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Once you've got more money than you can spend that's not money anymore, it's power. Folks figured this out in the 50s, 60s and 70s and reigned it in with high taxes and a ton of Wall Street regulations. Then Reagan came along and shit all over that. Clinton didn't help either.

True enough, but tax rates don't help when all of that accumulated monopoly power is sold off to foreign powers who use the platform to censor opposing political opinions in order to guarantee the election of officials who would never prosecute them.

I already told you, your news source is using a hacked source. Source that Petra News Agency was hacked http://www.petra.gov.jo/Public... and http://english.alarabiya.net/e...

Why do I have to dig up anything on koch? Seems irrelevant here. You and your silly popcorn.

That's strange, the oil fields, which ISIS has illegally sold the oil to Turkey, one of the most important resources of ISIS, still operated during the U.S and NATO bombing, and now stopped by Russian.
That's strange, ISIS never had to cut their beard and masked as women to flee to Arab Saudi, Turkey, until Russian bombs them.
That's strange, when Russian didn't bomb Al-Quaeda/ISIS, the Al-Quaeda claimed Syria will be Russian graveyard.
That's strange, while the West try hard to play down the role of Russia in Syria, the people in the region love Putin.
That's strange, MH17, there is no U.S satellite data, but the 9268 case, they quickly released the data of "heat flash" detected by satellite.

Of course, any conclusions right now could be considered "conspiracy". And I do NOT blame any NATO/U.S for "suspected bombing" of 9268, but I think this the opportunity to press on Putin plan on Syria, may shape public opinion about anti-bombing campaign in Syria among Russian population.

You keep saying these things, but remain unable to explain, why these very same racist police do not treat Asians just as badly

They do.

The reason is that the immigrants are more ready for discrimination in a foreign country for the economic and other opportunities. The home-grown blacks are not ready.

Also, money is the antidote to racist discrimination. And immigrants are rich - especially Indians, Pakistanis, and Chinese. Why? I recently wrote this to explain the success of people moving within the country. It applies even more to people moving to another country. Reproduced below :

A. People motivated enough to move away are likely to be motivated enough to work harder to succeed.

B. 100 talented people living in density of 1 per 500 square miles are much less likely to produce lasting value than those same 100 talented people working together. Teams of great people are more than the sum of their parts. Which means moving their asses to where the good people and opportunities are, for the benefit of themselves and society at large.

C. People away from their homelands MUST work hard. Often there is no family to fall back on.

Due to the reasons Indians, Pakistanis and Chinese migrate to the US - these factors apply more to them, hence this subcommunity of immigrants is richer than most others.

the slavery trade

You utter ignorant fuckwit.

http://english.alarabiya.net/e...
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

You do realize that there is 1.6 billion of people that are muslims in the world

Actually it's closer to 1.7, so what? So you are saying because 1.7 billion follow a quite frankly immoral behaviour it makes it ok? All you can say about Christians is that they thump bibles, oppose gays and abortions!

Well at least we don't hang gays or have doctrines that justify murder, rape, deception, servitude all on a massive scale. I suggest you go and educate yourself.

http://www.alarabiya.net/artic... http://www.raymondibrahim.com/... http://www.raymondibrahim.com/...

Though I can't see how they're still allowed to teach chemistry(even if they have to say it's due to Allah's rules and law) if they're not allowed to teach math, so it might be an error in the article. Math may have been de-emphasized against teaching their propaganda.

IS has indeed banned the teaching of chemistry.

Even if you want to try and spin it as not Hamas' fault and the fault of countless rogue elements in the Gaza strip then ultimately Hamas is the controlling authority in the strip so still bears blame. Hamas has every power and authority in the strip to make sure it happens and due to their iron grip on it any time it does happen it must be with either their implicit (blind eye) or explicit blessing.

If Israel did nothing about some genuinely zionist civilians shelling the shit out of Gaza indiscriminately for years on end would you say it's not the states fault even though for it to occur it would require the state to explicitly avoid acting to stop it?

The fact is, that Hamas is linked directly with the MB (and even Al Qaeda offshoot) Sunni militants.

Because Hamas has been largely isolated now by Iran and Syria because it opted to back ISIS and other Sunni militants and hence sided against Assad's regime and Hezbollah the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda and affiliated groups are really the only allies it has left.

A quick search will pull up many 10s of incidents this year alone in Sinai near Gaza. It's no coincidence that this is such a hotbed of Sunni militant activity with Hamas right across the border. Sisi didn't close the border for shits and giggles, he closed it because:

http://al-shorfa.com/en_GB/art...

http://news.kuwaittimes.net/mi...

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/...

http://www.latimes.com/world/m...

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/...

http://english.alarabiya.net/e...

So whilst Hamas and friends are selling folks like you a story about poor Gaza children being bombed whilst playing, Hamas and friends have been bombing poor Egyptian (and trying to bomb) poor Israeli children whilst playing too. When you see a photo about some suffering wounded kids in Gaza at Israel's hand, spare a thought for the suffering kids in Sinai etc. at Hamas and friend's hand too.

Which is why again, Hamas is every bit as bad as the Israelis.

I would like to point out a theory where a solar lull also results in lower global temperatures -- in a way that may be complementary with the UV-centric approach taken in TA... Svensmark's theories on cosmic rays and their effect on cloud formation. See this documentary Svensmark: The Cloud Mystery. Radiation-seeded cloud formation was first observed by Charles Thomson Rees Wilson in 1896. In BBC: Connections, Death In The Morning (index to 38:15) James Burke describes the events that led to WIlson's great invention, the cloud chamber. I highly recommend the entire Connections series, especially the original first season which begins with "The Trigger Effect".

On clouds... another Good Watch is the BBC documentary on the phenomenon of Global Dimming, especially its opening minutes where David Travis of the University of Wisconsin measured a 1 degree C change in temperature ranges in the days following 9/11, when all aircraft in the US were grounded. This (shocking!) correlation, that could only be ascribed to a particular human activity -- a lack of contrail cloud seeding -- reminds us that our contribution to climate might far exceed pure-chemical CO2 causation.

On clouds... while researching contrails years ago I had a true what-the-fuck moment to see that NASA had also noticed significant human triggered cirrus cloud formation but managed to leverage the presence of cirrus (Minnis et. al) into a net warming effect. This has led to extraordinary ideas like enlarging ice crystal size in cirrus by seeding to 'reduce' this 'warming' effect. I am old school and any claim that increased clouds (of any kind) are net-warming and not net-cooling is an extraordinary claim and should be confirmed by an extraordinary level of proof, not just computer energy-budget models of incoming versus outgoing long-wave radiation. And I'm glad to see that the cirrus net effect is not yet decided by everyone.

On survival during the coming solar minimum... those jolly old River Thames Frost Fairs look like a a real tonne of funne, but faced with the likelihood of global cooling it behooves us to fast-track the development of Thorium based energy. Because MSR/Thorium is the answer for both Global Warming and Global Cooling. I am generally behooved these days.

Also... the timely development of molten salt reactors and supplying the globe with cheaper grid-energy would improve the human race. It would help to offset the effect of driving on women's pelvises by relief from washing clothes by hand.

___
Obligatory bump to the Thorium Alliance and my own letters on energy,
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

Oh and how could I forget these.

This has been going on for a long time - Skype was banned or crippled in the UAE for a long time, but recently unblocked:

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/technology/2013/04/08/Etisalat-unblocks-Skype-website-in-the-UAE.html

At the time, it was more about securing revenue from the lucrative expat market than locking-down protest movements.
Of course, these latter do exist, but less so in Saudi & UAE than, say, Egypt.

I guess this latest move will just drive more interest in alternatives, which are often 'open' and perhaps more secure...

http://www.pidgin.im/

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/fed-up-with-skype-here-are-6-of-the-best-free-alternatives/

The Saudis don't want the material transferred from their country except by a special mechanism which guarantees them the Patent rights.

Er.. not really right, it's a dutch genetics lab that has a sample of the virus, and are making people who use the data or sample sign an MTA (Material Transfer Agreement), that basically says you can't do commercial things with it without paying them, non-comercial research stuff all fine.

From this article hare

The Convention on Biological Diversity (1992), to which Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands are parties (as are practically all other UN members except the US), establishes obligations for access and benefit-sharing for biodiversity, including prior informed consent of the providing country and mutually agreed terms for utilisation of the material. These obligations are further detailed by the Convention's Nagoya Protocol, which is presently gathering ratifications for entry into force.

The situation of Erasmus having obtained the virus and placed intellectual property claim over it without the consent of the Saudi government and without an agreement for benefit-sharing appears to be at odds with the requirements of the Convention.

Basically the Saudis and the Dutch lab are both fighting over the IP rights.

The fishy bit seems to be that the Saudi's didn't seem to want the rest of the world to know they had a little disease outbreak, and it reads a bit like they were trying to supress anything to do with it, and now seem to be making excuses.

(And none of this stops you taking your own sample from a parient with the virus and doing your own genetic analysis...

I would be really really interested to the reason for this. Your suggestion is possible; Look at the quotes in my other comment though and you see that part of the delay is probably because they simply didn't realise they had a new disease. The most interesting bit though is that it seems that they only just agreed to a new transfer

“But now... we’ve got an approval to move these samples and they will be shipped for testing,” he said.

(from this Alarabiya article.) and note this, from the original article (with my emphasis)

The PIP augments the International Health Regulations, creating a series of understandings that are flu-specific regarding sample sharing, patents, and profits from products derived from viral discovery. Chan's response to Memish's accusations no doubt stems from her concern that the Saudis could invoke provisions of the flu-specific PIP, demanding control over the MERS-CoV samples, patents, and products.

In other words; the Saudis now believe that they have a legal basis for control, even if they share. Before they were worried about this. And notice, the same article mentions that the Indonesians did exactly that so this is not something that's being thought about for the first time.

One suspects that you did not read the article... which is normal for slashdot, but given your username I would have expected different ;)

I took my username specifically to remind me to read the article. In this case, the trollish bit is that I read not just the original article but a few more. The accusation is good though; keep it up and keep trolling all of us with it whenver you can.

Crap, do you actually know nothing about this situation and yet you still have an opinion?
Do some reading about the issues and then try to figure out these answers:

If Gaza needs goods desperately, why does the Gazan Government spend effort to import all the rockets and arms?
In the face of these problems, why does Hamas still pledge to eliminate the Zionist State?
Why is there a embargo? - and a wall separating Israel from the West Bank?
Why does Hamas still support the rocketing of Israel - and brag about it?
Why doesn't Hamas just recognize the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish State? ........ just as there are many Muslim countries?
How many Palestinians live in Israel?
How many Palestinians are in college in Israel?
How many Palestinians are in the Knesset?
Why were all of the Jews kicked out of the Arab countries? Can't those governments distinguish between Jews and the Zionist government?
How many opposition newspapers, parties and organizations are there in Israel?
How many opposition newspapers, parties and organizations are there in Gaza or the West Bank?
Why does Hamas and the Palestinian Authority state that Jews can never live in a Palestinian State?
Why is the West Bank flourishing and Gaza struggling?

Here is some reading for you.

  From Wikipedia (with many refs) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Israel

"A significant number of residents of the Palestinian territories seek medical treatment in Israel, often for sophisticated tests or treatments not available at Palestinian hospitals. Their treatment is paid for under a financial arrangement with the Palestinian Authority, or in some cases, at their own expense. Medical treatment for Gaza Strip residents is paid for by the Palestinian Authority or organizations such as the Peres Center for Peace.[14]
Palestinians who apply for medical treatment in Israel must obtain a humanitarian entry permit from Israel, of which thousands are issued annually. In January 2009, following the Gaza War, the Palestinian Authority canceled financial coverage for all medical care for Palestinians in Israeli hospitals, including coverage for the chronically ill and those in need of complex care not available in the Palestinian territories.[15][16] In 2012, The Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Health reported spending approximately $42 million in 2011 to finance medical coverage of Palestinians in Israeli hospitals and the Arab World. [17] Arab citizens of Israel belong to the same health care system as that of all other citizens of the country."

Note that the Palestinian Authority cancelled the healthcare, even while Israeli hospitals were willing to treat Palestinians, nominally their enemy.

From Al Arabiya http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/08/08/231069.html

"A report was released in March by Israel’s Civil Administration announcing that 115,000 Palestinians were treated in Israel in 2011, a rise from the previous year by 13 percent according to The Jewish Press news website. Over 100 Palestinian doctors were trained at Israeli hospitals and five organ transplants took place in Israel to save the lives of Palestinian patients."

Come back with facts.

One thing you can say about the Egyptians and their pyramids, despite no one practicing their religion (in numbers): despite Cairo being 9:1 Muslim:Coptic Christian, no one will ever forget the people who built them. As long as humans exist on this earth anyway.

You may be interested to note that the Salafis released after the fall of Mubarak (thanks to the clueless Obama pulling the rug out from under him and unleashing the Islamists across the region) wish to destroy the 'pagan' Pyramids and Sphinx just as they blew up the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan and destroyed the medieval mosque in Timbuktu, Mali in the last year. Now not every Egyptian feel this way, but these guys are "on a mission from Allah" and feel they are commanded to destroy all non-Muslim cultural artifacts. As time goes one expect the Salafis to win additional power over more moderate Islamicists (just as in any organisation those who can claim to be 'holier than thou' can marginalise moderate voices, leading to the organization becoming more and more extreme over time).

Mandatory citations of the proposed madness:
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/11/12/249092.html
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/raymond-ibrahim/muslim-brotherhood-destroy-the-pyramids/
Here's a claim made nearly half a year later, showing that the call for destruction was not an isolated incident or single imam, but an intended goal of the Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood once they are in a position to do so:
http://au.christiantoday.com/article/muslim-brotherhood-backed-egyptian-president-renews-call-for-destruction-of-pyramids-and-sphinx/14432.htm

Now here is the apologies for the Islamicists from a left-leaning media source (typical, the leftist media in the US loves Islam and make excuses every way they can). It claims that the calls for destruction of the pyramids were a 'hoax' yet then goes on to say the claims were 'fringe'. That means the claims were *real* (not a hoax as the apologist makes out) but still on the fringe. The pyramids are safe, for now, but expect as Egypt becomes more and more extreme. This is also the plan of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis to impose more and more Sharia on Egypt progressively [incidentally, what they are trying to do through 'Cultural Jihad' through the OIC-dominated UN is similar, but on a much longer timescale so ordinary joes won't notice the installation of special rights for Muslims and limits being placed on Free Speech for non-Muslims; all in accordance with Sharia and enacted through "political correctness"].
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-24/blow-up-the-pyramids-u-s-pundits-fall-for-a-hoax.html

The Islamicists aim to take over the World (as the Qur'an commands them to). If they are prepared to rob other cultures of irreplaceable antiquities just how much less do they value your human rights or even your life. Islam must be stopped by all Free People (regardless of our differences in political leanings or beliefs in the best economic system). If we don't unite to stop Islam our culture will be destroyed and forgotten, just as the former cultures of the Middle East have been (eg. Roman/Byzantine culture that lasted around 2500 years; the Persians with a similar heritage; the Graeco-Egyptian culture in Egypt; etc). Israel is first on the chopping block and then the West is next (as the Muslims say to themselves, "First the Saturday people and then the Sunday people" [the planned order of conquest and subjgation]).

Most people simply aren't aware just how barbaric Islam is. No wonder, the Lefti

This is a fantastic question, and indeed, the first question that ought to be asked in any discussion about Syria.

First of all, the idea that a revolution in a Muslim country would be anything even close to the Velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia (which resulted in Czech & Slovakia amicably separating) is one of the most inane assumptions anyone could make of Muslims. In Tunisia, where the Arab Spring started, this is what is going on today - from a country that was always assumed to be very Westernized, and far from Islamic, thanks partly to the efforts of its ex ruler Ben Ali. I'm no fan of Muammar Gadaffi, but in Libya, the way he was lynched pretty much demonstrated that those replacing him are no better than he was. In Egypt, the end of Mubarak has also meant an Islamic regime is on the verge of taking over that country, suppressing the Copts even more, and if they have their way, restarting their jihad against Israel. All the ignoramuses in the West who support these 'democratic' movements seem blissfully unmindful of the fact that these movements are also supported by al Qaeda. Reason is simple - what those people want is not political pluralism, and DEFINITELY NOT religious pluralism. What they want is Shariah states in their countries, and if there happen to be non Muslims there, to hell with them. Already, Christians have fled the newly US established 'democratic' Iraq for Syria, which they are now starting to flee for Lebanon. In Egypt and Tunisia too, Copts & Jews are getting ready to flee, if they haven't done so already. And if the Sunnis lose, retribution like the one by Gen Hafez al Assad in 1982 in Homs is likely to follow. So it's a struggle for survival for both sides.

The Arab League was pretty happy to support these 'democratic' movements in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, but a funny thing happened in Bahrein. Since that country is 75% Shia, the Arab league, which now has only one Shia government in it - Iraq - doesn't want democracy there. So when the Arab Spring spread there, the Arab League was quick to propagandize that that actually was an Iranian attempt to take over the country via its Shia proxys, and the Saudis sent in troops to prevent their monarchy from collapsing.

In Syria, what the Arab League alleged about Bahrein is even more true about Syria - in the converse sense. This is not an 'Arab Spring' type revolution, like in Eypt, Libya and Tunisia (where Jihadi elements came to power). It is a power struggle between the Sunni majority in that country, backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, vs a non Sunni coalition of Alawites, Druze, Syrian Christians and others led by the Baath party, and backed by Iran and Hizbullah. In short, it is a civil war, where both sides have everything to lose. If the Alawites lose, they will be massacred - already, there have been reports of Syrian Christians, Alawites and Shia being driven

Completely untrue!

The reports derived from a supposed interview with Communications Minister Reza Taghipour published on April 1 that was in fact a hoax, the ministry said in the statement on its own site www.ict.gov.ir -- which itself was not accessible outside of Iran. "The report is in no way confirmed by the ministry" and is "completely baseless," the ministry statement said.

The hoax report quoted Taghipour saying that Iran would from August launch a "clean internet" that would block popular services like Google and Hotmail and replace them with government-sponsored search engines and e-mail services. The ministry statement slammed the false report as serving "the propaganda wing of the West and providing its hostile media with a pretext emanating from a baseless claim."

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/04/10/206685.html

Now, who'd want to spread false information, like this?

The FACTS are that the US is leading the effort in creating the world's most restrictive regime of control, surveillance and censorship of ALL electronic communications, worldwide - at home and abroad, including all Internet protocols.

But what do you expect from a nation that surpassed Stalin's record for incarceration? Truth?

that's insane

we're not talking about fashion or music choice

if enough pakistanis tell you this is ok, its ok by you?:

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/03/22/202385.html

cannibalism was once ok in certain parts of the world. its about evolving away from bad practices to better ones

you may say i have an absolutist position, but it is you who has the absolutist position: that culture's mores never change, and are unquestionable

i object as a human being to your relativity, an excuse to justify atrocities. nationalism and religion do not excuse gross violations of simple human rights

Here's how they explain it:

"Kashgari, a 23-year-old journalist with Al-Bilad newspaper in Jeddah, last week posted a series of tweets of imaginary conversations with the Prophet, in which he spoke to him as an equal, showing his admiration for the man but also confusion around his persona.

“On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you” said one Tweet quoted by The Daily Beast."

Once you read that, it's sort of like, "oh shit, now I understand why they're pissed off." Basically he's just saying that Mohammed is just some guy- an inspirational figure, but just a human being, not necessarily divine or divinely inspired. In Western theological terms, that's like saying that Christ is an inspirational person with some really interesting teachings, but not the Son of God. That's about as blasphemous as you can get. I feel really sorry for this guy- it took a lot of courage, or a lot of stupidity, or maybe both to do what he did- but his life as he knew it may be effectively over. Even if he apologized and the Saudi government pardoned him, he would still face the threat of being murdered if he ever returned to Saudi Arabia.

The attack was on a government office, so it's still too early to say whether it was an act of terrorism or war.

Al Qaeda and the organizations allied to it in "the Resistance" are the most obvious suspects, being that they are at war with everyone else in the world and they have the talent and desire to do it.

The attack could be in response to the recent filing of charges against Mullah Krekar, leader of Ansar al-Islam which was one of the first groups to rename itself to "al-Qaeda in Iraq" after the US invaded.

The motivation could also be the Jyllands-Posten cartoons that were published in a Denmark newspaper. The Muslim Brotherhood and Hizbut Tahrir encouraged attacks on Norwegian embassies after the Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet republished the cartoons.

Norway has been active in the bombing of Libya. The attack may have come in retaliation from the Libyan government, which has pledged to strike back at its attackers any way it could, or it may have come from unaffiliated right-wing Muslims who see the attack on Libya as kaffir invading the ummah.

It could be someone else. Remember that the Oklahoma City bombing was a couple of white ultra-Christians. Everyone thought it was Hezbollah at first. The attack could have come from Jews who are pissed off about European spy agencies funding the the NIF, B'tselem, Peace Now, Human Rights Watch, and all the lies they tell about Israel. It could have been a nut from an opposing political party or a farmer with a grievance about a change in subsidies and the knowledge to make a fertilizer bomb. The only thing we truly know is that we don't know yet, so wait a day or two for the investigators to do their jobs.

Here's Reuters's speculation.

Captcha: compute. If anyone was complaining that this was not news for nerds, it is now.

I've already done the research - as is evident from the content of my posts.

The only content your posts had is to tell me to do research. That's not evidence of anything.

You might want to ask yourself how come Iran has no problem with IAEA supervising their nuclear program

Oh, really? They have no problems?. That's a pretty fantastic level of cooperation they're displaying. I bet you also think the reason they build their nuclear facilities underground is to save on cooling bills. It's pretty easy to monitor those underground enrichment facilities, isn't it?

It found that the Islamic republic was pressing ahead with its uranium enrichment despite four rounds of U.N. sanctions, and refusing to answer questions about possible military dimensions to its nuclear program.

"Iran's refusal to fully cooperate with the IAEA and its deliberate attempts to prevent it from carrying out its mandate in Iranian territory are ... troubling and reprehensible," Mangin said.

"The only conclusion we can draw is that Iran remains determined to pursue a nuclear program which could provide it with military capabilities."

Yep, sounds like they're perfectly willing to be completely transparent.

while the US commanded all allies to vote against the same happening to the Israeli nuclear program this week.

Don't try to change the issue, we're talking about Iran, not Israel.

Plus there was a competing tower (Al Burj) and they were both very coy about their planned height so as not to let the other trump them (excuse the pun) http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2008/03/13/46879.html

I was skimming through all these comments in hope of coming across one of a regular in those alleged forums, but sadly no one finds those sites interesting enough to check out, or we're just plain too scared to.

All I could confirm was the http://www.alarabiya.net/ going offline with a number of other 'non-terrorist' sites on Friday, 10th of this month.

I think most people in France agree on that, and there are laws that already enable cops to crack down on kiddie porn networks.

So why these new measures ? Well, four words : control of the media.

President Sarkozy already has a record of trying to influence mainstream medias, either by having his closest friends acquire newspapers or TV networks, or harassing news directors on the phone. Most blogs are still out of reach for him though, and this is where the most vocal opponents thrive.

The whole proposed policy (Google translation here) is outrageous; but the most despicable point in my view is that the ISPs and the web hosts should agree to "delete any content that has not been updated in the last 3 months", which would remove a lot of valuable (and politically embarrassing) information from the web -- event if only blogs are targeted at this point.

Pardon me for a second, but...

1) Secular humanism is not atheism, even if you call it that. If you don't believe in god, and you take a "other people can rot in a ditch for all I care" attitude, you're not a secular humanist.

2) Most atheists have had plenty of time to understand religious people, as 90% of the people around them are theists, and almost half the country is evangelical.

3) When, on Earth, did the parent "oppress" others? Talk about a persecution complex, geez. I'll never get how people who are part of a religion that composes 3/4ths of the US population think they're being oppressed. Who is this little non-Christian cabal that is keeping you down?

4) Since when was it "atheists" who desecrated the Quran? The religious beliefs of those involved weren't stated, but given the strong Xian majority... your evidenceless assumptions are, quite frankly, insulting. Besides, haven't you seen the sign or read the tracts? Let me tell you, it's not this country's tiny atheist minority that is anti-Islam...

5) Millenia of repression of religious thought

Excuse me????? Did you forget about the fact that the catholic church essentially *ruled europe* during the middle ages? Before that, there was the powerful influence of the Teutonic and druidic religions in the north, and the Greek-descended religions in the south. What "atheistic regimes" are you picturing here? Heck, many early governments claimed to either be descended from gods, or gods themselves.

Seriously... get out of your persecution fantasy world here - religion used to rule almost every society.