Professor Ramadan of Oxford University says the US killing of Osama bin Laden is being perceived in the Muslim world as a PR exercise.

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Joining us now from Berlin is Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University.

Tariq Ramadan, thanks for being there.

TARIQ RAMADAN, CONTEMPORARY ISLAMIC STUDIES, OXFORD UNI: Thank you for your invitation.

TONY JONES: What was your first reaction to the news that Osama bin Laden had finally been tracked down and killed?

TARIQ RAMADAN: You know, once again, just a week after what happened, I was in New York, and I condemn what happened. I think that this is completely against the Islamic value - and I said it: it's anti-Islamic.

But I wasn't happy. I wouldn't - I will never be happy that we are killing someone. And my first reaction was just simply to think about being - him being arrested and brought to justice. And this is - afterward I heard what the president, Barack Obama, was saying, that they wanted to bring him to justice. And then all these different versions and just very bizarre and weird that we don't get a straightforward version of what happened.

And look at what is happening now in the Muslim majority countries, is that all the people are asking questions. It's very strange and that we drop his body in the sea, against all the Islamic rituals and we are told the Islamic rituals and principles are respected.

At the end of the day, the way it has been done and all these versions and all this political statements that we have gives the impression that it's very much used as a PR exercise, putting the president Barack Obama in a situation where he is strong and he is showing how much he is protecting the country, because he has been criticised on that side by the neo-con and the Tea Party, saying that he's not good for the job in Iraq, in Afghanistan and even for security reason.

On the other side, is not at all helping a clear dialogue with the Muslim majority countries and the perception that the Muslims - it's not really an event in the Muslim majority countries, it's just a random event, it's - you know, the great, great, great majority of the Muslims were not at all following and supporting Osama bin Laden's rhetoric. But the way it's perceived is: it's much more a Western issue.

The head of the Bay State's Democratic party is demanding U.S. Sen. Scott Brown reveal who showed him the fake photograph of Osama bin Laden's corpse after the Wrentham Republican went on television bragging that he'd seen the image - and later confessed he'd been duped.

"He needs - right away, today - to provide answers to the following questions: who showed him the fake photo, who told him it was genuine when it wasn't, and what are the procedures he uses to make sure he has reliable information before he gives voters that information," said Massachusetts Democratic Party chairman John Walsh in a statement today.

Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for Brown, said today: "With the Sal DiMasi corruption trial going on, I'm surprised that John Walsh has the time to criticize Republicans."

Brown went on New England Cable News and FOX 25 yesterday and said he'd seen a photo of a dead bin Laden. He later said the photo he had seen wasn't authentic and a staffer said the senator had obtained the photo from a reliable source.

A few hours ago, the Food and Drug Administration declared it no longer needs credible evidence to seize food that may be contaminated. Ignoring the Fourth Amendment entirely, the FDA claims that based on mere suspicion that a food product has been contaminated or mislabeled, and that serious illness or death will result, it can hold the food for 30 days while it then looks for evidence. It claims this power under the Food Safety Modernization Act, which President Monsanto, I mean, Obama, signed in January.

On May 4th, the FDA stated:

"Previously, the FDA's ability to detain food products applied only when the agency had credible evidence that a food product presented was contaminated or mislabeled in a way that presented a threat of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals.

"Beginning July, the FDA will be able to detain food products that it has reason to believe are adulterated or misbranded for up to 30 days, if needed, to ensure they are kept out of the marketplace. The products will be kept out of the marketplace while the agency determines whether an enforcement action such as seizure or federal injunction against distribution of the product in commerce, is necessary."

Opt-in, opt-out bait and switch

Google has become the only browser marker to explicitly join lobbyists opposing a proposed law giving consumers the legal right to keep companies from tracking them online.

The giant has put its name to an alarmist letter signed by 30 other organizations, trade groups and individual companies, objecting to the passage of a Do-Not-Track bill that was debated for this first time by politicians in Google's home state of California this week.

Other signatories on the letter include the CTIA and TechNet, organizations that Google belongs to with fellow private sector browser makers Microsoft and Apple. But Google is the only one to have actually added its name to that letter as a standalone signatory.

The letter is also signed by a host of marketing and advertising groups, California business associations, AOL, and Yahoo!.

The letter was addressed to politicians on the California Senate Judiciary Committee who voted 3-2 to approve the Do-Not-Track bill (SB 761) for further debate.

If Harper wins a majority, Quebec will separate

Although this should be obvious to everyone, our moronic mainsteam media are not discussing it and therefore it is worth detailing how it will unfold.

Quebec is the most anti-Harper province in Canada. Take away the bulwark of the Bloc Quebecois seats in Parliament and rump Canada is overwhelmingly Barry Goldwater-like Harper Land. Quebec society at every level overwhelmingly opposes Harper's cultural, social and economic conservatism. Quebecers are in fact repulsed by Harper's retrograde conservatism and antidemocratic authoritarianism.

If Harper were to win a majority in Parliament, Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe will likely not want to spend five years as a front row spectator to Harper's unfettered destruction of Canadian democracy. To salvage democracy for Quebecers, Duceppe would quit federal politics to take over as leader of the provincial Parti Quebecois. Duceppe is the most popular political figure in Quebec, second only to Rene Levesque in historic popularity amongst current Quebecers.

A vote for the Tories this time could mean the end of Canada as we know it.

It's been a long five years for Stephen Harper, his gaggle of ex-Reformers and the gang of three from Harris-era Ontario -- Jim Flaherty, John Baird and Tony Clement. Long and infuriating, I am sure, because for all that time they had to pretend that they were a government. They had to masquerade as people who believed that government could be a force for good. They even "stimulated" the economy. They were a minority government and the big ticket items they really wanted to get their teeth into were out of reach.

They couldn't slash Medicare or gut the Canada Health Act. They couldn't cut transfers to the provinces, or further weaken EI. They left the public services unions with their rights intact. They had to leave education alone (more or less). And they didn't risk slashing the civil service they hate so much. Even the CBC has been spared (though they raised millions from their loyalists attacking it in fundraising letters).

The frustration level, especially for Harper, must have been almost unbearable. Remember, this is a man who got so frustrated being in Opposition as right-hand man to Preston Manning that he bolted from politics altogether. The place he chose to cleanse himself after all those years having to play the democrat was the National Citizens Coalition, by a big margin the most right-wing organization on the national scene. He said he was glad to be out of politics so he could say what he really thought.

Harper was hoping for revenge in the last election and blew it by attacking culture. He's eager for another try, making Jack Layton an offer he had to refuse. And if you want to see what real revenge looks like, give this crowd a majority and they will unleash the most destructive, nation-changing blitzkrieg in living memory. I can still remember the night that Brian Mulroney won the historic free trade election 1988. It was devastating. But Mulroney was a kindergarten teacher compared to Stephen Harper. Free trade started us down the road to Americanization. Harper will take us to the end of that road and beyond.

The Knesset enacted the Nakba Law on 22 March 2011. The law authorizes the Minister of Finance to reduce funding or support provided by the state to an institution if it holds an activity that contradicts the definition of the State of Israel as a "Jewish and democratic" state, or that commemorates "Israel's Independence Day or the day on which the state was established as a day of mourning." Read further

Some Laws are made to be broken ..... this is definitely one of them!

I am sorry. But, after the past decade of lies, distortions, obfuscations, and out and out deception surrounding 9/11 and every other damn issue under the sun, I don't believe anything they say about anything anymore. (And, I know this shite ain't new, but as the brazeness elevates due to our unquestioning acceptance of information that is tenuous at best, and out and out provable lies at worst, it gets more surreal by the day).

So, when I heard there was a unexpected press conference about national security and knowing that they never tell any truth about REAL issues that threaten our national security, my gut reaction?...

'Don't tell me, they got Bin Laden. What a way to kick off Obama in 2012 corporate campaign'!

I choked on my grapes when the NYT pre-released the story.

Kafkaesque Machinery of Suspicion

The US prison at Guantanamo houses the worst of the worst of international jihad. But as the detainee assessments recently made public by WikiLeaks show, it is a description that can be applied to US evidence gathering as well.

There was a champagne brunch at the US military's Bayview Restaurant on Easter Sunday -- $14.95 a person, with a view of the bay included. Before the brunch, the soldiers' families met for an Easter egg hunt on the golf course, near the white officers' houses with their manicured front lawns. Inflatable castles were set up for the children.

On weekends like this, Guantanamo looks relatively normal. Residents can take snorkeling lessons or attend a picnic on Windmill Beach, which, like the 10 other beaches on the base, is equipped with volleyball nets, showers and barbecue stations.

It is a place that has become a symbol worldwide for the failure of a modern constitutional state -- and its weekend activities are reminiscent of a Mediterranean resort hotel. The military base has one of the best funded programs for "Morale, Recreation and the Common Good," including a range of activities more commonly found at a Club Med, like Pilates and belly-dancing lessons, angling, paintball and Ironman competitions.

Israeli forces injured an American activist and detained three other foreign nationals Sunday, as they attempted to stop Israeli bulldozers from razing Palestinian agricultural land east of Qalqiliya, witnesses said.

International solidarity activists gathered in Izbat At-Tabib in the northern West Bank on privately-owned Palestinian property, which Israel seeks to confiscate for the construction of a wall around Jewish-only settlements in the area.

Soldiers pushed over a 60-year-old American woman with the Michigan Peace Team, who fell and was taken to hospital with a suspected broken wrist, witnesses said.

They added that Israeli forces detained two British activists and one Swedish activist.