UK: Creator of children's character "Fireman Sam" detained at airport for noting that a veiled Muslim woman passed through security without showing her face
Excuse me. If a woman already has her feet in the stirrups, waiting for all the instruments that are used doing an abortion - is she really (REALLY????) going to equate an ultrasound with "rape"? What a slap in the face to all of the women who have truly gone through the trauma of rape.
[Cough] If I knew at the beginning it was this easy to take his family jewels and put them in a thimble, I wouldn’t have bothered reading his defense.
~~~ Trashing Tricare - because our military doesn't sacrifice enough already.
The Obama administration’s proposed defense budget calls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for their healthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers’ benefits untouched. The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials. Several congressional aides suggested the move is designed to increase the enrollment in Obamacare’s state-run insurance exchanges.
To appease liberal Democrats pushing for the so-called “public option” (the full frontal government takeover of our health care system), the White House settled for the creation of a $6 billion network of nonprofit “CO-OPs” that will “compete” with private insurers. It’s socialized medicine through the side door. House Republicans sliced about $2 billion from the slush fund in last spring’s budget deal and proclaimed the program dead. Hardly.
DEARBORN, Mich. -- Four Christian missionaries who were arrested at Dearborn's Arab American Festival were arraigned Monday on misdemeanor charges of disturbing the peace.
Charged were Negeen Mayel, Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, Paul Rezkalla and David Wood Mayel, all members of a group called "Acts 17 Apologetics."
Negeen Mayel faces an additional charge of disobeying an officer.
They all pleaded not guilty.
The four were arrested on June 18 while handing out Christian literature and videotaping themselves.
The group said they were arrested over religion, but police insist that it's not true, and continue to stand behind their arrest. Dearborn Mayor Jack O'Reilly defends his police department's arrest, saying he saw the video police confiscated from them and he believes the missionaries came into town to cause trouble.
Dearborn, MI has one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States...and (like most of the country) and these days it seems like if there is a question between Christians and "anybody else", the Christians are going to lose.
BUT...
I'm not sure if this is the case here. There are certainly different accounts.
The four who were arrested were not the only Christians at the festival.
Groups were to get a permit and have a booth...most Christian groups did that.
These four evidently did not get a booth, but they did get a video camera.
There are quotes of them saying things like they had been threatened the year before, so they brought along the video camera...they were there expecting excitement. This is not what missionaries should be after.
Here is a video from 2009:
I see aggression on both sides, I see the Christians being inflammatory. I think that perhaps the arrest was justified, if they were breaking the rules.
Let the courts figure it out.
~~~
On the other hand, here is a t-shirt that was confiscated from Arab students at a Dearborn high school
Well of course! If there are too many books on the conservative best seller lists...give them their own list! (That way they're not competing with the liberals...)
In a Nov. 9 entry on The Huffington Post that laments Fox News host Glenn Beck pulling a feat not done before - holding the number one spot on The New York Times' four lists: hardcover fiction, hardcover non-fiction, paperback non-fiction and children's - they suggest a separate category altogether, not for political non-fiction, but conservative non-fiction.
tags: conservative, books, Huffington Post, politics
~~~
How many people died at Fort Hood? Fourteen...A grim reminder of the ones who are forgotten...
Coworkers told police that Hamid's actions were out of the ordinary and that he had worked at the kiosk for years. (...) Through an interpreter, Hamid requested a public defender and was scheduled to appear in court at 9 a.m. Thursday where he is expected to enter a plea.
What's up with that? He's been working at a mall in California for YEARS...and needs an interpreter to ask for an attorney?
President Barack Obama recently told ABC News' Jake Tapper that he shares Pelosi’s belief that jail time is an appropriate punishment for not buying health insurance.
2008
And I think that it is important for us to recognize that if, in fact, you are going to mandate the purchase of insurance and it’s not affordable, then there’s going to have to be some enforcement mechanism that the government uses. And they may charge people who already don’t have health care fines, or have to take it out of their paychecks. And that, I don’t think, is helping those without health insurance.
Evangelical Christian organizations that hold to a complementarian view of gender roles, such as The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), have expressed concern over a possible connection between an egalitarian view of male/female gender roles and homosexuality. For example, in the list of central concerns stated in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood-perhaps the most thorough defense of complementarianism-the authors declare, "We are concerned not merely with the behavior roles of men and women, but also with the underlying nature of manhood and womanhood themselves.
“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.” --BHO, 2008
I have a confession to make. I am not fond of women’s ministry programs. Don’t get me wrong, I love my sisters in Christ and enjoy fellowshipping with them. But programs that involve some type of teaching, such as workshops or conferences, generally don’t appeal to me. Why? In my experience, gatherings to hear teaching have been little more than encouragement sessions to make us feel better about being “God’s women”. Unfortunately, I find the same thing on women’s blogs, even ones that have been advertised as a place for serious thinkers. There are a few exceptions, but generally, I find them lacking in rich theological substance.
The Afghan lawyer defending a journalist on death row in Kabul has been bombarded with death threats urging him to drop the case.
Islamic extremists repeatedly threatened to murder Afzal Nooristani after he agreed to defend Sayed Pervez Kambaksh in his high-profile appeal.
The 23-year-old student writer was sentenced to death for circulating an article about women's rights. He was tried in a closed court, and denied a defence lawyer. His case has sparked worldwide protests.
emphasis mine...yep...sounds like complementarianism..(NOT)
~~~
The Afghan lawyer defending a journalist on death row in Kabul has been bombarded with death threats urging him to drop the case.
Islamic extremists repeatedly threatened to murder Afzal Nooristani after he agreed to defend Sayed Pervez Kambaksh in his high-profile appeal.
The 23-year-old student writer was sentenced to death for circulating an article about women's rights. He was tried in a closed court, and denied a defence lawyer. His case has sparked worldwide protests. (emphasis mine)
So offensive, in fact that I refuse to return to a site that has the button in the sidebar.
Personally, I would not compare a spiritual sibling to a religion that condones violence and death as a means to an end...that end being the silencing of anybody who disagrees with them.
I have in my personal library, the book "Infidel" by Hirsi Ali.
Ms Ali is Muslim; she is Somali born, and was circumcised as a child.
As an adult, she worked with Theo Van Gogh to make the film "Submission" (she wrote the screen play). The film was not "anti-Islam", it was anti-violence-against-women and decried those Muslims who supported that violence.
As a result, Van Gogh was murdered and a note containing a death threat against Ali was pinned to his chest. Ali has received numerous death threats and some of them have come close to succeeding.
This is the Islam that uses violence as a means to the end.
~~~
Christian girls on the way home from school: ahhh...the photos were here...a young girl's body...her head laying beside her...the World Trade Center...Danial Pearl, his head laying on his belly....
This is the religion that some egalitarians compare complementarians to...and nobody objects.
I will say again...if a picture says a thousand words...that says volumes.
Godwin's Law: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
MzEllen's Law: "As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one.”
Godwin wrote: “Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust,”Well, when a person compares [something] to Islam, I’d like them to think a bit harder about
female circumcision
honor killings
forced arranged marriages
beheadings for being raped.
being stoned to death for pre-marital intercourse.
being killed by your father for dating the wrong boy
being stabbed by your brother for going to a dance club
I want you to think a bit harder about those things.
Again, MzEllen’s Law (if it’s out there someplace else, let me know!)
“As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one.”
The concept appears to have entered the public consciousness more broadly, as well. In 2005, the aphorism was the subject of a question in the British television quiz show University Challenge. By 2007, The Economist had declared that “a good rule in most discussions is that the first person to call the other a Nazi automatically loses the argument.” And in October 2007, the “Last Page” columnist in The Smithsonian stated that when an adversary uses an inappropriate Hitler or Nazi comparison, “you have only to say ‘Godwin’s Law’ and a trapdoor falls open, plunging your rival into a pool of hungry crocodiles.”
“As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one.”
Godwin's Law: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
MzEllen's Law: "As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one."
Godwin wrote: "Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust,"
Well, when a person compares [something] to Islam, I'd like them to think a bit harder about
female circumcision
honor killings
forced arranged marriages
beheadings for being raped.
being stoned to death for pre-marital intercourse.
being killed by your father for dating the wrong boy
being stabbed by your brother for going to a dance club
I want you to think a bit harder about those things.
Again, MzEllen's Law (if it's out there someplace else, let me know!)
"As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one."
The concept appears to have entered the public consciousness more broadly, as well. In 2005, the aphorism was the subject of a question in the British television quiz show University Challenge. By 2007, The Economist had declared that "a good rule in most discussions is that the first person to call the other a Nazi automatically loses the argument." And in October 2007, the "Last Page" columnist in The Smithsonian stated that when an adversary uses an inappropriate Hitler or Nazi comparison, "you have only to say 'Godwin's Law' and a trapdoor falls open, plunging your rival into a pool of hungry crocodiles."
"As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one."
As presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain touches down in Michigan today for a fund-raiser and town hall meeting in Oakland County, some leaders in metro Detroit's Arab- and Muslim-American community are demanding an apology from the Arizona senator.
The leaders said Monday that they are insulted that McCain's campaign severed ties with political activist and businessman Ali Jawad, the founder of the Lebanese American Heritage Club.
A group of Arab-American and Muslim leaders said Monday they want John McCain's campaign to apologize for cutting ties with an Arab-American businessman serving on the GOP presidential candidate's Michigan finance committee. (emphasis mine)
What about it?
Schlussel said among her concerns about Jawad were two federal cases involving him and his company: He was convicted in 1997 in U.S. District Court in Detroit for insurance fraud and sentenced to probation. His company was convicted the same year of mail fraud and was ordered to pay more than $250,000 in fines and restitution.
She also alleges that he has met with Hezbollah leaders and Hezbollah-allied members of the Lebanese parliament on two trips to Lebanon.
"John McCain did the right thing by asking Ali Jawad to leave," she said.
And?
For his part, Jawad said he wasn't forced into resigning. He asked to be removed from the committee after receiving two calls from the McCain campaign inquiring about the allegations and questioning his "integrity and loyalty to this country."
Ok...McCain should apologize...McCain did the right thing...BUT...Jawad wasn't forced to resign!
The story also says:
We do not want a president who makes a decision ... based on false information," said Osama Siblani, president of the Arab American Political Action Committee and publisher of the Arab American News. "This is an insult to every Arab-American and Muslim American in the country."
MY TAKE:
1) Schlussel has been involved in many political scuffles and anything she writes should be investigated (meaning both her sources and her content). If you take her word for an accusation such as this one - you might get hung out to dry.
2) Jawad is a convicted fraud.
3) If every political campaign weeded out all of the convicts (such as this one)...the political arena would be a much different place.
4) If there are suspected ties to Hezbollah, they should be investigated...if the ties are not there, act accordingly. If they are not, act accordingly.
5) If Jawad asked to be removed from the committee based on mere questioning...that does seem like a smoking gun.
6) Either way, he was not removed by McCain. He asked to be removed. Is an apology in order? If the questioning were only following up on rumors - no.
Following up on rumors like this one is what a responsible campaign does.
Ms Ali is Muslim; she is Somali born, and was circumcised as a child.