Separatist religious extremists behind anti-Islam film causing violence

Mohammed or George as
he is referred to in film

By now most of the world has experienced the violence that has resulted from a film-clip promoting the movie currently called “Innocence of Muslims,” with some reverting to violence, others reacting in revulsion.  The actors recruited to do the film thought they were making an adventure film of some 2,000 years ago named, “Desert Warrior.”  Many say they were duped but that will be hard to understand once you watch the minute-long trailer gone viral on You Tube.

Film trailer that created all the violence:

The rioters are angered over the film’s depiction of the Prophet Mohammed depicted as a “womanizer, buffoon, ruthless killer and child molester,” according to CNN.  After looking at the trailer, I get something of a different idea of George, Mohammed’s name used when the film was shot, but I will leave this up to your judgment.  The man behind the film is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who was convicted of bank fraud in 2009 and has an array of aliases.



Nakoula taken into custody

Nakoula is a Coptic Christian who lives in Cerritos, Calif.  The church’s foundation is based in Egypt and has followers worldwide.  Coptic Christians apparently date all the way back to the second century where a portion of the Gospel of John written in Coptic was found.  It is an oppressed community in Egypt, particularly following the riots from the film.  Once the film’s trailer was translated into Arabic—after two months on You Tube—all hell broke loose.

There are varied versions of what the actors and crew were told the film was about.  Judging from watching the trailer, it should be obvious to anyone it was an insult to Mohammed and the Muslims.  Lines were definitely changed with voice-over, but it is still clear that the intent was to ridicule the Islamic faith.  Steve Klein, another Californian and anti-Muslim activist and script consultant to the movie, said the film was called, “innocence of Bin Laden.”



Fla radical pastor Terry Jones

Klein and Nakoula both knew there could be repercussions from making the movie and Nakoula commented in an interview that even after the violence, he was glad he had made the film.  Defending one’s religion is one thing, but degrading another’s, especially when you know how Muslims feel about insults to the Prophet Mohammed, is contemptible.  Shades of Terry Jones’s Quran-burning that started Afghan riots.  Jones was asked to help distribute the movie.   

In addition to this questionable kind of freedom of religion, there is also the protection of the 1^st Amendment.  It does apply here but have these radicals pushed the envelope?  So far there have been no major uprisings in the U.S. and Nakoula has apparently been taken into custody by police on suspicion of parole violation.  My gut feeling is that it was more likely for his own protection.  The fact remains that due to the riots many have died and more wounded.

Four Americans were killed in the violence including Libyan Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.  President Obama says the U.S. will not rest until those responsible are brought to justice.  So far, four have been arrested.  Although there is no excuse for this kind of retaliation against Americans, isn’t it also likely that these religious extremists—first Terry, then Nakoula—have gone much too far in the pursuit of their rights by this kind of condemnation of Islam?

Each of these radicals has given terrorists the excuse to promote their cause, in this case burning the Libyan Embassy killing four Americans, including the American Ambassador Chris Stevens.  One writer, H.A. Hellyer naively comments that “…the Coptic Church should never be placed in the position of having to apologize for the actions of a few of its members.”  His premise is right but the minute Nakoula identified himself as a Copt, the connection was made.

And, argues Hellyer, the Muslim community at large shouldn’t be obligated to apologize for a group of extremists led by misfits like Jones and Nakoula who are pushing their own agenda at the sake of sacrificing the lives of others.  But isn’t this what has been going on in the U.S. for the last few years?  Good Muslims are living among us in this country but at gatherings my wife and I have attended, the Islamic community is condemned as a whole based on limited incidents.

Americans must stop looking for people or causes to hate and encouraging others like them to take up the gauntlet against what they wrongly perceive as their enemies.  Karl Rove under GWB introduced hate to politics, the state of Arizona welcomes and thrives on hate groups, and racial hate once again reared its ugly head in Mississippi recently by the murder of African-American James Craig Anderson by young people, not the normal old time racists.

Where will it end?

Would you consider Russian Roulette suicide?

It’s not enough that we have to fight the proliferation of guns in this country that kill thousands each year, but we also have to watch out for the dunderheads that toy with disaster by playing Russian Roulette.  Many win but many also lose, apparently the latter not a large enough number to maintain statistics.  No matter how you look at it, the act is stupid, and WikiAnswers describes the person that would do it as certifiable.  Case in point.

Russian Roulette

On Sept. 5, a 35-year-old man, Dion Von Mays, put a gun to his head in a San Bernardino, Calif. apt. and blew his brains out.  Mays is at least the fourth victim of playing Russian Roulette in the past eight months in the U.S., once again the casualty of a gun free society where anyone can own a gun and take it anywhere they want, doing anything they want to with it.  There is no indication that Mays suffered from mental illness, making it just another stupid act with a gun.

This country is already fighting a gun control battle that appears to be gaining momentum, and is certainly enriched by an incident such as this.  Mays could do what he did to himself simply because it is so easy to obtain firearms.  Whether he acquired the gun legally or illegally, he got it and had the means to kill himself. And there was no firearms regulation to prevent this obviously unstable person from doing what he did.  Even worse if the whole thing was just for the thrill.

And there have been more recent Russian Roulette deaths.  Thorin Montgomery, age 17, fatally shot himself in the head this last July in Florida.  Cole McConoughey, only 15-years-old, blew his brains out in Pennsylvania soon after Montgomery.  Kevin Hudgens, also 15, fatally shot himself and his 15-year-old friend was charged with possessing a gun as a felon.  Michael McCloskey, 27, killed himself in the game in Alaska while binge drinking with a friend.



This guy can't wait for the
cigarette to kill him



Hopefully this will not start a copy-cat series of incidents to see who can outdo the ones before him.  If there is, we can only thank the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) and its wacky leader Wayne LaPierre for the carnage.  The NRA has fought shamelessly for looser gun laws in the wake of a group of mass shootings dating all the way back to the Columbine massacre in 1999.  Since then we have had VA Tech, Tucson, Aurora, Colo. and the Wisconsin Sikh Temple. 

In the headline I asked if you would consider Russian Roulette suicide.  Well, the answer is that the game is looked upon as at least attempted suicide, unless you are successful—doesn’t seem like the proper term—enough to spread your brains all over the room.  And in most cases suicide isn’t judged illegal, except in cases of insurance, etc.  But there are still two factors needing further investigation: playing the game drunk and for the thrill of it.  A later post.

Gov. Jan Brewer makes Arizona cops jobs impossible…and other asinine achievements

For the U.S. governor that, every time you hear something about her you think you have heard everything dim-witted, Jan Brewer crops up again upstaging herself with new idiocies.  Actually this isn’t old, rather a new break in a past blunder like the anti-immigration legislation SB-1070.  The Supreme Court struck down all but the part where law enforcement has to check the immigration status of individuals thought to be in the country illegally, while enforcing other laws.



Nazis also asked for your papers

However, while letting that clause stand, the Supreme Court made it “explicitly” clear that this kind of enforcement could lead to civil rights violations.  Putting myself in the position of a Phoenix police officer, I wondered how I would react to stopping a car with a mixture of Caucasian, plus legal and illegal immigrants.  I wouldn’t know who was what, so what would I do, check everyone to be safe?  I know the cops are trained for this, but so are the Hispanics to uncover abuses.

Temple University law professor Peter Spiro who has followed the legal battles on SB-1070 says, “Further litigation is imminent.”  What that means is that once judged the country’s worst governor, Jan Brewer, by forcing this law through the Supreme Court, has put the state of Arizona in the position of having to defend dozens, maybe even hundreds, of lawsuits.  Her position is bewildering since 73% of Arizonans support the Dream Act, according to a recent poll.

Video on Arizona "Show me your papers" law:

But there is even more Brewer baloney.  One of her appointees, Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Hatch, had the audacity to lecture a female victim of groping by a drunk police officer, “If you hadn’t been there that night {a bar}, none of this would have happened to you.”  

AZ Gov. Jan Brewer on the job

And yes, the Republican National Convention where some pathetic delegates treated Gov. Brewer and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio like rock stars.  The media even begged these losers for interviews and delegates asked for autographs.  The reaction to the Bobbsey Twins in Charlotte was a multitude of boos.

But doesn’t supporting an outright, self-avowed racist, again, sort of give Brewer the credentials of a racist herself?   Gabriela Saucedo Mercer, who is running for Congress in Arizona, said Middle Easterners look like Mexicans and she doesn’t want them in the country “legally or illegally.”  Saucedor Mercer is a Hispanic immigrant herself who gained citizenship in 1991.  Even following the above statement, Brewer reconfirmed her support for Saucedo Mercer.

In the latest example of loose Arizona gun laws supported and signed into law by Jan Brewer, Tucson police raided the home of Douglas Atwood busting him for having drugs and weapons.  In the house were 96 firearms including assault rifles, shotguns, handguns plus thousands of rounds of ammunition.  Oh by the way, Atwood is a federally-licensed weapons dealer.

Dr. Richard Carmona, former surgeon general under GWB, is running as a Democrat to replace the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Jon Kyl.  The GOP, in their fight to retain the position, is trying to discredit the political credentials of the candidate.  But in the past Republicans, namely Jan Brewer and Kyl, tried their best to recruit him for office including Congress and the governor.



Someone with the right to
ask for our papers

And finally, Arizona did win the one exemption in the SB-1070 law to check immigrant papers, but the case has been made repeatedly that the fed’s challenges should have been over racial profiling.  The Supreme Court even commented that even after the papers portion of the law goes into effect, the door is till open to more Constitutional challenges.

I can just see the Phoenix cop now, with all of his or her training but still under severe pressure, asking for the papers of the wrong person at the wrong time.  It goes back to the racially-mixed occupants in the car, above, with so many decisions to be made on the spot.  Just one slip and here comes the feds with another lawsuit, this time over racial profiling.  And Arizonans have Jan Brewer to thank.

Obama increases lead by 6 points-Romney drops 2 points

While the GOP convention did little for Mitt Romney—no doubt because neither he nor Paul Ryan had anything to say—it pushed Barack Obama to a new high of 52% to Romney’s 46% in a CNN/ORC poll.  The poll, taken Monday, shows who had the strongest convention, providing the most substance in what they plan to do for the country.  Obama was tied with Romney prior to the conventions. 

Obama also exceeded Romney in fundraising bringing in $114 million compared to $111 million in recent contributions.  Following the Republican convention, Romney’s favorable rating increased to 53%, dropping right after Charlotte to 48%.  51% of likely voters felt that Obama has the best outlook for running the country compared to Romney’s 41%.  There was a switch of who had the most targeted plan to help America; after Charlotte, Obama now 45%, Romney 39%.

OK, polls are like people, they are fickle as all get out.  But what I have heard from most political pundits is that at least they measure the pulse of the moment, and we are talking about a well-known pollster in CNN/ORC.  And the “moment” this poll recorded was how the American public felt after two conventions, each representing an opposite side of the political spectrum.  It would indicate that the voters, at least for the moment, think Obama is best for the country.

Just before the convention, Obama and Romney were tied at 48%.  That shows there was little enthusiasm for the GOP candidate following Tampa which would indicate to me that Romney and Ryan either didn’t get across their message or they conveyed the wrong message.  Either way, it means that Republicans are stumbling down the homestretch with a campaign that is beginning to sound like the shallow charade it is, particularly to Independents and undecideds.

As an example, all the way back to Paul Ryan’s dismantling of Medicare and a national budget that even George W. Bush said was irresponsible, to the current Medicare version from Romney that still throws Seniors under the bus, so many details are left out that most have no idea what he would really do.  It is that uncertainty that is driving many undecided voters over to the Democrats.  In President Obama’s case he would stick with the plan but with some revisions.

On the personal side, the Democrats in Charlotte tanked Romney’s gains from Tampa sending them from a post convention number of 53% to 48% after the end of the Dems convention.  Obama also came away with a better comfort zone on leading the country in the future with 51% compared to Romney’s 41%.  And men were more supportive of Democrats in the poll most likely due to the fact that Obama saved the auto industry and was responsible for bin Laden’s death.

The Bloomberg National Poll in June measured how the public feels Obama is doing in the running of the country.  45% said they were better off compared to 36% who said they were worse off.  The balance remained the same or were just undecided.  Just before President Obama was elected in 2008, 89% of Americans thought the country was on the wrong track compared to 62% today.  All these figures are a mandate for the job Barack Obama has done in office.

Back in July Romney said he would repeal Obama’s Affordable Care Act to make way for real healthcare reform.  Today the candidate says he would keep parts of “Obamacare.”  Yet more flip-flopping on healthcare dating back to his passage of a very similar law as Gov. of Massachusetts, then to the repeal of Obama’s Act, to now keeping certain provisions.  The man obviously has no idea what he really wants to do as President and it is beginning to show up more in the polls.

A day of silence for the victims of September 11, 2001

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Almost 3,000 people died in the terrorists attacks on September 11, 2001 in New York, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania.  Nasty Jack is paying tribute to those who died and to the families that survived.

May it never happen again.



9/11/01-Why can't they walk together
all the time?

  

9/11/01 - The hit

     




9/11/01-The future









August 2012 Shootings Report: 342 shootings, 77 dead, 265 wounded

Two kinds of reports keep being issued that the gun nuts cannot argue with.  The first is a list of mass shootings circulated by the Brady Campaign for Gun Violence, the other a periodical review of miscellaneous gun violence recently reported by CNN, “By the numbers: Guns in America.”  The facts are there for President Obama to see and let the American public know just what he will do to stop the onslaught of gun deaths.  Any rhetoric would be wasted on Mitt Romney.

Gun massacres in 2012: Oakland, Calif. in April, 7 were killed, 3 wounded; Neo-Nazi J.T. Ready killed 5 in Gilbert, Ariz., including an infant and himself in May; James Holmes killed 12, injuring 58 in an Aurora, Colo. movie in July; and the Sikh Temple shooting in Oak Creek, Wis. in August, 7 dead 3 wounded.  There are others dating back to the Columbine school shooting to the Tucson, Ariz. Bloodbath in 2011 that killed 6, severely wounding U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords.

Here’s a look at the numbers.  According to the Gallup Poll, only 26% of Americans favor a ban on handguns; most gun advocates agree handguns should be allowed in the home for protection.  310 million nonmilitary firearms in the U.S. as of 2009, almost one for each person in the country.  Only 47% told Gallup they owned a gun in 2011, which works out to two per household.  These are staggering figures making the U.S. unique in the world for gun ownership.

There are more numbers if you are interested that you can see on the CNN site above.  In the meantime, we are dealing with 2012 here and so far gun violence across the nation has proved to be escalating.  In my monthly shooting reports there have been 1,056 shootings since March resulting in 432 deaths.  Keep in mind that these figures are extremely conservative since I depend entirely on the media for my data.  The CDC reports 31,347 firearm deaths annually.

Here are the August 2012 results:

DATE	CITY/STATE	DEAD	WOUNDED	SHOOTINGS
8/1/2012	Amite, LA	1	1	2
8/1/2012	Chicago, IL	2	7	9
8/2/2012	Homestead, PA	1	3	4
8/2/2012	Chicago, IL	4	10	14
8/3-8/4/12	Chicago, IL	0	10	10
8/3-8/4/12	Patterson, NJ	3	1	4
8/5/2012	Omaha, NE	0	2	2
8/5/2012	Oak Creek, WI (Sikh Temple)	7	3	10
8/7/2012	New York, NY	0	10	10
8/8/2012	Tucson, AZ	0	1	1
8/8/2012	Chicago, IL	2	5	7
8/9/2012	Dothan, AL	3	0	3
8/9/2012	Detroit, MI	2	0	2
8/9/2010	Chicago, IL	1	3	4
8/10/2012	Seattle, WA	0	2	2
8/11/2012	Chicago, IL	0	21	21
8/11/2012	Tucson, AZ	2	1	3
8/12/2012	Washington, DC	0	2	2
8/12/2012	Oakland, CA	1	4	5
8/12/2012	Boston, MA	4	2	6
8/13/2012	Milwaukee, WI	1	6	7
8/13/2012	College Station, TX	3	4	7
8/14/2012	Dayton, OH	0	2	2
8/14-8/15/12	Chattanooga, TN	0	2	2
8/15/2012	Reno, NV	0	1	1
8/15/2012	Washington, DC	0	2	2
8/15/2012	Chicago, IL	1	5	6
8/16/2012	LaPlace, LA	2	2	4
8/16/2012	Muscatine, IA	0	1	1
8/17/2012	Atlanta, GA	0	2	2
8/17/2012	Phoenix, AZ	0	1	1
8/18/2012	Malden, MA	0	2	2
8/18/2012	Detroit, MI	1	1	2
8/18/2012	Odessa, TX	1	6	7
8/18-8/19/12	Chicago, IL	6	30	36
8/19/2012	Oakland, CA	0	2	2
8/19/2012	St. Louis, MO	2	1	3
8/20/2012	San Jose, CA	1	1	2
8/20/2012	Chicago, IL	0	3	3
8/20/2012	Cincinnati, OH	0	1	1
8/21/2012	Baton Rouge, LA	1	1	2
8/22/2012	Chicago, IL	2	0	2
8/23/2012	Chicago, IL	0	19	19
8/24/2012	New York, NY	1	8	9
8/24/2012	Chicago, IL	3	4	7
8/24/2012	Stuttgart, AR	0	3	3
8/24/2012	Surprise, AZ	0	2	2
8/24-8/26/12	Chicago, IL	9	37	46
8/25/2012	Rochester, NY	0	3	3
8/25/2012	Prospect, CT	0	1	1
8/25/2012	Oakland, CA	1	3	4
8/25/2012	Wilkinsburg, PA	2	1	3
8/25/2012	Scottsdale, AZ	1	0	1
8/25/2012	Tulsa, OK	1	0	1
8/25/2012	Muscatine, IA	0	1	1
8/26/2012	Wausaukee, WI	0	1	1
8/27/2012	Chicago, IL	0	10	10
8/27/2012	Perry Hall, MD	0	1	1
8/27/2012	Jacksonville, FL	0	1	1
8/28/2012	Randleman, NC	0	2	2
8/28/2012	Charleston, WV	2	3	5
8/30/2012	Avondale, AZ	0	1	1
8/31/2012	Old Bridge, NJ	3	0	3
	TOTALS	77	265	342

In the 6 months I have been doing this report, there have been 1,398 shootings resulting in 509 deaths.  After adding wounded to the report in June, 885 have been injured.  And these are the bare minimum figures but at least point out when and where the violence is occurring as a national representation.

You can link to earlier reports here: March, April, May, June, July.