MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• The volatile Lybian situation live streams here.

Live Blog Libya - Al Jazeera. here.

Hmmm....by the way it seems Al Yazeera is now available on cable in Canada?"If you live in Canada, contact the following cable and satellite providers to subscribe to Al Jazeera English" Bell TV: 516 - Cogeco: 182 - Rogers: 176 - Shaw: 513 - Videotron: 173

• UN draft sanctions names 23 Libyan officials.Security Council speeds up efforts to impose international sanctions on Libyan regime. Draft resolution includes arms embargo, travel ban and asset freezes for country's senior officials, Gaddafi's eight children, close relatives.The draft sanctions resolution on Libya presented by the United Nations includes an arms embargo, as well as travel bans and asset freezes for the country's top 23 leaders.Diplomats in New York stated that the Security Council has already discussed the proposal, which was drafted by France and Britain, and is similar in content to the proposal approved by the European Union on Friday.It is still unclear when the Security Council is scheduled to vote on the draft resolution, but diplomats estimate it may happen in the next 24 hours.Following United States President Barack Obama's public statement against the violence in the North African country, Washington has been applying pressure on Security Council members in order to quickly approve the sanctions. The Obama administration on Friday said it is freezing all assets in the United States held by the Libyan government, Gaddafi and four of his children, and abandoning the US Embassy in Tripoli. On Friday night, Obama accused Gaddafi of violating "human rights, brutalization of its people and outrageous threats." In a statement issued by the White House, the president said "Gaddafi, his government and close associates have taken extreme measures against the people of Libya, including by using weapons of war, mercenaries and wanton violence against unarmed civilians." Read the full story here.

• Attack shuts Iraq's largest oil refinery, kills one.The assailants, carrying pistols fitted with silencers, broke into the Beiji refinery, attacked the guards and planted bombs.BAGHDAD — Gunmen attacked Iraq's largest oil refinery Saturday, killing a guard and detonating bombs that sparked a fire and forced the facility to shut down, officials said.The assailants, carrying pistols fitted with silencers, broke into the Beiji refinery around 3:30 a.m., attacked the guards and planted bombs near some production units for benzene and kerosene, said the spokesman for Salahuddin province, Mohammed al-Asi.One guard was killed and another wounded, al-Asi said.By midmorning, firefighters were still trying to extinguish the blaze, said Iraqi Oil Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad, adding that an investigation will be launched. "We hope that work will be resumed in a short period of time," Jihad told The Associated Press, but did not give a date.The Beiji refinery has two sections. The attackers targeted the installation's North Refinery that handles 150,000 barrels a day. The second section, the Salahuddin Refinery, is under renovation. It used to process 70,000 barrels per day.Iraq's overall refining capacity is currently slightly over 500,000 barrels per day. Its three main oil refineries — Dora, Shuaiba and Beiji — process slightly over half of the 700,000 barrels-per-day capacity they had before the 2003 US invasion.Iraq sits on the world's third-largest known oil reserves with an estimated 115 billion barrels, but its production is far below its potential due to decades of war, UN sanctions, lack of foreign investment and insurgent attacks.Hmmmm......Terrorists using weapons with silencers....Yeah whatever.Read the full story here.

• HT:IMRA."Saudi Arabia is willing and able to plug any oil supply gap".'"There is no reason for the price to go higher'"Riyadh : Saudi Arabia is willing and able to plug any oil supply gap and has the capacity to provide all types of oil, including the light, high-quality crude produced by OPEC member Libya, senior Saudi sources said. World oil prices have surged towards $120 a barrel as unrest grips Libya.Italian oil major ENI said Thursday [24 Feb]the nation’s output had fallen by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd). Traders and analysts have said the loss of virtually all Libya’s production  is particularly serious because it is high-quality, easy-to-refine oil in contrast to the heavier crudes often associated with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).“Saudi Arabia is willing and capable of supplying oil of the same quality, either Arab extra light or through blending,” one of the sources said.“OPEC stipulates that it is able to supply all types of oil if needed,” the source added. “There is no reason for the price to go higher.”OPEC has yet to make any formal changes to its output policy.The Kingdom said at talks this week the market was still adequately supplied, but it was always ready to release some of its roughly four million bpd of spare capacity on to the markets in the event of a shortage.OPEC has officially held output policy steady since December 2008 when it implemented record supply curbs totalling 4.2 million bpd. As the oil market has risen, OPEC has unofficially increased the amount it produces above its agreed limits.Data supplied by Saudi Arabia showed its output reached the highest in two years in December, although its exports had dipped from the previous month.An industry source also said Saudi Arabia had large amounts of light crude, although he added Saudi Aramco had not yet issued new instructions to increase the rate of pumping. Early this week, Saudi Aramco invited journalists to Khurais oilfield and told them it could produce up to 1.4 million bpd of light oil. For European customers, the advantage of Libya is that it is only a short journey away across the Mediterranean.The sources said Saudi Arabia could shorten the journey time for its crudes by shipping them through its East-West pipeline and then to the Mediterranean and on to Europe. Some West African OPEC crude, such as from Angola could also be redirected to Europe, the sources said, while Saudi Arabia could temporarily send extra oil to Asia to compensate. Following the comment by Saudi sources, oil dropped sharply from 2-1/2-year highs near $120 a barrel Thursday.Hmmmm........Reminds me of the TIME story about oil installations being destroyed anymore news about that hoax?Seems i was right to doubt that storyChicago politics:"Never let a good crisis go to waste"?Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Muslim Brotherhood Reject U.S. Intervention In Libya.The Muslim Brotherhood has announced that it rejects U.S. intervention in Libya, for fear that what happened in the other countries in the region will happen in Iraq as well. The announcement stated that the Libyan people can remove leader Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi by itself, at whatever cost, and that freedom is a religious obligation that is dearer than life. The Muslim Brotherhood also called on the Arab League to intervene to save the Libyan people and condemned the interference by the British prime minister in the internal affairs of Egypt, which does not need his advice.Hmmmm.....These are the people the Obama regime is planning to give 1,57 Billion Dollar in 2012 !Read the full story here.

• HT:Aina.The United Caliphate States of Europe.Increasingly, the leaders of Western Europe are recognizing the failure of multiculturalism. Whether they will do anything about the problem remains to be seen.How did Europe come to this pass? I speak as one born in the Balkans but raised in Canada, where I was, thankfully, assimilated to democratic, Anglophone culture. The issue in Europe has in part to do with the formation and expansion of the EU and whether, with the massive migration of worker Turks into Western Europe, Turkey should be admitted to the EU. Admission of Turkey into the EU clearly would exacerbate an already critical illegal migrant situation. This particularly affects Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and the UK (which also has a large population of Islamic Pakistanis). The drain on welfare resources and medical services to support these unassimilated populations has reached crisis proportions, to say nothing about the undermining of civil law in parts of Paris and London, the Midlands of England, Germany, and Austria.The extent of infiltration of Islamic organized crime from Albania and Bosnia into Europe is staggering. This is ignored or excused by the powerful Albanian lobby in America's Northeast and in Congress. To be fair, some in Congress, such as Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana, are alert to the situation, and a fresh look is being taken at our Balkan policy within the State Department.Few in America recognize that in the Balkans we are reaping the whirlwind of recent policy errors. In Samuel Huntington's words, we are indeed witnessing the clash of civilizations. But our adversary is not an identifiable state enemy. The strategy is to insinuate a minority Islamist population into a culture and allege discrimination while practicing it. Once they gain status or power they turn on their hosts. In America today one cannot even begin to discuss the issues. On April 25, 2008, at the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, Bernard Lewis, professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, warned that there is: adegree of thought control and limitations of freedom of expression without parallel in the Western world since the 18th century ... Islam and Islamic values now have a level of immunity from comment and criticism in the Western world that Christianity has lost and Judaism has never had.Hmmmm......Read the Bibble and the Torah...Good prevails in the end ! Read the full story here.

• "The war on Christianity".Afghan Officials Say Jailed Convert Is Free.He was released only after agreeing to return to Islam?Under international pressure, government officials in Kabul, Afghanistan, say they have freed an Afghan man who had been jailed since May and faced the prospect of the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity.The release of the man, Sayed Mussa, 46, follows months of quiet diplomacy between the Afghan government and United States Embassy officials in Kabul, who along with members of Congress and other foreign embassies had sought the former aid worker’s release. Mr. Mussa, a married father of six who worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross before his arrest, was released Monday from Kabul Detention Center after prosecutors determined there was insufficient evidence to go forward with the case, said Gen. Qayoum Khan, the detention center director. But there were conflicting accounts about the terms of his release. A senior prosecutor involved in the case, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was released only after agreeing to return to Islam. It was also not immediately clear where he was taken or if he even remains in the country. Some of his relatives, including his wife, said they had not heard from him.Afghanistan’s Constitution, established in 2004, guarantees that people are “free to exercise their faith.” But it also leaves it open for the courts to rely on Shariah, or Islamic law, on issues like conversion. Under some interpretations of Shariah, leaving Islam is considered apostasy, an offense punishable by death. Mr. Mussa’s cousin-in-law, Said Yaseen Hashimi, said he visited Mr. Mussa at the jail on Monday but when he returned the next day he was told Mr. Mussa had been released the night before. In a phone interview from Pakistan, Mr. Mussa’s wife, whose full name is not being used out of concern for her safety, said she had not heard from her husband and did not know if he had been released. “I am very concerned about him,” she said. “I don’t know how he might have spent the time in prison in this cold winter season. Even if he is released I don’t know where he might be now. Or maybe he is in one of the foreign embassies for protection.”Hmmmm......"There can be only one"?Read the full story here.

• HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.CIA man in Pakistan may not have immunity.A former State Department lawyer says real questions remain about the legal status of Raymond Davis.An expert who previously worked in a key State Department diplomatic affairs position is questioning the Obama administration's claim that Raymond Davis, the American currently imprisoned in Pakistan after killing two men, has diplomatic immunity.A specialist in diplomatic law, Ron Mlotek served for 25 years as legal counsel at the State Department Office of Foreign Missions, which regulates foreign missions in the United States. In an interview with Salon, Mlotek said there remain crucial unanswered questions in the case, and that the question of Davis' immunity is not nearly as clear-cut as the administration has argued."On the basis of what has been publicly reported, it appears to me that the State Department is relying on legal smoke and mirrors," says Mlotek, who retired two years ago. In his former position, Mlotek dealt with many cases of alleged crimes by foreign representatives in the United States.Davis was recently revealed to be a former Blackwater contractor working for the CIA in Pakistan, though it turns out those are not the most relevant facts when it comes to determining whether he has immunity.Davis was arrested after the incident and has been held in Lahore while a court considers his claim of immunity. The Obama administration has argued that Davis' detainment is not permitted because he has full diplomatic immunity -- a position that, if he does enjoy such immunity, would be correct, according to Mlotek.So the key questions are: How does one get full diplomatic immunity, and does Davis have it?There are two relevant international treaties to consider: the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963) and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961).When a diplomatic officer (someone who works at the embassy) or a consular officer (someone who works at a consulate) is dispatched to a foreign country, the United States informs the so-called "receiving state" that the officer is arriving and describes his or her job at the embassy or consulate. The mode of official communication is known as a "diplomatic note." After getting the notification, the receiving state -- in this case Pakistan -- typically recognizes the person as a diplomatic officer or a consular officer and issues some kind of diplomatic ID card or notice of recognition.Diplomatic officers get full immunity, while consular officers get only limited "official acts immunity." This difference is crucial in Davis' case. That's because the administration has changed its story about Davis' status. In late January, the administration described Davis as "a staff member of the U.S. Consulate General in Lahore." Later on, they insisted that Pakistan had been officially informed in early 2010 that Davis was "a member of the administrative and technical staff" at the embassy.Diplomatic officers who work at the embassy get absolute immunity, meaning, according to Mlotek, that they "could in theory pull out a gun and shoot down a family in cold blood and walk away and the foreign government could not lay a finger on them." But consular officers have a lesser class of immunity that covers only actions that are part of their official duties."Davis' official duties almost certainly would not have involved using an unregistered pistol against Pakistani civilians," says Mlotek.Assuming what the administration is now claiming is true, there is a second set of potential flaws in the claim of full immunity, according to Mlotek. That is, if the U.S. informed Pakistan in 2010 that Davis was working at the Islamabad embassy, why was he actually working in Lahore? Mlotek summarizes the potential problem:"Suppose we not only lie about the fact that he's a spy, but we lie about the fact that he has anything to do with the embassy in Islamabad. And then, to top it all off, not only is he not in Islamabad, he's in Lahore. He's not even working in the premises of the consulate. He's working in a secret facility that we have not announced. The Vienna Convention specifically obligates the U.S. to tell Pakistan about where their premises are. And not only that, he's carrying a weapon -- we didn't tell the Pakistanis that," Mlotek says. "At what point do you say the diplomatic note was not valid?"Mlotek also says a crucial concern when he worked at the Office of Foreign Missions was the "reciprocity angle.""What if the other guys did the same thing here? Would the U.S. allow the Pakistani agent to go free?"UPDATE: State Department spokeswoman Nicole Thompson tells me that the January 2010 diplomatic note regarding Davis will not be made publicly available. "We don't release diplomatic communications," she said.Hmmmm...Obama administration an example of "Transparency"?Read the full story here.

• Gingrich: If Palin Took Obama Actions, There Would Be Calls for Impeachment.In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV Friday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said President Barack Obama’s decision not to fully enforce the Defense of Marriage law eventually could lead to a constitutional crisis, as he has directly violated his constitutional duties by arbitrarily suspending a law.Gingrich even suggested that, if a “President Sarah Palin” had taken a similar action, there would have been immediate calls for her impeachment. Asked directly whether President Obama could be subject to articles of impeachment, Gingrich said, “I think that’s something you get to much later. But I think clearly it is a dereliction of duty. Clearly it’s a violation of his constitutional oath. Clearly it is not something that can be allowed to stand."(A Gingrich spokesman stressed after the interview that we are not currently in a constitutional crisis, nor was Gingrich calling for the direct impeachment of the president. His statements were meant to illustrate the hypocrisy of the left and the mainstream media.)Obama’s decision to forego a legal defense of the law has caused a firestorm of anger from conservative groups.Gingrich slammed Obama for his decision, telling Newsmax that he is not a “one-person Supreme Court” and his decision sets a “very dangerous precedent” that must not be allowed to stand.“First of all, he campaigned in favor of [the law]. He is breaking his word to the American people,” Gingrich says.“Second, he swore an oath on the Bible to become president that he would uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws of the United States. He is not a one-person Supreme Court. The idea that we now have the rule of Obama instead of the rule of law should frighten everybody. “The fact that the left likes the policy is allowing them to ignore the fact that this is a very unconstitutional act,” Gingrich said.Gingrich said it is absolutely critical for Obama to comply with Congress and the constitutional process.“I believe the House Republicans next week should pass a resolution instructing the president to enforce the law and to obey his own constitutional oath, and they should say if he fails to do so that they will zero out [defund] the office of attorney general and take other steps as necessary until the president agrees to do his job. “His job is to enforce the rule of law and for us to start replacing the rule of law with the rule of Obama is a very dangerous precedent."Gingrich adds: “I don’t think these guys set out to create a constitutional crisis. I think they set out to pay off their allies in the gay community and to do something that they thought was clever. I think they didn’t understand the implication that having a president personally suspend a law is clearly unconstitutional.”Hmmmm......I would say to Mr Gingrich beware you have only seen the tip of the iceberg  from this regime.Read the full story here.

• HT:RefugeeResettlement.What’s driving Obama and the radical Left to increase immigration?They are transforming America—more needy people=a greater demand for stuff (goodies from you, the taxpayer). Immigrants will then reliably vote for Democrats who promise stuff.I’m asked frequently, why don’t they (the open borders gang) see that America can’t afford all those immigrant workers and social services, it makes no logical sense to bring so many people who end up suffering, they say. It is perfectly logical and it is not about helping the world’s downtrodden, it is all about transforming America as Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies clearly tells us in an opinion piece yesterday here.In 2008, President Obama described his goal as “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” This is as true for immigration as it is for health care and other issues.President Obama’s support for what advocates call “comprehensive immigration reform” — amnesty, loose enforcement and increased legal immigration — which he reiterated in his State of the Union address, is not just another item on a laundry list.In the same way that critics of Obamacare warn that it will lead to irreversible changes in the nature of American politics, the president’s immigration goals — effectively, open borders — would alter the political system itself, leading to inexorable growth in government and consequent constriction of personal liberties.In short, immigration is the health of the state.Leftists have been quite open about the politically transformative effects of immigration. Eliseo Medina, vice president of the Service Employees International Union and an honorary chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America, said immigration “will create a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle.” Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., has publicly made the same point, as has Ruy Teixeira, author of “The Emerging Democratic Majority.”On immigration, the president and his allies are playing the long game. The Left’s current difficulties will prove merely temporary if mass immigration keeps working its transformative effects.The necessary response from the Right is clear: Reach out respectfully to legal immigrants already here, but work tirelessly for comprehensive enforcement of immigration laws and reductions in future levels of legal immigration.About ten days ago the Palm Beach Post published an article about the US State Department (through their federal contractors) resettling Muslim Iraqis to Palm Beach County, Florida when there are few jobs, no low-cost housing, and virtually no other Iraqis. It’s my opinion that this is a twofer—import poverty to wealthy Palm Beach County, show the suffering Iraqis with stories like this one, and THEN SALT MUSLIMS INTO COMMUNITIES WHERE FEW LIKELY EXISTED.Hmmmmm.....Why is the most 'transparent' Obama regime withholding since 2008 the numbers of refugee inflow,something they are obliged to give yearly to Congress ? WHAT ARE THEY HIDING?Read the full story here.

• Report: Iran's nuclear plant hits setbacks.Iran tells IAEA it has run into major problems operating its first nuclear reactor in Bushehr, according to a New York Times report. Nuclear scientists unload 163 fuel rods from reactor core, as experts contemplate whether problem related to Stuxnet computer worm. Iran announced this week to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it has run into problems with its nuclear facility in Bushehr, which was scheduled to begin supplying electricity this month, the New York Times newspaper reported on Saturday.The cause of the problem remains unclear, and experts said it may be anything from a solvable technical issue to a serious problem that may bring to the complete shutdown of the plant.A report published Friday by the UN nuclear monitoring agency reveals that Iran told atomic inspectors on Wednesday that it intends to remove 163 fuel rods from the core of the reactor. According to the New York Times, Iran did not detail the reason for the setback in its report to the IAEA, and some claim the Stuxnet computer worm may have caused heavy damage to the reactor's operating system.Last month, Russia's NATO representative Rogozin warned that the Stuxnet attack could have triggered a "new Chernobyl disaster," similar to the one that took place in Ukraine 25 years ago. Iranian nuclear scientists expressed similar concerns two weeks earlier. Nuclear experts told the New York Times that even if Russia's concerns were exaggerated, the full scale of the damage caused by the computer worm remains unknown.Hmmmm.....Why would Iran let the West know about these problems?Read the full story here.

• Thousands of Jordanians protest for democratic gains. Protestors in Amman chant 'people want an elected government'.Opposition leader Sheikh Mansour says 'reform has become a necessity that cannot wait'.Around five thousand Jordanian protestors took to the streets of Amman on Friday demanding political liberalization, wider parliamentary representation and constitutional changes limiting the powers of the throne. "Reform and change, this is the demand of people," angry protestors shouted among a mainly Islamists and leftist crowd joined by some tribal and liberal figures marching from the main Husseini mosque in the capital's downtown to a nearby square.The Jordanian opposition, spearheaded by the mainstream Islamists, the country's largest political party, have been protesting for weeks for wider democratic gains as anti-government demonstrations sweep across the Arab world. They are demanding more say, starting with a modern election law that broadens representation in parliament for inhabitants of the capital and the major cities of Zarqa and Irbid, where most of the country's seven million population live. The cities which are Islamist strongholds and heavily populated by Jordanians of Palestinian origin are under-represented in the 120-seat assembly in favor of sparsely populated rural and Bedouin areas inhabited mainly by native Jordanians, or so called East Bankers who are the backbone of support for the throne."We tell our government that reform has become a necessity that cannot wait," Sheikh Hamza Mansour, the head of the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the country's largest opposition group, told the crowds in a rally at the end of the march. "It's not just the demand of the Islamist movement or the opposition party. It's the demand of all Jordanians," he added.Hmmmmm.....I wonder how long they would have lasted with king Abdullah his father?Read the full story here.

• HT:BigGovernment.The Pigford Files: Here Comes Pigford 3 and Pigford 4.In a Friday afternoon news-dump, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and a representative of the Obama Justice Department announced a bombshell : the Obama administration has set up their own “streamlined process” for women and Hispanic farmers to collect damages from the federal government for alleged past discrimination.Like the fraud-filled Pigford claim persons who claim to have “attempted-to” farm will be eligible for awards of up to fifty thousand dollars each. In response to a question from Big Government’s Lee Stranahan the Department of Justice laid out a set of requirements that is eerily similar to the Pigford claims process, such as categories of “farmed” or “attempted-to-farm,” “owned land” or “attempted-to-own land,” standards that will almost certainly result in thousands of fraudulent claims.This low standard creates a simple way for people to game the system by claiming that they attempted to farm.Responding to a follow-up by Stranahan, Secretary Vilsack also laid out an extensive outreach program that he said would include the USDA, lawyers and community organizers. National Black Farmers Association President John Boyd, who has been exposed as a serial exaggerator in recent articles here at Big Government, has been doing “outreach” to women farmers for the past several months.Vilsack did not indicate that Boyd would be excluded from future outreach.Hmmmm....Anything for a vote?Read the full scam story here.

• HT:BigGovernment.One Chart that Tells You Everything You Need to Know about State and Local Government Pay.The showdown in Wisconsin has generated competing claims about whether state and local government bureaucrats are paid too much or paid too little compared to their private sector counterparts.The data on total compensation clearly show a big advantage for state and local bureaucrats, largely because of lavish benefits (which is the problem that Governor Walker in Wisconsin is trying to fix). But the government unions argue that any advantage they receive disappears after the data is adjusted for factors such as education.This is a fair point, so we need to find some objective measure that neutralizes all the possible differences. Fortunately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has a Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, and this “JOLTS” data includes a measure of how often workers voluntarily leave job, and we can examine this data for different parts of the workforce.Every labor economist, right or left, will agree that higher “quit rates” are much more likely in sectors that are underpaid and lower levels are much more likely in sectors where compensation is generous.Not surprisingly, this data shows state and local bureaucrats are living on Easy Street. As the chart illustrates, private sector workers are more than three times as likely to quit their jobs.Hmmmm....."You can't fool all the people , all of the time"?Read the full story here.

• Firebrand Muslim cleric Bashir Says Ahmadiyah Worse than the PKI.Firebrand cleric Abu Bakar Bashir on Thursday attacked Ahmadiyah as being “poisonous” to Islam.Speaking to reporters at the South Jakarta District Court on Thursday, Bashir said the government must disband the Muslim sect or face being disbanded itself.He also described the Ahmadiyah sect as being crueler than the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).“Ahmadiyah must be disbanded, or the government must step down. Ahmadiyah is a poison against Islam. It is crueler than the PKI.”Hmmmm.....Obama "Indonesia is an example of religious tolerance".Read the full story here.

• Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law.Policing Belief.. The Impact of Blasphemy Laws on Human Rights – Pakistan is a Freedom House Publication which examines Pakistan’s notorious, headline hype worthy blasphemy laws. The Report cited by UNHCR and Refworld, weighs the validity of the blasphemy law against each one of fundamental articles enshrined in the ICCPR, to which Pakistan became a signatory in June 2010; 44 years after the Covenant was opened for signature. The country scores dismally on each weigh-in, from freedom of expression, to freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman & degrading treatment. The report concluded; “the country is unique in the severity of abuses arising from the application of its blasphemy laws, and in the frequency with which the laws are invoked to prosecute individuals and justify vigilantism. The overall effect is a serious erosion of the rule of law itself, with police and courts seemingly at the mercy of Islamist extremists and other extralegal forces. Basic injustices are meted out not just to religious minorities and Muslims with dissenting views on Islam, but also to ordinary people whose personal disputes, opinions, or weaknesses make them ready fodder for the broader conflicts that trouble Pakistani society.”It is a rhetoric Pakistanis have been hearing for decades.However, nothing it seems will change. Rejecting Pope Benedict’s call, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani reiterated his government's refusal to amend the blasphemy law in January this year, while noting that it was his predecessor, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who "introduced this law in Pakistan”.For years now, the blasphemy law regime has been the point of furious debate among Pakistan’s ‘liberal elites’ including British educated Salman Taseer, journalist and politician Sherry Rahman, nuclear physicist and political analyst Pervez Hoodbhoy, head of the Foundation for Pluralism Mike Ghouse and Human Rights activist Asma Jahangir. Joining this small chorus are local and international organizations. Their arguments against it have always been the same; the country's blasphemy laws are unduly harsh, they are regularly exploited by extremists to target and discriminate against minority groups, and misused by others to settle petty disputes or exact personal vengeance, and therefore should be repealed. Clearly, this is reasoning with little appeal to the mullah-led masses. The only panacea must come from within – just as much as Islam is used to justify the law and its application, Islam must be a basis on which it is countered. What the country needs right now are scholars; scholars who will speak up and incite masses against it.Read the full story here.

• HT:SultanKnish.From Obama to Khaddafi, a Tale ofTwo Tyrants.While Americans are going hungry and cutting back, not because Michelle Obama told them to, but because they can't afford it-- the White House is throwing yet another party. This time to celebrate the cultural accomplishments of Motown complete with performances by trendy musicians.It's funny how the media breathlessly reports that Khaddafi spent 1 million dollars to fly in one singer or another for a performance, and yet the White House has flown in far more singers, at doubtlessly far greater expense to throw themselves a party. If Khaddafi was a wastrel madmen for throwing himself parties like this, what of the Obamas who are doing far worse, under the pretext that this is a celebration of the form. The Libyan papers might well have it in reverse, condemning Obama for his spendthrift wastefulness, while celebrating the Khaddafi spawn for circulating with famous musicians to show the cultural amplitude of Libya. But it's propaganda either way. Wrap it in the wax paper of civil rights and some blather about Americanism-- and it still comes down to our leaders acting like the very Middle Eastern buffoons they claim to despise. Even as the American media fulfills the same role for the Obamas, that its Libyan counterparts do for the Khaddafis.All this might have been forgivable, if the big zero hadn't been making constant noises about his commitment to cutting spending. If his first spouse hadn't appointed herself Czar of America's Kitchens, in between gorging during her constant vacationing. If they just admitted that they were rotten liars who are going to take us for all they can get-- then we could almost tolerate their thievery. So many Americans forgave Clinton when he smiled and winked, but wouldn't forgive him when he self-righteously shook his finger at us, when everyone knew he was lying. Obama has never stopped shaking his finger at us, while going from the party to the golf course.Americans like to believe that we are better off than the Libyans. And we are... for now. But we won't be for long if this style of government continues. Leaders who play messiahs, wrap themselves in cults of personality, enforce only those laws they like and send out their thugs to assail and assault anyone who threatens their power.We are not better off than then Libyans because of the government we have now, but because of the legal traditions and open elections that have not been completely eradicated by the left.The law of the land is the law of the land-- until the Democrats decide otherwise. And then they just refuse to enforce them. As Obama is doing with DOMA. But imagine the outcry had a Republican president's attorney general had refused to defend civil rights legislation for gay rights. The law is the law, so long as it's liberal law. But that's no way to run a country.Hmmmm.......And one day we'll wake up in a Gulag if Republicans don't act.Read the full story here.

• Sex, brothels and the REAL tyranny threatening the Arab world: Islamic fundamentalists are already imposing their own brutal puritanism.A few hundred metres from the main mosque in the heart of Tunis’s old quarter lies Abdallah Guech Street, a red-light district which has thrived since the 19th century. Here, the Ottomans legalised and regulated prostitution — as they had in much of the rest of the Muslim world. Uniquely, though, in the Arab world, the tradition in Tunisia endured. Every one of the country’s historic quarters boasts bordellos; even, most remarkably, Kairouan, Islam’s fourth holiest city after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. In keeping with Tunisia’s deep-rooted secularism and unprecedented championing of Muslim women’s rights, the prostitutes carry cards issued by the Interior Ministry, pay taxes like everyone else and enjoy (along with their clients) the full protection of the law.Or at least they did until last month’s Jasmine Revolution. But last week, faster than you could scream ‘Allahu Akbar’, hundreds of Islamists raided Abdallah Guech Street armed with Molotov cocktails and knives, torching the brothels, yelling insults at the prostitutes and declaring that Tunisia was now an Islamist state. As soldiers fired into the air to disperse them, the Islamists won a promise from the interim government that the brothels would be permanently closed. In other cities, brothels were targeted, too; and there have been demonstrations throughout the country — whose economy is heavily dependent on the vibrant tourism industry — against the sale of alcohol. Suspected Islamists otherwise preoccupied themselves with slitting the throat of a Polish Catholic priest, which, if confirmed, would be the first such sectarian murder in modern Tunisian history. And anti-Semitic slogans could be heard outside Tunisia’s main synagogue: this in a country with no history of persecution of its Jewish minority.Hmmmm......Welcome to A.D. 620?Read the full story here.

• HT:IslaminEurope.WTF??  Belgium: Halal beer.Sultane, a halal Cherry beer produced by Caulier, a brewery from Péruwelz in Henegouwen, will be available in Belgium in the upcoming weeks. The beer is targeted at Muslims, reports La Capitale. This is the first malted drink (Cherry drink)- not beer - with a halal certificate in Europe. An Algerian imam certified Sultane. The halal beer will be available also in France, and contacts have been made to offer it in the UK, Tunisia, Germany and Kuwait.Hmmmm......Do the cherries keep fermenting in the bottle?Read the full story here.Brewery Here. Belgium Cherry beer.

• HT:IslaminEurope.Netherlands: Massive fraud among Turkish bakers.Turkish bakers massively violate the tax laws in the Netherlands, according to an investigation by the anti-fraud agency FIOD. The agency found bakers who committed tax fraud, as well as those who employed illegal immigrants or those who made a mess of the bookkeeping.An FIOD spokesperson told De Telegraaf that they found something wrong with 60% of the bakers they investigated. They found illegal immigrants working there, or people who were on welfare, or the bookkeeping wasn't in order. They also had to warn the Foods and Good Authority several times, due to filth.The tax authority started to investigate a group of about 500 bakers of non-Western origin last fall, together with the justice ministry and welfare authorities. Evidence and former violations led to intensive investigations of the mostly Turkish (85%) bakers. The FIOD meanwhile demanded 3 million euro in back taxes from 17 of the companies.Last week the tax authority investigated five bakeries in Roermond and Eindhoven, and found that half a million euro had gone missing via fraud in buying and selling flour.The Bread and Pastry Bakers association (NBOV) responded in shock to the preliminary results of the investigation. Secretary Cor Havermans said that they had regularly gotten signs of abuses, but 60% is extremely serious. Ibrahim Özgül of the Turkish businesses association HOGIAF says that it doesn't make sense. Everybody must follow the rules, but it's strange that the FIOD limited themselves to Turkish bakers. It's the first time that only a small portion of a whole sector is being investigated, he said. Özgül spoke of "FBI-like raids" against his members.The FIOD says that the extra supervision was due to repeated problems with this specific group. The investigation will conclude next year.Hmmmm.......Keep Turkey out of Europe and NATO!Read the full story here.

• HT:LezGetReal.EGYPT: There are No Jews in Tahir Square.Needless to say neighter are gay people in the square.Egypt is in the news and how I miss my father. I see “Rioting in Mansoura, Cairo, Alexandria,” flash on the news. Cities that were home to my dad, at different points in his life. Born to an old Egyptian family in Mansoura, “the Wahbas were real (not transplants from another country), Egyptians” he bragged. They were indigenous to the land, originally farmers, peasants, in Midghram.When President Obama spoke in Cairo he didn’t ask, “Where are your Jews”? Once not so long ago Egyptian Jews were an integral part of Egypt’s infrastructure. Obama did mention the Copts (Egypt’s Christians,) another indigenous group who suffer discrimination and he asked for “tolerance”.ASK WHERE ARE THE JEWS WHO LIVED HERE FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS I wanted to break through his eloquence. But yelling at the TV is not my style.And now I shall deliver some mostly ignored facts and have my own Tahrir Square experience:In 1948 there were 75,000 Jews in Egypt After the expulsion in l956 during Nasser’s reign, most of Egypt’s Jews were forced to flee. My grandfather had to sign a document saying he would never return. A variety of creative humiliations accompanied the confiscation of any property. Nothing of monetary value was allowed out with their one suitcase of clothing.Penniless, the majority of Egyptian Jews ended up in transit camps in Israel.In 2005 there were approximately 100 old Jews left in Egypt. And I imagine most are dead or too old to walk today.Hmmmm......"First they came for the Jews ,then for the gays and now finally for the Christians....Obama ..."Islam is a great religion".Read the full story here.

• Kansas: Female Lawmakers Sexually Degraded by AFL-CIO Union Thugs on Their Way to Vote on Union Bill…Kansas Republicans accused organized labor activists Thursday of forcing female legislators to endure sexually explicit and degrading comments while passing into the House chamber before a vote to end automatic deductions from paychecks for union political causes.Democrats and a representative of the Kansas AFL-CIO disputed the GOP claims, and both sides pointed to video evidence to support their interpretation of events.House Speaker Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, said the vocal crowd crossed the line by engaging in salty commentary outside of the House chamber and by shouting inside the chamber when the paycheck bill came to a vote.“There were comments of sexually explicit nature directed at both female legislators and female staff,” O’Neal said. “That’s the most disrespectful display from the gallery I’ve seen in 27 years I’ve been here.”He said two union sympathizers attempted to intimidate a male House member into voting against the measure, which was passed 75-46 and forwarded to the Senate.As word spread of tension on the third floor of the Statehouse, House members were instructed to enter the chamber by a back staircase. No one was injured, and there were no arrests.The Kansas Republican Party fired off a news release blasting “union thugs” who “brought their street tactics to the Kansas House” where they offered a “taste of the bullying tactics being employed by unions across the country.”“This conduct has no place in Kansas, especially not in our Capitol,” said Amanda Adkins, chairwoman of the state GOP. “Unfortunately, this only provides a glimpse into the ‘negotiation’ style preferred by these agitators.”Adkins called on the Kansas Democratic Party to condemn the “threats and sexually degrading comments.”Hmmmm......."Dear leader" his 'supporters'.Read the full story here.

• "The War on Christianity".Italy Arrests Six Islamists Who Wanted to “Punish” Pope Benedict For Converting Muslim Journalist to Catholicism.Italian police said Friday they had arrested six suspected Moroccan militants, with one report saying they wanted to “punish” Pope Benedict XVI for converting a Muslim journalist to Catholicism in 2008.They “are accused of setting up a group that aimed to incite discrimination, racial and religious hatred, violence and jihad against Christians and Jews,” police in the northern city of Brescia said in a statement.Five of the Moroccans have been put under house arrest, while the sixth is in jail. The six are all suspected of belonging to an Islamist fundamentalist movement called Adl Wal Ihsane (Justice and Charity), the statement said.ANSA news agency reported that a note had been found on one of the Moroccans that called for revenge against the pope for converting Egyptian-born Magdi Allam, a former columnist for Italian daily Corriere della Sera.Allam, who condemned Islam for being a “violent” and “conflictual” religion was baptised by the pope in March 2008. The comment against the pope was found in a notebook hidden inside a jacket, the report said.Hmmmmm.......Interfaith dialog in its natural habitat?Read the full story here.

• HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.Poetic Politics: Are the Afghans one of the lost tribes of Israel?Some Afghans claim a descent from Israel. According to them, Affghaun was the nephew of Asaph, the son of Berachia, who built the temple of Solomon.It was in the nineteenth century …that the West began to take a more serious interest in the countries of the Far East, and reports began to filter in from several Western explorers describing their astonishment at encountering tribes all over the north-west of India who were clearly of Jewish descent.The missionary doctor Joseph Wolff, for example, reported:All the Jews of Turkistan assert that the Turkomauns are the descendents of Togarmah, one of the sons of Gomar, mentioned in Genesis 10:3…..but in the reign of Gheghis Khan they lost all their written accounts…..Some Affghauns claim a descent from Israel. According to them, Affghaun was the nephew of Asaph, the son of Berachia, who built the temple of Solomon. The descendents of Afhhaunn, being Jews, were carried into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, from whence they were removed to the mountain of Ghoree in Affghanistan, but in the time of Mohammed turned Mohammedans.G. T. Vigne, a French travelling scholar and member of the Royal Geographical Society…wrote:The father of Ermiah was the father of the Afghans. He was a contempory of Nebuchadnezzar, called himself Beni Israel and had forty sons. But a descendant in the thirty-fourth generation was called Kys, and he was a contemporary of the prophet Mohammed.One of the most important contributions is The Lost Tribes by Dr George Moore, who found many Hebrew inscriptions on archaeological sites in India. Quite close to Taxila, now in Sirkap, Pakistan, a stone was dug up that bears an inscription in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke.The eleventh century Arab historian Biruani wrote that at that time no foreigners were being allowed into Kashmir, other than Hebrews.The inhabitants of Kashmir are different from the other peoples of India in every respect. Their way of life, their behaviour, their morals, their character, their clothing, their language, customs and habits are all of a type that might be described as typically Israelite. Like present day Israelis, the Kashmirs do not use fat for frying and baking, they only use oil. Most Kashmirs like boiled fish, called fari, eaten in remembrance of the time before their Exodus from Egypt (We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt: Numbers 11:5)Butchers knives in Kashmir are made in the half-moon shape typical of the Israelites and even the rudders of the boat people (Hanjis) are of a similar heart shape.The men wear distinctive caps on their heads. The clothing of the old women of Kashmir is very similar to that of Jewish women, and like them they also wear headscarves and laces. Like young Jewish girls, the girls of Kashmir dance in two facing columns with linked arms, moving together forwards and backwards to the rhythm. They call their songs rof.After bearing a child, a woman in Kashmir observes forty days seclusion for purification; this too is a Jewish custom. Many of the older graves in Kashmir are aligned in an east-west orientation, whereas Islamic graves usually point north-south.Hmmmm.......Read the full story here.

• Google search formula changed.Move aimed at pushing down 'low-quality' sites.Google Inc. has modified the algorithms that dictate search result rankings in an attempt to push up more 'high-quality sites', reported 'Los Angeles Times'. The formula changes will affect 11.8 per cent of search queries - about one in every eight, Google said in a blog post. For now, the tweaks will stay in the US before eventually rolling out to the rest of the world.For months, Google has been combating the presence of “content farms” such as eHow that mine for clicks by generating articles based on popular searches, though none were mentioned specifically.The new algorithm will lower such sites in the search rankings in favor of “sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on,” the company wrote.The update is not directly related to feedback from the Blocklist Chrome extension Google launched last week to block specific sites that show up in search results. But when crosschecked against the top several dozen domains blocked through the extension, Google found that the formula change also addressed 84 per cent of blocked domains.Hmmmmm......What's next results that only serve the Obama regime?Read the full story here.