Saturday, February 10, 2007

Poll shows Arabs dislike Bush

Yahoo! News A new poll on Thursday

Shows that there is hope for democracy in the mideast.. Almost as many Arabs hate Bush as do Democrats.
underscored deep Arab unhappiness with the United States but said the negative image could be repaired if Washington brokered a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace agreement.
Thanks but no thanks. We are not going to sacrifice Israel just to get Arabs to say they like us. They are so fickle, that I am not sure how long it would last anyway.

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Friday, February 09, 2007

Our mosques are importing jihad

TimesOnline Gina Khan is a very brave woman. Born in Birmingham 38 years ago to Paki-stani parents, she has run away from an arranged marriage, dressed herself in jeans and dared to speak out against the increasing radicalisation of her community.

I am glad someone is aware of whatis happening. Hopefully the British authorities will do something before it is too late.
“There are mosques springing up on every street corner,” she says, pointing them out to me as we drive to her tiny house in Birmingham, near the district where nine men were arrested last week on suspicion of plotting to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier. Two suspects have since been released without charge.
At least they kept seven of them.
We pass the biggest mosque, Birmingham Central, where Dr Mohammad Naseem preached at the weekend that British Muslims were being treated like Jews under the Nazis and that the Government had “invented the perception” of a terrorist threat.
Stupid
“He is not the voice of Muslims in Birmingham,” says Khan, angrily. “I don’t how he has got himself that position. He does not know what he is talking about, he is 80 years old and needs to retire. If you want someone to be running these establishments, you need a British Asian, modern, liberal man.”

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Thursday, February 08, 2007

7 GOP Senators Back War Debate

WaPo reported Senate Republicans who earlier this week helped block deliberations on a resolution opposing President Bush's new troop deployments in Iraq changed course yesterday and vowed to use every tactic at their disposal to ensure a full and open debate.

This is deception by the MSM. It was the Dems that wanted only their proposal discussed, and who wanted to move cloture and block debate.
In a letter distributed yesterday evening to Senate leaders, John W. Warner (Va.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and five other GOP supporters of the resolution threatened to attach their measure to any bill sent to the floor in the coming weeks. Noting that the war is the "most pressing issue of our time," the senators declared: "We will explore all of our options under the Senate procedures and practices to ensure a full and open debate."

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Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Lawmakers Revolt Against Long Hours

The Politico Even before Democratic leaders have made good on promises to harness lawmakers five days a week, cross-party opposition is growing, with senators ready to revolt and House members simmering over the new schedule

Those poor pampered legislators. Complaining about a five day work week. We should cut the pay of anyone that complains.
The most popular move afoot would have lawmakers working for three weeks at a stretch with a week off -- or some variation on that theme, several House and Senate members said. Such a schedule would roughly reflect the one in practice under previous Republican rule in the Senate.
How about working 6 months straight, and then having 18 months off, like in theas, unless called into special session by the President, and then they would work only on specific bills he called them into special session to pass.
"They should really work us so we get things done, then give us a few weeks off so we can do the Kiwanis Clubs and all that," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. "If you leave early Monday, yes, you can get here for a 4:30 vote, but you lose the whole working day of Monday."
Travel on Sunday.

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Global warming debate spurs Ore. title tiff

kgw.com In the face of evidence agreed upon by hundreds of climate scientists, George Taylor holds firm. He does not believe human activities are the main cause of global climate change. Taylor also holds a unique title: State Climatologist.

And he should be entitled to voice his opinion.
Hundreds of scientists last Friday issued the strongest warning yet on global warming saying humans are "very likely" the cause. “Most of the climate changes we have seen up until now have been a result of natural variations,” Taylor asserts. Taylor has held the title of "state climatologist" since 1991 when the legislature created a state climate office at OSU The university created the job title, not the state.
But the state created the office.
His opinions conflict not only with many other scientists, but with the state of Oregon's policies. So the governor wants to take that title from Taylor and make it a position that he would appoint.
If you can't get a scientist to say what you want, get a new scientist.

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Many Voices, No Debate, as Senate Is Stifled on War

NYT reported The fact that that Democrats could pull together only 49 of the 60 votes needed to break a procedural impasse on the resolution opposing Mr. Bush’s plan was a product of many competing agendas.

That is because they wanted to ram through one proposal and not let the others be debated.
There was the Democratic desire to avoid getting tied up on any vote that could be perceived as undercutting United States troops or endorsing Mr. Bush’s plan. At the same time, a surprising number of Republicans showed they were not yet ready to abandon the president even though many blame him for their November election losses and worry he will hurt them again next year. Then there were the presidential ambitions of several senators who are trying to distinguish themselves from others on the issue, and have little incentive to seek common ground.

By the end of the day on Tuesday, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said he saw little prospect that Democrats and Republicans could reach agreement on a plan to bring the resolution to the floor. “The negotiations are over,” said Mr. Reid, who dismissed Republican efforts to force a separate vote on the war money as a ploy intended to distract the public from the matter of whether senators supported or opposed the president’s policy.
Such a vote would have allowed them to say what they thought.
Republicans spent the day trying to counter the idea that they had been obstructionists in impeding the debate. It was a label they had successfully hung on Democrats for years, and they did not appreciate the role reversal. They said their main goal had been to ensure that the Senate could guarantee in a separate resolution that Congress would not endanger forces in the field by restricting spending in the future.

“I can’t believe that any parent, any husband, wife, son, daughter of any soldier serving in Iraq doesn’t expect the Congress to take that position,” said Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, who had made some retooled overtures to Democrats to try to break the deadlock.

But the lingering impasse forced the hand of House Democrats, who had become increasingly impatient waiting for the Senate to weigh in on the president’s troop plan. Unwilling to wait any longer, the Democratic leadership said it would set aside three days next week to deliver its own verdict on the administration strategy.
Which they can ram through because they don't have unlimited debate.
“The reason we’re going ahead is not because we don’t think the Senate will ever act,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, “but we’re not sure when the Senate is going to act.”

Democrats contend that they foisted off most of the blame for the breakdown on Republicans and were more than happy to have the fight end for now, leaving the opposition trying to explain the complex Senate rules and why Republicans had not been willing to go ahead.
The republicans wanted debate. It was the dems that did not.
We have the high ground here,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “We have the high ground substantively. We have the high ground politically. We’re not going to give it up.”

But some Republicans suggested that the public might grow frustrated with such political crowing. “I think most Americans view this as political theater, that it is more about us than supporting the troops,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.

The Senate fight also exposed a weakness for the Democrats, one that will become more pronounced as the Senate moves from its inability to take up a nonbinding resolution making a statement about administration policy to more consequential votes on war spending.

Republicans had laid a bit of a trap for Democrats, seeking a 60-vote threshold for competing resolutions on the war. They knew that the bipartisan plan by Senators John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, and Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, did not have 60 votes. But the plan calling for no reductions in spending, written by Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, was likely to get at least 60, meaning the only resolution that would have passed would have been one that essentially backed the president.

Most Democrats are not ready to begin the politically charged discussion of restricting war spending. “There isn’t a Democrat here that wants to take monies away from the troops,” Mr. Reid said.

Democrats said Republicans were simply trying to dodge the chief question at hand and if it was not the financing proposal, they would have found something else to muck up the proceedings. And there is little doubt that some Republicans are determined to save the president an embarrassing loss while others are just as determined to deny the Democrats a symbolic win.

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We do use books that call Jews 'apes' admits head of Islamic school

This is London reported The principal of an Islamic school has admitted that it uses textbooks which describe Jews as "apes" and Christians as "pigs" and has refused to withdraw them.

Books like the Qur'an???
Dr Sumaya Alyusuf confirmed that the offending books exist after former teacher Colin Cook, 57, alleged that children as young as five are taught from racist materials at the King Fahd Academy in Acton. In an interview on BBC2's Newsnight, Dr Alyusuf was asked by Jeremy Paxman whether she recognised the books. She said: "Yes, I do recognise these books, of course. We have these books in our school. These books have good chapters that can be used by the teachers. It depends on the objectives the teacher wants to achieve."
Like if they want to create little Jihadists.

In another exchange, Dr Alyusuf insisted the books should not be scrapped, saying that allegedly racist sections had been "misinterpreted".
How else can you interpret such a statement?

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Appeasement takes hold again in Europe

smh.com.au Last September Robert Redeker, a French high-school philosophy teacher and author of several scholarly books, published an opinion piece in Le Figaro entitled "What should the free world do in the face of Islamist intimidation?"

Good question.
His piece concluded that while Judaism and Christianity are religions whose rites reject and delegitimise violence, Islam is a religion that, in its own sacred text, as well as in its everyday rites, exalts violence and hatred.
I wish more would understaand that fact.
The article was posted on the internet, translated into Arabic, and widely distributed. Within a day, it was being condemned on Al-Jazeera TV and the offending issue of Le Figaro was banned in Egypt and Tunisia. Redeker received a large number of threatening emails. He was condemned to death on one Muslim site, which posted his address and a photograph of his home.
Islam. The Religion of Peace. NOT!!!!!
.... "The editorial board of Le Monde, France's newspaper of record, characterised Redeker's piece as excessive, misleading and insulting. It called his remarks about Muhammad a blasphemy. To judge from this response, large sectors of the French intellectual and political establishment have carved out an exception to the hard-won tradition of open discussion: when it comes to Islam, as opposed to Christianity or Judaism, freedom of speech must respect definite limits.
That sounds like the French. IIt is ok for the Secular Progressives to criticize Christianity and Judaism, because Christians and Jews are not likely to cut off their heads, but they must back down on criticism of Islam.
.... The last time France was faced with a large-scale threat from something similar - fascism - it reacted with denial, defeat and accommodation.
And quickly found Hitler walking through Paris.
.... It's a bleak view, but Western Europe's 15 million Muslims today will be 30 million in 10 years. A similar argument is made in another book, Infidel, published last week by a former Dutch member of parliament and former Muslim, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is fluent in Arabic and Somali, has lived in Saudi Arabia, and worked for 10 years as a translator with the Muslims of Holland. Since criticising Islam and the oppression of Muslim women, she has been subject to so many threats and murder attempts she now lives in the US. In an interview last week I asked her why there was such censorship, denial and silence from so many European liberals in the face of so many attacks on liberalism.

"There is a combination of imperial guilt, and the civil rights movement," she said. "It created an attitude that all cultures are equal, that Western culture is not superior, that Christianity is not superior.
That is foolish. In Holland, Dutch culture should prevail. In Britain it would be British Culture, and in France it should be French culture (if they have one). Government should not promote Christianity or any other religion, but all religions should be treated equally.
This is especially so in the intellectual elite, the media, the education systems, in politics. But for the intellectual elite this belief is only theoretical. "It is the working-class communities who were the first to experience the realities of immigration and cultural differences. When there were the first protests in these communities about problems with immigration, and about problems with how immigrant women were being treated, the elite immediately turned on them by calling them 'racists'.
Islam is not a race. It is a religion. But it is a religion with political implications, and they are not Western implications.
.... "Holland's multiculturalism has deprived many Muslim women and children of their rights. It is tolerance for the sake of consensus, but the consensus is empty. Many Muslims never learn Dutch and reject Dutch values of tolerance and personal liberty.
Then they should go back to a Muslim country, and not stay in Holland.

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Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Cross Removal Stirs Va. College Campus

My Way News As a Catholic, Vince Haley often went to Mass at the College of William and Mary's historic Wren Chapel when he was an undergraduate in the 1980s. Also a Catholic, school President Gene R. Nichol often goes to the 120-seat chapel alone at night to think in the quiet.

As I suspect the founders of the collage would have expected.

Both agree the chapel is a sacred space meaningful to students, alumni, faculty and staff of the public school who use it for religious services and secular events. They clash, though, over what to do with an unadorned, 18-inch brass cross that had been displayed on the altar since about 1940. Nichol ordered the cross removed in October to make the chapel more welcoming to students of all faiths. Previously, the cross could be removed by request; now it can be returned by request.
That is not the worst thing. The college's website boasts Five pillars unite W&M: He summarized that consensus in terms of five pillars:
  • (1) that “our intimate, supportive, rigorous, engaged, dynamic, residential form of liberal-arts education is … the strongest, most affecting and likely the most pragmatic tool the academy has to offer”;
  • (2) that “academic excellence, intellectual achievement and the highest standards of performance, imagination and creativity inform all that we do”;
  • (3) that “our programs are premised on a culture that promoted deep and sustained faculty involvement in the lives, development and work of our students”;
  • (4) that “our high standards of instruction are leavened by a foundational and sustaining commitment to research”; and
  • (5) that, as the campuswide committee on diversity asserted last year, the College “strives to be a place where people of all backgrounds feel at home, where diversity is actively embraced and where each individual takes responsibility for upholding the dignity of all members of the community.”

    Elaborating upon that final pillar, Nichol expressed his delight that the College’s Class of 2010 was the most diverse in decades—almost 25 percent were “students of color,” he said—and that nearly 90 students had been brought in under the Gateway initiative, which offers an opportunity for a debt-free education to deserving students from low-income families in Virginia.
but it calls to mind the Five Pillars of Isam
"It's the right thing to do to make sure that this campus is open and welcoming to everyone," Nichol said. "This is a diverse institution religiously, and we want it to become even more diverse."
You can be diverse and tolerate other faiths, without having to descriminate against the faith of the majority: Christianity
Haley and more than 10,000 supporters who have signed his online petition since last fall want Nichol to put the cross back on the altar permanently. More than 1,100 students, alumni and others have signed a petition in support of Nichol since Jan. 31.

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Sunday, February 04, 2007

McCain Flip-Flops In 47 Seconds

Think Progress blogged On ABC’s This Week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said it is unrealistic to expect the escalation strategy to change the situation in Iraq in “a few months”:

MCCAIN: Took us a long time to get in the situation we’re in, and to say that — and somehow assume that in a few months, that things are going to get all better
There is a BIG difference between "change the situation" and "get all better"
I think is not realistic.
Just 47 seconds later, McCain said we’ll know whether the escalation strategy is working “in a few months”:
STEPHANOPOULOS: You say it’s all in. How long are you going to give it to work?

MCCAIN: I think in the case of the Iraqi government cooperating and doing what’s necessary, we can know fairly well in a few months.
If you don't agree with McCain that is one thing, but it is not fair to distort what he said, and then say he flip flopped.

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States challenge nat'l driver's license

Yahoo! News A revolt against a national driver's license, begun in Maine last month, is quickly spreading to other states. The Maine Legislature on Jan. 26 overwhelmingly passed a resolution objecting to the Real ID Act of 2005. The federal law sets a national standard for driver's licenses and requires states to link their record-keeping systems to national databases.

Within a week of Maine's action, lawmakers in Georgia, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington state also balked at Real ID. They are expected soon to pass laws or adopt resolutions declining to participate in the federal identification network.

Do they have a right to "decline to participate". If they do, do they still get federal funds?
Paul Silver blogged I am in favor of a universal ID system to help separate predators from the general population. I would like for my society to know who is entering the country, who is buying explosives, who is moving around large amounts of money, to keep tract of chronic predators who physically, emotionally or financially prey on others. In fact I support going further by gathering multiple forms of biometric data so that we do not have to rely on easily forged physical documents.
I completely agree, particularly about the inclusion of multiple forms of biometric data to reduce, if not prohibit, forged documents.
I would like for any information gathered to be available for review just as we now have a right to see our credit histories so we can challenge and correct information. I would like for there to be special Identity Courts that can expedite issues related to identity.
I had not thought of that, but it seems reasonable too. One ought to be able to get a printout of all data stored on the card.
This seems to be a simple necessity in the context of the inevitably increasing globalization of the world. I just do not grasp how we can improve security without tracking suspicious behavior as determined by our elected representatives and the courts.

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Islamic Creationism Invades France

Direland blogged An article in yesterday's edition of Le Figaro, the conservative French daily, brings newsAtlas_de_la_creation that a new book written from an Islamic Creationist perspective, ""L'Atlas de la Création" is making waves in France.

I am not surprised. The Secular Progressives ridicule those that believe in Creationism or Intelligent Design (they are NOT the same thing, regardless of what the SPs say), but if they ridicule this too much, we may have Muslims rioting in the streets again, just like with the Danish cartoons.
According to the newspaper, dozens of thousands of free copies of this diatribe against Darwinism were sent from Turkey and Germany to nearly all French schools and universities.
I wonder if he has Saudi oil money behind the distribution.
The article does not say who paid for this expensive, lavishly-illustrated, 770-page anti-intellectual propaganda tome to be so massively distributed (although it asks the question.). Nor how whomever sent it was able to get a list of the "dozens of thousands" in educational establishments to whom it was individually addressed. The French Education Ministry reacted by advising all educational establishments that the book does not conform to the national science-based curriculum and "should not be included in the centers of documentation and information in scholarly establishments,"
Just like the SPs here.
and commissioned a dissection and refutation of the book.
Harun_yahya The book's pseudonymous author, a Turk named Harun Yahya (real name: Adnan Oktar), makes a number of astonishing claims -- including that Charles Darwin is "the real source of terrorism."
Well they certainly are not willing to admit it is the Qur'an.
For example, a photo of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers carries a caption reading, "Those who perpetuate terror in the world are in reality the Darwinists.
What is a photo of the World Trade Towers doing in a book about Creationism.
Darwinism is the only philosophy which validates and encourages conflict."
Was Muhammad not a philosopher?
Yahya also pretends to portray "the secret links between Darwinism and the bloody ideologies of fascism and communism."
I would be interested to know what those links are.

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Teacher sacked over religion row

BBC NEWS reported A supply teacher has been sacked from a secondary school following complaints from Muslim pupils. Andrew McLuskey was sacked from Bayliss Court Secondary School in Slough after a Religious Education lesson discussing the pros and cons of religion.

At least in the UK they cover both sides. In the US they just disparage religion.
Pupils at the predominantly Muslim school claimed Mr McLuskey said most suicide bombers were Muslim.
Which is the truth. I dont think I have ever heard of a suicide bomber that was not Muslim. Britain did have problems with IRA bombers, but they were not stupid enough to blow themselves up as well.
But he rejected the allegation and said the school was too quick to sack him without giving him right of reply.... The school authorities denied they were being heavy-handed and said their first priority was pupils' welfare.
I would think that of equal priority would be teaching them the truth.
"I don't think it's important what I think," said the school's deputy head teacher Ray Hinds. "It's what the pupils think that were in the classroom at the time. And they were very upset."
So if they are upset at being told the truth, you fire the teacher?

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Al-Qaeda tells British cells to carry out wave of beheadings

Sunday Times reported Islamic terror cells in Britain have been instructed to carry out a series of kidnappings and beheadings of the kind allegedly planned by the nine terrorist suspects arrested in Birmingham last week.

Originally the papers implied that locals came up with the idea, and were caught, but now we learn the nutcases in Al Qaeda ordered it.
The “strategic” assassination instruction was issued by Al-Qaeda’s leaders in Pakistan and Iraq to dozens of their followers in this country. It was uncovered by MI5 last autumn, senior security sources say. As a result police are on standby for multiple attempts by terrorists to kidnap and then behead people across Britain. MI5 is conducting a counter-terrorism surveillance operation to prevent such an attack.... One well placed source said: “Cells in the UK have been alerted to carry out this type of attack as opposed to the more sophisticated type of bombing in which you place a large number of volunteers at risk. All you need for a beheading is a bit of courage and a sharp knife.”
And a total lack of civilization.
The order to encourage “low-tech” assassinations is said to follow a review by senior Al-Qaeda planners after an alleged plot to smuggle bombs onto airlines was foiled by police last August.

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