DUTCHNEWS.nl: Anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders will travel to London on March 5 to show his short video compilation Fitna at the invitation of two members of the British upper house of parliament, the House of Lords. >>> © DutchNews.nl | Friday, January 29, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
THE INDEPENDENT: How do you regulate banks effectively, if the Senate is owned by Wall Street?
This week, a disaster hit the United States, and the after-shocks will be shaking and breaking global politics for years. It did not grab the same press attention as the fall of liberal Kennedy-licking Massachusetts to a pick-up truck Republican, or President Obama's first State of the Union address, or the possible break-up of Brangelina and their United Nations of adopted infants. But it took the single biggest problem dragging American politics towards brutality and dysfunction – and made it much, much worse. Yet it also showed the only path that Obama can now take to salvage his Presidency.
For more than a century, the US has slowly put some limits – too few, too feeble – on how much corporations can bribe, bully or intimidate politicians. On Tuesday, they were burned away in one whoosh. The Supreme Court ruled that corporations can suddenly run political adverts during an election campaign – and there is absolutely no limit on how many, or how much they can spend. So if you anger the investment bankers by supporting legislation to break up the too-big-to-fail banks, you will smack into a wall of 24/7 ads exposing your every flaw. If you displease oil companies by supporting legislation to deal with global warming, you will now be hit by a tsunami of advertising saying you are opposed to jobs and the American Way. If you rile the defence contractors by opposing the gargantuan war budget, you will face a smear-campaign calling you Soft on Terror.
Representative Alan Grayson says: "It basically institutionalises and legalises bribery on the largest scale imaginable. Corporations will now be able to reward the politicians that play ball with them – and beat to death the politicians that don't... You won't even hear any more about the Senator from Kansas. It'll be the Senator from General Electric or the Senator from Microsoft." >>> Johann Hari | Friday, January 29, 2010
THE INDEPENDENT: Sport and stage stars turn out to show solidarity with Wales's 'role model' player
For one of the rugby world's more eloquent stars, the speech was surprisingly brief – but then Gareth Thomas has done a lot of talking in recent weeks. Just before Christmas he did the unthinkable and became the first professional player in Britain to admit he is gay. Last night was his chance to celebrate the announcement.
"Everybody here tonight is celebrating that the world is changing," he said. "We are here to send the message that it's OK to be a sportsman and it is also OK to be gay."
The venue was Movida, a glitzy London club with a bright pink bar and equally garish cocktails – not a very likely hangout for burly rugby players. But this was no post-match celebration, rather an opportunity to tell the world that the sport was longer a place in which gay players had to hide their sexuality. Last night, the former Welsh captain's friends and supporters joined Britain's gay glitterati for Thomas's official "coming out" party – a remarkable display of solidarity that many hope will signal the beginning of the end of homophobia in sport. >>> Jerome Taylor | Friday, January 29, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Eating pork is at least as effective as popping a Viagra pill to spice up your romantic life, according to Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, who claims to have tested the theory.
"Pork consumption improves sexual activity," Mrs Kirchner informed a gathering of business people at a meeting at the presidential palace.
"This is not a small detail," she said at the gathering to announce a reduction in the price of pork.
"Besides, some nicely grilled pork is much more gratifying than taking Viagra." >>> | Thursday, January 28, 2010
DAILY NEWS (Sri Lanka): French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Tuesday for tolerance with French Muslims and highlighted the need to remain aloof from fratricidal fights due to old state anti-clericalism.
In a speech at the national cemetery Notre Dame de Lorette in Pas-de-Calais, in northern France, Sarkozy also expressed his opposition to the the burqa, the piece of clothing that covers a woman from head to foot.
“We could not bear practices that insult the French converted to the Islam”, pointed out the President in the cemetery, where the graves of Muslim soldiers were outraged three times in 2007.
He stressed that the principle of laicism in France does not mean rejecting religious beliefs and practices, but the opposite, it means tolerance and respect in concordance with civic-mindedness and peace. Sarkozy paid tribute to French Muslims soldiers dead in military missions, among them Marshal Harouna Dio, who died in Afghanistan last January 13. [Source: Daily News] | Thursday, January 28, 2010
Hat tips: Always On Watch and Loganswarning
Es ist wirklich erstaunend und enttäuschend zu hören (im Video), daß der ehemaliger Kanzler Deutschlands, Herr Helmut Schmidt, wirklich davon überzeugt ist, daß Armut und nicht Religion die Ursache des Konflikts in Afghanistan ist. Ich hätte von ihm erwartet, daß er ein näheres Verständnis gehabt hätte. – © Mark
ZEIT ONLINE: Aber einen Abzug aus Afghanistan kann es nur mit den Amerikanern geben. Deutschland darf sich nicht isolieren Weiter lessen und Video anschauen >>> Von Helmut Schmidt | Donnerstag, 28. Januar 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
TIMES ONLINE: The whole world, and not just Britain, is broken, with continents such as Africa feeling forgotten and uncared for, the Archbishop of Canterbury said in the heart of New York’s financial district yesterday.
Any money men who might have happened in to Trinity Wall Street to shelter from the snow would have found a different sort of chill as Dr Rowan Williams delivered his lesson.
Standing at the lectern of the famously wealthy US Episcopal church, which lies at the head of Wall Street, the leader of the Anglican Communion condemned the “straw man” of self-interest.
His theme was that financiers, wordsmiths — in fact anyone in the Western world connected in any way with economic reality — should look at themselves in the mirror and repent.
Economic life had become independent of intelligent thought and “wildly irrational”, the Archbishop said. He condemned the “uncritical” way in which bankers and traders pursued wealth regardless of the consequences, selling expensive mortgages to the poor and repackaging them into complex products that few understood.
The “invention of more and more recondite metaphysical, unreal forms of wealth generation” existed, he said, simply to “produce noughts on the end of the balance sheet”.
Dr Williams, conscious that he was speaking close to a general election, echoed the social thought of the Roman Catholic Church when he added that society was founded on love, and there would be no sustainable model until this was recognised. >>> Ruth Gledhill and Alexandra Frean | Friday, January 29, 2010
THE GUARDIAN: Couple who fled to Tennessee fearing persecution for keeping their children out of school win first case of its kind in US
A US judge has granted political asylum to a German family who said they had fled the country to avoid persecution for home schooling their children.
In the first reported case of its kind, Tennessee immigration judge Lawrence Burman ruled that the family of seven have a legitimate fear of prosecution for their beliefs. Germany requires parents to enrol their children in school in most cases and has levied fines against those who educate their children at home.
Christians Uwe Romeike, a piano teacher, and his wife, Hannelore, moved to Morristown, Tennessee, in 2008 after German authorities fined them thousands of euros for keeping their children out of school and sent police to escort them to classes, Romeike said. They had been holding classes in their home.
Along with thousands of torture victims, political dissidents, members of religious minorities and other persecuted groups who win political asylum every year, the Romeike family will now be free to live and work in the US. The case does not create a legal precedent unless the US government appeals and a higher immigration court hears the case.
"Home schoolers in Germany are a particular social group, which is one of the protected grounds under the asylum law," said Mike Connelly, attorney for the Home School Legal Defence Association, who argued the case. "This judge looked at the evidence, he heard their testimony, and he felt that the way Germany is treating home schoolers is wrong. The rights being violated here are basic human rights." >>> Daniel Nasaw in Washington | Wednesday, January 27, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: 'Catcher in the Rye' author J.D. Salinger has died at age 91 at his home in New Hampshire.
The author's son, in a statement from the author's literary representative, says Salinger died of natural causes. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, New Hampshire.
Salinger is best known for his coming-of-age novel 'The Catcher in the Rye' about rebellious teenager Holden Caulfield, which came out in 1951 during the time of anxious, Cold War conformity. >>> | Thursday, January 28, 2010
TIMES ONLINE: J.D. Salinger, reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye, dies aged 91 >>> Tim Reid in Washington | Thursday, January 28, 2010
LE FIGARO: L'écrivain américain s'était retiré du monde en 1953 et n'avait pas publié depuis 45 ans. Il est mort mercredi à l'âge de 91 ans. Il reste un auteur mythique pour les adolescents du monde entier avec son roman L'Attrape-cœurs.
Cette fois, c'est pour de bon. J. D. Salinger avait déjà disparu en janvier 1953. L'auteur le plus célèbre des États-Unis prenait une retraite anticipée. Le succès de L'Attrape-cœurs (1951) l'avait transformé en légende vivante. Le héros, Holden Caulfield, était devenu l'idole des campus. L'écrivain est harcelé, considéré comme une diva. Cela pèse un peu trop sur ses épaules. « Disons que j'en ai plein le dos de lutter contre cet agrandissement de mon portrait au dos de la couverture du livre.»
Avant de se retirer à Cornish (New Hampshire), Salinger accorde un dernier entretien. La presse sera sa bête noire. Salinger fut très fort, de ce côté-là : aucun journaliste ne réussira à le coincer. Il y aura juste quelques photographies prises à la sauvette, au téléobjectif. On y voit un vieux monsieur furibard, qui brandit le poing contre ses agresseurs. Salinger était fait pour le secret. Son silence joua en sa faveur. Avoir écrit ce qu'il avait écrit et tirer la porte derrière soi, voilà la bonne méthode. Ce type était un objet de culte. Un groupe punk, The Wynona Riders, intitula un de ses albums J. D. Salinger. Don DeLillo s'est inspiré de son personnage dans Mao II . Son ombre flotte sur le rôle de Sean Connery dans le film de Gus Van Sant A la rencontre de Forrester. Mark Chapman, l'assassin de John Lennon, avait dans sa poche un exemplaire de L'Attrape-cœurs quand la police l'a arrêté. >>> Éric Neuhoff | Jeudi 28 Janvier 2010
Yours truly will be the guest on WC and Always On Watch’s excellent radio show tomorrow, Friday, January 29th at 3pm Eastern Time. (That’s 8pm UK time, and 9pm Central European Time.)
I hope you can join us.
The number to call with your questions is 1 646 915 9870. If you are calling from the UK or Europe, the number is 00 1 646 915 9870. Callers are welcome.
THE TELEGRAPH: Dominique de Villepin, the former French prime minister, was cleared on Thursday of charges that he plotted to smear his arch-rival Nicolas Sarkozy and scupper his campaign for the presidency in 2007.
The verdict in the Clearstream case is a hammer blow to Mr Sarkozy, a civil plaintiff in the case whose enmity towards Mr de Villepin - an eloquent former diplomat - is legendary. The president reportedly told aides during the investigation: "When I shoot, it's to kill, not to wound." However, the acquittal has revived Mr de Villepin's political ambitions, turning him into a potentially dangerous fellow Right-wing contender for the presidency in 2012.
The Clearstream case centred on a bogus list of account holders at a financial clearing house in Luxembourg who allegedly took bribes from the sale of French warships to Taiwan.
The president, one of 39 plaintiffs, had reportedly promised to "hang on a butcher's hook" whoever had tried to discredit him by adding his name to the list and sending it to an investigating magistrate in 2004. At the time, he and Mr de Villepin were locked in a vicious battle to succeed the then president Jacques Chirac, under whom both had served as ministers. Mr Sarkozy went on to win the presidency while Mr de Villepin's political career remained in limbo following his order to stand trial.
One of five defendants, Mr de Villepin had faced a five-year prison term and 45,000-euro (£41,000) fine for complicity to slander, complicity to use forgeries, dealing in stolen property and breach of trust.
But in a 326-page ruling read out to a packed Paris courtroom, the judge on Thursday said while Mr Villepin had handled the bogus list, there was no firm proof that he knew it was falsified nor that he had sought to discredit Mr Sarkozy by having it sent to a judge. >>> Henry Samuel in Paris | Thursday, January 28, 2010
*Gel bronzant par Clinique, peut-être, M. de Villepin?
THE GUARDIAN: Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president
George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.
His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.
The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty. >>> Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington | Saturday, September 25, 2010
THE GUARDIAN: More students believe Darwin got it wrong / Royal Society challenges 'insidious problem'
A growing number of science students on British campuses and in sixth form colleges are challenging the theory of evolution and arguing that Darwin was wrong. Some are being failed in university exams because they quote sayings from the Bible or Qur'an as scientific fact and at one sixth form college in London most biology students are now thought to be creationists.
Earlier this month Muslim medical students in London distributed leaflets that dismissed Darwin's theories as false. Evangelical Christian students are also increasingly vocal in challenging the notion of evolution.
In the United States there is growing pressure to teach creationism or "intelligent design" in science classes, despite legal rulings against it. Now similar trends in this country have prompted the Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific academy, to confront the issue head on with a talk entitled Why Creationism is Wrong. The award-winning geneticist and author Steve Jones will deliver the lecture and challenge creationists, Christian and Islamic, to argue their case rationally at the society's event in April.
"There is an insidious and growing problem," said Professor Jones, of University College London. "It's a step back from rationality. They (the creationists) don't have a problem with science, they have a problem with argument. And irrationality is a very infectious disease as we see from the United States." >>> Duncan Campbell | Tuesday, February 21, 2006
THE TELEGRAPH: Blindingly white and dizzyingly high, this vast salt flat near the crest of the Andes could easily be mistaken for a Salvador Dali painting. Eerie and otherworldly, Salar de Uyuni holds intensely blue skies, red and green lagoons, pink flamingos, smoking volcanoes, giant cacti, hot springs and spitting geysers. Salar de Uyuni >>> | Thursday, January 28, 2010
This is just another manifestation of Islam’s credentials to be called the ‘religion of peace’! Geert Wilders in the Netherlands is on trial for highlighting its excesses and weaknesses of this self-same religion. And it is this self-same religion whose book, the Koran, in all its surahs (chapters) bar one, begin with the injunction, 'In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful'!
If Allah is so merciful and compassionate, I wish that Muslims would remember this when they pass sentence on hapless individuals who feel cheated by the repressive Islamic régimes they live under. If Muslims want Allah to show compassion and mercy on them, then maybe it’s time for them to show compassion and mercy on their brothers in Islam!
As for the Netherlands… What can one say about a country, any country, that puts one of its citizens, still less one of its leading politicians, on trial for telling the truth, as Douglas Murray has pointed out. Surely if things go on like this here in the West, a revolution cannot be far off the horizon. – © Mark
TIMES ONLINE: Two Iranians convicted of being "enemies of God" and trying to topple the Islamic regime were hanged at dawn today.
It was the first known execution of opposition activists since June's disputed presidential election prompted massive street protests - although the lawyer of one of the two men insisted that her client was arrested at least two months before the election and was not involved in any demonstrations.
The ISNA news agency said that Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmani Pour were "hanged on Thursday morning" after their sentences were confirmed by a Tehran appeals court, were hanged on Thursday morning”.
Both were convicted of being "Mohareb" - enemies of God - and of trying to overthrow the "Islamic establishment". They were also convicted of belonging to armed opposition groups.
Iran has tried more than 100 political activists and protesters since August. According to official media reports, five have been sentenced to death and more than 80 to prison terms ranging from six months to 15 years.
Reports today suggested that nine more had been sentenced to death in those trials and an appeals court is reviewing their cases.
Some of the latest nine death sentences were reportedly related to deadly clashes on December 27, when at least eight people were killed in the most violent day of protests since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed a resounding re-election win. >>> Philippe Naughton | Thursday, January 18, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Iran executes two dissidents and sentences to death nine more: Iran delivered a chilling message of intent to the country's reform movement yesterday when it hanged two men accused of participating in protests following last year's disputed presidential election and sentenced to death nine more. >>> Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent | Thursday, January 28, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH – BLOG: There is nothing hyperbolic in stating that a trial which has just started in Holland will have unparalleled significance for the future of Europe. It is not just about whether our culture will survive, but whether we are even allowed to state the fact that it is being threatened.
The trial of Geert Wilders has garnered hardly any attention in the mainstream press here. Fortunately the blogosphere can correct some of this.
Wilders is a Dutch MP and leader of Holland’s fastest-growing party, the Party for Freedom. Just a few years ago he was the sole MP for his party. The latest polls show that his party could win the biggest number of seats of any party in Holland when the voters next go to the polls.
His stances have clearly chimed with the Dutch people. They include an end to the era of mass immigration, an end to cultural relativism, and an end to the perceived suborning of European values to Islamic ones. For saying this, and more, he has for many years had to live under round-the-clock security protection. Which you would have thought proves the point to some extent.
Now the latest attempt of the Dutch ruling class to keep Wilders from office has begun. Last week, apparently because of the number of complaints they have received (trial by vote anyone?) the trial of Wilders began.
The Dutch courts charge that Wilders ‘on multiple occasions, at least once, (each time) in public, orally, in writing or through images, intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion’.
I’m sorry? Whoa there, just a minute. The man’s on trial because he ‘offended a group of people’? I get offended by all sorts of people. I get offended by very fat people. I get offended by very thick people. I get offended by very sensitive people. I get offended by the crazy car-crash of vowels in Dutch verbs. But I don’t try to press charges.
Yet, crazily, this is exactly what is going on now in a Dutch courtroom. If found guilty of this Alice-in-Wonderland accusation of ‘offending a group of people’, Wilders faces up to two years in prison.
If anyone doubts the surreal nature of the proceedings now going on they should simply look through the summons which is available in an English translation here. It shows that Wilders is on trial for his film Fitna. And for various things he has said in articles and interviews in the Dutch press.
Now some people liked Fitna and some people didn’t. That’s a matter of choice. But by any previous interpretation it is not the job of courts in democratic countries to become film-critics. In fact it would create a very bad precedent. I thought the latest Alec Baldwin film stank. But I don’t think (though the temptation lingers) Baldwin should go to prison for it. Read on & comment here >>> Douglas Murray | Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
How ridiculous! How naïve! This is not, and never has been, about money. This is about the destruction of the West. What part of ‘destruction of Judeo-Christian civilization’ don’t these so-called experts understand? How much more taxpayers’ money are they going to squander before they eventually get it? Indeed, will they ever get it? – © Mark
TIMES ONLINE: Britain is ready to contribute millions of pounds to a fund to buy off Taleban gunmen who are fighting British troops in southern Afghanistan.
More than 60 delegations, from Colombia to Australia, will gather in Lancaster House this morning to draw up an exit strategy from Afghanistan. Much of it is based on reintegrating the Taleban rank and file, wooing the Taleban leadership and gradually handing security to the Afghan Army and police.
The conference is expected to agree a $500 million (£310 million), five-year fund for President Karzai to “buy off” insurgents who are not ideologically committed to destroying the West.
Downing Street confirmed that Britain will make a contribution of a “few million”. Germany has agreed to $70 million over five years and the bulk of the money will come from the Japanese aid budget to Afghanistan, diplomats suggested.
In return, the Afghan leader will have to agree to international monitors to strengthen an anti-corruption campaign in his Government.
President Karzai, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State and Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, flew in yesterday for the talks, which will be chaired by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary. >>> Sam Coates, Chief Political Correspondent, and James Bone in New York | Thursday, January 28, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Severed pig head[s] have been left at two Malaysian mosques in a development that threatens to inflame communal tensions amidst a row over the use of the word "Allah" by Christians.
It was the most serious incident to hit Islamic places of worship following vandalism and other assaults at 11 churches, a Sikh temple, a mosque and two Muslim prayer halls across the Muslim-majority country in the past three weeks. Pigs are considered unclean by Muslims.
The attacks followed outrage among Muslims over a court verdict that allowed non-Muslims to use "Allah" as a translation for "God" in the Malay language. Many Malaysian Muslims believe the word should be exclusive to their religion, and that its use by others could confuse some Muslims and even lure them to convert.
Several men who went to a suburban mosque to perform morning prayers Wednesday were shocked to discover two bloodied wild boar heads wrapped in plastic bags in the mosque compound, said Zulkifli Mohamad, the top official at the Sri Sentosa Mosque on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's largest city.
Two similarly severed heads were also found at the Taman Dato Harun Mosque in a nearby district. Wild boar are common in Malaysia's forests.
Government leaders denounced the incidents and pledged to track down the culprits.
"We are dead serious about this," Hishammuddin told a news conference. "We will bring them to justice." >>> The Telegraph’s Foreign Staff | Wednesday, January 27, 2010
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