Censorship Update 11/6/2007

Dansk Folkeparti poster with Mohammed drawing


Updated

11/17/2007:

See below for

new material!

Mo-Toons

Gates of Vienna: The OIC Takes Note of the DPP

The Danish People’s Party and its election ad campaign involving the new/old Motoon has not escaped the notice of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The OIC issued this press release a couple of days ago…

Gates of Vienna: The Motoons on the Hustings

Here’s what’s important about this: The threat of Muslim violence hasn’t been part of their deliberations about publication of the cartoon.

The threat of violence should never be a consideration when any group plans peaceful and lawful activities. When you modify your plans in anticipation of a violent reaction, you have ceded control to the Islamists as effectively as if you elected them to the parliament and allowed them to enact the country’s laws.

The simple truth, eloquently stated.


Censorware and Hacking

Armies of Liberation: Yemen Censors Internet Access After al-Badawi Release

Note: Jamal al-Badawi was a mastermind of the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 US sailors.

They re-blocked my website, other news sites and are denying access to all the proxie sites.

Also hacked: Hewar Forums, a dialog forum in Yemen that hosts public figures who respond to questions from members. Hewar asked me to participate. I happily agreed.

(Added 11/7/07):
The Jawa Report - Yemen: “Surrendered” American Elbaneh Receives Terror Verdict In Absentia

So does Yemen have this evildoer in custody - or not? Is their legal system anything more than window dressing? And what else are they trying to cover up by censoring the Net?

USA Today: U.S. technology has been used to block, censor Net for years

Note: This article is from 2/21/2006, but unfortunately, little or nothing has changed since then.

According to this article in USA Today by Kevin Maney, an OpenNet Initiative (ONI) report reveals that Yemen uses censorware from Websense, based in San Diego, and Blue Coat Systems, based in Sunnyville, CA. Burma/Myanmar, the scene of recent widespread protests that were followed by a shutdown of Internet and cellular communications, uses censorware from Fortinet, also based in Sunnyvale.

How about Iran? This is a country that fears an open Internet the way the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz feared fire. When ONI did its study, it found that the predominant Iranian Internet service providers (ISPs) used SmartFilter from Secure Computing of San Jose, Calif.

A peer-reviewed paper published in January by University of Toronto professor Nart Villeneuve names Websense as the filter used by one major Iranian ISP, ParsOnline.

If you hunt around on the Web, you also find that an entity called Ertebatat Faragostar advertises as “the exclusive reseller of SurfControl in Iran.”

SurfControl, based in Scotts Valley, Calif., makes a powerful Web-filtering system.

Requests for comment from Secure Computing, Websense and SurfControl also went unanswered.

The whole Middle East seems to be a gold mine for U.S. Web-filtering companies.

Blue Coat brags in a November press release that quarterly revenue for Blue Coat Middle East leapt 15%, “with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia leading the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries in terms of sales revenue.” The Saudis block political opposition sites, Christian religion sites, pornography and gambling.

Wow. Just wow.


Censorship by Character Assassination

Pajamas Media: Meet Norway’s Answer to Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Racist. Xenophobe. These are just a couple of the epithets Europe’s cultural elite like to hurl at critics of Islamic fundamentalism. Bruce Bawer reports on the character assassination of Hege Storhaug, author of the new book Covered. Uncovered. and a courageous advocate of freedom.

City Journal: Muslim Mau-Mauing, by Rod Dreher

I knew something about ISNA [Islamic Society of North America] and asked Syeed why-if his group truly supported peace and suchlike-its board included members directly linked to Islamic extremism and anti-Semitism, including the notorious Wahhabi-trained Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj. The professorial Syeed dropped his polite mask, shook his fist at me, told me that I would one day “repent,” and compared my question with a Nazi inquisition.

. . . I then joined that Islamic site’s e-mail list-which contained several prominent Dallas Muslims-under my own name. Before the site operators discovered my presence and booted me off, I printed out e-mails in which participants discussed a plan to approach business and religious leaders in town and persuade them to lean on the News’s publisher to fire me as a danger to Muslims. “Dreher needs to be ruined,” one e-mailer wrote. “When people here [sic] the name ‘Rod Dreher’ the image of David Duke should appear in their mind’s eye. So, a campaign must be planned and carefully executed to expose this hate-monger and render him a joke.” Naturally, I publicized the plans and made sure that copies of the e-mails got into the hands of the newspaper’s lawyers. That apparently ended that.

American Thinker: Political Black Ops in Belgium?

James Lewis suspects that much the same may be happening across the pond:

A minor war has broken out in the conservative blogosphere, and it smells suspicious. I don’t have a smidgen of proof for what I suspect, but here’s the story.

. . . But now Charles Johnson, of Little Green Footballs fame, has gotten into a fight with Paul Belien [editor of Brussels Journal]. Forgetting the who-said-what-when minutiae, the question raised by Charles is whether Paul Belien is defending people who are tainted with racist or totalitarian ideas. In particular, the question is whether Paul Belien is too close to the Vlaams Belang party, which is accused of having racist or neo-Nazi associations. LGF is a very good site, and Charles Johnson is understandably passionate about keeping his reputation spotless.

So now we get into a classical hall of mirrors, of claim and counter-claim, and maybe even spy and counter-spy. Because it’s a good guess that the overheated Belgian political scene is full of mudslinging, disinformation, planted stories, and psyops.

. . . It’s a good guess that the Vlaams Belang party has been infiltrated for a long time by government agents. That adds another layer.

Belgium has long been a hotbed of secessionism. The French-speaking Belgians bear deep grudges against the Flemish, and vice versa. It’s pretty bad, much like the American South right after the Civil War.

So in Belgium today, the French-speaking population controls the power centers, while the Flamands work harder, are more productive, and have larger numbers. That doesn’t make the Flemish happy. They are constantly wondering whether to secede from the Walloons.

It is vital therefore, as a matter of survival, for the Walloons to keep the Flemish out of power. Splitting the Flemish vote is crucial, and one way to do that is to tar the most radical Flemish political party.

It is not beyond the ethics of a power elite to smear opponents with the worst political sin in sight, i.e., association with racists and neo-Nazis. . . .

So it’s not impossible that the governing elites are sending agents provocateurs into the ranks of the Flemish Interest party, to parade around in Nazi drag and make nice with White Power sleazoids in the US. . . .

GOV: Disinformation Being Spread by Belgium? (see comments)

Read the comments here for more details. I suspect that Lewis is right, but it’ll be quite awhile before we get to the bottom of this one.


(Updated 11/7/07, 11/17/07)

Anti-jihadist political speech is censored, but…

Incitement to riot and genocide? No problem!

Some activities are not protected under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and there are valid reasons why they are not. Nothing in the US Constitution requires the admission of a flagrantly neo-Nazi foreign national with a reputation for inciting mob violence and who openly calls for genocide. Both the US and Canada have carelessly agreed to let this “performer” in - and he is currently in the US!

TENC: Oppose Fascist Rock Star’s US Tour with the Truth - Part 1

Nazis: Coming soon to a concert venue near YOU!

Jihadist death threats? No problem!

YouTube (Google) ignores complaints and fails to take down a jihadist death-threat video. Think about it: The whole purpose of this video is de facto censorship by intimidation.

The Jawa Report: Video: Muslim Death Threat Against Mosque Opponent

November 06, 2007

Charles Johnson has the details, but here’s the vid. Despite numerous complaints–and a story in the Daily Mail–the death threat remains on YouTube.

My hope is that it remains up only so that the British authorities can look into it. The video not only shows images of the politician, Alan Craig, who opposes the building of the mosque, but of his family as well.

On the negative side, the video is an implied death threat against the family. But on the positive side it is done to the music of Elvis. So, it’s not all bad.

LGF: YouTube Asked to Curb Jihad Videos

Wed, Nov 7, 2007 at 7:50:26 am PST

Some European politicians are asking YouTube to crack down on the Islamic terrorist videos that are all over the site.

LGF: YouTube Jihadi Arrested, Account Still Active

Sat, Nov 17, 2007 at 3:32:36 pm PST

That YouTube jihadi who threatened British councillor Alan Craig has been arrested.

But his account at YouTube is still active.

A man who placed an “obituary” on YouTube of one of the leading opponents of plans to build Europe’s biggest mosque near the London Olympics site has been arrested by police.

The video, “In memory of Councillor Alan Craig”, features the Leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance party, his wife and two daughters. The two-minute video, which has now be taken down, was added by a man calling himself “abdullah1425″…



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Flight 93 “Crescent of Betrayal”: Alec Rawls on G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show 11/6/07, 11-noon EST

G. Gordon Liddy is on it!

Alec Rawls will be on radio show this morning (Tuesday) from 11-12 EST, talking about the many Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the planned memorial.

The show should be a blockbuster.

Tom Burnett Sr. is going to call in. Tom Tancredo, or his press secretary, Mac Zimmerman, may call in.

And YOU can call in: 1 800 GGLiddy

Streaming audio and broadcast stations here. Podcasts here. For the full expose, see Alec’s Crescent of Betrayal book, available for free download until the print edition of the book comes out in February.



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Tancredo condemns continued use of giant crescent in Flight 93 Memorial

Tancredo condemns continued use of giant crescent in Flight 93 Memorial



In September 2005, Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo said that he would not be happy so long as the Flight 93 Memorial still included the giant crescent. He has kept his promise. The crescent is still there, and Tom Tancredo is NOT HAPPY.

Alec Rawls has just received from Representative Tancredo a letter of complaint that Mr. Tancredo sent to Park Service Director Mary Bomar this afternoon. It notes the continued presence of the crescent:

Unfortunately, it appears that little if any substantive changes to the most troubling aspect of the design - the crescent shape - have been made.

And it calls for scrapping the crescent design entire and starting anew:

And while I regret having to contact the Park Service again about this issue, I sincerely hope that you will direct the committee to scrap the crescent design entirely in favor of a new design that will not make the memorial a flashpoint for this kind of controversy and criticism.

Thank you, Tom Tancredo! The full text of Mr. Tancredo’s letter is pasted below.

G Gordon Liddy is on it

Alec Rawls will be on G Gordon Liddy’s radio show tomorrow morning (Tuesday) from 11:30-12:30 EST, talking about the many Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the planned memorial. The show should be a blockbuster.

Tom Burnett Sr. is going to call in. Tancredo or his press secretary TQ Houlton may call in. And YOU can call in:

1 800 GGLiddy

Streaming audio and broadcast stations here. Podcasts here. For the full expose, see Alec’s Crescent of Betrayal book, available for free download until the print edition of the book comes out in February.

A crescent and star flag on the crash site

For those who are not familiar with the memorial debacle, the original Crescent of Embrace design would have planted a bare naked Islamic crescent and star flag on the crash site:

Bare naked crescent and star flag on the crash site

Architect Paul Murdoch’s job is to work with symbols. He did not plant an Islamic flag on the crash site by accident. But even if this were somehow coincidence, it would still be wrong to build the memorial in a shape that the hijackers claimed as their own.

Representative Tancredo was the only Congressman to state the obvious, that “the crescent’s prominent use as a symbol in Islam–and the fact that the hijackers were radical Islamists,” raises the possibility that “the design, if constructed, will in fact make the memorial a tribute to the hijackers.” (Tancredo Press release, 9/12/2005. See Crescent of Betrayal, download 1, page xiii.)

Two days later, Tancredo’s press secretary laid out Tom’s conditions:

… that the congressman would be happy with the changes only if the crescent shape is removed.

Nothing was changed

All the Memorial Project did was add some surrounding trees. Every particle of the original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the Bowl of Embrace redesign. The crescent shape was NOT removed. It was only very slightly disguised:

Crescent/Bowl of Embrace comparison

The graphics were recolored, and a few trees were added outside of the mouth of the crescent (lower left). Every particle of the original crescent and star structure remains. (Click here for site plan view.)

Representative Tancredo was right to demand removal of the crescent. It turns out that a person facing directly into the half mile wide crescent will be facing Mecca. That makes it a mihrab, the central feature around which every mosque is built. You can plant as many trees around a mosque as you want and it will still be a mosque. This is the world’s largest mosque, by a factor of a hundred.

If you want to thank Tom Tancredo for keeping his Flight 93 promise and standing up again for the honor of our murdered heroes, his phone numbers and online email form are here.


Full text of Representative Tancredo’s letter to Park Service Director Mary Bomar

November 5, 2007

The Honorable Mary A. Bomar
Director
National Park Service
U.S. Department of Interior
1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240

Dear Director Bomar,

I am regrettably writing you in reference to the proposed memorial to commemorate the victims of Flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. As you may know, I contacted Director Mainella in late 2005 about my concerns with the design.

The appropriateness of the original design, dubbed the “Crescent of Embrace,” was questioned because of the crescent’s prominent use as a symbol in Islam - and the fact that the hijackers were radical Islamists. As I pointed out in my September 2005 letter, the use of the crescent has raised questions in some circles about whether the design would make the memorial a tribute to the hijackers rather than the victims whose mission the flights passengers helped to thwart.

When I received Director Mainella’s response to my letter on October 6, 2005, I was pleased to read her assurance that the advisory committee and the architect were amenable to “refinements in the design which will include negating any perceptions to the iconography.” I was also pleased to learn that the name of the memorial was to be changed.

Unfortunately, it appears that little if any substantive changes to the most troubling aspect of the design - the crescent shape - have been made. This deeply concerns me. As I told Director Mainella in 2005: Regardless of whether or not the invocation of a Muslim symbol by the memorial designer was intentional, I continue to believe that the use of this symbol is unsuitable for paying appropriate tribute to the heroes of Flight 93 or the ensuing American struggle against radical Islam that their historic last act has come to symbolize.

I remain committed to ensuring that this memorial is a powerful symbol for the whole nation and a testament to the courage and will of the passengers of the flight - as I am sure you are. And while I regret having to contact the Park Service again about this issue, I sincerely hope that you will direct the committee to scrap the crescent design entirely in favor of a new design that will not make the memorial a flashpoint for this kind of controversy and criticism.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Tom Tancredo, M.C.


The phony redesign

To see clearly how the redesign leaves the original Mecca-oriented cescent fully intact, note that the orientation of the crescent is determined by connecting the most obtruding points of the crescent structure, then forming the perpendicular bisector to this line (red arrow):

Crescent bisector points to Mecca

The green circle shows the direction to Mecca (the “qibla“direction) from Somerset PA. It was generated using the Mecca-direction calculator at Islam.com. Just place this qibla graphic over the original Crescent of Embrace site plan and the Mecca-direction line almost exactly bisects the crescent.

Looking closely at the above graphic (click for larger image), you can see that the most obtruding tip at the bottom of the original crescent structure is the last red maple at the bottom. On top, the most obtruding tip of the crescent structure is the end of the thousand foot long, fifty foot tall, Entry Portal Wall. Here is an artist’s rendering of the end of the Entry Portal Wall as seen in the Bowl of Embrace redesign. It shows how overtly this upper crescent tip remains intact in the redesign:

Upper crescent tip unchanged

The redesign only added the extra row of trees on the left, behind the visitors in this graphic. Notice that these trees are not even visible to a person who is facing into the crescent. They do not even affect a visitor’s experience of the crescent, never mind affect the presence or integrity of the crescent itself.



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