that its decision to pull the comment section was in order to preach a “scientific doctrine” on global warming without being challenged.

The origin of the word “doctrine” is to indoctrinate. Therefore, Popular Science is taking the most unscientific approach possible — by censoring debate and stifling alternative ideas — in order to indoctrinate its readers.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Don’t Let This Happen to Your Profession: AMA Culpable in Our Government Healthcare Fiasco

A.M.A.’s foolishness demonstrates the destructive combination of being high trained in one’s profession, yet not comprehending government, economics, and public policy

If you think ObamaCare is bad for consumers and patients think about this: how would you like to spend between twelve and sixteen years of your life in grueling and expensive academic training, only to have politicians and bureaucrats dictating to you years later how you will practice your craft and how much money you’ll be allowed to earn?

Let’s be clear about medical doctors. Any individual who can genuinely earn the title “M.D.” is worthy of significant respect, and one would hope that an entire association of M.D.’s would be equally as worthy. Unfortunately the American Medical Association — the professional group that has purported to represent physicians in the U.S. for over a century — managed to foolishly get itself caught in the crossfire of the “ObamaCare” war over the past few years. Now, MD’s — both those few who remain members of the AMA and the majority of physicians who are not members — as well as the practice of medicine itself, are all set to be big losers in the coming months and years.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Families of Benghazi: Sue for Wrongful Death

A wrongful death lawsuit over Benghazi would break it wide open

It’s now over one year since four Americans were slaughtered in Benghazi: U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. A complete time line is here. I always encourage readers to read the links in my columns. They are important, although it does take time. If you can’t read them today, book mark for later. What happened in Benghazi, the real reason behind it and the response by Soetoro (Obama) and Hillary Clinton is in my opinion treason: aiding and abetting the enemy, obstruction of justice and for Comrade Clinton, perjury.

Congressman Daryl Issa has held several hearings which have produced the same thing we’ve seen every time there is an “incident” that could destroy the careers of political heavy hitters. Lies, obfuscation and more lies. Ironically, the two biggest liars usurped the office they hold/held: Barry Soetoro aka Obama and Hillary Clinton who was sworn in as Secretary of State even though it violated the U.S. Constitution.[1]

[…]

The just-published blockbuster book Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi tells the story of a consulate that wasn’t really a consulate. That had security that wasn’t really security. That was breached in a matter of seconds. That was attacked by an al-Qaeda group that knew the layout of the consulate down to where the gasoline, used to torch the safe haven that Ambassador Chris Stevens and Sean Smith fled to as the attack began, was kept.

“It’s not a pretty story. According to Under Fire, the al-Qaeda group that attacked the consulate, Ansar al-Sharia, were given intelligence not only about the layout of the consulate, but its lack of security, revealing that the Americans living and working at the consulate were sitting ducks

[…]

While congressional committees diddle along for more than a year, and with Congress in session for only 30 more days until the end of the year, a lawsuit would elevate and expedite getting to the truth. Because as some have noted:

1- Benghazi makes Watergate ‘look like kindergarten’ 2- General: ‘A dereliction of duty this nation has never seen before’

“This is going to be the biggest scandal. It is going to make Watergate look like kindergarten because Watergate was primarily limited to the Oval Office. This cuts across the whole national security apparatus, where people were lying and covering up,” McInerney said. “It is a dereliction of duty that this nation has never seen before.

[Comment: Well worth reading — an extensive summary of Benghazi Betrayal. ]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Forty-Four Pct of US Disapproves of Obama’s Foreign Policy

(AGI) Washington, Sept 26 — A total of 44 percent of Americans disapprove of President Obama’s foreign policy, while 39 percent endorse it, according to the results of a New York Times/CBS survey. The survey centred on the way the U.S. administration is handling the Iran and Syria dossiers.

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

Golden Rice Exposed as Fraud: Genetically Engineered Crop Nothing More Than Biotech Battering Ram to Crush GMO Regulations

(NaturalNews) Everywhere you turn in the media, GMO propagandists are invoking so-called “Golden rice” as part of a false narrative that claims GMOs will save the world. Golden rice will save a million lives, blared the cover of TIME Magazine. Golden rice will give poor people critical nutrition and end suffering, we’re told. In fact, Golden rice will even make all the poor children eating it no longer care that they have no clean water, no sustainable agriculture and no economic future, it seems.

There’s a problem with all this, of course: the golden rice hoopla is pure hokum. Quackery. Charlatanism. There is no evidence whatsoever that golden rice can treat, prevent or cure any medical condition. And since when did pro-GMO people ever care about nutrition in the first place? Aren’t they in agreement with the FDA that there is no vitamin, no mineral and no herb that has any ability whatsoever to prevent, treat or cure any disease?

[…]

For the last two decades, the myth of golden rice has been invoked by GMO pushers to try to justify their agenda of 1) Owning the world’s seeds, 2) Forcing all farmers into economic servitude to Monsanto, 3) Spreading so much genetic pollution that heirloom crops all become contaminated with the genetic intellectual property of the GMO corporations.

These are the real goals of the GMO industry. Not to save lives but to control lives and dominate the global food supply.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Government Targets Private Bank Accounts: Seizes Funds of Innocent Americans Without Charge or Trial

Do you still keep a hefty portion of your savings in a U.S. bank?

If so you may want to reconsider your options. Because if the following report from theInstitute of Justice is any indication, nothing you hold in private bank account is safe anymore.

“Can the government use civil forfeiture to take your money when you have done nothing wrong — and then pocket the proceeds?

“The IRS thinks so.

“For over 30 years, Terry Dehko has successfully run a grocery store in Fraser, Mich., with his daughter Sandy. In January 2013, without warning,the federal government used civil forfeiture to seize all of the money from the Dehkos’ store bank account (more than $35,000) even though they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.

“Their American Dream is now a nightmare.

“Federal civil forfeiture law features an appalling lack of due process: It empowers the government to seize private property from Americans without ever charging, let alone convicting, them of a crime. Perversely, the government then pockets the proceeds while providing no prompt way to get a court to review the seizure.”

“On September 25, 2013, Terry and Sandy teamed up with the Institute for Justice to fight back in federal court. A victory will vindicate not just their right to be free from abusive forfeiture tactics, but the right of every American not to have their property wrongfully seized by government. (Source: Institute of Justice via AEI / The Daily Crux)

Every year the government of the United States seizes tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money and redistributes these funds to “black” projects which are often unaccounted for. On September 10th, 2001, for example, Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that the D.O.D. had lost around $2.3 Trillion. The funds were unaccounted for and any investigation into where they went ended the following day when the office holding the records in question was reportedly destroyed in the Pentagon attack.

No one was held to account. No one went to jail. No one was punished.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Highly Toxic Squalene MF59 Adjuvant That Caused Gulf War Syndrome in Military Servicemen Now Being Added to Some Civilian Flu Vaccines

(NaturalNews) Compulsory vaccination has long been a requirement to serve in the U.S. armed forces, and it is well documented that many of the vaccines administered to servicemen over the years have been experimental in nature, meaning they contained untested adjuvants and other questionable additives. But it has recently come to our attention that the highly toxic vaccine adjuvant squalene MF59, which was first given to servicemen back during the first Gulf War and later linked to causing Gulf War syndrome, is now being added to some civilian flu vaccines.

At a 2010 gathering of the American Rally for Personal Rights in Chicago, registered nurse and retired Air Force Captain Richard Rovet warned his listening audience about the dangers of squalene MF59, the devastation and horrors of which he witnessed first hand during his time in the service. The experimental oil-in-water adjuvant, which was forced on all servicemen beginning in 1999 via the mandatory anthrax vaccine, caused many of Capt. Rovet’s comrades to suffer severe and permanent side effects. One of Capt. Rovet’s closest friends, in fact, was actually killed as a result of squalene MF59.

“For the past 64 years, the United States Military and other agencies within our government have used our servicemen and women as test subjects, oftentimes in secret and without informed consent,” explained Capt. Rovet. “In December of 1994, the United States Senate released a report titled, ‘Is military research hazardous to a veteran’s health? Lessons spanning half a century’ … [that] outlines the unethical use of servicemen and women as test subjects, guinea pigs.“…

After establishing that squalene MF59 was admittedly experimental, Capt. Rovet went on to explain how the U.S. government willfully ignored all documented evidence showing that the anthrax vaccine, and squalene MF59 in particular, was directly responsible for triggering an epidemic of Gulf War syndrome that left hundreds of thousands of servicemen seriously injured or dead. Not only this, but the U.S. Department of Defense actually ordered that both the anthrax vaccine and a related botulism toxoid vaccine, both of which contained experimental squalene MF59, not be annotated in soldiers’ medical records — they were instead generically identified as “Vac A” and “Vac B” in order to conceal their identity.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

House Republicans Propose Delay of Health Law as Condition to Avoid Government Shutdown

With the federal government careening toward its first shutdown in 17 years, House Republicans chose a hard line Saturday in their attack on President Obama’s health care law, setting up a late vote to attach a one-year delay of the health care law to legislation that would keep the government operating past midnight Monday.

The House Republican package would also permanently repeal a tax on medical devices that helps pay for the Affordable Care Act.

The House will also vote on a separate bill to ensure military forces continue to be paid in the event of a government shutdown, an admission that the outcome of the fiscal showdown is all but sealed.

The decision to choose confrontation over compromise or surrender all but ensures that much of the government will close on Tuesday, barring a last-minute decision to pass a short-term spending bill while negotiations continue.

[Return to headlines]
 

House Passes Bill Linking Government Financing to Health Law Delay

The House of Representatives, under the shadow of a looming government shutdown, voted early Sunday morning to link further financing of the federal government to a one-year delay of President Obama’s health care law and a repeal of a tax that helps pay for the law — all but ensuring that large swaths of the government will close this Tuesday.

Acknowledging that likelihood, the House unanimously approved a separate bill to ensure that unformed military personnel would continue to be paid during that shutdown.

[Return to headlines]
 

If You Have a LinkedIn Account, You Should Probably Know About These Accusations

Some users of LinkedIn have launched a lawsuit against the professional social networking site, accusing it of hacking into their email addresses to access their contacts’ information for marketing purposes. LinkedIn has denied these claims.

Bloomberg News reported that the lawsuit, filed Sept. 17, asked a judge to bar the company from conducting the alleged practices without user knowledge, and is seeking damages for the revenue that would have been gained through such activity.

“LinkedIn’s own website contains hundreds of complaints regarding this practice,” the filed complaint stated, according to Bloomberg.

On of these complaints comes one from plaintiff Deborah Lagutaris, a tax preparer and real estate broker. She claims LinkedIn contacted more than 3,000 people pretending to be her.

When she contacted LinkedIn about this occurrence, she said they told her, “Oh, you can remove all those invitations from your account manually. We don’t know what happened.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Let ObamaCare Collapse

What the GOP’s Defund-ObamaCare Caucus is failing to see is that ObamaCare is no longer just ObamaCare. It is about something that is beyond the reach of a congressional vote.

As its Oct. 1 implementation date arrives, ObamaCare is the biggest bet that American liberalism has made in 80 years on its foundational beliefs. This thing called “ObamaCare” carries on its back all the justifications, hopes and dreams of the entitlement state. The chance is at hand to let its political underpinnings collapse, perhaps permanently.

If ObamaCare fails, or seriously falters, the entitlement state will suffer a historic loss of credibility with the American people. It will finally be vulnerable to challenge and fundamental change. But no mere congressional vote can achieve that. Only the American people can kill ObamaCare.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Mercury Exposure Linked to Homosexuality in Birds

In a rather bizarre, and perhaps even controversial, study that looked at the mating behavior of ibises, a tropical bird species that to some extent resembles a seagull, researchers from the University of Florida, Gainesville, (UFG) found that exposure to mercury disrupts the birds’ endocrine systems and leads to decreased offspring. Not only this, mercury exposure was also found to cause some male ibises to pair up with other males rather than females, exhibiting a type of chemical-induced homosexuality that is rarely the topic of scientific inquiry.

Published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, this study reveals that methylmercury, the most toxic and easily absorbed form of mercury found in the environment, is capable of literally altering sexual preference, at least in ibises. What has otherwise never been observed in wild ibises, homosexual behavior, was observed for the very first time in carefully controlled tests, suggesting that determined sexual orientation could have a chemical component.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Muslim Woman Discomforted by Truth at the Bartlett Festival in Tennessee

by Jerry Gordon

The Bartlett Festival near Memphis is a major fall event in Shelby County, Tennessee. Among the presenters at the Festival was the ACT! Memphis Chapter who paid the required $50 fee to set up an information booth to present its views, free speech under our First Amendment. The Memphis ACT! Booth at the bucolic Bartlett Festival had information that discomforted a local Muslim woman attendee. She lodged a complaint triggering a local Channel 5 WMC TV news investigative report. She said it had no place at a local family event with what she alleged was an anti-Muslim message. However, her action simply drew attention to the realities about the activities of the radical elements in the Shelby County Muslim Community thereby raising the visibility of the ACT! Memphis Chapter awareness campaign.

Watch the WMCTV report, Controversial Festival Booth.

Action News 5 — Memphis, Tennessee

Following the kerfuffle over the WMCTV report, the Memphis ACT! Chapter posted the following response on its website:…

           — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon [Return to headlines]
 

N.S.A. Examines Social Networks of U.S. Citizens

Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials.

The spy agency began allowing the analysis of phone call and e-mail logs in November 2010 to examine Americans’ networks of associations for foreign intelligence purposes after N.S.A. officials lifted restrictions on the practice, according to documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor.

The policy shift was intended to help the agency “discover and track” connections between intelligence targets overseas and people in the United States, according to an N.S.A. memorandum from January 2011. The agency was authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of every e-mail address, phone number or other identifier, the document said. Because of concerns about infringing on the privacy of American citizens, the computer analysis of such data had previously been permitted only for foreigners.

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N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens

WASHINGTON — Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials.

The spy agency began allowing the analysis of phone call and e-mail logs in November 2010 to examine Americans’ networks of associations for foreign intelligence purposes after N.S.A. officials lifted restrictions on the practice, according to documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor.

The policy shift was intended to help the agency “discover and track” connections between intelligence targets overseas and people in the United States, according to an N.S.A. memorandum from January 2011. The agency was authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of every e-mail address, phone number or other identifier, the document said. Because of concerns about infringing on the privacy of American citizens, the computer analysis of such data had previously been permitted only for foreigners.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Only Six Arrests Made in $40,000.00 Vandalism of Ex-NFL Player Brian Holloway’s NY Vacation Home, More Expected

Police say six people have been arrested [so far] on charges they were among hundreds of young partygoers who trashed the upstate New York vacation home of a former NFL player.

The arrests came after former New England Patriots and Los Angeles Raiders offensive lineman Brian Holloway said Thursday he signed papers authorizing the Rensselaer County sheriff to bring charges in the Labor Day weekend party.

Holloway says investigators have told him hundreds of people could be charged. He says one of the arrested people had been taken into his family briefly years ago.

Holloway gained national attention by reposting pictures the teens had put on social media websites. He says he did it to get them to take responsibility for the damage to his Stephentown home but only four did.

[…]

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Police Debut Stun Cuffs: Electroshock Restraints More Powerful Than Tasers

A Missouri Sheriff’s Department is testing electronic restraints called “Stun Cuffs,” which can deliver up to 80,000 volts to an inmate’s arm or leg by remote control.

As revealed in the video, the wearer fell completely to the floor after being shocked remotely from a distance which can reach up to 100 yards.

“Does that hurt?” One of the officers asked the wearer while laughing. “Stop resisting!”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Public-School Mosque Field-Trippers Are Taught the Virtues of Islam

Three and a half years ago, sixth-graders from Wellesley Middle School were herded on a field trip to the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center mosque. There they were subjected to proselytism by Muslims, enlightened on the equal status of women in Islamic culture even during Mohammed’s time (ha!), and urged to pray the Islamic conversion prayer to Allah.

But rest assured, there is no attempt to Islamize America as there has been, and successfully, in Europe. I assume all the liberals and atheists so rabid about a “separation of church and state” already know this, however, judging by their lack of silence on the matter.

Recently, students from Hendersonville High School, of Tennessee, were brought to a mosque as part of a three-week comparative-religion course. They were not brought to a church or a synagogue or whatever it is Hindus and Buddhists pray in; they were brought to a mosque.

The principal of the school defended the decision by saying they couldn’t afford to go to other places of worship. But if a school were interested in teaching about all religions, would they not have at least invited representatives from other religions to the school?

One student’s parents did not permit her to go on the field trip, so she was told by her teacher to write a paper instead that compares Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. According to her father, however, “There was one page on the sayings of Jesus, two-thirds of a page on the sayings of Gandhi, and five pages on Muhammed.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Real-Life Rambo, Mercenary Joseph Manuel Hunter, Arrested Over Assassination Plot, Drug Smuggling

A former soldier nicknamed Rambo has been arrested after leading a team of highly trained mercenaries across exotic locations in a plot to kill a US drug enforcement agent.

A legal document lodged by the US attorney’s office in New York alleges Joseph Manuel Hunter, also known as Frank Robinson, Jim Riker and Rambo, plotted to carry out the contract killing for $US850,000, and also attempted to import cocaine into the US.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Senator Says Politics Have Reached Civil War Levels

As the clock ticks down toward a possible government shutdown, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, isn’t holding back.

On the Senate floor before 10 a.m. Friday, the senator gave a speech describing how American politics have reached the level at which “a small group of willful men and women who have a certain ideology” — read: the tea party and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas — have been able to take over the congressional budget debate in the last week. “Since they can’t get their way,” Harkin said, “they’re going to create this confusion and discourse and hope that the public will be so mixed up in who is to blame for this, that they’ll blame both sides.”

This isn’t just congressional business as usual, Harkin said. It’s much, much more dire:

“It’s dangerous. It’s very dangerous. I believe, Mr. President, we are at one of the most dangerous points in our history right now. Every bit as dangerous as the break-up of the Union before the Civil War.”

This isn’t the first time the senator has spoken out about the spiraling budget and the fight over Obamacare. Harkin suggested Thursday that Cruz looked “foolish” for his “little tirade” that lasted from Tuesday afternoon until Wednesday morning. Harkin called out Cruz as being part of “the most extreme tea-party wing” of his party, and for his “ideology-driven obstructionism.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Coming Battle Over Brain Scans in the Courtroom

The possibility of reading minds with brain scans is creating fierce controversy among legal scholars, according to a feature in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Duke University professor Nita A. Farahany, warns ominously, “We have this idea of privacy that includes the space around our thoughts, which we only share with people we want to. Neuroscience shows that what we thought of as this zone of privacy can be breached.” Farahany asks whether the Fourth and Fifth Amendment to the American Constitution, which protect citizens against “unreasonable searches and seizures” and self-incrimination will protect people against intrusion by technology. Although reading thoughts and memories is still science fiction, MRI scans are beginning to be tendered as evidence in courts.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

White House to Announce $300m in Aid Friday to Make Detroit Safer, Erase Blight

WASHINGTON — Nearly $300 million in aid for Detroit — from federal and state coffers, private businesses and charitable foundations — will be announced Friday as Obama administration officials visit the city to discuss what can be done to help eradicate blight, improve transportation, encourage new business and make residents safer.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Are Syrian Rebels Being Trained in Rural Ontario Towns?

A concerned Canadian contacted me about two weeks ago. Their concern was that they had seen black vehicles with U.N. logo’s on them, driving around in the area of Gananoque Ontario. A small rural town east of Kingston Ontario. Another observation made was that in this town with a population of just over 5,000. There seemed to be many more middle eastern people people than usual.

I have called and left several messages with the Gananoque Now, but am yet to receive a call back. I also called the Canadian Armed Forces media relations department. Here is what I learned from them…

In essence we had middle eastern people being brought into a rural Ontario town to train on “Civil-Military Cooperation, Information Operations, and Psychological Operations.” Then be sent back into the Syrian region. Where Canada is already funding rebel propaganda.

“Canada has given $5.3-million to the Syrian opposition to support the rebels in anti-government propaganda since April 2012, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAIT).

Canadian funding has helped Syrian rebels establish a pirate radio network and training for journalists and bloggers “in an effort to rapidly increase international credibility of the Syrian opposition and visibility of humanitarian news reporting from Syria,” the government says.” canadianawareness.org/2013/09/canadian-government-funding-syrian-rebels-propaganda

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Belgium: Man Diagnosed as ‘Comatose’ For 23 Years Was Actually Fully Conscious, But Paralyzed

(NaturalNews) Imagine being stuck in your bed, conscious but unable to speak or move, for a quarter of your life, while everyone around you thought you were just a comatose “vegetable.” This is what happened to 50-year-old Rom Houben of Belgium, who back in 2006, and later reported in 2009, was discovered to have actually been fully conscious, just paralyzed, for all these years, following a near-fatal car accident he suffered back in 1983.

It is one of the most nightmarish thoughts imaginable, being stuck in a lifeless body but unable to communicate with anyone for a full 23 straight years. But somehow, Houben was able to survive this unimaginable experience that shatters much of what the medical system thought it knew about brain damage and being unconscious. The entire coma diagnosis process as we currently know it, in fact, is now in question, as many more allegedly comatose individuals out there could actually be fully conscious and aware of their surroundings.

According to the U.K.’s Guardian, Houben has essentially been a prisoner in his own body since the early 1980s, unable to communicate with nurses, family and others who continually tried to communicate with him. It was not until 2006 when a new state-of-the-art PET scanning system came onto the scene that Houben’s caretakers came to realize the error of their assumptions — Houben had all along been able to hear and understand life, as it was taking place around his otherwise lifeless body.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Denmark: Öresund Bridge Lights Up in Nazi Flight Memorial

The Öresund bridge linking Copenhagen and Malmö is set to be bathed in light on Tuesday evening in memorial to the Jews who fled Nazi-occupied Denmark for safety in Sweden 70 years ago.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

France: Crime in Paris Rivals Marseille

An article of seventeen paragraphs (subscription required), published by Le Figaro, describes the city of Paris as not far behind Marseille in terms of drug-related crimes, vendettas and gangland-style executions. The article is highly descriptive and laden with pungent expressions difficult to translate into English. Therefore, the following is a reduction and a simplification, out of necessity:…

           — Hat tip: Steen [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Five-Star Movement Founder Attacks Lower House Speaker

(AGI) Rome, Sept 19 — Italy’s anti-establishment Five-Star Movement founder Beppe Grillo on Thursday urged Speaker Laura Boldrini to show more respect for his MPs. “I have not time for this lady’s querulous reprimands,” he said. She treated his party’s representatives “like schoolchildren”. The Speaker “is a furniture item appointed by the powers that be. She was not elected, but merely appointed,” he said.

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

Italy: Berlusconi Recuses 10 Senate Committee Members

(AGI) Rome, Sept 28 — Berlusconi recused 10 Senate Committee members on the grounds that a defendant is entitled to a ‘fair trial’ with judges not only appearing but being impartial. The argument is contained in the 26-page defence brief that the Italian Journalists’ Association AGI was given access to. The senators refuted by Berlusconi for having expressed an opinion on the case are: Dario Stefano (editor’s note, the Committee Chairman), Pezzopane, Buccarella, Casson, Crimi, Cucca Fuksia, Giarrusso Pagliari and Moscardelli. The Senators are requested to tender their resignations in order to empanel a judging committee that might at least be impartial, Silvio Berlusconi wrote in the defence brief after specifying that the Committee carries out “jurisdictional functions”, as outlined by the Constitutional Court and although the proceeding is not comparable to a criminal trial, “it should be inferred that also this Committee’s jurisdiction be implemented through a fair trial”. And, in order to celebrate a fair trial, the defendant must “be before an impartial judge”.

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

Norway’s New Premier to Meet Anti-Immigrant Party

“The Progress Party cannot be compared to the Front National in France or the Danish People’s Party or German neo-Nazi groups,” said Frank Aarebrot, a professor of comparative politics at the University of Bergen and a prominent political commentator. “Its libertarian streak is as strong as its anti-immigrant streak. The current leader is much more concerned with privatizing hospitals and schools than with immigration.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Swedish Passport Black Market “Growing”

The illegal sale of Swedish passports is growing so quickly that Swedish police may soon ask for a law change, newspaper Dagens Nyheter reports.

At the moment Swedes can get a new passport as many times as they want. Police suspect that some people that are “losing” their passport several times a month, are actually selling them abroad to human traffickers for over SEK 10,000 each.

Quite often the only way to get into the EU and seek asylum is entering illegally.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Swiss Canton Ticino Votes to Ban Burqa

(AGI) Geneva, Sept 22- The Swiss Canton Ticino has voted in favour of banning the burqa according to preliminary results for the referendum help in 131 municipalities. Swiss television has reported a 65 percent turnout and should the outcome be confirmed, Ticino will become the first Swiss canton to abolish the religious veil.

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

UK: ‘Tosh’: Second Worcester Park Mosque Plan Rejected Amid Gridlock Fears

A plan to open a ‘car-free’ mosque in Worcester Park was rejected after councillors dismissed the idea no-one would drive to it.

Sutton Council refused planning permission for a mosque to be opened in the old Bank Chambers building in Green Lane near the junction with Green Lane at a heated meeting last night. The scheme was rejected after councillors on the development control committee refused to accept the developers claims that no-one would drive to the mosque and said plans would exacerbate and already-existing problem with traffic in the area…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: The State School Where Girls Are Forced to Wear Hijabs in Classrooms and Outside School

Pupils have to wear hijabs in and OUT of class for the first time at a state-backed school in Blackburn.

The cover-up was ordered at the 800-pupil Tauheedul Islam Girls’ High School where students already have to dress in long purple tunics over black trousers to ensure flesh is not seen.

Under the rules, pupils must ‘wear the hijab outside the school and home, recite the Koran at a least once a week’ and not have stationery which shows ‘unIslamic images’ like pictures of pop stars.

Ten per cent of the students in the sixth-form wear the niqab veil which covers the face except the eyes.

The voluntary-aided school is the flagship of the Tauheedul charitable trust which wants to open 12 Muslim free schools across the country.

Three have been approved so far with one in Hackney opening this month, despite concerns raised by a former government advisor on the prevention of terrorism.

Haris Rafiq told the Sunday Times: ‘I think it threatens to create young British Muslims who are not able to integrate in the wider society, who are living in isolation and outside the wider community.’

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

‘We Must be Able to Chuck Out People Who Threaten Our Country’: Cameron Reveals Britain Could Leave Human Rights Convention

Britain could pull out of the controversial European Convention on Human Rights which stops dangerous terrorists from being ‘chucked out’ of the UK, David Cameron said today.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt Threatens to Sharply Cut Soaring Fruit, Vegetable Prices

Domestic trade minister warns sellers failing to comply with government-regulated prices would jail, fines.

CAIRO — Egypt will impose a sharp cut in the price of fruits and vegetables if they do not come down on their own by next week, the supply and domestic trade minister said Tuesday.

The ministry will ensure that these food items are sold at “25 percent lower than the (prevailing) market price,” Mohammed Ibrahim Abu Shadi said in a statement.

Fruit and vegetable prices have risen significantly in the past two months in a country where 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.

Abu Shadi said inspectors were intensifying their monitoring of all the country’s markets, and warned that those failing to comply with government-regulated prices would jail and fines.

The penalties would range from one to five years in prison and fines from 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($135/100 euros) to 5,000 pounds.

On Monday, the government had already given vendors a week to reduce what it said were “excessive and unjustified price rise” of these products and warned it would “regulate the prices” if they did not come down.

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Has the Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood Waned in the Arab Spring?

In the midst of the media attention drawn to the UN General Assembly session and President Obama’s alleged breakthrough with Iran’s new President Rouhani, there were important developments in the Middle East indicating that the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) influence in the Arab Spring may have waned. Could these changes indicate the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) might be on the run or at least forced to go underground, again?

Last Monday, an Egyptian Court effectively banned the MB by ordering confiscation of the Islamist group’s assets and ending of allied activities. On Tuesday, the Egyptian interim government ordered the closing of the MB party newspaper, Freedom and Justice. The Wall Street Journal noted shortly thereafter that action was followed by interim government instructions to public and private TV channels to post banners extolling “Egypt on the road to democracy” on its broadcasts “in order to reflect the new democratic path to development and construction”. In Tunisia, the MB Islamist Ennahda Party was pummeled by popular protests about its Islamist agenda, alleged assassination of opposition political leaders. It succumbed to demands for a more secular alternative…

           — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon [Return to headlines]
 

Moroccans Protest Against Muslim Brotherhood Government

By Daniel Greenfield

Excerpt: But just like Egypt and Tunisia, Islamist rule isn’t proving to be too popular. “Up to 5,000 people protested in the Moroccan capital Sunday against the Islamist government and the high cost of living after price rises of staple goods, a journalist said.”

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Muslims Expel 6 Christian Brothers From Village in Egypt

by Mary Abdelmassih

(AINA) — Violence against Egyptian Christians erupted yesterday in the village of Zakaria, located in the Upper Egyptian province of Minya. Zakaria has a population of 4000, split evenly between Christians and Muslims. The violence began after a Muslim family accused Kirollos Sabet, 22, of having an illicit relationship with a Muslim woman, also 22.

According to a statement by Anba Makarios, Bishop of Minya, Muslim villagers assembled where the family of Mr. Sabet lives, broke into their furniture and household appliances stores, looted its contents and then destroyed it, looted an adjacent electrical appliances warehouse and a family-owned taxi. Security forces arrived in the village to restore order, but loud speakers were inciting sedition, and hard-line Muslims prowled the streets of the village throwing stones at Coptic homes and calling for revenge.

Under the supervision of Major General Osama Metwally, director of Minya security, a customary “reconciliation” meeting was held yesterday in the presence of the heads of Muslim and Christian families in the region, a number of mayors and the families of the accused man and woman. No church representative was present. The meeting decided that Mr. Sabet was to pay the amount of 300,000 Egyptian pounds and the Muslim woman 150,000 pounds, because she willingly met the man. But because the woman is poor and cannot pay the amount, it was decided to add her fine to the fine of Mr. Sabet. When Mr. Sabet and his family protested this decision the arbitrators decided to expel Mr. Sabet and his five brothers from the village.

The Bishop warns that Muslim villagers are now prowling the village chanting against the Copts, demanding the burning of their churches, homes and shops. “A state of extreme tension prevails in the Zakaria village and is spreading to neighboring villages, which could result in a new wave of violence against the Copts.”

           — Hat tip: Mary Abdelmassih [Return to headlines]
 

I’m Sorry, But We Have to Talk About the Barbarism of Modern Islamist Terrorism

In Western news-making and opinion-forming circles, there’s a palpable reluctance to talk about the most noteworthy thing about modern Islamist violence: its barbarism, its graphic lack of moral restraint. This goes beyond the BBC’s yellow reluctance to deploy the T-word — terrorism — in relation to the bloody assault on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya at the weekend. Across the commentating board, people are sheepish about pointing out the historically unique lunacy of Islamist violence and its utter detachment from any recognisable moral universe or human values. We have to talk about this barbarism; we have to appreciate how new and unusual it is, how different it is even from the terrorism of the 1970s or of the early twentieth century. We owe it to the victims of these assaults, and to the principle of honest and frank political debate, to face up to the unhinged, morally unanchored nature of Islamist violence in the 21st century.

Maybe it’s because we have become so inured to Islamist terrorism in the 12 years since 9/11 that even something like the blowing-up of 85 Christians outside a church in Pakistan no longer shocks us or even makes it on to many newspaper front pages. But consider what happened: two men strapped with explosives walked into a group of men, women and children who were queuing for food and blew up themselves and the innocents gathered around them. Who does that? How far must a person have drifted from any basic system of moral values to behave in such an unrestrained and wicked fashion? Yet the Guardian tells us it is “moral masturbation” to express outrage over this attack, and it would be better to give into a “sober recognition that there are many bad things we can’t as a matter of fact do much about”. This is a demand that we further acclimatise to the peculiar and perverse bloody Islamist attacks around the world, shrug our shoulders, put away our moral compasses, and say: “Ah well, this kind of thing happens.”

Or consider the attack on Westgate in Kenya, where both the old and the young, black and white, male and female were targeted. With no clear stated aims from the people who carried the attack out, and no logic to their strange and brutal behaviour, Westgate had more in common with those mass mall and school shootings that are occasionally carried out by disturbed people in the West than it did with the political violence of yesteryear. And yet still observers avoid using the T-word or the M-word (murder) to describe what happened there, and instead attach all sorts of made-up, see-through political theories to this rampage, giving what was effectively a terror tantrum executed by morally unrestrained Islamists the respectability of being a political protest of some breed.

Time and again, one reads about Islamist attacks that seem to defy not only the most basic of humanity’s moral strictures but also political and even guerrilla logic. Consider the hundreds of suicide attacks that have taken place in Iraq in recent years, a great number of them against ordinary Iraqis, often children. Western apologists for this wave of weird violence, which they call “resistance”, claim it is about fighting against the Western forces which were occupying Iraq in the wake of the 2003 invasion. If so, it’s the first “resistance” in history whose prime targets have been civilians rather than security forces, and which has failed to put forward any kind of political programme that its violence is allegedly designed to achieve. Even experts in counterinsurgency have found themselves perplexed by the numerous nameless suicide assaults on massive numbers of civilians in post-war Iraq, and the fact that these violent actors, unlike the vast majority of violent political actors in history, have “developed no alternative government or political wing and displayed no intention of amassing territory to govern”. One Iraqi attack has stuck in my mind for seven years. In 2006 a female suicide bomber blew herself up among families — including many mothers and their offspring — who were queuing up for kerosene. Can you imagine what happened? A terrible glimpse was offered by this line in a Washington Post report on 24 September 2006: “Two pre-teen girls embraced each other as they burned to death.”

What motivates this perversity? What are its origins? Unwilling, or perhaps unable, to face up to the newness of this unrestrained, aim-free, civilian-targeting violence, Western observers do all sorts of moral contortions in an effort to present such violence as run-of-the-mill or even possibly a justifiable response to Western militarism. Some say, “Well, America kills women and children too, in its drone attacks”, wilfully overlooking the fact such people are not the targets of America’s military interventions — and I say that as someone who has opposed every American venture overseas of the past 20 years. If you cannot see the difference between a drone strike that goes wrong and kills an entire family and a man who crashes his car into the middle of a group of children accepting sweets from a US soldier and them blows himself and them up — as happened in Iraq in 2005 — then there is something wrong with you. Other observers say that Islamists, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the individuals who attacked London and New York, are fighting against Western imperialism in Muslim lands. But that doesn’t add up. How does blowing up Iraqi children represent a strike against American militarism? How is detonating a bomb on the London Underground a stab at the Foreign Office? It is ridiculous, and more than a little immoral, to try to dress up nihilistic assaults designed merely to kill as many ordinary people as possible as some kind of principled political violence.

We have a tendency to overlook the newness of modern Islamic terrorism, how recent is this emergence of a totally suicidal violence that revels in causing as many causalities as possible. Yes, terrorism has existed throughout the modern era, but not like this. Consider the newness of suicide attacks, of terrorists who destroy themselves as well as their surroundings and fellow citizens. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were an average of one or two suicide attacks a year. Across the whole world. Since the early and mid-2000s there have been around 300 or 400 suicide attacks a year. In 2006 there were more suicide attacks around the world than had taken place in the entire 20 years previous. Terrorists’ focus on killing civilians — the more the better — is also new. If you look at the 20 bloodiest terrorist attacks in human history, measured by the number of causalities they caused, you’ll see something remarkable: 14 of them — 14 — took place in the 1990s and 2000s. So in terms of mass death and injury, those terrorist eras of the 1970s and 80s, and also earlier outbursts of anarchist terrorism, pale into insignificance when compared with the new, Islamist-leaning terrorism that has emerged in recent years.

What we have today, uniquely in human history, is a terrorism that seems myopically focused on killing as many people as possible and which has no clear political goals and no stated territorial aims. The question is, why? It is not moral masturbation to ask this question or to point out the peculiarity and perversity of modern Islamist violence. My penny’s worth is that this terrorism speaks to a profound crisis of politics and of morality. Where earlier terrorist groups were restrained both by their desire to appear as rational political actors with a clear goal in mind and by basic moral rules of human behaviour — meaning their violence was often bloody, yes, but rarely focused narrowly on committing mass murder — today’s Islamist terrorists appear to float free of normal political rules and moral compunctions. This is what is so infuriating about the BBC’s refusal to call these groups terrorists — because if anything, and historically speaking, even the term terrorist might be too good for them.

[Reader comment by Cassandra1963 on 29 September 2013 at 0130.]

You don’t tolerate evil you exterminate it, you cannot coexist with a religion that desires conquest and submission you destroy it before it grows strong enough to destroy you. A religion that breeds mass murderers and the clerics that support and empower them and the masses that accept this evil is not and must not be considered a valid choice, it is a disease of the soul to be expunged with determination.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

International ‘Islamophobia’ Conference Promotes Sharia Agenda

by Andrew Harrod and Sam Nunberg

Objective observers should be rightfully concerned by the “International Conference on Islamophobia: Law & Media” held by the Turkish government’s Directorate General of Press and Information (DGPI or BYGEM in Turkish) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) this past September 12-13 in Istanbul’s Grand Tarabya Hotel. Conference participants substantiated all too many threats emanating from various Muslims and their allies, calling into question their respect for free speech and freedom of expression.

The conference website defined “Islamophobia” according to the Greek suffix phobia as a “groundless fear and intolerance of Islam and Muslims.” By “culminating in hate speech and attitudes towards Muslims,” this phobia is “detrimental to international peace.” There should be “recognition of Islamophobia as a hate crime and Islamophobic attitudes as human rights violations.”

In Istanbul, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated his well-known meme (see here and here) that “Islamophobia” as a “kind of racism” is a “crime against humanity.” “No monotheistic religion,” Erdogan elaborated, “adopts, supports, permits or leads terror.”

“If Christianity and Judaism cannot be mentioned with terrorism,” Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arinç seconded in his remarks, “then our noble religion Islam cannot be defamed this way either.” Arinç discerned the main cause of “Islamophobia” in the belief that “Islam and democracy are not compatible,” yet “Muslims are democrats in essence.”

Representing the OIC’s 57 Muslim-majority states (including “Palestine”), a fellow Turk, OIC Secretary General Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, reprised themes from the OIC’slongstanding attempts to restrict criticism of Islam. Ihsanoglu decried the “exploitation….of freedom of speech.”

The conference’s first session featured internationally renowned Islam scholar and regular Islamist apologist John Esposito. Esposito cited “irrational fear” being behind “anti-Sharia legislations” in the United States. Turning toward Egypt, Esposito criticized those who “think it is legitimate to overthrow a democratically elected government.”

Joining Esposito on the panel to compare anti-Semitism with “Islamophobia” was Norman Gary Finkelstein. The Jewish child of Holocaust survivors, Finkelstein has a long record of comparing Israel to Nazism and supporting groups such as Hezbollah while having his views of fellow Jews celebrated among anti-Semites.

Nathan Lean appeared at the conference as well. Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Jeffrey Taylor has criticized Lean’s recent “maladroit, bungling critique” of atheist Richard Dawkins as an “Islamophobe.” Bête noir among Lean’s ilk, Islam scholar Robert Spencerhas likewise condemned various sloppy errors in Lean’s public correspondence. Spencer has also condemned Lean as a “stalker” for threatening to release publicly supposed pictures of Spencer’s home and family.

Joining Lean on a panel were American and Iranian professors Stephen Sheehi and Saied Reza Ameli. During a 2011 visit to the University of Florida, Sheehi had defined “Islamophobia” as merely being a “hatred of brown people.” Ameli, meanwhile, was afounder and leading member of the United Kingdom’s Islamic Human Rights Commission(IHRC), a “radical Islamist organization” in the assessment of Israel’s Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism.

The self-proclaimed Turkish “Marxist academic” Ali Murat Yel and his American colleagueHatem Al Bazian were also in Istanbul. Yel has praised Erdogan’s ruling AKP party for having “paved the way for…a democratic society” in Turkey despite Islamist concerns. “The West,” Yel has also opined, “may come to appreciate the Muslim experience of both Andalusia and the Ottoman past in dealing with their religious minorities.” The “outspoken anti-Zionist” Bazian, meanwhile, has in the past stated notoriously genocidal Islamic hadith against the Jews…

[Return to headlines]
 

Is Iranian News Outlet More Believable Than CNN?

A controversy has emerged over what Iranian President Rouhani said or did not say during a CNN interview about the Holocaust, with Jonathan S. Tobin of Commentary believing a semi-official Iranian news agency account.

Did Rouhani denounce the Holocaust by name or not?

Tobin says, “The official organ of the Iranian government [Fars News Agency] provided an exact translation of what he said and matched it with what CNN broadcast and then published on their website. When the two are compared it is clear that the network expanded on what he said to help convey the impression that he was condemning Holocaust denial when it is clear that he did no such thing.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Matthew Fisher: It’s Open Season on Christians in Syria and Across the Muslim World

It seemed this weekend as if it was open season on Christians across the Muslim world.

Seventy-eight Christians were slaughtered Sunday by twin suicide bombers at a church where I have attended services several times myself in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.

Less than 24 hours earlier a gang of Islamic militants from Somalia murdered at least 68 workers and shoppers, including two Canadians, at a mall in Kenya, allegedly shouting for Muslims to get out of the way so they could specifically kill Christians.

Coptic Christians in Egypt also have been targeted recently by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Christians in large numbers have left their ancient enclaves in Iraq and the West Bank after churches there were blown up or Christians were threatened.

The carnage had a special resonance in this predominately Christian town in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley where Syrian Christians have taken refuge after being attacked by extremist groups linked to al-Qaeda such as Jabhat al-Nusra.

“If we stay in Syria, they will kill us. It is that simple,” explained 36-year-old Rami Sammaan, after celebrating mass with his wife, Sally, and her mother, father and sister in the packed pews of St. Elias Maronite Church.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

McCain’s Al Qaeda Moderates Busy Planning Next Terror Attacks, Thankful for US Government Support

Senator John McCain was just sure he could pick moderates in Syria worth supporting. To prove his point he made a trip to Syria this spring to demonstrate how much the insurgents were just like us, struggling for democracy and equal rights for all. But his trip was organized by the Syria Emergency Task Force’s Mouaz Moustafa, who not long ago headed up the Libyan Council of North America. Both organizations are partly funded by the US State Department through a mirrored wilderness of NGO cutouts. But both have close ties to extremists fighting in each country. (In Libya, for example, Mustafa was with the people who killed US ambassador Stevens.) In McCain’s case, the “moderates” he met and was so attracted to in Syria tunred out to be kidnappers and thugs.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama Says He Spoke to Iran’s President by Phone

President Obama said Friday he had spoken by phone with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, the first direct contact between the leaders of Iran and United States since 1979. Mr. Obama, speaking in the White House briefing room, said the two leaders discussed Iran’s nuclear program and said he was persuaded there was a basis for an agreement.

[Return to headlines]
 

Syria: Franciscans at the Forefront Helping Christian and Muslim War Victims

Fr. Halim, a former provincial of the Custody of the Holy Land , tells AsiaNews about the situation of the increasingly endangered and persecuted Syrian Christians. The villages in rebel hands are forbidden to non-Muslims . The 11 Franciscans who have remained in Syria suffer along with the population and provide material and spiritual support regardless of faith .

Damascus ( AsiaNews ) — Christians in Syria are in danger. Like the rest of the population they are living the sufferings of war , but because of their faith they are increasingly targeted by Islamic extremists. Interviewed by AsiaNews, Fr . Halim , a former province of Syria for the Custody of the Holy Land, says that “many have lost hope . People hope that the international community and especially the forces in the field pay heed to the Pope’s appeal for peace”.

The priest said that in Gassanieh ( Lattakiah ) , the village where last on June 23 Fr . Francois Murad was killed, the Islamist insurgents have driven almost all Christians away. “Even religious brothers and sisters — he continues — have had to leave their convents”. Of the approximately 1,000 Catholic and Orthodox inhabitants, only five people have chosen to stay. No one has news of them, entrance in the village is forbidden.

The 11 Franciscans left in the country suffer with the people from the bombings, clashes between rebels and the regime, the famine, and the continued kidnappings for extortion committed by unscrupulous criminals. “Before the war — he explains — our work focused mainly on the spiritual formation of communities. The brothers were engaged in the catechism, pastoral activities with young people, in preparation for the sacraments. Now we have to respond first to the material needs to help the people to overcome this sad situation. “

However, Fr. Halim stresses that without spiritual support even humanitarian aid is not enough to raise the morale of the people, who in ever greater numbers are trying to flee the country , to emigrate , leaving everything behind. “Muslims ask us for help and advice. At a time like this there is no distinction between confessions”. Recently the Custody of the Holy Land launched an appeal to help the people of Syria. Fr. Halim explains the urgency of such aid: “We are trying to raise funds to support the people on the spot whether they are Christians or Muslims. We do not want to abandon Syria”. For the Franciscan journey across the border is often one-way.

“In a year — he continues — we have raised and spent more than 350 thousand dollars for the support not only to the needy, but also to those families who through great sacrifice try to rebuild their lives in their destroyed villages. The money was also used to help the people victim of kidnapping, which has now become part of an agenda”.

The threat of Islamic extremists, the bloodiest war ever conducted by the regime and the threat of a military attack by the United States, all threaten the existence of the Christian minority . “We Franciscans — adds the priest — pray that the United States, Europe and the international community, do not move only on the political level .. In order to rebuild the country, we must promote reconciliation among the population, through dialogue not only between Christians and Muslims , but especially within the Islamic factions. The friars follow the teachings of the Pope and condemn all violence against civilians, especially those that occurred with chemical weapons, but we have to think above all of the people who are suffering. The hope is that the conflict will soon stop, but here you live from day to day , no one can know when this chaos will end. “

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

Syria: Maaloula Christians Say Town Muslims Took Part in Attack

“Christians and Muslims had always lived in an atmosphere of mutual trust; the attack on Maaloula has created a lot of distress.” Islamists have invaded homes and continue to threaten the village, site of ongoing clashes between rebels and the army. The families who fled to Damascus and Beirut tell their story. The goal is to drive out Christians in order to eliminate Christianity.

Beirut (AsiaNews) — According to families who fled Maaloula (Syria), some of their Muslim neighbours were involved in the attack that devastated their village located about fifty kilometres from Damascus, dispersing its residents.

Perceived as a betrayal of the long-lasting trust that existed between Christians and Muslims in Maaloula, where Muslims make up about 30 per cent of the village population.

The presence of young Muslim fighters from the village among Syrian rebels appalled the Christian population. However, it is a sign of the growing ambiguity of Syria’s armed rebellion.

These facts give that battles that occurred in Maaloula from 3 to 7 September another perspective. Speaking for the first time anonymously, survivors from Maaloula described how elements from the Syrian Liberation Army and the al-Nusra Front coordinated their attack in an attempt to take control of the town.

The explosion of a car driven by a suicide bomber at an army checkpoint at the village entrance was the signal for the attack. Almost immediately, armed rebel groups sprung out from within Maaloula, smashing doors to gain entrance into Christian homes.

With dramatic details, witnesses describe the climate of terror that prevailed, the summary execution on Saturday of three men who, after a failed attempt by the Syrian army to retake Maaloula, refused to recant their faith as well as the kidnapping of six others, whose fate remains unknown to this day.

One of the survivors reports that his house was invaded almost immediately after the car’s explosion at an army checkpoint. Rebels came into the house and moved around as if they were familiar with the place.

After escaping with her husband and their daughter in the rearmost room of their home, she was joined there by attackers who claimed to have smashed the statue of the Virgin Mary at the entrance of the house.

A stifled sob in her throat, she remembers how she wished to die rather than see daughter raped before her own eyes. Fortunately, her fears were not realised. Nevertheless, she does remember that her husband was forced to recant his Christian faith, the barrel of an assault rifle at his head.

When she remembers how US Secretary of State John Kerry described the SLA forces as “moderate” before a Senate committee, she shakes her head in a sign of weariness over such ignorance or bad faith. In her eyes, the Western press seems to have lost all credibility.

According to some analysts, the attack against Maaloula might have been encouraged by the climate of euphoria that accompanied the prospect of US punitive strikes against Syria.

However, a counter-offensive by the regular army, supported by village youth, followed by a last minute unexplained pullback, proved even more devastating.

The Christian officer who ordered the withdrawal was arrested Maaloula residents say.

The families who fled the village took refuge mainly in Bab Touma, the Christian quarter of Damascus, but some have joined relatives in Lebanon or the convents of the Greek Catholic Church in that country. No Christian refugees are said to be living in tents.

Today, the people of this village, a living icon of Christ’s time since his language, Aramaic, is spoken there, are temporarily dispersed.

A mass was celebrated for them at the headquarters of the Greek Catholic archbishop in Beirut on the feast day of St Thecla (24 September), “equal of the apostles” according to a tradition associated with Maaloula.

Despite the reassuring presence of a Syrian army checkpoint, the village is within firing range of rebels hiding in the surrounding higher ground.

According to eyewitness accounts, burning tires have been rolled down the hill towards some of the houses in the Christian Quarter, and gunmen have fired at fuel tanks near homes in order to set them on fire. These actions are a clear signal to Christians that they are no longer welcome in their own town.

Reeds are now growing in Saints Saris and Bathos Greek Catholic Monastery, a place no one can approach now.

From a distance, one can see that the cross on its the dome is broken and that part of the building bears traces of fire. Nothing is also known about the fate of the 10th century icons it housed.

It has been a time of painful days for Mar Takla (St Thecla) Orthodox Monastery as well. Located between the Maaloula hill held by the rebels and the army-held central square, the complex has 40 nuns and orphans. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Damascus has called on the parties to ease its resupply.

In some church circles, some wonder why Maaloula was seized in the first place given its lack of military significance. They wonder if, in addition to the Christians in this village, Christianity itself was targeted through the Aramaic- speaking community, like the Taliban in Afghanistan when they destroyed the giants Buddhas, believing that by doing so they would eradicate ancient beliefs and superstitions, totally insensitive to religious or even cultural diversity.

There is no doubt, indeed, that the dispersion of Maaloula’s Christian community endangers the priceless cultural legacy that the town, by its very existence, represents.

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

Top Saudi Cleric Says Women Who Drive Risk Damaging Their Ovaries

One of Saudi Arabia’s top Muslim clerics said Friday that women who drive risk damaging their ovaries and bearing children. A protest calling for women to defy the kingdom’s ban on female drivers is scheduled for Oct. 26, but the campaign’s website was blocked in the country on Sunday, Reuters reported.

Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan sits on the Senior Council of Scholars and has the ability to write fatwas and advise the government.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Putin: Defending National Identity, Based on Religious Values

The Russian head of state speaks at the Valdai Club forum , dedicated to Russian identity , and dedicated his entire address to ‘ traditional ‘ faith and morals versus the West’s model of politically correct: “Minorities must be respected but the rights of the majority must not be put into question .”

Moscow (AsiaNews / Agencies) — People will “lose their human dignity without the values €‹€‹of Christianity and the other religions of the world, without those moral parameters that took thousands of years to be defined”, says the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Head of State was speaking Sept. 19 at the closing session of the Valdai Club, the international forum organized by the Ria Novosti newsagency, that brings together Russian politicians, analysts and civil society members in Russia and abroad. This year, the tenth edition was dedicated to the search for identity in Russia.

“We believe that it is natural and appropriate to defend those values €‹€‹- said the head of the Kremlin — every minority deserves respect for its distinctive identity, but the rights of the majority should not be put into question.” Putin, who has always focused on the role of the Russian Orthodox Church and “traditional values €‹€‹” to cement the immense and multi-ethnic country around a common idea of ome, was careful to distribute equal importance to all the communities and confessions. He stated that Russia can not go on without national and cultural self-determination, because in this case it would not be able to respond to internal and external challenges .

“Gli eventi che accadono nel mondo rappresentano una sfida molto più seria all’identità russa — ha spiegato — in questo ci sono aspetti morali e di politica estera. Abbiamo visto molti paesi euro-atlantici intraprendere il cammino della rinuncia delle loro radici, compresi i valori cristiani, che sono alla base della civiltà occidentale”. “Questo — ha aggiunto — comporta la negazione dei principi morale e di ogni identità tradizionale, nazionale culturale, religiosa e persino sessuale” Il riferimento esplicito è quello alle leggi che in Europa hanno legalizzato le unioni omosessuali e contro cui la Russia si è espressa in modo molto deciso, attirandosi anche critiche internazionali.

“Global events present a serious challenge to Russian identity — he explained — in both moral issues and foreign policy. We have seen many euro -Atlantic countries embark on the path of renunciation of their roots, including the Christian values €‹€‹which are the foundation of Western civilization”. “This — he added — involves the denial of the principles and morals of every traditional national, cultural, religious and even sexual identity”. The explicit reference is to the laws in Europe that have legalized same-sex unions and against which Russia has been expressed itself very strongly , even attracting international criticism .

“We are pursuing policies that put families and same-sex relationships in the same category, faith in God and that of Satan”, denounced the Russian head of state, according to which “ the excesses of political correctness has gotten to the point where there are now serious discussions about whether to officially register parties who have the propaganda of pedophilia among their objectives “ .

In his speech he also stressed that in many European countries the people “are ashamed and afraid to talk about their religion, holy days have been abolished or are renamed with names that hide the nature of these same festivities, while aggressive attempts are made to impose this model on the rest of the world. “ thus rejecting the accusations of those who among international organizations and governments , have pointed to political freedom — such as the law ‘against gay propaganda ‘ , Putin warns: “ This is a direct path to degradation and primitiveness , to the deepening of the moral and demographic crisis. “

“ What could be a better indicator of the moral crisis of a society than the loss of its capacity for self- reproduction?”, he concluded , expressing the same position of the Moscow Patriarchate . (N.A. )

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

Russian Muslim Clerics Warn of Unrest Over Ban of Translation of Koran

By Alissa de Carbonnel

MOSCOW (Reuters) — Russia’s senior Islamic clerics warned the country’s leaders on Friday unrest could erupt in Muslim communities in Russia and beyond if a court decision ordering the destruction of a interpretive translation of Koran is not overturned.

Tuesday’s ruling by a court in Novorossiysk, a city in southern Russia, ordered the widely read text outlawed under a Russian anti-extremism law that rights activists say has been abused by local officials out of prejudice or to persecute groups frowned upon by the dominant Russian Orthodox Church.

Rights campaigners said that the decision, which will apply nationwide unless it is overturned on appeal, comes dangerously close to banning the Koran itself.

Russia’s Council of Muftis sounded the alarm in an open letter on Friday to President Vladimir Putin, who has frequently called for unity among the leading faiths and warned that ethnic tension could tear Russia apart. “Russian Muslims are very strongly indignant over such an outrageous decision,” Rushan Abbyasov, the deputy head of the council, which has close ties with the Kremlin, told Reuters.

If the ruling is acted on, the cleric warned: “There will be unrest …. not only in Russia but all over the world, we are talking about the destruction of the Koran.” In the letter to Putin, the council drew a parallel with violence in the Middle East and Afghanistan over the actions of an American pastor, Terry Jones, who threatened to burn the Koran on September 11, 2010..

“Is it necessary to discuss how the destruction of books, especially sacred religious books, has been received in Russia in the past?” it said. “We recall how the burning of just a few copies of the Holy Koran by a crazy American pastor elicited a firm protest not just from Russian Muslims but from our entire society, in solidarity with the stormy and long lasting anger of the global Muslim community and all people of goodwill,” it said.

A lawyer representing the text’s author, Azeri theologian Elmir Kuliyev, said he will appeal the ruling, which calls for the text to be banned and copies of it “destroyed”. “This is pure idiocy. Some local prosecutor sent this material to a local court and they together decided to ban a holy book,” lawyer Murat Musayev, who has one month to appeal the ruling, told Reuters.

“On the one hand there is freedom of religion in Russia, on the other they are banning fundamental religious texts.” Experts say the more than decade-old translation by Kuliyev is a respected scholarly work, one of four translations of the Koran into Russian.

“This is one step away from banning the Koran,” said Akhmed Yarlikapov, an expert on Islam with the Russian Academy of Sciences. “This is a very high quality translation,” he said. “The banning of Kuliyev’s translation is utterly unprofessional, you could ban the Bible just as easily because it also has passages that talk about the spilling of blood.”

Blacklist

Putin has championed the dominant Russian Orthodox Church as a moral compass but has also called for a multicultural Russian identity and emphasised the need to avoid religious strife in a country with a Muslim minority estimated at about 15 percent. The government is fighting against a persistent Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus, spawned by separatist wars in Chechnya, and tension between ethnic Russians and Muslim minorities have led to outbursts of violence across the country…

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

Azerbaijani Bank Launches Europe’s First Islamic Credit Card

International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) is the first European bank to present the Qibla card, which corresponds to the rules of Islamic banking.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Sectarian Tensions Flare in Myanmar Town

Tension was high in a northwestern Myanmar town late Sunday after Buddhist mobs torched two homes belonging to Muslims and security forces were placed on high alert.

Win Myaing, a government spokesman in the restive state of Rakhine, said the trouble started in the coastal town of Thandwe on Saturday after a Buddhist taxi driver told police he had been verbally abused by a Muslim small business owner while trying to park in front of his shop.

Police took the Muslim man in for questioning. But when he was released soon after, people became angry and started throwing stones at his home.

Myaing said at least two houses had been burned down by Sunday night. Security forces were trying to restore order.

“The situation is under control but very tense.” Myo Min a Muslim resident of Thandwe contacted by phone told The Associated Press, adding that residents were fearful because they were hearing rumors that more Buddhists in Rakhine would come to Thandwe to destroy Muslim houses.

A similar incident occurred in Thandwe, 170 miles (270 kilometers) northwest of Yangon, three months ago when two Muslim houses were burned down after rumors circulated that a woman had been raped by Muslim men.

Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist country of 60 million people, has been gripped by sectarian violence since June of last year. Most of the 250 people killed have been Muslims and 140,000 others have been displaced.

The latest flare-up will reinforce doubts that President Thein Sein’s government can or will act to contain the violence.

           — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes [Return to headlines]
 

Yale Professor: Fukushima Will ‘Threaten Humanity for Thousands of Years’

Top professor warns ‘all of humanity will be threatened for thousands of years’ if Fukushima is not stopped, and it may soon get much worse.

A Yale professor is cautioning the world to wake up from its nuclear slumber and face the severity of the Fukushima radiation crisis, warning that ‘all of humanity will be threatened for thousands of years’ if the Fukushima unit 4 pool is not kept cool. The disturbing statements act as a voice of reality when it comes to the depth of the Fukushima disaster, an event that world governments have relentlessly attempted to downplay while silently shutting down radiation counters and raising ‘acceptable’ levels of radiation in the food supply. fukushima-explosion

And now, along with other nuclear physicists and scientists, Professor Charles Perrow of Yale is sounding the alarm on the disaster that myself and others have been warning against since day one. And another prominent intellectual now speaking out on the subject does not surprise me. After all, we are seeing more and more high level academics speaking out due to the overall understanding that even job loss is nothing compared to the fatal consequences of allowing Fukushima to meltdown indefinitely.

In his article posted on the Huffington Post website, Professor Charles Perrow cautions:

“Conditions in the unit 4 pool, 100 feet from the ground, are perilous, and if any two of the rods touch it could cause a nuclear reaction that would be uncontrollable. The radiation emitted from all these rods, if they are not continually cool and kept separate, would require the evacuation of surrounding areas including Tokyo. Because of the radiation at the site the 6,375 rods in the common storage pool could not be continuously cooled; they would fission and all of humanity will be threatened, for thousands of years.

The Professor’s statements coincide with the warnings of previous experts who have said that Fukushima trumps even Chernobyl and other nuclear disasters.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

How Flamboyant Terrorists Like Samantha Lewthwaite Keep Outfoxing Capture

[WARNING: * Disturbing Content *]

It’s her characteristic flamboyance that may bring down Westgate Mall mastermind suspect Samantha Lewthwaite; a kind of trademark flamboyance that sees her wearing hijabs decorated with black lace and sporting bright lipstick.

The terrorist at large, who may have been wearing part of the “sexy lingerie” Kenyan police found in one of her Kenyan safe houses on her hijab, is now Interpol’s Most Wanted Woman in the World.

Converting to Islam at age 17, and covering herself head-to-toe in a Burka, Lewthwaite described how “I gave my life to Allah and now I serve Allah as his female soldier”. She enrolled in the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and met Jamaican-born Jermaine Lindsay, a fellow Moslem convert through an Islamic Chat Room. They married in 2002 and had two children. In 2007, she disappeared with her children and re-surfaced in 2012 during a grenade attack on a pub in Kenya where witnesses saw Lewthwaite throw grenades into the bar killing three people, including a nine-year-old boy, and maiming 30.

In spite of her distinctive lace-edged hajib, Lewthwaite has dodged capture more than four times.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Kenya: Some Got Warning to Avoid Westgate Before Bloody Siege

Kenya’s National Intelligence Agency (NIS) warned some people not to visit the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi before the bloody siege, a warning that was not received by the 67 victims who lost their lives during the attack.

Buried at the end of a London Independent report about the incident is the revelation that NIS, “did warn the police and officials inside the President’s office before the Westgate siege, but its warnings went unheeded.”

Individual officials with NIS also told their family members to avoid the Westgate mall on Saturday because it would be the target of an attack. A pregnant policewoman was warned by her brother, an NIS officer, not to visit Westgate.

“She has told police that her brother who is a NIS officer warned her not to visit Westgate that Saturday because she would not be able to run,” a senior officer said.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Kenya: ‘Eyes Gouged Out, Bodies Hanging From Hooks’

[WARNING: * Disturbing Content *]

Soldiers told of the horrific torture meted out by terrorists in the Nairobi mall massacre yesterday with claims hostages were dismembered, had their eyes gouged out and were left hanging from hooks in the ceiling.

Men were said to have been castrated and had fingers removed with pliers before being blinded and hanged.

Children were found dead in the food court fridges with knives still embedded in their bodies, it was claimed.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Kenya: Separating the Kafirs From the Muslims

by Bill Warner

When the al Shabaab jihadi group from Somalia attacked the mall in Kenya, they gathered the crowd together and asked who were Muslims and let them go. According to the media, they then started killing the non-Muslims who were left. But “non-Muslims” is not the word what the terrorists would have used. No, they would have called them Kafirs. (Actually, they would have called them the Arabic plural of kafir, kuffar. “Kafirs” is the standard English plural form.)

Why did members of al Shabaab do this? Why did they ask the Muslims to leave and keep the Kafirs and start killing them? Let’s start with the word “terrorists.” Members of al Shabaab are not terrorists; they are jihadists, or mujahedeen. That is what they call themselves.

So what difference does it make which words we use? It makes all the difference in the world. You cannot think precisely with imprecise words, and a Kafir is much more than non-Muslim.

The word “non-Muslim” does not imply anything, except not being a believer in Islam…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Kenya: White Widow Samantha Lewthwaite ‘Plotted Nairobi Mall Massacre From Secret Lair Just 100 Yards Away’

She rented a house opposite the shopping centre where crazed Muslim fanatics later slaughtered up to 150 people, security forces say

The fugitive White Widow plotted the bloody Kenyan mall massacre from a secret lair just 100 yards away, security forces believe.

British mum-of-three Samantha Lewthwaite — now the world’s most wanted woman — rented a house opposite the shopping centre where crazed Muslim fanatics later slaughtered up to 150 people, they say.

Police sources said a “delicate operation” was now under way to search properties around the Westgate mall since the horrific four-day gun siege erupted in Nairobi a week ago.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Kenya: Terrorists Used New Tactic to Spare Some Muslims

The masked gunmen who infiltrated Nairobi’s Westgate mall arrived with a set of religious trivia questions: As terrified civilians hid in toilet stalls, behind mannequins, in ventilation shafts and underneath food court tables, the assailants began a high-stakes game of 20 Questions to separate Muslims from those they consider infidels.

A 14-year-old boy saved himself by jumping off the mall’s roof, after learning from friends inside that they were quizzed on names of the Prophet Muhammad’s relatives. A Jewish man scribbled a Quranic scripture on his hand to memorize, after hearing the terrorists were asking captives to recite specific verses.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Nigeria: Militants Kill Students in College Attack

Suspected Islamic extremists attacked an agricultural college in the dead of night, gunning down dozens of students as they slept in dormitories and torching classrooms, the school’s provost said of an ongoing northeastern Nigeria’s ongoing Islamic uprising.

As many as 50 students may have been killed in the assault that began at about 1 a.m. Sunday in rural Gujba, Provost Molima Idi Mato of Yobe State College of Agriculture, told The Associated Press.

“They attacked our students while they were sleeping in their hostels, they opened fire at them,” he said.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

350 Migrants Heading for Sicily

Picked up by Romanian Frontex vessel

(ANSA) — Siracusa, September 20 — Some 350 mostly Syrian migrants were picked up from a North African fishing boat by a Romanian Frontex vessel early Friday and are now heading for the Sicilian port of Siracusa, the Italian Navy said.

Six migrants needed treatment: four women, two of them pregnant, and two small children, one a few days old.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Gohmert: ‘Amnesty’ And ObamaCare Are a Plot for ‘Firing Every Fulltime American’ (Audio)

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) this week asserted that Senate Democrats were using the health care reform law and an immigration bill to encourage “firing every fulltime American employee and hiring the immigrants.”

During an Tuesday interview with conservative radio host Lars Larson, Gohmert was already gearing up for Sen. Ted Cruz’ marathon non-filibuster of a stopgap spending bill over the question of whether or not to fund Obamacare.

“People are already being told after the first of the year that you can’t get your pacemaker, you can’t have this, you can’t have that,” he explained. “People are waking up, this is not good.”

“It’s going to kill jobs out there, it’s going to hurt people,” Larson agreed. “The companies are already saying we can’t afford your health care so we’re either going to dump you on Obamacare or we’re going to cut your hours to where you don’t qualify anymore.”…

“So we’re just going to hand all the jobs to people who aren’t legally in the country and say they’re cheaper to employ because we don’t have to buy health insurance for them,” Larson concluded.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Illegal Aliens Demand Free Organ Transplants

Illegal immigrants have boldly demanded everything from civil rights in the U.S. to driver’s licenses and government benefits such as welfare and discounted tuition at public universities, so why stop there?

Now they want American taxpayers to finance their organ transplants! This is even more brazen than the discrimination lawsuits illegal aliens have filed against law enforcement agencies — both federal and local — in the U.S. over the years. To make their point, the illegal immigrants have gone on a hunger strike outside an Illinois hospital demanding free organ transplants for themselves and their fellow undocumented comrades.

This insanity is taking place outside a prestigious Chicago-area hospital, according to news reports, but it’s only a matter of time before it spreads nationwide. Dozens of demonstrators and hunger strikers have gathered outside the medical facility chanting through bullhorns and waving large signs to protest the hospital’s policy that patients must be in the U.S. legally to qualify for an organ transplant procedure. One large, yellow sign captured in a newspaper photo says “we are also human!”

All of the protestors are from Mexico, according to the news report, and all need either a liver or kidney transplant that they can’t afford to pay for. They obviously don’t have health insurance or they wouldn’t be staging this show. So the illegal aliens want Uncle Sam to step up the plate and pick up the tab. Kidney and liver transplants costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and could run into the millions if there are complications.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Over 500 Refugees Land in Lampedusa

Another 200 migrants rescued in Strait of Sicily

(ANSAmed) — LAMPEDUSA (AGRIGENTO) — A fishing boat carrying 398 Syrian nationals landed in the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa on Wednesday after Coast Guards rescued it about 70 miles off the coast. Another 111 migrants reached the island later after port authority patrol boats rescued them close to the coast. Overall, 507 immigrants arrived in Lampedusa in just a few hours on Wednesday.

The local migrant center in the island’s Imbriacola area is now holding 1,250 migrants. The center should accommodate a maximum of 350 people.

Last night another 200 refugees, including about 70 children, were rescued by Coast Guards in the Strait of Sicily.

A plane patrolling the area had first located them on Tuesday afternoon as their boat was experiencing problems some 100 miles south-east off Siracusa. Coast Guard units towed the boat, taking the immigrants to the port of Siracusa last night.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

PCP-Smoking Illegal Immigrant Who Stabbed College Student 13 Times After She Stopped to Give Him a Ride is Found Guilty of Her Murder

[WARNING: * Disturbing Content *]

A PCP-smoking Guatemalan illegal immigrant was convicted on Thursday of the brutal murder of a 19-year-old college student with a ‘good heart’ who had stopped to give him and his baby daughter a ride to a local hospital.

Julio Blanco Garcia, 27, stabbed Vanessa Pham near Falls Church shopping center in Fairfax County, Virginia, on June 27, 2010.

On Thursday a jury sentenced him to 49 years in prison — 30 years plus the 19 years of Pham’s life…

During this week’s trail it was revealed that immigration officials could have deported Blanco Garcia months before the brutal slaying after he was held at the Fairfax County jail for a few hours on a public intoxication charge in 2010.

He was released without being fingerprinted and before federal immigration officials were able to file paperwork requesting that he be detained until they could take him into custody because he had overstayed his visa.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Facebook Promotes Vulgar Hate of Religion and Hetero-Normalcy

Facebook does not have a way to remove or block “Like” spammers injecting hate into the pages of others. I removed one of the postings and reposted it later in the day, only to find that the hate group had again “Liked” the posting.

I reported the abuse to Facebook for violations of their policies on hate speech and harassment. Facebook’s response was shocking: they found this extremely offensive page “doesn’t violate our community standard on bullying and harassment” and “doesn’t violate our community standard on hate speech.”

Facebook is “a safe and welcoming environment” for its most vile liberal friends, who openly use it as platform for vicious attacks on those of us who believe in God, country, and marriage.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Lovers to Have Sex in Front of Studio Audience on New Mariella Frostrup Show

Couples are to have sex in front of a studio audience for the first time in a new Channel 4 programme called Sex Box.

The couples will be shielded from view in an opaque, sound-proof room attached to a studio, and will emerge to discuss their experiences immediately afterwards with a panel of sex experts

The aim of the show is to promote honest and open discussion around “real sex” in light of the explosion of online porn.

The volunteers include a gay couple in their 30s who hope to shatter myths about gay sex, and a heterosexual couple in their early 20s who think people do not talk openly enough about sex.

After their time in the sex box, the couples will talk to agony aunt Mariella Frostrup, psychotherapist Phillip Hodson, sex and relationship expert Tracey Cox and US sex columnist Dan Savage.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

New Jersey Court Rules That State Must Allow Gay Marriage

A New Jersey judge ruled Friday that the state must allow same-sex couples to marry in light of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in June striking down the Defense of Marriage Act.

The ruling makes New Jersey the first state to react to the federal ruling by ordering a change in its laws.

[Return to headlines]
 

Scottish Police Arrest Preacher Again for Proclaiming Gospel in Street

As the officer proceeded to tell Williamson that she had received “numerous complaints” about his activities, he asked why she did nothing to interfere with a busker down the street who was much louder than Williamson’s preaching.

“I’ve not had a complaint about anyone else,” she replied. “The complaint is about yourself.”

When Williamson asked what volume level would be acceptable, she replied, “Talking.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Serbia’s Gay Pride March Banned in the Wake of Security Concerns

Prime Minister Ivica Dacic said top security and state officials decided to ban Saturday’s event because they feared a repeat of violence in 2010, when extremists attacked a gay pride march in the Serbian capital. That triggered daylong clashes with the police which injured more than 100 people.

Serbia, which is seeking European Union membership, has pledged to respect human rights, and whether or not they allowed the march this year was regarded as a test of that vow.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]
 

Transgender Student Named Homecoming Queen

A transgender student at Marina High School in Huntington Beach made history Friday evening by becoming the school’s Homecoming Queen. Cassidy Lynn Campbell, who was among five finalists, was selected for the coveted title. The announcement was made during halftime of Friday night’s game. Earlier in the day, students reportedly erupted in cheers when it was announced that Campbell was among the finalists. “I think it’s really awesome ‘cause a lot of people wouldn’t be able to do what she does. I mean … I would be so scared and she’s accepting everything that everyone is saying. She’s taking it all in … in a good way,” Janet Tran, a student, told CBS2’s Joy Benedict.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Why Gays Cannot Speak for Ex-Gays

This summer, a British television network called to interview me for a show about efforts toward sexual-orientation change. The host of the show, they informed me, was a gay man. I declined the invitation, stating that the host’s gay identity would disqualify him from a fair evaluation of the ex-gay experience.

To refuse participation because the host is gay may seem unreasonable, until we recognize that the adoption of a gay identity typically prevents someone from honestly assessing the experience of the other man who has taken a different developmental route — i.e., the ex-gay person.

Why would this be true? Let me explain…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Big Lie of Genetics Exposed: Human DNA Incapable of Storing Complete Blueprint of the Human Form

At the start of the Human Genome Project, everybody “knew” that humans were far more complex than, say, a roundworm, which only has about 20,000 protein-coding genes. This is why estimates of the number of genes in a human ranged from 100,000 to 2 million. Scientists were absolutely sure that humans were far more complex than a tiny roundworm, and therefore humans needed far more genes.

The first draft of the Human Genome Project was published in the year 2,000. Far from being a breakthrough that would end all human disease, its findings utterly shattered the mythology of genetics as the sole explanation for all inheritance and physical development. Why? Because the Human Genome Project found that humans have only about 20,000 protein-coding genes, roughly the same number as the roundworm.

Huh? A human being has about the same number of protein-coding genes as a roundworm? Yes. And that’s straight out of the mouths of human genome researchers who are, themselves, hard-core materialists.

By comparison, the common fruit fly has about 15,000 genes, only marginally less than a human. And yet it is obvious to any intelligent observer than a human being is considerably more complex than a fruit fly and a roundworm. So why didn’t the Human Genome Project find a lot more genes that code proteins in humans?

The findings of the multi-billion-dollar Human Genome Project shattered the mythology of genetic materialism, sending nearly the entire scientific community into a tailspin and forcing “the great genetic cover-up” to begin.

Human genes simply needed “more research” to be understood, scientists exclaimed. And since the year 2000, that research has continued to no avail. The cover-up continues…

The truth is that there isn’t enough data storage in 20,000 genes to hold a blueprint for a human being.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

One thought on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 9/29/2013

  1. Yep! It’s called the ‘Uman Soul Guv! ‘Onest!’

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