FRESH HOT PANIC: CHENEY SMACKDOWN

drudge-cheney-panic

DRUDGE REPORT


Oldest Known Globe Depicting the Americas, Fashioned from Ostrich Eggs, 1504

globe-1504

Oldest known globe depicting the Americas, made on two lower halves of ostrich eggs, 1504


Imagine Theres No YouTube

As protests against “The Innocence of Muslims” video span the globe – and U.S. officials pressure YouTube’s owner Google to restrict free expression – Remy imagines a world where politicians cave to angry mobs and dictate what we can see on YouTube.

Imagine (There’s No YouTube)

Written and performed by Remy. Produced by Meredith Bragg.

About 2:30 minutes.


New York Post Honors Iranian Dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

…in its own special New York way…

New York Post


Man Crushed by Steamroller On Orders of Chinese Officials

Villager attempted to resist forced government relocation

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
September 25, 2012

A villager in northern China attempting to resist a forced government relocation by remaining on his land was brutally crushed to death by a road flattening truck on the orders of a Chinese government official.

The story, which was censored in China’s state controlled media, has caused outrage amongst users of Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, given it’s horrifying similarity to what happened to student protesters who were crushed to death by tanks during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

The victim, He Zhi Hua, refused to accept a paltry payment from the government which has forcefully evicted Changsha Village locals in order to re-appropriate their land for commercial use…

via » Infowars


Hong Kong Standoff Over ‘Patriotism’ Lessons Heats Up

A government standoff with students and parents determined to resist Hong Kong’s new lessons in patriotism deepened last night, as thousands of protesters gathered outside the city’s legislative complex demanding the city’s chief executive back down.

Despite calls by protesters, city leader Leung Chun-ying did not make an appearance, and government officials reiterated that the city would continue to move forward with its plans to enact “moral and national education,” which aims to foster a greater sense of patriotism among local residents. Locals worry that the plan–introduced in 2010 by previous leader Donald Tsang–will amount to a form of “brainwashing.” Government-funded education materials praising the Communist Party, distributed among schools earlier this year, have further stoked fears that the initiative will promote only a positive view of China’s one-party state.

One of the city’s 10 hunger strike protesters is taken to a hospital on the first day of the new school term in Hong Kong on Monday.

The thousands of protestors were also assembling to support 10 hunger strikers—which included both students and retirees—who’ve been camped outside the government offices refusing food since Saturday, when up to 40,000 demonstrators rallied in the rain to resist the government’s plan. Though several have dropped out since yesterday afternoon, the rest have vowed to continue their hunger strike indefinitely outside the government offices, backed by dozens of other protesters who have also pitched tents and have been camping there to support them.

“The government ignores our feeling, so I use my body against my government,” hunger striker Ken Chan, 23, a student at City University, told the Wall Street Journal.

While the government has said it wants to listen to protesters’ views, it has refused to abandon plans for national education curriculum, despite anger over the initiative that’s roiled the city for months. Police said last night that 6,500 protesters gathered outside government offices, while organizers put the figure closer to 8,000. In July, another 90,000 residents, including stroller-pushing parents and children, also took the streets to protest the plan…

More >> via  China Real Time Report 


Spy device disguised as rock blown up near Iran nuclear site

A spy device camouflaged as a rock exploded when it came into contact with Iranian troops near an underground nuclear enrichment plant, The Sunday Times reported this week.

Last month, Revolutionary Guards at the Fordo nuclear facility, near the northern city of Qom, came across the rock and attempted to move it, according to sources who spoke to the newspaper…

Spy device disguised as rock blown up near Iran nuclear site.


Free Speech Isn’t the Problem

There is no alternative to the First Amendment

‘No One Murdered Because Of This Image.”

That was a recent headline from the Onion, the often hilarious parody newspaper.

The image in question is really not appropriate to describe with any specificity in a family newspaper. It’s quite simply disgusting. And, suffice it to say, it leaves nothing to the imagination.

Four of “the most cherished figures from multiple religious faiths were depicted engaging in a lascivious sex act of considerable depravity,” according to the Onion, and yet “no one was murdered, beaten, or had their lives threatened, sources reported Thursday.”

“Though some members of the Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist faiths were reportedly offended by the image, sources confirmed that upon seeing it, they simply shook their heads, rolled their eyes, and continued on with their day.”

There was one conspicuous no-show for the celestial orgy: the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.

The Onion’s point should be obvious. Amidst all of the talk of religious tolerance and the hand-wringing over free speech in recent days, one salient fact is often lost or glossed over: What we face are not broad questions about the limits of free

speech or the importance of religious tolerance, but rather a very specific question about the limits of Muslim tolerance and the unimportance of free speech to much of the Muslim world.

It’s really quite amazing. In Pakistan, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories, Christians are being harassed, brutalized, and even murdered, often with state support, or at least state indulgence. And let’s not even talk about the warm reception Jews receive in much of the Muslim world.

And yet, it seems you can’t turn on National Public Radio or open a newspaper or a highbrow magazine without finding some oh-so-thoughtful meditation on how anti-Islamic speech should be considered the equivalent of shouting “fire” in a movie theater.

It’s an interesting comparison. First, the prohibition on yelling “fire” in a theater only applies to instances where there is no fire. A person who yells “fire” when there is, in fact, a fire is quite likely a hero…

More via Jonah Goldberg – NRO


The Terrorists’ Veto

Using riots, mayhem, and murder to “protest” an asinine trailer for an anti-Mohammad video on the Internet, the Middle East’s mobs, assassins, and hostile regimes have vetoed freedom of speech in the United States. Not only did America’s overseas diplomatic officers and staff have to hunker down under siege for a week, individual citizens here at home have good reason to fear that if they criticize the wrong religion, the response could be catastrophic for themselves, for others, or both. Neither the First Amendment nor the United States government, it seems, can do much about it.

I’ve seen this sort of thing before in another context. In the wake of the Beirut Spring in 2005, when massive demonstrations forced the end of Syria’s military occupation, Lebanon had decent provisions for freedom of speech—at least by regional standards and at least on paper. The country was theoretically free. But free speech was extra-legally and extra-judicially nullified by terrorists backed by a foreign police state. A wave of car bombs targeted journalists, activists, and officials critical of Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad. Everyone needed to watch what he said. Those who didn’t might be killed.

This is the terrorist’s veto. Now it’s our turn. A week after region-wide riots started in Cairo, Hezbollah sent half a million supporters into the streets of Beirut’s southern suburbs, ostensibly to protest the trailer for the now-infamous movie on YouTube. The mob screamed the same tired slogans we’re accustomed to hearing—“Death to America” and “Death to Israel”—but Hezbollah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah said something new. “The U.S. should understand that if it broadcasts the film in full it will face very dangerous repercussions around the world.”

Hezbollah is technologically advanced and media-savvy. Nasrallah knows perfectly well that when an individual uploads a video to YouTube, it doesn’t count as “the United States broadcasting a film.” That’s actually his point. He’s not threatening the United States in the abstract. He’s threatening you. If you insult Hassan Nasrallah’s religion on the Internet, terrorists may come after you.

You’re kidding yourself if you think he’s bluffing or that this is just talk. He’s not and it isn’t. There are precedents…

More via The Terrorists’ Veto by Michael J. Totten – City Journal.


Collapse of the Cairo Doctrine

It’s now three years since the Cairo speech. Look around. The Islamic world is convulsed with an explosion of anti-Americanism. From Tunisia to Lebanon, American schools, businesses, and diplomatic facilities set ablaze. A U.S. ambassador and three others murdered in Benghazi. The black flag of Salafism, of which al-Qaeda is a prominent element, raised over our embassies in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Sudan.

The administration, staggered and confused, blames it all on a 14-minute trailer for a film no one has seen and which may not even exist. What else can it say? Admit that its doctrinal premises were supremely naïve and its policies deeply corrosive to American influence?

Religious provocations are endless. (Ask Salman Rushdie.) Resentment about the five-century decline of the Islamic world is a constant. What’s new — the crucial variable — is the unmistakable sound of a superpower in retreat…

More via >>  Charles Krauthammer


Exclusive: Western report – Iran ships arms, personnel to Syria via Iraq

Image

(Reuters) – Iran has been using civilian aircraft to fly military personnel and large quantities of weapons across Iraqi airspace to Syria to aid President Bashar al-Assad in his attempt to crush an 18-month uprising against his government, according to a Western intelligence report seen by Reuters.

Earlier this month, U.S. officials said they were questioning Iraq about Iranian flights in Iraqi airspace suspected of ferrying arms to Assad, a staunch Iranian ally. On Wednesday, U.S. Senator John Kerry threatened to review U.S. aid to Baghdad if it does not halt such overflights.

Iraq says it does not allow the passage of any weapons through its airspace. But the intelligence report obtained by Reuters says Iranian weapons have been flowing into Syria via Iraq in large quantities. Such transfers, the report says, are organized by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“This is part of a revised Iranian modus operandi that U.S. officials have only recently addressed publicly, following previous statements to the contrary,” said the report, a copy of which was provided by a U.N. diplomatic source.

“It also flies in the face of declarations by Iraqi officials,” it said. “Planes are flying from Iran to Syria via Iraq on an almost daily basis, carrying IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) personnel and tens of tons of weapons to arm the Syrian security forces and militias fighting against the rebels.”…

Reuters: Exclusive | More…


Crowd attacks US ambassador in Beijing

Around 50 Chinese protesters surrounded the official car of the United States ambassador in Beijing, who escaped unharmed, according to the US State Department.

 

The melee occurred outside the gates of the US embassy and security guards had to intervene to protect Gary Locke, 62. The protesters caused minor damage to the vehicle.

“Embassy officials have registered their concern regarding today’s incident with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and urged the Chinese Government to do everything possible to protect American facilities and personnel,” the statement said.

The incident happened on Tuesday, while large crowds of protesters were massed outside the Japanese embassy nearby, to demand that Japan relinquish control of an island chain claimed by China in the waters between the two countries…

More via  Telegraph


Thank You Sir, May I Have Another?

I'm dizzy. I need to go lay down...

 

A Pakistani protester died yesterday after inhaling smoke from a burning American flag during an anti-US rally.

Abdullah Ismail succumbed at Mayo Hospital in Lahore a day after attending the fierce protest at the city’s Mall Road, where an estimated 10,000 people rallied.

Witnesses said Ismail had complained of feeling ill after breathing fumes from burning flags, Pakistan’s Express Tribune reported…

Read more…

 


World View: China Declares Economic War on Japan

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com:

  • Japan bolsters defenses as 1,000 Chinese fishing boats approach
  • China declares economic war on Japan
  • Chinese Communist Party urges punitive sanctions against Japan
  • Quote: ‘There won’t be a war because it’s bad for business!’
  • Should we defend Japan against China?
  • Japan bolsters defenses as 1,000 Chinese fishing boats approach

The Japanese embassy in Beijing has suspended passport services and is bolstering its defenses around the Senkaku/Diayou islands, after media reports indicate that a flotilla of around 1,000 Chinese fishing boats was sailing towards them. Hundreds of Japanese businesses and the country’s embassy suspended services in China on Tuesday, expecting further escalation in violent protests over a territorial dispute between Asia’s two biggest economies. Reuters

China declares economic war on Japan

China is trying to hurt Japan economically, to gain leverage in its campaign to take control of the Senkaku/Diayou islands. In the 2010 confrontations, China took revenge on Japan by terminating shipments of rare earth minerals, needed for manufacturing of many of Japan’s electronic products. In the current confrontation, the Beijing government is encouraging the Chinese people to demonstrate and protest against Japanese businesses in China. The government urged protesters not to use violence, but that part of the message is clearly not getting through. Protesters torched a Panasonic factory and Toyota dealership, looted and ransacked Japanese department stores and supermarkets in several cities. China’s National Tourism Administration ordered travel companies last week to cancel tours to Japan over the weeklong National Day holiday in early October. AP and Bloomberg

Chinese Communist Party urges punitive sanctions against Japan

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is urging strong punitive sanctions against Japan, for its “well-orchestrated plan” to take control of the Senkaku/Diayou islands, according to the CCP’s official newspaper:

The “nationalization” of the Diaoyu Islands by Japan after “purchasing” them from a “private owner” is ridiculous and cannot change the fact that they are Chinese territory. … China should take strong countermeasures, especially economic sanctions, to respond to Japan’s provocations. Military consideration, however, should be the last choice.

The United States has frequently used Article XXI Security Exceptions of the WTO (taken from the earlier General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) to impose economic sanctions on other countries. The security exception clause says a country cannot be stopped from taking any action it considers necessary to protect its security interests. That means a country can impose sanctions on enterprises, financial institutions, organizations and even other countries’ central and local governments. Taking a cue from the US’ practice, China can use the security exception clause to reduce the export of some important materials to Japan.

China didn’t announce any sanctions against the Philippines in April, but it froze banana imports from that country in response to Manila’s aggressive attitude in the Huangyan Island dispute. Though the economic countermeasure forced the Philippines on the back foot, it also harmed the interests of some Chinese enterprises.

So it is important for China to devise a sanction plan against Japan that would cause minimum loss to Chinese enterprises.

China Daily

More via World View: China Declares Economic War on Japan