Saudis are world's 6th largest consumers of sex drugs.

Saudis are world's 6th largest consumers of sex drugs.(E24/7).Saudi Arabia is the world’s sixth largest consumer of sex drugs as domestic demand is as much as 10 times that in Russia, according to a newspaper.Alriyadyh Arabic language daily, citing an unnamed medical study in the Gulf Kingdom, said nearly 12 per cent of Saudi Arabia’s 20 million national men are suffering from impotence and that 80 per cent of the cases are associated with psychological problems.
“Saudis are the sixth largest consumers of sex drugs in the world…their consumption is as much as 10 times that of Russia although the population in that country is more than 10 times the Saudis,” it said.“Besides psychological factors, diabetes is the main cause of impotence in Saudi Arabia as nearly 15 per cent of the Saudis suffer from that disease against only 3-5 per cent in other countries…other factors include the high rate of high blood pressure cases, obesity and lack of exercise.”According to the study, Arab countries spend more than $10 billion on Viagra and other anti-impotence medicines every year and that Saudi Arabia alone spends over $1.5 billion.It is followed by Egypt and the UAE, which spend about $on e billion and $500 million respectively.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                Morning  Posting.

• Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.

• Libya Live Blog - April 06. Here .(Al-Jazeera)And  here (BBC).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan between 4.7 and 4.9 today. More info here.

• Latest official Situation Update No. 76.On 06.04.2011 at 02:44 GMT+2.

Radioactive water has stopped leaking into the Pacific Ocean from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, Jiji Press reported, citing the operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). TEPCO had on Tuesday injected sodium silicate, a chemical agent known as "water glass", to solidify soil near a cracked pit, from where large volumes of highly radioactive water had been seeping through and running into the sea. Run-off from the plant has measured more than 1,000 millisieverts and is believed to be the source of radioactive iodine-131 readings in ocean waters more than 4,000 times the legal limit. The pit, which has a 20-centimetre crack in its wall, is linked to the plant's reactor No. 2, one of those which had its cooling systems put out of action by the quake and tsunami of March 11, triggering the nuclear crisis. Several unsuccessful attempts had been made to try to plug pipes that run to the pit, using a polymer and even newspapers and sawdust, and an effort to seal the crack with cement had also failed to stop the leak.Source .

• Will Obama Administration Hold Military Paychecks During Government Shutdown?As readers of Big Government know, an impasse over a few billion dollars in proposed spending cuts threatens to shutdown the federal government. (And, by a few billion dollars I mean, rounding error.) As regular readers should also know, I’ve come to embrace a shutdown, rather than fear it.As this recent Congressional Research Service report explains, if the government were to shutdown, an OMB Directive issued in the 1980s (along with a handful of legal opinions) guide what parts of government continue to function and what parts must close down. Short story, all of the important functions of government, i.e national security, the military, air traffic control, border security, Social Security payments, etc., will continue to function. The parts that have to shut down…well, lets just say they are candidates for permanent cuts. I mean, if the country functions for several weeks without a few hundred thousand ‘non-essential’ employees, couldn’t we probably function without them forever? I’m not saying every one of these jobs should necessarily be eliminated…but it isn’t a good place to start?

Sensing the potential PR nightmare from this, it seems the Obama Administration may have decided to raise the stakes on a shutdown. According to draft guidance from the Pentagon, the Obama Administration will require military personnel to report to work…but, will hold their paychecks until the impasse is resolved. As Government Executive explained in a March 15th article:

Military personnel and exempt Defense Department civilian employees are required to continue working without pay during a government shutdown, according to guidance from the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

In a memo prepared earlier this month, Defense officials noted that service members and some civilian workers, including those involved in national security and the protection of life and property, still must report for duty but will not be paid until Congress appropriates funds to reimburse them for that period of service. All other employees will be furloughed, the memo stated.Military personnel are not subject to furlough.

This is new.During the last government shutdown, in 1995, troops continued to receive their paychecks. According to Federal Times:When the government was shut down in 1995, military personnel continued to report to work and were paid, but the planning guidance sent to the services and defense agencies says a shutdown this time will be different.

“All military personnel will continue in normal duty status regardless of their affiliation with exempt or non-exempt activities,” says the draft planning guidance that was prepared for the services and defense agencies. “Military personnel will serve without pay until such time as Congress makes appropriated funds available to compensate them for this period of service.”During the 1995 shutdown, the Clinton Administration followed the OMB guidance issued during the Reagan Administration. The Obama Administration, it seems, is tacking a different direction.

Let me be clear, the guidelines proposing to hold military paychecks are, according to the news reports, draft guidelines. It is possible the Obama Administration has abandoned these punitive guidelines. And, even if they implemented these guidelines, military personnel would most likely eventually receive their pay, once a budget agreement is reached. But, why even change the policy and subject our military to partisan political battles. The policy is certainly a change, but it doesn’t provide much hope.Hopefully, they will clear this up quickly.Hmmmm.....My guess :Yes Obama will withhold military paychecks even though he doesn't have to,but only because he hates the military and to set them up against the Republicans!Somehow i don't think the military love their current 'commander-in-chief'.Read the full story here.

• Harper protection 'bubble' becomes election issue.Prime Minister Stephen Harper is suddenly on the defensive for running a closed and "unCanadian" campaign after two university students were ejected from one of his rallies because they had posted a Facebook picture of themselves with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.The issue of how Harper is campaigning in a bubble, which has been brewing ever since the launch of the campaign, has now exploded and caused embarrassment to the Conservative leader.A spokesman for Harper apologized for the incident that occurred Sunday at a rally in London, Ont.At rallies Harper holds, local Conservative organizers sit at desks in front of the hall and have lists of names. People who attend are registered and have their name on the list. Conservatives have said that people can walk in off the street, but they must show identification to gain entry.That practice has now backfired for the Tories after what happened to Awish Aslam, a 19-year-old University of Western Ontario student.Aslam and a friend signed up for the rally in London on Sunday with the help of her friend's father, who is a Conservative.About 30 minutes after she arrived, she and her friend were approached by two officials and were asked to go outside the door, she told Postmedia News on Tuesday. Hmmm...28 March:"My name is Awish Aslam, I am a second year political science student at the University of Western Ontario. A friend and I had planned on seeing Ignatieff last Thursday, Harper onSunday, and Layton on Monday. Yesterday, while attending the Conservative rally inLondon, an RCMP officer approached us and told us he needed to speak to us while heescorted us out of the hall and into the back hallways where the staff typically work."Once there, she said one of the officials ripped the Conservative stickers that had been previously given to them from their clothing "and ripped them into pieces.""He said, 'You are no longer welcome here'," she said.Aslam and her friend were upset and wondered what had gone wrong. "He said, 'We know you have ties to the Liberal party through Facebook'."The Facebook photo of her standing next to Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff had been taken the previous week when she attended a Liberal rally in London.Another attendee, Ali Aref Hamadi, said he was asked by an organizer to leave the same rally because of an NDP bumper sticker on his vehicle.The whole story started rolling by a tweet by her brother SAAD : Saad Aslam - WLUSU Vice President University Affairs - OUSA Vice President Finance.Ontario Undergraduate Student Organisation An organisation who seem to have a very political agenda when you look at their twitter account! http://twitter.com/ousa .The organisation has close ties to Liberal premier McGuinty."(Wink,wink)At the Premier's request, OUSA will be providing further input on a number of proposals related to system design that arose during the private meeting.
  "The post-secondary sector and the Province as a whole are facing many challenges," added Moulton. "Students are committed to collaborating with the Premier, his staff and the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities to develop educated solutions that will build on the success of the government's historic Reaching Higher Plan."Hmmm.....Manipulation of the Immigrant voters?What if it would have been a teaparty member at an Obama event?I'm sure the teaparty member his genealogy tree would have been checked till the fifth generation before even attending the event ,but hey 'that is normal'?Read the full story here.

• Ouattara forces storm Gbagbo residence.Pro-Ouattara forces ordered not to kill Laurent Gbagbo, still in bunker after fierce assault on his presidential palace.Forces loyal to Cote d'Ivoire's internationally recognised leader Alassane Ouattara have stormed the residence where his rival and incumbent president is holed up, a spokesman has said."Yes they [Ouattara forces] are in the process of entering the residence to seize [Laurent] Gbagbo, they have not taken him yet, but they are in the process; they are in the building," Affousy Bamba told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday.Patrick Achi, another spokesman for Ouattara's parallel government, said troops had been ordered not to kill Gbagbo."Alassane Ouattara has given formal instructions that Gbagbo is to be kept alive because we want to bring him to justice," he said.The news came hours after Edouard Guillaud, the French armed forces chief, said on Wednesday Gbagbo's departure would come in "a matter of hours".Earlier, Gbagbo said it was not his "aim to die" fighting Ouattara forces and called for direct talks with his rival."I'm not a kamikaze. I love life. My voice is not the voice of a martyr, no, no, no, I'm not looking for death. It's not my aim to die," Gbagbo, speaking from his residence on Tuesday, told the French TV channel LCI."For peace to return to Ivory Coast, I and Ouattara, the two of us, have to talk," he added.Read and see the full story here.

• Peres: Obama wants real peace progress.Two presidents meet in Washington, discuss Middle East turmoil, Iran nuclear program and spy Jonathan Pollard. Obama says peaceful solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflic 'more urgent than ever'. Peres said after the meeting that Obama was very eager to renew a real peace process, not a show followed by a deadlock. "With the winds of change blowing through the Arab world, it's more urgent than ever that we try to seize the opportunity to create a peaceful solution between Palestinians and Israelis," Obama later told reporters.He warned that anti-democratic extremists could exploit the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unless it is resolved.Peres invited Obama to take part in the Facing Tomorrow Presidential Conference to be held in Jerusalem in June. It was stated that Obama replied he will check his schedule but that the tone of his words was positive. During the meeting, the president asked for F-35 jets as well as US aid in purchasing Iron Dome batteries and maintaining Israel's competitive edge. Peres later said that Obama told him he was against the attempts to de-legitimize the State of Israel and that he is in favor of reigniting direct talks with the Palestinians. Obama stressed he was willing to embark on a peace process as long as it wouldn't be a one-off occasion. Peres told reporters his raised the Iranian issue during his meeting with Obama. He said Iran symbolizes the corruption of universal moral values. Peres noted that the US president reiterated his commitment to Israel's security which is at the top of the American administration's priorities. Obama told reporters the two had an extensive discussion about unrest sweeping the Middle East and share a belief that it represents both a challenge and an opportunity. Obama said it's "more urgent than ever that we try to seize the opportunity to create a peaceful solution" between the Palestinians and Israelis. Hmmmm.....Pure lies to get the Jewish votes,perhaps kiss a few Rabbis at the Kotel ,once he gets re-elected wipe Israel of the map with the UN help.Read the full comedy story here.

• Obama accused of 'rewarding terrorism' after dropping financial sanctions on Libyan Lockerbie 'mastermind' Musa Kusa.The Obama administration has been accused of ‘rewarding terrorism’ after dropping financial sanctions against the former Libyan foreign minister who defected to Britain.Relatives of those who died in the Lockerbie bombing said that it ‘sent out totally the wrong message’ to unfreeze bank accounts belonging to Musa Kusa.He will also be allowed to conduct business dealings with Americans and U.S. companies to ensure that he has access to any funds he has built up for himself.The White House claimed the measure would encourage other Libyan officials to defect and share their knowledge of the regime.But the Lockerbie relatives said they were deeply distressed by the decision and that it went against the interests of justice.The move also comes after Washington was extremely harsh in its criticism of the British and Scottish governments for agreeing to free bomber Abdelbasset al-Megrahi.U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went so far as to say that his ongoing survival is ‘an affront to the victims’ families’.Frank Duggan, president of Pan Am 103 inc, which represents the families of those who lost loved ones, said: ‘I’m flabbergasted. Unlocking the sanctions sends out totally the wrong message.’Brian Flynn, who lost his 21-year-old brother John Patrick in the Lockerbie bombing, added he and other relatives were alarmed by the decision.‘It’s all logical in the diplomatic game they need to play,’ he said.‘We all want to see Gadaffi brought down but at what cost to justice if you are rewarding somebody who has been accused of terrorist attacks?’Kusa, who defected to Britain last week, has been described by Libyan experts as ‘the left arm and the right arm of the regime, its bloodhound’.Hmmm....what's next for the Obama regime...Give Al-Qaida office space in the White House?Read the full story here.

• Bernard Lewis Sounds Alarm on Turkey, Iran.Turkey could be the next Iran. Turkey, once a bulwark against Islamic radicalism with its secular, pro-Western orientation, is changing. The Journal says that Lewis is alarmed by developments there. "In Turkey, the movement is getting more and more toward re-Islamization. The government has that as its intention—and it has been taking over, very skillfully, one part after another of Turkish society. The economy, the business community, the academic community, the media. And now they're taking over the judiciary, which in the past has been the stronghold of the republican regime."

Mutually Assured Destruction won't work with nuclear-armed mullahs. If Iran did get nuclear warheads, don't count on them never using such weapons for fear of an American or Israeli counter-strike. "During the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the United States had nuclear weapons but both knew that the other was very unlikely to use them. Because of what was known at the time as MAD —mutually assured destruction. MAD meant that each side knew that if it used a nuclear weapon the other would retaliate and both sides would be devastated. And that's why the whole time during the Cold War, even at the worst times, there was not much danger of anyone using a nuclear weapon." Lewis thinks the imams in Iran "are religious fanatics with an apocalyptic mindset. In Islam, as in Christianity and Judaism, there is an end-of-times scenario—and they think it's beginning or has already begun. . . . mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent—it's an inducement."Hmmmmm....I could not agree more!Read the full story here.

• HT:Aina."Uncontrollable" Muslim Violence: The Latest Excuse.By Joseph Klein.Frontpage Magazine.On March 31, 2011, Pakistan’s United Nations ambassador, Abdullah Hussain Haroon, spoke to reporters at UN headquarters on behalf of the 56 member state Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Ambassadorial Group, condemning the recent burning of a copy of the Koran by the pastors of a small Baptist Church in Gainesville, Florida. He highlighted the OIC’s "grave concern that the despicable act had severely hurt the feelings of 1.5 billion Muslims around the world” and warned reporters that it could lead to “incidents that are uncontrollable."

The very next day Ambassador Haroon’s warning turned into a tragic, self-fulfilling prophesy. A large mob of demonstrators in Afghanistan, angry at the Koran burning and apparently responding to calls for revenge by three mullahs who had addressed worshipers at Friday prayer in one of Afghanistan’s holiest mosques, stormed a United Nations compound in the northern region of the country and killed a number of innocent people, including at least seven UN staff members – two reportedly by beheading. It was one of the worst attacks on UN personnel in Afghanistan since the war there began in 2001. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters, while in Nairobi, Kenya, that the attack was “outrageous and cowardly.”

Ambassador Haroon chose to turn up the heat on his Western audience and inflate the isolated act of a few extremists in one small church in Florida into a high profile global issue at the United Nations. He said that the international community needed to create the necessary conditions for ending such acts of bigotry and hatred. He also noted that the OIC had raised the Koran burning incident in Washington, D.C., and encouraged the United States Government to keep a close eye on such incidents "towards ensuring the exercise of restraint.” He added that “the present structure” of the OIC’s UN delegation has not yet proposed court action against the church or its pastors but said that could change.

Instead of doing the hard work of addressing his fellow Muslims in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region and urging them to remain calm and peaceful, Ambassador Haroon unwittingly helped to sow the seeds of the violent acts against UN personnel by perpetrating the myth of a unique causal link between the Koran burning and “uncontrollable” reactions in the Muslim world, as if there were no killings of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. by Muslims for other manufactured reasons for many years before this incident.

Islamists don’t need an excuse to murder those they consider to be ‘infidels’ or ‘non-believers.’ It is in the DNA of Islamic ideology. In fact, Muslims also kill each other, as part of their own sectarian battles. When asked by a UN correspondent about the uptick in Sunni-Shiite violence, Ambassador Haroon said simply that "this is a very important point that should be raised and discussed."

The burning of the Koran by a couple of small time pastors, while certainly a crude and reprehensible act, was not the ultimate cause of the killing by Islamists of UN staff in Afghanistan or Christians praying in a church in Pakistan. Responsible Muslims, such as presumably Ambassador Haroon himself, have failed to lead efforts to reform their own religion and to marginalize the clerics and other Islamists who use the Koran and other Islamic teachings to incite hatred and violence against ‘non-believers.’

I also asked him whether the OIC was prepared to call for the allowance of Christian and Jewish Bibles or the holy texts of other religions in all Muslim countries as well as the building of public places of worship for religions other than Islam, which are prohibited today in Saudi Arabia. And I asked him whether he was prepared to condemn the anti-blasphemy law in Pakistan, which includes a death penalty for criticizing Islam or the Prophet Muhammad – the law under which a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, has been sentenced to death and is currently languishing in jail.

Ambassador Haroon responded that he could only speak for the situation in Pakistan. He said “There are Gideon Bibles in most hotels in Pakistan. They are not burned.”Ambassador Haroon is either ignorant of Bible burnings in Pakistan or is lying. Muslim fundamentalists have burnt Bibles in Pakistan for years before the unfortunate Koran burning in Florida. For example, in 2008 Muslim fundamentalists burned a Bible and other sacred texts in a Pakistani church, leaving a letter threatening Christians that they will “burn in the fire of hell” if they do not convert to Islam.

As bad as religious minorities have fared in Pakistan, at least churches are permitted there. In Saudi Arabia, the headquarters of the Organization of Islamic Conference for which the Pakistani UN ambassador had purported to speak at the UN press conference, the Saudi government burns and desecrates hundreds of Bibles its security forces confiscate after raids on Christian expatriates worshiping privately or at border crossings. No comment was forthcoming from Ambassador Haroon, who limited himself to the situation in Pakistan in responding to my questions.

Ambassador Haroon noted that Pakistan’s anti- blasphemy law had been written originally by the British, only obliquely acknowledging that the death penalty had been added by Pakistan after it gained its independence. Two Pakistani government officials critical of the anti-blasphemy law and its death sentence – one of whom was a Christian – were murdered by Islamic fundamentalists. Ambassador Haroon said that his government was reviewing the anti-blasphemy law, including the death sentence imposed on Asia Bibi, the Christian woman who remains in jail. He said he would not “pre-judge the outcome of the ongoing discussions.”

Ambassador Haroon added that no one in Pakistan had yet received maximum punishment for blasphemy and, he said, many accused of blasphemy had been freed. The problem with his claim, according to Saroop Ijaz, a human rights attorney in Lahore, Pakistan, is that while no one has yet been executed by the government under Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy law, "at least 32 people have been killed while awaiting trial or after they have been acquitted of blasphemy charges." Islamic mob justice does not depend on the outcome of a government trial.Hmmm....“Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be,” Pope Benedict XVI . Read the full story here.

• Peter King on Holder Ripping Congress For Forcing 9/11 Plotters Into Military Tribunals: “Maybe Eric Holder Wants to Live in a Dictatorship, We Don’t”.The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee suggested that Attorney General Eric Holder should resign after criticizing Congress for interfering with the trial venues for the detainees at Guantánamo.Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) said Tuesday that Holder should resign if he’s so against trying the suspects before a military commission.“Maybe Eric Holder wants to live in a dictatorship, we don’t,” King said in an interview with Fox News. “If he feels so strongly about it [...] and this is such an issue of conscious for him, then Eric Holder should resign. If he feels this strongly he should resign on principle. It would do him good, it would certainly do us good. It would do the country good.”.Holder announced Monday the Justice Department would try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, and other suspects involved in the attacks before a military commission rather than in civilian court.During his announcement Holder blamed Congress for the reversal of Obama administration policy, saying the lawmakers weren’t as informed about the suspects as he is. Additionally, Holder said the policy reversal was a result of Congress blocking a transfer of Guantánamo Bay prisoners to a United States prison.Hmmmm.......Democracy versus dictatorship.Read the full story here.

• Bangladesh - When wives are set on fire for their dowry.At least 249 women were killed in 2010. Out of anger or vengeance, husbands throw kerosene on their wives and set them on fire. The problem is widespread despite the fact that Islamic law, which is in place in Bangladesh, requires would-be husbands to pay a price for their future wives.

Dhaka (AsiaNews) – At least 249 women were killed in 2010 for their dowry, this according to the Bangladesh Society for the Enforcement of Human Rights (BSEHR). Whether out of anger or for vengeance, husbands often beat their wives or set them on fire with kerosene, sometimes with the complicity of their families. In some cases, women are strangled and then hanged to simulate a suicide. The figures are incomplete though because many cases are not reported. In fact, if in 2007, there were 145 recorded cases, dropping to 114 in 2008 and 109 in 2009, the numbers last year showed a marked reversal. At the same time, the BSEHR also reported that last year at least 122 women were tortured.

Under the existing dowry system, a bride’s family must pay her future groom a sum of money. The practice first appeared some 50 years ago. Before that, would-be husbands had to pay instead a ‘bride price’ to the woman’s family in accordance with Islamic law. The change appears to be the result of an imbalance in the country’s demography, as there were more women than men of marriageable age at that time. For example in 1950, the population of women of marriageable age was 10 per cent more than that of eligible men; by 1975, the percentage had risen to 43.However, men do not necessarily demand a dowry before marriage; in some cases, they do it afterwards to assert their authority over their wives when the latter do not obey. Violence can ensue in a number of situations in a society where tradition places the husband in a position of superiority. Not all families are willing or financially capable of paying a dowry for their daughters, a situation that some husbands see as an insult that calls for vengeance.This kind of tragedy occurs in both big cities and small villages, among upper middle classes as well as the poor. A few months ago for instance, a university professor was killed over her dowry.

In 1980, a law banning dowries was adopted. Since then, it has been changed two or three times. Nevertheless, it is in not enforced, partly because of police negligence, partly because of threats from grooms’ families. The law itself is also very vague and provides little guidance for enforcement. This ends up penalising the weakest party, i.e. women.Even so, Bangladesh has signed the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, the 30-article United Nations treaty that defines discrimination against women and sets out ways to fight it. However, Bangladesh has not accepted Article 16, which requires measures to eliminate discrimination against women in matters relating to marriage and family, because it contradicts Islamic law. Religious institutions have a key role to play in all this. Unfortunately, it is well known that mosque leaders are not concerned by the practice even if it is contrary to the Qur‘an.There are some exceptions. Every year, a Muslim spiritual group organises a mass gathering that draws millions of people. During the event, hundreds of couples get married, publicly announcing their intention to renounce the dowry and wed in accordance to Islamic principles.This shows that at least one group is aware of the dire consequences of a problem too often ignored by most mosque leaders. More generally, conservative Muslims religious leaders have opposed changes to the law itself. Hmmm......."Welcome to A.D. 620?Read the full story here.

• RUSSIA - Moscow Patriarchate calls on the faithful to hang the crucifix in schools and offices. Moscow (AsiaNews) – Fresh controversy has broken out in Russia between the Orthodox Church and human rights organizations. The head of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for Relations between the Church and society, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, has appealed to the community of believers to be more courageous in showing their faith. "We should have no qualms about making the sign of the cross wherever we like, or hanging an image of the crucifix, where we live and work," the priest wrote in an article published in the April issue of the Orthodox journal Sovereign Rus'. The idea of the crucifix in the workplace or in schools has angered human rights activists. "The problem in our society is not the number of crucifixes on the walls, but immorality," Lev Ponomarev, a noted leader of a human rights movement, told Interfax. "Concern yourselves more with prayers and sermons - he continued, addressing Chaplin – and not with pushing for official displays of Orthodox attributes”. He stressed that in Russia, church and state are separate and attacked the Patriarchate’s interference in civil society. "I think that religious symbols have no place in public offices, schools or in institutions - added Ponomarev – for example, if they were hung in schools, what would the many Muslims say? Would they start asking to hang the crescent? And why is it needed? All this will only contribute to dividing society. " Ponomarev has, however, admitted that if some people work in offices that are considered Orthodox, nobody has the right to prevent them from hanging a cross. " Bolstered by the decision of the European Court of Human Rights that has found display of crucifixes in classrooms not in violation of human rights, Chaplin continues to launch high-impact hypothesis on a society that is still recovering from 70 years of state atheism. In the case against Italy raised by a citizen of Finnish origin Sole Lautsi, the Moscow Patriarchate has always openly supported Italy.Hmmm.....The Russian Church survived Communisme it will survive the other plagues also!Read the full story here. 

• Mystery scars on Obama's head prompt another question from conspiracy theorists - has the President had brain surgery?He has been plagued with questions and doubts concerning his background throughout his first term as president.Questions like - is Barack Obama actually American? Is he a Muslim? Is he actually an alien from another planet? - have frequently been asked.The next question circulating on the internet - has President Obama had brain surgery?Internet blog sites, conspiracy theorists and forums are awash with rumours as to what those mystery scars on the president's head are from. In pictures, Obama appears to have a long scar which goes up the side of his head and over his crown.Some conspiracy theorists claim they are scars that you would see on someone who has had brain surgery.But without medical records (along with his school records and birth certificate) no one seems to be able to provide an answer as to cause of the mystery scars.Ben Hart, a blogger for Escape the Tyranny said: 'Obama's almost done with his first term, and we still know almost nothing about the background of the President of the United States. 'Whatever happened to create that scar, it was clearly something serious. Was it a brain operation? Has it affected his thinking?'No one is allowed to see his birth certificate. He is just one big mystery man, which adds intrigue to what that huge scar is all about.He also said that surgery might explain why the President gets lost speaking without a Teleprompter, and posted a video of Obama struggling through a speech, repeating his words and getting lost mid-sentence.Added to that are the fact his medical records have also been sealed.A spokeswoman from the White House said they were not willing to comment on such claims, saying they were 'ridiculous'.Countless neurosurgeons said it is 'not their place' to comment on whether or not distinctive scars on the President's head are as a result of brain surgery.Others offered explanations such as a bad haircut or even a birthmark though many did agree that the scars are similar to those a produced after major brain surgery.Without medical records or an admission from the White House, the public may never know the answer to the question, along with the contents of his birth certificate.Hmmmm.....Conjoined twins ?So did we get stuck with the 'evil' one?Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Video : Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Warns the US and Its Allies Not to Intervene Militarily in the Region: "Iran and the Other Countries Will Strike You with an Iron Fist" and "Will Dig Graves for Your Soldiers"Read and see the full story here.

• HT:FreedomMessenger.Iran secretly buries mutilated bodies of five executed political prisoners in desert.This report has come to us from Iran. Some of it has been omitted to keep the identity of the sender secret.This report was received at 4 am on Monday March 21.[Pictured on the right: Confidential letter to the Prosecutor General by a Shobeiri and Ahmad Vahid announcing their agreement with the execution of five political prisoners charged with espionage for Israel. The above mentioned officials request that these executions be secretly carried out stating that because they include a Christian, Jewish and Baha’i, the execution should be organized in a way to prevent media attention and suggest that they be hanged in the New Year holidayese executions be secretly carried out stating that because they include a Christian, Jewish and Baha’i, the execution should be organized in a way to prevent media attention and suggest that they be hanged in the New Year holiday.]Five people were hanged on charges of espionage for Israel and acting against national security. Two of these people had cards with old pictures from the 80’s. They were a husband and wife. The woman did not have a left ear as if it was completely cut off in the past. Their tongues were also cut off halfway in a way that they were unable to speak. A woman and two other men were also executed but did not have pictures on their cards. Their bodies were full of wounds and bruises. They (security forces) had brought their dossiers with them and buried these five people in the desert region in the Qom road. Hmmmm.....That should give them an extra seat at the UN human rights commission for women?Read the full story here.

• HT:RightSideNews.Israel’s Samson Option.If, while watching the disturbing events in the Middle East, you are not focusing your attention on Israel – then you are looking in the wrong place.Once, a very long time ago, I heard someone refer to Israel as the “world’s canary in the coal mine.” That is as apt a description of modern Israel as I have ever heard.As I watch events in the Muslim countries surrounding Israel deteriorate it looks, for all the world, as if we are racing toward Armageddon. The great armies, just now dipping their toes into the deepening unrest in that region, are unaware that they are playing out a story line written thousands of years ago.Those of us who have read that storyline know how the story ends and, too, we are aware of the events leading up to the true “Mother of all Battles.”

For the first time in its history, America is on the wrong side.Our President with his loyalty to the world and not to the country that trusted him with the sacred duty to be leader of America and Commander-in-Chief of the mightiest military force in all of history has gone over to the “Dark Side.” He has turned his back on the one nation, which occupies the most important piece of real estate on the globe. He has made it clear he favors the countries, which consider themselves Israel ’s most ardent enemies.Israel knows they, now, stand alone. Just this past weekend, Israel deployed their homegrown antimissile defense system “Iron Dome.” Another anti-missile defense system, a shorter-range system as we understand it, is in the pipeline and scheduled for deployment soon. Israel is getting ready for the coming conflagration when all the Muslim anger, boiling in the crucible of that region, boils over and pours onto their tiny country.Without America standing wit Israel , Israel stands a better than 50-50 chance of being over run and wiped out as a country. The Israelis have planned for that. The pan is referred to as: “The Samson Option.”The “Samson Option” is Israel ’s strategy of massive nuclear retaliation against “enemies” should its existence as a Jewish state be jeopardized through military attack. The term was inspired by the Biblical figure Samson, who destroyed a Philistine temple, killing himself, and thousands of Philistine enemies. The Samson option is a strategy of last resort retaliation - even if it means Israel ’s own annihilation.It has been estimated by so-called experts that Israel has at least 400 thermo-nuclear weapons. They can be launched from land, sea, and air. This means that Israel has a second strike option -- even if much of the country is destroyed.Hmmmm......And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it….Zech. 12:3.Read the full story here.

• HT:SheikJermani.From Ivory Coast to Ethiopia: Muslims are Making Slaughter in the Land.Thousands of refugees from the Ivory Coast in Liberia are reporting that the the pro-Quattara Muslim rebels are killing people and raping women. They are killing “everyone and anyone.” There are even rumors of cannibalism.Warning extremely graphic images!Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Iraqi Christians Demand An Autonomous Region, Yazidi Minority Objects.Iraqi Christians population is around 400,000 to 600,000, down from a 2003 prewar level of 1.4 million.Iraqi MPs representing Christians are demanding the formation of an autonomous area in the country’s northern province of Mosul.Iraqi lawmakers welcomed their demands, and said that an autonomous Christian region should be based upon "new administrative grounds that could be supported by external parties hosting Christian refugees."Iraqi MPs representing their Christian constituency see the demand as reasonable, after the continuous marginalization of their community who have been caught between Shiite-Sunni crossfire since the U.S. toppled Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 2003. However, representatives of other minorities, mainly the Yazidis, rejected the demands, saying that the Christian component is a minority in these regions and therefore not eligible to form an autonomous presence.Yazidis are Kurdish-speaking people whose religion traces back to the ancient Indo-Iranian roots with a mixture from the Islamic Sufi doctrine. Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Iranian, Turkish Artillery Shells Iraqi Kurdistan.Iranian artillery yesterday shelled for hours the border area of Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan Regional Government. There were no casualties, but no estimate was made of the material damage. A member of al-Iraqiya declared that Iran plans to fill the vacuum that will be created upon the departure of the U.S. military from Iraq at the end of the calendar year.Similarly, Turkish artillery shelled villages in the Kurdish province of Duhouk. The Turkish military has been shelling the area periodically because of suspicions that it harbors elements of the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which Turkey considers a terrorist organization.Hmmm...Turkey the so called 'NATO" ally working together with Iran.Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri."The Axes of Evil"becoming visible?Iranian, Turkish FMs: Withdraw Foreign Troops From Bahrain.Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu have called for the withdrawal of foreign [i.e. Saudi] troops from Bahrain, and for an immediate advancement of a peaceful solution to the crisis there. Sheikh Ali Salman, leader of the Bahraini opposition group Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, called on Saudi Arabia to withdraw its troops from the country, and called for a dialogue that would lead to the establishment of an elected government.Hmmmm.....Seems like the Saudi King has to deal with more then one 'snake'.Get Turkey out of NATO before they nuke us with our own weapons!Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Saudi Religious Police Undergo Training To Combat Black Magic.A total of 30 officials of Saudi Arabia's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, i.e. the religious police,have been trained on how to deal with cases of black magic.The three-day training program was held in the Eastern Province city of Al-Ahsa, Arab News reported.The commission has achieved remarkable success in combating black magic in various parts of the country. It has set up nine specialized centers in the main cities to deal with black magicians.The majority of people arrested for practicing black magic in the Kingdom are Africans and Indonesians.Hmmm....Dealing with Djinies will be taught in the next semester?Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• Egypt volatile situation : President Mobarak appoints vice President Omar suleiman  - Al Jazeera English - Live Streams From Egypt ! Here .
• Egypt protests on Twitter!  here.
• Liveblog - Egypt's protests erupt. here.

• Egypt protests: America's secret backing for rebel leaders behind uprising!The American government secretly backed leading figures behind the Egyptian uprising who have been planning “regime change” for the past three years.The disclosures, contained in previously secret US diplomatic dispatches released by the WikiLeaks website, show American officials pressed the Egyptian government to release other dissidents who had been detained by the police. Mr Mubarak, facing the biggest challenge to his authority in his 31 years in power, ordered the army on to the streets of Cairo yesterday as rioting erupted across Egypt. Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters took to the streets in open defiance of a curfew. An explosion rocked the centre of Cairo as thousands defied orders to return to their homes. As the violence escalated, flames could be seen near the headquarters of the governing National Democratic Party.Police fired rubber bullets and used tear gas and water cannon in an attempt to disperse the crowds. At least five people were killed in Cairo alone yesterday and 870 injured, several with bullet wounds.Hmmmm.....Outreach to Islamic extremisme? Read the full story here.

• Egypt protests: secret US document discloses support for protesters.Here is the secret document sent from the US Embassy in Cairo to Washington disclosing the extent of American support for the protesters behind the Egypt uprising.Hmmmm.....The Obama Administration helping to throw over Mubarak's regime?To help the Muslim Brotherhood??Read the full story here.HT: BareNakedIslam.

• Egyptian mummies destroyed, say officials!Looters broke into the Egyptian Museum during anti-government protests late Friday and destroyed two Pharaonic mummies, Egypt's top archaeologist told state television.The museum in central Cairo, which has the world's biggest collection of Pharaonic antiquities, is adjacent to the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party that protesters had earlier set ablaze. Flames were seen still pouring out of the party headquarters early Saturday."I felt deeply sorry today when I came this morning to the Egyptian Museum and found that some had tried to raid the museum by force last night," Zahi Hawass, chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said Saturday."Egyptian citizens tried to prevent them and were joined by the tourism police, but some (looters) managed to enter from above and they destroyed two of the mummies," he said.Hmmmm......Remember the Bamiyan's Buddhas?"Islam the Religion of Peace"? Read the full story here.

• Cairo: Israeli embassy may close.Though Foreign Ministry has no plan to evacuate tourists, El Al tries to arrange special flight.The Foreign Ministry says it is following closely the events in Egypt, where anti-government protests have been said to have left 74 people dead and around 2,000 wounded.On Saturday morning the Israeli embassy in Cairo was left empty as workers do not generally arrive on the weekend, but authorities were debating whether to return to business as usual on Sunday.On Saturday morning riots reached the streets surrounding the embassy. Egyptian security forces are guarding the US and British embassies for fear that incidents such as those which occurred in Iran in 1979 would recur in Cairo.Between 1,500 and 2,000 travelers were at the two main departure terminals at the airport, most without reservations, trying to find flights out of the country. Tourist sites were closed, with forces blocking the main roads leading to the pyramids, al-Arabiya network reported.The Foreign Ministry says it has no plans to evacuate Israeli tourists, but that it would reconsider if necessary. The ministry also issued a travel warning against Egypt and Sinai.In the Sinai peninsula, clashes between Bedouins and security forces killed 12-16 people, according to Palestinian sources. The reports say members of both sides were killed.Read the full story here.

• HT:RubinReport.Today in the New York Times: A New Low and A New Role Model.Here's one day of the New York Times on the Middle East. Be sure to read the surprise ending!

1. Al-Jazira is great! (Wow, just as it runs the Palestine Papers to transform totally our view of the region. Might this be a coincidence?)The New York Times has run a largely adulatory article about al-Jazira without mentioning its Islamist politics (some accuse it of... is how they put it). On reading this article, I get the impression that the writer has never actually watched the station. For example, its debate shows regularly feature a moderate and a radical. The host attacks the moderate and supports the radical and literally every caller taken on the air is hardline. One friend of mine who was on one of them said that he expected it to be 99 percent hostile but it was 100 percent hostile. Nor do we hear about the great scoops of al-Jazira, like claiming the US had used a neutron bomb in Iraq.So here is a story about a radical force in the region presenting it as a force for democracy.Hmmmm.......The voice of his masters?Read the full story here.

• Egypt Protests Continue as Military Stands By.CAIRO — Egypt was engulfed in a fifth day of protests on Saturday but an attempt by President Hosni Mubarak to salvage his 30-year rule by firing his cabinet and calling out the army appeared to backfire as troops and demonstrators fraternized and called for the president himself to resign.While some protesters clashed with police, army tanks expected to disperse the crowds in central Cairo and in the northern city of Alexandria instead became rest points and even, on occasion, part of the protests as anti-Mubarak graffiti were scrawled on them without interference from soldiers. “Leave Hosni, you, your son and your corrupted party!” declared the graffiti on one tank as soldiers invited demonstrators to climb aboard and have their photographs taken with them. “This is the revolution of all the people,” declared the side of a second tank in downtown Cairo. Egyptian men all serve in the army, giving it a very different relationship to the people from that of the police.The feared security police had largely withdrawn from central Cairo to take up positions around the presidential palace, with their places taken up by the army.Hmmmm.....I can't wait to see their morning after hangover ,when they see the economy is even worse off!Read the full story here.

• Iranian leaders hope for Islamic republic in Egypt.Clerics say protests against Mubarak government were inspired by 1979 revolution in Iran.Iranian leaders expressed satisfaction with the anti-government protests in Egypt, with one leader saying he believes the protesters were inspired by the revolution in his country in 1979.“Today, as a result of the gifts of the Islamic revolution in Iran, freedom-loving Islamic peoples such as the peoples of Tunisia, Egypt and nearby Arab countries are standing up to their oppressive governments,” the New York Times quoted Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi as saying.He congratulated the Egyptian people, saying their actions were "based on the principles" of the Islamic revolution.Western officials fear Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will be replaced by a hardline cleric similar to the ayatollahs in Iran, like the Muslim Brotherhood opposition party, which also gave rise to Hamas.Hmmmm.....Obama "Islam is a great religion".Read the full story here.

• Israel Fears Regime Change in Egypt.Concerns about the Muslim Brotherhood.Israel is watching developments in Egypt with concern. The government is standing by autocratic Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, out of fear that the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood could take power and start supplying arms to Hamas.Israel is usually a country where politicians have an opinion on any topic, and vociferously so. But in recent days, Israel's leadership has been unusually silent on a certain question. No one, it seems, is willing to make an official comment on the ongoing unrest in Egypt, where protesters have been holding anti-government rallies. It's not because Israel does not care about the riots ravaging its southern neighbor -- on the contrary, Israeli news channels, normally prone to parochialism, have been closely following recent events in the Arab world, from Tunisia to Lebanon.Radio, television and newspapers constantly report the courage of the demonstrators in the streets of Cairo, not only relishing the historic spectacle, but openly expressing sympathy with Egypt's struggle for democracy.But the Israeli government is keeping quiet. "We are closely monitoring the events, but we do not interfere in the internal affairs of a neighboring state," was the curt answer from the Israeli Foreign Ministry to requests for comments.So for journalists looking for quotes, it is a happy coincidence that Israel's former Industry and Trade Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer resigned from the Israeli cabinet last week and can now freely express his opinions as a member of the opposition Labor Party. "I don't think it is possible (for there to be a revolution in Egypt)," Ben-Eliezer told Israeli Army Radio. "I see things calming down soon." The Iraqi-born former minister is a renowned expert on Israeli-Arab relations and is a friend of the Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.Ultimately the choice is between a pro- or an anti-Western dictatorship, says Shaked. "It is in our interest that someone from Mubarak's inner circle takes over his legacy, at any cost." In the process, it is not possible to rule out massive bloodshed in the short term, he says. "It would not be the first time that riots in Egypt were brutally crushed."Hmmmm.....His"Outreach to Muslims" has done tremendous damage to Israel.Read the full story here.

• Egyptian Museum partly damaged, threatened by fire.Boy pharaoh's gold death mask not damaged.Some ancient artifacts at Cairo's famed Egyptian Museum were partly damaged but could be torched by the potential collapse of a neighboring building gutted by fire, the head of the country's antiquities chief said Saturday.The ruling party headquarters building next door to the museum was still in flames and billowing black smoke into the sky on Saturday, a day after protesters torched it during mass anti-government demonstrations."What scares me is that if this building is destroyed, it will fall over the museum," antiquities boss Zahi Hawass said as he watched fire trucks try to extinguish the blaze in the NDP headquarters.An Associated Press Television News crew that was allowed into the museum saw two vandalized mummies and at least 10 small artifacts that had been taken out of their glass cases and damaged.Fears of looters have prompted authorities elsewhere to take precautions to secure antiquities at other sites.Archaeologist Kent Weeks, who is in the southern temple town of Luxor, said that rumors that attacks were planned against monuments prompted authorities to erect barriers and guard Karnak Temple while tanks were positioned around Luxor's museum.Hmmmmm......Now who would damage other religions their relics?Read the full story here.

• King Abdullah supports Mubarak: SPA.Saudi King Abdullah has expressed his support for embattled President Hosni Mubarak and slammed those "tampering" with Egypt's security and stability, state news agency SPA reported on Saturday.The Saudi ruler, in Morocco recovering from back surgery performed in the United States, telephoned Mubarak early Saturday, the report said.During the conversation, Abdullah condemned "intruders" he said were "tampering with Egypt's security and stability ... in the name of freedom of expression."Saudi Arabia, he added, "stands with all its means with the government and people of Egypt."SPA said Mubarak had responded by assuring King Abdullah that "the situation is stable (in Egypt) ... and what the world has seen is nothing more than an attempt by some ... suspicious groups which do not want stability and security for Egyptians."Mubarak, known for his close ties with the Saudi king, had added, "Egypt and its people are determined to stop those trying to use the freedom given (to Egyptians) to achieve suspicious agendas," SPA said.Read the full story here.

• Saudi shares tumble on Egypt protests. Saudi Arabia's stock exchange retreated the most since May, as concerns about violent protests in Egypt continued to present the most serious challenge to President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule.The Saudi Tadawul All Share Index was down 4.1pc to 6,419.89 by Saudi lunchtime. The market in Saudi Arabia, where the start of the work week is Saturday, was the first to react to the violence in Egypt and the drop in the TASI offered a window into the potential battering that could emerge when other regional markets reopen on Sunday. "The fall is due to sentiment about what's happening in Egypt, and also in the US because the Dow went down" on Friday, said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at the Riyadh-based Banque Saudi Fransi-Credit Agricole Group. "You have some collateral damage which is related to investors ....who have exposure in Egypt, and are trying to hedge that exposure by selling down their positions in Saudi Arabia," he said. Tens of thousands of protesters clashed with riot police on Friday, the fourth day of violent demonstrations in Egypt. The protesters have demanded Mubarak's ouster and measures to deal with the crippling poverty in the country, rampant corruption and the growing disparity in income distribution.The violence sent Egypt's benchmark index tumbling almost 17 percent over two days, and analysts expect that the violence on Friday will fuel another plunge on the Egyptian Exchange and ripple across other regional markets. "The momentum is there," said Sfakianakis, predicting that regional markets drop."There's no reason to expect the Saudi market to go up because the general sentiment is sell-off and wait- and-see rather than sell-off and immediate buying," he said.Hmmmmm......Read the full story here. More here.

• HT:BigPeace.What is the Muslim Brotherhood?The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928. Its express purpose was two-fold: (1) to implement shariah worldwide, and (2) to re-establish the global Islamic State, known as the caliphate. Therefore, al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood have the same objectives. They differ only in the timing and tactics involved in realizing them.Shariah stresses its adherents’ exercise of information dominance. Accordingly, its campaign of civilization jihad against the United States prominently features political and psychological warfare, influence operations and other techniques for neutralizing and, ultimately subverting the nation’s foundational institutions.Targets include the political system, the military, law enforcement, public and private education from preschool through graduate school, religious institutions of all major faiths, the financial system and the media.The shariah information war in the West and the civilization jihad of which it is a central element is driven by an organization called the International Muslim Brotherhood (MB), also known by its Arabic title “Ikhwan.”The Muslim Brotherhood is the Communist Party-like “vanguard” or tip-of-the-spear of the current Islamic movement in the world. While there are other transnational organizations that share the MB’s goals, if not its tactics – including al Qaeda, which was born out of the Brotherhood – the Ikhwan is by far the strongest and most organized.Read the full story here.

• HT:RubinReport.Hizballah Names Lebanese PM?: NY Times Has Hope.By Barry Rubin.The New York Times has an editorial that says this:"Lebanon's next prime minister, Najib Mikati, owes his job to Hezbollah. That is regrettable and dangerous. It will heighten Lebanon's divisions, antagonize Western donors (including the United States) and complicate the work of the international tribunal set up to try the killers of Rafik Hariri, a former prime minister. ...We hope he can still find ways to put Lebanon's interests first and dare Hezbollah to challenge him."Where has the Times been for the last three years as this crisis has been building? Why did its correspondent say a few days earlier that this wasn't going to happen?As for the newspaper's hope that a prime minister handpicked by Hizballah, in power at their pleasure, facing the country's strongest militia, and knowing that this group kills people who "dare" it "to challenge him," this is the very definition of wishful thinking.At least the Times calls Hizballah an Iranian-backed terrorist group, or rather it began that way, leaving the door open that it might have changed. It also says that if the new government doesn't pursue the investigation of assassinations in Lebanon the United States should cut off military aid.When it comes to pressuring Israel, the Times wants the U.S. government to act decisively. When it comes to revolutionary Islamist terrorists who are clients of Iran and Syria it just mainly hopes things will turn out ok.After all, the issue is not just the investigation, but the fact that a long-time U.S. ally is now ruled by revolutionary Islamist terrorists in the Iran-Syria orbit.Could there be some admission that five years after the United States and UN promised Israel to keep Hizballah out of southern Lebanon, block arms smuggling to it from Syria, and even help disarm it that all of these promises to Israel have been broken?Might the Times call for a new U.S. strategy to block the spread of Islamist revolution?No answer; no serious consideration is given.Is this what the once-superpower United States is reduced to being? Waiting until everything is lost and then hoping that its enemies will act directly contrary to their own interests and views?Hmmmm......Or is this exactly what the current administration wants?"They don't trust me because of my middle name"?Read the full story here.

• ‘We’re living on a volcano,’ experts warn! As with Iran in ’79, Islamists could hijack pro-democracy movements; ex-IDF research chief: “We're on thick ice, but even that melts eventually."Israeli security experts are casting an uneasy eye at the civil unrest spreading through the region.On Thursday, Yemen joined the list of Arab states experiencing unprecedented demonstrations calling for authoritarian leaders to step down, and Egypt braced for more civil unrest.While no analysts here predict any immediate ramifications for Israel’s national security, some said mass protest movements that begin as pro-democracy uprisings could easily be hijacked by Islamists.“We need to understand that we are living on a volcano,” said Maj.- Gen. (res.) Ya’acov Amidror, former head of the IDF’s Research and Assessment Directorate.“Conditions can change from today until tomorrow. We must ask ourselves, what is the worst case scenario,” he said. “We are on thick ice, but even that melts eventually."“Advice we have heard from certain countries in Western Europe [suggesting that the uprisings could lead to a wave of democratic revolutions] should not be followed,” he said. “There’s no immediate fear of any security escalation. The main question is: In the long term, will we be ready for all scenarios?” Maj.-Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, a former national security adviser, and a senior research fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), said, “There’s a reasonable chance that if a revolution takes place in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood would rise to power. That would be bad not just for Israel but for all democracies.”The true struggle in Egypt was not between “Mubarak and pro-democracy elements, but between Mubarak and the Muslim Brotherhood,” Eiland said.He believes that Israel is better off with a Lebanon formally controlled by Hizbullah, “because as soon as fire is opened at Israel, it’s not Hizbullah but the whole of the state of Lebanon that is responsible. That is a real deterrent, and it has plenty of advantages.“The same is true of Hamas rule in Gaza,” Eiland said.Shlomo Brom, director of the program on Israel-Palestinian relations at the INSS, said it was impossible to know what would happen next.“It’s true that pro-democracy voices are being expressed – and that is positive – but we don’t know how it will end,” Brom said. Even in Tunisia, where the Islamists are weak, we don’t know how it will end. We can’t forget that in Iran, at the end of the 1970s, the uprising against the shah was led by [pro-democracy] youths who took the streets – but this was taken over by Islamists in the end.”Hmmm.......The Islamists and the world?Read the full story here.

• Israel fears radical takeover in Egypt.Extremist takeover in Egypt would put Israel in ‘wholly different position,’ security official warns.A fundamental change of government in Egypt may lead to a “revolution in Israel’s security doctrine,” a defense official told Ynet Friday night, as protests against President Hosni Mubarak’s rule continued to intensify.The security official made it clear that Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt constitutes an important strategic asset, “which enables the IDF to focus on other theaters.” The defense source said that the IDF would have to dedicate major resources in order to devote any attention to the Egyptian front as well.Should a revolution indeed take place in Egypt, the rules of play will not necessarily change at once, the source added. “It won’t mean, heaven forbid, that Egypt would immediately turn into an enemy country, yet our attention would most certainly have to shift.” “This is a Western army in every way and it enjoys US aid,” one security official said. “There is no doubt that should we see an extremist regime over there controlling such army, this will place Israel in a wholly different position.” “There is no doubt that in the coming days, many eyes have to be monitoring Egypt. Later we’ll make all the calculations as to the implications,” the official said.Hmmmmm....."They don't trust me because of my middle name'his "Outreach to Muslims" and his Cairo speech did a lot of damage to Israel.Read the full story here.

• HT:RFERL.How Are The Protests In Egypt, Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution Being Viewed In Iran?"The Islamic world is ripe with major new developments and Khomeini's Islam is the engine of these events," Iran's hard-line daily "Kayhan" wrote in a January 27 commentary devoted to the recent wave of protests in the Arab world.The daily, which often reflects the views of the Iranian establishment -- or more specifically, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- added that the third millennium is witnessing "the powerful [presence] of Islam under Iran's leadership."Iranian state media has been portraying the recent upheaval in Arab countries as a struggle against Western puppets in the region, while claiming that citizens who have taken to the streets in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere are taking inspiration from Iran's Islamic Revolution.Iran's state broadcasts have followed the same line as that seen in the print media, according to journalist Roozbeh Mirebrahimi, who monitors Iranian state television."After Tunisian President [Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali] fled the country, they started reporting that the protests were taking place in the name of Islam and that they were targeting the anti-Islamic government of Tunisia," Mirebrahimi says. "The same applies now to protests [elsewhere], including in Egypt." In the immediate aftermath of Tunisia's uprising, Iranian state media kept silent about the protests that led to the collapse of Ben Ali's 23-year rule."State television has no coverage of the unrest in Tunisia," said one man in Tehran, who spoke on condition of anonymity in the days leading up to Ben Ali's fall. "If Tunisians had protested against the U.S., it would have become a top story," he added.He said he relied on Persian-language media based outside of Iran, including RFE/RL's Radio Farda, to follow the developments in Tunisia and other Islamic countries.In a January 19 speech, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad warned against "Western meddling" in Tunisia and said Tunisian politicians should respect the needs and choices of the people. Ahmadinejad added that Tunisians want an Islamic government.The demonstrations have also prompted debate and discussion among Iranians over why the country's Green Movement failed to bring change, and how it has been silenced since 2009.Prominent women's rights activist Parvin Ardalan said in a January 26 interview with the "Irish Times" that Tunisia's revolution has brought a sense of hope that is very important for Iranian activists, who have come under state pressure since the disputed presidential vote in June 2009."Some are looking to Tunisia and saying to themselves, 'We could do this in Iran, but why have we not achieved that yet?'" Ardalan was quoted as saying."Ben Ali is gone. When will Seyed Ali?" wrote one blogger in an apparent reference to Khamenei. Others, similarly playing with words, said: "Tunis tunest, Iran Na-tunest" ("Tunisia did it, Iran couldn't do it.")One Green Movement supporter updated his Facebook status on January 27 with a message of support for Egyptians who were planning to join demonstrations on January 28."Let's pray for the Egyptians who will take to the streets in a few hours, that they remain safe from beatings, arrests, and death. Let's hope Hosni Mubarak ends like Ben Ali and that the turn of other dictators in the region, including in our country, Iran, comes too. Long live freedom."Another activist shared on Facebook a picture of Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Khamenei that said: "Dictators must go." Hmmmmm......Another wrote Ahmadinejad you're next!Read the full story here.

• Al Jazeera Releases Egypt Coverage Under Creative Commons.Qatar-based news service Al Jazeera has a long relationship with Creative Commons licensing. Now, for its coverage of the Egyptian uprising, it has released photographs via Flickr and video on a CC license. Available photographs and video are available for free use so long as the user gives attribution and does not alter the products. For the record, all the photographs and video in this post are from Al Jazeera.Source.

• Number of U.S. Muslims will more than double to 6.2m in 20 years.The Muslim population in the U.S. will more than double to 6.2million in the next 20 years, it has been claimed.Immigration and high birth rates could see the number of Muslims rise to 1.7 per cent of the total population by 2030 - roughly the same number of Jewish people in the U.S.And the forecasts will mean the U.S. will have more Muslims than Kuwait.From 1990 to 2010 the number of followers of the Islamic faith around the world increased at an average rate of 2.2 per cent annually. Last year there were 1.57billion around the world. The U.S. increase from the current 2.6million will be mainly driven by immigration, according to figures prepared by a Washington think tank.Although several European countries will have substantially higher percentages of Muslims, the U.S. is projected to have a larger number by 2030 than any European country other than Russia and France.Read and see the full story here.

• US wants immediate release of diplomat in Pakistan.The United States on Saturday called for the immediate release of a US diplomat it said was unlawfully detained by Pakistani authorities in Lahore, its embassy in Islamabad said.The man, previously described just as a consulate employee, is being held in police custody over the shooting deaths Thursday of two men he said he killed in self-defence."When detained, the US diplomat identified himself to police as a diplomat and repeatedly requested immunity under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations," the embassy said in a statement.It added, "Local police and senior authorities failed to observe their legal obligation to verify his status with either the US consulate general in Lahore or the US embassy in Islamabad"."Furthermore, the diplomat was formally arrested and remanded into custody, which is a violation of international norms and the Vienna Convention, to which Pakistan is a signatory."The man, named as Raymond Davis and described by the US State Department as an American civilian working for the US consulate in Lahore, was held at a police station on double murder charges over the deaths of two motorcyclists.A third Pakistani was crushed to death by a consulate car that went to help Davis following the shooting in a busy street in the eastern city on Thursday."The diplomat, assigned to the US embassy in Islamabad, has a US diplomatic passport and Pakistani visa valid until June 2012," the statement said.Recalling the events that led to Davis's arrest, it said the diplomat acted in self-defense when confronted by two armed men on motorcycles."The diplomat had every reason to believe that the armed men meant him bodily harm. Minutes earlier, the two men, who had criminal backgrounds, had robbed money and valuables at gunpoint from a Pakistani citizen in the same area."The embassy expressed regret that "this incident resulted in loss of life" and said it was "committed to working closely with the Pakistani government to secure the immediate release of the diplomat, as required under Pakistani and international law".Read the full story here.

• "Life or death in Iran's Prisons".Mrs Zahra Bahrami Iranian-Dutch citizen Executed, Another Victim of Iranian Regime’s Political Game.Zahra Bahrami, the 45 year old Iranian-Dutch citizen and mother of two who was arrested during the 2009 Ashura protests (December 27, 2009), was hanged today.Zahra Bahrami was executed even though her second case file with political charges was still opened and unresolved.On August 16, 2010, branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court charged her with Moharebeh (enmity against God). She was detained since December 27, 2009 and spent a long duration of time in solitary confinement. Her other charges included “Acting against national security”, “Propaganda against the regime”, and “Membership in a royalist group”.Fars News Agency, the media outlet affiliated with Iran’s Security Military force, announced her charges as “Membership in an international drug smuggling gang/group” and “Working with a Dutch ally.”Last year she travelled to Iran to visit one of her children. Upon her arrest during post-election protests, Zahra Bahrami was held for months in the IRGC ward in Rajai Shahr ‘Gohardasht’ prison and ward 209 of Evin prison for interrogations.Zahra Bahrami’s death sentence was issued to her lawyer Jenus Sharif-Razi on January 2, 2011 by Judge Salavati, the head of branch 15. But, the final verdict on the death sentence was not announced to Zahra Bahrami’s family or lawyer.In an interview with Rooz, Sharif-Razi said that all case files related to drug offences do not get sent to the Appeals Court. Instead, the cases are sent to Iran’s General Prosecutor and only he may make a decision on the verdict. Sharif-Razi explained that she was unable to appeal the sentence and the only chance of launching an investigation into the case was by receiving amnesty from the Clemency and Pardons commission.Banafsheh Nayebpour, Zahra Bahrami’s daughter has stated in past interviews that the charges against her mother related to drug smuggling are completely baseless and all the confessions were extracted under torture. According to Banafesheh Nayebpour, her mother was guaranteed release if she made the false confessions. She also explained that the charges against her mother are politically motivated.In the past year, the Islamic Republic of Iran has forced political prisoners to falsely confess by use of torture and empty promises. The executions that are carried out affect the overall political environment in Iran.Hmmmm........"Islam the religion of Peace".Read the full story here.Updated:Geert Wilders is calling for the expulsion of the Iranian Ambassador from The Netherlands as reaction to the execution of the Dutch -Iranian woman!Twitter Here

• HT:Memri.Spokesman For Islamic Movement In Tunisia: Movement Leader Al-Ghannouchi Is Returning.Hussein Jaziri, spokesman for the Islamic movement in Tunisia, said in Paris to the Iranian Al-'Aalam network that the leader of Tunisia's Islamic movement, Rachid Al-Ghannouchi, is returning to Tunisia on January 30.Source.

• EDITORIAL: Witching hour for Black Panthers.Justice continues to block disclosure into department activities.The Black Panther voter-intimidation scandal is approaching the boiling point on four different burners. Evidence grows that the Justice Department is using illegitimate means to keep a lid on legitimate investigations. Because his department can’t be trusted to police itself, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. needs to appoint a special counsel.On Wednesday, Judicial Watch - a private watchdog - filed a brief in its case seeking release of official memoranda, arguing that government stonewalling, “is about political interference in [Justice’s] decision-making process and [the department‘s] efforts to avoid public scrutiny of that interference.” Most abused is the “deliberative process” privilege, which is intended for discussions made before and during litigation but is being claimed for documents created after the Black Panther case was concluded.On Thursday night, Todd Gaziano of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights protested, “The department doggedly continues to obstruct this investigation … Even the privileges that are recognized law (as opposed to being newly invented) are not valid against the [Civil Rights] Commission.” His most significant revelation is that, “The department‘s own Office of Legal Counsel has issued at least two opinions, which are binding on the department unless overruled, that came to the same conclusion.”same conclusion.”Mr. Holder has been hiding behind questionable self-investigations made by his own department. On Wednesday, former Justice attorney Hans von Spakovsky, now at the Heritage Foundation, challenged the bona fides of Robin Ashton, the new head of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility. OPR, which investigates ethics charges against department lawyers, has delayed for 17 months its inquiry into alleged wrongdoing by officials who dismissed complaints against the Black Panthers. Mr. von Spakovsky warns Ms. Ashton is “completely untrustworthy,” especially regarding allegations of improperly “rifling through confidential files and documents,” and charges Mr. Holder and other bureaucrats with directly compromising the overall OPR investigation.Hmmmmmm.....What else is the Obamination administration hiding?Read the full story here.

• 'Brace for more snow': Groundhog Day Storm to affect 100 million people next week.Weather experts predicts a massive winter storm to hit on February 2.The severe conditions will affect the South, Midwest and Northeast. Big Apple deluged by snowiest January in history.A massive winter storm forecast for February 2 is set to adversely affect more than 100 million people weather exports reported today.The Groundhog Day snowstorm is expected to hit the South, Midwest and Northeast of the country, building from early next week.The storm is likely to severely impact ground travel, cancellation of flights and school closures according to AccuWeather.Hmmmm......GlobalWarming anyone?Read and see the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                         Afternoon Posting.

• HT:CreepingSharia.New Ground Zero imam homophobic, gays not happy.New imam same as the old imam. It’s just a matter of time before the new Ground Zero imam’s sharia-compliant views are exposed. Yesterday we learned his “moderate” views include only jail time for Muslims who leave Islam, not necessarily death. Today we learn he believes homosexuality is caused by violent abuse although he says a small percentage, like animals, are born gay. Someone should ask him what the punishment for being gay is under Islamic sharia law.Schindler says that unless Imam Adhami is willing to clarify or change his views, Park51′s ability to welcome everyone will be compromised beyond repair.“It’s a hostile message and one that I think attacks the dignity of gay people,” Schindler said.Some prominent gay New Yorkers say even though they find the remarks made by the Park51 imam offensive, it’s nothing they haven’t heard before.Will gays protest the Ground Zero mosque or just cry homophobia?Hmmmm......Obama...."Islam is a great religion".Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri. Source: Bin Laden Seriously ill ! Al-Qaeda Admits Defeat in Iraq.The Iraqi government daily al-Sabah quotes "a reliable source" as saying that Osama bin Laden has been seriously ill for months and that he has been moving between Afghanistan, Pakistan and eastern Iran adjacent to Afghanistan. The same source said that bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is the de facto leader of Al-Qaeda, and that he receives occasional guidance from bin Laden through written and coded messages. Al-Qaeda has now concluded that it was defeated in Iraq and has urged its fighters to operate in 10 countries: Yemen, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Somalia and Jordan. Iraq has recently killed two successive leaders of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq: Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayub al-Masri.Read the full story here.

• HT:Aina.Losing Egypt?"An earthquake has shaken the region."The above headline from an Israeli newspaper describes with unfailing accuracy the pivotal events now taking place in the Middle East. In Egypt, the Arab world's largest and most populous country of more than 80 million, massive demonstrations involving tens of thousands of people began on Tuesday in what was billed as a "Day of Anger" and are continuing despite a ban by a very rattled government. Smaller protests are likewise occurring in Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Algeria. The domino effect so feared by Middle Eastern strongmen after Tunisian protesters chased their president from power earlier this month after a 24-year rule may soon become reality in Egypt.Ali A. Alawi, an Iraqi Muslim, goes even further, stating in his book The Crisis Of Islamic Civilization, that Islamic civilization is a dying civilization, which has not created much of importance in centuries. And Alawi states there is no returning to its greatness since Muslims have distanced themselves so much from their Islamic roots. Overall, Alawi maintains, "[T]he Muslim innovative capacity has degraded in a fundamental sense.""In science and technology the statistics are truly daunting," Alawi writes.And things are not much better for Arab countries on the economic front. Except for a few oil and gas companies, the Arab world has no large corporations that could provide jobs for its 25 million unemployed young men (Unemployment runs at 20 to 30 percent in most Arab states). In total, when oil and gas are subtracted, the exports of the whole Arab world with its 350 million people equal in value those of Finland with five million.The disappearance of Arab strongmen like Tunisia's ruler, and now possibly Mubarak, opens up the ominous and dangerous potential for a Khomeini-style 1979 Islamist victory befalling Egypt -- which would be a catastrophic development not only for American and Israeli security interests, but for the Egyptian people themselves. One need only recall Khomeini's killing fields and his Islamic Republic's vicious history, continued to this day, to understand the horrifying consequences of Islamists succeeding in exploiting the current strife in Egypt to their benefit.However corrupt Egypt's regime may have been or continues to be, Mubarak succeeded in keeping the Islamists and the religious radicals in check. The Muslim Brotherhood, a major fundamentalist Egyptian opposition group that Mubarak had banned, will definitely try to take advantage of any further economic frustration or breakdown to set up the longed-for Islamic state, probably by promising those who have nothing that they will create a Muslim utopia of social justice, patterned after the Prophet Mohammad's rule. That is the bait to hijack the revolution, like the Bolsheviks promised "peace, land and bread" to the uneducated, downtrodden Russian masses to get their support, only to bring in the Red Terror in return.As history warns, the Islamists, if successful in seizing power, will internally perpetrate a Khmer Rouge/Khomeini-type bloodbath the likes of which Egypt has never seen before. The first victims will most likely be the country's religious minorities. Externally, they will involve Egypt in a jihad/war against Israel, Europe or the Shiites and, like Iran, strive to build nuclear weapons.Thus, Western countries and Israel are, naturally, viewing the events in Egypt with grave concern. The West must be prepared to confront the fact that it may be faced in Egypt with an approaching hostile, failed state, similar to Pakistan and Somalia, where terrorists will be welcome. If Obama fails to play this precarious situation right, and drops the ball like Carter disastrously did in 1979 by pulling the rug from under the Shah's feet in Iran, then this dire situation could coalesce into Islamists capturing Egypt. Sometimes, as with Mubarak, the devil you know is better than the one you don't.Does Obama grasp the gravity of the situation and does he have the geopolitical know-how to deal with it?The ensuing days of crisis will tell.Hmmmm....The past has shown that Obama doesn't care about minorities and he will follow the orders that the Saudi king will give him.Read the full story here.

• HT:SultanKnish.Obama's State of the Soviet Union.When the applause had died down and the softly glowing screen of the teleprompter faded to black, the echoes of the Leninist cadences of Obama's State of the Union address, "We must out-educate, out-compete, and out-innovate the rest of the world", "We have broken the back of the recession" and "We can't win the future with a government of the past" suggest that we are now living in a land without history.The thrust of Obama's agenda follows Lenin's. The old jobs are gone. We must prepare for the future by educating our youth. The sturm und drang of the "We Musts" quickly becomes an argument for pandering to the teacher's unions. Only by empowering the teacher's union will we be able to compete with China. But China isn't strong because of its teachers, but because it has no independent unions, no minimum wage, no pollution laws and nothing to get in the way of the terrible machine of its industry. The People's Republic of China is not beating us in science or math, but in manufacturing cheap products with an undervalued national currency. Handing out free educations to beat China is like going to college to fight a bear. Not only will it not improve your bear fighting skills, it actually gives the bear the upper hand. American math and science degrees are used to do research whose practical applications take the form of products manufactured in China. Even if all 300 million Americans all go to work as researchers, we are not going to "out-compete" and "out-innovate" by "out-educating" Americans. Russia has the highest percentage of college degrees by population in the world. China has the lowest. These figures have little to do with their economic success.But what future has Obama actually laid out? There is the Khrushchevian "We will overtake you" directed at China. Calls for a Stakhanovitesque commitment by the masses. And a promise to win the future. But what future is that? We haven't been told. It's an unknown future with high speed rail, green jobs, college educations for everyone, but no flying cars unless they're electric or solar flying cars. This isn't a future. It's more mouthwash. Soviet mouthwash.There's a 5 year plan to give broadband access to the masses. How did Khrushchev never think of that. More subsidies for solar and wind, at the expense of oil. Because 4 dollar a barrel oil isn't expensive enough. A 25 year plan to give 80 percent of Americans access to high speed rail. Except there's no actual plan either. It's all mouthwash. Soviet leaders rinsed their mouths with talk like this to assure their citizens that the future was moving forward on schedule. Now Obama is spitting their mouthwash out all over the country. But don't worry, comrades. We're winning the future. History is on our side.. This is not a State of the Union address. It's a State of the Soviet Union address.Hmmmmm......While Millions were dying of hunger in the Ukraine,they were applauding Stalin's 5 year plan!Read the full story here.

• Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert.A book celebrating suicide bombers has been found in the Arizona desert just north of the U.S.- Mexican border, authorities tell Fox News.The book, "In Memory of Our Martyrs," was spotted Tuesday by a U.S. Border Patrol agent out of the Casa Grande substation who was patrolling a route known for smuggling illegal immigrants and drugs.Published in Iran, it consists of short biographies of Islamic suicide bombers and other Islamic militants who died carrying out attacks.According to internal U.S. Customs and Border Protection documents, "The book also includes letters from suicide attackers to their families, as well as some of their last wills and testaments." Each biographical page contains "the terrorist's name, date of death, and how they died."Agents also say that the book appears to have been exposed to weather in the desert "for at least several days or weeks."Statements from U.S. officials, including FBI director Robert Mueller, have raised serious concerns in recent years over "OTMs" -- or illegal immigrants other than Mexicans -- who have crossed the southwest border at alarming rates.Mueller testified before the House Appropriations Committee in March 2005 that "there are individuals from countries with known Al Qaeda connections who are changing their Islamic surnames to Hispanic-sounding names and obtaining false Hispanic identities, learning to speak Spanish and pretending to be Hispanic."Just last year, the Department of Homeland Security had in custody thousands of detainees from Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. U.S. Border Patrol statistics indicate that there were 108,025 OTMs detained in 2006, compared to 165,178 in 2005 and 44,614 in 2004.Authorities would not release a picture of the book to Fox News, or reveal how long they believe it was lying in the desert. Immigration officials have previously discovered items along the U.S.-Mexico border from Middle Eastern origin, including Iranian currency in Zapata, Texas, and a jacket found in Jim Hogg County, Texas, that was covered in patches including an Arabic military badge that illustrates an airplane flying into a tower.Hmmmmm.......We don't want stricter border patrols do we Mr President?Read and see the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Writer: 'Iraq: Toward Religious Despotism'!The above is the title of an article by writer Rashid al-Khayoun, in which he warns that Iraq is marching toward Islamization [aslamah].
  He writes that the promoters of political Islam do not distinguish between government offices and mosques and, as a result, the corridors of ministry buildings, in religious events, turn into places for religious rites and for mourning [Shi'a Islam mourns the murder of Hussein, the grandson of Mohammad with breast-beating, and sometimes worshipers flagellate themselves with chains]. When some individuals object to the practice of using government offices for religious rites, they are quickly branded as "heretics" or "tails of Ba'th [party]."Also, he stated, in the name of religion, the emirs of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq massacres people; the higher the number of victims, the greater the "rewards" [in heaven] for the suicide bomber. He noted that the militias [mainly Shi'a-oriented and generally supported by Iran] raise the photograph of Imam Ali [the fourth Muslim Khalif and the father of Hussein] and his children on their banners, and added that if we examine the banners of political Islam, we would discover a demand for power, not religion, and for despotism over people in the name of Islam.Hmmmm.....Obama "Islam is a great religion."Source.

• HT:Christian.ORG.Anti-Christian bias is OK at the BBC, says former presenter.Christians are “fair game” for insults at the BBC whilst Muslims must not be offended, one of the broadcaster’s veteran news anchors has warned. Peter Sissons, whose memoirs are being serialised in the Daily Mail, slammed the BBC for its bias. Mr Sissons said: “Islam must not be offended at any price, although Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended.”His comments are unlikely to surprise many Christians who have become increasingly concerned about a perceived anti-Christian bias at the public broadcaster.The veteran presenter, who fronted news and current affairs programmes at the BBC, also said that staff damage their careers if they don’t follow the BBC’s mindest.He said: “In my view, ‘bias’ is too blunt a word to describe the subtleties of the pervading culture. The better word is a ‘mindset’.”Also in 2009, the Bishop of Manchester accused the Corporation of treating people of faith like an “increasingly rare species".And former Radio 2 presenter Don Maclean claimed that the BBC is keen on programmes which attack churches, and that there was a wider secularist campaign “to get rid of Christianity”.In 2008 Mark Thompson, the Director General of the BBC, said that Islam should be treated more sensitively than Christianity because Muslims are less integrated and more of a minority group.Hmmmm.....Anyone still doubting Christianity is under assault?Read the full story here.

• HT:KathyPundit.Hotair: Surprise: Last Night’s SOTU Lowest-Rated of Obama’s Presidency.The inevitable conclusion to days of hype from the media about how this might be the most important speech of his presidency. To put this in perspective, roughly 130 million people voted in the 2008 presidential election and even more will turn out at the polls two years from now. Maybe a quarter of that number watched last night (not everyone who tuned in will end up voting, after all) and only a teeny tiny percentage of them will remember so much as a single line.His first SOTU (which technically wasn’t a SOTU) in 2009 drew 52 million viewers and a combined network rating of 32.5. Last year’s got 48 million and a 29.8. Now he’s down to 26.6 via not quite 43 million viewers.Hmmmm......It's a zionist plot?Read the full story here.

• Bishop Chane: Gülen one of the greatest scholars.Eighth Bishop of Washington in the Episcopal Church John Bryson Chane has said Turkish scholar Fethullah Gülen is probably one of the greatest scholars and religious people in today’s world. Speaking at a Jan. 20 meeting of the Rumi Forum, a think tank established by Turks living in Washington, D.C., to foster intercultural dialogue, the bishop praised Gülen and the Gülen movement inspired by him. During his speech, titled “Interfaith/Intercultural dialogue: a First Priority in the 21st Century,” Chane referred to Gülen as a “magnificent man”:“In the 50 books he has written he has probably been one of our greatest voices. He is a scholar and communicator who has really addressed -- not only the role of religion -- but the place of religion as an antidote to violence throughout the world, stressing the importance of the need to come to the table for dialogue and conversation.”Bishop Chane serves a diverse diocese of 91 congregations, 23 church-related schools and 45,000 members in the District of Columbia and the counties of Prince George’s, Montgomery, Charles and Saint Mary’s in the state of Maryland.Noting that Gülen has contributed much to the life and stability of the global community already, Chane said, “I really want to make a point in recognizing him and honoring him for the work he continues to do for global peace among all of God’s children.”Hmmmmm.....Where are you leading your flock?"Do not have any other gods before me.You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earthYou shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me."Read the full story here.

• HT:WZ.Pelosi’s Office Requested the U.S. Air Force Bring Her Chocolate Covered Strawberries.Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained new documents from the United States Air Force detailing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s use of United States Air Force aircraft in 2010. According to the documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Pelosi used Air Force aircraft for 43 flights from January 1 to October 1, 2010. According to documents previously uncovered by Judicial Watch, by comparison, Nancy Pelosi logged 47 flights in the prior nine-month period, April 1, 2009, to January 1, 2010.The most recent documents uncovered by Judicial Watch include a Passenger Mission Activity chart detailing all of former Speaker Pelosi’s flights January 1 to October 1, 2010, as well as detailed shopping lists for some flights, flight authorization forms, Mission Expense Records and internal Air Force correspondence related to the flights. Among the highlights from the documents, obtained pursuant to a FOIA request filed on September 10, 2010:Pelosi used the Air Force aircraft for a total of 43 trips, covering 90,155 miles, from January 1 through October 1, 2010. The Air Force documented in-flight expenses for 22 of these flights totaling $1,821.33. The Air Force did not provide expense information for the remaining 21 flights.Former Speaker Pelosi received chocolate covered strawberries as a birthday surprise on a March 26, 2010 flight. According to one internal Air Force email sent on March 25, 2010: “The speaker’s office is requesting egg salad sandwiches on wheat toast with fruit (watermelon, etc) for desert [sic]. It’s the speaker’s B-Day tomorrow so we’re also asking for something like chocolate covered strawberries (dark chocolate preferred)…” The immediate response to the email from another member of the Air Force staff: “Copy all. We’ll plan something for the birthday and take care of the meal.”.According to previous documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the former Speaker’s military travel cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over one two-year period — $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol. For example, purchases for one Pelosi-led congressional delegation traveling from Washington, DC, through Tel Aviv, Israel to Baghdad, Iraq May 15-20, 2008, included: Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Baileys Irish Cream, Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewar’s scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniel’s whiskey, Corona beer and several bottles of wine.Hmmmm....Well the first cuts in spending have been done!How about the "Big Spender in Chief "his spending?Read the full story here.

• HT:NumbersUSA.On State of Union 2011 -- If JOBS Are Priority, Will Anybody Connect Immigration Policy?Pres. Obama spent most of the speech talking about preventing U.S. jobs from going overseas to be done by foreign workers there, and then incongruously argued for increasing the number of foreign workers to take the scarce jobs we keep in the U.S. Though mostly ambiguous, his statements on immigration seemed to put illegal foreign workers and foreign students first while keeping unemployed Americans in the shadows. On trade, he said he would "only sign deals that keep faith with American workers, and promote American jobs" and yet on immigration policy he failed American workers, declining to ask for reductions in immigration even though 24 million American and legal immigrants can't find a full-time job. And he declined to ask for mandatory E-Verify to put millions of them back to work by opening up 7 million jobs held by illegal foreign workers. Instead, he vaguely asked for work permits for illegal aliens and an increase in foreign workers.The disappointment over his comments was tempered by the lukewarm response from Members of Congress who seemed in no mood to follow his unpopular suggestions. The most recent annual Report to Congress from the Office of Refugee Resettlement we resettled 16,074 Burmese from 1983-2007 (just the refugee program). And, let me say AGAIN, the ORR is now nearly 3 years behind in releasing these LEGALLY REQUIRED documents to Congress.Hmmmm.....Life in the "Make believe" country of Obamination? Read the full story here.

• Judge to resentence man convicted of aiding Hezbollah.His lawyers say current 150-year sentence is 'a miscarriage of justice.'Bassam Hammoud waited in federal court Wednesday to learn if his brother, Mohamad, will soon be getting out of prison.Mohamad Hammoud was sentenced in 2002 to 155 years in prison for conspiring to aid Middle Eastern terrorists. Attorneys for the suspected head of a Hezbollah cell in Charlotte are trying to convince U.S. District Judge Graham Mullen to slash the sentence."My brother is innocent," Bassam Hammoud told reporters outside the federal courthouse. "He did not send any money to a terrorist organization."During Wednesday court proceedings, James McLoughlin, one of Mohamad Hammoud's attorneys, told the judge there never was a Hezbollah cell in Charlotte.Hammoud's attorneys have called the sentence "a miscarriage of justice." They say Hammoud should get no more than 15 years in prison.Mullen said Wednesday he will resentence Hammoud today after hearing arguments from defense lawyers and prosecutors. Hammoud may also address the judge.On Wednesday, Hammoud's lawyers called Robert Baer, a former CIA agent, to the stand to talk about Hezbollah's military operations and social programs. Hezbollah helps run hospitals and orphanages.Baer called Hezbollah "the most effective terrorist group in the world.""They are somebody you don't want to play around with...," he said. "If they come to get us, it'll come as a surprise."Hmmmmm....."More outreach to Muslims"?Read the full story here.

• HT:99express.Annual Islamic Holiday In Bangladesh.These photos were taken in Bangladesh. People come for the annual Islamic holiday, where three days will be spent in prayer. Every year there is going to more than 4 million people. Let's see how they get to your destination.Read and see the full story here.

• Global Muslim birth rate drops.Muslim population growing at slower rate, but will still be 26.4% of world by 2030, study says.Falling birth rates will slow the world's Muslim population growth over the next two decades, reducing it on average from 2.2 percent a year in 1990-2010 to 1.5% a year from now until 2030, a new study says.Muslims will number 2.2 billion by 2030 compared to 1.6 billion in 2010, making up 26.4% of the world population compared to 23.4% now, according to estimates by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.Continued migration will swell the ranks of Europe's Muslim minorities by one-third by 2030, to 8 percent of the region's inhabitants from 6 percent, the study says. Muslims in France will rise to 6.9 million, or 10.3% of the population, from 4.7 million (7.5%), in Britain to 5.6 million (8.2%) from 2.9 million and in Germany to 5.5 million (7.1%) from 4.1 million (5%).By 2030, Muslims will number 2.1 million or 23.2% of the population in Israel – including Jerusalem but not the West Bank and Gaza – after 1.3 million (17.7%) in 2010.The report did not publish figures for worldwide populations of other major religions, but said the United States-based Pew Forum planned similar reports on growth prospects for worldwide Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Judaism."The declining growth rate is due primarily to falling fertility rates in many Muslim-majority countries," it said, noting the birth rate is falling as more Muslim women are educated, living standards rise and rural people move to cities.Read the full story here.

• Number of States Developing Laws Requiring Presidential Candidates to Show Proof of Natural Born Citizenship Status Now up to 10.Arizona may have the most advanced plan, but 10 of the United States – controlling 107 Electoral College votes – are now considering some type of legislation that would plug the hole in federal election procedures that in 2008 allowed Barack Obama to be nominated, elected and inaugurated without providing proof of his qualifications under the U.S. Constitution.And they aren’t all the simple legislation such as that adopted in New Hampshire a year ago that requires an affidavit from a candidate stating that the qualifications – age, residency and being a “natural born citizen” – have been met.In Georgia, for example, HB37 by Rep. Bobby Franklin not only demands original birth-certificate documentation, it provides a procedure for and declares that citizens have “standing” to challenge the documentation.According to officials with the National Conference of State Legislatures, 10 states already have some sort of eligibility-proof requirement plan.There is Arizona’s HB2544, Connecticut’s SB391, Georgia’s HB37, Indiana’s SB114, Maine’s LD34, Missouri’s HB283, Montana’s HB205, Nebraska’s LB654, Oklahoma’s SB91, SB384 and SB540, and Texas; HB295 and HB529.Led by Texas with 34, the states control 107 Electoral College votes.Hmmmm.....Result.....No elections and he grabs power?Read the full story here.

• HT:umn.edu.SmartPolitics.Keeping It Simple: Obama Records 2nd Lowest Flesch-Kincaid SOTU Grade Level Score Since FDR.President's 2011 SOTU speech was written at more than a half a grade level lower than 2010's score, which was the 4th lowest in 75+ years.Although praised by many for the tone he struck in delivering his 2011 State of the Union address, many conservatives criticized Barack Obama's speech for being high on rhetoric and short on substance. As it turns out, Obama's speech was historically short - both in sentence structure and the words he used.President Obama now has the lowest average Flesch-Kincaid score for State of the Union addresses of any modern president - with his 8.5 grade level falling just below the 8.6 score recorded by George H.W. Bush during his presidency.Kennedy (12.0) and Eisenhower (11.9) delivered speeches that had a reading difficulty of three and a half grade levels higher than Obama.Hmmmm....."We have to build new things and invent stuff"?"I screwed up" (from his interview with A. Cooper on the Daschle appointment).Read the full story here.

• HHS grants ANOTHER 500 new healthcare waivers.A week after Republicans announced plans to investigate waivers granted to organizations for healthcare reform provisions, President Obama’s health department made public new waivers for more than 500 groups. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is granting temporary waivers to organizations that would not be able to meet the reform law’s new requirement for annual coverage limits.As of last week, HHS had granted waivers to 222 organizations covering 1.5 million individuals. Though the number of groups receiving waivers has now more than tripled, the number of individuals covered by the waivers increased just 600,000 to 2.1 million. The law gives HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the flexibility to grant waivers to avoid disruption in the insurance market, but Republicans say the waivers are either gifts to Democratic allies or proof that the reform law isn’t working. However, a large number of businesses, in addition to unions, have received waivers.The waivers have been granted to hundreds of so-called "mini-med" plans that offer limited health coverage to employees. The waivers are designed to preserve stability in the insurance market until new state-run insurance exchanges open in 2014. The House Energy and Commerce Committee asked HHS last week for details on the waiver process. HHS said Wednesday night that it wants to make the waiver process transparent.Hmmmm.....Lets start calling it the waiver careplan?Read the full story here.

• Gingrich, Bush support bankruptcy for states.A split between prominent Republicans emerged Thursday over whether Congress should allow states to declare bankruptcy.Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) wrote in the Los Angeles Times that Congress should authorize a new law allowing states to declare bankruptcy, a move that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has derided as a "bailout of the states." Gingrich, who is mulling a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, wrote the op-ed with another prominent Republican, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the brother of former President George W. Bush."The new Congress has the opportunity to prepare a fair, orderly, predictable and lawful approach to help struggling state governments address their financial challenges without resorting to wasteful bailouts," Gingrich and Bush wrote. "This approach begins with a new chapter in the federal Bankruptcy Code that provides for voluntary bankruptcy by states, a proven option already available to all cities and towns across America."Gingrich has previously floated the idea of state bankruptcy, but publicly pushed the option again after Cantor all but ruled it out earlier this week. That Bush signed onto the article could add significant heft to the option among conservatives."Federal bailouts must come to an end. Federal taxpayers in states that balance their budgets should not have to bail out the irresponsible, pandering politicians who cannot balance their budgets," Gingrich and Bush wrote. "Congress must allow a safe, orderly way under federal bankruptcy law for states to reorganize their finances."Republican governors like Chris Christie in New Jersey have scored political points for taking on local unions and seeking concessions in the state's pension liabilities. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, also a Republican, has sought similar reforms, as have some new Democratic governors. These moves have been met with stiff resistance by labor unions that represent state and municipal employees, who worry their workers will be shortchanged by state budget crunches.Hmmmm....Why do you think they are passing legislation to use other means of legal tender?Read the full story here.

• Graphic Video of Fatal Stoning Shows Taliban's Strength.Afghan Man and Woman Executed for Adultry Despite Wishes of Villagers.About 200 people listen to a Taliban mullah describe why a man and woman deserve to be killed. A few dozen spectators – people from the local community -- start throwing rocks at the woman, who had already been placed in a 4-foot-deep hole. They throw with relish and yell, "Allah akbar." At one point a large rock strikes her head and she falls down, her burqa red with blood. After the rock throwing ends, a few people debate whether she should be shot. Eventually one of the spectators shoots her with an AK-47. She falls into the hole, out of sight. There is a short period of absolute silence, and then the spectators turn to each other and start talking.Then the man is brought into the crowd and blindfolded with his own tunic. The same scene proceeds, but with larger rocks and more abandon. He cries as he is killed.Hmmmm...."The religion of peace".Read the full story here.

• HT:Aina.Islamic Terrorists Kill More Buddhists in Southern Thailand.The ongoing Islamic insurgency in southern Thailand continues and another nine Buddhists were killed by Islamic jihadists who desire an Islamic state. It is clear that while the insurgency ebbs and flows from many Islamic terrorist attacks to a decrease in activity, that the underlying insurgency remains and just waits to gather pace at any moment. Therefore, Islamic fanatics randomly kill Buddhists, school teachers, Buddhist priests, Muslims who work for institutions in southern Thailand, and members of the armed forces.The level of hatred is clear by the wanton violence and brutality because the Islamic insurgents desire to spread fear in order to reach their Islamic goal. This goal applies to the complete Islamization of southern Thailand and the eradication of all Buddhists and Buddhist temples from the region of Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani.In the past you had nationalistic sentiments to the insurgency because Thailand annexed the three Muslim provinces in 1902. However, while you had radical Islamic elements prior to 2001 it is clear that the insurgency had mainly nationalistic tones and the insurgents focused on the government and military of Thailand.In the first few weeks of January in 2011 you have had nine Buddhists being killed by Islamic terrorists and in a separate attack four members of the armed forces of Thailand were killed. Therefore, the Islamic insurgency continues to kill and spread fear in southern Thailand and many Buddhists have left in order to escape the ongoing Islamic insurgency.It is clear that Islamists in southern Thailand desire a homeland whereby all Buddhists will be cleansed and then Islamic Sharia law will hold sway. At the same time it is abundantly clear that Islamic indoctrination from outside of Thailand is a serious issue and the same applies to the international nature of the global Islamic jihad. Therefore, the government of Thailand faces both an internal threat and the reality that external networks are fueling the fire.Read the full story here.

• HT:BarracudaBrigade.Obama-Care Waivers Skyrocket to 729 + 4 States.By Michelle Malkin.While the Democrats continued to extol Obamacare and the president defended the behemoth law during the Date of the Union, HHS was quietly presiding over a massive Obamacare Waiver-mania explosion.When last we examined the growing list, privileged escapees topped 222.Now: The list now at 729 — plus 4 states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennessee).There was no specific hold-up that she could identify, they were simply running behind in getting the information on the website.Well today, the day after the President’s State of the Union, the new waivers are up. You may recall that there were 222 such waivers approved in November. That number has now jumped to 729 through the end of December. The total number of people covered by the waivers has gone from 1.5M to just under 2.2M. The list includes the usual assortment of union locals and businesses.I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest that OCIIO was asked to hold this development until after the SOTU. Indeed the latest waiver approved in the list is from December 30th. There is an addendum at the bottom of the page noting that four states–Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennessee–have applied for waivers covering another 93,000 people. The addendum is dated 1/21/11, but I can assure you it was not there on 1/21 or even Monday…Hmmmm......If you wanted to start a powergrab first you need the support of the unions?Read the full story here.

• Video : Mom Jailed For Sending Kids to Better School Some say an Ohio woman's quest for a better school for daughters went too far.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.