Thanks to CIS, Gaia, Holger Danske, JEH, LN, Paul Green, TB, Tuan Jim, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Details are below the fold.
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Calif. Lawmakers Get Free Gasoline
California lawmakers enjoy a perk not available to their colleagues in any other state: unchecked use of gasoline charge cards that stick taxpayers with the bill.
Through the first seven months of the year, California taxpayers have spent $220,000 to pay for lawmakers’ gasoline, according to a review of records requested by The Associated Press. That includes July, when lawmakers already were past their deadline to approve a budget and the state faced a $15.2 billion deficit.
California is unique in giving legislators free rein on transportation spending, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In most other states, lawmakers must submit the same kind of mileage-expense forms used by companies to reimburse employees for their business travel.
[…]
The charge cards also can be used for incidental purchases such as snacks, drinks, windshield wipers or even oil changes. Legislative officers said there is no way to know how much lawmakers are spending on such items, but most payments are for fuel.
Robert Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, said use of the charge cards should be scrutinized more closely or scrapped altogether.
“There should be a random audit done of the use of the car and other expenses by an outside auditor,” said Stern, the former general counsel of the California Fair Political Practices Commission. “If everybody knows there is no oversight, they’re going to slip a little bit.”…
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IMF Adds to Pressure on Congress to Approve Bail-Out
The International Monetary Fund has added to the growing pressure on the US Congress to approve the Wall Street bail-out, as stockmarkets rose on optimism that a deal will be hammered out this week.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the IMF, warned last night that the US must take urgent steps to protect its economy from the ongoing financial crisis.
“We’re right at the moment where action is needed,” warned Strauss-Kahn. “A non-perfect plan is better than no plan at all,” he added, in an interview with Reuters in Washington.
The prospect of a deal this week sent shares up in London, where the FTSE 100 continued yesterday’s bounce-back. After leaping by 92 points in early trading it was up 82.5 at 4985 at 1.30pm. Asia was also more buoyant, where Japan’s Nikkei recovered some of yesterday’s heavy losses to close almost 1% higher. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 0.75%.
But the Dow Jones industrial average is expected to fall by around 100 points when trading begins on Wall Street.
The House of Representatives sent shockwaves around the world on Monday when it voted down the $700bn (£390bn) rescue plan, under which the US government would cleanse the banking sector’s balance sheets.
With politicians worldwide demanding action, the US Senate is due to buck convention and vote on an amended version of the rescue plan this evening — before the lower house has given its approval. In an effort to win Congress’s backing, it now includes a clause to raise the government’s guarantee on savings from $100,000 (£56,000) to $250,000.
But in a sign of the problems facing the financial industry, JP Morgan warned that Europe’s banks will take fresh asset writedowns totalling €28.4bn (£22.5bn) before the end of this year…
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North Carolina Man Pleads Guilty and is Sentenced for Federal Hate Crimes
A North Carolina man pleaded guilty today to federal civil rights charges for threatening employees of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) because of their race and national origin, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Grace Chung Becker and U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding for the Eastern District of North Carolina announced today.
Christopher Szaz, a resident of Raleigh, pleaded guilty to two federal hate crime charges for sending threatening emails to NCLR and CAIR, in an effort to interfere with their employees’ federally protected right to enjoy employment without intimidation based on race or national origin. After pleading guilty, Szaz was sentenced to 45 days of imprisonment, followed by one year of post-release supervision.
The two-count information charged that on June 8, 2007, Szaz sent two e-mail messages threatening to bomb the CAIR office in Washington, D.C. The information further charged that on July 27, 2007, Szaz sent an email to the NCLR office in Washington, D.C., stating that he would kill employees of that organization. In his hearing, Szaz admitted sending these emails in an effort to intimidate the employees and that his actions were motivated by racial and ethnic bias.
The case was investigated by Special Agent Greg Bristol of the District of Columbia Field Office of the FBI. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Frank Bradsher and Denise Walker of the Eastern District of North Carolina, as well as the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division Trial Attorney Cyra O’Daniel.
Prosecuting the perpetrators of bias-motivated crimes is a top priority of the Justice Department. Since 2001, the Civil Rights Division has charged 197 defendants in 132 cases involving bias-motivated crimes.
| — Hat tip: Holger Danske | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Assault on the First Amendment
by Andrew C. McCarthy
[…]
I’ll be blunt: Sen. Obama and his supporters despise free expression, the bedrock of American self-determinism and hence American democracy. What’s more, like garden-variety despots, they see law not as a means of ensuring liberty but as a tool to intimidate and quell dissent.
We London conferees were fretting over speech codes, “hate speech” restrictions, “Islamophobia” provisions, and “libel tourism” — the use of less journalist-friendly defamation laws in foreign jurisdictions to eviscerate our First Amendment freedom to report, for example, on the nexus between ostensible Islamic charity and the funding of terrorist operations.
All the while, in St. Louis, local law-enforcement authorities, dominated by Democrat-party activists, were threatening libel prosecutions against Obama’s political opposition. County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, abetted by a local sheriff and encouraged by the Obama campaign, warned that members of the public who dared speak out against Obama during the campaign’s crucial final weeks would face criminal libel charges — if, in the judgment of these conflicted officials, such criticism of their champion was “false.”
The chill wind was bracing. The Taliban could not better rig matters. The Prophet of Change is only to be admired, not questioned. In the stretch run of an American election, there is to be no examination of a candidate for the world’s most powerful office — whether about his radical record, the fringe Leftism that lies beneath his thin, centrist veneer, his enabling of infanticide, his history of race-conscious politics, his proposals for unprecedented confiscation and distribution of private property (including a massive transfer of American wealth to third-world dictators through international bureaucrats), his ruinous economic policies that have helped leave Illinois a financial wreck, his place at the vortex of the credit market implosion that has put the U.S. economy on the brink of meltdown, his aggressive push for American withdrawal and defeat in Iraq, his easy gravitation to America-hating activists, be they preachers like Jeremiah Wright, terrorists like Bill Ayers, or Communists like Frank Marshall Davis. Comment on any of this and risk indictment or, at the very least, government harassment and exorbitant legal fees.
Nor was this an isolated incident…
| — Hat tip: Paul Green | [Return to headlines] |
Obama and Slavery
Slavery still stalks the American consciousness, its wounds yet festering in many hearts. If Barack Obama were to set his mind to it, he could heal much of the damage this peculiar institution wrought on our national soul. This is a great and tragic error that must be given justice. Obama is the best person in the world who can recognize, remember and honor the deaths of 125 million and the enslavement of tens of millions of people.
[…]
This is the world that Obama spans: from slavery abolition to the eternal enslaver. He represents hope to many American descendants of slaves, but his ancestors were never enslaved. No one else could tell the story that Obama knows. He could tell the story of how 125 million Africans died. He could tell the story of how 25 million Africans became slaves. There is an enormous irony that descendants of the slaves that his ancestors created now look to him for justice. And he could give them real justice by telling the complete truth of their enslavement. Only he has the power to make others listen.
Obama has declared himself to be a world citizen with his speech in Berlin, and his speaking the truth of the complete story of slavery would be historic, and could reverse centuries of ignorance and lies. He can stand up and tell the world the true complete story of slavery. It would change history far beyond the election cycle.
| — Hat tip: LN | [Return to headlines] |
Schwarzenegger: Communism Still Bad Idea
Vetoes plan that would have opened public schools to avowed party members
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided communism still is a bad idea, and opening up public schools and other public facilities to avowed party members who may seek to overthrow the U.S. government is not very smart either.
“Many Californians have fled communist regimes, immigrated to the United States and sought freedom in our nation because of the human rights abuses perpetuated in other parts of the world,” the governor said in a message accompanying a veto of a plan lawmakers had approved.
“It is important particularly for those people that California maintains the protections of current law,” he said. “Therefore, I see no compelling reason to change the law that maintains our responsibility to ensure that public resources are not used for purposes of overthrowing the U.S. or state government, or for communist activities.”
The proposal, SB 1322, had been submitted by Democratic state Sen. Alan Lowenthal of Long Beach.
[…]
The lawmakers wanted to give unfettered access to public schools and facilities to activist communists who seek the “elimination” of the system of capitalism and who blame problems ranging from “homophobia” to “sexism” on the free market system.
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The Greenlining Institute: Does the Financial Crisis Have Its Origins in Berkeley?
Yesterday I followed a link to a new article by Matthew Vadum which named The Greenlining Institute (among similar nonprofits) as the actual cause of the current financial crisis threatening the US economy. I did a double-take: The Greenlining Institute? You mean the one in Berkeley? Answer: Yes. The very same.
I (and countless other people) often zip past the nondescript office on Berkeley’s University Avenue containing the Greenlining Institute — one passes it on the way in and out of the city, as University leads from the freeway to downtown and the U.C. campus.
Unlike most people, though, several months ago I took note of the office as I passed it one day, and asked myself, “The Greenlining Institute” — what the hell is that? When I got home, out of curiosity I googled it and spent a couple minutes trying to decipher their Web site, to little avail. A very few other scattered articles seemed to indicate that the Greenlining Institute existed solely to bully banks and financial institutions into giving loans to otherwise unqualified minority borrowers.
The Greenlining Institute’s own mission statement says…
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Cologne: Evidence Against Terror Suspects Crumbles
Following the spectacular arrests of two terror suspects at the Cologne-Bonn Airport on Friday, some are now questioning the timing of the police action. The arrests appear to have been made too hastily, and the decisive evidence may have been a love letter.
Opinions about people can vary wildly. Friends and acquaintances describe Omar D. as a “friendly and helpful young man,” and they only speak positively of him. Investigators, however, consider him to be a would-be suicide bomber.
The only thing certain is that since his arrest on Friday at the Cologne-Bonn airport, the German citizen, born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and his friend Abdiazak B. have been held in remand in a local jail. Police arrested the men as they sought to make their way to Entebbe, Uganda on Friday. Under German law, a suspect cannot continue to be held in jail longer than 24 hours without a court-ordered arrest warrant, and police successfully obtained one on Saturday.
The decisive evidence that led a senior security official to conduct a spectacular operation on the airfield was a letter that investigators found in Omar D.’s luggage — a farewell letter to his fiancée. It could either be read as a final goodbye between two lovers or the communiqué of a designated martyr.
Investigators rifled through the German-Somalian’s luggage as he waited in line at passport control, was checked and eventually allowed to board the Fokker 50 aircraft operated by Dutch carrier KLM. They considered the text to be evidence that D. wanted to conduct jihad in Germany. Omar D.’s family, however, claim it was nothing more than a love letter to a young woman. A young woman they claimed made a big fuss every time he left — even though the two don’t even live together.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Borders Opening for Students
730 mixed-marriage couples may now be on their way to Denmark from Sweden alone as a result of government acceptance of family reunions for new groups.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Circumcision Parents to Court
A couple charged with having sent their daughters to be genitally mutilated risks four years in prison.
The prosecutor in a case involving a couple who sent their daughters away to be genitally mutilated has demanded a four-year prison sentence for the parents.
The couple were arrested last year charged with the physical abuse of their daughters, who are now nine and eleven years old. It is alleged that the daughters were sent to Sudan in 2003 by their parents to have their labia removed.
Female genital mutilation has been illegal in Denmark since 2003 and the current case is the first of its type in the country.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
London’s Multicultural ‘Eid
LONDON — Different attires. Different cuisines. Different languages. Still, one ‘Eid Al-Fitr celebrated by Britain’s sizable, multiethnic Muslim community.
Muslim Londoners dressed differently for the celebration of the three-day ‘Eid, which began on Tuesday, September 30.
In East London, home to a concentration of Pakistani community, the traditional sari and punjabi suits hold sway.
Across the city to the north in Edgware Road, where the Arab community dominates, women wear their new abayas and men are in their best jilbabs.
‘Eid cuisines also reflect the different cultural and ethnic backgrounds of Muslim Londoners.
In the region around East London Mosque, Pakistani and Bengali families celebrate are cooking Jalebi, a puffy fritters fried and then soaked in syrup.
In North London, the traditional Turkish dessert Hazer Baba is the favorite ‘Eid desert.
In East London’s West Ham street, the scene sums it all.
On one side, Pakistani-origin Shaban sells Karachi-made sari to last-minute ‘Eid shoppers.
In the shop right door, Shaker, who has Iraqi background, is busy selling different kinds of traditional Arab sweets.
Britain is home to a sizable, multi-ethnic Muslim minority of nearly 2 million, mainly from Pakistani, Bengali and Indian backgrounds.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims in Germany Are Very Religious, and Faith Plays a Central Role in Their Day-to-Day Lives
A high level of religious tolerance — Little influence on the political sphere — Considerable diversity in terms of denominations and countries of origin
Berlin-Gütersloh, September 26, 2008 — Across all age groups, the Muslims who live in Germany are highly religious, which clearly differentiates them from the overall German population. But their religious faith is not characterized by rigid dogmatism or fundamentalism. On the contrary, Muslims in Germany tend to be very accepting of religious pluralism and take a relatively pragmatic approach to religion in their day-to-day lives. These are among the conclusions reached by the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s special study “Religion Monitor 2008: Muslim religiosity in Germany,” which was unveiled today in Berlin. The study is based on a representative survey of more than 2,000 Muslims over the age of 18.
According to the study, 90 percent of the Muslims who live in Germany are religious, and of that group 41 percent can be classified as highly religious. Five percent are nonreligious. By comparison, 70 percent of the German population as a whole are religious (18 percent of them highly religious), while 28 percent are nonreligious. However, the level of religiosity differs markedly between members of the various Muslim denominations and according to national origin as well as ethnic and cultural background. For example, Sunnis in Germany are characterized by a particularly high level of religiosity; 92 percent consider themselves to be religious, and of that group 47 percent are highly religious. Among Shiites, 90 percent are religious (29 percent highly religious), while 77 percent of Alevites regard themselves as religious (with 12 percent of that group highly religious). By comparison, a look at the Christian denominations in Germany shows that 84 percent of Catholics and 79 percent of Protestants are religious, with the highly religious making up 27 percent and 14 percent of those groups, respectively. Among language groups, the highest level of religiosity — 91 percent — is found among speakers of Turkish and Arabic. The relevant figures are somewhat lower for people of Bosnian descent and speakers of Farsi: 85 percent and 84 percent, respectively. The largest share of highly religious individuals, 44 percent, is found among Muslims of Turkish origin.
The picture is mixed when we look at the results by age and gender. The intensity of religious faith appears to decline with increasing age. However, since this study is a snapshot of one moment in time, it is impossible to draw conclusions about trends. A comparison of age groups, for example, can only describe the current level of religiosity of the respondents in this representative survey. Eighty percent of individuals under the age of 30 have a strong belief in a God or an afterlife; for those over 60 the relevant figure is 66 percent. Muslim women have a more intense relationship with their religion than men do (54 percent versus 38 percent). Compared with men, women also attach more importance to personal prayer (79 percent versus 59 percent). Men, however, are more likely to practice their religion in a public setting; 51 percent of Muslim men regard participation in communal prayer as very important, while this holds true for only 21 percent of Muslim women.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands Relaxes Army Equipment Export Regime
THE HAGUE, 01/10/08 — The Netherlands has lifted the restriction that its non-strategic army vehicles may only be sold to friendly countries and non-governmental organisations.
The cabinet has backed a proposal by the Finance and Defence State Secretaries to open up the sales options for non-strategic four-wheel drive trucks. “We have partly allowed ourselves to be led here by the fact that other EU countries have already been selling these vehicles publicly and without restrictions for longer and have found no undesirable use of these,” says Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen in a letter to parliament.
The restriction on the sale of the vehicles was introduced in 1997, when the sale of 100 army four-wheel drive vehicles to Zaire, then a conflict area, was cancelled. Meanwhile, however, Defence State Secretary Jack de Vries has 1,000 surplus vehicles that he cannot get rid of. To accede to him, Verhagen has now given permission for these to be put on the market via a system of private subscription.
“Direct sale to governments of friendly countries and NGOs has not turned out to be an adequate alternative for the system of public selling. There is currently a stock of about 1,000 unsold vehicles and in the coming period, another 1,500 are expected. Not only is storage a problem but the State is also losing out on income,” stated Verhagen.
The government will relax the selling options. “This relaxation means that as well as direct sales to other countries and NGOs, the vehicles will be offered for sale via a system of private subscription. To keep an eye on the sale and restrict the risks of improper use as much as possible, permission is necessary from the State beforehand. Depending on the next destination, further restrictions might be imposed.”
The government wants to sell around 400 trucks per half-year via private subscription “to reduce the stock of surplus trucks within the foreseeable future.” These trucks are not distinguishable from civilian trucks after demilitarisation, according to Verhagen.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: “Gulen Movement Does Enhance Integration”
THE HAGUE, 01/10/08 — Integration Minister Ella Vogelaar refuses to believe that the Fethullah Gulen movement has a hidden agenda. Government subsidies to the Islamic movement will continue.
Vogelaar is rejecting warnings by Turkey experts against the movement. Several sources said in July on TV programme NOVA that the movement presents itself as an organisation that propagates integration and ‘world citizenship’ but in reality works for Islamisation of the West.
Based on the broadcast, the Lower House demanded an investigation, especially as the Netherlands supports the organisation financially. The movement appears to have thousands of followers in the Netherlands and to be active in education, the media and business.
According to Vogelaar, this is all nonsense. “They absolutely do not turn against the West. The movement is actually very involved in society,” said the Labour (PvdA) minister on local TV station RTV Rijnmond.
Additionally, the AIVD intelligence service has according to the minister concluded that the movement “is not preparing any disquieting activities whatever in the Netherlands” and is therefore not a threat to national security. Vogelaar: “The Fethullah Gulen movement is an orthodox Islamic movement, this is true. But there are also orthodox Christian movements. There is nothing wrong with that”.
Fethullah Gulen’s leader failed to get a Green Card, as it is called, in the US and has to leave the country shortly. “I will not comment on whether he is welcome in the Netherlands,” said Vogelaar. She added that the Foreign Affairs Ministry is responsible for visas.
Nova reported in July that numerous organisations in the Netherlands are affiliated to the Gulen movement, including the association of Turkish entrepreneurs in the Netherlands, HOGIAF. HOGIAF’s advisory board consists of prominent members of the Christian democratic (CDA), Labour (PvdA) and conservative (VVD) parties.
On behalf of CDA, ‘dialogue guru’ Doekle Terspstra is a member. He launched a media campaign almost a year ago against Party for Freedom (PVV) MP Geert Wilders, which was meant to become a ‘movement’ but which seems no longer to exist. Terpstra chairs HBO Council, the umbrella organisation for colleges (HBOs) and was until 2005 chairman of the CNV union federation. For the PvdA, the FNV union federation’s former chairman Lodewijk de Waal is on the HOGIAF committee. And former VVD MP Bibi de Vries is also a member.
As far as is known, HOGIAF receives no subsidies, but various alleged Gulen boarding schools in the Netherlands do (2 million euros), as does the Cosmicus College (300,000 euros). This is a secondary school in Rotterdam that educates Turkish children as world citizens. At least, so believed the then Education Minister Maria van der Hoeven when she provided a startup subsidy and personally opened the school two years ago.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands Sponsors Ramadan Festival in UK
THE HAGUE, 01/10/08 — The Dutch embassy in London has sponsored an Islamic festival. Other countries including the US also did so, Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen says in a letter to parliament.
The Party for Freedom (PVV) wanted to know whether it was true that the Dutch embassy in London sponsored the UK Ramadan festival. The minister acknowledges that indeed 15,000 euros has been donated to the festival from the Public Diplomacy Projects budget.
Verhagen has no objection to the subsidy. He rejects a PVV call to ensure that such subsidies never occur any more in future. “The request for co-financing of the festival was assessed and handled in line with the applicable criteria and procedures.”
As well as Egypt, Algeria and Syria, the festival is also supported by the London-based embassies of Norway and the US, according to Verhagen. The UK parliament (Lower House) and cultural institutes such as the Barbican and the Victoria & Albert Museum are also participating, the minister writes.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Rich Flanders Seeks More Autonomy
Belgian politicians are struggling to end a crisis that has paralysed the government for 15 months. At the heart of the stalemate are the rival aspirations of Dutch and French-speakers. In the first of a series of articles on divided Belgium, Henri Astier profiles Flanders.
Speed cameras — hardly popular anywhere — are a source of particular irritation in Flanders.
More than 1,000 have been installed across the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium, while Wallonia, the French-speaking southern half, has only a handful.
Yet revenue from fines is collected centrally and redistributed. Many Flemish motorists not only resent being caught speeding, but feel they are subsidising freewheeling Walloons in the process.
The speed cameras provide a neat snapshot of Flemish grievances.
“The hard-working north is supporting the south, just like in Italy,” says Pascal Francois, 42, an architect from the town of Aalst.
Flanders indeed has wealth, a hard-working population, and beautiful, world-famous cities — like Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp.
Many there are asking why their taxes should prop up what they regard as a lagging, mismanaged region.
“Walloons should be responsible for what they do,” says Roger Vandervoorde, 65, a retired sales director, sipping a drink in front of Ghent’s picture-perfect cathedral.
“The best would be a confederation, with each part responsible for itself and only a few small matters handled federally.”
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Muslim Finds Muhammad in a Mango
Rubina Sheikh from Helsingborg in southern Sweden believes she’s received a message from God — in a rotten mango.
As the two halves of Sheikh’s freshly sliced mango fell away from her knife last Saturday, she discovered what she says is a sign from God.
“When I sliced the mango in two, ‘Allah’ was written in one half and ‘Muhammad’ in the other. It’s a miracle, a sign from Allah,” said Sheikh to the Metro newspaper.
The practicing Muslim is convinced that the black lines emanating through the fruit form characters in Arabic which spell the holy words.
And local Muslims have been streaming in to see the miracle for themselves.
“I’d heard of the phenomenon earlier, but never before seen it with my own eyes,” Ghulam Mughal told Metro.
But an emeritus professor in Islam from nearby Lund University is less convinced the rotting fruit is a sign from Allah.
“There are 14 recognized ways to create the word ‘Allah’. When you think about how many mangoes there are out there, it’s not strange that one of them has a pattern which can be interpreted to be the right combination of characters,” said Jan Hjärpe to Metro.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
European Hostage: ‘There Was No Rescue, What Complete Nonsense’
Bernd L., 65, was one of 19 hostages kidnapped in Egypt and brought to the Sudan. In a SPIEGEL ONLINE interview, the retired teacher, now freed and back in Germany, dismissed reports that the hostages had been rescued as “complete nonsense.”
A group of European tourists and their guides spent 10 days in captivity after being kidnapped in Egypt and taken to Sudan by a band of criminals. They returned home on Tuesday. The group, which included five Germans, five Italians and a Romanian as well as their Egyptian guides, had to withstand extreme heat in the desert and experience an emotional roller coaster ride as the their kidnappers negotiated a ranson. After Egyptian security officials killed six of the kidnappers in a shootout, the remaining kidnappers decided to release the hostages — allegedly without the exchange of any money.
Kidnapping victim Bernd. L. told his story in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE conducted after his return to Germany on Tuesday.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Welcome back to Germany, Mr. L. We’re happy your rescue went off well.
Bernd L.: That was not a rescue, what complete nonsense. After we were kidnapped in the Egyptian desert, a group of guerrillas took us to Sudan. There, the ransom was supposed to be transferred. Some of the kidnappers watched over us hostages there, and another part of the group stayed in Egypt. The Sudanese army attacked the group in Egypt on Sunday, killing six of them. Those who survived then started making their way toward us.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Drone Strike Kills Five in Pakistan: Officials
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) — A U.S. pilotless drone fired two missiles at a house in northwest Pakistan killing five people, Pakistani intelligence agency officials said Wednesday.
Frustrated by an intensifying Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, U.S. forces have in the past month carried out seven missile strikes by pilotless drones and a commando raid on the Pakistani side of the border.
In the latest attack, a drone fired two missiles at a house near the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan, at about midnight Tuesday (1800 GMT), two intelligence agency officials said.
The area is a known sanctuary for Pakistani Taliban and foreign militants near the Afghan border.
“We have reports of five dead including foreign militants,” said one of the officers, who declined to be identified as he is not authorized to speak to the media.
He said he had no more information about the casualties.
The U.S. strikes into Pakistan, in particular the September 3 raid by ground troops, have angered Pakistan, straining ties between the allies and leading to tension along the border which Pakistani forces have vowed to defend.
The government says the strikes are an infringement of Pakistani sovereignty.
U.S. commanders have spoken of respect for Pakistan’s sovereignty but have suggested they will not stop cross-border strikes on militants.
| — Hat tip: JEH | [Return to headlines] |
Study: Immigration Law Enforcement Helps Check Criminal Street Gangs
WASHINGTON (October 1, 2008) — A new Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder finds that immigration law enforcement has been highly effective in fighting gang activity around the country. Local law enforcement agencies that shun involvement with immigration law enforcement are missing an opportunity to protect their communities, according to the authors. Since 2005, ICE has arrested more than 8,000 immigrant gangsters from more than 700 different gangs under an initiative known as Operation Community Shield.
The Backgrounder,’Taking Back the Streets: ICE and Local Law Enforcement Target Immigrant Gangs,’ by Jessica M. Vaughan and Jon D. Feere, was funded by the Department of Justice and describes the unique public safety problems posed by immigrant gangs. The authors present previously unpublished statistics on gang arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), describe how immigration law enforcement authorities are used to combat gang activity, and offer policy recommendations to improve federal-local cooperation, and without damaging relations with immigrant communities.
The authors can provide statistics for 99 different cities upon request. The full report is available online at http://www.cis.org/ImmigrantGang . An introductory video has also been produced and is available online at http://www.cis.org/ImmigrantGangsVideo .
Among the findings:…
| — Hat tip: CIS | [Return to headlines] |
An Unlikely Alliance: Islamists and the Radical Left Have Little in Common Apart From a Hatred of the West and Western Capitalism
What do the far left and Islamists have in common? Not a lot, you may say, but you would be wrong. Despite being ideologically at the extremes of the political spectrum, they in fact share one worrying trait.
The old rule that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” seems to be shaping the relationship between the hard left and Islamists in Britain today. By having a common foe in western capitalism, which they conveniently blame for all of the world’s ills, they have developed a marriage of convenience against the odds.
This alliance can also be seen on the international stage as Hugo Chávez holds hands with Iran’s Ahmedinejad while our own Ken Livingstone hugs Yusuf al-Qaradawi. It was also evident at anti-Iraq war rallies where CND, the Socialist Workers Party and Respect shared platforms with the likes of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and the British Muslim Initiative which are schismatic offshoots of radical Islamism.
Azzam Tamimi (spokesman for MAB) when asked by BBC Hardtalk’s Tim Sebastian if he was prepared to blow himself up in Palestine, replied: “If I can go to Palestine and sacrifice myself I would do it. Why not?”
Now don’t get me wrong — I’m all for people of different backgrounds coming together and working in harmony. But it worries me slightly when the only thing that’s really binding these divergent factions is not their love for all humanity or their desire to see a totalitarian state, but their common hatred of the west which can be called “westophobia”. There, I’ve used it, the one word that can actually sum up all the various groupings that are ideologically driven to view the west and western capitalism as “the enemy”.
Westophobia can be defined as a form of prejudice against the west, and hatred of the west, its values and peoples. This form of prejudice is commonly found in the Arab world and increasingly in today’s Kremlin, not to mention amongst Islamists and the hard left. Symptomatic of this prejudice is a mindset that blames world poverty, disease, internal conflicts and in some cases even natural disasters on western foreign policy or intervention…
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Nobel Committee Rep Slams US Literature
Swedish Nobel Committee supremo Horace Engdahl has shocked the global literary establishment by denouncing the cultural “ignorance” of authors from the United States.
As the race heats up for this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, American writers appear increasingly unlikely to get the nod from Stockholm.
“Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the centre of the literary world … not the United States,” Engdahl told The Associated Press.
Engdahl added that US literature suffered from writers being “too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture”.
“The US is too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature. That ignorance is restraining,” said Engdahl.
The statements by the Nobel Committee’s permanent secretary provoked a furious reaction in the United States, where book lovers contacted by the news agency leapt to the defence of their national canon.
In a letter to newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, Engdahl said he had not yet read the article but had the impression he had been misunderstood.
“The Nobel Prize is not an international competition but a reward for individual authors. It is important to remember this when feelings of national pride are running high,” he said.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
‘There is Absolutely No Reason for Islamophobia’
Germany’s Muslims are pious and yet more tolerant than most assume, a new study has found. Its authors are urging authorities to draw the country’s Muslim children away from Koran schools by offering public religious instruction.
A teacher in Bonn during a course on Islam. A new study by the Bertelsmann Stiftung provides an in-depth view of religiosity among Germany’s Muslims.
Dr. Martin Rieger of the Bertelman Stiftung thinks Muslim children should have their own religion classes. Rieger was the director of the study “Muslim Religiosity in Germany,” which was provided to SPIEGEL ONLINE ahead of its scheduled publication on Friday.
The study reveals that 90 percent of Muslims define themselves as religous. In contrast a separate survey by the nonprofit German think tank found that only 70 percent of the entire population admitted to being religous. “We need to get the younger Muslims out of the Koran schools,” Rieger urges, “and offer them professionally taught classes on Islam.”
Calls like that are welcome news to Yunus Ulusoy from the Center for Turkish Studies in Essen, which keeps track of the religiosity of Turkish Muslims. It’s a demand, Ulusoy says, “that we’ve been making for decades because, for Muslims, faith is a very important part of their identity.” In his opinion, if the school system doesn’t pay any attention to this fact, it only hurts the chances of successfully integrating Muslims into German culture.
Even Robert Zollitsch, president of the German Bishops’ Conference, the body responsible for the country’s Catholic Churches, backs the plan. On Thursday, Zollitsch voiced his support for the call for Islamic religious instruction and the construction of “fitting Muslim houses of worship that are well-integrated into their respective urban plans.”…
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
DoS Attack Reveals (Yet Another) Crack in Net’s Core
Self-trashing TCP exploit
Security experts say they have discovered a flaw in a core internet protocol that can be exploited to disrupt just about any device with a broadband connection, a finding that could have profound consequences for millions of people who depend on websites, mail servers, and network infrastructure.
The bug in the transmission control protocol (TCP) affords attackers a wealth of new ways to carry out denials of service on equipment at the heart of data centers and other sensitive points on the internet. The new class of attack is especially severe because it can be carried out using very little bandwidth and has the ability to paralyze a server or router even after the flood of malicious data has stopped.
“If you use the internet and you serve a TCP-based service that you value the availability for, then this affects you,” Robert E. Lee, chief security officer for Sweden-based Outpost24 told The Register. “That may not be every internet user, but that’s certainly any IT manager, that’s certainly any website operator, mail server operator, or router operator.”
Lee said he and Outpost24 colleague Jack Louis discovered the bug in 2005, but decided to keep their finding secret while they tried to devise a solution. After largely hitting a wall, they decided to go public in hopes that a new infusion of ideas will finally get the problem fixed…
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Václav Klaus: Global Warming Alarmism is Unacceptable and Should be Confronted
(1) Many thanks for the invitation and for the opportunity to be here with all of you. I have visited the U.S. many times since the fall of communism in November 1989 when — after almost half a century — traveling to the free world became for people like me possible again, but I’ve never been to this beautiful city and to the state of Oregon before. Once again, thank you very much.
I am expected to talk here about global warming today (even though I don’t really feel it, especially not in this room) and my address will be devoted mostly to this issue. As you may expect Oregon is — for me — in this respect connected with the well-known Oregon petition which warned and keeps warning against the irrationality and one-sidedness of the global warming campaign. Rational people know that the warming we experience is well within the range of what seems to have been a natural fluctuation over the last ten thousand years. We should keep saying this very loudly…
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1 comment:
Vaclav Klaus rocks!
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