The Law Enforcement Option

An example of September 10 thinking. I want them to kill him not capture him. Trying him in US courts is such a bad idea. For one thing, think of the media circus surrounding the trial. Kerry is just not serious about the war on terror.

"I want him tried for murder in New York City, and in Virginia and in Pennsylvania," where planes hijacked by al-Qaida operatives crashed Sept. 11, 2001, Kerry said in his first interview as the Democratic presidential nominee.

Kerry Favors Bin Laden Trial in U.S.

Poisoned Ackees?

What next? Is nothing safe?!?!?

Young ackees contain varying levels of hypoglycin, the chemical responsible for ackee poisoning which can be fatal. If the fruit is picked at stage five of its growth - just before opening - and left in the sun to open naturally, the ackee can be safely consumed.

JEA president issues warning to ackee canners, consumers

Why is it always New York?

Thanks South Africa. Next time keep better track of your passports.

Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed, 48, of Johannesburg, South Africa, was detained July 19 at the McAllen Miller International Airport after she failed to produce a current visa while she was about to board a flight to New York.

Judge Rules to hold South African for trial

Bat Ye'or on European Dhimmitude

Beyond a fleeting awareness, the overwhelming majority of Europeans and Americans do not understand the new Eurabian entity, which only the first step in a steady progression toward its Arabization and Islamization. Europe has evolved from a Judeo-Christian civilization, with important post-Enlightenment/secular elements, to a "civilization of dhimmitude," i.e., Eurabia: a secular-Muslim transitional society with its traditional Judeo-Christian mores rapidly disappearing.

How Europe Became Eurabia by Bat Ye'or

Such a wonderful religion

Fatima says: "Muslim personal law says you can marry at 12, so I didn't see a problem with it. There are lots of bad things in society these days, so the sooner a girl gets married, the better."

Battle over India's marriage age

This is so wrong on so many levels.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Wilmot "Mutty" Perkins, talk show host:
"I'll tell you why that chicken crossed the road. I'll bet it was getting a government contract to cross the road. Can you believe this? How much more of this can Jamaicans take? Chickens crossing the road paid for by their tax dollars. Your money, the money that the government took from you to build a road for chickens to cross. That chicken needs a lawyer."

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Change the appellate system

"A man commits murder in Jamaica in 1997, why is this matter being heard by judges in England - the vast majority of whom have never been to the Caribbean, much less Hanover. By what line of reasoning can we say this is the right way to conduct an appellate system?" Vasciannie asked.

No way to administer a justice system!

Positive Thinking

God alone knows why it was necessary to have six tributes at the service, after the fulsome praise rendered in Parliament only days before. As to the sermon, what was Dr Horace Russell thinking? Good man though he be, he seems to have been overcome by the occasion and churned on and on, going nowhere. So, there was I, working up myself into a "froth of frustration" when it dawned on me. "But some good things happened besides that."

Come on... tell me something good

This is unsettling

I'm getting to the point where I'm going to need tranquilizers to get on a flight.

Flight crews and air marshals say Middle Eastern men are staking out airports, probing security measures and conducting test runs aboard airplanes for a terrorist attack.

At least two midflight incidents have involved numerous men of Middle Eastern descent behaving in what one pilot called "stereotypical" behavior of an organized attempt to attack a plane.

Scouting jetliners for new attacks

Depraved monsters

Such a wonderful religion...

"Paul Johnson's head was found in a refrigerator" during a late-night raid on a house in the Saudi capital, said a ministry statement, carried by official media.

Saudis find head of slain US hostage in a fridge

It's giving an open door to terrorists

We are our own worst enemies.

I guess it doesn't matter how many people get blown up as long as we don't trample on people's rights to carry backpacks.

Manhattan Federal Judge Robert Sweet's decision - made public yesterday - prohibits blanket searches of bulky bags and backpacks in the absence of a "specific threat."

"In this day and age of terrorism, it's an extremely dangerous step in a very dangerous time in New York City," said an outraged Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association.

Cops rip judge: 'It's giving an open door to terrorists'

Ouch!

A ROMANIAN surgeon underwent a fit of madness while operating on a patient's testicles and instead cut off the man's penis and sliced it into three pieces, hospital officials said.

Crazed surgeon amputates penis

Dress code

We are just not taking the terrorism threat seriously enough.

Federal air marshals must have neatly trimmed hair and men must be clean-shaven, the documents say. Some of the service's 21 field offices have mandated that male officers wear suits, ties and dress shoes while on duty, even in summer heat. Women are required to wear blouses and skirts or dress slacks. Jeans, athletic shoes and noncollared shirts are prohibited.

Dress Code May Hinder Their Work, Air Marshals Say

Religion of Rights for Women

Whoa! Progress. Now they can go through the front door.

"Less than a year ago they told me, 'Sister, please use the back entrance,' " Nomani said. "Now they're talking about greeting us at the door. This is an important victory toward removing the barriers that keep women from full participation."

Woman takes on mosque

They sure don't speak for me

Julian Bond and Kwesi Mfume need to get over themselves. Rod Paige is telling it like it is.

"You do not own, and you are not the arbiters of, African-American authenticity," Paige wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed the same day Sen. John F. Kerry, the Democrats' presumptive presidential nominee, addressed the group's annual meeting in Philadelphia.

Paige, who grew up under segregation in Mississippi, singled out NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and President Kwesi Mfume for their use of what Paige called, "hateful and untruthful rhetoric about Republicans and President Bush."

NAACP fight with GOP boils hotter

Terror in the Skies, Again?

We are not ready. It's time to stop the PC crap and do what we need to do before something terrible happens.

On June 29, 2004, at 12:28 p.m., I flew on Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles with my husband and our young son. Also on our flight were 14 Middle Eastern men between the ages of approximately 20 and 50 years old. What I experienced during that flight has caused me to question whether the United States of America can realistically uphold the civil liberties of every individual, even non-citizens, and protect its citizens from terrorist threats.
On that Tuesday, our journey began uneventfully. Starting out that morning in Providence, Rhode Island, we went through security screening, flew to Detroit, and passed the time waiting for our connecting flight to Los Angeles by shopping at the airport stores and eating lunch at an airport diner. With no second security check required in Detroit we headed to our gate and waited for the pre-boarding announcement. Standing near us, also waiting to pre-board, was a group of six Middle Eastern men. They were carrying blue passports with Arabic writing. Two men wore tracksuits with Arabic writing across the back. Two carried musical instrument cases - thin, flat, 18 long. One wore a yellow T-shirt and held a McDonald's bag. And the sixth man had a bad leg -- he wore an orthopedic shoe and limped. When the pre-boarding announcement was made, we handed our tickets to the Northwest Airlines agent, and walked down the jetway with the group of men directly behind us.

My four-year-old son was determined to wheel his carry-on bag himself, so I turned to the men behind me and said, You go ahead, this could be awhile. No, you go ahead, one of the men replied. He smiled pleasantly and extended his arm for me to pass. He was young, maybe late 20's and had a goatee. I thanked him and we boarded the plan.

Once on the plane, we took our seats in coach (seats 17A, 17B and 17C). The man with the yellow shirt and the McDonald's bag sat across the aisle from us (in seat 17E). The pleasant man with the goatee sat a few rows back and across the aisle from us (in seat 21E). The rest of the men were seated throughout the plane, and several made their way to the back.

As we sat waiting for the plane to finish boarding, we noticed another large group of Middle Eastern men boarding. The first man wore a dark suit and sunglasses. He sat in first class in seat 1A, the seat second-closet to the cockpit door. The other seven men walked into the coach cabin. As aware Americans, my husband and I exchanged glances, and then continued to get comfortable. I noticed some of the other passengers paying attention to the situation as well. As boarding continued, we watched as, one by one, most of the Middle Eastern men made eye contact with each other. They continued to look at each other and nod, as if they were all in agreement about something. I could tell that my husband was beginning to feel anxious.

The take-off was uneventful. But once we were in the air and the seatbelt sign was turned off, the unusual activity began. The man in the yellow T-shirt got out of his seat and went to the lavatory at the front of coach -- taking his full McDonald's bag with him. When he came out of the lavatory he still had the McDonald's bag, but it was now almost empty. He walked down the aisle to the back of the plane, still holding the bag. When he passed two of the men sitting mid-cabin, he gave a thumbs-up sign. When he returned to his seat, he no longer had the McDonald's bag.

Then another man from the group stood up and took something from his carry-on in the overhead bin. It was about a foot long and was rolled in cloth. He headed toward the back of the cabin with the object. Five minutes later, several more of the Middle Eastern men began using the forward lavatory consecutively. In the back, several of the men stood up and used the back lavatory consecutively as well.

For the next hour, the men congregated in groups of two and three at the back of the plane for varying periods of time. Meanwhile, in the first class cabin, just a foot or so from the cockpit door, the man with the dark suit - still wearing sunglasses - was also standing. Not one of the flight crew members suggested that any of these men take their seats.

Watching all of this, my husband was now beyond anxious. I decided to try to reassure my husband (and maybe myself) by walking to the back bathroom. I knew the goateed-man I had exchanged friendly words with as we boarded the plane was seated only a few rows back, so I thought I would say hello to the man to get some reassurance that everything was fine. As I stood up and turned around, I glanced in his direction and we made eye contact. I threw out my friendliest remember-me-we-had-a-nice-exchange-just-a-short-time-ago smile. The man did not smile back. His face did not move. In fact, the cold, defiant look he gave me sent shivers down my spine.

When I returned to my seat I was unable to assure my husband that all was well. My husband immediately walked to the first class section to talk with the flight attendant. I might be overreacting, but I've been watching some really suspicious things... Before he could finish his statement, the flight attendant pulled him into the galley. In a quiet voice she explained that they were all concerned about what was going on. The captain was aware. The flight attendants were passing notes to each other. She said that there were people on board higher up than you and me watching the men. My husband returned to his seat and relayed this information to me. He was feeling slightly better. I was feeling much worse. We were now two hours into a four-in-a-half hour flight.

Approximately 10 minutes later, that same flight attendant came by with the drinks cart. She leaned over and quietly told my husband there were federal air marshals sitting all around us. She asked him not to tell anyone and explained that she could be in trouble for giving out that information. She then continued serving drinks.

About 20 minutes later the same flight attendant returned. Leaning over and whispering, she asked my husband to write a description of the yellow-shirted man sitting across from us. She explained it would look too suspicious if she wrote the information. She asked my husband to slip the note to her when he was done.

After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together, eight individually) and then act as a group, watching their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned, and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was officially terrified.. Before I'm labeled a racial profiler or -- worse yet -- a racist, let me add this. A month ago I traveled to India to research a magazine article I was writing. My husband and I flew on a jumbo jet carrying more than 300 Hindu and Muslim men and women on board. We traveled throughout the country and stayed in a Muslim village 10 miles outside Pakistan. I never once felt fearful. I never once felt unsafe. I never once had the feeling that anyone wanted to hurt me. This time was different.

Finally, the captain announced that the plane was cleared for landing. It had been four hours since we left Detroit. The fasten seat belt light came on and I could see downtown Los Angeles. The flight attendants made one final sweep of the cabin and strapped themselves in for landing. I began to relax. Home was in sight.

Suddenly, seven of the men stood up -- in unison -- and walked to the front and back lavatories. One by one, they went into the two lavatories, each spending about four minutes inside. Right in front of us, two men stood up against the emergency exit door, waiting for the lavatory to become available. The men spoke in Arabic among themselves and to the man in the yellow shirt sitting nearby. One of the men took his camera into the lavatory. Another took his cell phone. Again, no one approached the men. Not one of the flight attendants asked them to sit down. I watched as the man in the yellow shirt, still in his seat, reached inside his shirt and pulled out a small red book. He read a few pages, then put the book back inside his shirt. He pulled the book out again, read a page or two more, and put it back. He continued to do this several more times.

I looked around to see if any other passengers were watching. I immediately spotted a distraught couple seated two rows back. The woman was crying into the man's shoulder. He was holding her hand. I heard him say to her, You've got to calm down. Behind them sat the once pleasant-smiling, goatee-wearing man.

I grabbed my son, I held my husband's hand and, despite the fact that I am not a particularly religious person, I prayed. The last man came out of the bathroom, and as he passed the man in the yellow shirt he ran his forefinger across his neck and mouthed the word No.

The plane landed. My husband and I gathered our bags and quickly, very quickly, walked up the jetway. As we exited the jetway and entered the airport, we saw many, many men in dark suits. A few yards further out into the terminal, LAPD agents ran past us, heading for the gate. I have since learned that the representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the Federal Air Marshals (FAM), and the Transportation Security Association (TSA) met our plane as it landed. Several men -- who I presume were the federal air marshals on board -- hurried off the plane and directed the 14 men over to the side.

Terror in the Skies, Again?

Use your vote and you'll die, Taliban tell Afghan women

Fawzia Mohamadi, 30, another victim of the bombing, said male passers-by shouted as the bus burned. "They were saying, 'Let them die'," she said from her hospital bed, where she is recovering from burns to her left leg. "They were shouting, 'These are women begging for America's dollars. Don't help them'. They were holding up our burning sandals and clothes and shouting."

All over the eastern province of Nangahar, the capital of which is Jalalabad, women are being threatened for participating in the elections. Only three years after the fall of the Taliban, women have been given the right to vote and stand for public office, and the backlash has been swift, said Mrs Mojadeddi.

Read the whole thing.

Man arrested with suicide note

Sources confirm Almosaleh was carrying a suicide when he was arrested. They say that note indicated a specific time and date for carrying out some sort of public suicide. He was also carrying CDs and DVDs, which federal sources say contained anti-American material. A source also confirms Almosaleh had something with him indicating a connection with at least one known terrorist.

Man arrested with suicide note on flight to Minneapolis-St. Paul International

Culture of death

Children as young as 10 are being recruited to fight for the Palestinian cause.

Gaza's Killing School

Iraq's Christians consider fleeing as attacks on them rise

Before the murders, the family received a photocopied death threat. "We are warning you, the enemies of God and Islam, from selling alcohol again, and unless you stop we will kill you and send you to hell where a worse fate awaits you," reads the warning, signed by "Harakat Ansar al-Islam," the Partisans of Islam Movement.

Iraq's Christians consider fleeing as attacks on them rise

The fashion police

Oh yes, tell me again why women would willingly be a part of this religion.

Iran's morality police have made several raids in Tehran, in an apparent crackdown on women who flout the strict Islamic dress code.

Iran police in fashion crackdown

Why did the student climb the mountain?

To get to the other side.

In Canaan, he decided to climb Music Mountain to see what was on the other side, police said. Investigators believe the exercise cleared Cunningham's head.

Stoned Del. student gets lost in Conn.

Those Non-existent WMDs

It's a frightening thought to think that the non-existent WMDs might be in the hands of terrorists.

But some material might already have been acquired by insurgents after the fall of Saddam Hussein. "There were so many mistakes being committed then, there is a possibility it might already be in their hands," he said.

Mr al-Rubaie singled out Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born Islamist, as the biggest threat to Iraq. "The central core of Zarqawi's and al-Qa'eda's strategy and tactics is inflicting massive damage on people just to have a huge psychological impact.

Terrorists 'could have Iraq's WMD'

Religion of Honor Killings

"My brothers have threatened to kill me and my husband," 44-year-old Amnat said.

"There is no guarantee for my life if I go home," the visibly shaken woman said as her husband, Ghulam Mustafa, looked on.

"The main condition of my brothers is that I should get a divorce from my husband if I want to go home but I will never do that."

The couple's predicament highlights a major dilemma faced by Pakistan in reconciling centuries-old tribal traditions with modern-day values as President Pervez Musharraf tries to project the country as a moderate, progressive Muslim nation.

Newly-wed doctors flee for their lives

Religion of Wife Beating

I don't understand why any woman would willingly join this religion.

An imam of a city mosque let his underling beat his wife black and blue right before him Tuesday night for her failure to meet his dowry demands and not giving nod to his intended second marriage.

Hafez Maulana Saiful Islam, imam of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) Hospital Jame Mosque, and his assistant Aman Ullah looked on nonchalantly while muezzin Abdul Kader assaulted and critically injured Sabina Islam, wife of Saiful, in the mosque.

Imam lets muezzin beat his wife

Overreaction to Abu Ghraib

THE shrill wrangling over the treatment of insur gents and terrorists de tained in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay has taken a frightening but predictable turn: Restrictions on interviewing techniques have hindered intelligence-gathering.
And you can't connect the dots if you don't first collect the dots.

"Everything's on hold," said a former CIA official aware of the agency's suspension of extraordinary interrogation tactics. "The whole thing has been stopped until we sort out whether we are sure we're on legal ground," the ex-spy added in the June 27 Washington Post.

War on Terror or a Tea Party?

The Dhimmitude of Europe

The dhimmitude of Europe began with the subversion of its culture and its values, with the destruction of its history and its replacement by an Islamic vision of that history, supported by the romantic myth of Andalusia. Eurabia adopted the Islamic conception of history, in which Islam is defined as a liberating force, a force for peace, and the jihad is regarded a ‘just war’. Those who resist the jihad, like the Israelis and the Americans, are the guilty ones, rather than those who wage it. It is this policy that has inculcated in us, the Europeans, the spirit of dhimmitude that blinds us, that instills in us a hatred for our own values, and the wish to destroy our own origins and our own history. “The greatest intellectual swindle would be to allow Europe to continue to believe that it derives from a Judeo-Christian tradition. That is a complete lie,” Tariq Ramadan has stated (3). And thus we despise George Bush because he still believes in that tradition. What simpletons those Americans…

Beyond Munich - The Spirit of Eurabia by Bat Ye'or

Another beheading

These people are barbarians.

An Iraqi militant group claimed on a Web site Saturday that it had beheaded a captive U.S. Marine, in what would be the fourth decapitation of a foreign hostage in the region since May.

Iraq Militants Claim Marine Beheading

This is a disaster waiting to happen

Six weeks before the opening of the Games, the main Olympic park and the soccer stadium are still construction sites, with towering cranes hoisting workers and equipment to dizzying heights, dump trucks stirring up dust and hundreds of shirtless laborers covered in sweat.

Security lags in Olympic race

Fifth column watch

Day by day I'm tuning out the mainstream media. I can't read the New York Times without sending up my blood pressure.

Following the recent beheadings of Americans and other foreigners in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, the U.S. press turned to various experts to identify a precedent in the Quran or Islamic history for this kind of gory murder. "Beheadings are not mentioned in the Koran at all," Imam Muhammad Adam El-Sheikh, co-founder and chief cleric at the Dar Al Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va., told USA Today. Yvonne Haddad, a professor at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University agreed, telling New York Newsday, "There is absolutely nothing in Islam that justifies cutting off a person's head."

If reporters bothered to open up a copy of the Quran, say, N.J. Dawood's Penguin Classics translation, they'd find at least two relevant passages:

God revealed His will to the angels, saying: "I shall be with you. Give courage to the believers. I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the very tips of their fingers." (Sura 8, Verse 12)

"When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield strike off their heads." (Sura 47, Verse 4)

Question Authority - The Quran mentions beheading. Why does the U.S. press claim otherwise?

Never underestimate stupidity and ignorance

"We cannot give a specific date when the immunisation exercise will resume because the tests have not been concluded. It was supposed take one week but it has now dragged into weeks," Yule said by telephone from Kano.

"We will begin as soon as the result is out. We have already retrained staff and are mobilising people, including Islamic leaders to participate."

The re-emergence of the virus in countries that had been polio-free has been a major setback to a WHO campaign to eradicate the disease - endemic in only six countries in 2003 - by the end of 2005.

There have been 62 new infections in Nigeria in the last two weeks, with a total of 259 confirmed polio cases in Africa's most populous nation.

Nigeria State Reels Under Polio

It's a start

Personal interviews of the applicants at US embassies, once infrequent, are now a requirement. The discretion that consular officers at US missions once had has been withdrawn.

Washington to check all Muslim visa applicants