Eye On The World

Syria: Government forces killed 37 people, UN Security Council to meet

2012-01-27T15:04:00.000-05:00

Why bother? As long as Russia and China exercise their veto power, it's pointless.

Demonstrators step on Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's poster during a protest against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad after Friday prayers in Homs January 27, 2012. (Reuters Pictures)

AMMAN (Reuters) - Security forces killed 37 people in Syria on Friday, activists and residents said, as people in Homs mourned 14 members of a family they said were slain by militiamen in one of the worst sectarian attacks in a revolt against President Bashar Assad.

The UN Security Council was to meet later in the day to discuss Syria before a possible vote next week on a new Western-Arab draft resolution aimed at halting 10 months of bloodshed.

Russia, which joined China in vetoing a previous Western draft resolution in October and which has since promoted its own draft, said the Western-Arab version was unacceptable and vowed to block any text calling for Assad's resignation.

There was no let-up in violence on Friday, when anti-Assad protests again erupted after weekly Muslim prayers.

Tank and mortar fire killed 15 people in Hama, a resident said, on the fourth day of an army assault on rebellious districts of the city, where Assad's father crushed an armed Islamist uprising in 1982, killing many thousands.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 22 people killed elsewhere in Syria, including 12 when security forces fired on a funeral march in the southern town of Nowa, five in the normally peaceful city of Aleppo, and four in Homs.

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NYPD: 16 kg of cocaine sent from Mexico in fake diplomatic pouch seized at UN headquarters

2012-01-27T12:47:00.000-05:00

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A shipment containing 16 kilograms of cocaine was seized last week at the U.N.'s mail intake center, a New York Police Department spokesman said Thursday.

Paul Browne, NYPD's chief spokesman, said the drug was in a white bag evidently masquerading as a diplomatic pouch that raised suspicions when it was being scanned because it was stamped with what looked like a poorly concocted version of the U.N. logo.

Browne said there was no name or address on the shipment sent from Mexico City through Cincinnati.

U.N. security officials called the NYPD and Drug Enforcement Administration, which confirmed the substance inside the shipment intercepted Jan. 16 was cocaine, the police spokesman said.

U.N. undersecretary-general for safety and security Gregory B. Starr told reporters Thursday evening that "there is nothing to indicate that this had anything to do with anybody at the United Nations."

Starr said the drug was actually stashed in two bags that were stamped with the sky-blue U.N. logo of a world map in an apparent effort to masquerade as diplomatic pouches, which are not supposed to be inspected. Inside the bag, the drug was hidden in hollowed-out notebooks, he added.

The U.N. official showed journalists a photograph of the bags that were seized, and compared them with a real diplomatic pouch used by the U.N., which is somewhat larger and made of a different material.

"This did not come from a United Nations facility," Starr said of the shipment. "It was not, in my opinion, not intended to go to a United Nations facility."

And what do you know? It was "accidentally delivered to the UN's New York headquarters after apparently getting lost in the post."

(Telegraph) The drugs, worth around $2 million, were hidden in hollowed-out books inside of bags that carried the global body's famous blue emblem.

Police said the sacks were shipped from Mexico but that when parcel sorters in Ohio were unable to find an address on them they simply forwarded them to the UN.

"It is my understanding that because there was no addressee, the DHL just thought well that's the UN symbol so we should ship it on to UN headquarters and let them figure out who it was supposed to go to," New York Police Department Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne told AFP.

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Buffett's Secretary Qualifies for Obama Tax Hike

2012-01-27T12:06:00.000-05:00

(NYP) As stage props go, $200,000 is pretty pricey. But that’s the low end of how much Warren Buffett’s secretary earns in a year, based on IRS tax tables and the information she’s made public.

Still less than her billionaire boss, but still. Can anyone fail to see the irony of President Obama inviting Debbie Bosanek to sit by his wife for his State of the Union Address to use her as an example of tax unfairness, when the Buffett aide likely earns enough to put a bullseye on her back for the tax hikes Obama has long called for on higher earners?

Bosanek and Buffett have told us that he pays federal taxes (mainly on capital gains) at a rate of 17.4 percent, and that she’s taxed (presumably on normal income) at a higher rate. But IRS tax tables from 2009, the most recent year available, show an average federal tax rate of just 12 percent for taxpayers in the $100,000 to $200,000 bracket, rising to 19 percent for people with adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000.

So Debbie Bosanek probably is in that $200,000 to $500,000 bracket.

If this is accurate — neither Buffett nor Bosanek has released their tax returns, but only given us a few facts meant to flesh out his claim that she pays a higher rate — she may even be part of the infamous 1 percent. In 2009, that required an adjusted gross income of $343,947.

Adjusted gross income. That’s important. Adjusted gross income is what a person is taxed on after deductions for things like the personal exemption, mortgage-interest payments, qualifying tax credits, etc. So it’s possible her raw salary is even higher.

While running for president and since taking office, Obama has been calling for higher taxes on upper-income earners. He’s been all over the map on that, sometimes saying on the campaign trail he meant millionaires but generally backing legislation that would hike taxes on earnings starting in the $200,000 to $250,000 range.

I have a feeling Buffett and Bosanek are all over the map on their tax-rate claims, too.

ABC News this week used tax information selectively supplied to them by Buffett and Bosanek to make the case for how unfair the nation’s tax system is. It reported, “Bosanek pays a tax rate of 35.8 percent of income, while Buffett pays a rate at 17.4 percent.”

I don’t know how that’s possible, as the maximum federal income-tax rate is 35 percent. The average tax rate for the top 1 percent of earners was 24.01 percent in 2009, according to the IRS. And we’ve been talking about income taxes, have we not?

Or perhaps not. Maybe they’re including her payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare. But that applies only to income below $106,800; there’s no payroll tax on earnings above that level.

Then there’s the Buffett tax-rate claim of 17.4 percent. Is that his marginal rate — the rate on the last dollar of income earned — or his average tax rate? The maximum tax rate applies only to income that exceeds the threshold for that rate to be imposed. Income below that threshold is taxed at lower rates.

There’s no way to tell what Buffett and Bosanek are talking about when they make their tax-rate claims.

I have a feeling they’re being mendacious. For Bosanek they are giving us her marginal tax rate, and for Buffett they are giving us the blended average rate.

But this is just a guess, as neither one has done the one thing that can clear all these questions up: release their tax returns.

Obama's Pentagon cuts to hit defense industry; Army, Marines to shrink as budget slows

2012-01-26T22:26:00.000-05:00

Defense is one of the few things mandated of the federal government in the Constitution.

Yet it's the first thing they slashed despite the fact that the treasury is owed 25% (over $150 billion) of these cuts by bailed out companies, and they have another 10% (of the military cuts - $50 billion) stashed away in the TARP funds unused.

(WaPo) The budget cuts the Pentagon proposed Thursday stand to hit nearly every part of the defense industry, from makers of fighter jets and warships to providers of services such as information technology support.

Facing rising political pressure to trim spending, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta proposed cutting the budget by $487 billion over the next decade. He detailed the first five years of that plan, worth $259 billion in savings, in a Pentagon briefing Thursday afternoon.

If approved, the cuts would result in slower production of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and fewer purchases of the new Littoral Combat Ship and the Joint High Speed Vessel. An Army combat vehicle initiative also would move more slowly than originally envisioned, in part because of contracting issues. [I'm sure this will generate a lot of jobs. -ed]

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WASHINGTON (AP) – The Pentagon outlined a plan Thursday for slowing the growth of military spending, including cutting the size of the Army and Marine Corps, retiring older planes and trimming war costs. It drew quick criticism from Republicans, signaling the difficulty of scaling back defense budgets in an election year.

The changes Defense Secretary Leon Panetta described at a news conference are numerous but hardly dramatic. They aim to save money by delaying some big-ticket weapons like a next-generation nuclear-armed submarine, but the basic shape and structure of the military remains the same.

The Army would shrink from a peak of 570,000 to 490,000 within five years, and the Marines would drop by 20,000, to 182,000. Those are considerable declines, but both services will still be slightly larger than on 9/11, before they began a decade of war. Both will keep their footholds abroad, although the Army will decrease its presence in Europe and the Marines plan to increase theirs in Asia.

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Gallup: Obama’s Approval Sinks Back to All-Time Low Among Blacks

2012-01-26T22:09:00.000-05:00

People are starting to wake up?

(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama’s approval rating has fallen back to its all-time low among blacks, dropping below 80 percent for only the second time in his presidency, according to Gallup.

In the week of Jan. 16-22, 2012--a period that began with the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day--Obama’s approval among blacks dropped 8 points, from 87 percent to 79 percent. The president’s approval among blacks had previously dropped as low as 79 percent in the week of Oct. 10-16, 2011, according to Gallup.

Obama’s highest approval among blacks was 96 percent, a level he achieved in five different weeks of 2009.

Obama’s overall approval rating in the week of Jan. 16-22 was 45 percent, said Gallup.

Hilarious: Warren Buffet's 1%-er secretary is hauled out by Obama as a prop to represent the poor average working person

2012-01-26T19:56:00.001-05:00

Forbes: Warren Buffett's Secretary Likely Makes Between $200,000 And $500,000/Year.

Warren Buffett’s secretary, Debbie Bosanek, served as a stage prop for President Obama’s State of the Union speech. She was the president’s chief display of the alleged unfairness of our tax system – a little person paying a higher tax rate than her billionaire boss.

Bosanek’s prominent role in Obama’s “fairness” campaign piqued my curiosity, and I imagine the curiosity of others. How much does her boss pay this downtrodden woman? So far, no one has volunteered this information.

We can get an approximate answer by consulting IRS data on tax rates by adjusted gross income, which would approximate her salary, assuming she does not have significant dividend, interest or capital-gains income (like her boss). I assume Buffett keeps her too busy for her to hold a second job. I also do not know if she is married and filing jointly. If so, it is deceptive for Obama to use her as an example. The higher rate may be due to her husband’s income. So I assume the tax rate Obama refers to is from her own earnings.

Insofar as Buffett (like Mitt Romney) earns income primarily from capital gains, which are taxed at 15 percent (and according to Obama need to be raised for reasons of fairness), we need to determine how much income a taxpayer like Bosanek must earn in order to pay an average tax rate above fifteen percent. This is easy to do.

The IRS publishes detailed tax tables by income level. The latest results are for 2009. They show that taxpayers earning an adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000 pay an average rate of twelve percent. This is below Buffett’s rate; so she must earn more than that. Taxpayers earning adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000, pay an average tax rate of nineteen percent. Therefore Buffett must pay Debbie Bosanke a salary above two hundred thousand.

We must wait for further details to learn how much more than $200,000 she earns. The tax tables tell us about average ranges. For all we know she earns closer to a half million each year, but that is pure speculation.

I have nothing against Debbie Bosanke earning a half million or even more. Buffett is a major player in the world economy. His secretary deserves good compensation. At her income, however, she is scarcely the symbol of injustice that Obama wishes her to project.

I imagine that there are any number of secretaries who would want her job and her place in the Congress gallery for the President’s State of the Union address.

Israeli hacker team brings down Iranian websites

2012-01-26T14:07:00.000-05:00

English-language Iranian media outlet Press TV, Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education are hacked and taken offline, feature Israeli flag.

(JPost) Israeli hackers brought down Iran's Press TV website and two websites belonging to the Ministry of Health and Medical Education on Thursday.

The hackers, who call themselves "IDF Team," said their actions were a response to a series of attacks on Israeli sites the previous day.

Three additional Iranian sites were hacked and their servers altered to display an Israeli flag and anti-Arab text in English.

The website of Press TV, the Iranian regime's English-language satellite channel, was unavailable for a short period of time following the hackers' announcement.

"At 16:30 Israel Clock the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education website will be down until further notice. In addition to Iran's television network, broadcasting in English round-the-clock, based in Tehran that [is] called Press TV will be down until further notice," the hackers wrote in a message.

"Ahmadinejad what do you have to say about that?" they added.

The attack represents the latest chapter in an Internet feud that began at the start of the month when an Arab hacker published tens of thousands of Israeli credit card numbers.

Earlier, IDF Team told The Jerusalem Post it was preparing a response after the websites of two Israeli hospitals - Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer and the private Assouta hospital network - were taken offline on Wednesday.

IDF Team has played a pivotal part in Israeli counter-strikes on high-profile Arab websites following attacks by Arab hackers. They appear to have employed a combination of attacks to disable the Iranian websites on Thursday, by launching dedicated denial-of-service attacks (DDOS) attacks and breaking into Iranian servers.

On Wednesday, the Haaretz newspaper's Hebrew-language website was downed by pro-Palestinian hackers. Haaretz said it saw a message claiming responsibility for the attack by hackers calling themselves "Anonymous Palestine." The website of the financial newspaper The Marker was also unavailable on Wednesday.

Last week, Israeli hackers brought down the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency website and the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange site, in retaliation for a DDOS attack on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and the El Al websites.

IRS report: 36 Obama aides owe $833,970 in back taxes

2012-01-26T11:34:00.000-05:00

Talk about paying, or rather not paying, their fair share.

(IBD) How embarrassing this must be for President Obama, whose major speech theme so far this campaign season has been that every single American, no matter how rich, should pay their "fair share" of taxes.

Because how unfair -- indeed, un-American -- it is for an office worker like, say, Warren Buffet's secretary to dutifully pay her taxes, while some well-to-do people with better educations and higher incomes end up paying a much smaller tax rate.
Or, worse, skipping their taxes altogether.

A new report just out from the Internal Revenue Service reveals that 36 of President Obama's executive office staff owe the country $833,970 in back taxes. These people working for Mr. Fair Share apparently haven't paid any share, let alone their fair share.

Previous reports have shown how well-paid Obama's White House staff is, with 457 aides pulling down more than $37 million last year. That's up seven workers and nearly $4 million from the Bush administration's last year.

Nearly one-third of Obama's aides make more than $100,000 with 21 being paid the top White House salary of $172,200, each.

The IRS' 2010 delinquent tax revelations come as part of a required annual agency report on federal employees' tax compliance. Turns out, an awful lot of folks being paid by taxpayers are not paying their own income taxes.

The report finds that thousands of federal employees owe the country more than $3.4 billion in back taxes. That's up 3% in the past year.

That scale of delinquency could annoy voters, hard-pressed by their own costs, fears and stubbornly high unemployment despite Joe Biden's many promises.

The tax offenders include employees of the U.S. Senate who help write the laws imposed on everyone else. They owe $2.1 million. Workers in the House of Representatives owe $8.5 million, Department of Education employees owe $4.3 million and over at Homeland Security, 4,697 workers owe about $37 million. Active duty military members owe more than $100 million.

The Treasury Department, where Obama nominee Tim Geithner had to pay up $42,000 in his own back taxes before being confirmed as secretary, has 1,181 other employees with delinquent taxes totaling $9.3 million.

As usual, the Postal Service, with more than 600,000 workers, has the most offenders (25,640), who also owe the most -- almost $270 million. Veterans Affairs has 11,659 workers owing the IRS $151 million while the Energy Department that was so quick to dish out more than $500 million to the Solyndra folks has 322 employees owing $5 million.

The country's chief law enforcement agency, the Department of Justice, has 2,069 employees who are nearly $17 million behind in taxes. Like Operation Fast and Furious, Attorney General Eric Holder has apparently missed them too.

As with ordinary people, the IRS attempts to negotiate back-tax payment plans with all delinquents, whose names cannot be released. But according to current federal law, the only federal employees who can be fired for not paying taxes are IRS workers.

How the BBC promotes its left-wing stance as the NEWS

2012-01-26T08:12:00.001-05:00

(Australia) The world famous BBC, loved by people around the world for its impartial and honest reporting, especially when the BBC is used as the cornerstone to berate, say, FOX News. Well, for a while now, the BBC has been exposed as biased in its news coverage that actually promotes a left-wing agenda, and that FOX News is actually a paragon of honesty when compared to the BBC. Here's an example from today about the Australian PM.

Australian PM Julia Gillard and leader of the opposition Tony Abbott had to be rescued after becoming trapped by an angry protest, local media reports. About 50 police escorted the pair from Canberra's Lobby restaurant after it was surrounded by some 200 supporters of the city's Aboriginal Tent Embassy. Mr Abbott had reportedly angered them by suggesting it was time for the camp - marking its 40th year - to come down.

And here is what Mr Abbott actually said:

"Look, I can understand why the Tent Embassy was established all those years ago. I think a lot has changed for the better since then,"

We had the historic apology just a few years ago, one of the genuine achievements of Kevin Rudd as prime minister. We had the proposal which is currently for national consideration to recognise indigenous people in the constitution.

"I think the indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian and yes, I think a lot has changed since then and I think it probably is time to move on from that."

What is it about the inhabitants of tent cities to turn to violence, and what is it about the left-wing media to lie about that violence?

With Muslim Brotherhood consolidating power in Egypt, Obama decides to accelerate the pace of US aid to the country

2012-01-25T19:28:00.001-05:00

State Department official says Washington to provide "more immediate benefits" to Egyptians after elections.

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - US President Barack Obama plans to accelerate the pace of American aid to Egypt, a top State Department official said on Wednesday, as the most populous Arab nation reaches a critical stage in its uncertain transition away from autocratic rule.

Undersecretary of State Robert Hormats, part of a US delegation that held unprecedented talks last week with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, said Washington wanted to provide "more immediate benefits" to Egyptians, who earlier this month conducted their first democratic elections in decades.

"During this period, we want to be as supportive as we can. This is an historic moment. Egypt's a country of enormous importance," Hormats said.

Under the plan, some non-urgent US aid slated for other countries - he did not name them - would be redirected to Egypt. And funding in the pipeline for long-term programs in Egypt would be shifted to quick-impact projects, he said.

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Azerbaijan: Police foil Iranian plot to assassinate Israeli ambassador, prominent Jews

2012-01-25T14:47:00.000-05:00

Police in Azerbaijan have foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate Israel's ambassador and other prominent Jews in apparent revenge for the killing of nuclear scientists in Tehran, officials in the former Soviet state claimed.

(Telegraph) Three Azerbaijani nationals recruited by Iranian intelligence were supplied with a sniper rifle, explosives and money and told to kill Michael Lotem, the Israeli envoy to Baku, according to the country's internal affairs ministry.

Although Mr Lotem was the chief target of the conspiracy, the three men were also instructed to attack a Jewish religious school in the capital and kill its headmaster and chief rabbi, the ministry said in a statement.

If true, the plot will be seen as the latest evidence of Iran's intentions to strike at its enemies abroad. Last October, the US justice ministry said it had uncovered an Iranian conspiracy to use members of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

The Iranian government strongly denied the claims, calling them a "comedy show fabricated by America."

The exposure of the purported plot in Azerbaijan comes a fortnight after an assassin on a motorcycle killed an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran by placing a magnetic bomb on the door of his car.

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Israeli President Shimon Peres salutes Azerbaijan for foiling terror attack.

(JPost) President Shimon Peres thanked his Azerbaijani counterpart on Wednesday for the country's success in foiling a terrorist attack aimed at Israeli and Jewish targets in Baku.

Peres, attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, told Ilham Aliyev that Israel saluted his country for "saving lives on your land from a murderous terrorist attack."

Azerbaijan's National Security Ministry said last week in uncovered a cell planning terrorist attacks. Two Azerbaijanis and an Iranian citizen living in Iran were implicated in the plot. The two Azerbaijanis were arrested.

Aliyev, according to Peres' office, said the plot showed "to what degree we are in a difficult and dangerous neighborhood. Azerbaijan showed that it is able to defend itself and its citizens regardless of their ethnicity or religion."

Aliyev said Azerbaijan would continue to cooperate with Israel, especially on homeland security issues.

Report: At least 19 people, including women and children, killed in 'Syria army bombings'

2012-01-25T14:39:00.001-05:00

War crimes anyone? No? OK, just asking.

(JPost) At least 19 people, including women and children, were killed Wednesday in bombings by the Syrian army, activists in Syria said according to Al Jazeera.

According to the report, 6 people were killed in Hama some 200 kilometers north of Damascus, while the government cut power and communications there.

Opposition groups said that six people died each in the Rif Damascus region and Homs, and that one person was killed in northwestern Idlib, according to the report.

Pro-Palestinian hackers bring down Pro-Palestinian Haaretz Hebrew website

2012-01-25T14:17:00.000-05:00

Idiots.

(JPost) The websites of the Sheeba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer and the Assouta Medical Center in Tel Aviv were struck with a distributed denial of service (DDOS), in which servers are flooded by false requests for information, making them unavailable to others.

Also on Wednesday, the Haaretz Hebrew website was downed by pro-Palestinian hackers. Haaretz said it saw a message claiming responsibility for the attack by hackers calling themselves "Anonymous Palestine."

The websites of the financial news site The Marker and the Dan bus company were also unavailable.

Sunny Islam, a 'strict Muslim', raped women at knifepoint to 'punish them for being on the streets at night'

2012-01-25T12:43:00.004-05:00

(London) Today 23-year-old Sunny Islam was detained indefinitely by the British government because of his unusual penchant for raping members of the opposite sex at knife point in which to punish them for walking outside the comfort and safety of their homes without a male escort. Yes, people, welcome to London 2012 where so called peaceful Muslims have no problem enforcing Sharia law in a secular country on non-Muslims.

Islam, who comes from a strict Islamic family, who informed the jury he was a practising Muslim, was convicted of seven charges of rape, one of sexual assault and one of kidnap. His mother, in religious dress, sat with her covered head bowed throughout and wept as her son was jailed for a minimum of 11 years.

It will be really interesting to see how these peaceful Muslims will interact with the millions of non-Muslims who will be walking around the very same area of London later on in the year when the 2012 Olympics kick off.

Interfaith news: Egyptian sheikh decrees that driving a Chevy is haram because its logo resembles a Christian cross

2012-01-25T12:16:00.000-05:00

From NOW Lebanon:

A Salafi sheikh in Egypt has reportedly issued a fatwa that buying [or driving] a Chevrolet vehicle is haram because the American brand’s logo looks like the Christian cross.

In the video below, prominent Egyptian TV presenter Amr Adeeb takes the sheikh’s joke-of-a-fatwa to task, saying, “We’ve reached a really strange place with this.”

“The car’s been around [for a century] and only now did you notice there’s a cross on the car?” [...]

The TV presenter concludes, “With all of the problems in Egypt, you’re concerned about the cross?... We’re calling for unity [in the country] and then you come up with [fatwas] like this?”

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US Navy SEALs free 2 pirate hostages in Somalia, kill 9 pirates

2012-01-25T10:36:00.000-05:00

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - U.S. special forces swooped into Somalia on Wednesday and rescued an American and a Dane after a shootout with pirates holding them hostage, in a rare raid into the Horn of Africa nation to free foreign captives.

The aid workers, American Jessica Buchanan and Dane Poul Hagen Thisted, were kidnapped from the town of Galkayo in the semi-autonomous Galmudug region in October while working for the Danish De-mining Group (DDG).

"This is yet another message to the world that the United States of America will stand strongly against any threats to our people," U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement.

Military helicopters ferried elite troops to the pirate camp in scrubland close to Haradheere, a major pirate base in central Somalia, Washington's Germany-based Africa Command (AFRICOM) said in a statement.

"All nine captors were killed during the assault," it said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta confirmed no American soldiers were killed in the operation.

The Danish Refugee Council said Buchanan and Thisted were now at a safe location. Media reports said they had been flown to neighboring Djibouti, home to the only U.S. military base in Africa and France's largest base on the continent.

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ABC News fact-checks Obama's State of the Union speech and finds him to be mostly lying

2012-01-25T10:21:00.000-05:00

ABC News: State of the Union: Fact Checking the President

Pics of the day from Syria

2012-01-24T19:27:00.000-05:00

Actors from Avaaz wearing giant masks of Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin dump dozens of bloodied body bags outside the UN Security Council building January 24,2012 as members of the UN Security Council meet in New York to discuss the Syria crisis, Avaaz will deliver a petition signed by more than 620,000 people worldwide calling for the UN to refer President Bashar al-Assad to the ICC for crimes against humanity. (Getty Images)

Actors from Avaaz wearing giant masks of Bashar al-Assaz(not shown) and Vladimir Putin dump dozens of bloodied body bags outside the UN Security Council building January 24,2012 as members of the UN Security Council meet in New York to discuss the Syria crisis, Avaaz will deliver a petition signed by more than 620,000 people worldwide calling for the UN to refer President Bashar al-Assad to the ICC for crimes against humanity. (Getty Images)

Syria doesn't care if fleeing Arab League observers head to UN 'or to the moon'

2012-01-24T19:15:00.000-05:00

BEIRUT (National Post) — Gulf Arab states withdrew their observers from Syria on Tuesday after it rejected an Arab League peace plan stipulating that President Bashar al-Assad surrender power, and the group’s chief called for UN help in ending Syria’s bloody upheaval.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem accused the League of plotting to engineer foreign intervention in the crisis, in which thousands of civilians and members of security forces have been killed in a 10-month-old uprising against Assad.

“Definitely the solution in Syria is not the solution suggested by the Arab League, which we have rejected. They have abandoned their role as the Arab League and we no longer want Arab solutions to the crisis,” Moualem said.

“Heading to the Security Council will be the third stage in their plan, and the only thing left is the last step of internationalization,” he told a news conference in Damascus.

“They can head to New York or to the moon. So long as we are not paying for their tickets it is none of our concern.”

The bloodshed in Syria, whose revolt was inspired by others that have toppled three Arab leaders, has battered Assad’s standing in the world, with Iran among his few remaining allies.

The United Nations says more than 5,000 people have been killed since the revolt erupted in March. Damascus says “terrorists” have killed more than 2,000 soldiers and police.

Turkish PM: "I may not go to France again if 'genocide' bill passes"

2012-01-24T16:00:00.003-05:00

(Ankara) What is it with Muslims and this act of pleading victim status whenever they are caught out in the wrong? You know, like how the Nigerian terrorist outfit are blaming Islamophobia as the main reason for why they have been going around murdering people, like how Syria, blames so called terrorist for the reason why it has murdered over 6,000 of its own people, or like why Muslims blamed America for the reason why they carried out 9/11.

Well, just to keep the status quo, Turkey has joined up to the eternal Islamic victim club by trying to play the racist card over how they murdered over 1.5 million Armenian around 100 years ago. Oh how they claim it is isn't so, how the Armenians asked for it and how actually the figures are wrong, and anybody who says otherwise usually ends up dead.

Well, the French are the latest country to recognise the fact that Allah's soldiers committed genocide, and how the Turks are offended. Gosh, talk about a hissy-fit. I saw less aggro when my ex saw me chatting to her sister in her sister's house while we were visiting. Well, the country which claims Israel has committed genocide against a Palestinian population which has actually grown, has been stamping its feet while uttering 'Unfair' to anybody who will listen. Which is why the Turkish PM Erdoğan has stated that he may not visit France again if the French vote to acknowledge the Armenian genocide.

Anybody else surprised at how the so called cheese-eating surrender monkeys have acted much differently to the current US administration which shelved plans to also recognise the Armenian genocide when Turkey stipulated that they would acknowledge the act and set up a committee to look into the killings. However, once Obama said OK, the Turks, in typical Islamic fashion, reneged as only a so called religion of peace can. But then, Obama wouldn't shit on a fellow Muslim, would he?

The real reason why Nigeria is up in flames

2012-01-24T15:08:00.002-05:00

(Kano) So while the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram blames Islamophobia as the main reason behind their latest blood letting, it has come out in the wash that actually this has nothing to do with religion but has everything to do with... money. It seems that the previous governor of Kano state, Malam Shekarau, agreed in 2004 to pay the Islamic terrorist group £20,000 a year in which to keep the peace. (Extortion in any book bar the Koran.) However, last April, Skearau lost out to Rabiu Kwankwaso who refused to continue paying extortion money. Which is why since then lots of people have died because god fearing Islamic terrorists love money more than they love Allah. Apparently, other extortion deals with other state governments are still in place. Which is probably why Allah's faithful tax collectors have only been targeting certain states where I suppose they are trying to set up new bank accounts.

So much for Islamic charity then.

George Soros Is Excited Over The Coming Obama-Inspired US Class War

2012-01-24T15:04:00.002-05:00

(The Daily Beast) You know George Soros. He’s the investor’s investor—the man who still holds the record for making more money in a single day’s trading than anyone. He pocketed $1 billion betting against the British pound on “Black Wednesday” in 1992, when sterling lost 20 percent of its value in less than 24 hours and crashed out of the European exchange-rate mechanism. No wonder Brits call him, with a mix of awe and annoyance, “the man who broke the Bank of England.”

Soros doesn’t make small bets on anything. Beyond the markets, he has plowed billions of dollars of his own money into promoting political freedom in Eastern Europe and other causes. He bet against the Bush White House, becoming a hate magnet for the right that persists to this day. So, as Soros and the world’s movers once again converge on Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum this week, what is one of the world’s highest-stakes economic gamblers betting on now?

He’s not. For the first time in his 60-year career, Soros, now 81, admits he is not sure what to do. “It’s very hard to know how you can be right, given the damage that was done during the boom years,” Soros says. He won’t discuss his portfolio, lest anyone think he’s talking things down to make a buck. But people who know him well say he advocates making long-term stock picks with solid companies, avoiding gold—“the ultimate bubble”—and, mainly, holding cash.

Has the great short seller gone soft? Well, yes. Sitting in his 33rd-floor corner office high above Seventh Avenue in New York, preparing for his trip to Davos, he is more concerned with surviving than staying rich. “At times like these, survival is the most important thing,” he says, peering through his owlish glasses and brushing wisps of gray hair off his forehead. He doesn’t just mean it’s time to protect your assets. He means it’s time to stave off disaster. As he sees it, the world faces one of the most dangerous periods of modern history—a period of “evil.” Europe is confronting a descent into chaos and conflict. In America he predicts riots on the streets that will lead to a brutal clampdown that will dramatically curtail civil liberties. The global economic system could even collapse altogether. [...]

Occupy Wall Street “is an inchoate, leaderless manifestation of protest,” but it will grow. It has “put on the agenda issues that the institutional left has failed to put on the agenda for a quarter of a century.” He reaches for analysis, produced by the political blog ThinkProgress.org, that shows how the Occupy movement has pushed issues of unemployment up the agenda of major news organizations, including MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News. It reveals that in one week in July of last year the word “debt” was mentioned more than 7,000 times on major U.S. TV news networks. By October, mentions of the word “debt” had dropped to 398 over the course of a week, while “occupy” was mentioned 1,278 times, “Wall Street” 2,378 times, and “jobs” 2,738 times. You can’t keep a financier away from his metrics.

As anger rises, riots on the streets of American cities are inevitable. “Yes, yes, yes,” he says, almost gleefully. The response to the unrest could be more damaging than the violence itself. “It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.”

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Occupy Harlem pic of the day

2012-01-24T14:08:00.000-05:00

An Occupy Harlem protester holds up a sign protesting the policies of President Barack Obama across the street from Harlem's famed Apollo Theater where the president held one of several fundraisers he attended in New York, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012. (AP Photo)

Iraq: 4 car bombs kill 14, wound 75 in Baghdad

2012-01-24T14:04:00.000-05:00

An Iraqi man inspects damages at the site of a blast after a bomb ripped through a group of workers in Sadr City in Baghdad on January 24, 2012. A series of car bombs exploded in Shiite areas of Baghdad, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 60, an interior ministry official said. (Getty Images)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Four car bombs exploded in mainly Shi'ite Muslim areas of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 14 people and wounding 75, underlining a political crisis that threatens to revive sectarian strife in Iraq.

The first blast hit a group of day laborers gathering for jobs in the poor northeastern Sadr City area of the capital, leaving a chaotic scene of scattered shoes and food, and pools of blood. The bomb killed at least eight people and wounded 24, police and hospital sources said.

"We were all standing waiting to earn our living and all of a sudden it was like a black storm and I felt myself thrown on the ground," said Ahmed Ali, a 40-year-old laborer whose face and hair were burned by the explosion.

"I fainted for a while then I woke up and hurried to one of the cars to take me to the hospital," said Ali, lying on a bed in the emergency room at Imam Ali hospital in Sadr City.

The second blast near a traffic roundabout in Sadr City killed three people and wounded 26 others, the sources said.

Two other car bombs exploded in mainly Shi'ite northwestern areas of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 25, sources said. One car blew up near two schools in the Shula district, the other on a busy commercial street in Hurriya.

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Muslims in England protest against... an Islamic exhibition

2012-01-24T13:35:00.009-05:00

(Huddersfield) How often have you heard the made up word 'Islamophobia' in the media? You know, that invented word which tries to promote this false message of Islamic victimhood in the West. Any instance of objection to anything which involves a Muslim is instantly transformed into a racist incident. Object to a mosque... Islamophobic... Object to Sharia law... Islamophobic. Mention that a large number of rapists in northern England are Islamic... Islamophobic. Look funny at a Muslim... Islamophobic.

But what do we call it when Muslims protest against Muslims in the UK by playing they are not Muslim card?

Well, that's what transpired in Huddesfield when the local Ahmadiyya Muslim Association decided to hold an exhibition of the Holy Koran. They found themselves the target of a protest staged by the Kirklees Muslims Action Committee which claimed:

“We believe that it is time the Muslims of Huddersfield did not allow a local group to use our name to hold any future exhibitions, and have been hurt and deeply upset over the lack of consultation with the Muslim community prior to holding this event. Whilst we do not expect the community to be sympathetic we would like to clarify our position on this group.

“The World Muslim League in April 1974 declared that the Ahmadiyya are falsely claiming to be an Islamic sect. The Koran is the holy book of the Muslims and it should be patently obvious to all that matters concerning Muslims such as an exhibition should be left to the Muslims themselves.”

So much for that adage 'The Islamic World' then. Remember that the next time you hear some prat bitch about how Muslims are offended by this, that or the other. Ask them "What Muslims do you refer too?" Simply because, each and every Islamic sect believes that they and only they have the right to call themselves "Muslims", everybody else are apostates and thus can be rightfully killed.

'Obama's female base' pic of the day

2012-01-23T20:01:00.000-05:00

Members of the Democratic Women's Council of Horry County, S.C. , (L-R) Alma Parrish, Mary Max Neely, Sarah Binkley and Patty Hampton, sing "Four More Years" for President Obama, after they demolished the Republican presidential sand sculpture, outside the Myrtle Beach Convention Center in Myrtle Beach January 23, 2012. The group contracted with the Myrtle Beach area Chamber of Commerce to demolish the sculpture to raise money for the charitable organization Mothers Against Violence. (Reuters Pictures)

LOL pic of the day: John Kerry sports two black eyes and a swollen nose

2012-01-23T19:39:00.002-05:00

U.S. Senator John Kerry talks after an event honoring the 2011 NHL Stanley Cup champions the Boston Bruins in the East Room of the White House in Washington, January 23, 2012. Kerry recently suffered a nose injury during a hockey game, according to a spokeswoman. (Reuters Pictures)

That's what he claims, and he sticks to the story. Teresa, on the other hand, was overheard saying, "Who's your daddy now?"

Police rescue girl locked up for 10 years by her father

2012-01-23T17:01:00.007-05:00

(West Bank) For the past 10 years, 20-year-old Baraa Melhem was locked up by her father and only allowed into the house at night time in which to do the chores which her step mother felt was beneath her.

It all went pear shaped for Baraa when her parents split up and her father won custody. At 10 years of age she ran away and was brought back by the police. Her father, sensing a cheap way in which to impress his new wife, got the child to write a letter to the local school stating that she no longer wanted to continue with her schooling, and kept her behind lock and key for the next 10 years.

In order to keep her in check he told her if she escaped, he would wait until the police brought her back and then rape her until she became pregnant and then he would have an excuse to honour kill her.

Apparently, when her mother asked about her daughter, the father made excuse after excuse, including mind your own business. Funny enough, her two step siblings were treated exactly the same as her and not allowed out of the house either.

Lucky for Baraa, her aunty, concerned after 10 years of not seeing her niece, called the police who knocked down the door and rescued Baraa from her father-imposed imprisonment. On walking outside for the first time in 10 years, she asked the police:

Is that the Sun?

Her father and stepmother have been handed over to the Israeli police and are due in court on Wednesday.

Burka-wearing woman who played the race card to get out of jail has to pay $10,000 court costs

2012-01-23T16:42:00.005-05:00

(Australia) In June, 2010 burka-wearing 'CARNITA Matthews' was pulled over by the police for incorrectly showing her green P plate on her car. Shamed at getting a ticket, she played the 'racist' card to the police, which stopped the police from arresting her. She, having none of that, decided to press charges and claimed that she was assaulted by the said policeman who not only abused her, but tried to rip her burka off. The problem for Matthews was, the entire incident was filmed from inside the police car, and rather than the policeman being abusive it was actually miss Mathews. Which is why when this went to court she was found guilty and sent down for 6 months. However, she employed the services of a top lawyer who claimed that because she was covered from head to toe, nobody could prove who actually was driving that car that evening and that despite her signature on the ticket, it wasn't her who made the false statement against the policeman. Which is why the court's found in her favour (a good reason for banning the burka if ever there was one) and she walked.

Feeling flush at how everybody had been bullied into dhimmitude, she then tried to get the Australian police to pay all her court costs (over $10,000). But it seems that while the courts may have allowed her to get away with racism and stating a falsehood, they weren't going to let her get away and set a precedence where Islamic Sharia law overrules the rule of law, and today Mathews must be really ruing the day she didn't just shut her big trap (and I don't mean the one between her legs) and take it like everybody else has to. Watch the video, ask yourself, would a non-Muslim be allowed to get away with that infantile paddy?

Mohammed tells British Police: "I am going to cut their heads off and machine gun them"

2012-01-23T15:47:00.005-05:00

(Wales) Acting on a tip off that a certain band of (Islamic) brothers were up to no good in Cardiff, anti-terrorist police raided a community centre and was met with violence. Its seems the brothers caught up in this police bust opined to the court that:

“Jewish people were welcome, Catholic people were welcome, Protestant people were welcome, because all they are doing is discussing the Qur’an.”

Of course, seeing as the police can't be Islamic, Jewish or even Catholic, when they walked into this little jihad meeting, 30 very peaceful religious brothers decided to throw chairs and tables at them... in self defence. (I wonder if they would do likewise if the police were armed like, say, in America .)

Anyway, 21-year-old Mohammed Abdin, seeing that chairs and tables weren't threatening enough, decided to add a few choice words to the mellay:

“I’m going to cut your head off and machine gun the lot of you”,

followed by some more choice words when cautioned by the police:

“F*** off you white ****.”

Of course, his defence claim that he is but an innocent:

“Flowery words” Abdin had used were prompted by what they believed to be an unwarranted police invasion."

The thing is, the tip off of these jihadists came not from white people or even non-Muslims but from the wider Islamic community.

“Most of these boys call themselves ‘self-made clerics’, this is how they explain themselves.

Most of them have been to prison and done a couple of years for petty crimes and have come out having grown beards and been radicalised.

They’ve been brainwashed inside and have come out causing all this nonsense.”

I wonder, with that evidence being used against them, will the idiots for Allah play the race card? A flowery race card at that.

Muslims Converting Empty European Churches into Mosques

2012-01-23T15:21:00.000-05:00

From Stonegate Institute:

Muslims in Europe are increasingly converting empty Christian churches into mosques.

The proliferation of mosques housed in former churches reflects the rise of Islam as the fastest growing religion in post-Christian Europe.

There are now more practicing Muslims than practicing Christians in many parts of Europe, not only in large urban centers, but also in smaller towns and cities across the continent.

As Islam replaces Christianity as the dominant religion in Europe, more and more churches are set to become mosques, which increasingly serve not only as religious institutions but also function as the foundational political building blocks for the establishment of separate, parallel Muslim communities in Europe that are based on Islamic Sharia law.

The latest churches destined to become mosques are located in Germany, where the Roman Catholic Church has announced plans to close up to six churches in Duisburg, an industrial city in northwestern part of the country, due to falling church attendance.

Duisburg, which has a total population of 500,000, is home to around 100,000 mostly Turkish Muslims, making it one of the most Islamized cities in Germany.

Muslims in Duisburg are now clamoring to turn empty churches in the city into mosques, according to the Germany daily newspaper, Der Westen.

All of the churches slated for closing are located in the gritty Hamborn and Marxloh districts in northern Duisburg where Islam has already replaced Christianity as the dominant religion, and where several Catholic churches have already been abandoned in a previous round of church closings.

In Marxloh, all eyes are set on the Church of Saint Peter and Paul, which is the last remaining church in a part of Duisburg that is now almost completely Muslim. The church may be closed as early as the end of January 2012.

Marxloh also happens to be home to the Duisburg Merkez Mosque, the largest mosque in Germany. Completed in 2008 at a cost of more than €7.5 million ($10 million), the Ottoman-style mega-mosque can accommodate more than 1,200 Muslim worshippers at a time.

Merkez now wants to turn the churches in Hamborn and Marxloh into mosques and prayer centers that would serve as extensions of the mega-mosque. According to the chairman of the Merkez Mosque, Mohammed Al, "Regardless of whether it is a church or a mosque, it is a house of God."

In addition to Roman Catholic churches, some Protestant churches have also been converted into mosques in Germany, where the Muslim population has jumped from around 50,000 in the early 1980s to more than 4 million today.

In Germany as a whole, more than 400 Roman Catholic churches and more than 100 Protestant churches have been closed since 2000, according to one estimate. Another 700 Roman Catholic churches are slated to be closed over the next several years.

By contrast, there are now more than 200 mosques (including more than 40 mega-mosques), 2,600 Muslim prayer halls and a countless number unofficial mosques in Germany. Another 128 mosques are currently under construction, according to the Zentralinstitut Islam-Archiv, a Muslim organization based in Germany.

In neighboring France, mosques are being built more often than Roman Catholic churches, and there now are more practicing Muslims in the country than practicing Catholics.

Nearly 150 new mosques are currently under construction in France, home to the biggest Muslim community in Europe.

The total number of mosques in France has already doubled to more than 2,000 during just the past ten years, according to a research report, "Constructing Mosques: The Governance of Islam in France and the Netherlands." The rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, has called for the number of mosques in the country to be doubled again -- to 4,000 -- to meet growing demand.

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Libya: Gaddafi loyalists seize control of the town of Bani Walid

2012-01-23T12:52:00.000-05:00

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Supporters of ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi seized control of the town of Bani Walid on Monday after clashes with a militia loyal to the new government in which four people were killed, witnesses told Reuters.

A resident of Bani Walid, about 200 km (120 miles) south-east of Tripoli, said the sides fought using heavy weaponry, including 106 mm anti-tank weapons, and that 20 people were wounded.

Another witness told Reuters the fighting had now stopped but that Gaddafi loyalists were in control of the town centre, where they were flying green flags, a symbol of allegiance to the ousted administration.

"They control the town now. They are roaming the town," said the witness, a fighter with the 28th May militia which was fighting the Gaddafi loyalists.

Bani Walid, base of the powerful Warfallah tribe, was one of the last towns in Libya to surrender to the anti-Gaddafi rebellion last year. Many people there oppose the country's new leadership.

The uprising in Bani Walid could not come at a worse time for the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC). It is already reeling from violent protests in the eastern city of Benghazi and the resignation of its second most senior official.

An air force official told Reuters that jets were being mobilized to fly to Bani Walid. In Tripoli, there were signs of security being tightened, Reuters reporters in the city said.

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Obama chooses American decline

2012-01-23T11:59:00.000-05:00

(WT) Which nation will be the world’s leading superpower a few decades from now? I fervently hope it is the United States, and I have great faith in American ingenuity. But the Obama administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline is a reminder of why our No. 1 position is in jeopardy.

The Keystone XL pipeline would bring oil from the Canadian oil sands and North Dakota’s Bakken Formation to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast. The pipeline has been in the regulatory approval process since 2008. Its eight-volume environmental impact statement was produced following myriad studies, hearings, public comments and reviews by multiple agencies and each of the states along the route.

However, the Obama administration decided the proposal had not been studied enough. It delayed a decision in November. Congress responded and gave President Obama 60 days to make the simple determination of whether the pipeline was in the “national interest.”

This seems like a truly simple determination. Iran is threatening to blockade the 20 percent of the world’s oil supply that flows through the Strait of Hormuz. The American economy is struggling from high unemployment. The volatility of oil prices, reflected in periodic spikes at the gas pump, is a threat to productivity. A privately funded pipeline project that would create tens of thousands of jobs while helping stabilize America’s energy supply clearly seems to be in the national interest.

Instead, the Obama administration found that a bureaucratic desire for more study outweighed the rest of the national interest.

The door is now open for Canadian oil to go to China. Canadians are already considering an alternative pipeline from the oil sands region to Canada’s West Coast, so oil can be transported on tankers to China. China will be happy to step in and gain long-term commitments to acquire the oil supply. Once those commitments are made and a West Coast pipeline is started, it may take years before new or expanded oil sands facilities again make oil available for U.S. markets.

The United States has, in essence, surrendered its place at the front of the line to purchase Canadian oil.

Even from an environmental perspective, the Obama decision is a loser.The world’s second-largest oil resource will continue to be produced. Instead of a straightforward pipeline to the U.S., the oil will travel by tankers across the Pacific. U.S. fuel requirements will be filled by oil tankers crossing the Atlantic. Jobs that could have been here will be overseas.

The ramifications for business investment in the United States are even more disturbing. The Keystone decision tells investors that the U.S. has an unpredictable business climate. Companies can invest years and many millions of dollars to seek permits and, ultimately, be stymied by politics.

Contrast our approach with China‘s. China astutely has assured its future supply of oil and other energy resources. Over the past decade, the Chinese have gone around the world negotiating long-term supply deals. The U.S., instead, has rejected an oil supply laid at our doorstep. Which nation is making better preparations to be the superpower of the future?

Russia sells 36 jet fighters to Syria despite the embargo

2012-01-23T11:36:00.000-05:00

Russia also says it has no intention to justify or explain itself.

(JPost) Syria purchased 36 Yakovlev Yak-130 Mitten fighter planes from Russia for $550 million, the Russian daily Kommersant reported Monday.

The deal, signed in December, specifies that production of the planes will begin once initial payments are made.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in January that Russia has no intention to justify its arms sales to Syria.

"We don't consider it necessary to explain ourselves or justify ourselves, because we are not violating any international agreements or any (UN) Security Council resolutions," he told an annual news conference.

A Russian-operated ship with "a dangerous cargo" reached conflict-torn Syria in early January, a source at the vessel's St. Petersburg-based firm said, after being temporarily halted during a refueling stop in Cyprus.

In December, Russia delivered anti-ship cruise missiles to Syria, according to the Interfax news agency, days after a United Nations commission of inquiry called for an arms embargo on Damascus.

Israeli police arrest Hamas MPs hiding in Jerusalem Red Cross compound

2012-01-23T11:06:00.000-05:00

Men had been staying in the Sheikh Jarrah compound to avoid arrest after their east Jerusalem residency was revoked.

Next time you think about donating to Red Cross, think twice - your money may be used to shelter terrorists.

(JPost) Jerusalem Police arrested two Hamas politicians who have been hiding in the Red Cross building in east Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood for the past year and a half.

Undercover officers entered the compound after receiving approval from Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino. The two men, Khaled Abu-Arafa and Muhammad Totah, put up no resistance to the arrests, police said.

Along with a third man, Ahmad Attoun who was arrested several months ago, the two had been living in the building since the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) ordered them to leave the city last year after having their Jerusalem residency revoked.

Undercover officers made the arrest upon sight, Rosenfeld said. "They are suspected of Hamas activity in Jerusalem," he said. Under Israeli law, all activity related to the Hamas terrorist organization is banned.

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Occupy Wall Street parasites steal holy vessel from the altar of a church sheltering them, urinate on a cross at another

2012-01-22T19:01:00.000-05:00

(NYP) There’s no longer room at the inn at a Manhattan church that’s sheltering Occupy Wall Streeters after a holy vessel disappeared from the altar last week.

When the Rev. Bob Brashear prepared for Sunday services at West Park Presbyterian Church on West 86th Street, he noticed parts of the bronze baptismal font were gone.

In a fire-and-brimstone message to occupiers later that day, he thundered, “It was like pissing on the 99 percent.”

In Brooklyn, at another church housing OWS protesters, an occupier urinated on a cross, according to Rabbi Chaim Gruber, who has angrily abandoned the OWS movement.

In a letter last week to OWS obtained by The Post, the rabbi fumed, “The Park Slope church housing occupiers was desecrated when an occupier peed inside the building and the pee came into contact with a cross.”

The pastor of the church did not return calls.

At West Park, Rev. Brashear walked into the church for a morning service to find the 18-inch-diameter bronze basin and lid missing from the baptismal font’s 800-pound base. Holy water — straight from the River Jordan — had been poured from the missing basin insert into the base’s bowl.

About 60 occupiers had rolled out their sleeping bags between the pews the night before as part of their evening ritual, Rev. Brashear recalled. When they returned to the church later, following the pastor’s discovery, he issued a stern warning: “You have 24 hours to find it and to come up with an amends and to come up with a plan. ‘I’m sorry and it won’t happen again’ won’t work,” he scolded.

The pastor and a worshipper finally found the missing basin tossed into a small room connected to the church. The lid is still missing. The pastor has given protesters two weeks to vacate the church.

Sri Lanka 'expels 161 foreign Muslim clerics'

2012-01-22T18:25:00.002-05:00

Gee, why would anyone expel these guys?

(BBC) Sri Lanka has reportedly ordered 161 foreign Muslim preachers to leave the country for flouting visa regulations.

A senior immigration official was quoted as saying that the clerics had no right to preach in mosques because they had arrived on tourist visas.

He also said that some local Muslims had complained that the visitors were not teaching a moderate form of Islam.

The preachers - from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Maldives and Arab nations - must now leave by 31 January.

"They have violated immigration laws. A tourist visa is to have a holiday or visit friends and family, and not to preach Islam," Sri Lanka's immigration head Chulananda Perera told the AFP news agency.

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Aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln enters Persian Gulf without incident

2012-01-22T17:44:00.002-05:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A US aircraft carrier sailed through the Strait of Hormuz and into the Gulf without incident on Sunday, a day after Iran backed away from an earlier threat to take action if an American carrier returned to the strategic waterway.

The carrier USS Abraham Lincoln completed a "regular and routine" passage through the strait, a critical gateway for the region's oil exports, "as previously scheduled and without incident," said Lieutenant Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the US Fifth Fleet.

Video: Ezra Levant Destroys Obama For Keystone Debacle

2012-01-22T17:30:00.000-05:00

From Chicago News Bench:

Canadian television commentator and columnist Ezra Levant laid into Barack Obama for his recent rejection of the Keystone Pipeline project.

Here is Levant's great rant, on video, about what he calls Obama's "Keystone cop-out."

Levant also wrote about it in the Calgary Sun on January 21. His column had the great headline, "Obama chose conflict Venezuelan oil over ethical Canuck oil, and movie stars over working men, women."

Here is an excerpt:

U.S. President Barack Obama made a choice last week: He chose Venezuela over Canada. That's what he did when he rejected the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would have taken oilsands oil from Alberta to the Gulf Coast of Texas.

That pipeline would have delivered 700,000 barrels of oil every day from Canada (and from a new oilfield called Bakken that straddles the North Dakota-Saskatchewan border). Which is almost precisely the amount of oil Venezuela now ships to the United States, to those same refineries in Texas. With one fell swoop, Obama could have replaced conflict oil, from a belligerent, authoritarian OPEC regime, with ethical oil from Canada. But he didn't. More at the Calgary Sun...

You can also read more at Levant's blog, which is cleverly called "Ezra Levant."

Gaby Giffords Resigns from Congress

2012-01-22T17:08:00.000-05:00

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords announced her plans to step down from Congress Jan. 22, 2011.

Transcript of video:

"Arizona is my home, always will be. A lot has happened over the past year. We cannot change that. But I know on the issues we fought for we can change things for the better. Jobs, border security, veterans. We can do so much more by working together. I don't remember much from that horrible day, but I will never forget the trust you placed in me to be your voice. Thank you for your prayers and for giving me time to recover. I have more work to do on my recovery so to do what is best for Arizona I will step down this week. I'm getting better. Every day, my spirit is high. I will return and we will work together for Arizona and this great country. Thank you very much."

Somalia: al Shabaab Muslim terrorists kill at least 9 people, including women and children

2012-01-22T16:44:00.000-05:00

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali militants firing vehicle-mounted anti-aircraft guns clashed with African Union forces for a second night in Mogadishu, killing at least nine people including women and children, an ambulance official said on Sunday.

African Union (AU) troops launched a new offensive against al Shabaab on Friday, seizing rebel positions just outside the capital for the first time.

The insurgents, however, have launched counter attacks.

On Saturday night they struck a government military checkpoint known as 'Ex-control' in a northwest suburb of the coastal city. Soldiers with the AU's AMISOM force repelled the assault, an AMISOM spokesman said.

Caught in the crossfire were Somalis seeking refuge in camps for displaced people, victims already of the anarchic country's two-decade civil war, or famine.

"At least nine displaced people, mostly women and children died in the camps near the former American embassy on Friday and Saturday night," Ali Musa, coordinator of the city's ambulance services, told Reuters.

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Obama administration approves visa for Yemen's Saleh

2012-01-22T16:23:00.001-05:00

Official reason? For medical treatment. Yeah, right...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States confirmed on Sunday it had issued a visa for Yemen's outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh, but said it expected him to remain in the country only for a limited time to undergo medical treatment.

"Ali Abdullah Saleh's request to travel to the U.S. for medical treatment has been approved," the U.S. State Department said in a statement. "As we have indicated, the sole purpose of this travel is for medical treatment and we expect that he will stay for a limited time that corresponds to the duration of this treatment."

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen's outgoing president Ali Abdullah Saleh left for Oman on Sunday evening on his way to the United States for medical treatment, Yemeni officials said.

An airport official said the plane took off from Sanaa airport to neighboring Oman, and an aide to Saleh said he would stay there for several days before heading to the United States.

Saudis pull Syria monitors amid bloodbath, urge world pressure

2012-01-22T16:12:00.000-05:00

(JPost) Saudi Arabia will withdraw its observers from Syria because the mission has failed to end 10 months of bloodshed and will call on the international community to apply "all possible pressure" on Damascus to end the violence, its foreign minister said Sunday.

"My country will withdraw its monitors because the Syrian government did not execute any of the elements of the Arab resolution plan," Prince Saud al-Faisal told Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo. The statement was obtained by Reuters after he spoke.

"We are calling on the international community to bear its responsibility, and that includes our brothers in Islamic states and our friends in Russia, China, Europe and the United States," Prince Saud said, calling for "all possible pressure" to push Syria to adhere to the Arab peace plan.

The Saudi statement came after the BBC reported that the Arab League had ruled to extend its monitoring mission in Syria by one month on Sunday. The League also decided to add more monitoring members to the mission and to provide them with additional resources, according to the report.

Hundreds of Syrians have been killed since the monitoring mission began its work in late December and political opponents of President Bashar Assad are demanding the League refer Syria to the United Nations Security Council.

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Report: Hezbollah acting in Syria against protesters

2012-01-22T16:01:00.000-05:00

Iran's Revolutionary Guard official says Hezbollah responded to Iranian request to safeguard Syria assets.

(JPost) Hezbollah forces were activated in Syria to prevent the takeover of sensitive Iranian assets in the region by anti-government protesters, a senior official in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard said Sunday.

Speaking to Arab news outlet Al-Arabiya, the official said that an Iranian representative had visited Syria to coordinate the assistance, adding that Hezbollah responded swiftly to the request for assistance.

Rebel groups have had some success against Assad-loyalist troops, and have managed to take control of several towns near Damascus. Assad's crackdown on protesters has resulted in the deaths of more than 5,000 people, according to UN estimates.

Turning to the issue of potential foreign intervention in Syria, the official said that "we are coordinating with both Russia and China to deter any external interference." He added that Russia has pledged aircraft carriers and ships to protect Syria against any potential external threat.

Which kind of BS, Russia operates only one aircraft carrier - the Admiral Kuznetsov.

And now the fun part:

The official addressed Israel's role in the region, claiming that "the Zionist enemy" is preparing to invade Syria through the Bekaa valley in Lebanon. He also said that Israel is seeking to form new alliances against the Shi'ites.

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Israel: Netanyahu Urges Indictment of Jerusalem Mufti for 'Inciting the Murder of Jews'

2012-01-22T15:11:00.000-05:00

The mufti says he was only innocently quoting a passage in the Hadith that calls for killing Jews, not calling for it himself.

(JPost) Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Sunday called on Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein to open an investigation into Jerusalem Mufti Sheikh Muhammad Hussein for incitement after he was recorded quoting a passage by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Hadith that calls for the killing of Jews.

"These are grave words that the world needs to condemn," Netanyahu said.

Responding to the allegations of incitement on Israel Radio Sunday, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein denied inciting the murder of Jews, saying he was just quoting the Islamic text. "I can't change the Hadith," he added.

Energy Minister Uzi Landau, speaking at the cabinet meeting on the occasion of International Holocaust Memorial Day noted, "this is not coming from Hamas, which we are used to - this is coming from Palestinian Authority television. If that is not anti-Semitism, then I don't know what is."

Netanyahu, on Holocaust memorial day, said that "today, like 70 years go, there are people who wanted to exterminate the Jewish people." But unlike in the past, he continued, Jews have the means to defend themselves.

"The Jewish people and the Israeli government have the right, the obligation and the capability to prevent another extermination of the Jewish people or an attack against its country," Netanyahu said.

Nigeria: Last week's total number of killed by Boko Haram is now at 178 (but this is not the final number)

2012-01-22T14:49:00.001-05:00

KANO (Reuters) - Gun and bomb attacks by Islamist insurgents in the northern Nigerian city of Kano last week killed at least 178 people, a hospital doctor said on Sunday, underscoring the challenge President Goodluck Jonathan faces to prevent his country sliding further into chaos.

A coordinated series of bomb blasts and shooting sprees mostly targeting police stations Friday sent panicked residents of Nigeria's second biggest city of more than 10 million people running for cover.

The scale of the carnage makes this by far the deadliest strike claimed by Boko Haram, a shadowy Islamist sect that started out as a clerical movement opposed to western education but has become the biggest security menace facing Africa's top oil producer.

"We have 178 people killed in the two main hospitals," the senior doctor in Kano's Murtala Mohammed hospital said following Friday's attacks, citing records from his own and the other main hospital of Nasarawa.

"There could be more, because some bodies have not yet come in and others were collected early."

More...

Maureen Dowd craps on Obama in the NYT piece

2012-01-22T00:35:00.000-05:00

Maureen Dowd: Showtime at the Apollo

"Angry" Libyans use hand grenades to storm transitional government headquarters, then loot it

2012-01-21T20:23:00.000-05:00

People destroy the car of Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the Libyan National Transitional Council, to express their dissatisfaction with the policy of the Council in governing the country in Benghazi January 21, 2012. People in Benghazi, birthplace of the revolt which forced out former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, have been protesting for weeks to demand the sacking of Gaddafi-era officials and more transparency about how the NTC is spending Libyan assets. (Reuters Pictures)

BENGHAZI (AP) — Hundreds of angry Libyans on Saturday stormed the transitional government's headquarters in the eastern city of Benghazi, carting off computers, chairs, and desks while the country's interim leader was still holed up in the building.

Libyans have grown increasingly frustrated with the pace and direction of reforms in the country more than three months after the end of the civil war that ousted longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Those concerns spurred residents in Benghazi, where the uprising against longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi broke out in February, to begin protests nearly two weeks ago to demand transparency and justice from the country's new leaders.

The melee at the National Transitional Council's headquarters began after protesters broke through the gates using hand grenades and streamed into the grounds of the headquarters. They banged on the building's doors and demanded officials meet with them.

In a bid to calm tensions, NTC chief Mustafa Abdul-Jalil tried to address the crowd from a second-floor window, but protesters began throwing bottles at him.

Protesters then torched Abdul-Jalil's armored Land Cruiser and broke into the headquarters itself, smashing windows to get inside and cart off furniture and electronics.

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IDF Arrests Top Hamas Official on Terror Charges

2012-01-21T19:54:00.001-05:00

Hamas Parliament President Aziz Dwaik arrested near Ramallah for suspected terror activity. Hamas government urges Egypt, Arab League to facilitate his immediate release.

(Ynet) Hamas Parliament President Aziz Dwaik was arrested on Thursday at the Jaba checkpoint near Ramallah, while on his way to Hebron.

The Palestinian Parliament released a statement denouncing the arrest and appealing to Egypt to intervene for his immediate release.

The IDF confirmed that Dwaik was detained for suspected terror activity.

Palestinian sources said that when Dwaik's car arrived at the checkpoint he was stopped, handcuffed and blindfolded, before he was taken to an undisclosed location.

A second person traveling with him was detained as well, but was later released.

Deputy Speaker of Hamas Parliament Ahmad Bahr urged Egypt and the Arab League to facilitate Dwaik's release.

Hamas government spokesmen Taher Nounou denounced the arrest, saying Israel was attempting to sabotage the work of the Palestinian parliament.

Dwaik was arrested in 2006, as part of a series of arrests made by the IDF following the abduction of Gilad Shalit. In 2008 he was convicted of affiliation with a terror organization and was sentenced to three years in prison. He was released in 2009.

Disturbing video: Mother offers sex with herself and her young daughter to pawn shop employee for $25 debt

2012-01-21T19:10:00.001-05:00

It appears this is not the first time the woman does it, as the daughter says, "Not me this time, mom."

This is as sick as it gets.

Arizona strikes back: State investigates Obama administration over gun-running

2012-01-21T16:07:00.001-05:00

It's a two-way street, you know.

(WaTi) Arizona's state legislature will open its own investigation into the Obama administration's disgraced gun-running program, known as "Fast and Furious," the speaker of the state House said Friday.

Speaker Andy Tobin created the committee, and charged it with looking at whether the program broke any state laws — raising the possibility of state penalties against those responsible for the operation.

It's a turnaround from the rest of the immigration issue, where the federal government has sued to block the state's own set of laws.

A law requiring businesses to check new workers' legal status was upheld by the Supreme Court last year, and the court has agreed to hear the case of Arizona's crackdown law that makes being an illegal immigrant a state crime and gives state and local police the power to enforce that law.

Fast and Furious was a straw-purchase program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The goal was to try to trace guns sold in Arizona shops and then trafficked across the Mexican border, where they landed in the hands of drug cartels.

As part of the operation, however, agents let the guns "walk" — meaning they lost track of them. At least two of the guns ended up at the scene where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in a shootout with Mexican bandits along a smuggling corridor in Arizona.

Mr. Tobin will announce the committee's jurisdiction at a press conference in Phoenix on Monday. The committee is charged with looking into the facts about the program, what impact it had on Arizona and whether any of the state's laws were broken.

A report is due back by March 30.

Arizona's investigation into Fast and Furious comes on top of an investigation by Republicans in Congress.

On Friday the chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona told a House committee he will decline to answer their questions next week, citing his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

The official's lawyer, in a letter to the committee, said his client is innocent but is "ensnared by the unfortunate circumstances in which he now stands between two branches of government."

Keystone and the U.S. -- Why does Obama want our country to be energy poor?

2012-01-21T14:18:00.000-05:00

(Fox News) One of the reasons the unemployment rate has been stuck above 8 percent for years is because the Obama administration is actively blocking the private sector from creating jobs. Approving the Keystone XL pipeline, now in its third year of review, would have gone a long way toward boosting American job creation and strengthening our energy security. But the President prefers the politics of energy poverty and has sided with environmentalist radicals over hardworking Americans and their families.

The decision for the president should have been simple because the question is simple—is a pipeline from Canada to the United States in the “national interest?” Precisely what part of stable oil supplies, tens of thousands of good-paying jobs, and strengthening trade with our closest ally is not in the national interest?

Apparently, that’s not good enough for the Obama administration. Somewhere along the way, it seems, the president has misunderstood the difference between what is good for America and what is good for the special interests that support him and staff his favorite lobbying groups.

The opponents of the Keystone XL claim that the pipeline would be an environmental catastrophe, yet the Obama administration’s extensive environmental review found otherwise. In fact, the State Department’s environmental studies confirmed what we knew from the beginning—that a new pipeline would have a limited environmental impact, much less so than transport by barge, truck, or railcar. That pipelines have a limited environmental impact is one of the reasons we have more than 50,000 miles of crude oil pipelines in the U.S. already.

Another common complaint is that a pipeline will increase greenhouse gas emissions. This argument only makes sense, however, if the oil were to stay in the ground forever. But as Austan Goolsbee, the former chairman of the Obama’s White House Council of Economic Advisers, recently said, “Eventually, [a pipeline] is going to be built. It may go to the Pacific, it may go through Nebraska, but it’s going to be built somewhere.”

Indeed, the Canadian sands oil will enter the global oil supply whether U.S. refineries is the destination or not. To date, firms in China—the world’s fastest growing consumer of energy—have spent over $18 billion in acquiring interests in Canada’s oil sands.

The reality at the White House has nothing to do with protecting the environment -- it’s about reinforcing a myth of energy scarcity on the United States and driving up the price of energy.

For decades, one of the key tenets of environmental doctrine has been that the United States, and North America as a whole, is running out of affordable energy sources like oil, natural gas, and coal. For this reason, they argue, our economy must switch to renewables like wind farms and solar panels that produce electricity at intermittent rates. Through mandates, government has forced consumers to buy these sources, and the Obama administration has propped up Big Green Energy through taxpayer-funded loans to companies like Solyndra.

Yet the discovery of cost-effective oil production from Canadian oil reserves—as well as the large-scale deployment of shale technologies here in the U.S.—turns the environmentalists’ politics of energy scarcity on its head, and that is at the heart of the administration’s opposition to Keystone XL. The president wants the United States to be energy poor.

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Al Qaeda's Inspire magazine found in Gitmo cell

2012-01-21T14:01:00.001-05:00

Shocking security breach at Guantanamo Bay.

Video: 'Branding Obamessiah'

2012-01-21T13:55:00.001-05:00

Pic of the day: Syrian regime supporters give Nazi salute during an oath to defend the regime

2012-01-21T13:43:00.000-05:00

Pro-Syrian regime protesters, perform an oath to defend their country and Syrian President Bashar Assad during a demonstration to show their soldarity for their president, in Damascus, Syria, on Friday Jan. 20, 2102. The Arab League is likely to extend the organization's observer mission in Syria, despite complaints from the Syrian opposition that it has failed to curb bloodshed in the country, two League officials said Friday. (AP Photo)

Nigeria: Boko Haram kill at least 126 people in coordinated attacks

2012-01-21T13:37:00.000-05:00

Red Cross officials carry the victim of a bomb attack on a stretcher during an evacuation in Nigeria's northern city of Kano January 21, 2012. More than 100 people were killed in bomb attacks and gunfights in Nigeria's second largest city Kano late on Friday, a senior local government security source told Reuters, in the deadliest coordinated strike claimed by Islamist sect Boko Haram to date. (Reuters Pictures)

KANO, Nigeria (AP) -- Coordinated attacks claimed by a radical Islamist sect killed at least 120 people in north Nigeria's largest city, hospital records seen Saturday show, as gunfire still echoed around some areas of the sprawling city.

Soldiers and police officers swarmed over streets Saturday in Kano, a city of more than 9 million people that remains an important political and religious hub in Nigeria's Muslim north. But their effectiveness remains in question, as the uniformed bodies of many of their colleagues lay in the overflowing mortuary of Murtala Muhammed Specialist Hospital, Kano's largest hospital.

Hospital records seen by an Associated Press reporter there showed at least 120 people died in the attacks that started Friday afternoon after Muslim prayers and as shops closed for the weekend in the sprawling, dusty city. A mortuary attendant, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak with journalists, said they had 126 bodies there.

Other bodies likely lay at other clinics and hospitals in the city.

In a statement issued late Friday, federal police spokesman Olusola Amore said attackers targeted five police buildings, two immigration offices and the local headquarters of the State Security Service, Nigeria's secret police.

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Report: Iran transporting weapons to Syria through Turkey

2012-01-21T13:28:00.000-05:00

(JPost) Four trucks with Iranian license plates that were stopped two weeks ago in southern Turkey on the border with Syria were found to be carrying raw materials for making ballistic missiles and chemical weapons, Turkish daily Taraf reported Friday, after Iran denied that the trucks were transporting weapons material to Sryia.

While Turkish officials did not publicize the contents of the cargo in the Iranian trucks, Taraf reported that one truck was carrying for six-meter-long cylindrical tanks and heat-resistant materials, while the other three vehicles were transporting 66 tons of sodium sulfate, which can be used to make chemical weapons.

Turkey - which imposed an arms embargo on Syria last September - has dispatched a scientific team to study the contents of the freight, while the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency has also requested a report on the trucks' materials.

The Iranian embassy in Ankara denied earlier this month that the four trucks held by Turkish customs were carrying military equipment from Iran to Syria, while a spokesman for Turkey's foreign ministry said an investigation was still in progress.

The trucks were confiscated in Turkey's southeast province of Kilis at the Oncupinar border crossing into Syria.

Turkey abandoned its past friendship with Assad to side with protesters, and has set up camps on its southeast border to host thousands of refugees who have fled the violence in their homeland.

Syria has also been suspended from the Arab League, leaving Damascus with few friends outside of Tehran.

Concern is growing in Israel over the possibility that Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons will fall into terrorist hands amid predictions that President Bashar Assad’s regime will fall.

Syria is believed to have one of the most extensive chemical weapon arsenals in the world, reportedly including sarin, VX and mustard gas.

The concern partially stems from Western intelligence indicating that advanced weaponry has already been moved out of Syria by Hezbollah.

“The same could also potentially happen with chemical weapons,” a senior defense official explained.

Syria: 14 killed in bus explosion as clashes break out

2012-01-21T13:23:00.001-05:00

Terrorists responsible for attack on vehicle carrying prisoners in Idlib province, SANA reports; Arab League looks to extend mission in Syria as head of its monitoring team expected to submit report.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Bomb blasts killed 14 prisoners traveling in a security vehicle in northwest Syria on Saturday, the state news agency said, and troops fought rebels elsewhere as the Arab League weighed whether to keep monitors in place.

Syria's SANA agency said a "terrorist" group had set off two explosions that also wounded 26 prisoners, as well as six police guards. It said the assailants had also attacked ambulances sent to the scene, on the road between the towns of Idlib and Ariha.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the 10-month-old revolt against President Bashar Assad, had earlier reported the attack in northwestern Idlib province.

It said army troops were clashing with soldiers who have deserted and joined an anti-Assad insurgency in the Jebel al-Zawiya region of Idlib, which is near the Turkish border.

Al Jazeera television said army troops and deserters were also battling in the northwestern city of Jisr al-Shughour.

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Official results: Egypt's Islamists dominate new parliament

2012-01-21T13:15:00.000-05:00

Officials results see Muslim Brotherhood win 38% of seats in Egypt's freely-elected parliament; hardline Islamist Al-Nour Party wins 29% of seats; liberal parties fall in third, fourth.
CAIRO

(Reuters) - The Muslim Brotherhood won by far the biggest share of seats allocated to party lists in Egypt's first freely-elected parliament in decades, final results confirmed, and it named one of its top officials to lead the assembly.

Banned under former leader Hosni Mubarak and his predecessors, the Brotherhood has emerged as the winner from his overthrow. Islamists of various stripes have taken about two thirds of seats in the assembly, broadly in line with their own forecasts.

The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) has promised that all Egyptians will have a voice in the new parliament, but Islamists are now set to wield major influence over a new constitution to be drafted by a 100-strong body that parliament will help pick.

According to final results of the staggered election issued by the High Elections Committee on Saturday, the Brotherhood's electoral alliance took a 38 percent share of the seats allocated to lists.

The hardline Islamist Al-Nour Party won 29 percent of list seats. The liberal New Wafd and Egyptian Bloc coalition came third and fourth respectively.

The Revolution Continues coalition, dominated by youth groups at the forefront of the protests that toppled Mubarak, attracted less than a million votes and took just seven of the 498 seats up for grabs in the lower house.

Under a complex electoral system, two thirds or 332 of the seats in lower house are decided by proportional representation on closed party lists. The other third are contested by individual candidates.

The elections committee did not give results for individual seats, although the FJP's alliance has said it expects to take 41 percent of all seats in the lower house.

Having secured the biggest bloc, the FJP named Saad al-Katatni, a leading Brotherhood official who sat in the old parliament as an independent, as speaker of the assembly.

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Report: Senior al Qaeda figure killed in CIA drone strike in Pakistan

2012-01-20T17:21:00.000-05:00

Aslam Awan

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD Jan 19 (Reuters) - A militant who acted as a senior operations organizer for al Qaeda was targeted and killed in one of two U.S. drone strikes launched against targets inside Pakistan last week, a U.S. official said.

U.S. and Pakistani sources told Reuters that the target of the attack was Aslam Awan, a Pakistani national from Abbottabad, the same town where Osama bin Laden was killed last May by a U.S. commando team. They said he was targeted in a strike by a U.S.-operated drone on January 10 directed at what news reports said was a compound near the town of Miranshah in the border province of North Waziristan.

That strike broke an undeclared eight-week hiatus in attacks by the armed, unmanned drones that patrol Pakistan's tribal areas and are a key weapon in U.S. President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism strategy.

The sources described Awan, who also was known by the nom-de-guerre Abdullah Khorasani, as a significant figure in the remaining core leadership of al Qaeda, which U.S. officials say has been sharply reduced by the drone campaign. Most of the drone attacks are conducted as part of a clandestine CIA operation.

Pakistani officials could not confirm that Awan was killed in the drone attack, but the U.S. official said he was.

One of the sources described Awan as an associate of al Qaeda's current chief of external operations, whose identity is known to intelligence officials but not to the general public.

"Aslam Awan was a senior al-Qaeda external operations planner who was working on attacks against the West. His death reduces al-Qaeda's thinning bench of another operative devoted to plotting the death of innocent civilians," a U.S. official said.

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Pics of the day: Gen. Dempsey in Israel

2012-01-20T16:31:00.000-05:00

US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey lays a wreath, while Israel 's Chief of Staff Lieutenant Benny Gantz (R) and US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro pay their respects, at the Hall of Remembrance in Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum on January 20, 2012. During his 24-hour visit to Jerusalem, Dempsey held talks with top Israeli defence officials expected to focus on mounting tensions with Iran. (Getty Images)

A note written by U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey in the guestbook of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Friday, Jan. 20, 2012. [...] (AP Photo)

EU prepares unprecedented attack on Iranian economy

2012-01-20T16:19:00.001-05:00

The European Union is preparing to launch an unprecedented attack on Iran’s economy at a moment when experts believe the confrontation over the country’s nuclear ambitions is entering a dangerous new phase.

(Telegraph) An embargo on Iran's oil is due to be agreed by EU foreign ministers on Monday, potentially depriving Tehran of a quarter of its total exports. This step, designed to maximise the pressure on Iran’s leaders to negotiate over their nuclear programme, is also a measure of the scale of concern.

Officials note a series of events, ranging from the storming of the British Embassy in Tehran to the regime’s threats to disrupt oil supplies in the Gulf, and judge that Iranian decision-making is becoming more belligerent and unpredictable.

“This is a dangerous moment. We’re coming to the point where options are narrowing and there’s very little fat left in the system,” said Paul Cornish, professor of international security at Bath University.

The EU is likely to phase in the oil embargo over between three and eight months so that Greece, Italy and Spain – who together buy 450,000 barrels of Iranian crude every day – can make alternative arrangements.

Iran should be able to find other customers: the surplus barrels will probably be redirected to Asian buyers, notably India and China. But officials anticipate they will drive a hard bargain and insist on lower prices, costing Iran billions of dollars in lost revenue.

In effect, an embargo would tell Tehran’s Asian customers to “buy Iranian oil, but only at a knockdown price which will destroy Iran’s revenues,” said Nigel Kushner, chief executive of Whale Rock Legal, a firm that advises on sanctions and trade.

This process has probably started already. China has cut its imports of Iranian crude by half this month, reducing its daily purchase to 285,000 barrels. Beijing probably judges that Iran’s oil will become much cheaper after any EU embargo starts to bite.

More...

Video: Apache Decimates Group of Insurgents

2012-01-20T15:17:00.000-05:00

Video: With economy going down the crapper, desperate Obama sings "Let's stay together" to his base

2012-01-20T14:10:00.002-05:00

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Fire at Muslim professor's NJ home yields cache of child porn

2012-01-20T11:08:00.000-05:00

EAGLESWOOD TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — A single magazine from the 1970s with pornographic images of pre-pubescent girls was enough to get a New York architecture professor arrested after firefighters found it while battling a blaze in his home at the Jersey shore.

Shortly before noon on Tuesday, firefighters received a report that the waterfront home of 76-year-old Gamal El-Zoghby was ablaze. They doused the flames, and were checking for hidden pockets of flame behind the walls by pulling down panels of sheet rock, when the magazine fell from behind one of the panels, State Police spokesman Trooper Christopher Kay said.

The home was unoccupied at the time the fire broke out. Some time afterward, El-Zoghby arrived at the house, then went to a nearby State Police barracks, where he was questioned and charged with child endangerment before being released on his own recognizance.

Reached Thursday by The Associated Press at his home in Manhattan, El-Zoghby refused to discuss the case, referring questions to a lawyer who later declined comment.

El-Zoghby is listed as a professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y. The school did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday on his status there.

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Iranian Press TV taken off the air in the UK

2012-01-20T10:49:00.002-05:00

(London) In a move which will infuriate the faithful, Press TV, the media organ of the Iranian Mullahs in the UK, has been closed down by Ofcom (the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries).

It seems that numerous complaints by Ofcom against Press TV have gone unheeded, and finally somebody has said enough is enough and shut them down. Expect Iran to play the racist card in the not so distant future.

Photo: Now this is one well dressed and educated Walmart shopper

2012-01-20T09:47:00.000-05:00

Earthquake hits northeast Iran, 100 injured

2012-01-19T16:00:00.000-05:00

Iranian regime is expected to blame the US, the UK and Israel.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - About 100 people were injured when an earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale hit northeastern Iran on Thursday, state television reported.

The epicenter of the quake, which struck at 4:05 p.m., was 10 km (6 miles) outside the city of Neyshabur, some 70 km from the holy city of Mashhad, the official IRNA news agency said.

There had so far been 36 aftershocks since the main quake, IRNA said, adding that some buildings had been damaged and windows shattered in villages near Neyshabur.

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Bangladesh: Army Foils Islamist Coup Attempt

2012-01-19T15:42:00.000-05:00

(VOA) Military officials in Bangladesh say they have uncovered a plot by religious extremists to overthrow the government.

Brigadier General Muhammad Masud Razzaq shared details of the attempted coup with reporters Thursday, calling it a "heinous conspiracy" to topple Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Razzaq said the coup had been planned abroad and that two retired military officers have already been arrested. A third man, Army Major Ziaul Haq, is on the run.

Razzaq said a total of 16 current and former military officers had been involved.

Bangladeshi intelligence officials say the military uncovered the coup plot last month and that the plotters planned to introduce strict Islamic Sharia law.

Prime Minister Hasina has cracked down on Islamic militant groups since taking office in early 2009. She has repeatedly warned such groups were plotting against her government.

This is not the first time Hasina has confronted military unrest. In 2009, shortly after she took office, some of the country's border guards mutinied, resulting in the deaths of more than 70 people.

Bangladesh has a history of bitter political rivalries, coups and counter-coups since gaining its independence.

Afghanistan: Taliban suicide car-bomber blows up at NATO airbase killing 7 civilians, including 2 children

2012-01-19T15:27:00.000-05:00

A U.S. soldier keeps watch at the site of an explosion in Kandahar January 19, 2012. A suicide bomber killed seven civilians, including two children, and wounded eight in an attack on the main gate of the Kandahar Air Field used by international and Afghan troops in southern Afghanistan, Kandahar governor's spokesman Zalmai Ayobi said. (Reuters Pictures)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide attacker set off a vehicle laden with explosives Thursday outside a gate at a sprawling base for U.S. and NATO operations, killing seven civilians in a second suicide bombing in as many days in southern Afghanistan, officials said. [...[

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the afternoon attack at a crowded entrance to Kandahar Air Field, claiming they were targeting a NATO convoy.

Two witnesses told The Associated Press that they suspect the suicide car bomber was trying to hit U.S. forces because he detonated his explosives just as two pickup trucks, which they say are often used by American special forces, were leaving the base.

The coalition said no NATO troops were killed. It does not disclose information about injured troops. [...]

Zalmai Ayubi, the spokesman for the Kandahar provincial governor, said two children were among the seven civilians killed. He said eight other civilians, including two children and one woman, were injured in the explosion.

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Saudi Journalist and TV Host Nadin Al-Badir Calls the Saudi Religious Police the "Enemy of Society" and Says: Most of Them Are Ex-Cons Who are "Violently Extreme"

2012-01-19T14:03:00.000-05:00

From MEMRI:

Nadin Al-Badir: 28-year-old Hassan Nabil Hmeid from Abha was harassed [by the religious police] because he grew his hair long. At the end of the day, all the matters they pursue are superficial ones. They have no depth. They are concerned only with external looks. Ultimately, [Hmeid] died as a result of the beating he received. Some say that he died when he tried to flee from them. What matters is that this young man's life can to an end because of backward, reactionary people, who would like to take us back hundreds of years in time. I don't think the situation back then was as bad as they would like it to be.

Interviewer: But some might say that these are isolated cases. Have they grown in frequency in recent times?

Nadin Al-Badir: I could give you many examples, but we don't have enough time.

Interviewer: Just a few examples. There's the well-known case of the fire…

Nadin Al-Badir: A fire broke out in a girls' school in Saudi Arabia. It would have been easy to extinguish the fire without any girl getting hurt. But members of the Authority for the Promotion of Virtue stood at the door of the school and prevented any student from leaving, because the girls were not wearing the hijab. How were they supposed to get a hijab when the school was going up in flames? They prevented the fire brigade from entering to extinguish the fire, and they prevented the parents from going in…

Interviewer: Why?

Nadin Al-Badir: Because the girls were not wearing the abaya. The girls were right behind the door…

Interviewer: But it is a duty to save them from death. Who cares if they are wearing the abaya or not?

Nadin Al-Badir: Their mission is to save you from the Hellfire, not from death. They believe that you are martyred in such a case. I don't know what was going through their minds at that moment.

Interviewer: Saving them from the Hellfire is more important than saving them from death…

Nadin Al-Badir: I'm talking about 13-year-old girls, not university students. These were schoolgirls. 15 girls from the school died – because of the Authority for Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, and not because of the fire. They could easily have been rescued. Has any member of the Authority been placed on trial? Not that we've seen. The department of girls' education was annexed to the Education Ministry, but the Authority is never held accountable. It punishes, but is never punished itself. You can never get justice. Even if they stab or kill you, nobody can hold them accountable.

Interviewer: The Authority is never held accountable even if it makes a mistake?

Nadin Al-Badir: No. You can file a complaint or a lawsuit against it. Many have been filed, but we've never heard of anyone being punished for attacking a citizen.

[…]

Interviewer: Some Saudis, who support the Authority, believe that there is a need for it, and say that anyone who fears it must be deviating from the right path. They believe that it protects society, our children, and our families.

Nadin Al-Badir: I haven't noticed that they protect our children and our families. The rate of all forms of sexual harassment is the highest it has ever been.

Interviewer: In Saudi Arabia?

Nadin Al-Badir: Yes. Droves of young men might harass a girl, and I've never seen the Authority preventing these harassments. The Authority has absolutely nothing to do with protection. The Authority is the enemy of society. How can it protect it?

[…]

It is well-known that most members of the Authority are ex-cons, who used to be drug users or drug dealers. Even Sheik Abd Al-Muhsen Al-Abikan, advisor to the royal court, suggested that the Authority should be abolished. He said that most of them were drug dealers, drug users, thieves, and ex-cons who repented, all of a sudden, and became violently extreme. These people, according to Sheik Al-Abikan, should not be allowed to have such authorities, because they use it in inappropriate ways.

[…]

UK: Police and military practice security procedures designed to protect the Thames river from possible Muslim terrorist attacks during the 2012 London Olympics

2012-01-19T12:05:00.000-05:00

LONDON (AP) — British police and military forces using a helicopter and inflatable boats teamed up Thursday to practice security procedures designed to protect the Thames river from possible terrorist attacks during the 2012 London Olympics. [...]

"There's no specific threat, but we would be failing in our duty if we didn't consider it," national Olympics security coordinator Chris Allison said. He said forces were testing methods used to make vessels stop and practicing boarding-at-sea procedures. [...]

Some recent terror attacks like the Mumbai shooting spree in 2008 were launched from virtually unpatrolled waterways. Terrorists in the Indian metropolis arrived on small high-speed boats prior to their deadly attack that killed 166 people.

British authorities want to make sure the same type of attack doesn't happen in London. Security officials have expressed concerns over would-be attackers using the river as a means of access into the games, but they are also concerned that attacks could be launched against London's financial center, which sits close to its banks.

Security officials say they also worry about scares away from the Olympic Village that could divert resources away from a real attack.

Security has long been a high priority for the Olympics. A terror attack at the 1972 Olympics in Munich killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.

And London was the first European capital to be struck by suicide bombers in 2005 — the day after the city won its bid to host the games. Some 52 commuters were killed during the rush-hour attack in July 2005.

About 12,000 police officers will also be on duty on the busiest days of the games — together up to 13,500 troops deployed on land, at sea and in the skies. A huge presence of private security guards will also safeguard Olympic venues.

More...

Egyptian Cleric: Killing Jews Is a Must

2012-01-19T09:21:00.000-05:00

From MEMRI:

Hazem Shuman: What was our response when six Egyptians were killed by Jews on the border? Was the Jewish ambassador summoned? No. Was he expelled from Egypt? No. Was the Egyptian ambassador recalled from Israel? No. So what was the response? Brothers, this is about the honor of the people. I am talking to the Jews in the name of 85 million Egyptians, who hate them from the bottom of their hearts.

[...]

I saw footage of a young Egyptian fighting a lion. He did this for the sake of the thrill. He went into the lion's cage holding a spear, and they filmed him fighting the lion. He got out of the cage after overcoming the lion. I said: By God, young Egyptians who fight lions cannot fight the Jews? Can't they devour the Jews? How many millions of our young men are ready to fight lions... I mean, Jews.

[...]

I address them on behalf of 85 million Egyptians, whose hearts beat with hatred for the Jews, and with the knowledge of what the Jews did to us and of how Allah warned us about them...

I tell them that the battle is bound to come, Allah be praised. The Prophet Muhammad, whose words are divinely inspired, said: "Judgment Day will come when the Muslims fight the Jews." That means that the Muslims will be the ones who engage [in fighting]. It's not just any battle. He said: "The Muslims will fight the Jews, and the stones and the trees will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." Even the stones and the trees hate them. The battle is bound to come.

[...]

Jews will be Jews, guys. The Jews of today are the Jews of Khaybar, who tried to poison the Prophet Muhammad. They are the Jews of Banu Nadhir, who tried to kill the Prophet Muhammad. They are the Jews of Banu Qaynuqa', who tried to lift up a Muslim woman's dress. Jews will be Jews. We know what you are like, you Jews, and we know your hatred toward the religion of Allah, toward the servants of Allah, and toward the Muslims worldwide.

You will be vanquished, Allah willing, but it will not be us who will vanquish you. It will be Allah. Just like He used wind to vanquish you in the War of the Ahzab, and like He used fear to vanquish you in the Battle of Khaybar, Allah will vanquish you again.

Today, 92% of the world's film industry is in your hands, 90% of the world's famous actors are Jews, and 90% of the giant news networks, like CNN, are in Jewish hands.

[...]

Oh nation of Muhammad, Allah says to you: If you fear war with the Jews, brace yourselves for war with Allah. It is either a war with the Jews or a war with Allah. Allah says that the entire nation could be replaced if it is not prepared to sacrifice its blood for the sake of Palestine.

[...]

My message to all the Jews is that the battle is bound to come and you will be vanquished. Allah has promised that you will be vanquished and that we will prevail. I tell you that our Prophet Muhammad, whose every word we believe and whose light we follow - the moment he signed the Hudaybiyya Treaty with Mecca, the first thing he did after the battle with the Quraysh tribe, only 20 days after signing the Hudaybiyya Treaty, he took his army and attacked Khaybar.

Why, oh Messenger of Allah? Because these Jews are a cancer. These Jews are a catastrophe. There is not a catastrophe in the world that is not the handiwork of the Jews. These Jews are a cancer in the body of planet Earth, and if permitted, it will spread and infect the entire body. Getting rid of these Jews is a must.

[...]

Hamas, Islamic Jihad debate joining forces

2012-01-18T23:02:00.000-05:00

Talks about Gaza terrorist organizations merging often result in bloodbath. Very exciting news.

GAZA CITY (AFP) - Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the main Palestinian Islamist movements, are holding talks about merging their two factions, sources on both sides said on Tuesday.

During a meeting with top officials from Islamic Jihad, Gaza's Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya called for "opening a serious dialogue to achieve the merger of the two movements," his office said in a statement.

Islamic Jihad confirmed that talks to merge the two factions were already under way.

"An in-depth dialogue has actually begun, both internally and externally, with the aim of uniting," spokesman Daud Shihab told AFP, referring to the group's leadership which, like Hamas, is based in both Gaza and Damascus.

All previous attempts to merge the two Islamist movements had ended in failure, Shihab said.

More...

Occupy LA "activist" charged with lynching

2012-01-18T22:57:00.000-05:00

Well now...

(MSNBC) Sergio Ballesteros, 30, has been involved in Occupy LA since the movement had its California launch in October. But this week, his activism took an abrupt turn when he was arrested on a felony charge — lynching.

Under the California penal code, lynching is “taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful custody of any peace officer," where "riot" is defined as two or more people threatening violence or disturbing the peace. The original purpose of the legal code section 405(a) was to protect defendants in police custody from vigilante mobs — especially black defendants from racist groups.

Whether the police allegation in this case will be pursued by by California’s courts is uncertain. But the felony charge — which carries a potential four-year prison sentence — is the kind of accusation that can change the landscape for would-be demonstrators.

More...

Swedish National Agency for Education approves niqab, gender apartheid

2012-01-18T21:49:00.000-05:00

(FPM) The other day I wrote about a young Muslim woman in Norway who wears a niqab – a veil that covers everything except the eyes – and who’s busy these days giving talks at Norwegian schools about her religion and her choice of outerwear.

Now, just across the border in Sweden, that country’s version of the Department of Education, which is called Skolverket (and which in English labels itself the Swedish National Agency for Education), has sent down a ruling about the role of niqab in Swedish schools. This ruling is a response to new legislation as well as to a decision by Sweden’s Discrimination Ombudsman, which in turn came in response to a complaint by an adult student in Stockholm who cried prejudice a couple of years back when she was told to take off her niqab in class.

Skolverket’s decision, interestingly, has been represented by the Swedish media in different ways – indeed, in two more or less antithetical ways. On the one hand, Dagbladet begins its report as follows: “Students’ right to wear veils in schools has long been a hot question. Now Skolverket has ruled that full-covering veils may be forbidden in certain situations.” Dagbladet goes on to quote Skolverket’s guidelines to the effect that niqab can be banned in lab or shop classes, in which there may be safety issues, or when the niqab “significantly impedes the interaction between teachers and students.” Skolverket leaves it up to teachers to decide when there’s a problem.

But the Swedish edition of Metro is (characteristically) more straightforward about what Skolverket’s ruling really amounts to. “Skolverket approves full-covering veil,” reads the Metro headline. “Only in exceptional cases can principals and teachers say no.” Metro notes that “the authorities cite religious freedom and believe it is up to the schools and teachers to adapt education to the students’ needs.” The newspaper quotes from Skolverket’s guidelines: “The full-covering veil can impede contact and interaction between teachers and students, but Skolverket feels that these difficulties can be overcome in the great majority of cases.”

In short, the Swedish educational authorities have caved in. Henceforth, niqab is permitted in Swedish schools. If any teacher thinks it’s getting in the way of normal classroom interaction (and how could it not?) or that it represents a potential safety problem – well, it’s up to that teacher to say so and take the consequences.

Which, of course, is a full-scale cop-out on the part of the Swedish authorities. What teacher in his or her right mind would dare to say “take off that niqab” in the wake of this ruling? Skolverket has effectively left such teachers high and dry. The minute any teacher dares to step into that minefield, Swedish Muslim “spokespeople” will come crashing down on them. There’s no limit to how widespread the protests might be and how much mayhem they might lead to – just look, after all, at what happened after a Danish newspaper ran a few cartoons of Muhammed. Can one imagine the Swedish educational bureaucrats – not to mention the politicians and national media – doing anything other than folding at once? When Skolverket says it is leaving decisions to teachers, it is being cynical and cowardly, washing its hands of a difficult matter and passing it on to already put-upon people in essentially powerless, thankless positions.

More...

Obama rejects Keystone oil pipeline, kills 20,000 potential jobs, gives lame excuse

2012-01-18T21:30:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Wednesday rejected the Keystone crude oil pipeline project, a decision welcomed by environmental groups but blasted by the domestic energy industry.

U.S. President Barack Obama said TransCanada's application for the 1,700-mile (2,740-km) pipeline was denied because the State Department did not have enough time to complete the review process.

"This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people," Obama said in a statement.

With environmental groups concerned about carbon emissions from oil sands production, the administration in November delayed a decision on a presidential permit for the project until 2013.

But lawmakers that support the project attached a measure to a tax-cut law passed at the end of last year that set a February deadline for a decision.

Who’s Really Killing Those ‘Nuclear Scientists’ in Tehran?

2012-01-18T21:19:00.000-05:00

PJ Media: Who’s Really Killing Those ‘Nuclear Scientists’ in Tehran?

CAIR: Iranian PressTV says that Gingrich's anti-Sharia remarks undermine US Constitution

2012-01-18T16:07:00.002-05:00

#CAIR: Gingrich remarks 'undermines US Constitution'
http://t.co/PBBMfSL9 http://t.co/4P6vmM7lWed Jan 18 19:41:17 via FacebookCAIR National
CAIRNational

CAIR says Ron Paul is Muslims' Kind of Republican

2012-01-18T15:50:00.001-05:00

#Election2012: Muslims Say #RonPaul Is Their Kind of Republican http://t.co/1tBkV5dw via @huffingtonpost #MuslimsVoteWed Jan 18 17:52:19 via webCAIR National
CAIRNational

Occupy London parasites lose court eviction battle

2012-01-18T15:35:00.000-05:00

Isn't that a shame?

London (CNN) -- Occupy London protesters who have been camped outside the landmark St. Paul's Cathedral for the past three months lost their court bid to avoid eviction Wednesday.

The High Court ruled in favor of the City of London Corporation, the body that runs London's financial district, which applied for an eviction order after the protesters failed to abide by a previous order to pack up the camp.

More...

Damage Control: Pelosi Distances Dems From Occupy Parasites: ‘We Don’t Really Have Much Of A Connection’

2012-01-18T11:26:00.000-05:00

(Breitbart TV) Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi claimed today that the Democratic Party had no real connection with the Occupy Wall Street movement even though she, Democratic Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and even President Obama have all made strong statements of support for the protest movement.

IDF hits terrorists placing bombs near Gaza fence, killing 1 and critically wounding another; device exploded during strike

2012-01-18T10:51:00.000-05:00

Feel-good story of the day.

(JPost) Israel Air Force aircraft in conjunction with IDF tanks opened fire on a group of Palestinians attempting to place explosive devices near the Gaza Border fence near Beit Hanoun on Wednesday, the IDF Spokesman's Office reported.

One of the devices exploded, but no soldiers were injured in the incident.

Palestinian medics said one man was killed in the attack and a second man was critically wounded. Hamas had said earlier that both men were killed in the incident.

It was the first IDF strike in the Gaza Strip since Dec. 30, when an Israeli aircraft killed the leader of an al-Qaida-inspired faction.

The Jerusalem Post revealed on Monday that the IDF General Staff has ordered the Southern Command to prepare for a possible large Gaza operation that could occur within the next few months.

Preparations include finalizing operational plans and distributing them between the various units that would be deployed inside Gaza.

“Gaza is possibly Israel’s most volatile front today,” a member of the General Staff said this week. “It is a front that can explode at any given moment.”

Iranian Student Activist, a Vocal Critic of Iranian Government, Shot to Death in Texas

2012-01-18T10:13:00.001-05:00

video platform video management video solutions video player

(ABC) A Texas medical student well-known in her community as an Iranian activist was mysteriously shot and killed in her car, just yards from her home.

Gelareh Bagherzadeh, 30, was driving through her Houston townhouse complex around midnight on Monday when she was shot dead through her car window.

"When officers arrived, they found a vehicle had run into a garage door at that location with the engine running and tires spinning on the pavement. Ms. Bagherzadeh was found slumped over in the driver's seat," the Houston Police Department said in a statement.

Authorities said nothing appeared to have been stolen from her car. Her cell phone and purse were found inside.

"Homicide investigators responded to the scene and were told by witnesses that several gunshots were heard, a crash and then tires squealing," the statement said.

Police told ABC News' Houston affiliate KTRK that the last person to speak to Bagherzadeh was her close friend and ex-boyfriend who was on the phone with her when she was shot.

"[The boyfriend] heard a loud thud. He doesn't recall hearing any gunshots, but a loud thud and then a screeching noise," Richard Bolton of the Houston Police Department Homicide unit told KTRK.

Bagherzadeh was of Iranian descent and was outspoken in promoting Iranian women's rights and criticizing the Iranian government, according to interviews she had done with the Houston Chronicle.

More...

Turkey Claims Israeli Drones Are Aiding Kurdish Rebels

2012-01-17T23:59:00.000-05:00

(INN) Turkish intelligence agencies are claiming that Israeli Heron unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) spied for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Turkish daily Today’s Zaman reported.

According to the report, the Turkish intelligence agencies prepared a report after two Israeli Herons were detected in Turkey’s Hatay and Adana provinces roughly two months ago. The report says the Herons were collecting intelligence on Turkish military units in order to aid PKK operations in those regions.

The report asserts that the PKK’s training camps in northern Syria, near Turkey’s Hatay border “where Turkish military border posts are relatively weak” were established in those locations based on intelligence collected by the UAVs, Today’s Zaman said.

The report also claims that Kenan Yıldızbakan, a PKK member who commanded an assault against a Turkish naval base in İskenderun in 2010, has made repeated trips into Israeli territory, a fact which reinforces suspicions of a possible link between Israeli and the PKK.

Two weeks ago, the Turkish army nearly downed an Israeli UAV that was observed spying above the Turkish 14th Hawk B. Brigade Command in Hatay’s Kırıkhan district for four hours.

Turkish media said the aerial vehicle was hovering over the brigade command post in order to capture pictures of missile batteries and radar equipment. It was spotted by military personnel, the reports said, but before they could get permission to attack it the drone moved out of range.

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Nazism goes mainstream at the London School of Economics

2012-01-17T23:45:00.000-05:00

Students from a prestigious British university assaulted a Jew who objected to a Nazi card game. Nazism goes mainstream.

(INN) Students from the prestige London School of Economics recently assaulted a Jew who objected to a Nazi ‘Ring of Fire’ card game. The same university last year accepted a huge donation from a foundation headed by Saif al-Islam al Qaddafi, a son of the former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

Nazi parties are not rare in Britain. A rising star in British politics, Member of Parliament Aidan Burley, was booted from a senior post in the government after being photographed next to a bachelor dressed in a Nazi uniform at a stag party in the French Alps.

Following the disclosure of the latest Nazi drinking party staged last month by vacationing students on a ski party, also at an Alpine resort, the London School of Economics said it was “prepared” to take disciplinary action against the offenders, who broke the nose of a fellow Jewish student.

He said he could not stand silent during a game in which cards were laid out to form a swastika. Participants in the game then had to “salute the Fuhrer.”

A spokesman foe the university limited its reaction to stating, "These are disturbing allegations relating to events which took place on a foreign trip organized by the Students Union. Both the SU (Students' Union) and LSE are investigating these events and are prepared to take disciplinary action if the allegations are shown to be true."

The London Guardian reported that 12,000 Facebook friends followed the game on the social network site.

“I am sad the nerdy Jew lost the fight with the fake Nazi, but successful Jewish violence usually creates nastier headlines than more usual Jewish passivity,” the Guardian’s Tanya Gold wrote.

“We sniff the air and feel a change because anti-Semitic discourse is more acceptable now than at any time since the 1930s,” she continued. "It is a sickness that emerges from generation to generation….Anti-Semitic discourse is now mainstream and to say it all comes from the crimes of the Jewish state feels disingenuous and a denial of the past."

“The incidents mount up – the heckling of an Israeli orchestra, the graffiti on university walls, the demand that Jews denounce Israel if they wish to be accepted in polite society, the plays and TV films written without context, the violence against Orthodox Jews (visible Jews), the sale of anti-Semitic toys in Poland, the terrible fact that 12,000 Facebook users think to mock the Holocaust, not lament it.”

Ancient Greek sites could soon be available for rent

2012-01-17T23:39:00.000-05:00

The triumph of socialism.

ATHENS (AFP) — Available for rent: The Acropolis.

In a move bound to leave many Greeks and scholars aghast, Greece's culture ministry said Tuesday it will open up some of the debt-stricken country's most-cherished archaeological sites to advertising firms and other ventures.

The ministry says the move is a common-sense way of helping "facilitate" access to the country's ancient Greek ruins, and money generated would fund the upkeep and monitoring of sites. The first site to be opened would be the Acropolis.

Archaeologists, however, have for decades slammed such an initiative as sacrilege.

The culture ministry said any renting of ancient Greek sites would be subject to strict conditions.

According to a ministerial briefing dating from the end of December, a commercial firm could rent the Acropolis for a professional photographic shoot for as little as 1,600 euros a day ($2,046). Demonstrators could also rent the ancient landmark.

Greece needs every euro it can get. The country's public coffers are drained and the nation is struggling to avoid a historic debt default in March.

Greece was bailed out in May 2010 by the European Union and International Monetary Fund and is in the process of nailing down a second rescue, though it is undergoing tough talks with private creditors to reduce its massive debt mountain.

Commercial use of Greece's archaeological sites has until now been the responsibility of the Central Council of Archaeology, which has been very choosy about who gains access.

In recent decades, only a select few people, including Greek-Canadian filmmaker Nia Vardalos and the American director Francis Ford Coppola, have been able to use the Acropolis, while most filming and advertising requests have been refused.

Smoke bombs thrown over White House fence during 'Occupy' protest; White House on lockdown

2012-01-17T22:47:00.002-05:00

How much do you want to bet that it these were TEA-partiers, the likes of Chris Mathews and Andrew Sullivan would be screaming on top of their little lungs that they are racists who hate the black President in the White House? I bet that the left-wing media would be throwing headlines like "TEA-partiers try to assassinate Obama!"

WASHINGTON (Fox News) – The Secret Service was responding Tuesday night to an escalating protest that may have involved one or more smoke bombs being thrown over the White House fence.

An estimated 1,000 protesters have gathered. No arrests have been made, but authorities are on alert.

The Secret Service also deployed a robot to check out the devices on the North Lawn. No one is currently allowed to leave through the North Gate, but those with the right access can go through the White House and leave through the South Gate.

The Obamas were at dinner celebrating Michelle Obama's birthday, but they have since returned to the White House without difficulty.

The tense scene outside the White House follows an earlier protest on the West Lawn of the Capitol, in which several hundred protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement decried the influence of corporate money in politics and voice myriad other grievances.

Organizers had touted the rally, known as Occupy Congress, as the largest national gathering of Occupy protesters to date and secured a permit that would have allowed up to 10,000 people to participate. By mid-afternoon, the protest appeared to have fallen far short of those goals.

More...

Security service says Islamic extremism Norway’s biggest threat, lone wolf threat also on rise

2012-01-17T22:14:00.001-05:00

Norway's virulently anti-Israel and pro-Muslim stance plays out really well, doesn't it?

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Islamic extremism remains Norway’s biggest terror threat, but the danger of lone wolf attacks has also increased in the aftermath of a massacre by a homegrown anti-Muslim extremist, Norwegian security service PST said Tuesday.

Agency Chief Janne Kristiansen told local news agency NTB that over the past three to four years there has been growing concern over the threat of terrorism, but “in 2012 people tied to an extreme Islamic ideology will be our biggest challenge.”

In its yearly evaluation of terror threats, PST said extremists were primarily using conflict stirred up by publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and Norway’s military participation in Afghanistan to fuel hatred against Norway.

Shortly after the report’s release Tuesday, police said they were investigating a video posted on YouTube protesting Norway’s involvement in Afghanistan, in which images of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Crown Prince Haakon are shown with text calling for Allah to “destroy” them, and others.

PST warned that although the threat from organized nationalist groups hasn’t increased following Anders Behring Breivik’s killing of 77 people on July 22, the number of single individuals who threaten to use violence with reference to an anti-Islamic agenda is increasing.

It also said threats against officials have increased significantly since July 22, and warned that actions such as Breivik’s could inspire copycat attacks.

“Continued high migration, combined with weak economic growth and increased unemployment, can create a foundation for increased conflicts along ethnic, social and economic lines,” PST noted.

Remarks from Norway’s neighbor Denmark, however, contrasted with the Norwegian summary Tuesday, with Jacob Scharf — the head of Danish PST, saying it had not noticed any more people joining extremist groups as a result of the financial crisis.

“What we do see is that the financial crisis to some extent will have an impact on the kind of targets and the activities, especially for the left-wing extremist groups and networks,” Scharf added.

Islamic paradise of Gaza: Hamas "brutally" assaults Shi'ite worshipers

2012-01-17T21:45:00.002-05:00

What do you know... There is truth to Arab claims that Gaza is an open-air prison.

(Haaretz) Armed Hamas men broke into a gathering of some 30 Shi'ite worshippers in the Gaza Strip last Friday and brutally attacked them, Haaretz has learned.

The assault was part of a broader crackdown on Shi'ite organizations, including charities, that has been sparked in part by Hamas' fear of growing Iranian influence in Gaza. [...]

Hamas militants arrested 14 of the men and beat up the rest. They continued beating the worshippers even after taking some to a hospital and others to a Hamas detention facility.

More...

Does the left want to protest and express the righteous outrage? No? Just had to ask.

While Syrian government slaughters its subjects, UN Security Council will hear briefing on "Palestinian territories"

2012-01-17T21:25:00.000-05:00

Because Arabs apparently are very concerned with the "peace process". Morocco says the briefing would be very "useful".

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — The UN Security Council will on Wednesday hear a briefing on the humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territories which the United States had opposed, diplomats said.

The Palestinian envoy to the UN had asked for the briefing as part of efforts to keep the deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the international spotlight.

Valerie Amos, the UN humanitarian coordinator, will give details on the impact of Israeli settlements at the UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday morning as part of discussions on the Middle East, diplomats said.

Morocco officially made the request for the briefing as the Arab representative on the 15-member council. The briefing would be "useful," said Morocco's UN ambassador Mohammed Loulichki.

"We are of the view that this is not of optimal timing or focus but obviously we respect Valerie Amos and her work... around the world and we will hear the briefing and we will respond to it in substance," US ambassador Susan Rice told reporters.

Direct talks between the Palestinians and Israel have been frozen since September 2010 when Israel halted a moratorium on settlement building in the occupied territories.

Since then Israel has stepped up construction activity, drawing widespread criticism, including from the United States. The UN has also reported an increase in attacks by extremist settlers on Palestinians.

Highlighting its frustration at the moribund peace process, the Palestinians have applied for full membership of the UN and succeeded in winning membership of UNESCO.

The application for UN membership has hit deadlock at the UN Security Council where the United States has threatened to veto any recommendation in support of the Palestinian bid. The United States and Israel say that only direct Palestinian-Israeli talks can produce a definitive peace accord.

What is it with despotic nations (and their sycophants) and blaming the US for everything?

2012-01-17T21:12:00.002-05:00

(Russia) The other week, Iran blamed the US for the murder of one of its nuclear scientists, but the truth be told it could so easily be Tehran killing its own in which to substantiate its nuclear program to its people. Also the other week, Hugo Chavez blamed the US for his cancer (and the good news is, duty rumour has it he has less than a year to live). And the other day, Russia blamed the US for the reason why its latest Mars probe Phobos-Grunt failed to leave Earth's orbit because an American radar based in the Pacific played havoc with its electronics. So instead of heading for Mars, it turned 180 degrees and headed towards Earth. Instead of blaming themselves, it seems the Russians are more than happy to blame the US for their failures. On that note, here is the record for space launches to Mars:

19 out of Russia's 24 Mars missions have failed, 5 out of USA's 20 missions have failed, 1 out of Europe's 2 missions has failed.

Kind of says it all, doesn't it?

Middle East cyber war escalates: Saudi hackers disrupt Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and El Al , Israeli hackers bring down Arab monetary sites

2012-01-17T21:08:00.004-05:00

Pro-Palestinian computer hackers disrupted the websites of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and El Al, Israel's national carrier, on Monday, escalating a Middle East cyber war.

(Telegraph) The distributed denial-of-service attacks, which also targeted three Israeli banks, were the latest salvo in a month-long offensive between Arab and Jewish hackers determined to give the Middle East conflict an online dimension.

Monday's hacking incident caused the stock exchange's website to perform slowly, while El Al's online services were unavailable for more than an hour.

Responsibility for the attack was claimed by a group of hackers, claiming to be based in Saudi Arabia, which identifies itself by the name "Nightmare".

It came days after a rival Israeli hacking group called "Israel Defenders" published what it said were the credit card details of hundreds of Saudis. Nightmare had carried out a similar stunt after hacking an Israeli sports website.

The self-proclaimed head of Nightmare, who identifies himself as "0xOmar", boasted on the microblogging website Twitter that he would never be caught.

"No one is this world going to arrest me," he wrote. "It's impossible to find me and I'll keep attacking Israel. Just stay and watch."

Setting himself up against 0xOmar is "0xOmer", the leader of Israel Defenders, who says he is 17. 0xOmer says his counter-campaign has been joined by "7ukk1", allegedly a soldier in Israeli military intelligence. They claim they are poised to release the credit card details of 300,000 more Saudi nationals.

A second Jewish hacker, Hannibal, has joined the fray, publishing details to allow web users to break into the Facebook accounts of 20,000 Arab users. He claims to have the bank account details of 10 million Iranian and Saudi nationals, which he will release if Israel comes under further cyber-attack.

More...

'Israel Defenders' hackers post in forum that attacks are response to "lame" Saudi attack on Israelis.

(JPost) Israeli hackers said they brought down the official websites of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency and Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange on Tuesday in retaliation for a denial of service attack on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange the previous day.

Both websites appeared to be offline following the announcement by the hackers.

An Israeli hacker told The Jerusalem Post that members of the Internet group Israel Defenders were behind the attack.

They said in a forum message that they acted “because lame hackers from Saudi Arabia decided to launch an attack against Israeli sites,” noting the denial of service attacks against TASE and El Al, as well as three Israeli banks on Monday. They signed their message with the name “IDF Team.” The hackers warned “this is only the beginning,” saying “there may be disruption to the [Saudi] government’s stock exchange site” as well.

“If the lame attacks from Saudi Arabia will continue, we will move to the next level, which will disable these sites longer term,” they said, adding that the damage could last for weeks or even months.

Also Tuesday, an Israeli hacker named “Anonymous 972” published the e-mail details, including passwords, of 89 Saudi university students.

“Usually we do not like to hurt innocent sites, but there is now a cyber war, and every war has victims,” the hacker wrote.

“Every time an Israeli site get[s] hacked, the same thing will happen to Saudi sites.”

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US Navy receives latest ship

2012-01-17T20:18:00.004-05:00

(Alabama) A few years ago, the US Navy looked at fielding small inexpensive ships (Littoral class) that could patrol the littoral zone off the coast of mainland United States, thus freeing up much larger and more capable ships for duties elsewhere. With that in mind, the US Navy set in motion a competition for the industry to deliver the goods, and currently the contest lies between Lockheed Martin with its Freedom class and General Dynamics (in conjunction with Austal) with its Independence class of ships.

The design of the ship revolves around a jack of all trades (think Swiss army knife) capability, and the winner of the contest was to have seen 55 ships being built. However, like everything else nowadays, that figure will never be realized (well, not with Obama in power and his penchant for handing money over to those who hate the US) and in 2009, Congress voted that of the winning design only 4 would be built. However, the US Navy didn't listen to the doves of peace in Congress and pushed and now has won support for 10 ships of the winning design to be built. On top of that they are now pushing for 10 ships of the other design to be built as well because in light of the advancing age of the FFG-7 class, the Navy is in need of something to replace them.

So what will the Navy be getting for their money? Well, for a start, they have to be able to cruise at over 40 knots, they have to be stable in rough seas, they are modular in design, thus allowing quick change in ability by simply dropping in new mission modules, be able to carry 2 helicopters in comfort, be able to launch UAVs, field a 57-mm front gun, a couple of 30-mm cannons, a number of 50 cal machine guns and a anti-aircraft missile system, as well as the use of mission modules (think plug and play).

Well, the fourth Littoral ship (2 Freedom class and 2 Independence class), USS Coronado (LCS-4), was launched the other day in Mobile, Alabama. I have to admit, it's one pretty ship. And here's to the US Navy getting lot's more of both classes of these very capable ships.

Russia: Black Widow attempted New Year Moscow attack but blew herself up by mistake

2012-01-17T19:57:00.000-05:00

Feel-good story of the day.

(Telegraph) A "Black Widow" suicide bomber planned a terrorist attack in central Moscow on New Year's Eve but was killed when an unexpected text message set off her bomb too early, according to Russian security sources.

The unnamed woman, who is thought to be part of the same group that struck Moscow's Domodedovo airport on Monday, intended to detonate a suicide belt on a busy square near Red Square on New Year's Eve in an attack that could have killed hundreds.

Security sources believe a spam message from her mobile phone operator wishing her a happy new year received just hours before the planned attack triggered her suicide belt, killing her but nobody else.

She was at her Moscow safe house at the time getting ready with two accomplices, both of whom survived and were seen fleeing the scene.

Islamist terrorists in Russia often use cheap unused mobile phones as detonators. The bomber's handler, who is usually watching their charge, sends the bomber a text message in order to set off his or her explosive belt at the moment when it is thought they can inflict maximum casualties.

The phones are usually kept switched off until the very last minute but in this case, Russian security sources believe, the terrorists were careless.

The dead woman has not been identified. Her handler, a 24-year-old woman from the internal Muslim Russian republic of Dagestan, has been named as Zeinat Suyunova. Her husband is apparently still serving time in jail for himself being a member of a radical Islamist terror group.

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Why Are Obama's Defenders So Dumb?

2012-01-17T19:51:00.001-05:00

IBD editorial destroys Andrew Sullivan's puff piece in Newsweek.

(IBD) A presidential infomercial posing as a news magazine distorts the record to shamelessly shill for a failed administration. Why do we criticize the man who made the high-speed trains run on time?

Political campaigns call it free media: when candidates can make their case and communicate their message through interviews and outlets that don't cost a dime.

It helps when a mainstream media sycophant like Andrew Sullivan gets to write a puff piece in Newsweek with the subtle title of "Why Are The President's Critics So Dumb?" The Democratic National Committee couldn't have said it better.

Calling the president's critics dumb is not novel, and it's something President Obama and wife Michelle have done often. When ObamaCare was being shoved down our throats behind closed doors, the president said he had simply not made the case clearly enough so that opponents in flyover country, those bitter townsfolk clinging to their Bibles and guns, could get it.

Sullivan says it's "not true" Obama "has raised taxes" and that ObamaCare "is much more moderate" than its critics claim. Well, let's start with Obama's raising the federal tax nearly 62 cents on a pack of cigarettes to $1.01, which hits Occupy Wall Street's 99% hard and makes a mockery of the pledge not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000.

Then there are the ObamaCare taxes that took effect right after it was passed though the "benefits" won't appear until 2014. For starters, there's a 0.9% Medicare surtax on wages more than $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for married couples, along with a 3.8% Medicare tax on investment income.

There's the "Cadillac tax" on high-value health plans from which unions sought exemption. There are the individual and employer mandates that require employers to provide or individuals to buy health insurance.

So egregious are these added taxes and costs the Obama administration has had to issue 1,200 waivers to favored companies and labor unions supporting the president's re-election. Meanwhile, insurance costs have risen, not fallen, and the promise of health care rationing and doctor shortages looms.

Sullivan repeats administration talking points on nonexistent employment growth. But as we've pointed out, unemployment remains at an unacceptably high 8.5% and the figure is that low only because we don't count those who have dropped out of the work force or limp along with part-time jobs. With the failed stimulus, Obama promised unemployment wouldn't exceed 8%.

The president has also piled on more debt in three years than President Bush did in eight — the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president. Are you better off than you were $5 trillion ago?

Sullivan repeats the canard about Obama inheriting a bad economy, claiming "economies take time to shift course." Yet Obama said at the start he would be a one-term president if he didn't turn things around in three years. All he has done is run the economy aground.

President Reagan inherited a bad economy. But instead of nationalizing everything in sight, he cut taxes and let the entrepreneurs loose. Real GDP today is a mere 0.04% above its pre-recession peak. At the comparable point in the Reagan recovery, unemployment had plunged to 7.3%, while the economy had grown 12% above its pre-recession peak and was still climbing fast.

On foreign policy, Sullivan says Obama "reversed Bush's policy of ignoring Osama bin Laden, immediately setting a course that eventually led to his ... death." But that course was plotted and locked in long before Obama took over, fueled by information gleaned using "enhanced interrogation techniques" that Obama rejected in favor of civilian trials for the likes of Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

Americans see a president who squanders resources on high-speed rail, politically connected solar panel makers and other green enterprises that go bankrupt, and electric cars that catch fire while he dithers like Hamlet over a pipeline from Canada that could cut energy costs and bring up to 250,000 jobs over its lifetime.

They see a president who has kept one of his promises — to make energy prices "necessarily skyrocket" as his EPA declares war on fossil fuels and domestic energy while mandating that through the use of bio-fuels we put food in our gas tanks as food prices also skyrocket.

They see a military gutted by budget cuts to make up for bloated and runaway domestic spending.

They see allies like Britain and Israel abandoned while a mortal enemy, Iran, is ignored as it proceeds virtually unimpeded to a nuclear weapon. The Russian "reset" button has resulted only in the betrayal of allies such as Poland and Czechoslovakia on missile defense.

The president touts an "Arab Spring" while Shariah law takes hold in Libya and Islamists take over in Egypt. Iran salivates as our withdrawal leaves a vacuum Tehran is all too willing to fill. We're now willing to negotiate with a Taliban we once condemned as terrorists.

All in all, it's an abysmal record of domestic and foreign failure, of an oppressive government that spawned the Tea Party movement and left most Americans fearful the country their children will inherit will be one of debt and despair in an increasingly dangerous world.

No surprise, then, that the latest Real Clear Politics average shows roughly two-thirds of Americans (65.3%) believing the country is on the "wrong track," vs. 28.3% who think things are fine. Or that a recent Gallup poll shows nearly two-thirds see a big yet ineffective government as "the biggest threat" to the country.

In other words, Mr. Sullivan, they get it — even if you and the president's other defenders are too dumb to.

University debate on Sharia law stopped by Muslim who threatens to murder anybody who speak ill of Islam

2012-01-17T18:54:00.003-05:00

(UK) On the 16th of January 2012 at Queen Mary College London, National Secular Society member Ann Marie Waters was going to give a talk on Sharia law. But at the last moment it was cancelled. Why, you ask? You see, just before the talk started, a man (with a beard) walked to the front of the lecture theatre and filmed everybody inside with a camera. He then issued a warning to everybody he had filmed:

"Listen up all of you, I am recording this, I have your faces on film now, and I know where some of you live and if I hear that anything is said against the holy Prophet Muhammad, I will hunt you down."

He then left the room and started filming people outside in the corridor where he issued yet another threat. Threatening to hunt them down if anything was said about Muhammad, he added that he knew where they lived and would murder them and their families. He then left the building and sought safety in a group of thugs who were there to ensure that their religious bigot wasn't taken down by somebody without a fight.

In light of this, security told everybody in the room to remain there, while they debated what to do. A student union representative decided that as lives had been threatened, the talk could no longer go ahead, and the evening was cancelled.

Strike one for religious bigotry. The funny thing is the very same day the bBC and Guardian both posted articles about just how good life under Sharia law is, it seems they forgot to ask anybody who was threatened with murder from Queen Mary's College London.

New Polls Show Signs Of Serious Problems For Boy Wonder

2012-01-17T17:08:00.000-05:00

(ABC) [T]hree new national polls should give Democrats some serious pause. They show a very vulnerable president who is serious danger of losing re-election.

ABC/Washington Post polling shows Obama’s approval rating at 48 percent. Pollster Gary Langer writes: “In polling since 1940, just four previous presidents have started their re-election year with less than 50 percent approval. Only one of them won, Richard Nixon in 1972.”

Gallup’s Lydia Saad writes: ” Obama’s job approval rating has averaged 44 percent in Gallup Daily tracking since the start of January. That is below the approval rating of seven out of eight previous incumbents at a comparable point in their presidencies.”

CNN/ORC poll asked voters who they saw as best able to “get the economy moving.” Just 40 percent chose Obama, while 53 percent picked Romney.

ABC/Washington Post and CNN/ORC polling show Obama in a dead heat with Romney.

Iran’s Subsidiary Goal: Disarm Israel

2012-01-17T11:21:00.000-05:00

(Commentary Magazine) The increased attention given to the threat from Iran’s nuclear program by both Israel and the United States has set off alarm bells on the left, where even the Obama administration’s at times half-hearted effort to pressure the Islamist regime is worrying. But those arguing against the crippling sanctions that the United States is thinking about imposing–let alone the use of force to avert the Iranian nuclear threat–have a subsidiary goal: disarming Israel. That’s the point of an op-ed in today’s New York Times by Shelby Telhami and Steven Kull, who urge that those worried about the danger an Iranian nuke would pose to Israel, the Middle East as a whole and the security of the West, should instead focus their efforts on getting Israel to disavow its own nuclear deterrent.

The conceit of this argument, which repeats a point some in Iran and others in the Muslim world have also put forward, is that the way to persuade the ayatollahs to renounce nukes is to force the Jewish state to dismantle its own nuclear arsenal. But the seeming fairness of this proposal masks its inherent bias. Unlike Iran, or indeed any other country on the planet, Israel faces threats to its existence as a nation. Those who wish to give up its ultimate weapon are asking it to put its trust in the goodwill of its neighbors and the international community, a notion that contradicts the lessons of Jewish history as well as the very reason for Israel’s existence.

Telhami and Kull’s thesis seems to begin with the premise that there is no way for the West or Israel to prevent Iran from getting nukes eventually if that is their goal. They claim that since Iran will have its nukes if it wants them badly enough, the real choice is not between a nuclear Iran and a non-nuclear Iran but between a Middle East in which neither Israel nor Iran has nukes and one in which they both have such capability. That is not true, because even if a bombing campaign would only set the Iranian effort back a few years, the continuance of sanctions and the threat of future attacks would, if the West were determined to press its point, force Tehran to give up its nuclear fantasy. But the pair ignores this and goes on to argue that a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East is actually more desirable for Israel than a non-nuclear Iran.

While it is true that a Cold War-style policy of mutually assured destruction would not work, that is an argument for stopping Iran, not disarming Israel. It is also true that Israel’s official ambivalence about its nuclear weapons is pointless, and it can be argued that its nuclear deterrent is of limited value as everyone knows they will never be the first to use one.

But the one thing those who dismiss the value of Israel’s nuclear arsenal often forget is that Israel’s status as an unofficial nuclear power provides the state’s enemies with a very convincing argument to avoid a direct challenge to its existence. Forcing Israel to divest itself of such weapons, even if it will never use them, can only encourage those in the Muslim and Arab worlds who continue to dream of its destruction. Israelis rightly say that a nuclear-free Middle East must await the conclusion of a lasting peace agreement that will ensure such fantasies are impossible.

Those who ask us to disarm Israel rather than preventing Iran from gaining such weapons also ignore the obvious difference between the goals of the two nuclear programs. Israel is a democracy and has no wish to obliterate its neighbors or to end their independent existence. Iran is an Islamist tyranny whose goal is the destruction of Israel. Anyone who sees these two states as morally equivalent or believes there is no real difference between them with respect to possession of nuclear weapons has either lost their moral compass or is pushing another more sinister agenda. Diverting diplomacy aimed at persuading the ayatollahs to abandon their nukes into a discussion about Israel’s weapons won’t heighten the chances for Middle East peace. It will just give Tehran more time for its scientists to work on a weapon.

It is to be hoped that sanctions and an oil embargo will force Iran to realize it must abandon its nuclear dream without the use of force. But no matter which method the West must ultimately employ to stop Iran, disarming Israel is merely an invitation to more Middle East strife.

EHRC stops deportation of terrorist mullah due to his human rights

2012-01-17T09:52:00.004-05:00

(GB) Well, in another win for human rights, terrorist mullah Abu Qatada, al-Qaeda member wanted for terrorism in the Middle East and benefit scrounger who, while promoting to the masses that living amongst the kufr is the worse sin, not only has no problem living off the kufr in a kufr land, but fights tooth and nail in which to remain here rather than go back to living amongst the faithful in a pure Islamic holy land.

Which is why today, the European Human Rights Court has backed his right to remain in the unholy United Kingdom and not be deported to his native Jordan, because the assurances that Jordan gave that Abu won't get picked on for his past activities in playing with a chemistry set don't hold much water with them. The simple solution to this is to get the Jordanians to say they won't pick on Abu by getting them to swear on their holy book Koran, and everybody would be happy. I mean everybody knows that a Muslim wouldn't lie while holding a Koran, don't they? I wonder why the human rights lot at the EU or even the British Foreign Office never thought of that.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International, yes, that AI which uses active Islamic terrorists as their human rights spokesmen (I'd say 'person' but we all know that Allah is gender specific), calls this a great day for human rights, but that more work needs to be done in which to protect the rights of Islamic terrorists living in the West.