Editor and Researcher Elisa Vandernoot

American Freedom Alliance Newsletter

THE WEEK AT A GLANCE   

FOUR BEDROOMS, ONE BATHROOM, NO BOUNDARIES
By Avi Davis

Some of my most vivid childhood memories revolve around Sunday evenings at 6:30 pm.   Back then my siblings and I would gather before our family's black and white television set breathlessly awaiting the latest episode of The Wonderful World of Disney.

In those days a Disney program promised a bounty of surprises. Walt  Disney would appear,  moustachioed  and  bemused,  and in his warm, avuncular way, greet us as if we were his own children.    Those moments were filled with anticipation.   Would tonight's offering  hail from one of the many Disney kingdoms -  Tomorrowland, Adventureland , Fantasyland, Frontierland - or perhaps  from some other distant realm not yet unveiled to us?   Huddled in our dressing gowns, with our after-dinner hot cocoa and crumpets (sorry, no American translation), we would spend the most engaging, felicitous hour of our week, sharing a program with millions of others who were similarly absorbed.

In the 1960s Disney defined family entertainment - a place where parents could safely deposit their children and leave for a moment  without fear that their home would be suddenly invaded by something dark and malevolent - beyond their children's understanding or appreciation.   Well into our early teens, the name Disney remained synonymous with the tastes, aromas and snuggled warmth of our family den on those Sunday nights - and the valuable time spent with our overworked parents.

With children of my own now, I have searched high and low for that Disney on television and find that it barely exists.  The Disney Channel does offer some of the old programming.  But most of its schedule is devoted to fast talking, plot driven teen sitcoms in which my children  lose themselves with the same abandon  with which  we once gave ourselves over to The Wonderful World of Disney.

But with a significant difference:   they are no longer watching children's programming.

Any adult who views even one episode of these programs will recognize immediately that they are as distant from traditional family entertainment as we were once from Tomorrowland.   Adult dialogue placed in the mouths of ten, eleven and twelve -year-olds skirts close to sexual innuendo; situational comedies present pre-pubescent children with adult dilemmas which demand adult responses.  Boys and girls in high school trade banter and personal jabs that would not be out of place in an episode of Sex and the City.  One can't watch these shows without feeling that the boundary between "family"  and "adult" entertainment has all but disappeared.

But even this pales in sheer lubricious content when compared to the far more successful and desired programming run under the Disney’s ABC Family Channel affiliate.    Here you can encounter versions of the The Sopranos Lite - programming which ranges from harrowing tales of child molestation to the outright celebration of teenage promiscuity.

Perhaps that is why none of us should be surprised by Disney's latest offering - Roommates which debuted on the ABC/ Disney Family channel on March 23.   The " roommates" in question are four teenagers, who jump in and out of each others' beds with the abandon of the six protagonists from Friends.  The comedy looks nothing like a children’s show and yet it is placed at a time slot where children as young as six, with a nimble thumb and a distracted parent, can locate it and then gulp it all in.

Equally distressing is Disney's  The Secret Life of an American Teenager.   This show, Disney's biggest hit, depicts such scenes as teens in bed with one another, underage drinking,  a father peppering his daughters with questions about their sex lives and a pregnant girl in hospital awaiting the birth of her child .

And if that is not enough for you, try  Greek, set in the belly-shots-and-wet-T-shirts world of college fraternities and sororities, or Lincoln Heights, a drama about growing up fast in a crime-ridden Los Angeles neighborhood where single mothers struggle to keep their children shielded from a life of crime.

Welcome to the new Disney "family."

With the abdication of responsibility inherent in the broadcast of such prurient fare, one does have to wonder how Disney itself justifies this modern volte face on traditional family values.  Well, Anne Sweeney, President of Disney's ABC affiliate was asked that very question by the Los Angeles Times in February and told us:   "The best way to resonate with your audience is to be authentic and you're only authentic if you are holding up a mirror to your audience and saying, 'I see you.' "

Television shows don't make it to air, of course, without the backing of big sponsors  - and most of these shows have them in spades.

In the same interview that caught Sweeney in a moment of repose, Pat Gentile, a top ad buyer for Proctor & Gamble and co-chairman of the Alliance for Family Entertainment, added:

"I'd love for these shows to be 'Little House on the Prairie,' but that isn't going to happen. Family programming is all about bringing families together to watch shows so that they can dialogue about these sensitive topics."

Sensitive topics?   Dialogue?    Television executives and big name advertisers have, it seems, decided that what we all need  is  a heavy dose of family therapy and the best way of achieving any psychological breakthrough is to thrust societal problems, our priapic urges and our manifest dysfunctions in our  childrens' faces, the better to deal with them.

Of course this is a lie.  Television  executives and advertisers consider  nothing but market share  when giving the green light to such shows as Roommates and The Secret Life ( which was, incidentally,  originally titled,  The Sex Lives of American Teenagers).   Not surprisingly, The Secret Life is ABC's top rated show and Roommates looks likely to give it a nudge.

But while the executives rake in the loot, parents like me and millions of others are left to wring our hands over what to do with that angular box sitting so defiantly in our living rooms.    We are all now aware that with a press of a button a child can be transported from the safety of the couch to scenes of  teen pregnancy, binge drinking and drug abuse among children who might not be so distant in age from themselves - sometimes without us even knowing.   What does this do to a child's subconscious development and sense of his or her place in the world?    That is the question all of us should be asking ourselves when considering whether to continue to pay our cable bill from month to month.

What the Sweeneys and Gimbles of the entertainment world are telling us, in their self- righteous admonitory way, is that there is no time for innocence any longer - or maybe no such thing as innocence at all.   "Real" life must be encountered and confronted at the earliest ages and delays are detrimental to family cohesion.   The truth is exactly the opposite.  The rejection of authority, the reversion to aberrant behaviors, the willingness to push boundaries are all related to family breakdown and dysfunction in American households. And these are the very situations television peddles while reminding us how deficient we are in forthrightly addressing our family issues with our children.

What do we do about this?  Well I, for one, have turned off my television, canceled my cable subscription and written to Disney in protest.  My letter, however, was addressed to dear old Uncle Walt.

Want to comment on this article?   See Avi Davis’ blog

Avi Davis is the Executive Director and Senior Fellow of the American Freedom Alliance in Los Angeles. He can be contacted at isdev@ix.netcom.com

Robert Spencer-Where’s the Moderate Taliban?
by Robert Spencer
President Obama wants to open negotiations with moderate factions of the Taliban. On first reflection, that sounds reasonable. Something like this worked in Iraq, after all. Obama says that “part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of Al Qaeda in Iraq.” And “there may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and the Pakistani region,” although he grants that “the situation in Afghanistan is, if anything, more complex.” And it is, for at least two reasons. First, the Sunni insurgents among whom General Petraeus was able to gain confidence had turned against the al-Qaeda elements for their own reasons. Al-Qaeda in Iraq had forced themselves into the communities, onto the tribes, and even demanded sheiks’ daughters in marriage. Second, Petraeus had enough troops to provide local security to the former insurgents and their tribal leaders. (HumanEvents)

NEWS: EUROPE AND AMERICA

Gitmo Waltz:The Obama Justice Department is dancing around the words “enemy combatants.” -Andrew C. McCarthy
International terrorists waging war against the United States cannot be treated as if they were ordinary defendants. Those who say otherwise, and who would treat terrorist operatives as if they were mere civilians, are trying to impose on the United States the standards of foolhardy treaties that the United States has never ratified — precisely because accepting such standards “would improperly reward an enemy that violates the laws of war by operating as a loose network and camouflaging its forces as civilians.” To protect national security, the president must have the authority to detain anyone who, in his judgment, is helping the enemy. And anyone means anyone: It matters not if such suspects “have not actually committed or attempted to commit any act of depredation or entered the theatre or zone of active military operations.” If the president’s unilateral authority to detain were “limited to persons captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan,” this would “unduly hinder both the President’s ability to protect our country from future acts of terrorism and his ability to gather vital intelligence regarding the capability, operations, and intentions of this elusive and cunning adversary.” (Nationalreview)

Female Genital Mutilation Rampant in Britain - Free Reconstructive Surgery Offered
The UK taxpayers will now be paying thousands of pounds to provide free surgery for women who have been the victims of female genital mutilation. Advertisements will be placed so that women who have suffered through this abomination to their sexuality can hear of and take advantage of the program.So why has female castration, which has been illegal in Britain since 1985, now being inflicted upon women and young girls in epidemic proportions? The answer, though deceptively left out of the below/last article, is clear = the huge increase in muslim immigrants into Great Britain and the subsequent high birth rate their immigration brings. (Theopinionator)


U.S. MUSLIM COALITION CONSIDERS SUSPENDING RELATIONS WITH FBI-American Muslim Taskforce
Move comes following incidents of FBI targeting mosques, Muslim groups (WASHINGTON, D.C., 3/17/2009) - A coalition of major national Islamic organizations today announced that it is considering suspending outreach relations with the FBI,citing recent incidents in which American mosques and Muslim groups have been targeted.In a statement, the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT), said: Muslim communities throughout the United States have made significant advances in promoting and contributing to a fair, free and pluralistic society. Through civil rights advocacy, civic and political engagement, and the promotion of dialogue with interfaith leaders and law enforcement agencies, Muslim Americans continue to be a positive and stabilizing force in keeping our nation safe and secure
from acts of violence and foreign threats. (Americanmuslimvoter)

'There's no honour in killing,' top judge tells Muslim family in test case-Steve Doughty
A senior judge yesterday condemned the notion of honour killings as an affront to English law. Lord Justice Wall declared that 'they are acts of simply sordid criminal behaviour' and 'had nothing to do with any concept of honour known to English law'. In an Appeal Court test case he ruled that the welfare of children should not be put at risk because of the 'honour' idea held in some Muslim families. The judge added: 'Arson, domestic violence and potential revenge likely to result in abduction or death are criminal acts which will be treated as such.The case, involving three children of a Pakistani family who were removed by social workers and taken into care, is the first childcare case touching on honour issues to reach the level of the Appeal Court, which sets precedents to be followed in other courts.The 41-year-old father of the children asked for the right to have contact with them, but was refused. He also asked that the children, who have been put in the care of white non-Muslim foster parents, should be sent to live with a Muslim family. The children were removed from the family following the death of another child and violent incidents connected to the role of a woman in their extended family. (Dailymail.co.uk)

Two out of Three Serious Teenage Criminals are Immigrants-Netherlands Info Services
THE HAGUE, 18/03/09 - Two out of three serious teenage criminals are children of parents born outside the Netherlands. In most cases, no prison sentence is imposed, it emerges from a study sent to parliament by Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin. In the research, 447 case files of youngsters aged from 12 to 17 were studied. All the files involved cases in which the perpetrator was convicted of a crime for which the maximum jail sentence is 8 years or more. These were murder, manslaughter, robbery with violence, extortion, arson, public acts of violence and sexual crimes. Only just over one-third (37 percent) of the convicted youngsters are white Dutch. Two-thirds are of immigrant origin, meaning that they themselves or their mothers were born abroad. (NIS)

Ethno-religious conflict in Europe: Radicalisation in Europe’s Muslim communities Michael Emerson (et al)., Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
"The truly remarkable failings of the Western economic model now on display" may "give a renewed boost to Islamic radicalisation," writes Michael Emerson, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), in a February publication."Tensions and violence involving people from minority groups of Muslim culture are perhaps the greatest source of societal tensions and violent conflict in contemporary Europe," Emerson asserts, introducing studies based on Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Russia and the United Kingdom and prepared by fourteen authors.
Societal tensions typically stem from two main sources, the studies find:
• Social and economic disadvantage and discrimination affecting Muslim groups, and;
• Terrorist violence inspired by radical ideas.
Communities in all six countries have been affected to some extent by the growing influence of radical Islam in recent decades, intensified by the aftershocks of the 9/11 terror attacks in the US, recalls Emerson. (Euractiv)

Two Men Charged With Terrorism in Germany-DW-World
Two men with alleged ties to a radical Islamic group have been charged with terrorism, German prosecutors said. Investigators said the accused had connections to a man who planed to bomb US interests in Germany.
Omid S., a German of Afghan background, and Huseyin O., a Turk, were charged Wednesday, March 18, for allegedly supporting the radical Islamic Jihad Union, an offshoot of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
The men are allegedly tied to a third man, Adam Yilmaz, who was arrested over a plot to blow up US targets. Their plans for attacking US targets in Germany were reportedly foiled by authorities. The men were arrested in September. Omid S. was charged with membership in a foreign terrorist organization, while Huseyin O. was charged with supporting a foreign terrorist organization. The two 27 year-olds face up to 10 years in prison if convicted. (Dw-world)

Academic freedom

Controversial Speakers Face Huge Security Fees at Berkeley and Colorado-FIRE Press Release
BERKELEY, Calif., and BOULDER, Colo., March 17, 2009—Open discussion of Israeli-Palestinian issues can now resume unburdened at the University of California at Berkeley, which has slashed a "security fee" that would have kept a controversial speaker off campus. Meanwhile, students at the University of Colorado at Boulder are nervously awaiting a promised $2,200 security bill for a speech by controversial professors William Ayers and Ward Churchill. Students at both universities have turned to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help. "Charging for extra security because of a potentially hostile audience grants the most disruptive or violent hecklers a veto over controversial events and creates an incentive for that kind of behavior," Greg Lukianoff, FIRE's President, said. "It's also unconstitutional at a public college or university." (Thefire)


One-Party Classroom: Illinois Academe- John K. Wilson
The following interview with David Horowitz was conducted by John K. Wilson, the editor of Illinois Academe, a publication of the American Association of University Professors. Wilson is the author of five books, including Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies, Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest, The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education, and Newt Gingrich: Capitol Crimes and Misdemeanors. He is the founder of the Institute for College Freedom.
JW: What, exactly, should be done to the professors teaching these classes? Should they be banned from teaching these classes? Should they be fired? Should their course readings be controlled by someone else.
DH: The university presents itself as an organization of professionals with standards of performance and excellence. If professors fail to meet these standards what is the remedy? Isn’t that a question for the organization itself to answer? Contrary to the misrepresentations of my efforts by many of my opponents I have never suggested that universities be governed by outside authorities whether governmental or otherwise. The best remedy in my view would be for these problems to be handled by faculty at the departmental level. However, that requires an interest from faculty in holding itself accountable. So far I have seen very little interest on the part of faculty in correcting the malpractices documented in One-Party Classroom. In some cases such as Women’s Studies, moreover, the violation of long-standing academic standards takes place at the departmental level itself. In these cases there would have to be an academic committee consisting of faculty peers at the level of the college, or even the university. However, I am optimistic by nature (otherwise I wouldn’t be spending my time banging my head against these stone walls) and don’t see why it shouldn’t be possible to change these attitudes and get on with the task. (Frontpagemag)

U.S. Is Urged to Lift Antiterror Ban on Foreign Scholars-John Schwartz
Tariq Ramadan, a respected Swiss academic and Muslim scholar, had a job all lined up at the University of Notre Dame in 2004, but the Bush administration prevented him from entering the country. Government officials said he had contributed to a charity believed to have connections to terrorism. A federal judge supported the government’s position in December 2007, and an appeal will be heard next Tuesday by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York. Now, in a move leading up to that hearing, a coalition of academic and civil liberties groups is calling on the Obama administration to break with the Bush administration’s policies on blocking visas of some foreign scholars, writers and activists.In a letter being released Wednesday, the coalition says so-called ideological exclusion “compromises the vitality of academic and political debate in the United States at a time when that debate is exceptionally important.” (NYT)

Media Bias

The Dissing of Laura Bush- WILLIAM MCGURN
By choosing Fort Bragg for her first official trip outside the capital last Thursday, Michelle Obama signaled that she will use her position as First Lady to promote one of America's most deserving causes: our military families. Plainly the families loved it. Just look at the smiles on those children as she read them "The Cat in the Hat." So it was just a little disconcerting the next morning to hear the First Lady explain how she came to this issue during last year's campaign. "I think I was like most Americans," she told ABC News. "Pretty oblivious to the life of military families. Sort of taking it for granted." Perhaps Mrs. Obama did take these families for granted. Surely, however, it's extraordinary to suggest that "most Americans" did the same. Certainly not the McCains, the Bidens and the Palins, each of whom had at least one son in uniform. More to the point, the presidential campaign in which she says the issue started "taking shape" for her came nearly seven years into a war that has inspired millions across America to step forward to help our troops. (WSJ)


Where is the Arab outrage over Darfur?-Eran Tzidkiyahu
In recent years, a media revolution has been taking place in the Arab world, so that the media now reflect to a great extent the atmosphere of the Arab street as well as the consensus in the Arab regimes. Criticism against the crimes committed by the Zionist occupier in Palestine receives substantial resonance, whereas other horrors that take place in the region get little coverage, especially when they are the work of local players and not of Europeans, Americans or Jews. The regional condemnation of Israel doesn't reflect global humanitarian standards but is reserved especially for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The criticism against Israel, by its volume and severity, overshadows the coverage of the ongoing conflict in Darfur, for example, which in the past few years has already claimed a quarter of a million victims and created millions of refugees. The ethnic cleansing taking place in Darfur is far worse than any other regional crisis and cannot be compared to the Israeli-Palestinian political conflict, neither in volume nor in essence. (Jpost)

An Arab-Made Misery-Nonie Darwish
International donors pledged almost $4.5 billion in aid for Gaza earlier this month. It has been very painful for me to witness over the past few years the deteriorating humanitarian situation in that narrow strip where I lived as a child in the 1950s. The media tend to attribute Gaza's decline solely to Israeli military and economic actions against Hamas. But such a myopic analysis ignores the problem's root cause: 60 years of Arab policy aimed at cementing the Palestinian people's status as stateless refugees in order to use their suffering as a weapon against Israel. As a child in Gaza in the 1950s, I experienced the early results of this policy. Egypt, which then controlled the territory, conducted guerrilla-style operations against Israel from Gaza. My father commanded these operations, carried out by Palestinian fedayeen, Arabic for "self-sacrifice." Back then, Gaza was already the front line of the Arab jihad against Israel. My father was assassinated by Israeli forces in 1956. (WSJ)

Freedom of Speech

The Politics of Demonization-Thomas Landen
When the media keep repeating that someone is beyond the pale, some people are bound to believe them. Recent events show that radicals will even try to kill people who have been demonized in this manner. Perhaps that is the goal behind the policy of demonization: to neutralize and remove the people’s democratically elected representatives. Recently, we are being confronted with the bizarre phenomenon of defenders of Western freedoms, including Jews, being demonized as “Nazis,” while subsequently Nazi methods are used to eliminate them. The authorities, meanwhile, do not come to the aid of the victims since the latter are “Nazis.” On the contrary, sometimes the authorities even praise the aggressors for their vigilance and their “intolerance” in the fight against “Nazism.” The Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn fell victim to this, so has his successor Geert Wilders and the Vlaams Belang party in Belgium, as has the German civil movement “Pro,” and many others. (Brusselsjournal)

It takes courage to stand aside from the gang-Daniel Finkelstein
The actor Ron Silver was a Democrat who voted for George Bush. His brave and rare stand cost him dear in Hollywood.
I don't think the phone will be ringing as much.” When the Hollywood actor Ron Silver endorsed George W. Bush's re-election campaign, he knew it wouldn't enhance his career. The night after he spoke to the 2004 Republican convention we had dinner in a New York restaurant and Ron said that he expected many of his Hollywood liberal friends would cut him off. It was something he didn't relish, but he was ready for it. He thought it a price worth paying to be able to say what he thought. And he was right to be apprehensive. Ron was - I don't think anyone who saw him would disagree - a brilliant actor. He was riveting playing Alan Dershowitz in Reversal of Fortune and Angelo Dundee in Ali. He won a Tony for his role on Broadway in Speed-the-Plow and was nominated for an Emmy for his role as the political consultant Bruno Gianelli in The West Wing. Yet after his Bush endorsement big roles were much harder to come by. His talent was such that in time they would have returned, I suppose. But, tragically, Ron died on Sunday after suffering from cancer for two years. (Timesonline.co.uk)

ANTISEMITISM

Welcome to Ramallmö How a tennis match sparked riots in Sweden-Pauline Neuding
"This is how it was last time too," said a Holocaust survivor, when she was escorted from Malmö's main square by the police. "We had to leave the square, while they got to stay." On January 27th, it had been almost a month since the Israeli military operation Cast Lead was launched in Gaza. A couple of hundred people, mostly Jews, had gathered in Sweden's third largest city, Malmö, to show their support for Israel. Their slogans--"Israel's right to self defense" and "Compassion with all civilian victims"--were met with shouts of "Sieg Heil" and "Damn Jews" by a group of mainly Arab and left-wing counter protesters. Stones, eggs, and bottles were thrown, and when a home-made bomb was fired at the Jewish group police finally decided to evacuate. The pro-Israeli protesters fled, while children ran after them with cell phones to report back into the crowd where the Jews were heading One protester I spoke with was among those who refused to run. "I already left Poland forty years ago," she said. "They will not chase me away this time." (Weeklystandard)

BRUSSELS (EJP)---An islamic religion teacher disputed the testimony of a Nazi camp survivor who recounted his story to students in a Brussels secondary school, Le Soir daily newspaper reported Tuesday.
Henri Kichka, 83, from the Union of Jewish deportees in Belgium, had been invited last Friday by the school in Laeken, a Brussels commune, to describe how he survived Buchenwald and his family members were killed in the death camps. During the meeting with the 150 students, the school was told by a teacher of Islamic religion that Kichka’s account “was largely exaggerated.” “This never happened to me in 25 years,” Kichka, who is regularly invited to meet young people, told Le Soir. The school management had decided to film the meeting because, it said, “witnesses disappear and we want to keep tracks.” On Monday, the trade unions saw the videotape. “To us, there is no doubt, the teacher quoted negationist ideas from Roger Garaudy,” a French revisionist author and philosopher who converted to Islam and called the Holocaust a “myth”. “This will not remain without effect,” the school said. An administrative investigation has been opened. The representative body of Muslims in Belgium, which appoints the teachers of religion, reacted swiftly. “Negationism is an offence. Our teachers must respect the Constitution and laws of this country. Otherwise there will be sanctions,”it said. Holocaust denial is an offence in Belgium liable to prison term. (EJP)

Moussawi is out - but could reapply-Marcus Dysch
An intense lobbying campaign by Jewish organisations has succeeded with the Home Office rejecting a visa application from Hizbollah media relations officer Ibrahim Moussawi.
Under increasing pressure from the Board of Deputies, the Community Security Trust and the JC, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith turned down his request to attend a seminar at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies next week.
Jon Benjamin, Board chief executive, said the result was being treated as a substantial victory.
“This is unequivocally the right decision because of the nature of Hizbollah and the influence of those who advocate on its behalf,” he said.
“We are pleased that the government has recognised the perniciousness of this terrorist organisation.”
The CST’s Mark Gardner said: “Hizbollah is a viciously antisemitic organisation and its activists should not be welcome in this country.”
Mr Moussawi’s application was rejected because it was felt his lectures at the event would not have been conducive to the public good, but the decision was taken only on a one-off basis. The Home Office did not deem him sufficiently dangerous to warrant a full exclusion.
He will be welcome to apply for a visa on another occasion should he wish, although it is thought this initial refusal would count against him. (JC)

TERRORISM, INTERNET, JIHAD

Iranian Man and His Company Charged in International Scheme to Supply Iran with Sensitive U.S. Technology-DOJ
WASHINGTON – An Iranian citizen and his Tehran business have been charged with purchasing helicopter engines and advanced aerial cameras for fighter bombers from U.S. firms and illegally exporting them to Iran using companies in Malaysia, Ireland and the Netherlands. Among the alleged recipients of these U.S. goods was an Iranian military firm that has since been designated by the United States for being owned or controlled by entities involved in Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program. The charges against Hossein Ali Khoshnevisrad, 55, and his Iranian company, Ariasa, AG (Ariasa), were announced today by Matthew G. Olsen, Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Jeffrey A Taylor, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Kevin A. Delli-Colli, Acting Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement, U.S. Department of Commerce; Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge, FBI Washington Field Office; Mark X. McGraw, Special Agent in Charge, Washington Field Office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security; and Special Agent in Charge Edward Bradley of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service Northeast Field Office. (USDOJ)

Exclusive: Are Somali Jihadists in Nashville?-Dave Gaubatz
For a few days in February and March of this year, my field counterterrorism researchers and I visited Nashville, Tennessee. I had obtained information in Richmond, Virginia, that a group of Muslims originally from Somalia had relocated to Nashville. Additionally, there were several media organizations (conservative and liberal) and individuals reporting concerns for our national security in regards to some Somali nationals missing from various U.S. cities and likely organizing to commit Jihadist activity against America. During my counterterrorism lectures and training, I have often said the truth is somewhere in the middle. Never focus solely on what organizations slanted to the extreme right or extreme left inform the American public. More importantly, I advocate only using first-hand intelligence and do not rely on open source intelligence. The only method to determine if Muslims from Somalia were advocating Islamic Jihadist ideologies in America was to conduct research in predominately Somalian Islamic Centers. The Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Nashville was selected as a start. (Familysecuritymatters)

The Long War Journal: Swedish citizen senior leader of Somali terror alliance-Bill Raymond and Bill Roggio
A Swedish citizen released by the government last year is currently a senior leader of a Somali Islamist terror alliance currently fighting against the newly formed government. Swedish police arrested three Swedish citizens in February 2008 on charges of funneling money to Al Shabaab, the Somali terrorist group with close links to al Qaeda. One of the men was released shortly afterward, and the remaining two men were released in June 2008 because “the evidence was insufficient” to prove the men had made the transfer, SvD Online reported. The suspects were put on parole, banned from travel, and ordered not to hamper the investigation or destroy evidence. In September 2008 the investigation against the three men was dropped. Longwarjournal)

Radical ENVIRONMENTALISM and Science

That Fabled Consensus Again-Melanie Phillips
To date, objections to man-made global warming theory have rested on such positions as a) there is no evidence that current warming levels are deviating from historical patterns; b) studies claiming the existence of such evidence tend to be sloppy, inaccurate or fraudulent; c) claims of already visible effects of such warming are demonstrably false; d) the theory rests upon dubious computer modelling, which boils down to ‘rubbish in, rubbish out’; e) something as complex as climate cannot be predicted in such a simplistic manner. But now a new study has been published which states flatly that the very idea of anthropogenic global warming ‘lies outside any science’. Physicist Dr. Gerhard Gerlich, of the Institute of Mathematical Physics at the Technical University Carolo-Wilhelmina in Braunschweig in Germany, and Dr. Ralf D. Tscheuschner co-authored a July 7, 2007 paper entitled ‘Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within the Frame of Physics’ which has just been published in the International Journal of Modern Physics. (Spectator.co.uk)

Think Again: Not quite 10 minutes to doomsday-Jonathan Rosenblum
My son recently asked me an interesting question: If global warming is preeminently an empirical issue, why do positions on the magnitude of the threat hew so closely to ideology? Those on the Left tend toward global warming alarmism; those on the Right tend to be far more skeptical. For those on the Left the answer is easy: The doubters are either congenital idiots, hostile to science, or have sold their souls to Big Business. For the skeptics, the key lies in the Left's desire for rule and to impose its social vision by any means possible. Those on the Left are convinced that they are more intelligent and more moral, and those twin conceits cause them to view democracy - which gives equal weight to the votes of the unintelligent and unenlightened - as basically irrational. (For a similar reason, they tend to view markets, which treat the decisions of all consumers equally, as irrational compared to central economic planning by "experts.") From Karl Marx to Tommy Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas, the Left has busied itself explaining the "false consciousness" of the masses, who consistently fail to recognize their own best interests. (Jpost)

From Bipolar Darkness, the Empathy to Be a Doctor-ELISSA ELY, M.D.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — By 35, Dr. Alice W. Flaherty had led a life of traditional overaccomplishment: undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard, a Ph.D. in neuroscience from M.I.T., research in movement disorders, articles in leading neurological journals. Then, in 1998, she delivered stillborn twin boys. In the grief that followed, she grew manic: poetic, metaphorical and long-winded. She wrote everywhere, up and down her arm, over and under any serviceable piece of paper. She also wrote more traditionally, producing neurology handbooks, autobiographical meditations and, in 2004, a best-selling book, “The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block and the Creative Brain” (Houghton Mifflin). Her grief eventually subsided. Her newly uncovered bipolar disorder did not — to the benefit of her patients.
Dr. Flaherty, now 45, is director of the movement disorders fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. But those technical descriptors do not begin to capture the way she uses the racing mind of her manic phases to drive her ideas into forceful, highly personal treatments. (NYT)

Society and CULTURE

Fear-Ron Silver (July 2, 1946 - March 15, 2009) from December 12, 2007
You injure yourself, and in that first moment, there is nothing in the world but your pain. You grimace, curse, and wish the hurt would just go away. But what’s worse than feeling pain, is not feeling it when you need to. People who have CIPA (Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis) live each day with the possibility that something they can’t sense is killing them. Pain, though unpleasant and sometimes debilitating, is at times, necessary. It is our body’s way of warning us. Fear, though unpleasant and sometimes debilitating, is an equally valuable instrument of preservation. When we are cut, it is natural to cry out in pain; and when those who would cherish our destruction threaten us, we ought to be afraid. In February of 2004, NYU held a conference about fear. The conference was called “Fear: Its Uses and Abuses.” In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, posters with crude caricatures of Japanese and Nazis appeared with “Warning! Our homes are in danger now!” Exclamation points at the beginning and close of the warning, in case the message escaped us. It was called propaganda. As reported in the New York Times, in an article by Edward Rothstein, (propaganda’s) “accepted function was to galvanize, urge, justify, remind and yes, frighten.” (italics mine) (Pajamasmedia)

Down with Facebook! What nobody bothers to mention about the social-networking site is that it's really dull--mind-numbingly dull. - Matt Labash
Look at the outer shell--the parachute pants, the piano-key tie, the fake tuxedo T-shirt--and you might mistake me for a slave to fashion. Do not be deceived. Early adoption isn't my thing. I much prefer late adoption, that moment when the trend-worshipping sheeple who have early-adopted drive the unsustainable way of life I so stubbornly cling to ever so close to the edge of obsolescence, that I've no choice but to follow. This explains why I bought cassette tapes until 1999, why I wouldn't purchase a DVD player until Blockbuster cashiered their VHS stock. Toothpaste? I use it now that it's clear it's here to stay. So I'm not inflexible. But there is one promise I've made to myself. And that is that no matter how long I live, no matter how much pressure is exerted, no matter how socially isolated I become, I will never, ever join Facebook, the omnipresent online social-networking site that like so many things that have menaced our country (the Unabomber, Love Story, David Gergen) came to us from Harvard but has now worked its insidious hooks into every crevice of society. (Weeklystandard)

www.americanfreedomalliance.org

  Links:

• Foundation for the   Defense of Democracy
• MEMRI
• Jihad Watch
• Simon Wiesenthal   Center
• The Investigative Project    On Terrorism
• Eye on the UN