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Posted on 04/26/2004 3:35:38 PM PDT by JustPiper
Edited on 07/12/2004 4:14:45 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
"I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat"
Two Chinese diplomats, away from their Los Angeles consulate improperly, recently sped their vehicle past a Los Alamos National Laboratory guard post near classified facilities in what U.S. officials think was an intelligence mission, The Washington Times has learned.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Barge Leak Sends WBR Children Home Early
By The Associated Press
BRUSLY -- The rotten-egg stench of vapor from a chemical barge sent students home early from two elementary schools in West Baton Rouge Parish today.
But state police said there was never any danger -- amounts of the chemical were too low for detectors to find even a trace in some areas where it could be smelled.
A faulty seal on a gauge valve was intermittently releasing small amounts of vapor from the sodium hydrosulfide solution in the barge, said Trooper Johnnie Brown, a spokesman for Louisiana State Police.....
People in the area were told to stay inside, with doors and windows closed, from about 8:40 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. Sodium hydrosulfide solution is used in waste treatment, mining, tanning, and pulp and paper making. Hydrogen sulfide in its vapor can irritate eyes, skin and lungs.
However, there wasn't enough of the gas over land to cause any problems except the stink, Brown said.
Brown said Department of Environmental Quality monitors can find 1 part per million -- equivalent to a drop of water in less than 8 gallons, or one teaspoon in a cube-shaped tank nearly 6 1/2 yards to a side. In some places where the stink was noticeable, the detector couldn't find a trace, he said.
Concentrations of 20 to 50 ppm can irritate the eyes, and slightly higher concentrations can irritate the upper respiratory tract, according to a Virginia Department of Health fact sheet on the Web. Prolonged exposure can cause the respiratory tract to swell.
Brown said no levels that high were found away from the barge, which was among 30 in a tow on the Mississippi River. Link
Canadians Muslims Will get Sharia Courts to Settle Disputes
29 April 2004 05:47 PM
Canada will allow members of its Muslim community to submit to the teachings of the Koran to resolve a variety of civil legal disputes.
The new model, which will be closely examined by other countries grappling with the place of growing Muslim communities in their populations, is to be administered by a body of imams and Islamic scholars, the Islamic Institute of Justice, which was created at the end of last year.
It will be pioneered in the province of Ontario under a law introduced in 1991, the Ontario Arbitration Act, which allows minority groups to provide arbitration to members in a limited number of civil matters. Enforcement of rulings and awards would be left to Canada's regular courts.
Many of Canada's 600,000 Muslims have applauded the opportunity to settle differences according to Islamic law. Known as sharia, it is drawn from the Koran and from the teachings of the prophet Mohamed. It is hoped that if significant numbers of Muslims agree to settle disputes before the arbitrators, pressure will be taken off the province's clogged court system. "Many judges prefer this," said Mohamed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress. "If Canadian Muslims have an impartial body they trust, it will ease the backlog in the courts."
Controversy surrounds the initiative even within the Muslim community. Suggestions that it could lead to the stoning of women for adultery have been swiftly knocked down by Canadian authorities, who point out that the new courts would still have to respect all provisions of the country's Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees human and equal rights. But they will not be allowed to deal with criminal matters. Ontario's government is insisting that cases will only go before Muslim arbitrators with the voluntary assent of all parties involved.
Brendan Crawley, a spokesman for the Ontario attorney general, said: "If the award is not compatible with Canadian law, then the court will not enforce it. You can't agree to violate Canadian law."
There is also the concern among some Muslim women that they will feel religious and social pressure to enter the Sharia system when sometimes they would rather avoid it.
"If I am a woman of faith, and the community of people who see themselves as leaders say that if I do not follow the sharia court here, the Islamic Institute, then I will be tantamount to blasphemy and apostasy," said Alia Hogben of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women.
WASHINGTON -- Train traffic at Union Station stopped Wednesday night because of a power outage.
An Amtrak spokesman said trains stopped leaving the station at about 7:45 p.m. The problem began when a smoke alarm went off at one of the station's restaurants. The station was briefly evacuated, but the all-clear was quickly sounded. A power outage then started affecting the signals, however. Link
Fr. Samir Says Islamic “Re-Conquest” is Possible Thanks to Europe’s Loss of Identity
29 April, 2004 EUROPE - ISLAM
Beirut (AsiaNews) – The desire to "regain" the Mosque of Cordoba, now a Cathedral since 1236, is a clear sign of the Muslim tendency to “re-conquer” Europe. However, “the support given by certain Spanish government leaders in the city (of Cordoba) makes it all the more manifest just how much Europe has ‘lost its identity’, widespread now across the continent”, Fr. Samir Khalil, a professor in Beirut told AsiaNews.
Jesuit Father Samir Khalil, 68, is one of the world’s greatest experts on the Islamic and Arab world. Of Egyptian origin, he worked for years in Egypt and Lebanon. To this very day he divides his time between teachings at St. Joseph’s University in Beirut and the Pontifical Institute of Oriental Studies in Rome.
Fr. Samir said “many Spanish Muslims have the idea of re-conquering Europe, reaffirmed “months ago by the Imam of Granada, at the laying of the first stone ceremony at the city’s new mosque before the King of Spain!”
AsiaNews asked Fr. Samir how many churches have been converted into mosques and whether Christians, imitating Muslim faithful in Cordoba, would want to “win them back”. “There not (even) capable of responding,” he said. “I can say with absolute certainty that there are hundreds (of such converted churches) and that this has frequently happened throughout history. Just think of Santa Sophia in Istanbul, the Ummayade mosque in Damascus and the Ibn Tulum mosque in Cairo built with remains of destroyed churches.”
“To this end I would like to point out one fact: the famous mosque of Cordoba –originally a church before it became a mosque—is still almost entirely intact, thanks to the Christians who took care to preserve it. In other cases, the buildings immediately underwent so much violence that the church’s original structure is now almost unrecognizable.” Link
This is the sentence that bothered me the most. Sharia law is presented in such a way as to "help" the backlog in the courts...these Muslims need special treatment, by people they trust.... How long until Sharia is used for all Canadians to "help" with the backlog. Just another way for the Muslims to hi-jack an established country (Canada) who wants to appease and be friends with everyone...we are in trouble. There are so many people in our judicial system, government, and educational systems that have this same mentality.
You may have been experiencing a "brown out" (low voltage) before the power failure. Appliances with compressors (refrigerator, freezer, air conditioner) can be damaged by a prolonged brown out. The voltage isn't sufficient to drive the device, but it is sufficient to cause a build up of heat. Next time you hear your appliances groaning, make a beeline for the breaker that supplies your sensitive appliances and shut them off. An ordinary incandescent bulb may display a dimming behavior. Putting an AC voltmeter on a power plug is the only certain way to observe the problem. A power engineer would plug in a recording voltmeter to catch the problem over a prolonged observation period.
A typical piece of equipment used to detect and diagnose this kind of problem is made by Dranetz
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