From the Hague: Muslims don't have to shake hands with Christians.

For real. (h/t Religion of Peace)

Appease, accommodate, bend over backwards... all 'respectful ways' in which the dhimmi should greet his new Muslim master.

The Equal Treatment Commission (CGB) has ruled that a Christian school may not require Muslim pupils to shake the teacher's hand. Pupils can however be required to attend school camp, newspaper Nederlands Dagblad reports.

De Rank primary school in Schoonhoven wanted to specify in its code of behaviour that pupils and their parents were required to shake hands with the teacher on arrival at and departure from information evenings. This cannot however be required of Muslims, even by a school like De Rank which is statutorily recognised as Protestant.

The CGB advises the school to specify in its code of behaviour that "mutual respect will be indicated with a handshake on arrival and departure or - if a handshake is objectionable for religious reasons - in another respectful way."

Around 25 percent of the pupils at the Christian school are reportedly of Muslim origin.
The school can require pupils to participate in school camp. The CGB could not discover religious objections to travel. The school already allows pupils to bring their own halal food to camps.

Additionally, they do not have to stay overnight, providing their parents collect them and bring them back, according to CGB. Its rulings are non binding but most survive if tested in real courts.

Muslim soldier survives catering incident

Call the waaaa-mbulance! Muslim soldier was fed pork sandwich!!!!!

Colchester’s Military Corrective Training Centre has been accused of trying to feed a Muslim with a pork sandwich. Saeed Akhtar is claiming that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) breached his rights under legislation covering discrimination because of religious beliefs while serving as a soldier.

On April 30, employment tribunal Chairman at Bury St Edmunds permitted Akhtar to take his case to a full tribunal hearing. Akhtar is claiming the MoD had failed to provide him on a regular basis with suitable meat. He told tribunal Chairman, Brian Mitchell, that officials had not provided Halal meat. That had forced him to adopt a largely vegetarian diet, said Akhtar. On one occasion he was given a pork sandwich.

He is, of course, crying discrimination all the way to the sharia bank.

Nancy goes to the experts on Global Warming

Pelosi asks Yahoo users how to solve climate change.
(my head hurts just typing that)

So far, more than 27,000 people have posted responses to Pelosi’s query on what they would like to see included in global warming legislation. Among the recommendations on how Congress should stop global warming:

Impose a national greenhouse gas emissions cap;
Mandate increased vehicle fuel efficiency;
Promote mass transit and bicycling to discourage suburban sprawl.

Yahoo Answers features the usual Digg-style user voting on every response, subject to the vagaries of the mob. Thus warnings to reject “eco-Marxism” received top ratings and contributions by environmental experts Lester Brown and Simran Sethi were so low-rated that Yahoo hid them from display. (tee-hee)

Pakistan: "Millitants" threaten music shops

No ring tones or hash for you!

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Pro-Taliban militants have warned music and video shops as well as clandestine hashish and alcohol outlets in a northwest Pakistan town to close down, local residents said Saturday.

The threat came in pamphlets distributed in Darra Adam Khel town, some 25 kilometers (15 miles) from Peshawar, the main town in North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.

At least 10 music shops in the region have suffered grenade attacks by militants over the past eight months. The latest threats also warned shopkeepers to stop downloading songs as mobile telephone ringtones.

"The Taliban have set July 1 as a deadline to abandon all un-Islamic business in the area," local resident Murtza Khan said. "All the music shops in this area are closing now," shopkeeper Jan Alam said.

File this one under Bwa-ha-ha...

From the Middle East Times (and CBS) US tries to sabotage Iran

US intelligence agents are trying to sabotage Iran's nuclear program with faulty parts, a report by CBS News said. CBS News reported that a covert operation involving Iranian exiles and Russian scientists has been selling defective nuclear components or technical drawings to Iran.

Tehran is forced to buy its nuclear parts on the black market because of a ban on selling nuclear components to Iran on the open market, Kommersant reported. Diplomats in the Iranian Embassy in Frankfurt ship the acquired parts in diplomatic bags, according to the CBS report.

In 2006, black market parts exploded in a nuclear facility in Natanz and destroyed 50 centrifuges of uranium, Kommersant reported.

Despite the covert sabotage, the progress in Iran's nuclear program has continued.

(Not for long, binky.)

The CBS article is here. Read it if you've got a minute. They sound so pleased with themselves - spilling the details of a secret strategy to the Iranians. You'd almost think they were rooting for Iran, not the US. Oh wait, what am I thinking? It is CBS - they ARE probably rooting for Iran.

Hillary Clinton refused to divorce Bill when he wanted out

Stand by your man.
There are worse things than infidelity.

The pain of being Hillary

Clintons planned for Eight Years Each.
Clinton campaign braces for two books.

Questions in Iowa?

Clinton marriage threatened by one woman

Unflattering books cause hardly a ripple

Hah-hah! That last one was from WaPo.

We report, you decide.

Update: Is this the real reason Hillary is standing by her man?

The most expensive ex-president ever!

How Keith Ellison will spend his Memorial Day...

(h/t LGF) By the grace and mercy of Allah, the Muslim American Society announces the 4th Annual MAS Minnesota Convention to be held on May 25-27, 2007 at the Minneapolis Convention Center. The theme of the convention is "Living our Values: Celebrating Similarities and Welcoming Differences"

House Spkr Pelosi departs on Global Warming Mission

Jumping Nan Flash, she's a gas, gas, gas!

It's official - Madam Speaker is now winging her way halfway around the world vowing to work with the administration, not provoke it on Global Warming. Now there's some hot air for you.

Pelosi, a California Democrat, and seven other House members left Saturday for meetings with scientists and politicians in Greenland, Germany and Belgium on ways to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

The band of merry cranksters joining Madam Speaker on this issue of utmost importance is:
Democratic Reps. Edmund Markey, Earl Blumenauer, Emanuel Cleaver, and Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, and Hilda Solis; and Republicans David Hobson and John Larson.

A stop on their itinerary: Swiss Camp.
Konrad Steffen is so excited about Saturday's planned Greenland visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a delegation of as many as 16 congressional colleagues, he's going to take a shower. Or at least use the bucket that serves as a shower at Swiss Camp in Greenland.

Two helicopters will bring as many as eight legislators each, the first arriving at 8:30 p.m. Saturday carrying Pelosi, Markey and others, and the second 90 minutes later. For some period, all 16 will overlap at Swiss Camp, which normally tops out at 14 residents.

By 10:30 p.m., the lawmakers will be gone again. The delegation will spend the night in Ilulissat, have Sunday lunch with the president of the home-rule government of Greenland, tour the fjords, and fly back to Washington, D.C., Steffen said.

Steffen said he plans to discuss sea-level rise with Pelosi, Markey and their colleagues. His continuous measurements since 1990 have shown the Greenland ice sheet to be responding faster to global warming than estimated.

(Hey Konrad, you ever think your estimates might be wrong there, bud?)

A little background info for you to read, as you ponder Global Warming advocate Madam Speaker firing up the choppers, the limos, the press busses and the security vehicles to go tour the fjords.... all offset of course.

Pelosi set up a new House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and appointed Rep. Edward Markey as its chairman. The committee cannot write legislation, but was created to study and offer recommendations on how to deal with global warming.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee recently approved a bill to obligate the administration to send senior diplomats to international meetings on climate change "with instructions to secure binding commitments for reform," according to a committee statement.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is pushing a nonbinding resolution that would press the administration to work on several diplomatic fronts to combat global warming.

The new head of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. Barbara Boxer, is a strong advocate of battling climate change. She replaced Republican Sen. James Inhofe, who has called global warming a hoax.

Just about as big a hoax as the carbon offsets Madam Speaker purchased out of her own pocket:

Because of the significance of this trip, the air travel will be carbon offset through the Pacific Forest Trust - a forest conservation and stewardship project that will permanently reduce approximately 500,000 tons of CO2 emissions over a 100-year period. The Speaker will personally pay for this effort.

Big whoop. Who is Pacific Forest Trust? Good question. Looks like one big eco-circle jerk to me. Whoever they are, they are right there telling Madam Speaker what to do!

PFT President Laurie Wayburn was invited to participate in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Climate Change and Energy Independence Roundtable panel discussion in San Francisco February 21. The panel was comprised of a select group of distinguished Bay Area political, business, scientific and environmental leaders including, among others, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, PG&E CEO Peter King, SF Public Utilities Commission General Manager Susan Leal, Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope and representatives from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Wayburn informed the Speaker that forests are both part of the climate change problem and part of the solution. She explained that forest loss accounts for roughly 25% of worldwide CO2 emissions today and has contributed as much as 40% in the past. To help mitigate global warming, Wayburn told Pelosi the U.S. could reduce net CO2 emissions by up to 25 billion tons in the next 50 years by decreasing forest loss, restoring converted forests and increasing carbon stocks in existing forests. She urged Pelosi and Congress to include forest conservation and sustainable forest management in any future federal climate change legislation.

And they seem mighty chummy with the Speaker.
A redwood grove was planted in San Francisco's Presidio in recognition of the life's work of Dr. Edgar Wayburn and his late wife Peggy, Representative Nancy Pelosi spoke at the dedication and is seen here giving Edgar a hug. Ed is wearing a Joe Fedora that Stefan and Sally presented him at his hundredth birthday. Looking on is Ed's daughter and Stefan's friend Laurie Wayburn. Laurie is president and co-founder of the Pacific Forest Trust.
10-11-06

Imagine this - I just read in the Pacific Trust Annual report that they have moved their offices to the Presidio (one of the most beautiful spots in SF) all to "enhance accessibility" for their "partners and supporters". No doubt on the gov't dime, too. You had to know that there was a government grant in the woodpile and their biggest line item on their financials is their foundation$. Read a very lame-o annual report here. And join me in wondering why the accounting notes weren't provided.

Confused about this latest Y2K-like fiddle faddle? For the best breakdown I've ever read on the Carbon Offset game, read this.

You wonder why everyone is so quick to pony up for the carbon offsets on their way to the Gulfstream? Tax benefits vary - 40% in England - where Al Gore has conveniently set up his little deal. And 20% here in the States -BUT! Dinah says check with your financial consultant before undertaking any type of flim-flam investment for the proper accounting treatment.

Iran claims discovery of "Spy Networks"

According to the Iranian Intelligence Ministry that is. I wonder if these so called "agent provocateurs" have had any contact with the following: Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, Parnaz Azima, Kian Tajbakhsh, Individual X, or Mr. Ali Shakiri - the most recent Iranian Americans to go missing while visiting relatives in Iran.

Several spy networks serving the “occupiers of Iraq” have been discovered in Iran, the Public Relations Office of the Intelligence Ministry said in a statement released on Saturday.

According to the statement, these networks consisting of agents provocateurs serving the occupiers in Iraq, were active in the western, southwestern and central areas of the country.

The intelligence services of the occupiers were directing these networks, and certain Iraqi groups were supporting them.

The Intelligence Ministry stated that it will soon release more information about the case.

More Trouble in Iranian paradise

Remember the Iranian gas rationing scheme? Well, now there's this:
Iran interest rate cut sparks panic selling

Methinks, the littlest theocrat is in over his wee head. I smell panic.

Iran's financial system suffered a fresh jolt yesterday with panic selling on the stock market after the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, abruptly ordered banks to cut interest rates sharply, despite surging inflation.

The order, which Mr Ahmadinejad issued by telephone during a visit to Belarus and which flew in the face of expert advice - has triggered warnings of a financial crisis and spiralling corruption amid fears of a capital flight from the country's lending institutions.

Mr Ahmadinejad's decree forced all state-owned and private banks to slash borrowing rates to 12%. Inflation is officially 15% but is generally believed to be much higher. State banks had been offering rates of 14%, while those in the private sector ranged from 17% to 28%.

The decision caused panic in the Tehran stock exchange, with private banks losing much of their share value overnight. Shareholders in one bank, Karafarin, queued on Wednesday to sell their stock when previously there had been 1.2 million applicants to buy its shares.

And about that gas rationing scheme? The one that resulted in lines at the Iranian petrol station? Timing is everything, Mahmoud....

The rate cut was imposed at the same time as Mr Ahmadinejad raised the price of petrol by 1p to 5p a litre. That caused anger among motorists, who expected a new rationing system to be introduced on Tuesday. The government has postponed rationing until next month, citing difficulties in introducing the necessary technology to filling stations.

Update: Ahmadinejad rebuked over incomprehensible rate cut.

Video of brutality smuggled out of Iran

Iran Focus has been able to get a hold of video of some poor soul getting a serious beatdown (and really bad case of road rash) by the Iranian Fashion Police. His crime? As far as I can tell, he was wearing a t-shirt. Given the fact that the Iranian media have been instructed to not publish these pictures, I am going to put up every one I find.

About this vid:
The clip which was aired on Simaye Azadi was captured by a bystander using a mobile phone and smuggled out of Iran. Simaye Azadi said it obtained the video from supporters of the People’s Mojahedin (MeK).

They go on to add:
So far neither the European Union nor the United States have expressed condemnation of the government-orchestrated crackdown.

Click here to see the video.

Russians and Iranians bicker over Bushehr

From AKI: Russia concerned over delay of Bushehr project.

Whoo boy, and wouldn't I love to see the Russians get stiffed on this one.

Moscow, 25 May (AKI) - Russia is concerned that upcoming talks with Iran over a delay in payments for the construction of its Bushehr nuclear power plant could not take place, reports said Friday, after US president George W. Bush called for the introduction of fresh sanctions against Tehran. Bush's statements followed a UN report which said the country could have the atomic bomb in three to eight years and sparked Moscow's fears that the project could be halted. The construction of the nuclear reactor with Russian technology, which has been repeatedly delayed, should have originally been completed by September this year.

Moscow and Tehran have been bickering publicly over what Russia says are tens of millions of dollars in delayed payments for its work on Bushehr, a claim rejected by Tehran.

The plant is key for Tehran which is facing a second wave of UN sanctions after repeatedly refusing to halt sensitive nuclear work that the international community fears is aimed at building nuclear weapons.

Without Russian uranium, the plant cannot begin generating electricity by September as originally scheduled. Iran had planned a fully operational Bushehr to boost its position in negotiations over its nuclear programme which it claims is solely for civilian use.

You can find a more in-depth look at the Iranian nuclear facilities here if you wish. See a gallery of great Bushehr images here.

The poppy and Memorial Day observance

"In Flanders Fields"

John MacCrae - 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

About Flanders Fields and Lt. Col John MacCrae:

In May, 1915, on the day following the death of fellow soldier Lt Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, John McCrae wrote his now famous work, an expression of his anguish over the loss of his friend and a reflection of his surroundings, wild poppies growing amid simple wooden crosses marking makeshift graves. These 15 lines, written in 20 minutes, captured an exact description of the sights and sounds of the area around him.

That same year, fellow poet Moina Michael was so moved by this verse she replied with her own poem and the tradition of wearing poppies to honor our veterans was begun. From Memorial Day History :

"...She (Moina)then conceived of an idea to wear red poppies on Memorial day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need. Later a Madam Guerin from France was visiting the United States and learned of this new custom started by Ms.Michael and when she returned to France, made artificial red poppies to raise money for war orphaned children and widowed women. This tradition spread to other countries. In 1921, the Franco-American Children's League sold poppies nationally to benefit war orphans of France and Belgium. The League disbanded a year later and Madam Guerin approached the VFW for help. Shortly before Memorial Day in 1922 the VFW became the first veterans' organization to nationally sell poppies. Two years later their "Buddy" Poppy program was selling artificial poppies made by disabled veterans. In 1948 the US Post Office honored Ms Michael for her role in founding the National Poppy movement by issuing a red 3 cent postage stamp with her likeness on it ."

Hope you've enjoyed this little bit of Memorial Day trivia and are having a good Memorial Day weekend.

May God bless our troops.

Iran: Media told not to criticize Fashion Police

or show pics or videos...

As controversial pictures and video clips of the police’s treatment of "inappropriately dressed" women are circulating on the worldwide web, the National Security Office forwarded a letter to newspapers asking them to refrain from criticizing any aspects of the so-called plan to increase public security.

From now on, newspapers and publications will be unable to criticize the various aspects of a plan that has already generated much controversy by pitting police officers against women in crowded streets of Tehran.

In the past few days, several video clips taken by mobile phones have been circulating around the web: one is depicting a women being dragged on the ground by the police, another is of a woman getting kicked by officers, and a third shows a woman with a bloody face, following clashes with police officers at Haft Tir Square in Tehran.

Such pictures and videos have been circulating widely on the web, and are available at popular website such as YouTube and highly-visited personal blogs. The BBC reporter in Tehran, Francess Harisson, began one of his latest reports by showing one such clip.

More detail on the attacks at the Rooz link.

Muslims who quit over prayers - return to work

70 Muslims at the Swift meatpacking plant in Nebraska who quit because they were not given enough time for prayer have returned to their jobs. (Although a union official says the issue may resurface during the longer days of summer - CAIR to place your bets on this one happening?)

Accommodate, appease and bend over backwards...We have this account of the meeting from - get this ... Mr. Mohamed Rage, the chairman of the Omaha chapter of the Somali-American Community Organization.

"Management was cordial and understanding," Rage said. Somali workers left their jobs at the Swift plant last week because they were unable to complete an evening prayer -- one of the five prayers required each day of the Islamic faith, Rage said. The company agreed to allow a normal bathroom break to be used for prayer time. Workers agreed to limit their prayer time to the time available. Workers were pleased with the meeting's results, Rage said."It was a gentlemen's agreement," he said. Swift spokesman Sean McHugh said it was a productive meeting." All parties gained a better understanding of the others' concerns," McHugh said. "We've reached a mutually acceptable agreement that adheres to the provision of the existing labor contract."McHugh said about 120 Somali workers resigned last week. By Wednesday afternoon, he said, about 70 had returned to work.

Similar requests for workplace accommodations of Muslim religious obligations have become common around the country, says Muslim advocates.

Who are these nameless faceless "Muslim advocates"? Look for the union label and CAIR, of course.

“We live in a country where religious beliefs are important to us, and I don’t care what religion it is and we should try to do our best to support those things,” Dan Hoppes, president of Local 22 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union said. “But we’ve got a contract with Swift.”

CAIR speaks - although they aren't making much sense. As usual.

A spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Rabiah Ahmed, said “there is some flexibility when it comes to prayer if it’s conflicting with something as serious as your job and your work environment. But (prayer) doesn’t take very long — really it only takes five minutes,” she said. The council, which describes itself as a civil rights and advocacy group, has been able to mediate between companies and workers on the issue in most cases.

Here are some of those cases:
Some Muslim cashiers at Target stores in Minnesota were shifted to other positions in March because they objected to handling pork products.

An ongoing dispute also exists among cab drivers who serve Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport — many of whom are Muslim — who refuse to take passengers who are carrying alcohol.
In 2005, 30 workers walked off the job at a Dell, Inc. plant in Nashville, Tenn., after alleging the company refused to let them pray at sunset.

A federal lawsuit brought by nine Somalis against Gold’n Plump Poultry Inc. in October made similar allegations.

In hiding since Feb, sissy pants boy Mookie al Sadr shows his face

Sadr appears in public after long absence

KUFA, Iraq, May 25 (Reuters) - Anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has not been seen since the start of a major U.S.-backed crackdown in Iraq in February, appeared at Friday prayers in the holy Shi'ite city of Kufa.

The U.S. military has said he went into hiding in Iran in January to escape the crackdown, but aides to the young cleric, who led two uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004, say he never left Kufa. A Reuters witness saw him enter Kufa mosque, surrounded by bodyguards and close aides.

Update: I'm watching tape of Mookie in the mosque making a speech. His devotees are throwing up an arm salute, ala the Third Reich. Alas, Mookie's outing was spoiled by the fact that his top Mahdi Army guy, the guys brothers and two of his aides were taken out by the Brits in Basra. Top Shiite Army Militant Killed.

Oh, Iowahawk, you do make me laugh.

Mr. Iowahawk takes on the Pew Poll...and wins.

Midwest Lutherans Largely Reject Violence

Chicago - By an almost two-to-one margin, Midwest Lutherans voiced solid opposition to decapitation, suicide bombing, and chemical warfare in a new comprehensive survey of their social attitudes.

The Pew Research survey, conducted May 13-19, queried nearly 2,500 randomly selected Lutherans at flea markets and convenience stores across the Midwest. Interviews were conducted in High Plains Twang, Great Lakes Nasal and Flat Ohio Valley Bland.

"If there is one headline here, it's how remarkably moderate the Lutheran community is," said Pew director Andrew Kohut of the survey, which was co-sponsored by the Council on American-Yooper Relations. "It really paints a picture of a dynamic culture in or somewhere near the American mainstream."

Kohut pointed to one of the study's key findings that only 29% of all respondents agreed that "bloody, random violence against infidels" was "always" or "frequently" justified, versus 56% who said such violence was "seldom" or "never" justified. The approval of violence rose slightly among younger Lutherans and when the hypothetical violence was targeted against Presbyterians, but still fell well short of a majority.

"The only demographic cohort we saw where murderous random violence had a majority support was among 18-35 year old male followers of the Wisconsin Synod," said Kohut. "And that was barely above the margin of error. Even then, fewer than half (41% to 46%) said they would personally volunteer to carry out the violence themselves."

Further bolstering the findings, Kohut noted that fewer than 6% of respondents physically attacked field interviewers during the survey.

Although a majority 87% of respondents agreed that "The world should be brought to submission under global Lutheran conquest and eternal perfect rule," there was a great deal of disagreement on the means to accomplish it. More than 95% supported "pancake breakfasts" and "popcorn fundraisers," but support dropped to less than 80% for "cow tipping" and "T-P'ing infidel houses." Support dropped even more dramatically for more violent means of conquest, such as "suicide bombing" (28%), "decapitation" (24%), and "running over Presbyterians with my Ski-Doo" (23%).

"Taken as a whole, the results show that Midwest Lutherans emphatically support a moderate, mainstream path to world domination," said Kohut. "These folks are well-assimilated into the broad fabric of American society, and unless you are Presbyterian, there is probably very little here to cause concern."

Kohut said that optimism about the results should be tempered by the grim economic realities faced by many in the Lutheran community. Nearly 65% of female survey respondents said they lived more than 30 minutes from the nearest outlet mall, while a strong majority of males said they were "often" or "sometimes" worried about having enough money for green fees and Leinenkugel.

Equally disturbing, many respondents reported experiencing discrimination at the hands of non-Lutherans. Frequently cited examples of non-Lutheran bigotry included "Got all nose-in-the-air like" (48%), "Made personal remarks about my hot dish" (37%), "Wouldn't let me borrow their combine head" (36%), and "Wouldn't stand still so I could kill them" (22%).

"I think it's important for all of us to remain vigilant against this kind of virulent anti-Lutheran backlash, and make sure they feel a welcome part of our society," said Kohut.

Ted Jarvenpaa, spokesman for CAYR, agreed.

"Ya, we're done doin' dat assimilatin' eh?" said Jarvenpaa. "Now it's your turn."

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Volcano action

Live from Kilauea. Kilauea means "spewing" or "much spreading", evidently referring to the lava flows.

Learn more about Kilauea.

Mahalo.

Sunnis and Sadrist unite to fight al-Qaeda

Blogging on the way out the door to the WW2 Memorial....but hot damn - this is good news.


IRAQ: SUNNI TRIBES SEEK SADRIST ALLIES

Baghdad, 23 May (AKI) - A delegation of Sahwa al-Anbar, (Anbar Awakening) the tribal alliance in the restive Sunni province of Al Anbar, has made an unprecedented visit to Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of radical Shiite imam Moqtada al-Sadr, according to pan Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat.

"We have taken this step to place national interest ahead of any differences" said the head of the US-endorsed Sunni alliance Hamid al-Hayas. "This is an effort to bring closer together the Sunni and Shiite Iraqi points of view.

We want to deliver a message to all the political groups to put aside their differences and act for the common good" he said.

The whereabouts of Moqtada al-Sadr remain undisclosed, but he was represented in the meeting by three MPs from the 30-strong bloc in Parliament loyal to him and prominent individuals from the Sadr City area.

At the end of the meeting the two sides signs a joint document in which they vowed to fight the terrorism of al-Qaeda.

The group has become increasingly isolated within the Sunni insurgency because of its indiscriminate targeting of civilians. Al-Qaeda in Iraq has been seeking to impose its fierce Salafite philosophies and strategies and consolidate its power over the many resistance groups in the Sunni Arab galaxy, some of whom view foreign fighters and Wahhabis with suspicion.

In recent months the heads of the powerful al-Anbar tribes have coalesced in a big to counteract al-Qaeda in Iraq and have begun a tentative dialogue with some elements in the al-Maliki government about entering the political process.As well as coming under increasing pressure from US and Iraqi forces in Baquba and elsewhere, the al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters have been increasingly in clashes with other insurgent formations.

The latest dispatch from Michael Yon...

Searing and powerful as always. In a SMALL BATTLE IN THE MEDIA WAR, Michael Yon writes about the Brits 4/18 hand over of the Maysan Province to Iraqi control. An event that was lost in the mediasphere coming as it did during the Virginia Tech massacre.

"Some of the biggest battles in Iraq today are being fought not with bombs and bullets, but with cameras and keyboards. For whatever reasons—and there are many—today, when Western media is most needed here, it’s nearly gone."

Read it all, my friends.

Dinah does DC

Speaking truth to powah.

This afternoon I took the train down to our nation's capitol for a brief visit. (The Lord and Master has business in town.) We're staying right across from the Reagan Building and down from the White House. My trip came up so fast I haven't been able to come up with a game plan of things to see and do yet. I like just walking around and staring at places, people and things. But you know what? I just remembered I have never been to the WW2 Memorial. That should be on the list. And there's always the Smithsonian. I'm always up for some art and history. Surely, I can find something to do there. Tomorrow night is a cocktail party for hubby's bidness and I'm thinking some political types will be showing up. Unfortunately Sam Brownback has already sent his regrets.

More later. Off for a refreshing adult beverage.

The latest on Dr. Haleh Esfandiari

The Iranian's start naming names and I fear for her friends, relatives and professional colleagues:

Iran's Soros spot.

Iran charged yesterday that a Washington-based academic arrested in Tehran this month was working for a George Soros-backed organization trying to undermine the Islamic state's ruling system. An Intelligence Ministry statement, published by Iran's ISNA news agency, said the program had financial backing from "the famous American Soros center."

It was referring to the Open Society Institute, founded by Soros, a Hungarian-born businessman and philanthropist and major left-wing Democratic donor in the United States. Soros, a fierce critic of President Bush, has given millions of dollars to the liberal Web site MoveOn.org and strongly opposes the Iraq war. Many of his views are controversial, including legalization of some drugs.

The Open Society organization has spent upward of $400 million a year on projects ranging from anti-poverty efforts in Africa to pro-democracy efforts in the former Soviet Union. The institute says it is dedicated to "fostering intellectual exchange between Iran and the outside world," and sponsors discussions in culture, education and public health.

But Tehran said Esfandiari admitted to a different role in Iran.

"In the preliminary interrogations, she said the Soros center in Iran had an unofficial communication network and was trying to develop and expand it to follow up its 'soft revolution' aims," the ministry statement said.

Iranian officials use the terms "soft" or "velvet revolution" to refer to a perceived U.S. plot to use intellectuals and others inside Iran to undermine the Islamic state. Officials say the intellectuals are often invited abroad for "training."

"The long-term and final goal of such centers is to try to enable this network . . . to confront the ruling powers. This model designed by the Americans . . . is following the 'soft revolution' in the country," the statement added.

Wilson Center director Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic Indiana congressman, told The Washington Post, "It's very disturbing. We deny all the charges. There is not one scintilla of evidence to support these allegations."

Iran said Esfandiari was cooperating with authorities to track down those working in the Soros center network.

Judiciary officials previously said the Intelligence Ministry was investigating Esfandiari for suspected "crimes against national security."

The Wilson Center acknowledged receiving some support from the Open Society Institute, but noted that the Soros Foundation, another philanthropy, had donated money to the Iranian government after an earthquake in 2003.

Honor killing: It's not just for Muslims anymore.

From Arabisto: Her stoning took place over 30 minutes, police authorities were present and did nothing to stop it. Before her burial in an unmarked grave, her post-mortem examination revealed that she was a virgin. The Sunni response to her murder? 23 Yezidi workers were killed. Now that's what I call a peaceful religion.

Du'a Khalil Aswad, a 17-year old Kurdish girl from the Yezidi religion, was stoned to death on 7 April 2007 in an honor killing in the northern city of Mosul, Iraq. Her murder was carried out by Du’a’s relatives and men from the Yezidi faith, Amnesty International reported in late April.

In response to Du'a’s murder, 23 Yezidi workers were killed by men from the Sunni Muslim faith.

Her stoning continued for 30 minutes and was captured on several cell phones. The video was then posted on the Internet, receiving widespread viewership from one video sharing website, YouTube.com. However, recently, YouTube.com took down the video. A 10-minute clip can be seen on Jebar.info. I must warn the viewer that this video clip is very graphic and contains disturbing images. (Sorry team, I couldn't bring myself to watch it.)

In this troubling video, one can see a large crowd of men, reported to be from the Yezidi sect, participating in the stoning and capturing it on video. Amnesty International also reported that, “The film reportedly shows that members of local security forces were present but failed to intervene to prevent the stoning or arrest those responsible.”

Kurdish women's rights campaigner Diana Nammi, according to The Daily Mail in the UK, explained that Du'a's body thereafter had been dispatched to the Medico-legal Institute in Mosul, Iraq for an assessment of her virginity prior to revisiting her “unmarked grave” in the Sheikh Shams cemetery. The test revealed she was still a virgin and innocent of her alleged crime.

Her crime? Forbidden love. Although there have been conflicting reports, it had been reported that Du’a had converted to Islam after having married a Sunni Muslim boy, which is prohibited by the Yezidi faith. While other news outlets have stated that she had been away from home one night, raising suspicion from her relatives.

The Yezidi religion forbids one from marrying outside of the religion and do not allow any converts. It is pre-Islamic and is dated before the Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The estimated population is 500,000 although the exact amount is not known as the Yezidis practice a religious tradition of privacy. They believe to be descendants of Adam, not Eve. (I guess Adam was getting busy on the side.)

Oh, really? Honor killing should not be attributed solely to any faith? Well then, the Yezidi religion must be the exception that proves the rule: Muslims invented the honor killing.

One must note that the murder of women in the name of honor in Kurdistan, Iraq, and elsewhere is not unique and should not be attributed solely to any faith. Amnesty International stated, “While the Kurdish authorities introduced legal reforms to address “honour killings” they have, however, failed to investigate and prosecute those responsible for such crimes.”

Four men, two of whom are relatives, have been arrested for her murder and the chief of police will be substituted, CNN reported on 21 May 2007.

The Mullahs speak about the female condition

Iranian Mullah Hot-to-trot Hassani: If his wife's a donkey, I guess that makes him an ass.

From Gateway Pundit: What do women and mass transit have in common?

Quite a lot, according to Iranian Mullah Hojatolislam Hassani. In last Friday's sermon about the crackdown on Iranian Fashion Victims, the Islamic hardliner divided women into three groups--

The first group... he said are the women who are badly veiled who are like buses who everyone and anyone can ride.

The second group... are women who are wearing scarves without the Islamic overcoats; they are like taxis who only pick up certain passengers.

And finally, in the third group... there are women like my wife who are like donkeys who let only one person ride them!

Bonus fatwa: Breast feeding among adult co-workers okay.

Ezzat Attiya had issued a fatwa, or religious edict, saying adult men could breast-feed from female work colleagues as a way to avoid breaking Islamic rules that forbid men and women from being alone together.

In Islamic tradition, breast-feeding establishes a degree of maternal relation, even if a woman nurses a child who is not biologically hers. It means the child could not marry the nursing woman’s biological children.

Attiya - the head of Al-Azhar’s Department of Hadith, or teachings of the Prophet Muhammad - insisted the same would apply with adults. He argued that if a man nursed from a co-worker, it would establish a family bond between them and allow the two to work side-by-side without raising suspicion of an illicit sexual relation.

Sorry, boys. Before you go rushing off to the break room - he has since recanted.

US official aims to bridge gap with Muslims in Europe

In keeping with the Dinah Lord philosophy of giving the megaphone to moderate Muslims whenever they are speaking out, I'd like to introduce you to:

Farah Pandith, who in February was appointed to the freshly created position of senior advisor for Muslim Engagement in the State Department's European and Eurasian Affairs Bureau. Ms. Pandith points to her own life experience as an American Muslim woman of Indian origin to illustrate how it is possible for Muslim immigrants to successfully integrate into United States society.

"I understood from very early on that whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, education put me in the game," Pandith told a conference in Rome on Monday on the topic of Literature and International Dialogue.

"I also learned - and this is something that Americans work assiduously at - to balance pride in my cultural heritage with a deep attachment to the values of America,"

Pandith, emigrated as a baby with her parents to the United States from Srinagar in 1969, and was awarded a Master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She has held senior posts in the US Agency for International Development and describes herself as "extremely fortunate", but also "walking proof that although there are no guarantees, the American dream is also not a myth".

For her, America has since its foundation as an independent republic nurtured a tradition based on indivudual choice. "But we have found that it is possible not to make an exclusive choice, that being American, being a good American or even a great American, that highest of accolades - does not require turning your back on your background or religion".

The "Muslim experience in America does prove that Muslims who live their religion can be unqualified democratic Americans," she told the gathering held at Rome's American Studies Centre.

Turning to Washington's foreign policies, Pandith described the notion that America is at war with Islam as a "myth".She said that in the two conflicts currently involving the United States in majority Muslim nations - Afghanistan and Iraq - Washington was supporting "fledgling democracies," after helping to respectively topple the Taliban, which she described as "an obscurantist regime that targeted and banned centuries-old Afghan culture" and Saddam Hussein, "one of the worst dictators ever to tyrannise Muslims".

She also said the US had given billion of dollars in humanitarian and economic aid around the world in Muslim communities, citing as examples Indonesia in the aftermath of the December 2004 tsunami, in Pakistan following the October 2005 earthquake and reconstruction in Lebanon after the July-August 2006 conflict with Israel.

Go get 'em, Pandith. We need all the help we can get.

Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq

A sneak summer preview from al-Guardian: Read it all at the link.

Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.

"Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it's a very dangerous course for them to be following. They are already committing daily acts of war against US and British forces," a senior US official in Baghdad warned. "They [Iran] are behind a lot of high-profile attacks meant to undermine US will and British will, such as the rocket attacks on Basra palace and the Green Zone [in Baghdad]. The attacks are directed by the Revolutionary Guard who are connected right to the top [of the Iranian government]."

The official said US commanders were bracing for a nationwide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive, linking al-Qaida and Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies, that Iran hoped would trigger a political mutiny in Washington and a US retreat.

Afghanistan: Iran expels 70,000 Afghan refugees.

Since April 21 a total of 70,000 have been expelled. Tehran says it wants to repatriate 1,000,000 by next March. Can you imagine the US trying to do something like this and getting away with it? Ay Caramba! I don't think so! Remember the hue and cry that accompanied Little Elian!

More than 70 000 Afghans who were in Iran illegally have been returned in the past month, the United Nations said on Monday, as talks were under way between the neighbours over the controversial deportations. The number of unregistered Afghans being expelled had eased off over the past week, the UN said. (because of increased pressure from civilized nations)

The talks in Iran were to focus on how the deportations were carried out and also the treatment of deportees, it said. There have been reports of returnees being separated from their families in the drive to get them out.

Tehran has said it wanted one million Afghans repatriated by next March. The 70 000 who have been sent back started returning from April 21.

Afghanistan has asked its neighbour to halt the returns, saying it does not have the capacity to accommodate a large number of people at once. "We are concerned about the way the deportations are taking place," said Nader Farhad, a UN refugee agency information officer in Kabul. "It is important with such a large number of people, it should take place in a gradual and orderly manner."

Anger in Afghanistan about the returns has already cost the refugees minister his job. Parliament also wants Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta sacked.

The World Food Programme had provided a month's worth of food to more than 250 returning families in Farah province, one of the main collecting points for the returnees, the UN said. There are about 920 000 registered Afghan refugees in Iran, which took in hundreds of thousands of Afghans during the country's years of war.

Edwards charges $55,000 to speak to UC Davis students about poverty

This is like candy to me...
Edwards charges $55,000 to speak to UC Davis students about poverty

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who as a Democratic presidential candidate recently proposed an educational policy that urged "every financial barrier" be removed for American kids who want to go to college, has been going to college himself -- as a high paid speaker, his financial records show.

The candidate charged a whopping $55,000 to speak at to a crowd of 1,787 the taxpayer-funded University of California at Davis on Jan. 9, 2006 last year, Joe Martin, the public relations officer for the campus' Mondavi Center confirmed Monday.

That amount -- which comes to about $31 a person in the audience -- included Edwards' travel and airfare, and was the highest speaking fee in the nine appearances he made before colleges and universities last year, according to his financial records.

The earnings -- though made before Edwards was a declared Democratic presidential candidate -- could hand ammunition to his competition for the Democratic presidential nomination. The candidate -- who was then the head of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina -- chose to speak on "Poverty, the great moral issue facing America," as his $55,000 topic at UC Davis.

That could cause both parents and students to note some irony here: UC Davis -- like the rest of the public University of California system -- will get hit this year by a 7 percent tuition increase that likely hits many of the kids his speeches are aimed at helping.

We wondered if this is Edwards' going speaking rate, and how come he didn't offer to do it gratis for a college, particularly a public institution.

Read More »

Suicide Sisters With the Managing Misters...

(title h/t: Steely Dan)

"We will turn our bodies into living bombs..."

The suicide sisters ready to die for their country.

(Correction: "Make that The Homicide sisters ready to kill innocents for their cult.")

Clad head to toe in black and clutching sub-machine guns and automatic rifles, they vowed to die killing Israelis. The women, at once sinister and yet awkward in their long dresses and munitions belts, say they will blow themselves up in attacks on Israeli soldiers if the Gaza Strip is invaded.

They gathered as Israel pounded the Strip with airstrikes yesterday - in response to weeks of rocket attacks from Palestinian fanatics. "If the Israelis try to invade northern Gaza Strip, we will defend our land and our homes," one of the women declared as the group gathered at the Jabalya refugee camp north of Gaza City.

"We will turn our bodies into living bombs against the Israeli army," she added and demanded revenge against Israeli "crimes" carried out against the Palestinians. The women belong to the military wing of Palestine's ruling Hamas party.

A day earlier rival militants of Islamic Jihad released a video in which dozens of women said they were "eagerly awaiting" the chance to become suicide bombers.

So sad. What is wrong with these people?

Where is the rest of the Muslim world?

Why aren't they speaking out about this blatant act of aggression?

More at the link here.

Iran charges Iranian-American academic of seeking to topple regime

From the IHT:



"Soft toppling of the country-by soft hostage."


Iran on Monday charged detained Iranian-American academic Haleh Esfandiari of seeking to topple the ruling Islamic establishment, state-run television reported.

Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, has been held at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison since early May. State TV said she and the Wilson Center were conspiring together to topple the government by setting up a network "against the sovereignty of the country.



This is an American designed model with an attractive appearance that seeks the soft-toppling of the country."

The announcement was the first time Iran said it had officially charged Esfandiari of seeking to overthrow the ruling establishment, a severe security crime. It was not immediately clear when Esfandiari will stand trial or if the trial will be public.

The "crimes" she has purportedly "confessed to"...

The broadcast said Esfandiari confirmed during interrogations that her center "invited Iranians to attend conferences, offered them research projects, scholarships ... and tried to lure influential elements and link them to decision-making centers in America."

She has been denied legal representation, perhaps you can help by sending a letter on her behalf.

Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner and the lead attorney for imprisoned American scholar Haleh Esfandiari, charged yesterday that the Iranian government has turned down her request to represent the Potomac resident, refused information on the charges against Esfandiari and denied a legal team access to its client.



Payvand weighs in with an analysis of "root causes" of Dr. Esfandiari's arrest, the context of repression and what the regime could possibly be thinking here. Here's a sample:


The Iranian president has been creating crises - local and international - on a routine basis since he was elected to office in June 2005. Haleh Esfandiari, in the regime's twisted logic, may have seemed an appropriate target for its punishment: in her capacity as director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, she had offered fellowships to young scholars from Iran (who are naturally inclined toward reform and democracy). This may have been enough for Tehran's hardliners to have plotted Esfandiari's arrest, enabling them to accuse her (bizarrely) of espionage and undermine their rivals in Iran by associating the latter with her.

Little Mermaid gets hijabbed

Denmark: The Little Mermaid Statue covered with the hijab.

Police found the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen covered with a Muslim dress and head scarf after they were alerted by a telephone call. The bronze statue was sculpted in honour to Hans Christian Andersen by Edvard Eriksen in 1913 and has sat on the Danish harbour ever since attracting around 1 million tourists a year.

This is not the first time the statue has been vandalised; it was painted over on one side and in 2004 it was found with a burga (head-to-toe Islamic robe) and a sign questioning Turkey joining the European Union.

Nice. Real nice. You can read more about the hijab wars in Denmark here.

(When Dinah visited Copenhagen last year the Little Mermaid had been painted hot pink and someone had placed a vibrator in her hand. I believe that had something to do with the Vagina Monologues or National Woman's Day or some such nonsense.)

Baghdad tribes close to fighting al Qaeda?

Now THIS is good news....Following the lead of tribes in Anbar and Diyala, the Baghdad tribes are coming together against the evil doers. Yee-haw!

Baghdad tribes close to fighting al-Qaida

TAJI, Iraq — Mirroring a nationwide trend, tribes near Baghdad are on the verge of banding together against al-Qaida and have met with U.S. military officials seeking aid and guidance in fighting the terrorist network.

Acceptance of — if not outright support for — al-Qaida among the tribes eroded after the strict Islamic law imposed by insurgents clashed with the authority of the sheikhs, according to U.S. military officials.

On Saturday, a group of local chieftains met with military commanders and a representative of the State Department at Camp Taji, about 20 miles northwest of Baghdad, and tentatively agreed to form a council that would oversee the creation of a provincial security force similar to the tribal militia created in western Iraq.

“I think we all agree that our common enemy are extremists and that’s who we must defeat,” Col. Paul E. Funk II said to the roughly dozen sheikhs at the gathering. Funk, commander of the 1st “Ironhorse” Brigade Combat Tam, 1st Cavalry Division, presided over the meeting.

With the fledgling alliance still in its early stages, the gathering at times resembled a negotiation. Several sheikhs asked for improvements in water treatment and electricity service as well as for inquiries into the detention by Iraqi security forces of relatives and tribal members.
“Are you going to support us, or do we have to go knock on someone else’s door,” one sheikh asked.

But even while U.S. commanders courted tribal support, they were wary of creating a new, separate fighting force and potentially further complicating the crowded battlefield around Baghdad that includes not only al-Qaida, but also Shiite militias.

“We are not here to build another militia,” Funk said. Volunteers from the tribes must cooperate with the Iraqi government’s security forces, he said.

The fragile, emerging alliance is being handled carefully by the military. No photographs were allowed at Saturday’s meeting, a nod toward security concerns and possible retaliation against the sheikhs.

Lt. Col. Kurt Pinkerton, who commands the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment in Abu Ghraib, has been on the forefront of the military’s outreach to the tribes in the area. He said that the turning point in the struggle for the sympathies of the region came last September when al-Qaida in Iraq declared the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq.

The shadow government clashed with the centuries old tribal system, establishing Islamic sharia courts and often punishing dissention with kidnappings and death sentences.

“Throughout history the tribes have been seen as a challenge and have been targeted. At one point Saddam tried to put them down, al-Qaeda tried, and now we need to keep the coalition from making the same mistakes,” Pinkerton said. “If you understand the [tribal] culture, you can understand the country better. Why not use tribal influence to meet your goals and objectives?”

AU: Woman reporter's dress offensive to Muslims.

There they go again. Members of the Australian chapter of the He-Man-Woman-Hater's Club getting all up in a girl's face and telling her what to wear... You know how Dinah feels about that nonsense.

"You need to cover up, you mutt."

THIS is the outfit that has been labelled "offensive" and "disrespectful" to the Muslim community. Twenty-three-year-old journalist Latika Bourke was verbally attacked bya group of Muslim men outside a Sydney mosque because of her dress.

"This young man approached me and said: 'You should be wearing more clothes. You need to cover up, you mutt','' Ms Bourke, who works for 2UE Radio, recounted. Ms Bourke, who was wearing a black trenchcoat, knee-high boots and gloves, said she was shocked and humiliated.
"I'm just incredulous as to why they would say that ... what else is there to cover up? They are doing themselves no favours by behaving like this.''

Ms Bourke was waiting to interview controversial mufti Sheik Taj Eldeen Alhilaly at Lakemba mosque when a man aged about 20 confronted her. His friends stood nearby, supporting him, as he verbally attacked her. "He said: Are you aware that this is our Friday prayers? Do you know you're disrespecting our religion.''

Ms Bourke said she replied: "I'm sorry, how?'' He then advised her to cover up and called her "a mutt''. Ms Bourke, a Christian, said she was very conscious of the need to respect other people's religions. "I knew it was important to cover up when you go to a mosque and that's why I wore a long coat and gloves.

"As soon as it happened I looked at myself and thought, 'What am I wearing that is offensive?'''

The incident sparked a flurry of calls to talkback radio on Friday _ mostly criticising the Muslim man and his friends for what they described as being "offensive behaviour''.

Goodness Gracious - great balls of fire!

Diamonds tell tale of comet that killed off the cavemen.

Fireballs set half the planet ablaze, wiping out the mammoth and America's Stone Age hunters.

A group of US scientists ... will report that they have found a layer of microscopic diamonds at 26 different sites in Europe, Canada and America. These are the remains of a giant carbon-rich comet that crashed in pieces on our planet 12,900 years ago, they say. The huge pressures and heat triggered by the fragments crashing to Earth turned the comet's carbon into diamond dust.

'The shock waves and the heat would have been tremendous,' said West. 'It would have set fire to animals' fur and to the clothing worn by men and women. The searing heat would have also set fire to the grasslands of the northern hemisphere. Great grazing animals like the mammoth that had survived the original blast would later have died in their thousands from starvation. Only animals, including humans, that had a wide range of food would have survived the aftermath.'

The scientists point out that archaeological evidence shows that early Stone Age cultures clearly suffered serious setbacks at this time. In particular, American Stone Age hunters, descendants of the hunter-gatherers who had migrated to the continent from Asia, vanished around this time.

These people were some of the fiercest hunters on Earth, men and women who made magnificent stone spearheads which they used to hunt animals including the mammoth. Their disappearance at this time has been a cause of intense debate, with climate change being put forward as a key explanation. Now there is a new idea: the first Americans were killed by a comet.

I read this and thought how similar it sounded to nuclear fallout and then thought about the possibility of a nuclear Iran. These were not happy thoughts.

Just when you thought you heard it all v.2...Game show edition

I'd like old fools for 200, Alex!

Meet Democrat Dennis Kucinich's wife: She's a New Age, Tongue-Pierced Brit.

A British girl from Essex, in southern England, may be the first lady with a tongue stud to have set her sights on the White House.

The wife of Dennis Kucinich, a left-wing Democratic congressman and 2008 presidential candidate, is a 29-year-old hippie chick from Upminster at the end of the London Underground’s District line.

Elizabeth Kucinich, née Harper, has been on the stump with her husband, a 60-year-old anti-war campaigner from Cleveland, mingling with the likes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama backstage at the Democratic presidential debates.

A 6-foot-tall willowy redhead who has been compared to Arwen Evenstar, the "Lord of the Rings" character played in the films by Liv Tyler, she towers over her diminutive husband.

“Who cares?” she said in an interview. “I like wearing high heels so I’m used to being taller than most men I stand next to.”

More at the link, possums!

Just when you thought you heard it all...

CONVICTED terrorist David Hicks winged it home in style yesterday – then thanked taxpayers for picking up the $500,000 bill for his luxury jet. Even joked about it. Watched a movie. (The Departed) Wants to get on with his life and his taxpayer funded education.

Great. Just rub our noses in it while you're at it...

The confessed terrorist supporter touched down at Adelaide's Edinburgh RAAF base at 9.47am after spending 5½ years in a US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. While his lawyer gushed over the elation Hicks felt to be back on Australian soil, debate quickly turned to the plush mode of transport chosen for him by the Federal Government. The $25 million Gulfstream G550 – with leather seats, inflight entertainment and twin Rolls-Royce engines – is more suited to movie stars and executives than convicted criminals.

The same jet, chartered from Sydney-based firm Adagold Aviation, has been used to ferry tennis ace Lleyton Hewitt – like Hicks, an Adelaide native – to tournaments around the world. Hicks' lawyer David McLeod said his client thoroughly enjoyed the trip, watching a movie, sampling the menu and chatting to Australian Federal Police and South Australian Correctional Services officers assigned to him. "David is well, and he enjoyed the trip," Mr McLeod said. "He was very glad just to be back on Australian soil, he was visibly overjoyed when we touched down.

"He is very grateful to the Australian taxpayer for bringing him home."Mr McLeod said his client – convicted of training alongside the Taliban and al-Qaeda – joked on the flight that he was the only prisoner to "get a world trip between stretches".

Read it all at the linky.

NJ: On the trail of the Ft. Dix 6

"So they had time to drink and swim and plan a massacre," Herman mused. "It's crazy."

GOULDSBORO, Pa. -- Cassy Herman booked two unforgettable renters last winter for her Pocono Mountain vacation property. First came Eljvir Duka, a 23-year-old Cherry Hill resident, who wanted the Gouldsboro, Pa., house on Feb. 1. Duka offered Her man a $900 cash deposit in early December; she took it.

Six weeks later, a second man asked to lease the property for the end of January. He promised to leave hours before Herman's next renter arrived. Again, she agreed. But something gnawed at Her man as she hung up the phone. So she picked it up, redialed the last number on her caller ID and listened in stunned silence at what came next.

"FBI," a voice answered.

I couldn't believe it when I read how boneheaded the FBI was with that one! Until I read about this BIG boneheaded move. Talk about Keystone Cops!

One of the odder moments outlined in the FBI affidavit occurred at a local convenience store early the next day. As Eljvir and Dritan Duka wandered into the store, they recognized another customer -- the undercover agent who had been at the firing range -- and began chatting with him about guns. They allegedly asked their new acquaintance if he knew where they could buy assault rifles. Dritan Duka told the agent they wanted Russian AK-47s, not the cheaper Chinese version, be cause the Russian model was sturdier and easier to bury in the dirt or sand, according to the complaint. It's not clear how the agent responded.

About that week:
At least 14 people crowded into Herman's house that week, a band of chatty, vodka-swilling young men who included roofers, a baker and a cab driver. Agents recorded a key defendant claiming that all of them -- "less one or two" -- planned to participate in the at tack. In the end, prosecutors charged only four on the trip -- Duka; his brothers, Shain and Dritan; and another man from Cherry Hill, Muhamad Ibrahim Shnewer. Those four and a fifth, Serdar Tatar of Philadelphia, were charged with terror conspiracy. A sixth defendant, Agron Abdullahu of Atlantic County, is accused of supplying guns to the plotters.

About Gouldsboro and the house they rented from Herman:
North of Allentown and south of Scranton, Gouldsboro straddles two townships that claim about 3,000 residents, a total that ebbs and flows depending on the season. Its biggest commodities might be the same ones all hamlets seek: peace, quiet, isolation.

Small lakes dot the landscape, as does a 2,800-acre state park. An Army tank sits outside the local American Legion post, where veterans share drinks along a dark, smoky bar. There's a gas station, a convenience store and a shooting range. The Stars and Stripes fly from every other telephone pole on Main Street. Flags honoring U.S. prisoners of war hang on the rest.

On a Web site, Herman advertises her house as the only one of its kind in the gated development called Big Bass Lake. Filling 5,000 square feet, the house sports a hot tub and sauna, a 62-inch television in the master suite and an outdoor fireplace "for roasting marshmallows."

Sounds lovely, doesn't it? My question: Where did the money come from to fund this little outing...there's lots more good Sunday morning reading at the link. I especially liked reading how the attorneys are calling this terror confab "a vacation" and an "open house." Yeah, right.

NJ: Mosque members sue to oust Imam.

Holy Salafi Wahhabi - and right in Dinah's backyard!

At a time of debate over how the Islamic religion is practiced, some founding members of a Trenton mosque are asking a judge to oust their leader because they say he is taking the congregation in a fundamentalist direction.

In recent years, Imam Sabur Abdul Hakim has adopted stricter views of Islam and his aides plan to link the mosque with others of a conservative sect in Saudi Arabia, beaming in lectures via satellite links, according to a lawsuit filed in Superior Court in Mercer County.

The Mosque is owned by the International Muslim Brotherhood Inc - but it's "not related to the overseas organization". (And I am Marilyn Monroe.) Read how Peter Golden a Rutgers University history professor falls all over himself to avoid making the Islam=terror connection. He'll tar the Branch Davidians with that brush - but oh no, not Islam.

While Salafism has been linked to terrorists and al Qaeda, everyone who practices it is not a terrorist. Golden noted that Islamic fundamentalists are not the only ones linked to terrorism. Other religious fundamentalists, like David Koresh's Branch Davidians, also have been linked to violence, he said.

Is this an example of the schism that is starting to ripple through the muslim world? Let us hope so. Read it all, there's more at the link.

Meanwhile, the change toward Salafism has driven away many of the more moderate members at Masjid As-Saffat and its religious school closed last year, the suit said.

Raise your hand...

...if you doubt that Islam is a religion of peace.

Algerian bombing, 4-11-07

Hat tip to TheReligionOfPeace.com

Putting the Bang in Bangladesh and with Saudi $, too.

Militants preparing to launch car bomb attacks. "We have several hundred cadres ready." Denies links to Taliban or other violent groups outside of Bangladesh. Hmm. What about the Wahhabi dough you're rolling in these days, scumbag?

Islamist militants in Bangladesh are preparing to launch car bomb attacks and carry out other deadly missions, one self-described militant commander said in a rare interview with a private television channel.

"After going somewhat slow following the execution of our top six leaders, (Bwa-ha-ha-ha!)we have regrouped, received funding from Saudi Arabia, acquired training and (are) now recruiting drivers to operate suicide vehicles," he told Ekushey television (ETV).

Okay, here's how it works. The money flows from Saudi Wahhabists to the jihadis. They wave it under the nose of an impoverished and ignorant Muslim, we'll call Mo Six Pack. Mo hasn't been living the life of Riley over in Bangladesh. What with the monsoons, tsunamis, floods and such and with four wives and 9 kids to feed he's feeling the pressure. He can't even have a cocktail to relax. No wonder he's ready to go off like a rocket. Throw in the concept of paradise with 72 sloe-eyed virgins waiting for him and you got yourself a new recruit. I still don't know what they offer the women jihadi...

But you know what I really like about these jihadis? They are such cowards. Truly. They hide in their caves and wear burkas to disguise themselves. Or they run off to hide behind the skirts of the Iranian theocracy, ala Nasrallah. IMO this is clearly a manifestation of their deep seeded insecurities about their sexuality. That and their inbreeding. But that's a topic for another day... Read on about the brave but covered from head to toe "militant" blowing his horn from his "undisclosed jungle location".

ETV aired the interview on Wednesday night, showing the militant hooded in a black robe from head to toe, and only revealing one eye."I cannot give my name for security reasons," he said, describing himself as the commander of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, an outlawed group seeking to introduce Shariah law in Bangladesh.

"The executions did not break our morale, rather inspired us to carry forward their mission," the militant said in the interview, conducted in an undisclosed jungle location. The name of the self-proclaimed militant commander was also not disclosed."We have several thousand cadres ready, including many to operate suicide missions."The militant said one funding means was "our people who work in Saudi Arabia", who send some of their own savings and collect from other sources."We are ready to strike again, soon," he added.

The militants faced some operational difficulties because of a state of emergency in Bangladesh now, but hoped to overcome those soon, the militant said."Now we have drafted young and old, and even women. They are all trained and equipped."Asked what mission he wanted to achieve, the militant said "to establish Allah's rule in the soil of Allah.""Anyone who accepts our demand is a friend, anyone who don't is an enemy. And we will finish them."However, he denied any links with the Taliban or other violent groups outside Bangladesh.Defence analyst Brig General (retd) Shahedul Anam Khan told ETV the threat of car bombings could be real but it might take some time before there was an attack.

Iran invents ISLAMOCYCLE for the lady bikers...

Good news. Soon she'll have a bike of her very own!

Lucky girls. I imagine that riding the bike with its specially designed cabin (!) and wearing a sleeping bag should be tons of fun! Especially in the warmer climates!!!

Iran plans to make special bicycles designed for women that will be compatible with Islamic regulations and not expose their body movements while riding. The new bicycle would have a cabin to cover half of a rider's body, the newspaper Iran quoted project manager Elaheh Sofali as saying.

Women's sports in general, and cycling in particular, have been a constant controversial issue in Islamic Iran. Several efforts to promote athletics by reformist circles and women's activists have failed because of opposition by the conservative clergy... The clergy considers women's body movements made while riding a bicycle to be provoking to men and not compatible with social rules.

Turkey: Swimsuit photos banned, could cause 'car accidents'

(I guess this means the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is a no go, too.)

Media fury rages over swimsuit photo ban

A DECISION by Turkey's largest city to ban some pictures of swimsuit models has revived claims about the rising power of Islam, with newspapers saying the move was more befitting of theocratic Iran than a secular democracy.

Istanbul municipality asked stores selling swimwear made by Turkish manufacturer Nelson to seek permission to place photographs of models in swimsuits and bikinis on store front windows located on main streets. It then denied them permission.

The controversy follows several large secularist protests in Turkey, a secular republic with an overwhelmingly Muslim population, against the ruling AK Party, which controls the Istanbul city authority and which has Islamist roots.

Secularists say AK wants to undermine Turkey's separation of state and religion and to boost the role of Islam in daily life, claims which the centre-right, pro-business party denies. “Is this becoming a land of mullahs like Iran?” asked the Vatan daily, commenting on the row over the swimwear pictures.

Echoing that comment, the staunchly secular Cumhuriyet daily quoted local consultant Ali Saydam as saying: “(The AK Party) is creating worries that they are turning Turkey into Iran.” This year four firms were denied permission to hang photographs in store windows, according to newspaper reports.

Moris Eskinazi, part owner of Nelson, told Reuters the need to seek municipality permission was new. “We've never had to get permission before, and they wanted us to bring a copy of the photographs we planned on putting up,” he said.

The authorities offer a string of rationalizations for their actions. First, there was the car accident excuse. They they said the ads weren't up to EU standards. Finally they played the aesthetic card, saying that they violated the historical character of the city. Headscarf ads? Well, they don't appear to violate the historical character of the city. You can buy ad space all day long for them... Creeping sharia...

More at the link.

Caption this pic

Snively Whiplash: Curses foiled again.

Norwegian wood...it's not good.

I'm talking about poor Namand Mamandi, a Norwegian-Iranian who had the misfortune of getting caught having a nip in Tehran and rec'd 130 lashes in public as a result. Some chaser, huh. I worked for a number of years as an ICU nurse in some pretty bad hoods and let me tell you, I've never seen wounds like this. (original post is here.)

They didn't use Norwegian wood - they used electrical cables.

Read this rough translation of a piece by Bjorn Carlsen, editor of TV2 Nettavisen/iOslo.no. Video at the link as well. His injuries appear to be even more painful there. Watch it and be thankful you can freely imbibe and still sit in a chair afterwards. The most interesting part of the article?

UD ignorant ofAs iOslo.no called up Foreign Office Monday morning, owned they no matter hrtø any about issue. Norwegian authorities hasn't knowledge at this, say kommunikasjonsrdgiverå Christening Melsom in UD at iOslo.no. The accumulationså by far hasn't iOslo.no fttå a few annotation at it Iranian embassy.

It appears that the Norwegian government is taking a soft approach to this blatant attack on one of their citizens. Thanks for nothing, guys. And we know from the Dr. Haleh Esfandiari situation that Iran doesn't recognize the dual nationality distinction.

Here's another rough translation of a follow up article from TV2 Nettavisen/iOslo.no from today advising Norwegian Iranians to avoid going to visit in Iran because of the increase in human rights violations against holders of dual citizenship. I think. (My Norwegian is non-existent)

The Norwegian gov't still hasn't done anything despite the fact that Mr. Mamandi has been a citizen of that fair nation since 1999.

Don't squeeze the hostages...

You know Dinah has been getting all exercised over the MSM labelling of the US citizens held hostage in Iran as "soft hostages" The only thing more disturbing IHO is the "soft approach" the US government has taken with regard to their seizure.

Yesterday, Iran finally acknowledged the detention of Dr Haleh Esfandiari for "crimes against national security." A charge that could carry the death sentence.

Information about what could have led to her detention continues to be thin on the ground but I did find this over at al-Guardian:

Human Rights Watch, which fears that the 67-year-old scholar may have been subjected to coercive interrogation. The human rights group also points out that Esfandiari's arrest took place during a particularly onerous week in Iran, one that saw "escalated repressive campaigns against Iranian women's right activists and student leaders".

But it isn't just the last week. In a climate that the writer Praful Bidwal aptly describes as having grown "palpably more unfree, tense, apprehensive and insecure" in the last year, the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced a purge of liberal and secular professors from Iran's universities, harassed and banned several student organisations, shut down scores of newspapers and magazines and clamped down on the country's women's rights movement, which has been gaining momentum in recent months.

This last front may be pivotal to understanding why Tehran has targeted Esfandiari, who is a former Deputy Secretary General of the Women's Organization of Iran and the author of Reconstructed Lives: Women and Iran's Islamic Revolution (1997).

Another possible reason for her arrest is alluded to in a Wilson Center statement, which says that the questioning to which Esfandiari has been subjected has "focused almost entirely on the activities and programs of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center. Repeatedly during the interrogation, Dr Esfandiari was pressured to make a false confession or to falsely implicate the Wilson Center in activities in which it had no part."

The US State Department has made $75m available for "democracy promotion" in Iran, and Tehran clearly believes that the center is involved in such activities.

The kicker:

As the Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji argues, those funds only "make the work of the pro-democracy movement more difficult. The government of Iran describes all of its opponents as agents of the United States [and] claims they are on the payroll of the Bush administration." And that's precisely what's happened to Esfandiari.

The real kicker:

You know something's not right when Glamor.com in a freaking MOTHER's DAY piece is the only major media outlet banging the drum for Dr. Esfandiari's release.

Visit Free Haleh and take part in their letter writing campaign...

Baquba Salvation Council formed.

Baquba takes a page from the Anbar Salvation Council playbook. Starting to look like the tribal leaders have REALLY had enough of al Qaeda.

An official in Diyala Province announced that more than 280 prominent personalities and tribal and military leaders have formed a “Baquba Salvation Council” to confront acts of violence in the province, focusing especially on combatting the so-called “Islamic State of Iraq.”

Al-Melaf reports in Arabic that Shaykh 'Awad Najm al-Rabi'i, the head of the new “Baquba Salvation Council” announced that around 280 tribal leaders, academics, military leaders, from the full range of sects and ethnicities have formed the council to confront the deteriorating security situation in the province and confront the “gangs” that operate under the organizational rubric of the “Islamic State.”

Citing “resentment and anger among the tribal leaders at the conduct of these gangs,” al-Rabi'i said the leaders were insistent on “declaring war against them and expelling them from the province and bringing security back to the citizens,” the agency writes.

Iran: Fashion police victim attempts suicide. Further crackdown urged.

It appears to be true:

A 21-year-old medical student at the University of Shahrekord in western Iran identified only as Farinaz attempted suicide on Monday by overdosing on aspirin after police had arrested and later released her for breaking new Islamic dress code rules. She is currently in a coma at the hospital of Isfahan. Under a new moralization campaign which kicked off last month, police can arrest women who do not abide by a strict Islamic dress code. Farinaz had reportedly not fully covered her hair with the veil.

While a greater crackdown is being called for by an official of the He man woman haters club.

“The actions of State Security Forces (SSF) against mal-veiled women are necessary but insufficient”, said Farahnaz Qandforoush, the governorate’s advisor on women’s affairs.The SSF should have decisively enforced the dress code over the past decade, Qandforoush told the government-run news agency Fars.“The inaction in previous years has led women and girls to start thinking that they can appear in society in any way they want”, Qandforoush protested.

You have to wonder where this is all headed.

Iran:Ahmadinejad tosses al Jazeera out on its ear-a.

Out, out dammed smut!

An Al-Jazeera television crew was ordered out of a press conference to be held by visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday, the channel's correspondent said.

Officials from the Iranian embassy in Abu Dhabi asked the team from the Arabic-language Al-Jazeera and its sister channel Al-Jazeera English to leave the hall ahead of the press conference, Mohammad al-Abdallah told AFP. Ahmadinejad is wrapping up a landmark two-day visit to the United Arab Emirates, the first by an Iranian head of state to the US Gulf ally.

A member of the Iranian delegation said the ban was related to an Al-Jazeera programme which was deemed insulting to Iraq's Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. "It was because Iran's parliament has ordered a ban on dealing with Al-Jazeera due to its offence to Ayatollah Sistani," Navid Behrouz told AFP.

They've been in trouble with Iran before:
The channel was involved in a similar controversy in December 2005 when Iraqi Shiites protested after a talk show guest accused Sistani of favouring the US occupation. After that incident, Tehran summoned the ambassador of Qatar, where Al-Jazeera is based. Its Tehran bureau was shut down by the authorities in April 2005 amid accusations of stirring up violence in its coverage of clashes in the ethnic Arab majority southwestern oil city of Ahvaz. It only reopened 14 months later.

Iran: Top Blogger arrested

This is bad:

Mehdi Boutorabi, the CEO of Persian Blog, a service company for Iranian bloggers, was arrested Sunday in his Tehran office, reports said Monday. Persian Blog was founded in 2001 by three students who two years later, during a crackdown by authorities on bloggers which led to many arrests, sold it to Boutorabi, a young entrepreneur close to Iran's reformist movement.

Officially, Boutorabi was arrested over the disappearance of former Pasdaran general, Alireza Asghari, though the connection between the two is unclear and has not been explained by authorities yet.

An ex deputy defence minister, Alireza Asghari disappeared in Istanbul, Turkey, in January.

Some claim the former Revolutionary Guards commander, who has precious information on Iran's missile systems and nuclear progress, defected to a European country while others believe he was abducted by the US.

Should Persian Blog be shut down, thousands of Iranian bloggers would loose the opportunity of keeping an online diary.

After authorities recently shut down a number of reformist newspapers, blogs are a relevant source of independent news in Iran.

US confirms GIs in AQ hands. AQ issues taunts.

Qaeda tells US to stop hunt for missing soldiers.
An Al-Qaeda group demanded on Monday that the US military halt its hunt for three US soldiers it is believed to be holding if the troops are to remain safe, according to an Internet statement.

"Your soldiers are in our hands. If you want them safe, do not search for them," the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq, an alliance of Sunni groups led by Al-Qaeda, said in the statement.

The three soldiers went missing early Saturday after gunmen ambushed their patrol, killing four soldiers and an Iraqi army interpreter travelling with them, near the town of Mahmudiyah, 30 kilometres south of Baghdad.

The US military confirmed on Monday that it believes the three have been kidnapped by militants loyal to Al-Qaeda.

"At this time, we believe they were abducted by terrorists belonging to Al-Qaeda or an affiliated group and this assessment is based on highly credible intelligence information," said spokesman Major General William Caldwell.

The search continues.

Tae Kwon Do and the Hijab - Canada caves.

Tae Kwon Do Championship to allow the hijab.

The Muslim hijab, banned at a taekwondo tournament in Quebec last month, will be allowed at the 2007 World Championship in Quebec City later this month, the International Taekwon-Do Federation announced on Friday.

The decision by a Quebec federation last month to bar a team of Muslim girls from taking part with their hijabs at the regional tournament had prompted protests of discrimination, but Quebec federation officials said it was a matter of safety.

That group was affiliated with the World Taekwondo Federation, a rival group to the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF), which said on Friday it would temporarily allow the head scarves at its May 31-June 3 championship.

There's really nothing left for me to say about this disgusting display of dhimmitude.

Pakistani officer shoots 2 US GIs dead - make that 1

Update: The story is changing and reports are conflicting, but now only one American soldier is dead. Another has been reported wounded. Miscreants, they are calling the perps. I think bastards might be more appropriate.

Militants opened fire Monday on a convoy carrying U.S. and Pakistani military officials near the Afghan frontier, killing one American and one Pakistani soldier, the Pakistani army spokesman said. At least two Americans and two Pakistani soldiers and were wounded.

Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said “miscreants” — usually a byword used by Pakistani officials to describe Islamic militants — fired at the convoy carrying military officials who attended a meeting in the northwestern town of Teri Mangal.


The earlier story: WTF?

KABUL, Afghanistan - A Pakistani officer shot dead two U.S. soldiers Monday during a meeting over a border clash between Pakistani troops and Afghans, an Afghan government spokesman said. A spokesman for the Pakistan military denied that its soldiers had shot anyone.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi told Reuters: "At the meeting, a Pakistani officer rose up and fired at U.S. soldiers, resulting in the deaths of two soldiers and wounding of two others."

He said U.S. soldiers had returned fire, killing several Pakistani troops. An Afghan officer present at the meeting in Pakistan's Kurram tribal agency was also wounded, he said.
This is a developing story and details will be added as they become available.

Saudi woman files first case ever against religious police

They are known in the Kingdom as the Muttawa and number 5000 strong. Their mission? Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Oh and pulling women from cars and interrogating them for 'not wearing decent clothing.'

I predict this case will go nowhere.

A Saudi civil court is to hear the first ever case brought against the kingdom's religious police charged with enforcing a strict Islamic moral code, the woman plaintiff's lawyer told AFP on Saturday.

The unnamed woman is seeking compensation after she and her daughter were allegedly wrongfully arrested in a shopping centre car park in 2004 for "not wearing decent clothing," her lawyer Abderrahman al-Lahm said.Women in Saudi Arabia must be covered from head to toe when they go out in public.

The religious policeman in question arrested the pair, commandeered the car from their driver and drove them to his headquarters where the already sick mother suffered "health complications," said Lahm.

The woman's family is bringing the case before a civil court in Riyadh on Sunday after an Islamic court rejected the complaint, reportedly ruling that "a member of the religious police cannot be judged," Lahm said

That's Shar'ia justice for you, folks. Get a taste of it.

And in other American soft hostage news...

There's not much in the news about detained Iranian-American academic Haleh Esfandiari today. The third woman detained with them has not yet been identified.

Hillary Clinton is deeply concerned at the inexplicable detention.

Huh. WaPo is calling them 'soft hostages'. As did the LA Times.

I wonder if Robert Levinson the ex FBI guy that disappeared off the Isle of Kish is feeling like a "soft hostage" right about now? His fate remains a mystery. (Let me tell you - I get taken hostage and you refer to me as a "soft hostage"? When I get out? I'm coming after you and we're going to have a little talk.)

But back to our hostages. Is referring to them as soft hostages supposed to make us feel good about the situation? Good grief! Why would we want to have dealings with a regime that institutionalizes kidnapping and makes it part of their strategic arsenal? A strategic arsenal that will soon include nuclear weapons.

That's nice, real nice.

All this talk of hostages makes me wonder how our missing GI's are doing over in Iraq. Will the WaPo and the LA Times will be referring to them as 'hard hostages'? Al Qaeda is calling them Crusader soldiers and hearing this did not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling:

US commanders said that a nearby unit had heard the explosions and tried to communicate with the ambushed patrol, without success. An unmanned spotter drone flew overhead 15 minutes later and saw the burning vehicles but a coalition Quick Reaction Force did not reach the scene until 5.40am, nearly an hour later.

“In the United States military we have a thing called the soldier’s creed, and it says ‘I will never leave a fallen comrade’,” Major-General William Caldwell, a US military spokesman, said in Baghdad.

Undermanned, says Scott of Town Commons in his Bad news out of Iraq. Now we hear that the Quick Reaction Force didn't arrive for an hour. Not good.

Where is the rest of that surge?

Faster please.

Iran: Norwegian flogged for drinking.

And it's not a pretty sight.

A Norwegian resident of Iranian descent was flogged in public in Iran for drinking alcoholic beverages, an Iranian opposition website claimed on Saturday. It released photos of the individual bearing scars from the lashes.

Namand Mamandi, who resides in Norway, was arrested by Iran’s para-military Bassij Force while visiting his mother in Iran, according to a report on the Persian-language website Iran Asrar.He was sentenced to 130 lashes in public. Days after the sentence was carried out Mamandi managed to return to Norway. He is currently in hospital recovering from the flogging, the report said.

Iranian Fashion Police Back out on the Beat

17,135 warnings written.
850 pledges to respect the veil more written.
80 women (and 50 men) sent to the authorities.
Being able to trot around dressed as I please?
Priceless.

Iran stops 50 women at airport for un-Islamic dress.

Iranian police have prevented 50 women from boarding flights in their ongoing crackdown on dress styles deemed to be out of line with Islamic dress rules, officials said on Sunday.

"Fifty badly-veiled women were prevented from boarding domestic and international flights for failing to respect Islamic dress rules," said the head of airport police Mamoud Bot-Shekane, according to the Fars news agency. He said that the airport police have handed out "17,135 warnings to women who are not fully respecting the Islamic veil and 850 of them have had to make a written pledge to respect the veil more." Out of these, the cases of 80 women as well as 50 men have been sent to the judicial authorities, he added.

Iran's police have been enforcing a nationwide crackdown on slack dressing for the past three weeks -- a regular pre-summer event that has been pursued with increased vehemence this year. Some conservatives have applauded the crackdown as important to protect the security of society but moderates have publicly questioned whether Iran would be better off tackling poverty and crime rather than slack dressing.

Iran's police chief Esmaeeli Ahmadi Moghadam has insisted that the crackdown is not temporary and will continue.

Mark Steyn on the Ft Dix 6

The view from 30,000 ft with Mark Steyn.

Fortress America's Gate is Open.

He takes off on the Ft Dix 6 with this riff:
Most terrorists seem like bumbling losers if they're caught before the act: That's certainly true of the Fort Dix jihadists who took their terrorist training DVD to the local audio store to be copied.

It was also true of the Islamists arrested in Toronto last year for plotting to behead the prime minister, one of whose cell members had a bride who wanted him to sign a prenup committing him to jihad. The Heathrow plotters arrested while planning to blow up U.S.-bound airliners included a Muslim convert who'd started out as the son of a British Conservative Party official with a P. G. Wodehouse double-barreled name and a sister who was a Victoria's Secret model and ex-wife of tennis champ Yanick Noah.

But then Mohammed Atta and the 9/11 gang would have seemed pretty funny if you'd run into them in that lap-dance club they went to before the big day where the girls remembered them only as very small tippers. Most terrorists are jokes until the bomb goes off.

And he's not shy about naming names when it comes to "root causes"
"...what then radicalized so many Western Muslims? Answer: in many cases, the Balkans.

When Yugoslavia collapsed 15 years ago, Jacques Poos told the Americans to butt out: "The hour of Europe has come!" he declared confidently. Poos was the foreign minister of Luxembourg, a country as big as your hot tub, but he chanced to be holding the European Union's rotating "presidency" at the time and, as it happened, the Americans were very happy to butt out.

"We don't have a dog in this fight," said then-secretary of state, James Baker.

Well, the hour of Europe came and went, and a couple of hundred thousand corpses later the EU was only too happy for Americans to butt back in again. So NATO bombed Christian Serbs in defense of Albanian Muslims, and a fat lot of good it did if the Duka brothers are any indication.

AQ: Giving a shout out to their homeys, the Dems.

If someone in the Republican Party does not take this statement and play PIN THE TAIL ON THE DONKEY with it, they are nothing but a bunch of horse's asses.

And I mean that seriously.

From the WaPo: 5 die in Ambush of US patrol in Iraq

Mohamad al-Janabi, a reputed al-Qaeda member in the nearby city of Salman Pak, said in a telephone interview that he was unable to contact his comrades in Mahmudiyah to determine whether they were responsible for the attack. But he added: "I can assure you that we will start pressuring Bush in a new way at the same time he is facing pressures from the Democrats and the American people. And there will be no problem to sacrifice 10 soldiers in order to abduct a single American soldier and get him on television screens begging for us to release him."

Bastards.

About Mahmudiya. It's not exactly a garden spot:
The mayor of Mahmudiyah, Muaiad Fadhil Hussein, said the attack happened near the village of Beshesha, west of the city. He described it as "one of the most dangerous areas of the city, in which Arab and Iraqi terrorists exist, and not even innocent civilians can enter it."

God bless our troops and may God grant us the will to persevere in this fight.

Iran and US to talk about Iraq

Positive development or one way ticket on the Surrender Express?

From WaPo: U.S. Ready to Discuss Iraq With Iran

The U.S. said Sunday it is willing to talk to Iran if discussions deal only with Iraq, where the Bush administration says Tehran is undermining the Baghdad government and exporting deadly roadside bombs.

"We are willing to have that conversation limited to Iraq issues at the ambassador level," Vice President Dick Cheney's spokeswoman said after he met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

From IRNA: Iran, US to hold talks on Iraq

Iran has agreed to hold talks with the US on Iraq, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said here Sunday. Hosseini was speaking to domestic and foreign reporters at his weekly press conference.

"Following consultations between Iranian and Iraqi officials, Tehran has agreed to hold negotiations with Washington to relieve pains and suffering of the Iraqi people, support and strengthen the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and stabilize security and peace in that country," he reiterated.

"Iran has formally taken the issue (negotiation) into consideration," he said adding that talks will be held in Iraq. Hosseini said, "Date of the meeting and level of the negotiating team will be determined by end of the current week."

Obama in a pickle over wife's Walmart $$$

Michelle Obama has been hailed as a valuable asset to her husband's campaign:

But she has just been re-elected to the board of an Illinois food-processing company, a position she took up two years ago to gain experience of the private sector.

And the biggest customer for the pickles and peppers produced by Treehouse Foods is the retail giant Wal-Mart, the world's largest corporation and the bête noire of American liberals, including Sen Obama, for its employment practices, most notably its refusal to recognise trade unions.

As the Illinois senator prepared to join the presidential fray late last year, he threw his weight behind the union-backed campaign against Wal-Mart. He declared that there was a "moral responsibility to stand up and fight" the company and "force them to examine their own corporate values".

According to the couple's tax returns, Mrs Obama earned $51,200 (£25,700) for her work as a non-executive director on Treehouse's board last year, on top of the $271,618 salary she was paid as a vice-president of the University of Chicago Hospitals. She also received 7,500 Treehouse stock options, worth a further $72,375, as she did the previous year, when she banked a $45,000 salary from the company.

Perhaps that "forcing them to examine their own values" should begin at home? Hmmm?

The article goes on to say that this is "being closely scrutinized by opposition research teams working for rival candidates for the White House."

My money is on the team for a certain blonde Senator from NY on this one.

Lord deliver us!

The lessons we can all learn from British Muslims

(Gag alert) Tory leader David Cameron writes of "the benefits of integration" after staying in Birmingham.

The challenges of cohesion and integration are among the greatest we face. I wrote in these pages in January that we cannot bully people into feeling British: we have to inspire them. Last week, I spent two days staying with Abdullah and Shahida Rehman and their family in Birmingham. The experience has strengthened my conviction about the right way to build a more cohesive Britain.

(A more cohesive Britain. Translation: A more dhimmi Britain. )

See what I mean?

We do need greater understanding of the true nature of the terrorist threat. There's too much complacency about it among non-Muslims, and too much denial of it in the Muslim community. But our efforts are not helped by lazy use of language. Indeed, by using the word 'Islamist' to describe the threat, we actually help do the terrorist ideologues' work for them, confirming to many impressionable young Muslim men that to be a 'good Muslim', you have to support their evil campaign.

Read it and weep.

Detained Iranian American Academic - Deja vu 1979?

You don't seem to hear much about the Iranian-American academic detained in Iran. (The one you read about here). Despite the assertion in the Iran Press Service article that the Arrest of Iranian-American Academic is part of power struggle in Tehran. Or their assertion that:

The United States has not faced this kind of tension over Americans held in Iran since the 1979-1981 hostage crises, when 52 Americans were held for 444 days. Like in the case of Ms. Azima, the Wilson Center and Mrs. Esfandiari’s family had sought to avoid publicity in hopes that she would be granted a new passport.

Well, that would explain why she's been getting jerked around since December and we're just hearing about it now. From Iranian.com

Ms. Esfandiari’s ordeal began on Dec. 30, when she was en route to the airport to return to Washington, according to the Wilson Center. Three masked gunmen waylaid her taxi and stole her luggage, including her Iranian and American passports. The Intelligence Ministry is notorious for staging such crimes. When Ms. Esfandiari went to replace her passport, she was sent to the ministry for interrogation, the Wilson center’s statement said. Ms. Esfandiari said that most questions focused on her work and that the answers were public information. The center said she refused to make any false statements about its work.

It doesn't explain this:

The arrest of Mrs. Haleh Esfandiari, a prominent Iranian-American academic working at the Wilson Woodrow Centre’s Middle East Programme is part of the ongoing cut throat power struggle in Tehran between the hard liners and the moderates, according to many Iranian political analysts.

Or the start of possible negotiations with Washington? Say what?

The arrest of Mrs. Esfandiari, of Mrs. Parnaz (Nazi) Azima, of Mr. Hoseyn Moussavian, of several Iranian journalists, intellectuals, students and female activists etc are part of this inner fight in the Iranian regime’s highest echelons, having it roots in the possible start of direct negotiations between Tehran and Washington.

Human Rights Watch condemns her detention. With more hints of a power struggle afoot:

Mrs. Esfandiari is an academic, a cultural figure, and a civil-society activist. Therefore, yes, all of these arrests are aimed at creating [security] conditions in the country. Two days ago another women's rights activist [Zeinab Peyghambarzadeh] was arrested, two [student activists] from Tehran's Amir Kabir University have been detained, and still a number of the members of the teachers union are in jail and all of these are a show of power by a certain faction [in the government] that is targeting independent individuals.

The Iranian.com offers this insight into her situation:

Lee H. Hamilton, the director of the Wilson Center and a former congressman, wrote to Mr. Ahmadinejad in February asking that Ms. Esfandiari be allowed to leave Iran. He did not receive a reply.

The International Society for Iranian Studies Committee for Academic Freedom is deeply troubled.

We are deeply troubled by the news of the arrest and detention of the internationally distinguished and respected Iranian-born academic Dr. Haleh Esfandiari in Tehran on May 8. Dr. Esfandiari is currently the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., a publicly - and privately-funded nonpartisan research institution devoted to the promotion of national and international dialogue.

The Woodrow Wilson Center's statement. Well, let's just say they don't sound like they are exactly knocking themself out...

Those efforts to obtain her release will continue and will be redoubled. She will be in our thoughts and prayers every day.

From Shaul Bakhash, Helen's husband via the Iran Defence Forum:

“Whatever they think my wife did seems to be in their imagination; she hasn’t done anything wrong,” said Shaul Bakhash, her husband, a well-known Iran expert who is a professor of Middle East history at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. “I hope they realize that they made this mistake and let her return to her family.”Ms. Esfandiari, who left Iran at the time of the 1979 Islamic revolution, had returned twice annually over the past decade to visit her mother, an ailing 93-year-old widow, Mr. Bakhash said.

Helen was singled out in a State Dept briefing about First Lady Laura Bush's 2005 trip to Afghanistan with this opening remark shout out:

And our friend, Haleh Esfandiari, I know about the tremendous events you've organized at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, mobilizing incredible forces of experts and activists on behalf of these (women’s) issues.

And last but not least (but maybe the lamest...) a condemnation from State:

The State Department Wednesday condemned Iran's detention of Washington scholar Haleh Esfandiari and journalist Parnaz Azima and acknowledged a growing problem with Tehran over its actions against U.S. and dual U.S.-Iranian citizens.

"We want to see them returned back to their families," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "These two women are an academic on the one hand, a journalist on the other. These people don't pose any threat to the Iranian regime.

"They are both grandmothers, and so I am not sure what it is the Iranian government has to fear from these ladies," he added.

Maybe he should send Grandma Pelosi over in a hostage swap? Ok, that might sound mean, but here's the deal. I don't think they'd be keeping Grandma Pelosi long.

More Shia Mischief: This time in Iraq?

Iraq's top Shi'ite party changes name, platform.

Iraq's biggest Shi'ite party on Saturday pledged its allegiance to the country's top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in a move that would distance it from Shi'ite Iran where it was formed. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) said it had introduced significant policy changes and changed its name to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) -- dropping the word "Revolution".

Party officials told Reuters on Friday that the changes were aimed at giving the party more of an Iraqi flavor and to reflect the changing situation in the country since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

They said the party had been close to Sistani for some time, but a two-day conference on Baghdad that ended on Friday had formalized relations with the influential cleric.

"We cherish the great role played by the religious establishment headed by Grand Ayatollah Sayed Ali al-Sistani ... in preserving the unity of Iraq and the blood of Iraqis and in helping them building a political system based on the constitution and law," said Rida Jawad al-Takki, a senior group member, who read out the party's decisions to reporters.

The party pledged to follow the guidance of the Shi'ite establishment, he said.
Sistani, a reclusive figure who lives in the Iraqi holy Shi'ite city of Najaf, is the spiritual leader of Iraq's majority Shi'ites. He rarely makes public statements but his utterances are closely monitored by his followers.

Officials said the party, which was formed in Iran in the 1980s to oppose Saddam, had previously taken its guidance from the religious establishment of Welayat al Faqih, led by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran.

Who the "Faqih" is in charge now?

Islamic experts say the authority of the Faqih, who "surpasses all others in knowledge" of Islamic law and justice, is not limited to his home country, but extends to all Shi'ites who pledge obedience and believe in the Faqih.

The Faqih has the final word on matters related to Islam from political, social and religious issues. SIIC's leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, is a powerful cleric who has good relations with the United States.

A key player in post-Saddam Iraqi politics, SIIC holds around a quarter of the seats in parliament occupied by the ruling Shi'ite Alliance of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Oink-oink! Why Islam forbids pork

From this week's issue of Muslim Weekly:

Consumption of swine-flesh reduces the feeling of shame and as such the standard of modesty. Those nations, which consume pork habitually, have a low standard of morality with the result that virginity, chastity and bashfulness are becoming a thing of the past.

The formula of "skin to skin is no sin" is taking its toll but there is hardly any feeling of shame or remorse over the end-result. Since the Western nations have become addicted to wine and pork, sexual freedom with all its attendant evils has got ingrained in their culture.

You can't make this stuff up, folks.

Should make for a short debate session...

Vote yes for Assad. Vote no for Assad.

Syria: Assad is only candidate in 27 June vote.

In a widely expected decision, Syria's parliament has nominated President Basher al-Assad as the sole candidate in presidential elections scheduled for 27 June. Parliamentary speaker Mahmud al-Abrash described the unanimous decision as akin to "a wedding feast for all the cities of Syria". The Syrian constitution grants Assad's ruling Baath party and its allies control of parliament with the remaining seats held by independents linked to the government.On election day, voters will be called to express their opinion by marking their ballots "yes" or "no" for Assad.Opposition parties are boycotting the election and have called for "real democratic elections".

Al Doura: The latest jihadi reports

I was trying to see if I could find out a little bit more about that al Doura Christian bashing news here and ended up at Jihad Unspun, where they are posting the latest jihadi reports from the Baghdad region.

First, the Dinah Disclaimer.

Okay, I read them but by the time I finished with them I was steaming. You want surge? Let's talk about my blood pressure. Warning. This jihadi report is a potential mind blower.

Second, the JU disclaimer:

We remind our viewers that the opinions and points of view expressed in this statement are those of the author and shall not be deemed to mean that they are necessarily those of JU, the publisher, editor, writers, contributors or staff.

All right. Don't say you weren't warned.

Islamic State Of Iraq News Report For Districts Of Al-Doura

In Baghdad Province

In The Name Of Allah The Most Gracious The Most Merciful

All praise be to Allah,

The Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds.

Peace and prayer be upon our prophet, Muhammad, his family, and his companions.

This news report tallies the harvest of the military operations carried out by the Mujahideen of the Islamic State of Iraq, may Allah honor it, for some areas of al-Doura in Baghdad province from April 16 - April 19, 2007, all praise and gratitude be to Allah.

1. Killed four apostate soldiers with sniper fire in various locations in the Doura region on Tuesday April 17, 2007.

2. Attacking thirteen control points and joint forces patrols in various locations in the Doura region with small and medium-sized weapons, sniper fire, RPG’s and missiles. Several vechiles were destroyed and a large number of enemy soldiers were killed and wounded on Tuesday April 17, 2007.

3. Carried out the Law of Allah against Mohammed Imad Kadhem, an important spy working for the American cross worshipper army in Baghdad. The execution was held on Tuesday April 17, 2007.

4. Slaughtered two members of the Dajjal army working for the Interior and Power Ministries on Wednesday April 18, 2007.

5. Assassinated a member of the Badr corps working for the Power Ministry on Sinin Street on Wednesday April 18, 2007.

6. A sniper shot and killed an army in Al-Kafat region on Monday April 16, 2007.

7. Detonated a bomb at a cross worshipper Humvee that destroyed it, killing and wounding all soldiers on board in the Asiaha district on Monday Monday April 16, 2007.

8. Detonated a bomb at an army vehicle that destroyed it and killed and injured all those on board in the Shuhada district on Monday April 16, 2007.

9. Attacked an observation tower in the al-Kafat district with sniper fire causing enemy casualties on Monday April 16, 2007.

10. Attacked a checkpoint in the Al-Satin district using light and medium-sized weapons and RPG missiles causing enemy casualties using casualties among them on Monday April 16, 2007.

11. Disabled an armored vehicle belonging to the apostate Interior Ministry Shock Troops by firing light and medium-sized weapons and RPG’s at it causing enemy casualties on on al-Doura highway on Tuesday April 17, 2007.

12. Carried out the Law of Allah against a Peshmerga soldier in the al-Mualimeen district on Tuesday April 17, 2007.

13. A sniper shot and killed a US cross worshipper sniper in the al-Mecanic district as he manned a tower in the US base located there on region he was on a snipers tower in the US base in the region Tuesday April 17, 2007.

14. Detonated a bomb at a cross worshippers Humvee causing casualties among the passengers in the al-Shurta district on Tuesday April 17, 2007.

15. Carried out the Law of Allah against a prominent member of the Dajjal army in the al-Mualimeen district on Tuesday April 17, 2007.

16. Assassinated a member of the Badr corps on Abi al-Tayara Street on Tuesday April 17, 2007.

17. Engaged the cross worshippers and apostate joint forces in violent battle in al-Karq using light and medium-sized weapons, RPG missiles and personal weapons that continued for some time. Several of the enemy’s vehicles were damaged, an armored vehicle was destroyed and all passengers on board were killed and injured on Tuesday April 17, 2007.

18. Attacked a joint forces convoy using light and medium-sized weapons and RPG’s in the Shuhada district that damaged several vehicles and caused casualties among the passengers on Wednesday April 18, 2007.

19. Carried out the Law of Allah against a member of the Badr corps, taking his personal vehicle as booty in the al-Doura district region on Wednesday April 18, 2007.

20. A sniper shot a US soldier inside an American base in the Mecanic district on Wednesday April 18, 2007.

21. Attacked on of the observation towers at the US base in the Mecanic district causing enemy casualties on Wednesday April 18, 2007.

22. Detonated a bomb at a cross worshippers Humvee, killing and inuring all those on board in the al-Mahdiya al-Thaniyah district on Thursday April 19, 2007.

These operations are part of the Al-Karama (Honor) Expedition, declared by Sheikh Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi, Amir of the Islamic State of Iraq, may Allah protect him.

Allahu Akbar!

“Honor, power and glory belong to Allah, to his messenger, and to the believers, but the hypocrites know not.”

Information Ministry

The Islamic State of Iraq

6 Rabi-Al-Akhir

April 23, 2007

Cross worshippers. They really do take us for fools, don't they. How dare Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR say this...and with a straight face, no less.

CAIR also requested that media outlets and public officials refrain from linking this case to the faith of Islam.

Ibrahim you are smoking something if you don't come out and tell the truth about Islam and terrorism. C'mon baby. You can do it. Just say it. It will set you free and maybe then we can have a meaningful dialogue. Cause until you admit that the majority of terrorists down through the ages have been Islamic, key phrase - down through the ages, we are not going to make any progress here.

I pray for the cross worshippers and their families around the region.

May God bless our brave troops and protect them from our enemies as they fight to bring lasting peace to Iraq.

(Feel like you need to wash your mind out after that report? Here's some good news out of Doura.
Step by step, slowly we turn... )

Hijab Wars: Nigerian style

How did this happen to me?

Nigerians force Christians to wear the hijab.
All schoolgirls in the Nigerian state of Kano are now required to wear an Islamic veil. The new state policy, which went into effect May 5, applies even to Christian girls studying in private schools.

Kano is one of 12 states in the more populous northern part of Nigeria which on June 23, 2000, introduced Islamic shari'a law. Since then, conflicts between Christians and Muslims have led to the death of a 1,000 people in the region.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is himself a Christian, did not oppose the introduction of shari'a law. Many Christians fear that the election of a Muslim as the country’s next president could lead to the Islamization of the southern states. Muslims in the south are already demanding the Islamic veil for women.

So much for Christian-Muslim brotherhood...

Summit on religious harmony is thrown into discord by Malaysia

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has suffered a serious setback in his attempts to foster Muslim-Christian dialogue after the Malaysian Government banned an interfaith conference he was due to be chairing this week.

Christian and Muslim scholars from around the world had bought air tickets, written papers and begun to pack their bags for the Building Bridges conference, the sixth in a series intended to foster dialogue between the two religions.

It was cancelled with just two weeks notice.

The three-day conference was set up in the wake of September 11 and meant to be an annual get-together of Christian and Muslim academics in an attempt to find theological understandings that might help prevent future terrorist attacks.

At the first conference, at Lambeth Palace in London six years ago, Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, fêted Tony Blair.

In return, the Prime Minister invited the Muslim and Christian scholars to a high-profile reception at Downing Street.

Since then the scholars have met in New York, Qatar and Sarajevo. This year’s seminar in Malaysia was to signal a breakthrough in Muslim-Christian relations in a region where they are particularly delicate.

However, it is understood that some influential Muslims believe that Christianity is “not a heavenly religion” and therefore they frown on interreligious dialogue.

Although the Malaysian Government allowed Dr Williams into the country to preach at the consecration of a new Anglican bishop, it said that it would not permit the interfaith dialogue to take place.

He ends up in a hastily convened visit to Sri Lanka.

So much for Christian-Muslim brotherhood. More at the link.

Assimilate or get out.

From LGF: NJ Muslims whine, issue veiled threats.

You knew this was coming. Islamic “advocacy” groups have gotten a little bit more savvy lately; they don’t come out screaming “discrimination! Islamophobia! backlash!” immediately following the terrorism arrests any more. Now they wait a few days: Muslims fear backlash from Fort Dix attack plot.

Do please read it all.

And if you have a minute this weekend listen to Dennis Miller and Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR on Dennis's radio show here. Ibrahim and Mitch McConnell are featured in the first hour. (Not together - hah!) I can't tell if Dennis is seriously mocking Mitch McConnell or not. Ibrahim is a big freaking crybaby...and Dennis does a pretty good job laying him out. Ibrahim does not impress.

The callers are a hoot.

Heated Argument Cancels Iraqi Parliament

And it sure sounds like there's a whole lot of finger pointing going on. (H/T Iraqslogger)

Iraqi Parliament called off its session on Thursday only a half-hour after the day's business got underway when a heated argument broke out between parliamentarians.

The conflict was sparked by discussion of a report prepared to examine the security situation in Diyala, which had been commissioned after its residents staged a protest in Karbala.

According to VOI, the report submitted to parliament revealed that during one year in Diyala 11,200 people were killed, 9,500 families displaced, 8,250 women widowed, 16,500 children orphaned, 66 Shiite tombs destroyed, 350 groves set on fire and an equal number looted. The report also blames US forces for the deteriorating security situation.

Discussion over the report led legislator Shatha al-Mousawi, from the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, to call the government "weak" in its inability to provide security.

She also voiced calls for House Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani to summon Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to attend the session for further discussions on the deteriorating security situation. However, Mashhadani thought things were getting a bit out of control and canceled the rest of the day's deliberations instead. Mashhadani has called for Parliament to re-adjourn on Saturday.

This is the second day this week that Parliament has been called off. On Tuesday, a blackout caused that day's session to be cancelled after technicians failed to restore power.

Christians attacked in al-Doura.

Leave, convert or pay the jizya

An armed Iraqi group has in recent days begun targeting Christians in the residential al-Doura neighbourhood of Baghdad, according to an interior ministry source quoted by the pan Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat.

Information obtained during probes and the interrogation of various terror suspects arrested last week indicate that this group is linked to al-Qaeda and is made up of 200 militiamen, most of them foreigners.

The terror formation has threatened with death any Christian in the mainly Sunni area.

To combat the presence of what appears to be an al-Qaeda-linked cell, the Baghdad security forces last week began a series of raids, backed by US combat helicopters, which led to the arrest of various elements of the group.

In a recent interview with Adnkronos International (AKI) a Christian parliamentarian in Iraq's Kurdistan region warned that Christians in the country face mounting threats.

"Thousands of Christian families are being told to leave the country or convert to Islam or pay the jizyah (a tax traditionally imposed on non-Muslim men in Islamic states)," said the parliamentarian, Romeo Hakkari, an ethnic Assyrian of the Chaldean Church - a Roman Catholic oriental rite denomination.According to Hakkari, who heads the House of the Two Rivers Democratic Party, which promotes the rights of Assyrian-Chaldeans, many Christians living in Mosul and Baghdad have fled those cities and sought refuge either in remote parts of Iraqi Kurdistan or abroad after receiving threats from Islamists.

He cited the example of pamphlets, purportedly distributed by the al-Qaeda-linked "Islamic State of Iraq" group that threatened to kill Christians if they did not abandon the city.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime Christians in Iraq, and in particular Baghdad have faced persecution for the first time in the history of this country."

Stunned.

Iranian gas rationing set to begin May 22

Iran’s Oil Ministry is set to begin gasoline rationing on May 22.

However, with only 12 days left until the rationing plan is to be implemented, no decision has been made on how many liters each car will be allowed to consume per day or month at the fixed price of 1000 rials per liter.

In the Majlis bill on gasoline rationing, MPs left it to the Ahmadinejad administration to decide the price of gasoline sold outside the rationing system. Even though unofficial reports have put the free market price at about 3000 rials (33 U.S. cents) per liter, some administration officials say the final price is still being debated.

Over the past decade, billions of dollars have been spent subsidizing gasoline.

I think this is a government gimme that if removed will make a lot of Mo Blows mad at the regime. Just sayin.

1 million Afghan illegals to be expelled from Iran by 3/08.

The recent Iranian decision to expel 1 million Afghan illegals from Iran just crossed my radar screen yesterday.

The UN is concerned but says the situation is still manageable. They admit that some people have been separated from members of their families,” he said. “There are cases where people may not have sufficient water or transportation to get home. These are the issues we are trying to help with.”

If everything is so under control and manageable I wonder why this happened: Afghan Parliament sacks minister over Iran refugees row.

Afghanistan's parliament voted Thursday to sack the refugees minister amid an uproar over Iran's forced return of thousands of illegal refugees, while the fate of the foreign minister is in the balance.

Refugees Affairs Minister Akbar Akbar lost a no-confidence vote by a large majority, while the vote for Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta was hanging on a single spoilt ballot.

Parliament said it would decide how to handle Spanta's vote when it reconvened on Saturday. Akbar has effectively lost his job but President Hamid Karzai could decide to keep him on as acting minister until his replacement is approved by parliament, MP Shukria Barakzai said.

Parliamentarians accused him of not doing enough to accommodate the thousands of refugees who have flooded into western Afghanistan after Iran said it wanted one million illegal Afghans out of its country by March 2008.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says more than 52,000 were forced out between April 21 and May 8, according to government figures. Spanta was accused of not doing enough to persuade Iran to ease its policy of forced repatriation.

Where's the international outcry about the Iranian expulsion of one million illegals back to their home country, Afghanistan?

Can you imagine what would happen if the US were to get serious about illegals in this country and expelled a million or so back to Mexico? Ain't. Gonna. Happen. Think Little Elian Gonzalez and multiply it by a million...I'm here to tell you there's not a politician in this world that wants that scene playing out on the nightly news.

Here's how they are playing it in the Middle East News: Iran launches new scheme to entice Afghans home.

Iran published advertisements in newspapers Tuesday offering new incentives for its hundreds of thousands of registered Afghan refugees to return home. The new plan comes two weeks after Iran began a major drive to expel Afghan workers without papers that has already seen tens of thousands kicked out of the country.

Under the offer, worked out with the Afghan government and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, if a family returns home, some of its members will be allowed to return to Iran and work for a limited period.

"Those Afghans can benefit from the voluntary repatriation program including a work permit in Iran, and $100 cash aid for a family of up to five members each," said the advertisement. "If the family consists of nine members, two members of the family will receive the Iranian work permit, and also they are given a form to evaluate them to see whether they are eligible for a piece of land back home," a UNHCR spokeswoman said.

Afghans with proper working papers are estimated to form half of the 2 million Afghans who fled the conflicts in their home country and still live in the Islamic republic.

Iran wants all its Afghan refugees to return home in the coming years and interior minister Mostafa Pour Mohammadi has said Tehran wants 1 million Afghans to be repatriated by next March. The forced repatriation efforts in recent weeks have sparked protests from ordinary Afghans in the streets of Kabul and also concern from the Afghan foreign ministry, which said it could not afford to house the newcomers.

Being pushed out a second story window doesn't sound like an advertisement to me: Afghan Deported From Iran Dies From Injuries

Officials in Afghanistan's western province of Herat say an Afghan worker has died in hospital from injuries received at the hands of Iranian security forces, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan reported. The man was one of four Afghan workers who say they were pushed from the second floor of a building in Iran on May 2 by Iranian authorities assigned to expel Afghan refugees. All four were deported. The Afghan Foreign Ministry says it will investigate the allegations through the Afghan Embassy in Tehran

Forced repatriation. Visions of 1939 danced in my head when I read this. From Payyand.

CWS-Pakistan/Afghanistan says that from April 24 to May 5 (2007), the process of deporting Afghan refugees has been going on through the Dogharoon border of Herat Province and Abrishem Bridge of Nimroz Province. Reports have also been received of people being forcibly repatriated and that deportees have said that they have been ill-treated by Iranian security officials.

Returnees are facing huge problems surviving day to day, with a need for food, shelter, and other basic items, especially among the families that are scattered across Farah and Nimroz provinces - both areas where insecurity levels are high, and few aid agencies operate. Herat has fewer returnees and is receiving relatively more assistance, as there are more international and national NGOs and UN agencies operating in the area.

More in depth info on the refugee conditions here.

More on the al Jazeera - Iran tiff

It's media terrorism!

You read about al Jazeera getting banned from Parliament here. Gee, it didn't talk long for al Jazeera to start eating their humble pie, did it? Al-Jazeera Stresses Respect for Iraq's Sistani

"We affirm that the policy of Al-Jazeera is based on respecting religious and public figures. There was no intention at all to offend his Eminence Sistani," the channel's general director Wadah Khanfar said in a statement.

The indirect apology followed wide demonstrations inside and strong protests outside Iraq by the Shiite Muslims, including a ban on al-Jazeera's activity and presence at the Iranian parliament due to the broadcast of remarks deemed insulting to Iraq's Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Following the ban, the news network regretted Iran's decision to ban it from entering parliament.

"We regret this decision," said Khanfar, adding that he hoped that such measure "will not lead to a ban on us working in Iran."

Iran on Sunday said it had banned Al-Jazeera from entering parliament after it broadcast a talk show deemed insulting to Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric. The ban came in response to questions posed by the host of the "Without Borders" talk show on the Arabic satellite channel questioning the legitimacy of Sistani's leadership in Iraq.

Meanwhile Iraq's Parliament has voted to sue al Jazeera for the remarks.

Iraqi parliament has voted to start legal proceedings against Al-Jazeera over the portrayal by the news channel of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. It was not immediately clear what the legal action would amount to. Speaker Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani, said only that the matter would be decided by parliament's legal department. Debating the issue before the vote, which was taken by a show of hands, several deputies suggested that the Qatar-based network be sued before the International Criminal Court in The Hague for what they said was its role in stoking sectarian strife in Iraq. "It's a channel that stirs sectarian strife in Iraq and causes blood to be shed as a result," charged senior lawmaker Waiel Abdul-Lateef.

The 24-hour news channel has been banned from operating in Iraq since 2004 and the latest controversy is likely to worsen its already tense relations with the Baghdad government.

What exactly were those remarks? Good question. No transcripts have bubbled up with an exact quote. So we are left with this:

Monsters and Critics has this to say: The Egyptian host of al-Jazeera's talk show 'Without Borders' last week questioned the legitimacy of the leadership of Iranian-born Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric.

The International Herald Trib adds this little wrinkle: The move by the 275-seat house followed protests last Friday in the southern cities of Basra and Najaf by hundreds of Shiites angered by an Al-Jazeera talk show last week in which the host questioned al-Sistani's leadership credentials and appeared to cast doubt on whether he personally authored his edicts.

Friends of al Jazeera put their spin on the contretemps here.

Aw Rats! Death cult Mickey lives on!

Hamas TV refuses to axe contested kids cartoon

A Hamas-run television channel has defied a Palestinian government request to axe a controversial children's cartoon in which a Mickey Mouse look-alike urges resistance against Israel. A senior official working for Al Aqsa (Jerusalem) television in the Gaza Strip said that the program - "Tomorrow's Pioneers" - would air as normal this Friday in defiance of information minister Mustafa Barghouti. "The program will continue and it will be broadcast tomorrow at 4.00 pm [1300 GMT]. Mustafa Barghouti misunderstood the issue," said the official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

Hijab Wars: Dateline Denmark

I don't know how I missed the hijab-o-drama currently playing out in Denmark. (You know Dinah loves the Denmark, especially after conducting last year's "Sammenhold Tour" where she got to show her solidarity with the Danes. And to drink their fine Carlsberg beer in their charming city, Copenhagen. Read here and here and here and here.)

I stumbled across this piece, Danes Battle the Veil in the Guardian yesterday and while it contains most of the multi culti mumbo jumbo you've come to know and expect from al-Guardian, it is something any infidel worth her pork rinds should be paying attention to.

The backstory:
Last week, a young Danish politician of Iranian descent, Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, was selected as a potential candidate for parliament by Enhedslisten (the Unity List), a leftwing Eurosceptic (what a name for a political party!) party. Ms Abdol-Hamid, who is Muslim, insists she will wear her hijab (religious veil) if elected to parliament, and would refuse to shake hands with male colleagues in compliance with her religious beliefs. This has produced an outcry in Denmark from rightwingers fearful of allowing politicians into parliament who put the Qur'an above the Danish constitution, as well as leftwingers who feel hijacked by a Muslim agenda. The Danish Imams have unanimously endorsed Abdol-Hamid and advocate that the Muslim community vote for her in the next election.

Before Abdol-Hamid became a member of Enhedslisten, she was a member of Socialdemokraterne (the Danish equivalent of New Labour), but she was refused a candidacy to run for the local council on the grounds that her insistence on wearing religious headwear that symbolises the oppression of women was irreconcilable with the party's official policy. Socialdemokraterne are probably pleased that she's gone. With the present focus on her person, there may be many votes in having Abdol-Hamid in the party, but more votes could be lost as the Danes, according to polls, continue to be sceptical about Islam's role in democracy.

The hijab: New political cause celebre, Oh brother:
A former minister of culture from the social liberal party, De Radikale, Elsebeth Gerner Nielsen, recently put on a hijab to sympathise with her colleague, claiming her action symbolised freedom of speech.

The fallout:
Popular MP to Form New Party.
Neither Khader nor Samuelsen would comment specifically on the reasons for their departure from the Social Liberals, but the rift between Khader and the party's leadership - in particular party head Marianne Jelved and immigration spokesperson Elsebeth Gerner Nielsen - had been apparent for some time.

That rift began to grow wider last week after Nielsen made a public appearance in a Muslim headscarf. She called the appearance a show of support for Muslim women, but the Syrian-born Khader saw the move as a kowtow to the religion's conservatives.

The relativist mumbo-jumbo:
Interestingly, although the Danes talk about religious symbols in general, it is only Muslim symbols that are referred to. No one seems to have any problems with crucifixes, Buddhist symbols or Jewish yarmulkas. The underlying tension is indeed the tension between Christianity and Islam. (This is the biggest lie. Remember the Crucifixes removed from the Italian hospital to avoid offending Muslims here? Plenty more examples exist.)

The self-blame angle:
Religious tolerance and acceptance of diversity seem to sit uneasily with many Danes. People who want to live in Denmark need to share our morals and beliefs, the argument goes, and since the public sector plays a significant role in Danish society, it is expected that the public sector will find a way of integrating or even assimilating foreigners. The Danish integration process has been notoriously bad, not least because there has never been a consensus about what we want Denmark to be. Accordingly the immigration issue continues to be used by extremists and nationalists as an easy way to attract voters and therefore the tone and language of the debate is often harsh and ugly.

The self-loathing. Boo! We're just as bad!
Religious symbols all carry a tag of oppression. Many misdeeds and murders have been committed in God's name. Christianity has at least as much oppression to its name as Islam, but we don't ban the right to wear a crucifix.

Hold up.

Symbol of oppression? I used to think that, too. But that was before I heard mullah after mullah calling on good Muslimas everywhere to take to the veil like jihadis were taking to the IED's.

Now it is a SYMBOL OF AGGRESSION.

As such it is fair game in the culture wars.

Before 9/11 you could wear the veil all day long and while it bothered me (that oppression business) I didn't feel that it was any of my business. You fly airplanes into buildings and start blowing up my friends, the Brits? You threaten to wipe my friends the Israelis off the face of the earth?

It's my business.

It's silly I know but I've been thinking of buying small American flag lapel pins and everytime I see a woman wearing a hijab going up to her and offering her one to wear to show that she stands against Islamic terror. Then I would ask her to join me in pledging allegiance to the flag.

What do YOU think would happen?

More in the Hijab Wars - this time Somalia.

Well, technically they are the niqab, not the hijab...

Somali gov't forces begin to seize women hijab in Mogadishu

Security forces of the Somali transitional government have begun seizing and burning women's face veils in the country's capital Mogadishu in an attempt to stop insurgents from disguising them for the sake of carrying out attacks.

Residents said the soldiers were ordering women in burkas to remove their face veils on Wednesday but the operation was later stopped by their superior.

"Every policeman and government soldier has orders to confiscate veils from veiled women," Somali police spokesman Ali Nur reportedly said.

Somali news portal Shabelle News reported on Thursday a woman was injured when two hand grenades went off in the Somali capital on Wednesday where government soldiers were confiscating and burning face veils worn by women near the city's main Bakara market.

The Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC) which was driven out of Mogadishu at the beginning of this year encouraged wearing of face veils by women.

Traditionally Somali women tend to just cover their heads, but in recent years burkas which cover the entire face and body and niqabs - a veil for the face that leaves the area around the eyes clear - have become more popular.

The Somali authorities say some of the SCIC remnants have been caught wearing veils to masquerade as women so as to carry attacks on government troops.

One more National Guard post...

U.S. defense secretary rejects letting governors direct active-duty military in emergency

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has rejected a proposal to let governors command active-duty troops who respond to disasters, officials said Wednesday, but the Pentagon will grant National Guard leaders more authority to coordinate with other military and homeland security agencies. Gates told Congress on Wednesday that he had approved 20 of the 23 changes recommended recently by an independent commission in an effort to improve Guard financial controls, equipment and coordination in emergencies.

There is no word yet on which other changes were not approved. Clarifying the fed's role:
The governors have authority over their own state National Guard troops during disasters, but the U.S. military takes command once a Guard unit is federalized by the president, such as in larger crises like the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks or to augment regular forces during wartime. Governors cannot command regular, active-duty forces.

A copy of the National Guard commission's report is here.

I wonder, if is this also part of the Governor's problem - she doesn't like the way this went down?

Boy, was I wrong...

I had it all wrong about Kathleen Sebelius. She had it wrong here and I had it wrong here.

Scott over at Town Commons breaks it all down for us in:

Madame Governor Sebelius you are unethical and dishonest.

Madame Governor, you know that the Kansas National Guard, like every state's National Guard, is a construct of the federal government. It exists solely under the Constitution and federal law. The National Guard is not a state asset whose primary mission is to stand by in your home state if needed for disaster relief. Rather, the National Guard is "an integral part of the first line defenses of the United States" that must be prepared for call "to active Federal duty" at any time, and to be "retained" on active duty "as long as so needed." U.S.C.A. § 32-1-102. Most of the funding for the training and equiping of the Kansas National Guard comes not from your state, but from federal tax dollars paid by all Americans.

The National Guard is a national asset. The federal government has exercised its authority to use a portion of the Kansas National Guard and its equipment in the Iraq war effort. The Guard is taking part in a war against radical Muslims who have already killed thousands of Americans, and who every day dream of killing millions more. To suggest that employing the Kansas National Guard in this fashion is misuse by the Bush administration is utterly disingenuous.

Disaster preparedness, Madame Governor, is your responsibility. I will grant you the reality that most governors rely in part on their state’s National Guard to assist in responding to natural disasters. But in the time you took to make your unethical ad hominem attack on President Bush and the war in Iraq, the reality is that you could have simply asked for additional assets and they would have been provided.

As it is, you have the bulk of the Kansas National Guard available. While a portion of the National Guard is off performing their primary mission, that has left you with 88% of your National Guard forces, 352 Humvees, 94 cargo trucks, 72 dump trucks, 62 five-ton trucks, 13 medium-haul trucks and trailers and 152 2 1/2-ton trucks. Moreover, there are another 83,000 Guardsman with vehicles and equipment at the ready in neighboring states available upon your mere request.

Scott goes on to point out that the 1.5 sq mile Greensburg couldn't fit all the equipment she has at her disposal. Not even if it was placed asshole to elbow. Hah! Thank you Scott.

Sebelius gets attention but loses soul with this one - IMO

Am I the only one that feels like Kathleen Sebelius (D) is luxuriating in the media attention that the Greensburg tornado has bestowed on her?

From Newsweak: Q&A Gov Sebelius on Disaster relief.

From Dinah Lord: If the state of Kansas cannot clean up a town of 1500 with:

"...88 percent of its forces available, 60 percent of its Army Guard dual-use equipment on hand, and more than 85 percent of its Air Guard equipment on hand, said Randal Noller, public affairs officer for the National Guard Bureau. Under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which is a national partnership agreement that allows state-to-state assistance during governor or federally declared emergencies, Kansas has more than 400,000 Guardsmen available to it, he pointed out. However, Kansas has not yet requested assistance from other states."

There's trouble in Kansas.

But hold up for a minute!

In this Newsweak Q&A piece Kathleen's position changes somewhat. Listen as the reporter hypes 'your nightmare come true' and watch how she slips and slides through the first Q:

NEWSWEEK: You and other governors have been warning for the past couple of years that your National Guard troops are stretched too thin. Was this tragedy in Greensburg your nightmare come true?

Kathleen Sebelius: It is in some sense. We have the assets we need to deal with this situation here on day 5. What’s very worrying is that right after this happened we had torrential rains and some flooding. Our adjutant general told me was that if we have to choose in Topeka, if we had to deploy National Guard and equipment [and choose] between a flood or tornado cleanup (or locusts, or flying saucers, or global warming) we’d be in trouble. It’s a huge concern, and one governors have been talking about for three years.

I have yet to see anything vaguely resembling this comment emanating from the Adjutant General...although I will give the Governor her due. She may just have a point about this and if so I would like to hear about it:

The troops go to Iraq and take equipment, and when they return, they leave the equipment there. There has been no replacement strategy. The Pentagon says the plan is to replace 90 percent of equipment over the next six years. I don’t think there is a governor in the country who thinks that is a safe and sound strategy for managing security at home.

Here at FOB Kitchen Table, I have to admit that I was unaware that the equipment was being left. Is it true? It makes perfect senst to me. If it is true, then it needs to be addressed. Hopefully, the facts will bubble up through the cybersphere.

Here's my problem. Although I understand Kathleen's desire to get the situation resolved, I don't understand her eagerness to have her moment in the spotlight with it.

Funeral services haven't even been held yet.

Seems rather soulless to me.

I don't know if I can even read the rest of it now.

But that's just me.

PA pulls Mickey Mouse Jihadi

From: Haaretz:

PA pulls Hamas TV children`s program with mock Mickey Mouse advocating violence

A program using a Mickey Mouse-like character to urge Palestinian children to fight Israel and the West and work for world Islamic domination has been pulled off Hamas' television station for review, the Palestinian information minister said Wednesday.

Mustafa Barghouti said the use of the cartoon character in such a role represented a mistaken approach to the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation.

Barghouti said that following a request from his ministry, the program was pulled from the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV and placed under review.

More at the link.

US Academic among those detained in Iran

US accuses Iran of Harassment.

Iran has detained a well-known Iranian-American academic and is preventing two other dual citizens from leaving the country, a US official said on Wednesday, calling on Tehran to allow the three to return home. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Smithsonian Institution's Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, was detained on Tuesday, according to the Centre.

A dual US-Iranian national who has lived in the United States for more than 25 years, Esfandiari returned to Iran in December to visit her ailing mother and has since been prevented from leaving by authorities. She was jailed in Tehran's Evin prison on Tuesday, the Centre said in a statement.

It said there had been no news on any charges filed against her. State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack confirmed the Iranian action against Esfandiari and said Iran had also confiscated the passport of two other Iranian-American women to prevent them from leaving the country, including a correspondent for the US government-funded Radio Farda, Parnaz Azima. The third woman was not identified.

More at the link.

This is a test of the emergency jihadi system

Box Cutters found on United Airlines Flight.

9 May 2007: United Airlines Flight 490 traveling from Denver to Dallas was delayed for takeoff for about 2 hours Tuesday when a passenger found box cutters in the seatback pocket in front of her. Upon finding the box cutters, the passenger immediately notified the crew who notified the pilots. At that point, the pilots who were taxiing the plane on the runway, returned the aircraft to the gate.

TSA officials re-screened the 138 passengers and searched the plane for additional weapons or devices. When nothing else of concern was located, the plane departed at 2:25 local time, landing in Dallas without incident. Neither the TSA officials nor the airline could account for the presence of the box cutters or how they could have been brought into the aircraft.

Iran orders all TV drama to feature prayer.

Praying with the Stars instead of dancing with them? CSI: Mecca?

The conservative head of Iran's state-run television has said all homegrown drama programmes should feature scenes showing characters praying or they will be denied airtime, the ILNA news agency reported on Monday.

"In the current year, television productions that do not have prayer scenes will not be allowed to air," said Ezatollah Zarghami, who is appointed by the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The new directive appears to apply to drama series and television films but it is not clear whether it also includes programmes such as game shows and sitcoms.

Citing a scene in a popular Iranian series where a murder suspect is shown praying, Zarghami said: "Prayer scenes should not be confined to positive and leading characters, the elderly and the clean-living types." (Yes, let's make all of our murderers pious. After all it's just a short hop to fanatic from there.)

He said children's programmes should also seek to teach the young about praying, which mature Muslims are required to perform five times a day as one of the five pillars of Islam.

Banned in Tehran: Al Jazeera.

The truth? They can't handle the truth.

London, May 08 – Iran’s Majlis, or Parliament, has banned the prominent Arabic-language satellite channel al-Jazeera, an international press freedoms watchdog said on Monday.

“Parliamentary speaker Gholam Ali Hadad Adel announced yesterday that journalists employed by the Qatar-based TV station Al-Jazeera would be banned from the Iranian parliament until the station formally apologises for a talk-show last week in which Iraqi Shiite leader Ali Sistani’s political legitimacy was questioned”, Reporters Without Borders said in a report posted on its website.

Italy: Crucifix out due to Muslim sensibilities

Replaced with Madonna. (and no, it's not that Madonna.)

Milan's top Mangiagalli hospital, which has one of the most highly regarded maternity wards in Italy, has decided to replace the traditional crucifix hanging in its rooms with an image of the Madonna as a sign of respect for the growing number of Muslim immigrant patients, reports said Wednesday. Some 30 percent of the approximately 7,000 births annually performed at the hospital are to foreign women, many of them Muslim.

At least they're not hanging pictures of Mecca. Yet. I wonder if they've painted pink and blue prayer arrows on the walls?

Update: Will this be next? Iran wants to keep sexes apart in hospitals.

Iran's conservative government is encouraging doctors and nurses to treat patients only of the same gender in a bid to bring healthcare in line with its Islamic laws, press reports said on Tuesday. Health Minister Kamran Bagheri Lankarani said hospitals should implement a 1998 parliament bill that stipulates segregation of sexes known as the "initiative to conform medical care with Sharia law. A council has been formed with two parliament members as observers to facilitate the enforcement of this law," the centrist Kargozaran newspaper quoted him as saying.

Afghan Senate to Taliban: Let's talk!

Another recipient of the DNC talking points meme. Oops make that memo.

Afghan Senate calls for direct talks with Taliban.

(Note to Afghan Senate: I think this has been tried before without success.)

Update: UK Defense Secretary Browne: Iran seeking 'conflict by proxy' in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile in other Afghan-Iran News. Thousands of Afghans forced home from Iran.

Iran willing to help US develop exit strategy

Well, that's big of him.

LONDON (AFP) - Iran is willing to help its foe the United States develop an "exit strategy" from Iraq, the country's deputy foreign minister said in an interview published Wednesday.

Abbas Araghchi, speaking to the Financial Times business daily, also dismissed US allegations that Iran was supplying Iraqi insurgents with weapons, and added that no amount of pressure would convince Iran to give up its contested nuclear programme.

"Their invasion was a disaster -- let there not be a disastrous withdrawal," Aragchi told the paper. Yes, immediate withdrawal could lead to chaos, civil war. No one is asking for immediate withdrawal of foreign forces. But there should be a plan."

He must have gotten his DNC talking points memo.

Pelosi threatens to sue George Bush over Iraq

Send lawyers, guns and money.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is threatening to take President Bush to court if he issues a signing statement as a way of sidestepping a carefully crafted compromise Iraq war spending bill.

Pelosi recently told a group of liberal bloggers, “We can take the president to court” if he issues a signing statement, according to Kid Oakland, a blogger who covered Pelosi’s remarks for the liberal website dailykos.com.

“The president has made excessive use of signing statements and Congress is considering ways to respond to this executive-branch overreaching,” a spokesman for Pelosi, Nadeam Elshami, said. “Whether through the oversight or appropriations process or by enacting new legislation, the Democratic Congress will challenge the president’s non-enforcement of the laws.”

Democrats floated other ideas during yesterday’s weekly caucus meeting. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) suggested that the House consider a measure to rescind the 2002 authorization for the war in Iraq. Several senators and Democratic presidential candidates recently have proposed that idea.

“There was a ripple around the room” in support of the idea, said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.).

Sounds to me like they were drinking Ripple if they think this will work. This was tried in the 1970's to get President Nixon to stop bombing in Cambodia. Will they be foolish enough to try it again?

Any legal eagles out there willing to weigh in on their chances of success if they do?

Iraqi FM: US release of Iranians likely by June.

US release of Iranians likely by June.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari says the United States has until June to release five Iranians it captured in northern Iraq in January.

The Iranians were captured in a surprise U.S. raid on an Iranian office in the Kurdish city of Irbil Jan. 11, although they were not the intended targets,
Zebari said under an agreement governing such detentions, the United States can detain them for 90 days, which is renewable once, and then either charge them, hand them over to Iraqi authorities or release them.

The abductions further chilled relations between Washington and Tehran, and Zebari said the two countries must come to realize they are each "players (in Iraq) whether we want it or not."

The American citizens realize the Iranians are "players" in Iraq, Mr. Zebari. It's just their government that refuses to.

The Queen

What we see when we think of the Queen.

What Nancy Pelosi sees when she thinks of the Queen.

Throwing pearls before swine...

Speaker Pelosi and her husband at last night's White House state dinner for Queen Elizabeth.

The pearls.

The swine?

Send Harry Reid to Finishing School.

(tip of the tiara to Ronald Winter books)

Bonus Volcano special

And no, it's not Rosie.

Indonesia's 'mud volcano' bursts dyke

Sludge has burst through an embankment built around Indonesia's disastrous "mud volcano," flooding a main road, an official said Tuesday. Officials said a large crack had formed in the dyke, which was designed to hold back the massive mud flow in East Java. "We have managed to repair the crack but the road is still impassable," said a government spokesman. "The road should be opened later tonight after we pump all the (muddy) water away," Muhammad Zulkarnain told AFP.

The embankment was built after the steaming crater, located near Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya, began spewing mud in May last year following exploratory gas drilling. The sludge has inundated some 600 hectares (1,500 acres), including many homes and factories, leaving 15,000 people homeless.

Indonesian experts have tried to halt the flow by plugging the crater with chains of concrete balls -- a bold plan that some say will not work.

The embankment also repeatedly gave way when officials tried unsuccessfully to channel the flow to a nearby river. Several local non-governmental groups have taken legal action against the local drilling firm, PT Lapindo Brantas, which apparently pierced a layer of strata under pressure at a depth of several thousand feet.

Egad.

US university halts move to UAE because of Israel policy

From Gulfnews: US university halts move to UAE because of Israel policy.

Dubai: Emirati academicians and intellectuals have said they would rather do without a US university in Dubai than allow entry to Israeli citizens after the university put on hold plans to set up a campus here.

The University of Connecticut confirmed to Gulf News that it has halted plans to open a campus in Dubai following concerns raised by pro-Israel politicians and interest groups who oppose the UAE's policy of not permitting entry to Israelis.

"We have put this project on the backburner. We are not actively working on it now," said Peter Nichols, provost of the university.

The article goes on to quote Mr. Nichols as saying that he remains "very interested' in the project and that the situation was "not impossible to resolve". Emirati intelligentsia are claiming anti-Arab racism. No Israelis were available for comment because Israeli citizens are not permitted to enter the UAE.

To the Girls of Britain and Ireland

and for the queen in all of us.

The tiara:

The 'Girls of Great Britain and Ireland' tiara was given to the future Queen Mary of England as a wedding present in 1893. The diamond tiara was purchased from Garrard, the London jeweller, by a committee organised by Lady Eve Greville. In 1947, Mary gave the tiara to her granddaughter, the future Queen Elizabeth II, as a wedding present.

The tiara was described by Leslie Field as "a diamond festoon-and-scroll design surmounted by nine large oriental pearls on diamond spikes and set on a bandeau base of alternate round and lozenge collets between two plain bands of diamonds." (The pearls were changed to diamonds in the 1920's) Not surprisingly, the stunning Garrard tiara was also one of Princess May’s favorite wedding gifts.

The necklace and earrings:

The King George VI, Festoon necklace, was given to Princess Elizabeth in 1947 as a wedding gift from her parents. King George VI, the present queen's father had inherited 239 loose diamonds and decided to have a necklace made. Out of the 239, 105 were used to create this lovely 3 row festoon necklace with triangle motifs on either side.

And the earrings? I don't think she was wearing this pair. I guess she thought that they might be a bit much. They look divine, don't they? Their design contains every diamond cut known to man and :

They are known as the Greville Chandeliers. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother had inherited them from a good friend, the Hon. Mrs. Ronnie Greville in 1942. The Queen then gave them to her daughter, the then-Princess Elizabeth in 1947 as a wedding present. The princess could not wear them until she had her ears pierced, and when she did so, women everywhere flocked to their doctors and the jewellers to have their ears pierced as well.

Can't get an id on the diamond bracelet she's wearing. It appears to be a lovely bauble, though.

God save the Queen.

Tip of the tiara to STARWISE, FReeper extraordinaire. Thank you, dahlink. Your post got me dreaming.

Tony Soprano helping Homeland Security?

Is this a case of life imitating the Sopranos? 6 Arrested in Jersey Terror Plot

Six nationals of the former Yugoslavia were arrested early Tuesday on charges they plotted to attack the Fort Dix Army base and "kill as many soldiers as possible," federal authorities said.

(In Sunday night's episode Tony gave up the names of two "men of middle eastern origin" to the Feds.)

An arms dealer working with the FBI brought the men to a secret meeting to purchase AK-47s, newspaper reported.

Strange Bedfellows

From AKI:
Italy's main Islamic group has said Muslims should feel free to take part in a demonstration Saturday in Rome sponsored by the country's main Catholic groups with the support of the Vatican in favour of traditional family values.

No official position, missionary or otherwise:
The Union of Islamic Communities in Italy ((UCOII) "has not taken an official position on the 'Family Day' rally scheduled on 12 May in Rome but we believe that each Muslim is free to participate," UCOII's spokesman, Ezzedin el-Zerfi, told Adnkronos International (AKI)."As a Muslim organization we are clearly in favour of values such as the family and for all religions marriage is based on the union between man and woman," el-Zerfi told AKI. "However, since we live in a secular and free society we believe everyone has the right to be safeguarded. (I'm not sure what el-Zerfi means when he says that. Like they safeguard them in Iran?)

"The 'Family Day' is being organized in response to planned legislation being discussed by the Italian parliament to grant legal rights to civil unions including homosexual couples - a bill openly opposed by the Vatican which has called on Catholic lawmakers not to vote for it.

Let's hope the Salafiyeen from Gaza don't get the memo. Remember them?

The bodyguard of a senior Fatah legislator was killed and seven people were injured May 6 when violence erupted during a protest by religious extremists at a school in the southern Gaza Strip's Rafah refugee camp. 'The attack at the U.N.-sponsored Al Amareya elementary school is the latest violence against Gaza institutions that extremists consider un-Islamic.

Sebelius plays the Katrina card

"And then the evil Karl Rove pointed his tornado machine at Kansas..."

Yesterday, Governor Kathleen Sebelius blamed George Bush for the state of Kansas' "lack of hummers, front loaders and dozers" that were going to be needed to help out the good people of Greensburg. "We tried to tell George Bush this was a problem", she whined.

The governor said about half the state's National Guard trucks are in Iraq, equipment that would be helpful in removing debris. Sebelius, who asked the Pentagon in December to replenish lost resources, said the state also is missing a number of well-trained personnel.

"I don't think there is any question if you are missing trucks, Humvees and helicopters that the response is going to be slower," Sebelius said. "The real victims here will be the residents of Greensburg, because the recovery will be at a slower pace."

Could this be true, I wondered? It had to be true. Surely, she wouldn't be trying to capitalize on the misery of the citizens of Greensburg in their time of need, would she?

Um. Yes. It certainly looks that way. The National Guard responds:

The Kansas National Guard's 278th Sustainment Brigade has established a joint task force near the incident site. In addition to search-and-rescue efforts, the troops are working on power generation, logistical support, debris clearing, support to law enforcement, supporting establishment of shelters and distribution of food and water.

Currently, the Kansas National Guard has 88 percent of its forces available, 60 percent of its Army Guard dual-use equipment on hand, and more than 85 percent of its Air Guard equipment on hand, said Randal Noller, public affairs officer for the National Guard Bureau.

Under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which is a national partnership agreement that allows state-to-state assistance during governor or federally declared emergencies, Kansas has more than 400,000 Guardsmen available to it, he pointed out.

However, Kansas has not yet requested assistance from other states.

Additional information of the Guard's involvement in Greensburg can be found here:

Emergency response continues in Greensburg.
Response and recovery operations continue in Greensburg.
Tornado hits Greensburg: Governor declares State of Disaster Emergency.

Child trafficking in the Kingdom...

and I'm not talking the Magic Kingdom, either.

Disabilities are a plus, as is charisma and verbal skills.

Some 500 children are reportedly being smuggled into Saudi Arabia from Yemen every month to collect cash by begging, according to The Saudi Gazette.

More than 50,000 children have successfully crossed the Saudi-Yemeni border in the past four years.Only about 40,000 were apprehended, reports say. At the border area, the sheer number of children being smuggled into the kingdom – often in broad daylight – gives credence to these reports.

The children are mostly employed as beggars. Organised rings handle the bulk of the smuggling business. Some of them pay the families of the children as much as $ 3,000-$ 5,000 as an annual "rent" for the child.

Trafficking of a child from Yemen to the border region of Jizan costs about SR300, while transportation to Jeddah costs more than SR1,000.

Children with all sorts of disabilities are a commodity, and the reasons are obvious: do-gooders tend to be more generous to them – and thus they are potentially more lucrative. Being talkative and charismatic adds to a child’s "street value," sources said. But not all children are brought in to beg. The reports say a fifth of them are used as workers in farms or to herd sheep, and some for outright crime, mostly thefts.

Royal plays the bee-yotch card.

Such a pity. It doesn't appear to be working!

HAVING tried everything else in her quest to stop the seemingly inexorable march of Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative candidate, Ségolène Royal played what she hoped was her trump card in the last hours of the battle for the French presidency: her femininity.

In a desperate attempt to woo undecided voters, Royal was reduced to emphasising the novelty of having a woman in the Elysée Palace who was more than just a first lady.

“I know there are those who thought – and who still think – is it really reasonable to choose a woman?” she said in her final campaign rally in the northern city of Lille on Thursday night. “Is France going to dare? I want to say: dare. Dare! You won’t regret it.”

Some called it a gamble, worrying that Royal’s use of her gender might transform her into a divisive “symbol of sexist revenge”, as Sylviane Agacinski, the author and psychologist, put it.

There was not much danger of that, however. It emerged that Royal was being let down at the ballot box not by centrists, Socialists or any other political bloc but by the one sector of the electorate that might have been expected to rally to her cause in droves: women.

Merde! Women voters shun Royal

Over 3000 cops sent to Gay Paree!

Inky dinky parlay voo! Over 3000 cops for Paris.

More than 3 000 police officers will be deployed in Paris and its suburbs to head off the threat of violence after Sunday's presidential election in France, police officials said on Saturday.

Railway stations will be under high surveillance in case gangs of youths travel to the capital to disrupt victory festivities.

"There are no advance signs and we have no special information, but we are keeping a close watch on the suburbs, and we've also got our eye on the radical movements of the far-left," an official said on condition of anonymity.

There are fears that a victory for right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy could spark unrest in the poor
high-immigration neighbourhoods that were the scene of riots in 2005.

Sarkozy, who was Interior Minister at the time, is a hate figure for many young people of black and Arab origin. He has also been vilified as a hard-right authoritarian by many on the left.

(I don't know. He kind of sounds like my kind of guy.)

P.S. These dhimmis wouldn't say Muslim if they had a mouthful, would they? Many young people of black and Arab origin.