A headline from the Times of London: ‘Muslim world inflamed by Rushdie knighthood.’

Yeah, so what else is new?  The mythical ‘Muslim world’ is upset at something done in another country and takes the streets to burn flags.

You know, I’d love to own a flag shop in Pakistan.  There’s much profit to be had at the expense of idiots wielding cans of lighter fluid or petrol within an empty two-liter bottle of Pepsi (see other photos).  Of course the shop would sell that too.

I haven’t a clue why Rushdie was knighted, but if Elton John can be, why not Rushdie?  Heck, why can’t I fly across the pond and get knighted?

Perhaps more disturbing is that during the same protest in which the above photograph was taken, one sign reads in part, “Curse Against Satan.”  Seriously, who protests against Satan?

Photo credit: The Daily Mail

THE BIRTH OF “HAMASTAN”, BY: FERN SIDMAN (posted at Right Truth at Ms. Sidman’s request)

June 14 – According to breaking new reports from Gaza, the escalation of infighting between Hamas and Fatah forces has reached a zenith, with Hamas claiming victory after conducting a series of execution style killings of Fatah members. Over 80 Palestinian terrorists have been killed in Hamas-Fatah factional fighting since Sunday. Hamas declared that it had taken control of the town of Rafiah in southern Gaza after blowing up the Fatah headquarters there. All of northern Gaza is already under Hamas control. According to an Arutz Sheva report of 6/14/07, “Fatah was beaten so badly that Egyptian reports said 40 PA officers broke through the Gaza-Egypt border fence and fled to Sinai for safety. The Hamas-affiliated Popular Resistance Committee announced Thursday that it had taken control of the border to prevent weapons smuggling (to Fatah) and mass emigration by local Gazans.”

(more…)

North Korea is firing short-range missiles again, as a reminder to the West they are still there, still armed and still wanting for money (payoffs, bribes, you choose the term). It is believed that these missiles only have a range of 62 miles.

A South Korean Defense Ministry official said it had intelligence that North Korea launched the short-range missiles into the sea off its western coast.“We are trying to confirm how many were fired and what type of missiles they are,” the official said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency also cited two unidentified intelligence officials as saying the North fired at least one missile. One of the officials said Pyongyang fired two — one in the morning and one in the afternoon — which is believed to be part of the communist regime’s “routine drills,” according to Yonhap. (source)

North Korea has refused to shut down its main nuclear reactor over a delay in withdrawing $25 million of its money at a Macau bank that was blacklisted by the U.S. for allegedly helping the North launder and counterfeit money. (Chron.com)

Originally posted at Right Truth 

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never fails to take opportunities to speak out against Israel. In the latest spew, he gives credit to Lebanon and the Palestinians: “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated yesterday that Lebanon and Palestine had pressed a “countdown button” to bring about the demise of Israel.”

“With God’s help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech.”By God’s will, we will witness the destruction of this regime in the near future”. No further elaborations were offered by the President.

These remarks reiterate past statements made by Iranian head of state who two years ago triggered outrage in the West by declaring Israel should be “wiped off the map”. While Ahmadinejad has often referred to the destruction of the Jewish state he continues to claim Iran does not pose a threat to the nation. (ToTheCenter.com)

Is Ahmadinejad willing to let those associated with the Palestinians bring Israel down and take the credit? We all know that Iran is assisting these groups with money, arms, men, and training. Perhaps he is willing to sit back and let others do his bidding.

Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday the world would witness the destruction of Israel soon, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. (NY Daily News)

Ahmadinejad’s aspirations are lofty, but in reality he is a short, under-dressed, arrogant little man who has much less power than he would like. He’s frustrated. He’s like a child that wants another child’s toy and can’t seem to get his hands on it. He puts grandmothers, women and old men in prison and charges them with crimes of espionage. He’s dangerous. If the US is conducting black-ops in Iran, good for us and good for the Iranian people. The sooner Ahmadinejad is gone, the better.

Originally Posted at Right Truth 

The Opinion Journal writes of the pushing out of World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz.  I haven’t followed any of this because it’s just largely political, however it is disturbing what has been going on behind the scenes and who is helping to lead the charge.  It’s none other than Mark Malloch Brown, the man who resided over the incredibly corrupt UN oil-for-food program.

Mr. Malloch Brown, remember, was until last year Kofi Annan’s deputy at the United Nations. In that position, he distinguished himself by spinning away the $100 billion Oil for Food scandal as little more than a blip in the U.N.’s good work, and one that had little to do with Mr. Annan himself. Last week, Mr. Malloch Brown was named vice president of the Quantum Fund, the hedge fund run by his billionaire friend George Soros. A former World Bank official himself and ally of soon-to-be British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mr. Malloch Brown would almost surely be a leading candidate to replace Mr. Wolfowitz should he step down. Not surprisingly, Gordon Brown cold-shouldered Mr. Wolfowitz at a recent meeting in Brussels . . .

So it’s not surprising that many on the World Bank staff would cheer Mr. Malloch Brown: He’s perfect for an institutional culture in which “progressive” thinking goes hand-in-glove with a tolerance for corruption. That culture has been on vivid display in the Euro-coup against Mr. Wolfowitz. This weekend the committee investigating the claims dropped 600 pages in the president’s lap and told him he had 48 hours to respond–in direct violation of World Bank staff rule 8.01, 4.09, which states that “the amount of time allowed a staff member to comment [on an investigative report] . . . will not be less than 5 business days.” Following protests from Mr. Wolfowitz’s lawyer, the committee gave him 72 hours.

Read the full column.

With the Turkish government edging closer to Islamism, hundreds of thousands of Turks took to the streets to protest against Islamism and for the secular government of Turkey which has been the mainstay of Turkey for nearly a century.

The Turkish military sees itself and is seen by many Turks as the last savior of secularism in Turkey.  The rally over the weekend was in part a response to a statement by the military.

In an official statement, the General Staff declared that “it should not be forgotten that the Turkish Armed Forces is one of the parties to this [secular versus Islamists] debate and is the absolute defender of secularism”.

This brought upon fears of a coup, however the Turkish military’s role is partially to ensure the government of Turkey remains secular.

Issues which are seemingly trivial in Europe are front and center in Turkey.

Mr Erdogan had been eyeing the job himself. But sustained secular opposition, culminating in a huge anti-government rally in Ankara last week, forced Mr Erdogan to nominate his robustly pro-Western foreign minister, Abdullah Gul.

But the military remains unswayed, not least because Mr Gul’s wife wears the Islamic headscarf.

“A woman who covers her head cannot sit in Ataturk’s palace,” said Nesrin Akkoc at yesterday’s rally. “Turkey will not become another Iran.”

The Telegraph notes Turkey’s entry into the EU might be complicated with talks of the Turkish military maintaining secularism, however one of the protestors summed it up quite nicely.

“Secularism is more precious to us than democracy,” said Cenk Kutludemir, a student. “And the EU won’t ever accept us anyway, to hell with EU.”

That seems to be true, but I don’t see how protests for secularism and against Islamism would hamper any EU membership.

Egyptian blogger ‘Sandmonkey‘ is calling it quits due to the Egyptian government’s crackdown on bloggers and dissenting voices. While anonymous, ‘Sandmonkey’ posts:

I no longer believe that my anonymity is kept, especially with State Secuirty agents lurking around my street and asking questions about me since that day. I ignore that, the same way I ignored all the clicking noises that my phones started to exhibit all of a sudden, or the law suit filed by Judge Mourad on my friends, and instead grew bolder and more reckless at a time where everybody else started being more cautious.

Paranoia or just cause? I believe it’s the latter as I have been a reader of his blog for quite some time now and have watched as he has always seemed to take a dig at the Egyptian government when it comes to foreign policy and domestic issues, as well as paid attention as one Egyptian blogger was arrested.

When ‘Sandmonkey’ has to quit blogging in fear of being arrested, it takes all the calls of some U.S. Liberals who claim someone is stifling their dissent, and I still don’t know who that ‘someone’ is, into greater context and once again presents them as the jokes they are.

‘Sandmonkey’ will be missed, not just as a strong democratic voice in Egypt, but also as a humorous blogger who always put items into the greater context that is missing in today’s world.

Check out the site now, which will certainly remain up since it’s hosted on Freedom’s Zone to help ensure he had a place to blog.

Also check out Atlas’ interview with ‘Sandmonkey’ who speaks on the Egyptian crackdown and what Pelosi’s trip to Syria and Hoyer’s meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood has done to the region.  A small excerpt:

Atlas: Where you shocked when Hoyer met with the Muslim Brotherhood?

SANDMONKEY: Let me tell you something. I was in Turkey a couple of weeks ago and I met a couple of Syrian activists. They one thing they told me that was really funny about the Pelosi visit. After Pelosi came to Syria two things happened. People on Syrian TV were saying, “We forced the Americans to knock on the Damascus gate!” Sort of like an admission that we messed things up in Iraq so much that America had to come and beg for their help.

But the day after Pelosi’s visits there were immediate arrests of Syrian activists. That was the fruit she yielded. “Oh the Americans came over and they said they have a different foreign policy  and they’re more interested in placating Bashar’s ego.” And he went out and got [arrested] everyone he wanted because he knew he had an ally in Washington that wouldn’t pressure him as much . . .

ATLAS: We have to educate the American people. You think the American people know this?

SANDMONKEY: No, but do they even care at this point? I don’t think they are interested in the discussion any more. There are people that have made up their mind, they think we need to placate the dictators because America is wrong and everyone else is always right. That’s how they operate.

Sad, very sad.

I’m all for reducing the dependency upon foreign oil in the United States, be it through alternative fuels or drilling more wells. I’d love to see technology finally develop to make harvesting shale oil efficient enough to go after too.

But at what price do we pay, literally, for biofuel? Already the price of tortillas has risen due to the demand for corn increasing for biofuels. Now in Germany the price of another prized crop has risen for the same reason. Barley, a key ingredient in one of mankind’s most tasty of beverages, is facing extinction through German government incentives to grow biofuel-compatible crops.

Protests in Mexico were mounted against the rising cost of the tortilla, with the nation’s poor being most affected. It is incredibly ironic that those who push away from drilling in AWAR or in the Gulf of Mexico the most are those who repeatedly mock us all by saying they give one iota for the poor. No, they don’t, otherwise they would not promote biofuels which will hamper the poor more than anyone else.

If Germany’s barley problem spreads across the Atlantic, Mexico’s starving poor will protest for the price of tortillas without being able to rest while sipping a local brew in the neighborhood pub. What is this world coming to?

The protests in Pakistan held this past Sunday against a Sharia school have continued, though the protests have actually gotten a bit larger in scope.  Protestors in Lahore are demonstrating against religious extremism (purple sign at the bottom left in the picture seen at right) and the ‘Talibanization’ of Pakistan.

Thousands of people rallied in several Pakistani cities on Thursday to protest against what they refer to as the ‘terrorism’ of citizens by members linked to a radical mosque in the capital Islamabad. Reports say that the protestors, which included women’s groups and human rights organisations chanted anti-extremism slogans and called for government action against the administration of the Lal Masjid or Red Mosque who have called for a Taliban-style law to be enforced in Islamabad.

On the other hand, women play an instrumental role in the attempt to force Sharia upon all of Pakistan.  It is women who are students at the radical madrassa Jamia Hafsa.  It is women who raided brothels because they were un-Islamic.  It is also women who are threatening suicide bombing campaigns if Pakistan does not bow to their wishes, through the words of cleric Abdul Aziz who is a symbollic pimp himself ordering his women to do his deeds.

Sitting in the midst of a dozen teachers and students clad in head-to-toe burqas, Umm-e-Hassan did not rule out raiding other brothels if the government failed to do so.

“If people compel us to take action then we will think. We are asking the government to enforce Islamic shariah so that we are not forced to take such actions.”

“The government should change its attitude towards clerics and madrasas. They should implement the Islamic shariah, then we will never come to the streets,” she said as 10 young girls, wearing blue scarves, shouted “jihad is our way.”

“Your extremism has forced us to stand up against you … It’s a tit-for-tat,” Umm-e-Hassan said. (source)

Meanwhile in Iran, women at Tehran Polytechnic University stood against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the law coming into effect April 21 that would make it criminal for women not to wear a headscarf.  The women protested Ahmadinejad’s visit to the university by throwing firecrackers at the stage and calling out, ‘dictator go away.’

A group of 700 female students organized a rally on campus and signed a letter to the dean calling the new rules “an offence to the dignity of women” and accusing him of “wanting to extend to academia the sexual apartheid imposed by the government on Iranian society.”

For protesting, the female students had their university ID cards taken away and “will now have to face a disciplinary commission” which will judge on whether or not they can continue to be enrolled.

A large rally was held in Karachi, Pakistan to protest the new madrassa headed up by radical Islamic cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz who has threatened the Pakistani government with suicide bombers if it tries to close the religious school.  Of course Aziz claimed the school was peaceful, yet there are weapons within the walls and suicide bombers aren’t exactly frontrunners for the asinine proposal for a Department of Peace in the United States.

“The people of Islamabad are insecure and under threat due to the activities of these religious terrorists,” said Altaf Hussain, head of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, addressing the rally by telephone from London.

Hussain, who lives in self-exile in Britain although his party is part of the ruling coalition, said the religious radicals in Islamabad’s Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, and adjoining Jamia Hafsa madrasa were hurting the image of Islam.

“Islam is a religion of peace and it does not need Kalashnikovs and sticks,” he told the rally, while a helicopter whirled overhead to provide aerial surveillance and hundreds of police surrounded the venue — the city’s main commercial area . . .

Lal Masjid’s compound has taken on the appearance of a rebel camp in recent weeks, with young men armed with sticks guarding the entrances.

Women, also carrying staves, roam the school’s grounds, and two or three men have been seen with guns which the clerics say are properly licensed.

The Islamist opposition movement to Pakistan President Musharraf has seemingly increased in recent weeks.  Aziz’s declaration is seen as proof of that increase, however the rally held yesterday was attended by a reported “tens of thousands” of Pakistanis who reject Islamism.

HT Gateway Pundit