MFS - The Other News

                         Afternoon Posting.

• Obama must talk to Afghan Taliban, experts say.A group of influential international experts on Afghanistan Saturday appealed to US President Barack Obama to radically change his strategy in the war-ravaged nation and negotiate directly with the Taliban. A huge US troop surge has failed to stem a worsening insurgency in Afghanistan, with 2010 proving to be a year of record violence. The letter from 23 researchers, journalists and NGO chiefs comes just days before the White House publishes an evaluation of the US strategy. Researchers Gilles Dorronsoro from France and Italian Antonio Giustozzi, as well as Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, were among those who said the current strategy was failing as the Taliban, ousted from government by a US-led invasion in 2001, grew in strength. A coalition government that includes the Taliban should be the long-term goal, they said. "We ask you to sanction and support a direct dialogue and negotiation with the Afghan Taliban leadership residing in Pakistan," the experts said in their open letter. "It is better to negotiate now rather than later, since the Taliban will likely be stronger next year." "The situation on the ground is much worse than a year ago because the Taliban insurgency has made progress across the country," the letter said. "The Taliban today are now a national movement with a serious presence in the north and the west of the country." The experts said military operations in Kandahar and Helmand, provinces in the south hard hit by the insurgency, are not going well and had become "a full-scale military campaign causing civilian casualties and destruction of property.Afghan President Hamid Karzai has made overtures to the Taliban and other insurgents to negotiate an end to the war, but that was "not enough", the experts said."The United States must take the initiative to start negotiations with the insurgents and frame the discussion in such a way that American security interests are taken into account," they said.Hmmmm.....As i said from day one "If the Russian couldn't win the war in Afghanistan why in Gods name would a Commander In Chief like Obama win"?All he achieved with his "outreach to Muslims"and "Courageous restraint" is that the war spread to Pakistan and Yemen.Read the full story here.

• Terrorist attack  kill 1, injure 2 in central Stockholm.Two cars explode on busy Stockholm shopping street, send wave of panic across Swedish capital; shortly before blasts news agency receives email talked about Sweden's silence over caricatures of Prophet Mohammed.Two explosions in central Stockholm killed one person and injured two on Saturday, causing panic among Christmas shoppers. Police spokeswoman Petra Sjolander said a car exploded near Drottninggatan, a busy shopping street in the center of the city. Shortly afterward, a second explosion was heard higher up on the same street, and a man was found injured on the ground. He was later pronounced dead.Swedish news agency TT said on Saturday that it and the Security Police had received an email about 10 minutes before the two explosions occurred.The agency said the mail had sound files in both Swedish and Arabic attached. It said the voice on the sound file addressed Sweden and the Swedish people and talked about Sweden's silence over the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed by artist Lars Vilks and Sweden's presence in Afghanistan."Our actions will talk for themselves. As long as you do not end your war against Islam and humiliation of the prophet and your stupid support for the pig Vilks," TT quoted the man on the sound file as saying.
  Hmmmm....Reaction from the American President or the Ground Zero Imam......Silence..?Read the full story here.  A car exploded at the busy shopping street Drottninggatan in central Stockholm. Then there was another explosion some distance away and one man died. According to news agency TT, a man had blown himself to death. He carried six interconnected pipe bombs but only one exploded. He also had a backpack full of nails, according to newspaper Aftonbladet.Updates here.

• HT:InfidelBloggers.Our great NATO allies, the Turks, just KEEP ON PROVING WHO THEY ARE.What's it going to take?Cables: Turkey greenlighted smuggling of nuke components to Iran.LONDON -- Israel has briefed at least one Western power on what was termed Turkish cooperation with nuclear shipments to Iran.A senior Israeli official said Iran has been smuggling nuclear weapons-related components through Turkey with the awareness of its prime minister, Recep Erdogan."They were with Prime Minister Erdogan's full knowledge," a French Foreign Ministry cable said. Te French cable was released by WikiLeaks and reported on a strategic dialogue with Israel in October 2009. The cable quoted a briefing by Israeli Foreign Ministry director-general Yossi Gal to the Franco-Israeli Strategic Dialogue.The cable was authored by French Foreign Ministry official Frederic Bereyziat, who expressed skepticism over the Israeli briefing on Turkey.Gal and other officials were said to have warned that under Erdogan Turkey was moving away from NATO and toward such adversaries as Iran and Syria.Over the last year, Turkey has defended Iran's nuclear program. The two countries were also increasing trade, particularly in energy.Hmmm.....As a Politician who was schooled to be an Imam why would he even consider to help NATO?Read the full treason story here.

• Dutch police arrest second teenager in pro-WikiLeaks cyber attacks.Dutch police on Saturday morning arrested a second teenager in relation to pro-WikiLeaks cyber attacks earlier this week, prosecutors said. The Netherlands’ prosecutor’s office said the Team High Tech Crime of the National Police Services Agency arrested a 19-year-old man in the municipality of Hoogezand-Sappemeer in northeastern the Netherlands. He is suspected of being involved in several pro-WikiLeaks cyber attacks. On Friday, the websites of Dutch police and the country’s prosecutor’s office came under attack in retaliation over the arrest of a 16-year-old Dutch teenager who was involved in the pro-WikiLeaks cyber attacks on Visa and MasterCard. The prosecutor’s office website and the website of Dutch police went offline for several hours, although authorities said the sites contained only public information and no sensitive data.“From behind his computer, the man used hacker software to flood the website of the prosecutor’s office with as much digital traffic as possible,” prosecutors said on Saturday. “Investigations by the National Police Services Agency showed that the man, who was active under the internet nickname Awinee, urged other Internet users to participate in the attack.”Read the full story here.

• "The War Against Christmas"Baby Jesus ousted from St. George Ferry Terminal.The Christ is out of Christmas at the St. George Ferry Terminal.In what Catholics see as political correctness run amok, the city Department of Transportation (DOT) has removed a Nativity scene from the terminal, with an agency spokesman saying that the display was not authorized to be there.But a menorah, marking the celebration of Hanukkah, and a Christmas tree remain on display in the terminal.Catholics said the move was a nightmare before Christmas."We take this as a tremendous affront," said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, a watchdog of religious and civil rights.The controversy reflects church-and-state battles that erupt nationwide each Christmas over the placement of religious symbols in public spaces.The caller said that workers in the terminal told her the display was removed after someone complained to the city’s 311 hotline.Donohue said that the league years ago won a legal challenge that allowed a Nativity scene to be placed in Penn Station where a menorah also was displayed.Other public institutions here balance the religious and secular themes of the season.At Borough Hall, for example, a Nativity scene, a menorah, a Christmas tree and a display for Kwanzaa share space next to each other in the lobby."They’re all religious symbols," Borough President James P. Molinaro, a Catholic, said tonight as he prepared to host a Christmas-tree lighting ceremony at Borough Hall. "Remove them all, or remove none. My opinion? Leave them all there."The controversy comes as conservative Christian groups like the American Family Association and The Liberty Counsel report that more retailers are using "Merry Christmas" in store displays and advertising rather than "Happy Holidays," Fox News online said."Our approach is positive, and services the common good," Donohue said in a press release. "Theirs is negative, and is designed to sow division. It’s what they do.""Pro-Christmas" advocates appear to have public opinion on their side. A recent Rasmussen poll showed that people prefer to be greeted with "Merry Christmas" over "Happy Holidays," 69 to 24 percent.Hmmmm....Who declared "War" on Chistmas?Read the full bigot story here.

• Related.And WHILE the Turks help smuggle nuke parts to Iran: Iran seen developing air defenses that could block all but B-2 strikes.The U.S. military could be blocked from launching a major air strike by Iran's developing air defense network, a report said.The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments asserted that Iran has been investing in air defense systems that could foil a U.S. strike. The Washington-based center warned that only a handful of U.S. bombers could penetrate the integrated air defense systems of either Iran or China."Except for the B-2 force, of which at most 16 are capable of responding to short-notice contingency operations at any given time, [U.S.] Air Force bombers cannot penetrate the integrated air defense systems that are being fielded by China, Iran and other states with the resources to buy advanced military systems," the report, titled "Sustaining America s Strategic Advantage in Long-Range Strike," said.Authored by former senior air force analyst Mark Gunzinger, the report envisioned that Iran would develop or acquire advanced anti-aircraft systems, including the Russian-origin S-300. The report said Russia has apparently canceled plans to proceed with a nearly $1 billion project to sell the S-300PMU1 to Teheran."This cancellation will not likely curb Iran s appetite for procuring advanced air defense systems," the report, released on Sept. 14, said. "Despite their setback with Iran, given the demand for these systems and Russia s stated goal of increasing its weapons exports, further proliferation is a near-certainty."The report envisioned U.S. long-range strike aircraft would have to travel 2,700 nautical miles from Diego Garcia to reach Iran's nuclear energy reactor at Natanz. Such a distance would be much greater than in recent U.S. conflicts, including the wars against Iraq.Gunzinger outlined a scenario in which Iran would deploy its giant missile and rocket arsenal to intimidate Gulf Cooperation Council states. He said the threat of a massive Iranian attack on cities in Gulf Arab countries could lead them to deny air base and air space rights to U.S. aircraft.Hmmmmm.Just keep talking peace with Iran,one day you'll see a mushroom cloud from your window.Read the full story here.

• HT:DougRoss.What the...? Up to 84MM Mexicans To Be Designated 'Trusted Travelers', Allowing Them to Bypass Airport Security Checks.Worried that foreign travelers -- especially those entering the U.S. from Mexico -- will be insulted by intrusive security pat-downs in airports? Well, rest easy: Janet Napolitano is on the job.As violent drug cartels take over Mexico and expand their criminal enterprises north, the United States has signed a “trusted traveler” agreement that allows pre-screened Mexican airline passengers to bypass lengthy airport security checkpoints... Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano claims it’s a way to enhance information sharing and mutual security in the face of “ever-evolving, multinational threats.”You couldn't even make this s*** up.Hmmmm.....Perhaps Napolitano will refer to this program as "Skipping the Airport Screenings Americans Won't Skip."Read the full madness story here.

• HT:GatewayPundit.Another Obama Record!… November Deficit Is Highest Ever.Americans may be looking at another Trillion dollar Obama deficit.Obama tripled the national deficit in one year on a failed stimulus plan.Things aren’t looking any better.The $150 billion federal budget deficit this month was the highest ever for a November and 25% higher than in 2009.The federal budget deficit rose to $150.4 billion last month, the largest November gap on record. And the government’s deficits are set to climb higher if Congress passes a tax-cut plan that’s estimated to cost $855 billion over two years.Hmmmm....How’s that for hope and change, America?Read the full story here.

• HT:RightWingNews.Obama Claims Power to Decide if Your Medicine is Too Expensive to be Allowed.It's very easy for Obamacare supporters to scoff at the whole idea that there are "death panels" ensconced in Obama's health care power grab. But the fact of the matter is that they exist in a defacto form. One of those defacto death panels is the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), an agency invented under Obamacare that has no congressional oversight and will be able to summarily cancel your drug prescriptions as paid for by Medicare.The IPAB is not well known by Americans, but it is a 15-member board appointed by the president and while members are confirmed by the Senate, the board is not otherwise answerable to anyone but the president. As to its duties, this board was given the responsibility to put a spending cap on Medicare. One way that the IPAB intends to do that is to decide what drugs are cost effective enough for government to pay for.In other words, the IPAB will decide whether or not Medicare patients will be allowed to have a drug and its decision to eliminate the drug will be based solely on cost, not effectiveness or medical necessity. These decisions will also not be made with your doctor. It will be a top down, bureaucratic decision, not a decision based on medical science.Hmmmmm......Start ordering your coffins?Read the full story here.

• Man sentenced to be blinded with acid by Iranian court.IRAN'S supreme court has upheld a sentence of blinding with acid for a man who blinded his lover's husband, under the Islamic "eye-for-an-eye" justice code, a government daily said.The convict, named only as Mojtaba, 25, threw acid in the face of Alireza, 25, a taxi driver in Iran's clerical hub city of Qom, after an "illicit affair" with the victim's wife, Mojdeh, also 25, said the newspaper Iran.The supreme court has upheld a lower court ruling that Mojtaba be blinded with drops of acid, in line with Islamic justice, which allows for "qisas," or eye-for-an-eye retribution, in cases of violent crime, it said.Qom prosecutor Mostafa Barzegar Ganji said the victim had used his right to qisas."We have asked for forensic specialists to oversee the blinding of the convict," he said, quoted in Iran.Hmmmm......Imam Rauf "Sharia law is the same as the US Constitution".Welcome to AD 620?Read the full story here.

• HT:CreepingSharia.Destruction of Hindu Temples by Muslims.Hundreds and thousands of monuments and buildings all over the world have been converted to mosques and other Islamic buildings. India, as I had mentioned earlier, has suffered the most amount of destruction by these devilish fiends.The evidence of destruction of thousands of Hindu temples can be primarily found from two different sources:
• 1.Literary Evidence from the work of renowned Islamic historians
• 2.Epigraphic Evidence from the inscriptions on numerous Mosques all over India.In this article, I will deal with only the literary evidence. A separate article will be devoted to the epigraphic evidence.Read the full story here.

• HT:investigativeproject.The Jihadist Social Network Underworld."When are these crusaders gonna realize they can't win?," Baltimore bomb plotter Antonio Martinez boasted on his Facebook page on August 4th. "How many more lives are they willing to sacrifice. ALLAHUAKBAR." As details emerge about the plot to bomb a military recruitment center in Baltimore, MD, one thing is clear—Facebook is having a coming out party as the new go-to place for Jihadi recruitment, radicalization, and planning.According to an internal DHS memorandum from early 2010, "jihadi supporters and mujahideen are increasingly using Facebook, one of the largest, most popular and diverse social networking sites, both in the United States and globally, to propagate operational information." While the DHS report, reported on earlier today by FoxNews.com, provides an academic study of terrorist groups' infiltration of social networking sites, an IPT analysis of the Facebook accounts of Martinez and his friends and associates shows that the threat is very real.While the DHS report provides anecdotal evidence of Facebook's use by radicals and terrorists, the case of Antonio Martinez and his Internet ilk demonstrate the severity of the threat.Hmmmm.....Sometimes you really wonder what homeland security does all day?Read the full story here.

• US Islamic envoy praises Turkey's religious high schools.The United States’ special envoy to one of the largest Muslim organizations praised Thursday the religious education model in Turkey that is integrated into the state system, saying that it was “unique in the world.Hussain on Wednesday met President Abdullah Gül as well as government and Foreign Ministry officials. He further held talks with nongovernmental organizations and Religious Affairs Directorate officials and visited the Faculty of Theology at Ankara University on Thursday.Asked if he would visit the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or İHH, the Turkish NGO that organized the ill-fated flotilla to Gaza that was attacked by Israeli commandos, leaving nine dead, he said: “Generally speaking, we engage with all types of NGOs. We don’t have any discussion on that particular group. We are waiting for the outcome of the [U.N.] investigation [into the incident] to see their conclusions about a tragic loss of life that of course the United States deeply regrets.Hmmmm.....I thought he was there for the Middle East peace process,but apparently he's there to study Islamic Schools?Read the full story here.

• HT:TheAtlantic.Henry Kissinger to Soviet Jewry: Drop Dead.Okay, I don't usually blog on the Sabbath day (the Torah says Tweeting is okay, because it's so short), but I can't resist posting what I think might become Henry Kissinger's epitaph. This statement was captured on Richard's Nixon secret White House recording system, and just now released by the Nixon library:"The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy," Mr. Kissinger said. "And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.""I know," Nixon responded. "We can't blow up the world because of it."Because it is the Sabbath day, I will use a religious expression to characterize this statement: Holy shit.I particularly love, by the way, the "maybe" in that last sentence fragment.Nixon is also quoted as saying that Jews share an inferiority complex.Hmmmm.....I can't wait to read the released Obama files on Jews,if they're ever released.Read the full story here.

• HT:AmericanThinker.Obama and Arab Imperialism.Have you ever asked yourself why Barack Hussein Obama began his presidency by shocking America with his grandiose trip of apology and appeasement to "the Muslim world"? Did you ever ask yourselves where on earth he derived the notion that America is ‘one of the largest Muslim countries in the world'? How in the world did he come up with the notion that Islam has been part of America since its foundation? Have you wondered why President Obama refused to say a word on behalf of millions of Iranians flooding the streets of their major cities in the summer of 2009 as they voiced their opposition to the illegitimate mullahcracy that has been enslaving Iranian people for more than three decades? Or why Obama allowed his National Security advisor John Brennan to henceforth refer to Jerusalem, the capital of Israel for millennia "Al Quds" -- the Arabic Muslim name for the city?Hmmmmmm......I've have an idea or two why and i'm pretty sure i'm not the only one.Read the full story here.

• Why the U.S.-Israel settlement deal fell apart.Last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met for seven hours in New York in an attempt to strike a deal on extending Israel's partial moratorium on settlement construction. This week, the State Department announced it would no longer pursue a settlement freeze extension as a way to revive the talks. Why did the agreement fall apart? The United States had offered Israel a host of security incentives, including 20 brand-new fighter planes, for Netanyahu to take back to his cabinet in exchange for a renewed three month settlement moratorium. But President Barack Obama never put that deal in writing, and the Israelis never were clear on its terms or what would happen when the three extra months expired.Read the full story here.

• HT:The PiratesCove."The War On Christmas"Tis’ The Season For Liberals To Go Nuts Over Nativity Scenes.For people who say they are all about freedom and expression and tolerance, they sure show none, especially during the Christmas season.Typical. They don’t want to be offended, so they have to try and ruin it for everyone else.Question for all you lefties who are whining about Christmas displays: you are going to work Christmas eve and day, right? Or, at least, refuse any holiday pay, right? It’s interesting that Muslims and Jews aren’t the ones complaining, it’s lefties.Hmmmmm....Would the bookies in the UK take a bet on how long before Christmas is outlawed?Read the full disgrace story here.

• Madoff’s Eldest Son Found Dead in apparent Suicide.Mark Madoff, the older of Bernard L. Madoff’s two sons, was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on Saturday, the second anniversary of the day his father was arrested for running a gigantic Ponzi scheme that shattered thousands of lives around the world.“Mark Madoff took his own life today,” Martin Flumenbaum, Mark Madoff’s lawyer, said in a statement on Saturday. “This is a terrible and unnecessary tragedy.”Mr. Browne added: “Apparently, the son-in-law had indicated that someone should check on the child; had made some notification to the wife that he should check on the child.” Mr. Browne could not immediately say what time Mark Madoff made that notification or say if investigators believe it was part of some plan. Mr. Browne said the body was hanging by its neck, from a pipe in the living room ceiling. A black dog leash had been used, he said. Since Bernard Madoff’s arrest, all the members of his immediate family have been the targets of a battery of civil lawsuits filed initially by victims of the Ponzi scheme and later by the bankruptcy court trustee pursuing assets for those victims.Mr. Flumenbaum, in his statement, called Mark “an innocent victim of his father’s monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo.” Read the full story here.

• HT:NewsRealBlog.$450 Million in U.S. Stimulus Money Going To Reid And Obama Donor-Backed Chinese “Green” Company?Kudos to MSNBC, the usually reliable Barack Obama cable network, for staying on top of a story getting little play by the mainstream press, and even by their ‘fair and balanced’ rivals over at Fox News.It seems that some of that Obama-Reid-Pelosi stimulus money, which was supposed to be used to help create jobs here at home, may be helping to stimulate the Chinese economy instead. This would be on top of the help that the Chinese would get competitively if Obama’s cap-and-trade proposals are ever enacted.As reported by MSNBC, top Democratic fundraisers, union supporters and lobbyists with links to the Obama White House are behind a proposed wind farm in Texas that stands to get $450 million in stimulus money. This would be fairly routine but for the fact that A-Power Energy Generation Systems, a Chinese supplier of wind turbines, would operate the farm and its turbines would be built in China. The Chinese are also bringing some financing of their own to the project.In other words, we will be helping to subsidize jobs in China with American taxpayer-supplied stimulus money and going into further debt to the Chinese at the same time.Furthermore, according to MSNBC‘s report, before he announced his new renewable energy venture with the Chinese company that would seek access to the Obama-Reid-Pelosi stimulus slush fund for hundreds of millions of dollars, McGarr met with Pete Rouse, an Obama confidante who has since been named acting chief-of-staff in October 2010 after Rahm Emmanuel announced his departure. In addition to going after the $450 million stimulus grant, A-Power’s SEC filings indicate the joint venture is pursuing a Department of Energy-backed loan guarantee.Not surprisingly, the White House has denied granting any special favors to a large Democratic party contributor and Obama supporter who just so happens to be in bed with a Chinese company that is seeking to siphon off stimulus money meant to help create real jobs in the United States.MSNBC may be inhabited by left-wingnuts like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. But they deserve praise for going after this obvious political pay-back at the American taxpayers’ expense.Hmmmm....If he wanted to destroy America from the inside would he do anything different?The American unemployed thank you Mr President.Read the full story here.

• UAE's first Christian archaeological site opens.Tourism Development '& Investment Company (TDIC) on Saturday announced opening of the UAE's only discovered Christian monastery to the public on Sir Bani Yas Island.This historically important archaeological site makes Sir Bani Yas one of the very few destinations in the world to offer a holistic tourism experience, covering wildlife, nature based activities, a 5-star boutique hotel and sites of historical significance.The pre-Islamic monastery, which is believed to have been built around 600 AD, was initially discovered on the 87 square kilometer island of Sir Bani Yas during excavations in 1992. Now almost two decades since its discovery, and more than a thousand years since it was built, the general public can visit the site and experience another piece of the rich tapestry that makes up the UAE's fascinating history. A new phase of work is currently underway by archaeologists, and treasures are still being unearthed, making the site a significant focal point for history enthusiasts worldwide.Hmmm....Makes you wonder what happened to the monastery after 600 A.D.since it is not mentioned?Read the full story here.Pictures here.

• And now for something completely different.Vladamir ‘Fats’ Putin Sings ‘Blueberry Hill’ at Moscow Concert.Russia’s Vladimir Putin, showing his passion for music extends from favourites of spies and cosmonauts to Armstrong, played the grand piano for a room full of filmstarsPetersburg included Sharon Stone, Monica Bellucci, Mickey Rourke and other stars, the government said on its website, where the Russian prime minister was pictured sitting at a table with Italian actress Ornella Muti and several other people.Hmmmm....Personally i prefere Canadian PM Harper.Read and see the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• Obama pulls high speed rail projects in Wisconsin and Ohio.Citing disinterest from newly-elected Republican governors, President Obama has redirected federal high-speed rail dollars from Wisconsin and Ohio to other states in need of the infrastructure investment. The Obama administration has pulled federal funds from high-speed rail investment projects in Wisconsin and Ohio, and reallocated the money to other states that are more eager to develop high-speed rail corridors between their cities. The $1.195 billion that the federal government had intended for Ohio and Wisconsin will now be dispersed to 14 other states.New Jersey Governor Chris Christie effectively pulled the plug on the largest commuter rail project in the country, and Republican mid-term election victories have put the brakes on many large-scale infrastructure investment projects in other states, with both Wisconsin and Ohio indicated an unwillingness to move forward on the high-speed rail projects - citing cost concerns from incoming Republican governors. "Today is one of the saddest days during my four years as governor because I see jobs leaving Ohio, I see resources leaving Ohio, I see vital infrastructure leaving Ohio," outgoing Ohio Governor Ted Strickland said, according to Reuters. "And I see other states being enriched by resources that would otherwise have created thousands of new jobs, revitalized our cities and helped keep our young people in Ohio."Hmmmm.....Payback for the midterm elections?Read the full story here.More here.

• US envoy Holbrooke in critical condition after taking ill.Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was in critical condition after doctors completed surgery to repair a tear in his aorta, the State Department said today."This morning, doctors completed surgery to repair a tear in his aorta. He is in critical condition and has been joined by his family," State Department spokesman P J Crowley said.69-year-old Holbrooke was admitted to the intensive care unit of the nearby George Washington University and was being treated for blood clot, the ABC news reported.He was meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when he gasped and clearly was undergoing some sort of medical situation, it added.Read the full story here.

• "The War on Christmas".Stores airbrush Christ out of Christmas cards.Supermarkets were accused of ‘airbrushing Christ out of Christmas’ yesterday after it emerged that less than one per cent of cards they stock have religious themes.Many stores display hundreds of different Christmas cards yet offer just a handful featuring traditional Christian scenes. Some had no cards at all with religious references in their extensive ranges.The Daily Mail visited major outlets of the big four supermarkets – Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Morrisons – in seven towns and cities.Out of 5,363 cards sold individually or in multipacks, just 45 featured Christian scenes such as the Nativity – 0.8 per cent.Stephen Green, of Christian Voice, said: ‘The situation is caused by managers subscribing to political correctness and the idea that in some way Christian cards are offensive to other religions. This is simply not true.’Anas Altikriti, of the Muslim Association of Britain, said he was ‘worried’ at the increasing secularisation of Britain. He added: ‘People who are looking for proper choice of Christmas cards should raise it with the store manager.’Hmmmm......."Political correctness is killing Christ?"Read the full story here.

• 17 killed in attack on Pakistan hospital.At least 17 people were killed and 20 injured on Friday when a suicide-bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a hospital being built by the minority Shia community in Pakistan's restive northwest Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. The Hazara Hospital in Hangu town collapsed in the impact of the blast and several persons were buried under the rubble, witnesses said. Rescue workers and local residents pulled the bodies and the injured out of debris. Many nearby buildings were also damaged in the blast. Rescue efforts were hit by lack of heavy machinery and a power outage caused by the explosion. No group has claimed responsibility for the Friday attack. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani described the attack as a “brutal and inhuman act of militants.” Hmmmm....This is becoming the "Weekly friday prayer bomb".Read the full story here.

• HT:AmericaBlog.Obama gets FDR's history wrong ... again.Once more Obama distorts the FDR-era history of Social Security. (The first time was here, during the famous Progressive Bloggers interview, when he passed as fact a blatant and false Republican smear about FDR and Hoover.)And he's at it again. In recent his press conference, Obama said this during his anti-progressive rant: This is why FDR, when he started Social Security, it only affected widows and orphans. You did not qualify. And yet now it is something that really helps a lot of people. When Medicare was started, it was a small program. It grew.Which is just flat false; not in any history of the era I studied. Krugman calls him out: This is all wrong: both programs were huge from the start. From the beginning, Social Security applied to all private-sector workers, except those in agriculture, domestic service, or casual employment — and yes, those exceptions happened to exclude the majority of African-Americans. Still, it was by no means a small program that grew big. Medicare covered everyone 65 and older right from the beginning, although initially it only provided hospital insurance.It is, as Rosenberg says, odd that Obama doesn’t know this history.I included the last sentence to contrast the Professor's characteristic politeness with my own opposite thought. No, it's not odd at all; he passes on Republican talking points because ...Hmmmm.....Because he's nothing more then  mere"Makebelief"?Read the full story here.

• Doctors shocked by spread of swine flu – and its severity.H1N1 virus returns, already claiming lives of 10 British adults with early signs that illness has spread to other European countries.The 10 deaths were in younger adults under 65 and associated with H1N1 swine flu. Most had underlying conditions but "a small proportion" were healthy before being struck down by the virus, according to the Health Protection Agency (HPA). Seasonal flu normally causes severe illness and death in the elderly. The H1N1 swine flu virus targets pregnant women, younger adults, and those with chronic conditions, making it a cause of particular alarm.All parts of the country are affected with deaths reported from each region, according to the HPA. There were nine flu outbreaks last week, eight in schools and one in an army barracks in Yorkshire.Five of the 10 adults who died for whom information was available had not received the flu vaccine, the HPA said. National figures show vaccination rates are lower than in previous years covering 66 per cent of the over-65s and 40 per cent of younger adults at risk (pregnant women and those with chronic diseases such as asthma). Professor David Salisbury, director of immunisation at the Department of Health said: "These figures demonstrate that the effects of flu are not to be underestimated. It is not the same as getting a cold and can seriously affect your health. Hmmmm....."Swine Flu back with a vengeance"?Read the full story here.

• Video:Obama Ditches Tax Cut Presser, Bill Clinton Takes Control.Former President Bill Clinton gave a statement after his meeting with President Obama about his tax compromise with the Republicans.

However, after his statement, Clinton began to call on and take questions from the press with Obama at his side. Obama leaves promptly after a few moments and said he had to see Michelle, as he was keeping her "waiting."
"I don't want to make her mad, please go," Clinton told Obama.Hmmmmm.....He hates the tax cuts for the rich so much that he can't even talk about it?Read the full story here.

• Realated.HT:HotAir.Great news: Bill Clinton apparently now president again.The depressing truth: Given the alternative, it really would be great news.I can’t do justice to what you’re about to see. The spectacle of the president bugging out of his own press conference to go to a Christmas party is weird enough, but having Clinton back at the White House podium fielding questions on the hottest domestic issue of the day shoots past deja vu and lands firmly in “am I hallucinating?” territory. Adding to the exquisite oddness of the scene: Thanks to his op-ed this morning insisting that Obama totally rolled the GOP on the tax cuts deal, Charles Krauthammer is now “a brilliant man” in Clinton’s eyes. Exit question: The White House is very keen to reassure liberals that Obama is not, repeat not, trying to “triangulate” ahead of 2012. Hmmmm....This administration just go's down the drain more and more,just imagine if there was a real crisis going on,who will they call on?Ghostbusters?Read the full story here.

• Pensioner wearing his old RAF jacket is headbutted by thugs shouting 'death to the soldiers'.An ex-serviceman wearing an RAF jacket was attacked by thugs who shouted at him 'Bomb the soldiers! Death to the soldiers!'The 69-year-old was punched and headbutted by two Asian or mixed-race attackers who spotted him in military uniform.Paramedics took the veteran to hospital after he was left with bruising, black eyes and an injured nose following the early evening attack.The youths, aged between 17 and 20, shouted offensive remarks about soldiers at the white-haired pensioner and then attacked him when he responded.The incident happened in Sherwood Street, Fallowfield, Manchester, police revealed today.Officers today released a shocking picture of the bruised victim in a hospital bed with two black eyes after the attack.Hmmmm....We've heard "Death to the soldiers" before.Read the full story here.

• WikiLeaks cables: Pope wanted Muslim Turkey kept out of EU.Vatican diplomats also lobbied against Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and wanted 'Christian roots' enshrined in EU constitution.The pope is responsible for the Vatican's growing hostility towards Turkey joining the EU, previously secret cables sent from the US embassy to the Holy See in Rome claim.The cable released by WikiLeaks shows that Ratzinger was the leading voice behind the Holy See's unsuccessful drive to secure a reference to Europe's "Christian roots" in the EU constitution. The US diplomat noted that Ratzinger "clearly understands that allowing a Muslim country into the EU would further weaken his case for Europe's Christian foundations".But by 2006 Parolin was working for Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and his tone had distinctly chilled. "Neither the pope nor the Vatican have endorsed Turkey's EU membership per se," he told the American charge d'affaires, "rather, the Holy See has been consistently open to accession, emphasising only that Turkey needs to fulfil the EU's Copenhagen criteria to take its place in Europe."But he did not expect the demands on religious freedom to be fulfilled: "One great fear is that Turkey could enter the EU without having made the necessary advances in religious freedom. [Parolin] insisted that EU members – and the US – continue to press the [Turkish government] on these issues … He said that short of 'open persecution', it couldn't get much worse for the Christian community in Turkey."
  Hmmmm.....So what now,they will call the Pope a bigot also?Read the full story here.

• Saudi crackdown on colourful gowns.Thousands of ornamented gowns seized in raids on Riyadh markets.Saudi Arabia has launched a crackdown against ornamented female gowns, confiscating thousands of the dresses in a surprise raid on markets in Riyadh by the Gulf Kingdom’s most feared Islamic law-enforcement group.Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice stormed several markets in the capital this week and seized a large quantity of garnished gowns on the grounds they are no longer allowed in the country. One shop said all its nearly 7,100 gowns were impounded.Reporting the raids, the online Arabic language daily Wojooh said all the gowns were black embroidered with golden threads and other colours, adding that scores of shops in various markets were raided without prior notice.“Those who sell such gowns were arrested for one day and were made write statements pledging not to sell these gowns in the future,” the paper said. “In case they repeat the offence, they will be deported from the country.”He said such rules have been issued by the so-called Committee for the Following up of Anti-religion Acts at the Ministry of Interior.But the paper quoted an official at the Ministry of Interior as saying:”I have never heard about this committee at the Ministry.
  ”Hmmmm....Just think these are the people who got the seat for women's rights at the U.N.Who's bright idea was that?Read the full story here.

• Barak backs Jerusalem partition plan.Defense minister expresses support in division outline proposed by former US president Clinton; 'There is no contradiction between two-state solution, security of Israel,' he notes. Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Friday night said he supported a plan to divide Jerusalem, as suggested by former United States President Bill Clinton in 2000. During a speech at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy's seventh annual forum in Washington, Barak noted that the western part of the capital and the Jewish neighborhood belonged to Israel, while neighborhoods with dense Arab populations should be under Palestinian control.We need to demarcate Israel's borders so to secure a solid majority of Jews on the one hand, and a demilitarized Palestinian state on the other, he added.Barak also noted that the settlement blocks must remain under Israeli sovereignty while the few isolated settlements should be returned home.Read the full story here.

• 'Erdogan seeks reconciliation; Barak won't apologize'. Turkish prime minister wants to normalize relations with Israel before upcoming June elections, but defense minister, IDF officials refuse to issue apology, a Turkish newspaper report claims.According to the report, top IDF ranks also objected issuing an apology for the killing of nine activists onboard the Mavi Marmara last May."Israeli military officials are not against paying compensation to the families of the slain activists, but do oppose an Israeli apology," the report read."Even though Barak said that continued tension in Turkish-Israeli relations would not serve the goal of stability in the Middle East, he has been against an Israeli apology toward Turkey," said one of the sources.Ozdem Sanberk, the Turkish representative at the UN commission of inquiry for the flotilla incident, told reporters that there is an ongoing debate over the use of the word "apology."“As far as it concerns the Turkish side, it has never negotiated a word other than the word ‘apology’,” he said.Hmmmm....There can be no apology for protecting your country from terrorists,even Iranian expert considers the IHH as a jihadi organisation.Read the full story here.

• Protests over block on church of the Pyramids. "The government discriminates against Christians".168 Copts are still in jail (including 20 children) arrested during the demonstration on November 24 against the block on construction of the church opposed by radical Muslims.Security forces arrested 168 Copts, who are still detained, among them there are 20 minors under 18 years of age who are confined in juvenile detention center in Al Marg. A request for their release has also come from International Christian Concern (ICC), an organization based in the United States that monitors the situation of Christians in the world. On 4 December, the Egyptian head of the Union for Human Rights, Naguib Ghobrial, organized a demonstration outside the High Court of Egypt which was attended by both Christians and Muslims to demand the release of prisoners, particularly minors, and that charges be brought against the governor of Giza and the Head of Security who authorized the use of live bullets against the demonstrators on November 24.Aidan Clay, regional director for the Middle East for ICC, said: "While most attacks against Egypt’s Coptic Christians are committed by Muslim mob violence, the Talbiya attack on unarmed protestors was the first incident in recent memory authorized by branches of the Egyptian government and carried out by Egyptian security forces. Anti-Christian persecution in Egypt is reaching a new level, as Copts are no longer merely discriminated against, but are in fact being targeted and murdered by the government.Hmmmmm....."Interfaith dialog at it's best"?Read the full story here.

• HT:BigPeace.David Yerushalmi: The Legal Battle Against Shariah.Today on Secure Freedom Radio, Frank Gaffney hosts Shariah Law expert David Yerushalmi to break down a new Pew research study that shows that the “vast majority of the Muslim world wants strict Al-Qaeda-like Shariah” to be the law of the land. Yerushalmi also debunks the myth that the fundamental precepts of Shariah vary significantly across the Muslim world, discusses his legal action against the government takeover of the largest promoter and holder of Shariah financing (AIG), and highlights local and state activism across the United States to bar consideration of Shariah Law from our courts. Hmmmm...."We don't want to take over your country"?But we'll start with your laws?Read and hear the full story here.

• From Audacity to Animosity. No president has alienated his base the way Obama has.We have not in our lifetimes seen a president in this position. He spent his first year losing the center, which elected him, and his second losing his base, which is supposed to provide his troops. There isn't much left to lose! Which may explain Tuesday's press conference. President Obama was supposed to be announcing an important compromise, as he put it, on tax policy. Normally a president, having agreed with the opposition on something big, would go through certain expected motions. He would laud the specific virtues of the plan, show graciousness toward the negotiators on the other side—graciousness implies that you won—and refer respectfully to potential critics as people who'll surely come around once they are fully exposed to the deep merits of the plan.Instead Mr. Obama said, essentially, that he hates the deal he just agreed to, hates the people he made the deal with, and hates even more the people who'll criticize it. His statement was startling in the breadth of its animosity. Republicans are "hostage takers" who worship a "holy grail" of "tax cuts for the wealthy." "That seems to be their central economic doctrine." There is only one Democrat who could possibly challenge Mr. Obama for the nomination successfully and win the general election, and that is Hillary Clinton. Who insists she doesn't want to. What are the Democrats to do? If you are stuck with a president, you try to survive either with him or, individually, in spite of him. Some Democrats will try to bring him back. How? Who knows. But that will be a great Democratic drama of 2011: Saving Obama. The White House itself still probably thinks the Republicans can save him, by overstepping, by alienating moderates. But so far, on domestic matters, they're looking pretty calm and sober. They didn't crow at the tax compromise, for instance, even though they knew the left is correct: It wasn't a compromise, it was a bow. To reality, but a bow nonetheless.
  Hmmmm....Perhaps he doesn't seek to be re elected but to take power as a new Ivan Grosny,together with his inner circle of oprichniki?Read the full story here.

• Nader: Pres. Obama Is a 'Con Man'."He has no fixed principles," Ralph Nader said of Mr. Obama in an interview with CBS News. "He's opportunistic -- he goes for expedience, like Clinton. Some call him temperamentally conflict-averse. If you want to be harsher, you say he has no principles and he's opportunistic.""He's a con man," Nader continued. "I have no use for him."Read the full story here.

• 25+ Signs That Point to Nuclear War.It’s hard for most people to even think about the possibility of nuclear war. They have completely lost their fear of nuclear war. It can’t happen! Unfortunately, that’s not true, and I’m going to show you why.How can one possibly know that nuclear war approaches? History provides the clues we’re looking for. Just like history informs us when a forest is susceptible to a major forest fire. The exact timing might be impossible to figure out, but we can know the season.Possible reasons for war:

1.  The rise of a power rival in the presence of a declining superpower has led to war six out of the last seven times. Today it’s China versus America.
2. When a rival finds that it is incapable of keeping up militarily, then it may launch a preemptive strike before it is too late. Russia is now in danger of falling behind. This is the reason why Germany started World War I.The decline of a superpower is a very important historical sign of bad things to come. America is now in this situation.
3. Another important historical sign is that when most people from the last big crisis have died then society becomes susceptible to another big crisis. The last big crisis was the Depression plus World War II.Here are three possible catalysts for war:
4. A conflict in the Middle East involving Israel.
5. .A conflict on the Korean peninsula.
6. A conflict over Taiwan.The use of nuclear weapons by any country could result in an an escalation.Introduction to Nuclear War Signs 1 to 5.
7. Doomsday shelters making a comeback.Now read the rest here.

• And now for something completely different.Why are hundreds of Dartmoor ponies being slaughtered and fed to tigers at the zoo?Five degrees below zero on Dartmoor and the fog is ­settling onto the valley floor for the evening. The last rays of the setting sun bounce off ­frozen ponds and lakes. There is no sign of life — even the Hound of the Baskervilles wouldn’t be seen dead on the moors at this time of year — except for one breed of animal which has been here for 3,000 years and has seen much worse ­winters in its time.The Dartmoor ponies appear ­oblivious to the plummeting mercury.Heads bent to the ground to graze the icy turf, they occasionally shake their shaggy manes — not to warm themselves up, just to flick their ­dangling fringes out of their eyes.Those manes — and their tails — are broad and thick, to cope with the worst Dartmoor can throw at them. The ponies’ coats change according to the season. Their winter double-coat has guard hairs, which shed the rain and keep their skin dry in the worst of ­weathers; in summer, the coat is short with a silky sheen.Other ponies are occasionally dumped on Dartmoor but struggle on these wild, bleak moors — their coats get out of ­condition and they quickly lose weight as they fight a losing ­battle with the ­elements. Dartmoor ponies have been here so long that they have become uniquely conditioned to the uplands of Devon. With the recession and a calamitous decline in hill-farming profits, the demand for ­Dartmoor ponies has fallen through the floor — as has the price they fetch for sale. A costly increase in red tape for pony ­owners has contributed to a glut in the ­market, as farmers offload the money-losing animals.A minimum price tag of ten ­guineas (£10.50) has now been ­introduced by the Dartmoor Hill Pony Association for the ­animals but, before that, they were going for as little as £1 a head. And so, this year, the knackerman has been called in — again and again and again. Andrew Goatman, the local ­slaughterman from South Brent, ­normally culls around 100 of the weaker Dartmoor ponies a year, to ensure the genetic pool of the ­breeding stock is kept healthy.And so the unwanted ponies become ­animal feed. Apparently they are popular with tigers at ­Dartmoor Zoo. Pitifully sad as it is, the process makes money, which helps to ­support the surviving ponies, with the zoo paying a ­special ­premium for the meat.According to Benjamin Mee, ­director of Dartmoor Zoo: ‘The tigers’ coats look much better on horsemeat. Ponies are much closer in ­protein-content to the zebras and ­antelopes, which they would ­normally eat in the wild.’A century ago, there were 30,000 ­Dartmoor ponies. Now there are just 1,500 mares left. The Dartmoor pony is rarer than the Giant Panda. ‘The ponies’ gene pool is a natural ­treasure, which must not be lost,’ says ­Charlotte Faulkner, of the Dartmoor Hill Pony ­Association, who has kept ponies on the moors for 15 years.‘We have an invaluable source of resilient ponies — which are true children’s friends, future ­competition animals and the ­perfect tool for looking after Dartmoor.Hmmmm.....I think it's outrageous to slaughter such a fine animal for feed!Read the full story here.