1983: A Soviet ballistics officer draws the right conclusion -- that a satellite report indicating incoming U.S. nuclear missiles is, in fact, a false alarm -- thereby averting a potential nuclear holocaust.
Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists that sweeps away one of the key objections to the mind boggling and controversial idea.
The work has wider implications since the idea of parallel universes sidesteps one of the key problems with time travel. Every since it was given serious lab cred in 1949 by the great logician Kurt Godel, many eminent physicists have argued against time travel because it undermines ideas of cause and effect to create paradoxes: a time traveller could go back to kill his grandfather so that he is never born in the first place.
But the existence of parallel worlds offers a way around these troublesome paradoxes, according to David Deutsch of Oxford University, a highly respected proponent of quantum theory, the deeply mathematical, successful and baffling theory of the atomic world.
He argues that time travel shifts between different branches of reality, basing his claim on parallel universes, the so-called "many-worlds" formulation of quantum theory.
BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iran is smuggling advanced weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, into Iraq to be used by extremists against American troops, the US military charged on Sunday.
US military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox told reporters in Baghdad that Iran was shifting sophisticated arms such as "RPG-29s, explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs), 240 mm rockets and Misagh-1 surface-to-air missiles" across its borders into Iraq.
An EFP is a feared roadside bomb which when it explodes emits a white-hot slug of molten copper that can cut through the armoured skins of US military vehicles.
Fox reiterated that Iranian national Mahmudi Farhadi, detained on Thursday in the northern province of Sulaimaniyah, is one of the kingpins in the bomb smuggling operations.
"He is a member of the Ramazan Corps, the Quds Force department responsible for all operations in Iraq," Fox said.
Today's fiasco has nothing to do with what Bollinger said, a name little known or long remembered anywhere outside of the upper West Side. It is about the platform Columbia provided this thug who is actively engaged in the killing of American soldiers and Marines while plotting the extermination of Israel.
Columbia University has invited a representative of the world’s most antisemitic regime to speak on its campus. This week’s news? Try 1933.
Seventy years before this week’s invitation to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Columbia rolled out the red carpet for a senior official of Adolf Hitler’s regime. The invitation to Iran’s leader may seem less surprising, but no less disturbing, when one recalls that in 1933, Columbia president Nicholas Murray Butler invited Nazi Germany’s ambassador to the United States, Hans Luther, to speak on campus, and also hosted a reception for him. Luther represented "the government of a friendly people," Butler insisted. He was "entitled to be received ... with the greatest courtesy and respect." Ambassador Luther's speech focused on what he characterized as Hitler's peaceful intentions. Students who criticized the Luther invitation were derided as “ill-mannered children” by the director of Columbia’s Institute of Arts and Sciences.
Columbia also insisted on maintaining friendly relations with Nazi-controlled German universities. While Williams College terminated its program of student exchanges with Nazi Germany, Columbia and other universities declined to do likewise. Columbia refused to pull out even after a German official candidly asserted that his country’s students were being sent abroad to serve as “political soldiers of the Reich.”
The Israeli security Cabinet declared Hamas-controlled Gaza a "hostile entity" today in response to continued Palestinian rocket attacks. The unanimous Cabinet vote represents a major escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As in the 1930s and 1940s, the sheer absurdity of the claims makes it difficult for educated people to believe that anyone could take them seriously. Nonetheless, this notion of Jews as the root of all evil continues to inspire the mass murder of civilians in Israel and to motivate the joy with which Islamists greet those murders. "Hitler's Islamic heirs," as the historian Jehuda Bauer has called the Islamists, have replaced an anticolonialism aspiring to emancipation with a Jew-hatred aspiring to salvation through the annihilation of everyone "Jewish." It should not be surprising to find Osama bin Laden accusing "the Jews" of "taking hostage America and the West"--or to find Mohamed Atta's acquaintances attributing to him a Nazi worldview. What is truly surprising is that this Islamist hatred of Jews is often overlooked by Western analysts, political actors, and media.
As noted above, the 9/11 Commission Report is a case in point. Instead of discussing the fact that Jew-hatred had reached epidemic proportions in the Islamic world well before September 11, the report gives the impression that Islamism originally arose in response to recent American and Western policies. This is first conveyed in a remark on the early days of Islamism, when, we are told, "Fundamentalists helped articulate anticolonial grievances," an idea that ignores crucial dimensions of the outlook of the Muslim Brotherhood of the 1930s. The stereotypical message that the West is responsible is repeated in the report's analysis of bin Laden's motives: "Bin Laden's grievance with the United States may have started in reaction to specific U.S. policies but it quickly became far deeper." The report gets the history wrong. The al Qaeda leader was first politicized not by "specific U.S. policies," but by the writings of Sayyid Qutb and the jihadist lectures of Abdullah Azzam. As a result, the commission's explanation of al Qaeda's appeal is one-sided: "As political, social, and economic problems created flammable societies, Bin Laden used Islam's most extreme fundamentalist traditions as his match."
It is, of course, true that Islamists seek to exploit social problems for their own ends. But Islamism is not an ideology that ignites protest as it rubs up against social injustice. On the contrary, what provokes Islamist violence is any sign of modern development in the Muslim world: scientific inquiry, political or personal self-determination, economic progress, women's equality, freedom of expression in cinema and theater. The radicalization of Islam is less the consequence of poverty and lack of opportunity than their cause.
The refusal to see this and to recognize the substance of Islamist ideology--the death cult, the hatred of Jews, and the profound hatred of freedom--leads back again and again to the mistaken "discovery" that the "root cause" of terrorism is U.S. policies. Ultimately, the refusal to recognize al Qaeda's true motives results in a reversal of responsibility: The more deadly the terrorism, the greater the American guilt. The appeal of this approach is related to the specious hope it holds out: If suicide terrorism has its roots in U.S. policy, then a change in U.S. policy can assuage terrorism and the fear it induces. Al Qaeda, meanwhile, benefits, since the bloodier its attacks, the greater the anger against . . . the United States.
The same pattern explains the bizarre reaction to the Middle East conflict that is widespread in the West: The average observer, ignorant of the anti-Jewish content of the Hamas Charter, has to find some other explanation for terrorism against Jews, which must be--Israel. It is not the terrorists who are guilty, but their victims. Finding suicide terrorism incomprehensible, Westerners rationalize it as an act of despair that invites sympathy. Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner. Here, too, following the principle of "the more barbaric the anti-Jewish terror, the greater the Israeli guilt," the bombers' victims become the scapegoat for global terrorism. The old stereotype of Jewish guilt is thus amplified in contemporary form--and only encourages the terrorists.
A struggle against Islamism waged in ignorance of Islamist ideology weakens the West. The attribution of guilt to Israel and the United States adds fuel to the flames of Islamist propaganda and drives the wedge deeper into the Western camp rather than where it belongs--in the Muslim world.
That there is no compulsion in Islam and that Islam is a religion of peace are common refrains among Muslim activists,[1] academics,[2] officials,[3] and journalists.[4] In an age of terrorism and violent jihad, nowhere, they argue, does the Qur'an allow Muslims to fight non-Muslims solely because they refuse to become Muslim.[5] Proponents of Islamic tolerance point to a number of Qur'anic verses which admonish violence and advocate peace, tolerance, and compromise.[6]
But not all verses in the Qur'an have the same weight in assessment. Unlike the Old or New Testaments, the Qur'an is not organized by chronology but rather by size of chapters.[7] Even within chapters, chronology can be confused. In sura (chapter) 2, for example, God revealed verses 193, 216, and 217 to Muhammad shortly after he arrived in Medina. God only revealed verses 190, 191, and 192 six years later.[8] This complicates interpretation, all the more when some verses appear to contradict.
Abrogation in the Qur'an
The Qur'an is unique among sacred scriptures in accepting a doctrine of abrogation in which later pronouncements of the Prophet declare null and void his earlier pronouncements.[9] Four verses in the Qu'ran acknowledge or justify abrogation:
When we cancel a message, or throw it into oblivion, we replace it with one better or one similar. Do you not know that God has power over all things?[10]
When we replace a message with another, and God knows best what he reveals, they say: You have made it up. Yet, most of them do not know.[11]
God abrogates or confirms whatsoever he will, for he has with him the Book of the Books.[12]
If we pleased, we could take away what we have revealed to you. Then you will not find anyone to plead for it with us.[13]
Rather than explain away inconsistencies in passages regulating the Muslim community, many jurists acknowledge the differences but accept that latter verses trump earlier verses.[14] Most scholars divide the Qur'an into verses revealed by Muhammad in Mecca when his community of followers was weak and more inclined to compromise, and those revealed in Medina, where Muhammad's strength grew.
Classical scholars argued that anyone who studied the Qur'an without having mastered the doctrine of abrogation would be "deficient."[15] Those who do not accept abrogation fall outside the mainstream and, perhaps, even the religion itself. The Ahmadiyah sect, for example, today concentrated in Pakistan, consistently rejects abrogation because it undercuts the notion that the Qur'an is free from errors.[16] Many Muslims consider Ahmadis, who also see their founder as a prophet, to be apostates.
Because the Qur'an is not organized chronologically, there has been a whole subset of theological study to determine which verses abrogate and which are abrogated. Muslim scholars base their understanding of theology not only upon the Qur'an but also upon hadiths, accounts of the Prophet Muhammad's life. One hadith in particular addresses abrogation. It cites Abu al-A‘la bin al-Shikhkhir, considered by theologians to be a reliable source of knowledge about the Prophet's life, as saying, that "the Messenger of God abrogated some of his commands by others, just as the Qur'an abrogates some part of it with the other."[17] Muhammad accepted that God would invalidate previous revelation, often making ordinances stricter.[18]
....
How does the theological debate over abrogation impact contemporary policy formulation? While not all terrorism is rooted in Islam, the religion is an enabler for many. It is wrong to assume that more extreme interpretations of religion are illegitimate. Statements that there is no compulsion in religion and that jihad is primarily about internal struggle and not about holy war may receive applause in university lecture halls and diplomatic board rooms, but they misunderstand the importance of abrogation in Islamic theology. It is important to acknowledge that what university scholars believe, and what most Muslims—or more extreme Muslims—believe are two different things. For many Islamists and radical Muslims, abrogation is real and what the West calls terror is, indeed, just.
During the lifetime of Muhammad, the Islamic community passed through three stages. In the beginning from 610 until 622, God commanded restraint. As the Muslims relocated to Medina (623-26), God permitted Muslims only to fight in a defensive war. However, in the last six years of Muhammad's life (626-32), God permitted Muslims to fight an aggressive war first against polytheists,[52] and later against monotheists like the Jews of Khaybar.[53] Once Muhammad was given permission to kill in the name of God, he instigated battle.
Chapter 9 of the Qur'an, in English called "Ultimatum," is the most important concerning the issues of abrogation and jihad against unbelievers. It is the only chapter that does not begin "in the name of God, most benevolent, ever-merciful."[54] Commentators agree that Muhammad received this revelation in 631, the year before his death, when he had returned to Mecca and was at his strongest.[55] Muhammad bin Ismail al-Bukhari (810-70), compiler of one of the most authoritative collections of the hadith, said that "Ultimatum" was the last chapter revealed to Muhammad[56] although others suggest it might have been penultimate. Regardless, coming at or near the very end of Muhammad's life, "Ultimatum" trumps earlier revelations.
Because this chapter contains violent passages, it abrogates previous peaceful content. Muhsin Khan, the translator of Sahih al-Bukhari, says God revealed "Ultimatum" in order to discard restraint and to command Muslims to fight against all the pagans as well as against the People of the Book if they do not embrace Islam or until they pay religious taxes. So, at first aggressive fighting was forbidden; it later became permissible (2:190) and subsequently obligatory (9:5).[57] This "verse of the sword" abrogated, canceled, and replaced 124 verses that called for tolerance, compassion, and peace.[58]
Suyuti said that everything in the Qur'an about forgiveness and peace is abrogated by verse 9:5, which orders Muslims to fight the unbelievers and to establish God's kingdom on earth.
It's not a threat. It's a fact. Either man takes the Earth’s raw materials -- such as trees, petroleum, aluminum, and atoms -- and transforms them into the requirements of his life, or he dies. To live, man must produce the goods on which his life depends; he must produce homes, automobiles, computers, electricity, and the like; he must seize nature and use it to his advantage. There is no escaping this fact. Even the allegedly "noble" savage must pick or perish. Indeed, even if a person produces nothing, insofar as he remains alive he indirectly exploits the Earth by parasitically surviving off the exploitative efforts of others.
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Special Dispatch-Turkish Media Project/Antisemitism Documentation Project August 29, 2007 No. 1699
Antisemitism and the Turkish Islamist "Milli Gorus" Movement: Zionists/Jews "Bacteria," "Disease"
To view this Special Dispatch in HTML, visit:
http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD169907.
A Turkish Flash TV interview (http://www.milligorusarsiv.com/videolar/file.php?f=5) with former Turkish prime minister Prof. Necmettin Erbakan, who is the founder and leader of the Islamist movement Milli Gorus, was aired July 1, 2007 as part of a pre-election program.
Erbakan is the leader and mentor of the ruling AKP leadership, including both Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and presidential candidate Abdullah Gul – both of whom have in the past been active members of Erbakan's political parties, filling mayoral, ministerial, and parliamentary posts. All of Erbakan's parties have been banned by Turkish court orders.
In his campaign to promote his Islamist Happiness Party (SP) prior to the July 22, 2007 general elections, Erbakan reiterated antisemitic statements in this interview, as well as in interviews with other TV channels. In his public speeches, he expanded on these views, frequently referring to "Zionists" (meaning, in fact, the Jews) as "bacteria" and "disease," to crowds of tens of thousands, at every stop on his campaign trail, including Ankara and Istanbul, and especially in Anatolian cities such as Konya, Elazig and Trabzon.
The following are excerpts from the Flash TV interview:
All Infidel Nations Are One Zionist Entity; Jews Want To Rule From Morocco to Indonesia
Interviewer: "Dear Mr. Erbakan, we are going to elections at the end of a five-year-long rule by your students [in AKP]. You say that these elections are of vital importance, that they are about 'to be or not to be' for Turkey. Why do you think this way, especially when the country is being ruled by your own disciples?"
Erbakan: [following greetings and prayers] "These elections are about whether we will be, or we will cease to be. I'll tell you where this is coming from, and for this we have to first demonstrate the infrastructure. [...] The right path to the happiness of all humanity is our path, the Milli Gorus way.
"Our Prophet was sent with love and compassion, and our goal is the happiness of all six billion people in the world. We are Muslims, and our civilization has brought happiness to the entire world. This is the good, but there also is evil. Our religion says that the infidels are one nation [Millah]. That means evil is run by one control center.
"When we look at the map of the world, we see about 200 countries painted in colors, and we think that there are many races, religions, and nations. The fact is that for 300 years, all these [200 nations] have been controlled from one center only. This center is the racist, imperialist Zionism. Unless you make this correct diagnosis for the illness, you cannot find the cure to it. You will ask, 'What is this belief, this racist imperialism that destroys happiness in this world?'
"This belief began 5,765 years ago, when the children of Israel were living in Egypt, with a book of magic that was written by someone called Kabbala. The author or authors of this book later claimed that they belonged to the tribe of Moses, but this is not true. They distorted the Tevrat [bible] of Moses and put in it the Kabbala. If you want to see proof of this, you can look at their Tevrat and then look at the Kabbala.
"What do these people believe in? Their belief has four principles [while ours has six] that say: [...] 1) You are the real people of God; all others are created to be your slaves; you were created as men and others [were created] as monkeys that later turned into men. This is what they believe and what they teach. They believe that they are the superior class. 2) This superiority will be not only in thought, but will be materialized, actually realized. They will be the masters and the others will be their slaves. 3) For all this to come true, they must perform three duties: The first duty will be to gather all the exiled sons of Israel into Quds [Jerusalem]; the second duty is to build the 'Greater Israel' between the Nile and the Euphrates, within these determined borders, and to provide for the safety of this Greater Israel.
"Do you know what the safety of Israel means? It means that they will rule the 28 countries from Morocco to Indonesia. Since all the Crusades were organized by the Zionists, and since it was our forefathers the Seljuks who stopped them, according to the Kabbala there should be no sovereign state in Anatolia. This is these people's [i.e. the Jews'] religion, their faith. You can't argue or negotiate with them. This is their religion, and it comes from the Kabbala.
"Why did this man, Kabbala, write this book? Because he wanted to encourage those who were oppressed by the pharaohs, by saying that they were superior and were God's true people. Kabbala says that this people defeated even God – may Allah forgive. The same line is found in the Tevrat as well."
The Zionists Worked 5,767 Years to Build a World Order In Which All Money and Manpower Depend On Jews
Interviewer: "I understand, my hoca [teacher], but what does all this have to do with the July 22 elections? Can we come to that?"
Erbakan: "I'll finish their four principles. 3) They will destroy – Allah forbid – Al-Aqsa mosque and in its place build Solomon's temple. 4) Only then will their messiah come and establish them as the rulers of the world.
"This is what they believe in. To realize these goals and meet their obligations, they [i.e. the Jews] have been working for 5,767 years!
"Their history begins with this Kabbala. They say that they want to be the rulers of the world. This is a racist religion. If your mother is not a Jew, you cannot be a Jew. That's why they cannot multiply and grow. Among six billion people they are only 30 million. [...] So how will they rule the world? They say, 'Wait a minute, we have conquered the power of money within the capitalist order. As one can see in the symbol of the 13 levels of a pyramid that is depicted on the American dollar, all peoples will serve us at the top. With the power of the dollar, we have established a world order where money and manpower are dependent on us. This is how we rule the world.'
"Now, let’s come to us [the Muslims]. Thanks to our beloved Prophet, light and happiness came to the six billion people of the world. We became the masters. We [the Muslims] ruled for 11 centuries. But unfortunately, in the last three centuries the children of Israel have grabbed this material power. Now they control the world that we live in.
"What kind of a world did they build? Without understanding this, nothing can be comprehended. Ballots, elections [that you ask about] are all details. The essence is this: Let's assume you, as a Muslim, want to go to [Mecca for] the haj, and you want to fly on a Turkish plane. For an airline to get a permit to fly and land in other airports, it must be a member of the IATA. The IATA is an organization of the children of Israel, of Rockefeller. To become a member, airlines must give them [the Jews] 9% of the ticket proceeds."
The U.S. Dollar is Zionist Money; The Jewish Bacteria Must be Diagnosed for a Cure to be Found
Interviewer: "This means that when we go on the haj, we pay 9% of our fare to Israel."
Erbakan: "You know what this means. It means saying to Israel, 'Take this money, buy guns, and kill me tomorrow, [so that you can] occupy Turkey.' This is the order that they have built and have implemented for three centuries.
"Let's say that you, as a Muslim, want to send money to another Muslim country. Say you want to send money to Pakistan. You cannot send it, because you don't have the infrastructure to do that. You are living in their [i.e. the Zionists'] world. To send the money, you need to take it to a Turkish bank. Then the Turkish bank will give it to the American bank. The American bank will give an order to its branch [in Pakistan], that branch will give the money to the Pakistani bank that will pay out the money that you sent.
"But in all this, you will pay 1%. From wherever [and] to wherever the money goes, 1% is paid to the Jew. They have taken the world into their hands. That green dollar that you recognize is Zionist money.
"The owner is not the American central bank. The American central bank only rents this money, paying $500 billion a year for rent. They [the Zionists] print this green money, the paper, and they bring it to our sheikhs in Saudi Arabia and they say, 'Here, take this green paper and give us your oil.' And they take the oil with these pieces of paper. There are five trillion [of these] dollars outside of America.
"And look at what else they do. I am telling you all this so we can all recognize this bacteria. What do they [i.e. the Zionists] do? They go back to the oil sheikh and tell him to return the green papers, and give him a yellow paper instead. What is this yellow paper? It is an American bond. There are bonds outside the U.S. valued at $5 trillion as well. That means they took back their green papers to use them again. Those bonds go to the central banks. And what does the American central bank do? It gathers all the central banks, to give them a white paper.
"So where are all the reserves of the countries? Our reserves are not in the safes of our central bank. They are in the safes of Rockefeller. He is using all this money. What do we have? The head of our central bank has a white paper in front of him. On this paper it is written that such and such a number of billions of dollars are in the banks [in the U.S.] What we have is only a piece of white paper.
"They are crooks three times over. They suck [money] from everybody – five trillion with green papers, another five trillion with yellow papers, and they keep trillions with the white paper they give you. Every child born should be told, 'Welcome to this house, my dear, but this house has an owner, and there is rent to be paid. The owner of this house – that is, this world – is the Zionist, and you must pay him $1,200 every month.' Every one of us has to pay this $1,200, because of those trillions of exploitation dollars.
"There's more: Say you go to a supermarket, wherever you are in the world. You [select] some products, and you pay for them. Say the cashier tells you the total is 300 lira. You pay 300, and you walk out with your sack. No matter where you are and where you buy, 100 lira of the 300 is interest.
"You buy bread. The tractor was purchased with interest. The flour mills, the factories were built with interest. We are made to pay for these interest [charges]. If you read the book we wrote on this, you would see clearly that one-third of the money we pay for a loaf of bread is paid out in interest."
Zionists Organized the Crusades; The Jews are Using the Christians
Interviewer: "But, my hoca [teacher], it is now your students, your disciples [in the AKP], who are ruling Turkey..."
Erbakan: "My students must have thought, 'Since there is so much money going around, why shouldn't we have a share of it too?' But that money is exploitation money. It is not good money. Our students apparently have not understood what we have been teaching them for 30 years [in Milli Gorus].
"Let's go back to the [Zionist] bacteria. About $22 trillion out of all the money we spend every year is paid to these racist imperialist Zionists. We, as a country, are paying $200 billion every year to the Zionists so that they can prepare their bombs, so that they can one day come and take our country. This is the world that the Zionists have built. [...]
"This racist imperialist Zionism organized 19 Crusades just to reach its goals. To organize the Crusades, it used the Christians. Why is it that the Christians are helping the Jews? A rabbi goes out on the balcony and tells them, 'Oh Christians, isn't it the Messiah that you are waiting for? We too are waiting for the same Messiah.' What the rabbi is doing is taqiya,(1) of course. Then he goes into his synagogue and tells a five-year-old, 'What you heard me say outside is not true. Our Messiah is different. That Jesus is someone whom we killed. He will not come or go anywhere. I told them that to deceive them.'
"These people tell the Christians, 'You are waiting but you have no guidelines as to how to make him come. Our Tevrat tells us what to do. Let's do them together and let's bring the Messiah.' And what were those guidelines? To bring the Jews to Jerusalem, to build and secure the Greater Israel, and so on."
Jews Founded Protestantism, the Capitalist Order; Clinton, Bush are Members
"It was Zionism that established the sect of Protestantism. The capitalist order of today is the religious order of Protestantism. It's because the pope rejects the concept of interest, so as not to allow the exploitation of his children. That's why the Jews decided to change the [Christian] religion, and founded Protestantism. This way they can charge interest and make everybody work for them.
"That's also why they built the Evangelical sect in America, which now numbers 90 million members. Most people you see there [in the U.S.] belong to this sect. Take Clinton: He said that he did not serve in the military for America, 'but for Israel' he said, 'I would take up arms, go into a bunker, and fight.' You ask him, "Hey, Clinton, are you a Jew? Why is Israel your business?' He says, 'Nooo. It is not because I am a Jew that I say this. It is because I am a good Christian that I think that way. It's because I want Jesus to come that I am saying this.'
"All this is because the Evangelical sect was built by the Jews for them to think that way. Bush belongs to that sect. Clinton belongs to that sect. Anyone you know... Now look, when we look at someone we see his skin only; but behind it are all the muscles, bones, nerves. I am now giving you the anatomy of the world to show you what is behind the skin, behind the surface.
"Without knowing all this, you cannot comprehend what is going on in the world. When we learn all this, we will know that there are no 200 countries in the world. There are only two. One is the world of Islam, and the other is all the others. Who uses these others? Racist imperialism [meaning Zionism].
"The Zionists are holding the Christians in the palms of their hands, and using them. China's and India's industrial development is being carried out with Jewish capital. Japan's too. They control them too. Now, only Islam remains against them. The Jews say you will be our slaves. Islam says la i lahe il l'Allah. We won't bow to anyone but Allah. Nobody will be slaves to anybody. So this is the clash between the two – the clash between good and evil."
Bush Attacked Iraq to Build Greater Israel, So Jesus Can Return
Interviewer: "So how do we tie all this to the elections? Why is it that these elections are about 'to be or not to be?' It is your students who are going strong. They were taught and trained by you. So what is the problem...?"
Erbakan: "A little more patience. Look. These Jews started 19 Crusades. The 19th was World War [I]. Why? Only to build Israel. They used the Christians to build Israel. The Canakkale [Gallipoli] victory was only one of our battles. We fought on 30 fronts during the war. Then they had us sign the Treaty of Sèvres. They told us they would eliminate us and build Greater Israel and make us their slaves. No other nation could fight against them on 30 battlefronts like our nation did.
"After they made us sign the Treaty of Sèvres, the French came to Kahramanmaras [on the Syrian border], not to keep it but to give it to make it part of Greater Israel. The English went to Palestine, not to keep it for themselves, but to build Israel. They are doing all this just so that Jesus will return.
"If we do not see these realities, we cannot understand world affairs. What does Bush say? He says that Jesus ordered him to invade Iraq. He says that the most important factor in making his decision on Iraq was his being Christian. [He thought,] 'I will take Iraq. I will build Greater Israel, so that Jesus can return.' These people work with that kind of belief. If you don't know about these peoples' beliefs, you cannot understand why they do what they do. Our youth must learn all this." [...]
[Break for commercials.]
Endnote:
1 Taqiya is an Islamic term that means concealing one’s true beliefs to avoid repression.
*********************
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In “Clans of the Alphane Moon,” he had already glimpsed the possibility that normal governing might be the work of paranoids. This Nixon-era vision becomes, in the VALIS books, a metaphysical truth. “The Empire is the institution, the codification, of derangement; it is insane and imposes its insanity on us by violence, since its nature is a violent one,”
The 25th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death has passed, and news reports have stressed his continuing influence on music, culture, and race relations. But those reports have missed Elvis's greatest achievement: as a cultural immune response to totalitarianism....
Hitler was aided by a new technological innovation: the radio. Nazism's totalitarian sibling, communism, spread largely by print and took decades to gain a foothold. But radio allowed Hitler to manipulate emotions wholesale, in a way that had never been possible before. And the masses - starved for entertainment and desperate for catharsis, and a sense of purpose - ate it up.
But now it's all different, and Elvis deserves a lot of the credit. Oh, there were big stars before Elvis: Bing Crosby's appeal is now nearly forgotten, but it was once huge, and Frank Sinatra was, in a way, a sort of proto-rock star. But after Elvis, the world was different.
Hitler used the tools provided by new technology. But Elvis owned them: radio, television, movies, it didn't matter: he conquered them all. And the changes that he brought about helped to topple totalitarian regimes, and make new ones less likely, for he left behind a changed culture that short-circuited the mechanisms that Hitler had used to secure power - and the mechanisms that other regimes used to maintain it.
My daughter ran across something called animusic on YouTube. I really enjoyed it. The DVDs are available on Amazon.com and I'm going to order them. Here's a version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition that is doubtless different than any version you've ever seen or heard
Amazon has this to say about Animusic:
Watching Animusic is like being mesmerized by the world's most elaborate Rube Goldberg devices: You're so astonished by their ingenuity that you can't look away. This "computer animation video album" is the brainchild of Wayne Lytle, a progressive-rock keyboardist and 1988 graduate of Cornell University's Program of Computer Graphics. Modifying techniques originally applied to the visualization of scientific data, Lytle partnered with graphic artist and 3D modeler Dave Crognale to create elaborate virtual stage sets and imaginary musical instruments that are driven via MIDI interface to virtually "play" the music that Lytle has composed for them. "The music drives the instruments," explains Lytle in his engaging DVD commentary, "and not the other way around." Using proprietary software called MIDImotion™, Lytle and Crognale have invented self-playing musical instruments that exist in a magical realm of musical and mathematical precision, perfectly synchronized to the kind of fully-synthesized prog-rock that Lytle obviously enjoys (and if you're a fan of Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman, you will, too). It's the kind of audiovisual bombast that appeals to some more than others (and there's something oddly impersonal about removing humans from the performance of music), but Animusic is so intricately clever that anyone can be captivated by the meticulous novelty of these beautifully engineered musical marvels.
Take, for example, the most popular track, "Pipe Dream," in which thousands of animated balls take on a life of their own, popping out of an intricate system of pipes and barrels and bouncing, with percussive precision, onto all varieties of strings, drums, xylophones, timbales, cowbells... it's just hypnotically amazing. The same holds true for all of these videos, and while the colorful 3D rendering of Animusic (first released in 2001) is no longer state-of-the-art, the underlying mechanics remain timelessly appealing. For this special edition DVD released in 2004, Lytle opens his toy-box to reveal the creative process of Animusic from conceptual drawings to final 3D rendering. There's also a "solo-cam" function allowing viewers to switch angular focus from one instrument to another, along with animated set-construction demonstrations to show how everything fits together in the realm of Animusic. The 5.1-channel surround mix makes Animusic a perfect demonstration disc for high-end video systems (this is nothing if not a geek's delight), and Lytle's first animation (from 1996) is included along with a sneak-peek at Animusic 2, the follow-up DVD released in 2005. --Jeff Shannon
Forty years ago tomorrow, Israel wielded its terrible swift sword against the attack-poised armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan - and saved the Jewish state from destruction.
It was the Six-Day War, and the fledgling state's stunning victory over enemies determined to annihilate it galvanized the world and changed the Mideast map - perhaps forever.
I was one of the handful of foreign correspondents who reached the front during that monumentally brief battle. I was in Sinai on the first day, then returned north and managed to enter Gaza just as that benighted city was falling to Israel's largely civilian tank corps. Then it was on to Jerusalem.
Like anyone who believes in the justice of Israel's existence, I was deeply relieved by its victory on June 10. I had heard the bloodthirsty Arab threats of a new Holocaust. I had seen the "Kill the Jews" posters in Gaza schools. I had seen the bunkers and mass graves that Israel had been forced to dig in expectation of invasion, if not defeat.
Yet, as we mark its 40th anniversary, it's become fashionable in some circles to rewrite the history of the Six-Day War. Radicals, so-called "humanitarians" and others who love to hate Israel now claim that what was essentially a war for survival was in fact just an excuse for Zionist imperialism. Even serious journals like Britain's The Economist say that while the war may have been necessary, it has ultimately proven "a calamity for the Jewish state."
How ridiculous! Despite the seemingly insoluble problems that have arisen over the past four decades - not the least of them, Israel's continuing rule over occupied territories and a million-plus hostile Palestinians - the war was not only necessary, it was one of Israel's finest hours.
“A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
"More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”
For the first time, astronomers have created a rough map of a planet orbiting a distant sun-like star, employing a technique that may one day enable mapping of Earth-like worlds. Since the planet just charted is a gas giant and lacks a solid surface, the map shows cloud-top features. Using the Spitzer infrared space telescope, astronomers detected a bright hot spot that is offset from "high noon," where heating is greatest.
Herod became the ruler of the Holy Land under the Romans around 74 B.C.
Herod the Great, Latin Herodes Magnus Roman-appointed king of Judaea (37–4 BC), who built many fortresses, aqueducts, theatres, and other public buildings and generally raised the prosperity of his land but who was the centre of political and family intrigues in his later years.
"He had a wonderful time. Far beyond our expectations," Diamandis said. "The medical indications were better than expected." After six parabolas, Zero Gravity tried to call it quits, but Hawking insisted they do more, said Noah McMahon, chief marketing officer for Zero Gravity and Hawking's coach for the flight. They decided to keep going because he was doing so well."....
In preflight interviews, Hawking said Thursday's trip was also meant to show "that everyone can participate in this type of weightless experience" — even people with disabilities as serious as his. Diamandis said that Hawking was the first person with his kind of disability to take a weightless flight, and the outcome showed that "others can follow in Dr. Hawking's footsteps."
Hawking, the world-famous physicist who is known for his theories on black holes and the origins of the universe, is in Florida this week to go on a zero-gravity flight, which he sees as an initial step toward his dream of flying in space.
On Thursday, the 65-year-old genius, who has a degenerative nerve disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, will roll his high-tech wheelchair out to a converted Boeing 727, take off from Kennedy Space Center's shuttle landing strip and be guided into position for what's basically a roller-coaster ride in the sky. During the top half of the plane's parabolic ups and downs, Hawking and his fellow fliers will be able to float in the air for about 15 to 20 seconds at a time.
If you ask why we're going back to the moon and, later, beyond, you can get a variety of answers. The President, quite correctly said that we do it for purposes of scientific discovery, economic benefit and national security. I've given speeches on each of those topics, and I think these reasons can be clearly shown to be true. And Presidential Science Advisor Jack Marburger has said that questions about space exploration come down to whether or not we want to bring the solar system within mankind's sphere of economic influence. I think that is extraordinarily well put.
These reasons have in common the fact that they can be discussed within the circles of public policy making. They can be debated on their merits, on logical principles. They can be justified. They are what I am going to call tonight "Acceptable Reasons." You can attach whatever importance you want to any of those factors, and some citizens will weight some factors more and some will weight them less, but most of us would agree that they are, indeed, relevant factors.
But who talks like that? Who talks about doing something for purposes of scientific or economic gain or national security other than in policy circles? If anybody asked Lindberg why he crossed the Atlantic – and many did –he never indicated that he personally flew the Atlantic to win the Orteig prize. His backers might have done it in part for that, but Lindberg did it for other reasons.
If you ask Burt Rutan why he designed and built Voyager, and why Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager flew it around the world, it wasn't for any money involved, it was because it was one of the last unconquered feats in aviation. If you ask Burt and his backer Paul Allen why they developed a vehicle to win the X-Prize, it wasn't for the money. They spent twice as much as they made.
I think we all know why people do some of these things. They are well-captured in many famous phrases. When Sir George Mallory was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, he said "Because it is there." He didn't say that it was for economic gain.
We know these reasons, and tonight I will call them "Real Reasons". Real Reasons are intuitive and compelling to all of us, but they're not immediately logical. They're exactly the opposite of Acceptable Reasons, which are eminently logical but neither intuitive nor emotionally compelling. The Real Reasons we do things like exploring space involve competitiveness, curiosity and monument building. So let's talk about them. . . . .
Real Reasons are not amenable to cost/benefit analysis. I'm reminded of the famous quote "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing," by the character Lord Darlington in Oscar Wilde's play "Lady Windermere's Fan." It's one of my favorites. Well, in today's America it's smart, it's popular, it's clever to be a cynic. And a certain amount of it is appropriate; a healthy skepticism of bold claims is necessary. But too much skepticism causes us to deny a part of what we are.
Real Reasons are old fashioned. How many of us grew up reading Tom Swift, or Jack Armstrong, All American Boy? Or other similar books stories? Not great literature, for sure, but they exemplified many of the values I think we like to see in people: inventiveness, competitiveness, boldness, and a sense of good feeling about what it was to be an American, in very simplistic ways but ones which hit close to home.
To read those books was to understand, even as a child, that achievement is to be valued, and is not something to be set aside. So, how do we talk about our achievers today? Other than in the field of sports, we talk about today's achievers as "geeks" and "workaholics". People are advised to lead "balanced lives". I don't know about you, but I haven't led a balanced life. But people who want to accomplish something are not balanced. And they are geeks, and workaholics. I think we owe our country to people who were like that. I don't know that one could say that folks like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson led balanced lives. Any rational cost/benefit analysis would tell you to stay out of a quarrel with the mother country, and let other people deal with it! Who today would talk about pledging "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor" to a cause? Today we are uncomfortable with such value discussions, and I think it's a shame.
