Islam

A battle of wits between two men named Christopher took place in Berkeley, California, on May 24. Unfortunately, one contestant came embarrassingly unequipped, so much so that by the end, he chose to not even respond.

Break out the cashews and your favorite libation, sports fans, because this debate between former New York Times Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges, and the never at a loss for words Christopher Hitchens was one for the ages.

The following video is an edited compilation of key moments as prepared by our friend at Zombietime (h/t Allah). What follows is ZT’s transcript of this video. However, the reader is highly encouraged to view all of the videos of this event created for your viewing pleasure:

Frank Gaffney's film "Islam vs. Islamists" -- ripped out of PBS's post-9/11 film series "America At The Crossroads" like unsightly hair off PBS's back -- has now found a distributor in Oregon Public Broadcasting. Is that good news? It might be good that more of the public might have a chance to see it. But its new distribution deal with OPB means it's completely optional for PBS stations to air it, and whenever they want -- like 3 AM on a Monday morning. That's a far cry from the prime-time national PBS feed, with all the public-relations weight that the "Crossroads" series managed.

In The Washington Post, Paul Farhi framed the tale with a narrative of bald-faced intervention by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is supposed to just hand over the money to PBS and shut up, like a kid who gets his lunch money stolen daily. The PBS elite talks a phony game of artistic integrity and independence, but it's a liberal sandbox, and if you don't have something liberal to say, your ball gets taken away. We might offer some kudos to the Post for noting the deal, and letting Gaffney speak:

Video update below- 11:52 EST:

 “Entertainment Weekly's” online site, EW.com, is usually politics-free, but not this week. Who would have thought that EW's “Lost” blogger could inject a little Bush Derangement Syndrome into a review of the show's May 23 season finale? Somehow, writer Jeff Jensen managed to find a way (spoilers ahead).  

In case you aren’t a “Lost” viewer, here’s what you need to know to help explain this article about the show's season closer entitled “Through The Looking Glass.” Ben, the leader of the Others, intercepted the retreating Losties to negotiate with their leader Jack. Three Losties stayed behind to attack the Others’ but were taken hostage in the process. Ben threatened to have them killed by their captors if Jack didn’t follow his demands. So, now that the scene is set up, here is the BDS in full glory (emphasis mine):

During Monica Goodling's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee testimony Dem congressman Steven Cohen of Tennessee quizzed the former Justice Department official regarding her Christian faith and the law school at Regent University, founded by Pat Robertson, that she attended.

An internet search reveals brief references to the interrogation in articles by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post and Maura Reynolds in the Los Angeles Times. But I saw no coverage of the grilling on any of the morning news shows, nor have CNN or MSNBC picked it up as far as I have noticed.

I'm setting forth the actual transcript below, taken from this article, with the following changes. In place of "Regent" university, I'm substituting the name of an apocryphal Islamic university, which I'm calling "Prophet." In place of Christian or Christianity, I'm substituting Muslim. And in place of God, Allah.

Now imagine what kind of MSM uproar there would have been if a Republican congressman had posed these questions to a person of Muslim faith.

Congressman: And it says you went -- chose Muslim universities in part because they -- value they placed on service. What was the other [reason] that you chose Muslim universities?

Update at bottom with video link- 18:10 EST:

Why should a country go to the effort of spying on America when all they have to do is follow the US media? USA Today reported a database of phone calls and the New York Times publically exposed the SWIFT banking transaction database; both were used to combat terrorism.  Now on the May 22 edition of ABC News’ the Blotter, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito revealed another national security-related secret (my emphasis throughout):

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

We reported yesterday about the evolving headline for an AP story on a poll showing a quarter of American Muslim males think that terrorism is sometimes justifiable.

Well now Ace of Spades took it a step further, taking a wider look at how other news agencies are similarly downplaying the alarming statistic with headlines that spin the results positively.

It's worth the read, although I have noticed that at least one headline has changed since Ace's post:

New York Times reporter Kareem Fahim reported on an open house conducted by a New Jersey mosque connected to the Fort Dix Six terrorism investigation in Saturday's Metro section ("Open House At Mosque Of Suspects Proves Tense"). His slant was apparent throughout the story, as the Times once again soft-pedaled the radical Islamic origins behind the terror plot.

"The man sat in the back row of the mosque, his arms folded, unsure whether his hard opinions would change.

"'I'm concerned about the Muslims,' the man, Richard Smekal, 68, said just before an open house at the mosque, the Islamic Center of South Jersey, where four of six men accused of plotting to kill soldiers at Fort Dix had worshiped.

Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs has identified a rather interesting phenomenon at Yahoo this morning.

As the website reported on the results of a just-released Pew Research Center survey of Muslim Americans, the headline continued to change:

One hour and 52 minutes ago, the headline was:

Most U.S. Muslims reject suicide bombings.

Thirty-five minutes ago, the same story was re-released:

Some US Muslims justify suicide attacks.

Will it change again? The second headline is actually less politically correct than the first, so stay tuned...

And here’s the fabulous punch line:

Michelle Malkin takes issue with an AP headline that downplays some frightening numbers in a new poll of Muslim attitudes towards suicide bombing. (updates posted below)

"Most U.S. Muslims reject suicide bombings," AP reports.

Here's what should be headlined from the article about a new Pew poll (which you can find here):

Headline:

"One in four younger U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings to defend their religion are acceptable at least in some circumstances..."

Headline:

If the six men charged with planning to attack Fort Dix a few weeks ago all had ties to mosques in southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, would this be newsworthy?

Well, America’s press outlets didn’t seem to think so, for with little exception, this bit of information went largely unreported.

In fact, according to Google news and LexisNexis searches, the only major outlet to report both mosques involved was the New York Times on May 14, albeit page one of Section B (h/t WOR’s Steve Malzberg, emphasis added):

On the May 21 edition of "The View," co-host Rosie O’Donnell responded to the fall out from her moral equivalency rant on Thursday. Rosie claims some cable news outlets "twisted" her words, and then got personal with token non-liberal Elisabeth Hasselbeck, calling her critics the "crappy shows" that "Elisabeth watches."

"But I didn't say it. You know who said it? Those crappy cable shows said it. The ones Elisabeth watches. Those shows."

Hasselbeck harshly reacted to those comments and it prompted Rosie to personally attack her more.

HASSELBECK: I watch all cable news, number one. I watch all of the, because that's part of my job and as an American citizen I try to broaden as many concepts as possible by watching all those news programs, okay. I do, obviously, like, like certain shows. I'll throw them out if you want me to. Like "Hannity and Colmes," they're one of my favorites, because they hold debates [applause] They hold debates on that show and I think that is, that is like what we do here only, you know, we have four women. And I think it's special here. But to say that, you know, someone can't hold two thoughts at the same time just because I believe in terrorism when there are Democrats out there running for office who don’t want to believe in terrorism and they want to treat it like the boogeyman. How are they going to protect us from something--

If the AP didn’t write about it, it didn’t happen, right? In an article about a topic I blogged earlier in the week here at Newsbusters, the AP also reported it, but with a different angle. The Primary Source, a conservative newspaper at Boston’s Tufts University was charged with harassment and creating a hostile environment on campus by publishing what the paper called political parody; they were found guilty of the charges by a disciplinary panel. The catch is, the AP worded it in a way that only reported half the story and ignored the paper's other harassment complaint that the panel was judging-at the same time-a fact-based satire of Islam.

If you've ever wondered why stories critical of Islam are often dropped off sites like YouTube and Digg, look no further than this email currently being circulated among YouTube users encouraging the formation of a private group to promote Islam through gaming YouTube's favorites system:

From: ...
Date: May 14, 2007, 11:18 AM
Subject: salam

to all muslim brothers and sisters please read

Our Islamic videos will not get full attention unless they come in the top ranked videos in youtube. For this purpose we all Muslims have to rate the videos to 5 stars and have to add them to our favorites. This will not be achieved if we Muslim Youtubers are scattered, i.e., one muslim rating one video and other muslim rating another. So we have to be highly organized. We will do a massive campaign of focusing to rate a single video collectively at once, so that it can show up on the top videos at least in the “Today’s top videos” list.

Little Green Footballs has more on the infamous "Mullah Mouse" TV program geared towards Palestinian children and running on Hamas TV.

The Islamic supremacist character was back on the air Friday as LGF's Charles Johnson notes:

The monstrous clone of Mickey Mouse used by Hamas to teach children violence, hatred, and Islamic supremacism was back on the air yesterday. Hamas issued a statement with the usual toxic mix of whining victimhood and murderous threats; MEMRI TV captured and translated the latest episode of this nightmarish Islamic children’s show.

And the media, meanwhile, continue to make excuses and cover for this depravity, in story after story that claims the evil mouse is doing nothing more than teaching “resistance against Israel.” It’s more disgusting than the show itself.

Update 17:27 | Matthew Sheffield. As Charles notes here, Friday's show featured Farfur cheating on his homework in school because "the Jews destroyed our home." Here's the clip:

 

 

New York Times reporter Alan Feuer, seen on Times Watch last May giving respectable coverage to a convention of "Bush-caused-9-11" conspiracy nuts, went to enormous (and erroneous) pains on Monday to soft-pedal the Muslim beliefs of the Fort Dix terrorist plotters in "Two Mosques Are Shaken by Ties to a Terror Plot."

"It is unclear what role, if any, religion played in the attack Mr. Shnewer and the five other men are charged with planning. (The sixth suspect, Agron Abdullahu, had no apparent connection with Al-Aqsa or the South Jersey Islamic Center.) The authorities have described the suspects as Islamic extremists, but the lengthy criminal complaint summarizing the F.B.I.'s 15-month undercover investigation of the group does not mention where -- or how often -- they prayed. Certainly there is no evidence that they picked up radical ideas at either mosque."

PBS won't let the general public watch "Islam vs. Islamists," however blogger Roger Simon has seen it and was quite impressed:

I have to admit the first thing that attracted me to Martyn Burke’s “Islam vs. Islamists” was that PBS had suppressed it. As is now well known, the Public Broadcasting network rejected Burke’s documentary - produced with Frank Gaffney and Alex Alexiev for the network’s “American Crossroads” series - on the film’s completion. PBS’ initial explanation for this blackballing was that the film was not good enough, aesthetically.

 

The big story of the week has been "Mullah Mouse," the hate-spewing Palestinian children's character whose show on Hamas television encouraged kids to kill non-Muslims to help establish world Islamic domination.

You would think that CNN would have wanted to get in on some of that news. It's controversial. The visuals are great and it's eminently topical.

The network did finally cover the story (saying the mouse "reaches out" to children as Ken Shepherd reported yesterday) but the day before, Headline News host Glenn Beck was thwarted in his attempts to cover the story, all over some minuscule nit-picking in the translation. CNN's politically correct staff stopped him from making the report over a single word. Beck discussed the problem on his radio show Wednesday. Click the video above to watch his story. (Hat tip: LGF)

"Recruiting the next generation of militants. A Mickey Mouse-like character reaches out to Palestinian children."

That's how CNN's Jim Clancy, co-host of "Your World Today" teased a May 9 story about the infamous rodent that hosts an Hamas-funded TV show geared towards little children. (see related NB post here)

Video (0:34): Real (960 kB) or Windows (1.06 MB), plus MP3 (492 kB).

After the theme music for "Your World Today" concluded, Clancy and co-host Rosemary Church took turns setting up the terror mouse story.:

Diane Disney Miller, the only surviving child of Mickey Mouse creator Walt Disney, condemned a Palestinian rip-off that has been used to glorify terrorism and murder to children. She called the character, named Farfur, "pure evil." (h/t LGF)

Diane Disney Miller said she was disgusted that a rip-off of her father's iconic cartoon character was being used on a new Hamas TV show to encourage Palestinian children to take up arms against Israel and America.

"Of course I feel personal about Mickey Mouse, but it could be Barney as well,'' Ms Miller, 73, told the New York Daily News.

"It's not just Mickey, it's indoctrinating children like this, teaching them to be evil,'' said Ms Miller, who owns a winery in northern California.

The New York Times is still adjusting badly to conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy's big win in the French presidential election over Socialist candidate Segolene Royal, judging by reporter Craig Smith's report from Paris on the thuggish violence that occurred after Sarkozy's big win ("Hundreds Are Arrested in Post-Election Riots Across France").

Instead of blaming the rioters, Smith implied that furthur violence could be blamed on Sarkozy keeping his campaign promises.

"Violent protests against the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as president of France ended early Monday after hundreds of people were arrested, hundreds of cars gutted, and hundreds of windows smashed in several cities across France.

Following the election of conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy to France's presidency, there have been a series of riots from angry protesters upset at his victory. Unfortunately, it's a little hard to know much about the rioters due to the French government's passing a law that makes it a crime to report on riots unless you are a professional journalist:

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law, which came exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday on the night of March 3, 1991. The officers’ acquittal at the end on April 29, 1992 sparked riots in Los Angeles.

Did you know that the Palestinian Authority believes Al Qaeda-linked groups are trying to assassinate Palestinian political leaders and are responsible for Sunday's deadly attack on a co-ed children's festival at a UN-run elementary school in Gaza? What about the attackers using sharia law as the reason? No? Well, if you weren't reading a handful of the foreign press, you wouldn't know. What little US reporting there was, as is often the case,  was based on the AP. Unfortunately, the AP omitted any Al Qaeda references, the rise of Salafism [which the article explained is a branch of Islam that is often referred to as Wahhabism—"a derogatory term...” to many adherents] as well as the “other al-Qaida-linked groups” terrorizing Gaza and the resulting violent enforcement of sharia:

The Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh led with what should be the most important parts of this story, especially to US readers (emphasis mine throughout):

Palestinian Authority security officials accused supporters of al-Qaida in the Gaza Strip of carrying out Sunday's attack on a UNRWA-run school [U.N. Relief and Works Agency] in Rafah in which one person was killed and six others were wounded.

"There is no doubt that al-Qaida is operating in the Gaza Strip," a senior PA security official said. "Today's attack carries the fingerprints of al-Qaida." (...)

A while back, Brent Bozell pointed out how NBC had systematically removed all Christian themes from the popular "Veggie Tales" cartoon show. I wonder how the good folks at NBC would feel about this video from Palestinian TV which uses a Mickey Mouse-type figure to teach suicide bombing to young children.

Update 11:44. Video link removed as it was overwhelming LGF. I'll have a workaround in a moment. See story below:

The Hamas Television is using a clone of Disney’s Mickey Mouse to teach children to hate Israel and America, and aspire to Islam’s inevitable and impending world domination.