Myrtus

Censorship on the rise!

It can happen to anyone of us.  What do we do about it?

Gates of Vienna has been blocked by Blogger and profiled as a spam blog.  I guess it's possible for anyone to accuse Gates of Vienna of anything....but a SPAM BLOG?  pfffffff that's just ridiculous!

Atlas Shrugs has more on this....AND regarding press censorship check out Don Surber » Blog Archive » Cowering journalists.

h/t Larwyn

Girl dies while undergoing female circumcision

Dammit! The whole world should be infuriated over this heinous crime! 

Death of 12-year-old girl shocks Egypt

The death of a 12-year-old Egyptian girl at the hands of a doctor performing female circumcision has sparked a public outcry and prompted health and religious authorities to ban the practice.

The girl, Badour Shaker, died this month while undergoing the procedure in an illegal clinic in the southern town of Maghagh. Her mother, Zeniab Abdel Ghani, told the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper that she paid the equivalent of about C$10 to a female physician to perform the procedure.

Adult (male) Breastfeeding Fatwa

Womengateway in Bahrain speaks out against this ridiculous fatwa.

Controversies are surrounding Al Azhar after a fatwa was made by the head of Al Hadeth Section at Al Azhar University permitting women to breastfeeding adult males to avoid religious violation of men and women who are working together in close offices.

The fatwa that is being taught at the University couldn’t be tolerated or accepted by sane human beings. It is demeaning to women who could work in open and closed offices with respect and professionalism without violating the Islamic principles.

If such Fatwa could be accepted than there is no respect to women who are working to prove themselves and be active in societies.

Womengateway was established in 2002 as a joint venture project between the Bahrain Business Women’s Society and Al-Nadeem Information Technology. In 2003 it was re-launched as a bilingual portal designed to aid business women by providing them with information, business and trade opportunities with focus being on women’s issues and women empowerment in the region.

Update:

Lecturer suspended after breastfeeding fatwa

CAIRO (Reuters) - Cairo's al-Azhar Islamic University on Monday suspended a lecturer who suggested that men and women work colleagues could use symbolic breastfeeding to get around a religious ban on being alone together.

Hamas Hijacks Mickey Mouse To Brainwash Little Kids

H/T Geenstijl

The Wall

Update:

Hate mouse banned and then reinstated again....Velvet Hammer has the scoop.

Hamas Mickey Mouse Clone Teaches Hate Death & Terror - Updated « Ironic Surrealism#comments#comments

Yazidi Girl Stoned to Death Resulting in Backlash

Extremism begets extremism

The Yazidi-Kurdish girl, Du'a, was brutally lynched by a mob intent on punishing her because of her affinity for a Muslim man. The 17-year-old girl was taken away against her father's will, thrown from a roof, dragged from behind a car, and after that, when she was still alive, concrete blocks were dropped on her head until she died. Her body was then thrown atop the village trash heap where it laid for several days, until Yazidi authorities gave the parents permission to claim their dead daughter's body. Almost everything was recorded by mobile-phone video cameras, and the video was then circulated throughout Kurdistan towns and finally broadcasted on the Internet and a number of foreign TV stations. Islamists were not late to declare her as a martyr of belief - they stated that she had converted to Islam - and shortly after they killed several Yazidi-Kurdish workers in the Mosul area.

Need any more proof that hate by extremists can be infectious? There's hope though. The Kurdistan regional government has condemned the act as have Yazidi community leaders.

Iran Makes £5 Million a Day From Hostage Crisis As Oil Prices Soar

OK people, check this out so we can all get some insight as to what the Iranian government's orchestrated game is. And of course, the taking of hostages just generates feelings of war, talk of war, and yet even more international hostility while the fat cats at the top get richer and the avg. Iranian Joe gets trashed on the international scene.

Iran is gaining up to £5 million a day from detaining 15 British sailors and marines as the crisis causes the price of oil to rise dramatically.

Since Iran's Revolutionary Guards seized the Britons 11 days ago, the price of oil has soared 10 per cent, reaching six-month highs of $66 per barrel in New York last week.

According to OPEC figures, Iran exports 2.3 million barrels of oil per day, meaning Tehran has profited from the crisis by up to £5 million a day. By the end of today, the extra cash it has raked in could total £55 million.

While the oil price has risen, the public pressure on Iran was lowered yesterday as more conciliatory stances were adopted.

Who knows what kind of deals are being made behind the scenes, but rest assured we're the ones paying for them.

Gaddafi -- Non-Muslims are Losers

Yes, he said it

Libyan leader Muammar Gathafi said on Friday that it was a mistake to believe that Christianity was a universal faith alongside Islam.

"There are serious mistakes -- among them the one saying that Jesus came as a messenger for other people other than the sons of Israel," he told a mass prayer meeting in Niger.

"Christianity is not a faith for people in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Other people who are not sons of Israel have nothing to do with that religion," he said at the prayer meeting, held to mark the birth of the prophet Mohammed.

Gathafi, who is seeking to expand his influence in Africa, said his arguments came from the Koran. He led similar prayers last year in Mali.

"It is a mistake that another religion exists alongside Islam. There is only one religion which is Islam after Mohammed," he said in the sermon, which was broadcast live on Libyan state television.

"All those believers who do not follow Islam are losers," he added. "We are here to correct the mistakes in the light of the teachings of the Koran."

Isn't he charming?

Expunging Iraq of Homosexuals

Does ANYONE have a plan to safeguard the human rights of the innocent people of Iraq?

Hasan Sabeh was a happy, talented 34-year-old transgender fashion designer, affectionately known as Tamara. He lived in the al-Mansor district of Baghdad. Two months ago, he was tending his fashion accessories stall in a street market. Out of the blue, an Islamist death squad, wearing Iraqi police uniforms, seized Tamara. They stripped off his clothes in the street and, discovering that he was a man dressed as a woman, shot him dead. Tamara's brother-in-law was nearby and rushed to cradle his body. He, too, was shot dead at point blank range. The killers then took Tamara's body, and hanged and mutilated it, as a warning to other gay and transgender Iraqis.

Gay people like Tamara are now being systematically targeted for execution by Shia death squads. The killers are hell-bent on turning the country into a fundamentalist Islamic state, cleansed of all "impure, unIslamic elements." Some operate within the police and others independently. All owe their allegiance to firebrand, militant clerics.

Large parts of Iraq, including many Baghdad neighbourhoods, are now under the de facto control of fundamentalist militias and their elite death squad units - the Islamist equivalent of the Nazi SS.

Meanwhile, a gay Iraqi activist warns that these militia are "sexually cleansing" Iraq.

Abuse and Threats Quiet Bloggers' Keyboards

Even in cyberland there are some people who just need to dominate and oppress others, as demonstrated by an article in today's LA Times about cyberbullies. What I find particularly interesting is that the article tends to focus on tech- and business-oriented blogs and the death threats and harassment they receive. You can only imagine what goes on with some of the most popular political blogs, eh?

Kathy Sierra's blog, Creating Passionate Users, is filled with musings on software design. Not the kind of thing you'd expect to draw death threats.

But cyber-bullies posted such vicious remarks about her on the Internet that she canceled her keynote speech at a technology conference in San Diego this week, afraid to leave her home in Boulder, Colo.

"I will never be the same," she wrote, then said she had suspended her blogging.

The threats and vivid sexual taunts aimed at Sierra — and the subsequent uproar — exposed a creepy reality: Cyber-bullies, often emboldened by anonymity, target bloggers who write about even the most innocuous subjects.

"Certainly you need a thick skin if you're going to blog, but you shouldn't also need a bulletproof vest," said Josh Bernoff, a Forrester Research analyst who received death threats in December after suggesting that Apple Inc.'s music sales were leveling off.

[Cutting out a bunch of details, which you can read for yourselves ...]

The issue is not an easy one, because it gets to the heart of the free-speech culture that allows bloggers to reveal every aspect of their lives and thoughts. The medium's openness leaves writers vulnerable to cruel invective from angry readers or troublemakers.

"They're idea terrorists," said Scoble, a former Microsoft executive whose postings about software once prompted someone to call him to say they wished they could kill him. His wife, Maryam, was also vilified on the sites that attacked Sierra. "If they don't agree with your ideas, they try to terrorize you or make you feel bad."

Doc Searls, a longtime blogger and senior editor of Linux Journal, said the Internet gave people a sense of intimacy that crossed geographic lines.

"The Internet puts zero distance between everybody," Searls said. "You open a message and somebody can be in the next room or in Russia, and there's no difference. We are all next to each other all the time. And yet we don't have the social cues. We can't see the expression on their faces. This is a new environment for civilization."

Read the whole story here ...

Islamic Charity Scam

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs and her friend Julie did an excellent job exposing what appears to be an Islamic charity sham. 

I personally believe that a deeper thorough investigation is needed, because I suspect that it will provide leads to many other shams like it not just in the USA, but around the world. 

ATLAS EXPOSE: ISLAMIC CHARITY SHAM! MUSLIM ABUSE SHELTER TAX SHELTER?

Using battered women to raise funds for what nefarious purpose? What exactly are they raising money for? In an ATLAS EXCLUSIVE, covert Atlas operative Julie blew the lid right off what appears to be a bogus Islamic charity. Julie has extensive experience in this field. Her husband is a Muslim and has written numerous books and articles exposing the jihad worldwide. (h/t Larwyn)

After reading Pamela's post, I thought hmm even the names of these people sound like they're made up.  I bet if you were to dig a little deeper you'll find that this so-called charity started out as one of those "mugu" scams.... maybe I should refer Pamela to the folks at 419 Eater who claim to be real experts at baiting scammers around the world and make a sport out of busting their villainous chops.