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Bin Laden’s theology a radical break with traditional Islam

2011-05-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

(CNN) – Osama bin Laden wore the mantle of a religious leader. He looked the part and talked a good game, but his theology was a radical departure from traditional orthodox Islam.

The pitch to join al Qaeda did not start with an invitation to put on a suicide vest but, like other religious splinter groups and cults, took advantage of disenfranchisement and poverty.

Bin Laden had no official religious training but developed his own theology of Islam.

“We don’t know that (bin Laden) was ever exposed to orthodox Islamic teachings,” said Ebrahim Moosa, a professor of religion and Islamic studies at Duke University.

The writing of ideologues in the Muslim Brotherhood influenced bin Laden heavily, Moosa said.

“He takes scriptural imperatives at their face value and believes this is the only instruction and command God has given him – unmediated by history, unmediated by understanding, unmediated by human experience. Now that’s a difference between Muslim orthodoxy and what I would call uber- or hyperscripturalists,” Moosa said.

The vast majority of Islamic scholars and imams say the teaching of the Prophet Mohammed happened in historical context that needs to be understood when reading and interpreting the Quran.

“If the likes of bin Laden, if they had spent one day or maybe one month possibly, in a madrassa (Muslim religious school) and understood how the canonical tradition is interpreted, they would not go onto this kind of destructive path they go on,” Moosa said.

In the entire leadership structure of al Qaeda, “no one has had any sort of formal religious training from any seminary,” said Aftab Malik, a global expert on Muslim affairs at the United Nations Alliance of Civilization. He is researching a Ph.D. on al Qaeda.

“What you had was an engineer and a doctor leading a global jihad against the whole world,” Malik said. “That would never happen in normative Islam. It’s just such an aberration.”

John Esposito, a professor of religion and international affairs at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, said bin Laden “appropriates Islam … to legitimate and mobilize people.”

“If you look at bin Laden’s early statements and arguments, his interview with Peter Bergen on CNN … lots of people would see it as something that would go down very well not just with many Muslims but among many analysts when he talks about longstanding political grievances,” Esposito said.

“What bin Laden ends up doing is saying anyone who disagrees with him, any Muslim, is in fact an apostate,” he said. That includes Muslims who would not join his fight, he said. “It’s a distortion of the traditional teaching, and it just extends the parameters and the consequences in order to legitimate how when you’re fighting on the ground you’re fighting against your own people.”

Malik said, “The key issue is of apostasy,” referring to when a person leaves a faith. “One of the things Osama bin Laden deviates from is calling those people who do not implement Sharia, or God’s law, on the planet as apostates. If they did not implement Sharia, they deserved death. This is a major departure from normative Islam.”

“The second major deviation is the targeting of noncombatants. Even when you read in the Quran there are injunctions for fighting. But before and after the injunctions for fighting are calls for restraint. ‘Do not attack monks, do not attack women, do not attack children.’ And these are numerated heavily in the Hadith, which are uncontested,” Malik said, referring to the sayings of the prophet and his close companions.
http://mymuslimnews.blogspot.com/2011/05/bin-ladens-theology-radical-break-with.html

ISLAM: Islam And The Theory Of Evolution

2011-04-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

There are around 30,000 genes in the human body, incorrect sequences of nucleotides making up a gene would render that gene completely useless. Frank B. Salisbury writes in “Doubts about the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution”, American Biology Teacher, September 1971, p. 336:
“A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNAgene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain. Since there are four kinds of nucleotides in a DNA chain, one consisting of 1,000 links could exist in 41,000 forms. Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 4^1000=10^600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure 1 followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension.”

Robert Shapiro, a professor of chemistry at New York University and a DNA expert, calculated the probability of the coincidental formation of the 2000 types of proteins found in a single bacterium (There are 200,000 different types of proteins in a human cell). The number that was found was 1 over 10^40000. (This is an incredible number obtained by putting 40,000 zeros after the 1)
Scientists’ comments regarding “chance”

ISLAM: Islam And The Theory Of Evolution

Islam And The Moslim World: 'We'll see depleted uranium missiles thrown by Western aircraft on Libya'

2011-04-28T11:12:00.000-07:00

Balkans expert Marko Gasic predicts Libya will become a new Iraq. He says that now that the cease-fire is needed for peace, that should be the aim of the mission. The mission has now become compromised, he says, and should be stopped as soon as possible.

Islam And The Moslim World: 'We'll see depleted uranium missiles thrown by Western aircraft on Libya'

Against Apartheid States: Remember Palestine-Struggle for Recognition

2011-04-28T11:09:00.000-07:00

Against Apartheid States: Remember Palestine-Struggle for Recognition

The Heated Discussions: Hero of Gaza: Vittorio Arrigoni, Kidnapped and Murdered

2011-04-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

The Heated Discussions: Hero of Gaza: Vittorio Arrigoni, Kidnapped and Murdered

AL Shark Al Awsat: Israel Demolishes homes in Palestinian Village

2011-04-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

AL Shark Al Awsat: Israel Demolishes homes in Palestinian Village

Israel admits it used phosphorus weapons

2011-04-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

The Israeli government has admitted that it used controversial phosphorus weapons in its attacks against targets during its month long war in Lebanon this summer.
The chemical can be used in shells, missiles and grenades and causes horrific burning when it comes into contact with human flesh.
White phosphorus (WP) weapons are not forbidden by international law but some human rights groups believe they should be re-classified as chemical weapons and banned.
The Israeli admission was made by the cabinet minister, Jacob Edery, who was questioned on the subject by Zahava Gal-On, a member of the Knesset.
Mr Edery told Ms Gal-On: "The IDF [Israel Defence Force] holds phosphorus munitions in different forms. The IDF made use of phosphorus shells during the war against Hizbullah in attacks against military targets in open ground."
Ms Gal-On said that her original question to the government related to suspicions that Israel has been using experimental weapons in Gaza so she was surprised when she was offered a confirmation that Israel had used phosphorus weapons in Lebanon. "My original question was about the use of Dime [dense inert metal explosives] weapons by Israel in Gaza but instead I was given the answer to a different question," she said. "The use of phosphorus weapons in Lebanon is shocking and unacceptable."

http://brutalconvictions.blogspot.com/2011/04/israel-admits-it-used-phosphorus.html

The Solution to the Middle East Problem: The Full Dissolution of the "State of Israel"

2011-04-06T10:17:00.001-07:00

A Proposal by Neturei Karta International

The Root of the Problem
The Palestinians want back the land stolen from them by the "State of Israel" in 1948, but this “State of Israel” will never return it to them, having “received” it from the United Nations! The creation of a "State of Israel" at the expense of the Palestinians living there was a wrong decision, a historic injustice that is unacceptable today to increasing numbers of people.

This "State of Israel" must be dissolved quickly and peacefully. The danger emanating from that region can no longer be tolerated.

Neturei Karta International is proposing the following schedule:

Step 1: Dissolution: The "State of Israel" will be dissolved through UN resolution. The UN decision of November 1947, calling for the partitioning of Palestine and the establishment of the "State of Israel," will be recognized as a mistake and reversed.

Step 2: Transfer of Power: The Palestinian people will take full sovereignty over the whole country, including the territory of today's "State of Israel." The transfer will take place in the following manner: The UN will take power in the country after the dissolution of the "State of Israel," and will enter into negotiations with a provisional Palestinian government, transferring the territory to them. After the takeover, a permanent government will be formed under the declaration of a new Palestinian state.

Step 3: Population policy: If the Palestinian government agrees, the Jews already living there will be allowed to remain with the status of immigrants under Palestinian sovereignty in the country. Upon request, they may obtain full Palestinian citizenship and equality, if that citizenship and equality be granted by the Palestinian authorities. The UN and the nations will prepare laws that would regulate such matters. The procedure and the execution of the whole plan should be as equitable, humane and painless as possible. A sufficiently long time should be provided for the execution of the plan.

Step 4: Living together: The submitters of this proposal hope to overcome, by the adoption and implementation of this plan, the pent-up hatred and desire for revenge, which unfortunately seem to be the only things Jews and Arabs have in common under the current reality. Â We hope to see all people living together again in excellent agreement and mutual respect, as in all the years before the Zionist disaster.

***

This proposal may seem utopian, but it is the only real and serious possibility for a peaceful solution to this otherwise intractable problem.

Let us consider five advantages, which will be effective immediately after the implementation of this plan:

1. The threat to world peace will be substantially defused. Middle East war, Intifada, Qassam rockets, Gaza War, Lebanon War, Suez War, Six-Day War and more will be things of the past. Israel's nuclear threat as well as Iran's "Israel-destruction threat" will be meaningless. Large parts of the global anti-terrorism campaign will be unnecessary, since terrorism is largely caused and motivated by the existence of the "State of Israel."

2. The oppression of the Palestinian people by the "State of Israel" will be over. Their livelihood and human dignity will be restored to them. The prison that is Gaza will be opened. The Palestinians in the Middle East will once again be able to breathe freely.

3. Anti-Semitism will decline sharply. Its current main cause, the impudent and arrogant behavior of the Zionist state against people and nations, as well as its atrocities against its "Arab subjects," will come to an end due to the dissolution of the Zionist state. Threats of rising anti-Semitism around the world will occur less and less.

4. The astronomical sums which the U.S. and other countries shell out annually for the support and arming of the "State of Israel" can be used from now on for the execution of this scheduled peace process.

5. The U.S. and other countries will be freed from the grips of the "Zionist lobby." They will again be free to make their own decisions without the consent and constraints of this powerful lobby.

***

A Short Explanation of the True Jewish, Unadulterated Torah Position:
The land of Israel belongs to the Palestinians who have been living there for centuries. The Jews were sent into exile by God two thousand years ago, and they must remain in exile until they are redeemed by God. The Zionist idea of a premature termination of exile by human power, through politics, robbery and intrigue, has always been opposed and rejected vehemently by Torah-true Judaism.

The Holocaust and the Founding of the State
After the great destruction of the Jews in Europe, when the Jews were uprooted and bleeding, they finally followed the Zionists into the "promised land." Practically, after the terrible Holocaust, they had no other choice. The UN in 1947 "gave" part of Palestine to the Zionists as a new home for the Jewish people, a laudable idea. However, it was accomplished at the expense of the Palestinians living there. The Zionists expelled them from their homes and settled Israelis in their place. Thus the UN's decision was a historic injustice.

The Turning Point
The world has begun to see that the Zionist "redemption" has evaporated. The historic injustice of 1948 must be corrected, and the Zionistic "Jewish state" must be completely dissolved. The whole entity known as the "State of Israel" has not the slightest to do with Judaism. Zionism is not Judaism, and Judaism is not Zionism. The two concepts stand in stark contradiction to each other. The Zionists are in no way entitled to represent the Jewish people! No one has ever given them this role; they have taken it on by themselves.

The People of Israel
The people of Israel has been, since time immemorial, the people of God and nothing else. It is not "a people like all peoples," whose existence is defined by political power and borders. It received from God on Mount Sinai laws and goals in life, which it has always followed faithfully. That is, until about 100 years ago, when the great catastrophe of the Zionist movement arose with the aim of "let us be a nation like all nations!" Let us have nothing in common with God, nothing to do with Sinai, they said. With strength, together, we will solve our problems ourselves. Let us have one country, one government, one army, one language, and everything a nation needs here! And unfortunately, the Zionist movement was successful.

But it is God who will never accept the "Zionist redemption." He will force His people to return to the interrupted exile and wait for the real, divine redemption.

This is perhaps our one last chance to do this on our own, because if we do not do it ourselves, God Himself will do it. There is no way around God's plan. Therefore, we must have the insight to implement this solution by dissolving Zionism and the "State of Israel."

The world, especially the UN, the U.S. and the EU, has a duty, for it is they who have the power to carry out the above proposed solution. The advantages of this plan, identified above, certainly justify their taking it into consideration.

Neturei-Karta InternationalÂ August 2010/Elul 5770

http://www.nkusa.org/activities/statements/20090209.cfm

Quakers are boycotting Israeli settlement goods. Now for the lies and abuse

2011-04-06T00:55:00.001-07:00

British Quakers announced today (5 April) that they are calling for a boycott of goods from Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This is a brave decision, given the volume of abuse, hate mail and downright lies that face those who take a public stand against the Israeli authorities.

Personal experience has made me very aware that there are few more subjects likely to generate hate mail than comments on Israel and Palestine. When I worked for the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), I was quoted in the Jerusalem Post opposing arms sales to Israel. I emphasised that "I'm not anti-Israel, I'm anti-arms trade". But I received an email beginning, "Dear Symon Hill, the British Nazi".

A few years ago, I attended an event in a London church supportive of Palestinians' human rights. A Christian Zionist standing outside literally yelled in my face, telling me that the event was promoting hatred. The church received hundreds of abusive messages, including one saying that the curate would "burn forever in a real hell" (presumably this is distinguished from a fake hell, which has pretend flames cut out of orange cardboard).

To be fair, I dare say that people who back the Israeli government also receive hate mail. This is just as abhorrent.

I'm often very critical of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), the formal organisation of British Quakers. But on this occasion, I applaud both the decision they have made and the courage they have shown in making it.

When the Methodist Church decided to call for a boycott of settlement goods, their position was not only attacked but consistently misrepresented in the media. Misrepresentation of the Quaker position will surely come - very soon.

I'm assuming that Quakers will face the same accusations that were made about Methodists. With this in mind, here are some important points about the Quaker decision.

Firstly, the boycott applies only to goods produced by the colonial Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It does not apply to goods produced in Israel itself.

Secondly, British Quakers are not "pro-Palestinian" and "anti-Israeli". They are "pro-human rights". Like many people who boycott settlement goods, they oppose violence committed by both Palestinians and Israelis and recognise that the occupation is a key part of structural violence. If the situation were reversed, and Palestinians were building illegal settlements on Israeli land, I am confident that Quakers would be just as opposed to occupation.

Thirdly, Quakers did not make this decision after listening only to Palestinians and not to Israelis, or only to Muslims and not to Jews. Quakers have been engaging in discussion with several groups. The decision on Saturday was almost certainly swung by the support for a boycott offered by Jewish and Israeli peace groups. British Quakers count a significant number of Jewish people, and people with Jewish connections, among their members.

Fourthly, the decision was not made lightly or quickly. Whatever you or I think of Quaker decision-making methods, the one thing they cannot be accused of is undue speediness (their much reported decision to endorse same-sex marriage came twenty-two years after they first formally discussed it). The decision followed deep discernment, which built on years of active Quaker involvement in the Middle East through the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). Quakers administer the British wing of this project, which is run by the World Council of Churches.

Let us not forget the wording of the formal minute of the Quakers' decision: "We pray fervently for both Israelis and Palestinians, keeping them together in our hearts. We hope they will find an end to their fears and the beginning of their mutual co-existence based on a just peace. And so we look forward to the end of the occupation and the end of the international boycott.”

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/14495

Dr.Zakir Naik Reply Florida Church Burn Quran Day on 9/11

2011-04-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

The great scholar Dr.Zakir Naik President of Islamic Research Foundation is giving reply to Florida Church Burn a Quran Day on 9/11. This video is brought to you boy Islamic Research Foundation log on to our website and logs
www.irf.net

Israel may ask U.S. for $20 billion more in security aid, Barak says

2011-03-13T19:36:00.000-07:00

Israel may request an addition $20 billion in military aid from the United States in light of the unrest sweeping the Arab world, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Monday.

Barak deemed the changes in the region a "movement in the right direction", and said that in the long run, Israel should not fear the "movement of Arab societies toward modernity.

Source

UK faced Libya threats over Megrahi

2010-12-09T17:41:00.000-08:00

Britain faced threats from Libya that it would cut all ties with the country if the ailing Lockerbie bomber died in prison in Scotland, confidential US cables released by WikiLeaks show.

Libyan officials warned their British counterparts that "consequences for the UK-Libya bilateral relationship would be dire were [Abdelbaset] al-Megrahi to die in Scottish prison," read one dispatch from the US ambassador to Tripoli in January 2009.

Threats included the cessation of all British commercial activity in Libya and demonstrations against British facilities, as well as suggestions Britons in the country could be put at risk, according to the cables released on Tuesday.

It went on to say that if Washington publicly opposed the release, "the US Embassy and private Americans in Libya could face similar consequences".

And despite London's attempts to publicly distance itself from the decision to release al-Megrahi, which was made by the devolved Scottish government, the cables showed the British ambassador in Tripoli "expressed relief" about al-Megrahi's imminent release.

"They could have cut us off at the knees, just like the Swiss," the ambassador, Vincent Fean, is cited as saying, in reference to a dispute between Libya and Switzerland prompted by the arrest of the Libyan leader's son.

Compassionate release

Al-Megrahi was the only person ever convicted over the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, most of them US nationals.

He was released in August, 2009, on compassionate grounds after doctors diagnosed him with prostate cancer and gave him just three months to live, sparking outrage in the US.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/12/20101286931729749.html

The Russian Army In Chechnya

2010-08-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

The armed conflict in Chechnya that began in September 1999 is well into its fourth year. Despite repeated pledges by the authorities in Moscow that they would do their best to improve the human rights situation and stop the constant abuse of civilians by members of the federal military and security forces, the atrocities continue, apparently unabated.

As far as is known, no high-ranking Russian officer has been meaningfully punished for allowing or participating in the abuse of civilians or the mistreatment of separatist combatants who have been taken prisoner. In December 2002 the most publicized case of a Russian officer to face charges over conduct in Chechnya - the prosecution of the tank regiment commander Colonel Yuri Budanov, accused of strangling an 18-year old Chechen girl in 2000 - ended with the defendant acquitted on the grounds of temporary insanity. Following an international outcry, the Russian Supreme Court overturned the verdict in February 2003 and has ordered a retrial.

Budanov’s initial acquittal by a military court seemed like a signal to Russian commanding officers and security service officials that killing Chechen civilians was acceptable and that no one would be seriously punished, no matter what they did. At the same time, it is clear that continued massive mistreatment of the Chechen population is undermining the Kremlin’s policy of trying to pacify the rebellious republic. Virtually all outside observers, including many influential members of the military and political elite in Moscow, agree that the continuing abuse of civilians by the military and security forces is the main source of support for the rebel movement – helping it to recruit more young men and women to fight for the cause to revenge dead relatives.

http://www.crimesofwar.org/chechnya-mag/chech-felgenhauer.html

Born Free to Fight Oppression

2010-07-29T16:19:00.000-07:00

When my young ones were only a few days old. I remember my mom showed me a way to strap them with a blanket when they sleep as so they can sleep better at night. Me I thought to my self " that's a great idea to also strengthen their tiny bodies with their own resistance force". The blanket was very small and just made it around them, so with enough work they always broke free, but it was very intriguing to see how much effort they would put in to be free. I was found of it, taken by it and logically this infant which is at a COMPLETE STATE OF PURITY is resisting the oppressor which is the blanket. Amazed how every time they fought and never gave up. It was obvious that their Nature was calling out " resist your oppressor, your born Free".

Humanity has overcome many overwhelming odds to make it to our modern age.No body really specifically knows exactly when mankind began or where exactly. Many leading sciences lead to Africa as the birth place of humanity. I believe that naturally makes sense, since it is a warm climate and very fitting to suit human beings. Furthermore the past 100 years have changed things DRAMATICALLY which showed how deadly mankind can be against itself in displaying a figure no lower then 150 to 200 million death. All at the hands of human beings, regardless of ideology, regime, system, religion or color and race. One thing for sure, we know that those who were on the offensive had evil plots behind all their work and humanity was compromised as being of no value, tools of slavery, money makers, under-paid, under-appreciated, money slaved driven societies.

Born Free to Fight Oppression

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Palestinian prisoners protest inhumane Israeli punishment

2010-07-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

Palestinian prisoners protest inhumane Israeli punishmentThe Ministry of Prisoner Affairs for the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has warned of an 'explosion' of the situation within Israeli prisons, given the systemic conduct of collective punishment of detainees exercised in most Israeli jails.

In a press release issued on Monday (26.07.2010), the ministry stated that the management of Israel's Prison Service continues to enforce repressive policies against Palestinian detainees who have in turn responded by escalating their active objection.

The ministry's lawyers explained that all detainees of the Ramon prison have recently begun a partial hunger strike in protest at the sudden campaign of carrying out night searches. 11 detainees of the Eshel prison have also taken the same step in objection to the collective punishment they are all subjected to; they are banned from receiving visitors for 6 months - a measure that was taken after the prison management found a cell phone on one of the detainees.

A detainee of the Israeli Shata prison has said that special army units carry out inspection campaigns that usually last for four consecutive hours, during which time prisoners' personal effects are tampered with and some items are even confiscated - searches are carried out on the pretext of searching for cell phones.

In the Gilbo'a prison five detainees have been prevented from receiving visitors while electric fans have been confiscated and all inmates have been stopped from taking part in any sports for two months without reason.

The Ministry also mentioned that detainees in Ofer prison said that the prison's management has installed distraction devices which make noises that continuously irritate prisoners and cause mental and physical disorders. According to the ministry, Ofer's prisoners have demanded that Israeli authorities be pressured into removing these devices which are spread all over the prison.

Source

From the 1953 CIA Overthrow of Democracy in Iran, to the Iraq War, to the Criminal Gulf Catastrophe and Deaths, BP Was There

2010-07-28T13:05:00.000-07:00

f you were to draw an oily line from the first exploitation of oil in the Middle East by the British in 1901 (they were in the process of converting their then world dominating naval fleet from coal to oil and were in desperate need of it) to the overthrow of the secular democratic leader in Iran, Mohammed Mossadeq, in 1953, to the Iraq War, to the criminal environmental catastrophe in the Gulf, BP would have been there.
But the fourth largest company in the world wasn't always called BP. It used to be owned by the British Government (remember the navy armada in need of oil). It was named the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company when the CIA teamed up with the British because the Western style Iranian leader Mossadeq wanted to nationalize Britain's 100% owned and run giant oil concession in Iran, and the West would have none of that. So Eisenhower authorized "Operation Ajax," and the Shah of Iran was placed in power -- ruling with an iron fist and the dreaded SAVAK, all the time fully backed by the U.S. -- leading to the radical theocratic revolution that we still confront today. All the time BP, which formally adopted its current name in 1954, was there.

BP was there throughout the de facto colonization of the Middle East to provide oil to the West, the British and the U.S. remaining strong partners in keeping any recalcitrant nations in line. Which leads to the Iraq War and why many Americans and Brits were puzzled by Tony Blair's eagerness to go along with Cheney's secret oil committee plan to seize Iraq oil fields and Bush's belief that the war was Biblically justified. BP is the largest corporation in the UK and the third largest energy company. Do you have any more questions?

BP and its American counterparts are part of the corporate oligarchy that run governments when it comes to energy policy. They don't take orders from sovereign nations; they give them. They are unelected, but because of their hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue and profit, they run the show when it comes to oil policy, and profit comes first: forget about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Oil is their gold; we are just consumers who can be replaced at any time by more consumers, vassals to the oil company Masters of the Universe. There is no brake on their malfeasance, greed and criminal behavior, nor their ability to get nations to go to war, overthrow democratically elected leaders, and to get away with pollution of proportions beyond the imagination.

For over a century, whenever American and British GIs have died for oil, whenever pollution and toxicity have been let loose to ravage our shores, whenever residents have died of cancer caused by the oil refining process and spills, whenever Congress and White Houses have loosened regulations to allow reckless and massively damaging behavior, BP was there, along with their American counterparts: companies so large that they are above the law and governmental control.

Most American presidencies and Congress -- and particularly the Bush/Cheney Presidency -- have regarded oil companies and the control of oil resources as essential to the survival of the American economy. As a result oil companies and the secondary businesses that support them -- such as Halliburton and Transocean -- are indeed able to call the shots and get the U.S. and the UK to do their bidding. In the UK, BP is the power behind 10 Downing Street when it comes to foreign policy, drilling, and all things oil; that is why Tony Blair could not refuse to join the Bush/Cheney (and Rumsfeld) attack on Iraq.

Which leads us to the catastrophe in the Gulf.
From the 1953 CIA Overthrow of Democracy in Iran, to the Iraq War, to the Criminal Gulf Catastrophe and Deaths, BP Was There

US Ambassador wife to Afghanistan fell in love with Kabul.

2010-07-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

When Karl was picked by President Obama to be the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan in January, 2009, we both were extremely honored. At the time, Karl was a career Army officer serving our country as the Deputy Chairman of the Military Committee at NATO headquarters in Brussels; I was a freelance journalist who had been following this man, to whom I said “I do” decades ago, wherever in the world his career took him.

I never thought I would come to a war-torn Afghanistan and gain a family here. But this is what has happened.

Being a Chinese-American, I have often said I have two mothers: Mother China gave me life and Mother America gave me soul. Coming to the United States in the late 1960s, I witnessed the greatness of this country, its democracy and liberty available to all. So when my husband accepted the nomination, I raised my hand to accompany him and became the first ambassador’s spouse to live in Kabul since the fall of Taliban.

US Ambassador wife to Afghanistan fell in love with Kabul.

A Nation of Faith and Religious Illiterates

2010-04-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

By Stephen Prothero
Stephen Prothero teaches at Boston University and is author of "American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon" (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2003).

Los Angeles Times

January 12, 2005

The sociologist Peter Berger once remarked that if India is the most religious country in the world and Sweden the least, then the United States is a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes. Not anymore. With a Jesus lover in the Oval Office and a faith-based party in control of both houses of Congress, the United States is undeniably a nation of believers ruled by the same.

Things are different in Europe, and not just in Sweden. The Dutch are four times less likely than Americans to believe in miracles, hell and biblical inerrancy. The euro does not trust in God. But here is the paradox: Although Americans are far more religious than Europeans, they know far less about religion.

In Europe, religious education is the rule from the elementary grades on. So Austrians, Norwegians and the Irish can tell you about the Seven Deadly Sins or the Five Pillars of Islam. But, according to a 1997 poll, only one out of three U.S. citizens is able to name the most basic of Christian texts, the four Gospels, and 12% think Noah's wife was Joan of Arc. That paints a picture of a nation that believes God speaks in Scripture but that can't be bothered to read what he has to say.

U.S. Catholics, evangelicals and Jews have been lamenting for some time a crisis of religious literacy in their ranks. But the dangers of religious ignorance are by no means confined to those worried about catechizing their children or cultivating the next generation of clergy.

When Americans debated slavery, almost exclusively on the basis of the Bible, people of all races and classes could follow the debate. They could make sense of its references to the runaway slave in the New Testament book of Philemon and to the year of jubilee, when slaves could be freed, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus. Today it is a rare American who can engage with any sophistication in biblically inflected arguments about gay marriage, abortion or stem cell research.

Since 9/11, President Bush has been telling us that "Islam is a religion of peace," while evangelist Franklin Graham (Billy's son) has insisted otherwise. Who is right? Americans have no way to tell because they know virtually nothing about Islam. Such ignorance imperils our public life, putting citizens in the thrall of talking heads.

How did this happen? How did one of the most religious countries in the world become a nation of religious illiterates? Religious congregations are surely at fault. Churches and synagogues that once inculcated the "fourth R" are now telling the faithful stories "ripped from the headlines" rather than teaching them the Ten Commandments or parsing the Sermon on the Mount (which was delivered, as only one in three Americans can tell you, by Jesus). But most of the fault lies in our elementary and secondary schools.

In a majority opinion in a 1963 church-state case (Abington vs. Schempp), Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark wrote, "It might well be said that one's education is not complete without a study of comparative religion … and its relationship to the advance of civilization." If so, the education of nearly every public school student in the nation is woefully inadequate.

Because of misunderstandings about the 1st Amendment, religious studies are seldom taught in public schools. When they are, instruction typically begins only in high school and with teachers not trained in the subtle distinction between teaching religion (unconstitutional) and teaching about religion (essential).

Though state educational standards no longer ignore religion as they did a decade or so ago, coverage of religion in history and social science textbooks is spotty at best. According to Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va., "It is as if we got freedom of religion in 1791 and then we were free from religion after that."

Now that the religious right has triumphed over the secular left, every politician seems determined to get religion. They're all asking "What Would Jesus Do?" — about the war in Iraq, gay marriage, poverty and Social Security. And though the ACLU may rage, it is not un-American to bring religious reasoning into our public debates. In fact, that has been happening ever since George Washington put his hand on a Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. What is un-American is to give those debates over to televangelists of either the secular or the religious variety, to absent ourselves from the discussion by ignorance.

A few days after 9/11, a turbaned Indian American man was shot and killed in Arizona by a bigot who believed the man's dress marked him as a Muslim. But what killed Balbir Singh Sodhi (who was not a Muslim but a Sikh) was not so much bigotry as ignorance. The moral of his story is not just that we need more tolerance. It is that Americans — of both the religious and the secular variety — need to understand religion. Resolving in 2005 to read for yourself either the Bible or the Koran (or both) might not be a bad place to start.

http://www.christusrex.org/www1/news/lat-1-13-05a.html

12-Year-Old Des Moines, IA Peace Activist Faces Trespassing Charge for Antiwar Protest at Offices of Sen. Harkin

2010-04-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

Frankie Hughes, twelve-year-old who was charged with trespassing after protesting war funding at Iowa Senator Tom Harkin’s office last week.
For more on this story we’re joined now via Democracy Now! video stream by twelve year old Frankie Hughes and her mother Renee Espeland.
Renee Espeland, charged with “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” last week after her twelve-year-old daughter refused to leave a protest at Iowa Senator Tom Harkin’s office. The charge was dropped this week.

12-Year-Old Des Moines, IA Peace Activist Faces Trespassing Charge for Antiwar Protest at Offices of Sen. Harkin

Jerusalem: heart of conflict, beginning of reconciliation

2010-04-13T10:53:00.001-07:00

For me -- as for most Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian -- Jerusalem is the city I love the most and visit the least. As a boy, I remember traveling to Jerusalem with my late father along the old road -- a trip that took many hours due to the "no-man's zone" that forbade us from directly accessing the city. Despite the obstacles that existed even then, I remember going to Jerusalem as a deeply happy event. It meant eating the sweets we couldn't find in our village, and visiting the holy places we'd only heard about in school and church. Or else it meant going to the doctor, since most doctors were based in Jerusalem at that time. In any case, my sentimental relationship with the city is strong.

During the 1980s, I worked at the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Jerusalem, and I drove to the office by car every morning. However, when the first Palestinian intifada broke out in 1987, Jerusalem was sealed off to those of us who lived in the occupied West Bank, and we had to obtain special permits in order to enter the city. Legally visiting Jerusalem became impossible for me. Due to my past as a political prisoner, I was put on some kind of state blacklist, and so the Israeli authorities wouldn't grant me a permit. For some years, I did manage to enter from time to time -- until, that is, Israel began construction of the "separation wall," at which point all entrances were closed to me. Since 2002, I have not returned. My 25-year-old son, Dafer, has never been to Jerusalem at all, although he has probably traveled half the world. Being barred from Jerusalem is a great loss to me and to my family.

While I must invariably address my relationship with Jerusalem in these ways -- in the voice of the child I was, the father I am -- I also wish to address Jerusalem's many symbolic meanings for myself and for others: for Palestinian Christians in our struggle for religious freedom. For Palestinians in general, in our struggle for political self-determination. And for Christians and Muslims and Jews, so often locked in conflict over a place that should in fact be a model of reconciliation.

For Palestinian Christians, Jerusalem is full not only of symbolic richness, but also of symbolic tensions. First of all, although Jerusalem is considered universally sacred for Christians all over the world -- the place of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, the birthplace of Christianity itself, the site of the first churches, the historical destination of pilgrimages -- it is in many ways a normal city for us Palestinians. It is our political capital, and has traditionally been an economic hub, a center of tourism, health services and education. In this sense, then, my relation to Jerusalem as a Palestinian Christian is twofold: it is, for me, both the universal sacred place where people go to pray and connect to the holy sites and the capital of my country, Palestine, even when the occupying state doesn't acknowledge it as such. Even more powerfully, however, Jerusalem is the universal sacred place I cannot go to practice my faith, and the capital city I cannot visit.

Yet Jerusalem is also a focal point of the Palestinian struggle, the place where our struggle began and where it will end.

According to international law, East Jerusalem is occupied territory, as are the parts of the West Bank that Israel unilaterally annexed to the district of Jerusalem. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Hague Regulations of 1907 forbid occupying powers from altering the ways of life of occupied citizens; they likewise prohibit members of the occupying state from settling in the occupied territory.

Israel's actions in East Jerusalem, throughout history as well as today, constitute gross violations of international law. The violations themselves are copious and ongoing: historical expropriation (since 1967 and through the present day) of private Palestinian-owned land, paving the way for illegal Israeli settlements (referred to as "neighborhoods" in Israeli discourse); demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem (in 2009 alone 47 houses were destroyed, leaving 256 people homeless); discriminatory housing permit policies, in the sense that nearly 10 times as many building permits are issued to Jews in West Jerusalem than to Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem; Israel's "quiet transfer" policy, revoking the residency of East Jerusalemites who moved from municipal borders (1,363 revocations in 2006, a 300 percent increase from the previous year); and countless others.

What transpires in Jerusalem, then, is a shocking abuse of power, a systematic, ongoing and flagrantly illegal usurpation of Palestinian property and autonomye. When we speak of Jerusalem, we must speak not only of the Old City and the sacred sites, but also of the Jerusalemites themselves. The streets and houses are synonymous with the people who live and work and raise their children there. The holy places are synonymous with the people praying within them. The city itself is also synonymous with all the people who are forcibly prevented from doing so.

In this way, the physical Jerusalem -- from land to houses to holy sites -- becomes the grounds on which both practical and symbolic struggles are carried out. Israel is not simply trying to find its place in Jerusalem; rather, it is trying to monopolize Jerusalem (again, on both quotidian levels and on universal, sacred ones) and exclude Palestinian Christians and Muslims from the city. For us Palestinians, Jerusalem is a city for all three faiths: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Its preciousness should not be stifled, and its holiest symbols -- like the al-Aqsa Mosque for Muslims, or the Wailing Wall for Jews -- all deserve their existence in this universal city. Any attempt to monopolize them is an attempt to monopolize that universality, and this is an effort we (meaning all peoples) must resist.

These beliefs are articulated in the Kairos document, the Christian Palestinians' statement to the world about the occupation of Palestine and a call for support in opposing it. The document's position on Jerusalem and its significance to Christians echoes the statement issued by the Heads of Churches published in 1994 and the second one in 2006. Many tend to think that Jerusalem is only important for Muslims and Jews; the document stresses its equal importance for Christians. The Kairos document addresses Jerusalem both from a specifically Palestinian Christian perspective and from a universal human perspective. We state very clearly that Jerusalem, and particularly East Jerusalem, is an occupied city; that the occupation of Jerusalem is a sin against God and humanity; that it constitutes a defiance of His will as well as that of the international community.

In the Kairos Document, we also stress that Jerusalem should be the place of and model for reconciliation, while in actuality it's the locus of and reason for our conflict. Thus, we believe that the issue of Jerusalem should be the beginning of our reconciliation, and should absolutely not be left to the so-called "final" items on the negotiation agenda. Resolving the conflict over Jerusalem first will establish a model for the two nations themselves, as well as for resolving other conflicts between them; it will also encourage the growth and development of a just peace in our region.

The document highlights many other central concerns that help us illustrate and expand our discussion of Jerusalem. For one thing, we address (and condemn) the many theological justifications of the Israeli occupation that appear in some theologies. We believe that these justifications are nothing short of hearsay, and that they distort the true Christian teachings; we reject the arguments of those who attach Biblical legitimacy to the violation of our rights. We also emphasize the right of the oppressed to resist oppression -- on our independent terms and in our local context. The Kairos Document calls on Palestinian Christians (both here in Palestine and all around the world) to change the current reality, and calls on Israel to stop its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Jerusalem by means of house demolitions and land confiscation.

The Kairos document reminds Jews, Muslims and Christians alike that Jerusalem should be the place where God reconciles with his people and where the creatures of God reconcile with each other. And it affirms the equal importance of Jerusalem for the Palestinian people, whether Christian or Muslim. This affirmation, this unity of vision -- not in the sense that everyone must share the same beliefs, but in the sense that the freedom to believe must always be shared -- is the document's greatest strength.

The fate of Jerusalem is the fate of the conflict itself. No matter the shape of a final resolution, Palestinians must have the right to exert their sovereignty in East Jerusalem. And as the Kairos Document urges, the very nature of Jerusalem -- universal, sacred and embracing -- must be honored as we proceed.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11200.shtml

Contrasting with the general pessimism, the 77 year old Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, continues to believe in the harmonious cohabitation with Islam.

2010-04-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

AL Shark Al Awsat: Contrasting with the general pessimism, the 77 year old Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, continues to believe in the harmonious cohabitation with Islam.

Islam And The Moslim World: The un-Christian Christians who embrace Israeli Apartheid

2010-04-09T23:06:00.000-07:00

Islam And The Moslim World: The un-Christian Christians who embrace Israeli Apartheid

C.AWARI: Mafia Wars Blue Print

2010-04-09T23:04:00.000-07:00

C.AWARI: Mafia Wars Blue Print

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Osama bin Laden - Is Dead

2010-03-09T00:08:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama has launched a fresh operation to find him. Working with the Pakistani Army, elite squads of U.S. and British special forces were sent into Waziristan this summer to 'hunt and kill' the shadowy figure intelligence officers still call 'the principal target' of the war on terror.

This new offensive is, of course, based on the premise that the 9/11 terrorist is alive. After all, there are the plethora of 'Bin Laden tapes' to prove it.

Yet what if he isn't? What if he has been dead for years, and the British and U.S. intelligence services are actually playing a game of double bluff?

What if everything we have seen or heard of him on video and audio tapes since the early days after 9/11 is a fake - and that he is being kept 'alive' by the Western allies to stir up support for the war on terror?

Incredibly, this is the breathtaking theory that is gaining credence among political commentators, respected academics and even terror experts.

Of course, there have been any number of conspiracy theories concerning 9/11, and it could be this is just another one.

But the weight of opinion now swinging behind the possibility that Bin Laden is dead - and the accumulating evidence that supports it - makes the notion, at the very least, worthy of examination.

The theory first received an airing in the American Spectator magazine earlier this year when former U.S. foreign intelligence officer and senior editor Angelo M. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University, stated bluntly: 'All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama Bin Laden.'

Prof Codevilla pointed to inconsistencies in the videos and claimed there have been no reputable sightings of Bin Laden for years (for instance, all interceptions by the West of communications made by the Al Qaeda leader suddenly ceased in late 2001).

Prof Codevilla asserted: 'The video and audio tapes alleged to be Osama's never convince the impartial observer,' he asserted. 'The guy just does not look like Osama. Some videos show him with a Semitic, aquiline nose, while others show him with a shorter, broader one. Next to that, differences between the colours and styles of his beard are small stuff.'

There are other doubters, too. Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University's religious studies' department and the foremost Bin Laden expert, argues that the increasingly secular language in the video and audio tapes of Osama (his earliest ones are littered with references to God and the Prophet Mohammed) are inconsistent with his strict Islamic religion, Wahhabism.

He notes that, on one video, Bin Laden wears golden rings on his fingers, an adornment banned among Wahhabi followers.

This week, still more questions have been raised with the publication in America and Britain of a book called Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?

Written by political analyst and philosopher Professor David Ray Griffin, former emeritus professor at California's Claremont School of Theology, it is provoking shock waves - for it goes into far more detail about his supposed death and suggests there has been a cover-up by the West.

The book claims that Bin Laden died of kidney failure, or a linked complaint, on December 13, 2001, while living in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains close to the border with Waziristan.

His burial took place within 24 hours, in line with Muslim religious rules, and in an unmarked grave, which is a Wahhabi custom.

The author insists that the many Bin Laden tapes made since that date have been concocted by the West to make the world believe Bin Laden is alive. The purpose? To stoke up waning support for the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To understand Griffin's thesis, we must remember the West's reaction to 9/11, that fateful sunny September day in 2001. Within a month, on Sunday, October 7, the U.S. and Britain launched massive retaliatory air strikes in the Tora Bora region where they said 'prime suspect' Bin Laden was living 'as a guest of Afghanistan'.

This military offensive ignored the fact that Bin Laden had already insisted four times in official Al Qaeda statements made to the Arab press that he played no role in 9/11.

Indeed, on the fourth occasion, on September 28 and a fortnight after the atrocity, he declared emphatically: 'I have already said I am not involved. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge... nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act.'

Within hours of the October 7 strikes by the U.S. on Tora Bora, Bin Laden made his first ever appearance on video tape. Dressed in Army fatigues, and with an Islamic head-dress, he had an assault rifle propped behind him in a broadly lit mountain hideout. Significantly, he looked pale and gaunt.

Although he called President George W. Bush 'head of the infidels' and poured scorn on the U.S., he once again rejected responsibility for 9/11.

Islam And The Moslim World: Osama bin Laden - Is he Dead or Alive ? More evidence suggest he is .....

Haiti Christian missionaries' adviser probed for sex trafficking

2010-02-15T14:45:00.000-08:00

Ten Americans charged with abducting children in Haiti are still waiting for a decision on their fate, but the case took an unexpected turn as their former legal adviser was probed for sex trafficking.

Chief prosecutor Joseph Manes Louis arrived at the court in the capital Port-au-Prince without indicating whether the missionaries, from the US state of Idaho, would be provisionally released or remain behind bars pending trial.

Alain Lemithe, a lawyer for one of the Americans, said a decision could come as early as Monday (local time) and suggested the judge might even throw out the charges against them altogether.

But Mr Lemithe said he was concerned their possible release could be derailed by an investigation by police in El Salvador involving their Dominican former legal adviser.

"I fear that. Sincerely, I fear that," he said.

That adviser, Jorge Puello, who is now back in the Dominican Republic, denied the allegations of sex trafficking and said he had anyway had no contact with the Americans prior to their arrest on January 29.

Salvadoran police say Mr Puello bears a strong resemblance to Jorge Torres Orellana, accused by Interpol of running an international sex trafficking ring that lured women and girls from the Caribbean and Central America into prostitution with bogus offers of modelling jobs.

"They are accusing me of something that I don't even know myself," Mr Puello said.

"I'm open to questions. It could happen that two people could have the same name. Whatever the case may be, I'm not afraid of anything."

Even if Mr Puello is completely innocent, his implication in such a case is an unwelcome coincidence for the 10 Americans, who have been languishing in a Port-au-Prince jail for more than two weeks.

The group from the New Life Children's Refuge was caught trying to take a bus load of 33 children they said they thought were orphans across the border into the Dominican Republican.

After it emerged that many of the children had parents, the Americans' lawyers have sought to portray the Baptists as acting selflessly to help during Haiti's catastrophe. They say the group had no criminal intent.

Some of the parents have told the judge in the case they willingly gave up their children because they were unable to care for them following the devastation wrought by the January 12 disaster.

As the nation still struggles to recover, the case threatens to overshadow relief efforts and Gervais Charles, president of the Port-au-Prince bar association, suggested it should be transferred to the US.

"I believe that at the moment we don't have what is really necessary" to try this case, Mr Charles said.

"It's not only the [collapsed] buildings. There is the trauma."

The US military said Haitian officials were expected to make an announcement in the coming days about reopening commercial flights at Port-au-Prince airport.

Source : http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/16/2820529.htm

US faces diplomatic slog to get China to back sanctions against Iran

2010-02-10T11:21:00.000-08:00

The US was today spearheading a diplomatic campaign to overcome Chinese opposition to further sanctions aimed at Iran and its Revolutionary Guards in a renewed push following Tehran's decision to produce uranium almost six times more enriched than its existing stockpile.

Barack Obama said yesterday that his administration was "developing a significant regime of sanctions that will indicate to them [Iran] how isolated they are from the international community as a whole".

Those sanctions will target a wide range of business interests belonging to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which is accused of running a covert weapons programme behind the front of a civilian nuclear industry, as well as a missile development programme.

To help convince Beijing of the need to act, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, is due to fly to Qatar and Saudi Arabia this weekend, in part to discuss assurances the Gulf states could give China that its oil and gas needs would be met during the sanctions period.

Tehran said yesterday it had begun making 20% enriched uranium, with the aim of producing medical isotopes. Western officials described the move as a new act of defiance of UN resolutions that would bring Iran significantly closer to the capacity to make a nuclear bomb.

Obama said he expected UN negotiations to move quickly. But European diplomats warned that those talks would be hindered by Chinese resistance to new punitive measures against Iran. "We think it is going to be slow going," said one, pointing to the poor state of US-Chinese relations.

Beijing is furious with Washington over its recent sale of more than $6bn (£3.8bn) in arms to Taiwan, which it views as a breakaway region. It is also irritated by Obama's decision to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Even before the recent dip in bilateral ties, China was reluctant to endorse sanctions which it described as ineffective and damaging to its extensive economic ties to Iran.

A Foreign Office official said the potential crisis caused by Iran's nuclear ambitions, including the prospect of Israeli military action, would not be in China's long-term interests. "You would think China would take the long view of its interests," the official said. "On this, I am not sure it is doing that."

Russia, which had taken the lead in resisting sanctions until last year, signalled it would back punitive measures this time. "Iran says it doesn't want to have nuclear weapons. But its actions, including its decision to enrich uranium to 20%, have raised doubts among other nations, and these doubts are quite well-founded," Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia's security council, said.

Iran's decision to make 20% enriched uranium follows the collapse of a deal, agreed in principle last year, by which Russia would carry out the enrichment and France would turn the processed uranium into fuel rods.

The agreement broke down because Iran was not prepared to wait between the export of its uranium for processing and the receipt of the fuel rods. Negotiators for three other parties to the deal, the US, France and Russia, insisted on the time gap to reduce the size of Iran's uranium stockpile, for the time it took the uranium to be enriched and made into rods.

The percentage degree of uranium enrichment is a measure of the concentration of the fissile isotope, U-235. At the level of 90% enrichment and above the uranium can be used to make a nuclear bomb. Owing to the nature of the enrichment process, in which uranium hexafluoride gas is fed into linked arrays of spinning centrifuges, it takes considerably less effort to turn 20% enriched uranium into 90%, than it takes to make 20% uranium from the current enrichment level of 3.5%.

This story was posted at the Guardian

Hamas Officials Supportive of Syrian-Israeli Talks

2009-05-09T12:05:00.000-07:00

By Kifah Zaboun

Ramallah, Asharq Al-Awsat – Two high-level ranking Hamas leaders have vehemently emphasized that the Hamas organization does not operate in any Arab or non-Arab territory and that it has no military activity except in Palestine. In statements to Asharq Al-Awsat, Yahya Musa and Atif Adwan stressed that Hamas is satisfied with the Syrian role in supporting the Palestinian issue, and noted that Syria's stance is different from the stances adopted by several Arab countries. They said that Hamas respects the Syrian option to hold dialogue with Israel, that these negotiations are legitimate, and that there is no reason for concern about the outcome of these negotiations.

Both Hamas leaders were commenting on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's interview in Asharq Al-Awsat where he stated that Hamas and Hezbollah would not attack Israel from Syria. He pointed out that in the direct negotiations with Israel through Turkish mediation efforts, he reached a stage closer to an agreement than that reached in the era of his father's negotiations with the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former US President Bill Clinton in 2000. more

Why I don't want to be a philosopher? "Let no one unversed in geometry enter here."

2009-05-07T09:14:00.000-07:00

As time passes by in the twilight of one's career, the most painful predicament is when one becomes aware of 'so much to learn with so little time available.' It is always the inadequacies and gaps in my comprehension of universal truth, the very idea of knowing so little and the very dynamic nature of truth, infuriates me sometimes and razes the peace of my mind. Follies of intellect are difficult to argue with. It is a fact that knowledge is bestowed to mankind in dots and drips. I have always maintained that history cannot be judged from our own vantage point. It would be mockery of a fair deal to pass judgments based on realities of today. No knowledge is flawless, neither is any philosopher or a prophet. "Contemporary transformation" and the dominant and invasive modifications taking place throughout all aspects of human existence beg the questions: Where are we potentially heading and, perhaps more importantly, where should we be heading? As I have put it mildly on my introduction on Newsvine under my picture 'Searching the purpose of our existance and where do we end up?'

We discover truth with the passing of eons. The definition of truth keeps changing; the dynamics of the change is what our minds need to train for. As if 'facts' are not fixed, they keep changing over time. Let's take an example: joblessness causes frustration and extreme anger, we saw what that Dutch man did the other day when he lost his job yet, Aristotle said that all paid jobs cause degradation of mind. Aristotle could not imagine a society with 1 billion job seekers, this scale of human degradation has inevitably caused momentous strides in research and development. He also postulated that ''the universe is perfect; the Earth is the center of this perfect universe, and that everything in the universe revolves around the Earth.''

In Athens, his teacher Plato also believed with the Pythagoreans that the stars, planets, Sun and Moon moved around the Earth attached to the surface of crystalline spheres which slid over one another while circumscribed about the five regular solids. Plato founded a school of learning in a place that once belonged to the Greek hero Academos (from whom "academy" is derived). Over the academy's door was written: "Let no one unversed in geometry enter here." It flourished for over 900 years, from 387 B.C. to 529 A.D. when it was closed by the Christian emperor Justinian who claimed it was pagan. It sadly remains a time honored tradition of man, that reason and free thinking has always been considered pagan for a holy man.

The claim looks so embellished, the idea so embroidered as we, with the benefit of time and burning at stake of those who disagreed, realize how little of geometry Plato and his generation knew. It is astounding as to why the human race is turning into skeptics, cynics and pessimists? In every challenge we face, be it on the front of the economy or health, instead of recovery we see depression, disease and destruction as our fate. Albeit spanned only over 10,000 years of restricted written history of man (mostly irrelevant in terms of astronomical timelines), the narrative of human life stands as a tangible witness of triumph of man over adversity. The limits and extent of our awareness is swelling exponentially. Disappointingly, most of us remain sheltered within the 'time frame' of our physical life or knowledge of the past. So much has changed in the realms of global economy in the last 100 years and on the front of the medicine, yet, when it comes to economic meltdown or pandemics, we keep making comparisons to 'the Great Depression of 1930' or the great flu epidemic of 1918. Little do we realize that we are not on the gold standard, and that we have tools which effectively deal with the interconnected global economy in a different way. Printing money was not an option in 1930; it is today. That also goes for the strains of flu we have, that death is caused by the aftermath or the side effects of the flu. But the lines between the pre-penicillin world and post penicillin world are blurred.

It is hip to be pessimistic, and an optimistic person is considered to be "weird." What an irony! We always imagine the worst but live longer. It is better to live happily and expect the best out of any outcome. That in itself gives a boost of confidence to the fabric of mind. It is the war of minds that needs to be won. If your mind is awake and healthy, your response will be proper and sharp whatever the challenges be. The mind just cannot reconcile the new help that advancements of knowledge of this century bring to answer the disasters of the past. Part of humanity is preoccupied with the dangers of darkness associated with deity, and the other part, the guiltless victims of intense media hype.

From what we know now of the universe, the limited scale of the genesis of human understanding is so humbling. We know that our greatest philosophers and prophets were so imperfect; infallibility of thought is the 'Achilles' heel' of man. Luckily, we can criticize our philosophers without much impunity but forget about prophets. Their sanctified position remains too virtuous to be subject of debate.

Our inability to subject the popular wisdom of "creation" to the test of reason shall be considered by many of us as blasphemous. Noah existed 6000 years or 15 billions years ago; that is a miscalculation that we can live with serenely, but the same obstinacy and inflexibility where freedom of thought is moderated by the Holy Scriptures leads to maniacal display of medievalism by extremists of the world.

One can not even envisage the horrors in 387 B.C. if Copernicus or Galileo entered the academy and would declare the legitimacy of the heliocentric cosmology. Rubbishing earth as the center of universe would have been considered as heretical and blasphemous in the sacrosanct environ of the academy, as it was by the clergy of Rome, nearly 2000 years later. Italian philosopher Galileo Galilei was one of the supreme figures of contemporary science. His rank as a "saint" of the modern world hinges on his discrimination by the Catholic Church for boldly championing the Copernican theory that the earth revolved around the sun, in contradiction to scripture, church tradition and the ancient authority of Aristotle and Ptolemy.

It looks as if destiny has its own time scale. The overthrow of man from the central role of the keeper of the universe was not an easy acceptance by saviors of mankind. Copernicus and Galileo were not entirely correct, that it was the Sun instead at the centre of the Universe and the stars being some bright heavenly bodies of an unknown nature. It was only 'partial truth.' The truth remained concealed by the fate from the curious minds of philosophers in the multilayered shrouds of ambiguity. It was as if waiting for the genius of Bruno. Giordano Bruno is known as 'The Forgotten Philosopher' who predicted ' Infinite Galaxies, Infinite Life.' He claimed that the sun was only one star among the many thousands, and therefore, like the sun, many other stars also have planets around them and living beings inhabiting them." By the time Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 on Rome's Campo dei Fiori for his provocative ideas about the infinity of the universe the Inquisition, condemned him to death in Rome as part of a yearlong jubilee. Giordano Bruno is one of the enormous figures of renaissance Europe. He is an intellectual peer of the greatest thinkers, a thinker whose dream of the world foreshadowed ours.

When science becomes a "cult," persecution follows. The Pythagoreans who followed the teachings of Pythagoras believed that science was meant only for the chosen few and that commoners should have nothing to do with it. Philosophers can be cruel too; sometimes when reason failed, persecution took over the better part of judgment. Inquisitions and burning at stake was not just a sacred preoccupation, even Pythagoras to his eternal shame sentenced Hippasus to death by drowning.

One story claims that a young student by the name of Hippasus was idly toying with the number √2, attempting to find the equivalent fraction. Eventually he came to realize that no such fraction existed, i.e. that √2 is an irrational number. Hippasus must have been overjoyed by his discovery, but his master was not. Pythagoras had defined the universe in terms of rational numbers and the existence of irrational numbers brought his ideal into question. The consequence of Hippasus's insight should have been a period of discussion and contemplation during which Pythagoras ought to have come to terms with this new source of numbers. However, Pythagoras was unwilling to accept that he was wrong, but at the same time he was unable to destroy Hippasus's argument by the power of logic. Source

Deeper Digital PenetrationThe expanding invasion of the naked body scanners

2009-04-30T18:10:00.000-07:00

y scanners are taking over.

When we first checked in on them two years ago, the scanners, which see through clothing, were being deployed at a single airport. A few months later, they were upgraded to millimeter-wave technology, which delivered similar images with even less radiation—"10,000 times less than a cell phone transmission," according to the Transportation Security Administration. At the time, TSA assured us that the scanners would be used only as a "voluntary alternative" to "a more invasive physical pat-down during secondary screening." Only a few passengers, the ones selected for extra scrutiny, would face the scanners. The rest of us could walk through the metal detectors and board our planes full story

Israel shoots an Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner

2009-04-30T17:21:00.001-07:00

Israel shoots an Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner

Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire has been shot with a rubber[-coated metal] bullet by the Israeli military while taking part in a nonviolent civil rights protest organised by Palestinians and Israelis.

The incident took place on Friday 20 April, and Ms Maguire, famed for her work for reconcilition in Northern Ireland, has now returned home.

She won her Nobel Laureate for galvanizing popular demands for a just peace and opposition to both military and paramilitary acivities during 'the troubles'.

She said yesterday: “I was invited with my friend to attend a nonviolent conference in Bilin, a village outside Ramallah [in the West Bank], and to give a talk there, which I did. At the end of the conference, we were invited to participate in a nonviolent demonstration with some of the Palestinian members of parliament and Israeli peace activists and local villagers and international visitors.

Gaza - Rebuild the territory and open a pathway to peace.

2009-04-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip (AP) — The seven foul-smelling lagoons of sewage near Gaza's coast were supposed to be replaced by a globally funded waste treatment plant. Instead, they epitomize the nightmare faced by foreign donors as they seek to rebuild the territory and open a pathway to peace.

The multimillion dollar project has been delayed by violence and a 20-month-old border closure that have made it difficult to bring supplies into Gaza. Now, after Israel's devastating military offensive, clearing the lagoons is just one part of a much bigger challenge.

On Monday, some 80 donor countries meeting in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheik will be asked to pledge at least $2.8 billion in aid to Gaza.

There's plenty of good will — Saudi Arabia has already promised $1 billion and the U.S. $900 million — and the level of representation will be stellar, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and French President Nicholas Sarkozy. More

Who is the father of Jesus?

2009-04-30T17:16:00.000-07:00

Who is the father of Jesus?

The author of this list attempts here to piece together a claim from the Qur'an that even though God specifically declares many times throughout it that Jesus (pbuh) is not His son and that this claim is a blasphemy of the worst kind, still, he thinks that if he tries heard enough he might be able to claim that through implication it might be possible for the dedicated student to make the Qur'an "hint" at endorsing what it explicitly refutes and warns against in many places. But he is measured in his approach. He covers all bases first. He starts by saying "Is Jesus the son of Allah? The Qur'an says no." which he then follows up with his implication that in spite of this, still, the Qur'an might still leave the door open for the exact opposite of its explicit claims to be true. In this manner, he attempts to leave himself the room he shall need to maneuver if anyone simply points to God's continuous and repeated explicit refutations of the claim that Jesus (pbuh) is his son. In this case, he can simply say "I already said that the Qur'an says 'no'." However, he then goes on to imply that such a simple matter as the God's explicit condemnation does not necessarily mean that He really means it. TheMuslimJesus

Islamic Stand Against Terrorism and 9 11

2009-04-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

Islamic Stand Against Terrorism and 9 11

April 23, 2009 |

In Iran, they observed a minute’s silence for the victims of 9/11. Ayatollah Imami Kashani said this act of terrorism could only be condemned by all Muslims, adding that the whole world should mobilise against terrorism. On September 18th, Iranians held a vigil on the streets of Tehran. They lit candles, prayed for the victims, and condemned terrorism.

In Bangladesh and Indonesia they held rallies condemning terrorism.

Palestinian organizations strongly condemned the terrorist attack. Palestinians held candle light vigils on September 12th and 14th to express their grief and solidarity with Americans. Close to a million Palestinian students stood for five minutes in silence, to express their solidarity for American children who were struck by the tragedy. Palestinian university students in East Jerusalem began a blood drive to donate blood to the victims of 9/11.

Contradictions in the Bible

2009-04-30T17:14:00.001-07:00

Contradictions in the Bible

Who incited David to count the fighting men of Israel?

(a) God did (2 Samuel 24: 1)

(b) Satan did (I Chronicles 2 1:1)

In that count how many fighting men were found in Israel?

(a) Eight hundred thousand (2 Samuel 24:9)

(b) One million, one hundred thousand (IChronicles 21:5)

How many fighting men were found in Judah?

(a) Five hundred thousand (2 Samuel 24:9)

(b) Four hundred and seventy thousand (I Chronicles 21:5)

God sent his prophet to threaten David with how many years of famine?

(a) Seven (2 Samuel 24:13)

(b) Three (I Chronicles 21:12)

How old was Ahaziah when he began to rule over Jerusalem?

(a) Twenty-two (2 Kings 8:26)

(b) Forty-two (2 Chronicles 22:2)

How old was Jehoiachin when he became king of Jerusalem?

(a) Eighteen (2 Kings 24:8)

(b) Eight (2 Chronicles 36:9)

How long did he rule over Jerusalem?

(a) Three months (2 Kings 24:8)

(b) Three months and ten days (2 Chronicles 36:9)

The chief of the mighty men of David lifted up his spear and killed how many men at one time?

(a) Eight hundred (2 Samuel 23:8)

(b) Three hundred (I Chronicles 11: 11) Get more

Who created God ?

2009-04-30T17:12:00.000-07:00

Well this question i can tell everyone that no one has the answer to, not man nor woman can answer this question and the only one who can answer this question is god alone, therefore that question must be asked to god, not humanity, because humanity as smart as they are ,are another creation and are limited on knowledge.

If that isn't satisfying for anyone and think that god was created, then who ever created that god, then there must be another god that created that one, and there for there must be another god that created that one and we can clearly see that this would be an endless discussion which will continue and continue and no answer is reached. Unless off course there is only ONE God.

Either way to be realistic as possible, Only at death one would find out, and in no attempt to have one fear his death, because believe me your better of in gods hands then mans. but to remember that we are here for a purpose, we are not part of any accident and creation, beginning whatever put us here is proof for rational minds that believe things just don't randomly happen for example hurricane rips through new york city and leaves it looking like Dubai in Emirates,haha , might as well say that your birth process wasn't actually done by specific and particular actions from the beginning till the end ,and that was just accidents the for some random coincidences that made the sperm reach the egg. Did you know that the female egg only sends one signal and the sperm only understands one signal.. Hmm another coincidence as well. not possible , this complicity is every where around us, its too common, all the work is masterfully done.

All im saying here is God is far beyond my comprehension, your comprehension, every ones comprehension, mankind is given a set of gifts and tools they can use, such as the 5 senses and the endless worldly bless that is around us . oh yea and Soul, Life, Energy force, whatever name you wish to call it , its the same thing in all of us.

What else does man have power over then the worldly things and his own self ??

God exists based soley on the facts we see around us based on design and supported by life which goes around us everyday, what we are aware of and what we are not. Its Important to remember that we build our own personal relationship with our creator, and from that point we can start connecting with each other on a much higher scale of unity, under humanity's name, which one day will end all that we struggle with everyday on a global scale. More

The following table shows the 50 countries with the highest percentage of Muslims.

2009-04-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

Country -- %of Muslims -- Muslim Population
Mauritania - 99.9% - 3,083,772
Maldives - 99.9% - 348,756
Western Sahara - 99.8% - 272,461
Somalia - 99.5% - 8,548,670
Turkey - 99% - 68,963,953
Iran - 99% - 67,337,681
Algeria - 99% - 32,206,534
Afghanistan- 99% - 29,629,697
Yemen - 99% - 20,519,792
Tunisia - 99% - 9,974,201
Oman - 99% - 2,971,567
Comoros - 99% - 664,534
Djibouti - 99% - 471,935
Morocco - 98.7% - 32,300,410
Iraq - 97% - 25,292,658
Libya - 97% - 5,592,596
Pakistan - 96.35% - 156,491,617
Saudi Arabia - 95.7% - 25,281,642
Tajikistan - 95% - 6,805,330
Jordan - 95% - 5,471,745
Qatar - 95% - 819,898
Senegal - 94% - 10,459,222
Azerbaijan - 93.4% - 7,389,783
Egypt - 91% - 70,530,237
Mali - 90% - 11,062,376
Niger - 90% - 10,499,343
Gambia - 90% - 1,433,930
Uzbekistan - 89% - 23,897,563
Turkmenistan - 89% - 4,407,352
Indonesia - 88.22% - 213,469,356
Bangladesh 88% - 127,001,272
Syria - 88% - 16,234,901
Guinea - 85% - 8,047,686
Kuwait - 85% - 1,985,300
Bahrain - 85% - 585,093
Palestine - 84% - 3,159,999
Kyrgyzstan - 80% - 4,117,024
UAE - 76% - 1,948,041
Lebanon - 70% - 2,678,212
Albania - 70% - 2,494,178
Brunei - 67% - 249,481
Sudan - 65% - 26,121,865
Malaysia - 60.4% - 14,467,694
Sierra Leone - 60% - 3,610,585
Burkina Faso - 55% - 7,658,922
Chad - 54% - 5,306,266
Nigeria - 50% - 64,385,994
Eritrea - 50% - 2,280,799
Ethiopia - 47.5% - 34,700,310
Kazakhstan - 47% - 7,137,346

Source

Guantanamo prisoners to be transferred to Baku An Azerbaijani newspaper reported

2009-04-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

The Newspaper Musavat Novin, printed in Baku, reported that an agreement was made between the Azerbaijani government and the American government regarding the transfer of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to Azerbaijan at the same time that the country is on the verge of voting for a referendum regarding its constitution.

This newspaper wrote the following about how Azerbaijan is a strategic position for American forces: “American airplanes enter the Azerbaijan Republic every day and then fly to Afghanistan and other countries. But, the information regarding what these planes are carrying remains secret. It is not clear whether they are carrying prisoners or military equipment. This issue creates the conditions necessary to transfer prisoners.” Story

Terrorized by 'War on Terror' How a three-word mantra has undermined America

2009-04-02T00:24:00.000-07:00

Terrorized by 'War on Terror'
How a three-word mantra has undermined America

by Zbigniew Brzezinski

The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.

The damage these three words have done -- a classic self-inflicted wound -- is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare -- political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.

But the little secret here may be that the vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors. Constant reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. . . .

Posted by Source

50 Signs of Judgment day accourding to Islamic signs

2009-04-02T00:19:00.000-07:00

50 Signs of Judgment day

These signs were prophesied 1400 years ago!!!
Take a look and think for yourself.

* Camels will no longer be used as a means of transport;
* People will ride on saddles that aren't saddles (cars?)
* The distance on earth will become short;
* Horses will not be used in wars;
* Muslims will defeat the Byzantines which will end with the conquest of Constantinople( Istanbul)
* The Jews will gather again to live in Bilad Canaan;
* Very tall buildings will be built;
* The disappearance of knowledge and the appearance of ignorance, with much killing;
* Adultery will become widespread, and the drinking of wine will become common;
* The number of men will decrease and the number of women will increase until there are 50 women to be looked after by one man.
* Islam will become worn out like clothes are, until no one will know what fasting, prayer, charity and rituals are;
* Allah will send a disease to fornicators that will have no cure (Aids?);
* People will begin to believe in the stars and reject AL QADAR (THE DIVINE DECREE OF DESTINY);
* Men will pass by people's graves and say: 'Would that I was in his place'; (large amount of suicidal deaths?)
* The Euphrates will uncover a mountain of gold for which people will fight over (the river of Al Furat that lies near Iraq/Syria);
* Two large groups of people will fight one another, and there will be many casualties; they will both be following the same religion (World War II?);
* Approximately 30 DAJJALS will appear, each one claiming to be the
messenger of ALLAH;
* Earthquakes will increase;
* Time will pass quickly;
* Afflictions will appear;
* Killing will increase;
* Wealth will increase;
* Women will be wearing clothes but not wearing clothes
* THE PROPHET (saw) SAID: 'IF MY UMMAH BEARS 15! TRAITS(QUALITIES) ,TRIBULATION WILL FOLLOW IT.
' (DAY OF JUDGEMENT) SOMEONE ASKED,'WHAT ARE THEY O MESSENGER OF ALLAH?' HE (saw) SAID:
* When any gain is shared out only among the rich, with no benefit to the poor;
* When a trust becomes a means of making profit;
* When paying ZAKAT becomes a burden;
* When voices are raised in the mosque;
* When the leader of a people is the worst of them;
*When people treat a man with respect because what he may do;
* When much wine is drunk; red wind or the earth swallow them, or to be transformed into animals.
* 'IMRAN IBN HUSAYN SAID: 'THE PROPHET (AS) SAID, 'SOME PEOPLE OF THIS UMMAH WILL BE SWALLOWED BY THE EARTH, TRANSFORMED INTO ANIMALS, AND SOME WILL BE BOMBARDED WITH STONES'.
ONE OF THE MUSLIMS ASKED, WHEN WILL THAT BE O MESSENGER Of ALLAH?' HE SAID,

WHEN SINGERS AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS WILL BECOME POPULAR AND MUCH WINE IS DRUNK.

*THE GREATER SIGNS OF THE HOUR the Quran will disappear in one night, even from the people's hearts, and no Ayyah will be left on earth.
(Some groups of old people will be left who will say: 'We heard of fathers' saying 'LAILLAHA ILLA ALLAH' so we repeat it)
* The appearance of the MAHDI
* the appearance of the DAJJAL (Anti Christ)
* the appearance of Ya'juj and Ma'juj (biblical Gog and Magog)
* Isa (Jesus) will come during the time of Dajjal
* the rising of the sun from the west
* the destruction of the Ka'ba and the recovery of its treasures
* the smoke.

* "O Prophet (pbuh) preach to them (the Truth), for preaching proves beneficial for the Believers" ..

** "O Messenger {Muhammad (pbuh)}! Proclaim (the Message) which has been sent down to you from your Lord.
" ..

*** Accept the True faith, do righteous deeds, recommend the Truth and patience to one another.

Posted By IS

Citigroup Plans Big Bonuses Despite Rules Against Them

2009-03-21T00:44:00.000-07:00

AIG isn't the only bailed-out financial firm paying big bucks to managers who helped steer their company to near collapse. Citigroup has pledged millions of dollars in bonuses to senior executives for the next few years, despite lawmakers efforts to eliminate such payments.

It's not clear whether the bonuses, which Citigroup says are for 2008 but won't start paying out until 2010, will be allowed. Under compensation rules passed by Congress in mid-February, cash bonuses are barred for top executives at bailed-out banks.

But Citi finalized its bonus program shortly before the new rules were introduced. That might make the payments permissible, though they could be made almost worthless by new tax rules just passed by the House of Representatives and headed for consideration in the Senate. Even so, Citigroup's move in January to set in place bonus payments for years to come raises questions about whether it was trying to evade compensation rules it knew were coming.

"If an executive legitimately earns a bonus, then paying it out over a number of years makes a lot of sense,' says Paul Hodgson, a senior research associate at the Corporate Library, which examines issues of corporate governance. "But I find it hard to believe that any top executive at a bailed-out bank would have had the performance in 2008 to generate a multimillion-dollar bonus.

Suspects threw more than $17,000 from car

2009-03-21T00:41:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO, March 20 (UPI) -- Authorities in San Diego said drug suspects threw more than $17,000 out of a vehicle during a police chase on a highway in the evening commute hours.

Eileen Zeidler, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said the chase began at about 5 p.m. Thursday when two men who were under surveillance as part of "a significant drug investigation" drove off in a pickup truck and were pursued by San Diego police and DEA agents, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Friday.

The passenger in the vehicle began throwing money out the window of the vehicle, causing passersby to rush to recover the money. Agents and officers recovered more than $17,000 thrown from the vehicle and a 16-year-old boy later gave police $570 that he had picked up.

Zeidler didn't say how much money the suspects were carrying before they began throwing the cash. She said the suspects were arrested but didn't give any further information on the arrests or the investigation, the Union-Tribune said.UPI

Nissan's GT-R hit the sports-car scene last year

2009-03-21T00:39:00.000-07:00

Nissan's GT-R hit the sports-car scene last year with a tremendous bang, but not even a year after the first car was delivered, there's already controversy. Web-savvy car enthusiasts have no doubt read about the GT-R's issue with the "launch control" system. It was something I had to bring up with GT-R project chief Kazutoshi Mizuno. Over a cup of green tea, I asked for an explanation...well, he did more than that. He threw me the keys to a 2010 Nissan GT-R and said, "I'll explain as you drive."

Slideshow >>

Mizuno said that the major difference between the 2010 model GT-R and its predecessor is the launching system. ("Please don't call it launch control!" he kept reminding me.) Nissan was forced to make revisions to this technology after dozens of busted transmissions (by folks who abused the system by using it repeatedly over a short period of time). The issue became so publicized that it led to a highly viewed You Tube parody starring an evil German dictator, which at the time of this writing had 204,900 views.

Mizuno and his team claim that this device was never intended for setting fastest quarter-mile times at your local drag strip. Its main function was to efficiently pop out of slippery driving surfaces, such as snow or mud. Yeah, right. I gave him a questioning stare. He pulled out the car's original owner's manual and said, "See for yourself."

Okay, he had a point. It did state that the system was to be used only when getting out of snow or mud.

Slideshow >>

But Mizuno said that because there was so much made about the system in its current state, he has made sure there will be no controversy next year. The "leave-the-line-efficiently-out-of-slippery-surfaces control" has been reprogrammed to launch the car at 3000 rpm instead of 4500. This dramatically eases the stress on the drivetrain, allowing the driver to use it repeatedly without worrying about breaking anything. Unfortunately, it also means the end of super-quick wheel-chirping snaps off the line. Still, even with this mellower version, the car is plenty fast.

The 2009 version now comes with the same reprogrammed software as the 2010. First, we tested the 2009 model. The car's original 0-60-mph using the launching system was 3.3 seconds. We recorded 3.4 sec. with the new software. There's much less drama when releasing the brake pedal, but it doesn't take long for all four tires to hook up. Now Mizuno asked me to launch "normally" — by using only one foot. So when I was ready, I took my right foot off the brake pedal and then mashed the throttle with the same foot. Again, no real drama when leaving the line, but the result was surprising. I recorded a 3.5-sec. 0-60-mph run. This means that you really don't need to initiate the launching mode anymore, unless for some crazy reason, you really savor that extra fraction of a second. This held true for the 2010 model as well.

Other changes for the 2010 car, which comes with an MSRP of $80,790 ($83,040 for the Premium Edition), include a new color mentioned above and a new black coating on the forged alloy wheels. But for driving enthusiasts, the only difference worth noting is the leave-the-line-efficiently-out-of-slippery...oh the heck with it, the only difference worth noting is the launch control.

Obama on Tonight Show urges students to study engineering, not finance

2009-03-21T00:37:00.000-07:00

Enrollment in computer science is on the rise after six years of decline, and even President Barack Obama is urging students to eschew finance in favor engineering.

Obama's advice was offered on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (See video). "We need young people, instead of -- a smart kid coming out of school, instead of wanting to be an investment banker, we need them to decide if they want to be an engineer, they want to be a scientist, they want to be a doctor or a teacher," the president said.

Obama didn't specifically cite computer science in his riff on Leno's show, but the message was clear. He would rather see students pursue "things that actually contribute to making things and making people's lives better -- that's going to put our economy on solid footing."

The economy may be helping to reverse a major shift away from computer science that began after the collapse of the dot.com bubble and the rise of offshore outsourcing. The total enrollment in U.S. computer science programs by majors is up 8.1%, according to the annual Taulbee Survey by the Computing Research Association. The survey only looks at a subset of the total computer science enrollments, those students at Ph.D.-granting institutions, but it's the first enrollment data to identify the trend. That subset shows an enrollment change from 28,675 to just over 31,000.

Peter Harsha, CRA's director of governmental affairs, said there's "increased optimism about the continued demand for CS graduates in the workforce. Students, and their parents probably, understand that even in these tough economic times, companies that want to innovate need graduates who can think computationally."

Harsha said, anecdotally, there "seems to be a growing understanding among some of the best students of the intellectual depth and societal benefits of computing. It's an intellectually rich, rewarding place to be." Story

Promiscuous antibody targets cancer

2009-03-21T00:29:00.000-07:00

Researchers have challenged an old immunological dogma — that an antibody can bind to only a single target or antigen — by engineering an antibody to bind tightly to two distinct proteins.

The antibody, described in Science¹, blocks two proteins: vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). VEGF is thought to promote growth in tumours, and HER2 is highly expressed by some aggressive breast tumours.

Separate antibodies that target each protein individually are already used to treat some cancers: trastuzumab tackles HER2, whereas bevacizumab binds to VEGF.

Although researchers frequently come across antibodies that weakly bind to multiple targets, until now no antibodies have been found, or engineered, that specifically bind to two very different antigens.

The results are surprising, says Paul Parren, a senior vice-president of biotechnology company Genmab, which focuses on antibody therapies, based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. "You just didn't think about antibodies that way before. It makes you wonder if such molecules might also exist in nature."

Two-in-one

To create the antibody, Germaine Fuh at Genentech, a biotechnology company in South San Francisco, California, and her colleagues mutated an antibody for HER2 and then screened for mutants that bound to both HER2 and VEGF.

A similar approach is sometimes used to modify antibodies so that they bind a different antigen, and in 2006, researchers reported that they had used the technique to create antibodies that bound to two similar forms of botulinum toxin². But Fuh's team is the first to use the technique to create antibodies that bind two unrelated proteins. "This could open the door to dual-targeting types of therapy," she says.

The structures of the bound proteins show that they attach to distinct, but overlapping, sites on the antibody. The antibody also slowed tumour growth in mice, but the mouse models used were designed to respond to either one antibody or the other and researchers do not yet know if targeting VEGF and HER2 simultaneously would enhance the cancer-fighting effect in human cancers.

Dosing difficulties

Fuh notes that antibodies which can target two proteins could dramatically reduce the cost of developing a combination therapy, which would normally require clinical trials with each antibody individually as well as in combination. A dual-targeting antibody, however, would be treated as a single drug.

Although it is possible that such antibodies could reduce costs, they could also present practical challenges in the clinic, says Parren. "How do you find the optimal dose for something that binds to two targets?" he says. This could be particularly important if one activity of the antibody is more toxic than the other. Fuh acknowledges that dosing difficulties could be a tricky to overcome, but says that the antibodies could also be engineered to bind their two targets with different efficiencies.

Combining two therapeutic antibodies is not always beneficial, even when both are at their optimal doses. Two studies published in February analysed antibody combinations in the treatment of colorectal cancer, and found that the combinations increased toxicity and reduced survival rates³^,⁴. "Hopefully these cases are just exceptions, but they shows that preclinical research doesn't always tell you what's going to happen in the patient," says Parren. "If you've developed a two-in-one antibody, you will be less flexible at that point."