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An impromptu Christian-Muslim family dialogue. Folks, I received the following letter from my cousin-in-law, Dr. Jamil Khader, Assistant Professor of English at Stetson University in Deland, Florida, who had it published on the Letters to the Editor section of the Daytona Beach News on July 1st. Cousin Jamil had the kindness to forward it to me for comment. I think that he's going to get more than what he bargained for. (LOL) I quote his letter in its entirety; my comments follow each relevant paragraph.The Rev. Jeffrey DeYoe ("Holy writ and human superstition," Community Voices column, June 11) correctly attributes...

Police are investigating a racist attack on a Jewish cemetery in which 87 graves were desecrated. It is the 117th attack on the West Ham Jewish cemetery in east London in 15 years. Some of the graves had stood for 150 years but were pushed over or broken over the last 10 days. Others were daubed with graffiti, or sprayed with swastikas. The doors to a mausoleum building in the centre of the cemetery had been forced open and more swastikas sprayed on the outside. The damage was discovered by the caretaker of the cemetery in Buckingham Road, east London....

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KING VOTES TO PROTECT AMERICAN FLAG Americans’ Duty to Protect Symbol of Freedom Washington, D.C. — Leading up to Memorial Day, with the support of Iowa Congressman Steve King, the House Judiciary Committee passed a Constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to make it a crime to burn the American flag. Although almost eighty percent of Americans support a Constitutional amendment banning desecration of the American flag, in 1989 and 1990 the Supreme Court ruled that laws passed by Congress violated the First Amendment. Passing a constitutional amendment is the only way to protect the American flag from acts of...

Most Americans have not been paying attention to the bureaucratic wrangling and political jockeying that has plagued the construction of the World Trade Center Memorial at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. But it's not just New Yorkers and developers and 9/11 families who should care. A good portion of the project is federally subsidized. All of us have not only a financial stake, but also a moral stake, in protecting the honor of the victims -- and the dignity of our country. A Blame America Monument is not what we need or deserve. But it looks like one is already...

Muslim anguish, Western condescension By Spengler Why do Muslims riot over alleged desecration of the Koran? For the same reason that Christians used to riot over alleged desecration of the Host, the wafer that when consecrated becomes the body of Jesus Christ, according to Catholic belief. For Muslims, the Koran is not a holy book, like the Christian Gospels or the Jewish Torah, but the incarnate presence of Allah on Earth, dictated to the Prophet Mohammed word-for-word by the Archangel Gabriel. It is not prophecy, but the presence of divinity, as a number of commentators have observed, including this one...

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon late Friday confirmed five incidents of Koran desecration at the prison for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, wrapping up a high-priority investigation. The findings concluded that one soldier deliberately kicked the Muslim holy book, other guards hit it with water balloons, and a soldier's urine splashed on a prisoner and his Koran...more from LA TIMES IN LINK ---- Koran desecration at all time highs. Dilby.com reports that people are submitting video. This site "The Dilby News Monitor" also has a huge picture of a burned Koran for their frontpage today. I guess this has infuriated people...

CHICAGO (AFP) - Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan called for a congressional investigation into reports of desecrations of the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba. "As Muslims, we say enough is enough," the influential African American leader said from the pulpit of his south Chicago mosque. Farrakhan said a delegation of Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders should participate in the investigation. Farrakhan also demanded that the US military either charge and try the detainees at Guantanamo Bay or release them to their families. The American Civil Liberties Union accused the US government Wednesday of turning "a...

<p>Newsweek's false, retracted story about American guards flushing the Koran down a toilet at Guantanamo doesn't necessarily mean the magazine's staff hates America or Bush, or wants us to lose in Iraq. To be charitable, let's just chalk that one up to sloppy journalism.</p>

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (AP) -- A Roman Catholic priest denied communion to more than 100 people Sunday, saying they could not receive the sacrament because they wore rainbow-colored sashes to church to show support for gay Catholics. Before offering communion, the Rev. Michael Sklucazek told the congregation at the Cathedral of St. Paul that anyone wearing a sash could come forward for a blessing but would not receive wine and bread. A group called the Rainbow Sash Alliance has encouraged supporters to wear the multicolored fabric bands since 2001 on each Pentecost Sunday, the day Catholics believe the Holy Spirit...

As the Koran-flushing-in-Cuba episode becomes old news, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has helpfully found a way to keep Koran desecration in the public eye. It does so – and I draw on MPAC's two press releases (here and here), plus reports from the Associated Press and Los Angeles Times – by promoting the story of one Azza Basarudin, who bought a copy of the Koran, Oxford University Press edition.A doctoral candidate at the University of California at Los Angeles specializing in Middle East studies, Basarudin ordered the volume in early May from Bellwether Books, a used book store...

CNSNews.com) - Bibles found in the possession of visitors to Saudi Arabia are routinely confiscated by customs officials, and in some cases copies allegedly have been put through a paper shredder, according to religious rights campaigners. Reports from the Islamic world of the abuse of Bibles and other items important to Christians emerge from time to time, but generally have little impact - in contrast to the wave of Muslim anger sparked by a Newsweek report, since retracted, of Koran desecration by the U.S. military. "The Muslims respect the Koran far more than Christians respect the Bible," says Danny Nalliah,...

Palestinians opened fire towards seven Breslav Hasidim who had entered the site of Joseph's Tomb in Nablus early Thursday morning without coordinating the visit with the IDF in advance. The seven Jews arrived in Nablus by illegally bypassing a number of roadblocks, Army Radio reported. Security forces who were alerted to the scene managed to rescue the Hasidim, who were brought in for questioning. Police requested that their remand be extended. In related developments, OC Central Command Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh met with residents from the Yitzhar settlement in the West Bank as well as with local rabbis in order...

LOS ANGELES/ ST PAUL- MINNEAPOLIS, May 16, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Feast of Pentecost is the celebration in the Christian calendar of the descent of the Holy Spirit onto the Disciples of Christ after His resurrection and ascension into heaven as recorded in the bible. In recent years, homosexual activists have used the feast as an annual pretext for protests to make demands that the Catholic Church change her teaching on the sinfulness of homosexual acts. Archbishop Flynn of St. Paul-Minneapolis, Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles and bishop Matthew Clarke of Rochester New York have been singled out for praise...

Newsweek magazine and reporter-writers, Mark Isikoff and John Barry forgot the most important and one of the oldest clichés in the business, “You can’t unring a bell.” They also forgot one of the most memorable slogans in WW II, “Loose Lips Sink Ships.” As a result, over 15 people are dead in Afghanistan and many hurt. Riots continue in Muslim countries. All this is due to that fact that Newsweek reported that U.S. investigators found evidence that interrogators had flushed a copy of Muslim's holy book down a toilet in an attempt to rattle detainees. Just the thought that it...

Isn't it interesting that the Koran in the toilet (which didn't happen, apparently) constitutes desecration and a crucifix in a bottle of urine gets a government grant? Does that seem strange to anyone else?

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2005 – There's no evidence to support a recent Newsweek magazine article accusing U.S. personnel at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of desecrating the Muslim holy book, the Koran, a senior Pentagon official noted. "Newsweek's story about Koran desecration is demonstrably false, and there have thus far been no credible allegations of willful Koran desecration, and Newsweek has produced no such evidence," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said today in response to media queries. A Newsweek story published May 9 reported that American military interrogators at the Guantanamo prison facility had flushed a Koran down a toilet. The article sparked...

Yesterday that recently vanquished cliché, the Arab street, returned to remind us that there are some things that even the most enlightened Westerners don't get about Muslims -- their fanaticism about the Koran. Newsweek, which had only a few months ago been jubilantly celebrating the new People Power rising up in the Middle East, apparently ran an article in which it was alleged that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, in order to annoy the Muslim inmates, had deposited copies of the Koran on or in the toilet bowls of the prison facility. There was even a rumor that a copy of...

METZ, France, May 11 (AFP) - Scores of tombstones were overturned in a Jewish cemetery at Sarreguemines in eastern France, local police said Wednesday. The profanation, in which about 65 of the 500 graves in the cemetery were knocked down and piled on top of one another, occurred between Sunday and Tuesday and was discovered by a municipal employee. The cover was lifted entirely off one of the graves. Police chief Alfred Bickel said a forensic unit was seeking fingerprints and other evidence at the scene. In addition, a swastika was carved at the entrance to a Christian cemetery nearby....

Vt. Teen Accused of Stealing Corpse's Head By Associated Press April 13, 2005, 8:01 AM EDT MORRISVILLE, Vt. -- A 17-year-old Morrisville youth was being held on $100,000 bail after police said he raided a tomb in a cemetery and removed a head from a corpse. "We had a person voice their concerns about information they had heard on the street," said Chief Richard Keith of the Morristown Police Department. Keith said police at first could not believe what they had heard. But when they went to Morrisville Cemetery and investigated, they found that someone had broken into a tomb,...