Off with her head

A man who started a TV network to improve Muslims’ image beheads his wife. The Buffalo News reported Orchard Park police are investigating a particularly gruesome killing, the beheading of a woman, after her husband -- an influential member of the local Muslim community -- reported her death to police Thursday. Police identified the victim as Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37. Detectives have charged her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, with second-degree murder.

What would it have taken to chrge him with first-degree murder.

... Muzzammil Hassan is the founder and chief executive officer of Bridges TV, which he launched in 2004, amid hopes that it would help portray Muslims in a more positive light.

This sort of undoes his efforts.

... "Obviously, this is the worst form of domestic violence possible," Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III said today.

I would agree.

Authorities say Aasiya Hassan recently had filed for divorce from her husband.

Now we know what ticked him off. I would guess she did not file in a Sharia court.

"She had an order of protection that had him out of the home as of Friday the 6th [of February]," Benz said.

Iraqi Elections

Charles Krauthammer wrote in washingtonpost.com Washington hardly noticed a near-miracle abroad.

That is because it was good news from Iraq.

Iraq held provincial elections. There was no Election Day violence. Security was handled by Iraqi forces with little U.S. involvement. A fabulous bazaar of 14,400 candidates representing 400 parties participated, yielding results highly favorable to both Iraq and the United States. Iraq moved away from religious sectarianism toward more secular nationalism. "All the parties that had the words 'Islamic' or 'Arab' in their names lost," noted Middle East expert Amir Taheri. "By contrast, all those that had the words 'Iraq' or 'Iraqi' gained."

And Iraq gained, and Iran lost influence in Iraqi affairs.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki went from leader of a small Islamic party to leader of the "State of Law Party," campaigning on security and secular nationalism. He won a smashing victory. His chief rival, a more sectarian and pro-Iranian Shiite religious party, was devastated. Another major Islamic party, the pro-Iranian Sadr faction, went from 11 percent of the vote to 3 percent, losing badly in its stronghold of Baghdad. The Islamic Fadhila party that had dominated Basra was almost wiped out. The once-dominant Sunni party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and the erstwhile insurgency was badly set back. New grass-roots tribal ("Awakening") and secular Sunni leaders emerged. All this barely pierced the consciousness of official Washington. After all, it fundamentally contradicts the general establishment/media narrative of Iraq as "fiasco."

Feinstein blows it

Los Angeles Times reported A senior U.S. lawmaker said Thursday that unmanned CIA Predator aircraft operating in Pakistan are flown from an air base in that country, a revelation likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counter-terrorism collaboration with the United States.

If Senators cannot be trusted with secret information, shouldn't they have their security clearance revoked, and thus lose their position on committees?

The disclosure by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, marked the first time a U.S. official had publicly commented on where the Predator aircraft patrolling Pakistan take off and land. At a hearing, Feinstein expressed surprise over Pakistani opposition to the campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes against Islamic extremist targets along Pakistan's northwestern border.

Does she have no concept of the fact that their government might not be willing to help us if it kept secret what they are doing, but that they might not want their public to know how much they were helping us?

"As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base," she said.

Did she accidentally blow it, or was it intentional?

The basing of the pilotless aircraft in Pakistan suggests a much deeper relationship with the United States on counter-terrorism matters than has been publicly acknowledged. Such an arrangement would be at odds with protests lodged by officials in Islamabad, the capital, and could inflame anti-American sentiment in the country.

Crucifixes in the Classroom

Inside Higher Ed reported At Boston College, the placement of Christian art, including crucifixes, in classrooms over winter break has stirred some intense discussions over that particular expression of the Roman Catholic (and catholic) university’s identity. And over whether it’s undergoing an identity crisis.

Maybe they felt their identity as a Jesuit and Catholic institution needed reinforcement

“A classroom is a place where I am supposed, as a teacher, to teach without any bias, to teach the truth.

And the truth is that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

And when you put an icon or an emblem or a flag, it confuses the matter,” said Amir Hoveyda, the chemistry department chair.

What chemical reaction takes place either slower or faster in the presence of a crucifix?

“For 18 years, I taught at a university where I was allowed to teach in an environment where I felt comfortable.

A sterile, secular environment.

And all the sudden, without any discussion, without any warning, without any intellectual debate, literally during the middle of the night during a break, these icons appear,” Hoveyda said.

Maybe it was a miracle. But how do you know it happened in the middle of the night? Did you see them appear?

Jack Dunn, Boston College’s spokesman, explained that the Jesuit institution first established a committee on Christian art in 2000.

So there was discussion, warning, and an opportunity for intellectual debate. And if it started in 2000, it was not very sudden.

“The crucifixes in question have been brought back largely from students who have gone on immersion trips to Central and South America and to Europe.

So they did not go out and buy 151 identical crucifixes and iconography and posters.

... The only thing that’s changed really is that in classrooms where crucifixes and iconography and posters hadn’t been present, an attempt has been made to place some form of Christian art and that effort was completed in January,” Dunn said. “The effort was to present Christian art in those remaining classrooms as a way of manifesting our pride in and our commitment to our religious heritage. “My sense is that they knew there were a certain amount of classrooms that didn’t have any presence of religious art and so they waited until they had a critical mass that would enable them to place the artwork in those classrooms. And that’s the only reason it was done now,” Dunn said. There are 151 classrooms.

The process was described by some as gradual, but one faculty member deemed it a “tsunami” of religious art that appeared in classrooms over winter break.

Maybe that faculty member would be more comfortable in a secular school.

And while most discussions on this matter have been private, opinions seem to run the gamut. In a statement provided through Dunn, Rev. T. Frank Kennedy, chair of the committee on Christian Art, wrote (in part): “I suppose a question might be posed to Boston College as to what purpose this Christian Art serves?

What purpose does any art serve?

In a world that is pretty successfully driven by media (imagery) ours is a response that seeks to pose the age-old invitation of Christ to enter into love – a love that is made perfect in its unselfishness. John Paul II spoke of the crucifix on September 15, 2002 saying ‘It is the sign of God, who has compassion on us, who accepts human weakness, who opens to us all, to one another, and therefore creates the relation of fraternity.’ The Pope also went on to say that though this symbol has been abused in history, it is the Christian’s duty to reclaim that symbol as an invitation to love. An invitation to love, and an invitation to faith is exactly that, an invitation. One is not required to respond, one can decline, and one can have many reasons for declining the invitation, but to imply that a Jesuit and Catholic university is not free to offer this invitation is simply an impossibility.”

Why should anyone expect a Jesuit and Catholic university to behave as a secular school, and be afraid of or ashamed of its Jesuit and Catholic heritage.

Father Kennedy, who is director of Boston College’s Jesuit Institute and a professor of music, continued: “For the identity of Boston College as a Jesuit and Catholic institution which we so proudly have inherited, and so happily transmit to the next generation of alumni/alumnae, impels us as John Paul also noted, ‘to offer to share the deep desire we have of recognizing ourselves in the crucifix, and of seeing it, not as something that divides, but as something that is to be respected by all, and that in a certain sense can unify.’ ”

But Dwayne Eugène Carpenter, chair of the romance languages and literatures department and co-director of the Jewish studies program, said the placement of religious art is in fact divisive.

Only Satan, or one of his minions, should feel that way.

These symbols, he said, are not neutral.

Should they have limited their symbols to pap like this?

“I think it’s naive to believe that affixing crucifixes is going to fan the flames of religious devotion.

That is not their intent. As the Pope said, they are an invitation. An invitation to love, and an invitation to faith. People are not required to accept the invitation. Students are not required to genuflect or make the sign of the cross or anything when they see the crucifexes.

On the other hand, it can have a negative effect on students” who might see them as creating an unwelcoming environment.

Only Satan, or one of his minions, should view an invitation to love, and an invitation to faith as unwelcoming. Christ is the epitome of welcoming.

Dhimmi brits

CNN reported "They took me to a detention center," Wilders said, and there he was interviewed "for 45 seconds" before they took his passport and left. Wilders had been invited to screen his film, "Fitna," at the House of Lords on Thursday evening.

But the Home Office arrested Wilders before he could get to Parliament. This would be like a Senate committee inviting someone to testify in a hearing, and having the Executive Branch preventing him from attending.

... The British ambassador to the Netherlands told him Wednesday that he would be refused entry into Britain because the beliefs expressed in the film would threaten public security.

If some politicians watched a movie?

If Wilders had been permitted to speak, here is what he would have said.

Are these people civilized?

Saudi Gazette reported A 23-year-old unmarried woman was awarded one-year prison term and 100 lashes for committing adultery

An unmarried rape victim is convicted for adultery?

and trying to abort the resultant fetus.

Not for getting an abortion, but for asking for one. Even most ProLife people will make an exception for rape, incest, or life of the mother.

The District Court in Jeddah pronounced the verdict on Saturday after the girl confessed that she had a forced sexual intercourse

forced, i.e. rape.

with a man who had offered her a ride. The man, the girl confessed, took her to a rest house, east of Jeddah, where he and four of friends assaulted her all night long.

Well she had the necessary four male witnesses required to prove rape in Saudi Arabia, but since they participated in the gang rape, I bet they were not willing to testify.

The girl claimed that she became pregnant soon after and went to King Fahd Hospital for Armed Forces in an attempt to carry out an abortion. She was eight weeks’ pregnant then, the hospital confirmed. According to the ruling, the woman will be sent to a jail outside Jeddah to spend her time and will be lashed after delivery of her baby

They don't want to put the baby at risk by flogging her while pregnant.

who will take the mother’s last name.

I care

Sen. Schumer taunted: the “American people really don’t care” about all those “little tiny, yes, porky amendments” that the “chattering classes” have exposed.

Well I care. And not just for the porky amendments, but also by the big chunks of fat that will do nothing to stimulate the economy, but that are just designed to stimulate left wing interest groups, and provide them with plenty of money that they can donate back to Democratic campaigns, so the Democrats can make sure they never lose control again.

I care about increasing the national debt by more in a few weeks than the Republicans did in eight years, and at least much of their expenditures were done to fund two wars which brought freedom and something close to Democracy to two countries: Afghanistan and Iraq. This money is just intended to take Democracy away from the American People, and firmly entrench one party control.

I care about turning this Capitalist country that is the single Super Power in the world, into another socialist country like Europe. The only question is will Europe remain a collection of free Socialist countries, or whether it will succumb to Islamic rule, and to prevent the US from also succumbing to Islamic rule, will we have to defend ourselves as a weak socialist country rather than a strong Capitalist one.

The only thing that will save us is I suspect we are in the End Times, and I am eagerly awaiting The Rapture .

It passed

AP reported President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan has passed the Senate and is on its way to difficult House-Senate negotiations.

Where it will grow even more.

Just three Republicans helped pass the plan on a 61-37 vote and they're already signaling they'll play hardball to preserve more than $108 billion in spending cuts made last week in Senate dealmaking.

Ooh. They will play hardball. Like Collins helping to break the fillibuster (60 votes), and then saying she may vote against passage (50 votes required), and then did not even do that.

Obama wants to restore cuts in funds for school construction jobs

Like the money they included for school construction in Minnesota, when most school districts in Minnesota are steadily losing enrollment and shuttering schools

and help for cash-starved states.

All states, or just Blue states?

Those cuts are among the major differences between the $819 billion House version of Obama's plan and a Senate bill costing $838 billion.

The Senate added a bunch of their pork, and then was pround of the pork from the house that they cut, and still turned out a more expensive bill.

Obama has warned of a deepening economic crisis

Politics of fear

if Congress fails to act. He wants a bill completed by the weekend.

Because the longer they wait, the more people turn against the planned spending.

As David Keene said Mr. Obama’s idea of a “bipartisan,” “post-partisan” or “trans-partisan” America is becoming clearer every day; it’s an America in which everyone, regardless of party, agrees with him.

Permanent Democratic patronage system

Obama may say he “inherited” a huge deficit, but how doubling or tripling it make everything better? The "Stimulus" is just an Obama plan to fund permanent Democratic patronage system.

Alan Reynolds reported Many may believe we're in the worst recession since the Great Depression, if only because politicians and the press keep repeating that claim. But we need to compare some facts to discern whether this recession is (or will be) "worse" in some sense than those of 1973-75 or 1981-82. Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf told the House Budget Committee that if the economy is still contracting by mid-year, then this recession will be longer than the 1981-82 and 1973-75 downturns, each of which lasted 16 months. Yet this recession was quite mild until last September. And the severity and human discomfort of downturns can't be measured by their duration.

JammieWearingFool has comparisons with the past two recessions, and notes U.S. Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailout Programs. Here are 50 De-Stimulating Facts about the bill.

Census

Gregg mum on Census Bureau - Manchester- msnbc.com reported The Capitol Hill publication Congressional Quarterly yesterday reported that the White House, responding to minority groups' concerns about Gregg's commitment to funding the census,

Congress funds the program, not the Secretary.

has decided to have the director of the Census Bureau report directly to the White House.

Which is in violation of the law. In Article I, Section 2 the US Constitution orders that "The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct." The Congress, by law directed that:

"The Secretary [of Commerce] shall perform the functions and duties imposed upon him by this title, may issue such rules and regulations as he deems necessary to carry out such functions and duties, and may delegate the performance of such functions and duties and the authority to issue such rules and regulations to such officers and employees of the Department of Commerce as he may designate."

The Director of the Census must, by law, be within the Department of Commerce and under the direction of the (Senate approved) Secretary of Commerce who then reports to the president.

Minorities are traditionally concerned about an accurate count because the census numbers are used to apportion political power, through redistricting, and federal funding, reflecting demographic changes over the past decade.

And they want to pad their numbers by including illegal aliens.

The White House move angered some House Republicans, who called it a power grab directed by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Just think what the reaction would have been if Bush had done it.

Specter is wrong

Arlen Specter wrote I am supporting the economic stimulus package for one simple reason: The country cannot afford not to take action. The unemployment figures announced Friday, the latest earnings reports and the continuing crisis in banking make it clear that failure to act will leave the United States facing a far deeper crisis in three or six months. By then the cost of action will be much greater -- or it may be too late.

To late to fix it with a solution most people don't think will work, and it will be too late because the CBO thinks that even without a spendulus package, the recession will be over by the end of the year

... House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the proposed cuts "do violence to what we are trying to do for the future," especially on education. Her objections are a warning to conservatives that more cuts would be unlikely to win House approval.

Then by all means let's have more cuts, and Nancy can take the blame for it failing in the House

They are also an admission of the high price that moderates have been able to extract for their support of stimulus legislation. If a stimulus bill doesn't pass, there won't be any money for Title I education programs.

Absolutely false. He means there will not be any MORE money for them, and even that is not true, because they will probably ram more through in future appropriation bills. It is just that sneaking increases in in the alleged Stimulus Bill is easier for Nancy.

The moderates' bill provides marginally less money for Title I than the House and Senate bills. But while it's less than supporters want, this proverbial half a loaf beats no loaf by a mile.

Stimulus???

Even NBC recognizes the "Stimulus Bill" does not stimulate the economy, just the Democratic special interest groups.



They don't refer to it by what it should be called: Generational Theft Act of 2009, since it will not stimulate the economy, and 51% of independents and 64% of Republicans do not agree that that failure to pass a bill now means catastrophe. It will burden our children and grandchildren with a LOT of debt. Despite what Collins, Specter, and Snowe do, this is not a bipartisan bill, so all of the blame will fall on the Democrats when it does not work.

Patriotism?????

NYTimes reported Mr. Obama dispatched his chief of staff to Capitol Hill to help conclude the talks and reassure senators in his own party, and he called three key Republicans to applaud them for their patriotism.

Apparently to Obama patriotism has nothing to do with love of and/or devotion to one's country. It apparently means surrender to the Democrats, no matter whether it will work or not, and regardless of what debt it adds to our children and grandchildren.