Bail-Outs of Freddie and Fannie Will Bury US Under Unpayable Debt
The “Federal” National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the “Federal” Home Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) are driving this country further into financial collapse. Since 1968, those two entities have operated as gigantic rip-offs called “government sponsored enterprises” or GSEs. Translated it means those companies are privately owned and operated (just like the privately owned and operated “Federal” Reserve Banking System). Freddie and Fannie have shareholders who are financially protected by your wallet. The sweat of your labor. The thieves in Congress gave them a line of credit which comes from the fruits of your labor. Those two corrupt operations are exempt from state and local income taxes and SEC oversight.
Fannie was created under FDR’s destructive “New Deal”. Because of the collapse of the housing market caused by the deliberately engineered stock market crash which led to the “Great” Depression, private lenders were hesitant to invest in home loans. Fannie was birthed to illegally provide local banks with federal money to finance home mortgages. The idea behind this criminal operation was to increase home ownership.
[…]
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have become gigantic financial black holes that the U.S. government endlessly pours massive quantities of money into. Unfortunately, if the U.S. government did allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to totally implode, both the mortgage industry and the housing industry in the United States would completely collapse. So essentially, the U.S. government finds itself between a rock and a hard place. Prior to the financial crisis of the last few years, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were profit-seeking private corporations that also had a government-chartered mission of expanding home ownership in America. But now that they have been officially taken over by the U.S. government, they have become gigantic bottomless money pits. It is hard to even describe just how much of a mess Fannie and Freddie are in. However, the unprecedented intervention by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the mortgage market over the past couple of years has been about the only thing that has kept it from plunging into absolute chaos.” [1]
So, illegally steal from the people to keep the mortgage market from chaos? One hell of a mess, wouldn’t you say? The crooks in Congress who have allowed this to continue will never be held accountable as in going to jail. Judicial Watch, one of the most effective government watchdog groups in America is uncovering the fraud and players, but it is a long process. [2] While a few honchos at Freddie were fired back in 2003, the collusion between members of the Outlaw Congress, sitting presidents, Wall Street and those two entities is nothing but an incestuous relationship. A relationship that cannot be sustained without the continued raping of we the people, until we are consumed in debt and inflation.
[…]
My column in the last edition of the US~Observer gave you the raw and painful facts about how private pension funds are trillions in the hole and how we the people are being raped to back-stop them. The same has been happening with Freddie and Fannie. $146 BILLION borrowed dollars when the collapse happened. I say borrowed because the people’s treasury is overdrawn $13.3 TRILLION dollars as I write this column. Unfunded liabilities that must be paid are the indentured servitude taxes: social security, medicare and prescription pills (remember free prescription pills!!!) to the tune of $110 TRILLION dollars (and counting) that doesn’t exist. That equals a debt to every single person in this country of $355,000.00.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Euro ‘Bad for the Economy,’ Say French, Germans, Spaniards, Portugese
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS — As EU leaders gather in Brussels to brainstorm on the EU’s role on the world stage and ways to toughen eurozone fiscal discipline, a fresh survey shows that most citizens in the main euro-countries think the common currency has been bad for the economy and are looking at national governments rather than the EU to tackle the economic crisis.
Some 60 percent of the French, and more than half of German, Spanish and Portuguese respondents said that the euro was “a bad thing for their economy”, according to Transatlantic Trends, a survey published on Wednesday (15 September) by the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
The US think-tank carried out the survey in June in 11 EU countries and found that only the Netherlands and Slovakia had majorities saying the euro is a good thing.
Outside the eurozone, 83 percent of the British, 53 percent of Poles and 42 percent of Bulgarians thought that using the euro would be bad for the domestic economy. The only exception was Romania, where 54 percent of respondents are in favour of the common currency.
The survey also shows that while most citizens are in favour of EU accession, they also think national governments should be responsible for the tackling the economic crisis, rather than the EU institutions.
Only in Germany, who has been pushing for stricter EU rules to prevent another eurozone crisis, did the majority of respondents (54 percent) agree that the European Union should have the primary responsibility for economic decision-making.
This option was the least popular in the United Kingdom (25 percent) and in new member states Bulgaria (24 percent), Slovakia (22 percent), and Romania (15 percent) — usually favourable to handing over more powers to Brussels. The French were divided on the issue, with 47 percent saying the national government and 43 percent saying the EU should have the primary responsibility.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Unicredit Bank Falling ‘Further and Further in Libyan Hands’
Rome, 14 Sept. (AKI/Bloomberg) — UniCredit SpA is falling “further and further into Libya’s hands” and its Italian “roots” must be maintained, lawmaker Maurizio Fugatti, a member of the governing conservative coalition, said on Tuesday in parliament.
The Central Bank of Libya owns almost 5 percent of Italy’s biggest bank, and the Libyan Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund, bought a 2.1 percent stake in the Milan-based lender in July, according to market regulator Consob. Fugatti is a member of the Northern League party, a key coalition ally of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Libya’s combined holdings would violate the lender’s statute if they were determined to be a sole entity because the bank restricts voting rights to 5 percent per shareholder, Fugatti said in Rome.
He directed his comments to finance minister Giulio Tremonti, saying: “UniCredit’s history, culture and business are Italian in essence, and its roots must be preserved.”
CEO Alessandro Profumo said on 6 September he was seeking legal documentation from the Libyan investors to pass onto regulators. The two Libyan investors consider themselves separate entities, Profumo said.
Muammar Gaddafi rules Libya as a “dictatorship,” which means the two Libyan investors answer to the same person, Fugatti said last month.
The combined Libyan shareholdings, if considered as a single entity, would make the North African country the lender’s biggest shareholder, according to UniCredit’s website.
Investment bank Mediobanca SpA owns 5.1 percent.
The Central Bank of Libya last month assigned a banking licence to UniCredit, which became the first foreign bank allowed to operate in the country.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Merkel Calls for Global Financial Market Tax
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday renewed her call for a tax on international financial markets, insisting she would not give up the fight despite hefty opposition from her global partners
“We will continue to work for a tax on the financial markets,” Merkel said in a stormy debate in parliament on her government’s 2011 budget.
“The finance minister is doing this in several discussions and we are going to try to persuade as many countries as possible. Unfortunately, the world is not always as we would wish … but we are not going to give up,” she added.
At a meeting of European Union finance ministers earlier this month, members of the 27-country bloc clashed over the idea of imposing a tax of financial market transactions in Europe.
The proposal, driven by France and Germany and aimed at clawing back billions of euros given to banks in the financial crisis, has run into stiff resistance from several countries, notably Sweden and Britain.
At the level of the Group of 20 developed and developing nations, there is still more discord, with Canada and emerging market economies leading the battle against it. A G20 summit takes place in South Korea in November.
“We are sticking to the principle that every product, every actor, every financial market participant should be regulated so that we have an overview of what is happening on the financial markets,” Merkel said.
In the face of sustained heckling from opposition parties, Merkel trumpeted the achievements of the German economy that has bounced back strongly from last year’s recession, which was the worst in modern history.
“We are once again the growth engine of Europe,” Merkel said, adding that unemployment in the continent’s biggest economy could soon fall under the three-million mark.
“There is good reason to be optimistic,” added the chancellor, to jeers from the opposition.
Sigmar Gabriel, head of the centre-left Social Democrats, opened the debate with a blistering attack on Merkel’s centre-right coalition.
“When you govern you essentially serve special interests,” he said, lambasting tax cuts for hotels and the decision to extend the phase-out of the country’s nuclear reactors. “You have no idea about the common good in Germany.”
The Greens’ parliamentary leader Jürgen Trittin also dismissed suggestions that Merkel’s beleaguered government of conservative Christian Democrats and pro-business Free Democrats deserved credit for Germany’s impressive economic rebound in recent months.
“There’s a lot of (Chinese premier) Wen Jiabao and very little Merkel in the development of the labour market,” he said, referring to the surging demand from China for German industrial goods.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Record Number of Americans Living in Poverty
WASHINGTON — The number of people living in poverty in America rose by nearly 4 million to 43.6 million in 2009 — the largest figure in the 51 years for which poverty estimates are available — the Census Bureau said Thursday.
The bureau said in a statement that the official poverty rate was 14.3 percent, or 1 in 7 of Americans, the highest proportion of the population since 1994.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Amityville Horror Director Sues Ex-Wife After She Duped Him Into Believing Daughter Was His for 17 Years
A filmaker is suing his ex-wife for allegedly duping him into believing for 17 years that a child was his daughter.
Andrew Douglas, who directed the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror, is demanding back hundreds of thousands of pounds in child support.
He says Ameena Meer asked him to marry her after claiming she was having his baby. But the real father, according to the lawsuit, was another Briton she had been cheating on him with.
[…]
Once pregnant, Miss Meer said she didn’t want a baby born out of wedlock because ‘it would cause great shame and disgrace to her parents, who were practising Muslims’.
[…]
He said he paid nearly £450,000 in child support and tuition fees, gave Miss Meer £17,000 when she fell behind with her rent and handed out a further £6,500 for a new bathroom.
Mr Douglas’s relationship with Sasha is said to have improved after he moved to California but he said he became suspicious last summer when she asked him about his blood type.
Tests showed it was incompatible with the 17-year-old’s. Miss Meer allegedly brushed off his concerns, telling him in a telephone call last September:
‘If you’re not Sasha’s father, it must be immaculate conception.’ A DNA test taken later that month revealed that it was virtually impossible for Mr Douglas to have been the father.
‘The probability of paternity is zero per cent,’ the genetic report concluded, said the suit.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Christian Site Whacked by Muslim Hack Attack
Warning message left behind: Don’t mess with ‘Great Islam’
A website linked to a lawyer who defended Muslim-to-Christian convert Rifqa Bary, whose case made headlines when she, as a juvenile, ran away from her Islam-devoted parents, has been attacked by a hacker who attributed his actions to “Great Islam.”
Officials with the Florida Family Policy Council said much of the site’s code was “destroyed” by a hacker who left behind a message with a scatological reference to the organization’s work
While the Bary case was not referenced by the hacker, the council’s chief, John Stemberger, was a key part of Bary’s case for a time while it was in the courts in Florida. He linked the case to the attack.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
CO2 and EPA’s Voodoo Science
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is much maligned these days. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and their political proponents like to ascribe just about anything to climate change which, in turn, is supposedly caused by increased CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere.
Governments around the globe are considering schemes to tax CO2 emissions.
In order to have their people buy into such schemes, a steady barrage of claims has been unleashed upon the public, many of which bear little scientific scrutiny. One of the most misleading statements in this regard has been made by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which recently declared CO2 to be a “dangerous pollutant”. This is a prime example of how science has become politicized and distorted, certainly in regard to CO2.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Does Jesus Respect Islam?
You certainly realize that this whole event was driven by the White House, don’t you? Don’t you find it troubling that the President, Hillary, Eric Holder, General Petreaus, and Robert Gates weighed in on this insignificant Pastor’s behavior? Why would they choose to blow oxygen on that small pyre? The President ignores appeals for his birth certificate but speaks out on a small-potatoes pastor? Tell me you are not that stupid.
It didn’t happen by accident. I would say that there is a direct connection to the Ground Zero Mosque and the White House’s attempt to show us how intolerant Christianity is.
“You see now don’t you? Christians can be radical too…but they don’t represent all of Christianity. It is a “fringe” group. Most Christians are moderate and tolerant.”
Do me a favor. Reread that last sentence and substitute “Muslim” everywhere you see “Christian.” That is the agenda. Except they fail to point out that a radical Christian is willing to die for his faith, while a radial Muslim wants to kill for his. The actions of radical Christians and the actions of radical Muslims bear no resemblance.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Karl Rove: Architect of His Own Political Demise
Last night I watched Karl Rove drive the final nails into his political coffin, as he double-downed his attacks against Christine O’Donnell, on Greta Van Susteren’s show “On The Record.” It may be awhile before the “funeral” takes place, but the coffin is finished, no doubt.
The night before I had watched as Rove began his public self-immolation, on The Sean Hannity Show. Hannity, to his credit, defended O’Donnell against Rove’s surprising (to me, at least) and graceless attack, after her win against Power Elite insider, Mike Castle, in the Delaware Republican primary.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Oh No!
[…]
Gene adds: On Twitter: “US policy needs to empower moderate/peaceful elements within Republican party to isolate the radicals.”
[JP note: Liberals do not like it at all when ordinary people stand up for their values and rights.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Belgian NGO Incites Children to Shoot at Israeli Soldiers at the Ghent Fair
At the famous and very popular Ghent Festivities, which took place in July, a Flemish NGO had an anti-Israel stand where the big attraction was aimed at children. Young children were invited to shoot at figurines representing Israeli soldiers placed on boats floating in a small aquarium. The weapon for shooting/killing Israelis was a coin and the money thus raised will serve to fund a new hate flotilla. This incitement campaign aimed at children in view of tens of thousands of people didn’t seem to meet with the disapproval of the fair organisers, the city authorities, the police or the public. One can imagine what would have happened if kids had been asked to aim at Muslim soldiers ! We understand that the same NGOs is now looking for a larger fish tank to be exhibited at a fair to be held shortly at another Flemish city … It has became a tradition to demonize Israel at Ghent festivals.
Unsurprisingly, no NGO was there to draw attention to the plight of the Roma in Europe … In July the great and the good were not yet interested in their fate.
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
Berlusconi Backs Sarkozy Urging Italy and France to Shake EU
Premier calls for common European position. US says governments should respect rights of communities
MILAN — “I’m with Sarkozy. Commissioner Reding should have kept quiet”. Silvio Berlusconi supports the French position in the dispute between Paris and the EU over the expulsion of Roma gypsies. The gloves are off and following the announcement of an infringement procedure against France, Mr Sarkozy is reported to have remonstrated with EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding, saying in so many words that her home country of Luxembourg could take the Roma in if she was so worried about it. Mr Sarkozy was particularly annoyed when Ms Reding compared the expulsion of Roma to Second World War deportations. Ms Reding later sought to calm the waters: “I regret that some interpretations are shifting attention away from a problem that needs to be solved now. I did not in any case draw any comparisons between the Second World War and the French government’s actions today”. The Elysée responded to this with a laconic communiqué: “The Office of the President of the Republic acknowledges the apology of Ms Viviane Reding, vice president of the European Commission and commissioner for justice and human rights, for the offensive words she directed at France”.
USA AND GERMANY — The incident has, however, brought the Roma question back to public attention. According to France Presse, which quotes anonymous State Department sources, the United States has stepped in to invite the French and other governments to “respect the rights” of the Roma. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said she was in substantial agreement with Ms Reding, although she did not approve of the tone used.
PRIME MINISTER — Shortly before, the Italian prime minister had announced his stance. “Ms Reding would have been better advised to deal with the question in private with French leaders”, said Mr Berlusconi in an interview with Le Figaro, “before making a public statement like that. The Roma issue is not specifically French. It concerns all the countries in Europe”. Mr Berlusconi went on to say that “this issue will have to be included on the agenda for the council of EU heads of government so that it can be discussed by all in order to find a common position”. He added: “Let’s hope that the convergence of Italian and French views will help to shake Europe into tackling the problem”.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION — Mr Berlusconi continued: “The Roma issue is not the only one that Europe has to face. There’s also illegal immigration. Italy is particularly exposed because it has a very long coastline”. According to the Italian premier, “Europe has yet to fully understand that this is not just a French or Italian or Greek or Spanish issue. President Sarkozy is fully aware of this”.
SECURITY — Mr Berlusconi added that his personal rapport with the French president was “excellent”. “We both share the same idea of Europe, a Europe close to ordinary people, a Europe of action”. The prime minister added that he and Mr Sarkozy “consider security within European space and outside to be a priority for Europe”. He went on: “I’m thinking about energy security. It involves the recovery of Italy’s nuclear energy, with which France is associated”.
END OF MANDATE — In the course of the interview, Mr Berlusconi also said he was certain he would see the government’s mandate through to 2013.
English translation by Giles Watson
www.watson.it
16 settembre 2010
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Will Efforts to Train Homegrown Muslim Leaders Fail?
The German government plans to enlist imams educated at German universities to improve the integration of young Muslims in the future. The program, however, threatens to create a conflict between Germany and Turkey and with Muslim organizations.
The man with the moustache and neatly ironed shirt raises his eyebrows. With which names does he associate Germany? “Ballack, Hitler,” he replies.
Ahmet Aktürk, 35, is standing in front of a mosque in Istanbul’s Maltepe neighborhood. Men are hurrying into the prayer room. He has been an imam in the Turkish city for the past six years, leading prayers, delivering sermons and listening to his congregation. His people will miss him, he says — and he will miss them.
In a few months, Aktürk and his wife and two children will move to Germany, as one of several hundred imams the Turkish government sends there each year. Aktürk has never been to Germany before, and the only Germans he has ever seen were tourists in Istanbul’s historic district. But he didn’t understand them, because he doesn’t speak German and they didn’t speak Turkish.
When Aktürk starts his new job, he will be one of the 1,800 to 2,000 Muslim preachers in German mosques who come to the country from abroad to provide the roughly 4 million Muslims in Germany with guidance in matters of faith and life. They are “the key figures in integration,” says Rauf Ceylan, a religious scholar in the western German city of Duisburg. Unfortunately, most of them have a difficult enough time finding their own bearings in this foreign country.
Change ‘Has to Start with the Imams’
In the wake of the grim conclusions reached by Thilo Sarrazin, a former executive board member of Germany’s central bank, the Germans have launched into an impassioned debate over why so many Muslims fail in the country — in school, at work and in society. Hanover criminologist Christian Pfeiffer, who interviewed 45,000 young people nationwide, describes one of the key reasons: “Imams from abroad, with no understanding of the reality of life here in Germany, contribute substantially to the poor integration of young German Muslims.” According to Pfeiffer, the more devout Muslim youth also tend to be more isolated from German society. Anyone who hopes to change this, says Pfeiffer, “has to start with the imams.”
This is precisely what German Education Minister Annette Schavan, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, intends to do, by putting a plan devised by the German Council of Science and Humanities, an independent body that advises Germany’s state and federal governments, into practice as quickly as possible. Under the plan, in the future imams will be trained at two or three German universities, in accordance with the German curriculum. In addition to theology, the new preachers will also study education and community organizing. Schavan intends to decide which universities will receive government funding for the project in the coming weeks.
Politicians of all stripes are welcoming the idea, but whether it is truly feasible remains uncertain. Even if everything goes according to plan, the eagerly anticipated imams, with their German university degrees, could end up being unemployed, at least initially.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Brewers Call Rare Truce to Create Oktoberfest Jubilee Beer
Munich’s six main breweries are usually locked in bitter competition. But this year, they have taken the unprecedented step of joining forces to create a special beer in honor of the 200th anniversary of the Oktoberfest. The move follows a recent drive to strengthen the festival’s folk traditions.
The six Munich breweries that supply the Oktoberfest are notoriously fierce rivals. But they have buried the hatchet temporarily this year and collaborated to craft a special historic beer marking the 200th anniversary of the festival, which starts on Sept. 18.
“This kind of cooperation is unprecedented,” Stefanie Scharpf, a spokeswoman for Inbev, the Belgian-Brazilian group that owns Löwenbräu beer, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. In an act of homage to Bavarian culture, the city’s master brewers concocted a top-secret recipe for a strong brown ale called “Jubiläumswiesnbier,” meaning Oktoberfest Jubilee Beer.
It will be served exclusively in a vintage Oktoberfest tent that has been specially erected to evoke the history of the festival that was first held in 1810 to allow the citizens of Munich to celebrate the wedding of Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig, the future Bavarian King Ludwig I, to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen.
“The amber-colored special beer is full-bodied in taste with a flowery malt aroma,” the brewers said in a joint statement. “The brewing masters have ceremoniously pledged to keep the recipe secret and only to use it this year.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Pitfalls in Bid to Expel Muslim Critic
Sarrazin Turns into Migraine for Social Democrats
Demonstrators at a Potsdam, Germany, reading held by Thilo Sarrazin hold up protest signs with the German spelling for “racist.” This opinion, however, has not been universal here.
The executive board of the Social Democratic Party voted on Monday to begin proceedings to expel Thilo Sarrazin for his controversial anti-Muslim theories. The expulsion is risky for the party and its leader, Sigmar Gabriel, because many members agree with Sarrazin’s views.
Senior members of Germany’s opposition center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) have criticized the party’s planned expulsion of Thilo Sarrazin, the Bundesbank official who caused a public outcry by saying Germany was in decline because of the rapid growth of its Muslim immigrant community.
The SPD’s leadership voted on Monday to begin proceedings to exclude Sarrazin from the party in response to his comments. But surveys indicate that a majority of Germans agree with the firebrand politician, and many SPD members have contacted the leadership saying they want him to remain a member.
An opinion poll conducted by the Emnid polling institute on behalf of the Bild am Sonntag newspaper found that 53 percent of Germans believe Sarrazin should stay in the SPD. Among SPD supporters, the share is even bigger, at 56 percent.
A number of top SPD officials past and present have criticized the planned expulsion. “I would keep him,” Peer Steinbrück, a former finance minister, told SPIEGEL, adding that even though he would never have said what Sarrazin expressed, throwing him out would not solve Germany’s integration problems.
SPD board member Martin Schulz told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper that excluding Sarrazin from the party would play straight into his hands. “We should focus on the issues Sarrazin is talking about, and not so much on him as a person,” said Martin Schulz, the chairman of the Social Democrats’ group in the European Parliament.
Peter Struck, the former head of the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, said: “I would have made clear: This is the personal opinion of Thilo Sarrazin. And then one could have left it at that.”
Paid off with a Pension Hike
Sarrazin espoused his controversial theories about Muslim immigrants in his book “Germany Does Itself In” which has become a runaway bestseller since it was published two weeks ago. He agreed last week to quit as a Bundesbank board member after the bank said it would ask German President Christian Wulff to dismiss him.
Sarrazin’s voluntary departure has spared the Bundesbank and Wulff a potentially embarrassing and lengthy legal challenge to a dismissal. SPIEGEL has learned that he agreed to leave in return for an increase in his pension by €1,000 ($1,280) a month. But he is unlikely to quit the SPD of his own accord after almost 40 years of membership.
Sarrazin has become a major problem for the SPD. It is unclear whether the expulsion will succeed. Germany has strong laws on freedom of opinion and party evictions can be drawn-out affairs. The SPD faces months in which the issue will keep coming to the fore.
The controversy has turned into a tough test for SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel and put a stop to the party’s recent impressive gains in opinion polls. The SPD fell by two points to 25 percent in the weekly poll by the Forsa institute published last Wednesday.
Gabriel knows that he acted rashly in demanding that Sarrazin be thrown out of the party. He knows that many people who haven’t read the book have gained the impression that Sarrazin is being unfairly punished for voicing uncomfortable truths about the lack of integration of many of Germany’s 4 million Muslims.
Sarrazin’s book contains controversial statements like the following: “From an economic point of view we don’t need Muslim immigration in Europe. In every country Muslim immigrants cost the state more in terms of their low employment and high use of welfare benefits than they generate in added economic value.”
“Among Arabs in Germany, in particular, there is a widespread tendency to have children in order to receive more social benefits, and the women who are often imprisoned in the family basically have hardly anything else to do.”
To back his claim that Germany’s average intelligence is destined to decline, Sarrazin cites research that between 50 and 80 per cent of intelligence is hereditary. He combined that with statistics showing that poorly educated Muslim immigrants had a far higher birth rate than ethnic Germans. The result, Sarrazin argues, will be a steady dumbing down of the German population.
Eugenics Theories ‘Led to Auschwitz’
Unlike the Bundesbank, the SPD doesn’t have the option to pay Sarrazin to quit. It has to evict him using the party’s complex expulsion procedures, which have high hurdles to forcing out recalcitrant members. Talking nonsense is not enough to get a member expelled. He must also have damaged the party’s political credibility. This is the problem: Sarrazin didn’t write his book in his capacity as a party politician. His lawyers might argue that the damage to the party only happened when Gabriel moved to evict him.
Despite the internal opposition to an expulsion, Gabriel has argued forcefully and eloquently in favor of it.
“Almost everybody who is now cheering Sarrazin hasn’t read the book, or hasn’t finished it,” Gabriel said in an interview with Bild am Sonntag published this weekend. “The really terrible thing is that he wants to return to the state-controlled eugenics policy of the start of the 20th century.”
Gabriel said Sarrazin made no mention in his book of the “catastrophic consequences” of this policy.
“This nonsense led to the sterilization of 60,000 people in Sweden in the 1930s, just because they were regarded as ‘asocial,’ for example, and their genes weren’t wanted,” said Gabriel. “And he didn’t see fit to devote a single sentence to the fact that in Germany the perversion of these theories he is now reviving led to Auschwitz.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Manfred Gerstenfeld: A Martian Reports on His Fact Finding Mission of the EU…
This article by Dr.Manfred Gerstenfeld was published in the Israeli Hebrew paper, Makor Rishon. The Tundra Tabloids republishes this translation of the article with permission from the author. KGS
A Man from Mars Visits Europe
by Manfred Gerstenfeld
The man from Mars: “We must find out what Europe’s biggest problem is: the Muslims or the Jews and Israel.”
If a man from Mars had come to Europe for a few days at the beginning of this month he could have written the following report upon his return home:
“I had studied the European Union somewhat in order to be prepared for my visit. I knew that its aim was to create peace, prosperity and freedom for its citizens in a fairer, safer world. First I visited the EU capital Brussels. There a EU commissioner, the Belgian Karel de Gucht, had just said that Israel frustrated peace efforts and one could hardly talk rationally with moderate Jews in the United States. Jews also boasted the most powerful lobby in Washington. I understood the meaning of de Gucht’s words immediately as I had read many declarations of Europeans explaining that Israel is the biggest problem in the world. I didn’t understand however why the European Commission distanced itself from his comments, and why De Gucht had to apologize.
“Belgium, a country with only 10 million people is in big disorder. For three months already the parties cannot form a government. During my visit the prominent French-speaking socialist politicians, Laurette Onkelinx and Rudy Demotte, declared that one had to prepare for a split of the country. I had read at home that it was the biggest Flemish party which wanted the split and that the French speakers were opposed to it. It is all very confusing.
“Belgium’s neighbor, the Netherlands also has not been able to form a government for more than three months. Recent polls show that the right wing Freedom party, led by the Netherlands’ internationally best known politician Geert Wilders, is now the biggest with about 25% support. It considers Muslims immigrants the main problem of the Netherlands. But if these people are such a problem why did the country let them in?…
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Real IRA Says it Will Target UK Bankers
Banks and bankers are now potential targets for the Real IRA, leaders of the dissident republican terror group have warned in an exclusive interview with the Guardian. Despite having only 100 activists they also said that targets in England remained a high priority.
In an attempt to tap into the intense hostility towards the banks on both sides of the Irish border they branded bankers as “criminals” and said: “We have a track record of attacking high-profile economic targets and financial institutions such as the City of London. The role of bankers and the institutions they serve in financing Britain’s colonial and capitalist system has not gone unnoticed.
“Let’s not forget that the bankers are the next-door neighbours of the politicians. Most people can see the picture: the bankers grease the politicians’ palms, the politicians bail out the bankers with public funds, the bankers pay themselves fat bonuses and loan the money back to the public with interest. It’s essentially a crime spree that benefits a social elite at the expense of many millions of victims.”
But security sources in Northern Ireland point out say the Real IRA lacks the logistical resources of the Provisional IRA to prosecute a bombing campaign similar to the ones that devastated the City of London in the early 1990s or the Canary Wharf bomb in 1996. Although the Real IRA has access to explosives it has yet to carry out large-scale bombings.
The terror group stressed in a series of written answers to the Guardian’s questions that future attacks would alternate between the “military, political and economic targets”. It is the first time the Real IRA has engaged in such open anti-capitalist rhetoric or focused on the role of the banking system.
The leaders also threatened to intensify the group’s terror campaign on all fronts.
“Realistically, it is important to acknowledge that we have regrouped and reorganised and emerged from a turbulent period in republican history.
“We have already shown our capacity to launch attacks on the British military, judicial, and policing infrastructure. As we rebuild, we are confident that we will increase the volume and effectiveness of attacks,” the organisation said.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Sarkozy’s War Against the Roma
Everybody hates Roma. That, at least, is what French President Nicolas Sarkozy is banking on with his policy aimed at deporting them to southeastern Europe. But the Roma themselves are used to being pariahs, and are struggling to get by despite the intensity of the current French campaign.
Only 500 meters, as the crow flies, from the Stade de France, France’s national stadium, where the A86 motorway slices through the northern Paris suburbs, in a patchwork of industrial zones and dilapidated vacant lots, there is a door that opens directly into the Third World. A derelict old building in Aubervilliers, not far from the Avenue du Président Roosevelt, serves as the portal into a small, hidden settlement of about a dozen huts lining both sides of a dark, narrow passageway. The roofs are covered with plastic tarps and the walls are made of bulk refuse and cardboard boxes. If the sun were a little brighter and the late summer temperatures a little higher, this could easily be a scene from Nairobi, Kabul or the slums of Soweto. But this setting is France, once known as the birthplace of human rights.
Rodica and Cerasela live here, as do Gianni, Claudia, Benon, little Maria and many others. The settlement is home to between 30 and 40 people, including children, infants, adults and the elderly. The small camp is kept tidy, with laundry hanging outside to dry, but the interiors are squalid and sparsely furnished. There is no electricity and no running water. Every few days, friendly people in the neighborhood allow Rodica, Cerasela, Gianni and the others to fill a few canisters with water from their faucets, a small but important blessing.
Earning a Living with Scrap Metal and Trash
Gianni, an alert man, is married to Claudia, the most attractive woman in the community, tall, slim and elegant as a princess. Gianni, who once lived in Germany’s Oberpfalz region, knows the city of Regensburg well, although he was as unwelcome there as he has been everyplace else. Despite the fact that he was eventually deported, he worships Germany and praises it for its well-known virtues of cleanliness and order. “You have Internet access,” he says in relatively fluent German. “Perhaps you could search for a minibus for me, a Ford Transit. I’d pay up to €500 ($640).”
Like everyone in this small community, Gianni earns a living with scrap metal and garbage. It is lunchtime, and a pot of sweetened coffee and chicken are cooking on the grill. The men bum cigarettes, smoke and peel pieces of copper cable while the food is being prepared. Peeled copper cable sells for more than unpeeled cable. A short, beefy man named Vali, who has built the best hut out of an assortment of construction debris, is standing next to the grill, where he has spent the last few hours taking apart a car engine with hammers, screwdrivers and crowbars.
A kilo of scrap iron fetches 20 to 30 cents, a kilo of copper goes for four or five euros, and brass is also a good seller — as long as they can find a scrap dealer willing to do business with the Roma. It’s becoming more difficult in France at the moment. The traveling people, or “gens du voyage,” as the Roma from Romania, Bulgaria and elsewhere are known in France, are suddenly finding themselves on the wrong side of the French government, more so than at any other time since World War II.
A Struggle to Find Buyers
After lunch, Gianni says: “I’m going to work. You want to come along?” A panel van outside his hut, borrowed from a compatriot, is loaded with scrap metal, pieces of cars and bundles of cable. A friend of Gianni who is also sitting in the van has been trying to unload a nylon bag full of copper wire for weeks. The van bumps along through the suburbs, a semi-industrial landscape of factories, derelict buildings, sports facilities and streets lined with row houses.
Gianni is driving to Boulevard Félix Faure, where scrap heaps, glittering piles of metal separated by type — aluminum or iron parts, for example — rise up behind windowless warehouses.
The Boulevard is constantly clogged with suppliers and heavily loaded dump trucks lined up in front of the gates of the scrap yards. The drivers shout obscenities from their windows whenever Gianni tries to maneuver his van into one of the lines.
“No problem. I know another one, farther back,” he says. But he doesn’t stand a chance there either. The other drivers close ranks and drive him away with gestures. Gianni drives to the next gate and then to the next one after that. He is unable to find the dealer who had bought his scrap a week earlier, and paid him in cash without asking too many questions. Gianni will not sell anything on this Tuesday — and not on Wednesday or Thursday, either.
The scrap dealers on Boulevard Félix Faure are now asking for a French ID card, which Gianni doesn’t have. All he has is a worthless foreigners’ ID card from Spain, a piece of paper from Portugal and a temporary Romanian passport. The fact that he, as a Romanian, has been a citizen of the European Union since 2007 is also irrelevant. “The people look at my face and see a gypsy,” he says. And gypsies are not the kinds of people with whom the French are eager to be doing business with these days.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Säpo to Probe Beating of Centre Party MP
Fredrick Federley, a Centre Party MP, was beaten and robbed outside his Stockholm apartment on Wednesday night. The Swedish Security Service (Säpo) has taken over the investigation.
Federley left his apartment in the Hammarby Sjöstad district of southern Stockholm shortly after 6pm on Wednesday evening when he was attacked by four young men.
The men, estimated to be between 20 and 25, jumped Federley, kicking and hitting him repeatedly before fleeing with his wallet.
Federley was taken to hospital in an ambulance. His wallet was later found empty.
Police have yet to make any arrests in the case and the motive behind the attack remains unknown. On Thursday, police handed the investigation over to Säpo.
“I don’t want to speculate on any motive, but that we’re taking over the investigation doesn’t mean that there is a political motive. Fredrick Federley is a member of the Riksdag and a part of the central leadership of the country and we’re responsible for his personal safety. Thus it’s natural that we take over the investigation,” Säpo spokesperson Patrik Peter told the TT news agency.
Peter added that the case has been made a priority in light of the attack taking place in the final days of the Swedish election campaign.
“Obviously it is [a priority]. We, together with the National Criminal Police (Rikskriminalpolisen) and other police agencies, place a high priority on protection of the entire election campaign,” said Peter.
Representatives from the Centre Party’s leadership were able to contact Federley, who remains in hospital, according to party leader Maud Olofsson.
She said she doubts if Federley, who has represented Stockholm County in the Riksdag since 2006, will be able to participate in the final days of the election campaign on account of his injuries.
“He took a severe beating. He has a serious concussion and a broken nose,” Olofsson told the TT news agency. “I have a hard time seeing how he can do much more in the election campaign considering the injuries he sustained.”
Olofsson is both disappointed and shocked over what happened.
“We don’t know the motive behind what happened, but regardless of what it is, something like this shouldn’t happen in Sweden,” she said.
Federley, who is openly gay, has also been interviewed by police about the incident.
“The officer who spoke with him said that he took three kicks to the head and doesn’t remember so much,” police spokesperson Tommy Jonsson told TT.
According to police, the attack may have been random.
“One witness said that the four perpetrators rode the same ferry boat between Södermalm and Hammarby Sjöstad as the witness right before the attack,” said Jansson.
No suspects have been arrested, but police are hopeful that images of whoever attacked Federley may have been captured by surveillance cameras.
Federley was an outspoken critic of Sweden signals intelligence law, the so called FRA-law, and refrained from casting a vote on the original legislation in 2007 as a way to register his discontent.
When the bill was debated again in 2008, Federley remained critical and was partially responsible for forcing the government to rework the legislation, delaying the vote by several weeks.
When the final bill was presented in September 2008, however, Federley said he was satisfied with the changes and supported the new legislation.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Cameron Warns EU to Show Respect as He Lends Support to Sarkozy as Row Over Roma Expulsions Rages on in Brussels
David Cameron rounded on the European Commission last night over its extraordinary criticism of France’s expulsion of thousands of Roma gypsies — as President Sarkozy said the controversial policy would continue.
The Prime Minister revealed he had tackled the Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso over the issue after the Commission likened the actions of French President Nicolas Sarkozy to those of the Nazis.
[…]
Mr Cameron told reporters he had raised the issue of the Commission’s criticism of France during yesterday’s lunch.
He said: ‘Members of the Commission have to choose their language carefully. Of course the Commission has a role in enforcing and identifying community law.
‘But I think it’s important that we respect people and speak in a respectful way and I note that the Commissioner in question has actually given an apology for the words that she used.’
But he also said it was important did not target the Roma unfairly, adding: ‘It’s important that countries are able to take action if there is a problem of people acting illegally or being illegally in your country and that you are able to remove them.
‘But it’s important that no-one should ever do that on the basis of someone’s ethnic group.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Clone Food ‘In All Our Shops Within Two Years’ Watchdog Reveals
Food and animals of clone origin could be secretly spread across supermarket shelves and farms within two years, watchdogs admitted yesterday.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) board said it would be impossible to set up a regime to trace and label food from ‘Frankenfarm’ animals.
It claimed the international trade in embryos and semen from clone animals is already so widespread that it cannot be stopped or regulated. As a result, consumers could soon be routinely eating meat and milk from the offspring of cloned cattle without knowing about it.
In an astonishing admission, the FSA chairman, Lord Jeff Rooker, said: ‘You can’t regulate what you can’t count and what you can’t check on . Thatisan impossibility. ‘How can we prevent the public being misled? We can’t on this.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Hero Officer Blinded by Gunman Raoul Moat is Given Paltry £18.95 a Week Mobility Benefit
[Comments from JD: WARNING: Graphic photos.]
The hero policeman shot and blinded by gunman Raoul Moat has been awarded a paltry £18.95 a week in mobility benefit, it emerged yesterday.
Pc David Rathband, 42, miraculously survived after he was blasted at point-blank range by the fugitive killer as he sat in his marked patrol car at a roundabout.
But despite being left totally blind he has now been denied the highest rate of mobility — at £49.85 a week — and told he would only be entitled to the lowest level of help.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Pakistani Politician Imran Farooq Murdered in London
An exiled Pakistani politician has been murdered outside his home in north London, party leaders have said.
Imran Farooq, a senior member of the MQM party, is believed to have been attacked in Green Lane, Edgware.
The Metropolitan Police said a 50-year-old man had died after suffering multiple stab wounds and head injuries.
They were called to reports of a serious assault at 1730 BST. The man was treated by paramedics but declared dead at the scene about an hour later.
Mr Farooq’s next of kin have been informed. No arrests have been made.
Security forces
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “When officers arrived they found an Asian male, aged 50, suffering from multiple stab wounds and head injuries.
“He was treated by paramedics at the scene but was pronounced dead at 1837.”
Mr Farooq disappeared from Pakistan in 1992 and is known to have been living in exile in London since 1999, when he claimed asylum in the UK.
He is understood to have been wanted by security forces and said in 1999 he had spent the previous seven years in hiding in Karachi.
The MQM (Muttahida Quami Movement) is the dominant party in Pakistan’s largest city Karachi.
‘Violent’ past
The former Pakistani parliamentarian was one of the founding members of the party.
The BBC’s Shoaib Hasan in Karachi said he had spoken to party members and said “there’s a lot of grief and a lot of sorrow going around”.
He said: “I spoke to an MQM leader who was at the home of Imran Farooq in Karachi with his parents. They said that they are relying totally on the Metropolitan Police, that they have great faith in the Metropolitan Police.”
Mr Hasan said Mr Farooq was in essence the party’s deputy leader and added he had not returned to Pakistan since his arrival in England in the 1990s.
He said the MQM had a “violent” past.
In 1999 Mr Farooq told the BBC charges against him in his home country were politically motivated.
At the time he said he intended to campaign against the then government of Pakistan from exile in Britain.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Woman Who Took Part in Violent Attacks on White Farmers in Zimbabwe Denied UK Asylum
A woman who admitted taking part in savage evictions of white farmers from their homes in Zimbabwe lost her bid for asylum after a High Court judge accused her of ‘crimes against humanity.’
Mr Justice Ouseley threw out the widowed mother-of-two’s appeal to remain in the UK after she confessed to beating up ten people during two land invasions.
The judge said the state-sponsored mob violence, which saw white famers’ land seized and shared out among President Robert Mugabe’s cronies, was akin to genocide.
‘We are satisfied that the two farm invasions were crimes against humanity,’ he said, likening the 39-year-old woman’s role to a concentration camp guard who followed Nazi orders during the Holocaust.
The woman, who cannot be named, came to Britain illegally in 2002 and did not claim asylum until six years later.
Her bid for refugee status was rejected on the grounds that her own violent actions in Zimbabwe disqualified her from humanitarian protection in this country.
She admitted to being part of a gang of thugs from Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party who invaded two white-owned farms intent on causing maximum terror and driving away black workers.
The woman, referred to only as ‘SK”, agreed she had beaten up to ten people whilst their homes burned, ‘inflicting enough pain to get them to run away.’
She said that on one occasion, she beat a woman so badly she thought she would die.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bosnia: Either Dayton Stays, Or the Serbs Go
In an interview for the Serbian-language daily Vesti (Thursday, September 16) The Lord Byron Foundation Chairman James Bissett gave his assessment of the current political situation in the Western Balkans, including the future of Bosnia, Turkey’s neo-Ottoman designs, and the collapse of Belgrade’s misguided diplomacy..
The Republic of Srpska [Bosnian-Serb republic] should fiercely resist the centralization of Bosnia-Herzegovina under the Bosniak domination. It position should be “backed up by threat of secession and a declaration of independence,” according to political analyst James Bissett.
Bissett thinks that, while it is hard to predict what might happen in Bosnia-Herzegovina after the election, it seems obvious that the Americans and the EU are determined to see constitutional changes that would transform BiH into a centralized unitary state under Muslim domination. To do so, however, would require changing the terms of the Dayton Accords.
“This should be fiercely resisted by the RS and backed up by threat of secession and a declaration of independence. After all if the Albanians in Kosovo can do so why not the RS?” Bissett asks. He is the Chairman of The Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies, former Director of the World Migratiopns Agency and the last Canadian Ambassador in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Bissett thinks that the best solution is for Bosnia and Herzegovina is to get rid of the “gauleiters” sent in to rule over it and to let the country manage itself under the terms of Dayton.
Over time, he says, a modus operandi might evolve to the point where the three sides might be able to cooperate and work together. This will not happen unless the outside interference from the USA and the EU is stopped…
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
Canada’s Continuous Commitment
Canada’s minister of state for foreign affairs of the Americas says his country stands by Israel’s right to defend itself.
It may be mere protocol, but Peter Kent sports a badge with Israeli and Canadian flags on the lapel of his jacket with a pride surely far greater than that required by diplomatic custom. Canada’s minister of state for foreign affairs of the Americas is as staunch an ally as Israel could possibly hope for.
“Prime Minister [Stephen] Harper has adopted, I think, what is a very principled stand with regards to Canada and Israel,” says Kent when asked why Canada has been unflinching in its support. “From virtually the first months of his administration in 2006 he articulated very clearly that his position on issues with regard to the Mideast and Israel’s neighbors would be based on principle, and he demonstrated that during the Lebanon war and since at the United Nations in the annual votes that attempt to single out Israel over countries with far less solid reputations for democratic principles and practices and the rule of law, and try to victimize Israel on an annual basis in selective resolutions.
“Prime Minister Harper made very clear… that there is no moral equivalence between terrorism and oppression and democracy. There are some in the Canadian political spectrum who talk about a more balanced approach to the Middle East, but in fact there is no balance when it comes to rockets from Gaza on Sderot; there is no balance in attacks like the south Lebanon border incident [the August 3 killing of an IDF officer by a Lebanese army sniper]; there is no balance between those who would seek to destroy Israel and those who are willing and have demonstrated any number of times over recent years to come to a negotiated resolution.”
Kent, 67, is no stranger to Israel. He first came here in 1973 as a war correspondent in his previous incarnation as a journalist — a profession he left just over two years ago to make the transition into what he calls “the responsible side of public policy.” The current visit, which ended last week, is his first in his present capacity.
Kent recalls the Yom Kippur War when he followed Ariel Sharon’s tank column across the Suez Canal — “albeit in a taxi.” Since then he has been here many times. “I’ve had an opportunity as a former journalist to spend a lot of time here, admittedly more often in bad times than good,” he says. “But I’ve made a point of also trying to celebrate with my colleagues in Parliament and also with Canadians at large that Israel is not only a country often besieged by its undemocratic neighbors, but is also a country of great scientific, intellectual and cultural accomplishment.”…
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Israel May Release Palestinian Prisoners
Sharm-el-Sheikh, 15 Sept. (AKI) — The question of continuing a freeze of new settlement construction in the West Bank for the moment is not resolved but Israel in the peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority is considering other “goodwill gestures,” according newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, citing a to a diplomatic source involved in the negotiations.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (photo) is considering a prisoner release and the transfer of complete control to the Palestinian Authority of some areas of the West Bank, the report said.
Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas are slated to be joined Wednesday by US secretary of state Hillary Clinton for a second round of peace talks in the Red Sea resort Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt.
A possible obstacle to the talks is a dispute over Israel’s moratorium on settlement construction, which is scheduled to expire on 26 Sept.
Netanyahu, has ruled out extending the moratorium, while Abbas, has threatened to walk out of the talks if Israel allows the moratorium to expire
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Phosphorus Bombs Fired at Western Negev
The IDF has confirmed that the mortars fired at the western Negev Wednesday morning were phosphorous bombs which are illegal under the Geneva Convention.
This marks the first time such materials were used against Israel.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ahmadinejad: Muslims ‘Are Not Against Americans, Jews, Christians’
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says there is no hate between Muslims and Americans despite an apparent escalation in tensions fueled by controversies over a proposed mosque near ground zero in New York and a plan by a Florida pastor to burn Qurans.
“People (in Islamic countries) are against that ugly behavior,” he said in an exclusive interview with NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell. “They are not against the people of the United States. They are not against Americans, they are not against Jews. They are not against Christians or Christianity.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Donates $25 Million to Turkey’s Ruling Party
Western diplomats say they are alarmed by reports that Mr Erdogan has negotiated a deal with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Tehran to make a substantial contribution to the campaign funds of Turkey’s leading Islamic party.
Under the terms of the deal Iran has agreed to transfer $12 million to the AKP, with further payments of up to $25 million to be made later in the year. The money is said to be meant to help support Mr Erdogan’s campaign for re-election for a third term in next year’s general election.
The Turkish government denied having received the money from Iran.
The Turkish prime minister announced he would stand for a historic third term following his success in last weekend’s referendum on constitutional reform.
The government argued that the reforms were necessary to improve Turkey’s chances of membership to the European Union. But secular critics of the reforms, which provide the government with powers to overrule Turkey’s powerful judiciary, argue that they will pave the way for a key Western ally to become an Islamic state.
The judiciary is widely regarded as the guardian of Turkey’s secular constitution. In 2008 it came close to banning the AKP after it campaigned for women attending university courses to wear Islamic headscarves.
Western diplomats now fear that the AKP’s deal with Iran will heighten fears among Turkish secularists that Mr Erdogan will exploit the government’s new powers to drive through the AKP’s radical Islamic agenda.
“The agreement between the AKP and Iran is a very worrying development,” said a senior Western diplomat. “It will increase the suspicions of many Turks that the government is deepening its ties with Islamic states.
Earlier this year Turkey annoyed Washington after it publicly backed Iran’s controversial nuclear programme. Relations between Turkey and Iran have deepened following Ankara’s backing for the aid flotilla which attempted to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza strip.
Apart from transferring funds to the AKP, diplomats say Iran has also agreed to provide financial support for the IHH, the Turkish Islamic charity IHH which supported last May’s aid flotilla which ended in disaster when it was intercepted by Israeli commandos, which resulted in the deaths of nine activists.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Sakineh’s Children Are Targets of Agents’ ‘Threats’
Tehran, 16 Sept. (AKI) — The children of an Iranian woman condemned to death by stoning for adultery and killing her husband launched a plea for help from the international community after feeling threatened by security authorities at home.
“Help us. We feel alone and, with an exception of our brave lawyer Javid Hutan Kian, inside the Islamic Republic we are completely abandoned,” read an open letter sent late Wednesday to Adnkronos (AKI) by Kian and written by Sajjad and Sahideh Ghaderzadeh.
The Ghaderzadeh’s mother, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, had been sentenced to death by stoning but following international pressure, Iranian authorities in have said they would not carry out the stoning sentence for the time being, but she still faces execution by hanging.
In the letter the Ghaderzadehs say they have been threatened by security agents who pledged continuing harassment.
“When intelligence agents broke into our lawyer’s office they threatened us, telling us that even if we succeed in saving the life of our mother, we will never be left in peace.” They said that world public opinion is focused on the life of our mother but as soon as that attention dies down there won’t be any more interest about this and our lives will be ruined.”
They said the “threats have made our lives into a tragedy. We don’t know what else to do. We are alone and worried. Even worse, we have been shunned by our relatives who don’t want to see us because of our support for our mother.”
“Don’t leave us alone,” they said in the letter, pleading for further international support. “We beg you.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Police Arrested 400 Beggars During Ramadan
Mecca, 14 Sept. (AKI) — Saudi police arrested 400 beggars in the city of Mecca during the holy city of Ramadan as part of a battle against panhandlers, according to local newspaper Okaz, citing comments by a Mecca law enforcement official.
Among those arrested were 46 children less than 14 years old, said Fouz al-Asiri, a policeman who is in charge of the anti-beggar campaign.
Social workers were immediately called to assist in handling foreign children while arrested adult foreigners were immediately deported.
In Saudi Arabia the end of Ramadan was celebrated on 11 September.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkish Referendum: Neo-Ottomans Victorious
by Srdja Trifkovic
Over the past eight years, Prime Minister Rejep Tayyip Erdoðan’s Islamist government and his AKP (Justice and Development Party) have been successful in undermining Mustafa Kemal’s legacy and the character of the state founded upon that legacy. What remained, until last Sunday’s referendum, was an increasingly empty shell of constitutional secularism. That shell was nevertheless an obstacle to the formal grounding of the new legitimacy in Islam at home and neo-Ottomanism abroad. Erdoðan and his team were determined to remove it, and on September 12 they succeeded. Turkey’s voters approved, by a large margin, a 26-article package which will end the Army’s role as the guardian of secularism. On current form, there is but little doubt that Erdoðan will be reelected with a simple majority when he calls the general election next spring.
We are witnessing the end of a process that could be predicted with precision. Seven and a half years ago I wrote in Chronicles (The American Interest, April 2003) that the Bush Administration was mistaken to pretend that Turkey was “a truly indispensable nation” with an “indispensable partnership with the United States,” a nation “central to building peace from Southeastern Europe to the Middle East and eastward to the Caucasus and Central Asia . . . crucial to bridging the dangerous gap between the West and the Muslim world”:…
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
Bare Skin Ban for Muslim Pool Event
Map: Dandenong 3175 The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) has banned people exposing their shoulders and thighs at an event at a public swimming pool in Dandenong, in Melbourne’s south-east.
The Dandenong City Council and the YMCA applied for the ban to be implemented during swimming lessons for Muslim women scheduled for next August.
It will apply to both Muslims and non-Muslims attending the event.
The vice-president of the Victorian Islamic Council, Sherene Hassan, says she does not support the restrictions.
“I basically believe that individuals have the right to wear whatever they’d like to wear,” she said.
“I understand the organisers of this event have good intentions. They want to bring Muslims and non-Muslims, but my preference would be no dress code stipulated for non-Muslims.”
Victoria’s Equal Opportunities Commissioner says the ban must be put into perspective.
Helen Szoke says the restrictions apply to a two-hour, after hours swimming session, targeted at multi-faith groups.
“People are not obliged to attend, minimum standards of dress are very common and where minimum standards of dress are identified on occasions it’s often to allow people to participate,” she said.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Cover Up for Pool Event During Next Year’s Ramadan
A PLAN to force families to cover-up to avoid offending Muslims at a public event has triggered furious debate.
An overwhelming 94 per cent of heraldsun.com.au readers disagree with the legal ruling approving the contentious ban during next year’s Ramadan.
So far the Premier John Brumby has refused to weigh into the debate about the event, saying he will wait for the VCAT ruling before making any comment.
VCAT has approved a ban on uncovered shoulders and thighs for a community event to be held at the Dandenong Oasis, a municipal pool.
“Participants aged 10 and over must ensure their bodies are covered from waist to knee and the entire torso extending to the upper arms,” a request by Dandenong City Council and the YMCA states in an exemption application to the Equal Opportunities Act.
“Participants must not wear transparent clothing.”
This issue has also sparked a huge community debate, with well over 500 people commenting on heraldsun.com.au this morning.
Many readers feel the administrative ruling has gone too far to appease minority interests, and even senior Islamic figures have raised concerns about the precedent.
The request has been approved by VCAT and applies to a family event to be held at the pool next August.
“The applicant intends this to be an event where people of all races and religions and ages may attend, use the Centre’s facilities and socialise together,” VCAT notes.
“The holy month of Ramadan has a particular focus on families and the applicant wishes to encourage families to attend and socialise together with others.
“The minimum dress requirements are set having regard to the sensitivities of Muslims who wish to participate in the event.”
The ban on skimpy clothes will apply between 6.15 and 8.15pm on August 21 next year, a time when the pool is closed to the public and normally used by a Muslim women’s swimming group.
The ban was yesterday compared by the Human Rights Commissioner Helen Szoke to a ban on thongs in a pub.
“Matters such as this are not easy to resolve and require a balance to be achieved between competing rights and obligations,” she said.
“Dress codes are not uncommon: eg singlets, jeans, thongs etc in pubs/hotels.”
Sherene Hassan, vice-president of the Islamic Society of Victoria, said she didn’t support the dress restrictions.
“My preference would be that no dress code is stipulated,” Ms Hassan said.
But Liberty Victoria said the ban was reasonable because the event was to be held out of hours.
A spokeswoman for the City of Greater Dandenong said the ban would help Muslims feel part of the community.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Pool Visitors Told to Cover Up for Ramadan
FAMILIES in Victoria are being ordered to cover up before attending a public event to avoid offending Muslims during next year’s Ramadan.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) has approved a ban on uncovered shoulders and thighs for a community event to be held at the Dandenong Oasis, a municipal pool.
“Participants aged 10 and over must ensure their bodies are covered from waist to knee and the entire torso extending to the upper arms,” a request by Dandenong City Council and the YMCA states in an exemption application to the Equal Opportunities Act.
“Participants must not wear transparent clothing.”
The request has been approved by VCAT and applies to a family event to be held at the pool next August.
“The applicant intends this to be an event where people of all races and religions and ages may attend, use the Centre’s facilities and socialise together,” VCAT notes.
“The holy month of Ramadan has a particular focus on families and the applicant wishes to encourage families to attend and socialise together with others.
“The minimum dress requirements are set having regard to the sensitivities of Muslims who wish to participate in the event.”
The ban on skimpy clothes will apply between 6.15 and 8.15pm on August 21 next year, a time when the pool is closed to the public and normally used by a Muslim women’s swimming group.
The ban was yesterday compared by the Human Rights Commissioner Helen Szoke to a ban on thongs in a pub.
“Matters such as this are not easy to resolve and require a balance to be achieved between competing rights and obligations,” she said.
“Dress codes are not uncommon: eg singlets, jeans, thongs etc in pubs/hotels.”
Sherene Hassan, vice-president of the Islamic Society of Victoria, said she didn’t support the dress restrictions.
“My preference would be that no dress code is stipulated,” Ms Hassan said.
But Liberty Victoria said the ban was reasonable because the event was to be held out of hours.
A spokeswoman for the City of Greater Dandenong said the ban would help Muslims feel part of the community.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
America Cannot Survive as a Multiple Language Country
“A nation is much more…it is a state of mind, a shared vision, and a recognition that we are all in this together. A nation needs a common language as it needs a common currency,” said Governor Richard D. Lamm of Colorado
One look around the world and you will see conflict in many countries in the Middle East, Africa and Europe. The great philosopher Kant said, “The two great dividers are religion and language.”
Today, the United Kingdom finds itself more the Divided Kingdom while the French find themselves becoming Arabic in culture and language. Canada doesn’t know ‘who’ it is with 12 distinct languages and cultures now emerging from its relentless immigration policy. At a fair this year, one Pakistani immigrant told a Canadian, “This isn’t Canada anymore; it’s a world country.” In other words, Canada has displaced itself out of its own culture, identity and language. In order to protect its culture and language, Quebec will only invite those who speak French and share their culture.
Wherever you see conflict in the world today, you see competing religions, cultures and languages. Any country may possess different cultures and religions, but once a country cannot communicate in one single language, it cannot continue its existence as a cohesive entity.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Cabinet Makes Deep Cuts in Integration Budget
THE HAGUE, 16/09/10 — The caretaker cabinet is making deep cuts in the budget for integration. Immigrants will likely have to carry the costs themselves.
Sources in The Hague say the outgoing coalition of Christian democrats (CDA) and small Christian party ChristenUnie plans savings of about two-thirds of the integration budget. This would work out at some hundreds of millions of euros. Details of the plan are not known, but it is likely that new immigrants and those without a job will themselves be made responsible for insuring that they speak adequate Dutch.
Immigrant organisations have reacted with annoyance. Particularly for immigrants that have had practically no education or are illiterate, the costs will be too high, fears the Consultative Body for Turks in the Netherlands (IOT). “These people cannot pay this.”
IOT and other migrant organisations were still strongly against the language and culture courses when they were introduced a few years ago. But IOT spokesman Harm van Zuthem meanwhile considers that many “desperately needed such a course for their opportunities on the labour market or to help their children at school.”
A spokesman for the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) also called the cutbacks “a bad development”. He pointed out that central government wants to integrate tens of thousands of persons a year. “This will now of course be endangered.”
Immigrants from outside the EU who come to the Netherlands or already live there have for some years had to do an integration exam. They have three and a half years to pass it. If they do not succeed, they will not be given a residence permit for an unrestricted period and they will have to pay a fine.
The cutbacks are part of the 3.2 billion euros that has to be found to get the 2011 budget in order. This will be presented on 21 September.
Other cost cuts already became known last month when the cabinet reached an accord on the budget for next year. These are cuts of 600 million euros in personnel costs at the government, already achieved wage moderation (400 million), higher excise duties on cigarettes and shag (200 million) and reining in subsidies for companies and lower childcare bonuses.
In view of its caretaker status, the cabinet cannot present any new plans on Princes’ Day. But it does want to be able to hand over the budget in good order to the next cabinet, as a result of which gaps totalling 3.2 billion euros had to be filled, Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager said recently. There is a strong chance that he will hold this post again in a coalition of CDA with the conservatives (VVD) and Party for Freedom (PVV).
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Poll: 65% of Texans Want Immigration-Enforcement Law Like Arizona’s
Nearly half of all Texans would repeal the constitutional promise of citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil, and nearly two-thirds would favor Arizona-style state laws allowing the police to ask about the immigration status of anyone they stop for any reason, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll.
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution grants so-called birthright citizenship to babies born in this country regardless of the immigration status of their parents. Asked whether that provision should be repealed, 48 percent of respondents say yes, while 38 percent say no. The remaining 14 percent are undecided. Fifty-four percent of respondents “strongly favor” passing a Texas law mirroring Arizona’s controversial new immigration law, and another 11 percent “somewhat support” passage.
On one of the hot-button questions of the campaign season, a majority of Texans are willing to buck the federal government: 63 percent of respondents support the state’s decision to join a lawsuit “seeking to block implementation of President Obama’s health care reform legislation” on the grounds that it’s unconstitutional to force people to buy health insurance. Just under half that number — 31 percent — oppose such a lawsuit.
Texans remain strongly in favor of the death penalty, with 54 percent “strongly” in favor and 24 percent more “somewhat” in favor.
And they’re more tolerant of gays and lesbians than you might expect. While 31 percent oppose marriage or civil unions for same-sex couples, 33 percent say they should have the right to civil unions and 28 percent say they should have the right to marry. Only 8 percent have no opinion.
“There is a sense of ‘Leave me alone,’“ says pollster Daron Shaw, a professor of government at the University of Texas who, with his colleague Jim Henson, oversees the UT/TT poll. “They’re pretty good markers for kind of a libertarian streak. Texas opinions are more complicated than people think they are.”…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedes Urged to Stop Work in Immigrant Demo
Swedish blogger and author Damon Rasti has called on all Swedes with immigrant backgrounds to take a five minute break from their work at 2pm on Thursday to underline the importance of all Swedes in the society.
Rasti has opened a Facebook page entitled “Inga Invandrare” (No immigrants) in a call to Swedes with an immigrant background to protest against “dark forces that want to scare us about immigrants.”
“I want to remind Sweden of all the good things that immigrants contribute with. That we are more than just thieves, rapists and trouble-makers,” Rasti told the Aftonbladet daily.
Rasti decided to act as opinion polls ahead of the September 19th general election started to indicate that the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats might claim seats in parliament.
Rusti drawed parallels with the 1991 election, when Ny Demokrati gained seats in parliament on an anti-immigrant ticket as well as the so-called Laserman killings of immigrants in Sweden.
The campaign is designed to take a stand against what Rusti, and the now 25,000 members of the Inga Invandrare Facebook page, as “vibes of 1991” and underline just how much poorer Sweden would be without its cultural and ethnic diversity.
“Most of us our normal people, pay tax, contribute with culture, drive busses, do whatever,” he told the newspaper.
Any “ethnic Swedes” that wish to take part in a supporting capacity are also welcome, Rusti confirmed, adding that in reality dividing the society into two groups is the last of his intentions.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Minister Wants the Bible Read at School
Rome, 15 Sept. (AKI) — The bible must be an important part of the curriculum in Italian public schools, according to minister of education Mariastella Gelmini, who in an interview with Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana said she supports children reading the bible in classrooms.
“As minister, believer and Italian citizen, I am in favour of reading the bible in our schools,” Gelmini said in a sample of comments provided by the weekly prior to its publication.
The bible is a useful tool to teach children how to make responsible decisions, she said in the interview.
“Schools must instruct, but also must form responsible citizens and adults who are knowledgable of their rights and responsibilities,” she said.
Critics say that using the bible in public schools is discriminatory against other creeds such as Islam, the religion of a vast part of the Italy’s immigrants.
The country where Catholicism was founded has appealed to a European court to overturn a ruling that bans crucifixes from public school classrooms.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Likens the Rise of Atheism in Britain to the Nazis as He Admits His ‘Shock and Sadness’ Over Abuse Scandal
The Pope controversially likened the rise of atheism in Britain to Nazi Germany today as he warned against ‘aggressive forms of secularism’ at the start of his historic state visit.
Risking sparking a new row after one of his aides likened the UK to the ‘Third World’, the former member of the Hitler Youth invoked Nazi Germany in an attack on ‘atheist extremism’.
It came after Benedict XVI apologised for the Catholic Church’s handling of the child abuse scandal as he flew to Scotland this morning.
The 83-year-old Pope admitted on the flight that the church had not dealt with abusive priests decisively or quickly enough.
The comments are his most thorough admission to date of failings in the way the sex abuse scandal was handled.
They appeared to be a clear attempt to divert attention from insensitive comments by one of his aides who sparked fury on the eve of his trip, the first British visit by a Pope in 28 years.
Cardinal Walter Kasper was dropped from his entourage after accusing Britain of harbouring aggressive atheism and discriminating against Christians.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Technocracy and Transformation
Those disturbing words didn’t spring out of Nazi Germany, Benito’s fascist Italy, or Stalin’s heavy-handed Soviet Union — although the text was common to that era. Rather, the idea that “individualism must go” was the language of a very American movement, one that rapidly spread during the 1930s. From Columbia University to newspapers coast-to-coast, Technocracy was the buzzword for a new way of organizing humanity.
Mention “Technocracy” today and a mix of responses emerge. “It’s in a lot science fiction books,” explained one younger friend. “It’s a model for a utopian world run by technology.”
An older gentleman, a product of the 1940s, laughed when I mentioned the word; “It was a crack-pot idea with a cult following. Thankfully it died long ago.”
Another friend who was a child during the Great Depression remembers hearing about it at the kitchen table, and seeing Technocracy literature in the house.
Technocracy was all of the above: a utopian dream, a cult-like movement, and a concept that captured the public’s attention. But it was and is much more; it’s the prime motivator. Today, the fingerprints of Technocracy are deeply impressed upon the political, economic, military, social and spiritual landscape. There isn’t anything that Technocracy hasn’t touched, chiefly because as a type of meta-philosophy, it rests on the most basic principle of human rebellion: By pursuing god-like illumination, Man can become as God.
Man, not God, is the ultimate engineer of human destiny — therefore, Man is God. Technocracy represents the pinnacle of Man’s quest for self-deification: The perfectibility of Man through the thoughts of his mind and the subsequent works of his hands. It’s the cosmic taunt, stemming from the most ancient of days. What God can do, Man can do. The Garden of Eden will be remade.
At the personal level, the first Techno-fingerprint came to view in 2009. And after seeing it, I couldn’t believe I had somehow overlooked Technocracy in my past research. Ironically, I had published many articles touching on the subject, including a well-circulated piece in 2004 titled “Social Engineering for Global Change.” Yet I hadn’t realized that a specialized meta-movement existed that gave energy to the changes being described. I had chocked it up to “globalism” and “world citizenship,” which wasn’t inaccurate. But I had missed a bigger picture.
Two quotes immediately come to mind from that 2004 “Social Engineering” article.
“Fifty years is ample time in which to change a world and its people almost beyond recognition. All that is required for the task are a sound knowledge of social engineering, a clear sight of the intended goal — and power.” — Arthur C. Clarke (2).
“A world society cannot be haphazard. Since there are no precedents, it cannot be traditional at this stage in its development. It can only be deliberative and experimental, planned and built up with particular objectives and with the aid of all available knowledge concerning the principles of social organization. Social engineering is a new science.” — Scott Nearing (3).
A double irony exists, as these two quotes were the inspiration for the title of my web-based research journal, Forcing Change (www.forcingchange.org). And these two quotes describe the heartbeat of Technocracy: Man’s desire to re-shape humanity in Man’s image.
So what was the “fingerprint” that caught my attention in 2009? Carbon, and a phone call.
In a report titled “Cash for Clunkers,” now published by the Science and Public Policy Institute, I had mentioned the potential for a coming global currency based on carbon credits, and quoted from the Harvard International Review.
“A new currency is emerging in world markets. Unlike the dollar, euro and yen that trade for tangible goods and human services, this new money exchanges for pollution — particularly emissions of carbon dioxide…Carbon credits, as they are called, are poised to transform the world energy system and thus the world economy.” (4)
Consider this: In 2006, the UK’s Centre for Sustainable Energy suggested citizens be granted a CO2-credit account, “based on a carbon credit card debited whenever carbon is consumed.”(5)
“Whenever carbon is consumed” translates to whenever energy is used. The implications are staggering.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Media Climate Change Bias; Only Melting Ice Makes News
While the mainstream media ignore cold and recent changes in sea ice, it’s a good time to give an overview of different ice conditions. Melting ice has two attractions for global alarmists. It is supposedly a sign of warmer temperatures and it plays to people’s unjustified fears about rising sea levels. This is why it was a central part of Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
[…]
In other places when the glacier enters the ocean large blocks break off to become the familiar icebergs, like the Titanic struck. The last part of he 19th century and first decade of the 20th century were very cool. Figure 2 shows where the Titanic sank and at 41°N is surprisingly far south. They claim, incorrectly, that an increase in glaciers is a sign of global warming. It isn’t. It’s a sign of glacier growth which results in greater ice flow to the oceans. As a result more icebergs are created.
Next time you see a story about ice determine if they’re talking about Sea ice, Shelf ice, continental glacier ice, or Alpine glacier ice. Then remember that snowfall is as important as temperature in the formation and dynamics of glacier movement.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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