Political Incorrectness Warning - "If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed." Benjamin FRANKLIN
Rome, 24th January - UDEUR Senator Nuccio Cusumano announces a vote of confidence in the Prodi government and all hell breaks loose. Tommaso Barbato [party fellow, - ed.] flings himself at him, to be held back by stewards, crying "sold out". Pandemonium breaks out in the House with insults - "shit", "whore" and "faggot" - addressed at Cusumano. The Senator is shielded by colleagues and commissioners, while Speaker Marini suspends the proceedings for five minutes.
And then Cusumano fainted...
His life is not at risk, according to spanish El Periodico.
Update:
Udeur senator Tommaso Barbato (2nd L) is held while being removed from a confidence vote session, for shouting at fellow Udeur senator Stefano Cusumano, at the Senate in Rome January 24, 2008. Prime Minister Romano Prodi made a final plea for Italy's parliament to back his government on Thursday in a confidence vote he looked set to lose, saying the economy could not bear more political uncertainty. REUTERS/Tony Gentile (ITALY)
A swimming pool in northern Sweden has said it will allow women to bathe topless, following a campaign by feminists.
A spokesman for the pool, part of Sundsvall's municipal leisure centre, said that employees there had decided they would not act if women tried to bathe semi-naked.
"We're used to naked people. Nobody cares," Per-Erik Ulander told local paper Dagbladet, adding that women could still be asked to cover up if other bathers take offence.
The Bara Bröst network - which translates both as 'bare breasts' and 'just breasts' - last year started its campaign for women to be allowed to swim without tops by stripping off at a pool in Uppsala. The protesters were ejected from the pool. Since then, campaigners have launched protest actions across the country, which have usually resulted in them being asked to leave.
Exit question: Most certainly topless bathing will upset the feminists. But what will infuriate them most: The news above or this one?
Training. Political correctness training demanded:
A MAGISTRATE who refused to deal with the case of a Muslim woman wearing a veil has been reprimanded and ordered to undergo training in a move branded “ludicrous” yesterday.
Ian Murray walked out of court last summer because defendant Zoobia Hussain was wearing a niqab – a veil covering her entire face apart from her eyes.
Hussain made a formal complaint and yesterday Mr Murray, a JP for 12 years, was handed a formal reprimand by Justice Minister Jack Straw and the Lord Chief Justice.
He was also ordered to attend further training on how to keep to judicial guidance, even though this states that such situations should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
The magistrate's comment on the issue:
Mr Murray, 62, a taxi driver from Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, left the hearing without explaining why, but said later he felt the way Hussain was dressed raised identity issues. He said at the time: “I believe I am not bound by the guidelines and I will withdraw.
“I do not feel that I have to give any reasons. That is my personal view and not that of my colleagues.”
A family friend said later: “Mr Murray strongly believes he has made the correct decision.
“He feels there is no compulsion to wear the niqab on religious grounds as it is not mentioned in the Koran.
“He doesn’t feel it is right to wear the niqab in a court because you need to see the defendant’s face to assess them properly.
“It is also unfair to allow the veil when other people have to show their face. That is not a level playing field.”
The Islamic Human Rights Commission were, of course, thrilled about the reprimand.
The CE marking is a mandatory European marking for certain product groups to indicate conformity with the essential health and safety requirements set out in European Directives. To permit the use of a CE mark on a product, proof that the item meets the relevant requirements must be documented. Sometimes this is achieved using an external test house which evaluates the product and its documentation.
Exit question: Does the EU find the product suitable for a 10-year-old?
Muslim moderates should protest massively in order to shut up misunderstanders of the Religion of Peace like this creature:
DUBAI, Jan 6 (Reuters) - American al Qaeda militant Adam Gadahn urged Islamist militants to welcome U.S. President George W. Bush with bombs when he visits the Middle East this week.
"Welcome him not with flowers and applause but with bombs and traps," he said in an Arabic aside on a 50-minute video posted on the internet on Sunday, which was mostly recorded in English and aimed at the American public.
Islamic extremism in Britain is creating communities which are "no-go areas" for non-Muslims, the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Dr Michael Nazir-Ali warned yesterday. Bishop Nazir-Ali says non-Muslims face a hostile reception in places dominated by the ideology of Islamic radicals.
He also criticised the doctrine of multiculturalism for creating separate communities that fail to integrate into mainstream society. In a wide-ranging attack, Dr Nazir-Ali compares intimidation by Muslim radicals to that by far-right extremists. Writing for The Sunday Telegraph, he condemned the failure to privilege the established church which he says has led to a "multi-faith mish-mash". The Government's integration agenda, he writes, "lacks... a moral and spiritual vision".
Afghanistan's Islamic council dealing with political issues:
Afghanistan's Islamic council has told President Hamid Karzai to stop foreign aid groups from converting locals to Christianity and also demanded the reintroduction of public executions.
Trademark Religion of Peace, also known as the Religion of Tolerance.
Quoting what he said were reliable sources, Ahmad Ali Jebrayeli, a member of the council and also a member of parliament, said unnamed Christian missionaries had offices in Kabul and in the provinces to convert Afghans.
"Some NGOs are encouraging them (to convert), give them books (Bibles) and promise to send them abroad," he told Reuters on Saturday.
The three terror suspects intended to target the partying masses in the New Year's party on the Rotterdam Erasmus bridge, according to well-informed sources involved in the investigation.
The two Moroccans and the Sudanese who were arrested Monday in three residences in Rotterdam West by heavily armed teams of the Special Intervention Unit - just hours before the partying started in the city center - had been followed for weeks by the secret service AIVD and the Rotterdam police.
Just in the past few days it appeared from their internet communications what the Muslim extremists had in mind: a massacre at the crowded hours-long New Year's Party around the Erasmus bridge.
Through the resolute intervention a catastrophe of unknown proportion has apparently been prevented. About 15,000 people attended the party, a mass of people packed together, that was impossible to secure. Special measures had been taken that evening, though, and the visitors were not allowed to step onto the bridge.
The governments lead by worshippers of the most peaceful religion are the most violent:
For now, however, the murder of Benazir Bhutto serves as a painful reminder of how violent politics has become in so many Muslim countries, the very same countries whose citizens pride themselves on the 'abode of peace' and 'Darul Islam', as opposed to the 'Darul Harb' or 'abode of chaos' without. But a simple overview of developments across the Muslim world since the 1970s will indicate that hardly any Muslim country has even made the successful transition to popular representative democracy of any kind: Iran's despotic Shah who ruled with an iron fist was finally ousted from power by student revolutionaries, only to open the way for a new wave of repression by the mullahs who instituted public hangings and the public execution of homosexuals, political opponents and those regarded as 'deviants' by the regime. Egypt's Anwar Sadat was gunned down in public view by members of the Gama'at Islamiyyah, who likewise opted for the radical path of violence.
From Morocco to Indonesia, radical Islamist groups have long since bid adieu to the norms of democratic participation — but not least simply because they have been denied the democratic option themselves.
By conservative estimates, 66,000 women and girls living in Britain have been mutilated. This figure, accepted by the Metropolitan Police, came in a report by a volunteer organisation funded by the Department of Health and carried out with academics from the London School of Tropical Hygiene and the City University.
The writer of the article suggests this barbaric act has nothing to do with religion:
Attempts are also made to justify this iniquitous practice on religious grounds. Some hard-line Muslims insist that women must undergo genital cutting to remain faithful to the purest teachings of Islam - although, in truth, it is not even mentioned in the Koran, and only ambiguously in the Hadith (a collection of oral traditions about the life of the prophet Mohammed).
Several leadings Imams have openly condemned the practice. This, though, does not deter its proponents, who maintain that it is their inalienable right to live according to their traditional beliefs and customs, rather than conform to British values. Indeed, some argue that the freedom to carry out FGM is a fundamental principle of our multi-cultural society.
If that's the case you'll find a lot of misunderstanders of their religion.
And while the women and girls suffer in silence out of fear of being beaten to death if they talk about this horrendous barbarity, another aspect appears: Political correctness:
Usually their visits are well-received, but we found that at least one London council declined to publish material highlighting the suffering and danger the practice causes - for fear of offending ethnic African residents.
This kind of attitude incenses Detective Inspector Hamilton. "We are all becoming very culturally sensitive," she says. "People are a bit frightened of saying 'You can't do this here' because people shoot back with 'But it's our culture'.
Good thing the inspector has backbone in facing the real world:
"But it's not: this is just plain cruel. I won't be put off by the politically correct argument. We have to be seen to be strong on this. I don't care about human rights - I care about the rights of the child. Everything else has to go out of the window.
"We have one rule in child protection: the child is of paramount importance. I stick by that firmly."
Indeed.
Read the whole article. You'll see that this is not a minor problem and the ones who suffer are women and girls only. All because of sex obsessed misogynic men. And their Prophet.
In reality, while many say that there is nothing in Islam which requires female circumcision, one of Sunni Islam’s “Four Great Imams,” Ahmad ibn Hanbal (from whom the Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence takes its name) quotes Muhammed as saying: “Circumcision is a law for men and a preservation of honour for women.”
Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi of Egypt’s Al-Azhar University has called circumcision “a laudable practice that did honor to women.”
Gen. Mansour al-Turki, an Interior Ministry spokesman reached by telephone, said the blogger, Fouah al-Farhan, was “being questioned about specific violations of nonsecurity laws.” Mr. Farhan’s blog, which discusses social issues, had become one of the most widely read in Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Farhan, 32, of Jidda, was arrested Dec. 10 at his office, local news sources reported. Two weeks before his arrest, he wrote a letter to friends warning them that it was imminent.
“I was told that there is an official order from a high-ranking official in the Ministry of the Interior to investigate me,” read the letter, which is now posted in English and Arabic on Mr. Farhan’s blog.
Since his arrest, friends have continued to post entries on his Web log (www.alfarhan.org) on his behalf under a banner that reads “Free Fouad” and features his picture.
“The issue that caused all of this is because I wrote about the political prisoners here in Saudi Arabia, and they think I’m running an online campaign promoting their issue,” the letter continued, saying that Mr. Farhan had been asked to sign a statement of apology.
“I’m not sure if I’m ready to do that,” he wrote. “An apology for what? Apologizing because I said the government is a liar when they accused those guys to be supporting terrorism?”
Qari Hifzur Rehamn, 60, spoke openly of imposing Islamic law’s stoning and beheading on Britain – as Pakistan was rocked by unrest over the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
He warned: “We want Islamic law for all Pakistan and then the world.
“We would like to do this by preaching. But if not then we would use force.”
...
Rehamn, in a flowing grey beard and turban, explained Islamic, or Sharia Law as we sat surrounded by some of his 250 students.
He said: “Adulterers who are married should be buried in earth to the waist and stoned to death.
“Homosexuals must be killed – it’s the only way to stop them spreading. It should be by beheading or stoning, which the general public can do.
“Thieves should have their hands cut off. Women should remain indoors and films and pop music should be banned.”
So what does he think of Britain? The dad insisted: “The nonbelievers must be converted to Islam. Morals in your society, with women wearing revealing clothes, have gone wrong.”
KARACHI, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Benazir Bhutto was poised to reveal proof that Pakistan's election commission and shadowy spy agency were seeking to rig an upcoming general election the night she was assassinated, a top aide said on Tuesday.
Senator Latif Khosa, who authored a 160-page dossier with Bhutto documenting rigging tactics, said they ranged from intimidation to fake ballots, and were in some cases unwittingly funded by U.S. aid.
Bhutto had been due to give the report to two visiting U.S. lawmakers over dinner on Dec. 27, the day she was killed in a suicide bombing.
Maybe Musharraf's spokesman Rashid Qureshi, who labeled these claims as "ridiculous", should not laugh too loud:
Democracy offers the best hope of containing extremism. Yet democracy depends on a fair electoral process and an independent election commission willing and able to implement Pakistan's electoral laws to prevent vote fraud. That is not happening.
"Improvised" voting stations, a pseudonym for ghost polling stations, dot practically every parliamentary constituency. Electoral lists – prepared with financial assistance from USAID – are fatally flawed, with more than 10 million unverified and missing names (clearly enough to "win" or "lose" an election). The sanctity of any future ballot is doubtful against reports that district returning officers have been ordered to disperse 20,000 ballots already marked in favor of pro-government candidates. These bogus votes will be "cast" through the process of double voting in the "improvised" voting stations – in ballot boxes that are translucent rather than transparent.
Mayors continue to control guns and police and government resources and are using them shamelessly to campaign for government candidates. The election commission has asked for "a report" on such malpractices but has taken no concrete efforts to stop them. Politically motivated officials have been placed in charge of the civilian intelligence services and key state posts to manipulate the elections further, although election laws demand that such officials be neutral. An assistant to a former chief minister has been made a returning officer to preside over elections in his area. This complaint is being "looked into" as well, which is simply a fancy way of buying time and doing nothing.
Punjab Province, which elects more than half of Pakistan's parliament, chooses 148 of the members through direct elections, excluding reserved seats for women and minorities. Of these seats, it is believed that 108 have been marked for rigging for government-backed candidates.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - As calls for an international investigation into the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto increase, new details are emerging that suggest that the truth behind her death will be very difficult to uncover.
Within an hour of the attack that killed Bhutto on Thursday, the crime scene in Rawalpindi was cordoned off but washed down with fire hoses. A newly broadcast video of the attack directly contradicts the government's account of Bhutto's death, which was released about 26 hours after she was killed. No autopsy was performed, though the procedure is required in such controversial cases. Witnesses from her political party say they still have not been interviewed. Also, the doctors who tried to revive her are all in hiding.
The full switchover to TCP/IP was performed on January 1, 1983, without too many problems, although a few recalcitrant sites were down as long as three months while they retrofitted their systems.
The TCP/IP protocol was deployed to the ARPANET network with some persuasion, as noted in the emails at the top of the page. Not all sites were preparing to convert over their protocols, so Cerf, Jon Postel, and the TCP/IP team turned off the NCP network channel numbers on the ARPANET IMP’s for a full day in mid 1982, so that only sites using TCP/IP could still operate. To emphasize the point, they disabled NCP again for two days later that fall.
The Internet protocol suite is the set of communications protocols that implement the protocol stack on which the Internet and most commercial networks run. It has also been referred to as the TCP/IP protocol suite, which is named after two of the most important protocols in it: the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), which were also the first two networking protocols defined. Today's IP networking represents a synthesis of two developments that began in the 1960s and 1970s, namely LANs (Local Area Networks) and the Internet, which, together with the invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989, have revolutionized computing.
More here and here. http://january-1-tcp-ip.blogspot.com/ http://byrev.net/2008-01/january-1-tcpip-switchover/
