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LAST WEEK Geert Wilders gave a speech in Rome, sponsored by the Magna Carta Foundation, an Italian think tank. Tomorrow I will publish the entire speech, which is long, but well worth reading (and sharing).

Every year, the Magna Carta Foundation invites “an eminent international personality” to give a keynote address on a topic on the agenda of public debate, before an audience composed of members of the political, economic, religious, cultural and scientific Italian leadership. With this keynote address, Magna Carta opens its annual course of studies, conferences and publications.

They chose Geert Wilders because he is leading the awakening of Europe. He says what few other public figures have the courage to say. He educated himself on Islam’s doctrine and is willing to speak honestly about it, even though it endangers his life.

I signed up for Google News Alerts a few years ago, using the keywords “Geert Wilders,” and the number of news stories about him has steadily increased. Of course, most of the headlines describe Wilders with derisive descriptions like, “Right-wing Racist, Geert Wilders Says…” But his message is being heard by more and more people.

Although he is constantly vilified by the press, he continues moving forward, speaking honestly and calmly and reasonably, continuing to try to help people understand, and that is what we must do.

Please read Geert Wilders’ speech. Print it out and take the time to read the whole thing. You won’t be disappointed. This is the best speech I’ve ever seen by Wilders.

Citizen Warrior

AS I HAVE said before, whoever is the most organized will win the conflict between orthodox Muslims and non-Muslims. And a new tool has been created to help the non-Muslims organize. It’s a Facebook-like social media platform called Infidels United. It looks like Facebook and works a lot like Facebook, but will never censor you for posting something about Islam.

I don’t recommend you give up Facebook, because we can use it to reach those friends and family who still need to be educated about Islam (here is how to use it for that purpose).

But for mutual support, for insider news, for sharing with each other good links, articles, and arguments — and for launching coordinated actions — Infidels United is perfect. All of us should sign up and get our fellow counterjihad friends to sign up too. You can use an alias freely at Infidels United, unlike Facebook. The creator of the site understands the danger of our work and respects our need for anonymity.

When coordinated action needs to be taken, it would be helpful to have a central communications hub where the message can get to everyone. Infidels United fits the bill.

Citizen Warrior

Two U.S. State Department employees — one who speaks out against anti-Semitism, the other against Islamaphobia – have teamed up to promote a global campaign to get young people to combat racial, ethnic and religious bigotry by volunteering their time for people unlike them.

“For instance, a young Jewish person could volunteer five hours at a clinic that services a Muslim community. Or a Muslim could volunteer several hours to read books to a Christian pre-school. The list goes on and on,” said Hanna Rosenthal, the State Department’s special envoy focused on anti-Semitism.

The campaign, “2011 Hours Against Hate,” grew out of Rosenthal’s friendship with Farah Pandith, the State Department’s special representative to Muslim Communities. Attending a conference two years ago in Kazakhstan, the two arranged to swap speeches decrying hatred against Jews and Muslims, catching the the ear of conferees.

They were accompanied by young people from six non-governmental organizations who asked them to promote deeds, not just statements. They said they were inspired by U.S. President Barack Obama’s call for more volunteerism and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s appeals for ”citizen diplomacy.” The concept also paralleled Europe’s declaration of 2011 as the year of volunteerism.

So, on February 17 at another conference in Vienna, the two introduced their idea.

“Over a dozen ambassadors came up to us and said, ‘This is great. We want something for our governments to do to reach out to our younger generation.’ We’re seeing young people embrace this wholeheartedly,” Rosenthal said in a conference call with reporters.

“One can look at this and think this is a gimmick … and it’s not. It’s beyond religion. It’s about gender, it’s about race, it’s about ethnicity,” Pandith said.

“It clearly is a campaign of deeds,” Rosenthal said of the campaign aimed at the under-30 crowd. “It is a campaign that asks young people to volunteer their time … to do something for someone who doesn’t look like them, who doesn’t live like them, who doesn’t pray like them.”

The pair said they were received enthusiastically by audiences in Azerbaijan, Turkey and Spain. They traveled to places such as Cordoba, Spain, where, historically, people of different faiths have lived peacefully side by side.

The campaign is drawing adherents online via the campaign’s Facebook page.

Photo credit: Reuters/Baz Ratner (Palestinian girls walk past an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man in Jerusalem’s Old City)

FaithWorld

India has, of late, joined the leading nation of the world in making school education somewhat easy and simple. These steps are largely appreciated as unnecessary pressure on children was wreaking…

Indian Muslims

Baba Ramdev has been probably most successful of God men of recent times. He claims to have a following of over a billion people. Baba in a short span of time has built a multi million empire, his…

Indian Muslims

Here is the paradox. In one hand, we have ladies leading our countries and on the other hand, we are not even letting others see the face of the earth. Based on the declining sex ratio, a recent…

Indian Muslims

Some of my readers may think since there are only two major parties that in general there are only two kinds of voters out there: those who vote for Democrats and those who vote for Republicans.

However, when Obama entered the race it became much more complicated. I see four groups of people who voted for Obama:

1. People like me who are counting on Obama to screw up our economy so badly that Gold will go through the roof and thus I’ve Been Doin’ Some Thinkin’ (IBDST) aka undiepundit) illustrates group number four with stunning accuracy:

   YouTube, Libya vs. Iraq

   The observant reader will no doubt realize that the video actually describes groups two and three as well, although it nails dumb white chicks perfectly.

   Since my article announcing I was voting for Obama, gold has almost doubled in price (3 to 30 an ounce), while silver has more than doubled in price (from 18 to 37 bucks an ounce). Way to go Obama. Whatever you’re doing, keep on doing it.

   ---

   Note: if the video above is removed by YouTube, you can download it from my server here. You will need VLC Media Player to view it.

   
   
   

   

   
   Planck’s Constant

(At a funeral in Kassenuma town, Miyagi prefecture March 26, 2011/Carlos Barria)

Ten flimsy wooden coffins were laid on two sturdy rails at a hastily prepared cemetery of mostly mud as Keseunnuma began burying its dead from the tsunami that ripped apart the Japanese coastal city. Desperate municipalities such as Kesennuma have been digging mass graves, unthinkable in a nation where the deceased are almost always cremated and their ashes placed in stone family tombs near Buddhist temples. Local regulations often prohibit burial of bodies.

The number of dead in Kesennuma was 551 as of Saturday, far too many for local crematoriums that can typically manage about 10 bodies a day but are now facing shortages of kerosene. Another 1,448 in the city of about 74,000 are missing from the tsunami two weeks ago that has left more than 27,500 people dead or missing across Japan.

“This disaster has created a tsunami of tears,” said Shuko Kakayama, master of the Jifukuji Buddhist temple, which lost 300 members to the tsunami that also heavily damaged temple grounds.

(Funeral in Kassenuma town, Miyagi prefecture March 26, 2011/Carlos Barria)

Kakayama, who presided over the funeral of one temple member and prayed for all souls laid to rest, said there was a time when Japan permitted burials. But the government has for decades sought cremations due to a lack of cemetery space in the densely populated country.

“If we are returning to the earth, then we are returning to nature,” Kakayama said.

Read the full story by Jon Herskovitz here.

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FaithWorld

Photo Credit: Capitol Hill Blue

My readers may recall my September 2009 article about scumbag District Attorney George Skumanick Jr. who wanted to prosecute preteen girls as sex-offenders because of so-called sexting. The images sent to friends’ cellphones were certainly not indecent except in the perverted, filthy mind of the prosecutor.

Here is the update since then:

The D.A. offered to drop the felony charges to those students who appeared in the photographs and those who had received them on their cellphones if they agreed to attend a sexual harassment program designed by the prosecutor himself. Seventeen of the students accepted his ridiculous offer, but 3 girls and their parents refused and filed a lawsuit against Skumanick [Miller, et al. v. Skumanick PDF] in Federal Court with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania alleging that he violated their First Amendment rights with his threat of prosecution over their refusal to take his course.

The girls and their parents won a ruling blocking Skumanick who is appealing [PDF].

Legislators need to de-criminalize sexting and instruct prosecutors to mind their own business – this is not a matter for law-enforcement, this is a matter between parents and their children.

Addendum: Who says there’s no justice in the world? Thankfully asshole George Skumanick Jr. is no longer the district attorney. ²

Notes

(1):

CBS, 27 Mar 2009, Sexting Girls Facing Porn Charge Sue D.A.

One summer night in 2007, a pair of 13-year-old northeastern Pennsylvania girls decided to strip down to their skivvies to beat the heat. As Marissa Miller talked on the phone and Grace Kelly flashed a peace sign, a third girl took a candid shot of the teens in their white bras.

It was harmless, innocent fun, the teens say.

But the picture somehow wound up on classmates’ cell phones, and a prosecutor has threatened to charge Miller and Kelly with child pornography or open lewdness unless they participate in a five-week after-school program followed by probation.

On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge to block Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick Jr. from filing charges, saying that the teens didn’t consent to having the picture distributed, and that in any event the image is not pornography.

“There was absolutely nothing wrong with that photograph,” said Marissa’s mother, MaryJo Miller, 44, of Tunkhannock.

“I certainly don’t want pedophiles looking at my daughter in her bra, but I don’t think that was the intention to begin with,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press. “This is absolutely wrong on his part. It’s abuse of his authority.”

(2):

The Times-Tribune, 4 Nov 2009, Wyoming County district attorney falls in election

The George Skumanick Jr. era of the Wyoming County district attorney’s office is over.

The incumbent Republican lost his bid for a sixth term as top prosecutor when he was upset by Democrat Jeff Mitchell.

A jubilant Mr. Mitchell was admittedly “shocked.”

…

Asked if the issue [sexting] might have played a role in the election’s outcome, Mr. Mitchell said he believed many people thought Mr. Skumanick’s actions “became too much of a media circus.”

Planck’s Constant

In the most glorious Qur’an, King David is revered as one of the three main prophets before the coming of Mohammed. Before the Quran, the previous Islamic holy books were the Torah, which was given to Moses; the Psalms given to David; and the Gospels given to Jesus.

Known as Dawood in Arabic, Islamic tradition recounts much of the Jewish history of David including his battle with the giant Goliath. The Jewish King also appears in the aHadith as one whose way of fasting and praying is the most perfect. ¹

Given that the prophets of Islam are held in such high esteem, one would think that Muslims would be taught to respect the prophet Dawood and not make images of the shield of King David being pooped out of assholes as seen in the photo above right.

But that is precisely what reader Kal has done in response to my article If You Knew Islam Like I Know Islam. Earlier in the same comment section Kal wrote: “Fck the cross and fck the jews.” (I cleaned it up for my corporate readers)

This is the respect and tolerance Muslims have for unbelievers. It should be noted that Kal is from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where Constitutionally to be a Malay one must be a Muslim. It is quite well known that it is almost impossible for a Muslim in Malaysia to change his or her religion legally. Yes, indeed, Islam the religion of tolerance.

Kal isn’t the only Muslim reader who has contempt for infidels, a quick reading of Muslim comments to my main joke page shows precisely how many, many Muslims feel about unbelievers. This is one of the reasons that I allow Muslims to rant without any restrictions other than asking them to put asterisks in f-words, so that the rest of us can read what Muslims really think of us when they let their guard down.

Before any reader asks about the image of an Islamic crescent being trashed at the bottom of my sidebar, so why am I picking on Kal for doing the same with crosses and Stars of David? Let me say that I am not the one pretending to be tolerant of other religions. But when I read thousands of Muslim comments declaring “Islam is the religion of tolerance,” then I believe I have a right to point out that this is one of the great Islamic Myths of this century.

Notes

(1):

The Religion of Islam, The Ancient Kingdom of Israel (part 3 of 6): Prophet David

David was known for his piety and devotion to worshipping One God, and he fasted every other day. Prophet Muhammad, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, is said to have told his companions that, “The most beloved fasting to God was the fasting of Prophet David, he used to fast alternate days. And the most beloved prayer to God was the prayer of David, he used to sleep the first half of the night, and pray for one third of it and again sleep for a sixth of it.”

~~Saheeh Al-Bukhari

Planck’s Constant