Judge Rules Arabic Flashcards Too Dangerous to Fly

You may remember a case from several years ago where a student of Arabic was detained by the TSA because he had Arabic flash cards. He was studying Arabic. Flash cards can actually be useful in studying a language.

Arabic is the fifth-most-commonly-spoken language on the planet Earth. It is the official language of 27 nations. Most importantly, it is language, not a weapon. If flashcards are dangerous, they are equally dangerous no matter what is written on them. What could a passenger do with Arabic on flashcards that he couldn’t do without the flash cards?

See my previous post, How Arabic is Like Parseltongue. https://snarla.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/how-arabic-is-like-parseltongue/

Here’s the recent news story at Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/25/federal-judge-rules-that-tsa-fbi-can-detain-and-arrest-you-for-carrying-arabic-flashcards/

Observe the fool-proof logic:

TSA AGENT: Do you know who did 9/11?

GEORGE: Osama bin Laden.

TSA AGENT: Do you know what language he spoke?

GEORGE: Arabic.

TSA AGENT: Do you see why these cards are suspicious?

 

 

Pat Robertson Rushes In Where Wise Men Fear to Tread

Saving this quote by senile old man Pat Robertson in case the Boston Marathon terrorist turns out to be Christian, because then it will be funny:

“But to think that somebody would be so vicious, so evil as to want to kill little children, and maim families who were there rejoicing in a sporting contest on a beautiful day in Boston, it just makes you sick at your stomach. Don’t talk to me about religion of peace, no way.”

Huckabee on Why Some Nut Shot Up an Elementary School Today

“When we ask why there is violence in our schools, but we’ve systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools have become a place for carnage because we’ve made it a place where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, responsibility, accountability?” –Mike Huckabee, former Republican presidential candidate, 2012

Edited to add: Because Huckabee is a freaking insane lunatic jackass. And I’ve added this quote to my Fanaticism page. Some great company you’re keeping there, Huckabee.

Is Bachmann the Real Government Infiltrator?

Juan Cole had an excellent post the other day. Michele Bachmann has charged Clinton aide Huma Abiden of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood…turns out Bachmann has deeper ties of her own.

http://www.juancole.com/2012/07/is-michelle-bachmann-an-agent-of-the-muslim-brotherhood.html

3. Bachmann is a supporter of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and tried to visit with them.. The Northern Alliance was a coalition of forces fighting the Taliban. It consisted in part of the Jami’at-i Islami, to which many of its prominent members belonged. The Jami’at-i Islami is the Afghanistan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded by Egyptian missionaries in the 1960s. Another component of the Northern Alliance was the Shiite Hizb-i Vahdat or Unity Party, which was allied with Iran in the 1990s.

So Bachmann is, once again, closely connected with the Muslim Brotherhood via the Afghanistan Northern Alliance.

Al-Qaeda Infiltrates Pr0n

Story here.

This from a Mason, Michigan, police blotter …

A Mason resident called to report receiving subliminal messages he detected while watching a pornographic movie purchased in Jackson on Jan. 1.

The complainant replayed the portion of the DVD in slow motion for the officer, who did note four words he could read and a series of other words that passed so quickly they could not be read.

The complainant stated he reported the incident only because he had read where Al Qaeda was inserting messages into pornographic movies.

NYPD Shadowed Folks Whose Names Sounded Arab

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-nypd-shadows-muslims-change-names-070530735.html

Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted. And this is a good thing, in the sense that Arab- and Islamophobia are being addressed on big blogs and in real news stories nowadays.

As for novels, it’s just been a while since I’ve read one that had silly stereotypes and misinformation about Arabs. But I’m still reading voraciously, so I’m bound to find something eventually.

But here’s something I didn’t see blogs picking up: the New York police department had a policy of following people who changed their names from Arab-sounding names to “normal” sounding names, and vice versa.

NEW YORK (AP) — Muslims who change their names to sound more traditionally American, as immigrants have done for generations, or who adopt Arabic names as a sign of their faith are often investigated and catalogued in secret New York Police Department intelligence files, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Like other NYPD intelligence programs created in the past decade, this one involved monitoring behavior protected by the First Amendment.

Monitoring name changes illustrates how the threat of terrorism now casts suspicion over what historically has been part of America’s story. For centuries, immigrants have Americanized their names in New York. The Roosevelts were once the van Rosenvelts. Fashion designer Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lifshitz. Donald Trump’s grandfather changed the family name from Drumpf.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne did not respond to messages left over two days asking about the legal justification for the program and whether it had identified any terrorists.

Early on, police added people with American names to the list so that if details of the program ever leaked out, the department would not be accused of profiling, according to one person briefed on the program.

Whatever an “American name” is. Sheesh.

The NYPD’s rules also prohibit opening investigations based solely on activities protected by the First Amendment. Federal courts have held that people have a right to change their names and, in the case of religious conversion, that right is protected by the First Amendment.

In fact, of those who agreed to talk at all, many said they Americanized their names because they were being harassed or were having problems getting a job and thought a new name would help.

Sad.

It’s a long article. I recommend it. Surprised it hasn’t gotten more attention.

Ignorant Xenophobe Americans Report “Arabic Writing” on Planes

Gawker story here

Fox News story here

It turns out the “Arabic writing” is neither Arabic nor writing, and scarcely resembles Arabic writing. Rather, it looks like a stylized drawing of a sword.

Gawker explains it here

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UPDATE: I forgot to mock the people who think there are mysterious Arabic symbols. Arabic is a language. It has writing. There are no Arabic symbols. So no job for a Tom-Hanks-style Dan Brown mystery Angels and Demons kind of *symbologist*, more’s the pity.

“Christians Can Jihad, Too”

Yes, they sure can, young white man. Thank you for pointing that out for all the nice Americans watching. Talking Points Memo has a short article about a youngster who allegedly set fire to a mosque.

Court documents obtained by the Associated Press show that Crawford ranted against Muslims in his conversations with police and said that Christians were also capable of jihad.

“You look like Obama. You are a Muslim like him,” a court document quotes Crawford as telling an officer after he was arrested on Dec. 14 for a charge unrelated to the firebombing. “Jihad goes both ways. Christians can jihad too.”

A Massive, Palatial Compound

Everyone who said UBL was living in a cave owes me a coke.

The courier and his brother were tracked to a massive, palatial compound built in 2005 at the end of a dirt road in an isolated and “affluent” suburb of Abbottabad favored by retired Pakistani military officers, said the second senior administration official, who added that it was believed that the residence was constructed specifically for bin Laden.

Two Chiefs of Staff Say US has Overreacted to Islamic Threat

Story found at Crooks and Liars.

The report says Americans are overreacting to Islamic extremism, underinvesting in their youth, and failing to embrace the sense of competition and opportunity that made America a world power. The United States has been increasingly consumed by seeing the world through the lens of threat, while failing to understand that influence, competitiveness, and innovation are the key to advancing American interests in the modern world.