Michelle Malkin

Dear Muslim Terrorist Plotter/Planner/Funder/Enabler/Apologist,

You do not know me. But I am on the lookout for you. You are my enemy. And I am yours.

I am John Doe.

I am traveling on your plane. I am riding on your train. I am at your bus stop. I am on your street. I am in your subway car. I am on your lift.

I am your neighbor. I am your customer. I am your classmate. I am your boss.

I am John Doe.

I will never forget the example of the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who refused to sit back on 9/11 and let themselves be murdered in the name of Islam without a fight.

I will never forget the passengers and crew members who tackled al Qaeda shoe-bomber Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63 before he had a chance to blow up the plane over the Atlantic Ocean.

I will never forget the alertness of actor James Woods, who notified a stewardess that several Arab men sitting in his first-class cabin on an August 2001 flight were behaving strangely. The men turned out to be 9/11 hijackers on a test run.

I will act when homeland security officials ask me to "report suspicious activity."

I will embrace my local police department's admonition: "If you see something, say something."

I am John Doe.

I will protest your Jew-hating, America-bashing "scholars."

I will petition against your hate-mongering mosque leaders.

I will raise my voice against your subjugation of women and religious minorities.

I will challenge your attempts to indoctrinate my children in our schools.

I will combat your violent propaganda on the Internet.

I am John Doe.

I will support law enforcement initiatives to spy on your operatives, cut off your funding and disrupt your murderous conspiracies.

I will oppose all attempts to undermine our borders and immigration laws.

I will resist the imposition of sharia principles and sharia law in my taxi cab, my restaurant, my community pool, the halls of Congress, our national monuments, the radio and television airwaves, and all public spaces.

I will not be censored in the name of tolerance.

I will not be cowed by your Beltway lobbying groups in moderates' clothing. I will not cringe when you shriek about "profiling" or "Islamophobia."

I will put my family's safety above sensitivity. I will put my country above multiculturalism.

I will not submit to your will. I will not be intimidated.

I am John Doe.

Passengers Sued Over Imams' Removal

Six Muslim men removed from a plane last fall after being accused of suspicious behavior are suing not only the airline but the passengers who complained — a move some fear could discourage travelers from speaking up when they see something unusual.

The civil rights lawsuit, filed earlier this month, has so alarmed some lawyers that they are offering to defend the unnamed "John Doe" passengers free of charge. They say it is vital that the flying public be able to report suspicious behavior without fear of being dragged into court.

"When you drive up the road towards the airport, there's a big road sign that says, `Report suspicious behavior,'" said Gerry Nolting, a Minneapolis lawyer. "There's no disclaimer that adds, `But beware if you do that, you might get sued.'"

The six imams were taken off a Phoenix-bound US Airways flight on Nov. 20 while returning home from a conference of Islamic clerics in Minneapolis.

Other passengers had gotten nervous when the men were seen praying and chanting in Arabic as they waited to board. Some passengers also said that the men spoke of Saddam Hussein and cursed the United States; that they requested seat belt extenders with heavy buckles and stowed them under their seats; that they were moving about and conferring with each other during boarding; and that they sat separately in seats scattered through the cabin.

The plane was cleared for a security sweep, nothing was found, and the jet took off without the imams.

The Muslim clerics say they were humiliated, and are seeking unspecified damages from the airline, the Minneapolis airport and, potentially, the John Does.

Omar Mohammedi, the New York City attorney for the imams, said the intent is not to go after passengers who raise valid concerns about security. But he suggested some passengers may have acted in bad faith out of prejudice.

"As an attorney, I have seen a lot of abuse by the general public when it comes to members of the community creating stories that do not exist," Mohammedi said.

He denied the imams were talking about Saddam, and said that their seats were assigned and that they requested extenders because their seat belts didn't fit.

Some fear such lawsuits could weaken what has become the first line of defense against terrorism since Sept. 11 — an alert public. At airports and train and subway stations around the country, travelers are routinely warned to watch for unattended bags and suspicious activity and to notify authorities.

Ellen Howe, spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, which oversees security at all U.S. airports, would not comment specifically on the imams' lawsuit. But she said the TSA counts on passengers to help the agency do its job.

"`See something, say something' is certainly a common mantra in this day and age," Howe said. "We would always remind passengers to be both vigilant and thoughtful."

In reaction to the imams' lawsuit, Congress has taken steps to legally protect passengers who report suspicious activity. Earlier this week, the House approved an amendment to a rail transportation security bill that would make passengers immune from such lawsuits, unless they say something they know is false.

Mohammedi said he has not yet identified any of the complaining passengers. An airport police report listed a passenger and two US Airways employees as complaining about the imams. All three had their names blacked out before the lawsuit was filed by invoking a Minnesota law that allows it, airport spokesman Pat Hogan said.

Nolting said he has been contacted by several potential John Does.

Passenger Pat Snelson, who lives in a Twin Cities suburb, said he and his wife were not among those who reported suspicious behavior. But he said his wife noticed the men praying, and he saw them moving around the cabin while others were boarding.

"These guys were up to no good," Snelson said. "We think the airport people did a real good job in taking care of it."

Bomb-sniffing dogs examined the men and their baggage. FBI agents and other federal law enforcement officers questioned the men for several hours before releasing them.

Billie Vincent, a former director of security for the Federal Aviation Administration, said he is troubled by the mere attempt to identify the passengers who raised concerns.

Airline passengers "are your eyes and your ears," said Vincent, who now owns an aviation security company. "If attorneys can get those names and sue them, you put a chilling effect on the whole system."

Terrorists Targeting Students: The Kids are not Alright

American Thinker ^ | March 29, 2007 | Marc Sheppard

Just months after 9/11, videotapes were confiscated in Afghanistan showing al-Qaeda terrorists training to takeover a school. Six months later, spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheith boldly declared al-Qaeda's "right" to kill 2 million American children. In 2004, an Iraqi national with known terrorist connections was caught with a computer disk containing information detailing Department of Education crisis planning for U.S school districts.

Last year, two Saudi men - one wearing a black trench coat despite the Florida heat -- terrified a busload of Tampa schoolchildren by boarding a school bus and remaining for the entire ride to school, all the while laughing and speaking Arabic.

And just this month, the FBI and Homeland Security Department issued a "routine advisory" bulletin to state and local officials warning that foreign members of "extremist groups" either already possess or are attempting to procure licenses to drive school buses. Additionally, according to the AP:

"[The bulletin] noted ‘recent suspicious activity' by foreigners who either drive school buses or are licensed to drive them."

The dispatch went on to say that some of these same unnamed foreigners have been able to buy school buses right here in the homeland.

Yet the news of such a potentially immediate threat to our children was carefully spoon-fed to us on a Friday afternoon -- not a good indication of transparency -- with a curious lack of concern as a chaser.

A Tepid Warning of an Incendiary Threat

While the report did spark some media fire the weekend it was announced, now -- not two weeks later -- the embers are all but cold. As parents, we are now forced to discover why. Surely, there's something awry in the cloudy ping-pong game of facts being played by FBI and DHS spokespeople, who have absurdly dismissed any possible terrorist linkage.

For starters, officials have shown neither the fortitude nor the decency to properly identify the suspects authorities -- and diligent parents -- should be on the lookout for. Moreover, after stating that law enforcement agencies should "watch out for kids' safety," they then claim that "parents and children have nothing to fear." Really?

So, just what is the extent of the threat and who are these unnamed, undescribed "extremist groups?" We've been down this road before. Refusing to specify race or ethnic background is probably a clear sign that we're not talking about some backwoods militia. And, while there are whispers of an al-Qaeda connection, no officials have yet been willing to go on record with any affirmation.

If they were protecting sources or other secrets vital to their investigation, why issue such an impotent warning at all?

No, it seems more likely that the PC police are now protecting the feelings of Arab male Wahabbist Islamic extremists - or themselves from accusations of profiling - even at the risk of our children's wellbeing.

Of course, anyone doing so would be culpable for delivering our most vulnerable of citizens to our most ruthless of enemies, literally inviting their all-too-well-known barbaric extortion methods.

Terrorism, of course, promotes its goal by its very name. And, what better way to terrorize and demoralize than to target our children -- to exploit the inborn drive of all living creatures to protect their young in order to inflict maximum emotional impact on our country? And what easier a soft target than a bus or classroom filled with many highly visible yet defenseless victims and few, if any, in a position to actually protect them? Plus -- can anyone imagine a more horrific hostage crisis?

The Beslan Horror - An Omen All But Ignored

Sadly, envisioning such a nightmare doesn't require a vivid imagination, as images are readily available by simply googling the word "Beslan." Indeed, the Beslan school massacre remains, to date, modern history's most horrendous example of a cowardly assault on school children. And we ignore its lessons at the peril of our young.

On the first day of school in September of 2004 in the Russian town of Beslan, approximately 100 pro-Chechan Islamic terrorists - many embedded as school workers -- seized over 1,200 children and adults in School Number One. While the details of the siege are quite disturbing, they must be absorbed in order to properly understand the threat before us.

Men, women, and children (including babies) were herded into an unventilated gym, where temperatures rose to 115 degrees. Hostages were given no food or water and women (and some children) were repeatedly raped. Adult and stronger male students were forced to help fortify the building; then shot without mercy; their bodies tossed out a second story window into the courtyard.

Hostiles warned Russian Security Forces that if stormed, they would detonate the building and that for every one in their ranks killed, 50 hostages would be butchered. Armed guards stood amongst prisoners on "deadman switches" which were wired to explosives. Others wore "black widow" suicide vests, which could be triggered by remote control at the whim of their sadistic leaders. Doorways and stairways were booby-trapped and children were forced to sit on windowsills as human shields from snipers.

Unspeakable sadism and horror continued for three long days, and can be graphically experienced by those wishing to do so by a 9 minute slideshow put together by officialmastersofchaos.com (Video). Warning - this is pretty ghastly stuff.

While numbers vary with their source, across the bloody 3-day standoff some 700 people were wounded and 338 killed, including 172 children. The memories of the rows of little body bags stretched out in a makeshift morgue are destined to haunt the ages. The murderers, many of whom are still at large, and their methods must also share a special place in our memories - such that similar inhumanity to children is never permitted to occur here.

Children of a Jihadist's God - Acknowledging the Terrorist Mindset

We live in a crazy world in which more than a few Palestinian parents proclaim pride in the "martyrdom" of their own children and promote a culture in which suicide bombers are revered as teen idols. To them, youngsters are seen potentially as both weapons and high-visibility targets. And, while most Islamic scholars can cite passage after passage declaring the killing of children as an abomination, to the extremists, children are obviously a disposable commodity. They've been strapping explosive belts onto their brainwashed kids and rejoicing in the shrapnel and guts of their own bloodline painted onto charred walls for decades.

And, as any IDF soldier will readily tell you, "brave" Palestinian terrorists routinely take innocent children of their own people as human shields (video).

But last week, jihadist cowardice sank to a new low when Iraqi terrorists used the presumed innocence of two young children to breach a military security checkpoint in Baghdad. Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations on the Joint Staff, told reporters that the vehicle was waved through because two children were visible in the back seat:

"Children in the back seat lowered suspicion, (so) we let it move through, they parked the vehicle, the adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back. The brutality and ruthless nature of this enemy hasn't changed."

I must take issue with the Major's final assessment. This new ploy does, indeed, represent a change for these barefoot barbarians in that they've taken a cue from their murderous brethren in Palestine, sacrificing innocent children to further their loathsome cause. The significance of this malignant mindset must never be trivialized.

It's up to us to see to it that the kids ARE alright

Of all the "soft" targets the United States has to offer these madmen, it's hard to find any more vulnerable than a school.

And, as al-Qaeda has a history of plotting spectacular and awe-inspiring attacks, you'd be equally challenged to find a more inviting one.

Plus, as explained by Joliet, IL Police Sgt. Dwayne Killian, an instructor in school safety drills, a few successful attacks on schools might be seen as a method to topple the U.S. economy:

"To protect their children from possible terrorist attacks, parents would pull them out of school and day-care centers and stay home from work to be with them -- and the economy collapses."

Abu Gheith's 2002 warning; school plans in the hands of terrorists; Saudi's terrorizing American schoolchildren on buses; 172 Russian school-kids slaughtered; "extremists" seeking to get behind the wheels of bus-loads of our children; jihadists sacrificing children to kill a few Americans; now a new story of a nutjob in Manilla taking 30 kids hostage on a bus - ENOUGH!

It's become glaringly obvious that -- contrary to the words of both the FBI and the famous song by The Who - our kids are not alright. And it's high time that we parents see to it that appropriate and resolute action is taken to change that condition without delay.

Granted, fortifying our schools against such incursions is a daunting task. Nevertheless, the carefree days of obliviously sending the tots off in the morning with blind faith in their safekeeping are over. And, while authorities claim to be working on "hardening" schools as targets, it's hard to discount this amazingly lame shot at reassurance from the FBI/HMS memo:

"Most attempts by foreign nationals in the United States to acquire school bus licenses to drive them are legitimate."

Comforting? Try reprehensibly bungling. Do we need any more confirmation that there are "foreign nationals" out there bent on our destruction? That the privilege to drive hundreds of our precious and beloved children every day should be reserved for U.S citizens only and then only after extensive background checks? That these checks should not be less stringent (as is often the case) than those of the schools' janitors or lunch ladies, which, in this age of Columbine, run-away sexual abuse of children and the nefarious plots discussed herein, are themselves often recklessly relaxed?

In the unlikely event that you need further convincing that it's time to become actively involved in your school district's safety plans, here's a stark reminder of terror's reach that Sgt. Killian routinely gives educators:

"Osama bin Laden promised that the terrorist attack on a Russian school in 2004 will happen many times over in the United States."

Dare we leave these dots unconnected any longer?

Marc Sheppard is a technology consultant, software engineer, writer, and political and systems analyst. He is a regular contributor to American Thinker. He welcomes your feedback.

Heading for war with Iran? (Brit press gets mad)

Daily Telegraph ^ | 30th March, 2007 | Simon Heffer

I start to wonder whether it might not be time for us to get as nasty with other countries as they do with us.

As we wait anxiously to see what will happen to our 15 hostages - for that is what they are - in Teheran, we should feel undiluted rage at the behaviour of other countries and institutions towards us.

Mind you, when those third parties witness the drivelling weakness of the Foreign Office over the last week, and in particular the pathetic show put up by our Foreign Secretary - who must surely be just about the worst in our history - who can blame them?

There is no doubt the 15 were in international waters when captured, or that they were undertaking a United Nations mission in pursuit of upholding UN resolutions. Yet the best the UN itself can do is pass a weak-kneed resolution describing its “grave concern”, rather than a tougher one calling upon all nations to “deplore” Iran’s behaviour.

This is all the fault of Russia, to whom Mr Blair routinely cosies up, and whom the civilised world invites to its annual G8 summit meetings. Russia seems to think it isn’t worth “deploring” the kidnap of our sailors, so we had better start to show Russia what we think of it: by uninviting it from the G8 this year, and every year until it learns some manners.

When not busy ordering the murders of his opponents, Vladimir Putin seems to enjoy hobnobbing with the leaders of civilised countries, so such a sanction would hurt.

We don’t have the means to engage in gunboat diplomacy with Iran, and any special forces operation would be fraught with risks both for the hostages and their rescuers.

For the moment, ever-stricter sanctions on Iran seems the only answer. America is resolute about this. So too, oddly, is the world’s greatest sanction-busting nation, France. So the scope for tightening the economic ratchet on Iran, and the means to do so, look healthy.

However, we should be under no illusions about the effectiveness of such weapons.

Saddam Hussein, after all, was put under sanctions for years. Real hardship was caused to his people, but almost none at all to him and his ruling clique.

President Ahmadinejad of Iran has already threatened Britain about our involvement of “third parties” - that is, the UN - in the present dispute, showing his utter contempt for that organisation.

He would treat sanctions with similar disdain, happily cutting off the noses of his own people to spite their faces. And all the time, the threat he and his inherent instability pose to us all would never cease growing.

Whatever the immediate outcome of this crisis, Britain has some hard decisions to make. Is it worthwhile, any longer, to work through the United Nations?

So long as a morally warped nation like Putin’s Russia calls the shots in the Security Council, no.

We can make debating points about how odd it is that Putin deplores Islamic nutters when they attack his forces but is relaxed about them attacking ours, but in the end there is no point in bothering.

The UN showed itself to be weak with Saddam Hussein. It is no better now.

If we are going to continue to try to be a player in the Middle East, then we have to throw in our lot with the Americans, for no-one else makes the blindest bit of difference there.

The capricious, and indeed downright wicked, behaviour of the Iranians towards our sailors confirms one other thing: that the civilised world cannot let the Ahmadinejad regime develop nuclear weapons.

It is not just his oft-repeated enthusiasm for wiping Israel off the face of the earth that should worry us: it is what this madman might decide he wants to do to anyone else within range.

This is no time for our clueless Government to be mothballing the Navy and cutting down the other services. For, at some stage, Iran’s lethal contempt for the rule of international law is going to mean war.

The mysterious deaths of the honeybees
Another story with legs...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Beekeepers throughout the United States have been losing between 50 and 90 percent of their honeybees over the past six months, perplexing scientists, driving honey prices higher and threatening fruit and vegetable production. At a House Agricultural Subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., today, members of various organizations came together to share their concerns about what they have been calling the 'Colony Collapse Disorder,' or CCD.

Beer mug strains EU-Turkish ties [Turkey Frowns at Merkel's Farewell Gift to France's Chirac]

Turkey Frowns at EU's Beer Mug Farewell Gift to France's Chirac

An antique beer mug presented to French President Jacques Chirac as an EU going-away present has drawn criticism from EU-hopeful Turkey for reportedly depicting an 18th century Ottoman defeat by the French.

"The European Union should concern itself with the future rather than the past," Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül told reporters when asked about the mug.

"If the EU has a future vision, it should look to the future," he said. "Harping on the past does not befit the EU vision."

Turkish newspapers said that the mug depicted Napoleon's 1799 victory over Ottoman forces in Egypt and reflected hostility towards Turkey.

It was given to Chirac as a retirement gift by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at celebrations of the EU's 50th anniversary over the weekend.

Merkel is opposed to full membership for Turkey and has instead advocated a special partnership with the sizeable mainly Muslim country.

Mixed feelings about Turkey's accession

Turkey's bid suffered a serious blow in December when the EU froze its membership talks in eight of the 35 policy areas that candidates are required to complete in response to Ankara's refusal to grant trade privileges to Cyprus.

MOD briefing proves Royal Navy personnel were in Iraqi waters

The Ministry of Defence has presented evidence which shows that the fifteen personnel detained by Iranian authorities on Friday 23 March 2007 were operating in Iraqi waters when they were seized.

The briefing, at defence headquarters in London, was given by Vice Admiral Charles Style, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Commitments). Vice Admiral Style, who is responsible for providing strategic advice to operational commanders, explained in detail where the Royal Navy personnel were located when they were seized:

"The aim of this brief is to provide a factual account of the incident during which fifteen Royal Naval personnel were seized by the Iranians last Friday. By way of background, HMS CORNWALL was in charge of the coalition force, which - alongside the Iraqi Navy - is operating in the Northern Persian Gulf.

"This force maintains the sovereignty and integrity of Iraqi territorial waters under UN Security Council Resolution 1723, and with the approval of the Iraqi Government. The ship – and others in the coalition - maintain a presence patrolling there. They are also charged with protection of the Iraqi offshore oil infrastructure – economically very important - and the security of merchant vessels.

"On 23 March a boarding team consisting of seven Royal Marines and eight sailors - who were embarked in two of HMS CORNWALL's boats - conducted a routine boarding of an Indian flagged Merchant Vessel which was cooperative throughout. They investigated this vessel after witnessing her unloading cars into two barges secured alongside. Since early March the force has conducted 66 routine boardings. So the one that I'm talking about was entirely routine business, and conducted in a particular area where four other boardings have been completed recently.

"As shown on the chart, the merchant vessel was 7.5 nautical miles south east of the Al Faw Peninsula and clearly in Iraqi territorial waters. Her master has confirmed that his vessel was anchored within Iraqi waters at the time of the arrest. The position was 29 degrees 50.36 minutes North 048 degrees 43.08 minutes East. This places her 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi territorial waters. This fact has been confirmed by the Iraqi Foreign Ministry.

AP Dozens of Bosnian (Muslim) war refugees sue US over citizenship delays

ST. LOUIS-Thirty- five Bosnian war refugees have filed a lawsuit claiming the U.S. government is unlawfully delaying their applications to become United States citizens.

The Bosnians, who came to the U.S. legally to escape persecution in the former Yugoslavia, have disabilities that range from post-traumatic stress disorder related to the war to various medical conditions, such as a stroke, their lawyers said Tuesday.

About 40,000 Bosnians settled in the St. Louis area in the 1990s, making it one of the major centers for such refugees in the country. They were asked to wait five years before applying for citizenship, said Ann Lever, litigation director for St. Louis-based Legal Services of Eastern Missouri.

Dozens asked for waivers due to disabilities to excuse them from taking the citizenship test in English and were told those waiver requests were approved, she said.

"Every one of them had to submit certification of physical or mental impairments, " Lever said. But then, "Their applications just sat there, and sat there, and sat there."

The officer-in-charge of the St. Louis office of the U.S. Department of Citizenship and Immigration Services, Chester Moyer, said he had not been aware of the lawsuit and could not comment on it.

Lever said 50 Bosnian war refugees filed suit last year over the same issue. Federal officials did not fight that lawsuit, and a special ceremony to naturalize them was held last year.

That successful lawsuit helped to prompt the latest court action.

Fatima Kolic, 74, has lived in the U.S. for more than seven years. She said her federal retirement payments have been cut off because she has not become a citizen.

Kolic, who has diabetes and needs a wheelchair to get around outside of her apartment, said she has been losing sleep over the fact that her citizenship has not been approved.

"I just can say it's very hard to live," she said.

Illegal Alien Criminal Sues Tancredo for Making Him "Poaster Child."

Colorado Bureau of Investigation records show he has been arrested 30 times in Colorado since 1981 for offenses that include DUI and assault.

He was released in May 2006, which prompted Tancredo to send a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff - and media outlets - saying that he was "shocked" that a dangerous illegal criminal was released despite his long criminal record.

Tancredo said it was part of a continuing "catch and release" policy by the White House.

Alkidi filed a hand written complaint last year, demanding $5 million for defamation of character, saying that "U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo caused me Mental Stress and No Sleep Because I am always thinking Why and How I became his poaster child."

Britian Must Accept Arrest in Iranian Waters

Muslim woman sues judge over veil

A Muslim woman whose small-claims court case was dismissed after she refused to remove her veil sued the judge Wednesday, saying her religious and civil rights were violated.

Ginnnah Muhammad, 42, of Detroit, says in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit that Judge Paul Paruk's request to remove her veil — and his decision to dismiss her case when she didn't — was unconstitutional based on her First Amendment right to practice her religion.

The claim against Paruk also cites a federal civil rights law in alleging that Muhammad was denied access to the courts because of her religion.

Muhammad wore a niqab — a scarf and veil that covers her head and face, leaving only the eyes visible — during the October hearing in Hamtramck, a city surrounded by Detroit.

She was contesting a $2,750 charge from a rental-car company to repair a vehicle that she said thieves had broken into.

Paruk told her he needed to see her face to judge her truthfulness and gave her a choice: take off the veil while testifying or have the case dismissed. She kept it on.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car Co. then filed a claim seeking a judgment of $2,000 against Muhammad. A hearing is set for April 18 before Paruk in Hamtramck's district court.

Muhammad's attorney, Nabih Ayad, said that she unsuccessfully sought to get a different judge to hear the case and that she and her client plan to ask him to remove himself from the case.

A message seeking comment was left Wednesday for Paruk.

Metropolitan Detroit has one of the country's largest Muslim and Arab populations.

Schools panel discusses adding Muslim holiday (Baltimore)

A majority of the Baltimore County public school system's calendar committee is in favor of closing schools on at least one of the most important Islamic holidays of the year, one member of the group said yesterday...

Brice Freeman, a schools spokesman who served as chairman of the calendar committee, said the group did not vote on specific recommendations but forwarded a list to Hairston of "outstanding issues" -- including the Islamic holiday -- raised by the panel of more than 20 members.

Yesterday, some members said it was not clear that the group had reached consensus on closing schools for Eid al-Fitr, which celebrates the end of Ramadan...

But Dr. Bash Pharoan, the Baltimore-area surgeon who has led the effort since 2004 to close schools for Islamic religious observances, issued an announcement yesterday morning that the group unanimously supported the change.

"The calendar committee members in their fourth and final meeting agreed unanimously that Islamic holidays should be treated equitably with the Jewish holidays as official school closing days for the secular reason of equity," Pharoan's announcement stated.

Another committee member, however, disputed Pharoan's statement.

"There wasn't a consensus," said Kevin Connelly, principal of Colgate Elementary...

In an interview later, Pharoan said he is hopeful that school officials will afford the Muslim community the same deference it has given to Jews and Christians.

"I believe this request is reasonable," said Pharoan...

During last night's school board meeting, Hairston said the announcement distributed by Pharoan was "inaccurate." "No recommendation has been forwarded to me," Hairston said.

If the school system decides to close for the Islamic observance, it would become the only district in Maryland.

Britain Severs Ties With Iran

Britain severed ties with Iran Wednesday, keeping open only channels regarding the plight of 15 British sailors and marines taken captive by Iran last week.

"They should not be under any doubt at all about how seriously we regard this act, which is unjustified and wrong," British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told the House of Commons.

Perry signs 'castle doctrine' bill (TX gun rights alert)

Hillary’s Mystery Woman: Who is Huma?
Great thread... lots of links and speculation.

HOSTAGE SAILORS -- BRITAIN'S IMPOTENCE

New York Post ^

IT'S been a tough month for the British Navy. On March 7, it learned that Tony Blair's Labor government was going ahead with drastic cuts in its budget and number of ships. By this time next year, the once-vaunted Royal Navy will be about the size of the Belgian Navy, while its officers face a five-year moratorium on all promotions. If that wasn't demoralizing enough, last Friday the Iranian Navy seized a patrol boat containing 15 British sailors and Marines, claiming they'd crossed into Iranian waters. They're now hostages and may well go on trial as spies.

The latest report is that the Britons were ready to fight off their abductors. Certainly their escorting ship, HMS Cornwall, could have blown the Iranian naval vessel out of the water. However, at the last minute the British Ministry of Defense ordered the Cornwall not to fire, and her captain and crew were forced to watch their shipmates led away into captivity.

There was a question whether the Blair government would end up leaving Britain with a navy too small to protect its shores. Now it seems to want a navy that can't even protect its own sailors.

Blair Replies to Iran's Seizure of Brit Sailors with Harsh Language

Scott Weiland's wife arrested for arson in L.A.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The wife of Velvet Revolver singer Scott Weiland was arrested and faces a possible arson charge for setting on fire some $10,000 worth of her husband's clothes, police said on Monday.

Mary Weiland was arrested on Saturday at the Burbank home she shares with the singer, according to police. After being booked at the Burbank jail, she was released on $50,000 bond, police said. No further details were released on the arson.

And the consensus is...

Failing Schools See a Solution in Longer Day
Of course they do.

*rolls eyes*

Assimilation plays no part in this history lesson - Los Angeles Times
Victor Davis Hanson must be so tickled.

March 26, 2007

The 400-foot-long mural decorating two outside walls at Theodore Roosevelt High presents a colorful depiction of the rape, slaughter and enslavement of North America's indigenous people by genocidal Europeans.

On the wall of a building inside the chain-link fence, an oversized image of the school's namesake monocled Roughrider waves a sword heroically.

It's an interesting clash of historical perspectives, and I'll use it to poke at the question of how we should be teaching history now that Los Angeles public schools are overwhelmingly Latino.

I stumbled on the beautifully painted call for the descendants of Aztecs and other native cultures to reclaim their continent while hiking around the well-secured Boyle Heights campus in search of an entrance. Now I stand drinking in its full effect with artist Nelyollotl Toltecatl and the man he credits with enlightening him to North America's true history, Olin Tezcatlipoca.

I tracked these two down through an odd little website, http://www.stolencontinent.org . The massive mural — it's more than 18 feet tall at its peak — is a project of "the Mexica Movement," a small but disproportionately outraged cadre whose rhetoric pushes hard against the boundary between political expression and bigotry. A note to a "European," for example, proclaims: "Your people are … inferior to us in your morals, ethics, and humanity — by your collective actions of the last 500 years."

The mural, like the website, offers a blunt assessment of history. If the hundreds of students who swarm by each day looked up from their iPods and cellphones, they couldn't help but notice the churning stream of skulls in the wake of Columbus' Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. They would read that Europeans used smallpox like a WMD and that "Spaniards took babies from their mothers breast and smashed their heads against rocks." They would learn that the Aztecs and other civilizations of native North America were among the most successful on Earth but that "this greatness and wealth was stolen from us by Europeans."

Roosevelt High these days is 99.1% Latino. Not that the Mexica Movement has any patience with that term. "We reject the right of Europeans to define who we are," the website says. "We reject their occupation of our continent and their occupation of our DNA."

Roosevelt's principal, Cecilia Quemada, has not returned any of the messages I've left in many months of calling. Richard Chavez, with the local district office, was more polite. He said he had been an assistant principal at the school when a community member first floated the idea for a modestly scaled mural.

In 1996, Toltecatl, who then went by a name he now sees as a vestige of Spanish atrocities, set to work on an uncontroversial depiction of Chicano history, complete with a tribute to assimilation. He was perhaps a year and several dozen linear feet into the artwork when he attended a lecture by Tezcatlipoca, whose own views of history had changed late in life, when he began to read radical reinterpretations of the American conquest, including "American Holocaust."

That book, by David E. Stannard, teaches something most historians dismiss as egregious overstatement: that "95% of our people were killed by Europeans," Tezcatlipoca says. "I'm 57 years old. I grew up in East L.A. I didn't know any of this as a kid."

Under Tezcatlipoca's guidance, the artist spent the next several years working day and night to paint a less magnanimous vision of the past.

I tend to hear two types of complaints about how history is taught at this moment when Latinos (er, Mexicas?) are consolidating power in L.A.

On the one hand there's the father who called to say his son was humiliated when a teacher yanked down a map of North America and said any white students in the class should be ashamed of the atrocities their ancestors had inflicted on the continent.

Then there are the students, including many I met outside Roosevelt, who say that they've learned nothing in their years of public education about the accomplishments of people from Mexico or Central America.

Sal Castro helped lead the Los Angeles student walkouts of 1968, in part to protest the sense of inferiority schools instilled in non-white students. The retired teacher says history texts are barely more inclusive now than they were almost four decades back.

"We have no heroes," he says.

He rattles off dozens of Mexican Americans who deserve a place in America's official pantheon but remain largely ignored. He quotes the late Times reporter Ruben Salazar: "No man can find a true expression for living who is ashamed of himself or his people."

As my two strikingly pleasant Mexica guides and I buttonhole the high schoolers streaming by the mural, I'm struck by how few seem to have given it more than a glance, by how few demonstrate much grasp of any history — Latino, U.S., world, whatever.

UCLA history professor emeritus Gary Nash, who directs the National Center for History in the Schools, is on an intellectual rampage to rectify this. He warns against teaching only "smiley face" view of the past.

"Do not try to skirt the dark, tragic episodes," he says. "If you do, you will only produce cynics. If you do, when [high school students] get to college and learn a more honest approach, they will say, 'Why did you tell all these lies?' "

He also warns, however, against teaching "victims' history … the story of people who are exploited…. We prefer to teach struggle and survival and getting American society to live up to its ideals, the agenda set down in the era of the American revolution. It's a much more honest and useful history."

I ask Tezcatlipoca about this shared struggle, if there's not something to teaching students that America is a melting pot — e pluribus unum — the one place where people from different backgrounds can live together and try to work things out without obsessing on the past.

He doesn't buy it. He notes that Jews haven't forgotten their Holocaust. He says Los Angeles remains horribly segregated.

"Not where I live," I say.

The homes on my small Mt. Washington loop are inhabited by three African American households, two Asian households, a Latino household and several families whose DNA is largely, for lack of a better term, "European."

We get along. Perhaps because of shared values learned in history classes.

I like our neighborhood. I hope we don't have to give it back.

Assimilation plays no part in this history lesson - Los Angeles Times
Victor Davis Hanson must be so tickled.

March 26, 2007

The 400-foot-long mural decorating two outside walls at Theodore Roosevelt High presents a colorful depiction of the rape, slaughter and enslavement of North America's indigenous people by genocidal Europeans.

On the wall of a building inside the chain-link fence, an oversized image of the school's namesake monocled Roughrider waves a sword heroically.

It's an interesting clash of historical perspectives, and I'll use it to poke at the question of how we should be teaching history now that Los Angeles public schools are overwhelmingly Latino.

I stumbled on the beautifully painted call for the descendants of Aztecs and other native cultures to reclaim their continent while hiking around the well-secured Boyle Heights campus in search of an entrance. Now I stand drinking in its full effect with artist Nelyollotl Toltecatl and the man he credits with enlightening him to North America's true history, Olin Tezcatlipoca.

I tracked these two down through an odd little website, http://www.stolencontinent.org . The massive mural — it's more than 18 feet tall at its peak — is a project of "the Mexica Movement," a small but disproportionately outraged cadre whose rhetoric pushes hard against the boundary between political expression and bigotry. A note to a "European," for example, proclaims: "Your people are … inferior to us in your morals, ethics, and humanity — by your collective actions of the last 500 years."

The mural, like the website, offers a blunt assessment of history. If the hundreds of students who swarm by each day looked up from their iPods and cellphones, they couldn't help but notice the churning stream of skulls in the wake of Columbus' Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. They would read that Europeans used smallpox like a WMD and that "Spaniards took babies from their mothers breast and smashed their heads against rocks." They would learn that the Aztecs and other civilizations of native North America were among the most successful on Earth but that "this greatness and wealth was stolen from us by Europeans."

Roosevelt High these days is 99.1% Latino. Not that the Mexica Movement has any patience with that term. "We reject the right of Europeans to define who we are," the website says. "We reject their occupation of our continent and their occupation of our DNA."

Roosevelt's principal, Cecilia Quemada, has not returned any of the messages I've left in many months of calling. Richard Chavez, with the local district office, was more polite. He said he had been an assistant principal at the school when a community member first floated the idea for a modestly scaled mural.

In 1996, Toltecatl, who then went by a name he now sees as a vestige of Spanish atrocities, set to work on an uncontroversial depiction of Chicano history, complete with a tribute to assimilation. He was perhaps a year and several dozen linear feet into the artwork when he attended a lecture by Tezcatlipoca, whose own views of history had changed late in life, when he began to read radical reinterpretations of the American conquest, including "American Holocaust."

That book, by David E. Stannard, teaches something most historians dismiss as egregious overstatement: that "95% of our people were killed by Europeans," Tezcatlipoca says. "I'm 57 years old. I grew up in East L.A. I didn't know any of this as a kid."

Under Tezcatlipoca's guidance, the artist spent the next several years working day and night to paint a less magnanimous vision of the past.

I tend to hear two types of complaints about how history is taught at this moment when Latinos (er, Mexicas?) are consolidating power in L.A.

On the one hand there's the father who called to say his son was humiliated when a teacher yanked down a map of North America and said any white students in the class should be ashamed of the atrocities their ancestors had inflicted on the continent.

Then there are the students, including many I met outside Roosevelt, who say that they've learned nothing in their years of public education about the accomplishments of people from Mexico or Central America.

Sal Castro helped lead the Los Angeles student walkouts of 1968, in part to protest the sense of inferiority schools instilled in non-white students. The retired teacher says history texts are barely more inclusive now than they were almost four decades back.

"We have no heroes," he says.

He rattles off dozens of Mexican Americans who deserve a place in America's official pantheon but remain largely ignored. He quotes the late Times reporter Ruben Salazar: "No man can find a true expression for living who is ashamed of himself or his people."

As my two strikingly pleasant Mexica guides and I buttonhole the high schoolers streaming by the mural, I'm struck by how few seem to have given it more than a glance, by how few demonstrate much grasp of any history — Latino, U.S., world, whatever.

UCLA history professor emeritus Gary Nash, who directs the National Center for History in the Schools, is on an intellectual rampage to rectify this. He warns against teaching only "smiley face" view of the past.

"Do not try to skirt the dark, tragic episodes," he says. "If you do, you will only produce cynics. If you do, when [high school students] get to college and learn a more honest approach, they will say, 'Why did you tell all these lies?' "

He also warns, however, against teaching "victims' history … the story of people who are exploited…. We prefer to teach struggle and survival and getting American society to live up to its ideals, the agenda set down in the era of the American revolution. It's a much more honest and useful history."

I ask Tezcatlipoca about this shared struggle, if there's not something to teaching students that America is a melting pot — e pluribus unum — the one place where people from different backgrounds can live together and try to work things out without obsessing on the past.

He doesn't buy it. He notes that Jews haven't forgotten their Holocaust. He says Los Angeles remains horribly segregated.

"Not where I live," I say.

The homes on my small Mt. Washington loop are inhabited by three African American households, two Asian households, a Latino household and several families whose DNA is largely, for lack of a better term, "European."

We get along. Perhaps because of shared values learned in history classes.

I like our neighborhood. I hope we don't have to give it back.

Victim wears Mohammad bomb cartoon to Madrid trial

A woman who lost her husband in the 2004 Madrid train bombings displayed an infamous cartoon mocking the Prophet Mohammad on her T-shirt in front of 29, mostly Muslim, suspects on trial for the attacks on Monday.

The woman's white T-shirt showed Mohammad wearing a bomb as a turban -- one of a series published by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten which unleashed violent protests by some Muslims last year.

Study: Day care ups odds of school behavior woes

A much-anticipated report from the largest and longest-running study of American child care has found that keeping a preschooler in a day care center for a year or more increased the likelihood that the child would become disruptive in class — and that the effect persisted through the sixth grade.

The finding held up regardless of the child's sex or family income, and regardless of the quality of the day care center. With more than 2 million U.S. preschoolers attending day care, the increased disruptiveness very likely contributes to the load on teachers who must manage large classrooms, the authors argue.

On the positive side, they also found that time spent in high-quality day care centers was correlated with higher vocabulary scores through elementary school.

The research, being reported today as part of the federally financed Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, tracked more than 1,300 children in various arrangements, including staying home with a parent; being cared for by a nanny or a relative; or attending a large day care center. Once the subjects reached school, the study used teacher ratings of each child to assess behaviors like interrupting class, teasing and bullying.

The findings are certain to feed a long-running debate about day care, experts say.

"I have accused the study authors of doing everything they could to make this negative finding go away, but they couldn't do it," said Sharon Landesman Ramey, director of the Georgetown University Center on Health and Education. "They knew this would be disturbing news for parents ... if that's what you're finding, then you have to report it."

[snip]

The study, a $200 million project financed by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, recruited families in 10 cities from hospitals, after mothers gave birth. The researchers regularly contacted the mothers to find out where their children were being cared for, and visited those caregivers to see how attentive and how skilled they were.

Every year spent in day care centers for at least 10 hours per week was associated with a 1 percent higher score on a standardized assessment of problem behaviors completed by teachers, said Dr. Margaret Burchinal, a co-author of the study and a psychologist at the University of North Carolina.

Iran may charge Brits as spies (indictments possibly coming)

FIFTEEN British sailors and marines arrested by Iran off the coast of Iraq could be charged with spying and held until the US releases five Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized by US forces in Iraq earlier this year.

Reports yesterday said a website run by associates of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had reported that the arrested Britons would be put before a court and indicted.

Referring to them as "insurgents", the site said: "If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since, according to Iranian law, espionage is one of the most serious offences."

Blair convenes Cobra team as crisis in Iran escalates
Some interesting discussion at the link.

FOXNews.com - U.N. Security Council Imposes New, Tougher Sanctions on Iran

• U.N. Security Council OKs
  Tougher Sanctions on Iran

  Members vote unanimously to ban arms exports, freeze assets of additional parties involved in nuclear, missile programs

• Iran Questions Sailors

  Britain demands their immediate release

  Iranian official says British sailors — now in Tehran — knew they were in Iranian waters when taken into custody

CTV Toronto - Muslim moderates threatened in phone call

Muslim moderates threatened in phone call

Police have launched a hate-crime investigation after a phone call was received by the Muslim Canadian Congress from a man who vowed to "slaughter" members of the group unless they stop speaking publicly about Islam.

The message warned organization members that they must "cease from your campaign of smearing Islam" or "I will slaughter you." It was left on the voice mail of the secretary-general for the Congress on Monday.

The caller mentioned Congress founder Tarek Fatah and current president Farzana Hassan-Shahid by name.

Both have openly criticized the politicization of Islam and alleged influence of Iran and Saudi Arabia in Canadian mosques. They have also been threatened in the past.

After publishing her book "Islam, Women and the Challenges of Today," Hassan-Shahid faced hecklers and had her home vandalized.

"But swearing by God that `I will do this and slaughter all of you,' that's pretty chilling," she told the Toronto Star.

"He said that we are a Munafiq organization. Munafiq really means a 'hypocrite' and to call someone like me a hypocrite I think is totally erroneous and fallacious," Hassan-Shahid told CTV Newsnet.

"I have a different understanding of my faith and it's not hypocritical. I've been articulating it in a very honest manner so I think that that in itself is a fallacy and he needs to overcome it," Hassan-Shahid said, when asked what she would tell the caller if given a chance.

Known for his opposition to Sharia law, Fatah campaigned against a 2005 effort to introduce the religious arbitration courts into Ontario law.

A threat last August convinced him to resign as communications director for the Congress.

Jason Kenney, Canada's secretary of state for multiculturalism, said he was deeply disturbed by Monday's threat and notified Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day of the incident.

"Threats of violence against individuals for their political or religious views have no place in this country," Kenney told the Star.

"It's totally unacceptable and I would hope the whole community - both the Muslim communities and the broader community -- would stand in solidarity with those who are being threatened."

Reports say both Fatah and Hassan-Shahid won't stop speaking out but they are frustrated with the lack of public debate and the inability to air their views without the threat of violence.

CTV Toronto - Muslim moderates threatened in phone call

Muslim moderates threatened in phone call

toronto.ctv.ca

Police have launched a hate-crime investigation after a phone call was received by the Muslim Canadian Congress from a man who vowed to "slaughter" members of the group unless they stop speaking publicly about Islam.

The message warned organization members that they must "cease from your campaign of smearing Islam" or "I will slaughter you." It was left on the voice mail of the secretary-general for the Congress on Monday.

The caller mentioned Congress founder Tarek Fatah and current president Farzana Hassan-Shahid by name.

Both have openly criticized the politicization of Islam and alleged influence of Iran and Saudi Arabia in Canadian mosques. They have also been threatened in the past.

After publishing her book "Islam, Women and the Challenges of Today," Hassan-Shahid faced hecklers and had her home vandalized.

"But swearing by God that `I will do this and slaughter all of you,' that's pretty chilling," she told the Toronto Star.

"He said that we are a Munafiq organization. Munafiq really means a 'hypocrite' and to call someone like me a hypocrite I think is totally erroneous and fallacious," Hassan-Shahid told CTV Newsnet.

"I have a different understanding of my faith and it's not hypocritical. I've been articulating it in a very honest manner so I think that that in itself is a fallacy and he needs to overcome it," Hassan-Shahid said, when asked what she would tell the caller if given a chance.

Known for his opposition to Sharia law, Fatah campaigned against a 2005 effort to introduce the religious arbitration courts into Ontario law.

A threat last August convinced him to resign as communications director for the Congress.

Jason Kenney, Canada's secretary of state for multiculturalism, said he was deeply disturbed by Monday's threat and notified Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day of the incident.

"Threats of violence against individuals for their political or religious views have no place in this country," Kenney told the Star.

"It's totally unacceptable and I would hope the whole community - both the Muslim communities and the broader community -- would stand in solidarity with those who are being threatened."

Reports say both Fatah and Hassan-Shahid won't stop speaking out but they are frustrated with the lack of public debate and the inability to air their views without the threat of violence.

Muslim women will have to remove face coverings to vote in Quebec election

QUEBEC (CP) - Muslim women will have to remove their face coverings if they want to vote in Monday's Quebec election.

Quebec's chief returning officer has reversed an earlier decision and is now telling Muslim women who wear a niqab to show their faces when they vote. Facing threats from ordinary citizens that they would show up at polling stations wearing masks, Marcel Blanchet said in Quebec City Friday that voting day must proceed without incident.

Bigger article in today's Globe and Mail as well.

FOXNews.com - Judge Tells Battered Muslim Wife: Koran Says 'Men Are in Charge of Women'
An update. Fortunately the retarded judge has been named and disciplined.

BERLIN — Politicians and Muslim leaders denounced a German judge for citing the Koran in her rejection of a Muslim woman's request for a quick divorce on grounds she was abused by her husband.

JudgeChrista Datz-Winter said in a recommendation earlier this year that both partners came from a "Moroccan cultural environment in which it is not uncommon for a man to exert a right of corporal punishment over his wife," according to the court. The woman is a German of Moroccan descent married to a Moroccan citizen.

The judge argued that her case was not one of exceptional hardship in which fast-track divorce proceedings would be justified. When the woman protested, Datz-Winter cited a passage from the Koran that reads in part, "men are in charge of women."

The judge was removed from the case on Wednesday and the Frankfurt administrative court said it was considering disciplinary action.

Court vice president Bernhard Olp said Thursday the judge "regrets that the impression arose that she approves of violence in marriage.

While the Koranic verse cited does say that husbands are allowed to beat their wives if they are disobedient, Germany's Institute for Islamic Questions noted that such an interpretation was no longer standard.

"Of course not all Muslims use violence against their wives," the group said in a statement.

Olp said the judge thought she was protecting the woman, who had been granted a restraining order against her husband. She had seen no reason to grant help in paying court costs for a fast-track divorce.

Olp said her reasoning was unacceptable, but insisted it was a "one-time event" that would not have an effect on other cases, or on the final ruling in the divorce proceedings.

The latest uproar comes amid an ongoing debate in Germany about integrating its more than 3 million Muslims, most of them from Turkey. A decision last year to cancel an opera featuring the severed heads of the Prophet Muhammad and other religious figures out of security concerns caused a furor and was later retracted.

Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries condemned the judge's decision.

"Every so often, there are individual rulings that seem completely incomprehensible," she said.

Lawmakers from Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats said traditional Islamic law, or Sharia, had no place in Germany.

"The legal and moral concepts of Sharia have nothing to do with German jurisprudence," Wolfgang Bosbach, a lawmaker with the Christian Democrats, told N24 television.

"One thing must be clear: In Germany, only German law applies. Period."

Ronald Pofalla, the party's general secretary, told Bild: "When the Koran is put above the German constitution, I can only say: Good night, Germany."

Representatives of Germany's Muslim population were also critical of the ruling.

"Violence and abuse of people — whether against men or women — are, of course, naturally reasons to warrant a divorce in Islam as well," the country's Central Council of Muslims said in a statement.

The mass-circulation Bild daily asked in a front-page article: "Where are we living?" The left-leaning Tageszeitung headlined its Thursday edition: "In the name of the people: Beating allowed."

Mel Goes Ballistic -- "Lady, **** Off!"

TMZ has learned Mel Gibson exploded in anger last night on a college campus after an expert on Mayan culture accussed him of racially stereotyping the Mayans in the movie "Apocalypto."

It happened last night at Cal State University at Northridge in the San Fernando Valley. Gibson was speaking to a film class about his movies, and several members of the Mayan community came to hear the famous director.

After Gibson's presentation, the crowd was allowed to ask questions. Alicia Estrada, an Assistant Professor of Central American Studies at CSUN, challenged Gibson, asking him if he had read about the Mayan culture before shooting the controversial film. Gibson said he had.

Estrada persisted, stating that representations in the movie that the Mayans engaged in sacrificial ceremonies and had bloodthirsty tendencies were both wrong and racist. Estrada and others tell TMZ that Gibson exploded in anger, responding, "Lady #### off."

We're told Gibson also became extremely angry when members of the Mayan community protested on how they were portrayed in the film. The emotional Mayan members were escorted out of the room, and we're told Gibson screamed a parting shot -- "Make your own movie!" (LOL!!)

UPDATE: Gibson's publicist, Alan Nierob, told TMZ, "This person was a heckler who was rude and disrupted the event, so much so that the event organizers had to escort her out." For the record, Nierob, not Howard Rubenstein, reps Gibson.

Flying imams bill in House

Hill bill protects flying public
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 24, 2007

House Republicans are pushing legislation to protect airline passengers from lawsuits for reporting suspicious behavior that might be linked to a terrorist attack.

Rep. Steve Pearce, New Mexico Republican, introduced the Protecting Americans Fighting Terrorism Act of 2007 on Thursday, a week after a lawsuit was filed by a group of Muslim imams who were taken off a US Airways flight in November.

It is "unconscionable" that those who report suspicious activity could be "terrorized in our own court system in our own country," Mr. Pearce said on the House floor yesterday afternoon.

I'm really no longer capable of commenting on these stories. React as you wish.

'Qur'an allows wife abuse'

Berlin - Germany was outraged on Thursday after it emerged that a German woman judge had refused a Moroccan-born German woman permission to file for divorce on the grounds that the Qur'an allows husbands to beat their wives.

"Where are we living? Woman judge allows beating in marriage and invokes the Qur'an," said a front-page headline in Germany's top-selling Bild newspaper.

"This Moroccan woman has the same right to protection from a violent husband as any German woman. Anything else would be misconceived sensitivity to the benefit of the husband and would amount to racist discrimination against the wife," said the Tageszeitung daily.

The Central Council of Muslims in Germany also condemned the decision.

"The judge should have made a decision based on the German constitution instead of the Qur'an," said spokesperson Nurhan Soykan, who said that violence and mistreatment, regardless of the gender of the victim, were also grounds for divorce in the Islamic world.

A court in the western city of Frankfurt on Wednesday upheld a complaint of bias against the judge lodged by the lawyer of the 26-year-old woman, who has two children.

Husband 'threatened to kill her'

Another judge will hear her case.

The woman had filed for immediate divorce on the grounds that the husband, also of Moroccan origin, regularly beat his wife and threatened to kill her.

The claims were backed up by a police report.

But the female judge, who has not been named, made clear in a letter that the wife's bid had little chance of approval because, according to her, Islamic law allowed a man to strike his wife.

German politicians from all parties were united in disgust at the judgement.

"When the Qur'an takes precedence over the German basic law, then I can only say: Good night Germany," said Ronald Pofalla, the secretary-general of the conservative Christian Democratic Union of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Hans-Christian Stroebele, of the opposition Greens, said the kind of abuse suffered by the woman should be punished by laws governing bodily harm in Germany.

Jurors to be screened for anti-Muslim bias

ebenn@MiamiHerald.com

Potential jurors in the upcoming trial of a Boca Raton doctor and three other men accused of conspiring to help terrorists will be screened for anti-Muslim biases.

A federal judge in New York ruled Tuesday that attorneys for Dr. Rafiq A. Sabir, Tarik Shah, Abdulrahman Farhane and Mahmud Faruq Brent can ask possible jurors to fill out questionnaires before jury selection begins.

REPORT: All charges may be dropped as early as tomorrow in Duke Lacrosse rape case...

France fires official for opposing Muslim school

Eagles soar; media plummet

The world may never know exactly how many people showed up for Saturday's antiwar march in Washington, D.C., and the competing Gathering of Eagles at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Unofficial estimates by the mainstream media based on information from antiwar protesters gave the peaceniks the attendance edge, while the U.S. Park Service had veterans and others protecting the memorial outnumbering the antiwar protesters by up to 3 to 1.

But what is not debatable was the media's bias, which was more blatant and disturbing than usual. They depicted the Eagles as profane, knuckle-dragging bikers itching for a fight. "One Vietnam veteran in a wheelchair yelled obscenities at demonstrators, including some with children," The Washington Post reported. Meanwhile, they portrayed the antiwar protesters, who yelled more than their share of obscenities and threats and scuffled with police, as peaceful, good-hearted, mainstream folk who were there "to be quietly counted among the people opposed to this war," only to be harassed by the Neanderthals.

Barely reported was that the march was organized by the ANSWER Coalition, which is newly aligned with the radical Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). Of the nearly 1,000 news articles filed on the march, not one mentioned the PSL was "founded to promote the movement for revolutionary change" in America based on Marxist Leninism.

Tellingly, not a single article mentioned by name the Gathering of Eagles, whose members were there to protect The Wall from vandalism by the anti-war mob: "We believe the war memorials are sacred ground; as such, we will not allow them to be desecrated, used as props for political statements, or treated with anything less than the solemn and heartfelt respect they and the heroes they honor deserve."

So anarchists who advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government and the free markets in favor of communist totalitarianism get the media's respect and reverence while veterans, relatives of soldiers who died in Operation Iraqi Freedom and other patriotic Americans are treated in print as violent mental-hospital escapees.

Disgraceful and despicable, even by the media's standards.

7,000 French Jews ask USA for Asylum

(IsraelNN.com) More than 7,000 French Jews have signed a petition asking for political asylum in the United States because of anti-Semitism in France. The petition makes pointed reference to the murder of Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Parisian Jew who was kidnapped and tortured to death last year by an anti-Semitic gang, and says that "following the barbarous murder of a young Jew because he was Jewish, in the context of the rise in anti-Semitic acts committed by Islamic fundamentalists, numerous members of the community no longer feel safe in France."

The petition was sent to the U.S. Congress and asks it to enact a law according French Jews refugee status.

Some French Jewish leaders were outraged: "This petition is bizarre, stupid and out of place," said Chaim Musicant, director of CRIF, the umbrella organization of secular French Jewish groups.

Iraq Bombers Blow Up 2 Children Used as Decoys (NYT)

BAGHDAD, March 20 — Insurgents detonated a bomb in a car with two children in it after using the children as decoys to get through a military checkpoint in Baghdad, an American general said Tuesday.

Speaking at a news briefing at the Pentagon, Maj. Gen. Michael Barbaro, deputy director for regional operations at the Joint Staff, said American soldiers had stopped the car at the checkpoint but had allowed it to pass after seeing the two children in the back seat.

“Children in the back seat lower suspicion,” he said, according to a transcript. “We let it move through. They parked the vehicle. The adults run out and detonate it with the children in back.”

General Barbaro offered no further details...

Agence France-Presse, quoting an unidentified American military official, said the incident occurred Sunday. The bombers parked the vehicle across the street from a school then ran away, leaving the children inside, the official told the news agency. The blast killed the children and three other civilians and wounded seven, the official said...

Do we really wonder whether they'll kill our children?

Man gets 30 years for ripping out wife's eyes

A man who ripped out his wife's eyes in a fit of rage was sentenced by a French court to 30 years behind bars on Tuesday.

Mohamed Hadfi, 31, tore out his 23-year-old wife Samira Bari's eyes following a heated argument in their apartment in the southern French city of Nimes in July 2003 after she refused to have sex with him.

Bari, who had demanded a divorce before the attack, was permanently blinded.

Hadfi, a Moroccan, initially fled to Germany. He was arrested and sent back to France, where he was indicted for "acts of torture and barbarity leading to a permanent disability".

Prosecutor Dominique Tourette demanded that he be sentenced to 30 years in prison, two-thirds of which must be served in full, calling the defendant a "diabolic torturer".

Once his sentence is served, Hadfi will be deported and barred from ever returning to France.

His lawyer Jean-Pierre Cabanes meanwhile insisted there were extenuating circumstances.

"This is the result of a marriage that was arranged, not chosen," he said, pointing to the gulf separating his client, who came from southern Morocco, and his young wife, who had grown up in France.

Cabanes begged the jury for leniency, claiming his client's action "appeared to stem from a mental illness".

The guy who shot up the Seattle Jewish center had a mental illness, too. So did the guy who ran down folks in the streets of San Francisco. And the guy who ran over students at UNC.

Guess what the mental illness is called.

An American Beslan?
Apparently this story still has legs. Infuriating, and terrifying.

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, March 20, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Homeland Security: As Democrats hold more silly hearings to embarrass Republicans, the FBI is warning local police to be alert for Muslim extremists hijacking school buses. Reality check, please.

We wonder if any of the grandstanding politicians on Capitol Hill are thinking in terms of one of these nuts driving a fertilizer-filled yellow bus up to a government building — or, easier yet, a school. Of course not. They're too busy swooning over Valerie Plame to even notice we're still under threat from the Islamic terrorists they say we shouldn't be spying on.

The FBI and Homeland Security Department last week sent out a bulletin to law enforcement across the country warning that Muslims with "ties to extremist groups" are signing up to be school bus drivers. They also noted "recent suspicious activity" by foreigners who drive school buses or are licensed to drive them.

Recent events come on top of several other school bus-related incidents involving Mideast men that raise suspicion of terror activity.

They include last year's surprise boarding of a school bus in Florida by two Saudi men dressed in trench coats. Authorities suspect they were making a dry run to see how easy it would be to hijack or blow up a school bus filled with American children.

Previously, an Arab man from Detroit was caught trying to obtain a job as a school bus driver in New York using fake Social Security documents.

Authorities fear the school massacre that took place in Beslan, Russia, in 2004 may be a dress rehearsal for what al-Qaida plans to do here. Chechen terrorists tied to al-Qaida seized a building in Beslan on the first day of school and slaughtered 338, including 172 kids.

Three years later, schools and local police in this country are still unprepared to deal with such an assault. Most don't have response plans for handling a single active shooter, let alone a cell of trained terrorists.

Yet terror cells secreted inside America may be planning to use buses as a Trojan horse to infiltrate school campuses and murder students and teachers. Floor plans for schools in Virginia, Texas and New Jersey have been recovered from terrorist hands in Iraq. Videotapes confiscated in Afghanistan show al-Qaida terrorists practicing the takeover of a school.

FOXNews.com - Mother Arrested After First-Grade Son Brings Crack Cocaine to Show-and-Tell
It's Good Parent Day today!

A 20-year-old Shreveport woman has been arrested after her first-grade son brought a rock of crack cocaine to school for show-and-tell.

Police were especially disturbed by the child's understanding of crack cocaine. They said he seemed so accustomed to the highly addictive drug that he thought there was nothing wrong with bringing it to school.

Police did not release the name of the school, saying they are still investigating.

Lachristie Thomas was booked on a charge of improper child supervision, a misdemeanor.

Police say the six-year-old was placed in foster care.

Parents Help Launch Daughter's Budding Porn Career
Utterly revolting.

Sunny Lee has some really supportive parents.

The 20-something gal has made a name for herself as the "Shirley Temple of Porn," thanks in large part to the help of her loving parents, ABC News reports.

Lee (not her real name) still lives at home with her parents, Mike and Shelby, who help her in every aspect of the business — from helping her create a doppelganger sex doll to bagging her dirty underwear for sale online.

"We're not kinky parents," Mike insists to ABC News.

They don't mind what she does, though they do fast-forward through her sex scenes with actors they refer to as "dates."

"She does her thing, safely, in a good environment, and I don't worry about that," Mike said. "When she comes back home, I just ask her how her date was."

They liken their role to that of Joe Simpson, the father-manager of singer Jessica Simpson.

"They do not make money off of me," Lee said. "If anything, I pay them. I pay them in return for everything — that they have loved and supported me after all these years."

Broken light bulb sparks debate
Freaking morons.

BANGOR - Compact fluorescent lights, those swirly bulbs displacing the old incandescent type in many homes, have become the darlings of the energy-conscious crowd, thanks to their capacity to both fight global warming and lower utility bills.

But with more than a million bulbs sold in Maine, questions are being raised about whether consumers know enough about the special disposal and handling requirements that come with these well-documented energy-savers.

In one unusual case, a Prospect woman was told recently that it could cost $2,000 to clean up the mess left by a single shattered bulb.

[snip]

US Airways Passengers Who Reported 'Suspicious' Imam Activity May Be Sued
Bring it on.

Six Muslim imams who were forcibily removed from a US Airways flight last year and are now suing the airline for discrimination may also be suing some passengers who were aboard the flight.

In the lawsuit filed last week, the imams say that unnamed "John Doe" passengers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport reported that they engaged in "suspicious" behavior — praying in the terminal — before they boarded the plane...

Omar Mohammedi, the imams' New York-based lawyer, said that the imams have not yet decided whether to pursue this complaint, but if they do it would affect only those passengers who were prejudiced in their suspicions....

He said that if the passengers were suspicious based only on the imams' appearance, "then they should be liable . . . these people should be careful not to abuse the process and be responsible."

The lawsuit alleges that US Airways unlawfully removed the six imams from Flight 300 for discriminatory reasons based on race, religion, ethnicity, or other outside appearances when they tried to board a flight after attending a North American Imams Federation conference...

The lawsuit says US Airways has "falsely claimed" the imams' "suspicious" behavior, including saying "God is Great" in Arabic on the plane, talking about President Bush and Iraq and purchased one-way tickets with cash. Passengers also reported that some of the imams asked for seat belt extenders and switched seats...

The lawsuit also claims that a couple sitting behind some of the imams in the terminal were "purposely turning around to watch" them as they prayed, and that a "John Doe" then picked up his cell phone and made a call while he watched them pray...An internal probe by US Airways found there was no racial profiling in the incident.

Bringing home the bacon-controversy explanation [Muslim cashiers won't handle pork]
Excerpt:

In any event, as long as the newspaper is asking for feedback, I might as well weigh in.

Actually, who might best weigh in is a spokesman for Muslims, which is part of the problem. There are many. As I understand it, there are many imams, just as there are many priests or rabbis. And while it is true that pork is forbidden in the diet, it is my understanding as well that there is no prohibition against touching pork.

That's problem No. 1. If there is no directive against touching pork, then why in the world is a Muslim cashier refusing to scan a package of bacon? And if he or she is practicing a tributary branch of the faith that prevents touching pork, then most of us have the same question we have about the cabdrivers. Why did you take a job where you might have to touch pork or be in the same car with a bottle of vacation rum?

Besides which, when you get a package of bacon home, you practically need a garden shears to open it. We spend billions of dollars a year in this country marketing and packaging products. Handle the package of bacon by the shrink-wrapped, double-sealed, triple-glazed hermetically encapsulated cardboard corner and slide it across the scanner. There. The price gets registered, and you haven't touched any pork.

Or, as ridiculous as we might wish to get, keep a pencil handy and poke or guide the bacon across the scanner.

This is America. We get inventive. And we get inventive in order to keep things moving along. That's the way we do business. Please join us.

That might touch at the heart of our shared frustration. We are basically a large blob of 300 million or so people who conduct our commerce in a secular fashion while practicing, pretty much in private, an astounding variety of religious obligations. Great. Worship grasshoppers for all I care, but when I am standing at the counter with a dollar in my hand, reach behind you and get me that O-ring I need for my lawnmower.

As wave after wave of immigrants arrived in, say, the Twin Cities, I can find no historical evidence that they demanded that America accommodate them. On the contrary, they assimilated, worked hard and benefited from America. I can find no historical evidence that other immigrant groups wished to have such a religious presence in the material marketplace, or, to put it another way, we have not previously been this expected to accommodate such a public component of one particular faith.

That's what stuck in the craws of most of us, and most of us are weary of being thought intolerant by the likes of newspapers.

Counter-Demonstrators (Gathering of Eagles) Numbers in Thousands
Wow. The comPost decided to be honest. Shocking.

As war protesters marched toward Arlington Memorial Bridge en route to the Pentagon yesterday, they were flanked by long lines of military veterans and others who stood in solidarity with U.S. troops and the Bush administration's cause in Iraq. Many booed loudly as the protesters passed, turned their backs to them or yelled, "If you don't like America, get out!"

Several thousand vets, some of whom came by bus from New Jersey, car caravans from California or flights from Seattle or Michigan, lined the route from the bridge and down 23rd Street, waving signs such as "War There Or War Here." Their lines snaked around the corner and down several blocks of Constitution Avenue in what organizers called the largest gathering of pro-administration counter-demonstrators since the war began four years ago.

The vets turned both sides of Constitution into a bitter, charged gantlet for the war protesters. "Jihadists!" some vets screamed. "You're brain-dead!" Others chanted, "Workers World traitors must hang!" -- a reference to the Communist newspaper. Some broke into "The Star-Spangled Banner" as war protesters sought to hand out pamphlets.

The large turnout surprised even some counter-demonstrators. Polls show public opinion turning against the war in Iraq, and the November election was widely seen as a repudiation of the administration's policy.

"I've never been to a war rally. I hoped I'd never have to," said Jim Wilson, 62, a Vietnam vet from New Hampshire. "We're like what they used to call the silent majority."

In some past antiwar rallies, the number of counter-demonstrators has ranged from a handful to a few hundred. "Our side got apathetic," said Debby Lee, whose son Marc, a Navy SEAL, was killed in Iraq and who came to the rally from Phoenix in a caravan organized by MoveAmericaForward.org.

But the war protesters have gone too far, Lee and others said. At a Jan. 27 antiwar rally, some protesters spray-painted the pavement on a Capitol terrace. Others crowned the Lone Sailor statue at the Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue with a pink tiara that had "Women for Peace" written across it.

Word of those incidents ricocheted around the Internet.

"That was the real catalyst, right there," said Navy veteran Larry Bailey. "They showed they were willing to desecrate something that's sacred to the American soul."

Well before 7 a.m., hundreds of people milled about near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in an effort to, they said, "occupy the ground" and keep any disrespectful war protesters away.

"This is sacred ground to us," said Rick De Marco, 62, a Vietnam veteran from Cleveland.

K.C. O'Brien, 65, a Vietnam vet from Fairfield, Calif., said: "We believe in freedom of speech. We're here to defend the right of people to say whatever they want. But we will not allow any desecration."

Within days of the spray-painting, people were using he Web to organize, making it their mission to protect the monuments, support the troops and accept nothing less than victory in Iraq.

Gathering of Eagles, the group that organized the protest, was so worried about threats to the monuments that it hired private security to guard the Wall, said Harry Riley, 69, a retired Army colonel from Florida. Other vets patrolled the area through the night and early morning, he said.