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By Joshua, August 18, 2010 1:45 am

In light of the debate on the proposed Cordoba mosque near Ground Zero comes this story from Spain.  Since losing their Cordoba mosque to Christians, Spanish muslims would like to pray alongside Christians at their Cordoba Cathedral:

Muslims in Spain are campaigning to be allowed to worship alongside Christians in Cordoba Cathedral — formerly the Great Mosque of Cordoba. Today, at the original Cordoba mosque in Spain, there is no call to prayer, only the ringing of church bells. That’s because the former mosque is now a working Catholic cathedral, performing a daily mass.It’s been a Cathedral since Spain’s Christian monarchy conquered Cordoba in the 13th century and more than a million visitors walk through its doors every year.

Mansur Escudero, a Spanish convert to Islam, is leading the movement that is pushing for the right of Muslims to pray at the Cordoba Cathedral.  “I don’t think it’s important for Muslims. I think it’s important for humankind,” Escudero says. “We think this is a beautiful paradigm of tolerance, knowledge, culture. People of different religions living together.”

Spain has more than a million Muslims, little more than two percent of the population. Most of that growth is made up of migrants from countries such as Morocco. But the southern European country has a significant community of Muslim converts inspired by its Islamic history.

According to Cordoba’s Bishop, Demetrio Fernandes, this incident shows it is impossible to share a house of worship. It would be like sharing a wife between two husbands, he told CNN. “Would they be happy to do the same in any of their mosques? Absolutely not. Because I understand their religious feeling and they have to understand ours as well. The religious feeling is the deepest one in the human heart, so it is not possible to share…We wouldn’t think of asking for the Damascus mosque, because it belongs to the Muslims and for them it is an emblematic place. It is [the same] for [Christians] because the San Juan’s basilica is very important to us, but we understand that history doesn’t go back. It only goes forward. So, it doesn’t make sense to ask for the Cordoba [cathedral] to convert it into a mosque, it doesn’t make sense because history is irreversible,” he said.

Escudero insists this is not about winning a victory for one religion or the other.

He said: “They pretend that we are trying to conquer the mosque again. That’s not the intention at all. We want it to be a place where anyone — whether Muslim, Christian or Jew — can do his meditation or his internal way of worshipping, or praying or whatever he wants to call it.”

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By Joshua, August 16, 2010 1:53 am

How is it possible to be born in the country but not be a legal citizen of it?  Consider the case of ethnic Russians in Estonia:

Oleg Bessedin’s main travel document is called an “alien’s passport,” as if it were a gag item. But it is all that he has when he ventures abroad… Mr. Bessedin, 36, an ethnic Russian, was born and raised in Estonia, and lives here with his family. Legally, though, he is not Estonian, nor a citizen of anywhere else. He is among 100,000 people in Estonia, most of them ethnic Russians, who are stateless, as if they were refugees in their own homeland.

“I love my country, and I have done a whole lot for my country,” Mr. Bessedin, a television producer, said. “But my country has not done a whole lot for me.” He blames the Estonian authorities for ostracizing him, and they in turn blame the former Soviet masters for the mess they left behind.

Before Estonia was seized by the Soviets in 1940, its population was largely ethnic Estonian; resentment was strong enough that many sided with the Germans when Hitler invaded in 1941. In subsequent decades, to assure future loyalty, the Soviet government settled many ethnic Russians and others here. Today nearly half of the people in Tallinn — not all of them ethnic Russians — speak Russian as their mother tongue.

With independence in the early 1990s, the government has reversed Russification. It mandated the Estonian language in schools and government offices. And it adopted a policy that left people like Mr. Bessedin stateless: With few exceptions, Estonia granted citizenship only to people who had it before the Soviet takeover, as well as their descendants. Latvia is the only other former Soviet republic with a similar rule.  Non-Estonians can obtain citizenship by passing a language test, but that is difficult for many ethnic Russians, who felt no need to learn Estonian during Soviet times. (There is also a civics examination, in Estonian.)

About 7.5 percent of Estonia’s 1.35 million people are stateless. Their “alien’s passports” allow them to enter many European countries without visas, just like Estonian citizens, though they tend to face more bureaucratic hurdles. In Estonia, they cannot vote in federal elections or hold some jobs.

While most countries have done away with birthright citizenship, Estonia presents a case that may soon become America’s case: the laws change and those who were born legally in the country –  and attained citizenship –  now become something between illegal and non-citizens: “Aliens.”  What to do with such people?  They become permanent refugees in the country of their birth.

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By Joshua, August 15, 2010 2:43 am

State Representative Debbie Riddle and U.S. Congressman Louie Gohmert, two incredibly, incredibly stupid politicians, are pushing the idea of “terror babies:”

Regular viewers of CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360″ will recognize that term as referring to children born on U.S. soil to illegal immigrants. The children are automatically granted U.S. citizenship under the 14th Amendment and then are smuggled back to their home countries to be raised as pint-sized, America-hating terrorists. Then decades later, when the children have grown into adults, they could easily — because of their U.S. citizenship — re-enter the United States to attack it from within.

The two Texas Republicans who are actively spinning this yarn — State Representative Debbie Riddle and U.S. Congressman Louie Gohmert — both appeared on Cooper’s show this week, and neither could provide any evidence of the existence of these mythical terror babies. In fact, in the face of questioning by Cooper, both got extremely defensive.  Riddle and Gohmert claimed they got the information from conversations with “former FBI officials.”

Of course…

So Cooper interviewed CNN contributor Tom Fuentes, who served as the FBI’s assistant director in the office of international operations from 2004 to 2008.   “The FBI has 75 offices overseas, including offices in Jordan, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan,” Fuentes said. “There was never a credible report — or any report, for that matter — coming across through all the various mechanisms of communication to indicate that there was such a plan for these terror babies to be born.”

What terror babies are are a plot by incredibly, incredibly immoral, stupid and irresponsible people to drum up support for their weird immigration policy objectives.

What’s wrong with people?

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By Joshua, August 13, 2010 1:35 am

As WikiLeaks plans more leaks, the criticism over WikiLeaks’ leak of Afghanistan docs, including names of civilians who collaborated with the coalition, comes from all sides:

The U.S. Government:

The Pentagon on Thursday warned WikiLeaks against releasing more documents. “It would compound a mistake that has already put far too many lives at risk,” said Geoff Morrell, deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs.  “The only responsible course of action for them is to immediately remove all the stolen documents from their website and expunge all classified material from their computers,” he said. “If they were to publish any additional documents after hearing our concerns about the harm it will cause our forces, our allies and innocent Afghan civilians, it would be the height of irresponsibility.”

Reporters without Borders:

On Thursday, the international journalists’ group Reporters Without Borders wrote a letter to Assange that accused his group of showing “incredible irresponsibility,” by publishing tens of thousands documents from the Afghanistan war last month.  The letter said that “revealing the identity of hundreds of people who collaborated with the coalition in Afghanistan is highly dangerous. It would not be hard for the Taliban and other armed groups to use these documents to draw up a list of people for targeting in deadly revenge attacks.”

And human rights groups:

Other groups have asked WikiLeaks to redact names in the tens of thousands of secret documents already posted, as well as to be more careful to “protect civilians” in subsequent document reviews, according to an official from one of the other human rights groups. That official did not want to be identified because the communications were intended to be private.  The groups include Innocent Victims in Conflict, Amnesty International-Afghanistan and the Open Society Institute.

Assange says he says some criticism is legitimate, but will not do as asked:

“Every time we take on one of these big organizations, they try and try to find various ways to criticize us, and there might even be some legitimate criticism in this case,” he said. “But we did try hard to keep back some material.”

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By Joshua, August 5, 2010 4:47 am

Destination: U.S. Supreme Court

A federal judge in California on Wednesday struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, ruling that voter-approved Proposition 8 violates the U.S. Constitution — handing supporters of gay rights a major victory in a case that both sides say is sure to wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.The 136-page opinion, issued by Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco, is an initial step in what will likely be a lengthy fight over California’s Proposition 8, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.  At stake in the trial was whether California’s ban on same-sex marriage violates gay couples’ rights to equal protection and due process, as protected by the U.S. Constitution.

According to the ruling:

“Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples,” Walker, who was appointed to the federal bench by former President Ronald Reagan, wrote in his opinion.  “Race restrictions on marital partners were once common in most states but are now seen as archaic, shameful or even bizarre,” he added. “Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage; marriage under law is a union of equals.”

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By Joshua, August 5, 2010 1:44 am

Enter the world of Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes.  He thinks that the Mayor of Denver is plotting to have the U.N. take-over Denver:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes is warning voters that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s policies, particularly his efforts to boost bike riding, are “converting Denver into a United Nations community… This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed,” Maes told about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in Centennial.

Maes said in a later interview that he once thought the mayor’s efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes “that’s exactly the attitude they want you to have… This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms…These aren’t just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor. These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations program that mayors have signed on to.”

Maes said in a later interview that he was referring to Denver’s membership in the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), an international association that promotes sustainable development and has attracted the membership of more than 1,200 communities, 600 of which are in the United States.

The conspiracy is real, according to Maes:

Maes said ICLEI is affiliated with the United Nations and is “signing up mayors across the country, and these mayors are signing on to this U.N. agreement to have their cities abide by this dream philosophy… At first, I thought, ‘Gosh, public transportation, what’s wrong with that, and what’s wrong with people parking their cars and riding their bikes? And what’s wrong with incentives for green cars?’ But if you do your homework and research, you realize ICLEI is part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty… Mayor Hickenlooper is one of the greatest fans of this program….Some would argue this document that mayors have signed is contradictory to our own Constitution,” Maes said.

Maes is winning in Colorado:

Polls show that Maes, a Tea Party favorite, has pulled ahead of former Congressman Scott McInnis, the early frontrunner in the Aug. 10 primary for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.

Kooky is as kooky does, Mr. Maes:

Maes acknowledged that some might find his theories “kooky,” but he said there are valid reasons to be worried.

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By Joshua, August 5, 2010 1:19 am

I won’t post the picture on the cover of Time magazine, but the cover should be seen to better understand the magnitude of what Time wants to do.   Here’s the story:

Newsweek carried a cover story by Richard N. Haass, president of the Council of Foreign Relations, titled, “We’re Not Winning. It’s Not Worth It,” which outlined the rationale for withdrawal.

Time Magazine’s Aug. 9 issue offers a counterpoint to Mr. Haass’s take on the war. As our colleague Rod Nordland reports, Time framed the debate on the war with a heartbreaking and provocative photo of an 18-year-old Afghan woman whose nose and ears were severed as punishment for fleeing an arranged marriage and an equally provocative headline, “What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan.”

Aisha is herself unsure what the impact of her photo might be, Mr. Nordland reported:

“I don’t know if it will help other women or not,” she said, her hand going instinctively to cover the hole in the middle of her face, as it does whenever strangers look directly at her. “I just want to get my nose back.”

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By Joshua, August 4, 2010 7:19 am

Amar’e Stoudemire, who plays basketball for the NBA’s New York Knicks, is exploring his “cultural and spiritual” Jewish side.  This is one of the most unique and interesting stories on Judaism and Israel I’ve read in a long time.  Some excerpts:

TEL AVIV — Amar’e Stoudemire loped into the lobby of his Tel Aviv seaside hotel, bouncing an orange basketball, wearing a gray T-shirt with the legend “Jerusalem-Israel” and side-by-side flags of Israel and the United States, a two-flag pin he said he was given as a gift, and a large black crocheted skullcap on his head.

Among the many tattoos he considers “like artwork” was a small but prominent Star of David on the top of his left hand that he said he had had for a while. “I look at the Star of David as a symbol of righteousness,” he said.

“I have no formal religion,” he said. “I believe religion is man-made. I am not a religious person. It’s about cultural spirituality, period.”

Stoudemire [said] he would “absolutely” be practicing the faith — again for cultural and spiritual reasons only. He intends to observe the Sabbath, Passover and the High Holy Days unless they conflict with his Knicks schedule.

He said he had been eating kosher in Israel and planned to continue. “When I get back to the States, I’m going to focus more on living the Scripture,” he said. “For me, it’s about learning the total culture.

“If you research history, I think we are all Jewish,” he added. “It’s the original culture. This is a personal spiritual quest. So now I feel spiritually Jewish, culturally Jewish.”

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By Joshua, August 4, 2010 2:19 am

FOX News reports: “Solar Tsunami to Strike Earth“

Earth is bracing for a cosmic tsunami Tuesday night as tons of plasma from a massive solar flare head directly toward the planet. 

The Sun’s surface erupted early Sunday morning, shooting a wall of ionized atoms directly at Earth, scientists say. It is expected to create a geomagnetic storm and a spectacular light show — and it could pose a threat to satellites in orbit, as well. 

“This eruption is directed right at us and is expected to get here early in the day on Aug. 4,” said Leon Golub of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “It’s the first major Earth-directed eruption in quite some time.”

But, ti’s okay.  Radiation “almost never” hits the Earth:

The radiation “almost never” makes it to ground, he noted, though pilots and passengers in airplanes may experience increased radiation levels akin to getting an X-ray. 

No cause for worry:

This type of solar event has both government officials and satellite manufacturers worrying.

NASA scientists warned recently that high-energy electric pulses from the sun could cripple our electrical grid for years, causing billions in damages. In fact, the House is so concerned that the Energy and Commerce committee voted unanimously to approve a bill allocating $100 million to protect the energy grid from this rare but potentially devastating occurrence.

By the way, have you noticed that “Time and Date.com” do not have calendars past the year 2012?

For more information on this solar tsunami, please watch the following instructional video (don’t panic):

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By Joshua, August 3, 2010 1:40 am

In Israel, 400 children of foreign guest workers who were born in Israel to parents who overstayed their visa are slated for deportation:

The public debate followed a decision by the cabinet on Sunday to approve a plan for granting status to the children of people who entered Israel with a valid visa or permit but have stayed on illegally.  Under the new guidelines, based on the length of time the children have been here and their integration in the education system, about 800 of the 1,200 in question are qualified to stay. Their parents and siblings will be entitled to temporary residence permits. The 400 who do not meet the criteria will have to leave, perhaps as soon as within 30 days.

The government decision was widely seen here as reasonable, though many said it would be more humanitarian to let the 400 remain. Others saw the decision as a bad precedent that could encourage more foreign workers to put down roots in Israel and threaten the Jewish character of the state.

Ministers who voted against the plan did so from contrary positions. Some, including the ministers of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, which controls the Interior Ministry and which critics brand as racist, opposed the plan because it was too liberal. Others, including some ministers from the conservative Likud Party, opposed it because it was not liberal enough.

There are 250,000 to 300,000 foreign laborers in Israel, about half them without valid documents. Israel has a population of 7.5 million, including more than 5.6 million Jews and 1.5 million Arab citizens. Out of security concerns, it began inviting foreign workers for limited periods to replace Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to work in construction, agriculture and domestic work. Many have outstayed their visas, and their numbers have been swelled by African refugees and economic migrants who have come across the porous border with Egypt.

Mr. Netanyahu said there were reports of “close to 500,000 migrants, and perhaps close to one million, in the past decade. This is a tangible threat to the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel… Therefore we will make a decision that is balanced between the desire to take these children into our hearts and the desire not to create an incentive for continued illegal migration that could flood the foundation of the Zionist state.”

“Someone there has lost his bearings,” wrote Eitan Haber, a Yediot Aharonot columnist and a close aide to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the 1990s, in a op-ed published on Monday. “The State of Israel bombed nuclear reactors, reached Entebbe, wasted billions on light and heavy rail systems that don’t move and paid hundreds of millions of shekels for years to people who did not contribute a single drop of sweat to the state. And now, 400 children, that is what will kill the state? Have you gone mad?”

There are very few nations in the world that have a policy of granting citizenship status to children of legal and illegal immigrants.  United States is one of the few. 

Israel, let the 400 children stay.  Create a new law that is clear about the status of children born to guest workers, but let the 400 children stay in Israel.

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By Joshua, August 2, 2010 2:16 am

Is Cuba China or is Cuba the former USSR?  What will the economic reforms bring?  A very carefully controlled transition to capitalism, or the downfall of the Revolution?

Cuban President Raul Castro said Sunday that his government would allow more private businesses and make it easier for those businesses to hire workers, as the socialist economy struggles to get back on its feet and shed up to one million redundant state jobs.The government “agreed to broaden the exercise of self employment and its use as another alternative for the employment of those excess workers,” Castro said during a biannual session of the National Assembly.

He went on to say that the government would eliminate “numerous” prohibitions to the granting of licenses for private businesses and to the sales of some products, as well as “make the contracting of a work force more flexible.”  In exchange, those businesses will pay taxes on income and sales, and pay contributions for employees, he said.

The measures “constitute a structural and conceptual change in the interest of preserving and developing our social system to make it sustainable in the future,” Castro said.

In his speech, Castro also mentioned for the first time the release of political prisoners that started last month.  “The Revolution can be generous because it is strong,” he said.

Former President Fidel Castro did not make an appearance despite expectations that he might.

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By Joshua, August 2, 2010 1:42 am

Come October, no email or text messaging from your blackberry in the U.A.E.:

The United Arab Emirates, citing security concerns, said Sunday that it would suspend BlackBerry mobile services like e-mail and text messaging beginning in October, the latest high-stakes clash between governments and communications providers over the flow of digital information.

The Emirates have been in a long dispute with Research In Motion, the smartphone’s producer, over the BlackBerry’s highly encrypted data system, which offers security to users but makes it more difficult for governments to monitor communications.

The decision could have significant implications for BlackBerry use in the Persian Gulf region, where Saudi Arabia has been closely studying the issue and may follow suit. Other countries, including Kuwait and Bahrain, have also raised concerns.

Disputes involving privacy and censorship have flared more frequently between governments and communications providers as the Internet connects people worldwide. In July, China and Google settled a standoff over access to information. YouTube has been periodically blocked in countries like Turkey and Pakistan, and Pakistan temporarily blocked Facebook in May because of what it called offensive, anti-Islamic content.

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By Joshua, July 30, 2010 1:35 am

Say that ten times fast:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Thursday denounced the disclosure this week of 75,000 classified documents about the Afghanistan war by the Web site WikiLeaks, asserting that the security breach had endangered lives and damaged the ability of others to trust the United States government to protect their secrets.  Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, Mr. Gates portrayed the documents as “a mountain of raw data and individual impressions, most several years old” that offered little insight into current policies and events.

“The battlefield consequences of the release of these documents are potentially severe and dangerous for our troops, our allies and Afghan partners, and may well damage our relationships and reputation in that key part of the world…Intelligence sources and methods, as well as military tactics, techniques and procedures, will become known to our adversaries… We endeavor to push access to sensitive battlefield information down to where it is most useful — on the front lines — where as a practical matter there are fewer restrictions and controls than at rear headquarters…In the wake of this incident, it will be a real challenge to strike the right balance between security and providing our frontline troops the information they need.”

Mr. Gates said the documents’ disclosure had prompted a rethinking of a trend nearly two decades old, dating from the Persian Gulf war of 1991, of trying to make intelligence information more accessible to troops in combat situations so they can respond rapidly to developments.

Meanwhile, the leaker-in-chief, Assange, plans to leak more documents:

Assange said he wasn’t surprised by the White House’s condemnation of the leak. He said the U.S. government, like other scrutinized subjects, seeks to “criticize the messenger to detract from the power of the message.”  He also rejected the notion that the leak would pose a security risk for the United States, saying that the material is more than seven months old and had no “operational consequence.”

Assange told reporters in London that what’s been reported so far on the leaked documents has “only scratched the surface” and said some 15,000 files on Afghanistan are still being vetted by his organization.

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By Joshua, July 27, 2010 1:59 am

The consensus at the NYTimes is that despite 90,000 once-classified documents on the Afghan war, nothing new was revealed.  Let’s see what the panel o’ experts said:

James Morin, former U.S. Army officer: 

“Perhaps the most interesting story in this leak is how little real news there is.”

Kori Schake, Hoover Institution: 

“But we knew these things.”

Rachel Kleinfeld, Truman National Security Project: 

“But in the case of WikiLeaks’ document dump, there’s not much that a casual observer wouldn’t already know.”

Gilles Dorronsoro, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: 

“While the disclosure of thousands of classified military documents reveals a darker picture of the war in Afghanistan, it’s not as important as many people believe.”

Micah Zenko, Council on Foreign Relations: 

“While the sheer volume of Wikileaks’ secret U.S. military documents from 2004 to 2009 is staggering, the information contained therein is well-known.”

Nothing to see here, move along.  While this seems to be consensus, the power of the 90,000 documents is that now there is official evidence of what people thought, heard about, already “knew.”  That power should not be underestimated.  The weight of these documents are not measured in pounds (or kilos), but in some metric of the popular culture.  What happens when governments are forced to acknowledge what they do during war, as it is happening (as opposed to 50 years later, when the reports are declassified and the histories are written)?

UPDATE:  President Obama has also said the documents are not news:

As Mr. Obama told reporters in the Rose Garden, “While I’m concerned about the disclosure of sensitive information from the battlefield that could potentially jeopardize individuals or operations, the fact is these documents don’t reveal any issues that haven’t already informed our public debate on Afghanistan.”