A flu vaccination program in Glaswegian schools has been delayed due to objections by Muslim parents. It seems that the nasal vaccine used in the program may contain pork gelatin, and the possibility has alarmed observant Muslims. The vaccinations will be delayed until injections can be offered as an alternative.
In other news, U.S. special forces in Libya surprised and captured an Al Qaeda operative who is allegedly linked to the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JA, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, 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.
David Stockman — the Crisis Today is Far Worse Than 1981
Eric King: “This disaster that you’ve described, how will it be different than what we went through in the 1970s, when inflation was roaring and gold went up 25-fold?”
Stockman: “There was a different issue then (during the 1970s crisis). (Today) this central banking disaster is not only a United States problem — it has spread to the entire world. All of the central banks are doing the same thing….
Massive central bank intervention to prop-up risk assets is being done by all of the central banks of the world. In fact, the Bank of Japan is even worse. The ECB is doing it, the Bank of England. The Chinese central bank has been doing it for decades.
So this time the disease, the outbreak of destructive central bank policy, is global. That wasn’t true in the 1970s. In the 1970s it was led by the Fed, once it was unshackled from the Bretton Woods system and the discipline of the Gold Standard in August, 1971.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Economic Adviser: Astronomical Debt is Constitutional
Democrats have called for Obama to raise debt limit without congressional approval
A World Bank and Brookings Institute insider sat down with the Wall Street Journal to talk about the supposed government shut down and the debt crisis in Washington.
Jason Furman said investors need to be concerned about the looming default and demand House Republicans curb their fiscal sanity sideshow and allow Obama to borrow more fiat currency cranked out by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve so the government can continue to ignore economic reality.
Despite a default that will arrive on October 17, the corporate casino on Wall Street has flirted with new surrealistic highs over the last few weeks.
Furman characterized the Republican faction in Congress fighting against raising the so-called debt ceiling as “dysfunctional” and warned that not jacking up the debt will result in more damage to an already hobbled economy.
“The Constitution is very clear,” Furman said. “It vests the authority in Congress to issue debt, which then grants that authority to the Treasury. We see nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment that would allow the president to ignore the debt limit.” He characterized fiscal restraint as a “highly contested theory.”
Furman’s comments follow calls by Democrats for Obama to raise the debt limit without congressional approval.
Democrats eager to add billions more to the national debt cite the Reconstruction era amendment that says “validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payments of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.“
[Comment: This chap works for international bankers. Note how Democrats refer to Reconstruction era amendment that supports paying those who provide services “in suppressing insurrection or rebellion”.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Peter Schiff Warns of Martial Law (Video)
American investment broker, businessman, author and financial commentator Peter Schiff warns us that we are in worse shape now economically than we were just before the 2008 financial crisis, which we still have yet to recover from.
“I think the U.S. has been in a depression or a recession for the entirety of the Obama presidency,” Schiff said. “I think there’s going to be a depression, but I don’t think it’s going to be global.”
“When the dollar collapses and when the rest of the world stops wasting their resources, propping up our economy, buying our debt, selling us products that we can’t pay for, I think you’re going to have a global economic boom outside of the United States.”
“I just hope that one day we’re smart enough to jump in on it by adopting free market principles.”
“I hope we can reclaim our former glory,” he continued. “But to do that’s we’re going to have to reclaim the values that we have abandoned and those are the ones that our Founding Fathers wrote into our Constitution, not the ones that we’re following now.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Adobe Hacked, Millions of Customers’ Data Compromised
A security breach targeting the source code used by software giant Adobe has compromised the information of nearly three million customers, the company confirmed this week.
Brad Arkin, Adobe’s chief security officer, announced in a blog post Thursday that a sophisticated cyber attack on the company’s network caused the source code for numerous programs to be illegally accessed by hackers, as well as the personal information of millions of Adobe users.
Founded in 1982, the Silicon Valley company is known for an array of products, including the PhotoShop editing software and the PDF, SWF and FLV file formats.
According to Arkin, Adobe believes the attackers pilfered customer names, encrypted credit and debit card numbers, expiration dates, and other information related to customer orders pertaining to roughly 2.9 million Adobe clients.
Arkin said the company does not believe the attackers accessed decrypted information, but stopped short of confirming that plain-text data wasn’t compromised.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Brain Implants to “Reboot” Depressed People
Hacker warned medical devices could be accessed remotely for “mass murder”
Scientists are set to treat depression and headaches by implanting electrodes into people’s brains which alter the function of brain tissue by using electroconvulsive therapy to “reboot” the mind.
“The more neurologists and surgeons learn about the aptly named deep brain stimulation, the more they are convinced that the currents from the technology’s implanted electrodes can literally reboot brain circuits involved with the mood disorder,” reports Scientific American.
Is this a potential scientific success story or the first step towards psychopharmacological dictatorship?
Hacker Barnaby Jack warned that medical implants like pacemakers could be remotely accessed by hackers and governments to “commit mass murder.”
Jack was found dead just a week before he was set to present his research at a conference.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
California’s Legislature Says Hunting Rifles Are ‘Assault Weapons’ Because… Why Not?
California Gov. Jerry Brown will soon decide whether to sign a bill that expands his state’s “assault weapon” ban to cover any centerfire rifle with a detachable magazine.
That’s a very broad category, the National Rifle Association notes, since “millions of semi-automatic rifles have magazines that can be removed with the push of a button,” including “classic hunting rifles like the Remington Woodsmaster, Browning BAR, and the Ruger 99/44, among many others.”
The actual language of the bill, S.B. 374, refers rather confusingly to “a semiautomatic centerfire rifle that does not have a fixed magazine with the capacity to accept no more than 10 rounds.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bereft of rigorous, classical education, many Americans today remain similarly clueless of an encroaching police state. As George Santayana once warned, not to learn from history dooms us to repeat it. While most “get it” that something is amiss, many haphazardly immerse themselves in a quagmire of distracting daily duties — then seek escape from the frenzy in varied forms of mindless entertainment.
Unlike Bonhoeffer, Americans too often neglect to guard their “great historical heritage and intellectual tradition” — hence, America’s rapid slide from a society governed by “we, the people” to a police state governed instead by the strong arm of law. By quietly accepting surveillance cameras, police and drug-sniffing dogs in schools, national databases that track our finances and activities, sneak-and-peek searches of our homes (without knowledge or consent), and anti-terrorism laws that focus suspicion on average citizens, Americans steadily forfeit basic freedoms and constitutional rights ensured by the founders.
[…]
Surprising to some, the Shah was a great fan of Nazism and, in 1935, even changed the name of Persia to Iran, which in Farsi means “Aryan.” In 1921, Nazi ally Hajj (Muhammed Effendi) Amin al-Husseini was appointed mufti and head administrator of Arab Palestine and, in 1938, was put on the Nazi payroll. Saddam Hussein became one of the most devout practitioners of al-Husseini-inspired Nazi pan-Arabism. When, in the 1930s, the Muslim Brotherhood likewise became a furtive arm of Nazi intelligence, some of the Brotherhood’s leading men combined doctrines of Nazism with Wahhabism. Backed by Saudi Arabia, the Wahhabi sect today controls seventy to eighty percent of some 1,200 mosques in the United States.
[…]
Dr. Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D., explains, “While much of the world celebrated the Allied defeat of Hitler in 1945, what they didn’t know was that the Nazis were winning the war for control of much of the world’s economy.”
By 1943, Hitler’s sidekick Martin Bormann already had amassed what amounts to trillions of dollars in today’s economy; and an associate of J. P. Morgan Banking was president of the Nazi-controlled Bank for International Settlements (BIS), where Nazis sent their looted gold valued at hundreds of millions of dollars.
A U.S. military intelligence report (The Red House Report, 1944) revealed that powerful, Nazi-era bankers, industrialists, and civil servants began working on a new cause — namely, European economic and political integration.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cop Told Not to Wear Gun, Uniform When Dropping Daughter Off at School
Students completely brainwashed into thinking guns are bad
While some schools across the nation have moved to arm teachers in order to deter potential gunmen, an Arizona elementary school is taking a “vastly different” approach.
In yet another sterling example of how the establishment has successfully brainwashed Americans into fearing firearms, a Coolidge, Ariz., police officer was asked not to wear his uniform when dropping off his daughter at school due to parents’ concerns over his gun.
Officer Scott Urkov was dropping his daughter off at the Entz Elementary School in Mesa when a student apparently saw his gun. The child later told his parents he had seen “a man at school with a gun,” prompting the parents to phone the school.
“There were some parents who were concerned about the fact that there was a fully armed officer on campus and they spoke to the principal about it,” Helen Hollands, spokesperson for Mesa Unified School District, told My Fox Phoenix.
The principal reportedly approached Officer Urkov requesting he not wear his uniform the next time he visited the school…
The Mesa Unified School District’s overreaction to the officers’ firearm falls in line with anti-gun rhetoric the current Justice Department head Eric Holder spewed in 1995, when he told attendants at the Woman’s National Democratic Club they had to “really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.”
“What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that’s not cool, that it’s not acceptable, it’s not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we changed our attitudes about cigarettes,” Holder stated.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
D.C’s Capitol Hill Police Murder Unarmed, Mentally Disturbed Woman
With every news station and web site in the world focusing on yesterdays car chase in D.C. there are plenty of sources to find information about this story. Many of them in very long winded articles that most people will not read entirely through. So here is the condensed version.
A woman and her 18 month old child got caught up in a check point drill that D.C. area authorities had been participating in for a few days before the incident. The authorities had placed barricades and check points all along Pennsylvania Avenue and this woman from Connecticut got very nervous as she approached them. She attempted to turn around to leave the check point area at which point multiple officers pulled their guns on her.
Freaked out at having a gun pointed in her face the woman attempted a three point turn that ended up grazing a secret service member. That is also the point in which she accidentally hit in to a barricade in front of the White House. While trying to flea these D.C. goons pointing guns at her they opened fire on her vehicle even though there was no danger to any of the officers as she was driving away from them.
Dozens of police ended up chasing this poor woman One of these idiotic officers smashed his car in to a barricade while her car was nowhere in site, all on his own accord. After a tense lockdown of the area the woman’s car crashed in to a median on the side of the road. Instead of demanding she exit the vehicle or approaching the car with care the officers decided their best course of action was to open fire on the vehicle and kill this woman for the heinous crime of running from a gang of goons pointing guns at her. As far as I know running from the police is not an offense punishable by death. However these officers took it upon themselves to sentence and execute this woman on the spot.
So a scared, slightly mentally disturbed woman gets lost in the crazy traffic set up in D.C., officers then point guns at her which scared her in to fleeing and because of the car pursuit that followed they decided their best bet was to murder her when she had no weapons and her child in the back seat behind her. Members of congress then applaud their brave actions and the news media tries to weave a tale of some crazed woman attempting to attack the White House and getting in to a gun fight with police. In reality the only shots fired were by police and they murdered this poor woman for getting lost and scared. Welcome to America.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
FBI Cordon Off Neighborhood to Search Executed Driver’s Condo for Anti-Government Material
The FBI employed a bomb squad, a hazardous material team and helicopters when they searched Miriam Carey’s condominium in Stamford, Connecticut on Thursday.
Carey was executed by police after briefly eluding them following an encounter at a police state checkpoint outside the White House. The incident resulted in a lockdown of Congress and a “shelter in place” order on Capitol Hill.
Stamford resident Eric Bredow told News 19 WLTV an FBI bomb squad arrived at his building and a helicopter swooped overhead. Other residents were ordered to evacuate and were told they would not be allowed to return home for hours or overnight.
CNN reported the condominium complex remained cordoned off on Friday.
On Friday, the FBI and local law enforcement said they did not find firearms or “evidence that [Carey] was angry with the government,” The Courant reported.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Fear the Finger Gun: Political Correctness Ensures Little Boys Never Grow Into Alpha Males
Do you remember a time where a game of “cops and robbers” during school recess was treated as innocently as it was meant to be? If you are elementary school student Jordan Bennett, you don’t. Bennett was suspended from school for a day after playing that ‘deadly’ game in the school yard, which included the 8-year old forming his hand into the shape of a gun. The boy’s mother is fighting the suspension, but the damage has already been done.
In Virginia, two teenage boys were suspended for a year after playing with airsoft guns on their own property. A “concerned” neighbor called the police and successfully got these two kids on a long-term suspension (the neighbor must be proud of his or her stand against “gun violence”) after being charged with the possession, handling and use of a firearm. The charge was later changed to reflect the obvious, that these boys were not in possession of a firearm, but an airsoft gun. Their one year suspensions remain in effect, and their records will forever reflect the crime of, well, being kids.
[Comment: Scroll down to see pic of very small kids handcuffed behind their backs and being led into Sherriffs van.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Four-Legged, DARPA-Funded, Running War Robot Unveiled (Video)
Developers at Boston Dynamics, an engineering company specializing in robotics, have released video of an untethered robot capable of standing and mobilizing on its own.
WildCat is a four-legged outdoor runner capable of rising, turning, and reaching running speeds up to 16 mph on flat ground.
WildCat is a close cousin to Boston Dynamics’ Cheetah, another quadrupedal robot that was unveiled a year ago, running at speeds over 28 mph on a treadmill — quicker than world’s fastest man Usain Bolt’s top speed of 27.78 mph. However, unlike WildCat, Cheetah was connected to a power source.
The runner carries a large — and very loud — motor to operate its four limbs, though the weight hampers its speed and agility.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Jail Time for Selling Raw Milk is Greater Than Jail Time for Raping Children
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
The American system of justice is indeed in major need of overhaul when, in one place, you can get a month in jail for raping a child, but in another, you can get several months in jail for daring to sell milk that wasn’t government approved.
Ex-Montana teacher Stacey Rambold, 54, recently walked out of the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge after serving an incredibly light sentence, considering his crime, given by District Judge G. Todd Baugh of Billings. Rambold was convicted of raping 14-year-old Cherise Moralez in 2007.
Even before Rambold walked free, his case was under review by the Montana Supreme Court for its incredible leniency. Also, critics have amped up calls for removing the judge who oversaw the case from office…
The girl victim committed suicide in 2010, before Rambold even went to trial.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Memorial Circus Outrages Visitors
A somber memorial has been turned into a political sideshow this week — and tempers are rising.
The World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., has become a victim of the government shutdown, drawing attention-hungry lawmakers (and the media) throughout the week to a quiet place where respect is paid to honor those who had died serving their country — and the commotion is frustrating veterans and the volunteers who help them.
“I’m pissed off,” said Gary Kelch, a furloughed federal employee and a veteran who was visiting the memorial. “It’s all just political theatrics. I don’t mind being furloughed if it gets attention [from Congress]. I’m good with losing a couple weeks of pay. But this is disgusting.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mosque Dedication Opens New Venue for Friendships
FORT WORTH — The melting-pot metaphor that’s applied to America annoys Tarrant County Commissioner Roy Brooks. “I think of America more as a stew, where a carrot remains a carrot and a potato remains a potato, but each contributes its own flavor to a dish that becomes altogether something else,” Brooks said Friday at the dedication of the Eastchase Islamic Center in east Fort Worth. “It is for this reason that we cherish the diversity of this community.” Nabil Bawa, president of Al-Hedayah Academy, a 6.5-acre campus where the $1.5 million mosque was built, found that statement appropriate on a couple of levels. True, the mosque will serve as a community gathering and enrichment venue in addition to its role as a place of worship…
[JP note: Fat chance.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
NSA and GCHQ Target Tor Network That Protects Anonymity of Web Users
The National Security Agency has made repeated attempts to develop attacks against people using Tor, a popular tool designed to protect online anonymity, despite the fact the software is primarily funded and promoted by the US government itself.
Top-secret NSA documents, disclosed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, reveal that the agency’s current successes against Tor rely on identifying users and then attacking vulnerable software on their computers. One technique developed by the agency targeted the Firefox web browser used with Tor, giving the agency full control over targets’ computers, including access to files, all keystrokes and all online activity.
But the documents suggest that the fundamental security of the Tor service remains intact. One top-secret presentation, titled ‘Tor Stinks’, states: “We will never be able to de-anonymize all Tor users all the time.” It continues: “With manual analysis we can de-anonymize a very small fraction of Tor users,” and says the agency has had “no success de-anonymizing a user in response” to a specific request.
Another top-secret presentation calls Tor “the king of high-secure, low-latency internet anonymity”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Spent Day Three of Shut Down Posing for Portrait
Photographer Tony Powell is, according to the Washington Post, a “renaissance man.” He’s known for his choreography, painting, composition, and graphic design along with his photography. But it’s certainly odd that on October 2, two days in to the government shutdown, Powell announced that he would be holding a Thursday photo shoot with President Obama via Facebook:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
ObamaCare Enrollee in Media Spotlight Hasn’t Completed Signup Process
The Georgia college student who basked in national media attention after claiming he and his dad were among the first to enroll in Obamacare is changing his story.
“I never said that I had actually purchased a plan,” said Chad Henderson, 21, who was thrust into the national spotlight after announcing Tuesday on Twitter that he had “enrolled in Obamacare.” He told POLITICO Friday he had been online to shop in the federal exchange, but had never completed the final steps of getting in the health plan.
Henderson, an Organizing for Action volunteer and supporter of President Barack Obama, said he was “sorry for this confusion” and never intended to mislead the numerous media outlets, including POLITICO, that contacted him to hear his story. “I’ve received so much flak for something that has been misinterpreted,” he said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
OC High School Apologizes After Forcing Student to Remove NRA T-Shirt
A high school principal has apologized for forcing a 16-year-old student to remove her National Rifle Association shirt last month.
Haley Bullwinkle, a sophomore at Canyon High School, said she was asked to change or face suspension because her T-shirt, which featured a buck, an American flag, and a hunter’s silhouette, violated the school’s dress code and promoted gun violence.
Bullwinkle’s father, Jed, emailed the school’s principal, Kimberly Fricker, about the situation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Park Service Tries Shutting Down Private Inn
The Pisgah Inn, a private hotel that holds a concession on the Blue Ridge Parkway, has become a national sensation as it defies “intimidation” and a National Park Service order to close its doors.
After a tumultuous few days, inn owner Bruce O’Connell told The Washington Times on Friday morning that he had just reopened his doors for customers, despite the park service telling him he had to shut down. He says he’s essentially private property, on a road that’s still open, and uses no government personnel, so he sees no reason to quit operating.
“I’m questioning their authority to shut me,” Mr. O’Connell said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Police Remove Vietnam War Veterans at Memorial Wall
Via William Jacobson, NBC’s affiliate in Washington, D.C. reports that police ordered tourists and Vietnam war veterans who were visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall to leave the memorial at one point on Friday.
After one group of veterans went around the barricade, “the park ranger told them the wall was closed,” NBC’s Mark Seagraves reported. “Later another group of vets showed up and moved the barricades. At that point, the memorial filled with vets and tourists. That’s when police came and moved everyone out.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Savage: Only Outrage at Execution of Woman in DC on Prison Planet (Video)
Radio host Michael Savage trashes a caller for supporting DC cops over the Killing of Miriam Carey, adding that the only outrage over the execution was to be found on the Savage Nation and Prison Planet.com.
In the second clip, Savage lambastes Congress for applauding the execution.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Senate Doorkeeper Gives Out “Thank You Capitol Police” Buttons After Cops Execute Mother
Mother may have been taking her child out of danger posed by police
Today the Senate Sergeant At Arms and Doorkeeper is handing out “Thank You Capitol Police” buttons outside of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, a day after the D.C. Capitol Police executed an unarmed mother in front of her child.
.@SenateSAA rep at the door of Dirksen passing out buttons in support of #CapitolPolice. #shutdown #essentials pic.twitter.com/FC0SSQ22Nj
— Hannah Hess (@ha_nah_nah) October 4, 2013
The Sergeant At Arms also tweeted a quote by Senate Chaplain Barry Black praising the police who shot Miriam Carey, 34, after she drove away from a random checkpoint near the White House.
“Lord we’re grateful for our law enforcement agents and first responders and pray we may emulate their patriotism and self-sacrifice,” he said of the officers involved.
The checkpoint Carey drove away from was actually a temporary “outer perimeter” fence and may have been installed for a joint training exercise involving multiple local and federal agencies in Washington, D.C., as reported by Adan Salazar.
According to an Army report, the drill tested their “interagency operability during a crisis” and maintained the Department of Defense’s ability to “provide defense support to civil authorities and employ appropriate force protection measures as requested.”
It is quite possible that Carey, a Connecticut resident, was unfamiliar with D.C. road accessibility and the unusual sight of militarized checkpoints.
She seemed to have panicked when at least five officers pointed guns at her vehicle.
Perhaps she acted as any protective mother would by taking her child out of the danger posed by police ready to riddle her car with bullets.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sisters of Woman Killed in D.C. Chase Question Police Actions
The family of a woman who was shot to death outside the U.S. Capitol after trying to ram her car through a White House barrier said Friday they want to know why she had to die.
Speaking at a press conference late Friday in Brooklyn, Miriam Carey’s sister Amy Carey-Jones said Friday that her sister “seemed OK” the last time they spoke more than a week ago.
“We’re still very confused as a family why she’s not still alive,” Amy Carey-Jones said late Friday, speaking of her 34-year-old sister. “I really feel like it’s not justified, not justified.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Towns, States Are Ponying Up to Keep National Parks Open
The Arizona town of Tusayan, on the southern rim of the Grand Canyon, has 558 residents and 1,000 hotel rooms. And by Friday, it had $325,000 to reopen temporarily shuttered Grand Canyon National Park.
“The reason we exist is the Grand Canyon National Park. This closure is devastating,” said Greg Bryan, Tusayan’s mayor and the owner of a Best Western hotel. The town is offering to fund a partial reopening of the park that would allow visitors to drive through on a main road and stop at overlooks.
As the federal-government shutdown entered its fifth day Saturday, state and local governments were searching for ways to keep attractions open, especially in places where local economies largely depend on the parks. Some are willing to pay to keep the parks going during these final crucial weeks of prime tourist season, before winter sets in.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Vaccine Damage, Hidden Truth: Not on the Evening News
120,000 adverse effects from vaccines every year in the US? 1.2 million?
“There have been estimates that perhaps less than 5 or 10 percent of doctors report hospitalizations, injuries, deaths, or other serious health problems following vaccination. The 1986 Vaccine Injury Act contained no legal sanctions for not reporting; doctors can refuse to report and suffer no consequences.
“Even so, each year about 12,000 reports are made to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System; parents as well as doctors can make those reports. [See RT Chen, B. Hibbs, “Vaccine safety,” Pediatric Annals, July 1998: 445-458]
“However, if that number represents only 10 percent of what is actually occurring, then the actual number may be 120,000 vaccine-adverse events. If doctors report vaccine reactions as infrequently as Dr. Kessler said they report prescription-drug reactions, and the number 12,000 is only 1 percent of the actual total, then the real number may be 1.2 million vaccine-adverse events annually.”
Knowing all this, it’s easy to figure out why researchers don’t do large controlled double-blind studies on vaccines.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
White House Asking for Sad Shutdown Stories
“How has the government shutdown affected you?”
That’s the question posted Thursday at 7:50 p.m. on the White House blog by Nathaniel Lubin, acting director of digital strategy for the Obama administration.
Don’t forget that at the top of the blog, a handy little disclaimer notes that “due to Congress’s failure to pass legislation to fund the government, the information on this web site may not be up to date.”
Looks like it’s perfectly up to date.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Wisconsin Gov. Walker Defies Order to Close Federally-Funded Parks
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is defying a directive from the National Park Service to close down several state parks that receive federal funding in the wake of the partial government shutdown.
The Republican governor has directed the state Natural Resources Department to keep open parks that receive a majority of their funding from the state, The Hill reported.
The department recently intervened after the Fish and Wildlife Service placed barricades near a Mississippi River boat launch because it was on federal land. The barricades were removed because of a decades-old agreement between Wisconsin and the federal government, state officials said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A Sad Day for Canada’s Free Expression Rights
Website owners beware: you can be found guilty of libel if your anonymous users post “offensive comments” and you subsequently fail to remove them “fast enough”.
Such is the latest result of a six year battle between Richard Warman, a lawyer and former Canadian Human Rights Commission employee, and Connie and Mark Fournier, the former owners of the conservative discussion forum Free Dominion.
For the past six years the couple has been taken to court in lawsuit after lawsuit.
In 2007, Warman sued Connie and Mark Fournier and eight John Does for comments made against him on the Free Dominion forum. These allegedly defamatory comments are named in Warman’s statement of claim, and include:
- Calling Warman “the censorship champion” and an obnoxious asshole
- Alleging Warman “is a fanatic and so obnoxious that even his fellow fanatical colleagues at the Canadian Human Rights Commission couldn’t stand him.”
- Alleging Warman “wants Canada’s internet to be more like China.”
- Alleging Warman is “a devious character” and a “professional complainer”
- Alleging Warman is “a censor, an enemy of freedom, and an anti-free speech campaigner.”
In 2008, Warman also sued several people and newspapers for libel, including the National Post and its columnist Jonathan Kay; Ezra Levant; Kate McMillan; Kathy Shaidle; and Connie and Mark Fournier again for comments made on Free Dominion. Warman claimed the respondents had wrongly accused him of making racist and sexist remarks. The National Post and Kay retracted the story and apologized, and the case against the remaining respondents is still before the courts.
And it goes on. Of course, not once does Warman state these claims are untrue, but rather that these “serious allegations … in plain and ordinary meaning” defame Warman’s personal reputation and professional status as a lawyer.
It’s all part of Warman’s meticulous “maximum disruption” approach, whereby he engages in lawsuits and human rights claims through the Canadian Human Rights Commission “whenever I think it will be most helpful, or even if I just feel it will be the most fun.” Warman acknowledges he strongly believes in engaging “as many of these fronts as possible either at the same time or one after the other… It keeps them off-balance and forces them to respond to things that focus their energies on defending themselves”.
Many of Warman’s lawsuits and complaints are the textbook definition of a SLAPP lawsuit, or “strategic lawsuit against public participation”…
| — Hat tip: JA | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish archeologists have uncovered the remains of a brutal fifth century massacre at a remote island fort, described as being ‘frozen in time’ like the ruins of the Roman city of Pompeii.
Bodies of victims slaughtered in the violence on the island of Öland, just off the Swedish coast, have remained untouched for centuries, and were found to resemble a modern day crime scene.
Before they attack, the fort appears to have been a peaceful and prosperous place, where people lived comfortably in small huts and reared livestock for meat.
[Commenter EMT, London, United Kingdom, notes “1500 years ago? Roughly the same time period when the rest of Europe was under Arab invasion and slaughter feist. And that is probably where the answer is.”]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
British Education: Creeping Sharia
by Soeren Kern
Many Muslim groups…have been marketing themselves as “inter-faith” schools in an effort to qualify for (free school) government funding. More then 80 free schools — at least a dozen of which are catering specifically to Muslim students — are currently operating in Britain and another 200 are in the planning stage.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Mosques Open Doors to Non-Muslims
Over a thousand mosques welcomed visitors on Thursday as part of an annual event celebrating the integration of Germany’s four million Muslims into society.
Organisers said they expected over a hundred thousand visitors — 80 percent of them non-Muslims — to attend events at mosques across Germany on Thursday. The annual open day, timed to coincide with German Unity Day, was launched in 1997 to encourage people to think about Muslims’ place in German society and encourage cultural exchange. This year’s theme focused on environmental awareness…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Greece to Offer Residence Permits to Foreign Investors
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 19 — Greece’s new favorable regulations on granting residence permits to third-country citizens whose investments are characterized as “strategic” or those who buy property in Greece, the value of which exceeds 250,000 euros, will be presented in Athens next week. As Greek Travel Pages (GTP) website reports, ‘Invest in Greece Agency’, in cooperation with the Greek Development and Competitiveness Ministry and the Greek Interior Ministry, will hold a briefing and working session on “Residence permits to Third-Country Citizens for strategic investments and real estate ownership.” The session will be held on Monday, 23 September, at the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Athens.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Irish Voters Decide to Keep Country’s Senate
(AGI) Dublin, Oct 5 — The referendum to ratify a government plan to eliminate Ireland’s Senate was defeated by a very slim majority in a surprising outcome. A total of 33 out of 60 members of the country’s upper house of parliament had agreed to abolish the Senate, considered useless and expensive to run with its 20 million euros in annual cost; 25 had voted to maintain it and two abstained.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Police Nab Corrupt State University Professors
Rigged researcher exam, police say
(ANSA) — Messina, September 30 — Italian Finance Police in the Sicilian city of Messina placed two public university professors under house arrest Monday on charges of “gravely tainting” an open state exam for a post as researcher in the microbiology department.
The starting position for a career in Italian academia is that of researcher, which like professor, is a permanent civil servant post. Openings are published in the Official Gazette.
Police nabbed the two corrupt professors, one of whom is a department head, after an investigation lasting several months which they named Operation Pacta Servanda Sunt (Pacts Must be Respected, in Latin). The probe revealed “a deviant system within the system of state competitive exams, which regulate access to the academic world”, investigators said. “The suspects decided who would sit on the judges’ panel and who the winner would be before the exams ever took place, with the collusion of their colleagues”.
The plan went awry when their favored candidate failed to score enough points on the exam, and a police wiretap caught them discussing ways to pressure the more qualified candidate into stepping aside on the promise of a future researcher post in another arranged competition. Three other professors are still under investigation, police said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sardinian Island Sold to ‘Green’ NZ Banker
Heritage groups urge Italy to buy it back
(ANSA) — Rome, October 3 — One of Italy’s most beautiful islands has been sold to a New Zealand banker who has promised to preserve its unspoilt charm amid an outcry from heritage groups.
Michael Harte, 47, bought Budelli Island in the Maddalena National Park archipelago off Sardinia for around three million euros after the previous owners, a Swiss corporation, went bust.
Harte’s lawyer responded to widespread calls for Italy to buy it back and avert threats to a famed landscape including its iconic Pink Beach by saying “my client is a true environmentalist, involved in marine and land conservation projects around the world”.
The island was the backdrop to parts of Michelangelo Antonioni’s cult 1964 film Red Desert, starring Monica Vitti.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland: Young Muslims’ ‘Peace Offering’ To Far-Right Group Ahead of Dundee Rally
Young Muslims in Dundee are offering a far-right group a meal and a chat as “a peace offering” to tackle misconceptions about their faith. The Yusuf Youth Initiative (YYI) had wanted to meet the Scottish Defence League when they arrive for their controversial rally in the city centre on Saturday. The far-right group will vent their feelings about extreme militant Islam, and the protest has sparked a counter demonstration by the Unite Against Fascism alliance…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland’s largest immunisation programme has been delayed after Muslim parents raised concerns that the vaccination contained pork gelatine.
The roll-out of the flu vaccine nasal spray pilot programme was due to begin at 54 schools in Glasgow on Wednesday.
Around 100,000 children from primary schools across Scotland are being offered the nasal spray Fluenz.
But NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said the roll-out had been postponed until Monday after parents at Glendale Primary in Pollokshields on the south side of Glasgow became aware of the issue.
Now, parents will be able to request that their child receives the vaccination by injection rather than through the nasal spray.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Society: Wives Prefer Greek Isles for Illicit Affairs
Santorini tops the list, according to dating service survey
(by Furio Morroni) (ANSAmed) — ATHENS — Greek islands are the number one getaway of choice for married women from around the world seeking to have an affair, according to a female client survey by Ashley Madison online dating service.
Marketing itself as “the world’s leading married dating service for discreet encounters” under the slogan “life is short, have an affair”, Ashley Madison conducted the survey among female subscribers to its Traveling Woman service.
A majority of respondents named the eastern Aegean island of Santorini as their favorite spot for an illicit romantic getaway, followed by Mykonos, Crete, Spetses, Hydra, Ios, Paros and Naxos. “Traveling Woman offers subscribers the opportunity to choose a destination, and then to select one among 30 potential lovers in the country they are about to visit,”Ashley Madison PR Director Katilena Alpe explained to GreekReporter. “All the women who chose the Greek islands said they were looking for a remote paradise in which to realize their deepest erotic fantasies. Certainly the reputation of Greek men as lovers also played a part.” Sandy, 35, is married with no children. “I had a dream vacation and when I went back to my husband I was… recharged!” she wrote on the Ashley Madison site after her romantic rendez-vous on the island of Mykonos. Debbie, 40, went to celebrate her birthday on Santorini with some women friends. “We all experienced unforgettable moments with the boys. It was a wonderful holiday, away from husband and children,” she enthused.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Leonardo Da Vinci Experts Identify Painting as Lost Isabella D’este Portrait
Portrait found among private Swiss collection has a Mona Lisa smile and same paint pigment and primer as those used by artist
Researchers in Italy claim to have unearthed the portrait of a noblewoman by Leonardo da Vinci which has been lost for 500 years and features the same enigmatic smile as his Mona Lisa.
The portrait of Isabella d’Este, which carbon dating suggests was painted around the start of the 16th century, has been found in a vault in a private collection in Switzerland, and has been verified by a leading authority on the renaissance polymath.
“There are no doubts that the portrait is Leonardo’s work,” said Carlo Pedretti, an emeritus professor of art history at the University of California.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Charity Millions ‘Going to Syrian Terror Groups’
People giving money to help millions of refugees from the civil war in Syria are inadvertently supporting terrorism, the charity watchdog has warned.
Some of their cash was “undoubtedly” going to extremist groups, said William Shawcross, the chairman of the Charity Commission. Conditions on the ground in the midst of conflict made it difficult or impossible for charities to know where aid ended up, he said. The Disasters Emergency Committee, which represents 14 of Britain’s biggest charities, has raised £20 million since the launch of its Syria Crisis Appeal in March. Its members include the British Red Cross, Oxfam and Save the Children. But it said it was unable to guarantee that no cash was falling into the hands of terrorists. The Charity Commission is so concerned that it has issued guidance to fund-raising bodies…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
TWO motorists who ploughed into a group of pedestrians during the Eid festival — leaving a 12-year-old boy in a coma — have been told they face jail. Furqaan Mohmed, a 19-year-old operational support worker for Greater Manchester Police and Mohammed Patel, aged 20, appeared at Bolton Crown Court yesterday and pleaded guilty to a number of charges including causing serious injury by dangerous driving…
[JP: High Mohammed Co-efficient.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Interpal and Due Diligence
We have covered a conference due to take place at the Edmonton Islamic Centre in London. It featured extremist preachers with long records of vicious hatred against homosexuals and support for jihad. Hope not Hate also raised concerns about this conference. There was coverage by Pink News and the Huffington Post as well. The conference was organised by Interpal, the chief Hamas supporter among British Islamist charities.
Well, Interpal have now issued this notice: It is with great regret that we inform you that due to unforeseen circumstances and external pressure Management and trustee’s have discussed the critical air surrounding our event and have decided to cancel this Sundays Dhul Hajj event…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Man Found Guilty of Attempted Murder After City Centre Hit-and-Run
Aqab Hussain used his Vauxhall Corsa as a ‘lethal weapon’ after his night out celebrating the Muslim festival of Eid took a violent turn.
A motorist who ploughed into a group of revellers and left a blind man brain damaged is facing a lengthy stretch in prison after being found guilty of four charges of attempted murder. Aqab Hussain used his Vauxhall Corsa as a ‘lethal weapon’ after his night out celebrating the Muslim festival of Eid took a violent turn…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Now Pay Into the Nanny’s Pension: Middle-Class Parents Face £600 Bill a Year Under New Rules
Middle-class parents are to be forced to pay hundreds of pounds a year into pensions for their nannies.
Tens of thousands of families will see the cost of their childcare rise by as much as £600 a year from 2015, it has emerged.
Under the Government scheme, they will also have to fund pension contributions for cleaners, gardeners and home helps whose pay exceeds £9,440 a year.
Parent groups say this will add to the burden on the already-squeezed middle, with mothers accusing the Government of treating parents ‘like a profitable business’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Operation Bullfinch: Man Remanded Over Intimidation Charges
A man appeared in Oxford Crown Court yesterdayday charged with intimidating girls before the Bullfinch sex grooming trial. Zeeshan Ahmed, 28, of Palmer Road, Wood Farm, was charged by child sex exploitation police with two counts of perverting the course of justice. The charges relate to incidents before the 18-week trial started at the Old Bailey in January. Ahmed will appear again for a plea and case management hearing on November 15. He was remanded in custody.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Row Over Parking Congestion on Streets Near New Mosque
A newly-opened mosque has been blamed for causing traffic congestion in surrounding streets. Residents living close to the Sayyidah-Aminah Jamia Masjid mosque in the former Royal Hotel in Fagley Road, Bradford, claim worshippers are clogging up their streets making it difficult for them to park outside their own homes. When it was granted planning permission, the mosque had assured councillors that 95 per cent of its users walk to prayers and leave their cars at home and consent was given against a recommendation by officers to refuse it…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Disturbing content.]
Angry families of victims say: ‘We suffer longer than the person that killed’
A dozen convicted murderers who were freed early from jail have gone on to kill again in the past decade, MailOnline can reveal today.
They served as little as eight years in prison for their first murder before being let out to do it again, sometimes within weeks of leaving custody…
All the killers were considered ready for freedom by parole boards, but then murdered again, often in similar ways to their first homicide.
David Cameron is known to back ‘whole life’ terms for murderers, but Eurocrats fight them in Strasbourg because they believe they breach the offenders’ human rights and are ‘inhumane’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Government is today facing threats of industrial action after signalling it wants to call a halt to NHS pay rises.
Instead of using funding set aside for a 1 per cent pay rise for staff, the Department of Health (DoH) is proposing it is spent on the modernisation of pay structures.
In its submission to the NHS pay review body, the department said the NHS was facing the biggest financial challenge in its history.
The submission read: ‘Despite real terms growth in its budget in successive years, it needs to continue to secure improved value from the taxpayers’ investment, if it is to meet the growing pressures it faces in the years to come both from an ageing and growing population and the need to improve the quality of care provide.’
Unions reacted with anger, saying that even raising the prospect of a pay freeze would demoralise staff.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Veils, Segregated Schools and Why We Risk Sowing the Seeds of Islamic Terror in Britain
[…]
Only this weekend, this was graphically symbolised by reports of events at the Al-Madinah school in Derby, a free school established last year to cater mainly for Muslim pupils. Sadly, the hardliners appear to have taken over its management already. It’s claimed that, in defiance of all British traditions of tolerance, girls and boys are segregated at the school; that even non-Muslim staff are required to wear the hijab, the Muslim headscarf; and that stringed instruments, singing, the telling of fairy tales and even the use of the word ‘pig’ have all been banned.
I am a proud Muslim — but I find this appalling. Such superstitious, divisive nonsense should have no place in a British school. We are not living in rural Pakistan or a Taliban-run region in Afghanistan. Apart from anything else, the pupils are being deprived of a proper, rounded education and therefore will not have the same life chances in adulthood. That is why I am glad the Ofsted inspectors have been sent in to the school. For far too long, the British authorities have turned a blind eye — out of misguided fear of being seen as racist — to the creeping prevalence of militant Islam in our midst…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
General Al-Sisi: Egypt’s Future President?
One of the most frequently asked questions in Egypt today is whether the wildly popular General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ousted the country’s first democratically elected president, will run for president himself.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Forces in Libya Capture Qaeda Leader Linked to ‘98 Embassy Bombings
United States forces captured a leader of Al Qaeda indicted in the 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, ending a 15-year manhunt by seizing him in broad daylight near the Libyan capital, American officials said.
The suspect, born Nazih Abd al Hamid al-Ruqhay and known by his nom de guerre, Abu Anas el-Liby, has been high on the list of the United States government’s most-wanted fugitives since at least 2000, when a New York court indicted him for his part in planning the embassy attacks. The F.B.I. had offered a bounty of up to $5 million for information leading to his capture.
Abu Anas was captured alive near Tripoli in a joint operation by the United States military, the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., and was in American custody, a United States official said.
| [Return to headlines] |
After 40 Years the Lessons of the Yom Kippur War Are Still Relevant
At 14:30PM local time on October 6, 1973, Egyptian and Syrian forces began a coordinated attack against the meager tripwire IDF forces on the Golan Heights and the Bar Lev Line on the east bank of Suez Canal. The first contingents of more than 100,000 Egyptian forces drove across pontoon bridging. Meanwhile Egyptian combat engineers demolished the towering sand berms of the Bar Lev Line with water cannons isolating 450 IDF soldiers of the Jerusalem Brigade in 16 reinforced forts. One of those forts, Fort Budapest, survived the Egyptian assault although surrounded. Syrian commandos in the opening stanzas of the war were lifted by helicopter to Mount Hermon on the Golan. They captured the early warning post at the summit, while armored divisions attacked the small IDF tank screening force. Thus began the Yom Kippur War, known in Egypt as Operation Badr, named after the Battle of Badr that the Prophet Muhammad won against the Beni Quraish Jewish tribe in Mecca.
[…]
The late Golda Meir’s Agranat Commission revelations have relevance for PM Netanyahu given the existential threat of a nuclear armed Iran. Yossi Klein Halevi in a Wall Street Journal op ed, A Lesson From the Yom Kippur War for a Perilous Time, noted:…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Australian Muslims Oppose Pro-Israel Candidate
Grand Mufti threatens to withdraw support from Labor Party over Senate candidate with a ‘blind bias for Israel.’
The Grand Mufti of Australia’s Islamic community has been embroiled in a political scandal after threatening to withdraw his community’s support for the Labor Party over a candidate who has a “blind bias for Israel.” In a leaked email published last week by Fairfax Media, Dr. Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, who lauded Gaza as “the land of Jihad” during a visit in December 2012, said if Paul Howes’s bid for Australia’s upper house was successful he would encourage withdrawing support for Labor in the Islamic strongholds in western Sydney…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Christians Under Threat in Syria as Islamist Extremists Gain Influence
By Loveday Morris
When radical Islamists tore down a cross and hoisted a black flag above a church in the northern Syrian city of Raqqah last week, their action underscored the increasingly hostile environment for the country’s Christians.
Although Syria is majority Sunni Muslim, it is one of the most religiously and ethnically diverse countries in the Middle East, home to Christians, Druze, and Shiite-offshoot Alawites and Ismailis. But the country’s conflict, now in its third year, is threatening that tapestry.
Greg Miller
The effort, however, is expected to do little to bolster the fighters, who are being eclipsed by Islamist forces.
While the primary front in the war has pitted Sunni against Shiite, Christians are increasingly caught in the line of fire. The perception that they support the government — which is in many cases true — has long made them a target of rebel groups. Now, Christians say radical Islamist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an affiliate of al-Qaeda, are determined to drive them from their homes.
“The Christian community in Syria is stuck between two fires,” said Nadim Nassar, a Syrian from Latakia who is director of the Awareness Foundation, an interfaith charity based in Britain. “One fire is a corrupt regime, and everybody agrees there needs to be a change. And on the other hand, there’s a fragmented and diverse opposition on the ground who can’t control jihadist forces coming from outside the country.”
Syria is not the only place in the wider region where Christians are being targeted. Coptic churches in Egypt have been attacked, and Pakistan last week experienced the deadliest church bombing in the country’s history. The militants who attacked a mall in Nairobi last month singled out non-Muslims.
The rash of assaults has led some to question the future of Christianity in Syria, where adherents make up about 10 percent of the population, and in the wider Middle East.
Syria’s ruling Assad family, which belongs to the Alawite sect, has long painted itself as the protector of Syria’s minorities. Though leaders of Syria’s opposition have pledged to provide minorities with equality in a new Syria, they are unable to control the growing number of hard-line Islamist forces on the ground.
The Western-backed Syrian Opposition Coalition denounced the desecration of the churches in Raqqah, calling it an act that showed “complete disregard to holy sites and religious and cultural heritage.”
But the rejection of the opposition coalition by 13 rebel factions that announced an Islamic alliance last week highlighted the group’s lack of influence.
In Syria’s war, bishops have been kidnapped and priests have been killed. When the fighting last month reached the ancient town of Maaloula — where residents still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus — it struck at the heart of Syria’s Christian community.
Most residents have fled since rebels swept through the picturesque town, which clings to the mountains northwest of the capital, Damascus.
“Maaloula is like Jerusalem to Syrian Christians,” said Ibrahim Doushi, a Syrian Christian shop owner who moved to neighboring Lebanon. “When the war reached there, it was heartbreaking for all the Christians in the Middle East.”
The fighting in Maaloula was followed by the images from Raqqah, where the ISIS desecrated the Greek Catholic and Armenian Catholic churches, according to activist groups. The radical Islamist group also has attacked Shiite shrines and mosques.
For Doushi, who fled to Lebanon last year from the town of Ras al-Ayn, near the Turkish border, the footage of the ISIS’s black flag flying above the Armenian church was confirmation that he and his family have no future in his home country.
“Christians are being torn from our roots,” he said. The ISIS militants “are proud of it. They are targeting the Christians and they are publicizing it. The regime cannot protect us.”
Doushi said he was forced to leave Ras al-Ayn after Islamist fighters entered the town late last year and targeted the homes and businesses of Christians. The 61-year-old’s new, temporary residence, housing seven members of his extended family, is St. Gabriel’s monastery in the mountain village of Ajaltoun, 12 miles north of Beirut.
Many at the monastery say they are pinning their hopes on obtaining European visas, citing doubts that there will ever be a day that Syria can offer security to its minorities, at least in rebel-held areas.
“The Christians are never going back,” said Johnny Chamoun, 42, also from Ras al-Ayn, who works at the monastery coordinating assistance for Syrian Christian refugees.
Nassar, the interfaith foundation director, said it is the first time in centuries that Christians in Syria have been targeted for their faith.
“We are not imported there. Christ was not born under Big Ben or in Paris,” he said. “This is the cradle of Christianity that we are being pushed from.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Emirates: Constant Rains in North Due to ‘Cloud Seeding’
Experiments change weather, guarantee water resources
(by Alessandra Antonelli) (ANSAmed) — DUBAI, SEPTEMBER 30 — A rainy winter, thunderstorms in April and rain even in August are unprecedented in a country like the United Arab Emirates and have led some to suspect the weather is artificial. Such reports appear to be confirmed by surveys revealing that rains are increasing in the UAE due to experiments of ‘cloud seeding’, a form of intentional weather change to induce rain, conducted by the National centre of meteorology and seismology (NCMS).
‘We are trying to define the best possible procedure to increase underground rain water reserves and water retained by dams’, the director of NCMS, Ali Al Musallam, told Gulf News.
Cloud seeding is a procedure carried out through particles of salt or dry ice fired into clouds through dispersion devices built into plane wings for this purpose.
The particles, which are particularly cold, remain stable until condense drops cover them; then, the excessive weight leads to rain, generally within an hour.
The process, experts say, ‘creates’ rain but doesn’t ‘favour’ it. Clouds are in fact necessary so the process can start.
The UAE border with the mountain of Oman in the north, which can provide high clouds, depending on winds. This is why most of the rains are recorded in the northern part of the country — Ras al Khaimah, Umm al Qwain, Sharja until Dubai.
Salts used, including potassium chloride and sodium, don’t damage the environment, according to scientists at the centre, like silver iodide, another chemical agent used, which is maintained under the threshold believed to pose a danger for the environment. The procedure is quite expensive but its benefits are many, experts said. The UAE, along with other oil monarchies in the Gulf, are arid countries with significant consequences on both food and water security. The UAE are also investing to create agricultural areas in the country and buying land and farming enterprises abroad.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Millions of Pounds Given to Syrian Refugee Charities is ‘Being Used to Fund Terrorism’
Millions of pounds donated to help Syrian refugees caught up in the bloody civil war is being used to fund terrorism, the charity watchdog believes.
The Charity Commission said cash ‘undoubtedly’ ends up in the hands of extremist groups, while the Disasters Emergency Committee said it could not guarantee that some of the £20million it has raised has not bankrolled jihadists.
William Shawcross, chairman of the commission, said: ‘A lot of money is raised that goes to Syria, some of it undoubtedly goes to extremist groups… It is very hard for all organisations to determine that.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Black Op Team Behind Damascus Chem Weapons Attack — Diplomatic Sources
The August chemical weapons attack in the Syrian capital’s suburbs was done by a Saudi Arabian black operations team, Russian diplomatic sources have told a Russian news agency.
“Based on data from a number of sources a picture can be pieced together. The criminal provocation in Eastern Ghouta was done by a black op team that the Saudi’s sent through Jordan and which acted with support of the Liwa Al-Islam group,” a source in the diplomatic circles told Interfax.
The attack and its consequences had a huge impact on the Syrian situation, another source said.
“Syrians of various political views, including some opposition fighters, are seeking to inform diplomats and members of international organizations working in Syria what they know about the crime and the forces which inspired it,” he told the agency.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian Rebel Groups Battle Each Other in North
Al-Qaida militants battled fighters linked to the Western-backed opposition along with Kurdish gunmen in Syrian towns along the Turkish border on Friday, in clashes that killed at least 19 people, activists said. The violence is part of an outburst of infighting among the myriad rebel groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad for control over prized border areas. Islamic extremist fighters and more mainstream rebels are increasingly turning their guns on each other in what has effectively become a war within a war in northern and eastern Syria, leaving hundreds dead on both sides.
Turkey has been a staunch supporter of the rebels seeking to topple Assad, and has allowed the flow of weapons, men and supplies through border crossings into Syria. In an interview with Turkey’s private Halk TV, Assad said Turkey will pay a “high price” for allowing foreign fighters to enter Syria from its territory. “You cannot hide terrorists in your pocket. They are like a scorpion, which will eventually sting you,” Assad added…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Charges Entire Greenpeace Crew, Including Two Canadians
Two Canadians are among those facing prosecution after Russian investigators say they charged the entire crew of the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise with piracy for a protest at a Russian oil platform in the Arctic.
The crew includes Alexandre Paul of Montreal and Paul Ruzycki of Port Colborne, Ont., and the charge they both face can result in a 15-year prison term upon conviction.
Greenpeace denies any wrongdoing and describes the charges as absurd. The mother of one of the Canadians says they make no sense.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Proscribed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has once again denied having involvement in the attack on a Peshawar church last month but said it was according to Sharia. “We didn’t carry out the church attack. However, we believe it’s according to the Sharia,” TTP spokesperson Shahidullah Shahid told BBC in a telephonic interview from an anonymous location on Friday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China Employs Two Million Microblog Monitors
More than two million people in China are employed by the government to monitor web activity, state media say, providing a rare glimpse into how the state tries to control the internet.
The Beijing News says the monitors, described as internet opinion analysts, are on state and commercial payrolls.
China’s hundreds of millions of web users increasingly use microblogs to criticise the state or vent anger.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
A Chinese woman has revealed she was dragged from her home in the middle of the night and forced to have an abortion, three months before her child was due to be born.
Liu Xinwen, 33, and her husband Zhou Guoqiang were left devastated after the mother-of-one was pulled from her bed and taken to hospital to be injected with an abortion-inducing drug.
The forced abortion is due to China’s strict one-baby policy, introduced in 1979 to keep the country’s population under control — the couple already have a son.
The couple claim that they were awoken at 4am last week after their door was kicked down and two dozen officials from the Shandong Province Family Planning Commission forced their way into their home.
Mr Zhou told Sky News how he was held down on the sofa while his terrified wife was taken away to the hospital.
He then spent a desperate five hours trying to find out where Liu Xinwen had been taken as officials refused to tell him.
When he eventually found his wife at the People’s Hospital of Fangzi District in Weifang City, he arrived just minutes after the injection had been administered.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Don’t Pick Your Nose in Public: China Issues New Guidelines for Tourists
A new set of guidelines by China National Tourism Administration, issued late last month ahead of the key Golden Week vacation period that kicked off on Oct. 1 National Day, aims to set tourists right.
Among the admonitions contained in the 64-page illustrated handbook: Don’t sneeze in front of others. Ditto for picking noses and teeth.
While the booklet contains suggestions for Chinese when traveling at home, the main target is to improve the lamentably poor reputation of Chinese tourists abroad.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Foreign Military Forces’ Attack Somali Islamist Base
Foreign military forces attacked “high-profile” targets in Somalia just before dawn on Saturday, according to Somali officials. The targets were in the southern town of Barawe, a coastal base of the Islamist group al Shabaab.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Foreign Special Forces Attack Al-Shabab Base in Somalia
(AGI) Mogadishu, Oct 5 — Foreign special forces unleashed a dual land and air strike against an al-Shabab base in Somalia, said senior militants with links to al-Qaeda, adding that the attack had failed. One fighter was killed in the attack on Barawe beach, some 180 km south of Mogadishu. The gunman, presumed by the sources to be from a Western country, stepped off a helicopter and tried to attack a house which belongs to one of the leaders of the terrorist group that claimed the deadly attack on Kenya’s Westgate shopping centre last month.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya: 4 Dead in Mombasa Riots Over Slain Cleric
Mombasa — At least four people have been killed after violent protests rocked the coastal town of Mombasa on Friday afternoon. The Kenya Red Cross said on its Twitter handle the victims succumbed to injuries while undergoing treatment in hospital. Seven other people remained in hospital, while 24 others had been arrested.
Tension however remained high in the town following the demonstrations by angry youths who were protesting the killing of a prominent Muslim cleric, Sheikh Ibrahim Ismail, on Thursday night. A Capital FM News correspondent in the coastal city said that the youths started demonstrating soon after the lunchtime prayers and had already torched the Salvation Army Church in Majengo…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya: CCTV of Nairobi’s Westgate Mall Attackers — Video
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
CCTV footage from inside Nairobi’s Westgate mall shows the al-Shabaab attackers as they went on a killing spree
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Militant Base ‘Attacked From Sea’ In Somalia
Unidentified foreign forces have launched a night-time raid on a militant base in the south Somali town of Barawe from the sea, reports say.
A spokesman for the al-Shabab Islamist group told Reuters news agency that a fighter had been killed in the raid. Reports speak of residents in the militant-controlled town being woken by heavy gunfire before dawn prayers. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility last month for a deadly attack on a Kenyan shopping mall…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nairobi Terrorists Named as Police Confirm ‘White Widow’ Not Among Them
A small band of up to six attackers carried out the Nairobi terrorist siege, police have confirmed — contradicting their earlier claims that 15 attackers were involved.
Kenyan police named four of the terrorists on Saturday. None of them were Western, contrary to their initial reports, and they were all men.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Seychelles Court Convicts 11 Somalis of Piracy
The Seychelles Supreme Court on Wednesday (October 2nd) sentenced 11 Somali men to prison terms of between 18 months and 16 years after convicting them of committing acts of piracy and operating a pirate vessel, according to European Union Naval Force (EU NAVFOR) Somalia…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Says Shabab Leader in Somalia May Have Been Killed
A Navy SEAL team targeted a senior leader of the Shabab militant group in a raid on his seaside villa in the Somali town of Baraawe on Saturday, American officials said, in response to a deadly attack on a Nairobi shopping mall for which the group had claimed responsibility.
American officials initially reported that the commandos had seized the Shabab leader, but later backed off of that account.
The Shabab leader was now believed to have been killed in the firefight, but the SEALs were forced to withdraw before that could be confirmed, a senior American official said. Such operations by American forces are rare because they carry a high risk, and indicate that the target was considered a high priority. Baraawe, a small port town south of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, is known as a gathering place for the Shabab’s foreign fighters.
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Despite a rising death toll from Thursday’s Lampedusa shipwreck, many refugees from East Africa continue to risk the dangeous journey to Europe — and freedom.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
About 230 Syrian Migrants Rescued Off Coast of Sicily
(AGI) Syracuse, Oct 5 — About 230 Syrian migrants were rescued off the southeast coast of Sicily on Saturday and taken by the port authorities to Portopalo di Capo Passero near Syracuse.
The immigrants, including several children, were assisted by members of the Red Cross before undergoing identification procedures.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Border Patrol Rep Claims Agents Being Ordered to Stand Down
The National Border Patrol Council has come forward to reveal to the American public once again management practices that could be risking the lives of Americans — and the lives of illegal immigrants.
Shawn Moran, Vice President of the National Border Patrol Council, spoke exclusively with Breitbart News and claimed that Border Patrol management has begun the practice of ordering Border Patrol Agents to stand down and cease pursuing drug smugglers, human smugglers and traffickers, and illegal aliens. He also warned it could lead to illegal aliens entering the country from nations associated with terrorism.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s drugs, bodies, or how large the group is, our agents are being ordered to stand down by Border Patrol management,” said Moran. “I have received reports from our agents in every single sector from San Diego to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas that they are receiving these orders.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Fiji, Sweden Discuss Immigration Cooperation
SUVA, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) — Fijian Minister for Defense, National Security and Immigration Joketani Cokanasiga met Swedish Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy Tobias Billstrom Saturday and discussed bilateral cooperation on immigration, Fiji’s Ministry of Information said. During their meeting in New York, Billstrom expressed the Swedish government’s appreciation to Fiji in the successful conclusion of the Declaration on International Migration and Development that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly earlier this week, according to Fiji’s Ministry of Information…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Foreign Women Given More Work Permits in Turkey
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, SEPTEMBER 19 — Turkey increased the number of work permits it grants to foreign women, compared to men, in 2012, as part of an overall 86% increase in approved work permits compared to the previous year, as Anadolu Agency reports. Some 32,272 foreigners were granted work permits by the Turkish government in 2012, 19,546 of whom were female workers, thus making it the first time that the number of female workers has exceeded that of male workers. There was a 133% increase in work permits issued to foreign women workers in comparison to the 8,379 women in 2011, while the increase in permits issued to foreign males was at 42%, with 12,726 permits issued in 2012. A total of 125,697 foreigners were issued with work permits between 2003 and 2012, demonstrating a notable increase in foreign workers in Turkey, particularly when taking into account that a total of 885 work permits were issued in 2003. Analysis of the number of work permits issued according to occupation reveals that domestic jobs topped the list with 8,863 foreigners, while jobs in the hospitality sector were in second place with 4,953 work permits.
Meanwhile, inspectors of the Social Security Institution (SGK) launched a new campaign last week to track down household workers working illegally without a work permit or insurance.
Foreigners without a work permit are being sent back to their home countries, and families who hire domestic without insurance are being heavy fined.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy’s Turn at EU Helm ‘Will Push Migrant Response’
‘Great opportunity’ to set agenda says Alfano
(ANSA) — Rome, October 4 — Italy’s position on the very front lines of a migrant crisis in the Mediterranean will be a major theme when the country assumes the rotating presidency of the European Union in mid-2014, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said Friday.
The high-profile EU position “will be a great opportunity to put on the agenda” the issue of migrants and Italy’s role as a “strategic plank” in the Mediterranean, he said.
Italy will hold the six-month term in the presidency of the Council of the European Union from July through December 2014.
Alfano spoke one day after a ship carrying as many as 500 migrants fleeing Somalia and Eritrea caught fire and capsized, claiming some 300 lives.
He also called on Europe to assume its duties in protecting all of its borders — including the Mediterranean seas.
“A state that does not protect its borders,” is hardly a state, Alfano complained in the Lower House.
“The planes and the military of Frontex (the border management system for Europe) must be vigilant on the Mediterranean”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
One in ten of the families given taxpayer-subsidised social housing last year was foreign, figures revealed yesterday.
They show that the rate at which newly arrived immigrants acquire council and housing association homes has gathered pace even in the face of deep public concern.
The proportion of foreign citizens taking advantage of the diminishing supply of publicly-subsidised homes has risen by more than 50 per cent in five years.
The Daily Mail revealed in July that nearly half a million immigrants who came to Britain in the decade after 2001 were housed in taxpayer-subsidised social homes.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Six Porn Cinemas Shut in Male-Prostitution Probe
Gays, transsexuals and minors ‘sold sex’
(ANSA) — Milan, September 19 — Italian police on Thursday shut down six porn cinemas across Italy in a probe into male prostitution which included minors.
Police said “homosexuals, transsexuals and minors were selling sex to men in the cinemas” — three in Milan, one in Mestre near Venice, one in Genoa and one in Catania.
Three people were arrested.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Imam Calls on Muslims to Boycott Elton John Concerts
A top Russian religious leader has joined concerned parents in calling for a boycott of SIR ELTON JOHN’s upcoming concerts in the country.
Imam Seidzhagfar Lutfullin has called on Muslims to stay away from Elton’s gigs in Kazan and Moscow in December (13), insisting the Rocket Man is “promoting sodomy”. His comments, made to the media on Thursday (03Oct13), come just days after officials at the Ural Parents Committee urged President Vladimir Putin to axe the two upcoming shows over fears the openly-gay rocker will violate a nationwide ban on “homosexual propaganda”. Lutfullin called Sir Elton “a world-famous homosexual”, and added the hitmaker is “the devil’s work in the shape of a pederast (a man who has sex with boys)”. He stated, “Sodomy… is what the world-famous homosexual Elton John, who recently wed a man in public, is promoting.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Religion is Not Funny: Censorship at the LSE
The veil is a garment many find offensive. This is, in part, because it seems to threaten many of our cherished values and hard won rights. Representations of Muhammad and mockery of Islam are also offensive to some. For this reason Student Union officials at the LSE intervened when they saw representatives of the LSE Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society wearing Jesus and Mo T-Shirts…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Most of the images of the 20-year-old singer in her latest video are too graphic to show in a family newspaper: Miley wears a strip of fabric barely an inch wide to get round any ban on full-frontal nudity. In one scene she’s smoking a joint, in another posing very suggestively with a beer can, in a third gripping her breasts and exposing her nipple.
Perhaps the most distressing image of all is one that plays to her teen Disney fame — Miley, in nothing but a T-shirt, has her hand between her legs while sucking her thumb.
As I know from my research into child porn on the internet for articles in this newspaper, this is a schoolgirl pose that is particularly exciting to paedophiles.
Miley’s fall from wholesome Disney teenager to porn star has been as rapid as it is distressing. And this week, she received a heartfelt warning from someone who knows the perils of the music business only too well, singer Sinead O’Connor.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sacred Mysteries: The Gnostic Idea That Matter is Bad
This comprehensible introduction to the strange beliefs of Gnosticism is delightful
What did the Gnostics believe? Someone asked me that, after I mentioned their intellectual opponent, Irenaeus, who lived in Lyon in the second century.
The answer is that we don’t quite know, for two reasons. One is that their beliefs varied greatly from group to group. More importantly, they enforced a system of secret teaching, the esoteric gnosis or “knowledge” that gave their sect its name. Why this should matter centuries later is that, in exposing their beliefs, St Irenaeus (pictured) gave an account of early Christianity that is still freshly impressive. The key teaching of Gnosticism that Irenaeus opposes is that material things are bad. Some Christian writers even now unthinkingly say that our being material is a falling away from God, as if it were equivalent to sin.
Reading Irenaeus’s refutation of Gnosticism is no easy task. His treatise Adversus Haereses (“Against the heresies”) argues in the manner of the late classical world, which is foreign to our tastes, and he has no section “New readers start here”. So it was a pleasure to catch up with a presentation of Irenaeus’s book by the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, first published in English in 1990 under the title The Scandal of the Incarnation (Ignatius Press, £9.42). Fortunately, the translator, John Saward, is a theologian in his own right and writes very clearly…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Why Miley and Rihanna act like whores? Because they have been raised to be whores. They know no better. It is we who should be shunning these whores and treat them as such. When we start to do that, their actions should start changing.