In the 1960s, Brigitte Bardot was France’s national icon, a pouty-lipped poster girl for the glories of her home country. So it is a sign of how radically times have changed that yesterday’s silver-screen darling is today’s enemy of the people.Bardot’s “crimes,” such as they are, are straightforward: She has committed the sin of speaking frankly and unapologetically about her country’s hostile Muslim immigrant population and – what is evidently worse – questioning the compatibility of some Muslim religious practices with Western society. Common sense, one might think, or least subjects fit for fruitful debate.
Not in modern France. Last week, the erstwhile cinema siren went on trial on the charge of inciting “racial hatred against Muslims.” If convicted, she could face a two-month suspended prison sentence and nearly $24,000 in fines.
The basis for the charge is utterly bogus. It stems from a letter that Bardot wrote to President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2006, in which she complained about the practices of Islamic immigrants. In particular, Bardot was put off by the ritual of Eid al-Adha, a Muslim feast in which sheep and goats are slaughtered by having their throats slit. A longtime animal-rights activist, Bardot found the practice abominable.
Her mistake was in thinking that she had the freedom to say so. But as France struggles to control a large (Muslims make up nearly ten percent of the country) and increasingly radicalized Muslim population critics of Islamism are finding themselves more actively persecuted by national authorities than the Islamists themselves.
Bardot is a case in point. Her latest legal woes may seem troubling, but they are only the latest battle in a larger war waged by Islamic radicals and their allies to suppress all criticism of Islam and its more militant and anti-Western incarnations. It speaks to the success of these state-backed exercises in intimidation that Bardot has been convicted for “inciting racial hatred” on four separate occasions.
Bardot’s trials, literal and figurative, at the hands of the Fifth Republic’s multicultural enforcers date back to the early 1990s, when she first spoke out against the slaughtering of animals for religious purposes. Although Bardot directed her attacks against Muslims and Jews, it was her criticism of the former that got her branded as a racist. By 1997, Bardot stood convicted on the charge of “inciting racial hatred” after suggesting in the French daily Le Figaro that France was beset by a “foreign over-population,” including with Muslim immigrants.
It was unclear, then as now, how criticism of a non-racial group, in this case Muslims, could be considered “racist.” Nor was it apparent why an issue as fundamental to the welfare of a nation as immigration was suddenly to be deemed off-limits for discussion. But the Orwellian subtext of the case was impossible to miss: There were some things that French citizens simply were not allowed to discuss.
Bardot pointedly ignored the lesson. The following year, she likened the slaughter of animals in Islamic rituals to the throat-slitting favored by Islamic fundamentalists in North Africa, implying that the connection was not coincidental. It was a provocative point, to be sure, but by no means an unreasonable one. Where the world’s leading religions have shed their cruelest tendencies, Islam as practiced in much of the world – one need only recall the gruesome decapitation murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl – retains its more savage elements.
In any case, criticizing religious practices would seem to be entirely consistent with European free-speech statutes, especially in anticlerical France. And, indeed, a lower court initially found Bardot’s comments to be protected by free-speech laws. That was too much for an appeals court, however, and before long it reversed the decision and slapped Bardot with a fine. Free speech was a fine thing, apparently, so long as it didn’t offend Muslims.
It would not be the last time that Bardot incurred the wrath of French censors. In 2000, she was again convicted of “racist” thought crimes for writing what she called an “Open Letter to My Lost France,” in which she raised concerns about Muslim immigration. As on past occasions, the merits of her concerns were not specifically examined, their focus on Muslims being deemed sufficient proof their unacceptability for public discussion – this even as French banlieues, home to unassimilated Muslim immigrants, seethed with the violent hatred that would erupt in riots across France in 2005.
Bardot was undaunted. In 2003, she again ran afoul of “anti-racism laws” when she published A Cry in the Silence, a book decrying what she called “the Islamisation of France,” and pointing out the obvious ties between the September 11 attacks and Islamic extremism. In that book, Bardot also cautioned against the dangers of rubbishing Western freedoms to accommodate political sensitivities. “For 20 years we have submitted to a dangerous and uncontrolled underground infiltration,” she wrote. “Not only does it fail to give way to our laws and customs. Quite the contrary, as time goes by it tries to impose its own laws on us.” As if to demonstrate her point, French authorities proceeded to fine her 5,000 euros for offending Muslims. (Revealingly, Bardot’s views proved far more popular among the French public, which turned A Cry of Silence into a bestseller.)
To understand just how sinister are the attacks on Bardot it is useful to consider the group that repeatedly has brought suit against her, the Movement Against Racism And For Friendship Between Peoples (MRAP). Inaccurately called a human-rights group, the MRAP is in fact an aggressive silencer of free-speech.
Its most famous contribution to French political life was to thwart the sale of the late Oriana Fallaci’s 2002 book, Anger and Pride, on the grounds that it supposedly incited racial hatred against Muslims. Similarly, when Bardot published A Cry in the Silence in 2003, the MRAP pronounced it “unacceptable,” thus appointing itself the arbiter of what French citizens should and should not be allowed to read.
But of course groups like the MRAP would be inconsequential were it not for the dangerous proclivity of the French legal establishment for treating their fictitious allegations of racism with unmerited seriousness. In this context, it was illuminating when a French prosecutor last week called for unusually stiff penalties against Bardot in the current case against the actress because she was a “bit tired of trying Madame Bardot.” How much easier it would be for that civil servant and countless others like her if nuisances like Bardot would simply surrender their right to speak freely.
Bardot may not be the most artful of social commentators, but then she doesn’t need to be. Nothing demonstrates the prescience of her warnings – not least her warning about the dangers of sacrificing Western liberties to accommodate the extreme demands of hostile minority groups – so much as the ongoing efforts of the French state to silence the woman it once hailed as an idol.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=1FDA71A3-4B33-46DF-AB00-6968BFBABCEF
Sphere: Related ContentNinety percent of businesses are struggling to contain the phenomenon of ‘anonymous proxies’, websites used to bypass URL filtering security, according to a new survey.
The survey was carried out by filtering outfit Bloxx, which asked a sample of 146 companies across a range of sectors plus a portion of its own customer base, to assess whether proxies were causing them problems.
Only 10 percent said they weren’t a problem at all, leaving the remainder to describe it as a ‘minor problem’ (37 percent), a ‘fairly serious problem’ (36 percent), and a ‘major problem’ (15 percent).
Nearly 59 percent thought the issue had grown in the last year, with 8 percent claiming it now consumed more than four hours per week of precious IT time. A quarter of those asked reckoned the issue was becoming difficult to contain.
Statistics can’t tell the whole story, but these suggest that the issue has crept up on IT departments which even after years of security investment still have few tools to help them cope. “Anonymous proxies are a huge problem which has grown significantly over the past few years, especially within education,” said Eamonn Doyle, managing director of Bloxx.
“Relying on a URL database web filter alone to quickly detect and block anonymous proxies would now appear to be problematic and can certainly expose an organisation to a high level of risk,” he concluded. No information was gleaned on what is perhaps the most interesting part of the proxy story – what is driving people to use them.
A ‘fight club’ bake-off between a range of URL filtering products held at this month’s RSA security show concluded that when confronted with porn, all URL filters appear to work well. The problem is that it didn’t measure filtering systems against proxies, which one vendor, Watchguard, said few could cope with. Conclusion: URL filtering is obsolete.
Bloxx – which promotes its own Tru-View technology to block proxies – hinted that in the corporate sphere it was social networking and not porn that was creating the demand for proxying websites. One answer might lie with simply permitting access to these sites for the Facebook generation as a policy, in a stroke taking away a user’s motivation for using proxies in the first place.
Sphere: Related ContentWith crude oil prices hitting new all time highs, solar power clearly has the momentum and is helping bring about a transformational shift in corporate energy usage.
Solar’s rapid expansion on the corporate energy efficiency front is good news for companies in the solar food chain – ranging from producers of polysilicon, to the manufacturers of solar cells, to the service firms that install solar systems.
Moreover, this year solar energy may get an additional boost, since U.S. lawmakers appear likely to pass the extension of a key solar-industry tax credit. The bill, if passed, would extend the 30% commercial tax credit by eight years and the residential credit by one year and would remove a $2,000 cap on residential systems. Importantly, utilities would be able to take advantage of the credit for the first time.
According to Levine, the companies best positioned to ride this solar wave are major photovoltaics manufacturers like First Solar (FSLR), SunPower Corp. (SPWR) and Suntech Power Holdings (STP) – each of whom are leading the solar industry ever closer to the “Holy Grail” of grid parity, thereby driving demand in the corporate, utilities and home markets.
Along with solar power, there is another standout in the corporate race towards greater energy efficiency.
Sphere: Related ContentHuge Shift Occurring in Corporate Energy Usage
· 26% of corporate respondents say their company has used Less energy than normal over the past 6 months
· Only 16% say they’ve used More
Reducing Energy Usage
· 22% report their company is Very Concerned about reducing energy usage
· 35% Somewhat Concerned
Spending on Energy Efficient Products And Technologies – Next 6 Months
· 23% say they will Increase Spending
· 8% say they will Decrease Spending
Top Alternative Energy Technology – It’s Solar Power
· 8% say company currently uses alternative energy technologies
· 21% say they’ll install alt energy equipment in next 5 years
Leading Types of Alt Energy Equipment to be Installed
· Solar (72%)
· Wind (19%)
Biggest Barriers to Installation
· 39% initial capital investment
· 24% unattractive payback period
Top Product Being Purchased Next 6 Months
· 28% Energy efficient lighting
· 13% Solar power
· 13% Energy efficient computer hardware
· 10% HVAC Systems
· 9% Fuel efficient vehicles
· 7% Server Virtualization
LED Has Momentum
Lighting Purchased –
Past 6 Months
· Regular Florescent (42%)
· Compact Florescent (39%)
· LED Lighting (14%)
Next 6 Months
· Compact Florescent (36%)
· Regular Florescent (31%)
· LED Lighting (21%)
Sphere: Related ContentOne can only presume that the previously unpublished revelation that London was a simultaneous target of the 9/11 attacks. At the planning stages of the New York and Washington attacks, Al Qaeda realized that Britain would most likely support any punitive American action against the organization and its Afgan hosts, the Taliban , and so planned a simultaneous attempt to destroy the British Houses of Parliament by crashing into it a British Airways jumbo jet hijacked from Heathrow airport. Muhammad Afroz, an Indian suicide pilot , trained in Melbourne, Australia and Britain was subsequently arrested in Mumbai, India. On the basis of interrogation of suspected Indian agents , Indian intelligence came to believe that Al Qaeda had infiltrated a suicide team into Britain to attack the Houses of Parliament.
Indeed Afroz’s cell was one of three highly trained Al Qaeda teams - the other two being assigned to India and Australia. In addition to striking Westminster in an airborne attack , they also had plans to attack the Tower Bridge on the river Thames, but the latter target was dropped in early September. The suicide team was to hijack a British Airways jet bound from London to Mumbai on September 9 , 2001 ( the original dates scheduled for the Washington and New York attacks), but in an encrypted message received at the last moment from their Al Qaeda operational commander in America, the operation was postponed to September 11 , 2001.
Winnipeg Used Volkswagen Passat
Sphere: Related ContentThere was less sea ice in the Arctic than ever before listed in recorded records. Melting is continuing. The National Snow and Ice Center has reported “There is at the least sea ice that has ever been seen in the satellite records. “the polar regions are expected to feel the impact of climate change sooner and to a greater extent than other regions of earth.
Sphere: Related ContentWhen Hitler set out to conquer the world, it was American blood, treasure and determination that stopped him. When the Soviet Union set out to subject the world to communism, it was American blood, treasure and determination that stopped it. If the Muslim extremists’ quest to subject the world to radical Islam is to be stopped, it will, once again, take American blood, treasure and determination.
It may be true that the Islamic extremists who call for world domination represent only a minority of the world’s Muslims. Minority or not, it is they who drive the Muslim agenda and unashamedly slaughter untold thousands of people in the name of their Allah. They claim their authority comes from the Quran – the same Quran, and the same Allah, the rest of the Muslim world worships. Consequently, all Muslims must bear the responsibility for the inhumane actions of the extremist minority.
If the extremists are such a minority of the Muslim population, why does the majority not put a stop to the extremists? There can be only two possible answers: either the majority is in agreement with the goals, if not the tactics, of the extremists, or the majority is incapable of controlling the minority. Both answers are probably correct. When a cartoonist published a caricature of Allah, Muslims around the world filled the streets in protest. Were they all extremists, or just in agreement with the goals of the extremists?
By contrast, the image of Christ is desecrated regularly, and the public response is “ho-hum.”
Sphere: Related ContentIs the “War on Terror” Based on a False Hope?
In the days following 9/11, George W. Bush assured America and the world that Islam was a “religion of peace” and that the violent followers of Osama Bin Laden had twisted the true Muslim faith. Acting on this belief, President Bush and other Western leaders sent troops to the Middle East in an effort to bring freedom and democracy to the Muslim world.
But what if this “understanding” of Islam is based not on fact, but instead on equal parts wishful thinking and Islamic deceit? It would mean that the entire War on Terror is based on a faulty–and increasingly deadly–premise.
In “Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against the World”, author and filmmaker Gregory M. Davis rebuts the notion that Islam is a great faith in desperate need of a Reformation. Instead, he exposes it as a form of totalitarianism, a belief system that orders its adherents not to baptize all nations, but to conquer and subdue them. Islamic law’s governance of every aspect of religious, political, and personal action has far more in common with Nazism than with the tenets of Christianity or Judaism.
Davis details how Islamic thought divides the world into two spheres locked in perpetual combat: dar al-Islam (”House of Islam,” where Islamic law predominates), and dar al-harb (”House of War,” the rest of the world). This concise yet thorough book leaves no doubt as to why most of the world’s modern conflicts are connected to Islam–and calls into question why Western elites refuse to acknowledge Islam’s violent nature.
Virtually every contemporary Western leader has expressed the view that Islam is a peaceful religion and that those who commit violence in its name are fanatics who misinterpret its tenets. This widely circulated claim is false.
Relying primarily on Islam’s own sources, “Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against the World” demonstrates that Islam is a violent, expansionary ideology that seeks the subjugation and destruction of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government. Further, it shows that the jihadis that Westerners have been indoctrinated to believe are extremists, are actually in the mainstream.
“Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against the World” is nothing less than a wake-up call to all civilized
Sphere: Related ContentPakistan’s post benazir scene is becoming more and more dangerous, indeed alarming. Remarkably, like the man responsible for the great and growing turmoil, the recently retired General Pervez Musharraf, his mentor the united states is also tormented deeply. Both are growing in the dark even though the objective of both is to prolong musharraf’s precarious hold on power.
Washington’s relentless drive to arrange a political marriage of sorts between the pakistan people’s party leader, Benazir Bhutto, and Musharraf alone would not be able to stabilize the country, a partnership between him and her might.
This plan dubious at the best of times, now lies buried at the mausoleum Benazir had built for her father, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, first toppled and then are executed by an earlier military regime. It is against the backdrop that the latest pakistani developments fall into place.
One of these is Musharraf’s belated and grudging admission that benazir Bhutto might have been shot dead. Up to now he and his administration, run by sycophants and agents, many of them serving or retired spooks and army men had been insisting that no shots were fired. Clear and convincing evidence to the contrary, displayed in slow motion on tv screens across the world has taken the wind out of their sails. Yet, Musharraf still holds that Benazir was repsonsible for her own death because she knew how serious was the threat to her life and should not have risen to the greet the crowd through the sunroof of her armoured car. He doesn’t explain how the assailant, carrying an automatic weapon, could get to the slain leader at point blank range. No wonder a majority of Pakistani believes that the government had a hand in Benazir’s elimination, and both the credibility and acceptance of the Musharraf regime are at an all time low.
It has also gone unnoticed that while Musharraf did not display even the elementary courtesy of making any gesture to the bereaved family, the new chief of the army staff, general Ashfaque Pervaiz Kiyani, conspicuously, sent a wreath. He was in Karachi at the time of the terrible tragedy. He immediatley cut short of his stay and returned to Rawalpindi, and took steps that no one in the army made any comments, publicly, that could be considered improper.
Seasoned observers are watching carefully how the new realationship between the civilian president and the new army chief develops eventually. No one is doing so more keenly than the White House and the Pentagon both of which are speaking highly of General Kiyani closley linked to this and crucially important is the second development.
The dynastic succession to Benazir, so manipulated by the family that the ppp’s leadership has passed from the late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to his daughter’s windower, Asif Ali Zardari via Benazir’s and Zardari’s son, Bilawal, who is to spend some years at oxford, where the Grandpa Zulfi and mama Benazir also studied. During this period Zardari would be a regent of sorts to his son. He has started comparing his role to that of Sonia Gandhi of India. But so maladorous is his image that even in the midst of genuine and widespread grief over Benazir’s assassination, people in pakistan are joking that “Mr 10% would soon become Mr 20%.”
The third major new development, not sufficiently noticed yet, is arguably the most significant is some respects. It is the forced resignation of the governor of the north west frontier province, retired Lieutenant- General Ali Mohammed Jan Orakzai.
Whatever the pretence, the reality is that Musharraf’s has had to dismiss Orakzai at America’s Behest this is so because orakzai at America’s behost. This is so because Orakzai, a pushton himself and a former commander of the peshawar corps, has been the author of the policy of negotiating with the tribal leaders with waziristan and other lands along afghanistan- pakistani border. He has been totally opposed to pakistani millitary action in waziristan or elsewhere and this has understandbly annoyed the americans. Interestingly, the mutual dislike of orakzai and americans was heightened when, during a visit to the us, he was strip-searched before being allowed in.
It is not all surprising that orakzai’s removal has coincided with the publication of reports with respected americans newspapers that the us millitary and the CIA are planning to embark on unilateral covert action against the Taliban and the Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s borderlands. The official spokesmen of the official pakistani foreign office has expected declared that this is not permissible and that the pakistani armed forces alone would have any millitary action considered necessary with pakistan. But all this could be smokescreen for what is really afoot.
American concern about the future of pakistan especially about the danger of islamist fundamentalism spreading from the borderlands to the heartland of the country is genuine. As is their fear that Jihadi terrorists might gain control of the Pakistani’s nuclear weapons. Hilary Clinton, the democratic hopeful for the presidency, was not indulging in loose talk when she pleaded that America and Britain should act jointly to ensure the safely and security of pakistani nukes though she must know that this would infuriate the pakistani’s, including musharraf’s critics, infact the USA should stop considering pakistani’s “discredited dictators” as a key alley in the war or terror but should dump him and let Pakistan freely elect the new democratic government.
Yet the moronic “new-conservatives” in the dying Bush administration continue to regard musharraf as their “best bet”. Even they are aware that musharraf has been playing both ends of the street- keeping the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and occasionally arresting an Al Qaeda leader and handing him over to Americans. Even so while remonstrating with him in private, they have been praising him in public. Now, necessity appears to have made them partners again in interesting crime. The americans realize that in order to get hung national assembly that would enable him to remain dominant as a civilian president acceptable to the army Musharraf would have to be allowed to rig the february 18th election up to a point. Evidently, they would let him do so and ask of a quid pro quo: jointly millitary action in tribal areas by pakistan and US forces jointly.
From all accounts, Musharraf has promised to work with Americans as required. It is certain that he would renage on his promise after his purpose is served. After all, as the respected pakistani commentator, Ahmed Rashid, has pointed out, in realation to the vigorous american campaign to promote a Benazir- Musharraf power sharing compromise, Musharaf “fooled both Benazir and the Americans”, moreover, as there cannot be limited rigging just as there cannot be a limited pregnancy. From Kenya to Georgia, consquences of rigged poles are becoming clear as daylight.
In Pakistan itself Zulfi Bhutto eventually paid for rigging with his life. Musharraf is thus stuck on the horns of a painful dilemma. If he doesn’t rig the election, the new elected assembly would impeach him, if he does rig it, he might invite an explosion in the country that is already on the brink.
Used Volkswagen Winnipeg
Winnipeg Used Volkswagen Passat
Sphere: Related ContentBeghal’s suspected bombmaker was his former flatmate Damoudi , a second generation North African of French citizenship. Daoudi , who escaped the French police, was arrested in Leicester and promptly deported to France at the end of September 2001. A graduate of Al Qaeda’s Afghan training camps, he is thought to have the group’s European encryption specialist for internet communications and the use of codes and ciphers. Nizar Trabeseli , a former footballer , is suspected of being Beghal’s suicide bomber. A member of Takfir Wal Hijra, he had trained in Afghanistan and apparently believed that a “matyrdom” operation wold cleanse his past sins
Winnipeg Used Volkswagen Passat
Where Can I Buy License Frames in Winnipeg
Winnipeg Auto Financing
Three radical clerics of a radical persuasion are based in Britain- Omar Baker Muhammad , Omar Mahmoud Othman ( alias Abu Umr al-Takfiri, Abu Qatada) and Moustapha Kamel ( alias Abu Hamza Al- Masri). After listening to their sermons at least 100 British and European Muslims traveled to Afghanistan and are now being held by the Northern Alliance or are in American custody at “Camp X-Ray”.
In addition to preaching in their own mosques, these Islamic Clerics attracted youths from other mosques throughout the U.K. “Richard Reid”, the “Shoe Bomber” and Zacarias Moussaoui, acuused of being the “twentieth 9 // 11 hijacker , both worshiped at the same Brixton mosque in South London headed by Iman Abdul Haqq Baker a “moderate” and respected cleric.
Sphere: Related Content