NEARING JUSTICE FOR FATIMA ABDALLAH

Laura Rambeau Lee announces at Big Peace that the Florida Medical Examiner's Commission has given their agreement to reopen their investigation into the death of Fatima Abdallah.

Let us be clear: practicers of Islam CANNOT be made into a protected class, any more than any other group. Murder is wrong and obscene, and if the girl was murdered as part of an "honor" murder, the family cannot be allowed to get away with their crime. The dead woman deserves much better from Florida authorities.

THANKS OBAMA: FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, THE US ECONOMY IS IN A DEPRESSION

Via Doug Ross:

Total payrolls today amount to 131 million, but this figure is lower than it was at the beginning of the year 2000, even though our population has grown by nearly 30 million. [...] Today, over 14 million people are unemployed. We now have more idle men and women than at any time since the Great Depression...

And good news, drones: yesterday, CNBC reported that the employment situation just got worse.

THIS IS AWFUL.

THROW IN THE DESPERATE REALESTATE MARKET AND IT SHOWS AN ECONOMY THAT'S IN DEEP DOO-DOO.

Tinkering at the edges with tax rates - (up or down!), adding regulations, or adding more to our deficit and debt will do nothing to change the deep problems in the US economy.

We need a total overhaul: a flat tax; elimination of all CO2 regs; opening up of all our lands and coasts to drilling; free trade agreements signed; and the repeal of Obamacare.

Ony the most aggressive attack on the burdens weighing down commerce and consumption will stimulate growth and keep us from crashing again.

IF YOU WANT ECONOMIC GROWTH, THEN YOU MUST LIBERATE PEOPLE AND BUSINESSES FROM ANXIETY, FEAR AND DEFENSIVE POLICIES.

RAISING TAXES AND INCREASING REGS - WHICH IS THE LIBERAL PLAN - CANNOT POSSIBLY DO THAT. WHICH IS WHY I HAVE LONG SAID:

TO ELIMINATE POVERTY WE NEED TO ELIMINATE THE LEFT.

IOW: TO MAKE POVERTY HISTORY, WE NEED TO MAKE THE LEFT HISTORY.

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IDW WORKING ON A GRAPHIC NOVEL BASED ON THE RAID ON BIN LADEN'S HIDEOUT

IDW Publishing has announced they're teaming up with Charlie Foxtrot Entertainment to produce a graphic novel based on Team 6's raid on the Taliban tyrant's hideout in Pakistan:

San Diego, CA (June 23, 2011) – IDW Publishing and Charlie Foxtrot Entertainment today have the honor of announcing CODE WORD: GERONIMO, an original graphic novel illustrating the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound by SEAL Team 6 on May 1, 2011. Expertly written by Captain Dale Dye (USMC, Ret.) and Dr. Julia Dye, Ph.D., CODE WORD: GERONIMO offers the amazing, moment-by-moment inside story of the clandestine raid that rid the world of this terrorist mastermind.

“Due to entirely appropriate security concerns, there is some creative license in our script,” said Captain Dye. “But I think readers will be gratified with the detail and thrilled with our take on one of the most daring and successful commando raids in American military history.”

As a matter of fact, yes, I think readers certainly will appreciate their courage to work on a challenging story like this, just like they may appreciate the GI Joe comics already being published by the same outfit. So here's to hoping that they will produce the best and boldest portrayal possible for this project.

Update: here's an AP story about this subject.

GEERT WILDERS ACQUITTED

Another fortunate turn of events: the Dutch court has acquitted Geert Wilders of any hate speech charges:

A Dutch court on Thursday acquitted populist politician Geert Wilders of charges of inciting hatred against Muslims, in a case that tested freedom of speech in the traditionally liberal country.

The court case has attracted attention, not just because of Geert Wilders' controversial comments about Islam -- which he compared to Nazism -- but also because of the increasing influence of his political party, which supports the minority Dutch government on economic and other issues.

The Dutch court late last year approved a request from Wilders to have new judges for his trial on charges of inciting hatred against Muslims, forcing the court to start the case again.

Wilders' lawyer had asked the court to replace the current judges, raising concerns about bias after they did not immediately approve a request to hear an expert witness.

"This gives me a new chance of a new fair trial. I am confident that I can only be acquitted because I have broken no law, but spoken the truth," Wilders told Reuters at the time, arguing that his comments were covered by freedom of speech.

Unusually, the prosecution team have also asked for an acquittal, arguing that politicians have the right to comment on problem issues and that Wilders was not trying to foment violence or division. However, the judges have the power to convict regardless of the prosecution's stance.

He's very lucky that justice has prevailed. However, there's still a lot more work to be done. They need to start pushing for improving the laws of the country to provide more freedom for criticism of religion.

OBAMA'S PREMATURE WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANSTAIN PLEASES FRANCE AND KARZAI - BUT NOT THE US MILITARY

OBAMA IS MORE CONCERNED WITH HIS REELECTION AND HIS LEFT-WING BASE, THAN HE IS VICTORY:

Mullen Backs Afghan Pullout Plan but Calls It Riskier

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, said
Thursdaythat President Obama’s timetable was more aggressive than he had been prepared to accept.

More Afghanistan News

France Endorses Obama’s Afghan Plan 4:09 PM ET


Karzai Welcomes Pullout 1:44 PM ET

OBAMA IS AN AWFUL COMMANDER IN CHIEF - AND THE TROOPS KNOW IT.

Egypt Air Pilot Causes Near Collision At JFK Airport - IGNORED AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL DIRECTIONS

Egypt Air is the same airline for which a pilot purposely flew a jef-full of 217 passengers straight into the sea while intoning "Tawkalt ala Allah" ("I rely on Allah")

From NBC News:

Air traffic control tower audio conveys the frightening exchange between the tower at John F. Kennedy International Airport and a Lufthansa flight as the airbus came dangerously close to colliding with another jet.

The incident happened at about 6:30 p.m. Monday when an EgyptAir pilot apparently did not follow air traffic control instructions to hold short of its taxiway and veered into the path of the other plane, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

"Egypt Air 986, a B777, did not follow ATC instructions to hold short of Taxiway D. As a result, air traffic canceled the takeoff clearance for Lufthansa 411, an A346 on Runway 22R," FAA spokesman spokesman Jay Blackman said.

The Lufthansa flight had been cleared for take-off moments before the EgyptAir plane veered into its path, and the pilots had to slam on the brakes to avoid a crash, reports The New York Post. 

"Cancel take off! Cancel take-off plans!" shouted an air controller who saw the Munich-bound Lufthansa plane barreling toward the EgyptAir flight.

It wasn't immediately clear how close the planes came to each other. 

"The closest proximity still is being determined as part of our ongoing investigation," Blackman said.

The Lufthansa plane was taken off the runway for a brake inspection following the incident, and ended up departing about an hour and 40 minutes behind schedule. It landed safely in Munich.

A Lufthansa spokesperson said the jet was carrying 286 passengers, plus crew, at the time of the incident. EgyptAir declined the Post's requests for comment, but the paper reports the airline's jets can carry up to 346 passengers in addition to crew.

UPDATES -

"Egypt Air 986, a B777, did not follow ATC " One wonders if the passengers of either flight have any awareness of the 'near miss' in which they were unwittingly assigned as sacrificial pawns. Investigators are looking at air traffic communications and radar replays. Is there any further investigation of this Egypt Air pilot? If not, why not?

Wednesday, June 22, 2011 3:24:00 PM  

 

"Those two were coming together," radioed an unidentified pilot who witnessed the near-disaster. A few minutes later, a pilot aboard a Virgin America flight arriving from Los Angeles piped in: "That was quite a show."

Wednesday, June 22, 2011 3:27:00 PM  

 

an EgyptAir plane that made a wrong turn into its path, sources told The Post.

ROTTEN APPLE ALLOWS INTIFADA APP ON IPHONE

It appears Apple doesn't want us to be customers for their iPhone, because they're allowing some very filthy apps in their store:

Israeli officials were up in arms Monday after Apple cleared for release into the iPhone App Store an application that encourages violent uprising against Israel, and advocates violence against “settlers,” generally defined by Arab anti-Israel groups as all residents of Israel.

Called “The Third Intifada,” the Arabic-language app features articles and stories by radical Arab members of Fatah and Hamas, as well as members of the Palestinian Authority. They discuss strategies to use in fighting IDF soldiers, and glorify acts of violence that have already taken place.

The app also features photos and images of Arab youths throwing stones and bombs at Israelis, and a collection of “intifada music” popular in the PA. In addition, it has a social media component, designed to allow activists to organize “flash mobs” on the go, gathering quickly at specific times and places to attack Israelis.

The app was developed by the same group that created the Facebook “Nakba Day fan page,” that was used in May to organize demonstrations and riots against Israeli police and soldiers. The page was taken down after mass complaints to Facebook.

Information and Hasbara Minister Yuli Edelstein called on Apple to withdraw the app from its online store. In a letter to Apple executives, including company director Steve Jobs, Edelstein wrote that after examining the app, “we can clearly point to this app as being anti-Israel and anti-Zionist. It clearly calls for an uprising against Israel. One of the app's objectives is to allow Palestinians to gather quickly for protests – some of them violent – that are planned."

How and why is it that so many of these major companies building these kind of devices seem to be run by leftists who tolerate this kind of abominable stuff? If this is what they're going to allow, don't buy the iPhone. Buy Samsung's similar gizmos instead, and certainly if they know better than to allow this kind of propaganda.

UK: Migrants take nine out of 10 jobs

 "In the first year of the Coalition, (Conservatives and Lib-Dumbs) 87 per cent of the 400,000 newly created jobs have gone to immigrants — as Britons fail to chase work, according to new official figures uncovered by the Labour MP. Under previous Labour administrations the figure was about 80 per cent."

Keep reading: Frank Field: Migrants take nine out of 10 jobs - Telegraph

These are not Conservative policies, these are the loony Lib-Dumbs who hate English people more than Labour does!!

SOME CLAIM FUDGED AGW DATA PROVES POOR PEER REVIEW, BUT THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE...

UNCRITICIZED PUBLISHED DATA THAT'S BEEN PROVEN FALSE BY OUTSIDERS PROVES THAT THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS WORKS - WORKS EXACTLY THE WAY THE ALARMISTS WANT IT WORK, THAT IS:

THE FOLKS RUNNING THE JOURNALS AND DISHING OUT THE ARTICLES FOR PEER REVIEWS ARE IN CAHOOTS WITH THE HUCKSTERS GETTING GRANTS TO PROVE AGW AND WHO SELL AGW SCHEME TO POLITICIANS AND THEIR CRONIES WHO WANNA PROFIT OFF THE SCAM AT THE PUBLIC'S EXPENSE.

PAKISTAN IS STILL TIPPING OFF TERRORISTS

Bill Roggio at the Long War Journal points to an AP article telling that:

US officials say Pakistan has apparently tipped off militants at two more bomb-building factories in its tribal areas. The officials say that allowed the militants to flee after U.S. intelligence shared the locations with the Pakistani government.

One U.S. official said this was intended to give Pakistan another chance to build trust after the U.S. raid on May 2 that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.

And the Obama administration still considers these reliable partners in the war on terrorism? Good grief. The AP says this is the 4th time in several weeks they've done this. Pakistan cannot be considered an ally, not even politically.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY WRITES PUFF-PIECE ABOUT MUSLIM SUPERHEROES

The Boston University's site has written about an alleged comics expert named A. Dave Lewis, who's probing the rise of "superheroes" of Muslim backgrounds (via CBR's Robot 6 blog, where there's too few positives and far too many negatives). Interestingly enough, it begins by telling that:

In 2009, Image Comics issued a $1 book with a cover depicting Barack Obama landing a right cross on Osama bin Laden. The presidential punch pales next to bin Laden’s real-life end, but sure as radiation enlarges Bruce Banner into the Incredible Hulk, the al-Qaeda leader’s demise made the Obama-Osama cover a collector’s item that now sells for $100.

Funny, isn't it, that they never published a cover depicting Dubya or even a lower-ranking Republican doing the same thing? But the article starts to deteriorate with the following:

Comics expert A. David Lewis (GRS’11), who is studying for a doctorate in religion and literature, sees a bigger, more surprising development than a bonanza for comic book collectors. Lewis sees the emergence of the Muslim superhero.

This is what we have to hear about? Why don't we get an article where we wonder why there's no superheroes or supporting cast members of Armenian, Portuguese, Ghanian, Estonian and Burmese descent?

That aside, it's important to note that almost 6 years ago, Lewis attacked Michael Medved for criticizing Marvel's anti-American injection in Captain America during 2002-2004. He even used Wikipedia, the site anyone can edit, as his means of gathering "evidence" to support his limp argument. He seemed otherwise unconcerned about The Truth: Red White & Black's use of stereotypical artwork too. One can only wonder if he sees nothing wrong with Mexico's monstrous Memin Pinguin comic either.

The year after 9/11, Marvel Comics introduced Dust, a Muslim “mutant” (superhuman) member of the famed X-Men, only her eyes visible beneath her full-body burka. Born in Afghanistan, she can change into a blinding, skin-shredding sandstorm. Then there’s M, whose super strength, telepathy, and flight are the least obvious of her attributes (buxom and curvaceous, she’d shame Wonder Woman as an adolescent boy’s fantasy). M debuted in 1994. She revealed this year that she’s Muslim.

Oh good grief. Monet St. Croix is a fictional character, and can only be as curvy as the artist can draw her body. This sounds like an attempt to insult William Marston's classic creation and the fans of the Amazon princess. (Likewise, if any writers/editors turned St. Croix into an Islamist, they've done the same.)

Meanwhile, rival publisher DC Comics recently brought out Nightrunner, an Algerian Muslim immigrant recruited by Batman, drawing charges from some American readers that DC is PC. Batman, they groused, should have deputized a native Frenchman.

Guess again: they should've deputized an Armenian! Yes, that's what I think now. There's not enough Mannix variants out there in mainstream comics, so I don't suppose they might think of them for a change?

What’s up with the new Islamic heroes? Religion, once taboo in comics, now gives characters a foothold in readers’ experience, says Lewis (below), who has written comics and graphic novels and edited Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels, a collection of scholarly essays. His dissertation details depictions of the afterlife in comics and other pop culture.

Oh wow, what a laugh. Nightcrawler of the X-Men was characterized as a German Catholic Christian who fled from a mob in Germany to be recruited by Prof. Xavier. Since the Huntress was recreated by DC Comics in 1989, she's usually been characterized as an Italian Catholic too. Black Lightning was usually characterized as a Northern Baptist Protestant, and Marvel's Wolfsbane as a Scottish Protestant. And Kitty Pryde was written as a Jewish protagonist, though her observance of Judaism is not fully clear to me. In recent years, however, religious observance has become less clear for followers of Christianity and Judaism, as the companies seem more interested in depicting this or that character as Muslim at the Judeo-Christian's expense. (The same can be said when it comes to gays and lesbians, at the expense of most other ideas, though the main problem is that they won't allow any questions of whether homosexuality is a bad practice). And Lewis begins to derail when he attempts to hijack the X-Men with the following:

The comics are “already dealing with these incredibly fantastic characters: flying characters, alien characters, underwater characters,” he says. “There’s such a suspension of disbelief that they needed to ground them more in the readers’ real world” with religious references. He points out that both the X-Men and Muslims are victimized minorities.

Wow! So in Lewis's narrow vision, the Copts of Egypt aren't victimized, nor are the French, the Israelis, the Sudanese Christians, or even the Armenians during WW1, when the Islamic-led Ottoman Empire of Turkey slaughtered at least a million Armenians. Nor, I suppose, was Lara Logan when she was gang raped in Egypt back in February. What a most utter ignoramus. I guess he hasn't ever read the Koran either.

For much of the Cold War, Lewis says, mainstream comics avoided religion and tended to use communists when they needed real-life villains. Then the 1973 Arab oil embargo and the 1979–1981 Iranian hostage crisis turned the comics’ gaze toward the Middle East, and the Hulk embarked on global adventures that included evil Arabs. But if that’s your scenario, Lewis says, you “do also have to opt for at least the token opposite…a token superhero,” and in 1980, the Hulk series introduced the Arabian Knight, “our first headlining, Middle Eastern superhero,” replete with a flying carpet and a scimitar that fired force beams and could pierce anything. He lasted about five years. The comics’ interest in Arab characters receded along with the price of oil in the late ’80s and the shift in national angst towards the rising economic sun of Japan.

All of which might've worked out if they'd just acknowledge the Koran's jihadist, supremacist indoctrine. But the depiction of the Arabian Knight was superficial at best, and there was no comment made on his polygamy.

Then came 9/11. While American interest in Islam led to Muslim heroes, Muslim villains (fictional ones, anyway) have been rare, which Lewis attributes in part to publishers “playing it safe,” not wanting to muck with either Islamophobia or offending potential customers. Frank Miller, creator of the Batman Dark Knight series, announced in 2006 that he was writing a graphic novel pitting the Caped Crusader against bin Laden. He later announced that he’d substituted a new superhero in the book, which he targeted for publication this year. It’s unclear how he’ll proceed in the wake of bin Laden’s death.

Boy, I guess they really do have a negative leaning against Miller's project. As a matter of fact, he could do it somewhat more easily now, since bin Laden's dead. As for playing it "safe", I'm afraid that part is right in a sense: they've sunk into cowardice, but worse yet, into leftism, if we ponder any and all of the leftist propaganda publications with anti-conservative leanings they've produced this past decade, including - but not limited to - the very apologia that Medved criticized in 2003 and Lewis blatantly attacked him for doing, and not very cleverly.

What is clear is that Muslims on the comics pages confront the conundrum of their flesh-and-blood counterparts: their community views them with suspicion. Lewis says non-Muslim heroes wonder, “Can they truly represent the American way? Could they really be on our side? When Dust joins the X-Men, these persecuted American mutants don’t really know if they can trust her. The comic book creators can have it both ways. They can present an altruistic Muslim hero, but also reflect the Islamophobia.”

Very funny. The Koran doesn't promote altruism, so for any such character to present it wouldn't be doing it as per the Koran's teaching. But in a way, they're right about Grant Morrison's New X-Men title featuring "Islamophobia" via the X-Men themselves: at least one character acts so negatively, while Dust comes off more positively.

Lewis thinks our interest in Muslim heroes may wane if and when another global hot spot bumps the Middle East off the front pages, but for now it’s clear that the comic-book bug has bitten the Arab world. America invented the superhero comic book in the 1930s, but Kuwait’s Teshkeel Media has created a comics series about the 99, an international band of superheroes whose powers are the 99 Koranic virtues of Allah, such as wisdom and love. The company distributes a million comic books a month in Islamic countries. The creator read American comics as a boy while summering in New Hampshire, growing up to create his own heroes.

Um, what's so wise and loving about a religion that tells its followers in Sura 8:12, "I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them"? And upon reaching this last part in the article, I found that the 2010 Atlantic interview they linked to contains something very scary about Naif al-Mutawa:

You've said that you hope that The 99 provides a less threatening face of Islam to non-Muslims. But what do you hope it achieves within the Muslim world?

A year ago, I gave a lecture at the medical school in Kuwait on the biological basis of behavior. I gave my students a copy of two articles--one from The New York Times and one from New York Magazine--but I removed the name of the reporter, the actor, where it took place. The first article was about a group who wanted to ban Valentine's Day. The second article was about a woman who was complaining that a man she didn't know started to talk to her, pinched her son's cheek, told her he was cute. Then he walked off and some vans pulled up; six bearded men jumped out and interrogated this woman.

I asked my students where they thought these incidents took place. They all said the first incident was in Saudi Arabia. For the second story, the students were torn between Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. It blew their minds when I told them that the first incident took place in India and the second one took place in upstate New York at an ultra-orthodox Jewish community. This is what broke my heart: In the situation in India, people being interviewed, called that behavior "Talibanization." In other words, this is Islam's influence on Hinduism. We don't act this way with Hinduism, said the people in the article. In the second example, the woman called the men "stupid Talibans." Again, this is not Jewish behavior; it is coming from the Muslim world. But my students said, "it is us."

This is what I fear. This is very, very problematic. With The 99, the idea is that we have gone back to the same places from where other people have pulled very negative one-sided fascist messages and created a multicultural theme park. When you have the happy-go-lucky stuff that is based on the same source as the extremism, your average is going to be pushed in a different direction. It confuses the system. That is where I think the impact will come from.

An important note should be made about the latter article they provided from NY Mag that al-Mutwa didn't explain: the women interviewed there left a Satmar community in upstate New York where she felt belittled. And as they say in the article itself:

“The Lubavitchers, they have a joy about them. The Satmars are nuts. They tell you the State of Israel shouldn’t exist because the Messiah hasn’t come yet, that the Holocaust was God’s way of punishing Jews for Zionism. It makes you sick.”

You can say that again! If there's any religious community that doesn't deserve to be called "Hasidic" if it derives from positive words, it's the Satmars. They really are a thorn in the side of Judaism and the Jewish state. It's their very twisted beliefs that are exactly why the Messiah is kept from coming. The Lubavichers/Chabad movement may not be perfect, but are a lot more respectable of freedom to choose how to run your life than the Satmars are.

And this is what al-Mutawa doesn't make a distinction about, otherwise making a cryptic, subtle statement that villifies Jews and Hindus while living in denial about his own Religion of Peace. Anyone concerned about al-Mutawa and his propaganda may want to take a good look at this worrisome piece from the Atlantic, which bears more than a hint of taqqiya about it.

And Mr. Lewis chose to put his head in the sand when it came to the publisher of The 99 in Kuwait too. This is not the kind of writer whose works I would recommend.