Editor and Researcher Elisa Vandernoot

American Freedom Alliance Weekly Gazette

THE WEEK AT A GLANCE

This Week's Editorial

Should Israel Apologize To Turkey?
By Avi Davis

The Turks don’t seem to losing any momentum in their international campaign to demonize Israel.

Not content with having withdrawn their ambassador to the country and using every international forum available to raise the specter of the Jewish  ” state terrorism” , Turkey is now demanding an apology for the deaths aboard the Mavi Marmara on the morning May 30 when the Turkish registered boat sought to breach the Gaza blockade.

Now the Turks, having acknowledged that the Government of Israel recognizes that ” mistakes” were made in the attempt to interdict the passage of the ship, have made it clear that they will accept nothing short of a full apology for the eleven deaths which resulted from the confrontation.

Such an apology would be nothing  short of a diplomatic catastrophe for the Jewish state.  To acknowledge that the nation was somehow at fault for this commission of political theater, would be to essentially acknowledge guilt – and there can be no question of Israel’s liability for the violence which broke out that morning – which was pre-planned and pre-meditated and designed to achieve exactly is result.  .  Israel would gain nothing but further opprobrium and it would make the likelihood of future passage of such violations even more certain.

The Turks know something about how to manage international campaigns of this order. For 95 years , successive Turkish governments have denied the role of  the stare in facilitating the deaths of close to one million Armenians during the First World War.   No Turkish leader has been prepared to acknowledge this enormous crime against humanity and a for a very good reason.  To do so would open the country to compensatory claims and property right legal suits that could stretch on for generations.  Not only that, but the history modern Turkey would  inevitably be colored by the  dark hues of racism and bigotry, almost impossible to erase, as many Germans can today attest.

The difference between Turkey and Israel in these two instances is that Israel did not kill a million people in a pre-planned genocidal campaign and has not sought to deny the truth behind the incidents which occurred in May, 2010 – releasing video footage which shows clearly that the Navy Seals who boarded the boat,  were first brutally attacked  and fired only to defend their lives.  The Turks, on the other hand, will not open their archives to reveal the truth about the events of 1915 -  which could not have been conducted in self defense – and insist in applying tremendous pressure on Western governments to resist Armenian pressure to declare those events a genocide.

Perhaps Israel then would be better off  not seeking to mollify the anti-Israel government of Turkey but in reversing its long held policy of not pushing for world wide recognition of the Armenian genocide.  Perhaps then, in the diplomatic shell game the Turks are now playing, that will begin to learn that they have exposure on an issue far more internationally damaging anything the Israelis  have ever done.

Avi Davis is the President of the American Freedom Alliance in Los Angeles. His writings and blog entries can be found at The Intermediate Zone and the Los Angeles Jewish Journal Blog  On The Other Hand.

NEWS: EUROPE AND AMERICA

US freezes terror imam's assets-Jpost Staff
Treasury Dept. implements sanctions against cleric with ties to 9/11.
The US government on Friday approved financial sanctions against Yemeni-American Imam Anwar al-Awlaqi who has been identified as a leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. The Treasury Department has now frozen Awlaqi's financial assets. Awlaqi is wanted by US authorities for his role in a plot to blow up a A Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines plan on Christmas Day. "Anwar al-Awlaqi has proven that he is extraordinarily dangerous, committed to carrying out deadly attacks on Americans and others worldwide," Stuart Levey, the head of Treasury's sanctions department, was quoted by AFP as saying. The Obama administration has already authorized the targeted killing of Awlaqi, who is an American citizen. The US-born Awlaki moved to Yemen in 2004 and is in hiding there after being linked to the suspects in recent terror attacks. Two of the 9/11 terrorists, as well as Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the US officer who committed the Fort Hood massacre in which 12 were killed, attended the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, where Awlaki served as imam. (Jpost)

Stewart Gets a New 10-Year Prison Sentence-Mark Hamblett
A stunned Lynne Stewart was resentenced to 10 years in prison yesterday, in part because she crowed that she could handle the initial 28-month sentence ordered by Southern District Judge John Koeltl in 2006 "standing on my head." Judge Koeltl, instructed by an appeals court to reconsider sentencing enhancements for terrorism, perjury and abuse of her position of trust as a lawyer, did just that as he ordered a longer term for the 70-year-old former defense lawyer for providing material support to a terrorist conspiracy. But Judge Koeltl also said post-sentencing comments by Ms. Stewart in 2006, including a statement in a television interview that she would do "it" again and would not "do anything differently" influenced his decision to give a higher sentence than the one rejected as too light last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The comments, Judge Koeltl said yesterday, indicated the original sentence "was not sufficient" to reflect the goals of sentencing guidelines. The announcement of the 10-year sentence drew gasps of disbelief from Ms. Stewart's supporters who had packed the courtroom at 500 Pearl Street. (Newyorklawjournal)

Muslim bus drivers refuse to let guide dogs on board-Andy Dolan
Blind passengers are being ordered off buses or refused taxi rides because Muslim drivers or passengers object to their 'unclean' guide dogs. One pensioner, a cancer sufferer, told how had twice been confronted by drivers and asked to get off the bus because of his guide dog, and had also faced hostility at a hospital and in a supermarket over the animal. The problem to carry guide dogs on religious grounds has become so widespread that the matter was raised in the House of Lords last week, prompting transport minister Norman Baker to warn that a religious objection was not a reason to eject a passenger with a well-behaved guide dog. While drivers can use their discretion to refuse to carry non-disabled passengers with dogs, they are compelled to accept guide dogs under disability discrimination law. Yesterday both the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and the National Federation of the Blind confirmed the problem was common, and, according to the latter organisation was 'getting worse'. The tension stems from a strand of Islamic teaching which warns against contact with dogs because the animal's saliva was considered to be impure, the Muslim Council of Britain said. (Dailymail.co.uk)

Germany debuts 'suicide bomber hotline'-AP
"HATIF" phone service to prevent violence in name of Islam.
The German government set up a 'suicide bomber hotline' Monday to aid Muslims who want to quit extremism. The service should not be confused with a standard 'suicide hotline,' which provides help to individuals who are considering hurting themselves. The hotline is called "HATIF," which means "telephone" in Arabic. A statement from the German Federal Constitution Protection Office said "the primary goal of HATIF is to prevent violence in the name of Islam." A spokeswoman for the German domestic intelligence agency, who was talking on condition of anonymity in line with agency policy, declined to say how much money had been allocated or how many employees were working for the program. However, she said the agency would guarantee confidentiality to users, and also help with safety measures if people seeking to quit are threatened by radicals. "Our program is an offer for those who want to leave extremism behind," she said. "Once we find out what their needs are, we will develop the program accordingly." The intelligence service estimates there are more than 36,000 Islamist extremists in Germany, but only a fraction of those are considered potentially violent. The Muslim population in Germany is estimated to be between 3.8 million and 4.3 million — meaning Muslims make up between 4.6 and 5.2 percent of the population. (Jpost)

Shopping centre bosses approve 'Asian squat toilets' following cultural awareness course - James Tozer
For centuries, the great British loo has been a matter of envy to the rest of the world.
Thanks to the efforts of pioneers like the legendary Thomas Crapper, we have long since led the world in comfort and hygiene. Now, however, that could be about to change. For most of us, the squat toilet is nothing more than a staple of horror stories about old-fashioned French service stations or the exploits of adventurous backpackers in far-flung parts of India. But this basic form of plumbing, also known as a Turkish toilet or Nile pan, could be coming to a shopping centre near you - and all in the name of cultural sensitivity. From next week, shoppers in Rochdale who push open the cubicle door expecting the reassuring sight of a modern, clean lavatory could instead be faced with little more than a hole in the ground. Bosses of the Greater Manchester town's Exchange mall have installed two as part of an upgrade costing several thousand pounds after attending a cultural awareness course run by a local Muslim community activist. A familiar sight in parts of the Middle East, and still sometimes seen in France and Italy, the toilets require users to squat above them, rather than sitting. With one in ten of Rochdale's population of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin, centre managers say they have been told some members of the local Asian community prefer them for cultural reasons. (Dailymail.co.uk)

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

Ideological Discrimination in Academe: The Burden of Proof-Steve Balch
When it comes to proving discrimination in academe, the bar is set fairly low. Little more than the simple fact of underrepresentation is usually required, after which the worst can safely be assumed. Exempt from this inference are a few groups deemed beneficiaries of past bias and hence legitimate targets for table-turning. Males, for instance, now constitute a declining minority of students at the baccalaureate level. There isn’t, of course, much official discrimination against them in undergraduate admissions, but that fact alone wouldn’t normally quiet worry about their underrepresentation – there might, after all, be covert prejudice at work. Given the status of males as a suspect class, however, the phenomenon generates only minor angst. There is another even more interesting exemption. Conservatives are drastically underrepresented within faculties also without anyone (except other conservatives) appearing much to mind. Yet unlike males, conservatives are not official objects of disfavor, discrimination against them having no rationale that the academy is willing openly to embrace. Simply treating their underrepresentation as a non-problem is therefore not a feasible option. Instead, despite an overabundance of the kind of evidence generally thought damning, discrimination against conservatives is stoutly denied. In the eyes of academe’s defenders, less than conservatives’ numeric due is not less at all, merely a result of natural processes, to which no culpability attaches, and for which no exculpation is necessary. Is there something painfully two-faced here? The case can certainly be made. (NAS)

Rashid Khalidi Appeals for Funds for Ship to Run Israeli Blockade of Gaza-Winfield Myers
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, has signed an appeal for funds to outfit a ship--to be named The Audacity of Hope after Barack Obama's second book--that will challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza in September or October, according to a report by Robert Mackey at The Lede, a blog of the New York Times. His wife Mona is also a signatory. The appeal is posted at the site USTOGAZA.ORG, which says the ship will sail from the US to the Eastern Mediterranean, where it will join ships from "Europe, Canada, India, South Africa and parts of the Middle East." The appeal employs the word "we" when speaking of the upcoming trip, which gives the impression that the signatories intend to be aboard. The site's opening paragraph is laden with falsehoods of commission and omission: This is an important moment in history. In the aftermath of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla massacre and increased world-wide scrutiny of Israel's blockade of Gaza, the Israeli government has mounted a huge public relations campaign spreading the lie that by letting a few more items into Gaza the blockade has been lifted. This is not the reality. Gaza is still under siege, vital building materials and other supplies are banned, exports of goods from Gaza are denied and neither ships nor people can travel without permission from Israel, permission which Israel will not give. Gaza is essentially an open-air prison under a U.S.-backed Israeli blockade. (Campuswatch)

MEDIA BIAS

A nice new shopping mall opened today in Gaza: Will the media report on it?-Tom Gross
Please scroll down below for photos of the new shopping mall that opened today in Gaza. I have also attached new photos and film of Gaza’s hotels, beauty spas, swimming pools, beaches and street markets -- images the BBC, New York Times and others refuse to show you. Meanwhile, Hamas are deliberately leaving some Gazans in plastic tents, in order to fool gullible Western journalists and politicians who are brought to Gaza to witness a staged “humanitarian crisis.” Two days ago the EU pledged tens of millions of EU taxpayers’ euros to add to the hundreds of millions already donated to Gaza this year, much of which has been misused to procure arms. Some journalists who subscribe to this list have asked me for a quote. You are welcome to use the following. Political and media commentator Tom Gross said: “On a day when (because EU Foreign Policy Chief Baroness Ashton is in Gaza) the BBC and other media have featured extensive reports all day long on what they term the dire economic situation in Gaza, why are they not mentioning the new shopping mall that opened there yesterday?
“When leading news outlets mention the so-called humanitarian flotillas from Turkey, why do they omit the fact that life expectancy and literacy rates are higher, and infant mortality rates are lower in Gaza than corresponding rates in Turkey? Have they considered that perhaps the humanitarian flotillas ought to be going in the other direction, towards Turkey?” (Tomgrossmedia)

WaPo’s William Arkin Blamed America for 9/11 Attacks-Peter R. Huessy
The Washington Post [1]has published massive amounts of secret intelligence material in the interests, they say, of improving US national security. The two authors, Dana Priest and William Arkin, complain about a national security enterprise that has grown by leaps and bounds since 9/11. The reveal in detail the firms working for the US intelligence community including their location, contracts, and work subjects, whether border security, cyber-security or counter proliferation. There are two common explanations for the story. First, it is juicy story. It has lots of secret information. And for two reporters, pursuing a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, well isn’t this what reporters do? The second explanation: their view is that the national security establishment represented by the $75 billion intelligence community and its network of firms, organizations and contractors is not serving the American people, that it is bloated, redundant and need of serious downsizing. But all, mind you, to make our security better. There may be a third explanation. It may be they think little if any of this intelligence work is necessary. Nearly a decade ago, on October 12, 2002, William Arkin, the co-author of the article, spoke at the Naval War College. One key part of his talk is nearly identical to the thesis of the Post article. He said [2]: “More than 30 billion of our tax dollars each year go towards government generated intelligence information. We had, and have, a CIA and an intelligence community that has a fantastic history of failure, that is mostly blind to what is going on in the world, that seems to know nothing and at the same time is so bombarded and overwhelmed with stimuli from its millions of receptors it can hardly sense what is happening.” (Bigjournalism)

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Future of the News-Jeffrey Folks
It's a frightening thought: government takeover of the media. But having tightened their grip on health care, financial services, and energy, it's only logical that the Democrats should turn their attention to the media. Discussions underway at the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission point toward a dangerous new effort to regulate what Americans read and hear. The takeover under discussion would apply across the board to print media, radio and television, and the internet. The result of proposed regulations would be nothing less than an end to free speech in America. Under the proposed changes, government would have the right to impose taxes on selected media (including internet service providers and internet sites) and redistribute funds to traditional liberal news media. Government could impose a fairness doctrine on the internet as well as on radio -- thus forcing conservative media to "balance" their programming by including liberal commentary. Government would also be granted a wide range of options for subsidizing liberal media, including perpetual grants of taxpayer money to left-leaning publications like the New York Times and to increase funding for "progressive" media such as National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System. (Americanthinker)

Exclusive: Freedom Of (Hate) Speech?-Gadi Adelman
As with any social networking site that is free and accessible to millions of people worldwide you are bound to have issues and therefore many rules as well. According to the Facebook “Terms” last updated April 22, 2010: “Safety” 6- You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user. 7- You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence. 10- You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory. How well is Facebook enforcing the Pages that blatantly break these rules? There are 282 pages on Facebook of pages with the name “F*** Israel!”, or “F*** you Israel!” Some of these pages have over 30,000 members. I know that they have been reported because I had hundreds, if not thousands, of associates and their colleagues report these pages on several occasions since January. Samplings of posts from some of these pages are vile to say the least (beware of clicking the links on account of foul language): F*** Israel Page: you F***in jew! do you wanna die or what? i am gonna make soap from you! from all jews! sieg heil!!!!! (Familysecuritymatters)

More than 2.5m Muslims threaten to leave Facebook after four Islamic pages are taken down-Niall Firth
More than 2.5million users will leave Facebook unless certain Islamic pages are reinstated, it has been claimed. A template letter that has been pasted into numerous Facebook pages accuses founder Mark Zuckerberg and other senior members of Facebook of 'ignoring the feelings of more than 2.5million Muslims'. The Muslim community is angry that four extremely popular Islamic pages were removed from the site and the letter warns that unless its demands are met Facebook's Muslim users will move to an Islamic alternative. The letter demands not only that the pages are reinstated but that new rules are introduced which make it a violation of Facebook’s terms to post anti-Islamic comments. And Facebook is given notice that unless the changes are introduced then 2.5 million Muslim users will leave to join madina.com, a social networking site for Muslims. The letter reads: ‘Although you have attended the world’s best communication skills courses you have been most successful in growing great hatred and hostility between you and Muslims around the world, but seriously this time you have caused an almost unrepairable [sic] damage.’ (Dailymail.co.uk)

ANTISEMITISM

Defending the Jewish State-Mark Tooley
The Church of England has declined to pursue anti-Israel divestment. But the smaller and less prudent British Methodist Church has just voted full speed ahead at its recent governing Conference to boycott Israeli products that profit from the “occupation,” drawing the condemnation of Britain’s chief rabbi, Baron Jonathan Sacks. Lord Sacks decried the Methodist anti-Israel initiative as “unbalanced, factually and historically flawed” with “no genuine understanding of one of the most complex conflicts in the world today. Many in both communities [Jewish and Christian] will be deeply disturbed.” He also warned that the boycott would “reverberate across the hitherto harmonious relationship between the faith communities in the UK.” Methodism in Britain was of course once a formidable religious movement famous for fostering piety, thrift, industry, charity, and public service. Its spiritual and demographic collapse in the 20th century has turned much of the shrinking denomination over to ever more brazen forms of political correctness as it struggles for relevance. Its dwindling congregations are largely populated by grey heads, and some venerable old Methodist church buildings have become restaurants or, at least in one case, a mosque. No longer interested in spreading Christianity per se, British Methodist elites often fill their time with left-wing political crusades, the jeremiad against Israel’s “existing injustice” being just one recent example. (Frontpagemagazine)

The Road to Nowhere: Tracing Farrakhan's Anti-Jewish Paranoia-Rabbi Abraham Cooper
Announcing the publication of Volume 2 of the Nation of Islam's anonymously authored, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Louis Farrakhan has again demonized American Jews--this time demanding they apologize for "an undeniable record of Jewish anti-Black behavior, starting with the horror of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, plantation slavery, Jim Crow, sharecropping, the labor movement of the North and South, the unions and the misuse of our people that continues to this very moment." The first volume of Farrakhan's Secret Relationship (published in 1991) took up where Henry Ford's The International Jew left off seventy years before. Ford, within a decade, was forced to repudiate his handiwork after revelations that it was based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic forgery by the Czar's secret police. Yet Farrakhan continues to regurgitate and embroider upon the same old libels, despite a half dozen refutations--beginning with the systematic demolition published by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in 1992. There is nothing "secret" about the fact--documented by Jewish historians for over a century--that there were Jewish slave traders and slave holders. But according to Jacob Rader Marcus, "American Jewish businessmen were accountable for less than two percent of the slave imports into the West Indies and North America. Bertram W. Korn, adds this perspective: "None of the major slave traders [in the Old South] were Jewish," while "Jewish owners of plantations . . . constituted only a tiny proportion of the [slave holding] Southerners." Not only were Jewish slaveholders vastly outnumbered by white Christian slaveholders, they were also decidedly outnumbered by free blacks who owned other African Americans--most often for the same motive that, according to African American historian Carter G. Woodson, impelled whites to own slaves: the profit motive. (Huffingtonpost)

The Shared Extremism of Neo-Nazis and Migrant Youth-Sven Robel
Following an anti-Semitic attack in Hanover, German authorities have identified a new source of anti-Semitic hatred in Germany: young migrants from Muslim families. The ideological alliance has officials concerned. It was supposed to be a carefree festival in Sahlkamp on the outskirts of the northern German city of Hanover. Billed as an "International Day" to celebrate social diversity and togetherness, the June celebration included performances by a multicultural children's choir called "Happy Rainbow" and the German-Turkish rap duo 3-K. Music from Afghanistan was also on the program. But then the mood suddenly shifted. When Hajo Arnds, the organizer of the neighborhood festival, stepped onto the stage at about 6:45 p.m. to announce the next performance, by the Jewish dance group Chaverim, he was greeted with catcalls. "Jews out!" some of the roughly 30 young people standing in front of the stage began shouting. "Gone with the Jews!" The voices were those of children -- voices full of hate, shouted in unison and amplified by a toy megaphone. Arnds, the organizer, was shocked. He knew many of the children, most of them from Arab immigrant families in the neighborhood. A social worker, Arnds tried using the tools of his profession -- words -- to save the situation. But his words were met with stones, thrown at the stage by people taking cover in the crowd. One of the stones hit a female Chaverim dancer in the leg, resulting in an angry bruise. (Siegelonline)

TERRORISM, security and policy

Al Qaeda Goes Viral-Peter Hoekstra
The terrorists' latest recruiting device: an English language Internet magazine.Earlier this month, the full version of Inspire, a new English language journal, surfaced on the Internet. It's publisher? The Yemen-based terrorist organization, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Although al Qaeda has long employed the Web, DVDs and video games to reach mass audiences, the sophistication and provocative nature of this publication suggests it is intended to "go viral"—or spread rapidly among many Internet users—in the English speaking world, especially in the United States. Many in the West will ridicule Inspire's boring sermons and awkwardly written stories, such as one that tries to portray joining "jihad" as a summer camp, or another with Osama bin Laden's views on global warming. Commentators will undoubtedly condemn the journal's reprehensible article "How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom." They'll also say that the publication's naming of certain Americans as targets is a public relations gaffe. But we underestimate this kind of radical jihadist propaganda at our peril. Inspire is not designed for mainstream Muslim audiences who will reject its radical content. The target audience is marginal Muslims not integrated in mainstream society, as well as the disaffected young men in English-speaking countries such as the U.S. and the U.K. (WSJ)

Turkish Hackers Steal Thousands of Email, PayPal, Bank Acct IDs-Hana Levi Julian
Turkish hackers have stolen the details of thousands of Israeli bank, credit card and Pay Pal accounts, and posted the information online. According to the Israeli We-CMS blog, the information was posted on to the message board of a Turkish Internet forum. By Sunday morning, the We-CMS blog itself was found “suspended” when Israel National News attempted to access the site. In addition to the details of at least 32,561 Israelis, more than 140 passwords to Israeli government web sites and more than 300 passwords to Israeli academic web pages were swiped as well. Globes business news service reports that many of the email addresses and passwords obtained by the Internet terrorists included accounts on Facebook, Gmail and Microsoft Live Messenger. Most of those had been hacked since the flotilla clash between IHH terror activists and Israeli Navy commandos aboard the Turkish Mavi Marmara ship in May. Erez Wolf, owner of the We-CMS, warned reporters, “The hackers used the information in their possession to enter accounts on other web sites. Assuming that many surfers use the same email, same password and same user name to register on all the sites that require registration – because it's easier to remember – the email and password from the hacked site will be the same one that gets them into others... like Pay Pal. From what I've been able to learn on the forum, the hackers penetrated the Pay Pal accounts of Israelis, and their bank accounts, and also were able to obtain credit card details as well.” (INN)

Islam Must Be Stopped In America-Amil Imani
Islam has spawned many sects that are master practitioners of the art of double standards. As far as Muslims are concerned, what is good for Muslims is not good for the non-Muslims; and what is bad for Muslims is good for non-Muslims. What complicates matters is that there is no way of knowing which of the dozens of at-each-other's-throat sects is the legitimate Islam. As soon as Muhammad died, his religion of peace became a house of internal war: jockeying for power and leadership started, sects formed and splintered into sub-sects, and bloodletting began in earnest. The internal infighting in Islam is presently playing in full color - in red - most dramatically, in the Iraqi theater. Shiite raid Sunni civilians, slaughter them like sheep, and toss their bodies like trash in the streets or the rivers. The Sunnis return the favor with just as much viciousness and savagery. Question: If this is the way these Muslims treat each other, how would they deal with the infidels if they had the chance? Answer: These devoted followers of Muhammad would deal with the infidels exactly the way Muhammad did: behead the non-believers, take them as slaves to hold or sell, or make them pay back-breaking jizya - poll taxes. (Familysecuritymatters)

Scotland to Aid U.S. Probe of Lockerbie Release-Paul Sonne
LONDON—The Scottish government said it is prepared to assist with a coming U.S. Senate hearing on its release last summer of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, although it says it has yet to receive any specific requests from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the inquiry. "We would always look to assist any properly constituted inquiry," the Scottish government said Sunday, in response to questions about the Senate hearing, scheduled for July 29. The committee plans to explore the circumstances surrounding Mr. Megrahi's August 2009 release, focusing in particular on the convicted bomber's medical assessment and on lingering suspicions by U.S. politicians and victims' families of involvement by embattled oil company BP PLC. Nearly a year after Mr. Megrahi's release, the complex circumstances surrounding his return to Libya have come back into the spotlight thanks to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and a Libyan oil official's recent suggestion that Libya might buy into BP. Those events have stoked interest in the fact that three years ago, BP lobbied the U.K. government to complete a prisoner-transfer agreement with Libya at a time when the U.K. was moving to revive its commercial relationship with Libya. (WSJ)

Avoiding Another Intelligence Failure on Iran-Gabriel Schoenfeld
The disastrous 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Tehran's weapons program cost us dearly. Only an independent inquiry can assure the country that the new estimate underway will be better. U.S. intelligence has already had two horrendously costly lapses this decade: the failure to interdict the plot of Sept. 11, 2001, and the erroneous assessment that Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction. Both brought us into wars. A third failure may now be unfolding, with consequences that might dwarf the preceding two. To avoid this, we need an inquest. The status of Iran's nuclear program is the issue. In December 2007, our intelligence agencies put out a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which in its opening sentence baldly declared that "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." In a stroke, this authoritative pronouncement eliminated any possibility that President Bush, then entering his final year in office, would order a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. Perhaps even more significantly, it undercut White House and international efforts to tighten sanctions on Iran. After all, if the Iranian nuclear program had been halted in 2003, what would be the point? (WSJ)

NAACP: ‘Useful Idiots’ of Liberal Racism-LTC Allen West (USA, Ret.)
Let me make one thing very clear, my Mother, Elizabeth Thomas West, was a lifetime membership holder with the NAACP. Therefore growing up in our home I clearly understood the mission and vision for this organization. It was a mission and vision that enabled me to have the pride in myself and the heritage of my parents, grandparents, and extended family. It was a mission and vision that, to me, fostered a desire to excel beyond the standard and have a commitment to excellence regardless of skin color. However, something has happened to that mission and vision, something horrific and inconsistent with the principles and values I recalled emanating from the “ole school” black community. Somewhere along the way victimization mentality has taken root in the black community resulting in astronomical unemployment rates, high incarceration rates, appalling murder rates, breakdown of the black family, and embarrassing teen pregnancy rates. And in the light of all these negative socioeconomic indicators the NAACP decides that the preeminent focus of their national convention would be on issuing a resolution castigating the Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Party movement as racist. Even Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas was so compelled as to state that the Tea Party is filled with Klan members…..but we will get to the Congressional Black Caucus a bit later. (Biggovernment)

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM

Hold Your Nose: I Smell Cap-And-Trade-Brian Sussman
We're receiving word that the next three weeks -- prior to Congress' summer recess -- represents the Democrats' best chance at getting a climate change bill passed this year. Senate leaders are working overtime on this contentious issue to try to cobble together a piece of legislation that will muster the votes. The House passed its own version of this legislation last summer in the form of a 1,201-page bill, complete with a 300-page addendum, entitled the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, a.k.a. "cap-and-trade." At the time, House Republican Leader John Boehner described the bill by stating, "People need to know what's in this pile of s-it." Following the bill's quick passage, I took a cue from Mr. Boehner and, holding my nose, dissected key portions of the document, which I then shared with readers of American Thinker prior to incorporating it all into my book, Climategate. Some of the stinkier elements of the bill include the "Monthly Energy Refund," which I refer to as "The Monthly Bribe." According to this scheme, for those with a gross income that "does not exceed 150 percent of the poverty line ... a direct deposit" of an undisclosed amount of money will be sent "into the eligible household's designated bank account[.]" Seems to me this payoff proves the authors of the bill are anticipating a huge cost of living increase due to the multitude of taxes and fees on all things energy. The Democrats are treating Americans like cheap whores. Then there's the "Low Income Community Energy Efficiency Program," whereby grants will be issued "to increase the flow of capital and benefits to low income communities, minority-owned and woman-owned businesses and entrepreneurs[.]" Sounds like more spreading the wealth around to me. (Americanthinker)

A Climate Absolution?
The alarmists still won't separate science from politics.
The latest study purporting to absolve the scientists involved in November's Climategate scandal was published this month. On predictable cue, we received a letter from our admirers at the United Nations Foundation and the Natural Resources Defense Council urging us to "set the record straight" on "these bogus scandals." Having devoted considerable space to Climategate, we're happy to do that, though not perhaps as our admirers would want. Climategate is media shorthand for the debate over the content of thousands of emails and documents that were released without authorization from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). At its core, the scandal was as much about the integrity of the scientific process as it was about the quality of the science. Leading climate scientists were caught advising each other to delete potentially compromising emails, stonewall freedom of information requests and game the peer review process to exclude contributions from skeptical colleagues. The Climategate emails also revealed a habit among climate scientists of trimming their scientific sails to the political winds, sometimes by emphasizing temperature and environmental trends at the alarmist end of the spectrum. "I tried hard to balance the needs of the science with the IPCC, which were not always the same," wrote East Anglia climatologist Keith Briffa to Penn State's Michael Mann in April 2007. The IPCC, or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is the U.N. body whose lengthy reports are supposed to be the gold standard for what the world knows about climate change. (WSJ)

SCIENCE, SOCIETY AND CULTURE

How to Tame Your Nightmares-Melinda Bleck
Therapies Teach Sleepers to Change the Ending of Their Dreams—or Even Take Flight
In the new movie, "Inception," a master thief is able to infiltrate peoples' dreams and steal their subconscious secrets—even plant a dream idea they'll think is their own. As fantastical as that seems, an evolving area of sleep research holds that it is possible for people to direct their own dreams, in a limited way. For example, people who suffer from recurring nightmares can learn to substitute happier endings. Practitioners of lucid dreaming—who train themselves to be aware that they are dreaming—say they can try out fantasies like flying. Ordering up a dream about a nagging personal problem is difficult, but possible, says Robert Stickgold, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "As you go to bed tonight, really think about some of those emotional issues that you haven't wanted to deal with. You've got about a 10% to 20% shot." That fits with the current understanding of what dreams are and why we have them. Once thought to represent repressed sexual urges, or simply neurons firing randomly, dreams are now believed to be mash-ups created by the unconscious mind as it processes, sorts and stores emotions from the day.

Tariq Ramadan: “This Most Manipulative” of Islamists?-Melanie Phillips
I have recently finished reading Paul Berman’s latest book, ‘The Flight of the Intellectuals’. It’s terrific. The first part is an evisceration of that Islamist in westernised clothing, Tariq Ramadan. By the time Berman has finished with him, there’s not much left of his reputation as the western establishment’s poster-boy for modernized Islam. The second part is an evisceration of two prominent western intellectuals who fell for Ramadan’s propaganda, Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash. There’s not much left of them either. What Berman shows up so brutally about Ramadan, the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood Hassan al Banna, is that he is the direct heir – both familially and intellectually – not only to the ideologues of jihadi Islamism but also to the axis of European fascism. Drawing on accounts already published of the alliance between the Brotherhood and the Nazis during the 1930s and 1940s -- an alliance centred in the person of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al Husseini -- Berman emphasises the shared aim of both the Nazis and the Brotherhood of destroying the Jews. While a number of Arabs and Muslims condemned the Axis and even fought on the side of the Allies, Hassan al Banna supported the Mufti, calling upon the Arab League in 1946 to welcome the Mufti’s escape from his enemies in Europe as having a divine purpose – namely to defeat ‘Zionism’ just as Hitler had attempted to do. And as Berman points out, whereas in other parts of the world the supporters of the Axis went down to defeat after World War Two, the Arab zone ended up as the only region in the entire planet in which a criminal on the fascist side of the war, and a major ideologue to boot, returned home in glory instead of disgrace. In that one region of the world, the old categories of supernatural phantasmagory about Jews and conspiracies continued to reign over the political imagination of huge and powerful political movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, and other movements as well. (Familysecuritymatters)

Sex, Lies, and Blogging Standards-Phyllis Chesler
Today, the first of Tiger Woods’ many hired girlfriends is not only checking into rehab [1] — she’s doing so as part of a reality show: Celebrity Rehab. Indeed, the show’s ratings are “ailing,” and thus they have turned to Rachel Uchitel to improve them. Donald Trump has also reached out to Uchitel to compete on his Celebrity Apprentice. So here’s what’s on my mind. Maybe my age is showing (I sure hope it is), but obviously I no longer fit into a world ruled by such vulgarity. A world in which some women are shameless about becoming famous for being porn stars or prostitutes who specialize in shaming the wives of their more powerful clients. Yes, it’s still a world in which men are the johns, the customers; trust me, I am not forgetting who drives this market and who really profits from it. But still, what kind of world is it in which one schemes to jump-start one’s own brand by posting a video of oneself quite naked or, better yet, having sex with one’s boyfriend or girlfriend? A world in which reality shows showcase the most tasteless among us — to an audience that enjoys feeling superior to, or who actually admire, women as super-glitzy, jewelry-laden party girls, many of whom resemble Las Vegas showgirls but who are actually housewives in New Jersey. And no, I do not believe that the corrective, the necessary antidote, is forcing women into burqas. Not only are fully veiled women sexually harassed on the streets, not only do their husbands rape them at will and still take more wives — there is also a very active male traffic in female sex slaves, both paid for and kidnapped, in all those countries in which women are being veiled or re-veiled. (Pajamasmedia)

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