Peregrins,, Columbus may 29, 2009~getting ready for bed

this is awesome!!

Getting ready for bed, the kids return to the box for the night...

thanks Skygirlblue!!

Schanzer in American Thinker: "Islamic Speakers Bureau Backed By Radical Profs"

	Middle East Forum May 31, 2009
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Related Articles Will Columbia Tenure Joseph Massad? Meet Ingrid Mattson Coddling Islamists Islamic Speakers Bureau Backed By Radical Profs by Jonathan Schanzer American Thinker May 31, 2009 http://www.meforum.org/2141/islamic-speakers-bureau-backed-by-radical-profs Send RSS Share: A California nonprofit dedicated to "teaching about Islam & Muslims" at U.S. high schools and college campuses features a board of advisors that is stacked with some of the most controversial activist professors in the field of Middle Eastern studies today. The imprimatur of these scholars may signal a troubling shift toward the support of proselytizing efforts and the further unraveling of Middle East Studies in America. The board of Islamic Networks Group (ING) is a veritable Who's Who of Islamist apologists and activists. Leading the list is John Esposito, the founding director of the Saudi-funded Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. He famously stated that the suicide-bombing Hamas organization engages in "honey, cheese-making, and home-based clothing manufacture." Joining Esposito on the ING board is Sherman Jackson of the University of Michigan, who was a trustee at the North American Islamic Trust and worked with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), both un-indicted co-conspirators in the U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation. There's also Ingrid Mattson, a convert to Islam, who is a professor at the Hartford Seminary and president of the un-indicted co-conspirator ISNA. While much of her work is controversial, she is famous for a CNN chatroom interview in 2001 in which she stated that the radical Saudi Wahhabi ideology is "a reform movement" that "really was analogous to the European Protestant reformation." Hamza Yusuf Hanson, who is not a scholar but sits on the ING board, publicly declared his own extremism at an ISNA convention. In 1991, he reportedly delivered a speech titled "Jihad is the Only Way" to the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), which is an arm of the radical organization Jamaat-i-Islami in Pakistan. While Maha El-Genaidi, the founder, president and CEO of ING, does not appear openly to embrace radicalism, she reportedly has worked with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), also an un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case. El-Genaidi also participated in an event sponsored by the Muslim Students Association with Siraj Wahhaj, an un-indicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. ING's reach is wide. Its web site lists more than a dozen affiliated organizations in North America. They reflect a broad network involved in Islamic outreach (da'wa), otherwise known as proselytizing. The list of ING affiliates includes such Muslim outreach organizations as: The Islamic Speakers Bureau of Nebraska; the Islamic Resource Group in Minnesota; the Islamic Education and Resource Network in Michigan; the Islamic Center of Cincinnati; the Organization of Islamic Speakers Midwest Illinois; the Islamic Speakers Bureau of Atlanta; the Kentucky Islamic Resource Group; the Islamic Speakers Bureau of San Diego; and the Islamic Speakers Bureau of Vancouver. Because ING charges nothing for its campus speeches, hosts aren't deterred by financial needs. Thus, with a modest 2007 budget of $356,000, the latest figure available via public tax returns, ING made an astonishing 750 classroom visits in one year, a figure that doesn't include visits to churches, senior centers, corporations, and forums for policemen and healthcare workers. According to a recent ING newsletter, the group reached 14,000 students and adults after public schools and universities responded to a large-scale ING direct mail campaign. ING also disseminates its message through the printed word. Access to the ING online store is now denied for reasons unknown, but a few of the organization's publications are available on the Internet. Among them is Arab and Muslim Stereotyping in American Popular Culture by Jack Sheehan, a former communications professor at Southern Illinois University who was also a visiting professor at Esposito's Center for Muslim Christian Understanding. Another title is Presenting Ramadan and Eid in Elementary School: Grades K-6 Kit for Parents and Teachers, designed to generate excitement about these Muslim holy days through art, music, and "lunar activities." ING also appears to have created a curriculum about Islam for grades 7 through 12. It also appears that the State of California, at least at one point, used ING curriculum. However, the ING links on the California Department of Education website are now dead. There is nothing even vaguely radical on the ING website. The organization's behavior appears to be consistent with its message of pluralism. One might only observe that the organization attempts to whitewash the radical strains of the religion (a common theme in the work of Esposito and Mattson). Without challenging ING's freedom to preach, two important observations should be made. First, it is now clear that some Middle Eastern Studies professors have ceased being observers of Islam and are now engaging in its propagation. Countless analysts have noted that Middle Eastern Studies professors substitute scholarship with apologia for radicalism. Still others openly agitate against the United States or Israel. However, it is rare to see scholars openly lend their support to proselytizing efforts of this kind. It is too early to know whether the scholars on the ING board represent an anomaly or a trend. The motivations of Mattson and Sherman - both converts to Islam - are somewhat understandable. Esposito, a non-Muslim, is more of a mystery. On a more practical level, elementary school, high school, or college administrators mulling a free visit from El-Genaidi's group should be forewarned about the academic engine that powers ING. ING's leading thinkers have a history of cavorting with apologists for radicalism-and the radicals themselves. Jonathan Schanzer, an adjunct scholar at Campus Watch, is deputy executive director of the Jewish Policy Center and author of Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine. Related Topics: Academia, Muslims in the United States, Radical Islam Jonathan Schanzer
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from NY to Israel Sultan Reveals The Stories Behind the News

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Appeasement of Concessions - The Invisible War with Islam Posted: 30 May 2009 07:38 PM PDT "He who sets the terms of the war sets the terms of the peace." While our focus is on the visible war against terrorists and guerrillas in which our armies are engaged in, this war is only the visible war, the tip of a great dark iceberg which reaches far beneath the surface. The visible war we are fighting is the war that the most radical Islamists are carrying forward, it is the war that occupies the bulk of our attention, it is the only war that our leaders officially recognize -- but it is also the war that sets the terms for the invisible war happening daily on our streets, in our schools, in government, university, civil service and throughout our lives. The visible war, the terrorist threat, the car bombings, the shootings, the riots, the stabbings are the threat under which free nations surrender themselves one piece at a time. The goal of the visible war is to make present and clear the threat. But it is the invisible war which extracts the concessions. The invisible war is not waged with guns or bombs. It is waged with reasonable editorials, with suits and benedictions. With smiles and handshakes and reassurances. It is a salesman's pitch that goes something like this. "We want to live in peace. To be your neighbors, to attend your weddings, embrace your families and create a better world. But first this is what we want--" The invisible war. The quiet threat that sets the terms of the peace. The "Muslim Moderates" who seem quite reasonable who come bearing a gift, the message that peace is possible, as long as the proper concessions are made to them. And of course those concessions will be followed by more concessions still. And yet more to come after. And if those concessions are not made, the visible war will follow. There will be riots, bombings, stabbings, shooting. The growing domestic Muslim population, whose presence we are legally not permitted to object to or their deportation to call for, in countries as diverse as England, Australia, Israel, Sweden, Russia and France, will turn hostile and become a weapon in our midst. The invisible war uses the threat of a visible war combined with the threat of the "radicalization" of the "moderate" Muslim population, positioned like self-reproducing Trojan horses within our midst, to enforce concessions in the invisible war. While we chase terrorists around the world, their leaders and our domestic sympathizers are busy setting the terms of surrender in our own capitals and getting their way more often than not. It is easy enough to see the template for it in the countries most seriously affected, a look at Israel, Thailand or the Philippines allows us to total up the final costs that are brought to the bargaining table as terrorist leaders are legitimized to become statesmen and terrorist populations become sovereign nations. But it is not as obvious at the beginning when the butcher's bill has yet to be toted up and the real agenda is still only a whisper in coffee houses, an ink smear on a pamphlet, a hastily recorded speech by an Imam that law enforcement refuses to take seriously. It is not until there is real blood on the streets, when years of conflict become decades of conflict and the toll wears down even the patriot and the hardened soldier, that the real surrender begins and the enemy declares victory in the invisible war. The real threat is not so much in the visible war, murderous as it may be. The visible war may claim thousands and perhaps even millions. But it is the invisible war that destroys countries feeding them up as menu items for the Islamofascist beast. As great a threat as the terrorist is, the phony moderate Muslim is a far greater threat -- for Islamic leaders extract ten times the price of every moderate Muslim, both at home and abroad, demanding money, political power, influence, land, autonomy, positions and control in their name. While we fight the invisible war, Islam exploits the fighting to set better terms in its own invisible war. As long as we give lip service to appeasing moderate Muslims, as long as we turn our energies to appeasement, as long as we allow ourselves and our societies to be held hostage to Muslim rage-- we allow the enemy to set the terms of the war and in doing so set the terms of our own surrender.

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The Latest from National Terror Alert Response Center

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North Korea Preparing For Test Of Long Range ICBM Missile ? Posted: 31 May 2009 12:52 AM PDT North Korea appears to be preparing for a long-range missile test, defying the U.N. Security Council whose members are negotiating a resolution to punish it for its recent nuclear test, Yonhap News Agency reported Saturday, quoting an informed intelligence source. The source, asking not to be identified, said an object that appeared to be an intercontinental ballistic missile ICBM was recently spotted on a cargo train at an artillery research center near Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. “We believe that the object is certainly an ICBM,” said the official, adding that its size is somewhat similar to the one the North fired into the Pacific on April 5. North Korea is believed to have started moving the object to a missile launch pad in Musudan-ri on the country’s east coast, according to the official. “The missile may be a modified version of a Taepodong-2 missile, which can travel over 4,000 km,” the official said. A Taepodong-2 missile is theoretically capable of reaching the western U.S. “It usually takes about two months to set up a launch pad, but the process could be done in as little as two weeks, which means the North could launch a long-range missile as early as mid-June,” the source said. The developments of what appears to be preparations for a missile launch follow Monday’s nuclear test, which drew the international community’s condemnation against North Korea. The test came less than two months after it fired a rocket that the U.S. and its allies say was a disguised form of an intercontinental ballistic missile. The remarks came shortly after a South Korean defense source in Singapore said some activities were spotted at a North Korean munitions factory used to build long-range missiles. Some watchers speculate that North Korea may launch a missile at a time close to a summit set for June 16 between South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama. “There is a possibility that North Korea may push the ‘fire’ button right before or after the South Korea-U.S. summit,” said a key diplomatic official at the presidential office, requesting to be unnamed. Source This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and information.

Taliban Target Britain On Orders From al-Qaeda Posted: 30 May 2009 01:33 PM PDT The terrorist informant has told prosecutors he was trained by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban, and was planning a series of suicide attacks with 11 other men. The informant, known as “Ahmed”, told investigators the bombers were to work in pairs using a “device carried in a backpack with a third person to detonate a remote control” in order to ensure the bombers went through with their mission. Details of the attempted attacks emerged in papers submitted to the Spanish authorities in a case against the alleged bombers, who were arrested in raids in the Raval district of Barcelona in January last year. It is claimed the attacks were to begin on the Barcelona underground system and then spread to the other European countries with a presence in Afghanistan, thought to include Britain, according to new documents. The information echoed claims made by British security services that a terrorist cell was sent to Manchester from the Taliban heartland in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas. British investigators believe that the cell, which was allegedly planning attacks on the Trafford and Arndale shopping centres over the Easter holidays, had connections with al-Qaeda, and Spanish prosecutors say their cell may also have had links with al-Qaeda. The terrorist group is believed to have formed a “holy alliance” with the Taliban to launch terrorist attacks on foreign soil. Instead of relying on British-born men travelling to Pakistan for training, al-Qaeda is now recruiting “ready made” terrorists from among the Taliban, investigators believe. The 10 men arrested in the north west are fighting deportation on national security grounds after Government lawyers accused them of being members of a “UK-based network linked to al-Qaeda involved in attack planning”. Spanish police found chemicals including nitrocellulose and potassium perchlorate along with batteries, timers and cables in the raids. They also found “materials for indoctrination” relating to attacks against Nato forces in Afghanistan and books and DVDs. Spanish prosecutors submitted documents laying out their case earlier this month and Dolores Delgado Garcia, a prosecutor at Spain’s National Court, told the Daily Telegraph she believed the Barcelona cell was inspired by speeches by Osama bin Laden about the “loss of Andalucia” once part of the Muslim Ottoman empire. “Al-Qaeda has been targeting Spain because of its historic associations with Andalucia,” she said. “But other cities in Europe where countries have troops in Afghanistan were also targets.” Explaining her case at a top-level conference organised by New York University’s Centre for Law and Security, she said “Ahmed” had become a “protected witness” and had told them that “Baitullah Mehsud would make demands and when they were not complied with, they would launch their attacks”. Read Full Article This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and information.

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