Random Rants of a Trout

Hardly use this site, but.........................

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:36:24 GMT

Yes! All the Pullips listed below are still available. And yes - I am willing to deal.

Been a LOOOOONG time, but....

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:33:25 GMT

still have all the Pullips listed below if anyone is interested.
Thanks!

Pullip Dolls for Sale

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:46:00 GMT

Alice is MINT, NEVER BEEN OUT OF THE BOX, in fact - I never even have opened the box. This is the "original" Alice - i.e blue dress, white rabbit, cards, etc.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cemphotos/2310759486/

I am hoping for at least $350.00 + shipping. If you are not in the US, I would like to ship her whatever method can be insured since she is my one and only Alice - i.e. no way to replace her!).

I also have some other girls that I am willing to part with, at the right price, of course!

BLANCHE - She is soooo pretty, but.......MINT in box. I paid $90.00, so that is what I will ask + shipping.

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/7531/blachenrfbmj1.jpg

Rovam - with all her pirate stock, been out of the box, but didn't even redress her. This doll is a sweety! *$175.00 + Shipping.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cemphotos/2437143450/

******* CUSTOM DOLLS ***************

A customized version of Noir that I bought a while back. Cannot remember from whom, so if you were the artist that is why I am not giving you the credit due.

She is a real cutie! Her wig needs to be combed and fully attached (I had her in a black wig for the last month or so).

All the clothes and little bear are included.

I have a box for her, but it is from a Tae Yang.

asking $100.00 + shipping.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cemphotos/2677595159/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cemphotos/2677594825/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cemphotos/2678410340/

Another Custom - She was originally a Little Red Riding Hood (LRRH) -
new eyes, which means she cannot blink or close her eyes.
Comes with her LRRH stock clothing, but no basket or wine/bread.

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/2942/042yf.jpg

asking $100.00 plus shipping

I think I may have a box for her, but it would not be her original box.
I bought her a while back from someone in Portugal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Re-ments Animals $3.00 each, all still in plastic wrapping + shipping.

** Pick a free one with a doll**

raccoon: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cemphotos/2298621599/

mice: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cemphotos/2299418694/in/photostream/

hedgehog: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cemphotos/2298621585/in/photostream/

monkey: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cemphotos/2298621517/in/photostream/

ferret: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cemphotos/2299418630/in/photostream/

McCain for President

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:58:04 GMT

Just got to say it - I LOVE Sarah Palin!

Another Islamic Wack Job!

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:49:45 GMT

Dad charged with reluctant bride's 'honor killing'

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A Pakistani man is charged with killing his 25-year-old daughter in Georgia because she wanted out of an arranged marriage, police said.

Chaudhry Rashid, 54, of Jonesboro, an Atlanta suburb, is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday afternoon to face murder charges in the death of Sandeela Kanwal, according to court records.

He was arrested early Sunday, after his wife called police at about 2 a.m. She reported that she had been awakened by screaming but couldn't understand the language, a Clayton County police report said. She said she was afraid and left the house to call police.

Officers found Kanwal dead in an upstairs bedroom of the home, according to the police report.

Rashid's wife told authorities Kanwal recently had been married in Pakistan -- an arranged marriage, she said. The young woman's husband was living in Chicago, Illinois, police said, but Kanwal remained at her father's home and worked at a metro Atlanta Wal-Mart for a brief time.

"The victim was not interested in marrying, nor remaining married to her husband," the police report said, citing information authorities received from Rashid's wife. "This was causing a great deal of friction between the victim and her father," so much so that the two had not spoken in two months, the report said. Watch how an arranged marriage ended in violence »

Police found Rashid sitting behind a vehicle in the driveway, and he seemed "distraught and possibly mournful," the report said. He told police, "My daughter is dead." But when asked how she died, Rashid did not answer -- "he just dropped his head."

Ligature marks were found on Kanwal's body and police found an iron and cord by the doorway of her bedroom, where she was found. A necklace was found downstairs next to what appeared to be a prayer table.

"Apparently she and the father had argued over the marriage and the fact that it was arranged, and at some point during the altercation he did end up killing his daughter," said Clayton County police spokesman Tim Owens.

Neighbor Veronda Luckett said the family has always been "relatively quiet." She said two females were seen at the home, and "they seemed to be decent, lovely people."

So-called "honor killings" -- the slaying by family members of a woman or girl thought to be bringing them shame -- are usually kept quiet, making it difficult to determine how frequently they occur. The United Nations Population Fund estimated in September 2000 that as many as 5,000 women and girls fall victim to such killings each year.

"My immediate reaction was that this is an anomaly in the South Asian community," Ajay Nair, associate dean of multicultural affairs at Columbia University, told CNN Tuesday. "Most South Asian-American families enjoy wonderful relationships within their families."

"I think there's ways that we can rationalize it and make sense of it, particularly in thinking about new immigrant communities in the U.S. and thinking about some of the struggles that they face and the generation gap and the cultural differences that children do face," he said. "I think there are some issues there, but by and large, this isn't a rampant problem within South Asian communities. What is a problem, I think, is domestic violence, and that cuts across all communities."

Nair said he believes a "significant human rights campaign" is needed to address such killings.

"I think more people need to recognize this as a global issue. It's not just a U.S. issue. I think it happens across the world, and I think people need to recognize domestic violence and any kind of violence related to women as a serious, serious issue."

More Islamic Madness!

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:20:55 GMT

Yemen child bride Nujood Ali gets divorce

Delphine Minoui / For The Times

Nujood Ali, 10, stands near her home on the outskirts of Sana, Yemen. Her father gave Nujood's hand in marriage to a man three times her age.

The 10-year-old was married off to a man in his 30s who abused her. She made her way to a courthouse, found a lawyer and broke free.

By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 11, 2008

SANA, YEMEN -- The little girl was waist-high, so small that the lawyers, clerks and judges hurrying through the courthouse almost missed her.

As lunchtime arrived and the crowds of noisy men and women cleared away, a curious judge asked her what she was doing sitting alone on a bench.

"I came to get a divorce," 10-year-old Nujood Ali told the jurist.

Her impoverished parents had married her off to a man more than three times her age, who beat her and forced her to have sex, she explained. When she told her father and mother that she wanted out of the marriage, they refused to help. So an aunt provided her with bus money to travel to court and seek a divorce.

Within days of that April 2 encounter, Nujood's tale and the plight of child brides in Yemen made international headlines. And thanks to the efforts of human rights lawyer Shada Nasser, who took up her cause, the girl at the center of the story has begun to overcome her trauma and dream of a better life.

Yemeni law sets the age of consent at 15. But tribal customs and interpretations of Islam often trump the law in this country of 23 million. A 2006 study conducted by Sana University reported that 52% of girls were married by 18.

Publicity surrounding Nujood's case prompted calls to raise the legal age for marriage to 18 for both men and women. Yemen's conservative lawmakers refused to take up the issue. But the case sparked public discussion and newspaper headlines. Several more child brides came forward, including a girl who sought a divorce last week in the southern city of Ibb.

"This case opened the door," Nasser says.

Nujood says that at first, she felt ashamed about what had happened to her. "But I passed through that," she says, eyes narrowing beneath her black head scarf.

"All I want now is to finish my education," she adds, her mouth curling into a smile. "I want to be a lawyer."

The girl is being identified in this story because her name already has been widely publicized in Yemen, and neither her parents nor her lawyer objected.

Nujood's unemployed father, Ali Mohammed Ahdal, has two wives and 16 children. He is among the many tribal Yemenis who have migrated to the capital looking for work. Instead, he found misery.

He arranged to have Nujood married in February to Faez Ali Thamer, a thirtysomething motorcycle deliveryman from his native province, Hajja.

Nujood's parents say they were trying to do what was best for their daughter and didn't even receive a dowry, a claim many Yemenis don't believe. The parents say the groom had promised he wouldn't have sex with her until she reached puberty.

"We asked him to raise her," said Shuaieh, the girl's mother.

The groom has disputed that claim.

Ahdal, in his mid-40s, says he wanted Nujood to avoid the fate of two of his older sisters. One was kidnapped by a rival clan and another wound up in jail for trying to defend her, an example of the murky intertribal disputes that bedevil Yemen.

"I was trying to protect her," Ahdal says during an interview in his family's decrepit two-room flat on the capital's outskirts.

Nujood looked forward to getting married, not understanding what it really meant. Aside from being a pre-adolescent bride, she is a fairly typical little girl. She likes playing hide-and-seek and tug-of-war with her friends and siblings. Her favorite colors are red and yellow, she says, and her favorite flavors are chocolate and coconut. She loves dogs and cats and dreams of being a turtle so she could swim in the sea.

"I've never seen the sea," she says.

About 40 people attended the wedding in the village of Wadi Laa, where the groom lived. As a wedding gift, she received three new dresses and a $20 wedding ring. She was to live with him and his family.

The trouble started on the first night, when he demanded that they share a mattress. She resisted, walking out of the room, only to have him follow. Sometimes he beat her into submission. For weeks, she cried all day and dreaded the nights, when he would enter the room, blow out the oil lamp and demand sex.

"I asked him not to sleep next to me," she recalls. "He told me, 'No, we sleep together in the same room. Your father agreed to accept me as a husband.' "

On a visit weeks later to her parents' house in the capital, she wept, saying that her husband was doing unmentionable things to her.

Her father said there was nothing he could do.

"My cousins would have killed me if I dishonored the family by asking for a divorce," he said.

But her mother's sister discreetly advised her to go to court.

The bewildered judge who found Nujood on the bench decided to bring her to his house for the weekend. His daughters had a swing and toys she'd never seen. They had satellite television, and for three days she feasted on cartoons.

Once the workweek began, the judge dispatched soldiers to arrest Nujood's father and husband. He placed Nujood in the care of an uncle, her mother's brother.

Still, the lawyers and judges had no idea how to handle her case. Nujood and her uncle languished in the courthouse for days until a middle-aged woman, the only one in the courthouse without an Islamic headdress covering her face, approached them.

"Are you Nujood?" asked Nasser, the lawyer, among Yemen's leading women's rights activists. "Are you the one asking for divorce?"

She was, Nujood replied.

"I couldn't believe my eyes," Nasser says. The girl reminded her of her own daughter, Lamia, 8.

Nasser went to the cell where Thamer, the husband, was being held, and was shocked by the age difference between the two. "Why did you sleep with her?" she demanded. "She's a little girl."

He didn't deny it, Nasser recalls. Instead he complained that Nujood's father had said she was much taller and better looking than she really was.

Nasser vowed to Nujood that she would take her case without pay and that she would take care of her. She took her to her upscale home and offered to let her stay there.

Outraged, Nasser also called her contacts at the Yemen Times, the country's English-language newspaper. The story of the brave little girl who went to court on her own to stand up for her rights captivated the country. News agencies picked up the story and sent it around the world.

When a sympathetic judge agreed to hear her case several weeks later, reporters packed the courtroom.

Verbally, Judge Mohammed Ghadi was merciless to the husband.

"You could not find another woman to marry in all of Yemen?" he demanded.

But legally, there was little he could do. No provision in Yemeni law provides for prosecution on sexual abuse charges within a marriage. Not only did the husband and father go free, but Thamer demanded $250, the equivalent of four months' salary for a poor Yemeni, to agree to a divorce.

A sympathetic lawyer donated the cash.

Nujood was elated. "She was smiling," Nasser recalls. "She said, 'I want chocolate. I want pears, cake and toys.' "

Nasser bought her some new clothes. Donations began pouring in, with several wealthy Europeans offering to pay for her education. One newspaper held a big party for her. A Yemeni journalist gave her a cellphone.

When the controversy died down, Nujood insisted on going back to live with her parents, most likely because she is very close to her sister Haifa, 8. Her father promised that he would not marry off Nujood or any of her sisters.

The girl has refused to see a psychologist or a gynecologist. She says she doesn't like doctors. And besides, she says, the experience has made her stronger and wiser.

She says she's had enough of marriage and domestic life, and looks forward to beginning third grade and pursuing dreams she never knew she had.

"I want to defend oppressed people," she says. "I want to be like Shada. I want to be an example for all the other girls."

Writer's Block: Personality Trait = Trouble

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:54:07 GMT

What personality trait has gotten you in the most trouble?

View 500 Answers

Being BLUNT

Culture tied to Islam is WACKED

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:53:06 GMT

Blaming the victim: Abused Afghan women often end up in jail

By ALISA TANG, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 41 minutes ago

Trafficked across the border from Pakistan with her 3-year-old son, Rukhma was handed to an Afghan who raped and abused her, then beat the toddler to death as she watched helplessly.

He was jailed for 20 years for murder, but Rukhma ended up in prison too.

Rukhma, who doesn't know her age but looks younger than 20, had put up with her mistreatment for three months last summer before seeking protection and justice from authorities. Instead she was given a four-year sentence on Dec. 5 for adultery and "escaping her house" in Pakistan, even though she says she was kidnapped and raped.

The fall of the Taliban six years ago heralded new rights for Afghan women: to go to school or get a job, and be protected under the law. Women's rights are now enshrined in the constitution.

Yet except for a small urban elite, a woman fleeing domestic violence or accusing a man of rape herself often ends up the guilty party in the eyes of judges and prosecutors.

"Why am I here? I'm innocent," Rukhma said, crying in a musty jail cell and cradling a baby daughter by her previous marriage whom she bore in prison. "It is cruel to have your son killed before your eyes and then to be imprisoned."

In parts of Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, where stern social codes prevail, a woman who runs away from home is typically suspected of having taken a lover and can be prosecuted for adultery. Simply leaving her house without her family's permission may be deemed an offense — as in Rukhma's case — although it is not classified as such under Afghanistan's penal code.

The chief prosecutor of eastern Nangarhar province who oversaw Rukhma's case suggested she got off lightly.

"If my wife goes to the bazaar without my permission, I will kill her. This is our culture," Abdul Qayum shouted scornfully during an interview in his office in the city of Jalalabad.

His colleagues laughed approvingly. "This is Afghanistan, not America," Qayum said.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission registered 2,374 cases of women complaining of violence in 2007, compared with 1,651 in 2006 — a sign that more are seeking help.

Family response units have been established in the police force, and there are tentative signs of sympathy in officialdom — at least in the relatively liberal capital, Kabul.

At a Kabul hospital, a 16-year-old girl who is too scared to give her name is recuperating from reconstructive surgery after her husband cut off her nose and ears, bashed out all but six of her teeth with a stone, and poured boiling water on her.

In-laws from southern Zabul province want to take the girl home, but the hospital director refuses to hand her over.

"This brother-in-law comes every day. He says, 'Let me take her home. She's OK now,'" Dr. Ghairat Mal said. "I don't trust him. The Ministry of Women's Affairs brought her to us, and I won't let her go unless they take her."

Kamala Janakiram, a U.N. human rights officer in eastern Afghanistan, said that in 70 to 80 percent of the cases she has seen, a woman complaining of domestic violence is charged as a criminal for running away from home.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said many rape victims are forced to marry their attackers or are jailed for adultery because proving rape is virtually impossible.

Women can end up in prison simply on the basis of gossip, said Manizha Naderi, the director of Women for Afghan Women, an aid organization. "It's a horrible, horrible practice."

Fear of returning to a violent spouse drives some women to suicide.

Janakiram cited the case of a young village woman in Laghman province who was shot by her husband and left to die.

She survived, but the provincial judge refused to hear her plea for a divorce and insisted that local elders resolve the matter.

Janakiram said the woman was so scared of being forced to return to her abusive husband that on Jan. 30, she set herself ablaze in front of the Laghman court. She had burns on 98 percent of her body and died a week later.

Naderi told of a 16-year-old girl kidnapped from her engagement party by three men and raped, after which her fiance called off the engagement.

"The whole village blacklisted her and said, 'It's your fault. Why did you go with them?' She was a lost soul because she was raped," Naderi said.

Rather than approach police, some women seek a reconciliation through village elders or aid organizations.

Orzala Ashraf, an Afghan women's rights activist, said that usually gets the woman home but can leave her vulnerable to abuse or even death at the hands of male relatives bent on saving family honor.

"The woman will be more humiliated than before because she violated the family rules: You never discuss family problems outside the family circle," Ashraf said.

Rukhma, who goes by only one name, is still hoping an appeals court will free her.

Sitting on the prison floor with a black scarf over her hair and shoulders, she described being married in Pakistan as a preteen to an abusive man, who fathered her son, Bilal.

She said she divorced him and married another Pakistani man by whom she became pregnant last year. Then, she says, a female neighbor kidnapped her and delivered to an Afghan man named Yarul who claimed her as his wife and raped her for three months.

One day she overheard Yarul finalizing a deal to sell her to another man, who wanted her but not her son.

Scared of losing Bilal, she ran away one day late last summer. When Yarul found her and took her home, he beat her and the toddler relentlessly.

She said the boy was placed under a blanket, barely conscious, blood dripping from his mouth.

"When I lifted the blanket, he looked up and saw his mother. I could see that those were going to be his last breaths, and then he died. That was the last time we looked each other in the eyes," she said, her voice cracking, her face crumpled in grief. As she cried, so did the newborn daughter of her second marriage, lying in her lap.

When police came to arrest Yarul, they arrested her, too.

The prosecutor, Qayum, acknowledges that Rukhma was raped by Yarul but still maintains she shares the blame.

"She spent several nights with the man," he said. "She committed adultery. It was rape, but the woman is also guilty."

Killing in the name of Allah!

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:04:15 GMT

Not a joke: Saudi father murders daughter for using Facebook

By Michelle Malkin • April 1, 2008 09:38 AM

In Afghanistan, it’s dancing on TV. In Saudi Arabia, the new forbidden thing is Facebook. Add it to the long, endless list of stuff Muslims don’t like. Yeah, I wish I were kidding you:

A young Saudi Arabian woman was murdered by her father for chatting on the social network site Facebook, it has emerged.
The unnamed woman from Riyadh was beaten and shot after she was discovered in the middle of an online conversation with a man, the al-Arabiya website reported.
The case was reported on a Saudi Arabian news site as an example of the “strife” the social networking site is causing in the Islamic nation.

Saudi preacher Ali al-Maliki has emerged as the leading critic of Facebook, claiming the network is corrupting the youth of the nation.
“Facebook is a door to lust and young women and men are spending more on their mobile phones and the Internet than they are spending on food,” he said.
The woman was murdered in August but her death was highlighted following Maliki’s comments. Social customs and religious rules oblige women in Saudi Arabia to cover their head and figure with a veil so that men are not distracted by the female form.
Critics also allege that Facebook is an avenue for the promotion of homosexual relations in Saudi Arabia. More than 6,500 people have signed the online petition in a bid to stop the conservative Muslim kingdom following Syria in banning access to the network from local internet servers.
There are estimated to be more than 30,000 Facebook users in the oil-rich kingdom. Many Saudi women use nicknames and post comic images or drawings on their pages instead of photographs. Some Saudi bloggers have dubbed the network “Faceless”.

That’s soon to be “Headless,” if the Religion of Perpetual Outrage prevails.

***

Flashback: A Saudi woman in America posted her real photo on Facebook a few years ago and stirred up a storm

.http://ayshak.blogspot.com/2007/04/few-weeks-ago-i-posted-like-casual.html

Writer's Block: Neurotic Behavior

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:22:05 GMT

What is the one thing you're most neurotic about?

View 500 Answers

Cleaning. I hate doing it, but I hate dirt even more.

Hillary the LIAR - Not someone you want as President

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:23:18 GMT

March 26, 2008

Hillary Clinton: Truth or Consequences

Posted: 10:14 AM ET

Hillary Clinton has many admirable qualities, but candor and openness and transparency and a commitment to well-established fact have not been notable among them. The indisputable elements of her Bosnian adventure affirm (again) the reluctant conclusion I reached in the final chapter of A Woman In Charge, my biography of her published last June:

“Since her Arkansas years [I wrote], Hillary Rodham Clinton has always had a difficult relationship with the truth… [J]udged against the facts, she has often chosen to obfuscate, omit, and avoid. It is an understatement by now that she has been known to apprehend truths about herself and the events of her life that others do not exactly share. ” [italics added]

As I noted:
“Almost always, something holds her back from telling the whole story, as if she doesn’t trust the reader, listener, friend, interviewer, constituent—or perhaps herself—to understand the true significance of events…”

The Bosnian episode is a watershed event, because it indelibly brings to mind so many examples of this tendency– from the White House years and, worse, from Hillary Clinton’s take-no-prisoners presidential campaign. Her record as a public person is replete with “misstatements” and elisions and retracted and redacted and revoked assertions…

When the facts surrounding such characteristic episodes finally get sorted out — usually long after they have been challenged — the mysteries and contradictions are often dealt with by Hillary Clinton and her apparat in a blizzard of footnotes, addenda, revision, and disingenuous re-explanation: as occurred in regard to the draconian secrecy she imposed on her health-care task force (and its failed efforts in 1993-94); explanations of what could have been dutifully acknowledged, and deserved to be dismissed as a minor conflict of interest — once and for all — in Whitewater; or her recent Michigan-Florida migration from acceptance of the DNC’s refusal to recognize those states’ convention delegations (when it looked like she had the nomination sewn up) to her re-evaluation of the matter as a grave denial of basic human rights, after she fell impossibly behind in the delegate count.The latest episode — the sniper fire she so vividly remembered and described in chilling detail to buttress her claims of foreign policy “experience” — like the peace she didn’t bring to Northern Ireland, recalls another famous instance of faulty recollection during a crucial period in her odyssey.

On January 15, 1995, she had just published her book, It Takes a Village, intended to herald a redemptive “come back” after the ravages of health care; Whitewater; the Travel Office firings she had ordered (but denied ordering); the disastrous staffing of the White House by the First Lady, not the President — all among the egregious errors that had led to the election of the Newt Gingrich Congress in 1994.

On her book tour, she was asked on National Public Radio about the re-emergence of dormant Whitewater questions that week, when the so-called “missing billing records” had been found. Hillary stated with unequivocal certainty that she had consistently made public all the relevant documents related to Whitewater, including “every document we had,” to the editors of the New York Times before the newspaper’s original Whitewater story ran during Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

Even her closest aides — as in the case of the Bosnian episode18 years later — could not imagine what possessed her to say such a thing. It was simply not true, as her lawyers and the editors of the Times (like CBS in the latest instance) recognized, leading to huge stories about her latest twisting of the facts. “Oh my God, we didn’t,” said Susan Thomasas, Hillary’s great friend, who was left to explain to the White House lawyers exactly how Hillary’s aides had carefully cherry-picked documents accessed for the Times in the presidential campaign. The White House was forced — once again — to acknowledge the first lady had been ‘mistaken;” her book tour was overwhelmed by the matter, and Times’ columnist Bill Safire that month coined the memorable characterization of Hillary Clinton as “a congenital liar.”

“Hillary values context; she does see the big picture. Hers, in fact, is not the mind of a conventional politician,” I wrote in A Woman In Charge. “But when it comes to herself, she sees with something less than candor and lucidity. She sees, like so many others, what she wants to see.”

The book concludes with this paragraph:

“As Hillary has continued to speak from the protective shell of her own making, and packaged herself for the widest possible consumption, she has misrepresented not just facts but often her essential self. Great politicians have always been marked by the consistency of their core beliefs, their strength of character in advocacy, and the self-knowledge that informs bold leadership. Almost always, Hillary has stood for good things. Yet there is a disconnect between her convictions and her words and actions. This is where Hillary disappoints. But the jury remains out. She still has time to prove her case, to effectuate those things that make her special, not fear them or camouflage them. We would all be the better for it, because what lies within may have the potential to change the world, if only a little.”

The jury — armed with definitive evidence like the CBS tape of Hillary Clinton’s Bosnian adventure — seems on the verge of returning a negative verdict on her candidacy.

- Carl Bernstein, 360° Contributor

And they all just want to work.........

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:10:21 GMT

Another illegal alien gang member doing the killing…

By Michelle Malkin • March 24, 2008 08:45 AM

…Americans didn’t do:

An alleged gang member accused of killing a 17-year-old high school student just one day after being released from jail has been living in the country illegally, possibly for more than a decade, federal immigration authorities said Saturday.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has filed paperwork naming 19-year-old Pedro Espinoza, the suspect in the March 2 killing of Los Angeles High School football star Jamiel Shaw Jr., as a potential candidate for deportation.
Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the immigration agency, said an immigration hold was issued for Espinoza on March 13, nearly a week after he was arrested in connection with Shaw’s death.
No such hold was placed on Espinoza on March 1, the day he was released from a Los Angeles County jail after serving roughly four months for exhibiting a firearm and resisting arrest, said Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore.
“We are going to follow up to determine whether or not we have had prior interactions with this individual,” Kice said.
The federal immigration agency confirmed the deportation filing on the same day that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa participated in a ceremony dedicating a memorial in Arlington Heights where Shaw was killed.
A highly regarded running back for his school’s football team, Shaw was named the Southern League’s most valuable player in 2007. He had drawn the interest of recruiters from Stanford and Rutgers universities, his family said.
The killing outraged civic leaders and reignited a citywide debate over the role that race has played in a recent spate of homicides.
Both the immigration agency and the Sheriff’s Department have employees who interview jail inmates about their immigration status. Those interviews can be undermined when inmates give aliases or inaccurate places of birth, authorities said.
After his most recent arrest, Espinoza was “uncooperative,” telling immigration investigators he did not know where he was born or the whereabouts of his family, Kice said.
The next day, investigators found a relative of the suspect who said Espinoza had been smuggled into the United States from Mexico when he was 4, Kice said.

Understatement of the day, via FNC:

Immigration officials told the TV station that Espinoza is an illegal immigrant, but no red flags were raised when he was released from jail March 1. “The system is not 100 percent,” Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told the station.

LAPD is still looking for another suspect in the case.

At the risk of, you know, being spat upon, let me link back to these past posts on the targeting of innocent black Americans by illegal alien Hispanic gangs in Los Angeles.

These are the racial crimes the Left doesn’t want to talk about.

Some People are just plain EVIL and SICK

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:09:10 GMT

Pregnant mother, tortured, dies in Ill.

By JIM SUHR, Associated Press Writer 42 minutes ago

Banished to the basement, the 29-year-old mother with a childlike mind and another baby on the way had little more than a thin rug and a mattress to call her own on the chilly concrete floor.

Dorothy Dixon ate what she could forage from the refrigerator upstairs, where housemates used her for target practice with BBs, burned her with a glue gun and doused her with scalding liquid that peeled away her skin.

They torched what few clothes she had, so she walked around naked. They often pummeled her with an aluminum bat or metal handle.

Dixon — six months pregnant — died after weeks of abuse. Police have charged two adults, three teenagers and a 12-year-old boy with murder in the case that has repulsed many in this Mississippi River town.

"This is heartbreaking," police Lt. David Hayes said. "It was almost as though they were making fun of the abuse they were administering. This woman was almost like living in a prison."

Investigators put much of the blame on Michelle Riley, 35, who they said befriended Dixon but pocketed monthly Social Security checks she got because of her developmental delays.

Dixon saw little, if any, of the money, Hayes said. For months she weathered the torment to keep a roof over her head and that of her year-old son, who weighed just 15 pounds when taken into state custody after his mom's death.

"I've never seen an almost conspiratorial effort by a group of people to continuously torture someone until she finally died, then not really show any remorse," Hayes said. "It was just a slow, torturous, tragic way to die. I highly doubt Dorothy Dixon even knew she was dying."

Riley, 43-year-old Judy Woods and three teenagers, including Riley's 15-year-old daughter, LeShelle McBride, are charged with first-degree murder, aggravated and heinous battery, intentional homicide of an unborn child, and unlawful restraint. Riley's 12-year-old son is charged as a juvenile.

Riley, her daughter, Woods and 16-year-old Benny Wilson have public defenders who did not immediately return messages for comment. An 18-year-old defendant, Michael Elliott, planned to get his own attorney, court records show.

All remain in jail on $1 million bond.

Messages left with a Chicago-area sister of Dixon went unreturned, but neighbors, Hayes and newspaper accounts offer a mosaic of the months leading to Dixon's demise inside the small, white, blue-shuttered house.

Riley and Dixon, police said, had lived in Quincy, a Mississippi River town about 100 miles north of St. Louis, Mo. Quincy is where Riley worked as a coordinator for a regional center that helps the developmentally disabled with housing and other services. Dixon was a client.

For years, an impoverished Riley struggled raising her children. Her use of methamphetamine and cocaine brought drug convictions in 2002 and 2004. But with treatment and housing help from the Quincy YWCA, Riley put her life in order — so much that in February of last year, the Quincy Herald-Whig did a story on her comeback.

Last summer, Dixon and Riley moved into the $800-a-month, three-bedroom rental in Alton about 15 miles north of St. Louis. From the start, neighbors Chad Hudson and Terri Brandt considered Riley trouble.

"Michelle was evil, vindictive. Manipulative," said Hudson, convinced the teenagers were Riley's powerless minions.

"She was angry, vicious," added Brandt.

Riley considered Dixon her slave, making her rub Riley's feet until Riley fell asleep and forcing her to run naked around the house when she got in trouble, the neighbors said.

"Being in their house was like being in a prison day room," Hudson said. "They just sat around the kitchen table and fought."

There was little question that Riley ruled the roost.

While doing fix-ups on the home last fall, landlord Steve Atkins saw Riley "barking orders" at the children and everyone else. Atkins joked to her whether he needed to call the Army and see if they wanted their drill sergeant back.

"She didn't laugh about it at all," Atkins said. "Obviously, I hit a nerve."

Atkins said Dixon generally kept to herself "but was always nice when she spoke to you." He saw no hints she'd been suffering or tortured.

"I would have never, ever suspected something like this," he said. "It's definitely shocking."

Police said Dixon was allowed out of the house but didn't say under what conditions. Hayes didn't know who the father of Dixon's fetus is.

Hayes said things apparently came to a head Jan. 30, when investigators believe that Woods, during a dispute, beat Dixon on the head with an object Hayes wouldn't identify. The next day Woods found her dead.

Hayes watched the autopsy and found her injuries disturbing. X-rays revealed roughly 30 BBs lodged in her. Deep-tissue burns covered about one-third of her body — her face, her chest, her arms and feet — and left her severely dehydrated. Her face and body showed signs of prolonged abuse. Many of her wounds were infected.

None of the injuries, Hayes said, proved singly fatal to Dixon. Her system already was taxed by her unborn baby.

"The autopsy sort of indicates her immune system just shut down," he said. "It was not capable of fending off any more."

In the rental home's basement, Atkins said, he found spots of blood in a shower and tiny smears on the concrete floor, washer and dryer.

"It's disgraceful the way this girl died, as kind and as sweet as this girl was," he said. "She didn't deserve to die the way she did. It's just terrible, senseless. It's just a total shame."

Interesting...

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:06:37 GMT

Ferraro: I am no Jeremiah Wright

Posted: 05:14 PM ET

Ferraro isn't happy Obama compared her to Jeremiah Wright.

(CNN) – Just over a week after she resigned her post on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign after making controversial comments about Barack Obama’s presidential bid, Geraldine Ferraro said she resented being compared the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in the Illinois senator's recent speech on race relations.

"To equate what I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is unbelievable," Ferraro told the Daily Breeze newspaper an interview published late Wednesday night. "He gave a very good speech on race relations, but he did not address the fact that this man is up there spewing hatred."

"What this man is doing is he is spewing that stuff out to young people, and to younger people than Obama, and putting it in their heads that it's OK to say `Goddamn America' and it's OK to beat up on white people," Ferraro also said of Wright. "You don't preach that from the pulpit."

Ferraro, a former congresswoman and the Democratic party's 1984 vice presidential nominee, stepped down from her fundraising post with the Clinton campaign last week after suggesting Obama's success in the presidential race can largely be attributed to the fact he is black.

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept" she said in an earlier interview with the Daily Breeze.

Ferarro ardently defended her comments for days, but ultimately resigned because she said the Obama campaign was publicizing the comments to "hurt Hillary."

In his speech earlier this week addressing the uproar over Wright's sermons, Obama, said racial rhetoric had been injected by supporters of both campaigns. "On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action, that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap," he said. "On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation — that rightly offend white and black alike.

“…We can dismiss Rev. Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias,” he said. “But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Rev. Wright made in his offending sermons about America — to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality….”

In the interview Wednesday, Ferraro said she had "no clue" why Obama referenced her in the speech. She also expressed surprise the Illinois senator said he had heard his white grandmother utter racist remarks.

"I could not believe that," she said. "That's my mother's generation."

Writer's Block: What? No Goodnight Kiss?

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:48:34 GMT

What is the worst date you've ever been on?

View 500 Answers

Some blind date my friend found for me when she was working at Knott's Berry Farm Halloween Haunt. It was terrible. I even had to drive the guy home since he didn't have a car.

HAWK KILLER!

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:46:29 GMT

PGA Tour player Tripp Isenhour faces criminal charges for killing hawk in tree with shot
By TRAVIS REED, Associated Press

Tripp Isenhour, of Orlando, Fl…
AP - Mar 6, 1:49 pm EST
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP)—PGA Tour player Tripp Isenhour was charged with killing a hawk on purpose with a golf shot because it was making noise as he videotaped a TV show.
Isenhour was with a film crew for “Shoot Like A Pro” on Dec. 12 at the Grand Cypress Golf course. The 39-year-old player, whose real name is John Henry Isenhour III, was charged Wednesday with cruelty to animals and killing a migratory bird.
The charges carry a maximum penalty of 14 months in jail and $1,500 in fines.
Isenhour apologized in a statement and said he was only trying to scare the hawk away.
According to court documents, Isenhour got upset when a red-shouldered hawk began making noise, forcing another take. He began hitting balls at the bird, then 300 yards away, but gave up. Isenhour started again when the hawk moved within about 75 yards, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer Brian Baine indicated in a report.
Isenhour allegedly said “I’ll get him now,” and aimed for the hawk.
“About the sixth ball came very near the bird’s head, and (Isenhour) was very excited that it was so close,” Baine wrote.
A few shots later, witnesses said he hit the hawk. The bird, protected as a migratory species, fell to the ground bleeding from both nostrils.
“As soon as this happened, I was mortified and extremely upset and continue to be upset,” Isenhour said in a statement issued through his management company, SFX Golf. “I want to let everyone know there was neither any malice nor deliberate intent whatsoever to hit or harm the hawk. I was trying to simply scare it into flying away.”
Isenhour said his family has adopted three cats from a local shelter.
“I am an animal lover,” he said. “We ask that everyone accept my sincerest apology, and please be respectful of my family’s privacy.”
Isenhour has spent two full years on the PGA Tour, both times failing to keep his card. He has won four times on the Nationwide Tour, including twice in 2006.
“He just kept saying how he didn’t think he could have hit it, which I think is a stupid thing for a PGA Tour golfer to say,” said Jethro Senger, a sound engineer at the shoot. “He can put a ball in a hole from hundreds of yards away, and here he is hitting line drives at something that’s, I don’t know, a couple hundred feet away?”
Senger said it was “basically like a joke to (Isenhour).” He said no one in the roughly 15-person crew intervened, and many later regretted it.
“It was one of those cases where there’s some trepidation on whether or not they should speak up and do something,” Senger said.
Senger said the killing was not captured on video. The bird was buried at the golf course and later dug up by Florida investigators.

Anger continues .......

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:32:26 GMT

Muslim anger mounts over cartoons, movie

Sudan threatens to ban Danish aid workers; Europe braces for possible protests.

By Tom McCawley

posted February 28, 2008 at 10:46 am EST

Outrage continued to rise this week in parts of the Muslim world over the depiction of Islam in Danish newspapers earlier this month and the possible release of a film in the Netherlands critical of the religion.

Muslims in Sudan, Pakistan, Turkey, the Middle East, and other parts of the Islamic world, have been angered over the republication of one cartoon from a 2005 series that satirized Islam's prophet Muhammad. Muslims regard visual depictions of the prophet Muhammad as blasphemous.

Governments in Europe are also bracing for protests against the possible broadcast of an anti-Islamic film by right-wing Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders that links Islam to violence. Mr. Wilders says the film, which he plans to broadcast on the Internet and possibly television, will be finished Sunday, Reuters reports. Pakistan's YouTube shutdown last weekend has been attributed in part to the film's appearance on the video-sharing website.

In Sudan, President Omar al-Bashir said Wednesday that Danes would be banned from Sudan and the Danish peacekeeping force faced possible expulsion. He was speaking before a crowd of tens of thousands denouncing Denmark during a government-backed protest against the republications of the cartoons, reports the Associated Press.

"We urge all Muslims around the world to boycott Danish commodities, goods, companies, institutions, organizations and personalities," Al-Bashir told the crowd.

Mr. Bashir's Islamist government has used other perceived insults to the prophet to bolster support for the regime and oppose the acceptance of United Nations peacekeepers in Sudan.

Denmark's foreign aid minister said Thursday she was considering whether Sudan's call could have an impact on aid to Sudan, South Africa's Independent Online reports. Sudan is one of the largest recipients of aid from Denmark.

One Muslim blogger living in Denmark, Helen Latifi, criticized the reaction from the Sudan – because it was such a large aid recipient – in comments published in the Sudan Tribune. Ms. Latifi called for a boycott of the boycott, claiming Sudan's complaints against Denmark were a double standard.

Earlier in February, 17 Danish newspapers reprinted the 2005 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad originally printed in the local Jyllands-Posten newspaper, and Danish police arrested several people for planning to attack a cartoonist who drew the most controversial caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, reports the South African newspaper Mail & Guardian.

The newspapers said they had republished the cartoons to show a commitment to freedom of speech after an alleged plot was discovered.

The second publication of the Muhammad cartoons has pitted sections of the Muslim world against those who defend the media's right to publish or broadcast what it wishes. The German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Wednesday more European newspapers should publish the cartoons in response to the protests in the Sudan, the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports.

"All European newspapers should print the [Muhammad] caricatures with the explanation, 'We also think they're pathetic, but the use of press freedom is no reason to resort to violence," Mr. Schaeuble said.

In Egypt, a Muslim-Christian body, the Al-Azhar Vatican interfaith dialogue, denounced the republication of the cartoons on Tuesday, press agency Adnkronos International reports. The Al-Azhar-Vatican committee issued a final statement after a two-day meeting calling on Christianity and Islam to respect each others' beliefs and symbols. The Al-Azhar mosque is among the most respected sources of learning within Sunni Islam.

Pakistan condemned the republication of the cartoons on Wednesday, saying they had offended Muslim feelings and sentiment, Chinese state-owned news agency Xinhua reports.

"No civilized society should allow disrespect of the belief system of other communities," the statement said, adding the cartoons had deeply offended Muslims all over the world. The government said the cartoons had incited growing Islamophobia in Europe, undermining efforts to build understanding between Islam and the West.

Tensions have also risen over Wilders's film. Pakistan telecommunication authorities ordered the video-sharing website YouTube blocked on Feb. 22. The ban disrupted YouTube worldwide on Sunday, but Pakistan lifted it two days later after the video was removed, reports Wired Magazine's blog Threat Level. Others attributed the ban to Internet videos showing election discrepancies in Pakistan, reports Pakistan's The News.

So far, Wilders has given few details about the content of his film, "Fitna," other than saying he intends to present his views about the Koran.

In the past, he has said the Koran should be banned, likening it to Adolf Hitler's book, "Mein Kampf." Wilders said the film may be televised and would be available on a special Internet site, www.fitnathemovie.com, aimed at dodging any access restrictions.

This week, Pakistan upper house of parliament adopted a resolution condemning efforts to denigrate Islam and promote hatred, referring to the prophet Muhammad cartoons and Wilders's film specifically.

The Dutch government also warned Wilders on Wednesday about the dangers of broadcasting his film, Agence France-Presse reported.

The Dutch government said it was worried about its reputation and the security of Dutch citizens living abroad. Since the 2004 murder of Dutch director and columnist Theo Van Gogh, a columnist who directed a film criticizing women's position in Islam was killed by a radical Muslim, Wilders has been living under police protection.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"No civilized society should allow disrespect of the belief system of other communities"

This statement is total BULLSHIT.
We, as Americans, have the FREEDOM of speech and thought to do exactly this.

Very Sad

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:03:41 GMT

Illegal alien bus driver arrested in Minnesota school tragedy

By Michelle Malkin • February 21, 2008 06:25 PM

The local Fox affiliate in the Twin Cities finally confirms what the local papers didn’t seem to want to mention about the horrible school bus accident that killed four children. It didn’t have to happen:

Authorities have confirmed that the the driver of the van that struck the school bus that killed 4 students on Tuesday is an illegal alien.
Officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement are checking to see where she came from and how long she’s been in Minnesota. FOX 9 has also learned that the name she gave to police, Alainiss Morales, is an alias.
23-year-old Alainiss N. Morales was taken into custody on suspicion of criminal vehicular operation. She was arrested by the State Patrol Thursday afternoon and is being held in Lyon County Jail. County Attorney Rick Maes told the Marshall Independent charges could come later Thursday or Friday…The van was driven by Alianiss N. Morales, 23, of Minneota. The Fox 9 Investigator found Morales pleaded guilty in Chippewa County in 2006 to driving without a valid license.
State Patrol officials said Thursday they were not immediately able to confirm if Morales was unlicensed, nor could they confirm whether Morales ran a stop sign. Lt. Mark Peterson said that was still under investigation, but that the investigation was “moving forward very quickly.”
The school bus was carrying 28 students. Cottonwood Fire Chief Dale Louluagie confirmed that 3 fatalities of the crash died immediately upon impact and the fourth victim died around 8 p.m. Tuesday night.

Minneapolis is a sanctuary city. In 2003, the city voted to bar police from asking about immigration status or enforcing immigration laws. The mayor, R.T. Rybak, even asked federal agents to stop wearing vests labeled “police.” St. Paul and Worthington are also sanctuary cities.

Open borders, deadly consequences. When will they learn?

”A German’s point of view on Islam”

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:54:14 GMT

EVIL IN THE NAME OF ISLAM...”A German’s point of view on Islam”

by Dr. Emanual Tanay, Psychiatrist

A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War ll owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.

Very few people were true Nazis,’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp, and the Allies destroyed my factories.

We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectra of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who take over mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals.

The hard quantifiable fact is that the ‘peaceful majority’, the ‘silent majority’ is cowed and extraneous. Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communist were responsible for murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

China’s hugh population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War ll was not a war-mongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And, who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:

Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghanis, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and man others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts: the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Lastly, at the risk of offending, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world wide, read this – think about it – and send it on.

Emanuel Tanay, M.D.

Ann Arbor, MI

World wake up! Islam is the religion of MADNESS!

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:18:52 GMT

Violations of 'Islamic teachings' take deadly toll on Iraqi women

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion -- some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture.
The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other "rules" that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce.
"Fear, fear is always there," says 30-year-old Safana, an artist and university professor. "We don't know who to be afraid of. Maybe it's a friend or a student you teach. There is no break, no security. I don't know who to be afraid of."
Her fear is justified. Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, is a stronghold of conservative Shia groups. As many as 133 women were killed in Basra last year -- 79 for violation of "Islamic teachings" and 47 for so-called honor killings, according to IRIN, the news branch of the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
One glance through the police file is enough to understand the consequences. Basra's police chief, Gen. Abdul Jalil Khalaf, flips through the file, pointing to one unsolved case after another.
"I think so far, we have been unable to tackle this problem properly," he says. "There are many motives for these crimes and parties involved in killing women, by strangling, beheading, chopping off their hands, legs, heads."
"When I came to Basra a year ago," he says, "two women were killed in front of their kids. Their blood was flowing in front of their kids, they were crying. Another woman was killed in front of her 6-year-old son, another in front of her 11-year-old child, and yet another who was pregnant."
The killers enforcing their own version of Islamic justice are rarely caught, while women live in fear.
Boldly splattered in red paint just outside the main downtown market, a chilling sign reads: "We warn against not wearing a headscarf and wearing makeup. Those who do not abide by this will be punished. God is our witness, we have notified you."
The attacks on the women of Basra have intensified since British forces withdrew to their base at the airport back in September, police say. Iraqi security forces took over after British troops pulled back, but are heavily infiltrated by militias.
And tracking the perpetrators of these crimes is nearly impossible, Khalaf says, adding that he doesn't have control of the thousands of policemen and officers.
"We're trying to trace crimes carried out by an anonymous enemy," he says.
Amnesty International has raised concern about the increasing violence toward women in Iraq, saying abductions, rapes and "honor killings" are on the rise.
"Politically active women, those who did not follow a strict dress code, and women [who are] human rights defenders were increasingly at risk of abuses, including by armed groups and religious extremists," Amnesty said in a 2007 report.
Sometimes, it's just the color of a woman's headscarf that can draw unwanted attention.
"One time, one of my female colleagues commented on the color of my headscarf," Safana says. "She said it would draw attention ... [and I should] avoid it and stick to colors like gray, brown and black."
This extremist ideology enrages many secular Muslim women, who say it's a misrepresentation of Islam.
Sawsan, another woman who works at a university, says the message from the radicals to women is simple: "They seem to be sending us a message to stay at home and keep your mouth shut."
After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Sawsan says, the situation was "the best." But now, she says, it's "the worst."
"We thought there would be freedom and democracy and women would have their rights. But all the things we were promised have not come true. There is only fear and horror."

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/02/08/iraq.women/index.html

And they call it the religion of peace?

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:28:42 GMT

NO WOMAN DESERVES THIS!!!!!!!!!

Teen Girl Dies After Alleged Dispute Over Hijab
December 12, 2007

TORONTO, Ont. -- A 16-year-old girl has died after allegedly being choked by her father over a dispute with her family over her refusal to wear the hijab, the Islamic headscarf worn by some Muslim women.

Peel Regional Police arrested a 57-year-old man Tuesday morning after receiving a 911 call from a suburban home in Mississauga from a man saying he had killed his daughter, according to a Toronto newspaper Web site.

According to the National Post, a Toronto newspaper Web site, when police arrived at the house they found the teen on the floor without any vital signs.

Constable J.P. Valade, a spokesman for Peel police, would not release the names of either the victim or the man arrested and would not give any details about what transpired inside the home.

“We are not getting into the details of her injuries at this time,” he told the newspaper. “We aren’t getting into any details about this case. This investigation is really in its infancy. Officers are still canvassing the neighborhood and talking to family members.”

Friends of the teenager identified her as Aqsa Parvez and said they were shocked by her death but said her family was very strict.

“She got threatened by her father and her brother,” Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson told the newsaper. “He said that if she leaves, he would kill her.”

Another friend said she had previous fights with her father over wearing Islamic dress and wearing her hijaab all of the time.

Police confirmed there were other family members home when the teen died.

Copyright 2007 by ClickOnDetroit.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

These people are INSANE!

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:55:17 GMT

~ Thousands of jihadists want Mohammed Teddy Bear blasphemer executed: “Kill her, kill her by firing squad!”

Over a DAMN STUFFED BEAR!

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/11/30/thousands-of-sudanese-rally-to-free-teddy-bear-blasphemer-wait-did-i-say-free-i-meant-kill/

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2007/11/30/chitrib-blogger-asks-if-sudan-teddy-bear-case-sent-fair-message-be-sen

"If you want grounds for despair, read the entries on the BBC website, in which some British Muslims say that she should be punished; or read the entries from people in Sudan saying that the children should be punished."

These people are INSANE and need to be stopped.

Worlds Gymnastics Championships is almost here!

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 18:44:30 GMT

Leaving Friday for Germany and the 2007 Worlds Gymnastics Championships!
Official website: http://www.turnwm.de/cms/index.php

Hello Kitty Pullip

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 20:59:07 GMT

She is the cutest thing - got to pre-order her.

Great Opinion Piece

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:20:05 GMT

Our view on Islamic extremism: New outrages spur Muslims, at last, to decry cult of death
Wed Jul 11, 12:22 AM ET

The news from just the past month has been incomprehensibly and numbingly savage: Taliban gunmen in central Afghanistan shot a 13-year-old girl for attending school. A suicide truck bomber killed more than 100 people in a Shiite town in northern Iraq. A group of doctors and medical students — people sworn to protect life — attempted to detonate car bombs on London streets and at a Glasgow airport. Heavily armed students, teachers and religious leaders barricaded themselves inside a mosque in Islamabad and fought to their deaths for their desire to impose a strict moral code on everyone else in Pakistan's capital city.
The common denominator in this depravity is that the killers and would-be killers are extremist Muslims, part of a cult of death that has infected one of the world's great religions. They are the virulent focus of the "war on terror" and a growing threat to worldwide Islam, of which they're a small but apparently growing part.
The extremists slaughter Muslims and non-Muslims alike. At funerals, weddings, schools, hospitals and places of worship. In outdoor markets. On buses. In lines. Anywhere people gather in ways that make it easy to kill as many of them as possible. They terrorize their co-religionists and sow animosity between Muslims and non-Muslims.
For too long there has been denial on both sides. Many mainstream Muslims have condemned the violence, but not in voices loud enough to match the carnage. Some have muted their opinions because they object to U.S. Mideast policies that favor Israel. Others, unwilling to believe such barbarity could be inflicted in the name of their faith, harbor bizarre conspiracy theories that deflect blame: Jews, not fanatical Muslims, conducted the 9/11 attacks; the French were responsible for London's subway bombings in July 2005 because they had just lost the 2012 Olympic Games to London; and so on.
Too many Westerners, meanwhile, explain away attacks by pointing to foreign policy, or to the oppression and marginalization of many of the world's Muslims. But the world is full of desperately poor people who don't blow themselves up in attempts to kill as many innocent men, women and children as they can. Many of the suicide bombers have been well-educated, middle-class fanatics driven by the conviction that they must impose the most rigid form of their religion on the world, starting in Muslim lands.
That is a battle that can be won only within Islam, and now, finally, there may be signs that mainstream Muslims are beginning to take a more forceful stance. In the wake of the June 29-30 incidents in London and Glasgow, British Muslims staged public rallies, placed newspaper advertisements and denounced violent extremists in ways they never had before. They called on Muslims to cooperate with police to catch extremists. "It's a line in the sand moment," British Muslim blogger Yahya Birt told The New York Times.
British security officials say it will take at least a decade to rein in radical Islam. Simply speaking out against extremism won't be enough. Reformers must deal with radical mosques that preach violence and religious schools, called madrassas, that inculcate young Muslims in the ways of martyrdom.
But speaking out is an essential step. Only if enough voices are raised will there no longer be religious legitimacy for anyone who claims that God approves the murder of an Afghan schoolgirl, shoppers in an Iraqi market or innocents on a London street.

Copyright © 2007 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Original link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20070711/cm_usatoday/ourviewonislamicextremismnewoutragesspurmuslimsatlasttodecrycultofdeath&printer=1;_ylt=AnGdyjMdVcIhXVK4Sn6hJfT8B2YD