By 1389

Marriott workcenter computers block another conservative blog

This thread in Blogmocracy tells the story:

The Osprey 139 | July 6, 2010 00:45

Hey Rodan and Savage. I was up in Flagstaff for the last two days. Tried to access the Blogmocracy from the Marriott I was staying at. Their workcenter computers have an interface/filter controlling web access called ìUniguestî. When I tried to access the site it told me it was blocked due to ìwhite supremacistî content.

I smell the minions of Chucky.

I did a little digging…

Uniguest website

1035 Acorn Drive
Nashville, TN 37210
p: 800.467.1218
f: 615.777.5500

Email service and support

Uniguest Email Contact Form

Here’s what I wrote:

I understand that your Uniguest software, which is being used by the Marriott hotels, is blocking http://www.theblogmocracy.com as a “white supremacist” site.

For one thing, this is completely untrue; there is nothing white supremacist about that site. Socialists and pro-jihadists all too often attack sites that aim to expose their activities by flagging them as “white supremacist” or “racist”, even when the site has nothing to do with race.

And furthermore, what business is it of yours if somebody wants to look at a white supremacist website? I sometimes check websites belonging to those who oppose me in the political sphere, merely to see what they are up to.

Please whitelist http://www.theblogmocracy.com so that anyone can access it from any of your systems.

Updated 3/14/08: Nope…the problem’s back. Further research shows that this screen is a common 403 error screen on Drupal, an open source developer famous for creating Digg clones. Hmmm….

Updated 3/13/08: Looks like the problem’s been corrected.

Previously on FHK and on the 1389blog, we have discussed at length that companies that allow public internet access use filterware, which has, at times, exercised odd behavior in choosing which sites to block. At that time, we knew Panera Bread was using SonicWALL.

Today, I’m on the road, however, and stopped at Panera to catch up on my blogging I tried to Digg a story for a friend and got a screen I hadn’t seen before. It didn’t look like the old familiar SonicWALL censhorship page, and a check of SonicWALL shows that it has Digg.com rated as “News and Media [and] Information Technology/Computers“. Instead. Instead, the screen looked like this:

Has anyone else had that experience? Is it possible that Digg.com has actually become too politically-correct for public viewing?

Previously on FHK and on the 1389blog, we have discussed at length that companies that allow public internet access use filterware, which has, at times, exercised odd behavior in choosing which sites to block. At that time, we knew Panera Bread was using SonicWALL.

Today, I’m on the road, however, and stopped at Panera to catch up on my blogging I tried to Digg a story for a friend and got a screen I hadn’t seen before. It didn’t look like the old familiar SonicWALL censhorship page, and a check of SonicWALL shows that it has Digg.com rated as “News and Media [and] Information Technology/Computers“. Instead. Instead, the screen looked like this:

Has anyone else had that experience? Is it possible that Digg.com has actually become too politically-correct for public viewing?

Blogosphere Victory over Jihadist Mole

Hesham Islam, if you recall, is the Islamist mole who maneuvered his patron and mentor, Gordon England, into firing Steve Coughlin, the Pentagon’s only expert on Islamic law.

Winds of Jihad: Hesham Islam gets the boot

Hesham Islam’s ‘resume didn’t add up,’ official says

Thanx to Weasel Zippers

In a stunning turn of events, a high-level Muslim military aide blamed for costing an intelligence contractor his job will step down from his own Pentagon post, WND has learned.

Meanwhile, his rival, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, a leading authority on Islamic war doctrine, may stay in the Pentagon, moving from the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the office of the secretary of defense. However, sources say a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey is trying to block his new contract.

The top Pentagon aide, Egyptian-born Hesham H. Islam, came under a cloud of suspicion after reports raised doubt about his resume and contacts he had made with radical Muslims. He is expected to leave the government next month, officials say.

Islam and Coughlin recently quarreled over intelligence briefings Coughlin presented showing a close connection between the religion of Islam and terrorism. Coughlin’s contract with the Joint Chiefs, which ends in March, was not renewed.

The Power of the Bloggers:

But as a result of the ensuing firestorm that played out in the conservative press – led by Washington Times Pentagon reporter Bill Gertz – Islam was put under a microscope, and questions were raised regarding his background…

Blue Collar Muse:
Hesham Islam to Leave Government in March

Hesham Islam has been in the new recently. Well, not really. He has been covered by conservative news sites like World Net Daily, NRO and The Washington Times but there’s been precious little MSM coverage outside of that. Bloggers have also covered the news.

I wrote about it here. You can catch other stories at 1389 Blog, Atlas Shrugs, The Jawa Report and elsewhere.

Hesham is a close friend, confidant and advisor to Gordon England. England is the #2 man at the Department of Defense. The problem is that Hesham is also something of a mystery. Despite a DoD published biographical profile which described his early life as akin to a Hollywood thriller, there was more to Islam than met the eye. It all came to light after Hesham Islam used his influence to punish Stephen Coughlin, possibly the best Islamic analyst at the Pentagon. Coughlin’s contract was not renewed after Islam described him as a “Christian zealot with a poison pen”. That statement came after Coughlin’s Pentagon reports became increasingly alarmist with respect to Islamic activity which precipitated an ideological conflict with Hesham Islam…

Blogosphere Victory for Ezra Levant

Ezra Levant has been prosecuted by the Alberta Human Rights Commission for having published the Muhammad cartoons.

Doctor Bulldog: Oh, Happy Day! —
Muslim Leader Drops Complaint Against Ezra Levant

Excellent! Chalk one up for freedom of speech. Also, Ezra Levant says he is going to sue Syed Soharwardy for the thousands of dollars in legal fees! Go get ‘em, Ezra!!!

Muslim leader drops Ezra Levant cartoon complaint
Western Standard publisher plans to launch a civil lawsuit

Graeme Morton, Canwest News Service February 12, 2008

National Post —CALGARY — Calgary Muslim leader Syed Soharwardy says he is withdrawing his Alberta Human Rights Commission complaint against former Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant.

The complaint was launched in February 2006, after the Western Standard and the Jewish Free Press reprinted cartoons from a Danish newspaper that many in the Muslim world felt insulted the prophet Muhammad. The cartoons sparked violent protests in a number of countries…

Atlas Shrugs: Brilliant Rant from Levant!

This guy is the greatest.

HUDNA! (hat tip Josef)

Today Syed Soharwardy told the Calgary Herald editorial board that he is withdrawing his human rights complaint against me that he filed two years ago when I published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. (Seriously, if you haven’t done so, you’ve really got to look at his hand-scrawled complaint here. I know dyslexic ten-year-olds with ADD who are more coherent.)

If he’s really withdrawing the complaint, this is the first I’ve heard about it; and when I spoke with my lawyer this afternoon, the complaint was still proceeding against me.

It might be a lie — it wouldn’t be Soharwardy’s first, but then again, lying to an infidel newspaper isn’t immoral to someone like Soharwardy. It’s called taqqiyah.

But even if Soharwardy withdraws his complaint against me, an identical complaint filed by the Edmonton Muslim Council still proceeds.

So why would Soharwardy do this — and why now?

The answer lies in another Arabic word: hudna. A hudna isn’t a peace treaty. It’s a temporary truce called by a Muslim warrior who’s losing in battle. It’s pretty easy to understand how hudnas work by watching Israel fight Hamas and Hezbollah. Those two terrorist groups lob rockets and send suicide bombers into Israel for months; then, every once in a while, Israel deploys its military and flattens Hamas and Hezbollah, who then call for a hudna. The UN intervenes, saving Hamas and Hezbollah to fight another day. That’s a hudna: a tactical truce for a strategic advantage.

Soharwardy wants a hudna because he’s osing badly. Not financially: he hasn’t spent a penny to further the complaint against me — that has been done courtesy of Ed Stelmach’s government and the taxpayers of Alberta, to the tune of $500,000, I’d guess. Nor has Soharwardy had to spend hundreds of hours battling against me at the commission — Alberta government employees do that for him. It’s because over the past two years — and the past month in particular — Soharwardy has become known for what he is: an Islamofascist imam, who’s trying to bring Saudi values to Canada. Though I’m being pummelled in a kangaroo court, he’s being pummelled in the court of public opinion. He didn’t expect it, and he hates it.

He hates that hundreds of bloggers ridicule him. He hates that my video clips, in which I describe his illiberal nature, have been viewed almost 500,000 times. He hates that his own enemies within his mosque have taken advantage of this media coverage to shine a light of scrutiny on the way he runs his mosque - from his financial irregularities, to his abusive treatment of women.

There’s much more. Go!

What does the Afghan Constitution really say?

Does the new Constitution of Afghanistan actually mandate shari’a law – including the death penalty for blasphemy – or not?

Judicial Interpretation Blamed in Afghan Blasphemy Case

By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
February 11, 2008

(CNSNews.com) – The death penalty given to an Afghan journalist accused of insulting Islam has more to do with judges’ interpretation of the country’s laws than with a constitutional provision entrenching Islamic primacy, according to a leading scholar in Islamic law.

The Afghan government has reiterated its assurance that President Hamid Karzai will “find a just solution” to the case of Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh. A statement released by the Afghan Embassy in Washington said that this would be done “in accordance with Afghan law and our nation’s international obligations.”

A three-judge court in northern Afghanistan on January 22 sentenced the 23-year-old to death, after he was accused of distributing to students an online article questioning why Muslim men may have more than one spouse while women may not…

Broadcast Radio Talk Show Censorship

Fuhrman Hit

Silencing the truth tellers – run amok.
From my comrade Ron over at Rocket’s Brain:

Need I say more re the political hit and removal of the Mark Fuhrman Radio Show. 

Mapleton LLC  is the group that bought these stations from Citadel Broadcasting.  A key factor in this sale was the termination of the Mark Fuhrman Show. 

Not available on the Net yet but from the today’s S-R’s Business
Section:

S-R to broadcast on Mapleton Stations

The Spokesman-Review will begin producing radio news reports that will be broadcast over stations owned by Mapleton Communications LLC in
Spokane under an agreement announced Tuesday.

At least four daily
newscasts, plus a weekend talk show and a week-in-review program, will be broadcast from the Spokesman-Review building . . .

Isn’t it enough that it is estimated the Cowles Co control 80% of the local media in our market?  As I write in a reply (draft form) to the new Spokesman-Review Ombudsman: 

Because of the significant amount of property that the Cowles Co owns or controls in Downtown Spokane and along the Spokane River to the Idaho border, there inherently is a conflict of interest regarding its involvement in development projects and reporting by the S-R.   A close analogy is the period genre movie Chinatown. River Park Square is only one of several projects where there is a similar pattern and practice in quasi public/private developments where the public was defrauded.

Friends of Mark Fuhrman Radio Show

The unofficial fan site of Mark Fuhrman Radio Show that was squelched in my opinion by the "usual suspects." This list is dedicated to pursuing among other things the River Park Square fraud et al in Spokane, WA and other related topics that you will never read about in the Spokesman-Review.  Read regular updates from Fuhrman Show regulars, Larry Shook, Tim Conner, Cherie Rodgers, former Spokane Mayor John Talbott, Dick Adams, "Ron the Cop" and others.

nar9350@gmail.com

Recent posts at the blog Rockets Brain:

A complaint for the new S-R Ombudsman
To the Citizens of Spokane – Time to take a stand!
An Army of Davids Strikes – Spokane, WA

"All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing"

As many of you now know the Mark Fuhrman Radio Show was axed by KGA1510 AM (Citadel Broadcasting) in Spokane, WA.
. . .
I have information from a reliable source that the Fuhrman Show was in play from the very first contact by Mapleton representatives with Citadel about purchasing KGA. IMHO this was a "hit" plain and simple by a criminal enterprise to cover its ongoing robbery of the citizens of Spokane. This criminal enterprise has so thoroughly and systemically corrupted the political and governmental bodies in Spokane to a level I’ve never witnessed before in my entire thirty-five year law enforcement career. . .

Other News and Commentary:

• EuropeNews: Background: Muhammad cartoons controversy
• Cristy Li: Michael Savage Case Against CAIR
• Winds of Jihad: Canuckistan: Lying Scumbag Imam [Syed Soharwardy] Falls Into His Own Trap
• Bruce Bawer: Hege Storhaug: Fighting for Human Rights in Norway
• Pajamas Media: Meet Norway’s Answer to Ayaan Hirsi Ali

What’s going on at Lunarpages?

The last time I tried to access Foehammer’s Anvil,
I got THIS:

Foehammer explains…

Foehammer recently answered a reader’s comment on his blog post, “Blog for a Year Contest Ends”:

Author: Foehammer
Comment:

Obviously Foehammer got the bug fixed.

I wish it had been a bug, but instead it was the intentional disabling of this site again by my hosting company Lunarpages. I am no longer going to hide their part in the several times that the Anvil has gone offline unexpectedly. They outsource their support but claim that they do not. I am quite suspicious that what is described to me in nebulous emails from Lunarpages as “script errors” that require blocking my site are simply transparent excuses made on the part of certain people that would much rather see this site off-line. Lunarpages should be supportive of my blog for the very simple reason that I am a good customer and pay my bills and run a clean blog, but apparently that is not good enough anymore. Instead, I am expected to be bled dry for what little I might be able to afford in order to maintain a blog that has seen its traffic dwindle in no small part but as a result of such mischief as transpired earlier this week.

Between sites like Digg and my own hosting troubles, vicious personal attacks from religious zealots masquerading as anti-hate police and all the rest of the nuts that even have gone so far as to threaten my life, it can be of little wonder to anyone that is paying even scant attention that I am disgusted and no longer view this fight the same as I did a year ago.

The Internet is a battle ground between those who dare to put forth the Truth and those cowards that would run from it or those enemies that would hide it. Well, as I have intimated before, the Net is no longer enough. I will take my message and put it into play in new ways over the course of the coming decades. In time I will be vindicated on multiple levels by way of the simple expanse of history as it unfolds before us, but beyond that, I will do my own part in creative ways to defeat Islamism and the lemmings that would bring it to the USA.

A few bumps in the Information Highway are not going to stop me and they shouldn’t stop any of us that care about the Truth and the Future.

Evading accountability at Lunarpages

1389, and other Foehammer fans, promptly contacted Lunarpages tech support by email at support@lunarpages.com, as indicated in their message.

Subject: foehammer.net DOWN – please restore access

Dear sir or madam:

I have repeatedly tried to access http://foehammer.net and I keep getting a message from Lunar Pages tech support saying that the site is down.

foehammer.net is a good anti-jihadist news and commentary site. Perhaps someone who wants to sabotage that valuable service is tampering with the site.

But all I got was some guff requiring me to prove that I was the owner of foehammer.net (which I obviously am not) in order to report a problem with accessing it. This insulates Lunarpages support staff from having to deal with multiple complaints if they have wrongfully taken down a site that is relied upon by a community of users.

For that reason, we have provided contact information for Add2Net, the parent company of Lunarpages/Lunarservers. Have at it, everyone!

Contact Information

(Add2Net is the parent company of Lunarpages/Lunarservers.)

Add2Net Corporate Headquarters
100 E. La Habra Blvd.
La Habra, CA 90631

Telephone: (714) 521-8150)

Fax: (714) 521-8195

• info@add2net.com
• sales@add2net.com
• support@add2net.com
• webmaster@add2net.com

Also see:

• Infidel Bloggers Alliance: Foehammer’s Anvil taken down by its provider
• Hartos de ZPorky: Suspendida otra web antijihadista
• Right Truth: Rudy Giuliani running out of money
• Right Truth: Gitmo plaintiffs lose lawsuit
• Shhhh Quiet! Censorship in Progress (The Coming of the Indoctrimemes)

(Also at Fort Hard Knox.)

Rolling Updates

• 1/12/08, 1:36 AM EST: The Anvil is up again. However, the issue is that the site has repeatedly been taken down, so we will continue to monitor it. It is not much use for a site that focuses primarily on US issues to be up only in the middle of the night in US time zones.

  Foehammer left the following comment, by way of explanation:
  

  The Anvil is back online but I do not know how long this will last. My hosting company is continuing to claim that my site is eating resources at an inordinate rate and I see no evidence of this on my end. I am at their mercy and I no longer have the patience to tackle the technical side of this any deeper than I have.

  Do not panic if the Anvil goes off-line again; in fact, expect it.

• La página de Foehammer suspendida por su proveedor
• 1/19/08: Foehammer’s Anvil blog taken down by LunarPages
• 1/20/08: Experiencing difficulties beyond my control

Update 1/22/08:

Foehammer’s Anvil is online! Be sure to visit!

Censorware in Australia

Australia joins China in censoring the Internet

The Australian Government has announced that they will be joining China as one of the few countries globally that broadly censor the internet.

The Labor Party’s policy was announced prior to the Australian Election in November (release here) and was justified on the basis that the previous Government’s policy of providing free copies of NetNanny to all Australian households who wanted it didn’t adequately protect children.

As recently as the week prior to the election, Labor Party candidates were telling those concerned about the proposed law that the censorship wouldn’t be compulsory, and that the “clean feed” would be opt-in, not opt-out. Today’s announcement by Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy states that the censorship regime will be mandatory, although people will be able to opt-out of it. The problem of course then becomes if you opt-out questions will be asked as to why you want out, which in itself may lead to Government monitoring.

Government porn filter to slow down the Internet

Oh yes…it always starts out with some drivel about “protecting the children.” But it’s never really about the children, and it’s never really about pornography, either. It’s always about preventing the voters and taxpayers from learning too much about about what is actually going on in their own country and in the rest of the world.

Trouble is, miscreants will misreport legitimate political news and opinion blogs as being porn, in order to stifle freedom of expression via the web filter.

If you harbor any doubts that this is so, read this and this! To put it plainly, it’s a disgrace that any modern, civilized country would even contemplate such a thing.

China: The iron fist in a sugar-coated glove

Cristy Li: Totalitarians restricting content and free speech

One year ago when users of the Internet in China went to visit the main portals at Shenzhen City, Guangdong they were introduced to Jingjing & Chacha the images of JingCha—The Shenzhen Internet Police, were officially on line when users visit web sites and forums and will see the two images floating on the screen.

“The Internet Police have existed for a long time, this time we publish the images of the Internet Police in the form of a cartoon, the purpose is to let all Internet users know that the Internet is not beyond the law, the Internet Police will maintain order in all on line behaviors” said Director Chen of the Information Center, Internet Security and Surveillance Division, Shenzhen Public Security Bureau—China Digital Times, January 22, 2006

China: Real tyranny, with the gloves off

China Arrests Human Rights Activist Hu Jia

Chinese authorities arrested Hu Jia an Internet Journalist last week at his Beijing home for Subverting State Authority a charge often times used against dissidents.

Hu was at home with his wife Zeng Jinyan who is also a Blogger and Activist when 20 Policemen burst through their front door frightening their 6 week year old daughter Hu Qianci along with Zeng’s Grandmother that was staying at their home helping to care for the new born. Immediately upon entering their home on December 27 around 3:00 pm the Police disconnected the Internet and phone lines and Police remained in their home after Hu was taken away, to prevent Zeng from communicating with anyone.

Hmmm…arresting people for blogging…

Does that remind you of anything?

Oh, and BY THE WAY…

What happened to Leon the Pig Farmer’s Blog?

It came up with a 404 today. Just askin’.

Also see:

• Big Yellow Taxi: Christian pastors, Muslims, and free speech in Australia
• Australia Election Update 2007
• Political Scene in Australia: 11/1/2007
• Stories China’s media could not write

“What’s this about?”

See yesterday’s blog post:

Websense(less) plays censorship games on the enemy team.

Websense is up to its old tricks again – blacklisting counter-jihadist sites by assigning them to the wrong categories. As a result, many workplaces, schools, and WiFi sites that use Websense “content-filtering” or “censorware” services will automatically block readers from accessing those sites.

We don’t know whether people working for Websense, or malicious outsiders, have been mislabeling these websites – but whoever it is, they are helping our jihadist enemies, and we will not tolerate that.

“What message did you send to Websense?”

Here it is:

I request that http://foehammer.net (Foehammer’s Anvil) be reclassified as a news site. It is currently misclassified as a “games” site.

There are NO games on Foehammer’s Anvil. Instead, it is a a hard news and commentary site with no fluff. The Anvil offers a news aggregator regarding jihadist activity, plus articles and commentary about the U.S. and worldwide political scene as it relates to confronting (or failing to confront) jihadism. Furthermore, the admin keeps an eye out to exclude obscene vocabulary, threats, spam, and the like.

In addition, I request that you also reclassify http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com (Gates of Vienna) as a news and commentary site.

Like Foehammer’s Anvil, it is a counterterrorist site, whose admins carefully screen out bad language, threats, spam, and so forth. It differs from the Anvil in that it focuses somewhat more on European (including UK) counterterrorism news and views.

Counterterrorism news and debate is something that everybody needs in order to make intelligent decisions in the business world, in the voting booth, and elsewhere. Making it too easy to suppress this information helps our jihadist enemies, at everyone else’s expense.

“So why do I need to write?”

Because one person cannot do it all…

Do you value and appreciate good blogs?

If you do, you should be aware that blogs – even nonprofit blogs – don’t remain active unless their intended audience can access and read them. Anything that keeps readers away from a blog will hurt the blog’s chances of survival. So if you want your favorite blogs to be around a few months from now, you need to support them by making sure that nobody is “gaming the system” to obstruct reader access.

Do you value and appreciate your freedom?

Yes, sometimes you have to fight for your freedom – sometimes with the sword, sometimes with the pen, sometimes with both. Okay, these days, the armaments are likelier to involve tanks and fighter planes – along with computers and the Internet. Your email and your blog, if you have one, can be an effective weapon to fight for freedom. Use it!

“How do I get in touch with Websense?”

They don’t make it easy, but we found a way…

Contact Websense to request that Foehammer’s Anvil and Gates of Vienna be reclassified as news/opinion sites:

Websense Corporate Headquarters
Gene Hodges, CEO
Douglas C. Wride, President and CFO
10240 Sorrento Valley Rd
San Diego, California 92121 USA
Tel: +1 800.723.1166 or +1 858.320.8000
Fax: +1 858.458.2950
Websense Email Form
(Note: Websense will not accept the form if your email address is on a web-based server, such as Yahoo. If that’s a problem, then write or call them up and complain!)

Investor relations:
Kate Patterson, VP of Investor Relations
Tel: 877-273-7379 or 858-320-8072
Fax: 858-458-2959
Email: kpatterson@websense.com

Learn More:

• Blocking Services as Censorship; Who Decides What’s Naughty or Nice?
  Reader’s blog post raises some interesting issues.
• Censorship Update 12/18/2007
  Reader email complains that WebSense is blocking Gates of Vienna.
• Censorware is Outta Control! (Calling all CyberWarriors)
  Use these links to find out which sites are being blocked.
• Stop Blog Censorship! Resource Page:
  Read our FAQ, join our blogroll, and get the badge!

Technorati : Foehammer s Anvil, Gates of Vienna, Websense, blog censorship, censorship, censorware
Del.icio.us : Foehammer s Anvil, Gates of Vienna, Websense, blog censorship, censorship, censorware
Ice Rocket : Foehammer s Anvil, Gates of Vienna, Websense, blog censorship, censorship, censorware

Powered by Zoundry

Here we go again…

Having just posted yesterday’s article about censorware vendor WebSense blocking access to Gates of Vienna, I emailed GoV about it to let them know. Seems that, like many of us in the counterjihad, they’d had trouble before with content-filtering firms blacklisting their site, but they couldn’t recall which one.

I didn’t have that information at my fingertips, so while I was waiting for further instructions at work, I thought I’d take a look at the censorship category at Foehammer’s Anvil. There was a good chance that a blog post or comment would identify the censorware firm(s) that had previously bedeviled GoV.

I was startled to find that Websense had blocked me from Foehammer’s Anvil:

Access to this web page is restricted at this time.
The web page you have attempted to access has been deemed inappropriate.
Accessing this material is a violation of [company's] Computer Usage Policy.

Reason: The Websense category “Games” is filtered.

---

URL: http://foehammer.net/category/censorship/

Continued attempts to access this type of content will result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.
If this site has legitimate business value and needs to be unblocked please click here, select your site, System/Appl. Access, and select Internet Web Site Blocking/Unblocking request. The helpdesk cannot grant access.
Please note that internet radio, online shopping, and photo hosting sites are not considered to have legitimate business value.

No games at the Anvil

Games? The Anvil doesn’t offer any games or other entertainment. It’s a hard news and commentary site with no fluff. The Anvil offers a news aggregator regarding jihadist activity, plus articles and commentary about the U.S. and worldwide political scene as it relates to confronting (or failing to confront) jihadism. Foehammer keeps an eye out to exclude obscene vocabulary, threats, spam, and the like.

Suppose some joker who sympathizes with our enemies wants a clever way to keep Foehammer from exposing so many people to unflattering news about jihadist wrongdoing. So the joker calls or emails WebSense and asks them to categorize the Anvil as a games site. I suppose that, to someone at Websense who has never visited Foehammer’s Anvil, the name might sound as though it could possibly be a games site. So WebSense happily obliges. The Anvil is classified as a games site, so that any company or other venue that uses WebSense to block access to games sites will automatically lock out the Anvil.

In this way, we are letting our enemies game the system by manipulating these censorware vendors into muzzling our communications.

If anything, we should be curtailing the distribution of enemy propaganda and disinformation, such as videos that encourage children to become suicide bombers, instead of allowing our avowed enemies to censor communications that we need to defend ourselves effectively.

Too many games at WebSense

Websense unfortunately requires registration to use their site lookup tool, a policy which is highly objectionable in itself. Anybody should be able to see which sites are being blacklisted. So much for accountability to the public!

Therefore, the last time I contacted Websense in order to complain about another site they had misclassified, I used the Websense Email Form.

But when I clicked on that form to to send my message, the Websense email form rejected it because I had entered a “public” (i.e., web-based) email address. Another barrier to accountability!

Even though I was thoroughly disgusted by that petty little ploy, I went ahead and sent the form, but I had to give a personal email address that I would much rather not have used.

“What to do?”

• Contact Websense to request that Foehammer’s Anvil and Gates of Vienna be reclassified as news/opinion sites:
  

  Websense Corporate Headquarters
  Gene Hodges, CEO
  Douglas C. Wride, President and CFO
  10240 Sorrento Valley Rd
  San Diego, California 92121 USA
  Tel: +1 800.723.1166 or +1 858.320.8000
  Fax: +1 858.458.2950
  Websense Email Form
  (Note: WebSense does not accept the form if sender’s email address is on a web-based server, such as Yahoo. If that’s a problem, then write or call them up and complain!)

  Investor relations:
  Kate Patterson, VP of Investor Relations
  Tel: 877-273-7379 or 858-320-8072
  Fax: 858-458-2959
  Email: kpatterson@websense.com

Learn More:

• Censorship Update 12/18/2007
  Reader email complains that WebSense is blocking Gates of Vienna.
• Censorware is Outta Control! (Calling all CyberWarriors)
  Use these links to find out which sites are being blocked.
• Stop Blog Censorship! Resource Page:
  Read our FAQ, join our blogroll, and get the badge!

Technorati : Foehammer s Anvil, Gates of Vienna, Websense, blog censorship, censorship, censorware
Del.icio.us : Foehammer s Anvil, Gates of Vienna, Websense, blog censorship, censorship, censorware
Ice Rocket : Foehammer s Anvil, Gates of Vienna, Websense, blog censorship, censorship, censorware

Powered by Zoundry

Also on FHK

Want this badge?

Websense Blocking Gates of Vienna?

We just received this email from a reader:

Name Smarty
Subject websense and gov
Message Websense is blocking GOV under “social networking and personal sites.” I am at work and got blocked.

Censorware site classifications and company policies

Websense is a vendor of content-filtering a/k/a censorware services. Smarty’s workplace evidently uses Websense to block access to various categories of sites, including sites that Websense has categorized as “social networking and personal sites.”

One could reasonably argue that this classification is incorrect, in that Gates of Vienna is not actually a social networking site like, for example, Myspace or Facebook. GoV is a political news and opinion site focused on counterterrorism and foreign affairs. It carefully screens out anything potentially offensive, such as objectionable photos or vocabulary.

What to do?

If Smarty wants to be able to access GoV from work, here are the possibilities:

• Find out what types of sites are allowed at work, and contact Websense to try to get GoV reclassified into a category that would be acceptable. There are two disadvantages here. Getting the censorware company to make this change may be difficult. Even if the censorware company is willing to recategorize GoV, the new category may be acceptable in some workplaces or venues, but not in others.
• Contact the network admin who person who administers the censorware for this workplace, and ask him or her to “whitelist” GoV – in other words, to allow that specific site to be accessed without regard to its Websense classification.
• Get a cellphone with web access, and a service plan that allows unlimited browsing, and use it to access GoV and other sites from any place where cellphone service is available. The disadvantage here is that cellphone access tends to be slower, the screen is much smaller, and browsing features are more limited.

More Information:

• Use this form (registration required) to check any site’s classification at Websense
• Articles about blog censorship
• Articles about censorship in general
• Visit our Stop Blog Censorship! Resource Page:
  Join our blogroll and get the badge!

Technorati : Gates of Vienna, Websense, blog censorship, blogging, censorship, censorware
Del.icio.us : Gates of Vienna, Websense, blog censorship, blogging, censorship, censorware
Ice Rocket : Gates of Vienna, Websense, blog censorship, blogging, censorship, censorware

Powered by Zoundry

All-Too-Revealing Comments

Before we get started on this story, let us remind our readers of some of our policies regarding comments on 1389 Blog. We do not post ad hominem attacks. We do not post repetitive messages. If your grammar is so poor that we can hardly understand what you are trying to say, we may let it go up just for laughs, but don’t count on it. On the other hand, we may let you keep your dignity rather than post your comment for all to see.

Now, we know that we have created quite a stir at LGF because we have gotten more than a few hits off their site recently. But we are surprised to find that Charles Johnson has been unable to locate anybody capable of making a coherent reply to our blog post. It seems as though the recent Stalinesque purges at LGF seem to have caused Charles Johnson to run low on henchmen who can write in the English language. With just about all of the reasonable and intelligent people already banned from LGF, and the rest of them disappearing fast, LGF is scrambling to find someone who can try to answer us.

Charles Johnson’s Quasi-Literate Stooge

To avoid further embarrassment to this bewildered soul, we won’t mention the handle he used. Suffice it to say that he has considerable difficulty with the English language, but he certainly does love Charles Johnson. Let’s look at some of the goofiness that this individual tried to post and you will soon see why it is not displayed on the 1389 Blog.

He began by referring to our primary admin as “Mr. 1389.” 1389 has made it fairly clear, on multiple occasions, that she is a woman. But then, it’s to be expected that an individual who is such a poor writer would also be a poor reader.

Like a typical leftist, he called 1389 and the commenters various names, but he didn’t bother to bring up any evidence or logic to justify his moral posturing.

He accused me of misspelling the word “Czech.” You can check any English-language dictionary and find that the letters C-Z-E-C-H refers to a Slavic people who live mostly in central Europe. The county is now called the Czech Republic. Formerly, it was part of Czechoslovakia. (While you have your dictionary handy, you might want to see that I also know how to spell “Czechoslovakia.”)

The Czech people have made a number of contributions to the fight against totalitarianism, which includes both Nazism and Communism. (See Never Knew that the Church was Orthodox, regarding the Reinhard Heydrich assassination and its grim aftermath.) Hitler referred to Czechoslovakia as a “dagger in the heart of Germany” and infamously demanded that it be given to Germany before the outbreak of World War II.

Going Off the Deep End

The tone of LGF has been changing for months, as many have pointed out. First we saw a sudden interest in searching for cryptic signs of “racism” and “pro-Nazi” sentiments.

Finding cryptic signs of racism is all the rage these days. When I was a boy, an individual who expressed the opinion that a Confederate flag was a symbol of racism would have been deemed fit for the loony bin. It was considered a symbol of heritage and bravery. It carried the message that the federal government was going too far. It was a benign symbol of the South. Seeing a Confederate flag was like hearing “welcome home, ya’ll.” In the 1970s, some very radical elements of the civil rights movement started to express misgivings about the flag’s meaning, although this didn’t really take hold until the 1990s. (Note that the radical elements who came up with this canard all seemed to live in the North.)

Today, even some reasonably intelligent people try to associate the flag with racial tensions. But this is rooted in modern-day leftist political correctness–not in historical fact. Against such a backdrop, it is no surprise that Charles Johnson-or anyone who is equally ill-informed about a topic-might read cryptic racial messages into just about anything.

Merely owning and/or displaying a symbol does not mean that the individual doing so endorses what the symbol stands for. For example, my daughter recently inherited a belt that dates back to World War I. One of her great-grandfathers decorated the belt with medals that he had removed from the bodies of dead German soldiers. My daughter is very proud of the belt and plans to display it in her home. That does not mean that she admires the German military or endorses the policies of Kaiser Wilhelm II; it means she is proud of her family’s heritage, including three great-grandfathers who fought for the Allies during World War I.

Yet, Charles Johnson points to a photo of a man with a Celtic cross on his bookshelf and calls it “proof” of the man’s fascist leanings. Of course, Celtic crosses were around long before fascism. Many Irish people were buried under them centuries ago. Nonetheless, anyone who relates to their Celtic heritage and displays the traditional Celtic cross is a proven fascist in Charles Johnson’s mind-because he wants to see it that way. And Charles holds the same opinion of anybody who has been seen with such a “proven fascist,” or seen with any of that person’s acquaintances, and so ad infinitum. There is a ridiculously long chain of “contamination” here, which reminds us of children passing along imaginary “cooties” on a playground, along with other, much less benign, imagery.

Loyalty and the War on Censorship

We are proud to say that 1389 Blog has been in the forefront of the war against censorship of conservative and antijihadist blogs. When “censorware” firms such as SonicWALL, banned LGF and other blogs, 1389 Blog helped lead the charge to lift the ban.

What has LGF ever done for 1389 Blog? Oh, it banned 1389 without even the courtesy of giving a reason.

So, Charles Johnson can be no friend to anyone. He repays favors with stabs in the back.

LGF and Charles Johnson Refuse to Fight Real Nazis Who Preach Hate and Murder

Not long ago, 1389 Blog exposed a Croatian Nazi rock singer named “Thompson” who had been scheduled to tour the US and Canada. Too bad Little Green Footballs never bothered to publish anything about it. No doubt about this rock singer’s Nazi identity-he was, and is, an open and notorious proponent of murdering some of the very same people that Hitler had tried to exterminate sixty years ago. To put icing on the cake, just like his predecessors back in the day, this “Thompson” was all buddy-buddy with Muslims and never even hinted about doing them any harm.

Given the readership that LGF enjoys (at least until recently), Charles Johnson could have put some real obstacles in the path of this thug. But Charles Johnson and LGF sat on their hands, letting “Thompson” tour America and Canada preaching hate and violence without a word of reproach. So, don’t ever think that Charles Johnson actually feels that real, live Nazis are “repugnant.” In fact, through his silence, and even through his banning of 1389, he is enabling the nefarious efforts of those Nazis.

Links:

• Category Link: Articles by CzechRebel on 1389 Blog
  (Note: To page back through the archive of older articles in a category link, please scroll down and click
  the ← Previous Entries link at the bottom of the page.)
• Category Link: Articles on LGF
• Category Link: Articles on blog censorship
• Category Link: Articles on censorware
• Category Link: Articles on censorship in general

Technorati : 1389 Blog, American South, Croatia, Hitler, Nazism, SonicWALL, blog censorship, censorware, comment policy, hatred, leftist-jihadist convergence, littlegreenfootballs, political correctness, racism
Del.icio.us : 1389 Blog, American South, Croatia, Hitler, Nazism, SonicWALL, blog censorship, censorware, comment policy, hatred, leftist-jihadist convergence, littlegreenfootballs, political correctness, racism
Ice Rocket : 1389 Blog, American South, Croatia, Hitler, Nazism, SonicWALL, blog censorship, censorware, comment policy, hatred, leftist-jihadist convergence, littlegreenfootballs, political correctness, racism

Powered by Zoundry

Added 11/27/2007:
Click here for more articles about LGF

Click the above image for current Alexa stats for Little Green Footballs.

1389 was banned from Little Green Footballs as of November 24, 2007

No explanation was given, nor is any explanation needed

I could read the handwriting on the wall. Since the onset of the huge feud that Charles Johnson deliberately started with Gates of Vienna and the rest of the antijihadist blogosphere, which involved Charles hurling very thinly substantiated accusations of fascist links to European antijihadist organizations, I could see that LGF had changed, and not for the better.

Six or more degrees of politically incorrect = BANNED

Ever since then, no one has been free to speak his or her mind as a commenter on LGF without fear of being viciously ridiculed and then banned. Nor could anyone feel free to post links to other sites without having to worry about being banned for linking to something that is “six degrees of politically incorrect.”

Anybody who reads the comment threads can observe what the remaining members of LGF feel that they must do to prove their loyalty. They search constantly for any evidence of LGF members or ex-members expressing any support for, linking to, or communicating with anyone on Dear Leader’s ever-growing disapproved list.

The old sense of camaraderie at LGF has long since vanished, along with most of the people with whom I would have wanted to exchange messages. There is nothing left but paranoia and a competition for who can launch the most mean-spirited ridicule against Charles Johnson’s latest batch of officially-designated enemies.

Everyone who wants to remain an active member of LGF must fall in line, because if they don’t, sooner or later they’ll be banned too!

No Stalinist purges for 1389 Blog

I do a great deal of blogging and commenting that has nothing to do with LGF. Just for starters, I am primary admin for 1389 Blog – Antijihadist Tech and for 1389 Message Blog. I post occasionally on Fort Hard Knox* and Screw the UN. I am a content creator on IMVU and am fairly active on Twitter. I have a gallery at deviantART. I comment regularly on many other sites.

To remain a member of LGF, I would have had to drop all of the officially designated “nonpersons,” especially banned former LGF members, from the blogrolls and link lists on my own blogs. I would have had to be careful not to link to news stories from any proscribed persons or organizations in my own blog posts. I would not have been able to review those stories or mention them on Twitter or other sites I frequent.

In other words, I would have had to surrender my own freedom of expression and association. This I was unwilling to do. True, I miss what LGF once was, or perhaps could have been, but I am realistic enough to see it for what it is. And it’s none of Charles Johnson’s business who else I cite or associate with.

Why send LGF any more traffic?

The conflict still continues at LGF. The last few remaining dissenters on LGF are speaking up, though not for long. After this blog post has been up for a little while, no doubt someone will post snarky comments on LGF about the infamous banned user 1389, same as they do with everyone else. But I have no intention of lurking on LGF to ego-surf for remarks about me. I have also removed the LGF news feed reader widget from the sidebar. If you still want it, you can get it directly from them. But why send LGF that extra little bit of traffic?

LGF has joined the dark side

LGF is no longer an antijihadist site, if it ever was. Whether Charles Johnson is consciously aware of it or not, LGF has gone over to the other side, or perhaps it has always been there. It is covertly helping our enemies by sowing dissention and by muzzling genuine antijihadist voices everywhere.

LGF takes no part in activism against jihadism. Nor does it make any effort to help any other antijihadist sites or organizations. I have become convinced that LGF never had any intention of doing anything effective to begin with, and that this was the real reason for its boycott of Counterjihad Brussels 2007. LGF merely wishes to appear to be an antijihadist site, and to that end, it posts a sprinkling of terrorist news stories to draw readership. In other words, LGF is nothing more than a disguised version of Daily Kos or the ACLU. I don’t know who has bought out LGF, and I don’t even care at this point. Their declining traffic figures are already rendering them irrelevant.

Tragic irony: the censored has become the censor

The saddest thing of all is that, some months ago, I helped LGF by launching a campaign to get them, and other sites, unbanned from various “censorware” blacklists. Before that, I had worked hard to promote LGF stories on Digg, against the efforts of the infamous “Bury Brigade.” Now LGF has retaliated, if that’s the proper word, by banning me.

It is time to punt littlegreenfootballs, once and for all.

Addenda

Looking for former LGF members? Check out 2.0 The Blogmocracy.

We get hate mail! See Little Green Footballs – Hitting New Lows, One After Another.

*Update 11/26/07, by Jenn Sierra who is an author here and admin of the Ft. Hard Knox project, with the permission of 1389:

The opinions of our authors, expressed in their posts on FHK or elsewhere on the web, do not necessarily reflect the opinion of FHK. We do, however, thank our authors for their contributions and their widely-varying perspectives on an impressive variety of topics.

From Foehammer’s Anvil:

The Religion of Peace Needs Our Help!

No, not that ‘Religion of Peace.’

This one.

An individual that I refuse to name here again (but many of my regular readers will know of and who’s name may be found quoted below) has targeted the gentle folks at The Religion of Peace in an effort to shut down the site just as he attempted to shut down the Anvil and Jihad Watch and others. The results of this phony reverend’s actions provoked a number of internet companies to incorrectly categorize The Religion of Peace. These incorrect categories have caused the site to be listed as a hate site, and consequently blocked by some servers. I know that the accusations made by Sutter, and the various companies are patently false. The Religion of Peace provides accurate facts about Islam – not lies. The site is not racist. Islam is not a race but a political and cultist ideology. The Religion of Peace speaks out against all violence that is directed towards non-Muslims and Muslims alike.

From the editor at TheReligionofPeace.com:

Anyone who has a blog that attempts to defend the west from radical Islam or Marxists knows that they are constantly at risk of being labeled racist, and shut down by individuals and organizations who do not want the truth to be known. The efforts to silence our voices will increase. We are all in this fight together. Therefore, it would be greatly appreciated if all of you would post a notice on your blogs, urging your readers to support The Religion of Peace by sending protest e-mails to the offending companies. Islam and the thought police are coming after all of us. Free speech is in jeopardy. We need to pull together into a strong and united force to combat those who intend to crush us.

I have permission to make this appeal on their behalf and I am happy to do so.

Please write to the email addresses listed below and state clearly that The Religion of Peace -

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com

(include the url in the e-mails) is against violence, not racist and should be categorized appropriately under labels such as General News, Politics and Religion.

• Secure Computing: sites@securecomputing.com
• SonicWall: cfssupport@sonicwall.com
• SurfControl: customerservice@surfcontrol.com

Here is in-depth analysis of the situation and the problem:

Case Study: TheReligionofPeace.com

How did Jim Sutter manage to get an anti-violence and anti-hate website by an anti-racialist owner classified as “violent,” “obscene,” “hateful,” and “racist?” Here is the story from the preferably anonymous editor of TROP.

About TheReligionofPeace.com

From the Editor of TheReligionofPeace.com:

TROP was originally started in 2002 to help Muslims understand that there are more important things going on in the world than a woman being asked to remove her veil in front of a judge, or a Muslim man getting his feelings hurt at an airline security gate.

In an effort to spark moral perspective on the part of organizations like CAIR, we document acts of deadly violence committed in the name of Islamic supremacy, similar to the way other sites compile data on victims of all supremacist ideologies, whether racial, ethnic or nationalist.

In addition to maintaining a database of terrorist attacks, TROP presents news and articles from the Muslim world, as well as open reference information for anyone beginning research into Islam. We do not promote a particular religion and we try to stay non-partisan.

Although we obviously oppose the doctrinal elements of Islam that inspire violence or are in contradiction to liberal values, TROP has always taken a strong, documented stand against judging individuals by their group identity. In many places on our site we openly denounce harming, harassing or stereotyping any Muslim based on his or her religion.

Our site also has a record of acknowledging and condemning rare acts of violence against Muslims by American criminals, either in the U.S. or overseas. We publicly oppose desecrating the Qur’an and do not even use the term ‘Islamofascism” in our writings. Since we only want to publish truthful information, we welcome dialogue and post any corrections that are proven necessary to us.

We focus on the moral failings of Islam and its incompatibilities with Western values, including women’s rights, democratic freedoms, religious tolerance, and (ironically) freedom of expression among others. Nevertheless, we try to be balanced and accurate in our writing and to avoid using absolutes. We also make a documented effort to discourage bigoted thinking.

Although our site has nothing to do with race, we have let it be known that we are anti-racialist. Over the years, we have championed the cause of Africans, Arabs, Hindus, Buddhists and anyone else victimized in the name of Islam. We have received praise from liberals, conservatives, Jews, Christians, Hindus, atheists, gays and even a few disenchanted Muslims.

Jim Sutter Targets TheReligionofPeace.com

In July of 2007, I was contacted by a man eventually calling himself “Reverend Jim Sutter” regarding my website, TheReligionofPeace.com (TROP).

Sutter at first played the “Bad Cop” under an alias, claiming that ours site is a “hate site:”

“I will make it my business and consider it a solemn duty to condemn and expose the site called thereligionofpeace. IMO it is no different in any discernable way than a site run by Al Qaeda, the KKK, or the Nazi party.”

I replied politely to Sutter, pointing out that he was going to need to do more than just state an opinion, and I challenged him to support what he was saying. I told him that I was open-minded and would make any corrections that he could prove needed to be made. I also directed him to a page on our site in which we plainly separate ourselves from the insidious organizations to which he associated us.

In his reply, Sutter made it rather evident that he did not read the page to which we had directed him:

“You invite me to read “what to do about” which is just another bigoted exhortation to hate & violence. Wow. Then we have you writing this “this makes me suspicious”. That figures too, since paranoia usually accompanies bigotry.”

I then spelled out out for him what he was unwilling to read for himself – that TROP openly and unambiguously denounces all forms of violence and bigotry. The writings that we post which are critical of Islam are solidly supported by the Qur’an, Hadith, Sira (biography of Muhammad) and the historical record.

Sutter then contacted us the next day under his real name, pretending to have seen the site for the first time and clearly wearing the “Good Cop” hat. He complimented us on TROP, but suggested the changes that we needed to make in order to meet with his approval. I generously ignored his earlier correspondence and entered into a lengthy dialogue of about 20 e-mail messages, in which I challenged him to prove that his requested modifications were necessary.

(It is important to note that Sutter never once accused TROP of being either a “hate” site or a “racist” site once he began using his real name. I suspect that he told the URL search engines something entirely different in order to punish me for not backing down to his demands.)

Over the next week or so, I noticed a pattern with Sutter:

1. He would say things that weren’t true. A good example:

   “The FBI states that hate crimes against Muslims currently number higher than against any other group. Those hate crimes include murder, arson, rape, and kidnapping.”

   This is blatantly false, of course. No Muslims have been raped or kidnapped in America because of their religion, and 70% of the targets of religious hate crime are Jewish. (source)

2. When caught, Sutter would always ignore any lies, no matter how freshly told. This happened when I sent him the above link and asked three times where he got his erroneous information. I got no reply. It became obvious that he was making things up, but there was not the slightest bit of shame or even an attempt to divert blame. It was as if he felt entitled to say anything he pleased – all while making his usual claims of “fact, logic and evidence.”

3. Sutter would play games in his replies. Sometimes he would plagiarize entire sections of text from other sources and pretend that they were his own words. Often times he would ignore an argument that wasn’t going his way, and simply not quote it in his reply. Sometimes he would be intentionally naive, and pretend not to understand ideas that were made quite obvious.

When I realized that Sutter was not taking the conversation seriously, I let him know that there was no basis for our continuing the discussion. (I dialogue with sincere objectors, but I simply don’t have time to get into food fights with disingenuous hacks).

It was only about a week later that I began hearing from military families and ordinary Internet users who were unable to get to our site. Despite being unable to make his case against us in open debate, Sutter decided to make good on his original threats to us:

“I’m contacting the proprietors of several databases of internet hate-sites to report thereligionofpeace, this will have the effect of blocking your site from being referenced, linked or quoted on the many discussion forums that bar those listed hate-sites, such as democratic underground.”

After operating for five years without any sort of problems, Secure Computing, SurfControl and SonicWall had TROP blocked overnight by wrongfully classifying our site according to Jim Sutter’s demands… all because we would not adopt his political and theological positions!

The correspondence with Internet censors concerning our site is not public information, but it is obtainable through a court order, since these are public corporations. Only then will I know whether Sutter used his real name, an alias, or had one of his gullible groupies do the dirty work for him. I do know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he is behind the censorship and miscategorizing of our site as well as the many other anti-Jihad sites across the Internet that have suffered recent problems.

Sutter is very good at sounding important. He often recites a small handful of court cases in order to embellish his correspondence with the Internet’s largest censors (although even a small dose of legal research will find that these are not what they appear). Still, there is something terribly wrong with the system when one small bully is allowed to dictate personal ideological standards to large corporations and thus millions of Internet users.

Aftermath

The damage that Jim Sutter and others, including SonicWall, Secure Computing and SurfControl, have done is going to take months, perhaps years to rectify. For my site to be labeled as hate speech, “obscene” or “extreme” merely because we object to the extremist elements of the Islamic religion is anti-intellectual and smacks of McCarthyism.

How is it that a website primarily concerned with ending violence against people just because they worship a different god is labeled extreme and obscene? Have we really reached such a low point in America when one is not free to criticize violence and religious totalitarianism?

The association of TROP by SonicWall and the others with “racist” and “hate” sites is particularly slanderous to me, since I have a strong and provable record of actively opposing bigotry and racism, both professionally and personally. Anti-racialism and the utter ridiculousness of even categorizing people by race is one of the major themes of the novel that I wrote several years ago, for example. I also have a family member, who published a book about her childhood experience in a Nazi concentration camp, and who would be quite surprised by these public slurs.

For Jim Sutter to punish people like me for petty personal grudges is one thing. For companies like Sonic Wall, Secure Computing and SurfControl to go along with it is absolutely unconscionable.

Exhibits

How do the censors rate TROP against sites that are pro-Jihad or blatantly anti-Christian?

Let’s use answering-christianity.com and JihadUnspun.com as examples.

“Answering-Christianity” is a Muslim site that is dedicated to promoting Islam and trashing Christianity using distortion and misinformation. The author once started to create a list of “Christian Terrorist Attacks” that he promised would be “5,000 times worse” than our list. He quit after only a few dozen entries that included such gems as terror attacks by Columbian drug lords and a 40-year-old church bombing by the Klan.

The editors of Jihad Unspun are blatant apologists for Islamic terrorism. They proudly make the connection between Islam and terrorism a lot more forcefully than does TROP, and they even criticize other Muslims for not joining. Recently, they posted a flattering review of Osama Bin Laden’s videotaped address, complimenting the man who massacred thousands of Americans for inviting the survivors to embrace Islam.

Like TROP, Jihad Unspun reports Islamic terrorism. They report suicide bombings as ‘martyrdom attacks’ and provide justification for other ‘Mujahideen’ violence. They also inflate casualties from attack by several factors and even make up attacks that never happened.

So, how do Secure Computing, SurfControl and SonicWall feel about this?

Secure Computing

Secure Computing says that TROP is “Extreme, Violent, Obscene and Mature.” However, it merely categorizes “Answering Christianity” as “Religion and Ideology.” (Secure Computing and Answering Christianity).

Secure Computing also rates “Jihad Unspun” as “General News, Politics and Religion” (Secure Computing and Jihad Unspun)

SurfControl

SurfControl says that TROP is “Violent,” however, the pro-Jihad and consistently unreliable “Jihad Unspun” is categorized as “News.” (SurfControl) One also wonders why the list of terror attacks on TROP counts as violence, but not the list of attacks on IraqBodyCount.net (which is categorized as “Politics”) nor that of Antiwar.com (“News”).

SonicWall

SonicWall is particularly shameful. They say that TROP is “Violence/Hate/Racism” even though we are actually opposed to all three of these. But the company actually ranks the anti-Christian site, “Answering Christianity,” as “Religion” and the pro-terror “Jihad Unspun” site as “News and Media.” (SonicWall and TROP, SonicWall and Answering Christianity, SonicWall and Jihad Unspun).

PhonyRev.com

Also see:

Gates of Vienna: Sutter Strikes Again

Technorati : Foehammer s Anvil, Gates of Vienna, Jim Sutter, Secure Computing SmartFilter, SonicWALL, Surf Control, activism, blog censorship, censorship, censorware
Del.icio.us : Foehammer s Anvil, Gates of Vienna, Jim Sutter, Secure Computing SmartFilter, SonicWALL, Surf Control, activism, blog censorship, censorship, censorware
Ice Rocket : Foehammer s Anvil, Gates of Vienna, Jim Sutter, Secure Computing SmartFilter, SonicWALL, Surf Control, activism, blog censorship, censorship, censorware

Powered by Zoundry

Let’s start with some comic relief…

Click here to view the Mo-Hamster Dance
(Wildly offensive, un-PC, NSFW, but FUNNY!)

…before we catch up on the news, some of which is funny also!

Pig Day in Padua

The Northern League is going full throttle in its opposition to the building of mosques. This story reminds me of the notorious pig’s blood caper at the mosque site in Copenhagen back in 2006, and also the weekly Friday pig races in Katy, Texas.

From AKI:

Italy: Pig’s walkabout on planned mosque site sparks protests

Padua, 12 Nov. – Muslims and non-Muslims have slammed the attempted ‘desecration’ of a plot of land earmarked for a mosque in the northern city of Padua by members of the anti-immigrant Northern League party who paraded a pig on the site over the weekend…

Viva Italia!

News from Sweden? Not so good…

Swedish Post Office refuses to handle a Mo-doggie

The Post Office refuses to deliver the Sweden Democrats’ party paper in Svedala [outside Malmö]. The reason is that Lars Vilks rondellhund is pictured in the papers. The Post Office fears that the mailmen could be threatened.

Aren’t the Swedish police supposed to be protecting Swedish postal employees? How about arresting those who threaten postal employees? What a concept!

Update: Boycotting Sverigedemokraterna

I reported on Monday that the Swedish Post Office refused to deliver the party newspaper of Sverigedemokraterna (the Sweden Democrats) because it contained one of Lars Vilks’ Modoggie drawings.

Now a private delivery service has also refused to deliver the SD newspaper. According to today’s Sydsvenskan:

New boycott of materials from SD

Swedish Direct Commercial has also said no to distributing a campaign newspaper of the Sweden Democrats in Svedala, according to a press release from the Sweden Democrats.

…Swedish Direct Commercial has stated that they only distribute political information to the parties currently in parliament, says SD in the press release….

Now that’s a mighty flimsy excuse for refusing to deliver those papers.

Help us combat censorship of antijihadist blogs!

Helping TheReligionOfPeace.com in order to help ourselves

The Religion of Peace Needs Our Help! No, not that ‘Religion of Peace.’

This one.

An individual that I refuse to name here again (but many of my regular readers will know of and who’s name may be found quoted below) has targeted the gentle folks at The Religion of Peace in an effort to shut down the site just as he attempted to shut down the Anvil and Jihad Watch and others. The results of this phony reverend’s actions provoked a number of internet companies to incorrectly categorize The Religion of Peace. These incorrect categories have caused the site to be listed as a hate site, and consequently blocked by some servers.

Please visit this website and learn what you can do to help!

Technorati : Foehammer s Anvil, Religion of Peace, blog censorship, cartoon censorship, censorship, censorware, funny, humor
Del.icio.us : Foehammer s Anvil, Religion of Peace, blog censorship, cartoon censorship, censorship, censorware, funny, humor
Ice Rocket : Foehammer s Anvil, Religion of Peace, blog censorship, cartoon censorship, censorship, censorware, funny, humor

Powered by Zoundry

Updated 11/17/2007: See below for new material!

Mo-Toons

Gates of Vienna: The OIC Takes Note of the DPP

The Danish People’s Party and its election ad campaign involving the new/old Motoon has not escaped the notice of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The OIC issued this press release a couple of days ago…

Gates of Vienna: The Motoons on the Hustings

Here’s what’s important about this: The threat of Muslim violence hasn’t been part of their deliberations about publication of the cartoon.

The threat of violence should never be a consideration when any group plans peaceful and lawful activities. When you modify your plans in anticipation of a violent reaction, you have ceded control to the Islamists as effectively as if you elected them to the parliament and allowed them to enact the country’s laws.

The simple truth, eloquently stated.

Censorware and Hacking

Armies of Liberation: Yemen Censors Internet Access After al-Badawi Release

Note: Jamal al-Badawi was a mastermind of the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 US sailors.

They re-blocked my website, other news sites and are denying access to all the proxie sites.

Also hacked: Hewar Forums, a dialog forum in Yemen that hosts public figures who respond to questions from members. Hewar asked me to participate. I happily agreed.

(Added 11/7/07):
The Jawa Report – Yemen: “Surrendered” American Elbaneh Receives Terror Verdict In Absentia

So does Yemen have this evildoer in custody – or not? Is their legal system anything more than window dressing? And what else are they trying to cover up by censoring the Net?

USA Today: U.S. technology has been used to block, censor Net for years

Note: This article is from 2/21/2006, but unfortunately, little or nothing has changed since then.

According to this article in USA Today by Kevin Maney, an OpenNet Initiative (ONI) report reveals that Yemen uses censorware from Websense, based in San Diego, and Blue Coat Systems, based in Sunnyville, CA. Burma/Myanmar, the scene of recent widespread protests that were followed by a shutdown of Internet and cellular communications, uses censorware from Fortinet, also based in Sunnyvale.

How about Iran? This is a country that fears an open Internet the way the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz feared fire. When ONI did its study, it found that the predominant Iranian Internet service providers (ISPs) used SmartFilter from Secure Computing of San Jose, Calif.

A peer-reviewed paper published in January by University of Toronto professor Nart Villeneuve names Websense as the filter used by one major Iranian ISP, ParsOnline.

If you hunt around on the Web, you also find that an entity called Ertebatat Faragostar advertises as “the exclusive reseller of SurfControl in Iran.”

SurfControl, based in Scotts Valley, Calif., makes a powerful Web-filtering system.

Requests for comment from Secure Computing, Websense and SurfControl also went unanswered.

The whole Middle East seems to be a gold mine for U.S. Web-filtering companies.

Blue Coat brags in a November press release that quarterly revenue for Blue Coat Middle East leapt 15%, “with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia leading the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries in terms of sales revenue.” The Saudis block political opposition sites, Christian religion sites, pornography and gambling.

Wow. Just wow.

Censorship by Character Assassination

Pajamas Media: Meet Norway’s Answer to Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Racist. Xenophobe. These are just a couple of the epithets Europe’s cultural elite like to hurl at critics of Islamic fundamentalism. Bruce Bawer reports on the character assassination of Hege Storhaug, author of the new book Covered. Uncovered. and a courageous advocate of freedom.

City Journal: Muslim Mau-Mauing, by Rod Dreher

I knew something about ISNA [Islamic Society of North America] and asked Syeed why-if his group truly supported peace and suchlike-its board included members directly linked to Islamic extremism and anti-Semitism, including the notorious Wahhabi-trained Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj. The professorial Syeed dropped his polite mask, shook his fist at me, told me that I would one day “repent,” and compared my question with a Nazi inquisition.

. . . I then joined that Islamic site’s e-mail list-which contained several prominent Dallas Muslims-under my own name. Before the site operators discovered my presence and booted me off, I printed out e-mails in which participants discussed a plan to approach business and religious leaders in town and persuade them to lean on the News’s publisher to fire me as a danger to Muslims. “Dreher needs to be ruined,” one e-mailer wrote. “When people here [sic] the name ‘Rod Dreher’ the image of David Duke should appear in their mind’s eye. So, a campaign must be planned and carefully executed to expose this hate-monger and render him a joke.” Naturally, I publicized the plans and made sure that copies of the e-mails got into the hands of the newspaper’s lawyers. That apparently ended that.

American Thinker: Political Black Ops in Belgium?

James Lewis suspects that much the same may be happening across the pond:

A minor war has broken out in the conservative blogosphere, and it smells suspicious. I don’t have a smidgen of proof for what I suspect, but here’s the story.

. . . But now Charles Johnson, of Little Green Footballs fame, has gotten into a fight with Paul Belien [editor of Brussels Journal]. Forgetting the who-said-what-when minutiae, the question raised by Charles is whether Paul Belien is defending people who are tainted with racist or totalitarian ideas. In particular, the question is whether Paul Belien is too close to the Vlaams Belang party, which is accused of having racist or neo-Nazi associations. LGF is a very good site, and Charles Johnson is understandably passionate about keeping his reputation spotless.

So now we get into a classical hall of mirrors, of claim and counter-claim, and maybe even spy and counter-spy. Because it’s a good guess that the overheated Belgian political scene is full of mudslinging, disinformation, planted stories, and psyops.

. . . It’s a good guess that the Vlaams Belang party has been infiltrated for a long time by government agents. That adds another layer.

Belgium has long been a hotbed of secessionism. The French-speaking Belgians bear deep grudges against the Flemish, and vice versa. It’s pretty bad, much like the American South right after the Civil War.

So in Belgium today, the French-speaking population controls the power centers, while the Flamands work harder, are more productive, and have larger numbers. That doesn’t make the Flemish happy. They are constantly wondering whether to secede from the Walloons.

It is vital therefore, as a matter of survival, for the Walloons to keep the Flemish out of power. Splitting the Flemish vote is crucial, and one way to do that is to tar the most radical Flemish political party.

It is not beyond the ethics of a power elite to smear opponents with the worst political sin in sight, i.e., association with racists and neo-Nazis. . . .

So it’s not impossible that the governing elites are sending agents provocateurs into the ranks of the Flemish Interest party, to parade around in Nazi drag and make nice with White Power sleazoids in the US. . . .

GOV: Disinformation Being Spread by Belgium? (see comments)

Read the comments here for more details. I suspect that Lewis is right, but it’ll be quite awhile before we get to the bottom of this one.

(Updated 11/7/07, 11/17/07)

Anti-jihadist political speech is censored, but…

Incitement to riot and genocide? No problem!

Some activities are not protected under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and there are valid reasons why they are not. Nothing in the US Constitution requires the admission of a flagrantly neo-Nazi foreign national with a reputation for inciting mob violence and who openly calls for genocide. Both the US and Canada have carelessly agreed to let this “performer” in – and he is currently in the US!

TENC: Oppose Fascist Rock Star’s US Tour with the Truth – Part 1

Nazis: Coming soon to a concert venue near YOU!

Jihadist death threats? No problem!

YouTube (Google) ignores complaints and fails to take down a jihadist death-threat video. Think about it: The whole purpose of this video is de facto censorship by intimidation.

The Jawa Report: Video: Muslim Death Threat Against Mosque Opponent

November 06, 2007

Charles Johnson has the details, but here’s the vid. Despite numerous complaints–and a story in the Daily Mail–the death threat remains on YouTube.

My hope is that it remains up only so that the British authorities can look into it. The video not only shows images of the politician, Alan Craig, who opposes the building of the mosque, but of his family as well.

On the negative side, the video is an implied death threat against the family. But on the positive side it is done to the music of Elvis. So, it’s not all bad.

LGF: YouTube Asked to Curb Jihad Videos

Wed, Nov 7, 2007 at 7:50:26 am PST

Some European politicians are asking YouTube to crack down on the Islamic terrorist videos that are all over the site.

LGF: YouTube Jihadi Arrested, Account Still Active

Sat, Nov 17, 2007 at 3:32:36 pm PST

That YouTube jihadi who threatened British councillor Alan Craig has been arrested.

But his account at YouTube is still active.

A man who placed an “obituary” on YouTube of one of the leading opponents of plans to build Europe’s biggest mosque near the London Olympics site has been arrested by police.

The video, “In memory of Councillor Alan Craig”, features the Leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance party, his wife and two daughters. The two-minute video, which has now be taken down, was added by a man calling himself “abdullah1425″…

Technorati : Ayaan Hirsi Ali, EU, Iran, Islam, Nazism, Saudi Arabia, Surf Control, Websense, YouTube, anti-Semitism, blog censorship, cartoon censorship, censorship, censorware
Del.icio.us : Ayaan Hirsi Ali, EU, Iran, Islam, Nazism, Saudi Arabia, Surf Control, Websense, YouTube, anti-Semitism, blog censorship, cartoon censorship, censorship, censorware
Ice Rocket : Ayaan Hirsi Ali, EU, Iran, Islam, Nazism, Saudi Arabia, Surf Control, Websense, YouTube, anti-Semitism, blog censorship, cartoon censorship, censorship, censorware

Powered by Zoundry