The Islamic State continued its campaign against civilization this week with the demolishment of a 1,500 year old monastery. ISIS views no religion but Islam as worthy of worship and kills non-believers as acts of true faith. ISIS has also abducted dozens of Christians and is known to sell girls as sex slaves — again claiming such rapes as acts of Islamic morality in its twisted reading of the Koran.
Continue reading “Islamic State Bulldozes 1,500 Year Old Monastery”
For an animal rights activist, the only thing worse than being beaten by a deranged individual at a protest would be to be beaten by a deranged individual using one of the very animals you are trying to protect. That happened to a man in the Catalonian town of Roses when a woman hit him with one of the ducks that protesters were trying to protect from use in an annual festival. The video is below.
ISIS has continued its blood soaked campaign to impose its view of pure Islam on the world and to destroy all evidence of art and civilization in its path. The destruction of ancient works and structures has appalled the world. The Islamic extremists have now murdered one of the world’s leading experts on the history and art of the region — 82-year-old archaeologist Khaled Asaad. By all accounts, Asaad refused to tell ISIS where art was hidden. ISIS has been destroying large works while selling smaller works on the black market. Images show ISIS supporters laughing and rejoicing as their ancient history and art is destroyed with sledgehammers as the professed will of Allah. The standoff between Asaad and these murderers put the conflict between civilization and these Islamic extremists into the sharpest relief. It also shows who many Muslims continue to put their very lives at risk to protect their history and art. Indeed, they are protecting the art and history of the very nadir of civilization.
While the world has followed the appalling destruction of art by ISIS and Muslim extremists, it is easy to forget that such religious extremism is not limited to Islam. We saw such an example recently in Israel. Another such case has emerged in Russia where Russian Orthodox activists destroyed Soviet avant-garde art deemed insulting to their religion. The attack led the head of the Hermitage Museum Mikhail Piotrovsky to denounce the attack as further evidence of a “sick” Russian society and the rise of “marginal forces against cultural rights” in the country.
Continue reading “Russian Orthodox Extremists Destroy Russian Avante Garde Art In The Hermitage”
This week, Hillary Clinton doubled down on the email scandal in a speech that appeared to mock the ongoing investigation of her use of an unsecured email system during her time as Secretary of State and dismissing questions over her use the system as pure politics. She even joked “You may have seen that I recently launched a Snapchat account. I love it. I love it. Those messages disappear all by themselves.” It is a great line but it is only funny for those who are entirely untroubled by the real danger that Clinton put national security secrets at risk by insisting on retaining control over her own emails and server. One group that is not laughing are former intelligence officials who have accused the government, again, of showing special treatment for powerful figures in the mishandling of classified material or current officials who are continuing to classify hundreds of emails from Clinton’s records. The number of Hillary Clinton emails now flagged for classification has grown to 300. The number is expected to rise even higher as the agencies plow through thousands of emails that remain after the Clinton staff erased thousands of others from the server.
Continue reading “The State Department Flags More Than 300 Clinton Emails As Possibly Classified”
Airbnb is a growing phenomenon as people rent out their homes and apartments as an alternative to hotels: often giving visitors more room and costing less than hotels. (For the record, we recently used Airbnb to rent a house in California) A recent case in Madrid has shown the inherent danger in such sites. On July 4th, Jacob Lopez called his mother on her cellphone in a desperate call for help. He said that when he arrived at his Airbnb, he found his host in the apartment who locked him in a room and demanded sex from him. The mother, Micaela Giles reportedly tried to get Airbnb to act but they refused and told her to call police.
While China is blocking documentaries on pollution and arresting environmentalists, thousands of Chinese are dying each day due to the suffocating pollution levels in the country. A new study has found that an average of 4,000 people a day in China from air pollution — largely due to coal-burning as a fuel.
Continue reading “Study: Air Pollution In China Kills 4000 People a Day”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Despite decades of division and in many cases a denial of what is hoped for a united Kurdistan, the Kurdish people may soon have a common homeland that geopolitics has deprived them—albeit virtual.
The Kurdistan Regional Government, encompassing the northern territory of Iraq, will soon launch the .KRD Top Level Domain (TLD) and allow registration for individuals, organizations, and companies.
Though the .KRD domain is administered by the KRG’s Department of Information Technology (Iraq), the scope of the domain is envisioned to foster a common community that is presently divided among several nations such as Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Armenia.
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After a well-publicized international debate, the delegates from Amnesty International voted on Tuesday to support a policy that calls for decriminalization of the sex trade, including prostitution, payment for sex and brothel ownership. Amnesty International has been the focused of a determined and passionate lobby campaign by celebrities opposing the move. However, the majority still found that criminalization contributes to the abuse of women and girls around the world.
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China remains one of the world’s most repressive regimes in the denial of free speech, association, and other basic rights in the “People’s Paradise.” The latest target of the government is music. The regime has posted a list of 120 tunes that can no longer be played in the country as harmful to “public morality.” Obviously, even the censors manning “Great Firewall of China” may have a hard time keeping music from the masses.
Continue reading “China Bans 120 Tunes as Harmful to “Public Morality” and Social Stability”
While the word “alien” is still used by the federal government and a wide variety of legal material to describe someone who is neither born nor naturalized in a country, California Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 432 this week to ban the use of the term. The bill was introduced by State Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) not only remove the term from all government documents but also removed the state’s preference for hiring U.S. citizens on public works projects during periods of unemployment.
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Zimbabwe has its ban on lion, leopard and elephant hunting that it imposed after the illegal killing of the beloved “Cecil the Lion” by Minnesota Dentist Walter Palmer. Hunting companies were told that they could start to line up wealthy trophy hunters again for bag the big game. In the meantime, conservationists have come forward to defend trophy hunting as a needed source of revenue for these parks.
Continue reading “Zimbabwe Quietly Re-Opens Lion Hunts After Outcry Over The Killing of “Cecil the Lion””
We have been following the plight of women in India from an epidemic of rape to discrimination in marriage and advancement. The medieval mentality found in some parts of India was on display in the Gujarat High Court, which asked a rape victim to balance a 40kg rock on her head in order to ‘prove her purity’ and reside with her husband again. It is part of the bizarre ritual called “Agnipariksha,” or “test of fire.”
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The stories coming out of ISIS strongholds continue to disgust people around the world. Indeed, the extremist view of Islam applied by these terrorists often seems hard to believe but, when a United Nation’s envoy releases such stories, there are credible sources for some of these incredible accounts. UN’s special envoy for sexual violence in conflict, Zainab Bangura has released a report that ISIS published ‘price list’ of captured Yazidi, Christian sex slaves for its fighters and customers. In addition, the group has reportedly executed 19 women for refusing to have sex with its fighters.
Continue reading “UN Envoy: Women and Girls Sold By Age By ISIS “Like Barrels of Petrol””
There is a controversy in Japan that may rekindle questions about the increasing claims of trademarks and copyrighted material. Belgian designer Olivier Debie has accused Japanese designer Kenjiro Sano of stealing the basic design of his emblem for a Belgian theater as the official logo for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. There is no question that the letter has similar geometric elements, but it is also true that Sano’s design is indicative of the minimalist tradition of Japanese art. To claim all future minimalist representations of an “T” raises the same concerns as common words or images being declared private property. By the way, I like the Sano design and I think it captures the character of the host nation and its artistic traditions.
Continue reading “Japanese Olympic Logo Designer Accused Of Plagiarism By Belgian Designer”