Myrtus

Petition to Indict Ahmadinejad

Found this little gem via Little Green Footballs.  Probably get blown off because of it but still I found it interesting.  A petition to the Hague against Ahmadinejad for the crime of inciting genocide.  Just think if the Hague actually considered the case and found him guilty?  Would make him visiting the UN a bit dicey.

Aish.com petition.

Of course the video gets a bit over the top by using Aushwitz in conjunction with the killing fields of Cambodia, Rawanda, and Darfur.  The 1948 UN Resolution on Genocide was created in response to Hitler's Final Solution of exterminating all the Jews.  And there were a few people in the 1930s who did see what was coming with Hitler, like Sir Winston Churchill, but were ignored.  So the passengers of the liner St. Louis and Anne Frank ended up in concentration camps to be slaughtered.  One would think human beings would learn this lesson by now, all this happening in the span of less than a century.  Lets prove we have learned the lesson.

Ikbis......Arabian YouTube

ikbis | ??? ?????

Arabs and Jews Are Proud To Be Israelis

Here's something about Israel that will surprise you. After last summer's war between Israel and Hizbullah militias in Lebanon, researchers asked Israeli citizens - Arabs and Jews - if they would rather be citizens of another country. As one might expect after a war, patriotism was the order of the day. A huge proportion, almost 88.5 percent of Israeli Jews, said yes, Israel is the one country whose citizenship they preferred. But listen to this: Among Arab citizens of Israel, an astounding 73 percent agreed with the statement that they would rather be citizens of Israel than of any other country in the world.

That number is even more astounding because many Arabs in Israel admit they feel pressure to deny they like being Israelis. That, in fact, was the finding of a different survey. The first results came as part of a highly respected project called the Peace Index at Tel Aviv University. The second survey came from the Joint Israeli-Palestinian Public Opinion Poll. There, a majority - 52 percent - of Israeli Arabs agreed that, "many of the Arab citizens of Israel identify with Israel in private but refrain from expressing it in public due to social pressures."

Who knew?

Will the USA Change Its Military's Ban on Homosexuals?

In 1993, Congress banned known homosexuals from the military, convinced their presence could undermine morale and discipline. That year, Israel took exactly the opposite approach.

All restrictions on gay and lesbian soldiers were dropped. Homosexuals in the Israel Defense Forces could join close-knit combat units or serve in sensitive intelligence posts. They were eligible for promotion to the highest ranks.

Fourteen years later, Israelis are convinced they made the right decision.

"It's a non-issue," said David Saranga, a former IDF officer and now Israel's consul for media and public affairs in New York. "There is not a problem with your sexual tendency. You can be a very good officer, a creative one, a brave one and be gay at the same time."

Israel is among 24 countries that permit known gays to serve in the military, and its experience is giving fodder to opponents of the United States' controversial "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.

In a recent opinion piece in the New York Times, Gen. John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that admitting gays had not hurt the IDF or any of the 23 other foreign militaries. With troops stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States should drop its ban on known gay service members after the new Congress has time to seriously consider the issue, Shalikashvili wrote.

Read more here ...

Verrry Interesting Free Speech Issue

The Los Angeles Times has an interesting piece about the most pressing issue regarding free speech to come before the California State Supreme Court. I wonder if it will continue to the US Supreme Court. Basically, this is what is going on ...

A woman in southern California has a major problem with a restaurant/bar that she lives just a few feet away from, so she has been talking major smack about it. She has told potential patrons that the food is poisoned and that there are rats inside; she says the bar makes sex videos and sells child pornography; she says that it is run by mafia; and that they deal illicit drugs, amongst other claims.

The issue before the court is whether they legally can make her shut up. You see, she has the right to speak out, and it is most likely unconstitutional to issue an order for someone to shut up except in very certain circumstances. That doesn't mean she is allowed to get away with this. Normal recourse is for the victim to sue and to collect money after the fact, which should stop subsequent actions, but, under general circumstances, one cannot be stopped from making any future statements. Still, in this case, the restaurant/bar wants to stop her from saying things altogether because she is wrecking their quality of life.

If they are successful, will it open a can of worms? Speech is limited for such issues as national security, but not for defamation cases.

Interestingly, the woman doesn't care about free speech issues. She wants her lawyers to focus their efforts on the restaurant and bar. Here, read some of this:

Duke University constitutional law professor Erwin Chemerinsky is paying his own way to California and working free of charge to tell the California Supreme Court today that the order violates Lemen's right to free speech.

If Lemen loses, such court orders might become "a regular remedy in defamation cases," Chemerinsky said. Newspapers could even be barred from covering a person who won one, he said. In his view, the only appropriate remedy for defamation is monetary damages.

But J. Scott Russo, who will represent the Village Inn at the hearing, said the order was Toll's only way to stop Lemen from hurting his business. He said Toll did not ask for damages because it was impossible to specify how much money Lemen had cost him.

"It's ridiculous that someone can stand in front of a restaurant and tell patrons that the food makes you sick and that they sell drugs and have prostitution, and a court would have its hands tied and could not say 'Stop,' " Russo said.

I can see the conundrum. On the one hand, the restaurant wants to shut up someone that is telling lies and ruining their business. On the other hand, people worry that this can jeopardize the integrity of a system that allows robust freedom of speech.

Lemen, who owns the two-unit cottage a narrow alley away from the restaurant, began pestering Toll's employees and patrons, calling them "whores" and "Satan," videotaping departing customers walking to their cars and taking flash photographs through the restaurant's windows, court documents said.

The court did stop her from videotaping people. She's also claimed that she gets death threats but that the cops won't investigate the threats because they are in cahoots with what she claims are the mafia-owners of the restaurant. Let's just say the woman comes across as rather eccentric.

"All you need to win in court are two liars, one to back up the other, against the nice, innocent Christian woman," said Lemen, who wears her blond hair in a pageboy with bangs.

Lemen talks at breakneck speed and sometimes bursts into religious hymns or dances to the ring of her cellphone. "You should write this down," she repeatedly tells a reporter.

...

During a recent conversation, she suggested she pose "for fun" in a plastic crown with a torch she retrieved from the cottage basement. So adorned, she put her arm around her frontyard Statue of Liberty and belted out religious hymns as people walked by and stared.

Hey, even people like her have the right to have their freedom of speech protected. The question is whether she can ordered to stop telling lies about others in a way that directly affects their livlihood. Stay tuned ...

Anti-Palestinian Hate Crime at Quaker College

All the details have yet to be revealed, but as of now, this is being labeled as an ugly hate crime. The Christian Science Monitor suggests that it occurred because of the anti-Muslim sentiment that is circulating the USA. Do you agree with them?

... at least five members of the school's football team were accused of attacking three Palestinian students. According to court documents, the players allegedly beat the students with feet, fists, and brass knuckles, while calling them "terrorists" and racial epithets.

This coming week, the FBI and local prosecutors will begin interviewing football players. They'll also interview the three alleged victims.

Five of the football players have already been charged with assault and battery, as well as "ethnic intimidation," North Carolina's formal name for its hate-crimes law. The FBI is also investigating whether the Palestinian students' civil rights were violated.

Hmm ... It's interesting how the jocks have been charged with ethnic intimidation before they or the victims have been interviewed. There must be some eyewitness testimony by onlookers to indicate that the football players committed a hate crime for charges already to be made.

National hate-crime experts contend the fact that such an alleged attack could take place at a school like Guilford – voted by Newsweek as the "hottest for social conscience" in 2006 – is a reflection of how deeply distrust of Islam now permeates the United States. For data, they point to polls, such as one done by CBS last April. It found that 45 percent of Americans now have a negative view of Islam – more than 9 percentage points higher than in the tense months following the 9/11 attacks. And a Washington Post poll found that the number of Americans who believe Islam stokes violence has more than doubled – from 14 percent in January 2002 to 33 percent in March 2006.

"What we have here is a climate where Islamaphobia is not only considered mainstream, it's considered patriotic by some, and that's something that makes these kinds of attacks even more despicable," says Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at the University of California at San Bernadino.

He's right. Hate crimes often are represented by nationalist ideologies, and is often known as xenophobia.

The only facts not in dispute surrounding the events of that late Saturday night at Guilford are that a fight occurred, racial slurs were thrown as well as fists, and people were hurt. The three Palestinian students, one of whom was a visitor from North Carolina State University, all sustained concussions and contusions. One also has a broken jaw, another a broken nose. And a third has back injuries. All have been released from the hospital.

"At the end of the day, we believe the facts will show they were attacked by a group of individuals, and it was an unprovoked attack," says Seth Cohen, a lawyer who is representing the Palestinian students.

The father of one of the football players, who was arrested and charged, released a picture to the media that showed his son had a bruise shaped like a belt buckle on his back. He says that is proof the football players were not the only culpable ones. In a statement released to the media last Friday, he wrote: "When all of the facts are revealed, we believe that those who are sensationalizing this story will be rightly embarrassed...."

What else would you expect the dad to say? Then again, a case at another North Carolina university has proved to have problems with evidence.

I think what is somewhat disturbing about this story, beyond the regular disgust we should all have toward hate crimes, is that it occurred somewhere that has traditionally be very friendly toward Palestinians. Hate crimes are message crimes -- meant to tell an entire community that they are not safe because they are identified with those that are despised. Well, the perps did what they wanted. The message was received.

"If it had happened at any other college, I'd be standing on the corner raising [a ruckus]," says Isa Abuzuaiter, chairman of the Board of the Islamic Center of the Triad, which represents the estimated 10,000 Muslims in the Greensboro area. "But it's Guilford, and so we really don't know what to do."

Let's see what the evidence shows. Regardless though, let's hope the entire community comes together to show that American patriotism is about providing a safe haven for all our minorities, not about targeting random individuals for hate-motivated violence depending upon the current political climate.

Dear AJ...

Open Letter to AJ from A Nobody in Iran.

A couple of weeks ago he wrote another letter. He likes writing letters; or maybe he likes attention. Whatever the motive, now that "His Excellency" has declared his detestation of "darkness, deceit, lies, and distortion" and his admiration for "salvaion, elightenment, sincerity and honesty", I, yours truely, a nobody living in Iran, who is eternally grateful to the Almighty for having been blessed to be living under "His Excellency's" God-fearing, truth-loving, justice-seaking administration, would in turn like to write a letter to him.

Oooh dear!

Riehl World View: Hillary Sings National Anthem

Do you see what I see?

I found this celebrity photo album page on an Egyptian newspaper: ????? ??? ????????

Of course you recognize the handsome dude, right?

Heart The German

Dear Heart,

Has it really been a year already since you first started haunting me?  WOW!

I said "haunting" because to be honest with you, this latest email from you is actually the first time you ever made sense to me.  Pleaaaaaase don't ever speak English to me again, because frankly my dear, you scared the hell out of me! 

I thought I had made that clear even back then, but I guess not hey............Isn't he lovely? (;

I suppose ignoring you hasn't been effective either huh?  Sighhh oh well, que sera...

Hi
ich sage einfach 'Hallo again'......nun liebe Najia es ist genau 1 Jahr her  ......und Du hast meine 1. Email erhalten.
Ja, es braucht halt eben alles seine Zeit um sich ein wenig näher zu begegnen......Was macht eigentlich Deine Greencard?
Ich wünsche Dir noch einen schönen Tag und wie sagt man noch in Bremerhaven .......Tschüß.......
Hartmut

Yep, I did get my new green card two months after I filed for renewal, and I still have my Dutch citizenship just in case you're wondering.

I'm posting this message here for you because you told me numerous times how much you like attention.  And for this special occasion I thought I'd write a poem just for you, but.........I didn't want to mislead you. 

Soooo go ahead and write your own poems if you like, Click here: Poems <~~found it at echo mixed nuts, where else? :D

Tschüß