MFS - The Other news

                          Morning Posting.

• Swedish Suicide Bomber Gets Martyr Page on Facebook.Check out the comments…And the pics used by some who "Like" the page!I was just praying and god was told me that I should not listen to what Swedish people have to say due they are a very week people and many of them are just gays or alcoholics. You Racists should be a shame coming to a memorial page and say racist things.It’s a real shame that none of you died. Over 9000 should have died. Swedish people deserve to die. Allha Akbar! Holy war!Hmmmm.....I just hope that the FBI allows it just to keep track of who's who in the American Terrorist world,if not they're not worth their paycheck.Read the full story here.Ht;JihadWatch.

• CNN International promotes Turkey.Or is it Turkish Taxis for NY?The U.S. news channel CNN International began a week long promotion of Turkey on Monday. The news channel is promoting economic, social and cultural attractions in Turkey on its "i-List Turkey" program.Anchor Zain Verjee will do live interviews with personalities from the political, business, sports and music worlds in Istanbul. CNN's international correspondent Mohammed Jamjoom will introduce different living styles and trade issues in Turkey.The program will focus on key economic industries in Turkey including textiles and clothing, construction and automotive. It will promote the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul and the central province of Konya as well as the southeastern province of Gaziantep, famous for its traditional Turkish cuisine.Information about Turkey is available on CNN's website.Hmmm...Obama's Islamic envoy visits last week Turkey,this week CNN advertises Turkey...Coincidence?Turkish taxis for NY that will for sure help the American unemployed?Read and see the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Hamas TV Puppet Show: The Criminal Zionists Are Plotting to Destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque.Hmmmm.....Who the Hell considers this hatred a "Children Program"?Read and see the full story here.

• Another Indian envoy asked to remove turban at US airport.Another senior Indian diplomat was subjected to an insulting body search in the United States.India's permanent envoy to the UN, Hardeep Puri, was asked to remove his turban two weeks ago at an airport in Texas. Puri tells NDTV, "The incident happened at the airport in Austin, Texas on November 13th. They told me 'We have new procedures that involve extra screening.' I went through the scanner...they took me to separate holding area...the security officer said he wants to pat down my turban...I refused...they came back after 20 to 30 minutes and apologised."The Indian government has complained formally to America about the security checks enforced upon both Puri and Meera Shankar, the Indian ambassador to the US. Earlier this month, Shankar was body-searched at a Mississippi airport because she was wearing a sari, resulting in a serious diplomatic controversy between India and the US.Hmmmm....Obama doesn't want to visit a Hindu temple but we do want to visit your bodies?Read the full story here.

• "The War on Christmas".‘Grinch List’ Highlights Businesses That Won’t Recognize Christmas.A Dallas Church has launched a Web site that alerts holiday shoppers to area stores and businesses that refuse to use the phrase “Merry Christmas” this holiday season.The First Baptist Church of Dallas launched GrinchAlert.com as a protest against retailers using what it views as politically correct, generic holiday language and displays during the Christmas season.A “Naughty List” identifies stores in the area that refuse to specifically refer to Christmas in their greetings, decorations and advertisements while a “Nice List” highlights stores that do.The list will be read on the church’s radio station every morning until Christmas Day.So far big national chains such as Best Buy, T.J. Maxx and Hallmark have made the “Nice List” while Nordstrom’s, Macy’s and Barnes and Noble feature on the “Naughty List.”There are currently about five times more businesses listed as “Nice” than those deemed “Naughty.”Hmmmm.....David Silverman, president of American Atheists:"What this church has to understand is that Christmas is not a Christian holiday".Read the full story here.

• Jordan's king wants improved ties with Iran.Abdullah II accepts Ahmadinejad's invitation to visit Tehran, says it's 'imperative to undertake practical steps for improving Jordanian-Iranian relations'.Jordan's King Abdullah II said Sunday he was seeking "practical steps" to improve his frosty relations with Iran, a contrast to his regime's frequent criticism of Iran's policies. The call came in a closed-door meeting with Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, director of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's office, Abdullah's Royal Court said in a statement. Abdullah has been one of Iran's harshest critics in recent years, warning that its growing influence in the region could undermine him and other pro-American moderates.The Royal Court statement said Abdullah accepted Ahmadinejad's invitation to visit Tehran soon, but no date was set.In US cables released by WikiLeaks, US Ambassador to Jordan Stephen Beecroft quoted Jordanian officials describing Iran as an "octopus" whose tentacles "reach out insidiously to manipulate, foment, and undermine the best laid plans of the West and regional moderates." Iran's "tentacles" include Qatar, Syria, the militant Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories, an Iraqi government linked to Iran and Shiite communities across the Mideast, according to the cables.Hmmmm....Fear is a strong motivator,how long before Jordan lashes verbally out to Israel?Read the full story here.

• Celebrities Call for Release of Iranian Woman Slated for Death by Stoning.Celebrities including Robert Redford, Robert de Niro, and Sting have called on Iran to release a woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.In an open letter published Monday, more than 80 actors, artists, musicians, academics and politicians said that "Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has suffered enough."Signatories include actor Colin Firth, artist Damien Hirst, Nobel literature laureates Wole Soyinka and V.S. Naipaul, British opposition leader Ed Miliband and former French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner. They say Ashtiani has already spent five years in prison and received 99 lashes.They called on Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to release her along with her son and lawyer, who are also imprisoned.The letter was published on the front page of The Times of London newspaper.Read the full story here.

• Swedish Creator of Mohammed Sketch Shrugs Off Blame After Stockholm Bombing.As expected, many people were blaming him for the terrorist attack, Lars Vilks wrote on his Web site Sunday. “Their logic is that one must be indulgent towards terrorists,” he added.Al-Qaeda terrorists based in Iraq posted a message on a jihadist Web site offering to pay $100,000 to anyone who killed Vilks, offering to up the bounty by 50 percent if his throat was slit.After an assassination plot was uncovered against Vilks early this year three Swedish newspapers reprinted the sketch, drawing fresh condemnations from Muslim bodies led by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Vilks’ house was firebombed last May, and when two brothers – Swedes of Kosovar origin – appeared in court on arson charges, one described the artist as “Islam’s greatest enemy right now.”Vilks wrote Sunday that it was bad news that his “art project” had its first fatality. “The good news is that the person killed was the terrorist himself, of his own volition.”Read the full story here.

• With New Violence, More Christians Are Fleeing Iraq.A new wave of Iraqi Christians has fled to northern Iraq or abroad amid a campaign of violence against them and growing fear that the country’s security forces are unable or, more ominously, unwilling to protect them.Those who fled the latest violence — many of them in a panicked rush, with only the possessions they could pack in cars — warned that the new violence presages the demise of the faith in Iraq. Several evoked the mass departure of Iraq’s Jews after the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. “It’s exactly what happened to the Jews,” said Nassir Sharhoom, 47, who fled last month to the Kurdish capital, Erbil, with his family from Dora, a once mixed neighborhood in Baghdad. “They want us all to go.” More than half of Iraq’s Christian community, estimated to number 800,000 to 1.4 million before the American-led invasion in 2003, have already left the country. The Islamic State of Iraq, an iteration of the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, claimed responsibility for the suicidal siege and said its fighters would kill Christians “wherever they can reach them.” Hmmmm.....Obama .."Islam is a great religion".When will he speak up for the Christians in the world?Read the full story here.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.'Our friend the Mufti'. I've written before about the relations between Adolph Hitler and Yasser Arafat's uncle, the Mufti Haj al-Amin al-Husseini (may both of their names be obliterated). The New York Times discloses that it wasn't just Adolph Hitler who was enamored with the Mufti. Britain and France were also fans.The report details how Mr. Husseini himself was allowed to flee after the war to Syria — he was in the custody of the French, who did not want to alienate Middle East regimes — and how high-ranking Nazis escaped from Germany to become advisers to anti-Israeli Arab leaders and “were able to carry on and transmit to others Nazi racial-ideological anti-Semitism.”“You have an actual contract between officials of the Nazi Foreign Ministry with Arab leaders, including Husseini, extending after the war because they saw a cause they believed in,” Dr. Breitman said. “And after the war, you have real Nazi war criminals — Wilhelm Beisner, Franz Rademacher and Alois Brunner — who were quite influential in Arab countries.”In October 1945, the report says, the British head of Palestine’s Criminal Investigation Division told the assistant American military attaché in Cairo that the mufti might be the only force able to unite the Palestine Arabs and “cool off the Zionists. Of course, we can’t do it, but it might not be such a damn bad idea at that.”Hmmm......It's pretty obvious Neurenberg did only part of the job.Read the full scandal  story here.

• Anti-blasphemy resolution at UN is absurd.The recent UN Human Rights Council draft resolution on "Combating defamation of religions" would make George Orwell roll over in his grave. If adopted by the UN General Assembly, it will give governments around the world unacceptable powers. In the name of preventing religious discrimination, the resolution insulates religious orthodoxy from all criticism. The resolution is incoherent, self-contradictory and a gross violation of the fundamental freedoms of religion and expression. Sponsored by Morocco on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), it lends cover and legitimacy to the blasphemy laws of oppressive states which do not respect their citizens' religious freedom. It thus precludes any possibility of an Islamic reformation, the very thing many Muslims want.The resolution claims, disingenuously, that it aims to combat discrimination based on religion. Of course, we should combat actual religious discrimination. For example, if you don't get a job because you are Muslim or a Jew, that is unjustifiable discrimination. But this doesn't mean that Islam or Judaism should be protected from criticism and debate. The resolution is incoherent because it targets the wrong kind of discrimination and protects the wrong entities. Individuals have human rights to be protected; ideas, ideologies, religions and states do not. Yet, the resolution claims that it protects freedom of religion. Invoking a measure that restricts freedom of religion (by seeking to make it illegal to express religious views that differ from official opinion) is a funny way to protect this fundamental freedom.The "defamation of religions" resolution is not about protecting human rights; it is about justifying repression of opinion not sanctioned by the authorities. The resolution does not advance freedom of religion; on the contrary, it curtails it in dangerous ways.Hmmmm.....Where free thought and free speech disappears,shortly afterwards freedom disappears as well!Read the full story here.

• Saudi Arabian Man accused of raping schoolboy 20 times.He used threats to get the boy into his parked car where the assaults took place.A man who repeatedly sodomised a schoolboy has been arrested and charged for the crime that ran over a period of 40 days.The boy who got sodomised 20 times during the period has accused the 26-year-old man of sodomising him in the latter’s car. The 14-year-old boy said he was paid Dh100 each time.While jail wardens failed to bring the accused before the Dubai Court of First Instance, the prosecutors said that the man identified as MA raped the boy in his car after repeated threats that he would reveal the relationship to the victim’s mother.Presiding Judge Al Saeed Mohammed Barghout rejected a bail plea from the accused for the fifth time considering the nature of the offence.Once inside the car, the man covered the front windshield and kissed the boy and then reclined the seat and had sex.Since then, the man called him every two days, the boy said adding he wanted to put a stop but his perpetrator dangled the threat of disclosing everything to his mother.The story came to light when the boy’s mother admonished the man who was staring at him while at a shopping mall. But the man claimed he was working with the Interior Ministry.It was then the boy told his mother about the relationship he was trapped in.Read the full story here.

• HT:WZ.Video: Iranian Students Burn The Koran.Video was taken on December 7, 2010 at Amirkabir University in Tehran. It’s tough to see but there’s a protester holding the burning Koran who’s then engulfed by security forces (most likely Basij goons). At the end they show a closeup of the end result, a Koran-B-Q.See the full story here .

• HT:DanielGreenfield.Who Will Teach Tolerance to the Muslims?Every time a Muslim terrorist is caught trying to kill Americans in the name of Islam, the media and the politicians immediately go on full alert over the threat of an "Islamophobic backlash" against Muslims. Right away city mayors, district attorneys, law enforcement officials, sensitivity trainers, school board members, television executives and editorial writers go sliding down the TolerancePole(TM) on an urgent mission to head off the inevitable orgy of violence by ordinary Americans who are always presumed to be 5 minutes away from shouldering a battering ram and heading off to the nearest mosque-- by teaching tolerance toward Islam. That means embedding Islam even deeper into the school curriculum, adding a "positive depiction" of a Muslim to every TV show on the air, and arresting anyone who even looks funny at a Koran.As of now the domestic murder scoreboard reads, "Muslims 3,000 - Americans 1". Anyone trained in the arcane arts of basic addition and subtraction can't help but look at that score and wonder if it's perhaps the people who have a kill count in the thousands who need to be taught tolerance, more than the schlubs who were just barely tolerant enough to score a 1. Hmmmm...Don't you think he's got a point there?Now read the full story here.

• Pakistani Clerics to launch campaign against goverment if blasphemy laws amended.All the religious parties of the country have announced to launch a movement, Tehreek Namoos-e-Risalat (TNR), against proposed amendments in the blasphemy laws, Markazi Jamaat Ahle Sunnat Ameer Pir Atiqur Rehman said on Sunday. Talking to reporters after attending All Parties Namoos-e-Risalat conference, Pir Atiqur Rehman said that Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) President Dr Abul Khair Muhammad Zubair had been nominated as the convener of the newly formed group.The conference was attended by Syed Munawar Hassan, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Professor Sajid Mir, Allama Sajid Naqvi, Mufti Muneebur Rehman, Dr Abul Khair Zubair, Pir Atiqur Rehman, Hamidul Haq Haqqani, Liaqat Baloch, Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri, Abdul Rauf Farooqi, Sikandar Abbas Gillani and Maulana Muhammad Abbas.He said a six-member action committee, comprising Liaqat Baloch, Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri, Abdul Rauf Farooqi, Sikandar Abbas Gillani and Maulana Muhammad Abbas, had been formed to evolve future strategy of the TNR. “The purpose of the meeting was to convey a message to the government that the nation would not tolerate any type of amendment in the blasphemy law, especially in the article 295-C of the constitution,” Dr Zubair said.He warned the rulers that if they dared to touch the blasphemy law, their government would not continue further as an organised protest campaign would be initiated throughout the country.Hmmmm....Doesn't sound like a country that the US should give $10 Billion?Read the full story here.

• ‘Ahmadinejad to visit Turkey this month’.Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit Turkey later this month to participate in a summit of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency reported on Sunday.Ahmadinejad is to have bilateral talks with Turkish officials on the sidelines of the summit, scheduled to be held in İstanbul on Dec. 23, the agency said. ECO is an international organization comprising 10 countries -- Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.Following the summit in İstanbul, Turkish President Abdullah Gül will on Dec. 24 host a trilateral meeting with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Selçuk Ünal said on Friday.If it takes place, Ahmadinejad’s visit to İstanbul will come weeks before the next round of talks between six world powers and Iran, which will also be held in İstanbul.Hmmmm......Iran - Pakistan - Afghanistan and Turkey....Am i missing here something or someone?Get Turkey out of NATO !Read the full axes of evil story here.

• Israel Will Not Share Jerusalem, Netanyahu Says.Israel's leader on Sunday dismissed a call from a key government partner to share the holy city of Jerusalem with the Palestinians, a reminder of the obstacles facing already troubled peacemaking efforts.Conflicting claims to east Jerusalem lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The dispute over the area, home to sensitive Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites, has derailed past peace talks and spilled into violence. Palestinians claim the sector as the capital of their future state.Palestinians blasted Israel's rejection of their claim to east Jerusalem."Mr. Netanyahu is distancing himself not from Barak, he is distancing himself from international consensus, he's distancing himself from international resolutions and distancing himself from international law," said Palestinian spokesman Husam Zomlot. "And most importantly, he's distancing himself from any possible negotiated settlement based on the two-state solution."Interviewed on ABC-TV, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the U.S. might have to express its own ideas."It may be unavoidable, actually, for the United States acting as a broker at some point to come in with bridging proposals so we make this happen," he said.Hmmmm....This is the part i don't like at all."Barack Obama threatens to impose peace plan on Middle East"."Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Sunday said he recently learned from reliable sources in the US that the Obama Administration is planning to impose a “peace” settlement on Israel and the Palestinians in the coming months."According to Lieberman, those two months would “give the US and the international community two months to come up with a solution that will be forced on Israel.”Is this why Obama's Islamic envoy Hussein was last week in Turkey to discuss the "Peaceplan"?Read the full story here.

• Canadian's grave relocated to corner in Bodrum cemetery.The remains of a retired Canadian diplomat have been relocated to another corner in the Bodrum cemetery, following a local Muslim family’s complaints.“I cannot digest that my husband’s grave was moved to a corner because the neighborhood cemetery owners didn’t want him. This behavior doesn’t suit my country or the people of my country. This implementation is backward, I’ve lost my sleep,” said his wife İlknur Kummul Himmelbach, a previous national sports woman and a Turkish record holder.The 61 year-old Hans Himmelbach settled in Torba with his wife in 2004. He died Oct. 20. Once permission was granted, his casket was delivered to the Torba cemetery accompanied by Muslim and Christian rituals at his wife’s request. The participants from both religions thought the ceremony contributed to the atmosphere of tolerance.Nevertheless, İlknur Himmelbach was shocked one day when municipal workers said the Dayıoğlu family, one of Bodrum’s leading families, requested the relocation of Himmelbach’s remains because his grave was next to their relatives’.Objecting to the relocation of her husband’s remains, İlknur Himmelbach applied to the Bodrum Municipality five times for an intervention. Her efforts were futile, though, and her husband’s grave was moved 20 meters and now lacks a proper gravestone.“We objected because we weren’t comfortable performing Muslim prayers right next to a Christian grave. We weren’t trying to hurt anybody,” said Dayıoğlu.Hmmmm....If anyone had doubts in which direction Turkey is moving,i guess this has answered the question.Keep Turkey out of Europe and get them out of NATO!Read the full scandal story here.

• HT:NewsRealBlog.Paris Muslims Block Streets, Using Prayer for Political Intimidation.I, like the vast majority of people in the world, believe in prayer. Prayer is a great gift given to us to communicate with God. However, I am not a fan of prayer ever being used as a tool of politics. It is especially wrong to use prayer as weapon of intimidation. Sadly a large group of Muslims in Paris, France think prayer should be used for just that purpose.In the the Paris district of Barbès (Paris, 18th arrondissement) a large group of Muslims take over the streets by blocking them off to cars and pedestrians every Friday. The Islamists use their own guards and people to set up prayer rugs all over the streets of Myrha, Leon Polonceau, Fishmongers, and the Boulevard Barbès. It’s been going on for years and there appears to be no signs of it stopping.Hmmm....."We don't want to take over your country"?Read the full story here.

• Huge Bomb Kills 6 U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan.Six American soldiers were killed and more than a dozen American and Afghan troops were wounded on Sunday morning when a van packed with explosives was detonated at a new jointly operated outpost in southern Afghanistan. The soldiers were inside a small mud-walled building near the village of Sangsar, north of the Arghandab River, when the bomber drove up to one of the walls and exploded his charge about 9 a.m. The blast could be heard eight miles away, and it sent a dusty cloud towering over the surrounding farmland. The explosion blasted a hole in the thick wall, causing the roof to collapse on the soldiers inside. Others quickly arrived and clawed and pulled at the waist-deep rubble to free the buried troops.The building had been occupied by the Americans and Afghans for only a few days, an American official said, and was beside a narrow road. It was not immediately clear how the van managed to get so close without being challenged or stopped. Gen. Abdul Hameed, a commander in the Afghan National Army, said in a telephone interview that his soldiers had tried to stop the van, but that its driver ignored them and rammed the vehicle into the building. After the van exploded, the field beside the ruined building became a busy landing zone, with four medical evacuation helicopters arriving to shuttle the victims to two military hospitals in nearby Kandahar. The Taliban swiftly claimed responsibility for the bombing. “We have killed numbers of Americans and Afghan soldiers and wrecked and ruined their security checkpost,” a Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said by telephone. “We will carry out similar attacks in the future.”Hmmm....Look at history !America used Nuclear weapons to save American lives in the war against Japan,at what moment will they realise that the Taliban only understands brute force?Read the full story here.

• HT:MEForum.Profiling airline passengers is constitutional and effective.When TSA introduced nationality profiling, it called it "long-term" and "sustainable." However, the policy came under increasing attack from Islamic groups such as the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and on April 2, the Obama administration announced it would be scrapped.If the public is not angrier about this, it is probably because it has been indoctrinated to believe that profiling is unconstitutional.In actuality, the Supreme Court resoundingly affirmed the basic premise underlying profiling in 1996. The context was a black defendant claiming selective prosecution for dealing crack cocaine. The 9th Circuit agreed, noting all recent prosecutions for that particular crime were of black defendants. It did not demand proof that there were "similarly situated" non-black defendants committing the same crime who went unpunished.Indeed, in 2008, in the first post-9/11 case to address the issue, government lawyers argued that Arab ethnicity was relevant to establishing probable cause because "all of the persons who participated in the 9/11 terrorist attacks were Middle Eastern males."The district court disagreed, saying, "even assuming … that a large proportion of would-be anti-American terrorists are Arabs, the likelihood that any given airline passenger of Arab ethnicity is a terrorist is so negligible that Arab ethnicity has no probative value…."The error in that argument is that it is equally true of non-Arabs and non-Muslims, so why check anyone. TSA's costly, cumbersome security apparatus is predicated on the belief that terrorists are trying to infiltrate airports. Accordingly, the relevant statistic is not the probability that a random Muslim traveler is a terrorist, which is, of course, small. Rather, it's what statisticians call the conditional probability: Given that a terrorist is attempting to penetrate airport security, what is the probability that he is Muslim. That figure is much higher.Since the 9/11 attack that spawned TSA, most, if not all, attempted airplane bombings have been perpetrated by individuals claiming to act in the name of Islam. This result is consistent with the suspect profile provided by bin Laden, who characterized would-be bombers as "soldiers of Allah."TSA has to decide whether it's serious or not. If it is, it needs to break the taboo on profiling. Otherwise, it needs to stop annoying air travelers. As the president said in the context of the debate on stem cell research, decisions need to be based on "facts, not ideology."Hmmmm...The problem is "Will the president allow profiling"?Read the full story here.

• HT:ShalomLife.Holocaust Video Games Draws Criticism.A video game set during a violent prisoner uprising at the Auschwitz death camp was announced this week. The game, titled Sonderkommando Revolt, is being developed by an Israeli video game developer who is using the real-world uprising at Auschwitz in October 1944 as the backdrop for the game. The Anti-Defamation League, an advocacy group whose goal is to "stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment for all," called the game "horrific and inappropriate" in an interview with Kotaku, a video game blog. "The Holocaust should be off-limits for video games. We hope the developers will reconsider and abandon the game." said the ADL spokesperson."This rudimentary video game is an offensive portrayal of the Holocaust." said the ADL spokesperson. "With its unnecessarily gruesome and gratuitos graphics, it is a crude effort to depict Jewish resistance during this painful period which should never be trivialized."And while the criticism does merit some truth, it's still coming from the game organization which praised Inglorious Basterds for all the same faults mentioned above. In fact, the ADL actually called Inglorious Basterds, "entertaining and thought-provoking." even thought, arguably, it's much more gruesome and gratuitos than this video game will ever be while depicting the exact same painful period.Hmmmm....I agree some topics should be off limits for videogames.Read the full story here.

• HT:NewsRealBlog.Art Against Jihad: 10 of the Best Illustrations From Bosch Fawstin, Volume 2.On September 5 I published a list post featuring my favorite pieces from my friend, NRB‘s staff artist Bosch Fawstin. Since then the inimitable Bosch has only continued to dazzle, provoke, enrage and inspire with his illustrations. So it only makes sense to do a new list highlighting some of his best pieces that he’s delivered the past few months. My comments are included.By the way: all of Bosch’s NRB illustrations (the ones with our logo in them) can be used free of charge, without our permission at your own blogs and publications. We’d appreciate if you would link back to us and also Bosch’s blog: http://fawstin.blogspot.com And be sure and visit Bosch’s site if you haven’t already where he has additional illustrations as well as prints, T-shirts, and books for sale.10. Think our response to jihad can’t get more ap.Paul.ling?Read and see the full story here.

• Woman arrested for pushing 100-year-old Wal-Mart employee.The Milwaukee County district attorney says the woman who was accused of injuring a 100-year-old Wal-Mart greeter and then taken to jail won't be charged.John Chisholm says surveillance video from Nov. 28 shows the customer reaching for her receipt when Lois Speelman was knocked backward. Chisholm says the shopper, 37-year-old Kai Metcalf, never intended to make contact with Speelman.The greeter had asked to check Metcalf's receipt. Chisholm says there were inconsistencies between what Speelman recollected and the video.Metcalf's attorney Julius Kim says his client admits she could have used better judgment.Hmmmm....A one Hundred year old Wal-Mart greeter?Should i report this as suspicious?Read the full story here.

• Saudi Islamic police arrest over 250,000 a year.Saudi Arabia’s Islamic police arrested more than 250,000 people in one year and those involved in ethical crimes topped the list, a local daily reported on Monday.Those arrested and convicted included nearly 15,556 Saudi men and 1,004 Saudi women as well as more than 74,000 expatriates, the London-based Arabic language Alhayat newspaper said, quoting the annual report by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the most feared law enforcement authority in the Gulf Kingdom.The report, covering the past Muslim Hirji year that ended last week, showed nearly 8,530 Saudi men and 968 national women were involved in illegitimate affairs and other ethical crimes. Around 5,077 expatriate men and 3,417 foreign women were also arrested in connection with such crimes.Hmmmm....That's alomost 700 people a day,talk about love for the job" and where do you put that many people?Read the full story here.

• Saudi Arabia Abuse forcing maids to flee employers.Saudi Arabia has over two million housemaids, most of them non-Arabs.Maltreatment, sexual abuse and other offences are forcing foreign housemaids in Saudi Arabia to indulge in crime or run away from their local employers, according to a local medical expert.Dr. Naif Al Marwani, a psychologist at a Saudi government hospital in the central town of Madina, said nearly 89 per cent of homes in the Gulf Kingdom have at least one housemaid and around 79 per cent of them are non-Arab workers.“Housemaids attempt to flee their sponsors due to maltreatment, non-payment of wages, sexual aggression, being sent to work for other people, differences in customs and traditions, and homesickness,” he told a seminar on housemaids.“Others reasons entail overwork and no provision of health care,” he told the conference in Madina, coinciding with growing furor over the abuse of maids in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil producers.Hmmmm.....Sounds like the UN should wake up and look at other countries instead of Israel all the time?Read the full story here.

• Followup on our story from yesterday.Pre-Islamic Christian monastery on Gulf island opens to the public.A 1,400-year-old monastery that was one of the most significant archaeological finds in the United Arab Emirates opened to visitors on Saturday.The site at Sir Bani Yas island in Abu Dhabi dates back to around 600AD, and is the only pre-Islamic Christian site in the region.It was built by a community of 30 to 40 monks and is understood to have been established by pilgrims travelling from India.He said his team had only unearthed one skeleton during their dig; however it appeared that the whole church may have been built around the body.It is thought that the man, possibly a holy man or local saint, may also have been the reason why pilgrims visited the island - with a separate room for visitors to leave gifts.The settlement that has opened is thought to have remained occupied until around 750 - even though by that stage Islam had begun to spread through the Gulf states.Hmmm....Still no word on what caused the end of the monastery.The Muslim Jihad offensive was finally halted in the West at the Battle of Poitiers/Tours, not far from Paris, in 732 AD by Charles Martel.So they would lead us to believe that a Christian monastery was unharmed al that time?Yeah whatever!Read the full story here.

• HT:Whattsupwiththat.Looks like a White Christmas in many areas much like last year.The heavy snows in Europe and Asia and now beginning in North America have this year off to a good start again. See 33 stories of the cold start in the UK beginning with November.The pattern will continue cold across the western parts of Canada, much of United States and across Eurasia. A strong blocking high pressure will push back from the North Atlantic to the Davis Straits. Snow will be heavy along the edges of the cold air and near the unfrozen Great Lakes where many feet will accumulate. More bitter arctic air – perhaps coldest since 1894 is forecast for the UK.Read and see the full story here.

• And now for something completely different.Lost Civilization May Have Existed Beneath the Persian Gulf.Veiled beneath the Persian Gulf, a once-fertile landmass may have supported some of the earliest humans outside Africa some 75,000 to 100,000 years ago, a new review of research suggests. At its peak, the floodplain now below the Gulf would have been about the size of Great Britain, and then shrank as water began to flood the area. Then, about 8,000 years ago, the land would have been swallowed up by the Indian Ocean, the review scientist said. The study, which is detailed in the December issue of the journal Current Anthropology, has broad implications for aspects of human history. For instance, scientists have debated over when early modern humans exited Africa, with dates as early as 125,000 years ago and as recent as 60,000 years ago (the more recent date is the currently accepted paradigm), according to study researcher Jeffrey Rose, an archaeologist at the University of Birmingham in the U.K."I think Jeff's theory is bold and imaginative, and hopefully will shake things up," Robert Carter of Oxford Brookes University in the U.K. told LiveScience. "It would completely rewrite our understanding of the out-of-Africa migration. It is far from proven, but Jeff and others will be developing research programs to test the theory.""Given the presence of Neanderthal communities in the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates River, as well as in the eastern Mediterranean region, this may very well have been the contact zone between moderns and Neanderthals," Rose told LiveScience. In fact, recent evidence from the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome suggests interbreeding, meaning we are part caveman.The Gulf Oasis would have been a shallow inland basin exposed from about 75,000 years ago until 8,000 years ago, forming the southern tip of the Fertile Crescent, according to historical sea-level records. And it would have been an ideal refuge from the harsh deserts surrounding it, with fresh water supplied by the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun and Wadi Baton Rivers, as well as by upwelling springs, Rose said. And during the last ice age when conditions were at their driest, this basin would've been at its largest. In fact, in recent years, archaeologists have turned up evidence of a wave of human settlements along the shores of the Gulf dating to about 7,500 years ago. Rather than quickly evolving settlements, Rose thinks precursor populations did exist but have remained hidden beneath the Gulf. "Perhaps it is no coincidence that the founding of such remarkably well developed communities along the shoreline corresponds with the flooding of the Persian Gulf basin around 8,000 years ago," Rose said. "These new colonists may have come from the heart of the Gulf, displaced by rising water levels that plunged the once fertile landscape beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean."And there's a hint of mythology here, too, Rose pointed out. "Nearly every civilization living in southern Mesopotamia has told some form of the flood myth. While the names might change, the content and structure are consistent from 2,500 B.C. to the Genesis account to the Qur'anic version," Rose said. Perhaps evidence beneath the Gulf? "If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands," said Rose, quoting Douglas Adams.Hmmmm.....Perhaps read the Sumerian texts? Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely different.Consider these halls decked: The house with one MILLION Christmas lights (so how much does it cost?).It's one of the highlights of Christmas - the twinkling coloured fairy lights that adorn homes awash with the festive spirit.But neighbours of this family must be considering investing in black-out blinds. The Faucher family in Delaware have been merrily setting a neighbourhood standard for 23 years - decking their halls with an astonishing one million Christmas lights.It's an impressive sight to say the least - and even more so when you consider what it must cost.Homeowners' website House Logic has done the maths. Assuming that each one of the one million bulbs is an average five watt C7 bulb, the cost of keeping the lights on for one hour is roughly $686.If the Fauchers keep their display lit for four hours a night for 30 nights, that means they are racking up an astonishing bill of $82,320. Which is a lot of Christmas spirit.Of course, if the Fauchers are environmentally or economically minded they may be using LED lights - in which case, House Logic estimated their bill at a mere $10,680 - saving them $71,640 for the month.Candles became important symbols of Christianity outside chuches centuries ago when Christians were persecuted for celebrating mass.A lit candle in a window was a secret signal that a mass was taking place.Lights were first placed on Christmas trees in Germany in the 1500s. From there the tradition of lighted trees migrated to the UK and on to North America.Hmmmm...How many solar panels would you need to keep this burning? Read and see the full story here.