Editor and Researcher Elisa Vandernoot

American Freedom Alliance Weekly Gazette

THE WEEK AT A GLANCE

This Week's Editorial

Giving Fish Their Human Rights
By Avi Davis

Otto was a pike who live in Lake Nechatel in Switzerland.  Life for a pike in Switzerland was pretty good.  Short working hours and long vacations;  a national health care service for which he paid nothing. And laws that protected abuses against his species. 

Everything was going swimmingly until the day Otto saw a red tail earthworm dangling just below the surface.  Not believing his luck at discovering such a rare delicacy, he quickly ascended only to discover that he had been fooled.  The worm was bait and Otto was about to become Erik Lafevre’s catch of the day. 

Poor Otto.  For the next ten minutes he conducted a life and death struggle against Erik’s rod but the exertion was finally too much for him.  Out of breath and out of energy, Otto took his last gulp of  freshwater and was hauled in, to finally expire on the wooden decking of  Erik’s skiff. 

Fortunately for Otto’s family though, a videographer was on hand to document the entire death struggle.  Within hours the encounter had been downloaded on YouTube and within days it had attracted 400,000 unique views.   

It did not escape the notice of the government.  Claiming that the amateur angler’s inexpert handling of his rod  had negatively impacted the fish’s dignity, Erik was sued in a Zurich district court by State attorneys on behalf of the fish.  Pretty soon everybody was getting into the act.  The worm’s family sued Erik for wrongful death.  The lake, incensed that its waters would be used for so nefarious an activity as fishing, launched its own suit;  and the vegetation at the edge of the lake sued for the fact that Erik had trampled some grass unique to the area as he maneuvered his skiff into the water.  

Sound like a nice modern fable?  Well it would be if there wasn’t so much truth to it.  For in Switzerland today animals, plants and water have individual rights enforceable in Swiss courts.  In fact, as the Wall Street Journal reports, over the weekend a referendum was offered to the Swiss, which, if passed would mandate that  each canton in the country would be compelled to hire an animal rights attorney.   Today in Switzerland, an abuse of any animal, even a fish, can earn you a fine and  plant geneticists can be penalized for harvesting plants  in such a way that injures the plant’s dignity. 

One has to wonder about the way in which non-human life has been elevated  to the same level as human in countries as disparate as Switzerland, Spain and Ecuador.  In Spain, limited human rights have been given to apes, a result of extensive lobbying for 20 years by the Great Ape Project ( led by the philosopher Peter Singer and ape conservationist Jane Goodall); In Ecuador, plant life was accorded legal status under the new constitution, passed in July, 2008.

If you are thinking that the movement to elevate animal and plant life to the moral plain of humans is a simple expression of  deep empathy on the part of tree huggers and dog lovers, you  would be quite wrong.  Because the proponents of animal/ plant rights are decidedly anti-human in their perspective, viewing humanity as the true blight on earth and animals as its genuine custodians.

They have introduced into our lexicon a new term – speciesism.  Speciesism holds that assigning different values or rights to beings on the basis of their speicies is a prejudice that is not worthy of humanity.  Because man himself is an animal he is of no less or greater worth than the denizens of the animal kingdom with whom he shares the earth.

This, as Wesley Smith states in his extraordinary new book,  A Rat is a Pig Is a Dog is a Boy, results in the acceptance of the notion that logical distinctions that we all make without thinking betwen oursleves and the animal kingdom, are in fact akin to racism, anti-Semitism and every other bigotry by man against his brothers and sisters. 

But even more significant, says Smith, the removal of  any distinction between humans and non-humans, leads to the decimation of all moral values.  This is demonstrated by the insistence by some of these same ethicists, that sexual engagement between humans and non-humans should pose no serious issue since inter-species breeding has been part of the natural world since the beginning of time.  Infanticide, long condemned in most human societies, should be perfectly acceptable since infants are not cognate, sentient creatures. Vivisection experiments, long carried out on animals, is better reserved for those humans  in a catatonic or vegetative state rather than live animals since the former have, similarly, an absence of  all sentient, cognitive capacity.

It would be nice to think that such a philosophy is restricted to a few crackpot academics and animal rights advocates.  But it would  be a mistake to think this way.   With governments now picking up the cudgel, we increasingly face a world in which the entire concept of human exceptionalism is under assault. 

And so we have a scenario where one day, if our animal liberation friends have their way, there may be places on earth where to kill an animal of any species and under any circumstances, will be regarded as the equivalent of killing a man.  

Maybe Otto’s friends and supporters will then have their day in court after all.

Avi Davis is the President of the American Freedom Alliance in Los Angeles..

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

__________________________________________________________________

View the Best of the Intermediate Zone from last week:

The Modern Feminist Agenda
When the U.N. Comes Knocking
Remembering No Nukes
Europe’s Malaise
Imagining John Lennon’s World
The Rise of the Watermelon Activists

Avi Davis can be contacted at adavis@americanfreedomalliance.org

NEWS: EUROPE AND AMERICA

Obama Still Wants U.S. Trial for Some Gitmo Suspects-AP
WASHINGTON -- White House aides are increasingly convinced that accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will never face trial in a civilian court and are trying to cut a deal that would still transfer Guantanamo Bay terrorism suspects to the U.S., where many would faces charges, a senior administration official said Monday. President Barack Obama is trying to keep a campaign pledge to close the U.S. military prison in Cuba, a promise that has attracted criticism from Republicans who say it would jeopardize national security. He also has lately been under fire from people within his party who say Obama should not accept any deal that would prosecute Mohammed outside the normal judicial system. But a senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations, said the most important goals are closing Guantanamo Bay and ensuring that the government can prosecute some detainees in U.S. courts. To do so, the only option may be abandoning administration's original plan to prosecute the alleged 9/11 conspirators in civilian courts and allow them to go before military tribunals. (Usnews)

French-speaking Belgium divided over burqa ban- Kattalin LANDABURU
The debate over the burqa, or Islamic full-body veil, has crossed Frence’s border. In Belgium, it is already banned in the Flemish-speaking region, and Brussels and French-speaking Wallonia could follow suit. The telephone has not stopped ringing at the offices of “Insoumise et devoilée” (Defiant and unveiled)," located in Verviers, in southern Belgium. "In the past two weeks, sixteen young women have reached out to us," says Karima, who is visibly overwhelmed by her work. When in 2008 she founded the organisation, named after a book she published the same year, Karima never imagined things would evolve so quickly. "It’s proof my story is not an isolated case, as some politicians suggested," she jokes. Born in Belgium to a large Moroccan family, Karima was forced to wear the veil from the time she was nine. "They ended up sewing it to my hair," she confides. Treated like a maid by her family, she was cloistered, mistreated and forcibly married in Morocco; an existence she managed to escape from, and recount in her autobiography. She says she wrote her story for the girls and women who face the same ordeals. (France24)

MUSLIM LEADER’S DEATH THREAT CALLS OVER DRESS-Ted Jeory
A SECULAR Muslim woman councillor has been forced to dress more conservatively after receiving death threats and sexually harassing phone calls from members of her own community.
Shiria Khatun, 38, has called in the police over the sinister calls in which threats were made not only against her, but also her four young children. In one they warned they would dig up parents’ graves and bury her there instead. The Labour councillor in the controversial borough of Tower Hamlets—named in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary last week as a centre of Islamic fundamentalism—is considered one of the area’s most progressive politicians. She was elected in 2006, worked for Ken Livingstone as a transport adviser at London’s City Hall and frequently campaigns for more Muslim women to enter politics. However, over the past year she has been the victim of a “sick” harassment campaign. (Express.co.uk)

Objection, Your Honor: European Courts Placate Islamists-David J. Rusin
Even as Shari'a courts sprout up like mushrooms on UK soil, secular ones across Europe increasingly bend to an Islamist worldview. Consider the phenomenon of exempting Muslims from the standard practice of rising before judges. In January, seven radicals on trial for shouting insults at British soldiers during a 2009 homecoming parade refused to stand when the judge entered — because, in the words of one of their lawyers, "it is a grave and cardinal sin to show respect in this way to anyone other than God himself." The response from Judge Carolyn Mellanby? Appeasement and more appeasement:
Eventually, a compromise was reached where they would enter the court after her during the trial, which is expected to last six days. The maximum penalty each of the men can receive is a £1,000 fine.
The defendants were given an extra 20 minutes on top of their lunch break to go to pray at a mosque a few minutes' walk away.
A separate "quiet" room has been set aside for their regular prayer intervals for the rest of the week. (Islamistwatch)

'Broad support' for Australian Sharia law-AAP
HERE'S broad Muslim community support for aspects of Sharia law being adopted in Australia, a leading spokesman for the religion says.
However, harsh penal aspects of the law, including stoning and chopping off hands, will never work and aren't being called for, Islamic Friendship Association of Australia president Keysar Trad says. But personal aspects of the law, particularly those involving marriage and inheritance, would be broadly supported and would offer great help to ordinary Australian Muslims, he said. Mr Trad's remarks come after Dr Zachariah Matthews, president of the Australian Islamic Mission, made a similar call, saying aspects of Sharia law could run parallel to existing legislation. Dr Matthews was speaking during an open day at Lakemba Mosque in Sydney on Saturday. Some non-Muslims in the audience were reportedly left shocked by the speech. (Dailytelegraph.au)

Scots lawyers lead way with sharia advice-Exclusive: Jasper Hamill
A Scottish law firm has become the first in the country to offer clients “conventional” legal representation alongside advice on sharia law.
Hamilton Burns, based in Glasgow’s south side, has teamed up with an eminent Muslim scholar who will counsel clients on the Islamic aspect of civil law cases, while solicitors give advice under Scots law. Clients will be able to see a Muslim lawyer who is fully trained in Scots law at the same time as they consult a sharia scholar who is an expert in Islamic law. It will be the first time such a service has been offered in Scotland. Despite public fears over what is deemed “creeping” sharia law, the firm stressed that the sharia advice was not legally binding and would mainly focus on giving Islamic guidelines on divorce or child custody based on rigorous readings of the Koran. Shaykh Amer Jamil, the Islamic scholar who will provide sharia advice, wants to make sure that Muslims have access to the correct religious ruling on matters such as divorce. However, critics and opponents accuse sharia of being a discriminatory and sexist legal system and an “extension” of the fundamentalist laws that allow hand amputations and stonings in countries such as Saudi Arabia. (Heraldscotland)

Berlin: Arabs almost half of serial-offenders
The typical serial offender is male, of Arab origin, and remains a criminal as an adult, this according to an interim report on the status of the implementation of the Berlin serial offenders concept, as reported by the Senator for Justice Gisela von der Aue (SPD) in parliament on Wednesday. The serial offender policy, with which Berlin set up a separate department in the prosecution, ends this month, and the senator decided to renew it April 1st. A key point is that the same offender always meets the same police officer and prosecutor, all authorities are networked so they can quickly identify disastrous trends and take countermeasures. In addition to the police and prosecution, this includes the youth social-service and juvenile courts. According to von der Aue, at the beginning of the year, there were 548 serial offenders registered, none of them children. These included 83 were juveniles, 211 adolescents and 254 adults, ten of which were female. The former juveniles have reached adulthood and continued being criminals. They're expecting a continued low-level increase. 79% of the serial offenders are of immigrant background, 47% are of Arab origin. (Islamineurope)

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

Leeds University Students' Union refuses to allow student society to show Fitna-Paul Sims
If you've been reading this blog today, you might have seen that I've been engaged in a strong debate on the post below about the merits of right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who's in town today to show his anti-Islam film at the House of Lords. Funnily enough (perhaps they'd been reading my earlier post, I don't know), just this afternoon I received an email from the secretary of the Leeds University Atheist Society telling me about how Leeds University Students' Union banned the society from screening Fitna at an event. The screening had been organised as part of an event entitled "Fitna: The Big Debate", which was to consist of a screening, followed by a debate on the issues it raises. So the motives for screening the film can't be called into question – this was not to be a one-sided event, and you can't really debate something if nobody has seen it. In this respect, the case is reminiscent of what happened with Jytte Klausen's book The Cartoons That Shook The World, the book about the Danish Muhammad cartoons in which the publisher Yale refused to include the Danish Muhammad cartoons. (Newhumanistorg.uk)

Why I Changed My Mind About School Reform-Diane Ravitch
Federal testing has narrowed education and charter schools have failed to live up to their promise.
I have been a historian of American education since 1975, when I received my doctorate from Columbia. I have written histories, and I've also written extensively about the need to improve students' knowledge of history, literature, geography, science, civics and foreign languages. So in 1991, when Lamar Alexander and David Kearns invited me to become assistant secretary of education in the administration of George H.W. Bush, I jumped at the chance with the hope that I might promote voluntary state and national standards in these subjects. By the time I left government service in January 1993, I was an advocate not only for standards but for school choice. I had come to believe that standards and choice could co-exist as they do in the private sector. With my friends Chester Finn Jr. and Joseph Viteritti, I wrote and edited books and articles making the case for charter schools and accountability. (WSJ)

MEDIA BIAS

NYT and WaPo: Muhammad Is the Prophet of God-Johanna Markind
Is Muhammad more deserving of reverential treatment than Jesus? The New York Times seems to think so.
A Times article reporting on the collapse of Christian communities in the Middle East contains two references to Jesus. Not "Christ," which is a religious title, or "Jesus Christ," but simply "Jesus," who was (or may have been) a historical figure. The same is true of other Times stories and wire service articles published by the Times which no longer appear on its website (but still appear on other sites under different titles and are linked below). A December 21 story entitled "First Jesus-Era House Discovered in Nazareth" (AP byline) contains ten references to Jesus and none to Christ. Ditto another item, "Mass. School Denies Suspending Student for Drawing" (also AP), about a second grader who may have been suspended for drawing a figure of Jesus on the cross. Three references to Jesus, none to Christ. A Washington Post article (AP byline) about the controversy surrounding Brit Hume's recent comments on Tiger Woods contains two references to Jesus and none to Christ. (Americanthinker)

For the Left, Cheap ‘Moral Equivalence’ Is Their Stock-in-Trade-Warner Todd Huston
For the Independent Weekly of Durham, North Carolina, writer Sam Wardle proves that he hasn’t a clue how the phrase “religious extremist” is properly defined. Wardle reveals his hatred of all things Christian in a piece titled, “For Rep. Sue Myrick, Islamic moderates are extreme, Christian extremists are moderate [1],” wherein he equates Rep. Myrick to a religious extremist. But, I’d suggest that his confusion is endemic in the far left and proves to show why so many in the west don’t understand how to face and defeat the real religious extremism of radical Islam. In a story about Representative Sue Myrick (R, NC) and her association with The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, as juxtaposed with her condemnation of radical Islam, Wardle sees no difference between a radical Islamist that might blow himself up with a suicide vest or cut off the head of a helpless captive and a Christian American that wants to use properly constituted law to have the Holy Bible used in the classroom. Certainly you can disagree with having the Bible used as a text in the classroom, but to say that a person who does want the Bible in the classroom is no better than a terrorist is, well, just plain stupid. (Bigjournalism)

Exclusive: How Do You Plead, Guilty or Not Guilty? ‘I Plead Muslim!’-Gadi Adelman
"She was strong, beautiful, really caring, she was always willing to help people." This was the description of Noor Almaleki (pictured above) according to one of her co-workers from the Applebee’s in Glendale, Arizona.
Her caring came to end on October 20, 2009 when her own father, Faleh Hassan Almaleki ran her down with his Jeep Cherokee. Noor fought for her life until Monday November 2, 2009, when she succumbed and died from her injuries. Noor was only 20 years old. Her father didn’t just run over Noor; at the time he ran her down, she was walking in a parking lot with her fiancé’s mother, Amal Edan Khalaf. The 43-year-old Amal Edan Khalaf was seriously injured. This tragic story made national headlines when it was revealed that the girl’s father, Faleh Hassan Almaleki, deliberately targeted his daughter and attacked her for becoming too “Westernized.” Nicole Furugia worked with Noor at Applebee's, and stayed in touch with her until her death. But her employment there, like her life, was short lived. (Familysecuritymatters)

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Geert Wilders’ Speech in the House of Lords
Speech House of Lords, London, Friday the 5th of March 2010
Thank you. It is great to be back in London. And it is great that this time, I got to see more of this wonderful city than just the detention centre at Heathrow Airport. Today I stand before you, in this extraordinary place. Indeed, this is a sacred place. This is, as Malcolm always says, the mother of all Parliaments, I am deeply humbled to have the opportunity to speak before you. Thank you Lord Pearson and Lady Cox for your invitation and showing my film Fitna. Thank you my friends for inviting me. I first have great news. Last Wednesday city council elections were held in the Netherlands. And for the first time my party, the Freedom Party, took part in these local elections. We participated in two cities. In Almere, one of the largest Dutch cities. And in The Hague, the third largest city; home of the government, the parliament and the queen. And, we did great! In one fell swoop my party became the largest party in Almere and the second largest party in The Hague. Great news for the Freedom Party and even better news for the people of these two beautiful cities. (Gatesofvienna)

SEALs Case Shows How Terrorists Use 'Lawfare' to Undermine U.S.-Clare M. Lopez
The use of our democratic system and the rule of law by those whose intent is to destroy our civilization is a cynical tactic that Americans ought to be smart enough to see straight through. Islamic jihadis are manipulating Western-style legal systems everywhere to their own benefit while we, the founders of those systems, are floundering in a morass of moral relativism, multicultural meaninglessness, and a deplorable amnesia about the genuine worth of our own heritage, traditions, and values. The current case in point involves the three Navy SEALs who, as members of Seal Team 10, captured the Iraqi terrorist Ahmed Hashim Abed in September 2009. Abed is charged with directing the March 2004 ambush of four Blackwater security guards in the town of Fallujah in which the four were killed, and their bodies mutilated, burned, and hung from a bridge. Unbelievably, the three heroic Navy SEALs are now being court-martialed because Abed claims that at some point in the capture and interrogation process, they treated him a bit roughly; the charges against the SEALs also allege they made false statements about that treatment. (Humanevents)

ANTISEMITISM

Sabeel Brings Intolerance to Seattle. Next Step San Francisco-Roberta Seid
Seattle, known for its inclusive liberalism, exposed a darker side on February 19 and 20 when the prestigious St. Mark's Cathedral hosted an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish conference organized by Sabeel, the Jerusalem-based Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center led by Palestinian Anglican Rev. Naim Ateek. Sabeel events are more disturbing than most anti-Israel conclaves. Reverting to dark eras of Jewish-Christian relations, they go beyond demonizing Zionists and Israel by attacking Judaism itself, all with the eager approval of their mainline Christian and "social justice" audiences. This was Sabeel's 30th conference in the U.S. and Canada, and it followed Sabeel's usual pattern. The roster included veterans of the anti-Israel lecture circuit, from Alison Weir of the organization If Americans Knew, who has claimed that the IDF shoots Palestinian children in the back, to Cindy and Craig Corrie, who became activists after their daughter was accidentally killed while demonstrating against IDF anti-terrorism operations in Gaza. As always, the roster also included Israeli and Jewish anti-Israel activists. Sabeel is planning a similar conference in San Francisco and other cities. (Standwithus)

Anti-Israel Activist Attacks Jewish Girl on Campus-Avi Yellin
(Israelnationalnews.com) University of California at Berkeley was again the site of a clash involving pro-Israel and anti-Israel activists last Friday when Husam Zakharia, leader of the Students for Justice in Palestine, assaulted Jessica Felber of the pro-Israel Tikvah group with a shopping cart. The incident occurred during competing events from the SJP-run “Israel Apartheid Week” and “Israel Peace and Diversity Week” organized by Tikvah. Felber was holding a sign that read “Israel Wants Peace” when Zakharia intentionally slammed her from behind with a shopping cart filled with toys donated for the welfare of Arab children in the Hamas-controlled Gaza region. Felber told Israel National News that she responded to the incident by immediately placing her attacker under citizens’ arrest. Police arrested him later that day and Felber expressed hope that the District Attorney will see the case through and file charges against Zakharia. (INN)

Toronto man investigated again for hate writings-Stewart Bell
TORONTO -- Just months after Ontario decided not to charge a Toronto man with hate crimes, partly because he was undergoing rehabilitation, he is again being investigated over his online writings on a website called Filthy Jewish Terrorists. Police are probing Salman Hossain's recent postings on the Arizona-based Internet site on which he writes harshly about Jews, Christians and moderate Canadian Muslims, whom he calls "traitors." He refers to Jews as "diseased and filthy," "the scum of the earth," "psychotic" and "mass murderers" and writes that "a genocide should be perpetrated against the Jewish populations of North America and Europe." In addition, he blames Jews for terrorist plots, such as the Toronto 18 bomb conspiracy, which was the work of Islamist extremists. He also praises God for "the victorious resistance operations" in Afghanistan. Abbee Corb of the Hate Crimes Extremism Investigative Team, which is made up of representatives of 13 Ontario municipal police forces, confirmed yesterday that an investigation was underway. "We are, as a team, collectively looking at this individual. As far as what investigations we have underway, of course that information I can't release because that could compromise any investigations that are ongoing. (Nationalpost)

Let’s Have a Real Apartheid Education Week-Alan M. Dershowitz
Every year at about this time, radical Islamic students—aided by radical anti-Israel professors—hold an event they call “Israel Apartheid Week.” During this week, they try to persuade students on campuses around the world to demonize Israel as an apartheid regime. Most students seem to ignore the rantings of these extremists, but some naïve students seem to take them seriously. Some pro-Israel and Jewish students claim that they are intimidated when they try to respond to these untruths. As one who strongly opposes any censorship, my solution is to fight bad speech with good speech, lies with truth and educational malpractice with real education. Accordingly, I support a “Middle East Apartheid Education Week” to be held at universities throughout the world. It would be based on the universally accepted human rights principle of “the worst first.” In other words, the worst forms of apartheid being practiced by Middle East nations and entities would be studied and exposed first. Then the apartheid practices of other countries would be studied in order of their seriousness and impact on vulnerable minorities. (Frontpagemagazine)

The Intifada Isn’t Just in the Middle East: Israeli Arab Speaks The Truth at The Annual Israel Event Co-Sponsored by Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and Aish HaTorah Philadelphia
Anti-Israel, Anti-Semitic Hate Incidents Threaten Free-Speech and Security on American College Campuses
BALA CYNWYD, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Intifada has spread from the Middle East to American college campuses, threatening the free speech and the security of Jewish students, according to a new film that premieres in Philadelphia on March 18 at the annual Israel Event. Imagination Productions is launching the film: Crossing the Line: The Intifada Comes to Campus to help raise awareness about the dangerous situation on campus. In the film, the transition is evaluated based on Nathan Sharansky’s assertion that Israel is delegitimized, demonized and judged by a double standard. “During a recent visit to several university campuses in the U.S., I discovered that there is more sympathy for Hamas than there is in Ramallah” Featured in Crossing the Line are scenes of violence that occurred at Temple University in 2008 in front of a former Jewish fraternity (http://j.mp/crossingtheline). What may have once been considered anti-Zionist rhetoric has now crossed the line into a pure form of anti-Semitism. (Businesswire)

Hate war on campus to be "stamped out"-Martin Bright
There is now a "virus of extremism" on Britain's university campuses that is at risk of turning into a pandemic, according to the Board of Deputies. Growing parental concern at the safety of Jewish students at UK universities has led the community leadership to take the unprecedented step of developing an official strategy for combating extremism on campus.
The strategy draws on recent experience of campaigning against extremist Muslim speakers at Manchester and London universities who are known to hold views deeply hostile to Israel.
A five-point action plan can be revealed for the first time here:
* Proactive monitoring of visits from extremists with the co-operation of the Community Security Trust and the Union of Jewish Students.
* Immediate, vigorous response to any visits that do take place, including warnings to vice-chancellors on the track record of extremists.
*Withholding the use of university premises by extremists.
* Insistence that participants sign strict written undertakings that hate speech will not be used and agree to filming by university authorities.
* Increased pressure on ministers to tackle extremism while working closely with the Grant Inquiry into campus radicalisation.
At the same time, guidance on the limits of free speech is currently being developed by the Board and the CST. (Thejewishchronicle)

TERRORISM, security and policy

More than 500 people slaughtered in machete 'revenge' attacks on Christian villages in Nigeria-Mail Foreign Service
Rioters armed with machetes have slaughtered more than 500 people in a revenge attack following religious clashes near Nigeria's city of Jos. The violence in three mostly Christian villages appeared to be reprisal attacks following the January unrest in Jos - when most of the victims were Muslims. There is a long history of local tension between Muslims and Christians. Mass burials for the victims will take place later today. The bodies of the dead lined dusty streets in three villages south of the regional capital of Jos. One young victim appeared to have been scalped, while others had severed hands and feet. One woman victim in the morgue appeared to have been stripped below the waist, but later covered by a strip of black cloth. Jos has been under a dusk-til-dawn curfew enforced by the military since January's religious-based violence. Rioting in September 2001 killed more than 1,000 people and Muslim-Christian battles killed up to 700 people in 2004. More than 300 residents died during a similar uprising in 2008. (Dailymail.co.uk)

This War Would Be Hell, Too-Clifford D. May
The U.S. is not prepared to defend itself against cyberattacks.
If a top intelligence expert said America was not prepared for war and, indeed, that if we went to war “we would lose,” that would worry you, wouldn’t it? Start worrying. The expert is Mike McConnell, who served as director of the National Security Agency under President Clinton and as director of national intelligence under President Bush. He was referring not to a conventional war, a guerrilla war, or an insurgency. He was referring to a cyberwar. But understand: Cyberwar does not mean fun and video games. McConnell told a Senate committee last week that the risk we face from cyberattacks “rivals nuclear weapons in terms of seriousness.” Cybercombatants could cause massive blackouts lasting for months. They could destroy the electronic processes on which our banking, commerce, and financial systems have been built, stealing — or simply wiping out — vast amounts of wealth. They could put our air-transportation system in jeopardy. They might even be able to cripple our defense and national-security infrastructures. It is possible to defend against such threats. But we are not doing it adequately. McConnell has been sounding this alarm for some time. Most of the media, and therefore most Americans, have not been paying attention. (Nationalreview)

Global jihad creeping into Russia's insurgency-Amie Ferris-Rotman - Analysis
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Islamist insurgency in Russia's North Caucasus region appears to be mutating from a grassroots separatist movement toward global jihad or holy war, whose goals, propaganda and patronage point abroad. In February Russia's most wanted guerrilla, Chechen-born Doku Umarov, vowed on Islamist websites to spread his attacks from the Muslim-dominated North Caucasus into the nation's heartland, wreaking havoc through jihad. His pledge follows escalating violence in the form of shootings and suicide bombs targeting authorities over the last year in the mountainous North Caucasus -- particularly Chechnya, site of two separatist wars since the mid-1990s, and the provinces flanking it, Ingushetia and Dagestan. Regional Muslim leaders and rebels revile each other as blasphemous and criminal. But after years of the Soviet Union suppressing religion, both welcome a Muslim revival that has brought elaborate new mosques, government-sponsored hajj trips to Mecca and a bubbling interest in Arabic. (Reuters)

Cocaine, kidnapping and the Al-Qaeda cash squeeze-Philip Sherwell in New York
Hit by a global crackdown on their wealthy financiers, Bin Laden's followers have been forced to abandon their Koranic principles to pursue their holy war.
The three al-Qaeda agents assured the Colombians that they would have no problem moving their shipment of European-bound cocaine through the Islamist badlands of the Sahara. As supporters of the terrorist organisation's North African branch, they would guarantee shipment of the drugs through territory they controlled - so long as they were paid fee of $2,000 per kilo. The trio, all from the impoverished desert nation of Mali, thought they were setting up a deal with representatives of Colombia's Marxist FARC guerrillas to smuggle up to 1,000 kgs of cocaine. In fact, they were speaking to informants for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who secretly taped the meeting in Ghana in a sting operation in December. The three men, who were recorded on tape saying that they were levying "taxes" on the terror group's behalf, were arrested and extradited to New York, where they are now fighting drug and terror charges. (Telegraph.co.uk)

The 'al-Qaeda seven' and selective McCarthyism-Marc A. Thiessen
Would most Americans want to know if the Justice Department had hired a bunch of mob lawyers and put them in charge of mob cases? Or a group of drug cartel lawyers and put them in charge of drug cases? Would they want their elected representatives to find out who these lawyers were, which mob bosses and drug lords they had worked for, and what roles they were now playing at the Justice Department? Of course they would -- and rightly so. Yet Attorney General Eric Holder hired former al-Qaeda lawyers to serve in the Justice Department and resisted providing Congress this basic information. In November, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Holder a letter requesting that he identify officials who represented terrorists or worked for organizations advocating on their behalf, the cases and projects they worked on before coming to the Justice Department, the cases and projects they've worked on since joining the administration, and a list of officials who have recused themselves because of prior work on behalf of terrorist detainees. (Washingtonpost)

Exclusive: Pentagon Lawyers Push Back Against Holder’s GITMO Attorneys-Capitol Confidential
Some Defense Department lawyers are worried. Actually, quite a few of them are. They see a train wreck coming with the Obama administration’s evolving Guantanamo Bay detainee policies. Since it is DOD lawyers tasked with much of the footwork for administration decisions, they see firsthand how disorganized, inept, and ideologically extreme the handling of the issue has been. The DOJ, now thoroughly politicized and partisan under Eric Holder, is lock step with Obama’s White House on the issue, and is thoroughly at odds with its legal counterparts in the DOD. At a time when former Guantanamo Bay detainees are battling US forces in Afghanistan, and Jihadists are resurgent worldwide, the country can ill afford the administration’s criminalizing of admitted terrorists or of enemy combatants captured in battle against US forces. What DOD lawyers are worried about are second-order effects. Namely, the unanticipated consequences of decisions made without due consideration or examination of facts. They are deeply concerned that the administration’s political appointees making decisions on the issue are as likely to be chosen for ideological purity as they are for their acumen on applicable laws. (Biggovernment)

'They Need to Be Liberated From Their God'-Matthew Kaminski
The 'Son of Hamas' author on his conversion to Christianity, spying for Israel, and shaming his family. Nashville, Tenn.
'I absolutely know that in anybody's eyes I was a traitor," says Mosab Hassan Yousef. "To my family, to my nation, to my God. I crossed all the red lines in my society. I didn't leave one that I didn't cross." Now 32, Mosab is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founder and leader of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Throughout the last decade, from the second Intifada to the current stalemate, he worked alongside his father in the West Bank. During that time the younger Mr. Yousef also secretly embraced Christianity. And as he reveals in his book "Son of Hamas," out this week, he became one of the top spies for Israel's internal security arm, the Shin Bet. The news of this double conversion has sent ripples through the Middle East. One of Mr. Yousef's handlers at the Shin Bet confirmed his account to the Israeli daily Haaretz. Hamas—already reeling from the assassination of a senior military chief in Dubai in January—calls his claims Zionist propaganda. From the Israeli prison he has occupied since 2005, Sheikh Yousef on Monday issued a statement that he and his family "have completely disowned the man who was our oldest son and who is called Mosab." (WSJ)

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM

Climate scientists fightback: Mankind IS to blame for global warming, say researchers-David Derbyshire Environment Editor
Climate scientists hit back at sceptics yesterday with a new study which concluded the evidence for man-made global warming was "stronger than ever". After analysing more than 100 scientific papers published in the last few years, the team of British researchers say there is an "increasingly remote possibility" that the world is warming up because of natural variations in climate..Instead, man-made global warming - triggered by the burning of fossil fuels - is making its mark on every continent and ocean, they say. The paper follows growing public scepticism about the global warming , fuelled in part by the Climategate email scandal and the coldest British winter for 30 years. Dr Peter Stott, from the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, who co-led the study, said the evidence for manmade climate change was stronger than ever. "What we've shown is that the fingerprint of human influence has been detected in many different aspects of climate change," he said. "We've seen it in temperature, and increases in atmospheric humidity, we've seen it in salinity changes. We've seen it in reductions in Arctic sea ice and changing rainfall patterns. (Dailymail.co.uk)

After errors, global warming gets a cold shoulder-Beth Daley
Critics point to mistakes, e-mail theft to raise doubts on research; poll shows less public concern
A series of highly publicized errors in a landmark report about man made global warming - and lingering controversy over hacked e-mails between climate scientists - is eroding public confidence in the research and could further stall efforts in Congress to pass climate legislation. The errors - involving projections, citations of source materials, and geography - have been seized on by skeptics of the scientific consensus that the burning of fossil fuels is almost certainly the most significant cause of earth’s rising temperature. Now, there are signs the critics are succeeding at raising doubts. In recent weeks, Texas, Virginia, and Alabama officials filed challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that man made greenhouse gases threaten public health, and Senator Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat from the coal state of West Virginia, introduced a bill to postpone for two years EPA rules stemming from that determination. Republican senators have pointed to the errors as another reason to oppose a climate bill, spearheaded by Senator John F. Kerry, that would limit carbon dioxide emissions. (Bostonglobe)

SCIENCE, SOCIETY AND CULTURE

'Pain gene' discovery could lead to less suffering-Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
The reason some people can feel more pain than others may have been explained by scientists. Docors have struggled to explain why some people are more sensitive to and less able to tolerate pain. Now scientists have discovered that a gene may be responsible. The findings suggest that gene therapy might in the future become a treatment alternative for patients with severe chronic pain. Dr Geoffrey Woods, of Cambridge University, said that finding a gene responsible for pain could greatly increase the ability to conquer and control it. "The search for effective analgesics (pain releaving drugs) with acceptable side effects has long been the goal of doctors and biomedical researchers," he said. "Because current therapies have limited efficacy (effectiveness), with up to 50 per cent of treated subjects receiving inadequate pain relief, there exists a significant need to develop better therapies." Vast numbers of people worldwide suffer with chronic pain, as a result of injury or arthritis, which affects every aspect of their lives, and often results in depression. (Telegraph.co.uk)

We must never pander to the baying mob but no good can come from hiding the truth about Jon Venables' crimes-Melanie Phillips
Almost every day now, fresh claims are surfacing in the media about why Jon Venables, one of the pair who murdered toddler James Bulger, has broken the terms of his licence and been sent to prison. The latest is that he was involved in some kind of sexual offence, possibly relating to child pornography. There are also reports that he had been meddling with drugs, as well as claims that he and his fellow killer Robert Thompson were given kid-glove treatment while in their secure children's institutions. But as the pressure mounts upon the Government to reveal what Venables did, I find myself torn about how to respond. Yes, there are crucial considerations of justice. But there are also issues of compassion and proportionality. And I am troubled by what appears to be a lynch-mob mentality fuelling some of this tumult. What struck me so forcibly during the trial of Thompson and Venables in 1993 was that, right from the start, people seemed to be reluctant to acknowledge that they were, in fact, just children. (Dailymail.co.uk)

Chopin's 'Soul and Heart'- Byron Janis
March 1 was the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great composer and pianist Frédéric François Chopin. Or was it? Not according to his sister Ludwika, Franz Liszt and Chopin's close friend Jules Fontana. They all said, at one time or another, that he was born on March 1, 1 809, despite Chopin's insisting his birthday was a year later. To add to the mystery, there is a birth certificate issued by the parish church in Brochów, Poland (and on display there to this day)—near Zelazowa Wola, the small town outside Warsaw where Chopin was born. It gives us still another date: Feb. 22, 1810, the same date inscribed on Polish monuments and on his burial site at Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Chopin was born of a French father and a Polish mother, and though he lived half his life in Paris, his heart and soul were always with Poland. His passion for music showed itself early—even at age 3 he would cry whenever he heard it. His mother, an amateur pianist, decided to give him lessons and taught him what little she knew. Fortunately, both his later piano teachers recognized the boy's genius and did not try to force the conventional methods of playing on him. They let him go his own way, freeing him to become the unique, great pianist he was. (WSJ)

Yoko Ono: Back to where she once belonged-Craig McLean
Yoko Ono is forever associated with the Beatles, yet her aristocratic family life in imperial Japan, long before she met John Lennon, was equally intriguing. For the first time, she opens up the Ono family album
She may not look it, but Yoko Ono, a woman who has survived three decades of tragedy, debunking and myth, is now 77 years old. For many of those years, she has been blamed, perhaps unfairly, for the break-up of the world’s best-loved musical partnership: she was the woman who came between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, insisting on being in the studio as the band disintegrated. She also cradled Lennon just a few seconds after the fatal shots from a revolver rang out on a cold New York night in December 1980. As she has grown older she has become — perhaps inevitably — more reflective about her past. She has mellowed and in recent years visits to Japan have become more frequent. She returned with Lennon several times in the 1970s at a point in his life when he had all but disappeared from public view. Yoko is back in Japan for a three-week trip and, for the first time, has agreed to a journalist accompanying her to write about this side of her multi-faceted life. (Timesonline.co.uk)

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