MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• Iraq hostage drama ends in bloodshed.At least 37 people have been killed after Iraqi security forces stormed a Catholic church in central Baghdad to free dozens of hostages being held by gunmen there, security sources say.Twenty-five hostages were among the dead, along with seven members of the Iraqi security forces and at least five of the attackers.About 100 people had been inside Our Lady of Salvation for an evening Mass.One eyewitness, who was inside the church, was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying that the gunmen "came into the prayer hall and immediately killed the priest".The gunmen reportedly threw grenades and blew their suicide vests.The gunmen had reportedly demanded the release of jailed al-Qaeda militants.Read and see the full story here.And here ,more here.Click here for comments.

• John Boehner to hit President Obama on 'enemies'.The president said: “If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies, and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us’ — if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election — then I think it’s going to be harder. And that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2nd.”“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a president in the White House who referred to Americans who disagree with him as ‘our enemies.’ Think about that. He actually used that word. When Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush used the word ‘enemy,’ they reserved it for global terrorists and foreign dictators — enemies of the United States. Enemies of freedom. Enemies of our country. “Today, sadly, we have president who uses the word ‘enemy’ for fellow Americans — fellow citizens.Mr. President, there's a word for people who have the audacity to speak up in defense of freedom, the Constitution, and the values of limited government that made our country great. We don't call them ‘enemies.’ We call them ‘patriots.’” Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• 3 Churches set ablaze in Russia's Muslim Caucasus.Two Russian Orthodox churches and one Baptist Church were set alight in the predominantly Muslim province of Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Russian news agencies said, adding no one was hurt in the attacks."An unknown group of people set fire to the Russian Orthodox church in the village of Ordzhonikidze, it is practically completely burned," Interfax reported, citing Kazim Baybanov, a spokesman for the local ministry of interior affairs.Vandalism of churches is rare in Russia's mainly Muslim North Caucasus, where Christian communities live amongst Muslims.Muslim Youths angry about poverty and fueled by the global ideology of jihad (holy war) are fighting for an independent state separate from predominantly Christian Russia, where they want to establish Sharia, Islamic law.Hmmmm.....The religion of Peace.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Greek police arrest two suspects in attempted parcel bomb plot.Greek police on Monday detained two men suspected of planning terrorist attacks on the Mexican and Dutch embassies in Athens, state television reported.The two suspects were arrested after they attempted to send a parcel bomb to the Dutch embassy. Another parcel bomb, which was addressed to the Mexican embassy, earlier exploded in the hands of a female worker at a private delivery company.The woman was admitted to a local hospital with minor injuries to her hands, police said.The men were allegedly wearing wigs and Kevlar jackets and were carrying a third parcel bomb and handguns.One of the suspects is believed to have ties with a Greek far-left militant group.Mail bombs are becoming a common weapon among terrorists and militants around the world.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• PM: I'll discuss terror threat with Biden next week.After explosive-laden packages targeting Chicago shuls intercepted, Netanyahu says upcoming talks in Washington to focus on ways to 'stop rising wave of terror initiated by radical Islam.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday that he will be traveling to the US next week to discuss, among other things, the explosive-laden packages from Yemen that reportedly targeted synagogues in Chicago.Addressing the bomb plot, the PM said as far as the global security threat is concerned, "there is no difference between a synagogue in Chicago, a train in Madrid, London, Mumbai and Bali."We are facing a rising wave of terror initiated by radical Islam. One of the issues I'll be discussing in Washington pertains to the steps the free and civilized world must take to stop this wave, which threatens us all," Netanyahu told cabinet.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:Memri.Jordanian-Palestinian Writer Yasser Al-Za'atra: The Bomb Plot May Have Been Fabricated by the FBI.Obama fabricated it to win the sympathy of the Jews since they are inclined to vote Republican now.How could anyone with half a brain imagine that Jews would open a package containing a "printer" from Yemen.Read and see the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HRW: Turkey violating Kurds' rights.In new report, Human Rights Watch calls on Ankara to stop trying Kurdish protestors as terrorists.A new report by the Human Rights Watch released Monday accuses Turkey of violating rights laws in its dealings with the Kurdish people.The report says that although Turkey has signed a number of human rights treaties, it has violated a number of them by using terrorism laws to jail Kurdish protestors.In addition, the report says, the Turkish government violates freedom of speech on a regular basis, especially in Kurdish areas.Hundreds of Kurdish protestors are currently being held in prisons, awaiting the outcomes of their trials or decisions on appeals filed on their behalf. Others are carrying out lengthy sentences approved by the Turkey's Supreme Court.In July, following criticism for trying children who participated in a PKK rally as terrorists, the Turkish parliament changed the relevant laws, preventing such cases from reoccurring.Other cases documented in the report include that of a student serving six years in prison for making the "victory" sign at a funeral for four members of the Kurdish group.Read the full scandal story here.Click here for comments.

•  Angry US voters line up to give Obama a drubbing.US voters demoralised by economic blight look certain to hand Republicans a mid-term elections triumph this week, after deserting President Barack Obama's Democrats just two years into his crusade for change.When he told The New York Times "I like taupe" (dark greyish brown) to explain his subdued redecoration of the Oval Office, it seemed to sum up his remoteness from ordinary people. He told Stewart last week that office had been harder than he had thought, rephrasing his famous slogan as: "Yes we can but ..."The iconic image of that 2008 campaign was the red and blue Hope poster. Now even the man who designed it is disillusioned. "There's a lot of stuff completely out of Obama's control," said Shepard Fairey. "But I think there's something a little deeper in terms of the optimism of the younger voter ... They wanted somebody who was going to fight against the status quo, and I don't think Obama has done that."Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:Memri.Ahmadinejad: The West Hasn't Yet Clarified Its Position on Israel's Nuclear Program.Discussing the issue of Iran's conditions for renewing the negotiations with the 5+1, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that, since the West has not yet met Iran's demand to clarify its position on "Israel's nuclear bomb," Iran will take part in the talks as an enemy, not a friend.Source.Click here for comments.

• HT:Memri.Saudi King Calls on Iraqi Parties to Meet in Riyadh.Saudi King 'Abdallah bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz has called on the leaders of the Iraqi parties to meet in Riyadh after the Hajj, under the aegis of the Arab League, in order to resolve the Iraq government crisis and defend their country's unity. Most of the Iraqi parties welcomed the initiative, excepting the party of outgoing president Nouri Al-Maliki, which refused to respond pending further inquiries into the initiative's nature.The party of Ayad Allawi thanked the king for his initiative, calling on the others to accept his invitation.As for the reaction of the Kurdish parties, reports are conflicting.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• New License Plate for Virginia | Don't Tread On Me .The citizens of Virginia will soon be able to express their support for smaller government and protest the Federal Government's intrusion into the affairs of private citizens with their license plates. At the recent Virginia Tea Party convention, 912 Richmond, gathered over 475 signatures in support of the issuance of a special license plate bearing the legend DON'T TREAD ON ME..On October 14, 2010, HOUSE BILL NO. 1418 was filed to start the process of establishing this special plate as an official Virginia license plate.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Libia : Lesbian to request asylum in France.Nessma Faraj, a Libyan girl who was arrested, raped and returned to her family which tried to force her into marriage after she announced on the internet that she is gay, has arrived in Metz travelling via Italy on a Schengen visa. France has authorised her to request asylum in the country. In fact she should have asked for asylum in Italy, the first country where she arrived. She only stayed in Italy for a few hours however, because France had decided to resolve the case using the sovereignty clause in the Dublin convention which regulates asylum requests since 1990.Nessma's request is supported by 126 associations and around twenty local people. According to Lesbian Coordination France (CLF), the woman has presented document of the Libyan police to the French authorities which show that she had been arrested because of her homosexuality, a crime in Libya for which people can be convicted to three to five years in prison.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:BacktoBasics.Do Our Rights Come from God, the Constitution, the Supreme Court, or Congress?The future of our Posterity depends on a proper understanding of the Source of our Rights. I will explain four views; show you which one is True, and why the other three are False and lead inexorably to the destruction of any country which embraces them.

1. Let us begin with what is True: Our Declaration of Independence says our Rights come from God. Our rights thus pre-date & pre-exist the U.S. Constitution.The Declaration of Independence says:“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”So these, then, are the foundational principles of our Constitutional Republic:•Our Rights are unalienable and come from God;•The purpose of civil government is to protect our God-given Rights;•Civil government is legitimate only when it operates with our consent; •Since the US Constitution is the formal expression of the Will of the People, the federal government operates with our consent only when it obeys the Constitution.Because the Declaration of Independence identifies The Creator as Grantor of Rights, we look to The Bible – or the Natural Law – to see what those rights are. The Bible – or the Natural Law – reveals many rights, such as the rights to Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness; to inherit, earn, and keep property; the right of self-defense; the right and duty to demand that the civil authorities obey the Law; the right to speak; the right to live our lives free from interference from civil government; the rights of parents to raise their children free from interference from civil government; the right to worship God; etc.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Midterm elections 2010: Prepare for a new American revolution. Popular rage against the elite could change the nature of US politics, says Janet Daley.More than three centuries ago, the residents of America staged a rebellion against an oppressive ruler who taxed them unjustly, ignored their discontents and treated their longing for freedom with contempt. They are about to revisit that tradition this week, when their anger and exasperation sweep through Congress like avenging angels. This time the hated oppressor isn't a foreign colonial government, but their own professional political class.The Democrats, too, are experiencing internal turmoil, with the Blue Dog congressmen (who represent conservative Democratic states) having to fight all their natural instincts to support Obama's healthcare and cap-and-trade policies. If they are annihilated in these midterm elections, their resentment against the White House will be terrible to behold. This could be a seminal moment in American post-war history, when popular rage against the political elite brings about realignments within parties which change the whole nature of the country's democratic choices.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Husband pledges in contract not to remarry.Mauritanian women say no to polygamy.Many Mauritanian women and their families are now stipulating the one-wife as a prerequisite before marriage, but religious scholars have condemned it as a violation to Islamic teaching.Many of the Mauritanian women now insist on including a condition in the marriage contract that prevents the husband from keeping a previous wife or taking a new one. In case the husband violates this condition, the woman becomes entitled to file an immediate divorce.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.HT:TheReligionofPeace.

• HT:NewZeal.Sooooo BUSTED!: Communists Caught Altering History to Protect Obama.Communists have a well deserved reputation for altering history or "sanitizing the past to suit their purpose. But that's all in the past, they are open and honest now.... they would never use deception to advance their agenda, would they......?President Obama has a long history with several radical groups, including the Communist Party USA.The communists naturally want to protect their "friend" from negative fallout should such associations become publicly known.Read and see the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Hürriyet daily chief columnist Oktay Ekşi is forced to resign.Hürriyet daily chief columnist Oktay Ekşi, who insultingly referred to the prime minister and state ministers in one of his recent columns, announced his resignation from the daily over the weekend after he received harsh reactions from both the government and the public.Ekşi referred to members of the government as having a “mindset willing to sell one’s own mother” -- the phrase in Turkish is highly offensive and implies one who is willing to sell one’s own mother as a prostitute -- when criticizing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yıldız and Environment Minister Veysel Eroğlu over a government project to build a hydroelectric complex in the Black Sea province of Rize in his column published on Oct. 28. He concluded his column with the sentence, “Now you are seeing the attainments of a mindset willing to sell one’s own mother.”Hmmmm.....a dark veil came down on Turkey,probably he will be the first of many.Read a full story here.Click here for comments.

• Basij Commander Calls For Including “Culture of Martyrdom” In Textbooks.The Commander of Iran’s Basij Force, Mohammad Reza Naghdi, has said that pro-government forces are calling on the Education Ministry to include “the culture of self-sacrifice and martyrdom” in school textbooks. Martyrdom and self-sacrifice were highly promoted during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, when thousands of school children were sent to the front and promised that by dying as martyrs, they would go straight to heaven.Naghdi said the Basij force want to bring the “values” of the sacred defense (a reference to the war with Iraq) to classrooms and textbooks. He said the move is part of the Basij’s measures to counter the “soft war” Iranian officials say the country’s enemies have launched to destabilize the Islamic establishment and lead to its downfall.A mother of a seven-year-old boy in Tehran, who described the efforts as “brain washing,” expressed doubt over the impact of the measures. “These things have been going on for 30 years. Have they made us the way [Iranian leaders] want us to be? Of course not. These moves will backfire and lead to more frustration among our children," said the mother, who spoke to Persian Letters on condition of anonymity.Hmmm....the "Bushido Code of the Islamic Warrior"?Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Guarded welcome awaits Obama in India.Barack Obama, who once listed Mahatma Gandhi as his fantasy dinner guest, claims a personal connection with the world's largest democracy but many Indians feel he has some way to go to lay claim to their affections.Initial fervor for Obama has waned with a series of niggling bilateral spats over tightened US visa regulations, Obama's opposition to the outsourcing of US jobs and disagreements over India's nuclear liability policy.Topping all these issues is that of US support, including military aid, to India's arch-rival Pakistan - a (Presumed?)key US anti-terror ally.The subject of Pakistan, which most Indians view as a cradle of state-sponsored terrorism aimed at them, has dominated an online forum set up by the NDTV news channel for people to address messages to Obama."Mr Obama, today 1.2 billion people are requesting you to stop funding terrorism. We hope you listen this time," wrote Mukul Sehgal."We welcome you Mr President, but do not play with our emotions or our security by arming Pakistan and then building business with India," said another poster, Mohan Jayagopal.Hmmm....would Ghandhi take his dinner invitation?Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:Memri.The Lebanese Forces Incorporate Anti-Islamic Slogans into Popular Computer Game "Counter Strike".Including "The Islamic Satan" among others.Players can also enter their own slogans.Read and see the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:Serbianna.Extremist Imam warns Serbia on security.Muslim Imam Muamar Zukorlic has warned Serbia, and Montenegro, that their stability and security depends on whether Serbia caves in and grants autonomy to an Islamist enclave in southeastern Serbia.In an interview for Al Jazeera, Imam Zukorlic, seen in the photo talking to AJ reporter, warned that the security in Serbia and Montenegro depends on whether Serbia re-carves the region into a single, Muslim-dominated “autonomous” region they call Sandzak. Autonomy, said the Imam, is the prerequisite for stability of these 2 states.Bosnian Muslim chief Imam, Mustafa Ceric, seen on the left in the meeting of the World Forum of Ulema known as the RABITA, urged Imams to pressure Serbia and “to speak out against the violation of the rights of Muslims in Bosnia and the Sandzak”.Policy decisions by RABITA are a general proxy for the collective action by the Islamic states in the world and is often a trigger for violent terrorist activities, primarily against European targets.Sources have told me that Zukorlic used to pride himself at the access and support he received from the US Embassy in Serbia.The Imam said that he does not want to talk to Serbia and predicted that problems will be enlarged.Hmmmm......"Support from the US Embassy"?Care to comment Mr President?Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• 49 Jewish gravestones smashed in France.French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche says incident took place Friday night in cemetery in northeastern town of Bar-le-Duc. Police searching for several people believed to be involved."The gate to the cemetery, which has 126 graves, is always closed," the report said. "The resident arrived at the police station and filed a report. A police force dispatched to the area found 49 smashed gravestones."According to the newspaper, "These are very heavy gravestones, which were moved, fell on the ground and broke due to their heavy weight. A single person could not have defaced the cemetery on his own, so the police are looking for several suspects."The district's attorney general said the authorities viewed the incident as extremely severe and had launched an extensive investigation to locate suspects.Jewish cemeteries have been desecrated in France several times in recent years.The latest incident took place in July, when 27 gravestones were smashed in a Strasbourg cemetery.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Muslim tortures, accuses Christian who refused slavery.Pakistan – A Muslim land owner in Pakistan this month subjected a 25-year-old Christian to burns and a series of humiliations, including falsely charging him with having sex with his own niece, because the Christian refused to work for him without pay.Fayaz Masih is in jail with burns on his body after No. 115 Chitraan Wala village head Zafar Iqbal Ghuman and other villagers punished Masih for refusing to work as a slave in his fields, said the Rev. Yaqub Masih, a Pentecostal evangelist. The village is located in Nankana Sahib district, Punjab Province.Sources said neither Fayaz Masih nor his family had taken any loans from Ghuman, and that they had no obligations to work off any debt for Ghuman as bonded laborers.Yaqub Masih said the young man’s refusal to work in Ghuman’s fields infuriated the Muslim, who was accustomed to forcing Christians into slavery. He said Ghuman considered Masih’s refusal an act of disobedience by a “choohra,” the pejorative word for Christians in Pakistan. Hmmmm.....perhaps give Pakistan a few Billion $ more Mr President?Read the full story here.Click here for comments.HT:TheReligionofPeace.

• HT:BigPeace.Mapping the Muslim Brotherhood in America.Part 16 of a serialization of Shariah – The Threat to America, the report of Team B II of the Center for Security Policy. In this section, we use the Muslim Brotherhood’s own internal documents to map out the organization’s networks in North America.The “process of settlement” outlined in the Explanatory Memorandum and in published Muslim Brotherhood doctrine, such as Toward a Worldwide Strategy for Islamic Policy and Methodology of Dawah Ilallah in American Perspective has been operationalized in the United States by one MB-related front group after another, starting with the very first, the Muslim Students Association (MSA), and continuing to the present day.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:BloggerBase.Why people despise Obama.Barack Obama roused the world with his teleprompted words of hope and change. Before the chair in the Oval Office could get warm he toured the islamic world making apologies and promising a new future relationship with America. He put his hand out in friendship to Iran and attempted to follow the adolescent ideology of "Why can't we just all get along?"Two years into his Presidential term the world has gotten a very large dose of the results. Have the relationships strengthened? Has terrorism subsided? Have the islamists decided to "just get along" with their neighbors? Has misery and oppression started to subside? The blatantly obvious and painful answer is no.Mr. Obama, people don't despise you because you are black. People don't despise you because you aren't a nice guy. People despise you because your ideology is ignorant, naive, and extremely fatal. Your ideology, if followed through, will setback freedom and liberty to the same extent the burning of the Library at Alexandria setback human knowledge. That's a pretty large impact.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Trick or treat: Why you shouldn’t sell gold despite all-time highs.Don't cash out just yet as the proverbial golden era for the yellow metal may have just begin, reckon experts.Fact: Gold price has more than doubled in the past two years.Fact: The Dubai Financial Market and the Abu Dhabi Exchange have decline 40 and 17 per cent, respectively, during that time.Fact: What goes up, comes down. And vice-versa.That’s a lot of facts already, but one that a gold investor must consider is this: The previous gold high in 1980 of $850/oz is worth over $2,000 in 2010 dollars once adjusted for inflation.Having reached an all-time high of $1,387.35 an ounce this month (October), the yellow metal has lost some of its gains and is now trading around $1,360/oz levels. Is this is a signal that gold is set to reverse the gains of the past two years? Not by a long margin, experts tell Emirates 24|7, who believe that gold still has a lot of steam left in it and there’s still time before this asset class sees any realistic correction.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:Memri.Egyptian Cleric Muhammad Hreiz Al-Sharif Complains about Women's Equality in Sports: When a Woman Scored a Goal in Soccer, She Exposed Her Breasts for All to See.Read and see the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:What's up with that.Sea Ice News.It certainly appears that there is more ice in 2010 than 2007 on the Cryosphere Today page. Dr. Meier seems to think that the 2007 map from CT is missing some ice, as NSIDC’s comparison between the dates doesn’t appear off as much as the CT images. Walt’s point is:There is more ice in the central Arctic this year, but less in the Beaufort Sea, Canadian Archipelago, and Baffin Bay. These areas roughly balance each other out.In other news, Antarctic ice continues to be significantly above normal.Read and see the full story here.Click here for comments.

• A New Search Engine, Where Less Is More : BLEKKO !Start-ups and big companies alike have tried to take on Google by building a better search engine. That they have failed has not stopped brave new entrants.The latest is Blekko, a search engine that will open to the public on Monday. Rich Skrenta, Blekko’s co-founder and chief executive, says that since Google started, the Web has been overrun by unhelpful sites full of links and keywords that push them to the top of Google’s search results but offer little relevant information. Blekko aims to show search results from only useful, trustworthy sites. “The goal is to clean up Web search and get all the spam out of it,” Mr. Skrenta said.Blekko’s search engine scours three billion Web pages that it considers worthwhile, but it shows only the top results on any given topic. It calls its edited lists of Web sites slashtags. The engine also tries to weed out Web pages created by so-called content farms like Demand Media that determine popular Web search topics and then hire people at low pay to write articles on those topics for sites like eHow.com.“They have an interesting spin,” Mr. Sullivan said about Blekko. “It might take off with a small but loyal audience, but it won’t be a Google killer.” Read the full story here.Click here for comments.