Berkeley, California: Marines are "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" [Updated]

Can you believe this? The city of Berkeley, California, has passed two resolutions to harass and kick out a US Marine Corps recruiting station in the city, and are aiming for more:

"By taking a stand against recruitment we are protecting the health and safety of our youth," said PhoeBe sorgen, a member of the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission. "I see the protest as taking a proud and courageous stand."

Code Pink, a national anti-war grassroots organization, will be granted a parking spot for their regular Wednesday afternoon protests and will not need to apply for a sound permit for the next six months, under one resolution.

The other resolution more directly criticizes the presence of the center in Berkeley. The city manager was directed to send a letter to the U.S. Marine Corps saying they are "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" in the city.

In addition, the city attorney has been directed to investigate whether the city's anti-discrimination laws can be enforced at the center, based on the military's consideration of sexual orientation in hiring.

Good luck with that last bit, since the UCMJ and United States Code are mandated by Congress. Michelle Malkin is all over this story, as well as Move America Forward, but I had to say a couple things as well.

In addition to defending our own nation in every major conflict in its history (as if that's not enough), the US Marine Corps has been involved in peacekeeping missions all over the world. In recent years, they provided humanitarian and medical relief after the 2004 tsunami that hit SE Asia, after the 2005 earthquake that hit Kashmir, and after Hurricane Katrina hit the Southern US the same year.

Boycotting the Marine Corps is not only myopic, but incredibly short sighted. The US Marine Corps was officially founded in 1798. It's been around long before the Iraq War started, and will be around long after it's over. Boycotting them because you oppose the war in Iraq is like boycotting the police because you don't agree with one particular police raid. The United States has a legitimate need for the Department of Defense. Who would protect these pacifists if the kind of people who joined the Marines just packed up and left the country one day?

In fact, these are sad and miserable cowards, who, from the safety of their easy chairs, congratulate each other for their "courage" (e.g. Mrs. Sorgen's quote above) and enjoy all the benefits of their free nation, while attacking those that have kept it so.

Oh, and I just had to say this: I question their patriotism. Am I allowed to say that now?

UPDATE: 02/01/2008 11:08:00 AM:
See great response in the comment section.

Also, great quote by American Legion National Commander Marty Conatser:

"Without recruiters we have no military. And I don't think we can count on the flower children from Berkeley to protect this nation when it comes under attack. They have to remember that Marines are not the enemy; the terrorists are."

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New Abu Gharaib documentary on the horizon

The documentary is premiered in Berlin. I was in Baghdad during the Abu Gharaib scandal, and I sent some of our prisoners there. What happened there was criminal, but compared to so many other events going on in the world at that time, it didn't warrant a full year dominating the world's headlines.

In any case, JammieWearingFool sums up my feelings perfectly:

You don't see any celebrity documentaries about the mass killings of Saddam Hussein. You hear diddly squat about the hundreds of annual public executions in Iran.

The murder and imprisonment of political prisoners in Cuba?

Pfft.

But a few soldiers get out of hand, pose with prisoners and put panties on their heads? Why it's nonstop coverage for five years, now culminating in a documentary, which is sure to sweep up awards and accolades worldwide, just because it makes us looks bad.

I don't know how good/bad this documentary is, but if it performs anything like other recent anti-war films, it will tank at the box office.

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Sea Lion Crime

The Galapagos Sea Lion, embedded from PBS

This story didn't get much publicity, but it is one of the most appalling, and at the same time, most baffling crimes you will find:

Ecuadorean officials are investigating the slaughter of 53 sea lions from the Galapagos Islands nature reserve, which were found with their heads caved in.
The dead animals included 13 pups, 25 youngsters, nine males and six females.

Galapagos National Park official Victor Carrion told AFP news agency that each was killed by "a strong blow from someone", though the motive is unknown.

They had not been injured in any other way, he said, discounting the notion they had been killed for their parts.
...
In 2001 poachers killed 35 male sea lions in the archipelago, removing their genitals and teeth.

However, according to Mr Carrion none of the animals killed in this latest attack had been mutilated and no cuts were found on their skin or limbs.

That's the part that doesn't make any sense. Why would someone smash the heads of 53 animals and just leave the bodies?

They were not killed for food, trophies, organs, or skins. Fishermen have been known to kill sea lions because they compete for fish, but this happened on a nature reserve, and the sea lions probably would have been worth more than a haul of fish for the day. The only conclusion that comes to mind is that some sick individual(s) slaughtered them for the sheer thrill of it.

An Ecuadorean prosecutor agrees:

The killings had to be committed by humans, said Jaime Estevez, who called it the work of "the criminal mind of some people who enjoy watching these animals suffer."

People who kill other people for the thrill of it are known as sociopaths (or technically now called dissocial personality disorder), and they have no empathy for others or feelings of guilt whatsoever. In other words, pure evil. I'm sure the same concept applies to people who slaughter wild animals for no particular reason.




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UK: Man admits to beheading plot [Updated]

Parviz Khan and co-conspiritors

If this doesn't disturb you, I don't know what will:

A man described as a "fanatic" has pleaded guilty to plotting to kidnap and kill a British Muslim soldier.

Parviz Khan, 37, an unemployed charity worker from Birmingham, intended to seize and behead the serviceman "like a pig", Leicester Crown Court was told.

Three other men, Basiru Gassama, 30, Mohammed Irfan, 31, and Hamid Elasmar, 44, have admitted other offences connected with Khan's plot.
...
The jury was told how Khan, of Alum Rock, intended to use drug dealers to kidnap the soldier while on a night out, behead him in a lock-up garage and then release footage of the killing to the public.
...
"He would be taken to a lock-up garage and there he would be murdered by having his head cut off like a pig," he said.

"This atrocity would be filmed... and the film released to cause panic and fear within the British armed forces and the wider public."

Besides the prospective beheading, there is something else disturbing here. Do you see something out of place in the photo above?

The three men in the bottom half of the photo are Basiru Gassama, Mohammed Irfan, and Hamid Elasmar. In the article, Gassama is identified as a Gambian national, but what are the other two? I could certainly be wrong, but they don't look the slightest bit like Arabs or Pakistanis to me. More likely, they are part of a growing trend of Western Europeans converting to radical Islam, particularly in the prison system. The problem is largest in the UK and France, where over half the prison population is Muslim.

UPDATE 30/01/2008 11:53:00:
Little Green Footballs discusses this story, with a larger photo of Parviz Khan. As Charles Johnson astutely points out, notice the dark spot on Mr. Khan's forehead? Those are callouses on the forehead, a tell-tale mark of some of the most radical Muslims, who grind their forehead into the carpet five times a day during their prayers.




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Germany's CDU down thanks to the media

Photo by 1541

While the world's media are still obsessing over the US primary race, we had a real election in Germany yesterday, the state elections. Here's a quick brush-up for those that didn't follow it: The results are in, and the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), who were once heavily favored to win by 12 points, instead skated ahead of the competition by a razor-thin margin of 0.1%.

The majority of the people who read this weblog are Americans, and most of them couldn't care less about what happens in German politics. But the election was illustrative for another reason: if the media lies to the public enough, people will begin to believe it.

For weeks, German media had reported that Roland Koch, the governor of Hesse and a leader in the CDU, had been running a "divisive" campaign, and that people found his "attacks" on immigrants "offensive".

Problem is, Koch never really said anything offensive (I wrote about all this earlier here), or anything that anyone really disagreed with (you can go to that link to see his actual words, but essentially, he only pledged to deport foreigners who committed crimes in Germany). But that didn't matter. The media's consensus was that Koch was running a "nasty" campaign, and without any real questioning of the matter, self-identified "offended" people were proof of this.

So now we are supposed to accept that Koch lost the election for the CDU because his approach was considered "attacking immigrants". By the way Spiegel looks at it, Chancellor Andrea Merkel (who is also CDU) and Mr. Koch must be in deep mourning over their "loss". Incredibly, in an article that crosses the line from news into editorialism, Die Welt is celebrating the SPD's "victory", and glowingly calls Andrea Ypsilanti (from the socialist SPD party, Governor Koch's main opponent in the election) the "governor of the heart".

Problem is, if I need to remind once again, the CDU actually won (albeit just barely), and nobody was attacking law-abiding people in the campaign. But no matter. The media have spoken, and the people follow.

It's a pretty good lesson for America too.




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Where do they find these "leading thinkers"?

"Death to America": Iranian military parade in Sep of last year (see bottom of this article for more details)

One reason I started this weblog was to counter misinformation in the media.

There is a article in the current issue of Foreign Policy magazine, titled: "What America Must Do" (partially available online), in order to improve its reputation around the world. The article supposedly includes the "world’s leading thinkers", so I am finding it hard to understand how this guy, Reza Aslan, slipped in:

A few years ago, I was strolling through the Iranian city of Isfahan when I happened upon a group of teenagers sharing a picnic along the banks of the Zayandeh River. I sat with them for a cup of tea and a smoke from a water pipe perched in the middle of the circle. Catching my accented Persian, one of them asked where I lived.

“I live in America,” I replied.

The conversation suddenly came to a halt. A girl of 17 leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “What is it like to live in a theocratic state?”

That a young person living in the only country in the world in which the religious leaders are also the political authorities could believe, in all earnestness, that the United States has become a theocracy should be all the evidence Americans need that the socalled war on terror has corrupted America’s image abroad. From the moment U.S. President George W. Bush launched what he called “a crusade” against “evildoers,” there has been a growing sense, not just in the Muslim world but among even our closest allies, that U.S. foreign policy is being filtered through an unprecedented union of religious and political ideology.

So this misperception is President Bush's fault? Do we control the Iranian media or do the Mullahs? Somehow, I think the daily chants of "Death to America" in Iran contribute far more to the bad image the US suffers over there.

And how does he explain these statements by Iranian President Ahmadinejad in 2005?

that "The oppressive powers will disappear while the Iranian people will stay. Any power that is close to God will survive while the powers who are far from God will disappear like the pharaohs,"...

"Today, it is the United States, Britain and the Zionist regime which are doomed to disappear as they have moved far away from the teachings of God," he said in a speech in the western town of Javanroud.

"It is a divine promise."

Doesn't that sound like he's joining "religious and political ideology" just slightly more than President Bush is? His reference to the "pharaohs" here is also very intentional. The pharaoh of the Book of Exodus, who opposed Moses and refused God's commands, is one of the biggest symbols of the enemies of God (oOf course, you just can't miss the irony here that God's intention in that story was to free Israel and found their own nation - the same nation which Iran is now trying to destroy).

Incidentally, Mr. Aslan (bio here) who was born in Iran but immigrated to the United States, is another example of someone enjoying the freedoms of America, while using those same freedoms to attack the USA for its lack of freedom. It's a non-sequitor that only the fringe left could understand.

What kind of bothers me is that it's my job to actually defend &*$$#@!! people like this...

Additionally, in an online interview, discussing his article, he says:

Two days after September 11, the very first words that [President George W. Bush] used to talk about what we were going to do—unscripted and without any mediation from his advisors—was to refer to this war as a crusade. Immediately afterward, his advisors jumped all over themselves to say that’s not really what he meant. And since then, [Bush] has tried hard to not have that religiously polarizing rhetoric, though he told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz in 2003 that God had told him to strike at al Qaeda.
...We are using the same rhetoric and the same religious rhetoric that bin Laden is using to promote his agenda.

Is he on drugs? So Bush accidentally lets slip the word "crusade" on one occasion, that is the same thing as Bin Laden's continuous and explicit calls for jihad? Additionally, the second claim, that Bush said "God had told him to strike at al Qaeda", is irresponsible. Not only was it denied by the White House, it was denied by Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who was, according to Ha'aretz, the one who supposedly reported that quote in the first place! Even CommonDreams.org, one of the most Bush-hating sites on the Internet, was skeptical about it's authenticity.


About the photo above: The signs say in English: "Down with USA", "Down with Esrail" [sic], but in Arabic: "Death to America", "Death to Israel".

The photo was attributed to Hasan Sarbakhshian of the Associated Press. It was posted by Yahoo! News with over 1,000 recommendations, but was mysteriously pulled from their database.




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Students from Germany joined Al-Qaeda fighters in Iraq

This doesn't do much to improve people's perception of immigrants in Europe.

Germany's Spiegel (in German) reported today about a list of foreign Al-Qaida fighters discovered in Iraq which included four immigrants who were residents/students in Germany (for a similar problem in the UK, look here). At least one of them volunteered for a suicide mission.

Once again, how could this be? Germany hasn't been involved in the Iraq war. Like the Spanish Al-Qaeda arrests last week, I think this shows that the global jihad is fueling the War on Terror, not the West's response to it, as many in the anti-war crowd would have us believe.

Article translated into English below:

Students from Lower Saxony fight in Iraq for Al-Qaida

American soldiers have given Spiegel information about an explosive list seized from a camp in Iraq. According to it, a group of young students from Lower Saxony are fighting on sides of the terrorist organization Al-Qaida against the US army.

Hamburg - in the lists with names of foreign recruits, US soldiers in the camp have confirmed details of four men from Lower Saxony who volunteered for Jihad, and were given to Spiegel. Two of the men, Radhuan Ibn Jussif N., 25, and Siad B., 30, suddenly disappeared in the spring of this past year from the Braunschweiger student dormitory "Affenfelsen" ("Ape rock").

The two Tunisians had studied at the technical university of Braunschweig and were considered unremarkable; B. lived for ten years in Germany, N. since 2003. The background is still unclear with the other two members of the jihad traveling group: In contrast with usual, another Tunisian named Nidal al-K claimed to be a doctor and put himself up for a suicide attack, according to the documents. It is uncertain whether he is still alive.

German investigators are now lookig at who contacted and recruited the four jihadists in Germany. The group declared that they had traveled through Turkey and Syria to the combat zone.

The Federal Criminal Investigation Office and Internal Security assume that since 2003 more than 80 volunteers from all across Germany traveled to Iraq, with about half of those actively fighting on the side of Al-Qaeda. In a further preliminary investigation, the investigators currently are following up on a possible connection with an Islamic cell in Barcelona and German contacts: This past Saturday Spanish police had arrested twelve Pakistanis and two Indians, who are suspected of planning an attack in Barcelona.

More in the new issue of Spiegel.

Did you notice the age of those guys? 25 and 30 years old and they were supposed to be "students" in Germany??

UPDATE :
One clarification - what got me what not so much being students at their age (not uncommon to find graduate students that age in America) but that they were still living in a student dormitory (the word can Studentenheim can also refer to a hostel). 30 is kind of old for that...




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Photo of the week - do you know who this is?

Carla Bruni, from DT/Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, via Stern

This is Carla Bruni, the model who has made plenty of headlines in Europe because she is the girlfriend (and rumored wife/fiance) of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. This photo appeared in DT, a Spanish men's magazine, and greatly irritates some of the French, concerned about their national image (personally, I think she'd make a hell of a first lady). Some background here.

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Why Spain? And why were they even there?

On the 14 terrorism suspected terrorists arrested in Spain, 10 have just been arraigned. CNN reported today:

The Spanish judge overseeing the arraignment of 10 terrorism suspects said Wednesday that they had "planned to carry out a series of suicide attacks" last weekend on public transportation in Barcelona.

But how could this be? Don't some people insist that President Bush's wars of aggression are what is fueling terrorism? Why would Al-Qaeda plot against Spain again, when Spain dropped out of the Iraq war?

Three reasons:

1) Spain has a small contingent of soldiers in Afghanistan, supporting the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (although an irritant, this was probably not the focus of the suicide bombers).

2) Spain has been mentioned by Al-Qaeda leaders on many occasions as part of the world-wide Islamic caliphate which must be taken back from the crusaders ("the tragedy of Andalucia", as Bin Laden calls it).

3) In 1996 (years before we had a President Bush), Al-Qaeda issued its formal declaration of war against the US and its allies, which includes Spain, a NATO member.

There is another issue on which all Europeans deserve an explanation. Why were these men even in Spain to begin with?

The ruling said three suspected suicide bombers had traveled from Pakistan to Barcelona since October, with the most recent one arriving as late as mid-January.

The three had followed another Pakistani man -- the alleged explosives expert -- who had just arrived after a five-month stay in Pakistan.

How were these men able to get visas for entry into the EU??

Spanish news media reported that authorities became alarmed recently when a known Pakistani militant arrived in Barcelona.

So once again, question: if this man was a "known militant" why was he permitted entry in the first place?

Finally, this could be either good or bad news depending how you look at it, but it's still sobering nonetheless:

More than 250 suspected Islamic extremists have been arrested in Spain since the Madrid train bombings killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800 on March 11, 2004, the Interior Ministry has told CNN.

Some more info: According to the Counterterrorism blog, the timing may have been connected to the attacks on Benazier Bhutto in Pakistan:

The Spanish Media linked the plot to Musharraf's state visit to several European capitals this week and reported that other European countries including Britain, had been warned by the Spanish authorities of "imminent attacks."

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UK toughening terrorism laws

Some small assistance, but not much:

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's plan would increase the limit for detaining suspects without charge from 28 days to 42 days, allow police to take DNA samples from terrorism suspects and urge judges to impose stiffer sentences on criminals whose offenses are linked to terrorism.

I'm not sure what the real advantage is in holding suspects without charge for two weeks longer. If you can't even find enough evidence in one month to at least charge them with a crime, I don't think 14 days more is going to matter.

When I was in the 1-1 Cav in Iraq from 2003-2004, our command's policy was that we couldn't hold Iraqis longer than 72 hours without a formal charge. That was it. And believe it or not, we nearly always made that deadline. Why not? It wasn't so hard. We always had our evidence before we detained the individual(if we didn't have any evidence, we wouldn't have detained them in the first place!).

Here's another idea: how about cutting off terrorism at the source? While it wouldn't stop the ones already there, drastically reducing immigration levels would similarly drastically reduce the number of prospective terrorists entering the country (for an example look at next item above).

Even without the threat of terrorism, don't you think it's something that an island as crowded as Britain should be considering anyway?

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UK: "Three Little Pigs" story rejected because it may offend Muslims

I just can't make this stuff up:

A pop-up book based on a popular children's fairytale has been dismissed as "offensive to Muslims" by a Government agency.

The Three Little Cowboy Builders, targeted at youngsters aged five to 11, re-tells the classic fairy-tale of The Three Little Pigs.

But Becta, the Government's educational technology agency, turned down the digital book for an educational award because it might offend Muslim groups.

Feedback from the BETT Awards explained that the judges "could not recommend this product to the Muslim community" and even that it "might alienate parts of the building trade."

Not only is this political correctness gone mad, but in fact, Muslims should be insulted too. There is an unstated but obvious suggestion that they are going to start rioting over a "Three Little Pigs" book. The sheer idiocy here boggles the mind.

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Diana worship - beyond parody

The Daily Express, a UK semi-tabloid, has a large section of its web site devoted to the inquest into the death of Princess Diana. As I explained previously, the British and the French have already completed their investigations long ago and found an accident caused by drunk driving. This current inquest is a colossal waste of the Crown's time and money, and is entirely devoted to the airing of conspiracy theories by Mohammed Al-Fayed, the father of Dodi Fayed, who was also killed in the car crash.

And some of these theories, are off the nuttiness scale, such as claims that Princess Diana was killed by the CIA, for example.

But just when I heard it all, some loons are now linking Diana with Jesus Christ. I am not joking - I wish this was a parody, or something from The Onion. I really do. Here's a sample:

I call "the later Diana" CHRIST DIANA because it represents the apex of the feminine energy necessary to entwine itself in this world if the masculine energy is to be balanced and warfare cease. It might now be easier to understand why so many girls and women have been and remain so affected. You see! It goes a little deeper than an extensive wardrope ~ "and for my vesture they did cast lots" [John 19:24]
AND BY THE WAY... any baby, any child touched by Diana (now matter how casually) is strictly "out-of-bounds" to the dark forces.

Full copy and remarks below...

This is not what I intended to post but sleeping poorly I felt myself STRONGLY IMPRESSED to say these things.
What I say... I say to you ALL, with love.

The one the world knows as 'Diana, Princess of Wales' represents a great archetype that visits the race frequently, and as the Age of Pisces drew its burial sheet, those visits became more frequent.

'Diana' had been, for example, the maternal grandmother of CHRIST JESUS ~ the one recognised by those souls of the Roman Catholic faith as 'Saint Anne'. Norwegian medium Rita Eide wrote this in her first book, 'The Celestial Voice of Diana'. ("Funnily enough, the Queen of England has among her very, very many possessions ~ and surprising sources of income ~ a picture of me with my daughter and grandson by perhaps the greatest of the Masters, Leonardo") That's right. But her name then would have been – in the Hebrew – Hannah.

The increasing involvement of this great archetype ~ feminine in energy ~ had to be felt more keenly with the development and the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

As Marilyn Monroe it would have been entirely possible for "Diana' to encourage John Kennedy to stand firm in his opposition to Israel obtaining "the bomb". As is so often the case, Love and Peace were rejected and so a disastrous, extremely painful train of events, inevitable – and what Almighty God calls "a necessary chastisement" – has to befall and, indeed, we see the "appropriate entities" in power and coming into so.

Yep! Marilyn Monroe. I saw it with my own eyes: a little potted plant ~ one tribute among hundreds laid on the ground before the gates of Diana's former home on the occasion of the first anniversary of her passing in 1998. In an anonymous message ~ and few would have read it because some little humility was required to stoop so low ~ what purported to be the spirit of 'Diana' said wonderful things: how she was now able to visit any patient in any hospital in the world at any time of the day; that many who were due to have had cancers and heart attacks would now not because of the release of the emotions that week a year before; and how she had been the walk-in soul of Marilyn Monroe. I remember her explaining the soul (very well) as coming in like segments of an orange. 'Oh dear!' I thought: 'Perhaps Diana's suicide "attempt" had been successful'. I felt sad then as I still do for "the young Diana" who had kept herself 'tidy'.

I call "the later Diana" CHRIST DIANA because it represents the apex of the feminine energy necessary to entwine itself in this world if the masculine energy is to be balanced and warfare cease. It might now be easier to understand why so many girls and women have been and remain so affected. You see! It goes a little deeper than an extensive wardrope ~ "and for my vesture they did cast lots" [John 19:24]

AND BY THE WAY... any baby, any child touched by Diana (now matter how casually) is strictly "out-of-bounds" to the dark forces.

MIRACLES DID NOT START WITH THE INTERNET, Hue says: "At the end of the Age of Pisces we have a great Net: how appropriate!" (That's just one line of his Oratory at Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park). When I do that, ma'am, I cannot do it without great inspiration. What I want to tell you good folks about ~ in case you don't know about it ~ is the very great inspiration of Andrew Russell-Davis. (Although 'channeling' is nothing new; it was happening long before the internet: the world's 'holy books' have some examples of it. BUT 'direct voice' IS very rare.)

PLEASE FOLKS, DON'T BICKER SO.

IF YOU ARE SINCERE in a search for the truth, then paste into any search engine this:
http://dianaspeaks.com
... and you're off and running!

The following are just a few of the treasures from this extraordinary resource. It would have been nice to have had paragraphs (and Andrew uses quotes strangely) BUT 'DIANA SPEAKS' IS THE MOST DETAILED AND ACCURATE SITE ON THE ENTIRE WORLD WIDE WEB. Please use this resource....

"THE REASON FOR DIANA SPEAKS"
http://forum1.aimoo.com/::::...Diana_Speaks...::::/The-Forum/The-reason-for-Diana-Speaks-1-698856.html

"WHY 'DIANA' DIED ? THE SHOCKING TRUTH !"
http://forum1.aimoo.com/::::...Diana_Speaks...::::/The-Forum/Why-Diana-died-The-Shocking-Tr-1-429243.html

"DIANA AND THE LANDMINES CAMPAIGN" :
http://forum1.aimoo.com/::::...Diana_Speaks...::::/The-Forum/Diana-and-the-Landmines-Campai-1-933913.html

"PARIS AUGUST 31st 1997"
http://forum1.aimoo.com/::::...Diana_Speaks...::::/The-Forum/Paris-August-31st-1997-1-948859.html

You can actually hear him channel if you google in 'Diana Speaks Out'.

What She wants to say here is, "Thank you" to all at the 'Daily Express' ~ from the proprietor to the cleaner ~ for aiding and abetting the truth. BUT YOU JUST WANTED TO SELL PAPERS... "that's allowed", she smiles...

His "Diana speaks" web site seems to be currently down (or maybe it was all in his imagination like the rest of his letter). Strangely, the author starts off making it sound as if it is an impromptu letter, when in fact he has posted the exact same letter several times at the Daily Express site alone.

Good thing the UK has socialized mental health care. This guy needs it.

Diana was a nice woman but she was not a perfect angel, let alone the next coming of Christ. She had plenty of human frailties and weaknesses. She did a bit of charity work, yes, but it may have been out of boredom as anything else; remember that she didn't have a real job and had lived in luxury and privilege for her entire life. I liked her, but she was really just an ordinary woman, like anyone else.




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Buckingham Palace guard

Just because the UK is the theme of the moment. From my Flickr photos, taken on Oct 13, 2007.

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Even Iraqis see a problem in the UK

According to a UK paper, the Blackburn Citizen:

THE Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq has claimed mosques in Blackburn are more extreme than in his home country, according to an MP.
...
"I am not surprised that you British are facing so many problems with extremists after what I saw in those mosques in Blackburn.

"What I saw...would not be allowed here in Iraq - it would be illegal."

and later:

"He went inside the mosques, and said literature he saw would be illegal. He was quite clear. The comments are only directed at a very small proportion of mosques in the UK - the vast majority of Muslims wouldn't want to be labelled."

(found via Islam in Europe)

There is a strange phenomenon going on, in that Mosques in Western Europe are frequently more radical than their counterparts in Islamic countries. The Times did an investigation last year on this very problem. Not surprisingly, sheer ignorance and blind trust on the part of the UK government was one of the primary causes...

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The Beauchamp/TNR story is really over

The other shoe drops in the Scott Beauchamp/TNR scandal. If for some reason you are not familiar with this story, you can start here and here.

From a FOIA request, Confederate Yankee has copies of Scott Beauchamp's actual sworn statements during the Army's investigation of the incidents in his article. Beauchamp claims, contrary to his own article:

1) He never saw a dog hit by a Bradley vehicle

2) He never saw human remains in a mass grave being desecrated

He doesn't answer to any of the other improbabilities in his TNR article (like mocking a disfigured woman), probably because the investigators never asked (strictly speaking, even if it happened, it wasn't a crime).

The sworn statements of other soldiers in the investigation (with their names blanked out) are also on display here and here. They are rather lengthy, and the handwriting is difficult to read. But not surprisingly, none of them support anything Beauchamp said.

Think we'll get apologies from Beauchamp's cheerleaders in the blogosphere now?

Just for nostalgia's sake, let me once again remind readers what some of Beauchamp's supporters said last year:

Franklin Foer, editor of TNR (requires media player):

My magazine this last week has been subject of basically a smear job by the Weekly Standard and a lot of the conservative blogosphere over a piece that we published from a soldier in Iraq, which we have gone back and re-reported and it turned out to be aside from one mistake to be the case and I just wish that there was, and this sounds like a trite mainstream media criticism, but that those in the blogosphere who kind of move from one reckless allegation to another reckless allegation for once apologize when they get something wrong.”

(Mr. Foer never really apologized for the story, although the issued a kind of vague excuse-filled explanation here)



Andrew Sullivan:

Read TNR's accounting. It is as I predicted: honorable and, except for one small inaccuracy, it checks out. All the aspects aggressively challenged by the usual propaganda organs have been verified and corroborated. The military is now conducting its own investigation. Given the record of such formal investigations, I'm not as confident in the Pentagon as I am in TNR. Can we now expect apologies from the people who smeared and maligned the magazine and its soldier-reporter? I doubt it. The attackers are not the kind to acknowledge their own errors.

(Neither, apparently, is Andrew Sullivan. He has still never issued an apology for these statements)



Matthew Yglesias on 26 July:

as best I can tell nobody has yet brought forward any serious reason to doubt his story...
All these people [Beauchamp's critics] need to stop. They need to take a deep breath. They need to apologize to the people at TNR who've wasted huge amounts of time dealing with their nonsense.

And Yglesias again on 2 Aug:

Well, it looks like The Weekly Standard and the right-wing blogosphere really turn out to have the goods be full of shit... Nevertheless, despite being totally wrong, it's arguably mission accomplished for the right...And there you have it -- if the troops say things the right doesn't like, they get mau-maued into silence. Meanwhile, anyone who says the war may not be so fantastic hates the troops.

Ezra Klein on American Prospect:

these people are thugs. They freaked out about The New Republic's anonymous diarist because his words clashed with the childish mythology they've constructed around the US Military. Despite lacking any actual evidence disproving or even calling into question his story, they were able to make enough noise to spark an investigation and media attention.

Also, later:

If Beauchamp is indeed a liar, I'll be surprised

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo:

Imagining that every story that doesn't kowtow to the Bush personality cult is another Rathergate in the making, the rightwing blogosphere exploded with a wave of accusations and fabrications, all alleging in one fashion or another that the stories were made up. The charges even got recycled and trumpeted in the Washington Post.

Unfortunately for them, TNR did a in-depth re-fact-check of the pieces (which given the Glass backstory, was, I am sure, extremely thorough) and with the exception of one relatively minor error they all check out.

More quotes of the anti-war crowd embarrassing themselves by defending this guy can be found here.




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London housing costs: a symptom of "white flight"

White areas of London

CNN in the UK just ran a piece on television (not currently available online) about how the bottom of the real estate market in London is rapidly dropping out, and most of the larger building projects are having a difficult time finding investors. Most of the remaining investors are foreigners as it is. Similar news already arrived late last year. This is in fact, one symptom of a greater problem.

This isn't a financial blog, so I'll get to the main point. You have affluent white Londoners fleeing the city in droves (even the country's chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, now admits it), replaced with immigrants from Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Meanwhile housing prices are the highest in the world. These two conditions simply cannot remain both true at the same time. One or the other has to give. And it looks like it's the price of housing.

Look at this photo I took to the right:

£240,000 ($468,000) for a crappy, small one bedroom apartment?? Or you can live outside of London and pay less than half that much. It's a no brainer, especially when the neighbors you have known for decades are all leaving too.

Why don't people stay put? Why can't they make a better effort to get along with their neighbors? Not many people are asking that question of immigrants, but they are asking white Londoners. Trevor Phillips once blatantly blamed white people for this problem, and asked:

How should Asian families integrate when the first reaction to their arrival in a "white" area is a forest of For Sale signs?

That's certainly a fair question. But let's turn it around. How many "for sale" signs do you think you would see if only one Asian family moved into a single tenement block. How about two? Three? Probably not many at all. But now try 100 families moving in, with reports of crime on the rapid increase. What do you think happens then? White people, like all people around the world, want to live in safety, and generally prefer to live with others of similar interests and cultural background. But why is it only "racist" when whites do it? London was a very crowded city as it is, and as the chart at the top shows, the British have literally been squeezed out of their own capitol.

This week, a schoolgirl in London was raped and maimed for life after her attackers used drain cleaner to destroy DNA evidence. Of course, the mainstream news described her attackers only as "youths". An editorial at the Daily Telegraph this week asks: "Is it any wonder people are fleeing London?"

I'm almost embarrassed to say that the attackers have been described as "five black youths", in case you think I'm being racist in highlighting this crime.

Yes, these are the peculiar times we live in, particularly in a week when Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has pointed out that "white flight is accelerating" as Britain becomes increasingly polarised along ethnic lines.

Following the controversy started by the Bishop of Rochester, who said that some Muslim enclaves were "no-go areas" for Christians, it all seems to suggest a country that is becoming increasingly fragmented; a patchwork of rigidly delineated little pockets of race and religion, knots of unyielding humanity who just can't rub along with each other.

This is not a Britain many of us would care to recognise, or even want to live in, although it is true that certain sectors of the middle class are fleeing from inner London like pashmina-wrapped lemmings, desperate to escape the creeping spread of urban decay.

Last year, nearly a quarter of a million decent, law-abiding citizens packed their bags and left the capital for good, seeking what they hope will be a better life elsewhere.

I'm not trying to fan the flames or discontent or sound racist. It's just that we have to speak about this frankly, because it is the current reality. The chart at the top of this article didn't come from the BNP or some immigrant hate site, but from the Guardian, a socialist newspaper that is greatly sympathetic to immigrants. Truth is, London, like any other large city, has plenty of room for plenty of people of all races to live. But just like any boat at sea, it will overturn and be swamped if too many people take advantage of the opportunity to climb onboard too quickly. Change, particular such drastic change, happens far more responsibly when it is done at a moderate pace.




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Flickr Update

View of the Vatican City from the dome at St. Peter's Basilica

If you haven't seen them before, now would be a good time to check out the photos on my Flickr page. I just uploaded a major update of pictures from the last year. Incidentally, unlike some Flickr users, I don't just upload every photo I have. Basically I choose only the absolute best that I have (about one in a hundred or so make the cut).

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Photo of the week

Dita Von Teese, embedded from Der TagesSpiegel

This is one of many publicity photos for the prestigious Vienna Opera Ball, which this year will be held earlier than usual on January 31st. The woman is 35 year-old Dita Von Teese, (born Heather Renée Sweet) an American actress/burlesque star. The Ball has been a tradition in Vienna since 1936. Tickets start at 230 Euros ($336), and a theater box will cost you 17,000 ($24,800)!

In recent years, leftist anti-capitalist protesters have concurrently held their "Opernballdemo" to protest the wealth of the event.

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Dutch politician goes Jihad on us

Bouchra Ismaili

Bouchira Ismaili, a Moroccan-born Labor party councillor from the city of Rotterdam, fired off a very angry email to a Dutchman, Jos Parbleu. It said in part: "Drop dead", "convert to Islam", "You are the migrants here", and "You are a miserable devil worshipper" (full text down below).

So what prompted the angry email in the first place? Jos Parbleu sent an email to Ms. Ismaili and hundreds of others about two worrisome quotes by Okay Pala, the local leader of the radically Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, and published in the Turkish-Dutch "De Telegraaf" (more on this at Islam in Europe). Mr. Pala had said: "We reject freedom of speech, because we reject democracy," and "What you need is a heavy bomb attack".

But instead of attacking Mr. Pala or those quotes, she went after Mr. Parbleu for telling us about it!

Here is the full text of her email and its formatting (translation from multiple sources)

Listen well, dirty madman, WE'LL STAY HERE, hahahahahahhahah, DROP DEAD. I
am a dutch moslem, and I shall stay one until my death. I feel pity with your kind, you must live with hatred, really sad. My father and mother have worked hard to help build this country, and I have nothing to do with what others think or say. You are a miserable devil worshipper!!! You have sold your soul!!! Rather bizarre, to believe in the devil and his entourage, and to negate God the almighty and ruler over heaven and earth. Your kind are the worst terrorists, you have been terrorizing our lives for years here in Holland. But fortunately, you are few only, and most dutchmen are developed and tolerant. You are the migrants here!!!! With Allah by my side, I fear nothing and nobody. I AND MY CO-MOSLEMS ARE LIVING, your kind is being eaten up by hatred. A piece of advice, if I may, convert to Islam and find tranquility in your heart. Hatred eats you up and makes your heart stay empty. You have only a limited time in your life, go get a life and enjoyment, soon it's all over. We are living.......................You are trying to make something undone, to influence the lives and fates of others. Freemason hahahaha, you are not free, you are a slave of the devil. You think you're a kind of god, really sad, go and have yourself checked! If you're a man with BALLS, let me know who you are, let us talk. You can always talk to me. I know, you're empty inside, and sometimes you feel you wouldn't exist. You want to be seen and heard, but you're simply ORDINARY, a gray mouse and a pathetic little person, one of those billions walking around on this globe. But I hear your cry of emergency. I hear your cry for attention. I shall also have time for you, despite of the fact that I'm fully busy to make Holland a more beautiful, clean and safe country, where people can develop and live in freedom and democracy, no matter what color, origin or faith. Where, for all I care, even devil worshippers have a spot, for who am I ultimately to judge. This I leave to the judges' judge, ALLAH A RAHMAN OU RAHEEM!!! [Allah the most merciful]

The original text of the email in Dutch can be seen here.

Mr. Parbleu and others forwarded the email to Mrs. Ismaili's party head and Gates of Vienna has his response, in which he tries to dismiss the problem away and simultaneously change the subject:

Dear People,

I wouldn’t give this too much attention.

Ms. Bouchra’s response is understandable but maybe a bit offensive to some, and we as PvdA would not like to be held responsible for it. For example, Jos Parbleu (the constituent in question - translator) posted on the blog mores-mores a reply to an article written by Alain Caruba, a US citizen, as he presents himself. He added an article supposedly written by a Freemason. This article is completely bogus. According to this article Freemasons are out to rule the world. Nothing is further away from the truth, as I, being a Freemason can testify.

Ms. Bouchra assumes in her response to Jos Parbleu that he is a Freemason. Wrongly, as he never suggested it.

Just let it rest.

Her "response is understandable" and "maybe a bit offensive"??

Anders Wellebeeke at The Dutch Daily points out something else:

I must admit that Ismaili is right about one thing: The ethnically Dutch are rapidly becoming foreigners in their own cities. Today, 36 pct of the Rotterdammers are of non-Western origin, i.e. Surinamese, Turkish or - like Ismaili - Moroccan. Under the age of 21, however, this percentage has risen to approximately 53 pct.

Since I believe very strongly in free speech, I'm not sure if she should be censured for her remarks, although they do sound very much like threats to me. But beyond this, there are two other things that disturb me: 1) If a white Christian politician sent out a similar email, Muslim groups would be up in arms calling for his resignation, and making death threats (but here they are rather silent), and 2) It disturbs me that this is not some anonymous phone caller or an imam during a sermon, but an elected official, which my most definitions would mean that she is supposed to be as assimilated as a immigrant could be expected to be.

Am I still considered an "islamophobe" or a right-wing alarmist if I say that the Netherlands really has a problem?

For some similar problems in the Netherlands in the recent past, look here and here.




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