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Archive for August, 2011

Dr. Wafa Sultan: Muslim ‘Radicals’ Do Not Exist, They Are ‘Simply the Ones Who Are Adherents to the Faith’

08/04/2011 Leave a comment

By Dan Calic – “For years we’ve heard Muslims commonly defined by a couple of different terms, ‘radical’ or ‘moderate.’

Yet what exactly do these terms mean?

Dr. Wafa Sultan, born and raised in the Muslim culture of Syria, who now resides in the US, and is a strong advocate of women’s rights, recently provided some interesting insight on this topic during an interview. What immediately caught my attention was her comment that the term ‘radical’ doesn’t exist in the Muslim world.

No ‘radicals?’ What is she talking about?

‘This is a term invented by the West,’ according to Dr. Sultan. She also indicated those who suggest Islam has been ‘hijacked by radicals’ were off base. Those whom the West calls ‘radicals’ are quite simply the ones who are adherents to the faith.

Dr. Sultan explained that while there no ‘radicals’ in the Muslim world, there are ‘moderates.’ However, one needs to take note this has nothing to do with Islam itself.

‘Islam is Islam,’ she explained. A ‘moderate’ Muslim is an individual who has made a personal choice not to be an adherent to the tenets of Islam. A typical way to describe such a person in the west is ‘secular.’

However, in the Muslim world a ‘secular’ or ‘moderate’ is considered a non-believer or infidel. Such people are routinely subjected to torture and according to Islamic law should be put to death. Islam is also the only religion that mandates the death of someone who decides to leave the faith.” Read more.

‘Dhimmedia’ Presents a New Muslim ‘Reality’ Show That Is Anything But

08/04/2011 Leave a comment

By Raymond Ibrahim – “The American TV network TLC recently announced that it is making a reality series following the lives of Muslims living in America. The program—called ‘All American Muslim’—will follow five Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan, hoping to expose the ‘misconceptions and conflicts’ they face ‘outside and within’ their own community…In a statement TLC’s general manager Amy Winter said:…’Through these families and their diverse experiences, we will explore how they blend their values and traditions with everyday life in America.’ She added the program would provide: ‘Insight into their culture with care and compassion.’

In other words, at a time when the need for objective knowledge concerning Islam is at a premium, many Americans are to be subliminally indoctrinated on what Islam is really about—not through Muslim theology or history, nor yet politics and current events—but rather by a ‘reality’ show of a handful of American Muslims.

One of TLC’s goals in airing this program is to show us ‘diversity’ in Islam: According to the network’s statement: ‘The families featured in the series share the same religion, but lead very distinct lives that oftentimes challenge the Muslim stereotype.’

For example, there is a girl that ‘sports piercings and tattoos’—as if the fact that a tattoo-wearing American female who identifies herself as a Muslim is supposed to tell us anything about Islam. Other characters are not so colorful, but are formulated simply to gain sympathy for Muslims: their claim to fame is that they are ‘trying to find the balance between their traditional Muslim roots and American culture,’ or working ‘tirelessly to educate … about the Muslim religion in an effort to reduce discrimination and ignorance.’

In short, through five families who supposedly represent a religion of over one billion, the show is dedicated to depicting Muslims as ‘just like us.’ Indeed, one might argue that these five families are not even representative of their own Muslim neighbors in Dearborn, chosen by the producers for having ‘one of America’s largest Muslim populations and has the largest mosque in North America.’

In fact, Dearborn is also a hotbed of Muslim extremism, where the FBI had a shoot-out in the streets with jihadists; where a former resident was indicted in a Hezbollah terror plot targeting Israel; where one American politician says Sharia law holds sway; and where a Christian preacher was threatened by shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar!’

Will these sorts of ‘diverse experiences’ find their way into the reality show?” Read more.

Somalia: Famine Has Killed More Than 29,000 Children Under Age 5 in Last 90 Days

08/04/2011 Leave a comment

By JASON STRAZIUSO – “The drought and famine in Somalia have killed more than 29,000 children under the age of 5, according to U.S. estimates, the first time such a precise death toll has been released related to the Horn of Africa crisis.

The United Nations has said previously that tens of thousands of people have died in the drought, the worst in Somalia in 60 years. The U.N. says 640,000 Somali children are acutely malnourished, a statistic that suggests the death toll of small children will rise.

Nancy Lindborg, an official with the U.S. government aid arm, told a congressional committee in Washington on Wednesday that the U.S. estimates that more than 29,000 children under the age of 5 have died in the last 90 days in southern Somalia. That number is based on nutrition and mortality surveys verified by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.N. on Wednesday declared three new regions in Somalia famine zones, bringing the total number to five. Out of a population of roughly 7.5 million, the U.N. says 3.2 million Somalis are in need of immediate lifesaving assistance.” Read more.

Fukushima Radiation 1,000 Times H-Bomb Peak, Japanese Air At Least 300 Times Worse Than the Air During Chernobyl

08/04/2011 Leave a comment

By Bob Nichols – “Dr. Chris Busby, world famous physicist, said tests run at the respected Harwell Radiation Laboratory in England demonstrate the airborne radiation in Japan is 1,000 times higher than radioactive “fallout” at the peak in 1963 of H-Bomb detonations by the nuclear powers. The calculations were on radioactive Cesium 137.

Busby certifies the poisonous, radioactive Japanese air to be at least 300 times worse than the air during the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster. Dr Janette Sherman, a highly respected physician and an acknowledged expert in radiation exposure, has estimated the world wide Chernobyl Kill to be at least one million people killed to date. The Chernobyl Disaster occurred April 26, 1986.

Dr. Busby obtained donated car air filters from vehicles in Fukushima and Chiba Prefectures as well as from Tokyo, Japan. Busby stated the radiation per cubic meter of air in Japan was calculated by knowing the size of the engines and the number of miles driven.

The estimates must be considered as conservative or low since the smallest particles go through the car air filters and emerge from the car’s exhaust. The smallest radioactive particles simply go through a human’s skin or go to the bottom of a human’s lungs and stay there. The poison radiates cells within a range extending 20 cells deep in all directions. The dead and dying or mutated cells become cancers and hundreds of other radiation related diseases…

The lethal radioactive result, or Fukushima Kill, enveloping the world is unmistakable and inevitable…” Read more.

Categories: Man-Made Disasters

Canadian Gov’t Now Admits: Japan’s Fukushima Catastrophe Bringing Massive Radiation Spikes Over Canada

08/04/2011 Leave a comment

By Alex Roslin – “After Japan’s Fukushima catastrophe, Canadian government officials reassured jittery Canadians that the radioactive plume billowing from the destroyed nuclear reactors posed zero health risks in this country.

In fact, there was reason to worry. Health Canada detected massive amounts of radioactive material from Fukushima in Canadian air in March and April at monitoring stations across the country.

The level of radioactive iodine spiked above the federal maximum allowed limit in the air at four of the five sites where Health Canada monitors levels of specific radioisotopes.

On March 18, seven days after an earthquake and tsunami triggered eventual nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, the first radioactive material wafted over the Victoria suburb of Sidney on Vancouver Island.

For 22 days, a Health Canada monitoring station in Sidney detected iodine-131 levels in the air that were 61 percent above the government’s allowable limit. In Resolute Bay, Nunavut, the levels were 3.5 times the limit.

Meanwhile, government officials claimed there was nothing to worry about. ‘The quantities of radioactive materials reaching Canada as a result of the Japanese nuclear incident are very small and do not pose any health risk to Canadians,’ Health Canada says on its website. ‘The very slight increases in radiation across the country have been smaller than the normal day-to-day fluctuations from background radiation.’

In fact, Health Canada’s own data shows this isn’t true. The iodine-131 level in the air in Sidney peaked at 3.6 millibecquerels per cubic metre on March 20. That’s more than 300 times higher than the background level, which is 0.01 or fewer millibecquerels per cubic metre.

‘There have been massive radiation spikes in Canada because of Fukushima,’ said Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.” Read more.

Categories: Man-Made Disasters

Lethal Levels of Radiation at Fukushima: What Are the Implications?

08/04/2011 Leave a comment

Gundersen: “Two days ago Tokyo Electric announced some really high radiation levels on the Fukushima site, and I wanted to put that into perspective [and]  let you know what I think is happening.

First off, Tokyo Electric discovered very, very high radiation in a stack which is used to vent radiation out of the plant and up into the air.  The quantity of that radiation was really, really high exposure.  It was 10 sieverts, and to convert that over into rems, which I’m used to, is a thousand rem.  Now what does that mean?  A thousand rem — or more, because the instrument went off scale — a thousand rems, if you were there for less than half an hour, would mean death within a couple days.  Those kinds of exposures cause extensive neurological breakdowns that can’t be reversed medically, so basically to be near that for any amount of time beyond a couple minutes would be a death sentence.

Now, what that means is really interesting.  This site has been extensively mapped.  There’s a map that’s current that shows many, many hot spots.  This hot spot was not discovered until just a couple days ago.  Now that could mean a couple of things …”

Categories: Man-Made Disasters

Alaska: Cleveland Volcano Lava Dome Rises, Volcanologists Elevate Alert Level

08/04/2011 Leave a comment

“A lava dome atop the massive Cleveland Volcano in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands has gotten larger in the past week, and officials keeping an eye on the restive mountain have raised eruption threat levels.

The lava dome, a viscous mass of lava belched up from inside the mountain but too thick to flow down its sides, widened by 33 feet (10 meters) over five days, to 164 feet across (50 m).

On the fifth day, Aug. 2, the Alaska Volcano Observatory raised the volcano alert level to “watch” and aviation color code to orange, the second-highest levels in each four-level scale.

‘The presence of the lava dome increases the possibility of an explosive eruption but does not necessarily indicate that one will occur,’ the latest report from the AVO stated.

The agency added that it does not anticipate any threat to air traffic from ash plumes or other airborne debris should Cleveland erupt. ‘Lava flows onto the flanks of the volcano may develop but would not be hazardous to aviation,’ the report said.

The 5,676-foot-tall (1,730 m) volcano, on the uninhabited island of Chuginadak, has erupted more than 20 times since 1828. The last eruption occurred over the course of a week in late July.

The mountain is part of the infamous Ring of Fire, a string of volcanoes strewn around the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean that produces some of the world’s most dramatic and dangerous eruptions.

The Cleveland Volcano could put on quite a show in coming days.” Read more.

Categories: Natural Disasters

Significant M-Class Solar Flare Headed Towards Earth, ‘The Impact on Earth is Likely to be Major’

08/04/2011 Leave a comment

“For the third day in a row, active sunspot 1261 has unleashed a significant M-class solar flare. The latest blast at 0357 UT on August 4th registered M9.3 on the Richter Scale of Flares, almost crossing the threshold into X-territory (X-flares are the most powerful kind). The number of energetic protons around Earth has jumped nearly 100-fold as a result of this event.

The eruption propelled a bright coronal mass ejection (CME) toward Earth. Click on the image to view a movie of the expanding cloud recorded by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory:

Moving at an estimated speed of 1950 km/s, this CME is expected to sweep up two earlier CMEs already en route. Analysts at the GSFC Space Weather Lab say the combined cloud should reach Earth on August 5th at 13:55 UT plus or minus 7 hours: ‘The impact on Earth is likely to be major. The estimated maximum geomagnetic activity index level Kp is 7 (Kp ranges from 0 – 9). The flanks of the CME may also impact STEREO A, Mars and Mercury/MESSENGER.’ High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.” Read more.

 

Categories: Cosmic Craziness

Libya Allying With Islamists, Qaddafi Son Says

08/03/2011 Leave a comment

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK – “TRIPOLI, Libya — After six months battling a rebellion that his family portrayed as an Islamist conspiracy, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s son and one-time heir apparent said Wednesday that he was reversing course to forge a behind-the-scenes alliance with radical Islamist elements among the Libyan rebels to drive out their more liberal-minded confederates.

‘The liberals will escape or be killed,’ the son, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, vowed in an hourlong interview that stretched past midnight. ‘We will do it together,’ he added, wearing a newly grown beard and fingering Islamic prayer beads as he reclined on a love seat in a spare office tucked in a nearly deserted downtown hotel. ‘Libya will look like Saudi Arabia, like Iran. So what?’

The leading Islamist whom Mr. Qaddafi identified as his main counterpart in the talks, Ali Sallabi, acknowledged their conversations but dismissed any suggestion of an alliance. He said the Libyan Islamists supported the rebel leaders’ calls for a pluralistic democracy without the Qaddafis.

But the interview nonetheless offered a rare glimpse into the defiant, some say delusional, mentality of the Qaddafi family at a time when they have all but completely retreated from public view under the threat of a NATO bombing campaign, now five months old, and a six-month rebellion.

On one level, Mr. Qaddafi’s avowed embrace of the Islamists represents a sharp personal reversal for a man who had long styled himself as a cosmopolitan, Anglophile advocate of Western-style liberal democracy. He continues to refer to the Islamists as ‘terrorists’ and ‘bloody men,’ and says, ‘We don’t trust them, but we have to deal with them.'” Read more.

Killers of Libyan rebels’ military chief were members of an Islamist-linked militia allied to the rebel campaign  – “The gunmen who shot dead the Libyan rebels’ military chief Abdul Fatah Younis were members of an Islamist-linked militia allied to the campaign to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, according to a National Transitional Council minister. After 24 hours of confusion surrounding the death, the NTC’s oil minister, Ali Tarhouni, said Younis had been killed by members of the Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade, a militia named after one of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, suggesting that Islamist elements were involved.” Read more.

US Air Force Suspends Decades-Old Bible-Centric Ethics Training

08/03/2011 1 comment

DADT2 on the horizon? At this rate it’s only a matter of time before the US government places Christians serving in the military into their very own ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy …

By Bryant Jordan – “The Air Force has suspended decades-old Bible-centric ethics training intended to make Christian officers comfortable with the possible use of nuclear weapons. The training program was given to all new missile officers by Air Force chaplains.

‘We’re in the process of reviewing that training and we’ll make a determination whether or not to continue [it] or if it will be a different course,’ Air Education and Training Command spokesman Dave Smith told Military.com.

Smith said the ethics training has been in place more than 20 years, although he didn’t know exactly when it was begun.

The training slides include quotations from the Bible, portraits of Christian saints, prophets, and famous American generals known for their faith, including George Washington, Union Army Gen. Joshua Chamberlain, and Confederate Gen. Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson.

Every new missile officer had to take the training at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, regardless of their own religious beliefs or lack of them, according to Smith.

AETC halted the ethics training last week after an article on the training was posted at Truthout.org. Former Air Force Capt. Damon Bosetti — described as a missile officer who took the training in 2006 — said he and others referred to the religious section of the ethics training as the ‘Jesus loves nukes speech.'” Read more.

Categories: Anything Else

New Mexico: Mystery Surrounds Hundreds of Dead Fish at Lea Lake, ‘A Fish Kill Like This Has Never Happened Before in This Area’

08/03/2011 Leave a comment

“ROSWELL, N.M. (KRQE) – Something mysterious is happening at Bottomless Lakes State Park. Lea Lake is closed to swimming after hundreds of dead fish started washing up on shore Friday.

An empty lake on a hot summer day is an unusual sight for Lea Lake, which is normally packed with swimmers this time of year.

‘It is extremely weird to see it this empty,’ explained lifeguard Leonardo Granados. ‘Even on weekdays there’s still quite a few people that come out. Weekends, that’s the worst whenever there’s the most people, probably about 200 people come out,’ Granados said, referring to how packed Lea Lake usually is.

Granados has been a lifeguard at Bottomless Lakes for three years. With the recent fish-kill, his duties have changed from making sure people in the lake are safe, to keeping an eye out for dead fish.

‘We use a net, put on some gloves, we’ve got this little trash picker-up and just use that to pick up the fish,’ Granados said.

A fish kill like this has never happened before in this area. Lifeguards said they noticed something strange when the normal group of fish that used to hang out right next to the dock, weren’t there anymore.” Read more.

Categories: Mass Animal Deaths

Australia: Thousands of Dead Fish Wash Up Along Lake Alexandrina’s Shore

08/03/2011 Leave a comment

By Michael Milnes – “THOUSANDS of dead fish have washed up along 8km of Lake Alexandrina’s shore.

With the health of the River Murray and Lower Lake system at its best in years, the mass ‘fish kill’ is a mystery.

Point Sturt resident Dot Ratcliffe said she was alarmed to find the problem when she went kayaking on the lake yesterday morning. ‘I saw them (extending) about 400m out in to the lake,’ she said.

‘It’s terribly upsetting, very distressing. There are thousands of fish washed up, something you do not want to see. I have been living here for 10 years and never seen anything like this.’

Bio-security aquatic pest manager Vic Neverauskas said Primary Industries would investigate the circumstances of the fish deaths as soon as possible. Most of the fish appear to be bony bream.” Read more.

Categories: Mass Animal Deaths