According to a recent survey, almost two-thirds of European Muslims want to live under sharia. Some 75% percent believe that a single legitimate interpretation of the Koran should be binding on all Muslims.
In other news, the unemployment rate in Italy has reached a record 12%. More than a million Italians have lost their jobs since the crisis began in 2008.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Andy Bostom, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, Kitman, 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.
83 Numbers From 2013 That Are Almost Too Crazy to Believe
During 2013, America continued to steadily march down a self-destructive path toward oblivion. As a society, our debt levels are completely and totally out of control. Our financial system has been transformed into the largest casino on the entire planet and our big banks are behaving even more recklessly than they did just before the last financial crisis. We continue to see thousands of businesses and millions of jobs get shipped out of the United States, and the middle class is being absolutely eviscerated.
Due to the lack of decent jobs, poverty is absolutely exploding. Government dependence is at an all-time high and crime is rising. Evidence of social and moral decay is seemingly everywhere, and our government appears to be going insane. If we are going to have any hope of solving these problems, the American people need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and finally admit how bad things have actually become. If we all just blindly have faith that “everything is going to be okay”, the consequences of decades of incredibly foolish decisions are going to absolutely blindside us and we will be absolutely devastated by the great crisis that is rapidly approaching. The United States is in a massive amount of trouble, and it is time that we all started facing the truth. The following are 83 numbers from 2013 that are almost too crazy to believe…
#1 Most people that hear this statistic do not believe that it is actually true, but right now an all-time record 102 million working age Americans do not have a job. That number has risen by about 27 million since the year 2000.
#2 Because of the lack of jobs, poverty is spreading like wildfire in the United States. According to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49.2 percent of all Americans are receiving benefits from at least one government program each month.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Over One Million Italians Lost Jobs During Crisis
Unemployment jumped between 2008 and 2012, says Istat
(ANSA) — Rome, December 19 — The number of unemployed in Italy jumped by more than one million people between the start of the global economic crisis in 2008 and 2012, the national statistical agency Istat said Thursday. During that period, the number of Italians looking for work rose by approximately 1,052,000, the agency said.
The national unemployment rate recently reached a record level of more than 12%, and youth under 25 have been especially hard hit with a jobless rate of over 40%.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Children of the 60s and 70s Will Retire Poorer Than Their Parents
A report published today by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found the post-war trend for each generation to be richer than the last may be coming to a halt.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Asian Trade Treaty Will Destroy America
Secrecy and outright deception is the hallmark of the Obama administration and a proposed Asian trade treaty must be stopped.
In the same way ObamaCare was foisted on America by creating a 2,000-page law that Democrats in Congress never even bothered to read, a new treaty about trade with Asia is going through the same process and poses as great, if not greater, threat to our economy, our judiciary, and our sovereignty.
It is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and, writing on The Economic Collapse blog, Michael Snyder, notes that “This treaty has 29 chapters, but only 5 of them have to do with trade. Most Americans don’t realize this, but this treaty will fundamentally change our laws regarding internet freedom, health care, the trading of derivatives, copyright issues, food safety, environmental standards, civil liberties, and so much more.”
Snyder warns that “It contains a whole host of things that Obama would be unable to get through Congress on his own. But he is hoping to spring this on Congress at the last minute and get them to agree to this ‘free trade agreement’ before they realize all of the things contained in it.” This is a definition of governing by deception. It evokes the way ObamaCare was put before a Congress that had not read it…and which passed by a straight party-line vote by Democrats.
The secrecy surrounding these treaty negotiations,” said Synder, “have really been unprecedented.” In fact, if Wikileaks had not secured access to the TPP draft there would be next to nothing known about it. It posted a 95 page, 30,000 word document that is a horror. Writing about it on his blog, Kurt Nimmo noted that is provisions for implementing “a transnational ‘enforcement regime designed to supplant national laws and sovereignty with a globalist construct. The TPP is by far the largest and most oppressive economic treaty devised so far.“
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
(CNSNews.com) — The new debt run up by the federal government since House Speaker John Boehner cut his first spending deal with President Barack Obama has now topped $3 trillion — exceeding all the debt accumulated under all American presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hillary Clinton Says She Will Decide in 2014
Hillary Clinton says she’ll make the decision next year on whether she’ll run for president in 2016. “I will look carefully at what I think I can do and make that decision sometime next year,” Clinton told ABC’s Barbara Walters in an interview that aired Wednesday night.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Lawyer: Accused Harvard Student Was Under Pressure
A Harvard student accused of making a bomb threat to get out of a final exam was under a great deal of pressure and seems remorseful, his lawyer said Wednesday after his client was freed on bail.
Eldo Kim, 20, was released on $100,000 bond into the custody of his sister, who lives in Massachusetts, and an uncle from North Carolina. Attorneys did not say where he will stay.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Boston alleges Kim sent hoax emails Monday saying shrapnel bombs would go off soon in two of four buildings on Harvard’s Cambridge, Mass., campus. The emails came minutes before he was to take a final exam in one of the buildings.
The buildings were shut down for hours before investigators determined there were no explosives.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Neighbors Call Cops on Man for Washing Car in His Own Driveway (Video)
Neighbors called police on a man in Garden City, New York for the egregious crime of washing a car in his own driveway.
A video shows a police officer approaching two men in their driveway to inform them washing their car on their own private property violates a city ordinance, telling them “you’re not allowed to do it.”
“I don’t just make this **** up, I ain’t just driving down the street to come over here and break your balls,” remarks the cop as he shows them the ordinance which states that washing a motor vehicle is prohibited in a public place.
When the two men respond that the vehicle is on private property, the officer responds, “OK that’s what you say, it’s still in public view.” So now according to New York police, all private property that is visible from public land is no longer private.
The cop then makes it clear that if the men begin washing their car, “we will be back here to give you tickets.”
“This is a battle that you don’t want to start,” asserts the cop, threatening to return to the property.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
NSA Director Alexander Has to Ask Permission to Answer a Question
Who’s really in charge of the NSA?
One of the more jaw-dropping moments to emerge out of 60 Minutes’ profile piece on the National Security Agency yesterday was when NSA Director Keith Alexander had to ask permission from his superiors on whether or not he could answer a question.
The report, headed up by John Miller, himself a former FBI and National Intelligence official, was basically a soapbox for the NSA to downplay its malfeasance in light of the Edward Snowden revelations.
“Did the NSA actually find a foreign power that had identified this capability and discussed using it offensively,” Miller asks Alexander at the 2:45 mark in the clip above.
Alexander is about to speak but then turns his head towards what Miller describes as a “crowd of people in the dark,” and states, “I need time out on that.”
According to Miller, Alexander then asked this group of people, “Can I answer that?”
Bear in mind that Alexander is the highest ranking individual in the National Security Agency and moreover a four-star general. Alexander is also Chief of the Central Security Service (CHCSS) and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM).
If Alexander is supposedly the top guy at the NSA, why does he need to ask shadowy advisors lurking in the background if he can even address a question?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama to Commute Sentences for 8 in Crack Cocaine Cases
President Obama, expanding his push to curtail severe penalties for drug offenses, is expected on Thursday to commute the sentences of eight federal inmates who were convicted of crack cocaine offenses. Each inmate has been imprisoned for at least 15 years, and six were sentenced to life in prison.
It would be the first time retroactive relief was provided to a group of inmates who most likely would have received significantly shorter terms if they had been sentenced under current drug laws, sentencing rules and charging policies.
Most of the eight would be released in 120 days.
| [Return to headlines] |
Obama Allows Great Lakes Water to be Sold to China as Half the U.S. Faces Extreme Water Crisis
What in the world is Barack Obama thinking? At a time when the United States is facing the greatest water crisis that it has ever known, Obama is allowing water from the Great Lakes to be drained, bottled and shipped to China and other countries around the globe.
Right now, the Great Lakes hold approximately 21 percent of the total supply of fresh water in the entire world. Considering the fact that global water supplies are becoming extremely tight, that is an invaluable resource. One recent UN report projected that two-thirds of the people in the world will be dealing with “water stress” and 1.8 billion people will be facing “absolute water scarcity” by the year 2025. So why are we allowing foreign corporations such as Nestle to make millions upon millions of dollars pumping water out of the Great Lakes and selling it overseas? Considering the massive worldwide water crisis that we know is coming in the years ahead, shouldn’t we be doing everything that we can to protect this precious natural resource?
Most Americans don’t realize this, but earlier this year water levels in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan were at their lowest levels ever recorded. The following is from a recent article by Suzanne Eovaldi…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Robot Olympics’: 17 Cyborg Athletes to Vie for Glory in DARPA Challenge
Before athletes from around the world gather for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, 17 robotics teams will compete for glory — and funding — this week in the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials.
The competition will take place Friday and Saturday (Dec. 20-21) at the Homestead Miami Speedway in Homestead, Fla. The contest, designed to advance the field of robot technology, will test the capabilities of robotic creations from teams hailing from five different countries.
DARPA is the branch of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for experimenting with and developing new technologies for the military.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Senate Approves Budget, Sends to Obama
Washington (CNN) — For the first time in what seems like ages, Congress has passed a government spending plan without resorting to last-minute brinkmanship such as midnight negotiations to prevent an imminent government shutdown.
The Senate voted 64-36 on Wednesday to send the compromise federal budget framework to President Barack Obama, who has signaled his support. Last week, the budget plan easily passed the House on a 332-94 vote, with solid majorities of both parties supporting it.
While Wednesday’s Senate vote was closer, nine Republicans joined the majority Democrats to provide the required majority of at least 51 votes to pass.
The plan guides government spending into 2015, defusing the chances of a shutdown like the one in October that generated public anger against Congress, particularly conservative Republicans blamed for the impasse.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Age of Affluenza and Other Afflictions
On June 15 in Tarrant County, Texas, a Burleson Walmart security camera recorded footage of 16-year-old Ethan Couch and his friends shoplifting two cases of beer. That same night, Couch was driving 70 mph in his father’s Ford F-350 pickup in a 40 mph zone when he lost control of the vehicle.
In the ensuing collision, four people standing by an SUV that had broken down were killed. Two people riding in Couch’s truck were severely injured. One can no longer move or talk due to a brain injury. The other suffered broken bones and internal injuries. Three hours after the crash, Couch had a blood alcohol content of 0.24, three times the legal limit, as well as traces of Valium in his system. Last week State District Judge Jean Boyd sentenced Couch to to 10 years probation, and ordered him to receive therapy at a long-term, in-patient facility, because she didn’t believe jail would the right place to get it.
Therapy for what? Psychiatrist G. Dick Miller testified that Couch suffered from “affluenza” and that his parents gave him “freedoms no young person should have.”
Defense attorney Scott Brown added insult to injury. “There is nothing the judge could have done to lessen the suffering for any of those families,” he said…
What’s really sick here is the notion that this is all about Ethan Couch, and that his six victims are little more than inconvenient appendages to a well-crafted sob-story about emotional poverty trumping material wealth.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The End of Childhood in the Era of the Emerging American Police State
Add to the execution of zero tolerance policies the phenomenon of “lockdowns” of public schools, which are sometimes prompted by legitimate threats, but more often by nearby domestic disturbances and false alarms, in which students are corralled into closets and hallways, met with police officers armed to the hilt, searched by drug-sniffing dogs, and generally made to feel as if they are living in a war zone. This trend of acclimating children to a mindset in which they should always be fearful, on edge, and deferential to authority is compounded by so-called “drills” in which police officers pretend they are spree shooters. Dahlia Lithwick, writing for Slate, notes that these bizarre attempts to prepare kids for an active shooter situation do not really prepare students for emergency situations, but rather simply frighten them.
In fact, their true purpose, as I document in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, seems to be simply to acclimate children to the mindset of paranoia and absolute deference to authority which has taken hold of the American populace at large. Children, who are naturally suspect of illegitimate authority, are being conditioned to accept any and all orders from on high, even those which they inherently know are wrong.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Obama-Castro Handshake, A Confirmation
Oh, I know, I know all you read about in the media, in your textbooks blah… blah…is about a “cruel” and “vindictive” and “archaic” embargo, even a “blockade,” by the mean Yankee bullies against the innocent and plucky Castroites who want nothing more than our friendship — and who amply deserve it. So perhaps some meticulously-documented clarifications are in order:
In executive order after executive order, President Obama abolished President Bush’s travel and remittance restrictions to Castro’s terror-sponsoring fiefdom and opened the pipeline to a point where the cash-flow from the U.S. to Cuba today is estimated at $4 billion a year. While a proud Soviet satrapy Cuba received $3-5 billion annually from the Soviets. In brief, almost every year since Obama took office more cash has been flowing from the U.S. to Cuba than used to flow there from the Soviets at the height of their Cuba-sponsorship.
In brief, there was an excellent reason for the smile on Raul Castro’s face as he shook hands with president Obama.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Woman Signs Up for ObamaCare, Has Identity Stolen
(Off the Grid News) Experts’ warnings about the Obamacare website’s complete lack of security apparently have been justified. The website reportedly gave at least three unknown individuals access to a woman’s Social Security number, address and other data that could be used for identity theft.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: the Elf-Hating Priest is at it Again
Controversial priest Jon Knudsen declares himself an “elf-exorcist”
Jon Knudsen, a local priest in Løkken, caused a bit of a stir in 2010 by hanging an elf from his church in what he said was a protest against paganism.
According to Knudsen, elves are a symbol of satanism and can contaminate people with evil spirits and even cause physical illness. If it were up to him, elves would be removed from all Danish homes rather than be seen as a standard symbol of Christmas.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Insecticides Implicated in Bee Population Decline May Also Impact Human Nervous System
The EU warned Tuesday that two widely used insecticides, one of which has already been implicated in bee population decline, may pose a risk to human health.
The neonicotinoid insecticides acetamiprid and imidacloprid “may affect the developing human nervous system,” the European Food Safety Authority said, the first time such a link has been made.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Caserta Mayor Agrees to Move Giant Horn From Royal Palace
Installation blasted as an eyesore
(ANSA) — Naples, December 13 — Mayor Pio Del Gaudio from the southern city of Caserta has agreed to relocate a gigantic red horn-shaped installation that presently rises in front of the Royal Palace of Caserta, a jewel of 18th-century architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Installed last weekend, the 70,000-euro horn by Neapolitan artist Lello Esposito titled ‘Good Luck, Caserta’ has sparked an outcry from art history buffs, conservation officials, and the public at large, soon earning it a nickname as the “horn of discord”.
“It’s a positive provocation,” Mayor Pino Del Gaudio has said in defense of the installation, which he touted as “the biggest horn in the world” and one that would put Caserta on the map as nothing ever has before. “And don’t talk to me about UNESCO…they never bothered when the Palace was falling apart, and they certainly won’t bother now over a horn”.
The UN agency promptly replied, however.
“A horn at the entrance? It follows the same logic as the Pitchforks,” UNESCO Italy Commission President Giovanni Puglisi said in a reference to the so-called Pitchfork anti-austerity protests that have ensnarled Italy for the past five days.
“I hope the mayor will stop at the horn and won’t go any further”. Built for the Bourbon kings of Naples, the Royal Palace of Caserta was the largest palace and one of the largest buildings erected in Europe in the 18th century.
UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site in 1997, describing it as “the swan song of the spectacular art of the Baroque, from which it adopted all the features needed to create the illusions of multi-directional space”.
The horn is to be moved to a yet-to-be-disclosed location, authorities said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Etihad May Buy as Much as 49% of Alitalia for 350 Mn Euro
Financial Times reports talks, cites sources close to companies
(ANSA) — Rome, December 19 — Alitalia and Etihad Airways are pursuing negotiations which could result in the Abu Dhabi-based carrier taking a stake of as much as 49% in the troubled Italian airline through a capital injection that could be worth as much as 350 million euros, according to the Financial Times online edition. The newspaper cited sources close to the negotiations in the article.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Liftoff! European Spacecraft Launches to Map 1 Billion Stars
A European probe roared into space Thursday (Dec. 19), kicking off an ambitious mission to map a billion Milky Way stars in high resolution.
The European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft lifted off its pad at Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at 4:12 a.m. EST (0912 GMT) Thursday, carried aloft by a Russian Soyuz-Fregat rocket. Gaia is on its way to a gravitationally stable point about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth, which it should reach in about three weeks.
Over the next five years, Gaia aims not only to pinpoint the locations of 1 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy, but also to determine where these stars are moving, what they are made of and how luminous they are. These are all steps to help scientists better understand the history of the universe, ESA officials have said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Most European Muslims Want Sharia
by Ingrid Carlqvist
A majority of Muslims want sharia law to take precedence over the secular laws of their European host countries. This according to a new survey WZB Berlin Social Science Center based on interviews with Muslims in six countries including Sweden. The survey ought to raise eyebrows among Western politicians say researchers.
Turkish and Moroccan immigrants to Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Holland and Sweden were asked three questions:
- Is sharia is more important to you than the laws of the land you are living in? (Yes: 66 percent).
- Do you think there is only one legitimate interpretation of the Koran that should be binding on all Muslims? (Yes: 75 percent).
- Do you think Muslims ought to return to the “Islams roots”? (Yes: 60 percent).
Those who answered yes to all questions were labeled “consistent fundamentalists” — and they make up 44 percent of all Muslims covered by the survey. Fundamentalist attitudes are equally prevalent among younger and older Muslims.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Oslo Likely to Demolish Tower Breivik Bombed
Oslo City Council is leaning towards demolishing the 1958 government high rise damaged in far-Right terrorist Anders Breivik’s 2011 bomb attack.
“It’s more important to prevent the new government building becoming a deserted fortress than to preserve the high-rise,” Bård Folke Fredriksen, Oslo’s Commissioner for Urban development, told the NRK news channel, before releasing Oslo’s official submission on Thursday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: House Speaker Removes Painted Breasts
The deputy speaker of Sweden’s Riksdag has tired of the bare breasts adorning the walls in parliament and has ensured the removal of the offending painting from the parliament’s dining room.
The dining room in question is used for official meals with foreign dignitaries, and according to one of the other parliamentary speakers — who preferred to remain anonymous — a defrocked woman on the wall had become a sensitive matter.
“You have to think of the foreign guests, especially those from Muslim countries,” the source explained.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Jails Free Foreign Convicts Who Still Pose a Danger
A highly critical report by prison and probation inspectors found that jails holding foreign nationals across England and Wales helped inmates get a house and benefits or a job on their release.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Jobless Thug Nathan Mhuto Who Left Victim in Coma After Fight is Jailed for Nine Months
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
Nathan Mhuto, 24, from Bognor Regis pleaded guilty to affray and common assault after punching Ryan Geall, 20, in the back of the head in Brighton last year.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Let Criminals ‘Become JPs’
Prominent think tank says they should be allowed to apply five years after committing last offence
Criminals should be allowed to sit as justices of the peace for the first time in more than 700 years, a prominent think tank said yesterday.
They should win the right to apply to become magistrates five years after committing their last crime, according to the centre-right Policy Exchange group.
The Policy Exchange Group, which has close links to David Cameron, said that appointing former offenders would ‘ overhaul’ the magistrates’ courts which deal with 19 out of every 20 criminal cases.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Muslim converts accused of murdering Lee Rigby were found guilty in just 90 minutes today for carrying out a crime that appalled the world. Fusilier Rigby was ‘mutilated, almost decapitated and murdered’ by Michael Adebowale, 22, and Michael Adebolajo, 28, who ambushed him outside military barracks in Woolwich, South East London.
Lee Rigby’s bereft family have been forced to relive his killing and watch footage of the soldier being run down at 40mph and hacked to death because the pair refused to accept they were murderers. Adebolajo instead claimed their defence was they were ‘soldiers of Allah’ at ‘war’ with Britain over its foreign policy.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
A young mother was beaten up on a night out by a woman who was apparently jealous that she was carrying a large wad of cash.
Amy Rae Ferris took out £200 from a cash machine in order to buy Christmas presents for her children, shortly before popping into a bar for a drink with friends.
But a woman who saw her pull out the banknotes ambushed her in the toilet and brutally beat her, leaving her covered in blood.
The attacker took the 24-year-old’s money, then went back to her friends at the bar and carried on drinking.
‘I feel lucky to be alive as there must have been up to 40 blows to my head,’ said Ms Ferris, who has a six-year-old son and a daughter aged four. ‘She didn’t say a word during the attack — she just kept hitting me.
‘I was left on the floor in a pool of blood. I managed to crawl out although I’m not sure if I had been knocked out for a few minutes.
‘A lady came and she went to get help and I was escorted out of the back of the club while [the attacker] was still drinking at the bar like nothing had happened. I can’t believe someone could do that to another person.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Amnesty Int’l Report Tells of Torture in Qaedist Prisons
Seven detention centers highlighted, victims young as 14
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT — Amnesty International released a report detailing human rights violations including torture, summary executions, and flogging committed in Qaedist rebel detention centers in northern Syria. The organization is renewing its appeal to the government of Damascus to end the use of torture in its prisons and reports the accounts of prisoners held in seven detention centers run by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Three of the detention centers are in the city of Raqqa, two in Raqqa province, and two in Aleppo. ISIS is also suspected of holding foreign citizens, including journalists captured while covering the conflict and Roman Jesuit priest Paolo Dall’Oglio, who disappeared in Raqqa at the end of July. Flogging and electric shock torture are among the most widely-used practices against the prisoners, who are accused of and arrested for a wide variety of infractions, from theft to presumed anti-Islamic conduct such as smoking and adultery, to ISIS opposition and membership in rival armed rebel groups.
Witnesses said they even saw two 14-year-old boys being whipped.
Some ex-prisoners said that there were grotesque “trials” lasting a few minutes and presided over by an Islamic judge wearing an explosive vest, held in the prison at Sadd al-Ba’ath, in the Raqqa province. In some cases the defendants were sentenced to death and the sentence was carried out; in at least one case the judge personally participated in the flogging of a convict. “After years in which they were prey to the brutality of the al-Assad regime, the people of al-Raqqa and Aleppo are now suffering under a new form of tyranny imposed on them by ISIS,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Myth of Turkish Secularism
by David Boyajian
Turkey is a secular state. So claim its government and nearly all mainstream Western media. They are mistaken.
In civilized, democratic countries, secularism means not only a respectful separation between church and state but also freedom of religion. As we shall demonstrate, Turkish policies have long been the antithesis of secularism.
The Turkish government massively supports and funds Islam — specifically Sunni Islam — inside the country. Turkey simultaneously represses religions such as Alevism, and bullies and persecutes indigenous Christians, most of whom it liquidated in 20th century genocides. Moreover, it uses Islam to project Turkish political power into Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. Turkey’s system is more properly termed State Islam.
This article is not a criticism of Islam or its faithful. We respect both. Turkey’s secularism myth, nevertheless, cries out to be laid bare…
| — Hat tip: Andy Bostom | [Return to headlines] |
Trouble Between Islamists in Turkey: Gulen Versus Erdogan
Tuesday, police in Ankara, Istanbul and other cities in Turkey arrested more than 49 persons in a corruption probe. Those arrested including some prominent persons and three sons of AKP cabinet ministers on charges of bribery and payoffs on construction deals. This development surfaces a running ideological war between two Islamists, Premier Erdogan versus shadowy Sheikh Muhammed Fethullah Gulen, head of the multi-billion dollar Gulen Movement (GM) or Hizmat in Turkish. He lives in exile in a fortified compound in the Poconos Mountains in Eastern Pennsylvania. He fled to the US to avoid prosecution by the then Turkish secular government. […]
The trigger for Tuesday’s arrests on corruption charges was Erdogan’s move to close down the private school system operated by the GM that produced tens of millions in fee income. Their schools espouse a World Islamic Order through commitment of personal service and modernization. The national police in Turkey and the judiciary have been penetrated by Gulenists facilitating the corruption arrests. The GM also controls a major national newspaper, Today’s Zaman. […]
What we have in Turkey today is a contest between two Islamists, Erdogan, seeking to convert the country into a Caliphate with one time election to an executive Presidency, versus, Gulen “the world’s most dangerous Islamist” slowly perfecting the same goal…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
UN’s Syria “Aid” Appeal is Bid to Relieve Trapped Terrorists
Once again, accusations of the Syrian government’s “crimes against humanity” are solely based on the “activists say” school of journalism, where “rebel” propagandists renowned as serial liars, have posted videos of unverified footage then reported as fact by their Western collaborators — with disclaimers later buried deep within reports.
What the West is Using the UN for this Time
The gambit is two-fold. First, to portray the Syrian government as guilty of yet more “crimes against humanity,” which then justifies the second — passing a binding UN Security Council resolution that would give the West direct access to their terrorist proxies inside of Syria under the guise of providing “humanitarian aid.”
This is being done in conjunction with plans to drop the pretense of “moderate rebels,” and fully back Al Qaeda and other extremist fronts through a network of proxies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Jordan. In a recent e-mail leak released by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), correspondences between US contractor Matthew Van Dyke and Western journalists revealed that in addition to intentionally deceiving the public regarding the nature of the conflict, aid shipments were being used to smuggle in equipment, fighters, and weapons.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Putin Says He Will Pardon Khodorkovsky, Jailed Oil Tycoon
President Vladimir Putin said he will pardon jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky after more than a decade in prison.
Mr. Putin told reporters after his marathon news conference Thursday that Khodorkovsky submitted an appeal for pardon and he intends to grant it.
He says that Khodorkovsky has “spent more than 10 years in prison. It’s a serious term.”
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Vladimir Putin: NSA Surveillance Necessary to Fight Terrorism
President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that National Security Agency surveillance is necessary to fight terrorism, but added that the government must “limit the appetite” of the agency with a clear set of ground rules. Putin’s comment was surprising support for President Barack Obama’s administration, which has faced massive criticism over the sweeping U.S. electronic espionage program.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China Moon Mission: Replacing the American Dream With the China Dream?
China is now the third nation to successfully complete a Lunar rover mission after the United States and the then-Soviet Union. China plans to establish a permanent space station by 2020 and then send a man to the Moon. China’s moon mission is viewed as a symbol of the nation’s rise as a global economic and military superpower, and while China reaches for the stars and Moon, it continues to grow its economy. Conversely, America is being systematically degraded from within by very powerful forces. The NASA space program has been crippled by budget cuts; our economy is intentionally being destroyed; and our military is being weakened. In addition, the American people and specifically the middle class, who built this nation, are being subjected to a psy ops program which seems intent on destroying America’s “can do” attitude, free enterprise, marriage, family and Judeo-Christian values.
The Lunar journey “once again lights up the China Dream,” said a Xinhua editorial citing President Xi Jinping’s slogan for Chinese advancement, but whilethe “China Dream” is being lit up, the American Dream has been exiled to the Gulags of an Orwellian State. The headline in Hong Kong’s Sunday Morning Post read “One Giant Leap for China,” which is a twist on the 1969 words of American Astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, who said “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for Mankind.” Notice that even back then America was being programmed to see itself as part of a global community. There was no statement reflecting pride in the achievement of America. Yet China is openly boasting of “One Giant Leap for China” and the “China Dream,” while Americans are being brainwashed into thinking the American dream is evil.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mom Can’t Visit Daughter as Airlines Shun Venezuela Cash
Gladys Varela is stuck in Venezuela this Christmas. After scanning travel agencies in Caracas for three months for a plane ticket to visit her daughter in Mexico, she found airlines want nothing to do with bolivars.
Tickets from American Airlines (AAL) Inc., Grupo Aeromexico SAB and Avianca Holdings SA (AVH) among others have become harder to buy in Venezuela since September, as tighter currency controls make it more difficult for companies to convert bolivars into dollars. The shortage of greenbacks to fund imports of goods and services led the bolivar to decline 73 percent this year in the black market.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saab Tops Boeing in $4.5 Billion Brazil Deal Amid Espionage Spat
Saab AB (SAABB) beat out Boeing Co. to supply 36 jet fighters for Brazil’s air force after President Dilma Rousseff called alleged U.S. spying on her government an affront to the South American nation.
The deal is worth $4.5 billion through 2023, the Defense Ministry said in a statement yesterday. Brazil picked Saab over the Chicago-based company because of the performance and cost of its aircraft as well as willingness to transfer technology, Defense Minister Celso Amorim told reporters in Brasilia. The other finalist was Paris-based Dassault Aviation SA. (AM)
“Boeing (BA) only didn’t win the deal because of the lack of trust created by the spying incident,” Welber Barral, who was Brazil’s trade secretary from 2007 to 2011, said by phone. “Had the decision been last year, Boeing would have won.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Nancy Pelosi: Violations of Immigration Law No Reason for Deportation
“Our view of the law is that it — if somebody is here without sufficient documentation, that is not reason for deportation,” she told Telemundo.
The NRO’s Mark Krikorian said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill reiterated Pelosi’s statement, saying it was merely “a restatement of her long-held belief that being an undocumented immigrant is not a basis for deportation.”
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Revealed: The Countries Providing the Most Migrants to Britain as Number Quadruples in 60 Years
Immigration accounted for almost half of the population increase since 1951, a study by the Office for National Statistics said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Up to 15,000 Immigrants Sneak Into Britain Through Calais Every Year
Deputy Mayor says town has become a ‘magnet’ for foreigners trying to cross the Channel
Up to 15,000 immigrants are sneaking into Britain a year through Calais, the French town’s deputy mayor has claimed.
Philippe Mignonet, who is also the port’s immigration chief, went public with the estimate because he said Calais was becoming a ‘magnet for illegal immigrants’, with hundreds of foreigners sleeping rough there before stowing away aboard lorries and ferries.
‘According to our estimations, depending on the night, between 10, 20, even 40 are getting through,’ he said.
The official’s criticism of Britain came just days after French Interior Minister Manuel Valls called on the UK to change its immigration policy because of the pressure that Calais was under.
Mr Mignonet attacked ‘hypocritical’ Britain for talking tough on immigration, but then allowing hundreds of thousands to stay, and said if this continued, France would just ‘let them through’.
He said Britain needed to do more to halt the tide of migrants heading there through Calais, and said Britain had a ‘hypocritical’ attitude, talking tough but doing little to actively discourage illegal immigrants.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
GOP’s ‘Young Guns’ Program Backs Pro-Abortion, Pro-Gay Marriage Candidates for Congress
(CNSNews.com) — Although the Republican Party Platform opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is backing and promoting through its “Young Guns” program two congressional candidates who are homosexual, and who support same-sex marriage and abortion.
In addition, one of the “Young Guns” candidates, Carl DeMaio, has received $15,000 from the political arm of House GOP leaders Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), while the other candidate, Richard Tisei, “has won the support of the entire House Republican leadership, including a $5,000 check from the PAC run by the vice-presidential nominee, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.),” reported the Washington Post.
Richard Tisei, who is “married” to his male partner Bernie Starr, in Edgartown, Mass., is running for a congressional seat in the 6th District in the Bay State. Carl DeMaio is running for a congressional seat out of San Diego, Calif.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Milan Revokes Permit for Sex-Toy Christmas Tree
City officials ‘hypocrites’ says center-right MEP
(ANSA) — Milan, December 12 — A sex-toy-decorated Christmas tree has had its permit revoked and will be removed from a Milan street as soon as possible, city authorities said Thursday. “I paid almost 4,000 euros for the permit and my tree cannot be removed before 20 days”, said Mysecretcase.com co-owner Norma Rossetti, who set up the tree to promote her online adult toy company.
She has started a petition called “Save the Milan sex-toy tree” in response.
The company chose Milan because it is “the design mecca that pushes young people to be creative. Our products are also design objects”, Rossetti added, pointing to a fluorescent-colored dildo hanging on the tree in question.
The center-right opposition criticized city authorities for what it called their “incompetence and hypocrisy”.
“They’re pro gay marriage and other moral deviations, and now they’re acting like bigots over a vibrator and a couple of handcuffs”, scoffed Carlo Fidanza, an MEP from the Brothers of Italy (FDI) party.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Had Senate-Office ‘Portrait Session’ With Pornographer
WARNING: Some of the images and language in this story are sexually graphic and disturbing.
(CNSNews.com) — On June 20, 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.), who was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination at the time, hosted a “portrait session” in his U.S. Senate office where he posed for and with Terry Richardson, a man already well-known, as the flyleaf of a coffee-table collection of his work put it, as the photographer who “took 1970s porn esthetic and made it fashion chic.”…
Did Obama, his Senate staff, or his campaign staff know about Richardson’s reputation as the man who took the “porn esthetic and made it fashion chic” when Obama invited him into his office for the June 20, 2007 photo shoot?
A quick Lexis-Nexis search at the time would have turned up multiple items warning of the graphic nature of Richardson’s work.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In 2011, I flew from London to visit my brother in Vancouver, but for the first time, changed in Montreal (it was a cheaper deal). So I saw the Great Lakes from the air, and they are, as they say, awesome!
So, I urge all you liberal types out there in GoV land not to vote for Barack next time (!) A little British humour for Xmas, and best wishes whatever our differences.
There is more to the low water in the great lakes, the yanks have dredged the rivers exiting huron and are sucking too much out the lower lakes, time to sink some laden barges in the Canadian side!