Theodore's World

Denver News

The Overland High educator is on administrative leave. Cherry Creek’s superintendent said a balanced viewpoint will be given to students.
An Overland High School teacher who criticized President Bush, capitalism and U.S. foreign policy during his geography class was placed on administrative leave Wednesday afternoon after a student who recorded the session went public with the tape.
In the 20-minute recording, made on an MP3 player, teacher Jay Bennish described capitalism as a system “at odds with human rights.” He also said there were “eerie similarities” between what Bush said during his Jan. 28 State of the Union address and “things that Adolf Hitler used to say.”
The United States was “probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth,” Bennish also said on the tape.
Bennish, who has been part of Overland’s social studies faculty since 2000, did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday. Cherry Creek School District officials are investigating the incident, but no disciplinary action has been taken, district spokeswoman Tustin Amole said.
Bennish was placed on leave “to take some of the pressure off of him” during the investigation, which could wrap up in a week, Amole said.
Superintendent Monte Moses, who received a copy of the recording on Monday from 850 KOA-AM radio show host Mike Rosen, said it appears “a breach of district policy” occurred.
“Our policy calls for both sides to be present … in the interest of intellectual discourse,” Moses said. Bennish’s presentation appeared to be unbalanced, he said.
The district is looking into whether the incident was an isolated one and will ensure that a balanced viewpoint of the president’s State of the Union address is provided to students, Moses said.
Moses also said the district will be fair to Bennish. “People in life make mistakes occasionally,” he said. “We address them. We learn from them.”
The 20-minute recording of only a portion of the class was made by 16-year-old sophomore Sean Allen the day after the president’s speech. The recording has raised questions about what level of academic freedom is acceptable for high school teachers. It also has generated discussions about Bennish on dozens of websites.
Sean, who appeared on Rosen’s show Wednesday morning, said in an interview he had been disturbed by the “political rants” he heard in Bennish’s class. He added that he wanted to tape the session for his father, who later shared it with the media.
Sean, who described himself as a political independent, said the comments seemed inappropriate for a geography class.
“If he wants to give an opinion in class, I’m perfectly OK with that,” he said. “But he has to give both sides of the story.”
James McGrath Morris, an author who has written about academic freedom issues, said Bennish’s comments are acceptable for an adult audience, but they are hard to defend in a high school classroom.
In a number of legal cases, courts have ruled that “up until the age of majority, children are easily influenced … in a way that they don’t have the faculties to sort out rights from wrongs,” Morris said

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Overland highschool teachers rant

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Wild Thing’s comment……
I listened to the tape. Not only did the teacher rant and rave, most of the rants were not factual. There is enough evidence on the tape to terminate the teacher immediately.
Our public school system is a liberals dream, and a national disgrace. It’s not a conversation when a teacher stands at the front of a classroom and goes off on a diatribe about the evils of Bush. It’s a lesson in hate speech.
A liberal teacher who tosses out blatant lies and hyperbole designed to shape negative, hateful attitudes toward this country and its president is no different than a Wahabist who teaches exactly the same thing to young Muslim children in madrassahs.
Twenty years ago, the parents in this school would have demanded this guy be terminated INSTANTLY. Forty years ago, he would have been lynched.

U.S. Muslim charities: U.S. government targeting us
By Reuters
WASHINGTON – U.S. Muslim charities feel they are being targeted by the U.S government’s counterterrorism efforts. On Tuesday, a coalition of U.S. Muslim organizations requested a meeting with Treasury Secretary John Snow to discuss concerns that Muslim charities are targeted in the government’s counterterrorism efforts.
In a letter to Snow, the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT) said government closures of Islamic charities have hindered American Muslims’ ability to carry out their religious bligation to help the needy.
The coalition of 10 organizations referred to action this month against Kindhearts, a Toledo, Ohio-based Islamic nonprofit group, whose assets were blocked pending an investigation.
The Treasury Department said Kindhearts had links to the Palestinian group Hamas, which Washington considers a terrorist organization.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, the government has designated three major U.S. Muslim charities as suspected sponsors of terrorism and frozen their assets.
Muslim charitable giving has been in the spotlight since authorities discovered Al-Qaeda and other militants had abused charities to fund attacks.

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Wild Thing’s comment…….
Well duh! Hey listen up Kindhearts ( Islam cult followers) if you give to the Hamas or any other terrorists group I hope and pray our government goes after you. And when they are done we can feed you to our troops, they have ways of dealing with you too. yep!

* Vince Aut Morire

A model presents a creation as part of British designer Vivienne Westwood Fall/Winter 2006-2007 ready-to-wear women’s collection during the Paris fashion Week (REUTERS/Charles Platiau)

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PARIS (Reuters)
British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood brought it all to Paris fashion show.
Westwood, who is famed for using British fabrics such as tweed and tartan for her daring clothes, has not been shy to add a political touch to her clothes. Last year, she presented tops reading “I’m not a terrorist. Please don’t arrest me” to protest against a tightening of anti-terrorism measures.
Wearing two sparkling little devil’s horns in her bright red hair, Westwood told reporters she wanted to raise attention to the case of Leonard Peltier, a American Indian activist convicted for the 1975 killings of two FBI agents.
“Leonard Peltier is innocent. He’s been in jail for 30 years now,” Westwood said, pointing to the invitation letter for her show, featuring a blue penis with wings and the word “Innocent.”

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Wild Thing’s comment…..
Every single time I think I wil not get shocked again I do. Westwood is obviously a nut job but it goes beyond that. Westwood is PRO terrorists and that I take offense with to the max.

It’s been one hell of a week for Jack Idema, Brent Bennett and Ed Caraballo, the three Americans illegally imprisoned in Afghanistan.
For the benefit of those who haven’t been following events since last Saturday, Pulacharke, the prison Jack, Brent and Ed are being held at, is now effectively under the control of Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners. Jack and Brent are holed up in their Block 2 Annex, armed, and protected by members of the Northern Alliance. Ed Caraballo, who was being held in another section of the prison, has been taken hostage by the Taliban, who have threatened to decapitate him if their demands are not met. Other hostages include 50-or-so female prisoners from the womens’
block, who the Taliban have now been gang-raping for the last four days.

So, yes, this is a mess … Though you wouldn’t think that if you were getting your news from MSM, most of whom have slavishly (and, it must be said, lazily) repeated President Karzai’s ‘official’ line without question. Here’s the BBC, yesterday, appearing to believe the riots were winding down nicely:

‘Breakthrough’ in Kabul jail riot
Rioting inmates in Afghanistan’s main prison near Kabul have agreed to hand over their dead and injured, amid signs of a
breakthrough in the stand-off.
[…]
One of the chief negotiators said he would be taking the prisoners’ demands to the government and that he was hopeful of a peaceful solution.
Gunfire was heard within the prison walls on Saturday night and Sunday, but the BBC’s Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says the situation was calmer on Monday, with only two gun shots heard, and fewer troops at the scene.

This, of course, came after a terrible night in which female prisoners could be heard screaming such things as::

“Oh Merciful God,” one women screamed repeatedly. Others could be heard screaming in Dari and Pashto, “they are f***ing me, God help me.” “Allah take me, let me die….” “Stop, stop, kill me, kill me first.”

The only reference you’ll find on the BBC to these sickening events is the following, throwaway line:

Senior jail officials say they fear some of the women inmates may have been raped.

Untrue. Jail officials know, for certain, that women are being raped — As would the BBC, leastways if their reporter had been anywhere near Pulacharke during the last few days. Instead, the typical MSM position seems, as usual, to be one of soft-peddling any information that might impact negatively on the activities of their beloved ‘insurgents’.
This also seems to be the attitude of the U.S. State Department and the Karzai government, who’ve spent the week obstructing any and all efforts to use force against the terrorists in order to seize back control of Pulacharke. Here’s just a selection, from the SuperPatriots, of what they’ve been up to since the riots broke out:

~ The National Army has been ordered by Karzai not to fire on his “Taliban brothers.”
~ US Embassy refuses air support and troops to stop terrorist takeover.
~ Apparently, Karzai and the US State Department have interfered with the military response to the revolt.[…]At 1am last night, we said that the MOJ refused to let Jack lead a force in against the terrorists. Although the NA Generals refused to allow Jack and his men to be put a risk, they decided to assault the terrorists with batons followed by a wave of armed troops. THREE AMERICAN advisors sent by the US State Department and Department of Justice were now present, they ORDERED the NA Generals NOT TO ATTACK. The “American Advisors,” who probably know as much about Afghanistan as a car salesman in Wisconsin, were placed in control by Hamid Karzai.
~ General Salem-Bashi, one of Massoud’s best generals, along with Northern Alliance Generals Samad and Zorodin are now on site. They planned to again attack BLOCK 2 and put down the revolt. AGAIN, the US State Department and now the Red Cross decided they knew more than the Northern Alliance generals about how to deal with terrorists. The State Department, US Justice Department, and Red Cross “Advisors” called “the palace” and successfully stopped the assault.
~ A Karzai spokesman gives a television statement that the women are now safe and in government control. According to our intelligence, this is a complete lie. The women are still held hostage and being raped by the terrorists.
~ Karzai officials again give press statements that the women are safe and not in terrorist hands. The reality is far different, the women are disbursed as hostages and are being repeatedly raped by the terrorists.
~ Karzai officials are saying that things are fine and they are “considering the demands” of the terrorists. US Department of Justice and State Department “advisors” quickly left the prison earlier today when their plan to negotiate backfired and MOJ lost another two prison blocks to the enemy.
~ Karzai and the US Embassy ordered the MOJ police not to attack yesterday morning, and to negotiate. Now the result is what could be the largest gang rape in the world’s modern history.
~ Karzai calls the Governor of Kabul and attempts to send in National Police to seize Jack’s phones. Apparently, after unknown foreign journalists complained that Jack was releasing information from inside the prison revolt, and had access to phones and intelligence and photos, Karzai demanded Jack’s communications be shut down. Were journalists upset that Jack and this website were contradicting their fabricated stories of the revolt?
~ Karzai’s peace envoy showed up at Pulacharke with five cars of bodyguards. “Minister Mujahedi” promptly outlined Karzai’s plan: give full amnesty to all terrorists and Taliban murderers, surrender the 80 women hostages, get new beds, new clothes, and new digs. No one will be charged with murder, rape, assault, revolt, or any other crime. As if it wasn’t enough, Mujahedi’s speech to the terrorists included telling them, “The men that died here, they died as martyrs.” Mujahedi also ordered officials in the MOJ to continue release false casualty counts, and say that only four or five people had been killed and only thirty wounded, instead of the real numbers which are far higher.

Clearly, something is going terribly wrong with the Afghan end of the WoT. Here we have a situation in which hundreds of the world’s most dangerous and committed terrorists have seized dozens of hostages, including a U.S. citizen. Yet the response from both President Karzai and the U.S. State Department has been to downplay the violence committed by Taliban and al-Queda prisoners, and then to openly negotiate with them. Think about that. Wasn’t the U.S. position after 9/11 supposed to be one of never negotiating with the monsters who brought the twin towers down? Yet, here we are, doing just that, and in response to ‘men’ who are threatening the life of a U.S. citizen in between gang-rapes of female hostages. How on earth did it come to this?
And how, as we learn from al-Reuters, did the following situation arise?:

Mawlavi Mohammad Siddiqi, a cleric who was one of those held by Idema’s vigilante group and is now acting as a mediator in the prison standoff, told reporters Idema was not in danger, but Caraballo was “not in a good place”.

Siddiqi, we will remember, was arrested by Jack Idema while in possession of the following items:

~ Photographs of Sidiq with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
~ Bomb plans
~ Explosive detonators
~ al-Qaida and Hezb-i-Islami documents and recruiting cards
~ A letter from Taliban leader Mullah Omar

Ironies don’t get any more bitter than this one: that a creature like Siddiqi should be reinvented by the U.S. and Afghan governments as a ‘mediator’, while the brave and decent soldier who arrested him fights for his life in Pulacharke prison, first dismissed as a ‘vigilante’, then ignored by the whole, credulous, MSM. Unbelievable.

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So what can we do? Well, anyone reading this with their own blog can sign up for the weekly Free Jack Idema Blogburst by emailing Cao or Rottweiler Puppy for details. I’d urge everyone to do this, as we’re still terribly short on takers. If you want to know more about the story, Cao’s Blog has a large section devoted to Jack Idema. There’s also a timeline here, and, of course, a huge amount of information is available over at SuperPatriots, without whose work none of us would have learned about Jack’s story.
Finally, PLEASE NOTE:
The SuperPatriots and Jack images on this site are used with WRITTEN COPYRIGHT PERMISSION and any use by any third party is subject to legal action
by SuperPatriots.US
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* Cao’s Blog
* Rottweiler Puppy

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National Pig Day is March 1st of each year. I don’t suppose it is on the Muslim calender. heh heh

* SondraK

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Pakistani children carry a mock coffin wrapped with a U.S. flag, wearing yellow headbands that says, ‘There is no God but God.,Muhammad is the Prophet of God,’ during a rally against the publication of cartoons depicting Islamic Prophet Muhammad printed by some Western newspapers, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2006 in Karachi, Pakistan. (AP Photo)

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Pakistani Shiite Muslim women take part in a rally to condemn the bombing on the Golden Mosque, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest sites in the Iraqi city of Samarra, in Karachi, Pakistan

Wild Thing’s comment……………
The first photo are chidren that they let out of school early so they could protest. Now how do you like that, we had schools in our country do the same thing so they could protest the war in Iraq. Remember how the teachers told the kids that if they did not protest they would be written up as missing school that day as a punishment. Just more of the left in our country being similar to these protesting Muslims.
In the second photo of course they are blaming the USA. Aren’t we just awful to want to fight terrorism and bring freedom to a land that never had it before. Shame on us. (NOT)

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Former Democratic Attorney General Ramsey Clark took time off from defending the “Butcher of Baghdad”, mass murderer and tyrant Saddam Hussein, to go march with the communists in Bulgaria on Saturday.
The protest against a proposed US military base in Bulgaria could only muster up around 100 supporters but they could count on democrat Ramsey Clark to be there to lead the parade.

* The Jawa Report

Jihadi Turns Bulldog
Opinion Journal …..entire article
The Taliban’s former spokesman is now a Yale student. Anyone see a problem with that?
Never has an article made me blink with astonishment as much as when I read in yesterday’s New York Times magazine that Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former ambassador-at-large for the Taliban, is now studying at Yale on a U.S. student visa. This is taking the obsession that U.S. universities have with promoting diversity a bit too far.
Something is very wrong at our elite universities. Last week Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard when it became clear he would lose a no-confidence vote held by politically correct faculty members furious at his efforts to allow ROTC on campus, his opposition to a drive to have Harvard divest itself of corporate investments in Israel, and his efforts to make professors work harder. Now Yale is giving a first-class education to an erstwhile high official in one of the most evil regimes of the latter half of the 20th century–the government that harbored the terrorists who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001.

“In some ways,” Mr. Rahmatullah told the New York Times. “I’m the luckiest person in the world. I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale.” One of the courses he has taken is called Terrorism-Past, Present and Future.

Many foreign readers of the Times will no doubt snicker at the revelation that naive Yale administrators scrambled to admit Mr. Rahmatullah. The Times reported that Yale “had another foreigner of Rahmatullah’s caliber apply for special-student status.” Richard Shaw, Yale’s dean of undergraduate admissions, told the Times that “we lost him to Harvard,” and “I didn’t want that to happen again.”
And look at this too from the article…………..

As for Osama bin Laden, Mr. Rahmatullah called the Saudi fugitive a “guest” of his government and said it hadn’t been proved that bin Laden was linked to any terrorist acts, despite his indictment in the U.S. for planning the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He said that if the embassy bombings were terrorist acts, then so was the Clinton administration’s firing cruise missiles into his country in an attempt to kill bin Laden. “You killed 19 innocent people,” he told us.

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Wild Thing’s comment…….
In order to get a student visa, the person has to have an I-20 from a school or university, a document that says that he has been accepted to study there.
Yale issued the Taliban ambassador that I-20, and the State Department issued the student visa.

It’s Time to Put Muslim Holidays in US Calendars
By Jane Jewell
Al-Jazeerah, February 25, 2006
Dear Muslims in America,
May I suggest that it is time you got yourselves established as part of the American Way of Life, and not people of a religion that belongs to ‘them’ and not to ‘us’.
I have been sending the following email to various calendar makers. You may like to do the same and get your holidays included in the 2007 calendars.
I have noticed that many calendars in the USA list the Christian and the Jewish holidays, but not the Muslim ones.
As there are now 8 million Muslims in the USA, exceeding the 6 million Jews, Islam is now the second most popular religion in the USA, after Christianity.
I feel that their holidays should also be included in the yearly calendars.
Here is the list of Muslim Holidays that could be included on 2007 calendars.
BTW, if you are wondering why the dates of the Muslim Holidays are 10 or 11 days earlier each year, it is because they follow the lunar year, which is about 355 days.
So the dates for 2007 will not work for 2008!
Look forward to hearing from you.
Jane Jewell,
‘14 friends of Palestine, Marin’, founder.
Jane and Chris Jewell [mailto:jewellcj@jewellfamily.com]
Her suggestions are:
Muharram (Islamic New Year)
Mawlid Al-Nabi (Muhammad’s Birthday)
Ramadan begins
Eid Al-Fitr (Ramadan ends)
Eid Al-Adha (Festival of Sacrifice)

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Wild Thing’s comment…..
There must be a mistake with the article. I noticed some ommissions —
~National Beheading the Infidel Day – many separate days during a year.
~Taking off the Burka Day – December 1st -Done once per year for bathing behind locked doors.
~Love your Goat! Day – Coincides with first day of spring.
~National Week of Martyrs – Always first full week of every month.
~Blow up your kids Day – celebrating how well unloved children of Islam learn how to be suicide bombers
~Family Rock Throwing Day – Ah, this is another daily day kind of thing, never mind…