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In February, we exposed the latest FBI (and CIA) outrage, advertising for recruits in a pro-terrorist, anti-American magazine, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) - (see: Looking Under a Rock: FBI and CIA Hit New Low in Recruitment Drive). Both of our top national security agencies had placed online advertisements on the webpage of a magazine that included a hagiography to a terrorist the FBI had worked almost a decade to investigate and prosecute, Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian.
Just over a month later, it is clear that the FBI has learned nothing. The agency is advertising for recruits in the Arab American News, another publication with a long history of support for terrorism, terrorists and terrorist organizations.Read it all here
The California legislature is currently voting on AB0401, a seemingly innocuous alteration to the licensing regulations that govern real estate here. But, as usual, the ramifications will be unexpected and monstrous. The stated purpose of AB0401 is to clarify the relationship between RESPA law and non-monetary remuneration between licensed real estate agents and non licensed participants in real estate transactions. Here is the key section:
All transactions following under the penumbra of RESPA shall heretofore be subject to review and restatement. No value shall pass or be caused to pass between a licensed broker or licensed sales associate of said broker and any non-licensed agency before or after such time as a real estate transaction may occur. Transfer of value is to include, but not be limited to: all forms of currency, any property or asset of value, any service of value and any intellectual property of value. (emphasis mine)
I am already reading pundits this morning here in California describing all online websites and blogs as intellectual property of value. So what does this mean to the
average agent, loan officer, title rep, etc? It means that if you are syndicating your posts to another person’s site, or posting on another person’s site and that site has the stated or implied purpose of generating real estate business, you are in violation of RESPA regulations and subject to fine and/or loss of license.
It was the sort of incident that never makes it into the official crime statistics – that is, an incident in which a crime may have been prevented by a firearm.
It happened earlier this month in Irvine. Police were looking for a man suspected of raping an 18-year-old woman in her home. As the cops searched, the fleeing suspect, a 27-year-old L.A. gang member, tried to hide by breaking into another home. Inside, the homeowner, a man who had recently undergone defensive firearms training, heard the commotion, grabbed a handgun and confronted the suspect.
According to the author of the Times story, H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research institute in Dallas, says the IPCC's policy recommendations are based on flawed statistical analyses and procedures that violate general forecasting principles.
Weeks added to required 'enrichment' program:'We all need to learn and understand each other'
The FBI believes its agents still aren't sensitive enough to Muslims and their culture, so the bureau has extended by "a few weeks" its Islamic cultural "enrichment" training program, WND has learned.During a recent outreach event at a Washington-area mosque, FBI officials also reassured a large turnout of concerned Muslims that the bureau is not profiling Arabs and Muslims for terrorism, and has made investigating alleged "hate crimes" against them and other minorities "the second-highest priority in the criminal division of the FBI."
"carefully controlling guns," how many shootings at schools or malls will it take before we understand that people who intend to kill are not deterred by gun laws? Last I checked, murder is against the law everywhere. No one intent on murder will be stopped by the prospect of committing a lesser crime like illegal possession of a firearm. The intellectuals and politicians who make pious declarations about controlling guns should explain how their gunless utopia is to be realized.
While they search for — excuse me — their magic bullet, innocent people are dying defenseless.
That's because laws that make it difficult or impossible to carry a concealed handgun do deter one group of people: law-abiding citizens who might have used a gun to stop crime. Gun laws are laws against self-defense.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has today said that the adoption of Islamic Sharia law in the UK is "unavoidable" and that it would help maintain social cohesion [emphasis added].
Rowan Williams told BBC Radio 4's World At One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.
He says that Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court. He added Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty".
Dr Williams said there was a place for finding a "constructive accommodation" in areas such as marriage - allowing Muslim women to avoid Western divorce proceedings.
Other religions enjoyed such tolerance of their own laws, he pointed out, but stressed that it could never be allowed to take precedence over an individual's rights as a citizen.
He said it would also require a change in perception of what Sharia involved beyond the "inhumanity" of extreme punishments and attitudes to women seen in some Islamic states.
Dr Williams said: "It seems unavoidable and, as a matter of fact, certain conditions of Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system.
"We already have in this country a number of situations in which the internal law of religious communities is recognised by the law of the land as justifying conscientious objections in certain circumstances."
He added: "There is a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law as we already do with aspects of other kinds of religious law.
"It would be quite wrong to say that we could ever license a system of law for some community which gave people no right of appeal, no way of exercising the rights that are guaranteed to them as citizens in general. Sharia law in Britain would provide Muslims with an alternative to our divorce courts
"But there are ways of looking at marital disputes, for example, which provide an alternative to the divorce courts as we understand them.
"In some cultural and religious settings, they would seem more appropriate."
But his views were condemned today by senior Tory MP Peter Luff, who said: "This is a very dangerous route which we should not go down. You can't be a little bit pregnant. You can't have a little bit of sharia law [emphasis added].
"We should not start introducing new different legal systems alongside ours."
But the Archbishop defended his position saying people needed to look at Islamic law "with a clear eye."
"They should not imagine, either, that we know exactly what we mean by Sharia and just associate it with ... Saudi Arabia, or whatever," he continued.
"Nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that has sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states: the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women."
There were questions about how it interacted with human rights, he said.
"But I do not think we should instantly spring to the conclusion that the whole of that world of jurisprudence and practice is somehow monstrously incompatible with human rights just because it doesn't immediately fit with how we understand it."
Dr Williams said Orthodox Jewish courts already operated in the UK, and anti-abortion views of Catholics and other Christians were "accommodated within the law".
"The whole idea that there are perfectly proper ways the law of the land pays respect to custom and community, that's already there."
He said the issue of whether Catholic adoption agencies would be forced under equality laws to accept gay parents showed there was confusion on the matter.
"That principle that there is only one law for everybody is an important pillar of our social identity as a Western democracy.
"But I think it is a misunderstanding to suppose that means people don't have other affiliations, other loyalties which shape and dictate how they behave in society and that the law needs to take some account of that."
He said he accepted people might be surprised by his call but urged them to consider the wider question.
"What we don't want is a stand-off where the law squares up to people's religious consciences, on something like abortion or indeed by forcing a vote on some aspects of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in the Commons ... we don't either want a situation where, because there's no legal way of monitoring what communities do, making them part of the public process, people do what they like in private in such a way that that becomes another way of intensifying oppression within a community."
Sharia law was originally more enlightened in its attitude to women than other legal systems, he pointed out, but did now have to be brought up to date.
"But you have to translate that into a setting where that whole area of the rights and liberties of women has moved on.
"The principle and the vision which animates the whole Islamic legal provision needs broadening because of that."
Responding to comments by one of his senior bishops that Islamic extremism was creating communities with "no-go areas" for non-Muslims, he said it was "not at all the case that we have absolute social exclusion.
"But we do have a lot of social suspicion, a lot of distance and we just have to go on working at how that shared citizenship comes through."
The Bishop of Rochester, The Rt Rev Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, said last month that non-Muslims faced a hostile reception in places dominated by the ideology of Islamic radicals.
Dr Williams said the use of the phrase "no-go areas" had sparked controversy because it reminded people of Northern Ireland.
"I don't think that was at all what was intended; I think it was meant to point to the silo problem, the sense of communities not communicating with each other.
"Many Muslims would say that they feel bits of British society are no-go areas for them."
Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Ramadhan Foundation, welcomed the comments.
"These comments further underline the attempts by both our great faiths to build respect and tolerance.
"Sharia law for civil matters is something which has been introduced in some Western countries with much success; I believe that Muslims would take huge comfort from the Government allowing civil matters being resolved according to their faith.
"We are however disappointed that the Archbishop of Canterbury was silent when Mr Nazir-Ali was promoting intolerance and lying about no-go areas for Christians in the UK by Muslim extremists.
"Unless he speaks out against this intolerance, Muslims will take his silence as authorisation and support for such comments.
"The Ramadhan Foundation will continue to work with the Church of England to build understanding and respect for our two communities."
Dr Williams's comments are likely to fuel the debate over multiculturalism in the UK.
But he insists that Sharia law needs to be better understood.
At the moment, he says "sensational reporting of opinion polls" clouds the issue.
By: Erin Ballou, Pilot Tribune Staff Storm Lake Pilot Tribune, January 24, 2008
The Iowa Legislature started just over a week ago and some people were upset before the first issue was ever addressed.
When the session began, a Muslim Imam began the prayer in the Iowa Legislature. This is where the controversy begins.
The prayer asked of "Victory over those who disbelieve," and "Protection from the great Satan" among other things.
Pastor Steve Smith of the Evangelical Free Church in Albert City is among those concerned about the Muslim prayer. Rev. Smith admits that he doesn't know about all the levels of Muslim but knows that the Jihadists believe those in the U.S. are the great Satan.
Rev. Smith also wants to point out the mention of "victory over those who disbelieve." He feels "this is a request in the Iowa Legislature for God to grant the Muslims victory over every non-muslim. Not a request for salvation." Smith takes it as a gesture not of prayer but more as a political statement, especially with the wars that have been going on in the Middle East.
"I'm not concerned about a Muslim Imam opening the Legislature in prayer but it concerns me with the statements that were made. He interpreted this prayer from his understanding of Islam."
Here is the text of the opening prayer, as transcribed by Radio Iowa:
Imam Muhammad Khan of the Islamic Center of Des Moines spoke first in Arabic.
"I seek refuge in God against the accursed Satan in the name of God, most gracious, most merciful," Khan said in English. Khan made no specific mention of the war in Iraq or foreign affairs, but he called God the "master of the day of judgment" and asked for "victory over those who disbelieve."
"As we begin this new year...in a world with trials and tribulations, we ask you to open the hearts of our legislators and policy makers to make the right decisions for the people of Iowa," Khan said. "...We ask that you guide our legislators and give them the wisdom and knowledge to tackle the difficult problems that face us today in order to eliminate the senseless crimes on humanity. Help them, Lord, to solve the complicated problems in the State of Iowa so that we can be a model to the world."
Khan's prayer lasted about four minutes and he closed with a few words for legislators.
"On behalf of the Muslim community of Des Moines and Iowa, I wish you all the success in this year for making the right decisions for us," Khan said. Khan was the guest of State Representative Ako Abdul Samad of Des Moines, who is also a local Muslim leader.
Rev. Smith has urged others who may be concerned to contact their representative.
When asked about the prayer, Senator Steve Kettering replied in an e-mail that he had not heard the prayer, which did not take place in the Senate chambers.
"I cannot tell you what was said. I have received e-mail regarding this, but since it did not occur on the Senate side I do not have much information," Kettering said. "I should point out that the senate had a Catholic priest for their opening."
Representative Gary Worthan of Storm Lake said that he agrees with the concern being shown over the Muslim prayer.
He said that he has registered his concerns with the proper authorities.
As the father of two sons who have fought terrorism in the military, Worthan said the phrases mentioned earlier also jumped out at him and he said he shares concern for the same reasons as the constituents he is hearing from.