“The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.” -Marcus Aurelius
For all of you in Canada, please try and get to a TV set for 7:00 EST and watch Elisabeth Sabaditch-Wolff on Michael Coren tonight. I am reliably informed it will be a great interview. I hope to have the recoding afterwards but no guarantees as TV is very hard to get where I live so, please try and get to a set and watch it.
Eeyore
CONTROVERSY: The Drill Hall site
THE controversial sale of the Drill Hall site in High Town to a Muslim group has been axed, with Luton Borough Council announcing yesterday (Dec 21) that homes will be built there instead.
At a secret meeting last week, members of the council’s executive decided that the site should be used for housing, rather than be sold to the Shia Muslim Masjid-e-Ali group for £1.5 million.
A spokesman for the group said its members were “extremely disappointed” by the decision.
The council had agreed to sell the site to the group for use as a community centre, but suspended the sale earlier this year after rumours were circulated in Luton by the English Defence League that the new building would be a ‘High Town Super-Mosque’.
A campaign followed by a group called House the People for new affordable homes to built on the site.
The council said the sale was suspended because of new policy guidance from Whitehall on the sale of buildings owned by local authorities.
A task group consisting of council leader Hazel Simmons and two other Labour executive members was set up in September to look at the best future use of the site.
They spoke to local residents and community groups including the Masjid-e-Ali, who are currently based in Moor Street.
Cllr Simmons said the decision reflected the council’s commitment to providing affordable housing, adding: “Our goal is to maximise the potential for regeneration in this area with a scheme that is supported by the local and wider community.”
She continued: “This has been a long and challenging process and the decision we have made at the end of it reflects the council’s commitment to doing everything it can to continue to provide new and much-needed affordable housing in Luton. This remains an absolute priority.”
The council says the homes on the site will be a mixture of “affordable and private market dwellings”.
By Rob Cooper
Last updated at 6:33 PM on 21st December 2011
A baby born to a Muslim mother after an affair must be adopted to prevent the child becoming the victim of an honour killing, the Court of Appeal ruled today.
The baby’s mother, who is not married, was so ‘terrified’ of how her family would react to her affair with a married man and becoming pregnant that she ran away from home.
She then concealed her pregnancy by wearing loose clothes and travelling to the other side of town for her antenatal care.
Lord Justice Munby and Mrs Justice Black, pictured left and right, along with Lord Justice Kitchin said that the child must be adopted
As soon as the baby – known only as Q – was born the mother gave her up for adoption.
Upholding a High Court decision, three judges ruled that Q’s father could not have his daughter to live with him because of the risk the baby’s maternal grandfather would track her down. Continue Reading →
Refreshing? To say the least.
By Graham Smith
Last updated at 2:41 PM on 16th December 2011
A legal challenge to a new immigration rule requiring people to be able to speak English before coming to Britain to live with their spouse was today dismissed by a High Court judge.
In a closely monitored test case, Mr Justice Beatson said the new ‘pre-entry’ English language exam announced by Home Secretary Theresa May in June 2010 did not interfere with the human rights of three couples who brought the challenge.
In his judgment, handed down at the High Court in Birmingham, Mr Justice Beatson said the new requirement was not a disproportionate interference with family life.
Rashida Chapti, pictured leaving Birmingham High Court with her interpreter today, and her husband were one of three couples who challenged an immigration law requiring people to be able to speak English before coming to Britain
The claimants’ lawyers launched the judicial review in the High Court, arguing that the rule contravened the right to a family life and the right to marry under the European Convention on Human Rights.
British citizen Rashida Chapti, 54, and her 57-year-old husband Vali Chapti, were one of three named claimants in the case.
The couple have been married for 37 years and have six children together but Mr Chapti, an Indian national who does not speak, read or write English, cannot move to the UK under the new immigration rule. Continue Reading →
Here is a post I have been avoiding doing all day. Because I truly admire, respect and appreciated this man. Doing this post is forcing me to think about it. I suppose given the courage Hitch lived his life with, the least I can do is face the facts of his death as much as it pains me.
He was one of the very first voices of influence from what could be said to be the ‘main stream media’ to speak about the threat of Islam to the Western liberal world. One of the first to talk about the current threats to freedom of speech. Perhaps the first of the ‘leftist’ journalists of influence to back GWB and the deposition of the dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein while leftists were busy doing everything they could to force Iraqi citizens to continue living under that genocidal maniac. Whether you agree with that action or not, the fact that Hitch had the courage to stand against all his traditional allies and friends and support a widely demonized and vilified president, certainly in popular culture, shows something all to rare.
Integrity.
I do not think I shall look upon his like again. (WS)
RIP Chris Hitchens.
Thank for this one Golem:
This made me feel wonderful.
The only proper response, at least in my ethical cosmology, to the horror of 911 is to build a newer, bigger, better, more impressive, more efficient and high tech office complex that shows if you attack us, we get stronger and better in ways your culture simply would never achieve.
These pictures and more from The Blaze
1WTC: From the 80th floor looking north (Dec. 14)
80th floor looking east. Hello Brooklyn! (Dec. 14)
Looking south.
Fog shot.
WTC construction site. (Sep. 20)
An article over at The Iconoclast:
Please click above for the whole article.
Hon. Geert Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV) in the Netherlands
The Dutch Ambassador to Egypt, Susan Blankhart was called to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, today, to protest ‘defamation of Islam’ in a new book by the Hon. Geert Wilders. Wilders’ book is scheduled to be released here in the US, next April. The Egyptians were likely using this opportunity as a media event. We note that this occurred while our State Department’s conference on The Istanbul Process Combating Intolerance conference was taking place in DC. With representatives from member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the EU, the OSCE, gathered in Washington why miss an opportunity to stifle any criticism of Islam and deny Free Speech? After all this plenary session in DC is developing ‘best practices’ to rein in religious intolerance. How Orwellian of them.
Egyptian Human Rights blogger, Mahmoud Elsokby posted the Al Ahram report about this most recent example of intolerance by Egypt in the throes of electing a majority Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist parliament, “Egypt Summons Dutch Ambassador over anti-Islamic remarks”.
Egypt’s foreign ministry Wednesday summoned Dutch Ambassador Susan Blankhart to protest against what it perceives to be a defamation of Islam by parliament member Geert Wilders.
According to Dutch reports, Wilders is set to release a book in April next year to “examine the true nature of Islam.”
The right-wing politician is no stranger to controversy, having released numerous statements that were deemed defamatory to Islam by the Arab and Muslim world.
His statements include accusing Islam of being violent by nature and saying that the Quran should be banned.
According to Egyptian diplomatic sources, the foreign ministry insisted it could not tolerate “such unacceptable acts that could affect the spirit of cooperation, which should prevail between countries.”
In June, a Dutch court cleared Wilders of inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims.
Egyptian authorities have recently banned him from entering the country during a visit of a European Parliament delegation.
However, the Al Ahram report had an error. According to the Freedom Party (PVV) headquarters in the Netherlands:
This is truly excellent. Mr. Kenney says something I have longed to hear someone of influence say. It is in this video and it is an actual defense of Canadian values and customs and a suggestion that those who come here and really do not like them, perhaps have picked the wrong country to move to.
This, is wonderful.
Ahmed Faraz: Denied chargesA bookseller from Birmingham has been convicted of possessing and distributing material that prosecutors said “primed people for terrorism”.
Ahmed Faraz had material including an al-Qaeda training manual, bomb making instructions, and footage of murders – Briton Ken Bigley’s among them.
Faraz, 32, had claimed the material was for academic research.
Jurors at Kingston Crown Court found Faraz guilty of 11 of 15 counts against him. He will be sentenced on Tuesday.
Faraz had initially faced 30 counts of possessing and distributing extremist material – but Mr Justice Calvert-Smith had directed jurors earlier in the trial to return not guilty verdicts for eight of the counts against him – and others have been left on file.
He was not accused of being part of a specific plot.
Faraz was found guilty of possessing and disseminating some of the most well-known publications found in the homes of people convicted of terrorism-related offences over the past decade. Continue Reading →
Hey guys! Merry Christmas! West fights back and scores one! Open a beer and enjoy this moment!
Some commentary:
Credits: (Michael Buholzer/REUTERS File)
If you want to become a Canadian, you’ll have to show your face.
Under sweeping regulations that take effect Monday, Muslim women will have to remove their niqabs or any other face-coverings such as burkas before reciting the oath of citizenship to become Canadian, QMI Agency has learned.
Those participating in citizenship ceremonies – the final step in the process to officially become a Canadian – will be given two warnings to unveil themselves.
The first would be upon arrival, when a department official will explain the requirement. If the person refuses, a citizenship judge will ask the individual to show her face before reading the oath.
If the person refuses the second request, the judge will ask them to leave, putting their citizenship in jeopardy. But they will be given other opportunities at future citizenship ceremonies if they change their mind. Continue Reading →
Andrew Ryan had stolen a copy of the holy book from the libraryA former soldier has been sentenced to 70 days in prison for setting fire to a copy of Muslim holy book the Koran in the centre of Carlisle.
Andrew Ryan had previously admitted religiously aggravated harassment and theft of a Koran from a library.
The 32-year-old, of Summerhill, said he had been “shocked” watching a Muslim burning a poppy on Remembrance Day.
Shoppers and schoolchildren witnessed the burning, outside the old Town Hall, on 19 January.
Sitting at Carlisle Magistrates’ Court, District Judge Gerald Chalk described it as a case of “theatrical bigotry”.
‘My country’He said: “It was pre-planned by you as you stole the book deliberately.
“You went out to cause maximum publicity and to cause distress.”
Ryan struggled with security guards in court after the sentence was passed.
While being handcuffed he shouted: “What about my country? What about burning poppies?”
About 10 people were in court to support Ryan, and as they left the court they shouted “do you call this justice?”.
After sentencing, Insp Paul Marshall, of Cumbria Police, said: “This incident was highly unusual for Cumbria as we have such low levels of hate crime in the county.”
————————-
My two cents: