Blog Smith is inspired by the myth of Hephaestus in the creation of blacksmith-like, forged materials: ideas. This blog analyzes topics that interest me: IT, politics, technology, history, education, music, and the history of religions.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Academic Fascism: Islamic Supremacism and Ignorance at Ohio University
ANATOMY OF A THOUGHT CRIME/part two
When two well known media figures are invited to screen their documentary at a university in the Midwest the campus newspaper attacks the film with a fake "review"... published BEFORE the screening. A chilling look at political correctness run amok and the sad state of critical thinking in the modern university.
Geert Wilders Final Words at The Amsterdam Trial - English Subtitles
Final remarks of Geert Wilders at his trial in Amsterdam, June 1, 2011
Mister President, members of the Court,
I am here because of what I have said. I am here for having spoken. I have spoken, I speak and I shall continue to speak. Many have kept silent, but not Pim Fortuyn, not Theo Van Gogh, and not I.
I am obliged to speak. For the Netherlands is under threat of Islam. As I have argued many times, Islam is chiefly an ideology. An ideology of hatred, of destruction, of conquest. It is my strong conviction that Islam is a threat to Western values, to freedom of speech, to the equality of men and women, of heterosexuals and homosexuals, of believers and unbelievers.
All over the world we can see how freedom is fleeing from Islam. Day by day we see our freedoms dwindle.
Islam is opposed to freedom. Renowned scholars of Islam from all parts of the world agree on this. My witness experts subscribe to my view. There are more Islam scholars whom the court did not allow me to call upon to testify. All agree with my statements, they show that I speak the truth. That truth is on trial today.
We must live in the truth, said the dissidents under Communist rule, because the truth will set us free. Truth and freedom are inextricably connected. We must speak the truth because otherwise we shall lose our freedom.
That is why I have spoken, why I speak and why I shall continue to speak.
The statements for which I am being tried are statements which I made in my function as a politician participating in the public debate in our society. My statements were not aimed at individuals, but at Islam and the process of islamization. That is why the Public Prosecutor has concluded that I should be acquitted.
Mister President, members of the Court,
I am acting within a long tradition which I wish to honour. I am risking my life in defence of freedom in the Netherlands. Of all our achievements freedom is the most precious and the most vulnerable. Many have given their lives for freedom. We have been reminded of that in the commemorations of the month of May. But the struggle for freedom is much older.
Every day the armoured cars drive me past the statue of Johan de Witt at the Hofvijver in The Hague. De Witt wrote the “Manifesto of True Freedom” and he paid for freedom with his life. Every day I go to my office through the Binnenhof where Johan van Oldenbarneveldt was beheaded after a political trial. Leaning on his stick the elderly Oldenbarneveldt addressed his last words to his people. He said: “I have acted honourably and piously as a good patriot.” Those words are also mine.
I do not wish to betray the trust of the 1.5 million voters of my party. I do not wish to betray my country. Inspired by Johan van Oldenbarneveldt and Johan de Witt I wish to be a politician who serves the truth end hence defends the freedom of the Dutch provinces and of the Dutch people. I wish to be honest, I wish to act with honesty and that is why I wish to protect my native land against Islam. Silence is treason.
That is why I have spoken, why I speak and why I shall continue to speak.
Freedom and truth. I pay the price every day. Day and night I have to be protected against people who want to kill me. I am not complaining about it; it has been my own decision to speak. However, those who threaten me and other critics of Islam are not being tried here today. I am being tried. And about that I do complain.
I consider this trial to be a political trial. The values of D66 [a Dutch leftist liberal party] and NRC Handelsblad [a Dutch leftist liberal party] will never be brought before a judge in this country. One of the complainants clearly indicated that his intentions are political. Even questions I have asked in parliament and cooperation with the SGP are being brought as allegations against me by Mr Rabbae of GroenLinks [the leftist Dutch Green Party]. Those on the Left like to tamper with the separation of powers. When they cannot win politically because the Dutch people have discerned their sinister agenda, they try to win through the courts.
Whatever your verdict may be, that is the bitter conclusion of this trial.
This trial is also surrealistic. I am being compared with the Hutu murderers in Rwanda and with Mladic. Only a few minutes ago some here have doubted my mental health. I have been called a new Hitler. I wonder whether those who call me such names will also be sued, and if not, whether the Court will also order prosecution. Probably not. And that is just as well. Because freedom of speech applies also to my opponents.
My right to a fair trial has been violated. The order of the Amsterdam Court to prosecute me was not just a decision but a condemning verdict by judges who condemned me even before the actual trial had begun.
Mister President, members of the Court, you must now decide whether freedom still has a home in the Netherlands
Franz Kafka said: “one sees the sun slowly set, yet one is surprised when it suddenly becomes dark.”
Mister President, members of the Court, do not let the lights go out in the Netherlands.
Acquit me: Put an end to this Kafkaesque situation.
Acquit me. Political freedom requires that citizens and their elected representatives are allowed to voice opinions that are held in society.
Acquit me, for if I am convicted, you convict the freedom of opinion and expression of millions of Dutchmen.
Acquit me. I do not incite to hatred. I do not incite to discrimination. But I defend the character, the identity, the culture and the freedom of the Netherlands. That is the truth. That is why I am here. That is why I speak. That is why, like Luther before the Imperial Diet at Worms, I say: “Here I stand, I can do no other.”
That is why I have spoken, why I speak and why I shall continue to speak.
Mister President, members of the Court, though I stand here alone, my voice is the voice of many. This trial is not about me. It is about something much greater. Freedom of expression is the life source of our Western civilisation.
Do not let that source go dry just to cosy up to a totalitarian ideology. “Freedom,” said the American President Dwight Eisenhower, “has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.”
Mister President, members of the Court, you have a great responsibility. Do not cut freedom in the Netherlands from its roots, our freedom of expression. Acquit me. Choose freedom.
I have spoken, I speak, and it is my duty – I cannot do otherwise – to continue to speak.
Thank you.
Palin: "in breach of a federal law because the United States Flag Code establishes important rules for the use and display of the stars and stripes"
Do people actually listen to these commentators? It seems to me the flag is used in many ways by a wide variety of Americans.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
David Horowitz, UCLA
A short film by the David Horowitz Freedom Center that uncovers the lies of "Israel Apartheid Week"
David Horowitz at UCLA - Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7, Q and A
Part 8, Q and A
Part 9, Q and A
Monday, May 30, 2011
WESTERN BOOTS ON THE GROUND IN LIBYA
News
World news
Libya
Al-Jazeera footage captures 'western troops on the ground' in Libya
Five of Gaddafi's generals are among latest defectors to rebels as South African president seeks to broker ceasefire
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Julian Borger and Martin Chulov
guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 May 2011 15.33 BST
Article history
Armed westerners have been filmed on the front line with rebels near Misrata in the first apparent confirmation that foreign special forces are playing an active role in the Libyan conflict.
A group of six westerners are clearly visible in a report by al-Jazeera from Dafniya, described as the westernmost point of the rebel lines west of the town of Misrata. Five of them were armed and wearing sand-coloured clothes, peaked caps, and cotton Arab scarves.
The sixth, apparently the most senior of the group, was carrying no visible weapon and wore a pink, short-sleeve shirt. He may be an intelligence officer. The group is seen talking to rebels and then quickly leaving on being spotted by the television crew.
Ancient Tunnel Discovered by Jerusalem's Old City
South of the Old City, visitors to Jerusalem can enter a tunnel chipped from the bedrock by a Judean king 2,500 years ago and walk through knee-deep water under the Arab neighborhood of Silwan. Beginning this summer, a new passage will be open nearby: a sewer Jewish rebels are thought to have used to flee the Roman legions who destroyed the Jerusalem temple in 70 A.D.
The sewer leads uphill, passing beneath the Old City walls before expelling visitors into sunlight next to the rectangular enclosure where the temple once stood, now home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the gold-capped Dome of the Rock.
From there, it’s a short walk to a third passage, the Western Wall tunnel, which continues north from the Jewish holy site past stones cut by masons working for King Herod and an ancient water system. Visitors emerge near the entrance to an ancient quarry called Zedekiah’s Cave that descends under the Muslim Quarter.
The next major project, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority, will follow the course of one of the city’s main Roman-era streets underneath the prayer plaza at the Western Wall. This route, scheduled for completion in three years, will link up with the Western Wall tunnel.
The excavations and flood of visitors exist against a backdrop of acute distrust between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims, who are suspicious of any government moves in the Old City and particularly around the Al-Aqsa compound, Islam’s third-holiest shrine. Jews know the compound as the Temple Mount, site of two destroyed temples and the center of the Jewish faith for three millennia.
Muslim fears have led to violence in the past: The 1996 opening of a new exit to the Western Wall tunnel sparked rumors among Palestinians that Israel meant to damage the mosques, and dozens were killed in the ensuing riots. In recent years, however, work has gone ahead without incident.
Mindful that the compound has the potential to trigger devastating conflict, Israel’s policy is to allow no excavations there. Digging under Temple Mount, the Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg has written, “would be like trying to figure out how a hand grenade works by pulling the pin and peering inside.”
Despite the Israeli assurances, however, rumors persist that the excavations are undermining the physical stability of the Islamic holy sites.
“I believe the Israelis are tunneling under the mosques,” said Najeh Bkerat, an official of the Waqf, the Muslim religious body that runs the compound under Israel’s overall security control.
Samir Abu Leil, another Waqf official, said he had heard hammering that very morning underneath the Waqf’s offices, in a Mamluk-era building that sits just outside the holy compound and directly over the route of the Western Wall tunnel, and had filed a complaint with police.
The closest thing to an excavation on the mount, Israeli archaeologists point out, was done by the Waqf itself: In the 1990s, the Waqf opened a new entrance to a subterranean prayer space and dumped truckloads of rubble outside the Old City, drawing outrage from scholars who said priceless artifacts were being destroyed.
This month, an Israeli government watchdog released a report saying Waqf construction work in the compound in recent years had been done without supervision and had damaged antiquities. The issue is deemed so sensitive that the details of the report were kept classified.
Some Israeli critics of the tunnels point to what they call an exaggerated emphasis on a Jewish narrative.
“The tunnels all say: We were here 2,000 years ago, and now we’re back, and here’s proof,” said Yonathan Mizrachi, an Israeli archaeologist. “Living here means recognizing that other stories exist alongside ours.”
Yuval Baruch, the Antiquities Authority archaeologist in charge of Jerusalem, said his diggers are careful to preserve worthy finds from all of the city’s historical periods. “This city is of interest to at least half the people on Earth, and we will continue uncovering the past in the most professional way we can,” he said.
John Wayne Tributes on Memorial Day
"Taps" 2:56
The history of "Taps" written by John Mitchum and spoken by John Wayne.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Afterlife of the Soul
The question of the Human Body (Eliade, Mircea, Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 6, God - Ichi, 6:499) and its disposition is intriguing. What survives human life? Organic life exists for a finite period of time, then ceases to be.
I would come down on the side of a dualist which radically differentiates the life principle from all else, as opposed to the homologization of microcosm and macrocosm (which systematically correlates the body with the world outside, p. 499).
"With regard to the first, dualistic physiology posits a radical distinction between base matter and some non-material life principle which inheres only within certain material aggregates for a period of finite duration. the entry of the life principle--be it defined as soul, spirit, breath, warmth, or the life--vivifies and energizes the matter in which it resides: when it departs, death is the result. Such a dualism is implicit in the familiar account of the creation of the first human being in Genesis 2:7 (p. 499).
There are elaborate religious conceptions of origin, existence, and explanations of the soul but what intrigues me is the scientific application of the life force. Energy, insofar as I understand it, does not simply go poof! So what happens scientifically to energy, or a force, and an organic life force at the cessation of death? Ordinarily, and only for the sake of discussion, this is the soul.
David Hume is the skeptic who doubts that "we have any idea of the self" (Stumpf, Samuel Enoch, Socrates to Sartre and Beyond: A History of Philosophy, p. 301). There is no myself that truly exists according to Hume since what I really can catch is only some perception of myself, not the self, itself.
A Warning to America | The Facts of Islam
In May 12, 2011, Bill Warner spoke at the Cornerstone Church in Nashville, TN. His speech was part of Geert Wilders’ event, “A Warning to America”, sponsored by the Tennessee Freedom Coalition.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
9/11 Families Can Not State "Muslim" on Memorial to Son
Peter Gadiel of 9/11 Families for a Secure America is discussed on the Bill O'Reilly news show concerning a new memorial for Peter's son who was murdered in the 9/11 attacks. Peter is insistent that the memorial in Kent, Connecticut state that his son was killed by Muslim terrorists. According to O'Reilly, the city is objecting on the grounds of political correctness.
RT's Adam Kokesh vs. The Man
RT's Adam vs the Man host Adam Kokesh and several other activists participating in a flash-mob were body slammed, choked and arrested at the publicly-funded Thomas Jefferson Memorial. Their crime? Silently dancing, in celebration of the first amendment's champion and in response to US District Judge John D. Bates' ruling that denounced dancing on the site.
The Most Beautiful Woman in the World: Michelle
CabooseLook at her shoulders and posture compared to France’s first lady and the princess of Spain.
Religion vs. State, Crosses in Utah
I disagree; the cross is a religious symbol and should not be paid for at state expense. On the other hand, these are religious symbols that are historically important for a time when America adhered to Judeo-Christian values. The First Amendment states that the government should neither promote nor prohibit religious observance. Thus, the existing monuments should remain as historically significant, and be paid for by the state, until such time as citizens abandon religious symbols altogether, or, if they decide they would like to be religious once again. In this way, the state is neutral in regards to religious observance which is what I believe is what the Founders intended.
Parents Not Raising Children Who Are Passive Enough for the Federal Government
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that the administration's new $500 million early learning initiative is designed to deal with children from birth onward to prevent such problems as 5-year olds who "can't sit still" in a kindergarten classroom.
“You really need to look at the range of issues, because if a 5-year-old can’t sit still, it is unlikely that they can do well in a kindergarten class, and it has to be the whole range of issues that go into healthy child development,” Sebelius said during a telephone news conference on Wednesday to announce the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Medvedev says Russia, U.S. may reach agreement on missile shield by 2020
It wasn’t merely that Medvedev had chosen a date almost comically far into the future to suggest when the two nations might come to terms; the particular date he chose carried special meaning. 2020 is the year when the State Department has estimated the U.S. will deploy the SM-3 Block IIB, a missile still on the drawing board but being designed to intercept medium- and intermediate-range missiles that might be launched from the Middle East.
College Students Sign Petition to End Free Speech
This reference to the video was gone after I posted it.
Joe Schoffstall out to see just how far liberals would go to silence conservative speech. Joe went around Georgetown in DC with a petition to "Ban Conservative Hate Sites" that said this:
"The undersigned hereby adamantly demand that the United States government shut down right wing hate sites. The hate speech propagated by sites like the Drudge Report, Hot Air, Instapundit, Big Government, and others must not be allowed to corrupt our political discourse any longer. These sites are dangerous not only to truth and freedom but also to our society as a whole. BAN THEM NOW!"
Good Thing the Americans Are Not in Debt to the Communists
Australian TV reporter Stephen McDonnell recently went to Beijing to report on the underground church booming in China. But he wasn’t in the country long before he started noticing something: he was being followed.
Clarke asleep during Obama speech
Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke naps while Obummer rambles on at Westminster.
U.S. Congressman Says The Obama Administration Materially Supporting Terrorist
Rep. Gohmert has more information on how Obama is supporting terrorist's organizations.
Indiana Citizens Take Back 4th Amendment
http://RTR.org | After the unconstitutional Indiana Supreme Court ruling removing the protections of the 4th Amendment, the people of Indiana spontaneously organized in a trans-partisan alliance uniting for the Constitution at their state capitol. Gary Franchi was on the scene to report.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Honor Killing in Florida
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Netanyahu: Israel Will Always Be Pro-American
Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu is congratulating America for killing bin Laden, saying `good riddance,' and adding the U.S. has a permanent partner for peace in Israel. (May 24)
Monday, May 23, 2011
Bobby Jindal's Birth Certificate
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's birth certificate indicates he was born on June 10, 1971, in Baton Rouge, La.
CODENAME SMART ALEC?: UK police label Obama with 'mildly offensive' Punjabi word...
A Punjabi speaker told the paper the word Chalaque is 'not considered rude', but could be 'mildly offensive'.
It is also said to mean 'cheeky, crafty and cunning'.
Codename 'smart alec': British police label Obama with 'mildly offensive' Punjabi word for visit to UK
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz: THE GIRL FROM IPANEMA - 1964
The first commercial recording was in 1962, by Pery Ribeiro. The version performed by Astrud Gilberto, along with João Gilberto and Stan Getz, from the 1964 album Getz/Gilberto, became an international hit, reaching number five in the United States pop chart, number 29 in the United Kingdom, and charting highly throughout the world. Numerous recordings have been used in films, sometimes as an elevator music cliché (for example, near the end of The Blues Brothers). In 2004, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.
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Yes, You Can Make a 150-Foot Basketball Shot With a Homemade Catapult
The Legendary Shots are a group of basketball fans who go to great lengths to get the ball in the net – literally.
The Alabama friends recently scored a basket from around 150 feet – potentially a new world record – but it was actually the method of the shot that pleased them more than the distance.
The nine-strong gang built a wooden catapult which they used to fire the ball across a street and through the rim.
Free fall shot
The End of the World
Her best-known hit was the pop classic "The End of the World" in 1963; the video is from a television appearance in 1965.
Music video by R.E.M. performing It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) (2003 Digital Remaster), 4:04
Little Man, Big Man - Atlas Shrugs
This speech is from Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, from November 2010.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Obama to Congress; I Don't Need Your Permission, Constitution Thwarted
If Obama's ignorance of the Constitution holds, then limited actions such as Vietnam, which led to the deaths of 58,000 Americans, is a legitimate presidential action. In addition, if we are taking orders from an international body such as NATO, then we do not need the approval of not only Congress but the American people as well.
“Since April 4,” Obama wrote, “U.S. participation has consisted of: (1) non-kinetic support to the NATO-led operation, including intelligence, logistical support, and search and rescue assistance; (2) aircraft that have assisted in the suppression and destruction of air defenses in support of the no-fly zone; and (3) since April 23, precision strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles against a limited set of clearly defined targets in support of the NATO-led coalition's efforts.”
Friday, May 20, 2011
Students Who "Support" Free Speech Want to Ban Conservatives From Radio & TV
College students who claim to support the freedom of speech wish to ban conservative talk-show hosts from both radio & TV (filmed at CSU Fresno).
Check out our website http://www.ExposingLeftists.com and follow us on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ExposingLeftists
Netanyhu Schools Obama
This is a shorter clip but you do not see Obama's rigid and unmoved body language in it.
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