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THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY
(WHEN THE WORD “YES” IS NOT STATED LOUDLY ENOUGH)
By Avi Davis
 I first came in contact with the militancy of the Gay and Lesbian movement eight years ago. The incident occurred after the passage of California Proposition 22 in March, 2000 - the first time Californians had voted on the definition of marriage. That Proposition affirmed by a 61.4% majority, and for the first time by popular ballot, that marriage is a union between a man and a woman. As I was driving down Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles on a late night shopping run, I encountered a traffic jam, with cars stranded on both sides of the road unable to move. I soon discovered the cause of the problem. Approaching us from the west was a vast crowd of marchers bearing signs and banners in defense of gay marriage. Many carried placards that read “Honk if you support gay marriage.” Since I live in one of the bluest suburbs in an overwhelmingly blue state, it didn’t surprise me that many of my fellow travelers on Wilshire Boulevard that night chose to honks their horns. But as I watched the crowd pass among the stranded cars I became inspired. Here was my opportunity to exercise my democratic right and express a contrary opinion. I did not honk. What happened next, resembled something out of A Clockwork Orange. I found my car surrounded by angry young men in tank tops and t-shirts, pounding on my hood and rocking my car back and forth. Furious voices commanded me to honk the horn, threatening further violence if I didn’t. Perhaps it was stupid, but back then I stubbornly clung to the belief (and my steering wheel) that in a democracy, my right to a differing view on gay marriage, or any other issue, would be respected. After several tense moments the crowd saw that I would not relent and began to filter away. But the incident made me realize that intolerance was not beyond the ostensibly tolerant gay community and that violence and intimidation may well be ahead for anyone who refuses to countenance state sanctioned same sex unions.
That prediction began to bear fruit last week as the opponents of the latest California proposition to ban gay marriage( Proposition 8, which, now a state Constitutional amendment, passed by a 52% majority) took to the streets to lodge their continuing protest to majority rule. Not content to ensnarl traffic in numerous locations throughout the city, gay marriage advocates have begun to intimidate the Proposition’s proponents, organizers and donors. Since donations to all political causes and candidates are required to be made public, it is fairly easy to ascertain the identity of any individual or business who gave money to the successful campaign. Gay activists have therefore pored though campaign contribution databases and "outed" Proposition 8 donors on sites such as Facebook.com and craigslist.com. More than two weeks after the passage of Proposition 8, the same opponents have shifted their protests to other arenas as well -- using boycotts to target and intimidate businesses or individuals who contributed to the winning side.
Some gay rights activists went onto the restaurant website yelp.com, giving bad reviews to eateries linked to the Yes on 8 movement. Hundreds of protesters then picketed El Coyote Restaurant in West Hollywood on November 13. The picketing became so disputive that LAPD officers in riot gear had to be called in. It was all because Marjorie Christoffersen, a manager of the restuarant and a daughter of El Coyote's owner, had contributed $100 to the Yes on 8 campaign.
Robert Hoehn, vice president of the Carlsbad-based Hoehn Motors, gave $25,000 of his own money to the Yes on 8 campaign in February. Soon after the vote he began to receive hundreds of phone calls and his Honda dealership was picketed. Since the proposition passed, he says, he has received a continuous stream of "vitriolic messages and phone calls."
A Mormon colleague of mine, who works for a prominent human rights oganization in Los Angeles, forwarded to me some love letters - as he referred to them - that he had received from a gay activist doctor, after his name was discovered on the list of supporters of Proposition 8:
“ I live in Los Angeles, and am both an American Jew and gay. I find it extremely distressing that YOU, who works for an organization that is supposed to protect minorities and defend human and civil rights, donated a substantial amount of money to strip away the rights of gay and lesbian people in the State of California. It is mean-spirited, bigoted, and hypocritical. “
The writer then proceeded to demand that my colleague resign, retract his donation and contribute an equal amount to the campaign to retract Proposition 8. If he did not, then:
“ I intend to begin a campaign for your resignation, first thing tomorrow, by calling your organizational headquarters in New York as well as numerous regional offices here in the USA and overseas. I intend to contact as many community leaders and organizations as possible to let them know that they have someone working among them who propagates hate and bigotry.”
So this is what it has come down to. Advocates of gay marriage will castigate anyone who opposes their agenda to transform homosexuality into normative conduct as “ hateful” and “bigoted” and will harass and intimidate them until they give up their prejudicial stance. Therefore the millions of voters, in California, Arizona and Florida, who cast ballots to actually amend their constitutions to affirm that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, can expect increasing legal assaults, harassment, militancy and even violence from a class that is unsatisfied with our democratic process and demands redress beyond it.
But is it really “hateful” and “ bigoted” to oppose gay marriage? The truth is that the state sanctioned gay marriage would not substantially affect the benefits that same sex domestic partners currently enjoy under California state law. Under California Law (Family Code § 297.5) domestic partners have the same rights, protections, and benefits as married spouses. There are no exceptions. Proposition 8 would not have affected existing legal rights in any way, except to affirm that the people of California believe that two people who are of the same sex should not have the right to place themselves in the same category as a woman and man who have united in a state of matrimony. This is not “hateful” and “ bigoted” but the reaffirmation of moral and religious standards that a wide majority of citizens across the United States ( if the results of similar ballots in Arizona, Florida and Arkansas are to be believed) hold to be true and sacred.
Is the determination to stick to a traditional view of marriage then an abuse of civil rights? The answer is no. There has never been a “civil right” to marriage. Marriage has, until very recently, been regarded as a moral and religious union between a couple committed to fidelity, longevity and the propagation of the species. To argue that the Constitution guarantees equal treatment to all citizens does not mean that its intention was to regulate the nature of relationships between individuals or what it considers to constitute a legitimate marriage, partnership, business venture or even friendship. The suggestion that the Constitution of the United States was designed to define moral or physical relations between U.S. citizens has found no corroboration in existing legal scholarship.
A New Hampshire government commission report, released in December, 2005 which investigated the issue of whether marriage is a civil right, concluded that it is not. Collecting a broad range of opinions over 16 months, the report concluded that marriage "across essentially all societies and history has been defined as the union of a man and a woman.” The current definitions of marriage as between a man and a woman “models both natural human sexuality and reproduction that commits to the health, safety, and welfare of both the individual and the community." By focusing on the long-standing legal aspects of marriage, rather than its divisive political aspects, the commission's report reaffirmed that the real reason for marriage is the propagation and protection of children. If you accept that marriage exists to create and protect something beyond your own personal interests– or in other words, that it possesses a profound social utility that transcends both personal happiness and an individual’s need for fulfillment – then the traditional definition is correct and no argument about unfairness, prejudice or bigotry can dislodge it.
This, then, reflects the essential divide between gay marriage advocates and the traditionalists. Gay marriage proponents are determined to convince you that state sanctioned homosexual unions have social utility since they promote dignity for a discriminated class of individuals. It is a campaign for individual rights at the expense of social cohesion. Traditionalists will tell you that marriage between a man and a woman is a fundamental building block of social order and that to interfere with its definition is to undermine our moral and social balance and our prospects for civilizational continuity. The movement away from social cohesion and moral order and towards individual liberty and personal contentment has been the grand strategy, not just of gay activists, but of the entire secular humanist movement for over two and half centuries. It is a campaign against religion and against the kind of moral certitude religion promotes. For the majority then, the question at issue on November 4, was not whether gay couples should have the right to obtain happiness in life; it was whether the moral and social order of western civilization will have the means to survive.
This is perhaps the reason why the gay marriage initiative has been defeated so regularly over the past thirty years. We, as a people - as a majority no less- are simply unprepared to allow one of the key components of our social order to be undermined. The battle has much in common with the struggle over whether intelligent design should be taught in schools. The scientific community, terrified by what it frames as religious coercion and bigotry, has developed its own level of absolute intolerance when addressing any challenge to the accepted means of investigating the unknown. Similarly, those advocates of gay marriage, while accusing others of hate and bigotry, have developed their own level of prejudice and denigration, a fact clearly on display to me that night eight years ago on Wilshire Boulevard. Sadly, it continues to bare its ugly visage in the boycotts and harassment of those who supported Proposition 8 and in the strenuous legal challenges now being mounted to over turn it. Those who support this anti-democratic and potentially violent movement should be warned that they may be playing with fire. For such a movement, while having succeeded through coercion and intimidation in obtaining its political ends, may thereby gain increasing force and command over our culture, resulting in demands for even more control over our hearts, our minds and our actions in the future.
Avi Davis is the Executive Director and Senior Fellow of the American Freedom Alliance.
He can be contacted at isdev@ix.netcom.com
Want to comment on this article? See Avi Davis’ new blog
NEWS: EUROPE AND AMERICA
Britain’s insanity: re-instates sharing intelligence with Syria
 Britain re-establishes high-level intelligence links with Syria-Richard Beeston, Catherine Philp and Oliver August
Britain re-established high-level intelligence links with the Syrian authorities as David Miliband made his landmark visit to Damascus yesterday, according to senior Syrian officials. The move, first raised earlier this year at a meeting in New York between the Foreign Secretary and his Syrian counterpart, Walid Moualem, was a key objective of the Syrian visit. The newly revived intelligence relationship could be hugely beneficial to Britain. Syria is known to have one of the best intelligence-gathering systems in the Middle East, in particular in tracking the movements of Islamic extremists into Iraq and around the region. “Miliband asked Moualem in New York whether he could re-establish intelligence links at a senior level” after lower level contacts, a Syrian official said. Mr Moualem invited Mr Miliband to take intelligence officials with him on the trip to Damascus. Mr Miliband's visit, the first by a British foreign secretary for seven years, was touted as an opportunity to test Syria's willingness to engage with the West, lifting it out of its current isolation. Washington has long insisted on isolating Syria but with a change of administration - and attitude - looming, Britain and France are leading efforts to lure Damascus out of the solitude it has found itself in since it was implicated in the murder of the former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafiq Hariri, three years ago. Mr Miliband urged Syria yesterday to take a more active role in the peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians by first reaching its own peace deal with the Jewish state. Damascus and Jerusalem have recently talked on four occasions under Turkish auspices. Mr Miliband said: “We welcome the four rounds of talks that have taken place ... and we hope that they will be taken forward with new force.” (Timesonline.co.uk)
“If America is to survive, it is eventually going to have to choose national security over political correctness -- and call upon Islamic leaders like Omar Shahin to stop teaching Muslims in the U.S. to disregard American laws when they conflict with Islamic norms.”
 Phoenix Imam Tells Muslims To Disregard U.S. Laws-Robert Spencer
“A Muslim must try his best to abide by the rulings of Sharia [Islamic law] whenever possible as much as he can. He should not allow himself to be liable to those western laws that contradict the clear-cut Islamic rulings.” The rulings of Sharia, mind you, include stoning for adultery, amputation of the hand for theft, and institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims. But the speaker was not some fanatic Wahhabi in Saudi Arabia; it was the Phoenix-based imam Omar Shahin, president of the North American Imams Foundation. This is probably one reason why, as The Arizona Republic reported Monday, the FBI has stepped up scrutiny of Shahin and other Muslim leaders in Phoenix. Omar Shahin has been in the news before. He is the spokesman for a group of six imams who sued US Airways after being removed from a flight in 2006 when passengers and crewmembers reported that they were behaving suspiciously. The imams were handcuffed and later interrogated, then released with no charges, whereupon Shahin led a news conference to condemn prejudice against Muslims. All six imams later sued the airline, airport police and an FBI agent, claiming they had been singled out solely because they were Muslim. “We did nothing,” Shahin maintained in a report on Boston Herald.com -- and the Council on American Islamic Relations seized on the incident as evidence of American “Islamophobia.” “We are concerned that crew members, passengers and security personnel may have succumbed to fear and prejudice based on stereotyping of Muslims and Islam,” said CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad, in the same report. (Humanevents)
Muslims want more support to practise their faith in the Netherlands
Netherlands: Youth want more support to practice Islam
Muslim youth think that they don't get enough support to develop their faith in the Netherlands. They think that society often doesn't give room to 'their Islam' and that they must practice tricks in order to do what they want as Muslims. For example, they must pray furtively during breaks in school or work. This according to a study "Youth and their Islam" ('Jongeren en hun islam') by the Verwey-Jonker Institute published Thursday. The youth do need counseling, such as coaching relating to difficult questions about Islam or insults. They also want more accessible mosques (also for women), educational support and meditation areas in schools and companies. Currently the Internet or friends, who also don't know everything, form the most important support. The place occupied by faith varies sharply among the study participants. In general the youth think it's possible to be Muslim in the Netherlands, but that the Islam debate and the negative treatment give the feeling that aren't always accepted as full citizens. In particular young Moroccan women who want to practice Islam more strictly and cover up more, experience life as a Muslim in the country as a relatively tough task. Taking part in society comes more harder to them, they feel treated differently and misunderstood. They also think that it's hard being themselves and take a gloomy view of their opportunities in the work market. For that matter, the support should come not only from the regular organizations or from the mosque, according to the researchers. Personal initiative is also of great importance. The respondents warned of a victim-mentality. Particularly young, practicing Muslims run the risk of ending up in a downward spiral, mostly caused by the negative attitude of society towards Islam. The youth think that religion can't be an alibi to stay on the sidelines. There will only be regulations regarding Islamic holidays, for example, if you start talks. They also think that society should be better informed about Islam and the regular lives of Muslims. They think that Islam should sounds themselves more and inform themselves better about society, participate and contribute to the bridging of the rift. (Islamineurope.blogspot.com)
The Department of Justice (DOJ) should cut off outreach efforts with organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamist extremist groups, a report from a ranking Senate subcommittee member recommends.
Senator Pushes DOJ on Islamists
The Department of Justice (DOJ) should cut off outreach efforts with organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamist extremist groups, a report from a ranking Senate subcommittee member recommends. "Justice Denied: Waste & Mismanagement at the Department of Justice," is an 86-page report issued in October by the office of U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), the ranking Republican on the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security. The report generated attention for its criticism of the millions of dollars spent annually to send DOJ officials on junkets in luxury resorts such as Palm Springs, Cal. and Hawaii. And it noted that law enforcement officials routinely advise Hollywood producers in television and film projects without seeking compensation for their agencies. But just as important is its detailing of DOJ outreach with questionable Islamist organizations, including two which are unindicted co-conspirators in a major Hamas support investigation. Those efforts should stop, the report said: "It is the legal right and obligation of DOJ to bar, withhold or rescind funding for or collaboration with any entities that do not advance the mission of the Department, which is the security and stability of the United States, including its culture, its people, and its form of government." In a letter contained in the report, Coburn said the investigation was not meant to target DOJ employees, but rather to identify problems for Department leaders to address: "This report highlights numerous instances of millions of taxpayer dollars thrown at duplicative programs marred by waste, abuse, and lack of accountability. If this problem is ignored, the safety of our nation will be placed further in serious peril as we continue to spend recklessly without demanding results, while failing to support programs with demonstrated and effective outcomes." (Investigativeproject)
"It is unbelievably naïve of Birthe Rønn Hornbech (Lib) to put forward a plan like this. Unbelievable that the government tells us again that dialogue is the way forward in dealing with extremism and we have to accept it.”
DPP: Grotesque extremism plan-Julian Isherwood
The Danish People's Party will not support proposals from the Integration Minister for more dialogue with extremist Muslims
"It is unbelievably naïve of Birthe Rønn Hornbech (Lib) to put forward a plan like this. Unbelievable that the government tells us again that dialogue is the way forward in dealing with extremism and we have to accept it. This has nothing to do with what we have agreed in the budget, and the Danish People's Party will fight to make sure that Birthe Rønn Hornbech's course is not the one to be followed," says Kjærsgaard.
Carpet pulled
Kjærsgaard's remarks have finally pulled the carpet out from under Hornbech who is currently finalising the government's plan on how to combat extremism. The plan was expected to be introduced in 2009, but there are also problems within the government. In today's Jyllands-Posten, Honrbech's party colleague Minister for Social Affairs Karen Jespersen (Lib) says she finds the proposals 'alarming'. "I am sure that (Birthe) Rønn (Hornbech) doesn't have support for this policy," Kjærsgaard says.
Plan
The plan put forward by the Integration Ministry calls, among other things, for more subdued language when dealing with extremists, a dialogue forum with extremist Muslims and Muslim study groups in prisons to use the Koran to get Muslims off drugs and crime. "It is grotesque to expect us to be censored. The DPP will never accept that. The strength (ED:of the Danish system) sincce 2001 has been precisely our way of calling a spade a spade. Immigration policy has not been taboo. We have been able to speak freely. So subdued rhetorik - forget it," says Kjærsgaard. She adds that her party will not support the idea of Muslim study groups in prisons either. "You must be joking. Completely hopeless of the Integration Ministry to put forward such a proposal. No way. Not with our votes," Kjærsgaard says. (Politiken.dk)
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
“Andre Massena’s case may be over, but Binghamton University’s Department of Social Work has a long way to go to restore its reputation,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said
Victory for Freedom of Speech at Binghamton University Department of Social Work Adam Kissel - Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
BINGHAMTON, N.Y., November 17, 2008—Binghamton University (formerly SUNY–Binghamton) has abandoned its attempt to suspend or expel a student who put up posters challenging the Department of Social Work. The department had ordered that social work master’s student Andre Massena leave the program for one year with no guarantee of return, required him to apologize, and demanded that he publicly disavow his own views after his pseudonymous posters challenged the department for having hired the executive director of the Binghamton Housing Authority (BHA)—an agency Massena thought was responsible for social injustice. When Massena appealed, the department’s chair added entirely new allegations and recommended his expulsion. The department dropped the charges late Friday, one day after the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) took the case public. “Andre Massena’s case may be over, but Binghamton University’s Department of Social Work has a long way to go to restore its reputation,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “We hope that university leadership will act quickly to rein in this irresponsible department.” On November 14, shortly after his appellate hearing with the College of Community and Public Affairs Ethics and Integrity Committee, Massena received a one-sentence e-mail from Department of Social Work Chair Laura Bronstein: “Due to procedural misunderstandings, the case pertaining to you is no longer being pursued.” (Studentsforacademicfreedom)
They knew nothing outside of their anti-Israel propaganda and they were completely unwilling to listen to a different view or acknowledge that Jews are an indigenous Middle Eastern people. But they’re entire cause is based on lies
 'Israel Liberation Week' Ends Violently at Berkeley-David Shamma
(IsraelNN.com) Israel Liberation Week, which was organized last week by the Zionist Freedom Alliance (ZFA) at the University of California at Berkeley, ended violently Thursday night in an altercation between ZFA activists and anti-Israel students. The incident took place during a concert featuring Black, Jewish and Mexican hip hop artists promoting, according to the organizers, "freedom for the nation of Israel from Western pressure and influence." As Zionist rapper Kosha Dillz was performing before a crowd of Berkeley students, members of the SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) draped PLO flags from a balcony directly over the stage. When ZFA activist Gabe Weiner attempted to remove the flags, he was punched in the head, he says, by SJP member Husam Zakharia who was then beaten to the ground by Weiner and Yehuda De Sa.Local ZFA member Yehuda told Israel National News: "Several other members of SJP, including female students, attempted to attack Weiner and De Sa but when three more ZFA activists entered the scene, the male members of SJP – who regularly use physical intimidation to silence Zionist students – hid behind female members of their group and refused to step forward and fight." The local student press published the SJP version of events on Friday but would not quote any of the ZFA activists interviewed following the incident. UC Berkeley Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard has asked for student leaders from both groups to attend a meeting with one another but ZFA students have told Israel National News that they will make their attendance conditional on the University dropping its double standard when disciplining pro-Israel and anti-Israel student groups. (IsraelNationalNews)
FREEDOM OF SPEECH
“The king, as the defender of the faith, has come to strike a deal with the West: Suppress criticism of Islam and you will be spared retaliatory violence.”
 Worldwide Hate Speech Laws? Muslims and Christians together. -Nina Shea
Two international meetings to promote interfaith harmony were held in the last two weeks, one in New York and one in Rome. The former, called by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia under the auspices of the United Nations, drew some 20 heads of state to discuss a "Culture of Peace." The latter brought together Muslim and Catholic scholars at the Vatican in the latest session of the dialogue called A Common Word. Both gatherings underscored the gulf between us. At both, all parties spoke for peace and tolerance, but they often meant different things. As President Bush made clear in his remarks at the U.N. meeting, tolerance is understood in the West as respect for religious freedom. For the Muslim leaders in New York, tolerance means respect for religion itself, particularly Islam. As the astute Turkish political observer Ziya Meral pointed out, if Muslim leaders really wanted tolerance for different religious viewpoints, they would be holding similar discussions within their own societies. But no such discussions are going on. Especially since 9/11, Islam has been publicly scrutinized, criticized, and sometimes ridiculed in the West to an extent never seen (or permitted) in Muslim lands. Many Muslims feel deeply offended by this, as well as troubled by the violent responses the criticism has sometimes drawn from Muslims--riots, death threats, even murders. Their leaders' solution is to try to halt the cycle by demanding an end to criticism of Islam, even in private speech.For the past decade, the Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has pushed the U.N. to adopt a universal ban on defaming Islam. This measure would aim to curb the freedom not only of Danish cartoonists but also of scholars, writers, dissidents, religious reformers, human rights activists, and anyone at all anywhere in the world who criticizes Islam. This is already the effect of the domestic laws against apostasy and blasphemy that exist in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, and other states of the Islamic Conference. (Weeklystandard)
“The banning of these decals is political correctness run amuck in the military. Our troops are being killed by Islamic terrorists, 9/11 was caused by Islamic terrorists, these terrorists want to destroy America, the Islamic countries persecute Christians, and now the military is victimizing a father whose son was killed by Islamic terrorists while serving our nation.”
Exclusive: Marines Ban Fallen USS Cole Soldier’s Father from Opposing Islamic Terrorism
Jesse Nieto is a 25-year Marine veteran whose honorable service to our nation included two combat tours in Vietnam. His youngest son, Marc, and 16 of Marc’s shipmates were killed on October 12, 2000, by Islamic terrorists who bombed the USS Cole. Nieto has worked as a civilian employee at the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina since 1994.
Since 2001, Nieto has displayed various decals on his vehicle expressing anti-terrorist sentiments, such as “Remember the Cole, 12 Oct 2000,” “Islam=Terrorism,” and “We Died, They Rejoiced.” On July 31, 2008, two military police officers (MPs) issued Nieto a ticket for displaying “offensive material.”
In mid-August, after Nieto refused to remove all “offending” decals from his vehicle, the Base Magistrate issued Nieto a written order, ordering him to remove his vehicle from the base until all decals were removed and banning his vehicle from all other federal installations. The order in effect prevented Nieto from driving his vehicle to Arlington National Cemetery (a federal installation) to visit the grave of his fallen son.
As a result of the Marine Corps’ action, the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, this week filed a federal lawsuit against the Camp Lejeune Commanding Officer and the Base Magistrate on behalf of Nieto in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The civil rights lawsuit challenges the military’s ban on Nieto’s speech on the basis that it violates Nieto’s constitutional rights to freedom of speech and the equal protection of the law. [Click here to read the complaint filed by the Law Center.]
Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented, “The banning of these decals is political correctness run amuck in the military. Our troops are being killed by Islamic terrorists, 9/11 was caused by Islamic terrorists, these terrorists want to destroy America, the Islamic countries persecute Christians, and now the military is victimizing a father whose son was killed by Islamic terrorists while serving our nation.” (Familysecuirtymatters)
Situating Honorcide- David Solway
The subject of “honor killings” is gradually becoming a matter of public controversy these days. The incidence of these crimes appears to be rising although the response to them is ambiguous and vacillating. There is little doubt that something alarming is happening—and has been happening for a long while—and that what we are really witnessing is a form of culture-specific violent behavior. But the general tendency among Muslim spokespeople and social activists is to average out these tragic events as part of a garden variety social phenomenon that is statistically inevitable. When 16 year-old Aqsa Parvez of Mississauga, Ontario was strangled by her father for refusing to wear the hijab, Shahina Siddiqui, president of the Islamic Social Services Association, dissembled the murder as “the result of domestic violence, a problem that cuts across Canadian society and is blind to colour and creed” (National Post, December 12, 2007). On the following day, a spokesman for the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations was quoted in the same newspaper, informing us that “Teen rebellion is something that exists in all households in Canada and is not unique to any culture or background.” For Sheikh Yusuf Badat, Imam of the Islamic Foundation of Toronto, “It wasn’t about Islam” but merely a question “of parenting and anger management”; and Mohammed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, whitewashed the killing as a “teenage issue.” Mohhamad Al-Navdi of the Canadian Council of Imams, while regretting the slaying of the young girl, responded by stressing “the duty [of parents] to convince their kids that this [the hijab] is part of their culture.” (Frontpagemag)
Media Bias
US Media ignores story regarding ‘scientific blunder’ in rise in global temperatures
UK Paper Notes 'Surreal Scientific Blunder' in Global Temps Measurement; US Media Doesn't Care-Tom Blumer
Earlier today, Christopher Booker at the UK Telegraph noted a "surreal scientific blunder," followed by an attempted cover-up, that should cause everyone to question the source's past and future credibility. The source of the shoddy work is NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the outfit run by world champion globalarmist James Hansen. Hansen has in the past stated that "heads of major fossil-fuel companies who spread disinformation about global warming should be 'tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.'" What Booker reports causes one to wonder what the appropriate punishment should be for committing drop-dead obvious errors and integrity-lacking follow-up. Part of the punishment is surely the Telegraph's delicious headline, followed by Booker's criticism (bolds are mine).
The world has never seen such freezing heat
A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record. (Newsbusters)
“In general terms, every U.S. President is under threat, but the Associated Press is trying to blame the threat on "white supremacists" by inflating the classical racist hate menace into something much bigger than it is. As one reads the AP report, one realizes that there is an effort actually to create a "dramatic threat" in a way that would spread fear among citizens.”
Exclusive: Associated Press Pushes New Theme: Threats Against Obama
Since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, the United States has had its share of violence directed against its presidents. Even modern times witnessed presidential-related bloodshed with the JFK and Robert Kennedy assassinations and the failed attempt against Ronald Reagan. Violence against our politicians has been real and our security apparatus must be always vigilant. But one also has to be vigilant against the media stories which contribute to the exaggeration of threats beyond their normal levels. As our political and cultural life evolves and extremists, nut cases and traditional hate groups are being contained, and even reduced, they are still part of this society. But it would be an error to give them a national legitimacy by circulating stories amplifying their size and capabilities. Unfortunately the respectable Associated Press has begun a campaign to convince Americans that our newly-elected president is under a much higher threat than he actually is, based on evidence suggesting racist extremism is peaking after the election. In fact, violent racism has always manifested itself in America but the election of Barack Obama has demonstrated that racism at large has receded, if not been fully defeated. The president-elect, nominee of the Democrat Party, the current secretary of state and the previous one from the Republican side, are all African-Americans, and so violent white supremacists are now operating on the margins. Many in the news media and academics kept talking about the "Bradley effect" and the hidden white rejection of an African-American at the ballot box. It simply didn't happen. This shows that the academics of the past are eclipsed by today's realities. The race-tension story is no more. (Familysecuirtymatters)
ANTISEMITISM
Holocaust exhibit wrecked by German students in Berlin
German Students Lay Waste to Holocaust Exhibit-John Rosenthal
Last Wednesday, hundreds, if not thousands, of students ostensibly protesting poor conditions in German schools stormed the main building of Berlin’s historic Humboldt University: smashing windows, occupying seminar rooms, strewing rolls of toilet paper in the lobby and courtyard, and even setting at least one fire. Most astonishingly, the protesters also laid waste to an exhibit in the entry hall of the building devoted to the Nazi persecution of the Jews. The exhibit was titled “Betrayed and Sold: Jewish Businesses in Berlin 1933-1945.” According to reports [1] on the German news site Spiegel-Online and [2] in the popular German tabloid Bild, virtually all the poster boards making up the exhibit were damaged and, as photo evidence shows, some were fully ripped in two. Eyewitnesses cited by Spiegel-Online say that the rioters who destroyed the exhibit were adolescents around thirteen years old. [1] Interviewed by Spiegel-Online, a researcher at the university reported that when he informed rioters that the university had visitors from Israel and asked “What will they think?” one young man responded “F*ck Israel!” [Scheiß Israel] and proceeded to attack him. Reacting to suggestions that the students may not have realized what the subject of the exhibit was, police chief Peter-Michael Haeberer [2] told Bild: “Leaving aside the fact that university employees and other witnesses pointed it out to them, even a dyslexic could not have failed to recognize that it was an exhibit about the persecution of the Jews. The perpetrators knew exactly what they were doing.” “Our assumption is that the exhibit was purposely attacked and that anti-Semitic motives were involved,” Haeberer added. (Pajamasmedia)
"Overall responsibility for the situation in the Gaza Strip lies with Hamas, which invests all of its resources in arms and terrorism instead of providing for the civilians that it brutally controls"
Ban to PM: Let UN aid workers into Gaza-TOVAH LAZAROFF, JPOST.COM STAFF AND AP
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday night that he was deeply concerned over the humanitarian situation in Gaza and called on Israel to allow UN aid workers access to the territory. "The secretary-general today telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to express his deep concern over the consequences of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza," read a UN press office statement. "He strongly urged the prime minister to facilitate the freer movement of urgently needed humanitarian supplies and of concerned United Nations personnel into Gaza," it added. Olmert condemned the ongoing rocket fire from Gaza, but "agreed to look seriously into the urgent matter," the statement continued. Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided to keep Gaza's crossing shut on Wednesday after terrorists fired three Kassam rockets and two mortar shells at southern Israel on Tuesday night. Earlier Tuesday, Israel harshly condemned a call by the UN's top human rights official to immediately end the Gaza blockade, which she said breached international and humanitarian law. "These statements she made were shocking, biased and misinformed," said Israel's Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Aharon Leshno-Yaar, in a press statement he released to respond to the one issued by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. (Jpost)
"It is disappointing to see the High Commissioner fall victim to Hamas' cynical manipulation of the media, and reprint blatant misinformation in her press release"
Israel responds to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Overall responsibility for the situation in the Gaza Strip lies with Hamas, which invests all of its resources in arms and terrorism instead of providing for the civilians that it brutally controls.
(Communicated by the Mission of Israel to the UN in Geneva)
It is shocking to read the High Commissioner's utterly shortsighted press release regarding the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Most disturbing is the way she casually refers to Palestinian aggression in the very last sentence of her statement, as almost an afterthought. Unfortunately, Israel does not have the option of being so casual in its response to rocket and mortar attacks on its civilians, attacks which violate the most fundamental right of all, the right to life. Overall responsibility for the situation in the Gaza Strip lies with Hamas, which invests all of its resources in arms and terrorism instead of providing for the civilians that it brutally controls. The Hamas terrorist organization and affiliated Palestinian terrorist groups have fired more than 170 rockets and mortars at Israel during the past 10 days, with 25 slamming into Israel over the weekend alone. Israel is committed to maintaining the state of calm, but expects Hamas to also uphold its commitments, including cessation of terrorism and ending the arms build-up. It is disappointing to see the High Commissioner fall victim to Hamas' cynical manipulation of the media, and reprint blatant misinformation in her press release. Electricity and water continue to flow from Israel to Gaza, and 33 trucks laden with supplies arrived in Gaza yesterday, with more waiting to enter as soon as Hamas ends its violent attacks. Rather than engaging in the political game being promoted by the Palestinians, Israel expects the High Commissioner to investigate the facts before issuing one-sided statements about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and to begin by forcefully condemning the perpetrators of terror. (MFA newsletter)
“The Foreign Office’s apparent ignorance of international law derives from its own innate political hostility to Israel and its wholesale endorsement -- along with virtually the entire British intelligentsia -- of the mendacious propaganda of the enemies of Israel and the west.”
 Another Banana Moment?-Melanie Phillips
With his remarks about the Israeli settlements, Foreign Secretary David Miliband (pictured eating an ice-cream in Damascus) has signalled a sharp deterioration in relations between Britain and Israel. Miliband has urged enforcement of an EU boycott of produce from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, settlements he has called ‘illegal’. I asked the Foreign Office for the legal basis of its opinion that the settlements were illegal. It replied that it was the Geneva Convention, which forbade the movement of a population into occupied territory. I asked whether it was basing this on a ruling by any particular body or whether this was merely its own reading of the Geneva Convention. Oh, everyone accepts this is what the Geneva Convention means, came the breezy reply. I then asked what was its legal definition of the ‘occupied territories’. ‘As defined by UN resolutions – which everyone accepts’— came the even breezier reply.
Is that so.
No it is not. It is in fact a total misrepresentation of international law.
First, Article 2 of the Geneva Convention provides that the agreement applies ‘to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a high contracting party’, or sovereign territory. Thus the Convention cannot apply to the West Bank, nor to East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip for that matter, because these have never been recognized as sovereign territory. As part of Mandatory Palestine, they never belonged to any sovereign state but were occupied and administered illegally by Jordan and Egypt between 1948 and 1967 after the Arab war of aggression against Israel in 1948. Second, Article 49 of the Geneva Convention provides that an occupying power ‘shall not deport or transfer part of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.’ This was designed to prohibit inhumane practices such as by the Nazis and the Soviets before and during the Second World War in forcibly transferring or deporting people into or out of occupied territories. But the Israeli settlers in the West Bank went there voluntarily. They have not been ‘deported’ or ‘transferred’ by the government of Israel. The only force Israel has used is in getting them out of Gaza. So clearly the Geneva Convention does not apply in any sense to the West Bank settlements. (Spectator.co.uk)
“This is what people should take away from this story: People with widely different views of the political situation and with disparate attitudes about the Israeli/Palestinian situation were able to set those differences aside to condemn a blatantly ill informed and prejudicial cartoon.”
 An Antisemitic Cartoon in Emory's Student Newspaper Generates a Torrent of Criticism from Across the Campus-Deborah Lipstadt
Last Friday an unquestionably antisemitic cartoon appeared in Emory's student newspaper, The Wheel. I was sent the cartoon and the cartoonist's accompanying explanation. The cartoon was split into two sides. One side showed the wall/fence between the West Bank and Israel with Israeli soldiers in front of it and on the other side were Jews in a ghetto with a Nazi guard in front of it. Underneath in caps was the following sentence: EXPERIENCE IS THE BEST TEACHER. The accompanying explanation decried the wall and accused it of creating the economic gap between Israelis and Palestinians. It also claimed that it was NOT comparing the situation on the West Bank to the Holocaust. [Despite the fact that the cartoon did exactly that.] The cartoonist also said he did not mean to be offensive. [Despite the fact that he was.] The cartoon was also accompanied by a dissenting op-ed by two students saying that this was a form of Holocaust denial and antisemitic. What's most interesting than the cartoon is what happened next. Faculty began to hear about this on Sunday. Within a day and a half 40 faculty members had signed a letter to the editor decrying the cartoon. They included people of at least 4 different faiths [Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist], different ethnic groups, and different disciplines [Jewish Studies, African American Studies, Islamic Studies, German Studies and many many more]. In addition a number of other faculty wrote their own letters to the editor. (Lipstadt.blogspot.com)
TERRORISM, INTERNET, JIHAD
Hamas airs second satellite TV channel despite the so- called Gaza ‘humanitarian crisis’
Al-Quds, Hamas’s second satellite TV channel, went on air on November 11, further expanding that movement’s media empire. Hamas’s willingness to invest considerable resources in its media, even when faced with financial distress, reflects the significance it places on the battle for hearts and minds.
Overview
1. After several months of test broadcasts, Hamas's Al-Quds TV channel went on air at 8 PM on November 11, 2008 . The channel first aired the evening prayer held in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which was then followed by a short movie about the so-called “right of return”. After that, a news anchor sitting in a state-of-the-art studio described the long way the channel had come from inception to launch. The first programs of the channel introduced several show hosts and presenters; also featured was an interview with Sheikh Ra'ed Salah, the head of the Islamic Movement in Israel , who congratulated the new channel. Haniyah's administration released a statement welcoming the launch (Filastin al-‘An, November 12). 2. Al-Quds is Hamas's second satellite TV channel, joining the Gaza-based Al-Aqsa TV as yet another constituent of that organization's extensive and growing media network. In addition to the two satellite TV channels, Hamas also has a daily newspaper (Felesteen) published in the Gaza Strip, other organs, several news agencies, and over twenty websites and online forums in eight languages for various target audiences. Hamas places considerable significance on the development of its media empire as a central tool in the battle for hearts and minds, spending considerable resources on it despite its financial difficulties. (Terrorism-info.og.il)
"When Muslim land is occupied by non-believers, jihad is mandatory for all Muslims, male and female," said Dr Hani al-Sibai, a London-based Islamist Sunni scholar. "Women are allowed to conduct jihad without the approval of parents or spouse."
 'Mother of all suicide bombers' warns of rise in attacks- Aqeel Hussein in Baquba and Damien McElroy
A captured Iraqi terrorist known as the "mother of the female suicide bombers" has taunted interrogators that her network of volunteers ready to die is too big to be destroyed by her arrest.
Itisam Adwan, who is accused of grooming young and vulnerable women for bomb attacks, has told police in Baquba that so many others are following her lead that they will not be able to stop them.
Last week a suicide bomber who blew herself killing five Iraqi guards at a checkpoint was revealed by police to have been just 13 years old - making her the youngest such attacker so far in a spate of such bombings in the city, capital of the troubled Diyala province. Baquba, 50 miles northeast of Baghdad, has suffered an onslaught of women, some barely out of their teens, willing to inflict mass casualties as they target the security forces and public venues like markets. Although female suicide bombers had been seen in other wars, such as Chechnya's Black Widows or the Tamil Tigers' Death Maidens, the phenomenon was rare in Iraq until early this year. The attack on Monday brought to 27 the number of women who had dressed up in explosives to kill themselves and others in Diyala alone. Across Iraq since the beginning of the year in Iraq more than 30 women have died in suicide attacks, compared with only eight in 2007. Six days after the attack, police said they had still not determined the identity of the girl involved. But they revealed startling details about Itisam Adwan, whom they arrested in late September, and the role of women in fomenting such attacks. (Telegraph.co.uk)
Why the resurgence of piracy is dangerous for the West
Why the real threat of the Sirius Star hijacking is not rising oil prices - but Islamic terroris-Michael Burleigh
The price of oil rose by a dollar yesterday as a direct result of the Sirius Star capture.
But the danger of these modern-day brigands goes far beyond a jump in oil prices.
The pirates are closely linked to Islamic terrorists - and this is where the real risk to the West lies.
Pirates have already seized tankers laden with benzene and could easily take a ship loaded with liquid gas. Security experts in south Asia fear that such a ship could be used as a giant floating bomb in the Malacca Straits, reducing a city such as Singapore to rubble or blocking a major shipping route carrying much of the world's trade. How long before Al-Shabaab terrorists - the name means 'The Lads' - in Somalia countenance such an atrocity? Everyone would feel the indirect impact as world trade ground to a halt while the price of oil went through the roof. The Sirius Star joins at least 14 other ships which Somali pirates are currently holding to ransom, along with more than 260 crew members. They come from dozens of nations, many of them poor and Muslim. The captive ships range from the Ukrainian Faina, laden with guns, ammunition and 32 battle tanks, to bulk carriers, tankers, ocean-going tugs and gleaming luxury yachts.
Although the lives of crew are at risk when the ships are stormed, or when commandos attempt armed rescues, the main objective of the pirates is to extort large amounts of cash from the ship owners, who are insured against this eventuality. (Dailymail.co.uk)
Jihad Sites Celebrate Bali terrorists: Tribute to the Knights of the Bali Expedition" in new video release
ENVIRONMENTALISM and Science
“It is clear that the financial crisis and subsequent economic downturn will have implications for climate negotiations,” Mr. de Boer said. But he added that “it will take time to see how.”
Pollution Has Leveled Off, but the Figures Have Holes, Report Says-Elisabeth Rosenthal
Emissions from industrialized countries plateaued in 2006 after six years of growth, the United Nations said Monday. But the countries have not yet reported emissions from the past two years, and the new report did not include large emerging economies like those of India and China. The United Nations report was released two weeks before the world’s environmental ministers are to meet in Poland to discuss ways to curb greenhouse gases and against the backdrop of the global financial crisis. In presenting the latest findings, United Nations officials said they were concerned that the economic downturn would add a new layer of uncertainty to the coming talks, because many of the programs under development to curb the emissions that cause global warming require credit and financing. While they expressed some optimism about the new data, which went through 2006, the last year available, they said the slight decline — one-tenth of 1 percent from 2005 to 2006 — was too small to indicate a significant downward trend. (NYtimes)
“For the future the hope is that the technology could be used on patients paralysed in accidents which damage the spine.”
 Revolutionary brain transplant could create real-life bionic man-Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
A revolutionary brain implant which scientists claim will create real-life bionic men and women is being pioneered using the help of a British firm.
Science fiction is being transformed into science fact using tiny implants effectively to channel brain-waves to prosthetic limbs. Children of the 1970s will remember the American TV series The Six Million Dollar Man featuring Steve Austin as a bionic man. MicroBridge Services, based at Cardiff University, south Wales, is pioneering work which brings that fiction close to reality. It is a leader in micro-engineering design and manufacture and possibly the only firm in the world capable of creating the implants. The implants are the size of a match head which carries 100 sensors made of extremely hard tungsten carbide which conducts electricity. The sensors are only slightly thicker than a human hair and sit on the brain picking up nerve impulses to relay to prosthetic limbs.The hope is the technology will be instrumental in allowing amputees to learn to move prosthetic limbs and regain lost mobility. MicroBridge Services Ltd was set up by Cardiff University to tap the commercial potential of research being done there. Researchers at Utah University, in the USA, asked the Cardiff company to develop micro-needle array sensors which are durable.
The American team had already been successful developing implants capable of manipulating computers and prosthetic appendages. But the implants had been made of silicon which proved to be brittle and had a useful life of less than a year. The micro-needle array needed to be hardy but capable of penetrating deep enough into the brain to pick up electrical signals. (Telegraph.co.uk)
Society and CULTURE
“After all, the misery memoir is very much a Western phenomenon. The average Indian or Kenyan needs only to look out of the window to feel grateful for his or her lot, and maybe we will soon feel the same, too.”
 Misery memoirs: the final chapter?-Sathnam Sanghera
Bookshop shelves are groaning with feel-bad misery memoirs, which sell by the million. Thankfully, the genre is at last heading for an unhappy ending
Sunny McCreary does not remember ever eating food during his childhood, or indeed having any clothes, toys or friends. The family's meagre income all went on crack cocaine for his mother and nails for his stepfather to pound into his flesh, his favourite pastime. Kept in a bird coop by his parents, Sunny endured a childhood of neglect, abuse and being bullied. In the course of the most painful life ever, he survived tragedy and maiming, a savage convent-school education, being pimped out, and a degrading addiction. Then things got really bad... Welcome to the world of the misery memoir. Ever since the publication of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, the bestselling portrayal of an impoverished childhood in Ireland, and Dave Pelzer's A Child Called It, in which the author chronicled the abuse he suffered at the hands of his alcoholic and mentally unbalanced mother, tales of childhood poverty, depression, addiction and abuse have dominated the book charts. The titles of recent publishing successes sound like the cries you would hear if you opened the very doors of Hell. Tell Me Why, Mummy: A Little Boy's Struggle to Survive. No One Wants You: A True Story of a Child Forced into Prostitution. And who could forget Stuart Howarth's Please, Daddy, No, in which the author recalls how he was repeatedly raped by his father, forced to scoff pigswill and abused by paedophiles before becoming a cocaine addict, an arsonist and, finally, killing his father. Publishers have made a mint from the genre. According to one estimate, such books account for 9 per cent of the British market, generating £24million of sales. And some predict that the so-called literature of inspiration to be found in the “painful lives” or “endurance and survival” categories of bookshops will expand further, with sub-genres such as medical misery (how my life was made unbearable by Alzheimer's/depression/cancer/a rare blood disease); dog misery (how Fido helped me through Alzheimer's/depression/cancer/a rare blood disease) and celebrity misery (Billy Connolly on sex abuse, Sharon Osbourne on overcoming cancer and being married to an incomprehensible Brummie, etc). But I take the opposite, more cheerful view. I think that the misery-lit bubble is about to burst. And while this may be just wishful thinking - I had a memoir of my own published this year, and hate people assuming that it is of the misery variety - there are several arguments in support of this thesis, not least that the genre has been terminally undermined by scandals over veracity. (Timesonline.co.uk)
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