skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Just in case you thought that Egypt was in some way a civilized country, you need to read this; EGYPT: CHRISTIAN CONVERT FROM ISLAM JAILEDOctober 18 (Compass Direct News) - A Muslim sheikh jailed in Egypt for 18 months has declared from his prison cell that he is under arrest for "insulting Islam" by becoming a Christian.
Egypt's secret police transferred Bahaa el-Din Ahmed Hussein el-Akkad, 57, to the Wadi el-Natroun Prison last month. He was told he would remain there indefinitely unless he agreed to work as a government informer against other converts to Christianity.
According to the prisoner's Cairo attorney, Athanasius William, his client remains incarcerated in this desert prison "only because he has chosen a different belief, to be a Christian."
El-Akkad was imprisoned without charges for more than a year after officials of the State Security Investigation (SSI) arrested him in Cairo on April 6, 2005.
He was a sheikh who took the opportunity to educate himself in Islam, really studying it. And what happened?For more than 20 years, the former sheikh was a member of the fundamentalist Islamic group Tabligh and Da'wa, which actively proselytized non-Muslims but strictly opposed violence. He also led a mosque community in Al-Haram, in the Giza area adjacent to Cairo. In 1994 he had published, Islam: the Religion, a 500-page book reviewing the traditional beliefs of the Islamic faith.
But he became disillusioned, and five years ago the sheikh said he began to pray that he could somehow know God personally. It was not until January 2005 that he talked for the first time with someone who explained the tenets of the Christian faith to him. He began intensive study of Christian Scripture, and within weeks he became a follower of Jesus.
"This is a proof to all Muslims," El-Akkad wrote, "that the person who studies the two religions from an objective and serious perspective will choose the Christian approach."
But within two months, word of El-Akkad's conversion to Christianity had reached the SSI, and secret police picked him up without warning from his private trade office.
That is not all.El-Akkad was accused of "insulting a heavenly religion," a misdemeanor under Article 98-F of the Egyptian penal code. So a Cairo court ordered him released on July 30.
After learning of the court-ordered release, El-Akkad's wife and three children waited in vain for him to return home. Ten days later, William finally confirmed that although the convert had been released from prison, he remained in SSI custody in Giza.
Islamic countries are countries without law, only the dictat of a tyrant or an Islamic power.
Islam is the antithesis of all that is civilized, and is in fact a civilizational cancer, destroying any culture that it infects.
Oh, and we in the United States send Egypt $2 billion every year.
To this day, after having been ordered released, El-Akkad remains imprisoned. Pray for him.
Dr. Strangelove of North Korea!!!
Arnaud de Borchgrave has some enlightening commentary on the Dear Monster.
Korea's Dr. Strangelove;Neither Stalin nor Mao Tse-tung nor Adolf Hitler came close to George Orwell's blueprint for a hierarchical world tyranny. The gold medalist in Orwell's "1984" Hades-on-Earth sweepstakes, beyond Stalin's wildest excesses, is diminutive Kim Jong-il whose Mao suits, elevator shoes and Elvis-style bouffant hair only enhance his wicked gnome-like figure.
Judging by the crates of French cognac and Scotch whisky shipped in via Japan, and Mercedes sedans with smoked windows, a handful of high-ranking Kim rogues live high on a starving hog. They had no compunction letting 2 million of their people starve to death in the 1990s.
Back in 1983, Kim Il-sung, picked personally by Stalin after World War II to rule the new Soviet puppet state, the Democratic Popular Republic of Korea, assigned his son Kim Jong-il to organize the liquidation of the South Korean government. The plot fell a little short of the objective. The terrorist bomb he organized to explode at Rangoon's Martyr's Mausoleum murdered only five South Korean ministers on a state visit to Burma and 15 of a lesser rank. President Chun survived.
In August 1976, North Korean soldiers, armed with pipes and axes, bludgeoned and hacked to death two American officers supervising the pruning of a 100-foot poplar tree in the Joint Security Area along the Demilitarized Zone. The "Ax Murder Incident" triggered ...
Go read it all.
BTW: Those 2 - 3 million people that died of starvation in the 1990s were approximately 10% of the population.
Posted by Darth Vag in the comments section at The Jawa Report article arguing for a boycott of Indonesia.
Theresia Morangke, a 15 year old Christian school girl, beheaded by a Muslim in Sulawesi on October 29th of last year.
And, in addition to boycotting Indonesia, we should also boycott Malaysia where the government sides with the Muslim persecutors and arrests the people who have been, or are being, persecuted.
These governments are actively supporting the persecution of Christians. We should not be doing business with them. They have reputations for being "moderate Muslims, but they are not
While Democrats and other liberals™ and leftists™ loudly blame George Bush for the failed nuclear weapons test in North Korea (which laughably calls itself the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the DPRK), the editors of the JoongAng Daily have figured out who is really to blame.
Liberals - stand by to hear the shocking news. It's ... [drum roll] ... Kim Jong-Il!!!
Wow!
At Watching America I found this outrageous headline, Don't Blame the Americans The original is here;Former President Kim Dae-jung and the ruling party blame the United States for the North's nuclear test. This is not true, in short, and this irresponsible argument does not help resolve the current security crisis. Over the past decade, it was North Korea who broke the consensus regarding the North's nuclear development program. In 1991, North Korea adopted a joint statement on nonproliferation with South Korea while developing nuclear arms behind the scenes. North Korea admitted in 2002 that it had been developing nuclear devices even since 1994, when the United States and North Korea agreed in Geneva on freezing the North's nuclear program. Building a light-water reactor was delayed because North Korean submarines infiltrated South Korea. But those who blame Washington for the North's nuclear test are ignoring these facts.
They bring out several important points. Read it all.
Rachel Marsden has an insight, Give Lil' Kim a Hollywood screen test;Reportedly, Lil' Kim's latest tantrum stems in part from the fact that George Bush can't be bothered to schedule bonding chitchats with a murderous, dictatorial, communist lunatic.
So, since the Dear Freak-boy Murderer is frustrated in this, perhaps it is because he missed his true calling; A career in Hollywood is his true calling. Politically, he'd fit right in.
Maybe we can get him on an island-based, Survivor-style reality show with fellow comrades Sean Penn, Barbra Streisand, Michael Moore and the Dixie Chicks? He can even bring his nukes and put them to good use for once, if he gets the urge. Frankly, who wouldn't?
Or how about a Big Brother show with fellow megalomaniacal nutbars,...[Go read the whole thing. - ed.]
In the face of another famine this winter, and with corruption in the armed forces and the secret police, the Dear Monster has decided to establish a new and more credible threat to his neighbors. It was beginning to look like they would no longer have to take seriously North Korea's extortion attempts.
The North Replaces Its Army With Something NewOctober 4, 2006: North Korea is facing a real disaster, and it has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. Famine is back, with the prospect of hundreds of thousands of famine deaths over the Winter. North Korea has put more restrictions on the monitoring of foreign food aid, which has resulted in less food coming in. North Korea says it doesn't care, but for millions of North Koreans on short rations, this is a matter of life and death. It's also a matter of stability. Over a decade of famine and economic upheaval, has shaken the effectiveness of the North Korean police state. Corruption grows year by year, while readiness and discipline in the armed forces declines. The secret police are also on the take, which accounts for the growing number of North Koreans getting out of the country. The corruption has gotten so bad that those who have gotten out, and made some money, can now bribe officials back in North Korea, and get their families out. It appears that everything is for sale in North Korea, although there is less and less to buy.
Conducting a nuclear weapons test will not mean that North Korea has useable nuclear weapons, but does mean that the government means to replace its increasingly unreliable army, with a few nuclear weapons. This is needed to provide a credible threat to South Korea. You cannot run an extortion racket unless you can make a credible threat.
If reports are true, they may have that threat now with indications that North Korea has conducted its first nuclear weapons test.
I have, for some time, been considering buying another 'cello. Not that there is anything at all wrong with the 'cello that I have now, it is a very fine instrument and I am very happy with it. Still, in addition to being the tools that a musician uses to create his art, they are themselves works of art. Few things are as beautiful as a well made violin or 'cello.
I have been surfing the websites of American luthiers. Some of these are great masters. The United States now has the very finest violin and bow makers in the world. One of these is Andrew Carruthers (and no, this is not an ad - he knows nothing of me). To see some very beautiful work, visit his web site, Andrew Carruthers, Violin Maker.
Photographs of his instruments are here.
And, check out how he does some repairs in his workshop.
Click around. There is much more.
UPDATE: David T. Van Zandt has a list of makers with web sites. Many hours of pleasant surfing there.
