Thursday, April 12, 2007

BACON AS A HATE CRIME



Two hours before the Islamic Center of Clarksville held its 1 p.m. Friday prayer service, called Jummah, a Quran was found vandalized on the front steps. The front of the Quran, Islam's holy book, read "Mohammad pedophile" while an expletive was written inside, smeared under two strips of bacon, according to a Clarksville Police report. The report labeled the incident a hate crime. The bacon strips are offensive to Muslims because they are forbidden from eating pork.

"We were upset. Actually some of us were outraged, but everyone was upset," said Heath, a representative of the center. "We see it a lot on the news in Nashville (because) Nashville has a large Muslim population. But here in Clarksville - being a lot smaller than Nashville and Clarksville being very diverse with Fort Campbell - it was the last we thing we expected."

The Islamic Center was founded in June 2005. Heath estimates a little more than 40 Muslim families live in the Clarksville and Fort Campbell areas. Heath and other Muslims are not taking this lightly. He said police told him they would contact the FBI and send out more patrols to monitor the center. Surveillance cameras have also been installed since Friday. "We have put our community on alert and warned everyone to keep their eyes open," he said. "We don't think Clarksville is a bad place or is full of bad people, but we do think that once people here know what happened to us, that people would understand why we're outraged.

Islamic representatives plan to meet with City Mayor Johnny Piper next week to see what more can be done about this situation. "We're not going to tolerate it at all," Heath said. "This was small, but maybe next time it may be something physical."

Source. (H/T 910 Group)



Stupid dreamy Bishops see what they want to see



The Roman Catholic bishop who oversees the armed forces has provoked fury by praising the Iranian leadership for its "forgiveness" and "act of mercy" in freeing the 15 British sailors and marines last week. "Faith in a forgiving God has been exemplified in action by their good deeds. They are offering to release the sailors and marines, not just as the result of diplomacy, but also as an act of mercy in accordance with their religion." Bishop Burns said he had issued an appeal to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, "in the name of his nation and in the name of Islam", to free the sailors and marines, but he could not be sure whether his appeal had reached the authorities in Iran.

He added that the Iranian's Islamic faith shared many religious values with Christianity. "Over the past two weeks, there has been a unity of purpose between Britain and Iran, whereby everyone has sought justice and forgiveness where that is appropriate," he said. "Repentance has a common root in each religion. We all profess to hold a faith that comes from Abraham - the Father of all Nations. "All nations form one community: we come from the one God who created us, and we will return to the one God as our common destiny."

Bishop Nazir-Ali said the Iranians had scored "something of a coup" by appealing to their religious traditions in freeing the hostages. In sharp contrast, Britain had failed to refer to any higher values. "I saw on the one hand what Iran was doing, and what the president [of Iran] said had much to do with the moral and spiritual tradition of their country," he said. "The president talked about the religious background to the release, with reference to the Prophet's birthday and the passing over of Christ. What struck me was that if there were any values on the British side they were free-floating and not anchored in a spiritual and moral tradition." He added, however, that he believed that both sides were acting from mixed motives, and challenged the Iranians to demonstrate similar tolerance in their treatment of religious minorities.

Bishop Burns came under fierce attack yesterday for his more trusting remarks. Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, called him "naive in the extreme". He said it appeared that the bishop had been "taken in by the clever propaganda" of the Iranian regime. "This is a regime that illegally captured our servicemen and held them in quite dreadful conditions for some time. The true moral worth of a leader is in his or her deeds, not words." Dr Fox added: "I think that those who talk in religious terms while practising abduction should be judged on what they have done, not what they have said. To do otherwise is naive in the extreme."

Col Tim Collins, who led the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, said: "It's a close call as to which organisation is in the deepest moral crisis - the Church or the Ministry of Defence." Col Edward Armitstead, a former Coldstream Guards officer who is a member of the Church of England's General Synod, said: "You have to ask, why did the Iranians capture our people in the first place? The bishop is naive and guilty of wishful thinking."

Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said: "We will never know whether the Iranian president's decision to release the hostages was motivated by his religion or, most probably, by a desire to ensure that his best interests were served. "It would be naive to take what the president said at face value but perhaps we should not dismiss his words entirely."

Source



Black Conservatives Speak Out on Don Imus Controversy, Criticism

Imus Was Wrong, But Project 21 Members Question Sincerity of Critics' Outrage

Don Imus has been suspended by CBS Radio and MSNBC for two weeks in the wake of comments made on his April 4, 2007 syndicated radio show. On that show, Imus called members of the Rutgers University women's basketball team "rough girls" and "nappy-headed hos." Others in the studio with Imus also called the girls "hardcore hos" and compared their looks to the men's professional Toronto Raptors and Memphis Grizzlies.

Imus has apologized for the remarks and has promised to meet with the team. The Reverend Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Organization for Women, among others, are demanding Imus be fired.

The follow are comments made by members of the Project 21 black leadership network regarding the Imus controversy and the seemingly selective outrage of the people now speaking out against Imus. Project 21 members do not endorse or agree with Imus's comments.

Mychal Massie, Chairman of Project 21 (Zion Hill, Pennsylvania) - "The hysteria that has erupted shows a continued pattern of liberal willingness to be selectively offended. Where is the outrage over Jesse Jackson calling Jews 'Hymies' and New York City 'Hymietown'? Why has Al Sharpton's reputation been enhanced since he slandered prosecutor Steve Pagones in the Tawana Brawley hoax or incited anti-Semitic hatred in Crown Heights or outside Freddie's Fashion Mark in Harlem? Where is the liberal outrage over Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, John Murtha, Charles Rangel or any of scores of other intentionally insulting liberal marplots afflicted with incontinence of the mouth similar to Don Imus?

"One must question not only the overall sensibilities, but the true motives of those who feign insult over Rush Limbaugh, who - when speaking in his former role as ESPN sports commentator - gave a reasoned opinion about an NFL quarterback but are not the least bit offended when HBO talk show host Bill Maher said the attempted assassination of Vice President Cheney in Afghanistan could have accomplished a good thing."

"Not one of those now crying foul over the Imus comments voiced a scintilla of insult over the vicious, racist and vulgar diatribes regularly directed at Justice Clarence Thomas, Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice and her predecessor, General Colin Powell."

Kevin Martin, Project 21 National Advisory Council member (Washington, D.C.) - "Thomas Oliphant, the liberal political cartoonist who has drawn Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice in an overtly racial manner, appeared on the Imus show pledging 'solidarity forever.' Bill Maher, who was already fired for calling the 9/11 terrorists 'brave' and most recently expressed regret that they failed to assassinate Vice President Cheney in Afghanistan, is also standing by Imus's side. This is a well-crafted response to another liberal episode of 'foot-in-mouth disease,' and Imus's well-placed friends are working damage control and hoping this will all blow over."

"At the end of all of this, I expect Imus will return to the airwaves after his suspension and Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will have heavier pockets. The American people will return their attention to 'American Idol' and Anna Nicole while the true victims in all of this - the Rutgers University women's basketball team - will be left the butt of on-the-job or locker room jokes for months to come."

Deneen Borelli, Project 21 Fellow (East Chester, NY) - "The backlash over Imus's racist comments clearly illustrates a double-standard. Where is this kind of outrage when Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Maryland's former lieutenant governor Michael Steele and Justice Clarence Thomas are bombarded with insulting slurs? Even more outrageous is the lack of criticism over the degrading song lyrics in rap music 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - the same words Imus spoke of that some blacks condone. You can't have it both ways."

Source



The strange face of "moderate" Islam

Andrew Bolt reports from Australia

MAYBE this time, I thought. Maybe this first Australian Islamic Conference would at last show us the moderate Muslim leaders we've searched for. God, we need them. Look at the latest doings of the hate-preachers we have now. Take the Mufti of Australia, Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilali, who has just given interviews in Iran demanding Muslims stand "in the trenches" with its hostage-taking regime, and is now being investigated for allegedly giving $12,000 to a Lebanese propagandist linked to terrorists. Meanwhile, the head of the Lebanese Muslim Association, which pays him to preach at Australia's biggest mosque, has had to seek police protection for suggesting this fool had best shut up.

Yet, even now, the Federation of Islamic Councils, which made Hilali mufti, refuses to sack him, though he's vilified Jews, praised suicide bombers as "heroes", called the September 11 terrorist attacks "God's work against oppressors", excused convicted pack rapist Bilal Skaf and said raped women should be "jailed for life".

The greatest pity is that Hilali isn't the only hate-preacher in our mosques. Other radical sheiks have been accused of telling followers not to pay taxes to this infidel Government. Worse, the Howard Government sidelined its Muslim Community Reference Group after finding a third of the 14 "moderates" it handpicked actually backed the Iranian-backed Hezbollah extremist group, notorious for its terrorist wing. So, after all this and more, we desperately need to hear from those moderate Muslim leaders we keep telling each other must surely exist. Must.

Was it so dumb to think Mercy Mission would at last provide them - Muslim leaders who would demonstrate (in the mission's own words) that they "benefit the communities in which they live"? You may have dared to hope, given this new group's leaders include the highly educated Tawfique Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi-born and Australian-raised IT project manager, and Adel Salman, who so impressed his employers at Cadbury Schweppes that he was selected for the prestigious Asialink leaders program. It was Salman, so polished, who organised for Mercy Mission its first annual Australian Islamic Conference at Melbourne University over the Easter weekend. The odd timing was surely just an innocent coincidence, because the conference had a noble aim: to "present a true picture of 'Islam in action' to the wider community" and convince Australians that "Islamic values are universal values".

So who, among all the Muslims in the world, did Mercy Mission choose to fly in to give us this "true picture" of a moderate Islam? Of the six international speakers it advertised, let me introduce you to two.

The first is Bilal Philips, a Jamaican-born Canadian who was a communist and worker for the Black Panther terrorist group before converting to Islam and becoming a preacher. His message is uncompromising: "Western culture led by the United States is an enemy of Islam." Which makes him an odd choice as speaker at a conference to reassure us that "Islamic values are universal values". But the choice of Philips is even odder given the United States named him as an "unindicted co-conspirator" over the 1993 bombing of New York's World Trade Centre, and our own security agencies judged him such a threat he was banned from coming here. Philips insists he rejects terrorism and considers al-Qaeda a "deviate" group. But from his own website and interviews you'd see why some might not take him at his word. He freely admits he was hired by the Saudi air force during the first Gulf War to preach to American soldiers stationed in Saudi Arabia and convert them to Islam. He says he succeeded, and "registered the names and addresses of over 3000 male and female US soldiers".

Philips didn't just take down their names; he also visited them back in America. "My role was confined to encouraging them to train Muslim-American volunteers and go to Bosnia to help the mujahidin and take part in the war (against Serbia)," he boasted. That worked, too. Philips says his name was dragged into the investigation of the first World Trade Centre bombing, in which six people were killed, because some African-American soldiers he'd converted were offered by someone else to Sheik Abdel Rahmen, spiritual head of the terrorists behind the attack. These ex-soldiers would be great for domestic sabotage, the sheik was told.

But Clement Rodney Hampton-El, an al-Qaeda-trained American bombmaker now serving a 35-year sentence for the World Trade Centre bombings, claimed Philips also gave him the names of soldiers who were about to leave the military and who might help the Bosnian jihadists. To repeat: Philips denies any links to al-Qaeda, and swears he is opposed to terrorism, although he does say Muslims are entitled to defend their faith by force. But given his support for jihadists, his past contacts with jailed terrorists and the allegations against him, why on earth did Mercy Mission choose him to preach here?

To invite one such extremist speaker might seem like bad luck, but to invite two might make you think Mercy Mission wouldn't know a moderate Muslim if he blew up in their face. I say that because also high on Mercy Mission's guest list was another convert, British journalist Yvonne Ridley, with a much nastier line in preaching. Ridley didn't just marry a colonel in one terror group - Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organisation - but has been busy since defending others like it. Some highlights: Soon after the September 11 terrorist attacks Ridley actually accused Islamic sheiks of going soft. "Muslims have lost confidence since September 11," she complained. "Something as simple as suicide bombers being martyrs is being denied by prominent sheiks."

That's one of her mantras. At a Belfast meeting of Islamic students, she insisted there were no innocent Israeli victims in suicide bombings. Not even children. "There are no innocents in this war," she reportedly raged, because Israeli children could grow up to become Israeli soldiers. She even hailed as a "martyr" the Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev, who planned the attack on the Beslan school in which 333 hostages - many of them children - were killed. An "admirable struggle", she called his life's work. Ridley has never called on Muslims to boycott such terrorists, but instead demanded British Muslims "boycott the police and refuse to co-operate with them in any way, shape or form".

And when relatives of al-Qaeda's then leader in Iraq, the head-hacker Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, denounced his bomb attacks on three hotels in Jordan, she was livid. "While the killing of innocent people is to be condemned without question, there is something rather repugnant about some of those who rush to renounce acts of terrorism," she sneered. True, among the 61 dead were many members of a wedding party, she conceded, but some of them "were part of Jordan's upper echelons of society", and "others had flown in from America". What's more, the "bars (were) serving alcohol", and the evil Jordanian regime "provides backing, support and intelligence to the American military". Having proved to her satisfaction the guilt of the dead civilians, she asked: "I wonder if you see that attack on the Jordanian hotels in a different light now?" And she concluded: "I'd rather put up with a brother like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi any day than have a traitor or a sell-out for a father, son or grandfather."

What, in Ridley's foul incantations of hatred and her defence of child-killers and wedding bombers, makes her the kind of Muslim who would "benefit the communities in which they live"? What does it say about Mercy Mission that Ridley - and Philips - were hired as speakers to tell us "Islamic values are universal values" and we have nothing to fear?

Oh, and about that fear. It was this same Ridley - happy to "put up with a brother" like Zarqawi, once filmed cutting off the head of American hostage Nick Berg - who last week accused Australians of being among the worst haters of Muslims. How like her to condemn the fear her own words rightly provoke. And how disturbing that Mercy Mission holds her up as the kind of Muslim who does us good. Or - I hesitate to ask - is this really the best our Muslim leaders can offer? Is this really their "true picture" of Islam? I beg of them. Prove it isn't. Until you do, I'm afraid I shall take you at your grim word.

Source

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.


For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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