Barack Obama is a Fake
Image courtesy of Google Images
TOWNHALL.COM: Sen. Barack Obama's star appeal is causing physiological reactions in his supporters. Which is to say, they're fainting.

And these fainting routines are causing me physiological reactions. Which is to say, I'm throwing up.

At no less than six of Obama's recent rallies, fans have reportedly fainted. Those incidents were caught on video or audio. In each, Obama -- who never even thinks to put down the microphone or ask a campaign aide to take care of the matter -- narrates to the crowd as medical volunteers show up to minister to the stricken. In two of the videos, he picks up a bottle of water and offers it to the poor, overcome admirers.

I don't mean to suggest that all this is staged. I'm saying it straight out: It's staged. Obama is supposedly Mr. Authentic -- the man who naturally radiates charisma and magnetic charm. His pheromones are so powerful they strike unwitting audience members into a stupor. He's the Beatles. He's Elvis. More than anything, he's the new JFK, a young, vibrant leader who will lead America into a bright new future.

Riiiiight.

Obama is as fake as Pamela Anderson's assets -- the only difference between them is that Anderson's boobs have some weight. He's slicker than a Slip 'N Slide. He's more like a pedophilia-free Michael Jackson than a JFK -- he's a sort-of-black, sort-of-white guy made of plastic who lip-synchs empty lyrics to the screaming adoration of juveniles.

Obama is like JFK in one way: JFK was packaged for public consumption, and so is Obama. JFK's father, Joseph -- who doubled as JFK's campaign war chest -- used his personal connections with media members to push his son into the national spotlight as soon as John returned from World War II. John's heroic PT 109 story was printed in The New Yorker, and in 1944, it appeared in Reader's Digest. The ensuing hubbub made JFK a national figure. Life magazine featured Kennedy in 1953, March 1956 and December 1957. The December piece drooled that Kennedy "has left panting politicians and swooning women across a large spread of the U.S." Complained Sen. Hubert Humphrey, "I don't know how he does it. I get into Photoplay and he gets into Life." Obama, like JFK, is a media creation >>> By Ben Shapiro

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Some Things Are Just Too Difficult to Fathom!
Photo of Hillary Clinton courtesy of The Times
Feminists in America have got their big chance to elect the first female president. Yet they seem reluctant to do so.

The British, despite their tendency to cling to traditions, cast all fate to the wind years ago and opted for their first female prime minister in the shape of Margaret Thatcher. And, love her or hate her, no one can doubt that she made a very impressive prime minister, and she cut a very impressive figure on the world stage. Indeed, she was one of the greats in British history.

Feminists have worked hard to get places in a largely male-dominated America; yet now that they have a real chance to make a difference, now that they have a real chance to vote for change and place a woman at the top, they don’t appear to be taking it. They are running scared. But perhaps we shouldn't be very surprised, since feminists have not been very forthright in condemning the atrocities committed against women in Muslim countries, either.

Hillary Rodham Clinton would be a force to be reckoned with as a president: She has political experience aplenty, she’s got a damn good intellect, and she’s no longer the dowdy person she once was. In fact, she often looks quite stylish these days. Yet the women voters seem not to be biting, they seem not to be supporting her in great enough numbers. As a result, her campaign seems to be withering on the vine.

Barack Hussein Obama’s campaign, by contrast, seems to be going from strength to strength. Indeed, some people say that Hussein has become an unstoppable force. Personally, I don’t believe that to be the case. Not yet anyway. This is all media hype as far as I am concerned. It has to be said that Hussein has become the darling of the MSM. The MSM do have a habit of picking their favourites, and then promoting and promoting and promoting those favourites. They expose their favourites from each and every flattering angle, and then they damn the rest of the contenders. They certainly rarely stop and ask their darlings any difficult questions.

In the case of Hussein, I should like to ask him some questions of my own. As a Briton concerned about the future of Europe, and especially concerned about the growth of Islam in Europe and in the West as a whole, the following two questions would be where I would start my interrogation: 1.) Mr Obama, where do you stand on the possible accession of Turkey into the EU? 2.) What are you going to do about the growth of Islam in America? In fact, I have already emailed Mr Obama at his office for answers on these matters. Needless to say, I have yet to receive a reply.

It would appear from the results of the primaries in the States that people are more concerned with hope over substance, more concerned with youth over specifics. Hussein Obama is offering vague talk of hope and a desire to do things differently; Hillary Rodham is offering something more specific. She certainly offers experience in politics, which Obama certainly does not. It would be churlish of anyone to deny this fact. Hillary is also more transparent in her religious affiliations than Hussein Obama is.

The West is in a very difficult phase. We have a competing civilization doing its damnedest to bring our civilization down, and we have untold economic problems, too. In fact, many of our economic woes stem right from our troubles with Islam. Solve the problem with Islam and you automatically solve many of our economic problems at a stroke.

Hillary Rodham Clinton should not be ruled out of the race for the White House yet. She might yet make a good showing in Texas. We must hope that she will for the sake of America and for the sake of American voters; otherwise they might find themselves with a greenhorn as president; and this at a most difficult juncture in the history of America and the West.

By the way, I write neither as a Democrat nor as a Republican. As a Briton, I can safely say I am neither. But if it has to be a Democratic president, then let the citizens of the world be able to take comfort in the knowledge that the free world is to be led by a president of substance, by a person who knows something about politics.

©Mark Alexander

All Rights Reserved

Stop Blair: Ambition to Lead Europe Meets Fierce Opposition
Photo coutesy of The Times
THE GUARDIAN: Tony Blair's hopes of becoming Europe's first president are running into mounting opposition across the EU, with Germany determined to stymie the former prime minister.

A "Stop Blair" website run by pro-Europeans has launched a petition against him; a transnational, cross-party caucus in the European parliament is forming to campaign against a Blair presidency; senior officials in Brussels are privately dismissive about the new post going to a Briton; and senior diplomats in European capitals also doubt that Blair is the right person for the post being created under Europe's new reform treaty.

"There was surprise in Berlin when Blair's name came up so soon," said a European ambassador. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany admires Blair and has "great personal sympathy for Tony", he added.

"But more generally the German political elite would be puzzled by the idea of Tony Blair. His track record on EU matters is not so great. There is unease about a Briton at the top in that job. And then personally with Blair, there's the Iraq thing."

Sources close to Merkel confirmed her opposition. "He made a lot of fine speeches about Europe but, essentially, stood on the sidelines when it came to concrete steps forward," they said. Stop Blair: ambition to lead Europe meets fierce opposition: EU track record and Iraq seen as obstacles to getting new post of president >>> By Ian Traynor and David Gow in Brussels

DAILY MAIL:
Blair faces German-led campaign to block his EU presidential bid By Ben Clerkin

ONLINE PETITION TO STOP BLAIR BECOMING EUROPE'S FIRST PRESIDENT:
Stop Blair!

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Democracy à la Suisse
Photo courtesy of the Tribune de Genève
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: BLOG: The Swiss system of referenda, as it stands now, seems to me the best option for putting in place truly democratic policies. As a very liberal person who once lived in the States, and heard stories from my other very liberal friends about how much they disagreed with the current administration's stance on issues ranging from gay marriage to abortion to gun control, I have long wondered if there was no better way of making rules than simply having the ruling party decide what was best for 300 million people. Like pretty much every other liberal person, I have watched in dismay as lax gun control laws have helped along untold numbers of school/mall shootings, and knee-jerk objections to stem cell research, on the basis that fetuses are "people", have held back advancements in the treatment of debilitating diseases. Democracy à la Suisse >>>

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Change You Can’t Believe In
Photo of Barack Hussein Obama courtesy of Google Images
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: The rise of democratic frontrunner Barack Obama signifies an alarming victory of style over substance. Not unlike the dot-com hype, his campaign promises more than he can deliver. The one thing his voters can count on is that they will ultimately be disappointed.

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama reminds many people of former President John F. Kennedy or civil rights leader Martin Luther King. But when I hear him speak, I have to think of the crazy days of the New Economy.

It was a magical time, even for the most levelheaded of business executives. For several years, wild promises seemed to be the most valuable currency in circulation. Profits? No big deal! Experience? Unnecessary! Realism? More of an obstacle than anything else. While some entrepreneurs undoubtedly had realistic business models and administrative talent, most of them were simply peddling ideas.

World economic output grew by 80 percent in real terms between 1980 and 2000. But the value of shares rose by about 1,000 percent within the same period. The market hit its zenith on March 10, 2000, and then the bubble burst. Suddenly the billion-dollar companies listed on the NASDAQ collapsed like so many cold soufflés. These days, Bernie Ebbers, the former CEO of Worldcom and one of the stars of the new economy, no longer appears on Larry King Live. Instead, he is currently serving a prison term in Louisiana for fraud and conspiracy.

The future is a hotly traded commodity in the 2008 US presidential campaign. Voters are hungry for change and for radical departure from a present they now perceive as mediocre, especially after seven meager years under the current president, George W. Bush. A man like Barack Obama is adept at taking advantage of this yearning. He utters beautiful sentences that massage the soul, sentences like: "We are the ones we have been waiting for" and "Our destiny will not be written for us, but by us."

At his campaign appearances, Obama and his adoring supporters toss his campaign slogan, "Yes, we can," back and forth until the room is in a frenzy. His events are reminiscent of Sunday morning exchanges between a fiery pastor and his enthusiastic congregation, except that Obama's crowds are even more fervent.

But anyone able to look past the rhetoric of the 46-year-old candidate will recognize a growing sense of doubt -- doubt that Obama easily manages to quell in his next speech, or his next one after that. The senator's successes in the primaries also have a narcotizing effect. Obama defines himself as a new type of politician, as someone who refuses to be judged by the old standards. Change You Can’t Believe In >>> By Gabor Steingart in Washington

CYBERCAST NEWS SERVICE:
Clinton, Obama: Homosexuality ‘Not Immoral’

WORLD NET DAILY:
Obama campaign: Mum’s the word!

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Egypt Bans Four Foreign Newspapers Over Republication of Anti-Prophet Cartoons
EDITOR & PUBLISHER: CAIRO, Egypt Egypt banned editions of four foreign newspapers including the New York-based Wall Street Journal and Britain's The Observer for reprinting the controversial Danish cartoons criticizing the Prophet Muhammad, the state-run news agency reported Tuesday.



Two German newspapers, Frankfurter Allgemeine and Die Welt, were also banned, according to the Middle East News Agency, quoting Information Minister Anas el-Fiqi. The papers are only sold in Egypt at newsstands specializing in foreign publications.



The issue of the cartoons, which exploded in 2006, returned to prominence recently when more than a dozen of leading Danish newspapers reprinted the 12 cartoons in a gesture of solidarity after police revealed a plot to kill one of the artists. Egypt Bans Four Foreign Newspapers Over Republication of Anti-Prophet Cartoons >>>

TEHRAN TIMES:
Insulting Caricatures an Act of Incitement to Hatred

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'I Don't Hate Muslims. I Hate Islam,' Says Holland's Rising Political Star
Photo of Geert Wilders courtesy of The Guardian
THE GUARDIAN: Geert Wilders, the popular MP whose film on Islam has fuelled the debate on race in Holland, wants an end to mosque building and Muslim immigration. Ian Traynor met him in The Hague

A TV addict with bleached hair who adores Maggie Thatcher and prefers kebabs to hamburgers, Geert Wilders has got nothing against Muslims. He just hates Islam. Or so he says. 'Islam is not a religion, it's an ideology,' says Wilders, a lanky Roman Catholic right-winger, 'the ideology of a retarded culture.'

The Dutch politician, who sees himself as heir to a recent string of assassinated or hounded mavericks who have turned Holland upside down, has been doing a crash course in Koranic study. Likening the Islamic sacred text to Hitler's Mein Kampf, he wants the 'fascist Koran' outlawed in Holland, the constitution rewritten to make that possible, all immigration from Muslim countries halted, Muslim immigrants paid to leave and all Muslim 'criminals' stripped of Dutch citizenship and deported 'back where they came from'. But he has nothing against Muslims. 'I have a problem with Islamic tradition, culture, ideology. Not with Muslim people.'

Wilders has been immersing himself in the suras and verse of seventh-century Arabia. The outcome of his scholarship, a short film, has Holland in a panic. He is just putting the finishing touches to the 10-minute film, he says, and talking to four TV channels about screening it.

'It's like a walk through the Koran,' he explains in a sterile conference room in the Dutch parliament in The Hague, security chaps hovering outside. 'My intention is to show the real face of Islam. I see it as a threat. I'm trying to use images to show that what's written in the Koran is giving incentives to people all over the world. On a daily basis Moroccan youths are beating up homosexuals on the streets of Amsterdam.'

Wilders is lucid and shrewd and the provactive soundbites trip easily off his tongue. He was recently voted Holland's most effective politician. If 18 months ago he sat alone in the second chamber or lower house in The Hague, his People's Party now has nine of 150 seats and is running at about 15 per cent in the polls. His Islam-bashing seems to be paying off. And not only in Holland. All across Europe, the new breed of right-wing populists are trying to revive their political fortunes by appealing to anti-Muslim prejudice. 'I don't hate Muslims. I hate Islam,' says Holland's rising political star >>> By Ian Traynor in The Hague

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Danish Dhimmitude: “Sorry Muhammad,” Says Anders Boetter
BBC: The controversy in Denmark over the reprinting of one of the 12 cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad this week has triggered an unusual dialogue on social networking group Facebook, writes the BBC's religious affairs correspondent Frances Harrison.

The row began with Tuesday's arrests of three Muslims in Denmark said by the intelligence services to be plotting to kill one of the cartoonists.

All the major Danish newspapers next day rallied round their colleague, reprinting his drawing of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban as a sign of solidarity.

But now young Danish student Anders Boetter says he has decided to start a Facebook site called Sorry Muhammad to apologise to Muslims on behalf of ordinary Danes and also give them a voice in the controversy over the row. Danes clash on web in Prophet row >>>

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Three Words to Disprove the False Religion of Islam

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Peddling Hope and Snake Oil
TOWNHALL.COM: "Hope is a dangerous thing," says "Red" to "Andy" in the 1994 film "The Shawshank Redemption." Red, played by Morgan Freeman, means that Andy, played by Tim Robbins, risks despair if he hopes to get out of prison.

The sentiment is worth considering when it comes to politics. Can too much trust in a politician also be dangerous and lead to despair, even cynicism? Those old enough to recall the political scene in the '60s when first John F. Kennedy and then his brother, Robert, were assassinated, know the dangers of hope and what can happen when such hope is crushed. In the '60s, crushed hope produced rebellion, even anarchy, along with despair.

Now we're told (by members of the Kennedy family, no less) that Sen. Barack Obama is the reincarnation of the hope that was lost when Jack was murdered in 1963 and Bobby was killed in 1968. And we watch as another generation of the young, informed by their history books and black-and-white film of those days, become disciples of another young and handsome politician with a pretty wife and cute children. Will history repeat? God forbid. But will another generation be disappointed when the one in whom they are placing so much hope cannot possibly deliver? Misplaced Hope Can Be Dangerous >>> By Cal Thomas

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Question Time: Shari’ah Law
Part 1:

Part 2:


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Sky News: Debate on Shari’ah Law in the UK

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Archbishop, Archdhimmi, Archbetrayer
Guardian Video: The Archdhimmi of Canterbury Speaks about Shari’ah law
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Mohamed Fayed’s Fury at ‘Nazi’ Prince Philip

THE TELEGRAPH: Mohamed Fayed has accused the Duke of Edinburgh of being a "Nazi" and a "racist" who ordered MI6 to assassinate Diana, Princess of Wales because she was pregnant with a Muslim baby.

In a series of extraordinary allegations at the inquest into the Princess's death, Mr Fayed also accused her former husband, the Prince of Wales, of plotting her "murder" so he could marry his new "crocodile wife" Camilla Parker Bowles.

He said the Royal Family were a "Dracula family" who had murdered the Princess the moment she had found happiness and even implicated Tony Blair, the former prime minister, in the plot.

The Harrods owner told the High Court hearing in London that he had fought a 10-year battle against a vast conspiracy encompassing both the British and French establishments as he tried to prove that the Princess and his son Dodi were killed by MI6, on the orders of the Duke, in a staged car crash in Paris on Aug 31, 1997.

The alleged conspiracy and cover-up included senior royals; MI6; two former Scotland Yard commissioners; French police and medics; the Princess's sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, and several of her close friends, he claimed.

At the centre of Mr Fayed's case was a claim that his son and the Princess telephoned him an hour before the accident to say they were expecting a baby and would announce their engagement after she had told her sons.

Mr Fayed said: "I'm the only person that they told. Princess Diana told me before and during the holiday we shared in July 1997 of her fears. She told me that she knew Prince Philip and Prince Charles were trying to get rid of her."

He went on: "Prince Philip would not accept my son or anyone who is a person of different religion, naturally-tanned, curly hair. They would not accept that he would have anything to do with the future King.

"Prince Philip rules the country behind the scenes. I think Prince Philip is the actual head of the Royal Family. He is a racist. He was brought up by his aunt who married one of Hitler's generals.

"This is the man who is in charge, who is manipulating and can do anything. It's time to send him back to Germany from where he comes. You want to know his original name - it ends in Frankenstein." Mohamed Fayed’s fury at ‘Nazi’ Prince Philip >>> By Nick Allen

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Shari’ah Now Official in Britain
ANGLO-AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL COMMUNITY COUNCIL: new sharia law controversy erupted last night over Government plans to issue special "Islamic bonds" to pay for Gordon Brown's public-spending programme by raising money from the Middle East.



Britain is to become the first Western nation to issue bonds approved by Muslim clerics in line with sharia law, which bans conventional loans involving interest payments as "sinful".



The scheme would mark one of the most significant economic advances of sharia law in the non-Muslim world.



It will lead to the ownership of Government buildings and other assets currently belonging to British taxpayers being switched wholesale to wealthy Middle-Eastern businessmen and banks.



The Government sees sharia-compliant bonds as a way of tapping Middle-East money and building bridges with the Muslim community.



But critics say the scheme would waste money and could undermine Britain's financial and legal systems.



Senior Conservative MP Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said: "I am concerned about the signal this would send – it could be the thin end of the wedge.



"British Common Law must be supreme and should apply to everyone."



A spokesman for the National Secular Society said: "There are lots of different ways to arrange financing.



"Constructing financial instruments to be sharia-compliant seems to me to involve a lot of unnecessary complication, which will serve only to make a lot of lawyers very rich."



The attempt to embrace Islamic financing would also appear to be at odds with Mr Brown's promise to promote Britishness and British values and institutions.



The Treasury has already faced heavy criticism for removing Britannia from 50p coins.



Other Western nations have been reluctant to issue Islamic bonds. Shari’a now official in Britain >>>

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
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Obama’s International Socialist Connections
CANADA FREE PRESS: Campaign workers for Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama are under fire for displaying a flag featuring communist hero Che Guevara. But Obama has his own controversial socialist connections. He is, in fact, an associate of a Chicago-based Marxist group with access to millions of labor union dollars and connections to expert political consultants, including a convicted swindler.

Obama’s socialist backing goes back at least to 1996, when he received the endorsement of the Chicago branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for an Illinois state senate seat. Later, the Chicago DSA newsletter reported that Obama, as a state senator, showed up to eulogize Saul Mendelson, one of the “champions” of “Chicago’s democratic left” and a long-time socialist activist. Obama’s stint as a “community organizer” in Chicago has gotten some attention, but his relationship with the DSA socialists, who groomed and backed him, has been generally ignored.

Blogger Steve Bartin, who has been following Obama’s career and involvement with the Chicago socialists, has uncovered a fascinating video showing Obama campaigning for openly socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Interestingly, Sanders, who won his seat in 2006, called Obama “one of the great leaders of the United States Senate,” even though Obama had only been in the body for about two years. In 2007, the National Journal said that Obama had established himself as “the most liberal Senator.” More liberal than Sanders? That is quite a feat. Does this make Obama a socialist, too? Obama’s International Socialist Connections >>> By Cliff Kincaid

Hat tip: Always On Watch

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Secret Papers Reveal Threats from Prince Bandar If British Government Refused to Drop Inquiry into Corruption at BAE
Photo of Prince Bandar, head of Saudi Arabia’s national security, courtesy of The Guardian
THE GUARDIAN: Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.

Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.

Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.

He was accused in yesterday's high court hearings of flying to London in December 2006 and uttering threats which made the prime minister, Tony Blair, force an end to the Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery allegations involving Bandar and his family.

The threats halted the fraud inquiry, but triggered an international outcry, with allegations that Britain had broken international anti-bribery treaties.

Lord Justice Moses, hearing the civil case with Mr Justice Sullivan, said the government appeared to have "rolled over" after the threats. He said one possible view was that it was "just as if a gun had been held to the head" of the government.

The SFO investigation began in 2004, when Robert Wardle, its director, studied evidence unearthed by the Guardian. This revealed that massive secret payments were going from BAE to Saudi Arabian princes, to promote arms deals.

Yesterday, anti-corruption campaigners began a legal action to overturn the decision to halt the case. They want the original investigation restarted, arguing the government had caved into blackmail. BAE: secret papers reveal threats from Saudi prince - Spectre of 'another 7/7' led Tony Blair to block bribes inquiry, high court told >>> | David Leigh and Rob Evans

LISTEN TO GUARDIAN AUDIO: 'It was remarkable the way the government had just rolled over': Two pressure groups are appealing against the decision to drop an investigation into BAE's dealings with Saudi Arabia

THE GUARDIAN: A cover-up laid bare: court hears how SFO inquiry was halted: Papers show how arms giant tried to avoid revealing secrets; Saudi threats meant 'no other choice' but to stop investigation

THE GUARDIAN: Full Coverage: The BAE Files

DAILY MAIL: Blair accused of forcing BAE fraud probe to fold by applying 'irresistible pressure

THE INDEPENDENT: Blair used 'irresistible pressure' to halt investigation into BAE-Saudi arms deal | Robert Verkaik, Law Editor

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New Sharia Row Over Chancellor’s Plans for ‘Islamic Bonds’
THE MAIL ON SUNDAY: A new sharia law controversy erupted last night over Government plans to issue special "Islamic bonds" to pay for Gordon Brown's public-spending programme by raising money from the Middle East.

Britain is to become the first Western nation to issue bonds approved by Muslim clerics in line with sharia law, which bans conventional loans involving interest payments as "sinful".

The scheme would mark one of the most significant economic advances of sharia law in the non-Muslim world.

It will lead to the ownership of Government buildings and other assets currently belonging to British taxpayers being switched wholesale to wealthy Middle-Eastern businessmen and banks.

The Government sees sharia-compliant bonds as a way of tapping Middle-East money and building bridges with the Muslim community.

But critics say the scheme would waste money and could undermine Britain's financial and legal systems.

Senior Conservative MP Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said: "I am concerned about the signal this would send – it could be the thin end of the wedge.

"British Common Law must be supreme and should apply to everyone." New sharia row over Chancellor's plans for 'Islamic bonds' >>> By Simon Walters

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Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Right Slams Obama as ‘Shady Socialist’
THE SUNDAY TIMES: LEADING Republicans believe they can trounce Barack Obama in the presidential election by tarring him as a shady Chicago socialist. They are increasingly confident that his campaign could collapse by the time their attack machine has finished with him.

Grover Norquist, an influential conservative tax reform lobbyist, said: “Barack Obama has been able to create his own image and introduce himself to voters, but the swing voters in a general election are not paying attention yet. He is open to being defined as a leftwing, corrupt Chicago politician.”

Norquist’s comments will be music to the ears of Hillary Clinton, Obama’s Democratic rival, who believes Obama has not been sufficiently “vetted” for the White House. She has been unable to attack him too vociferously without risking a backlash from Democratic primary voters, but Republicans may salvage her campaign by doing the job for her.

Obama has the voting record of a “hard-left” socialist, according to Norquist, from his time in the Illinois state legislature to the US Senate. He was recently judged by the nonpartisan National Journal to have the most liberal voting record in 2007 of any senator.

“It will be easy to portray him as even harder-left than Hillary,” said Norquist. “Hillary could lose the election, but Obama could collapse. People already know Hillary and she is not popular, but the disadvantage for Obama is that Republicans can teach people who don’t know him who he is.”

Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House and Republican guru, recently described Obama as the “most leftwing candidate to run since George McGovern” – a reference to the anti-Vietnam-war Democrat who lost 49 states out of 50 to Richard Nixon in the 1972 election. Norquist believes Obama’s questionable Chicago connections will stir things further. Right slams Obama as 'shady Chicago socialist': Republicans are out to crush Barack by painting him as a leftwinger with dubious support >>> By Sarah Baxter

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Ahmadinejad on Money and Banking
Muslim thinkers can introduce independent monetary, banking system >>>
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Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Iran Wants European Law to Squelch Anti-Koran Film
REUTERS: Iran has urged the Netherlands to block a planned anti-Koran film, citing Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights as the legal basis for doing so. This is the latest twist in the saga surrounding the controversial film by far-right leader Geert Wilders (we’ve blogged on this before). In the letter, Iran’s Justice Minister Gholamhossein Elham asked his Dutch counterpart Ernst Hirsch Ballin to use European human rights law to stop a European from exercising one of those most basic rights. Freedom of expression has been the rallying cry of those who defended the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten for publishing the Mohammad cartoons — and republishing the most controversial one (the turban bomb) this week after a death threat against the artist who drew it.

This also raises the question of whether any protest against purported blasphemy against Islam this time might not turn out to be on the streets, as after the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, but in the courts. European Muslim organisations brought court suits against the cartoons in Denmark and in France but lost their cases — thanks to the principle of freedom of expression. Will the Iranian letter inspire any to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg? Nota bene — Danish imams preached calm at Friday prayers, in contrast to the imams who went to the Middle East to rally opposition to the cartoons when they first came out. Iran wants European law to squelch anti-Koran film >>> By Tom Heneghan

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France: Pupils to Be ‘Twinned’ with Nazi Victims
THE INDEPENDENT: President Nicolas Sarkozy has provoked controversy by ordering that every 10-year-old in France should know the name and life story of a French-Jewish child who died in the Holocaust.

His proposal that primary school children should be, in effect, "twinned" with young victims of the Nazi genocide has generated a cacophony of protest, as well as praise.

Most teaching unions have condemned the proposal as ill-considered and likely to place too great an emotional and psychological burden on the young. Even some Jewish leaders and writers fear the idea is "exceptionally morbid" and could provoke an anti-Semitic backlash. MPs have complained that M. Sarkozy is trying to micro-manage the national curriculum and impose too emotive an approach on the learning of history.

However, most Jewish organisations have welcomed the idea, as have some of the President's leading left-wing opponents, including his main rival in last year's election, Ségolène Royal.

In a speech to France's main Jewish group, M. Sarkozy said that from next year, each pupil in their final year of primary school would be "entrusted with the memory" of one of the 11,000 French-Jewish children who were murdered in Nazi concentration camps. "[10 and 11-year-olds] must learn the name and life story of a child who died in the Shoah," he said. "Nothing is more moving for children than to read the story of a child their own age, who had the same games, the same joys and the same hopes as they have.

"This is a way of fighting all kinds of racism, all kinds of discrimination, all kinds of barbarity by reaching children through the story of children of their own age." Sarkozy: Pupils will be 'twinned' with Nazi victims >>> By John Lichfield in Paris

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