Outrage as Muslim cleric likens women to 'uncovered meat'

Daily Mail reported A Muslim cleric's claim that women who do not wear the veil are like 'uncovered meat' who attract sexual predators sparked outrage around Australia yesterday.

And what are women that wear the veil? Packaged meat?

Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, the nation's most senior Muslim cleric, compared immodestly-dressed women who do not wear the Islamic headdress with meat that is left uncovered in the street and is then eaten by cats.

So Muslim men are now cats? Cats are much more civilized.

AllahPundit blogged This is the senior-most Islamic cleric in Australia, mind you. I wonder, how did a member of the tiny minority of extremists rise to such prominence? Are Aussie Muslims disproportionately radical? Doesn’t sound like it — the article notes that his statements were roundly condemned.

Jawa blogged Unfortunately I’m not surprised. Same old Same old Islam. I'm encouraged by the backlash from other Muslim leaders. It's a step in the right direction. A man is not a cat. A man knows his actions. I thought the purpose of Islam was to make humans of animals. Not to excuse the animal from his behaviour. Maybe I'm wrong?

Andrew Sullivan blogged At the core of this kind of Islam is the notion of women as mere objects to men - and of men as sexual predators who cannot control their own desires. And that it is indeed incompatible with modern Western notions of basic equality and self-government.

Jihadi Du Jour blogged Hmmm...I had this same discussion with a fundamentalist Christian friend over the question of thongs at the beach. Uncovered meat, indeed. Somehow I don't think this is exactly the same thing as it is not likely that the thong wearer would get raped, TRIED, AND HANGED for brandishing the "weapons of enticement".

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Hamas doesn't want to destroy Israel

Jerusalem Post Hamas wants to "liberate the Palestinians," not to destroy Israel, Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

Let them demonstrate that by recognizing Israel and ceasing attacks on Israel.

In an interview following his talks in Tel Aviv with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Solana insisted that it was "not impossible" for Hamas to change and "recognize the existence of Israel."

They certainly don't seem inclined to change.

History had shown that people and nations "adapt to reality," he said. "I don't want to lose hope."

You probably do not understand what threat Europe is under either.

Pressed as to whether he was underestimating the fundamentalist religious imperative at the heart of the Hamas ideology, Solana said, "I cannot imagine that the religious imperative, the real religious imperative, can make anybody destroy another country... Therefore that is an abuse of religion...

What is new there?

"I don't think the essence of Hamas is the destruction of Israel. The essence of Hamas is the liberation of the Palestinians," he added. "The liberation of their people, not the destruction of Israel."

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Airport taxi flap about alcohol has deeper significance

Star Tribune The airport taxi controversy may go deeper than the quandary over whether to accommodate Somali Muslim cabdrivers who refuse to carry passengers carrying alcohol. Behind the scenes, a struggle for power and religious authority is apparently playing out.... When I asked Patrick Hogan, Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman, for his explanation, he forwarded a fatwa, or religious edict, that the MAC had received. The fatwa proclaims that "Islamic jurisprudence" prohibits taxi drivers from carrying passengers with alcohol, "because it involves cooperating in sin according to the Islam." The fatwa, dated June 6, 2006, was issued by the "fatwa department" of the Muslim American Society, Minnesota chapter, and signed by society officials. The society is mediating the conflict between the cab drivers and the MAC. That seems odd, since the society itself clearly has a stake in the controversy's outcome.

So the Muslim American Society issued the fatwa, and is not seeking to mediate with the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, to get them to agree to apply Arab rules on African cab drivers.

How did the MAC connect with the society? "The Minnesota Department of Human Rights recommended them to us to help us figure out how to handle this problem," Hogan said.

Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, thinks he knows why the society is promoting a "no-alcohol-carry" agenda with no basis in Somali culture. "MAS is an Arab group; we Somalis are African, not Arabs," he said. "MAS wants to polarize the world, create two camps. I think they are trying to hijack the Somali community for their Middle East agenda. They look for issues they can capitalize on, like religion, to rally the community around. The majority of Somalis oppose this, but they are vulnerable because of their social and economic situation."... Mohamud adds that Americans need to learn about Islamic law because the Muslim population here is growing. That's why the proposed two-tier system for airport cabdrivers is important, he says. It could become a national model for accommodating Islam in areas ranging from housing to contractual arrangements to the workplace.

If they give in and allow the two tier system, next the Muslims will be demanding that Sharia Law must apply to their communities.

MAC officials will hold another meeting today about the airport controversy, and Mohamud says he will try to revive the two-tiered pilot project for taxis. Whatever the meeting's outcome, we now have reason to believe that the issue is only a prologue to a larger drama playing out in Minnesota and the United States.

Samuelson blogged In other words, those cab drivers who are following the fatwa believe that they should pay more regard to Islamic law than to American law. In short, here we find more evidence that it will not be easy to reconcile Islam with liberal democracy, and it will not be easy to find a way to allow people to be both good Americans and good Muslims.

Scott blogged Thanks to a little digging raising obvious questions that were implicit in the story, Kersten hits the mother lode. Despite its factitious nature, the airport taxi controversy exposes one template for the Islamist imperial project forcing the acceptance of Sharia law by the infidels.

LGF blogged Kudos to Katherine Kersten at the Star Tribune, for this piece on the Muslim cab drivers who refuse to carry infidels. Why “kudos?” Because in a very rare case of mainstream media doing its job (which is supposedly to keep the public informed), Kersten has written an article that delves into the real agenda of the group promoting this Islamic intolerance—the Muslim Brotherhood

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The Rape of Europe

The Brussels Journal reported The German author Henryk M. Broder recently told the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant (12 October) that young Europeans who love freedom, better emigrate. Europe as we know it will no longer exist 20 years from now. Whilst sitting on a terrace in Berlin, Broder pointed to the other customers and the passers-by and said melancholically: “We are watching the world of yesterday.” Europe is turning Muslim. As Broder is sixty years old he is not going to emigrate himself. “I am too old,” he said. However, he urged young people to get out and “move to Australia or New Zealand. That is the only option they have if they want to avoid the plagues that will turn the old continent uninhabitable.”... Broder is convinced that the Europeans are not willing to oppose islamization.

If they are going to, they better do it quickly

“The dominant ethos,” he told De Volkskrant, “is perfectly voiced by the stupid blonde woman author with whom I recently debated. She said that it is sometimes better to let yourself be raped than to risk serious injuries while resisting. She said it is sometimes better to avoid fighting than run the risk of death.”... “If faith collapses, civilization goes with it,” says Bethell. That is the real cause of the closing of civilization in Europe. Islamization is simply the consequence. The very word Islam means “submission” and the secularists have submitted already. Many Europeans have already become Muslims, though they do not realize it or do not want to admit it.

Brussels Journal reported America’s immigration problems pale in comparison with what confronts Europe. America’s major ethnic minorities – Blacks as well as Hispanics – are Christian, while the meanstream culture is also rooted in Christianity. In Europe a secularized post-Christian culture is facing a Muslim one. The secularized culture is hedonist and values only its present life, because it does not believe in an afterlife. This is why it will surrender when threatened with death because life is the only thing it has to lose. This is why it will accept submission without fighting for its freedom. Nobody fights for the flag of hedonism, not even the hedonists themselves.... I do not doubt that if these values continue to decline in the U.S., American culture will collapse as European culture and civilisation have collapsed. However, America can learn from the impending European catastrophe, and avoid a similar fate. The old European civilization – the pre-secular or the pre-post-Christian one – will live on in the U.S. If it perishes there too, mankind will relapse into the dark ages that are now taking hold of Europe, the cradle of Western civilization.

The only thing that is likely to reverse this is that Iran's quest for nuclear weapons is likely to trigger the end of the world. I believe that will mean the return of Christ, not the appearance of the 12th Imam.

Anchoress blogged People, particularly the hardline secularists, do not want to admit it but America is going to be forced to play things out on both a secular and supernatural stage, if she is going to stay alive, and not just alive but comprehensively American. Those, like Rosie O’ Donnell, who would lump the Taliban and American Christians into the same boat do not realize that in doing so they are consigning themselves to Europe’s fate. And Europe is dying. Europe will not fight.

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Rise of Islam

Ivy J. Sellers and Robert B. Bluey interview Mark Steyn in Human Events I think we’re seeing the intersection of several different elements that are actually making this a very fast-moving, fast-changing world. On the one hand you have basically the entire collapse of the birth rates of most of the Western world and alongside that you have this, effectively, this successive population that’s moving into a lot of those countries.

He is talking about the Muslims in Europe.

That’s a huge, unprecedented, demographic transformation that is taking place in our lifetime.... Basically the European nations are dying and the populations in them are turning into relatively hostile Muslim populations, not all of them terrorists, but all of them, almost all of those people not sympathetic to America and American interests. And I feel that the great assumption that we all have, that the present tense is somehow permanent, or that it’s like technological progress. You know, it’s like, cars don’t go backwards. You don’t suddenly have a Cadillac Escalade and you go out into the yard one morning and it’s turned into a Ford Model T and it’s got a rumble seat and all kinds of other stuff in it. You take the view that—we think that social progress is like technological progress, that it can never be reversed, but I think it can be reversed and I think a lot of the world is going to be re-primitivized

Certainly the Islamists want to take us back to the 8th century.

in the decades ahead and America has to change.... We have had a shriveling of population in the developed world. In other words, the world that has generated the systems of liberty, and economic prosperity, and healthy living and global infrastructure that we all take for granted.

Now, can all those people die off and can you leave it to Yemen and Pakistan to run the world? They have two of the fastest birthrates in the world. What is it going to be like when most of the Western world has died off and it’s this particular demographic that is dominant? I don’t pretend to have all the answers—especially when I’m being interviewed—but to pretend there are no questions here I think is very dangerous....

Do you see Europe returning to Christianity after secularism causes its collapse?

I would doubt it. I would say the better bet at this stage is that more and more Europeans will convert to Islam. I think in a sense Christianity is going to be an underground religion in Europe, and I would think that for the immediate future Christianity’s main growth areas will be places like China. Essentially it’s going to require an entire political class and its philosophy to die off before Europe starts to recover from secularism.

Anchoress blogged People, particularly the hardline secularists, do not want to admit it but America is going to be forced to play things out on both a secular and supernatural stage, if she is going to stay alive, and not just alive but comprehensively American. Those, like Rosie O’ Donnell, who would lump the Taliban and American Christians into the same boat do not realize that in doing so they are consigning themselves to Europe’s fate. And Europe is dying. Europe will not fight.

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Death for Apostasy

Robert Spencer wrote in Human Events An Afghan citizen named Abdul Rahman, you may recall, made international news last spring, when his conversion from Islam to Christianity led to his arrest, with the intention of putting him on trial for apostasy. At that time he was spirited away to safety in Italy. Now jihadists in Afghanistan are demanding his return to Afghanistan in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist, Gabriele Torsello.... At the time of Abdul Rahman’s arrest, many Muslims in the West maintained that Islam contained no provision against apostasy.

These are civilized Muslims, who don't realize how uncivilized their faith is.

Typical of this was “Leaving Islam is not a capital crime,” a Chicago Tribune article published by M. Cherif Bassiouni, a professor of Law at DePaul University and President of the International Human Rights Law Institute, when Abdul Rahman was arrested. “A Muslim’s conversion to Christianity,” Bassiouni wrote, “is not a crime punishable by death under Islamic law, contrary to the claims in the case of Abdul Rahman in Afghanistan.”

The problem is there is no Supreme Court for Islamic Law. It means whatever the clerics that are in the country say it means.

Yet the death penalty for apostasy has always been an element of Islam. IslamOnline, a site manned by a team of Islam scholars headed by the internationally influential Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, explains that “if a sane person who has reached puberty voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be punished. In such a case, it is obligatory for the caliph (or his representative) to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does, it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed.... Apostasy from Islam had always been for Muhammad a supreme evil. Muhammad legislated for his community that no Muslim could be put to death except for murder, unlawful sexual intercourse, and apostasy. He said flatly: “If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him.”

The kidnappers’ demand that Abdul Rahman be returned to Afghanistan illustrates the hollowness of the arguments we hear all the time -- about how we must support self-proclaimed moderate Muslims like Bassiouni by refraining from noting the flimsiness of their presentations. While we’re being polite to alleged “reformers,” Muslim hardliners are implementing elements of Islamic law that bemused non-Muslims are nodding their heads and agreeing don’t exist.

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France Prepares 50,000 Riot Police for Muslim Attacks

Politics Central As America prepares for Halloween, France is girding for a wave of attacks from Muslim youths—a reprise of the deadly French riots of last year.

At least they are now being called Muslim youths instead of just youths.

A leaked French intelligence report warns that during the first week of November, a school holiday (Nov. 1 or All Saint’s Day), Muslim riots could convulse the country.

They are going to continue to have these problems until they understand they are going to have to begin deporting the troublemakers.

On Monday, Le Figaro, the leading center-right newspaper in the country, quoted a confidential report written by the Renseignements Généraux (RG), the French equivalent of the FBI. The 17-page RG report, dated 11 October, states that the root causes of last year’s riots are still in place.

The Muslims are still there, and they are still not willing to learn French, so that they can get good jobs.

The authorities are especially concerned with All Saints Day when “many urban youths are left to their own and have more time to cause unrest.”

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Iraqi Premier Denies U.S. Assertion He Agreed to Timelines

WaPo reported Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki lashed out at the United States on Wednesday, saying his popularly elected government would not bend to U.S.-imposed benchmarks and timelines and criticizing a U.S.-Iraqi military operation in a Shiite slum in Baghdad that left at least five people dead and 20 wounded.

It appears he feels that he does not need us there any more, so we should tell him that we are packing up and going home. When he recovers from the shock of that news, and begs us to stay, we need to tell him that the militias must be disarmed NOW, and if that means that Sadar withdraws his support, so be it.

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Muslim leader blames women

The Australian reported The nation's most senior Muslim cleric has blamed immodestly dressed women who don't wear Islamic headdress for being preyed on by men and likened them to abandoned "meat" that attracts voracious animals.

If that is why Islamic women must dress that way, because Islamic men are voracious animals, it really does not speak well for how Islamic men are brought up.

In a Ramadan sermon that has outraged Muslim women leaders, Sydney-based Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali also alluded to the infamous Sydney gang rapes, suggesting the attackers were not entirely to blame.

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Veiled Insult

Anne Applebaum wrote in WaPo it was considered improper for women to wear shorts or trousers when entering Balinese temples. I dutifully purchased a Balinese sarong and, looking awkward and foreign, wore it while visiting temples. I didn't want to cause offense..... it is also true that the full-faced veil -- the niqab, burqa or chador -- causes such deep reactions in the West not so much because of its political or religious symbolism but because it is extremely impolite. Just as it is considered rude to enter a Balinese temple wearing shorts, so, too, is it considered rude, in a Western country, to hide one's face. We wear masks when we want to frighten, when we are in mourning or when we want to conceal our identities.

A very good point.

To a Western child -- or even an adult -- a woman clad from head to toe in black looks like a ghost. Thieves and actors hide their faces in the West; honest people look you straight in the eye.

Given that polite behavior is required in other facets of their jobs, it doesn't seem to me in the least offensive to require schoolteachers or civil servants to show their faces when dealing with children or the public. If Western tourists can wear sarongs in Balinese temples to show respect for the locals, so too can religious Muslim women show respect for the children they teach and the customers they serve by leaving their head scarves on, but removing their full-faced veils.

It would, of course, be outrageous if Tony Blair or the French government were to ban veils altogether -- just as it is outrageous that Saudi Arabia bans churches and even forbids priests from entering the country. But just because authorities persecute Christians and Jews in some parts of the Muslim world, that doesn't mean we need to emulate them.

There is a difference from not persecuting them, and not allowing them to expect that our society should be changed to be the way they want it.

In their private lives, Muslim women living in the West should be free to use veils or head scarves as they wish. But freedom to practice religion in the West shouldn't imply freedom to hold jobs that impinge on that practice. An Orthodox Jew should not have an absolute right to work in a restaurant that is open only on Saturdays. A Quaker cannot join the Army and then state that his religion prohibits him from fighting. By the same token, a Muslim woman who wants to cover her face has no absolute right to work in a school or an office where face-to-face conversations are part of the job.

It isn't religious discrimination or anti-Muslim bias to tell her that she must be polite to the natives, respect the local customs, try to speak some of the local patois -- and uncover her face.

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European Muslims worry about frank new Islam debate

Reuters reported Britain's heated debate about Islamic veils reflects a growing frustration with Muslims in Europe that risks further isolating these minorities rather than integrating them, leading European Muslim activists say. The new tone in Britain,

The bombings on 7/7 changed everything there, as 9/11 changed everything here.

which Muslims on the continent long saw as a model of tolerance where criticising minorities was politically incorrect, marks a watershed in the way Europeans talk about Islam, they told Reuters.

Islamist radicalism, ethnic segregation and clashes of values must be discussed openly, they agreed, but the increasingly polarised debate squeezes out moderates on both sides.

It shouldn't

Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sparked off the British debate this month by saying the full facial veils some Muslim women wear hindered integration. Some Muslim leaders called his remarks offensive and accused him of whipping up Islamophobia.

If Muslims want to integrate, they should stop taking offense so often. And if they want to live in an Islamic state, they should go home.

"Intolerance is growing in Europe," said Dalil Boubakeur, president of France's Muslim Council, who saw the new mood as a response to security fears and the radicalisation of a small minority of Muslims who do not accept European values. "There is a sense we are living in a different time," said Dilwar Hussain, head of policy research at the Islamic Foundation in Britain.

That is true. We are in the 21st century; they are in the 8th century.

"With all the security concerns, people feel they can be more frank," Hussain said. "The reaction from Muslims is to recede further and further into a sense of victimhood."

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God knows why faith is thriving

SFGate reports A group of leading atheists is puzzled by the continued existence and vitality of religion

The answer is in the title of the post. God knows.

.... Actually, there is. The Rev. Ron Carlson, a popular author and lecturer, sometimes presents his audience with two stories and asks them whether it matters which one is true.

In the secular account, "You are the descendant of a tiny cell of primordial protoplasm washed up on an empty beach 3 1/2 billion years ago. You are a mere grab bag of atomic particles, a conglomeration of genetic substance. You exist on a tiny planet in a minute solar system in an empty corner of a meaningless universe. You came from nothing and are going nowhere."

What a cold place to be.

In the Christian view, by contrast, "You are the special creation of a good and all-powerful God. You are the climax of His creation. Not only is your kind unique, but you are unique among your kind. Your Creator loves you so much and so intensely desires your companionship and affection that He gave the life of His only son that you might spend eternity with him."

Much warmer and more comforting.

Now imagine two groups of people -- let's call them the Secular Tribe and the Religious Tribe -- who subscribe to one of these two views. Which of the two is more likely to survive, prosper and multiply? The religious tribe is made up of people who have an animating sense of purpose. The secular tribe is made up of people who are not sure why they exist at all. The religious tribe is composed of individuals who view their every thought and action as consequential. The secular tribe is made up of matter that cannot explain why it is able to think at all.

Should evolutionists like Dennett, Dawkins, Harris and Wilson be surprised, then, to see that religious tribes are flourishing around the world? Across the globe, religious faith is thriving and religious people are having more children. By contrast, atheist conventions only draw a handful of embittered souls, and the atheist lifestyle seems to produce listless tribes that cannot even reproduce themselves.

ROF, LMAO

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Couric fails to keep CBS News on top for long

USAToday reported When Katie Couric began anchoring The CBS Evening News early last month, her initial ratings were so strong — she drew more than 10 million viewers — that it appeared the former NBC Today star might buck network news tradition, catapult the third-place newscast into first place and keep it there.

CBS was stupid to think it would work.

But in seven weeks, talk that CBS News' $15-million-a-year anchor would be crowned the instant queen of the evening news has all but evaporated.

I hope they were smart enough to write some sort of escape clause into that $15 million contract.

Initial viewer curiosity in Couric has worn off, a sign that popularity in the morning does not guarantee success at night. News has dropped from first to third place behind NBC Nightly News and ABC World News. Rival producers are talking much more confidently than they were last month.

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Radical Islam finds US 'sterile ground'

CSMonitor The Islamist radicalism that inspired young Muslims to attack their own countries - in London, Madrid, and Bali - has not yielded similar incidents in the United States, at least so far.

Maybe we are just doing a better job of uncovering them. But if the Dems get in control, that may stop.

"Home-grown" terror cells remain a concern of US law officers, who cite several disrupted plots since 9/11. But the suspects' unsophisticated planning and tiny numbers have led some security analysts to conclude that America, for all its imperfections, is not fertile ground for producing jihadist terrorists.... "American society is more into the whole assimilation aspect of it," says New York-born Mr. Jaber. "In America, it's a lot easier to practice our religion without complications."

I suspect that if you stopped burning cars and learned French, you would find it easier to practice your religion in France too.

In a nation where mosques have sprung up alongside churches and synagogues, where Muslim women are free to wear the hijab (or not), and where education and job opportunities range from decent to good,

That is just the superiority of Capitalism over European Socialism

the resentments that can breed extremism do not seem very evident in the Muslim community. Since 9/11, however, concern is rising among Muslim-Americans that they are becoming targets of bias and suspicion - by law enforcement as well as fellow citizens. It's a disquieting trend, say the young Muslims - one that might eventually help radicalism to grow.

It will grow a lot more if people stop being suspicious

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Desperate Dems try Google Bombing

MyDD announces I would like to announce a second major campaign that I would like to have up and running by Tuesday morning, at the absolute latest. As with Use It Or Lose It, this campaign will need your help to succeed. I have tentatively named it Google Bombing The Election.

The voter fraud campaign is already under way.

The utilization of Google Adwords and simultaneous, widespread embedded hyperlinks in order to drive as many voters as possible toward the most damning, non-partisan

They pretend anything in the Democratic MSM is non-partisan.

article written on the Republican candidate in seventy key US Senate and House races. The campaign will run from Tuesday, October 24th until Tuesday, November 7th. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the number one way that voters use the Internet for political action is to search for information on candidates. During the final two weeks of the election, it is reasonable to expect that as many as twenty million voters will be searching for information on candidates online. During this key time, this project will help push the most negative article written by a non-partisan media source on all key Republican candidates to the forefront of any search for that candidate. The negative article will appear both high on all Google searches for the candidates, and as an advertisement that appears whenever anyone searches for that candidate. By giving this article two prominent locations on Google searches for the candidate, and because it will come from a non-partisan source, it will increase the likelihood that the article will be seen and trusted by those searching for information on the candidate.

The campaign will proceed as follows: Step One: With help form readers at Dailykos and MyDD, I will compile a list of seventy article, one for each targeted race. Every article will focus on a different Republican candidate, and will be written by as generally trusted a news source as possible.

In other words a Democratic Lackie in the Main Stream Media

It will also present as unflattering a view on the Republican candidate as possible. All of these articles will be placed into a database that I will maintain with the help of willing volunteers.

Allah blogged Does the NYT fit the definition of “non-partisan?” Newsweek? Just wondering. If the nutroots are supplying the research, well, you just know it’ll be reliable. I mean, these are people who can’t even Google “Clinton Iraq 1998” to figure out for themselves that the whole “Bush LIED, people DIED” mantra is itself a lie. These are people who can’t rub two search terms together and get link after link between Saddam Hussein and terrorism. These are the people who are going to build a nuclear Google bomb and drop it on the GOP? For some reason, I feel less threatened by this than I guess I should. Their cyber nuke will probably pack all the punch of that North Korean dud.

Nevertheless, it’s good to expose tactics like these. It takes a devious mind to come up with a convoluted way to rig Google search terms, tie that to Google ads and hope to move democracy your way via online hypnosis. What would such a mind do from inside Congress, or the White House?

Sister Toldjah blogged What deep thinkers! Isn’t that just so grownup and mature of the Nutroots to do? Almost as much as Photoshopping a picture of Joe Lieberman in blackface, or a call to “take to the streets” if they don’t win the elections this year. What WILL they think of next? I shudder to think …

IMAO blogged If the Republicans Are on the Ropes, Why Do These Guys Seem So Desperate?

Bill Faith blogged Well. The astrologer’s club is planning to wield mondo Googlebombs in the final days of the election.

Blue Crab blogged This would indicate the answer is "yes". If Joe Lieberman wins in Connecticut, as seems increasingly likely, and if the Dems do not take control of either chamber of Congress, what would be the record of the netroots? They will have failed at every, single thing they have tried to accomplish, don't you think? Why would this silly and desperate plan be any different?

OTB blogged This will be an interesting test of the theory that search king Google’s leftist owners are using their market leading power to intentionally skew search results and news content. Given that this plan to game the system has been publically announced on a very prominent website (Google PageRank 8) and is being widely publicized elsewhere, it should be a simple task for Google to not only thwart this plan but to ban the participants from their metrics.

John Hawkins from Right Wing News suggested the following to counter their efforts

Senate
Connecticut: Ned Lamont
Maryland: Ben Cardin
Michigan: Debbie Stanbenow
Missouri: Claire McCaskill
Montana: Jon Tester
New Jersey: Bob Menendez
Tennessee: Harold Ford
Virginia: James Webb
Democrat Held Seats
(CO-03): John Salazar
(GA-03): Jim Marshall
(GA-12): John Barrow
(IA-03): Leonard Boswell
(IL-08): Melissa Bean
(IL-17): Phil Hare
(IN-07): Julia Carson
(NC-13): Brad Miller
(PA-12): John Murtha
(WV-01): Alan Mollohan
Republican Held Seats
(AZ-08): Gabrielle Giffords
(CT-04): Diane Farrell
(CT-05): Chris Murphy
(CO-07): Ed Perlmutter
(IA-01): Bruce Braley
(IL-06): Tammy Duckworth
(IN-02): Joe Donnelly
(IN-08): Brad Ellsworth
(IN-09): Baron Hill
(FL-13): Christine Jennings
(FL-16): Tim Mahoney
(FL-22): Ron Klein
(KY-03): John Yarmuth
(NC-01): Heath Shuler
(MN-06): Patty Wetterling
(NM-01): Patricia Madrid
(NY-20): Kirsten Gillibrand
(NY-24): Michael Arcuri
(NY-26): Jack Davis
(OH-15): Mary Jo Kilroy
(OH-18): Zack Space
(PA-06): Lois Murphy
(PA-08): Patrick Murphy
(PA-07): Joe Sestak
(PA-10): Chris Carney
(VA-02): Phil Kellam
(WI-08): Steve Kagen

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Youths set passenger bus alight in Paris

TheAge reported A band of up to 30 youths forced passengers out of a bus in a southern Paris suburb in broad daylight, set it on fire and then stoned firefighters who came to the rescue, a police official said.

Youths??? Why not admit they are Muslims?

Police cordoned off the neighbourhood in Grigny, in the Essonne region, after the attack, which came five days before France marks the one-year anniversary of the start of three weeks of fiery riots by poor suburban youths.

- Forbes reported French Police Face 'Permanent Intifada'

At least the Forbes Headline implies they are Muslims

On a routine call, three unwitting police officers fell into a trap. A car darted out to block their path, and dozens of hooded youths

They are MUSLIM youths

surged out of the darkness to attack them with stones, bats and tear gas before fleeing. One officer was hospitalized, and no arrests made.

The recent ambush was emblematic of what some officers say has become a near-perpetual and increasingly violent conflict between police and gangs in tough, largely immigrant French neighborhoods that were the scene of a three-week paroxysm of rioting last year.

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Sweden's Muslim minister turns on veil

Times Online The latest media darling of Scandinavian politics is not only black, beautiful, and Muslim; she is also firmly against the wearing of the veil. Nyamko Sabuni, 37, has caused a storm as Sweden’s new integration and equality minister by arguing that all girls should be checked for evidence of female circumcision; arranged marriages should be criminalised; religious schools should receive no state funding; and immigrants should learn Swedish and find a job.

Those positions are at odds with a lot of Muslims.

Supporters of the centre-right government that came to power last month believe that her bold rejection of cultural diversity may make her a force for change across Europe. Her critics are calling her a hardliner and even an Islamophobe.

She is certainly taking a hard line position, but if a Muslim can be called an Islamophobe, that must indicate that the Islamist are not true Muslims, but have hijacked that faith.

“I am neither,” she said in an interview. “My aim is to integrate immigrants. One is to ensure they grow up just as any other child in Sweden would.” Sabuni believes all immigrants must try to become proficient in Swedish — just as she did when she arrived from Africa aged 12 — rather than alienating locals.

Assimilation is very important if the immigrants wish to stay.

“Language and jobs are the two most crucial things for integration,” she said. “If you want to become a Swedish citizen, we think you should have some basic knowledge of Swedish.”

And being able to speak the local language is important if you want a good job.

An elegant, vivacious woman who uses subtle make-up and wears soft clothes in pastel shades and tight woollen sweaters, she argues for a total ban on veils being worn by girls under the age of consent, which is 15 in Sweden. “Nowhere in the Koran does it state that a child should wear a veil; it stops them being children. By putting a veil on a girl you are immediately saying to the outside world that she is sexually mature and has to be covered. It’s wrong,” she said.

Sabuni was born in Burundi. Her father was a political dissident who was in prison during much of her early childhood. In 1980 he was granted asylum in Sweden. The next year his wife and six children joined him and they settled near Stockholm. Sabuni read law at Uppsala University, Sweden’s equivalent of Oxbridge, and became a public relations consultant. Her husband, who works in the travel industry and runs their home in Stockholm, took paternity leave when their twin boys, now five, were born. In Sweden she is best known for her suggestion that adolescent girls should have compulsory examinations to make sure they have not been subjected to genital mutilation. “It would enable us to prosecute people carrying out the practice,” she said.

Good for you.

According to Sabuni, many politicians have shied away from talking about the need for assimilation rather than multi-culturalism: “I am one of the few who dares to speak out. Sadly, some members of the Muslim community feel picked on.”

Muslim groups in Sweden are already organising a petition to have her removed from government. “I regret that Muslims feel I am a threat to them,” she said. “Everybody has a right to practise their religion, but I will never accept religious oppression. And I represent the whole of society, not just the Muslims.”

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How I Came to Love the Veil

Yvonne Ridley wrote in WaPo I used to look at veiled women as quiet, oppressed creatures -- until I was captured by the Taliban.... Two-and-a-half years after my capture, I converted to Islam, provoking a mixture of astonishment, disappointment and encouragement among friends and relatives

Who probably figured you were insane.

.... Having been on both sides of the veil, I can tell you that most Western male politicians and journalists who lament the oppression of women in the Islamic world have no idea what they are talking about. They go on about veils, child brides, female circumcision, honor killings and forced marriages, and they wrongly blame Islam for all this -- their arrogance surpassed only by their ignorance.

If those things are not supported by the Quran, or any of the other Islamic books, why are they all practiced in Islamic countries, and, with a few exceptions, not in Western countries.

These cultural issues and customs have nothing to do with Islam.

Islam does not prohibit them, and the Islamists bring that cultural baggage with them when they come to the West.

A careful reading of the Koran shows that just about everything that Western feminists fought for in the 1970s was available to Muslim women 1,400 years ago.

And a careful reading of Christ's teaching shows that 2,000 years ago things were supposed to be a lot better than they are.

Women in Islam are considered equal to men in spirituality, education and worth,

Then why under Sharia Law must a woman have four witnesses to prove rape, and if she cannot prove it, why may she be stoned.

and a woman's gift for childbirth and child-rearing is regarded as a positive attribute.... Yes, it is a religious obligation for Muslim women to dress modestly, but the majority of Muslim women I know like wearing the hijab, which leaves the face uncovered, though a few prefer the nikab. It is a personal statement: My dress tells you that I am a Muslim and that I expect to be treated respectfully, much as a Wall Street banker would say that a business suit defines him as an executive to be taken seriously.

Then why not wear a business suit?

And, especially among converts to the faith like me, the attention of men who confront women with inappropriate, leering behavior is not tolerable.... Some young Muslim feminists consider the hijab and the nikab political symbols, too, a way of rejecting Western excesses such as binge drinking, casual sex and drug use.

There are many Christian women that reject those things, and do not feel they have to wear a hijab to do it.

What is more liberating: being judged on the length of your skirt and the size of your surgically enhanced breasts, or being judged on your character and intelligence?

You can dress conservatibly without wearing a hijab.

In Islam, superiority is achieved through piety -- not beauty, wealth, power, position or sex.... Under Islam, I am respected. It tells me that I have a right to an education

Then why did the Taliban, who captured you, forbit girls from going to schools, and why are they now attacking the schools our military has built in Afganistan for girls.

and that it is my duty to seek out knowledge, regardless of whether I am single or married. Nowhere in the framework of Islam are we told that women must wash, clean or cook for men.

And what do you think the women in Saudia Arabia, Pakistan, and other Islamic Countries are doing? Seeking out knowledge by studying in the Universities? In Saudia Arabia a woman cannot drive a car, and cannot go out in public unless accompanied by her husband or a male relative.

As for how Muslim men are allowed to beat their wives -- it's simply not true. Critics of Islam will quote random Koranic verses or hadith, but usually out of context.

Here are three translations of 4:34, see for yourself.

If a man does raise a finger against his wife, he is not allowed to leave a mark on her body, which is the Koran's way of saying, "Don't beat your wife, stupid."

According to this article he may "beat" her, though it must be without "hurting, breaking a bone, leaving blue or black marks on the body and avoiding hitting the face, at any cost." Maybe that is why the hijab is used, which covers everything but the face, and why some wear the nikab, in case their husbands even leave marks on the face.

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Europe's Immigration Quagmire

Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote in LA Times In Africa, we sometimes used animals to say things on sensitive issues to avoid discussing the messenger instead of the message. So I shall use the ostrich and the owl to sketch the two most important positions on immigration and pluralism in Europe.

The view of things in Europe today, as the ostrich sees them, is bright.

But it is hard to see everything, with your head stuck in the sand.

He sees an open market of 450 million people with an amazing potential. He sees a thriving economy and the free movement of people, goods, money and services. Immigration, to the ostrich, can only be viewed as an opportunity for an aging native population. Borders are better open than closed. Islam is a faith like Christianity, and Muslims shall adapt their religion to life in Europe.

They seem to be expecting Europe to adapt to them.

According to the ostrich, very soon there shall be a European Islam, signs of which are already visible in the young women in tight jeans; high heels; black, sleeveless, tight tops and matching head scarves, all designed by Prada. This Prada Islam will replace the old rural one and function as a vaccine against the Wahhabi Islam of the Saudis.

A vaccine is certainly needed, but is Prada the answer?

.... According to the ostrich, the wealthy natives should stop whining about the backwardness of immigrants and concentrate on the benefits. The ostrich points to the nurses, nannies, construction workers, grocers, bag carriers, cleaners, factory workers and a host of other jobs natives won't do but are necessary to keep the economy going.

We need to send them some Mexicans, who just want jobs, and who don't want to impose Sharia law where they move.

.... Then there's the owl, which is a night bird and gets, more often, a glimpse of the dark side of things. Europe is healthy and wealthy, but the owl worries that it may not be so wise.... The old owl sees how poor migrants are exploited by cruel employers who provide little or no pay and hire and fire the migrants at will. The owl can't help but notice that even after the recent amnesty, Spain has an estimated 1 million illegal immigrants. Britain has roughly half a million. France, 200,000 to 400,000, if you trust the French.

Who is foolish enough to trust the French.

I think there are more. Germany has about 1 million.... The owl sees that Islam is not Christianity and that not all Muslims understand or want to share in any European future based on European values of freedom, tolerance and an attitude of live and let live.

The owl sadly looks on as poor kids are taught to view themselves as victims, and the society in which they live as the enemy. He can't help but notice that Muslim migrants are receptive to the seduction of the Islamist movement. Even worse, there are now natives converting to this brand of totalitarianism. Nor can the owl ignore the growth of the extreme right-wing movements and parties. He fears that the debate on pluralism in Europe will be hijacked by two uncompromising extremes: whites' power fascism and Islamic fascism.

The owl thinks that the ostrich is right: We should always look on the bright side of life. But he also thinks we should be careful not to get delusional.... The combined vision of the ostrich and the owl is indeed possible in Europe, but it requires a great deal of willpower, leadership and, above all, the recognition that tolerating oppressive cultures and encouraging more mass migration from Islamic countries often hurts precisely the people we seek to help. A misguided vision brought Europe to its current predicament; an idealistic vision convinced of the inherent superiority of enlightened values over the values of oppressive cultures, a vision steeped in individual rights, the rule of law and the equality of men and women can help guide Europe out of it.

Blue Crab blogged Ayaan Hirsi Ali, lately come to live in the US, has a cautionary tale in the Los Angeles Times that is yet another Sunday 'must read'. She delivers a parable of sorts, illustrating the two world views of uncontrolled immigration and an unassimilated minority.

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How a Muslim treats women

WaPo reported When dealing with a "disobedient wife," a Muslim man has a number of options. First, he should remind her of "the importance of following the instructions of the husband in Islam." If that doesn't work, he can "leave the wife's bed." Finally, he may "beat" her, though it must be without "hurting, breaking a bone, leaving blue or black marks on the body and avoiding hitting the face, at any cost."

Don't hit the face, because that is visible when she wears a veil.

Such appalling recommendations, drawn from the book "Woman in the Shade of Islam" by Saudi scholar Abdul Rahman al-Sheha, are inspired by as authoritative a source as any Muslim could hope to find: a literal reading of the 34th verse of the fourth chapter of the Koran,

• YUSUFALI: Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means (of annoyance): For Allah is Most High, great (above you all).
• PICKTHAL: Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great.
• SHAKIR: Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.

An-Nisa , or Women. "[A]nd (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them," reads one widely accepted translation. The notion of using physical punishment as a "disciplinary action," as Sheha suggests, especially for "controlling or mastering women" or others who "enjoy being beaten,"

So now they are saying Muslim women are Masochists, who enjoy being beaten. I wonder if they can show a poll of Muslim women that demonstrates that.

is common throughout the Muslim world. Indeed, I first encountered Sheha's work at my Morgantown mosque, where a Muslim student group handed it out to male worshipers after Friday prayers one day a few years ago. Verse 4:34 retains a strong following, even among many who say that women must be treated as equals under Islam.

threat them as equals who need to be beaten.

Indeed, Muslim scholars and leaders have long been doing what I call "the 4:34 dance" -- they reject outright violence against women but accept a level of aggression that fits contemporary definitions of domestic violence.

Bluecrab blogged There is a problem with extremism and Islamism, which should not be confused in any way, I think, with the religion of Islam itself. Rather it is with a secular movement enforcing extreme notions and interpretations in order to gain secular power. This is hiding behind the mask of religion to advance an unholy agenda.

This one is a must read. It defines a real problem that we have got to recognize. Because we are dealing with a specific problem here: "If it's okay for me to be a savage in my home, it's okay for me to be a savage in the world." That may be the most succinct explanation of the problem I have yet seen.

(And let me make one thing perfectly clear: if I were to see a Presbyterian beating his wife, lightly or otherwise, said man would be looking for his teeth for a while. Same goes for any religion/ethnicity/belief system. Men do not beat women. Period.)

Alexandra von Maltzan blogged Well in our culture it is not ok to beat a woman 'lightly' or otherwise. Period.

Moderate Voice blogged If the majority of Muslims stop interpreting this verse as literally as possible it will indeed prevent Muslim men from being 'savages at home' and that might influence particular behavior in the outside world, but - perhaps more importantly - by interpreting this particular verse in a way such as Ms. Nomani wants it to be interpreted - loosely and more historically - it will open the door to such an interpretation of other violent or highly intolerant verses as well.

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We are biased, admit the stars of BBC News

Daily Mail It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

When will the executives of NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, PBS, and NPR make similar admissions.

A leaked account of an 'impartiality summit' called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror. It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran,

That is because Christians seldom cut off heads.

and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC's 'diversity tsar', wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

Interesting considering Tony Blair and Jack Straw's comments about the veils.

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