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"In Slate two weeks ago, I mentioned that security for Ayaan Hirsi Ali might have to be paid for partly by private subscription. Here are the details for all who may wish to contribute to this eminently deserving cause. Checks should be made payable to the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust and sent to the same trust in care of Bank of Georgetown, 1054 31st St., NW, Suite 18, Washington, D.C. 20007. The trust's tax identification number is 75-6826872. Those who prefer wire transfer should use account number 1010054748 and bank routing number 054001712. This appeal is a test of...

Europe's fear of Muslims increaseshttp://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/10/20/dutch_1021.htmlBy SHELLEY EMLINGThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 10/21/07 Amsterdam, the Netherlands — Ehsan Jami sees himself as the legendary Dutch boy who used his finger to plug a leaking dike.Jami, a Dutch politician, is trying to prevent a flood of what he views as intolerant Muslim immigrants threatening to overrun the Netherlands and all of Europe. AP(ENLARGE) Muslim women chat at a market in downtown Amsterdam. 'I've lived here for 40 years and I still don't feel welcome,' said Atel Alireza, a taxi driver from Turkey. AP(ENLARGE)An Islamist killed filmmaker Theo van Gogh after his movie...

I have a dear friend who is truly suffering from Meniere's disease related "attacks" to the point that she does not know what she will do re: her job, her life. She is a mother and grandmother, but still young - mid 50s. Would ask for prayer for her to find some kind of help for this horrible disease and its side effects, some of which are attacks of dizzyness, nausea, inability to walk without "falling down", mental "fog", physical weakness and exhaustion, racing heart, constant ringing in the ear, loss of hearing, and more.

I have been reading up on Vincent Van Gogh to prepare to give a short Art Literacy lesson at my children's school. I will read from a script, but I do a better job if I have read more than the script, beforehand. The constructivist ethos of our Art Literacy program is to give children as much freedom as possible in achieving the production goal that follows each lesson. In this case, the goal for each child will be to paint a sunflower and show its texture by using specially thickened paint and a palette knife. Vincent used a lot...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller star in a new film exploring the relationship between the media and celebrities in a re-make of a Dutch version by slain director Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh, an outspoken critic of Islam who was murdered in 2004 by a Dutch-Moroccan militant, planned to adapt a trilogy of films for Hollywood before he was killed, of which "Interview" was the first. U.S. actor Buscemi, who also directs the new version, plays a world-weary reporter called Pierre who reluctantly accepts an assignment from his editor to interview Katya, a trashy horror film star....

Taking the fight to Islam In 1989, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali Muslim, supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. But on moving to Europe her views changed and she turned against Islam. Two years ago she fled Holland after the brutal murder of her artistic collaborator Theo van Gogh. Who is this fierce critic who lives under the constant threat of death? Andrew Anthony Sunday February 4, 2007 The Observer (UK) Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not the only critic of Islam who lives with round-the-clock protection. But surely none wears their endangered status with greater style. The Dutch Somali human-rights...

Two years ago, movie director Theo van Gogh’s throat was cut on a street in Amsterdam in the name of radical Islam. I had partaken in his last work, Submission, where we represented, in the most accurate way possible, the condition of Muslim women: tyranny, humiliations, violence. In this film, we showed Muslim women who had finally rebelled, talking to God in a tone of defiance. It made Imam Fawaz of the Hague scream with hate during the delivery of a vengeful sermon. My friend Theo, the “criminal bastard”, was subsequently riddled with bullets and stabbed to death with a...

Six Muslims stand trial over terror plot SIX alleged Muslim radicals with links to the murderer of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh go on trial today accused of plotting terrorist attacks on Dutch politicians and government buildings.

AMSTERDAM — A court in Rotterdam imposed a three-year sentence on Tuesday on a Moroccan-Dutch man for trying to recruit fellow prisoners for a Muslim holy war. Bilal L., 21, was serving a 10-month jail sentence for threatening MP Geert Wilders when he asked fellow prisoners to supply weapons and explosives. The panel of three judges also accepted L. tried to recruit inmates to carry out attacks on the "enemies of Islam". L. is a friend of Mohammed Bouyeri who was jailed for life last year for killing film director Theo van Gogh on 2 November 2004. Earlier this year...

AMSTERDAM — Shots were fired as police raided a building on the Moerweg in The Hague on Friday. Dutch parliament buildings hermetically sealed by police Witnesses reported seeing masked men with automatic weapons entering a flat complex on Moerweg which has been sealed off by the police. Radio 1 News was told of people hearing gunfire. The police in The Hague have declined to comment at this stage about the reports. A spokesperson would only say police operations are taking place at several locations in the city. She would also not confirm that a raid was carried out at a...

THE chaotic swirls of Vincent van Gogh’s later paintings may owe as much to science as they do to art. Physicists believe that some of his works are uncannily accurate pictures of the complex mathematics of turbulence, the phenomenon behind bumpy aircraft rides, cloud formations and the flow of ocean currents. Van Gogh painted three of his most agitated paintings, A Starry Night, Road with Cypress and Star and Wheat Field with Crows, towards the end of his life when he was suffering prolonged bouts of epilepsy. José Luis Aragón, a physicist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, believes...

Demise of multiculturalism can help root out terrorism Jonathan Alter - For the Journal-Constitution Wednesday, June 28, 2006 Multiculturalism, rest in peace. There may have been no obituary for the notion that every group and every belief in a multiethnic society is deserving of mutual respect and tolerance. But thanks to jihadism, multiculturalism and moral relativism --- its necessary counterpart --- are now 6 feet under. Signs of multiculturalism's demise first began to appear in Holland, a nation that officially embraced its precepts in 1983. In theory, the Minderhedennota, or minorities policy, extended the Dutch tradition of tolerance to a...

PARIS, May 17 — The Dutch immigration minister's decision to cancel the citizenship of a Somali-born Dutch legislator has set off a political storm in the Netherlands, with Parliament demanding that the move be revoked. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch legislator, said Tuesday that she would leave Parliament. Wide-ranging coverage of Russia and the former Soviet republics, updated by The Times's Moscow bureau. At the center of the storm is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 36, who gained fame — and received death threats — while campaigning against militant Islam and opposing the abuse she said Muslim women suffered even in...

A painting by Vincent Van Gogh has sold at auction in New York for more than $40m (£22m). L'Arlesienne, Madame Ginoux commanded the fourth highest price on record for a work by the renowned Dutch artist. The 1890 painting was one in a series of five created in homage to Van Gogh's friend, the artist Paul Gaugin. Madame Marie Ginoux owned a cafe in Arles, France where both artists lived briefly. It was during this period that Van Gogh cut off his own ear. The painting was created while the artist recovered at an asylum in Provence, France. Artistic homage...

U.S.-born actress warned 'she will be sorry' unless she pulls out of film Sienna Miller Sienna Miller reportedly feared for her life after getting a flood of death threats from Islamic extremists. The American-born, British-bred actress best-known for starring in the remake of "Alfie" as well as her engagement to actor Jude Law, is said to have received a torrent of vicious threats from Muslims furious she's starring in "Interview," a remake of director Theo van Gogh's 2003 thriller. Van Gogh is the Dutch director who was shot and killed in 2004 by an Islamic extremist in connection with his...

A Wisconsin man is warning others about the dangers of binge drinking after he jumped over the edge of a parking garage wall and fell four stories to the pavement below. Matt Mathe survived the fall, which was caught on surveillance video. The video shows him running full speed and flipping over the wall. For a split second, he tries to catch himself, but by then it is too late. Mathe said he was so drunk that he thought he was on the first floor and could simply hop over the wall onto the street. "It was a mistake," he...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A court convicted nine Muslims on Friday of belonging to a terrorist group that incited hatred against non-Muslims and threatened to commit acts of terrorism. Among the defendants was Mohammed Bouyeri, the convicted killer of filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Bouyeri, who already has been sentenced to life in prison for the Nov. 2, 2004, murder of Van Gogh, was found to be a leader of the group, but the judges said he could not be punished further. The group's goal was "stirring up, and or inciting hatred, and or threatening" non-Muslims, the judges said. The heaviest sentences...

AMSTERDAM — "Comparing me to Osama bin Laden does the man a great wrong and extends me too much honour I don't deserve, Mohammed Bouyeri said at the start of his speech from the dock on Thursday. "But it fills me with me with honour, pride and joy that you see me as the black standard-bearer of Islam in Europe," he told the prosecution. Dutch-Moroccan Bouyeri, 27, is serving a life sentence for the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam on 2 November 2004. Although he cannot receive a further sentence he is among a group of Muslim...

Ayaan Hirsi Ali wanted to shape her own future What turns a devout young Muslim woman into one of Islam's most outspoken critics?For the Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, it was a long journey that started with an arranged marriage. She sought refuge in the Netherlands on her way to her new husband's home in Canada. "I wanted a chance at a life where I could shape my own future," she says. "I knew the risks - being disowned or being shunned by my father and the rest of my family. I took those risks and I don't...

LONDON, 05/01/06 - Conservative (VVD) MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali has won the Reader's Digest European of the Year Award 2006. "She is battling to raise awareness of the often-concealed plight of many Muslim women living in Europe," the magazine announced yesterday. Hirsi Ali was selected by the European editors of Reader's Digest "as the person who best embodies the contemporary expression of Europe's values and traditions". She is the eleventh winner of the award, which she will receive at a ceremony in The Hague on 23 January. Since being elected to the Dutch parliament in 2003, Somalia-born Hirsi Ali, who...