Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

Many Thanks to those who wrote or linked. You will not know just how much it means to MB to have friends rally round. It was a long tough last 4 years for PB [PoppaBear], but now MB is continuing the battle for her own life, undergoing chemo right now, with other “stuff” to come afterwards. She’s clawing and scratching her way all along this road - how else to go !!

Again, T H A N K S ! !

In 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini called for a demonstration on the last Friday of Ramadan for the "liberation" of Jerusalem (Al-Quds) and the destruction of the state of Israel. This year the Iranian government together with its radicalised Islamist supporters have called once again to demonstrate in Teheran, Lebanon, Berlin, London, Jakarta, Toronto and worldwide. The Al-Quds Day activities fuel hatred against Jews and strengthen the power of the Islamic dictatorship in Iran and its supporters worldwide. We, the signatories of this call, have different views on the Middle-East conflict, but we are united in our protest against this international day of Islamist propaganda.

Since 1995 an Al-Quds demonstration has taken place every year in Berlin; this year it will most probably take place on October 29th. In the early phase of the Al-Quds movement the slogans like "Death to Israel" were directly calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. After increasingly vocal public protests, the organisers of the Al-Quds manifestations have been trying to use more neutral slogans as a cover for their real intentions. Nevertheless the Al-Quds Day is not a "peaceful demonstration against Israel"! Instead it is the expression of pure hatred, a public manifestation of Antisemitism under the cover of criticism of the State of Israel, as well as an attack on universal values of freedom, equality and emancipation.

Also part of the verbal marathon: A U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a case involving "eminent domain."

That is a concept enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and the constitutions of all 50 U.S. states which allows the government to take private property for a public use, on payment of compensation.

"That just shows you," he said, "that the right to property is not absolute even in the home of capitalism."

Redistribution of land to state-backed farm cooperatives is a key element in Chavez's reforms plans for Venezuela. The opposition says land reform brings Venezuela closer to the model of Cuba, whose leader Fidel Castro is a close ally.

think it’s past time for there to be a changing of the guard in black leadership in America. People like Farrakhan, Sharpton and Jackson are no better than hustlers, bigots, and crooks. There are hundreds of black leaders who believe in improving the lives of black Americans, and America in general, but the media keeps giving time to the Axis of Irrelevancy.

I have no opinion on the specifics -- I'm not African American, I don't consider it my business to tell them who should "lead" them.

In preparation for a guest appearance at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, the marching band at C.D. Hylton High School had a logical and seemingly innocuous idea: play a Georgia-themed song. They decided on "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," by the Charlie Daniels Band.

But early this month, a local newspaper, the Potomac News, published a letter by a Woodbridge resident who, after having seen the C.D. Hylton Bulldawg Marching Band perform the country-western hit at a football game, wondered how a song about the devil could be played at school events, because of the separation of church and state.

Fearing bad public reaction, Hylton's longtime band director, Dennis Brown, pulled the song from the playlist. "I was just being protective of my students. I didn't want any negative publicity for C.D. Hylton High School," he said.

A captured letter shows al-Qaeda positioning itself for a United States defeat in Iraq, but struggling to curb a top leader whose campaign of beheadings and attacks on Shi'a is costing the extremist movement popular support.

The letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's number two, to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, its chief in Iraq, lays down a grand strategy for using post-occupation Iraq as a platform for an Islamic caliphate throughout the Middle East, and ultimately Palestine.

"You might ask an important question," Zawahiri wrote. "What drives me to broach these matters while we are in the din of war and the challenges of killing and combat?"

"My answer is, firstly: Things may develop faster than we imagine," he said. "The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam - and how they ran and left their agents - is noteworthy."

"Because of that we must be ready starting now, before events overtake us, and before we are surprised by the conspiracies of the Americans and the United Nations and their plans to fill the void behind them," he wrote.

What strikes seasoned observers of terrorism is that none of this is revolutionary news. I wasn't at all surprised to read that letter, but I was surprised to see the press treating the substance as a brand new or explosive material. The so-called four-stage plan has been common knowledge amongst jihadists and even "digested" on al-Jazeera: defeating the U.S. in Iraq, declaring the caliphate in the most extended Sunni areas in Iraq, then moving beyond that realm has been a classic plan for some time. A reader of Islamist geopolitics would understand that "extending the jihad" towards Egypt and the Mashreq (translated by Levant) - meaning Syria, Lebanon and Jordan - is the equivalent of spreading within the Sunni realm of the region. The latter move, according to earlier Salafist analysis, should culminate with a clash with the Jewish state. We're talking about the Muslim Brotherhood old song: nothing really innovative, but certainly new to our public, once translated and published.

Dogs are also considered ritually impure by Muslims. In fact, according to this ruling, it's easier to remove the ritual impurity associated with pigs than that associated with dogs.

Abu Dharr [one of the sahaba - companions of Mohammad] reported: The Messenger of 'Allah (may peace be upon him) said: When any one of you stands for prayer and there is a thing before him equal to the back of the saddle that covers him and in case there is not before him (a thing) equal to the back of the saddle, his prayer would be cut off by (passing of an) ass, woman, and black Dog. I said: O Abu Dharr, what feature is there in a black dog which distinguish it from the red dog and the yellow dog? He said: O, son of my brother, I asked the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) as you are asking me, and he said: The black dog is a devil.

Iraq acquired, and still possesses, a remarkable amount of classified and sensitive information about gas centrifuges. It gained considerable experience in gas centrifuges and has had over a decade to ponder its weaknesses and strengths.

Iraq poses a risk in that its centrifuge information could pass to irresponsible agents or other nations, some of which may be seeking nuclear weapons. Even advanced nations would find Iraq's centrifuge information useful to their civil nuclear programs. Few countries have information about 3-meter Urenco centrifuges.

The number of immigrants who have died on the U.S. border with Mexico rose to 460 in the last fiscal year, according to initial figures from the U.S. Border Patrol released on October 2.

From Oct. 1, 2004, to Sept. 30, the close of the 2005 federal fiscal year, 460 people are known to have died while trying to cross the border illegally.

On Tuesday, a reliable diplomatic source in Pyongyang told Tass that a congress of the Korean Workers' Party may be called in North Korea before the end of the year and that a successor of the country's leader would be announced at the forum. According to the diplomat, one of Kim's three sons is likely to be the successor of the supreme power in North Korea. All of them have "approximately equal chances".

Many analysts caution that North Korea...is such a reclusive society that any predictions amount to little more than speculation.