We’ll mock Jesus but not Mohammed, says BBC boss

author unknown
29 Feb 2012

The head of the BBC, Mark Thompson, has admitted that the broadcaster would never mock Mohammed like it mocks Jesus.

He justified the astonishing admission of religious bias by suggesting that mocking Mohammed might have the “emotional force” of “grotesque child pornography”.

But Jesus is fair game because, he said, Christianity has broad shoulders and fewer ties to ethnicity.

Bias

Mr Thompson says the BBC would never have broadcast Jerry Springer The Opera – a controversial musical that mocked Jesus – if its target had been Mohammed.

He made the remarks in an interview for a research project at the University of Oxford.

Mr Thompson said: “The point is that for a Muslim, a depiction, particularly a comic or demeaning depiction, of the Prophet Mohammed might have the emotional force of a piece of grotesque child pornography.”

Insults

A BBC spokesman was unavailable for comment.

Last year former BBC news anchor Peter Sissons said Christians are “fair game” for insults at the corporation, whilst Muslims must not be offended.

Mr Sissons, whose memoirs were serialised in the Daily Mail, said: “Islam must not be offended at any price, although Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended.”

The former presenter also said that staff damage their careers if they don’t follow the BBC’s mindset.

Tens of thousands of children as young as ten have their DNA stored by police, even if they are not charged with any crime

Police in one force admitted taking 14,383 samples from children arrested between 2007 and 2010
In one force the samples are kept for 100 years
Campaigners brand the practice 'bonkers'

By Matt Blake
27 April 2012

Tens of thousands of children as young as ten are having their DNA swabbed and stored by police forces across the country, even if they are not charged with any offence.

One force admitted taking samples from more than 14,000 youngsters between the ages of ten and 17 over a period of three years.

Devon and Cornwall police say 14,383 children were arrested between 2007 and 2010 and that DNA was taken from the vast majority of them.

And those DNA records can be kept until the suspect reaches the unlikely age of 100 years old.

Not all police forces take DNA samples from suspects of crimes, but under Home Office guidelines they can legally take them from anyone over the age of criminal responsibility, which is currently ten years old.

Prison reform and children rights’ campaigners describe the revelation as ‘bonkers’ and said the DNA details should not be kept. They say while there are no official figures to confirm, the number of youngsters whose DNA has been stored could have run into the hundreds of thousands.

According to the Howard League for Penal Reform, 13,000 children between the ages of 9-13 were held in a police cell overnight, most of whom were innocent.

After an arrest, police are allowed but not legally required to take DNA from mouth swabs, hair or blood samples regardless of whether that person is charged with an offence.

And they are allowed to keep the DNA profile and fingerprints even if a case is dropped.

A 14 year old boy from Paignton, Devon, was recently arrested but not charged in connection with hacking into his school’s computer system.

He said: 'When the officer said it would be stored in the system for 100 years and it would be stored on an international database, it was a scary prospect.'

Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, described it as ‘bonkers’.

She said: 'Devon and Cornwall are just one of 43 police forces in the country that has the powers to retain DNA for children who are arrested, but never charged with a crime.

'There are children whose DNA will be on this gargantuan database for the next 100 years, shared with Interpol when all the while they are innocent. Surely the point of this database is to hold the DNA of the most dangerous people. This is police snooping into the lives of our sons and daughters.'

Paolo Uccellari, from the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, said youngsters should not be penalised as a result of bad actions from their youth.

'We think that when children come into contact with the police, they’re not fully developed. That should not affect them for the rest of their life. They shouldn’t be stigmatised for that.'

Devon and Cornwall Police said the processing of suspects was the same for juveniles as it is for adults.

The force said: 'Police currently lawfully collect DNA from any person over the age of criminal responsibility - with is ten years or older - who’s arrested for a recordable offence designated by the Home Office.

'A Freedoms Bill is currently making its way through Parliament which is due to be published imminently which will have new guidelines of what information is retained by the police.'

A spokesman said when the new guidelines are published, any records that fall outside those new guidelines for retention can be removed retrospectively from the database.

Apocalypse deferred

by Melanie Phillips
24th April, 2012

The great grand-daddy of the man-made global warming scam, the fifth horseman of the eco-apocalypse James Lovelock, has now recanted. Well, sort of. Don’t get too excited.

Lovelock now admits to having been ‘alarmist’ about climate change, and says other fanatics environmental commentators such as Al Gore were too alarmist as well.

You don’t say.

It’s only taken a quarter of a century. During that time, Professor Lovelock was the guru of man-made global warming theory. More than that, he was the prophet of a cult which turned the earth into a kind of god -- or more specifically a goddess called Gaia, investing it with anthropomorphic characteristics while his disciples demonised the human race itself as the destroyers of the planet.

Lovelock made one chilling prediction of planetary doom after another. In 2006, he warned that the earth might soon pass

‘“into a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years....as the century progresses, the temperature will rise 8 degrees centigrade in temperate regions and 5 degrees in the tropics. Much of the tropical land mass will become scrub and desert... Before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.”’

Now, however, MSNBC reports Lovelock as saying:

‘“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened.

‘“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said. “The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising -- carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added.’

Indeed, there is no question about it. Not being able to tell what the climate is actually doing, let alone what it will do in the future, is in essence what climate sceptics have been saying consistently for the past 25 years or so. And so presumably we should now count Lovelock as one of their number? Er, not exactly:

‘Lovelock told msnbc.com: “It depends what you mean by a skeptic. I’m not a denier.”’

Good Lord, perish the thought! ‘Climate change deniers’ are nasty, vicious, imbecilic, rapacious neo-Nazis, aren’t they? No, Lovelock’s latest position is... ah, as sophisticated and, um, nuanced as we would expect from someone with such a solid and distinguished scientific track record:

‘He said he still thought that climate change was happening, but that its effects would be felt farther in the future than he previously thought. “We will have global warming, but it’s been deferred a bit,” Lovelock said.’

Of course! Even though

“we don’t know what the climate is doing”

and

“there’s nothing much really happening yet”

and

“it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising”

--- in other words, there is no evidence whatsoever to support the theory of man-made global warming, its baleful effects have only

“been deferred a bit”.

Isn’t the environmental movement wonderful? Even when they admit they’re totally wrong, they still insist they were right all along.

[ed. Same tactic used by evolutionists...]

Professor Lovelock is a Fellow of the Royal Society. Some years back that august body, the embodiment of the scientific establishment and the custodians of scientific integrity, told us that on man-made global warming ‘the science is settled’. What will the Society now be saying to Professor Lovelock FRS, or he to it?

Meanwhile, although on April 4 it was reported that

‘David Cameron is set to end his long silence on green issues, with a major speech in front of the world’s key energy and climate figures’,

and that according to climate change minister Greg Barker this would be

“a major policy intervention by the Prime Minister... a major keynote on the green economy’,

it was reported yesterday that

‘David Cameron is no longer making a pro-environmental oration on Thursday during a gathering of 23 energy ministers from around the world’

because according to Number 10:

‘...while Cameron may have mulled a set-piece speech it was only ever considered’ (hat tip: Benny Peiser).

Ah. Might the Prime Minister finally have detected that the winds of climate change are being blown somewhat off course – and the reputations of all who promoted this, the greatest anti-scientific scam of all time, now risk being blown away with it?

Too late. The planet won't fry, but the warmists are toast.

Race row after Afro washing up sponges go on sale

By Tom Gardner
26 April 2012

A company behind a new range of Afro style washing up sponges has been slammed for being racist.

[ed. It is becoming an industry...]

Campaigners have attacked British makers Paladone for its latest range of dish cleaning products which caricatures black soul legend Diana Ross as having a brillo pad for a hairstyle.

The offending items, which have just gone on sale across the UK, have been likened to reproducing golliwogs or the Black and White Minstrels by reinforcing negative stereotypes.

The Unite Against Fascism [ed. itself a far-left fascist association of nutjobs and thugs] general secretary Weyman Bennett said: ‘What are we going to have next, toilet brushes like that?

‘This is not appropriate for the 21st century to show images like that. It reinforces negative stereotypes and ideas.

‘Although it’s aimed at being humorous, sometimes it’s not funny.

'We’ve spent 40 years removing racist imagery out of general politics, removing golly wogs, removing black and white minstrels, and it would be a shame if it crept back in.

Mr Bennett, who has been campaigning for almost thirty years, warned: ‘It opens the door for people to produce racial stereotypes and that’s not something we want to see in our society.

[ed. Says the Jessie Jackson of British politics...]

'We’ve worked very hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.

‘That’s can’t be a positive thing in the 21st centry that we are using images that were really invented in periods of slavery and discrimination.'

Aiming a stinging attack directly at the company behind the products and called on them to be take off the supermarket shelves.

Mr Weyman said: ‘They need to think again. Is there no way they can come up with positive views of people without just using negative views of black people.

‘Trying to compare black people’s to brillo pads is not a really positive image – it’s not appropriate.'

Paladone said the range had been a phenomenal success since hitting the shelves.

But its attempts to give the humble cleaning implement a funky 70s disco makeover seems to have backfired.

A company spokesman said: ‘Our range of four washing up sponges are designed to make an everyday chore like washing up more fun.

‘The Disco, Beehive, Punk and Diva have sold hundreds of thousands of pieces. They have been a phenomenal success.’

Each, priced at up to £8, are currently on sale in the UK.

[ed. Buy them now before the pc fascists ban them completely and they become a collectors item...]

Egypt’s women urge MPs not to pass early marriage, sex-after-death laws: report

By Abeer Tayel
Al Arabiya
Wednesday, 25 April 2012

Egypt’s National Council for Women (NCW) has appealed to the Islamist-dominated parliament not to approve two controversial laws on the minimum age of marriage and allowing a husband to have sex with his dead wife within six hours of her death according to a report in an Egyptian newspaper.

The appeal came in a message sent by Dr. Mervat al-Talawi, head of the NCW, to the Egyptian People’s Assembly Speaker, Dr. Saad al-Katatni, addressing the woes of Egyptian women, especially after the popular uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

She was referring to two laws: one that would legalize the marriage of girls starting from the age of 14 and the other that permits a husband to have sex with his dead wife within the six hours following her death.

According to Egyptian columnist Amro Abdul Samea in al-Ahram, Talawi’s message included an appeal to parliament to avoid the controversial legislations that rid women of their rights of getting education and employment, under alleged religious interpretations.

“Talawi tried to underline in her message that marginalizing and undermining the status of women in future development plans would undoubtedly negatively affect the country’s human development, simply because women represent half the population,” Abdul Samea said in his article.

The controversy about a husband having sex with his dead wife came about after a Moroccan cleric spoke about the issue in May 2011.

Zamzami Abdul Bari said that marriage remains valid even after death adding that a woman also too had the same right to engage in sex with her dead husband.

Two years ago, Zamzami incited further controversy in Morocco when he said it was permissible for pregnant women to drink alcohol.

But it seems his view on partners having sex with their deceased partners has found its way to Egypt one year on.

Egyptian prominent journalist and TV anchor Jaber al-Qarmouty on Tuesday referred to Abdul Samea’s article in his daily show on Egyptian ON TV and criticized the whole notion of “permitting a husband to have sex with his wife after her death under a so-called ‘Farewell Intercourse’ draft law.”

“This is very serious. Could the panel that will draft the Egyptian constitution possibly discuss such issues? Did Abdul Samea see by his own eyes the text of the message sent by Talawi to Katatni? This is unbelievable. It is a catastrophe to give the husband such a right! Has the Islamic trend reached that far? Is there really a draft law in this regard? Are there people thinking in this manner?”

Many members of the newly-elected, and majority Islamist parliament, have been accused of launching attacks against women’s rights in the country.

They wish to cancel many, if not most, of the laws that promote women’s rights, most notably a law that allows a wife to obtain a divorce without obstructions from her partner. The implementation of the Islamic right to divorce law, also known as the Khula, ended years of hardship and legal battles women would have to endure when trying to obtain a divorce.

Egyptian law grants men the right to terminate a marriage, but grants women the opportunity to end an unhappy or abusive marriages without the obstruction of their partner. Prior to the implementation of the Khula over a decade ago, it could take 10 to 15 years for a woman to be granted a divorce by the courts.

Islamist members of Egyptian parliament, however, accuse these laws of “aiming to destroy families” and have said it was passed to please the former first lady of the fallen regime, Suzanne Mubarak, who devoted much of her attention to the issues of granting the women all her rights.

The parliamentary attacks on women’s rights has drawn great criticism from women’s organizations, who dismissed the calls and accused the MPs of wishing to destroy the little gains Egyptian women attained after long years of organized struggle.

[ed. This sounded like some kind of joke at first, had to check it was April 1st...]

Ariz. migrant case could lead to sweeping changes

By Jacques Billeaud
Apr 26, 2012

PHOENIX (AP) -- The United States could see an official about-face in the coming months in how it confronts illegal immigration if the Supreme Court follows through on its suggestion that it would let local police enforce the most controversial part of Arizona's immigration law.

Over the last several years, states frustrated with America's porous borders, have rejected the long held notion that Washington is responsible for confronting illegal immigration and have passed a flurry of laws to let local police confront illegal immigration. The Supreme Court is poised in the coming months to let the states know whether they haven't crossed the line.

The justices strongly suggested Wednesday that they are ready to let Arizona enforce the most controversial part of its law, a requirement that police officers check the immigration status of people they suspect are in the country illegally. Such a ruling could codify the type of local enforcement that some local authorities in Arizona have carried out over the last six years and open the door to such enforcement in states with similar laws, such as Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah.

"I think you'll see more involvement by local police in immigration enforcement, an involvement that hadn't previously been seen," Kevin Johnson, law school dean at the University of California-Davis and an expert in immigration law, said of the possibility of Arizona's law being upheld.

The most controversial parts of the Arizona law were put on hold by a federal judge shortly before they were to take effect in late July 2010, but the statute has encouraged other states to take up similar legislation and - combined with other state immigration laws and an ailing economy - played a part in 170,000 illegal immigrants leaving Arizona since 2007.

"If you want to turn around this invasion, then (you should) do attrition through enforcement," said former state Sen. Russell Pearce, architect of the 2010 law and the driving force behind other Arizona immigration laws, echoing the stated purpose of the 2010 state law.

Arizona has argued it pays a disproportionate price for illegal immigration because of its 370-mile border with Mexico and its role as the busiest illegal entry point into the country.

The Obama administration, which challenged the law, said the law conflicts with a more nuanced federal immigration policy that seeks to balance national security, law enforcement, foreign policy, human rights and the rights of law-abiding citizens and immigrants. Civil rights groups that back the administration say Arizona's and the other states' measures encourage racial profiling and ethnic stereotyping.

A decision in the case is expected in late June.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, whose office has helped defend the law, predicted the Supreme Court will uphold the law because many of its provision mirror existing federal laws and that a year from now the state will see even less illegal immigration. "You won't see anything that noticeable as far as law enforcement goes," Horne said. "But you will see less people sneaking across the border."

The Supreme Court's comments on the most controversial requirement in Arizona's law surprised state officials who had supported the law and had thus far lost all major court battles over the law. "I think we'll win. It's just how big we win," Pearce said.

Immigrant rights advocates, who believed the courts would reject attempts by states to grab more law enforcement power, also were surprised and said a validation of the law by the Supreme Court would frighten immigrants further and cause Latinos who are here legally to be asked about their immigration status.

"The crisis here in Arizona would only multiply," said Carlos Garcia, organizer of an immigration march that drew several hundred people in downtown Phoenix on Wednesday. Authorities said at least nine people were arrested for blocking a street and refusing to move. "It would mean that anyone, as they are leaving their home - whether they are going to work, to church, where ever they are going - could be asked for their documents."

During arguments Wednesday over the Arizona law, liberal and conservative justices reacted skeptically to the Obama administration's argument that the state exceeded its authority when it made the records check, and another provision allowing suspected illegal immigrants to be arrested without a warrant, part of the Arizona law aimed at driving illegal immigrants elsewhere.

It was unclear what the court would do with other aspects of the law that have been put on hold by lower federal courts. The other blocked provisions make it a state crime for immigrants not to have immigration registration papers and for illegal immigrants to seek work or hold a job.

Peter Spiro, a Tempe University law professor who specializes in immigration law, predicted the court would uphold the police check of immigration status in Arizona's law, but said he wouldn't be surprised if the court threw out a provision making it a crime to be without immigration documents.

Such a ruling would let police question people about their immigration status if they have good reason to do so, but police would have to call federal authorities to see if they would want to pick up anyone found to be in the country illegally. If federal agents decline, officers would have to release the people, unless they were suspected of committing crimes, Spiro said.

If that happened, the law would be mostly symbolic, but would still carry some significance for immigrants, Spiro said.

"It would make it clear that Arizona is unfriendly to undocumented aliens," Spiro said.

No Rule by Decree

Obama follows in Truman's (unconstitutional) footsteps.

By MICHAEL STOKES PAULSEN
Apr 30, 2012

Sixty years ago, on April 8, 1952, President Harry Truman directed his secretary of commerce, Charles Sawyer, to seize and take over operation of the nation’s steel companies, in order to give steelworkers a wage increase and avert a strike threatening steel production during the Korean War. Truman’s action led, in short order, to one of the most famous and important of all modern Supreme Court decisions—Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, the “steel seizure case.” The decision dominated the nation’s headlines in the spring of 1952, just as the Obamacare case has gripped the nation’s attention this spring. Indeed, the two cases have more than that in common.

Youngstown is the landmark case that invalidated Truman’s action. The Court held, in sweeping and categorical terms, that the president may not rule by decree, conscripting private industry to carry out his commands. The chief executive may only execute laws passed by Congress, according to their terms. He may not make up laws of his own and then enforce them.

In February, President Obama an-nounced his intention to order private insurance companies to provide contraception and abortion drug coverage free, as his way of “accommodating” religious institutions’ conscientious objections to being forced to provide their employees coverage of those items under Obamacare. Like Truman six decades ago, Obama has proposed in effect to seize a national industry and tell it what to do, without any warrant in enacted law. Like Truman’s steel seizure, Obama’s insurance seizure is flat unconstitutional—as unconstitutional as anything any president has attempted to do—and Obama does not even have Truman’s excuse of a national security crisis.

Rewind to the spring of 1952: An unpopular president, conducting an unpopular, stalemated war he was not trying to win, was confronted with a political problem in a presidential election year—a looming steelworkers’ strike that could shut down the nation’s steel production for months. The steel industry was under wartime price controls and could not meet labor’s demands without raising steel prices. The government’s Wage Stabilization Board recommended a wage increase for labor, but the Office of Price Stabilization denied the companies’ request for a price increase. Neither labor nor management budged. A strike was imminent.

Truman’s solution was to issue an executive order directing Secretary Sawyer to take over the nation’s steel mills. Steel officials kept their positions, but were ordered to implement policies prescribed by the secretary, notably the wage increase, to please a core political constituency of the Democratic party, organized labor, in an election year.

Steel production was important to the war effort. But Truman’s brazen seizure of private businesses to be run by government decree was wholly unauthorized by law. Indeed, Congress had considered and rejected the idea of such direct government intervention in labor disputes. What Congress had authorized instead, in the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, was for the president to order a “cooling off” period of up to 80 days during which neither labor nor management could take action against the other. But steel unions were ready to strike if management did not accede to their demands and did not want to cool their heels. Truman did not want to alienate labor, so he took over management.

The owners of the steel mills promptly sued, and the case raced to the Supreme Court on an extraordinary fast track. The Court ruled, 6-3, that Truman’s actions were unconstitutional. The president is not a lawmaker and cannot rule by decree. Even in wartime—even in the name of emergency—the president cannot command private industry except to the extent authorized by specific legislation. (The three dissenters thought that wartime emergency, supported by a generous reading of other statutes passed by Congress, justified Truman’s action, at least as a temporary measure.) Youngstown is now regarded as a landmark decision on the limits of presidential power.

Fast forward 60 years to a near clone of Truman’s steel seizure: A different president, battling unpopularity and desperately desiring to please a political constituency in an election year, miscalculates badly. His cabinet secretary at first orders that religious charities, hospitals, ministries, and colleges (essentially all religious organizations except “houses of worship”) provide abortion pills, sterilization, and contraception to their employees or students in their health care plans, or pay a fine—regardless of whether the religious group objects to providing such services as a matter of religious faith. The secretary’s order produces a firestorm of fury as a grotesque, unconstitutional interference with religious liberty.

It is then that the president, Barack Obama, seizes on the Truman-like “solution” of simply ordering private companies—insurance companies this time—to provide contraception, sterilization, and abortion drugs, and to provide them free, to workers whose employers object to providing them. In essence, he proclaims a right to conscript private businesses to do his bidding, even when Congress has nowhere authorized such action.

To be sure, the idea that insurance companies will provide services free is mere pretense. And it does nothing to cure the violation of First Amendment religious freedom. By entering into contracts with insurance companies to provide health insurance for employees or students, religious employers trigger the required coverage of services they oppose as a matter of faith. And insurance companies will simply pass the costs right back to the objecting religious organizations in the form of higher premiums. It’s a shell game. For the employers, the only legal alternative is to pay heavy fines.

But while the Obama shuffle is a ruse and a violation of the First Amendment, it is also a flagrant violation of Youngstown. A president may not simply decree that private companies be run in conformity with the president’s preferred policies and politics. Just as Truman could not lawfully seize steel mills and order a wage hike, Obama cannot command insurance companies to provide a “free” benefit if Congress has not conferred such authority. Obama’s contemplated conscription—which he won’t turn into an executive order until after the election—is an obvious and outrageous abuse of presidential power.

The Netherlands drawn into EU crisis — may ditch the Euro

By Anne Sewell
Apr 25, 2012

The Hague - The Netherlands has been drawn into the debt crisis in Europe as the government failed to agree on budget cuts, thus casting doubt on its support for the Euro zone. Reuters reports that over the weekend, the government in the Netherlands failed to gain coalition support for its austerity plans.

Elections are now planned for September and analysists have said that one of the EU's strongest economies might just bring about the demise of the Euro. The Netherlands Prime Minister, Mark Rutte strongly advocates the Euro. He has been attempting to get the Dutch Parliament to adopt 14-16 billion Euros worth of austerity cuts in the country. This attempt is aimed at getting the Dutch budget deficit under the 3% of deficit to GDP limit which was established by the new EU fiscal agreement.

Rutte is the leader of the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy However, Rutte was unable to gain the support of the far-right Freedom Party. Leader Geert Wilders said that his country should not have to fund the new European Stability Mechanism while being expected to implement Brussels' deficit caps. Wilders stated: “We don't want to cut spending by 14 billion euros and at the same time transfer billions of euros to Brussels for the horrible ESM emergency fund and the weak Greeks.” On Sunday he tweeted: "The Freedom Party benches are unanimously against Brussels diktats and the attack on our elderly."

The Dutch government's austerity measures also came under criticism from the leftist opposition Labor Party. Leader Diederik Samsom, while admitting that the 3% deficit limit exists, has stressed that the Netherlands does not have to comply “if there are exceptional circumstances in the economy.” After he failed to obtain the necessary support from coalition parnters, Rutte tendered his resignation and said that new elections will likely be held in September. The now acting premier still hopes to obtain the support of minor opposition parties to pass the legisation.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Charles Grant, director of the Center of European Reform in London had said: "The euro zone is a sick patient on a bed, and the doctors gathered round can't agree on the diagnosis, so it's hard to heal the malaise." In an interview with RT, journalist Neil Clark says that he believes the Dutch are mainly angered with the fact that the EU fiscal pact imposes deficit limits on its signatories. “The people have had enough of austerity,” Clark told RT “Holland’s GDP growth in the ten years since it’s had the Euro has just been 1.5 per cent.

And they’re now being told that because of this absolutely insane fiscal pact that was agreed upon last year. It will destroy the good life that the Dutch people have been used to over the years. And unsurprisingly the Dutch are saying, it’s enough.” Clark also stated that leaving the Euro zone was now a strong possibility: “I think if Holland were to leave the Euro, and that’s not such a far-fetched idea now, as it might have appeared a few years ago, then it really is game over. Because Holland has been a strong ally of Germany in the drive towards the Euro and I think it would be an enormous blow.”

Several Eurozone members have adopted severe austerity measures to reduce their massive budget deficits and debts. Such measures were not met with popular support, especially in the badly crisis-hit countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain. Currently the economy in the Netherlands is in much better shape and Moody's still maintains an AAA rating for the country's economy.

[ed. The dutch would do well to remember how they voted NO to the European Union Constitution, in the first place, in 2005 only to be unceremoniously ignored...]

The Arab Muslim Slave Trade Of Africans, The Untold Story (Video)

"If I wanted America to fail" (Video)

Five men arrested in Luton on terrorism charges following series of dawn raids

By Rebecca Camber and Keith Gladdis
24 April 2012

Police smashed a suspected terrorist cell yesterday after arresting five men during dawn raids in Luton.

Counter-terrorism officers from Scotland Yard carried out the raids, which were described as significant and the culmination of a long-running investigation.

Sources played down any links to the Olympics or Government plans to deport radical cleric Abu Qatada.

Police swooped in the Bury Park area of the town yesterday in the wake of a number of searches last September.

Detectives are said to have spent months analysing computer files before deciding to arrest the men.

The suspects, aged between 21 and 35, are being held on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, and are thought to include two taxi drivers and a security guard. No weapons were found. One neighbour claimed that one of those arrested had previously protested against British military parades.

She said: ‘He was on TV protesting against British troops when they came back from Afghanistan.’

Last night, Imran Shehzad, 34, named his brother Umar Arshad, 23, as one of those arrested, although he has not been formally identified by police. He said: ‘This started in September when the police came. They seized laptops and kids’ project books.’

The raids come the same week that mass killer Anders Breivik, on trial for the massacre of 77 people, told a Norwegian court that Muslims want sharia law in 'places like Luton'.

Police said that there was no danger to nearby residents after their swoop on five homes in Luton as part of anti-terror raids.

Bedfordshire Police assisted with the early morning operation, which was led by Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Command.

In the planning of these search warrants, full consideration has been given to treating those arrested and especially their families, with appropriate respect for cultural and religious identity as far as is possible.'

[ed. You mean...no dogs? Wait till they finish praying? Police take shoes off? Women can't be taken into custody unless a muslim officer is present and both officer/s and 'client' must wear a burkha?...]

The searches at the five separate addresses in the Bury Park area of Luton were expected to take at least 24 hours.

Homes were being searched in Bishopscote Road, Maidenhall Road, Crawley Green Road, Cornel Close and Shaftesbury Road.

Bury Park is the home of Luton Central Mosque.

One of the homes raided by anti terrorist police is home to a Bangladeshi family, it is understood.

The extended three bedroomed semi in Maidenhall Road had been raided by the police on an earlier occasion, neighbours said.

Four cars were parked outside. One, a Saab 93, had a personalised number plate.

A middle aged man looked out of an upstairs window today, but the door was answered by a police officer.

One neighbour said: 'They are a Bangladeshi family who have lived here quite a long time.'

Another neighbour, Nighat Hussain, 38, said 'There is a husband a wife, two sons and two daughters.

'One son has a beard and the other is quite chubby.

'I don't know if they all live there. I think they have a grandchild as well.'

Luton has long been associated with fundamentalists, including the 2010 Stockholm suicide bomber Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, and Salahuddin Amin, who was jailed for life in 2007 for planning fertiliser bomb attacks on a shopping centre and nightclub.

'No roads have been closed and there is no danger to other nearby residents,' said a spokesman for Bedfordshire Police.

'Families of those people who have been arrested have been advised to find alternative accommodation while the searches go on to minimise inconvenience to themselves, and if necessary the police will assist them with this.'

[ed. If that had happened to the the rest of us we'd be told to "work it out ourselves" and they'd leave us with the bill for the destroyed property. Sickening stuff...]

Tet '68, Kabul '12: We still don't get it

More than 40 years after the Vietnam War's Tet offensive and after more than a decade of war in Afghanistan, the U.S. military still doesn't get guerrilla warfare.

By Nick Turse
April 24, 2012

Recently, after Afghan militants unleashed sophisticated, synchronized attacks across Afghanistan, including in the capital, Kabul, the Pentagon was quick to emphasize what hadn't happened.

"I'm not minimizing the seriousness of this, but this was in no way akin to the Tet offensive," said George Little, the Pentagon's top spokesman. "We are looking at suicide bombers, RPG [rocket-propelled grenade], mortar fire, etc. This was not a large-scale offensive sweeping into Kabul or other parts of the country."

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta weighed in similarly.

"There were," he insisted, "no tactical gains here. These are isolated attacks that are done for symbolic purposes, and they have not regained any territory."

Even granting the need to spin the assaults as failures, the official American reaction to the coordinated attacks reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of guerrilla warfare in general and of the type waged by the Haqqani network in particular. It's a lesson the United States should have learned decades ago.

But more than 40 years after the Vietnam War's Tet offensive, after more than a decade of war in Afghanistan, theU.S. military still doesn't get it.

When Vietnamese revolutionary forces launched the 1968 Tet offensive, attacking the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon as well as four other major cities and nearly 150 other sites, they were hoping to spark a general uprising. What they did instead was give the lie to months of optimistic talk by American officials about tremendous strategic gains and a foreseeable victory.

Just months before Tet, the top U.S. commander in Vietnam, Gen. William Westmoreland, had claimed there was a successful end in sight for America's war. So how, then, were the Viet Cong able to launch such a widespread assault?

In the course of the offensive, some 58,000 revolutionary fighters were killed, and their advance was beaten back. But guerrillas the world over grasped the lesson of Tet: It is crucial in a guerrilla war to highlight your enemy's vulnerabilities, its helplessness to stop you — and it doesn't have to take 58,000 lives to do that.

The Haqqanis lost only 39 in their recent attacks. And they demonstrated conclusively that they are living in 2012, in global war-making terms, while the Pentagon, in a sense, is still stuck in the mind-set of Saigon, 1968.

Panetta noted that the Haqqani fighters had not taken territory. But that wasn't the point. What territory, after all, could the Haqqani militants have been out to regain by attacking Kabul's heavily defended diplomatic quarter? The German Embassy? And then what would they have done? While Panetta at least granted that the attacks were geared toward symbolic effect, he remained strangely focused on their tactical significance.

As in Vietnam, theU.S. militaryin Afghanistan regularly attempts to prove that it's winning via metrics. We get reports of enemy captures and body counts, as if the conflict can be won on points, like a boxing match.

In the Vietnam years, Westmoreland and other top U.S. officials were forever seeking an elusive "crossover point" — the moment when their Vietnamese foes would be losing more fighters than they could replace and so would have to capitulate. America would win by fighting a war of attrition.

But that didn't work in Vietnam, and it's not working in Afghanistan. More than a decade after U.S. forces swept into Kabul, what began as a ragtag remnant insurgency has grown stronger and continues to vex the most destructively powerful, best-funded military on the planet. All of America's tactical gains and captured territory, especially in the Taliban heartland of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, haven't brought the country anywhere near victory.

As the Haqqanis clearly meant to underscore with their recent coordinated attacks, America's trillion-dollar military, in conjunction with hundreds of thousands of allied Afghan security forces, still is incapable of fully securing even a small "green zone" in the heart of the Afghan capital, much less the rest of the country.

The conflict in Afghanistan began with its American commander declaring, "We don't do body counts," but a quick glance at recent U.S. military press releases touting supposed high-value kills or large insurgent body counts indicates otherwise.

As in Vietnam, the United States is once again betting on a war of attrition. But the enemy hasn't bought in. Instead of slugging it out toe to toe, in large suicidal offensives, the Haqqanis and their allies have planned a savvy, conservative campaign meant to save fighters and resources while sending an unmistakable message to the Afghan population and the American public.

The attrition of U.S. support for the war is unmistakable. As late as 2009, according to a poll by ABC News and the Washington Post, 56% of Americans believed the Afghan war was still worth fighting. Just days before the Haqqanis' coordinated attacks, that number had dropped to 35%. Over the same span, the number of Americans who are convinced the war is not worth fighting jumped from 41% to 60%. The latest Haqqani offensive is likely to reinforce these trends.

[ed. This is what happens when you try to fight a politically correct war against a politically incorrect foe...]