From a Religion of Peace and Love

Okay.  My title can be interpreted the wrong way.

Just as I've defended the majority of Muslims who will never support violence against non-believers, I'll defend the majority of Catholics.  I'm not a Christian myself, but Christianity (as I understand it) is a faith that supports forgiveness of others' sins, leaving judgement to G-d himself, and application of the Golden Rule.  And the Catholic faith has a long tradition of insightful scholarship.

So, viral messages like this one sadden me.

I did a site-specific google search of the author's blog, and couldn't find these comments.  So I can't confirm that she wrote them.  But I think that most folks who'd skim her blog would consider her authorship plausible.

I present it as an example of the institutionalized spread of hatred via email.  Without further ado:

Ann Barnhardt is described as "a livestock and grain commodity broker and marketing consultant, American patriot, traditional Catholic, and unwitting counter-revolutionary blogger. She can be reached through her business at www.barnhardt.biz."  She has taken on Islam and they have noticed.    

Ruth    

DEATH THREAT:  Posted on her blog     

To:annbarnhardt  

I'm going to kill you when I find you. Don't think I won't, I know where you and your parents live and all I'll need is one phone-call to kill ya'll.           

ANN'S RESPONSE:  

Re: Watch your back.  

Hello mufcadnan123!   You don't need to "find" me. My address is 9175 Kornbrust Circle, Lone Tree, CO 80124.    

Luckily for you, there are daily DIRECT FLIGHTS from Heathrow to Denver . Here's what you will need to do. After arriving at Denver and passing through customs, you will need to catch the shuttle to the rental car facility. Once in your rental car, take Pena Boulevard to I-225 south. Proceed on I-225 south to I-25 south. Proceed south on I-25 to Lincoln Avenue which is exit 193. Turn right (west) onto Lincoln . Proceed west to the fourth light, and turn left (south) onto Ridgegate Boulevard . Proceed south, through the roundabout to Kornbrust Drive . Turn left onto Kornbrust Drive and then take an immediate right onto Kornbrust Circle . I'm at 9175.    

Just do me one favor. PLEASE wear body armor. I have some new ammunition that I want to try out, and frankly, close-quarter body shots without armor would feel almost unsporting from my perspective. That and the fact that I'm probably carrying a good 50 I.Q. points on you makes it morally incumbent upon me to spot you a tactical advantage.    

However, being that you are a miserable, trembling coward, I realize that you probably are incapable of actually following up on any of your threats without losing control of your bowels and crapping your pants while simultaneously sobbing yourself into hyperventilation. So, how about this: why don't you contact the main mosque here in Denver and see if some of the local musloids here in town would be willing to carry out your attack for you?    

After all, this is what your "perfect man" mohamed did (pig excrement be upon him). You see, mohamed, being a miserable coward and a con artist, would send other men into battle to fight on his behalf. Mohamed would stay at the BACK of the pack and let the stupid, ignorant suckers like you that he had conned into his political cult do the actual fighting and dying. Mohamed would then fornicate with the dead men's wives and children. You should follow mohamed's example! Here is the contact info for the main mosque here in Denver:    

Masjid Abu Bakr  

Imam Karim Abu Zaid  

2071 South Parker Road Denver, CO 80231  

Phone: 303-696-9800  

Email: denvermosque@yahoo.com    

I'm sure they would be delighted to hear from you. Frankly, I'm terribly disappointed that not a SINGLE musloid here in the United States has made ANY attempt to rape and behead me. But maybe I haven't made myself clear enough, so let me do that right now.    

I will NEVER, EVER, EVER submit to islam. I will fight islam with every fiber of my being for as long as I live because islam is pure satanic evil. If you are really serious about islam dominating the United States and the world, you are going to have to come through me. You are going to have to kill me. Good luck with that. And understand that if you or some of your musloid boyfriends do actually manage to kill me, The Final Crusade will officially commence five minutes later, and then, despite your genetic mental retardation, you will be made to understand with crystal clarity what the word "defeat" means. Either way, I win, so come and get it.  

Deo adjuvante non timendum (with the help of God there is nothing to be afraid of).  

Ann Barnhardt 

A (Not So) Real American Hero

And, straight from my father's email box, here's the story of a great American hero.

Until you actually check the facts.

Dealing With Muslims  

 Two Black Americans were elected to congress this cycle, and both are Republican.   Col. West is from southern Florida.   He won in a walk.

If you call "winning 54% of the vote, compared to the other party's 46%" a walk, go ahead... but I don't think many folks would agree with you.  Especially when he lost by similar margins against the same opponent two years prior.

This new Congressman was an extremely popular commander in Iraq.  He was forced to retire because during an intense combat action a few of his men were captured.   At the same time his men captured one of the guys who were with the Iraqis who captured his men.

He was popular amongst his men.  However, this email provides a VERY different version of what happened according to an Army investigation, as reported by the New York Times.

According to this account:

• There were rumors that the enemy was going to attempt to assassinate Colonel West.  This rumor was not taken seriously until a convoy (which was supposed to be with Col. West aboard) was attacked.
• The subject of this interrogation was not a man captured at the battlefield.  It was the interrogation of an Iraqi policeman rumored to be a part of the assassination plot.

Knowing that time was crucial and his interrogators were not getting anywhere with the prisoner, Col. West took matters into his own hands.  

These "interrogators" weren't professional interrogators.  They were the men under his command who brought the detainee in, stating they were inviting him to go on patrol with the unit.  They then bound him, kicked him, threw him off the Humvee, and told him that Col. West would kill him unless he provided information on the assassination attempt.

He burst into the room and demanded thru an interpreter that the prisoner tell him where his men were being taken.  The prisoner refused so Col. West took out his pistol and placed it into the prisoner's crotch and fired.   Then the Col. told the prisoner that the next shot would not miss.  

The gun was aimed at his head.  Not his crotch.

So the prisoner said he would show where the American service members were being taken.  The Americans were rescued.  Someone filed a report on incorrect handling of prisoners.  Col. West was forced to retire.  

Well, there were no "prisoners" to rescue.  Seeing as Colonel West was threatening to shoot the detainee in the head, the prisoner did what most prisoners (guilty or not) do in this situation - He provided some names, none of whom were found to be involved in any sort of planned attack.

Colonel West resigned, and no court martial was called.  Whether this was an unofficial agreement, no one will say.

With all-due respect, I can understand why Colonel West did this.  In the same situation, I might have done the same thing.  But I wouldn't call it heroism, or say that I took these actions because of my "true" understanding of Islamic threats.

Col. West was just elected in November 2010 to Congress from Florida.   During the elections he was part of a panel on how to handle or how to relate to Muslims.   You will see his answer here explaining in just over a minute the truth about Islam.  Please watch and if you agree, please forward it to your friends; if you disagree, you're an idiot.  Hit the delete button.
http://secure.afa.net/afa/activism/takeaction.asp?id=384

You can watch the video if you like, but it's lacking any sort of depth.

The title of this YouTube video reads, "Sura 9:5 says, 'Slay the idolators wherever you find them'".  As usual, I grabbed my copy of the Koran.  (Another translation of these passages can be found here.)

This section, in my translation of the Koran, is entitled, "Repentance".  It deals with how Muslims should behave when Non-Muslims violate the peace agreements they make.  It directs Muslims to give such treaty-breakers four months to repent, but allows for self-defense when other solutions aren't possible.  And it doesn't call for Muslims to kill all non-believers.

In the video, Colonel West cites a litany of battles fought between Muslim armies and others, without discussing their (very complex) causes.  And he directs people to "Read the Koran, the Sura and the Hadith" in order to understand why "the enemy" wishes to destroy all of Western Civilization.

And this might make sense - until you actually find out what the "Sura and the Hadith" are.

First of all, it makes no sense to tell people to "read the Koran and the Sura".  If you've read the Koran, you've read all the the Sura - they're just the chapters of the Koran.

The Hadith, however, are not part of the Koran.  They are collections of actions and statements attributed to Mohammed.

There are many collections of Hadith, and no agreements regarding which (if any) are authentic.  Certainly, no collection of Hadith can speak for all of Islam, and statements to the contrary only serve to illustrate the ignorance of the person saying that they do.

Perhaps, Colonel West should spend a little more time following his own advice - to study his "enemy" a little more closely.  And, maybe, spending a little more time looking at himself.

Is it Time to Repent For Your Own Sins Yet?

Well, my father, once again, sent me an anti-islamic diatribe.

Nothing really new here.  It's the usual collection of blaming all Moslems for the actions of radicals, stating that they're all complicit... yadda yadda.  I've refuted these all before.

What saddens me?  This was a sermon given during a Jewish period of repentance.

I wish the authorship was incorrect, and that this holiday of self-reflection wasn't perverted into an ill-informed attack of others.

Sadly, the authorship is correct.

As I've said, I've refuted this stuff before.  I'll reprint it here, if just to provide another example of institutionalized racial hate gone viral.

Sermon of the Century

This sermon, delivered by Rabbi Lewis a couple of weeks ago has been referred to as the "sermon of the century" If you haven't already seen or heard it it's well worth reading.

First Day of RoshHashanah 2010 

Sermon delivered by Rabbi Schlomo Lewis of Atlanta  

I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share.  We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel.  We want to be shaken and stirred – but not too much.  We want to be guilt-schlepped – but not too much.  We want to be provoked but not too much.  We want to be transformed but not too much.

I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation, a responsibility to articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said and must be heard.  And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by what is painful to express.  I am guided not by the frivolous but by the serious.  I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.

We are at war.  We are at war with an enemy as savage, as voracious, as heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn’t know it from our behavior. During WWII we didn’t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters.  We didn’t call the Gestapo, militants.   We didn’t see the attacks on our Merchant Marine as acts by rogue sailors.  We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our fault.  We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people.  We did not apologize for Dresden , nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El Alamein, nor for D-Day.

Evil – ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at stake.  It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk, not just Vienna , not just Casablanca .  It was the entire planet.  Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent. 

Not all Germans were Nazis – most were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer, earning a living and tucking in their children at night.  But, too many looked away, too many cried out in lame defense – I didn’t know.”  Too many were silent. Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well.  Fault was not just with the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.

In WWII we won because we got it.  We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute.  We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis.  We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe.  We built planes and tanks and battleships and went to war to win….. to rid the world of malevolence.

We are at war… yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don’t put the pieces together and refuse to identify the evil doers.  We are circumspect and disgracefully politically correct.

Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times Square to London , from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza , the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists. 

To camouflage their identity is sedition.  To excuse their deeds is contemptible.  To mask their intentions is unconscionable.

A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour.  It was a stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage.  When we visited Kovno we davenedMaariv at the only remaining shul in the city.  Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews.  Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation.  We made minyon for the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel in Kovno. 

After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos.  At the oneg an elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to me. 

“Shalom,” he said.  “Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania .”
“Yes,” I replied.  “It was quite a powerful experience.”  “Did you visit the Choral Synagogue in Kovno?  The one with the big arch in the courtyard?” 

“Yes, I did.  In fact, we helped them make minyon.”  His eyes opened wide in joy at our shared memory.  For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned.  “Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch.  The Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child.” 

He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past.  His smile faded.  Pain filled his wrinkled face.  “I remember one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul”  (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin’s mentor – he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics were to the far right.)  Joe continued “When Jabotinsky came, he delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears.  He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. ‘EHRKUMT. YIDN FARLAWSTAYERSHTETL – He’s coming.  Jews abandon your city.’ ”
We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler.  We had lived there, thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right -- his warning prophetic.  We got out but most did not.” 

We are not in Lithuania .  It is not the 1930s.  There is no Luftwaffe overhead.  No U-boats off the coast of long Island .  No Panzer divisions on our borders.  But make no mistake; we are under attack – our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.  

Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let me state emphatically, unmistakably – I have no pathology of hate, nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside.  I am not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks.  I am a lover of humanity, all humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or don’t worship at all.  I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless, unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.
Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen the hands of the evil doers.  Let me state that the overwhelming number of Muslims are good Muslims, fine human beings who want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen TV on their wall and a good education for their children, but these good Muslims have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most part they have avoided.  The Kulturkampf is not only external but internal as well.  The good Muslims must sponsor rallies in Times Square, in Trafalgar Square, in the UN Plaza, on the Champs Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent.  Thus far, they have not.  The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times.  They must buy time on network TV, on cable stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeena condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent – thus far, they have not.  Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish Islam and define it. 

Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil. 

I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that helped me understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion.  Knowing he had little time left he shared the following – “Shal.  I am ready to leave this earth. Sure I’d like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but truthfully, I’ve had it.  I’m done.  Finished.  I hope the Good Lord takes me soon because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has become.” 

This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio.  – Yet his twilight observation was – “The worst is yet to come.” And he wanted out. 

I share my father’s angst and fear that too many do not see the authentic, existential threat we face nor confront the source of our peril.  We must wake up and smell the hookah. 

“Lighten up, Lewis.  Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly thinking. You’re sounding like Glen Beck.  It’s not that bad.  It’s not that real.” 

But I am here to tell you – “It is.”  Ask the member of our shul whose sister was vaporized in the Twin Towers and identified finally by her charred teeth, if this is real or not.  Ask the members of our shul who fled a bus in downtown Paris , fearing for their safety from a gang of Muslim thugs, if this is an exaggeration.  Ask the member of our shul whose son tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target – pizza parlors, nursery schools, Pesachseders, city buses and play grounds, if this is dramatic, paranoid hyperbole. 

Ask them, ask all of them – ask the American GI’s we sit next to on planes who are here for a brief respite while we fly off on our Delta vacation package.  Ask them if it’s bad.  Ask them if it’s real. 

Did anyone imagine in the 1920’s what Europe would look like in the 1940’s. 

Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses of Berlin or in the opera halls of Vienna that genocide would soon become the celebrated culture? 

Did anyone think that a goofy-looking painter named Shickelgruber would go from the beer halls of Munich and jail, to the Reichstag as Feuhrer in less than a decade?  Did Jews pack their bags and leave Warsaw , Vilna, Athens , Paris , Bialystok , Minsk , knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka, Sobibor, Dachau and Auschwitz ? 

The sages teach – “Aizehuchacham – haroehethanolad – Who is a wise person – he who sees into the future.”  We dare not wallow in complacency, in a misguided tolerance and naïve sense of security. 

We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at the waters of Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by eloquent-sounding rhetoric that soothes our heart but endangers our soul.  We cannot be lulled into inaction for fear of offending the offenders.  Radical Islam is the scourge and this must be cried out from every mountain top.  From sea to shining sea, we must stand tall, prideful of our stunning decency and moral resilience.  Immediately after 9/11 how many mosques were destroyed in  America ?  None.  After 9/11, how many Muslims were killed in America ? None.  After 9/11, how many anti-Muslim rallies were held in America ? None.  And yet, we apologize.  We grovel.  We beg forgiveness. 

The mystifying litany of our foolishness continues.  Should there be a shul in Hebron on the site where Baruch Goldstein gunned down twenty-seven Arabs at noonday prayers?  Should there be a museum praising the U.S. Calvary on the site of Wounded Knee ?  Should there be a German cultural center in  Auschwitz ?  Should a church be built in the Syrian town of Ma’arra where Crusaders slaughtered over 100,000 Muslims?  Should there be a thirteen story mosque and Islamic Center only a few steps from Ground Zero? 

Despite all the rhetoric, the essence of the matter can be distilled quite easily.  The Muslim community has the absolute, constitutional right to build their building wherever they wish.  I don’t buy the argument – “When we can build a church or a synagogue in Mecca they can build a mosque here.”  America is greater than Saudi Arabia .  And New York is greater than  Mecca .  Democracy and freedom must prevail.  

Can they build?  Certainly.  May they build?  Certainly.   But should they build at that site?  No -- but that decision must come from them, not from us.  Sensitivity, compassion cannot be measured in feet or yards or in blocks.  One either feels the pain of others and cares, or does not. 

If those behind this project are good, peace-loving, sincere, tolerant Muslims, as they claim, then they should know better, rip up the zoning permits and build elsewhere.
Believe it or not, I am a dues-paying, card carrying member of the ACLU, yet from start of finish, I find this sorry episode disturbing to say the least. 

William Burroughs, the novelist and poet, in a wry moment wrote – “After one look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would say – “I want to see the manager.”
Let us understand that the radical Islamist assaults all over the globe are but skirmishes, fire fights, and vicious decoys.  Christ and the anti-Christ.  Gog U’Magog.  The Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness; the bloody collision between civilization and depravity is on the border between Lebanon and Israel .  It is on the Gaza Coast and in the Judean Hills of the  West Bank .  It is on the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv and on the cobblestoned  mall of Ben Yehuda Street .  It is in the underground schools of Sderot and on the bullet-proofed inner-city buses.  It is in every school yard, hospital, nursery, classroom, park, theater – in every place of innocence and purity.
Israel is the laboratory – the test market.  Every death, every explosion, every grisly encounter is not a random, bloody orgy.  It is a calculated, strategic probe into the heart, guts and soul of the West. 

In the Six Day War, Israel was the proxy of Western values and strategy while the Arab alliance was the proxy of Eastern, Soviet values and strategy.  Today too, it is a confrontation of proxies, but the stakes are greater than East Jerusalem and the West Bank .  Israel in her struggle represents the civilized world, while Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda, Iran , Islamic Jihad, represent the world of psychopathic, loathesome evil.
As Israel , imperfect as she is, resists the onslaught, many in the Western World have lost their way displaying not admiration, not sympathy, not understanding, for Israel ’s galling plight, but downright hostility and contempt.  Without moral clarity, we are doomed because Israel ’s galling plight ultimately will be ours.  Hanna Arendt in her classic Origins of Totalitarianism accurately portrays the first target of tyranny as the Jew.  We are the trial balloon.  The canary in the coal mine.  If the Jew/Israel is permitted to bleed with nary a protest from “good guys” then tyranny snickers and pushes forward with its agenda. 

Moral confusion is a deadly weakness and it has reached epic proportions in the West; from the Oval Office to the UN, from the BBC to Reuters to MSNBC, from the New York Times to Le Monde, from university campuses to British teachers unions, from the International Red Cross to Amnesty International, from Goldstone to Elvis Costello, from the Presbyterian Church to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
There is a message sent and consequences when our president visits Turkey and Egypt and Saudi Arabia , and not Israel . 

There is a message sent and consequences when free speech on campus is only for those championing Palestinian rights. 

There is a message sent and consequences when the media deliberately doctors and edits film clips to demonize Israel . 

There is a message sent and consequences when the UN blasts Israel relentlessly, effectively ignoring Iran , Sudan , Venezuela , North Korea , China and other noxious states.  

There is a message sent and consequences when liberal churches are motivated by Liberation Theology, not historical accuracy. 

There is a message sent and consequences when murderers and terrorists are defended by the obscenely transparent “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” 

John Milton warned, “Hypocrisy is the only evil that walks invisible.” 

A few days after the Gaza blockade incident in the spring, a congregant happened past my office, glanced in and asked in a friendly tone – “Rabbi.  How’re y’ doing?” 

I looked up, sort of smiled and replied – “I’ve had better days.”  

“What’s the matter?  Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?” he inquired. 

“Thank you for the offer but I’m just bummed out today and I showed him a newspaper article I was reading.  

“ Madrid gay pride parade bans Israeli group over Gaza Ship Raid.”  I explained to my visitor – “The Israeli gay pride contingent from Tel Aviv was not allowed to participate in the Spanish gay pride parade because the mayor of Tel Aviv did not apologize for the raid by the Israeli military.” 

The only country in the entire Middle East where gay rights exist, is  Israel .  The only country in the entire Middle East where there is a gay pride parade, is Israel .  The only country in the Middle East that has gay neighborhoods and gay bars, is Israel .
Gays in the Gaza would be strung up, executed by Hamas if they came out and yet Israel is vilified and ostracized.  Disinvited to the parade. 

Looking for logic?
Looking for reason?
Looking for sanity? 

Kafka on his darkest, gloomiest day could not keep up with this bizarre spectacle and we “useful idiots” pander and fawn over     cutthroats, sinking deeper and deeper into moral decay, as the enemy laughs all the way to the West Bank and beyond.
It is exhausting and dispiriting.  We live in an age that is redefining righteousness where those with moral clarity are an endangered, beleaguered specie. 

Isaiah warned us thousands of years ago – “OyeLehemSheh-KorimLayome, Laila v’Laila, yome – Woe to them who call the day, night and the night, day.”  We live on a planet that is both Chelm and Sodom .  It is a frightening and maddening place to be.
How do we convince the world and many of our own, that this is not just anti-Semitism, that this is not just anti-Zionism but a full throttled attack by unholy, radical Islamists on everything that is morally precious to us? 

How do we convince the world and many of our own that conciliation is not an option, that compromise is not a choice? 

Everything we are.  Everything we believe.  Everything we treasure, is at risk.
The threat is so unbelievably clear and the enemy so unbelievably ruthless how anyone in their right mind doesn’t get it is baffling.  Let’s try an analogy.  If someone contracted a life-threatening infection and we not only scolded them for using antibiotics but insisted that the bacteria had a right to infect their body and that perhaps, if we gave the invading infection an arm and a few toes, the bacteria would be satisfied and stop spreading.  

Anyone buy that medical advice?  Well, folks, that’s our approach to the radical Islamist bacteria.  It is amoral, has no conscience and will spread unless it is eradicated. – There is no negotiating.  Appeasement is death. 

I was no great fan of George Bush – didn’t vote for him.  (By the way, I’m still a registered Democrat.)  I disagreed with many of his policies but one thing he had right.  His moral clarity was flawless when it came to the War on Terror, the War on Radical Islamist Terror.  There was no middle ground – either you were friend or foe.  There was no place in Bush’s world for a Switzerland.  He knew that this competition was not Toyota against G.M., not the Iphone against the Droid, not the Braves against the Phillies, but a deadly serious war, winner take all.  Blink and you lose.  Underestimate, and you get crushed. 

I know that there are those sitting here today who have turned me off.  But I also know that many turned off their rabbis seventy five years ago in  Warsaw , Riga , Berlin , Amsterdam , Cracow , Vilna.  I get no satisfaction from that knowledge, only a bitter sense that there is nothing new under the sun. 

Enough rhetoric – how about a little “show and tell?”  A few weeks ago on the cover of Time magazine was a horrific picture with a horrific story. The photo was of an eighteen year old Afghani woman, Bibi Aisha, who fled her abusive husband and his abusive family.  Days later the Taliban found her and dragged her to a mountain clearing where she was found guilty of violating Sharia Law.  Her punishment was immediate.  She was pinned to the ground by four men while her husband sliced off her ears, and then he cut off her nose. 

That is the enemy (show enlarged copy of magazine cover.) 

If nothing else stirs us.  If nothing else convinces us, let Bibi Aisha’s mutilated face be the face of Islamic radicalism.  Let her face shake up even the most complacent and naïve among us.  In the holy crusade against this ultimate evil, pictures of Bibi Aisha’s disfigurement should be displayed on billboards, along every highway from Route 66 to the Autobahn, to the Transarabian Highway .  Her picture should be posted on every lobby wall from Tokyo to Stockholm to Rio .  On every network, at every commercial break, Bibi Aisha’s face should appear with the caption – “Radical Islamic savages did this.” And underneath – “This ad was approved by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by Taliban, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, by Islamic Jihad, by Fatah al Islam, by Magar Nodal Hassan, by Richard Reid, by Ahmanijad, by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, by Osama bin Laden, by Edward Said, by The Muslim Brotherhood, by Al Queda, by CAIR.” 

“The moral sentiment is the drop that balances the sea” said Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Today, my friends, the sea is woefully out of balance and we could easily drown in our moral myopia and worship of political correctness. 

We peer up into the heavens sending probes to distant galaxies. We peer down into quarks   discovering particles that would astonish Einstein.  We create computers that rival the mind, technologies that surpass science fiction. What we imagine, with astounding rapidity, becomes real.  If we dream it, it does, indeed, come.  And yet, we are at a critical point in the history of this planet that could send us back into the cave, to a culture that would make the Neanderthal blush with shame. 

Our parents and grandparents saw the swastika and recoiled, understood the threat and destroyed the Nazis.  We see the banner of Radical Islam and can do no less.
A rabbi was once asked by his students….

“Rebbi.  Why are your sermons so stern?”  Replied the rabbi, “If a house is on fire and we chose not to wake up our children, for fear of disturbing their sleep, would that be love?  Kinderlach, ‘dihoyzbrent.’  Children our house is on fire and I must arouse you from your slumber.” 

During WWII and the Holocaust was it business as usual for priests, ministers, rabbis?  Did they deliver benign homilies and lovely sermons as Europe fell, as the Pacific fell, as North Africa fell, as the Mideast and South America tottered, as England bled?  Did they ignore the demonic juggernaut and the foul breath of evil?  They did not.  There was clarity, courage, vision, determination, sacrifice, and we were victorious.  Today it must be our finest hour as well.  We dare not retreat into the banality of our routines, glance at headlines and presume that the good guys will prevail. 

Democracies don’t always win.
Tyrannies don’t always lose. 

My friends – the world is on fire and we must awake from our slumber.  “ER KUMT.”

Detroit: Let's Blame the Victims

The story of Detroit has been a sad one.  Ever since the race riots of 1967, few people with money have chosen to live there.  Nor would they start, or maintain businesses within the city.  And, without money, it's hard to have a functioning city.

I don't know how Detroit can recover... but some folks prefer to blame the victims.

The trouble is... they don't even know who the victims are.

DETROIT

By Frosty Wooldridge

(Frosty Wooldridge (born 1947) is a US journalist, writer, environmentalist, traveler)

I can't verify authorship of this piece.  But Mr. Woolridge's has posted his resume on-line.  I'll let my audience determine his qualifications as a journalist or environmentalist.

For 15 years, from the mid 1970's to 1990, I worked in Detroit, Michigan. I watched it descend into the abyss of crime, debauchery, gun play, drugs, school truancy, car-jacking, gangs and human depravity. I watched entire city blocks burned out. I watched graffiti explode on buildings, cars, trucks, buses and school yards. Trash everywhere!
Detroiters walked through it, tossed more into it, and ignored it. Tens of thousands, and then hundreds of thousands today exist on federal welfare, free housing, and food stamps!
With Aid to Dependent Children, minority women birthed eight to 10, and in one case, one woman birthed 24 children as reported by the Detroit Free Press, all on American taxpayer dollars.

Of course.  Having multiple welfare babies is something that only minorities do.  Riiight.

A new child meant a new car payment, new TV, and whatever mom wanted. I saw Lyndon Baines Johnson's 'Great Society' flourish in Detroit. If you give money for doing nothing, you will get more hands out taking money for doing nothing.

Yes... the welfare folks are living the high life in Detroit.  Much better than folks who have jobs.  Why... with how well they're doing, they've moved OUT of the city that's unable to provide their basic needs.  Right?

Oh.

Mayor Coleman Young, perhaps the most corrupt mayor in America, outside of Richard Daley in Chicago, rode Detroit down to its knees... He set the benchmark for cronyism, incompetence, and arrogance.

So, Chicago's more corrupt, and even more impoverished and unlivable, right?

It's not?  Oh.

As a black man, he said, "I am the MFIC." The IC meant "in charge."

Sheesh.  I wonder how he feels about Mark Zuckerberg.

You can figure out the rest... Detroit became a majority black city, with 67 percent African-Americans.As a United Van Lines truck driver for my summer job from teaching math and science, I loaded hundreds of American families into my van for a new life in another city or state.

... I suppose the African-Americans didn't use his moving van.  Because they moved away from the crime, inadequate schools, and poor infrastructure too.  If they were able.

Detroit plummeted from 1.8 million citizens to 912,000 today. At the same time, legal and illegal immigrants converged on the city, so much so, that Muslims number over 300,000.

Actually, that's 300,000 in Detroit and it's suburbs.  And most of the suburbs do not share the blight of the city itself.

Like I said, if you have money, and you value city services... you're not moving into Detroit.

Mexicans number 400,000 throughout Michigan, but most work in Detroit.

According to my sources, that's 47,167 of those 400,000.  Comprising 4.96% of Detroit's population.

Immigrants are usually drawn by economic opportunity.  Which ain't in Detroit.

As the whites moved out, the Muslims moved in.

A population trend that's present... nowhere.

As the crimes became more violent, the whites fled. Finally, unlawful Mexicans moved in at a torrid pace.  

We've already established that our world-acclaimed journalist didn't check the hispanic population of Detroit. Or, apparently, the definition of "torrid".

Detroit may be one of our best examples of multiculturalism: pure dislike, and total separation from America.Today, you hear Muslim calls to worship over the city like a ne w American Baghdad with hundreds of Islamic mosques in Michigan, paid for by Saudi Arabia oil money.

According to my Google Maps search, there are 7 mosques in Detroit.  Chruches far outnumber them.

High school flunk out rates reached 76 percent last June, according to NBC's Brian Williams. Classrooms resemble more foreign countries than America .. English? Few speak it! The city features a 50 percent illiteracy rate and growing.

An 81.5% African-American population, and few speak English... Riiight.

Unemployment hit 28.9 percent in 2009 as the auto industry vacated the city. In Time Magazine's October 4, 2009, "The Tragedy of Detroit: How a great city fell, and how it can rise agai n," I choked on the writer's description of what happened. "If Detroit had been ravaged by a hurricane, and submerged by a ravenous flood, we'd know a lot more about it," said Daniel Okrent. "If drought and carelessness had spread brush fires across the city, we'd see it on the evening news every night." Earthquake, tornadoes, you name it, if natural disaster had devastated the city that was once the living proof of American prosperity, the rest of the country might take notice.
But Detroit, once our fourth largest city, now 11th and slipping rapidly, has had no such luck. Its disaster has long been a slow unwinding that seemed to remove it from the rest of the country.Even the death rattle that in the past year emanated from its signature industry brought more attention to the auto executives than to the people of the city, who had for so long been victimized by their dreadful decision making."
As Coleman Young's corruption brought the city to its knees, no amount of federal dollars could save the incredible payoffs, kickbacks and illegality permeating his administration. I witnessed the city's death from the seat of my 18-wheeler tractor trailer because I moved people out of every sector of decaying Detroit."By any quantifiable standard, the city is on life support. Detroit 's treasury is $300 million short of the funds needed to provide the barest municipal services," Okrent said. "The school system, which six years ago was compelled by the teachers' union to reject a philanthropist's offer of $200 million to build 15 small, independent charter high sch ools, is in receivership. The murder rate is soaring, and 7 out of 10 remain unsolved. Three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans, unemployment in that city hit a peak of 11%. In Detroit today, the unemployment rate is 28.9%. That's worth spelling out: twenty-eight point nine percent.
At the end of Okrent's report, and he will write a dozen more about Detroit, he said, "That's because the story of Detroit is not simply one of a great city's collapse, it's also about the erosion of the industries that helped bu ild the country we know today. The ultimate fate of Detroit will reveal much about the character of America in the 21st century.If what was once the most prosperous manufacturing city in the nation has been brought to its knees, what does that say about our recent past? And if it can't find a way to get up, what does that say about America's future?"

I don't think you'll see much disagreement with the fact that Detroit is an impoverished city.

As you rea d in my book review of Chris Steiner's book,"$20 Per Gallon," the auto industry won't come back. Immigration will keep pouring more and more uneducated third world immigrants from the Middle East into Detroit, thus creating a beachhead for Islamic hegemony in America. If 50 percent illiteracy continues, we will see more homegrown terrorists spawned out of the Muslim ghettos of Detroit. Illiteracy plus Islam equals walking human bombs.

He hasn't proven this before.  And he hasn't proven it now.

As their numbers grow, so will their power to enact their barbaric Sharia Law that negates republican forms of government, first amendment rights, and subjugates women to the lowest rungs on the human ladder.

Not unless they can rewrite the constitution... and I don't see that happening.

We will see more honor killings by upset husbands, fathers and brothers that demand subjugation by their daughters, sisters and wives. Muslims prefer beheadings of women to scare the hell out of any other members of their sect from straying. Multiculturalism: what a perfect method to kill our language, culture, country and way of life.

I PRAY EVERYONE THAT READS THIS REALIZES THAT IF WE DON'T STAND UP, AND SCREAM AT WASHINGTON, AND OUR STATE, CITY AND LOCAL LEADERS THIS IS WHAT AWAITS THE REST OF AMERICA. IF YOU THINK MEXICANS AND MUSLIMS AND OTHER FOREIGNERS WILL EVENTUALLY FIT RIGHT IN THEN YOU ARE AS BIG A PART OF THE PROBLEM AS THEY ARE.
IF YOU THINK THIS IS JUST A BUNCH OF HOOEY AND YOU FEEL NO DUTY TO FIGHT FOR THIS COUNTRY, THEN I'M SORRY, I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WILL TAKE FOR YOU TO STAND AND FIGHT?

I'll let that incoherent racial ranting stand for itself.

The Muslims Take Manhattan: Too Bad You Missed It.

Again, here's one to file in the "If it were true, wouldn't the mainstream media be reporting it?" file:

Madison Ave closed to traffic 

A Christian Nation cannot put up a Christmas scene of the baby Jesus in a public place, but the Muslims can stop normal traffic every Friday afternoon by worshiping in the streets. Something is happening in America that is reminiscent of what is happening in Europe. This is Political Correctness gone crazy..    Scary! Isn't it?

This is NYC on Madison Ave 

This is an accurate picture of every Friday afternoon in several locations throughout NYC where there are mosques with a large number of Muslims that cannot fit into the mosque - They fill the surrounding streets, facing east for a couple of hours between about 2 & 4 p.m - Besides this one at 42nd St & Madison Ave, there is another, even larger group, at 94th St & 3rd Ave, etc., Also, I presume, you are aware of the dispute over building another "high rise" Mosque a few blocks from "ground zero" - With regard to that one, the "Imam" refuses to disclose where the $110 million dollars to build it is coming from and there is a lawsuit filed to force disclosure of that information - November can't come soon enough.


This is in New York City on Madison Avenue, not in France or the Middle East or Yemen or Kenya.  Is there a message here????  Yes, there is, and they are claiming America for Allah. If we don't wake up soon, we are going to "politically correct" ourselves right out of our own country! 

PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERYONE  YOU KNOW WHO CARES!!!! and everyone else!  Does it help?

So, once again, no reputable media outlet will tell us that Muslims are blocking traffic in the middle of Manhattan every Friday.  During business hours.  And they refuse to report that the police don't do anything to restore normal commerce in the middle of New York City.

No, I didn't believe it either.

Actually, the photos are real, according to Snopes.  But you can't see these scenes every Friday.  Or any Friday.

It turns out, since 1985 (long before 9/11), there's been an annual Muslim Day parade.

It's not held on the Muslim sabbath.  (Which would seem to violate religious tenets, anyway.)  It's held during the last Sunday of September.

They get a permit from the city - just like anyone else who wants to sponsor a parade.

And, from the website, it seems like the parade doesn't incorporate public prayer.  Making it no more "religious" than an Easter, or St. Patrick's Day parade.  Of course, some will answer the daily call to prayer - but it's not an organized prayer activity any more than the folks passing out Christian pamphlets at other events.

And, perhaps, our "christian" viral email author should pay more heed to the commandment, "thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor".  A concern that should take higher priority than a public creche.

Are we reading the same Koran?

Here we go again...

Yes, people throughout history have justified horrible things in the name of the gods they worship.

When people do these things, they should be punished.

But when evil arises, we need to fight the people committing evil.  And not the ones that don't.

But, hey.  Here's a viral emailer who may disagree with that.

The Joys of Being A Muslim Wife

This was written by a woman born in Egypt as a Muslim.  This is not hearsay, and it will scare  you.

Viral email is, by definition, hearsay.  It may be true - but sources need to be checked.

As to the claim that this was "written by a woman born in Egypt as a Muslim" - we'll get to that later.

Joys of Muslim Women

by Nonie Darwish

According to Snopes, this was not written by Nonie Darwish.  It's a highly editorialized restatement of some of the things she's said, and taken out of context.  She's never endorsed this viral email, as far as I can tell.

In her public appearances, however, she's very clear.  This is about a subset of people who are following traditions not espoused in the Koran.

In the Muslim faith a Muslim man can marry a child as young as 1 year old and have sexual intimacy with this child, consummating the marriage by 9.  The dowry is given to the family in exchange for the woman (who becomes his slave) and for the purchase of the private parts of the woman, to use her as a toy.

If we're going to say something is "in the Muslim faith", I consider the Koran to be the ultimate arbiter.

Now, I'm not a Muslim.  I can't claim to understand the religion as well as a practitioner.  And I certainly can't read the Koran in it's original Arabic.

But I can provide quotes from an English text.  And I have a free copy of "Interpretation of the Meaning of The Glorious Qur'an", by Prof. (Dr.) Syed Vickar Ahmed.  So I'll go ahead and try to use it.

Now, let's get down to the "marrying a one year old" thing.  Quran 4.19 clearly states, "You are forbidden to inherit women against their will."  I don't know of anyone who would consider a one-year-old bride to be "willing".

Even though a woman is abused, she can not obtain a divorce.

Quran 4.35:  If you fear a break up between the two of them [ed: Husband and Wife], appoint (two) individuals (to settle their differences), one from his family, and the other from her's (her family); If they wish for peace, Allah will cause their reconciliation"

And if they don't wish for peace?  Nothing else is said, except for the husband's duties to ensure support and fair division of property.

To prove rape, the woman must have (4) male witnesses.

Let's get to the Quranic source.  4.15-17: "And if any of your women are guilty of being illicit in (sexual) conduct, take the evidence of four witnesses from your (own) people against them; and if they testify, confine them to the house until they die or Allah decides some (other) way for them.  And the two persons among you are guilty of lewdness, punish them both; and if they repent and improve, leave them alone; Surely, Allah Forgives and Accepts repentance (Tawwab), Most Merciful (Raheem)."

It's hard to say that a rape victim is "being illicit".  Even so, the four male witnesses are a protection for her, and not for a rapist.  Even if a claim of sexual impropriety is made against a woman, if one of four witnesses disagree, or if four witnesses can't be found, the woman can't be punished for the impropriety.  And this case, punishment is imprisonment in the home until they repent.

Often after a woman has been raped, she is returned to her family and the family must return the dowry.  

Quran 4.19 comes closest to this, but still refutes it: "that you may take away part of the dowry you have given to them - except where they have been guilty of open illicit sexual deeds (lustfulness);"

Again, I don't see how this would apply to a woman being raped.

The family has the right to execute her (an honor killing) to restore the honor of the family.

It seems to me that Quran 4.92 is quite clear on the topic of "honor killing" - "And a believer should never kill a believer."

 Husbands can beat their wives 'at will' and the man does not have to say why he has beaten her.

Quran 4.34: "As to those women on whose part you fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, caution (and warn) them (against the specific faults, at first), refuse to share their beds (next), beat them (lightly, at the very last);"

Well, ancient religious texts tend to go for corporal punishments not condoned in modern societies.  But this text would hardly excuse a man from civil penalties for beating his wife.  After all, alternatives (including divorce mediation) are provided in the context of the Koran.  And, of course, Quran 4.19 commands it's believers that husbands need to "live with them [ed: their wives] on a basis of kindness and justice."

So, even in ancient societies, "at will" wife-beating is clearly banned.

The husband is permitted to have 4 wives and a temporary wife for an hour (prostitute) at his discretion.

The text of the Quran allows for multiple wives.  However, it's quite a responsibility, and one that should not be undertaken if he's unable.  4.3: "If you fear that you shall not be able to act justly with the orphan (girls), then marry (other) women of your choice, two, or three, or four; But if you fear that you will not be able to deal justly (with them), then marry one"

At the time the Quran was written, marrying multiple women made sense - men died in war.  A lot.  The practice was probably helpful for a lot of war-widows.

But, again, when civil laws prevent one from marrying more than one wife, and I'm sure most modem Muslims would recognize that it's unjust to ask someone to break the law by becoming a second wife.  And multiple marriages are far from being a religious obligation.

As far as "temporary marriages" go?  Please.  2.226-233 clearly state that, for a divorce to take place, there's a waiting period of months - in order to insure the woman's welfare, and that of a potential unborn child.

The Shariah Muslim law controls the private as well as the public life of the woman.

Again, this is totalitarianism in the name of Islam.  But it's not the Muslim faith.

We should treat it with disgust, and do what we can to end the injustice.  Unfortunately, in foreign countries, our options are pretty limited.

In the Western World ( America ) Muslim men are starting to demand Shariah Law so the wife can not obtain a divorce and he can have full and complete control of her. 

If you want to argue for something that fits in your personal perversion of Islam, you're more than welcome to petition the government - It's one of our freedoms.  

However, American law treats divorce as a civil affair.  It has a tradition of adjudicating divorce even when religious authorities don't recognize divorce at all (such as some Catholics) , or the terms of the divorce (for example, an orthodox Jewish woman seeking a divorce without the man's agreement).

So, no.  I just don't see how they'll get it in American society.

 It is amazing and alarming how many of our sisters and daughters attending American Universities are now marrying Muslim men and submitting themselves and their children unsuspectingly to the Shariah law.

Sorry, American divorce law trumps religious divorce law.

By passing this on, enlightened American women may avoid becoming a slave under Shariah Law.

Repeating it doesn't make it true.

Ripping the West in Two. Author and lecturer Nonie Darwish says the goal of radical Islamists is to impose Shariah law on the world, ripping Western law and liberty in two.

Again, this is a defining property of totalitarianism.  Not of Islam.

 She recently authored the book, Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law.

Darwish was born in Cairo and spent her childhood in Egypt and Gaza    before immigrating to America in 1978, when she was eight years old. Her father died while leading covert attacks on  Israel .  He was a high-ranking Egyptian military officer stationed with his family in Gaza .

When he died, he was considered a "shahid," a martyr for jihad. His posthumous status earned Nonie and her family an elevated position in Muslim society.

Uhhhmmmm.... not quite right. 

But Darwish developed a skeptical eye at an early age. She questioned her own Muslim culture and upbringing.  She converted to Christianity after hearing a Christian preacher on television.

The article above confirms she converted to Christianity.  I can't confirm or refute the rest in my half-assed google searches.

In her latest book, Darwish warns about creeping sharia law - what it is, what it means, and how it is manifested in Islamic countries.

For the West, she says radical Islamists are working to impose sharia on the world. If that happens, Western civilization will be destroyed. Westerners generally assume all religions encourage a respect for the dignity of each individual.  Islamic law (Sharia) teaches that non-Muslims should be subjugated or killed in this world.

Peace and prosperity for one's children is not as important as assuring that Islamic law rules everywhere in the Middle East and eventually in the world.

While Westerners tend to think that all religions encourage some form of the golden rule, Sharia teaches two systems of ethics - one for Muslims and another for non-Muslims. Building on tribal practices of the seventh century, Sharia encourages the side of humanity that wants to take from and subjugate others.

While Westerners tend to think in terms of religious people developing a personal understanding of and relationship with God, Sharia advocates executing people who ask difficult questions that could be interpreted as criticism.

Again, this is the nature of totalitarianism.  And, under freedom of speech, we can't punish them for saying it.  But it doesn't mean that it's going to happen in America.  And our laws protect us against it quite nicely.

It's hard to imagine, that in this day and age, Islamic scholars agree that those who criticize Islam or choose to stop being Muslim should be executed. Sadly, while talk of an Islamic reformation is common and even assumed by many in the West, such murmurings in the Middle East are silenced through intimidation.

While Westerners are accustomed to an increase in religious tolerance over time, Darwish explains how petro dollars are being used to grow an extremely intolerant form of political Islam in her native Egypt and elsewhere.

Again, our options in foreign countries are pretty limited.  And our viral email author offers no solutions.

In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the President by themselves! 

Interesting statement.  I'm sure that the "proof" of this statement is just as... interesting.

Rest assured they will do so... You can look at how they have taken over several towns in the USA .. Dearborn Mich. is one... and there are others...

I'm Jewish.  I've been to Dearborn.  I've lived to tell the tale.  And I know plenty of Jewish-Owned businesses who are also doing just fine down there.

Sure, there are Muslims there.  But there's no enforcement of Sharia law that I can see.

I think everyone in the U.S. should be required to read this, but with the ACLU, there is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!

Yeah.  Because the ACLU is all about silencing our freedom of speech. Riiight.

It is too bad that so many are disillusioned with life and Christianity to accept Muslims as peaceful.. some may be but they have an army that is willing to shed blood in the name of Islam.. the peaceful support the warriors with their finances and own kind of patriotism to their religion. While America is getting rid of Christianity from all public sites and erasing God from the lives of children the Muslims are planning a great jihad on America ..

So, we should dismantle the separation of church and state for Christianity.  But not for Islam.

Nothing hypocritical or inconsistent about that.  No-sir-ree Bob.

This is your chance to make a difference...! Pass it on to your e-mail list or at least those you think will listen..

Or those who want to confirm that you're an idiot.

A Terrorist Theme Park?

Here's one that seemed pretty unbelievable.  In Beirut, where people are still recovering from their ill-concieved rocket attack on Israel... this video describes a $4 million dollar theme park:

However, it's confirmed by several news sources.  And you can visit their website here.

And, of course, it's full of the usual double-speak.  With guides making statements like "If the Israelis don't attack us, we won't attack them".

Makes perfect sense.  If you consider "attack" to mean "have any presence in the middle east."

Or if you consider the targeting of civilian complexes (such as airports and hotels) in Israel to be "self defense."

Peaceful "resistance"?  Actions in self-defense?  I think not.

More Islamophobia...

Here's yet another "Stop the Muslims from taking over the world" piece.

I agree with some points.  People who endorse violence to create "Islamic" totalitarian regimes need to be stopped.

But this email piece keeps on repeating the "point" - that moderates are just as guilty as the folks who commit the violence.  Because they're doing nothing.

Nothing at all.

Still nothing.

See?  They never say a thing in protest.

Ever.

Ignore those links.  Because it never happens.

Because no "moderate muslim" will ever fight to stop the spread of Islamic totalitarianism.

Or, you could do a quick, half-assed google search like I just did and find plenty more.

Well, here's the email.

Just do Dr. Tanay a favor, and don't write him.  Because he didn't write this piece.

Holocaust Survivor's View on Fanatic Islam

The author of this email is Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a well-known and well respected psychiatrist.

A Holocaust Survivor's View on Islam

A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'

We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march... It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.

The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:

Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts -- the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on - before it's too late.

Emanuel Tanay, M.D. 2980 Provincial St. Ann Arbor , MI 48104
*Dr. Emanuel Tanay MD is a well-known forensic psychiatrist who has been an expert witness in many famous cases. He has served as an officer or committee member on the Michigan Psychiatric Society, the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and others. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and of the American Board of Forensic Psychiatry and a distinguished fellow of the APA and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFC).
A Holocaust survivor himself, Dr Tanay coauthored a book about the survivors of the Holocaust and was asked by the German governmen t to consult on just compensation for the Holocaust survivors. Dr. Tanay has served on several journal editorial boards, authored many publications, and presented countless times on forensic medicine. His efforts have also produced many awards and commendations from groups such as the Michigan State Medical Society, APA, the Detroit Institute of Technology, and AAFC, among others.

A Racist Rant in the Name of Holocaust Survivors

Once again, a racial hate piece.  Thanks, Dad.  For letting me know that everyone who practices Islam is out to destroy society and kill us all. [Sarcasm]

Again, I can't make this funny.  Here it is.  Shared in the hopes that you'll share my reaction of, "Oh, my G-d".

Something to Consider

The following is a copy of an article written by Spanish writer Sebastian Vilar Rodriguez and published in a Spanish newspaper on Jan. 15, 2008. It doesn't take much imagination to extrapolate the message to the rest of Europe - and possibly to the rest of the world.

REMEMBER AS YOU READ -- IT WAS IN A SPANISH PAPER 
Date: Tue. 15 January 2008

ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ By Sebastian Vilar Rodriguez

I walked down the street in Barcelona , and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in  Auschwitz.  We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.

The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade and , above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned.

And , under the pretense of tolerance and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.

They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime.

Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.

And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and  superstition.

We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs.

What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe.

***********************************
The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:
Literature:
1988 - Najib Mahfooz
Peace:
1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1990 - Elias James Corey
1994 - Yaser Arafat:
1999 - Ahmed Zewai
Economics:
(zero)
Physics:
(zero)
Medicine:
1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
1998 - Ferid Mourad
TOTAL: 7 SEVEN

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly  Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:
1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:
1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloch
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Donald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max  Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Josephson
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charles Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:
1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Milton  Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:
1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jacob
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 -  Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Edward B. Lewis
1996- Lu RoseIacovino
TOTAL: 129!

The Jews are NOT promoting brain washing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims. The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church. There is NOT a single Jew who protests by killing people.

The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for  Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel 's part, the following two sentences really say it all:

'If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more  Israel" – Benjamin Netanyahu

General Eisenhower Warned Us It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.
 He did this because he said in words to this effect:
 ' Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never  happened' 

Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the, 6 million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, and 1,900 Catholic priests who were 'murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated' while the German people looked the other way.

Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.

This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people. Be a link in the  memorial chain and help distribute this around the world.

How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center 'NEVER HAPPENED' because it offends some Muslim in the United States ?

Do not just delete this message; it will take only a minute to pass this along.

Nah. It Has Nothing To Do With His Being Black.

Of course, all racist right-wing statements start with "Race has nothing to do with this but..."

This one doesn't even bother.

Again, posted to make you aware.  Sorry.  Can't make this funny.

Frequently Assumed Falsehoods: My Chat with a Birther

My dad hasn't been sending me many emails lately.  Actually, this is probably a good thing - I'd like to see him doing stuff other than obsessing over this stuff.

Fortunately, an acquaintance of mine gave me enough material to write a different article.

Usually, this friend seems pretty normal.  Which is why this message surprised me.

Impeachment !!!!

How much more proof is needed?
 


Obama admits not being born in Hawaii .   (He made this statement before he learned that he had to be a natural born in this country to "citizens" of this country........We may not be as crazy as the press would want us to be.)  Circulate this before they yank it from the internet.

Will some one tell me why this guy is not being impeached??? 
 If you just watch the first 30 seconds your mouth will drop open.

 Obama admits he is not a citizen
Hmmm...maybe the "birthers' are on to something...
THE AMAZING PART OF THIS TRAVESTY IS AMERICANS CONTINUE ALLOWING THEMSELVES TO BE RULED BY AN ILLEGAL ALIEN.
Watch it before it’s pulled!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwhKuunp8D8&feature=player_embedded

The birther phenomenon has always fascinated me.  The proof of President Obama's citizenship is overwhelming, in my opinion (details later).  And, yet, birthers persist.  Kind of like the folks who still believe that the earth is flat.  But, until now, I didn't think I knew any real birthers.  Even my father only said that they should look into it, and only because he'd rather see him impeached.  Whether the charges are true or not.

But let's set aside the "trying to overrule a legitimate election" thing.  If my friend was the real thing, I wanted to learn more.

I'm curious - I don't run into many real "birthers".

What, to you, would be considered proof that Obama was born in the US?

Here are some folks who've actually looked at the documents:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

She replied:

Really Scott, why should we look for any more proof (he was born in the US) when he has already admitted HERE he was born in Kenya?  Did you watch the excerpts where he admitted he was born in Kenya? What's up with that? This email proves he was born in Kenya because he is in the picutre speaking about being born in Kenya. Sorry if I seem contentious. Our Constitution does not allow an alien to sit as president.  He  needs to be IMPEACHED!!! and quit occupying the White House.

Oh, boy.  Yes, I did see the video.  It was an obvious forgery.  I even looked into it further and replied:

Really?  I thought the video was a very obvious forgery.  (And in the beginning, it was intended to be, it turns out.)  They explain it here even better than I can.

http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2010/aug/05/chain-email/e-mail-sends-readers-youtube-video-where-obama-adm/

So, why do you insist on believing in a video with very obvious changes in pitch, the fact that his face isn't visible during key admissions, there's no reaction from the audience that was seated RIGHT THERE in the audience, the fact that no news organization (not even Fox News) picked it since it's been up in March?  And why ignore all of other evidence that he's a citizen?

Again, why do people seem to grasp at any excuse to believe that he's not a citizen?  Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

Please explain.

She replied:

I perused the Obama clip again.  It doesnt seem bogus to me. I dont put much credence in East Coast or West Coast political views. Yes, there are different takes in the clip; that dosnt make it bogus.
We have studied Islam forty years.  Obama is a muslim.  Muslims hate Jews. Goes back to Ishmael and Jacob----brothers, but not the same mother. The mother of Ishmael was Egyptian. Jacobs's mother ( and wife of Abraham) was a Jew. The hatred has lasted thousands of years. It will never end-----until Messiah comes.
The old adage------"If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck............).
Obama is a muslim and muslims hate Jews. Dont look for him to do anything for Israel. 

Okay...  Got it.  She's got that special edition of the bible that says Obama is a Muslim.  Forget the fact that his family and Reverend Wright's church go back for decades.  Forget the fact that he's publicly been seen drinking, and has never been seen observing any dietary restrictions, observing Muslim Sabbath or Ramadan, attending calls to prayer, or making a pilgimage to Mecca.  And forget that this video is a very obvious forgery.

We're clearly in crazy-land now.  Maybe a little bit of talk will bring her back to rationality.  Because I really do want to understand this movement...

The original author of the video has admitted it was meant as a joke.  Don't know what else need to be said.  Unless you think Superman and Avatar were real too, because you saw them on film.

I didn't vote for Obama either.  I just think the energy of the "birther" movement would be much better spent on debating his policies, than debating the overwhelming evidence in favor of the fact that he's a citizen.

She gets a little more rational.  But only a little.

I dont mean to belabor this topic, but would you send me the link that will prove the "original author of the video admitted it was a joke"?  Although Obama does come close to being a cartoon character, unfortunately he is real.
The energy of the birthers HAS been spent on debating his policies, but it has fallen on deaf ears.  Some Americans are now waking up, but it is too late.  They  awoke in Oz. 

Like I said, only a little.  And, clearly, she didn't read my original reference to the video.  So, I spelled it out for her:

In the opening seconds of the original video:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ObamaSnippetsDotCom#p/u/7/dJUxsFBwcbs

And, there you have it.  It's timestamped by YouTube.  If any birther can point out a source with an earlier timestamp, I'll admit I was wrong.  But I doubt it's going to happen.

I never heard from her again.