ABC News personnel tried to provoke incendiary outbreak at Ground Zero mosque protest

• 8/28, "ABC News 'reprimanded' camerman who tried to provoke Ground Zero mosque protesters, but they haven't gone far enough," BigJournalism by A. Lafferty

""At last Sunday’s (8.22) Coalition to Honor Ground Zero’s rally, I watched an ABC News crew stand by, ready to film, while one of their co-workers tried to provoke an angry or violent reaction at a New York rally protesting the Ground Zero mosque."...

ABC News announced they have "reprimanded" the still unnamed audio news man.

• ""ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider tells TVNewser the network has looked into Lafferty’s complaint and agrees that the tech “aggressively” questioned members of the crowd with his personal camera."

• It is important to note, of course, that the media’s lust for scenes of violence or contention only go one way; they have been totally uninterested in actual and substantial violence and far-out anti-American, anti-Semitic rhetoric and signs that were common at leftist protests throughout the presidency of George W. Bush.

ABC News should not just reprimand the contract employee (who actually did the provoking), but fire him"... along with the two other ABC New employees who stood by and watched him do it. The cameraman was standing nearby, poised and ready to record....

Journalists should not make-up news and they should not try to “improve” film footage when the real thing doesn’t have enough action."...

New group matches congressional races with concerned citizens

.
New site 40 seats for those who want to help get better people in the House of Representatives.

• via American Thinker

..

Payback time-Obama apologizes to UN thugs about the state of Arizona, humbly asks them to review its despicable acts

• 8/30/10, "America to be reviewed by thugs of UN Human Rights Council," American Thinker by Ellen Topansky

"Because of Obama's decision to have America join the Council, American taxpayers are now financially supporting anti-Israel, anti-American rhetoric and hatred "posted, translated and broadcast around the world." That a single dollar is used to promote this disgusting agenda is deplorable;

• that the man who is supposed to represent the best interests of America should sanction it

• makes one wonder about his true allegiance."

No need to wonder. It's 'payback time.'

• UPDATE, 9/1, There's more-Obama isn't done yet, goes on to say "how the United States discriminates against the disabled, homosexuals, women, Native Americans, blacks, Hispanics and those who don't speak English."... Washington Times report,

• via American Thinker. The American Thinker author wonders, if it's so terrible here, why are so many people dying to get here, and refuse to leave when they find out it's so bad?

UPDATE two, 9/3, from American Thinker, J. Cashill.

• Our report to the UN also says our economic crisis was mainly caused by

inequality in home mortgage lending.

• We 'admit' to UN thugs in essence that if Americans weren't such racists the housing market might not have collapsed:
  

AT: "The recession in the United States," the report insists, "was fueled largely by a housing crisis, which coincided with some discriminatory lending practices." Those practices, the report strongly implies, resulted in a market where

• "fewer than half of African-American and Hispanic families own homes

• while three quarters of white families do."

"To prevent similar crises in the future," the report continues in its smugly accusatory way, "the federal government has focused resources and

• efforts to determine

• whether and where discrimination took place,

as well as to ensure greater oversight going forward." As proof of the administration's eagerness to solve the problem, the report cites its

• "major financial reform legislation."

...Our official 2010 UPR submission to the United Nation argues that discrimination against minorities in the housing market somehow caused the economic crisis and that the misbegotten

• Dodd-Frank act will somehow repair it....

While the Obama apparatchiks were busy compiling this report, I was busy writing a book -- Popes and Bankers -- on the real causes of the economic crisis. What they see as the solution I see as the cause, and I can prove my point.

• To make the accusation of discrimination work, the report writers had to ignore the
  
• most telling set of data,
  
• namely default rates.

In 2004, the Department of Housing and Urban Development did a comprehensive study of FHA loans that originated in 1992. The sample size was substantial -- nearly 250,000 loans.

• Given that the FHA insures only modest loans for low- and moderate-income people, the cross-racial comparisons were for comparable properties.

What the study revealed, among other results, was that after the seven prosperous years from 1992 to 1999,

• blacks were defaulting on their loans more than twice as frequently as whites, and Hispanics were defaulting three times more frequently.

Here is the crucial point: if minorities had been held to a higher standard than whites, their default rates should have been lower than whites, not higher. These numbers suggest the opposite and the obvious: blacks and Hispanics were held to lower standards and have been for at least the last forty years. Chinese-Americans, by the way, actually did have lower default rates than whites.

As to why black homeownership rates are lower, only the willfully blind can fail to see the problem: namely,

• the government-induced collapse of the two-parent black family. In 1993, the average income for

• households headed by divorced women was 40 percent that of married couples;

• for unmarried women, it was only 20 percent.

As the numbers suggest, many of these women could not manage homes of their own. Homeownership rates for female-headed households have struggled to stay above 50 percent. For married couples, by contrast, the rates have hovered consistently in the 80^th-percentile range.

With blacks vastly overrepresented among single-parent families -- by 1993, 57 percent of black children were growing up in a single-parent household, as compared 21 percent of white children -- white homeownership rates inevitably outstripped those for black homeownership. By the early 1990s that gap was at least 25 percentage points, around 70 percent for whites and in the low 40s for blacks.

• The writers of the UPR report, however, refuse to acknowledge
  
• family breakdown as a problem, let alone as an explanation for the disparity in homeownership rates.

Their preferred explanation for every unequal outcome in every endeavor is the inevitable

• "discrimination."

Worse, the report writers -- and indeed, the Obama White House -- seems unaware that the forced march of unqualified buyers into the homeownership field was the

• single most explosive variable in the subprime blow-up.

They seem unaware that the Clinton administration demanded that banks quantify -- under duress -- the progress they were making in giving loans to "LMIs," people of low and moderate income.

They seem unaware that the government encouraged banks to use "innovative or flexible" lending practices -- aka "predatory loans" -- to reach their LMI numbers.

They seem unaware that HUD, which Congress had made the regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 1992,

• began to pressure these agencies to set numerical goals for "affordable housing"
  
• even if that meant buying subprime mortgages.

In 2004, under extreme government pressure, homeownership rate reached a new peak."...

• "Human rights through the looking glass"

• (There are many reasons for renting as opposed to owning of course).

UPDATE 9/5, CNN considers it worthy of reporting that 2 ACLU lawyers agree our Arizona law issue SHOULD BE reported to the UN, 9/4, "Reporting Arizona law to the UN was correct" (I'm not going to read it, I only note that it was reported. I was not under the impression that the ACLU and Obama were 2 separate entities. ed.)
..

$2 million US taxpayer dollar purchased computers for Iraqi children sold for cash by Iraqi official who says it was 'legal'

.

• 8/29, "Iraq says sale of donated US computers legal" by A. Kami

"Computer equipment worth $1.9 million which the U.S. military says was a gift for Iraqi schoolchildren but was

• auctioned off for less than $50,000

• was sold legally, Iraq's customs authority said Sunday.

The U.S. military said Friday $1.9 million worth of computer shipment bought by the U.S. government, which should have gone to schools in the southern province of Babil, was

• auctioned by a senior Iraqi official for less than $50,000
  

• at Iraq's main port Umm Qasr.

The customs authority said in a statement it had the right to auction goods that remained unclaimed at the port for 90 days and added that

• it did not know the shipment belonged to the U.S. Army or
  

• was destined to schools in Babil.

Nawfal Saleem, head of the authority, said in the statement the sale had been canceled and about 90 percent of the shipment was being sent back to Umm Qasr port for the shipper to claim.

• Corruption has been a major problem for Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Transparency International's 2009 corruption perceptions index ranked Iraq

• as one of the world's most corrupt nations -- 176 out of 180 countries."

This has been going on for years, bleeding to death
the US taxpayer. It will continue because US citizens have no one representing their interests. Commenters to the Reuters story:

• 1. "Almost as corrupt as the USA itself now!

• 2. "I’m sure all Americans are really proud that so many U.S. soldiers died in vain. Just so these corrupt officials can pocket ill gotten gains. Where’s the uproar! The same thing is happening in Afghanistan. Corruption Rules!"
  

• 3. "in this case not only the officials are corrupt, but US AID or whoever was managing this donation was incompetent, mostly likely some airhead sitting in DC with well connected parents."

• 4. "That equipment would have sold for $10k in Afghanistan "...

photo reuters, article italics ed.

.

Bloomberg wraps himself in freedom he says is 'shameful' for others to seek-911 family member, Politico

8/27, "'Disgrace' Bloomberg 'misrepresents' families," Politico, by Ben Smith

"New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg attacked critics of the Park51 Islamic Center near ground zero during his appearance yesterday on the Daily Show, and in doing so, he invoked the support of family members of 9/11 victims -- a move that drew sharp criticism today from one prominent figure.

"The family members that I’ve talked to -- and I’m chairman of the board of The World Trade Center Memorial -- 100% in favor of saying these people who want to build a mosque, can build a mosque, that the lives of our loved ones were taken because the right to build a mosque or to say what you want to say was so threatening to people," he told Jon Stewart.

"There's no formal mechanism for polling family members of the 9/11 victims, but his comment has rankled some, including one of the project's outspoken critics, Debra Burlingame, who is also one of the eight family members on the board of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum -- though not one of the ones Bloomberg has spoken to recently.

Burlingame, whose brother Charles was the pilot of a downed jet, emailed over her outrage at the mayor's remarks, and also suggested that his power could have muted the views of the family members to whom he'd spoken. Burlingame also chairs the conservative group Keep America Safe with Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol. She emailed:

• "It's bad enough that Mr. Bloomberg covers himself in the memory of the heroes who died on 9/11 in order to silence legitimate criticism of the mosque project, it is even more shameless of him to do it while misrepresenting the position of their loved ones. Mr. Bloomberg cited that his chairmanship of the memorial board made him privvy to what family members think.
  
• 
  
• Mr. Bloomberg knows full well that family members on the memorial board have grave concerns about this project, and that some of us have publically opposed it. If he really cared what we think, he would have come to us and asked. We're still waiting for the call.

Mr. Bloomberg has now crossed the line from merely supporting the mosque to participating in a public campaign aimed at silencing its critics.

• He has improperly invoked private conversations of 9/11 family board members who, unfortunately,
  

• are all too aware of his power,
  

both as chair of the foundation which will memorialize their loved ones and as mayor of a city where that memorial will be built.

• He is recklessly wreaking havoc among families, running from media event to radio interview to photo op to Comedy Central gagfest,
  

• shamelessly hawking this narrative
  

that we, those whose family members were

the true victims of religious intolerance, must

• also carry the burden of proving we're not intolerant. He's a disgrace.

Re other politicians: He has the audacity to go out and stump for the mosque all over the media, while at the same time calling other political leaders--who reflect the position of 70% of the public-

• -"shameless" or suggesting they don't really care--like him.
  

We have said over and over that this isn't a challenge to freedom of religion.

We are appealing to the mosque developers as a matter of decency.

Bloomberg sticks his fingers in his ears; he will have none of it. Instead, he is causing grave injury to 9 /11 family members, while

• painting this insensitive, arrogant imam as a victim.
  

Mr. Bloomberg is casting himself as a principled champion of the first amendment even as he is telling the rest of us to shut up.

The mayor is pulling out all the stops to bully New Yorkers

• into falling in line with his politically correct nonsense at the last place in America where there should be any pretense about what happened on 9/11.

Our message to the mayor: we aren't going away, not now, not ever."

"Burlingame isn't the only member of the 9/11 Memorial board openly opposed to the Park51 project.

• Dave Beamer, whose son Todd was one of the passengers who fought terrorists on United Flight 93,
  

attacked the project, President Obama, and Islam more broadly, in a speech posted yesterday on YouTube."

getty photo

.

.

As a Muslim country, Pakistan's anti-American feelings increase with drone attacks-Dawn.com (Even though we gave them 436,944 halal meals)

.

• 8/28/10, "US Drone Strike Kills 4 militants in Pakistan," Dawn.com, Pakistan

Peshawar: "More than 1,000 people have been killed in over 100 drone strikes in Pakistan since August 2008, including a number of senior militants.

• However, the attacks fuel anti-American sentiment

• in the conservative Muslim country."...

via John Batchelor show, Fri. 8/27, point made that little or no publicity is seen about US aid to Pakistan's flood ravaged areas, that hundreds of thousands of

• halal meals have been delivered by US military.

In fact, our deliveries of aid are viewed with suspicion.

• (That we only want to take over, as if we don't have enough problems of our own, ed.)

8/20/10, "In addition to airlift support, within 36 hours of the initial flooding on July 29, the U.S. military began delivering thousands of halal meals to Pakistan from U.S. stocks in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region.

• In all, 436,944 halal meals "ready-to-eat"' were provided to civilian and military officials in Pakistan

• for distribution to Pakistanis in need."...

8/16/10, Instead of being grateful for help from the American taxpayer, negative sentiment is spun that

• our motive for delivering aid is to plant our military in the country
  
• to fight terrorism.(Which we're denying).
  

In widely read Dawn.com, what makes headlines is US killings, and that they

• fuel anti-American sentiment in "the conservative Muslim country."

Reference, 8/2/10, from Halal.net, "US sends 50,000 halal meals for flood victims"

• Pakistani relief official "demanded 380,00 food packets from the US."

On Batchelor's show the point was made that the US doesn't try to make positive news about good things it does in Pakistan or other mid-east countries, because US media will accuse the government of being self-aggrandizing and having conquering motives.

• As the CNS story states, the controlling narrative is the US is perceived negatively no matter how much its citizens give.
  

(above file photo of drone from Dawn.com, an English language Pakistani publication)

• Pakistan facts as of 12/16/08:
  

"Half the country is illiterate and

• three-quarters of it subsists on less than $2 a day,

• according to the World Bank.

That is to say that Pakistan's young men are more abundant as well as cheaper than in any other country in the region.

• Very poor and ignorant young men, especially if their only education has been in Salafi madrassas,

• are very easy to enlist in military adventures. "...

from Spengler, Asia Times, "The Failed Muslim States to Come"

• Following were Batchelor's guests on the segment about Pakistan, 8/27:

"Friday 1035P (735P Pacific Time): Rufus Phillips, author; Bill Roggio, LongWarJournal; Arif Rafiq, Pakistan Policy blog, in re: Pakistan floods and relief; flood sets back years of gains on infrastructure. Taliban hint at attacks on relief workers . " from JohnBatchelorShow.com
.
.

Getaway day news flash-NYC pol supports public financing of Ground Zero mosque. Political class doubles down.

• 8/27, "Ground Zero Muslim center may get public financing," Reuters

"The Muslim center planned near the site of the World Trade Center attack could qualify for tax-free financing, a spokesman for City Comptroller John Liu said on Friday, and Liu is willing to consider approving the public subsidy.

• The Democratic comptroller's spokesman, Scott Sieber,
  

• said Liu supported the project....

The mosque's backers hope to raise a total of $70 million in tax-exempt debt to build the center, according to the New York Times.

• Tax laws allow such funding for religiously affiliated non-profits if they can prove the facility will benefit the general public and their religious activities are funded separately."...

Mayor Bloomberg's company opens Islamic financing portal in Dubai

• in face of "meltdown of western capitalism", 10/29/08

.
.

Muslim Canadian Congress VP says discovery of terrorists in Canada, "a sad reflection on the Muslim community"

.
3 arrested in Canada Wednesday 8/25 for conspiring to commit terrorism. "Alizadeh, Ahmed and Sher were arrested following a year-long investigation by the RCMP... and several police forces across the country."...

• 8/26/10, "Canadian terror plotters had bomb materials: police," from AFP, by M. Comte

"This "large amount of terrorist documentation and manuals" demonstrates that the suspects "intended to construct an explosive device or explosive devices for terrorist purposes," said (RCMP Superintendent) Therriault.

• Police also said they had evidence a member of the cell had received bomb-making training abroad, but they did not specify which suspect or where and when the training allegedly took place.

"There's a growing concern about radicalization inside Canada, (about) home-grown terrorism," Public Safety Minister Vic Toews commented.

• It "is a phenomena that we have seen in many Western democracies and it's a relatively new phenomena that we must be very vigilant about," he said.

The Muslim Canadian Congress expressed "shock" at the arrests.

• "The disclosure of this new terror cell is a
  
• sad reflection on the Muslim community," said congress vice president Salma Siddiqui. "Four years after the Toronto 18 terror arrests,
  
• we are back to square one."

The separate Toronto 18 group of plotters allegedly sought to purchase three tonnes of the bomb-making ingredient ammonium nitrate from undercover police officers, who had switched it with an inert substance.

• The last two members of the group arrested in 2006 were found guilty in June of terrorism charges.

Nine other members of the group were previously convicted in the conspiracy, which was aimed at provoking a Canadian withdrawal from Afghanistan.

• Charges were dropped against seven others.

The Toronto Star reported that Sher, a Canadian-born physician and graduate of McGill University in Montreal, had auditioned in 2008 for the television talent show "Canadian Idol."

• Dressed in a traditional shalwar kameez and a pakul hat, Sher appears in a YouTube video of the audition performing Michael Jackson's famed moonwalk and a robot dance for the judges.

Ahmed reportedly worked as an X-ray technician at an Ottawa hospital and lived with his wife and child.

• Little, however, was revealed about Alizadeh."

**

'Science' says: Fishermen, jobs, family suspiciously middle class, so must disappear. Obama backs ocean diva despite calls for firing

*

• On calls for Obama NOAA pick to step down, Obama says she stays, 7/13/10,"Lawyer cites ethics issues with NOAA counsel funds," Gloucester Times, R. Gaines

• 8/26/10, "Local fishermen protest regulations during Obama's Vineyard visit," NECN, A. Palumbo, New Bedford, Mass.

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has said these new regulations are critical to the long-term health of the fishing industry because they say the stocks here have been over-fished.

• But fishermen say NOAA's numbers are outdated and

• the science they're basing it on is flawed....

Ground fisherman Mark Phillips said, "We're not allowed to catch the fish that are out there because

• the science says the fish aren't there, but what we see is completely different."

So without many other options, these fishermen are taking their message to the man at the top - hoping President Obama will hear their concerns.

Vanesse said, "This administration has said its stated policy is to protect jobs and create jobs and yet you've got an administration that

• is actually implementing regulations that are taking away jobs."...

Several fishing vessels left New Bedford, Massachusetts this morning headed for Martha's Vineyard - to crash the President's vacation and try to get him to listen to their concerns about new fishing regulations.

Gloucester Fisherman Vito Giacalone said, "This is commerce, these are businesses and they're supposed to maximize the benefit of the natural resource to the nation and we're actually managing them into the toilet

• at a time when we're on the cusp of having them fully rebuilt."

Local fishermen say they're frustrated by the "catch share" rules put in place May first that put

• strict numbers on the amount of fish they can catch,
  
• limit the number of days they can fish, and
  
• reduce the areas in which they are allowed to fish.

"Bob Vanesse, executive director of the fishing industry public relations group "Saving Seafood" said, "A catch share system can be well designed and can work well,

• this system that's in place in New England is not and it's causing a great deal of disruption, it's causing people to lose their jobs.""...

from Gloucester Times, 8/24, "Fishing Leaders target NOAA data," by R. Gaines

• "The toxic mix, they agreed, was the combination of the catch share system, which encourages the bartering of fish catching rights as virtual commodities and a hyper contraction in the overall volume of fish in the year's allocation.
  
• The latter stems from language written into the last two iterations of the federal Magnuson-Stevens Act.

"Overall," said Fuka, "there just isn't enough fish to get the boats through the year."

About one-third of the fishermen are facing fiscal insolvency, Fuka said.

• As in Gloucester and New Bedford, the failing businesses typically divest assets, which
  
• include catch share allocations and permits.

In Gloucester, said Giacalone — policy director with the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition — at least four boats have been decommissioned already, and others are expected.

• Overall, he estimated, the Gloucester fleet is working with an allocation about half the size of last year's.

"All the ills of a poorly conceived (catch share) system are rearing their heads early," Giacalone said.

• Responding to a question, he said the system in place resembles that in Major League Baseball around the trading deadline, where teams that believe they can make the playoffs are buying talent while also-rans are selling them off....

"Folks with enough allocation are buying more; those that lost initially are in serious trouble, competing with the (haves).

• "(NOAA) hasn't to date addressed the socio-economic impacts sufficiently," he added.

Canastra said of the groundfishing boats of New Bedford 14 percent have been decommissioned and only 39 percent are working actively.

• The fishing industry's push for changes this week isn't limited to Tuesday's conference."...
• ***********
  

NOAA data can't be believed on any topic based on recent events, 8/16 report on corrupt NOAA data. Lack of supervision, standards, and consequences are not new at NOAA but are more acute today.
.

• ap photos of boats today near Vineyard Haven

8/18/10, Senator Kerry seeks bailout for desperate fishing industry, American Thinker.

.

NYC Mayor Bloomberg company developing Islamic financing hub in Dubai, exec cites meltdown of western capitalism, virtues of Islamic finance

*

Bloomberg chose the Statue of Liberty as a sales aid
to promote the Ground Zero mosque, 8/3/10, getty

• 10/29/08, "Bloomberg makes Dubai a hub," The National, by K. Hagey

"Spurred by a recent boom in sales in the region, Bloomberg is expanding its Dubai office into a regional hub, a move that will as much as quadruple its local staff over the next year.

• Max Linnington, the company’s newly appointed regional head of Middle East and South Asia, announced the expansion today in advance of a panel discussion with economists and dignitaries in front of the Dubai International Financial Centre’s iconic The Gate building, where Bloomberg has had offices for two years.

“We are going to be bringing all the elements of what you would find in one of Bloomberg’s largest offices here in Dubai,” he said.

Although Bloomberg gathers its news and data from bureaus all over the globe, it currently sells its terminals from seven main hubs: London, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney, Sao Paolo and San Francisco.

• The company has had a presence in Dubai for a decade. The planned expansion would increase its staff from 25 to 40 by the end of the year, and to as many as 100 by the middle of next year, Mr Linnington said.

The decision to expand was prompted by strong regional sales of its terminals, which provide financial news and data to bankers, traders, portfolio managers and corporations, as well as to other journalists.

“The region for us has seen explosive growth,” he said.

• “For example, last year in the UAE, we grew our core business by 61 per cent. ...
  

The company has also been developing

• an Islamic finance portal,
  

• which Mr Linnington said would be helped by having more people on the ground building relationships.

“Particularly since the meltdown of the western capitalist system, there has been an increasingly large focus on the

• virtues of Islamic finance,” he said.
  

“Today, there is no one single provider of information that caters to the Islamic finance market. So by Bloomberg being here,

• we are in the process of building out an Islamic finance product.
  

We are very confident that we can build a product that meets the needs of the market right now.”"...

*************

• As it happens, Dubai is in the middle of a huge financial crisis and must sell major assets. Among those major assets is its
  
• ports operating business, 4th largest in the world. The financial shangri-la is over. (No wonder Bloomberg cried as he imagined his investment in Dubai and Islamic finance not looking so hot now).
  

8/25, "Dubai World may raise up to $19.4 billion from asset sales in 8 years," Bloomberg News, by A. Sharif

• .
  

5/24, "Dubai targets reforms after crisis," ArabTimesOnline

• Dubai, May 24, (Agencies): "Dubai officials are outlining plans for financial reforms in the wake of the
  
• emirate’s credit crisis."...
  

Mayor Bloomberg's business interests were present at the conference addressing the crisis in Dubai:

• "Daniel Doctoroff, the president of Bloomberg LP and former deputy mayor of New York for economic development and rebuilding, said that giving expatriates in Dubai a path to citizenship is key for it to be globally competitive. “In order (for Dubai) to compete on a global scale, a path to citizenship is critical” for expatriates here, Doctoroff told the conference."...

10/2/09, "Bloomberg's office in Dubai to expand its activities," Dubai Chronicle



Bloomberg again using his office as NY mayor to
promote his other interests, at the UN in 2008
preaching global warming. photo gothamist

Alleged NYC Muslim cabbie slasher works at pro-Ground Zero mosque group

*

• 8/25/10, "Alleged anti-Muslim attacker works at pro-Park 51 group," Politico, by Ben Smith

"The apparent anti-Muslim assault on a New York city cabbie by a man shouting “Assalamu Alaikum. Consider this a checkpoint" produced an immediate round of recriminations over its connection to opposition to a New York Islamic Center and an apparent rising tide of Islamophobia.

• But as often at the intersection of politics and violent crime,
  
• the story doesn't appear to fit any easy stereotype: The alleged assailant, Michael Enright, is — according to his Facebook profile and the website
  

of the left-leaning media organization Intersections International — a student at the School of Visual Arts and a volunteer for Intersections,

• which recently produced a statement of support for the Park51 project (the Ground Zero mosque)
  

and is funded by the mainstream, liberal Collegiate Church of New York....

Police described Enright as a resident of Brewster, 21 years old, and an employee of an "Internet media company who had recently spent time with a combat unit in Afghanistan filming military exercises until this past May."

His Facebook picture, above, appears to show him in Afghanistan. The page describes him as a cinematographer and photographer for Intersections."

• From WSJ.com, 8/25

"On its website, that organization (Intersections International) describes itself as a "New York-based global initiative dedicated to promoting justice, reconciliation and peace across lines of faith, culture, ideology, race, class, national borders and other boundaries that divide humanity."

• The organization has publicly supported the proposed mosque near Ground Zero.

Intersections International confirmed that Mr. Enright did volunteer work for the group in video production and editing. Sara Reef, a program director for the group, said she didn't work closely with Mr. Enright, but that he had a good reputation at the nonprofit organization.

• "He was a good guy," she said. "He got along with my colleagues.""...

8/26, "Student charged with hate crime in slashing," WSJ.com, by Gardiner and El-Ghobashy
**
*

First we have to beat the GOP

*


Outsider Rick Scott beats GOP insider Bill McCollum in
Florida Governor primary, 8/24/10. ap photo

Ground Zero Imam said Iran should be governed by Islamic dictatorship

*
Intolerance abounds in Islam Imam Rauf supports such as Iran.

• 8/23/10, "'The Ground Zero mosque' debate is about tolerance-and a whole lot more," Slate by Christopher Hitchens

"From the beginning, though, I pointed out that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf was no great bargain and that his Cordoba Initiative was full of euphemisms about Islamic jihad and Islamic theocracy. I mentioned his sinister belief that the United States was partially responsible for the assault on the World Trade Center and his refusal to take a position on the racist Hamas dictatorship in Gaza.

• The more one reads through his statements, the more alarming it gets.

For example, here is Rauf's editorial on the upheaval that followed the brutal hijacking of

• the Iranian elections in 2009. Regarding President Obama, he advised that:

"He should say his administration respects many of the guiding principles of the 1979 revolution—to establish a government that expresses the will of the people; a just government,

• based on the idea of Vilayet-i-faquih, that establishes the rule of law."

Coyly untranslated here (perhaps for "outreach" purposes), Vilayet-i-faquih is the special term promulgated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to describe the idea that all of

• Iranian society is under

• the permanent stewardship (sometimes rendered as guardianship) of the mullahs.

Under this dispensation, "the will of the people" is a meaningless expression, because "the people" are the wards and children of the clergy. It is the justification for a clerical supreme leader,

• whose rule is impervious to elections

and who can pick and choose the candidates and, if it comes to that, the results. It is extremely controversial within Shiite Islam. (Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq, for example, does not endorse it.) As for those numerous Iranians who are not Shiites, it reminds them yet again that

• they are not considered to be real citizens of the Islamic Republic.

I do not find myself reassured by the fact that Imam Rauf publicly endorses the most extreme and repressive version of Muslim theocracy.

• The letterhead of the statement, incidentally, describes him as the Cordoba Initiative's "Founder and Visionary." Why does that not delight me, either?
  

Emboldened by the crass nature of the opposition to the center, its defenders have started to talk as if it represented no problem at all and

• as if the question were solely one of religious tolerance. It would be nice if this were true.
  

But tolerance is one of the first and most awkward questions raised by any examination of Islamism.

• We are wrong to talk as if the only subject was that of terrorism.
  

As Western Europe has already found to its cost, local Muslim leaders have a habit, once they feel strong enough, of

• making demands of the most intolerant kind.
  

• Sometimes it will be calls for censorship of anything "offensive" to Islam.
  

Sometimes it will be demands for sexual segregation in schools and swimming pools. The script is becoming a very familiar one. And those who make such demands are of course usually quite careful to avoid any association with violence.

• They merely hint that, if their demands are not taken seriously, there just might be a
  
• teeny smidgeon of violence from some other unnamed quarter …

As for the gorgeous mosaic of religious pluralism, it's easy enough to find mosque Web sites and DVDs that peddle the most disgusting attacks on Jews, Hindus, Christians, unbelievers, and other Muslims—to say nothing of insane diatribes about women and homosexuals. This is why

• the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam
  

• must ipso facto be "phobic."
  

A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature,

• which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational.

From my window, I can see the beautiful minaret of the Washington, D.C., mosque on Massachusetts Avenue. It is situated at the heart of the capital city's diplomatic quarter, and it is where President Bush went immediately after 9/11 to make his gesture toward the "religion of peace."

• A short while ago, the wife of a new ambassador told me that she had been taking her dog for a walk when a bearded man accosted her and brusquely warned her not to take the animal so close to the sacred precincts.
  

• Muslim cabdrivers in other American cities have already refused to take passengers with "unclean" canines.

...At the United Nations, the voting bloc of the Organization of the Islamic Conference nations is already proposing a resolution that would circumscribe any criticism of religion in general and of Islam in particular.

• So, before he is used by our State Department on any more goodwill missions overseas, I would like to see Imam Rauf
  

asked a few searching questions about

• his support for clerical dictatorship in, just for now, Iran.
  

Let us by all means make the "Ground Zero" debate a test of tolerance.

• But this will be a one-way street unless it is to be a test of Muslim tolerance as well."

**
*

Ground Zero Imam says US has more blood on its hands than Al Qaeda--2005

*

• Ground Zero Mosque Imam speaks on July 12, 2005 at a Prime Ministerial Centre Public Lecture in Australia.

"“We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non Muslims…

“What complicates the discussion, intra-Islamically, is the fact that the West has not been cognizant and has not addressed the issues

• of its own contribution to much injustice in the Arab and Muslim world.” "-Feisal Abdul Rauf, 2005

(Imam Rauf speaks very softly requiring listeners to strain to hear him. In my experience, this kind of behavior is favored by passive-aggressive persons. ed.)

• via Big Peace and PamelaGeller.com, via Michael Savage show
• ****
  

Reference, 2004, Ground Zero Imam Rauf says US must acknowledge harm it has done to Islam before terrorism can end:

• 3/21/04, "West must act to end jihad: Imam (Feisal Rauf)," Sydney Morning Herald (Aus.), by Frank Walker

"The US and the West must acknowledge the harm they have done to Muslims

• before terrorism can end, says an Islamic cleric invited to Sydney by Premier Bob Carr.

New York-based Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who impressed Mr Carr at an international conference last year, arrives in Sydney today for two weeks of meetings and public talks.

Speaking from his New York mosque, Imam Feisal said

• the West had to understand
  
• the terrorists' point of view.

In a move likely to cause controversy with church leaders, Imam Feisal said it was

• Christians who started mass attacks on civilians.

"The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians. But it was Christians in World War II who bombed civilians in Dresden and Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets."

Imam Feisal said the bombing in Madrid had made his message more urgent. He said there was

• an endless supply of angry young Muslim rebels prepared to die for their cause

• and there was no sign of the attacks ending

• unless there was a fundamental change in the world.

Imam Feisal, who argues for a Western style of Islam that promotes democracy and tolerance, said there could be little progress

• until the US acknowledged backing dictators and

• the US President gave an "America Culpa" speech to the Muslim world.

His major talks will be at noon on April 1 at St Mary's Cathedral with Cardinal George Pell and Mr Carr, and a public lecture at 6pm at the Wesley Centre in Pitt Street."

People hanging out of windows of World Trade Center and about to die, 9/11/01

Ground Zero mosque Imam wife uses 'H' (Hate) word- says mosque opponents are just filled with 'hate' for Muslims

*
On ABC's This Week, Amanpour feeds the Ground Zero mosque Imam's wife who responds on cue with the "h" (hate) word:

• 8/22/10, "Moving Islamic Center not on the table for now, Backer says," ABCNews.com, by Joshua Miller

"Amanpour asked Khan if America was Islamophobic.

• "This is like a metastasized anti-Semitism, that's what we feel right now," Khan said. "It's not even Islamophobia, it's beyond Islamophobia;

• it's hate of Muslims.
  

• And we are deeply concerned.""

(Once again, a differing point of view is labeled 'hate.' Sincere, peaceful people are encouraged not to speak for fear of being smeared as a 'hater.') ed.

• 3/21/04, "West must act to end jihad: Imam (Feisel)" Sydney Morning Herald

"Hatred" also pitched in 8/16 letter on Imam's Cordoba Initiative website:

• "those who would divide America and use hatred of other Americans
  
• as a political tool."...

September 11, 2001

Ground Zero Imam: Terror attacks will not end until America apologizes for harm done to Muslims, endless angry young Muslims willing to die

• 3/21/04, "West must act to end jihad: Imam (Feisal Rauf)," Sydney Morning Herald (Aus.), by Frank Walker

"The US and the West must acknowledge the harm they have done to Muslims

• before terrorism can end, says an Islamic cleric invited to Sydney by Premier Bob Carr.

New York-based Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who impressed Mr Carr at an international conference last year, arrives in Sydney today for two weeks of meetings and public talks.

Speaking from his New York mosque, Imam Feisal said

• the West had to understand
  
• the terrorists' point of view.

In a move likely to cause controversy with church leaders, Imam Feisal said it was

• Christians who started mass attacks on civilians.

"The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians. But it was Christians in World War II who bombed civilians in Dresden and Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets."

Imam Feisal said the bombing in Madrid had made his message more urgent. He said there was

• an endless supply of angry young Muslim rebels prepared to die for their cause

• and there was no sign of the attacks ending

• unless there was a fundamental change in the world.

Imam Feisal, who argues for a Western style of Islam that promotes democracy and tolerance, said there could be little progress

• until the US acknowledged backing dictators and

• the US President gave an "America Culpa" speech to the Muslim world.

His major talks will be at noon on April 1 at St Mary's Cathedral with Cardinal George Pell and Mr Carr, and a public lecture at 6pm at the Wesley Centre in Pitt Street."

People hanging out of windows of World Trade Center and

about to die, 9/11/01