12 People Killed and 31 Wounded in Fort Hood Shooting

Suspected Gunman Is Identified by ABC News as Major Malik Nadal Hasan
By EMILY FRIEDMAN and RICHARD ESPOSITO
Nov. 5, 2009

Twelve people have been killed and 31 wounded in a shooting spree at a Texas military base in a murderous rampage that officials believe was carried out by an Army officer.

The suspected gunman was identified by ABC News as Major Malik Nadal Hasan.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, told Fox News that military sources informed her that the gunman was about to be deployed to Iraq.

The shooter was killed and two other suspects, who are also soldiers, have been apprehended, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone said.

--
LINK

George Bush's Opinion Of Islam. No, Not THAT George Bush!

Take a look at this posting over at Sultan Knish. A must-read essay citing research by the 19th century clergyman and historian George Bush, who was also the author of the first American biography of Mohammed.

A sampling of Sultan Knish's essay...

Take Bush's critique of Mohammed's progressive revelation of the Koran:

He declared himself appointed to promulge a new revelation in successive portions, the aggregate of which was to constitute the Bible of his followers. The original or archetype of the Koran, he taught, was laid up from everlasting in the archives of Heaven, being written on what he termed the preserved table, near the throne of Allah, from which the series of chapters communicated by Gabriel were a transcript. This pretended gradual mode of revelation was certainly a master stroke of policy in the impostor.

...Had the whole volume been published at once, so that a rigid examination could have been instituted into its contents as a whole, and the different parts brought into comparison with each other, glaring inconsistencies would have been easily detected and objections urged which he probably would have found impossible to answer. But by pretending to receive his oracles in separate portions, at different times... he had a ready way of silencing all cavils, and extricating himself with credit from every difficulty, as nothing forbade the message or mandate of to-day being modified or abrogated by that of to-morrow.

Now, go read the whole thing. There's much more!

Project 2,996 9/11 Tribute: Anthony DiOnisio

Project, 2996: Remembering the Victims of 9/11

On this eighth anniversary of 9/11, I remember Anthony DiOnisio, Jr., vice president of operations at Cantor Fitzgerald, where he had worked since 1987. He worked at the World Trade Center in 1993, when the first attack occurred there.

Mr. DiOnisio perished at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Final services were held at St. Catherine's Roman Catholic Church on September 29, 2001.

Read the rest at Always On Watch.

ACORN Officials Videotaped Telling 'Pimp,' 'Prostitute' How to Lie to IRS

Officials with the controversial community organizing group ACORN were secretly videotaped offering to assist two individuals posing as a pimp and a prostitute, encouraging them to lie to the Internal Revenue Service and providing guidance on how to claim underage girls from South America as dependents.

The videotape was made public Thursday on BigGovernment.com, a political blog launched by Andrew Breitbart as a companion site to his BigHollywood.breitbart.com blog.

In the videotape, made on July 24, James O'Keefe, a 25-year-old independent filmmaker, posed as a pimp with a 20-year-old woman named "Kenya" who posed as a prostitute while visiting ACORN's office in Baltimore. The couple told ACORN staffers they wanted to secure housing where the woman could continue to maintain a prostitution business.

'Doctors told me it was against the rules to save my premature baby'

By Vanessa Allen and Andrew Levy
Last updated at 7:58 AM on 09th September 2009


Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday.
Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy - almost four months early.
They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211950/Premature-baby-left-die-doctors-mother-gives-birth-just-days-22-week-care-limit.html#ixzz0QegXvCS0

---
LINK

Confirmed: global warming zealots hate people

By Janet Daley Politics Last updated: September 9th, 2009

I’ve always suspected this. There can be only one logical conclusion to the anthropogenic global warming campaign: eliminate human beings. Or, at least, reduce to a minimum their number on the planet.

Have you had the sneaking suspicion that climate change activists were seeking to suppress every possible life-enhancing human activity from a long hot bath to a long-haul flight to an exotic destination? Have you ever had the sense that they would actually prefer it if you just ceased to occupy space on the earth, using up - as you do - its precious resources to facilitate your own pestilential selfish existence?

---
LINK

Muslim prayers to surround U.S. Capitol

By Julia Duin on Sept. 3, 2009 into Belief Blog

Subscribe On Sept. 25, Dar ul Islam, a mosque in Elizabeth, N.J., is slating a massive Friday "jummah" prayer event at the west front of the U.S. Capitol; on the very site that President Obama gave his inauguration speech not so long ago. This is not a joke.

--
LINK

NY's Tax-Funded Ex-Terrorist

By PHIL KERPEN

Last Updated: 5:09 AM, September 9, 2009

Posted: 2:55 AM, September 9, 2009


VAN Jones resigned as White House green-jobs czar after the public got a look at his history of radical activism, including his time building the so-called Apollo Alliance -- a coalition of left-wing interest groups unified around the green-jobs concept. But another, even more radical Jones (not related) is leading Apollo's New York state activities.

Jeff Jones was a domestic terrorist in the late '60s and a fugitive from justice throughout the '70s -- yet now he's a leader of an influential, taxpayer-funded group.

Jones was a fugitive from justice for 11 years. His own account at his Web site says: "As a leader of the Weather Underground, Jeff evaded an intense FBI manhunt for more than a decade. In 1981, they finally got him. Twenty special agents battered down the door of the Bronx apartment where he was living with his wife and four-year-old son."

With Mark Rudd and Bill Ayers, Jones in 1969 co-founded the radical Weatherman, which orchestrated the violent "Days of Rage" riots in Chicago, and later undertook an anti-government bombing campaign. Three of its members died when a bomb they were constructing to attack Fort Dix accidentally detonated in Greenwich Village.

---
LINK

"Moderate" Moslem Fareed Zakaria Nixed Mohammed Cartoons

In other words, Zakaria advised Yale University Press not to publish the Danish cartoons, in a collection of controversial cartoons.

From this post at Islam in Action, citing this source:

...Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, a world affairs columnist and CNN host who serves on Yale's governing board, said he told Yale that he believed publishing the images would have provoked violence.

"As a journalist and public commentator, I believe deeply in the First Amendment and academic freedom," Zakaria said. "But in this instance Yale Press was confronted with a clear threat of violence and loss of life."

It appears that BHO had Zakaria's book The Post-American World on his reading list:



Just sayin'...

Additional reading: more from Creeping Sharia about Zakaria's views in Newsweek and at his web site.

Video: Mein Kampf & Quran

It has been my privilege to interview Walid Shoebat at few times. He has pointed out the similarities between Mein Kampf and the Koran on more than one occasion.

Now comes this video on the topic, from a different individual. But the facts remain the same.



How long will the world ignore the reality of the threat we face from Islam?

Trying to appease Hitler led to World War Two. Yet, we see, over and over again, Western leaders trying to appease Islam.

There is no negotiating with evil!

Lyoto Machida Versus Mauricio Rua UFC 104

I know this isn't the usual subject but I just love MMA and I had to put this on:



From Machinemen

Rifqa Bary allowed to remain in Florida

August 22, 8:03 AMHuntsville Celebrity Headlines ExaminerLeslie Carrick

Well it looks like legal analysts were wrong about this case. Many legal experts claimed that there was nothing a Florida judge could do to interevene. However, at her hearing yesterday, Bary was allowed to stay with her foster parents in Florida until her September 3rd hearing. Judge Dawson said that he believes his court has jurisdiction since no Ohio court has taken up jurisdiction. The Department of Children Services has requested an investigation because they do think that Bary's life would be in danger. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is opening an investigation. Bary's legal team said to the judge that her family wants her back "in the worst way" because it would be a great honor in taking her life.

--
LINK

Ramadan: The Month of Jihad

Via this posting at Creeping Sharia, a reminder that Ramadan in the month in which Allah gives victory to his followers:



Creeping Sharia has additional information HERE.

Ramadan 2009 begins at sunset on August 20 or August 21, depending on "sightability."

Has BHO reached out yet for this Ramadan?

Rifqa Bary: The Father and the Islamic Society Tell Their Lies

Thanks to saltashrugs

Father threatens 17 year old after she converted from Islam to Christianity

Fathima Rifqa Bary, who goes by Rifqa, left home in New Albany, Ohio, last month and hopped on a bus to Orlando to meet with husband and wife pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz, who she met through a Facebook prayer group for the couple's non-denominational Global Revolution Church.

From murdikar007

Court Expected to Send Runaway Teen Home Despite Muslim Honor Killing Fears

Thursday, August 20, 2009
By Joshua Rhett Miller,
FOX News

A 17-year-old girl who fled to Florida after converting from Islam to Christianity will almost certainly be forced to return home to Ohio, experts say -- despite her fears that she will become the victim of an honor killing for abandoning her parents' faith.

Rifqa Bary, who hitchhiked to an Ohio bus station earlier this month and took a charter bus to Orlando, remains in protective custody with Florida's Department of Children and Families. A judge is expected to rule Friday on the jurisdiction of the case, but several legal experts contacted by FOXNews.com say the girl is bound to be sent back to Ohio.

"She'll be returned to the original jurisdiction," said Katherine Hunt Federle, professor of law and director of the Justice for Children Project at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.

"She probably doesn't have a lot of options other than to return home."

Bary, a native of Sri Lanka who turned 17 earlier this month, is neither a U.S. citizen nor a resident of Florida, so if her parents want her returned to their home in New Albany, Ohio, that likely will occur, experts said.

"She's living and residing in Ohio," Federle said. "Typically, what happens is, if a child runs away and goes to another jurisdiction, she'll be returned to the original jurisdiction."

---
LINK

Killing Germans is a duty, Sauerland cell terror suspect tells court

dfm/nda/dpa/AP

Editor: Susan Houlton


Adem Yilmaz, part of a group of suspected militant Islamists arrested in Germany's Sauerland region in September 2007, told the court in one of Germany's largest terrorism trials since the 1970s that it didn't matter to him whether the soldiers were American, German or Turkish.

"For me they are all the same," said Yilmaz, who is himself Turkish. "Allah gave us the right to fight against those people who are fighting us," he said, adding that many Muslims had been attacked in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yilmaz also said he stood by an earlier statement that he wanted to kill as many non-believers as possible.

Asked whether he would return to fighting armed jihad - holy war - after serving his sentence, the 30-year-old said, "I don't know yet."

Yilmaz belongs to the so-called Sauerland Group, together with fellow defendants Fritz Gelowicz, Daniel Schneider and Attila Selek.

Yilmaz arrived in Germany in 1986 and said he decided to join the armed "holy war" in 2004. His initial target had been Iraq. He added that the Americans were the "head of the team" fighting Islam.

--

LINK

Families outraged at Pan Am 103 bomber's release

Thursday, August 20, 2009
From The AP

By Jim Kavanagh
CNN


(CNN) -- Victims' family members and advocates are grieving anew as the only man convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland -- which killed 270 people -- was released Thursday from a British prison.

"I feel sick. I feel depressed and outraged. I mean, I am just heartbroken," said Susan Cohen, whose daughter Theodora, a 20-year-old Syracuse University music student, was killed in the bombing.

Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, 57, sick with advanced prostate cancer, was released on compassionate grounds and sent home to Libya to die, Scottish authorities said. Megrahi, who prosecutors said was a Libyan intelligence agent, was convicted in 2001 of placing a bomb on the Boeing 747.

--
LINK

Massachusetts Man Arrested, Stabbed Pregnant Girlfriend After Abortion Refusal

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 18, 2009

Southbridge, MA (LifeNews.com) -- A Massachusetts man has been arrested and is in policy custody following an alleged multiple stabbing which saw him attack his pregnant girlfriend after she refused to have an abortion. Police say they have 18-year-old Alex Santana in custody and he is being held on $500,000 bail.

Officials say Santana repeatedly stabbed Leah Diver on Friday afternoon after the two had an argument about her pregnancy.

Santana was ordered on bail after entering a not guilty plea through his attorney in Dudley District Court. He faces charges of armed assault with intent to murder and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

He is slated to return to court for an initial hearing on September 28.

Diver is 28 years-old and is currently in critical condition at a Worcester hospital. Police say her baby survived the attack.

Cases like this one of partners attacking their wives or girlfriends after an abortion refusal are somewhat common.

In the most recent case Charles Daniels Jr., a 34-year-old man from Florida, stands accused of assaulting his pregnant girlfriend when she refused his abortion request.

LINK

Rifqa Bary

Please read the story over at Infidel Bloggers Alliance.

I have worked in Christian education for over two decades. After watching the above video, I thought back to the mid 1980s, to one of the Pakistani girls in my sixth-grade class. She wrote in her end-of-year essay that (1) she was a secret Christian and (2) she could never tell her parents about her conversion. She further stated that the reason she never learned her Bible verses during the school year was that her parents didn't allow her to have a Bible in the house. Back then, I didn't know the truth about Islam. Back then, I was one of those fools who believed "Islam is just another religion."

I often think of this girl now. I wonder where she is and what's happened to her. Grapevine news this past spring has it that she was sent back to Pakistan and married off to an old man, one of the family cousins. Nobody has heard from her in a long, long time. Her older sisters, college material while the girl in my class was not, stayed here in the United States.

My point....Lest any reader of this post think that Rifka's story is automatically false, think again.

Poll: Americans closely divided on abortion, regionally divided by religion

August 7, 4:29 PMPhildadelphia Opinion Polls ExaminerErik Westervelt

A recent Gallup survey has shed some light on current religious affiliations and the divided opinions Americans have on the issue of abortion.

Recent polling of nearly 180,000 interviews nationwide indicates that the public is divided almost evenly on the topic of abortion. Religious views that often impact an individual’s stance on that issue however differ considerably from state-to-state and region-to-region. Non-Catholic Christians continue to be in the majority with adherence of over 54% of the country. The highest concentration of this religious denomination is in the Deep South of the United States, often referred to as the “Bible Belt”.

Gallup Poll: Americans Evenly Split on Abortion Between 'Pro-Life' and 'Pro-Choice'

Dan Gilgoff

Spiritual Politics's Mark Silk flags a new Gallup poll showing that the country is now evenly split between those calling themselves "pro-life" and "pro-choice":

CLICK HERE

Michael Savage Lectures a Confused, Ignorant Caller over the UK Ban- Aired August 6, 2009

From Conservative1001BG

Michael Savage Unleashes on a Liberal Wise Guy Caller

From martysoffice

Theodore Shoebat Interview

The Truth About Islam And African Slavery

From Ahmad's Quran 3:



So, who should be making the reparations for slavery, if indeed any reparations should be made at all?

It seems to me that calls for reparations have been shouted out in the wrong direction. After all, Islam institutionalized slavery, and Saudi has big bucks.

Note: WC and I also interviewed IQ al Rassooli about this topic on the July 31, 2009 edition of The Gathering Storm Radio Show. You can listen to that show HERE.

I wonder how BHO feels about his being an abid, by dint of his African ancestry. Indeed, if he had lived in a different era, he might well have been swept up in a Moslem slave-trading wave and castrated. Makes his bow to the Saudi king all the more ironic, don't you think?

Moslem Converts In The United States

(hat tip to Ekawaaz, who emailed me the link)



If accurate, these numbers are astounding!

"Ten Reasons Barack Obama Must Step Down..."

Right Truth has the exclusive - an essay by R.J. Godlewski.

Arab Festival 2009: Sharia in the US

"This is a video of David Wood and Nabeel Qureshi asking questions at Arabfest, Dearborn. The date is June 21st, 2009. There was a booth at the festival which had a banner titled "Islam: Got Questions? Get Answers." From their table, we picked up a pamphlet claiming that Islam promotes peace. We noticed that it was full of poor logic and errors, so we decided to make a video refuting it. We went to the booth that gave us the pamphlet to give them the opportunity to defend their claims. Security, however, stepped in and forced us to turn off our camera."
From Acts17Apologetics

Michael Savage: I'm still banned

Radio talker: London paper's report false, thinks U.S. government behind U.K. action

WASHINGTON – American radio talk-show host Michael Savage is apparently still being banned from entering the United Kingdom, despite a report from a British newspaper over the weekend suggesting he had been cleared for entry.

"It ain't over till it's over," Savage said on his broadcast tonight, after being informed his name is still blacklisted.

"I was very excited about this report from England when my friend [WND Editor] Joseph Farah called me Saturday night to tell me about it. But only this morning, my attorney told me this announcement does not mean my name has been removed from this list. The statement says the list will no longer be published."

LINK

Out In The Open Now

Let's start with a video (hat tip to Yid With Lid):



The conference will be held in at Hilton Hotel from 11AM - 5 PM in the Grand Ballroom, 9333 South Cicero Avenue, Oak Lawn, IL 60453

web site for the conference

The topics at the conference are as follows:

***Session 1: Failure of Capitalism***
Lecture 1: Capitalism is Doomed to Fail
Lecture 2: The Suffering Under Capitalism

***Session 2 : Islamic Perspective on Economy***
Lecture 1: How Wealth is Distributed Justly
Lecture 2: Life Under the Islamic Economic System

***Session 3 : Rise of Islam***
Lecture 1: Global Activism for Islamic Revival
Lecture 2: Role of Muslims in America

Now, let's move to some excerpts from a recent article at Fox News:

A group committed to establishing an international Islamic empire and reportedly linked to Al Qaeda is stepping up its Western recruitment efforts by holding its first official conference in the U.S.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a global Sunni network with reported ties to confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Al Qaeda in Iraq's onetime leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It has operated discreetly in the U.S. for decades.

Now, it is coming out of the shadows and openly hosting a July 19 conference entitled, "The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam," at a posh Hilton hotel in a suburb of Chicago.

[...]

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is one of the group's most famous alumni, New Statesman journalist Shiv Malik reported, citing intelligence sources. In addition to plotting the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he also is implicated in the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, the Bali nightclub bombings and the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

...Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq until he was killed in June 2006, also was once a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

...[O]ther former members include Asif Muhammad Hanif, a British man who blew himself up outside a bar in Tel Aviv, killing four people (including himself) and wounding more than 50; and Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical cleric currently banned from Britain who praised the 9/11 attacks, raised funds for Hezbollah and Hamas and called for attacks on the Dublin airport because U.S. troops transfered there on their way to Iraq....

[...]

Hizb ut-Tahrir's official ruling on the permissibility of hijacking planes says, "If the plane belongs to a country at war with Muslims, like Israel, it is allowed to hijack it, for there is no sanctity for Israel nor for the Jews in it."

And one of the organization's more recent leaflets, published in March, calls for the declaration of "a state of war against America."

Read the entire article HERE. There is much more!

If someone had told me on September 12, 2001, that such a conference would be held here in America less than eight years after 9/11, I'd have said, "You're CRAZY!" Yet, that very insanity is exactly what's happening.

Over three years ago at my first web site, I posted this. That posting, which discussed everyday, average Moslems' yearnings for the caliphate, received over 200 comments, was based on a front-page article in the Washington Post and mentioned Hizb ut-Tahrir as follows:

an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Nevertheless, Hizb ut-Tahrir is welcomed to the Grand Ballroom of a Hilton Hotel right outside Chicago? I suppose that we should be grateful the conference is not being held right outside two 9/11 targets: New York City and Washington, D.C.

I'll end conclude this posting in the same way I ended "The Caliphate" three and one-half years ago:

Are we standing before an abyss which we cannot comprehend and refuse to admit the very existence of?

"I had to get my gun" said Mableton man, 83, in shoot-out with home invader

A quick-thinking 83-year-old Mableton man foiled a home invader’s plans when he escaped bondage and shot the bandit.

John Parrish saved the day Tuesday with a pair of scissors and a .22-caliber revolver, police and a grateful son-in-law said.

“John Wayne is what we call him now,” said Danny Carlson, a tennis instructor who owns the home and who was shot in the right calf Tuesday as the octogenarian and the suspect exchanged gunfire.

“I don’t know what that guy would’ve done had he [Parrish] not come up here.”

Tuesday before 1 p.m., an armed man entered the basement of Carlson’s house on Nickajack Road, and encountered Parrish’s wife, Margaret.

Parrish and his wife occupy the basement’s in-law suite.

She’d heard her puppies barking and went to the bathroom to check on them, Carson said.

“As soon as she cracked the door, he grabbed her by the hair, put the gun in her ear and said, ‘If you make a sound, I’ll blow your brains out,’” John Parrish said Wednesday afternoon.

LINK

Indonesia Bomb Victims Were Attending Business Forum

By TOM WRIGHT
Some of the victims of Indonesia's deadly hotel bombings were attending an Indonesian business forum held at Jakarta's J.W. Marriott hotel Friday morning.

The meeting, organized by CastleAsia, a well-known Indonesian consulting firm run by an American, was part of a series of events sponsored by the firm that gathers prominent business executives and political leaders to discuss Indonesian affairs.

Timothy Mackay, chief executive of Holcim Indonesia, the local unit of Swiss cement maker Holcim Ltd., was killed attending the event. James Castle, CastleAsia's founder and a well-known analyst on Indonesian affairs, was among those injured. An employee at CastleAsia said he was recovering at a Jakarta hospital from unspecified injuries. Mr. Castle was also in the J.W. Marriott when it was bombed in 2003, killing 12, but he was not injured in that incident.

Friday's meeting was attended by a total of 19 senior business leaders. Another guest, Noke Kiroyan, a former chairman of Rio Tinto's Indonesian operations, was also there and taken to a Jakarta hospital and was being treated for injuries.

At least eight people were killed when bombs ripped through both the J.W. Marriott and the nearby Ritz Carlton in Jakarta early Friday morning. The largest explosion occurred in the lobby of the JW Marriott, eyewitnesses said. The business group was meeting in a conference room just off the lobby.

LINK

Convict And Terrorist Denied Access To BHO's Books

As pointed out yesterday by Pastorius and Z, BHO's books have been deemed as problematic by the most secure federal prison in the United States. Both Z have Pastorius cited this article from the AP in their postings. Excerpt from the AP article:

No Obama books for Supermax con

MCLEAN, Va. — The federal government's most secure prison has determined that two books written by President Barack Obama contain material "potentially detrimental to national security" and rejected an inmate's request to read them.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali [valedictorian graduate of the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax County, Virginia] is serving a 30-year sentence at the federal Supermax prison in Florence for joining al-Qaeda and plotting to assassinate then-President George W. Bush. Last year, Abu Ali requested two books written by Obama: "Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope." But prison officials, citing guidance from the FBI, determined that passages in both books contain information that could damage national security....

Although the prison ban of BHO's books relates to pages about foreign affairs, Pastorius also reminds us that BHO's books promote racism and cites the following brief excerpt from Dreams of My Father:



In other words, "white folks' greed" is the cause of all the world's problems.

More words from BHO:



A bit of speculation now on my part....No wonder that Ahmed Abu Ali, terrorist graduate from Terror High (aka the Islamic Saudi Academy) wants to check out BHO's books, even though Abu Ali is of Arab descent and not black. By reading BHO's books, Abu Ali can continue to feed his perpetual attitude of victimhood because the words "The West" could be easily substituted for "white folks," "white people," "white" anything. Or perhaps Abu Ali wants to reinforce his anti-American views by reading BHO's books.

Abu Ali may sue so as to get access to BHO's books:

He already has a lawyer, who spoke to the AP briefly about this episode. Abu Ali also filed a handwritten prison complaint form, saying the Obama book rejections “violate my 1st Amend. rights.”

An official at Abu Ali’s prison, in Florence, Colo., referred comment to the FBI, where a spokesperson said she was still looking into the matter.

For the record, the prison cited one questionable page in “Dreams from my Father” and 22 such pages in “The Audacity of Hope.”

He must really want those books, which he apparently asked for even before BHO was elected:

The report says the prisoner...requested Obama’s books last year before he won the presidency. After being denied, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali began a hunger strike (he has since started eating again).

I thought that felons automatically lost certain civil rights, particularly while in prison. Apparently not.

By the way, Moslem racism toward blacks is well documented. It is unlikely that fundamentalist Moslem and aspiring Presidential murderer Abu Ali wants to read BHO's books out of admiration for the author.

Let me pose this question: Is it alarming that something in books written by a sitting President of the United States is so dangerous that Abu Ali has been denied access to those books?

I despise Birth-Control

"I despise Birth-Control": G.K. Chesterton on Babies and Distributism | From The Well and the Shallows | Ignatius Insight


I hope it is not a secret arrogance to say that I do not think I am exceptionally arrogant; or if I were, my religion would prevent me from being proud of my pride. Nevertheless, for those of such a philosophy, there is a very terrible temptation to intellectual pride, in the welter of wordy and worthless philosophies that surround us today. Yet there are not many things that move me to anything like a personal contempt. I do not feel any contempt for an atheist, who is often a man limited and constrained by his own logic to a very sad simplification. I do not feel any contempt for a Bolshevist, who is a man driven to the same negative simplification by a revolt against very positive wrongs. But there is one type of person for whom I feel what I can only call contempt. And that is the popular propagandist of what he or she absurdly describes as Birth-Control.

I despise Birth-Control first because it is a weak and wobbly and cowardly word. It is also an entirely meaningless word; and is used so as to curry favour even with those who would at first recoil from its real meaning. The proceeding these quack doctors recommend does not control any birth. It only makes sure that there shall never be any birth to control. It cannot for instance, determine sex, or even make any selection in the style of the pseudo-science of Eugenics. Normal people can only act so as to produce birth; and these people can only act so as to prevent birth. But these people know perfectly well as I do that the very word Birth-Prevention would strike a chill into the public, the instant it was blazoned on headlines, or proclaimed on platforms, or scattered in advertisements like any other quack medicine. They dare not call it by its name, because its name is very bad advertising. Therefore they use a conventional and unmeaning word, which may make the quack medicine sound more innocuous.

THE BEST MUSIC EVER COMPOSED

Vivaldi - Trio Sonata in D Minor "La Folia" RV63


Thanks to HARMONICO101

Vivaldi - Gloria - 1 - Gloria in excelsis Deo - King's College Choir


Thanks to margotlorena




Thanks to HARMONICO101

Pachelbel - Canon in D - Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra


Thanks to margotlorena

Is America Number 1?

Thanks to payeco

Rick Warren To Partner With ISNA

I'll admit something up front: I've never much cared for Rick Warren. I can't explain why I had that reaction to him from start.

A lot of Christians hold him in high esteem and love his preaching and his writing. I can't say the same from my own perspective. Instead, I find his message hollow and filled with the social gospel.

Now comes this:

Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book The Purpose-Driven Life and one with some weight among Christians, appears to be promoting Christo-Islam, i.e., syncretism, another manifestation of delusional and self-delusional kumbaya.

From this source:

The Indiana-based Islamic Society of North America will be holding its annual convention -- the largest yearly gathering of Muslims on the continent -- in Washington, D.C. over the Fourth of July weekend.

And while convention leaders are holding out hope that President Barack Obama might make the convention his latest stop in his outreach to the Muslim world, the convention has landed another pretty big fish as a featured speaker.

Purpose-Driven pastor Rick Warren has agreed to appear at the convention and be part of its main session discussing the convention's theme -- "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." Joining Warren for the session is ISNA President Ingrid Mattson and noted Muslim scholar Hamza Yusuf.

Warren's scheduled visit to the convention follows ISNA leader Sayyid Syeed's appearance last December at Warren's Saddleback Civil Forum on Public Health. Warren was unavailable this week to comment about the appearance.

His involvement with ISNA follows the Muslim organization's attempt to build partnerships with people of other faiths, including the Union of Reform Judaism and the American Baptist Churches....

Please see Front Page Magazine's index of articles about the ISNA. What a web of Islamist connections!

Excerpt from this FPM article by Joe Kaufman:

Both the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) present themselves as mainstream Muslim organizations, yet in reality they are part of a radical Muslim movement which exists for the purpose of doing harm to America and Western interests abroad.

[...]

ISNA, said to be the largest Muslim organization in North America, has its roots in the extremist Muslim Brotherhood overseas, the same group responsible for the formation of Hamas and most other international terror entities.

[...]

Besides its connection to Hamas, ISNA is involved in the propagation of hate materials. ISNA and its sister organization, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), run an Islamic Book Service for the United States and Canada. The service consists of texts written by leaders of the Brotherhood and a version of the Quran, The Meaning of the Holy Qur’an, which has been banned by the Los Angeles school system for having numerous anti-Semitic commentaries....

What purpose is driving Rick Warren to partner with a group with terrorist ties? Is he ignorant of those ties? Is he planning to preach the Gospel to ISNA? Not likely.

Rick Warren has previously been criticized for buddying up with Islamists before. From this source, back in 2006:

In his Tuesday, November 28th column, the sixth in a blistering barrage, critical of Warren, Joe Farah had some less than cordial things to say about the Saddleback padre's Purpose Driven powwow with the leader of a terrorist nation:

"Let's be clear about what Rick Warren did and why he is being criticized.

It's not because he met with Syrian President Bashar Assad. In fact, I would encourage any Christian leader who can get in Assad's face to do so. He needs to be called to account for keeping Christians in Syria in a state of "dhimmi" status. He needs to be called to account for murdering Christian political leaders like Pierre Gemayel. He needs to be called to account for his continued repression of his own people as well as those of Lebanon. He needs to be called to account for his support for the terrorist organization Hezbollah. He needs to be called to account for allowing his country to play host to more terrorist organizations than any other country in the world.

So, I did not criticize him for meeting with Assad. I criticized him for playing footsie with the dictator, for giving him cover to continue his atrocities against believers and non-believers alike, for lying to the world about the state of the church in Syria and for not even mentioning Assad's bellicose threats to the very existence of the state of Israel."

But you see, what Warren was doing in Syria is what he's been doing all along here in America and around the world with the dialectic church - withholding inconvenient truths about sin and the call to repentance for the sake of Results and Relationships. Going soft on sinners is his specialty! That's how you "build bridges," exponentially grow churches and dialectically achieve "unity in diversity" - by putting absolutes aside and dialoguing differences away until everyone's conscience is seared and conviction vanishes in the ambiguity of religious relativism.

Somebody, tell Rick Warren, "When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas."

As I was doing research for this posting, I stumbled across this interview of Rick Warren in the Atlantic. The title of the interview is "The Rick Warren Interview: No Compromise With Evil." In my view, Rick Warren isn't living up to the second part of that title with his upcoming speaking engagement at ISNA's upcoming convention.

BHO's Impeachable Offense?

Maybe so.

Democrat Claire McCaskill doesn't go quite that far but does raise concerns:

A short time ago, Sen. Claire McCaskill, a former Missouri state auditor who works closely with IGs in the federal government, issued a statement critical of the termination. Her statement didn’t mention the controversy surrounding the former NBA star but noted that she had authored a law requiring that IGs be given 30 days advance notice of dismissal along with the casue for termination.

“The White House has failed to follow the proper procedure in notifying Congress as to the removal” of Walpin, wrote McCaskill, a Democrat.

“Loss of confidence is not a sufficient reason. I’m hopeful the White House will provide a more substantive rationale, in writing, as quickly as possible,” she concluded.

According to Hot Air:

Did the Obama administration rush to close a probe into fraud committed by a political ally before discovering obstruction of justice? The Sacramento Bee reports that a former official at St. HOPE alleges that now-Mayor Kevin Johnson’s emails relating to the fraudulent use of money were deleted from the servers in order to obstruct the investigation that Gerald Walpin conducted

[...]

[I]t looks like the White House...rushed a conclusion to the investigation without checking on the cooperation of the accused or even determining whether they had seen all of the evidence. And when the independent Inspector General tried to make that very point, the White House attacked him instead of the person who defrauded the government and may have obstructed justice on top of it.

Democrats screeched about the politicization of the Department of Justice when Bush asked for the resignations of political appointees who worked completely at his pleasure. They assumed that Bush wanted the US Attorneys out of the way for political reasons. Here we have a White House attacking an IG, authorized by both Congress and the White House and supposedly independent, for objecting to a political payoff for a high-profile Obama supporter. When do we hear that same outrage over politicization of law enforcement?

What took Nixon down? Any similarities with what BHO has done?

Hinckley gets more time away from mental hospital

Jun 16 04:31 PM US/Eastern
By NEDRA PICKLER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - John Hinckley, who tried to kill President Ronald Reagan nearly three decades ago, can spend more time away from his psychiatric hospital and apply for a driver's license, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman found that Hinckley's health will probably improve with more freedom and that he wouldn't be a danger to himself or others.

Hinckley has been committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington since he shot and wounded Reagan, press secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent and a policeman on March 30, 1981, as Reagan left a downtown hotel. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He said he shot Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster.

LINK

Iran: Clashes Within

Excerpts from today's Washington Post story are below the fold:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared a "new beginning" for Iran late Saturday after he was declared victor in the presidential election, but as he spoke on national television violent demonstrations rolled through several areas of Tehran. Supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi burned dumpsters, threw stones and clashed with police in the worst rioting in Tehran in many years.

What new beginning is Ahmadinejad talking about? The same mullah-controlled thug will be at the helm of Iran. Supposedly, he had a landslide victory:

The Interior Ministry, controlled by Ahmadinejad, announced that he had been elected in the first round with 62.6 percent of the vote, compared with less than 34 percent for Mousavi, who was the leading challenger. Turnout was a record 86 percent of the 46.2 million eligible voters.

Oh, really? Check out this information about the 2005 election, which brought Ahmadinejad to power. Should we believe that this 2009 election was run with more integrity?

According to today's Washington Post:

Announcement of the results triggered protests throughout the day. Families lined the streets in the middle-class neighborhood of Saadat Abad, cheering on the demonstration and shouting, "Death to the dictator!"

[...]

Talks between Iran and the United States are still a possibility with Ahmadinejad at the helm. On several occasions, he has said he wants such talks. His oft-repeated verbal attacks on Israel are not expected to change.

So, no fresh start, really.

Meanwhile,

The White House released a two-sentence statement...

In Tehran, Mousavi's whereabouts were unknown. Reporters on their way to a news conference by the former candidate were stopped by security personnel, who said the meeting had been canceled. Several journalists were beaten.

[...]

"We are hopeful," Ahmadinejad said during his speech. "Now it's time to move on and continue to build our great Iran."

In essence, Ahmadinejad is speaking of change and hope. No wonder BHO cuts him so much slack.

With all this unrest over the election in Iran going on right now, BHO's weekly address was about healthcare reform, also the topic on the lead page of the White House web site. Not a word of support for the oppressed people of Iran. Does that community not matter to him?



ADDENDUM: More from Gateway Pundit.

Swine Flu Vaccine Possible, SD Sees 2 More Cases

By Susanne Rust of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Jun. 12, 2009 5:42 p.m.

Health officials are reporting a second swine flu death in Milwaukee.

The case involves an adult who did not have any of the common underlying medical conditions that typically put people at risk from the flu.

The first death, reported on June 4, involved an individual who was vulnerable to the virus because of an underlying medical condition.

"We can not stress enough that swine flu continues to be a serious concern throughout the nation and within our community," Bevan Baker, commissioner of the Milwaukee Health Department, said in a statement.

The announcement comes on the heels of the World Health Organization's elevation of swine flu alert to a pandemic level.


LINK

US swine flu cases rise to 18,000

June 12, 5:16 PM

Almost 5,000 new cases of swine flu, or H1N1 virus, have been declared in the US this week. The WHO also declared swine flu to be a full-blown pandemic this week, meaning that it will eventually affect all countries worldwide.

The CDC has confirmed 45 deaths in the US so far from swine flu.

In Colorado, the first case of swine flu was confirmed in Mesa County after a young guest attended a wedding with 200 guests. There were guests at the wedding from Utah who had the virus.

LINK

Video Taken June 4: Little Rock, Arkansas

(Hat tip to Creeping Sharia)

The following video was filmed in front of the Army-Navy Recruiting Station, where Pvt. William Long was murdered earlier this week by "the Arkansas jihadist":



From this source, which may offer periodic updates:

Secure Arkansas organized a rally in rememberance of the first terrorist attack since 9/11. Pvt. William Long was killed and Pvt. Quinton I. Ezeagwula was wounded by Carlos Leon (aka Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad).

Channel 11 was the only TV crew out there with a camera, and the AR Dem Gazette sent a reporter and a photographer. The event had several speakers who did a wonderful job. Video footage of them will be uploaded soon. However, the most shocking part of the event was when a muslim fanatic crashed the event. The fanatic drove by and yelled at us, then parked in the parking lot and stood out with a homemade sign yelling anti-American and later anti-Semetic comments.

Had this been a ceremony for Tiller, this would have been the top story for both local and national media. Since it isn't a top story, it's up to you to send this to as many people as possible....

Contrary to what the muslimatoon say in the video, many of us do indeed know "what is Islam."

This is Hope

LINK

Saudi King Abdullah shows US President Barack Obama a certificate after giving him a gold necklace at the King's Farm in Janadriyah, Saudi Arabia. Obama is attempting to open a dialogue with the Muslim world by visiting Abdullah and delivering a major speech in Cairo later this week.

From The New York Post

Obama calls for 'new beginning' with Muslim world

The Washington Times
By Christina Bellantoni

To punctuate his call for a two-state solution to end the stalemate between Israelis and Palestinians, Mr. Obama used the often avoided term "Palestine."

He lauded the unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel but said "the pain of dislocation" for Palestinian people who live daily without peace or security is "intolerable," and pledged America would not turn its back on them.

"The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met," he said, to applause, promising he would pursue that solution with patience.

"For peace to come it is time for them and all of us to live up to our responsibilities," he said.

He said Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israels right to exist.

But in a line that drew applause, Mr. Obama repeated his promise the United States would not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements along the West Bank.

LINK

Muslim Brotherhood Members to Attend Obama's Cairo Speech

The expected attendance of the Brotherhood members is already stirring some criticism from conservatives in the U.S. who say they do not represent the kind of moderate Muslims Obama should be appealing to.

FOXNews.com

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Egyptian lawmakers from the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood are expected to attend President Obama's highly anticipated speech to the Muslim world Thursday in Cairo.

Khaled Hamza, editor of the Muslim Brotherhood Web site, confirmed to FOXNews.com that 10 members of the Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc received official invitations to attend the speech.

The list includes Mohammed Saad el-Katatni, head of the parliamentary bloc.

LINK

Obama pressure on Israel draws concerns in U.S.

Wed Jun 3, 2009 4:53pm EDT

By Susan Cornwell and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON, June 3 (Reuters) - As President Barack Obama courts Muslims in the Middle East, his pressure on Israel to halt Jewish settlement activity in occupied territory is starting to raise some concerns at home.

Some U.S. lawmakers are urging Obama to use caution in pressuring Israel, underscoring the political difficulty facing Obama as he tries to develop a more evenhanded policy toward Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel has strong supporters in the U.S. Congress, where Obama's fellow Democrats hold a majority and where most lawmakers are traditionally protective of the strongest U.S. ally in the Middle East, providing the Jewish state about $2.5 billion a year in aid.

Both political parties are raising doubts about Obama's pressure on Israel even as the president tours the Middle East, where he plans to address the Muslim world in Cairo on Thursday.

Before he left, Obama told National Public Radio that "a freeze on settlements, including natural growth, is part of (Israel's) obligations" -- a message he conveyed directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month.

Referring to Obama's demands for a freeze on settlements in the West Bank, Representative Anthony Weiner said, "I think the president went beyond where I think it was appropriate for us to go in dealing with another democracy."

LINK

EXCLUSIVE: Al Qaeda eyes bio attack from Mexico

Seeks white militias as allies
By Sara A. Carter (Contact) | Wednesday, June 3, 2009

U.S. counterterrorism officials have authenticated a video by an al Qaeda recruiter threatening to smuggle a biological weapon into the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border, the latest sign of the terrorist group's determination to stage another mass-casualty attack on the U.S. homeland.

The video aired earlier this year as a recruitment tool makes clear that al Qaeda is looking to exploit weaknesses in U.S. border security and also is willing to ally itself with white militia groups or other anti-government entities interested in carrying out an attack inside the United States, according to counterterrorism officials interviewed by The Washington Times.

The officials, who spoke only on the condition they not be named because of the sensitive nature of their work, stressed that there is no credible information that al Qaeda has acquired the capabilities to carry out a mass biological attack although its members have clearly sought the expertise.

LINK

Obama: U.S., Saudi Arabia have 'strategic relationship'

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (CNN) -- President Obama, on the first leg of a Mideast trip, said Wednesday that he is confident the United States and Saudi Arabia can "make progress on a whole host of issues of mutual interest."

Shortly after his arrival Wednesday in Saudi Arabia, Obama and King Abdullah went to the Saudi ruler's farm for a welcoming reception. The two leaders met privately afterward.

Obama said he was "struck by his wisdom and his graciousness. Obviously the United States and Saudi Arabia have a long history of friendship. We have a strategic relationship."

"And as I take this trip -- and I will be visiting Cairo tomorrow, I thought it was very important to come to the place where Islam began and to seek his majesty's counsel and to discuss with him many of the issues that we confront here in the Middle East," he added.

Obama leaves late Wednesday for Cairo, Egypt, where he is to address a mostly Muslim audience Thursday (6 a.m. ET).

His plans to improve America's image among Muslims have been in the works since his first week in office.

"My job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect," Obama said in a January interview with Al-Arabiya television network.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/03/obama.mideast.trip/index.html

Source: Arkansas Shooting Suspect Searched Targeted Sites on Google

FOX NEWS

The suspect in a deadly military recruiting center shooting in Little Rock, Ark., conducted Google Map searches of several sites there and in other U.S. cities, a law enforcement official tells FOX News.

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security sent out an "e-mail alert" Tuesday night to local and state law enforcement, according to the official. The source said they did not issue an "intelligence assessment" about the 23-year-old accused shooter, Abdulhakim Muhammad, as has been reported.

"Although the June 1 shooting was limited to Little Rock ... [we] notified specific cities, and out of an abundance of caution, issued the alert because additional subjects, targets or the potential for inspired copycats could not be ruled out," the official told FOX. "This remains an open and ongoing FBI investigation."

Also Wednesday, The Associated Press, also citing an unnamed official, said some of the sites searched and mapped out on Google were Jewish organizations, a child care center, a Baptist church, a post office and military recruiting centers in the southeastern U.S. and New York and Philadelphia.

After Monday's attack outside the Army-Navy Career Center in Little Rock, detectives scoured a computer linked to Muhammad, where they said they discovered the research into multiple sites in different states.

LINK

Obama Says U.S. Could Be Seen as a Muslim Country, Too

NEW YORK TIMES

By Jeff Zeleny

HAHN, Germany — As President Obama prepared to leave Washington to fly to the Middle East, he conducted several television and radio interviews at the White House to frame the goals for a five-day trip, including the highly-anticipated speech Thursday at Cairo University in Egypt.

In an interview with Laura Haim on Canal Plus, a French television station, Mr. Obama noted that the United States also could be considered as “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” He sought to downplay the expectations of the speech, but he said he hoped the address would raise awareness about Muslims.

“Now, I think it’s very important to understand that one speech is not going to solve all the problems in the Middle East,” Mr. Obama said. “And so I think expectations should be somewhat modest.”

LINK

Pravda: America's Descent Into Marxism

The April 27, 2009 article, "American Capitalism Gone with a Whimper," cites three factors for the descent:

1. the dumbing down of the people via the educational system;

2. the destruction of the people's faith in God;

3. the election of BHO to the Oval Office.

Regarding BHO, the article states the following:

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison....

The article concludes as follows:

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

Read the entire article HERE.

Mohamed ElBaradei Insists That Iranians "Are Not Fanatics"

From this article in Newsweek, with regard to the bargaining style of the Iranians, in ElBaradei's own words:

...They know what they want. They are excellent on the strategic goals, excellent on waiting for the right price. I don't want to make them sound like superhumans; you do see a lot of infighting among them. And part of it is about who is going to get credit for finally breaking out of this 30 years of fighting and confrontation with the United States. Everybody is positioning himself to be the national hero who would finally put Iran back onto the world map as part of the mainstream. They are not like the stereotyped fanatics bent on destroying everybody around them. They are not.

And this fellow - a Moslem and member of the ummah, of course - has been doing the following, according to Newsweek's own introduction to the article:

As head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei has spent the past 11 years trying to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. The Nobel Peace Prize winner recently spoke to NEWSWEEK'S Christopher Dickey about his intense, often frustrating dialogue with the Iranians—and with the Americans.

ElBaradei hasn't done a good job of keeping Iran from going nuclear. Iran has been proceeding in that direction for much of the time that ElBaradei has been employed by the IAEA.

Please see this May 16, 2009 posting by Reliapundit for one example of how ElBaradei rebukes Israel. He doesn't use that same tone about or with Iran.

Just how did ElBaradei merit receiving the Nobel Peace Prize?

Bomb Case Raises Issue of Islam in Jails

By GARY FIELDS and SUZANNE SATALINE
The Wall Street Journal

The possibility that the alleged New York bomb plotters converted to Islam in prison and adopted radical views could provide evidence of how the criminal-justice system can be fertile ground for terrorist recruitment.

Authorities said they believed all four men charged in the attack were Muslim and that some may have converted in prison. It isn't clear whether these conversions were linked to the radical views officials say they espoused while plotting to bomb two New York City synagogues and shoot down U.S. military planes.

The men were arrested Wednesday in a months-long undercover operation that ended with them allegedly placing what they thought were real explosives in front of the synagogues. The plot was monitored by federal authorities who provided the suspects with fake explosives. The men remain in custody and face federal conspiracy charges.

LINK

For This Memorial Day

Information about the above video:

On September 21st, 2007, my grandfather, Ernest Wilson McGeorge, who was a Lieutenant in France during WWII, was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. I edited the video and photographic footage of that service into this memorial for him.

For those curious, the video uses the song Chi Mi Na Mór-Bheanna performed by The Rankin Family. It is a Scottish Gaelic song about returning to an idyllic homeland. (Ernest is of Scottish descent.) Among other connections, it was sung at JFK's memorial service. I sung this at Ernest's graveside during the service.

Remember to observe Memorial Day as more than merely a time of boisterous and joyful gatherings. Suggestions HERE. One of those suggestions:

At 3 p.m....pause and think upon the true meaning of the day...

Chop Chop Square

Excerpt from a recent article in the Walrus Magazine, with thanks to Mark Alexander of A New Dark Age Is Dawning:

A SLENDER SWORD — four feet of shining steel, curved at the end — hovers high above a kneeling figure shrouded in white. Only the kneeler’s neck is exposed. Sixty or so men watch from the edge of a granite courtyard, behind a patchy line of eight soldiers in tan uniforms. The man wielding the sword looms high, almost spectral, in a flowing white dishdasha and a red-checked headcloth. He is ready to swing but then steps back. He huddles with two police and the one person who can make this stop: the victim of the crime that’s being punished.

The huddle breaks, and the executioner retakes his position, left of the condemned. He sets his right leg forward and his left leg back, as if about to stretch his left calf. Sunlight flashes on the blade as he draws it above his head.

This is Saudi Arabia, one of the last places on earth where capital punishment is a public spectacle. Decapitation awaits murderers, but the death penalty also applies to many other crimes, such as armed robbery, rape, adultery, drug use and trafficking, and renouncing Islam. There’s a woman on death row now for witchcraft, and the charge is based partly on a man’s accusation that her spell made him impotent. Saudi Arabia executed some 1,750 convicts between 1985 and 2008, yet reliable information about the practice is scarce. In Riyadh, beheadings happen at 9 a.m. any given day of the week, and there is no advance notice. There is also no written penal code, so questions of illegality depend on the on-the-spot interpretations of police and judges.

What’s certain is that the Koran guides the justice system, with some laws passed to address areas the holy book does not. The Saudi interpretation of the Koran discourages all forms of evidence other than confessions and eyewitness accounts in capital trials, on the theory that doing otherwise would leave too much discretion to the judge. But at any time until the sword strikes, a victim’s family can pardon the condemned — usually for a cash settlement of at least two million riyals ($690,000 or so) from the convict or his family....

Here's the concluding paragraph of the article:

The executioner wipes his blade with a white cloth that he then tosses away. It flutters in small arcs as two men in blue jumpsuits descend from the yellow van, hoist the body, and lay it on a stretcher. One grabs the head by the cloth tube that covers it. A loudspeaker lists the decapitated man’s crimes: rape, drug trafficking, and possession. The executioner sheathes his sword. A thickly bearded soldier claps his hands and wipes them against each other in the air — that’s it. By 9:05, the only other person in Chop Chop Square is a janitor, hosing down the granite.

Read it all HERE.

Our Saudi "allies" -- a bloodthirsty lot, huh?

Just why do so many Westerners who strongly oppose the death penalty pretend that Saudi isn't carrying out the death penalty in such a public and gruesome fashion?

Myths About Gun Laws

Thanks to shmodzilla

Savage Banned : Limbaugh and Hannity Silent ?

CNN Interview Michael Savage confronts his political ban from the UK

From goppatriots

'Islam Day' in Hawaii ?

HONOLULU – Hawaii's state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday to celebrate "Islam Day" — over the objections of a few lawmakers who said they didn't want to honor a religion connected to Sept. 11, 2001.

The Senate's two Republicans argued that a minority of Islamic extremists have killed many innocents in terrorist attacks.

"I recall radical Islamists around the world cheering the horrors of 9/11. That is the day all civilized people of all religions should remember," said Republican Sen. Fred Hemmings to the applause of more than 100 people gathered in the Senate to oppose a separate issue — same-sex civil unions.

The resolution to proclaim Sept. 24, 2009, as Islam Day passed the Senate on a 22-3 vote. It had previously passed the House.

The bill seeks to recognize "the rich religious, scientific, cultural and artistic contributions" that Islam and the Islamic world have made. It does not call for any spending or organized celebration of Islam Day.

Source

UK Minister Who Blacklisted American Talk Show Host May Lose Her Post

Thursday, May 07, 2009
By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor

(CNSNews.com) – The senior British government minister who included U.S. radio talk show host Michael Savage on a list of people banned from the U.K. for “stirring up hatred” may lose her post in a forthcoming cabinet reshuffle.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has courted controversy in her position, which focuses on law and order, but the threat to her cabinet career stems from a dispute over housing expenses claims, according to reports in Fleet Street tabloids Wednesday.

The expenses row was exacerbated earlier this year by the embarrassing revelation that her husband, Richard Timney, had included the cost of two pornographic pay-per-view movies on Smith’s parliamentary expenses claim.

LINK

Maine Governor Signs Bill Allowing Gay Marriage

Gov. John Baldacci signed the legislation shortly after the Maine legislature passed it Wednesday.

AP

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

AUGUSTA, Maine -- Maine's governor signed a freshly passed bill Wednesday approving gay marriage, making it the fifth state to approve the practice and moving New England closer to allowing it throughout the region.

New Hampshire legislators were also poised to send a gay marriage bill to their governor, who hasn't indicated whether he'll sign it. If he does, Rhode Island would be the region's sole holdout.

The Maine Senate voted 21-13, with one absent, for a bill that authorizes marriage between any two people rather than between one man and one woman, as state law currently allows. The House had passed the bill Tuesday.

Democratic Gov. John Baldacci, who hadn't previously indicated how he would handle the bill, signed it shortly afterward. In the past, he said he opposed gay marriage but supported civil unions, which provide many benefits of marriage.

LINK

EXCLUSIVE: Secret U.S.-Israel nuclear accord in jeopardy

EXCLUSIVE:

President Obama's efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons threaten to expose and derail a 40-year-old secret U.S. agreement to shield Israel's nuclear weapons from international scrutiny, former and current U.S. and Israeli officials and nuclear specialists say.

The issue will likely come to a head when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Mr. Obama on May 18 in Washington. Mr. Netanyahu is expected to seek assurances from Mr. Obama that he will uphold the U.S. commitment and will not trade Israeli nuclear concessions for Iranian ones.

Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, speaking Tuesday at a U.N. meeting on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), said Israel should join the treaty, which would require Israel to declare and relinquish its nuclear arsenal.

LINK

Not all Brits are whiny liberals, Michael Savage

What's the definition of a racist? A conservative winning an argument. What's the definition of someone of "such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence"? Ditto.

Jacqui Smith has banned American radio host Michael Savage from Britain, further evidence that the ideology of easily-offended liberalism, often known by that overused expression Political Correctness, is a danger to freedom.

Our joke of a Home Secretary called Savage "someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country."

He's been placed on a list along with almost a dozen Islamist nutjobs, including Yunis Al-Astal, the leader of the Islamist terrorist group Hamas, which has murdered hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis. There are also some old school white extremists linked to violent organisations, such as former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard Stephen Donald and a couple of Russian skinhead leaders. Savage, a slightly more forthright version of Richard Littlejohn or Jon Gaunt, sits oddly at ease with this crowd.

LINK

This Week On The Gathering Storm

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, which WC and I cohost. The show broadcasts live every Friday beginning at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is (646) 915-9870.

Callers welcome!

Our guest today at the bottom of the hour is Tracy of No Compromise When You're Right! Tracy also has a cutting-edge radio show on Blog Talk Radio and is the head of the Seattle chapter of Act! For America.

Listen to the May 8, 2009 edition of The Gathering Storm Radio Show, live or later, by CLICKING HERE.

UPCOMING SHOWS:
May 15: Frank Salvato
May 22: John Kenneth Press and Midnight Rider
May 29: Koran debate