Tuesday, December 30, 2008
HOW MANY CALLS DID RAHM MAKE?
Some World Views
Obama Report Raises Questions: How Many Calls Did Emanuel Make to Blagojevich?(CNSNews.com) - The report, issued by Obama attorney Greg Craig, cleared all Obama personnel, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), Obama's soon-to-be chief of staff, of any wrongdoing. But Craig failed to ascertain how many phone calls Emanuel actually made to the embattled governor.Liberals Continue to Attack Rev. Rick Warren over Inauguration Invitation(CNSNews.com) - Liberal commentators and activists are keeping up a drumbeat of opposition against the Rev. Rick Warren, the California mega-church pastor and best-selling author selected to give the invocation at the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.
CD of Satirical Songs Becomes Issue in Republican Party Chairmanship Race(CNSNews.com) - John "Chip" Saltsman, former chairman of the Tennessee GOP and candidate for the RNC chairmanship, has sparked a controversy by sending as a gift to members of the Republican National Committee a CD of satirical songs by Paul Shanklin--whose work is regularly featured on Rush Limbaugh's radio show--that includes the parody tune "Barack the Magic Negro.
"Israel Braces for Hezbollah Threat(CNSNews.com) - Israel is concerned about the likelihood of an attack by Hezbollah - the Shiite terrorist organization based in southern Lebanon - and it has "no doubt" that the long-range rockets used by Hamas terrorists are coming from Iran.
North Korea Steps Up Reports of Alleged Kim Jong-il Outings(CNSNews.com) - Amid continuing speculation that Kim Jong-il is gravely ill - or even dead - North Korean state media have stepped up reports about purported appearances by the dictator, most recently a reported public classic music event.
Gays Unable to Accept Pope's Defense of Environment and Nature's 'Law,' Says Top Theologian(CNSNews.com) - While the pope never mentioned "homosexuality," it was his explanation of the nature of man and the order of the natural world that caused gays to react so harshly, Fr. George William Rutler, a leading Catholic theologian, told CNSNews.com.
Robert Redford: Bush Administration 'Morally Criminal' (CNSNews.com) - Speaking on behalf of the National Trust for Historic Preservation at the National Press Club Wednesday, Hollywood actor and environmental activist Robert Redford said it's "morally criminal" for the Bush administration to auction leases to oil and gas companies for exploration on 132 parcels of land in Utah.
OTHER CNSNEWS.COM HEADLINES:
'I Love Lucy' Chocolate Factory Scene Makes U.S. Postage Stamp
Mexico Sentences Man Who Smuggled Hezbollah Sympathizers into U.S.
Taliban Are Beheading Their Way through Former Pakistan Tourist Haven
Mass. Pot Law May Decriminalize Other Drugs
Monday, December 29, 2008
10 REASONS WHY THE WEST WILL LOSE TO ISLAM
by David Selbourne
Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that the war declared by al-Qaeda and other Islamists is under way. Let us further suppose that thousands of 'terrorist' attacks carried out in Islam's name during the past decades form part of this war; and that conflicts that have spread to 50 countries and more, taking the lives of millions -- including in inter-Muslim blood-shedding -- are the outcome of what Osama bin Laden has called 'conducting jihad for the sake of Allah'.
If such war is under way, there are ten good reasons why, as things stand, Islam will not be defeated in it.
1) The first is the extent of political division in the non-Muslim world about what is afoot. Some reject outright that there is a war at all; others agree with the assertion by the US President that 'the war we fight is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century'.
Divided counsels have also dictated everything from 'dialogue' to the use of nuclear weapons, and from reliance on 'public diplomacy' to 'taking out Islamic sites', Mecca included. Adding to this incoherence has been the gulf between those bristling to take the fight to the 'terrorist' and those who would impede such a fight, whether from domestic civil libertarian concerns or from rivalrous geopolitical calculation.
2) The second reason why, as things stand, Islam will not be defeated is that the strengths of the world community of Muslims are being underestimated, and the nature of Islam misunderstood. It is neither a 'religion of peace' nor a 'religion hijacked' or 'perverted' by 'the few'. Instead, its moral intransigence and revived ardours, its jihadist ethic and the refusal of most diaspora Muslims to 'share a common set of values' with non-Muslims are all one, and justified by the Koran itself.
Islam is not even a religion in the conventional sense of the term. It is a transnational political and ethical movement that believes that it holds the solution to mankind's problems. It therefore holds that it is in mankind's own interests to be subdued under Islam's rule. Such belief therefore makes an absurdity of the project to 'democratise' Muslim nations in the West's interests, an inversion that Islam cannot accept and, in its own terms, rightly so.
It renders naive, too, the distinction between the military and political wings of Islamic movements; and makes Donald Rumsfeld's assertion in June 2005 that the insurgents in Iraq 'don't have vision, they're losers' merely foolish. In this war, if there is a war, the boot is on the other foot.
3) Indeed, the third reason why Islam will not be defeated, as things stand, is the low level of Western leadership, in particular in the United States. During the half-century of the Islamic revival, it has shown itself at sixes and sevens both diplomatically and militarily.
It has been without a sense of strategic direction, and been unable to settle upon coherent war plans. It has even lacked the gifts of language to make its purposes plain. Or, as Burke put it in March, 1775, 'a great empire and little minds go ill together'. In this war with Islam, if it is a war, the combination bodes defeat.
4) Next is the contribution to the disarray of Western policy-making being made by the egotistical competitiveness, and in some cases hysterics, of 'experts' and commentators on Islam. They include hyperventilating Islamophobes as well as academic apologists for the worst that is being done in Islam's name.
On this battleground, with its personalised blogsites to assist self-promotion, many seem to think that their opinions are more important than the issues upon which they are passing judgment; and amid the babel of advisory voices, policy has become increasingly inconsistent.
5) The fifth disablement is to be found in the confusion of 'progressives' about the Islamic advance. With their political and moral bearings lost since the defeat of the 'socialist project', many on the Left have only the fag-end of anti-colonial positions on which to take their stand.
To attribute the West's problems to our colonial past contains some truth. But it is again to misunderstand the inner strength of Islam's revival, which is owed not to victimhood but to advancing confidence in its own belief system.
Moreover, to Islam's further advantage, it has led most of today's 'progressives' to say little, or even to keep silent, about what would once have been regarded as the reactionary aspects of Islam: its oppressive hostility to dissent, its maltreatment of women, its supremacist hatred of selected out-groups such as Jews and gays, and its readiness to incite and to use extremes of violence against them. Mein Kampf circulates in Arab countries under the title Jihadi.
6) The sixth reason for Islam's growing strength is the vicarious satisfaction felt by many non-Muslims at America's reverses. Those who feel such satisfaction could be regarded as Trojan horses, a cavalry whose number is legion and which is growing.
For some, their principle -- or anti-principle -- is that 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'. Others believe their refusal of support for the war with Islam, if there is such a war, is a righteous one. But the consequences are the same: Islam's advance is being borne along by Muslims and non-Muslims together.
7) The seventh reason lies in the moral poverty of the West's, and especially America's, own value system. Doctrines of market freedom, free choice and competition -- or 'freedom 'n' liberty' -- are no match for the ethics of Islam and Sharia, like them or not. Yet in the 'battle for hearts and minds' the US First Cavalry Division saw fit to set up 'Operation Adam Smith' in Iraq to teach marketing skills, among other things, to local entrepreneurs.
There can be no victory here. Or, as Sheikh Mohammed al-Tabatabi told thousands of worshippers in Baghdad in May 2003: 'The West calls for freedom and liberty. Islam rejects such liberty. True liberty is obedience to Allah.'
8) The next indication that Islam's advance will continue lies in the skilful use being made of the media and of the world wide web in the service both of the 'electronic jihad' and the bamboozling of Western opinion by Muslim spokesmen.
It is also a political enterprise in which Muslims and non-Muslims can now be found acting together in furthering the reach of Islam's world view; the help being given by Western producers and broadcasters to al-Jazeera is the most notable instance of it.
9) The ninth factor guaranteeing Islam's onward march is the West's dependency on the material resources of Arab and Muslim countries. In April 1917, Woodrow Wilson, recommending to the US Congress an American declaration of war against Germany, could say that 'we have no selfish ends to serve'. American levels of consumption make no such statement possible now. The US is, so to speak, over a barrel. It will remain so.
10) Finally, the West is convinced that its notions of technology-driven modernity and market-driven progress are innately superior to the ideals of 'backward' Islam. This is an old delusion.
In 1899, Winston Churchill asserted that there was 'no stronger retrograde force in the world' than Islam.
More than a century later, it is fondly believed that sophisticated hardware and Star Wars defences will ensure Western mastery in this war, if it is a war.
But as the Saudi 'scholar' Suleiman al-Omar declared in June 2004: 'Islam is advancing according to a steady plan. America will be destroyed.' As things stand, given the ten factors set out here, he is more likely to be proved right than wrong.
David Selbourne is author of The Losing Battle with Islam, which was published in the United States in November last year.
Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that the war declared by al-Qaeda and other Islamists is under way. Let us further suppose that thousands of 'terrorist' attacks carried out in Islam's name during the past decades form part of this war; and that conflicts that have spread to 50 countries and more, taking the lives of millions -- including in inter-Muslim blood-shedding -- are the outcome of what Osama bin Laden has called 'conducting jihad for the sake of Allah'.
If such war is under way, there are ten good reasons why, as things stand, Islam will not be defeated in it.
1) The first is the extent of political division in the non-Muslim world about what is afoot. Some reject outright that there is a war at all; others agree with the assertion by the US President that 'the war we fight is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century'.
Divided counsels have also dictated everything from 'dialogue' to the use of nuclear weapons, and from reliance on 'public diplomacy' to 'taking out Islamic sites', Mecca included. Adding to this incoherence has been the gulf between those bristling to take the fight to the 'terrorist' and those who would impede such a fight, whether from domestic civil libertarian concerns or from rivalrous geopolitical calculation.
2) The second reason why, as things stand, Islam will not be defeated is that the strengths of the world community of Muslims are being underestimated, and the nature of Islam misunderstood. It is neither a 'religion of peace' nor a 'religion hijacked' or 'perverted' by 'the few'. Instead, its moral intransigence and revived ardours, its jihadist ethic and the refusal of most diaspora Muslims to 'share a common set of values' with non-Muslims are all one, and justified by the Koran itself.
Islam is not even a religion in the conventional sense of the term. It is a transnational political and ethical movement that believes that it holds the solution to mankind's problems. It therefore holds that it is in mankind's own interests to be subdued under Islam's rule. Such belief therefore makes an absurdity of the project to 'democratise' Muslim nations in the West's interests, an inversion that Islam cannot accept and, in its own terms, rightly so.
It renders naive, too, the distinction between the military and political wings of Islamic movements; and makes Donald Rumsfeld's assertion in June 2005 that the insurgents in Iraq 'don't have vision, they're losers' merely foolish. In this war, if there is a war, the boot is on the other foot.
3) Indeed, the third reason why Islam will not be defeated, as things stand, is the low level of Western leadership, in particular in the United States. During the half-century of the Islamic revival, it has shown itself at sixes and sevens both diplomatically and militarily.
It has been without a sense of strategic direction, and been unable to settle upon coherent war plans. It has even lacked the gifts of language to make its purposes plain. Or, as Burke put it in March, 1775, 'a great empire and little minds go ill together'. In this war with Islam, if it is a war, the combination bodes defeat.
4) Next is the contribution to the disarray of Western policy-making being made by the egotistical competitiveness, and in some cases hysterics, of 'experts' and commentators on Islam. They include hyperventilating Islamophobes as well as academic apologists for the worst that is being done in Islam's name.
On this battleground, with its personalised blogsites to assist self-promotion, many seem to think that their opinions are more important than the issues upon which they are passing judgment; and amid the babel of advisory voices, policy has become increasingly inconsistent.
5) The fifth disablement is to be found in the confusion of 'progressives' about the Islamic advance. With their political and moral bearings lost since the defeat of the 'socialist project', many on the Left have only the fag-end of anti-colonial positions on which to take their stand.
To attribute the West's problems to our colonial past contains some truth. But it is again to misunderstand the inner strength of Islam's revival, which is owed not to victimhood but to advancing confidence in its own belief system.
Moreover, to Islam's further advantage, it has led most of today's 'progressives' to say little, or even to keep silent, about what would once have been regarded as the reactionary aspects of Islam: its oppressive hostility to dissent, its maltreatment of women, its supremacist hatred of selected out-groups such as Jews and gays, and its readiness to incite and to use extremes of violence against them. Mein Kampf circulates in Arab countries under the title Jihadi.
6) The sixth reason for Islam's growing strength is the vicarious satisfaction felt by many non-Muslims at America's reverses. Those who feel such satisfaction could be regarded as Trojan horses, a cavalry whose number is legion and which is growing.
For some, their principle -- or anti-principle -- is that 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'. Others believe their refusal of support for the war with Islam, if there is such a war, is a righteous one. But the consequences are the same: Islam's advance is being borne along by Muslims and non-Muslims together.
7) The seventh reason lies in the moral poverty of the West's, and especially America's, own value system. Doctrines of market freedom, free choice and competition -- or 'freedom 'n' liberty' -- are no match for the ethics of Islam and Sharia, like them or not. Yet in the 'battle for hearts and minds' the US First Cavalry Division saw fit to set up 'Operation Adam Smith' in Iraq to teach marketing skills, among other things, to local entrepreneurs.
There can be no victory here. Or, as Sheikh Mohammed al-Tabatabi told thousands of worshippers in Baghdad in May 2003: 'The West calls for freedom and liberty. Islam rejects such liberty. True liberty is obedience to Allah.'
8) The next indication that Islam's advance will continue lies in the skilful use being made of the media and of the world wide web in the service both of the 'electronic jihad' and the bamboozling of Western opinion by Muslim spokesmen.
It is also a political enterprise in which Muslims and non-Muslims can now be found acting together in furthering the reach of Islam's world view; the help being given by Western producers and broadcasters to al-Jazeera is the most notable instance of it.
9) The ninth factor guaranteeing Islam's onward march is the West's dependency on the material resources of Arab and Muslim countries. In April 1917, Woodrow Wilson, recommending to the US Congress an American declaration of war against Germany, could say that 'we have no selfish ends to serve'. American levels of consumption make no such statement possible now. The US is, so to speak, over a barrel. It will remain so.
10) Finally, the West is convinced that its notions of technology-driven modernity and market-driven progress are innately superior to the ideals of 'backward' Islam. This is an old delusion.
In 1899, Winston Churchill asserted that there was 'no stronger retrograde force in the world' than Islam.
More than a century later, it is fondly believed that sophisticated hardware and Star Wars defences will ensure Western mastery in this war, if it is a war.
But as the Saudi 'scholar' Suleiman al-Omar declared in June 2004: 'Islam is advancing according to a steady plan. America will be destroyed.' As things stand, given the ten factors set out here, he is more likely to be proved right than wrong.
David Selbourne is author of The Losing Battle with Islam, which was published in the United States in November last year.
Monday, December 22, 2008
MERRY CHRISTMAS
New Christmas Poem
TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS,
HE LIVED ALL ALONE,
IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE MADE OF
PLASTER AND STONE.
I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY
WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE,
AND TO SEE JUST WHO
IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.
I LOOKED ALL ABOUT,
A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE,
NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS,
NOT EVEN A TREE.
NO STOCKING BY MANTLE,
JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND,
ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES
OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.
WITH MEDALS AND BADGES,
AWARDS OF ALL KINDS,
A SOBER THOUGHT
CAME THROUGH MY MIND.
FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT,
IT WAS DARK AND DREARY,
I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER,
ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.
THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING,
SILENT, ALONE,
CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR
IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.
THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE,
THE ROOM IN SUCH DISORDER,
NOT HOW I PICTURED
A UNITED STATES SOLDIER.
WAS THIS THE HERO
OF WHOM I'D JUST READ?
CURLED UP ON A PONCHO,
THE FLOOR FOR A BED?
I REALIZED THE FAMILIES
THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT,
OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS
WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT.
SOON ROUND THE WORLD,
THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY,
AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE
A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.
THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM
EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR,
BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS,
LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.
I COULDN'T HELP WONDER
HOW MANY LAY ALONE,
ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE
IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.
THE VERY THOUGHT
BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE,
I DROPPED TO MY KNEES
AND STARTED TO CRY.
THE SOLDIER AWAKENED
AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE,
'SANTA DON'T CRY,
THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE;
I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM,
I DON'T ASK FOR MORE,
MY LIFE IS MY GOD,
MY! COUNTRY, MY CORPS.'
THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER
AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP,
I COULDN'T CONTROL IT,
I CONTINUED TO WEEP.
I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS,
SO SILENT AND STILL
AND WE BOTH SHIVERED
FROM THE COLD NIGHT'S CHILL.
I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE
ON THAT COLD, DARK, NIGHT,
THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOR
SO WILLING TO FIGHT.
THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,
WITH A VOICE SOFT AND PURE,
WHISPERED, 'CARRY ON SANTA,
IT'S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE.'
ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH,
AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.
'MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND,!
AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT.'
This poem was written by a Marine.
TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS,
HE LIVED ALL ALONE,
IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE MADE OF
PLASTER AND STONE.
I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY
WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE,
AND TO SEE JUST WHO
IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.
I LOOKED ALL ABOUT,
A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE,
NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS,
NOT EVEN A TREE.
NO STOCKING BY MANTLE,
JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND,
ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES
OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.
WITH MEDALS AND BADGES,
AWARDS OF ALL KINDS,
A SOBER THOUGHT
CAME THROUGH MY MIND.
FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT,
IT WAS DARK AND DREARY,
I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER,
ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.
THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING,
SILENT, ALONE,
CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR
IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.
THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE,
THE ROOM IN SUCH DISORDER,
NOT HOW I PICTURED
A UNITED STATES SOLDIER.
WAS THIS THE HERO
OF WHOM I'D JUST READ?
CURLED UP ON A PONCHO,
THE FLOOR FOR A BED?
I REALIZED THE FAMILIES
THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT,
OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS
WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT.
SOON ROUND THE WORLD,
THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY,
AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE
A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.
THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM
EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR,
BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS,
LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.
I COULDN'T HELP WONDER
HOW MANY LAY ALONE,
ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE
IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.
THE VERY THOUGHT
BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE,
I DROPPED TO MY KNEES
AND STARTED TO CRY.
THE SOLDIER AWAKENED
AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE,
'SANTA DON'T CRY,
THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE;
I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM,
I DON'T ASK FOR MORE,
MY LIFE IS MY GOD,
MY! COUNTRY, MY CORPS.'
THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER
AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP,
I COULDN'T CONTROL IT,
I CONTINUED TO WEEP.
I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS,
SO SILENT AND STILL
AND WE BOTH SHIVERED
FROM THE COLD NIGHT'S CHILL.
I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE
ON THAT COLD, DARK, NIGHT,
THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOR
SO WILLING TO FIGHT.
THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,
WITH A VOICE SOFT AND PURE,
WHISPERED, 'CARRY ON SANTA,
IT'S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE.'
ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH,
AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.
'MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND,!
AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT.'
This poem was written by a Marine.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
RUNNING A COUNTRY LIKE IRAN
Though written several years ago this analysis holds true today and reveals what went wrong.
RUNNING IRAN click here
RUNNING IRAN click here
Monday, December 15, 2008
KEN TIMMERMAN - HONOR KILLING
Want to know how Barack Obama will be “tested in the first six months of his presidency,” as Joe Biden suggested during the campaign?
Try reading my political thriller, Honor Killing, which describes an incompetent administration and broken intelligence establishment as they do battle with determined Islamic terrorists who are bringing a nuclear weapon into the United States.
To learn more about the book, including a just-released excerpt, go here:http://kentimmerman.com/honor-killing.htmlI think you’ll also enjoy the extensive web resources and inter-active Reader’s guide I have developed, full of photographs, maps, documents and background information.
http://kentimmerman.com/hk-web.html
If you order this sizzling thriller in the next few days, Amazon.com will ship it to you in time for Christmas. (Honor Killing is available in paperback for just $16.00)
Also, my latest non-fiction book, Shadow Warriors: the Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender, has just been released in paperback.
This is the book that exposed the treachery of rogue weasels at the CIA and the State Department who falsified intelligence, including WMD intelligence on Iraq and Iran, in order to weaken, embarrass, and ultimately defeat George W. Bush.Learn more about it here:
http://kentimmerman.com/shadow-warriors.htm
Whether you buy my books or not, please support my investigations by following one of the links from my website to Amazon.com.
Anything you purchase from Amazon.com within the first thirty minutes will be treated as a link through from my site, so if you have unrelated purchases, please stop by www.kentimmerman.com first.
Thanks for all your support.And blessings upon you, your family, and our country in this Holy (and holiday) season.
KenKenneth R. Timmerman
Contributing editor: Newsmax.com
Reply to: timmerman.road@verizon.net
Archive: www.newsmax.com/timmerman/
Try reading my political thriller, Honor Killing, which describes an incompetent administration and broken intelligence establishment as they do battle with determined Islamic terrorists who are bringing a nuclear weapon into the United States.
To learn more about the book, including a just-released excerpt, go here:http://kentimmerman.com/honor-killing.htmlI think you’ll also enjoy the extensive web resources and inter-active Reader’s guide I have developed, full of photographs, maps, documents and background information.
http://kentimmerman.com/hk-web.html
If you order this sizzling thriller in the next few days, Amazon.com will ship it to you in time for Christmas. (Honor Killing is available in paperback for just $16.00)
Also, my latest non-fiction book, Shadow Warriors: the Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender, has just been released in paperback.
This is the book that exposed the treachery of rogue weasels at the CIA and the State Department who falsified intelligence, including WMD intelligence on Iraq and Iran, in order to weaken, embarrass, and ultimately defeat George W. Bush.Learn more about it here:
http://kentimmerman.com/shadow-warriors.htm
Whether you buy my books or not, please support my investigations by following one of the links from my website to Amazon.com.
Anything you purchase from Amazon.com within the first thirty minutes will be treated as a link through from my site, so if you have unrelated purchases, please stop by www.kentimmerman.com first.
Thanks for all your support.And blessings upon you, your family, and our country in this Holy (and holiday) season.
KenKenneth R. Timmerman
Contributing editor: Newsmax.com
Reply to: timmerman.road@verizon.net
Archive: www.newsmax.com/timmerman/
Sunday, December 14, 2008
OBAMA HOME $900,000 OVER MORTGAGE LIMIT
Obama Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Chicago Home Mortgage $903,000 over Legal Limit
While researching an article about Obama’s Chicago home about the circumstances surrounding who is the “owner”, I happened across a bit of information: Obama’s home has a Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac mortgage to the tune of $1,320,000. (Page 5 of Cook County Property Assessment Record)
The information comes from the Cook County Clerk’s office where the “owner” of the Obama home is listed as William Miceli, a former supervisor of Obama’s when he worked at the David Law Firm.
What’s unusual about the Obama mortgage is that the upper limits of a Fannie Mae loan on a single family dwelling as of January, 2008, is $417,000 while mortgages in “high cost” areas cannot exceed $729,750.
The Obama’s mortage, through Northern Trust Company, is in the amount of $1,320,000.
The limits for a Freddie Mac single family dwelling is $417,000, with an upper tier of $625,500 for homes located in Alaska, Hawaii, the Virgin Islands, and Guam.
I looked into whether Cook County, Illinois, where the Obama home is located, and whether it is considered by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac as a “high cost area”.
I found this little snippet written by Lew Sichelman, of the Reality Times in 2004, a few months prior to the Obama’s purchasing their home:
Effective Jan. 1, the new FHA “ceiling” in high cost areas is 87 percent of the limit on loans which can be purchased by Freddie Mac.
The Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae conventional loan limit rose to $359,650, also on Jan. 1. In most of the nation’s 3,300 other jurisdictions, the FHA “floor” is $172,632. But in about 530 places, the FHA maximum is somewhere in between $172,632 and $359,650.
The new limits already are the subject of controversy.
For example, some Chicago area lenders already are grumbling that Jefferson County, a distant Washington area jurisdiction at best, is considered a high-cost area but Cook County, Ill., is not.
I took it one step further and entered the Obama’s South Greenwood address at Fannie Mae’s Loan Limit Geocoder. The results: Obama’s South Greenwood home was eligible for a maximum Fannie Mae loan of $417,000.
READ MORE:
READ MUCH, MORE click here
I’m not sure how, but the Obama’s managed to procure a Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mortage $903,000 over the legal limit.
While researching an article about Obama’s Chicago home about the circumstances surrounding who is the “owner”, I happened across a bit of information: Obama’s home has a Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac mortgage to the tune of $1,320,000. (Page 5 of Cook County Property Assessment Record)
The information comes from the Cook County Clerk’s office where the “owner” of the Obama home is listed as William Miceli, a former supervisor of Obama’s when he worked at the David Law Firm.
What’s unusual about the Obama mortgage is that the upper limits of a Fannie Mae loan on a single family dwelling as of January, 2008, is $417,000 while mortgages in “high cost” areas cannot exceed $729,750.
The Obama’s mortage, through Northern Trust Company, is in the amount of $1,320,000.
The limits for a Freddie Mac single family dwelling is $417,000, with an upper tier of $625,500 for homes located in Alaska, Hawaii, the Virgin Islands, and Guam.
I looked into whether Cook County, Illinois, where the Obama home is located, and whether it is considered by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac as a “high cost area”.
I found this little snippet written by Lew Sichelman, of the Reality Times in 2004, a few months prior to the Obama’s purchasing their home:
Effective Jan. 1, the new FHA “ceiling” in high cost areas is 87 percent of the limit on loans which can be purchased by Freddie Mac.
The Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae conventional loan limit rose to $359,650, also on Jan. 1. In most of the nation’s 3,300 other jurisdictions, the FHA “floor” is $172,632. But in about 530 places, the FHA maximum is somewhere in between $172,632 and $359,650.
The new limits already are the subject of controversy.
For example, some Chicago area lenders already are grumbling that Jefferson County, a distant Washington area jurisdiction at best, is considered a high-cost area but Cook County, Ill., is not.
I took it one step further and entered the Obama’s South Greenwood address at Fannie Mae’s Loan Limit Geocoder. The results: Obama’s South Greenwood home was eligible for a maximum Fannie Mae loan of $417,000.
READ MORE:
READ MUCH, MORE click here
Friday, December 12, 2008
BRIEF ISLAM-SPEAK GLOSSARY
Here then, is a short guide to real meaning of certain key words, when used by a Muslim.
An Islam-speak glossary:
Peace - The state of cessation of all resistance to Islam. Peace only exists when Islam rules politically and religiously, and all Islamic principles are established as the law of the land.
Freedom – Freedom exists when Islam and its principles attain complete dominance and constitute the entirety of religious belief and political rule.
Justice – The state when Sharia law is the law of the land, and all judicial decisions are based on it and it alone. Justice exists when non-Muslims have no standing before a court, and when the testimony of two Muslim women is equal to that of one Muslim man.
Equality – Equality is achieved when Muslims are the only leaders of society, and are given their rightful place as the best of men, leading all institutions, political and religious. This does not extend to non-Muslims or apostates.
Tolerance – The state when non-Muslims are properly subdued and subservient to Muslim rule, agree to their second-class Dhimmi status, and duly pay the Jizya to their Muslim overlords.
Truth – Truth is the accepted Islamic version of events, as laid out in the Koran and the Sunna. Anything beyond that is merely hearsay, and in many cases blasphemy. (see Lies).
Democracy – The state when Islam is the absolute law and religion, and all peoples conform to Islamic law and customs. (see Freedom).
Freedom of Speech – Freedom of speech is achieved when Muslims, and only Muslims, are free to espouse their beliefs, and non-Muslims are prohibited from commenting on or criticizing anything Islamic.
Just Society - A society ruled by Muslims under Islamic law.
Koran - Allah’s final word, perfect and un-altered, superseding all others and the true and only guide for mankind in religion, law and politics.
Oppression - The rule of a state by non-Islamic law; actions of resistance to implementation of Islamic law and Muslim rule.
Racism - The state where anything Islamic or any Muslim is criticized or rejected.
Infidel – Any and all non-Muslims. Subject only to conversion, subjugation, or death under Islamic law.
Slavery – The rightful and lawful status of any infidel captured in battle against Islam.
Treaty – A non-binding and temporary agreement between Muslims and non-Muslims, valid only until such time as the Muslims have the power to achieve by force or other means what they have momentarily failed to achieve.
Lies – The act of hiding the truth, permissible by Islamic law for a Muslim when in fear for his safety or when it advances the cause of Islam.
With these definitions in mind, we will be better prepared to answer or debate a Muslim statement.
OR..... Iran
In addition to communicating with the local air traffic control facility, aircraft are required to give the Iranian Air Defense Radar (military) a ten minute ‘heads up’ that they will be transiting Iranian airspace.
This is a common procedure for commercial aircraft and involves giving them your call sign, transponder code, type aircraft, and points of origin and destination.
Overheard this conversation on the VHF Guard (emergency) frequency 121.5 MHz while flying from Europe to Dubai . It’s too good not to pass along. The conversation went something like this…
Air Defense Radar: ‘Unknown aircraft at (location unknown), you are in Iranian airspace. Identify yourself.’
Aircraft: ‘This is a United States aircraft. I am in Iraqi airspace.’
Air Defense Radar: ‘You are in Iranian airspace. If you do not depart our airspace we will launch interceptor aircraft!’
Aircraft: ‘This is a United States FA-18 fighter. Send ‘em up!’
Air Defense Radar: (no response … total silence)”
Gotta love the Marines!
An Islam-speak glossary:
Peace - The state of cessation of all resistance to Islam. Peace only exists when Islam rules politically and religiously, and all Islamic principles are established as the law of the land.
Freedom – Freedom exists when Islam and its principles attain complete dominance and constitute the entirety of religious belief and political rule.
Justice – The state when Sharia law is the law of the land, and all judicial decisions are based on it and it alone. Justice exists when non-Muslims have no standing before a court, and when the testimony of two Muslim women is equal to that of one Muslim man.
Equality – Equality is achieved when Muslims are the only leaders of society, and are given their rightful place as the best of men, leading all institutions, political and religious. This does not extend to non-Muslims or apostates.
Tolerance – The state when non-Muslims are properly subdued and subservient to Muslim rule, agree to their second-class Dhimmi status, and duly pay the Jizya to their Muslim overlords.
Truth – Truth is the accepted Islamic version of events, as laid out in the Koran and the Sunna. Anything beyond that is merely hearsay, and in many cases blasphemy. (see Lies).
Democracy – The state when Islam is the absolute law and religion, and all peoples conform to Islamic law and customs. (see Freedom).
Freedom of Speech – Freedom of speech is achieved when Muslims, and only Muslims, are free to espouse their beliefs, and non-Muslims are prohibited from commenting on or criticizing anything Islamic.
Just Society - A society ruled by Muslims under Islamic law.
Koran - Allah’s final word, perfect and un-altered, superseding all others and the true and only guide for mankind in religion, law and politics.
Oppression - The rule of a state by non-Islamic law; actions of resistance to implementation of Islamic law and Muslim rule.
Racism - The state where anything Islamic or any Muslim is criticized or rejected.
Infidel – Any and all non-Muslims. Subject only to conversion, subjugation, or death under Islamic law.
Slavery – The rightful and lawful status of any infidel captured in battle against Islam.
Treaty – A non-binding and temporary agreement between Muslims and non-Muslims, valid only until such time as the Muslims have the power to achieve by force or other means what they have momentarily failed to achieve.
Lies – The act of hiding the truth, permissible by Islamic law for a Muslim when in fear for his safety or when it advances the cause of Islam.
With these definitions in mind, we will be better prepared to answer or debate a Muslim statement.
OR..... Iran
In addition to communicating with the local air traffic control facility, aircraft are required to give the Iranian Air Defense Radar (military) a ten minute ‘heads up’ that they will be transiting Iranian airspace.
This is a common procedure for commercial aircraft and involves giving them your call sign, transponder code, type aircraft, and points of origin and destination.
Overheard this conversation on the VHF Guard (emergency) frequency 121.5 MHz while flying from Europe to Dubai . It’s too good not to pass along. The conversation went something like this…
Air Defense Radar: ‘Unknown aircraft at (location unknown), you are in Iranian airspace. Identify yourself.’
Aircraft: ‘This is a United States aircraft. I am in Iraqi airspace.’
Air Defense Radar: ‘You are in Iranian airspace. If you do not depart our airspace we will launch interceptor aircraft!’
Aircraft: ‘This is a United States FA-18 fighter. Send ‘em up!’
Air Defense Radar: (no response … total silence)”
Gotta love the Marines!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
IRAN PINCER TO BLOCK OIL MOVEMENT
IN ADDITION TO THE PERSIAN GULF, FROM ERITREA IRAN CAN CONTROL THE SUEZ CANAL AND ATTACK ISRAEL AND SAUDI OIL FIELDS FROM A DIFFERENT DIRECTION
Eritrean President Isayas Afwerki and Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad
The Eritrean port town of Assab, according to opposition groups, foreign diplomats, and NGOs in the area.
The city of Assab sits at the Horn of Africa in the Arabian Sea. As such, Assab offers a strategic position as the world nervously eyes the precarious routes through which a seaborne oil traverses daily.
Local sources have reported that Iran recently sent soldiers and a large number of long-range and ballistic missiles. The military basing came after Iran signed an accord with Eritrea to revamp the Russian-built refinery used by the Eritrean Oil Company, also known as Assab Oil Company.
As the world’s second largest import of gasoline, Iran is sensitive to a Western plan to obstruct its access to refined product as a part of broad sanctions provoked by Teheran’s nuclear activities.
Iran needs nearby oil refining ability. Using protection of the Eritrean refinery as a pretext, Iran has set up its military operation there, and has been patrolling with unmanned surveillance drones.
In the meantime, the Iranian navy has test-fired a sea-to-sea missile during a six-day naval maneuver in the Sea of Oman. Teheran radio announced, "The surface-to-surface Nasr-2 missile was tested in the (Sea of) Oman operational region,” adding that its new, medium-range missile “was fired from a warship and hit its target at a distance of 30 km (19 miles) and destroyed it."
The latest large-scale naval maneuver covered 50,000 square miles (129,500 sq. kilometers) of Iranian territorial waters and involved about 60 warships. Iran regularly holds war games in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.
With the addition of a new naval base at Jask at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, and new basing at Assab in Eritrea, Iran can exercise a decisive military presence on multiple shores astride the pivotal oil sea lanes.
Iran’s new basing rights trace to last May when Eritrean President Isayas Afwerki visited Iran for a meeting with President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. At a press conference after the meeting, Ahmadinejad declared that the two countries share common views on regional issues and on ways to resist hegemony.
"We've held fruitful talks on different subjects relevant to bilateral ties, mutual investment in the agriculture, industry and energy sectors, and regional and international cooperation," he said.
Ahmadinejad stated that Iran saw “no limits to the expansion of cooperation and relations with Eritrea,” while Isayas hailed Iranian support for Eritrean people. Isayas also commented that both countries will defend rights of each other and of other independent nations.
“I believe regional and international cooperation would guarantee regional peace and stability.”
President Isayas has granted Iran complete and exclusive control over the Eritrean Oil Refinary with the mandate to revamp, manage, and exercise complete authority over production and maintenance of the facility.
Iran will refine its crude oil in Assab to cover shortages it faces at home, which will benefit Eritrea by not having to import expensive refined products.
The Eritrean Democratic Party, an opposition party, pointed to trepidation within the Eritrean regime, indicating that some high-ranking members are saying that the president is playing with fire with Iran and that the consequences for Eritrea could be grave.
In September, Iran and Eritrea signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) supporting and encouraging foreign investment. The agreement was inked by Iranian Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Shamseddin Hosseini and his Eritrean counterpart Berhane Abrehe.
Opposition groups in Eritrea are reporting that President Isayas, with the cooperation of some Somali Islamist groups, is going beyond mere bilateral oil supplies, and colluding to control the Bab El Mandeb Straights in case of escalation of conflict with the United States and Israel. Eritrea and the United States backed opposite sides in the war in Somalia, which erupted at the end of 2006.
The ominous expansion of the Iranian military comes at a time when the United States has moved additional naval forces off the coast of Somalia in response to piracy and what appears to be the looming defeat of its U.S.-backed Transitional Federal Government.
Cutting Edge Foreign Editor Joseph Grieboski is President of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy and Secretary General, Interparliamentary Conference on Human Rights and Religious Freedom.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
USA - RIOTS AND REBELLION BY 2012
Food Riots, Tax Rebellions By 2012...
Trend forecaster, renowned for being accurate in the past, says....
November 14, 2008 Live Leak
The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012.
Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events, which will send a chill down your spine considering what he told Fox News this week.
Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.
"We're going to see the end of the retail Christmas....we're going to see a fundamental shift take place....putting food on the table is going to be more important that putting gifts under the Christmas tree," said Celente, adding that the situation would be "worse than the Great Depression".
"America's going to go through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for," said Celente, noting that people's refusal to acknowledge that America was even in a recession highlights how big a problem denial is in being ready for the true scale of the crisis.
Celente, who successfully predicted the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis, the subprime mortgage collapse and the massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar, told UPI in November last year that the following year would be known as "The Panic of 2008," adding that "giants (would) tumble to their deaths," which is exactly what we have witnessed with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and others.
He also said that the dollar would eventually be devalued by as much as 90 per cent.
The consequence of what we have seen unfold this year would lead to a lowering in living standards, Celente predicted a year ago, which is also being borne out by plummeting retail sales figures.
The prospect of revolution was a concept echoed by a British Ministry of Defence report last year, which predicted that within 30 years, the growing gap between the super rich and the middle class, along with an urban underclass threatening social order would mean, "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest."
And that, "The middle classes could become a revolutionary class."
In a separate recent interview, Celente went further on the subject of revolution in America.
"There will be a revolution in this country," he said. "It’s not going to come yet, but it’s going to come down the line and we’re going to see a third party and this was the catalyst for it:
the takeover of Washington, D. C., in broad daylight by Wall Street in this bloodless coup. And it will happen as conditions continue to worsen."
"The first thing to do is organize with tax revolts. That’s going to be the big one because people can’t afford to pay more school tax, property tax, any kind of tax.
You’re going to start seeing those kinds of protests start to develop.""It’s going to be very bleak. Very sad. And there is going to be a lot of homeless, the likes of which we have never seen before.
Tent cities are already sprouting up around the country and we’re going to see many more.""We’re going to start seeing huge areas of vacant real estate and squatters living in them as well.
It’s going to be a picture the likes of which Americans are not going to be used to. It’s going to come as a shock and with it, there’s going to be a lot of crime.
And the crime is going to be a lot worse than it was before because in the last 1929 Depression, people’s minds weren’t wrecked on all these modern drugs – over-the-counter drugs, or crystal meth or whatever it might be.
So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody’s comprehension."
"When CNN wants to know about the Top Trends, we ask Gerald Celente."— CNN Headline News"
A network of 25 experts whose range of specialties would rival many university faculties."— The Economist"
Gerald Celente has a knack for getting the zeitgeist right."— USA Today"
There’s not a better trend forecaster than Gerald Celente. The man knows what he’s talking about."- CNBC"
Those who take their predictions seriously ... consider the Trends Research Institute."— The Wall Street Journal"
Gerald Celente is always ahead of the curve on trends and uncannily on the mark ... he's one of the most accurate forecasters around."— The Atlanta Journal-Constitution"
Mr. Celente tracks the world’s social, economic and business trends for corporate clients."— The New York Times"
Mr. Celente is a very intelligent guy. We are able to learn about trends from an authority."— 48 Hours, CBS News"
Gerald Celente has a solid track record. He has predicted everything from the 1987 stock market crash and the demise of the Soviet Union to green marketing and corporate downsizing."— The Detroit News"
Gerald Celente forecast the 1987 stock market crash, ‘green marketing,’ and the boom in gourmet coffees."— Chicago Tribune"
The Trends Research Institute is the Standard and Poors of Popular Culture."— The Los Angeles Times"
If Nostradamus were alive today, he'd have a hard time keeping up with Gerald Celente."— New York Post
So there you have it - hardly a nutjob conspiracy theorist blowhard now is he? The price of not heeding his warnings will be far greater than the cost of preparing for the future now. Storable food and gold are two good places to make a start.
Trend forecaster, renowned for being accurate in the past, says....
November 14, 2008 Live Leak
The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012.
Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events, which will send a chill down your spine considering what he told Fox News this week.
Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.
"We're going to see the end of the retail Christmas....we're going to see a fundamental shift take place....putting food on the table is going to be more important that putting gifts under the Christmas tree," said Celente, adding that the situation would be "worse than the Great Depression".
"America's going to go through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for," said Celente, noting that people's refusal to acknowledge that America was even in a recession highlights how big a problem denial is in being ready for the true scale of the crisis.
Celente, who successfully predicted the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis, the subprime mortgage collapse and the massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar, told UPI in November last year that the following year would be known as "The Panic of 2008," adding that "giants (would) tumble to their deaths," which is exactly what we have witnessed with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and others.
He also said that the dollar would eventually be devalued by as much as 90 per cent.
The consequence of what we have seen unfold this year would lead to a lowering in living standards, Celente predicted a year ago, which is also being borne out by plummeting retail sales figures.
The prospect of revolution was a concept echoed by a British Ministry of Defence report last year, which predicted that within 30 years, the growing gap between the super rich and the middle class, along with an urban underclass threatening social order would mean, "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest."
And that, "The middle classes could become a revolutionary class."
In a separate recent interview, Celente went further on the subject of revolution in America.
"There will be a revolution in this country," he said. "It’s not going to come yet, but it’s going to come down the line and we’re going to see a third party and this was the catalyst for it:
the takeover of Washington, D. C., in broad daylight by Wall Street in this bloodless coup. And it will happen as conditions continue to worsen."
"The first thing to do is organize with tax revolts. That’s going to be the big one because people can’t afford to pay more school tax, property tax, any kind of tax.
You’re going to start seeing those kinds of protests start to develop.""It’s going to be very bleak. Very sad. And there is going to be a lot of homeless, the likes of which we have never seen before.
Tent cities are already sprouting up around the country and we’re going to see many more.""We’re going to start seeing huge areas of vacant real estate and squatters living in them as well.
It’s going to be a picture the likes of which Americans are not going to be used to. It’s going to come as a shock and with it, there’s going to be a lot of crime.
And the crime is going to be a lot worse than it was before because in the last 1929 Depression, people’s minds weren’t wrecked on all these modern drugs – over-the-counter drugs, or crystal meth or whatever it might be.
So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody’s comprehension."
===================
"When CNN wants to know about the Top Trends, we ask Gerald Celente."— CNN Headline News"
A network of 25 experts whose range of specialties would rival many university faculties."— The Economist"
Gerald Celente has a knack for getting the zeitgeist right."— USA Today"
There’s not a better trend forecaster than Gerald Celente. The man knows what he’s talking about."- CNBC"
Those who take their predictions seriously ... consider the Trends Research Institute."— The Wall Street Journal"
Gerald Celente is always ahead of the curve on trends and uncannily on the mark ... he's one of the most accurate forecasters around."— The Atlanta Journal-Constitution"
Mr. Celente tracks the world’s social, economic and business trends for corporate clients."— The New York Times"
Mr. Celente is a very intelligent guy. We are able to learn about trends from an authority."— 48 Hours, CBS News"
Gerald Celente has a solid track record. He has predicted everything from the 1987 stock market crash and the demise of the Soviet Union to green marketing and corporate downsizing."— The Detroit News"
Gerald Celente forecast the 1987 stock market crash, ‘green marketing,’ and the boom in gourmet coffees."— Chicago Tribune"
The Trends Research Institute is the Standard and Poors of Popular Culture."— The Los Angeles Times"
If Nostradamus were alive today, he'd have a hard time keeping up with Gerald Celente."— New York Post
So there you have it - hardly a nutjob conspiracy theorist blowhard now is he? The price of not heeding his warnings will be far greater than the cost of preparing for the future now. Storable food and gold are two good places to make a start.
Friday, November 28, 2008
THIS WILL HAPPEN IN THE USA SOON
You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your bedroom door.
Half-awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers.
At least two people have broken into your house and are moving your way. With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it.
In the darkness, you make out two shadows.One holds something that looks like a crowbar. When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike, you raise the shotgun and fire.
The blast knocks both thugs to the floor. One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and lurches outside.
As you pick up the telephone to call police, you know you're in trouble.
In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few that are privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless. Yours was never registered.
Police arrive and inform you that the second burglar has died. They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of a Firearm.
When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will probably plea the case down to manslaughter."What kind of sentence will I get?" you ask.
"Only ten-to-twelve years," he replies, as if that's nothing. "Behave yourself, and you'll be out in seven.
"The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local newspaper.
Somehow, you're portrayed as an eccentric vigilante while the two men you shot are represented as choirboys. Their friends and relatives can't find an unkind word to say about them. Buried deep down in the article, authorities acknowledge that both "victims" have been arrested numerous times.
But the next day's headline says it all: "Lovable Rogue Son Didn't Deserve to Die."
The thieves have been transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters. As the days wear on, the story takes wings. The national media picks it up, then the international media. The surviving burglar has become a folk hero.
Your attorney says the thief is preparing to sue you, and he'll probably win. The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the past and that you've been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects.
After the last break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time. The District Attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the burglars.
A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven't been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently predicted. When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you. Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man.
It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all charges.
The judge sentences you to life in prison.
This case really happened.On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk , England , killed one burglar and wounded a second. In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term.
How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once great British Empire ?
It started with the Pistols Act of 1903. This seemingly reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license.
The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but all firearms except shotguns.
Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns.
Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed Man with a Kalashnikov rifle (AK-47), walked down the streets shooting everyone he saw.
When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead.The British public, already de-sensitized by eighty years of "gun control", demanded even tougher restrictions. (The seizure of all privately owned handguns was the objective even though Ryan used a rifle.)
Nine years later, at Dunblane , Scotland , Thomas Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public school.
For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as mentally unstable, or worse, criminals. Now the press had a real kook with which to beat up law-abiding gun owners. Day after day, week after week, the media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns.
The Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, sealed the fate of the few sidearm still owned by private citizens.
During the years in which the British government incrementally took away most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism.
Authorities refused to grant gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that self-defense was no longer considered a reason to own a gun. Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were released.
Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was quoted as saying, "We cannot have people take the law into their own hands.
"All of Martin's neighbors had been robbed numerous times, and several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear of the consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his collection trashed or stolen by burglars.
When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were given three months to turn them over to local authorities. Being good British subjects, most people obeyed the law. The few who didn't were visited by police and threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they didn't comply.
Police later bragged that they'd taken nearly 200,000 handguns from private citizens.
How did the authorities know who had handguns? The guns had been registered and licensed. Kinda like cars.
Sound familiar?
WAKE UP AMERICA , THIS IS WHY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTION."..it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.."--Samuel Adams
OBAMA'S TRANSITION TEAM DEEPLY QUESTIONS AND REJECTS ANY CANDIDATE FOR OFFICE WHO OWNS A GUN OR HAS FAMILY MEMBERS WHO DO. FOR NOW THEY PROMISE NOT TO TAKE AWAY GUNS BUT WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO HAVE AMMUNITION INSTEAD. MAKING GUNS A USELESS PIECE OF METAL.
WHAT AGENDA DRIVEN POLITICIAN EVER KEPT THIS KIND OF PROMISE?
If you think this is important, please forward to everyone you know.
Half-awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers.
At least two people have broken into your house and are moving your way. With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it.
In the darkness, you make out two shadows.One holds something that looks like a crowbar. When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike, you raise the shotgun and fire.
The blast knocks both thugs to the floor. One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and lurches outside.
As you pick up the telephone to call police, you know you're in trouble.
In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few that are privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless. Yours was never registered.
Police arrive and inform you that the second burglar has died. They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of a Firearm.
When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will probably plea the case down to manslaughter."What kind of sentence will I get?" you ask.
"Only ten-to-twelve years," he replies, as if that's nothing. "Behave yourself, and you'll be out in seven.
"The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local newspaper.
Somehow, you're portrayed as an eccentric vigilante while the two men you shot are represented as choirboys. Their friends and relatives can't find an unkind word to say about them. Buried deep down in the article, authorities acknowledge that both "victims" have been arrested numerous times.
But the next day's headline says it all: "Lovable Rogue Son Didn't Deserve to Die."
The thieves have been transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters. As the days wear on, the story takes wings. The national media picks it up, then the international media. The surviving burglar has become a folk hero.
Your attorney says the thief is preparing to sue you, and he'll probably win. The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the past and that you've been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects.
After the last break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time. The District Attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the burglars.
A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven't been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently predicted. When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you. Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man.
It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all charges.
The judge sentences you to life in prison.
This case really happened.On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk , England , killed one burglar and wounded a second. In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term.
How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once great British Empire ?
It started with the Pistols Act of 1903. This seemingly reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license.
The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but all firearms except shotguns.
Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns.
Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed Man with a Kalashnikov rifle (AK-47), walked down the streets shooting everyone he saw.
When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead.The British public, already de-sensitized by eighty years of "gun control", demanded even tougher restrictions. (The seizure of all privately owned handguns was the objective even though Ryan used a rifle.)
Nine years later, at Dunblane , Scotland , Thomas Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public school.
For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as mentally unstable, or worse, criminals. Now the press had a real kook with which to beat up law-abiding gun owners. Day after day, week after week, the media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns.
The Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, sealed the fate of the few sidearm still owned by private citizens.
During the years in which the British government incrementally took away most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism.
Authorities refused to grant gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that self-defense was no longer considered a reason to own a gun. Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were released.
Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was quoted as saying, "We cannot have people take the law into their own hands.
"All of Martin's neighbors had been robbed numerous times, and several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear of the consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his collection trashed or stolen by burglars.
When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were given three months to turn them over to local authorities. Being good British subjects, most people obeyed the law. The few who didn't were visited by police and threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they didn't comply.
Police later bragged that they'd taken nearly 200,000 handguns from private citizens.
How did the authorities know who had handguns? The guns had been registered and licensed. Kinda like cars.
Sound familiar?
WAKE UP AMERICA , THIS IS WHY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTION."..it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.."--Samuel Adams
OBAMA'S TRANSITION TEAM DEEPLY QUESTIONS AND REJECTS ANY CANDIDATE FOR OFFICE WHO OWNS A GUN OR HAS FAMILY MEMBERS WHO DO. FOR NOW THEY PROMISE NOT TO TAKE AWAY GUNS BUT WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO HAVE AMMUNITION INSTEAD. MAKING GUNS A USELESS PIECE OF METAL.
WHAT AGENDA DRIVEN POLITICIAN EVER KEPT THIS KIND OF PROMISE?
If you think this is important, please forward to everyone you know.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
AFRICA WELCOMES CHINESE
CLICK ON TITLE TO READ GOOD ARTICLE
By Peter Hitchens
I set out on a small African voyage to see how China’s initiative looked at close quarters. I did not know before I began that my companions and I would come alarmingly close to death during that journey, though I suspected it might have its awkward moments.
By Peter Hitchens
I set out on a small African voyage to see how China’s initiative looked at close quarters. I did not know before I began that my companions and I would come alarmingly close to death during that journey, though I suspected it might have its awkward moments.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
RANDOM WORLD VIEWS
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/business/economy/21oil.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&ref=business&pagewanted=print
World Oil Falling possibly to $30 a barrel
===========
Mexico - Municipality Acquires 600 Firearms for Public Security Officers
http://www.diario.com.mx/nota.php?notaid=0c5ff5e725c040a8724ff8276ac50026
===========
Mexico - More Than 4,000 Deaths In Mexico Associated with Drug Trafficking 2008
http://www.vanguardia.com.mx/diario/noticia/seguridad/nacional/supera_mexico_los_cuatro_mil_ejecutados/255211
==========
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/estados/70107.html
Approximately 50 armed men dressed in black and blue wearing military gear and traveling in 15 pickup trucks traveled to the agricultural camp of La Guajira in Culican, Sinaloa and kidnapped 27 workers, most of them from the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero. The operation was conducted within 15 minutes and only 27 workers were selected out of the group.
The kidnappers left the area via Highway 20 in the cover of darkness. The workers were contracted to harvest vegetables for exportation.
=========
http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=14792<http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=14792>
Use of Nuclear Weapons More Likely in Future: US intelligence21/11/2008WASHINGTON (AFP) - The use of nuclear weapons will grow increasinglylikely by 2025, according to a bleak US intelligence report that warnsthat US global dominance is likely to weaken over the next two decades.
===========
U.S. Consulate General in Guayaquil Warden Message
https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=93575
The U.S. Consulate General and U.S. Embassy Ecuador wishes to inform American citizens visiting or resident in Ecuador to use extreme caution when sailing near the coast of Ecuador, as there was a recent incident of armed robbery at sea off the coast of Ensenada de Pedernales, Manabi by modern day pirates.
Recreational craft, merchant vessels and fishing boats all are at risk for attack by pirates. This incident highlights the continuing danger of maritime travel off the coast of Ecuador. If transit off the coast is unavoidable, it is strongly recommended that vessels travel in convoys, transit over the horizon from land, and maintain good communication at all times.
===========
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/11/22/worldupdates/2008-11-22T165559Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-366406-1&sec=Worldupdates http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/11/22/worldupdates/2008-11-22T165559Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-366406-1&sec=Worldupdates
BEIJING (Reuters) - China could soon execute a man sentenced to deathlast year for spying for diplomatic and political rival Taiwan, humanrights group Amnesty International said.
=========
http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=787238<http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=787238>
IAEA report unacceptable: Rafsanjani
TEHRAN, Nov. 21 (MNA) -- Expediency Council Chairman Akbar HashemiRafsanjani has said that Iran believes that the recent IAEA report onits nuclear activities is unacceptable.
=========
A top Iranian commander said on Tuesday that the Islamic republic's air force has built up a "solid barrier"to defend the country's airspace, Iran's English-language satellitechannel Press TV reported.
==========
http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=787237<http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=787237>
Cleric Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Alamolhoda saidit is credulous to trust the next U.S. administration to fulfill itspromises to change its strategy towards the Middle East.
"The society should know that it is foolish to think that a change inthe U.S. governing body will change the country's strategy towardsus," said the cleric in reference to U.S. President-elect Barak Obama's vows that he will make a fundamental change in the U.S.strategies.
===========
Venezuela - Cult of the Thugs
November 21, 2008
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/ontv/unreported_world/venezuela+cult+of+the+thugs/2827492
This week's Unreported World reveals how Venezuelans are increasingly turning to a mystical cult that worships the spirits of dead Robin Hood-style gangsters as they seek supernatural protection from a crime wave that the police seem unable to contain.
===========
World Oil Falling possibly to $30 a barrel
===========
Mexico - Municipality Acquires 600 Firearms for Public Security Officers
http://www.diario.com.mx/nota.php?notaid=0c5ff5e725c040a8724ff8276ac50026
===========
Mexico - More Than 4,000 Deaths In Mexico Associated with Drug Trafficking 2008
http://www.vanguardia.com.mx/diario/noticia/seguridad/nacional/supera_mexico_los_cuatro_mil_ejecutados/255211
==========
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/estados/70107.html
Approximately 50 armed men dressed in black and blue wearing military gear and traveling in 15 pickup trucks traveled to the agricultural camp of La Guajira in Culican, Sinaloa and kidnapped 27 workers, most of them from the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero. The operation was conducted within 15 minutes and only 27 workers were selected out of the group.
The kidnappers left the area via Highway 20 in the cover of darkness. The workers were contracted to harvest vegetables for exportation.
=========
http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=14792<http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=14792>
Use of Nuclear Weapons More Likely in Future: US intelligence21/11/2008WASHINGTON (AFP) - The use of nuclear weapons will grow increasinglylikely by 2025, according to a bleak US intelligence report that warnsthat US global dominance is likely to weaken over the next two decades.
===========
U.S. Consulate General in Guayaquil Warden Message
https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=93575
The U.S. Consulate General and U.S. Embassy Ecuador wishes to inform American citizens visiting or resident in Ecuador to use extreme caution when sailing near the coast of Ecuador, as there was a recent incident of armed robbery at sea off the coast of Ensenada de Pedernales, Manabi by modern day pirates.
Recreational craft, merchant vessels and fishing boats all are at risk for attack by pirates. This incident highlights the continuing danger of maritime travel off the coast of Ecuador. If transit off the coast is unavoidable, it is strongly recommended that vessels travel in convoys, transit over the horizon from land, and maintain good communication at all times.
===========
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/11/22/worldupdates/2008-11-22T165559Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-366406-1&sec=Worldupdates http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/11/22/worldupdates/2008-11-22T165559Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-366406-1&sec=Worldupdates
BEIJING (Reuters) - China could soon execute a man sentenced to deathlast year for spying for diplomatic and political rival Taiwan, humanrights group Amnesty International said.
=========
http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=787238<http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=787238>
IAEA report unacceptable: Rafsanjani
TEHRAN, Nov. 21 (MNA) -- Expediency Council Chairman Akbar HashemiRafsanjani has said that Iran believes that the recent IAEA report onits nuclear activities is unacceptable.
=========
A top Iranian commander said on Tuesday that the Islamic republic's air force has built up a "solid barrier"to defend the country's airspace, Iran's English-language satellitechannel Press TV reported.
==========
http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=787237<http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=787237>
Cleric Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Alamolhoda saidit is credulous to trust the next U.S. administration to fulfill itspromises to change its strategy towards the Middle East.
"The society should know that it is foolish to think that a change inthe U.S. governing body will change the country's strategy towardsus," said the cleric in reference to U.S. President-elect Barak Obama's vows that he will make a fundamental change in the U.S.strategies.
===========
Venezuela - Cult of the Thugs
November 21, 2008
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/ontv/unreported_world/venezuela+cult+of+the+thugs/2827492
This week's Unreported World reveals how Venezuelans are increasingly turning to a mystical cult that worships the spirits of dead Robin Hood-style gangsters as they seek supernatural protection from a crime wave that the police seem unable to contain.
===========
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
FREEZING THE BALLS OFF A BRASS MONKEY
http://safle.org/wordpress/2007/04/26/brass-monkeys-lewd-sayings-and-urban-legends.html
Brass Monkeys, Lewd Sayings and Urban Legends
by Stephen
There are a number of sites around which retell a piece of naval history. For instance this one on myspace:
It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannonballs near the cannon on war ships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the problem. The best storage method devised was to stack them as a square based pyramid, with one ball on top, resting on four, resting on nine, which rested on sixteen.
Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem — how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate with 16 round indentations, called a Monkey. But if this plate was made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it.
READ THE REST AT THE ABOVE LINK
Brass Monkeys, Lewd Sayings and Urban Legends
by Stephen
There are a number of sites around which retell a piece of naval history. For instance this one on myspace:
It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannonballs near the cannon on war ships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the problem. The best storage method devised was to stack them as a square based pyramid, with one ball on top, resting on four, resting on nine, which rested on sixteen.
Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem — how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate with 16 round indentations, called a Monkey. But if this plate was made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it.
READ THE REST AT THE ABOVE LINK
INFO ON PAPER SERIOUS SECURITY BREACH
Cybereye On paper, a potential risk
http://www.gcn.com/cgi-bin/udt/im.display.printable?client.id=gcn&story.id=47570By William Jackson
THE WORD DATA stirs thoughts of bits and bytes stored on disks, hard drives and tape. We often forget, especially if we deal with information technology issues all day, that data also exists on paper and that the sensitive information it contains could also be at risk of breaches.
A newly formed group, the Alliance for Secure Business Information, recently released the results of a survey that found that nearly half of data breaches reported by respondents involved paper documents. True, that means that more than half of the breaches did not involve paper, but it still is a reminder that information security policies must take paper documents into account.
The detailed results of surveys such as ASBI’s “Security of Paper Documents in the Workplace” might be taken with a grain of salt. One of the founding members of the organization is Fellowes, a manufacturer of paper shredders.
Not that there is anything wrong with that, but you might expect a bit of a bias in its approach to the subject. Other members are the Ponemon Institute, which advances privacy management issues; the Identity Theft Resource Center, which focuses on identity theft; and John Sileo, who speaks on business security.
The survey produced a response rate of only about 6 percent. Still, that was 819 respondents — 14 percent of them in government — and ASBI claims a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent in its results.
Biases and margins of error aside, it is hard not to agree that a lot of any organization’s data exists in paper form. Despite the increased use of electronic media, the long-anticipated paperless office has not arrived and does not appear to be getting close.
Any employee with an interest in the happenings of an organization knows that the slush basket of the office printer is a bountiful resource, as is any unattended copier or fax machine. A more dedicated seeker of confidential information can find troves of information in waste baskets, desktops and filing cabinets.
Electronic data gets a lot of attention, and rightly so, because it can be accessed remotely and easily copied, transmitted, deleted or exposed on a wholesale scale.
However, that is no reason not to pay attention to data on paper. In the ASBI report, 56 percent of respondents said controlling access to paper documents is more difficult than controlling electronic access, and 61 percent said they do not have the resources and controls needed to secure paper documents.
Trash bins were listed as the spot where paper is most at risk, and in what must be a blow to Fellowes, only 35 percent reported that paper is routinely shredded.
In addition to more shredders, ASBI recommends some common-sense practices to improve security, including better budgets and support from senior management for strict enforcement of document-handling policies, rigorous procedures for disposing of documents and accountability of managers for securing files.
http://www.gcn.com/cgi-bin/udt/im.display.printable?client.id=gcn&story.id=47570By William Jackson
THE WORD DATA stirs thoughts of bits and bytes stored on disks, hard drives and tape. We often forget, especially if we deal with information technology issues all day, that data also exists on paper and that the sensitive information it contains could also be at risk of breaches.
A newly formed group, the Alliance for Secure Business Information, recently released the results of a survey that found that nearly half of data breaches reported by respondents involved paper documents. True, that means that more than half of the breaches did not involve paper, but it still is a reminder that information security policies must take paper documents into account.
The detailed results of surveys such as ASBI’s “Security of Paper Documents in the Workplace” might be taken with a grain of salt. One of the founding members of the organization is Fellowes, a manufacturer of paper shredders.
Not that there is anything wrong with that, but you might expect a bit of a bias in its approach to the subject. Other members are the Ponemon Institute, which advances privacy management issues; the Identity Theft Resource Center, which focuses on identity theft; and John Sileo, who speaks on business security.
The survey produced a response rate of only about 6 percent. Still, that was 819 respondents — 14 percent of them in government — and ASBI claims a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent in its results.
Biases and margins of error aside, it is hard not to agree that a lot of any organization’s data exists in paper form. Despite the increased use of electronic media, the long-anticipated paperless office has not arrived and does not appear to be getting close.
Any employee with an interest in the happenings of an organization knows that the slush basket of the office printer is a bountiful resource, as is any unattended copier or fax machine. A more dedicated seeker of confidential information can find troves of information in waste baskets, desktops and filing cabinets.
Electronic data gets a lot of attention, and rightly so, because it can be accessed remotely and easily copied, transmitted, deleted or exposed on a wholesale scale.
However, that is no reason not to pay attention to data on paper. In the ASBI report, 56 percent of respondents said controlling access to paper documents is more difficult than controlling electronic access, and 61 percent said they do not have the resources and controls needed to secure paper documents.
Trash bins were listed as the spot where paper is most at risk, and in what must be a blow to Fellowes, only 35 percent reported that paper is routinely shredded.
In addition to more shredders, ASBI recommends some common-sense practices to improve security, including better budgets and support from senior management for strict enforcement of document-handling policies, rigorous procedures for disposing of documents and accountability of managers for securing files.
Monday, November 17, 2008
OBAMA MUST STAND UP NOW OR STEP DOWN
By Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Ph.D., J.D.
October 29, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
(Somewhat dated, written before the election but highly informative)
America is facing potentially the gravest constitutional crisis in her history.
Barack Obama must either stand up in a public forum and prove, with conclusive documentary evidence, that he is “a natural born Citizen” of the United States who has not renounced his American citizenship—or he must step down as the Democratic Party’s candidate for President of the United States—preferably before the election is held, and in any event before the Electoral College meets.
Because, pursuant to the Constitution, only “a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of th[e] Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President” (Article II, Section 1, Clause 4). And Obama clearly was not “a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of th[e] Constitution.”
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL EXCELLENT ARTICLE
October 29, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
(Somewhat dated, written before the election but highly informative)
America is facing potentially the gravest constitutional crisis in her history.
Barack Obama must either stand up in a public forum and prove, with conclusive documentary evidence, that he is “a natural born Citizen” of the United States who has not renounced his American citizenship—or he must step down as the Democratic Party’s candidate for President of the United States—preferably before the election is held, and in any event before the Electoral College meets.
Because, pursuant to the Constitution, only “a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of th[e] Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President” (Article II, Section 1, Clause 4). And Obama clearly was not “a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of th[e] Constitution.”
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL EXCELLENT ARTICLE
Thursday, November 13, 2008
GOODBYE AMERICA, YOU ARE GOING, GOING, GONE FOREVER
The night we waved goodbye to America... our last best hope on Earth
Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column
Anyone would think we had just elected a hip, skinny and youthful replacement for God, with a plan to modernise Heaven and Hell – or that at the very least John Lennon had come back from the dead.
The swooning frenzy over the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States must be one of the most absurd waves of self-deception and swirling fantasy ever to sweep through an advanced civilisation. At least Mandela-worship – its nearest equivalent – is focused on a man who actually did something.
I really don't see how the Obama devotees can ever in future mock the Moonies, the Scientologists or people who claim to have been abducted in flying saucers. This is a cult like the one which grew up around Princess Diana, bereft of reason and hostile to facts.
It already has all the signs of such a thing. The newspapers which recorded Obama's victory have become valuable relics. You may buy Obama picture books and Obama calendars and if there isn't yet a children's picture version of his story, there soon will be.
Proper books, recording his sordid associates, his cowardly voting record, his astonishingly militant commitment to unrestricted abortion and his blundering trip to Africa, are little-read and hard to find.
If you can believe that this undistinguished and conventionally Left-wing machine politician is a sort of secular saviour, then you can believe anything. He plainly doesn't believe it himself. His cliche-stuffed, PC clunker of an acceptance speech suffered badly from nerves. It was what you would expect from someone who knew he'd promised too much and that from now on the easy bit was over.
He needn't worry too much. From now on, the rough boys and girls of America's Democratic Party apparatus, many recycled from Bill Clinton's stained and crumpled entourage, will crowd round him, to collect the rich spoils of his victory and also tell him what to do, which is what he is used to.
Just look at his sermon by the shores of Lake Michigan. He really did talk about a 'new dawn', and a 'timeless creed' (which was 'yes, we can'). He proclaimed that 'change has come'. He revealed that, despite having edited the Harvard Law Review, he doesn't know what 'enormity' means.
He reached depths of oratorical drivel never even plumbed by our own Mr Blair, burbling about putting our hands on the arc of history (or was it the ark of history?) and bending it once more toward the hope of a better day (Don't try this at home).
I am not making this up. No wonder that awful old hack Jesse Jackson sobbed as he watched. How he must wish he, too, could get away with this sort of stuff.
And it was interesting how the President-elect failed to lift his admiring audience by repeated – but rather hesitant – invocations of the brainless slogan he was forced by his minders to adopt against his will – 'Yes, we can'.
They were supposed to thunder 'Yes, we can!' back at him, but they just wouldn't join in. No wonder. Yes we can what exactly? Go home and keep a close eye on the tax rate, is my advice.
He'd have been better off bursting into 'I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony' which contains roughly the same message and might have attracted some valuable commercial sponsorship.
Perhaps, being a Chicago crowd, they knew some of the things that 52.5 per cent of America prefers not to know.
They know Obama is the obedient servant of one of the most squalid and unshakeable political machines in America.
They know that one of his alarmingly close associates, a state-subsidised slum landlord called Tony Rezko, has been convicted on fraud and corruption charges.
They also know the US is just as segregated as it was before Martin Luther King – in schools, streets, neighbourhoods, holidays, even in its TV-watching habits and its choice of fast-food joint.
The difference is that it is now done by unspoken agreement rather than by law.
If Mr Obama's election had threatened any of that, his feel-good white supporters would have scuttled off and voted for John McCain, or practically anyone. But it doesn't.
Mr. Obama, thanks mainly to the now-departed grandmother he alternately praised as a saint and denounced as a racial bigot, has the huge advantages of an expensive private education.
He did not have to grow up in the badlands of useless schools, shattered families and gangs which are the lot of so many young black men of his generation.
If the nonsensical claims made for this election were true, then every positive discrimination programme aimed at helping black people into jobs they otherwise wouldn't get should be abandoned forthwith. Nothing of the kind will happen. On the contrary, there will probably be more of them.
And if those who voted for Obama were all proving their anti-racist nobility, that presumably means that those many millions who didn't vote for him were proving themselves to be hopeless bigots. This is obviously untrue.
I was in Washington DC the night of the election. America's beautiful capital has a sad secret. It is perhaps the most racially divided city in the world, with 15th Street – which runs due north from the White House – the unofficial frontier between black and white.
But, like so much of America, it also now has a new division, and one which is in many ways much more important. I had attended an election-night party in a smart and liberal white area, but was staying the night less than a mile away on the edge of a suburb where Spanish is spoken as much as English, plus a smattering of tongues from such places as Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan.
As I walked, I crossed another of Washington's secret frontiers. There had been a few white people blowing car horns and shouting, as the result became clear. But among the Mexicans, Salvadorans and the other Third World nationalities, there was something like ecstasy.
They grasped the real significance of this moment. They knew it meant that America had finally switched sides in a global cultural war.
Forget the Cold War, or even the Iraq War. The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world.
Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving its own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part Muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.
These strengths had been fading for some time, mainly due to poorly controlled mass immigration and to the march of political correctness. They had also been weakened by the failure of America's conservative party – the Republicans – to fight on the cultural and moral fronts.
They preferred to posture on the world stage. Scared of confronting Left-wing teachers and sexual revolutionaries at home, they could order soldiers to be brave on their behalf in far-off deserts. And now the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad.
Where now is our last best hope on Earth?
Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column
Anyone would think we had just elected a hip, skinny and youthful replacement for God, with a plan to modernise Heaven and Hell – or that at the very least John Lennon had come back from the dead.
The swooning frenzy over the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States must be one of the most absurd waves of self-deception and swirling fantasy ever to sweep through an advanced civilisation. At least Mandela-worship – its nearest equivalent – is focused on a man who actually did something.
I really don't see how the Obama devotees can ever in future mock the Moonies, the Scientologists or people who claim to have been abducted in flying saucers. This is a cult like the one which grew up around Princess Diana, bereft of reason and hostile to facts.
It already has all the signs of such a thing. The newspapers which recorded Obama's victory have become valuable relics. You may buy Obama picture books and Obama calendars and if there isn't yet a children's picture version of his story, there soon will be.
Proper books, recording his sordid associates, his cowardly voting record, his astonishingly militant commitment to unrestricted abortion and his blundering trip to Africa, are little-read and hard to find.
If you can believe that this undistinguished and conventionally Left-wing machine politician is a sort of secular saviour, then you can believe anything. He plainly doesn't believe it himself. His cliche-stuffed, PC clunker of an acceptance speech suffered badly from nerves. It was what you would expect from someone who knew he'd promised too much and that from now on the easy bit was over.
He needn't worry too much. From now on, the rough boys and girls of America's Democratic Party apparatus, many recycled from Bill Clinton's stained and crumpled entourage, will crowd round him, to collect the rich spoils of his victory and also tell him what to do, which is what he is used to.
Just look at his sermon by the shores of Lake Michigan. He really did talk about a 'new dawn', and a 'timeless creed' (which was 'yes, we can'). He proclaimed that 'change has come'. He revealed that, despite having edited the Harvard Law Review, he doesn't know what 'enormity' means.
He reached depths of oratorical drivel never even plumbed by our own Mr Blair, burbling about putting our hands on the arc of history (or was it the ark of history?) and bending it once more toward the hope of a better day (Don't try this at home).
I am not making this up. No wonder that awful old hack Jesse Jackson sobbed as he watched. How he must wish he, too, could get away with this sort of stuff.
And it was interesting how the President-elect failed to lift his admiring audience by repeated – but rather hesitant – invocations of the brainless slogan he was forced by his minders to adopt against his will – 'Yes, we can'.
They were supposed to thunder 'Yes, we can!' back at him, but they just wouldn't join in. No wonder. Yes we can what exactly? Go home and keep a close eye on the tax rate, is my advice.
He'd have been better off bursting into 'I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony' which contains roughly the same message and might have attracted some valuable commercial sponsorship.
Perhaps, being a Chicago crowd, they knew some of the things that 52.5 per cent of America prefers not to know.
They know Obama is the obedient servant of one of the most squalid and unshakeable political machines in America.
They know that one of his alarmingly close associates, a state-subsidised slum landlord called Tony Rezko, has been convicted on fraud and corruption charges.
They also know the US is just as segregated as it was before Martin Luther King – in schools, streets, neighbourhoods, holidays, even in its TV-watching habits and its choice of fast-food joint.
The difference is that it is now done by unspoken agreement rather than by law.
If Mr Obama's election had threatened any of that, his feel-good white supporters would have scuttled off and voted for John McCain, or practically anyone. But it doesn't.
Mr. Obama, thanks mainly to the now-departed grandmother he alternately praised as a saint and denounced as a racial bigot, has the huge advantages of an expensive private education.
He did not have to grow up in the badlands of useless schools, shattered families and gangs which are the lot of so many young black men of his generation.
If the nonsensical claims made for this election were true, then every positive discrimination programme aimed at helping black people into jobs they otherwise wouldn't get should be abandoned forthwith. Nothing of the kind will happen. On the contrary, there will probably be more of them.
And if those who voted for Obama were all proving their anti-racist nobility, that presumably means that those many millions who didn't vote for him were proving themselves to be hopeless bigots. This is obviously untrue.
I was in Washington DC the night of the election. America's beautiful capital has a sad secret. It is perhaps the most racially divided city in the world, with 15th Street – which runs due north from the White House – the unofficial frontier between black and white.
But, like so much of America, it also now has a new division, and one which is in many ways much more important. I had attended an election-night party in a smart and liberal white area, but was staying the night less than a mile away on the edge of a suburb where Spanish is spoken as much as English, plus a smattering of tongues from such places as Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan.
As I walked, I crossed another of Washington's secret frontiers. There had been a few white people blowing car horns and shouting, as the result became clear. But among the Mexicans, Salvadorans and the other Third World nationalities, there was something like ecstasy.
They grasped the real significance of this moment. They knew it meant that America had finally switched sides in a global cultural war.
Forget the Cold War, or even the Iraq War. The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world.
Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving its own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part Muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.
These strengths had been fading for some time, mainly due to poorly controlled mass immigration and to the march of political correctness. They had also been weakened by the failure of America's conservative party – the Republicans – to fight on the cultural and moral fronts.
They preferred to posture on the world stage. Scared of confronting Left-wing teachers and sexual revolutionaries at home, they could order soldiers to be brave on their behalf in far-off deserts. And now the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad.
Where now is our last best hope on Earth?
Sunday, November 9, 2008
MOSLEMS REJECTED IN CANADIAN 2008 ELECTIONS
by Raheel Raza
American Thinker
If you are Canadian and Islamist, you probably voted for the New Democratic Party (NDP), which won 18.2% of the vote on October 14, 2008.
This was an increase in of about 1% in the vote and led to seven more seats from the 2006 elections.
However, the party could not budge itself from its permanent 4th place in Canada's parliament. Endorsed by the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC), the left-leaning NDP has shown an incredible lack of understanding of the Islamist agenda and how soft jihadis are using democratic institutions by manipulating our respect for multiculturalism.
As a political ideology, in the long-term Islamism seeks to establish an Islamic state in the North America, but this is barely mentioned by the suave and polished young Islamists who appear in expensive suits and with a flourish of legalese and the right disarming accents. While a Taliban style overthrow is unlikely, in the short term, Islamists hope to fundamentally change western foreign policy in favor of the foreign governments that fund them and organizations they ideologically adhere to, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
Recognizing this threat, Marc Lebuis, who runs "Point de Bascule", invited moderate Muslims Tarek Fatah, Salim Mansur and me to participate in a conference in Montreal to address the infiltration of Islamists into the Canadian political system, where the first real arena has been the NDP.
The NDP was founded by social democrats, and was originally, as noted by Mansur, a critical opponent of Communism, and a key element in "denying communists in Canada the opportunity to acquire any shred of legitimacy by posing as defenders of the working people."
Today, however, it allows itself to be used by an equally potent ideological enemy, radical Islamism. The working class in the West now includes immigrants, who as ethnic and religious minorities complain of the classic oppression against which the NDP wishes to be a voice of protest.
But, the NDP fails to distinguish between the socio-economic concerns of Muslim immigrants in Canada and the well-funded, ideological organizations that purport to speak for them.
The Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) is one such organization. The President of CIC, Mohammad El-Masry, is notorious for his anti-Semitic statements, his call for Sharia courts in Canada, and agitation for an anti-Israeli foreign policy.
Canadian Muslims mattered in this national election because they were, some argued, a swing vote in certain ridings. El-Masry endorsed the NDP, and encouraged voter registration to bolster it. Jack Layton should have repudiated Elmasry's support but did not.
Toronto NDP candidate and lawyer, El Farouk Khaki caused a stir recently when he defended a Muslim youth convicted for his involvement in a terrorist camp in Canada. After the judge threw out the youth's defense that "no real Toronto terrorist group existed because its goals were too fanciful to be achieved," Khaki stated that if you are Muslim in Canadian courts you will be presumed guilty until proven innocent.
He went on to accuse the judge of having an anti-Muslim bias. This plays into the victimhood complex Islamists want Muslims in the West to fall into. Khaki was not chastised by NDP leader Jack Layton or any other party candidate.
In Montreal, the NDP paraded Samira Laouni, as "the first veiled candidate," in the province. She ran from the riding of Bourassa and made no attempt to hide her support for what she referred to as "real Shariah." She did not win. Jack Layton should have vetted out NDP candidates who favor Sharia like Laouni, whom Mansur has called a "CIC operative."
It seems strange that with Canadian forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, the same support for Taliban style orthodoxy is allowed in Canada.
Besides pro-Sharia politicians like Laouni, Islamists are spreading their message on the street. In Mississauga, Ontario, a woman by the name of Farhat Hashmi runs an Islamic school for girls.
Hashmi wears a full niqab (face covering) and encourages young girls to emulate her. She is known for promoting a very conservative Islamic ideology that is based on Wahhabism.
She, like other Islamists is in favor of Sharia in Canada.
The results of the Canadian election were an eye-opener because all Muslim candidates from all parties lost, with the exception of Yasmin Ratansi, who for some time has been trying to distance herself from her Muslim identity despite being the first Muslim woman to get elected to the Canadian parliament..
This is a clear indication that because of the incessant and unreasonable demands by Islamists, Canadians punished all Muslims. Most ordinary Canadians, well-meaning and decent folks, are fed up with demands for unreasonable accommodation and are no longer willing to put up with politics disguised as religion in the public sphere.
Although Canadians are politically correct and diplomatic in public, the election result shows their true feeling about the trend that Muslims who may have an Islamist agenda are not welcome in Canada. Of course, the usual suspects are already screaming Islamophobia - again.
There is no rampant Islamophobia in Canada - only an attempt at gradual Islamization.
Yasmeen Ratansi was first elected in 2004 but when she sought the nomination of her party, some Imams denounced her as not being Muslim enough because she did not cover her hair and wore skirts.
She is currently Chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of women.
In two districts (ridings as they are called in Canada) the Muslim candidates who lost were openly hostile to the Islamist agenda. Wajid Khan in Toronto and Rahim Jaffer in Edmonton.
It is rumored that the full force of the Islamist establishment and the mosque structure came out to defeat these two Muslims because they were seen, in the words of one cynic "too good looking to be considered authentic Muslims".
Elsewhere, a leading supporter of the Islamist causes and past Member of Parliament, Omar Alghabra, was defeated. He has previously condemned Canadian newspapers that called Hamas and Hezbollah "terrorist" organizations, advocated the complete repeal of Canada's anti-terrorist laws, and supported Sharia law in Ontario.
Throughout the urban districts of Canada, many Islamists tried to sneak through but met with thumping defeats. Along with the Islamists, many secular and liberal minded progressive Muslims were also trounced in what may be described as "collateral damage."
The lesson for all Muslims is written on the wall: If they are unwilling to stand up to the Islamists in their communities and stop the influence of Saudi Arabia and Iran, we will all suffer because of the actions of a few.
Raheel Raza writes for Islamist Watch, a project at the Middle East Forum
American Thinker
If you are Canadian and Islamist, you probably voted for the New Democratic Party (NDP), which won 18.2% of the vote on October 14, 2008.
This was an increase in of about 1% in the vote and led to seven more seats from the 2006 elections.
However, the party could not budge itself from its permanent 4th place in Canada's parliament. Endorsed by the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC), the left-leaning NDP has shown an incredible lack of understanding of the Islamist agenda and how soft jihadis are using democratic institutions by manipulating our respect for multiculturalism.
As a political ideology, in the long-term Islamism seeks to establish an Islamic state in the North America, but this is barely mentioned by the suave and polished young Islamists who appear in expensive suits and with a flourish of legalese and the right disarming accents. While a Taliban style overthrow is unlikely, in the short term, Islamists hope to fundamentally change western foreign policy in favor of the foreign governments that fund them and organizations they ideologically adhere to, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
Recognizing this threat, Marc Lebuis, who runs "Point de Bascule", invited moderate Muslims Tarek Fatah, Salim Mansur and me to participate in a conference in Montreal to address the infiltration of Islamists into the Canadian political system, where the first real arena has been the NDP.
The NDP was founded by social democrats, and was originally, as noted by Mansur, a critical opponent of Communism, and a key element in "denying communists in Canada the opportunity to acquire any shred of legitimacy by posing as defenders of the working people."
Today, however, it allows itself to be used by an equally potent ideological enemy, radical Islamism. The working class in the West now includes immigrants, who as ethnic and religious minorities complain of the classic oppression against which the NDP wishes to be a voice of protest.
But, the NDP fails to distinguish between the socio-economic concerns of Muslim immigrants in Canada and the well-funded, ideological organizations that purport to speak for them.
The Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) is one such organization. The President of CIC, Mohammad El-Masry, is notorious for his anti-Semitic statements, his call for Sharia courts in Canada, and agitation for an anti-Israeli foreign policy.
Canadian Muslims mattered in this national election because they were, some argued, a swing vote in certain ridings. El-Masry endorsed the NDP, and encouraged voter registration to bolster it. Jack Layton should have repudiated Elmasry's support but did not.
Toronto NDP candidate and lawyer, El Farouk Khaki caused a stir recently when he defended a Muslim youth convicted for his involvement in a terrorist camp in Canada. After the judge threw out the youth's defense that "no real Toronto terrorist group existed because its goals were too fanciful to be achieved," Khaki stated that if you are Muslim in Canadian courts you will be presumed guilty until proven innocent.
He went on to accuse the judge of having an anti-Muslim bias. This plays into the victimhood complex Islamists want Muslims in the West to fall into. Khaki was not chastised by NDP leader Jack Layton or any other party candidate.
In Montreal, the NDP paraded Samira Laouni, as "the first veiled candidate," in the province. She ran from the riding of Bourassa and made no attempt to hide her support for what she referred to as "real Shariah." She did not win. Jack Layton should have vetted out NDP candidates who favor Sharia like Laouni, whom Mansur has called a "CIC operative."
It seems strange that with Canadian forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, the same support for Taliban style orthodoxy is allowed in Canada.
Besides pro-Sharia politicians like Laouni, Islamists are spreading their message on the street. In Mississauga, Ontario, a woman by the name of Farhat Hashmi runs an Islamic school for girls.
Hashmi wears a full niqab (face covering) and encourages young girls to emulate her. She is known for promoting a very conservative Islamic ideology that is based on Wahhabism.
She, like other Islamists is in favor of Sharia in Canada.
The results of the Canadian election were an eye-opener because all Muslim candidates from all parties lost, with the exception of Yasmin Ratansi, who for some time has been trying to distance herself from her Muslim identity despite being the first Muslim woman to get elected to the Canadian parliament..
This is a clear indication that because of the incessant and unreasonable demands by Islamists, Canadians punished all Muslims. Most ordinary Canadians, well-meaning and decent folks, are fed up with demands for unreasonable accommodation and are no longer willing to put up with politics disguised as religion in the public sphere.
Although Canadians are politically correct and diplomatic in public, the election result shows their true feeling about the trend that Muslims who may have an Islamist agenda are not welcome in Canada. Of course, the usual suspects are already screaming Islamophobia - again.
There is no rampant Islamophobia in Canada - only an attempt at gradual Islamization.
Yasmeen Ratansi was first elected in 2004 but when she sought the nomination of her party, some Imams denounced her as not being Muslim enough because she did not cover her hair and wore skirts.
She is currently Chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of women.
In two districts (ridings as they are called in Canada) the Muslim candidates who lost were openly hostile to the Islamist agenda. Wajid Khan in Toronto and Rahim Jaffer in Edmonton.
It is rumored that the full force of the Islamist establishment and the mosque structure came out to defeat these two Muslims because they were seen, in the words of one cynic "too good looking to be considered authentic Muslims".
Elsewhere, a leading supporter of the Islamist causes and past Member of Parliament, Omar Alghabra, was defeated. He has previously condemned Canadian newspapers that called Hamas and Hezbollah "terrorist" organizations, advocated the complete repeal of Canada's anti-terrorist laws, and supported Sharia law in Ontario.
Throughout the urban districts of Canada, many Islamists tried to sneak through but met with thumping defeats. Along with the Islamists, many secular and liberal minded progressive Muslims were also trounced in what may be described as "collateral damage."
The lesson for all Muslims is written on the wall: If they are unwilling to stand up to the Islamists in their communities and stop the influence of Saudi Arabia and Iran, we will all suffer because of the actions of a few.
Raheel Raza writes for Islamist Watch, a project at the Middle East Forum
Saturday, November 8, 2008
LAWFUL BUT INSIDIOUS JIHAD
Combating radical Islam requires understanding the lawful or peaceful means Islamists use to spread their doctrines.
Islamism is a threat to America because it does not accept the principles of general religious freedom, as protected under the U.S. Constitution.
Rather, it has a totalitarian agenda that does not recognize national boundaries or the separation of religious dictates from the social, political, and economic governance of society – including the private lives of its citizenry. The Islamist view of law is based on Shari'a (Islamic law), not the American Constitution.
The central strategy of Islamists in the West is lawful Jihad, or soft Jihad. This Jihad is non-violent and proposes to work through a society's existing institutions to gain social and political influence, and then introduce Islamic law into society. Specific methods include lobbying, Islamist lawfare, libel tourism, seeking special, unreasonable accommodation in the name of religious freedom, and most importantly, radical missionization.
One of the key tools used by Islamists to spread their message and recruit individuals is that of aggressive proselytizing – thus distinguishing Muslim converts who are on a personal spiritual mission to Islam from those being indoctrinated towards a political ideology is a key task. Combating the latter begins with keeping a vigilant eye on Islamic organizations and the materials they disseminate to potential converts.
http://www.meforum.org/article/2006
======
Islamism is a threat to America because it does not accept the principles of general religious freedom, as protected under the U.S. Constitution.
Rather, it has a totalitarian agenda that does not recognize national boundaries or the separation of religious dictates from the social, political, and economic governance of society – including the private lives of its citizenry. The Islamist view of law is based on Shari'a (Islamic law), not the American Constitution.
The central strategy of Islamists in the West is lawful Jihad, or soft Jihad. This Jihad is non-violent and proposes to work through a society's existing institutions to gain social and political influence, and then introduce Islamic law into society. Specific methods include lobbying, Islamist lawfare, libel tourism, seeking special, unreasonable accommodation in the name of religious freedom, and most importantly, radical missionization.
One of the key tools used by Islamists to spread their message and recruit individuals is that of aggressive proselytizing – thus distinguishing Muslim converts who are on a personal spiritual mission to Islam from those being indoctrinated towards a political ideology is a key task. Combating the latter begins with keeping a vigilant eye on Islamic organizations and the materials they disseminate to potential converts.
http://www.meforum.org/article/2006
======
Sunday, October 26, 2008
NEW BODY ARMOR
October 17, 2008 Military.com
by Christian Lowe
A top designer of flexible body armor similar to the much-vaunted Dragon Skin says he has just tested a new type of ballistic material that is far harder than current plates and can defeat one of the most deadly armor piercing rounds in the world.
And it can do all this at the same weight as a standard Enhanced Small Arms Protective Plate, but in a more flexible and comfortable package, developer Allan Bain claims.
Bain, who body armor experts agree was a founding father -- with Dragon Skin maker Murray Neal -- of the so-called "scalar" armor concept, has developed a new way to forge the ceramic that goes into the bullet-blocking plates, giving it greater density and the ability to be bent into odd shapes.
"This is probably about as cutting edge as it gets," Bain told Military.com during an October 15 phone interview about the new armor, Skaalar Exoskin Gen 4+". "An E-SAPI plate is an inch thick. Then you've got the vest … This [SEG4+] is an inch thick with everything included."
With the help of experts at Georgia Tech University, Bain produces his armored disks in an oven that reaches nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit - nearly half the surface temperature of the sun - to make the ceramic stronger, smaller and without sacrificing weight.
SEG4+ body armor wraps around the wearer like Dragon Skin, weighs about 7.5 pounds per square foot of coverage -- about the same as a standard-issue E-SAPI plate - but delivers far more protection with "gapless, seamless" coverage for high-powered armor piercing rounds.
The military's current body armor system, with two rigid front and back pates and two side plates, leaves open areas with no defense against rifle rounds.
Costs and concerns
But don't get your hopes up that SEG4+ will be on order anytime soon for troop.
Manufacturing costs is one reason. Army caution is another.
Bain said the armor is currently so expensive to make that only the most elite units would likely be able to afford it. Special Forces may order and use armor the regular Army doesn't get, and is currently testing this to see of it's something they want.
And officials with the Army's Program Executive Office Soldier confirmed to Military.com that the service was putting its search for flexible armor on hold because it deemed the scalar technology too immature.
But don't tell Bain his armor isn't ready.
"At this point in time, if someone wanted 100 of these we could deliver them," he said.
The best known scalar system, Dragon Skin, is manufactured by Fresno, Calif.-based Pinnacle Armor. However Dragon Skin has a shaky reputation within the Army - which does the majority of armor testing, design and procurement for the services - after Pinnacle's feisty president, Murray Neal, launched a full-scale public relations war touting his vest's superiority after ballistics tests conducted by the Army in May 2006 showed
Dragon Skin failing basic ballistics and durability tests.
Neal's public campaign got Congress involved, with hearings on Capitol Hill to get to the bottom of the controversy.
Lawmakers ordered the Army to do further tests and the service asked industry to submit samples of flexible systems and armor that could withstand rounds more powerful than the current E-SAPI plate.
The Army planned to test the armor concepts later that year but had to postpone the evaluation after manufacturers asked for more time to acquire the exotic materials and do more testing of their own.
PEO Soldier officials at Fort Belvoir, Va., said the service will begin testing in November on new E-SAPI and X-SAPI designs - more than a year after the Army had originally intended to shoot the experimental plates.
Officials also said the flexible-system test will not go ahead as planned because "an F-SAPI capability has not reached the level [of] technical maturity to protect Soldiers in combat," PEO Soldier said in an email response to Military.com.
'A really good stop'
Bain was cagey about the specific design and shape of his armor components but said it makes heavy use of lightweight polymers such as Dyneema and Kevlar fabric to achieve its ballistic resistance capability. The super-hardened ceramic retains 100 percent of its density after manufacture, as compared to a standard plate with 93 percent density, he added.
"It's still some type of a disk," Bain said. "But we've made interlocks. We've eliminated weak spots. We've made it very difficult for a bullet to hit a flat surface."
"Everything's geared toward getting that bullet to hit a severe angle," he added.
In September, Bain subjected his armor to ballistic tests with shots from a Swiss-made armor piercing round that is more powerful than the one specified by the Army for its X-SAPI capability (for security reasons Military.com has declined to name the specific round the Army wants to beat).
The round shattered the tile, penetrated nine layers of Kevlar but was largely stopped by the Dyneema backing.
"That's a really good stop," Bain said. "And that's a phase-one tile. We've already redesigned it."
With more support from industry, Bain thinks he can cut down on the cost of the vest - currently, each tile costs about $50 to make - and with continued design improvements, he might be able to shave off some weight.
But for now, the Exoskin Gen 4+ is reserved for special operations troops and other high-risk forces, though Bain feels he's demonstrated that the technology is there for flexible armor that defeats the meanest threats.
"This is the kind of process that can lend itself to making the 'Star Wars' style armor … with lots of different segmented shapes," Bain said. "It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see what you can do with that."
by Christian Lowe
A top designer of flexible body armor similar to the much-vaunted Dragon Skin says he has just tested a new type of ballistic material that is far harder than current plates and can defeat one of the most deadly armor piercing rounds in the world.
And it can do all this at the same weight as a standard Enhanced Small Arms Protective Plate, but in a more flexible and comfortable package, developer Allan Bain claims.
Bain, who body armor experts agree was a founding father -- with Dragon Skin maker Murray Neal -- of the so-called "scalar" armor concept, has developed a new way to forge the ceramic that goes into the bullet-blocking plates, giving it greater density and the ability to be bent into odd shapes.
"This is probably about as cutting edge as it gets," Bain told Military.com during an October 15 phone interview about the new armor, Skaalar Exoskin Gen 4+". "An E-SAPI plate is an inch thick. Then you've got the vest … This [SEG4+] is an inch thick with everything included."
With the help of experts at Georgia Tech University, Bain produces his armored disks in an oven that reaches nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit - nearly half the surface temperature of the sun - to make the ceramic stronger, smaller and without sacrificing weight.
SEG4+ body armor wraps around the wearer like Dragon Skin, weighs about 7.5 pounds per square foot of coverage -- about the same as a standard-issue E-SAPI plate - but delivers far more protection with "gapless, seamless" coverage for high-powered armor piercing rounds.
The military's current body armor system, with two rigid front and back pates and two side plates, leaves open areas with no defense against rifle rounds.
Costs and concerns
But don't get your hopes up that SEG4+ will be on order anytime soon for troop.
Manufacturing costs is one reason. Army caution is another.
Bain said the armor is currently so expensive to make that only the most elite units would likely be able to afford it. Special Forces may order and use armor the regular Army doesn't get, and is currently testing this to see of it's something they want.
And officials with the Army's Program Executive Office Soldier confirmed to Military.com that the service was putting its search for flexible armor on hold because it deemed the scalar technology too immature.
But don't tell Bain his armor isn't ready.
"At this point in time, if someone wanted 100 of these we could deliver them," he said.
The best known scalar system, Dragon Skin, is manufactured by Fresno, Calif.-based Pinnacle Armor. However Dragon Skin has a shaky reputation within the Army - which does the majority of armor testing, design and procurement for the services - after Pinnacle's feisty president, Murray Neal, launched a full-scale public relations war touting his vest's superiority after ballistics tests conducted by the Army in May 2006 showed
Dragon Skin failing basic ballistics and durability tests.
Neal's public campaign got Congress involved, with hearings on Capitol Hill to get to the bottom of the controversy.
Lawmakers ordered the Army to do further tests and the service asked industry to submit samples of flexible systems and armor that could withstand rounds more powerful than the current E-SAPI plate.
The Army planned to test the armor concepts later that year but had to postpone the evaluation after manufacturers asked for more time to acquire the exotic materials and do more testing of their own.
PEO Soldier officials at Fort Belvoir, Va., said the service will begin testing in November on new E-SAPI and X-SAPI designs - more than a year after the Army had originally intended to shoot the experimental plates.
Officials also said the flexible-system test will not go ahead as planned because "an F-SAPI capability has not reached the level [of] technical maturity to protect Soldiers in combat," PEO Soldier said in an email response to Military.com.
'A really good stop'
Bain was cagey about the specific design and shape of his armor components but said it makes heavy use of lightweight polymers such as Dyneema and Kevlar fabric to achieve its ballistic resistance capability. The super-hardened ceramic retains 100 percent of its density after manufacture, as compared to a standard plate with 93 percent density, he added.
"It's still some type of a disk," Bain said. "But we've made interlocks. We've eliminated weak spots. We've made it very difficult for a bullet to hit a flat surface."
"Everything's geared toward getting that bullet to hit a severe angle," he added.
In September, Bain subjected his armor to ballistic tests with shots from a Swiss-made armor piercing round that is more powerful than the one specified by the Army for its X-SAPI capability (for security reasons Military.com has declined to name the specific round the Army wants to beat).
The round shattered the tile, penetrated nine layers of Kevlar but was largely stopped by the Dyneema backing.
"That's a really good stop," Bain said. "And that's a phase-one tile. We've already redesigned it."
With more support from industry, Bain thinks he can cut down on the cost of the vest - currently, each tile costs about $50 to make - and with continued design improvements, he might be able to shave off some weight.
But for now, the Exoskin Gen 4+ is reserved for special operations troops and other high-risk forces, though Bain feels he's demonstrated that the technology is there for flexible armor that defeats the meanest threats.
"This is the kind of process that can lend itself to making the 'Star Wars' style armor … with lots of different segmented shapes," Bain said. "It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see what you can do with that."
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
POOR PEOPLE AND DEMOCRAT FALSE PROMISES
GOD FORBID!
======
Poor people have been voting for Democrats for the last fifty years....and they are still poor."
Predictions from one of the "biggies" in Hollywood, I didn't see it coming - from Hollywood.
Here is another warning from a very knowledgeable person, from the Hollywood sector, that is not a preaching Democrat. His words are spooky.
The writer of this essay is Jerry Molen, an Academy Award winning Hollywood Producer, who produced Jurassic Park, Hook, Rain Man and many more classy movies, and who won the Academy Award for Schindler's List. Jerry is one of the very few conservatives in Hollywood - but wants to include Democrats. He says:
We are about to make the Mother-of-All-Mistakes, because the Republican Party gave us no reliable alternative. If the conservative movement does not rally behind the only alternative left to us, this country will become a true Socialist State within the next two Presidential terms.
Ladies and Gentleman, this is the most grave situation this nation has faced in my lifetime. We just experienced an overhyped, outrageous primary election season that has left me wondering where the heads of our citizens are hiding - must be someplace where the sun doesn't go very often.
At one time in my life I was a determined, dedicated and ever-loyal registered Democrat. Then something happened - Lyndon Baines Johnson - that turned my life around and gave me pause for the veracity of a party that lives and feeds off of the most unfortunate among us. Some of them are in their positions in life by their own choosing, others by outside circumstance.
But always, always there was a door open to them, to reach for new heights, achieve new goals, change their lives for the better. Similarly, there have always been the bottom feeders, doing what they could to take advantage of those who had not or have not seen better days, nor realized that they in fact were the masters of their own destiny - these unfortunates had come to believe that they were dependent on people in Washington, who would look out for and take care of them. They waited and still wait for all those promised freebies.
Most people don't reflect upon the fact that the Democrats ruled Washington for over 40 years; it wasn't until 1994 when the so-called Gingrich Revolution changed - but only for a while. These same people do not realize that it was the Democrats who created the failed policies of the entitlement programs that are now falling apart before our eyes.
Do not think I find the Republicans blameless in all this. They, too, suffer from the ego and greed built into our system. But in the past few months I have listened with growing horror to the railings of the left, calling for yet more giveaways, more promises of a proverbial 'free lunch.'
What sums up my feelings, why I am appalled by those in political power is contained within a quote by basketball legend and talk show host Charles Barkley: "Poor people have been voting for Democrats for the last fifty years....and they are still poor."
Now, with our elections, come yet more new promises of "change:" "change we can believe in," "hope for the future". But if you really, I mean REALLY listen to what the new messiah is asking for, it is not 'change of policy' or 'change for the better' - this is a warning that he wants our change.
And the change you will get will not be the change you expected or wanted.
I leave you my predictions of what will happen if the junior Senator from Illinois becomes President – especially if the House and Senate are veto-proof Democrat:
1). Strict gun laws, though he promised he would not.
2). "In God We Trust" will be removed from all currency.
3). He will renege on his pledge to Israel and leave them to the wolves of Islam.
4). Hillary Clinton will be named to the Supreme Court.
5). Tax rates will surge to the highest levels in 30 years.
6). Capital gains tax will be at least double current levels.
7). Retired Army General Wesley Clark will be named Secretary of Defense.
8). Your borders will be open to all comers - especially from the Middle East and South America.
9). Amnesty will be granted to all illegals in the U.S, regardless of status or even gang membership (think MS-13). After all, isn't it pretty well established now, with Obama possibly being declared an "Illegal Alien", by the courts decision coming, with our democrat colleague, Phil Berg, Attorney having taken the case to court?
10). Our presence in Iraq will come to an abrupt end - with tragic results for their citizens and devastating consequences to our military, as well as our country.
My predictions will not sit well with some people - the best we could hope for is that I am wrong. If you vote for him, you are asking for it.
Any bets?
ALSO
http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/melaniephillips/2293196/pinch-yourself.thtml
The contrast between, on the one hand, the huge amount of material about Obama’s radical associations that has been published in on-line journals and in a few brave newspapers, and on the other the refusal by big media to address it and to vilify those who do, becomes more astounding by the day.
The Obamaniacs are spinning the relationship between Obama and William Ayers, former of Weather Undergound Terrorism Inc, as of no consequence because this was supposedly a chance acquaintance and because the educational project they worked on, the Annenberg Challenge, was a worthy one, now nails that canard by showing how, through the Annenberg Challenge, Obama and Ayers channelled funds to extremist anti-American Afrocentric ‘educational’ programmes which were a carbon-copy of the world view of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s black racist mentor who, under pressure, Obama was forced to repudiate.
These programmes promoted, amongst other radical ideas, the ‘rites of passage’ philosophy which attempted to create a ‘virtually separate and intensely anti-American black social world’ in order to ‘counter the potentially detrimental effects of a Eurocentrically oriented society.’ One such teacher taught that:
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Poor people have been voting for Democrats for the last fifty years....and they are still poor."
Predictions from one of the "biggies" in Hollywood, I didn't see it coming - from Hollywood.
Here is another warning from a very knowledgeable person, from the Hollywood sector, that is not a preaching Democrat. His words are spooky.
The writer of this essay is Jerry Molen, an Academy Award winning Hollywood Producer, who produced Jurassic Park, Hook, Rain Man and many more classy movies, and who won the Academy Award for Schindler's List. Jerry is one of the very few conservatives in Hollywood - but wants to include Democrats. He says:
We are about to make the Mother-of-All-Mistakes, because the Republican Party gave us no reliable alternative. If the conservative movement does not rally behind the only alternative left to us, this country will become a true Socialist State within the next two Presidential terms.
Ladies and Gentleman, this is the most grave situation this nation has faced in my lifetime. We just experienced an overhyped, outrageous primary election season that has left me wondering where the heads of our citizens are hiding - must be someplace where the sun doesn't go very often.
At one time in my life I was a determined, dedicated and ever-loyal registered Democrat. Then something happened - Lyndon Baines Johnson - that turned my life around and gave me pause for the veracity of a party that lives and feeds off of the most unfortunate among us. Some of them are in their positions in life by their own choosing, others by outside circumstance.
But always, always there was a door open to them, to reach for new heights, achieve new goals, change their lives for the better. Similarly, there have always been the bottom feeders, doing what they could to take advantage of those who had not or have not seen better days, nor realized that they in fact were the masters of their own destiny - these unfortunates had come to believe that they were dependent on people in Washington, who would look out for and take care of them. They waited and still wait for all those promised freebies.
Most people don't reflect upon the fact that the Democrats ruled Washington for over 40 years; it wasn't until 1994 when the so-called Gingrich Revolution changed - but only for a while. These same people do not realize that it was the Democrats who created the failed policies of the entitlement programs that are now falling apart before our eyes.
Do not think I find the Republicans blameless in all this. They, too, suffer from the ego and greed built into our system. But in the past few months I have listened with growing horror to the railings of the left, calling for yet more giveaways, more promises of a proverbial 'free lunch.'
What sums up my feelings, why I am appalled by those in political power is contained within a quote by basketball legend and talk show host Charles Barkley: "Poor people have been voting for Democrats for the last fifty years....and they are still poor."
Now, with our elections, come yet more new promises of "change:" "change we can believe in," "hope for the future". But if you really, I mean REALLY listen to what the new messiah is asking for, it is not 'change of policy' or 'change for the better' - this is a warning that he wants our change.
And the change you will get will not be the change you expected or wanted.
I leave you my predictions of what will happen if the junior Senator from Illinois becomes President – especially if the House and Senate are veto-proof Democrat:
1). Strict gun laws, though he promised he would not.
2). "In God We Trust" will be removed from all currency.
3). He will renege on his pledge to Israel and leave them to the wolves of Islam.
4). Hillary Clinton will be named to the Supreme Court.
5). Tax rates will surge to the highest levels in 30 years.
6). Capital gains tax will be at least double current levels.
7). Retired Army General Wesley Clark will be named Secretary of Defense.
8). Your borders will be open to all comers - especially from the Middle East and South America.
9). Amnesty will be granted to all illegals in the U.S, regardless of status or even gang membership (think MS-13). After all, isn't it pretty well established now, with Obama possibly being declared an "Illegal Alien", by the courts decision coming, with our democrat colleague, Phil Berg, Attorney having taken the case to court?
10). Our presence in Iraq will come to an abrupt end - with tragic results for their citizens and devastating consequences to our military, as well as our country.
My predictions will not sit well with some people - the best we could hope for is that I am wrong. If you vote for him, you are asking for it.
Any bets?
ALSO
http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/melaniephillips/2293196/pinch-yourself.thtml
The contrast between, on the one hand, the huge amount of material about Obama’s radical associations that has been published in on-line journals and in a few brave newspapers, and on the other the refusal by big media to address it and to vilify those who do, becomes more astounding by the day.
The Obamaniacs are spinning the relationship between Obama and William Ayers, former of Weather Undergound Terrorism Inc, as of no consequence because this was supposedly a chance acquaintance and because the educational project they worked on, the Annenberg Challenge, was a worthy one, now nails that canard by showing how, through the Annenberg Challenge, Obama and Ayers channelled funds to extremist anti-American Afrocentric ‘educational’ programmes which were a carbon-copy of the world view of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s black racist mentor who, under pressure, Obama was forced to repudiate.
These programmes promoted, amongst other radical ideas, the ‘rites of passage’ philosophy which attempted to create a ‘virtually separate and intensely anti-American black social world’ in order to ‘counter the potentially detrimental effects of a Eurocentrically oriented society.’ One such teacher taught that:
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
WORLD VIEW ROUNDUP
Drug Runners Had Maps of Patrols, Prosecutors Say
October 4, 2008
By Benjamin Weiser
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/world/americas/04maps.html?ref=nyregion&pagewanted=print
When Colombian authorities boarded a ship in January 2006, they found more than just narcotics. They also discovered a map with crucial information: the current locations of Colombian and United States Navy and Coast Guard patrol boats.
The Colombians investigated, American officials said, and uncovered a ring of cocaine smugglers who also trafficked in navigational charts, selling them to drug organizations that used them to plan routes and avoid interdiction by law enforcement as they moved drugs on the high seas.
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Israeli has 3-6 months to hit Iran’s nuclear sites if Moscow sells Tehran S-300 systems
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5635
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
October 7, 2008, 11:39 AM (GMT+02:00)
Russian military experts calculate that the window for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities will shrink to 3-6 months if Moscow sells Iran (and Syria) the sophisticated S-300 system for guarding those sites against air, missile or cruise missile attack. DEBKAfile’s Moscow sources report that Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert failed in the key missions of his Moscow trip to persuade Russian leaders to discuss Tehran’s nuclear weapons program and to refrain from selling this advanced weapon to Iran and Syria.
President Dmitiry Medvedev’s bureau issued a noncommittal statement Tuesday, Oct. 7, saying that his talks with Olmert were “an exchange of opinion on threats, including terrorism and nonproliferation.” The word “nuclear” was avoided.
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Independent.co.uk
Poker-game execution as Italy declares war on Mafia
By Peter Popham in RomeTuesday, 7 October 2008
Italy's Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, has described it as a civil war – and 18 bullets pumped into an innocent man playing cards on a Sunday morning proved him right.
Stanislao Cantelli was the uncle of two supergrasses and distantly related to another local mafia boss but he had led a blameless life. Having recently retired from his job as a technician in a mozzarella cheese factory, he was often seen pottering around the town of Casal di Principe in his battered Fiat Punto. For relaxation, he repaired to the Circolo Sociale Ricreativo, a shop converted into a social club on Via Umberto I, to play poker.
But two of Cantelli's nephews have turned state's counsel, and the evidence of one of them, Luigi Diana, was crucial in leading to the issuing of arrest warrants for 107 gangsters and the confiscation of more than €100m (£78m) worth of gang-owned property. So on Sunday, Cantelli's card game was interrupted by two men on a motorbike, one armed with an automatic pistol, who burst into the club and repeatedly fired on him. All the witnesses to the killing fled.
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http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/10/06/Mexico_drug_slayings_show_cartels_woes/UPI-25581223320061/
TIJUANA, Mexico, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- The slayings of 57 gang members in Tijuana, Mexico, in recent weeks is a sign of the breakup of the city's Arellano Felix drug organization, authorities say. The Tijuana cartel, named for the Arellano Felix brothers, has ruled the city's lucrative drug trafficking business for two decades, but is now fractured and facing deadly attacks from other contenders, The Los Angeles Times reported Monday."We are now seeing the tail end" of the Arellano Felix organization, John Kirby, a former federal prosecutor in San Diego, told the newspaper. "They're losing what was left of their grip on Baja California."Law enforcement observers said the gang is under siege from alleged trafficker Ismael Zambada, known as Mexico's most-wanted man, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa cartel.
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http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/10/06/Mexico_drug_slayings_show_cartels_woes/UPI-25581223320061/
TIJUANA, Mexico, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- The slayings of 57 gang members in Tijuana, Mexico, in recent weeks is a sign of the breakup of the city's Arellano Felix drug organization, authorities say. The Tijuana cartel, named for the Arellano Felix brothers, has ruled the city's lucrative drug trafficking business for two decades, but is now fractured and facing deadly attacks from other contenders, The Los Angeles Times reported Monday."We are now seeing the tail end" of the Arellano Felix organization, John Kirby, a former federal prosecutor in San Diego, told the newspaper. "They're losing what was left of their grip on Baja California."Law enforcement observers said the gang is under siege from alleged trafficker Ismael Zambada, known as Mexico's most-wanted man, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa cartel.
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