The Western Word

This Week's Editorial

WOODSTOCK’S SEEDS
By Avi Davis

If I had been 17- years- old and living in the United States in August 1969 there would have been nothing that could have prevented me from going to Woodstock. Along with 670,000 other smitten youths, I would braved my parents wrath, the ten miles of clogged traffic, the waist high mud, poor sanitary conditions and the pelting rain to experience what promised to be an American youth’s one in a life time

Alas, I was only eleven years old at the time of the famous festival and living in far off Australia. I only actually became aware of the American event, when, as a teenager in the mid- 1970s, a friend played me the three LP album which caught the essence of the concert. At the time I remember sitting transfixed as the stage announcer warned that there was “ bad acid” going around and Country Joe MacDonald’s incendiary chant. I was astonished that not only could you say things like that in public in America, but that they could be recorded and distributed for public consumption.

I have had a bit of time since then to look back at Woodstock and assess its real role and significance in American history. Now I realize that it was the apex of a youth revolution that began with the Beats, in the early 1950s, flowed through the Beatles in the 1960s, swept up disco and rap and continues to dominate our culture today. Blessed with a purchasing power unknown to their teenage forbears ( indeed the word “ teenager” did not come into vogue the early 1950s) the youth of America had found a destiny and a cause – rejection of middle class values and the assumption of rebellion as a way of life.

But what is forgotten about the famous festival are some of its terrible consequences. Within a year, two of its biggest headliners – Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin- would be dead from drug overdoses. One of its inspirational figures – Sly Stone, leader of Sly and the Family Stone, would soon slip into schizophrenia and spend the next 30 years as a virtual derelict. Other artists such as Richie Havens and Melanie would very soon drift into obscurity. And the youth culture magazines such as Rolling Stone and Creem moved from dramatizing the power of youth to the glorification of decadence ……

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Avi Davis is the president of the American Freedom Alliance in Los Angeles. He can be contacted at isdev@ix.netcom.com

Tarheel Jihad
by Robert Spencer (more by this author)

The Islamic Center of Raleigh, N.C., is on the spot now that seven Tarheel Muslims, led by an American convert to Islam, have been arrested and charged with “conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad.” Several of the accused were members of the Islamic Center. A local Muslim who knew several of the suspects charges that he heard two of them, Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan and Ziyad Yaghi, speaking favorably of suicide bombings -- and was “not surprised they were arrested.” He has said that he reported them to the Center leaders but that the leaders did nothing. However, Imran Aukhil of the Islamic Center says that the mosque leadership actually did go to the FBI: “The IAR,” he explained, “does have an open relationship with the FBI,” and added vaguely: “We were notified of a person’s behavior, violent threatening action that we considered to be dangerous and we did report them to the FBI.” He emphasized the IAR’s policy of cooperation with the FBI: “We make sure that we are in constant communication with them. We answer any questions that they have as necessary. We provide them with any information they request.” (Humanevents)

Muslim Europe: the demographic time bomb transforming our continent-Adrian Michaels
The EU is facing an era of vast social change, reports Adrian Michaels, and few politicians are taking notice
Britain and the rest of the European Union are ignoring a demographic time bomb: a recent rush into the EU by migrants, including millions of Muslims, will change the continent beyond recognition over the next two decades, and almost no policy-makers are talking about it. The numbers are startling. Only 3.2 per cent of Spain's population was foreign-born in 1998. In 2007 it was 13.4 per cent. Europe's Muslim population has more than doubled in the past 30 years and will have doubled again by 2015. In Brussels, the top seven baby boys' names recently were Mohamed, Adam, Rayan, Ayoub, Mehdi, Amine and Hamza. Europe's low white birth rate, coupled with faster multiplying migrants, will change fundamentally what we take to mean by European culture and society. The altered population mix has far-reaching implications for education, housing, welfare, labour, the arts and everything in between. It could have a critical impact on foreign policy: a study was submitted to the US Air Force on how America's relationship with Europe might evolve. Yet EU officials admit that these issues are not receiving the attention they deserve. (Telegraph.co.uk)

Denmark: Honor used to silence sexually abused Muslim girls
Two points regarding this article:
1. This article breaks with the stereotype that Muslim boys don't rape Muslim girls. The 'honor' concept could encourage those boys to rape non-Muslim girls specifically, but at the same time, it could be used as a weapon and makes raping Muslim girls much easier.
2. The media had no problems mentioning the victim's religion (Muslim girls), but they're quite careful to note that the perpetrators are "immigrant" boys and men. The only consequence that I see is that they fix the "immigrant = Muslim" concept quite firmly into every reader's mind.
Young immigrant girls are subjected to rape and other sexual assault by immigrant boys and men who threaten them into silence by saying the girls will being shame on their families because they willingly met with the boy or man. Social mediator Birgitte Karlsson, who runs a day institution for youth of immigrant background in Høje Taastrup, says that in a period of three months she met about 15 immigrant girls who were raped or otherwise sexually assaulted by immigrant boys. "Often the girls chatted with the boys on the internet, after which they set to meet. But the boys in these cases abused the girls and left them with threats that they will tell the girls' parents that the girls themselves agreed to have sex with them. And in some immigrant families, having sex before marriage is the worst thing a girl can do. Therefore the girls don't dare tell about the attack," says Birgitte Karlsson. (Islamineurope)

Germany: Increasing influence of Islam is concerning
The concern that many have regarding the increasing influence of Islam in Europe is more than right, claims German Islam expert Eberhard Troeger. The pastor comments in the Protestant magazine Idea which appeared Wednesday on the way in which Germany, but also the Islamic world, responded to the murder of an Egyptian Muslim woman last month in Dresden. A Russian-German immigrant killed her in a court hall in front of her husband and three year old son. In his commentary Troeger criticizes the way in which the Central Council of Muslims in Germany responded to the murder. According to its secretary general this was a new peak in the "Islamophobia" which has been affecting Germany for years. Troeger: "Excuse me?" In his opinion Muslim organization have but one goal with such statements: Silence all doubts regarding the (in)compatibility of Islam and democracy. "And: where was the response of Muslims to the murder of two German Christian in Yemen on June 12th - probably by radical Muslims?" (Islamineurope)

U.S. Taxpayers Fund Pro-Hamas Propaganda-Steve Emerson
With the federal government facing trillions of dollars in red ink, one might think that the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), which receives upwards of $30 million a year from the taxpayers, would want to show Congress it wasn't squandering money on propaganda for terrorist groups like Hamas. But that hasn't happened. Instead, USIP has issued a new report that twists reality to argue that Hamas has moderated and Israel needs to negotiate with the terror organization. The authors of the report are a Jew and Muslim, USIP informs readers: Paul Scham, a visiting professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland College Park, and Osama Abu-Irshaid. USIP identified Irshaid as a writer who "is completing a Ph.D. thesis on Hamas at Loughboro University, U.K., and is founder and editor in chief of Al-Meezan newspaper, published in Arabic in the United States." But USIP (and Foreign Policy magazine, which has published lengthy excerpts of the report ) neglected to inform readers that Irshaid used to be editor of Al-Zaytounah, the biweekly Arabic-language newspaper published by the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). (Familysecuritymatters)

Toronto's newest speaking star: a would-be suicide bomber-Terry Glavin, Special to the National Post
'Long live the Taliban" might seem an unlikely thing for a prominent anti-war figure to declare, but that's to-day's peace movement for you. Stranger still, the man who recently uttered those words, Azzam Tamimi, is being promoted by a new Toronto-based institute that says it is embarking upon a national campaign to cultivate wholesome, faith-based civic virtues among Canada's young Muslims. The Mississauga, Ont.-based Al-Fauz Institute for Islamic Thought claims its purpose is to teach young Muslims how to apply Islamic ideas to Canada's pluralistic society and "prepare young minds that will take up the mantle of the Muslim community." But Tamimi -- who currently has top billing on the Al-Fauz website, and is listed as a member of the institute's "faculty" -- has loudly renounced democracy. Indeed, he recently proclaimed: "I don't believe in democracy anymore," explicitly praises suicide bombers, and says he is willing to blow himself up in Israel: "It's the straight way to pleasing my God and I would do it if I had the opportunity." He distinguishes good Muslims from their adversaries this way: "We love death. They love life." You'd never know any of this from the billing the Al-Fauz Institute gives Tamimi. (Nationalpost)

Profs for Prostitution? Judith Reisman
The headline in the August 3 Rhode Island Providence Journal, “Academics urge R.I. to keep indoor prostitution legal,” took me down memory lane. It was 1977, and I arrived in Swansea University in Wales to speak at the British Psychological Association conference on Love and Attraction. There I stumbled upon a nascent political movement that became what can be called “The Academic Pedophiles and Perverts Party” (APPP). The Providence Journal reported that 50 “professors” wrote to their lawmakers, “imploring them not to ban indoor” brothels. The Rhode Island prostitution traffic got support from “professors….from across the country and around the world” are lobbying for Rhode Island to maintain its “sensible” policy, enacted in 1976, which makes indoor prostitution legal. Why? Well the smart folks explain that girls and women being prostituted in brothels are less often “assaulted, raped, or robbed” and infected less with multiple STDs than are streetwalkers who have to solicit before they go into rooms “indoors.” (Humanevents)

The Shame of Academe and Fascism, Then and Now - By Carlin Romano
How should America's university presidents respond to the savagery in Iran today?
The incarcerated student protesters forced to lick toilet bowls. The imprisoned dissidents beaten to death in holding pens, some with their fingernails torn out. The many murdered protesters, including Neda Agha-Soltan, the now-iconic young philosophy student shot in cold blood. The banning of foreign and domestic journalists from honest coverage or even access to news events. The arrest of professors and shuttering of academic institutions. Here are a few hints from another era. Night of the Long Knives. Kristallnacht. Auschwitz. Nuremberg. Too strong a comparison unless what takes place next in Iran is mass murder? Granted, vast differences exist between Nazi Germany then and Islamic Iran now. But the vast similarities are also plain. The insistence that state power trumps individual rights. The unaccountable supreme leader. The mass trial. The phony exhortations by rulers to a nonexistent Volk, a unified people. The attacks on and discrimination against women. The existence of militia-like forces, wreaking violence on dissidents. Fascism is fascism. What's a university president to do? Most of us wouldn't expect the species to be more heroic in the presence of foreign evil than the public at large. The value of that characteristic to fund raising is, after all, unproven. The Dietrich Bonhoeffers, Father Kolbes, and Gandhis come along rarely and tend not to get hired by boards of trustees. The ruling personality bent of many academics—play it safe, take care of friends, advance one's own career and those of like-minded people, do some good along the way—trickles upward. (The ChronicleofHigherEducation)

Exclusive: Propaganda’s Victory: The Two Big Lies-Rita Kramer
Looking through this week’s crop of print and online offerings, from the New York Times to its counterparts on the European scene, it struck me that in the world of ideas and attitudes that affect political action, there have been two great propaganda victories since the middle of the last century. They are The Two Big Lies: one domestic and the other international. Here in the United States we have witnessed the dismantling of an entire education system, from kindergarten through university, as its purpose has been redefined. The function of schooling is no longer seen to be the transmission of the culture of Western civilization, the history of its achievements and struggles, its literature and arts, of the evolution of the institutional framework of democracy and the cultivation of the skills required to understand and extend it. The function of the schools is now generally agreed to be achieving social change. The schools have become an agency for the pursuit of radical egalitarianism. One influence has been the movement known as Multiculturalism, which maintains that all cultures are equal, those characterized by obedience to religious fanaticism and those where individual freedom has led to technological, medical and other life-enhancing advances. (Familysecuritymatters)

Cuba's Healthcare a model for the U.S. says CNN Humberto Fontova
Good thing for us that Rich Noyes of The Media Research Center keeps on eye on CNN. Good thing for CNN too. Given the latest Nielsen ratings (that finds them 17th during prime time) Ted "Fidel Castro is one helluva guy!" Turner's brainchild should be grateful for any and all viewers, whatever their motivation.
Last week, according to Noyes expose', "CNN aired a piece of Communist Party propaganda about how Cuba could serve as 'a model for health care reform in the United States' " The CNN report included clips from Michael Moore's Sicko as CNN's Morgan Neill, on location in a Potemkin Havana hospital, gushed about Cuban healthcare's "impressive statistics." "Cuba's infant mortality rates" he reported, "are the lowest in the hemisphere, in line with those of Canada!" "Amazing!" probably gasped the type of person who watches CNN nowadays (Noyes gets a pass here.) "Perfect proof of "yes we can!" they probably high-fived. "No wonder Colin Powell said "Castro had done some good things for his people!" No wonder Michael Moore catches so much grief from those insufferable Miami Cubans! Before Castro only they could afford doctors, as Cuba's huddled masses languished in sickness and poverty!" (Americanthinker)

No to Islamic Law- Daniel Pipes
Why the West must not accommodate Shari’a.
Those of us who argue against Shari'a are sometimes asked why Islamic law poses a problem when modern Western societies long ago accommodated Halakha, or Jewish law. The answer is easy: a fundamental difference separates the two. Islam is a missionizing religion, Judaism is not. Islamists aspire to apply Islamic law to everyone, while observant Jews seek only themselves to live by Jewish law. Two very recent examples from the United Kingdom demonstrate the innate imperialism of Islamic law. The first concerns Queens Care Centre, an old-age home and day-care provider for the elderly in the coal town of Maltby, forty miles east of Manchester. At present, according to the Daily Telegraph, not one of its 37 staff or 40 residents is Muslim. Although the home's management asserts a respect for its residents' "religious and cultural beliefs," QCC's owner since 1994, Zulfikar Ali Khan, on his own decided this year to switch the home's meat purchases to a halal butcher. His stealthy decision meant pensioners at QCC could no longer eat their bacon and eggs, bangers and mash, ham sandwiches, bacon sandwiches, pork pies, bacon butties, or sausage rolls. The switch prompted widespread anger. The relative of one resident called it "a disgrace. The old people who are in the home and in their final years deserve better. … it's shocking that they should be deprived of the food they like on the whim of this man." A staff member opined that it's "quite wrong that someone should impose their religious and cultural beliefs on others like this." (Frontpagemagazine)

Who's Behind the Internet Snitch Brigade?-Michelle Malkin
Czardom has its privileges. This week, President Obama's health care overlord, Nancy DeParle, launched a taxpayer-funded initiative to recruit an Internet Snitch Brigade that will combat "disinformation about health insurance reform." As the White House explained in a special online bulletin: "These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain e-mails or through casual conversation. Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an e-mail or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov." What will health care czar DeParle do with this information? Where will it be stored? Who has oversight of the czar's powers, budget and personnel? Concerned citizens, alas, will have a hard time tracking down the "Office of Health Care Reform" created by executive order in April. There is no central website for the office, no direct channel for transparency and no congressional accountability. (Humanevents)

Column One: Israel and the 'realists'-Caroline Glick
Voices in America calling for downgrading US relations with Israel seem to multiply by the day. One of the new voices in the growing anti-Israel chorus is the Atlantic's well-respected military affairs commentator, Robert Kaplan. This week Kaplan authored a column for the magazine's online edition titled "Losing patience with Israel." There he expressed his support for the US to downgrade its relations with Israel while pressuring Israel to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and to facilitate the establishment of a Judenrein Palestinian state. Although Kaplan's piece adds nothing new to the current pile-on against Israel, it is a relatively concise summary of the so-called "realist" view of Israel, and for that reason it is worth considering his arguments. As Kaplan sees things, the US's experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan in the eight years since the September 11 attacks have transformed America's interests and goals in the Middle East. The frustrations in Afghanistan and the combat losses in Iraq have rendered "the search for stability, rather than democracy, paramount, and created a climate in which interests are to be valued far more than friends." The notion that friends and interests may actually not be in conflict is roundly rejected by Kaplan, particularly in the case of Israel. He gives three reasons why the US's alliance with Israel no longer serves its interests. First, he repeats the familiar "realist" claim that the only way for America to build good relations with the Muslim world is by distancing itself from Israel. (Jpost)

Hate Shiekh’s British tour sparks outrage- Leon Symons
The Board of Deputies has sent an angry protest to the Home Office about the UK visit of a leading Saudi Arabian cleric who has made numerous antisemitic speeches. Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais has been on a lecture tour to mosques and shared a platform with Tony Baldry, Tory MP for Banbury, in the town last week. Vivian Wineman, president of the Board, said: “There is no doubt that the presence of Sheikh Al-Sudais undermines British values of tolerance and respect and we will continue to ensure that the government is aware that the Jewish community sees his presence here as entirely offensive.” Mr Wineman has written to Home Secretary Alan Johnson saying: “Sheikh Al-Sudais epitomises some of the most extreme and most hateful antisemitism that exists in the world today. He has referred to Jews as ‘the scum of humanity…the rats of the world…prophet killers…pigs and monkeys’ and has publicly prayed to God to ‘terminate’ the Jews. He has been widely condemned for his remarks about non-Muslims and yet he is currently touring British mosques.” (Jewishchronicle)

The Bitter Fruits Of Appeasement-Melanie Phillips
As we all know, because President Obama, UK Foreign Secretary Miliband and the serried ranks of the EU keep telling us, it is Israel’s obduracy which is holding up a resolution of the Middle East impasse. If only it dismantled its settlements in the ‘occupied’ territories and agreed to split Jerusalem there would be peace. Well, now those ‘moderate’ Palestinians who Obama, Miliband and the EU would have us believe only want to live peacefully alongside Israel have stated what they actually want. They don’t want half of Jerusalem. They want it all – and they want it ethnically cleansed of Jews altogether, every last Jewish man woman and child: gone, disappeared, airbrushed out of the picture, vanished altogether from Israel’s capital and Judaism’s foundational holy city. And they will continue to use violence to bring this about. Ha’aretz reports:
According to Israel Radio, the Fatah general conference, which convened in Bethlehem for a three-day gathering, adopted a position paper which also states that the Palestinian national enterprise will not reach fruition until all of Jerusalem, including the outlying villages, come under Palestinian sovereignty. (Spectator.co.uk)

TERRORISM, security and policy

England badminton team forced to pull out of world championships in India after Muslim terror threat-Mail Foreign Service
The England badminton team fled the world championships in India yesterday after reports of a 'specific terror threat'. The eight-strong squad, including Olympic silver medalist Nathan Robertson, flew home after claims they would be targeted by Islamic group Lashkar-e-Taiba. It was feared the group, which killed 188 in Mumbai last year, would strike on August 15, the anniversary of India's independence. Badminton England chief executive Adrian Christy said: 'This was an incredibly tough decision and one we didn't take lightly. After the Olympic Games, this is the most prestigious championships in the world but we were not prepared to risk the safety of our players, coaches and staff in what we felt could have been a very volatile environment.' The team's decision to pull out was criticised by authorities in Hyderabad as 42 other teams, including Scotland and Wales, are staying for the competition which starts today. But Mr Christy said the England camp was 'extremely grateful' for the speed in which the BWF (Badminton World Federation) and the organising committee reacted to the threat. (Dailymail.co.uk)

The aftermath of the Beslan school massacre-Mark Franchetti
Five years on, the town where Russia's worst terrorist attack took place claiming 333 lives is still haunted by its past
Graduation day is a somber and painful time in Beslan. While across Russia school children celebrate one of life's major milestones by bringing flowers to school for their teachers, in this small community, entire classrooms head for a separate section of the town's cemetery. Known as the City Of Angels, this sprawling plot of land is where most of the 333 people who died in Russia's worst ever terrorist attack, the Beslan school massacre, were laid to rest. More than half were children and every second headstone is adorned with toys. Graduates gather silently around the tombs of their former classmates killed on what should have been the last school day of their life. White balloons, one for each missing graduate, are released into the sky. Last year sixteen children slain in the terrorist attack would have finished school. This year 13 balloons drifted above the tombs. Even late at night, the cemetery is rarely without visitors. Like Milana Adirkhayeva, most relatives go there to speak to their dead. The nine year old and her elder sister Emilia survived the school siege. Their mother, 27 year-old Irina, died of gunshot wounds. Milana was only four then but the image of her mother stroking her head as their life hung in the balance during the hostage drama is forever etched in her memory. (Timesonline.co.uk)

Hamas Tests Rockets to Hit Tel Aviv-Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Hamas is testing an improved Kassam rocket that can reach the Tel Aviv area. It also resumed fire on the Western Negev Sunday morning, striking the agricultural Kibbutz Alumim, whose fields border the Gaza separation fence. No injuries or damage was reported. The terrorist organization has been using the past several weeks of relative calm to stockpile more powerful weapons, IDF intelligence chief Yossi Beidatz said last week. “They are making a strong effort to bring in longer-range rockets, including rockets that can reach Gush Dan,” (the Hebrew term for metropolitan Tel Aviv), he said last week. The Hebrew-language newspaper Maariv reported that Hamas has also fired two test rockets towards the Mediterranean Sea and is planning more tests. (INN)

Taliban 'to decide' on abducted US soldier's fate
A militant commander who is holding a US soldier abducted in Afghanistan has said that Taliban leader Mullah Omar's council is waiting for a response to its demands before deciding the American's fate.
It was the first news of Pfc Bowe R Bergdahl, 23, made public since a Taliban video was released on July 18.
Maulvi Sangin, an insurgent commander for eastern Afghanistan, said the Taliban's governing body was awaiting a response to demands it made to the US for his return. "The American's fate is in the hand of (leadership), which is waiting until a response from the Americans to its demands," Sangin told The Associated Press. Sangin would not elaborate on the demands or say if any deadline had been given. A spokesman for Sangin had previously said the soldier would be killed unless the US stops air strikes in two areas of eastern Afghanistan. Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, was serving with an Alaska-based infantry regiment when he disappeared on June 30, just five months after arriving in Afghanistan. He was serving at an eastern base near the border with Pakistan. The circumstances of his capture were not clear. Details of such incidents are routinely withheld by the military to avoid giving away any information to captors. (Telegraph.co.uk)

Is Somalia the new Afghanistan?-Jon Swain and Michael Gillard
The wartorn nation is acting as a dangerous new magnet for terror
Loading ammunition into the magazine of his AK-47 assault rifle, the young suicide bomber looked straight into the camera. “Jihad is real,” he said. “There’s no way you can understand the sweetness of jihad until you come to jihad.” His accomplice joined in, his face hidden by a scarf. “How dare you sit at home and look on the TV and see Muslims getting killed ... Those who are in Europe and America, get out of those countries,” he ordered. Moments later a column of black smoke appeared as a battered Toyota truck exploded. The slick video showing the last moments of a suicide bomber, entitled “Message to those who stay behind”, is part of the latest recruitment propaganda to emerge on English-language websites directed at young wannabe jihadis. Its origins were not, however, in Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan, the usual bases of jihadi recruiters, but Somalia, the war-torn east African state. (Timesonline.co.uk)

Failure of Leadership-James Kirchick
Why Obama should retract his decision to give Mary Robinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Last week, the White House released a list of recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor that the United States government can afford a civilian. Among the 16 awardees are truly great figures: breast cancer philanthropist Nancy Goodman Brinker, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, and Sidney Poitier, the first African-American to win an Academy Award for Best Actor. President Obama also made history by choosing the first openly gay recipients of the Medal of Freedom, former tennis star Billie Jean King, and, in a truly inspired move, bestowed one to the late San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk. Standing out on this distinguished list, however, is Mary Robinson. The first female president of Ireland, Robinson served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002. And it was in that capacity that she presided over the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, also known as the Durban conference. Ostensibly convened for the purpose of combating "racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance," the gathering was hijacked by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and devolved into a gutter of Third World finger pointing, anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, and crude anti-Semitism. (TNR)

White House: 'War on terrorism' is over-John Ward
It's official. The U.S. is no longer engaged in a "war on terrorism." Neither is it fighting "jihadists" or in a "global war." President Obama's top homeland security and counterterrorism official took all three terms off the table of acceptable words inside the White House during a speech Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. "The President does not describe this as a 'war on terrorism,'" said John Brennan, head of the White House homeland security office, who outlined a "new way of seeing" the fight against terrorism. The only terminology that Mr. Brennan said the administration is using is that the U.S. is "at war with al Qaeda." "We are at war with al Qaeda," he said. "We are at war with its violent extremist allies who seek to carry on al Qaeda's murderous agenda." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in March that the administration was not using the term "war on terror" but no specific directive had come from the White House itself. Mr. Obama himself used the term "war on terror" on Jan. 23, his fourth day as president, but has not used it since. Mr. Brennan's speech was aimed at outlining ways in which the Obama administration intends to undermine the "upstream" factors that create an environment in which terrorists are bred. (Washingtontimes)

Hillary Clinton Voices Regret that Foreign Governments Currently Have No Way to Try American Citizens; Supports Membership in the International Criminal Court-ccartaginese
Even though it has the potential to both threaten the sovereignty of the United States and to weaken its system of justice, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced last week that she “feels great regret” that the United Sates is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty, and “signaled a potential shift in U.S. opposition” to that global body, Amy Goodman enthusiastically announced on Democracy Now!. The ICC was established by treaty in 1998 to provide a means in which to try persons who are “accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.” Although ratified by about 110 countries since then, the United States, which has always considered the idea of a foreign body having jurisdiction over American citizens to be anathema, has never officially ratified it (nor, for that matter, has Russia, China, or India). Former President Bill Clinton, an ardent supporter of the idea of social justice, signed onto the treaty during the final days of his presidency, but that decision was subsequently rescinded by George Bush, who feared that American soldiers and government officials could be subjected to politicized prosecutions by ambitious prosecutors and judges. (Newsrealblog)

The Real Climate Agenda- Robert Ferguson
So, if the orthodox climate science is wrong, what's the real motivation for action - the real agenda?
First, allow me to present a brief metaphorical context for framing the answer. On a dark December night 36 years ago, a Lockheed 1011 jumbo jet crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing over 100 people. During the final approach to Miami, the crew noticed that one green light had failed to illuminate -- a light that indicates whether or not the nose landing gear has extended successfully. The pilots discontinued the approach, set the aircraft into a circling holding pattern over the pitch-black Everglades, and turned their attention toward investigating the problem. They became so preoccupied with their search that they failed to realize the plane was gradually descending closer and closer toward the dark swamp below. By the time someone noticed what was happening, it was too late to avoid the disaster. Put in our current context, the unlit bulb created a diversionary scare, a false warning of certain disaster and death, while the real threat was the plane's downward spiral into a dark swamp of no return. Environmentalism generally and catastrophic man-made global warming specifically is a falsified diversionary scare distracting us from the fall of our Republic into the dark, stinking swamp of statism. (Americanthinker)

Animal Activists Expand Corporate Attacks- JEANNE WHALEN
In the wake of a crackdown in Britain that has damped attacks by animal-rights extremists there, the battlefront appears to have shifted to continental Europe, where a series of companies and individuals connected even indirectly to animal research are being targeted by anonymous assailants. Arson has been used in recent months against executives working for NYSE Euronext, which operates the stock exchange where one big animal-research company is listed. Drug maker Schering-Plough Corp. said an employee in Belgium was targeted by animal-rights activists, and animal-rights groups claim they have vandalized the cars and homes of people working for pharmaceutical companies Pfizer Inc. and Bayer AG and British bank Barclays PLC. The matter came to a head this week when Swiss drug giant Novartis AG said someone dug up and stole the ashes of its chief executive's mother from a Swiss cemetery last month, and set his Austrian vacation home on fire Monday.The incidents have opened a new front in a battle that had previously been confined largely to Britain, where extremists early this decade began targeting Huntingdon Life Sciences, a company that tests drugs and other products on animals. Many recent attacks have been aimed not at HLS itself, but rather businesses that allegedly contract with the laboratory or are its financial backers. (WSJ)

New drug could prevent epilepsy in brain trauma victims-ISRAEL21c Staff
A joint Israeli-American study has identified a drug that could prevent changes in the brain that lead to epilepsy after brain trauma. For people who suffer severe head injuries, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that because of better medical care, many people who would have previously died of their injuries now survive. The bad is that between 25-50 percent of them will go on to develop epilepsy, and currently no treatment exists to prevent this happening. Now an Israeli neurosurgeon believes he may have an answer. Dr. Alon Friedman, a professor and researcher at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, together with researchers from UC Berkeley, California has identified a TGF Beta Blocker that prevents epilepsy after traumatic brain injury in rats. If the findings, which were published this month in The Journal of Neuroscience, are confirmed in humans, a TGF-beta blocker may prevent many cases of epilepsy in accident victims, Iraqi war GIs who suffer from brain trauma after roadside bomb attacks, or people who develop epilepsy after brain tumors, meningitis or other infections to the brain. (Israel21c)

My week wearing a burka: Just a few yards of black fabric, but it felt like a prison-Liz Jones
Squatting next to me is my burka. It looks so innocuous: just a few yards of black fabric. But, my goodness, how oppressive it is, how suffocating, how transforming. Moved by the plight of Lubna Hussein, a Sudanese woman who faces 40 lashes for wearing trousers in public, I decided to spend a week enveloped in what she should have been wearing. Out shopping one day, I caught sight of myself in a Knightsbridge store window. Instead of me staring back, I saw a dark, depressed alien. A smudge. A nothing. On my first day, I was unaccountably afraid to put on my burka. When I did pluck up courage, I felt suffocated. Driving to my local station, I felt blinkered, like a racehorse. Walking to the platform, I could hardly breathe: I kept getting my nose out from beneath its shroud for fresh air. I felt weak, and faint and itchy. I walked to the kiosk to buy coffee, staring at my feet to avoid catching anyone’s eye. ‘Mumble mumble,’ I said to the young man serving. To his credit – the station is in Somerset, so I’m pretty sure this was the first time he’d encountered the full burka – he didn’t bat an eyelid. I automatically lifted the cup to my lips. Ah. How on earth do women eat or drink? Later that day, at a coffee shop in Fulham, I sat outside at a table, faced with an insurmountable sandwich. (Dailymail.co.uk)

How Orwellian was Orwell?-Richard Vinen
How the political and historical context of Orwell's work is often missed or ignored. More than any other British author of the twentieth century, George Orwell has escaped from his own time. Every schoolchild who gets as far as GCSE English will have read at least one Orwell novel, and the one that they are most likely to have read (Nineteen Eighty-Four) is, ostensibly at least, not set in Orwell’s own lifetime. Orwell was fascinated by children’s literature and some of his books have a special appeal to children (particularly, I suspect, boys in their early teens). This means that most people read Orwell before they have any sense of the period in which he wrote; indeed, before they have much sense of why it might matter to understand the period in which a writer worked. Even the most sophisticated readers take Orwell out of context. In 1940, Q. D. Leavis argued that Orwell’s early novels (the ones with clear temporal settings) were "wasted effort". Ever since then, critics have judged him largely on his long essays, and these reinforce the impression of a man outside his own time – big enough to interpose himself between Tolstoy and Shakespeare at a time when his contemporaries were locked in petty Bloomsbury disputes. His admirers think of him as an emblem of universal integrity. Central European dissidents in the 1980s appealed to his memory, and committees of the great and good award an Orwell Prize to writers who have made their reputations writing about, say, Sweden since the 1970s. I doubt if a day passes when some politician or journalist does not denounce something or other as "Orwellian", a word that Orwell would have hated. (Timesonline.co.uk)

Woodstock: A Moment of Muddy Grace-Jon Pareles
BABY boomers won’t let go of the Woodstock Festival. Why should we? It’s one of the few defining events of the late 1960s that had a clear happy ending. On Aug. 15 to 17, 1969, hundreds of thousands of people, me among them, gathered in a lovely natural amphitheater in Bethel (not Woodstock), N.Y. We listened to some of the best rock musicians of the era, enjoyed other legal and illegal pleasures, endured rain and mud and exhaustion and hunger pangs, felt like a giant community and dispersed, all without catastrophe. A year after the riots at the Democratic convention in Chicago, expectations about large gatherings of young people were so low that this was considered a surprise. Although the festival didn’t go exactly as planned, it was, as advertised, three days of peace and music. That made Woodstock an idyll, particularly in retrospect, even though it was declared a state disaster area at the time. “Not withstanding their personality, their dress and their ideas, they were and they are the most courteous, considerate and well-behaved group of kids I have ever been in contact with in my 24 years of police work,” Lou Yank, the chief of police in nearby Monticello, told The New York Times. (NYT)