Via Expatica.com:

AMSTERDAM — Liberal Party MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been ordered to vacate the high-security home she is renting in The Hague within four months.

An appeal court sided with her neighbours who complained her presence put their own safety at risk and caused disruption to their lives. Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner broke the news of the court decision at an EU meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday.

Somali-born Hirsi Ali is known as a critic of aspects of Islam and she went into hiding in November 2004 when filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered. They had finished work shortly before his murder on Submission, a short film about the ill-treatment of women under Islam.

Hirsi Ali and fellow MP Geert Wilders spent several months in hiding in secret locations due to death threats made against them because of their stance on Islam. “I think this is dreadful, horrible to have to move. I am happy living here and I feel safe,” Hirsi Ali said in response to the judgement.

The neighbours lost their case initially but they won on Thursday when an appeal court accepted Hirsi Ali’s presence meant they no longer felt safe in their own apartments or in the communal areas of the complex. The court ruled that is contravened Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights which guarantees respect for a person’s private and family life.

The Dutch State had contravened these rights by moving to the apartment complex without seeking their consent and without taking measures to diminish the neighbours’ valid fears, the court said.

Peaktalk explains:

A few things. Firstly, it should be noted that Hirsi Ali is now booted out of her own house by virtue of the European Treaty for Human Rights which does indeed supersede Dutch law. Many cases are adjudicated by referring to this treaty, but given the subject matter here I would say: Euroskeptics, go knock yourselves out.

[…]

The State may appeal this ruling, in which case it will go to the Dutch Supreme Court. The potential of a ruling that will favor Hirsi Ali and is able to address the upset neighbors may turn out to become a costly adventure for Dutch authorities as it is not just about one outspoken member of parliament. Beyond a number of politicians there is a growing constituency of writers, artists and cartoonists who may rightfully claim government protection. And in most cases their neighbors are equally likely to take a less than charitable view of their right to exercise free speech. This is once more evidence of how Europeans fail to understand the bigger picture and are more than willing to let some short term comfort prevail over the long term survival of core values that built their societies in the first place.

So there are no winners here. The neighborhood is unmasked as a group whose shallow self interest is paramount, the State may have made a few mistakes and will have to spend yet more on security and Ayaan, well, she remains the hunted one. It seems that those responsible for threatening her will have the last laugh.

Let’s hope not.

Hat tip: Blogs For Bush

Others blogging about this: Andrew Stuttaford at NRO’s “The Corner” blog, Done With Mirrors, AllahPundit at HotAir, Blue Crab Boulevard

Related Toldjah So posts:

• Muslim women at war with Islamofascists
• Sultan of Enlightment
• Dr. Wafa Sultan: A profile in courage
• Manifesto against Islamic totalitarianism

The latest incident happened at the University of Minnesota. The Star Tribune reports, noting, of course,that it started “peacefully” before the red paint started flying:

It began peacefully before turning red in the end.

Six people, including a man who allegedly splashed paint on a recruiting station, were arrested Friday following a rally of area high school and college students at the University of Minnesota to protest the war in Iraq.

Police estimated the crowd at more than 200 people, who chanted and listened to nearly a dozen speakers for about an hour.

Riva Garcia, 15, a freshman at Minneapolis South High School, told the crowd that she believes the war is racist and that the military is using dirty tactics to get minorities to enlist.

“We, as working class, minority and immigrant youth, deserve equal access to education,” she said. “We don’t deserve to die for our country just because someone told us to. We deserve to be heard, and to be recognized as the future of this country.”

When it came time for a march downtown, organizers changed course and went to a U.S. Army and Navy recruiting station near Washington Avenue and SE. Oak Street.

One person, with face covered and dressed in all black, splashed a bucket of red paint on the station’s windows. Other protesters pounded the windows and scribbled messages including a peace sign over a sticker of the American flag.

“They’re exercising their rights,” said Army Capt. Val Bernat, adding that campus police alerted the office days earlier of a potential incident. “However, we don’t appreciate the vandalism.”

The protest group then dispersed at the nearby Coffman Memorial Union, where police arrested the man who apparently threw the paint, according to campus police Deputy Chief Steve Johnson. Five others also were cited for disorderly conduct and released, Johnson said.

To see photos of the incident, click the below links:

Photo 1
Photo 2

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin

Related Toldjah So posts on left wing fanaticism in the public school system as well as colleges:

• ROTC buildings vandalized at two NC colleges (NC State and UNC Chapel Hill
• Unhinged professors and teachers link roundup
• UC Santa Cruz: violently anti-military
• Cindy Sheehan to speak at a high school in San Francisco
• Cartoon controversies from across the border (re: The University of Saskatchewan)
• Congressional Medal of Honor recipient not the ’sort of person UW wanted to produce’
• NAACP chairman makes GOP/Nazis comparison (Fayetteville State University)
• Turning their backs on the truth (Georgetown University law school)
• Helping third-graders become anti-war (Frank Allis Elementary School - Wisconsin)
• Ward Churchill confronted (University of Colorado)
• Another censoring of Christmas (Jackson County School System - Georgia)
• Anti-war crowd fights military recruiters in schools (Washington)
• L.A. school district assists students in attending anti-Bush rally
• Former NCSU visiting prof calls for extermination of white people
• Racist logo? (McKinney, TX school district)
• Confronting racism through ‘workshops’ (Guilford County Schools - NC)
• The demise of the homecoming queen as we know them
• Feds investigate ‘hate speech’ incident at UNC-Chapel Hill

Via the NYT:

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-radio host, was charged yesterday with prescription drug fraud and turned himself in to Florida authorities as part of a deal to resolve a lengthy inquiry into whether he improperly obtained painkillers.

Mr. Limbaugh, who is one of the nation’s most popular radio personalities and is heard on nearly 600 stations, turned himself in yesterday afternoon to the Palm Beach County sheriff on a warrant for fraud to conceal information to obtain a prescription. He was released about an hour later on $3,000 bail, the authorities said.

Mr. Limbaugh’s lawyer, Roy Black, said his client and prosecutors in Palm Beach County had reached a settlement in which Mr. Limbaugh would be charged with a single count in connection with allegations that he illegally obtained multiple prescriptions for a drug from more than one doctor.

Let’s hope Rush has gotten or gets the help he needs to help with his addiction to painkillers. And let’s hope that those who have taken delight in his plight also get the help they need so in the future maybe they will be less of a pain in the a– to society and common decency in general.

Related Toldjah So post:

• The Rush Limbaugh-Donovan McNabb Flapola

Lots of people going to see the movie about United Flight 93 this weekend. AllahPundit has a link roundup of reviews over at HotAir.com. The best of the best amongst the blogger reviews comes from Right Wing Nuthouse’s Rick Moran, who follows up with a slam on Slate movie critic Dana Stevens’ complaints that the film wasn’t, among other things, more political. Ouch.

Anyone here gone to see it yet? I wanted to see it this weekend, but am not feeling well enough (physically or emotionally) to make the trip to the theater to take a look. If you’ve gone to check it out, please share your thoughts in the comments.

… the Spanish version of the US national anthem sucks.

Even though I’m not on board with the immmigration plan that the President supports (the Senate version), I’m glad he’s come out in support of singing the national anthem in ENGLISH, not Spanish:

WASHINGTON, April 28—President Bush has never been shy about speaking Spanish in public, and he is known to love all kinds of music: country, folk and even Tex-Mex style rock. But one thing you will not find on his iPod: “Nuestro Himno,” the new Spanish version of the national anthem that was released on Friday as part of the growing immigrants’ rights movement.

Asked at a news briefing in the Rose Garden on Friday whether he believed the anthem would have the same value in Spanish as it did in English, Mr. Bush said flatly, “No, I don’t.”

“And I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English,” Mr. Bush said. “And they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.”

Amen.

Of course, had this country made it clear from the start of the Mexican immigration wave that English was going to be the official language here, that you had to learn English in order to attend school and work and live here, rather than caving in to multiculturalists, then maybe we wouldn’t be in the position we are today.

Vivek Krishnamurthy, blogging over at my friend Michael J.W. Sticking’s “Reaction” blog gets it wrong by labelling a fondness for the national anthem to be sang in English as an example of “xenophobia”:

One of the most distressing aspects of the debate raging in the United States right now over immigration is the mildly xenophobic tone that some of the principals (who should know better) have been starting to take. Such as President George W. Bush. This afternoon, his eminence weighed into the blazing row over the Spanish version of The Star Spangled Banner being recorded by a number of top Latin pop artists, stating in typical monosyllables that he thinks “people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English. And they ought to learn to sing the anthem in English.”

Perhaps they should learn English, but what’s so wrong about bringing the national anthem to the people, in whatever language they speak? Since when did America become an ethnic nation defined in terms of a dominant linguistic group, rather than a land built on the grand ideas of freedom and liberty? (After all, the Founding Fathers toyed with the idea of making German the official language so that the linguistic memory of English tyranny would be erased from the young nation.)

That’s not accurate, as this page makes clear:

Claim: A proposal to make German the official language of the United States of America was defeated in Congress by one vote.

Status: False.

Origins: Legend has it that in 1795 a bill to establish German as the official language of the fledgling United States of America was defeated in Congress by a single vote. There never was such a vote; indeed, there wasn’t any such bill, either. A proposal before Congress in 1795 merely recommended the printing of federal laws in German as well as English, and no bill was ever actually voted upon.

This most famous of language legends began when a group of German-Americans from Augusta, Virginia, petitioned Congress, and in response to their petition a House committee recommended publishing three thousand sets of laws in German and distributing them to the states (with copies of statutes printed in English as well). The House debated this proposal on 13 January 1795 without reaching a decision, and a vote to adjourn and consider the recommendation at a later date was defeated by one vote, 42 to 41. There was no vote on an actual bill, merely a vote on whether or not to adjourn. Because the motion to adjourn did not pass, the matter was dropped. It was from this roll call on adjournment that the “German missed becoming the official language of the USA by one vote” legend sprang.

The House debated translating federal statutes into German again on 16 February 1795, but the final result was the approval of a bill to publish existing and future federal statutes in English only. This bill was approved by the Senate as well and signed into law by President George Washington a month later. The legend lives on, though, presented a vivid lesson that the foundations of our world aren’t always as solid as we think.

Throughout the history of this great country, what has been the predominant language has everyone here spoken? English. This is very simple, and has nothing to do with xenophobia. If I want to live and work in France, I will learn the French language. If I want to become a loyal citizen of France, I will learn their national anthem in their language. If people want to be educated, work, and become citizens of this country, they need to learn English. It’s not about xenophobia - it’s about taking pride in the history and heritage of your country, something that the anti-strong immigration laws crowd wants to lecture everyone else about in terms of hoisting thte Mexican flag, but who in theory seems to understand very little about.

I won’t live, work, and become a citizen of Mexico without learning their language. Mexicans, in turn, who want to do the same here should have to dothe same. We should require it.

To those who are trying to make this into a debate about xenophobia, I encourage you to abandon that line of argument. Because that’s not what the debate on English as the official language and the larger issue of wanting something done about the illegal immigration problem in this country is all about.

Related Toldjah So posts:

• About those illegal immigrant rally organizers
• Not all Latinos are on the same page on the immigration issue
• SF Mayor once again vows to ignore the law
• Senate immigration bill stalls
• High school baseball coach: “We gots 2 show the U.S. that they aint (expletive) with out us”
• Figures - Howard Dean accuses Republicans of “scapegoating” Hispanics
• Victor Davis Hanson on illegal immigration
• Clearing up the myths on the immigration reform bill
• Hanging our flag upside down, underneath the Mexican flag

About a month ago, Officer Hazrati was shot in the head after trying to serve a warrant at a house here in Charlotte. That incident sparked an almost 8 hour standoff between police and the suspect.

Many worried that he wouldn’t survive being shot in the head. But he did. Read the story here:

Of the dozens of people who gathered near the Freedom Park bandshell Friday morning, none could have been happier than Kayvan Hazrati to look up at a cloudless sky and feel sunshine on his skin.

Twenty-three days earlier, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer had been shot in the head as he tried to serve a warrant at a house in the University City area.

Some feared he wouldn’t survive, but here he was, stepping slowly but steadily from a police cruiser, toward a waiting microphone and a standing ovation from fellow officers, paramedics and well-wishers.

“I’m a lucky individual,” Hazrati said. “I’ve made great strides in the last three weeks.”

He had been released sometime before 11 a.m. from a Carolinas Medical Center facility , and wanted to thank the community and his colleagues for supporting him. Wearing an orange polo shirt, tan shorts and sneakers, the 37-year-old patrolman still looked fit, thanks to the muscular torso he developed as a competitive bodybuilder.

The only clue to how close he’d come to death was the large scar still visible across his scalp.

Reading from a single piece of white paper, he thanked everyone for their good wishes. He asked the media to let him and his fiancée have privacy. And he looked forward to getting back in the gym and completing his rehabilitation “so I can be ready to put the uniform on again and do my job.”

Just like our own NC Cop here at the ST blog, Officer Hazrati 1) puts his life on the line everyday to keep people in the city safe and 2) even though injured, is working hard towards rejoining the police force.

In an age where some think role models are scarce, these two gentleman are indeed exceptions to that rule. Here’s to wishing for the best for both of them.

As a footnote, the idiot who shot Officer Hazrati also shot another police officer later in the day as the standoff continued. That officer was saved by the Kevlar helmet he was wearing. It was after that that the suspect - Christopher Ellerbe - was shot and taken into custody. He waived his bond hearing yesterday. He is charged with two counts of attempted murder.

Via FoxNews:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and John F. Clark, director of the United States Marshals Service, will detail the results of Operation Falcon II, a seven-day nationwide fugitive roundup, during a press conference in Washington at 1:15 p.m. EDT. Among those arrested during Operation Falcon II were 1,102 violent sexual offenders. The operation was conducted from April 17 through April 23.

The “priority targets” arrested were fugitives wanted for committing sexual offenses and crimes of violence against women, children and the elderly, as well as unregistered convicted sex offenders, according to Justice Department officials.

Others arrested in Operation Falcon II were fugitive gang members and violent offenders wanted for homicide, kidnapping, robbery, burglary, carjacking, weapons offenses, and narcotics sales.

Bravo. Score one for the good guys.

Related Toldjah So posts:

• Deputy DHS Press Secretary arrested in child porn sting
• Child porn ring busted
• Cashman lengthens sentence for child rapist
• Judge in child rape case no longer believes in punishment

Remember the big manufactured controversy over Rush Limbaugh’s comments on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown regarding Philadelphia Eagles QB Donovan McNabb? For a refresher on it, see my post about it, which I should mention was my first political blog post.

Well the DNC are using comments Tony Snow made about the issue to try and paint him as a racist. First, Snow’s comments from 10/6/2003:

Now, to the issues. Limbaugh made two assertions: First, that Donovan McNabb (search) is an overrated quarterback. That’s a debatable proposition; I think he’s nuts on this one.

Then comes the claim that reporters are kindly disposed toward black quarterbacks. That’s possible: NFL bosses for decades refused to let blacks hold leadership positions on, or off the field and reporters know it.

In any case, the comment isn’t racist, but that didn’t stop political opportunists accusing Rush of bias. Two Democratic presidential candidates and Wesley Clark called for his firing. Some other politicians who know better — and you know who you are — also started hot-dogging.

Here’s the problem with the controversy: It is assumed that white guys, especially conservative white guys, have no right to talk about race. Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean (search) beautifully expresses the muddled sentiment: He has been calling for an open dialog about race, but he also called for Rush’s head. Well, he can’t have it both ways: Either you open the floor to people with whom you disagree, or you don’t.

Frankly, we need to open the floor. But we also need to open our eyes. Here’s the unmentionable secret: Racism isn’t that big a deal any more. No sensible person supports it. Nobody of importance preaches it. It’s rapidly becoming an ugly memory. If you want proof, open a Philadelphia paper tomorrow. If Donovan McNabb has a bad game, he’ll get ripped ruthlessly, just like any other signal-caller. Which means that Rush’s observation, if anything, was dated — and that the sports world has become sufficiently colorblind to judge players by their performance and not their skin color.

Now, the DNC’s twisting of his words (via Expose the Left):

DNC spokesperson Amaya Smith says:

“How can Republicans claim to be mending fences with the African-American community after hiring Tony Snow who just doesn’t get it”

Just goes to show that when it comes to playing the race card, the DNC will stop at absolutely nothing to paint conservatives as a bunch of eeevil racist hatemongers, even when 9 times out of 10 the person they’re accusing of racism isn’t even remotely guilty of it. Yet when it’s a member of their own party who is being blatantly racist, their silence says it all.

Related Toldjah So posts:

• Confirmed via FoxNews: Snow will be announced as WH press sec. tomorrow
• DC grapevine: Snow “likely” to accept WH press sec. job
• Tony Snow in negotiations to become WH press secretary
• WH press secretary Scott McClellan has resigned
• The politics of fear: Hillary goes over the edge
• Media bias on display at WashPost in Coretta Scott King funeral reporting
• Coretta Scott King funeral turns into a Bush-bashing fest
• NAACP chairman makes GOP/Nazis comparison
• On group think and how it threatens our freedoms
• Black Democrats in MD make candid admission
• Former NCSU visiting prof calls for extermination of white people
• Race-baiting Democrats and the media’s complicity
• State rep gets more coverage than Rangel
• “We’ve gone from fire hoses to levees.”
• More nonsense from Charlie Rangel
• Media pushes “white guilt” angle
• Exploiting the Katrina tragedy
• The race card is officially on the table

Via the Raleigh News and Observer:

Vandals staged attacks early Wednesday on the buildings used by the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at N.C. State University and UNC-Chapel Hill, echoing similar assaults on three Triangle recruiting stations last month.

As before, vandals sprayed anti-war slogans and profanity, splashed red paint and claimed responsibility with a mass e-mail message to area media outlets.

Lt. Col. Carol Ann Redfield of the Army ROTC program at N.C. State was caught off guard. “This is the first time I know of that anything like this has happened here,” she said. “I certainly appreciate that people have different opinions, and they should be able to express them, but I have a problem when they damage property.”

The e-mail, from someone calling himself “celest ialbeing” said, “Stop these recruitment centers that target poor people and people of color to fight to maintain the power structure that (literally and figuratively) imprisons us daily.”

The vandals sprayed slogans at the base of an entrance to Reynolds Coliseum, which holds the Department of Military Science, and tossed paint onto an ROTC sign above the entrance.

[…]

At UNC, the vandals used spray paint for slogans but chose a 5-gallon bucket of water-soluble red paint to splash the landing, columns and steps. A cleanup crew blasted it off with a pressure washer.

“Thank goodness they used water-based paint,” said Angelo Baldwin, a crew member. The slogans — including “we won’t fight your wars!” — also were removed quickly, but the doors must be repainted.

At N.C. State, the slogan “Army ROTC trains murderers resist acts of war” was sprayed in a place all but invisible to passers-by. The vandals’ arsenal also included another puzzling choice: Christmas tree ornaments, which were apparently tossed at the ROTC sign.

Blackfive has photos from the UNC-Chapel Hill anti-war vandalism.

Sounds like these creeps who did this would get along with the UC Santa Cruz anti-war crowd just fine.

Semi-related: Michelle Malkin has info on the lyrical rantings of popular anti-war moonbat Neil Young. Love the tin-foil hat pic

Related Toldjah So posts on left wing fanaticism in the public school system as well as colleges:

• Unhinged professors and teachers link roundup
• UC Santa Cruz: violently anti-military
• Cindy Sheehan to speak at a high school in San Francisco
• Cartoon controversies from across the border (re: The University of Saskatchewan)
• Congressional Medal of Honor recipient not the ’sort of person UW wanted to produce’
• NAACP chairman makes GOP/Nazis comparison (Fayetteville State University)
• Turning their backs on the truth (Georgetown University law school)
• Helping third-graders become anti-war (Frank Allis Elementary School - Wisconsin)
• Ward Churchill confronted (University of Colorado)
• Another censoring of Christmas (Jackson County School System - Georgia)
• Anti-war crowd fights military recruiters in schools (Washington)
• L.A. school district assists students in attending anti-Bush rally
• Former NCSU visiting prof calls for extermination of white people
• Racist logo? (McKinney, TX school district)
• Confronting racism through ‘workshops’ (Guilford County Schools - NC)
• The demise of the homecoming queen as we know them
• Feds investigate ‘hate speech’ incident at UNC-Chapel Hill

He says now is not too soon to see a movie about Flight 93, and that the producers of the movie got it right. He also includes a reminder in what he wrote for none of us to get complacent - and that the movie shows just why we should never forget … and never surrender - to those who want to take our freedoms away from us:

There are those who question the timing of this project and the painful memories it evokes. Clearly, the film portrays the reality of the attack on our homeland and its terrible consequences. Often we attend movies to escape reality and fantasize a bit. In this case and at this time, it is appropriate to get a dose of reality about this war and the real enemy we face. It is not too soon for this story to be told, seen and heard. But it is too soon for us to become complacent. It is too soon for us to think of this war in only national terms. We need to be mindful that this enemy, who made those holes in our landscape and caused the deaths of some 3,000 of our fellow free people, has a vision to personally kill or convert each and every one of us. This film reminds us that this war is personal. This enemy is on a fanatical mission to take away our lives and liberty–the liberty that has been secured for us by those whose names are on those walls in Battery Park and so many other walls and stones throughout this nation. This enemy seeks to take away the free will that our Creator has endowed in us. Patrick Henry got it right some 231 years ago. Living without liberty is not living at all.

The passengers and crew of United 93 had the blessed opportunity to understand the nature of the attack and to launch a counterattack against the enemy. This was our first successful counterattack in our homeland in this new global war–World War III.

This film further reminds us of the nature of the enemy we face. An enemy who will stop at nothing to achieve world domination and force a life devoid of freedom upon all. Their methods are inhumane and their targets are the innocent and unsuspecting. We call this conflict the “War on Terror.” This film is a wake-up call. And although we abhor terrorism as a tactic, we are at war with a real enemy and it is personal.

There are those who would hope to escape the pain of war. Can’t we just live and let live and pretend every thing is OK? Let’s discuss, negotiate, reason together. The film accurately shows an enemy who will stop at nothing in a quest for control. This enemy does not seek our resources, our land or our materials, but rather to alter our very way of life.

I encourage my fellow Americans and free people everywhere to see “United 93.”

Be reminded of our very real enemy. Be inspired by a true story of heroic actions taken by ordinary people with victorious consequences. Be thankful for each precious day of life with a loved one and make the most of it. Resolve to take the right action in the situations of life, whatever they may be. Resolve to give thanks and support to those men, women, leaders and commanders who to this day (1,687 days since Sept. 11, 2001) continue the counterattacks on our enemy and in so doing keep us safe and our freedoms intact.

Read the whole thing.

Related Toldjah So posts:

• The wrong issue on which to make a stand re: federal funding
• Is it too soon for “United 93″ movie?
• Misty eyes
• Crescent design replaced for 9-11 memorial
• Flight 93 Memorial update
• “The Flight That Fought Back”
• Remembering 9-11-01