The Rise of ISIS

Excellent documentary about ISIS and the motivation to form the group...certainly key in understanding the quagmire we are stepping into...


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/rise-of-isis/

Reza Aslan Schools CNN and Fox News

Awesome! Way to go Reza!

CNN Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ibKWVTFSak

Fox News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt1cOnNrY5s

Piers Morgan Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYluVdT50Ro

Dear North America, You're Not as Great as You Think
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/angelina-chapin/reza-aslan-bill-maher_b_5941718.html

The Bewildered Kingdom

Can't stay on top forever... 

The issue for the Saudis is not merely Iran’s putative nuclear capability. A deal on Iran’s nuclear program would legitimize the regime’s regional influence in a way that has not occurred in decades, thereby serving its hegemonic objectives. The deeper threat or fear is that Iran’s ultimate target is leadership of Mecca, the cradle of Islam.

That is why the Saudi royals prefer to keep Iran chained with international sanctions. True, even under economic sanctions, Iran has intruded ever more deeply into Arab politics, but it was the US that opened the door by overthrowing Saddam’s Sunni-minority regime in Iraq, which ultimately brought an Iranian-backed Shia government to power.

READ MORE HERE...
 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/mai-yamani-assesses-saudi-arabia-s-increasingly-assertive-regional-foreign-policy-since-the-start-of-the-arab-spring

Argentina's Slum Priests Focus on Helping rather than Converting

Truly inspiring...

Excerpt:

He has scuffed work boots and dirty nails and hears confession from dealers and hit men. When residents spot his trashed 4x4 bumping down dirt roads, they call out his nickname: "Charly!"
He spends most of his time addressing practical rather than spiritual problems. That means navigating governmental bureaucracy, helping immigrants obtain state identification cards and finding beds to get addicts off the street.

"If we don't get people a home, it's insane to think about other kinds of lives for them," Olivero said.
So far this day he had talked to the directors of two state hospitals, attended a brainstorming session with other slum priests and handed out fliers about a religious festival for the neighborhood's large community of Paraguayan immigrants.

As he left to prepare for that evening's wake for the addict, he suddenly remembered something.
"Oh," he said, bringing his hands to his head. "I have a wedding tonight!"

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-argentina-slum-priests-20130806-dto,0,4329979.htmlstory

Shouting Fire

An exceptional documentary about free speech.  Definitely informative, timely and captivating...

Watch full documentary here...

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/shouting-fire-stories-from-the-edge-of-free-speech/

In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

See more photos here.

RIP, definitely admired his unpopular views...

Christopher Hitchens, a slashing polemicist in the tradition of Thomas Paine and George Orwell who trained his sights on targets as various as Henry Kissinger, the British monarchy and Mother Teresa, wrote a best-seller attacking religious belief, and dismayed his former comrades on the left by enthusiastically supporting the American-led war in Iraq, died Thursday at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He was 62.

“In whatever kind of a ‘race’ life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist,” Mr. Hitchens wrote in Vanity Fair, for which he was a contributing editor.
He took pains to emphasize that he had not revised his position on atheism, articulated in his best-selling 2007 book, “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” although he did express amused appreciation at the hope, among some concerned Christians, that he might undergo a late-life conversion.
He also professed to have no regrets for a lifetime of heavy smoking and drinking. “Writing is what’s important to me, and anything that helps me do that — or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation — is worth it to me,”

A young Christopher Hitchens circa 1968, picketing at a non-union factory in his native England.

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/arts/christopher-hitchens-is-dead-at-62-obituary.html?pagewanted=all

ALSO WORTH CHECKING OUT...

Christopher Hitchens on The Daily Show: Sparring with Jon Stewart Over the Years...

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/11/Christopher-Hitchens-on-iThe-Daily-Showi-Sparring-with-Jon-Stewart-Over-the-Years

Terrorism Has No Religion

A couple of days ago one of my readers passed on this video to me and it got me thinking about the  stereotyping of Muslims...being Native American myself I know all too well the game of stereotyping...Anyway here is her letter and my research follows...

Hello Ajarn Mike,
In memory of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, I would like to offer you and your readers of Kultūra a message of peace in a short video and a pledge of tolerance.
http://myfellowamerican.us

Here are some interesting statistics from the European Policing Organization...Europol

They say...

"Terrorism continues to have an impact on the lives of EU citizens -
in 2010, seven people died in the EU as a result of terrorist
attacks.  Islamist terrorists carried out three attacks on EU territory.
Separatist groups, on the other hand, were responsible
for 160 attacks, while left-wing and anarchist groups
were responsible for 45 attacks."

On p.7, the 2009 Europol report concludes:

Islamist terrorism is still perceived as being the biggest threat worldwide, despite the fact that the EU only faced one Islamist terrorist attack in 2008.  This bomb attack took place in the UK…Separatist terrorism remains the terrorism area which affects the EU most. This includes Basque separatist terrorism in Spain and France, and Corsican terrorism in France

More reports from previous years also tell the same story...
https://www.europol.europa.eu/latest_publications/2

The influential think tank the Rand Corporation has also commented on the imaginary threat of Muslim terrorism...

"The scale of the September 11, 2001, attacks tended to obliterate America’s memory of pre-9/11 terrorism, yet measured by the number of terrorist attacks, the volume of domestic terrorist activity was much greater in the 1970s. That tumultuous decade saw 60 to 70 terrorist incidents, mostly bombings, on U.S. soil every year—a level of terrorist activity 15 to 20 times that seen in the years since 9/11, even when foiled plots are counted as incidents. And in the nine-year period from 1970 to 1978, 72 people died in terrorist incidents, more than five times the number killed by jihadist terrorists in the United States in the almost nine years since 9/11."

The contrast between the level of terrorist violence in the United States today and that in the 1970s is indicated in RAND’s chronology of terrorism, which records 83 terrorist attacks in the United States between 9/11 and the end of 2009, only three of which were clearly connected with the jihadist cause. (The RAND database includes Abdulmutallab’s failed Christmas Day attempt to detonate a bomb on an airplane.) The other jihadist plots were interrupted by authorities. In addition to the jihadist attacks, this total includes the anthrax letters sent in late 2001, which killed five people, as well as numerous low-level attacks by environmental extremists (38) and animal-rights fanatics (12), which account for most of the violence. In all, 24 people were killed between 9/11 and the end of 2009, including the 13 who died at Fort Hood.

And...

The number of [Jihadist] recruits is still tiny. There are more than 3 million Muslims in the United States, and few more than 100 have joined jihad—about one out of every 30,000—suggesting an American Muslim population that remains hostile to jihadist ideology and its exhortations to violence. A mistrust of American Muslims by other Americans seems misplaced…

In a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2006, 68 percent of American Muslims expressed an unfavorable opinion of al Qaeda. That does not mean that the remaining 32 percent held a favorable view, as 27 percent declined to offer any opinion. Only 5 percent expressed a positive view of al Qaeda, and this was at the height of the war in Iraq, which clearly provoked negative attitudes toward U.S. foreign policy. Seventy-four percent of younger Muslims, those under the age of 30, expressed unfavorable views of al Qaeda, although at the same time, 7 percent expressed favorable views of the organization (Pew Research Center, 2007).

These figures indicate that individuals turning toward violence would find little support in the Muslim community. They are not Mao’s guerrillas swimming in a friendly sea. Even assuming wider antipathy among U.S. Muslims toward certain U.S. policies in the Middle East or in the war on terrorism, the jihadists’ propaganda machine is returning a very low yield of recruits.

You can read the full PDF report here...
http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2010/RAND_OP292.pdf

Another blogger also wrote this inspiring piece on the issue...

Excerpt:

The day after 9/11, my nephew told me how he and his friends beat up a Muslim kid at his school. He didn’t understand why I was so angry at him. “He’s just a Muslim and they hit the twin towers,” was his response. Already, in his mind, it was acceptable to beat up someone because of a general affiliation with a particular group of people. Since that time, at least in America, society has accepted as normal the stereotyping of an entire race or religion based on the actions of a single individual.

We have so bought into this myth that, almost immediately, Muslim groups around the country have condemned Major Hasan’s actions and done everything short of apologizing for being Muslim. Why is this even necessary? Where were the Christian apologists when Tim McVeigh blew up the Murrah building in Oklahoma City? Why is it not necessary for Christians to apologize when abortion clinics get blown up and abortion doctors are murdered? When has any religion stood up to say that they abhor someone’s actions when they beat up and/or kill a homosexual?

Today, there was another shooting, this time in Orlando, Florida. I have yet to hear from any Hispanic groups apologizing for or condemning Mr. Rodriguez’ behavior. You won’t. We simply say that person was a nut, crazy, or a troubled person. In such cases, we are able to separate the troubled person from the group. Not so, it seems, with any Muslim.

No group of people should ever have to apologize for the actions of a single person. That person alone is responsible for their actions. By allowing an entire group to be collectively guilty, you are, in fact, saying that no one in that group is capable of acting respectfully towards other human beings.
As an American, I’ve grown up hearing that we’re supposed to hate all commies and the Russians. Then it was Hispanics. Then, just Mexicans because someone decided that all other people of Hispanic origin were suddenly okay. We were supposed to hate the French and eat Freedom Fries, but that was just stupid. French fries are good. So is French wine. And, so are the French. Now, we’ve moved on to hating Muslims. All this hate is a result of the actions of a few. It does not, and never has, reflected the entire group.
On the way home from work, I was listening to...

Read more here:
http://dailycensored.com/2009/11/06/the-tragedy-of-stereotypes-in-america/

Finally, a study conducted by Duke University and the University of North Carolina concluded...

"Muslim-American communities have been active in preventing radicalization," said Charles Kurzman, professor of sociology at UNC, in the statement. "This is one reason that Muslim-American terrorism has resulted in fewer than three dozen of the 136,000 murders committed in the United States since 9/11." 

However, "since 9/11 there has been increased tension among Muslim-Americans about their acceptance in mainstream American society," the study said. Muslim-Americans report feeling a stronger anti-Muslim bias from the media as well as from day-to-day interactions.

"While Muslim-Americans understand and support the need for enhanced security and counterterrorism initiatives, they believe that some of these efforts are discriminatory, and they are angered that innocent Muslim-Americans bear the brunt of the impact of these policies."

Read more here...
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/01/06/muslim.radicalization.study/

Saint Patrick Dies

On this day in 461 A.D., Saint Patrick, Christian missionary, bishop and apostle of Ireland, dies at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland.


Much of what is known about Patrick's legendary life comes from the Confessio, a book he wrote during his last years. Born in Great Britain, probably in Scotland, to a well-to-do Christian family of Roman citizenship, Patrick was captured and enslaved at age 16 by Irish marauders. For the next six years, he worked as a herder in Ireland, turning to a deepening religious faith for comfort. Following the counsel of a voice he heard in a dream one night, he escaped and found passage on a ship to Britain, where he was eventually reunited with his family.

According to the Confessio, in Britain Patrick had another dream, in which an individual named Victoricus gave him a letter, entitled "The Voice of the Irish." As he read it, Patrick seemed to hear the voices of Irishmen pleading him to return to their country and walk among them once more. After studying for the priesthood, Patrick was ordained a bishop. He arrived in Ireland in 433 and began preaching the Gospel, converting many thousands of Irish and building churches around the country. After 40 years of living in poverty, teaching, traveling and working tirelessly, Patrick died on March 17, 461 in Saul, where he had built his first church.

Since that time, countless legends have grown up around Patrick. Made the patron saint of Ireland, he is said to have baptized hundreds of people on a single day, and to have used a three-leaf clover--the famous shamrock--to describe the Holy Trinity. In art, he is often portrayed trampling on snakes, in accordance with the belief that he drove those reptiles out of Ireland. For thousands of years, the Irish have observed the day of Saint Patrick's death as a religious holiday, attending church in the morning and celebrating with food and drink in the afternoon. The first St. Patrick's Day parade, though, took place not in Ireland, but the United States, when Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City in 1762. As the years went on, the parades became a show of unity and strength for persecuted Irish-American immigrants, and then a popular celebration of Irish-American heritage. The party went global in 1995, when the Irish government began a large-scale campaign to market St. Patrick's Day as a way of driving tourism and showcasing Ireland's many charms to the rest of the world. Today, March 17 is a day of international celebration, as millions of people around the globe put on their best green clothing to drink beer, watch parades and toast the luck of the Irish.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Original story from:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/3/17

How did we get here? Evolution Vs. Intelligent Design

The famous "pillars of creation" as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. Photo: National Geographic.


On the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, an intelligent design advocate and an evolutionist weigh in on six natural wonders often cited as evidence against Darwin's theory.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/photogalleries/091123-origin-species-darwin-150-intelligent-design/index.html

The Muslim World