http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4349794

Thank you ABC for exposing the bigots.

Barak Obama was grilled by the media for the endorsement he received from Farrakhan because supposedly he is a bigot and made anti-Semitic statements in the past.

McCain publically accepted the endorsement of one of the most bigoted pastors.

Pastor John Hagee’s called the catholic church, “The Great Whore” at one point .

http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1393

In the US and most of the western world you are a bigot if you criticize or bash Judaism, anything else is fair game.

Iran is of moving the death penalty for apostasy into their criminal court system.

In my opinion, death for apostasy is quite dangerous. In my understanding, the Prophet, PBUH, once said (paraphrasing) that it is not up to mankind to levy such punishments. A man does not know another man’s true intent and even on a person’s deathbed, a man convicted of apostasy could still return to GOD. So killing him for this “sin” is not a just punishment. Although the Qur’an in quite specific about this sin, I don’t think that anyone can point to anything There or in the Sunnah that would give authority to a court to kill.

From the BBC article above:

Others believe it is not up to politicians or governments to set the penalty but is for God to decide on the Day of Judgment

I agree with the above, and not the position taken by the drafters of the Iran penal code:

Some conservatives regard it as such a heinous offence as to warrant the death penalty.

On a personal note: My wife and I had a baby girl this past weekend. Her name is Sara, and she weighed in at 7 pounds, 11 ounces. Now that we’re finally in our new house here in Belgium, it feels good to have the family complete to enjoy it! I am fortunate enough to have 10 paid days off for paternity leave — and I’m taking advantage. I’m reading a few books, catching up on some unpacking, and of course, spending lots of time with Sara.

I’ll be back on track in a few days with my postings. Cheers!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/ … index.html

I was listening to a Cuban expatriate author (now living in Canada) today who said he didn’t believe for one minute that Castro was putting down the reins of power. So time will tell….

Did Israel do it?

Mughniyeh has the support of thousands upon thousands of people in Lebanon and other regions where Hezbullah has power and influence. Hezbullah against Israel. So I have to wonder: If Israel found him, and did the deed, are tehy provoking another war? There is plenty of evidence at the moment that they may be doing just that in Gaza (Israel recently brought in foreign officials to assess the damage of rocket fire from Gaza).

As an interesting aside, believed that Mughniyeh was behind the 9/11 attacks.

Another school shooting:

With minutes left in a class in ocean sciences at Northern Illinois University on Thursday afternoon, a tall skinny man dressed all in black stepped out from behind a curtain on the stage of the lecture hall, said nothing, and opened fire with a shotgun, the authorities and witnesses said.

Fortunatly, it seems as though the lessons learned from the Virginia Tech shooting last year might have saved some lives (the article elaborates).

The US waged a war of aggression on a small defensless country, killed scores of poeple and killed its president whose name was HUSSEIN. A few months later GOD sent a guy by the same name, Hussein, to take over the US government. coincidence??

The grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, 75-year-old Arun Gandhi, has been persecuted and hounded out of the M.K. Gandhi Institute, founded by him in the U.S., following his remarks that Israel and the Jews are the biggest players in a global culture of violence.

http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=162111

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/09/6946/

An excerpt…

Sometime after midnight on September 6, 2007, at least four low-flying Israeli Air Force fighters crossed into Syrian airspace and carried out a secret bombing mission on the banks of the Euphrates River, about ninety miles north of the Iraq border. The seemingly unprovoked bombing, which came after months of heightened tension between Israel and Syria over military exercises and troop buildups by both sides along the Golan Heights, was, by almost any definition, an act of war. But in the immediate aftermath nothing was heard from the government of Israel. In contrast, in 1981, when the Israeli Air Force destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, near Baghdad, the Israeli government was triumphant, releasing reconnaissance photographs of the strike and permitting the pilots to be widely interviewed.

Within hours of the attack, Syria denounced Israel for invading its airspace, but its public statements were incomplete and contradictory—thus adding to the mystery. A Syrian military spokesman said only that Israeli planes had dropped some munitions in an unpopulated area after being challenged by Syrian air defenses, “which forced them to flee.” Four days later, Walid Moallem, the Syrian foreign minister, said during a state visit to Turkey that the Israeli aircraft had used live ammunition in the attack, but insisted that there were no casualties or property damage. It was not until October 1st that Syrian President Bashar Assad, in an interview with the BBC, acknowledged that the Israeli warplanes had hit their target, which he described as an “unused military building.” Assad added that Syria reserved the right to retaliate, but his comments were muted.

Despite official silence in Tel Aviv (and in Washington), in the days after the bombing the American and European media were flooded with reports, primarily based on information from anonymous government sources, claiming that Israel had destroyed a nascent nuclear reactor that was secretly being assembled in Syria, with the help of North Korea. Beginning construction of a nuclear reactor in secret would be a violation of Syria’s obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and could potentially yield material for a nuclear weapon.

The evidence was circumstantial but seemingly damning. The first reports of Syrian and North Korean nuclear coöperation came on September 12th in the Times and elsewhere. By the end of October, the various media accounts generally agreed on four points: the Israeli intelligence community had learned of a North Korean connection to a construction site in an agricultural area in eastern Syria; three days before the bombing, a “North Korean ship,” identified as the Al Hamed, had arrived at the Syrian port of Tartus, on the Mediterranean; satellite imagery strongly suggested that the building under construction was designed to hold a nuclear reactor when completed; as such, Syria had crossed what the Israelis regarded as the “red line” on the path to building a bomb, and had to be stopped. There were also reports—by ABC News and others—that some of the Israeli intelligence had been shared in advance with the United States, which had raised no objection to the bombing.

Book: 911 Commission Executive Director Had Closer White House Ties Than Publicly Disclosed
by Hope Yen

The Sept. 11 commission’s executive director had closer ties with the White House than publicly disclosed and tried to influence the final report in ways that the staff often perceived as limiting the Bush administration’s responsibility, a new book says.

Philip Zelikow, a friend of then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, spoke with her several times during the 20-month investigation that closely examined her role in assessing the al-Qaida threat. He also exchanged frequent calls with the White House, including at least four from Bush’s chief political adviser at the time, Karl Rove.

Zelikow once tried to push through wording in a draft report that suggested a greater tie between al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and Iraq, in line with White House claims but not with the commission staff’s viewpoint, according to Philip Shenon’s “The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation.”

Shenon, a New York Times reporter, says Zelikow sought to intimidate staff to avoid damaging findings for President Bush, who at the time was running for re-election, and Rice. Zelikow and Rice had written a book together in 1995 and he would later work for her after the commission finished its job and she became secretary of state in 2005.

The Associated Press obtained an audio version of Shenon’s book, which is to go on sale Tuesday.

Reached by the AP, Zelikow provided a 131-page statement with information he said was provided for the book. In it, Zelikow acknowledges talking to Rove and Rice during the course of the commission’s work despite a general pledge he made not to. But he said the conversations never dealt with politics.

The White House had no immediate comment Sunday.

According to the book, when Democratic commissioner Bob Kerrey learned the extent of Zelikow’s ties to the administration, he confronted Republican chairman Tom Kean and demanded to know why someone with such apparent conflicts of interest had been hired.

“Look Tom,” Kerrey is quoted as saying, “either he goes or I go.” Kean eventually persuaded Kerrey to stay.

Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, the panel’s Democratic vice chairman, praised Zelikow as a “person of integrity” who was upfront in disclosing his background and White House contacts. It made sense for commission staff to contact the White House regularly to get information, Hamilton said, and the book also notes that Zelikow was such a dogged negotiator that even then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales found him irritating and subsequently refused to meet with him.

“Did he try to sway the report to protect the administration? I think the answer was no,” Hamilton told the AP.

The book says phone logs maintained by the commission’s executive assistant showed at least two calls from Rove to Zelikow’s office number in June 2003, and two more calls in September. During that time, the commission was in the midst of its fact-finding.

Zelikow ordered the assistant to stop keeping phone records of his contacts with the White House, the book said, but the panel’s general counsel instructed her to ignore the order.

The phone logs do not record Zelikow’s calls out, nor do they show calls on his cell phone, which he relied on for most outgoing calls. Records from the Government Accountability Office, which maintained some of the commission’s phone records, showed frequent calls from Zelikow to telephone numbers in area code 202, with the telephone prefix 4-5-6 - the prefix exclusive to the White House, the book says.

Zelikow, in his written statement, said Rove had called with questions about the Bush library and other business related to Zelikow’s work at the University of Virginia. Zelikow also said he enlisted Rice’s logistical aid on behalf of the commission at one point to get Saudi cooperation so the panel could interview their citizens.

“Rove and I didn’t really know each other,” he said in the statement. “I don’t recall ever having an extended conversation with him, and certainly not about politics or the commission.”

The book seeks to raise new questions about the independence of the bipartisan commission, which was created in 2002 to investigate government missteps that led to the Sept. 11 attacks. Initially opposed by the White House, the panel issued a unanimous 567-page final report in July 2004 during the height of the presidential campaign that did not blame Bush or former President Clinton for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people but did say they each failed to make anti-terrorism a priority.

The book says that in early 2004, Zelikow allegedly sought to add to an initial staff report wording that linked al-Qaida to Iraq. The wording would have said the terrorist network repeatedly tried to communicate with the government of Saddam Hussein, a claim of cooperation the administration had cited to justify the war in Iraq. After a staff protest, Zelikow backed down; the final report said there was no “collaborative relationship” between Saddam and al-Qaida. Zelikow has said that he simply wanted the panel to keep an open mind on the issue.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/05/6863/

Meanwhile there’s a lot of buzz up here (since Khadr is a Canadian citizen) about the accidental release of testimony by a U.S. military witness that there was indeed one other al Qaeda fighter alive after the grenade had been tossed … who was shot and killed … Khadr (age 15 at the time) was on all fours facing a wall with which the witness shot him twice in the back (hardly an act of self defence). The court had been keeping this testimony a secret … making it obvious that young Khadr must have been the one who threw the grenade which killed a U.S. soldier.

Terrible story: The death toll from two Baghdad market bombs allegedly carried by mentally disabled women and set off remotely has risen to nearly 100, say officials.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7223769.stm

The sick bastards who set them up for this should rot in hell.

Not sure if anyone has been following this story, but things are pretty bad. It is expected that in the end, hundreds of people will be dead.

The report states:

“China’s snow crisis “remains grim” and the public should brace for more bad weather after storms killed at least 60 people and stranded millions of travelers, the government warned Saturday.”

and..

“Some 223,000 houses collapsed under snow and ice, 1.8 million people were evacuated to shelters, and 18 million acres of crops were destroyed, according to Zou Ming, deputy director of the Ministry of Civil Affairs.”