DEDICATED TO EXPOSING DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA AND TO PROMOTING UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS - WITH SHARP ANALYSIS AND BLUNT COMMENTARY. NO ADS. NO TIP-JAR. JUST THE TRUTH.
The First Family walked to church this morning at St. John's across Lafayette Park from the WH.
Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's [CENTER-RIGHT] coalition has been boosted by popular tax cuts and healthy public finances that stand out in debt-ridden Europe, and polls suggest a clear victory over the opposition Red-Green bloc.IF WE COULD ENACT THE SAME POLICIES HERE IN THE USA, THEN WE WOULD BE GROWING TOO!
... Reinfeldt would become the first center-right leader to win re-election after serving a full term since universal suffrage was introduced in the 1920s.His coalition ousted the Social Democrats in 2006 with vows to lower taxes for working Swedes while trimming welfare benefits. It has largely kept those promises, cutting taxes for all income brackets and abolishing the wealth tax, while tightening unemployment and sickness compensation.
Reinfeldt has steered the country through the global recession without soaring budget deficits. Sweden's export-driven economy is expected to grow by more than 4 percent this year, while the 2010 budget gap is on track to be the smallest in the 27-nation .
Yet another shameful incident of 'honour killing' has come to light in Pakistan, with a man strangulating his 22-year old married daughter to death in Lahore's South Cantonment area.QUESTION: WHAT KIND OF RELIGION TEACHES ITS ADHERENTS THAT MURDERING MEMBER OF YOUR OWN FAMILY IS GOOD!?
The victim, Amna, mother of a three year old daughter, was married five years ago, however she had moved to her parents house three weeks ago after an altercation with her husband, Sarfaraz, The Daily Times reports.
According to South Cantt Station House Officer (SHO) Malik Raheel Amjad Amna's father, Muhammad Ashraf, confessed to have killed her daughter as she had developed an illicit relationship with a boy named Azhar.
An online music video praising Osama bin Laden has driven home a troubling new reality: A radical brand of Islam embraced by al-Qaida and the Taliban is gaining a foothold in the Balkans.I WONDER WHO IS FINANCING THIS? PROBABLY IRAN AND SAUDI ARABIA. WE'VE GOT TO CLAMP DOWN ON THE INFLOWS OF CAPITAL TO THESE GROUPS.
''Oh Osama, annihilate the American army. Oh Osama, raise the Muslims' honor,'' a group of Macedonian men sing in Albanian, in video posted on YouTube last year and picked up by Macedonian media this August. ''In September 2001 you conquered a power. We all pray for you.''
Although most of Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority are Muslims, they have generally been secular. But experts are now seeing an increasing radicalization in pockets of the country's Islamic community, particularly after armed groups from the ethnic Albanian minority, which forms a quarter of the population of 2.1 million, fought a brief war against Macedonian government forces in 2001.
It's a trend seen across the Balkans and has raised concerns that the region, which includes new European Union member Bulgaria, could become a breeding ground for terrorists with easy access to Western Europe.
5. Myth: "Negotiations broke down at the end of 2000 because Israeli PM Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians only "Bantustans" - disconnected islands of Palestinian sovereignty, and failed to offer Palestinian control over holy places in Jerusalem.This is popular among leftists, too - (links to: Sharon’s Dream: Gaza as Bantustan).
In an election year when anger and mistrust have upended races across the country, toppling moderates and elevating white-hot partisans, Mayor is trying to pull politics back to the middle, injecting himself into marquee contests and helping candidates fend off the .New York’s billionaire mayor, whose flurry of activity is stirring a new round of speculation about his presidential ambitions, is supporting Republicans, Democrats and independents who he says are not bound by rigid ideology and are capable of compromise, qualities he says he fears have become alarmingly rare in American politics.
Next month, Mr. Bloomberg will travel to California to campaign for , the eBay entrepreneur and Republican running for governor on a platform of corporate-style accountability and fiscal prudence. He visited Rhode Island on Thursday to champion Lincoln D. Chafee, a Republican turned independent who is locked in a three-way battle for the governor’s office.
And, in perhaps the mayor’s most direct confrontation with a Tea Party candidacy, he will host a fund-raiser at his Manhattan town house for , the Senate majority leader facing an unexpectedly forceful challenge from , a political neophyte backed by .
In his first extensive interview with a newspaper in several years, Mr. Bloomberg outlined his plans, which will include raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for candidates and represent his greatest involvement in a national election since he entered public life a decade ago.
Mr. Bloomberg described the Tea Party movement as a fad, comparing it to the short-lived burst of support for in 1992. The mayor suggested that the fury it had unleashed was not a foundation for leadership.
“Look, people are angry,” he said. “Their anger is understandable. Washington isn’t working. Government seems to be paralyzed and unable to solve all of our problems.”
“Anger, however, is not a government strategy,” he said. “It’s not a way to govern.”
THE ONLY WAY WE CAN LOSE IS IF THERE ARE THIRD PARTY CANDIDATES DRAINING INDEPENDENTS AWAY FOR US.
DAY!)
gpollowitz">gpollowitz 2 hours ago RT @jjmnolte:
Great Mitt Romney line the other night;
"Obama chose to exploit the financial crisis, not solve it."
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."
"It would be fitting for us to mention to the responsible Israeli authorities that we view Palestine not just as an inseparable part of the Arab nation, but as a part of Southern Syria." In 1987, he reiterated himself at a conference in Amman, "A country named 'Palestine' has never existed." Jordanian King Hussein responded, "The appearance of the national Palestinian persona serves as a response to Israel's claim that Palestine is Jewish."
"The question of borders doesn't interest us... From the Arab standpoint, we mustn't talk about borders. Palestine is nothing but a drop in an enormous ocean. Our nation is the Arabic nation that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea and beyond it..... The P.L.O. is fighting Israel in the name of Pan-Arabism. What you call "Jordan" is nothing more than Palestine."
"In the history of the world, Palestine has never existed as a nation. The region known as Palestine was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their ancestral homeland. It was never ruled by Arabs."
The LORD will give strength to his people; the LORD will bless his people with peace.Strength comes before peace.
That’s a little harsh. I’d say Norris made a rookie mistake: thinking the whole rest of the world is like her and her friends. What she regarded as a political comment is literally blasphemy to observant Muslims, a fact that she either didn’t know or shrugged off. Unfortunately, she’s paying for this mistake rather dearly — and so are a lot of innocent bystanders.A mistake, is it? Gee, that's a little harsh. I'd say Alverson is oblivious to what Islam and the Koran are built upon. For example, "When ye meet the unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks..." -- Qur'an 47:4, and check this recent example built on that kind of mindset.
Here’s why: Probably 99.99 percent of the Muslims who heard about this and were offended by it shrugged it off or kept their feelings to themselves and their immediate circle. A handful may have protested quietly, by writing on their blogs or sending a letter to the editor. Al-Awlaki seems to be the only person who has actually made a threat, but it only takes one: The comments to every article I have read about this have consisted almost entirely of slurs on Muslims, ranging from the snarky (“There’s your religion of peace”) to the frighteningly hateful. What started as a tongue-in-cheek comment on freedom of speech has ended up bringing out the worst aspect of that freedom, the freedom to hate in public.And so, as we see here, Ms. Alverson makes the grave mistake of suggesting it was just one who made the fatwa, without even considering how many Muslims take it seriously, and almost instantly too. And, she otherwise just focuses upon the reactions by non-Muslims to the whole case, without even considering many of the threats of violence made by Islamofascists themselves. Take this, for example, and even this.
It’s hard to do this on the Internet, but sometimes you have to distinguish between crazy people and the rest of the group. Right now, with regard to Islam, some Americans are not doing a good job of this, and Norris, without really meaning to, has made things worse.Things have been made worse long before Norris supposedly did. It is sad that what we have here is someone with no ability to research the history of Islam properly.
I’m a former newspaper reporter and a big believer in freedom of speech, even offensive speech. But as [...] says, you have to think before you speak.If that's the best "analogy" she could come up with, it's the worst. No observant Judaist would ever react violently if you ate a cheeseburger in their household, and wouldn't consider the premises permanently desecrated either, and it's forbidden in Judaism to do that.
Drawing a picture of the Prophet Mohammed is not just mocking Islam, it is blasphemy in the eyes of observant Moslems. You may think that’s absurd, but that doesn’t give you a license to go stomping all over their religion just for the fun of it. If you do that, there will be pushback, because people take these things seriously.
Here’s the best analogy I can come up with: Although I’m not Jewish, I rented a room from a conservative Jewish woman for almost a year. She kept a kosher house. Now, it’s perfectly legal for me to eat a cheeseburger or a ham sandwich anywhere I want, but out of respect for her, I did not bring them into the house. It’s not just about me. It’s about coexisting with other people whose beliefs I respect, despite not sharing them.
Respect is a two-way street, Brigid. Religions and their adherents have no compunctions about denouncing the perceived flaws of non-believers, opposing sects and modern society in general, often in virulent, disrespectful ways. Saying “yes, but to them it’s *blasphemous*” (which means what, extra super-annoying?) could be applied to the fundamentalist Christian and Muslim perspective on homosexuality as well. Does seeing two men walk hand-in-hand warrant or excuse a violent ‘pushback’ (nice euphemism there!), as is happening more and more often here in the Netherlands (which has both gay marriage and a sizeable Muslim minority)?I like that last part. It shows what you can do for a friend who's religiously observant, and that they really don't have much of a problem with you using the electricity.
Being a non-believer myself, I find it strange that being religious should permit believers to be allowed harsh, uncompromising positions on a vast range of hot-button issues yet also shield them from direct critiques of said views. That way, freedom of religion trumps freedom from religion, resulting in a situation where professing adherence to a god-based worldview gives one a licence to insult others freely and claim offence at any act of peaceful defiance. Religion is not the sole purveyor of passionate morality, nor does guarantee it – so I would argue against a statement as inane as “…because there are few things as deeply felt as [religion].”
The reason Everybody Draw Mohammed Day ‘went viral’, I think, is because it’s an emminently egalitarian, nonviolent way to mock fundamentalist Islam, to poke fun at it. Excusing the implied or explicit threat of violence in response to mockery, satire or spirited opposition of any peaceful kind is imbecilic beyond belief.
(addendum 1: maybe less so in the US of A, but here in Europe and in vast swaths of the rest of the world, we don’t need to be reminded that Muslims are ‘real people’ since we see and interact with them every day)
(addendum 2: how does your Kosher House analogy apply to the internet? Or say, the Danish cartoon controversy? Shouldn’t Muslims worldwide and in Denmark have STFU since its the Danes’ corner of the world and they’re the local majority, and drawing whatever you like is part of their ‘house rules’?)
(addendum 3: I once visited an Orthodox Israeli girl in Tel Aviv. Kosher food, strict observance of the Shabbat with no usage of electricity, all that jazz. Me being a goy had an unexpected upside for her: she asked me if could make her a cup of tea on Saturday – now that was coexisting with mutual respect.)
d, I am not afraid of Islam. What I am afraid of is feeding the rampant Islamophobia that I am seeing more and more of in the media and even in people around me.Hmm. She could've admitted to being a leftist as well, because I assume that's exactly what she is. And, a]she even implies this is merely the result of some mental illness, and religion can have nothing to do with it, b]acts naive in thinking Awlaki, the mentor of Nidal Malik Hasan, will actually forget this (did Khomeini forget about Rushdie? Not until his death he didn't, and his followers certainly didn't either) or even the other Muslims he's incited against Norris, c]does not think Muslims can organize, and d]thinks, along with another contributor there, that this is merely the actions "of a few" without even considering the teachings of the Koran. Naive thinking at its most utter tragic.
I’m fine with saying “This cartoonist is a victim of psychotic fundamentalists” (I try to avoid the capslock key) as long as we keep the word “psychotic” in there. It’s important. Fundamentalism alone is not a reason to call for the death of someone half a world away and expect them to be killed.
Here’s my armchair analysis of what happened: The cleric in Yemen was scoring some political points. It’s easy to denounce Norris because what she called for is, in fact, an abomination in their religion, just as it was easy for her to call for an “Everyone Draw Mohammed Day” because prohibitions on drawing a particular person are an abomination to our notion of free speech. His rant was more violently worded than hers, but basically, it’s propaganda. I don’t think he seriously intended anyone to kill her. I bet he forgot about her an hour after he said it.
The problem is that there are plenty of unhinged people out there, and it’s possible that one will take the cleric’s words seriously. Mixing mental illness with something as deeply felt as religion leads to trouble, and that’s not exclusive to Moslems.
That’s why Norris is in danger. I seriously doubt there is an organized movement to eliminate her. What she and the FBI are probably worried about is the possibility that Awaki’s rant will set someone off.
In other words, what JK said: The whole group should not be judged by the actions of a few—and looking at the reactions to this incident, I’m afraid that’s exactly what is happening.
Mauritania has launched a military operation against militants linked to al-Qaeda along the border with Mali, officials in the two countries say.
Some unconfirmed reports say the fighting has moved across the border into Mali itself.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has been behind numerous attacks in north-west Africa.
France believes the group is behind the kidnapping of seven people, including five French citizens, in Niger.
Initial reports quoted Mauritanian security sources saying the clashes were taking place near the border with Mali's Timbuktu region.
A Malian security source was later quoted by AFP as saying fighting was taking place in Mali, at Hassissidi, about 100km (60 miles) north of Timbuktu, but this could not be confirmed.
AL QAEDA IS NOT IN WEST AFRICA BECAUSE OF BUSH OR WEST BANK SETTLEMENTS OR GAZA EMBARGOES OR ANYTHING WE HAVE DONE.
THEY ARE THERE BECAUSE SPREADING JIHAD IS WHAT THEY DO.
AND THEY'VE BEEN DOING IT EVER SINCE MOHAMED.
USE THE OTHER LINK TO FIND OUT MORE.)
This poem of Abu Ishaq, written in Al-Andalus, Granada in 1066, was considered to be largely instrumental in sparking this massacre. It contains the following lines:
Do not consider it a breach of faith to kill them, the breach of faith would be to let them carry on.
They have violated our covenant with them, so how can you be held guilty against the violators?How can they have any pact when we are obscure and they are prominent?
Now we are humble, beside them, as if we were wrong and they were right!
On December 30, 1066 (9 Tevet 4827), a Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, which was at that time in al-Andalus, assassinated Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred most of the Jewish population of the city.
More than 1,500 Jewish families, numbering 4,000 persons, fell in one day.
The image above shows a Jew reading the torah in Al-Andalus.
From Obama’s speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on September 15, 2010:
“So let me close by saying this. Long before America was even an idea, this land of plenty was home to many peoples. To British and French, to Dutch and Spanish, to Mexican — (applause) — to countless Indian tribes. We all shared the same land. We didn’t always get along. But over the centuries, what eventually bound us together — what made us all Americans — was not a matter of blood, it wasn’t a matter of birth. It was faith and fidelity to the shared values that we all hold so dear. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights: life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The Preamble to the U.S. Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Her name could be next to “entitlement” in the dictionary. Ridiculous.
