Over at armenialiberty is this very interesting article.

In a clear warning to President Serzh Sarkisian, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) on Tuesday reaffirmed its strong opposition to the idea of Turkish and Armenian historians jointly determining whether the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire constituted a genocide.

The idea was floated by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a 2005 letter to then President Robert Kocharian. Kocharian rejected it...

[...]

Sarkisian said late last month that Yerevan will not oppose the creation of such a commission if Turkey unconditionally establishes diplomatic relations and opens its land border with Armenia. Armenia’s leading opposition groups were quick to condemn the apparent policy change, saying that by accepting Ankara’s proposal in principle Sarkisian called into question the very fact of what many historians regard as the first genocide of the 20th century.

The opposition concerns were echoed by Dashnaktsutyun, which is represented in Sarkisian’s coalition government and is known for its hard line on Armenia’s relations with Turkey.

[...]

... the issue was on the agenda of the first session of Dashnaktsutyun’s recently elected governing Bureau held from July 3-8. “The Bureau is adamant that the fact of the Armenian genocide is not a subject of discussion, and no high-ranking official representing Armenia may have a different approach,” it said in a statement. “Universal recognition of the genocide is vital for the existence, security and future of our people and statehood.”

Here, here, say I. Turkish administrations have spent the best part of a century trying to squirm out of admitting that they committed genocide against the Armenian people. Islam is, after all, a religion of peace so they couldn’t possibly have done such thing, could they! I hope that the Dashnaks will be successful in curbing His Excellency President Sarkisian’s leanings to dhimmitude.

You can find armenialiberty here.

You can find Armenia using this map.

"Nylons and chocolate bars...."

Nylons and chocolate bars nothing. I'm going to buy a thousand incandescent bulbs for reading lamps, 60-75-100 watt bulbs, and I won't sell my soul for any other (fluorescent) mess of wattage.

No, there'll be no fluorescent lights for me, when the Lights Go Out And It's Closing Time  In The Gardens Of The West. I understand that in this country that is due to happen in 2012. A mere four years away, and the ban on incandescent light bulbs goes into effect. Take away my plane or train travel, take away my dilapidated chariot of high-octane fire. Go right ahead, do.

But just as  Barbara Fretchie defied Stonewall Jackson's soldiers and would not let them threaten the Union flag she displayed (And General Jackson backed her up: "'Who touches a hair of yon gray head/Dies like a dog. March on', he said.) and was ready to risk everything, I will fight tooth and nail not to have to endure reading by fluorescent light.

I'm ready to defend my sylvanias. The house has been wired.  Just try and take them away from me, G-men!

I was sitting quietly at my table in the NER double-wide, such extravagance, in downtown Atlantis when this landed upon it. What’s a man supposed to do? I simply had to share it with you.

This article, thanks AFP, just had me in stitches!

An elderly Indonesian woman famed nationwide for supernatural skills in lengthening penises has died, reports said Thursday.

Reclusive Mak Erot, famed for penis extension treatment incorporating traditional herbs and Islamic prayer, died last week in Caringin village on the western coast of Java island, the Kompas daily's website reported.

Mak Erot -- who reports aged anywhere from 101 to over 130 -- prompted legions of imitations of her famous clinics, many using her famously craggy and birthmarked face to lure in anxious men.

            [...]

User "Jengkol" wrote on news website Detikcom: "Oh no, I didn't have the chance to go to Mak Erot and now she's dead. I'll just have to buy a vacuum. Maybe that could be the solution to my problem."

!? !? Hoover?! Damn! What am I missing here?

The Telegraph has more details.

Mak Erot developed a family business empire offering penis extensions and cures for other sexual maladies using the power of Muslim prayer and a cocktail of 141 herbs. One of her 40 grandchildren, Haji Saifuloh, 37, explained that the secret was revealed when Mak Erot prayed for 141 days following the death of her mother in the 1940s.

"Her prayer was answered with this gift of sexual healing," he said. A voice from the spirit world told his grandmother, "You can cure anyone who has a small penis or whose penis has died. You can cure them!"

Her early patients were occupying Japanese soldiers during the Second World War and the first clinic opened in 1945. The enterprise grew as dramatically as Mak Erot claimed her patients did. Now there are several clinics around the country including Haji Saifuloh's, which he recently moved to a Jakarta hotel to take advantage of the extra parking.

‘Hotel’, ‘Extra parking’! I wish I could stop laughing for long enough to analyse the implications of those two!

The Telegraph recently visited the ill-lit room in the hotel where he practises his skills. A collection of wooden phalluses which patients can choose between as a model for their own was on display.

Can I stop laughing now? Please, it’s starting to hurt!

"Doctors are amazed with the results of our herbs," he boasted. "The famous sexologists have given our clinics the thumbs up."

Don’t ask! That’s a new one for me, too!

He said that "countless" satisfied customers have paid him £40 each for a 30-minute consultation. "It always works," he claimed.

The claims made for Mak Erot's powers were large...

Well, of course they were, oh-oh, there goes my spleen; I’ve got to stop laughing!

...and, whatever their truth or otherwise, found a wide audience of believers.

And all this from the staid old Telegraph – what is the world coming to? Oh no, I wish I hadn’t said that!

As I said, you just couldn’t make it up (so to speak)!

Altogether far too many exclamation marks!

Over to you, Mary!

Bis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-HNZLg6ntI&feature=related

A mere three years ago when Bat Ye'or wrote about plans for a Mediterranean Union in Eurabia she was written off as a fantasist. Now the plans for a Club Med are full steam ahead and clueless Economist is fully on board.

Beyond the platitudes and projects lies the germ of a brilliant idea. Something is stirring around the Med as globalisation takes root. Growth and investment have leapt. There is a new openness to trade and foreign money. The members of Club Med no longer need to glower across the table at each other. Instead, there is the prospect of the youth and vigour of the southern Mediterranean combining with a rich, ageing north. Despite the recent surge, the southern Med still takes less than 10% of all the FDI from the EU. This offers a tantalising prospect—though one reason why Club Med matters is that it is fraught with dangers.

Dido’s cement

The EU has looked south before, in an initiative called the Barcelona Process, which dates back 13 years and failed to live up to its promises. Hopes are higher today, however, because the politicians gathering in Paris are following a path that is increasingly well trodden by business (see article). FDI in the countries along the Mediterranean shore, from Morocco to Turkey, has grown six times since the turn of the century, to $59 billion in 2006—ahead of Latin America’s Mercosur ($25 billion) and not far short of China ($69 billion). At the same time, the growth in the region’s GDP is running at 4.4% a year—slow by China’s standards, admittedly, but it has been accelerating as Europe has slowed.

Although Turkey, Israel and Egypt still dominate, most of the region has shared in this prosperity. Oil and gas are partly to thank, but investment is spread among financial services, telecoms, retailing and construction. Look at the car factory Renault and Nissan are planning in Morocco. Or the new container port outside Tangiers that will soon be bigger than Long Beach, on America’s west coast. Much of the money comes from Europe, as did the €8.8 billion ($12.9 billion) France’s Lafarge invested in Egyptian cement. But Americans are making aerospace parts; Arabs are spending petrodollars on property and construction; Brazilians are investing in fertilisers and textiles; Indians in IT and pharmaceuticals.

There is strength in such diversity, and there needs to be. The resurgent Med has a lot still to overcome. With exceptions, notably Israel, the region is plagued by poor infrastructure, an ill-educated workforce and unemployment. Unlike eastern Europe, which built trading links under communism, the Med countries barely trade with each other, so they lose the benefits of specialisation. And then there is the politics. The Europeans are right to look askance at the looming crisis of succession in Egypt, beleaguered Israel, unborn Palestine, divided Lebanon, fundamentalist Islam in Morocco, bombs in Algeria, Muammar Qaddafi’s bizarre Libyan autocracy, the risk that the Turkish courts declare the ruling party unconstitutional. That unfinished list is already depressingly long.

The EU is not free of troubles either. Those who favour Turkey’s membership of the EU fear that Club Med is designed to fob it off with second-class citizenship. At first Mr Sarkozy schemed to include only the EU countries with a Mediterranean coast—a ploy to create a French-dominated counterbalance to the apparently German-dominated east. After a vicious row with Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, Mr Sarkozy agreed to include the entire EU. That was right, if only because Germany pays much of the EU’s bills.

Sunday’s summit matters, because it is a step towards healing such wounds—and because it sets the tone. Will the Mediterranean union seize the moment, or will it be strangled by southern politics and European squabbles?

Mare nostrums

The first test is whether Mr Sarkozy is willing to see Club Med as more than a scheme to burnish French glory. If he wants the new union to thrive, he will have to accept that it is for everyone’s benefit, and let business do its work. This means a free-trade area that opens the EU to goods and services from the south—including the farm produce that France is making a fuss over in the world trade talks.

The second is for the EU to use its patronage to boost spending on infrastructure, promote trade in the region and clean up politics. One lesson from eastern Europe is that, with incentives, countries will start to sort themselves out. For the Mediterranean, those incentives should include access to funds and markets. The logic of enlargement is that it could even include the faint possibility of membership of the EU itself (if the union were to admit non-Europeans). But none of that will count for much unless the southern Med chooses prosperity.

The world sometimes writes off Europe as the old continent, well past the vigour of youth and doomed to gentle decline; at the same time it condemns many of the teeming economies of the southern Med as chaotic backwaters. Old and young can make a powerful combination. The creation of the Union for the Mediterranean is hardly the rebirth of imperial Rome, but it may just be the start of something exciting.

Oh, it will be exciting all right.

I have a fair degree of respect and affection for the British blog, Harry’s Place. Theoretically a blog of the Left, it is pragmatic rather than dogmatic. Sensibly pro -Jewish and generally pro-Israel, it argues fiercely against what it stubbornly persists in calling “Islamism”; clearly much of the “Islamist” behaviour it condemns is simply “Islamic”. The main contributors are intelligent and articulate. Comments are loosely moderated. Some comments are idiotic, of course, but by and large there is genuine debate of a high standard. Above all, there is robust and humorous banter, some of it deliciously vulgar. Fights break out, but grudges are not held for long. More than any blog I know, Harry’s Place has a genuine exchange of views, and in the rough-and-tumble, nobody gets too big for his boots. Other websites preach to the converted, and, perhaps because of this, such disagreements as do arise provoke bitterness and egomania (no names, no pack-drill).

I was therefore very concerned to learn that Harry’s Place is being sued for libel by Mohammed Sawalha, President of the British Muslim Initiative, and supporter of Hamas. Rebecca reported on the threat of action; now it is actually happening:  

Last Friday, in the wake of a closely argued debate about whether Mohammed Sawalha, the President of the British Muslim Initiative, had used the phrase “Evil Jew” or “Jewish Lobby” in a speech, Harry’s Place received a letter. The letter is from Dean and Dean, a firm of solicitors who are acting for Mr Sawalha. Mr Sawalha has demanded that we take down certain articles from Harry’s Place, and publish an apology “in the attached wording”.

The solicitors have failed to attach the apology that Mr Sawalha insists we publish. That omission matters little, as we have no intention of apologising to him at all, nor of taking down any article.

We have responded to Mr Sawalha’s solicitors, through Mishcon de Reya, who are acting for us.

Mr Sawalha claims that we have “chosen a malevolent interpretation of a meaningless word”. In fact, we did no more than translate a phrase which appeared in an Al Jazeera report of Mr Sawalha’s speech. When Al Jazeera changed that phrase from “Evil Jew” to “Jewish Lobby”, we reported that fact, along with the statement that it had been a typographical error.

Mr Sawalha says that the attribution of the phrase “Evil Jew” to him implies that he is “anti-semitic and hateful”. Notably, he does not take issue with our reporting of the revelation, made in a Panorama documentary in 2006, that he is a senior activist in the clerical fascist terrorist organisation, Hamas. The BBC report disclosed that Mr Sawalha “master minded much of Hamas’ political and military strategy” and in London “is alleged to have directed funds, both for Hamas’ armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah”.

Hamas is an organisation which recently took power in Gaza by means of a violent coup, in which they consolidated their power by systematically murdering their Palestinian political opponents. It operates by deliberately targetting innocent Israel civilians in terrorist attacks: a tactic which it has used to stymie any prospect of a negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestine.

Hamas is both racist and genocidal. Its foundational document, the Hamas Covenant is little more than a racist diatribe against Jews.

I am not against libel laws when used to protect people’s reputation from lies, but, as David T of Harry’s Place asks, does a supporter of Hamas have a reputation to defend? The UK’s libel laws were not intended to further the interests of an aggressive ideology like Islam, which is bent on crushing free speech. This is not the first of such cases. See this post on Rachel Ehrenfeld. For some time now, our libel laws have been the last refuge of the scoundrel; now they are an instrument of Jihad.

I am pleased to see that Harry’s Place is getting support, even from those who may not agree with its politics. Douglas Murray and Martin Bright had intended to speak at IslamExpo, but have now pulled out. While this leaves the Muslims unchallenged, it was a correct and principled decision. Douglas Murray comments succinctly:

I will not come on a platform hosted by people carrying out legal action against a deeply admirable and informed proponent of free speech.  I hope your debate benefits from its newly re-found uniformity.

There is more support here from a number of American bloggers. I think we can add New English Review to the list. 

Not really, of course, but in some respects. David Thompson links to a post by the aptly-named Ballgame, listing ways in which women have it easier than men. As a female, I am "privileged" because:

My chance of suffering a work-related injury or illness is significantly lower than a man’s.

If I shy away from fights, it is unlikely that this will damage my standing in my peer group or call into question my worthiness as a sex partner.

If I attempt to hug a friend in joy, it’s much less likely that my friend will wonder about my sexuality or pull away in unease.

If I interact with other people’s children - particularly people I don’t know very well - I do not have to worry much about the interaction being misinterpreted.

The last is a very important point. Men I know are reluctant to help or comfort a little girl in distress because of society's paranoia about paedophiles. Most sexual abuse of little girls takes place in the family, rather than in public places, and these attitudes are absurd.

On a lighter note, women can carry handbags without being considered namby-pamby, or worse still, French. Men have to stuff everything in their pockets. Depending on where those pockets are, repeated rummaging can also be "misinterpreted". But I wouldn't be seen dead with a man who carried a handbag. Was Trafalgar fought in vain?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gndGAVJM4E&feature=related

The Americans have spent two trillion dollars on Tarbaby Iraq, to prevent, rather than to encourage, ethnic and sectarian fissures from breaking apart Iraq, and possibly creating both a fault-line for Sunni-Shi'a hostilities, and a free Kurdistan that might have brought to the attention of the world's non-Arab Muslims (who are 80% of the world's Muslims) the ways in which Islam has and will always be a vehicle for Arab supremacism, as demonstrated not only by the Arab mass-murdering of Kurds in Iraq, but also by the mass-murdering of black African Muslims in Darfur, and the discrimination and persecution, the linguistic and cultural imperialism, from which Muslim Berbers in North Africa have suffered at Arab hands.

The Americans have lavished more than $65 billion on Egypt, and in so doing, have come to be regarded by those in Egypt as handmaids to the corrupt regime, of Mubarak and his Family-and-Friends Plan. For their pains, they have been subject to constant vilification in the Egyptian media and Egypt has become one of the most anti-American countries on earth. Meanwhile, Egypt continues to play a double-game to pretend to be a peacemaker as it pushes the "Palestinian" line in Gaza, and pretends to be working for an end to violence in Darfur, when it has really, all along, been running interference so that the Arabs in Khartoum can buy time, and complete their murderous task, before pretending to, finally, "make peace."

The Americans have, along with the Europeas, lavished billions on the "Palestinian" Arabs, and have ignored the many billions that were already supplied by the Infidel taxpayers and that simply disappeared, poof, when Arafat died. And they continue to allow the "Palestinian" Arabs to think they can live forever on the Infidel dole, and not to come to grips with several hard truths:

One, if you spend all your time spending what you have on arms, and preparing or actually using them, because making war on Israel is the alpha and omega of your collective and individual existence, chances are even the most modest of livings will be beyond you.

Two, if your population is self-schooled and self-primitivized in hate, that hate cannot be undone, and no Infidels on earth should be expected to take any of you in, for you represent a tremendous and clear threat, not only to Jews in those Infidel lands, but to all Infidels. You can continue to conduct your public life as one vast Nuremberg Rally, continue to have posters and placards that reek of Rosenberg's Der Stuermer, but don't expect anyone in his right mind to think that you are now salvageable, that you can be brought back to reason, and able to live with other humans. You become like wild dogs, and are suitable only for being caged up. Don't blame the Western world or Israel for that. You have done it, with a little help from other Arab Muslims, entirely to yourselves.

Three, you cannot continue to expect to be supported. This is the most farcical, longest-running, "refugee" crisis on earth. There have been hundreds of millions of refugees since World War II. The most coddled, the most supported, the most everythinged have been the so-called "Arab refugees" who promptly went on the UNRWA dole, and never got off (because no one ever dies), and meanwhile, local Arabs in the countires where some of these Arab refugees lived simply signed up themselves -- they were indistinguishable, after all, from the Arabs already on the dole -- in a massive case of welfare fraud, and the "internastional community" has plenty of cases of real refugees -- especially of the Christians murdered in the Sudan, or Iraq, or elsewhere in the Mulsim world, or the Hindus hounded out of Kashmir, or Bangladesh -- so that eventually there is going to be an enraged turning away by Infidels from this idiotic support for Muslms, not least because Arab and Muslim states, having received an entirely unmerited ten trillion dollars since 1973 alone, are now raking in more and more trillions, and buying up everything they can, but continuing to rely entirely on the U.N., and the Americans, and the Europeans, to pay for any and all poorer Arab Muslims who may not deserve, but nonetheless are getting, lots and lots of aid and attention.

Oh, did I forget to mention the $30 billion -- that's the real figure -- lavished by the American government on Pakistan, our "ally" in the "war on terror" -- for that's what we have repeatedly been told -- since 9/11/2001 alone? Have I a need to tell you about A. Q. Khan, and I.S.I. (in up to its neck in A. Q. Khan's machinations, as he himself said a week or two ago)? About the Taliban, given refuge in Pakistan? About Al Qaeda (ditto)? About how the Pakistanis continue to thwart our every intelligent effort, and who are not our allies, and never were our allies, and cannot conceivably be our allies, though here and there, an odd Pakistani government official or two may recognize the need, here and there, to play ball or at least seem to, with the ever-credulous and ever-hopeful Americans.

Did you know that last week the American and European governments got together to pledge some ten billion dollars or so for the Muslims of Kosovo? Not for Serbia, with its refugees fleeing Musliims in Kosovo and Bosnia. Not for any other country on earth, but for Kosovo.

Shall I go on? Do you want more?

Do you get the picture? You do? Very well, then, you tell me:

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Three American professors have written letters on behalf of Sami al-Arian:

"Al-Arian’s appeal for bond included 60 pages of letters from supporters of his, including three university professors who had worked with his think tank, the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE):

* John Esposito, director of Georgetown University’s Prince Alwaleed Bin-Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, told Brinkema he has known Al-Arian for 20 years and saw him as “a man of conscience with a strong commitment to peace and social justice.” Esposito described WISE as “a think-tank that brought together prominent scholars and experts from academia, the U.S. government and the media.”

Esposito’s Georgetown colleague, John Voll, wrote of Al-Arian’s “devotion to his family,” and that he has “gotten to know [Al-Arian] through his children,” concluding that “it is highly improbable that [Al-Arian] would break the trust involved in being released on bond.” Voll, the dissertation mentor of Al-Arian’s son, Abdullah - currently a doctoral student at Georgetown - noted that Abdullah “will be teaching a course in the History Department curriculum this coming fall semester.”

University of Maryland professor Charles Butterworth wrote to Brinkema that he held WISE “in high esteem, especially because of Sami Al-Arian’s excellent management of it.”

In fact, WISE was home to four members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) governing board, including Al-Arian, current PIJ leader Ramadan Shallah, Basheer Nafi and Mazen Al-Najjar. While it did produce academic work, it also received funding from PIJ accounts in addition to substantial financial support from the think-tank that is now targeted by the Virginia grand jury."

They will, according to authorities, be arrested on charges of treason.

Which authorities?

Oh, some people at this and several other websites.

And who's going to bring those charges?

Oh, practically everyone of common sense, in and out of the American government.

And when will these three professors who praised Sami al-Arian, himself convicted for his support of Arab Muslim terrorists, be themselves arrested  and charged with treason for aiding the enemy in the war of self-defense against Jihad?

Oh, when my kingdom comes, and my will is done. Possibly even a bit before.

Now, I think that's quite enough questions for today. 

Here's an idea:

A proposed law aimed at banishing illegal immigrants from Fremont, Neb., would require every renter —whether they were born in the United States or immigrated here — to obtain an occupancy license through the city.

The proposal has sparked an outcry among advocates for Latinos. Nebraska Appleseed attorney Norm Pflanz said he is confident that many Fremont citizens will join in opposition once they understand the full impact of the ordinance — on their lives as well as those of immigrants.

Fremont's is the first city council in the state to propose an ordinance that would ban harboring and renting to illegal immigrants. Lawmakers in other U.S. localities have introduced similar initiatives, often later struck down by the courts, according to national immigration groups.

Bob Warner, the longtime councilman who sponsored Fremont's proposal, said he did so because residents were "sick and tired" of what he said was the federal government's lax enforcement of immigration laws.

He said Fremont residents want their own immigration laws.

"I'll fight to the dying end to do what they want," Warner said. "I don't know why everybody is making a mountain out of something that is very simple."

The proposal that went to the council for a public hearing this week calls for all renters to fill out an application verifying their legal right to be in the United States. The applications would be submitted to local police for verification, and an occupancy license would be issued.

Every person occupying a rented home or apartment would have to hold an occupancy license at a cost of $5 each. A new license would be needed every time a resident relocated to a different rental unit...

The current draft of the Fremont ordinance does not include a ban on hiring, but Warner said he wants that included — along with penalties for renting to and harboring illegal immigrants.

Fremont — with a population around 25,000, about 30 minutes west of Omaha — includes a Hormel Foods pork processing plant that relies on immigrant labor.

Warner, a member of the council for 20 years, said he can't go to church, a restaurant or a keno parlor without someone approaching him and saying, "'By God, this stuff has got to stop.'"...

by Jerry Gordon and Joseph Shahda

Back in early June, we published an article on the New English Review drawing attention to the question of whether Google/YouTube was an enabler of terrorists.  This had followed a series of exchanges with Google, the ACLU, the New York Times and other publications triggered by a letter sent on May 19^th from Senator Lieberman to Dr. Eric Schmidt, Google CEO.  The contretemps was over the request by Senator Lieberman to take down some of the more inflammatory videos produced by As Sahab, the media production arm of Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups.  These terrorist videos were used  to both train and incite Jihadis to conduct attacks against U.S., Coalition and NATO troops in the field in Iraq, Afghanistan  and other ‘targets of opportunity’ around the globe. We have also learned that these training videos have been used to incite ‘home grown terrorists’ via the internet as reflected in the conviction of a trio of Toledo Jihadi wannabes by a Federal Court in Ohio. The criticism of Senator Lieberman’s Goggle/YouTube request to take down these terrorist videos was that it would amount to ‘censorship’ and violation of ‘free speech’.

Thus, began a campaign demanding that Google remove from YouTube the hundreds if not thousands of Islamic terrorist videos that contain terrorist propaganda and very violent materials depicting  attacks  on US and allied troops, Iraqi and Afghani civilians. For the last three years the terrorists have intensified their efforts to post videos on YouTube.  They have been successful in doing so without any significant moderation by Google/YouTube.  However, after Senator Lieberman’s recent request that Google remove the terrorist video materials from YouTube, Google apparently implemented a strict and effective policy to do so. It is now clear that these efforts have paid off.

A thread posted on the Ekhlaas terrorist forum on July 4, 2008 voiced complaints and concerns that most of the terrorist materials posted on YouTube were recently removed. Members of Ekhlaas, which is the largest terrorist forum on the internet, were called upon to intensify their efforts and post more terrorist materials on YouTube.

Credit for this successful development is due to the initiative of Senator Lieberman and constructive response by Google/YouTube management resulting in the significant reduction of posting of terrorist materials on YouTube.  Further, we would like to thank the many ‘patriots’ who are working hard every day to track these terrorist materials posted on YouTube and inform Google/You Tube management in order to remove the offending materials.

Below is a translation by our colleague Joseph Shahda of the thread that was posted on Ekhlaas terrorist forum on July 4, 2008. Shahda has made comments within the body of the translation in parentheses.

The translation of Ekhlaas terrorist forum thread: 

Username: Mohajer Daya’aa Al Tareek, July 4, 2008

Dear Brothers: Invade, Invade YouTube. Most of special and martyrdom operations have been removed.

In the name of Allah the most merciful the most compassionate

Beloved brothers, we beg you to invade YouTube because most of the Jihadi sections have been removed and in particular the martyrdom ones. I did not find the operation of Khatib Fatima. Therefore experts, invade, invade. Allah blesses you.

Username: Hanat Yadaiy, July 4, 2008

I post one movie a day on YouTube and under dozens of different names. After a month one or two names are removed but I keep the work using the other names..

Username:  Mohajer Daya’aa Al Tareek, July 4, 2008

Allah bless you my beloved brother and continue your work and Allah willing we will have the experience and we will not stop from invading the infidels. Allah will make us victors and the prophet is our idol and the martyrdom is our goal.

Username:  Mohajer Daya’aa Al Tareek, July 5, 2008

Elevate this subject ( *** he is asking that this thread he wrote  be put in a more prominent place on Ekhlaas terrorist forum so more members will see it and participate in it).

Username: Hanat Yadaiy, July 5, 2008

Thanks Allah who gave us this tool to speak the truth in their sites and no matter how many names they remove, eliminate, and ban we will not give up and they will not get rid of us until we go to the battlefields and then our brothers after us will take the task.”

Fannie Mae was run until a few years ago by an unscrupulous scheme on a grand scale -- some might call him "crook" -- one Franklin Raines. He and a few of his associates were accused by the government of making off with $115 million from Fannie Mae, that quasi-public institution that everyone assumes is public, but the settlement reached with Raines allowed him to keep all of his ill-gotten gains save for a few million. That he, and his loyal underlings, had fiddled the books to make it look as if Fannie Mae had several billion dollars more in profit than in fact it did have, apparently did not make enough of an impression on the presiding judge.

And Raines was not forced to disgorge payments to him, by Fannie Mae, for what turned out to be false statements of profits, or statements of false profits, off not by millions but by billions. The deal the government lawyers cut with Franklin Raines  was absurd and deserves itself to be investigated. And somehow, if there is any justice -- or is it a case of handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief -- then in the brouhaha over Fannie Mae someone will bethink himself of Franklin Raines, and figure out ways to reopen the case, or to go after Franklin Raines again, and reach his ill-gotten gains .

For those of you unfamiliar with Franklin Raines, once made so much of as a heart-warming success story, here's the Wikipedia entry on Franklin Raines. It isn't nearly harsh enough.

"Franklin Delano Raines (born January 14, 1949 in Seattle, Washington) is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Fannie Mae who served as White House budget director under President Bill Clinton.

The son of a Seattle janitor [1], Raines graduated from Harvard University, Harvard Law School; and Magdalen College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He served in the Carter Administration as associate director for economics and government in the Office of Management and Budget and assistant director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff from 1977 to 1979. Then he joined Lazard Freres and Co., where he worked for 11 years and became a general partner. In 1991 he became Fannie's Mae's Vice Chairman, a post he left in 1996 in order to join the Clinton Administration as the Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, where he served until 1998. In 1999, he returned to Fannie Mae as CEO, "the first Black man to head a Fortune 500 company." [Charles Whitaker, Franklin Raines: First Black Head of a Fortune 500 Corporation -- Fannie Mae, Ebony (April 2001)]

On December 21, 2004 Raines accepted what he called "early retirement" [2] from his position as CEO while U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigators continued to investigate alleged accounting irregularities. He is accused by The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the regulating body of Fannie Mae, of abetting widespread accounting errors, which included the shifting of losses so senior executives, such as himself, could earn large bonuses [3].

In 2006, the OFHEO announced a suit against Raines in order to recover some or all of the $50 million in payments made to Raines based on the overstated earnings