One miner was killed and four escaped when a gypsum mine in Shandong Province in China collapsed. Two days later, seventeen miners remain trapped underground as rescuers attempt to reach them. The mine’s owner committed suicide earlier today by jumping into a well at the mine.
In other news, forty-three propane tanks of various sizes were stolen from an industrial facility in northeastern Philadelphia.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Diana West, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Nash Montana, Nick, Upananda Brahmachari, 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.
A Physics View of Climate Change
Aztec priests told people they must cut out their beating hearts to bring better climate for their crops. The people believed them.
Today’s climate priests tell people they must cut out their CO2 emissions and pay penances to other nations, like China, to save our climate. The people believe them.
It’s time for you to think for yourself.
I will show you physics “secrets” that will change everything you “believe” about climate.
The real climate debate is about the scientific method. This is the critical “philosophy” part of science that most people and many scientists do not understand.
To help us understand the scientific method, let’s drop in on a fictitious federal murder trial in San Francisco.
Federal criminal court procedures are similar to the scientific method. The prosecution needs a unanimous vote by the jury. Only one “Not Guilty” vote defeats the prosecution’s case.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bill Clinton and the Pedophile: The Sex Scandal That Could Destroy Hillary’s Presidential Ambitions
Why did a convicted billionaire pedophile named Jeffrey Epstein that pimped out underage girls to powerful men have 21 contact phone numbers for Bill Clinton? And why did Clinton fly on “multiple occasions” to the private Caribbean island where Epstein regularly held wild sexual orgies? Let me give you a hint: it was not to discuss politics over milk and cookies.
Every once in a while, we get a small peek into the twisted sexual world of the global elite. In this case, a Florida lawsuit that alleges that Britain’s Prince Andrew had sex with a 17-year-old “sex slave” provided by Epstein is making headlines all over the planet. But of potentially even greater importance is what this lawsuit is revealing about Bill Clinton. If it can be proven that Bill Clinton had sex with underage girls provided by Jeffrey Epstein, that could potentially destroy any chance that Hillary Clinton has of winning the presidency in 2016…
A lot of Democrats are going to end up reading this article, and a lot of them are going to start making apologies for Clinton at this point.
So let’s get one thing straight. It is not okay for anyone to have sex with underage girls. Whoever breaks the law by doing so deserves to go to prison. That includes Bill Clinton if it can be proven that he did this.
And without a doubt, Clinton and Epstein were very close. In fact, court records show that Epstein had 21 different phone numbers for Clinton…
[…]
What makes things even worse for Bill Clinton (and others) is that Epstein apparently used hidden cameras to record the sexual trysts that were going on in his guest bedrooms. The following is from an article that appeared in the Mirror…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Controversial Job Ad at the University of Louisville
Whites, Asians Need Not Apply
Many colleges want more ethnically and racially diverse faculty members. But should searches be limited to underrepresented groups? One university just tried.
Even before the recent, widespread student protests over campus climate issues, many colleges and universities were working to make their faculties more diverse. But can a department specifically reserve a position for an underrepresented minority candidate? That’s what some are asking after a job ad for an assistant professorship reserved for nonwhite, non-Asian Ph.D.s was abruptly deleted from a jobs site on Tuesday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Democrats Should Fear the Depths of Donald Trump’s Support
A word of caution to those Democrats, particularly those supporting Hillary Clinton, openly rooting for Donald Trump to win the Republican presidential nomination. Yes, his campaign has been six months of ugly, gasp-worthy rhetoric that should make the Republican Party a no-go zone for a majority of the American electorate on Election Day 2016. But folks like it. And that is reason to worry.
The caution here is that Trump’s support is deeper than we want to admit. And if we’re really being honest, we know his support doesn’t just reside within the Republican Party. Thus, Trump’s “I really don’t give a damn” mien could prove dangerous to a Clinton campaign that prizes control.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
by Diana West
Posted below is my endorsement of Donald Trump as GOP 2016 presidential nominee which Breitbart News published today. It was about time to make such a statement, given that over the unfolding campaign season, my support for his candidacy has not wavered, but rather solidified for some of the reasons stated below. It all began with “the wall” — the concept of border, concrete and metaphorical, that in our times is revolutionary. The voter-candidate bond was also forged in the hellaciously, noxiously fiery attacks on Trump from the mainstream Right, where I just happen to find some of my own choice antagonists, and perhaps for some similar reasons.
I had almost forgotten how bad these attacks have been, to tell the truth (probably blocked them out), so I am reposting refreshers…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
How to Manufacture an Anti-Muslim Hate-Crime ‘Epidemic’
by Michelle Malkin
Meet Brian Levin. He’s the one-man band behind something called the “Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism” at California State University, San Bernardino. The “center” (that is: Levin) claims to be “nonpartisan” and “objective.” But he is a former top staffer of the militant, conservative-smearing Southern Poverty Law Center, which was forced to apologize earlier this year after including famed black neurosurgeon and GOP 2016 candidate Ben Carson on its “extremist watch list” of hate groups.
NBC News, The New York Times, the Daily Mail and Slate all quoted Levin over the past week hyping his new “study” (published in esteemed academic journal The Huffington Post) on an alleged “increase,” “surge” and “spike” in “crimes against Muslims and mosques” this year.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Islamophobia’ In America vs. Murderous Christophobia in the Islamic World
A look at true religious persecution.
As organizations like CAIR and their allies wax indignant over “Islamophobia” in America, Muslims around the globe are visiting the worst sort of cruelty upon the Christian minorities in their midst.
For instance, over a span of four days, from October 19-23, the Indonesian government succumbed to the demand of Islamic “extremists” and demolished nine churches. Six days earlier, on October 13, Muslims unleashed a torrent of violence that left a church burned to the ground and a person dead.
And in the course of this single day, 8,000 Christians found themselves displaced from their homes.
The government has deported them.
According to a local church activist, someone who self-identified only as “Rudy,” Islamic militants issued an ultimatum to the Indonesian government: Either raze these Christian churches to the ground or “the radicals will deploy around 7,000 people” to besiege this Christian community.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
King Says Terror Threat Coming From Mosques, Calls for Better Surveillance
New York GOP Rep. Peter King on Sunday called again for better surveillance of mosques in the U.S., suggesting Islamic terrorists visit them and said that critics can “cry all they want” about the tactic amounting to a civil liberties violation.
King, a member of the House’s Homeland Security and Select Intelligence committees, told “Fox News Sunday” that “99 percent” of Muslims in the United States are good people and that he’s friends with people of the Islamic faith.
“But the fact is, (mosques are) where the threat is coming from,” King said.
He also argued that some Americans have a “blind political correctness” on such issues and that civil libertarians and others critics of better mosque surveillance can “cry all they want.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
A man fell off a cliff to his death on Christmas day while apparently distracted by his cell phone.
Bill Bender with San Diego Lifeguards at Sunset Cliffs told NBC San Diego: ‘Witnesses stated seeing someone distracted by an electronic device and he just fell over the edge.
‘(He) wasn’t watching where he was walking, he was looking down at the device in his hands.’
He was declared dead at the scene, the television station reported.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Scandal ‘4 Times Greater Than Solyndra’
The Department of Energy recently turned over more than 1,200 pages of heavily redacted documents in response to a records request about a subsidized biofuels company from The Daily Caller News Foundation.
In October, TheDCNF filed a FOIA request with the Energy Department, asking for email records from government officials regarding federal loan guarantees given to Abengoa, a Spanish-based green energy company. The request came on the heels of reports Abengoa was running into big financial problems, despite being given generous taxpayer-backed loans.
The DOE gave TheDCNF the records it requested Dec. 18, and after spending time reviewing the documents, it’s apparent there’s a lot of information the department did not want the public to see. The DOE redacted virtually all information specific to Abengoa — in many cases whole pages were blacked out.
Reporters were mostly interested in Abengoa’s $400 million biofuels plant near Hugoton, Kansas. The company got a $132 million federal loan and a $97 million grant to build the plant, but after a year of operation the plant seemed to be having problems of its own. Despite the hype surrounding the plant, Abengoa has filed for bankruptcy and halted operations in Hugoton.
A DOE FOIA officer handed over 1,239 pages of “previously released documents, along with the response letters that accompanied them, in regards to DOE’s Abengoa project.” He added that all “personal information in the response letters has been redacted.”
DOE also redacted “capitalized interest amounts” on Abengoa’s biofuel loan, along with internal agency communications they argued fell under the “deliberative process privilege.” DOE also argued portions of the risk assessment reports on Abengoa were redacted to protect the “deliberative process” of granting federal loans.
[Comment: Obama is doing anything and everything to pile on the debt. The flim-flam of climate change is just another excuse to pile on more debt on America.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The British Muslim family banned from entering the U.S. this week were on their way to meet relatives in California who prayed at the same mosque as terrorists Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who murdered 14 people in San Bernardino this month.
On Tuesday, Mohammad Tariq Mahmood, his brother and nine of their children were pulled from a queue at Gatwick airport by British Border Agency guards and barred from traveling to the U.S. on the instruction of the country’s Homeland Security agency.
He has claimed that they were stopped from traveling to California to visit family and Disneyland merely “because they were Muslim”.
It has now been revealed that his relative in California, Muhammad Mahmood, prayed at the same mosque as U.S.-born terrorist Syed Farook and his Pakistani born wife Tashfeen — believed to be the Tablighi Jamaat-run Dar Al Uloom Islamiyah mosque.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
San Francisco Forces Locally Owned Bookstore to Close by Mandating $15 Minimum Wage
(NaturalNews) Left-wing activists demanding “social justice” have managed to convince policymakers up and down the West Coast to adopt regulations forcing local shops and businesses to pay their low-skilled workers an inordinately high minimum wage — one that is nearly double the federal minimum wage. And now, predictably, many of those shops are becoming casualties of this economic terrorism.
One of them is a beloved bookstore that had been in business nearly two decades. But there will be others.
As reported by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) on its website, residents of San Francisco voted to increase the minimum wage in the city to $15 an hour by 2018, requiring shops and businesses to pay low-skilled and younger workers without experience an outsized wage that is usually reserved for more-experienced, better-trained employees.
As such, Borderlands Books has become one of the first San Francisco businesses to close as a result of the policy, because its owners simply cannot afford the higher mandated wage.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Thieves Swipe Dozens of Industrial-Sized Propane Tanks From Northeast Philadelphia Facilities
Counterterrorism officials and police are searching for a man who stole dozens of industrial propane tanks from two Northeast Philadelphia facilities last week, law enforcement sources tell NBC10.
The tanks were stolen overnight last Thursday from Praxair at 2300 Church Street in Frankford and James Morrissey Inc. at 4720 Pennypack Street in the Holmesburg section of the city, sources said.
Security footage from the facilities show a man loading 43 tanks of various sizes into a dark-colored minivan, according to sources.
Twenty-four of the tanks are said to be the size and style used to fuel forklifts, sources said. Also taken were nine tanks that hold 100 pounds of fuel, four 50 pound tanks, four 33 pound tanks and two 2 pound tanks, according to sources.
Investigators sent out a bulletin to authorities across Northeast Philadelphia asking them to be on the lookout for the van and thief.
| — Hat tip: Nash Montana | [Return to headlines] |
Britain’s Faith Leaders Blast World for Ignoring Muslim Crackdown on Christmas
ANGRY religious leaders across Britain have blasted the world for failing to protect persecuted Christians after it was revealed some are being threatened with jail if they celebrate Christmas.
The super-rich leader of Brunei said anyone celebrating Christmas, including sending cards and putting up trees, will face up to five years in prison.
A former British colony, its authorities announced they will also fine revellers £13,420 for any ceremony which goes against Sharia law — which also includes using candles or crosses or even singing hymns and carols.
Somalia’s leading cleric re-issued a similar 2013 warning against Christmas, as well as new year celebrations.
Religious affairs minister, Sheikh Mohamed Khayrow, said: “All events related to Christmas and new year celebrations are contrary to Islamic culture.”
[Not ‘extremist’ culture, or ‘radical’ culture or even ‘radical Islamist’ culture. Just plain old Islamic culture. How interesting!]
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Four Christians have been beaten up in Berlin, Germany’s capital city, in the early hours of Saturday morning.
German media reports that four men were leaving the Adagio venue in the bustling Potzdamer Platz area when they were challenged by a man who exclaimed: “I am a Muslim! What are you?” before setting upon the four 20-somethings. He was reportedly assisted by four, older accomplices.
Police are now investigating the incident as a politically motivated attack, and at least five people are thought to have been injured in the melee, including one passer by who tried to settle the dispute.
[So Islam is a political ideology now is it — not a ‘race’?]
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Did the Assassin Who Killed the Al-Hilli Family Strike Before?
Retired detective believes same gunman was behind murder of British couple 26 years earlier
French police investigating the al-Hilli murders have been asked to look into the whereabouts and alibi of a man suspected to have carried out a near-identical crime 26 years earlier.
Retired detective Pascale Huche claims the killing of Britons Lorraine Glasby, 28, and Paul Bellion, 29, in Brittany in 1986, bears remarkable similarity to that of Saad al-Hilli, 50, and his family.
The Iraqi businessman, who lived in Surrey, was killed alongside his wife Iqbal and mother-in-law Suhaila when they were gunned down in their car in the French Alps in September 2012.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hundreds Defy Demonstration Ban in France’s Corsica
Several hundred people marched in Corsica on Sunday after two days of violent anti-Arab riots, sidestepping a ban on demonstrations in a flashpoint neighbourhood by taking their protests elsewhere in the island capital Ajaccio.
Two people were detained over the rioting on the French Mediterranean island, which saw demonstrators vandalise a Muslim prayer hall and set fire to books including copies of the Koran.
Corsica’s administrator Christophe Mirmand announced a ban on all protests and gatherings until at least January 4 in the poor Jardins de l’Empereur housing estate, the epicentre of the violence on Thursday through Saturday…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Libyan Terrorism Suspect Freed
Suspect allegedly in contact with foreign fighters
(supersedes previous)(ANSA) — Palermo, December 23 — A Palermo judge on Wednesday denied a request from prosecutors to keep in custody a female Libyan researcher at a Sicilian university suspected of instigation to commit acts of terrorism.
Police earlier in the day had detained Benghazi native Khadiga Shabbi, 45, on evidence gleaned after months of surveillance that she is in contact with at least two foreign fighters — one in Belgium, the other in Britain — and has produced propaganda for al-Qaeda on the Internet. She also allegedly sent money to Turkey and tried to bring her cousin to Italy, but he died in a gun fight. Investigators say she is related to members of a terrorist group that carried out a September 11, 2012, attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, in which Islamist militants killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and U.S.
Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith.
Police say her Facebook profile features propaganda from Islamist extremist groups such as Ansar al-Sharia Libya, plus war imagery, flyers, and sermons calling for jihad. A preliminary investigations judge ruled that there was no risk of Shabbi fleeing Palermo — where she has lived for the past three years on a 2,000-euro monthly stipend from the Libyan embassy — and only barred her from leaving the city and from leaving her home at night.
Prosecutors say they will appeal the judge’s decision.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Jihad Instigator’ To Stay in Jail
Suspect is 25-year-old Pisa resident with Moroccan roots
(ANSA) — Pisa, December 22 — A 25-year-old man who lives in Ponsacco near Pisa but has Moroccan roots is to remain in prison custody pending trial for ‘instigating jihad’ through Facebook, the Supreme Court of Cassation ruled Tuesday.
The court rejected an appeal against the pre-trial custody from lawyers acting for Jalal El Hanaoui, who has lived in Italy since he was a child.
El Hanaoui, who was arrested in July, has rejected the charges against him and during recent questioning he has reportedly explicitly distanced himself from ISIS and radical Islam. His trial is set to begin in February.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Horror Clinic’ Surgeon Jailed for Life
Pier Paolo Brega Massone found guilty of four murders
(ANSA) — Milan, December 21 — An appeals court on Monday upheld a life sentence against a former thoracic surgeon for first-degree murder in the deaths of four elderly patients. The former head of Milan’s Santa Rita Clinic, Pier Paolo Brega Massone, was first found guilty of first-degree murder in 2014.
The former surgeon “has an evil nature” and “did not hesitate” to perform some 90 unnecessary surgeries with utter lack of compassion for others, prosecutor Grazia Pradella said at the time in requesting the life sentence.
In October 2010, Brega Massone was sentenced in a previous trial to 15-and-a-half years in prison on the charges while his assistants, Fabio Pietro Presicci and Marco Pansera, were sentenced to 10 years, and six years and nine months respectively.
The scandal surrounding the Santa Rita Clinic — dubbed the “clinic of horrors” by Italian media — broke in May 2008, when Brega Massone and Presicci were jailed on murder charges.
Eleven other doctors and the owner of the clinic were, at the time, placed under house arrest for their role in performing superfluous and lucrative operations, including on some terminally ill patients.
In rejecting his plea to avoid preventive custody, the Court of Cassation said in 2009 that Brega Massone was “fully aware” of the risks involved in carrying out the unnecessary operations and did so for “no other reason than making a profit”.
The court had said he should remain in jail while awaiting trial, stressing that he had “decreed the patients’ deaths” with his conduct.
Among the operations performed was the removal of a lung, which allegedly caused the patient to die.
Another alleged murder case, investigators said, was that of an elderly woman who could have been saved by having a tumour wholly removed but instead underwent three separate operations, which fatally weakened her while lining doctors’ pockets.
At least two women, including a 19-year-old, were subjected to mastectomies for simple cysts as part of what prosecutors said was an ongoing “system” set up to claim reimbursements from the State health fund.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Latorre in Italy ‘Not Free From Suffering’
‘Fourth Christmas under these conditions’
(ANSA) — Bari, December 23 — Massimiliano Latorre, one of two Italian marines accused by India of the 2012 shooting deaths of two fishermen, on Wednesday said that being in Italy and not India during the holidays “isn’t free from hardships and suffering”.
“It’s not easy, even if it’s here,” he said.
Latorre is currently in Italy on a special permit granted to him by the Indian Supreme Court to receive recovery treatment for a stroke he suffered last year at the Italian Embassy in New Delhi, where the other Marine, Salvatore Girone, is still living.
Latorre’s permit is set to expire on January 16.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lives for Sale: Booming Market for Bulgarian Babies in Greece
“Ah, don’t even ask, in our village almost everybody has left a baby in Greece. I at least managed to buy myself this little house with the bloody money, so we’d have somewhere to live with the kids. I haven’t squandered a single lev. But many people here give away babies for the easy money — they drink, they eat, they party. When the money runs out, they just sell the next baby.”
This is Stanka, a woman in her 30s from Bulgaria’s marginalised Roma minority who admits she sold a new-born boy in Greece a few years ago for €3,500 ($3,700), a crime for which she is currently on trial.
“I regret it all the time and can’t stop thinking of that boy, but I was young and stupid. I couldn’t imagine any other way to earn some money to feed my other two children, I had no hope,” she says, her voice trembling.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Paris Attacker Samy Amimour Buried in Unmarked Grave
One of the men who attacked the Bataclan music venue in Paris on 13 November was buried on Christmas Eve in a northern suburb, reports say.
Samy Amimour was one of three suicide attackers who killed 90 people at a rock concert.
He was buried in a cemetery in Seine-Saint-Denis, where he grew up and where his parents live. Only a few people attended and the grave is unmarked.
A total of 130 people were killed in the Islamist militant attacks in Paris.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK Anti-Terror Cops Reveal Muslims Offer Almost No Help in Combatting Extremism
Muslims are boycotting Prevent, the British government’s anti-radicalisation programme, with community leaders accounting for less than a tenth of extremism tip-offs.
The vast majority of tip-offs are instead coming from public services, such as schools and hospitals, or the police.
[So much for ‘continuing’ to get ‘help’ from ‘moderate Muslims’ to prevent ‘radical Islamist extremism’]
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Bromley Shopping Centre Machete ‘Attack’ Prompts Fears of Terrorism
At least six teenagers, some armed with knives left terrified families running from their lives from a Bromley shopping centre fearing the mall was under an ISIS-style terrorism attack.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Gonorrhoea ‘Could Become Untreatable’
Gonorrhoea could become an untreatable disease, England’s chief medical officer has warned.
Dame Sally Davies has written to all GPs and pharmacies to ensure they are prescribing the correct drugs after the rise of “super-gonorrhoea” in Leeds.
Her warning comes after concerns were raised that some patients were not getting both of the antibiotics needed to clear the infection.
Sexual health doctors said gonorrhoea was “rapidly” developing resistance.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: IT Technician ‘Kidnapped and Raped Woman for Five Days to Force Her to Convert to Islam’
A MAN kidnapped and raped a woman for five days to force her to convert to Islam after she rejected his marriage proposal, according to police.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Croatian Conservatives to Return to Power
Croatian Democratic Union and the Most party agreed
(ANSA-AP) — ZAGREB, Croatia — Croatia’s opposition conservatives and a small pro-reform party have reached an agreement to form a new government, ending weeks of uncertainty after last month’s inconclusive parliamentary elections.
The Croatian Democratic Union and the Most party agreed Wednesday to nominate Tihomir Oreskovic, a non-partisan candidate, as the prime minister designate. They said earlier they have secured 78 votes together in Croatia’s 151-seat parliament.
Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic is to formally announce the nomination later Wednesday.
The country’s Nov. 8 election was inconclusive, with opposition right-wing and ruling left-wing coalitions winning 59 and 56 seats respectively in the assembly. The newly formed Most party, meaning bridge in English, became kingmaker after winning 19 seats.
Most has negotiated with both coalitions, ultimately choosing to form a new government with the right-wing bloc.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS: 11 Islamic Radicals Arrested in Bosnia
Raids still ongoing in Wahhabi places of worship
(ANSA) — SARAJEVO — Bosnian police launched a big operation in Sarajevo this morning and arrested 11 Islamic radicals, who are investigated for alleged recruiting and incitement to acts of terrorism, the anti-terrorism section of the prosecutor’s office in Sarajevo reported. All 11 people are linked to Isis groups and fighters in Syria and Iraq.
The raid is still ongoing and police are searching several homes and private buildings in Sarajevo, and especially two places of worship attended by followers of the Wahhabi sect of Islam. Some clues have been found, proving that the group is Isis-linked.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sharp Drop in Pilgrim Visits to the Holy Land in 2015
Due to ISIS, Iraq-Syria war and Israeli-Palestinian conflict
VATICAN CITY — Only 275,118 pilgrims and 8,254 groups booked services in sanctuaries in 2015, according to a recent report in the Terra Santa magazine.
The figures include the period between January 1 and December 15, 2015, and were provided by the Franciscan Pilgrim Officer (FPO), which regulates masses and prayers held in the 16 holy sites managed by the Custody of the Holy Land.
The sharp drop is believed to have been due to fears concerning the Islamic State (ISIS), wars in the region (Syria and Iraq) and insecurity due to violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Since October the Jerusalem FPO has been using a digital reservations system, but the system does not include visitors and groups of pilgrims able to take part in mass in the sanctuaries without a reservation. The FPO noted that tourism ministry figures do not differentiate between the reasons visitors come to the country. The only sanctuary it is able to calculate the number of pilgrims including visitors without a reservation is Kefar Nahum, which had 481,781 in 2015. In 2014 — which suffered due to conflict in Gaza in the summer — the figure had been 674,327.
The FPO said that the figures in the report can give an idea but do not show the real number of visitors and pilgrims. The head of the Custody of the Hold Land, Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, said that about half a million Catholic pilgrims came to the Holy Land in 2015, “a sharp fall compared with the past”. Visitors to Kefar Nahum, for example, fell by 28.5% on the year.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
“Secret” Documents Show ISIS May be Flesh-Eating, Organ Harvesters, US Says
For those who have followed the meteoric — and completely implausible — rise of Islamic State, it’s easy to become desensitized to the group’s apparent brutality.
As we documented in “Inside The ISIS Propaganda Machine: An Up-Close Look At A Militant Media Strategy,” the group produces nearly 40 pieces of propaganda each and every day via a sprawling network of discrete production units located in a dozen countries. Although most of the propaganda pieces actually aren’t murder montages, many of them are and when you’re churning out that much material, eventually you start to run out of ideas. That, presumably, is why more “creative” execution methods like drowning people in cages and hanging soldiers upside down from a swing set before lighting them on fire have recently given way to less imaginative, Kim Jong Un-style tactics like executing prisoners with a TOW and running people over with tanks.
Once you’ve seen enough of these clips, revulsion slowly turns to disbelief as the footage is at times so violent that one begins to question if it’s real. As desensitizing as the material ultimately is, ISIS (or whoever is actually behind all of this) has a remarkable penchant for taking things up a notch just when you thought they had reached peak-sickening.
Case in point: among a cache of documents the US claims to have recovered in a raid in Syria, we find “Fatwa Number 68” which explicitly sanctions organ harvesting from prisoners.
“The ruling, contained in a January 31, 2015 document, says taking organs from a living captive to save a Muslim’s life, even if it is fatal for the captive, is permissible,” Reuters reports, adding that they “couldn’t independently confirm the authenticity of the document [but] US officials say it was among a trove of data and other information obtained by US special forces in a raid in eastern Syria in May.”
The raid they’re referencing is the commando assault that killed ISIS “gas minister” Abu Sayyaf (profiled here). That operation netted seven terabytes of data in the form of computer hard drives, thumb drives, CDs, DVDs and papers, according to Brett McGurk, U.S. President Barack Obama’s Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (and the man who announced on Twitter that the group’s Iraqi FinMin was conveniently killed in a drone strike right around the time Russia began accusing Erdogan of trafficking Islamic State oil).
“The apostate’s life and organs don’t have to be respected and may be taken with impunity. Organs that end the captive’s life if removed: The removal of that type is also not prohibited,” the Islamic State’s Research and Fatwa Committee says (and yes, you read that correctly, they have a “research committee”).
The “scholars” look to have justified organ harvesting by likening it to cannibalism, which is obviously fine: “A group of Islamic scholars have permitted, if necessary, one to kill the apostate in order to eat his flesh, which is part of benefiting from his body,” the Committee continued.
McGurk says he hasn’t been able to personally verify that any actual organs have been harvested, but Iraq’s UN ambassador says 12 doctors were killed in Mosul this year after refusing to remove organs:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Caliphate Cub Scouts: Daesh Teaching Children to Torture, Kill ‘Infidels’
Gruesome images released on the Internet show boys playing with severed heads
Daesh (ISIL/ISIS) continues to propagate its intolerant ideology of hatred, anti-humanism and the cult of death among children, distorting the teachings of Islam to suit their sectarian doctrine. The terrorist organization Daesh is demonstrating its commitment to build a “caliphate” based on the principles of “purified” Islam: jihadists claim that they would pass the baton to the next generation of “Islamic State cubs.”Indeed, Daesh devotes much attention to establishing special training camps for children between the ages of 5-12. According to the organization’s propaganda videos, one of these camps, Farouk Institute for Cubs, is located in the province of Raqqa in Syria.
What are Islamist “cubs” being taught?
A 24-page Daesh document obtained by the Guardian reads that the camp education includes “Sharia sessions in [jurisprudence], doctrine and rulings, with special sessions in Islamic society and manners, and training on bearing light arms and the principles of use.”
The day usually starts at 4:00 am with prayers, followed by lectures in Islamic studies from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm. However, a considerable part of the time is devoted to military training.
“Training on bearing arms and principles of use” means that the children are being taught to kill. Under the personal supervision of their “instructors”, young children and teenagers behead prisoners captured by Daesh.
[Comment: Sleep deprivation and constant “instruction” is designed to make the kids into brainless automatons.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Daesh Kidnaps Women and Children to Sell as Sex Slaves on Social Media
MORE than 7,000 young women and children have been kidnapped from their homes and sold into slavery in a chilling new moneymaking operation by Islamic State leaders.
Turkey was last night facing questions about its role in the war against the extremists as it was claimed IS had been running their human trafficking business from offices in a Turkish city.
As coalition air attacks pummel IS revenue-generating oil fields, the warlords have been forced to diversify and are now focusing efforts on targeting and abducting innocent civilians in Syria and Northern Iraq.
Their pictures are posted on social media feeds including WhatsApp and the Messenger for slave buyers to peruse from the safety of their homes. Women fetch an average £15,000 while children are thought to command about £10,000 each.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
German Kurds Protest Turkish Crackdown
Around 15,000 people marched in Dusseldorf on Saturday to protest against Turkey’s military crackdown against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels, local police said.
The marchers, demonstrating on behalf of Germany’s federation of Kurdish groups, Nav-Dem, also slammed the European Union for striking a refugee “deal” with Ankara, promising three billion euros in return for holding back refugee flows.
A police spokesman said the turnout at the protest was far higher than the 7,000 people expected by the organisers.
After a ceasefire for more than two years, fighting resumed last summer between Turkish security forces and the PKK, dashing hopes of ending a conflict that has left more than 40,000 people dead since 1984.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iraqi Forces ‘Retake Islamic State Ramadi Stronghold’
Iraqi forces have retaken a former government compound in Ramadi from where Islamic State (IS) group militants have been resisting an army offensive, the military has said.
The complex was “under complete control” and there was no sign of IS fighters, a spokesman said.
He said this heralded the defeat of IS in the city, although he admitted there could be pockets of resistance.
The government has been trying to retake Ramadi for weeks.
The mainly Sunni Arab city, about 55 miles (90km) west of Baghdad, fell to IS in May, and was seen as an embarrassing defeat for the army.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Puts Up Heavy Fight to Slow Iraqi Troop Advance on Ramadi
Islamic State fighters are putting up a tough fight in the militant-held city of Ramadi, slowing down the advance of Iraqi forces, a senior Iraqi commander said Sunday.
Iraq launched the long-awaited operation to retake the Anbar provincial capital, which was captured by IS militants in May, but after an initial push across the Euphrates River, their progress stalled.
Gen. Ismail al-Mahlawi, head of the Anbar military operations, told The Associated Press that the advance was hampered by suicide bombers, snipers and booby traps.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
India: Hindu Trader Brutally Murdered by Drunk Muslims for Protesting Beef & Whiskey Near Temple.
In an Islamic Christmas, Hindu trader brutally murdered by drunk Muslim picnickers after being chased to cook beef and drink whiskey near a Vaishnava temple near Shantipur, West Bengal.
Subir Mondal | HENB | Shantipur | Dec 26, 2015:: The spot is very much sacred to the Hindus. The locals say that the icon of Bhakti Movement, Shri Chaitanya Deva visited the place and one of his divine associates, Sri Adyaita lived here for sadhana (sacramental activities) at Babla at the outskirt of Shantipur in Nadia, WB. The life is peaceful here now at “Sri Sri Adyaita Path Ashram” at Babla area beside NH 34, but they came to this place to violate the holy place with an evil Jihadi attitude.
On the Christmas day on Dec. 25, when their clan clerics issued fatwas not to observe the day publicly in merriness in Lakemba, Australia or in Islamic World, they reached Babla Picnic spot early and stationed near “Sri Sri Adyaita Path” — a Hindu Ashram to violate and pollute the place to get some extra Islamic pleasure from the Christmas celebration.
The Muslim perpetrators came from Kajipara-Shaikhpara area of Shantipur and started cooking beef near the Hindu Temple area, consuming whiskey and playing vulgar music in a high pitch. They were throwing deposits and beef bones etc. towards the temple. They made the area as a hell.
Noticing these a group of Hindu boys coming from Sukantapally of same Shanitipur protested those Islamic menace.
Locals said about 15 Muslim youths of Shantipur Kajipara-Shaikhpara had organized a picnic on Friday noon. Some of the youths, who were drunk, suddenly started fighting with other Hindu groups on protest against desecration of the temple premises . “At that time, a fish trader and weaver Gurupada Biswas (in his fifties), a resident of Sukantapally in Shantipur, was returning from work. Biswas tried to save the known Hindu boys and also wanted to know why they were drinking in the open and cooking beef near a Hindu Temple. At this, the Muslim youths became agitated and started beating up Biswas with bamboo sticks and bricks. Biswas fell on the ground and became unconscious. Then the perpetrators dragged him into a nearby mango orchard” said a source…
| — Hat tip: Upananda Brahmachari | [Return to headlines] |
India: Muslim Engineer Raped Female Colleague for Five Days ‘To Convert Her to Islam’
Engineer Syen Emad Hasan, 30, abducted her when she returned to India from Dubai. He then took three days’ leave and ‘brutalised and sexually assaulted her’, police have said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Mine Owner Kills Himself as 17 Miners Remain Trapped
The owner of a gypsum mine in China’s eastern Shandong province has killed himself, as rescuers try to reach 17 miners who have been trapped for two days, state media report.
One person died and four miners escaped when the mine collapsed on Friday.
Since then, rescue workers have managed to pull a number of miners to safety.
China has a long history of industrial accidents. The latest incident comes days after a deadly landslide caused by construction waste in southern China.
Ma Congbo, the chairman of Yurong company which owns the mine, drowned himself by jumping into a mine well early on Sunday, China’s Xinhua news agency reports.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Almost 300 suspected terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants are attempting to cross UK borders every day, figures from a top-secret monitoring centre suggest.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the number of potentially dangerous passengers being flagged up by a massive high-tech database has soared by 60 per cent in the past two years.
An investigation by this newspaper has found:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Can We Hold Non-Profits Legally Liable for Sponsoring Jihadi Immigrants?
I heard recently from a Wyoming state legislator who is a fan of AT and a true conservative and fighter. Most of the Republicans in Wyoming’s state government are quintessential RINOs — they know they would have no chance of election unless their name is on the Republican ticket, so everyone runs as a Republican. In reality, the conservatives in the state legislature are an embattled few.
Like all of us at AT, they are extremely concerned about the national security dangers posed by President Obama allowing in immigrants and refugees from jihadi countries.
This is what I have been hearing from Wyoming (before the attempt to smear Trump on these issues):
Some of us legislators are thinking about a bill which would require Refugees and Asylees in Wyoming to register with local law enforcement (like sexual predator registration). Penalties for failure to register TBD.
Further, we would hold sponsoring agencies -Lutheran Family Services, Catholic Charities, etc. liable (criminally? financially?) for any Refugee’s or Asylee’s failure to register.
Our bill would apply to any Refugee or Asylee regardless of national origin, gender, race, religion, etc., so it wouldn’t be religious discrimination.
We often hear of the government losing track of immigrants, refugees and asylees. This would fix that, at least for refugees and those granted asylum in this country. This would add a level of security for Wyoming residents.
I like the idea of holding NGOs such as Lutheran Family Services and Catholic Charities accountable for their charges, for whom they are vouching.
AT has been following the story of church and other non-profit groups working as crony partners for Obama’s pro-jihadi policies. We are talking about huge sums of taxpayer money being funneled to “charities’ to spread immigrants, legal and illegal, throughout America. The Baptist Child and Family Services and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have received approximately half a billion — yes, that is billion — dollars each. Read here, here, and here, and follow refugeeresettlementwatch here.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Czech President Milos Zeman Calls Migrant Wave in Europe an ‘Organised Invasion’
Czech President Milos Zeman, known for his anti-migrant comments, on Saturday called the current wave of refugees to Europe “an organised invasion”, and that young men from Syria and Iraq should instead “take up arms” against the Islamic State (IS) group.
“I am profoundly convinced that we are facing an organised invasion and not a spontaneous movement of refugees,” said Zeman in his Christmas message to the Czech Republic released Saturday.
He went on to say that compassion was “possible” for refugees who are old or sick and for children, but not for young men who in his view should be back home fighting against jihadists.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Czech President Zeman Says Refugee Wave is ‘Organized Invasion’
Czech President Milos Zeman has compared the refugees arriving to Europe with the Trojan horse, and called the influx an ‘organized invasion.’ His comments were met with outrage.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
German Navy Rescued 10,000 Migrants in Med
Germany’s navy said Saturday it rescued over 10,000 migrants at sea this year, including more than 500 people off the coast of Libya on Christmas day.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Here Are Five Important Pillars That Should be Part of a Patriot Policy on Terrorism:
Pillar #1 — Ban immigration into the U.S. from all Muslim countries combined with a greatly restricted issuance of visas to Muslims, as Donald Trump advocates. Such a ban does not mean that we cease to do business with Muslim nations. It means we need to restore the “National Origins” immigration policy that prevailed in America prior to 1965, we need to greatly tighten the granting of visas to people from Muslim countries, and we need to reduce our overall immigrant intake from the current 1,000,000 annually to 100,000 annually. This will create more stability in the process and allow us to pick and choose more precisely who comes into our country as immigrants and as visitors.
This is not “unconstitutional” as our absurd establishment pundits are squawking about. Citizens of foreign countries do not have the same rights as American citizens under our Constitution. There is no such thing as a “right” to come to America as an immigrant or as a visitor. There is a “privilege” to become an immigrant or a visitor if the American people wish to bestow such a privilege upon you. That is all.
A Pew Research Center poll in 2013 shows that 27% of Muslims worldwide are “unconcerned with extremism” in their faith, with double digit support in many Muslim countries for violent Jihad. These percentages are not going to ever be reduced to zero. Thus it is the height of irrationality to open our borders to tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants every year. There is no way to discern whether any of them are “sympathetic” or prone to “becoming sympathetic” to violent Jihad and the suicide bombing of infidels. Moreover even peaceful Muslims wish to destroy the constitutional systems of the West and replace them with Sharia law systems. See my article, Muslim Immigration: Boon or Bane?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Nearly Half of Democrats Say They Would Accept Refugees From Agrabah — the Fictional City in Aladdin
Remember the 30 per cent of Republicans who supported bombing Agrabah — the fictional city in Aladdin?
Remember how ridiculous you considered it? Remember how shocking it was to think that some people have such little regard for what is going on outside of their own borders they would consider bombing a make-believe Disney city?
Well now the Democrats have stepped in to force you to further question US foreign policy as it turns out nearly half would welcome refugees from Agrabah, the fictional city in Aladdin.
In a survey carried out by WPA Research 44 per cent of respondents said they would support allowing Agrabah refugees into the country while 27 per cent opposed. The remaining 28 percent were “indifferent”.
The poll also found that young Democrats (18-34) and “a key constituency of President Obama” were particularly keen to welcome and rehome “imaginary refugees”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Strasbourg and UNHCR, “Orban Incites Xenophobia”
Reaction against government’s anti-refugee campaign
(ANSA) — STRASBOURG — “Hungary must refrain from policies and speeches that incite intolerance, fear and xenophobia against refugees and migrants”: this is what The Council of Europe and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) stated, reacting to a campaign launched by the government led by Viktor Orban, in which those fleeing from wars, on the basis of their religious beliefs and the country from which they come, are depicted as criminals, invaders and terrorists.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Vienna and Ljubljana Prepare to Build New Fences
In winter, flow decreases, calm before ‘spring storm’
(ANSA) — Spielfeld / DRAGONJA (AUSTRIA / SLOVENIA), DEC. 17 — The weather is getting colder and tighter controls at the southern end of the Balkan route have been established. No wonder that the flow of migrants crossing Slovenia and Austria has greatly decreased compared with recent months, but it could just be the calm before a new ‘storm’, next spring. Vienna and Ljubljana, in order to avoid being unprepared, are working to strengthen security on the borders.
Slovenia is doing so by extending the existing 137km of barbed wire along the Slovenian-Croatian border in Istria; Austria is building a 40km metal fence on the border between Austria and Slovenia at Spielfeld. Both fences have the same goal: to funnel refugees towards guarded crossings, in order to better control them. At Spielfeld, a crucial crossing point in Austria, the fence is seen as an inevitable solution, even though arrivals have been ‘just’ 1,000 per day in the last days, after peaks — in autumn — of 7-8,000 arrivals per day.
“The winter season has reduced the arrivals, but the fence is necessary. It allows you to monitor who enters”, says Reinhold Hoeflechner, mayor of Strass- Spielfeld. “The people here are happy with the building of the fence, they feel safer”, he remarked, admitting that “there are those who are against”.
Among these, the Polz family, entrepreneurs who own vineyards in the hills sorrounding Spielfeld, and who should allow the destruction of a thousand plants to facilitate the building of the fence. They have already said ‘no’ and the fence will have a 300m ‘hole’. Helmut Strobl, former politician and land owner along the border, spoke of “unnecessary move” and Austrian “Orbanisation”.
You can find another hole — only a few metres long — in Slovenia, that has already put up 137 kilometres of barbed wire and that, in the words of the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, Bostjan efic, assured that the entire border could be completely “sealed”. Anyway, someone is against the fence.
At Dobova, where trains carrying migrants arrive from Croatia, the fence was built some weeks ago, regardless of decreasing flows. At the reception centre near the station “there is no one”, says the head of the structure, Sebastjan, pointing at the empty tents. “The situation is calm”, says Sonja Cvetkovic, a resident.
“The barbed wire? No need” she adds immediately with ‘disgust’, saying later “I am glad my parents, deported to Germany during the Second World War, are dead and should not see all this again”. Istria, a peninsula which is divided between Slovenia and Croatia, is the area where you can find the strongest opposition to fences.
Barbed wire — 4.5 kilometers have been put up in the peninsula so far — should be removed immediately, “we do not need it” and “it is likely to cause problems to local economy and tourism”, said Valter Flego, President of the Region of Istria. Along with mayors from Slovenia and Croatia, Flego protested yesterday at the Dragonja crossing, on the border between Slovenia and Croatia. All together, the authorities of two different countries, have protested against the barbed wire. Here, at the heart of Istria, nobody seems to want it and — so far — its usefulness is highly debatable.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Are There Genes for Intelligence — and is it Racist to Ask?
Scientists are struggling with the ethics of research that might one day lead to engineering smarter humans.
Some people are taller than others. Others have wider hips, lighter hair, longer toes, or flatter feet. No one disputes that our genes help determine how we look. But what about intelligence—is it an inherited trait?
And as our ability to tinker with the genomes of human embryos comes closer to reality, will creating babies with enhanced intelligence be far behind?
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
CNN Now Openly Glorifying Satanists While Vilifying Christians and Jews
(NaturalNews) For the secular, tradition-trashing editors and correspondents over at CNN, ‘Tis the season to be bigots.
As reported by Newsbusters, a recent “This is Life” segment of the little-watched network’s CNN Newsroom program actually highlighted the plight of Satanists who are trying to get more widespread acceptance of their beliefs in a predominantly Judeo-Christian country, the United States.
“As This is Life host Lisa Ling appeared live at the end of the 2:00 p.m. hour of CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin, Ling ended up recalling the case of a woman who viewed Satanists as defenders of ‘civil rights’ and joined their group as the mother blamed the ‘imposition of Christian values’ at school for her gay son committing suicide.”
But wait — hasn’t the Left successfully utilized the Judicial Branch to remove all vestiges of Christianity from public schools? That fact in and of itself should make you question the woman’s motivation, but again, it’s CNN, which is notoriously anti-American and very liberal, so we’re left to wonder.
In any event Ling, after recalling that members of the Satanic temple she visited do not literally worship Satan, said:
“More than anything, they really are kind of a political action group, and they exist to protest the imposition of what they say are Judeo-Christian values on our political system, in our politics, and in public life.”
The anti-Christians A “political action group?” Really? According to a January 2014 story by The Economist:
“Despite … differences, certain commonalities link many spiritual and materialist branches of Satanism: namely a belief that the worship of a supernatural deity—and the ecclesiastical structure that evolved to support such worship—places needless restrictions on human knowledge and progress; and a belief in science, rationality and learning, without restrictions.”
So, in essence, Satanists believe in nothing, per se — which is 180 degrees counter to Christianity (and every other religious denomination that involves faith in a higher power). That’s not a PAC, Ms. Ling, it’s more like a cult.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In NYC, Using Biological Pronouns for Transgenders is Now Illegal…
Naturally, there’s been an arms-race to see who can pander the fastest.
New York City has warned landlords, employers and businesses they could be running afoul of the law by purposely calling a transgender woman “him” or “Mr.” when she prefers a female title and pronoun, or by barring her from using a women’s restroom.
New guidelines detail the legal protections of transgender and gender-nonconforming New Yorkers and what constitutes discrimination under the city’s Human Rights Law, the New York City Commission on Human Rights said on Monday.
Some 25,000 transgender and gender non-conforming people live in New York City, where discrimination based on gender identity and expression has been illegal since 2002.
Yes, you’ve read correctly. In New York City, it is now illegal to call someone by their actual gender instead of their preferred gender. You must take part in their delusional, alternate reality or face legal consequences.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Insists High School Girls Stare at Penis of Boy Who Thinks He’s a Girl
“Stare at his penis, dammit! He’s a woman!”
So goes the logic over at the Obama administration, where the federal government has now mandated that high school girls be forced to change and shower in their locker rooms next to mentally ill biological boys who think they’re girls. On Monday, the federal government ruled that a Chicago high school could no longer merely allow a transgender girl, complete with penis and testicles, into the girls’ locker room: they had to allow him to change, shower, and do all the other activities the girls do with the girls present.
The school had attempted to accommodate the gender dysphoric youngster by allowing him into the girls’ room but telling him to change behind a curtain. That was not enough, according to the feds. Said Department of Education Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon, “All students deserve the opportunity to participate equally in school programs and activities — this is a basic civil right. Unfortunately, Township High School District 211 is not following the law because the district continues to deny a female student the right to use the girls’ locker room.”
The “female student” is not female. He has all his boy parts, and every cell in his body except for some of his sperm cells has a Y chromosome.
But we’re through the looking glass. So far through the looking glass that the federal government invoked Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, a provision designed to protect women from sexism. Now, Title IX forces underage girls to be exposed to the penises of young men who think they’re girls. It’s one thing for high school boys and girls to play doctor with one another — that could be child pornography, according to federal law.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Dear parents, when you vote next November, please remember which party wants your daughters to share their school locker rooms and showers with boys.
That’s right, the Obama administration’s Department of Education Office of Civil Rights (OCR) recently ruled that Township High School District 211 in Palatine, Illinois must give a transgender kid, who was born a male and still has the private parts to prove it, unrestricted access to the girls’ facilities or they lose millions in federal funding.
It’s not that the school district didn’t do its best to accommodate the gender-confused kid whom OCR calls “Student A” in its 14-page report which charges the school district with discrimination on the basis of sex due to the kid’s “gender identity and gender nonconformity” issues.
The report states the district “honored Student A’s request to be treated as female in all respects except her request to be provided access to the girls’ locker rooms at the school.” Specifically, the district agreed to use Student A’s female name, designating him as a “female” in the computer system. It obtained special permission from the Illinois High School Association to allow him to participate in girls’ athletics. He received unlimited access to all the girls’ restrooms and access to dress out and shower in the girls’ locker room, given he do it behind a privacy curtain.
Student A refused to accept the district’s privacy curtain demand so the Obama administration stepped in.
Okay, call me politically incorrect here, but this is unequivocally wrong. As a fellow XX chromosome-bearer, I’d be mortified. I remember the first time I was forced to dress out in my school’s female-only locker room. I was a late bloomer and pretty embarrassed that I was the only girl in the room that didn’t need a bra. The last thing I needed was a boy in the locker room, whether he wore pink bows in his hair or not. Certainly, had a boy been factored in my locker room scenario, my father would’ve had a polite but frank chat with the powers-that-be, including the kid’s parents. Growing up is tough enough with all the awkwardness of adolescence without forcing kids to conform to this craziness.
But that was then. Now we have the Obama administration forcing school districts to comply with its tragically misguided version of things, letting the views and rights of the many be damned to the advantage of a statistical few.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hungary’s Orban is one of the few intelligent and realistic rulers in Europe. In addition, Hungary has not forgotten its own history vis-a-vis Muslims.
Also commend whomever pointed out that there is no “right” to enter America — this is true (or used to be).
Satanists only pretend not to worship the Evil One, in order to lure in the gullible.
What is with the recent propane tank buying/stealing by Muslims in the US? Do they have a sudden hankering for barbecue and light duty vehicles, or is a coordinated series of explosions or gas attacks being planned?