Florida Preacher Calls Off Quran Burning / NYC Islamic Center Might Be Moved

It's even better. Once the fire department state he violates the city code, the insurance company for the church cancels its policy. Then the bank is going to foreclose the property and demand around 80K immediate payment due to lack of insurance.

Te train-wreck is derailed, oh well.

 

"mosque" should go forward, preacher should just fade into oblivion.

 

So would it be fair to say the iman who wants to build at ground zero put a target on that mosque. Is it ok if it get vandalized/terrorized?

I think he has every right to burn those books as that person building that mosque. It is good he had the good sense not to.

 

you tell me.

Spoiler

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/us/10obama.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

Yeah NYT reports that he seems to be saving face and claiming there is some sort of agreement/exchange, but nothing exists. Even after the media read Imam Rauf's statement to the Pastor, the Pastor didn't seem to acknowledge it.

Read the article, it explains it better than i do :grin:

 

This seems to be the consensus across board.

 

http://worldnewsvine.com/2010/09/reverend-jones-i-was-lied-to-quran-burning-has-not-been-canceled/

I guess it hasn't been canceled.

 

Wait I thought he said "a Sign of god" made him cancele the event.


Is he second guessing god?

 

I love lamp.

 

The real tools are those who are giving him attention, from the media, to the government to the military. He has a right to burn the Quarn, so leave it at that. There are some problems that actually go away if you ignore them.

 

Didn't you hear what so many said here: It has nothing to do with Islam, if Muslims do something terrible, it is because they are not really Muslims. Any anger and violence, if there is any, is "cultural" and because people are poor and has nothing to do with Islam.

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A Second Villa Trashed in Lombok after Alleged Insult to Islam

Lombok. A second foreigner residing on Lombok Island in Indonesia has found himself the object of local wrath for allegedly defiling Islam during the fasting month of Ramadan.

Locals from Sidemen village on Lombok’s main tourism area of Senggigi told the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday that hundreds of residents had attacked and wrecked a villa belonging to a German national and torched his motorcycle for blaspheming Islam.

Police identified the man as Stephen Alexander, 35, also known as Abu-Can Peter.

Mustan, a local, said Alexander discovered that a vandal had decapitated one of the statues in front of his villa on Monday evening and took the severed head to the home of village chief Amalsah.

“He came carrying the statue head and got angry at the village chief, accusing the villagers of damaging his statues.”

Alexander threatened to report the vandalism to the police if Amalsah could not find the vandal within two weeks, Mustan said.

He said villagers had just finished tarawih (evening prayers during Ramadan) and were insulted when Alexander demanded to know, “What kind of Muslims we were?”

“His words were deeply hurtful.”

As Alexander fled for the forest, the enraged villagers trashed the resident’s villa and burned his motorcycle.

Alexander, who has lived in the Lombok for ten years and is married to an Indonesian, only emerged from the forest when police arrived. They promptly arrested the expatriate and are holding him in protective custody at Senggigi Police headquarters.

Luke Gregory Lloyd, 64, meanwhile, is facing the prospect of six years in jail after he was charged with blaspheming Islam and immigration violations after disrupting a late-night Koran recital in a mosque near his house in Kuta, Lombok, on Aug. 22.

Police allege the American expatriate barged into the prayer session with his shoes on, unplugged a microphone and may have even assaulted one of the worshippers.

Lloyd, whose home was also trashed, denies the charges.

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news...n-lombok-after-alleged-insult-to-islam/395009


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Afghan Protests Against Koran Burning Turn Violent

KABUL, Afghanistan — Numerous protests broke out in Afghanistan on Friday and two of them turned violent in response to plans by a Florida pastor to burn copies of the Koran, even after the pastor announced he had suspended those plans.

In western Afghanistan, one civilian was killed and three were wounded by gunshots at a protest outside a NATO base in Bala Buluk in Farah Province, according to a hospital official there.

In northern Afghanistan, five Afghan protesters were wounded by gunshots, three of them critically, when hundreds of men tried to force their way onto a NATO reconstruction base in Faizabad, the capital of Badakshan Province, Afghan officials said.

There were few details on what happened regarding the death in western Afghanistan, except that it was the result of a protest over the threat to desecrate the Koran.

Nasir Sultan Zada, the emergency room doctor on duty at the Central Public Hospital in Bala Buluk, said four protesters were brought to the hospital suffering from gunshot wounds, one already dead.

“We do not know who shot them,” Dr. Zada said. “Whether police shot them or coalition forces, it’s not clear.”

He identified the dead man as Muhammad Daoud, 24, of Shewan, a village in Farah Province.

In Faizabad, in addition to the five wounded protesters, four policemen were wounded defending the NATO base from attack, officials said. Muhammad Amin, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said earlier reports that a protester had been shot to death there proved false.

Aga Noor Kentooz, the provincial police commander in Faizabad, also said that although a mob tried to force its way into the base, no one was killed there. He added that the wounded civilians were hit by shots fired from inside the base, and the injured Afghan policemen were hurt by stones thrown by the crowd.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force disputed the reports.

“Reporting indicates no ISAF troops fired shots during any protests today,” said Maj. Sunset Belinsky, a spokeswoman for the security force. “Initial reporting does indicate Afghan forces fired shots, but I would have to defer” to the Ministries of Interior and Defense for confirmation, she said. Officials from those Afghan ministries could not be reached for comment.

In Faizabad, both Afghan officials’ accounts said the trouble came after several thousand people left morning prayers for the Id al-Fitr holiday and attended a peaceful demonstration against the plans for the Koran burning. Although the Florida pastor, Terry Jones, said Thursday that he had canceled plans to stage the event on Saturday, in commemoration of 9/11, his subsequent comments left it unclear if he planned to go ahead or not.

After the demonstration in Faisabad broke up, groups of several hundred young men, both on foot and piled into automobiles, stormed toward Airport Road and the NATO reconstruction team base, which is staffed by German soldiers who are part of the NATO-led international force.

After overpowering Afghan security forces on the outer wall of the compound, the crowd, armed with sticks and throwing rocks, tried to storm the inner wall, the Afghan officials said.

Commander Kentooz said “foreign security forces” inside the base then fired warning shots, and when that failed to work they fired into the crowd. Mr. Amin put the number of wounded at five civilians hit by gunfire, and four Afghan security officers hurt by stones from the crowd.

The director of the Public Health Hospital in Faisabad, Abdul Mohmin Jalali, said five civilians were admitted there with gunshot wounds; one was treated and released, and three of the four who remained in the hospital were in critical condition.

The police commander said protesters outside the German base were angered because of reports that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, had attended an award ceremony in Berlin for the Danish cartoonist whose caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad angered Muslims worldwide.

At the same ceremony, Mrs. Merkel denounced the plans of the Florida pastor to desecrate the Koran.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, has warned that plans for the Koran-burning put coalition troops at risk, and both President Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates called on the Florida pastor not to go ahead with his planned action.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, there were numerous reports of demonstrations against the Koran-burning in Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad, as well as in Bamian, Kunar and Kapisa Provinces, but they were small and mostly peaceful.

President Hamid Karzai, in a message issued for the Id al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, called on Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Taliban insurgents fighting his government, to join the peace process.

Mullah Omar’s own Id message was uncompromising, boasting that American forces were on the verge of leaving Afghanistan, and ignoring calls for peace talks.

The president’s remarks came after prayers for Id at the mosque on the presidential palace grounds and a statement from his office said, “The President once again called on Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban, and other angry Afghans, to honor Id by joining the peace process and stop killing our brothers and harming civilians.”

Mr. Karzai also criticized the plans to burn the Koran.

“Disrespect to this holy book will not harm this book because the Koran is in every Muslim’s heart and mind,” he said. “I hope these people will stop this disrespect.”

The demonstrations were lightly attended for the most part, although officials in Kapisa Province said a crowd of 10,000 gathered there on Thursday. Television footage, however, showed only a few hundred, and government officials there said the protest was organized by people connected to the governor, who had earlier been the target of an American-supported anticorruption investigation.

Mullah Omar’s remarks, in a message posted on jihadist Web sites Friday and monitored in Kabul, were notably more confident than previous such messages from the reclusive leader, who American military officials believe has been hiding in Pakistan since the fall of his regime in 2001.

“The victory of our Islamic nation over the invading infidels is now imminent,” Mullah Omar’s statement said. “All those who work in the stooge Kabul administration should hear with open ears that the invading enemy is about to leave Afghanistan.”

President Karzai’s message referred to his establishment of a High Peace Council, asking the Taliban to cooperate with that organization. A peace jirga in June agreed to create such a body for the purpose of negotiating with the Taliban, but so far the decree creating the council has not been published and its members, especially the chairman, have not yet been announced.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/world/asia/11afghan.html?src=mv

 

i have a question for you . You say he lack class is this because he wants to burn the koran or is it because you think he just a joke.

 

He should move to Germany, I'm sure he would be welcome

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/09/AR2010090906970_pf.html
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Official's views on Muslim immigration divide Germany

By Anthony Faiola
Friday, September 10, 2010; A14

IN BERLIN The most talked-about man in Germany is a 65-year-old economist whose hot new book and sudden groundswell of popular support have the media dubbing him a folk hero. But that is not the only thing they are calling Thilo Sarrazin these days.

Some are also calling him dangerous. Sarrazin, a board member of the German central bank until he resigned under pressure Thursday, has divided the nation by postulating the theory that Germany is being "dumbed down" by Muslim immigrants and their children. Wielding statistics and scientific arguments both in his book and in public comments, he delves into territory largely taboo here since the Holocaust, suggesting that "hereditary factors" are at least partly to blame. Turks and Kurdish immigrants, he asserts, are genetically predisposed to lower intelligence than Germans and other ethnic groups, including Jews.

His statements have shocked many in Germany, not only because of a national sensitivity to anything remotely smacking of genetic superiority claims in the post-World War II era. What has also shocked many is that so many Germans have rallied to his side as the central bank and his political party have sought to oust him for his pronouncements.

On Thursday, the Central Bank announced he had finally agreed to tender his resignation, a week after outraged officials called for it, thus avoiding a showdown with Germany's president who was set to decide on Sarrazin's fate.

Muslims who are among his critics are calling Sarrazin's surging popularity here part of a wave of Islamophobia in the West, citing the move to ban burqas in France and minarets in Switzerland, the opposition to the construction of an Islamic center near New York City's Ground Zero, and a Florida preacher's plans (now canceled) to stage a burning of Islamic holy books later this week. Others say his emergence in Germany, and growing popularity, is fundamentally even more disturbing.

Though most of Sarrazin's backers are publicly distancing themselves from his genetic arguments, they are lauding him as a straight-talker willing to address the problem of Muslim immigrants, who often eschew German language and culture. By throwing political correctness to the wind, they say, he has dared to speak the truth about higher immigrant unemployment, birthrates and welfare rates.

Among Germany's population of 82 million, about 5 percent are Muslims, most of Turkish descent. A poll published in the national magazine Focus this week showed 31 percent of respondents agreeing that Germany is "becoming dumber" because of immigrants, with 62 percent calling Sarrazin's comments "justified" and 52 percent saying he shouldn't be thrown out of his Social Democratic Party because of them. Since party chiefs began a process to evict him last week, their headquarters in Berlin has been inundated with thousands of e-mails supporting Sarrazin. High-profile politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, have strongly condemned him. But others are praising him for bringing concerns about immigration from Muslim countries to the forefront of the national dialogue.

Sarrazin now has more than 21,000 friends on Facebook and an online fan club. Less than two weeks after its release, his book, "Germany Does Away With Itself," is in its seventh printing, topping bestseller lists with more than 300,000 copies shipped so far and many bookstores in Germany still sold out.

German Jewish groups are among Sarrazin's staunchest critics, calling him a dangerous racist. Though Sarrazin has spoken positively of Jews, saying they have "high IQs," he courted controversy after declaring in an Aug. 29 interview that "all Jews share a certain gene." In fact, observers here say that the official outcry against Sarrazin - including the move to expel him from the board of the central bank - would have been far more muted had he simply stuck to his generalizations about Muslims.

But by generalizing about Jewish genetics at all, Sarrazin also "crossed a red line," said Stephan Kramer, secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

"It's absolutely unacceptable with the history here that such a large amount of people follow what he says," Kramer said. "The lesson of the Holocaust is not just about Jews, but that human dignity is indivisible. Yet now, they react if there is a genetic comment about Jews, but not if it's about the Roma or the Turks. We obviously still have some homework to do."

Sarrazin's critique of Muslim immigrants has, without question, touched a national nerve. In the bars, taxis and offices of Berlin, it is the hottest topic of conservation, with his supporters feeling liberated by Sarrazin's willingness to throw caution to the wind and speak openly about their concerns. More than anything, he has tapped into German frustrations about the tendency of Muslim Turks - who began large-scale immigration in the 1960s to work in German factories - to live clannish lives, jealously guarding their language and religious traditions.

The bookish, mustached Sarrazin - who declined a request to comment - is no stranger to controversy. While a member of the Berlin state senate, he famously said civil servants had a physical odor and wrote a diet for welfare recipients who claimed they couldn't live on their meager state assistance checks. But in the past year, he has homed in on the issue of Turkish and other Muslim immigrants.

In his book, Sarrazin asserts that Germany is getting dumber in part because of "congenital disabilities" from inbreeding by Turks and Kurds. "But the subject is usually hushed up," Sarrazin writes. "Perish the thought that genetic factors could be partially responsible for the failure of parts of the Turkish populations in the German school system." He goes on to blame crime and bloated welfare roles on Turks, using statistics that, according to German media articles, are often outdated and sometimes just plain wrong.

Many, like Carl Moser, a 26-year-old business school student in Bavaria who launched a Facebook fan site for Sarrazin, say he went too far with some of his comments. But "I support him because he dares to speak out on facts that have come from real data and won't bow down to political correctness," Moser said. "I am not supportive of everything he is saying, but Germany does have problems with immigration and integration and politicians are not willing to talk about it."

In the past, Turkish intellectuals have themselves sharply criticized the community's lack of assimilation, calling for the children of immigrants to integrate more fully into Germany society. But if anything, the book appears to be polarizing Germany, with the Turkish community feeling defensive and ostracized.

In Kreuzberg, a partly Turkish neighborhood of Berlin dotted with kebab houses and women in veils, community leader Kenan Kolat said Sarrazin and his popularity had "damaged" the faith of Germany's Turks in their adopted nation.

"Sarrazin doesn't see a social problem, but an ethnic problem, that we are genetically inferior," said Kolat, chairman of the Turkish Federation in Germany. "And yet, German people are supporting him. How do you think the Turkish community feels?"

Special correspondent Jabeen Bhatti contributed to this report.

 

Sarrazin's remarks about genes and all that are crap. But his remarks about the unwillingness of a large percentage of the Muslim population to get a decent education and to integrate themselves into the society of the country they immigrated to (if integration means anything other than receiving welfare payments or making money somehow) are spot on, unfortunately. I believe the picture looks much different in the US, and I am not sure why, but in Europe, his observations are quite correct.

Actually, now that I am thinking about it, it might simply have to do with the fact that European countries did just let anyone into the country, whereas the US have the green card system and basically select the more educated people who are fit to contribute to the nation's economy to enter the country.