April 30, 2010
Political Ping-Pong Balls
Arizona has taken a stand. If the Feds won't enforce the immigration laws, they will do it themselves. Actually, they HAVE been doing it all along, they are just now making it official as well as highly visible.
Yes, some of the immigrants are victims in a sense, but this has to be done to protect citizens from those illegal immigrants who sneak in and open drug distributorships, human trafficking way houses, and kidnap for ransom anyone who protests. Murder is the favorite tool of their business.
Apparently the politicians who strive to pass amnesty laws think it is worth all the above death and mayhem to get more votes for their party. That is the real bottom line. Drugs, murder, human trafficking, are all ok if it gets more votes. Those otherwise law-abiding immigrants who entered illegally are far overshadowed by those who came here expressly to commit vile crimes against each other and against our sovereign country.
Amnesty at this point in our history would be a huge mistake. A wink and a nod to the drug culture of the Central Americas would plunge us ever deeply into a chasm we cannot escape. Amnesty was tried before, and failed miserably during the Reagan years.
This is not a racial issue as claimed by the left, and it never was. It is a matter of who shall have the right, the privilege, to live in our country. Is it to be hard working, honest people or should it be just any scum who can slither their way under a fence and into our country? If those murderous thugs did not exist here in America, the rest would be left alone as they have been in decades past.
Those politicians who espouse amnesty are trading your personal safety for votes to keep themselves in office so they can commit further trespasses against your life, your personal freedoms.
Think about it. The poor, the disenfranchised, always get the worst treatment. And this time it is from the very party they have counted on and have been led to believe will save them.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
South Park Incident a Big Deal
‘South Park’: Drawing a Line in the Sand
by Mark Tapson
“We sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed.”
That was the arrogant declaration of victory from the Organization of the Islamic Conference nearly two years ago, regarding the shrewdly orchestrated Muslim mayhem around the world protesting such infidel abominations as the Danish Muhammad cartoons and Geert Wilders’ short film Fitna.
“Red lines” indeed – a phrase chillingly reminiscent of Samuel Huntington’s famous observation that “Islam has bloody borders.” Except that the red lines the OIC is referring to aren’t geographical – they are the ever-tightening limits that Muslim fundamentalists are imposing to choke off our freedoms.
The influential OIC is the world’s largest Muslim assembly, consisting of 57 member states (you know, the same number of U.S. states candidate Obama campaigned in). Its primary aim is “conducting a large-scale worldwide effort to confront Islamophobia.” (As I’ve written here before, Islamophobia is a mythical beast that the OIC and collusive groups like CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, use to intimidate us into craven appeasement.) Their goal is to abridge our free speech by making criticism of Islam an international crime; their strategy works because the West has been so emasculated by multiculturalism that we’d rather embrace cultural suicide than offend the tender sensibilities of such violent barbarians as the Danish cartoon rioters.
Everyone is aware by now that Comedy Central’s South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were targeted by a not-so-subtle threat from Zachary “Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee” Chesser, the leader of a small New York-based group of fanatics at RevolutionMuslim.com. Chesser found the fearless South Park satirists guilty of an insulting depiction of Islam’s prophet Muhammad as someone who – wait for it – cannot be depicted without incurring death threats. To drive his point home, Chesser posted a picture of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh lying on an Amsterdam sidewalk, shot several times in broad daylight by an unrepentant Islamic fundamentalist, his throat cut, a machete stuck in his chest and a note calling for holy war pinned to him with a second knife. The message was clear – van Gogh had been executed for insulting Islam with his short film Submission, and now Parker and Stone can expect the same fate.
The site RevolutionMuslim.com is now down, but at the related RevolutionMuslim.blogspot.com is an exhaustingly wide-ranging, unapologetic declaration with the catchy title, “Clarifying the South Park Response and Calling on Others to Join in the Defense of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him).” Far from backing off from the implied threat, the declaration’s poster – presumably Chesser – launches into an anti-American rant and a scholarly justification for Islam’s position that the punishment for blasphemy is death. He stresses that it is absolutely incumbent upon all Muslims to abide by sharia law, so any Muslim who “condones” South Park’s behavior does not possess “even the weakest of faith.” So much for moderate Islam.
But what about freedom of speech? “As Muslims we do not define speech which has no place in a moral society as ‘free speech.’” Indeed, free speech “is not a value that the Muslims share with America as a whole.” The declaration closes with an ominous quote from Chesser’s idol Osama bin Laden: “If there is no check in the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions.” Well there it is, then. We can either curb our speech, or cross that red line and deal with the consequences from Muslims who are commanded, by Islamic law, to execute us.
In reporting on this controversy, the media have, as usual, resorted to their fallback narrative of describing Islamic fundamentalists as “loners” and “crazy people” who have hijacked what would otherwise be the Religion of Peace. The danger in these dismissive labels is that we mistakenly view the terrorists as isolated nut jobs, when in fact they are united by a common goal – the capitulation of the West and the establishment of sharia worldwide – and they are perfectly capable of articulating and ideologically justifying it. Whether the dozen or so members of Revolution Muslim and the 57-member states of the OIC are officially linked or not, they are working toward the same end.
CAIR’s ubiquitous spokesperson Ibrahim Hooper calls Revolution Muslim “an extreme fringe group” that is smearing Islam with its “outrageous, irresponsible” statements. But CAIR hasn’t issued a formal statement about the affair, ostensibly because it doesn’t want to give South Park any more attention. Too bad, because amid all this uproar, CAIR is throwing away a golden opportunity to explain exactly how these “crazies” have “hijacked” the religion. This would be the perfect time to discredit their “outrageous, irresponsible” distortions, wouldn’t it? And to stand with the South Park creators in defense of free speech?
Instead, Hooper would rather move on because “people are pretty tired of this whole ‘Let’s insult the prophet Muhammad thing.’” They are? I wasn’t aware that there even was a “whole ‘Let’s insult the prophet Muhammad thing.’” It’s not like it was ever a wildly popular fad, since anyone deemed to have insulted Muhammad ordinarily ends up dead or living under 24-hour guard.
Actually Mr. Hooper, what people are pretty tired of is Islamic violence and open intimidation, attacks on our freedoms and rights, and false charges of racism and Islamophobia. What people are pretty tired of, in short, is the whole, “Let’s behead those who insult Islam thing.”
The Los Angeles Times claims that such threats present a dilemma for media companies, who are “struggling to balance free speech with safety concerns and religious sensitivities.” This is giving them way too much credit. The media and the entertainment industry care absolutely nothing about religious sensitivities; if anything, they normally delight in mocking and sneering at faith, especially Christianity. But they treat Islam with kid gloves because, as Fox’s Bill O’Reilly said, “these people are killers and they will kill you.”
Nor do media companies care about free speech except when it suits them. They shut down politically inconvenient truths, such as Disney/ABC’s shameful suppression of The Path to 9/11 miniseries, which I have written about here. And they fold (like a Bedouin tent, as Mark Steyn hilariously put it) at the first hint of Muslim disapproval. No amount of Christian offense would compel Comedy Central to rein in South Park’s depiction of Jesus defecating on the American flag, but in the wake of the Revolution Muslim threat, Comedy Central decided to bleep over any subsequent reference to “Prophet Muhammad,” and his visual portrayal was replaced with a black “Censored” bar. There’s a reason Islam means “submission,” and Comedy Central has exemplified it.
And as for media companies’ “safety concerns”: every time they cave in to Islamist threats of violence, the terrorists win, as the corny saying goes. It quite simply encourages our enemy to ramp up the threats, which then endangers even more innocents.
The OIC boasted about “red lines that should not be crossed” – well, the time has come for Hollywood to stop placating these murderous zealots in its usual way, with knee-jerk self-censorship, and to draw a line in the sand of our own, against religious totalitarianism. In the absence of any government acknowledgement that fundamentalist Islam is a serious threat to our way of life, the entertainment industry must rally behind Parker and Stone, and take the lead in a cultural counteroffensive against the jihadists.
Unless Americans stand shoulder-to-shoulder against such assaults on our hard-won Western values, Islamic fundamentalists will continue to be more effective at importing sharia law than we are at exporting democracy. We must stand for our principles and freedoms with an even greater degree of unwavering fervor and cultural pride than the jihadists possess. Or make no mistake, we will all be witness to the slow, humiliating death of Western civilization.
by Mark Tapson
“We sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed.”
That was the arrogant declaration of victory from the Organization of the Islamic Conference nearly two years ago, regarding the shrewdly orchestrated Muslim mayhem around the world protesting such infidel abominations as the Danish Muhammad cartoons and Geert Wilders’ short film Fitna.
“Red lines” indeed – a phrase chillingly reminiscent of Samuel Huntington’s famous observation that “Islam has bloody borders.” Except that the red lines the OIC is referring to aren’t geographical – they are the ever-tightening limits that Muslim fundamentalists are imposing to choke off our freedoms.
The influential OIC is the world’s largest Muslim assembly, consisting of 57 member states (you know, the same number of U.S. states candidate Obama campaigned in). Its primary aim is “conducting a large-scale worldwide effort to confront Islamophobia.” (As I’ve written here before, Islamophobia is a mythical beast that the OIC and collusive groups like CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, use to intimidate us into craven appeasement.) Their goal is to abridge our free speech by making criticism of Islam an international crime; their strategy works because the West has been so emasculated by multiculturalism that we’d rather embrace cultural suicide than offend the tender sensibilities of such violent barbarians as the Danish cartoon rioters.
Everyone is aware by now that Comedy Central’s South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were targeted by a not-so-subtle threat from Zachary “Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee” Chesser, the leader of a small New York-based group of fanatics at RevolutionMuslim.com. Chesser found the fearless South Park satirists guilty of an insulting depiction of Islam’s prophet Muhammad as someone who – wait for it – cannot be depicted without incurring death threats. To drive his point home, Chesser posted a picture of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh lying on an Amsterdam sidewalk, shot several times in broad daylight by an unrepentant Islamic fundamentalist, his throat cut, a machete stuck in his chest and a note calling for holy war pinned to him with a second knife. The message was clear – van Gogh had been executed for insulting Islam with his short film Submission, and now Parker and Stone can expect the same fate.
The site RevolutionMuslim.com is now down, but at the related RevolutionMuslim.blogspot.com is an exhaustingly wide-ranging, unapologetic declaration with the catchy title, “Clarifying the South Park Response and Calling on Others to Join in the Defense of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him).” Far from backing off from the implied threat, the declaration’s poster – presumably Chesser – launches into an anti-American rant and a scholarly justification for Islam’s position that the punishment for blasphemy is death. He stresses that it is absolutely incumbent upon all Muslims to abide by sharia law, so any Muslim who “condones” South Park’s behavior does not possess “even the weakest of faith.” So much for moderate Islam.
But what about freedom of speech? “As Muslims we do not define speech which has no place in a moral society as ‘free speech.’” Indeed, free speech “is not a value that the Muslims share with America as a whole.” The declaration closes with an ominous quote from Chesser’s idol Osama bin Laden: “If there is no check in the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions.” Well there it is, then. We can either curb our speech, or cross that red line and deal with the consequences from Muslims who are commanded, by Islamic law, to execute us.
In reporting on this controversy, the media have, as usual, resorted to their fallback narrative of describing Islamic fundamentalists as “loners” and “crazy people” who have hijacked what would otherwise be the Religion of Peace. The danger in these dismissive labels is that we mistakenly view the terrorists as isolated nut jobs, when in fact they are united by a common goal – the capitulation of the West and the establishment of sharia worldwide – and they are perfectly capable of articulating and ideologically justifying it. Whether the dozen or so members of Revolution Muslim and the 57-member states of the OIC are officially linked or not, they are working toward the same end.
CAIR’s ubiquitous spokesperson Ibrahim Hooper calls Revolution Muslim “an extreme fringe group” that is smearing Islam with its “outrageous, irresponsible” statements. But CAIR hasn’t issued a formal statement about the affair, ostensibly because it doesn’t want to give South Park any more attention. Too bad, because amid all this uproar, CAIR is throwing away a golden opportunity to explain exactly how these “crazies” have “hijacked” the religion. This would be the perfect time to discredit their “outrageous, irresponsible” distortions, wouldn’t it? And to stand with the South Park creators in defense of free speech?
Instead, Hooper would rather move on because “people are pretty tired of this whole ‘Let’s insult the prophet Muhammad thing.’” They are? I wasn’t aware that there even was a “whole ‘Let’s insult the prophet Muhammad thing.’” It’s not like it was ever a wildly popular fad, since anyone deemed to have insulted Muhammad ordinarily ends up dead or living under 24-hour guard.
Actually Mr. Hooper, what people are pretty tired of is Islamic violence and open intimidation, attacks on our freedoms and rights, and false charges of racism and Islamophobia. What people are pretty tired of, in short, is the whole, “Let’s behead those who insult Islam thing.”
The Los Angeles Times claims that such threats present a dilemma for media companies, who are “struggling to balance free speech with safety concerns and religious sensitivities.” This is giving them way too much credit. The media and the entertainment industry care absolutely nothing about religious sensitivities; if anything, they normally delight in mocking and sneering at faith, especially Christianity. But they treat Islam with kid gloves because, as Fox’s Bill O’Reilly said, “these people are killers and they will kill you.”
Nor do media companies care about free speech except when it suits them. They shut down politically inconvenient truths, such as Disney/ABC’s shameful suppression of The Path to 9/11 miniseries, which I have written about here. And they fold (like a Bedouin tent, as Mark Steyn hilariously put it) at the first hint of Muslim disapproval. No amount of Christian offense would compel Comedy Central to rein in South Park’s depiction of Jesus defecating on the American flag, but in the wake of the Revolution Muslim threat, Comedy Central decided to bleep over any subsequent reference to “Prophet Muhammad,” and his visual portrayal was replaced with a black “Censored” bar. There’s a reason Islam means “submission,” and Comedy Central has exemplified it.
And as for media companies’ “safety concerns”: every time they cave in to Islamist threats of violence, the terrorists win, as the corny saying goes. It quite simply encourages our enemy to ramp up the threats, which then endangers even more innocents.
The OIC boasted about “red lines that should not be crossed” – well, the time has come for Hollywood to stop placating these murderous zealots in its usual way, with knee-jerk self-censorship, and to draw a line in the sand of our own, against religious totalitarianism. In the absence of any government acknowledgement that fundamentalist Islam is a serious threat to our way of life, the entertainment industry must rally behind Parker and Stone, and take the lead in a cultural counteroffensive against the jihadists.
Unless Americans stand shoulder-to-shoulder against such assaults on our hard-won Western values, Islamic fundamentalists will continue to be more effective at importing sharia law than we are at exporting democracy. We must stand for our principles and freedoms with an even greater degree of unwavering fervor and cultural pride than the jihadists possess. Or make no mistake, we will all be witness to the slow, humiliating death of Western civilization.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
An Informal Fatwah
WSJ, Opinion, April 27, 2010
'South Park' and the Informal Fatwa
The veiled threats against the Comedy Central show's creators should be taken very seriously. Islamists seek to replace the rule of law with that of commanding right and forbidding wrong.
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
'South Park" is hilarious, right? Not any more.
Last week, Zachary Adam Chesser—a 20-year-old Muslim convert who now goes by the name Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee—posted a warning on the Web site RevolutionMuslim.com following the 200th episode of the show on Comedy Central. The episode, which trotted out many celebrities the show has previously satirized, also "featured" the Prophet Muhammad: He was heard once from within a U-Haul truck and a second time from inside a bear costume.
For this apparent blasphemy, Mr. Amrikee warned that co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone "will probably end up" like Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh, readers will remember, was the Dutch filmmaker who was brutally murdered in 2004 on the streets of Amsterdam. He was killed for producing "Submission," a film that criticized the subordinate role of women in Islam, with me.
There has been some debate about whether Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker should view the Web posting as a direct threat. Here's Mr. Amrikee's perspective: "It's not a threat, but it really is a likely outcome," he told Foxnews.com. "They're going to be basically on a list in the back of the minds of a large number of Muslims. It's just the reality." He's also published the home and office addresses of Messrs. Stone and Parker, as well as images of Van Gogh's body.
According to First Amendment experts, technically speaking this posting does not constitute a threat. And general opinion seems to be that even if this posting was intended as a threat, Mr. Amrikee and his ilk are merely fringe extremists who are disgruntled with U.S. foreign policy; their "outrage" merits little attention.
This raises the question: How much harm can an Islamist fringe group do in a free society? The answer is a lot.
Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim first thought to have been a minor character in radical circles, killed Theo van Gogh. Only during the investigation did it emerge that he was the ringleader of the Hofstad Group, a terrorist organization that was being monitored by the Dutch Secret Service.
The story was very similar in the case of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The cartoons, drawn by Kurt Westergaard, were published in September 2005 to little notice but exploded five months later into an international drama complete with riots and flag-burnings. The man behind this campaign of outrage was an Egyptian-born radical imam named Ahmed Abu-Laban.
Prior to this conflagration, Mr. Abu-Laban was seen as a marginal figure. Yet his campaign ended up costing Denmark businesses an estimated $170 million in the spring of 2006. And this doesn't include the cost of rebuilding destroyed property and protecting the cartoonists.
So how worried should the creators of "South Park" be about the "marginal figures" who now threaten them? Very. In essence, Mr. Amrikee's posting is an informal fatwa. Here's how it works:
There is a basic principle in Islamic scripture—unknown to most not-so-observant Muslims and most non-Muslims—called "commanding right and forbidding wrong." It obligates Muslim males to police behavior seen to be wrong and personally deal out the appropriate punishment as stated in scripture. In its mildest form, devout people give friendly advice to abstain from wrongdoing. Less mild is the practice whereby Afghan men feel empowered to beat women who are not veiled.
By publicizing the supposed sins of Messrs. Stone and Parker, Mr. Amrikee undoubtedly believes he is fulfilling his duty to command right and forbid wrong. His message is not just an opinion. It will appeal to like-minded individuals who, even though they are a minority, are a large and random enough group to carry out the divine punishment. The best illustration of this was demonstrated by the Somali man who broke into Mr. Westergaard's home in January carrying an axe and a knife.
Any Muslim, male or female, who knows about the "offense" may decide to perform the duty of killing those who insult the prophet. So what can be done to help Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone?
The first step is for them to consult with experts on how to stay safe. Even though living with protection, as I do now in Washington, D.C., curtails some of your freedom, it is better than risking the worst.
Much depends on how far the U.S. government is prepared to contribute to their protection. According to the Danish government, protecting Mr. Westergaard costs the taxpayers $3.9 million, excluding technical operating equipment. That's a tall order at a time of intense fiscal pressure.
One way of reducing the cost is to organize a solidarity campaign. The entertainment business, especially Hollywood, is one of the wealthiest and most powerful industries in the world. Following the example of Jon Stewart, who used the first segment of his April 22 show to defend "South Park," producers, actors, writers, musicians and other entertainers could lead such an effort.
Another idea is to do stories of Muhammad where his image is shown as much as possible. These stories do not have to be negative or insulting, they just need to spread the risk. The aim is to confront hypersensitive Muslims with more targets than they can possibly contend with.
Another important advantage of such a campaign is to accustom Muslims to the kind of treatment that the followers of other religions have long been used to. After the "South Park" episode in question there was no threatening response from Buddhists, Christians and Jews—to say nothing of Tom Cruise and Barbra Streisand fans—all of whom had far more reason to be offended than Muslims.
Islamists seek to replace the rule of law with that of commanding right and forbidding wrong. With over a billion and a half people calling Muhammad their moral guide, it is imperative that we examine the consequences of his guidance, starting with the notion that those who depict his image or criticize his teachings should be punished.
In "South Park," this tyrannical rule is cleverly needled when Tom Cruise asks the question: How come Muhammad is the only celebrity protected from ridicule? Now we know why.
'South Park' and the Informal Fatwa
The veiled threats against the Comedy Central show's creators should be taken very seriously. Islamists seek to replace the rule of law with that of commanding right and forbidding wrong.
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
'South Park" is hilarious, right? Not any more.
Last week, Zachary Adam Chesser—a 20-year-old Muslim convert who now goes by the name Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee—posted a warning on the Web site RevolutionMuslim.com following the 200th episode of the show on Comedy Central. The episode, which trotted out many celebrities the show has previously satirized, also "featured" the Prophet Muhammad: He was heard once from within a U-Haul truck and a second time from inside a bear costume.
For this apparent blasphemy, Mr. Amrikee warned that co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone "will probably end up" like Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh, readers will remember, was the Dutch filmmaker who was brutally murdered in 2004 on the streets of Amsterdam. He was killed for producing "Submission," a film that criticized the subordinate role of women in Islam, with me.
There has been some debate about whether Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker should view the Web posting as a direct threat. Here's Mr. Amrikee's perspective: "It's not a threat, but it really is a likely outcome," he told Foxnews.com. "They're going to be basically on a list in the back of the minds of a large number of Muslims. It's just the reality." He's also published the home and office addresses of Messrs. Stone and Parker, as well as images of Van Gogh's body.
According to First Amendment experts, technically speaking this posting does not constitute a threat. And general opinion seems to be that even if this posting was intended as a threat, Mr. Amrikee and his ilk are merely fringe extremists who are disgruntled with U.S. foreign policy; their "outrage" merits little attention.
This raises the question: How much harm can an Islamist fringe group do in a free society? The answer is a lot.
Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim first thought to have been a minor character in radical circles, killed Theo van Gogh. Only during the investigation did it emerge that he was the ringleader of the Hofstad Group, a terrorist organization that was being monitored by the Dutch Secret Service.
The story was very similar in the case of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The cartoons, drawn by Kurt Westergaard, were published in September 2005 to little notice but exploded five months later into an international drama complete with riots and flag-burnings. The man behind this campaign of outrage was an Egyptian-born radical imam named Ahmed Abu-Laban.
Prior to this conflagration, Mr. Abu-Laban was seen as a marginal figure. Yet his campaign ended up costing Denmark businesses an estimated $170 million in the spring of 2006. And this doesn't include the cost of rebuilding destroyed property and protecting the cartoonists.
So how worried should the creators of "South Park" be about the "marginal figures" who now threaten them? Very. In essence, Mr. Amrikee's posting is an informal fatwa. Here's how it works:
There is a basic principle in Islamic scripture—unknown to most not-so-observant Muslims and most non-Muslims—called "commanding right and forbidding wrong." It obligates Muslim males to police behavior seen to be wrong and personally deal out the appropriate punishment as stated in scripture. In its mildest form, devout people give friendly advice to abstain from wrongdoing. Less mild is the practice whereby Afghan men feel empowered to beat women who are not veiled.
By publicizing the supposed sins of Messrs. Stone and Parker, Mr. Amrikee undoubtedly believes he is fulfilling his duty to command right and forbid wrong. His message is not just an opinion. It will appeal to like-minded individuals who, even though they are a minority, are a large and random enough group to carry out the divine punishment. The best illustration of this was demonstrated by the Somali man who broke into Mr. Westergaard's home in January carrying an axe and a knife.
Any Muslim, male or female, who knows about the "offense" may decide to perform the duty of killing those who insult the prophet. So what can be done to help Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone?
The first step is for them to consult with experts on how to stay safe. Even though living with protection, as I do now in Washington, D.C., curtails some of your freedom, it is better than risking the worst.
Much depends on how far the U.S. government is prepared to contribute to their protection. According to the Danish government, protecting Mr. Westergaard costs the taxpayers $3.9 million, excluding technical operating equipment. That's a tall order at a time of intense fiscal pressure.
One way of reducing the cost is to organize a solidarity campaign. The entertainment business, especially Hollywood, is one of the wealthiest and most powerful industries in the world. Following the example of Jon Stewart, who used the first segment of his April 22 show to defend "South Park," producers, actors, writers, musicians and other entertainers could lead such an effort.
Another idea is to do stories of Muhammad where his image is shown as much as possible. These stories do not have to be negative or insulting, they just need to spread the risk. The aim is to confront hypersensitive Muslims with more targets than they can possibly contend with.
Another important advantage of such a campaign is to accustom Muslims to the kind of treatment that the followers of other religions have long been used to. After the "South Park" episode in question there was no threatening response from Buddhists, Christians and Jews—to say nothing of Tom Cruise and Barbra Streisand fans—all of whom had far more reason to be offended than Muslims.
Islamists seek to replace the rule of law with that of commanding right and forbidding wrong. With over a billion and a half people calling Muhammad their moral guide, it is imperative that we examine the consequences of his guidance, starting with the notion that those who depict his image or criticize his teachings should be punished.
In "South Park," this tyrannical rule is cleverly needled when Tom Cruise asks the question: How come Muhammad is the only celebrity protected from ridicule? Now we know why.
Selling Short
How to Sell Short
Next time your neighbor goes out of town, borrow his car and sell it. Then, after the car has depreciated, buy it back, put it back in the garage and keep the profit.
Brilliant! But how can this be legal? Simply put it is legal because Goldman Sachs says it's legal. As long as you pay them a fee when you 'borrow' the car, and another fee when you buy it back all is well.
Next time your neighbor goes out of town, borrow his car and sell it. Then, after the car has depreciated, buy it back, put it back in the garage and keep the profit.
Brilliant! But how can this be legal? Simply put it is legal because Goldman Sachs says it's legal. As long as you pay them a fee when you 'borrow' the car, and another fee when you buy it back all is well.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Ten Most Corrupt Public Officials
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians." The list, in alphabetical order, includes:
See the rest here: Click
1. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT): This marks two years in a row for Senator Dodd, who made the 2008 "Ten Most Corrupt" list for his corrupt relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for accepting preferential treatment and loan terms from Countrywide Financial, a scandal which still dogs him. In 2009, the scandals kept coming for the Connecticut Democrat. In 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Senate ethics complaint against Dodd for undervaluing a property he owns in Ireland on his Senate Financial Disclosure forms. Judicial Watch's complaint forced Dodd to amend the forms. However, press reports suggest the property to this day remains undervalued. Judicial Watch also alleges in the complaint that Dodd obtained a sweetheart deal for the property in exchange for his assistance in obtaining a presidential pardon (during the Clinton administration) and other favors for a long-time friend and business associate. The false financial disclosure forms were part of the cover-up. Dodd remains the head the Senate Banking Committee.
See the rest here: Click
Friday, April 16, 2010
How Far Will Enablers Go
How Far Will “Enablers” Go?
by Guy Rodgers, Executive Director ACT for America
“I don’t believe you.”
That’s what radio talk show host Andy Johnson said to me during an interview yesterday on his drive-time program in Jacksonville, Florida.
We were discussing the nomination of Parvez Ahmed to the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission. Ahmed is a former National Chairman of CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) who has made numerous controversial statements about convicted terrorists and the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah.
We are working feverishly with ACT! for America’s Jacksonville chapter to defeat Ahmed’s nomination to the commission.
When I stated on Johnson’s program that the Justice Department has cited CAIR as having ties to Hamas, and that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial, Johnson said:
“I don’t believe you.”
The entire 30 minute interview consisted of me stating the facts about Ahmed’s past actions and statements, and Johnson challenging them, excusing them, justifying them, or trying to explain them away.
But for a talk show host to go so far as to intimate that I was making this information up, well, that reveals just how far “enablers” will go in their attempts to deny reality.
My response was, why would I fabricate something that could be so easily refuted if not true? A cursory online search of CAIR will provide the documentation confirming what I said.
There are many people in America who are uninformed about the many ways radical Islam and global jihad threatens America. But I’m convinced, based on past polling we have done, that most will be persuaded when they hear the facts.
Then there are the “enablers,” those who will go to any lengths to deny the facts, excuse behaviors, and try to explain away public statements of Islamists.
They do so for many reasons, such as political correctness and an unbridled obsession with tolerance and multiculturalism.
We won’t persuade them—they’ve made up their minds and won’t be confused with facts. But we must overcome them as we reach the rest of America.
by Guy Rodgers, Executive Director ACT for America
“I don’t believe you.”
That’s what radio talk show host Andy Johnson said to me during an interview yesterday on his drive-time program in Jacksonville, Florida.
We were discussing the nomination of Parvez Ahmed to the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission. Ahmed is a former National Chairman of CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) who has made numerous controversial statements about convicted terrorists and the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah.
We are working feverishly with ACT! for America’s Jacksonville chapter to defeat Ahmed’s nomination to the commission.
When I stated on Johnson’s program that the Justice Department has cited CAIR as having ties to Hamas, and that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial, Johnson said:
“I don’t believe you.”
The entire 30 minute interview consisted of me stating the facts about Ahmed’s past actions and statements, and Johnson challenging them, excusing them, justifying them, or trying to explain them away.
But for a talk show host to go so far as to intimate that I was making this information up, well, that reveals just how far “enablers” will go in their attempts to deny reality.
My response was, why would I fabricate something that could be so easily refuted if not true? A cursory online search of CAIR will provide the documentation confirming what I said.
There are many people in America who are uninformed about the many ways radical Islam and global jihad threatens America. But I’m convinced, based on past polling we have done, that most will be persuaded when they hear the facts.
Then there are the “enablers,” those who will go to any lengths to deny the facts, excuse behaviors, and try to explain away public statements of Islamists.
They do so for many reasons, such as political correctness and an unbridled obsession with tolerance and multiculturalism.
We won’t persuade them—they’ve made up their minds and won’t be confused with facts. But we must overcome them as we reach the rest of America.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Feel Safer Now?
Feel safer now?
Last year, President Obama bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and made a speech in Cairo largely blaming America for our “strained” relations with the Muslim world.
This year his administration berates Israel, accusing it of obstructing the peace process while Hamas continues to deny Israel’s right to exist.
He extends constitutional rights to foreign terrorists, including reading them their Miranda rights.
He announces that the U.S. will not retaliate with nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear country—even if that country hits us with a devastating biological or chemical weapons attack.
Now he bans characterizations such as “jihad” and “Islamic extremism” from our national security strategy (see article below).
Feel safer now?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Obama Bans Islam, Jihad From National Security Strategy Document
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/07/obama-bans-islam-jihad-national-security-strategy-document/
AP
The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war.
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's advisers will remove religious terms such as "Islamic extremism" from the central document outlining the U.S. national security strategy and will use the rewritten document to emphasize that the United States does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terror, counterterrorism officials said.
The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war and currently states: "The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century."
The officials described the changes on condition of anonymity because the document still was being written, and the White House would not discuss it. But rewriting the strategy document will be the latest example of Obama putting his stamp on U.S. foreign policy, like his promises to dismantle nuclear weapons and limit the situations in which they can be used.
The revisions are part of a larger effort about which the White House talks openly, one that seeks to change not just how the United States talks to Muslim nations, but also what it talks to them about, from health care and science to business startups and education.
That shift away from terrorism has been building for a year, since Obama went to Cairo, Egypt, and promised a "new beginning" in the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world. The White House believes the previous administration based that relationship entirely on fighting terror and winning the war of ideas.
"You take a country where the overwhelming majority are not going to become terrorists, and you go in and say, 'We're building you a hospital so you don't become terrorists.' That doesn't make much sense," said National Security Council staffer Pradeep Ramamurthy.
Ramamurthy runs the administration's Global Engagement Directorate, a four-person National Security Council team that Obama launched last May with little fanfare and a vague mission to use diplomacy and outreach "in pursuit of a host of national security objectives."
Since then, the division has not only helped change the vocabulary of fighting terror but also has shaped the way the country invests in Muslim businesses, studies global warming, supports scientific research and combats polio.
Before diplomats go abroad, they hear from the Ramamurthy or his deputy, Jenny Urizar. When officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration returned from Indonesia, the NSC got a rundown about research opportunities on global warming.
Ramamurthy maintains a database of interviews conducted by 50 U.S. embassies worldwide. And business leaders from more than 40 countries head to Washington this month for an "entrepreneurship summit" for Muslim businesses.
"Do you want to think about the U.S. as the nation that fights terrorism or the nation you want to do business with?" Ramamurthy said.
To deliver that message, Obama's speechwriters have taken inspiration from an unlikely source: former President Ronald Reagan. Visiting communist China in 1984, Reagan spoke to Fudan University in Shanghai about education, space exploration and scientific research.
He discussed freedom and liberty. He never mentioned communism or democracy.
"They didn't look up to the U.S. because we hated communism," said Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, Obama's foreign policy speechwriter.
Like Reagan in China, Obama in Cairo made only passing references to terrorism. Instead he focused on cooperation. He announced the United States would team up to fight polio with the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a multinational body based in Saudi Arabia.
The United States and the OIC had worked together before, but never with that focus.
"President Obama saw it as an opportunity to say, 'We work on things far beyond the war on terrorism,"' said World Health Organization spokeswoman Sona Bari.
Polio is endemic in three Muslim countries -- Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan -- but some Muslim leaders have been suspicious of vaccination efforts, which they believed to be part of a CIA sterilization campaign. Last year, the OIC and religious scholars at the International Islamic Fiqh Academy issued a fatwa, or religious decree, that parents should have their children vaccinated.
"We're probably entering into a whole new level of engagement between the OIC and the polio program because of the stimulus coming from the U.S. government," said Michael Galway, who works on polio eradication for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Centers for Disease Control also began working more closely with local Islamic leaders in northern Nigeria, a network that had been overlooked for years, said John Fitzsimmons, the deputy director of the CDC's immunization division.
Though health officials are reluctant to assign credit to any one action, new polio cases in Nigeria fell from 83 during the first quarter of last year to just one so far this year, Fitzsimmons said.
Public opinion polls also showed consistent improvement in U.S. sentiment within the Muslim world last year, although the viewpoints are still overwhelmingly negative, however.
Obama did not invent Muslim outreach. President George W. Bush gave the White House its first Quran, hosted its first Iftar dinner to celebrate Ramadan, and loudly stated support for Muslim democracies like Turkey.
But the Bush administration struggled with its rhetoric. Muslims criticized him for describing the war against terror as a "crusade" and labeling the invasion of Afghanistan "Operation Infinite Justice" -- words that were seen as religious. He regularly identified America's enemy as "Islamic extremists" and "radical jihadists."
Karen Hughes, a Bush confidant who served as his top diplomat to the Muslim world in his second term, urged the White House to stop.
"I did recommend that, in my judgment, it's unfortunate because of the way it's heard. We ought to avoid the language of religion," Hughes said. "Whenever they hear 'Islamic extremism, Islamic jihad, Islamic fundamentalism,' they perceive it as a sort of an attack on their faith. That's the world view Osama bin Laden wants them to have."
Hughes and Juan Zarate, Bush's former deputy national security adviser, said Obama's efforts build on groundwork from Bush's second term, when some of the rhetoric softened. But by then, Zarate said, it was overshadowed by the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and a prolonged Iraq war.
"In some ways, it didn't matter what the president did or said. People weren't going to be listening to him in the way we wanted them to," Zarate said. "The difference is, President Obama had a fresh start."
Obama's foreign policy posture is not without political risk. Even as Obama steps up airstrikes on terrorists abroad, he has proven vulnerable to Republican criticism on security issues at home, such as the failed Christmas Day airline bombing and the announced-then-withdrawn plan to prosecute 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York.
Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist and former Bush adviser, is skeptical of Obama's engagement effort. It "doesn't appear to have created much in the way of strategic benefit" in the Middle East peace process or in negotiations over Iran's nuclear ambitions, he said.
Obama runs the political risk of seeming to adopt politically correct rhetoric abroad while appearing tone deaf on national security issues at home, Feaver said.
The White House dismisses such criticism. In June, Obama will travel to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, and is expected to revisit many of the themes of his Cairo speech.
"This is the long-range direction we need to go in," Ramamurthy said.
Last year, President Obama bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and made a speech in Cairo largely blaming America for our “strained” relations with the Muslim world.
This year his administration berates Israel, accusing it of obstructing the peace process while Hamas continues to deny Israel’s right to exist.
He extends constitutional rights to foreign terrorists, including reading them their Miranda rights.
He announces that the U.S. will not retaliate with nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear country—even if that country hits us with a devastating biological or chemical weapons attack.
Now he bans characterizations such as “jihad” and “Islamic extremism” from our national security strategy (see article below).
Feel safer now?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Obama Bans Islam, Jihad From National Security Strategy Document
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/07/obama-bans-islam-jihad-national-security-strategy-document/
AP
The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war.
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's advisers will remove religious terms such as "Islamic extremism" from the central document outlining the U.S. national security strategy and will use the rewritten document to emphasize that the United States does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terror, counterterrorism officials said.
The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war and currently states: "The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century."
The officials described the changes on condition of anonymity because the document still was being written, and the White House would not discuss it. But rewriting the strategy document will be the latest example of Obama putting his stamp on U.S. foreign policy, like his promises to dismantle nuclear weapons and limit the situations in which they can be used.
The revisions are part of a larger effort about which the White House talks openly, one that seeks to change not just how the United States talks to Muslim nations, but also what it talks to them about, from health care and science to business startups and education.
That shift away from terrorism has been building for a year, since Obama went to Cairo, Egypt, and promised a "new beginning" in the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world. The White House believes the previous administration based that relationship entirely on fighting terror and winning the war of ideas.
"You take a country where the overwhelming majority are not going to become terrorists, and you go in and say, 'We're building you a hospital so you don't become terrorists.' That doesn't make much sense," said National Security Council staffer Pradeep Ramamurthy.
Ramamurthy runs the administration's Global Engagement Directorate, a four-person National Security Council team that Obama launched last May with little fanfare and a vague mission to use diplomacy and outreach "in pursuit of a host of national security objectives."
Since then, the division has not only helped change the vocabulary of fighting terror but also has shaped the way the country invests in Muslim businesses, studies global warming, supports scientific research and combats polio.
Before diplomats go abroad, they hear from the Ramamurthy or his deputy, Jenny Urizar. When officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration returned from Indonesia, the NSC got a rundown about research opportunities on global warming.
Ramamurthy maintains a database of interviews conducted by 50 U.S. embassies worldwide. And business leaders from more than 40 countries head to Washington this month for an "entrepreneurship summit" for Muslim businesses.
"Do you want to think about the U.S. as the nation that fights terrorism or the nation you want to do business with?" Ramamurthy said.
To deliver that message, Obama's speechwriters have taken inspiration from an unlikely source: former President Ronald Reagan. Visiting communist China in 1984, Reagan spoke to Fudan University in Shanghai about education, space exploration and scientific research.
He discussed freedom and liberty. He never mentioned communism or democracy.
"They didn't look up to the U.S. because we hated communism," said Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, Obama's foreign policy speechwriter.
Like Reagan in China, Obama in Cairo made only passing references to terrorism. Instead he focused on cooperation. He announced the United States would team up to fight polio with the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a multinational body based in Saudi Arabia.
The United States and the OIC had worked together before, but never with that focus.
"President Obama saw it as an opportunity to say, 'We work on things far beyond the war on terrorism,"' said World Health Organization spokeswoman Sona Bari.
Polio is endemic in three Muslim countries -- Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan -- but some Muslim leaders have been suspicious of vaccination efforts, which they believed to be part of a CIA sterilization campaign. Last year, the OIC and religious scholars at the International Islamic Fiqh Academy issued a fatwa, or religious decree, that parents should have their children vaccinated.
"We're probably entering into a whole new level of engagement between the OIC and the polio program because of the stimulus coming from the U.S. government," said Michael Galway, who works on polio eradication for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Centers for Disease Control also began working more closely with local Islamic leaders in northern Nigeria, a network that had been overlooked for years, said John Fitzsimmons, the deputy director of the CDC's immunization division.
Though health officials are reluctant to assign credit to any one action, new polio cases in Nigeria fell from 83 during the first quarter of last year to just one so far this year, Fitzsimmons said.
Public opinion polls also showed consistent improvement in U.S. sentiment within the Muslim world last year, although the viewpoints are still overwhelmingly negative, however.
Obama did not invent Muslim outreach. President George W. Bush gave the White House its first Quran, hosted its first Iftar dinner to celebrate Ramadan, and loudly stated support for Muslim democracies like Turkey.
But the Bush administration struggled with its rhetoric. Muslims criticized him for describing the war against terror as a "crusade" and labeling the invasion of Afghanistan "Operation Infinite Justice" -- words that were seen as religious. He regularly identified America's enemy as "Islamic extremists" and "radical jihadists."
Karen Hughes, a Bush confidant who served as his top diplomat to the Muslim world in his second term, urged the White House to stop.
"I did recommend that, in my judgment, it's unfortunate because of the way it's heard. We ought to avoid the language of religion," Hughes said. "Whenever they hear 'Islamic extremism, Islamic jihad, Islamic fundamentalism,' they perceive it as a sort of an attack on their faith. That's the world view Osama bin Laden wants them to have."
Hughes and Juan Zarate, Bush's former deputy national security adviser, said Obama's efforts build on groundwork from Bush's second term, when some of the rhetoric softened. But by then, Zarate said, it was overshadowed by the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and a prolonged Iraq war.
"In some ways, it didn't matter what the president did or said. People weren't going to be listening to him in the way we wanted them to," Zarate said. "The difference is, President Obama had a fresh start."
Obama's foreign policy posture is not without political risk. Even as Obama steps up airstrikes on terrorists abroad, he has proven vulnerable to Republican criticism on security issues at home, such as the failed Christmas Day airline bombing and the announced-then-withdrawn plan to prosecute 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York.
Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist and former Bush adviser, is skeptical of Obama's engagement effort. It "doesn't appear to have created much in the way of strategic benefit" in the Middle East peace process or in negotiations over Iran's nuclear ambitions, he said.
Obama runs the political risk of seeming to adopt politically correct rhetoric abroad while appearing tone deaf on national security issues at home, Feaver said.
The White House dismisses such criticism. In June, Obama will travel to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, and is expected to revisit many of the themes of his Cairo speech.
"This is the long-range direction we need to go in," Ramamurthy said.
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