Saudi Islamic Law professor: “Kill the TV station owners!”

Via MEMRI, an interview with Yousuf Al-Ahmad, Professor of Islamic Law at Al-Imam University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Saudis who own TV stations -including al-Arabiya– should face trial in an Islamic court and execution for spreading immorality and disorder in the land. Remember, this man is an acknowledged expert in Islamic Law and, in his opinion, these station owners pose a worse threat than the Jews:

Sheikh Yousuf Al-Ahmad: […] “I believe that one of our problems is that we continue to bury our heads in the sand, and talk about ‘Lebanese’ TV channels, as if we are being honest. Take LBC, for example. We all know who owns it. We should say to [the owner] Al-Walid bin Talal: Beware. The same is true of MBC TV, Al-Arabiya TV, the ART and Rotana channels – all these [Saudi] channels serve to destroy Islam and the Muslims.

[…]

“Regarding these base channels that I have mentioned, and others like them – I have no doubt whatsoever that their danger to the Islamic nation is no less than that of the Zionist Jews, or of the Crusader Americans in Iraq and elsewhere.”

Interviewer: “What led you to such an extremist view? Note that you are equating channels owned by Muslims, by Saudi citizens, with the Jews.”

Sheikh Yousuf Al-Ahmad: “I wasn’t equating them. I said they are more dangerous. I was being precise. In my view, the deadly poison that they are spreading has reached the bone marrow.

[…]

“The people who spread corruption in the land – whether highway robbers, drug dealers, or the owners of these TV channels, who are even more dangerous… These channels broadcast corruption and nudity. They are all people who spread corruption in the land, and they should be tried in an Islamic court of law and sentenced to death. This [fatwa] is clearly in accordance with Islamic law. There’s no doubt about it.”

The esteemed sheikh goes on to explain how killing the station owners is in accord with Islam and Allah’s will, and he scoffs with contempt at the idea that Islam is a religion of “tolerance and leniency.” Bear that in mind the next time an apologist for Islam tries to tell you that it is a religion of peace and tolerance, or that it’s compatible with democracy and the principles that underlie it. (It isn’t, not if one is to practice it as Muhammad intended.)

LINKS: Jihad Watch provides the Qur’anic citations for Sheikh Al-Ahmad’s opinions.

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‘Cuda Watch

According to the dearly-held beliefs of liberals and the cocktail conservatives, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is an irrelevant has-been and a hick. A nothing and an embarrassment to the Republican Party who should just go away and hunt moose.

Which explains why the CLSA Investors Forum in Hong Kong invited her to be their featured speaker:

Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Alan Greenspan have spoken at the event, hosted by brokerage and investment group CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets.

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“Our keynote speakers are notable luminaries who often address topics that go beyond traditional finance such as geopolitics,” company spokeswoman Simone Wheeler said in a statement.

“We just felt it would be a fabulous opportunity for CLSA clients to hear from Mrs. Palin,” Wheeler said, adding that CLSA approached Palin with the offer.

She said the conference aimed to present investors “a diversity of views that potentially influence decision-makers who help shape the markets.”

Yeah, she’s irrelevant all right, which is why the Democrats and the media take any chance they can to slag her.

You betcha. 

(via Dr. Melissa Clouthier)

Must resist … flatulence jokes….

As I’ve said before, the stupidity of our enemies is often our greatest ally in war:

Saudi tightens security to protect oil plants

Saudi Arabia has tightened security at oil facilities after the country’s anti-terror chief, Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, escaped a suicide attack, guards at Abqaiq, the world’s biggest oil processing plant, said yesterday.

“Thursday night we received a call to tighten security and car inspection at all gates,” one guard said. “Even Aramco employees undergo inspection. There’s a lack of trust as militants disguised in Aramco’s cars attacked the facility in 2006,” he said.

Interior Minister Prince Nayef yesterday defended the policy of enticing “repentant” militants after one tried to assassinate his son, but warned there could be more attacks ahead.

“The security efforts and strategy that the country is following will not change,” Prince Nayef said in Jeddah. “This incident will not change this policy by which we open the door for those who repent.”

Al Qaeda, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for the suicide attack and said that the bomber, Abdullah Hassan Taleh Al Asiri, had managed to pass security checkpoints and board a private aircraft, Site Intelligence said yesterday.

A statement posted on jihadist forums by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said Al Asiri passed through checkpoints at Najran airport, near the Yemeni border, and Jeddah airport, the US monitoring service said.

He then boarded Prince Mohammed’s private jet with his explosives, according to the statement, which said he finally blew himself up amongst the prince’s guards. The site also published a picture of Asiri.

Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV said Asiri was a 23-year-old Saudi whose brother Ibrahim was also on the wanted list.

It said the attacker concealed the explosives in his anus, allowing him to evade detection.

The network also quoted an expert as saying that the method of concealment aimed the blast away from the target, while blowing the bomber to bits.

I probably wouldn’t call that one “silent but deadly.”

(via Iraq the Model)

Seen on vacation with a Pina Colada

From the Daily Mail, news that a team of IBM researchers has managed to photograph a single molecule:

It may look like a piece of honeycomb, but this lattice-shaped image is the first ever close-up view of a single molecule.

Scientists from IBM used an atomic force microscope (AFM) to reveal the chemical bonds within a molecule.

‘This is the first time that all the atoms in a molecule have been imaged,’ lead researcher Leo Gross said.

The researchers focused on a single molecule of pentacene, which is commonly used in solar cells. The rectangular-shaped organic molecule is made up of 22 carbon atoms and 14 hydrogen atoms.

In the image above the hexagonal shapes of the five carbon rings are clear and even the positions of the hydrogen atoms around the carbon rings can be seen.

To give some perspective, the space between the carbon rings is only 0.14 nanometers across, which is roughly one million times smaller than the diameter of a grain of sand.

Click through to see the picture. Perhaps as amazing as the photo itself is how it resembles the classic diagrams of molecules we’ve all seen in chemistry texts.

Neat! 

Yes, he really said that

White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton tried to make a funny when talking about President Obama’s plans to go to Camp David after a week at Martha’s Vineyard:

Obama will head to Camp David on Wednesday, Sept. 2, and stay through the weekend, White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters in a Thursday briefing.

Joking that it may have been “wishful thinking” to suggest Obama’s current trip out of Washington would coincide with a news-free week, Burton quipped that the president needs a “break from his vacation.”

Quite the comedian, eh? Don’t get me wrong: I don’t begrudge Presidents time away from the White House. It’s a very stressful job, and they never really escape it. But then Burton kept going and showed why he should have a lounge act in Vegas:

On Monday, Burton pointed to former President George W. Bush’s vacation habits to defend scattered criticism of Obama’s August schedule.

“As I recall, the previous president [took] quite a bit of vacation himself, and I don’t think anyone bemoaned that,” Burton said.

William Jacobson takes notice and says “Oh, really?”

Funny guy, that Mr. Burton.

How to rescue ObamaCare

Charles Krauthammer argues that the current Democratic proposals for health-care reform are dead. If they want to pass anything that they could call a victory, they need to junk the current schemes and come up with a new plan. Call it ObamaCare 2.0:

…Make health insurance universal and permanently protected. Tear up the existing bills and write a clean one — Obamacare 2.0 — promulgating draconian health-insurance regulation that prohibits (a) denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, (b) dropping coverage if the client gets sick, and (c) capping insurance company reimbursement.

What’s not to like? If you have insurance, you’ll never lose it. Nor will your children ever be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions.

The regulated insurance companies will get two things in return. Government will impose an individual mandate that will force the purchase of health insurance on the millions of healthy young people who today forgo it. And government will subsidize all the others who are too poor to buy health insurance. The result? Two enormous new revenue streams created by government for the insurance companies.

And here’s what makes it so politically seductive: The end result is the liberal dream of universal and guaranteed coverage — but without overt nationalization. It is all done through private insurance companies. Ostensibly private. They will, in reality, have been turned into government utilities. No longer able to control whom they can enroll, whom they can drop and how much they can limit their own liability, they will live off government largesse — subsidized premiums from the poor; forced premiums from the young and healthy.

It’s the perfect finesse — government health care by proxy. And because it’s proxy, and because it will guarantee access to (supposedly) private health insurance — something that enjoys considerable Republican support — it will pass with wide bipartisan backing and give Obama a resounding political victory.

Sounds brilliant, doesn’t it? Simple, seductive, almost irresistible. Rather than the bloated, laden with mines legislation now being pushed, Congress simply mandates private coverage for all and provides subsidies for those who can’t afford it. (Never mind the constitutional questions.)

There’s a doozy of a catch, however, a big, fat worm hidden at the core of this oh-so-sweet looking apple. There always is. Read the whole thing to find out. And remember Maine.

TANGENT: Krauthammer’s point three essentially agrees with and validates Palin’s death panel metaphor. So why the elitist nastiness in telling her to “leave the room?”

Time for a revolution?

They just don’t get it in Sacramento, do they? After telling them in no uncertain terms last May that we are taxed enough and won’t tolerate any more until the state gets serious about controlling spending, the Mandarins of the Golden Dome and their creatures in the Franchise Tax Board have decided to do it anyway, but by a different route. Instead of raising taxes, they’ll lower the breakpoints between rates so that, without ever getting a raise, we can qualify for a higher rate:

While Californians are still feeling the sting of income and sales tax hikes signed into law earlier this year, now comes news that state tax authorities plan to take a little more from their pockets.

For only the second time in 30 years, the tax board is lowering the point where each tax bracket begins, bumping many people into a higher category. At the same time, officials are cutting back some deductions.

Everyone will pay more, even people whose bracket or income doesn’t change.
The extra sums will total as much as $140 per family, on top of the increases previously enacted.

Bear in mind, as the cited article mentions in passing, this comes after other measures to “enhance revenues:” a deal to end last year’s budget crisis raised income taxes to nearly 10% at the top rate and sales taxes to 9.75% in many counties. Then the government decided it needed the money faster, so it decided to accelerate the rate of withholding. And now this latest move makes it a trifecta.

Think about this: the nation is in the worst recession in nearly 30 years, and California is worse off than most – state revenues are crashing and unemployment has reached 11.9 percent. (PDF) Businesses are fleeing the state to escape the high cost of doing business here – and taking jobs with them. Many who haven’t lost their jobs are facing pay cuts.

So what do these morons in Sacramento do? They decide to take even more money from the people and from businesses, money that instead could have been used to buy goods and services – and create productive jobs. Genius, sheer frakking genius!

Not ever do they even consider doing what’s truly necessary: reducing expenditures to meet revenues, lowering taxes to let more money flow into the economy, and generally removing the barriers to doing business and creating jobs. Yes, reducing expenditures to meet revenues would hurt – a lot. A lot of people dependent on state subsidies in one way or another would be hurt as the subsidies are cut off. A lot of state workers would have to be laid off and state services curtailed. It would be painful as Hell.

But because of the insane spending and borrowing binge this state has been on for more than a decade, using short-term revenues to make people reliant on promises of social nirvana but not having the means to pay for it long-term without more taxing and more borrowing, there is no other way to restore California’s economic health in the long run. Like a chronic alcoholic, it has to go cold-turkey or it will never break the habit.

But the oligarchs in Sacramento won’t do it. They have neither the desire nor the political will, after years of selling the people a social-democratic acid trip. And since they won’t do what’s required, the only thing left is a revolt at the ballot box. Off with their political heads!

We started it last May, voting down those tax-increasing ballot measures. Evidently they still don’t think we’re serious, so it’s time to show them how serious we truly are. It’s time to vote them all out of office and replace them with true representatives, men and women who understand what the state needs and what the people want – and who don’t treat the people as terrorists.

So, as the 2010 campaign approaches, talk to the candidates for the Assembly, for the State Senate, and for statewide office. All of them, of whatever party. Ask them where they stand on taxation, spending, and borrowing. Don’t accept weasel words – demand specifics.  And let them know that, if they want your vote, you want their personal commitment to a break with the past and a return to sensible, sane governance.

California can’t afford any more of this madness.

LINKS: Hot Air.

Technorati tags: California, taxes, jobs, recession, unemployment