Will Europe Put its Foot Down? – by Hege Storhaug

FRONTPAGEMAG.COM

“Either Islam will be Europeanized, or Europe will be Islamized.”  In recent years this prediction has been made by many major experts, among them the AmericanBernard Lewis, the Syrian-born German Bassam Tibi, and the French Gilles Kepel.  This is, without question, an uncomfortable and sensitive topic, but it’s one that is very pertinent now that the Swiss have put their foot down and said that they will not accept another minaret within their borders.

In recent decades, Islam has exploded in Europe.  You can see the changes with your own eyes from year to year – whether it’s the increasing presence of hijabs on the street in a city like Oslo, or the bearded men with ankle-high baggy pants, or the new and resplendent mosques that are under construction.  For my part, I’ve noticed an increasing insecurity and unease among “ordinary” people who feel like aliens in their own country.  People ask: what is the purpose of this project?  Don’t we, as a nation, have a right to pass our own cultural legacy, our traditions and values, on to our children and grandchildren?  Should we, in the name of tolerance, give in to the demands made by “others” whose influence is growing, and whose voices are becoming louder, as their numbers increase? Or as a Norwegian Labor Party politician said to me in a private conversation: “On the day that most of the members of the city council are Muslims, what do you think will happen to the right of Oslo bars to serve alcohol?”  Another leading Laborite with over a couple of decades’ experience in politics put it more bluntly when I asked him “What you think about immigration from the Muslim world?”  The answer was so crisp, merciless, and genuinely felt that I gasped: “What have they contributed?”  Period.

Let it be said that of course there are many Muslims in Europe who are getting along just fine and who get the same chills down their spines that other European citizens do when they think of Sharia and the lack of freedom that accompanies classical Islam.  But as a rule those aren’t the Muslims who are the most prominent members of their faith among us; they aren’t the ones who enjoy power in the Muslim community, and they aren’t the ones who are best organized and who have developed exceptionally strong connections to our public officials.

No, it’s not the secularized Muslims who are leading the way – far from it.  Ayaan Hirsi Ali made this clear when I and a colleague of mine from Human Rights Service in Oslo met her at the Dutch Parliament in The Hague in 2005.  As she put it, there most certainly are Muslims in Europe who want a Europeanized Islam – that is to say, a private, personal Islam without political and judicial influence.  But these aren’t the Muslims who are powerfully positioned in Europe’s community organizations, Europe’s corridors of power, and Europe’s universities.

Here is an interesting point: immigrants from Iran tend to be secular, well-integrated, and – very often – well-educated.  Here in Norway, Iranians have generally integrated themselves into our culture, accepting Norwegian values even as they’ve maintained Iranian traditions that don’t conflict with human rights, such as celebrating Iranian New Year.  But Iranians are not the leaders of Europe’s Muslim communities.  Nor can I think of a single mosque in Norway, or anywhere in Europe for that matter, that has been founded by Iranians.

If Iranians, generally speaking, have been an immigration success story, enriching Europe and becoming fully participating members of European society, this isn’t true of the members of many other major immigrant groups, whose origins are in traditional villages in other Muslim countries.  It’s precisely these people’s unwillingness (or inability?) to assimilate to European society – indeed, to appreciate such typically European values as freedom, equality, social participation, and personal responsibility – that may be a major reason why Switzerland said no to more minarets.  At some point, Europe must put its foot down if it truly wishes to continue to be the Europe we know today.  There is a limit as to how many minarets a society can live with, how many hijabs and baggy pants the streets of Europe can tolerate, before the public space becomes as ideologically charged and as palpably unfree as the streets of, say, Pakistan.  We need to stand up and preserve our culture – a successful culture that is itself the only reason why immigrants are streaming from the Muslim world to our continent rather than in the other direction.

Here’s a specific example of how misguided our politicians have been in their handling of the challenge of Islam – an example that I think provides a very clear picture of grotesque weakness.  In 1974, Muslim immigrants from Pakistan established the first mosque in Norway, the Islamic Cultural Centre (ICC).  The name has a comforting, harmless sound: a “cultural center” sounds like something very different from a mosque.  In reality, however, the ICC is a direct subsidiary of an extreme religio-political movement and political party in Pakistan, Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), which was established by one of the leading Islamist ideologues of the last century, Abu Ala Maududi (1903 – 1979). When Pakistan’s worst despot ever, General and President Zia ul-Haq (1977 – 1988), Islamized that country from top to bottom, his main inspiration was Maududi. Today Qazi Hussain Ahmad, who has been a top JI leader for several years and has been banned for security reasons from entering about 25 European countries, as well as Egypt.  He has been under house arrest in Pakistan several times for having instigated violent riots that took human lives. Unsurprisingly, he’s also a fan of Bin Laden. Yet he’s not prohibited from entering Norway, and when he landed at Oslo Airport in August 2004, the arrivals hall was packed with Norwegian-Pakistani men and boys who openly cheered him as a prophet.

The ICC, then, which has a grandiose new mosque with minarets in downtown Oslo, follows an ideology that is a carbon copy of Maududi’s terrifying, violent creed.  It doesn’t just belong to a philosophically dangerous movement; it belongs to a movement which preaches that Muslims should not become fully integrated members of Norwegian society.  This is exactly the same attitude that is preached at every mosque in Europe that has “respect” for itself.  And yet the ICC, like many other mosques that share its theology, was allowed to establish itself in Norway, and in Europe generally, without protest from anybody.  And that’s not all: today it’s one of the largest and most influential so-called faith communities among Norwegian Muslims and has, over the years, received tens of millions of kroner in government support because it is regarded – absurdly – as a purely religious body.

But Europe’s cultural elite is blind to this ugly reality.  On the contrary, that elite, which lives largely off of the dialogue industry – exchanging endless amiable platitudes with Muslim leaders – is all bent out of shape over Switzerland: it views the ban on minarets as an assault on free speech and on freedom of religion; the ban, according to the elite, is an offense against cultural diversity, an expression of intolerance, prejudice, and extremism that will lead to a clash of civilizations.  Not to mention that the ban violates international conventions.

Yet this same elite never gets worked up when Christians are murdered in Pakistan or when their churches and homes are burned down.  Or when women and men are stoned to death in Somalia, or when burka-clad women in Afghanistan are crammed together with goats in the backs of trucks.  Nor do they pay the slightest heed to a woman walking through the streets of Oslo in a burka – a garment that must be described as the clearest possible manifestation of antipathy to Western culture, a powerful statement of complete rejection of the society in which the woman lives.

It is not too much to say, then, that the elite is completely off-balance.  And it’s this lack of balance, this lack of sensible attitudes in the salons of the privileged, this lack of respect for their own culture and for the values on which that culture is founded, that the grass roots are reacting to.  Simply put, ordinary people are sick of being told by their “betters” what to do and think: they want with all their hearts to defend themselves and their own.  Their message is: By all means, come to Europe and become one of us.  But don’t come here to turn our culture and our values upside down. The people have, in short, begun to wake up and to say no to the utopian multicultural dream. For they realize that Norway will no longer be Norway, and the West will no longer be the West, if the country’s essential culture is not preserved; and Christianity is an indissoluble part of that culture.  Whether one is personally religious or not, that’s simply a fact.  If Islam is going to place itself at the heart of our culture, most Norwegians understand that what we now consider Norwegian will be dead and buried.  The only alternative would be a miracle: a revolution within Islam that would place all of Muhammed’s inhumane actions on the ash heap of history and reduce all of his “sacred” legal and political pronouncements to the status of fairy tales like A Thousand and One Nights. Of course, such a revolution would also require an end to all of the violence and hatred preached in the Koran.

For about a millennium, Islam has failed spectacularly to pull off such a revolutionary project.  It’s precisely for this reason that people are pouring out of these failed states (yes, they’re also failed on account of other kinds of ideological despotism, including socialist projects, which when combined with authoritarian, oppressive religion produce something like gunpowder). The big question, however, is this: why should we expect a form of Islam to develop in Europe that is entirely antithetical to the form of Islam found in the Muslim world?

Of course Norway, and Europe as a whole, should not embrace any and every kind of culture or religion that finds its way here.  But where to draw the line?  There is no one answer to this question.  The answer will vary according to the nature of the culture or religion and the strength of the challenge that it represents.  But if we sell out our mainstream culture, and relativize it, accept a watering down of our rights, we may end up with a set of supposedly democratic but in fact empty and meaningless ideals that fail to provide us citizens with a values-related map or compass.  And what can happen in critical situations if the people don’t share a sense of community?  How can we ensure a sense of belonging if, for example, freedom of speech faces a major threat or if we suffer a terrorist attack?  Can we risk having civil war-like conditions, as we is already the case in Europe’s no-go zones?  Democratic order is, above all, a technical and practical matter, and it can thus never replace people’s need for a community, their need to be part of a common culture.

People must, then, have feelings – positive ones – about one another.  Last winter I had a thought-provoking experience on the east side of Oslo on my way home after work.  A thin layer of snow covered the icy streets.  A Somali women dressed in a tent slipped on the ice as I passed her.  Instinctively, I grabbed her and thus managed to prevent what could have been a bad fall, and helped her back to her feet.  I asked if she was okay, but she just hurried on with a completely expressionless look on her face.  Not a single sign of human connection, not a single glance at me.  I stood there feeling empty and alienated.

Awareness of a society’s and a culture’s need for a sense of community seems especially absent from the EU system.  The kind of communal feeling I am talking about contrasts sharply with the multicultural mentality of the pro-EU and antinational forces.  They refuse to understand that a nation’s culture – its folk songs, traditions, holy days, flags, and national anthems – is different from a broad-based constitution based on ideals of equality.  A text, simply put, cannot replace a feeling of community.  A national community with strong survival instincts is founded not on a text but on matters that are close to the heart, on traditions, on things that are palpable, on things as obvious as a common language and a sense of belonging to a fatherland.  And yes, this sense of community also has something to do with the churches and church spires, as well as the church’s rituals and traditions.  The principles that tie people together cannot be legislated by politicians; such bonds call for something more – trust between citizens, national loyalty, a high degree of agreement as to what freedom is and is not, and a broad sense of support for the obligations that a real community demands of its members.

The minarets, then, don’t symbolize community in the European sense – they symbolize the umma, the Muslim community.  They don’t represent loyalty to Norway or Switzerland or any other European country – they represent loyalty to Mecca and to the umma.  They don’t signify freedom, but illiberalism (women’s oppression, the punishment of apostasy with death).  The minarets, in short, embody the antithesis of the Declaration of Human Rights (as is clear to anyone who has read the 1990 Cairo Declaration about so-called “human rights in Islam,” which was formulated by the Organization of the Islamic Conference).  Nor are they, one might add, a part of our architectural tradition or any other Western tradition.  On the contrary, they bear witness to a state of mind that views us, the “others,” as strangers.

The policy of forcing oneself to tolerate something for which one has no sympathy whatsoever will, moreover, only erode the national culture.  Pointing fingers and making moral judgments is not the way to enhance tolerance.

In light of the immigration from the Muslim world, it’s very important for us to be aware of the history of our Western democracy.  It’s not true, after all, that we adopted democracy, with all the magnificent liberal values that accompanied it, and then developed a broad community of the people.  On the contrary, our free society is a historical consequence of a communal society based on trust, a shared culture in which Christianity has naturally played a central role.  Norway would not have managed to come together under our constitution, signed at Eidsvoll in 1814, if the country that produced it had been split along cultural and religious lines.  The people whose representatives met at Eidsvoll were a people who shared essentially the same culture and religion and who could hence agree on the text upon which their nation was to be founded.  The same thing happened when the Puritans settled in New England and built a society that grew into American democracy.  It is actually somewhat odd to think that America owes the liberal democracy enshrined in its founding documents to a group of original settlers whose strong sense of community was based on conservative religion and illiberal traditions.  It is, then, shared cultural norms, and not theoretical or abstract ideals of equality or international conventions, that lead people to stand shoulder to shoulder and to find community together.  A liberal democracy such as that of Norway or Switzerland is not and never has been self-sustaining.

The minaret case, then, can be very critical for Europe’s future.  How many minarets can Europe tolerate before our strong sense of communal connection is dissolved?  What will happen, then, to our democracy’s liberal values and to the social harmony we have enjoyed?  These are questions that most of the political parties in Norway and in a number of other European countries do not wish to address.  As I wrote a few days ago, they absolutely refuse to recognize that Islam is an ideology and a social system, a religion of laws – a religion with a political orientation and with political ambitions.   Yet Islam and Christianity are still treated by Norwegian (and European) officials as identical twins.  This misguided way of thinking may end up costing us heavily.  We must learn from the Swiss as quickly as possible – must learn, that is, to face up to, and respond appropriately to, the political and legal realities of the Islamic congregations in our midst.

This essay originally appeared in Norwegian on the website of Human Rights Service, www.rights.no, and was translated into English by Bruce Bawer.

Mosques as barracks, minarets as bayonets...

Kanchan Gupta Journalist & Writer, Saturday, December 05, 2009

Mosques as barracks, minarets as bayonets...

Turkey’s Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was being faithful to his creed when he declared, “Mosques are our barracks, minarets our bayonets, domes our helmets, the believers our soldiers.” Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, a fascist Sunni imam with a huge following among those who subscribe to the Muslim Brotherhood’s antediluvian worldview, was more to the point when he thundered at an event organised by London’s then Labour mayor Ken Livingstone, “The West may have the atom bomb, we have the human bomb.” Sheikh Qaradawi, who is of Egyptian origin, frequently exhorts Muslims not to rest till they have “conquered Christian Rome” and believes “throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the Jews people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler”. Islamic schools in Britain funded by Saudi Arabia use textbooks describing Jews as “apes” and Christians as “pigs”. Theo Van Gogh, who along with writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali produced Submission, a film on the plight of Muslim women under sharia’h, was shot dead by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim, in Amsterdam. Rallies by radical Islamists, which were once rare, are now a common feature in European capitals with banners and placards denouncing democracy as the ‘problem’ and Islam as the ‘solution’.

Such crude though accurate assertions of Islamism, coupled with the relentless jihad being waged overtly — exemplified by the London Underground bombings and the riots in Parisian suburbs — and covertly as exposed by Channel 4’s stunning investigation in its Dispatches programme titled ‘Undercover Mosque’, have now begun to raise hackles in Europe. The first signs of an incipient backlash came in the form of French President Nicolas Sarkozy demanding a ban on the burqa (the sharia’h-imposed hijab is already banned at public schools in France). Any doubts that may have lingered about Europe’s patience with Islam’s rage boys running thin have been removed by last Sunday’s referendum in Switzerland where people have voted overwhelmingly to ban the construction of minarets which are no longer seen to be representing faith. For 57.5 per cent of Swiss citizens, the minaret, an obligatory adjunct to a mosque which is used by the muezzin to call the faithful to prayers five times a day, is now a “political symbol against integration”. They view each new minaret as marking the transmogrification of Christian Europe into Islamic Eurabia. The Islamic minaret, according to Swiss People’s Party legislator Ulrich Schluer, has come to represent the “effort to establish sharia’h on European soil”. Hence the counter-effort to ban their construction.

Last Sunday’s referendum and the massive vote against Islamic minarets is by no means an unexpected development, as is being pretended by Islamists and those who find it fashionable to defend Islamism or are scared of taking a stand lest they be accused of Islamophobia, which Christopher Caldwell, author ofReflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West, describes as a “standing fatwa” against Islam’s critics. Resentment against assertive political Islam has been building up in Switzerland for almost a decade, triggered by refugees from Yugoslavia’s many civil wars seeking to irreversibly change the Swiss way of life to suit their twisted notions of Islam’s supremacy. For the past many years the Swiss People’s Party and the Federal Democratic Union, both avowedly right-of-centre organisations, have been trying to initiate an amendment to Article 72 of Switzerland’s Constitution to include the sentence, “The building of minarets is prohibited.” After doing the cantonal rounds, both the parties set up a joint Egerkinger Committee in 2007 to take their campaign to the federal level. The November 29 referendum is the outcome of that campaign.

The resultant vote — 57.5 per cent endorsing the proposed amendment to the Constitution with 42.5 opposing it — provides some interesting insights. For instance, the Swiss Government and Parliament, which are opposed to the amendment, clearly suffer from a disconnect with the Swiss masses. The voting pattern also shows that the spurious ‘cosmopolitan spirit’ of Zurich, Geneva and Basel, where people voted against the ban by a narrow margin, is not shared by most Swiss. The initiative has got 19.5 of the 23 cantonal votes — Basel city Canton, with half-a-vote and the largest Muslim population in Switzerland, barely defeated the initiative with 51.61 per cent people voting against it. This only goes to show that the Left-liberal intelligentsia may dominate television studio debates, as is often seen in our country, but it neither influences public opinion nor persuades those whose perception of the reality is not cluttered by bogus ‘tolerance’ of the intolerant.
Daniel Pipes, who is among the few scholars of Islam not scared to be labelled an ‘Islamophobe’, is of the view that the Swiss vote “represents a turning point for European Islam, one comparable to the Rushdie affair of 1989. That a large majority of Swiss who voted on Sunday explicitly expressed anti-Islamic sentiments potentially legitimates such sentiments across Europe and opens the way for others to follow suit”. As always, Pipes is prescient. An opinion poll conducted by the French Institute for Public Opinion after the Swiss referendum shows 46 per cent of French citizens are in favour of banning the construction of minarets, 40 per cent support the idea, while 14 per cent are indecisive. “That it was the usually quiet, low profile, un-newsworthy, politically boring, neutral Swiss who suddenly roared their fears about Islam only enhances their vote’s impact,” says Pipes. The post-referendum opinion poll in France shows that one in two French citizens would not only like to see minarets banned, but along with them mosques, too.

The ‘sudden roar’ heard in Switzerland has found a resonance in countries apart from France. A comment on the Swiss vote that appeared in the mass circulation German newspaper Bild reflects the popular mood in Germany which is remarkably similar to that which prevails in Switzerland at the moment: “The minaret isn’t just the symbol of a religion but of a totally different culture. Large parts of the Islamic world don’t share our basic European values: The legacy of the Enlightenment, the equality of man and woman, the separation of church and state, a justice system independent of the Bible or the Quran and the refusal to impose one's own beliefs on others with ‘fire and the sword’. Another factor is likely to have influenced the Swiss vote: Nowhere is life made harder for Christians than in Islamic countries. Those who are intolerant themselves cannot expect unlimited tolerance from others.”

Yet, it may be too early to suggest that the tide of Islamism will now have to contend with the fury of a backlash. Governments and organisations that find merit in toeing the line of least resistance have reacted harshly to the Swiss vote; rather than try and understand why more and more people are beginning to loathe, if not hate, Islamism, a case is being made all over again for the need to be tolerant with those whose sole desire is to subjugate the world to Islam. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Navi Pillay, who is yet to utter a word about the suppression of freedom and denial of dignity in Islamic countries or the shocking violation of human rights by jihadis, has been scathing in her response, describing the Swiss vote as “a discriminatory, deeply divisive and thoroughly unfortunate step”. The Organisation of Islamic Conference has warned that the vote will “serve to spread hatred and intolerance towards Muslims”. The OIC’s complaint would carry credibility if it were to demand tolerance towards non-Muslims in its member-countries, especially Saudi Arabia, and denounce Islam’s preachers of hate. That, however, is unlikely to happen. On the contrary, the OIC will continue to defend, even while accusing others of intolerance and hate, the denial of religious, social and cultural plurality in Islamic countries as also the repudiation of the core values of a modern democracy by those Muslims who find themselves living in one. The absence of ‘multiculturalism’, which Muslims demand in non-Islamic countries, is one of the defining features of any Islamic country, including those touted as being ‘moderate’ and ‘modern’, for example, Egypt and Turkey.

It is amusing that Egypt’s Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, whose salary and perquisites are paid for by the Government, should feel upset over the Swiss vote: “This proposal ... is not considered just an attack on freedom of beliefs, but also an attempt to insult the feelings of the Muslim community in and outside Switzerland.” In his own country, Coptic Christians live in increasing fear of Muslim attacks with anti-Copt violence fast becoming a regular feature. No less amusing is Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s response to the Swiss rejection of Islamic minarets. Mr Davutoglu finds the proposed ban on the construction of minarets “reminiscent of the sectarian wars of the Middle Ages” and has warned that the move could “incite clashes on a global scale if sufficient measures are not taken”. Had he been honest, Mr Davutoglu would have added that the posters exhorting Swiss citizens to vote for the proposed ban were inspired by his leader’s vivid description of Islamic minarets as Islam’s bayonets.

Hence, those who are crying foul over the Swiss vote and those who are pretending disquiet and anguish are perfectly at ease when Saudi Arabia ruthlessly deals with the faintest expression of faith in any religion other than Islam or Malaysia pulls down Hindu temples. Nor have Ms Pillay and those who blithely cite her criticism of the Swiss referendum to absurdly insist that the vote “represents a fundamental threat to millions of Muslims” ever bothered to protest against the discrimination meted out to Copts in Egypt or the raucous, coarse anti-Semitism of Iran whose President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad misses no opportunity to reiterate his threat of “wiping Israel off the map of the world”. Closer home, Muslims are not known to have disowned those of their co-religionists whose murderous campaign to cleanse Kashmir Valley of all Hindus resulted in 250,000 Pandits fleeing their ancestral land and being reduced to refugees in their own country. Nor were anguished voices heard when Muslims took to the streets to prevent the construction of temporary shelters along the Amarnath Yatra route for Hindu pilgrims, although Muslims in India and abroad would see any move to curtail facilities and subsidies for Haj pilgrims, which are paid for by non-Muslims, as a “fundamental threat” and a manifestation of Islamophobia.

We are yet to be told by Muslims who demand equal rights and more in non-Islamic countries – for instance, public funds for schools in Britain where children are taught Hizb-ut-Tahrir’s hate agenda and madarsas in India which excel in bigotry -- what they have to say about Hindus being asked to pay jizya to Islamist thugs in Pakistan and Afghanistan, or the abduction and rape of Hindu women under the Jamaat-e-Islami’s supervision in Bangladesh. What we have heard, most recently in India, are exhortations for Muslims to stand apart from the national mainstream, to maintain their separate Islamic identity, to banish women from public places and to reject all secular statutes.

Instead of indulging in manufactured rage and pretending imagined victimhood, Muslims across the world would do well to ponder over Bild’s pithy comment: “Those who are intolerant themselves cannot expect unlimited tolerance from others.” As for the limp-wristed Left-liberal intelligentsia, it is welcome to be tolerant of Islamic intolerance, but it should not expect the vast majority to meekly subjugate itself to Islam – if that is Islamophobia, so be it. The time to feign tolerance so as to be seen as ‘secular’ is over. The age of dhimmitude is drawing to a close. That is the real significance of the Swiss vote.
(This is an expanded version of my Sunday column 'Coffee Break' which appears in The Pioneer.)

64 People Die in Japan After Getting Swine Flu Jab

The Flu Case Thursday, 10 December 2009 11:21

A total of 64 people have died in Japan as of December 8th after receiving the swine flu shot, according to a report in the newspaper Mainichi.
One teenage boy died immediately after taking the shot.
Another man was found dead in his home four days after he received a swine flu jab.
He complained of stomach ache and vomitted and died later at home on his own. 
His doctor stated his death was not linked with H1N1 flu shot and that the side effect of the shot was only a stomach ache.

In addtion, there have been many reports of deaths related to Tamiflu in Japan, including young people falling to their deaths from their appartment after taking Tamiflu, violent and irrational actions and hallucinations.
But while the Japanese corporate media appears to downplay the side effects of the swine flu jab and of Tamiflu, it exaggerates the threat of the mild swine flu.

Accoording to Sankei news on November 27th, more than 100,000 people have been infected with swine flu in Japan. The total number of deaths caused by the siwne flu is over 100 people, it is maintained.
The Japanse government completed the first phase of its mass vaccination programme in the middle of November, after giving 450,000 people the jab.
Children and pregnant women were given the priority groups vaccinated using a swine flu vaccine made in Japan.

Norway spiral video: Mystery solved

By Dan Murphy Staff writer / December 10, 2009

A UFO? A Stargate style wormhole opening a path to other galaxies? The Aurora borealis?

A videotape of a strange spiraling cloud captured over Norway at dawn on Wednesday morning has had the Internet all atwitter (literally) with speculation as to its causes – everything from space aliens arriving to celebrate Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize award, to clandestine aviation tests.

Well, now it appears the mystery of the phenomenon, which bore some resemblance to a spiral galaxy, has been solved. Russia says it was the result of a failed test launch for its troubled Bulava missile program. In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said it fired a Bulava from a submarine in the White Sea near the Norwegian coast Wednesday morning. The intercontinental ballistic missile's first two stages worked perfectly, the ministry said, though the third stage engine proved "unstable."

Though the ministry didn't provide an opinion on whether its missile was responsible for the spiral, rockets often start spiraling on their own during partial engine failure. And the fact that the first two stages worked as the powerful missile hurtled skyward meant it should have been high in the atmosphere before the problem occurred, leaving a spiral of exhaust that would have been illuminated by the lights of Norway before the missile exploded.

Though the phenomenon delighted thousands in Norway, the cause behind it is the source of some embarrassment for Russia, which has planned the Bulava to be the crown jewel in its sea-based nuclear program. The missile is designed to carry a nuclear payload and to be easily launched from attack submarines, but so far eight of 12 test launches have resulted in failure.

In fact, while ET wasn't coming to celebrate Obama's prize, the test was an ironic measure of the difficult tasks before the newest Nobel peace laureate. On top of currently presiding over two wars, Obama has promised to work hard on nuclear disarmament -- one of the things the Norwegian Nobel Committee said convinced it to pick him. The Bulava, meant to be deployed from hard-to-detect submarines, and built to have evasive maneuver capabilities to avoid being shot down, is a step further away from Obama's stated goal.

I've put some calls in to atmospheric scientists on how exactly the phenomenon might have been generated, and if they get back to me with answers, I will post again later today.

Meanwhile, here's the spiral video:

Paterson: 'New York Has Run Out Of Cash'

Huffington Post DECEMBER 11, 2009

ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. David Paterson said Wednesday that New York has run out of cash and he's directing budget officials to reduce state aid payments to schools, local governments and nonprofit service providers until things improve.

Speaking at the Museum of American Finance in Manhattan, Paterson said he'll probably get sued, but he won't let the state run out of money on his watch.

"I am directing the Division of the Budget to limit payments so that we will have the cash to pay our debts at the end of December," Paterson said. "I will continue to withhold payments until this economy is leveled off."

"Now New York has run out of cash," he said. "You can't spend money that you don't have."

Budget Director Robert Megna said the state faces a shortfall of more than $1 billion in the general fund at the end of December, which would be a first for New York.

Other state funds can be tapped to help close that gap, Megna said, but even using all $1.2 billion of rainy day reserves and delaying a pension fund payment will leave the margin "razor thin."

Rather than risking some setback that would force hasty cuts, Megna said the administration is cutting spending in an orderly fashion. The Budget Division plans to detail temporary cuts this week, he said.

In his executive budget proposal next year, Paterson could propose making them permanent.

"We've had a revenue collapse over the last 24 to 36 month period," Megna said. "The state's cash position is at its weakest point in recent history."

Last week, after lawmakers agreed to cuts of about $2.8 billion, Paterson said it wouldn't be enough. He warned then of reduced and delayed payments, targeting school aid and funding to hospitals.

Timothy Kremer, executive director of the New York State School Boards Association, said they've asked their roughly 700 members to assess the impact if approximately $300 million in school aid is delayed or permanently cut, which Paterson had proposed in November. Lawmakers rejected the cut, which would be a roughly 1.5 percent reduction across the board.

"We think it's inappropriate and likely illegal for him to unilaterally act in that way," Kremer said. Several organizations, including his association, may seek a court order to block it, he said.

Stephen Acquario, executive director of the New York State Association of Counties, said their reimbursements for providing state-mandated services like public health, mental hygiene and other programs are already lagging by months and in some cases a year or more. "Many counties don't have the available fund balance to cover the state's bills," he said.

Abortion caused by "swine flu" vaccine in Sweden - again!

The Flu Case

A woman in Sweden was pregnant in the ninth month when she was talked into taking the "swine flu" vaccine by doctors. Two days later she gave birth to a perfect but lifeless son.
"- I was longing so much to hear my child's laughter and cry", Zahra Abdelkader said.
She had been to recent check ups and everything was normal and the child was perfectly healthy. Zahra, who earlier had decided not to take the vaccine, was talked into it by staff at the local hospital where she had her check ups made.
"-Before I got the shot, everything was fine with my child. I don't know how I will be able to live with this but I have to share my experience so that other women will not be exposed to the same thing. I believe it was the vaccine that killed my baby."
Ingemar Persson, senior expert at the Swedish Medical Products Agency commented the horrible death in a statement: "- we have examined four cases earlier of women that have reported abortions after vaccination. we have looked very carefully on each case and concluded that it has nothing to do with the vaccine."
Sweden is the country with the highest number of vaccinated people. The trust in authorities is strong and media has effectively blocked out any criticism against the mass vaccination in an extraordinary propaganda campaign spanning all major news papers and TV-stations. Sweden is traditionally one of the most vaccine friendly nations where almost every child gets vaccinated at birth. The debate about vaccines and their dangers is ignored and gets very little attention by media.
Swedes are also susceptible to tricks played against them like "offering" something for free or to scare tactics and fake shortages. All these factors together with the massive media propaganda campaign and cover up is the reason why so many Swedes get the poisonous injections.

Johan Niklasson

Original article

Plague Reported in Russia

The Flu Case

An outbreak of pneumonic plague similar to that recently reported in the Ukraine and Poland has killed at least thirty people in the city of Saratow, reports Germany's Der Spiegel.
Top Russian health official Gennadi Onischenko is reported as saying the outbreak is deliberate and part of a "conspiracy." But he does not know whois behind the action. 
This is part of the Spiegel report translated into English.

http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/medizin/0,1518,665238,00.html

Swine flu information disaster

Plague panic in of Russia province

By ' ); document.write( addy88546 ); document.write( '' ); //-->\n ' ); //--> This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ' ); //--> ">' ); document.write( addy88546 ); document.write( '' ); //-->\n ' ); //--> This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ' ); //--> ">Benjamin Bidder, Moscow

Schools are closed, the bishop has masses read - 30 deaths because of the swine flu have triggered panic in a Russian Volga city. Conspiracy theories make the rounds, the authorities are concealing the truth about how bad things are: the plague is here.

The telephone of the editor-in-chief of the “New Newspaper” rings again in the Volga city Saratow. Again Alexander Burmistrow has an excited caller on the other end. “We constantly get calls of anxious citizens”, says the journalist. There are many reports of strange vehicles, which drive along roads of the city. They are heavy tankers, report an informant. They sprayed a liquid - perhaps against the swine flu? Or perhaps against something worse?

Fear has seized the 800,000 inhabitants of the city Saratow. Fear of the epidemic: above all, however, fear of the fact that the authorities are hiding the truth from them. They are afraid that a worse illness than the swine flu is causing the deaths: the plague.

Schools remain closed, people avoid groups, business, concerts. In the evening at 8 o'clock the streets have been swept empty. The governor Itapow visited for the TV a pharmacy, before the television cameras he got his flu medication. He has already been vaccinated, announces the provincial prince. If however the normal citizens go into the pharmacy, there are no medicines for them. The vaccine remains scarce. Then public health authorities in the middle of the week announced 466 confirmed cases of swine flu. And 30 deaths, mostly young people, without any illnesses. Many women are among them.

The mobile phone network breaks down

Rumors spread like fires. The city is to be put under quarantine. The Air Force is to carry out missions to disinfect the city from air. And Iwan P., 22, medical student, types doomladen lines into its blog: “The results of the autopsy, which died from the swine flu in Sarantwo, resemble the descriptions in the medical literature of the results of the autopsy of patient that died of the lung plague.” Has the black death gone over into Saratow?

Concern turns to panic. The mobile phone network breaks down because thousands of people want to speak to dcotors and authorities at the same time. The public health authorities register huge quantities of calls. The hospitals are overcrowded, in the health centers queues form. Advice makes the round; use only boiled water and only for brushing your teeth. And hundreds of citizens write president Dmitrij Medwedew: “The enormous number of deaths among young people with the diagnosis “pneumonia" worries us” says the letter.

The statements of the authorities sounds furious. “Criminal” says the boss of federal public health authorities in Moscow, Gennadi Onischenko, about the procedures in the Volga city. It is obviously a conspiracy. “What the goals are I do not know, and I want it also to know”, storms Russia highest physician. It is “a deliberate provocation”, Onischenko tells the newspaper “Iswestia”.

The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed

By: Jeff Cox
CNBC.com

As experts debate the potential speed of the US recovery, one figure looms large but is often overlooked: nearly 1 in 5 Americans is either out of work or under-employed.

According to the government's broadest measure of unemployment, some 17.5 percent are either without a job entirely or underemployed. The so-called U-6 number is at the highest rate since becoming an official labor statistic in 1994.

The number dwarfs the statistic most people pay attention to—the U-3 rate—which most recently showed unemployment at 10.2 percent for October, the highest it has been since June 1983.

The difference is that what is traditionally referred to as the "unemployment rate" only measures those out of work who are still looking for jobs. Discouraged workers who have quit trying to find a job, as well as those working part-time but looking for full-time work or who are otherwise underemployed, count in the U-6 rate.

With such a large portion of Americans experiencing employment struggles, economists worry that an extended period of slow or flat growth lies ahead.

"To me there's no easy solution here," says Michael Pento, chief economist at Delta Global Advisors. "Unless you create another bubble in which the economy can create jobs, then you're not going to have growth. That's the sad truth."

Pento warns that forecasts of a double-dip ("W") or a straight up ("V") recovery both could be too optimistic given the jobs situation.

Instead, he believes the economy could flatline (or "L") for an extended period as small businesses struggle to grow and consequently rehire the workers that have been furloughed as the U-3 unemployment rate has doubled since March 2008.

As that trend has happened, the U-6 rate has expanded at an even more dramatic pace. Economists cite several reasons for the phenomenon.

For one, more workers are becoming discouraged as real estate—the focal point for the expansion in the earlier part of the decade—has collapsed and taken millions of directly related and ancillary jobs with it.

Many workers believe those jobs aren't coming back, and have thus quit looking and added themselves to the broader unemployment count.

"In the earlier part of this decade, 40 percent of all new jobs created were in real estate. Attorneys, mortgage brokers, agents, construction—they were all circled around housing," Pento says. "We've had a jobless recovery in the last two recessions. This is going to be the third jobless recovery in a row."

Another factor that may be leading people onto the rolls of those no longer looking for jobs is the government's accommodative extensions of jobless benefits.

"Workers are unemployed for a much longer span than we've seen historically," says David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities International in New York. "Part of that may be affected by the longer availability of benefits. It reduces the incentives for an urgent job search."

The U-6 rate debuted in January of 1994 at 11.8 percent, while the U-3 was at 6.6 percent. The measure hit a low of 6.9 percent in April 2000 while U-3 sat at 3.8 percent.

While the current methodology only dates back 15 years, a former U-6 gauge was in existence previously and peaked at 14.3 percent in 1982. Economists predict the current measure would fall just below that number using the same methodology.

"We're in the process of discovering how severe this recession and the long-run impact on certain industries will be and what that will do to overall employment," Resler says. The U-6 rate "portends a very slow, sluggish recovery."

If that holds and the US economy stays weak, that presents challenges for investors.

"People focus too much on that 10 percent number and not on the larger number," says Kevin Mahn, chief investment officer at Hennion & Walsh in Parsippany, N.J. "There's a humongous inventory of people out there looking for work and have been looking for work for a long time. Where are those jobs going to come from?"

High unemployment and the resulting pressure on consumers is driving many investors to look for opportunities overseas and in other assets.

Walsh says that trend is going to continue, with clients going to foreign markets, real estate investment trusts, certain bonds—anywhere that can offer profits above the slow-growth mire of US-based investments.

"If full employment is 4 percent, people are wondering how we're going to get from 10 (percent) to 4. Well, try getting from 17 to 4. We may not get back to full employment for a decade," Mahn says. "As an investor, that causes me to look for different places now. Maybe you can't just put money in US large caps and ride out this recovery."

Gore cancels on Copenhagen lecture – leaves ticketholders in a lurch

Wattsupwiththat.com

It seems the uncertainty about Copenhagen is growing. When Al baby pulls the plug, you know it’s hosed.

From Berlingske: Al Gore cancels lecture during COP15

Former U.S. vice president has canceled his event, more than 3,000 Danes have purchased a ticket. Photo: JOSE MENDEZ

Looks like they will get a refund though. Might be worth more as a collectors item in ten years though.

I wonder how many people have shelled out $1200 to shake Al’s hand? Maybe not enough and he couldn’t cover the expenses for his private jet?

From the Washington Post:

“Have you ever shaken hands with an American vice president? If not, now is your chance. Meet Al Gore in Copenhagen during the UN Climate Change Conference,” notes the Danish tourism commission, which is helping Mr. Gore promote “Our Choice,” his newest book about global warming in all its alarming modalities.

“Tickets are available in different price ranges for the event. If you want it all, you can purchase a VIP ticket, where you get a chance to shake hands with Al Gore, get a copy of Our Choice and have your picture taken with him. The VIP event costs DKK 5,999 and includes drinks and a light snack.”

Wait, what? How much is that in American dollars? The currency conversion says it all, too: 5,999 Danish kroners is equivalent to $1,209.

“If you do not want to spend that much money, but still want to hear Al Gore speak about his latest book about climate challenges, you can purchase general tickets, ranging in price from DKK 199-1,499 depending on where in the room you want to sit,” the practical Danes advise. “There will be large screens, so that everyone will get a good view.”

Yah, such a deal.

MUSLIMS IN 21ST CENTURY AMERICA: HARSH TREATMENT OF MUSLIM WOMEN

By Frosty Wooldridge
November 26, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

Part 6: how Muslim men treat their women, clashing cultures of Middle East and West, silent-assertion’s ultimate dilemma

Unfortunately, Islam abhors equality for women. Each year, in alliance with Sharia Law, thousands of Muslim husbands and sons kill their wives and daughters in accordance with “honor killings.” They behead them, strangle them, stone them and shoot them. If a Muslim woman suffers rape, Muslim men blame the woman. Then a father, husband or son may kill that woman for dishonoring the family. On average, over 5,000 Muslim women suffer death annually at the hands of Islamic honor killings.

Islam also mandates an ancient ritual called ‘female genital mutilation’. This custom, performed on their young girls, cuts and mutilates the vital sexual being out of the woman, usually before age nine. The butchery proves painful with no anesthetic and devastating for a lifetime for the woman! In some cases, the child dies from infections from the procedure carried on with crude instruments such as glass or razor blades. After the operation, she cannot enjoy any intimate fulfillment for the rest of her life.

According to Sharia Law, Muslim women found guilty of some error in personal conduct may be stoned to death. Muslim women cannot vote, drive cars or leave their homes without a family male escort. They must cover their bodies and heads with a burka. In many parts of the Middle East, they must cover their faces completely while in public. You’ve seen it on TV!

In effect, they must bow to the total subjugation of Muslim men. They cannot speak nor may they enjoy a voice in their societies. They must defer to men in public and private at all times. A Western person might call it misogyny in the extreme.

Brutal aspects of Sharia Law from the Koran:

1. Husbands may hit their wives even if the husbands merely fear high-handedness in their wives. The Quran in Sura 4:34 says: “If you fear high-handedness from your wives, remind them, then ignore them when you go to bed, then hit them. If they obey you, you have no right to act against them. Allah is most high and great.”

In the United States, this action would be considered assault and battery, as well as wife abuse: punished by a fine and jail time.

2. A man may be polygamous with up to four wives. The Quran in Sura 4:3 says: “And if you be apprehensive that you will not be able to do justice to the orphans, you may marry two or three or four women whom you choose.”

Such behavior stands in violation of all U.S. laws. No one in the United States may marry two, three or four women.

3. Arranged marriages and marrying anyone under the age of 17 violates U.S. laws and most state laws. In Sharia Law, mature men are allowed to marry prepubescent girls. The Quran in Sura 65:1: “Prophet, when you divorce women, divorce them for their prescribed waiting-period and count the waiting-period accurately. And if you are in doubt about those of your women who have despaired of menstruation, their waiting period is three months, and the same applies to those who have not menstruated as yet.”

Having sex with anyone under 17 in the United States stands as statutory rape and violates U.S. law. In Sharia Law, men may consummate sex with girls nine to 12.

4. A husband has sex with his wife, as a plow goes into a field. The Quran in Sura (Chapter) 2:223 says: “Your women are your fields, so go into your fields whichever way you like.”

Within the United States, a woman has the right not to be mistreated during intimacy. She stands equal in a court of law, but Sharia Law, her standing remains only half that of a man.

The oppression of women that Islam advocates not only disturbs Americans, but stands in direct contrast with everything that Western civilization stands for when it comes to the rights of women.

“Immigrants devoted to their own cultures and religions are not influenced by the secular politically correct façade that dominates academia, news-media, entertainment, education, religious and political thinking today,” said James Walsh, former Associate General Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. “They claim the right not to assimilate, and the day is coming when the question will be how can the United States regulate the defiantly unassimilated cultures, religions and mores of foreign lands? Such immigrants say their traditions trump the U.S. legal system. Balkanization of the United States has begun.”

MUSLIM HONOR KILLINGS IN 21ST CENTURY AMERICA

With Islam gaining an ever greater foothold in America, we will see more and more advocates for Sharia Law. That which most Americans find distasteful and barbaric—already manifests in the United States with 7 to 8 million Muslims. We will see violent treatment of more and more women and suffer more and more court cases of Muslim men as they kill their wives and daughters for disobeying them.

Fox News, January 1, 2008 reported a Muslim honor killing in Garrett, Texas when a 12 year old girl and her sister called 911, screaming, “My dad shot me; I am dying.” She and her sister died before an ambulance arrived. Reason: father didn’t like them wearing western jeans and blouses. “Honor Killing in Texas” by Robert Spencer, 01/08/2008. “Amina Said, 18, and her sister Sarah, 17, smile happily in one widely circulating photo, and Amina is wearing what looks like a sweatshirt bearing the name “AMERICAN.” But their fate may have been the herald of a new, disquieting feature of the American landscape: honor killing. Amina and Sarah were shot dead in Irving, Texas, on New Year’s Day. Police are searching for their father, Yaser Abdel Said, on a warrant for capital murder.”

In Clayton County, Georgia, January 26, 2009, a Pakistani immigrant father, Chaudry Rashid strangled his daughter for not accepting his choice of a husband. She wanted a divorce. She was 14 when she died. “Man Accused Of Killing Daughter For Family Honor” by Jamie Tarabay of NPR. “Honor killings are old rites of murder within families, committed because of some perceived dishonor or shame. The United Nations estimates around 5,000 deaths occur each year — mostly of women, mostly in South Asia and the Middle East.”

In New York, February 16, 2009, FOX News, Joshua Rhett Miller reported, “The estranged wife of a Muslim television executive feared for her life after filing for divorce last month from her abusive husband,” her attorney said — and was found beheaded Thursday in his upstate New York television studio. Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37, was found dead on Thursday at the offices of Bridges TV in Orchard Park, N.Y., near Buffalo. Her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, has reportedly been charged with second-degree murder. “She was very much aware of the potential ramification of her filing for divorce might have,” said attorney Elizabeth DiPirro, whose law firm represented Aasiya Hassan in the divorce proceeding. "But she wanted to proceed despite the potential for it to erupt."

Not only their women! I have a graphic series of pictures of a Muslims father placing his eight year old child’s arm under a truck tire and then, the truck proceeds to crush the child’s arm and mangle it. The child disobeyed his father and his punishment included a mangled arm for life. If you would like me to forward you the series of pictures, please write me:frostyw@juno.com

 

Islamic Law dominates its adherents with fear and futility. If a drunken Muslim drives over five people resulting in their deaths, he will be arrested for breaking of the law. But Muslims call it, “Allah’s will” and will not condemn him. The reason you heard nothing from Muslims in America concerning the Fort Hood massacre stems from the fact that their belief system says that Major Hasan followed “Allah’s will.” If they question Allah’s will, they will become non-believers and subject to brutal consequences from Allah.

 

In Western thought, you could call it a “Catch 22”. For the United States and much of Europe, we find ourselves in a cultural “Catch 22”, and, at some point, it will boil into violence. As I said, Mark Twain’s ‘silent-assertion’ cannot continue without a response. Islam in America, at some point, will cause violent confrontation. If not confronted, Islam will become the new cultural paradigm in America: thus taking Western civilization back into the Dark Ages of the 6th century where Islam began.

Listen to Frosty Wooldridge on Wednesdays as he interviews top national leaders on his radio show "Connecting the Dots" at www.themicroeffect.com at 6:00 PM Mountain Time. Adjust tuning in to your time zone.

© 2009 Frosty Wooldridge - All Rights Reserved