Killers of 3 Ahmadiyya Muslims given hero's welcome after serving only 5 months.

Obama : "Indonesia is an example of religious tolerance".

MFS - The Other News

A technician in protective gear looks out an automatic door with signs reading "No entry except for those with permission" at a makeshift facility to screen, cleanse and isolate people with high radiation levels in Nihonmatsu, northern Japan March 14, 2011. (Yuriko Nakao/Reuters) Source : 51 pics "The Big Picture".


                          Morning Posting.

• Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.
• Updated !Aftershocks between 5,1 and 6 epicenters of four of them near nuclear plants more info here.

• Breaking ! Live broadcast japan : Fuel rods at No. 2 reactor of #Fukushima No. 1 nuke plant fully exposed.‏Here.

• More than 30.000 people still missing!Japanese stockmarket went down 10 % ,Energy stocks 25 % down trading stopped!Belgium news channel : of the 1500 workers at the nuclear plant only 50 are left.

• Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog.Radiation from Japan not likely to harm North America.Radiation from Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been detected 100 miles to the northeast, over the Pacific Ocean, by the U.S. military. Westerly to southwesterly winds have predominated over Japan the past few days, carrying most of the radiation eastwards out to sea. The latest forecast for Sendai, Japan, located about 40 miles north of the Fukushima nuclear plant, calls for winds with a westerly component to dominate for the remainder of the week, with the exception of a 6-hour period on Tuesday. Thus, any radiation released by the nuclear plant will primarily affect Japan or blow out to sea. A good tool to predict the radiation cloud's path is NOAA's HYSPLIT trajectory model. The model uses the GFS model's winds to track the movement of a hypothetical release of a substance into the atmosphere. One can specify the altitude of the release as well as the location, and follow the trajectory for up to two weeks. However, given the highly chaotic nature of the atmosphere's winds, trajectories beyond about 3 days have huge uncertainties.One can get only a general idea of where a plume is headed beyond 3 days. I've been performing a number of runs of HYSPLIT over past few days, and so far great majority of these runs have taken plumes of radioactivity emitted from Japan's east coast eastwards over the Pacific, with the plumes staying over water for at least 5 days. Some of the plumes move over eastern Siberia, Alaska, Canada, the U.S., and Mexico in 5 - 7 days. Such a long time spent over water will mean that the vast majority of the radioactive particles will settle out of the atmosphere or get caught up in precipitation and rained out. It is highly unlikely that any radiation capable of causing harm to people will be left in atmosphere after seven days and 2000+ miles of travel distance. Even the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which had a far more serious release of radioactivity, was unable to spread significant contamination more than about 1000 miles.See the full charts here.

• Updated : The wind direction will change land inwards on Tuesday this might blow radiactive contamination towards the evacuated people. Here.

• Latest Situation Update No. 31. On 15.03.2011 at 11:56 GMT+2.
  
  Japan stood on the verge of a nuclear catastrophe Tuesday after a third explosion rocked the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant and large amounts of nuclear material were released directly into the atmosphere. The rapidly worsening situation led Prime Minister Naoto Kan to order everyone within 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) of the facility, located 160 miles north of Tokyo, to evacuate, and those within 30 kilometers to stay indoors and conserve supplies, as he warned of “substantial” radiation leaks. Japan also announced a no-fly zone around the reactors. At the plant, radiation has increased to potentially harmful levels of 400 millisieverts per hour, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said. Exposure to over 100 millisieverts a year is a level which can lead to cancer, according to the World Nuclear Association. In Tokyo, radiation levels soared to 23 times normal levels, city officials reportedly said Tuesday. Thirteen million people live in the Tokyo prefecture, and about 35 million in the greater Tokyo area including neighboring prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama. At the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the explosion on Tuesday took place at reactor No. 2. In addition, the spent fuel storage pond at reactor No. 4 caught fire and radioactivity was released directly into the atmosphere, the IAEA said on its website. The Japanese authorities have said that there was a possibility that the fire was caused by a hydrogen explosion, according to the IAEA. The fire was subsequently extinguished.
  
  The Fukushima Daiichi complex has been the focus of widespread concern following Friday’s massive earthquake and tsunami, as core temperatures at the plant have increased to dangerous levels. The series of explosions over the past four days make the crisis at the plant the worst nuclear incident since Chernobyl 25 years ago. Friday’s earthquake knocked out electricity-grid supplies while the tsunami damaged back-up generators, forcing Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco , the plant’s operator, to resort to emergency measures to cool the reactors. The firm has been flooding the units with seawater to try to cool them, a desperate measure as it means the plants likely won’t be able to be used again. Any loss of cooling systems raises the threat of core decomposition, which in a worst-case scenario, “could entail a highly dangerous radiation release,” IHS Global analysts said. The IAEA said that Japanese authorities have informed it that reactors No. 1, 2 and 3 at the plant are now in cold shutdown status. Under these conditions, the reactors are considered to be safely under control. Authority and plant workers are still striving to bring reactor No. 4 to cold shutdown, the agency said. Cold shutdown means that the temperature is below 100 degrees Celsius and water coolant pressure is around atmospheric level. At a press conference on Tuesday morning, Tepco officials said that they were sorry for the concern and inconvenience the incidents have caused for the public. Power company officials not immediately involved in the rescue operations were being evacuated, the officials said.Source .

• In Stricken Fuel-Cooling Pools, a Danger for the Longer Term.Even as workers race to prevent the radioactive cores of the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan from melting down, concerns are growing that nearby pools holding spent fuel rods could pose an even greater danger.The pools, which sit on the top level of the reactor buildings and keep spent fuel submerged in water, have lost their cooling systems and the Japanese have been unable to take emergency steps because of the multiplying crises. Experts now fear that the pool containing those rods from the fourth reactor has run dry, allowing the rods to overheat and catch fire. That could spread radioactive materials far and wide in dangerous clouds. The pools are a worry at the stricken reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant because at least two of the three have lost their roofs in explosions, exposing the spent fuel pools to the atmosphere. By contrast, reactors have strong containment vessels that stand a better chance of bottling up radiation from a meltdown of the fuel in the reactor core.If any of the spent fuel rods in the pools did indeed catch fire, nuclear experts say, the high heat would loft the radiation in clouds that would spread the radioactivity. “It’s worse than a meltdown,” said David A. Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists who worked as an instructor on the kinds of General Electric reactors used in Japan. “The reactor is inside thick walls, and the spent fuel of Reactors 1 and 3 is out in the open.” A spokesman for the Japanese company that runs the stricken reactors said in an interview on Monday that the spent fuel at the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini plants had been left uncooled since shortly after the quake. The company, Tokyo Electric, has not been able to cool the spent fuel pools because power has been knocked out, said Johei Shiomi, the spokesman. “There may be some heating up,” he said.Before Tuesday's fire, some scientists said that a worst-case outcome was unlikely and that the Japanese would probably have enough time to act before too much water boiled away. Firefighters with hoses can pour in water, they said, or helicopters could drop tons of water. “I’m still hopeful that they can contain all this,” Thomas B. Cochran, a senior scientist in the nuclear program of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group in Washington, said in an interview. “You’ve got time to put fire hoses up there and get it filled if it’s not leaking,” he said of the pool. Each of the crippled reactors in Japan has one cooling pool sitting atop the main concrete structure. Thin roofs and metal walls usually surround the pools. In a reactor pool, the time it takes uncooled fuel to begin boiling the surrounding water depends on how much fuel is present and how old it is. Fresh fuel is hotter in terms of radiation than old fuel is. Mr. Lochbaum, who formerly taught reactor operation for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the pools measured about 40 feet long, 40 feet wide and 45 feet deep. The spent fuel, he added, rested at the pool’s bottom and rose no higher than 15 feet from the bottom. That means that in normal operations, the spent fuel is covered by about 30 feet of cooling water. Depending on the freshness of the spent fuel, Mr. Lochbaum said, the water in an uncooled pool would start to boil in anywhere from days to a week. The water would boil off to a dangerous level in another week or two. Once most of the fuel is exposed, he said, it can catch fire. If the spent fuel is a few months old, most of the iodine 131 — one of the most dangerous radioactive byproducts in spent fuel — will have decayed into harmless forms. But the cesium 137 in the spent fuel has a half-life of 30 years, meaning it would take about two centuries to diminish its levels of radioactivity down to 1 percent. It is cesium 137 that still contaminates much land in Ukraine around the Chernobyl reactor, which suffered a meltdown in 1986.Hmmmm.........Read the full story here.

• Breaking: IDF intercepts arms shipment from Turkey to Gaza.PM: Source of weapons is Iran.IDF seizes Gaza-bound arms vesselArmy says German ship 'Victoria' transported weapons intended for Gaza Strip terror groups. Ship left Syria, docked in Turkey en route to Egypt. Shayetet 13 combatants seize vessel 200 miles off Israel's coast. Navy soldiers seized a German merchant vessel transporting weapons from Syria to Gaza 200 miles west off Israel's coast on Tuesday. The IDF Spokesperson's Unit said the "Victoria" ship sailed under the Liberian flag and was carrying various types of weapons. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed his finger at Iran claiming it provided the Gaza-bound weapons. The prime minister noted he authorized the Navy operation on Monday night. "We had reason to assume the ship carried weapons meant to hurt Israeli citizens. The source of the weapons is Iran," he said. Netanyahu further added, "The takeover was carried out mid sea in accordance with international law. The ship is being escorted to Ashdod.Lt. Col. Leibovich did not know whether the weapons were connected to the Iranian warships that passed through the Suez Canal three weeks ago. But given that those ships sailed to Latakia - and then went right back through the Canal - this is a distinct possibility. "The IDF's Spokesperson's Unit said that the takeover was carried out swiftly and did not meet any resistance. The ship was later escorted back to the Israeli shore by Navy vessels for more scans. A preliminary probe suggests the ship's crew was not aware of the weapons concealed on board the vessel. On its way from Syria to Alexandria, Egypt the ship docked at Turkey's Mersin Port. It is estimated that the weapons on board were intended for terror groups operating in the Gaza Strip.Turkey was in no way connected to the ship as far as the IDF is aware.Hmmmm......Lets see what further investigation brings.Read the full story here. More here.Pictures of the found weapons here.

• Latest : Explosion at Troubled Japanese Nuclear Plant Raises New Fears of Radiation Leaks.An explosion Tuesday morning at a Japanese nuclear plant damaged by the country's devastating earthquake and tsunami has elevated the risk of more radiation leaks to “very high,” as the country struggles to respond to the mounting human disaster.The Fukushima Dai-ichi facility's precarious state was underscored by the details trickling out in the wake of the blast at the Unit 2 reactor. It was the third explosion in four days at the nuclear plant, and the condition of the Unit 2 reactor is of greatest concern to authorities."The level seems very high, and there is still a very high risk of more radiation coming out," Prime Minister Naoto Kan said in a nationally televised statement.Radiation has spread from the three reactors of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, Kan said, and he warned there are dangers of more leaks and told people living within 12 miles of the complex to evacuate and people within 19 miles to stay indoors to avoid radiation sickness.A fire at a fourth reactor that was extinguished by Tuesday afternoon further escalated concerns, as Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said more radiation had been released."Now we are talking about levels that can damage human health. These are readings taken near the area where we believe the releases are happening. Far away, the levels should be lower," he said.Officials reported slightly higher radiation levels in Tokyo, but insisted that there was no health threat so far.The government suspects the explosion early Tuesday may have damaged the reactor's suppression chamber, a water-filled tube at the bottom of the container that surrounds the nuclear core, so radiation could escape.Also Tuesday morning, Japanese police said the official death toll from the earthquake and tsunami has risen to 2,414, with a big share of the deaths in Miyagi prefecture, where 1,254 people are confirmed dead.The number of people officially missing is at 3,118. But regional officials said they believe that tens of thousands may have been swept away by the tsunami that devastated a long stretch of Japan's northeastern coast.Read the full story here.

• Nuclear Radiation Fallout Hits Tokyo – Levels 80 Times Higher Than Normal.Reuters and NHK are reporting that high levels of radiation are being detected all over japan with levels in Tokyo being detected at levels 80 times higher than normal.News is coming across in different blips through various news agencies with different levels of radiation being reported by different agencies.NHK English and Reuters have both levels of radiation are beginning to climb in Tokyo.Via Reuter’s live blog news of elevated radiation levels in Tokyo was announced and a link was posted to a real time Geiger counter set up in Tokyo.Read the full story here.

• When An ill Wind Blows From Afar! (Like from Japan, Iran or North Korea!)Surviving Radioactive Fallout & Radiation Contamination from Japan, Iran or North Korea.Read the full story here.

• Nuclear meltdown in Japan......who cares,US Soldiers radiated .....who cares ,Libya ......who cares....Michelle start packing we're off to RIO!President Barack Obama will take his first official trip to Brazil this weekend where he will speak in the popular Cinelandia Square in downtown Rio de Janeiro.Access, of course, will be tightly restricted and security measures so secretive that not even the Embassy or US Consulate in Rio know exactly who it’s all going to go down.Obama’s speech will be free and open to the public and take place around 15:00 local time (14:00 EST).Access to the square will begin at 11:30, and is sure to draw a crowd.Obama is popular in Brazil.One politician seeking office in Rio actually changed his name to Barack Obama in 2008 to solicit votes. He didn’t win.The Obama family will also take in the sights in Rio.A trip to Corcovado mountain, where the Christ the Redeemer statue stands (France gave us Lady Liberty, gave Brazil Jesus) is supposedly on the itinerary.What trip to Rio would be complete without it?Hmmmm......Don't tell me he's scared of the 'Fallout' from Japan?Read the full story here.

• HT:IslamInEurope.EU: Half of Europeans say Islam is a religion of intolerance.The Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation published a study on intolerance and prejudice in Europe. The study "Intolerance, Prejudice and Discrimination" is available in German and English.After statistical testing, three statements were used to produce the anti-Muslim attitudes mean scale (Table 7, items 18 to 20). These cover the general impression that there are too many Muslims in the country, the charge that Muslims make too many demands, and broad-brush criticism of Islam as a religion of intolerance. Four further statements were surveyed in a random half of the sample. These cover a positive attitude that sees Muslims as an enrichment and the idea that there are great cultural differences between the majority society and Muslims, especially concerning attitudes towards women. We also surveyed the idea that Muslims generally support and condone terrorism.

In most of the countries a majority believe Islam to be a religion of intolerance, with agreement just below 50 percent only in Great Britain and the Netherlands. In almost all the countries more than half of respondents said that Muslims make too many demands; Portugal was the only exception with about one third. The statement that there are too many Muslims in the country is affirmed by just over one quarter in Portugal and by about one third in France. In Germany, Great Britain, Italy and the Netherlands more than 40 percent of respondents complain that there are too many Muslims in their country, in Hungary about 60 percent.The figures for those who say that Muslim culture is compatible with their own range from 17 percent in Poland and 19 percent in Germany to about half the population in Portugal and France. A majority of more than 70 percent of European respondents find that Muslim attitudes towards women are incompatible with their own values. Overall in the surveyed countries about one third think that Muslims treat Islamist terrorists as heroes, although somewhat fewer believe that terrorism finds moral support in the Muslim community (ranging from under 20 percent in Germany and the Netherlands to nearly 30 percent in Hungary).

The scale created from the first three statements clearly illustrates the extent of anti-Muslim attitudes in the studied countries (Figure 5). It is conspicuous that Europeans are largely united in their rejection of Muslims and Islam. The significantly most widespread anti-Muslim attitudes are found in Germany, Hungary, Italy and Poland, closely followed by France, Great Britain and the Netherlands. The extent of anti-Muslim attitudes is least in Portugal. In absolute terms, however, the eight countries differ little in their levels of prejudice towards Muslims.Hmmmmm.......Europe..... 'we have a problem'?Read the full story here.

• Saudi-led forces enter Bahrain.Bahrain’s Shiite-dominated opposition begged the international community Monday for prompt action to “protect the people of Bahrain,” after a Saudi-led military force entered the small island kingdom to help the Sunni-led government quell escalating protests.The call came in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon signed by the leaders of seven opposition groups. The message requested an emergency Security Council meeting to discuss the 1,000-strong force, which entered Bahrain on Monday morning via the causeway that links the island to Saudi Arabia — one day after protesters blockaded the financial district in the capital, Manama.“We consider any entrance of any soldier or army vehicle into the vicinity of the kingdom of Bahrain — whether it’s on the ground, by air or by sea — to be an occupation of the country and a conspiracy against the unarmed people of Bahrain,” the letter said of the intervention, which came under the aegis of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).On the microblogging website Twitter, Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid Al Khalifa said the protesters, who first took to the streets on Feb. 14, were deceiving the world.“What we are witnessing in Manama [Bahrain’s capital] is no peaceful protest … . It’s wanton, gangster-style takeover of people’s lives,” he wrote.He also accused opposition leaders of bad faith, saying that “[f]rom Day One, the goal post of demands kept moving.”The war of words threatened to further inflame the country’s long-simmering Sunni-Shiite tensions, as well as the regional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which sees itself as protector of the region’s Shiites.Jamal Fakhro, first vice chairman of the Shura Council — Bahrain’s appointed upper house of parliament — told The Washington Times that he viewed the GCC move as largely symbolic.“I believe the whole idea behind it is much more of support, rather than the need to be on the ground,” he said, arguing that Bahrain had sufficient forces of its own to maintain law and order. “I think it is to show solidarity between the GCC countries — that if anything happens to one country, the other countries will come to support it.”Hmmmm....Meanwhile one twitpic user claims that the protesters are attacking the foreign workers in Bahrain and puts up the pictures to prove it.Warning very graphic images!Read the full story here.More here at AmnonAndJonathan warning very graphic content..

• HT:WND.U.S.-trained forces arrested in bloody slaying of kids!JERUSALEM – Two members of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' official security forces were arrested in conjunction with this past weekend's bloody massacre in which five family members were brutally stabbed to death inside their home in the Jewish village of Itamar, WND has learned. The names of the apprehended suspects will be released to the Israeli media within hours but were revealed to WND by security officials working on the murder. Two cousins are now in Israeli custody and are suspected in the slayings. Ahmed Awad is an officer in Abbas' Preventative Security Services in the northern West Bank city of Nablis. Iyad Awad is an officer in Abbas' General Intelligence services in Ramallah. Both the Preventative and General Intelligence services of Fatah are armed, trained and funded by the U.S.The duo did not personally carry out the murders, but rather they assisting in the planning and logistics, informed security sources told WND.The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the "military wing" of Abbas' Fatah party, at first released a pamphlet taking responsibility for the attack and then quickly retracted the statement. Many Brigades members, including much of the group's senior leadership, double as members of Fatah's U.S.-backed security forces. Top sources in the Brigades leadership in the northern West Bank city of Nablus confirmed to WND that members of the Fatah group planned and helped to carry out the attack. The sources claimed the attack was not sanctioned by the Fatah leadership but was planned by Brigades members who were acting on their own. Also, the sources said the actual perpetrators of the attack were sleeper cells from Hamas, while the Brigades leaders planned the attack, provided logistical support and aided in the Hamas agents' escape. If accurate, this would demonstrate unusual cooperation between Hamas and Fatah rivals. The U.S. administration has labeled Fatah as a "negotiating partner" for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just two weeks ago, WND reported exclusively that members of Abbas' Brigades, now classified by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization, have been brandishing weapons publicly in recent days despite a disarmament agreement with Israel. According to informed Israeli security sources, messages were passed to the PA by the Israel Defense Forces and Israel's Shabak security services that the armed Brigades members must lay down their weapons or face arrest. Israeli security officials told WND two weeks ago they fear the newfound militancy of the Brigades – evidenced by their publicly brandishing weapons – may be a strategic decision on the part of the PA to orient itself in a more extremist direction following President Obama's championing of unrest that toppled pro-Western regimes in Egypt and Tunisia. Just one day before the assault, Sabri Saidam, adviser to and under-secretary of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, delivered a speech in which he emphasized that weapons must be turned towards the "main enemy [Israel]" and that internal differences of opinion must be set aside. In the week leading up to the terrorist attack, the PA announced plans for a football tournament named after the first female Palestinian suicide bomber, Wafa Idris, who killed one and reportedly injured more than 150 when she blew herself up in Jerusalem in January 2002. Earlier, Abbas' representative, Azzam Al-Ahmed, member of the Fatah Central Committee, was the guest of honor at a Palestinian scout ceremony in which buildings representing Jewish residents of the West Bank were blown up. In December, Abbas granted the relatives of a Palestinian terrorist $2,000 as part of a regular PA campaign that supports so-called "shahids" or "martyrs" who die while attacking Jews.Hmmmm.....These are the people Obama supports and they don't leave trough the backdoor."They don't trust me because of my middle name"?Read the full story here.

• Video : Mark Levin to Netanyahu: “Tell Obama to Go to Hell”…  here.

• HT:Memri.Saudi Emir: Iran's Trying To Create Chaos In Saudi Arabia.Saudi Emir Khaled bin Talal, the brother of prominent Saudi businessman Emir Walid bin Talal, has accused Iran of organizing the Hunain Revolution – the March 11 day of rage in Saudi Arabia (see In Anticipation of the Saudi Day of Rage on Friday March 11, 2011). He said that Iran is striving to create chaos in Saudi Arabia, as it did in Iraq, in the war against the Houthis in Yemen, in the recent events in Bahrain, and in past Shi'ite demonstrations in Shi'ite areas in Saudi Arabia – like Hizbullah did in Lebanon. Source.

• HT:Statfor.Special Report: Iran and the Saudis' Countermove on Bahrain.Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition force into Bahrain to help the government calm the unrest there. This move puts Iran in a difficult position, as Tehran had hoped to use the uprising in Bahrain to promote instability in the Persian Gulf region. Iran could refrain from acting and lose an opportunity to destabilize the region, or it could choose from several other options that do not seem particularly effective. The Bahrain uprising consists of two parts, as all revolutions do. The first is genuine grievances by the majority Shiite population — the local issues and divisions. The second is the interests of foreign powers in Bahrain. It is not one or the other. It is both.The Iranians clearly benefit from an uprising in Bahrain. It places the U.S. 5th Fleet’s basing in jeopardy, puts the United States in a difficult position and threatens the stability of other Persian Gulf Arab states. For the Iranians, the uprisings in North Africa and their spread to the Arabian Peninsula represent a golden opportunity for pursuing their long-standing interest (going back to the Shah and beyond) of dominating the Gulf.The Iranians are accustomed to being able to use their covert capabilities to shape the political realities in countries. They did this effectively in Iraq and are doing it in Afghanistan. They regarded this as low risk and high reward. The Saudis, recognizing that this posed a fundamental risk to their regime and consulting with the Americans, have led a coalition force into Bahrain to halt the uprising and save the regime. Pressed by covert forces, they were forced into an overt action they were clearly reluctant to take. We are now off the map, so to speak. The question is how the Iranians respond, and there is every reason to think that they do not know. They probably did not expect a direct military move by the Saudis, given that the Saudis prefer to act more quietly themselves. The Iranians wanted to destabilize without triggering a strong response, but they were sufficiently successful in using local issues that the Saudis felt they had no choice in the matter. It is Iran’s move.If Iran simply does nothing, then the wave that has been moving in its favor might be stopped and reversed. They could lose a historic opportunity. At the same time, the door remains open in Iraq, and that is the main prize here. They might simply accept the reversal and pursue their main line. But even there things are murky. There are rumors in Washington that U.S. President Barack Obama has decided to slow down, halt or even reverse the withdrawal from Iraq. Rumors are merely rumors, but these make sense. Completing the withdrawal now would tilt the balance in Iraq to Iran, a strategic disaster.There is then the indirect option, which is to trigger a war with Israel. The killings in the West Bank and Israeli concerns about Hezbollah might be some of Iran’s doing, with the emphasis on “might.” But it is not clear how a Hezbollah confrontation with Israel would help Iran’s position relative to Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf. It diverts attention, but the Saudis know the stakes and they will not be easily diverted. The logic, therefore, is that Iran retreats and waits. But the Saudi move shifts the flow of events, and time is not on Iran’s side. As we move into the evening, we expect the Iranians are in intense discussions of their next move. Domestic politics are affecting regional strategy, as would be the case in any country. But the clear roadmap the Iranians were working from has now collapsed. The Saudis have called their hand, and they are trying to find out if they have a real or a busted flush. They will have to act quickly before the Saudi action simply becomes a solid reality. But it is not clear what they can do quickly. For the moment, the Saudis have the upper hand. But the Iranians are clever and tenacious. There are no predictions possible. We doubt even the Iranians know what they will do.Hmmmmm......It seems the king himself has decided to "cut of the head of the serpent",can you blame him with such a US ally?As he said about Libya "Let the Saudis do it".Read the full story here.

• HT:HotAir.Obama’s refusal to provide records on healthcare meetings should sound alarms.The obvious question is why? Why would the Obama administration who boasted open and transparent discussions of such a sensitive subject as healthcare close the door to the opportunity to present its factual case to the American people? Messaging anyone? Nope.Complying with the records request from the House Energy and Commerce Committee “would constitute a vast and expensive undertaking” and could “implicate longstanding executive branch confidentiality interests,” White House lawyer Robert Bauer wrote the committee. Translation: Nice try.Before the Democrats rammed through the Obamacare bill (and don’t think for one little ol’ minute that our narcissistic President doesn’t love that branding), Obama and WH officials met with several high-profile insurance executives as the WaPo lists:The list included George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Health Plans; Scott Serota, president and CEO of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association; Kenneth Kies, a Washington lobbyist representing Blue Cross/Blue Shield, among other clients; Billy Tauzin, then head of PhRMA, the drug industry lobby; Richard Umbdenstock, chief of the American Hospital Association; and numerous others.Again, Halvorson was also the only insurance executive to meet with Obama at that time. Why? Is it because Obama wants a single-payer system and sees himself as finishing the Civil Rights Movement, and Halvorson has the same viewpoint and the most to gain via Kaiser Permanente? But, hey, there’s nothing to see here, right? Or, is it that those meetings were, as Halvorson stated:“The real discussion this time, behind those closed doors, is about changing the way care is delivered. Not about the cost.”Hmmmmm.....What's the Obama regime hiding from Congress and 'we the people'?Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Iraq Marching Toward Illiteracy. The permanent secretary of the Iraqi Culture Ministry, Nihad al-Jabouri, has said that Iraq is marching toward illiteracy, not toward eradicating illiteracy. He said that something must be done to put an end to high pupil dropout rate.Hmmm....Welcome back to Anno Domini 620? Source.

• HT:MichaelRuben.As Turkey Embraces Islamism, Turkish Women’s Staggering Inequality Grows.Namik Tan, Turkey’s ambassador to the U.S. and the chief spin artist for the Islamist and anti-Semitic government in Ankara, tweets first that “In Turkey, women’s suffrage was first recognized in 1930, earlier than many other European countries such as France, Spain and Belgium,” and second that “In Turkey, women make up 39% of academicians, 44% of undergraduate and 46.8 of postgraduate students are women.”Alas, Tan forgot many more recent statistics :

•The murder rate of women has increased 1,400 percent under the current government.

•Only two of Turkey’s 26 ministers are women; those two cover education and women’s affairs.•None of the ruling party’s undersecretaries are women.

•Only 3.5 percent of deputy undersecretaries are women.

•Less than 6 percent of director-generals are women.

•Less than 0.5 percent of regional directors are women.

•Just over 2 percent of provincial directors are women.

•None of the top finance officials are women.

•None of the top Justice Ministry officials are women.

•The UN Development Program ranked Turkey 101 out of 109 in women’s empowerment.

•Turkey boasts 26 women’s shelters; not good for a country of more than 70 million.

•37 percent of Turkish marriages involve child brides.Women were once equal in Turkey, but Prime Minister Recep Tayyip “I am the Imam of Istanbul” Erdoğan has reversed course. Tan may promote Turkey’s progressive past as a public-relations strategy, but this is dishonest. When it comes to the present, the situation of women in Turkey is comparable not to that in Europe but rather to that in Iran or Egypt.Hmmm......Once again keep Turkey out of Europe and get Turkey out of NATO NOW !Read the full story here.

• HT:BigPeace.Congressman Keith Ellison’s Taqiyya.Matthew Shaffer of NRO (as noted here by Ethel Fenig) exposed Keith Ellison’s mendacioustaqiyya (Koran-sanctioned Islamic dissimulation) theater during the Congressman’s testimony at Thursday’s Homeland Security Hearings on American Muslim radicalization.

The next day, during a 3/11/11 interview with Bill Maher (on “Real Time With Bill Maher”), responding to Maher’s complaint that, “[Islam] comes from a hate-filled holy book, the Koran, which is taken very literally by its people,” Ellison invoked a deceitfully redacted extract of Koran 5:32, and the ostensible Koranic paean to “tolerance,” verse 2:256.

Ellison’s disingenuous response was predictable.

Following the murderous acts of jihad terrorism committed on September 11, 2001, Ibn Warraq highlighted the tragic irony of many apologists quoting selectively from Koran 5:32, “whoso slays a soul …shall be as if he had slain mankind altogether; and whoso gives life to a soul, shall be as if he has given life to mankind altogether”, attempting to demonstrate that the Koran disapproved of violence and killing. Here is the entire verse (5:32), quoted in full context, with the intimately related verse, Koran 5:33:

(5:32) Therefore We prescribed for the Children of Israel that whoso slays a soul not to retaliate for a soul slain, nor for corruption done in the land, shall be as if he had slain mankind altogether; and whoso gives life to a soul, shall be as if he has given life to mankind altogether. Our Messengers have already come to them with the clear signs; then many of them thereafter commit excesses in the earth. (5:33) This is the recompense of those who fight against God and His Messenger, and hasten about the earth, to do corruption there: they shall be slaughtered, or crucified, or their hands and feet shall alternately be struck off; or they shall be banished from the land. That is a degradation for them in this world; and in the world to come awaits them a mighty chastisement

[For direct comparison see, Mishna, Sanhedrin, IV, 5, “Thus was created a single man, to teach us that every person who loses a single soul, it shall be written about him as if he has lost the entire world, and every person who sustains a single soul, it shall be written, about him as if he has sustained the entire world”]As Warraq noted, with regard to Koran 5:32/33, 1

The supposedly noble sentiments are in fact a warning to Jews. [2 see these commentaries as well] “Behave, or else” is the message. Far from abjuring violence, these verses aggressively point out that anyone opposing the Prophet will be killed, crucified, mutilated, and banished

Regarding the other pacific sounding verse Congressman Ellison cited, 2:256, it must be contextualized by Muhammad’s bellicose evolution within the Koran itself. But how, exactly? Abrogation is critical to understanding this evolution. Ali ibn Abi Talib—revered by Shiite Muslims and Islam’s 4th “Rightly Guided” Caliph—is reported to have told a pious Muslim companion, Abdul Rahman

“[C]an you differentiate between abrogating and abrogated verses” Abdul Rahman said, “no.” Thereupon Ali said “Thou art damned and causeth others to be damned.”

Thus it is reasonable to conclude that Keith Ellison’s deceitful pronouncements at Thursday’s Homeland Security Hearings, this past Thursday, and one day later on “Real Time With Bill Maher,” are consistent with the Koranic doctrine of taqiyya, Islamic religious dissimulation. Al-Tabari (d. 923), author of perhaps the earliest and most important authoritative Koranic commentary, explains Koranic verse 3:28, which sanctions taqiyya, as follows (translation by Raymond Ibrahim):

If you [Muslims] are under their [non-Muslims'] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them with your tongue while harboring inner animosity for them … [know that] God has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels rather than other believers-except when infidels are above them [in authority]. Should that be the case, let them act friendly towards them while preserving their religion.Hmmmmm.........Jesus said "...you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32.Read the full story here.

• HT:Examiner.Obama sending more unarmed agents into Mexico.On Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, John Morton announced that his agency is sending an additional 20 agents to Mexico to combat the growing threat from the cartels.Of course, these new agents will be unarmed.When reporters brought up the fact that Agent Jaime Zapata was recently gunned down by Zetas gunmen and unable to defend himself, Morton responded: "We're very cognizant of the fact that we're sending people into a place that's dangerous and we're taking a number of security steps."Current Mexican law bans foreign law enforcement agents from carrying weapons, even when working on an investigation--a policy over which President Obama recently expressed his approval.Following last week’s meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, President Obama told reporters that U.S. agents working in Mexico would remain unarmed, saying: “There are laws in place in Mexico that say that our agents should not be armed. We do not carry out law enforcement activities inside of Mexico.”However, ICE agents by the vary nature of their work in Mexico are carrying out “law enforcement activities inside of Mexico,” and forcing these agents to work and travel without the ability to defend themselves, is undoubtedly placing an even larger a target on their backs.Agent Zapata was killed on February 15, when he and another agent were shot after encountering a so-called “narco-blockade.”The second agent survived his wounds and is expected to make a full recovery.These makeshift blockades are becoming a common sight throughout Mexico. Drug traffickers will block a road with their vehicles to keep either law enforcement or operatives from rival cartels out of a certain neighborhood or town.Hmmmm......Seems except for Golf ,vacations and parties nothing much matters to this President.Read the full story here.

• HT:WZ.Obama Regime Warns Supreme Court: Stay Away From ObamaCare!The Obama administration told the Supreme Court on Monday night it should stay away from a high-profile challenge to the 2010 health care law until after a lower court has had a chance to review the case.Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal wrote, “there is no basis for short-circuiting the normal course of appellate review.” Katyal also says Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s case is problematic because he may lack sufficient standing to challenge the health care law.The Supreme Court normally takes cases only after they’ve been reviewed at least once by appellate judges. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says that’s not appropriate in this instance.In his filing last month, Cuccinelli said there’s a “palpable consensus” that the high court will ultimately have to pass judgment on the merits of President Obama’s health care law and should do so without delay. Furthermore, Cuccinelli argues that his case involves “pure issues of constitutional law” that appellate judges on the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals will be unable to definitively resolve.Katyal says there is no question that the case is of great public importance but uses the language of the court’s own rules to say it is not “one of the rare cases that justifies deviation from normal appellate practice and require[s] immediate determination in this court.” Katyal points out that the Virginia case and several others are already in the pipeline and little time may be saved if the court were to jump in now.Hmmm.....All Aboard the Obama express ... next stop.......Dictatorship?Read the full story here.

• HT:WhatsUpWithThat.The reverse of UN’s disastrous “oil for food” program: Ethanol uses 40% of US Corn Crop.There’s lot of gloom and doom being pushed, trying to link food prices to climate change by the usual howlers. As shown above, food prices surged to record levels in February despite February wheat and rice prices being essentially flat. Yet, February corn prices are up significantly even with 2010 being the 3rd largest U.S. corn crop ever. Why? Well part of the reason is that our cars now have a mandated, growing and voracious appetite for corn based ethanol.Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. writes:

When certain information proves challenging to entrenched political or ideological commitments it can be easy for policy makers to ignore, downplay or even dismiss that information. It is a common dynamic and knows no political boundaries. Global Dashboard catches the Obama Administration selectively explaining the causes for increasing world food prices:

“The increase in February mostly reflected further gains in international maize prices, driven by strong demand amid tightening supplies, while prices rose marginally in the case of wheat and fell slightly in the case of rice.”

“In other words, this is mainly about corn. And who’s the biggest corn exporter in the world? The United States…And where is 40% of US corn production going this year? Ethanol, for use in US car engines.”

So here we having wailing and gnashing of teeth by the usual suspects over global food prices, and they are using this as an example of the supposed “climate change drive food prices” link. Of course there isn’t any link in this case. It’s the corn stupid.The simple solution: stop burning food for fuel, drill for more oil, work on alternate energy system that actually might work, like thorium based nuclear power.Hmmmm......A President who act as a dictator to sell his electric dream,while starving the people?Read the full story here.

• 75% of rights abuses ‘aimed at Christians’.A REPORT highlighting human rights abuses against Christians around the world is to be launched in Glasgow.The Catholic Church agency, Aid to the Church in Need, estimates that 75% of all religious persecution around the world is directed against Christians. That equates to around 100,000 people facing persecution.The hard-hitting report will be launched in Scotland at St Rollox Church of Scotland by Cardinal Keith O’Brien and Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil in Iraq.Speaking ahead of the launch yesterday Nather Eisa told how he was forced to flee to Scotland from Iraq with his family. Mr Eisa, 46, a trained teacher, told how he was called a “little Christian rag” and received a death threat. His life was spared when his brother agreed to pay a bribe.For the father-of-two it was one of many abuses that persuaded him to flee to London in 2002. Shortly afterwards he and his family were moved to Sighthill in Glasgow. He believes he escaped the worst persecution in Iraq that followed the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, and has caused thousands more Christians to flee. The last Iraqi census in 1987 showed the Christian population at 1.4 million. The Church in Iraq estimates that figure is now as low as 150,000.“The problem started for Christian people in 1991 when sanctions were imposed by the United Nations,” said Mr Eisa. “Muslim people hated Christian people because America and Britain are Christian. They say to us Christians that we make the problems for them, but we say we are the same as them, we suffer the same.”Mr Eisa’s wife Aseel explained: “If I was rich and a Christian, they would come to my house during the night and steal everything. If you say anything you get killed. That’s happened for a few families. “Now they kill people simply because they are Christian, they say it to your face.”Daughter Lisa, 18, has settled into life here and is studying medicine at a Scottish university. She has little memory of Iraq, and was sheltered from much of the persecution by her parents.In Glasgow, she attended a Catholic primary school and was struck by the tolerance shown to other religions. She said: “Coming here, the way they treat people from other religions just makes me feel so proud to be Christian. I feel like that is what my religion teaches me; to love people who are different. That’s why I feel so attached to here, like I belong here.” “I think people here should be aware that there are Christians in the world that fight to keep their religion – it would make them value their religion more.”Hmmmmmm........."The War On Christianity" is real and it's happening now!Read the full story here.

• HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.Indonesia: Shiites Fear They Are the Next Target - Special Report.The small Al Khasanah Mosque in East Jakarta was half-full when Farid Okbah took to the podium to deliver his sermon.Fifteen minutes into his fiery speech, the place of worship was packed with around 150 people eager to hear the firebrand cleric lash out against what he called deviant beliefs.Minority sects “are thorns in our flesh,” he told his followers. “They are far more dangerous than the infidels. They weaken Islam from within, spinning Islamic verses to suit their own political agendas.”He cited the Ahmadis, the Sufis and moderate Sunni Muslims. But whatever criticism he had for these groups was eclipsed by the sheer vitriol targeted toward the Shiites.One Shiite in Indonesia is one Shiite too many, the cleric said.Though Farid preaches in a small mosque, his sermons are picked up by groups like the Ikhwanul Jannah Foundation and the As Salafi Foundation and circulated on the Internet.Audio clips of his teachings and those of other anti-Shia clerics like Salim Al Muhdor and Salim Yahya Qibas are available online for download.Farid is a Salafi, a follower of the ultra-orthodox interpretation of Islam that holds that only the version of the religion as espoused by the Prophet Muhammad and his companions and the two generations after them is valid.For Farid, now in his 60s, alternative or moderate interpretations of the Koran or the Prophet’s teachings constitute a form of deviancy.The practice common among many Muslims in Indonesia of making pilgrimages to the tombs of Islamic missionaries and clerics is for Farid a “sinful modification of Islam.” Likewise, he deems the high regard in which Ahmadiyah founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is held by his followers “heretical.”But he pays special attention to Shiites, having spent much time collecting books about the branch to find “evidence” of their heresy.In an interview with the Jakarta Globe, Farid brought out four books that he said proved the Shia interpretation of Islam made the Shiite community “more dangerous than Ahmadiyah.”“Their ideals are so deviant that their teachings need to be exterminated,” he said.The main difference between the Shia and Sunni branches of Islam is that Shiites regard Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, as the divinely appointed successor to the Prophet.Shiites also only accept the hadith, or teachings, credited to Muhammad’s close family and associates, while Sunnis only accept those credited to his companions.Like the Ahmadis, Shiites are a minority in Indonesia. But unlike the Ahmadis, they have been defended by top religious figures in the country, including Habib Rizieq, chairman of the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front (FPI).However, at the grassroots level, Shiites say they are starting to feel the heat.“Although I don’t agree with Ahmadiyah, the persecution of Ahmadiyah members has left us worried,” Fahrurozi Shadiq, a Shiite, told the Globe.“Some of my friends have discussed the possibility that we may be the next target [of hard-liner attacks].”He said he used to pray according to the Shia tradition at the mosque at his predominantly Sunni university campus in South Jakarta.“I used to think, ‘Why should I be afraid?’ Yes, there are people who are curious about the way I pray. But that was usually it,” he said. “Now they’re growing intolerant. Last month, I was told not to pray there anymore. ‘Take your sect elsewhere,’ they said. Can you imagine? Intolerance at a campus filled with scholars and educated people?”Musa Kazhim Al Habsy, another Shiite, said many followers were uncomfortable about displaying their faith in public, even in multicultural Jakarta.“Some people have lost their jobs because of their faith. Entrepreneurs have lost business deals after their clients discovered they were Shiites,” he told the Globe.“Differences between Muslim sects have always been and will always be irreconcilable,” said Azra, the UIN professor. “We have to address the root causes of these acts of violence. Unfortunately, the government has no vision [for addressing the issue]. Instead, it turns a blind eye to the problem.“The government is supposed to protect all citizens regardless of their faith, but now we see them blaming the victims. People will now think that violence committed by large crowds will never be prosecuted.”Hmmmm......Obama "Indonesia is an example of religious tolerance' it seems every place he visits explodes after a while,can we start talking about the "Obama effect"or is it a curse?Read the full story here.

• Brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai says NATO kills cousin.KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - President Hamid Karzai's brother said Thursday that U.S.-led coalition forces mistakenly killed one of the president's cousins during a raid in southern Afghanistan.NATO forces stormed 65-year-old Mohammad Karzai's home in the southern city of Kandahar late Wednesday, killing him and detaining his son, according to the president's brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai."He was a tribal leader. This was a mistake. He was not the target," said Karzai, who heads the provincial council in Kandahar. The man's son was released early Thursday.NATO said it was aware of the report but unable to immediately confirm the victim's identity. President Karzai's office had no immediate comment.Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said the killing "proves the Americans are friends of no one. They kill Taliban because we are against them but they also kill those people who are their supporters or helping the Americans who are here."It was the latest in a series of allegations that coalition or Afghan security forces were responsible for killing civilians.Also Thursday, dozens of villagers held a protest in Kandahar city, accusing the police of killing five civilians in a raid overnight in nearby Zhari district. They had the bodies of three men they said were slain by police, and they said two women also were killed.Local government officials confirmed an incident in Pashmol but said it was a police operation targeting known insurgents and that the men who were killed had fired on the officers.It is often difficult to distinguish actual civilian deaths from insurgent propaganda in the south, where many villages are loyal to the Taliban.Hmmmm....Soon they will start arresting US soldiers and demand 'bloodmoney' as compensation.Read the full story here.

• HT:IslaminEurope.Belgium: Store apologizes for headscarf sacking, but bans them.The Dutch chain store Hema has admitted that it didn't treat its shop assistant in a fair way. Hema has proposed 20-year-old Joyce to return and to take a new job with Hema, but she refuses as it involves a position where she would no longer have contact with customers.The Hema store in Genk (Limburg province) decided earlier this week not to extend the temporary contract of a shop assistant because she wears a headscarf. It was reported that she was violating the company's dress code. Hema had made the decision after complaints made by customers. The young woman refused to work without her head scarf and her contract was terminated. The case quickly made the headlines in the Belgian press.However, Hema has now admitted that it did not treat the young woman correctly. "By allowing a headscarf first and forbidding it later, Hema did not act correctly towards this temporary employee", a statement said. It came after a meeting with Belgium's anti-racism centre.Meanwhile, Hema Belgium announced in a clarification to its uniform regulations that employees may not wear headscarves. Jan Coppejans, human resources manager, explained that in order to protect the chain's neutral and discrete image, all expressions of faith were forbidden, as well as tattoos and piercings.Hema says they employ 850 people in Belgium, and not one wears a headscarf. The chain does allow its Dutch employees to wear headscarves.Hmmmm..."Religion does not require women to veil their hands, feet and faces or enjoin any special type of veil. Tribal custom must not impose itself on the free will of the individual."Amanullah Khan - King of Afghanistan (1919-1929).

The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, head of Al-Azhar, the highest seat of learning in the Sunni world.“The niqab is a tradition and has nothing to do with Islam,” said Sheikh Tantawi, vowing to ban it in Al-Azhar schools.After the girl complied he insisted she should not wear it any more.“I tell you again that the niqab has nothing to do with Islam and it is only a mere custom. I understand the religion better than you and your parents.” The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar imam vowed to issue a ban against the face-veil in all schools linked to Al-Azhar.“Source.Read the full story here.

• Books - Dead Men Risen: The snipers' story.Operating from a remote patrol base in Helmand, two British snipers were responsible for killing 75 Taliban fighters in just 40 days. In one remarkable feat of marksmanship, two insurgents were dispatched with a single bullet.The arrival at the newly-established Patrol Base Shamal Storrai (Pashto for “North Star”) in late August 2009 of Serjeant Tom Potter and Rifleman Mark Osmond marked the start of an astonishing episode in the history of British Army sniping. Within 40 days, the two marksmen from 4 Rifles, part of the Welsh Guards Battle group, had achieved 75 confirmed kills with 31 attributed to Potter and 44 to Osmond. Each kill was chalked up as a little stick man on the beam above the firing position in their camouflaged sangar beside the base gate – a stick man with no head denoting a target eliminated with a shot to the skull. Osmond, 25, was an engaging, fast-talking enthusiast, eager to display his encyclopedic knowledge of every specification and capability of his equipment. He had stubbornly remained a rifleman because he feared that being promoted might lead to his being taken away from sniping, a job he loved and lived for. Potter, 30, was more laid back, projecting a calm professionalism and quiet confidence in the value of what he did.Potter had notched up seven confirmed kills in Bara in 2007 and 2008 while Osmond’s total was 23. Both were members of the Green Jackets team that won the 2006 British Army Sniper Championships. On one occasion they killed eight Taliban in two hours, ‘I wasn’t comfortable with it at first,’ said Osmond, ‘you start wondering is it really necessary?’ But the reaction of the locals soon persuaded him. ‘We had people coming up to us afterwards, not scared to talk to us. They felt they were being protected’. Most of the kills were at a range of 1,200 metres using the 7.62 mm L96 sniper rifle. The snipers used suppressors, reducing the sound of the muzzle blast. Although a ballistic crack could be heard, it was almost impossible to work out where the shot was coming from. With the bullet travelling at three times the speed of sound, a victim was unlikely to hear anything before he died. Walkie-talkie messages revealed that the Taliban thought they were being hit from helicopters. The longest-range shot taken was when Potter killed an insurgent at 1,430 metres away. But the most celebrated shot of their tour was by Osmond at a range of just 196 metres.The 7.62 mm bullet Osmond had fired had passed through the heads of both men. He had achieved the rare feat of ‘one shot, two kills’ known in the sniping business as ‘a Quigley’. The term comes from the 1990 film Quigley Down Under in which the hero, played by Tom Selleck, uses an old Sharps rifle to devastating effect.Hmmm.....The best sniper in WWII Simo Häyhä nicknamed "White Death" by the Soviet army, was a Finnish soldier.Häyhä was credited with 505 confirmed kills of Soviet soldiers, and 542 if including the unconfirmed deaths. Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely Different !Russian bomb squad called in to defuse sex toy.The Incident took place after a postal worker identified a suspect package.Anti-terrorist bomb squad experts were called to a post office in the northwest of Russia to make safe a package from which a strange ticking sound was coming, local police said Monday.They found a vibrator.The incident took place at Petrozavodsk in the republic of Karelia and followed a call from a postal worker who had identified a suspect package, a police spokeswoman told AFP by phone."The post building was ringed by the security forces and people were evacuated," she said."In the package the bomb squad found a vibrator."The sex toy had apparently been turned on "by accident".Nerves are on edge in Russia after an attack in January on the Domodedovo airport near Moscow left 37 dead. Two suicide bombers killed 40 in March 2010 in the Moscow metro.False bomb scares and evacuations have since affected commercial centres, stations and other public places.Hmmmm........No word if the owner received her parcel?Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• The volatile Lybian situation live streams here.

Live Blog Libya - Al Jazeera. here.

• PA seeking to remove Hamas from US, EU terror lists.The Palestinian Authority is working toward removing Hamas from the US and EU list of terror organizations so as to pave the way for the Islamist movement to join a Palestinian unity government, PA negotiator Nabil Sha’ath revealed on Monday.Sha’ath, who was speaking to reporters after meeting in Cairo with Arab League Secretary- General Amr Moussa, said he raised the issue with a number of governments during a recent tour of EU capitals.“This is a question that every Palestinian and Arab should be asking,” he stressed. “My fear is that Hamas’s calculations about the Arab revolts are different than ours. We see that these revolutions’ main demand is unity and support for Palestinian rights.”Sha’ath, a former PA foreign minister, said that a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation would embolden Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation.The Quartet, Palmor said, clearly laid down the three conditions Hamas needed to abide by in order to gain recognition: recognizing Israel, forswearing terrorism and accepting previous agreements.“Hamas has consistently rejected this platform to join the political process,” Palmor said. “A solution has been on the table for years, but Hamas still prefers to be the problem.”Hmmmm......Why do i suddenly think that 'the peacemaker in chief' will go for it ?Read the full story here.

• Car bomb rocks east Pakistan city.At least 20 people killed after car bomb explodes at gas station in Faisalabad, a key textile hub in Punjab province.At least 20 people have been killed in a car bomb explosion outside a gas station in the eastern Pakistani city of Faisalabad.The bomb went off on Tuesday in a neighbourhood full of government buildings including police offices, and it severely damaged an office of Pakistan's state-run airline as well as a local gas station.More than 100 people were wounded in the explosion, and many remain trapped under the rubble, authorities said."It was a car bomb blast. The explosive was planted in a car. We are investigating whether a suicide bomber was involved or not," police chief Aftab Cheema told the AFP news agency.Pakistani television stations showed piles of bricks and chunks of twisted metal from cars, strewn across the wrecked gas station.Our correspondent said security forces are searching for clues behind the blast and have cordoned off the gas station area."The police are saying that this was indeed a bomb. They have no evidence that this was a suicide attack. But they say the device appears to have been planted in a vehicle close to that compressed natural gas station and therefore the explosion wreaked havoc, because the pump itself blew up," he said."There was quite a bit of opposition to the fact that this station should not have been there in the first place, but the station was allowed to function in a highly sensitive area."And there was of course apprehension that in case of an accident, it would pose a threat, so the target [was] obviously very carefully chosen."Hmmmm......Now who would do this?Read the full story here.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.Libyan rep is UN expert on mercenaries.Remember Muammar Gadhafi's representative to the United Nations 'Human Rights Council,' Najjat al-Hajjaji, who got a little surprise from UN Watch in the videos here? Well, now we have a story about Hajjaji herself: It seems that she's the UN expert on the use of mercenaries. This is from a press release I received via email from UN Watch. With the Libyan regime deploying hired guns to massacre its own people, the UN Human Rights Council was urged today to fire Najat Al-Hajjaji, a long-time mouthpiece of Col. Muammar Qaddafi, from her post as a council investigator on human rights violations by mercenaries.“Every day she stays with the UN Human Rights Council is an insult to the victims of Qaddafi’s murderous regime,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights group that initiated the successful campaign to suspend Libya as a member of the 47-nation council.Hmmmm.......The 'wolf' guarding the sheep?Read the full story here.

• Despite openness pledge, President Obama pursues leakers.The Obama administration, which famously pledged to be the most transparent in American history, is pursuing an unexpectedly aggressive legal offensive against federal workers who leak secret information to expose wrongdoing, highlight national security threats or pursue a personal agenda. In just over two years since President Barack Obama took office, prosecutors have filed criminal charges in five separate cases involving unauthorized distribution of classified national security information to the media. And the government is now mulling what would be the most high-profile case of them all - prosecuting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. That’s a sharp break from recent history, when the U.S. government brought such cases on three occasions in roughly 40 years. The government insists it’s only pursuing individuals who act with reckless disregard for national security, and that it has an obligation to protect the nation’s most sensitive secrets from being revealed. Anyone seeking to expose malfeasance has ample opportunity to do so through proper channels, government lawyers say. But legal experts and good-government advocates say the hard-line approach to leaks has a chilling effect on whistleblowers, who fear harsh legal reprisals if they dare to speak up. Not only that, these advocates say, it runs counter to Obama’s pledges of openness by making it a crime to shine a light on the inner workings of government – especially when there are measures that could protect the nation’s interests without hauling journalists into court and government officials off to jail.Jesselyn Radack, a former Justice Department attorney now with the Government Accountability Project, said it’s “very destructive and damaging to be going after people for leaks that embarrass the government.” The policy, she said, is “a disturbing one particularly from a president who got elected pledging openness and transparency — and someone who also got elected thanks to a lot of [Bush-era] scandals that were revealed by whistleblowers.”Still, leak prosecutions brought under Obama amount to “almost twice as many as all previous presidents put together,” noted Daniel Ellsberg, who changed history and helped set a legal precedent when he handed the Pentagon’s top-secret assessment of the Vietnam War to New York Times reporters four decades ago. “The campaign here against whistleblowers is actually unprecedented in legal terms.”Hmmmm......What i say and what i do are two different things altogether.Wherever freedom of speech disappears,shortly after freedom itself disappears,welcome to dictatorship.Read the full story here.

• HT:Aina.Christian Copts in Egypt Protest Muslim Attacks.Thousands of Christians, joined by many Muslims, have been staging sit-in since March 5 in front of the Egyptian TV building on the Nile Corniche in Cairo, protesting the attack on the church in the village of Soul and the inaction of the Egyptian armed forces in preventing the Muslims from torching and demolishing the church and terrorizing the Christian Copts and forcing them to evacuate the village.The church, which has been completely demolished, has been used by Muslims to pray there to humiliate the Copts said the protesters.The protesters were joined by 15 priests, including priests from the demolished St. Mina and St. George's church in Soul, Atfif in Hewan, 30 kilometers from Cairo, blocked the path to the main October and May 15 bridges. Some of the Coptic youth lay in the middle of the roads to prevent cars from passing, which brought traffic in this busy area of Cairo to a stand still for hours.The demonstrators accused government officials of complicity and silence to the exposure of Copts to violence and looting and demanded the recovery of their church, which was razed and taken over Muslims while under the sight of the Egyptian army. They held banners and chanted "We want our rights" and "Demolish our churches or our homes, the Coptic voice will not abate."Father Filopareer Gamil of Giza Coptic Dioceses read the Coptic demands on behalf of protesters. "Since yesterday (March 5) we have been crying out in vain to the armed forces to issue a statement to protect our rights and our homes." Coptic Demands are mainly for the church to be rebuilt on the same location and same dimensions (now an empty plot of land,) as well as the torched affiliated community services building; Christians to be allowed from immediate effect to pray again there even in a tent until the new church has been built; to secure the return of more than 7000 Copts who were terrorized and forcibly displaced from the village; compensation for all Copts affected by the incident; prosecution of the perpetrators and inciters of the church attack.To pacify the Copts, Field Marshall Tantawi, head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, issued a statement that the torched church would be rebuilt by Easter, at the expense of the army.Father Yosha, the priest who was inside the Church, escaped the fire which destroyed the church, along with three deacons who were with him, through the roof of the burning church, leaping to the roof of the neighboring house, owned by Muslims, who helped and protected him from being assaulted by the mob as he left.The village residents, priests and the Bishop appealed in vain to the armed forces, stationed only 7 km away from Soul in the village of Borombol to intervene. In an interview with Freecopts, Bishop Theodosius, Bishop of Giza, said "We called the commanders of the army in charge of the region of Helwan and Borombol, and the leaders of the national security. They subsequently sent the army. When the army arrived at the village of Soul, it fired in the air and the Muslim mob dispersed. However, about half-an-hour later, the mob reassembled and began to burn the church in presence of the army. The army sent a fire truck that extinguished the fire, but thereafter the army began to protect the Muslims who were destroying the church. Meanwhile, the army prevented the Christians from reaching the church, when they attempted to extinguish the fire and end the destruction of their church. Thus, the Muslims were allowed to destroy the church under the protection of the Egyptian army."A delegation of priests met on Sunday midnight with Prime Minister Dr. Essam Sharaf in his home, who promised to contact Field Marshall Tantawi on Monday morning to make sure that his promises regarding the torched church will be kept.Hmmmmm........Off course no word from the defender of the oppressed,the selfconfessed 'Christian'.Read and see the full story here.

• HT:DougRoss.Photographic Proof that the President's National Security Advisor is Right: 'Many Different Faiths' Really Do Turn to Terrorism.At first blush, the statement by President Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor, Denis McDonough, seems like just another bizarre bit of propaganda.Denis McDonough, Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor, who said that members of many different religions "succumb to terrorist ideologies." McDonough said this in an address given on March 6 at the Islamic ADAMS Center in Sterling, Virginia.With his remarks at the headquarters of this Muslim organization, McDonough proved that he simply refuses to recognize reality concerning radical Islam and is even willing to minimize that threat by pretending that all religions contain "terrorists.""For example," McDonough said, "we know there are many different reasons why individuals -- from many different faiths -- succumb to terrorist ideologies."Obviously this is an idiotic contention. No Christians are perpetrating acts of terror throughout the world. No Hindus are blowing up trains in Spain. No Jews are fostering suicide bombings in England or the United States. No Buddhists have flown jetliners into high-rise buildings. Islam is responsible for the bulk of the world's acts of terror. To use such rhetorical conventions is dangerous because it disarms us from the real threat.McDonough and Obama both show that they are dangerously uneducated in the dangers of radical Islam. This speech certainly proves that Obama and his minions simply don't get it. They don't get it at all.Hmmmm....."The Twin Towers were not brought down on 9/11 by Jews screaming 'Mazle Tov'!Neighter were it Amish in their horse drawn buggies who attacked the USS Cole.Read the full story here.More here.

• HT:Memri.Video :Pakistani Actress Veena Malik Defies Mullah Accusing Her of Immoral Behavior on an Indian Reality TV Show, and States: Mullahs Are Raping Children in Mosques.Read and see the full story here.

• HT:Memri.'Abbas: It Is Time for the Palestinian State to Become a UN Member.PA President Mahmoud 'Abbas called to grant Palestine the status of a permanent UN member this September, as an independent state within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. He added that, by that date, he also hoped to see the completion of the infrastructure for the Palestinian state.Hmmmmm......"When crows wear Stiletto pumps"Read the full story here.

• Something rotten about the state of press freedom in Turkey.Apropos of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, we don’t know if something is still rotten in the state of Denmark, but it certainly is in Turkey as far as press freedom is concerned. The latest spate of arrests of well-known, respected journalists, for ostensibly being “members of the Ergenekon terrorist group,” has even the president of the Republic, Abdullah Gül, “concerned.”And so he should be because - as he told daily Milliyet’s Fikret Bila over the weekend - the present state of affairs relating to the media and journalists in this country is not just bothering the public conscience, but also “harming Turkey’s image, which everyone has come to appreciate.”Gül was naturally referring to the fact that many reforms have been made in Turkey in the name of democracy, a fact that is also the reason behind why Turkey is being pointed to as a “model” for countries such as Egypt as they try to democratize. All of this had, as Gül suggests, increased the country’s international profile in a positive manner.But that situation now faces the risk of changing rapidly since Turkey is once again under international scrutiny for trying to prevent journalists from doing their job, and for incarcerating those who report about things unfavorable to the government or the authorities.The prosecutor in charge of the investigation into the “Ergenekon terrorist group,” which is supposed to have conspired to overthrow the government by illegal means, argued in a written statement on Sunday that the journalists arrested last week - who by the way include Nedim Şener, an internationally renowned and awarded investigative reporter from Milliyet - were taken in not for what they wrote, but for their illegal activities.He refused, however, to say what these illegal activities were, indicating instead that this was classified information. Those in the government-friendly media, who have clearly sold their sense of solidarity with their colleagues, as well as their professional commitment to the freedom of the press, down the river in an effort to propagandize for the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, are trying now to stand behind the prosecutor and the government.But genuine journalists, who are more interested in carrying on with their jobs rather than being a spokesperson for this or that political or ideological group, are extremely doubtful about this claim of the prosecutor’s, given that even the president of the Republic is “concerned” about the latest developments. It appears from their strong reactions that international press organizations are also doubtful about the claims against the arrested journalists.If, however, the government wanted it could introduce bills that prevent the incarceration of journalists for what they write or for the information they gather in pursuing their jobs. Instead it prefers to watch the arrest of journalists it does not like, even if it says it is not directly behind these arrests.Neither does the AKP administration appear to be too concerned about the illegality of some of the methods of the prosecutor in going after journalists. It transpires now, for example, that Nedim Şener’s phone was tapped for nearly two years, and that his private conversations listened to. But this kind of phone tapping is illegal under Turkey’s current laws. Neither the prosecutor’s office, nor the minister for justice, nor for that matter Prime Minister Erdoğan himself appear too bothered about this fact.There is indeed something rotten in the state of Turkey and one just has to look at how press freedoms are being treated now to understand this. At this rate, let alone Turkey being a model for Egypt, or any other country for that matter, it is could very well be that Egypt will become a model for Turkey in terms of freedom of the press.Hmmmmm.......Or Turkey who takes Iran as a 'role model'?Read the full story here.

• £50 insult to Britain's war dead: Veteran's fury as poppy burner enjoying a life on benefits gets paltry fine and mocks soldiers.As a British citizen, Emdadur Choudhury enjoys benefits including a free council flat and almost £800 a month state handouts.Yesterday he laughed at justice as he was handed a paltry £50 fine for setting light to poppies on Remembrance Day and yelling ‘British soldiers burn in hell’.After hearing his penalty, which outraged war veterans, the 26-year-old father of two declared: ‘I don’t have any respect for British soldiers, and if they lose a limb or two in Afghanistan then they deserve it. You expect me to feel sorry for them? Of course I don’t.’ Choudhury, from Bethnal Green, East London, was found guilty of using threatening or abusive words or behaviour by District Judge Howard Riddle, following a one-day trial last month.The maximum fine possible was £1,000, plus legal costs, and Judge Riddle said he had no doubt Choudhury had set out to shock and offend. Yet he fined him only £50, plus a £15 victim surcharge. Although Choudhury sneered that he would have been fined more than £50 for a parking offence, he is refusing to pay. However the bill will be picked up by his ‘good friend’ Anjem Choudary, the notorious firebrand preacher.Asked if he would do it again, he replied laughing: ‘You’ll have to find out next time, won’t you? The only reason I even got a fine is cos it’s politically motivated. I would have got a bigger fine for a parking ticket than this.‘It’s my freedom of speech and I’m exercising that. I’m being persecuted for it. This fine, I will wear it as a badge on my shoulder. I did it for Allah. I did it to raise awareness that these so-called soldiers are the criminals. They are the ones who should be tried for war crimes.’Sinisterly he promised that he had ‘2,000 youths who will follow me and do whatever I tell them – you don’t want another Afghanistan here do you? We want Sharia law in this country, and Inshallah [God willing] we will get it’.Shaun Rusling, of the National Gulf War Veterans and Families Association, said: ‘I think the British people would be disgusted with the sentence handed out. Remembrance Day is very special for those in the Armed Forces, when we remember those who have lost their lives for freedom and fighting for their country.Hmmmm......"Brittain the country where parking offences are punished harsher then insulting their veterans"Defenders of England From Richard Lion heart to Sir Winston Churchull must be turning in their graves.Read the full story here.

• U.S. government unveils staggering $223bn deficit for February - the largest one-month shortfall in history.The federal government has revealed a whopping $223billion deficit for February – the largest monthly budget shortfall in U.S. history.The staggering one-month figure dwarfs even the most sweeping cuts being debated on Capitol Hill.And critics claimed it underlined just how out of control government spending has become in the aftermath of the recession.The monthly deficit tops last February’s record of $220.9billion and marks the 29th consecutive month the government has run in the red.It is also nearly four times as large as the spending cuts Republicans passed in the House of Representatives and more than 30 times the $6billion cuts suggested by Democrats in the Senate.If a budget deal isn’t agreed within the next two weeks, the White House and Congress will have to approve another short term measure or face the prospect of a partial government shutdown.'We are only seven months away from the end of this fiscal year, and we don't have a budget, which is kind of ridiculous,’ said the President’s new chief-of-staff William Daley.But he added: ‘I'm very optimistic that there will not be a shutdown,' insisting the two sides were already about halfway towards a deal.Hmmmm....How about this for a deal : Congress impeaches this walking,talking doomsday machine?Read the full story here.

• 'I thought I was going to die': Muslim documentary film maker 'racially abused and beaten' after wandering into house party.A film-maker shooting a documentary about the treatment of Arabs in the U.S. claims he was attacked and called racial epithets after he wandered uninvited into a house party, and police are treating the case as a hate crime after officers found him with a bloody face.Usama Alshaibi claimed he was repeatedly punched and kicked by four men after he arrived at the party in the early hours of Sunday in Fairfield, an Iowa city of about 9,500 residents where he moved with his wife last year. The 41-year-old, who was born in Baghdad but grew up in Iowa City, said the men called him an epithet used to refer to Arabs as well as 'Osama bin Laden' and assaulted him before he managed to escape.Alshaibi is producing a film called American Arab for Chicago-based Kartemquin Films about discrimination against Arabs in the U.S. and there had been some suspicions that the 'attack' was a publicity stunt.'This isn't how I would promote my film,' Alshaibi said. 'I thought I was going to die.'A Fairfield police report says a video store manager called police to report a man in his parking lot crying and screaming at 12:19am on Sunday. Police found Alshaibi bleeding from his forehead and nose, with some scratches on his hands as if he had fallen to the ground. Alshaibi said he went to the hospital later on Sunday, was treated and released.Fairfield Police Chief Julie Harvey said yesterday that officers believe Alshaibi's claims are credible because he was clearly assaulted, and they continue to search for the alleged assailants. She said Alshaibi has been unable to pinpoint the home where the assault allegedly occurred because he was intoxicated when he arrived and disoriented when he left.Hmmmm......Chicago......the homebase of Obama,and come to think of it are Muslims not forbidden to drink?Read the full 'story' here.More on Alshaibi here.Of course he also blogs.

• Scores dead in south Sudan clashes.Increasing violence comes as the south prepares to declare independence from the north in July.More than 50 people have been killed in two days of clashes between rebel groups and soldiers in south Sudan's Upper Nile state, an army spokesman said.Philip Aguer, spokesman for the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), said on Monday that militia forces loyal.to the rebel leader George Athor clashed with military forces, killing 56 people.Aguer did not specify which side the deaths were on.The fighting comes just four months before the region is due to become independent.The south is expected to secede on July 9 after southerners overwhelmingly voted to declare independence from the north in a January referendum – a vote promised in a 2005 peace accord that ended decades of civil war between north and south.But a wave of mass killings in recent weeks has raised fears for the stability of Sudan's oil-producing south and the contested Abyei border region.Aguer repeated accusations that Sudan's northern government was arming rebel groups to try and disrupt the region ahead of its split and keep control of its oil.He said the rebel group was linked to the area's Shilluk tribe based near the village of Owach."They have received new weapons. We suspect they all acted in co-ordination with Khartoum ... I think things are going to continue escalating," he said.However, Sudan's dominant National Congress Party (NCP) in the north denied having any involvement.Rabie Abdelati, an NCP party official, said on Monday: "If we really wanted to go back to war, we would not have signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (the 2005 accord) or accepted the referendum."We are hoping for a strong south after secession. If the south is not stable the north will not be stable."Hmmmm......."Islam the religion of Peace".Read the full story here.

• HT:WashingtonMonthly.How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam.There aren’t nearly enough counterterrorism experts to instruct all of America’s police.So we got these guys instead.On a bright January morning in 2010, at Broward College in Davie, Florida, about sixty police officers and other frontline law enforcement officials gathered in a lecture hall for a course on combating terrorism in the Sunshine State. Some in plain clothes, others in uniform, they drifted in clutching Styrofoam cups of coffee, greeting acquaintances from previous statewide training sessions. The instructor, Sam Kharoba, an olive-skinned man wearing rimless glasses and an ill-fitting white dress shirt, stood apart at the front of the hall reviewing PowerPoint slides on his laptop. As he got under way, Kharoba described how, over the next three days, he would teach his audience the fundamentals of Islam. “We constantly hear statements,” Kharoba began, “that Islam is a religion of peace, and we constantly hear of jihadists who are trying to kill as many non-Muslims as they can.” Kharoba’s course would establish for his students that one of these narratives speaks to a deep truth about Islam, and the other is a calculated lie.Kharoba belongs to a growing profession, one that is ballooning on the spigot of federal and state dollars set aside for counterterrorism efforts since the attacks of September 11, 2001. He is a counterterrorism instructor to America’s beat cops, one of several hundred working the law enforcement training circuit. Some are employed by large security contractors; others, like Kharoba, are independent operators.Kharoba was born in Jordan, and he likes to intimate that members of his family are important tribal leaders. This lends a veneer of insider credibility to classroom remarks that might otherwise seem like off-color jokes. He showed the class some photographs taken in the Gaza Strip. “This is the Arab version of a line,” Kharoba told the students, gesturing to a photo of Palestinians rushing toward a passport agency. Then he showed a YouTube video of two uniformed men beating a nameless prisoner. “This is what Miranda rights are in the Arab world,” he said.“When you have a Muslim that wears a headband, regardless of color or insignia, basically what that is telling you is ‘I am willing to be a martyr.’” There were other signs, too. “From the perspective of operational security, there are two things I am always looking out for: a shaved body and moving lips,” he explained. “Some of the Pakistani hijackers shaved their whole bodies in a ritual of cleanliness. If their lips are moving, these guys are praying. As they are walking through an airport, every second they’re going to be praying.” America today is too politically correct to acknowledge the reality of Islamic fanaticism, Kharoba said. “Would Islam be tolerated if everyone knew its true message?” he asked the class. “From a Muslim perspective, do you want non-Muslims to know the truth about Islam?” “No!” came the audience reply. “So what do Muslims do?” Kharoba demanded. “Lie!” Kharoba strode forward to the front of the room, his voice slower now, more measured. “Islam is a highly violent radical religion that mandates that all of the earth must be Muslim.”Hmmmmm......."There can only be one".Read the full story here.

• Tarek Fatah: Some death threats don’t count.Has radical Islam covered up Canada's lady justice's ears as well?I had just woken from surgery when the first death threat arrived.“This is an open threat to Xaar Boy @Tarek Fatah,” read the first Twitter posting, with its vulgar Somali adjective. “I know where you live & and where your office is.”The sender signed herself as Mariama AnnaLitical and pictured herself wearing a purple hijab in the style of Toronto’s radical young Islamists. Other Twitter followers denounced the threat and urged that AnnaLitical be reported, even arrested. At one point she withdrew the warning, then repeated it later the same morning.“He was also the 1 to propose banning the Niqab in Quebec… (and he) supports homosexuality,” she wrote, reiterating again: “This is an open threat. I know where you live/work @TarekFatah.”Her fellow Islamists joined in, calling me a bad Muslim for opposing the hijab and supporting equality for gays. Other posters said I had brought the threats down onto myself.I contacted Toronto police. Within hours, two uniformed policemen from 51 Division came to interview me in hospital. However, barely one minute later, we were interrupted. Two men entered the room and told everybody else to leave. They did not identify themselves, but five minutes into what amounted to a two-hour interrogation, I realized they were police intelligence officers. One of them, I recognized by reputation – a Muslim officer who had shut down a previous investigation into a death threat against me in 2008, and another one against a partner in liberal Islam, Tahir Gora.I have since informed Toronto Police Services chair Alok Mukherjee and Police Chief Bill Blair. Mukerjee assured me he will look into the matter. Chief Blair has not replied.The Toronto police, in their wish to promote an image of diversity and outreach, have dedicated themselves to serving and protecting the the radical Islamist elements within our city. Meanwhile, Muslims like myself, who do their best to promote the equality and respect that the police claim to cherish, are left without legal protection when radicals explicitly and publicly threaten us with violence. In Toronto, anybody can issue an “open threat” against a man laying helpless in a hospital bed and be assured they will not face charges, so long as the person making the threat is a black Muslim woman wearing a hijab.I’m hopeful that the police may yet make the right decision, now that I have gone public with this disgrace. If not, I will know the city I love is lost.Hmmm.....I think PM Harper has a lot of work ahead if he wants to preserve Canada the way it was.Read the full story here.

• HT:WestToTheWestWing.Churches into mosques, American style.At least two Protestant churches have recently opened their facilities to Muslim groups whose own buildings are either too small or under construction. From Fox News:Heartsong Church in Cordova, Tenn., let members of the Memphis Islamic Center hold Ramadan prayers there last September. And Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Alexandria, Va., allows the Islamic Circle of North America to hold regular Friday prayers in their building while their new mosque is being built.Diane Bechtol of Aldersgate says this is something Christians are called to do: Be neighborly and develop relationships – even [with] those who don’t share your beliefs.“I think it’s a tenet of our Christian faith, and that is that we extend hospitality to the stranger,” said Bechtol.This is so problematic on so many levels, it’s hard to even know where to begin.But leaving that consideration aside, ponder these very practical questions posed on the Epistoli blog:

1. Would Muslims allow Christians to hold services in their mosques? I doubt it. I couldn’t even get into the Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem last year, [because] I wasn’t a Muslim.

2. Why are Muslims around the world destroying Christian churches?

3. Would Democrats allow Republicans to use their campaign offices in the off-shifts during an election campaign?

4. Didn’t Jesus throw money-changers out of the temple? And they were only money-changers, not an organization that wants to conquer the world for its own religion and is prepared to destroy those that remain unbelievers.

Then, there’s the problem of who these particular Muslims are affiliated with, and what their agenda is.Mohamed Elsanousi, who, according to the Fox story, advocates Christian churches sharing their worship spaces with Muslims, is the National Community Outreach Director of none other than the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). You may recognize the ISNA as being one of the villains in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas-funding trial. According to the landmark report Shariah: The Threat to America, in the course of that trial,thanks to evidence of financial transactions between ISNA and Hamas that the government introduced, along with scores of MB [Muslim Brotherhood] documents, it became clear that the Islamic Society of North America directly supports Hamas and its operations. [emphasis added]Hmmmm....."I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; Do not have any other gods before me."Read the full story here.

• HT:TheDailyCaller.House Oversight Committee likely to investigate White House for treating non-union employees worse than unionized after GM bailout.Republican Reps. Mike Turner of Ohio and Dan Burton of Indiana are asking House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, California Republican, to dig into the Obama administration’s decision to cut more than 20,000 private-sector workers’ pensions and eliminate their health and life insurance plans during the General Motors (GM) bailout in 2009.A spokesman for Issa’s committee told The Daily Caller the committee “remains interested” and is “looking forward” to findings from an ongoing Government Accountability Office investigation, which is expected to come out within the next couple of months. What Turner and Burton are saying happened during the GM bailout is that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner decided to cut pensions for salaried non-union employees at Delphi, a GM spinoff, to expedite GM’s emergence from bankruptcy. The problem with that, according to the congressmen, is that Geithner decided to fully fund the pensions of union workers involved in the process – including workers associated with United Auto Workers, Steelworkers and the IUE-CWA.“This is a terrible injustice. This is a political decision, not a legal or financial decision,” Turner said in a phone interview with TheDC. “There were people who were penalized and people were chosen as winners and losers. The White House, the administration and the Auto Task Force (ATF) decided who were going to receive their pensions and who were not.”Bruce Gump, one of the workers who lost most of his pension and his health and life insurance plans, said what really disappoints him is how Geithner justified his decision. “Mr. Geithner justified that by saying in the press that there was no commercial necessity to do anything for those people,” Gump told TheDC. “So, to him, we were just ‘those people’ and he thought that commercial necessity was a justification to out certain groups.”Turner said he wants to know “what conference room in the administration were people sitting around the table deciding who was going to win and lose,” and expects to get another opportunity to question Geithner in a formal setting on how and why he made those decisions. Turner said he’s asked Geithner about it before in previous hearings, but was never able to get an answer out of him.Hmmmm.....A question of protecting your 'troops'?Read the full story here.

• US Jews oppose circumcision ban. Jewish groups up in arms over an attempt to outlaw male circumcision in San Francisco by putting issue to a popular vote. 'It's a painful and irreversible surgery,' says self-described 'intactivist'.Jewish groups and others are up in arms over an attempt to outlaw male circumcision in San Francisco by putting the issue to a popular vote. Self-described "intactivist" Lloyd Schofield has been collecting signatures for a voter initiative that would criminalize infant circumcision in the Californian city.After two months of collecting names, he claims to be more than half way toward getting the 7,168 signatures he needs by late April to put the matter on the November ballot.Schofield and a growing community of anti-circumcision activists say that infants should not be forced to participate in what is essentially culturally accepted genital mutilation.They claim that the procedure can cause health risks and diminished sexual function and compare it to the clitoridectomies performed on girls in parts of Africa."This is a human rights issue," he said. "What you're doing is you're taking an infant and removing the most sensitive part of their body."Jewish organizations have pledged to fight the measure should it be placed on the ballot. Anti-Defamation League director Daniel Sandman called Schofield's effort discriminatory and misguided."This is hurtful and offensive to people in the community who consider this a coveted ritual," he said.If the ban is approved, those caught cutting the foreskins of infants and other minors would face up to a year in jail and up to $1,000 in fines.The ban would certainly face legal challenges, and could be found in violation of the First Amendment right to Freedom of Religion.San Francisco resident Mark Reiss, who grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home, is among a vocal community of circumcised men who say they struggle with the emotional and physical effects of circumcision.He runs a website that lists rabbis nationwide who will preside over a naming ritual similar to the one performed at Jewish circumcisions but with no cutting.Hmmmm......sounds to me that 'Herr' Mark Reiss should study the Torah a bit more or else he has serious memory problems?Read the full story here.

• HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.Indonesia: Human rights Watch Group to File Report on Ahmadi Killing to UN.HRWG to File Report on Ahmadi Killing to UN -"The meeting is scheduled to take place on 10th of March 2011"VIVAnews - Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) will be filing report on the brutal attacks against Ahmadi members in Cikeusik, Banten, to the UN Human Rights Council in no time."The Cikeusik case is a caution of dire problems which pose threat over freedom of religion and belief," said Executive Deputy Director of HRWG, Choirul Anam, today in Jakarta.HRWG also plans of filling in accounts on any acts of violence committed against Indonesia's Ahmadiyya since 2005. "Ahmadiyya suffer from more systematic acts of violence. If no efforts of prevention are made, we fear that more serious threats will be posed in the days to come," said Choirul Anam.Written reports and oral presentations will be brought before a session with special UN rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief. "The meeting is scheduled to take place on 10th of March 2011," he said.Granted that the report is ready, HRWG expects the International community will urge the Indonesian government to assure for protections over Ahmadi members.The Cikeusik attack was ignited on February 6, 2011, by hundreds of angry crowd toward a group of Ahmadis who were at that time gathering in the home of an Ahmadi cleric, Suparman. Three men were slaughtered during the assault and seven others were severely injured.Police have named 16 suspects from the case, one of which is a member of Ahmadi.Hmmmm......There can only be one?Read the full story here.

• HT:TranslatingJihad.Exclusive: Transcript of Qaradawi's Speech in Cairo.Here.

• HT:TranslatingJihad.Fatwa: "It Is Permissible to Have Sexual Intercourse with Prepubescent Girls"Here.