http://times247.com/ Deadly gunfire sprays Nigerian church, killing 5 AP Thursday, January 5, 2012 News Gunmen attacked a church in northeast Nigeria during a prayer service Thursday night, killing at least five people and wounding others in an assault that occurred amid an increasingly violent campaign by a radical Muslim sect. Read Read more at: http://times247.com/ […]
http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2734/criminalize-free-speech
The European Union has offered to host the next meeting of the so-called Istanbul Process, an aggressive effort by Muslim countries to make it an international crime to criticize Islam.
The announcement comes less than one month after the United States hosted its own Istanbul Process conference in Washington, DC.
The Istanbul Process – its explicit aim is to enshrine in international law a global ban on all critical scrutiny of Islam and/or Islamic Sharia law – is being spearheaded by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a bloc of 57 Muslim countries.
Based in Saudi Arabia, the OIC has long pressed the European Union and the United States to impose limits on free speech and expression about Islam.
But the OIC has now redoubled its efforts and is engaged in a determined diplomatic offensive to persuade Western democracies to implement United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) Resolution 16/18, which calls on all countries to combat “intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of … religion and belief.” (Analysis of the OIC’s war on free speech can be found here and here.)
http://townhall.com/columnists/dianawest/2012/01/06/gop_candidates_walk_a_tightrope_on_iraq/print
On Dec. 31, 2011, Iraq’s Nouri al-Maliki declared a national holiday to celebrate the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. Funny way to say “thank you” for all the blood and treasure, no?
No mention, huh? I guess it was just a trillion-dollar mirage, a figment, a never-never fantasy best dropped from speeches, polite conversation, maybe history books. Then again, silence suits the American political classes fine. Amazingly, following the U.S. withdrawal, the questions, “What was that all about?” or, “What went wrong in Iraq?” or even, “Did something go wrong in Iraq?” (never mind, “What is going wrong in Afghanistan?”) don’t rise even to the level of conversation-enders. They don’t rise, period, not even among GOP presidential candidates, beyond the odd sound bite.
Famously, of course, Ron Paul calls for withdrawal of U.S. troops everywhere, a rollback of the international security force the U.S. military has become, certainly since entering World War II. While Paul’s constitutional position is strong, his misunderstanding of Islam undermines his rationale for me; indeed, it transforms his policy into submission. The aftermath of withdrawal under a Paul presidency could be as dangerous as it would be under more Obama.
I support withdrawal from guaranteed recidivist hellholes such as Iraq and Afghanistan as a means to shore up the wall against the spread of Shariah (Islamic law) in the West rather than, in effect, continuing to fight/accommodate Shariah culture in the Islamic world. This is a no-win struggle in which only a see-no-Shariah utopian could still engage. It is this Islam-blind engagement that is the simple but devastating flaw of the Bush-Obama counterinsurgencies (COIN). But it continues to get a national pass.
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2012/01/06/obamas_superczar_is_on_the_loose/print
Here is the operating motto of the Obama White House: “So let it be written, so let it be done!” Like Yul Brynner’s Pharaoh Ramses character in Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments,” the demander in chief stands with arms akimbo issuing daily edicts to his constitution-subverting minions with an imperious wave of his hand. His entourage of insatiable usurpers never rests.
Can’t delude legislators into adopting a $1.5 billion Kabuki summer-jobs makework boondoggle? Create an unfunded program through executive fiat.
Can’t muster up a filibuster-proof majority for radical nominees? Czar-ify ’em.
Can’t get Congress to approve vast wild lands designations? Grab them under cover of a holiday lame-duck session.
Can’t get the illegal alien bailout DREAM Act passed on Capitol Hill? Executive-order it.
“So let it be written, so let it be done!”
markdurie.com blog
Outlawry in Egypt: the disturbing case of Sayyid Al-Qemany, friend of freedom
Things are not going well for lovers of freedom in Egypt.
Egypt is under a moral and spiritual siege. Freedom of speech is deteriorating rapidly, because of rather than in spite of the ‘Arab Spring’. A recent incident illustrates the critical state of affairs for free-thinking Egyptians.
Sayyid Al-Qemany is a well-known 64 year old prize-winning intellectual and writer on religious and political topics who has emphasised the importance of critical thinking, and opposed Islamic radicalism. He has argued for the separation of religion and state and demanded the repeal of article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution, which stipulates that the Islamic sharia is the main source of the nation’s legislation.
Al-Qemany identifies as a Muslim, but believes the Islamic faith should apply to the domain of personal belief and sacred ritual, not politics. He has also pointed out that not all the verses of the Qur’an are applicable today – such as laws permitting slavery and concubinage – and some are not even followed in any Islamic jurisdiction in the modern world.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israeli-brothers-crowned-world-debating-champions-1.405442
Israeli brothers crowned world debating champions
Omer and Sella Nevo secure Israeli title at world university debating championships for third year in a row.
By Riva Gold
The Israeli team won the World University Debating Championships in the category of the English as a Second Language on Tuesday, securing the title for the third year in a row.Tel Aviv University students and brothers Omer Nevo, 26, and Sella Nevo, 22, traveled to Manila and brought home the gold as the first-place team and the first and second-place ESL speakers, respectively.
Israeli brothers, Sella and Omer Nevo, hold their trophy after winning the World University Debating Championships in Manila on January 3, 2012. Photo courtesy of the Nevo brothers
In their final round, the two mathematics and computer science students beat out teams from Malaysia, Berlin, and the Netherlands in a debate that was streamed live online.
In addition to winning the championship, the Nevo brothers broke a record by collecting the most points in the preliminary rounds and narrowly missing the non-ESL octofinal rounds.
KOSOVO WAS AN INTEGRAL AND ANCIENT PART OF SERBIA. THE INFAMOUS HOLBROOKE/ALBRIGHT DOCTRINE ABANDONED REASON AND INTEGRITY AND PRESSED FOR KOSOVO INDEPENDENCE LEAVING THE AREA IN THE HANDS OF JIHADISTS AND ORGAN TRAFFICKING HASHIM THACI. EVEN THE NYTIMES CARRIED THE SINISTER STORY: PLEASE READ THIS COLUMN AND THE PETITION FOR HELP…..RSK
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/world/europe/16kosovo.html?_r=1&src=twrhp
“PARIS — A two-year international inquiry has concluded that the prime minister of Kosovo led a clan of criminal entrepreneurs whose activities included trafficking in organs extracted from Serbian prisoners executed during the Kosovo conflict in 1999.The inquiry, prepared for the Council of Europe, names the prime minister, Hashim Thaci, as the boss of the Drenica Group, an organized crime network that flourished in Kosovo and Albania after the war and exerted control over numerous rackets, including the heroin trade, and six secret detention centers in Albania, some used in a black market in human organs.”
http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/blogs.php?Itemid=4925
WHEN DOES 1+1= 3?
When the subject is “Palestine,” and the Arabs and their assorted mouthpieces and rah rah squads are doing the counting.
After the centuries old Ottoman Turkish Empire was dismantled after World War I, many different long suppressed peoples had visions of freedom, self determination, and independence in the new age of nationalism emerging in the region. Diplomats like America’s President Woodrow Wilson, Great Britain’s Sir Mark Sykes, and others encouraged this with their “Fourteen Points” and statements such as “Arabia for the Arabians, Judea for the Jews, Armenia for the Armenians, Kurdistan for the Kurds,” etc. and so forth.
There was just one problem with this, however-and we are living with the tragic consequences of it to this very day…
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2012/01/to-reuters-they-arent-just-jewish.html
To Reuters, they aren’t just “Jewish settlers” anymore
First there were “settlers.”
But that wasn’t inciting enough.
So we then had “Jewish settlers.”
But with overuse, it didn’t bring in the hate that journalists wanted to bring across.
So then came “Right-wing Jewish settlers.”
But even that didn’t capture the seething disgust that objective journalists wanted to convey towards them.
So now we have, from Daylife/Reuters:
“Extreme right wing Jewish settlers, one of them injured from a rock hurled by pro-Palestinian activists during a weekly protest, stand in front of their house in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem December 30, 2011. Some 100 activists protested against the Jewish settlement in the predominantly Arab neighborhood and threw rocks towards a house occupied by the settlers leading them to confront the protesters, to minor clashes.
So people who live in a house in Jerusalem are “extreme right-wing Jewish settlers.”
http://bigpeace.com/jpollak/2012/01/04/obama-to-share-missile-defense-secrets-with-russia/
Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reports that President Barack Obama has indicated he is prepared to convey information about secret American missile defense technology to Russia:
In the president’s signing statement issued Saturday in passing into law the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill, Mr. Obama said restrictions aimed at protecting top-secret technical data on U.S. Standard Missile-3 velocity burnout parameters might impinge on his constitutional foreign policy authority.
As first disclosed in this space several weeks ago, U.S. officials are planning to provide Moscow with the SM-3 data, despite reservations from security officials who say that doing so could compromise the effectiveness of the system by allowing Russian weapons technicians to counter the missile. The weapons are considered some of the most effective high-speed interceptors in the U.S. missile defense arsenal.
There are also concerns that Russia could share the secret data with China and rogue states such as Iran and North Korea to help their missile programs defeat U.S. missile defenses.
Even before this latest revelation, the entire enterprise of President Obama’s disarmament policy–from “reset” with Russia to selling out our European allies–had been a colossal failure, an exercise in cowardice and appeasement that placed the security of the United States at risk.
In the pursuit of a thirty-year-old leftist grudge against President Ronald Reagan’s policy of “peace through strength,” Obama has now apparently suggested his willingness to give away a technological edge eagerly coveted by Russia and especially by China.
There can be no stronger case for replacing Barack Obama in November.
