| Egypt: Sinai shark attacks could be Israeli plot J.Post 12/06/2010 21:57 Israel rejects the notion as "too ludicrous" for comment; German woman killed near Sharm e-Sheikh, Russian tourists also mauled. Egyptian officials say they have not ruled out the possibility that a fatal shark attack in Sinai on Sunday could have been a plot by the Mossad. “What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark [in the sea] to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question, but it needs time to confirm,” South Sinai Gov. More here |
Farooque Ahmed, the Pakistani-born Virginia man accused of plotting to bomb Washington-area subway stations, lived in middle-class suburban comfort with his wife and their infant son. They held steady jobs in northern Virginia’s technology industry and mostly kept to themselves.
They got along with neighbours, sometimes even cooking saffron rice and chicken for them. Ahmed enjoyed fishing, and his English-born wife, Sahar Mirza-Ahmed, was part of a group of “Hip Muslim Moms.” Both were on social-networking sites.
He worshipped at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society Center, a mosque with several branches in northern Virginia, coming to prayers occasionally by himself, said Robert Marro, a member of the board of trustees. The ADAMS Center, as it’s known, issued a statement Wednesday expressing outrage at Ahmed’s alleged plot. It also urged people to alert authorities if they know about Ahmed’s activities or see any suspicious behavior.
“They’re a regular, everyday family,” Bani said. “That’s why it’s very shocking to hear this.
I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?
| 60 Mosques on Hold Because of Popular Protests (ANSAmed) — MADRID, SEPTEMBER 13 — Between 1995 and 2008 the construction of approximately 60 mosques has been put on hold or postponed indefinitely because of protests people living in the interested Municipalities, according to a report by professor Jordi Moreras, of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona. |
| French Senate Passes Ban of Full Muslim Veils PARIS — The French Senate has voted overwhelmingly for a bill banning the burqa-style Islamic veil everywhere from post offices to streets, in a final step toward a making it law. The Senate voted 246 to 1 Tuesday in favor of the bill, which has already passed in the lower chamber, the National Assembly. Any dissenters have 10 days to challenge the measure in the Constitutional Council watchdog, but that is considered unlikely. |
| Canadians Don’t Believe Muslims Share Their Values: Poll OTTAWA — Nine years after the devastating 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, a majority of Canadians don’t believe Muslims share their values, according to a new public opinion poll released exclusively to Postmedia. |
| HAVANA (Reuters) Fidel Castro said Cuba's economic model no longer works, a U.S.-based journalist reported on Wednesday following interviews with the former president last week. Jeffrey Goldberg, a writer for the Atlantic Monthly magazine, wrote in a blog that he asked Castro, 84, if Cuba's model — Soviet-style communism — was still worth exporting to other countries and he replied, "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore." |
From Arizona Family: Hundreds seek to fill vacant positions at Pro's Ranch Market
Job hunters turned out in the hundreds to fill recently-vacant positions at Pro's Ranch Market stores, where a federal audit led to the firing of some 300 workers.
Roxanne Nieves, one of the many that came out in search of a job, said she came to apply after she heard about the layoffs.
"We heard they are firing a lot of illegal people, so we're here to apply," she said.
Nonetheless, she and many others felt guilty about taking the jobs of the people who had just been fired.
"To me, it's pretty hard to see everybody losing jobs," one job hunter said.
About 300 of the 1,500 total employees at the six Phoenix supermarkets were let go this week after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement audit found them to be working illegally.
Attorney Julie Pace said the company has I-9 forms on everyone and uses E-Verify to check employees' eligibility to work, but that is not always enough.
"The company wouldn't know if someone is using counterfeit documents," Pace said.
Pace also called on the federal government to help companies comply with hiring laws.
"We need an easy program for employers to use to hire people -- safe, easy, quick -- so we don't have to deal with ICE audits," she said.
Pro's Ranch Market is among some 1,600 U.S. businesses, including 84 in Arizona, that have undergone ICE audits since July 2009.
ICE says the goal is to reduce demand for illegal employment and protect job opportunities for the nation's lawful workforce.
Some 6,000 NASA contractors face job loss in Obama overhaul
As NASA released more details Thursday about its restructuring under President Barack Obama's space proposal, the director of Johnson Space Center expressed optimism and concern.
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Though he welcomed the proposed addition of a five-year, $6 billion technology development program at the Clear Lake-area space center, director Mike Coats said he is concerned about job losses and not having a space vehicle to fly.
“We have some challenges to confront here,” Coats said.
One of the big ones: Even contractors who will get jobs in the restructuring might find themselves out of work for up to a year as the new plans are being formulated.
Since Obama released his proposed budget two months ago for the space agency, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has been working to revamp the agency.
For Houston, the most significant change was the outright cancellation of the $108 billion Constellation Program, managed at Johnson Space Center, which was to develop rockets and space vehicles to carry astronauts to orbit, the moon and beyond.
That cancellation came atop the planned end to the 29-year-old space shuttle program later this year.
About 1,500 civil servants work on the two programs, and those jobs are safe. But there are as many as 6,000 contractor positions in the Houston area associated with the shuttle and Constellation.
MSNBC: Record numbers now licensed to pack heat
Firearms deaths fall as millions obtain permits to carry concealed gunsVisit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Statistics from the national Centers for Disease Control do indicate that the murder and mayhem predicted by many opponents of concealed-carry laws have not come to pass.
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In a little more than 20 years, the concealed-carry movement has won changes in scores of laws across the nation to boost from nine to 37 the number of “shall issue” states in which civilians must be given concealed-carry permits, known as CCWs, generally if they are 21 or older, do not have a criminal record and are willing to submit to fingerprinting and a background check. In two more states, Alaska and Vermont, most adults may carry concealed handguns without obtaining permits.
The movement's successes have energized some gun-rights activists to push for laws that further increase their ability to carry weapons, even when those laws trump private property and states’ rights.
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Americans overall are far less likely to be killed with a firearm than they were when it was much more difficult to obtain a concealed-weapons permit, according to statistics collected by the federal Centers for Disease Control.
Silent Wedding
Rating: * * * *
The goofy and the grim in a single polished package.
Little seen in the English-speaking world outside the festival circuit, this short but potent Romanian feature is old-fashioned, even quaintly dated, but that's a strength, not a weakness. Writer-director Malaele, making his first film, is a revered comedian and theatre director in his homeland and there's an intensely theatrical quality to the way he tells his fable-like story: we're reminded of pantomime or the allegories of travelling players (a troupe of whom appear in the film) and as in all the best theatre, comedy and tragedy exist side by side.
The story, tellingly remembered for a present-day documentary crew who never really get it, is set in 1953 in a small village - a backwater of Soviet-ruled Romania untouched by electricity or internal combustion. Malaele delicately assembles a portrait of the gruff but loving relations between the unkempt villagers in a series of sequences that seem to channel everything from commedia dell'arte through silent-era slapstick to Pier Paolo Pasolini.
The very public amorous exertions of a young couple are causing strife between their respective families until they soothe the troubled waters by announcing their decision to wed. But just as the village is sitting down to the nuptials, a hatchet-faced Russian soldier arrives: the sudden death of "the leader of all peoples" Josef Stalin has ushered in a week of national mourning and all celebration is banned.
There's a clue to how the village deals with this in the title, but nothing quite prepares us for what follows. It's worth warning that the film moves sharply from the goofy to the grim, but the director's command of these emotional shifts is confident and assured. The film has the feel of a folk tale that is dealing with a dark episode in the national history and stylistically it's more traditional than innovative. But there's great skill on display, from a large ensemble cast and from a director who knows much about visual storytelling: the arrival of a circus in town has an eerie, Felliniesque quality and a 60-second montage that depicts the wedding preparations is the work of a maestro. Recommended.
Hi! Come in! Please, no murdering
Hello and welcome to our store! Please, feel free to look around, make yourself comfortable, enjoy our fine offerings and, oh yes, by the way? Please, no murdering.
Also, no raping, gang-banging, popping off, stabbing, mauling, stealing stuff, or walking around in a confrontational macho huff, ready at a moment's notice to harass any of our normal patrons with a snarl and a vague threat of violence because you feel it is your God-given right, given how you are a card-carrying member of a pro-gun "Open Carry" sect that likes to strap unloaded handguns to your Wranglers, walk around in public places and freak people out. Thank you so much!
I'm sorry, I see you are still wearing your little weapon and strutting about like you are the rather doughy, bad-skinned king of the sand castle. Perhaps we were not clear? Shall we try it again?
Clearly, you are not a police officer. Therefore, the management, our employees and pretty much everyone within a 100-mile radius would very much appreciate it if you would put away that ego-fluffing man-toy that is designed solely to kill other living creatures and induce fear and ignorance as it regresses every hesitant advancement in the human soul back to caveman grunting lunkishness. Thank you again!
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Again, we mean no offense, you jingoistic lump of mancrazy. You are indeed well within your rights to be a thoroughly paranoid coward who has no real inner strength, confidence or social skills, to a degree that you feel you must carry a deadly weapon around to feel like you even exist. We understand your thinking completely. It's basic psychology. Very, very basic. Childish, even.
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LEGO my gun: S.I. Boy Faced Suspension Over Tiny Toy
A fourth grade New Dorp boy faced the prospect of suspension after the principal at his South Beach school saw him playing with an action figure carrying a toy machine gun.
Patrick Timoney, a 9-year-old student at PS 52, and friends were playing with LEGOs during their lunch period when the principal took him into her office over the two-inch toy gun carried by a standard policeman figure.
Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, told the Staten Island Advance that there is a no-tolerance policy for toy guns in schools.
Therefore the principal, Evelyn Matroianni, deemed the pinky-sized toy gun suspension-worthy. Matroianni told Laura Timoney, the boy’s mother, that she would check with a DOE security administrator.
But Ms. Timoney told the Advance that the DOE administrator said no other action was necessary after the toy gun is confiscated and returned to the parents at the end of the day.
According to Ms. Timoney, while another child had an action figure holding an ax, her son was the only one to be approached by the principal.
"It's crazy," Ms. Timoney told the Advance, "He's missing class time, all for silly toys. The boys are just trying to relax. If there's a real threat, why not call the Police Department?"
Bin Laden blasts US for climate change
CAIRO – Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming, according to a new audiotape released Friday.
In the tape, broadcast in part on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden warned of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring "the wheels of the American economy" to a halt.
He blamed Western industrialized nations for hunger, desertification and floods across the globe, and called for "drastic solutions" to global warming, and "not solutions that partially reduce the effect of climate change."
Bin Laden has mentioned climate change and global warning in past messages, but the latest tape was his first dedicated to the topic. The speech, which included almost no religious rhetoric, could be an attempt by the terror leader to give his message an appeal beyond Islamic militants.
Mr. Robert Ott
President /CEO, Claim Jumper Restaurants
robert_ott@claimjumper.com
It is with great sadness that last night brought to a close my 30 year relationship with Claim Jumper Restaurants. I started eating at Claim Jumper when I was still small enough to stand on the scale. I brought my date to the Laguna Hills location for Junior Prom back in 1985, and I'd take my mother to the Mission Viejo location whenever I visited. Here in Arizona, I was thrilled when you opened the Phoenix and then the Avondale location. I live half-way between the two and frequent both.
I brought my party to the Phoenix location last night for a celebration and was greeted by a large "No Firearms" sign on the door. I absolutely support your right to prohibit law-abiding citizens from carrying a firearm on your premises. I am happy for your success, as in these difficult economic times, you must be doing very well indeed to spit in the faces of such a large section of your market. My friends and I, we vote with our wallets, and will patronize those establishments that respect our right to self-defense. We also network. I will be relating my experiences on several mailing lists and discussion forums. I figure a thousand people will know by lunch time, and 10,000 by dinner. Or maybe they already know and I'm the slow one.
In any case, once again, thank you for clearly stating what you think of me and my 30 years of loyal patronage. You will not have me or any of my extensive network of associates sully your establishment again. I'll miss the blueberry muffins the most.
T. Mark Graham
President
Arizona Response Systems.
__________________
T. Mark Graham
Master Gunsmith
Arizona Response Systems, LLC
A few historical points: Crusaders in the 13th and 14th century were attacking Muslims and wanted to conquer Jerusalem. Their clothing was made of armor with a big cross over their chest. Later on, the cross became smaller and slowly changed to a white shirt and cravatt (neck tie). This resembles the cross and has become the symbol of western civilization, western domination, and capitalism.
When the Ottomon Empire (Islamic Empire) was defeated in this century by the West, the first thing the West did after dividing the country was to remove the Hejab from the women and take the turban and aba from the men. In Iran and Turkey, the popet government soldiers beat women with Hejab and men with aba. The West then started to make fun of our Eastern clothing and Hollywood started to promote the neck tie and jacket as a symbol of civilization and success. The West also started bringing liquor, gambling, night clubs and prostitution to the Eastern countries.
The West looked at the East as an army that has been defeated. They were not allowed to wear their own uniform and instead must wear the uniform of the conquerors and give up their own identity.
In the United States now, we must slowly go forward to gain our religious identity and start wearing Sunnah and promoting it to our youth so they will be proud of their Islamic identity. We cannot expect our women to wear Hejab when we do not wear aba and instead, wear a cross (neck tie) around our neck.
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In summary, we recommend the following easy steps:
1. Do not wear a cross (neck tie) around your neck and please explain that to other Muslims.
2. Always have Tasbih in your hand to show your Islamic pride.
3. Keep your hair short.
4. Wear an Islamic hat (Kofi) whenever possible.
5. Grow your beard (2-3 inches long) if you can.
6. Wear aba over your jacket whenever you can especially when going to Islamic events or to the mosque.
7. Be modest; no silk, no gold, wear nice, clean and inexpensive clothing.
8. Our women should wear long, loose, nice, clean clothing with Hejab (head cover) just like Khadijeh and Fatimah (R.A.).
As a soldier in the army of God in America promoting Islam, this is our uniform, our leader is Prophet (PBUH) and our constitution is preserved in the Holy Quran.
Obama Will Travel to Nevada for Reid Next MonthSource
President Barack Obama will appear with politically embattled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in Las Vegas next month, according to a White House official.
| James Cameron: ‘Like the Redneck NRA Supporters They Are’ by John Nolte This appears to be accurate. Both Ain’t It Cool News and JoBlo.com have posted James Cameron’s full “Avatar” script. To triple-check I went to the 20th Century-Fox site and found that they posted the same script, as well. After being as careful as possible (wouldn’t want to smear Cameron like he did the U.S. Marines. NOTE for Leftist hair-splitters: former Marines), I bring you a scene written by James Cameron that was cut from the final film but serves as a glimpse at the director’s childish prejudices and mindset: INT. ARMOR BAY – DAY TROOPERS issue automatic weapons and magazines to a long line of mine workers. The miners lock and load like the redblooded redneck NRA supporters they are. BLASTING TECHS are setting radio-detonated primer charges into two-ton stacks of EXPLOSIVE COMPOUND. The stacks are band-strapped together on pallets. TRACKING WITH SELFRIDGE, staring around him in growing dismay as he walks through the full-scale mobilization. He approaches Quaritch, who is barking orders amid a hive of activity around the ampsuits. SELFRIDGE This thing is completely out of control! Quaritch ignores him, turning away to focus on ordnance loading. SELFRIDGE Listen to me! I am not authorizing you to turn the mine-workers local into a freakin’ militia! |
This is the text of an advertising banner showing up on Gmail.com page after I sign in on my Gmail account:
When you click the banner, this page pops up
As Brown said…”it’s not Ted Kennedy’s seat, it’s the American people seat”
The infatuation, the arrogance and the elitism of Obama and his liberal cohorts knows no bounds.
"Thirty-one years ago I paid with two-death sentences--from Communist Romania--for my desire to break with Marxism and become a citizen of the greatest country on earth. All former Soviet satellites have now 'defected' from Marx's socialism, which had transformed a third of the world into an abysmal 20th century feudalism. Great Britain, Italy, Germany, France and Greece have also abandoned their ruinous experiments with Marx's socialism.
General Ioan Mihai Pacepa, former chief of the Romanian foreign intelligence service and confident of the Ceausescu couple.
His defection to the West proved to be a major blow to all communist dictators and an invaluable asset that helped Ronald Reagan better understand the inner workings of communist regimes and in the end, win the Cold War.
"Alas, now the virus of Marxism with its fatal governmental takeovers has started infecting our shores. If the Democratic Party has its way, it will transform the United States into a socialist country in all but name. The 2010 elections could prevent that catastrophe from happening.
Colleague of Murdered Orthodox Priest Beaten in Moscow By Radical Muslims
RIA Novosti
A colleague of Russian Orthodox priest Daniil Sysoyev who was recently murdered in Moscow has been beaten.
The attack occurred on Saturday as priest Vitaly Zubkov was on his way to the St. Thomas church. "Three men attacked me. They struck me down and kicked me. At first, they beat me on the head and legs," Zubkov said.
Kirill Frolov, a friend of Sysoyev, said the attack on Zubkov was hardly accidental "taking into account that Father Vitaly was a friend of murdered missionary Father Daniil Sysoyev and that there were no attempts to rob him."
Sysoyev, 34, was shot down in his St. Thomas church in southern Moscow by a masked gunman on November 19. He was known for his active missionary work in converting Muslims and people seeking to quit religious sects into Christianity.
The priest, who was married with three children, had received numerous death threats.
Sysoyev was laid to rest at a church cemetery in the Russian capital on November 23.
Patriarch Kirill, who leads the Russian Orthodox Church, said by the coffin: "Being unable to offer any wise arguments against a priest's words in their mind and heart, and going against God's word, they cover him with libel and even raise their hand at him."
