Tiraden

Flyttedag

2005-11-10T12:04:00.000+01:00

Ja, så sker det.

Jeg synes ikke rigtigt, jeg har været leveringsdygtig i reelle tirader i efterhånden lang tid. Dermed er overskriften på denne blog også holdt op med at være dækkende.

Jeg holder derfor flyttedag, og vil for fremtiden være at finde på bloggen Observant.

Vi ses

Henrik

"Islam er en fredens religion"

2005-11-10T11:39:00.000+01:00

Måske den fred, man finder på en kirkegård. Fra en almindelig torsdag i november:

Afghanistan: Afgjan "rebel attacks" kill nine

Argentina: Buenos Aires bomber "identified"

Irak: Bomb attack on Baghdad restaurant

Jordan: "Al-Qaeda link" to Jordan blasts

Frankrig: Curfew for riot-hit French towns

Indonesien: Bali bomb maker confirmed dead

Henrik

"Ofre"

2005-11-07T00:08:00.000+01:00

Jeg har den sidste lille uges tid ikke postet ret meget på bloggen, og den næste uge ser heller ikke så lovende ud - den er totalt pakket, desværre.

Der er idag imidlertid en historie, der får blodet til at koge i mine årer.

Ingen kan vel efterhånden have overset, at de muslimske indvandrere i Frankrig er gået amok, og nu på 10. dag hærger landet. Flere tusinde biler er blevet sat i flammer sammen med gud ved hvor mange skoler, børnehaver og andre offentlige bygninger. En handicappet kvinde er også blevet overhældt med benzin og sat ild til. Hun overlevede, men med alvorlige forbrændinger.

Alle har hørt om de to knægte, hvis selvpåførte dødsfald udløser det hele.

Men hvem har hørt om Jean-Claude Irvoas (51)?

Jean-Claude Irvoas var ude at køre en tur i sin bil med kone og datter, og steg ud af bilen for at tage et billede. Istedet blev han overfaldet af tre arabere og tævet ihjel for øjnene af sin familie.

Det burde være nok til at få mit blod til at koge, men Observers behandling af sagen får det næsten til at fordampe. Fuld offerrolledyrkning af de to knægte i toppen af artiklen, komplet med deres uskyld og "devastated" familier. Helt nede i bunden, i de sidste tre afsnit, kommer følgende:

Yet in a country where 28,000 cars have been burnt on housing estates this year alone, Sarkozy's gamble for the intolerant right-wing vote could still pay off. In today's Le Monde, the Interior Minister is unrepentant in a personal opinion piece titled 'Our strategy is the right one'.

Last week, on the day Bouna and Ziad were killed, Jean-Claude Irvoas, 51, got out of his car in Epinay-sur-Seine to take a photograph. As his wife and daughter sat in the car, Irvoas was attacked by three men, said to be Arabs from a nearby housing estate, and savagely beaten. He died in hospital later that evening. While speaking of the perpetrators, Sarkozy speaks to France's 'victims' - and they don't live in Clichy-sous-Bois or Aulnay-sous-Bois.

If in the past the 'louts' were forgotten, it looks like they could now be used as pawns by France's politicians.

En dræbt familiefar, hans sønderknuste kone og datter kvalificerer ikke til et enkelt afsnit, ikke engang til at være ofre, de er det kun i anførselstegn - "ofre" - og er uanset kun en brik i en ond, ond højrefløjspolitikers søgen efter intolerante højrefløjsvælgere.

Jeg har lyst til at brække mig.

UPDATE:

Til dem der, som jeg, har lyst til at lade Observer/Guardian høre for det her, er der følgende adresser at vælge imellem;

Nyhedsredaktionen - home@guardian.co.uk
Udenrigsredaktionen - foreign@guardian.co.uk
Læsernes redaktør/ombudsmand - Ian Mayes, reader@guardian.co.uk

Henrik

Dem kan man ikke andet end grine af

2005-11-02T09:56:00.000+01:00

Islamiske mindreværdskomplekser bliver mere og mere tossede. Nu er der tilløb til dannelse af en organisation, der skal tvinge FN til at gå væk fra den alment anerkendte kalender, der udgår fra Kristi fødsel.

The facts: The United Nations Organization that supposedly speaks and rules impartially for all nations of the Earth, is still using the Christian calendar which is viewed as being disrespectful for all other religions of the world. ..

Why should Muslim or Buddhist countries have to participate in a world’s organization that denies their dignity by using another religion’s calendar?

Isn’t the use of this Christian calendar by the UN evidence that this organization is a puppet whose strings are pulled by the western Christian powers? ..

The proposed action: To put enough pressure on your national government so that they, in turn, force the UN to be respectful of non-Christian countries and people by adopting a non-religious official calendar.

How can your own government betray your Muslim faith by accepting to ratify treaties at the UN using the Christian calendar?

Hvad blev der af buddhisterne og de andre religioner?

Isn’t the UN clearly saying that the Christian faith has superiority over the Muslim faith? If not, why impose on Muslim governments the ratification of official UN documents using the Christian calendar?

Kærestens reaktion (hun har studeret litteratur): "Det der er fuldstændigt lige som feminisme. Det er akkurat lige så søgt". Opfølgeren kunne hun ikke andet end grine af:

After so many years of Christian insults to the Muslim through the UN’s approval of a Christian calendar, the UN should render justice by asking for at least 20 years of Muslim calendar… But forgiveness may make us accept apologies from the UN and the use, from today on, of a non-Christian neutral calendar.

Nej, hvor er han storsindet.

Henrik

En noget vigtigere historie

2005-10-31T22:46:00.000+01:00

I et indlæg i Post-Gazette prøvede Jack Kelly for nylig at irettesætte MSM for ikke at dække det reelt nyheds-værdige i Irak - at de irakiske sikkerhedsstyrker bliver stærkere og stærkere, og at de irakiske "oprørere", selv om de stadig kan slagte uskyldige i dusinvis dagligt, er ved at tabe krigen.

Mens han gjorde det gik han imidlertid åbenbart selv glip af en nyhed af enorm værdi, selv om den faktisk er med i hans indlæg. Læs selv - jeg har fremhævet det vigtige:

Al-Qaida has claimed credit for a large, sophisticated attack Monday on the two hotels in Baghdad where most foreign journalists and many defense contractors stay.

The attack failed, but it was a near-run thing.

The Palestine and Sheraton hotels are across a short street from each other, adjacent to Firdous Square, a traffic roundabout where the statue of Saddam Hussein was torn down on April 9, 2003.

The attack involved three suicide bombers and an unknown number of other fighters. The attack took place at dusk, over a span of four minutes. Several news organizations were tipped off in advance, and cameras were rolling.

Fangede i den? Når "oprørere" og journalister arbejder sammen på en sådan måde er det ikke usædvanligt, at de amerikanske tropper ser mere og mere skeptiske på de medier, hvis sikkerhed de beskytter med deres liv, mens medierne sviner dem til. Kelly fortsætter:

The view of many that the news media are the insurgents' allies was reinforced by a Reuters story Tuesday that equated the suicide attack to the incident in April 2003, when a U.S. tank fired on the Palestine Hotel, killing two journalists. (The hotel had not yet been taken by U.S. forces, who were fighting Saddam's men in the streets. The journalists were on a balcony. One was pointing a camera at the tank. At a distance, a television camera looks a great deal like a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.)

Henrik

I Katrinas kølvand - De næste katastrofer i USA

2005-10-31T21:52:00.000+01:00

I kølvandet på orkanen Katrina har net-magasinet Wired sat sig for at lave en liste over de ti katastrofer, der står næst efter i køen - og der er masser af katastrofefilms-potentiale i den:

America's Next Top Disasters

Ranking determined by likelihood and potential impact

1. Levee Failure in the Sacramento Delta
2. Flooding in the Upper Mississippi
3. Indian Point Meltdown
4. Earthquake in Missouri
5. Eruption at Yellowstone
6. Tornadoes in Dallas
7. Landslide at Mount Rainier
8. Tsunami on the Eastern Seaboard
9. Massive Power Failure in Boston
10. Rupture in the Alaska Oil Pipeline

Rupture in the Alaska Oil Pipeline

The Alaska pipeline was built to withstand everything its designers could think of. But the supports for the pipeline are anchored in permafrost, which is now melting. Up to a third of the uprights are out of alignment, and more will be at risk if the thaw continues. A pipeline break would jeopardize 1 billion barrels of oil per day - 17 percent of the nation's capacity.
Likelihood: Low. (Admitting you have a problem is the first step to fixing it.)
People affected: Entire US population, potentially

Landslide at Mount Rainier
According to the US Geological Survey, Mount Rainier presents the "greatest volcanic hazard" in the Cascade Range because there are so many people in its shadow. The USGS says an eruption could melt Rainier's glacier, sending rivers of volcanic mud and ash - a moving wall of cement - toward Puget Sound.Likelihood: Medium. Such slides occur once or twice a millennium. It's been 550 years since the last one.People affected: 2.4 million
Eruption at YellowstoneYellowstone's pretty geysers and hot springs are powered by one of the world's most active volcanic systems. Previous eruptions buried most of North America - really - from Arkansas to Oregon, Canada to Mexico. The next one could do the same.
Likelihood: Low. But not zero.
People affected: Depending on the size of the eruption, anywhere from tens to hundreds of millions

Levee Failure in the Sacramento Delta
Next to New Orleans, the capital of California is more dependent on levees than any other US city. Built on the banks of a river, most of Sacramento is 15 to 20 feet below water level. According to UC Davis geologist Jeffrey Mount, there's a better-than-even chance that the levees will fail by midcentury, jeopardizing the water supply of 22 million Americans.
Likelihood: High. 66 percent in the next 50 years.
People affected: 22 million

Flooding in the Upper Mississippi
When you try to contain a river, you're bound to spill some. The very qualities that made the banks of the Mississippi the perfect place to start a village also make it the worst place to build anything permanent. The river produces spectacular floods about once every 20 years, no matter what we do to stop it.
Likelihood: High. The last great floods were in 1993, so we're coming due.
People affected: 72 million - everyone in the Mississippi floodplain

Tornadoes in Dallas
The National Weather Service is worried about a tornado cluster over Dallas at rush hour. The fear: A big twister traps 87,000 people in their cars and causes nearly $3 billion in property damage, making it the one of the most destructive tornadoes in US history.
Likelihood: Medium. Dallas has dodged the bullet. So far.
People affected: 5.7 million

Masssive Power Failure in Boston
A dearth of new power plants combined with a growing population means that New England is poised for summer blackouts by 2008. A blackout caused by a heat wave, like the one that hit Chicago in 1995, would be wicked bad.
Likelihood: Medium. Depends on whether new power plants get built.
People affected: 14 million

Indian Point Meltdown
In the mid-1950s, it seemed like a good idea to have a nuclear reactor 35 miles from Manhattan. Now it doesn't. When sirens sound and the evacuation orders come, even the rich may not be able to leave, since half of New York City dwellers don't have access to a car.
Likelihood: Medium. There could be one accident in 600,000 years of operation, or it could happen tomorrow.
People affected: 21 million

Earthquake in Missouri
In 1811, New Madrid, Missouri, saw the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the lower 48; it rang church bells as far away as Boston. A large temblor along the fault line would hit St. Louis and Memphis, which lack effective earthquake building codes.
Likelihood: High. 90 percent chance of a magnitude 6 or 7 quake in the next 50 years.
People affected: 3.7 million

Tsunami on the Eastern Seaboard
A small volcanic Canary Island called La Palma controls the fate of the East Coast. A 1949 eruption caused the western side of the island to slip a few yards into the Atlantic. In a future seismic event, the 500-billion-ton ridge could slide farther into the ocean, resulting in a mega-tsunami that would strike the East Coast.
Likelihood: Low. Might not happen for a few thousand years, if ever.
People affected: Everyone on the eastern seaboard

Henrik

"Politisk korrektheds-udrydder"

2005-10-31T21:25:00.000+01:00

Angantyrs Hjørne har spottet en opmuntrende udvikling i New Zealand på initiativ fra National Party (New Zealand Herald via Angantyrs Hjørne):

National has created the menacing-sounding role of "political correctness eradicator" to counter the Government's "PC" culture that it says is eroding New Zealanders' rights and freedoms. The role is the creation of party leader Don Brash, who has given Wayne Mapp, ranked number 14 in the National line-up announced yesterday, the eradication job.

Dr Mapp, who holds a PhD in international law, gave a speech in June about getting rid of the politically correct culture. This impressed Dr Brash so much he decided to create the role. In that speech Dr Mapp said political correctness ran counter to the "basic freedoms of society".

"A person, an institution or a government is politically correct when they cease to represent the interests of the majority and become focused on the cares and concerns of minority sector groups."

Mon ikke det er en ide til Fogh?

Henrik

Valgsvindel i USA

2005-10-31T20:29:00.000+01:00

Vandrehistorier om republikansk valgsvindel (især under præsidentvalget i 2000) har en fast plads i den radikale venstrefløjs myte-verden. I dag faldt jeg over denne historie:

Currie has been accused of irregular election practices in several lawsuits, and a review of election results, property records and databases of registered voters uncovered procedures that experts and other election officials described as questionable.

Among findings by News reporters were ballots cast by people registered to vote at abandoned and long-demolished buildings; a master voter list with 380,000 incorrect names and addresses -- including people who have died or moved out of the city; and a practice of hand-delivering ballots from senior citizens and disabled voters that were filled out in private meetings with Currie's paid election workers.

Republikanere, der fusker med valget i Florida i 2000?

Nej da: Detroit i 2005, en højborg for det Demokratiske parti. Der er meget mere i artiklen, blandt andet denne passus:

State law requires cities and townships to turn in election results to the county by 11 a.m. the morning after the election, and 42 of Wayne County's 43 municipalities complied. But Detroit's results were not turned in until nine days after the election, Jenkins said.

When the results arrived, eight of 24 poll districts and 52 of 100 absentee ballot districts had irregularities; mainly, they recorded more or fewer votes than names taken down on election night. When two separate recounts were requested by losing City Council candidates, county canvassers deemed 40 of 107 precincts selected for recount couldn't be recounted due to irregularities such as broken ballot box seals and numbers of ballots not matching the number of votes recorded on election night. That meant candidates had no way of determining the legitimacy of the vote in nearly 40 percent of Detroit's precincts selected for recount.

Føj dertil, at problemerne under præsidentvalget i 2000 fandt sted i amter med demokratiske valg-ansvarlige, samt massiv demokratisk valgsvindel under 2004-valget i Washington (staten, ikke byen - eksempler her og her) og Wisconsin, og et billede begynder at tegne sig.

Den historie får vi bare ikke - det er jo ikke onde republikanere, der står bag.

UPDATE:

Nå ja, mens jeg er i gang med det: Der er også gode indikationer på, at Kennedy blev præsident i 1960 på baggrund af massiv valgsvindel i Texas og Illinios. I forvejen fik han færre stemmer end Nixon gjorde - ikke ulig Bush´s situation vis-a-vis Gore i 2000-valget.

Henrik

Dagens gode historie

2005-10-30T19:01:00.000+01:00

Fra BBC:

Uganda's economy has improved to such an extent that the African nation no longer qualifies for aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Det bliver nok bare ikke slået så stort op - Uganda har ikke bare gennemført alle IMFs markeds-økonomiske reformer og frivilligt genindført flerparti-demokrati, men har også med succes brugt kristne værdier som for eksempel afholdenhed til at bekæmpe spredningen af AIDS.

Henrik

Mere multi-kultur: australsk politi skal tolerere islamisk hustruvold

2005-10-30T18:51:00.000+01:00

Herald Sun via Little Green Footballs:

POLICE are being advised to treat Muslim domestic violence cases differently out of respect for Islamic traditions and habits.

Officers are also being urged to work with Muslim leaders, who will try to keep the families together.

Women’s groups are concerned the politically correct policing could give comfort to wife bashers and keep their victims in a cycle of violence.

The instructions come in a religious diversity handbook given to Victorian police officers that also recommends special treatment for suspects of Aboriginal, Hindu and Buddhist background.
Some police officers have claimed the directives hinder enforcing the law equally.

Police are told: “In incidents such as domestic violence, police need to have an understanding of the traditions, ways of life and habits of Muslims.”

They are told it would be appreciated in cases of domestic violence if police consult the local Muslim religious leader who will work against “fragmenting the family unit”.

Ja, for vi ved hvad der sker hvis man "fragmenterer" visse muslimske familier. Hint: det har noget med "ære" og en pludselig død at gøre.

For et par uger siden var Australien også leveringsdygtig i denne historie, hvor en flok muslimske pakistanere stod anklaget for en serie af masse-voldtægter mod Australske piger. Én af dem mente, det var et oplagt forslag for hans handlinger, at hans traditionelle (læs: islamiske) kultur gjorde ham til en "tidsindstillet bombe".

Jo da. Men hvorfor i alverden så lukke dem ind i Australien i første omgang?

Henrik

Borgerkrig i Frankrig

2005-10-30T18:01:00.000+01:00

Fra The Observer, Guardians søndags-udgave:

Hundreds of French youths fought with police and set cars ablaze in a northern Paris suburb early yesterday morning in a second successive night of rioting. ..

Firefighters extinguished more than 30 burning cars and dozens of dustbins pushed into makeshift barricades on Friday night and Saturday morning as running battles in the streets of the north-eastern suburb pitted more than 200 riot police against scores of hooded youths. At least one shot was fired at the police, 19 people were detained and 15 officers and one journalist injured, an official spokesman said.

An officer from police trade union Action Police CFTC called for help from the army to support police officers. 'There's a civil war under way in Clichy-sous-Bois at the moment,' Michel Thooris from Action Police CFTC, said. 'My colleagues neither have the equipment nor the practical nor theoretical training for street fighting.'

Clichy-sous-Bois is home to 28,300 people a large number of whom are recent immigrants from North or Central Africa (Nordafrikanere = muslimske arabere - Henrik). Most live in rundown, low-rise public housing estates. Unemployment rates are among the highest in France and many locals see the police as 'the enemy'.

Pt er der 3-5 millioner muslimer i Frankrig, og der bliver flere og flere.

UPDATE:

En lidt mere end et år gammen artikel fra National Review sætter franskmændenes problem i perspektiv:

We've been hearing a lot about no-go areas in Iraq. Well, just to put the matter into perspective, here is some data on no-go areas in France. (I'm obliged to Jerry Pournelle for pointing me to this.)

In Le Figaro daily dated Feb 1, 2002, Lucienne Bui Trong, a criminologist working for the French government's Renseignements Generaux (General Intelligence — a mix of FBI and secret service), complains that the survey system she had created for accurately denumbering the Muslim no-go zones was dismantled by the government. She wrote: 'From 106 hot points in 1991, we went to 818 sensitive areas in 1999. That's for the whole country. These data were not politically correct.' Since she comes from a Vietnamese background, Ms. Bui Trong cannot be suspected of racism, of course, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to start this survey in the first place.
The term she uses, 'sensitive area,' is the PC euphemism for these places where anything representing a Western institution (post office truck, firemen, even mail order delivery firms, and of course cops) is routinely ambushed with Molotov cocktails, and where war weapons imported from the Muslim part of Yugoslavia are routinely found.
The number 818 is from 2002. I'd go out on a limb and venture that it hasn't decreased in two years.

Note the French govt's response to these unpleasant statistics — they stopped collecting the statistics!

Hvad man ikke ved, har man ikke ondt af. Eller....

Henrik

Nu er bøger om svin også fornærmende for muslimer

2005-10-30T17:52:00.000+01:00

Fra BBC:

A West Yorkshire head teacher has banned books containing stories about pigs from the classroom in case they offend Muslim children.

The literature has been removed from classes for under-sevens at Park Road Junior Infant and Nursery School in Batley.

Head Barbara Harris said the books would remain in the school library for children to read.
Sixty per cent of the school's pupils are of Pakistani or Indian origin and 99% of these pupils are Muslims.

School library

Mrs Harris said in a statement: "Recently I have been aware of an occasion where young Muslim children in class were read stories about pigs.

"We try to be sensitive to the fact that for Muslims talk of pigs is offensive."

The head teacher sent a memo to staff saying fiction books containing stories about pigs should be removed from early years and key stage one classrooms.

Bemærk, at der intet er om, at det muslimske flertal på skolen faktisk har krævet bøgerne fjernet - det er rent kulturelt selvhad fra overlærerinden.

Henrik

Terror-celler sprængt i Danmark og Bosnien

2005-10-28T19:36:00.000+02:00

Der begynder efterhånden at komme flere og flere detaljer frem i sagen om den danske terror-celle. Der er indtil videre 6 arresterede i sagen:

I Sarajevo, anholdt 19. Oktober:

En 18-årig mand med tyrkisk statsborgerskab, men dansk opholdstilladelse og bopæl i København.
En 19-årig mand med både svensk og montenegrinsk statsborgerskab og havde haft bopæl i Kungsälv i Sverige siden i sommers. Han var indvandret til Sverige med sine forældre i starten af 1990erne.

En tredje mand, en bosnier, bliver også arresteret den 19. oktober, men bliver siden løsladt igen. Den 28. oktober bliver yderligere fire mand anholdt i Storkøbenhavn:

En 16-årig dreng af mellemøstlig herkomst med bopæl i Brøndby.
En 16-årig dreng af mellemøstlig herkomst med bopæl i København.
En 18-årig mand af mellemøstlig herkomst med bopæl i Brøndby.
En 20-årig mand af mellemøstlig herkomst med bopæl på Frederiksberg.

De er alle fire opvokset i Danmark, men kun én har dansk statsborgerskab. Tre bor stadig hjemme hos deres forældre. For de to´s vedkommende er deres konvertering til ekstrem islam først sket inden for det sidste års tid. Alle seks arresterede kendte hinanden på forhånd.

Efter hvad der hidtil er blevet offentliggjort, starter sagen for godt en måned siden, da tyrkeren fra Danmark og Montenegrineren fra Sverige sammen rejser til Bosnien. Takket være tips fra det svenske sikkerhedspoliti SÄPO (om montenegrineren) og den tyrkiske efterretningstjeneste (om tyrkeren) er de bosniske myndigheder stort set opmærksomme på de to terroristspirer fra starten af.

I løbet af de næste uger flytter de fra lejlighed til lejlighed mens de samler våben og sprængstoffer, og ender til sidst i en (deres tredje) lejlighed i Sarajevo-forstaden Illidza, som de lejer af en bosnier. Forberedelser bliver truffet til at sende våben og sprængstoffer til Danmark af det lager, de efterhånden har fået opbygget (automatvåben, ammunition, snigskytte-geværer og 30-35 kilogram sprængstoffer). Det lader til at have været tildannelsen af en del af de oplagrede sprængstofferne til et bælte til en selvmordsbomber, der gjorde udslaget for de bosniske myndigheder, og det bosniske politi slår til mod to adresser den 19. oktober.

Under razziaen mod tyrkerens og montenegrinerens lejlighed forsøger disse at forhindre politiet i at komme ind, og en af dem trækker en pistol. Begge overmandes dog og arresteres. Deres bosniske udlejer aresteres også, men løslades siden.

De bosniske myndigheder giver også et tip til deres danske kolleger under efterforskningen, hvorefter PET begynder telefon-aflytning af i hvert fald de fire fundamentalister, der siden arresteres. Da politiet mener at have en bekræftet mistanke til de fire slår de til mod adskillige adresser den 27. oktober og arresterer 25 mennesker. Ud over de fire drejer det sig om 21 venner og familie-medlemmer, der dog løslades hurtigt.

Under husundersøgelserne beslaglægges blandt andet 200.000 kroner i kontanter, computere, mobiltelefoner, adressebøger og telefinlister. I tiden efter foretages talrige yderligere husundersøgelser, men indtil videre er der ikke foretaget flere arrestationer.

Det er så her, vi står nu.

Hvis nogen har brug for links til nogen del af det ovenstående kan jeg kontaktes gennem kommentar-sektionen.

Henrik

Fra det multikulturelle overdrev

2005-10-28T18:48:00.000+02:00

Fra Jyllandsposten:

I går blev yderligere to anholdt i forbindelse med drabet på 19-årige Ghazala Khan. Faderen og onklen varetægtsfængslet. Politiet i Slagelse fortsætter jagten på familiemedlemmer og venner til den myrdede 19-årige Ghazala Khan, der sammen med sin nygifte mand blev skudt foran Slagelse Station for fire uger siden.

I går blev to venner af familien anholdt i København, og det skete samtidig med, at Ghazala Khans far og onkel blev fremstillet ved lukkede grundlovsforhør i Slagelse, sigtet for medvirken til drab. Dermed er fem nære familiemedlemmer heriblandt Ghazala Khans far, hendes bror, der havde fingeren på aftrækkeren, en tante og en onkel samt endnu et familiemedlem sigtet for drabet eller medvirken til det. Det samme var tre nære venner til familien.

Faderen udtalte sig så sent som onsdag - få timer før sin anholdelse - til Ekstra Bladet, hvor han sagde, at »hans hjerte fortsat gjorde for ondt til at tale om sagen.«

Efterforsker stadigHos politiet i Slagelse, der bistås af Rigspolitiet i opklaringen, arbejdes der på højtryk.

»Vi kan fortsat ikke udelukke, at vi skal have anholdt flere. Der er en ret stor efterforskning i gang, og der er en grund til, at vi er meget lukkede i sagen,« siger vicekriminalinspektør Leif Vinther, Slagelse Politi.

Bare de får hevet problemet op med rode.

Henrik

De nye puritanere

2005-10-28T14:34:00.000+02:00

Fra The Observer, The Guardian´s søndags-udgave:

'Something very interesting, indeed radical, is happening to Britain,' confirms Jim Murphy, associate director of the Future Foundation, the trends forecaster which coined the term 'New Puritan'. 'If you look at the way our lives are filled with different kinds of social opprobrium, a lot of people are increasingly under ethical pressures which influence their choices.'

According to the Future Foundation, we are increasingly curbing our enthusiasm for profligate consumption, and health and environment-threatening behaviours. Gone is the guilt-free pleasure-seeker, to be replaced by the model well-meaning citizen, the New Puritan - a tag interchangeable with neo-Cromwellian, if you really want to seal its 17th century origins - who thinks through the consequences of activities previously thought of as pleasurable and invariably elects to live without them. Think of it as the dieticians' favourite adage, 'a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips' given socio-economic resonance.

Arguably, these personal codes of conduct would be an arresting enough story on their own, but the New Puritan's curbs must also be extended to other people's behaviour, and wherever possible enshrined by legislation - for New Puritans do not fear the nanny state. According to Murphy, 'In common with all important movements, this one has a silent march. It's under-noticed and under-observed.'

Such stealth might suit elements of the movement quite well, especially when it comes to tackling the menace of the Sports Utility Vehicle. Part of the New Puritan brief is to penalise those who make poor choices on behalf of the rest of society - in this case the gas-guzzling, emissions-generating Montessori wagons that choke our town centres. In Paris, the well-supported rage against this particular machine comes in the form of Les Degonfles (The Deflated), a clandestine team who, in the dead of night, run round deflating the tyres of SUVs and splattering them with mud. Les Degonfles aim to deflate about 40 SUVs a week.

In the UK, the job of deterring SUVs has fallen to Sian Berry, a rational and reasonable young woman who runs the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s and spends her spare time posting offending vehicles with fake fixed penalty notices. Granted, this is lowintensity warfare; but if governments won't legislate - only Sweden has brought in plans to ban non-registered 4x4s, in Stockholm - then the New Puritans will go it alone, with only their principles for company.
Admittedly, these principles vary. But you can guess that a New Puritan does not binge drink, smoke, buy big brands, take cheap flights, eat junk food, have multiple sexual partners, waste money on designer clothes, grow beyond their optimum weight, subscribe to celebrity magazines, drive a flash car, or live to watch television. And the list is likely to grow longer: research by the Future Foundation has found that 80 per cent of people agreed that alcohol should not be allowed at work at all; 25 per cent said snack products should not be offered at business meetings; more than a third agreed that we should think twice before giving sweets and chocolates as gifts to family and friends, and a further 25 per cent thought that 'the government should start a campaign to discourage people from drinking alcohol on their own at home' (this rises to 41 per cent in Scotland).

These are all statistics that I find comforting, but it's obvious that this wave of opprobrium-bearers makes Jim Murphy more than a little uncomfortable - his original report on the phenomenon bears the pejorative title Assault on Pleasure.

'Ten years ago, many of these propositions would have been preposterous,' he says. 'My mother, for instance, would have thought it a terrible blow not to give a child sweeties; now the debate centres around whether it's in any way acceptable to do that. And by 2015,' he ventures, 'global tourism could be in decline, because taking a flight to Costa Rica is considered a terribly irresponsible thing to do.' Murphy also points out that a significant proportion of people agree that 'food companies should be made to pay a levy to the NHS for the cost of treating obesity'. ..

If New Puritans want to spread their 'good' behaviour to the population at large then, it could be argued, they need a populist approach, which is where Jamie Oliver comes in. He might not be a fully fledged NP - what with the enormous bank balance and supermarket adverts - but his campaign to kick the junk out of school dinners has had a knock-on effect rivalled only by Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me, which took McDonald's to task. When education secretary Ruth Kelly announced a nationwide ban on junk food in schools from next September, in canteens as well as vending machines, the Jamie Oliver effect was very much in evidence.
So, with a few grand gestures and some high-profile converts New Puritanism offers a powerful escape route from our impulsive, reward-driven lifestyles. It might just have the potential to stave off the horrors promised by an out-of-control consumerist culture in which, according to agrarian essayist Wendell Berry, 'The histories of all products will be lost. The degradation of products and places, producers and consumers is inevitable.'

Consider the New Puritan philosophy from this point of view and it can look like a blueprint for a rather noble kind of empowerment. Our New Puritans become less like neurotic killjoys and more like early adopters, with an enhanced ability to recognise the pitfalls of contemporary life. A battle is shaping up between the New Puritans and the old guard libertarians, but at the moment it's a vastly uneven one. The New Puritans might be a trend, but it's still a small one, swimming against a seemingly inexorable consumerist river.

But New Puritans shouldn't be deterred. As Oliver Cromwell, their ancestral spiritual leader, put it: 'A few honest men [and let's add in women for contemporary relevance] are better than numbers.'

Læs resten selv, inklusive et par portrætter af "Nye Puritanere" og en test for at se om du selv er en.

UPDATE:

En anden artikel om de nye puritanere, under titlen "The Assault on Pleasure".

Henrik

"Os" og "Dem"

2005-10-28T14:16:00.000+02:00

Et vanen tro godt indlæg fra Thomas Sowell på Real Clear Politics:

A reader recently sent me an e-mail about a woman he had met and fallen for. Apparently the attraction was mutual -- until one fateful day the subject of the environment came up.

She was absolutely opposed to any drilling for oil in Alaska, on grounds of what harm she said it would do to the environment.

He argued that, since oil was going to be drilled for somewhere in the world anyway, was it not better to drill where there were environmental laws to provide at least some kinds of safeguards, rather than in countries where there were none?

That was the end of a beautiful relationship.

Environmentalist true believers don't think in terms of trade-offs and cost-benefit analysis. There are things that are sacred to them. Trying to get them to compromise on those things would be like trying to convince a Moslem to eat pork, if it was only twice a week.

Compromise and tolerance are not the hallmarks of true believers. What they believe in goes to the heart of what they are. As far as true believers are concerned, you are either one of Us or one of Them.

The man apparently thought that it was just a question of which policy would produce which results. But many issues that look on the surface like they are just about which alternative would best serve the general public are really about being one of Us or one of Them -- and this woman was not about to become one of Them.

Many crusades of the political left have been misunderstood by people who do not understand that these crusades are about establishing the identity and the superiority of the crusaders.

T.S. Eliot understood this more than half a century ago when he wrote: "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."

In this case, the man thought he was asking the woman to accept a certain policy as the lesser of two evils, when in fact he was asking her to give up her sense of being one of the morally anointed.

This is not unique to our times or to environmentalists. Back during the 1930s, in the years leading up to World War II, one of the fashionable self-indulgences of the left in Britain was to argue that the British should disarm "as an example to others" in order to serve the interests of peace.

When economist Roy Harrod asked one of his friends whether she thought that disarming Britain would cause Hitler to disarm, her reply was: "Oh, Roy, have you lost all your idealism?"
In other words, it was not really about which policy would produce what results. It was about personal identification with lofty goals and kindred souls.

The ostensible goal of peace was window-dressing. Ultimately it was not a question whether arming or disarming Britain was more likely to deter Hitler. It was a question of which policy would best establish the moral superiority of the anointed and solidify their identification with one another.

"Peace" movements are not judged by the empirical test of how often they actually produce peace or how often their disarmament tempts an aggressor into war. It is not an empirical question. It is an article of faith and a badge of identity.

Yasser Arafat was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace -- not for actually producing peace but for being part of what was called "the peace process," based on fashionable notions that were common bonds among members of what are called "peace movements."

Meanwhile, nobody suggested awarding a Nobel Prize for peace to Ronald Reagan, just because he brought the nuclear dangers of a decades-long cold war to an end. He did it the opposite way from how members of "peace movements" thought it should be done.

Reagan beefed up the military and entered into an "arms race" that he knew would bankrupt the Soviet Union if they didn't back off, even though arms races are anathema to members of "peace movements." The fact that events proved him right was no excuse as far as members of "peace movements" were concerned. As far as they were concerned, he was not one of Us. He was one of Them.

Henrik

En irakisk meningsmåling af tvivlsom kvalitet

2005-10-28T00:16:00.000+02:00

The Sunday Telegraph kunne for et par dage siden afsløre, at det britiske forsvarsministerium havde fået foretaget en meningsmåling i Irak, der viste at under halvdelen af den irakiske befolkning (45%) mente, at angreb på koalitionsstyrkerne var retfærdiggjorte. Der er imidlertid flere problemer med avisens raport.

Til at starte med har jeg problemer med at stole på avisens upartiskhed, al den tid at den på trods af dusinvis af meningsmålinger om emnet kan påstå at lige præcis denne "demonstrates for the first time the true strength of anti-Western feeling in Iraq after more than two and a half years of bloody occupation".

Der er også problemer med selve raportens trovædrighed, al den tid at intet bliver fortalt om metoden, den er foretaget efter, hvor stor en gruppe interviews der er foretaget, og hvor repræsentativ den er. Jeg tænker for eksempel på Kurderne, der udgør 20% af befolkningen og, takket være koalitionsstyrkerne, slap af med den diktator der kostede over 100.000 af dem livet.

Da Sunday Telegraph citerer raporten for at 82% af befolkningen er "stærkt imod" tilstedeværelsen af koalitions-styrker, skulle det betyde at hver evig eneste araber i landet skulle være inkluderet heri, hvortil kommer hver tiende Kurder. Noget sådant virker ikke sandsynligt.

En yderligere brik i puslespillet er ophavsmændene til rapporten:

The survey was conducted by an Iraqi university research team that, for security reasons, was not told the data it compiled would be used by coalition forces.

Den berygtede Lancet-rapport blev udført på en lignende måde, og resultaterne af den er for længe siden blevet grundigt diskrediteret, blandt andet på bloggen her.

Bloggeren Seixon - en amerikaner bosat i Norge - har også undret sig lidt, og har sammenlignet rapportens resultater med UN Iraq Living Conditions Survey fra August 2004:

Opinions are much easier to change than real world situations. That's why I felt it was important to view the other results of this poll, which were:

Immediately after the war the coalition embarked on a campaign of reconstruction in which it hoped to improve the electricity supply and the quality of drinking water.

That appears to have failed, with the poll showing that 71 per cent of people rarely get safe clean water, 47 per cent never have enough electricity, 70 per cent say their sewerage system rarely works and 40 per cent of southern Iraqis are unemployed.

I love the qualifiers in use here, this "appears to have failed". Right. It just so happens that the UN did an Iraq Living Conditions Survey back in 2004, of 21,668 households. It is very doubtful that this research team from an Iraqi university had the same depth. So let's compare some of their findings!

1. Water

MoD Poll: 71% rarely get safe clean water
UNDP Study: 61% have stable safe drinking water, 30% have unstable safe water, 9% have unsafe water

2. Electricity

Mod Poll: 47% never have enough
UNDP Study: 15% stable, 7% rather unstable, 78% unstable, 0% none

3. Sewer System

MoD Poll: 70% rarely works
UNDP Study: 37% connected of which only 19% report frequent or always problems; ergo, 51% of those who are connected have frequent or always problems with their sewer system

4. Unemployment

MoD Poll: 40% of southern Iraq
UNDP Study: 10.8-19.5% of southern Iraq (depending on definition of unemployment)

Needless to say, the UNDP poll, even though it was conducted a year before the MoD poll, shows wildly different figures. Are we to believe that Iraqi infrastructure has gone so much backwards over the last year?

Tankevækkende.

Men alt andet vil det bedste være, hvis regeringen efterkommer SFs ønske, og spørger den britiske regering, om ikke man kan få udleveret den fulde rapport. Så kan vi bedre afgøre, om resultaterne er troværdige eller ej.

Update:

Kim har på Uriasposten også lidt om, hvordan dele af den danske medie-verden har forsøgt at spinne nyheden.

Henrik

Irak: Ekstremister bekæmper hinanden

2005-10-28T00:01:00.000+02:00

Fra Reuters:

At least 21 Shi'ite militia fighters and two policemen were killed on Thursday when they clashed with Sunni Arab insurgents southeast of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said.

Another five policemen and 12 members of the Mehdi army loyal to nationalist Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr were wounded in the battle, which erupted after they tried to rescue a Mehdi Army member who was being held hostage, the official said.

"At least 21 members of the Mehdi Army were killed in the fight," a source in Sadr's office told Reuters.

Man vil måske huske al-Sadr som fundamentalisten, der to gange har forsøgt at bringe det sydlige Irak under sin kontrol med våbenmagt, og begge gange har set sin bande voldsmænd med automatvåben få lammetæv af amerikanerne. En journalist forsøgte sig dengang med at spinne den forhandlingsløsning amerikanerne foretrak (Sadr stillede siden op til valget i januar i år) som om Mahdi-militsen var for stærk for amerikanerne. Svaret kom prompte fra Brigadegeneral Mark Hertling:

"Softer stance? We took a hard line with these guys and killed over a thousand," Hertling wrote in an e-mail to the Associated Press. "Concessions? We agreed to stop hunting down what was left of the militia long enough for them to disband."

Fra kampene om den enorme kirkegård der findes i/nær Karbala husker jeg især et interview i Jyllandsposten med en maskingevær-skytte i Mahdi-militsen, der i ramme alvor mente, at han bare skulle trykke på aftrækkeren, så ville Allah sørge for at hans kugler ramte fjenden.

Med den taktik er det ikke underligt, at Mahdi-hæren også i denne omgang har fået tæv.

Henrik

Lidt om Fox

2005-10-27T21:19:00.000+02:00

Kim på Uriasposten har et lille indlæg om Fox News, som DRs Tv-Avis har beskyldt for at være loyal over for Bush. Problemet er, at DRs ansatte som sædvanlig ikke har begreb skabt om, hvad de udtaler sig om.

Fox er institutionelt set hverken venstre- eller højre-orienteret. Stationen er udelukkende seertals-orienteret, og Bush vil altid tabe i en kamp med dem. Se for eksempel præsidentvalgkampen i 2000, hvor det var Fox der kunne fortælle om Bushs tidligere erfaringer med sprit-kørsel. Tilsvarende var Fox om muligt også endnu hårdere mod Bush i kritikken af redningsarbejdet efter orkanen Katrina, end MSM var.

Et simpelt kig på dansk fjernsyn vil heller ikke ligefrem afsløre nogen republikansk propaganda i Fox-produktioner - hvem kan finde konservative kerneværdier i Simpsons, Paradise Hotel, Fear Factor eller serien med Al Bundy?

Nyhederne er tilsvarende populistiske, og går efter hvad der end måtte giver størst seertal. I sommers fyldte historien om den amerikanske pige Natalie Holloway, der forsvandt på den caraibiske ø Aruba og siden blev fundet myrdet således i ugevis Fox´ nyheder, og stationen sendte endda en reporter til øen for at reportere live fra efterforskningen af sagen i ugevis.

Der hvor Fox faktisk har højreorienterede tilbøjeligheder grunder det faktisk i, at de dominerende stationer i den amerikanske tv-verden - ABC, CBS og NBC - i løbet af de amerikanske 68´eres "Lange March gennem Institutionerne" er blevet overtaget af venstredrejede elementer på samme måde som DR blev det i Danmark. Som resultat blev den amerikanske befolkning bombarderet med venstre-vinklede indslag årle og silde. Da Fox derfor kom til og søgte seertal var der én stor séer-skare, der ikke fik sine behov dækket: dem til højre i det politiske spektrum. Det er indretningen af de redaktionelle holdninger efter denne kerne-séer-gruppe, der giver indtrykket af, at Fox - efter europæiske og venstreorienteret demokratiske forhold - bliver anset for at være ideologisk højreorienteret og principielt pro-Bush.

Det har bare ikke så meget med virkeligheden at gøre.

For sjov kan man også tage et kig på Rupert Murdochs valgbidrag (Rupert Murdoch ejer Fox). Siden 1987 har Murdoch sammenlagt bidraget med godt 285.000 dollars til politiske kampagner. Af disse er rigtigt nok lidt under 160.000 gået til Republikanerne, men samtidig har Demokraterne fået over 80.000. Dertil kommer, at en del af de penge, demokraterne har fået, er gået direkte til de mest venstreorienterede af slagsen - Edward Kennedy, John Kerry og Dianne Feinstein.

Det er også værd at lægge mærke til, at Murdoch faktisk havde bidraget med flere penge til demokrater lige op til 11. September. Hele republikanernes overvægt er kommet til derefter.

Henrik

Flere tomme trusler fra islamiske ambassadører

2005-10-27T21:07:00.000+02:00

Fra Jyllandsposten:

På et møde i Den Saudiarabiske Ambassade onsdag var det ventet, at ambassadørerne ville enes om at tage kontakt til de politiske ledere på Christiansborg for at få dem til at tage moralsk stilling i sagen, der har skabt stor opstandelse i muslimske miljøer.

Men Egyptens ambassadør Mona Omar Attia sagde efterfølgende, at sagen ikke længere var et direkte anliggende for ambassadørerne, men at den ville rulle videre blandt de store, muslimske verdensorganisationer.

- Man kan forestille sig, at der snart kommer en reaktion fra The Arab League, siger Mona Omar Attia.

Taget i betragtning at Arab Leagues medlemslande fem gange i streg er blevet tævet sønder og sammen af et land på størrelse med Jylland tror jeg nok, vi med sindsro kan vente på deres "reaktion". Arab League har uanset ikke været leveringsdygtigt i meget andet end frådende antisemitisme og tomme trusler siden dens grundlæggelse, så mon ikke vi bare skal sætte knappen på mute og grine i skægget over "reaktionen".

Henrik

Muslimske ambassadører truer med flere breve

2005-10-27T21:01:00.000+02:00

Fra Jyllandsposten:

Den danske regering kan se frem til at modtage breve fra regeringerne i flere muslimske lande. ...

»Vi vil nu overlade sagen til vores regeringer, og den danske regering kan forvente at modtage breve fra nogle af landenes regeringer,« siger repræsentanten for det palæstinensiske selvstyre i København, Maie F.B. Sarraf.

Jamen dog. Flere breve? Det er da meget praktisk for herboende frimærkesamlere og genbrugspapir-grossister, men alligevel. Det er næsten synd, de bare ikke fatter, at de er fuldstændigt til grin.

Henrik

Israel skal udslettes

2005-10-27T20:15:00.000+02:00

(Fra Jyllandsposten):

Irans præsident, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, gik i går til verbalt frontalangreb på Israel og forlangte, at den jødiske stat »slettes fra landkortet«.

I en tale til ca. 4.000 regimetro studenter i Teheran - alle klædt i sort og med grønne pandebånd - forudså den iranske præsident en bølge af palæstinensiske angreb, som vil »fjerne dette stigma«, underforstået Israel, fra Mellemøsten.

Som havde man lyttet til anbefalingerne fra Teheran, sprængte en palæstinensisk selvmordsbomber sig senere på dagen i luften på et marked i den israelske by Hadera og dræbte mindst fem israelere.

Islamisk Jihad tog skylden for terrorattentatet, som var det første inde i selve Israel, siden israelerne i september rømmede Gaza. Ifølge den islamistiske organisation var der tale om »første del« af en hævn for Israels mord på en af gruppens ledere på Vestbredden søndag.

Her skal man måske indføje, at fyren der bleb slået ihjel anslarlig for adskillige terrorangreb på civile i Israel. Tilsvarende bestod Islamisk Jihads "hævn" i at sprænge en falaffel-biks i luften.

Den ultrakonservative iranske præsident, som vandt en jordskredssejr ved valget i juni,

Her skal det så tilføjes, at "jordskreddet" bestod af massiv valgsvindel og udbredt lede ved den fundamentalistiske og fennemkorrupte præst Rafsanjani.

Formuleringen om at slette Israel fra landkortet stammer fra den islamiske revolutions leder, ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, og bruges bl.a. som slogan, når Iran fremviser nye langdistanceraketter.

»Enhver, der anerkender Israel, vil brænde i den islamiske nations raseri. Enhver, som anerkender det zionistiske regime, har accepteret den islamiske verdens overgivelse og nederlag,«

Man kan selvfølgelig også bare som Ahmadinejad lade som om den islamiske verden faktisk ikke har lidt nederlag - endda hele ti gange siden 2. Verdenskrig.

Men samtidig må man også håbe på, at han ikke kan holde sig i skindet med hensyn til at provokere. Al den tid Israel har 2-400 atomvåben til sin rådighed skal de nok kunne svare igen på det meste :-)

Henrik

Lette tab i Irak

2005-10-26T22:36:00.000+02:00

Stort set samtlige medier har deltaget i dødekulten omkring det faktum at antallet af amerikanske soldater, der er døde i Mellemøsten nu er nået op på 2000. Samtidig glemte samme medier dog at tage et par ting i betragtning:

Tallet inkluderer soldater omkomne ved drukneulykker, biluheld og lignende - tab det amerikanske militær ville have lidt også i fredstid hjemme i USA. Af de 2000 er tæt på en fjerdedel omkommet i bil-uheld, drukneulykker og deslige, ikke kamphandlinger (se her, husk at skifte "all countries" ud med "U.S. only" i det lille vindue midt på siden).
Arbejdsulykker og sygdom har hvert år af Krigen mod Terror kostet flere soldater livet end kamphandlinger - selv hvis man tager tab i Afghanistan og Filippinerne med (tallene findes til og med 2004 - se her)
Modsat hvad man ellers skulle tro hvis man følger medierne, er tabene i Irak faktisk historisk lave. Sammenlign med Vietnam, hvor alene de to første år efter den amerikanske intervention kostede over 8.000 mand livet, og det hvor amerikanerne allerede fra start af kunne støtte sig til hundredtusindvis af Sydvietnamesiske soldater (se her).

Henrik

Mere arabisk våbenhvile i Palæstina

2005-10-26T22:30:00.000+02:00

Fra BBC:

At least five people have been killed and up to 30 wounded in what police say was a suicide bomb attack in the northern Israeli town of Hadera.

The blast happened near a food stand in the town's busy market place.

Ambulances rushed to the scene to treat the wounded, as security forces sealed off the town, Israeli media reports. ...

Police said a suicide bomber walked into the market, detonating his explosives at a falafel stand near the town's central bus station at around 1600 (1400GMT).

Israeli ambulance official Chaim Rafalowski told the BBC the market would have been busy with people stocking up on supplies, on the first working day following a two-day holiday.

Eidan Akiva, who lives near the blast, told Israeli TV that body parts were strewn across the street next to his apartment building. The damage was immense, he added.

"All the stalls alongside just fell apart. The windows are all broken. It looks like a war was here," he told Channel Ten.

Ja, det hjalp sørme meget på terroren, at Israel blev presset til at trække sig tilbage fra Gaza-striben.

Henrik

Paris om 20 år - og Europa?

2005-10-26T21:38:00.000+02:00

http://www.geocities.com/jean0989/

Henrik

Heroin-salg er "en form for Jihad"

2005-10-26T21:35:00.000+02:00

Fra BBC:

An alleged drug lord with reported links to the Taleban has become the first Afghan citizen to be extradited to the US, prosecutors in New York say.

Baz Mohammad is accused of heading an international cartel responsible for taking more than $25m (£14m) worth of heroin into the US and other countries.

He is alleged to have said that selling heroin in the US was an act of "jihad", or holy war, against America.

Ikke noget nyt der.

Henrik

Tyrkiet: Bødestraf for at bruge "u-tyrkiske" bogstaver

2005-10-26T21:29:00.000+02:00

I serien om skeletter i skabet hos de muslimske lande, der forleden protesterede over JP´s dragen fordel af ytringsfriheden. Denne gang fra Tyrkiet (CNN):

A Turkish court has fined 20 people for using the letters Q and W on placards at a Kurdish new year celebration, under a law that bans use of characters not in the Turkish alphabet, rights campaigners said.

The court in the southeastern city of Siirt fined each of the 20 people 100 new lira ($75.53) for holding up the placards, written in Kurdish, at the event last year. The letters Q and W do not exist in the Turkish alphabet.

Måske de kære muslimske ambassadører lige skulle rydde op derhjemme, før de blander sig i andre landes affærer?

Henrik

Muslimske ambassadører og hykleri - et eksempel

2005-10-22T18:25:00.000+02:00

I forbindelse med Muhammed-sagen var 11 muslimske ambassadører ude med et brev til Anders Fogh om han dog ikke kunne indføre censur i Danmark, så muslimer ikke får deres følelser såret. Mascud Effendy Hutasuhut, ambassaderåd på den indonesiske ambassade i Danmark sagde det således:

»Vi håber på forståelse for muslimernes følelser omkring Muhammed. Og vi håber på en undskyldning fra Jyllands-Posten«

OK. Hvordan står det så til med muslimernes forståelse for kristne menneskers følelser i hr. Hutasuhut´s hjemland? Fra Asianews:

A group of Christian worshipers praying on a street was attacked on Sunday, October 16, in Jatimulya, East Bekasi, in West Java. The outdoor worship was the only option for these Christians since their church building had recently been forced to close.

In an e-mail message, one of the Christians said: “Christians came from three churches that were ordered closed by Jatimulya Mayor five weeks ago on the instigation of a radical Muslim group calling itself the Alliance against Apostasy.”

“The constitution of Indonesia guarantees freedom of religion, but with their buildings closed and forbidden to meet for worship in private homes, Christians have had to gather in the streets each Sunday in order to worship together,” the e-mail message lamented.

Last Sunday, Christians gathered at their usual spot on one street, but found that 300 Muslims had taken over the section. They moved elsewhere and began praying. However, they had been followed by a group of Muslim extremists who then started to insult and mock them, demanding they immediately stop their meeting. A female church leader was pushed and shoved until she fell. The Christians then decided to disperse and meet for prayer on the following day.

This incident of violence and intimidation is but the latest in a series of attacks against Indonesian Christians. Just on October 11 extremists broke into a house in western Jakarta to stop people from reciting the Rosary. Similarly, Muslim extremists have forced some 30 Protestant home churches to close.

Yderligere kommentar er vist unødvendig.

Henrik

Nobel-komitéen gør det igen: Pris til diktator-fan

2005-10-22T16:20:00.000+02:00

Fra Dr´s tekst-tv:

Nobel-prisen for Litteratur til en diktatur-fan med tætte forbindelser til folkemords-benægtere kommer som sidste dumhed i en lang serie. En anden nobelpris-modtager, der åbenbart ikke havde noget problem med folkemord var for eksempel serieløgneren Rigoberta Menchu, der fik Nobels Fredspris i 1992. Endelig har vi Wangari Maathai, der fik prisen i 2004, og som har sin helt egen racistiske version af virkeligheden, hvor Aids er et biologisk våben skabt af sadistiske videnskabsmænd for at udrydde den sorte race.

Henrik

Anti-kristne optøjer i Egypten

2005-10-22T16:05:00.000+02:00

Fra DRs tekst-tv:

Eller, for at citere fra LFG´s kommentar til samme historie: I Egypten har muslimer angrebet en kristen kirke for at protestere mod udgivelsen af en DVD, der viser muslimer der angriber en kristen kirke.

Og nej, islam og logik har ikke meget med hinanden at gøre.

Henrik

En ide til at fremme mellem-folkelig forståelse

2005-10-22T15:27:00.000+02:00

Allerede kendt i den udenlandske presse og blogosfæren i ugevis, nu også i JP (hat tip: Filtrat):

Inspektøren for det britiske fængselsvæsen, Anne Owers, har forbudt fængselsbetjentene at bære slipsenåle med det britiske flags røde kors på hvid bund, det såkaldte St. George-kors. Det minder de muslimske indsatte om korstogene.

Lederen af Rådet for Fremme af arabisk-britisk Forståelse, Chris Doyle, hylder beslutningen og tilføjer, at det nu er tid for England at finde et andet flag og en ny skytshelgen, som »ikke associeres med vores blodige fortid og en, som vi alle kan identificere os med.«

Hvad om Araberne så, i den arabisk-britiske forståelses tjeneste, allesammen finder en ny religion, som "ikke associeres med deres blodige fortid"? De kunne allesammen konvertere til Jødedommen, for eksempel.

Henrik

FN, Syrien......og Hama

2005-10-22T14:09:00.000+02:00

Så kom rapporten om FNs undersøgelse af hvem der slog Libanons tidligere premierminister Rafiq Hariri ihjel. Fra BBC:

The UN inquiry report into the assassination of Hariri says many leads point to the direct involvement of Syrian officials.

However, the names of Syrian President Bashar Assad's brother and brother-in-law and other top Syrians were edited out of the final report

Den oprindelige version af rapporten omtaler at seks navngivne personer besluttede at dræbe Hariri - fire fra inderkredsen om Syriens diktator Bashar Assad, og to fra syrernes marionet-regime i Libanon. Rapportens tyske forfatter Detlev Mehlis påstår, navnene blev slettet fordi kun ét vidne nævnte dem. Men hvorfor så putte det i rapporten i første omgang? Reuters har en god gennemgang af, hvad sletningen af de to navne betyder for rapporten:

Maher Assad is the brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. With his name deleted from the above section, he is not mentioned anywhere in Mehlis's report.

Asef Shawkat heads Syria's powerful Military Intelligence and is married to President Assad's only sister, Bushra. His name is mentioned once in the report's final version.

General Hassan Khalil of Syria is a retired chief of Military Intelligence. His name does not appear in the final version.

Bahjat Suleiman is a member of President Bashar's inner circle. His name is nowhere in the final version.

Major General Jamil Al-Sayyed of Lebanon served as head of General Security from 1998 until May 2005, when he resigned under heavy pressure from the Lebanese opposition after Hariri's killing. His name is peppered throughout the report as it details the plot.

Brigadier General Mustapha Hamdan is one of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud's closest aides, in charge of ensuring the president's personal safety. His name also appears frequently throughout the Mehlis report.

Med andre ord slipper syrerne i den redigerede version betydeligt lettere, selv om deres lakajer stadig får skylden. Hele affæren startede med at det libanesiske parlament sidste efter år efter massivt syrisk pres ændrede den libanesiske grundlov, for at den pro-syriske præsident Lahoud kunne sidde endnu en periode. Selv i sin redigerede version fremstår den syriske kampagne for at destabilisere Libanon da en anti-syrisk opposition endelig dannede sig tydeligt (FNs rapport, via BBC):

7 September 2004, Economy Minister Marwan Hamadeh, Culture Minister Ghazi Aridi, Minister of Refugee Affairs Abdullah Farhat and Environment Minister Fares Boueiz, resigned from the cabinet in protest at the constitutional amendment.
9 September 2004, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri indicates to journalists that he will resign.
1 October 2004, Assassination attempt on Marwan Hamadeh, in Beirut, Lebanon.
4 October 2004, Rafik Hariri resigns as prime minister.
20 October 2004, President Lahoud accepts Hariri’s resignation and names Omar Karame to form the new government.

2005
14 February 2005, Rafik Hariri and 22 other individuals are killed in a massive blast in a seafront area of central Beirut.
8 March 2005, Hezbollah organizes a one million strong "pro-Syrian" march.
14 March 2005, a Christian/Sunni-led counter demonstration demands the withdrawal of Syrian troops and the arrest of the chief of the security and intelligence services.

En lille kommentar kræves her: FN lader til at manipulere lidt her. De eneste, der talte en million til Hezbollahs demonstration var Hezbollah selv og en uidentificeret "syrisk sikkerheds-organisation". Resten af verden så kun mellem 200.000 og 400.000, hvoraf hovedparten måske ikke engang har været libanesere, men istedet Palæstinensere og Syrere (læs det hele, ikke kun det jeg citerer):

In figures, the main body of the demonstration was composed of:
1- Syrians from the Syrian working force in Lebanon. The real figures for this working force are around 1.4 million workers (in a country of 3-4 million). This population has been coerced to “demonstrate” in support of its tortures for the last forty years. Syrian authorities did not even have to take excessive measures to “convince” Syrian workers in Lebanon to join the so-called Hizbullah demonstration.

2- Syrians from Syria. Hundreds of buses left Damascus to Beyrouth on the demonstration day. And that, to the extent that, for the first time in 34 years, the celebrations of the 8th of march “corrective movement” (coup d’état of Hafez el-Assad in 1970) in Damascus itself had to be postponed from the 8th to the 9th of March. The “masses” were “away”- demonstrating in Beyrouth.

3- “Masses” came from Sidon in South Lebanon. It so happens that Sidon is the town of Rafik Hariri and people there hate the Syrian regime, whom they blame for assassinating Hiriri. In fact it was the Ain el-Heloué camp (a few kilometres outside Sidon) which came to demonstrate, in addition to all other Palestinian camps in Beyrouth and in North Lebanon. The leaders of Fateh and fundamentalists leaders in those camps had been convoked to Damascus 10 days ago to prepare the Hizbullah demonstration and, most probably, for some terroritst attacks to be perpetrated in the next few days. Such coming terroritst acts, Syria thinks, would give its military-intelligence presence a new legitimacy as a “peace-keeping force”. The official figures on Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon exceed 300 000 refugees.

Mens FN således får pustet den pro-syriske demonstration op til millionen, hopper den let hen over den anti-syriske 6 dage senere, der faktisk meget vel kan have nået den. Medierne anslog fremmødet til mellem 800.000 og en milion. Efter danske forhold svarer det til, at en million mennesker tropper op på Rådhuspladsen for at demonstrere.

Men tilbage til FNs rapport og syrernes terror-kampagne:

19 March 2005, a bomb explodes in Jdeideh, a northern suburb of Beirut, wounding 11 people.
23 March 2005, three people are killed and three others wounded in an explosion in the Kaslik shopping centre, north of Beirut.
26 March 2005, a suitcase bomb explodes in an industrial zone in northeast Beirut, injuring six.
1 April 2005, nine people are injured in an underground garage in an empty commercial and residential building in Broumana.
􀂃 26 April 2005, the last Syrian troops leave Lebanon ending a 29 year military presence.
6 May 2005, a bomb explodes in Jounieh north of Beirut injuring 29 people.
2 June 2005, journalist Samir Kassir is killed when his car explodes in east Beirut.
21 June 2005, former Lebanese Communist Party leader George Hawi is killed when his car explodes close to his home in Wata Musaytbeh.
30 June 2005, Fouad Siniora, former finance minister under Rafik Hariri, forms the new government composed of 23 ministers.
12 July 2005, Defence Minister Elias Murr is wounded and two other people are killed in a car bomb attack in Beirut.
22 July 2005, at least three people are wounded near rue Monot when a bomb explodes in the Ashrafieh quarter.
22 August 2005, three persons are injured in an explosion in a garage near the Promenade Hotel in the Al-Zalqa area north of Beirut.
16 September 2005, one person is killed and ten others wounded by a bomb near a bank in Ashrafieh.
19 September 2005, one person is killed and two wounded in a small explosion at the Kuwaiti information office in Beirut.
25 September 2005, a car bomb injures prominent news anchor, May Chidiac, in north Beirut.

Mens jeg er i gang med Syrien kan jeg jo lige så godt illustrere hvad det socialistiske diktatur er i stand til at gøre. Jeg har tidligere nævnt at visse grupper i Mellemøsten spiller efter Hama-regler. Begrebet kommer sig af en opstand islamiske fundamentalister organiserede i den syriske by Hama i 1982 som kulmination på en serie af terror-angreb, de havde udført siden 1978. Alvoren gik først rigtigt op for Baath-socialisterne efter et mordforsøg på Syriens diktator Hafez Assad i 1980:

President Assad as he was waiting to welcome the visiting chief of state from Mali to the official visitors' palace in Damascus Assad managed to escape with only a foot injury thanks to the fact that his bodyguard smothered one of the grenades and he himself kicked the other away. His retribution was not long in coming though. At 3:00 the next morning, June27, some eighty members of Rifaat's Defense Companies were dispatched to Tadmur (Palmyra) Prison, which housed hundreds of Muslim Brothers arrested the previous year. According to Amnesty International, the soldiers were divided into groups of 10 and, once inside the prison, were ordered to kill the prisoners in their cells and dormitories. Some 600 to 1,000 prisoners are reported to have been killed. After the massacre, the bodies were removed and buried in a large common grave outside the prison." Throughout the next year, surprise searches of Hama, Aleppo, and other Muslim Brotherhood strongholds became a weekly event During these roundups curbside executions were regularly carried out against youths suspected of involvement with the Islamic underground. More than once Hamawis awoke to find a sidewalk or a central square littered with bullet-riddled bodies. Some more elderly Muslim clerics had half of their mustaches shaved off, their beards burned, or were forced to dance in the streets while wishing President Assad long life"

Kulminationen kom så med den muslimske opstand i Hama i 1982, der blev knust efter 4 ugers gadekampe af Hafez´s bror, den nuværende syriske diktators onkel Rifaat:

Virtually every building in Hama was damaged in some way. Hama's most famous archaeological site, the 1,200-year-old Kaylani family palaces on the banks of the Orontes, were ravaged. Virtually every mosque had its minaret blown down, which wasn't surprising considering that the Muslim Brothers had used them as sniper's nests. ...

Entire families were apparently rousted out of their homes and gunned down on the streets, simply because a single member was listed by Syrian intelligence as being linked to the Brotherhood. Those civilians who could, tried to escape through under ground sewers or bribe their way through the ring of steel the Syrian army had thrown up around Hama, but few were successful. ...

On February 22, the Syrian govemment broadcast a telegram of support addressed to President Assad from the Hama branch of the Baath Party. The message referred to Muslim Brotherhood fighters killing Baath Party officials and leaving their mutilated bodies in the streets. It added that security forces had taken fierce reprisals against the Brotherhood, "which stopped them breathing forever."

For the next several weeks, there was a settling of accounts between the Assad regime and Syria's fourth-largest city; many more people perished as a result. Most of the casualties in Hama apparently were registered during this phase. Syrian army engineers set about systematically dynamiting any buildings which remained standing in "Brotherhood" neighborhoods, with who-ever was inside. Ancient Hama, the marketplace, craft quarters, and mosques, which provided the social fabric for the Muslim Brotherhood to flourish, were totally obliterated. As the army mopped up the city, many of those who had survived or had not fled were brought in for interrogation in makeshift detention camps set up by the Mukhabarat intelligence service. According to the Muslim Brotherhood, something called "Solomon's Chair," which was fitted with iron spikes, was offered to any prisoner who hesitated to talk. Others had their hands welded. The torture and interrogations, according to Ya'ari, were supervised by Colonel Mohammed Nassif, an aide to Rifaat.

Just to make sure that those people who lived in the Muslim Brotherhood districts would be dispersed and forced to find new housing and new jobs at the mercy of the government, Rifaat brought in bulldozers and crushed all those buildings and neighborhoods which had been shelled beyond repair. Then he brought in steamrollers to flatten the rubble like parking lots. According to both Amnesty International and the Muslim Brotherhood, groups of prisoners suspected of anti-government sentiments were taken from detention camps, machine-gunned en masse, and then dumped into pre-dug pits that were covered with earth and left unmarked. Amnesty also quoted allegations that cyanide gas containers were brought into the city, connected by rubber pipes to the entrances of buildings believed to house insurgents, and turned on, killing everyone inside. Virtually the entire Muslim religious leadership in Hama - from sheiks to teachers to mosque caretakers - who survived the battle for the city were liquidated afterward in one fashion or another; most anti-government union leaders suffered the same fate.

Kom så lige og sig, at Amerikanerne var åh-så-onde mod Fallujah.

Henrik

Simpsons tager til Mekka

2005-10-20T21:29:00.000+02:00

Fran ABCNews via HolyCoast.com:

After 17 seasons of entertaining U.S. audiences, "The Simpsons" can now be seen on Arab television. While U.S. foreign policy is not always a hit overseas, there is a huge audience for American popular culture.

So the Arab satellite network MBC is bringing the cartoon saga of Springfield to the heart of the Arab world. "The Simpsons" has been exported overseas and is now called "Al Shamshoon."

The new take on the cartoon classic debuted this month, just in time for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

With Omar instead of Homer, and Badr substituting for Bart, MBC hopes to win coveted young viewers. After all, 60 percent of the Arab world is 20 years old or younger.

"I think 'The Simpsons' will open new horizons for us to the future by creating a new genre of programming that will appeal to young adults in the Middle East," said Michel Costandi, MBC's director of business development.

But with a show that is so disinctly American, Arab media experts say, it's not enough to just translate the language. ...

So MBC is making some changes as the characters go from American to Arab. They will remove references to things forbidden by the Koran, such as bacon, beer and other references that might be construed as offensive.

From American Beer to Arab Soda

Homer Simpson's ubiquitous Duff beer will now be soda in the Arab version of the show.
Hot dogs will become Egyptian beef sausages, and donuts will become popular Arab cookies called "kahk." Moe's Bar has been completely written out of "Al Shamshoon."

Spørgsmålet er så, om det i det hele taget er Simpsons mere. Census in action.

Henrik

Trusler

2005-10-20T21:26:00.000+02:00

Fra CNN:

"They should be afraid, because they will be held accountable for what happened on their watch,"...

"I'm representing the poorest and the most vulnerable people. On a spiritual level, I have that with me. I'm throwing a punch, and the fist belongs to people who can't be in the room, whose rage, whose anger, whose hurt I represent.

Osama bin Laden?

Nej da: Bono.

Henrik

Syrisk ups´er: "snigmord", ikke "selvmord"

2005-10-20T21:13:00.000+02:00

Eftersom FN i morgen offentliggør resultaterne af sin efterforskning af mordet på den libanesiske oppositions-leder Rafiq Hariri, og eftersom alle forventer at det er de syriske efterretningstjenester der står bag, virkede det sært praktisk at den mand der var Syriens mand på stedet i Libanon i mange år for et par dage siden "begik selvmord". Få accepterer den syriske version - at det var selvmord - som sandheden, og Syriens udenrigsminister har da heller ikke selv ligefrem gjort historien mere troværdig. Fra UPI:

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Sharaa erred twice in his eulogy of Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan calling the suicide an "assassination," said an-Nahar.

The public attorney who superintended an autopsy made the same mistake during a televised news conference.

"The 'tongue lapses' buttressed a worldwide conviction that Gen. Kanaan was 'willfully eliminated' to cover up a high-level involvement of the Assad regime in Lebanon's ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination, refuting the official Syrian claim that the 63-year-old general had committed suicide," reported Beirut's an-Nahar newspaper, on its Internet Web site

Sharaa held the Lebanese media and leakages by the U.N. commission responsible for Kanaan's 'assassination' in a televised statement at his funeral on Thursday. He did not correct the first 'slip of the tongue.' Later in the statement Sharaa again called Kanaan's death an 'assassination' with an instant correction of 'pardon, suicide.'

Chief public attorney Muhammad al-Louji told a televised news conference in Damascus Thursday that Kanaan shot himself with a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. Al-Louji said an examination of the body and interviews with witnesses showed "Kanaan placed the tip of the revolver in his mouth and fired it."

"The act of killing, pardon, assassination, occurred at his office in the Interior Ministry at 9:15 a.m. Wednesday. He had left 45 minutes earlier, got into his car and drove home. He spent a little time there before returning to the office," al-Louji said

Hvem tror de selv, de narrer? :-)

Henrik

Endnu en "Apartheid-mur" på muslimsk land

2005-10-20T21:06:00.000+02:00

.....og endnu engang er der ingen, der synes der er noget galt med det. Det er jo kun ondt, når jøder prøber at beskytte sig selv mod at blive massakreret. Fra BBC:

Egypt has started to build a security fence around the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to try to stop attacks on the town, security officials say.

The officials said the fence would stretch for 20km (12 miles) and force vehicles wanting to enter the town to pass through one of four checkpoints. ...

Authorities have finished 2km (1.2 miles) of the 1.5m-high fence on the northern side of the resort and a smaller section on the southern side, Reuters news agency quoted an official as saying.

A town resident told Reuters that one portion would cut off a nearby Bedouin settlement where many workers live.

A security official cited by AFP news agency said the fence was "not meant to stop any particular group of people but prevent terrorist attacks".

Held og lykke til Egypterne - de har jo åbenbart lært af jødernes erfaringer i Israel.

Henrik

Ballade om New Zealands nye udenrigsminister

2005-10-20T20:41:00.000+02:00

New Zealand afholdt for nyligt parlamentsvalg, der førte til dannelsen af en koalitionsregering, blandt andet med deltagelse af New Zealand First-partiet og dets formand Winston Peters, der blev udenrigsminister i den nye regering. Det har ført et sandt ramaskrig med sig:

Opposition National Party leader Don Brash said the decision to give the job to Mr Peters would do "huge damage for our international reputation".

The Australian newspaper described the appointment as a "bad joke".

Sydney's Daily Telegraph described Mr Peters as a "diplomatic nightmare", and other commentators said that by choosing Mr Peters as the foreign affairs minister, New Zealand was sending a negative message to its Asian neighbours.

Men hvad har hr. Peters så sagt? Jo da:

Mr Peters has made many outspoken remarks against immigration, particularly from Asia.
Early in this year's election campaign, he warned against the "militant underbelly" of the small Muslim community in New Zealand.

In 2002 he said the country was at risk because of an influx "of people whose views are formed by alien cultures and rigid religious practices".

Taget de to terrorangreb foretaget af muslimske terrorister i nabolaget (Bali) i betragtning, og de over to hundrede mennesker der blev myrdet og hundredvis flere, der blev lemlæstet, undrer man sig over, hvad f..... problemet er.

Henrik

"kulturelle tidsbomber" - "seriemæssige gruppevoldtægter er næsten uundgåelige"

2005-10-15T14:11:00.000+02:00

Sydney Morning Herald via Faithfreedom.org:

A violent gang rapist should have been given a lesser sentence partly because he was a "cultural time bomb" whose attacks were inevitable, as he had emigrated from a country with traditional views of women, his barrister has argued.

MSK, who, with his three Pakistani brothers, raped several girls at their Ashfield family home over six months in 2002, was affected by "cultural conditioning … in the context of intoxification", Stephen Odgers, SC, told the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday.

MSK, 26, MAK, 25 and MMK, 19, are appealing against the severity of their sentences after they were found guilty of nine counts of aggravated sexual assault in company - a crime carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment - against two girls, aged 16 and 17, in July 2002.
MSK and MMK were jailed for 22 years, with a non-parole period of 16½ years, and 13 years, respectively, and MAK for 16 years (12 years non-parole).

Court orders prevent them being named. They are yet to be sentenced for other rapes.
Mr Odgers said "new evidence" showed MSK had a "mental disorder" at the time of the rapes and had stopped taking his medication - supplied by his father, a general practitioner.
He also said Justice Brian Sully had made a "clear error" in sentencing them to an extra six years on two counts, rather than one - referring to an act in which MMK withdrew his penis and took off the condom and then continued to rape one of the girls.

"It was the same victim, it occurred in the same location, there was no relevant difference in the nature of the act. The time gap between the offences was minimal," he said. Mr Odgers said a forensic psychologist, David Greenberg, had diagnosed MSK with "atypical compulsive obsessive disorder".

MSK said: "When I stopped taking medication, I never had any idea in my mind that I would be committing these problems. If anything happened, it would happen accidentally, but I was commanded to do these things."

After a special hearing, a judge concluded earlier this year that MSK was not mentally ill - the same conclusion reached by pre-sentence psychology reports in 2003.

Mr Odgers said the new evidence showed that he had a disease, which, combined with alcohol and the cultural conditioning of "a society with very traditional views of women", was "clearly a factor in the commissioning of these offences".

"The applicant was a cultural time bomb," Mr Odgers said. "It was almost inevitable that something like this would happen. His culpability is lessened because of that combination."

Vi lader den lige stå lidt i al sin afskyelige ulækkerhed.

Professor Greenberg's report concluded the disorder did not lead MSK to commit the rapes. He also said he may be malingering.

The father, who said at the trials that he was with his sons on the night of the rapes, told the court he had diagnosed MSK with schizophrenia.

"He told me … Satan come to him and tell him different things. He told me that sometimes even the green grass whisper to him."

He refused to place his hand on the Koran when sworn in because he said he had not washed.

A spokesman for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery, said he was unable to confirm whether the father would be charged with perjury over evidence he gave at the trials.

Et ord: kulturberigelse.

Tre ord: fy for satan.

Henrik

Samtale med Præsident Bush

2005-10-15T12:36:00.000+02:00

En af de bedste ting, blogosfærens fremkomst har ført med sig, er en decideret demokratisering af medie-billedet. Det er ikke længere kun journalister, der har monopol på nyhedsdækningen, de folk der berettes om kan nu også komme selvstændigt til orde. Nogle gange er resultatet ikke til mediernes fordel. Fra They Call Us, "Doc":

Yesterday, I (bottom right corner in the picture) was chosen to be among a small group of soldiers assigned to the 42ID's Task Force Liberty that would speak to President Bush, our Commander-in-Chief. The interview went well, but I would like to respond to what most of the mass-media has dubbed as, "A Staged Event."
First of all, we were told that we would be speaking with the President of the United States, our Commander-in-Chief, President Bush, so I believe that it would have been totally irresponsible for us NOT to prepare some ideas, facts or comments that we wanted to share with the President.
We were given an idea as to what topics he may discuss with us, but it's the President of the United States; He will choose which way his conversation with us may go.
We practiced passing the microphone around to one another, so we wouldn't choke someone on live TV. We had an idea as to who we thought should answer what types of questions, unless President Bush called on one of us specifically.

President Bush told us, during his closing, that the American people were behind us. I know that we are fighting here, not only to preserve our own freedoms, but to establish those same freedoms for the people of Iraq. It makes my stomach ache to think that we are helping to preserve free speech in the US, while the media uses that freedom to try to RIP DOWN the President and our morale, as US Soldiers. They seem to be enjoying the fact that they are tearing the country apart. Worthless!
The question I was most asked while I was home on leave in June was, "So...What's REALLY going on over there?" Does that not tell you something?! Who has confidence in the media to tell the WHOLE STORY? It's like they WANT this to turn into another Vietnam. I hate to break it to them, but it's not.

Tomorrow morning, the Iraqi people will vote on their constitution. The success of our mission or the mission of the Iraqi security forces is not defined by the outcome of that vote. If the people of Iraq vote this constitution down, that only means that the FREE, DEMOCRATIC PROCESS is at work in Iraq. They are learning to voice their opinions in the polling stations, not through violence. If it is voted down, they will have the chance to draft an even better version; One that may better serve the people of Iraq. This is up to them. It is history in the making and I will not let the media or anyone else (who has not spent more than two weeks here) tell me otherwise. I have been here for almost a year. I have seen the progress made in so many ways from January's elections to this referendum. Don't tell me what the Iraqi people can or can't do. They will tell you with their VOTES!

If you would like to see our interview with President Bush, you may get it HERE.

Vel brølt.

Henrik

Hvad er der galt med Tyrkerne?

2005-10-15T12:27:00.000+02:00

Fra Coming Anarchy:

First it was a bestseller about the United States attacking Turkey, then Mein Kampf was number 1 (Look at Curzon’s picture, what book is right above Mein Kampf?). Now this: Turks embrace novelist’s war on EU

ISTANBUL The year is 2010 and the European Union has rejected Turkey. Fascist governments have come to power in Germany, Austria and France and are inciting violence against resident Turks and Muslims. A vengeful Turkey joins forces with Russia and declares war against the EU. Turkish commandos besiege Berlin, obliterate Europe and take control of the Continent.

Some critics will be quick to dismiss “The Third World War,” a new futuristic novel by a 30-year-old Turkish writer, Burak Turna, as the wild imaginings of a conspiracy theorist and literary shock jock – and in many ways it is.

But the novel, which dominates bookstore display windows in Istanbul, has sold more than 130,000 copies in just two months and is rising on best-seller lists across the country. As Turkey embarks on 10 years of tortuous talks to join the EU, Turkish observers say the novel’s popularity reflects the growing wariness of Turks about a Europe that is increasingly wary of them.

Men lad os da endelig åbne dørene for 70 millioner muslimer, der gør Mein Kampf til en bestseller.

Henrik

Ris til egen røv - På vej mod forbud mod Koranen i Storbritannien

2005-10-13T23:46:00.000+02:00

En ny lov, der blandt andet vil forbyde udtalelser, der er "fornærmende" og "sandsynligvist vil føre til religiøs vold" og truer med op til syv års fængsel har skabt en del røre i Storbritannien. Hidtil har det primært været de lokale muslimske grupper, der har været for loven, mens talefriheds-forkæmpere har været imod. Nu er muslimerne imidlertid også ved at blive betænkelige, fordi de har fundet ud af, at de selv og deres påstået hellige bog også vil kunne straffes efter loven (CNS news):

Muslims have not been happy, however, at the suggestion that their own religious texts may fall foul of the bill for which they have been pressing for so long.

During an earlier parliamentary debate, last June, Conservative lawmaker Boris Johnson said that "if this bill makes any sense at all, it must mean banning the reading -- in public or private -- of a great many passages of the Koran itself."

He then read aloud several passages from the Koran which deal with the treatment of non-Muslims.Johnson said he acknowledged that the Koran was "not unique" in its hostility to other faiths, but found it ironic that the law was designed to combat "Islamophobia."

His comments prompted a delegation of concerned Muslim figures to visit the member of government responsible for the legislation, Home Office minister Paul Goggins, and urged him to "totally exempt" Islamic texts from the remit of the bill.

En kristen lobby-gruppe har siden bekendtgjort, at hvis loven bliver vedtaget, vil den politi-anmelde alle boghandler der sælger koraner og hadith. Som de siger:

If they aren't hate speech, nothing is."

Muslimerne ville have loven, men havde nok ikke forventet denne udvikling.

Rist til egen røv.

Henrik

Bush´s popularitet - og syv andre præsidenters

2005-10-13T21:20:00.000+02:00

Der er - også i den danske presse (eks Politiken) - blevet gjort meget ud af, at diverse meningsmålinger giver Bush hans laveste popularitet endnu i hans to præsidentperioder. Det er så hvad det er, men nu har Powerline Blog set på, om tilslutningen faktisk er så historisk lav som den bliver fremstillet som:

But are Bush's numbers really that bad? His current Real Clear Politics average stands at 41.7% approval. That is at or about the low point in nearly five years in office. How does it compare to other presidents' lowest poll ratings? Actually, it's not bad. Here are the low approval ratings for the last seven presidents:

*Johnson: 35%
*Nixon: 24%
*Ford: 37%
*Carter: 28%
*Reagan: 35%
*Bush I: 29%
*Clinton: 37%

Yes, that's right: Every president since 1963 has had approval ratings, at one time or another during his administration, at least five points lower than Bush's current nadir.

Henrik

Naturkatastrofer og terrorisme

2005-10-12T20:06:00.000+02:00

Orkanen Katrina ramte for godt halvanden måned siden USA, og kostede lidt over tusinde amerikanere livet. Dengang kunne de islamiske fundamentalister ikke lade være med at hovere:

Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged the U.S. Gulf coast this week, has incited a storm of enthusiasm among Islamist bloggers who claim the destruction was sent by God to torment the American empire. "Katrina, a soldier sent by God to fight on our side ... the soldier Katrina joins us to fight against America," said one Islamist Web site.

Another said: "Allahu akbar [God is greatest]. Soldiers of God, Hurricane Katrina demolishes America. Don't think that God doesn't care about the injustices of tyrants."

Fair nok, det er Allah der sender naturkatastrofer. Så kom jeg til at se BBCs liste over alvorlige jordskælv. Det, der slog mig, var at hvis man ser bort fra et enkelt jordskælv i italien, der kun er taget med fordi en hel skoleklasse omkom, så er hvert evigt eneste af dem, der har fundet sted siden 11. September 2001 er gået ud over muslimske lande. Se selv:

28 March 2005:
About 1,300 people are killed in an 8.7 magnitude quake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Nias, west of Sumatra.

22 February 2005:
Hundreds die in a 6.4 magnitude quake centred in a remote area near Zarand in Iran's Kerman province.

26 December 2004:
Hundreds of thousands are killed across Asia when an earthquake measuring 8.9 triggers sea surges that spread across the region.

24 February 2004:
At least 500 people die in an earthquake which strikes towns on Morocco's Mediterranean coast.

26 December 2003:
More than 26,000 people are killed when an earthquake destroys the historic city of Bam in southern Iran.

21 May 2003:
Algeria suffers its worst earthquake in more than two decades. More than 2,000 people die and more than 8,000 are injured in a quake felt across the sea in Spain.

1 May 2003:
More than 160 people are killed, including 83 children in a collapsed dormitory, in south-eastern Turkey.

24 February 2003:
More than 260 people die and almost 10,000 homes are destroyed in Xinjiang region, in western China.

31 October 2002:
Italy is traumatised by the loss of an entire class of children, killed in the southern village of San Giuliano di Puglia when their school building collapses on them.

Hvad angår Tsunamien sidste år i December, var langt hovedparten af ofrene i Aceh-provinsen i Indonesien, hvor en fundamentalistisk islamist oprørsbevægelse har kæmpet for selvstændighed siden 1970erne. Tilsvarende var hovedparten af ofrene i Sri Lanka i de vestlige provinser, hvor hovedparten af Sri Lankas muslimske indbyggere bor.

Det sidste store jordskælv var så i Pakistan, hvor op mod 40.000 mennesker menes at være omkommet. Naturnødvendigt er jordskælvet også gået ud over terroristerne, der havde deres baser netop i det område, der er værst ramt (via JihadWatch):

From The Statesman:

For all the years of jihad in Kashmir, the capital of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, was the hub of terrorist activity. It had a number of terrorist training camps, far beyond the reach of Indian security agencies. But they have been badly hit by nature.

The fury unleashed by the killer quake, at least, has achieved one thing that both Pakistan and Indian administrations failed to do — that is to clamp down on terror camps and in particular, the terror infrastructure.

The killer quake has crippled militant training camps in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir and the North-west frontier province of Pakistan.

As a result of which the Jihad Council, an umbrella organisation of several militant outfits, has also suspended its activities.

This report contradicts the Jihad Council's directive.

A local Kashmiri newspaper has reported that scores of activists from an Islamic charity linked to a banned Pakistani militant organisation died in the devastating earthquake. Even, the militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiyaba’s offshoot, the Jamat-ud-Dawa’s spokesman said that the charity’s mosques, hospitals, schools and Islamic seminaries were obliterated.

“We have lost many of our members. Several have died, many others are buried under the rubble,” he said.

The Lashkar-e-Taiyaba runs a hospital and a madrasa near Muzaffarabad, which have borne the brunt of the quake’s fury. Twenty kilometres from Muzaffarabad, the Lashkar-e-Taiyaba had three training camps — Kura, Aksa and Abdullah bin Masood. This was the seat of the Lashkar commander, Zaki ur Rehman.

The militant organisation had also set up three new camps in the hills in the north-west of Manshera, called Umar, Abu Bakr and Umar Bin Auf. Each camp had more than 100 militants, many of whom have been badly reportedly affected by the quake that transcended all artificial boundaries while unleashing its own variant of terror. Even Balakot near Muzaffarabad that had the dubious distinction of being the epicentre of cross-border terrorism and was regarded as the nerve-centre of terror by counter-terrorism experts, has also been hit.

Hvis naturkatastroferne som jihadierne siger er Allahs redskaber til at straffe tyranner, hvornår mon terroristerne så selv fatter budskabet?

Henrik

Terror-forsøg i San Diego?

2005-10-12T18:55:00.000+02:00

Fra North County Times:

SAN DIEGO - A man who fatally shot himself in his University City condominium during a standoff with San Diego police was identified Saturday as a 29-year-old student.

An autopsy is scheduled tomorrow on the body of Khaled Yasufi, medical examiner Investigator Sal Rodriguez said.

Police were sent to the 8700 block of Costa Verde Boulevard after someone reported a strong odor coming from a condo about 1 p.m. Friday, SDPD Sgt. Jim Schorr said.

A man in the condo told officers everything was fine and shut the door, Schorr said. Within a couple of minutes, a gunshot was heard, prompting police to clear the building, Schorr said.

Police eventually sent in a camera-equipped robot, which transmitted images of a body in the unit. When officers made entry after a standoff of about six hours, a chemical lab was found in the bathroom of the condo, police said.

Rodriguez said he did not know where Yasufi went to school.

Hvis vi forsigtigt antager, at det "bare" var et narko-laboratorium, hvorfor så tage sit eget liv? Det lugter lidt af, at vi måske har med en islamisk fundamentalist med terror-tendenser at gøre. For under to uger siden sprængte en student i Oklahoma sig selv i luften 100 meter fra er stadion pakket med 84.000 tilskuere. Det har været rapporteret både at han var set ofte i en nærliggende moske, og havde flere sprængstoffer og "jihad-litteratur" i sit hjem.

Henrik

Selvbedrag koster liv

2005-10-12T18:42:00.000+02:00

For en lille uges tid siden havde Nick Cohen et fænomenalt indlæg i The Guardian. Bylinen er sigende:

Liberals will blame anybody else for atrocities rather than accuse murderous Islamic terrorists

Men der er meget mere i resten af artiklen:

Pamela Nowicka of Tourism Concern, which campaigns for eco-friendly holidays, had doubts of her own. She decided that what mattered was that the dead tourists were tourists rather than Australians. 'Many in the global south regard tourism as a new form of colonialism and cultural imperialism,' she wrote in the Guardian. 'While that may be hard for the suntanned holidaymaker to take on board, for the millions of ordinary people servicing their needs - the waiting staff, room cleaners, receptionists, shop workers, guides, massage ladies and taxi drivers - the linkage is clearer.'

Except that the bombers weren't disgruntled room cleaners and taxi drivers. They were members of a totalitarian movement which is against every principle Ms Nowicka professes to support. The first economic consequence of their killings will be to put cleaners and taxi drivers out of work.

I could go on - Mark Curtis, a historian from the Noam Chomsky school, wrote a piece which blamed the bombs on British support for General Suharto's coup a mere 40 years ago - but what needs saying is that no mainstream commentator mentioned that we have the grievance of Indonesian Islamists on the record. It has nothing to do with the foreign policy of the first Wilson administration or stingy tipping in Bali's restaurants. After the 2002 explosions in Bali killed 200, Osama bin Laden declared: 'Australia is the one that we have warned before not to participate in Afghanistan, not to mention its continued awful chapter in East Timor. They ignored our warning and they woke up to the sound of explosions in Bali.'

My guess is that people don't want to look at al-Qaeda's condemnations of Australia's role in saving (largely Catholic) East Timor from destruction by the militias of (largely Muslim) Indonesia. It's too frightening to contemplate; it takes you into the darkness to confront Islamism's impossible and therefore unappeasable demand for a caliphate and reminds you of its imperial urge to dominate Muslims and subjugate all others.

Avoidance of what al-Qaeda stands for began in 9/11 and has become endemic since. My favourite piece of victim blaming was after the Madrid bombings. For a few hours, there was a rumour that they were the work of ETA and Eddie Mair, the presenter of Radio 4's PM news show, duly had a go at a representative of the Spanish government, alleging that Madrid's refusal to talk to Basque nationalists was the root cause of the atrocity.

By the next day, it was clear that Islamists, not Basques, had attacked Madrid. Without pausing for breath, Mair duly wanted to know if the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq was the root cause of the atrocity. The identity of the bombers was irrelevant. The Spanish had to be the cause of their own suffering.

Perhaps it is too easy to mock. When confronted with an ideology which mandates indiscriminate killing on an industrial scale, it is natural to seek rational explanations of the irrational; to pretend that Islamism is merely a reasonable, if bloody, response to legitimate concerns which could be remedied if we elected wiser leaders.

Yet the masochism - 'Kill us, we deserve it!' - the subliminal dislike of democracy and the willingness to turn al-Qaeda into the armed wing of every fashionable campaign from sustainable tourism to the anti-war movement will in the end disgrace the liberals by making them ridiculous.

Man kan håbe.

Henrik

Det går fremad for den irakiske hær

2005-10-12T18:33:00.000+02:00

Ifølge pressen kommer uddannelsen af den irakiske hær ikke rigtigt ud af stedet. Heldigvist passer det billede ikke rigtigt med virkeligheden. Winds of Change har mere:

The 6th Division Assumes Authority: The baby steps continue in the process to build Iraq's new army. This is the sort of thing that gets totally overlooked while the hand-wringers go on and on about how the Iraqi military will never manage to get control of their own country.

Yes, the number of Iraqi battalions capable of independent operations is apparently down to one from three. But no one seems to want to really talk about what the difference between Level 2 (mostly independent) and Level 1 (fully independent) is. At both Level 2 and Level 1 readiness, for instance, the Iraqi forces plan and conduct their own operations. The difference isn't who does the fighting, the difference is who provides logistics, artillery fire support, medical evac, and other non-direct combat support services. ...

During the time the number of Level 1 battalions went from three to one, the number of Level 2 battalions went from about 18 to 36.

Det går fremad. Den irakiske hær er også, efter at have færdiggjort træningen, ved at komme ud i felten for at deltage i nedkæmpningen af "oprørerne":

Additionally, combined U.S.-Iraqi operations and independent Iraqi actions at the company level or above have jumped from about 100 in May to more than 1,300 now, Casey said. Such operations account for 80 percent of the total, he added.

Udmærket.

Henrik

Guerillakrig i Tyrkiet

2005-10-12T16:42:00.000+02:00

Jeg har i nogen tid haft lyst til at lave et indlæg om den guerilla-krig, der er ved at starte op igen blandt Tyrkiets kurdere. Forneden kan i se det billede, jeg har kunnet konsturere ud fra google´s nyheds-søgemaskine. Kurdernes eget billede kan ses her.

Lidt om navne: organisationen der fører kampen for Kurderne i Tyrkiet kaldes normalt PKK. Det er imidlertid dens gamle navn. Den skiftede navn i 2002 til KADEK, og i 2003 til Kongra-Gel eller bare KDK. I det nedenstående bruger jeg bare PKK.

Fredag, 9. September:
- Fire PKK-guerillaer, en af dem en kvinde, bliver dræbt af tyrkiske sikkerhedsstyrker ved landsbyen Cicekli i Tunceli-provinsen.
- Yderligere en "terrorist" bliver dræbt i landsbyen Yaylakonak.

Søndag, 11. September:
- En tyrkisk soldat bliver dræbt, og to andre såret da kurdiske oprørere angriber en gendarmeri-station. Stationen er rimeligvist den "militære post" der nævnes her, hvor det nævnes at den lå nær landsbyen Yazkonagi i Bingöl-provinsen.
- PKK-guerillaer dræber fire tyrkiske soldater, deriblandt en sergent, i en ildkamp nær Sirnak. En mand såres.

Torsdag, 15. September:
- To tyrkiske soldater bliver dræbt, seks andre såret, da deres bil kører over en landmine lagt af PKK i Semdinli-regionen i Hakkari-provinsen.

Lørdag-Søndag 17.-18. September:
- Kurdiske guerillaer åbner ild mod en politistation i byen Van, og dræber to politifolk.

Mandag, 19. September:
- PKK-guerillaer kidnapper borgmesteren i landsbyen Calaca, Abdulkerim Kilic.

Tirsdag, 20. September:
- To tyrkiske soldater bliver såret, da PKK angriber en militærpost i landsbyen Asmakaya i Bingöl-provinsen.

Onsdag, 21 September:
- Anadolu nyhedsagenturet meddeler, at PKK i løbet af den seneste måneds erklærede våbenhvile fra organisationens side har dræbt 11 tyrkiske soldater, og såret 13 andre. De tyrkiske sikkerhedsstyrker har i samme tidsrum dræbt 30 "terrorister" og arresteret to.

Torsdag, 22. September
- Tyrkiske sikkerhedsstyrker dræber tre PKK-guerillaer i byen Van, og sårer to andre.
- En tyrkisk soldat bliver dræbt og fem såret, da deres bil kører over en landmine på vejen mellem Siirt og Eruh.

Mandag 26. September:
- PKK-guerillaer dræber to landsby-vagter på vejen mellem byerne Sirnak og Hakkari.

Tirsdag, 27. September:
- PKK-guerillaer dræber to landsby-vagter på vejen mellem byerne Sirnak og Hakkari.
- Ifølge Reuters har kampe i Tyrkiet kostet 123 mennesker livet i løbet af de sidste tre måneder, sammenlignet med kun 14 i hele 2003.

Onsdag, 28. September:
- Tyrkisk politi får et tip om, at PKK-guerillaer vil begå et angreb, og sætter vejspærringer op. Ved en af vejspærringerne nægter en bil at stoppe, og passagererne åbner ild og sårer tre politifolk. Politiet skyder igen, og dræber begge passagerer i bilen. Politiet finder to kalashikov´er, ammunition og to håndgranater i bilen. Iflg en anden kilde er en af de dræbte i bilen taxi-chaufføren Edip Aydin Gül.

Søndag, 2. Oktober:
- En bombe eksploderer i Yuksekova i Hakkari-provinsen. Da politiet kommer til for at undersøge forholdene eksploderer en anden bombe, og sårer fire af dem.
- En demonstrant bliver dræbt, da politiet åbner ild på kurdere, der demonstrerer for løsladelse af PKKs fængslede leder Abdullah Öcalan.

Onsdag, 5. Oktober:
- En bombe eksploderer i en sko-butik i Oral forretnings-centeret i den europæiske del af Istanbul, dræber en og sårer syv. Politiet mener den dræbte og to af de sårede var igang med at bygge bomben, da den gik af ved et uheld.

Torsdag, 6. Oktober:
- PKK afslutter den ensidige våbenhvile organisationen erklærede den 20. august.

Lørdag, 8. Oktober:
- PKK-guerillaer opretter en vejspærring på vejen mellem Midyat by i Mardin-provinsen og Idil by i Sirnak-provinsen, og kidnapper politimanden Hakan Acil fra en af de stoppede biler.

Søndag, 9. Oktober:
- 8.000 tyrkiske soldater støttet af helikoptere begynder en offensiv mod kurdiske oprørere i Tunceli-provinsen.
- En minibus kører på en landmine lagt af PKK, og syv civilister bliver såret.

Mandag, 10. Oktober:
- Tyrkiske soldater dræber tre kurdiske oprørere i Tunceli-provinsen. Andetsteds stopper kurdiske oprørere en politimands bil ved en vejspærring de har oprettet, og kidnapper ham.
- Tre tyrkiske soldater bliver såret i Yayladere by i Bingöl-provinsen, da deres militær-køretøj rammer en mine plantet af PKK.
- Ifølge en ny rapport dør 46,5% af de, der kæmper i Kurdistans bjerge for PKK inden for to år. 21,3% dør efter mellem 2 og 4 år, og 21,3% mellem 4 og 8 år. Kun ni procent overlever mere end 8 år.

Tirsdag, 11. Oktober
- Et barn såret sammen med seks andre civile i lørdags, da deres bil rammer en mine plantet af PKK i byen Van i Van-provinsen, dør.

Onsdag, 12. Oktober: Kurdiske guerillaer dræber 5 tyrkiske soldater i en ildkamp i landsbyen Cirali i Tunceli-provinsen

Henrik

Det langsomme kup i Nicaragua

2005-10-10T00:23:00.000+02:00

Jeg har før blogget om det langsomme kup venstreradikale og korrupte politikere er i gang med at gennemføre mod Nicaraguas folkevalgte præsident. Her lidt mere fra New York Times:

Nicaragua has gone from real dictatorship to false democracy. There are regular elections, but the country is at risk of becoming like many of its neighbors, where the will of the people is thwarted because elected presidents are toppled in midterm.

In Nicaragua, two strongmen have stripped President Enrique Bolaños of most of his powers and have been threatening to have him impeached. Mr. Bolaños, a conservative and former businessman, is overmatched by these two figures, who are united mostly by self-interest. One is Arnoldo Alemán, a conservative former president who stole huge sums of money and was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2003. But he was recently freed by a judiciary controlled by the second strongman, Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista leader, whose career seemed over just a few years ago.

At the time, Mr. Ortega's stepdaughter accused him of sexually abusing and raping her starting when she was 11. But the courts dismissed the charges under the statute of limitations, and Mr. Ortega regained enough strength to purge the Sandinista party of reformers and challengers. These two men control the Legislature, which has drastically reduced Mr. Bolaños's powers, while the Sandinistas control the courts and the electoral council.

Ortega som pædofil voldtægtsmand? Endnu et venstreorienteret ikon mister glansen.

Henrik

Nyt fra Afrika: etnisk udrensning

2005-10-09T21:46:00.000+02:00

Fra BBC:

Botswana's police commissioner said Tuesday that officers had fired rubber bullets to disperse a group of about 35 Bushmen protesting their eviction from ancestral lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. ...

The Kalahari Bushmen said their leader, Roy Sesana, was arrested and beaten by police. One protester was shot in the jaw and hospitalized, according to a tribal spokesman who did not want to be named for fear of police retaliation.

De sidste par uger har der været en del fokus på, at hundredvis af negre har forsøgt at storme tre meter høje pigtrådsbesatte hegn for at komme ind i Spanien. Samtidig er det gået hen over de flestes hoveder, at Bantu-ekspansionen lige så stille er ved at nå vejs ende i det sydlige afrika.

Lidt forklaring:

For omtrent to tusinde år siden, da Romerriget var på sit højeste, var bantufolkene en lille flok stammefolk i det sydøstlige Nigeria. Idag har de overtaget hele det centrale, sydlige og østlige Afrika, og har totalt fortrængt de oprindelige befolkninger. Pygmæerne er enten blevet trængt langt ind i centralafrikas jungler, eller er gået til grunde. Khoisan-folkene er - fra at have beboet hele syd- og østafrika - blevet trængt tilbage til nogle få reservater i Namibia og Botswanas goldeste ørkener.

Alt dette for at få plads til Bantuerne.

Dette er normalt kendt under navnet Bantu-ekspansionen, og har stået på i to tusinde år. De europæiske magter koloni-regimer stoppede ekspansionen midlertidigt fra 1700-tallet, men efter kolonierne fik deres selvstændighed igen i sidste århundrede er ekspansionen fortsat. Denne har for eksempel taget ovennævnte form, hvor det bare er et spørgsmål om at fængsle de, hvis jord og ressourcer der skal overtages, og skyde på dem med gummikugler hvis de ikke makker ret.

Når det drejer sig om pygmæerne har bantuerne været knapt så flinke. I Congo:

DR Congo pygmies 'exterminated'

The International Criminal Court is being urged to investigate "a campaign of extermination" against pygmies in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

An international human rights group, says it is presenting a dossier to the ICC in The Hague on Tuesday containing compelling witness statements.

Minority Rights Group International say they have gathered evidence of mass killings, cannibalism and rape. ...

However, many Congolese regard them as "subhuman" with some believing their flesh can confer magical powers.

Mere om Congo her. I Burundi:

Pygmies flee after Burundi poll

Some 600 pygmies, or Twa, have fled Burundi for neighbouring Rwanda to escape persecution and hunger, officials say.

Twa MP Liberata Nichayenzi said the majority had fled because of intimidation by ethnic Hutus.

Man vil huske, det også var hutuer, der stod bag folkemordet på Tutsierne i Rwanda. I Sydafrika er midlerne der bliver brugt til at overtage andre folks ressourcer en blanding af blød pression og en decideret campagne af mord og tortur. Et eksempel på det første:

The South African government has criticised diamond firm De Beers for appointing a "lily-white" male boss. ...

Firms are being urged to promote and hire more black employees to redress damage done by the apartheid regime.

The government is implementing rules and legislation that are designed to spread ownership of South African firms to the black majority.

Et eksempel på det sidste, en BBC-historie fra 2003:

On the side of a motorway in northern South Africa, white couples held hands with their heads bowed, as a quiet prayer was uttered for 1,500 white farmers who have been murdered since apartheid ended in 1992.

The murders, often horrific in their brutality, are on the increase, according to a report by South Africa's Human Rights Commission.

Aatie Vermaak, a third generation white farmer, drove down a long dirt road on his farm showing us where he had been attacked in January.

Black assailants had followed him, and when he stopped his car they shot him the stomach.
Mr Vermaak was intensive care for a month, his gall bladder had to be removed, his liver was in pieces, and he nearly died.

"They stole nothing. They just shouted kill the dog, kill the dog," he said.

'Kill the farmer'

Like many white farmers who have suffered similar attacks Mr Vermaak thinks the attack was racist.

His farm is near the town of Polokwane, where just a year ago thousands of black South Africans gathered for the funeral of a prominent ANC activist.

"Kill the Boer! Kill the Farmer," they chanted in unison to the beat of a warlike dance.

Året efter var antallet af dræbte hvide farmere kommet op på 1700. Det skal ses i sammenhæng med, at antallet af hvide farme - i hvert fald før mordene begyndte at drive farmerne væk - lå på godt 40.000. Flugten af hvide farmere har sat den sydafrikanske regering i stand til at omfordele billig landbrugsjord uden, som Mugabe i Zimbabwe, at ty til statssponsorerede racemord.

Men slutresultatet er der ikke megen forskel på.

Henrik

Mere ballade i Palæstina

2005-10-03T17:06:00.000+02:00

Khaleej Times:

Palestinian policemen stormed into Gaza’s parliament building on Monday to demand a crackdown on militants, and deputies urged President Mahmoud Abbas to sack the cabinet for failing to stamp out armed chaos in Gaza.

The two challenges highlighted Abbas’s uphill struggle to impose law and order in Gaza to make it the proving ground of a future Palestinian state after Israel’s withdrawal of settlers and soldiers was completed last month.

“We are on the verge of civil war if the situation remains out of control,” said Qaddoura Fares, a reformist legislator with Abbas’s mainstream Fatah movement.

Nu har terrororganisationen Hamas kostet mere end 20 arabere livet siden den israelske tilbagetrækning, så mon ikke det var på tide at Abas begyndte at slå ned på dem?

Henrik

Nye løgnehistorier fra al Qaeda?

2005-10-03T11:53:00.000+02:00

al Qaeda påstår, at organisationen har taget to amerikanske marineinfanterister til fange i Irak. Amerikanerne er alt andet end imponerede over kravet:

"I have not heard anything about any of our folks being taken. I would suspect that these are unfounded rumours, as that is what has happened in the past."

Ja, det må man nok sige. De irakiske "frihedskæmpere" har en mani med at lyve hurtigere end en kamel kan løbe om hvor seje de er. Sidste år afholdt de således et forsinket karneval, da 36 af dem klædte sig ud som amerikanske soldater, så de kunne videofilme hinanden og lyve om at have taget 36 amerikanere som fanger.

I Februar løj de også om at have taget en amerikansk soldat til fange - den gang viste gidslet sig at være en action-dukke.

Så troværdigheden er pt ikke særligt høj.

Henrik

65 halal-fanatikere farer til helvede

2005-10-03T11:46:00.000+02:00

.....eller hvor islamiske fanatikere nu ender når de bliver aflivet. Afghanske tropper stod for aflivningen af 28 fanatikere (CNN):

Insurgents attacked an Afghan army position near Angore Adda in Paktika province late Sunday, triggering a four-and-a-half hour clash with both sides using heavy weapons, said ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammed Zaher Azimi.

He said the militants eventually fled, leaving behind 28 dead bodies of their fighters. Four Afghan army soldiers were injured, one seriously.

I Pakistan var kampene en del hårdere (CNN):

Pakistani troops battled suspected al Qaeda and Taliban militants for a third straight day in the mountainous region along the Afghan border, known as North Waziristan, a Pakistani intelligence official told CNN Sunday.

The fighting and related operations have left at least 37 militants and 14 soldiers dead. Three soldiers were killed in the overnight fighting and eight more were wounded.

According to the intelligence official, the Pakistani army killed two "terrorists" and arrested two others after an exchange of gunfire at a checkpoint in North Waziristan. The army recovered important documents from the militants, the official said.

Jamen god arbejdslyst, da.

Update:

Der er også gode nyheder fra Irak:

U.S. troops battled insurgents holed up in houses and driving explosives-laden vehicles in a second town near the Syrian border Sunday, killing 28 in an expansion of their two-day-old offensive chasing al-Qaida fighters along the Euphrates River valley, the military said.

Henrik

Inter-arabiske kampe i Palæstina

2005-10-02T23:39:00.000+02:00

Lige så snart jøderne er ude går araberne i gang med at slå hinanden ihjel (fra BBC):

A Palestinian police commander and a civilian have been killed in Gaza City in clashes between security forces and Hamas Islamic militants.

More than 40 other people were injured in the fighting which flared up when police tried to stop a car in Gaza City carrying Hamas activists. ..

The BBC's Alan Johnston reports that the Gaza clashes were sporadic but, at times, intense exchanges of fire and occasionally the sound of grenade blasts echoed across the city.

Grenade attacks

Police and Hamas militants briefly exchanged gunfire in a clash on Nasser Street, which police say began when they were attacked by Hamas supporters as they tried to resolve a minor dispute.

Hamas said the police were trying to detain Mohammed al-Rantissi, son of Abdel Aziz Rantissi, the Hamas leader killed in an Israeli air strike last year.

Fighting spread to two other parts of Gaza City, with Hamas supporters attacking police stations there.

Reports say Hamas members used rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades.

Borgerkrig i sigte?

Update:

Ynetnews har en del flere detaljer om kampene i Gaza, komplet med Hamas-terrorister der bombarderer politistationer med morter-granater. Ifølge CBC er mindst 10 af de sårede politifolk.

De fattige som kanonfodder - endnu en myte om USA punkteret

2005-10-02T21:33:00.000+02:00

Det er - hovedsageligt fra venstreorienteret hold - en populær myte, at USA´s militær i overvældende grad rekrutterer sine soldater fra de fattige befolkningslag. Antiamerikanere ser velvillig bort fra at USA ikke tvinger sine unge til at blive soldater, men udelukkende bruger frivillige, og ender så op med et fordrejet billede af virkeligheden, hvor onde kapitalister presser USAs fattige (helst fattige sorte) til at være kanonfodder i diverse "imperialistiske" krige. For olie. Problemet er, at det bare ikke har så meget med virkeligheden at gøre. Følgende grafik siger faktisk det hele (Tapscotts Copy Desk via Grim´s Hall):

Økonomen Dr. Tim Kane fra The Heritage Foundations center for data-analyse har analyseret statistisk materiale fra 1999 og 2003 over rekrutter til det amerikanske forsvar fra det amerikanske forsvarsministerium. Når rekrutterne fordeles på deres hjemstavn (postnumre) efter indkomstniveau viser der sig et interessant billede:
Tallene fra 1999 - altså fredstid - viser at både den fattigste og den rigeste femtedel er lidt underrepræsenteret - de fattige lidt mere end de rige.

Det interessante er imidlertid billedet fra 2003, da USA har været i krig i 2 år. Nu er den eneste femtedel der er underrepræsenteret blandt rekrutterne den fattigste - endda voldsomt underrepræsenteret. Til gengæld er den rigeste femtedel rykket op på en plads hvor den er den anden mest overrepræsenterede. Den mest overræpræsenterede er den næstrigeste.

Med andre ord førte det at soldaterne faktisk blev skudt på til, at de rige begyndte at melde sig i STØRRE antal, mens de fattige begyndte at melde sig i MINDRE antal.

Samtidig har Grim´s Hall et link til Pentagons egen analyse af rekrutteringen de sidste 30 år. Der kan man notere sig, at de eneste regioner der er overrepræsenterede i rekrutteringen i forhold til befolkningen er Syden og Rocky Mountains-delen af Vesten - kerneområderne for det republikanske parti.

Rimeligt interessant, hvis man spørger mig.

Henrik

Massiv bestikkelse af vælgere med oliepenge

2005-10-02T21:24:00.000+02:00

Jeg har tidligere blogget om det snigende venstreorienterede kup i Nicaragua. Idag faldt jeg over en artikel på BBC om hvordan Venezuelas venstreorienterede præsident Chavez forsøger at købe Nicaraguanske stemmer til den derværende venstrefløj ved at levere billig olie til dem, mens resten af landet lider under de nuværende høje oliepriser:

Nicaragua's left-wing opposition party has announced an agreement to buy Venezuelan oil at preferential rates.

Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega said councils governed by the party would be able to buy oil at a 40% discount.

Amter der ikke har stemt på Sandinisterne får så bare ikke nogen del i handlen.

Henrik

Intelligente grupper

2005-10-02T21:03:00.000+02:00

Forleden, mens jeg klikkede mig vej rundt på Amazon.com, kom jeg tilfældigvis forbi bogen "The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations" af James Surowiecki. Jeg har ikke selv læst den (endnu da - den står på min ønskeseddel), men anmeldelserne lyder lovende:

While our culture generally trusts experts and distrusts the wisdom of the masses, New Yorker business columnist Surowiecki argues that "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." To support this almost counterintuitive proposition, Surowiecki explores problems involving cognition (we're all trying to identify a correct answer), coordination (we need to synchronize our individual activities with others) and cooperation (we have to act together despite our self-interest). His rubric, then, covers a range of problems, including driving in traffic, competing on TV game shows, maximizing stock market performance, voting for political candidates, navigating busy sidewalks, tracking SARS and designing Internet search engines like Google. If four basic conditions are met, a crowd's "collective intelligence" will produce better outcomes than a small group of experts, Surowiecki says, even if members of the crowd don't know all the facts or choose, individually, to act irrationally. "Wise crowds" need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions. The diversity brings in different information; independence keeps people from being swayed by a single opinion leader; people's errors balance each other out; and including all opinions guarantees that the results are "smarter" than if a single expert had been in charge.

Tænk på den.

Update:

Et afsnit fra en anden anmeldelse fik mig til at smile:

Still, it’s a thought-provoking, timely book: the TV studio audience of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire guesses correctly 91 percent of the time, compared to “experts” who guess only 65 percent correctly.

Denne holder kun hvor ideologi ikke virker ind. I Rusland, for eksempel, er publikum notorisk berygtet for at vildlede deltagerne ved at give dem forkerte svar. Mon ikke tre generationers venstreorienteret tilpasning af fakta til hvordan man gerne vil have dem til at være har en del af skylden - plus selvfølgelig misundelse mod dem der kan få det bedre end man selv har det.

Henrik

Velfærdsnarkomani

2005-10-02T20:05:00.000+02:00

Jyllandsposten via Angantyrs Hjørne:

Forfatteren og redaktøren Henning B. Fonsmark beskrev allerede i 1990 problemet i sin essaysamling "Historien om den danske utopi": »Det politiske system har fået det besynderlige problem på halsen, at en majoritet af dets vælgere er blevet inhabile.«Udtrykket dækker over, at over 60 pct. af den danske befolkning over 15 år i dag er afhængige af indtægter fra det offentlige. I reelle tal drejer det sig om 2,6 mio. af 4,4 mio. Af disse er 1,8 mio. afhængige af overførselsindkomster, og 900.000 af dem er folk i den arbejdsdygtige alder, som kunne arbejde, hvis de havde mulighed for det, eller for nogens vedkommende blev håndfast tilskyndet til det.

Dertil kommer en pæn del af de 833.000 offentligt ansatte, som alene er beskæftiget med at administrere overførselsindkomsterne. Denne overvældende gruppe af den danske befolkning er, hvad den akademiske verden kalder velfærdskoalitionen. Et flertal af den samlede vælgerskare har altså ikke nogen overvældende personlig interesse i, at politikerne gennemtvinger reformer, der kunne blive ubekvemme for den enkelte.

Læs selv resten.

Henrik

Dansker dræbt i Irak

2005-10-01T18:02:00.000+02:00

Fra Forsvarskommandoens pressemeddelelse:

En dansk soldat blev dræbt og to soldater hårdt såret, da en vejsidebombe i dag klokken 12:30 blev bragt til detonation omkring Al Harta i det sydlige Irak.

Udover den dræbte og de to hårdt sårede soldater fik én overfladiske skrammer, mens andre fire soldater er uskadte. De to hårdt sårede er blevet evakueret til et britisk felthospital.

Siden er de to hårdt såredes tilstand blevet stabiliseret, og de pårørende er ved at blive underrettet.

Den faldne er den femte danske soldat der er blevet dræbt i Krigen mod Terror, men den første hvor årsagen faktisk er fjendtlige aktiviteter - Overkonstabel Preben Pedersen døde af et vådeskud i Irak i 2003, og Overkonstablerne Kim Carlsen og Brian J. N. Andersen og Oversergent Thomas K. Butzkowsky blev dræbt sammen med to tyske kolleger i 2002, da de desarmerede gammel ammunition som de kommunistiske invasionsstyrker efterlod i Afghanistan da de trak sig ud i 1989.

Andre Danske ofre for terror inkluderer de tre piger der blev dræbt i det islamiske terror-angreb på Bali i 2002 (se sidste indlæg) og Christoffer Burmeister (27), der blev skudt og dræbt af en Palæstinensisk terrorist på toppen af Empire State Building i 1997.

Henrik

Nyt islamisk terrorangreb på Bali

2005-10-01T17:42:00.000+02:00

Som i 2002 har islamiske terrorister slået til mod turist-destinationen Bali. Tingene udvikler sig stadig, men indtil videre lader det til, at der har været tre bombe-eksplosioner, to kl. 19:20 i Nyoman Caféen i Jimbaran, og en i Raja bar og restaurant-komplekset kl 19:42 ved Kuta´s torv.

Ifølge The Jakarta Post er mindst 19 blevet dræbt og 51 såret, og blandt de sårede er der i hvert fald 8 australiere og 2 amerikanere, foruden 28 Indonesere.

Ifølge New Kerala.com, et normalt velunderrettet indisk newssite er antallet af dræbte mindst 30, deriblandt i hvert fald én turist, en japaner. Samme kilde nævner, at de indonesiske myndiheder mener to islamiske fra Jemaa Islamiya - Noordin og Azahari - står bag bomberne.

I 2002 blev tre danske piger, der var på sprogskole på Bali - Annete Overgård Jensen (22), Lærke Cecille Bødker (21) og Lise Tanghus Knudsen (19) dræbt i et lignende angreb på uskyldige.

Update:

Ifølge The Jakarta Post er der blandt de 19 der indtil videre er blevet rapporteret dræbt fire udlænginge, deriblandt en australier.

Henrik

"Et skalkeskjul for forbenet propaganda" - Muslimer i Dialog

2005-10-01T15:15:00.000+02:00

I mandags afholdt Muslimer i Dialog et såkaldt debatmøde om Terror. Til lejligheden var Jeppe Kofoed (udenrigsordfører for S), Lars Erslev Andersen (terrorekspert) og Yvonne Ridley (konvertit-islamisk hystade og journalist) inviteret. Filtrat har gravet lidt i sagen, har blandt andet fundet et læserbrev Lars Erslev Andersen siden skrev om begivenheden, og studser over at de organiserende muslimer gennemførte en streng kønsadskillelse i publikum.

Personligt kan jeg jo kun bifalde at muslimerne så åbent udstiller deres kønsfascistiske tvangstanker, men undres istedet over at Filtrat ikke har grebet fat i noget jeg synes er betydeligt mere foruroligende. Fra Lars Erslevs læserbrev, under titlen "Debat uden dialog":

Selv troede jeg ikke mine egne ører, da Ridley på mit spørgsmål, om hun ikke synes, det er et problem, at islamister distribuerer videoer i rekrutteringsøjemed med de slagtninger af gidsler, terroristerne i Irak står bag, svarede, at det var nødvendigt for muslimer at have disse videoer hjemme som alternativ nyhedsformidling til de vestlige mediers propaganda. At betragte disse slagtescener som alternativ og nødvendig nyhedsformidling forekommer mig at være udtryk for en syg tankegang, og at synspunktet oven i købet fremkaldte applaus fra publikum, gjorde mig forstemt. ...

Om eftermiddagen havde jeg i Statsministeriet ihærdigt argumenteret for nødvendigheden af dialog mellem de muslimske indvandrersamfund og det danske samfund. Jeg må indrømme, at jeg mandag aften tvivlede meget på nytten af en sådan dialog, hvis en person som Yvonne Ridley betragtes som en repræsentativ talskvinde for foreninger som "Muslimer i Dialog". Så er dialog blot et skalkeskjul for forbenet propaganda.

Tja.......hvad forventede Lars Erslev egentligt af hovednavnet er islamisk propagandist, en af ordstyrerne islamisk imam, og selve mødet organiseret af en jævn blanding af islamisterne i Muslimer i Dialog og de venstreradikale i bevægelsen Nej til Krig.

Plakaten for mødet kan for øvrigt ses her.

Henrik

Dialog, islam og rockere

2005-10-01T15:10:00.000+02:00

Farshad Kolghi har en skarp kommentar til det nylige dialogmøder med herboende muslimer - fra Groft Sagt i Berlingeren 26. September (tak til Steen):

Et konstruktivt forslag En stor Bandidos-sag er nu gået i gang ved et nævningeting i Østre Landsret. Stærke beviser peger på to af de fire tiltalte. De to rockere er tiltalt for at have overfaldet fængselsinspektør Jens Tolstrup uden for hans hjem i 2002. Ligeledes sætter DNA-spor disse to rockere i forbindelse med røveriet mod købmanden Kay Uwe Jensen, hvor de skulle have truet købmanden med revolver og have krævet 455.000 kr. På retssagens første dag nægtede de tiltalte at udtale sig.Rockerne har gennem tiderne været med til at sprede terror i samfundet og i flere tilfælde gøre borgerne en anelse utrygge. Med trusler om vold og dummebøder har disse helvedes faldne engle gjort sig skyldige i mange brækkede næser og knirkende ribben. Groft sagt er bekymret over denne udvikling, og efter mange timers ihærdige overvejelser er vi kommet frem til et forslag. Måske var det på tide, at statsministeren inviterede lederne af de forskellige rockerorganisationer til et møde på Marienborg for gennem »konstruktiv dialog« at finde frem til en metode til bekæmpelse af rockerkriminaliteten.Farshad Kholghi

Ah, Ironi.

Henrik

Det venstreorienterede universitet

2005-10-01T15:02:00.000+02:00

The Weekly Standard har en usandsynligt god artikel om det moderne universitets historie i USA i de sidste 200 år. Hele artiklen er ubetinget værd at læse, især for dens konklusioner omkring universiteternes (eller i hvert fald de amerikanske af af slagsen) tilstand idag. En smagsprøve:

For a generation now, universities have promoted research and coursework in something called "multiculturalism," a doctrine that purports to encourage study of foreign societies and cultures. After the terrorist attacks in 2001, however, we quickly learned that the nation had trained few specialists who understood the Arabic language or Islamic cultures and who might help us understand and counter this new threat. It turned out that multiculturalism was not at all about studying foreign cultures and languages, since this requires real effort, but rather about mobilizing various national groups to exert political influence within the United States. In terms of content, "multiculturalism" was every bit as hollow as "diversity."

Læs det hele.

Henrik

Islamiske terrorangreb forhindret i Paris

2005-10-01T14:26:00.000+02:00

For nogle dage siden arresterede fransk politi 9 mand under en razzia mod islamiske ekstremister i Paris. Fire af dem er nu under efterforskning for at planlægge terrorangreb i Frankrig. Fra The Guardian:

The men were among nine people arrested in police raids Monday to the west and northwest of Paris. The sweep came after a tip from Algerian authorities, who informed the French that a suspect they had recently arrested spoke of planned attacks by the cell in France.

The four suspects include Safe Bourada, the cell's suspected leader who was a previously convicted Islamic militant, and three of his accomplices.

Authorities have said they believe that the alleged cell's targets included the Paris subway, one of the French capital's airports and the headquarters of the police intelligence and counterterrorism agency known as the DST. ..

Bourada was among 36 Islamic militants sentenced in February 1998 for providing support for bomb attacks that terrorized France in 1995. He received the maximum 10-year sentence, but won early release in 2003. Police say he had been under surveillance ever since.

Man spekulerer på hvorfor faen en af mændene bag en serie af terrorangreb overhovedet bliver løsladt efter kun at have udstået halvdelen af sin straf. Men franskmændene om det.

Henrik

Islamiske terrorangreb forhindret i Los Angeles

2005-10-01T13:50:00.000+02:00

Fra CNN:

Three men charged in a terror investigation were planning shooting rampages at Los Angeles-area military sites ..

The men were indicted last month on federal charges of conspiring to wage war against the U.S. government through terrorism. All three -- Levar H. Washington, 25, Gregory V. Patterson, 21, and Hammad R. Samana, 21 -- have pleaded not guilty.

Appearing in Los Angeles Thursday, FBI Director Robert Mueller praised local police agencies that uncovered the alleged plot in July while investigating a string of gas station robberies. ..

The suspects allegedly targeted military recruitment centers in Southern California, estimating that 10 attacks could kill as many as 40 people, the affidavit said.

Patterson's lawyer, Winston McKesson, said his client had asked him not to comment on the case. Lawyers for Washington and Samana, a student originally from Pakistan, did not return calls seeking comment.

Samana told investigators the three men planned to storm a facility with firearms in September or October, then flee in a vehicle, the affidavit said. ..

Prosecutors contend the men were working at the behest of Kevin James, a California State Prison, Sacramento, inmate who founded the radical group Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, or JIS. Washington converted to Islam while imprisoned there for a previous robbery conviction.
James, 29, is scheduled to be arraigned next week. All four face counts of conspiring to wage war against the U.S. government, kill armed service members or murder foreign officials, among other charges.

Washington, Patterson and Samana -- who attended the same Inglewood mosque -- allegedly conducted surveillance of military sites, synagogues, the Israeli Consulate and El Al airline facilities in the Los Angeles area as well as Internet research on Jewish holidays, prosecutors said. ..

Prosecutors suspect that Washington, Patterson and Samana robbed gas stations in Los Angeles and Orange counties to finance their plans.

Læg mærke til deres navne - en er Pakistaner, tre indfødte amerikanere. De tre sidste er alle sorte, og i hvert fald to af dem er nylige konvertitter. I Danmark er der anslået 5.000 danske kovertitter til Islam.

Milnet har mere, blandt andet:

"A search of the Los Angeles apartment of Mr. Washington, a former gang member who was recently released from prison in Folsom, Calif., yielded what the police called radical jihadist literature, bulletproof vests and the addresses of nearly two dozen sites in Southern California that may have been chosen for terrorist attacks. The sites included National Guard recruitment centers, the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles, several synagogues and the El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport

A senior Los Angeles police commander, Assistant Chief George Gascon, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that investigators believed the group had planned to carry out attacks around Sept. 11 or on the Jewish High Holy Days, Oct. 4-13.

...Mr. Washington and Mr. Patterson were friends, ... they had attended a mosque in Los Angeles together and ... Mr. Samana, the third man in custody, had been seen with them by Torrance police officers who had them under surveillance in connection with the gas station holdups. He said he knew nothing more about their relationship

....the authorities apparently believed that Mr. Patterson and Mr. Washington had held up the gas stations to raise money to finance terrorist activities."

Nogle vil måske huske, at El Als billetskranke i LA´s lufthavn allerede en gang siden 11. September har været udsat for et islamisk terrorangreb. 4. Juli 2002 åbnede en egypter ild på den, dræbte to israelere og sårede seks andre før han selv blev slået ihjel.

Henrik

DU KRÆNGER BARNETS MENNESKERETTIGHEDER!!!!

2005-10-01T13:40:00.000+02:00

Engang i mellem spekulerer man på, hvad faen der går galt for menneskerets-fanatikerne. Nu har et engelsk hospital besluttet sig for, at det at spørge til andre folks spædbørn eller pludre med dem er en krænkelse af deres menneskerettigheder. Fra The Times:

Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax, West Yorkshire, has also banned well-wishers from asking mothers about their babies. The rules have been introduced by neonatal staff to protect the babies’ “right to privacy”. Debbie Lawson, neonatal manager at the Special Care Baby Unit, said that the barrage of questions infringed a child’s human rights.

“We know people have good intentions, and most people cannot resist cooing over new babies, but we need to respect the child. Cooing should be a thing of the past because these are little people with the same rights as you or me,” she said. ...

New regulations have been introduced throughout the maternity unit. One ward has put a doll in a cot on display, with a message that reads: “What makes you think I want to be looked at?” Mrs Lawson said: “Hopefully our message comes across loud and clear. The Government has set a benchmark that every patient has a right to privacy and dignity, and we say that includes tiny babies as well.

Hvad fanden går der galt for dem?

Henrik

I Sverige er det svenske flag racistisk. Jojo, den er godt nok.

2005-09-30T15:38:00.000+02:00

Fra Expressen:

Linda Larsson och Charlotte Bertelsen har gjort det mest förbjudna. De har tagit på sig tröjor med symboler för Sverige. Skulle de gå till skolan i så anstötliga saker blir de hemskickade på stört. Sånt är livet på Gullhögskolan i Vårgårda.

Stars and Stripes og andre flag er OK - det er kun det svenske der er forbudt i Sverige. Tag selv til linket og se billedet af de to "racistiske" trøjer.

Henrik

Mere "frihedskamp" i Irak

2005-09-30T15:33:00.000+02:00

Fra CNN:

A separate attack on a minibus in the al-Mushtal neighborhood of southeastern Baghdad killed two employees of al-Shaab International Stadium and wounded seven others.

In a third attack, two people were killed and third was wounded when gunmen opened fire at al-Mustafa bakery in the al-Dora area in the southern Baghdad.

Ja, det har sikkert været undertrykkende, amerikanske sportarter der blev spillet på stadionet, og undertrykkende, amerikanske brød der blev bagt på bageriet.

Henrik

Spanierne er jo ikke jøder, må i forstå

2005-09-30T14:51:00.000+02:00

Fra Wall Street Journal, 26. September (intet link):

The "security fence" consists of two high-rise metal fences, topped by razor wire and equipped with sensor pads, movement detectors, spotlights and infrared cameras. It's patrolled 24 hours a day by the military. The six mile-long barrier, which many Arabs believe stands on occupied land ringing an illegal settlement, will now be doubled in height to 20 feet, making it higher than the old Berlin Wall.

No, we're not talking about Israel's security barrier. The "apartheid wall" described above surrounds Melilla which, together with Ceuta, is a leftover of Spain's colonial past in northern Africa. Surrounded by Morocco, both enclaves are claimed by Rabat.

In the last few weeks alone, hundreds of black Africans trying to cross into Melilla have clashed with Spanish troops leaving dozens of would-be immigrants injured. Doctors Without Borders criticizes the "violence" used by the Spanish security forces. Three Africans have died in or near Melilla in unclear circumstances. Spanish police deny any responsibility for the deaths.

There's more than a hint of hypocrisy here. While Spain and much of Europe condemn Israel for building a security fence on disputed territory, the Socialist government in Madrid -- which talks grandly of an "Alliance of Civilizations" -- does exactly the same. Only, unlike in Israel's case, this wall isn't there to stop terrorists and save lives. It's intended to keep out Sub-Saharans looking for a better life. Spain even gets European Union funding for it.

Moral er godt. Dobbeltmoral er dobbelt så godt.

Update:

Fra BBC:

Over the last few weeks would-be immigrants have been using ladders and what Spanish officials have described as military tactics in their increasingly desperate attempts to get over border barriers, our correspondent says.

CNN 28. September:

Hundreds of Africans using makeshift ladders tried to scale a razor wire barrier into a Spanish enclave in Morocco in the second mass assault on the border in 24 hours, the government said on Wednesday.

Spain's North African enclave of Melilla asked the army for help after 400 migrants tried to scramble into its territory on Tuesday night. Some 200 succeeded, adding to the 100 or more who entered during a bid by 500 people before dawn on Tuesday.

Forty of the mainly sub-Saharans involved in the latest attempt were injured, along with five civil guards, a government spokesman in Melilla said.

BBC 29. September:

Spain and Morocco will send troops to secure two Spanish enclaves on the north African coast, officials say.

The move was announced as Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero met his Moroccan counterpart after five men died in the enclave of Ceuta.

Bullets that killed two of the African migrants were "not Spanish", Spanish investigators said on Thursday.

Two migrants died on Spanish soil and two in Morocco, as hundreds aiming to enter Spain rioted on Wednesday night.

Henrik

Tre tusinde islamiske terrorangreb siden 11. September

2005-09-28T20:09:00.000+02:00

I går kom The Religion of Peace´s (TRP) liste over islamiske terrorangreb siden 11. September op på over tre tusinde.

I den anledning syntes jeg, jeg ville give et billede af, hvad en uge i den globale Jihad ser ud som, ugen mellem onsdag i sidste uge og tirsdag i denne. I den uge er 139 omkommet og 322 blevet såret i de 29 islamiske terrorangreb TRP har opregnet. Disse inkluderer ikke mange angreb, TRP ikke har ment klart kunne henregnes under deciderede terror-angreb - feks Iraq Coalition Casualties (ICC) giver et godt billeder af hvor mange islamiske angreb der er udeladt. Ud af ni angreb ICC lister tager TRP kun to med.

De tre tusinde terrorangreb der er nået gennem TRP´s nåleøje har kostet over 16.000 mennesker livet, og har lemlæstet over 36.000 i større eller mindre grad. Alene i den sidste uge:

Onsdag 21/9

Jozjan, Afghanistan: Islamiske terrorister massakrerer syv musikere på deres vej hjem fra et bryllup.
Msila, Algeriet: Islamiske terrorister angriber en patrulje fra den Algeriske hær, dræber to og sårer fem.

Torsdag 22/9

Lahore, Pakistan: Islamiske terrorister sprænger to bomber i butikskvarterer, dræber 6 (deriblandt en kvinde) og sårer syvogtyve.
Baghdad, Irak: Islamiske terrorister dræber ni og sårer tre i fire forskellige terror-angreb. Blandt de dræbte er ejeren af en flise-fabrik, der bliver dræbt i sit eget hjem sammen med sine to sønner og sin sviger-datter.
Pathan Mohalla, Indien: Islamiske terrorister kidnapper to slægtninge fra deres hjem. Faderen løslades efter hans søn er blevet henrettet.

Fredag 23/9

Jebaliya, Palæstina: En lastbil tilhørende den islamiske terror-organisation Hamas, og indeholdende raketter bestemt for Israel eksploderer. Sytten bliver dræbt (deriblandt tre børn) og 140 bliver såret.
Yala, Thailand: Islamiske terrorister skyder og dræber en fremmedarbejder.
Pattani, Thailand: I forskellige angreb skyder og dræber islamiske terrorister en bygningsarbejder og en offentligt ansat sundhedsarbejder.
Narathiwat, Thailand: Islamiske terrorister dræber to politifolk og sårer to andre med en fjernstyret bombe.
Baghdad, Irak: Islamisk selvmordsbomber sprænger en bus i luften, dræber seks civile og sårer tolv andre.
Karbala, Irak: Islamisk selvmordsbomber dræber et lille barn. Fire andre såres.
Gilgit, Pakistan: Islamiske terrorister åbner ild mod en bus og dræber to, deriblandt en 15-årig pige. To andre såres.
Kulgam, Indien: Islamiske terrorister dræber en kvindelig betjent i hendes eget hjem.

Lørdag 24/9

Grozny, Rusland: Tre islamiske terrorangreb dræber seks russiske soldater og sårer elleve.
Gandoh, Indien: Islamiske terrorister dræber svigermoderen til en politimand i hendes hjem.

Søndag 25/9

Hilla, Iraq: Islamiske terrorister planter en bombe på en cykel uden for en musik-butik. En tilfældig fodgænger dræbes og 48 andre såres. Andetsteds bliver fire lige fundet bundne og henrettede.
Baghdad, Iraq: Islamisk selvmordsbomber dræber ni uskyldige og sårer 12 andre.
Mussayib, Irak: Islamisk selvmordsbomber på motorcykel dræber seks uskyldige og sårer nitten andre.
Skikda, Algeriet: Islamiske terrorister opsætter falsk vejspærring, stopper en civil bil og snitter struben over på to passagerer. Familie-medlemmer bliver bortført.
Kalotra, Indien: Islamiske terrorister skyder og dræber en offentligt ansat lærer.
Lahore, Pakistan: To flere ofre for bomberne 22/9 dør af deres sår, deriblandt en 7-årig pige.

Mandag 26/9

Helmand, Afghanistan: En landmine udlagt af Taleban dræber alle fire passagerer i en bil.
Tonmaisoong, Thailand: En 54-årig mand dræbes af muslimske terrorister i en cafe. En anden såres.
Baghdad, Irak: En islamisk selvmordsbomber sprænger en bus med offentlige ansatte i luften, dræber seks uskyldige og sårer fjorten kritisk.
Muelha, Irak: Islamiske terrorister går ind i en folkeskole, tvinger fem lærere og en chauffør med dem ud af klasselokalerne, putter dem op mod en mur og henretter dem.
Ramallah, Israel: Liget af en Israelsk fabriksarbejder bliver fundet, efter manden har været kidnappet, torteret og dræbt af Hamas.

Tirsdag 27/9

Mendhar, Indien: En terrorist fra Lashkar-e-Toiba bruger en teenage-pige som menneskeligt skjold under en ildkamp. Begge dræbes.
Kut, Irak: Ligene af 22 ofre for islamisk terror bliver fundet uden for en mindre by, bundede og henrettede.
Bakuba, Irak: En selvmordsbomber dræber sig selv og ni uskyldige mens de ansøger om arbejde i det offentlige. Enogtyve andre bliver såret.

Ingen yderligere kommentar burde være nødvendig.

Update:

Hmmm....det lykkedes for mig ikke at fortælle hvilken dag IBC nævner 9 islamiske angreb, hvoraf TRP kun medtager 2 som terror. Det var fredag den 23. September.

Henrik

Voldtægt for at konvertere - Multireligiøs harmoni, nu også i Pakistan

2005-09-28T19:38:00.000+02:00

Compass Direct via The Religion of Peace:

Ribqa Masih, 22, testified at last Thursday’s court hearing that Ghulam Abbas and Mohammad Kashif drugged and kidnapped her on September 2.

Masih had made the 10-mile trip from her home town of Chak to the city of Faisal Abad that morning with her Muslim friend Humaira Hussain. Hussain said she wanted help in gaining entrance to a Dominican boarding house in Faisal Abad, where Masih had previously stayed while receiving her teacher’s training.

A Trap

Unbeknownst to Masih, she said, Hussain had arranged to meet Abbas and Kashif at the bus stop in Faisal Abad, where the two men offered Masih a drink of water that made her lose consciousness.

She said the two men took her to a house in the city of Lahore, approximately 100 kilometers (62 miles) away, and raped her repeatedly throughout the night. They threatened to shoot her and to kill the rest of her family, she said, if she did not repeat the Islamic creed, an act which, if done in the presence of two Muslims, is considered a valid form of conversion to Islam.

Masih refused to convert, saying that she would rather die than change her religion. The next morning her kidnappers handed her over to another Muslim man, whom they said would return her home.

The Catholic woman’s new captor, however, repeatedly raped her over the next three days and threatened to kill her if she told anyone, Masih testified.

On September 6, the man finally returned Masih to Faisal Abad and left her at a public bus stop. Unable to walk due to vaginal injury, Masih hired a rickshaw to take her to her uncle’s house, where she telephoned her parents.

Som om det ikke skulle være nok, har familiens muslimske naboer og Masih´s søskendes skolekammerater rottet sig sammen mod familien:

Despite his vulnerability as a poor Christian living in a Muslim village, Ribqa’s father, Rafique Masih, sought out Fr. Paulus and asked for his help in taking legal action.

“This is a very courageous family,” the priest said. “But in this case, if you are really becoming courageous, then you really have to carry your cross.”

That cross has come in the form of threats from Muslim neighbors.

The Masih family has been told that if they do not retract the court case, they will have one opened against them.

Ribqa Masih’s six younger siblings have all withdrawn from school, where they faced constant taunting from classmates who called them “prostitutes.”

The Masih family has also received threatening phone calls from two of the alleged kidnappers, who remain at large. Fr. Paulus and the family suspect that the police’s failure to arrest these men signifies a deliberate attempt to protect them.

Multikultur, værsgo.

Henrik

Pallywood - hvordan araberne lyver for medierne i Palæstina

2005-09-26T09:44:00.000+02:00

Enhver der har bare den mindste interesse i den jødiske forsvarskrig mod arabiske terrorister i Mellemøsten er pinedød nødt til at se Pallywood. Mini-dokumentaren (den varer kun 18 minutter) tager medie-dækningen af et arabisk overfald på en jødisk post den 30. September 2000 ved Netzarim-krydset i Gaza-striben, og går så i gang med at pille den fra hinanden ved at se på rå-filmen fra de palæstinensiske kameramænd. Vi får lov at se hvordan action-scener bliver instrueret, "ofre" bliver "ramt" og "nyheder" skabt.

Klip fra senere i den anden intifada viser hvordan de populære arabiske begravelser af "martyrer" også bliver forfalsket, hvordan en "død" martyr bliver tabt af ligbærerne to gange, og begge gange selv kravler tilbage på ligbåren, for eksempel. Der er også den arabiske læge der bliver fanget på film igang med at instruerer "ofret" i hvordan han skal lyve.

Se selv doku´en her.

Se den, og spekulere på hvor troværdige de næste nyheder du ser fra Palæstina er.

Tænk også på at en stor del af de kameramænd vestlige nyhedstjenester bruger i Irak også er arabere fra Palæstina. Nissen plejer jo som bekendt at flytte med....

Henrik

"Den blodigste dag" - folkene på TV2 aner ikke hvad de snakker om

2005-09-26T09:41:00.000+02:00

Tag nyhederne idag: “Den blodigste dag i Gaza-striben siden den israelske evakuering” - Israelerne dræbte to terrorister. Så ser vi lige bort fra de femten arabere Hamas slog ihjel i fredags - alt for at israelerne er onde og dumme, ikke?

Sheeesh!

Henrik

Har Reuters forfalsket et memo fra George Bush?

2005-09-18T20:03:00.000+02:00

Nå ja, nu har jeg været igang med BBC en gang idag, så her kommer en til (Biased BBC via Little Green Footballs):

Now they really are taking the obsession with Bush to new extremes. Yes, the BBC has reported that the president once needed to pee. (Hat tip: Susan)

Stop the presses! In another blow for the media credibility, "Susan" a reader of "bloggs", has thrown a googly to demonstrate that his handwriting's not like that.

I await the retraction from the BBC. ("Correction: Bush Did Not Need To Urinate After All.")
Some may suspect that the whole thing was a Karl Rove put-up job to make the BBC look silly.

After all, just how likely is it that some amateur could detect and disprove the so-called hoax in a mere six minutes, when trained professionals had taken it at face value?

Hvis man selv vil sammenligne er der et billede af det påståede memo her, og et reelt eksempel på Bush´s håndskrift her.

UPDATE:

Ked af, det har skullet tage mig så længe, men jeg må dementere historien foroven - Condoleezza Rice har stemplet den som sand. Her på bloggen har jeg været klog nok til ikke at udtale mig om historiens sandhed, men i mandags var jeg knapt så klog ovre på Uriasposten. Jeg kan altid undskylde mig med, jeg var syg og på penicillin, men indrømmer alligevel gerne at jeg der tog fejl.

Mea Culpa.

Henrik

Blair: "BBC hader USA". Clinton: faktuelt, men vinklet for at ramme Bush

2005-09-18T16:47:00.000+02:00

Yahoo News har en interessant historie.

"Tony Blair -- perhaps I shouldn't repeat this conversation -- told me yesterday that he was in Delhi last week. And he turned on the BBC world service to see what was happening in New Orleans," Murdoch was quoted as saying in a transcript posted on the Clinton Global Initiative website.

"And he said it was just full of hate of America and gloating about our troubles. And that was his government. Well, his government-owned thing," he said of the publicly owned broadcaster.

Bill Clinton er enig:

The former US president, who held his conference to coincide with the United Nations summit in New York, agreed that the BBC's coverage was lacking.

While the BBC's reports on the hurricane were factually accurate, its presentation was "stacked up" to criticize President George W Bush's handling of the disaster, Clinton said.

"There is nothing factually inaccurate. But ... it was designed to be almost exclusively a hit on the federal response, without showing what anybody at any level was doing that was also miraculous, going on simultaneously in a positive way," Clinton said.

Jojo. Vi andre har jo vidst det hele tiden.

Henrik

Jeremy Clarkson - nu knapt så meget respekt for manden

2005-09-18T15:27:00.000+02:00

Jeg plejer normalt at nyde det britiske bilmagasin "Top Gear" med chef-værten Jeremy Clarkson. Ikke fordi biler interesserer mig - det gør de ikke - men fordi showet, og Jeremy Clarkson, er eminent underholdende.

Jeg var imidlertid ikke klar over at han samtidig er en eminent uvidende amerikaner-hader og - åbenbart - løgner (fra The Corner, National Reviews blog - et scan af Clarksons originale artikel findes her) :

"Hollywood has taught America that the military can solve anything. It's full of chisel-jawed heroes who never leave a man on the field and never fail to get the job done. So they'd have New Orleans sorted out in a jiffy.

Unfortunately, on the street you've got some poor, starving soul helping themselves to a packet of food from a ruined, deserted supermarket. And as a result, finding themselves being blown to pieces by a helicopter gunship. With the none-too-bright soldiers urged on by their illiterate political masters, the poor and needy never stood a chance. It's easier and much more fun to shoot someone than make them a cup of tea. Especially if they're black."

Hvis vi ser bort fra den ligegyldige race-baiting, så er det interessant at Jeremy Clarkson er den eneste person i hele verden der har set kamphelikoptere massakrere uskyldige.

Mark Steyn bruger også historien som startpunkt for en kommentar i The Telegraph, der også når rundt om bl.a. midtvejsvalgene 2006.

Henrik

Katrina - det der gik godt

2005-09-18T15:10:00.000+02:00

Real Clear Politics havde for et par dage siden en fremragende artikel om den del af redningsarbejdet efter orkanen Katrina, der faktisk gik udmærket. Nemlig alle de ting der ikke blev afholdt pressekonferencer om - amerikanernes evne til at improvisere sig ud af situationer hvor "the nanny state" kollapser:

With body recovery teams in New Orleans finding far fewer than the expected 10,000 to 25,000 dead, despite the flooding of 80 percent of the city, it is time to ask: What went right?

Largely invisible to the media's radar, a broad-based rescue effort by federal, state and local first responders pulled 25,000 to 50,000 people from harm's way in floodwaters in the city. Ironically, FEMA's role, for good or ill, was essentially non-existent, as was the Governor's and the Mayor's. An ad-hoc distributed network responded on its own. Big Government didn't work. Odds and ends of little government did. ...

During the critical period beginning Monday, rescue helicopters were already reeling in at least 2000 people a day. These independent units comprised dozens of Coast Guard, Air Force, Air National Guard and Army choppers. Various boat-rescue operations by New Orleans first responders saved thousands more-even as the media's attention was focused on the Superdome, snipers and scenes of looting. The response to the real threat of Katrina, other words, was immediate and massive -it just wasn't the response the media wanted, expected or was spoon-fed at a press conference. ...

The Connecticut Post, of all places, gives the best overview of the operation in a column by Peter Urban. He points out that a single chopper of the Louisiana National Guard, on Monday after the storm hit, pulled some 250 people to safety; there were 16 other 30- passenger Black Hawks in the unit that had been stripped of seating to fly similar rescue missions. If the other choppers only saved half as many people, that one unit alone pulled out 2000 people a day.

But the Louisiana Blackhawks weren't the only rescuers. The Coast Guard was flying as soon as the hurricane passed on Monday as well and had already accounted for several thousand victims by Wednesday.

The Air Force reported 1,300 rescues and some 14,000 "transported" by Sept. 4.
By Tuesday night, the Navy's USS Bataan amphibious assault ship -cited for its inaction by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman--in fact had five choppers flying rescue missions and had pulled out several hundred people.

But those weren't the only helicopters flying. Overall, 113 choppers were in operation around New Orleans by Sept. 1, according to The Armed Forces Press Service.

Urban also notes one explanation why the rescue operation flew below the radar of the media: Individual federal and state units were not coordinating their efforts overall. There was no central clearing house for information on rescue efforts. What looked like a hurricane relief breakdown was in fact a press release breakdown.

Local rescue efforts by boat were surprisingly robust, contrary to conventional wisdom. The much maligned New Orleans police and fire departments, which began operations Monday afternoon, were able to field 100 to 200 boats in the first 24 hours after the breach, according to local officials quoted in the Times Picayune. However, with the City's communications system broken down, the 500 to 1000 rescue workers had to organize themselves and so were operating without central command and control, thus also below the media radar. How many these police and firefighters saved is unknown, but with so many boats in the water so quickly, the number would have easily been in the thousands.

Meanwhile the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, claimed 20,000 rescues by Sept. 8 at which point it suspended calls for more volunteers and boats. While it is unclear how many of these rescues took place in the critical time frame, the only mention of this staggering achievement came in the Sept. 8 press release. How many national reporters thought to call the Wildlife department, or even thought it was a go-to agency?

Sandheden er ved at komme frem. Og jeg vil også lige gerne benytte lejligheden til at æde hvad jeg end måtte have sagt om NO politi´s inkompetence i mig igen.

Henrik

"Strings" - venstreorienteret propaganda

2005-09-18T14:37:00.000+02:00

Mens jeg nu er i gang med manipulation i Danmark kan jeg da også nævne at jeg konen med i biografen og så "Strings", et marionet-eventyr i spillefilmslængde.

Jeg havde hørt lidt af hvert om filmen i forvejen, men da jeg har været fan af marionet-film siden barndommen (tysk fjernsyn havde en mani med at vise tjekkiske kvalitets-udgaver af genren i 80erne) valgte jeg at se den uanset.

For at koge det ned til det vigtigste, så var den visuelt eventyrligt smuk, men historien lod en del tilbage at ønske. Lad mig forklare:

På den ene side har vi Hebalonerne i deres by Hebalon, og på den anden det mavedansende "frihedskæmper"-folkeslag Zeritterne. Hebalonerne er rigtigt onde, har bla hugget Hebalon fra Zeritterne, og har også begået massakrer på Zerittiske børn og kvinder.

Hele historien handler så om hvordan Hebalonernes kronprins Hal Tara skal en tur ud i marken, møde de herligt eksotiske og helt uskyldige Zeritter, og overbevises om værdien af det multikulturelle samfund ("Der hvor du ender, begynder jeg"), før han overtager magten i Hebalon og indfører dette.

Hele historien stinker med andre ord af venstreorienteret propaganda, og selv om Arbejderen ("Danmarks røde dagblad", som de kalder sig) ikke normalt er en.......publikation jeg synes er citat-værdig rammer de da sømmet lige påhovedet med denne del af deres anmeldelse:

Med andre ord springer kritik af Irak-krigen, terrorlister og -love lige ind på nethinden, når denne historie ruller hen over det store lærred.

Men nu er det jo også et eventyr....

Henrik

...og så manipulerer DR lige lidt med virkeligheden

2005-09-18T14:22:00.000+02:00

Jeg ligger pt med influenza, og får derfor set en del fjernsyn. Lørdag var det en blandet fornøjelse, og det førte bla til at jeg sendte følgende mail til Danmarks Radio:

Idag kom jeg til, mens jeg dyrkede lidt kanal-surfing, at se et kort snip af et afsnit af "Danmark For Begyndere" under titlen "Kunstneren fra Bagdad". Ud over Abbas, den irakiske mand afsnittet er opkaldt efter, handler det også om Mali Khan Azizi, en Afghaner der er flygtet til Danmark. Det jeg studsede over ved det korte klip jeg så var fortællerens baggrundsfortælling om Azizi: "Azizi var officer under Afghanistans tidligere demokratiske præsident Najibullah".

Undskyld, men lige præcist hvad er det i har røget?

Najibullah var chef for det kommunistiske diktaturs version of Gestapo (KHAD), og stod som sådan bag mord og tortur på titusindvis af mennesker op gennem 1980erne. Da Sovjetunionen blev træt af deres afghanske marionet Babrak Karmal´s inkompetence blev Najibullah indsat som Afghansk præsident - valgt af Sovjetiske bajonetter, ikke ved demokratiske valg.

I den tid Najibullah var chef for KHAD og præsident af Afghanistan dræbte det kommunistiske diktaturs styrker sammen med sovjetiske besættelsestropper mellem to og tre millioner hovedsageligt civile afghanere. Det er de styrker Azizi har været medlem af.

Var det ikke en ide om i måske fik jeres baggrund i orden før i laver en sådan udsendelse?

MvH

Henrik Krog

Og mere er der jo sådan set ikke at sige om det.

Henrik

Allah og Isvaflen

2005-09-18T12:46:00.000+02:00

Burger King har fået problemer i Storbritannien (The Scotsman):

THE fast-food chain, Burger King, is withdrawing its ice-cream cones after the lid of the dessert offended a Muslim.

The man claimed the design resembled the Arabic inscription for Allah, and branded it sacrilegious, threatening a "jihad". ...

"This is my jihad. How can you say it is a spinning swirl? If you spin it one way to the right you are offending Muslims."

Multikultur in action.

UPDATE:

Hvis man har lyst til selv at sammenligne de to (Allah og Isvaflen), så kan man finde Allah her og Isvaflen her.

Henrik

New Orleans: Et nærmere kig på dige-sagen

2005-09-18T12:37:00.000+02:00

Salt Lake Tribune havde i forgårs en artikel af Rich Lowry, der så lidt nærmere på "Bush gav ikke digerne omkring New Orleans nok penge"-beskyldningerne:

The ''more funding for levees'' argument perpetuates a common misperception. The long-standing earthen levees surrounding the city did not fail. It was the floodwalls around the drainage canals that protrude into New Orleans that were overwhelmed. One breach seems to have been caused by a barge breaking loose from its moorings and battering down one of the walls. Will Nancy Pelosi now accuse Bush of underfunding barge moorings?

It is still a matter of debate what caused the other breaches. One expert at the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center told The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune that he suspects a ''catastrophic structural failure.'' Another expert suggested that ''the flaw may not be in the design but in the construction or materials.''

So the flooding didn't result from old levees desperately needing more funding. In fact, the section of 17th Street canal where a major breach occurred had just been upgraded, and The New York Times writes ''received more attention and shoring up than many other spots in the region.'' Even if Bush had larded more money on New Orleans - according to a broad-brush comparison in The Washington Post, he spent more in his first five years in office than Bill Clinton did in his last five - it wouldn't have stopped such a breach.

Han tager derefter et nærmere kig på New Orleans Levee Board, staten New Orleans´ organisation der bla står for vedligeholdelse af digerne:

The Orleans Levee Board, the state agency charged with protecting the levees, is so notorious that it makes Bush's FEMA look like a paragon of professionalism. Former president of the board Billy Nungesser, who was ousted after trying to reform it, says: ''Every time I turned over a rock, there was something rotten. I used to tell people, 'If your children ever die in a hurricane, come shoot us, because we're responsible.' We threw away all sorts of money.''

The board operates an airport, two marinas, and has a private police force that Nungesser says ''wears more gold braid than Gen. MacArthur when he went to the Philippines.'' The board just spent $2.4 million on a Mardi Gras Fountain near Lake Pontchartrain. NBC News reports that the board spent $15 million on building overpasses to a riverboat casino, and paid $45,000 to a private investigator to find dirt on a board critic - followed by another $45,000 to settle the resulting lawsuit. Feeling dry yet?

Alligevel får Bush skylden.

Henrik

WHO-politik fører til medicin-resistent AIDS-virus

2005-09-18T11:34:00.000+02:00

Tech Central Station har en interessant artikel om de katastrofale følger WHO´s kampagne for at behandle millioner af 3.-verdens AIDS-patienter med billig kopi-medicin har: livsvarigt bindende udgifter og medicin-resistente AIDS-varianter. Smagsprøver:

Two recent studies should have set off alarm bells at WHO headquarters and the Global Fund. On July 15, during the 10th National AIDS Seminar in Bangkok, scientists from the faculty of medicine at Ramathibodi Hospital in the Thai capital announced that the rate of drug resistance from antiretroviral copy drugs manufactured by the Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO) have led to dramatic increases in drug resistance and it is expected to worsen. The GPO drug is a triple dose combination consisting of lamivudine, stavudine and nevirapine. The hospital reported the following rates of drug resistance: "lamivudine, 49 percent; stavudine, 39.6 percent; and, nevirapine at 58 percent".

Thai authorities estimated that while the price of the GPO triple dose drug is $24 per person per month, drug resistance will force patients onto second line therapies in which the price rises to $239 per month, almost a 10 fold increase. Unfortunately, this increase only covers the price of drugs. The costs of medical care treatment, such as by healthcare specialists, in-patient care, etc., have not been factored in. They can be at least three times to four times the product price.

The second study appeared in the August edition of The British Medical Journal. It reported that "resistance to antiviral drugs is climbing and evidence from research that followed 4500 British patients infected with HIV indicates that after two years of standard treatment with a combination of different classes of antiretroviral drugs 10% of people become drug resistant to at least one drug. Six years after starting treatment, 27% are resistant to at least one of their drugs".

Forsøg på kemisk krigsførsel i Irak

2005-09-18T11:26:00.000+02:00

Det blev for nyligt nævnt i de danske medier, at de islamiske folkemordere i Irak havde truet med at bruge kemiske våben. Vi fik ikke at vide at de faktisk har forsøgtpå det, i Tal Afar. Winds of Change har mere:

In terms of specialized weapons, some crude attempts, I think, in the western part of the city. We've been able to put this picture together now. The enemy had rigged a lot of buildings for destruction, and they wanted to time the destruction of these buildings with the entry of our forces. In one of these buildings the enemy had big barrels of chemicals that had explosives implanted in the chemicals, wires running around, and the whole house was rigged for demolition.

Around this house a lot of families were living. Our soldiers were conducting an area reconnaissance operation. They went into this house. Immediately their eyes began burning, their throat began burning, so they withdrew out of the house immediately and then we conducted reconnaissance with some chemical protective gear and with a remote reconnaissance capability into the house and we could tell that the thing was rigged with chemicals.
We stopped all of our operations. We were actually pursuing a particular enemy, but this was more important. We evacuated the civilians from the area and then we demolished that building without a hazard to the people.

I don't know if you've been following some of the enemy's propaganda. You know, one of the cells in this enemy's structure here, this very well developed enemy structure, is a propaganda cell. And on the sort of jihadist and extremist websites, they've been saying, you know, that coalition forces are using chemical weapons. I think what they had hoped to do was detonate this building, kill innocent civilians in this neighborhood and then blame it on coalition forces.

Læsere af Tiraden, der har holdt øje med den i længere tid vil huske at fanatikerne også påstod at amerikanerne brugte kemiske våben i Fallujah sidste efterår.

Og husk nu: islamiske fanatikere dufter dejligtnår de rådner. Det siger de selv.

Henrik

al Qaeda i N-Irak ved at blive knust

2005-09-18T11:20:00.000+02:00

Gode nyheder fra Irak, via Winds of Change - al Qaeda er lige så stille ved at blive knust i det nordlige Irak:

One of the great pieces of information we got recently is 80 percent of the al Qaeda network in the north has been devastated. And those are not our figures, those came from the last six leaders in Mosul, al Qaeda leaders that we captured; they informed us of that. We also had a letter that was captured from Abu Zaid (sp) going to Zarqawi. We recently killed Zaid (sp) and we had that letter, and it also talked about the desperate situation for the al Qaeda and the insurgents in Mosul and in the north. And then also, sources we have inside the al Qaeda network up here have also informed us of that. ...

..clearly the foreign network is disrupted. The leadership is severely disrupted. We captured Abu Talha, the number-two al Qaeda leader in the north of Iraq. And right after that we got Abu Bara, Madhi Musa (sp), Abu Zab (sp), the next six leaders that would step up and take over. Nobody's taken over now. It's not a very popular position because if they step up, they get captured or killed.

Held og lykke til amerikanerne og irakerne med at få udryddet fanatikerne.

Update:

Mens jeg er igang med det kan jeg da lige citere et par presse-meddelelser fra koalitionen i Irak. 15. September:

Acting on intelligence sources and tips from concerned citizens, Multi-National Forces recently raided suspected terrorist safe houses in the Mosul area, resulting in the capture of three Al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist leaders.

Abdallah Najim Muhammad Husayn (aka Abu Nijim or Abu Muhammad) was captured Aug 26. Muhammad was a terrorist battalion commander for Al-Qaida in Iraq in Mosul . He planned, coordinated and financed terrorist attacks against Iraqi Security and Coalition Forces in the Mosul area. The methods of these attacks and ambushes included the use of vehicle borne improvised explosive devices, improvised explosive devices and mortars.

Also captured Aug. 26 was Bassam Muhammad Ahmad Sultan (aka Abu Shayma, Shayma), who was a cell leader under Abu Muhammad. As a cell leader, Abu Shayma led his cell in executing terror attacks against Iraqi Security and Coalition Forces.

On Sept. 3, Iraqi Police assisted Coalition Forces in capturing Nawfal Muwafaq Ahmad ‘Abdullah (aka Abu Abd al Karim). Abu Abd al Karim was the driver for Abu Zayd, the Al-Qaida in Iraq Military Emir of Mosul . He was responsible for driving Abu Zayd as well as other terrorists to various meetings between the Mosul terrorist leadership. Abu Abd al Karim participated in more than 30 attacks against Iraqi Security and Coalition forces. He was elevated to cell leader under Abu Zayd, who was recently killed by Coalition Forces.

Fra 17. September:

Multi-National forces, acting on multiple intelligence sources and tips from local citizens, raided a suspected al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist location in southwest Mosul, Sept. 5, capturing the top al-Qaida leaders in the city.

Captured during the raid was Taha Ibrahim Yasin Becher, (aka Abu Fatima), the al-Qaida in Iraq’s Emir of Mosul, and Hamed Sa’eed Ismael Mustafa, (aka Abu Shahed), the organization’s West Mosul Emir.

Abu Fatima and Abu Shahed were in a meeting at the time of their capture.

Abu Fatima had recently taken over the role of Emir after Abu Talha was captured in June and Abu Zubayr, who replaced Talha, was killed in mid-August. Abu Fatima had only held the position for 12 days when he was captured.

Abu Fatima supervised and directed the day-to-day operations of the organization and was responsible for numerous attacks against Iraqi security and Coalition forces.

Abu Shahed was responsible for organizing al-Qaeda activities in western Mosul. He was responsible for attacks conducted in the area and also participated in attacks involving small arms and other weapons directed against Iraqi security and Coalition forces. As the leader of one of Mosul’s territories he was in line to succeed Abu Fatima in the event of his death or capture.

The simultaneous capture of both leaders damages the organizational structure of al-Qaida in Iraq’s northern network. Abu Fatima and Abu Shahed were both originally from Tall Afar prior to assuming their roles in Mosul. In the past, the Emir position had been filled by terrorists who were already operating in the Mosul area.

Multi-National Force-Iraq announced the Sept. 6 capture of Dara Mohammad Sept. 16.

Dara Mohammad was the Ansar al Sunna Emir of Mosul.

Henrik

Split den islamiske trussel.

2005-09-18T11:03:00.000+02:00

The American Conservative har en interessant artikel med et forslag til hvordan den islamistiske trussel bør bekæmpes. Istedet for at satse på at splitte islamisterne i moderate og radikale - der lader ikke til at være nok moderate, og de lader uanset ikke til reelt at have lyst til at lægge afstand til de radikale - er forslaget at man istedet bør satse på den allerede eksisterende splittelse mellem shia- og sunni-muslimer. Noget sådant ville enddog inkludere at lade Iran få atomvåben.

Splittelsen mellem Russisk og Kinesisk kommunisme, og det amerikanske spil på dette fra Nixon og frem skulle danne præcedens.

Læs det hele selv.

Henrik

Palæstina igen-igen

2005-09-18T10:55:00.000+02:00

Nå ja, nu er det ved at være længe siden jeg har lavet et indlæg om de palæstinensiske arabere, så mon ikke det var tid igen? Det bliver nu bare et par links:

Palæstinensiske sikkerhedsstyrker involveret i mord på tidligere sikkerhedschef

Hamas sprænger hul i grænsen Gaza-Egypten

Et citat fra det sidste er næsten påkrævet:

In chaotic scenes, thousands of Palestinians have streamed over the border in the last few days without undergoing official checks.

Despite this, Egypt says that its Gaza border is officially closed.

Militants from Hamas cleared an area before setting off explosives that blew away a section of the wall. Palestinian security officers present did nothing to prevent them.

A local Hamas commander warned them not to try to intervene, AFP news agency reported.

Business as usual i Mellemøsten. Besøg også Camera, og læs om hvordan medierne hvidvasker de palæstinensiske Araberes nedrivning af over 20 jødiske synagoger.

Henrik

New Orleans - alt er regeringens skyld

2005-09-18T10:31:00.000+02:00

Gerard Baker har i Times Online nogle interessante betragtninger over dækningen af orkan-katastrofen i USA, nærmere over mediernes valg næsten kun at dække offentlige hjælpe-foranstaltninger og ignorere private:

Most of the attention has focused on how the Government failed in responding to the disaster. I have done it myself. Grand conclusions have been drawn about the (flawed) nature of American society. I’ve done a bit of that too. But little has been said about what the response of ordinary Americans — not mayors or governors or presidents — tells us about the strengths of that same American society.

Another lucky group of New Orleans evacuees has been housed not far from where I live in Washington at the DC Armoury, the local headquarters of the National Guard. This week, along with the truckloads of food, water and clothes, came something that will, in the longer term, be of even greater assistance, a group of eager employers looking for workers.

Forty-two local businesses participated in a job fair for the new homeless at the Armoury on Tuesday; more wanted to take part but couldn’t because there was limited space. Twenty of the 150 or so evacuees were hired on the spot. An official at the District of Columbia government involved in organising the event said that more were expected to be offered jobs in the next few days. The exercise was such a success that employers are demanding another one. If there’s anyone left still to hire it will take place in the next couple of weeks.

The story is being replicated across the country. The victims of Katrina are getting new opportunities. Some of it comes from an immense outpouring of compassion by Americans in the form of hundreds of millions of dollars in charitable contributions and unquantifiable help in housing families and schooling children. Some of it comes from the unsentimental compassion of the free market: the unerring capacity of the capitalist system to match those who have something with those who need it, whether it be labour, capital, goods or services.

Both tell us far more about the way this country works, the strengths of its values and people, than the bureaucratic bungling in Baton Rouge and Washington.

Of course you will almost certainly not have read or seen much about this, especially outside the US. The world has indicted America once again on charges of ineptitude and racism and has moved on to more important matters such as Britney Spears’s baby. For a variety of reasons this good news about the response of ordinary Americans is of little interest to the media. First, no self-respecting reporter wants to waste his time with insights into the better angels of human nature. No one ever won a Pulitzer or a Bafta recounting banal tales of man’s humanity to man.

Secondly, it really doesn’t fit too well into the stereotype that entrances most of the world these days. Anything that doesn’t show Americans as stupid, selfish, warmongering, religious bigots, half of them living in pampered luxury in garish purpose-built Italianate mansions, the other half downtrodden in the ghetto by Halliburton stock-owning fat-cats, isn’t going to make it to the front pages or the Ten O’Clock News.

But the main reason I think these recovery efforts by millions of people attract insufficient attention is that most people have become conditioned to thinking solely in terms of government’s responsibility. Of course, the bulk of the recovery effort must be paid from public funds as President Bush announced yesterday but most Europeans and — despite decades of a so-called conservative revolution — a large number of Americans, can’t think beyond the government.

Something bad happens: it’s government’s fault for not preventing it. It’s government’s responsibility for cleaning up the mess. And if the mess gets bigger, that’s government’s fault too.

The irony is that New Orleans is one of those cities where government-dependency had reached such levels that a kind of economic and social anomie had set in. For many of its victims the escape depicted by Barbara Bush is just what they needed.

Det lader til at flygtningene fra New Orleans er enige. En nylig meningsmåling viste at flertallet af dem ikke ville vende tilbage til Louisiana.

Henrik

Service announcement

2005-09-18T10:14:00.000+02:00

Nå, jeg må jo til det.

Man skal nok være ny her for at have overset at indlæggene er begyndt at komme med noget større afstand i tid. Der er sket det, at jeg er startet på et nyt studie, og samtidig har en større opgave jeg skal have ud af verden. Tilføj at jeg de sidste fire dage har været nødt til at holde sengen med en influenza der pure nægter at give slip i mig, og så i årsagen.

Men mht studierne, så vil disse nok medføre at jeg - med enkelte undtagelser - kun vil blogge i weekender for fremtiden.

Bare så i ved det.

Henrik

Venstrefløjens falske stormløb på Præsident Bush

2005-09-11T23:45:00.000+02:00

Peter Ferrara havde for et par dage siden en udmærket artikel på Human Events Online, under overskriften "The Left's False Assault on President Bush". Det er artige sager:

With this background, let’s examine who did what in response to Katrina. President Bush declared the entire Gulf Coast, including New Orleans and Louisiana, a Federal disaster area days before the hurricane hit, to enable Federal aid to get there sooner.

The disaster that struck New Orleans did not become apparent until the morning of Tuesday, August 29, as the levees broke after the brunt of the storm had passed. But that very day, the Army Corps of Engineers was already working on levee repair. And the Coast Guard was already in the air with helicopters rescuing people from rooftops, ultimately employing 300 choppers. These are both Federal agencies under Bush’s command.

In addition, before the end of that week, Bush had already pushed through Congress and signed an emergency aid package of $10.5 billion for the Gulf Coast region.

Now what about Governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin? President Bush had to get on the phone two days before the hurricane to plead with the Governor to order a mandatory evacuation. In response, she dithered and delayed. Mayor Nagin also had full authority, and responsibility, to order an evacuation. He dithered and delayed as well.
The city’s own written evacuation plan requires the city to provide transportation for the evacuation of those without access to vehicles or with disabilities. But Nagin did absolutely nothing to carry out this responsibility.

Instead, hundreds of city metro and school buses were ruined in the flood, as Nagin left them in low lying areas. Jesse Jackson and Kanye West, do you think Nagin cares about poor blacks in New Orleans?

Nagin asked residents who couldn’t get out to go to the Superdome. It was his responsibility to then provide water, food, portable bathrooms, and security for them. But, again, Nagin did nothing to carry out this responsibility in service to the poor blacks who primarily exercised this option.

Incredibly, we now know that even though the Red Cross was ready to bring food and water to the Superdome the day after the storm, Governor Blanco actually barred them from doing so! She didn’t want to encourage the survivors to stay at the Superdome due to such relief, but somehow thought they should disperse back into the flooded city once the hurricane passed.

President Bush pleaded with Governor Blanco that same day after the storm to get the National Guard into New Orleans. Not much happened. Seeing this, he asked her to give him Federal authority over the state’s Guard. She refused. As a result, the Guard didn’t show up in force in the city until near the end of the week.

Ferrara slutter af med at bemærke kontrasten mellem de republikansk kontrollerede stater Alabama og Mississippi, der på trods af at blive ramt af den fulde styrke af orkanen hurtigt kom igang med redningsarbejdet, og et demokratisk kontrolleret Louisiana, der opløstes i et rod af plyndrende bander:

Finally, we have not seen public officials in Mississippi, which was hit even harder by the hurricane itself, or Alabama, crying on television or complaining about the lack of Federal aid. They properly mobilized their local police, fire, transportation, ambulance and emergency services, and the state National Guard, to serve their roles as first responders. Unlike Blanco in Louisiana, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, Republican, announced looters would be shot on sight. That maintained law and order, without Federal troops.

Let’s shortcircuit the sickening and dopey political posturing now just beginning in Washington. President Bush organized the largest and quickest Federal mobilization in response to a natural disaster in U.S. history. Blanco, Nagin, and Broussard just need to resign in disgrace, as thousands of their own constituents died because of their misconduct.

Ikke at fakta rager medierne og venstrefløjen synderligt.

Henrik

Spredt sofisteri og bøvserier

2005-09-11T23:02:00.000+02:00

På en af mine tidligere indlæg om orkanen Katrina mener en "anonym" (hvordan kan det være, at anti-folkene næsten aldrig vil lægge navn til deres bøvseri) at jeg tager fejl:

Og Henrik tager notorisk fejl. Bush har ikke bare mulighed for at lade det føderale beredskab rykke ud i tilfælde af så store katastrofer. Han har selv gennemført en beredskabsplan der giver regeringen et klart ansvar for at rykke ud med hvad man kalder en "proaktiv indsats", hvor man netop ikke behøver at vente på at blive tilkaldt af lokale myndigheder.

Fyren (eller tøsen, hvem ved) henviser så til nogle co-anti´ers bøvserier i kommentar-sektionen på Uriasposten, der alt i alt svarer til hans egne påstande, bare med et link til den nævnte beredskabsplan. Det der kommer nærmest nogetsomhelst specifikt er et semantisk kunstgreb, der forsøger at omdefinere hvad "may" betyder (in-joken "depends of what the meaning of "is" is" trænger sig på), nærmere betegnet i følgende sætning:

A Governor may request the President to declare amajor disaster or emergency if the Governor findsthat effective response to the event is beyond thecombined response capabilities of the State andaffected local governments.

Sofisteriet ruller sig ud som følger:

Dine citater påpeger, at NRP ikke giver regeringen ubegrænset interventionsret ... åbner mulighed for, at en guvernør selv kan bede om hjælp (men ikke som Henrik siger, at det er en betingelse - ordet er “may")

Ja, netop. Guvernøren KAN bede om føderal indgriben, men han/hun BEHØVER ikke gøre det. Det betyder så bare at der ingen hjælp kommer. Altså medmindre Præsident Bush havde erklæret staten "in insurrection" og afsat Louisianas demokratiske guvernør og den ikke bare demokratiske, men også sorte borgmester af Louisiana, noget der ikke er sket siden afslutningen af reconstruction-perioden efter den Amerikanske Borgerkrig for 130 år siden.

Hvis man leder efter en parallel kan man forestille sig at Fogh genopstillede De Blå Gendarmer og sendte dem ind for at rydde Christiania, Nørrebro og.....nå ja, Grønland, nu vi er i gang. Men bøvserierne fortsætter:

og det sidste citat siger direkte at Henrik tager fejl: Præsidenten har meget vide interventionsbeføjelser i tilfælde af katastrofer.

Ja det har han da - når han er blevet bedt om at udøve disse af katastrofe-statens guvernør. Eller, som ovenfor nævnt, har erklæret staten for værende i oprør.

Men da Lasse nu har været så flink at finde et link til beredskabsplanen så lad os da kigge på den. Da det er Bushs ansvar, vi snakker om slår vi op i afsnittet "Roles and Responsibilities", side 26. Her ser vi ansvar fordelt som følger. Guvernøren:

As a State’s chief executive, the Governor is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that State or territory.

Local Chief Executive Officer (deriblandt New Orleans´ borgmester):

A mayor or city or county manager, as a jurisdiction’s chief executive, is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that jurisdiction.

USAs præsident er overhovedet ikke listet i sektionen.

Mon ikke det lukker den diskussion?

Henrik

Katrina og racismen II

2005-09-10T22:10:00.000+02:00

Når jeg nu var i gang med emnet kommer en kommentar fra Patrick J. Buchanan (Human Events Online):

And so, Jesse Jackson brazenly plays the race card. "We have great tolerance for black suffering," he told CNN. "Those who are suffering the most ... in New Orleans certainly are black people.

"Today, I saw 5,000 African-Americans on the I-10 causeway, desperate, perishing, dehydrated, babies dying. ... It looked like Africans in the hull of a slave ship. It was so ugly and obvious."

Jackson is parroted by the Black Caucus and rapper Kanye West, who blurted out on an NBC benefit program, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

Now, about these race charges. Yes, the vast majority of those who refused to leave or were left behind and wound up in the squalor and terror of the Superdome and convention center were black. But, so, too, is that klutz of a mayor, many of the cops who fled, and nearly all the looters and rapists.

But most of the Army and Guard troops and U.S. agents pouring in to restore order and almost all of the rescue workers are white, a fact the race-baiters ignore, not wanting truth to dilute the purity of their hate crimes.

Vel brølt.

Henrik

Samarbejde mellem islamiske terrorister og venstreradikale

2005-09-10T21:59:00.000+02:00

Bangladeshisk politi har konfiskeret flere 200 bomber i razziaer efter de 400 bombe-angreb i løbet af en dag sidste måned (BBC):

One of the targets was an apartment rented by Ataur Rahman, the brother of the main suspect behind the serial explosions, Abdur Rahman.

Abdur Rahman is the chief of the banned Islamic group Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, which has been blamed by the government for the unprecedented attack.

Although no one has claimed responsibility for the bombings, leaflets found at bomb sites carried a call by the Jama'atul Mujahideen for the introduction of Islamic rule in Bangladesh.

Investigators now believe a banned leftist radical group, Janajuddha, or People's War, was also behind the attack.

Jaja, det er jo ikke mere end man kunne forvente.

Henrik

Advarsler om kup i Nicaragua

2005-09-10T21:34:00.000+02:00

Taget balladen om forsøgene på at køre en rigsretssag mod Clinton i betragtning kan man undre sig over hvorfor forsøgene på at gøre det samme mod Nicaraguas præsident Bolano ikke får lignende opmærksomhed. Man fristes til at tro at det er fordi heksejagten denne gang kommer fra venstre fløj. Nærmere betegnet fra en uhellig alliance af venstreradikale tidligere diktaturtilhængere og klienter af tidl. præsident Aleman, der for tiden sidder en dom på 20 års fængsel for korruption af (fra BBC):

Sandinistas and members of Mr Bolanos Liberal Party are trying to strip the president of his powers.

The legislators have passed constitutional reforms limiting the president's power, despite a ruling by the Central American Court of Justice which declared them inapplicable. ...

President Bolanos - who took office in 2002 after a landslide victory over Sandinista leader and former President Daniel Ortega - has said he will view any attempt to impeach him as a coup.

Members of the ruling Liberal Party turned against Mr Bolanos after his government decided to prosecute former President Arnoldo Aleman for corruption.

Aleman is serving a 20-year sentence for fraud and money-laundering, but he still commands the loyalty of many of his party's legislators.

Forsøgene går for tiden på at prøve at køre en rigsretssag mod Præsident Bolano på grund af påstået misbrug af valgmidler.

Henrik

Venstreradikal dominans i amerikansk undervisning

2005-09-10T21:04:00.000+02:00

Jeg har indtil videre holdt mig fra at blogge om det notorist venstreorienterede amerikanske undervisnings-system, men den her historie er simpelthen så radikal så jeg ikke kan lade være.

Robert KC Johnson er professor i historie ved Brooklyn College ved The City University of New York, og for nylig er han kommet ud i en sand storm af vrede fordømmelser fra venstreorienterede undervisere efter han har kritiseret politiseringen (den venstreorienerede dominans over) lærer-uddannelserne. The National Council for Acceditation of Teacher Education ændrede i 2002 procedurerne for godkendelse af uddannelsessteder til at uddanne lærere. Fra da af var et af kravene, at de skulle producere lærere der gik ind for "social retfærdighed". Det er resultaterne af dette Robert Johnson vovede at kritisere (fra Rocky Mountain News):

The education faculty, he said, assumes as fact that "an education centered on social justice prepares the highest quality of future teachers." He cited a required course called "Language and Literacy Development in Secondary Education" whose instructor spent the class period before Election Day showing Michael Moore's political polemic Fahrenheit 9/11 and insisted that students acknowledge that "white English" was an "oppressors' language." Several students, Johnson said, had filed written complaints with the department chair about inappropriately political instruction.

Normalt ville de fleste vel tage given kritik op til overvejelse, for at se om der måske kunne være noget ved det. Ikke i New York:

Instead, the School of Education went into full "How dare you say that!" mode. On official letterhead, signed by 34 faculty and administrators and sent to just about everybody important they could think of who might have some say over Johnson's position at Brooklyn College, they expressed their "contempt" for what they describe as his "attacks on a colleague" and decried his "woeful ignorance" of "what educators across the country are trying to accomplish."

They admit he has the right to make whatever claims he wishes, but conclude "we must insist you stop such attacks."

That is, he has the right to express opinions with which they disagree, but they insist he not exercise it.

Anti-fløjens respekt for andre folks holdninger glimrer ved sit fravær. Tag Kim fra Uriasposten´s oplevelse fra pro-USA-demoen som eksempel. Tidligere fik jeg også at vide her på bloggen at jeg skulle "holde min kæft".

Jeg ser på om jeg bringer mere om emnet i fremtiden.

Henrik

Muslimsk pogrom på kristne i Palæstina

2005-09-10T20:53:00.000+02:00

Fra Haaretz:

At least 14 houses belonging to Christian residents of Taybeh, a West Bank village northeast of Ramallah, were torched by Muslims from neighboring Dir Jarir on Sunday, to avenge what they termed the dishonor of a Muslim woman.

According to Taybeh residents, several dozen young men from Dir Jarir descended on their village before dawn, torched the homes and destroyed a great deal of other property.

"The young men, who were holding Molotov cocktails, threw them at the houses, which began to go up in flames, one after another," said Buthaina Sha'aban, a Taybeh resident and the sister of the town's mayor. "They vandalized parked cars and beat village residents who went out into the streets. Entire families were thrown into the street after their homes were torched. Not much remains of their property. We urge all international, Israeli and Palestinian actors to intervene and protect village residents from the Muslim rage."

The attackers also torched stores, a farm and a gas station. The latter fire was put out before fuel tanks exploded.

Og hvorfor var muslimerne så vrede? Jo, de havde slået en muslimsk kvinde ihjel fordi hun havde forelsket sig i en kristen mand fra Taybeh. Bagefter havde de kylet liget ned og håbet at noget så ligegyldigt som et æresmord på en uskyldig kvinde ville blive overset. Istedet begyndte politiet at efterforske sagen.

Og hvad er så mere naturligt når man er ved at blive afsløret i sit religiøst betonte had end at prøve at brænde en kristen by ned til jorden?

Fy for satan.

Henrik

Katrina og racismen

2005-09-04T19:32:00.000+02:00

Ud over de simple beskyldninger om inkompetence den amerikanske venstrefløj har fundet tiden belejliget til at fyre af mod Bush i USA, så er der også en anden type beskyldninger der er under opsejling: Bush er racist, simpelthen fordi orkanens ofre hovedsageligt er sorte.

Det startede i det små, men da vi kom til i fredags valgte en forsamling af sorte medlemmer af kongressen og ledere af sorte lobby-grupper så at tage del i mudder-kampen også. Samme dag fik rapperen Kanye West lov til at komme med lignende racistiske beskyldninger under et velrørenheds-program udsendt på nationalt fjernsyn. Om lørdagen gik den venstre-religiøse præst Jesse Jackson så også i gang.

Nu er de venstreradikale afro-amerikanske interesse-organisationer aldrig svære at få ud med beskyldninger om racisme - noget man bla også kan se i Michael Moores "film" Fahrenheit 911. Hvad angår situationen omkring orkanen Katrina har de da også en notorisk dårlig sag: som før nævnt er manden der havde det primære ansvar for ikke at få evakueret New Orleans´ fattige sorte befolking i tide, borgmesteren, nemlig selv sort. Det er da også derfor interesseorganisationerne sigter højere, mod Bush.

Problemet er, at de lader til selv at hænge fast i en racisme betinget af deres syn på sig selv som ofre. Hvis noget får ud over sorte, så må det pr definition være nogle hvide der er skyld i det. Det giver sig også udslag i decideret halvdumme krav som at redningsaktionen efter orkanen, fordi hovedparten af ofrene er sorte, også pr definition skal ledes af sorte.

Skidt med at det vil skabe kaos og koste menneskeliv at en hvilken som helst redningsorganisation først skal skræddersys efter ofrenes racemæssige og/eller etniske tilhørsforhold før den får lov til reelt at redde mennesker.

Det skægge er, at bortset fra problemerne med at evakuere de fattige, hovedsageligt sorte indbyggere i New Orleans, så er det eneste tilfælde af noget der bare kunne ligne racisme, de er kommet op med, at nogle har fundet to billeder af folk der har plyndret i New Orleans, hvor det ene billede er af et hvidt par der har "fundet" mad, mens et er af en sort mand der har "plyndret".

Det interessante er så, at billedet der hvidvasker (ja, undskyld udtrykket) de hvide kommer fra et EUROPÆISK nyhedsagentur - Agence France Press (AFP). Det andet billede kommer fra amerikanske Associated Press, der har en politik med at kalde alle folk der har plyndret det samme - "looters". Noget endnu mere interessant er, at AFP har valgt at kræve at alle nyhedsmedier fjerner det "problematiske" billede fra deres databaser. Man kommer næsten til at tænke på Minisand (Ministeriet for Sandhed) i George Orwells 1984.

Faktisk er det eneste reelle tilfælde af racisme jeg har kunnet finde i syndfloden af medie-historier følgende:

Brit diary-writer Jamie had been coaching football to disabled children as part of the Camp America scheme. ...

He said of his eventual Superdome refuge: "There was a lot of heat from the people in there, people shouting racial abuse about us being white.

"The army warned us to keep our bags close to us and to grip them tight."

Jamie, an economics student from Sunderland, said he saw crack cocaine being used in the filthy toilets, youngsters breaking into soft drink machines and men brawling. Urine and excrement spilled into corridors where they were sleeping.

At one point, up to 30 British students gathered in the dome were so terrified of attack when the power went down that they set up a makeshift security cordon.

Zoe Smith, 21, from Hull, said: "All us girls sat in the middle while the boys sat on the outside, with chairs as protection.

"We were absolutely terrified, the situation had descended into chaos, people were very hostile and the living conditions were horrendous.

Ingen hvide interesseorganisationer har endnu brokket sig.

Henrik

Tudefjæs peger fingre over New Orleans

2005-09-04T16:57:00.000+02:00

Nu er hjælpen lige så stille ved at nå frem til New Orleans, efter orkanen Katrina satte byen under vand. Samtidig har den amerikanske venstrefløj imidlertid måske endelig fundet det tema de kan føre en succesrig kampagne mod USAs Præsident Bush på. Her i Danmark er medierne også travlt optagede af at køre med på vognen. Der er bare et problem ved kampagnen: den bygger på uvidenhed eller deciderede løgne.

Til at starte med er idéen om at den Republikanske præsident Bush har ansvaret for alt forkert. I forhold til europæiske forhold er den amerikanske præsident faktisk rimeligt svag, og ud over at erklære en given region for katastrofeområde er han reelt begrænset til at reagere på forespørgsler fra lokale myndigheder, som han så kan reagere på. Det er her problemet er opstået - i tilfældet New Orleans er problemet så bare at de lokale myndigheder - domineret af Demokraterne - har fejlet totalt. Istedet for at agere har både New Orleans´ borgmester Ray Nagin og Louisiana´s guvernør Kathleen Blanco (begge demokrater) trippet rundt og syntes det var hårdt uden at gøre noget ved det.

Istedet var Bush nødt til at tage initiativet ved at erklære området omkring New Orleans og nordpå for katastrofeområde allerede to dage før orkanen nogensinde nåede frem. Da de lokale demokratiske buraukrater stadig ikke kunne tage sig sammen til at gøre andet end at "anbefale" at folk forlod New Orleans tog han kontakt til dem og pressede dem til at beordre evakueringen af New Orleans sidste søndag.

Hvor vigtig en sådan decideret ordre er kan ses af en artikel fra Juli, hvor det nævnes at 62% af New Orleans-boerne ville føle sig sikre i deres egne hjem hvis en kategori 3-orkan ramte byen. Problemet var så bare, at istedet for at organisere evakueringen for dem der ikke havde bil og selv kunne flygte fra byen valgte guvernøren så at trippe rundt og lave ingenting, mens borgmester Nagin stak halen mellem benene og flygtede 130 kilometer mod nord til Biloxi. I sikkerhed langt fra katastrofen kunne han så i et interview med CNN tude, pege fingre og prøve at skubbe skylden for at titusindvis af folk sad fast i byen over på de føderale myndigheder og Bush. I samme hysteriske interview begyndte han så også at kræve hvad han nu havde lyst til, bla 500 busser til at evakuere folk.

Hvis han nu ikke havde ladet sine bysbørn i stikken, var blevet i byen, og faktisk havde udført sit job, så kunne det være han kunne have reddet de 500+ kommunale busser der idag er parkeret i pæne rækker under et par meter vand. Ud over godt 360+ busser fra New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority drejer det sig om bla de 205 skolebuser man kan se på den oversvømmede parkeringsplads her. Hvor mange bysbørn kunne han have reddet ved at blive i byen istedet for at tage til Biloxi og lade sig interviewe af CNN?

Istedet for at se lidt på sine egne fejl prøver han så at tørre det af på Bush. Her sviner han feks manden der samtidig skal tage sig af katastrofen i Louisiana, resten af et land med 300 millioner indbyggere, og så også en lille krig i Irak for at holde en pressekonference. Det er åbenbart ikke gået op for ham at han måske selv skulle tage sig sammen og få ryddet op i den by der har valgt ham til at gøre det.

Det er ikke fordi der mangler eksempler til efterfølgelse. Selv hvis man ser bort fra politifolk og andre offentligt ansatte er der feks 18-årige Jabbor Gibson. Han stak ikke af til Biloxi, men blev i New Orleans. Da orkanen var ovre "organiserede" han en forladt bybus, samlede 100 folk der sad fast i byen op, og kørte 7 timer i et stræk for at få dem til et opsamlingssted for orkan-ofre i Houston. Han ankom endda før nogen af de busser der var organiseret af myndighederne til at udføre samme job.

Det er så selve katastrofe-balladen. Dertil kommer imidlertid forsøg på at give Bush skylden for at New Orleans i det hele taget er under vand. Jeg har allerede behandlet de hysteriske tyske beskyldninger om at Bush har ansvaret for selve tornadoen, men den amerikanske venstrefløj påstår nu også at bruddet på de diger der beskyttede New Orleans mod oversvømmelse også var Bush´s skyld.

Påstanden går ud på, at Bush gennem beskæringen af tilskuddet til digebygningen omkring New Orleans skulle være skyld i at diget brød sammen. Problemet er her, at det dige der brød sammen under trykket faktisk netop var et af dem der fornyligt var blevet forstærket.

Dertil kommer, at New Orleans´ diger kun var bygget til at kunne modstå en kategori 3-orkan, mens de blev udsat for en af kategori 4. De amerikanske venstrefløjsere mener at Bush burde have kunnet forudse dette, hvorfor det er hans skyld. Hvorfor Clinton ikke også burde have forudset det er der ingen der snakker om.

Problemet er så, at en opgradering af digerne til at kunne modstå kategori-4 orkaner ville tage mimum et årti, og mere sandsynligt tre årtier, hvortil kommer 6 år til projektering. Selv hvis det allerførste Bush havde gjort da han blev svoret ind i januar 2001 var at starte processen, var der ikke blevet foretaget et eneste spadestik før orkanen ramte.

Og så ser vi helt bort fra hvor længe det ville have taget at bygge digerne op til at kunne tage den kategori-5 orkan meteorologerne oprindeligt forudså ville ramme byen.

Men selvfølgelig: hvornår har fakta kunnet forhindre venstreradikale i at åbne munden.

Henrik

Tyrkiet: Folkemord = National karakter?

2005-09-03T10:54:00.000+02:00

Efter vi fandt ud af at Hitlers´"Mein Kampf" var en bestseller i Tyrkiet kommer nu fængslingen af en af landets bedste forfattere for at fortælle om Tyrkernes folkemord på over en million kriste armeniere under 1. Verdenskrig, og 30.000 kurdere siden 1984 (BBC):

One of Turkey's best-known novelists faces three years in jail for making controversial comments on his country's killing of Armenians and Kurds.

Orhan Pamuk has been charged with insulting Turkey's national character.

He was quoted in a Swiss paper as saying that only he had dared to say that Turkey killed 30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians.

Hvorfor er det lige vi skal forhandle om optagelse i EU med den bande holocaust-benægtere?

Henrik

Mild irritation

2005-09-02T23:59:00.000+02:00

Normalt plejer jeg at brokke mig over BBC på grund af den venstredrejede propaganda stationen spytter ud, men denne gang er det simpel dumhed der irriterer mig ved dem. At finde i deres artikel om baggrunden for den islamiske terror-kampagne i Thailand:

"They want Pattani state back," he said, referring to the independent Islamic Sultanate of Pattani that had been part of British Malaya and was then incorporated into Thailand around 100 years ago.

Det siger sig selv at det Britiske Imperium aldriv ville have fundet sig i at et uland som Thailand bare rykkede ind og overtog dele af dens kolonier, og det er da heller ikke tilfældet. Tværtimod var det Storbrittanien der overtog en hel håndfuld af små malayiske sultanater der i århundreder havde været Siamesiske (altså Thailandske) protektorater - nemlig Terengganu, Perak, Kedah og Ulu Perak.

Ja, undskyl, men engang i mellem kommer historikeren i mig op til overfladen.

Henrik

Amerikanerne er ONDE! ONDE! ONDE! - part II

2005-09-02T23:00:00.000+02:00

Jeg har før beskrevet hvordan de onde, onde amerikanere står bag både tørken i Zimbabwe, Tsunamien i det Indiske Ocean og tyveriet af en hel sø i Rusland.

Nu er vi så kommet til at de - eller rettere Præsident Bush - også er skyld i Orkanen der har sat New Orleans under vand (Davids Medienkritik via Filtrat):

You won't believe this: In an article in Frankfurter Rundschau, a leading left-wing daily, Germany's environmental minister Jürgen Trittin holds U.S. president George Bush responsible for hurricane Katrina.

Yes, that's right. The hurricane Katrina that killed dozens of people, that destroyed countless homes, flooded parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, that left millions without electricity - it's all Bush's fault, according to a leading member of the German Green party, who happens to be Environmental Minister in Chancellor Schroeder's cabinet. Never mind that statistics don't show a particularly increase in the frequency of hurricanes in the U.S. in the last decades.

Problemet er at USA siden 1960erne faktisk har været udsat for FÆRRE store orkaner (styrke 3, 4 og 5) end gennemsnittet for de sidste 150 år. Det sjove er så, at faldet faktisk sker samtidig med at videnskabsmændene siger drivhuseffekten slog igennem.

Hvis man kigger på antallet af samtlige orkaner (altså inklusive styrke 1 og 2) har det lagt under gennemsnittet siden 1940erne.

Men det får Bush jo nok ikke kredit for.....

Henrik

Initiativet Fred og Frihed - aktion II

2005-09-02T22:49:00.000+02:00

Ja, så fik vi i Initiativet Fred og Frihed skudt Aktion II af. Medie-delen har kørt i snart en måned, og i tirsdags var en flok progressive aktivister så i Aalborg for at ryste den reaktionære venstrefløjs ideologiske luft-kasteller. De til lejligheden fremstillede godt 200 skrifter, der pillede myten om Che Guevara fra hinanden blev revet væk, og givet muligheden for at få en anden vinkel end den gængse venstreradikale var mediernes opmærksomhed næsten for meget for os. Personligt var jeg nødt til at melde fra i sidste øjeblik, så Kim fra Uriasposten var nødt til at rekruttere to talsmænd mere ud over ham selv, og så var der endda pres på fra tid til anden.

Hvem ved, måske fik vi endda pirket lidt til folks nysgerrighed, fik dem til at stille spørgsmål ved det venstrefløjsbavl de er blevet stopfodret med siden barnsben.

Mere på Uriasposten og So Blogging What.

Henrik