Saturday, October 8, 2011

Week ending 10/08/11



1. Diversity! Works great!


"Warning over France's Islamic suburbs which are becoming 'separate communities in a divided nation'," from the Daily Mail, October 6:
France's run-down city suburbs are becoming ‘separate Islamic societies’ cut off from the state, a report has warned.
Arab communities are increasingly rejecting French values and identity to immerse themselves in Muslim culture and lifestyle, it was found.
Muslim pupils often boycott school dinners if the food is not halal and most Arabs oppose marriages to white French citizens, the study by respected political scientist Gilles Kepel revealed.
As a result, France – whose five million Muslims make up Europe’s largest Islamic population – was turning into a ‘divided nation’, the study called Suburbs of the Republic found.
Dr Kepel wrote: ‘In some areas, a third of the population of the town does not hold French nationality, and many residents are drawn to an Islamic identity rather than simply rejecting or failing to find a secular one.
‘French schools, which are rigorously non-religious, have traditionally been seen as having the role of training young citizens of the republic.
But local officials say Islamic pupils are heading home for a halal lunch.
‘Most people in France do not object to mixed marriages, but in the suburbs we were surprised to find a very large proportion of Muslim respondents said they were opposed to marriages with non-Muslims.’
The study was commissioned by the Institut Montaigne think-tank. It will make recommendations to the government in January.

2. Isn't this a Bush headline?  



Secret panel can put Americans on "kill list'

WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 5, 2011 7:59pm EDT
(Reuters) - American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials.
There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.
     The panel was behind the decision to add Awlaki, a U.S.-born militant preacher with alleged al Qaeda connections, to the target list. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen late last month.
The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process.
Current and former officials said that to the best of their knowledge, Awlaki, who the White House said was a key figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda's Yemen-based affiliate, had been the only American put on a government list targeting people for capture or death due to their alleged involvement with militants.
     The White House is portraying the killing of Awlaki as a demonstration of President Barack Obama's toughness toward militants who threaten the United States. But the process that led to Awlaki's killing has drawn fierce criticism from both the political left and right.
In an ironic turn, Obama, who ran for president denouncing predecessor George W. Bush's expansive use of executive power in his "war on terrorism," is being attacked in some quarters for using similar tactics. They include secret legal justifications and undisclosed intelligence assessments.
Liberals criticized the drone attack on an American citizen as extra-judicial murder.
Conservatives criticized Obama for refusing to release a Justice Department legal opinion that reportedly justified killing Awlaki. They accuse Obama of hypocrisy, noting his administration insisted on publishing Bush-era administration legal memos justifying the use of interrogation techniques many equate with torture, but refused to make public its rationale for killing a citizen without due process.
Some details about how the administration went about targeting Awlaki emerged on Tuesday when the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, was asked by reporters about the killing.
The process involves "going through the National Security Council, then it eventually goes to the president, but the National Security Council does the investigation, they have lawyers, they review, they look at the situation, you have input from the military, and also, we make sure that we follow international law," Ruppersberger said.

LAWYERS CONSULTED

     Other officials said the role of the president in the process was murkier than what Ruppersberger described. They said targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC "principals," meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval. The panel of principals could have different memberships when considering different operational issues, they said.
The officials insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
     They confirmed that lawyers, including those in the Justice Department, were consulted before Awlaki's name was added to the target list. Two principal legal theories were advanced, an official said: first, that the actions were permitted by Congress when it authorized the use of military forces against militants in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001; and they are permitted under international law if a country is defending itself.
     Several officials said that when Awlaki became the first American put on the target list, Obama was not required personally to approve the targeting of a person. But one official said Obama would be notified of the principals' decision. If he objected, the decision would be nullified, the official said.
A former official said one of the reasons for making senior officials principally responsible for nominating Americans for the target list was to "protect" the president.
Officials confirmed that a second American, Samir Khan, was killed in the drone attack that killed Awlaki. Khan had served as editor of Inspire, a glossy English-language magazine used by AQAP as a propaganda and recruitment vehicle.
But rather than being specifically targeted by drone operators, Khan was in the wrong place at the wrong time, officials said. Ruppersberger appeared to confirm that, saying Khan's death was "collateral," meaning he was not an intentional target of the drone strike.
     When the name of a foreign, rather than American, militant is added to targeting lists, the decision is made within the intelligence community and normally does not require approval by high-level NSC officials.

'FROM INSPIRATIONAL TO OPERATIONAL'

Officials said Awlaki, whose fierce sermons were widely circulated on English-language militant websites, was targeted because Washington accumulated information his role in AQAP had gone "from inspirational to operational." That meant that instead of just propagandizing in favor of al Qaeda objectives, Awlaki allegedly began to participate directly in plots against American targets.
"Let me underscore, Awlaki is no mere messenger but someone integrally involved in lethal terrorist activities," Daniel Benjamin, top counterterrorism official at the State Department, warned last spring.
The Obama administration has not made public an accounting of the classified evidence that Awlaki was operationally involved in planning terrorist attacks.
But officials acknowledged that some of the intelligence purporting to show Awlaki's hands-on role in plotting attacks was patchy.
For instance, one plot in which authorities have said Awlaki was involved Nigerian-born Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Christmas Day 2009 with a bomb hidden in his underpants.
There is no doubt Abdulmutallab was an admirer or follower of Awlaki, since he admitted that to U.S. investigators. When he appeared in a Detroit courtroom earlier this week for the start of his trial on bomb-plot charges, he proclaimed, "Anwar is alive."
But at the time the White House was considering putting Awlaki on the U.S. target list, intelligence connecting Awlaki specifically to Abdulmutallab and his alleged bomb plot was partial. Officials said at the time the United States had voice intercepts involving a phone known to have been used by Awlaki and someone who they believed, but were not positive, was Abdulmutallab.
Awlaki was also implicated in a case in which a British Airways employee was imprisoned for plotting to blow up a U.S.-bound plane. E-mails retrieved by authorities from the employee's computer showed what an investigator described as " operational contact" between Britain and Yemen.
Authorities believe the contacts were mainly between the U.K.-based suspect and his brother. But there was a strong suspicion Awlaki was at the brother's side when the messages were dispatched. British media reported that in one message, the person on the Yemeni end supposedly said, "Our highest priority is the US ... With the people you have, is it possible to get a package or a person with a package on board a flight heading to the US?"
U.S. officials contrast intelligence suggesting Awlaki's involvement in specific plots with the activities of Adam Gadahn, an American citizen who became a principal English-language propagandist for the core al Qaeda network formerly led by Osama bin Laden.
While Gadahn appeared in angry videos calling for attacks on the United States, officials said he had not been specifically targeted for capture or killing by U.S. forces because he was regarded as a loudmouth not directly involved in plotting attacks.

 3. He should have known better...this is America! 

 

Star of David Carved on Infidel’s Back in St. Louis

Media mum about savage Muslim hate crime in the U.S.A.
October 6, 2011 - 12:00 am - by Jamie Glazov
A certain Arab author by the name of Mr. Alaa Alsaegh, an immigrant to the U.S. from Iraq, was attacked on August 14, 2011, by Muslims in the streets of St. Louis, Missouri. They stabbed him and carved a Star of David onto the flesh of his back. His crime? He published an Arabic language poem titled “Tears at the Heart of the Holocaust” on the website ArabsForIsrael.com. The poem expressed his love for the Jewish people and his sorrow over their fate in the Holocaust. The Muslim community in which he lived was outraged by this thought crime. He was called an infidel and received many threats for articulating his taboo feelings for the Jewish people. Alienated from the Muslim community, he continued to write his poetry, which contained the same themes which so upset his fellow Muslims.
In broad daylight and heavy traffic on Aug. 14, Alsaegh paid the price for expressing love for the Jews. And it happened in the streets of St. Louis, right here in the heart of America. Author and courageous freedom fighter Nonie Darwish describes the horrific event:
As he was driving at 10:30 in the morning on Compton St. near Park Ave., a small white car cut him off and hit his car, while another car stopped behind him. The occupants of the cars, some of whom wore security guard-type uniforms, quickly entered Alsaegh’s car, pointing a gun at him. They pushed his upper body down against the steering wheel, stabbed him and pulled off his shirt to expose his back. Then, with a knife, they carved the Star of David on his back while laughing as they recited his pro-Jewish poem.
Alsaegh thought that the perpetrators were Somalis; he was taken to the hospital and the photo of his injury was taken there.

The FBI has concluded that this was a hate crime. Question: apart from the Nonie Darwish article, and a handful of other reports, where exactly is this horrific story of Sharia street justice in America being reported? It is nowhere in the media.
Rodney King became a household name. The inhabitants of one American city rioted over what happened to that man. President Obama quickly reacted to the arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates and, without knowing the incident’s specifics, accused the police of acting “stupidly.”
Will Alaa Alsaegh become a household name? Will the inhabitants of an American city riot over his case? Will Obama say something? Henry Louis Gates didn’t have his flesh violated by the police. Might Alsaegh prove worthy of one ounce of Obama’s moral indignation?
We know the answers to these questions.
Three more questions:
[1] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a Muslim who was attacked by Christians in St. Louis who carved a cross on his back? Do you think this story would make it into the media?
[2] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a black man who was attacked by skinheads who carved KKK or a swastika onto his back? Do you think this story would make it into the media?
[3] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a Jew who expressed love of Muslims and was attacked for that by Jews who carved a crescent moon and star, a recognized symbol of Islam, onto his back? Do you think the story would make it into the media?
We know the obvious answer to those three questions. We also know that not only would these scenarios lead to mass media coverage worldwide and spark anti-American hysteria, but that scenarios 1 and 3 would most certainly lead not just to U.S. congressional committee investigations, but also to entire UN commissions.
Why is our media silent when a Muslim infidel has a Star of David carved on his back in a hate crime perpetrated by Muslims? Why is the literary culture silent? Where is Hollywood? Why is even our own president silent?
The answer is because of a monstrosity called the Left. The Left shapes and controls the boundaries of our society’s discourse. The Left’s mantle of multiculturalism and the belief that all religions and cultures are equal (except the ones it hates) have been internalized by our society, and there are severe punishments for crossing the boundaries of permitted speech. For example, if you condemn the Muslims for inflicting violence on Alsaegh, then you would have to accept that, in terms of the ingredients of their crime, that they are clearly acting out of the mandates of their Islamic faith (i.e., the obligation to hate infidels and Jews etc. is irrefutable). But to condemn their acts and the teachings on which they are based violates the sacred cow of leftist beliefs (i.e., Islam is a Religion of Peace) and, therefore, makes one an Islamophobe, something that, thanks to the Left’s victory in our culture, most people are now terrified of being accused of.
This phenomenon explains why Ilan Halimi, a Jewish boy in France, was kidnapped by a Muslim gang several years ago in Paris, held in a secret Muslim concentration camp and barbarically tortured for 23 days until he died (with the torturers calling his mother and reciting Koranic verses to her while she heard his screams), and his name is still to be spoken in our media.
It is understandable, of course, why Halimi’s name is not spoken — or known — in our culture. If it were, then the fact would become well known that in the apartment building in which he was tied up and tortured, the myriad of dwellers in the building, all Muslims, heard Ilan’s screams. Not only did they not do anything to stop it, but many of them got in line to participate. And they took gratification and consolation from torturing their Jew, for Islamic theology dispenses numerous mandates and incentives for Muslims to hate, hurt, and kill Jews. To accept this fact annihilates the foundational structures of the leftist belief system; it takes the legs out from the progressive lies on which our culture is built. It is safer, therefore, not to acknowledge the names of Alaa Alsaegh and Ilan Halimi, let alone what happened to them and why.
The notion that his own society is unjust is the bedrock of the leftist’s vision. To recognize the evil of the people who carved the Star of David on Alaa Alsaegh’s back or who tortured Ilan Halimi, and to recognize the evil of the ideology that inspired them, is to admit the existence of pernicious adversarial faiths. Such an admission concedes that there are cultures and systems that are much more unjust than ours. This is an untenable step for leftists to take, because it means acknowledging that there is something superior about our civilization that’s worth saving and defending.
Showing compassion for Alaa Alsaegh and Ilan Halimi is, therefore, extremely dangerous for any leftist, as it would undermine his political faith. As I have documented in United in Hate, it would also expose him to potential excommunication from his social community — which is unfathomable for the majority of leftists, whose politics are, in the end, their social lives and, therefore, their sense of personal identity.
There is also a desperation in our culture and media for a “moderate Islam” (we talk about it more than Muslims do) — an Islam that many non-Muslims strenuously insist exists, but that somehow mysteriously eludes them. This moderate Islam will take all of our problems away, we are told, once the “extremists,” who are the “minority” in Islam, are consoled. Meanwhile, a real and actual “moderate Islam” is nowhere to be found; there is no school of Islamic jurisprudence that counsels Muslims to renounce the Qur’an’s teachings on Islamic supremacism and the obligation of violent jihad. And yet, to suggest the truth of this reality in our society earns one only the label of being a racist and an “Islamophobe.”
Roger Simon, CEO of Pajamas Media, wrote a piece awhile back that touched on this theme, analyzing why even various conservative thinkers have attacked Geert Wilders. In his view, these conservative individuals are rejecting Wilders because they are afraid that he might be right. Krauthammer criticized Wilders, Simon writes, not because
he thinks the Dutch politician is “extreme,” but because he is afraid the Dutch politician is right. Call it projection, but I believe this because I have the exact same fear. I think many of us do and we don’t want to face it. Who would? The resultant conclusions are too depressing.
Indeed, it is too depressing to consider the implications of Wilders being right and so a form of Stockholm Syndrome vis-à-vis Islam must enter the consciousness of our society – a Stockholm Syndrome clearly on display, in its own toxic form, in the shameless silence we are now witnessing of our media on the frightening and tragic fate of Alaa Alsaegh.
 

 4. Of course they want to share.... 

Following PA statehood bid at UN:
PA maps still show "Palestine"
- the requested state -
to include all of Israel

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

The day after PA Chairman Abbas delivered the Palestinian Authority's request for statehood to the UN, PA TV, which is controlled directly by Abbas' office, broadcast a map that erases Israel and envisions Palestinian sovereignty over all of Israel.

The map includes both the PA areas and all of Israel (excluding the Golan Heights) wrapped in the Palestinian flag - a symbol of Palestinian sovereignty over the whole area - and has a key through it, symbolizing ownership.

Text right: "Expelled"
Text left: "Resolve"
Text bottom: "Right to return"
[PA TV, Sept. 24, 2011]

Abbas claims to recognize Israel and its right to exist, and to be requesting a Palestinian state based on 1967 ceasefire lines, living side by side with Israel. The maps of "Palestine" publicized in Abbas' official PA media do not corroborate Abbas' statements.

The following are other examples of maps of "Palestine" including Israel that were published in the official PA media in the days after the PA statehood bid at the UN.

PA TV filler showing map of "Palestine" including PA areas as well as all of Israel. The following Israeli cities are presented as Palestinian: Acre, Haifa, Beit Shean, Be'er Sheva, Ramle, Safed, Tiberias, Nazareth, Jaffa and Lod.
[PA TV, Sept. 24, 2011]








Map of PA areas and all of Israel that forms the word "HERE." It completes the text on the side and bottom, reading:
"HERE [we] stand, stay, permanent, eternal,
and we have one goal, one, one - to be, and we will be."
The word "HERE" specifically refers to all of Israel. Abbas quoted this statement by the poet Mahmoud Darwish in his speech requesting PA statehood at the UN. His official daily then made clear that "HERE" refers to all of Israel.
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 26, 2011]

Plaque with a map including the PA areas and all of Israel (excluding the Golan Heights), awarded by the Palestinian Embassy in Syria to outstanding Palestinian students living in Syria. The plaques were shown as part of a PA TV News broadcast.
[PA TV, Sept. 29, 2011]







The opening ceremony of basketball tournament at Central Sport Club Sariyat in Ramallah featured a huge map of "Palestine" that includes all of Israel. Present at the ceremony were Jibril Rajoub, Member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council and Head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee and Laila Ghannam, District Governor of Ramallah and El-Bireh. Both PA TV and the official PA daily reported on the opening, showing the map.
[PA TV, Sept. 26, 201


  5. Those racists!

Shelters combat "Black Dog Syndrome"

Animal shelters across the U.S. have noticed a disturbing trend in pet adoption - a large number of the pets that don't get adopted are black. Dubbed "Black Dog Syndrome" by many shelter workers, this issue exists largely because of superstitions and stereotypes portrayed in the media, according to the Associated Press.

While there are no statistics on this trend, shelter workers everywhere have their stories and reasons about it. Some people, whether they got the idea from an old bedtime story or a film, believe black dogs look menacing, according to PetMD.com. Others believe black cats are either bad luck or are associated with evil, like witches and the devil, the news source reports.

In addition, it is hard to photograph black animals, which makes it difficult to market them online. Photographer Seth Casteel of Little Friends Photo in Los Angeles is launching a free, non-profit and national program to teach shelter volunteers how to take good photos of animals in rescue facilities, including black pets. The program also aims to give shelters ideas on how to raise money for quality cameras and photo editing software. 


My dogs 
Growly
Missie
Munchies (thinks he's a dog)


Missie and Jonas

6. Good dog!  

Man's Best Friends Know Who Their Best Friends Are

Dogs can help themselves by deciphering humans' social interactions.
by Rebecca Coffey
From the September 2011 issue; published online September 5, 2011

Researchers and pet owners have long known that dogs can learn spoken commands and understand certain human gestures. But can they actually eavesdrop—that is, pick up information simply by watching interactions between people? Animal cognition researcher Sarah Marshall-Pescini and her colleagues at the University of Milan believe that dogs do indeed engage in interspecies snooping.
To test their hypothesis, the scientists allowed 84 dogs to observe, one by one, food-sharing interactions between humans. During each trial, 
a human “beggar” repeatedly approached two other people holding bowls of aromatic sausages. (Mmm. For more on this topic, see 20 Things.) When the beggar asked for a bite, one of the sausage keepers rejected her, saying no and flicking one hand in a dismissive shooing gesture. The other person willingly shared, saying “have it” while offering a morsel. After the beggar left the room, the dog was let off its leash.
Once freed, pooches could approach either one of the people, each still holding bowls of sausage. The dogs decided to beg from the charitable person five times as often as from the stingy one. “It was intriguing to discover that dogs assess us in terms of how generous we are,” Marshall-Pescini says, perhaps because “they view us as potential cooperative partners.” That, or an easy mark for delicious meats.
 

7. Great Interview with an interesting lady.

Discover Interview: Lynn Margulis Says She's Not Controversial, She's Right

A conversation with Lynn Margulis is an effective way to change the way you think about life. Not just your life. All life. Scientists today recognize five groups of life: bacteria, protoctists (amoebas, seaweed), fungi (yeast, mold, mushrooms), plants, and animals. Margulis, a self-described “evolutionist,” makes a convincing case that there are really just two groups, bacteria and everything else.
That distinction led to her career-making insight. In a 1967 paper published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, Margulis suggested that mitochondria and plastids—vital structures within animal and plant cells—evolved from bacteria hundreds of million of years ago, after bacterial cells started to collect in interactive communities and live symbiotically with one another. The resulting mergers yielded the compound cells known as eukaryotes, which in turn gave rise to all the rest—the protoctists, fungi, plants, and animals, including humans. The notion that we are all the children of bacteria seemed outlandish at the time, but it is now widely supported and accepted. “The evolution of the eukaryotic cells was the single most important event in the history of the organic world,” said Ernst Mayr, the leading evolutionary biologist of the last century. “Margulis’s contribution to our understanding the symbiotic factors was of enormous importance.”
Her subsequent ideas remain decidedly more controversial. Margulis came to view symbiosis as the central force behind the evolution of new species, an idea that has been dismissed by modern biologists. The dominant theory of evolution (often called neo-Darwinism) holds that new species arise through the gradual accumulation of random mutations, which are either favored or weeded out by natural selection. To Margulis, random mutation and natural selection are just cogs in the gears of evolution; the big leaps forward result from mergers between different kinds of organisms, what she calls symbiogenesis. Viewing life as one giant network of social connections has set Margulis against the mainstream in other high-profile ways as well. She disputes the current medical understanding of AIDS and considers every kind of life to be “conscious” in a sense.



Margulis herself is a highly social organism. Now 71, she is a well-known sight at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she is on the geosciences faculty, riding her bike in all weather and at all times of day. Interviewer Dick Teresi, a neighbor, almost ran her over when, dressed in a dark coat, she cycled in front of his car late at night. On the three occasions that they met for this interview, Teresi couldn’t help noticing that Margulis shared her home with numerous others: family, students, visiting scholars, friends, friends of friends, and anybody interesting who needed a place to stay.

 Discover Interview

 

 

...More when I find it!


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