MFS - The Other News

                         Afternoon Posting.

• National Front's Marine Le Pen to prove formidable rival to Nicolas Sarkozy. Marine Le Pen has promised to defend France from creeping "Islamisation" days before she is expected to take over from her father as head of the National Front party.The 42-year-old is seen as a potentially dangerous threat to President Nicolas Sarkozy if chosen to succeed Jean-Marie Le Pen in a mid-January party congress almost 40 years after he founded the party. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Miss Le Pen, said: "The progressive Islamisation of our country and the increase in political-religious demands are calling into question the survival of our civilisation." "We are fighting against Islamism, not Islam", she said. "Islamism is the will to impose Shariah for all as civil, political and religious law. We Western societies are fighting against Islamism all around the world. We have sent our kids to Afghanistan to be killed to fight against Islamism, and we don't have the right in France through words and political action to fight it? That seems totally absurd to me," she said. Miss Le Pen said examples of creeping Islamisation included pork being taken off the menu in certain French schools, the fact that 22 Quick fast food restaurants were offering exclusively Halal burgers. She also claimed that Muslim communities were receiving hidden French government funds to build "increasingly ostentatious mosque-cathedrals" or ones funded by Saudi Arabia.Hmmmm....What American politician would have the guts to say this?Read the full story here.

• HT:TheBlaze.Shock Audio: New Black Panther Leader Reveals Collusion at NYC Meeting With Ahmadinejad to Build Alliance, Secure Raw Materials and Overthrow America.Read and see the full story here.

• "The War on Christianity".Christian assemblies in schools face axe over claims they infringe children's human rights.Christian assemblies in schools could be scrapped it campaigning atheists and teachers get their way.According to the National Secular Society, a legal requirement for schoolchildren to take part in a daily act of collective worship 'of a broadly Christian character' discriminates against young atheists and non-Christians, and infringes human rights.And the campaign has support from headmasters who claim that many schools already ignore the requirement, despite it being set in stone since the passing of the 1944 Education Act.The Association of School and College Leaders has also suggested assemblies should end, and the British Humanist Association is campaigning on the subject.But the most direct attack on religious assemblies, which represents yet another assault on Britain's historic Christian culture, has come in a letter to Education Secretary Michael Gove, from executive director of the National Secular Society Keith Porteous.Mr Porteous wrote: 'We believe that the mandatory daily acts of mainly Christian worship and in particular, the imposition on children to take part in such acts, represent an infringement of rights.Hmmmm....."We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another".Jonathan Swift.Read the full story here.

• West Java: Catholics celebrate Christmas Mass in a parking lot.Jakarta (AsiaNews) – Hundreds of members of Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church in Parung (West Java) celebrated Mass under the sun and in a tent set up in the parking lot of the Marsudirini Elementary School. Bogor Regency chief’s prohibition of Christmas celebration was thus not repealed despite repeated attempts by Tulang Kuning Church leaders to negotiate with local authorities.The latter justified their decision citing the lack of a permit to build a church. Without it, the local parish is not allowed to perform any public functions even on its own land.According to Indonesia’s constitution however, no one has the right to prohibit any religious community from practicing its faith and celebrating its rites and services. Yet with the rising influence of Islamic radicals, the constitution has been repeatedly violated as local authorities kowtow to Muslim extremists and show greater hostilities towards Christians.
  Hmmmmm....Obama :"Indonesia is an example of religious tolerance".Read the full story here.

• HT:TheDailyStar.Islam takes over Catholic school.A Catholic school faces being taken over by a mosque after it was revealed that 95% of its pupils are Muslim.It is believed to be the first case of its kind in Britain. Church leaders say it is no longer “appropriate” for them to run Sacred Heart RC Primary School which has just six Christian pupils. Just 10 years ago more than 90% of pupils were Catholic. But now most are of Asian origin, do not speak English as their first language and follow Islam.Hmmmm.....The movie "Braveheart" comes to mind Longshanks to his nobles"If we can't kill them,then we'll breed them out".Read the full story here.HT:TundraTabloids.

• 'Egypt seizes Gaza-bound anti-aircraft missiles in Sinai'.Security forces discover large cache of ammunition, weapons and explosives in isolated desert warehouse facility, Ma'an reports.Egyptian security forces in the Sinai Peninsula recently seized a large store of weapons and explosives that were to be smuggled into the Gaza Strip, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported Tuesday.The cache of weapons included dozens of anti-aircraft artillery shells and several anti-aircraft missiles, according to the report. The weapons and ammunition were discovered in a hole inside an isolated desert storage facility.Egyptian security officials said they found machine guns, ammunition, over 170 anti-aircraft shells, 90 artillery shells, 200 bullets of varying sizes, anti-tank landmines and 100 kilograms of TNT.Read the full story here.

• Obama's regulators kowtow to Big Green, imperil economy.Who's doing the most to hobble the productive power of the U.S. economy, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson or Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar? President Obama's top two Cabinet appointees on environmental issues are running neck and neck in their race to see who can issue the most job-killing, growth-suffocating bureaucratic edicts. Regardless of who "wins" their contest, of course, the losers will be the rest of us. We will have to endure long-term double-digit unemployment, skyrocketing energy and utility costs, and the loss of individual freedom that inevitably accompanies the growth of government regulation.If these White House-sanctioned bureaucratic coups against congressional authority are allowed to stand, the tombstone on the U.S. economy should read: "Here's lies the most powerful engine of prosperity the world has ever seen. Strangled by Barack Obama, Lisa Jackson and Ken Salazar."Hmmmmm....Premeditated murder would be closer to the truth?Read the full story here.

• Iran Hangs Man Convicted of Spying for Israel.Tehran, Iran (AP) - Iran on Tuesday hanged an Iranian convicted of spying for the country's archenemy Israel, the official IRNA news agency reported.Ali Akbar Siadati had been accused of providing Israel with classified information on Iran's military capabilities, including details about military maneuvers, bases, operational jet fighters, military flights, air crashes and missiles, IRNA reported.Separately, another Iranian was hanged Tuesday for membership in an exile opposition movement, IRNA reported.There was no immediate comment on the execution from officials in Israel.IRNA said Siadati was hanged in Tehran's Evin prison. Earlier in the week, Iran's judiciary announced that a spy for Israel would be executed soon after an appeals court confirmed the man's death sentence. It said the trial was held in the presence of his lawyer.Read the full story here.

• HT:MiddleEastForum.UCLA's Professor of Fantasy.The Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES) at the University of California, Los Angeles and the UCLA School of Law's Journal for Islamic and Near Eastern Law co-sponsored a lecture (podcast available here) last month by Khaled Abou El Fadl, chair of the Islamic Studies Interdepartmental Program, with the vague title "Shari'ah Watch: A View from the Inside."Instead, Abou El Fadl spent over fifteen minutes describing alleged acts of violence worldwide against Muslims by non-Muslims, a trend he ascribed to "the effect of the Islamophobic hate tract."When he did get around to discussing Shariah, it was only to claim that its detractors were motivated by bigotry:We look at the history of anti-Islamic discourse, particularly in my field, a discourse in which Shariah is flattened to be a symbol of barbarism. ... This is what Edward Said responded to in his famous book, Orientalism. I describe it as a civil anti-Muslim discourse.When the question-and-answer period ended, Abou El Fadl had defended the concept of Shariah without ever defining it. When he did address Shariah, it was to imply that it is a benign, uncontroversial -- even boring -- legal system. But there is a difference between being boring and being harmless.Instead, El Fadl spent much of his lecture insulting and fabricating stories about political opponents such as Spencer and Emerson. For the chair of UCLA's Islamic Studies Interdepartmental Program -- and the Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Professor in Islamic Law at UCLA's School of Law -- this is inexcusable. Now that this information is publicly available, will Abou El Fadl's superiors take steps to prevent a repetition?We call on law school dean Rachel F. Moran to investigate this incident and to look more generally at Abou El Fadl's record. We call on UCLA chancellor Gene Block to draw a clear line against dishonesty among his faculty.Hmmmm.....Ever heard of  Al-taqiyya? Read the full story here.

• Militias Stem Pakistani Taliban, but at a Cost.Tribal militias allied with the government helped block a Taliban advance in this corner of northwest Pakistan close to the Afghan border, but their success has come at a price: the empowerment of untrained, unaccountable private armies that could yet emerge as a threat of their own.Tensions are emerging between authorities and the dozens of militias that they helped to create predominantly in and near the northwest tribal regions. Operating from fortress-like compounds with anti-aircraft guns on the roofs, the militiamen have made it clear that the state now owes them for their sacrifices. They show photos on their cell phones of Taliban they killed and point to the scrubland outside, with graves of relatives who died in the fight.The leader of the largest militia near the town of Matani, a wealthy landowner named Dilawar Khan, warns that he will stop cooperating with police unless he gets more money and weapons from authorities. Speaking to The Associated Press, he adds what could be a veiled threat to join the militants."Time and time again, the Taliban have contacted us, urging us to change sides," he said.Another local militia commander is locked in a dispute with local police, who recently raided his compound and accused him of stealing and overstepping his authority.The third major lashkar in the region is run by Noor Malik, the son of a local official who like others initially supported the Taliban when they first arrived in the area. But his father was killed by the Taliban last year after he left them and sided with policeMalik, just 22, has little time for critics of the lashkars."We did not choose this. The Taliban started it when they began beheading people," he said. "Where were the human rights activists then, when I lost my father?"Hmmmmm....What in Gods name are these troops doing there?Don't they see this will never end?Read the full story here.

• HT:NewsRealBlog.NRB’s Ryan Mauro on Fox & Friends This Morning About Imam Rauf’s Tour.If you’re working on a controversial project and the heat finally gets off of you, what do you do? You shut up! Things were going so well for Imam Rauf. The country had finally stopped talking about something other than the Ground Zero mosque. Park51 was moving forward, even acting so provocatively as to apply for a $5 million federal grant meant to reconstruct lower Manhattan. This attempt to use taxpayer money to fund a project they hate didn’t even register any major outrage.And now Rauf is going on a major speaking tour. He either doesn’t get it that every time he talks about Park51 he undermines the interfaith relations he claims he wants to improve, loves attention or actually wants to cause friction. Whatever the case may be, he’s given his opponents an opportunity to make their arguments again. As I was quoted in the New York Times as saying, this will “revive the opposition.”The Christian Action Network, where I serve as National Security Advisor, is planning a nationwide screening tour of its latest documentary about the Ground Zero mosque, many of which will include guest speakers that are experts on radical Islam or are 9/11 survivors. Read and see the full story here.

• HT:BigPeace.Russia’s ‘Islam Problem’.When discussing the Islamization of the West, France is usually cited as being the worst-off of the Western democracies. It has an estimated Muslim population of 10%, perhaps as high as 15%, and the demographics of the situation — a very low birthrate among the native French, and a baby boom among the Muslim immigrants — do not bode well for the future of France.If we expand the definition of “the West” a bit, it becomes necessary to add India and Russia to the list of Most Islamized Western Nations. India has the largest, oldest, and most intractable “Islam problem” of any Western democracy. The Muslim minority in India is over 150 million (13+% of the population) and is growing relative to the Hindu population. India lives under the constant threat of terror attack. Its citizens experience deadly bombings and other forms of violent jihad with mind-numbing regularity.Russia is a special case. Its Muslim population is estimated at 10% to 12%, and its demographic situation is worse than that of France, so that Russian Islam is expected to grow rapidly. If present trends continue, Muslims will comprise a majority of the Russian military within a couple of decades.However, as analysts often point out, Islam in Russia is different from virtually anywhere else. The most fanatical Osama-loving terrorists and their sympathizers are confined mainly to Chechnya, Dagestan, and other small republics in the southern Caucasus. To the extent that these ethnicities have migrated to Moscow and other parts of Russia proper, the problem of Islamic terror has spread, but its practitioners are still mainly from those Caucasian ethnic groups.The chief mufti Ravil Gainutdin attacks the State guilty of hindering the unification of the Muslims of the Federation and condemn those religious leaders who are working as puppets to quell the community’s presence in the country.Mr. Gainutdin is reminding the oligarchs who rule Russia that he has two million troops under his command in Russia’s capital city. This is a warning to Vladimir Putin to shorten the chain on his nationalist “hooligans”, or face the consequences. Judging by the roundup of young nationalists over the past week or so — the last I heard, a couple of thousand of them were in preventive detention — Mr. Putin has gotten the message.It seems that Islam in Russia is not the mild and relatively harmless institution that we all thought it was. Russian Muslims are flexing their muscles and pushing for unity.For some reason, they seem to think that tomorrow belongs to them.
  Hmmmmm....You give me what i want or else?Putin backing down that easely?Perhaps give Medvedev the problems and he will be the saviour?Read the full story here.

• HT:TheDailyCaller.The top 10 violations of the Constitution by Obama and the 111th Congress.At the close of the 111th Congress, America is deeply in the bog of Thomas Jefferson’s prophetic warning: “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” Unfortunately, the broken chains of the Constitution have failed to contain the federal government.By way of review, let’s take a stroll through the junkyard of constitutional violations that have been painted fresh by President Obama and the 111th Congress. Here’s my top-ten list, highly abbreviated for length.Hmmmmm.....Thank goodness for the "transparency" of the Obama administration?Read the full story here.

• The World from The Hill: Bipartisan effort pressures Obama to help Iraq's Christians.Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are fervently pressing the White House to stem mounting attacks on Christians in Iraq.Fearful of fresh violence in Iraq, many of the oldest sects of Christianity in the ancient biblical land are planning low-key Christmas celebrations this year.In a recent letter to President Obama, the group warned that the current situation “promises more innocent Christian blood in Iraq, more turmoil in that country, and more shame for America.”Lawmakers hope they can steer the attention of the White House to the intensifying violence.Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), the only Assyrian member of Congress and a close friend of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), remembers well listening to her grandparents’ stories of family members being slain or fleeing the region, as they did when they came to the United States.“History is repeating itself,” the congresswoman somberly told The Hill.Before the ouster of Saddam Hussein, there were about 1.4 million Christians in Iraq, comprising about 3 percent of the population, said Eshoo. Today, through a mass exodus and violence that has included a dozen members of the clergy killed or kidnapped, about 400,000 remain.“The numbers are stunning,” Eshoo said. “We are really struggling to have the issue taken as seriously as it should be taken.”Hmmmm....What kind of US President needs pressure to speak up for the Christians,but can't stop preaching when it comes to glorifying Islam?Yes history is repeating itself but it's the 1939 - 1945 period!Read the full story here.

• Turkey needs hate crime laws, civil society groups say.Turkey needs to legally define a category for offenses and crimes that were perpetrated solely due to hatred of an individual or minority group, according to a number of civil society organizations and jurists. Turkey, not unlike most countries of the world, is not free of crime against minorities and disadvantaged groups. Among these, crimes motivated by bias against the target due to their background or identity are defined as hate crimes. However, the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) does not include such a category. The Social Change Association, in a bid to lobby for creating such a legal category, recently held a rally against hate crimes.Hate crimes were first included in international criminal law in 2003. Forty-eight Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) members now have legislation that categorizes hate crimes, while eight OSCE members, including Turkey, currently have no such legal description of bias-motivated crimes in their penal codes. “A symbolic message would be given if this is put into law,” says OSCE representative Tankut Soykan, adding, “This will show that such crimes are not tolerated and that they cannot be covered up.”Soykan, the adviser on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims at OSCE, has stated that legal measures alone are not enough to combat hate crimes, stressing that social policy changes are also necessary. He said integrating this definition into legislation would serve more symbolically to highlight that such crimes would never be covered up.Hmmmm.....One second they claim the laws are needed to protect minorities the next they claim it's to protect Muslims,i did not know Muslims are a minority in Turkey?I think it's just to silence free speech.Read the full story here.

• Santa Claus hats cause crisis among Atatürk Airport personnel.İstanbul Atatürk Airport personnel have expressed outrage because they are required to wear Santa Claus hats to be in concert with this year's holiday theme. Eda Bildiricioğlu, general manager of TAV Administration Services, had ordered that approximately 150 employees working in various departments at the airport wear Santa Claus hats to cheer up the environment in the holiday season until Dec. 31. Some workers objected to the order because it would not look “nice” with their suits. But the administration warned them that their contract would be terminated if they refused to wear the hats.So TAV personnel started to wear the hats from 7 a.m.-4 p.m.; however, some of the staff members have been uneasy with the requirement. They did not want to be photographed with the hats. Some of them said they have to wear the hats because they have no other option.Asked about the crisis caused by the Santa Claus hats, one employee said that “they look so bad.”Read the full "mad hatters" story here.

• HT:RightSideNews.King is being described as the real extremist for his past vocal support of the Irish Republican Army and is being accused of having an anti-Muslim bias. The legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee says King has “bigoted intentions” and the community affairs director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ New York chapter says he “has dedicated years of his career peddling extremist rhetoric and baseless claims concerning the Muslim community and its leadership.”The true “baseless claims” are the ones made against King. He was an advocate of U.S. military intervention in the former Yugoslavia on the side of Muslims, has taken Pakistan’s side over India’s in their fight over Kashmir, and had a long relationship with the Muslim community of Long Island. His record contradicts the accusation that he has an anti-Muslim agenda. His warnings are based in fact and they are echoed by top Obama administration officials.“You didn’t worry about this [homegrown terrorism] even two years ago—about individuals, about Americans, to the extent that we now do,” Attorney General Eric Holder recently said. He added that over the past two years, 125 people in the U.S. have been indicted on terrorism-related charges, 50 of which are American citizens.“The hearings have not even begun and groups like CAIR and MPAC [the Muslim Public Affairs Council] are hurling diversionary ad hominem attacks at its organizers,” he said. He added that the hearings may help stimulate discussion about promoting “a ‘modern Islam’ that separates mosque and state” as the “best antidote to the ever-increasing threat of Muslim radicalization.”The nature of the terrorist threat has changed, as Attorney General Holder said. The U.S. must adapt because the enemy already has. These hearings are necessary to protect the country and Rep. King should be praised, not defamed, for holding them.Hmmmmm....The hearings have not begun and already they are trying to silence those who want these hearings,lets hope they don't go further then words to reach their aims.Read the full story here.

• Visiting Jonathan Pollard in an American Prison: An Interview with HaRav Shlomo Aviner.How does one arrange a meeting with Jonathan Pollard?"I do not know the process, since they arranged it for me, but I do know that it takes many months to receive permission such as this. The one who arranged all of this is Rabbi Pesach Lerner, Vice President of 'Young Israel'. He displays self-sacrifice to visit Jonathan at every opportunity, and he also accompanied me on this visit."Can Ha-Rav describe the entrance and checking process before one reaches Jonathan?There is a serious checking process there, and it is forbidden to enter with anything. Not a pencil, not a camera, not even a handkerchief or a piece of paper. Nothing. You enter and a metal door is closed. You then enter a hallway, and a metal door is open and then another door and another door, and the place is filled with cameras. They also stamp your hand with an invisible stamp, and when you leave, they check, with the help of ultraviolet, that it is you, in order that you do not switch with the prisoner. It seems that there are people who are willing to switch places with a prisoner… In brief, it is impossible to escape from there, it thus appears."People say that Pollard is not so healthy. Did Ha-Rav observe this?"In general, he is quite ill and he recently had another medical crisis, but he goes out of his way to hide his pain and one does not immediately sense this about him. He smiles, speaks in moderation, quietly and with knowledge. He possesses a sharp, analytical mind, creativity, and also a good sense of humor. He tries hard not to let visitors see how sick he is. This required great strength, when we were there since the next night, we learned he was desperately ill and in crisis. But when one comes to see him, he strengthens himself, and does whatever he can so you do not see any of it."Read the full interview here.

• HT:BigPeace.‘I Am the Mother of the Boy that Was Brutally Slaughtered by Your Son…’This letter was forwarded to a blogger on a Dutch news site. It was written by a woman in Antwerp to the mother of an imprisoned Moroccan criminal. The woman wrote the letter after seeing the criminal’s mother on a Flemish television news program.She ends her letter with the following words:Oh, and I almost forgot: you don’t have to worry, the state keeps a part of my lousy wage to pay for a new bed for your son, because he burned the two previous ones in his cell where he is doing time for the brutal crime he committed.Finally, also as mothers, maybe we can contribute something to stop the inversion of human values. Human rights should only be there for the rightfully deserving.Read the full story here.

• 111th Congress Added More Debt Than First 100 Congresses Combined: $10,429 Per Person in U.S. That equals $10,429.64 in new debt for each and every one of the 308,745,538 people counted in the United States by the 2010 Census.The total national debt of $13,858,529,371,601.09 (or $13.859 trillion), as recorded by the U.S. Treasury at the close of business on Dec. 22, now equals $44,886.57 for every man, woman and child in the United States.During the Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) tenure as speaker, which commenced on Jan. 4, 2007, the federal government has run up $5.177 trillion in new debt. That is about equal to the total debt the federal government accumulated in the first 120 years of the nation's existence, with the federal debt rising from $5.173 trillion on July 24, 1996 to $5.181 trillion on July 24, 1996.In her inaugural address as speaker, Pelosi vowed that Congress would engage in no new deficit spending."After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending,” she said in an address from the speaker’s podium. “Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt."Hmmmm......Where's the Guiness Record book when you need them?Never a bigger lie has been told.Read the full story here.

• Classified maps show security in Afghanistan is worsening, despite Obama's assurances the war is 'on track'.Secret United Nations maps reveal security is deteriorating in parts of Afghanistan despite White House assurances its war strategy is working. The maps reveal fighting had worsened in 16 districts in the north and east of the country by October, compared with March. The regions, which were once considered secure, have since been upgraded to ‘high risk’ status.U.N. director for communications Kieran Dwyer said he could not comment on classified maps.But he said: ‘In the course of 2010, the security situation in many parts of the country has become unstable where it previously had not been so. ‘There is violence happening in more parts of the country, and this is making the delivery of humanitarian services far more for difficult for the U.N. and other organisations. But we are continuing to deliver.’Mr Obama wants to end the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan and transition to full Afghan security control by 2014. There are currently around 140,000 U.S.-led Nato troops in the country, of which two-thirds are from the United States. Since 2001 a total of 2,196 coalition troops have lost their lives in the fighting. Of these, 344 were British and 1,366 were American.But U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissed suggestions that the Obama administration was presenting an overly rosy view of the war.'I think we're clear-eyed and realistic,' she said.Hmmmm....I presume the Canadian fallen soldiers are considered "Non Existent" for this Author?Since 2002, 154 members of the Canadian Forces have been killed serving in the Afghanistan mission.Read the full story here.

• Nigeria Roiled Again by Muslim-Christian Clashes.The season of good will brought little to celebrate in a city straddling Nigeria’s religious fault line, where Muslim-Christian clashes continued Sunday following a series of deadly bombings on Christmas Eve.Elsewhere in the country, police blamed a radical Islamic group nicknamed the “Nigerian Taliban” for attacks on two churches in the north which left six people dead, including a pastor.Nigeria’s population is roughly 50 percent Muslim and 40 percent Christian, and the introduction of shari’a law in 12 northern states a decade ago has exacerbated tensions between the two communities, with periodic eruptions of rioting and violence.According to a U.N. body focused on racial discrimination, more than 13,500 people have died in “ethno-religious” violence in Nigeria over the past 10 years.A Nigerian newspaper, Punch, reported Sunday that at least eight more people had been killed in clashes between Muslim and Christian youths, with firearms and machetes used in the fighting. Buildings including churches and mosques had been set alight.“Most streets remain deserted as people huddle indoors in fear of the worsening security situation,” reported another Nigerian daily, Next.The violence was condemned by Pope Benedict XVI, the U.S. government and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, among others.Christmas also was marred for Christians in Nigeria’s northern state of Borno, where around 30 armed men attacked two churches in the state capital Maiduguri during Christmas Eve services.A pastor named as Bulus Marwa was among five people killed in an assault on a Baptist church, while a security guard was killed in a separate attack on a church belonging to the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN), an evangelical denomination.In an audio message released in 2003 Osama bin Laden named Nigeria as one of six “most qualified regions for liberation” by Islamic warriors (the others were Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Morocco and Jordan.) He called on Muslims in the six countries to take steps “to establish the rule of Allah on earth.”Hmmmmmm......How many Nigerian Muslims immigrated to the USA?Read the full story here.

• "The War on Christmas".The metaphor “The War on Christmas” can be mocked – as if Santa and his reindeer are dodging anti-aircraft fire. But many of our public schools have church-and-state sensitivity police with an alarming degree of Santaphobia.Anyone who's attended a school's “winter concert” in December with no traditional Christmas music – not even “Frosty the Snowman” – knows the drill. The vast Christian majority (that funds the public schools) is told that school is no place to celebrate one's religion, even in its most watered-down and secularized forms.There are real-life stories of Scrooge-like school administrators, like the one at the appropriately named Battlefield High School in Haymarket, Virginia. A group of ten boys calling themselves the Christmas Sweater Club were given detention and at least two hours of cleaning for tossing free two-inch candy canes at students as they entered before classes started. They were “creating a disturbance.” One of their mothers, Kathleen Flannery, told WUSA-TV that an administrator called her and explained "not everyone wants Christmas cheer -- that suicide rates are up over Christmas, and that they should keep their cheer to themselves, perhaps."Of course, that level of sensitivity is not applied when it comes to slamming Christianity during the Christmas season.It's amazing that at Battlefield High School, the accusation was that Christmas cheer invited suicides, but plays about murderous “hate crimes” that America has collectively committed by our “fear and ignorance of the Other” somehow should make our spirits bright.Hmmmmm.....There can only be one?Read the full story here.

• 'Plot to bomb London Eye': Nine in court accused of planning Christmas terror blitz on the capital's busiest landmarks.Nine terror suspects plotted a Christmas bomb blitz in London, a court has heard.Potential targets included the London Eye tourist attraction, the Stock Exchange and Mayor Boris Johnson, it was claimed.The Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, two rabbis and the U.S. Embassy were also said to have been listed for possible attack.Big Ben was allegedly visited, while the Palace of Westminster was among other key landmarks said to have received their attention. The Church of Scientology headquarters in London was also ‘observed’, it was claimed.Targets for bombings had been agreed by the cell’s members before police swooped, Westminster Magistrates’ Court was told.The suspects had also conducted live tests on explosives as part of their ‘unlawful and malicious conspiracy’.Anti-terror police arrested the men, aged between 19 and 28, during a series of dawn raids in London, Cardiff and Stoke-on-Trent five days before Christmas.The suspects sat in the glass-panelled dock as the court was given details of atrocities they were accused of planning for the festive season.Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Hamas Official: Palestinian Women Are Competing In Sons' Martyrdom.In a lecture sponsored by the Supporters of Jerusalem Committee in Kuwait, Palestinian Legislative Council member from Hamas Jameela Al-Shanti said that Palestinian women are participating in jihad and resistance and that they had educated generations of Palestinians for resistance and given them over to Allah. She said that Palestinian women compete among themselves for the title of Khansaa, that is, to have the most sons martyred, and that when a woman hears that her son or her husband was martyred she hastens to thank Allah for it. Al-Khansaa bint Omar was an early Islamic poet who thanked Allah when her four sons were killed in battle, and is considered "the mother of the martyrs."]Hmmm...Who in his/her right mind can recognise a "?State" with such principles?Read the full story here.

• London considering granting Palestinian delegates diplomatic status.The UK government is considering upgrading the status of the Palestinian delegation to that of diplomatic mission, Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported today. In Israel, officials fear this might lead to the unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood.If carried out, the step would follow that of various South American nations who have already granted recognition to an independent Palestinian state. The Palestinian delegation would thus enjoy a status similar to that of an independent state, which will turn Palestinian delegates into diplomats.So far, only Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia have recognised a Palestinian state. France, Spain and Portugal have already recognised the Palestinian delegation as a diplomatic mission.The Israeli government is very concerned about the possible move because the current UK government is considered pro-Israel. Its action would profoundly change the European context.The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) confirmed that it was looking into the possibility of upgrading the Palestinian delegation's status. A FCO spokesperson said the matter was indeed being examined thoroughly.Hmmmmm........Terrorists become members of the UN and God fearing people become terrorists,the world is upside down.Read the full madness story here.

• Netanyahu: No apology to Turkey.Tough talk: Prime minister makes it clear Israel will not apologize to Turkey over flotilla incident; during Channel 10 interview, Netanyahu also demands that Ankara annul all legal proceedings against the IDF.Tough talk: Israel will not be apologizing to Turkey over the flotilla incident that left nine people dead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Channel 10 Monday.Turkey has said previously that relations with Israel will not be resorted before Israel apologizes for the bloody raid and compensate the victims' families.Hmmmm....Turkey is behaving lately like it owns half of the Middle East and Europe it's about time someone tels them NO.Read the full story here.

• HT:TheNationalReview.America’s Most Bankrupt Mayors,Democrats lead 70.5 percent of the most-bankrupt cities.Have a gander at America’s 17 most-bankrupt cities, and consider the party variable: Two Republican mayors, two independents, one city so bankrupt that it is in state receivership — and twelve Democratic mayors, meaning the Democrats lead 70.5 percent of the most-bankrupt cities, by my always-suspect English-major math.And you thought their record was bad in Congress.And get a load of the size of these budget shortfalls: Camden, N.J., at 15 percent, Hamtramck, Mich., at 17 percent, Paterson, N.J., at 24 percent, Central Falls, R.I., at 22 percent.The state of California cannot afford to bail out San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose; the state of Illinois cannot afford to bail out Chicago and Joliet; New Jersey cannot afford to bail out Camden, Patterson, and Newark. The outstanding municipal-bond obligations are huge.Hmmmm....Spend,spend and spend just as Obama does,what's a Trillion more or less in debt?It's the taxpayer who's paying the bill.Read the full bankruptcy story here.

• HT:IslamoNazism.Israel's "black bedouins" discover their past.A few weeks ago I happened to stumble upon a program on Israeli TV about Rahat's (Israel's largest bedouin town) "black bedouins" and their origins. It turns out they were brought to Israel as slaves from Sudan and Zanzibar (for more on Zanzibar's slavery past go here) by Arab slave traders. Luckily enough I found most of the program on You Tube. But before we go to the videos here's a synopsis of the program:Centuries after they were brought to Palestine as slaves, black Bedouins still face discrimination. About two years ago, filmmaker Uri Rosenwaks came to Rahat, a Bedouin town down in Israel's Negev Desert, to teach a group of Black Bedouin women a class in filmmaking.Afflicted with pessimism, unemployment, poverty and violence, Rahat is partially populated by Black Bedouins who were brought to the Middle East as slaves. Kidnapped in Africa by Arab slave traders, they were auctioned-off in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Zanzibar, and until 50 years ago, Black Bedouins were enslaved by the White ones.When the Israeli film director first started work with the group, the women never mentioned the issue. Only after about 18 months of working and making short films together, did he work up the nerve to suggest that they make a film telling the history of the Black Bedouins. Suddenly, a small and modest course in filmmaking became a forum for the airing of the unspoken taboos and history of an entire society.Read and see the full story here.

• And now for something completely different.Has the legendary chupacabra been found? Man shoots dead mysterious grey-skinned creature.Is this mysterious creature a fabled chupacabra, or just a follicly challenged raccoon?The bald, grey-skinned creature was shot and killed in Lebanon Junction, Kentucky, after it emerged from woodland into the garden of a home.But the animal, which has large ears, whiskers and a long tail, has sparked intense debate on the internet, with some claiming it is one of the mythical chupacabras.Stories of the blood-sucking creature began circulating in Puerto Rico 15 years ago and since then tales of the havoc it causes have swept from Chile through Mexico and into southern U.S. states.Mark Cothren shot the animal as it walked into his front yard because he did not recognise it.He told Wave3.com: 'I was like "every animal has hair, especially this time of year!".'What puzzled me is how something like that could survive through a winter with no hair.'Everybody is getting very curious, you know. The phone is ringing off the hook. It's kind of a mystery right now.'The animal was the size of a house cat, but some people have speculated it could even be a legendary chupacabra.The chupacabra - also known as the 'goat sucker' - is believed to kill goats and suck their blood.People have claimed to have seen it in South America, Mexico, Puerto Rico and even Texas and Oklahoma.Hmmmm....I don't know what it is, but let's put it this way : i wouldn't trow it on the Barbecue.Read and see the full story here.

• Blind woman breaks TWO world records on holiday after being taught to fish by her husband.A fisherman who introduced his blind wife to fishing has been upstaged twice - as he watched her break two world records for catching giant catfish.Retired gardener Alan Penfold, 63, decided to start bringing wife Sheila along on his fishing trips four years ago but wouldn't have expected to be upstaged by his partially-sighted partner.She has broken the record for the biggest catfish ever caught by a woman and then hooked the largest albino catfish ever caught in two fishing holidays.Hmmmm....Lady that's one hell of a fish!Read the full story here.