Dr. Foroud Fouladvand

 

This message comes from an Iranian ex-Muslim and lover of freedom in London:

Urgent Attention
Another free thinker is to be executed in Iran in the coming days

 
It is with great regret that I inform all freedom loving people of the world that the Mullahs' terrorist regime is about to execute one of Iran's finest thinkers, a true patriot, scholar and historian.

Dr. Foroud Fouladvand is a dedicated monarchist, a Ferdousi expert as well as expert on the history of Iran and Islam.

A confirmed report sent to the office of Dr. Fouladvand in London from inside Iran suggests that Dr. Fouladvand and two of his compatriots are going to be executed on Saturday, May 31, 2008 or possibly even sooner.

The two men to be executed alongside Dr. Fouladvand are Mr. Nazem Schmidtt, an Iranian/American citizen, aka Simorgh, and Mr. Alexander Valizadeh, an Iranian/ German citizen, aka Koroush Lor.

Dr. Fouladvand, a British citizen, was known throughout the Iranian community for his open criticism of Islam and the Mullah's tyranny.

It is well-established that the ancient Mayan, Aztec, Incan, and Toltec peoples offered human sacrifices, probably in the belief that such rituals would placate the gods who were in charge of nature; for instance, to help bring life-giving rains to their crops.

Although we shudder at the thought of such barbaric practices, I believe that we have unwittingly reinstituted human sacrifice in modern times. But while the list of justifications has grown immensely, our new rituals are still performed in the name of avoiding the wrath of the gods of nature.

Our environmental protection practices have already caused the deaths of millions of people, mainly in poor African countries. By far the most humans — mostly women and children — have been sacrificed in the mistaken belief that the use of any amount of the pesticide DDT would harm the environment. As a result, the preventable disease malaria has continued to decimate Africa.

Only recently has this genocide disguised as environmentalism been partly reversed through the reinstituted practice of twice-yearly DDT treatments of the entryways to homes. While most environmentalists continue to insist that there is no connection between international bans on DDT and human deaths, such protestations really are like denying that the Holocaust ever happened.

Now, the Senate is preparing to debate the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which aims to limit carbon-dioxide emissions in the belief that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is disrupting the Earth’s climate and ecosystems.

Since we now have the scientific method, we rely on computer models to predict these future catastrophes rather than on our fears and prejudices. While this gives the illusion of modern objective precision, the truth is that all we have done is enlisted one of our modern idols — the computer — to justify what we want to believe anyway. And that fundamental belief is that anything mankind does to nature is inherently evil.

To be sure, the scientific method can help us understand the physical world… something the ancients could not do. But global-warming theory, unfortunately, is out of the realm of being a legitimate, testable scientific hypothesis.

For instance, to be a valid scientific hypothesis, there should be some kind of climate behavior observable in nature that would be inconsistent with the theory that mankind is responsible for global warming. But instead, everything we observe has now become consistent with the theory. Floods and droughts. Too much snow and too little snow. More hurricanes and fewer hurricanes. It is sometimes pointed out that a theory that explains everything really explains nothing.

A few weeks ago, the chief political strategist for Hamas, Ahmed Yousef, expressed delight bordering on glee at the idea that Barack Obama might be America's next president.

"Actually, we like Mr. Obama," he said. "We hope he will [win] the election."

Sensing the disaster in this, the forces of liberalism that Must Protect Barry at All Costs, rallied to his defense, intimidating anyone who might raise the fact that one of the world's most lethal terrorist groups has just endorsed him. Nobody, they intoned, should point this out. Pointing it out is below the belt.

 

John McCain, war hero, patriot, lover of America, candidate for president, had the audacity to point it out, and Democrats jumped all over him. Not appropriate, they said. Unseemly, they wagged. Obama himself used his best stealth tactic of shaking his head in disapproval "more in sorrow than in anger: "I thought Senator McCain pledged to run a positive campaign,” he said wistfully. His wingmen, like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, attacked McCain for behaving in an unbecoming manner for bringing it up. And Jon Stewart took care of the pop culture side, by berating McCain for raising the Hamas endorsement as McCain sat on his couch, trying to be a polite guest.

There can be only one of two reasons Barry got Hamas's endorsement: is it because Hamas believes he is sympathetic to them, ot that they think he's so naive and inexperienced that they can run circles around him? Obama has said he "understands" the Palestinians' position. He schmoozes with Rashid Khalidi, a “professor” (formerly of the University of Chicago, where Barry and Michelle socialized with him, including over dinner at Chez Khalidi), now at Columbia University. Khalidi is on record calling Israel a “racist” state with an “apartheid” system and has had ties to the PLO. (Khalidi should not be confused with Jimmy Carter, though they do sound much alike). Obama has sat by Khalidi’s side as Khalidi has made some outrageously anti-Israel comments, with nary a peep of opposition.

Obama didn't back away from the efforts of his big cheerleader, Jimmy “My Name is Earl” Carter, when Carter blundered stupidly into talks with Hamas. Until it dawned on Obama that he might need a big chunk of the Jewish vote to get elected, and then he “distanced” himself from Carter’s Hamas lap dance.

Obama has said he wouldn't negotiate directly with Hamas, but two weeks ago, he had to cut loose a major foreign policy adviser, Robert Malley, for doing just that.

But don’t question his patriotism!

More than 900 criminal aliens, immigration fugitives, and immigration violators have been removed from the United States or are facing deportation following a three-week enforcement surge by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Fugitive Operations Teams in California.

During the special operation, which concluded late Tuesday, ICE officers located and arrested a total of 905 immigration violators throughout the state, including 137 in the San Diego area. Of those arrested locally, 73 were immigration fugitives, aliens who have ignored final orders of deportation or who returned to the United States illegally after being removed. More than 40% of the aliens taken into custody in this area had criminal histories in addition to being in the country illegally.

Among those arrested by the Fugitive Operations Teams locally was a 30-year-old Mexican national who was convicted in 1997 for robbery and sentenced to four years in state prison. Last year, Cesar Hernandez-Gallardo lost his appeal to remain in the United States and failed to depart after being ordered deported by an immigration judge. ICE officers also arrested a 37-year-old Mexican national at his residence in Escondido, whose criminal record includes a prior conviction for burglary. He was ordered deported last June and lost his appeal to remain in the United States last month. The other criminal arrests included violent crimes for assault with a deadly weapon, carjacking, domestic violence and sexual assault.

In addition to the local Fugitive Operations Teams, ICE officers from the agency's teams in Los Angeles and San Francisco were temporarily deployed to the area to assist with this enforcement action.

ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams are tasked with identifying and arresting foreign nationals who have ignored final orders of deportation or have returned to the United States illegally after being removed. The teams prioritize cases involving immigration violators who pose a threat to national security and community safety. These include child sexual exploiters, suspected gang members, and those who have convictions for violent crimes.

I've been a fan of Dunkin' Donuts for years. Their Munchkins are heaven. Their coffee is better and cheaper than Starbucks. And the company's management has taken a brave and lonely stand in support of immigration enforcement -- refusing to hire illegal aliens and blowing the whistle on applicants with bogus Social Security numbers.

So it was with some dismay that I learned last week that Dunkin' Donuts spokeswoman Rachael Ray, the ubiquitous TV hostess, posed for one of the company's ads in what appeared to be a black-and-white keffiyeh.

The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not so ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities and left-wing icons.

The scarves are staples at anti-Israel rallies in San Francisco and Berkeley. Balenciaga made them chic on the runway. British retailer Topshop sold them stamped with skull prints. Urban Outfitters turned the keffiyehs into a youth trend a few years ago and marketed them as "anti-war scarves." Which brings us to Rachael Ray.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- "Jobs Americans just won't do."

I can't stand that line, but more importantly, I don't even understand it.

Americans spend months at a time at sea fishing for crab or drilling for oil; two of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Americans clean bathrooms, subway stations and crime scenes. Americans man toll booths, pave roads, embalm bodies and inspect sewers. Yet people really expect us to believe that they won't pick strawberries or oranges?

It just doesn't add up.

Earlier this week The Wall Street Journal published a story about a shortage of H-2B visas, which are issued twice a year to nonagricultural seasonal employees. Because our government can't get out of its own way, they recently let an important "returning workers" provision expire resulting in thousands of foreign workers being shut out of the country this summer.

That's inexcusable. I know this will come as a huge shock to those who only like to hurl insults, but I think we should be issuing more work visas, more student visas, and more green cards. And I think we should cut the red tape and bureaucracy that's constantly blocking the front door.

But until that happens people are left looking for loopholes and excuses, and "jobs Americans won't do" is the gold standard.

The Journal article offered an example of a couple that sells food at fairs around California each summer. They say that because of the H-2B visa shortage most of their seasonal employees aren't able to enter the country.

So why don't they just hire Americans instead? Good question. Her answer? "This is a hard job."

I find it pretty hard to believe that there aren't a few college students who wouldn't want to drive around California and work outdoors all summer, but let's assume that's true. Let's even assume that none of the other 1.1 million Californians who were unemployed as of April are interested in the job either. Isn't anyone wondering why?

Well I'm not a labor consultant, but I am a thinker. Maybe the problem isn't that the job they're offering is "too hard," maybe it's that the wages they're offering are "too low."

No one paints the undersides of bridges for fun, they do it for the money. That's how capitalism works.

How capitalism does NOT work is when we collectively look the other way as companies exploit illegal labor for their own benefit.

The unspoken truth is that these businesses don't hire illegal aliens because they can't find American workers, they hire illegal aliens because they don't want American workers. And it has nothing to do with wages.

Illegal aliens mean no workers' comp claims, no age, race or sex discrimination lawsuits, no healthcare premiums, no unions, and no demands for raises, vacations or bigger offices. In fact, illegal immigrants are the perfect employees because they're not employees at all; they're corporate slaves.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's popular foreign minister said Thursday that the ruling party must prepare to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, raising pressure on him to step down amid a growing corruption investigation.

Calls for Olmert's ouster grew this week after the key witness in the case, U.S. businessman Morris Talansky, described handing tens of thousands of dollars to Olmert, in part to finance the Israeli politician's expensive tastes. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was the first senior member of his own Kadima Party to question his fitness to stay in office.

"I think the reality has changed since yesterday and Kadima has to make decisions," Livni told reporters in Jerusalem. "I suspect that Kadima needs to start right away acting for every eventuality, including elections."

Livni said she favored holding a party primary to give the public a say in choosing a leader.

"In this way, we can operate to restore the trust in Kadima," she said, without mentioning Olmert by name.

 

Opinion polls show Livni to be the country's most popular politician, and she would stand a good chance of winning a nationwide party primary. However, she faces many rivals among the party's leadership, and there is no guarantee she would win a contest decided in a smaller forum.

On Wednesday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak called on Olmert to step aside, pledging to pull his Labor Party, a key coalition partner, out of the government and force new elections if the Israeli leader didn't comply.

"The die has been cast," Barak told a meeting of his Labor Party in Tel Aviv. "We should prepare for elections ... in my estimation we are going to elections, it could be before the end of this year."

Astronauts living aboard the International Space Station (ISS) need help from an orbital plumber to fix their troublesome space commode.

The solitary Russian-built toilet inside the station's Zvezda service module began acting up last week, forcing U.S. astronaut Garrett Reisman and his two Russian crewmates to use facilities aboard their docked Soyuz spacecraft before restoring the commode to partial service. Spare parts for the balky space toilet are set to launch aboard NASA's shuttle Discovery on Saturday.

"We are working with the Russians to see what spare parts they'd like us to launch," space station flight director Annette Hasbrook told SPACE.com.

Hasbrook said the toilet is now working in a so-called 'manual mode,' which requires astronauts to use extra flush water instead of the air flow system as designed. The glitch only afflicts the toilet's liquid waste collection system, she added.

"It's not standard operating procedure, but they're able to use it," she added during a series of televised interviews.

Meanwhile, a NASA employee is en route from Russia to the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., with a diplomatic pouch carrying a spare toilet pump, said Scott Higginbotham, payload manager for the shuttle Discovery's STS-124 mission.

The pump, known as a gas-liquid separator assembly, is a 35-pound (16-kg) part about 1.5 feet (about half a meter) long and 8 inches (20 cm) wide and tall.

The spare part is due to arrive around 10:00 p.m. EDT (0200 May 29 GMT) and be packed away inside Discovery's middeck early Thursday, Higginbotham said. Shuttle workers will have to remove spare wrenches, air scrubber equipment and other items to make room for the last-minute item, he added.

"Clearly, having a working toilet is a priority for us," Higginbotham said in a morning status briefing.

Lawyers for the Democratic National Committee have ruled that the party does not have the authority to seat the delegates stripped from Michigan and Florida the way Sen. Hillary Clinton wants—by awarding them according to the results of the unauthorized primary contests earlier this year.

The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee will meet for a day-long session on Saturday to review appeals on how to seat the two states at this summer’s national convention in Denver. DNC lawyers circulated a memo late Tuesday to the committee members outlining their case, the Associated Press reported.

According to the lawyers, DNC rules require that the two states lose half of their delegates because they expedited their primaries, in violation of party rules. Legal experts said seating half the delegates allotted to the states is “as far as it legally can” go, AP reported. The opinion does not offer a plan on how the committee should vote, but offers two options: allow half the delegates from each state to attend, or allow the full delegations to attend with half a vote each.

The larger problem for the committee is not only how many delegates to seat, but how to divvy them up between the two Democrats. Clinton wants them awarded based on the two contests, but Sen. Barack Obama’s name was not on the Michigan ballot.

Clinton, who “won” both contests although neither she nor Obama campaigned in the states, wants the delegates awarded based on the original results because it would boost her trailing delegate count. Obama leads in overall delegates 1,978-1,779, and 2,026 are needed to secure the nomination. The legal opinion is another blow to Clinton, whose chances of securing the nomination appear unfeasible at this point. The dispute may be moot—even if the full delegates were seated based on the original contests, it is not enough for her to overtake Obama’s lead.

Normally a mundane affair, this year’s meeting of the Rules and Bylaws Committee is expected to draw unusually high public and media scrutiny because of the dispute. Clinton supporters are encouraging protesters to attend the “Count Every Vote” rally planned for outside the meeting.

According to the Washington Post, US officials have identified at least three suspected nuclear sites in Syria, two more than the Al Kibar reactor Israel bombed last year, and passed the information to the International Atomic Energy Agency. This confirms the Oct. 25, 2007, disclosure by DEBKAfile military sources that the Israeli raid of Sept. 6 had destroyed at least two nuclear sites in Syria.

Washington released its request to the IAEA now - both to point up its disapproval of the Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert’s peace talks with Damascus and to continue the pressure on Syrian president Bashar Assad. More such disclosures are therefore expected.

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden told the WP that the intelligence community’s insight into Syria’s nuclear ambitions had deepened since the Israeli raid. “Do not assume that Al Kibra exhausted our knowledge of Syrian efforts with regard to nuclear weapons.”

Our military sources add: The fact that Syria was building three interconnected nuclear sites, a North Korean reactor and facilities for supplying nuclear fuel rods and fuel processing for extracting plutonium, proves Damascus was close to completing a weaponization program fueled by plutonium rather than enriched uranium. Both American and Israeli sources reported that the reactor was only weeks or months away from being ready for production.

Our sources add that if Syria was that close, how much closer must Iran, the senior partner in the alliance, be to its goal of a homemade nuclear weapon?

Syria has not responded to any IAEA requests for a date to conduct inspections.

Well, whaddyaknow!

Without the internet we would never learn of connections like this. A Lizard over at Little Green Footballs has alerted Charles Johnson to whom, though deeply buried, the publisher of McClellan's book is indeed--George Soros. The excellent research and links are all there.

All hail the Lizards!

 

European particle physics laboratory CERN is set to launch its gigantic experiment which hopes to throw light on the origins of the universe within a month, the laboratory's head said Tuesday. 

If things go according to plan, the greatest experiment in the history of particle physics could unveil a sub-atomic component, the Higgs Boson, known as "the God Particle."

The "Higgs," named after the eminent British physicist, Peter Higgs, who first proposed it in 1964, would fill a gaping hole in the benchmark theory for understanding the physical cosmos.

Other work on the so-called Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could explain dark matter and dark energy -- strange phenomena that, stunned astrophysicists discovered a few years ago, account for 96 percent of the universe.

The LHC device "will be in working order by the end of June," CERN director general Robert Aymar told journalists.

A gamble costing six billion Swiss francs (almost six billion dollars, 3.9 billion euros) that has harnessed the labours of more than 2,000 physicists from nearly three dozen countries, the LHC is the biggest, most powerful high-energy particle accelerator ever built.

Beams of hydrogen protons will whizz around at near-light speed in opposite directions until, bent by powerful superconducting magnets, they will smash together in four bus-sized detector chambers, where they will be annihilated at temperatures hotter than the sun.

But Aymar played down hopes of any immediate discoveries once the LHC is set in motion.

"We will accumulate data for two years and it will take a lot of time to interpret," he said.

He also scoffed at fears that the massive experiment could create a black hole with potentially devastating consequences for life on Earth.

"The system is totally safe. There is nothing to fear," he said.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU — After nearly three months of reconstruction, Sayafiyah residents celebrated the simultaneous openings of the Sayafiyah Governance Center, Veterinary Clinic and Health Clinic on May 20.

“This is their day,” said Capt. Joe Johnson, commander of Company C, 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, currently attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division.

All three of the projects were a result of teamwork between Soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), and the civilian population.

“They are great people down here who want to help themselves,” said Sgt. Jeremy Johnson, a medic with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1-187th Inf. Regt. “They put a lot of hard work into this,” he said, pointing to the restored health center. “Before, it was just rubble.”

Like the buildings, the community itself had been in dire straits. Once a safe haven for al-Qaida in Iraq, the community was held in bondage out of fear, said Lt. Col. R.J. Lillibridge, 1-187th Inf. Regt. commander.

The tide turned for the better with the arrival of the 5th Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division in January.

With the support of this unit, the beginnings of a Sons of Iraq program took shape. However, due to the end of their deployment, the 5-7th Cav. Regt. could not pursue any long-term reconstruction efforts in the area before handing responsibility over to the 1-187th Inf. Regt.

When the 1-187th Inf. Regt. first arrived, Capt. Johnson said his unit began to strengthen the recently-risen SoI program and assess the area’s needs. Those needs, in addition to the health and vet clinic, included restoring two water pump stations, two water treatment plants and two schools, he said.

But most importantly was the need to establish a government structure in the area.

“We want to see Iraqi people taking care of Iraqis, and the Iraqi government facilitating the needs of their representatives,” said Capt. Johnson, of Baton Rouge, La.

Achieving this required the creation of a city council and linking them with higher government organizations, he said.

Currently, Sayafiyah has an 11-member city council, with the council head reporting to the Rasheed Nahia council. From there, concerns are sent to the Mahmudiyah Qada and finally to the central government, Lillibridge said.

“It’s little government reaching up to big government,” said Lillibridge, a native of Smithfield, R.I. “It is a positive sign. Before we solved all their problems, now we’re letting them solve their own.”

May 27, 2008 -- The polar bears are doing just fine, thank you very much. 

So says Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who announced last week that her state would sue to block Washington from listing the animals as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.

And it's a good thing, too - because the new bear-population protections mask what may be the most serious threat to American economic might in decades.

Yes, polar bears.

The polar bear, you see, marks the first species on the "threatened" list whose supposed predicament is linked directly to global warming.

The current Alaskan polar-bear population may be near an all-time high.

But Interior Department computer models - such as they are - project widespread melting of the polar ice the bears need to hunt.

And that's a big problem, given the near-limitless powers embedded in the Endangered Species Act.

The act, for one, requires the department to ensure that "all actions authorized, funded or carried out" by all federal agencies aren't likely to "result in the . . . adverse modification of habitat" of listed species.

This was odious enough when the presence of a few worthless snail darters was sufficient to derail massive public-works projects.

But because polar bears are now imperiled by global warming (officially, anyway), any carbon emissions anywhere in the country could conceivably be judged an illegal threat to their habitat.

And far-left green outfits like the Center for Biological Diversity - the group that led the charge to get the polar bear listed in the first place - are already licking their lips at the prospect.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, of course, has promised a measured application of the new protections.

Problem is, that might not be his call. As George F. Will pointed out in these pages last week, the door is now open for a federal judge to use polar-bear safety to attempt to manage nearly the entire US economy.

Not that such concerns will prevent the eco-lobby from smearing Palin as a bear-murdering meanie.

But the fact remains that any move to reduce US carbon emissions must be seriously and deliberately weighed against its economic costs.

And that's a job for the elected representatives of the people - not an unaccountable gaggle of judges and bureaucrats who, in the end, answer only to their own predjudices.

Thus, we wish Gov. Palin the best.

A battle over the 460,000 square miles of Arctic Ocean seabed, and the estimated one-quarter of the Earth's oil reserves it is thought to hold, is shaping up for this week's Arctic Ocean Summit.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the region may hold up to 25 percent of the world's oil, and although Russian planted a titanium flag under the North Pole in a territorial marking of the seabed last year, control over the area and its assets still is far from resolved.

Officials from the United States, Norway, Russia, Denmark and Canada are meeting in Greenland to discuss the area, and Carl Olson, chairman of State Department Watch, a nonpartisan foreign policy watchdog group, says the results of the fight for sovereignty on the northernmost part of the Earth is of great importance to Americans.

 

"We urge Secretary [of State Condoleezza] Rice to resist any takeover of the North Pole area because it threatens the rights of Americans to the open ocean and seabeds," he said.

The other nations are claiming the North Pole ocean area based on the Law of the Sea Treaty, which the U.S. has not officially approved, according to Olson.

According to the State Department Watch, the treaty would "allow countries to take over oceans and seabeds beyond the already existing 200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zones under the theory of underwater outercontinental shelf extensions."

While President Ronald Reagan opposed the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush have supported ratification. Research Fellows Baker Spring, Steven Groves and Brett D. Schaefer noted many reasons to oppose ratifying LOST in a September 2007 Heritage Foundation publication.

According to the researchers, the treaty would undermine U.S. sovereignty, it would jumpstart efforts of environmentalists, simultaneously requiring the U.S. to implement environmental legislation, and it would undermine U.S. military and intelligence operations.

But Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte and other State Department officials are representing the U.S. in Ilulissat, Greenland, until Thursday. In June 2007, Negroponte and Gordon England, deputy secretary of defense, supported the U.S. entrance into the Convention on the Law of the Sea in a Washington Times column.

The column asserted that entrance would give the U.S. a "voice in the debates to help shape the future development of oceans law, policy and practice," and would "protect and advance the nation's national security, economic and environmental interests in the maritime domain." Negroponte claims that entrance would possibly extend the U.S. claims in the Arctic shelf to 600 nautical miles.

A State Department statement said of this week's conference, "Deputy Secretary Negroponte looks forward to these discussions as well as bilateral meetings with his counterparts."

Olson and his group claim that five "American Arctic islands" are in jeopardy of being taken over by Russia: Wrangel, Herald, Bennett, Jeannette and Henrietta. But the State Department affirms that although Americans discovered and explored some of these islands, the five islands north of Russia were not included in the 1867 purchase of Alaska from Russia.

Olson said, "The Arctic Ocean should remain a free and open ocean for all peoples and not under the closure by any country or the United Nations."

In years past, Canada and Russia have debated who has rightful rule of the underwater Lomonosov Ridge, and Canada has disagreed with Denmark over which of the two countries owns Hans Island.