Daniel in The Netherlands serves up this halal morsel: Prisoners in several jails around the Netherlands will only receive Halal food from now on. This is the result of a trade agreement between the Justice Department and cheap food delivery services which "happen to be" Halal.
The Justice Department says it is too expensive to offer prisoners a variety of menu's so instead they will only offer Halal food. One detained individual is now trying to bring the department to court: he believes being forced to eat Halal food is an extra punishment.
The film is unusual for its period, as the United States was still formally at peace with Nazi Germany. Chaplin's film advanced a stirring, controversial condemnation of Hitler, fascism, antisemitism, and the Nazis, the latter of whom he excoriates in the film as "machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts".
The film stars Chaplin as Hynkel and the barber, Paulette Goddard as Hannah, Jack Oakie as Napaloni, Reginald Gardiner as Schultz, Henry Daniell as Garbitsch and Billy Gilbert
as Field Marshal Herring, an incompetent adviser to Hynkel. Chaplin
stars in a double role as the Jewish barber and the fascist dictator
(or "Phooey", parodying "Führer") clearly modeled on Adolf Hitler.
The names of the aides of Adenoid Hynkel are parodies of those of
Hitler's. Garbitsch (pronounced "garbage"), the right hand man of
Hynkel, is a parody of Joseph Goebbels, and Field Marshal Herring was modeled after the Luftwaffe chief, Hermann Göring. The "Dig-a-ditchy" of Bacteria, Benzino Napaloni, was modeled after Italy's Il Duce, Benito Mussolini. Benzino is played with arrogant buffoonery by Jack Oakie.
Much of the film is taken up by Hynkel and Napaloni arguing over the
fate of Osterlich (Austria). Originally, Mussolini was opposed to the
German takeover since he saw Austria as a buffer-state between Germany
and Italy. The international community (in particular, France and Britain, Mussolini's Stresa front partners) did not share Italy's concern over German annexation of Austria and even supported League of Nations sanctions against Italy. In 1936, Mussolini submitted to Hitler's will, withdrew Italian troops from the Brenner Pass
along the Austrian border, and moved closer to Germany, as Hitler did
not apply sanctions against Italy. This conflict is almost forgotten
today given Italy's alliance with the German Third Reich during World War II.
The film contains several of Chaplin's most famous sequences. The
rally speech by Hynkel, delivered in German-sounding gibberish, is a
caricature of Hitler's oratory style, which Chaplin studied carefully
in newsreels.[4] The German words schnitzel, sauerkraut and liverwurst can be made out, as well as "Katzenjammer Kids"
and English phrases such as "cheese'n'crackers" and frequently "lager
beer", in the fake German Hynkel speaks during the rally and at other
points in the film when he is angry (though he normally speaks
English). Billy Gilbert as Herring is also required to improvise this
fake German at times, and at one point (where he is apologizing for
having accidentally knocked Hynkel down the stairs) he comes up with
the word "banana".
Chaplin is clearly taken by surprise and repeats, "Der banana?" before
incorporating the word into his own reply. Chaplin, as Hynkel, has a
tendency to remove Herring's medals when he gets angry. In the scene
where Hynkel receives news that Napaloni mobilized his troops along the
Osterlich border, Hynkel not only removed all of Herring's medals, but
removed all of his buttons on his shirt, revealing a striped shirt with
suspenders and then slaps Herring.
Chaplin, as the barber, shaves a customer in tune with a radio broadcast of Johannes Brahms's Hungarian Dance No. 5, recorded in one continuous take. The film's most celebrated sequence is the ballet dance between Hynkel and a balloon globe in his palatial office, set to Richard Wagner's Lohengrin Overture,
which is also used at the end of the film when the Jewish barber is
making the victory speech in Hynkel's place. The globe dance had its
origins in the late 1920s, when Chaplin was filmed at a Hollywood party doing an early version of the dance, with a globe and a Prussian military helmet (this footage appears in the documentary Unknown Chaplin).
The film ends with the barber, having been mistaken for the
dictator, delivering an address in front of a large audience and over
the radio to the nation, following the Tomainian take-over of Osterlich
(an obvious reference to the German Anschluss of Austria on March 12, 1938). The address is widely interpreted as an out-of-character personal plea from Chaplin.
Some of the signs in the shop windows of the ghettoized Jewish population in the film are written in Esperanto, a language which Hitler condemned as a Jewish plot to internationalize and destroy German culture.[5]
John Bolton in the UK magazine Standpoint (July - August 2009):
"The euphoria is over. It is time for a serious critique of Barack Obama’s foreign policy"
John Bolton: The Post-American PresidencyStandpoint
(UK) (6-25-09)
Judging a new
American President's national security policies after six months in office is a
perilous enterprise, especially in the case of Barack Obama, where constant
incantations of "change" and serial criticisms of his predecessor are the order
of the day.
Nonetheless, during the 2008 primaries, Democratic candidates
fiercely debated their respective abilities to handle the "3am call," and Joe
Biden later warned that the inexperienced Illinois Senator would be "tested"
early in his tenure. Now there is a partial record, and, more importantly, a
worldview on which we can grade Obama's performance.
Obama is the first
post-American President. Central to his worldview is rejecting American
exceptionalism and the consequences that flow therefrom. Since an overwhelming
majority of the world's population would welcome the demise of American
exceptionalism, they are delighted with Obama.
One student interviewed
after an Obama town hall meeting during his first presidential trip to Europe
said ecstatically, "He sounds like a European." Indeed he does.
Of
course, as a successful politician, Obama is never going to admit expressly that
he rejects a unique US role in the world. Asked during his trip about this very
subject, Obama responded, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I
suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe
in Greek exceptionalism." This answer, of course, proves precisely the opposite
of what Obama is ostensibly saying. If every country is exceptional, none is.
Obama is too smart not to know this and just slick enough to hope that US
listeners would tune out after his first phrase.
It fell to an admiring
media commentator to lift the cover more fully, and indeed unknowingly since he
intended a compliment. Following Obama's D-Day 65th anniversary speech, Newsweek
editor Evan Thomas contrasted him with Ronald Reagan in 1984...
Blow to Islamic supremacism: Texas Islamic Groups argued that Internet speech should be less protected than print, radio, or television speech. They lost.
Congratulations to the attorneys on the case for Plaintiff Joe
Kaufman (who won), who were:
Brandon Bolling, Thomas More Law Center, Ann Arbor, MI
Thomas Brandon, Whitaker Chalk, Ft. Worth, TX
William J. Becker, Jr., The Becker Law Firm, Los Angeles, CA
Manuel Klausner, Los Angeles, CA, Individual Rights Foundation
Good news: In a 36-page opinion in Kaufman v. Islamic Society of
Arlington County, Texas, et al., signed by Justice Terrie Livingston for a
3-judge panel, dated June 25, 2009, the Texas Court of Appeals (Second District,
Fort Worth) ruled as follows:
1. Found that "an [I]nternet communicator may qualify as a member of the
media" and denied the motion of the seven plaintiff/appellee Muslim
organizations to dismiss Kaufman's interlocutory appeal before trial. In a
significant ruling that may have impact beyond Texas, the court expressly
rejected the contention that Kaufman is not a "media defendant" under the Texas
statute that "gives procedural protection to "electronic or print media"
defendants. The court found that (a) Kaufman's journalistic experience, (b)
his" extensive notoriety" through his TV appearances, (c) his substantial
readership, (d) "the inherent public interest in the terrorism issues he
reports," and (e) his publishing his article online in Front Page Magazine, an
Internet publication with "broad readership and its existence as a
news/commentary medium that is independent from Kaufman’s article," entitled him
to the statutory protection to seek dismissal of an unmeritorious libel claim
before "the time-consuming and expensive trial phase"); and
2. Found the trial court erred in denying Kaufman's motion for summary
judgment contending that the Muslim organizations' defamation claims were barred
as a matter of law because Kaufman's article and his graphic were not
specifically directed towards the seven Muslim organizations -- and therefore
did not "concern" them as required under Texas defamation law -- and reversed
the trial court's order denying Kaufman's motion for summary judgment; and
UCLA law professor, Eugene Volokh, a prominent first amendment
scholar, posted the following item on Volokh.com concerning the court's opinion:
Texas Islamic Groups Argue That Internet Speech Should Be Less
Protected Than Print, Radio, or Television Speech:
The
Texas Court of Appeals disagrees, holding that a Texas statute that gives
procedural protection to "electronic or print media" defendants covers Internet
journalists on par with print journalists (and reaffirming that the First
Amendment does as well). The case is Kaufman v. Islamic
Society of Arlington, Texas; Kaufman is the defendant in the
underlying libel action, even though his name is listed first in the appeal --
the plaintiffs, who made the argument, were Islamic Society of Arlington, Texas,
Islamic Center of Irving, DFW Islamic Educational Center, Inc., Dar Elsalam
Islamic Center, Al Hedayah Islamic Center, Islamic Association of Tarrant Count,
and Muslim American Society of Dallas.
Here's
the core legal issue: A Texas statute allows pretrial appeals
of, among other things, an order that
denies a motion for summary judgment that is based in whole or in part
upon a claim against or defense by a member of the electronic or print media,
acting in such capacity, or a person whose communication appears in or is
published by the electronic or print media, arising under the free speech or
free press clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, or
Article I, Section 8, of the Texas Constitution, or Chapter 73.
Jailed Iranian reformists have been tortured in an attempt
to force them into TV "confessions" of a foreign-led plot against the Islamic
regime, it was alleged today, as the country's guardian
council buried hopes for any significant revision of the disputed
presidential election.
According to Iranian opposition websites, the "confessions" are aimed at
implicating Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi
Karroubi, the defeated reformist candidates, in an alleged conspiracy.
Mostafa Tajzadeh, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh and Mohsen Aminzadeh, all Mousavi
supporters, are reported to have undergone "intensive interrogation" sessions in
Tehran's Evin prison since Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election.
They are among several hundred activists, academics, journalists and students
detained
in a crackdown coinciding with the brutal suppression of street protests.
Prisoners
reportedly heard screams from Tajzadeh and Ramezanzadeh in Evin's section 209,
which is reserved for political prisoners and is run by the hardline
intelligence ministry. Aminzadeh, a former deputy foreign minister, was heard
shouting: "I am not going to give interviews."
Amnesty International said the reports came from "very credible sources".
8:40 pm: Streets of Tehran like a garrison. People are depressed and angry.
8:13 pm Dissident Hoda Saber, of the Freedom movement, and journalist Reza Alijani were freed. Taghti Rahmani was also released earlier. (hat tip Chad)
What is happening to the less visible political prisoners?
7:54 pm: Unconfirmed, but I am getting this repeatedly off the tweetdeck....that the most prolific and courageous twitter poster, Persian Kiwi, has been arrested. This is looking more like genocide. Where is the world? Where is America? Many of us who were following Persian Kiwi felt as if we knew PK personally. Another one of us ..........disappearing.
One of the many PK tweets: : I'm so sorry.I recived [sic]the persiankiwi arrest news from a honest source but I hope it's been incorrect.
Ali Hejvani & Ali Mosleh arrested. They are bloggers.
When Obama campaigned on change!, who could have imagined that he meant change from freedom lover to freedom snuffer.
Mahtab Nasirpour Homar Rusta (right)
7:25 pm: Tweeters getting arrested. Latest off the tweet deck: At least two actresses arrested : Homa Rusta & Mahtab Nasirpour.
7:01 pm: Ahmadinejad mocks Obama here. Perhaps this will galvanize the left and they will come out against Ahmadinejad in a furious way (ya know, they way they destroy Republicans). Ahmadinejad ridiculing their messiah? Let's see how BO's hos take off the jihad loving gloves and lace into the poison dwarf.
5:49: The illegal brutal government of Ahmadinejad has succeeding in quelling the street protests by mowing peaceful protesters down in the street over the past two weeks.
Groups of "hacktivists" — Web hackers demanding Internet freedom —
say they are targeting Web pages of Iran's leadership in response to
the regime's muzzling of blogs, news outlets and other sites.
It's
unclear how much the wired warriors have disrupted official Iranian
sites. Attempts by The Associated Press to access sites for state news
organizations, including the Islamic Republic News Agency and Fars, were unsuccessful — with a message saying the links were "broken."
Heh.
According to twitterers:Trading has come to a halt today and the Bazaar is virtually closed. Bazaar is are on strike
4:12 pm: Great American Rich Davis took up the cause of the brave in Iran at his weekly West Chester Victory rally on the corner of High and Market Street in West Chester, PA. oorah!
Rich writes me:
Today the American Sheepdogs, home of the Chester County Victory Movement
wore green wristbands as a show of solidarity with the brave protestors in Iran
who are being beaten and shot and taken away at night because they are standing
up against the brutal rdictator and mullahs that are running their
country.
All of us wore green wristband in the hope it will inspire other Americans
to show similar support for the courageous people in Iran. For years American
leadership has encouraged the people to rise up against the brutal Ahmadinejad
regime, and when they finally do, they got a tardy and weak response from Obama
who they were counting on for support. Most distressing is the way the
barbarian regime is going after the Iranian women. Shooting them (like Neda).
Our hearts are wrenched as we watch them being massacred. The press is
unwilling to cover the killings, but we hope our little show of support will
bring awareness to the atrocities being committed to those who seek freedom.
Going Green, the Sheepdogs show support for Freedom Fighters.
Great group shot, everyone has the green
Military moms: Evie, (left) her son is an army combat medic fresh off a tour of Afghanistan, Mary (in the middle) her son is young Marine officer, fresh from Iraq, Mary Lou (on the right) - her son is serving in Iraq as we speak. He is with the PA national guard. Great Americans all!
Tehran building attacked by security forces
Twitter Amnesty International claims Mousavi aides tortured to extract confessions
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iranian paramilitary Basij forces stage nightly raids in Tehran, invading private homes and beating residents in an attempt to stop protests against Iran's disputed election, Human Rights Watch reported.
"Witnesses are telling us that the Basijis are trashing entire streets and even neighborhoods as well as individual homes trying to stop the nightly rooftop protest chants," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a June 26 report by the New York-based group.
"On June 22, while we were shouting 'Allahu Akbar' from the rooftops
... the Basiji entered our neighborhood and started firing live rounds
into the air, in the direction of the buildings from which they believe
the shouting of 'Allahu Akbar' is coming from," a middle-aged resident
of Vanak district said, according to the report.
A woman said Basijis climbed over walls to enter homes after they
failed to kick down doors in Velenjak district when people were
shouting from rooftops on June 23.
"When they entered the homes, they beat the residents. The neighbors
took to cursing the Basijis and throwing stones at them to divert them
from beating the residents, but then the Basijis attacked those
neighbors' houses and tried to enter them," she was quoted as saying.
Another resident said Basijis spray-painted a sign on the doors of
houses in a central district where they thought protesters had fled.
"A few minutes later, they came back and attacked the marked houses,
breaking down the doors and entering them. They beat the owners, and
broke the windows in the house and of their cars," the resident said,
according to the report.
3:10 pm: I take it back. It is better when FOX doesn't cover Iran. The very little coverage they are giving it today serves the interests of Ahmadinejad. They keep talking to Kayvon Biouki, "freelance journalist," who claims there is no torture going on (we have video, schmuck), and there is no unrest. The guy is clearly a pro-government tool, so why would FOX give him such a platform?
2:17 pm: The left can't muster the same enthusiasm for supporting those being slaughtered in Iran as they could for their anti-America, anti-Iraq war efforts. Vigilant squirrel has full coverage here. At least these poorly attended efforts are not for Ahmadinejad.
The right should be staging big rallies. It is a mistake not to get behind these people.
The Brigade went to the two commie-sponsored rallies on the 26th of June in
Manhattan.
The first 'event' by the Worker Party-types at the Islamic
Republic of Iran's Consulate was about 7 people from the Workers Party with no
Iranians; basically a non-event. (will post a few pictures later)
The
Big Display was later at Columbus Circle.They do know how to put on a display
with lots and lots of green and candles and speakers and music..... However,
the most prevalent aspect (besides their supposed support for "free" elections)
was their out-reach via Revolution newspapers, very Leftist speakers and
Commie-sponsored flyers from the Workers Party and Amnesty International. (will
also post the flyers later)
Mixed in with their support for "Free"
elections, were plenty of slams at America and praise for the "Big Zero".
1:156 pm: Mousavi rejects bogus gesture to recount 10% of the vote.
Unfortunately, as you witness in the international media, contrary to
the letter of the constitution, and the stated freedoms in the Islamic
Republic, all my communication with the people and you has been cut
off, and people’s peaceful objections are being crushed. The national
media which is being financed with public funds, with a revolting
misrepresentation is changing the truth, and labels the peaceful march
of close to three million people as anarchist, and the media that are
being controlled by the government have become the mouthpiece of those
who have stolen the people’s votes.
I’d like to thank you again
for your peaceful objections which have received widespread coverage
across the world, and would like to ask you that by using all legal
channels, and by remaining faithful to the sacred system of the Islamic
Republic, to make sure that your objections are heard by the
authorities in the country. I am fully aware that your justified
demands have nothing to do with groups who do not believe in the sacred
Islamic Republic of Iran’s system. It is up to you to distance yourself
from them, and do not allow them to misuse the current situation.
A good statement, no doubt, and who knows the pressure he is under, but it appears that Mousavi is faltering. Big mistake.AP reports:
Iran's increasingly isolated opposition leader said he'll seek
government approval for future protests, even as he complained of
unfair restrictions - a new sign that he is backing away from
confrontation with Iran's rulers over a bitterly disputed election.
This is a complete turnaround from his position just the day before when he said that the attempt to steal the election would be crushed.
Obama has drafted an executive order that would reassert
presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely. If he is releasing the Islamic terrorists at GITMO, reaching out to Hezballah and Hamas, who exactly are the "terrorism suspects"? The "right wing extremists" outrageously and falsely accused in this report? Vets, tea party attendees, Jews and great American patriots like .....moi?
Who exactly would Obama lock up indefinitely? I don't care how the BO's hos in the media frame it, this executive order is not for Islamic terrorists. Don't spit in my face and tell me it's ocean spray. I would sooner let every terrorist go than give that maniac in the White House this kind of power.
The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall
plans to close Guantanamo, has drafted an executive order that would reassert
presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according
to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House
deliberations.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) says jump, and BO says, how high, master? Obama had the OIC head, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, at the White House, where he "urged the U.S. to quickly appoint an envoy to the Islamic bloc" -- which prompted BHO to create "a new office that is responsible for outreach with Muslims around the
world".
In keeping with instituting Obama's US MUSLIM ENGAGEMENT, a charter of dhimmitude, we are to be conditioned to respect Muslim immigrants and accept their culture. President Hussein is more than comfortable with this deal with the
devil as he seeks to institute an Islamo-Christian ethic, destroying
the very foundation of this great country.
Never mind that Muslims go after and annihilate the Christians in every
country they finally dominate. This is of no import.
Since
taking office Obama has focused on three things - the transformation of
our capitalistic economy to a form of socialist statist fascism, the
abdication of American sovereignty to a trans-nationalism (one
world-er) and the advancement of the worldwide domination of Islam, the
ultimate goal of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). There is
conspiracy theory and conspiracy fact - the global jihad is conspiracy
fact. And the OIC is behind it.
Obama invited the "secretary general" to the White House on the Islamic leg of his apology tour of Europe. Obama refused Sarkozy's offer to visit Normandy, choosing instead to tour the mosques of Turkey and attend the second forum of the OIC arm, the "alliance of civilizations" (AoC).
The Alliance of Civilizations [was] created to oppose the clash of civilizations, that is jihad. On 13 November 2006, the High-Level Group of the Alliance of Civilizations presented its report which sums up the request of the OIC at its Mecca Summit 9, in 2005, after the Cartoons affair. First, it adopts the Islamic view of history and politics by claiming that everything was fine between the three monotheistic religions until the 19th century, when the evil of European colonialism and Zionism destroyed this harmony. Then it affirms that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main source of Christian-Muslim antagonism, not the jihadist war and ideology that deny for others the right to exist. It proclaims that this conflict “remains one of the gravest threats to international stability” and formulates recommendations that again echo the OIC requests. Such views mirror Hitler accusing the Jews of fomenting World War II, or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, praised in the Hamas charter, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood which denies Israel’sright to exist. (Bat Ye'or)
The Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference
(OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, reconnoitered with Obama during the official reception of the AoC given by the Turkish
Prime Minister, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (who famously said that "there is no moderate Islam" just days before Barack Hussein's visit). Obama
reiterated to the Secretary General the willingness and readiness of
the US Administration to explore areas of cooperation with the
Organization of the Islamic Conference.
New U.S. Special
Representative Announced for Muslim Outreach
Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has appointed
Farah Pandith to serve as special representative to Muslim communities, in
charge of a new office that is responsible for outreach with Muslims around the
world.
According to a notice
published by the State Department June 23, Special Representative Pandith and
her staff will carry out Clinton’s efforts to “engage with Muslims around the
world on a people-to-people and organizational level.”
(CNSNews.com) – Buoyed by the presence in the White House of a
president who wants to prioritize relations with the world’s Muslims, the head
of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) visited both Washington and
Brussels this week, and urged the U.S. to quickly appoint an envoy to the
Islamic bloc.
OIC secretary-general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu was in
Washington on Tuesday when the State Department, in an internal memo, announced
that it has selected a “special representative to Muslim
communities.”
The department chose not to announce the move publicly, but
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly on Thursday acknowledged that Farah Pandith
has been chosen for the position. Pandith, a Muslim of Kashmiri origin, served
as “senior advisor for Muslim engagement to the assistant secretary for European
and Eurasian affairs” in the Bush administration. hsanoglu told the Turkish Anadolu state news agency this week that he had told
Clinton that the U.S. should immediately appoint a special envoy for its
relations with the Islamic world.
The two were scheduled to have met, but
the event was cancelled because of Clinton’s recent elbow fracture and
surgery.
Instead they held a “comprehensive” telephone conversation and
“exchanged views as to the ways and means of furthering the engagement between
the OIC and the U.S. in the coming period,” the OIC said in a
statement.
[...] From Washington,
Ihsanoglu went to Brussels where he announced plans to open a representative
office to the European Union, with a key function of combating
“Islamophobia.”
The OIC, a 57-member bloc of Muslim majority states that
wields increasing clout at the United Nations, already has permanent missions in
the U.N. cities of New York and Geneva, and “OIC groups” in Washington, Vienna
and Paris.
Headquartered in the Saudi city of Jeddah, the OIC has existed
for 40 years, but in recent times has become much more visible in the West,
largely as a result of its controversial
It has
steered more than a dozen resolutions on the subject through the U.N. Opponents
of the drive, including religious freedom and free speech advocates, see it as
an attempt to shield Islam and Islamic practices from
criticism.
Ihsanoglu, a Turk, told the Turkish newspaper Today’s
Zaman that “fighting anti-Islam propaganda” will be among the main aims of
the office in Brussels.
The paper noted that major incidents considered
to be “Islamophobic” had occurred in Europe, citing the furor over Danish
newspaper cartoons satirizing Mohammed.
While in Brussels, Ihsanoglu met
the E.U.’s external relations commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and said
they discussed Obama’s speech in Cairo. Ihsanoglu had been in the audience when
the president spoke.
“Obama’s speech was historic and did not resemble
any other speeches in the past,” he told the Anadolu agency on Wednesday. “There
has never been a speech delivered to the Muslims that was so constructive and
positive as Obama’s speech.”
OIC secretary-general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu speaks to Saudi Foreign
Minister Prince Saudi al-Faisal during the Islamic bloc’s third extraordinary
conference in Mecca in December 2005. (Photo: OIC)
‘The most democratic religion’
While in the U.S. this week,
Ihsanoglu met with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a member of a
“leadership group” driving the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project and a strong
backer of Obama’s outreach.
In April, Albright was quoted by the Voice of
America as telling a meeting of OIC ambassadors that she had no doubt Islamic
countries could be democracies.
“Actually, in my study of religions, in
many ways Islam is maybe the most democratic religionbecause there is nobody
between you and God. So I do not think that is something that can be used as
reason not to have Muslim democracies.”
Madeline Albright's impossibly stupid remark reflects an illogical, frightening dhimmitude at the "leadership level". How does one look at an Islamic country and make a statement like that?
Where's Muslim outreach to the West -- where is the self criticism? It's all their way or the highway.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) member-states at the Durban
II gathering in Geneva is pushing for "a new world order" that would expand and
impose "nondemocratic and illiberal values on the West," says the Danish editor
who in 2005 commissioned and published a series of cartoons, one of which
depicted the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban that led to worldwide
Muslim rioting.
Flemming Rose, editor of Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's
largest-circulation newspaper, is visiting Israel under the auspices of the
Hebrew University's Shasha Center for Strategic Studies, headed by former Mossad
director Efraim Halevy. He's here to lecture on how nations need to find the
right balance between religious sensitivities and freedom of expression.
Rose says the OIC is trying to use Durban II to rewrite the rules of human
rights and international law in a way that undermines the values of liberty
enshrined in the Western canon - including the US Bill of Rights, the French
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the UN's Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
It's all part of an ongoing Muslim campaign that has been making significant
strides, says Rose.
Bat Yeor wrote of the OIC:
The OIC is one of the largest intergovernmental organizations in the world.
It encompasses 56 Muslim states plus the Palestinian Authority. Spread
over four continents, it claims to speak in the name of the ummah (the
universal Muslim community), which numbers about 1.3 billion. The OIC’s
mission is to unite all Muslims worldwide by rooting them in the Koran
and the Sunnah — the core of traditional Islamic civilization and
values. It aims at strengthening solidarity and
cooperation among all its members, in order to protect the interests of
Muslims everywhere and to galvanize the ummah into a unified body.
The
OIC is a unique organization — one that has no equivalent in the world.
It unites the religious, economic, military, and political strength of
56 states. By contrast, the European Union represents half as many
states and is a secular body only, and the Vatican — which speaks for
the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics — is devoid of any political power.
Many Muslims in the West resist the OIC’s tutelage and oppose its
efforts to supplant Western law with sharia. But the OIC’s resources
are formidable.
[...]
The OIC regularly reiterates
its commitments to protecting the political, historical, religious, and
human rights of Muslims in non-OIC states, especially Muslims who form
the majority in specific regions of non-Muslim countries — such as the
southern Philippines, southern Thailand, and western Thrace in Greece —
as well as Muslims in places like the Balkans, the Caucasus, Myanmar,
India, and China. The OIC supports
Hamas and the Palestinians in their struggle to destroy Israel, as well
as the Muslim fight for “legitimate self-determination” in
“Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.” It has condemned the “continual
Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan,” and it expresses its full
solidarity with “the just cause of the Muslim Turkish people of Cyprus”
and with Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, whom many hold
responsible for encouraging the massacres in Darfur. The seat of the
OIC is in Jeddah, but the organization regards that location as
temporary: Its headquarters will be transferred to al-Kods (Islamized
Jerusalem) when that city has been “liberated” from Israeli control.
In its efforts to defend the “true image” of Islam and combat its defamation, the organization has
requested the UN and the Western countries to punish “Islamophobia” and
blasphemy. Among the manifestations of Islamophobia, in the OIC’s view,
are European opposition to illegal immigration, anti-terrorist
measures, criticism of multiculturalism, and indeed any efforts to
defend Western cultural and national identities. The OIC has massive
funding from oil sources, which it lavishly spends on the Western media
and academia and in countless “dialogues.” It influences Western
policy, laws, and even textbooks through pressures brought by Muslim
immigrants and by the Western nations’ own leftist parties. Hence, we
have seen Kristallnacht-like incitements of hate and murder against
European Jews and Israel conducted with impunity in the cities of
Europe — where respect for human rights is supposed to be one of the
highest values.
"You are a wonderful fighter for liberty" -- Bat Ye'or
"Well, I read Atlas Shrugs, Power Line, National Review blogs" ........ "Atlas Shrugs breaks more news than dozens of liberal blogs combined." ...... ... Ambassador John Bolton
"I'm a fan!" - Mark Steyn
"Fearless, intelligent, beautiful --- Pamela Geller wears her Supergirl
costume well."
"Pamela Geller is a dynamo of energy and
a paragon of courage and fearlessness.
-- Robert Spencer, JihadWatch in his book Stealth Jihad
"You do great work with your blog". -- Geert Wilders
"Courageous insights from a pulchritudinous pundit!" Dr. Andrew Bostom, Leading Scholar on Islam
"Great site," Dick Morris
"Indeed, some of Israel's best friends and most articulate defenders can be found in the blogosphere .... Atlas Shrugs, [et al] all provide a refreshing alternative to the moral relativism and politically correct anti-Israel blather of the media. Michael Freund, Jerusalem Post
"She does more in one week than most of us do in a frickin' lifetime -- Pamela Geller!" -- Jaz McKay, Talk Radio WKNZR
"The best there is," Beryl Wajsman, President Institute of Public Affairs
Speaking to the unnamed, unchampioned, beating heart of her new land, Ayn was to say: 'Yours is the glory.'"
A man whose ability and independence leads others to reject him, but who perseveres nevertheless to achieve his values. Man as an individual, as a creator. What's the most depraved type of human being? Not a sadist or a murderer or a sex maniac or a dictator; "The man without a purpose." Yet most people seem to go through their lives without a clearly defined purpose.
Life has Loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fires that sways and swing,
And children's faces looking up,
Holding wonder like a cup
Life has Loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of Gold,
Scent of pinetrees in the rain,
Eyes that love you,
arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy stars that star the night.
Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of Peace
Count many a year of strife well lost
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.
![Kurdistan](http://<a href="http://northerniraq.info" title="northern iraq"><img src="http://northerniraq.info/northlogo.gif" width="135px" height="68px" alt="northern iraq"><br>northern iraq </a>){kind=link}