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New thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2505266/posts |
Posted on 03/02/2010 12:37:53 AM PST by MestaMachine
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Thank you again. FRegards ....
Islamic Advisor Given Carte Blanch at Pentagon [on Stephen Coughlin; incl. Muqtedar Khan, Asaf Romirowsky]
Insight Magazine
January 22—28, 2008
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/4719
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The Pentagon has been thrown into turmoil by an Egyptian native appointed as a senior adviser on dealings with the Muslim world.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has given his special assistant, Hesham Islam, a free hand in shaping the Pentagon’s dialogue with the Muslim world and the American Muslim community. The result has been what critics term the conversion of the Defense Department into a Muslim propaganda center.
“He’s my interlocutor,” said England. “He represents me to the international community. Hesham helps me understand people’s different perspectives and how they see things. I take his advice, and I listen to him all the time.”
Under Islam, a key counter-terrorism strategist, Stephen Coughlin, was fired, after he was deemed a “Christian zealot with a pen.” Islam has also invited Saudi-financed groups to lecture on Islam to Pentagon strategists.
“How is it that he [Islam] is allowed to call anyone a Christian zealot?” U.S. Central Command analyst Neal Harper said in an e-mail to friends. “This alone exposes his bias, his poor perception of Christians, and a complete lack of professionalism, at best. Should we instead be asking who is this guy and how did he get inside? Is he representative of those who are leading this Muslim outreach? Does Muslim outreach mean that we are not allowed to question or confront those we are trying to communicate with and the doctrine upon which they stand? When speaking the truth gets one fired, we all should be concerned and at the very least need to ask why.”
Officials said Coughlin, whose contract expires in March 2008, was the only Islamic scholar on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They said Coughlin was the only senior adviser to argue that the United States, determined not to anger Saudi Arabia, has failed to evaluate Islamic doctrine.
Link to previous conversation?
The Puerto Rican Statehood measure has passed in the House.
The Obama White House admits in the new court filing that it is taking records from the Secret Service in order to ensure that they are not disclosed under FOIA. The Obama administration speculates that there would be “dire national security consequences” if certain White House visitors are disclosed. The Obama White House wants to be able to withhold visitor logs until as long as 12 years after President Obama leaves office.
“The Obama White House wants to be able to withhold visitor logs until as long as 12 years after President Obama leaves office.”
...of course he does.
This should be a thread, if it isn’t already.
Smells bad.
“there would be ‘dire national security consequences’ if certain White House visitors are disclosed.”
So osama bin laden has been secretly visiting the white tent?
****This should be a thread, if it isn’t already.***’
It is, I went ahead and posted it. Disgusting the level of secrecy this president is compelled to inflict upon his administration AND HIMSELF.
Shora is an extremist. Although ADC was not behind the Flying Imams lawsuit, Shora’s “policy recommendations” and other absurdities are behind their shenanigans. Shora is the force behind ADC “training videos,” which instructed federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security to remove their shoes before entering a Muslim suspect’s home (even if they’re there to arrest the guy) and other similar absurdities. And he’s opposed to any security measure that will help root out Islamic terrorists. He’s exactly the kind of person Islamic terrorists would want in a senior policy position at TSA, even if his position is at TSA’ s Office of Civil Rights. That office has tremendous influence on all of TSA’s policies, practices, and procedures. And, in his position, Shora will have access to top secret, classified info that he can easily pass off to his extremist buddies.
Even more scary is that FBI director Robert Mueller awarded Shora–for all of his bitching and moaning on behalf of the fifth column within America–with its Community Service Leadership Award at the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Several years ago, Mueller planned to give the same award to another ADC “gem,” immigration fraud perpetrator and “former” Islamic terrorist, Imad Hamad, . . . and you know how that fiasco turned out (my New York Post column stopped the award). So, other than his whining, why is Shora getting an award from Mueller? Well, because he set up a pipeline for his fellow extremist Muslims to get into the FBI:
Shora will be honored by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, receiving the director’s Community Leadership Award, for his role in creating the FBI’s Future Agents in Training program, which began as “a cross between Space Camp and Boys State” aimed at South and Central Asian youths and has since become a week-long program introducing the bureau to 40 high school juniors selected from across the country.
Great.
After I posted, I thought Obama -— allergic to sunshine.
the vampire administration -— they can’t work in the sunshine, it would kill them.
Obama Justice Department tells Court to shield White House visitor logs from disclosure & FOIA law
This is utterly terrifying. To think of the levels of security I've had to go through on some of my jobs, and knowing what the top level of government is considering as "acceptable" now........given the terrorism threats still openly promised by those who pledge to destroy us.
Egyptian cleric OKs public minglng
Snip: "There is no problem in mingling if a woman abides by the rules of Islam," Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa said. "A woman is advised to wear clothes that are neither tight nor revealing."
Fatwa calls for murder of Saudi Sheikh who said men and women can pray together
Snip: The Saudi official news agency, SPA, had reported his dismissal only to delete all reports a few hours later, a fatwa says "he should be killed," the Grand Mufti has denied his authority to speak about Islamic law. He, Ahmed al Ghamdi, head of the religious police in Mecca, the first holy city of Islam, confirms his convictions: men and women can pray together and meet freely, even if only in public.
George Mason reviewing author of South Park death threats
Snips: We'll start with the MSM. Zachary Chesser, or Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee as he is known on the Revolutionmuslim.com Web site that hosted his death threat, recently garnered serious attention from major networks such as CNN and Fox. But the fact remains that these networks only came upon Chesser after an egregious threat was made, and after several blogs had already covered it. And they certainly hadn't done their homework as the blogs had, documenting the history of his disturbing radical statements.
The Jawa Report has been able to highlight several instances of odd behavior from Chesser, including a statement regarding the recent plane crash that killed the President of Poland and his wife, along with 96 others. The statement, as highlighted here, includes a celebration of the tragedy:
"This is good news, because Poland is a country which has soldiers in Afghanistan. Rather than the mujahideen killing these kuffar, Allah has done it for them in a manner which is easier."
They also linked to Chesser's praising of the Moscow subway attack, and a series of postings designed to offer counter-counterterrorism advice - some of which were posted back in March.
Then of course there is the kowtowing. Comedy Central has become infamous for bowing to the pressure, sacrificing free speech to appease those who make death threats while cloaking themselves in the first amendment.
The question now is will Chesser's former school, George Mason University, make a stand against this form of hate speech? Here's why they should...
Chesser, according to a Whois search, apparently registered a Web site known as Youtubejihad.org. This information appears below....
Iran To Arrest Women With Suntan (Behold...The Religion Of Peace)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2503556/posts
This is the twenty first century, isn’t it? or have we somehow drifted further into the Twilight Zone?
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/29/elects-iran-commission-womens-rights/
EXCLUSIVE: U.N. Elects Iran to Commission on Women’s Rights
By Joseph Abrams
- FOXNews.com
NEW YORK — Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged “immodest.”
Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is “dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women,” according to its website.
Buried 2,000 words deep in a U.N. press release distributed Wednesday on the filling of “vacancies in subsidiary bodies,” was the stark announcement: Iran, along with representatives from 10 other nations, was “elected by acclamation,” meaning that no open vote was requested or required by any member states — including the United States.
The U.S. currently holds one of the 45 seats on the body, a position set to expire in 2012. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. did not return requests for comment on whether it actively opposed elevating Iran to the women’s commission.
Iran’s election comes just a week after one of its senior clerics declared that women who wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes, a statement that created an international uproar — but little affected their bid to become an international arbiter of women’s rights.
More at link.
Stephen Coughlin
Jihad: The Political Third Rail – What They Are Not Telling You is a conference featuring some of the premier American and international voices of resistance to the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. This inaugural event of the Freedom Defense Initiative (FDI), a new activist organization founded by myself and Robert Spencer, will be held at the Mariott Wardman Park Hotel, the site of CPAC, on February 19 from 10AM to Noon, in the Virginia Ballroom.
Speaker Spotlight: Steve Coughlin
Late in 2007, Major Stephen Coughlin, USAR, the Pentagon’s lone expert on Islamic law (Sharia) on the Joint Staff, was asked by Hesham Islam, special assistant for international affairs for the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Gordon R. England, to moderate his statements about Islam’s doctrines mandating warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. In response, Coughlin, cited Islamic sources to show that he was portraying Islamic teaching accurately. According to journalist Bill Gertz in the Washington Times, Islam and other Muslims in the Pentagon then began campaigning to have Coughlin fired, calling him a “Christian zealot with a pen.” Ultimately, Coughlin’s contract was not renewed.
This was despite the high quality of Coughlin’s work. Said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney: “Steve Coughlin is the most knowledgeable person in the U.S. government on Islamic law.” LTC Joseph C. Myers, Army Advisor to the Air Command and Staff College, told the truth: “The termination of Stephen Coughlin on the Joint Staff is an act of intellectual cowardice.”
Coughlin insisted that we must speak clearly about the nature of the threat we face. In his thesis [PDF file], “‘To Our Great Detriment’: Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad,” submitted to the National Defense Intelligence College in July 2007, he argued that the politically correct refusal to name the enemy was placing the United States at a strategic disadvantage.
Even worse, according to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, Hesham Islam was “an Islamist with a pro-Muslim Brotherhood bent who has brought in groups to the Pentagon who have been unindicted co-conspirators.” Gertz reported that Islam had brought Muslim Brotherhood operatives into Pentagon community outreach programs: “Coughlin came under fire from pro-Muslim officials after a memorandum he wrote identified several groups that are being courted by Mr. Islam’s community outreach program as front organizations for the pro-extremist Muslim Brotherhood.”
Islam also prevailed upon England to host members of the Islamic Society of North America, a Brotherhood organization, at the Pentagon in April 2008, “raising concerns,” said Gertz, “that the deputy defense secretary does not understand clearly the nature of the Islamist threat he is working against as the No. 2 official.”
The Stephen Coughlin affair illustrated most vividly the infiltration at the highest levels of the U.S. government. At the Freedom Defense Initiative event, Coughlin will make his first public appearance since the sad and telling events that led to his termination from the Defense Department. His message about Muslim Brotherhood influence at high levels of our government is deeply disturbing – and it is crucial that he be heard.
Synopsis of Couglin's Speech
(which, of course, was not covered by the MSM. You'd think they'd be a touch curious. It's entirely possible that his firing will be mentioned in future history books as a watershed event in US security policy)
Robert Spencer introduced the next speaker – Stephen Coughlin – a former Pentagon Islamic law specialist who was fired from his job for his analysis of Islamic infiltration.
Coughlin provided a clear and cogent analysis of the Islamic threat. He explained that the question of whether or not these terrorists are following ‘true’ Islam is irrelevant from a fact-driven perspective. They have repeatedly told us these are the reasons they fight jihad.
A vital part of Coughlin’s discussion dealt with the doctrine of abrogation within Islam. This doctrine states that Mohammed was given progressive revelation of Allah’s will, and that the later Koranic verses supersede and nullify earlier contradictory more peaceful verses. This is something that is recognized by ALL schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
Coughlin also demonstrated that since the 9-11 commission report, political correctness has expunged words such as Muslim, enemy, Al-Qaeda and Islam from official government documents including the Ft. Hood massacre report.
Coughlin:
“The 9-11 commission has been completely undermined. You cannot defeat an enemy you are not allowed to define. By definition, this administration has no strategy to defeat this enemy since they refuse to define it.”
Former Defense Department analyst Stephen Coughlin was exceedingly informative, and his point that official American self-censorship regarding Islam and jihad has given the enemy a "decisive victory in the information battlespace" was truly chilling.
Coughlin, whose perceptions got him crosswise with Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England’s Muslim sidekick Hesham Islam and later excluded from the DoD, insisted that those entrusted with protecting Americans from Islamic terrorism have a “professional duty to know” about the roots of said terrorism’s doctrine in Islamic scripture and tradition.
After all, he pointed out, the murderous rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, by Muslim U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan had a “doctrinal driver,” as evinced by Hasan’s own presentation to his Army medical colleagues calling for Muslim service personnel to be accorded conscientious objector status lest “adverse events” occur.
The enemy, Coughlin observed, has stated his doctrine. Can we, he enquired, be politically correct and threat-focused at the same time? No way – because, he concluded, “You cannot defeat an enemy you will not define.” Coughlin's thesis on jihad doctrine may be accessed here. It is lengthy but gripping, and is a must-read.
Coughlin (and other speakers) Presentation Clips here and here
For those who may not read Coughlin's thesis, here is a synopsis by Carol Iannone, a blogger for National Review:
"'To Our Great Detriment': Ignoring What Extremists Say about Jihad," submitted to the National Defense Intelligence College. [NOTE: Complete thesis linked above in pdf format]:
I've been reading Stephen Coughlin's master's thesis...and I can see why it got him into trouble. He frankly declares that this administration has been wrong on the relation of Islam to jihadism and terrorism. While members of the administration sternly warn of the dire threats we face and how we must know our enemy, they themselves are lost in illusions about that enemy. The enemy is not Islamo-Fascism, but the jihadist elements of Islam itself.
Coughlin points out that on the basis of very little, Bush, Rice, and other Administration people blithely declare Islam a religion of peace that has been hijacked by a few violent extremists for their own agenda, an agenda which they insist has nothing to do with Islam. They ignore all the evidence from Islamic sources that support violence in the name of spreading or defending the faith and bypass the professed and frequently stated aims of the jihadists.
Coughlin's thesis suggests that there are not two schools of thought on Islamic terror, those who think it is simply a criminal problem and those who think it is a war we will be fighting for a long time, but three. First, there is the view that largely comes from the liberal-left, that thinks there really is no Islamic threat, that it's really America and its actions that have called forth violence from Muslims, that if there is violence, it is from a tiny few and can be managed by the world community like an international criminal problem. Then there is the conservative-right view, that there is indeed a terrible threat, a virtual World War Four, and the threat is from Islamo-Fascism, not from Islam itself, but from the aberrations of radicals who are creating some distorted blending of Islamic beliefs with 20th century fascist concepts. This is only a recent development, according to this view, not centuries old, and therefore we can be very hopeful about stomping it out.
About ten percent of the world's Muslims do believe in Islamo-Fascist jihad, and that is a serious number, but ninety percent of Muslims don't believe in it and want what we all want, material security and prosperity. In fact, the underlying causes of terrorism arise from the material deprivation and lack of freedom and opportunity in the Muslim world. There is thus no conflict between Islam and liberal democracy and modernity in general, and certainly no clash of civilizations. The Islamic world will not be able to resist the march of liberal democracy and the irresistible call of freedom. This view is largely that of President Bush.
The third view says that there is indeed a problem with Islam itself, that even if only a minority of Muslims will ever take up jihad, most Muslims know that that is mandated by their religion and they do support it in belief and sometimes financially. The term Islamo-Fascism is really a euphemism for those who wish to deny or ignore the violence inherent in Islam.
This view sees that jihad has been a feature of Islam from its beginnings and that martyrdom is honored and rewarded in Islam. This view also finds that Islam may well be in conflict with liberal democracy. Muslims are told that they are meant to Islamicize the countries they live in, through "peaceful" means if they can, and violent means when necessary, and we already see signs of this in Europe and America.
So, to return more strictly to Coughlin's thesis, he says that we are hampered in dealing with the enemy and in producing good intelligence for our strategic plans because instead of listening to what the enemy is saying, we impose our own hopeful, optimistic kind of view on the Islamic world, that everyone is really like us at heart and that we will see this in the end.
And lastly, an Interview [YouTube] with Stephen Coughlin: Who's Innocent, According to Shariah?
Been keeping up with Coughlin. This administration is a danger to humanity itself. What happens here affects the entire world as we have known it. THIS is the final Jihad, and we are nowhere near ready for it.
I got into a small debate earlier on another thread where I tried to show what is going on under the facade of what everyone only sees as marxism. If that was all it was, we would know how to fight it. That is NOT all it is, and until we realize the clear and present danger of islam, we will never stop it until we are forced to face it in the most stark terms possible. It will be war.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1564
A request to the Defense Department press office to interview Coughlin runs straight into a brick wall. A press officer says that under terms of his not-quite-expired contract, Coughlin is “prohibited from speaking to the media.”
Hesham Islam appears to be under no such constraints. He gave an interview last year to ABC News, in which he talked about the hardships of being a Muslim in the military, saying that “Since 9/11, I no longer have a land line. I only work with my cell phone, because I got a lot of hate messages on the phone.”
For this article, however, Islam — according to a spokesman — was “not interested in an interview.” Nor would England’s office provide anyone willing to answer any detailed questions about Hesham Islam for direct attribution. Instead, after some discussion, an arrangement was finally offered in which a “Pentagon spokesman” would field questions, forward them to Islam, and relay any replies.
For more information, the spokesman recommended a profile of Islam, released October 15, 2007 by the Armed Forces Press Service under the headline: “Senior Advisor to Deputy Secretary Focuses on Relationship Building.” Still available on the Defense web site, the article includes an interview with Islam, some of the praise from England quoted above, and a photo of Islam, flashing a tight smile, seated in his shirtsleeves at his Pentagon desk, next to a bulletin board decked with diplomatic invitations.
But this Pentagon-endorsed profile raises more questions than it answers. It begins: “If Hesham Islam’s life story was translated into a screenplay — and it’s got all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster — the director would be hard-pressed to come up with a more compelling chain of events landing him as a top adviser to the deputy defense secretary.”
As told by Islam to the reporter, “The movie would open with Islam as a young boy growing up in Cairo, Egypt, huddling in terror as Israeli bombs came raining down, demolishing much of the building around him and his family.”
There’s one problem with this scene. As far as I have been able to discover, Israel during Hesham Islam’s entire lifetime has never bombed Cairo. Asked to explain this, the Pentagon spokesman duly conferred with Islam, and relayed to me by phone that Islam says this building-wrecking bombing raid took place during the 1967 Six-Day War. But as for details that might substantiate the when and where in Cairo of this graphic scene, Islam “Doesn’t remember. He was seven years old.”
It is of course possible that Islam was privy to a piece of history with which expert historians on the region are not acquainted. But if this tale is based solely on the unsubstantiated impressions of Islam as a seven-year-old, then what is it doing on the U.S. Defense Department website? Queries I have made to a number of experts in Tel Aviv, the U.S., and Cairo itself all get the same reply: It didn’t happen. According to Michael Oren, author of the extensively researched Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, Israel during the Six-Day War struck the Cairo airport, but “Israel did not bomb any residential areas of Cairo.”
The profile continues: “Next would be the scene of the teenager who moves to Iraq when his Egyptian naval officer father is transferred to help establish the Arabian Gulf naval academy Islam would later attend.”
That family move to Iraq came as Saddam Hussein was consolidating his Baathist rule, though neither the Pentagon profile nor Hesham Islam’s Pentagon biography any makes mention of that context. In answer to questions, the Pentagon spokesman says Islam’s father was invited to Iraq by Saddam Hussein, but the spokesman doesn’t know when: “It was in 1971-1973 time frame.” Surely with Pentagon background checks, more exact information would be easily available? “It’s available,” says the spokesman, but “I don’t have his C.V. kind of thing.”
The profile goes on to describe young Hesham Islam as a “merchant mariner adrift for three days in the Arabian Sea after an Iranian torpedo sunk his 16,000-ton cargo ship, drowning all but Islam and four of his crewmates.”
That sounds memorable. But after more than a week of my repeated requests made by phone and e-mail, the Pentagon spokesman — despite being presumably in touch with Islam himself — was either unable or unwilling to provide such basic information as the name of the ship, or the date of its sinking. He just kept saying he was “looking into it.” But no answers.
Before I began the marathon requests for specific information, the spokesman had speculated earlier, based on conversations with Islam, that the ship might have been called the Ibn Khaldoon, which might have been registered to the Iraqi merchant marine, and might have sunk sometime in 1979. A check with the U.K.-based Lloyd’s Register turns up two cargo ships registered in Iraq during that time and under that name, but no record that either was ever sunk, either in the 1970s, the 1980s, or beyond. One is still in service; the other was broken up — and not by a torpedo — only a few years ago.
As for records of any incident fitting the generic description of a 16,000-ton cargo ship, under any flag, torpedoed by the Iranians and sunk in the Arabian Sea before Islam immigrated to the U.S. sometime in 1980 (the Pentagon spokesman can’t or won’t say exactly when in 1980), after searching news archives, shipping records, and consulting a number of naval historians, I have yet to come across anything that corroborates Islam’s Iranian-torpedo-in-the-Arabian-Sea story. There were ships sunk by the Iranians in 1980, as the Iran-Iraq war broke out — but that was happening in the Gulf, around the Shatt-al-Arab, on the other side of the Straits of Hormuz, hundreds of miles from the Arabian Sea.
It is of course possible that this torpedoing, ship sinking, and rescue took place exactly as described in the Defense profile. But having showcased the scene for public consumption, why won’t Gordon England’s office provide basic factual information that could confirm this story? Does Hesham Islam not remember that, either? Does no one at Defense have it on file?
In 1980, according to the profile, Islam immigrated to the U.S. to get married, being suddenly love-smitten after receiving a photo of an American pen pal with whom he had been corresponding sight-unseen for more than three years. For the next five years he worked in what the spokesman describes as the “food services” industry. In 1985 he joined the Navy as an electronics technician in the submarine service. According to his Pentagon biography, he went on to serve on a number of ships, in largely technical and operational posts, before hooking up with Gordon England and finally arriving at his current job in the Pentagon.
So, what qualifies Islam to serve as an adviser to whom Gordon England listens all the time, and whose advice England takes? According to Kevin Wensing, England’s pubic-affairs aide: “Mr. Islam brings 20 years of experience in the U.S. Navy and international relations to his current assignment.”
This includes an M.A. in national-security affairs, awarded in 1992 at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. For this degree, Islam wrote a 139-page thesis about the Middle East, entitled “Roots of Regional Ambition.” In it, he devoted dozens of pages to lambasting Israel, and the influence of American Jews on U.S. politics. He deplored “Israeli activities which have detrimentally affected U.S. objectives but which have continued with impunity.” He argued that U.S. support for Israel “has negatively affected the attainment of U.S. objectives in the Middle East.” He blamed the influence of American Jews on U.S. policy for a host of ills, ranging from Arab “retaliation” against Americans, to jobs lost overseas, to hampering sales of “defensive arms to friendly Arab states.”
Whether Gordon England (or Defense Secretary Robert Gates, for that matter) considers such views a relevant qualification for Islam’s current duties is unclear. But what’s emerging at the Pentagon is a landscape in which Stephen Coughlin’s insistence on crafting doctrine based not on politically correct assumptions, but on facts, is apparently deemed a bridge too far. Meanwhile, from the office of Deputy Secretary England, Hesham Islam continues his bridge building. The question isn’t just whom to believe, but who’s running this show?
Thank, you Mesta. Filing that in ...
Obama’s Outstanding Record of Dip-lunacy [and leftist dip-lunacy too]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2470815/posts
Also updating Close Encounters with the Loony Left
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2464035/posts
(VIDEO) Napolitano: It’s “Unfair” to Ask Me If Arizona’s Border With Mexico Secure…
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2501870/posts
“Lefties in the US: STFU! You want to fight human rights abuses? Go to Mexico, a 24/7 horror show of human rights abuses!”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2503798/posts
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