Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/6/2014

Parents of children who attend the Oldknow Academy in Britain are concerned that the school has been taken over by Islamic extremists. They say their children are being brainwashed to support radical Islam, and are taught to lie about what is happening to education authorities. Meanwhile, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers Union in Britain is discussing whether to reschedule GSCE exams so they aren’t held during Ramadan, or alternatively to schedule the exams for mornings, so Muslim pupils won’t be so hungry from fasting.

In other news, a university club in Queensland has caused controversy by sponsoring an asylum seeker themed pub crawl. Critics say the event trivializes the experience of real asylum seekers who risk suffering and death in their attempts to cross the sea to Australia.

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

Thanks to Andy Bostom, Fjordman, JD, JP, Nilk, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

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

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

Financial Crisis
» Another Banker Found Dead
» Another Fraudulent Jobs Report
» Five Signs That the Global Economic Recovery May be an Illusion
 
USA
» Best Dark Matter Signal Yet Hints at Heftier Particles
» Black Teens Arrested in Beating of Pickup Driver
» Calls Rise After Fort Hood to Allow Carrying Firearms on Base
» Cereal Box Cartoon Characters Drawn to Make Downward Eye Contact With Children as Marketing Tactic
» Chicago Murder Rate at Lowest Level in 50 Years After Concealed Carry
» Ft. Hood: Official Response More Meaningless Rhetoric
» Gun Advocates Credit New Concealed Carry Laws for Sharp Drop in Chicago Murder Rate
» Jay-Z’s Bling From ‘Whites Are Devils’ Group
» Mainstream Media Mocks Plan to Save America From High-Altitude EMP Weapon
» ‘Milestone’ Makeover: Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to Renovate Main Hall
» More NSA Revelations Are Yet to Come, Says Author
» NASA’s Robonaut 2 Scrubs Up for Space Surgery
» Navy Unveils New Program to Create Drone-Like Autonomous Aircraft
» Political Sermons From Pastors in the Founding Era
» Riot Breaks Out at ‘Deltopia’ Street Party in Isla Vista
» Seventh Grader Suspended for Twirling Pencil ‘Like a Gun’ (Video)
» The Complete Interactive Guide to How the NSA Spies on Everything You Do
» The Methane Hoax Cranks Up
» The Police and Progressive Law
» Why Liberalism is Pseudo-Religious Intellectual Poison
 
Europe and the EU
» Ex-Girlfriend Sought by Police After British Company Director is Shot Twice in Head as He Arrived at Spanish Villa
» Hitler’s Wife Eva Braun May Have Been Jewish
» Islam in Britain: Should One Question Our Hacks’ Education, Intelligence or Sanity?
» Meteorite Appears to Nearly Hit Skydiver During Jump (Amazing Video)
» Norway: One Cough Away From a TB Epidemic?
» UK Mulls Ban on Brotherhood, Violent Response Threatened
» UK: Charity Commission Opens Statutory Inquiry Into Muslim Aid Charity
» UK: David Cameron’s Religious Adviser is Descended From Founders of the ‘Terrorist’ Muslim Brotherhood
» UK: Farage Storms Towards a Seat in the Commons After Winning the Public’s Verdict in TV Debate With Clegg
» UK: Get Ready to Go to Jail — Your Children Will Denounce You!
» UK: Government Bans Three Alleged Terrorist Groups
» UK: Lutfur, Me and Our Adoring Fan Clubs in Pictures …
» UK: Muslim Parent: Radical School is Brainwashing Our Children
» UK: Plans to Overhaul GCSE Timetable to Avoid Clash With Ramadan
» UK: Somaliland Hails British Step Forward in Independence Bid
» UK: Stitched Up Like a Kipper — That’s Our Man Cameron
» UK: Twelve Groups Benefit From Final Round of Commissioner’s £1m Innovation Fund
 
Middle East
» 2 Killed in Rebels Attack Against Syria’s Opera House
» 75 Rebels Killed Amid Syria Army Offensive in Homs
» Attacks Across Iraq Kill at Least 11 People
» Erdogan Slams High Court’s Pro-Freedom Ruling on Twitter
» Police Clash With Syrian Refugees in Jordan’s Zaatari Camp
» Rethink Qatar 2022 World Cup, Urges German Cabinent Minister
» The 1915 Armenian Genocide: Finding a Fit Testament to a Timeless Crime
 
Russia
» Ukraine: Pro-Russians Storm Government Office in Donetsk
 
South Asia
» Afghanistan Vote Counting Underway After Landmark Election
» Chinese, Australian Ships Try to Verify Potential “Pings” From Malaysia Jet
» Flight 370: Searchers Race to Try to Trace Sounds Detected in Ocean
» Malaysia: Non-Muslims Have No Right to Question Implementation of Hudud, Says Isma
» Race to Track Down Source of ‘Pulse Signals’ In Malaysia Jet Search
» Ships Race to Reach Site Where Electronic Pulses Detected in Malaysia Jet Search
» Suspected Muslim Insurgents Launch Wave of Attacks in Southern Thailand That Kill 1, Wound 24
 
Far East
» Chuck Hagel Says US Will Send Two Ballistic Missile Destroyers to Japan
» Japan Orders Military to Shoot Down North Korean Missiles
» US to Send 2 More Ships to Japan by 2017 to Counter North Korea Nuclear Threat
 
Australia — Pacific
» Asylum Seeker Themed University Pub Crawl Criticised
» NZ: Fisherwoman Catches World Record 64 Stone Tuna (Worth $2m or 1,769 Tins) But She’s Going to Get it Stuffed Instead
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Islamists Kill 17 in Northeast Nigeria, Attack Mosque
» Nigeria to Overtake South Africa as Africa’s Biggest Economy, Millions Still Live in Poverty
» Nigerian Prince Says China is Winning With Investment Push in Largest African Economy
» Rwandan President Accuses France of Direct Role in 1994 Genocide
» Somalia: Five Federal Govt Soldiers Killed at Checkpoint in Middle Shabelle Region
 
Latin America
» The Continuing Problem of Mexico’s Crime Statistics
 
Immigration
» Jeb Bush: Sneaking Into US Can be ‘Act of Love’
 
Culture Wars
» Hollywood Hates Humans
» Militant Atheists Should ‘Get Over it’ And Accept UK is Christian
» Mozilla’s Chief Felled by View on Gay Unions
» Retired Teacher, 89, Ends Her Life at Swiss Euthanasia Clinic After Becoming Frustrated With Modern Technology
 
General
» A Brief History of the Submarine
» Flimsy Rocks Allowed Earth’s Plates to Start Moving
» Life-Hunting Missions to Icy Moons of Saturn, Jupiter?
» Mainstream Islam Sanctions Female “Circumcision”/Genital Mutilation of Muslim Women to Reduce Their “Concupiscence”
» U.N. Says Time Running Out to Meet Global Warming Target
 

Another Banker Found Dead

A mere two weeks since former JPMorgan banker, Kenneth Bellando jumped to his death, Bloomberg reports that the former CEO of Dutch Bank ABN Amro (and his wife and daughter) were found dead at their home after a possible “family tragedy.” This expands the dismal list of senior financial services executive deaths to 12 in the last few months. The 57-year-old Jan Peter Schmittmann, was reportedly discovered by his other daughter when she arrived home that morning. Police declined to comment on the circumstances of his (and his wife and daughter’s) death. This is not the first C-level ABN Amro banker to be found dead. In 2009, former CFO Huibert Boumeester was discovered with (assumed self-inflicted) shotgun wounds…

This brings the sad list of senior financial services exectives who have died in the last few months to 12:…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Another Fraudulent Jobs Report

Here is what Dave Kranzler has to say: “the employment report is probably the most deceptively fraudulent report produced by the Government.”

As I have pointed out for a decade, the “New Economy” jobs that we were promised in exchange for our manufacturing jobs and tradable professional service jobs that were offshored have never shown up. The transnational corporations and their hired shills among economists lied to us. Not even a jobs report as deceptive and fraudulent as the BLS payroll jobs report can hide the fact that Congress, the White House, and the American people have sat sucking their thumbs while corporations maximized profits for the one percent at the expense of everyone else in the United States.

Let’s look at where the alleged jobs are. The BLS jobs report says that 28,400 jobs were created in March in wholesale and retail sales. March is the month that Macy’s, Sears, JC Penny, Staples, Radio Shack, Office Depot, and other retailers announced combined closings of several thousand stores, but more retail clerks were hired.

The BLS payroll jobs report claims 57,000 jobs in “professional and business services.” Are these jobs for lawyers, accountants, architects, engineers, and managers? No. The combined new jobs for these middle class professional skills totaled 10,400. Employment services accounted for 42,000 of the jobs in “professional and business services” of which temporary help accounted for 28,500.

“Education and health services” accounted for 34,000 jobs or which ambulatory and home health care services accounted for 28,000 of the jobs.

The other old standby, waitresses and bartenders, accounted for 30,400 jobs. The number of Americans dependent on food stamps who cannot afford to go out to eat or to purchase a six-pack of beer has almost doubled, but the demand for restaurant meals and bar drinks keeps rising.

There you have it. This is America’s “New Economy.” If the jobs exist at all, they consist of lowly paid, largely part-time employment that fails to produce enough income to prevent the food stamp rolls from doubling.

[Comment: Recommended article.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Five Signs That the Global Economic Recovery May be an Illusion

The global economy seemed to be on the mend when the International Monetary Fund met for its spring meeting in Washington 10 years ago. Alan Greenspan had cut official interest rates in the US to 1% after the collapse of the dotcom boom and the world’s biggest economy had responded to the treatment. Gordon Brown was chancellor of the exchequer and the UK was in its 12th year of uninterrupted growth.

Companies in the west were flocking to China now that it was part of the World Trade Organisation. The talk was of offshoring, just-in-time global supply chains and integrated capital markets. The expectation was that the good times would last for ever. No serious thought was given to the notion that total system failure was just around the corner. Faith in the self-correcting properties of open markets was absolute.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Best Dark Matter Signal Yet Hints at Heftier Particles

Things are looking brighter than ever for dark matter. A brilliant haze of gamma rays coming from the centre of the Milky Way is increasingly likely to be a sign of dark matter particles annihilating each other in space. Meanwhile, hints of the same signal coming from dwarf galaxies now strengthen the case.

“This is the most compelling signal we’ve had for dark matter particles — ever,” says Dan Hooper at the Fermi National Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Black Teens Arrested in Beating of Pickup Driver

DETROIT — Detroit police have arrested two teenagers in connection with the brutal beating of a motorist that has sparked outrage across the nation.

The teens, ages 16 and 17, were arrested without incident early Saturday morning in the area of the beating on Detroit’s eastside, according to Detroit Police spokesman Sgt. Michael Woody.

Woody said the teens, who are from Detroit, were part of the group that beat Steve Utash, 54, on Wednesday, after his pickup hit 10-year-old David Harris, and he stopped to check on the boy. Woody declined to discuss a motive for the attack.

Police have said the boy was struck after he stepped into the path of the pickup, and that Utash, who as of Saturday afternoon was in a medically induced coma at St. John Hospital and Medical Center with multiple head injuries, was not at fault.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Calls Rise After Fort Hood to Allow Carrying Firearms on Base

In the aftermath of Wednesday’s shooting at Fort Hood, the second in five years, calls are growing for the military to allow base personnel to arm themselves.

Rep. Steve Stockman, Texas Republican, renewed his effort last week for House members to support his bill, H.R. 3199, “The Safe Military Bases Act,” which would repeal the ban on bringing weapons on base. Currently only base security personnel are permitted to carry arms in most cases.

“This is the third mass shooting on a military base in five years, and it’s because our trained soldiers aren’t allowed to carry defensive weapons,” said Mr. Stockman in a statement. “Anti-gun activists have turned our military bases into soft targets for killers.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Cereal Box Cartoon Characters Drawn to Make Downward Eye Contact With Children as Marketing Tactic

(NaturalNews) The hypnotizing eyes of all those colorful cartoon characters featured primarily on children’s cereal boxes play a major role in keeping both kids and even some adults addicted to eating them, suggests a new Cornell University study. Researchers there observed that many popular cereal brands feature tantalizing cartoon characters whose eyes have been designed to intentionally look downward from the shelf, making direct eye contact with innocent young ones as they stroll down the cereal aisle with their parents.

It is this direct eye contact, say researchers, that keeps kids nagging their parents for more — presumably by establishing what, at least to a child, feels like an intimate, personal connection. After studying the designs of 86 different spokes-characters emblazoned on 65 different cereal brands, including popular children’s cereals like Quaker’s Cap’n Crunch and Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, the team discovered that the average cartoon character on a children’s cereal box stares down at about a 9.6 degree angle, directly into the eyes of young children.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Chicago Murder Rate at Lowest Level in 50 Years After Concealed Carry

by Daniel Greenfield

In July of 2013, Illinois became the last state in the union to enact a concealed carry law. In January of this year, the state began accepting applications for permits. This week, Chicago police announced that the city’s first quarter murder rate was the lowest since 1958.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Ft. Hood: Official Response More Meaningless Rhetoric

While millions were shocked there was another slaughter at Ft. Hood, Texas, April 2, 2014, I wasn’t. Following the blood bath, November 5, 2009, by another America hating muslim active duty murderer, the impostor in the White House and his minions declared it to be ‘work place violence’. That was all the discredited “mainstream” media needed to jump back on the gun control band wagon. The response from some pompous jackasses in the Outlaw Congress was the same vomit coming out of the sissy males on CNN, MSNBC and print media who constantly carp it’s the guns.

Immediately following the 2009 rampage, America was fed the usual by Army spokes persons: Army is family. We are strong. We will come together. Did all that warm, fuzzy rhetoric stop last week’s killing spree? No.

Back then a few Republicans in the Outlaw Congress tried to get legislation passed that would lift the ban on soldiers carrying a concealed weapon on base. Naturally, it failed and we now have round two at Ft. Hood. The same empty words from members of the Outlaw Congress last week was the same as we heard in 2009: Our soldiers are fighting for our freedom, they deserve the best. We we must protect our soldiers, blah, blah, blah. Did all those words back then stop last week’s killing spree? No.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Gun Advocates Credit New Concealed Carry Laws for Sharp Drop in Chicago Murder Rate

Chicago police are reporting that the murder rate for the first quarter of the year is the lowest it’s been in more than 50 years, which gun advocates are attributing to a concealed carry law passed in Illinois last year.

The first three months of 2014 have seen the fewest number of homicides since 1958 — six fewer than this time in 2013, and 55 fewer than this time in 2012, The Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Gun-rights advocates argue that concealed carry laws can reduce crime and keep the population safer. The state began accepting applications for permits in January.

“The facts are every time guns have been allowed, concealed-carry has been allowed, the crime rate has gone down,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, just months before Illinois passed the concealed carry law in July 2013.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Jay-Z’s Bling From ‘Whites Are Devils’ Group

Black people are the fathers and mothers of civilization, white men are the devil, the Christian god is nothing more than a ghost and only a small percentage of people understand the world. These are just some of the ­beliefs behind the bling — the gaudy Five Percent Nation ­ medallions worn by Jay Z and Carmelo Anthony.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Mainstream Media Mocks Plan to Save America From High-Altitude EMP Weapon

[T]he press, along with government-sponsored scientists who have been funded by taxpayers to conduct climate “research” that has a pre-ordained outcome, believe that man-caused pollution will destroy Earth. Got it. Though real research has the jury still out on such declarations (that, and the fact that earlier press reports have outed some climate scientists, like those at East Anglia University in Britain, who purposely falsified data in order to make it seem like “global warming” was real [http://www.telegraph.co.uk]), the media largely remain wedded to their version of climate change “facts.”

But what about genuine, provable and well researched findings which conclude that the earth’s modern technology could be destroyed by massive electromagnetic storms generated by the sun — storms that have occurred, on smaller scales, for millions of years?

No, that kind of talk is “apocalyptic” and foolish (if for no other reason than that the press has a real political and ideological problem with one of the people who are trying to warn us about it).

It was that kind of mocking tone taken by one writer at National Journal, known as a bastion of Left-liberal thought and political ideology, when it came to “reporting” on concerns expressed by former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich and a high-profile team of experts that sun-caused electromagnetic pulse storms could destroy America’s — and the world’s — power grids:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

‘Milestone’ Makeover: Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to Renovate Main Hall

The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is set to redefine the “Milestones of Flight,” as it begins the first major renovation of its most iconic gallery.

The expanded gallery, which will be completed in time for the National Air and Space Museum’s 40th anniversary in 2016 — the same year as Boeing’s 100th anniversary — will “trace the interconnected stories of the world’s most significant aircraft and spacecraft,” museum officials said.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

More NSA Revelations Are Yet to Come, Says Author

DW: You were one of the first people with access to the Snowden documents, some of which were classified as strictly confidential. What shocked you the most when reading them?

Holger Stark: I was particularly fascinated by how early the NSA categorized the Internet as a medium for full-scale monitoring. There was a passage in the documents of former NSA chief Kenneth Minihan from the summer of 1996 where he confidentially tells his colleagues that the Internet is the key medium of the future, comparable to the invention of the atom bomb in the 20th century. Minihan says that whoever controls the Internet has the power in the 21st century. And he adds that all efforts need to serve the goal of asserting America’s intelligence dominance.

You have already published six feature pieces on the NSA scandal. Now you have written the book “The NSA Complex” with your colleague Marcel Rosenbach. Are we slowly starting to get the full picture of organized mass surveillance?

The NSA systematically taps fiber optic cables — the main arteries of Internet traffic conveying the largest streams of data. It engages some American companies as collaborators and cooperates with partner intelligence agencies abroad, including Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service [also known by its German acronym, BND]. This system enables control of nearly the whole stream of relevant data and then processing it with sophisticated intelligence analysis programs to see what is important.

I think we have grasped this principle, but the material is so extensive that we will still be seeing interesting and partly surprising and shocking reports about it over many months.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

NASA’s Robonaut 2 Scrubs Up for Space Surgery

Nasa’s Robonaut 2 has the makings of the perfect space surgeon. The humanoid has already been posted to the International Space Station, the only problem is its motor skills are somewhat rudimentary at the moment.

In truth, it can’t even walk in zero gravity yet, and perhaps its most impressive physical feat to date has been to catch a floating roll of duct-tape.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Navy Unveils New Program to Create Drone-Like Autonomous Aircraft

The U.S. Navy has unveiled a five-year, $100 million program to create unmanned helicopters capable of resupplying troops and rescuing injured soldiers from the battlefield.

The Wall Street Journal reports that over the next decade, the military is aiming to create autonomous aircraft that can help soldiers carry out night raids, search oceans for trouble, and select targets for attack.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Political Sermons From Pastors in the Founding Era

Preached before the Honorable Council, And the honorable House of Representatives of the Colony of the Massachusetts-Bay, in New-England. MAY 29th, 1776.

Being the Anniversary for the Election of THE honorable COUNCIL FOR the Colony. By Pastor Samuel West of Dartmouth…

West continues to expound on what is a government that has usurped its God given power and authority and has gotten into the realm of tyranny and then he reiterates that it is the obligation of the people to oppose and remove that government if necessary. “What has been said is, I apprehend, abundantly sufficient to show that tyrants are no magistrates, or that whenever magistrates abuse their power and authority to the subverting the public happiness, their authority immediately ceases, and that it not only becomes lawful, but an indispensable duty to oppose them ; that the principle of self-preservation, the affection and duty that we owe to our country, and the obedience we owe the Deity, do all require us to oppose tyranny.”[1] (Emphasis mine)

There is no room for tyranny in any God fearing society. When those in authority go beyond the boundaries set by God then there is an obligation for the people to remove those offenders. Thomas Jefferson stated: “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” He believed that it was not just the right of the people but their obligation to not allow those in authority to go beyond the boundaries of the Constitution. Each Colony had their own Constitution that had no provisions for the type of government that Britain had established in Massachusetts. If it was not stopped in Massachusetts it would spread to all Thirteen Colonies. This was what the pastors were preaching to stop. Their liberties and freedoms were at stake and these pastors were bound and determined to keep the fires burning in the hearts and the minds of the people for the liberties that they had lived by for many years and were being threatened in Massachusetts.

West tells his audience, the Massachusetts House of Representatives, that it is the people that are to be the judges who will determine when rulers have become tyrannical: “If it be asked, “Who are the proper judges to determine when rulers are guilty of tyranny and oppression? “ I answer, the public. Not a few disaffected individuals, but the collective body of the state, must decide this question; for, as it is the collective body that invests rulers with their power and authority, so it is the collective body that has the sole right of judging whether rulers act up to the end of their institution or not. Great regard ought always to be paid to the judgment of the public. It is true the public may be imposed upon by a misrepresentation of facts; but this may be said of the public, which cannot always be said of individuals, viz., that the public is always willing to be rightly informed, and when it has proper matter of conviction laid before it its judgment is always right.”[2] (Emphasis mine)

West again asserts that the only power that authorities have is derived from the people. It is only when those chosen by the people act in accordance with the boundaries prescribed to them by scripture that the people are to be submitted to that authority. It is when those in authority step outside those boundaries that the people no longer are required to submit but are required to remove those that have overreached their authority: “This account of the nature and design of civil government, which is so clearly suggested to us by the plain principles of common sense and reason, is abundantly confirmed by the sacred Scriptures, even by those very texts which have been brought by men of slavish principles to establish the absurd doctrine of unlimited passive obedience and non-resistance, as will abundantly appear by examining the two most noted texts that are commonly brought to support the strange doctrine of passive obedience. The first that I shall cite is in 1 Peter 2:13, 14: “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man,” — or, rather, as the words ought to be rendered from the Greek, submit yourselves to every human creation, or human constitution the Lord’s sake, whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Riot Breaks Out at ‘Deltopia’ Street Party in Isla Vista

At least six law enforcement officers, dozens of others injured in what officials say is a ‘major incident’ and ‘unlawful assembly’

After a massive day-long street party fueled by alcohol, the “Deltopia” event in Isla Vista turned violent late Saturday night, with law enforcement struggling to quell what they described as a “major incident” and “unlawful assembly.”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Seventh Grader Suspended for Twirling Pencil ‘Like a Gun’ (Video)

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

Student forced to undergo five-hour physical and psychological evaluation

A 13-year-old boy in Vernon, New Jersey was suspended from school last week after being accused of holding his pencil like a gun.

Ethan Chaplin, a seventh-grade student at Glen Meadow Middle School, was twirling his pencil in math class when a fellow student suddenly yelled out, “He’s making gun motions, send him to juvie!”

Ethan was immediately taken to the principal’s office, suspended, and told he would not be able to return to school until he passed a psychological evaluation.

“I was shocked because I’m like, how am I not going to come back to school? I didn’t even do anything,” Ethan told News 12.

Despite telling school administrators that his classmate had been bullying him and was simply attempting to get him in trouble, Ethan says his comments were completely ignored.

When questioned, Vernon Schools Superintendent Charles Maranzano stood by the principal’s decision, insinuating that Ethan could be plotting a violent attack against his school.

“We never know what’s percolating in the minds of children,” Maranzano said. “And when they demonstrate behaviors that raise red flags, we must do our duty.”

Michael Chaplin, Ethan’s father, was just as shocked by the school’s handling of the situation.

“I’m absolutely livid,” Michael said. “I think it’s gross misconduct at its finest. They took something so minimal and took it so far over the edge.”

Speaking with Infowars, Michael detailed his son’s horrific experience during the five-hour long physical and psychological evaluation.

The child was stripped, had to give blood samples (which caused him to pass out) and urine samples for of all things drug testing,” Michael said. “Then four hours later a social worker spoke to him for five minutes and cleared him. Then an actual doctor came in and said the state was 100 percent incorrect in their procedure and this would not get him back in school.”

According to Michael, the school has since scheduled a meeting regarding his son’s return for Monday morning.

Ethan’s story is yet another example of innocent children being targeted for completely mundane behavior. In multiple cases, young students have been suspended for simply having items that resemble the shape of a firearm.

[Comment: This was psychological assault and torture of the kid. All part of the anti-2nd-amendment conditioning process of the next generation. ]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Complete Interactive Guide to How the NSA Spies on Everything You Do

With all the hoopla about missing airplanes, renewed wars of the cold variety, and rigged markets, it is easy to forget that America is now officially a totalitarian state of the Orwellian kind, where the population has — involuntarily — ceded all of its privacy in exchange for… something. Because it certainly isn’t security. So we are happy to provide a reminder of just this, especially since as BusinessWeek notes, it gets harder to keep track of all the bizarre ways the National Security Agency has cooked up to spy on people and governments. This may help:…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Methane Hoax Cranks Up

Having spent decades trying to convince everyone that carbon dioxide (CO2) was a “greenhouse gas” that was going to cause the Earth to heat up, the same environmental charlatans are now embarking on a campaign to do the same with methane. In the U.S. the first move was announced by the White House in late March.

The carbon dioxide hoax fell apart in the wake of a cooling cycle affecting the Earth that began around 1997 and continues to this day. Warming and cooling cycles are natural events and both are tied to the activity or lack of it of the Sun. Humans have nothing to do with the climate other to enjoy or endure it.

Why methane? It has a lot to do with the development of hydraulic fracturing, commonly called “fracking”, and the way it unlocks natural gas, aka methane, all of which portends an America that is energy independent, along with its huge reserves of coal and oil. If, of course, the government permits this to occur.

As we know, the Obama administration does not want that. It would mean more jobs, greater prosperity, and the ability to pay down the national debt, not to mention drive down the cost of electricity, gasoline, and everything else that depends on energy.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Police and Progressive Law

Police were intended to SERVE, to come when the need arose. They were not supposed to be our nannies.

Selwyn Duke, writing at The Aviary, illustrates this modern police mindset perfectly. Here is a policeman who thinks his job is to enforce whatever law is on the books — no matter what. Morality, decency, sensibility, none of that matters. He is but a vessel, a tool in the hands of The Law. One wonders; would he kill an innocent for that law? Would he drag a Jew to a death camp? Where is the line? Is there a line?

This goes to the fundamental difference between Left and Right; liberals want a world that works like a machine, that runs entirely without thought on the part of the masses. Only they are allowed to think in their system of things. Everything else should be automated, and if it were possible to use robots to enforce laws they would be quite happy. Actually they do; they are called red light cameras.

Liberals want to place guardrails of law everywhere, while at the same time making men “free” by removing any need for thought, for reflection, for conscience, for common sense. All burdens will be eased, all struggles ended.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Why Liberalism is Pseudo-Religious Intellectual Poison

WHY do liberal folks never get it? Why do a million successive failures not clue them in that their ideas are failure incarnate? These geniuses refuse to amalgamate the raw data laying all around to inexorably force the conclusion that the premises of liberalism are false. Because, much like how poison works — by mimicking the good things our bodies need, but delivering death instead of life — liberalism is a faux religion, a fake ethics. Liberalism causes death.

Hamlet’s father was supposedly killed by poison poured into his ear. In the same way, the toxin of liberalism is poured into the ears of the young and credulous. It sinks into the bones and forever ruins the tender apparatus of logic, questioning and belief. In fact, many of today’s youth are passing out of schools with an almost complete inability to think independently. Additionally, an unparallelled amount of pressure is being laid upon members of society to acquiesce to pre-determined beliefs, under the rubric of Political Correctness, etc. So increasing numbers of our society are in the perilous position of not being able to defend themselves against false ideas, forced to carry the heavy yoke of ideology they are in no way prepared to understand.

Let’s recall that philosopher John Locke, arguably the American Founder’s chief intellectual influence, went to a school where the headmaster “taught his pupils to think for themselves and to beware of the influence of propaganda.” And yet today, the media, university elites, and political class all have a huge investment in the propagation of large, and often spectacularly creative works of propaganda, such as the cult of Global Warming. For the sake of brevity, the phrase “modern liberalism” is defined as being indistinguishable from socialism…

The term liberalism is used in many different ways, and so must be defined. First, “liberalism” today is not defined how it was a hundred years ago. Around 1900, Marxists — who were frustrated at not being taken seriously, decided to purposely morph their image. They decided to usurp the term “liberal.” This is ironic, since modern liberalism concerns using the state to impose change from the top down, the very antithesis of individual freedom. The term “liberalism” comes from the same root as “liberty,” and so the original liberals, were followers of John Locke, best known today as Conservative, or Classical Liberals. Ralph Raico writes of this change in Classical Liberalism and the Austrian School,

The “Old” vs. the “New” Liberalism: It is not disputed that the popular meaning of liberal has changed drastically over time. It is a well-known story how, around 1900, in English-speaking countries and elsewhere, the term was captured by writers who were essentially social democrats.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Ex-Girlfriend Sought by Police After British Company Director is Shot Twice in Head as He Arrived at Spanish Villa

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

The ex-girlfriend of a British millionaire gold dealer is being sought by police after he was murdered at his Spanish villa.

Company director Andrew Bush, 48, was shot twice in the head, apparently as he arrived at the beach-side holiday home with his new British girlfriend.

Spanish police are seeking a blonde Eastern European in her twenties, believed to be his former lover.

Mr Bush, from Bristol, is understood to have been shot as he and his British girlfriend returned to the villa on the Costa del Sol from a holiday together. The killer is believed to have fled the scene in his Hummer truck.

Sources close to the investigation say police are considering whether his former partner — who is from Slovakia — was at the property near Estepona when Mr Bush was shot.

They believe the killer had been waiting, possibly for days, for the couple to return. A source said: ‘It is being treated as murder and police are hunting the dead man’s ex.’

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Hitler’s Wife Eva Braun May Have Been Jewish

Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s wife Eva Braun may have been of Jewish descent according to DNA analysis carried out for a British television documentary.

The anti-Semitic German leader responsible for the Holocaust married his long-term lover Braun shortly before they committed suicide in a Berlin bunker in 1945.

But the program to be screened by Britain’s independent Channel 4 on Wednesday says hair samples show Braun may have had Jewish ancestry herself.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Islam in Britain: Should One Question Our Hacks’ Education, Intelligence or Sanity?

Muslims living in Britain aren’t yet in a position to persecute Christians en masse. But there’s little doubt where their sympathies lie, which makes Mr Nelson sound utterly ridiculous when claiming that “The integration of Muslims can now be seen as one of the great success stories of modern Britain.”

The only way for Muslims to integrate is to lapse as Muslims, or at least not to follow their religion too closely. Muslims qua Muslims are, and will forever remain, an alien — and typically hostile — element within any Western society.

Not to see this is a sign of either ignorance or blindness. And to insist that Muslim integration is ‘one of the great success stories of modern Britain’ is wishful thinking bordering on insanity.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Meteorite Appears to Nearly Hit Skydiver During Jump (Amazing Video)

An amazing new video posted to YouTube this week purports to show a meteorite hurtling dangerously close to a skydiver in Norway.

The astounding improbability of this close encounter warrants skepticism, but if the video is a hoax, it’s a pretty good one, said Bill Cooke, NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

“If you work out the mathematics, the odds of a 1-kilogram- rock (2.2 lbs.) passing within some 30 feet (9.1 meters) of a person on Earth’s surface within 10 minutes is about 1 in 500 billion,” Cooke told Space.com.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Norway: One Cough Away From a TB Epidemic?

“Tuberculosis is making headway in Norway. From 1996 to 2013 the number of new registered cases doubled,” says Trude Arnesen, chief physician at the Norwegian Institute for Public Health’s Division of Infectious Disease Control.

Norway almost managed to stamp out the disease with improved standards of living, better nutrition and more spacious housing, frequent examinations of the population and the use of antibiotics, including the vaccination of all school children with BCG (short for bacille Calmette-Guerin) as of 1947.

Although the disease mainly infects the world’s poor, it is making a comeback in the richer countries. The outbreak is happening in the Nordic coutries’ European neighbourhood. London has been given the unfortunate reputation of being Western Europe’s tuberculosis capital.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK Mulls Ban on Brotherhood, Violent Response Threatened

The MI5 domestic intelligence service will review Brotherhood activity in the U.K., where it has active offices. To date, British policy allows the Brotherhood to operate in the country without restriction, harboring leaders that fled Egypt.

The MI6 foreign intelligences service will review Brotherhood activity abroad, including whether it was involved in a bombing of a tourist bus in Egypt in February that killed three South Koreans.

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood issued a thinly veiled threat that the response to a government probe might be terrorist attacks.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Charity Commission Opens Statutory Inquiry Into Muslim Aid Charity

The regulator has been monitoring Al-Fatiha Global after a newspaper printed a picture allegedly showing a volunteer posing with two masked gunmen

The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into the Muslim aid charity Al-Fatiha Global because of serious concerns about its financial management and governance…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: David Cameron’s Religious Adviser is Descended From Founders of the ‘Terrorist’ Muslim Brotherhood

David Cameron is facing embarrassment over the close links between a Government adviser on religion and an Islamist group placed under urgent investigation…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Farage Storms Towards a Seat in the Commons After Winning the Public’s Verdict in TV Debate With Clegg

Nigel Farage is on course to take the Commons by storm by winning a seat in next year’s General Election after his success in the televised clashes with Nick Clegg. A poll for The Mail on Sunday in Folkestone, where the UKIP leader is considering standing as an MP in 2015, shows he could easily win…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Get Ready to Go to Jail — Your Children Will Denounce You!

The State’s own care homes are notorious scenes of abuse and chaos, from which many children emerge with their lives already ruined, destined for prison or mental hospital.

We need to accept that we simply cannot make society perfect by passing laws, that people who choose to be evil are skilled at concealing their crimes and scaring away social workers and even the police.

It is time MPs realised that these crimes will happen again, whatever they do…

These schemes sold as safeguards for children are in fact power grabs by the State. Yet we are now told that the Queen’s Speech will contain proposals for a ‘Cinderella Law’ under which parents can be imprisoned for ‘emotional cruelty’.

The chief booster of this Bill is a supposedly Conservative MP called Robert Buckland. When I discussed his plan with him on Radio 2 on Monday, I was amazed at his naivety. As a lawyer and part-time judge, he really should know that vague, subjective laws are the tools of tyrants.

Under such legislation, nobody can ever be sure if he is breaking the law or not. No jury could ever be sure who was telling the truth.

But the resulting inquisitions into families — the well-publicised dawn raids, the search and seizure of private possessions, the smears in court that will never wash out — will ruin the lives of any who are arrested, even if they are eventually acquitted. In the old communist countries, the regimes also encouraged denunciations by children, who usually had little idea what would follow.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Government Bans Three Alleged Terrorist Groups

The government has added three groups to its list of proscribed organisations.

MPs approved without a vote a government motion adding Ansar Bayt al Maqdis, Al Murabitun and Ansar al Sharia to the groups banned under the Terrorism Act 2000. Explaining the decision to the House on 2 April 2014, Home Office Minister James Brokenshire outlined offences believed to have been perpetrated by the groups, in view of which “proscription is a tough but necessary power”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Lutfur, Me and Our Adoring Fan Clubs in Pictures …

By trialbyjeory

Where to start with updates on the events of last week?

Yesterday, Mayor Lutfur Rahman staged a mini-rally/call for canvassers outside Sir John Cass School in Stepney. I’d been helping out with some spring cleaning at St Dunstan’s Church across the road so I thought I’d pop by to see what was going on.

Here’s the male heavy crowd…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Muslim Parent: Radical School is Brainwashing Our Children

by Andrew Gilligan

Mohammed Zabar, whose daughter attends Oldknow Academy, has spoken out after the head, Bhupinder Kondal, was driven out

Children at one of the state schools taken over by hardline Muslims are being “programmed” and have been “drilled” by their teachers to lie to Ofsted inspectors investigating the plot, according to a parent…

[Reader comment by peterpuncheon on 6 April 2014 at about 5 pm.]

Kicking up a fuss about the habits and customs of these people is just a distraction.

We English are being race replaced. We are being killed off. We will be a minority in our own land within two generations, on current trends.

The only policy that is moral and right, the only policy that will ensure our survival, is the forced repatriation of the racial alien colonisers that have been inflicted on us.

A Programme for National Survival

1) All “illegal immigrants” to self deport within 7 days, or have a bounty put on their head. Any Englishman can arrest an illegal immigrant, present him for deportation, and receive a cash sum.

2) All “legal immigrants” and offspring to leave within 2 years, with passage provided and a grant equal to 2 years average income in their land of origin. This to reduce by 1 months worth of same for each month they remain. Grant payable only to those without assets exceeding that amount. Assets over twice that amount to be forfeit.

3) Any “legal immigrants” remaining after 2 years become “illegal”, and see (1) above.

4) The worst of the traitors who bought this upon us to be prosecuted in a nationalist court, and if found guilty punished with the only suitable penalty for attempted genocide.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Plans to Overhaul GCSE Timetable to Avoid Clash With Ramadan

Controversial proposals to change the timetable to help fasting pupils are opposed by education campaigners, who believe giving special consideration to one religious group will cause resentment

Proposals to bring forward GCSE and A-level examinations so Muslim pupils aren’t fasting for Ramadan during the exam season are to be debated at an education conference this month.

According to the Mail On Sunday, another option to be discussed at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers Union (ATL) conference is holding exams in the morning when fasting pupils are less likely to be hungry…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Somaliland Hails British Step Forward in Independence Bid

LONDON — A city in Britain has become the first to officially recognize Somaliland’s claim to independence. The vote — which is purely symbolic and carries no legal weight — is nevertheless being hailed by Somaliland leaders as a big step forward in their decades-long campaign to break away from Somalia.

Somalilanders celebrated outside Sheffield city hall after the council voted Thursday to recognize the region’s right to self-determination. Thousands of people of Somaliland origin live in the northern British city…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Stitched Up Like a Kipper — That’s Our Man Cameron

Did David Cameron cut of his nose to spite his face as he loses the far right to Ukip, ponders Kevin Maguire

The rise of UKIP’s Nigel Farage leaves David Cameron snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Cameron’s biggest strategic error is clear as he is outflanked on the Right by the stockbroker belt’s upstart Turbo Tory. The Prime Minister signed the Conservative Party’s death warrant by winning the 2011 referendum to scupper electoral reform…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Twelve Groups Benefit From Final Round of Commissioner’s £1m Innovation Fund

Twelve community groups and organisations have been awarded grants totalling around £315,000 in the third and final round of the £1 million Innovation Fund set up by the Police and Crime Commissioner for Wiltshire and Swindon.

Angus Macpherson has used the fund to commission community and voluntary projects which seek to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour and support victims and vulnerable people in innovative ways…

National Ugly Mugs — £5,000 to improve safety and access to justice for sex workers

National Ugly Mugs (NUM) aims to reduce crime and protect vulnerable people by improving the safety of sex workers and their access to justice. The National Network of Sex Workers project identified the need for the scheme and a pilot, funded by the Home Office, was run…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

2 Killed in Rebels Attack Against Syria’s Opera House

DAMASCUS, April 6 (Xinhua) — At least two people were killed and five others wounded when mortar shells hit the Damascus Opera House on Sunday, the state news agency SANA reported. The Opera House is located in the Umayyad Square, center of Damascus, near the headquarters of the state TV and the military command…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

75 Rebels Killed Amid Syria Army Offensive in Homs

DAMASCUS, April 6 (Xinhua) — At least 75 rebels were killed when Syrian army targeted their positions in the country’s central province of Homs, the pro-government al-Watan daily said Sunday.

The Syrian forces targeted the rebels’ positions in area of Jub al-Jarrah, east of Homs, killing more than 75 of them, including foreign rebels affiliated with the Nusra Front, an official al- Qaida affiliate in Syria, and the so-called Islamic Front, an alliance of six Islamic groups recently united in one front, according to the paper…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Attacks Across Iraq Kill at Least 11 People

Gunmen near Iraq’s capital kidnapped and later shot to death six men, the deadliest of a series of attacks Sunday that killed at least 11 people across the country, authorities said.

The gunmen broke into the homes at dawn Sunday in the town of Latifiyah, a mainly Sunni town 20 miles south of Baghdad, a police officer said. Authorities later found the bodies, all with gunshot wounds to the head, in remote, rural farmland near the capital, the officer said.

No one immediately claimed the slayings and the motive behind the killing was unclear. Shiite militiamen could be seeking revenge for the ongoing Sunni insurgent attacks against Shiite neighborhoods. Militants with Al Qaeda’s local branch targets Sunnis in attacks as well or it also could be a personal vendetta.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Erdogan Slams High Court’s Pro-Freedom Ruling on Twitter

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has harshly criticized a ruling by the Constitutional Court that found Turkey’s block on Twitter to be a violation of free speech, saying that the court acted unpatriotically.

Erdogan, who spoke to journalists on Friday morning at Atatürk International Airport prior to leaving for Baku, Azerbaijan, where he will be on an official working visit for a day, said he did not respect the Constitutional Court ruling.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Police Clash With Syrian Refugees in Jordan’s Zaatari Camp

Clashes between Syrian refugees and security forces in Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp have left more than two dozen people injured. Jordanian officials say the unrest was sparked by refugees attempting to leave the camp.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Rethink Qatar 2022 World Cup, Urges German Cabinent Minister

Germany’s new aid development minister Gerd Müller has called on FIFA to abandon Qatar as the host of the 2022 World Cup. He has also accused this year’s host Brazil of ignoring social and ecological needs.

Müller told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that human rights breaches on the Gulf state’s stadium construction sites even extended to “slave labor.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The 1915 Armenian Genocide: Finding a Fit Testament to a Timeless Crime

The very last Armenian survivors of the 1915 genocide — in which a million and a half Christians were slaughtered by the Ottoman Turks — are dying, and Armenians are now facing the same fearful dilemma that Jews around the world will confront in scarcely three decades’ time: how to keep the memory of their holocausts alive when the last living witnesses of Ottoman and Nazi evil are dead?

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Ukraine: Pro-Russians Storm Government Office in Donetsk

Pro-Russian protesters have stormed the regional administration building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk. About 50 people are reported to have broken away from a rally of about 2,000 people in the city centre, and got past a police cordon to enter the building.

The protesters shouted “Donetsk is a Russian city” and raised Russian flags above the building.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Afghanistan Vote Counting Underway After Landmark Election

The United Nations has praised Afghanistan voters for turning out en masse despite threats of violence by the Taliban. Despite several deadly clashes, the vote has been hailed as a success.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Chinese, Australian Ships Try to Verify Potential “Pings” From Malaysia Jet

Chinese and Australian ships hunting for a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner have picked up separate acoustic signals in different parts of a vast Indian Ocean search area and are trying to verify if one could be from the plane’s black box recorders.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Flight 370: Searchers Race to Try to Trace Sounds Detected in Ocean

Search teams are racing to figure out if a number of underwater sounds detected in the southern Indian Ocean came from a flight recorder on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Time is against them, as the batteries powering the missing plane’s devices that send out pings are expected to expire in the coming days.

A senior Malaysian government source told CNN that Flight 370 flew around Indonesian airspace after it dropped off Malaysian military radar. The plane may have been intentionally taken along a route designed to avoid radar detection, the source said.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Malaysia: Non-Muslims Have No Right to Question Implementation of Hudud, Says Isma

Non-Muslims have no right to question the right of Muslims to implement shariah laws in the country, said non-governmental organisation Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma).

Its president Ustaz Abdullah Zaik Abd Rahman (pic) said Malaysia has been a sovereign land for Islam and the Malay race since ages ago.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Race to Track Down Source of ‘Pulse Signals’ In Malaysia Jet Search

Ships and planes are heading to an area where a Chinese ship searching for missing airliner MH370 reported hearing two electronic pulses. Authorities are encouraged by the lead but warn they still need to investigate it.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Ships Race to Reach Site Where Electronic Pulses Detected in Malaysia Jet Search

Three separate but fleeting sounds from deep in the Indian Ocean offered new hope Sunday in the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, as officials rushed to determine whether they were signals from the plane’s black boxes before their beacons fall silent.

The head of the multinational search being conducted off Australia’s west coast confirmed that a Chinese ship had picked up electronic pulsing signals twice in a small patch of the search zone, once on Friday and again on Saturday.

On Sunday, an Australian ship carrying sophisticated deep-sea sound equipment picked up a third signal in a different part of the massive search area.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Suspected Muslim Insurgents Launch Wave of Attacks in Southern Thailand That Kill 1, Wound 24

Suspected Muslim insurgents have launched a wave of attacks in southern Thailand that killed one person. Police Col. Prayong Khotsakha says 24 other people were wounded in the violence Sunday in the city of Yala.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Chuck Hagel Says US Will Send Two Ballistic Missile Destroyers to Japan

The US defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, delivered a two-pronged warning to Asia Pacific nations on Sunday, announcing that the US would send two additional ballistic missile destroyers to Japan to counter the North Korean threat, and saying China must better respect its neighbours.

In unusually forceful remarks about China, Hagel drew a direct line between Russia’s takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea region and the continuing territorial disputes between China, Japan and others over remote islands in the East China Sea.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Japan Orders Military to Shoot Down North Korean Missiles

Japan’s defense minister has ordered the Japanese Self Defense Forces (JSDF) to shoot down any North Korean ballistic missiles that are tested in the coming weeks, Reuters reported on Saturday.

North Korea tested two Rodong-class (Nodong) mid-range ballistic missiles last week in what was its longest range missile tests since December 2012, and the first time a Rodong-class missile had been tested since 2009. The missiles traveled 650 kilometers (km) before falling into the Sea of Japan. Their maximum range is roughly twice that distance.

South Korea responded by testing its own new, longer range ballistic missile, Seoul announced on Thursday. The two Koreas also exchanged artillery fire across their maritime border earlier this week, although no damage was caused by either side.

North Korea’s mid-range ballistic missile test immediately raised concerns that it was laying the groundwork for its fourth nuclear test.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

US to Send 2 More Ships to Japan by 2017 to Counter North Korea Nuclear Threat

The U.S. will deploy two additional ballistic missile defense destroyers to Japan by 2017 as part of an effort to bolster protection from North Korean missile threats, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Sunday.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Asylum Seeker Themed University Pub Crawl Criticised

An asylum seeker themed pub crawl, hosted by The Queensland Universities Liberal National Club, has been criticised for trivialising “the dangerous and often tragic journey asylum seekers face and associated deaths at sea”.

The Queensland Universities Liberal National Club Rivercrawl 2014 used aspects of the Abbott Government’s border protection policy to promote the event via Facebook.

The page, posted on Thursday night and since deleted, advised attendees life jackets were optional as organisers would do their best to ensure no one goes overboard.

The organisers boasted that after a BBQ to celebrate a hundred days of no boat arrivals, party goers would board a CityCat to commence operation sovereign borders and “smuggle” their way into a bar at the Queensland University of Technology.

           — Hat tip: Nilk [Return to headlines]
 

NZ: Fisherwoman Catches World Record 64 Stone Tuna (Worth $2m or 1,769 Tins) But She’s Going to Get it Stuffed Instead

It could be worth up to $2million, make 2,875 sandwiches, and has been hailed a ‘Picasso of the sea’… but Donna Pascoe wants to stuff her record-breaking tuna catch and hang it on her wall.

The game fisherwoman battled for more than four hours the 411.6kg (64 stone) Pacific bluefin before finally reeling in the high-speed leviathan — thought to be the largest ever caught with a rod and line.

She hooked the fish — which is twice the size of a tuna sold at a Japanese auction last year for $1.09million — using a 60lb line near the Three Kings Islands off Cape Reinga of New Zealand.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Islamists Kill 17 in Northeast Nigeria, Attack Mosque

DAMATURU, Nigeria (Reuters) — Islamist militants attacked a remote town in northeast Nigeria’s Yobe state on Saturday, killing 17 people including five who were worshipping at a mosque, witnesses said.

They said dozens of gunmen surrounded the village of Buni Gari, shooting residents and setting shops and houses ablaze.

“There were too many of them to count. They were shouting ‘God is Great’,” said an old woman who identified herself only as Kaka, glancing around at the mostly mud-and-thatch houses, many of which were stained with black soot or reduced to rubble…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Nigeria to Overtake South Africa as Africa’s Biggest Economy, Millions Still Live in Poverty

Nigeria is expected to overtake South Africa as the biggest economy in Africa, with a long-overdue recount of its GDP that will give it continental bragging rights but do little for its 112 million people surviving in poverty.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Nigerian Prince Says China is Winning With Investment Push in Largest African Economy

A key player in Nigeria’s emergence as Africa’s largest economy says U.S. companies are ceding investment opportunities to China and the Obama administration should do more to reverse the trend.

“The Obama administration has to focus more on Nigeria,” said Prince Adetokunbo Sijuwade, whose family holds royal status in a vital corner of southern Nigeria and is invested heavily in transportation and oil infrastructures. “We feel that we can learn from the U.S. in terms of expertise.”

In an exclusive interview with editors and reporters at The Washington Times, Prince Sijuwade addressed the friction between Nigeria’s Christian and Muslim populations, security challenges in countering the Boko Haram terrorist group and accusations of rampant corruption.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Rwandan President Accuses France of Direct Role in 1994 Genocide

France has reacted with fury after the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, renewed accusations of direct French involvement in the 1994 genocide, on the eve of ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary.

The French government announced that the justice minister, Christiane Taubira, would not attend the commemorations in Kigali after Kagame, in an interview with the weekly magazine Jeune Afrique, accused both France and Belgium of having a “direct role” in the genocide.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Somalia: Five Federal Govt Soldiers Killed at Checkpoint in Middle Shabelle Region

Mogadishu — Five Somali Federal Government soldiers died and nine others sustained bullet wounds after infighting at a checkpoint in El Ade vicinity in Middle Shabelle region of southern Somalia on Saturday, Garowe Online reports.

According to witnesses, the fighting broke out when soldiers in armored fighting vehicle ordered men in military fatigues to lift unauthorized roadblock…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

The Continuing Problem of Mexico’s Crime Statistics

Use the data at your own peril. Better yet, don’t use it

With the latest release of Mexico’s supposedly official crime rate statistics, which include full data for 2013 as well as the first couple months of 2014, security experts need to — once again — be cautioned in the use of this information for drawing any conclusions about crime in Mexico.

I previously showed (backup version with figures) that Mexican crime data were, at best, dubious. For a number of crimes and regions since 1997 (when the dataset begins), we see sufficiently bizarre statistical trends that simply cannot be real. The latest database by the Mexican government fails to correct these obvious historical anomalies, and continues some clear problems…

The extortion statistics surpass ridiculous. The state of Mexico apparently had zero extortions in 1997 and 1998. Then suddenly in 1999 the state had an astonishing 2,035 exortions, making up 60% of the entire nation’s total of 3,391 for that year. What happened in 2000? The state of Mexico magically returned to zero extortions, and purportedly didn’t have another extortion until 2012, when it suddenly reported 1,039 in 2012 (14% of the national total) and 1,668 in 2013 (almost 21% of the national total). Is this real? No chance. And because the number of extortions — for the very few years since 1997 in which they have been reported — in the state of Mexico comprise such large percentages of the national total, the national extortion rate is fundamentally flawed and useless for any time trend analyses. The state of Mexico isn’t the only one with an extortion data problem. Puebla didn’t have a single extortion between 1997 and 2010, then it had three in 2011. In 2012, it had 454, and another 258 in 2013. Is this real data going back to the start of the record in 1997? Impossible.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Jeb Bush: Sneaking Into US Can be ‘Act of Love’

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Sunday that breaking immigration law often is an “act of love,” staking out the softest stance on illegal immigration of any potential 2016 Republican candidate for president.

Bush said that most people who sneak across the border do it “because they couldn’t come legally,” adding that they often do it to keep their families intact while seeking opportunity in the United States.

“Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony. It’s an act of love,” Bush told Fox News host Shannon Bream at a town hall-style event at the George Bush Presidential Library Center.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Hollywood Hates Humans

I have noticed a consistent plot in the fantasy/science fiction genre over the last several years. Surely, you have noticed it too. In film after film, the human race is depicted as villainous for supposedly destroying the earth.

The just-released Noah is the latest example. In the Genesis account, God determines to destroy “all flesh” because humans are willfully unrighteous. But the holy destruction also heralds a new beginning: God preserves humanity through righteous Noah, directing him after leaving the ark to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”

That’s not the plot of the movie. In the film version, after being kicked out of Eden, man became industrial. In his greed, he strip-mined minerals, exhausted the soil, clear-cut the forests, and generally despoiled the environment — no trees, ubiquitous toxic waste — a dying planet.

“The Creator” wants us extinct. He assigns Noah the onerous task of saving “the innocents” (animals) — as distinguished from “the foul” (man) — after which he and his family are to be unfruitful and not multiply. Noah believes that man’s demise will be earth’s salvation: “Creation will be left alone, safe and beautiful.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Militant Atheists Should ‘Get Over it’ And Accept UK is Christian

Eric Pickles attacks opponents of religion who try and “impose” their “politically correct intolerance”

Militant atheists should “get over it” and accept that Britain is a Christian nation, a minister has said. Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, hit out at opponents of religion who try and “impose” their “politically correct intolerance”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Mozilla’s Chief Felled by View on Gay Unions

In Silicon Valley, where personal quirks and even antisocial personalities are tolerated as long as you are building new products and making money, a socially conservative viewpoint may be one trait you have to keep to yourself.

On Thursday, Brendan Eich, who has helped develop some of the web’s most important technologies, resigned under pressure as chief executive of Mozilla, the maker of the popular Firefox web browser, just two weeks after taking the job. The reason? In 2008, he donated $1,000 in support of Proposition 8, a California measure that banned same-sex marriage.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Retired Teacher, 89, Ends Her Life at Swiss Euthanasia Clinic After Becoming Frustrated With Modern Technology

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

A retired art teacher has ended her life at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland after becoming increasingly disillusioned with modern life.

In an interview before her death, the 89-year-old environmentalist, from Sussex, said she felt technology had taken the humanity out of social interaction.

Anne, who asked to be referred to only by her first name, also said she was worried about the damage being inflicted on the planet through overcrowding and pollution.

Despite being neither terminally ill nor seriously handicapped, the former electrician with the Royal Navy said she wanted to take her own life.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, she asked: ‘Why do so many people spend their lives sitting in front of a computer or television?

‘I have never had a television, I have only had a radio … People are becoming more and more remote … We are becoming robots. It is this lack of humanity.’

She added: ‘I find myself swimming against the current, and you can’t do that. If you can’t join them, get off. They say adapt or die. At my age, I feel that I can’t adapt.’

The pensioner said she had suffered from ill-health in recent years and was worried that a further deterioration might result in her going into a nursing home.

She also told how she spent 11 days in hospital last year and feared returning there.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

A Brief History of the Submarine

From retrofitted rowboats to amphibious drones, we delve deep into the history of the sub.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Flimsy Rocks Allowed Earth’s Plates to Start Moving

Fragile things can be useful. Earth’s surface is a lively place, made up of shifting plates of rock. Now it seems the surface only moves because it is partly made of flimsy rocks that have been damaged in the planet’s heart.

Uniquely in the solar system, Earth’s crust is divided into several sections. These tectonic plates move over millions of years, throwing up mountains and triggering earthquakes. Often, one plate gets forced under another and sinks into the mantle beneath, a process called subduction. Elsewhere, new material is brought to the surface. If the plates did not recycle themselves like this, our planet might not have such a stable climate, or be so rich in the chemicals vital for life.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Life-Hunting Missions to Icy Moons of Saturn, Jupiter?

Astronomers are hoping that the existence of a subsurface ocean on Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus will build momentum for life-hunting missions to the outer solar system.

Researchers announced their discovery of the deep watery ocean on Enceladus on Thursday (April 3) in the journal Science, confirming suspicions held by many scientists since 2005, when NASA’s Cassini spacecraft spied geysers of ice and water vapor erupting from Enceladus’ south pole.

The discovery vaults Enceladus into the top tier of life-hosting candidates along with Europa, an ice-sheathed moon of Jupiter that also hosts a subterranean ocean. Both frigid satellites bear much closer investigation, researchers say.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Mainstream Islam Sanctions Female “Circumcision”/Genital Mutilation of Muslim Women to Reduce Their “Concupiscence”

Umm Atiyyah al-Ansariyyah said: A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina. The Prophet said to her: “Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband.”

[Sunan Abu Dawud, Chapter 1888, “Circumcision of Girls”, Number 5251, from Sunan Abu Dawud, one of the six canonical hadith collections, English translation with Explanatory notes by Prof. Ahmad Hasan, 2007, Volume III, p. 1451]

Prof Hasan’s note adds the following observations:

“Some Shafii scholars hold that circumcision of girls is obligatory, but others think that it is recommended. Ahmad b. Hanbal and some Maliki jurists hold that it is obligatory. Abu Hanifah maintains that it is recommended and not obligatory. Mali holds that it is recommended and not obligatory.”

The great Muslim polymath al-Jahiz (d, 869) noted that female circumcision was specifically employed as a means to reduce female “concupiscence,” unbridled lust—or mere sexual pleasure, derived from a fully intact clitoris:…

           — Hat tip: Andy Bostom [Return to headlines]
 

U.N. Says Time Running Out to Meet Global Warming Target

World powers are running out of time to slash their use of high-polluting fossil fuels and stay below agreed limits on global warming, a draft U.N. study to be approved this week shows.

Government officials and top climate scientists will meet in Berlin from April 7-12 to review the 29-page draft that also estimates the needed shift to low-carbon energies would cost between two and six percent of world output by 2050.

It says nations will have to impose drastic curbs on their still rising greenhouse gas emissions to keep a promise made by almost 200 countries in 2010 to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

3 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/6/2014

  1. I read recently that a volcano in South America has recently erupted and sent ash up to six miles into the air.
    What is the UN doing about that. Will they fine it, threaten to cement it over or what.
    An occurrence like this can put enough pollution into the air as any country could in twenty years or more.

    • I bet that the UN will just blame the volcanic eruption on global warming, climate change, cow farts, etc. 🙂

  2. I have learned not to expect any sense from the UN or the left. I have learned that they must be fought.

Comments are closed.