Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Weekly Radio Show: November 2

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, which WC and I cohost. The show broadcasts live every Friday for one hour at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is (646) 915-9870.

Callers welcome!

Friday, November 2: Three interviewees, LA Sunsett of Political Yen/Yang: Balanced Commentary for Political Centrists, Karridine, and Simon of Power and Control, will be joining us for this week's show.
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Karridine, one of our interviewees at the top of the hour, recently released the song "Wanna Go Home (GI's Lament)," honoring our men and women in our military. You can read the lyrics HERE and hear a clip HERE. Karridine views this moving piece of music as his contribution to the Fighting Forces protecting America and freedom, in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world. "Soldier's Lament" has always been I Wanna Go Home, WHEN I've done an honorable job for my nation, family and friends. We are going to play the song on the air and discuss its message and origins.

Karridine was referred to The Gathering Storm Radio Show by Simon of the Power and Control blog. Simon and Karridine have been online buddies for several years. Simon, who believes that "Wanna Go Home" is the song for the Iraq War, has a background in both computer and radio technology and will also be joining us at the top of the hour.

LA Sunsett is our interviewee for the second half of the hour. According to his profile, LA is a political independent that belongs to no political party. I base my political ideology solely on principle, and not by daily talking points.... He blogs a variety of topics. We plan to discuss with LA our foreign policy toward Iran and his concerns about the Patriot Act.

If you are unable to listen live to the radio show, you can listen to recordings of the radio broadcasts later by CLICKING HERE.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/31/2007 02:00:00 AM  

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Monday, October 29, 2007

Laura Bush Dons The Abaya

First, we have this photo posted by Reliapundit at THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS and by others elsewhere, showing First Lady Laura Bush sitting between two black sacks:


Little consolation, of course, but at least our First Lady wasn't wearing the abaya.

Um, not exactly.

I started clicking links at Foehammer's Anvil and found that Laura Bush did indeed done the abaya. Photo from the White House web site, via this posting by Debbie Schlussel:


Debbie Schlussel also found the following at USATODAY.com (emphases mine):
Given that the first lady wore a headscarf when she visited a Jewish holy site in Jerusalem and a mantilla when she met with Pope Benedict XVI, we asked if Bush will be wearing some sort of abaya while she's in Saudi Arabia. "No," Sally McDonough, the first lady's spokeswoman, tells USA TODAY's David Jackson, adding: "they do not expect nor encourage it" of Western visitors.

Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright didn't wear head coverings when they visited Riyadh on official business, according to the photographs in our archive.

Update at 12:45 p.m. ET: McDonough says they have a nuanced policy when it comes to women who are visiting Saudi Arabia as part of the first lady's delegation.

"According to our team, during any activities on your own time - going to the mall, going out of the hotel for dinner, etc - women need to follow Saudi law and wear an Abaya. During official meetings, it is not necessary," she writes in an e-mail to USA TODAY. "As per guidance from Embassy on the ground, as members of the official traveling party, we will not need to wear any head scarves or abayas at any point."
Apparently at some "point," First Lady Laura Bush felt the "need to wear" the abaya and even to post the photo at the White House web site. In my book, that "need" is called dhimmitude.

I say it again, just as I did in an earlier posting:


Laura Bush, you don't speak for me.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/29/2007 06:48:00 AM  

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The Astute Bloggers

This past Friday, at the gracious invitation of Reliapundit, I rejoined THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS. Information about TAB:
A GLOBAL GROUP BLOG - EXPOSING LEFTIST PROPAGANDA - HIGHLIGHTING UNDER-REPORTED NEWS - PROMOTING UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS
[END OF THIS POSTING]

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/29/2007 05:46:00 AM  

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Happy Cyrus Day!

Excerpt from this essay by Amil Imani:
October 29th has been designated as the international day of Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, who declared the first charter of human rights in the world, also known as the Cyrus Cylinder. In 539 BC, Persian troops entered the city of Babylon, without encountering any resistance. On October 29th, Cyrus himself entered the city, assuming the titles of "King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Akkad, King of the four corners of the world.” The Cyrus Cylinder was placed under the walls of Babylon as a foundation deposit, following a long Babylonian tradition.

Cyrus the Great proclaimed more than 2500 years ago: “Today, I announce that everyone is free to choose a religion. People are free to live in all regions and take up a job provided that they never violate other's rights.”...
Read the rest. Experience the irony, especially if you read the post just below this one here at Always On Watch.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/29/2007 05:02:00 AM  

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Sunday, October 28, 2007

Happy Birthday, Warren!


You are a star in my book!

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/28/2007 11:27:00 AM  

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Friday, October 26, 2007

Attack On Anti-Islamificationists

From this source:
The Danish chapter of Stop the Islamisation Of Europe, SIOE, has come out with a disturbing report of what seems to be a co-ordinated attempt on the lives and/or physical well being of their leaders.

The photos below come from this source:







So, what was going on? (SIOE stands for "Stop the Islamisation of Europe"; SIAD stands for Stop the Islamisation of Denmark):
On sunday the 21th October SIOE Denmark had announced a demonstration in Copenhagen....Before the demo Anders Gravers (SIOE and SIAD) and 2 other members were driving in a van with three seats in the front, following the security car(...)

2-5 sek. after there was a loud bang and the frontwindow was damaged. About two autonomous looking types were in the front and two on each side smashing the side windows shouting "Get him out, get him out!" and started hitting Anders and the SIAD passenger in the other site with ironbars. The SIAD member in the middle was hit of a thrown filled soda bottle in her backhead.

Anders succeded after a while to kick one of the autonomous hard in the face as he leaned in to unlock the door. Anders managed to get out with a fire extinguisher from the van and hit another one hard on the shoulder. It remained later that they attempted to stab him down when there was found cut holes in the shirt, jacket and vest. Anders was wearing his security vest which saved his life.


Suddenly they disappeared and Anders got around the van and saw a SIAD member lying on the floor while he was beaten in the head of 4-5 persons with ironbars. Apperently they also tried to stab him down, but again he also wore his security vest which saved his life.

Suddenly someone screamed RUN RUN and they disappeared up the steep driveway. The elderly woman was lying on the floor completely still. She had been in the security car and got out immediately when the driver shouted OUT OUT. She didn’t know what to do and started running. She was hunted down by two persons and banged down with an ironbar. She lay completely still in the hope she wouldn’t get anymore. She felt they stood a moment watching her if she would move. Then they presumably ran to the other SIAD member on the floor and joined the attack on him.
Kleinverzet concludes with the following:
The SIOE site has more, including photos of the aftermath, New Zonka has background on this incident and the dereliction of duty by the Danish MSM. This was not reported AT ALL anywhere in Europe (much like the Amsterdam car-b-ques or the Brussels riots). Even the Danish MSM got it (deliberately?) wrong.

This could be just another stormy week in Eurabia. On the other hand, this could be the cauldron starting to boil. Fact is: I'm bracing myself.
"That's over in Europe and could never happen here," you say. Well, after a recent experience of my own, I'm not so sure that the danger is as distant as we'd like to believe.

Not long ago, I spoke in person to a group about the Islamification of the West, right here in the D.C. area. And guess what? Some present insisted afterwards that I have a security escort to my car. I'm not kidding! Here in America! You see, terrorism comes in different forms, including that of intimidation.

So, before you brush off the idea that the above attack is something which could happen only "over there," I suggest that you rethink your complacency. I've been rethinking mine. Understand that I am rethinking and considering some new strategies. I am not cowed. I will not submit! In fact, I feel a wave of ramping-up coming on.



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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/26/2007 11:28:00 AM  

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Thursday, October 25, 2007

Just In Time For Halloween

[Hat-tip to Raven, via email]

Now for a little diversion, a lighter moment....

I can't help myself. I just have to post this one: "Rep. Dennis Kucinich Saw UFO, Shirley MacLaine Writes":
Did Congressman Dennis Kucinich see a U.F.O.?

A new book soon to be released says he did.

The book is written by one of Kucinich's closest friends, actress Shirley MacLaine, who attended his wedding in Cleveland in 2005.

The book titled "Sage-ing while Age-ing" is all about MacLaine's life experiences.

One of those experiences was in the '80's when Dennis Kucinich visited her at her Washignton State home.

In the book, MacLaine says "He saw a gigantic triangular craft, silent, and observing him. It hovered for about ten minutes or so, and sped away with a speed he couldn't comprehend. He felt a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind."

A spokesperson for Congressman Kucinich tells Fox 8 News Kucinich has no comment.

Beth Hervanec of Lakewood say what is written in the book does not change her opinion of the congressman.

"I haven't heard it out of his mouth, you can't really speculate, she might be putting it in there just for noteworthy reasons to sell her book, you never know." said Hervanec.

The book goes on sale November 6th.
Maybe Kucinich really is under the influence of extra-terrestrial forces? As good an explanation as any.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/25/2007 08:18:00 AM  

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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

"Lifting The Fog"

My friend Mustang of Social Sense has written what I consider an excellent and important essay. Excerpt from the end of the essay:
...It is amazing to me that President Bush and other leaders in the Western World refuse to acknowledge the truth of what is happening. Indeed, Mr. Bush is prancing around the Saudis like a little girl in a tutu — and the greatest evidence of this is our government’s refusal to demand closure of Wahhabist madrassahs in Northern Virginia and other locations from one end of this country to the other. I can assure you that if anyone opened a Christian academy that taught students to hate and seek out Muslims and mutilate them, the entire weight of the U. S. government would descend upon them in short order....
Read Mustang's entire essay. Worth your time and consideration.

We lack effective political leadership, leaders who are not dhimmis, leaders with guts enough to get past political correctness. Where are those leaders?

And what is it going to take for the West to wake up–to really wake up? Thinking about that something casts a pall across my life every day.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/24/2007 09:57:00 AM  

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Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Demographic Change In China?

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

Photo credit
Excerpt from "Chasing the Chinese Dream: A Growing Number of the World's Emigrants Are Heading East, Rather Than West, in Search of Safety, Tolerance and Opportunity", an article in the October 21, 2007 edition of the Washington Post:
...In Yiwu, a city in the eastern province of Zhejiang that is the home of the world's largest wholesale market, "Exotic Street" lights up at night with stands filled with smoking kebabs, colorful hookahs and strong sugared tea for the almost exclusively Arab clientele.

Communist China's first attempt to make friends with outsiders and encourage cultural exchange came during the 1960s and '70s, as part of a campaign for ideological leadership in the developing world. China sought to spread socialism and unite the farmers of the world.

Today, its efforts to woo developing countries are driven by more calculated, strategic goals, most notably its need to secure long-term contracts for oil, gas and minerals to fuel its booming economy.

As part of this campaign, China has sought to portray itself as more open to Islam than other non-Muslim nations.

Over the past 20 years, the government has gradually allowed its own Muslim minority to rebuild institutions that were devastated by state-sponsored attacks on Islam during the Cultural Revolution. Islamic schools have opened, and scholars of Islam are being encouraged to go abroad to pursue their studies. Unlike Christians, China's estimated 20 million Muslims are considered an ethnic minority, a status that confers certain protections and privileges.

"In America, for people with my religion there can be a lot of problems," said Adamou Salissou, 25, from Niger. "The image they have of Muslims is that they are terrorists. Chinese don't have a problem with religion. They think, 'It's your religion and it's okay.' "

With funds from a Chinese government scholarship, Salissou is pursuing a master's degree in biochemistry and molecular biology at Xiamen University in Fujian province, where a community of Arab traders thrived in the 7th and 8th centuries. Salissou's brother Nour Mahamane, 23, joined him this fall and is studying for a master's degree in petrochemistry in Shanghai.

Mosques in areas such as Yiwu, where foreigners are concentrated, have been given more freedom than some others, which are under strict state control. Officials at the mosque here estimate that more than 20,000 Muslim immigrants, about 1,000 of them from Iraq, have settled in the area over the past five years....
The camel's nose in the tent. China is not welcoming these Muslim immigrants with open arms, however:
...But there are limits to China's welcome.

It's nearly impossible for foreigners who don't have Chinese ancestry to obtain citizenship, and like anywhere else, China has had its share of racial misunderstandings and clashes with foreigners....
The article concludes as follows:
In Yiwu, there was anger in the Iraqi community after an Iraqi man, Mostafa Ahmed Alazawi, was found dead in his rented home on March 30. His family wanted him to be buried in China and applied to the city for a piece of land. The city ruled that foreigners could not be buried in China, forcing the family to ship the body back to Iraq. The decision fueled outrage among the Iraqis. Through a friend, the family declined to be interviewed.

Anwar said that despite the tensions he's happier to be in China than elsewhere in the world.

"My brother lived in the Netherlands for nine years," he said. "There, if you are a foreigner, you are below them. When he came to China, everything was different. Here, if you are a foreigner, you are treated better than Chinese."
You can read the entire WaPo article HERE.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/23/2007 08:10:00 AM  

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Weekly Radio Show: October 26

(This posting stuck toward the top for a few days. Please scroll down)

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, which WC and I cohost. The show broadcasts live every Friday for one hour at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is (646) 915-9870.

Callers welcome!

Friday, October 26: Two interviewees, Mr. Ducky and Hanther of Tandra Dot Com, will be joining us for this week's show.
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Mr. Ducky, our interviewee at the top of the hour, is a frequent commenter at my blog and at the blogs of some of my blogger friends. In his own words, I am a leftist who is trying to understand the right. There is a pretty severe disconnect in areas of the arts, religion, economics, politics.

Hanther, our interviewee at the bottom of the hour, is an author and illustrator. According to this page of the web site: Hanthercraft International is a multi-media company dedicated to the development of new standards for the presentation of visual narrative....Tandra is character driven sci-fi biased heroic fantasy adventure set in an alternate universe. Hanther also writes commentary, such as this one which directly pertains to the theme of The Gathering Storm Radio Show.

If you are unable to listen live to the radio show, you can listen to recordings of the radio broadcasts later by CLICKING HERE.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/23/2007 02:00:00 AM  

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Monday, October 22, 2007

CounterJihad Brussels 2007

Europe is waking up.

From the press release:
The first day of the Counterjihad Brussels 2007 conference was held in the European Parliament, and the second day of working groups was held in the Flemish Parliament....
Check out Pamela Geller's report, which includes Robert Spencer's speech on video and other resources. Her posting is worth your time.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/22/2007 08:20:00 AM  

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Friday, October 19, 2007

FEATURED QUESTION: Just for Fun

Note: Now that classes have resumed for the new term, I've decided to go to FEATURED QUESTION instead of QUESTION OF THE WEEK. Featured Questions will appear at intervals of my own choosing, no more than once a week and probably more infrequently.

(Each "Featured Question," an idea which I gleaned from A Republic If You Can Keep It, will remain toward the top of the blog until the next question appears. The previous Questions are HERE and HERE. Please scroll down for recent postings)

I'm a sucker for those silly, online quizzes. HERE is another one: "How Scary Are You?" My results are in the continuation of this post:

You Are Scary

You even scare scary people sometimes!




FEATURED QUESTION: How did you rate on this silly quiz?

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/19/2007 11:30:00 PM  

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Islamic Saudi Academy Again Under Scrutiny

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

It remains to be seen whether or not anything will come of the recommendation of a federal panel. From this source, October 18, 2007:
McLEAN, Va. (AP) - A private Islamic school supported by the Saudi government should be shut down until the U.S. government can ensure the school is not fostering radical Islam, a federal panel recommends.

In a report released Thursday, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom broadly criticized what it calls a lack of religious freedom in Saudi society and promotion of religious extremism at Saudi schools.

Particular criticism is leveled at the Islamic Saudi Academy, a private school serving nearly 1,000 students in grades K-12 at two campuses in northern Virginia's Fairfax County.
The commission's report says the academy hews closely to the curriculum used at Saudi schools, which they criticize for promoting hatred of and intolerance against Jews, Christians and Shiite Muslims.

"Significant concerns remain about whether what is being taught at the ISA promotes religious intolerance and may adversely affect the interests of the United States," the report states.

The commission, a creation of Congress, has no power to implement policy on its own. Instead, it makes recommendations to other agencies.

The commission does not offer specific criticism of the academy's teachings beyond its concerns that it too closely mimics a typical Saudi education.


The report recommends that the State Department prevail on the Saudi government to shut the school down until the school's textbooks can be reviewed and procedures are put in place to ensure the school's independence form the Saudi Embassy.

Messages left Wednesday with the State Department and the Saudi Embassy were not immediately returned.

Several advocacy groups in recent years have cited examples of inflammatory statements in religious textbooks in Saudi Arabia, including claims that a ninth-grade textbook reads that the hour of judgment will not come "until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them."

Saudi officials said they have worked in recent years to reform the textbooks and the curriculum, but critics say progress has been insufficient.

The school's director-general, Abdalla I. Al-Shabnan, said Wednesday that he had not seen the report. But he said the academy has adjusted its curriculum in recent years and removed some of the inflammatory language that had been included in the Saudi text. The school's curriculum may now serve as a model for the Saudi government to use in continuing its reform of Saudi schools, he said.

"There is nothing in our curriculum against any religion," Al-Shabnan said.

He also said he is willing to show the school's curriculum and textbooks to anybody who wants to see them, and he expressed disappointment that the commission did not request materials directly from the school.

"We have an open policy," he said.

He also pointed out that many of the school's teachers are Christian and Jewish.

The commission based its findings in part on a the work of a delegation that traveled to Saudi Arabia this year. The commission asked embassy officials to review the textbooks used in Saudi schools generally and at the Islamic Saudi Academy specifically but did not receive a response.

Commission spokeswoman Judith Ingram said the commission did not request to speak to academy officials because that went beyond the commission's mandate.

The report also criticizes the school's administrative structure, saying it is little more than an offshoot of the Saudi Embassy, with the Saudi ambassador to the United States serving as chairman of the school's board of directors. The structure "raises serious concerns about whether it is in violation of a U.S. law restricting the activities of foreign embassies."

After the Sept. 11 attacks, critics questioned the nature of the religious education at the Saudi academy. The school again found itself in the spotlight in 2005, when a former class valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, was charged with joining al-Qaida while attending college in Saudi Arabia and plotting to assassinate President Bush.

Abu Ali was convicted in federal court and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He is appealing his conviction.
Over two years ago, in an article dated October 5, 2005, significant concerns arose about the Islamic Saudi Academy:
WASHINGTON - The American government is demanding that Saudi Arabia account for its distribution of hate material to American mosques, as the State Department pressed Saudi officials for answers last week and as the Senate later this month plans to investigate the propagation of radical Wahhabism on American shores.

The flurry of activity comes months after a report from the Center for Religious Freedom discovered that dozens of mosques in major cities across the country, including New York, Washington, and Los Angeles, were distributing documents, bearing the seal of the government of Saudi Arabia, that incite Muslims to acts of violence and promote hatred of Jews and Christians.

A Washington-based group that is part of the human rights organization Freedom House, the Center for Religious Freedom also found during its yearlong study that the Saudi-produced materials describe democracy and America as un-Islamic. They instruct recent Muslim immigrants to consider Americans as enemies and the materials urge new arrivals to use their time here as preparation for jihad. The documents also promote the version of Islam officially embraced by Saudi government and several of the September 11, 2001, hijackers, Wahhabism, as the only authentic Islam....
Some six months before the above article, the Washington Post published the following about the Islamic Saudi Academy:
Eleventh-graders at the elite Islamic Saudi Academy in Northern Virginia study energy and matter in physics, write out differential equations in precalculus and read stories about slavery and the Puritans in English.

Then they file into their Islamic studies class, where the textbooks tell them the Day of Judgment can't come until Jesus Christ returns to Earth, breaks the cross and converts everyone to Islam, and until Muslims start attacking Jews.
As early as 2004, Paul Sperry wrote "Look Who's Teaching Johnny about Islam," an article indicating that that the influence of the Islamic Saudi Academy extends further than the boundaries of the school's two campuses:
A top textbook consultant shaping classroom education on Islam in American public schools recently worked for a school funded and controlled by the Saudi government, which propagates a rigidly anti-Western strain of Islam, a WorldNetDaily investigation reveals.

The consultant, Susan L. Douglass, has also praised Pakistan's madrassa schools as "proud symbols of learning," even after the U.S. government blamed them for fueling the rise of the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Douglass, routinely described as a "scholar" or "historian," has edited manuscripts of world history textbooks used by middle and high school students across the country. She's also advised state education boards on curriculum standards dealing with world religion, and has helped train thousands of public school teachers on Islamic instruction.

In effect, she is responsible for teaching millions of American children about Islam, experts say, while operating in relative obscurity.


WorldNetDaily has learned that up until last year Douglass taught social studies at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria, Va., which teaches Wahhabism through textbooks that condemn Jews and Christians as infidels and enemies of Islam. Her husband, Usama Amer, still teaches at the grades 2-12 school, a spokeswoman there confirmed.
Susan Douglass also has connections to the Council on Islamic Education:
Critics complain that Douglass, who taught at the Saudi academy for at least a decade, has convinced American textbook publishers and educators to gloss over the violent aspects of Islam to make the faith more appealing to non-Muslim children. The units on Islam reviewed by WND appear to give a glowing and largely uncritical view of the faith.

Asked about it, Douglass referred questions to the Council on Islamic Education, which did not respond. CIE's website lists her in its staff directory as a "principal researcher and writer."

CIE is a Los Angeles-based Muslim activist group run by Shabbir Mansuri, who has been quoted in the local press saying he's waging a "bloodless" revolution to fight what he calls anti-Muslim bias in public schools and promote Islam in a positive light in American classrooms. Mansuri, who consults with Saudi education ministers at his center, claimed in a 2002 op-ed piece that Islam has been on American soil "since before this nation was founded."

[...]

Douglass has argued for more in-depth coverage of Islam in classrooms, while at the same time advising that Christian principles, including historic facts such as Christ's crucifixion, are clearly qualified with attributions such as "Christians believe."

Houghton Mifflin is not the only major publisher influenced by CIE. Prentice Hall also collaborates with the group. And its "Connections to Today," which is the most widely used world history book in the country, instructs students that jihad is an "inner struggle to achieve spiritual peace," according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Also, CIE has helped write supplemental teachers materials that engage children in entertaining Muslim role-playing activities in the class. Parents say they make the study of Christianity and other religions seem dull by comparison....
I'm not holding my breath for the academy to close. Similar calls, including calls for extensive education of the institution, have come before. Besides, as I mentioned earlier in this posting, the school's influence extends much further than the boundaries of the academy's campuses. Nevertheless, closing the academy would be a step in the right direction.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/18/2007 06:38:00 PM  

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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Cozying Up

Excerpt from this article in the October 17, 2007 edition of the Washington Times (emphases mine):
Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday warned against a U.S. military strike against Iran and invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to make a precedent-setting visit to Moscow — dealing another blow to U.S. hopes of isolating the regime in Tehran.
Mr. Putin issued the invitation on the sidelines of a summit in Tehran of the five nations bordering the Caspian Sea.

His trip to the Iranian capital was the first by a Kremlin leader since Josef Stalin visited there in 1943 to participate in an Allied conference to plan for a postwar world.

In a final declaration, the Caspian nations backed Mr. Putin's call, saying "under no circumstances will they allow [the use of their] territories by third countries to launch aggression or other military action against any of the member states."

The participants also backed the rights of signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty — which includes Iran — to develop peaceful nuclear
energy....
A bit more detail from this article in the Washington Post (emphases mine):
Putin has said there is no evidence that Iran's nuclear program has a military dimension, but the Kremlin nonetheless has delayed construction of a nuclear power plant in Iran, ostensibly because of a financial dispute. Many analysts here say the Kremlin was angered by Iran's unwillingness to accept a Russian proposal to enrich uranium, on Russian soil, for Iran's needs.

Putin refused to say if the plant could begin operation before he leaves office next year.

"I only gave promises to my mom when I was a small boy," Putin told Iranian reporters. "At the same time, we are not going to renounce our obligations."
Ahmadinejad and the mullahs of Iran have their own agenda. Putin has his as well. Where will this Russia-Iran alliance lead the rest of the world? It seems to me that the world just became a more dangerous place.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/17/2007 08:26:00 AM  

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Monday, October 15, 2007

Emboldening The Enemy

The Congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide of nearly a century ago is a double-edged sword: recognize that event and thereby alienate Turkey, which has served as our ally, and give support to the Islamists who are presently pushing for power there; or continue to ignore that genocide and whitewash Islam. I cannot explain the trap any better than has my dear cyberfriend Mustang (emphasis mine) in his essay "Armenian Holocaust":
We should not be surprised that the Bush Administration opposes this democratic bill; the degree of his dhimitude is apparent to anyone paying attention to US-Saudi relations over the past (too many) years. On the other hand, more than 100 years after the event, what do democratic representatives hope to gain from this bill?
A snippet from the October 14, 2007 edition of the Washington Post makes clear the strategy of the Democratic Party in its passage of the recognition resolution last week:
A similar resolution was pulled from the floor in 2000 by then-Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) after he was asked to do so by President Bill Clinton.
Returning now to Mustang's essay:
...Unable to convince the majority of Americans that there should be NO war on terror, the next best thing for democrats would be to sabotage the relationship between the current administration and its coalition partners. And this brings me to the point of this essay: Why is partisan politics more important than national unity? If the proposed Bill could somehow undo all of the suffering imposed upon the Armenian people 100 years ago, then I could better understand it. It won’t. What it will do, however, is reopen wounds among Christian Armenians, and irritate Turkish Muslims.

Modern society simply cannot redress every wrong ever perpetrated in human history, and yet this is, in my opinion, at the very heart of the problem in the Middle East. The conflict between Israelis and Arabs has been going on since Moby Dick was a minnow; they cannot, for whatever reason, begin anew. Personally, the choice seems clear to me: move forward, or continue to act like idiots. It would be great if members of Congress would support the former, rather than the latter.
Epaminondas has a different take on the Congressional resolution:
Allies either respect each other's democrat processes or they do not. If Turkey, which has already recalled it's ambassador to the USA, has a reaction to our representative and elected officials recognizing the reality of 1915, no matter how supposedly ill timed, then WE need to examine the propriety of their being American 'allies'....
This issue as to whether or not our government should recognize the reality of the Armenian genocide came up a few years ago when Ambassador John Evans, the United States ambassador to Armenian, insisted on using the word "genocide" in 2005:
Evans thus became the first U.S. official since former President Ronald Reagan to publicly describe the mass killings and deportations of Ottoman Armenia as a genocide. Reagan did so in an April 1981 statement on the genocide committed in Cambodia in the 1970s.

[...]

In his annual addresses to the Armenian-American community, President George W. Bush has stopped short of calling the events of 1915-1918 a genocide, while using phrases like `one of the great tragedies of history' and `annihilation of approximately 1.5 million Armenians.'
Ambassador Evans issued several statements of clarification and was withdrawn as ambassador about a year later.

(Note: Armeniapedia.org was the source for the above details about John Evans. However, my seeing the same information in Washington Post articles in 2005 and 2006 brought to mind that I should do a search of "Ambassador John Evans")

Not surprisingly, Turkey continues to maintain that no Armenian genocide occurred. From the aforementioned article in the Washington Post:
Turkey argues that the killings and disappearances of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were not genocide but the result of brutal war during the last years of the Ottoman Empire.
In his Farewell Address of 1796, George Washington stated the following (emphases mine):
...[A] passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils....
Throughout the history of our nation, we have seen that the influence to which George Washington referred so long ago putting our nation in conflicting situations. And there's no end in sight. Although isolationism is not desirable in the Twenty-first Century, so is the web of foreign entanglements. Furthermore, over and over again, our elected leaders serve their own interests, fall into line according to partisan politics, or play the dhimmi.

In many respects, we the people have been marginalized. Furthermore, if I read our nation's tone correctly, more and more Americans — left, right, and middle — are feeling a disconnect with their government. Has America ever been this divided in time of war? What will it take to make us united again?

[Hat-tip to Steve Harkonnen, who suggested to me in an email the topic of this posting]

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/15/2007 06:22:00 AM  

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Thursday, October 11, 2007

What Is Ramadan?

This coming weekend on October 12-14, for the first time ever the Empire State Building in New York City will be bathed with green lights, the color closely associated with Islam, so as to commemorate Eid ul-Fitr, the end of Ramadan. Exactly what is being celebrated just blocks from the World Trade Center, the site of the horrific 9/11 terrorist attack on America's shores? To understand why such a commemoration of Eid ul-Fitr should be unacceptable to all those who love America, a short history lesson is in order.

Despite the feel-good recent kumbaya honorings on the part of Congress, the Pentagon (led by Chaplain Saifulislam, whose name, by the way, translates as "sword of Islam"), and President Bush, Ramadan involves more than prayers, fasting, and the giving of alms — all of which are part of the month long observance but which are also the outward signs of another message. By literal definition, of course, Ramadan commemorates Allah's "revealing" the Qur'an to Muhammad. But history clearly indicates that the "revelations" from Allah to Muhammad began around 610, some fourteen years earlier than 624.
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Those earlier passages, sometimes referred to as the Meccan verses, are the oft-quoted peaceful verses in the Koran. Contrary to what one might expect, however, the last day of Ramadan does not celebrate the actual date of the earliest revelations of Allah to Muhammad but rather the Battle of Badr, the first significant military victory by the forces of Muhammad.

The Battle of Badr of March 17, 624, is one of the few military conflicts specifically mentioned in the Qur'an and holds a great deal of significance in Islam. Eid ul-Fitr, the final portion of Ramadan and which the lighting of the Empire State Building will recognize this weekend, has as its origin the aforementioned battle. Furthermore and most importantly, this battle marked the turning point for Islam, both politically and ideologically.

Having earlier fled to Medina along with followers who accepted him as their prophet whereas most of the tribes of Mecca did not, early on that morning in 624 Muhammad got word that a rich Quraish caravan from Syria was returning to Mecca. He therefore assembled the largest army he had ever been able to muster, some 300 men, with the original intent of raiding the caravan. After his men successfully overtook the caravan and brought back the booty, Muhammad then conveniently received a new "revelation" from Allah — a "revelation" which not only included rejoicing in having captured an enemy's caravan but which also called "proved" that Muhammad had been preaching the true way all along. Fulfilling Destiny, Muhammad and his forces proceeded to trounce the Quraish as punishment for having earlier rejected the prophet's teachings. From this source:
In the name of Allah, the Beneficient, the Merciful.

The battle of Badr was the most important among the Islamic battles of Destiny. For the first time the followers of the new faith were put into a serious test. Had victory been the lot of the pagan army while the Islamic Forces were still at the beginning of their developments, the faith of Islam could have come to an end.

No one was aware of the importance of the outcome of the Battle as the Prophet (S.A.W.) himself. We might read the depth of his anxiety in his prayerbefore the beginning of the Battle when he stood up supplicating his Lord:

God this is Quraish. It has come with all its arrogance and boastfulness, trying to discredit Thy Apostle. God, I ask Thee to humiliate them tomorrow. God, if this Muslim band will perish today, Thou shall not be worshipped.
[...]

This battle laid the foundation of the Islamic State...
In other words, victory at the Battle of Badr proved to Muhammad and his adherents that Islam should from that time forth take on a militant aspect because such is the will of Allah. From the day of the Battle of Badr on, the tone of the verses in the Qur'an changed. These more recent revelations, sometimes referred to as the Medinan verses, abrogated the earlier and peaceful Meccan ones. Because preaching and tolerance had not brought Muhammad the following which he needed in order to establish himself and Islam as political forces to be reckoned with, Allah, via a military victory, showed the prophet a more effective way to spread Islam. Therefore, Muhammad's victory at the Battle of Badr symbolizes, for at least some Muslims, both the way to bring about the will of Allah and the will of Allah itself.

The underlying meaning of those green lights casting their glow on the Empire State Building this coming weekend is all about submission to Islam and to the will of Allah. Ah, the dhimmitude!

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/11/2007 08:36:00 AM  

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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Not Just Satire

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

The story of the hundreds of flyers left all over the campus of George Washington University illustrates the leftist bias in academia and in the media. At first, Young America's Foundation or the group's supporters came under suspicion. YAF's official October 9, 2007 statement about the distribution of the posters is HERE, and includes the following:
...Bridgette Behling, the assistant director of the Student Activities Center at GWU, wrote an email to one of the conservative students urging them to disavow hate speech that may originate from any future Foundation events: “due to the inflammatory nature of today’s events [falsified posters], as a good faith effort on behalf of YAF, it is important that YAF drafts a statement which states that you will not allow hate speech to be a part of any of YAF’s events, literature, written or verbal communication planned for Islamofacism Week. This statement should also include your plan for preventing these things from happening as well as the consequences for these things happening. It is important that we have this document should any further incidents occur as we move forward.”...
Later some additional information came to light. According to this article in the university's newspaper the GW Hatchet:
A group of seven GW students sent an e-mail to The Hatchet late Tuesday night [October 9, 2007] admitting to hanging hundreds of controversial posters around campus early Monday morning.

The students - Adam Kokesh, freshman Yong Kwon, senior Brian Tierney, freshman Ned Goodwin, Maxine Nwigwe, Lara Masri and Amal Rammah - said their motives were misinterpreted. Students for Conservativo-Facism Awareness hung the posters in opposition to Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, an event being held beginning Oct. 22.

Kokesh, a graduate student and Iraq War veteran, gained celebrity over the past year because of his vocal opposition to the war. Nwigwe and Rammah are also graduate students.

[...]

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is being held at GW and sponsored by the Young America's Foundation, a conservative student group. It will feature several speakers - including controversial conservative author David Horowitz - slated to discuss radical Islam.

One-hundred and forty two colleges nationwide will host the event, according to its Web site. Horowitz is organizing the week.

"While the poster, even if taken seriously was not intended to cause any real harm, the systematic and glorified type of racism represented by this event is being imposed upon us from dangerous divisive outside forces" the e-mail said.

In the letter, members of the organization said their intent was to shed light on the week - which they called racist.
When all else fails, playing the race card is the tactic — never mind that adherents to and supporters of Islamo-fasicsm cross race lines.

Miss Beth of the blog Miss Beth's Victory Dance provides the following, which I haven't been able to confirm:
It was a hoax [they claim satire] perpetrated by the Saudi-funded radical islamic front group Muslim Student Association.
If true, no surprise there. Anything to stir things up instead of participating in a reasoned discussion to show that the term "Islamofascism" is a misnomer. Anything to discredit Islamo-fascism Awareness Week, which begins on October 22 at university campuses all over the United States, according to the left sidebar at FrontPage Magazine:
Berkeley -- Nonie Darwish, October 22

Brown -- Robert Spencer, October 24

Cal Poly -- Greg Davis, October 25

Cal State Fullerton -- Nonie Darwish

Clemson -- Mike Adams, October 25

Columbia -- Phyllis Chesler, Ibn Warraq, Christina Hoff Sommers

Columbia -- Sean Hannity, David Horowitz, October 26

DePaul -- Robert Spencer, October 25

Emory -- David Horowitz, October 24

George Mason -- Luanah Saghieh, Alan Nathan, October 22

Lawrence University -- Jonathan Schanzer

Maryland --Michael Ledeen

Michigan -- David Horowtz, October 23

Northeastern -- Daniel Pipes, October 24

Ohio State -- David Horowitz, October 25

Penn -- Rick Santorum, October 24

Penn State -- Rick Santorum, October 23

Rhode Island -- Robert Spencer, October 24

San Francisco State -- Melanie Morgan, October 24

Stanford -- Wafa Sultan

Temple -- Rick Santorum, October 24

Tulane -- Ann Coulter, October 22

UC Santa Barbara -- Dennis Prager, October 25

UC Irvine -- Ann Coulter

UCLA -- Nonie Darwish, October 24

UCLA -- Frank Pastore, John Ziegler

USC -- Ann Coulter, October 25

Virginia -- Frank Gaffney

Washington -- Kirby Wilbur

Washington -- Michael Medved, October 25

Wisconsin -- David Horowitz, October 22
Hot Air has this update about one of the "masterminds" behind the posters distributed at GWU:
As soon as I saw it, the name Adam Kokesh rang a bell. He’s the Marine vet who got in trouble for wearing his uniform to anti-war protests, and who heads up the Iraq Veterans Against the War....
The situation at GWU could have been much worse, I suppose. Just think of the uproar which could have ensued had a group distributed posters of the Danish cartoons satirizing MTP!

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/10/2007 06:47:00 AM  

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FEATURED QUESTION: Culture

Note: Now that classes have resumed for the new term, I've decided to go to FEATURED QUESTION instead of QUESTION OF THE WEEK. Featured Questions will appear at intervals of my own choosing, no more than once a week and probably more infrequently.

(Each "Featured Question," an idea which I gleaned from A Republic If You Can Keep It, will remain toward the top of the blog until the next question appears. The previous Questions are HERE and HERE. Please scroll down for recent postings)

Regular readers of this blog know that I teach composition classes. One of the emphases of the high-school course is writing a timed essay as preparation for taking the SAT. Students have twenty-five minutes to write their drafts.
One of the recent prompts from College Board reads as follows:

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

Heroes may seem old-fashioned today. Many people are cynical and seem to enjoy discrediting role models more than creating new ones or cherishing those they already have. Some people, moreover, object to the very idea of heroes, arguing that we should not exalt individuals who, afer all, are only flesh and blood, just like the rest of us. But we desperately need heroes – to teach us, to captivate us through their words and deeds, to inspire us to greatness.

Adapted from Psychology Today, “How To Be Great! What Does It Take To Be A Hero?”

Assignment:
Is there a value in celebrating certain individuals as heroes? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
When I was in high school, my hero was Annie Sullivan, the teacher who saved Helen Keller from a miserable fate. If you read this and this, you'll understand just why I admired and still admire this dedicated and determined teacher. Therefore, if I had to write an essay based on the above prompt, I'd tell the story of Annie Sullivan.


FEATURED QUESTION, in two parts: (1) How would you respond to the above SAT prompt? You don't have to write an entire essay! (2) What does the choice of heroes reveal about the individuals and societies that choose certain kinds of people as their heroes?

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/10/2007 06:45:00 AM  

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Weekly Radio Show: October 19

(This posting stuck toward the top for a few days. Please scroll down)

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, which WC and I cohost. The show broadcasts live every Friday for one hour at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is (646) 915-9870.

Callers welcome!

Friday, October 19: Two interviewees, Mustang and Freedom Fighter, will be joining us for this week's show.
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Our interviewee for the first half hour is my cyberfriend and mentor, Mustang of the blog Social Sense. Agree or diagree with him, you'll discover that his thought-provoking essays covering a variety of topics are among the best on the web.

Our intervieww at the bottom of the hour is Freedom Fighter of the blog Joshua Pundit: A Digest and Commentary on the War against Jihad. His blog covers current events pertaining to the so-called war against terror.

If you are unable to listen live to the radio show, you can listen to recordings of the radio broadcasts later by CLICKING HERE.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/10/2007 02:00:00 AM  

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Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Weekly Radio Show: October 12

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, which WC and I cohost. The show broadcasts live every Friday for one hour at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is (646) 915-9870.

Callers welcome!

Friday, October 12: Our interviewee this week for the entire hour is Cassandra, author of Escape! From An Arab Marriage Horror Stories from Women Who Fled Abusive Muslim Husbands. We welcome her back for her third appearance on the show.

If you are unable to listen live to the radio show, you can listen to recordings of the radio broadcasts later by CLICKING HERE.

The topic of discussion on this week's radio show will be Cassandra's take on Dr. Anis Shorrosh's The Twenty-Year Plan: Islam Targets America, which you can read HERE. I've also provided the text of the plan below:

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1. Terminate America's freedom of speech by replacing it with hate crime bills state-wide and nation-wide.

2. Wage a war of words using black leaders like Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Jesse Jackson and other visible religious personalities to promote Islam as the original African-American's religion while Christianity is for the whites! Strange enough, no one tells the African-Americans that it was the Arab Muslims who captured them and sold them as slaves, neither the fact that in Arabic the word for black and slave is the same, "Abed."

3. Engage the American public in dialogues, discussions, debates in colleges, universities, public libraries, radio, TV, churches and mosques on the virtues of Islam. Proclaim how it is historically another religion like Judaism and Christianity with the same monotheistic faith.

4. Nominate Muslim sympathizers to political office for favorable legislation to Islam and support potential sympathizers by block voting.

5. Take control of as much of Hollywood, the press, TV, radio and the internet by buying the corporations or a controlling stock.

6. Yield to the fear of imminent shut-off of the lifeblood of America - the black gold. America's economy depends on oil, (1000 products are derived from oil), so does its personal and industrial transportation and manufacturing -41% comes from the Middle East.

7. Yell, "foul, out-of-context, personal interpretation, hate crime, Zionist, un- American, inaccurate interpretation of the Quran" anytime Islam is criticized or the Quran is analyzed in the public arena.

8. Encourage Muslims to penetrate the White House, specifically with Islamists who can articulate a marvelous and peaceful picture of Islam. Acquire government positions, get membership in local school boards. Train Muslims as medical doctors to dominate the medical field, research and pharmaceutical companies. Take over the computer industry. Establish Middle Eastern restaurants throughout the U.S. to connect planners of Islamization in a discreet way. Ever notice how numerous Muslim doctors in America are, when their countries need them more desperately than America?

9. Accelerate Islamic demographic growth via:
a. Massive immigration (100,000 annually since 1961)

b. No birth control whatsoever - every baby of Muslim parents is automatically a Muslim and cannot choose another religion later.

c. Muslim men must marry American women and Islamize them (10,000 annually). Then divorce them and remarry every five years - since one cannot have the Muslim legal permission to marry four at one time. This is a legal solution in America.

d. Convert angry, alienated black inmates and turn them into militants (so far 2000 released inmates have joined Al Qaida world-wide). Only a few have been captured in Afghanistan and on American soil. So far - sleeping cells!
10. Reading, writing, arithmetic and research through the American educational system, mosques and student centers (now 1500) should be sprinkled with dislike of Jews, evangelical Christians and democracy. There are 300 exclusively Muslim schools with loyalty to the Quran, not the U.S. Constitution.

11. Provide very sizeable monetary Muslim grants to colleges and universities in America to establish "Centers for Islamic studies" with Muslim directors to promote Islam in higher education institutions.

12. Let the entire world know through propaganda, speeches, seminars, local and national media that terrorists have hijacked Islam, not the truth, which is Islam hijacked the terrorists. Furthermore in January of 2002, Saudi Arabia's Embassy in Washington mailed 4500 packets of the Quran, videos, promoting Islam to America's high schools--free. They would never allow us to reciprocate.

13. Appeal to the historically compassionate and sensitive Americans for sympathy and tolerance towards the Muslims in America who are portrayed as mainly immigrants from oppressed countries.

14. Nullify America's sense of security by manipulating the intelligence community with misinformation. Periodically terrorize Americans of impending attacks on bridges, tunnels, water supplies, airports, apartment buildings and malls. (We have experienced this too often since 9-11.)

15. Form riots and demonstrations in the prison system demanding Islamic Sharia as the way of life, not American's justice system.

16. Open numerous charities throughout the U.S. but use the funds to support Islamic terrorism with American dollars.

17. Raise interest in Islam on America's campuses by insisting that freshman take at least one course on Islam. Be sure that the writer is a bonafide American, Christian, scholarly and able to cover up the violence in the Quran and express the peaceful, spiritual and religious aspect only.

18. Unify the numerous Muslim lobbies in Washington, mosques, Islamic student centers, educational organizations, magazines and papers by internet and an annual convention to coordinate plans, propagate the faith and engender news in the media of their visibility.

19. Send intimidating messages and messengers to the outspoken individuals who are critical of Islam and seek to eliminate them by hook or crook.

20. Applaud Muslims as loyal citizens of the US by spotlighting their voting record as the highest percentage of all minority and ethic groups in America.
Be sure to join us for this week's show as Cassandra explains the plan to make us slaves of Allah!

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/09/2007 02:00:00 AM  

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Monday, October 08, 2007

Creeping Shari'a

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

Two recent stories, both involving medical professionals, from the UK:

1. Story from September 27, 2007 edition of the Times Online:
A Muslim dentist insisted that a young woman wear an Islamic headscarf before he would agree to treat her for toothache, the General Dental Council was told yesterday.

The patient, a community nurse, alleges that she reluctantly told Omer Butt, 31, who runs a dental practice in Bury, Greater Manchester, that she was a nonpractising Muslim.

It is alleged that the dentist then told her that he would refuse to register her as an NHS patient if she did not cover her head. She was in so much pain that she agreed to borrow a scarf from a nurse at the clinic.

The panel was told that when the dentist, quoting the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, told her to wait in the waiting room, she felt so humiliated that she left the clinic and made a complaint about his behaviour.

Mr Butt denies the charge that he has undermined public confidence in his profession by discriminating against a patient and failing to act in her best interests. If found guilty of the charge by the council’s professional misconduct committee he could be struck off the register.

After learning of the charges laid against him, he wrote to the council praising Allah. He referred to the patient as his “sister” and concluded: “May Allah protect us all from the evils of Shaitan [Satan].”

John Snell, for the council, said that the woman, referred to as Patient A, went to see Mr Butt at his clinic in April, 2005.

Mr Snell said: “He asked her if she was a Muslim and she asked him why it mattered. He said he needed to know.”

The nurse allegedly told her: “Inside the surgery it is Mr Butt’s world and his rules that apply.”

Patient A told the hearing: “I did ask what would happen if I did not wear a headscarf and was told I would not be able to register there as a patient. I did feel that I was under duress.”

Andrew Hockton, defending the dentist, said that Mr Butt asked Muslim women to cover everything except their hands and faces “in order to protect his honour”.


The hearing continues. [Hat-tip to Kender, who alerted me to the above story]
2. Story from the October 7, 2007 edition of the Times Online:
Some Muslim medical students are refusing to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases because they claim it offends their religious beliefs.

Some trainee doctors say learning to treat the diseases conflicts with their faith, which states that Muslims should not drink alcohol and rejects sexual promiscuity.

A small number of Muslim medical students have even refused to treat patients of the opposite sex. One male student was prepared to fail his final exams rather than carry out a basic examination of a female patient.


The religious objections by students have been confirmed by the British Medical Association (BMA) and General Medical Council (GMC), which both stressed that they did not approve of such actions.

It will intensify the debate sparked last week by the disclosure that Sainsbury’s is permitting Muslim checkout operators to refuse to handle customers’ alcohol purchases on religious grounds. It means other members of staff have to be called over to scan in wine and beer for them at the till.

Critics, including many Islamic scholars, see the concessions as a step too far, and say Muslims are reneging on their professional responsibilities.

This weekend, however, it emerged that Sainsbury’s is also allowing its Muslim pharmacists to refuse to sell the morning-after pill to customers.
At a Sainsbury’s store in Nottingham, a pharmacist named Ahmed declined to provide the pill to a female reporter posing as a customer. A colleague explained to her that Ahmed did not sell the pill for “ethical reasons”. Boots also permits pharmacists to refuse to sell the pill on ethical grounds.

The BMA said it had received reports of Muslim students who did not want to learn anything about alcohol or the effects of overconsumption. “They are so opposed to the consumption of it they don’t want to learn anything about it,” said a spokesman.

The GMC said it had received requests for guidance over whether students could “omit parts of the medical curriculum and yet still be allowed to graduate”. Professor Peter Rubin, chairman of the GMC’s education committee, said: “Examples have included a refusal to see patients who are affected by diseases caused by alcohol or sexual activity, or a refusal to examine patients of a particular gender.”

He added that “prejudicing treatment on the grounds of patients’ gender or their responsibility for their condition would run counter to the most basic principles of ethical medical practice”.

Shazia Ovaisi, a GP in north London, said one of her male Muslim contemporaries at medical school failed to complete his training because he refused to examine a woman patient as part of his final exams.

“He was academically gifted, one of the best students, but gradually he got in with certain Islamic groups and started to become more radical,” said Ovaisi.

“You could see there was a change in his personality as time went by. During the final exams he was supposed to treat a female patient in hospital. He refused to do it, even though it would have been a very basic examination, nothing intrusive.


“But he refused and as a result he failed his exams. I was quite shocked and disappointed about it because I don’t see there being anything in our religion that prohibits us from examining male and female patients.”

Both the Muslim Council of Britain and Muslim Doctors and Dentist Association said they were aware of students opting out but did not support them.

Dr Abdul Majid Katme, of the Islamic Medical Association, said: “To learn about alcohol, to learn about sexually transmitted disease, to learn about abortion, it gives us more evidence to campaign against it. There is a difference between learning and practising.

“It is obligatory for Muslim doctors and students to learn about everything. The prophet said, ‘Learn about witchcraft, but don’t practise it’.”
[Hat-tip to Mark Alexander for alerting me to the above story]

I've been doing research for an upcoming speech and learned that, according to some sources, shari'a law is supposed to apply only to Muslims or to those living under Islamic rule. But Muslims living in Western nations are pushing the envelope. The above two examples are extremes, but other less obvious attempts at applying shari'a law and Islamic customs are also proceeding, most in the name of tolerance and multiculturalism.

Will the West refuse to slide further into dhimmitude (defined HERE by Bat Ye'or)? The National Health Service of the UK must take a solid stand against Muslims such as those in the above two stories! Otherwise, the pushing of the envelope will continue to get worse.

The greater danger of Islamification lies in the West's concessions and in the media's not making certain stories very public, not in the sporadic attacks by jihadists, though the latter get a lot of attention. The West's own desire to be tolerant is leading us down the path of the destruction of Western civilization. No wonder I'm sick!

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/08/2007 07:15:00 AM  

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Saturday, October 06, 2007

Where I've Been

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For nearly two days now, despite this miserable cold I've had for over a week now, I've been sitting here at the computer and working on a speech I'll be giving later this month. What a marathon job!

But I've got something cranked out. Not good to go yet, but something. I just hope that what I've put together is feasible for delivery.

At least my cold is better. I seem to have turned the corner last night.

I hope to resume posting and making blog rounds soon.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/06/2007 05:22:00 PM  

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Thursday, October 04, 2007

Video: The REAL Islam Revealed

A concise presentation from the Jewish Task Force and about 10 minutes in length:



YouTube link

[Hat-tip to LionHeart, where I found the above video]

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/04/2007 06:46:00 AM  

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Feeling Puny

This miserable cold started on Thursday evening, when I first felt that ominous tickle in my throat.

I honked and sneezed my way through my teaching day today and am now downing soup for dinner — a sure sign of sickness because I HATE soup.
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And I'm in a bad mood too. Grrrrrr!

This misery is coming at a bad time. Next week all my composition students will be submitting their final drafts for the VFW essay contests.

On the plus side, perhaps going off my feed will result in my losing a few pounds. In any case, I'm turning in early tonight and hoping to get a bit of extra sleep, provided the hacking cough and the nasal drainage don't keep me awake.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/04/2007 05:00:00 AM  

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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Law Of The Sea Treaty

From this source:
Do we want to allow International Law Court judges to make decisions that would trump the Constitution of the United States? What about being only one vote among more than a hundred without the power of the veto? Both of these would effectively nullify U.S. sovereignty and establish European-style socialism.

The United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty is coming up for a quick vote in October with no serious debate. This is another example of one of those treaties concocted by an international body that will not serve the American people...
Read the rest at Eleanor Duckwall's Spotlight.
Eleanor very kindly linked to the radio show which WC and I cohosted on September 28, 2007. Frank Gaffney was one of the guests on that show, and today has published this article at Front Page Magazine.

Eleanor has provided additional information about the treaty at her posting. A commenter there came along and provided even more details.

Other bloggers are following the goings-on and significance of the Law of the Sea Treaty, including The Merry Widow and Christine. Extensive information is also available at RejectLost.org.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/03/2007 10:34:00 AM  

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Tuesday, October 02, 2007

FEATURED QUESTION: Just For Fun

Note: Now that classes have resumed for the new term, I've decided to go to FEATURED QUESTION instead of QUESTION OF THE WEEK. Featured Questions will appear at intervals of my own choosing, no more than once a week and probably more infrequently.

(Each "Featured Question," an idea which I gleaned from A Republic If You Can Keep It, will remain toward the top of the blog until the next question appears. The previous Questions are HERE and HERE. Please scroll down for recent postings)

Except for my seasonal allergies to goldenrod and to mold, I love this time of year. The cerulean-blue sky, the nip in the air, the fall flowers, the changing colors of the leaves, the chorus of crickets before the first hard freeze, the availability of fresh apples — everything autumn except the traffic congestion heading west for Skyline Drive.


Now for a little, albeit unscientific, quiz about the fall season and your personality. CLICK HERE to take the quiz. My results are below in the continuation of this posting.

You Are Apple Cider

Smooth and comforting. But downright nasty when cold.


Well, I DO love apple cider with cinnamon. Maybe there's some accuracy to the quiz after all!

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/02/2007 03:00:00 AM  

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Monday, October 01, 2007

Video: Hitler And The Grand Mufti

A few weeks ago, the History International channel aired a special called Saddam and the Third Reich. Now, via this posting at Infidel Bloggers Alliance, I have found a clip from that show. About seven minutes in length:



LiveLeak link

One point of interest among others....Near the end of this clip, we learn that the Mufti got a special dispensation from the Nazis as an Aryan. "Politics makes strange bedfellows," I suppose. Or maybe not so strange in this case. Genocidal maniacs seek either other out.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/01/2007 08:44:00 AM  

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Weekly Radio Show: October 5

(This posting stuck toward the top for a few days. Please scroll down)

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, which WC and I cohost. The show broadcasts live every Friday for one hour at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is (646) 915-9870.

Callers welcome!

Friday, October 5: Our interviewee this week at the bottom of the hour is Alec Rawls of the Error Theory blog. The topic of discussion will be the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. According to Mr. Rawls's web site, the memorial is going to be a terrorist memorial mosque. You can read the details of the studies which Mr. Rawls has done at Error Theory.

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Brief biography of Alec Rawls:
My training is as an economist. I was in the PhD program in economics at Stanford until my research led me more towards moral theory and constitutional law, at which point I dropped the program and started working on my own. I was writing a book on republicanism (the system of liberty under law) for World Ahead Publishing when I discovered that the Flight 93 memorial was going to be a terrorist memorial mosque. World Ahead agreed to first publish my book about this rehijacking of Flight 93 (Crescent of Betrayal, temporarily available for free download at CrescentOfBetrayal.com). This is not my first venture into journalism. Over the years I have been a writer, opinions editor, and advisor for Stanford’s conservative campus newspaper The Stanford Review, and am currently on the Review’s board of directors.

If you are unable to listen live to the radio show, you can listen to recordings of the radio broadcasts later by CLICKING HERE.

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posted by Always On Watch @ 10/01/2007 12:58:00 AM  

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