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Taliban Suicide Bomber Claims 12 American Lives In Kabul
October 29, 2011 - San Francisco CA - PipeLineNews.org - A NATO bus was attacked by a Taliban suicide bomber driving an explosive laden truck in Kabul on Saturday killing 12 American servicemen and 5 others.
The incident comes as Team Obama is attempting to forge some kind of pretend alliance with so-called "safe" Taliban, a move wholeheartedly supported by Hillary Clinton's masquerade State Dept.
Afghan president Karzai has been forced into hedging his bets and negotiating with the Taliban because he knows American troops will soon leave the country, leaving it defenseless against jihadist influence.[Read More]
Contra Costa Times' Obsession With Occupy Wall Street/Oakland
October 28, 2011 - San Francisco CA - PipeLineNews.org - Heavy coverage of the Occupy Oakland movement, featured prominently in the last two editions of the Contra Costa Times, reveals the paper's heavy handed, concerted push to support this revolutionary, neo-communist uprising.
So brazenly biased is the newspaper's coverage, one must assume that its ongoing narrative had to have been approved at the highest editorial levels [such as they are] at this San Francisco Bay Area daily newspaper.
The facts are as follows - over this 24 hour period, the CC Times devoted well over 300 column inches [computation based on number of columns in this 6 column format newspaper multiplied by the length of each column in inches] to this effort. This amount of coverage on a single [non-disaster] issue is pretty much unprecedented, especially given this newspaper's plummeting page count.
Above the fold, large font headlines supporting this hack journo include:
"Iraq veteran injured in clash"
"Protesters come out in force, peacefully" - oddly adjacent an image of the "peaceful" protesters violently tearing down cyclone fencing sections].
"All eyes are on Oakland"
"In wake of injury, a call for healing"
PipeLineNews.org's investigation into the motivating ideology behind Occupy Oakland and by extension, its parent, Occupy Wall Street, revealed it to be of neo-communist origin with a latent capacity for extreme violence [see, Occupy Oakland October 19, 2011, Taste The Madness].
So compelling is this evidence that any journalist should be able to draw a similar conclusion. That this doesn't happen at the Contra Costa Times and other Bay Area News Group products simply reveals that these organizations made the decision to cheerlead Occupy Oakland/OWS despite the obvious damage that such blatant bias may cause these periodicals long term.
What motivates a community newspaper to champion a movement whose organizers certainly hope will prove to be an existential threat to capitalism and Western democratic principles?
The most reasonable explanation is that the Contra Costa Times' editorial staff and the journalists it employs share much of OWS' driving ideology and therefore instead of merely covering the events surrounding the movement, the size of which pales in comparison to that of the Tea Party, they act as pamphleteers for the movement, not reporters. They have become stenographers for the hard left.
This newspaper has a lot to answer for regarding its ongoing and seemingly increasing leftwing bias. Perhaps the Contra Costa Times' advertisers need to be informed as to exactly what is going on. They may displeased to find their advertising carrier doesn't really seem to support the basic idea of capitalist commerce upon which these businesses depend.[Read More]
General Jack Keane - Obama's Turn-Tail Retreat From Iraq "Disastrous"
General Jack Keane - Obama's Turn-Tail Retreat From Iraq "Disastrous"
October 25, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - General Jack Keane [Ret.] widely regarded as the architect behind the Bush administration's successful Iraqi "surge" has slammed president Obama's precipitous and unilateral decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq, a move which reportedly was resisted at the highest levels by American military leaders.
In a statement made on Fox News Gen. Keane said, "...the Bush admin in 2009 turned over to the Obama administration a relatively stable and secure Iraq. Violence was down 90% and what the Iraqi's wanted more than anything to go forward was a strategic partnership with the United States, a normal allied relationship with us. We started a pushback on that through ambassador Christopher Hill in 2010 and the Iraqi's got shaky as a result of it and started to put in play hedging strategies and of course that welcomed in the Iranians...and now we are walking away..."
Keane specifically rejected claims made by Leon Panetta [Secretary of DOD] that we can continue to exercise influence on Iraqi affairs via the presence of 40,000 American troops in the region, i.e., in other countries but not Iraq, "...the Iranian's without our presence will have more influence over the Iraqi's going forward than we do...Moqtada al-Sadr [a powerful Iranian controlled warlord with a significant presence in the Iraqi parliament] has already made that statement that he is going after that U.S. embassy..."
This was the end game which Team Obama has always sought in Iraq, holding to the leftist notion that U.S. forces in the region were occupiers rather than liberators. The administration's announcements over the last week have only provided punctuation to the widely held belief [among national security experts] that the president's policy in Iraq will lead to a geopolitical disaster.[Read More]
CAIR Makes Common Cause With Occupy Wall Street Marxists
CAIR Makes Common Cause With Occupy Wall Street Marxists
October 24, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - We find it entirely unsurprising that the Council on American Islamic Relations, CAIR, would become a vocal supporter of the Occupy Wall Street Movement since it and other American Islamist organizations have long partnered with the hard left.
One of those seen fanning the seditionary flames of the OWS mob depicted in the above video was Aiyub Abdul Baki of the Islamic Leadership Council of New York who preached about "social justice" based upon Mohammed's "last sermon" while excoriating "usury," we must assume a negative reference to Western banking practices.
Also in attendance at this Islamist endorsed gathering was a contingent from the World Workers Party, a revolutionary artifact from the Stalinist era [see for example, Workers World, a publication of the World Workers Party, http://www.workers.org/pdf/current.pdf].
A brief CAIR bio:
Among those convicted was Ghassan Elashi, one of the co-founders of the Texas chapter of CAIR. Elashi was already serving a long sentence due to his conviction in U.S. vs. InfoCom, also a terror related case. In post prosecution court proceedings CAIR was specifically linked to Hamas by Federal judge Jorge Solis. In June both CAIR as well as its CAIR Foundation lost their tax exempt status for reasons among which were repeated failure to file IRS form 990, a requirement of all tax exempt entities. [see, IRS document located at, http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/dc.pdf] In another damning revelation [a story broken by the Investigative Project, see, http://www.investigativeproject.org/2709/cair-officials-sought-gaddafi-money] regarding the nature of CAIR, Fox News reported that the group's Executive Director, Nihad Awad, had solicited funding from ex-Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi who recently assumed room temperature. Qadafi is reportedly on display in a meat locker located in Misrata, Libya.
"CAIR is a highly controversial radical Muslim pressure group whose associations are so noxious that it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator [see, U.S. Dist. Court Document U.S. vs. Holy Land Foundation For Relief and Development [see doc at, https://www.pipelinenews.org/images/2007-05-29-US%20v%20HLF-ListCoConspirators.pdf] in the nation's most extensive prosecution of domestic funding of the terrorist group Hamas, U.S. vs. Holy Land Foundation. In that proceeding, all of the defendants were found guilty on a total of 108 charges. [source, https://www.pipelinenews.org/?page=sbee6292011101.htm Why Is The Sacramento Bee Carrying CAIR Press Releases?]
"The government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA, NAIT, with NAIT, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and with Hamas," U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis said in the July 1, 2009, ruling" [source, The Investigative Project, Federal Dist. Court filing, http://www.investigativeproject.org/2340/federal-judge-agrees-cair-tied-to-hamas]
"A letter from the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, and president of an offshoot group, Muslim Peace Foundation to Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi has added fuel to criticisms of the controversial group and what its critics say are some dubious fundraising tactics. In the letter, obtained by Fox News and dated Sept. 23, 2009, CAIR executive director Nihad Awad asks Qaddafi for funding for his new project called the Muslim Peace Foundation. Qaddafi was in New York attending the United Nations General Assembly." [source, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/06/lawmaker-criticizes-controversial-muslim-group-200-fundraising-letter-qaddafi/#ixzz1QbUvycFA]"
Among those convicted was Ghassan Elashi, one of the co-founders of the Texas chapter of CAIR. Elashi was already serving a long sentence due to his conviction in U.S. vs. InfoCom, also a terror related case.
In post prosecution court proceedings CAIR was specifically linked to Hamas by Federal judge Jorge Solis.
In June both CAIR as well as its CAIR Foundation lost their tax exempt status for reasons among which were repeated failure to file IRS form 990, a requirement of all tax exempt entities. [see, IRS document located at, http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/dc.pdf]
In another damning revelation [a story broken by the Investigative Project, see, http://www.investigativeproject.org/2709/cair-officials-sought-gaddafi-money] regarding the nature of CAIR, Fox News reported that the group's Executive Director, Nihad Awad, had solicited funding from ex-Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi who recently assumed room temperature. Qadafi is reportedly on display in a meat locker located in Misrata, Libya.
It's easy to understand this seemingly odd alliance between the left and the Islamists; they both hold Western culture in contempt and are actively working to subvert it. What is out of the ordinary this go around is the active support being given to the Marxist/OWS movement by Team Obama, the House and Senate Democrat leadership as well as the big labor bosses. Perhaps they feel this is their last chance to grab the golden ring and somehow squeak out a win in 2012, motivating their base while creating a smokescreen [pushed incessantly by the MSM] to confuse ignorant voters into believing that America's economic problems are caused by the big banks, Wall Street, Zionists and other concocted bogeymen, rather than pointing the finger at the real culprit here, economic meddling and micro-management by the federal government.[Read More]
Occupy Oakland October 19, 2011, Taste The Madness
Occupy Oakland October 19, 2011, Taste The Madness
October 20, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Often missing from the discussion regarding the nascent "Occupy Wall Street" [OWS] movement is its core ideology.
This happens far more in the legacy media than in the alternative press because the former is dominated by the left and the latter tends to be more egalitarian and diverse. This media slant towards progressivism [a more polite term for collectivism] is a proven fact, backed by statistical studies - thanks in large part to the excellent work done by Brent Bozell and the Media Research Center [see for example, http://www.mrc.org/newsdivision/nad.aspx].
When the MSM wants to make the appearance that it's pursuing the ideological questions surrounding OWS, it does so in such a manner as to disguise its real nature, often flailing around journalistically to show the protesters are a varied lot whose motivation spans the political gamut from right to left.
However this chimera evaporates when boots hit the ground and these demonstrations are more clinically examined, as we did yesterday in exploring the week old Occupy Oakland encampment at the city's Frank Ogawa plaza.
Upon a brief glance the motivating spirit of this assemblage of approximately 80-100 small tents and maybe 200 or so individuals seems to be taken from a time capsule circa 1969, peace , love, understanding and lots of dope - nothing especially threatening; generally civil, predominantly college age people enjoying what appears on the surface a non-stop party.
Questioning these folks regarding the reason for their participation will get varying specifics, linked by a common theme.
That theme really centers on the declaration that capitalism has failed, resulting in an "unfair" gap between the top and bottom economic rungs of society. In essence these people are claiming common cause with the poor who have been "victimized" by a system which is inherently unfair.
This is grammar school Marxism despite it often being expressed in a fuzzy, ill-defined manner. It would seem that most reasonably honest reporters [no not going there, it's too easy] would come away with this same impression and that it would be reflected in their journalistic output.
But alas this is not the case, the MSM chose sides a long time ago, at least as far back as the New York Times' Moscow bureau chief Walter Durranty's Pulitzer prize winning cover-up of the horrors of Stalinism.
While one can weave an interesting narrative based upon the seeming vagueness of the protester's motivation, probing a little deeper reveals what we have found over more than 10 years of covering West Coast protests from relatively small ones such as Occupy Oakland to the massive, multi-hundred thousand spectacles which dominated much of the presidency of GW Bush.
All of these public attestations of rage against "the system" have roots which were and are in a more ordered manner, hawked in booths or individually, some free, some for sale.
All of the printed material which was on display at the Occupy Oakland site falls under the heading of Marxist propaganda.
Yes folks, it's right there, undisguised in plain sight, much of it free for the taking. To "serious" reporters however, it might as well be invisible.
The most omnipresent printed material at such gatherings is almost always "Revolution," the official newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Party of America. This is the real deal, as unvarnished and in your face as a hob-nailed boot and emblazoned with headlines such as "Revolution Is NOT A Tea Party," something entirely lost by the MSM as it attempts to conflate OWS with the staid Tea Party.
It's either odd, tragic or some combination thereof for Bob Avakian [chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA] to know the difference while the chattering class feigns befuddlement.
With that said we think the below images should suffice to prove our thesis as the evidence is impossible to ignore.
[Read More]
Print Screen of an Oct. 20 Google News search [8:45 PDT] using term "Occupy Oakland."
Print Screen of an Oct. 20 Google News search [8:45 PDT] using term "Occupy Oakland."
National Conference on Jewish Affairs Decries Anti-Semitism Of Occupy Wall Street Movement
National Conference on Jewish Affairs Decries Anti-Semitism Of Occupy Wall Street Movement
October 18, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The National Conference on Jewish Affairs today condemned the blatant and increasingly anti-Semitic nature of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Speaking for the group, rabbi Aryeh Spero stated, "In light of the accelerated and vociferous anti-Semitic and anti-Israel pronouncements emanating from the Occupied Wall Street groups - at times urging the expulsion of Zionists and Jews from the United States - we urge President Obama to publicly denounce these remarks."
Noting the support for the Occupy Wall Street protesters by prominent Jewish leaders and president Obama Spero added, "Furthermore, we ask David Axelrod and Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, and other fellow Jews enthusiastically tied to the protests, to remember that the scape-goating that results from class warfare rhetoric has historically made Jews a target and endangered our community. There has always been anti-Semitism, but in our lifetime we have never heard in this country, as we are hearing now, such open and brazen calls against Jews. We ask them to reconsider their support for these protests given that many are using it as a platform to spew the most vile anti-Israel language."[Read More]
Bay Area News Group's Journalistic Malfeasance Over Occupy Wall Street Coverage
Bay Area News Group's Journalistic Malfeasance Over Occupy Wall Street Coverage
October 17, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Considering its coverage of the Occupy Wall Street freak show, which included the declaration 'THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE..."Protest Has Legs..." writers with the Bay Area News Group - a pretend journalistic enterprise which can be observed slowly sinking in the West - have apparently refused to undertake even the most cursory search of primary source documents to determine the protesters' goals.
While we don't expect much better from this "newsgroup's" assemblage of journo hacks and stenographers for the left, the sheer boldness of the combined newspapers' agendized efforts to conflate what is clearly a violent revolutionary movement [well over 1,000 arrested so far] with the peaceful, polite and politically effectiveTea Party would be ludicrous if it weren't such an obvious abuse of journalistic protocols - concepts with which these writers seem to be unfamiliar.
As we noted in an October 7 piece Occupy Wall Street Movement Driven By Neo-Marxist Rage, any reporter with a shred of curiosity and access to a computer could connect the same very large dots.
One only has to briefly page through their official documents, the so called "Occupied Wall Street Journal" [see, http://www.breakingcopy.com/occupied-wall-street-journal-pdf] and the occupiers non-negotiable "13 demands," [see, http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-for-occupy-wall-st-moveme/] to determine the ideology of its participants..."
"Despite the best efforts of the MSM - and disappointingly many "conservative" pundits - to portray the "Occupy Wall Street" movement as a grassroots, populist response to supposed excesses by the securities and financial services industry, this backwater of human debris is in fact driven by a neo-Marxist rage that should be impossible to ignore - yet that is exactly what is happening.
One only has to briefly page through their official documents, the so called "Occupied Wall Street Journal" [see, http://www.breakingcopy.com/occupied-wall-street-journal-pdf] and the occupiers non-negotiable "13 demands," [see, http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-for-occupy-wall-st-moveme/] to determine the ideology of its participants..."
One might also consider - given its near identical tone - how the Revolutionary Communist Party of the USA views these protests.
In the damp predawn dark of Friday, October 14, an enormous roar of jubilation went up in the canyons of Wall Street as more than 3,000 people cheered the news that New York City had backed down from unleashing their police on the Occupation of Wall Street. A victory was achieved, new ground seized. Read on... A Night Under Skyscrapers and Stars at Occupy Wall Street: "A Dialogue Is On"
"Occupy Wall Street: Showdown and Victory This Is So Not Over![source, Revolutionary Communist Party of the United States homepage, http://rwor.org/]
In the damp predawn dark of Friday, October 14, an enormous roar of jubilation went up in the canyons of Wall Street as more than 3,000 people cheered the news that New York City had backed down from unleashing their police on the Occupation of Wall Street. A victory was achieved, new ground seized.
Read on...
A Night Under Skyscrapers and Stars at Occupy Wall Street: "A Dialogue Is On"
When the Communist Party of the US is a more reliable source of information on this movement than is the preening, not-so-free press, it becomes instantly clear that the MSM has been caught once again lying their collective asses off. These folks aren't in the truth business, their agenda lies elsewhere, a place which abides neither honor nor integrity...one need look no farther than 1600 Pennsylvania for the source of their inspiration.[Read More]
Ground Zero Mosque's Head On Chopping Block - Faces Immediate Eviction, Owes $1.7M In Rent
Ground Zero Mosque's Head On Chopping Block - Faces Immediate Eviction, Owes $1.7M In Rent
October 17, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Since its inception the idea of Islamists building a $100M icon to jihad - the Hamosque - on the hallowed site of ground zero was preposterous, an in your face taunting of the West prompted by a seditious and supremist ideology and enabled by the usual suspects.
With the support of the bogus interfaith crowd and meddling by heavy-weight albeit dhimmi Jews such as Mayor Bloomberg, the project was forced through all of the bureaucratic roadblocks which would normally encountered by the proponents of such an ambitious and controversial project.
Opponents had presented in addition to the myriad of zoning and land use issues, clear evidence that the building of such a structure might well result in a radical Islamist hornet's nest of religious hatred and divisiveness in a space which should forever be remembered as the place where the radical Muslim ground war against the West struck the American homeland without provocation.
Now it appears that the plans set in motion by imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his shady developer/stooge Sharif El-Gamal have run into a nearly impenetrable road-block, they owe Con-Ed nearly $2M in back rent and apparently are unable to pay.
"Park51, which leases the substation from Con Ed, wants the two buildings so it can knock both down and build a $100 million, 15-story community center. But the plan hit a major obstacle in August when Con Ed raised the rent from $2,750 a month, a rate set in 1972, to $47,437 a month, retroactive to July 31, 2008, The Post has learned. When the mosque failed to fork over the $1.7 million, the utility fired off a letter demanding the money by Oct. 4 and threatening to evict..." [source, http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/16/utilities-company-seeks-to-evict-ground-zero-mosque-unless-developer-pays-up/?test=latestnews#ixzz1b3FEydDz]
Legal action by the developer has resulted in the final decision being postponed until a November 17 hearing has been concluded.
We suspect that the political pressure which will be brought to bear on Con Ed will be tremendous making it imperative for the opponents of this project to hit the streets in sufficient numbers to end this farce once and for all.[Read More]
Team Obama Ignores Iranian Act Of War - Targeting Saudi Official In U.S.
Team Obama Ignores Iranian Act Of War - Targeting Saudi Official In U.S.
October 14, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Team Obama's methodical denial of Iran's deadly intentions towards the West and hence his refusal to act against the world's number one state sponsor of terrorism, in the parlance of the times, "came home to roost," this week with the revelation of the Mullocracy's attempted terrorist hit on Saudi ambassador Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir while on U.S. soil - an act of war.
Those charged in the plot, Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, importantly, a member of Iran's elite shock troops the Quds Force, had made arrangements with supposed elements within the Mexican drug cartels to explode a massive car bomb outside DC's Watergate hotel restaurant while the Saudi ambassador was dining. Additional targets included the Israeli embassies in Washington and Buenos Aires.
Such an attack would have been a far from surgical operation with limited "collateral damage." It would have resulted in massive civilian casualties as well as property damage. In all likelihood it would have been the most deadly terror attack on American soil since 9/11.
It is a well known, though little reported fact that Iran maintains Revolutionary Guard [IRG] and Quds cells throughout the Western hemisphere with concentrations in Argentina, Latin America and Mexico.
This week's foiled plot proves that similar cells lie dormant, but ready for immediate action in the U.S. The same is believed to be true about Canada.
The U.S. response so far has been tepid, calling on our erstwhile allies in the European community for more sanctions against Iran. Additionally there was supposedly a heated telephone call made to an undisclosed Iranian official directly by president Obama expressing whatever level outrage he could feign.
In recording these events non-revisionist history books will observe that while Iran acted to promulgate an act of war against the U.S., Team Obama punted, once again.
What these events prove is that Team Obama's flaccid attempts to check Iran's global hegemonistic plans, his attempted rapprochement with the Muslim world and his refusal to take Iran's nuclear threats seriously has yielded nothing but contempt for the American leadership; to the extent where Iran feels it can operate with impunity in the United States.
In that sense Mr. Obama has sent a powerful and provocative message to the Islamist world, that America is so riddled with self-doubt that it has become inured to the most severe of provocations and is incapable of self defense.
As investigative reporter Kenneth Timmerman states in a Daily Caller piece, the attempted hit was the real deal and it had to be approved at the highest levels in the Iranian regime: "Buried on page 18 of the indictment is the following passage: "SHAKURI advised ARBABSIAR that an individual whom ARBABSIAR understood to be the leader of the Qods Force (hereinafter "Iranian Official #3?), was aware of what ARBABSIAR was doing and that he (ARBABSIAR) could meet with Iranian Official #3 in the future." Shakuri is the other defendant in the case, and is currently a fugitive. He served as a courier for Arbabsiar's cousin, and brought $15,000 in cash to Arbabsiar to cover his expenses while they were waiting for the $100,000 wire transfer to be made into the DEA informant's bank account from a non-Iranian bank. This passage clearly suggests that the plot to kill the Saudi ambassador was officially sanctioned by Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the notorious commander of the Quds Force, a man identified by the Guardian newspaper as the true power behind the Islamic Republic regime..."
[source, Kenneth Timmerman, If only they had picked the right Mexican: Why I think the Iran-Saudi terror case is for real, Daily Caller, http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/13/if-only-they-had-picked-the-right-mexican-why-i-think-the-iran-saudi-terror-case-is-for-real/#ixzz1amqZE5xr
"Buried on page 18 of the indictment is the following passage: "SHAKURI advised ARBABSIAR that an individual whom ARBABSIAR understood to be the leader of the Qods Force (hereinafter "Iranian Official #3?), was aware of what ARBABSIAR was doing and that he (ARBABSIAR) could meet with Iranian Official #3 in the future." Shakuri is the other defendant in the case, and is currently a fugitive. He served as a courier for Arbabsiar's cousin, and brought $15,000 in cash to Arbabsiar to cover his expenses while they were waiting for the $100,000 wire transfer to be made into the DEA informant's bank account from a non-Iranian bank.
This passage clearly suggests that the plot to kill the Saudi ambassador was officially sanctioned by Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the notorious commander of the Quds Force, a man identified by the Guardian newspaper as the true power behind the Islamic Republic regime..."
Rather than showing restraint and maturity, Mr. Obama's inaction in this matter will result in widespread devastation should the next attack be successful. Considering how close this plot came to fruition, unless there is a dramatic and immediate paradigm shift in this administration's unbelievably naive and amateurish approach to foreign and national security policy the American people will eventually pay with their lives.[Read More]
Get Off Your Knees, Iran Warns Palestinian Leader
Get Off Your Knees, Iran Warns Palestinian Leader
By REZA KAHLILI
October 13, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Iran is stepping up its condemnation of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas after his recent speech to the United Nations General Assembly seeking statehood for the Palestinian people.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, last week denounced a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, saying Abbas' appeal for statehood is doomed.
The Palestinians should not limit themselves to seeking a country based on the pre-1967 borders because "all land belongs to the Palestinians," Khamenei said in an address to the 5th International Conference in Support of the Palestinian Intifada, being held in Tehran.
"We neither propose dumping the migrant Jews in the sea nor the U.N. arbitration. Rather, our proposal includes a referendum to be participated in by all Palestinians," Iran's semi-official FARS news agency reported Khamenei as saying.
"Today the West is standing on a crossroads, and it should either leave its age-old bullying and recognize the rights of the Palestinians or wait for harder blows in the near future," Khamenei warned.
Iranian leaders have always seen Abbas as an appeaser of the West and a barrier to the Iranian regime's influence in the Palestinian territories. In order to challenge his authority, the Iranian leaders have continuously provided funding and arms to its terrorist proxies in the region such as the Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Brigades, and Hamas.
The Mahramaneh Online Website, which is close to Khamenei, in a recent analysis wrote that "[u]nfortunately what we witnessed in the ... speech ... by Abbas, the so-called representative of the Palestinians, at the United Nations was nothing more than a feeble and dispassionate speech that felt more like begging for affection; one can say that Abbas begged away a part of the Palestinian people's rights, and giving that main part away for acceptance, he pleaded and supplicated at the United Nations."
Mahramaneh Online implied that Abbas is a "stupid, inexperienced politician" because he should know that "begging, pleading and supplicating do not help one obtain one's rights. No politician ever gives up something that he has arrived at through force and invasion," referring to Israel's conquest of Palestinian lands.
Mahramaneh Online concluded that no nation will be able to achieve its rights without war.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards' website, Javan Online, added in a recent commentary that it is only through war and destruction of Israel that a free Palestine could be achieved.
"The biggest goal of supporting the Palestinian Intifada is the fall of Israel, and that with the current events in the region (the Arab Spring), Israel is next in the line," Javan Online warned.
Negotiations are not the way forward, Javan Online said.
"History attests to the fact that any discussion between the Palestinians and Israel will either end in indignity or will be diverted onto the path of corruption," Javan Online said. "The downfall of Yasser Arafat, the living director of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, was his acceptance in 1988 of Article 242 of the U.N. Security Council."
Article 242, passed unanimously after 1967's Six-Day War, refers in its preamble to the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East in which every State in the area can live in security." That article has been the basis for all Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
"The only way to liberate Jerusalem," Javan Online said, "is for the resistance of the nation of Palestine and their firm stance, as well as an international united and defiant front which will send shivers through the weak Israeli posture, but given the new regional shifts and the awakening of the Islamic masses, it will quicken the liberation of Palestine and the downfall of Israel."
It is time to realize that in the view of the Islamists ruling Iran, there is no room for Israel in the future of the region and that they are committed to the elimination of Israel even if that means a destructive war, which would destabilize not only the region, but also the world.
"The murderous Zionist regime of Israel ultimately is reaching the final fall and destruction of its own non-existence," Khamenei has warned. Mr. Kahlili is a former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. He now resides in the United States and writes under the pseudonym, Reza Kahlili. For further background regarding Mr. Kahlili see our in-depth interview here Iranian Defector Reza Kahlili - Iran Runs "Large Network" Through U.S. Mosques And Islamic Organizations. He is the author of A Time to Betray, a book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Mr. Kahlili is a former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. He now resides in the United States and writes under the pseudonym, Reza Kahlili. For further background regarding Mr. Kahlili see our in-depth interview here Iranian Defector Reza Kahlili - Iran Runs "Large Network" Through U.S. Mosques And Islamic Organizations. He is the author of A Time to Betray, a book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
State Department Report - No Christian Churches Left In Afghanistan, Conversion Contravenes, "The Tenets of Islam"
State Department Report - No Christian Churches Left In Afghanistan, Conversion Contravenes, "The Tenets of Islam"
October 11, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Despite repeated and furious claims to the contrary those in the Islamist community who are insisting that Western ideals and values are compatible with Islamic law, Shari'a are either fools or liars.
We believe the overwhelming majority of these apologists fall into the latter category.
Case in point - today the U.S. State Dept. released its 2010 Human Rights report [see, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2010_5/168240.htm] which offers the following cautionary language:
"The government's level of respect for religious freedom in law and in practice declined during the reporting period, particularly for Christian groups and individuals...In May 2010 video footage of Christian converts being baptized aired on an Afghan television station and was re-aired every night for a week due to its popularity with the public. The station did a series of follow up segments as well. In response, inflammatory public statements were made against Christian converts by two members of parliament....The lack of government responsiveness and protection for these groups and individuals contributed to the deterioration of religious freedom...The country's population is almost entirely Muslim. Non-Muslim minority groups, particularly Christian, Hindu, and Sikh groups, were targets of discrimination and persecution. Conversion from Islam was understood by Shia and Sunni Islamic clergy, as well as many citizens, to contravene the tenets of Islam..."
This same sad record of religious repression has played out in every Muslim majority country. The reason should be obvious, especially now that the Dept. of State has as much as admitted it - when Islam becomes the dominant religious ethic in a society it will always be incompatible and at war with the West.[Read More]
Muslim Burning Of Egypt's Christian Churches Continues Unabated And Unpunished - Security Forces Kill Scores Of Copts
Muslim Burning Of Egypt's Christian Churches Continues Unabated And Unpunished - Security Forces Kill Scores Of Copts
October 10, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - If this weekend's bloody repression of a Copt demonstration in Cairo is any measure, it appears that the Islamist campaign of violence and intimidation against the country's Christians has hit full stride, with Egyptian "security" forces attacking the non-violent protesters on Sunday, killing at least 25 and injuring nearly 400. There are numerous confirmed reports that demonstrators were actually driven over by military vehicles.
The Muslim Brotherhood, in typical form, underplayed the mayhem, calling it a "small incident." [see http://www.ikhwanweb.com/iweb/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=32514:an-appeal-by-the-muslim-brotherhood-to-all-egyptians&catid=10396:mb-statements&Itemid=583] One American newspaper [the LA Times] actually had the temerity to suggest in a headline that the Copts were "lashing out" at the military. [see, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2011/10/egypt-coptic-church-clashes.html]
Sunday's incident had its roots in an October 1 burning of the hundred year old St. George Coptic Christian church in Aswan province by "several thousand Muslims...[who]...demolished the dome, walls and columns, then went to the church depot where the lumber to be used for construction was stored and torched it." [source, http://www.aina.org/news/20110930204413.htm] After the church burning, various Coptic business and homes were burned to the ground by the same crowd chanting "Allahu Akhbar."
As we have chronicled for years, [see, Egyptian Copts - "With Our Soul And Our Blood We Redeem The Cross" and Christians Under Genocidal Attack Throughout The Muslim World] the worldwide campaign of Muslim on Christian violence is getting worse rather than better, especially now in the Arab Middle East with the turmoil caused by Team Obama's response to the overthrow of the Mubarak government and its enthusiastic endorsement of the so-called Arab Spring.with the situation in Egypt only providing bloody punctuation to the ongoing Muslim jihad against "people of the Book."
The State Department's press release was more of the same Pabulum we have come to expect from this Islamist friendly administration, failing to clearly place the blame upon the jihadist spirit which the Tahrir Putsch enabled, "The President is deeply concerned about the violence in Egypt that has led to a tragic loss of life among demonstrators and security forces..." [source, http://egypt.usembassy.gov/pr101011.html][Read More]
Islamic (Sharia) Law in Germany, Holland and Britain
Islamic (Sharia) Law in Germany, Holland and Britain
By EMERSON VERMAAT
October 3, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - "Their courtrooms are mosques, their law is the Sharia: Islamic peace judges undermine the rule of law," the influential German weekly Der Spiegel reported last August. "The legal authorities do not know how to defend themselves against it." European crime statistics show a proportionally higher crime rate amongst populations of non-Western origin. (Drug smuggling, migrant trafficking, document forgery, violent robberies, rape, prostitution, honor crimes, etc.)
So-called Islamic "peace judges" or arbiters are settling criminal cases, not just in Germany but in other European countries as well. Muslim immigrants prefer their own judges and do not trust secular Western legal systems. Thus, Islamic shadow justice systems are making inroads into Western societies. "Under Sharia law to settle disputes can be innocent, but it can also undermine Western ideas of fairness," Der Spiegel reports. Journalist Joachim Wagner, author of a new German study on parallel justice, says that the world of the Islamic shadow justice system is "very foreign, and for a German lawyer completely incomprehensible. It follows its own rules. The Islamic arbitrators aren't interested in evidence when they deliver a judgment, and unlike in German criminal law, the question of who is at fault doesn't play much of a role." The arbitrators "talk with the perpetrator's family who are generally the ones who have called the arbitrator, and with the victim's family," Wagner says. "They ask: Why did this happen? How bad is the damage? How serious is the injury? But for them, a solution of the conflict, a compromise, is the most important thing."
"The problem starts when the arbitrators force the justice system out of the picture, especially in the case of criminal offenses," Wagner says. "At that point they undermine the state monopoly on violence. Islamic conflict resolution in particular, as I've experienced it, is often achieved through violence and threats. It's often a dictate of power on the part of the stronger family." "These arbitrators try to resolve conflicts according to Islamic law and to sideline German criminal law. We see witness testimony withdrawn (from German courts) and accusations trivialized to the point where an entire case runs aground. The justice system is 'powerless,' partly because it hasn't tackled the problem vigorously enough." Judges and prosecutors "are overwhelmed, because they don't know how to react," Wagner claims "They are in the middle of a legal case, and suddenly there's no evidence. Eighty-seven percent of the cases I researched either were dismissed or ended with an acquittal when Islamic arbitrators are involved." "Decisions by Islamic arbitrators, so I noticed, are often implemented by force and making threats."
"Certain defense lawyers," Wagner says, "need to stop behaving as if they were mere servants to a parallel justice system. They allow themselves to be directed by their clients' desires, regardless of truth and justice."
Der Spiegel discusses the case of Fuat S. who was beaten up so badly by a Palestinian named Mustafa O. and his three brothers, that he ended up in a Berlin hospital. S., a notorious gambler who is on welfare, owed Mustafa O. 150,000 euros. They threatened to kill him if he failed to pay Mustafa. Mustafa O. was a frequent violent offender and Berlin prosecutors now hoped they could finally bring him to justice. However, during the trial key witness Fuat S. unexpectely withdrew his previous statement, claiming it was not Mustafa O. who tortured him but a Albanian man he didn't know. An obvious lie, but the court had to acquit the suspect.What had happened? The families of both the victim and the perpetrators had agreed to follow the decision of an Islamic peace judge or arbitrator. Fuat would not blame Mustafa in court, and for his part, Mustafa would let off part of Fuat's debt.
Judges and prosecutors complain that witnesses are subjected to systematic intimidation, and that even they, too, are intimated. Serious crimes committed by an increasing number of Muslim immigrants are no longer cleared up. A Munich Imam named Sheikh Abu Adam, dresssed as a fundamentalist Muslim, told Der Spiegel: "My ruling is more just than the one proclaimed by the state." "I tell my people, don't go to the police. We solve these conflicts among ourselves."
Islamic mediators also play an important role in "solving" cases of honor crimes and forced marriages. Der Spiegel reported last year that German courts apply Sharia law, especially concerning cases of family law and the law of inheritance. (Under Sharia law female heirs inherit half of what male heirs in a similar position would inherit.) Jordanian immigrants in Germany are married and divorced in accordance with Jordanian law. Even polygamous marriages are recognized. A Jordanian woman who enters into a polygamous marriage in her home country with a Jordanian immigrant in Germany is entitled to welfare in Germany.
A Moroccan man living in Germany was married to two Moroccan women. One of the women refused to share her husband's pension with his second wife. However, a German court applied Morrocan Sharia law and ruled that both wives were entitled to receive the same amount of money.
It was during a visit to Germany in February 2008 that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan called on the Turkish immigrant community not a assimilate into German society. Peter Struck, a prominent social democratic politician, then critized Erdogan saying he gave the impression that he endorsed the creation of "parallel societies."
The Netherlands and Britain
The liberal Dutch newspaper NRC Next recently reported that Dutch courts sometimes apply Sharia law, too, provided, so the paper finds, it does not conflict with legal, social and moral principles deemed essential by these courts. A Dutch woman went to Iran and married an Iranian man. In doing so she automatically acquired Iranian nationality. When she applied for a divorce in Holland, Dutch judges decided not to apply Dutch but Iranian law, as both spouses were Iranians. Iran does not recognize community of property in marriages, so this woman did not receive anything from her former husband. This, in my view, was not a very wise decision by the Dutch court, even though this Iranian marriage was concluded before the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979. The woman in question was Dutch originally.
In 676 cases, Dutch courts even applied primitive Somali law. Such are the blessings of "multiculturalism." A court in the Dutch city of The Hague ruled on June 29, 2009 that Somali law was applicable in the case of a Somali man who denied that he was the father of a child of his former wife. The court further ruled that "under Somali law" the man in question is not the legal father of the child. (Some Somali asylum seekers have more than ten children.)
Polygamous marriages are recognized under Sharia law and it is even possible to recognize ("register") such marriages under Dutch law.Back in May 2008, Dutch Labor Party politician Jeroen Dijsselbloem sounded the alarm about polygamous marriages. "More and more young Muslims opt for Islamic marriages," he said. "They don't marry at city halls, so from a legal point of view such marriages are illegitimate. In doing so Muslims indicate that that to them Islamic marriage laws are more important than Dutch law."
In 2008, a Dutch-Turkish woman was raped by her nephew. But the Dutch-Turkish Imam Bahauddin (Bahaeddin) Budak advised her not to inform her relatives about it. If she would go pulic about the crime and sue her nephew in court, her life might be in danger. He also advised her to forgive the perpetrator. Such crimes are very common among Turkish, Moroccan, Pakistani, Iraqi and Iranian immigrants in Europe many of whom still regard women as sex objects. There is also a strong tendency to cover up crimes such as rape. Women who dare to talk about it in public, or who report such crimes to the police, very often face serious repercussions, since the so-called "honor of the family" is at stake. In too many cases, these defenseless victims are subsequently even killed by family members.Budak was also a Muslim religious teacher at the "Inholland university of applied sciences" in Amsterdam. Inholland's director Cor de Raadt had Budak temporarily suspended, but a lot of Dutch Muslims complained about De Raadt's decision and showed solidarity with Imam Budak.
Islamic courts and fundamentalist Muslim clerics who introduce Sharia law to the Muslim community in Britain are having a greater impact on Britain's 1.6 million strong Muslim community than is often assumed. While the traditional churches are on the decline and are loosing members every day, the Muslim community is thriving, and many young Brits are converting to Islam. Christian symbols are outlawed, and the British Mail on Sunday reported recently that the BBC "has stopped using the terms BC and AD, in case they offend non-Christians." "The BBC has replaced 'Anno Domini' and 'Before Christ' with 'Common Era' and 'Before Common Era.'" In February 2008, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, an outspoken leftist, gave a lecture "that sparked controversy for advocating the adoption of parts of Sharia, or Islamic law, in Britain." Quoting Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer Tariq Ramadan, Williams wanted to "dispell myths about Sharia." He argued, the London Times reported, "for a 'plural jurisdiction' that would allow Muslims to choose whether some legal disputes were resolved in secular or Sharia courts. He called for 'constructive accomodation' over such issues as resolving marriage disputes." "I seems unavoidable and, as a matter of fact, certain conditions of Sharia are already recognized in our society." He also said that there was no place for "extreme punishments" and discrimination against women. Obviously, the most senior British cleric does not want Britain to return to the harsh human rights record of the Middle Ages (killing "heretics" and the burning of so-called "witches", etc.)
Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali, the Anglican Bishop of Rochester and a Pakistani by birth, strongly disagrees with the Archbishop of Canterbury. He claimed recently that parts of Britain were no-go areas for non-Muslims. He also said: "English law is rooted in the Judaeo-Christian tradition and our notions of human freedoms derive from that tradition. It would be impossible to introduce a tradition like Sharia into this corpus without fundamentally affecting its integrity."
Sharia law allows a Muslim man "to conclude multiple marriages with up to four wives, without the need for permission of the first wife." Thus, polygamy is justified and "a growing number young British Muslims are taking second or third wives in an unexpected revival," The Australian recently reported. "The new wave of polygamy is revealed in a special report by the BBC Asian Network using findings from the Islamic Sharia Council." "These wives are not recognized by British law, but are considered legitimate within many Muslim communities." Khola Hasan, lecturer and advisor to the Islamic Sharia Council said: "Young men who have come under a more radical understanding of faith know it is illegal to marry more than once (under British law), but do it to spite the system."
"Our law maintains the best virtues of our society," writes Minette Marrin, an excellent British columnist, in The Sunday Times of Febuari 2, 2008. "Anybody who does not accept it does not belong here." She is right. If Muslims want to force medieval Sharia law practices on our secular societies, which they hate so much, why don't they go back to Pakistan or the Middle East? Why don't all those women wearing Burqas or Niqabs just emigrate to Saudi Arabia, Iran or Afghanistan?
"There is a lot to be said against Sharia and the desire of 40% of British Muslims to live under it," writes Minette Marrin. "Sharia is rightly feared here: it is disputed, sometimes primitive, grievously in need of reform and wholly unacceptable in Britain." She accuses the Archbishop of Canterbury of seeking "to undermine our legal system and the values on which it rests." That is an "unnecessary appeasement to an alien set of values." "It is a betrayal of all those who struggled and died here, over the centuries, for freedom and equality under the rule of law and of their courage in the face of injustice and unreason."
Emerson Vermaat is an investigative reporter in the Netherlands. Website: emersonvermaat.com
Der Spiegel (Germany), August 29, 2001, p. 57-59 ("Allahs Richter"); Spiegelonline, September 1, 2011 ("Islamic Justice in Europe: 'It's Often a Dictate of Power'"). Quotes from Joachim Wagner and Abu Adam.
Jocham Wagner, Richter ohne Gesetz. Islamischen Paralleljustiz gefährdet unseren Rechtsstaat (Berlin: Econ Verlag, 2011). "Friedensrichter klinkt nach einen ehrbaren Beruf. Doch unbemerkt von der öffentlichkeit und sogar der Justiz hat sich in muslimisch geprägten Einwanderervierteln eine islamische Paralleljustiz etabliert."
Spiegelonline, October 9, 2010 ("Deutsche Gerichte wenden Scharia an").
For more examples of German courts applying Sharia law, see, inter alia, "Ehrenmord," http//de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehrenmord.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt, Germany), February 13, 2008, p. 1 ("Struck: Erdogan fördert Entwicklung von Parallelgesellschaften").
Der Spiegel, November 15, 2004, p. 60-88 ("Für uns gelten keine Gesetze"). A lengthy and well documented article on the Turkish immigrant community, the practice of forced marriages, wifebeating and the existence of parallel societies in Germany.
NRC Next September 29, 2011, p. 3 ("Sharia in Nederland: onzin of realiteit").
Imam Bahaeddin Budak en verkrachting, Leugens.nl, May 30, 2008; Trouw (Amsterdam), June 11, 2008, p. 7 ("Protest moslims tegen ontslag imam InHolland").
Rechtspraak.nl, Zoek (Search): "Somalisch recht" (Somali law), 676 uitspraken (676 Dutch court decisions). "Rechtspraak.nl" is the official website of the Dutch courts.Spits (Netherlands), May 22, 2008, p. 1, 3 ("Rem op islamhuwelijken"). Quote from Jeroen Dijsselbloem; NRC Handelsblad (Amsterdam/Rotterdam), August 9, 2008, p. 3 ("Jaarlijks vele polygame huwelijken"). "Ambtenaren van de burgerlijke stand in met name de grote steden registreren jaarlijks tientallen bigame of polygame huwelijken. Deze huwelijken zijn in Nederland verboden en strafbaar." 'Het valt nu buiten onze statistieken,' zegt Jan Latten van het CBS. 'Zo boeken we ook huwelijken af waarbij veertienjarigen ingeschreven staan.'"
Rechtspraak.nl, LJN BK 1042, Rechtbank 's-Gravenhage, 321366/FARK 08- 7981, June 29, 2009. (Decision by the court of The Hague).
Jan Harris, BBC in AD/BC controversy, Interfaith.org., September 27, 2011.
Timesonline (London), February 8, 2008 ("Archbishop of Canterbury argues for Islamic law in Britain"). Also the quotes from Dr. Michael Nazir Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, as well as the "Full text of Archbishop's Lecture Civil and Religious Law in England: a religious perspective."
Jan Michiel Otto, Sharia Incorporated. A Comparative Overview of the Legal Systems of Twelve Muslim Countries in Past and Present (Leiden, Netherlands: Leiden University Press, 2010), p. 631 (polygamy), p. 632 (inheritance).
The Australian, September 27, 2011 ("British Muslims reviving polygamy").
Minette Marrin, Archbishop, you've committed treason, The Sunday Times, February 10, 2008, p. 16.[Read More]
Occupy Wall Street Movement Driven By Neo-Marxist Rage
Occupy Wall Street Movement Driven By Neo-Marxist Rage
October 7, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Despite the best efforts of the MSM - and disappointingly many "conservative" pundits - to portray the "Occupy Wall Street" movement as a grassroots, populist response to supposed excesses by the securities and financial services industry, this backwater of human debris is in fact driven by a neo-Marxist rage that should be impossible to ignore - yet that is exactly what is happening.
One only has to briefly page through their official documents, the so called "Occupied Wall Street Journal" [see, http://www.breakingcopy.com/occupied-wall-street-journal-pdf] and the occupiers non-negotiable "13 demands," [see, http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-for-occupy-wall-st-moveme/] to determine the ideology of its participants.
Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.
Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.
Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.
Demand four: Free college education.
Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.
Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.
Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.
Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.
Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.
Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.
Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.
Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.
Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.
It should be clear to most that the type of platform suggested above is clearly totalitarian in nature and would demand the type of absolute government control that worked out so well for Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union. These spoiled children, raised with no apparent realization regarding the consequences of their political ideologies and educated to hate the system that provides them with enough leisure time to work towards, "bringing it all down, man" have been worked up into believing that mobocracy conflates with representative democracy.
The lack of curiosity by the media to even mention this re-emerging movement's core principles and documents parallels their reticence to tell the truth about the anti-Bush/anti-war demonstrations which figured so prominently during his administration, that the prime mover was International ANSWER, an amalgam of hard left/Marxist-Leninists. Perusal of their screeds and manifestos finds them indistinguishable from the lunatic ravings of people like Bob Avakian, head of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA. They invoke the same threadbare image of the cigar smoking, fat cat businessman with his foot in perpetuity on the neck of the hapless "worker" who is powerless to help himself absent massive governmental meddling in the form of wealth redistribution. In this world the only solution is violent revolution.
In that regard the Occupy Wall Street movement's totalitarian leftist core is identical to that which drove the anti-war demonstrations which started just days after 9/11 - then purportedly against "racism." One would think that such an attack on the fundamental underpinning of Western society would at very least produce some concern among the chattering class - not so, they long ago became a mere appendage of the anti-American hard left, to which their dedication seems endless.
In the current administration things happen for a reason and the emergence of this protest at precisely the time that Team Obama is waging unrelenting class warfare to save his ass in the upcoming election is not coincidental. Those participating in this troubling spectacle are, after all, Obama's Brown Shirts and hence they immediately have become the darlings of the press which absurdly likens these mindless revolutionary thugs to the millions of American moms and dads who have found it necessary to participate in the real deal, the Tea Party movement, which the media correctly views as an existential threat to their existence.
The politics of insurrection seems to be a comfortable habitat for this administration to inhabit and stoke and it's no wonder, these anti-capitalist sociopaths are cut from not only the same cloth but the same bolt of material as was Obama.
So look to the streets of New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco if you want to grasp the proportions of Obama's American future - you should be chilled by the prospect because this time around the country itself is being targeted, not just ancillary issue such as an unpopular foreign conflict. As a result this movement is not going away by itself, it will need to be forcefully dismantled.[Read More]
Department Of Education Carrying On Team Obama's Witch Hunt Via Its Office Of Civil Rights
October 6, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - It appears that under the tutelage of Russlynn Ali, the Asst. Secty. U.S. Dept. of Education Office of Civil Rights [OCR], federal educrats are engaged in a campaign of intimidation designed to implement Team Obama's odd take on what constitutes discrimination on American campuses.
Ali's current tactic is to use a skewed construction of Title 6 of the U.S. Civil Rights Acts of 1964 which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in programs or activities which receive federal financial assistance, as an ideological hammer, allegedly coming to the aid of protected groups [Blacks and Muslims for example] to the detriment of enforcing the law in a color blind manner. In plain English this means, "the Jews can fend for themselves." This aspect of the new enforcement effort is of great concern for Jewish college students who daily have to face an anti-Semitic, hostile environment on campuses such as UC Berkeley and UC Irvine where Islamist groups such as the Muslim Students Association and the Muslim Student Union have been allowed to run wild. [see, Pro Israel Student's Target U.C. Berkeley, Investigative Project on Terrorism, http://www.investigativeproject.org/2656/pro-israel-student-suit-targets-uc-berkeley and, U.C. Irvine "Awards" MSU, Investigative Project on Terrorism, http://www.investigativeproject.org/2939/uc-irvine-awards-msu-legitimacy]
"In addition, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education has refused to afford Jewish students the same protections against harassment and intimidation as it grants to every African-American, Latino, and Arab student. This policy is an above-board feature of Obama administration policy, said Kenneth Marcus, former director of the OCR, who quoted Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali as indicating that the Obama administration would not pursue cases of harassment against Jewish students." [source, Hillel Fendel, Caution: Growing Threat To Jews On California Campuses, Israel National News, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/news.aspx/137239]
In the relatively short time since her appointment and confirmation, Russlynn Ali has presided over an unprecedented expansion of the Dept. of Education's efforts to use civil rights laws as social engineering tools within the educational establishment, trying to enforce policies which will guarantee not equality of opportunity, but a dumbed-down equality of results.
"Last year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan...acknowledged that over the last 10 years, the office had not aggressively pursued Title 6 investigations to improve the quality of education for minority and poor students. The OCR received about 7,000 complaints last year, a record for the department. School districts are being investigated for a range of possible violations, including failure to provide minority students with access to college- and career-track courses, not assigning highly qualified teachers to schools with predominantly minority students and disproportionately placing such students in special education courses and suspending minority students." [source, Nadra Kareem Nittle, U.S. Department of Education investigating record number of civil rights complaints, Florida Courier, http://www.flcourier.com/flnation/6530--us-department-of-education-investigating-record-number-of-civil-rights-complaints]
Ali's CV is what one would expect from a lefty [but not surprisingly, very well paid] activist turned high level Obama bureaucrat.
Previous to her current engagement, Ali was a vice president at the Education Trust Inc., in DC. The Trust's most recent [2010] 990 reveals that its 4 top officers have an average total income [including benefits and pensions] in excess of $230,000 per anum [source, Guidestar resource, pg. 30, http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2010/521/982/2010-521982223-06ce6610-9.pdf]. Ali's financial statement, required for her Dept. of Education position, shows that she made $200,000 from the Education Trust and another $130,000 from a law firm partnership. By and large Education Trust Inc., seems to function less as an educational advocate and more like a funding mechanism for education radicals.
She was named as a fellow at the Aspen Institute's New Schools Venture Fund [see, http://www.newschools.org/files/Fellows2007.pdf] and also founded in 2001 the Education Trust West [ETW], which has recently and furiously advocated against the standards established in the "No Child Left Behind Act," designed to set national guidelines so that educational achievement may be quantified. ETW wants these standards abolished, we must surmise, because they have demonstrated the failure of government schools.
Ali also served as the, "liaison for the president of the Children's Defense Fund" [see, Dept. of Education bio, http://www2.ed.gov/news/staff/bios/ali.html] a notorious ultra leftist pressure group whose real level of concern for children is problematic at best.
Ali's methodology mirrors that of Team Obama's administration; witness Eric Holders' DOJ, which infamously refused to prosecute members of New Black Panther Party who were clearly [filmed evidence] engaged in voter intimidation.
Holder's DOJ has to a certain degree become a cesspool of Black racism, as detailed in new book by former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams, "Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department."
"[J. Christian] Adams stated in an editorial in the Washington Times of July 25, 2010 (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/25/inside-the-black-panther-case-anger-ignorance-and-/): "The New Black Panther case was the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career. Because of the corrupt nature of the dismissal, statements falsely characterizing the case and, most of all, indefensible orders for the career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the dismissal, this month I resigned my position as a DOJ attorney." [source, Interview with J. Christian Adams, Family Security Matters, http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.10507/pub_detail.asp]
Both DOJ's Civil Rights Division and the Dept. of Education Office of Civil Rights are symptomatic of the gestalt permeating this administration, giving lip service to equality, but undermining it at every possible opportunity.
Not missing a beat, CAIR [the discredited Council on American Islamic Relations, named as an unindicted co-conspirator in America's largest Hamas terror funding prosecution, U.S. vs. Holy Land Foundation, a prosecution which resulted in the conviction of all the defendants including the co-founder of the Texas Chapter of CAIR, Ghassan Elashi] has muscled its way into this scrum, using allegations of discrimination against Muslim students to push for investigations by the Dept. of Education's OCR.
"On Wednesday, CAIR Minnesota announced it had asked the U.S. Department of Education to look into allegations that Muslims confront a hostile learning environment at Technical and Apollo high dchools. It also asked for an investigation at Owatonna High School. In a letter to the U.S. Department of Education's office of civil rights, CAIR said there were several incidents at Tech and Apollo that show discrimination against Muslim students." [source, Florida Courier]
CAIR has a long record of making ridiculous charges of widespread American Islamophobia, especially aimed at the organization's critics; this despite FBI hate crime statistics showing exactly the opposite, that crimes against Muslims because of their religion is almost nonexistent.
This same attitude, which has led to the creation of nonexistent bogeymen solely for political effect, drives the Obama administration concept of governance with Russlynn Ali being only the most recent example.[Read More]
"Arab Spring" Part of Iranian Plot to Dominate
"Arab Spring" Part of Iranian Plot to Dominate
By REZA KAHLILI
October 4, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - For the first time, an official entity of Iran's Islamic government has detailed the horrific goal of the regime: destroy America and Israel as part of the Muslim "awakening" sweeping Africa and the Middle East.
That "awakening," which the West has labeled the "Arab Spring," is all part of Iran's messianic complex in which it sees itself as the spearhead of a worldwide revolution in which the Shiite version of Islam will dominate humanity.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards' auxiliary, the feared and infamous Basij militia, issued a statement last week in which it said Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been divinely chosen to impose Islam on all parts of the world. The statement was responding to last Friday's invasion of the Israeli embassy in Cairo, which it called a "nest of spies." The Basij, under the direct supervision of Khamenei, called the embassy invaders "justice-seeking Muslims who have battled Egyptian tyranny."
In its statement, the Basij states that from the regime's very inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has condemned what it calls "the illegitimacy of the Zionist regime," which exists as a result of "the plots hatched by imperialist powers such as Britain and America." The Basij claims those powers are the cause of a "series of events, wars and troubles in the region."
After the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution, "Muslims everywhere have understood full well that American control of Iran was ended and this blaze of awakening has also now been sparked among Muslims (in other countries)," the statement says. "That awakening (in Iran) has succeeded in causing irreparable damages" to the American economy and security and caused problems to the "Great Satan's" political and cultural institutions.
"The shift in the establishments of the region, preferred by America and Israel, and their growing disposition to Islam, has activated the emergence of movements similar to the Islamic Revolution in Iran, which also endangered American and Israeli interests," the statement says. "The United States and its strategic partner, tyrannical Israel, are clearly petrified of a powerful united Islamic bloc -- led by the Islamic Republic of Iran -- which will totally shift the power in this area of the world."
The Basij says that even non-Muslim countries that are also dissatisfied with the state of the world will begin to seek out "another model" other than America's.
America and its allies don't understand the nature of the rebellions in Islamic countries, and because of their "uninformed and unprincipled confrontationism," the allies have "inadvertently placed themselves in the position to have to come face to face with flourishing glorious revolutions that are both holy and rooted within the Islamic masses," the statement says. "This has been a big slap in the face of those revisionists and deviants who will come to know that this uprising is of the Islamic and revolutionary kind." The Basij says that soon with the leadership of Ayatollah Khamenei, who has directly been chosen by the hidden Imam, both America and Israel will be destroyed and Islam's conquest of the world will begin.
Though Iranian commanders and officials have often reflected the same opinion as the Basij statement, no official statement that details their goal of crushing Israel and the United States has been released -- until now. This announcement by the Basij is significant in that it verifies beyond any doubt that the Islamic regime ruling Iran is truly a messianic one bent on the final worldwide conquest of Islam with the "awakening" as just the beginning.
It's time to understand that the jihadists who hijacked Iran now want to take the rest of the world hostage and are working diligently to arm their missiles with nuclear bombs.
It's only a matter of time for the end of world as the Iranian dictators see it. Will we avert that end? Mr. Kahlili is a former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. He now resides in the United States and writes under the pseudonym, Reza Kahlili. For further background regarding Mr. Kahlili see our in-depth interview here Iranian Defector Reza Kahlili - Iran Runs "Large Network" Through U.S. Mosques And Islamic Organizations. He is the author of A Time to Betray, a book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Mr. Kahlili is a former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. He now resides in the United States and writes under the pseudonym, Reza Kahlili. For further background regarding Mr. Kahlili see our in-depth interview here Iranian Defector Reza Kahlili - Iran Runs "Large Network" Through U.S. Mosques And Islamic Organizations. He is the author of A Time to Betray, a book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran's Revolutionary Guards.


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I just finished uploading this House for sale, 4412 ALEXANDRA Street, Vancouver West, British Columbia, 4412 ALEXANDRA Street, Vancouver West, British Columbia, British Columbia
Prestigious Shaughnessy area - Golden opportunity to own this gorgeous park-like corner lot 150x80;. Build your dream home or renovate this charming character home. Main floor has cross hall dining & LR w/conservatory & H/W flooring, spac family rm with F/P, an office & homey kit w/eating area & access to sundeck. 3 bdrms & a den up (currently 4th bdrm). Basement has a suite w/kit & cozy living area. Showing Feb 18 10am-12pm.

subset: commoncrawl


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Officers are investigating a reported burglary at the VFW on the 200 block of South Main Street, according to reports. Several items were reportedly stolen.
A resident on the 1800 block of Terry Street reported a bike stolen from the porch of the home on Sunday, police reported.
A man was voluntarily hospitalized Sunday after police were called to the 700 block of Coffman Street on a report that he was armed and suicidal, according to police. The man had a toy replica gun and was cooperative.


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The Gleneagle Hotel promotion codes to stay at 4 star hotel in Killarney, County Kerry. The Gleneagle Hotel is Ireland's most popular leisure and entertainment accommodation venues, Facilities inlcude a 25 metre swimming pool, kiddies pool, fully equipped gym, squash courts, pitch and putt golf course, all weather tennis courts, choice of bars, restaurants, banquet rooms and gift shop. Hotel rooms are fitted with large beds and TVs along with modern luxury items. Located opposite Killarney's famous National Park and a mile from Killarney Town Centre, it is the ideal location to explore the beautiful landscape and entertainment that Kerry has to offer.
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We spent the 4th of July at the cottage. As usual it was a great time. The weather could have been warmer but we had a great time anyway. Friday we went to garage sales. Sat. were all the festivities with the Boat parade, Poker run, and Fireworks. Then Sunday we tubed and swam. The kids had a blast and Cameron survived. He loves to sleep on the boat and Pat got him a life jacket as you can see.
Sweet 16
6 years ago


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One thing that this week's two-part episode of The Russian Connection has made abundantly clear is that Republicans in Congress have absolutely no interest in providing oversight for the executive branch. After all, convening all those panels and hearing all that testimony sounds like a lot of work. (Except when it's about Benghazi.) House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said the Michael Flynn issue had "taken care of itself," and passed the hot potato to the Intelligence Committee. The chairman there, Mike Nunes, said he wasn't going to investigate either, citing executive privilege—a privilege normally cited by, you know, the executive.
But all of these winter soldiers pale in comparison to their boss, Speaker Paul Ryan, leader of the nation's Principled Conservatives. Having called the president's comments about Judge Curiel during the campaign "textbook racism" and, following the Mobile Locker Room tape, refusing to campaign on his behalf, Ryan has now pronounced himself A-OK with pretty much whatever President Trump decides to do.
That's what got Samantha Bee's attention last night:
Ryan's garbling about not wanting to "pre-judge the circumstances" of Flynn's otstavka this week is really just more of the same. He has continually tried to thread the needle on Trump, never supporting his worst behavior but never condemning it either. You don't need to "pre-judge" anything to know that lying to the vice president about secretly discussing American sanctions against Russia with the Russian ambassador is bad. That the president knew about it last month and took no action—including to inform the vice president he'd been deceived—should be all the "circumstances" you need.
But as Bee pointed out, Ryan—and his caucus—have always had one objective: power. Ryan all but declared party over country in the interview with Chuck Todd that Bee sampled, and so have the Republicans in Congress. It's worth getting a little Cheeto dust on your suit if you can privatize Medicare and enact sweeping tax cuts. Ryan and Co. would probably back the Mad Hatter if they knew he'd sit still long enough to sign an Obamacare repeal.
Clearly, Republicans in Congress are going to ride the Trump Train to a land of milk and honey, where taxes are low and mining companies can freely dump pollutants into the nearest river. The question is, where does this track end?


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Changes are being made to the diversion routes for Linlithgow Marches on Tuesday 19 June and Linlithgow Gala day on Saturday 23 June.
Main Street, Falkirk Road, West Port and High Street will be closed for several parades and drivers will have to use alternative routes. There will be no signed diversion routes and, unlike in previous years, Provost Road will not be open.
The changes follow a review of the traffic management arrangements, with diversion routes now no longer through three under height railway bridges. Over height vehicles will have to use the following route through Bo'ness: A803, B805, A9, Inchyra Road, A905, A904, A993, A904 and A803.
The alternative route for general traffic will be via South Mill Rd, Mains Road, Moray Drive, Braehead Rd, Preston Rd, Union Rd, Royal Terrace, Back Station Rd, Edinburgh Rd (B9080), C6, C16 (Troughstane) and the A803. The bus service 38/38A will also use this route.
Parking restrictions will be in place to help with the free flow of traffic and residents are asked observe these restrictions. Drivers are warned to expect some delays travelling around the town.


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Marti Noxon to Re-Write Disney's Live-Action Tinkerbell Movie; Discusses 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' Problems (Exclusive)
Earlier today Movies.com had the pleasure of speaking with Marti Noxon, a series writer and producer on fantastic shows like Mad Men, Glee, Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ahead of the December 13th DVD and Blu-ray release of her last feature film, Fright Night. We spoke mostly about how she approached updating the beloved '80s vampire film, how the gender politics help pin it to a new generation (yes, there's more going on in Fright Night than you might realize), and how hard the film marketplace makes it on writers trying to play with new ideas.
We'll be sharing the entire interview when Fright Night hits stores in a few weeks, but today we wanted to share the portion dealing with that last topic. Noxon, who also wrote the screen adaptation of I Am Number Four, is no stranger to having to develop scripts within such a market and trend-driven climate, so we wanted to talk to her about what exactly is going on with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (another script she wrote) and why it's seemingly locked in perpetual production turmoil. In the process we also learned that Noxon has been tapped to write Disney's live-action Tinkerbell movie, Tink, and how she plans to make its focus different than most Disney fairytale movies.
Movies.com, the ultimate source for everything movies, is your destination for new movie trailers, reviews, photos, times, tickets + more! Stay in the know with the latest movie news and cast interviews at Movies.com.
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Here's today's latest casting news:
- Djimon Hounsou will join David Yates' Tarzan, starring Alexander Skarsgard, Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson, and Christoph Waltz. The picture is due to open July 1, 2016.
- Daniel Dae Kim is set to star in Robert Schwentke's The Divergent Series: Insurgent (and, yes, this is the new official title), starring Shailene Woodley and Theo James. The sequel will open March 20, 2015.
- Ray Liotta, Justin Bartha, Gina Rodriguez, and Rose Leslie will star in Amanda Harlib's directorial debut, Sticky Notes.
Hit the jump for more on each picture.
First up from Deadline is the news that Hounsou will star as Chief Mbonga in the action-adventure picture Tarzan. Skarsgard plays the title role with Robbie as Jane Porter and Waltz as Captain Rom.
As Variety reports, Kim will play Jack Kang in The Divergent Series: Insurgent. Octavia Spencer, Naomi Watts, Jonny Weston, and Suki Waterhouse recently joined the cast, with Jai Courtney, Miles Teller, and Ansel Elgort set to reprise their roles.
Finally, here's the press release for Sticky Notes:
Los Angeles, CA (June 4, 2014)—Rose Leslie, Justin Bartha and Gina Rodriguez have joined Ray Liotta in the cast of STICKY NOTES, the directorial debut of screenwriter Amanda Harlib. The film, which is currently lensing in New Orleans, Louisiana is produced by Katie Mustard (SHELTER, WE'LL NEVER HAVE PARIS) and Joe Jenckes (MARGIN CALL, KILL YOUR DARLINGS) under the Mustard & Co. production banner.
STICKY NOTES is the story of an emotionally detached back-up dancer named Athena (Leslie), who must return home to Florida to help care for her estranged father, Jack (Liotta), after he gets diagnosed with cancer. There she must contend with Jack's irresponsible lifestyle while looking after six year old Honey Bunny who is only beginning to grasp the err in Jack's ways.
Harlib most recently adapted the novel SORTA LIKE A ROCKSTAR by Matthew Quick (author of Silver Linings Playbook) for Gotham Group, which is set up with Temple Hill at Fox Searchlight. She has also worked as a writer on the in-development CLUELESS 2 for Paramount. Additionally, she is the creator of the web series HAUTE & BOTHERED, which ran on Teen.com for 2 years and was sponsored by LG.
Leslie can currently be seen on the hit HBO series GAME OF THRONES and was a regular on DOWNTON ABBEY. She stars in the current indie festival hit HONEYMOON which premiered at SXSW and played at the Tribeca Film Festival this year. Magnolia Pictures has worldwide rights to the film. Gina Rodriguez was named in The Hollywood Reporter's "Top 35 Latinos under 35" list and was also was a breakout star at Sundance 2012 for FILLY BROWN. She currently is starring in the upcoming TV series JANE THE VIRGIN. Justin Bartha is best known for his roles in THE HANGOVER trilogy and the NATIONAL TREASURE series and was most recently a series regular on FOX's THE NEW NORMAL.


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How Veet Gave Chinese Women A Problem They Never Had
This story is inspired by a feature from Bloomberg Business Week. Obviously, it's as it sounds – a publication that deals with all things business – for those not familiar with it (can't say it's in my top reads to be honest).
Anyhoo.. there's a feature on Veet owned by Reckitt Benckiser entitled "Convincing Women In China They are Too Hairy," that pretty much outlines how the business model, in order to sell more hair removal product, was to sow the seeds of doubt in Chinese womens' minds that *any* body hair was too much. Chinese women aren't naturally very hairy, and in the past body hair has been a non-issue. Them not minding about a tiny bit of fine body hair meant that hair removal creams didn't have a very big market.
So along comes Veet deciding, here's an issue that nobody minds about. Let's really make them feel bad about a bit of natural body hair – so bad in fact that the brand is now the fastest growing personal care brand in China. Well done, Veet.
Veet's crafty way of convincing Chinese women that body hair is a blot on their body landscapes that must be eradicated is to convince them through advertising and marketing that skin that is hair free has a health aspect, boosts confidence and makes their skin their 'shining glory'. As if that's not enough, a new packaging push positions Veet as a product for women 'for whom grooming is part of how she gets a promotion, a good husband and a raise'. I'm not even joking here.
Take The HAUTO Self Skin Test
Skin is endlessly fascinating stuff – the largest living organ of our body and always in a state of flux…
In the matter of making Chinese women self-conscious and ashamed of body hair Veet takes top marks. The company's China chief even says, "If your concern level is high enough, even one hair is too much," and something along the line of it not being how much hair you have, but how much you think you have. The remit of the campaign is obviously to raise those concern levels as high as they possibly can to sell as much product as they possibly can.
As a business model, it's exceptional. As an irresponsible, unpleasant and utterly confidence draining campaign, it's also exceptional. I haven't come across anything like this since Dove convinced women of the world they had ugly armpits that needed a special deodorant to make them more beautiful. Because Bloomberg is a business publication, it's all told in congratulatory terms.. yep, congratulations Veet for giving millions of women a problem they never knew they had. Congratulations Veet for adding to the daily chore of finding one more thing for women to beat themselves up about. Congratulations Veet for making women feel self conscious about a very scant amount of body hair that most western women would get down on their knees and pray for – and extra congratulations for making them feel that little amount is far too much and ugly to boot. Congratulations Veet on insinuating that with less body hair Chinese women will miraculously get their man, get more money and be more employable.
I'm so ashamed on Veet's behalf.
If you'd like to read the full article, it's HERE.
Transparency Disclosure
All products are sent to me as samples from brands and agencies unless otherwise stated. Affiliate links may be used. Posts are not affiliate driven.
19 comments
This is not shocking when you think about it really, but also very shocking. i know that doesn't make sense but gosh. What can you say? I think it's more despicable than the Dove thing. Way more. It touches a nerve with me and I did a big blog post about body hair because its a subject that annoys the absolute crap out of me.
This article was so interesting to read. I'm in shock about how they can get away with making women have such low self – esteem, truely disheartening!
Awful and disgusting! Also makes me think the women of the 70's were onto something with the low-maintenance, no-fuss, natural beauty. If one were to follow every "rule" that modern society warrants, we'd all be housebound and forever slaves to the mirror; performing various exercise/makeup/grooming/obsessive tasks to become the person someone else thinks we should be. at least on the outside. and think how eternally miserable one would be on the inside…better not let pharmaceutical companies in on this or we'd also be buying bulkloads of new pills to lower our ever-growing beauty pressure levels.
I could not have put it better! I totally agree! I was sure that they belong to P&G or to L'Oreal, as their ads leave a lot to be desired, however, it's a British-Dutch company! Shame on you Reckitt Benckiser!
That's sickening!
This is actually disgusting. Sure, they want to keep their shareholders happy by constantly making larger and larger profits. Making people self conscious and sad in the process is sickening. I think there is a lot to be said of treating others how you yourself would want to be treated and I don't think this just applies to the individual. Well done Veet, you just lost yourself a customer.
I don't understand why people are getting so emotional about it- brands need to create new markets, they don't have an ethical responsibility.
This has been going on for years in the western world, why are people so shocked that it's happening over there? We're so immune to it now that we don't even realise that it's happening to us EVERY DAY. If you wear makeup and use beauty products then you can't really complain because it's exactly the same thing!
Al obviously there is a much wider issue here, but it's a blog not an essay, and in fact, some people won't ever have thought of quite how things are sold to us or why we buy. I thought it was a particular example of just how. from a business perspective, brands create issues where they never existed. I think we can complain.. why not? There's no reason why people shouldn't feel that such aggressive marketing is not okay. At the consumer end, we're never really exposed to strategy, and that's why the post is here… so we can maybe think a bit more about it.
Very informative. Makes me think all ads are made just to sell the product and not to solve our existing concerns. Thanks for sharing! xx
This is exactly how cosmetic companies work and it as well to be aware of it. On the specifics of hair removal products, it is not at all a good idea to be aggressive in hair removal. For a start, you make your follicles more likely to become inflamed. Also the fine vellus hair that you can only see if you six inches away is a part of your skin's protection. If you really have to use hair removal products, use them as sparingly as possible
Well yes, you can argue that every beauty product is to solve a problem we never thought we had. But it's good for us to pause for a minute and recognise this. We might then think, hmmm, maybe I *don't* need that bikini wax/highlighting cream/pore minimiser step added to my beauty routine. In the western world we are so used to all this, we rarely consider that it's all marketing at the end of the day
Very informative. When I lived in China, most girls I knew did not shave their body hair at all. I saw a lot of hairy armpits in the summer. It is pretty amazing if Veet was able to convince women who were not convinced after seeing western movies and tv shows.
I think a lot of brands are desperate to try and get into the Chinese market. It's so large and with that, no doubt brings questionable campaigns. I don't agree with what Veet are doing, but I wonder how far we've experienced the same thing and just not noticed it?
Indeed. So true.
The Chinese have their own particular culture that revolves around 'shame' and keeping your face, whereas we have a culture that revolves around image, sex and perfect looks.
I also want to add and stress that the Chinese are not stupid and we should not pity them more than we should pity ourselves. Women all over the world need to learn to start thinking for themselves and not for what companies/ men/ peers want them to think.
Or are we in the Western world doing so much better with our huge plastic and cosmetic surgery industry? Fake boobs, fake lips, fake cheeks, botox etc. It's disgusting the extent to which most of us (myself included) are brainwashed already.
I'm really sorry if you felt that it was implied that Chinese women are stupid.. it's certainly not what was intended at all. It was more that this was an outstanding example of just how triumphant a brand can feel for creating an issue where there was none.. it just so happened to be in China this time.. although I do mention Dove and the beautiful armpits.. we all fell for that one! x
Wholeheartedly agree with you Jane. Great post.
I find myself fuming after reading this. Men do not get head-fucked like this to sell a product, (unless we're talking about anything penis related, of course!) It's just more patriarchal bullshit designed to keep women submissive and in a state of misery about their bodies. It makes me want to weep.
I wish I could say I was surprised. This is so terribly disappointing.


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Sunday – March 23, 2014 – Read the Word on Worship
Judges 18 "The Danites Promiseland Part 2" from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.
Word On Worship – Sunday – March 23, 2014 Download / Print
Judges 18:30-31 "The sons of Dan set up for themselves the graven image; and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land. So they set up for themselves Micah's graven image which he had made, all the time that the house of God was at Shiloh." The subject matter of the Book of Judges can be very difficult for our generation to study. Many want a technical commentary to simply explain the tradition and history of this book in hopes of finding the background of ancient Israel. They avoid wrestling with the text, having chosen to be distracted with the possibility of a textual problems or reading into the Hebrew idioms so they do not have to hear the clear teaching of the text. The question we need to ask ourselves is why are we so afraid of the Book of Judges?
Since I have found so few Christian teachers who have willingly attempted this task, forgive me if I step on a few toes. The general theme of this book is God's dealing with false religion. On one hand, we can intellectually agree that God would be upset with false religion and with so many warnings in the preceding books of the Pentateuch and Joshua; we jump on the band wagon and condemn Israel for surely they should have known how stupid false worship is and where it leads.
Do not pat yourself on the back and think how wise you are to see the failure of the Israelites. We are afraid of the Book of Judges because we do not want to see the stupidity of our own false religion. We may not make molten idols but how different are we than Micah, who thought he had the favor of Yahweh because he had an actual Levite as his priest? We have our own forms of such "magic." For example, by thinking a child is a member of the kingdom because they were baptized as an infant or because they went forward while they were at youth camp. The person who assumes they have entered the kingdom of God because they completed a task is engaging in a false religion and that is just stupid. It does not differ from Micah's religion in principle or form, only in the details. So our folly remains invisible to us.
We have traded idol worship for subjectivism, but it is still a false religion. The people of Dan made their own convenience store of worship where they could remain in control and worship how and when they chose. They were convinced God was not picky when it came to glory, honor and praise. Modern day Danites tell us worship is an individual affair, and like our toothbrush, a very personal thing. When they come to worship it is not Yahweh, the all powerful saving God they praise. Instead, they want a blob of molten silver that they can squeeze and shape the way they want God to be. And that is self-serving idolatry, unworthy to be called worship.


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A hugely exciting gallery of new images taken from 'The Time of the Doctor' has been put up on the Doctor Who website, and as with any set of images shorn of any context to help tell the story, they're a little confusing at first glance.
So, here's a quick look at them all, and an attempt to work out what is going on (without giving away what is actually going on, because of spoilers).
We begin with the Doctor waving a Dalek eyestalk in the air, and with all that smoke in the background, the curiously festive sparkles—like a collapsing coil of fairy-lights—and that cloak, he looks oddly like he is swinging an incense burner.
Clearly there's been some sort of a row, and the Dalek, who won't have remembered that the Doctor always wins, has come off worst. And it's part of an ongoing thing about the Doctor waving bits of old foes around, if the poster for "The Time of the Doctor" is anything to go by.
This won't be the only appearance of the Daleks, of course. Here they are looking oddly festive, roasting chestbulbs in front of an open fire:
Meanwhile, what in the universe is THIS?
Any chance of a close-up? Because it looks for all the world like a wooden Cyberma…oh.
I know, right? And this lot look as startled as we are. That one in the front is like, "Malcolm, is that you?"
Is it something to do with the Wooden Queen and King from "The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe"? And exactly who has been converted into whom?
And then there's the appearance of Orla Brady as the forbidding Tasha Lem, an old acquaintance of the Doctor's
And she's come mob-handed. Recognise the insignia on these soldier/priest's uniforms from "A Good Man Goes To War"?
So in summary, the answer to the question "what can we learn from the new pictures from 'The Time of the Doctor'?" is: not much, but my GOLLY it's going to be fun finding out more.
For bigger versions of these pictures, visit the Doctor Who website.
Oh and if you'd like to read an in-depth interview with Matt Smith about his last day as the Doctor, head on over to Radio Times.
See more:
WATCH: Paul McGann's Backstage Interview At 'The Night of the Doctor'
'Doctor Who' – Five Regenerations That Never Happened
Five British Sweet Things The Twelfth Doctor Could Carry In His Pocket
'Doctor Who': The 13 Best Callbacks and References in 'The Day of the Doctor'