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At a recent writers conference in Southern California, one of my colleagues on a screenwriters panel told the crowd of about 50 people that she hoped Barack Obama would win the presidency. A number of people applauded. When it was my turn to speak, I politely said that I disagreed with her politics and moved on to other topics. There was no applause for me, but several writers approached me afterward. Each dropped his voice to a whisper and, looking around to make sure no one would overhear, said, "Thank you for saying that." Which raises a question for all...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A Dutch political cartoonist was arrested this week on suspicion of insulting people because of their race or religion through his work, authorities said Friday. The cartoonist, who works under the pseudonym Gregorius Nekschot, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of violating hate speech laws and held overnight before being released, a spokeswoman for his publisher Uitgeverij Xtra said. "He was arrested with a great show of force, by around 10 policemen," the spokeswoman said.

Bardot’s “crimes,” such as they are, are straightforward: She has committed the sin of speaking frankly and unapologetically about her country’s hostile Muslim immigrant population and – what is evidently worse – questioning the compatibility of some Muslim religious practices with Western society. Common sense, one might think, or least subjects fit for fruitful debate. Her mistake was in thinking that she had the freedom to say so. But as France struggles to control a large (Muslims make up nearly ten percent of the country) and increasingly radicalized Muslim population critics of Islamism are finding themselves more actively persecuted by...

PARIS (Reuters) - French former film star Brigitte Bardot went on trial on Tuesday for insulting Muslims, the fifth time she has faced the charge of "inciting racial hatred" over her controversial remarks about Islam and its followers. Prosecutors asked that the Paris court hand the 73-year-old former sex symbol a two-month suspended prison sentence and fine her 15,000 euros ($23,760) for saying the Muslim community was "destroying our country and imposing its acts." Since retiring from the film industry in the 1970s, Bardot has become a prominent animal rights activist but she has also courted controversy by denouncing Muslim...

BAGHDAD, (AP) -- The U.S. military says it will release Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein after more than two years in custody. The statement said Hussein will be freed Wednesday now that Iraqi judicial committees have granted him amnesty for all allegations. Hussein has been in custody since April 12, 2006 when he was detained by U.S. Marines for alleged links to insurgents.

Prominent writers, members of progressive American organizations known for their heavy criticism of Israel will tour the country, meet with top officials. 'We want to provide them with an eye-opening experience that will help them better understand the complexity of the Arab-Israeli conflict,' says trip organizer Ira Forman WASHINGTON – A group of influential bloggers from the left of the US Democratic party's spectrum will land in Israel on Thursday for a six-day visit. The Foreign Affairs Ministry has long since been exerting considerable efforts to bring the prominent writers for an extensive tour of the country, in recognizing the...

Was Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King on the mark last week when he asserted Islamic terrorists would rejoice if Sen. Barack Obama becomes the next U.S. president? As a journalist and author who has conducted dozens of on-the-record interviews with Muslim terrorists, including with some of the most notorious Palestinian terror leaders, and who has documented many of those interviews in a recently released, 210-page book, "Schmoozing with Terrorists," I can answer the above question with a resounding "yes." Terrorists worldwide would indeed be emboldened by an Obama election victory not so much because of the senator's middle name –...

The FBI believes its agents still aren't sensitive enough to Muslims and their culture, so the bureau has extended by "a few weeks" its Islamic cultural "enrichment" training program, WND has learned. During a recent outreach event at a Washington-area mosque, FBI officials also reassured a large turnout of concerned Muslims that the bureau is not profiling Arabs and Muslims for terrorism, and has made investigating alleged "hate crimes" against them and other minorities "the second-highest priority in the criminal division of the FBI." Among the officials who attended the Feb. 8 "town hall meeting" at the large ADAMS Center...

BRUSSELS — Dutch anti-Koran film "Fitna" seems unlikely to air on domestic TV, with broadcasters lining up to say they will not take it. None are ready to accept demands by Geert Wilders, the politician behind the 15-minute film, that it should air complete and unedited. The latest rejections were reported Thursday in Dutch daily De Volkskrant. The Netwerk and Nova news programs, on pubcaster Nederland 2, have both been talking to Wilders but now say his demands are "bizarre" and unacceptable. Commercial broadcasters SBS and RTL are also reported to have rejected the film. If no broadcaster picks up...

"Has there ever been a more repugnant example of political pandering than John McCain’s decision to vote against a bill banning waterboarding, putting hoods on prisoners, forcing them to perform sex acts, subjecting them to mock executions, or depriving them of food, water, and medical treatment? That’s right, John McCain, the former POW who has long been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s disturbing embrace of extreme interrogation techniques. But that was before his desperate attempt to win over the lunatic fringe that is running the Grand Old Party. Earlier this week, I showed how outdated the image of...

Dutch Catholics have re-branded the Lent fast as the "Christian Ramadan" in an attempt to appeal to young people who are more likely to know about Islam than Christianity. The Catholic charity Vastenaktie, which collects for the Third World across the Netherlands during the Lent period, is concerned that the Christian festival has become less important for the Dutch over the last generation. "The image of the Catholic Lent must be polished. The fact that we use a Muslim term is related to the fact that Ramadan is a better-known concept among young people than Lent," said Vastenaktie Director, Martin...

Husbands living in a "harem" with multiple wives have been cleared to claim state benefits for all their different partners. A Muslim man with four spouses - which is permitted under Islamic law - could receive £10,000 a year in income support alone. He could also be entitled to more generous housing and council tax benefit, to reflect the fact his household needs a bigger property. Ministers have decided that, even though bigamy is a crime in Britain, polygamous marriages can be recognised formally by the state - provided they took place overseas, in countries where they are legal. The...

IIn the movie “Die Hard 2,” a terrorist is laying out his nefarious plans to the air-traffic control chief — played by one Sen. Fred Thompson — at Dulles International Airport. “Dammit, you can't do this!” an aghast Thompson tells the terrorist character. “I am doing this!” snarls the terrorist. With similar melodramatic aplomb, the Iranians played a potentially deadly game of chicken just as all eyes were fixated on Thompson and the rest of the New Hampshire hopefuls. As Iranian speedboats confronted U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf, a radio transmission intoned in the speaker's best Darth Vader English,...

What the hell is going on here? Are are these models wearing the trendiest new berka ...are they supposed to look like Osama?

JIMMY CARTER THE CRIMINAL   Jimmy Carter - infamous worst ex US president that is largely at fault for the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran (by putting extra pressure on the Shah), ultimately resulting in 1) Islamic Republic of Iran's oppression of millions of Persians, and 2) the planet in peril at the hands of that nation's mullahs' nukes.   Jimmy Carter has his hands blooded in every single violent action being perpetrated by that Islamic republic on a daily basis since 1979, including the crimes against humanity like the massacres in the 1980's, the terrible persecution on minorities such as:...

Quiz yourself on the Israeli Arab ["Palestinian"] conflict       1) When was the Arab immigration to [the historic Jewish land of] Israel -"Palestine" boosted?   A When they wanted to see Jewish holy sites. B When [anti French and anti British] Arab nationalism spread across the middle east. C When the Zionists Jews came and cultivated the deserted land.     2) What's [Arab "Palestinian" highest "national" icon] Yasser Arafat's country of origin?   A Israel ["Palestine"]. B Jordan. C Egypt.     3) Why were there --initially-- more Arab immigrants ["residents"] than Jewish immigrants (Arab majority)?   A Because...

OVERWORKED nurses have been ordered to stop all medical work five times every day to move Muslim patients’ beds so they face towards Mecca.The lengthy procedure, which also includes providing fresh bathing water, is creating turmoil among overstretched staff on bustling NHS wards.But despite the havoc, Mid- Yorkshire NHS Trust says the rule must be instigated whenever possible to ensure Muslim patients have “a more comfortable stay in hospital"And a taxpayer-funded training programme for several hundred hospital staff has begun to ensure that all are familiar with the workings of the Muslim faith.The scheme is initially being run at Dewsbury...

I began by asking myself the question linked inevitably to the survival of the United States as a trusted nation in the 21st century: Why can't America admit defeat? What is it in the American psyche that seems to dictate the necessity to be proven not only right, but superior in dealings with the outside world? I have lived the better part of 40 years in Japan, a country whose nationalistic ardor and patriotic zeal once easily matched that of the U.S. If the Japanese government has not sufficiently apologized for the utter brutality their nation inflicted in Asia and...

Bucharest and Brussels, 16 Nov. (AKI) - Romania, one two countries accused by Europe's top human rights watchdog of hosting secret CIA jails used to interrogate Islamist terrorism suspects, says it has written to the European Union executive denying the charges. The letter to the European Commission is a response to a request from EU justice and security commissioner Franco Frattini asking Romania and Poland - the other country implicated by the Council of Europe - for an explanation. A Romanian spokeswoman in Brussels, Doris Mircea, said that a committee of inquiry set up by the government concluded that the...

If violence is decreasing in Iraq, it may be because insurgents “are running out of people to kill,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) said Monday. “There are fewer targets of opportunity,” Obey said in a speech to the National Press Club. Obey was responding to a question about reports touted by Republicans that security is improving in Iraq and that President Bush’s “surge” strategy is working. He stressed that military success has not led to political reconciliation. “The issue has never been military,” Obey said. “The issue has always been political improvement.” As the House’s top appropriator, Obey...

Europe’s no-go zones or SUAs (“sensitive urban areas”) are multiplying. These are areas where the police no longer dares to venture and where Islamists hold sway. Every night since the beginning of last week, immigrant youths have been torching cars and clashing with police in Amsterdam’s Slotervaart district. The incidents started on Oct. 14 when a policewoman shot dead Bilal Bajaka, a 22-year old ethnic Moroccan, whilst he was stabbing her and a colleague with a knife. The officers were stabbed in the breast, face, neck and back. Surgeons could only narrowly save their lives. Since the incident, Slotervaart has...

Why should American Muslims vote for Ron Paul? How will he help the Ummah? How YOU can HELP Palestine and END American Sponsored Oppression Assalaamu Alaikum Brothers and Sisters, You can help by sharing and sending this note to all the Muslims you know as well as by registering as a Republican and voting for Ron Paul in the Republican primaries in your state. Here’s why: Muslims have an unique window of opportunity for the 2008 election. There is a candidate running as a Republican that would work to completely cut off the funding to Israel, remove ALL US troops...

World religious leaders should establish close relations since they all advocate global peace, Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi says. "Religious leaders can relieve humanity's suffering as they all support a world without war and immorality," Ayatollah Makarem-Shirazi told Washington Bishop John Bryson Chane and his delegation in the Iranian city of Qom on Wednesday. Ayatollah Makarem-Shirazi said religious leaders can pave the way for religions to converge and play a more significant role in the restoration of global peace through interacting with each other. “Iranian Muslims have peacefully coexisted with Christians and followers of other religions for years,” he stated. “They are...

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release. Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to...

Dozens turn out in Oak Lawn to hear debate over religion: Dozens of parents said at an Oak Lawn school board meeting Tuesday night that while they're happy to have a student body of varying religions, they want to keep celebrating what they say are traditional American holidays and customs. That doesn't mean they aren't open to observing other religions' holidays, the parents told the Ridgeland School District 122 board, which was looking at its policies concerning religious teachings and observances. At issue is whether Christian holidays, such as Christmas, should be celebrated now that Muslim children make up about...

Our elected officials in the House of Representatives are voting on an important resolution today. H. RES. 635 Recognizing the commencement of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and spiritual renewal, and commending Muslims in the United States and throughout the world for their faith. Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas (for herself, Mr. MEEKS of New York, and Mr. ELLISON) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs...

Navy imam Chaplain Abuhena M. Saifulislam lifted his voice to God as he called to prayer more than 100 Department of Defense employees Monday at a celebration of Ramadan at the Pentagon....Uniformed military personnel, civilians and family members faced Mecca and knelt on adorned prayer rugs chanting their prayers in quiet invocation to Allah. “We do all we can to help meet the religious needs of our soldiers,” said Deputy Pentagon Chaplain Army Maj. Alan Pomaville, a Christian, who attended the iftar alongside the Muslim chaplains... As the Pentagon celebrated Ramadan, the White House is in preparations for an iftar...

As more than a dozen universities and colleges across the country have done, the school is looking to install foot baths for ritualistic cleansing in a new Islamic center proposed for its more-than-1,500 Muslim students. While a home for the center has yet to be secured, NYU is in talks with the Archdiocese of New York about buying its building at 238 Thompson St., where the student Catholic and Islamic centers are currently housed. In a bathroom there by the Muslim prayer room - as well as in more-visible university bathrooms - Muslim students wash before each of five daily...

The invitation was on creamy stationery with fancy calligraphy: The Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran "requests the pleasure" of my company to dine with H.E. Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The dinner is at the Intercontinental Hotel — with names carefully written out at all the place settings around a rectangular table. There are about 50 of us, academics and journalists mostly. There's Brian Williams across the room, and Christiane Amanpour a few seats down. And at a little after 8pm, on a day when he has already addressed the U.N., the evening after his confrontation at Columbia, a...

A backlash against the president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, who on Monday delivered a harsh rebuke to President Ahmadinejad, is coming from faculty members and students who said he struck an "insulting tone" and that his remarks amounted to "schoolyard taunts." The fierceness of Mr. Bollinger's critique bought the Iranian some sympathy on campus that he didn't deserve, the critics said, and amounted to a squandered opportunity to provide a lesson in diplomacy. Mr. Bollinger opened a two-hour program during which the Iranian president spoke and answered questions at the Roone Arledge Auditorium in Morningside Heights by calling Mr....

Jewish Action Alliance For Immediate Release Contact: Beth Gilinsky (212) 726-1124 Jewish Action Alliance President Calls for Alumni Revolt Against Bollinger: "Columbia Has Left the Ivy League and Joined the Slimy League" JAA Repudiates Hillary Clinton's Mealy-Mouthed Response to Columbia's Invitation to Ahmadinejad Invitation New York, September 24, 2007 -- Jewish Action Alliance President Beth Gilinsky, an alumna of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, today called on Columbia University's President Lee Bollinger to resign and said she would organize an Alumni Revolt against the university. "Today Columbia departed from the Ivy League, and joined the Slimy League...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a flinty populist in a zip-up jacket whose scathing rhetoric and defiance of Washington are often caricatured in the Western media, has transcended national and religious divides to become a folk hero across the Middle East. The diminutive, at times inscrutable, president is a wellspring of stinging sound-bites and swagger for Muslims who complain that their leaders are too beholden to or frightened of the Bush administration. Ahmadinejad, who arrived in New York Sunday ahead of a U.N. General Assembly meeting, is an easily marketable commodity:a streetwise politician with nuclear ambitions and an open microphone. "I...

Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler refused to interfere with Columbia University's assistant Professor of Latin, who is also the local head of the Fascisti Movement. President Butler was moved to put himself on record by a protest from a group of liberals which followed the announcement that the American organization had been formed to combat Italian Fascists in this country.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will speak and take questions at the National Press Club's first-ever videoconference luncheon at noon on Monday, Sept. 24. Ahmadinejad will appear in the NPC Ballroom in Washington via videolink from New York, where he will be attending the UN Gene... [more]

Supporters of a controversial new Brooklyn academy focused on Arab culture and language said yesterday that the public school's former principal is considering legal action in the wake of her resignation under pressure last month. At a rally in lower Manhattan yesterday, politicians and advocates called for the reinstatement of Debbie Almontaser, who resigned as head of the Khalil Gibran International Academy. Almontaser stepped down four days after The Post ran an article in which she defended T-shirts bearing the imprint "Intifada NYC." "She is not speaking publicly about her resignation, but she is consulting with an experienced civil-rights lawyer,"...

After meeting with American military lawyers representing Omar Khadr, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion renewed his calls for the Conservative government to demand the Canadian's release and repatriation from Guantanamo Bay. The son of an alleged al Qaeda financier, Khadr was accused of killing U.S. Army Sgt. Christopher Speer with a grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002. Khadr, who turns 21 today, was sent to the U.S. military prison in Cuba following his arrest in Afghanistan at the age of 15. He is the only Western prisoner left at Guantanamo Bay. Dion, widely criticized for failing to...

GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said on Monday that bigotry and prejudice, especially in regard to Muslims, were common in Europe and called on governments to tackle the issue. The remarks from the former Canadian Supreme Court judge, which came in the wake of similar charges issued last week by a U.N. rights investigator, were quickly challenged by a leading global non-religious grouping. The report by investigator Doudou Diene of Senegal documented what he called an alarming rise in intolerance, and in particular Islamophobia, in European countries, and Arbour said, "I have no...

GENEVA—A U.N. expert on racism on Friday branded the defamation of religions—in particular critical portrayals of Islam in the West—a threat to world peace. "Islamophobia today is the most serious form of religious defamation," Doudou Diene told the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is currently holding a three-week session in Geneva. Diene cited a caricature of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in a Swedish newspaper, a protest by far-right groups in Belgium Tuesday against the "Islamization of Europe," and campaigns against the construction of mosques in Germany and Switzerland as evidence of an "ever increasing trend" toward anti-Islamic actions in Europe....

WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans sharply challenged President Bush's top military general and ambassador in Iraq on Tuesday in a blatant demonstration of misgivings within the GOP about the protracted war. "Are we going to continue to invest blood and treasure at the same rate we're doing now? For what?" asked Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who supports legislation setting a deadline to bring troops home. The deep-seated doubt expressed at the hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reflected just how far Congress had come since the war began over four years ago. And Republican senators raised tough questions that rivaled...

LONDON: Since the terror attacks hit the United States on Sept. 11 six years ago, Europe has suffered far more than the United States from new attacks and reported plots. There were the train bombings in Madrid three years ago that killed 191 people, the London transit attack two years ago that killed 52 commuters and a string of foiled plots. Then there were the arrests last week in a plot in Germany that the police said could have caused even worse carnage than in Madrid or London. In response, Europeans for the most part are looking inward to explain...

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested Monday in or near the hearing room where General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker are testifying on the situation in Iraq, according to the U.S. Capitol Police. Four anti-war protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct. One of them, who was not named, is being taken to George Washington Hospital “due to complaint of injury” is also charged with assault on a police officer. According to the information from the Capitol Police, Sheehan and the other three were shouting in a hallway.

To be a "good" Muslim References -  'Palestinian' child abuse -  Evil 'Joy' -  'Blessing' Hitler -  Mourning the wicked -  Australia - Muslim land -  Jihad on all Buddhists -  Spain - Muslim land -  Europe - Muslim land -  Arabs DON'T care about 'Palestinians' -  72 virgins - Loyalty -  'Pallywood' -  (use of) Ambulances for terror -  (use of) Women for terror -  Human Shields -  Middle east background -  September 11 terror plot on London -  Myth on: 'Terrorists are desperate' -  Beheadings -  Ilan Halimi [an example of monsterous wild prolonged torture motivated by hate only] -  Muslims attacking Jews in France -  Ahmadinejad ' Islamic Hitler' -  Cutting -  'Honor killing' -  Jews & Christians as "Apes & Pigs"? - ...

You better put down your drinks, and make sure there's nothing in your mouths, for the New York Times's David Brooks made a comment on Friday's News Hour that is guaranteed to evoke uncontrollable fits of laughter from those on the right side of the aisle. After introducing regular guests Brooks and Mark Shields, host Jim Lehrer asked their opinions concerning the just-released Osama bin Laden video.

On August 28, 2007, the same day that Abdullah Gul became Turkey's President -- replacing his secular predecessor, and further consolidating the ruling Islamic AK (Adalet ve Kalkınma) Party's (AKP) hold on power -- MEMRI published excerpts from a chilling interview given by former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan. The interview originally aired July 1, 2007, as part of Erbakan's campaign efforts in support of Islamic fundamentalist political causes before the general elections of July 22, 2007, and the AKP's resounding popular electoral victory over its closest "secularist" rival parties.

DAMASCUS, Syria, Sept. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a meeting today with Dennis Kucinich, US Democratic Presidential candidate, Syrian President Bashar Assad said that Syria would be willing to participate in a multinational conference and peacekeeping force to help Iraq to manage its transition from occupied country to sovereign nation. Assad made these assurances and other observations in a two-hour meeting with Kucinich, who traveled to Syria to discuss a peace initiative which has arisen out of his anti-war work in the House of Representatives. President Assad agreed with Kucinich that various US demands for the privatization of Iraq's oil and...

Republican lawmakers are urging the Justice Department not to participate in a convention held by the Islamic Society of North America — a group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in an ongoing terrorism-financing case. In a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Reps. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Sue Myrick of North Carolina called the Justice Department's involvement a "grave mistake." "In light of the threat that our nation ... is currently facing from radical jihadists, and because of the president's commitment to fighting the war on terror on...

A popular comic strip that poked fun at the Rev. Jerry Falwell without incident one week ago was deemed too controversial to run over the weekend because this time it took a humorous swipe at Muslim fundamentalists. The Washington Post and several other newspapers around the country did not run Sunday's installment of Berkeley Breathed's "Opus," in which the spiritual fad-seeking character Lola Granola appears in a headscarf and explains to her boyfriend, Steve, why she wants to become a radical Islamicist. The installment did not appear in the Post's print version, but it ran on WashingtonPost.com and Salon.com. The...

His face covered by a balaclava, an official brandishing a cane repeatedly lashes the back of a man found guilty of breaking Iran's morality laws. Two police officers hold the legs of 25-year-old Saeed Ghanbari and another his arms to ensure there is no escape from the punishment of 80 lashes handed down by a religious court. Traffic was brought to a halt in Qazvin, 90 miles west of the capital Tehran, as more than 1,000 men gathered behind barricades to watch the public flogging.

WHITE PLAINS - Sorrow brought them together but a shared desire for peace and reconciliation has made an unusual friendship blossom between two mothers whose sons were taken from them by the attacks of Sept. 11. Phyllis Rodriguez of White Plains, whose son Greg, 31, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and died at the World Trade Center, and Aicha El-Wafi of Narbonne, France, the mother of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, came to a luncheon discussion yesterday at the WESPAC Foundation, a peace and justice center in White Plains. "I want something good to come from something horrible," Rodriguez told...

CRAWFORD, Tex. It was just two years ago that Cindy Sheehan pierced the national consciousness with her roadside vigil near President Bush's Texas ranch in protest of the Iraq war. Several thousand demonstrators came to Crawford to join Sheehan in 2005, capturing the international media spotlight and seemingly crystallizing the antiwar movement. Before long, Sheehan was transformed from a grieving mother moved to protest by the loss of her son in Iraq into a globe-trotting antiwar hero. Eventually banned from the roadside, she bought five acres of land to serve as a base for future protests, dubbing it Camp Casey...