What happened while you were celebrating Christmas???
The world kept spinning while we were celebrating Christmas and many things happened around the world. Let's catch up:
A dog/wolf had to go shopping for his own Christmas present.
Video Courtesy of KSL.com
Murray, Utah -- Some people just can't wait to open their Christmas presents. That apparently was the case with a short and very fast thief who went to a store in Murray, grabbed a present and made a clean getaway on all fours.
At Smith's Food & Drug in Murray, a popular place these days is the manager's office, where they have the surveillance video. "You had to see to believe it, but it happened. So, it's crazy," said Tracy Jacobson, with Smith's Food & Drug.
A suspicious character entered through the front door. "I've never seen him shop in here before; brand new customer, didn't even have his Fresh Value card," store manager Roger Adamson said.
What happened next is already becoming legend. "I mean, how likely is that? For a dog to walk into a store, go down the pet aisle, get his bone and walk out?" Jacobson said.
Let's reconstruct the crime a step at a time: Entering at the checkout area, the dog approached a young girl. "He just kind of sniffed the customer up, and then headed down the aisle," Adamson said.
At that point, he had a decision to make: Left? No dog food. Right? Dog food. He turned right and went straight to aisle 16, the dog food aisle.
Furry thief grabs Christmas present out of grocery store aisle Thanks to Stormwarning for the video and link.
From Atlas Shrugs, hat tip Michael:
Hamas enacts Islamic law: Hand amputation, crucifixion, lashes and execution
Give 'em a state! Give 'em billions in jizya! Give'em international respect! Give 'em a saw!
Hamas enacts Islamic (Sharia) laws:
Hand amputation, crucifixion, lashes and execution
By Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, Palestinian Media Watch
Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza have approved a new bill "to implement Koranic punishments," including hand amputation, crucifixion, corporal punishment and execution. Drinking, owning or producing wine is punished by 40 lashes, while drinking in public adds three months' imprisonment. Several laws are directed against Hamas's Palestinian rivals, including a law intended to inhibit non-Hamas negotiators by sentencing to death anyone who was "appointed to negotiate with a foreign government on a Palestinian issue and negotiated against Palestinians' interest."
The following is the description as it appears today on the Al Arabiya website:
Headline: Hamas approves law of punishment by lashes, amputating hands, crucifying, and execution -- in order to implement the Islamic Sharia law.
Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council approved in its meeting in Gaza a new bill proposed by the Hamas who have a majority in the Legislative Council, whose purpose is "to implement Koranic punishments." The newspaper Al Hayat of London reported on Dec. 24, 2008, that this step is seen as unprecedented, and has brought criticism and concern from human rights organizations in the Gaza Strip, especially as this law includes punishments by lashes, cutting off of hands, crucifixion, and execution...
The language of the law proposes "primary and secondary" laws. Primary laws include: "Koranic laws, blood revenge, lashes, crucifixion, and execution ..."
The text stresses: "These punishments will not be canceled or pardoned ... except if pardoned by the victim himself... (al Arabiya)
More from Michael:
Lots of advice for Obama on dealing with Muslims and Islam
President-elect Barack Obama has been getting a lot of advice these days on how to deal with Muslims and Islam. He invited it by saying during his campaign that he either wanted to convene a conference with leaders of Muslim countries or deliver a major speech in a Muslim country "to reboot America's image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular". But where? when? why? how? Early this month, I chimed in with a pitch for a speech in Turkey or Indonesia. Some quite interesting comments have come in since then.
(Photo: Obama image in Jakarta, 25 Oct 2008/Dadang Tri)
Two French academics, Islam expert Olivier Roy and political scientist Justin Vaisse argued in a New York Times op-ed piece on Sunday that Obama's premise of trying to reconcile the West and Islam is flawed:
Such an initiative would reinforce the all-too-accepted but false notion that "Islam" and "the West" are distinct entities with utterly different values. Those who want to promote dialogue and peace between "civilizations" or "cultures" concede at least one crucial point to those who, like Osama bin Laden, promote a clash of civilizations: that separate civilizations do exist. They seek to reverse the polarity, replacing hostility with sympathy, but they are still following Osama bin Laden's narrative.
Instead, Mr. Obama, the first "post-racial" president, can do better. He can use his power to transform perceptions to the long-term advantage of the United States and become a "post-civilizational" president. The page he should try to turn is not that of a supposed war between America and Islam, but the misconception of a monolithic Islam being the source of the main problems on the planet: terrorism, wars, nuclear proliferation, insurgencies and the like.
Also on Sunday, the Istanbul newspaper Sunday's
Zaman ran a piece by sociologist Dogu Ergil who
spelled out what he thought "moderate Muslims" expected of Obama.
(Photo: Blue Mosque in Istanbul, 9 Dec 2008/Tan Shung Sin)
Moderate or non-ideological Muslims expect Mr. Obama to support democratic trends in their countries, but not to push them from above using ruling elites that will never adopt a democratic agenda but rather will simply play for time, making only cosmetic changes. This will, in turn, further reinforce the power of autocratic regimes that are threatened by genuine democracy.
Muslim moderates look at religion as a cultural affair, wanting to render it autonomous of politics so that it will be protected from political power and in the same way, preventing it from seeking political power. So they want the Obama administration to press their governments to enact reforms that will pave the way to democratic politics and legal changes that will allow for more individual freedoms. They do not want a hypocritical stance from an America which advocates democracy but supports the most authoritarian regimes in the Arab world for the sake of oil deals and other strategic ends. The Bush administration set a very bad example of paying lip service to democracy, which, in fact, worked as a vehicle to blackmail Arab regimes and served America's strategic interests.
Michael Fullilove at the Brookings Institution made a pitch for an Obama speech in Indonesia in the New York Times while several Moroccan blogs have been running a campaign (including a petition with a long list of reasons) to have him speak there. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an exiled Egyptian sociologist and human rights who is a visiting professor at Harvard and Indiana universities, made the case for Indonesia or Turkey in the Washington Post.
Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador in the
United States and Britain, has a long list of suggestions for a reformed U.S.
policy towards the Muslim world in
the Harvard International Review. The list is fairly extensive,
although it would have been even more informative if it had included suggestions
for what should change in the Muslim world.
(Photo: Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan, 21 Dec 2007/Mohsin Raza)
How Obama manages issues in the Muslim world will determine the success or failure of his foreign policy…
In the Muslim world … perceptions have been shaped by decades of uneven handed policies and by US double standards that placed the security of Israel and the need for cheap oil above considerations of international law and justice for the Palestinians. In essence, Muslims regard US policies as responsible for the trust gap between the United States and the Islamic world. In the West, opinions concerning the cause for the gap with the Muslim world are more mixed. The most common view attributes this rift in relations not only to US policies but also to factors internal to the Muslim world– to the weakness and contradictions in those societies and particularly to the democratic deficit, which allows radicals to build support for their cause. This, in fact, inspires the idea that the United States should lead efforts to restructure the Muslim world. Irrespective of the reality, both perspectives urge the need to review and recast US foreign policy.
My vote for the most interesting argument goes to Roy
and Vaisse, who ask the basic question of what role religion actually plays in
the big issues facing Obama.
The truth is, Islam explains very little. There are as many bloody conflicts outside of regions where Islam has a role as inside them. There are more Muslims living under democracies than autocracies. There is no less or no more economic development in Muslim countries than in their equivalent non-Muslim neighbors. And, more important, there exist as many varieties of Muslims as there are adherents of other religions. This is why Mr. Obama should not give credence to the existence of an Islam that could supposedly be represented by its "leaders".
(Photo: Olivier Roy, 4 Dec 2007/Charles Platiau)
Who are these leaders that President Obama would convene anyway? If he picks heads of state, he will effectively concede Osama bin Laden's point that Islam is a political reality. If he picks clerics, he will put himself in the awkward position of implicitly representing Christianity — or maybe secularism. In any case, he would meet only self-appointed representatives, most of them probably coming from the Arab world, where a minority of Muslims live.
Do you think Obama should launch a special initiative aimed at the Muslim
world, or, as Roy and Vaisse argue, assert that "American values are
universal and do not suffer any kind of double standard, and that they could be
shared by atheists, Christians, Muslims and others"?
More from Michael , from DebKA
Palestinians fire more than 70 missile-mortar rounds Wednesday
DEBKAfile Special Report
December 24, 2008, 2:00 PM (GMT+02:00)
Hamas owned up to the massive blitz of 70 missile and mortar rounds, including long-range Grad rockets, which hit Israel in an uninterrupted stream from Tuesday night to midday Wednesday, Dec. 24. Their radius extended north to Ashkelon and east to Netivot, leaving a trail of some 50 shock victims and wrecked homes, vehicles, shops and roads. A five-missile volley hit Sderot and three mortar shells destroyed farm buildings in the Eshkol region.
The Israeli military has made no effort to halt the attacks.
Israel's security cabinet convened amid the firing to debate military options for stamping out the aggression from the Gaza Strip. Until now, Defense minister Ehud Barak has fought down demands for immediate military action from several ministers' and almost every other quarter. He has opted for using Egypt's good office to negotiate another "ceasefire" with the Hamas regime like the one which expired this month after repeated Hamas violations.
Israeli children in the targeted locations are confined to their homes; some are spending the Hannuka holiday away from their families in other parts of the country.
The Gaza crossings were ordered closed until the Palestinians hold their fire; supply trucks were turned back.
However, Egypt broke the blockade Wednesday by inviting any country wishing to help the Gaza population to direct aid through its territory. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak invited Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni to meet him in Cairo Thursday for talks on the Gaza crisis.
Former national security adviser Giora Eiland urged the government in a radio interview Wednesday to start treating the Gaza Strip as a neighboring hostile state and hold its Hamas regime responsible for the insupportable missile aggression. Israel must fight back – not just against the missile teams, but go for the belligerent Palestinian government's infrastructure, even if 100 civilians are killed every day, because this would finally give Hamas a strong incentive to live in peace instead of making war.
First Palestinian anti-air gun fire against Israeli helicopters. Military option on ice
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
December 22, 2008, 10:45 AM (GMT+02:00)
For the first time in 9 years of Palestinian warfare, anti-air gun fire was directed from the ground against Israeli aircraft, DEBKAfile's military sources report. The guns opened up Sunday night, Dec. 21, against Apache helicopters still over Nahal Oz, before they crossed into Gaza air space to strike the missile crews which launched more than 20 missiles against Israeli civilians that day.
The helicopters returned the fire, aiming at the anti-air weapons apparently mounted on vehicles hidden in the orchards of northern Gaza.
In line with the government's decision Sunday to seek international backing for a potential military operation Gaza, Israel complained to the UN about the Palestinian missile and mortar attacks from Gaza which are terrorizing its southwestern population. Israel had the right to exercise its military option to defend the population of the targeted region, said the complaint.
Notwithstanding the severe escalation of Gaza attacks, a senior military source told DEBKAfile that a substantive military raid is not on the IDF's immediate agenda. The government led by Ehud Olmert and defense minister Ehud Barak would prefer its postponement up until mid-2009 or later.
Both are misrepresenting the dominant view in the military command, claiming it supports the renewal of the Gaza "ceasefire". The source said: "I don't know of a single general or high officer, including military intelligence and the southern command chiefs, who actually believe that renewing the six-month truce – which was anything but – is a good thing. But the prime minister and defense minister think otherwise."
The missile alert declared around Gaza's borders Friday, Dec. 19, when Hamas ended a six-month "truce" with a hail of missiles, has been extended to a radius of 30 km, including Ashdod, Kiryat Gath and Ofakim. Shin bet director Yuval Diskin warned the cabinet Sunday that Hamas has stockpiled missiles and rockets supplied by Iran and Syria which are capable of reaching the outskirts of Beersheba.
According to DEBKAfile's political sources, Olmert is less focused on this peril than on his his drive to use his last weeks in office to polish his legacy – he is not running in the February 10 general election. He therefore hopes that the brief visit to Ankara he scheduled for Monday, Dec. 22, will generate the semblance of renewed talks with Syria along the Turkish-mediated indirect track which broke down three months ago. Olmert is also wary of authorizing a military initiative in Gaza after the only war he managed – the Lebanese conflict of 2006 – was universally rated a fiasco.
The prime minister's meeting with Turkey's Tayyep Recip Erdogan has raised hackles in both his own Kadima and Barak's Labor circles. They fear he may be over-generous with promises of concessions to Syria for the sake of reviving the diplomatic momentum.
Opposition leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, whose Likud leads all the polls, stated clearly Saturday that his government would not be bound by Olmert's concessions or part with the Golan.
Both he and foreign minister Tzipi Livni of Kadima have pledged to oust the Hamas regime in Gaza if they gain office.
Egypt has cautioned Hamas that if it wants urgent fuel and food aid for the population to be delivered through the Gaza crossings, it must stop firing for 24 hours.
From the Naïve & Abroad! Pakistan, (see and purchase the book here):
PAKISTAN FIVE: Liars, Thieves, Rapists, and Murderers
They are liars, thieves, rapists, and murderers. Their women are chattel. They are infamous pederasts. Their loyalties shift with the mountain wind. Blood feuds can last for generations…and be settled with the gift of a five-year-old girl.
They were unfailingly kind to me.
Afghans cannot be bought. Afghans can only be rented. Churchill said, “Their system of ethics, which regards treachery and violence as virtues rather than vices…is incomprehensible to a logical mind.”
One tribe stole two girls from another. The offended tribe attacked with 4,000 men and artillery. A village was leveled. Eighty people were killed, including the kidnapped girls. The girls had been dishonored. There was no grief for their deaths. A jirga of elders of several tribes ruled the attackers must pay $60,000 for the ruined village. The feud ended. The chief of the attacking tribe is a parliamentary leader in the Northwest Frontier Province legislature. The jirga imposed no penalty for the theft and rape of the girls. It was felt the girls’ tribe had egregiously overreacted.
One generations-old feud was famously settled by the payment of three girls - fifteen, ten, and five - to be married to men of three generations of the offended family.
The peoples of these high mountains are variously called Pathans, Pushtuns, and Pakhtuns. We see again - as has every invader - how fanatically they defend their mountains. Their eye-for-an-eye code is called Pushtunwali. Islamic Sharia law has not penetrated the deepest reaches of these mountains. Infrequently, Sharia law of Islam and Pushtunwali codes of the mountains conflict. The side with the most guns - or most money - prevails.
Pathans claim to be a lost tribe of Israel. Some Pathan men wear the Star of David.
Mohammed, my rug dealer, says to buy jewelry in the old bazaar. I will look into jewelry when I return from Chitral. Mohammed has buyers going from house to house buying rugs. His agents meet refugees as they cross the mountain passes. Mohammed buys new rugs from the makers. Mohammed gathers and sells Intelligence as well.
Mohammed says Kungerab Pass is open to Kashgar in China. One must obtain a visa from the Chinese embassy in Islamabad.
I asked Mohammed whether life was better or worse under the British - if we leave out the emotion of independence. He is too young to know from experience, but he says older men say life was better under the British. “There was peace,” he said, “and justice.” “But, of course,” he said, “the British were conquerors.”
I have gone on at length about the movement of Asian bowels. I will spare the gentle reader a description of the clearing of an Asian nostril. Asians do not use handkerchiefs. Asians think our carrying of used handkerchiefs in our pockets is disgusting. The French evidently feel the same. A French etiquette manual of the 1930s instructed a man - if ladies were present - to cover with his foot what he had blown onto the ground from his nose.
One area of Kabuli Bazaar is for dealers of the skins of the curly sheep whose name I cannot remember. Most of the skins are made into hats. Whatever you seek, somewhere in the bazaars someone has it for sale…or will get it quickly.
There will be no polo at Gilgit this trip. I must return. Gilgit is a village in the high Pakistani Himalayas. The polo field is small, surrounded by a high stone wall. There are no rules. Players do not wear helmets. Infrequently, players are killed. A game at Gilgit is the Holy Grail of polo.
Not many men on the street answer calls to prayer.
Popcorn is popped on sand. Chickpeas - garbanzos - are heated on sand. Chickpeas split, they do not pop.
Communication in Asia requires finding the right English word. Only one of several we might use will be understood…frequently the least obvious. In New Delhi I was having trouble getting to the train station with the word train. Finally, I found a man who understood train. This man said something like “ooeeooeeooee station lala” to my rickshaw driver. We went straight to the station. The ticket office is “booking.” Here in Peshawar saying “American” and pointing to buildings got me to the consulate. Every hundredth try one finds a man who speaks English as well as we do. If among them a crowd has ten or twelve English words, a man can move mountains.
Peshawar has an elaborate and efficient system of well-engineered, stone-lined open sewers. Water rushes rapidly through the sewer carrying away effluent. Public toilets are waist high, door-less stone cubicles over the narrow sewer. The idea is to squat over the sewer. The Pakistani shits in the doorway.
Mohammed said a casual American dealer - buying in Asia, selling at home - must buy for $1 and sell for $3. He said it is better to buy one $5,000 carpet than ten $500 carpets. Mohammed has one large carpet he wants $20,000 for. A Greek dealer offered $12,000. Mohammed says if he doesn’t get $20,000, he will put the carpet in his own house.
After we completed our business, Mohammed told me I have mature taste. I lapped it up. What could mature taste mean, anyway? Carpet dealers are master psychologists. Naïve & Abroad!
But what about the other Mohammed, Mohammed the Prophet? His message is written in the Koran. The Koran - or Quran - is not written for the modern, Western mind. There are no story lines. There is no logical development of themes. The Koran is meant to be heard - heard in Arabic - not read. The Koran is intended for a pre-literate, pre-medieval, Arabic-speaking tribal society. Many Muslims can recite great portions of the Koran verbatim. Small boys - non-Arabic speakers - memorize the entire Koran in Arabic. This is considered an education, preparation for life. For Western readers, the Koran is intensely boring. The subject changes with every verse.
Unlike the teachings of Christ or Buddha, Mohammed’s teachings do not project well into a modern, literate world. Education is the Koran’s worst enemy. Neither the text nor the thought processes translate well from Arabic. Arabic, like many languages, is a reflection of the manner of thinking of the people who speak it. Mohammed’s preoccupation with women’s hair is not explained. Mohammed’s taking of a six-year-old wife - Aisha - is not thought to need explanation. Nor is his consummating the marriage when Aisha was nine thought unusual. It is not explained why Mohammed felt the need to tell about consummating his marriage to a nine year old child.
Aisha became Mohammed’s favorite wife. The stipulation that rape or adultery must be witnessed by four men grew out of an accusation that Aisha had committed adultery. Mohammed quickly came up with the four male witnesses requirement. Why did they not produce four witnesses? Since they produce not witnesses, they are verily liars in the sight of Allah. Koran 24:13.
Ayatollah Khomeini - leader of the modern Iranian Islamic revolution - preached that taking a wife before she menstruated was a divine blessing. The spiritual leader of all Shi’a urged fathers to “do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.” Minimum legal marriage age for girls in Iran is nine.
THE KORAN FOR DUMMIES, from the For Dummies series, will disappoint. Translations of the Koran into English are diluted for Political Correctness.
THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO ISLAM by Robert Spencer made the New York Times bestseller list. Everyone should read it. Spencer recommends several other informative books Islamists would rather you didn’t read.
There is some handing around of married women in Islam. The Koran allows a man to divorce his wife by saying, “I divorce thee.” If he does this in a fit of anger, and changes his mind, he is limited to three divorces per wife. If he wants to remarry a wife after the third divorce, she must be divorced by another man before she can return to him. The Prophet insisted the wife must have sexual relations with the second husband before she can return to the first husband’s bed. In one famous case, the second husband was impotent. It was ruled the woman could not return to the first husband because the second marriage had not been consummated.
While the Koran does not order female circumcision, a widely followed Egyptian legal manual requires circumcision for both male and female. Islamic female circumcision is - blessedly - limited to a few societies in Africa and South Asia. In female circumcision, the clitoris is cut away. Sometimes the inner labia are removed as well. In Cairo, this is sometimes done in a hospital by a surgeon. In villages, it is done without anesthesia in unhygienic conditions. Infection is common. Some female circumcision rituals require the flesh be cut away with broken glass.
Temporary marriages are allowed by a Shi’a interpretation of the Koran. The marriage contract is in every way standard except that a time period is stated, usually three days. Robert Spencer notes available “temporary wives” tend to congregate in Shi’a holy cities for the comfort of Shiite seminarians, legalists to a man.
The Koran likens a wife to a farm. Your women are a tilth for you to cultivate, so go to your tilth as ye will. Koran 2:223.
The Koran holds men are superior to women. Men have authority over women because Allah has made one superior to the other. Koran 4:34.
The Koran instructs husbands to beat their wives. Good women are obedient…as for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them, and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Koran 4:34. Note the fear of rebellion is enough to justify a beating. Regular beatings keep wives docile and contented.
Allah thus directs you as regards your children’s inheritance: to the male, a portion equal to that of two females. Koran 4:31.
Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women…. Koran 2:282.
The Koran forbids the drinking of wine on Earth, but promises rivers of wine in Paradise. Koran 47:15.
Sex will be important in Paradise. For a man’s eternal pleasure there will be voluptuous women of equal age (Koran 78:31), fair women with beautiful, big, lustrous eyes (Koran 44:54) of modest gaze (Koran 37:48), with whom he will be joined. Koran 52:20.
These maidens will be chaste, restraining their glances, whom no man or Jinn before this man has touched. Koran 55:56. Allah made them virgins. Koran 56:36. Allah did not promise the women would be perpetual virgins. The perpetual virgin part was added later. A Jinn - or Djinn - is an Islamic spiritual being who lives in a parallel universe. Jinns can see men. Men cannot see Jinns. Jinns sometimes howl like dogs in the night. Jinns sometimes take the form of owls, and fly across the face of the moon. Jinns sometimes take human form. In human form, Jinns sometimes impregnate women. An angry Jinn can mess up a man’s life. I do not know whether Jinns get to Paradise.
For men who prefer boys - and there seem to be legions of these in Islam - in Paradise round about them will serve, devoted to them, young male servants handsome as pearls…. Koran 52:24. These will be youths of perpetual freshness. Koran 56:17. If thou seest them, thou wouldst think them scattered pearls. Koran 76:19. This in spite of the fact the Koran speaks against sodomy in several places. In perhaps no society is sodomy more freely practiced than in Islamic societies. It is interesting the Prophet himself compared boys to pearls.
In one ancient Pathan fighters’ song, a group of fighters is camped beside an un-fordable river in flood. One plaintive line goes, “There’s a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach.”
Evidently, the only sure route to Paradise is for those who slay and are slain for Allah, for theirs in return is the garden of Paradise. Koran 9:111. Mohammed Atta, a 9/11 attacker, carried a Paradise wedding suit in his luggage. He did not have time to change into it. I’m sure the fair women with beautiful, big, lustrous eyes were uncritical of his disheveled appearance when he arrived in Paradise.
Those who do not die or kill for Allah may not get in. There is no guaranteed Plan B.
The highest Islamic council in Egypt ruled a woman may work with men if she breast feeds each man five times to establish family ties. The council ruled a nine year old adopted son must leave his family because his mother had not breast-fed him, had not established family ties. The council ruled it a blessing for a woman to drink urine of the Prophet. It was not explained where a woman might get urine of the Prophet.
The Koran orders Muslims to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah, and that Mohammed is the Messenger of Allah. The PAKISTAN CHRISTIAN POST reported a Muslim mob attacked one of the rare Christian churches in Pakistan. The crowd shouted, “You infidels, stop praying and accept Islam!” The police refused to accept a report of the incident. On orders from mullahs, doctors refused to treat the wounded Christians.
Two of the most important doctrines of Islam are taquiyya and kitman. These are holy concepts of religious deception. Taqiyya and kitman are the basis for much of what passes for moderate Islam. Deceive the unbeliever until you are powerful enough to convert or kill him. The BBC sent a Pakistani reporter with hidden recorder and camera into several London mosques. The BBC aired an hour of excerpts from sermons - in English - commanding British Muslims to convert or kill British unbelievers. There were numerous other such commands in Urdu and Arabic that were not broadcast. Not one of these mullahs has been deported or jailed.
Do we believe this does not happen in the United States? Muslim missionaries are everywhere active - and especially successful - in U.S. prisons.
There are, of course, Muslims who are Westernized and modernized. These Muslims wish non-Muslims no evil. Many of the Ismaili followers of the Aga Khan are good citizens of the Western countries where they live. The Sufi sect of my friend, General Safi, is led by an family of enlightened hereditary Islamic scholars. This family is of royal blood. They are relatives of the last King of Afghanistan. Under the rule of the King, women in Kabul were educated, and employed in professions and jobs. Among these Muslims, women are not required to cover their heads. Husbands take one wife. Daughters are educated, frequently abroad.
Secular Turks - and the Army - hold firm against Islamic militants in their country, while lower classes - faster breeders - increasingly favor militants. The upper classes of Pakistan are Western educated, firmly anti-fundamentalist. Such Muslims are a tiny part of the Islamic whole.
The Koran says (2:256), there is to be no compulsion in religion. How this fits the brutal enforcement of Sharia law is not explained. (purchase book here)
Also from Michael:
First pictures of death plunge model 'marrying' her lover in Muslim ceremony
By Daily
Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:57 PM on 23rd December 2008
These are the pictures of the model who plunged 150ft to her death on what was the happiest day of her life.
Radiating pure joy, Sahar Daftary 'married' property developer Rashid Jamil in a Muslim ceremony in Brentford, west London, last December.
But what the 23-year-old didn't know was her new 'husband' was in fact already married and that his wife had given birth only months before.
Sahar Daftary smiles as Rashid Jamil kisses her on their wedding day last year. She died after falling from his 12th floor luxury apartment
Ms Daftary fell from a balcony high up on Mr Jamil's luxury apartment block in Salford Quays, Manchester, on Saturday.
Prior to the death, she had walked out on Mr Jamil after discovering the truth behind his double life.
He has been arrested and bailed until February in connection with her death.
Ms Daftary's family today urged police not to write off her death as suicide.
The happy couple 'wed' in Brentford, west London in December 2007
Ms Daftary shows off her wedding ring
Her brother-in-law Joe Karim said: 'She would never commit suicide. It was against everything she believed in. She had everything to live for.
'She was a beautiful, intelligent, religious woman, why would she kill herself ?'
A statement on behalf of Ms Daftary's family reads: 'The family are devastated at the tragic loss of Sahar.
'She had booked a flight to Dubai to celebrate her 24th birthday on Christmas Day with five friends.
'We firmly believe there is no way she would have committed suicide.'
The couple surrounded by family members during their wedding ceremony
Her family's discontent over the suicide claim arises from her unhappy relationship with property developer Mr Jamil.
Ms Daftary had quit her job as a personal shopper in Harrods to move to Manchester with Mr Jamil.
They lived for several months in the Salford Quays flat, from which she fell to her death, before she moved back to London.
It also emerged that a pornographic video clip apparently featuring Miss Daftary and an unnamed man had recently been posted on a publicly-accessible website.
A picture of Ms Daftary taken from the Facebook page set up in the wake of her death
The Facebook page is entitled 'Remembering Princess Sahari'
She was said to have feared the footage would damage her career, and police are expected to examine whether somebody had made it public out of spite.
Friends said they believed it was linked to her break-up and that she had feared it would undermine her prospects of becoming a successful model.
Friends said the aspiring model, who last year won the title Miss Face of Asia in one of Britain's biggest modelling contests, had discovered that he was married and also had a young child about six months ago. They then split up.
'Remembering Princess Sahari''
What is thought to be an emotion-filled account of the break-up was written under her name on a blog last month.
One entry read: 'Just look at the tiny shattered pieces of your heart that you don't even know where to start... Which do you pick up first?
'What about those beautiful dreams that you allowed to be built right before your eyes, within your heart, those dreams which were what kept you going what about them?
'Those are gone too, everything is gone...'
Miss Daftary had travelled from her London home to Manchester at the weekend to take part in a fashion show at an Indian restaurant, but went instead to clear her possessions out of Mr Jamil's £200,000 flat.
The luxury apartment block from which Ms Daftary plunged to her death
Her friend, Afrah Sami, said: 'We are all shocked and devastated. Sahar was very beautiful - she loved life and she was always the centre of the party.
'She met him in Manchester and they were very happy. Then she won the Face of Asia competition and got several big contracts. She seemed to have the world at her feet.
'But she discovered he was married and she became very unhappy. The stress changed her and she had stopped eating properly.
'When she came up on Saturday she was very distracted and preoccupied with collecting her things from the apartment, but he didn't want to see her.'
That evening she went to his flat at the 17-storey NV Buildings in Salford Quays, close to Manchester United's Old Trafford ground.
Model looks: Ms Daftary's family have urged police not to write off her death as suicide. Here she poses with a friend
Moments before she fell, Mr Jamil had made a desperate 999 call, apparently from his marital home in nearby Salford, to say he needed help, but by the time police reached the waterfront building, it was too late.
There is believed to have been confusion over exactly where he was, and by the time they reached the flat Miss Daftary had fallen to her death.
A police source said: 'Witnesses have said there was no shouting or ranting - just a single scream. It is being looked at as either suicide or a horrible accident.'
Stunning: The dead woman was named Miss Asia 2007. She was in Manchester for a modelling job
At her family's terraced home in Brentford, West London, her relatives said they could not understand what had happened.
Her brother-in-law, Timor, said: 'She was a very nice girl. She used to be a model but she was studying. Her mother is heartbroken and it's all fresh at the moment.'
A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said inquiries were under way and a 33-year-old man was arrested in connection with the death and has been bailed.
MOST WANTED FBI TERRORISTS ALL MUSLIM: All Individuals Listed On FBI’s ‘Most Wanted’ List Share One Common Denominator,
When visitors go to the FBI’s website and visit the ‘Most Wanted Terrorists’
page, a common denominator becomes apparent.
They are all Muslim (see
link to Gateway Pundit article below).
On www.fbi.gov the FBI lists its
top 23 most wanted terrorists. From Osama bin Laden to Jamel Ahmed Mohammed Ali
Al-Badawi, all share a common link that so many refuse to admit.
The
elephant in the living room that so few seem willing to acknowledge is an
ideology that is determined to be noticed at all costs. Former Palestinian
terrorist Walid Shoebat knows all about that ideology. So does Zakariya Ezzat,
who converted to Christianity from Islam while in college
Rest In Peace Eartha Kitt:
Eartha Kitt
Santa Baby
Eartha Kitt, a sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to become an international symbol of elegance and sensuality, has died, a family spokesman said. She was 81.
Andrew Freedman said Kitt, who was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, died Thursday in Connecticut of colon cancer.
Eartha Kitt
C'est Si Bon
Live Kaskad 1962
See Jeff Duhnam's "Achmed's Jingle Bombs"
Yawp...nice folk, these Islamofascists, that the Left wants to suck up to and appease.
Posted by: Skunkfeathers | December 26, 2008 at 05:06 AM
Celebrating Christmas in Dubai seems a great idea and I am sure she doing well and enjoying her stay.
Posted by: Property Dubai | December 26, 2008 at 02:54 AM