Immigration By Numbers In The USA !

MFS - The Other News

                         Afternoon Posting.

• HT:JIDaily.Israel vs. the International Criminal Court.For more than six decades, Israel has been subjected to violence, warfare, and a relentless campaign of terror attacks deliberately targeting civilians. Today, these attacks are spearheaded by states, including Iran and Syria, and terror organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizballah, Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the PFLP, and even al-Qaeda.But that is not all. This "hard-power" war is bolstered by a corresponding "soft-power" war aimed at delegitimizing and demonizing the Jewish state. The latter campaign is led by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) utilizing the rhetoric of international law and human rights. Their efforts are funded by the European Union, European governments, George Soros, the Ford Foundation, and others.Read the full story here.

• Two Afghan converts to Christianity risk the death penalty.Two Afghans accused of converting to Christianity could face the death penalty, a prosecuting lawyer said on Sunday. Musa Sayed, 45, and Ahmad Shah, 50, are being detained in the Afghan capital awaiting trial, the prosecutor in charge of western Kabul, Din Mohammad Quraishi, said. “They are accused of conversion to another religion, which is considered a crime under Islamic law. If proved, they face the death penalty or life imprisonment,” Quraishi said. Sayed, a Red Cross (ICRC) employee, has already confessed. There is also "proof" against Shah, Quraishi explained.Sayed and Shah were arrested in late May and early June, days after local television broadcast footage of men reciting Christian prayers in Farsi and being baptised, apparently in a house in Kabul. The TV station also showed some people engaged in proselytising, which is banned in the Muslim country.The government launched its own investigation into the matter and suspended two aid groups, Norwegian Church Aid (a Protestant organisation) and Church World Service of the US (which includes Protestants, Orthodox and Anglicans), after the TV station reported two of their members were proselytising.The Afghan constitution, adopted after the fall of the Islamic Taliban in late 2001, forbids conversion to another religion from Islam and in theory can sentence those found guilty to death. However, no one has been executed in recent years for converting.Hmmm...Sometimes i wonder what in heaven's name are coalition troops doing in this god forsaken land Read the full story here.

• HT:Iwilloptout.TSA Harassment In Phoenix: Breast Milk Video.It’s not really a pat-down story, but as presented this story makes the case for inconsistent implementation of TSA policy and suggests passive-aggressive wielding of power.On 1 February 2010, Stacey Armato missed her commuter flight (Phoenix to LAX) because of how she was treated by TSA agents. At the time, her son was seven months old; she was traveling with breast milk. The week before, she had filed a complaint because, she says, the Phoenix TSA agents did not know that breast milk could be exempt from x-ray scanning.From the TSA website:Mothers flying with, and now without, their child will be permitted to bring breast milk in quantities greater than three ounces as long as it is declared for inspection at the security checkpoint.Breast milk is in the same category as liquid medications.And about the special exemption?We normally X-ray medication and related supplies. However, as a customer service, you may ask that Security Officers visually inspect your medication and associated supplies.Now read and see how the person in question was treated by the TSA here.More here.

• Official: Student has hostages in Wis. high school.An armed student burst into a high school classroom and took hostages in eastern Wisconsin on Monday, an emergency management official said.A Marinette High School administrator called authorities shortly after 3 p.m. to say a student had taken over a classroom, according to county emergency management director Eric Burmeister. He was not sure how many people were in the classroom and no injuries had been reported Monday evening.Read the full story here.More here.

• Updated.Florida School Bans Christmas Colors.A school in Florida has not only banned Christmas — but everything associated with the Christian holiday.Teachers at Heathrow Elementary School have been ordered to banish images of Santa Claus from classrooms — along with traditional Christmas colors like red and green.“You can’t use red and green,” one outraged parent told WESH. “It’s ridiculous.”The parent, who serves as a volunteer room mother, said she was recently given a list of guidelines that listed the holiday restrictions.She said the basic theme of the letter was, “We don’t want to offend anyone who doesn’t believe in Santa Claus or the Christian beliefs.”The Seminole County School Board has a policy that demands employees must be neutral on religious issues. Schools are not allowed to observe or promote holidays as religious events.Charter of the Human rights.

           Article 18."Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion;this 
           right  includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or          
          in  community with others and  in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief 
          in  teaching, practice, worship and observance. Read the full story here.

• Grand Mufti condemns extremism and violence in sermon, experts discuss it.The Hajj sermon delivered by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, at the Nmira Mosque in Makkah has raised interest levels among specialists because of its harsh condemnation of terrorism. Excerpts from the sermon, which condemns terrorism and urges moderation, were reprinted in hundreds of newspapers in the Arab and Islamic worlds. Some clips with English subtitles have appeared on the internet, posted on YouTube. Speaking about Islam, he said that it is a religious of forgiveness and moderation. Violence is against Islamic ethics. The ultimate purpose of Islam is to spread peace and security. As he described what he meant by intellectual security, the mufti called on Muslim communities to guard against deviancy, especially extremism and fanaticism. He warned that recent advancements in media and technology have led to the spread of dangerous ideologies and cyber terrorism. He called on Muslim teachers, imams, scholars, think tanks and professors to spread the true message of Islam and fight the spread of extremism.At the same time, experts believe that his sermon likely reflects a tendency towards moderation inspired by the Saudi ruling family, which is increasingly concerned about extremism and terrorist violence.Hmmmmm.......Vox populi, vox Dei? Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Terrorist Behind Baghdad Church Attack Arrested.The Iraqi ministry of interior has announced the arrest of 12 terrorists who were responsible for a series of spectacular terrorist attacks, including the Baghdad church attack late last month as well attacks on the central bank and the Al-Arabiya TV offices.The cell is headed by someone by the name of Hadhifa al-Battawi, who has the title of "the Wali of Baghdad" and is the successor of Munif al-Rawi, who is in custody.The authorities have seized five "factories" for making car bombs and explosive belts, and more than six tons of explosives and a number of tubes with poison material.Source.

• WikiLeaks dispatch: Iran's Khamenei has terminal cancer.Supreme Leader is terminally ill and could die in a few months, claims Iranian source in leaked U.S. diplomatic cable.U.S. diplomatic cables released by online whistle-blower WikiLeaks include remarks from an Iran source in 2009 saying Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has terminal cancer, French daily Le Monde reported. The source, a non-Iranian businessman based in Central Asia and travelling often to Tehran, "has learned from one of his contacts that (former president Ali Akbar) Rafsanjani told him Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has terminal stage leukaemia and could die in a few months", according to an August 2009 cable.Read the full story here.

• Obama Proposes Freeze on Federal-Worker Pay .President Barack Obama on Monday proposed a two-year salary freeze for all federal civilian employees, ahead of negotiations with Congress on deficit-cutting that are likely to dominate Washington next year.The freeze, which would require congressional approval, would affect about two million workers and cover calendar years 2011 and 2012.Though in effect for two years, the proposed freeze would save $28 billion over five years and more than $60 billion over 10 years as the government pockets savings from a lower wage base for its civilian work force, said Jeffrey Zients, deputy White House budget director for management.Workers were due to have a 1.4% pay raise in 2011. Federal wages generally rise each year in step with inflation, though Congress often makes adjustments.He called the announcement "the first of many difficult steps ahead" as Washington tries to curb a $1.4 trillion deficit, steps that he said "will ask all of us to make sacrifices."The White House had to make the announcement ahead of Tuesday's statutory deadline for White House notification to Congress of different pay rates for different localities where federal workers are employed.Hmmmm....when is the next vacation trip planned for the Royal household Presidential family?Ah yes Christmas Hawai ...the President is planning to leave on the 23 Th of December and to return on the 03 th of Januari 2011.In 2009 the cost was $ 4000 a night !Read the full story here.

• Related:THE 2010 HAWAII VACATION.President Obama, born (yes, BORN!) and raised in Hawaii, looks forward to his annual Christmas vacation there with his family and close friends. Given the current economic crisis, President Obama understands that a Hawaii vacation is out of reach for many Americans. And he feels sad about that. Which is why in a spirit of openness and transparency, President Obama is sharing his Hawaii vacation experience with the American People.Read the full "Let them eat cake" story here.

• Erdoğan: We won't side with inflictors of cruelty.Turkey is resolute on establishing world peace and it will always remain on the side of justice, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said. Speaking at the opening ceremony for Fatih Sultan Mehmet Foundation University's Alliance of Civilizations Institute on Saturday, Erdoğan said: “At the cost of being target of injustice, we will never side of the inflictors of cruelty. We know that being on the side of what is right and just is stronger than any weapon.”Erdoğan said Turkey is pursuing a multi-dimensional foreign policy and that nobody should expect to see a one-sided approach from Turkey any longer. “Yes, we started EU accession negotiations and we are continuing, and will be continuing, them with determination. At the same time, we will also be closely interested in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus and will play our part for peace, justice, prosperity and solidarity in these regions.”Hmmm.....Qur'an (5:51)"O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people."That about covers it Pm Erdogan(İmam Hatip schooled) .Read the full "story" here.

• Israel, US agree: Turkish gov't 'hates' Israel.Former US Ambassador to Ankara James Jeffrey believes Turkish foreign policy has 'Rolls Royce ambitions, but Rover resources' and that Ankara cannot compete with global or regional powers. US documents released by WikiLeaks also show Jeffrey did not see a viable alternative on the horizon to the current Turkish government.Deteriorating ties between Tel Aviv and Ankara are “attributable exclusively” to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s hatred of Israel, U.S. and Israeli diplomats agreed, according to a confidential cable by the U.S. embassy.In it, Israel’s ambassador to Ankara Gabby Levy blames Erdoğan for the hostilities, an assessment with which the United States expresses agreement.“Levy dismissed political calculation as a motivator for Erdoğan’s hostility, arguing the prime minister’s party had not gained a single point in the polls from his bashing of Israel,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ankara James Jeffrey said in the cable dated Oct. 27, 2009, about his talks with the Israeli ambassador. “Instead, Levy attributed Erdoğan’s harshness to deep-seated emotion.”The U.S. diplomat quoted Levy as saying of the Turkish prime minister: “He’s a fundamentalist. He hates us religiously.”Though he said Turkish foreign policy was becoming more Islamic, Jeffrey added that this would not mean the NATO ally would abandon the West. “Does all this mean that the country is becoming more focused on the Islamist world and its Muslim tradition in its foreign policy? Absolutely,” Jeffrey wrote. “Does it mean that it is abandoning or wants to abandon its traditional Western orientation and willingness to cooperate with us? Absolutely not.”Hmmm....i wouldn't take a single bet on the latter.Read the full story here.

• Turkey yet to ratify convention on violence against children.Turkey’s participation in a campaign launched in Rome to raise public awareness about sexual abuse and violence against children has been hampered by Parliament’s failure to ratify accords involved in the campaign.As Ankara planned to ratify the Council of Europe’s Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was expected to attend a meeting to launch the campaign in the Italian capital, however Minister of State for Women and Family Issues Selma Aliye Kavaf attended the Monday meeting in his place.More than 40 countries have signed the Council of Europe convention, which Turkey aimed to finalize before the meeting in Rome. The convention came into force July 1 and aims to prevent sexual offenses against children, prosecute perpetrators and protect child victims of violence and sexual abuse.
  Hmmmm....ten countries have ratified it till now?Read the full story here.

• Muslim girl killed for love affair with Hindu.A Muslim man has been arrested for killing his teenaged daughter who was in love with a Hindu youth from the same village, police said Thursday.Mushtakeem, a resident of Mawaithakuran village, strangled his 18-year-old daughter Rehana Parveen after she insisted on marrying her lover Bhoora Prajapati, 21, police said.Mushtakeem was arrested late Wednesday after Parveen’s body was recovered from their home. The village is in Moradabad district, some 300 km from Lucknow.According to police, Prajapati and Parveen used to meet regularly in the fields on the outskirts of the village. But as Parveen had not been coming for the last few days, Prajapati approached police suspecting the girl could be in trouble.Police raided Mushtakeem’s house and recovered his daughter’s body from a locked room.“Preliminary investigations indicate it’s a case of DIShonor killing. The father has confessed to the crime,” police inspector Ravi Kumar told reporters Thursday.“The father told us he committed the crime as he thought his daughter’s marriage with the youth of a different community would bring a bad name to the family,” he added.According to police, besides the father, the girl’s family members could also be involved in the crime.In India Hindu girls are frequently fallen with love with various tricks by the Muslim boys and they are successful to marry a good numbers of Hindu girls in the Muslim prone areas of India. But they never allow the vice-versa.In Kerala, numbers of cases are pending in various courts against love intrigue, elopement, abduction, blackmailing after affairs or forceful marriage with Hindu girls by the Muslim boys, which is now believed as an Islamic agenda of some fundamental organizations, now called as Love Jihad. These Jihadists keep keen vigil upon the Muslim girls as they must not get any chance to make a love affair with Hindu boys. Then the DIShonor killings come alike.Hmmmm....if we can't kill them we'll breed them out?Welcome to A.D. 620.Read the full story here.

• Muslim orphans caught between Islamic, Western law.Helene Lauffer knew Muslim children - orphaned, displaced, neglected - needed homes in the United States. She knew American Muslim families wanted to take them in. But Lauffer, associate executive director of Spence-Chapin, one of the oldest adoption agencies in the country, couldn't bring them together. The problem was a gap between Western and Islamic law. Traditional, closed adoption violates Islamic jurisprudence, which stresses the importance of lineage. Instead, Islam has a guardianship system called kafalah that resembles foster care, yet has no exact counterpart in Western law. The differences have left young Muslims with little chance of finding a permanent Muslim home in America. So Lauffer sought out a group of Muslim women scholars and activists, hoping they could at least start a discussion among U.S. Muslims about how adoption and Islamic law could become compatible.Refugee children from Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere are being resettled here. Muslim couples who can't conceive want to adopt, but don't want to violate their faith's teachings. State child welfare agencies that permanently remove Muslim children from troubled homes usually can't find Muslim families to adopt them because of the restrictions in Islamic law.When an orphan reaches puberty, the Islamic prohibition against mixing of the sexes applies inside the home of his or her guardians. Muslim men cannot be alone with women they could potentially marry, and women must cover their hair around these men. Islamic law sets out detailed rules about who believers can and cannot marry, and an orphan taken in from another family would not automatically be considered "unmarriageable" to his siblings or guardians.Hmmmm....Obama : "Islam is a great religion". Read the full story here.

• 2nd Star of David 'uncovered' in Tehran. Satellite image shows symbol associated with Israel on roof of national airline building. Local media say structure built by Israeli engineers before revolution.Iranian authorities once again 'hit' by past friendly relations with Israel : Images published Saturday by Iranian media outlets show a Star of David on the roof of the main national airline's building at the Tehran airport.The satellite image was taken from the Google Earth service. According to the Iranian report, the Iran Air building was "built by Israeli engineers," who operated in the countries before the 1979 Islamic Revolution during the days of Shaa Mohammad Reza Pahlavi."It's interesting that even 32 years after the victory of the revolution, this Zionist star symbol has yet to be removed from this building," a local news website wrote.The calls to remove the Star of David, which the Iranian authorities view as a symbol associated with Israel, were accompanied by local media reports on the close relations with Israel in the past, which were completely severed after the revolution.Hmmmm....It's a Zionist plot?Read the full story here.

• Turkish draft brings ‘axis shift’ in property sales.A draft prepared by Turkey’s Ministry of Public Works and Housing would ease rules for property sales to foreign nationals, but some will not be able to enjoy the relaxed conditions.However, a controversial restriction in the draft involves the sale of construction parcels and farmland to citizens of Israel and Greece, Milliyet reported. While all other foreign nationals may be able to buy as much as 99,000 square meters of land, Israeli and Greek citizens will not be able to purchase parcels and land in Turkey. Another controversial clause in the draft says citizens of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Arab Gulf states will be able to purchase land even without any restriction on size To put it bluntly Turkey is up for sale to Islamic countries?A previous proposal to limit the usage rights of foreigners regarding property they purchased in Turkey to 99 years has been shelved, Milliyet said. According to the new policy, foreign nationals owning property in Turkey would have usage rights without any time limitation.
  Hmmmm....and they want to become part of the European Union?I don't think so with those racist tactics.Get Turkey out of NATO NOW !Read the full story here.

• Saudi Arabian man rejects marriage proposals for 42-year-old surgeon daughter… because he keeps her salary if she is single.A Saudi single mother, who sued her father for not allowing her to marry, has had her guardian changed and, approaching her 43th birthday, hopes she will now be allowed to wed.In a landmark case surgeon Samar Badawi ran away from home in March 2008 as she was so frustrated that her father, who was taking her healthy salary, was keeping her single – or ‘adhl’ as it is known.She spent two years in a women’s protection house in Jeddah waiting for the court ruling, only to find that she was sentenced to six months in jail for disobedience in April this year.But despite testimonies from suitors turned away by her father, bank documents that show her father taking over her salary, medical reports showing physical abuse, and the fact that her four other single sisters over 30 face the same destiny, no ruling has yet been issued.Now Miss Badawi has been released and her uncle has been granted guardianship over her. Her plight has served to highlight the problems facing many Saudi women.In Saudi Arabia, no woman can travel, gain admittance to a public hospital or live independently without a 'mahram' or guardian.Men can beat women who don't obey, with special instructions not to pop the eye, break an arm or leave a mark on their bodies. In the Saudi public school curriculum, boys are taught how to use their guardianship rights.'Be jealous, beat her hands, protect her and achieve superiority over her,' reads page 212 of the Prophet Sayings textbook for 11th grade.The concept of guardianship is interpreted in conservative Islam as meaning that men are superior to women.Hmmmm....Obama :"Islam is a great religion".Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely different.That's a bit too much crunch in my salad: Woman finds live giant Egyptian grasshopper in her bag of greens from the local supermarket.A Sussex woman's lunch almost became a Bushtucker Trial this week when she discovered a live giant grasshopper in a salad bag.The likes of Alison Hammond and Kayla Collins got close to some creepy critters during Sunday's episode of I'm A Celebrity... Get me Out Of Here! but an unnamed Brighton woman had a bigger shock after picking up a healthy lunch from a branch of Tesco in Lewes.The unnamed shopper was about to sit down for lunch on the East Sussex coast when she found the three-inch insect alive and well among her bag of leaves.The insect had survived a trip from Egypt in the salad bag before it gave the woman a surprise at the dining table.Showing admirable calm under pressure - especially as her appetite had been undoubtedly spoiled - the woman passed on the creature to the RSPCA, who received the animal on condition of anonymity for the shopper.The grasshopper - which the National History Museum has verified as Egyptian - has since been re-homed it at nearby Drusillas Zoo, where it was received by spider and insect expert Angela Hale earlier this month.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• WikiLeaks: Clinton ordered probe on UN chief.Secret files show Washington wanted to find links between UN members, terror groups.WikiLeaks revealed Sunday that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered a probe on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as well as an investigation on possible ties between UN members and terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.The US is one of the UN's biggest funders, donating over $3 billion annually to its function. Israel was also included in the orders to collect intelligence on Mukhabarat, the Palestinian Authority's secret service, and Istikhbarat, its military intelligence; orders which Washington circulated among all of its embassies in the Middle East. Diplomats in Israel, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia were asked to gather biometric intelligence on Palestinian Authority officials and senior Hamas agents in Gaza and the West Bank, the report says, in an effort to ascertain links between the officials and terrorists. Hmmm.....nothing wrong with doing some good intel gathering?Read the full story here.

• HT:RightWingNews.White House to Introduce Illegal Alien’s Bill of Rights.President Barack Obama will soon introduce the Undocumented Resident's Affirmative Toleration Act (URAT) in order to protect those unfortunate minorities that didn't win life's lottery by being born in the U.S.A. President Obama's compassion for these downtrodden and oppressed peoples is well known, but he wants particular attention paid to those human beings that white Arizona racists have mercilessly attacked with their new ultra strict, unheard of anti-minority resident laws.President Obama has released information of the URAT Act ahead of the scheduled press conference including the features of URAT.Further Nancy Pelosi has added a section to the bill that provides for an automatic straight ticket Democrat vote for every undocumented resident that signs up for the program.President Obama said that if he can't get this bill passed in the final 2010 sessions he will turn it into an Executive Order and pass it anyway. You know, like he does most things.Read the full story here.

• Wikileaks – Anti-Israel Foreign Policy Experts Got Saudi Arabia, Other Arab Countries 100% Backward On Iran Attack.It didn’t get nearly as much play as it should have, but Obama’s June 2009 meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah ended with the monarch flying into a tirade and more or less telling the President to get a grip. This was the Riyadh meeting that Obama took on his way to his insulting and failed Cairo Speech, the better to prepare himself by visiting “the place where Islam began.” The sit-down was such a disaster that Dennis Ross was hurriedly brought into the White House and given a broader role, yielding the impression that the President wanted a Middle East adviser who kind of understood something about the Middle East – and didn’t think he had one.There were two theories on why the meeting went so badly.Read the full story here.

• Iranian nuclear scientist killed and another wounded in separate bomb attacks.An Iranian nuclear scientist has been killed and another injured in separate attacks in Tehran today.The scientists were targeted in two different locations by men riding motorcycles who approached their vehicles and attached bombs to their car windows as they drove to work.One device killed Dr Majid Shahriari, a member of the nuclear engineering faculty at the Tehran University, and wounded his wife.The second blast seriously wounded nuclear physicist Fereidoun Abbasi. His wife was also injured.At least two other Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in recent years. Iran has said it suspects the attacks were part of a covert attempt by the West to undermine the country's nuclear program.Iran's state television network today reported: 'In a criminal terrorist act, the agents of the Zionist regime attacked two prominent university professors who were on their way to work.Read the full story here.

• How the nanny president sees himself -- and us.What’s it like inside the Obama White House? A lot like what you’d guess from outside the Obama White House. In “Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside Obama’s White House,” MSNBC analyst Richard Wolffe, a writer sympathetic to the president, reports the prosaic backroom details of the White House struggles from early this year, but occasionally stumbles upon an off-the-cuff revelation that’s much more interesting.One staffer was conspicuously overweight. The president, in an incident that Wolffe believes proves how caring the man is, took it upon himself to present the aide with a salad for lunch — “then listened to him protest that he could take care of his own health. ‘I love you, man,’ Obama said. ‘I want you to look after yourself. Eat the salad.’ ”I love you, man. Eat the salad. That is the Obama presidency in a plastic see-through clamshell. (Hold the ranch dressing!) The president loves us. He knows what’s best for us. We should bow to his superior wisdom.What’s telling is that Obama set up the remark by saying he takes great pleasure in the White House library, and that he stumbled upon the remark in the process of searching out the wisdom of his predecessors. This was not a true statement. In fact Obama later admitted to Wolffe that he had found the quotation while reading one of his own diaries, in which he had mistakenly attributed the Reaganism to Lincoln.So: In times of worry and strife, Obama looks for comforting inspiration in the sacred, timeless words of . . . Obama!Presidents are often accused of surrounding themselves with yes-men and retreating from the world. This president doesn’t even need the yes-men. He lives in a hall of mirrors, and he’s awed by the view.Hmmmm....don't they have a medical term for this ?Read the full story here.

• Union Drops Health Coverage for Workers’ Children.One of the largest union-administered health-insurance funds in New York is dropping coverage for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants, union officials said. The union blamed financial problems it said were caused by the state’s health department and new national health-insurance requirements.The fund is administered by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Union officials said the state compelled the fund to start buying coverage from a third party, which increased premiums by 60%. State health officials denied forcing the union fund to make the switch, saying the fund had been struggling financially even before the switch to third-party coverage.The fund informed its members late last month that their dependents will no longer be covered as of Jan. 1, 2011. Currently about 6,000 children are covered by the benefit fund, some until age 23.“We hope the state of New York will do the right thing and provide the funding necessary for this most vulnerable population of direct caregivers,” the union said in a statement.Hmmmm.....thank you Mr President?Read the full story here.

• HT:RightSideNews.S.510, the Food Safety Bill To Create 17,000 New Bureaucrats.On Monday, November 29, 2010, Congress will be back in session at 2:00pm and here some of what will be happening with the Food Safety Bill. S. 510 is basically Obamacare for the food industry. It will create 17,000 new bureaucrats, whose job is going to be to harass small farmers. It will create huge regulatory burdens for small family farms and even for those who want to grown their own food. This will choke out small farms. For those who like to buy their own healthy food, forget it. It will no longer be available.If passed, the misnamed Food Safety and Modernization Act would authorize the FDA to tell farmers how to grow their crops. Federal bureaucrats who likely know little to nothing about farming will set the guidelines on appropriate temperatures, what soil to use, how much water to use and what animals are allowed to be on certain fields.A study by Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) office states “on the whole this bill represents a weighty new regulatory structure on the food industry that will be particularly difficult for small producers and farms to comply with (with little evidence it will make food safer)”Sen. Jon Tester has introduced the “Tester Amendment” which would allegedly prevent these harmful regulations from affecting small family farms. However, Campaign for Liberty says these regulations will still be imposed on whoever the FDA decides. It could even affect your home garden if you sell vegetables or fruits at a local farmers market.President John Tate states : “Don’t fall for their rhetoric about a few provisions that supposedly address concerns of small-scale farmers; the FDA still has all the power it needs to shut down family farms on a whim. In other words, it will be up to bureaucrats to decide whether or not local food production is decimated by federal regulations or shut down.”With the economy still suffering, we cannot afford even more burdensome job killing regulation. We must stop this dangerous bill that could destroy independent family farms that provide healthy food choices. Please contact your representatives today and tell to oppose this unconstitutional takeover of food producers!Read and see the full story here.

• HT:BloggerBase.Amish Ask Jews for Forgiveness: at the Kotel (Western Wall).This is amazing. Representatives of the U. S. and Swiss Amish communities actually violated their own principles of avoiding modern technology and transportation to fly to Israel and visit the Kotel (meaning "the Wall," in Hebrew).The sole purpose of this visit was to ask forgiveness from the Jewish people, for not speaking up against the Sho'ah (Holocaust) during the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews.According to an announcement issued by the office of Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites Shmuel Rabinovitch, with whom the group met, the Amish delegates saw a great importance in coming to Israel and expressing their contrition, as well as declaring their unreserved support of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.It's nice to have a friend. Now we have two: Canada, and the Amish. Not sure about the U.S. though... Hmmmm...just like everywhere there are honest God fearing people in America who stand for what is right and fair.Read the full story here.

• HT:ElderofZion.Wikileaks: Iran used Red Crescent to send agents and weapons to Hezbollah.A heavily redacted memo in Wikileaks as presented by The Guardian shows that Iran has cynically used its Red Crescent to smuggle weapons -including missiles - and agents into Lebanon during the 2006 war as well as elsewhere.Hmmmm.....no really these nice people Turkey loves so much and are a threat to nobody?Read the full story here.

• Diplomatic Cables Reveal US Doubts about Turkey's Government.The leaked diplomatic cables reveal that US diplomats are skeptical about Turkey's dependability as a partner. The leadership in Ankara is depicted as divided and permeated by Islamists.US diplomats have grave doubts about Turkey's dependability. Secret or confidential cables from the US Embassy in Ankara describe Islamist tendencies in the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.The US diplomats' verdict on the NATO partner with the second biggest army in the alliance is devastating. The Americans are also worried about Davutoglu's alleged neo-Ottoman visions. A high-ranking government adviser warned in discussions, quoted by the US diplomats, that Davutoglu would use his Islamist influence on Erdogan, describing him as "exceptionally dangerous." According to the US document, another adviser to the ruling AKP party remarked, probably ironically, that Turkey wanted "to take back Andalusia and avenge the defeat at the siege of Vienna in 1683."The US diplomats write that many leading figures in the AKP were members of a Muslim fraternity and that Erdogan had appointed Islamist bankers to influential positions. He gets his information almost exclusively from newspapers with close links to Islamists, they reported. The prime minister, the cables continue, has surrounded himself with an "iron ring of sycophantic (but contemptuous) advisors" and presents himself as the "Tribune of Anatolia.".Hmmm....what have i been saying here on MFS every day?Get Turkey out of NATO Now!Read the full story here.

• US embassy cables: Saudi king's advice for Barack Obama.SUBJECT: COUNTERTERRORISM ADVISER BRENNAN'S MEETING WITH SAUDI KING ABDULLAH.Read the full story here.

• HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.As the Flames of  Intolerance Flare, Indonesians Are Reminded of  Their Nation’s Origins in Diversity.Indonesia. A hundred police officers armed with assault rifles and pistols were not enough to dissuade Tuti (not her real name) from walking barefoot for a kilometer, her 3-year-old son on her back, to the village of Gegerung in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, on Friday.Once she arrived, the 25-year-old mother joined hundreds of people from her village in ransacking and demolishing dozens of houses belonging to members of the Ahmadiyah minority sect.“Infidels,” she screamed as she pelted one of the homes with rocks. “Get out of our village.”The mob destroyed 22 homes, with one burned to the ground after villagers emptied a canister of kerosene in it and lit it on fire.As Tuti watched the house burn, she and the other villagers thanked God for the suffering of those they deemed heretics.The seemingly never-ending string of attacks on minority religious groups — at least a hundred against Ahmadiyah alone over the past decade, according to one activist — prompted the International Crisis Group in a recent report to call on Indonesia to adopt a comprehensive national strategy to promote religious tolerance and curb rising sectarian violence.“There needs to be a long-term vision and strategy. Local officials have been addressing the incidents on a case-by-case basis,” said Jim Della-Giacomathe, the ICG Southeast Asia project director.“And most of the time, they surrender to those with the loudest voice. If this keeps happening, mob rule prevails.”Della-Giacoma’s statement highlights an important observation regarding the government’s response so far to the apparent increase in religious intolerance in the country: that the core of the problem isn’t being addressed.In Bekasi, which the ICG report says is a clear example of the tensions brought about by clashing fundamentalisms, 10 people have been arrested for an attack that saw one churchgoer hospitalized with a stab wound and a female reverend badly injured.Among those arrested was the local leader of the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), a group that has led calls for Christians to leave the area.A survey released in September by the Center for the Study of Islam and Society found that among 1,200 adult Muslim men and women surveyed nationwide, 57.8 percent said they were against the construction of churches and other non-Muslim places of worship — the highest rate the study center has recorded since 2001.More than a quarter, or 27.6 percent, said they minded if non-Muslims taught their children, up from 21.4 percent in 2008.“The government should not bow down to political pressure from a religious elite that voices intolerance,” Ulil said. “The government should protect minorities and not only cater to the demands of the majority.“We should re-educate these opportunistic bureaucrats and political parties about ‘Bhinneka Tunggal Ika’ [‘Unity in Diversity’], the principle taught by our founding fathers.”Firdaus Mubarik, an Ahmadiyah activist, said he hoped the government would listen to minority voices as well.“The government should remain neutral on religious issues and bridge differences between religious groups,” he said.“If the government continues turning a blind eye to the problem, hard-line Muslim groups will soon target other minorities.”Hmmm....Obama " Indonesia's religious tolerance is example to world"?Read the full story here.

• Pakistani woman's nose chopped off for alleged adultery.Islamabad: A Pakistani woman's nose and hair were chopped-off by her brother-in-law and his family after they accused her of having an extra-marital affair with a neighbour in Gujranwala city.Police officials have registered separate cases against the accused and have taken them into custody, the Express Tribune said on Monday.According to police officials, Awalkah Bhaike resident Aasiya Bibi was locked up for three days in a room after her brother-in-law Anwar, his wife Kalsoom and sons Waqas and Awais teamed up and chopped off her nose and shaved-off her head in Noshehra Virkan area in Punjab province.She was in a terrible condition when the police, with the help of another neighbour, discovered and rushed her to the district hospital where her facial wounds were stitched up, they told the daily.However, an unrepentant Anwar said, "She was having illicit relations with a neighbour. We caught her and this was her punishment. She deserved what happened to her.""I should have killed her on the spot," he said.According to Aasiya's neighbour, there were frequent fights at her house and Anwar's family was "cruel" to her.Hmmm....welcome to A.D. 620.Read the full story here.

• U.S. Army Unveils 'Revolutionary' XM25 Rifle in Afghanistan.Since the dawn of modern warfare, the best way to stay alive in the face of incoming fire has been to take cover behind a wall. But thanks to a game-changing "revolutionary" rifle, the U.S. Army has made that tactic dead on arrival. Now the enemy can run, but he can't hide.After years of development, the U.S. Army has unleashed a new weapon in Afghanistan -- the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System, a high-tech rifle that can be programmed so that its 25-mm. ammunition does not necessarily explode on impact. Instead, it can be set to detonate either in front of or behind a target, meaning it literally will go through a wall before it explodes and kills the enemy.It also has a range of roughly 2,300 feet -- nearly the length of eight football fields -- making it possible to fire at targets well past the range of the rifles and carbines that most soldiers carry today.Read and see the full story here.

• Senators Lay Off Military Talk, Promote Regime Change for North Korea. Sen. John McCain said Sunday it was time to discuss "regime change" in North Korea, but the former Navy combat pilot didn't say how he advocates changing the government in the repressive and secretive dictatorship.McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was not suggesting military action against the North. He said the Chinese, the North's closest ally, should rein in its neighbor, and he accused Beijing of failing to play a responsible role in either the Korean peninsula, where tensions are high because of a recent attack by the North, or the world stage."The key to this, obviously, is China," McCain said on "State of the Union" on CNN. "And, unfortunately, China is not behaving as a responsible world power. It cannot be in China's long-term interest to see a renewed conflict on the Korean peninsula."The Arizona Republican added: "They could bring the North Korean economy to its knees if they wanted to. And I cannot believe that the Chinese should, in a mature fashion, not find it in their interest to restrain North Korea. So far, they are not."China on Sunday proposed an emergency meeting of the six nations that have tried to engage North Korea in talks about its nuclear program. At the same time, U.S. and South Korea began naval war games in spite of North Korea's protests.Chinese state councilor Dai Bingguo made a last-minute visit to Seoul, the South Korean capital, to confer with the South Korean president, President Lee Myung-bak. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke with Dai, and State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. would continue to consult with China and others "on a future course." He added that the North "needs to cease its provocative behavior. That is a critical first step."Read the full story here.

• NHS shamed by third-rate hospitals: Needless deaths and thousands of blunders exposed.Death rates at 19 hospital trusts are alarmingly high and tens of thousands of patients are suffering blunders at the hands of careless and incompetent doctors and nurses, a major report reveals.Many of the substandard hospitals already face investigations that could lead to fines, prosecutions and the closure of wards and units.The annual snapshot of the state of care in England’s 147 hospital trusts also lays bare huge variations in treatment for strokes and broken hips and in the odds of developing potentially fatal blood clots after surgery.In the first of two lists of shame, 19 trusts were named as having higher than average death rates, with patients admitted to Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust almost 50 per cent more likely to die than those treated in the ‘safest’ hospitals.In the second list, four trusts were found to have higher than normal death rates from post-operative complications.The catalogue of errors for 2009-10 includes:

           1,300 patients contracting blood poisoning after surgery.
           More than 13,000 women suffering an obstetric tear after giving birth.
           More than 2,000 patients had post-operative intestinal bleeding.
           Some 30,500 patients developed potentially fatal clots in the blood vessels of their lungs.
           Almost 6,000 cases of bed and pressure sores.
           Nearly 10,000 accidental cuts and punctures
           56 cases of botched surgery being carried out on the wrong part of the body and 150 foreign
           objects’ left inside patients after an operation.Hmmm...America's healthcare future?Read the
            Full story here.

• Iran Fortifies Its Arsenal With the Aid of North Korea.Secret American intelligence assessments have concluded that Iran has obtained a cache of advanced missiles, based on a Russian design, that are much more powerful than anything Washington has publicly conceded that Tehran has in its arsenal, diplomatic cables show. Iran obtained 19 of the missiles from North Korea, according to a cable dated Feb. 24 of this year. The cable is a detailed, highly classified account of a meeting between top Russian officials and an American delegation led by Vann H. Van Diepen, an official with the State Department’s nonproliferation division who, as a national intelligence officer several years ago, played a crucial role in the 2007 assessment of Iran’s nuclear capacity. The missiles could for the first time give Iran the capacity to strike at capitals in Western Europe or easily reach Moscow, and American officials warned that their advanced propulsion could speed Iran’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles.There has been scattered but persistent speculation on the topic since 2006, when fragmentary reports surfaced that North Korea might have sold Iran missiles based on a Russian design called the R-27, once used aboard Soviet submarines to carry nuclear warheads. In the unclassified world, many arms control experts concluded that isolated components made their way to Iran, but there has been little support for the idea that complete missiles, with their huge thrusters, had been secretly shipped.The cable added that Tehran could use the BM-25 technologies as “building blocks” for the production of long-range missiles. But it offered no information to back up that assessment.Hmmmm......Turkey....."Iran is no threat"yeah whatevah!Read the full story here.

• Kadhafi never without 'voluptuous' nurse.Veteran Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi fears flying over water, prefers staying on the ground floor and almost never travels without his trusted Ukrainian nurse, a "voluptuous blond," according to US documents released Sunday by WikiLeaks.Kadhafi had a team of nurses and "relies heavily on his long-time Ukrainian nurse, Galyna Kolotnytska, who has been described as a 'voluptuous blond,'" said a secret cable from the Tripoli embassy dated September 29, 2009.One source, whose name was blacked out by the Times, tells the US embassy that Kadhafi cannot travel without Kolotnytska, "as she alone 'knows his routine,'" it said."Some embassy contacts have claimed that Qadhafi and the 38 year-old Kolotnytska have a romantic relationship," it said."While he did not comment on such rumors, a Ukrainian political officer recently confirmed that the Ukrainian nurses 'travel everywhere with the Leader.'"After the nurse's travel paperwork was delayed, the Libyan government arranged a private jet to fetch her so she could join Kadhafi and his entourage in Portugal, where the leader spent the night en route to New York, according to the document.Read the full story here.

• Siprnet: where America stores its secret cables.Defence department's hidden internet is meant to be secure, but millions of officials and soldiers have access.How did such an enormous electronic database come into existence and then apparently be so easily leaked? The answer lies in the tag "Sipdis" which appears on the string of address codes heading each cable.It stands for Siprnet Distribution. Siprnet is itself an acronym, for Secret Internet Protocol Router Network. Siprnet was designed to solve the chronic problem of big bureaucracies – how to share information easily and confidentially among large numbers of people spread around the world. Siprnet is a worldwide US military internet system, kept separate from the ordinary civilian internet and run by the defence department in Washington.Since the terrorist attacks of September 2001, there has been a move in the US to link up separate archives of government information, in the hope that key intelligence no longer gets trapped in information silos or "stovepipes".An increasing number of US embassies were plugged into Siprnet in the last decade, so that military and diplomatic information can be shared. In 2002, 125 embassies were on Siprnet; by 2005, there were 180.There have been suggestions that an alarm system to detect suspicious use of the network was suspended for US military personnel in Iraq after they complained it was inconvenient.Hmmm....Security about as thight as a strainer?Read the full story here.

• Fire was intentionally set at Islamic Center in Corvallis where alleged bomb plot suspect attended.A fire reported early this morning at the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center in Corvallis where Portland bomb plot suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud sometimes attended is being called arson.The fire was reported at about 2:15 a.m. today. Corvallis Fire Department spokeswoman Carla Pusateri said the fire was intentionally set, but would not say what led investigators to the conclusion. Pusateri said a police sergeant on duty spotted the fire at 2:15 a.m. and called for help. "It was discovered much sooner than it could have been," she said. Corvallis where he has lived for 24 years. "I know people here know the true reality of the Muslim community here," he said. "It's a sad situation.Wanly condemned the alleged plot by the 19-year-old, stating he "denounced the actions of Mohamed Mohamud."A classmate who didn't want to be identified remembered Mohamud's odd choice for a physics project. Mohamud detailed how a rocket-propelled grenade worked.“It was just weird about how someone would choose that, you know," the classmate said.In an affidavit obtained by KGW, Mohamud recently told the FBI he had been thinking of committing some form of violent jihad since the age of 15.Another of Mohamud's former classmates remembered a fight the two had over a messy locker. "The main thing was, the way he said he hated Americans,” said Andy Stull. “It was serious. He looked me in the eye and had this look in his eye, like it was his determination in life – ‘I hate Americans!’"Stull says he was scared enough at the time to get school counselors involved, but that was the end of it."I had to say he did a number of things against the religion. He had a lifestyle that was against the religion. I can't really say that he was in a position to represent Islam," said Imam Yousef Wanly.Hmmm........then why not inform the autorities as any good American would do Iman?Read the full story here and here.

• Britain fears Islamic fury over WikiLeaks: Report.The British government has warned that its citizens in Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and other parts of the Muslim world could be targeted in a violent backlash over "anti-Islamic" views expressed in diplomatic documents being leaked this week, media reports said on Sunday.The whistle-blower website WikiLeaks is to release almost 3 million documents on the internet, including thousands of sensitive diplomatic cables sent to Washington from the American embassy in London, The Sunday Times reported.It said the British government has warned that its citizens in Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and other parts of the Muslim world could be targeted in a violent backlash over "anti-Islamic" views expressed in diplomatic documents.Read the full story here.

• GOP Senator: START Arms Treaty Can Wait.John Kyl Rejects Obama's National Security Argument, Says Lame Duck Session Has More Urgent Business.A leading Republican lawmaker is rejecting the Obama administration's assertion that ratification of a new arms control treaty with Russia is so pressing that it must be dealt with by the lame-duck Senate. Sen. Jon Kyl said Sunday that the Senate has much more urgent business to attend to in the weeks before it breaks for Christmas. He said the treaty, known as New START, is extremely complex and can wait until the Senate reconvenes with newly elected members in January. The Obama administration has said ratification is an urgent national security priority.Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely different.Love is blind: The man who lost his sight every time he had sex. A man was forced to seek medical help after going temporarily blind every time he had sex. The unnamed patient would lose his sight every time he climaxed during intercourse. Bafflingly, the blindness would never occur while performing any other strenuous exercise, the NCBI ROFL blog claimed. The original report, published by the Department of Opthalmology at Glostrup Hospital, University of Copenhagen, revealed the cause of the condition to be vasoconstriction, where the muscle walls contract around a blood vessel, restricting the flow of blood. Vasoconstriction is the same condition that causes erectile dysfunction. Doctors had earlier speculated that an embolism was causing the man’s blindness. The report said: ‘Hypothetical mechanisms of transient monocular visual loss in our patient include vasoconstriction or embolism in the arterial blood supply of the eye. ‘The repeated and completely transient nature of our patient's symptoms supports the fact that embolism was not involved.’The patient was eventually treated using drugs to widen his blood vessels.Read the full story here.