...In Islamic law a woman is worth only half of a man. They are made to wear burkas and stay inside their homes, causing illness and nutritional deficiencies due to lack of sunlight. They are not even second class citizens. They are oppressed. I treat my dogs better than women in Islam are treated. How many women in this country, or any other, must suffer or die before we hear the outcry from all of the women’s advocacy groups, and why have we not heard anything up to this point? Why are none of these groups educating the public on the oppression of women in Islam?
A quick search on the internet and you will find the following list of organizations. All of these groups, to their eternal shame, are silent on this horrifying and urgent crisis.
American Association of University Women; Chicago Women's Liberation Union; Concerned Women for America; Feminist Majority Foundation; Feminists for Life; Independent Women's Forum; International Women's Democracy Center; National Council of Jewish Women; National Council of Women's Organizations; National Organization for Women; National Women's Health Network; New York Radical Women; Radical Women; Society for Women's Health Research; Women Against Pornography; Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media; Women's Edge; Women's Peace Party; Women's Peace Union; Younger Women's Task Force. This was from one search on one page of one site and I chose only those that support or promote women’s rights.
Does their silence allow Western women who are ignorant of Islam’s misogynistic cruelty to convert to Islam because they are unaware of the truth behind Islam and Sharia? It begs the question: how many other women – Jihad Janes – will choose this route and end up like Colleen LaRose or worse, like Noor Almaleki because they had not even heard, let alone been told the truth, about Islamic or Sharia law?
You can bet one thing for sure. Had any of the above cases of women “scourged” by Islam been family pets and not people, PETA would be screaming to the heavens and every one would be aware of this.
Top executives at the beleaguered New York Times Company reaped hefty rewards last year, with Chairman Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger more than doubling his total compensation to $6 million.
CEO Janet Robinson got even more, reaping $6.3 million, a 31.9 percent hike.
The increases come against a backdrop of declining ad revenue, layoffs, frozen pension plans, unpaid vacations and a 5 percent pay cut for most of the rank-and-file workers last year.
"Our members are really unhappy with what is happening," said Bill O'Meara, president of the Newspaper Guild of New York. "They made a voluntary sacrifice to give up some of their pay to help the company out. People are losing their jobs still."
One corporate governance expert warned that even if a publicly traded company's compensation committee OK'd the compensation, it could backfire in the court of public opinion.
"I think the board may want to weigh the consequences of rewarding their executives, who may be worthy of the increases, against the damage that may occur to the company's reputation," said William Sannwald, a business professor at San Diego State University.
Michael Golden, a first cousin of Pinch's who is vice chairman and chief operating officer of the Times' Regional Media Group, took home $2.4 million in total compensation last year, up 71 percent. CFO Jim Folo received a 20 percent boost, earning $1.3 million.
A Times spokeswoman explained that the pay hikes were driven mainly by payouts tied to performance-based bonus plans with preset goals.
I've had my own issues with Bank of America lately, but so far, they haven't padlocked our house and taken our parrot. WSJ:
PITTSBURGH—Bank of America Corp. apologized after its local contractor entered the home of a mortgage borrower when she was away, cut off utilities, padlocked the door and confiscated her pet parrot, Luke.
Angela Iannelli, 46 years old, alleged in a lawsuit Monday that the October incident—which separated her from her 11-year-old parrot for more than a week—caused so much "emotional distress" that she needed a prescription medication for anxiety.
A Bank of America spokesman said Wednesday a bank employee erroneously believed the house was vacant and sent the contractor there with instructions to install a new lock and otherwise "secure" the property. The bank spokesman said those instructions were inappropriate because Ms. Iannelli wasn't in default and the house wasn't vacant.
(...)
In her civil suit filed in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, Ms. Iannelli said a contractor hired by Bank of America entered her house about 15 miles north of Pittsburgh in mid-October when she was away. According to the suit, in an "invasion" of the home, the contractor stopped utility services, cut water lines and electrical wiring, damaged flooring and finishings, poured antifreeze into sinks and toilets, and "stole" the parrot.
Ms. Iannelli, who owns a diner and works part-time as a bartender, said Bank of America representatives weren't helpful when she called in to protest. They first denied knowing where the parrot was, and later told her she could go to the offices of the contractor, about 80 miles away, to retrieve the bird herself. Ms. Iannelli said bank representatives also told her they were "tired" of hearing from her, hung up on her and advised her to seek help from the police.
That's the title of of a mind-blowing op-edby Debra Burlingame and Tom Joscelyn in Monday's Wall Street Journal. Debra and Tom make mince-meat of the hallucination that casts the Gitmo Bar as modern John Adamses. The essay recounts, among other things:
The Gitmo Bar — in gross violation of the conditions of access to the enemy combatants — provided al Qaeda detainees with a propaganda brochure that instructed them on how falsely to claim that they had been tortured and abused. As the Gitmo commander put it, "The very nature of this document gives tremendous moral support to those who would strike out against our country.... It is not a factual report. Instead it is filled with second and third hand accounts, photos of protests that were staged, inflammatory photos from Iraq and provocative story captions."
The Gitmo Bar fomented a detainee hunger strike that disrupted security at the camp and set the stage for fabricated reports that the detainees were being tortured and force-fed.
The Gitmo Bar provided the detainees with virulently anti-American rhetoric that compared military physicians to Nazi Josef Mengele, labeled DOJ lawyers "desk torturers," and informed the detainees about the Abu Ghraib abuses and the potential for framing President Bush as a war criminal.
The Gitmo Bar provided the enemy combatant terrorists with a hand-drawn map of the detention camp's lay-out, including guard towers.
The Gitno Bar incited the detainees against the military guards.
The Gtimo Bar posted photos of Guantanamo security badges on the Internet in a transparent effort to identify U.S. security personnel.
The Gitmo Bar facilitated enemy combatants in communicating messages and interviews to their confederates and the outside world.
The Gitmo Bar provided a detainee with a list identifying all the other detainees in custody.
The Gitmo Bar provided the detainees with news accounts about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, including reports that U.S. forces were sustaining devastating casualities from IED attacks. (Again, it was a court-ordered condition of the lawyers' access to these war prisoners that they not be given information relating to military operations, intelligence, arrests, political news and current events, and the names of U.S. government personnel.)
The Gitmo Bar provided KSM and the 9/11 plotters — i.e., the murderers of 3000 Americans — with photographs of covert CIA officers in an effort to identify them as interrogators. (Leftist lawyers are attempting to have these interrogators indicted for torture and war crimes.)
The Gitmo Bar brags about its role in the release of enemy combatants who have returned to the jihad against American troops and the American people...
If only half of this is true and some of those attorneys are now working for the Justice Department, it's a disgrace. Read the original article at the WSJ linked above.
Google has drawn up detailed plans for the closure of its Chinese search engine and is now “99.9 per cent” certain to go ahead as talks over censorship with the Chinese authorities have reached an apparent impasse, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking.
In a hardening of positions on both sides, the Chinese government also on Friday threw down a direct public challenge to the US search company, with a warning that it was not prepared to compromise on internet censorship to stop Google leaving.
The signs that Google was on the brink of closing Google.cn, its local search service in China, came two months after it promised to stop bowing to censorship there. But while a decision could be made very soon, the company is likely to take some time to follow through with the plan as it seeks an orderly closure and takes steps to protect local employees from retaliation by the authorities, the person familiar with its position said.
Google is also seeking ways to keep its other operations in China going, although some executives fear that a backlash from the Chinese authorities could make it almost impossible to keep a presence in the country.
When the search giant first promised to end censorship in response to what it claimed were a series of cyber-attacks mounted from inside China, many China-watchers warned that its public defiance of Beijing would provoke a stern response.
On Friday, Li Yizhong, minister for industry and information technology, said: “If [Google] takes steps that violate Chinese laws, that would be unfriendly, that would be irresponsible, and they would have to bear the consequences.”
One person close to the search company, meanwhile, said that its senior executives remained “adamant” about ending the censorship. The company has also ruled out keeping the search service going by handing majority control, or even the entire business, to a local player, this person said.
Google’s executives have made it clear that they still hope to stay in the country, whatever the fate of Google.cn. “It’s very important to know we are not pulling out of China,” Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, told the Financial Times at the time. “We have a good business in China. This is about the censorship rules, not anything else.”
The company’s other operations, which pre-date the launch of Google.cn four years ago, include its research centre in Beijing and a sales force that sells advertising on the Chinese-language Google.com search service, based outside China, to advertisers inside the country....
The Booker Prize winner said those who claimed judging Muslims was "de facto" racism were playing a "poisonous argument".
McEwan, 61, the best-selling author of novels including Amsterdam, Atonement and Saturday, thought many in the left wrongly took this position because they had an anti-Americanism shared with Islamists.
In an interview with today's Telegraph Magazine, McEwan said: "Chunks of left-of-centre opinion have tried to close down the debate by saying that if you were to criticise Islam as a thought system you are a de facto racist. That is a poisonous argument.
"They do it on the basis that they see an ally in their particular forms of anti-Americanism," he said.
"So these radical Muslims are the shock-troops for the armchair Left who don't want to examine too closely the rest of the package – the homophobia, the misogyny and so on."
McEwan first entered the fray in 2007 to defend his friend Martin Amis against charges of racism.
Amis had been accused of Islamophobia after writing an essay criticising the "extreme incuriosity of Islamic culture"; arguing that Islam had "proved responsive" to the influence of Hitler and Stalin; and labelling Islamism a "cult of death".
The essay itself attracted little attention, but in a subsequent interview Amis made the incendiary comment: "The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order."
Muslims would have to undergo "discriminatory stuff" like stopping them from travelling, he said.
Prof Terry Eagleton, the Marxist literary critic, subsequently compared him to a British National Party "thug".
Amis maintained throughout that he was not Islamophobic, but detested Islamism, the religion's fundamentalist branch.
He later said that he had only been "conversationally describing an urge" in his comments about discriminatory measures for Muslims, "an urge that soon wore off".
"I hereby declare that 'harassing the Muslim community in Britain' would be neither moral nor efficacious," he added.
However, Ronan Bennett, who wrote the screenplay to the film The Hamburg Cell, later deplored Amis for making "an odious an outburst of racist sentiment as any public figure has made in this country for a very long time".
At that point McEwan got involved, writing a letter in defence of Amis. He was himself then decried as a member of the "clash-of-civilisations literary brigade".
McEwan said he consequently became the victim of hate messages on jihadist websites.
In today's interview McEwan stressed that his political views were "incredibly unexciting", being "just left of centre".
But that won't stop the press from describing him as 'far-right."
LEADVILLE, Colo.—Slumped on her couch with her cigarettes, her fading photographs and her memories, Christine Holcomb-Mott said she no longer knew what to believe.
Her 31-year-old daughter, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, had been taken into custody in Ireland, linked to an alleged plot to kill a cartoonist who satirized the Prophet [strike though my emphasis - RB] Mohammed.
Mrs. Holcomb-Mott hadn't talked to her daughter in days. She didn't know whether she had a lawyer, a court date, an explanation. But her daughter's behavior over the past few months, including she says, possible correspondence with a foreign national who wanted to take flying lessons in the U.S., unnerved her.
The Wall Street Journal hasn't reached Ms. Paulin-Ramirez and some events that her mother recounts about her daughter's home life couldn't be independently verified. But Mrs. Holcomb-Mott says she had been feeling estranged from her daughter for nearly a year.
Though they lived under the same roof, in a pink-painted house with wind chimes out front, the mother and daughter rarely talked, except to argue about Ms. Paulin-Ramirez's abrupt adoption of the Islamic faith and her decision to veil herself in a hijab. These tensions existed in the household despite the longtime embrace of Islam by Mrs. Holcomb-Mott's husband, George Mott...
(...)
Irish authorities have released no information about the grandson and it hasn't been possible to determine his whereabouts. His grandparents say they assume he is in the care of authorities in Ireland. They aim to get custody of the boy, even if it means making the case that his mother is an unfit guardian. "I'm so worried about that baby," Mrs. Holcomb-Mott said.
The boy's father, who is Mexican, has made no contact with the family since Christian was a baby, according to Mrs. Holcomb-Mott.
(...)
"I'm not against Muslims," Mrs. Holcomb-Mott said. "I married one." But she felt her daughter's newfound faith was just a phase. "She is the type of person that can be easily brainwashed," the mother said.
Then last fall, on a Friday, Sept. 11, Ms. Paulin-Ramirez told her parents she was driving to Denver for the weekend. She left most of the headscarves she had been wearing since announcing her conversion to Islam, her parents say. She took her son.
When she hadn't returned on the following Monday, missing a scheduled shift at work, Mrs. Holcomb-Mott called the local police. When a week passed with no word from her daughter, Mrs. Holcomb-Mott again called police, saying "her mother's intuition was telling her there is something very wrong," according to the police report.
Leadville Police Sgt. Saige Thomas wanted to help but said there was little she could do. "I explained that Jamie is an adult, and that she could go wherever she wanted to, and practice any religion that she wanted to," the police report states.
A few weeks later, Ms. Paulin-Ramirez contacted her family from Ireland. Mr. Mott said she told him that she had married the foreigner she had met online, that they had changed Christian's name to Wahid, and that he was attending a madrassa, or Islamic religious school.
By now, they said had little interest in talking with Ms. Paulin-Ramirez, tired of her phases, and furious that she had left behind a good job, a new car, a promising start at higher education.
But Christian was another matter. His tricycle still sits in the front yard, half-buried in snow. His grandparents study his pictures. Tears spilling down her cheeks, Mrs. Holcomb-Mott said she called Ireland to talk to him nearly every week since October. She said her heart broke with every conversation.
"He said, Poppa, get your truck and come get me. How're you going to find me, Poppa?" Mrs. Holcomb-Mott recalled.
Last time they talked with him, two weeks ago, Mrs. Holcomb-Mott said she told her grandson that their cat had just given birth to a single kitten, a white and gray puffball no bigger than her palm.
"Name him my name, Grandmamma," Mrs. Holcomb-Mott said her grandson told her. "Name him Christian."
American writer Theo Padnos pretended he was a Muslim and settled himself into Yemen’s radical mosque scene. You may not agree with his concluding remarks, but the story is quite interesting. While there, he met Carlos Bledsoe who opened fire on the military recruiting center in Little Rock. Apparently, there are quite a few westerners in Yemen studying Islam.
Video of Muslim Professor's Assault on Journalist and Cameraman in Tallahassee
(Tallahassee, FL) Investigative journalist and Chairman of Americans Against Hate Joe Kaufman and Florida Security Council cameraman J. Mark Campbell were assaulted, yesterday, by a member of United Voices for America (UVA), a Florida Muslim lobby group.
UVA was in Tallahassee for its second annual event, entitled Muslim Capitol Day.
According to the lieutenant in charge, the perpetrator of the attacks, Bassem Alhalabi, was charged with simple battery for each incident. The two assaults happened on two separate occasions, both on the same day.
Alhalabi is a professor at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), a director and co-founder of the Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR), and a former associate of convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian.
In June 2003, Alhalabi was found guilty of illegally shipping a $13,000 military-grade thermal imaging device to Syria.
United Voices for America (UVA) is headed by Ahmed Bedier, the former Executive Director of CAIR-Tampa and the former unofficial spokesman for Sami al-Arian. Bedier was present, during the attack on Campbell.
In May 2007, Rafiq Sabir, a member of Alhalabis Islamic center was convicted of material support for al-Qaeda.
Jounalist and Cameraman Assaulted by Muslim Professor on Muslim Day in Florida
Jerry Gordon will undoubtedly have more on this later.
(Tallahassee, FL) Investigative journalist and Chairman of Americans Against Hate Joe Kaufman and Florida Security Council cameraman J. Mark Campbell were assaulted, earlier today, by a member of United Voices for America (UVA), a Florida Muslim lobby group.
UVA was in Tallahassee for its second annual event, entitled “Muslim Capitol Day.”
According to the lieutenant in charge, the perpetrator of the attacks, Bassem Alhalabi, was charged with “simple battery” for each incident. The two assaults happened on two separate occasions, both on the same day.
Alhalabi is a professor at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), a director and co-founder of the Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR), and a former associate of convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian.
In June 2003, Alhalabi was found guilty of illegally shipping a $13,000 military-grade thermal imaging device to Syria.
United Voices for America (UVA) is headed by Ahmed Bedier, the former Executive Director of CAIR-Tampa and the former “unofficial spokesman” for Sami al-Arian. Bedier was present, during the attack on Campbell.
In May 2007, Rafiq Sabir, a member of Alhalabi’s Islamic center was convicted of material support for al-Qaeda.
News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch announced on Tuesday that the Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi is to become the headquarters of his global media empire in the Middle East.
Addressing some 400 delegates at the opening of the Abu Dhabi Media Summit, Murdoch said his corporation had started out as a small Australian firm to become a US-based international company that employs 64,000 people.
"I have every confidence that Arab companies can do the same and more. I also believe that Abu Dhabi can lead the way."
Murdoch said News Corp would headquarter its Middle Eastern global online advertising operations in Abu Dhabi, and move a number of satellite television channels to the capital of the United Arab Emirates from Hong Kong.
"We will (also) establish a production office here for one of our documentary film-making companies," he said.
"When we look to the future, News Corporation is betting on the creative potential of the more than 335 million people who make up the Arab world," he added.
Organised by the Abu Dhabi government, the three-day summit is expected to address the potential of the emerging media markets in the Middle East, India and China.
Mohammed Khalaf al-Mazruei, who heads the Abu Dhabi Media Company, told delegates that "the Middle East is experiencing radical change," and that its media should "accompany this revolution."
News Corp has already established strong links with the region, last month agreeing to invest 70 million US dollars in the Rotana Group, which is controlled by Saudi tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, after buying a 9.0 percent stake in the firm.
Alwaleed's Kingdom holding company also owns around 7.0 percent of News Corp's class B common stock.
A Pennsylvania woman known to authorities as "JihadJane" has been charged in federal court with using the Internet to recruit jihadist fighters to carry out murders and violent attacks overseas.
The woman, Colleen R. LaRose, was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, making false statements to a government official and attempted identity theft, according to the indictment, unsealed Monday.
Sources tell Fox News the "Swedish citizen" who "JihadJane" was allegedly looking to kill is Lars Vilks, who drew one of the controversial Prophet Muhammad cartoons. There was a series of arrests in Ireland earlier Tuesday that are reportedly connected to LaRose's case.
In September of 2007 Al Qaeda offered a bounty for the murder of Viks.
LaRose and five unindicted co-conspirators are accused of recruiting men to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe and of recruiting women who had passports and the ability to travel to and around Europe for similar missions.
The accused co-conspirators are located in South Asia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the United States.
"Today's indictment ... underscores the evolving nature of the threat we face," said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division.
In June 2008, LaRose posted a comment on YouTube under the username "JihadJane," stating that she is "desperate to do something somehow to help" the suffering Muslim people, according to the indictment.
She was also know to authorities as "Fatima LaRose." The indictment describes LaRose as in her 40s.
Court documents show LaRose was first arrested by federal authorities on Oct. 16, 2009, for allegedly trying to "transfer" a stolen passport.
The indictment accuses the American-born LaRose and her unindicted co-conspirators of using the Internet to establish relationships with one another and to communicate their plans, which included martyring themselves, soliciting funds for terrorists, soliciting passports and avoiding travel restrictions, through the collection of passports and through marriage, according to a government release.
LaRose, who lives in Montgomery County, Pa., received a direct order to kill someone in Sweden, and to do so in a way that would frighten "the whole Kufar [non-believer] world," according to the indictment.
It states that LaRose agreed to carry out her murder assignment, and that she and her co-conspirators discussed that her appearance and American citizenship would help her blend.
According to the indictment, LaRose traveled to Europe and tracked her intended target online, but it isn't clear whether she carried out the mission...
I believe we would have heard if Vilks had been murdered. What is it about cartoons that sets these people off? Woof.
MARJA, AFGHANISTAN -- The newly appointed top official in Marja, Abdul Zahir Aryan, is the Afghan face of the American-led military offensive. As the lone government representative in this town, he stands at the center of the next phase of the battle: the fight to build an Afghan government that is more attractive than Taliban rule.
But Zahir, who goes by Haji Zahir, arrived at this position after a tumultuous personal history that American and Afghan officials have not publicly disclosed. During more than a decade living in Germany, Zahir, 60, served four years in prison for attempted murder after stabbing his stepson, according to U.S. officials.
Three top U.S. officials in Afghanistan and one senior administration official in Washington confirmed his German conviction, though none would speak on the record. They did not say if the Afghan or U.S. government had known of his criminal conviction before Afghan officials appointed him to his post.
U.S. officials in Afghanistan said Zahir's criminal conviction did not undermine their confidence in his ability to govern.
"He served his time, so I suspect he will survive this," a U.S. military official said, adding though that the U.S. government had expressed concern to the Afghan government about this issue.
His criminal record casts a different light on Zahir than the one American officials have chosen to emphasize: that of a respected elder from the Alozai tribe, a landowner who lived in Marja in his youth and who hopes to re-create those peaceful days in areas recently wrested from Taliban control. U.S. Marines and civilian advisers in Marja have given him money and protection in an attempt to persuade a wary population to follow him.
"We want to ensure that Haji Zahir's face is on everything we do," said one official who works with him in Marja.
In interviews this week in Marja, Zahir spoke about the years he spent in exile living outside Frankfurt, sometimes unemployed, sometimes working in laundries and hotels. He chatted in German at length with a U.S. Marine who spoke the language.
He could not be reached subsequently to discuss his time in prison. But the details of his case as described by U.S. officials in Afghanistan correspond to that of an Afghan man who went by Abdul Zahar while in Germany.
The account of Zahar's life and trial in Germany, as related in newspaper articles and confirmed by German officials this week, including his defense attorney, Manfred Doering, described a man with a volatile family life and a willingness to flee from justice. He arrived in Germany in 1989 after working as a Ministry of Defense driver in Afghanistan. He settled in Rodgau with at least two wives and 13 children -- including twin 18-year-old stepsons.
On Dec. 15, 1997, after beating his wife and being taken to task by his stepson for it, Zahar went to the home of a stepdaughter and stabbed the stepson in the chest and an arm, wounds that required hospitalization...
No doubt he'll survive this, but what does it say about us? The entire Afghanistan mission has become completely untenable.
KARACHI, Pakistan – The American-born spokesman for al-Qaida has been arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday, the same day Adam Gadahn appeared in a video urging U.S. Muslims to attack their own country.
The arrest of Gadahn is a major victory in the U.S.-led battle against al-Qaida and will be taken as a sign that Pakistan, criticized in the past for being an untrustworthy ally, is cooperating more fully with Washington. It follows the recent detentions of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the movement's No. 2 commander.
Gadahn has appeared in more than half a dozen al-Qaida videos, taunting and threatening the West and calling for its destruction. A U.S. court charged Gadahn with treason in 2006, making him the first American to face such a charge in more than 50 years.
He was arrested in the sprawling southern metropolis of Karachi in recent days, two officers who took part in the operation said. A senior government official also confirmed the arrest, but said it happened Sunday. The discrepancy could not immediately be resolved.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
The intelligence officials said Gadahn was being interrogated by Pakistani officials. Pakistani agents and those from the CIA work closely on some operations in Pakistan, but it was not clear if any Americans were involved in the operation or questioning.
In the past, Pakistan has handed over some al-Qaida suspects arrested on its soil to the United States.
Gadahn grew up on a goat farm in Riverside County, California, and converted to Islam at a mosque in nearby Orange County.
UPDATE: It's looking like the man they arrested is not Gadahn.
The White House on Friday announced a "summit on entrepreneurship" to build economic ties with the Islamic world, part of President Barack Obama's outreach to Muslims.
The White House said it has invited participants from more than 40 countries over five continents for the April 26-27 conference in Washington.
"The summit will highlight the role entrepreneurship can play in addressing common challenges while building partnerships that will lead to greater opportunity abroad and at home," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Obama first spoke of the entrepreneurship conference in his signature June 4 speech in Cairo to the Islamic world.
In the closely watched address, Obama said the United States was seeking a "new beginning" with the Islamic world to rebuild relations that had sharply deteriorated over the past decade.
Obama promised at the time that he would convene a "presidential summit on entrepreneurship" by the end of 2009.
He said that the meeting would "identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world."
BUFFALO, N.Y. — The founder of an Islam-oriented television station who is accused of beheading his wife is due in a Buffalo courtroom for proceedings in advance of his murder trial.
Muzzammil “Mo” Hassan is tentatively scheduled to stand trial later this month for the death of his wife, Aasiyah Hassan, last year.
Pretrial motions are scheduled for Friday.
Hassan’s attorney plans a defense that includes claims that Hassan was abused by his wife and emotionally out of control. But prosecutors are fighting the use of a psychiatric defense.
The Pakistan-born Hassans started Bridges TV in 2004, in part to dispel negative Muslim stereotypes.
Muzzammil Hassan was served divorce papers shortly before his wife’s slaying.
Thank you. It is great to be back in London. And it is great that this time, I got to see more of this wonderful city than just the detention centre at Heathrow Airport.
Today I stand before you, in this extraordinary place. Indeed, this is a sacred place. This is, as Malcolm always says, the mother of all Parliaments, I am deeply humbled to have the opportunity to speak before you.
Thank you Lord Pearson and Lady Cox for your invitation and showing my film ‘Fitna’. Thank you my friends for inviting me.
I first have great news. Last Wednesday city council elections were held in the Netherlands. And for the first time my party, the Freedom Party, took part in these local elections. We participated in two cities. In Almere, one of the largest Dutch cities. And in The Hague, the third largest city; home of the government, the parliament and the queen. And, we did great! In one fell swoop my party became the largest party in Almere and the second largest party in The Hague. Great news for the Freedom Party and even better news for the people of these two beautiful cities.
And I have more good news. Two weeks ago the Dutch government collapsed. In June we will have parliamentary elections. And the future for the Freedom Party looks great. According to some polls we will become the largest party in the Netherlands. I want to be modest, but who knows, I might even be Prime Minister in a few months time!
Ladies and gentlemen, not far from here stands a statue of the greatest Prime Minister your country ever had. And I would like to quote him here today: “Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. No stronger retrograde force exists in the World. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step (…) the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.” These words are from none other than Winston Churchill wrote this in his book ‘The River War’ from 1899.
Churchill was right.
Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t have a problem and my party does not have a problem with Muslims as such. There are many moderate Muslims. The majority of Muslims are law-abiding citizens and want to live a peaceful life as you and I do. I know that. That is why I always make a clear distinction between the people, the Muslims, and the ideology, between Islam and Muslims. There are many moderate Muslims, but there is no such thing as a moderate Islam.
Islam strives for world domination. The Quran commands Muslims to exercise jihad. The Quran commands Muslims to establish shariah law. The Quran commands Muslims to impose Islam on the entire world.
As former Turkish Prime Minister Erbakan said: “The whole of Europe will become Islamic. We will conquer Rome”. End of quote.
Libyan dictator Gaddafi said: “There are tens of millions of Muslims in the European continent today and their number is on the increase. This is the clear indication that the European continent will be converted into Islam. Europe will one day soon be a Muslim continent”. End of quote. Indeed, for once in his life, Gaddafi was telling the truth. Because, remember: mass immigration and demographics is destiny!
Islam is merely not a religion, it is mainly a totalitarian ideology. Islam wants to dominate all aspects of life, from the cradle to the grave. Shariah law is a law that controls every detail of life in a Islamic society. From civic- and family law to criminal law. It determines how one should eat, dress and even use the toilet. Oppression of women is good, drinking alcohol is bad.
I believe that Islam is not compatible with our Western way of life. Islam is a threat to Western values. The equality of men and women, the equality of homosexuals and heterosexuals, the separation of church and state, freedom of speech, they are all under pressure because of islamization. Ladies and gentlemen: Islam and freedom, Islam and democracy are not compatible. It are opposite values.
No wonder that Winston Churchill called Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ “the new Quran of faith and war, turgid, verbose, shapeless, bur pregnant with its message”. As you know, Churchill made this comparison, between the Koran and Mein Kampf, in his book ‘The Second World War’, a master piece, for which, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Churchill’s comparison of the Quran and ‘Mein Kampf’ is absolutely spot on. The core of the Quran is the call to jihad. Jihad means a lot of things and is Arabic for battle. Kampf is German for battle. Jihad and kampf mean exactly the same.
Islam means submission, there cannot be any mistake about its goal. That’s a given. The question is whether we in Europe and you in Britain, with your glorious past, will submit or stand firm for your heritage.
We see Islam taking off in the West at an incredible pace. Europe is Islamizing rapidly. A lot of European cities have enormous Islamic concentrations. Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Berlin are just a few examples. In some parts of these cities, Islamic regulations are already being enforced. Women’s rights are being destroyed. Burqa’s, headscarves, polygamy, female genital mutilation, honour-killings. Women have to go to separate swimming-classes, don’t get a handshake. In many European cities there is already apartheid. Jews, in an increasing number, are leaving Europe.
As you undoubtedly all know, better then I do, also in your country the mass immigration and islamization has rapidly increased. This has put an enormous pressure on your British society. Look what is happening in for example Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford and here in London. British politicians who have forgotten about Winston Churchill have now taken the path of least resistance. They have given up. They have given in.
Last year, my party has requested the Dutch government to make a cost-benefit analysis of the mass immigration. But the government refused to give us an answer. Why? Because it is afraid of the truth. The signs are not good. A Dutch weekly magazine - Elsevier - calculated costs to exceed 200 billion Euros. Last year alone, they came with an amount of 13 billion Euros. More calculations have been made in Europe: According to the Danish national bank, every Danish immigrant from an Islamic country is costing the Danish state more than 300 thousand Euros. You see the same in Norway and France. The conclusion that can be drawn from this: Europe is getting more impoverished by the day. More impoverished thanks to mass immigration. More impoverished thanks to demographics. And the leftists are thrilled.
I don't know whether it is true, but in several British newspapers I read that Labour opened the door to mass immigration in a deliberate policy to change the social structures of the UK. Andrew Neather, a former government advisor and speech writer for Tony Blair and Jack Straw, said the aim of Labour’s immigration strategy was, and I quote, to “rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date”. If this is true, this is symptomatic of the Left.
Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake: The left is facilitating islamization. Leftists, liberals, are cheering for every new shariah bank being created, for every new shariah mortgage, for every new islamic school, for every new shariah court. Leftists consider Islam as being equal to our own culture. Shariah law or democracy? Islam or freedom? It doesn’t really matter to them. But it does matter to us. The entire leftist elite is guilty of practising cultural relativism. Universities, churches, trade unions, the media, politicians. They are all betraying our hard-won liberties.
Why I ask myself, why have the Leftists and liberals stopped to fight for them? Once the Leftists stood on the barricades for women’s rights. But where are they today? Where are they in 2010? They are looking the other way. Because they are addicted to cultural relativism and dependent on the Muslim vote. They are dependent on mass-immigration.
Thank heavens Jacqui Smith isn’t in office anymore. It was a victory for free speech that a UK judge brushed aside her decision to refuse me entry to your country last year. I hope that the judges in my home country are at least as wise and will acquit me of all charges, later this year in the Netherlands.
Unfortunately, so far they have not done so well. For they do not want to hear the truth about Islam, nor are they interested to hear the opinion of top class legal experts in the field of freedom of expression. Last month in a preliminary session the Court refused fifteen of the eighteen expert-witnesses I had requested to be summoned.
Only three expert witnesses are allowed to be heard. Fortunately, my dear friend and heroic American psychiatrist dr. Wafa Sultan is one of them. But their testimony will be heard behind closed doors. Apparently the truth about Islam must not be told in public, the truth about Islam must remain secret.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m being prosecuted for my political beliefs. We know political prosecution to exist in countries in the Middle East, like Iran and Saudi-Arabia, but never in Europe, never in the Netherlands.
I’m being prosecuted for comparing the Quran to ‘Mein Kampf’. Ridiculous. I wonder if Britain will ever put the beliefs of Winston Churchill on trial… Ladies and gentlemen, the political trial that is held against me has to stop.
But it is not all about me, not about Geert Wilders. Free speech is under attack. Let me give you a few other examples. As you perhaps know, one of my heroes, the Italian author Oriana Fallaci had to live in fear of extradition to Switzerland because of her anti-Islam book 'The Rage and the Pride'. The Dutch cartoonist Nekschot was arrested in his home in Amsterdam by 10 police men because of his anti-Islam drawings. Here in Britain, the American author Rachel Ehrenfeld was sued by a Saudi businessman for defamation. In the Netherlands Ayaan Hirsi Ali and in Australia two Christian pastors were sued. I could go on and on. Ladies and gentlemen, all throughout the West freedom loving people are facing this ongoing ‘legal jihad’. This is Islamic ‘lawfare’. And, ladies and gentlemen, not long ago the Danish cartoonist Westergaard was almost assassinated for his cartoons.
Ladies and gentlemen, we should defend the right to freedom of speech. With all our strength. With all our might. Free speech is the most important of our many liberties. Free speech is the cornerstone of our modern societies. Freedom of speech is the breath of our democracy, without freedom of speech our way of life our freedom will be gone.
I believe it is our obligation to preserve the inheritance of the brave young soldiers that stormed the beaches of Normandy. That liberated Europe from tyranny. These heroes cannot have died for nothing. It is our obligation to defend freedom of speech. As George Orwell said: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe in another policy, it is time for change. We must make haste. We can’t wait any longer. Time is running out. If I may quote one of my favourite American presidents: Ronald Reagan once said: “We need to act today, to preserve tomorrow”. That is why I propose the following measures, I only mention a few, in order to preserve our freedom:
First, we will have to defend freedom of speech. It is the most important of our liberties. In Europe and certainly in the Netherlands, we need something like the American First Amendment.
Second, we will have to end and get rid of cultural relativism. To the cultural relativists, the shariah socialists, I proudly say: Our Western culture is far superior to the Islamic culture. Don't be affraid to say it. You are not a racist when you say that our own culture is better.
Third, we will have to stop mass immigration from Islamic countries. Because more Islam means less freedom.
Fourth, we will have to expel criminal immigrants and, following denaturalisation, we will have to expel criminals with a dual nationality. And there are many of them in my country.
Fifth, we will have to forbid the construction of new mosques. There is enough Islam in Europe. Especially since Christians in Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia are mistreated, there should be a mosque building-stop in the West.
And last but not least, we will have to get rid of all those so-called leaders. I said it before: Fewer Chamberlains, more Churchills. Let's elect real leaders.
Ladies and gentlemen. To the previous generation, that of my parents, the word ‘London’ is synonymous with hope and freedom. When my country was occupied by the national-socialists the BBC offered a daily glimpse of hope in my country, in the darkness of Nazi tyranny. Millions of my fellow country men listened to it, underground. The words ‘This is London’ were a symbol for a better world coming soon.
What will be broadcasted forty years from now? Will it still be “This is London”? Or will it be “This is Londonistan”? Will it bring us hope? Or will it signal the values of Mecca and Medina? Will Britain offer submission or perseverance? Freedom or slavery? The choice is yours. And in the Netherlands the choice is ours.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will never apologize for being free. We will and should never give in. And, indeed, as one of your former leaders said: We will never surrender.
A Rancho Cordova-based insurer Monday launched what it calls the first nationally available insurance coverage designed specifically for the medical marijuana industry.
Only 14 states allow use of medical marijuana today, but Statewide Insurance Services is nonetheless offering coverage in all 50 states.
"Given the growth in the industry, I think it's only a matter of time" before other states allow medical marijuana, said Mike Aberle, a commercial insurance agent with the local firm and national director of its Medical Marijuana Specialty Division.
He added: "Now that we can offer (services) in all 50 states, we can start the minute they go legal, without delay."
Aberle said the nationwide program covers "all aspects of the industry," including medical marijuana dispensaries (MMDs for short), workers' compensation, general liability, auto insurance (motor vehicles used to transport product), equipment breakdown/damage, property/product loss (including pot spoilage) and operations related to marijuana growing...
Three persons including an author of a book, allegedly containing anti-Islamic material, were arrested in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh, police said today.
The book, 'Crescent over the World' a compilation of articles published by M Laxmaiah alias Krantikar, a civil rights activist, contained "objectionable" material against Muslims, Khammam district Superintendent of Police Anil Kumar told PTI over phone.
The SP said police have seized 800 books in raids at different places in Khammam district since yesterday.
Another police official said, "Krantikar was arrested last night and two others-Innaiah and Subbarao-distributors of the book were arrested today and all of them were sent to judicial remand.
...In Islamic law a woman is worth only half of a man. They are made to wear burkas and stay inside their homes, causing illness and nutritional deficiencies due to lack of sunlight. They are not even second class citizens. They are oppressed. I treat my dogs better than women in Islam are treated. How many women in this country, or any other, must suffer or die before we hear the outcry from all of the women’s advocacy groups, and why have we not heard anything up to this point? Why are none of these groups educating the public on the oppression of women in Islam?
