Saturday, November 10, 2007

He forgot

Yahoo! News reported A German man forgot his car after filling it up at a petrol station, police said Friday. "He just forgot about it and walked off home,"
Maybe he thought he forgot his keys, and they were at home.
said a spokesman for police in the western city of Wuppertal. After the car had sat blocking the pump for about an hour, a woman working at the petrol station became suspicious and alerted authorities. Officers contacted the 63-year-old from Remscheid, who came straight back to fetch the vehicle.
Should this man even be driving?
He had paid to fill up the car before walking off.
Which is worse, driving off without paying, or paying and walking off.

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Government stoking Muslim tension

Telegraph reported "There is a disproportionate amount of discussion surrounding us," he says. "The air is thick with suspicion and unease. It is not good for the Muslim community, it is not good for society."

What are you doing to improve the situation.
The 53-year-old special needs teacher has a gentle manner and a quiet voice - he describes himself as a "community spokesman" rather than a "religious leader" - but he does not mince his words.
He says he is not a "religious leader" so he probably does not want to be confronted with quotes from the Qur'an.
Britain must, he warns, beware of becoming like Nazi Germany.
Not likely. The German Jews did not do any of the things Hitler accused them of. The Jews did not blow up any buses or subways or trains. They did not say they wanted to convert all of the Christians to Judaism, or subjugate them, or kill them. The Jews did not say that the Torah commanded them to take over the world.
"Every society has to be really careful so the situation doesn't lead us to a time when people's minds can be poisoned as they were in the 1930s. If your community is perceived in a very negative manner, and poll after poll says that we are alienated, then Muslims begin to feel very vulnerable. We are seen as creating problems, not as bringing anything and that is not good for any society."
What are you doing, in your own community to try to change the situation? Robert Spencer suggested five ways To end “Islamophobia,” Muslims should:
  1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
  2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means.
  3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.
  4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
  5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.
There is, in his view, no such thing as Islamic terrorism.
There certainly has been plenty of terrorism by people who say that the Qur'an commands them to do what they are doing.
"Terrorists are terrorists, they may use religion but we shouldn't say Muslim terrorists, it stigmatises the whole community. We never called the IRA Catholic terrorists."
The IRA Catholics never quoted any bible verses ordering what they did. They never quoted a verse from either the Old Testament or the New Testament that said 9:29 Fight those who do not believe in God and the Last Day One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and do not forbid what God and his Messenger the Pope and his Bishops have forbidden — such men as practice not the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book [i.e., Christians and Jews] are Protestants – until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been humbled
Dr Bari thinks Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, made the extremists' job easier by giving a bleak picture of the threat on the eve of the Queen's Speech.

"I think it is creating a scare in the community and wider society. It probably helps some people who try to recruit the young to terrorism. Muslim young people are as vulnerable as any others. Under this climate of fear they will begin to feel victimised."
Then, as Robert Spencer suggested, you should:
  1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
  2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means.
  3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.
  4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
  5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.
Little Baby Ginn blogged Britain's march to a National Socialist future will halt the day Muslims assimilate to the culture of the country in which they've chosen to settle. It will also halt when the government and newspapers quit tiptoeing around the whining of these "community leaders" and issue some straight-talking statements.

Until then, the prescription for the U.K. and it's seething minorities is the same: assimilate with all due haste or perhaps you'd be better off elsewhere.


Robert Spencer blogged Nothing really surprising here. When have we ever seen a Muslim leader in the West say, "Yes, we have a serious problem in our community, and it's up to us to clean it up"?

Meryl Yourish blogged And they quote the ever-present Inayat Bunglawala, who is so quick to blame Israel for the problems of the Middle East, and even quicker to bring the conversation around to Jews whenever Muslims are criticized (because the Bible is just like the Koran with its calling for the stoning of adulterers except, gee, name the last time a Jewish or Christian society stoned an adulterer. Now name the last time a Muslim society did the same.

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Bill Clinton Says His Wife Took the Rap on Health Care

New York Times reported Former President Bill Clinton said Thursday that he should receive more blame than his wife for the failed attempt to revamp the nation’s health care system more than a decade ago.
Was it your fault it would not work? And won't you be with her this time?
“You know how much she cares about this,”
That is immaterial. It will hurt health care in this country. And then where will sick Canadians and Europeans go, since they have destroyed health care in their countries.
Mr. Clinton told an audience in Glenwood, Iowa, according to an account on MSNBC. “She has taken the rap for some of the problems we had with health care the last time that were far more my fault than hers.”

In her Democratic presidential bid, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has placed health care at the heart of her domestic policy agenda. Her rivals have sought to portray her experience on health care as an example of why a fresh approach is needed to truly change and improve the system.
They have not shown their plans will not work. She has.
As he campaigned here Thursday, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois said Mrs. Clinton could not claim credit for trying to overhaul health care if she did not accept any of the blame.

“All I know is that part of the record she’s running on is having worked on health care,” he said, “so it’s kind of hard to gauge if one of her claims is to have experience in this issue to then suggest that somehow she doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that it didn’t work.”

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Friday, November 09, 2007

Does Edwards Campaign Have Ulterior Motives?

The Left Coaster blogged John Edwards is attacking Hillary Clinton harder than any Republican would, with accusations of talking out of both sides of her mouth and flip-flopping (echoes of Bush attacks on Kerry) and being less-than-honest on her plans for the Middle East. Latest polls show Edwards falling in Iowa polls, and Obama rising. Is there a connection?
Of course. Edwards is a trial attorney. He will do anything for money.
Only six months ago advisor Joe Trippi joined the Edwards campaign, and the argument could be made this new pitbull strategy for Edwards has at least a little to do with Trippi's presence. In 2004 Trippi worked for then-frontrunner Howard Dean, who engaged in a bloody battle with Dick Gephardt while John Kerry slipped past the both of them. According to Alegre's source close to Dean, Trippi couldn't stand Edwards in '04, thought he was a doubletalker who could never win. This source speaks for a lot of campaign observers who are wondering right now why Edwards would dare go so nasty in a state that abhors negative campaigns, reflected in his recent slide.
Because Silke Poney knows there is no other way to win. For anyone.
Here's the catch: Trippi is close friends with Obama advisor David Axlerod. The theory goes something like this: Axlerod and Trippi decide Edwards can't possibly win, so Axlerod sends Trippi to Edwards' campaign to put on a full-blown attack, and like a suicide bomber, Edwards blows up his own campaign, dragging Hillary down in the process with a rallying cry of "Hillary Must Not Win."
Edwards was a VP candidate, and pit dog is a job given to the VP candidate. But is he pulling Hillary down for Obama, or for Gore?

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Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Man arrested after reporting pot theft

Yahoo! News reported A man was arrested for drug possession after telling authorities that two masked gunmen had stolen 150 pounds of marijuana from his home.

I guess it does not take much intelligence to be a criminal. That is as bad as the guy facing drug charges after he walked into the Danbury police station puffing on a marijuana-filled cigar
Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies arrived at the home near Penitas in South Texas to find the door kicked in and nearly 15 pounds of pot lying on the floor, Sheriff Lupe Trevino said.
If they had taken that too, they would not have been able to get him for possession.
Jose Guadalupe Flores, 35, escaped while the men ransacked the house but returned later and told the deputies he had been wrapping the drugs for shipment when the intruders arrived. "The guy walked right up and said the drugs were his," Trevino said. "That's not the smartest move."
I wonder if he expects to get them back if the thief is caught.
Flores, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was charged with felony possession of marijuana at an arraignment hearing Monday. Because of his immigration status, Flores will be jailed until his case is heard.
At least they have stopped catch-and-release.

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Eat more chocolate and help the environment

Yahoo! News reported Chocoholics can assuage any guilt they may feel after a new process was developed that turns the by-products of making chocolate into a biofuel -- meaning you can eat your chocolate and be eco-friendly.... North western English firm Ecotec has taken waste from the chocolate manufacturing process, turned it into bio-ethanol and mixed it with vegetable oil to produce biodiesel.
And white chocolate is very low in calories, like cauliflower, etc. <grin>

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All modern discoveries are by Muslim scientists

Daily Times (Pakistan) reported Muslim scientists have made all discoveries of the current age, said University of Columbia’s Arabic and Islamic Studies prof George Saliba at a seminar at the Government College University (GCU) on Monday.
And yet as this and this indicates from a pool of 1.4 BILLION Muslims which are 20% of the world's population (2 out of every 10 people), there were only 6 Nobel prizes won by Muslims, and only two of them were in sciences, and yet there are only 12 Million Jews in the entire world yet they have received 178 Nobel Prizes.
The seminar, titled The Problems of Historiography of Islamic Science, was held at Fazl-e-Hussain Hall. Saliba gave a critique of the standard classical accounts of the rise of Islamic science. He detailed problems in the accounts and explained alternative historiography that described the rise of an Islamic scientific tradition as a result of social and political conditions within the nascent Islamic empire. He said Muslim philosophy was the impetus behind Islamic science that had contributed to various disciplines including botany, zoology, algebra, trigonometry, physics, chemistry, astronomy, physics,
They invented physics twice. I know Allah can't seem to make up his mind (The Qur'an is unique among sacred scriptures in requiring a doctrine of abrogation (naskh) in which later pronouncements of the Prophet declare null and void his earlier pronouncements): 2:106, 16:101, 13:39, and 17:86. Is this similar?
chemistry,
another double up
physiology and mathematics in the pre-industrial era.

Lazarus commented Every primitive authoritarian culture thinks they invented everything. Remember how the Soviets "invented everything"?

maddogg commented Still waiting for the next Islamic Moon shot....Oh yeah, we get one of those 5 times a day anyhow.....

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Need a laugh?

Tear some paper

Hat tip to Silke at Hooah Wife and friends

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@live.com

Microsoft just started offering email addresses at live.com. I am not sure what all they will eventually offer with it that hotmail.com does not provide, but if you want to register your name there go on over.

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Tuesday, November 06, 2007

It's the law

BBC NEWS | UK | UK chooses 'most ludicrous laws' reported The UK's top 10 most ridiculous British laws were listed as:

  • It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament
    Is it a capital offense, or do they just put the corpse in jail?
  • It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British king or queen's image upside-down
  • It is illegal for a woman to be topless in Liverpool except as a clerk in a tropical fish store
    Why would a female clerk in a tropical fish store need to be toppless?
  • Eating mince pies on Christmas Day is banned
  • If someone knocks on your door in Scotland and requires the use of your toilet, you are required to let them enter
  • In the UK a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants, including in a policeman's helmet
    Why not just send her to Scotland?
  • The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the King, and the tail of the Queen
    What if they don't want it?
  • It is illegal not to tell the tax man anything you do not want him to know, but legal not to tell him information you do not mind him knowing
  • It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour
  • It is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls of York, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow

Other bizarre foreign laws voted by those polled included:
  • In Ohio, it is illegal to get a fish drunk
  • In Indonesia, the penalty for masturbation is decapitation
    And they just told me it would make me lose my eyesight.
  • A male doctor in Bahrain can only examine the genitals of a woman in the reflection of a mirror
  • In Switzerland, a man may not relieve himself standing up after 10pm
    He may be too drunk to stand, anyway.
  • It is illegal to be blindfolded while driving a vehicle in Alabama
  • In Florida, unmarried women who parachute on a Sunday could be jailed
  • Women in Vermont must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth
  • In Milan, it is a legal requirement to smile at all times, except during funerals or hospital visits
  • In France, it is illegal to name a pig Napoleon

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Italy breaks up European terror cell

Yahoo! News reported A Europe-wide sweep disrupted an Islamic cell that was recruiting potential suicide bombers for attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, Italian police said Tuesday, announcing the arrests of 20 terror suspects. Police said the suspects, mostly Tunisians, were arrested across Europe as part of the sweep against a cell based in the northern Italian region of Lombardy. Executing the arrest warrants, police said they found al-Qaida manuals for making explosives, detonation devices and poisons, and instructions on guerrilla techniques.
Apparently a "inner spiritual struggle" is a dangerous thing.
The Lombardy cell had ties with a group in neighboring Emilia Romagna whose aim is to establish an Islamic state extending from Morocco to China, Italian investigators said. Intercepted phone calls made clear the aim of sending jihadist fighters to Iraq via Syria, including specific instructions on shaving off beards before departure to give the impression of making a "peaceful trip."
So if we see a Muslim with a beard we know it is not a "peaceful trip."

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This is cool

Sunlight Foundation has taken all the Defense Appropriations Earmarks and made them available for viewing within Google Earth. (You can only view this using Google Earth). And as they say: a picture really is worth a 1,000 words. One of our policy wonks loved the flight simulator that allows you to fly over earmark locations. It allows you to fly your choice of two aircraft anywhere around the globe, with custom layers visible from the aircraft. The simulator is hidden within the latest version of the program, and takes some getting used to controlling, but is certainly an entertaining way to experience the Earth's actual geography-and to educate yourself politically at the same time.

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Parenting humor

Hat tip to Kiss My Gumbo for this parenting humor

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Monday, November 05, 2007

The Differences Between Men And Women

Aha, so that is the Differences Between Men And Women I wonder if Hillary agrees.

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Arrest all the lawyers

Musharraf must have been reading Shakespeare's Henry VI. NYT reported Police officers armed with tear gas broke up a meeting at the headquarters of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission in Lahore and took dozens of people away in police vans, including elderly women, school teachers and about 20 lawyers, according to people at the meeting. In all, about 80 lawyers were detained, and many others who faced arrest warrants remained in hiding, according to members of a nationwide lawyer’s lobby that has grown increasingly influential as an anti-Musharraf voice.

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Netanyahu on Jerusalem

Israel News reported At a briefing of Jewish Communal Leaders Benjamin Netanyahu shares his thoughts on Jerusalem and the upcoming Annapolis "Peace" Summit.

He makes a LOT of sense.

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Sunday, November 04, 2007

Saudi Arabia is hub of world terror

Times Online reported Saudi Arabia is hub of world terror.

Other breaking news:
  • The sky is blue.
  • Two plus two equals four.
  • Hillary Clinton will say anything to get elected.
The desert kingdom supplies the cash and the killers.... Yet wealthy Saudis remain the chief financiers of worldwide terror networks. “If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia,” said Stuart Levey, the US Treasury official in charge of tracking terror financing.

Extremist clerics provide a stream of recruits to some of the world’s nastiest trouble spots.

An analysis by NBC News suggested that the Saudis make up 55% of foreign fighters in Iraq. They are also among the most uncompromising and militant.

Half the foreign fighters held by the US at Camp Cropper near Baghdad are Saudis. They are kept in yellow jumpsuits in a separate, windowless compound after they attempted to impose sharia on the other detainees and preached an extreme form of Wahhabist Islam.

In recent months, Saudi religious scholars have caused consternation in Iraq and Iran by issuing fatwas calling for the destruction of the great Shi’ite shrines in Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, some of which have already been bombed. And while prominent members of the ruling al-Saud dynasty regularly express their abhorrence of terrorism, leading figures within the kingdom who advocate extremism are tolerated.

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Is anyone stupid enough to pay for this?

Are you concerned about all of the calories in regular water? Are you stupid enough to buy Diet Water?

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Need a laugh?


Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again

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