Eleanor Duckwall's Spotlight

Bats in whose belfry?

Although Iran is the source of the bats in this belfry, we should understand that there are many other places that act in the same manner, including internet sites hosted here in the United States.

Islamists and their jihadis are firm in their belief that all Muslims are accountable to Allah, requiring each to proceed in the Great Jihad.

Here is Jeffrey Imm at Counterterrorism Blog: Who in the U.S. Government is accountable for the wartime "war of ideas" against Jihadists?

Why aren't there more U.S. young people going into science and engineering?

According to Elain McArdle at the Boston Globe, the reason why women aren't going these disciplines is: They just aren't interested.

And not only adult women are choosing fields other than science, most U.S. children, female and male aren't interested in putting in the heavy lifting necessary to learn about science and to get a useful degree.

An interesting hour speech by Joy Hakim on C-Span's Book TV gives hope that perhaps the situation my be altered due to a change in strategy put into motion by leading U.S. scientists that are hoping to "reinvigorate the teaching of science." (We are 21st in science and 25th in math).

In her speech she made a point that many classroom teachers already know: most reading material for young children is lacking in content, i.e. facts, concepts, etc.; And they are even boring! They also know young children are far more able to understand concepts that generally was acknowledged.

The Story of Science is a new and different series written by Hakim, backed by the Smithsonian in association with the National Science Teachers Association.

The books are done in narrative form, different from those aimed at producing top scientists. Let's face it: Few children will grow up to become "top scientists," but wouldn't it be wonderful is more of them would show and interest. Here is the "for Teachers link.

Although Hakim's writing about history is not without controversy, I have not found the same criticism of the science series.

Perhaps it's too new, but we need to do something to improve textbooks and the curricula.

The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way; The Story of Science: Newton at the Center; The Story of Science: Einstein Adds a New Dimension and Teaching Materials at the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).

Islamophobia, the World's Worst Problem?

On March 27, 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted to adopted resolution 7/19 on "Combating defamation of religions," one of "the most Orwellion resolutions every passed. Why? Because this so-called "Human Rights Council" condemns "Islamophobia," which includes any "attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations."

In other words, according to the U.N. Human Rights Council, criticism of Islam should be globally forbidden under penalty of law.

Can pond scum save the world?

"Land, sun and CO2, you can grow your own energy. A revolution like this will make the world free."

Green giant

When Dr. Isaac Berzin talks about algae, he forgets everything else. He starts talking a mile a minute, and sometimes he talks about true love. "When I look at them through the microscope, I see them doing belly dances, and they have this small mustache that they wave. They are really cute," he says with a passion that he makes no effort to hide. He laughs and then pauses to reflect for a moment. "But because I am not a biologist I can look at them a little like a child," he tries to explain. "Where a biologist would talk about filaments and other technical terms, I see a mustache and behavior. I am constantly dumbfounded by this plant. This little thing is the baseline for the production of oxygen in the world; it knows how to use carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen. It amazes me that despite this, algae are not given enough respect, and instead are treated like green slime."

When Berzin looks at algae, he sees a new world and a revolution. Dr. Berzin, 40, is wearing a blue suit, and his hair is held in place with glistening gel. Eight months ago he returned to Israel from the United States after generating a research breakthrough that changed his life. Berzin, the founder of GreenFuel Technologies - a U.S. company that produces green fuel from algae - discovered that "green slime" contains one of the keys to the alternative fuel the world is seeking. His company is the first ever to develop and produce biofuels from algae that are bred on gases emitted by power plants.

Royal Navy may share new carries with France

Times Online:

Two hundred years after the battle of Trafalgar, the navy could end up sharing the pride of its fleet with the French. Driven by spiralling budgets, the two navies began talks last week aimed at sharing their aircraft carriers.

The government is expected to give the go-ahead for the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers this week, part of a joint Anglo-French project to build a total of three.

The French, who currently have only one carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, are questioning whether they can afford a replacement and are keen to explore closer co-operation with Britain instead.

“We all have budget constraints and we are looking to see how we can rationalise and reinforce our resources and work together,” commented a French diplomat who is close to the talks.

Both countries are facing a £2 billion shortfall in their defence budgets and the cost of the new carriers at just under £2 billion each is proving a major burden.

The “bilateral carrier group interoperability initiative” was proposed by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, at his summit meeting with Gordon Brown in London in March.

French sources suggest it could result in either navy borrowing an aircraft carrier from the other if their own was unavailable as a result of a breakdown or refit.

“If we have no carrier to do a mission then the only way currently is to try and form a coalition . . . and to ask a country if it will do the mission,” said Captain Jérôme Erulin, the French naval spokesman.

I never thought I would see the day that such a "coalition" was possible. Now we know for sure that the EU is real.

Is the Fate of the Roma in Italy Indicative of What's to Come for Others?

Has Jean Raspail's novel, The Camp of the Saints come to life in outside Naples where the Italian police began a nationwide round-up of nearly 400 illegal immigrants from the Balkans and North Africa? In the midst of the round-up, a series of arson attack on Roma gympsy camps in the Naples suburbs have been demolished by scores of "youths" on scooters and motorbikes wielding iron bars and throwing Molotov cocktails.

The reason for the attack is not the religious fervor of Islamic indignation, but that of native Italians infuriated by the presence of Roma, or gypsies in their midst. The incident that sparked the fury was the capture of a 17-year old Roma girl who last weekend entered the flat in Ponticelli and tried to steal a 6-year-old girl. Chased by the mother and neighbors, she had to be rescued by police from being lynched.

What do the Saudis Want?

Besides the spread of their brand of Islam throughout the world with them sitting in the catbird's seat, any ninny can understand that they're interested in prolonging the influx of oil petro-funds, whether in dollars or anything else of value, and the power that those trillions of currency units will bring to the desert kingdom and OPEC. Here is Judith Klinghoffer at The American Thinker:

Slowly but surely it is beginning to dawn on a world mesmerized by the Democratic primary contest that an oil cartel has been picking our pocket with impunity by willfully failing to adjust its output to the additional needs of China and India. More specifically, Americans are beginning to wonder at the logic of continuing to keep Saudis safe. Hence, the US-Saudi oil axis faces a day of truth when president Bush will deliver diplomatically to his Saudi hosts the message NY senator Chuck Schumer delivered most undiplomatically:

We are saying to the Saudis that, if you don't help us, why should we be helping you?

North Carolina Web Site Said to be 'Gateway Drug' to Terror

Sami Kahn, one of the most dangerous Muslims residing in the West.

Targeting people in the West, the site(Revolution.Muslimpad.com) believed to the brainchild of 22-year-old American Samir Khan of Charlotte, N.C.

When the blog, also called "The Ignored Puzzle Pieces of Knowledge," listed its top "scholars of Islam" and people to "take knowledge from," it wasn't hard to notice that the list of 63 names contained mostly known terrorists — including Usama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The site provides links to their works, all translated into English.

Revolution.Muslimpad's sleek, modern style includes collections of the latest videos of U.S. military Humvees exploding from roadside bombs in Iraq, as well as pro-jihad messages aimed at radicalizing readers.

But terror experts say it is unique because it is written in English for a Western audience and makes accessible radical Islamic content and context found mainly on Arabic-language sites.

"This Web site is one of the premiere English-language sites promoting terrorism," said cyberterrorism expert Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Jewish human rights group the Wiesenthal Center.

On Thursday Cooper presented a report on Capitol Hill on the dangers Internet sites like Revolution.Muslimpad pose to young, impressionable Muslims. His report, "Digital Terrorism and Hate 2.0," references the Web site four times as an example of how Islamic extremists recruit for Al Qaeda.

Part of the Revolution.Muslimpad's power comes from the context and interpretation of the radical messages, which experts say offer dangerous inspiration.

"This guy [Khan] is plugged into the hardcore ideology that Al Qaeda espouses," said Jarret Brachman, director of research at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center.

Brachman — who oversees the center’s research on Al Qaeda and who has been monitoring the site for two years — compared it to a "gateway drug."

"The goal is to hook people, to get more people in this country to become radicalized and see the world through the lens of Al Qaeda," Brachman said.

A New York Times piece by Michael Moss, "An Internet Jihad Aims at U.S. Viewers," October 15, 2007 reports that his aim to incite young American Muslims to join in the Jihad also to change the mindset of non-Muslims.

Dutch Cartoonist Arrested on Suspicion of Violating Hate Speech Laws

Everyone remembers the phenomenon known as "Cartoon Rage," the riots, boycotts, destruction of property, bodily harm, and death brought about because of the drawing and publication of cartoons depicting Mohammed, some critiquing him and others applying criticism against the behaviors of Muslim. Here are some of those cartoons with analysis at JihadWatch, at Front Page, and other places.

The drawing of cartoons and other caricatures of Mohammed and Muslims has affected unpleasantness in the lives of everyone involved: cartoonist, illustrators, publishers, their family members, and so on. Business were boycotted, economies and embassies have been threatened, pulling governments into argument.

Thus, it's a surprise to learn that the Netherlands has arrested a political cartoonist who works under the pseudonym Gregorius Nekschot for fear that the Muslim backlash will cause outrage and further unpleasantness against Dutch embassies, business, and other Dutch interests around the world.

"He was arrested with a great show of force, by around 10 policemen,..."

Political Islam - a 'European' ideology?

A post at Brussels Journal by John Laughland speaks to the coming of an organized global caliphate. He is reacting to an article by the Grand Mufti of Bosni-Herzegovnia, Mustafa Ceric. The first is "The challenge of a single Muslim authority in Europe" which advocates that the "best place to start constructing such an authority is Europe itself." Amazingly the journal which has published this piece is European View, the journal of something called the Centre for European Studies, a "mouthpiece of the European People's Party."

It's All About Surveillance

Almost overnight Westerners have found themselves under thumb of totalitarianism in an Orwellian sense. In the United States, Real ID and the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, the scraping of national identity under the new EU passport scheme, the RFID implant are supposed to allow rapid passage and quick identification by law enforcement which could be a good thing, but the possibilities for abuse outweigh any positive.

Can the West Be Saved?

Gates of Vienna posts the keynote speech by author Serge Trikovic given May 10, 2008 at the Counterjihad Vienna 2008: Defending Civil Liberties in Europe workshops. Drafts of working papers and other papers are given here.

Trikovic is the author of Defeating Jihad: How the War on Terrorism Can Be Won - in Spite of Ourselves, and The Sword of the Prophet: Islam, History, Theology, Impact on the World.

The Right Brain vs Left Brain test

Test yourself here. At Perthnow

Drug Civil War Rages in Mexico and the United States?

(Map via Frontline)

Phil Brennan at News Max:

Energy Independence: Good Goal or Muddled Myth?

American Enterprise panel discussion event given April 17, 2008. (90-minutes)

Speakers are: Robert Bryce author of Gusher of Lies and journalist at Energy Tribune, and AEI scholars Steven F. Hayward and Kenneth P. Green, "to discuss the realities, liabilities, and possibilities of energy independence."

The video file is without audio. Here is the mp3 file.

Here is the event summary.

See also: the "Related Material" sidebar at AEI site; Bloombert.com: Venezuela, China to Create Joint Venture to Supply New Refinery; Spiegel: Brazil Wants to Join OPEC; CNS News: Democrats' Energy Plan Does Not Boost US Supply of Oil; LA Times: Vegetable oil fuels cars -- and tax bills; NZherald: Emissions trading scheme 'could damage economy'; Daily Mail: Factory gate prices are rising at their fastest rate since records began; ABC News: Drilling for Oil in Downtown L.A.; AFA Online: Republicans call for halt to ethanol mandate; eia.doe.gov: Natural Gas Weekly Update; Environmental Expert: State and trends of the carbon market 2008; Houston Chronicle: UH wants a focus on carbon trading/ Business-law course to train for what's expected to be a growing field

Surprise! Patriotism not completely dead at some public schools

"When Pope Benedict was in Washington, several public school choirs joined together to perform 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' for him. The audio was recorded by one of the parents, and the video was created to accompany it."

This beautiful rendition on video contains patriotic and religious symbolism.

The Force of Words: Jihad and Islamophobia

Words have symbolic value, words are important. If that wasn't so, why then would a certain religion take offense when Westerns use the word "Jihad" or link Jihad to the word terrorist? Why has someone created the dishonest word, "Islamophobia," which has been give a meaning that doesn't relate to the sum of its parts - "Islamo" + "phobia," an extreme irrational fear or aversion to something?