A Doctors Without Borders rescue boat carrying 700 migrants was turned away by authorities in Sicily, due to a lack of capacity in the island’s refugee reception centers. Meanwhile, three migrants were arrested when they landed in Taranto. Two of those detained already had outstanding Italian warrants against them. They were among a group of 608 refugees that were brought to shore by a Swedish vessel.
In other news, Muslim activists in Algeria ambushed a military convoy, killing eleven soldiers.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Papa Whiskey, Steen, 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.
Greece: PM Tsipras Banishing Ministers Opposing Sellout to Creditors, Syriza Sharply Divided
Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis resigned after being pushed out — replaced by Euclid Tsakalotos.
After leaving, he said he’s no longer under “incredible pressure to negotiate for a position I find difficult to defend…”
He cited the “complete lack of any democratic scruples (displayed by) the supposed defenders of Europe’s democracy. (V)ery powerful figures look you in the eye and say ‘(y)ou’re right in what you’re saying, but we’re going to crunch you anyway.”
Paying dominant bankers and large creditors like Germany alone matters — no matter the pain and suffering inflicted on millions of Greeks helpless against the war on their well-being.
Make no mistake. What’s happening in Greece signifies what’s ongoing throughout Europe, America, Canada, and other countries, heading for getting much worse — ending social justice to enrich monied interests more than ever, and at the same time, destroy what remains of democratic rights. Financial tyranny rules!
[Comment: Greece is a test case by banksters. Banksters will use the debt fraud scam to capture soereignity of all western countries.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Greece’s Forced 3-Week Bank Closure Ends Monday But Restrictions on Withdrawing Cash Remain
ATHENS, Greece — Greek banks are reopening Monday after a forced 3-week closure but restrictions on cash withdrawals will remain.
In a decree Saturday, the Greek government kept the daily cash withdrawal limit at 60 euros ($65) but added a weekly limit. For example, a depositor who doesn’t withdraw cash on Monday can withdraw 120 euros ($130) on Tuesday, and so on, up to 420 euros ($455) a week.
Bank customers will still not be able to cash checks, only deposit them into their accounts, and will not be able to get cash abroad with their credit or cash cards, only make purchases.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greek PM ‘Doesn’t Eat or Sleep’ From Overwork, Says Mother
Embattled Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras eats and sleeps poorly and rarely manages to see his family, his mother told a tabloid on Saturday.
“Alexis lately does not eat, does not sleep, but he has no choice — he has a debt to the people who put their faith in him,” Aristi Tsipras, 73, told Parapolitika weekly.
“I rarely see him any more. He goes from the airport straight to parliament. He has no time to see his children, how can he see me?” Aristi Tsipras said.
“When we speak, I tell him to do the best for the country and take care of himself. He tells me not to worry, and that everything will be fine,” she said…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Greek Bank Shutdown Cost Economy 3 Billion Euros — Report
The three-week shutdown of Greek banks has cost the country’s struggling economy some 3.0 billion euros ($3.3 billion) not counting lost tourism revenue, a report said Saturday.
Citing commerce groups, the Kathimerini daily said the retail trade alone had suffered a 600-million-euro loss, with apparel taking the main blow.
Exports also suffered a 240-million-euro hit, the exporters’ association said.
According to the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry (EBEA) some 4,500 containers with raw materials and finished products are blocked at customs…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Greek Bank Closure Cost Economy 3 Billion Euros
The Greek government has ordered banks to reopen on Monday under slightly changed capital control measures. Exports and the retail sector took a massive hit during Greece’s three-week shutdown.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
How Goldman Sachs Helped Create the Greek Debt Crisis
2 percent of Greece’s debt magically disappeared from its national accounts.
The crisis was exacerbated years ago by a deal with Goldman Sachs, engineered by Goldman’s current CEO, Lloyd Blankfein. Blankfein and his Goldman team helped Greece hide the true extent of its debt, and in the process almost doubled it. And just as with the American subprime crisis, and the current plight of many American cities, Wall Street’s predatory lending played an important although little-recognized role.
In 2001, Greece was looking for ways to disguise its mounting financial troubles. The Maastricht Treaty required all eurozone member states to show improvement in their public finances, but Greece was heading in the wrong direction. Then Goldman Sachs came to the rescue, arranging a secret loan of 2.8 billion euros for Greece, disguised as an off-the-books “cross-currency swap”—a complicated transaction in which Greece’s foreign-currency debt was converted into a domestic-currency obligation using a fictitious market exchange rate.
As a result, about 2 percent of Greece’s debt magically disappeared from its national accounts. Christoforos Sardelis, then head of Greece’s Public Debt Management Agency, later described the deal to Bloomberg Business as “a very sexy story between two sinners.” For its services, Goldman received a whopping 600 million euros ($793 million), according to Spyros Papanicolaou, who took over from Sardelis in 2005. That came to about 12 percent of Goldman’s revenue from its giant trading and principal-investments unit in 2001—which posted record sales that year. The unit was run by Blankfein.
Then the deal turned sour. After the 9/11 attacks, bond yields plunged, resulting in a big loss for Greece because of the formula Goldman had used to compute the country’s debt repayments under the swap. By 2005, Greece owed almost double what it had put into the deal, pushing its off-the-books debt from 2.8 billion euros to 5.1 billion. In 2005, the deal was restructured and that 5.1 billion euros in debt locked in. Perhaps not incidentally, Mario Draghi, now head of the European Central Bank and a major player in the current Greek drama, was then managing director of Goldman’s international division.
Greece wasn’t the only sinner. Until 2008, European Union accounting rules allowed member nations to manage their debt with so-called off-market rates in swaps, pushed by Goldman and other Wall Street banks. In the late 1990s, JPMorgan enabled Italy to hide its debt by swapping currency at a favorable exchange rate, thereby committing Italy to future payments that didn’t appear on its national accounts as future liabilities.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Slide in Consumer Spending Halted in 2014 — ISTAT
Consumption stable at 2,488.50 euros a month per household
(ANSA) — Rome, July 8 — The slide in Italian households’ consumer spending in recent years stopped in 2014, when consumption was steady, Istat said on Wednesday. The national statistics agency said average consumer spending was “essentially stable” at around 2,488.50 euros a month per household. It said this was a 0.7% increase in nominal terms but “almost unvaried” in real terms — when inflation is accounted for. Consumer spending was hit badly by Italy enduring years of recession, although the country has started a slow recovery.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Considering Direct Fuel Deliveries to Help Greece: Minister
Russia is considering sending direct deliveries of fuel to Greece to help prop up its economy, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Sunday, quoted by Russian news agencies.
“Russia intends to support the revival of Greece’s economy by broadening cooperation in the energy sector. Accordingly we are studying the possibility of organising direct deliveries of energy resources to Greece, starting shortly,” Novak told journalists, quoted by RIA Novosti news agency.
…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Texas Launches Gold-Backed Bank, Challenging Federal Reserve
The State of Texas is setting up a gold-backed bank that will allow depositors to bypass the controversial Federal Reserve System and its fiat currency in banking and commerce, according to the state representative who authored the recently enacted law. Under the measure, passed overwhelmingly by lawmakers and signed in mid-June by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, Lone Star State officials will establish and operate the Texas Bullion Depository for anyone who would like to deposit and trade in precious metals. The implications are as big as Texas.
While some analysts have said the move may be another sign heralding Texas’ eventual secession from the union, or preparation for financial Armageddon, its advocates say the depository simply makes financial sense. Among other benefits, the institution will provide more options to consumers weary of the increasingly troubled traditional banking and monetary system, which is viewed by the public with growing suspicion. And experts say the effect of making it easier to use sound money in commerce could be far-reaching.
Among other immediate effects, the law creating the first state-level gold-backed bank in the nation, House Bill 483, will involve repatriating about $1 billion of Texas gold from New York. Conflicting news reports and official statements say the state’s precious metals stockpile is being held either by HSBC in New York, or by the powerful New York Federal Reserve Bank, a privately owned outfit cloaked in secrecy with immense power over the U.S. economy. First, though, officials will need to select a home for the Texas depository.
[Comment: Perhaps this is why Texas was marked as hostile territory in Jade Helm — hostile to slavery by the Federal Reserve.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
As Chattanooga Death Toll Rises, Mourning Deaths on Home Soil
Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan was in the Marine Corps for 18 years, survived truck bombs and a rain of mortars during one of the biggest assaults of the Iraq war, earned a Combat Action Ribbon and two Purple Hearts, and was expecting to retire soon. Instead he was ambushed on home soil, in a suburban Chattanooga, Tenn., office park.
With the deaths of the four came this grim statistic: More Marines were killed in Chattanooga than in all of Afghanistan this year.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Can Muslims be Loyal to Anything Other Than Allah?
A great example of the unlikely mix of islam and civility and the conflict of allegiances is muslim Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s decision to blast away at his fellow military mates at fort Hood Texas in November 2009. He chose to kill over a dozen people, because they were not muslim. While blowing hs victims away, he yelped the Islamic slogan, “allahu akbar!” (“god is great”). For a soldier to viciously turn on his fellow soldiers in arms is incomprehensible enough, especially when one considers that in order to receive his commission as an officer in the Army, Major Hassan had to sign his name to an oath requiring his name to an oath requiring him to swear allegiance to defend the Constitution. The oath also called for Major Hasan to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion.
Nevertheless, despite swearing an oath to protect the United States and to remain loyal to his compatriots, Major Hasan, most certainly displayed glaring conflicting loyalties. According to one of his former classmates, Major Hasan would not support the effort to defend against terrorism because he viewed such an effort as a direct war against islam.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Chattanooga Shootings: America, Let’s Use Social Media to Stop Terrorist Attacks
By John Matthews
If social media can be used to recruit terrorists, it can also be used to stop them.
In testimony before a Senate panel last week, FBI Director James Comey stated that ISIS has over 21,000 English-speaking followers on Twitter and that this form of “crowdsourcing terrorism” is living proof that social media works. Unfortunately, it appears that this type of internet-based recruiting of “Lone Wolf” terrorists has worked yet again as manifested by yesterday’s attack at two military facilities in Chattanooga which left four dead and three others injured. One news source reported that prior to the shooting the suspect posted on his blog Islamic rhetoric referring to “separate the inhabitants of Paradise from the inhabitants of Hellfire.”
Well, if social media can work for ISIS in recruiting these self-radicalized terrorists or individual lone wolf attackers, it can also work against them. As concerned citizens and guardians of our communities we the people can mobilize to report posts from potential lone wolf attackers who seek to injure and kill others.
[…]
As responsible citizens who care about our communities, we need to assist law enforcement in serving as their on-line “eyes and ears” when we see threatening posts. Maybe even more importantly when we see posts and also have personal knowledge of potential offenders securing or practicing with weapons or making threats against specific individuals or groups we can “connect the dots” and provide that information to local, state or federal authorities. If you are online and read a post that includes terrorist-related chatter, threats and postings regarding weapons and mass murder, or information on upcoming or planned attacks, don’t assume that someone else will report it. Take personal responsibility and call your local police or federal authorities. If terrorist organizations or lone wolf attackers believe social media works for them, let’s show them it can also work against them.
[The same applies to guns. Get a good one, learn to use it well, and carry it always. And if some Muslim zealot starts practicing his religion like that creature in Chattanooga, stop him dead. — PW
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Chattanooga Shooting Latest: Police Detain Two Women at Gunman’s Home
By Mark Hanrahan
Heavily armed police officers raided a home near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Thursday, believed to belong to shooting suspect Mohammod Youssef Abdulazeez, and detained two women, as federal, state and local law enforcement scrambled to take action in the wake of a shooting that left four U.S. Marines dead.
[…]
Asked about the risk of a possible backlash against Muslim communities in the state, Fletcher said that law enforcement was remaining vigilant, and would deploy resources to protect communities that might feel “vulnerable.”
[This malodorous pile of manure gets excreted in the wake of every Muslim atrocity — the risible notion that a “vulnerable” community is in danger of a “backlash.” Somehow said backlash always fails to materialize — but the jihad attacks just keep on coming. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Chattanooga Attack: Gunman ‘Sent War Text’ Before Shooting
The night before a gunman killed five US service personnel in Tennessee, he sent a text message linking to a religious verse about “declaring war”, a report says.
Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez also spoke out against conflicts in the Middle East, according to the Reuters agency.
Police have said his motives are still being investigated.
Four US Marines were killed in the shooting. A sailor who was seriously injured died in hospital on Saturday.
Reuters says it has seen a text sent the night before to a friend linking to a passage of Islamic text — Hadith 38 — containing the verse: “Whosoever shows enmity to a friend of Mine, I will indeed declare war against him.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Does Seattle’s Trash Monitoring Violate Privacy Rights?
In a lawsuit filed against the city of Seattle on Thursday, a group of residents is arguing that their privacy rights are being violated under a recently launched initiative that calls for garbage collectors to check people’s trash cans for items such as food scraps and recyclables.
City rules that went into effect in January in Seattle prohibit residents and businesses from disposing of food scraps and compostable paper in their garbage. Since then, the city’s two contracted garbage haulers have been issuing warning tags if food and yard waste, or recyclables, appear to make up more than 10 percent of the contents in a customer’s trash bin.
“A person has a legitimate expectation that the contents of his or her garbage cans will remain private and free from government inspection when placed curbside for collection,” the complaint states.
The Pacific Legal Foundation filed the suit in King County Superior Court on behalf of seven residents, and one woman who lived in Seattle until March.
According to the complaint, the city provided training for garbage collectors that included instructions to inspect residential trash bins “by moving bags, to open bags that are not securely tied, to look into the contents of translucent or transparent bags, and to exploit tears in sealed opaque bags to inspect their contents.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
By Paul Thompson
The Muslim murderer of four US Marines came from an abusive and violent home where his mother was physically and verbally abused by her husband.
Court documents obtained by Daily Mail Online reveal that Muhammad Youssuf Abdulazeez was also victim of beatings by his father that were carried out ‘without provocation or justification.’
The Kuwaiti born gunman was caught up in the messy divorce in his senior year at high school in 2009.
The documents reveal that his father Youssuf Saed Abdulazeez also told his wife of 28 years he was going to take a second wife as it was permitted under Islamic law.
As the FBI and other law enforcement agencies continue their investigation into the deadly rampage across the city of Chattanooga,Tennessee, the 24 year old’s formative years will face scrutiny.
Investigators are trying to build a picture of what caused a seemingly ‘all American boy’ turn into a killer who targeted the US military. Abdulazeez, a naturalized US citizen, died after Chattanooga police converged on his silver Mustang convertible outside a Naval Reserve center where the four victims were killed.
[What caused it? How about verses from the ignoble Qur’an, such as 9:123: O ye who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty (unto Him). — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
How Fluoride Damages Pineal Gland Health
If you’ve never heard of the pineal gland, know it’s got a pretty important job. Located in the center of the brain, it’s responsible for melatonin synthesis (which plays a role in maintaining normal rhythms and sleep cycles), and also helps convert signals between our nervous and endocrine systems. Something about melatonin: it’s thought to act as a neuro-protector that could play a role in the aging process and Alzheimer’s, so when it’s messed up by things like fluoride, you could probably guess the result. Unfortunately, the pineal gland can develop problems because it can also absorb a lot of fluoride—even more than our bones.
Our bones are exposed to toxic fluoride much more than we might think. The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests: “Fluoride levels above 1.5 mg per liter cause pitting of tooth enamel and deposits in bones.” And because so much of the general water supply in the U.S. is still fluoridated, we’re often exposed to levels in the 2 to 5 mg range. Remember, not only is fluoride in the water, it’s also in a lot of the dental products you might be using. But, let’s get back to that pineal gland. Fluoride can accumulate and calcify on the gland, blocking its effectiveness, and these deposits can get worse as we age. No one is completely sure how fluoride build-up hurts the gland, but there are lots of ideas. A blocked pineal gland could lead to things like trouble sleeping or weight gain. One study even suggests toxic calcification could lead to early onset of puberty in girls.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How Oxycontin Became the Most Dangerous and Hottest Selling Narcotic in History
“OxyContin: Time Bomb” tells the story of how this painkiller became the most widely prescribed, abused, and profitable narcotic in history Purdue Pharma ran an unprecedentedly aggressive marketing campaign to brainwash physicians that OxyContin was the new “miracle pill” In 2007, Purdue pled guilty to deceptive marketing and was fined $600 million, but six years later, FDA allowed them to release a new version of the drug OxyContin is a gateway drug to heroin, leading millions down the path of heroin addiction, methadone dependence, overdose, and death
Patients taking OxyContin experience a variety of adverse effects, including depression and mood swings, nodding off during the day, disrupted interpersonal relationships, and other problems. However, those wanting to discontinue the drug typically have a difficult time getting off of it, often becoming quite sick.
Sometimes, long-term methadone treatment is required to break severe OxyContin dependence, which has major risks of its own.8 Methadone, a synthetic form of opium that’s used to get people off heroin, may have surpassed heroin as the leading cause of narcotic deaths.9 This is but one of many serious problems stemming from the abuse of opioid drugs such as OxyContin.
There were no pain clinics when OxyContin came out—these were created largely in response to the massive addiction and overdose problems associated with this drug and others like it. When your body is bathed around the clock in a sea of opiates, it becomes dependent on them, and withdrawing can make you very ill. OxyContin withdrawal typically includes symptoms such as:
- Anxiety, restlessness and insomnia
- Abdominal cramps, nausea and diarrhea
- Flu-like symptoms, including aching and chills
- Elevated blood pressure and heart rate
- Tremors, seizures and convulsions
‘OxyContin 2.0’
OxyContin’s patent expired in 2013. Normally, this opens the door for generics, but in this case, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned generic versions of the original OxyContin and required drug makers to develop “abuse resistant” versions. In 2010, Purdue pulled original OxyContin from the market and introduced its own “abuse-resistant” form, which contains a polymer that supposedly makes it harder to crush and snort or inject.
That’s great news for Purdue—the patent on its “Oxy 2.0” is good until 2025. FDA essentially rewarded Purdue Pharma with a patent extension for a drug that injured and killed millions. In 2013, their new drug accounted for one-third of the prescription painkiller market, and with an average cost of $7.50 per pill, generated $2.8 billion in sales.10 And this new form may not be that abuse-resistant. About one-quarter of users claim they’ve figured out how to defeat the deterrent.11 Canadian physicians are reporting that OxyNEO—the new form Purdue is selling in Canada—is just as addictive as original OxyContin.12 Just another startling example of the collusion between the FDA and industry.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Lax Gun Laws Are Becoming a National-Security Issue
By John Cassidy
Another shooting spree; another debate about American gun laws.
This time, though, it’s slightly different. Hours after Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, a suspected homegrown Islamist terrorist, shot and killed four U.S. Marines at a Naval Reserve center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Donald Trump, who is now leading the polls in the Republican Presidential primary, seized upon the tragedy, claiming that the problem isn’t the proliferation of deadly firearms, but a lack of them in certain locales, such as the so-called “gun-free zones” at military sites.
According to news reports, Abdulazeez, a twenty-four-year-old Kuwaiti-born U.S. citizen, was armed with at least three guns, including an AK-47 assault rifle. How he got hold of these weapons wasn’t what concerned Trump, however. “Get rid of gun free zones,” he tweeted on Friday morning. “The four great marines who were just shot never had a chance. They were highly trained but helpless without guns.”
Trump was evidently referring to a Pentagon regulation, dating back to 1993, that prohibits some members of the military from carrying firearms while on base. His comments echoed those of gun enthusiasts, who highlighted, on social media, a picture of a sign prohibiting firearms that was on the door of the Chattanooga military-recruitment office where Abdulazeez reportedly opened fire before moving onto the Naval Reserve center, less than ten miles away.
For once, Trump has raised an important issue. In an era when attacks inspired by radical Islamism are becoming increasingly common, are gun laws magnifying the problem of domestic terrorism?
As usual, however, Trump has things backward. The issue isn’t gun-free zones; it is free-for-all gun zones, which decades of lax firearms laws have produced all over the country. In an America held hostage by the gun lobby, radicalized lone-wolf terrorists can get their hands on deadly weapons and mountains of ammunition just as easily as disturbed post-adolescents, delusional military subcontractors, virulent racists, and anybody else.
[This is the way the ProgMob is going to change the subject: It’s not the swarms of Muslims we’re importing, it’s all your terrible guns! — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Model for Robots With Bacteria-Controlled Brains
In a paper published July 16 in Scientific Reports, which is part of the Nature Publishing Group, a Virginia Tech scientist used a mathematical model to demonstrate that bacteria can control the behavior of an inanimate device like a robot.
[Comment: What’s the end goal? DALEKS? — DALEKS (from Doctor Who) were a genetically created organism inside a robot. Built originally to serve, they had other ideas.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
New Study: GMO Soy Accumulates Cancerous Formaldehyde
As if there weren’t plenty of reasons already to avoid genetically modified soy and other soy products — now a new study has made eating this GM crop even less appetizing.
As I previously reported for Natural Society, GM soy is toxic to the kidneys, liver, and reproductive system — and that’s not good considering that almost 90 percent of the soy grown in the US is genetically modified.
In a study we recently shared with you, researchers in Egypt who studied rats fed a GM soy diet found that: DNA fragmentation increased significantly after the rats were fed GM soy, and the levels of toxicity increased at 30, 60, and 90 days. Glyphosate-tolerant enzymes were found in the blood, and as researchers pointed out, “There is a growing concern that introducing foreign genes into food plants may have an unexpected and negative impact on human health.” The kidney’s bio-pathology increased. Blood creatinine and uric acid concentrations increased significantly in rats fed the GM diet for 30, 60, or 90 days. Chromosomal aberrations were observed. There was a “highly significant” number of abnormal cells.
Now, a study has just been released by Dr. V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, Ph.D., an MIT-trained systems biologist, which states that in vitro and in vivo lab tests reveal that a diet of GM soy results in:
“[the] accumulation of formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, and a dramatic depletion of glutathione, an anti-oxidant necessary for cellular detoxification, in GMO soy, indicating that formaldehyde and glutathione are likely critical criteria for distinguishing the GMO from its non-GMO counterpart.“
This means that all those biotech claims that GM and non-GM soy are essentially the same, are nothing but hogwash.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
New York Times: Mosque of Chattanooga Jihad Killer Braces for Backlash
By Robert Spencer
Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, spoke of “the shock that there’s a kid who seems to grow up in the shadow of the Muslim community and yet chooses a path of extremism and violence that nobody taught them in the community. It’s a betrayal of the community.”
So we are to believe that the Muslims who are — by their own account — most fervent and devout are adhering to a form of Islam that is completely foreign to the Islam taught in their local mosques, and that they grew up hearing. What a strange phenomenon! Yet no one seems in the least curious about how it came to be.
As for the fear of “revenge,” this hardly ever materializes, and yet is the constant preoccupation of the mainstream media after every jihad attack. Notice that the New York Times doesn’t ask the people at the Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga or anywhere else what programs that have in place or are instituting in order to make sure that there won’t be any more young misunderstanders of Islam like Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez. The assumption that he must have learned his violent Islam somewhere other than inside the mosque he attended is taken for granted by the Paper of Record, without investigation or even a single question.
“At a Mosque, Grief Mixes With Fear of Revenge,” by Richard Fausset and Laurie Goodstein, New York Times, July 17, 2015:
[Muslim SOP: Cry wolf when one of your co-religionists carries out an atrocity. Backlash! Backlash! We’re going to be victimized, boo-hoo-hoo! — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
The White House has given final approval for dramatically raising permissible radioactive levels in drinking water and soil following “radiological incidents,” such as nuclear power-plant accidents and dirty bombs. The final version, slated for Federal Register publication as soon as today, is a win for the nuclear industry which seeks what its proponents call a “new normal” for radiation exposure among the U.S population, according Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
Issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, the radiation guides (called Protective Action Guides or PAGs) allow cleanup many times more lax than anything EPA has ever before accepted. These guides govern evacuations, shelter-in-place orders, food restrictions and other actions following a wide range of “radiological emergencies.” The Obama administration blocked a version of these PAGs from going into effect during its first days in office. The version given approval late last Friday is substantially similar to those proposed under Bush but duck some of the most controversial aspects:
In soil, the PAGs allow long-term public exposure to radiation in amounts as high as 2,000 millirems. This would, in effect, increase a longstanding 1 in 10,000 person cancer rate to a rate of 1 in 23 persons exposed over a 30-year period;
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pentagon: Recruiting Centers to Remain Unarmed, Unguarded; Recruiters Told to Not Wear Uniforms
On Friday evening ABC News Pentagon reporter Luis Martinez reported on Twitter the Marine Corps ordered recruiters to not wear their uniforms at work.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sailor in Chattanooga Shooting Has Died, Death Toll Now 5
The Navy said Saturday the sailor shot in Thursday’s attack at a military support center in Chattanooga, Tenn. has died.
Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith was one of three people injured when a gunman opened fire at the center, killing four Marines. The shooting is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism.
Fox News spoke to Smith’s step-grandmother Darlene Proxmire who confirmed he died early Saturday.
Smith was shot three times when a gunman opened fire at the Navy Operational Support Center (NOSC) Thursday morning.
He underwent several surgeries and died around 2:17 a.m. Saturday. His wife and other family members were with him at the hospital when he died.
Smith was a reservist serving on active duty as a logistics specialist in Chattanooga.
[Requiescat in pace. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Terror Immigration to America Must Stop
By Daniel Greenfield
Tennessee is to Muslim refugees as New York is to Muslim hijacked planes. Chattanooga, the site of the latest Muslim terror attack against America, is a “preferred community” for resettlement along with Knoxville and Nashville.
Nashville was designated a “Gateway City” for Iraqis. Hundreds of Somali Muslims were dumped in Shelbyville and the Murfreesboro Mega-Mosque became national news because of its terror ties.
Over the last decade, middle Tennessee’s Muslim population tripled. The rise of Islam in Tennessee as Muslims from terror zones like Iraq and Somalia flooded its towns and cities brought hate and violence.
In Memphis, Imam Yasir Qadhi was caught on tape calling Jews and Christians filthy and declaring that Muslims can take their lives and property. Last year the FBI warned of an ISIS threat in Memphis.
This year it was Chattanooga’s turn.
Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, the son of a Palestinian man and a Kuwaiti woman living in the United States, killed four marines. One of his targets, a recruiting center, was a gun-free zone. Those inside had no way to defend themselves. Their government had welcomed in the enemy and left them unarmed and helpless against his Jihad.
Obama refused to use the word “Terrorism”. Hillary Clinton claimed that the attack was “senseless violence.” But there was nothing senseless about it. It was an act of war, one of many, in a conflict that stretches back to the founding of the United States of America.
The Marines first saw action abroad against the Barbary states who informed Thomas Jefferson and John Adams that they were entitled to attack American ships and enslave American sailors because, “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”
This is the “sense” behind Hillary’s senseless violence.
The last of the Barbary Wars ended on a July, two hundred years ago, with an American victory. Two hundred years later, Marines are murdered by the barbarians we invited into our own country.
[We didn’t invite them in — they did. They being the ProgMob that seeks to establish a permanent Democrat majority through demographic re-engineering. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
By Gene Schwimmer
This is an article about New York City, the current mayor of which is a socialist, so what better way to begin than with a quote from Marx?
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Oops, great quote, but wrong Marx. Try this one:
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
In NYC, where this writer has lived since 1977, history repeated itself as tragedy on November 5, 2013,when New Yorkers elected Bill de Blasio mayor, repeating — or should that be compounding? — the error made on November 7, 1989, when they elected David Dinkins to the same office.
What was NYC like in those days? Well, let’s just say that one would have been much better off reading Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities than actually to have lived through the Dinkins Era — or, as the writer likes to think of it, the “Fat Al Sharpton Period”:
[…]
If a mayor does not subscribe to the broken windows theory, it doesn’t matter what his police commissioner believes. If the mayor doesn’t believe in the broken windows theory, the inevitable result will be a lot of broken windows that no one bothers to fix.
New York’s current mayor, Bill de Blasio, clearly does not believe in and/or care for the broken windows theory. But another, former mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, did, and he applied it to great, and greatly beneficial, effect.
In 1993, New Yorkers elected Rudy Giuliani — it’s hard to call him Rudolph — and almost overnight, New York City rose from the dysfunctional depths of the Dinkins — and Koch, and Beame — administrations. The Three-Card Monte hucksters…
The squeegee men…
[…] the whores, the beggars, the litter, the psychologically and mentally ill people wandering the streets unimpeded, uncared-for, as if letting people who clearly needed help wander through the city — and life — unhelped was somehow good for them…they all vanished.
Suddenly, a city thought to be ungovernable was not only being governed. It was being governed well.
And a city that was becoming increasingly unlivable for all but the wealthy, a city that appeared headed for the brink, like the writer’s hometown of Detroit, began to change for the better.
For a short time, lasting perhaps into the latter third of Michael Bloomberg’s mayoralty, New York became a wonderful city in which to live.
Call it the Golden Age of Giuliani.
But only for that proverbial brief, shining moment. Rudy Giuliani — Rudy Giuliani, the miracle worker who performed a miracle on a city that desperately needed one — is gone. Bill de Blasio governs now, and, sadly, the Golden Age of Giuliani is disappearing almost as quickly as it arrived. All of the elements — and people — who made everyday life so unpleasant for the average New Yorker are back.
[Take a look at the pictures of the people who made everyday life so pleasant for the average New Yorker. See anything in common? — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Attacks McCain’s Record as War Hero, Draws Rebuke From GOP Presidential Field
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s criticism Saturday of fellow party member and Arizona Sen. John McCain for being “captured” during the Vietnam War brought sharp rebuke from others in the GOP field.
“He was a war hero because he was captured,” Trump said at the Family Leadership Summit, in Ames, Iowa. “I like people who weren’t captured.”
Most of the 14 other GOP candidates, including some at the summit, immediately criticized Trump’s remarks.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry tweeted that McCain “is an American hero” and that all U.S. prisoners of war “deserve our nation’s highest debt of gratitude” and that Trump’s comments are “disgraceful.”
He also called on Trump to apologize and said the comments make him “unfit” to become commander in chief and that he should quit the race.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Attorney for Germanwings Victims Says Airline’s Compensation Offer for Families is Too Low
A German attorney representing some 30 families of victims of the March Germanwings plane crash says his clients are rejecting the airline’s initial compensation offer as far too low.
In an email, lawyer Elmar Giemulla said Saturday he had written Lufthansa, Germanwings’ parent company, to say their offer of 25,000 euros ($27,200) compensation for each victim covered by German law and payments of 10,000 euros ($10,830) each to victims’ immediate relatives “must be significantly raised.”
Prosecutors believe co-pilot Andreas Lubitz intentionally crashed the Airbus A320 into a French mountain on March 24, killing all 150 people on board the flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Is a Mini Ice Age Coming? ‘Maunder Minimum’ Spurs Controversy
A scientist who claims waning solar activity in the next 15 years will trigger what some are calling a mini ice age has revived talk about the effects of man-made versus natural disruptors to Earth’s climate.
Valentina Zharkova, a professor of mathematics at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom, used a new model of the sun’s solar cycle, which is the periodic change in solar radiation, sunspots and other solar activity over a span of 11 years, to predict that “solar activity will fall by 60 percent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the ‘mini ice age’ that began in 1645,” according to a statement.
At the National Astronomy meeting in Llanduno, north Wales last week, Zharkova said that a series of solar phenomena will lead to a “Maunder Minimum,” which refers to the seven decades, from 1645 to 1715, when the sun’s surface ceased its heat-releasing magnetic storms and coincided with the Little Ice Age, a period of chillier temperatures, from around 1550 to 1850 in Europe, North America and Asia, according to NASA.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Virgin Mary Statue’s Tears Were Deer Blood, Exams Show
Weeping Madonna attracted floods of pilgrims to Auditore
(ANSA) — Auditore, July 17 — Blood streaming from the eyes of a statue of the Virgin Mary which attracted crowds of pilgrims to the small Italian town of Auditore in recent days was only deer blood, medical examinations have showed.
Tears of blood were first spotted last week falling from the eyes of the Our Lady of Lourdes statue, kept in a chapel in the town in Marche, central Italy.
However medical experts in Ancona have discovered that the blood is from a deer or similar animal.
As it now appears the blood was the result of a prank, Auditore’s mayor said he would file a complaint for causing alarm, due to the number of people that arrived in the town to see the weeping statue.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Prayer Group Organizes Airborne Exorcism
To rid their town of evil influences after church robberies
(ANSA) — Naples, July 17 — A prayer group in the Naples-area seaside town of Castellamare di Stabia organized an airborne exorcism for their community after several of its churches were robbed and defiled. The exorcism from the sky was carried out by a priest on board a helicopter.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Papal Heliport to be Made Available to Kids Hospital
Pope Francis expresses ‘joy’ at deal
(ANSA) — Rome, July 17 — The pope’s heliport inside the Vatican will be made available to the nearby Bambino Gesù children’s hospital for emergencies, a Vatican statement said on Friday. The move is the result of an agreement between the hospital and the Governorate of the State of Vatican City. Pope Francis felt “joy” and “expressed his goodwill for an agreement that will be of great help to the children,” the statement said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Controversy Erupts Over Begging Ban in Alto Adige Town
Caritas voices opposition- ‘everyone has right to ask for alms’
(ANSA) — Bolzano, July 16 — Catholic charity Caritas spoke out on Thursday against a new ordinance that limits begging in the Alto Adige tourist town of San Lorenzo di Sebato.
“Everyone has the right to ask for alms,” said local Caritas directors Paolo Valente and Franz Kripp.
“We don’t need to fight the poor, but poverty,” they said, adding that they opposed specific wording in the ordinance which they said reads, “people who behave in a repulsive and harassing way”.
Other towns in Alto Adige, including the provincial capital of Bolzano, have also recently tightened up bans on panhandling in the streets.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: High Court Rejects Appeal on Terrorism Charge for Rioters
Three men involved in high-speed-train riot already convicted
(ANSA) — Turin, July 17 — Italy’s Supreme Court on Friday rejected an appeal by the Turin prosecutor’s office to charge three men involved in a 2013 riot with terrorism.
The men were sentenced in May 2014 to two years and 10 months in prison for their roles in the May 2013 high-speed-train (TAV) riot in Chiomonte.
In December 2014, a Turin court of reexamination dismissed the accusation of terrorism, and the Turin prosecutor’s office appealed that decision to the high court which made its ruling today.
So-called NO-TAV protests have frequently turned violent in recent years and there have also been some acts of sabotage on the line being built between Lyon and Turin.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Traditional ‘Pajata’ Back on Menu as EU Lifts Mad Cow Norm
Pride of Roman cuisine returns
(ANSA) Rome, July 16 — Traditional Roman ‘pajata’ made from the intestines of an unweaned calf is back on Italian menus after the EU on Thursday lifted restrictions imposed in 2001 in the face of mad cow disease (BSE).
The EU’s Official Gazette sanctioned a March decision by the permanent committee on vegetable and animal foodstuffs in Brussels voted Tuesday night to lift the restrictions given that there have been no new cases of BSE — bovine spongiform encephalopathy — since 2009.
Coldiretti president Roberto Moncalvo hailed pajata’s return as “an important result for consumers, restaurants, cooks, butchers and farmers”.
Moncalvo also lauded the “decisive commitment of the Health Ministry” in the decision.
In March Coldiretti chefs celebrated the ruling by cooking a massive pot of steaming, pungent pajata in the organisation’s Rome headquarters.
To make pajata, traditionally eaten with rigatoni pasta, the intestines are cleaned and skinned, but the chyme is left inside. Then the intestine is cut in pieces 20 — 25 cm long, which are bound together with white thread, forming rings.
Thursday’s ruling also covers salami and other cold cuts made from cattle intestines.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Crocetta in Tears Over Wiretap Scandal
Sicily governor suspended self
(ANSA) — Palermo, July 16 — Hours after suspending himself as Sicily governor Thursday over a wiretap in which he allegedly failed to challenge a pro-Mafia comment, a tearful Rosario Crocetta told ANSA that “they killed me today”. Crocetta spoke after a news report surfaced of a 2013 wiretapped conversation between him and his personal doctor, Matteo Tutino, in which the latter allegedly said ex-regional health councillor Lucia Borsellino “ought to be stopped, done away with like her father”. Paolo Borsellino, Lucia’s father, was a crusading anti-Mafia prosecutor blown up by Cosa Nostra in July 1992, three months after his friend and colleague Giovanni Falcone.
The scandal arose from the fact that Crocetta reportedly remained silent instead of challenging the statement made by Tutino, who is under house arrest on charges of fraud, falsehood, embezzlement and abuse of office he allegedly committed as chief of plastic surgery at Villa Sofia hospital in Palermo. His phone had been tapped as part of that investigation. Crocetta told ANSA earlier in the day “if I had heard that phrase, I don’t know…I would have tried to reach Tutino to beat him senseless, maybe I would have called magistrates on the spot…I’m shocked. I feel a profound horror”.
A wave of public repulsion and disdain over the report ensued, and Crocetta told ANSA he was suspending himself as governor.
“I’m immediately suspending myself as governor of the region,” he said. “Is it true the prosecutor’s office is denying (the media reports)?” Crocetta sobbed later. “Why…why,” he said. “How powerful is this Mafia that wants to slay me? I could have done myself in today”. Palermo prosecutors however said their office has no record of such a wiretapped phone conversation between Crocetta and Tutino, excerpts of which were anticipated by L’Espresso news magazine on its website Thursday.
The magazine, however, stood by its story. It said the incriminated statement was contained in one of three classified wiretaps taken as part of the hospital probe in 2013.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Chinese Group Mulls 300-Mn Investment in Milan Development
Delegates meet at Expo
(ANSA) — Milan, July 8 — A Chinese property group is considering investing 300 million euros in a luxury development in Milan.
Representatives from both China and Italy met on Tuesday at the Milan Expo to discuss a project entitled ‘Italy-China Building The Future’.
Marco De Luigi, a representative from the property group Sogim, Aldo Cingolani, the president of Bertone Design, and Zhu Yuhua, a Senator in the Shanghai region of China, were present at the meeting, which took place in the Chinese Pavilion at the Expo.
According to the property groups involved in the discussions, 300 million euros will initially be invested.
However, double that amount could be made available.
“Milan and Lombardy are hugely important areas of business,” Zhu said.
Meetings with Milan council are currently underway.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Norwegian Mass Killer Admitted Into University Program
Anders Behring Breivik, the convicted Norwegian killer, has been admitted to the University of Oslo’s political science program, the university’s rector said Friday.
Breivik, 36, is a right-wing extremist serving 21 years in prison for killing 77 people in a politically motivated bomb-and-gun attacks in 2011. The sentence can be extended when it expires.
“All inmates in Norwegian prisons are entitled to higher education in Norway if they meet the admission requirements,” university rector Ole Petter Ottersen said Friday in an email to The Associated Press.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Chinese Group Buys Ciudad Real ‘Ghost’ Airport for €10,000
A group of Chinese investors has bought the abandoned airport at Ciudad Real for €10,000 after submitting the only bid for the facility at a court bankruptcy auction.
On Friday, Tzaneen International was awarded the land and buildings, including the runway, hangars and control tower at Ciudad Real Central Airport in Castilla-La Mancha — the first major airport to be built in Spain with private investment.
However, the Chinese group will not control the terminal or the parking areas, according to the terms of the tender.
Little is known about the group except that it is an “investment vehicle” registered some months ago in Spain with the sole purpose of taking part in the court-sponsored auction.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Council to Spend Nearly £50,000 on a Spy Car to Catch Parents Parking Illegally Around Schools
The spy car will be a Peugeot 108, fitted with cameras and number plate recognition technology. It will be launched in January and will tour all 340 schools in the country of Nottinghamshire.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Forget French and Mandarin — Arabic is the Language to Learn
The project is one of eight initiated by the British Council, which was spurred by its research that rated Arabic as the second most important language for workers of the future (Spanish was rated the most important).
The study took into account Britain’s export links, government trade priorities, diplomatic and security priorities and the most popular holiday destinations.
“There are more than 300 million Arabic speakers across the world — in the Middle East and North Africa,” said Faraan Sayed, who has been working on the programme for the British Council.
In eight clusters of schools around the country 1,000 pupils study Arabic as part of the curriculum while a further 500 are learning the subject in lunchtime and after-school clubs. These are in Belfast, Sheffield, Manchester, London (where there are two), Barnstaple in Devon, Blackburn and Bradford.
In Manchester, the independent Manchester Grammar School asked some of its Syrian pupils to help with the recruitment of an Arabic teacher. They recruited an Iraqi-born teacher with the result that the school’s development plan now has Arabic GCSE provision planned from 2016.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Muslim Extremist Who Distributed Al Qaeda Magazine in Manchester Jailed
Pakistani Muhammad Aftab Suleman, 25, has been jailed for nearly three years for distributing radical material. In a raid on his Manchester home, police found a stash of extremist documents.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Vast Mine Under British National Park Wins Approval
A plan to build a huge potash mine beneath one of Britain’s national parks was approved on Tuesday, despite stiff opposition.
Mining firm Sirius Minerals is to dig a 1,500 metre fertiliser mine below the rolling woods and grasslands of the North York Moors National Park in a 1.7 billion ($2.7 billion, 2.4 billion euros) investment.
The York Potash project was opposed by a consortium of 29 campaign groups, including the Campaign to Protect Rural England, which said that the mine was a “huge threat” to the moors and undermined the protection of all national parks.
Members of the North York Moors National Park’s planning committee granted permission in a special meeting in Sneaton Castle in the north York town of Whitby, where hundreds had gathered to hear the result…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Egyptian Security Officials Say Militants Attack 2 Checkpoints in the Restive Sinai Peninsula
Security officials in Egypt say militants have attacked two military checkpoints in North Sinai. There was no immediate report of casualties.
Last year, the main insurgent organization operating in Sinai pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State group, which holds a third of Iraq and Syria.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: ISIS Imposes Strict Rules of Attire in Sirte
Forbids ‘masculine items or items worn by faithless women’
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, JULY 15 — The Islamic State (ISIS), which has strengthened its presence in Libya, has laid down stricter rules for women’s clothing. Local media sites say that the jihadists have put up a billboard with a list of seven rules, accompanied by a photo of a woman wearing a black, full Islamic veil. The rules include a prohibition on transparent, tight, namebrand and revealing clothing, as well as an order to “not wear masculine items or items worn by faithless women” and to avoid perfumed clothing and those with attention-attracting designs.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Police: Militants Ambush Algerian Army Convoy in Forest West of Algiers, Killing 11 Soldiers
An Algerian police commander says Islamic militants have ambushed an Algerian army convoy in a forest west of Algiers, killing 11 soldiers.
The attack comes as Algeria and much of the rest of the Muslim world are celebrating the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, one of the main holidays of the year.
Algeria, home of al-Qaida’s North African branch, has long fought an insurgency of Islamic radicals who hide out in the country’s rugged forests and mountains.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisian Tourism Drops After Sousse Attack
-57.7% on the year in early July, -74,8% compared with 2010
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, JULY 15 — The number of tourists visiting Tunisia has dropped after the June 26 attack in Sousse. According to a statement published by the TAP news agency, the number of tourists between July 1 and July 10, 2015 dropped by 57.7% on the year and by 74.8% on the same period in 2010, benchmark year for those working in the year prior to the 2011 uprising.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Five Czechs Feared Kidnapped in Lebanon
Fears are growing for the safety of five Czechs who went missing on Friday night in Lebanon. The group, who were traveling with a Lebanese driver, disappeared from Kefraya, a popular tourist village about 65 kilometers (40 miles) from the capital, Beirut. The driver is also missing.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
By Flora Drury
ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has issued a decree banning the barbaric execution videos his militants have become famous for — because he’s worried about their image.
al-Baghdadi is said to have sent a letter to all of his media offices saying they were no longer allowed to show graphic, violent scenes in their carefully edited videos, which caught the attention of the wider world with the emergence of ‘Jihadi John’ in 2014.
He is said to have claimed the decision was based on not offending other Muslims, who might think the videos are scary for children.
But ARA News reports that the decision has created a divide in ISIS ranks.
Some agree the videos, which often show people being put to death in horrific ways, including being drowned in cages, thrown off buildings and blowing people up, are not good for the image of the so-called caliphate.
But then there are others who think the disgusting and barbaric clips, which they proudly share, are good for intimidating their opponents.
[Plus, true believers really get off on that stuff. After all, as the ignoble Quran says (9:14-15), Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and will disgrace them and give you victory over them and satisfy the breasts of a believing people and remove the fury in the believers’ hearts. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic State in Agitprop Video Showing 70 Indonesian Fighters Hailing Jihad
For expert, the two-minute video shot in Syria a few days ago, is “strategic propaganda”. An estimated 500 Indonesians have left for Syria. Police have arrested several facilitators.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — A two-minute video has surfaced showing more 70 Indonesian-speaking men in military fatigues and armed with rifles preparing for a field assignment with the Islamic State (IS) group.
In the video, the men seem to be in good spirits, and refer to themselves as the Ikhwan Nusantara, or the brothers of the archipelago — a reference to Indonesia, which is the world’s largest archipelagic nation.
“Hoist the (IS) flag. We are all making the preparation to reach plentiful and eternal goodness,” said the narrator, who later said they were in Jabal Khalifa, Syria.
The videographer also introduced some of the men as he walked around, giving their names.
The clip is the latest evidence for the existence of the Katibah Nusantara Lid Daulah Islamiyyah, or Malay Archipelago unit for IS. For analysts, it is proof that a significant number of Indonesians have joined the terrorist group.
Indonesian authorities estimate that there could be as many as 500 Indonesians in Syria fighting for the Islamic State group. Other sources believe the number could be higher. Counter-terrorism officials have verified 159 Indonesians as IS militants.
Indonesia, a country of some 250 million people, is the world’s most populous Muslim country. For years, it has promoted a moderate version of Islam.
In the recent past, the authorities have been able to eradicate some dangerous jihadi networks, like al Qaeda-affiliated Jamaah Islamiah.
However, the video is important. For Taufik Andrie, executive director of the Institute of International Peace Building in Jakarta, it constitutes “strategic propaganda” because “It shows the Indonesians having a place, a force there [i.e. Syria]. As such, it is an open invitation for “other pro-ISIS people in Indonesia to join,” he told The Straits Times.
By a moderate guess, at least 300 Indonesians have gone to Syria and the number goes up each month. Many of those who have slipped into Syria pretended to be tourists or students.
The emergence of the new clip comes as officials in Indonesia are getting tough on IS supporters, ready to charge as many as 14 men accused of either creating a website to promote the IS group, or funding and helping IS supporters to travel to the Middle East to join the so-called caliphate.
One of the men, Muhammad Amin Mude, 41, was arrested after police said they foiled his attempt to arrange for six people with fake passports to go to Syria.
“We see all of them as one group who have divided tasks among themselves. They are in one group with a wanted terrorist, Abu Jandal, who threatened to attack the government, [and] the prisons that house terrorists in Indonesia,” said prosecutor Nana Riana.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia Makes 431 Arrests, Thwarts Wave of Terror Attacks
Saudi Arabia has arrested 431 people with links to the Islamic State group and in the process thwarted a wave of suicide bombings that were to target mosques and security forces, the interior ministry announced on Saturday.
Authorities have “managed over the past few weeks to destroy an organisation made of a cluster of cells, which is linked to the terrorist Daesh organisation”, the interior ministry said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.
“The number arrested to date is 431, most of them [Saudi] citizens, in addition to participants from other nationalities … six successive suicide operations which targeted mosques in the Eastern province on every Friday timed with assassinations of security men were thwarted,” a statement posted on the official SPA news agency said.
“Terrorist plots to target a diplomatic mission, security and government facilities in Sharurah province and the assassination of security men were thwarted,” the statement said…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia Says it Stopped Islamic State Attacks; 400 Held
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia said Saturday it broke up planned Islamic State attacks in the kingdom, announcing it has arrested over 400 people in its raids.
In a statement Saturday carried on the official state news agency, the Interior Ministry also accused those arrested over the “past few weeks” of conducting several attacks, including an Islamic State-claimed suicide bomb in May that killed 21 people in the village of al-Qudeeh, in the oil-rich eastern Qatif region. It was the deadliest militant assault in the kingdom in more than a decade.
It also blamed them for the November shooting and killing of eight worshippers in the eastern Saudi Arabian village of al-Ahsa.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The West’s Hand Behind ISIS Confirmed
For years now judicious analysts have been saying that ISIS, which now calls itself the Islamic State, is a synthetic witches’ brew of malcontents organized, armed and trained by the West and its regional appendages in the Arab Gulf countries.
Despite an overwhelming sand storm of disinformation emanating from the mainstream media that laughably portrayed the militant group and its creepy offshoots as wholly organic, critical thinkers have insisted that ISIS is a controlled outfit of covert mercenaries that were manufactured by Western powers and first wielded like a samurai sword against the Gaddafi regime in Libya. Once the North African country was swallowed whole by the Wahhabi onslaught, which was directed by CIA and MI6 “advisors” on the ground and reinforced by NATO airstrikes from above, the same stock and breed of criminal miscreants were promptly set upon Syria to ravage that unsuspecting nation.
With banal hubris, Western regimes denied whole cloth any suggestion that they have been sponsoring ISIS. But a recently unearthed US intelligence document shatters the façade of secrecy and denial, confirming in bare language that the West and its Persian Gulf marionettes are directly responsible for the rise of ISIS. US intelligence analysts, writing in a 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report disclosed by Judicial Watch, pondered gleefully about the prospect of utilizing radical Wahhabi-Islamist fundamentalists as a bludgeon against the secular government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
The document categorically demolishes Washington’s deceptive ‘we were only arming moderates’ gambit, noting that the rebels in Syria (which Washington and other Western powers have been supporting since 2011) were dominated by “Salafist, Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda” elements from the outset. Such extremists were the “major forces driving the insurgency in Syria,” the report states with unambiguity. It adds that Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the precursor group to ISIS, was the ideological backbone of the insurgents who were flooding into Syria that same year — the very same militants that the West was backing with enthusiastic vigor, sending hundreds of millions of dollars in arms and supplies to them.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Yazidi Women Kidnapped by ISIS Tell of the Horrors They Endured
The three young Yazidi women were abused on a regular basis including being tied up, gang raped and burnt with cigarettes. They have given a talk in London to dissuade young Muslims from joining ISIS.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ex-Ukraine Secret Police Chief Reveals the Depth of Gov’t Corruption
In his first interview since being fired as head of Ukraine’s state security service on June 16, Valentyn Nalivaichenko alleged that Ukraine’s leading political parties are behind huge flows of secret funds moving to and fro from offshore jurisdictions.
He is only the highest ranking among a clutch of disillusioned insiders who claim that black financial flows remain intrinsic to Ukrainian politics.
“Officials on the highest level have not stepped back from business ties, but it not just business, not just accountants, who are using these [offshore] schemes, but also the ‘enforcers’ [informal parliamentary party whips] who run $500,000 through offshores each week. A simple question — where is this money going to?” Nalivaichenko asked. “The answer: to pay off MPs, government officials, law enforcement.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Witchcraft in Nepal: Two Women Convicted for the Murder of a Child
The practice of black magic is common in the Hindu community in the south of the country. To honor the gods and learn witchcraft gurus dictate the murder of children and the extraction of their fresh blood. In contrast, adults are burnt alive. Investigators suspect other crimes that go unreported.
Kathmandu (AsiaNews) — The court in the southern district of Rautahat in Nepal has sentenced two people, a woman and her teacher of Hindu gurus practices, for killing a child of three years and extracting the child’s blood in order to learn the art witchcraft. Mahadevi Yadav and the guru Chhabilal Raya have been handed down life imprisonment and confiscation of all property.
The incident dates back to three years ago, when the two women were arrested on charges of murdering little Nitesh, son of Ganesh Raya Yadav, who was only three years old. The case brought to light magical rituals that are still very popular among superstitious Hindus who live in the south of the country. Investigators in the southern regions report the practice the killing of children and men are burned alive in the name of witchcraft.
After the reading of the verdict, Mahadevi Yadav admitted: “My teacher Chhabilal Raya asked me to find a child, kill it and offer its fresh blood to honor the gods. I had to do it to learn witchcraft. I only murdered a child. There are many people who practice witchcraft and even killed because their teachers say that if they do not kill a child and extract the fresh blood, they cannot have complete knowledge. “
Badri Prasad Lamichhane, an official of the Court of Appeal Hetaunda, said after the session: “We have been informed of these magic rituals but did not know children were also sacrificed and their blood was offered to learn this superstitious practice” . The two judges, Kumar Prasad Pokhrel and Sarita Sharma, who wrote in the ruling that women have committed a “heinous crime to learn superstition”. They called the murder “inhuman”, so both “deserve to be punished.”
Lamichhane reports: “Few cases like this are brought to court. There may be many other evil practices. The court will judge such cases and condemn the guilty to severe penalties to deter such behavior. “
The suspicion that there are many unknown crimes is confirmed by Krishna Gautam, senior police officer and head of the office for women and children. “We are on the alert — he says — and we suspect that there are many more crimes. The practice of witchcraft is predominant in the superstitious Hindu community in southern Nepal. Killing a child for these purposes is an evil crime. We have to make people more aware and to prevent such cases from happening again. “
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Tokyo 2020 Olympics: Zaha Hadid’s £1.3bn Stadium Design Ditched Amid Spiralling Costs
The curvaceous Aquatics Centre she created for the London Olympics in 2012 was described as “magnificent”, winning over doubters despite its expense. But Zaha Hadid’s plans for an even more ambitious Games venue have been left in tatters after Japan pulled the plug on its controversial national stadium.
The celebrated British-Iraqi architect’s winning design for the venue, set to be the centrepiece of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, had been compared to a bicycle helmet. But scepticism turned to anger as the stadium’s construction costs spiralled out of control, with one critic describing it as “a turtle waiting for Japan to sink so that it can swim away”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya: Westgate Siege Survivor: ‘Screams Will Never Leave My Mind’
The Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, in which 67 people were killed in an attack by al-Shabab militants, has reopened. It comes a week ahead of US President Barack Obama’s visit to Nairobi — a sign, the city’s governor said, that the capital was safe.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Shoppers Return to Kenyan Mall 2 Years After Terror Attack
Hundreds of shoppers Saturday thronged through the re-opened Westgate Shopping Mall in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi nearly two years after an extremist attack there left at least 67 people dead.
Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero cut a ribbon during the ceremony which came after two years of repairs from the damage caused by security forces battling four gunmen from Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group in September 2013.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Two Years After Al-Shabaab Attack, Nairobi to Reopen Westgate Mall
When Josephine Mutungi heard gunshots at Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall on Sept. 21, 2013, she thought robbers had entered and sought cover in a store where some of her CDs and musical instruments were on sale.
The inauguration of a refurbished Westgate on July 18 will be overshadowed by memories of how four al-Shabaab militants held the complex for four days, shooting and throwing grenades indiscriminately. At least 67 people were killed.
Westgate will reopen six days before US President Barack Obama arrives in Kenya — an event that will put the spotlight on the continued extremist threat in the country of his ancestors.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Is Mexico Ready for Life Without Its Sugar Daddy?
As the world’s attention is transfixed by every new development in Chapo Guzman’s latest audacious prison break, something much more important — and potentially more dangerous — is happening in Mexico. Yesterday the country held its first auction of offshore oil leases, bringing to an end 77 long years of state control over energy.
Until yesterday, Petróleos Mexicanos, A.K.A. Pemex, the state oil company, ran all oil and gas production in Mexico. But that has now changed. With it a new age has begun, one in which Mexico’s energy sector will finally get the funds it needs to extract the vast hydrocarbon resources it has at its disposal. It will also get the technology it needs for deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico as private companies, in particular from the US and the UK, provide essential know-how and best practices. In short, it is a perfect win-win for all concerned…
Or at least it was supposed to be, until the bottom fell out of the global oil markets. Now the stagnant market is overwhelmingly in the buyer’s favor and yesterday, as Bloomberg reports, the buyers weren’t interested in buying:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How Spain’s Chinese Immigrants Went From Dishwashers to Doctors
“When I was little, I used to think that I was the only Chinese child on the planet,” recalls Dídac Lee.
Lee was born in the Catalan town of Figueres in 1974, a year after his Taiwanese parents opened the first Chinese restaurant in Girona province.
Back then, being an immigrant in Catalonia meant “being from Andalusia or Madrid.” Certainly, nobody expected to find an Asian person in the neighborhood, or sitting next to them in class.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Interior Minister: Refugees Not Overburdening Germany
The German interior minister has said Germany can cope with the growing stream of refugees entering the country. His remarks came as suspected arsonists set fire to a future home for asylum seekers near Karlsruhe.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Police Escort 19 Migrants to Shelter Amid Angry Protests
Anger flares in Rome, Treviso over foreign arrivals
(ANSA) — Rome, July 17 — A bus carrying 19 refugees and escorted by police pushed past protesters to arrive at the doors of a migrant reception centre in Rome’s Casale San Nicola suburb Friday.
The refugees were spotted inside the bus, curtains drawn against water bottles and other objects thrown by anti-immigrant protesters who jostled with police, some in riot gear.
Police at one point charged the protesters after coming under a barrage of objects including sun umbrellas and chairs.
Protesters, who included members of the far-right Casapound political group, also burned rubbish containers and bales of hay. A group of demonstrators tried to block a street into the suburb, some by sitting across the roadway, but Rome Prefect Franco Gabrielli said that would be cleared.
“We won’t take any steps back,” he said.
Some protesters shouted at the migrants that “you have to get out here”.
Protests also broke out in northern Italy, where some governors have been inciting mayors to fight the arrivals of migrants into the region.
On Friday, Veneto Governor Luca Zaia complained about the “Africanization” of his region through the admission refugees into his area, best known for the international tourist destination Venice.
Anti-migrant protests have intensified, especially at the political level, as political parties such as the Northern League have gained support with their anti-immigrant rhetoric.
Italy has seen a wave of migrants from the across the Mediterranean as thousands flee war and violence in Africa and Middle East.
New figures suggested about 170,000 migrants arrived in Italy by sea in the first half of this year alone.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Anti-Immigrant Protests Break Out in Rome, Treviso
Fourteen cops injured in clashes in the capital
(ANSA) — Rome, July 17 — A bus carrying 19 asylum seekers and escorted by police in riot gear pushed past protesting local residents and extremists from the far-right Casapound political group to arrive at the doors of a migrant reception centre in Rome’s Casale San Nicola district Friday. The refugees were spotted inside the bus, curtains drawn as the bus was pelted water bottles and other objects thrown by anti-immigrant protesters, some of them shouting “You have to get out of here”.
Police at one point baton-charged the protesters after coming under a barrage of objects including sun umbrellas and chairs. Protesters also torched rubbish bins and bales of hay, while others tried to block a street.
Rome Prefect Franco Gabrielli was adamant that the protesters would be cleared. “We won’t take any steps back,” he said. Later in the day he said the violent anti-immigrant demonstrations were “indecent and unseemly”. “I hope law enforcement will cite these people so their records will reflect the things they have stained themselves with,” he said.
The prefect added “I sincerely hope the temperature will go down”. Police said later that 14 of their own were injured in the violent clashes and they arrested two protesters, cited one offender, and identified 15 more. Investigators are still going over video material to identify further suspects, police said in a statement.
Also on Friday, similar protests broke out in northern Italy, where governors from the anti-immigrant, anti-euro Northern League party have been inciting mayors to fight the arrivals of migrants into the region. Among them was Veneto Governor Luca Zaia, who complained about the “Africanization” of his region through the admission refugees into his area. Some 100 migrants whose presence in a hotel in a small town near Treviso sparked two days of protests from local residents and rightwing extremists from the Forza Nuova group — including the burning of mattresses meant for the asylum seekers — were bused to a former barracks located between the municipalities of Treviso and Casier. Their respective mayors, Giovanni Manildo and Miriam Giuriati, met with area residents prior to the transfer and explained that authorities would guarantee security and keep the peace. The area is manned by law enforcement and local police patrols.
Treviso also saw leftists from the ZTL collective go into action in defense of the refugees, occupying parts of the prefecture and calling for the prefect to step down after he bowed to violent pressure from anti-immigrant residents and rightwingers.
Police arrested 38 ZTL members in the course of that protest.
The Northern League has stepped up its anti-immigrant rhetoric in recent months, as a growing migrant crisis fuels political divisions in the country, which is struggling to emerge from an economic slump that has thrown many people into unemployment.
“Instead of giving protesting mayors and citizens a hard time, prefects should do their job and stop coddling thousands of illegal immigrants,” said League chief Matteo Salvini.
Khalid Chaouki, an MP for the ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD), slammed Salvini in response. “Salvini’s instigation to violence is shameful! Trying to pick up votes on people’s misfortune is disgusting,” he said on Twitter following the protests in Rome and Treviso. Italy has seen a wave of migrants and asylum seekers from the across the Mediterranean as thousands flee war and violence in Africa and Middle East. New figures suggested about 170,000 migrants arrived in Italy by sea in the first half of this year alone.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Three Immigrants Arrested After Landing at Taranto
Two had incarceration orders
(ANSA) — Taranto, July 15 — Three immigrants who arrived on the Swedish vessel Poseidon on Tuesday were arrested by police on Wednesday following checks that revealed two of them had previous Italian incarceration orders and one had previously been expelled from Italy.
The immigrants had been rescued off the coast of Libya in a Triton operation and brought to the port of Taranto on Tuesday along with 608 others.
A 39-year-old Algerian had been ordered to serve 4 months in prison by the appeals court in Torino for violence and threatening a public official in 2006.
A 38-year-old man from Morocco had been ordered to serve 7 years in prison by the appeals court in Lucca for drug dealing that took place in 2004.
Immigration officials also identified a 33-year-old Moroccan with false documents who had been issued an expulsion order in lieu of prison time and had been forbidden from returning to Italy until 2022.
Authorities reinstated his detention order.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Police Hurt in Rome Protest Against Migrants
Chairs and rocks were thrown at policemen as angry residents protested the arrival of 100 refugees in Casale San Nicola, a suburb in the outskirts of northern Rome, on Friday.
The coach carrying the migrants had to be escorted by an armoured police vehicle, but as it approached the protesters reacted violently, hurling rocks, chairs and abuse at the police.
Fourteen policemen were injured in the clashes and two protesters were arrested. The regional prefect, Franco Gabrielli, branded the scenes “a disgrace” and told La Repubblica that he hoped those arrested would be charged.
The violent scenes came just a day after homeowners in Treviso protested against migrants moving into their building.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
by Rebecca Bynum
Everyone, from President Obama, to Governor Haslam to Mayor Berke are all promising to “take steps” to prevent this from happening again. After 9-11, the first step President Bush should have taken was to shut off Muslim immigration. That one step could have saved the entire Homeland security budget. We never needed to create another giant bureaucracy, we needed to stop Muslims from coming here, and let the FBI monitor those already here and their mosques. That would have sufficed. Instead, we’ve been bringing in another 100,000 Muslims per year — that’s another million and a half Muslims purposely brought into our country for the FBI and Homeland security to deal with.
You may remember US attorney Bill Killian, who is now dealing with the aftermath of this latest terror attack, had proposedcriminalizing internet posts “offensive” to Muslims. As I said in protest in Manchester TN, at the time in protest to his proposal, “Stop all Muslim immigration and end all mosque building, Now!” Otherwise, our children and grandchildren will know terror without end.
Let’s have a moritorium on all immigration, including refugees. Let that become a plank for the Republican party in the next Presidential election.
Institute a moritorium on all immigration and build a barrer on our southern border. Somehow, I think that’s a job Americans WILL do.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Rescue Boat Turned Away in Sicily
Italian authorities prevented a rescue boat with some 700 migrants aboard from landing in Sicily because there was no room for the people in reception centres, a humanitarian group said late Friday.
Despite lengthy discussions with Italian authorities the migrants on a boat operated by medical charity Doctors Without Borders, were turned away due to a “lack of capacity in the Italian (migrant) reception system,” said a statement from the group.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Legs in the air, desperately trying to cram through a tiny carriage window in Macedonia, one migrant is dragged inside a train bound for Serbia.
Meanwhile hundreds of other people jostle beneath him, attempting to clamber on board the packed train at Gevgelija station, near the border of Greece and Macedonia.
Once in Serbia, they believe they will be one step closer to western Europe, as they look for a better life in Britain, France or Germany.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Whoops! Major faux pas alert! In a classic, ‘oh-gee-how-are-we-gonna-explain-this’ moment, the Senior Director of Medical Services for Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PP), Dr. Deborah Nucatola, was caught on camera discussing how she and PP go about harvesting and selling the body parts of babies they slaughter. If you haven’t seen this ghastly video, you can watch it here.
Shot in 2014 by the Center for Medical Progress, Dr. Nucatola, (A/K/A Cruella de Vil) is shown having lunch with a man and a woman posing as buyers from a human biologics company. As she noisily munches on her salad and slurps a glass of wine, she nonchalantly and even proudly describes the methods by which she and PP procure salable fetal organs and other tissues. Mmm-mmm! Bon Appetit!
WND reports that “Nucatola admits on hidden camera that PP charges per-specimen for baby parts, uses illegal partial-birth abortion procedures to get salable parts, and is aware of its own liability for doing so and takes steps to cover it up.” She details how abortion procedures are tailored not towards protecting the safety and health of the woman, as they’re constantly yapping about, but rather preserving the integrity of the hoped for body part or organ.
In fact, she freely admitted she has a meeting with her staff every morning to go over which specimens are requested by buyers, and formulates a game plan to harvest those parts from the babies scheduled to be murdered that day.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Eid 2015 Celebrations Around the World, In Pictures
Muslims around the world started celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr at sundown yesterday, signalling the end of the Holy month of Ramadan, and the start of Shawwal — the tenth month of the lunar Islamic calendar.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Parents and care-givers worldwide are being falsely accused of harming and killing children due to a charge of “Shaken Baby Syndrome” (SBS), and often this is occurring shortly after receiving vaccinations. It has been admitted by medical professionals that adverse reactions to vaccines can occur in some children and these are listed in the package inserts produced by the vaccine manufacturers.
Unfortunately, an alarming number of medical and law enforcement professionals are quick to accuse care-givers of shaking their infants so hard that they have caused them to suffer from (SBS), defined by a triad of serious brain injuries that can also be attributed to vaccine adverse reactions.
Medical professionals are quick to dismiss adverse reactions to recently administered vaccinations, or never consider them to begin with, while parents and care-givers are automatically assumed to be guilty of horrendous abuse, including the murder of young children. However, if these children have been shaken so violently that it has caused them to suffer extensive brain injuries, then why have so many suffered no external injuries as a result of their assault?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Video: Facebook Censors GMO Labeling Articles
Anthony Gucciardi breaks down Facebook’ s censorhip of his latest article, in which exposes H.R. 1599 — a bill that would effectively ban GMO labeling. RELATED: FACEBOOK CENSORS POST REVEALING SECRET BILL TO BAN GMO LABELING
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Indiana, Florida and Texas to arm the National Guard.
http://news.yahoo.com/florida-national-guard-centers-moved-armories-safety-194352870.html;_ylt=AwrC0CZSJKtVzm0AazvQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTByNXM5bzY5BGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMzBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg–
Here is something that David Wood wrote that I think is worth repeating:
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2015/07/the-greatest-threat-to-isis.html
The Islamic State’s greatest assets are (1) Western ignorance and (2) Western political correctness. Ignorance of Muhammad’s teachings keeps non-Muslims from criticizing Islam, and it prevents Muslims from leaving Islam. Political correctness silences even people who know what Muhammad taught. Hence, the greatest threat to the Islamic State is not a tank or a drone, but an informed population of free people. An informed population will be immune to taqiyya, and truly free people will never submit to the bondage of political correctness. The most important work you as a citizen can do to defeat ISIS, then, is to spend time learning why Islam is false and to share what you learn.
I was in Brassaville train station ( Paris Gare du Lyon ) yesterday. I hav’nt seen africans outnumber europeans since visiting East Africa in the nineties.
This problem will not end it will rumble on for decades in one form or another.My best guess is that if a war comes European governments will be hard pressed to fill the ranks due to split loyalties and immigrants returning to their homelands.
If Europe is not to be finished it needs to come sooner rather than later. It is a terrible thing to think.
This train station scene is now very common all over the Western part of ‘Europe’ now. It also of course means thieving, stealing, intimidating locals who have been reduced to completely dopey looking **s*o*es who are guaranteed to do nothing irregardless. Anyone seen Calais lately? Meanwhile, ‘Honey a couple of men have broken into the upstairs room!’ ‘That’s OK Dear. Just a couple of illegal alien escapees from the refugee center. They will leave soon!’ Thank God I have decided I am only passing through. Is the west having a serious mental breakdown? I think so.