IRANIAN Surprise! HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that Iran is set to deliver a "punch" that will stun world powers during this week's 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution. "The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance (Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman (February 11) in a way that will leave them stunned," Khamenei, who is also Iran's commander-in-chief, told a gathering of air force personnel.  ....Happy Happy Joy Joy
The country's top cleric was marking the occasion when Iran's air force gave its support to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a key event which led to the toppling of the US-backed shah on February 11, 1979. His comments came as Iran said it would begin to produce higher enriched uranium from Tuesday, in defiance of Western powers trying to ensure the country's nuclear drive is peaceful. This year's anniversary is expected to become a flashpoint between security forces and supporters of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who charge that the June re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was rigged. Opposition supporters are expected to stage anti-government protests on Thursday when the traditional regime-sponsored marches to mark the revolution take place across the country. Mousavi renewed his call for demonstrations on the February 11 anniversary. Just over a week ago, he and Karroubi had implicitly called for a gathering of their supporters. "The 22nd of Bahman is upon us, truly it should be called the day of gathering," Mousavi said on his Kaleme.org website Monday. "I feel we have to participate while maintaining the collective spirit as well as our identity and leave an impression," Mousavi said. "Anger and bitterness should not take our control away. "The clerics should know that since imprisonment, beatings, and other confrontational methods are done in the name of Islam and the Islamic regime, it is hurting Islam and we all should try to stop," he added. Anti-government protests were first triggered after the June 12 presidential election won by Ahmadinejad. Over the past eight months, several thousand people were arrested. Some were released and others were given hefty prison terms, among them politicians, journalists and human rights activists. Two protesters were tried, convicted and hanged in the aftermath of the election. Khamenei told the air force personnel the "most important aim of the sedition after the election was to create a rift within the Iranian nation, but it was unable to do so and our nation's unity remained a thorn in its eyes."
Nuclear test?
New home built fighter?
Air show of their new attack drones?

via ibloga.blogspot.com

Gay men's evolutionary advantage

the APA said there is no GAY GENE. indeed there is no nature, only nurture when it comes to a person's unobjective biological activities. that means people aren't born gay according to either one of the largest if not the biggest psychological association. assuming demons based on behavior would take away the free will argument that the social left is doing anyway. social liberals and superstitious nuts have so much in common. The cultural opinion of an organization rarely has any influence on my opinion, but the depth of their study is impressive. perhaps if the gay community were more objective then midevil freaks it might help us improve their condition. as offensive as this ritual might seem it pales in how it disgusts me to see the hypocrisy of those that believe that gay men are born that way and fail to apply the standard of judgment towards everyone else. would it seem fair to many of the readers here if I were to say women are born more likely to nurture? it is fair to me, but I suppose my values aren't punitive. my take is that there are many causes that lead to a person's taste. I would rule out Demons and Gloria Steinem however and would not ask any government to set any government contracts like marriage based on such arbitrary abuse.

comments here http://www.facebook.com/MediaAnalysis?v=feed&story_fbid=5003898014583&ref=mf

Naomi Johnson/ The Ottawa Citizen Canadian researchers say they have found evidence in the islands of Samoa to back up the theory that gay men have the evolutionary advantage of being “super uncles”

It's a question which has troubled science since Darwin: if homosexuality is, at least in part, inherited, how are those genes being passed down to new generations?

Canadian researchers say they have found the first evidence to back up the theory that gay men have the evolutionary advantage of being "super uncles", a way of enhancing the survival prospects of close relatives and -- indirectly, at least -- making it more likely their genes are passed on.

Paul Vasey, associate professor in the University of Lethbridge's department of psychology, said his research found evidence that gay men may be more willing to support their nieces and nephews financially and emotionally.

via nationalpost.com

The idea is that homosexuals are helping their close relatives reproduce more successfully and at a higher rate by being helpful: babysitting more, tutoring their nieces and nephews in art and music, and helping out financially with things like medical care and education.

The question of whether homosexuality clashes with evolution has puzzled scientists for decades. The trait appears to be inheritable -- but because homosexual men are much less likely to produce offspring than heterosexual men, researchers have struggled to explain why the genes for the trait weren't extinguished long ago.

"Maybe it's in this way that they're indirectly passing on at least some of the genes that they're sharing with their kin," he said.

Researchers conducting similar studies in the U.S. and England did not find any supporting evidence for the theory, said Mr. Vasey. "So I thought, ‘Well, I'll do it in a non-Western culture and chances are I'm going to find exactly the same results and it'll be the nail in the coffin for this hypothesis,'" he said.

Mr. Vasey and University of Lethbridge evolutionary psychologist Doug VanderLaan spent time on the Pacific island of Samoa surveying women, straight men and the fa'afafine -- men who prefer other men as sexual partners and are accepted within the culture as a distinct third gender category. "Some are so feminine that they pass as women to the naive observer," he said.

Mr. Vasey found that the fa'afafine said they were significantly more willing to help kin, yet much less interested in helping children who aren't family -- providing the first evidence to support the "kin selection hypothesis."

"We argue that this would allow the fa'afafine to distribute altruism toward their nieces and nephews in a more efficient and adaptive manner compared to men and women," he said.

The findings are published online this week in the journal Psychological Science.

Researchers are now trying to establish whether the fa'afafine's professed willingness to help their kin is reflected in their actions by studying whether they give more money to their relatives. "It's a crude measure, but it's a start," he admitted.

"There is this distinction between willingness to do something and then do they actually do it in the real world," he added. "Research takes time, so we don't have all the answers right away."

Mr. Vasey said he was initially shocked by the results, and conducted the questionnaire three times to be certain of the results. "I think I've convinced myself it's real," he said.

Mr. Vasey has a few theories about why researchers conducting similar studies in the U.S. and in England found no difference between the way gay men and straight men treat their nieces and nephews. In Samoa, communities are closer geographically and families are more tightly-knit, while North American families are more dispersed, he said. Homosexuality is expressed differently in Western culture -- where it's also less accepted, he said.

Muslim man wins handshake case in Sweden

Sweden's unemployment agency has been found guilty of discrimination for expelling a Muslim man from a job training program because he refused to shake hands with a woman.

A Stockholm court Monday ordered the Public Employment Service to pay 50,000 kronor ($6,700) in damages to an immigrant from Bosnia who lost his jobless benefits when he was kicked out of the program.
Citing his faith, the man had refused to shake hands with a woman when he was interviewing for an internship. The agency said his behavior was part of the reason he didn't get the position, and decided to exclude him from the program.
The court ruled that the man was discriminated against because of his religion. It wasn't immediately clear whether the ruling would be appealed.

via news.yahoo.com

Do you think a Jewish Guy would be given the same liberty? nope!

No Such Thing as Palestinian Refugees

Hillel Fendel
A7 News
Prof. Nitza Nachmias of the Jewish-Arab Center in Haifa University says that if it wasn’t for UNRWA and its half-billion dollar annual budget, the Palestinian refugee problem would have been solved long ago.
“In essence,” she told Arutz Sheva’s Shimon Cohen on Sunday, “there’s no such thing as Palestinian refugees. If people would stop calling the places in which they live ‘refugee camps,’ then they would see that these places are just like villages and towns anywhere else, and the inhabitants are totally rehabilitated… Refugee camps are like the maabarot [in which Israel housed its hundreds of thousands of new immigrants from North Africa and elsewhere] in the 1950’s or the camps now in Haiti – not the villages with streets and stone houses in what is known as Palestinian refugee camps of today.”“They are rehabilitated better than refugees who are not supported by UNRWA,” Nachmias said. “Practically, factually and legally, there is no such thing as ‘Palestinian refugees.’ … Refugee camps are a fiction, and most of those who claim to be refugees have already been integrated into other countries."
Prof. Nachmias, a senior researcher at the Jewish-Arab Center who also teaches in Asheklon College and the University of Maryland, feels that Israel has taken the wrong approach in dealing with this issue: “We can’t simply push it off to the ‘final status talks’ and say, ‘We don’t accept the demand for the right-of-return because it will destroy the Jewish character of our state;’ what do they care about our Jewish character? If they deserve to be here, then it’s tough luck on us! Rather, Israel should take a pro-active approach, basing itself on international law and precedents, and declare that the Palestinian refugee issue no longer exists. They are no longer refugees!”
Rules for Palestinians are Different?
“According to international law,” Nachmias explains, “a refugee is an individual or family that was forced to run away – but this definition does not extend to children [of the original refugees], a community or a group. The only exception to this rule is the Palestinians, for whom the international laws are apparently different.”
If it wasn’t for UNRWA, Nachmias indicates, the issue of Palestinian refugees would have gone away a long time ago: “UNRWA is [no longer] a welfare agency, but rather an international employment agency for the Palestinians. UNRWA has 30,000 Palestinian employees, with 100 international experts at the helm. It is the biggest employer of Palestinians, and has an annual budget of a half-billion dollars. I discovered documents of pension funds of over a billion dollars a year, managed by brokers in Switzerland. All this for what is defined as a ‘welfare agency’ whose mandate is renewed every three years.”
'Send UNRWA Out'
“Israel must nullify the status of Palestinian refugee camps; there is no other place where the UN controls territory. We must send the UNRWA out and transfer the control of these places to the Palestinian Authority, and then when the status of each individual resident there is reviewed, we will see that none of them match the legal definition of a refugee, and they are established citizens.”
“Only in Lebanon are there refugees who are not allowed to work in certain professions; they are a small fraction of the total.”
Despite the UNRWA’s power and well-oiled financial network, “the world will support Israel in this case because it will also remove the onus of the refugees, and also because Israel can show, if it makes the effort, that it is rooted in international law.”

via docstalk.blogspot.com

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Reuters-Middle East Watch* (R-MEW): Reuters reports on Hamas cash crunch; no mention of leader's $4 million property purchase

Reuters correspondent Nidal al-Mughrabi reports that Hamas has failed to meet January payroll for its 34,000 Palestinian employees:

A senior official at the Hamas-run Finance Ministry blamed the delay on new "technical procedures" under which cash is distributed at post offices and the newly established Palestinian Islamic National Bank.

Perhaps a peek at the Gaza property records might shed some additional light on the problem:

The report, in the independent Kafiyeh network, claims that Hamas Gaza kingpin Ismail Haniyeh has bought property worth $4 million in Gaza and apparently intends to build there. The purchase is reportedly registered in the name of one of his sons. Haniyeh has reportedly purchased real estate for his family members as well, including an apartment for his wife.

"Technical procedures".

via r-mew.blogspot.com

how did these guys get the media to cooperate with them like this? maybe that is another place the money is going?

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Israel Matzav: Amnesty: Putting terrorists' rights ahead of their victims

read more about this here http://xrl.us/JihadWatchAmnestyInternational

Cheer up fellow Israelis. Our country is not the only place in the World where the do-gooders from Amnesty International put terrorists' rights ahead of victims' rights (Hat Tip: Jihad Watch).

A SENIOR official at Amnesty International has accused the charity of putting the human rights of Al-Qaeda terror suspects above those of their victims.

Gita Sahgal, head of the gender unit at Amnesty’s international secretariat, believes that collaborating with Moazzam Begg, a former British inmate at Guantanamo Bay, “fundamentally damages” the organisation’s reputation.

In an email sent to Amnesty’s top bosses, she suggests the charity has mistakenly allied itself with Begg and his “jihadi” group, Cageprisoners, out of fear of being branded racist and Islamophobic.

Sahgal describes Begg as “Britain’s most famous supporter of the Taliban”. He has championed the rights of jailed Al-Qaeda members and hate preachers, including Anwar al-Awlaki, the alleged spiritual mentor of the Christmas Day Detroit plane bomber.

Amnesty’s work with Cageprisoners took it to Downing Street last month to demand the closure of Guantanamo Bay. Begg has also embarked on a European tour, hosted by Amnesty, urging countries to offer safe haven to Guantanamo detainees. This is despite concerns about former inmates returning to terrorism.

Sahgal, who has researched religious fundamentalism for 20 years, has decided to go public because she feels Amnesty has ignored her warnings for the past two years about the involvement of Begg in the charity’s Counter Terror With Justice campaign.

“I believe the campaign fundamentally damages Amnesty International’s integrity and, more importantly, constitutes a threat to human rights,” Sahgal wrote in an email to the organisation’s leaders on January 30. “To be appearing on platforms with Britain’s most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment.”

I wonder why no one at Amnesty has reached the same conclusion about Hamas - another fundamentalist organization - yet.

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Who Are The Real Infidels?

Muslims consider themselves oppressed, but what of it? The armies of Nazi Germany considered themselves oppressed, even as they ground Europe under their heel. The Communist dictators in every land took power on the back of movements formed to fight oppression. Countless hundreds of millions were murdered in the name of the oppressed. Mohammed certainly considered himself oppressed, and the graveyards of the middle east are filled with the whitened bones of the men, women and children who "oppressed" him.

via sultanknish.blogspot.com

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Ahmadinejad discovers Avatar

Every dude with a chip on his shoulder seems to see their own struggle in this popcorn flick. I haven't seen it myself, but everyone should know that it is dictator approved, except in China.

"Wow, dude!", were the first words issued by Mahmoud the Mad after viewing the movie.

"It is like... like my dream come true," he told the journalists afterward, "I always knew that the American shaitan imperialists are bad, but that bad? I mean, watch these poor Na'vi - just like we and our oil, they are protecting their Unobtanium from the Big Satan".
"Uranium? Enrichment? What are you talking about? I am into movies now. The next movie that infidel Cameron will make is going to be under my personal supervision, and see if two of us can't shear these capitalist sheep for $10B! Who needs uranium?" via simplyjews.blogspot.com

Chinese audiences have flocked to theaters to witness the spectacle that is James Cameron's Avatar. Some have reportedly paid $100 for a ticket and waited in serpentine lines for hours. Its immense popularity has even prompted a local official to rename a part of the famous Yellow Mountains after the floating "Hallelujah Mountains" in the movie.

But the film's success in China has yielded controversy. In late January, authorities from the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television pulled the 2-D version of the movie from theaters to make way for Chinese-made biopic Confucius, starring Hong Kong movie darling Chow Yun-Fat.

China's pursuit of hyper urbanization has uprooted city residents from their homes, often without compensation and sometimes just a piddling sum, so new and luxurious high rises can be planted. Often in cahoots with developers, the chengguan pockets kickbacks and summons the police or other henchmen to do the dirty work of people removal. In the blogosphere, commentators immediately recognized the Pandoran Na'vis as victims of involuntary eviction, and the army that descended upon their tree home a cadre of chengguan. Emblematic of the remorseless attitude of these petty officials with outsized power is an incident involving an old man threatening to jump off the roof if he was forcibly removed. To which the chengguan quipped, "Go straight to the top floor. Don't choose the first or second." That quote went viral and was selected by China Daily as one of the top 10 quotes of 2009.

via forbes.com

It is just a stupid movie!

Israel Matzav: Ask Michael Oren a question

Roger Simon will be interviewing Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, on Tuesday morning. The main topic of discussion will be Iran.

Roger invites you all to submit questions. Go here to find out how.

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon's posterous

She Gave Great Head

The gruesome death of Orchard Park resident Aasiya Zubair Hassan — who was found decapitated — and the arrest of her estranged husband are drawing widespread attention, as speculation roils about the role that the couple’s religion may have played.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/02/17/2009-02-17_muslim_tv_mogul_muzzammil_hassans_allege.html

www.flickr.com

Motorola Super Bowl Ad and Sexting | Caffeinated Thoughts

Tonight during the Super Bowl, CBS aired a Motorola Commercial with Megan Fox. I’ve embedded the commercial

below, while it isn’t graphic it wouldn’t be appropriate to watch with kids in the room.

While there were a number of raunchy ads during the Super Bowl this was was incredibly disappointing. Why? Mainly because this paints sexting in a positive light. Sexting is fast becoming a problem among teens. One young man in Perry, IA learned that it can come with criminal consequences as well.

Here it’s laughed at. Ironically CBS back in January reported on this problem:

While it may be shocking, the practice of "sexting" – sending nude pictures via text message – is not unusual, especially for high schoolers around the country.

This week, three teenage girls who allegedly sent nude or semi-nude cell phone pictures of themselves, and three male classmates in a western Pennsylvania high school who received them, are charged with child pornography.

In October a Texas eighth-grader spent the night in a juvenile detention center after his football coach found a nude picture on his cell phone that a fellow student sent him.

Roughly 20 percent of teens admit to participating in "sexting," according to a nationwide survey (pdf) by the National Campaign to Support Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

"This is a serious felony. They could be facing many years in prison," CBS News legal analyst Lisa Bloom said of the six teens in Pennsylvania.

But, Bloom added, "What are we going to do, lock up 20 percent of America’s teens?"

CBS in it’s reporting of this problem couldn’t get the name of the organization who commissioned the study they refer to. It is The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy (not The National Campaign to Support Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy).

The study says that 20% of teens overall have either sent or posted online nude or seminude pictures of video of themselves. With 11% of young teen girls (ages 13-16). Also 39% of all teens are sending sexually suggestive messages via text, email, and IM with 48% of all teens reporting receiving them. Houston we have a problem. So when Lisa Bloom asks, “what are we going to do, lock up 20% of American’s teens?”

No, but we don’t put commercials on your network that encourages the behavior either. Shame on Motorola for making this ad, shame on Megan Fox for participating it, and shame on CBS for airing it.

Also to all parents, if you don’t monitor your kids’ cell phone’s, iPods, PDAs, and computers what the heck is wrong with you?

via caffeinatedthoughts.com

I agree... CBS is bad. Especially considering they tried censoring a Pro Life ad. I'd like to see some accountability, sadly I'm not certain that creating any accountability will help because their poor values will infiltrate any controlled system

personally I don't watch much TV... I'm too busy blog commenting

your kids could use some exercise. they are getting fat... and that won't help them with their Sexting anyway... I'm not sure fat is as in as the marketing people are saying.