Saturday, August 27, 2016

Weekend Favs August Twenty-Seven

Weekend Favs August Twenty-Seven written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing


My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.


I don't go into depth about the finds, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one that I took out there on the road.


bicycle-tires-1530469_1280


Onesheet CRM – Onesheet CRM is a free, easy-to-use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for Google Sheets designed for small businesses to track sales and leads efficiently.


Meta – Search your Desktop, Google Drive, Dropbox, Gmail, Evernote, and everything else as easily as you'd search the Internet.


tooltip.io – Easily serve relevant help tips about your product functionality in context of the page – no code and less customer support emails.




Friday, August 19, 2016

How To Publish More Content Faster With A Content Creation Process (And Limited Resources)

How To Publish More Content Faster With A Content Creation Process (And Limited Resources) written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing


How To Publish More Content Faster With A Content Creation Process (And Limited Resources) - Duct Tape MarketingThat back burner of yours has a lot on it, doesn't it?


Unfortunately, it's easy to let creating content for your small business fizzle out at the tail end of your to-do list.


How To Publish More Content Faster With A Content Creation Process (And Limited Resources) - Duct Tape Marketing


But what if there was an easier way to not only publish more content but do it faster and with next to no resources? Would you reprioritize your to-do list to polish your content creation process?


Our co-founder at CoSchedule, Garrett Moon, once wrote there are only three ways to save time writing content:



  1. Add more tools or people into your content creation process. This means using the right tools for planning, like ditching your spreadsheet for a project management tool designed to help you work more efficiently. Outsource straightforward tasks like social media scheduling to a virtual assistant to save your valuable time for creating more content.

  2. Use the time you spend writing more efficiently. Many people are more productive in the mornings, so that may be the best time for you to write faster than in an afternoon when you've worn yourself out. Part of this may involve critically analyzing the steps involved in your content creation process, too, to focus your preparation and workflow on the tasks that really make a difference instead of just doing the same things you've always done.

  3. Eliminate something or hone in on what really This means picking a single audience to target and making sure every topic you cover connects deeply into solving that specific persona's challenges. You could also remove unnecessary steps from your workflow to make everything flow even faster.


You're thinking, “That's all fine and dandy… but how can I make this work for my small business, really?” Well, my friend, let's explore that even further.


The Only Way To Publish More Content Is To Start


If you want to publish more content, you need to publish more content. It may seem obvious but from my conversations with dozens of marketers… it's not.


You need to spend time honing your content creation process to be able to create more content faster. This takes two commitments: Acquiring skill and turning that skill into a consistent habit.


Researchers have found it takes at least 100 hours of practice before you learn a skill beyond producing a crude version of the desired behavior.


How To Publish More Content Faster With A Content Creation Process (And Limited Resources) - Duct Tape Marketing


That means the only way to publish more content is to practice publishing more content. And as you publish more, those same researchers suggest you will smooth out your process, remove errors from your execution, and indefinitely improve as you continue using the skill.


That whole indefinitely bit ties nicely into habit formation. Consistency is important for success in marketing, and habits make it possible to be consistent.


According to Charles Duhigg in his book, The Power of Habit, your brain literally works less after you build habits. It's as if your brain needs habits so it doesn't have to think so hard about every little detail.


How To Publish More Content Faster With A Content Creation Process (And Limited Resources) - Duct Tape Marketing


Habits require five traits to last:



  1. Cue: A trigger that sparks the habit. This could be a day (if you always write on Mondays) or a time (if you always write in the mornings the moment you get into the office).

  2. Routine: After the cue, this is the process you consistently follow every time (writing headlines, then introduction, then the body).

  3. Reward: The great feeling you get after you follow your routine (Yay! I did it and didn't put it on the backburner!).

  4. Craving: The desire to do the routine again and again to experience the reward. This is where habits become consistent instead of just one-at-a-time activities.

  5. Belief: Probably the biggest necessity to committing to a habit-the faith in the habit that it will produce the reward you'd love to continue experiencing.


In other words, you need to commit to spending time building the skill to publish more content. As you do that, you will start to build a process-with clear habits-that literally cut the amount of time you need to write content and make the entire process easier.


To do that, you need to believe in your system as you start. You will hit snags. But you have to use those lessons to learn from your mistakes and continue on.


You have to have faith in your content creation process to succeed in publishing more content consistently.


10 Steps To Streamline Your Content Creation Process To Publish More Content Faster


1. Plan


A mentor of mine once told me, “Plan your work, then work your plan.”


Those who write things down are more successful, so make the most efficient use of your time by planning the work you'll do rather than reacting to fire drills and sporadic tasks.


2. Prioritize


Marcus Sheridan of The Sales Lion uses a simple prioritization method to make sure he uses his time as efficiently as possible. For the content you've planned, rank it all from 1 to 3.


A 1 rank means the content may bring inbound traffic, but may not convert. A 3 is the best; a project that will definitely help you increase sales and leads. Work on your 3 ranked projects first.


3. Dissect


Atul Gawande, author of The Checklist Manifesto, suggests creating checklists for larger projects helps you make sure nothing gets missed. You'll cross your Ts and dot your Is while breaking a large, intimidating project into smaller, achievable tasks.


4. Eliminate


There's a concept in the startup world called the minimum viable project. It suggests that you can publish content quickly by removing unnecessary-possibly overzealous-tasks from your checklist.


5. Create


At CoSchedule, we've found starting with content outlines helps you plan your topic more effectively, stay on point more consistently, and ultimately write faster.


6. Optimize


Improve what you've written with keywords to help your audience find your content when they need it. Add strong visuals to get 94% more page views. Optimize to make the most out of the time you invest into your content creation process.


7. Publish


As Seth Godin writes in Poke the Box, “If you don't ship, you actually haven't started anything at all. At some point, your work has to intersect with the market. At some point, you need feedback as to whether or not it worked. Otherwise, it's merely a hobby.”


8. Share


Automate your social media posting schedule with a tool like CoSchedule or even outsource it to a virtual assistant to spend less time sharing your content. Just make sure to promote the work you've produced to help your audience find it.


9. Retro


Part of building your skill involves continuous improvement. After you publish, ask yourself what went well, what went wrong, and what you can improve next time.


10. Commit


An easy way to commit to publishing more content consistently is to use a marketing calendar.


As Joe Pulizzi from Content Marketing Institute says, “One thing is certain: If you don't keep an editorial/content calendar, the content doesn't get done.”


Now You Know How To Publish More Content Faster Than Ever


You've got this! Start, commit to honing your content creation process, build consistent habits, and let 'er rip.


Nathan ElleringNathan Ellering is the content marketing lead at CoSchedule, the marketing calendar for everything.




Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Algerian Christian given 5 years in prison for saying Jesus will outshine Islam on Facebook


This isn't just a story about Algeria. This is the future of the West. And it isn't far off, thanks to Merkel, Obama, Theresa May, et al.


slimane-bouhafs


“Algerian Christian given 5 years in prison for saying Jesus will outshine Islam on Facebook,” by Christian Deguit, Christian Daily, August 14, 2016:


An Algerian Christian man has been sentenced to five whole years in prison after making alleged “blasphemous statements” online about Islam and Prophet Muhammad.


Slimane Bouhafs, who is 49 years old, converted to Christianity almost 20 years ago. He was arrested earlier in July for posting on his Facebook account that the light of Jesus will be able to outshine Islam and its main prophet. He also published photos of persons being executed by Islamic radicals.



On August 7, he appeared before a judge in the nearby town of Setif in Algeria's Kabylie region. He was accompanied by his son, Larbi, who is 27 years old.


“The court sentenced my father to the maximum sentence! I qualify the crime of opinion matter, because my father was expressing his ideas and spread his political views on social networks as it has always done elsewhere. It is an attack on freedom of expression because, in my opinion, everything is subject to criticism, even religions,” Larbi Bouhafs said.


The Constitution of Algeria states that authorities have the privilege to assess and judge allegations of blasphemy against Islam, which is the country's state religion. If it is decided that the act made by the person was blasphemous, the person can be forced to pay a hefty fine and/or face a penalty of three to five years in prison….




Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Donald Trump: “we must take on the ideology of radical Islam”


The left is spitting bullets because…. Trump is right. We must defeat the ideology behind this savage religious war. It's elemental and yet such talk is banned by sharia-compliant media, cultural and political elites.


“Just as we won the Cold War, in part by exposing the evils of communism and the virtues of free markets, so too must we take on the ideology of radical Islam,” he said.


Bingo.


The only thing more vicious and cynical than the New York Times smear of the Trump speech is the commenters. When did America get so soft and stupid?



USA-ELECTION/TRUMP


“Donald Trump's Terrorism Plan Mixes Cold War Concepts and Limits on Immigrants,” NY Times, August 16, 2016:


Donald J. Trump on Monday invoked comparisons to the Cold War era in arguing that the United States must wage an unrelenting ideological fight if it is to defeat the Islamic State. He said he would temporarily suspend immigration from “the most dangerous and volatile regions of the world” and judge allies solely on their participation in America's mission to root out Islamic terrorism.


In a speech at Youngstown State University in Ohio, a critical swing state where polls show him trailing Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump combined old vows to seize Middle Eastern oil fields with the announcement of a series of new, if still vague, proposals to change America's battlefield tactics.


“Just as we won the Cold War, in part by exposing the evils of communism and the virtues of free markets, so too must we take on the ideology of radical Islam,” he said.


He again tried to change his politically inflammatory approach to immigration, replacing his 2015 vow to bar Muslims from entering the United States with a new commitment to bar anyone from parts of the world where terrorism breeds. Once again, he did not name those countries, or say whether citizens of longtime allies where terrorists have plotted and executed attacks - Germany, France and Belgium among them - would be included.


Mr. Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the border with Mexico, also said he would call for “extreme vetting” of immigrants that would include requiring them to respond to a questionnaire with an “ideological test.”


Over all, he appeared to be arguing for the kind of terrorism-centric foreign policy that President George W. Bush adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.


But over time, that approach ran into complications: China and Russia used the fight against terrorism to crack down on Muslim minorities. And the Bush administration eventually discovered that a one-dimensional approach, measuring countries almost exclusively on their commitment to fighting Islamic terrorists, left it little leverage when their partners in counterterrorism took other steps opposed to American interests - from the Chinese claiming portions of the South China Sea to increasing Russian threats against former Soviet states.


Monday's speech represented another attempt by Mr. Trump to focus on issues after a rocky period in his campaign, much as he did last Monday with a speech on the economy. He laid the blame for the rise of Islamic extremism on President Obama and Mrs. Clinton. He said they made “a catastrophic mistake” in “the reckless way in which they pulled out” of Iraq. He charged that Mrs. Clinton compounded the error by attempting to “build a democracy in Libya.”


He argued - accurately - that Mrs. Clinton had been a vocal proponent of the American intervention in Libya in 2011, which Mr. Obama has repeatedly acknowledged was the most ill-thought-out foreign policy move in his nearly eight years in office. He also charged that “Hillary Clinton wants to be America's Angela Merkel,” a reference to the German chancellor. Germany has taken in tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria, in which fighting between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, rebels opposed to his rule and Islamic State jihadists has claimed 400,000 lives.


Mr. Trump offered no criticism of Mr. Assad, but criticized the Obama administration for advocating the removal of the Syrian leader and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, who was deposed in the first blush of the Arab Spring, because doing so took out the strongmen who kept the lid on violence in the region.


He pledged to form a new partnership with Israel, Egypt and Jordan to try to stop the spread of terrorism, including groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. He also suggested that the United States would be well served by joining forces with Russia against the Islamic State.


And though Mr. Trump made no reference to whether he would send more American troops back to the region, that appeared to be the clear implication.


The kind of relentless attacks on the Islamic State he advocates - along with taking and holding the oil fields, which may well be a violation of international law - would require a considerable presence by American troops or their allies, and foreign bases to launch the drones.


Peter Feaver, a former Bush administration official who handled Iraq strategy and now teaches at Duke University, and who has signed two letters from national security officials opposing Mr. Trump's candidacy, praised Mr. Trump for giving a “surprisingly serious” speech on counterterrorism.


But he also said that “given how vehemently Trump has denounced Bush's national security team, it is striking how much of this speech depends on counterterrorism ideas developed by the Bush administration. It is not a perfect copy - we never contemplated seizing the oil for our own purposes and we were far more concerned about how anti-Muslim rhetoric might demoralize the moderate Muslim voices we were seeking to empower. But the good parts are not new - they are imported from the Bush approach - and the new parts are not good.”


Mr. Trump did not explain how his vision of “extreme vetting” of immigrants, including an “ideological test,” would be enforced, or how it would be different from when prospective terrorists lie on questionnaires now. But he made clear that he views the recent terrorist attacks in the United States through the prism of immigration, pointing out that the common point between the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., and the mass attack in San Bernardino, Calif., was that they were carried out “by immigrants, or the children of immigrants.”


As part of the ideological battle against the Islamic State, he said, a Trump administration will “be a friend to all moderate Muslim reformers in the Middle East,” and would speak out “against the horrible practice of honor killings, where women are murdered by their relatives for dressing, marrying or acting in a way that violates fundamentalist teachings.”


But he never squared that with the real-life complexities he would confront in the Oval Office. Pakistan, where one recent honor killing occurred that Mr. Trump cited at length, is also considered a key partner in the counterterrorism fight - even though its intelligence service has, at times, been accused of supporting the Taliban.


Jake Sullivan, Mrs. Clinton's policy chief, argued that Mr. Trump's concern about respecting minority rights within the Muslim religion was not sincere. “This so-called 'policy' cannot be taken seriously,” he said in a statement. “How can Trump put this forward with a straight face when he opposes marriage equality and selected as his running mate the man who signed an anti-L.G.B.T. law in Indiana? It's a cynical ploy to escape scrutiny of his outrageous proposal to ban an entire religion from our country, and no one should fall for it.”


In his address, Mr. Trump said that if he is elected, “the era of nation-building will be ended,” implicitly criticizing efforts to restore stability to Iraq and Afghanistan. He did not note that most of that nation-building began in the Bush administration, and much of it was terminated by President Obama.


Mr. Trump was clearly defensive about challenges to his claim that he had opposed the invasion of Iraq, notably a Sept. 11, 2002, comment to Howard Stern, the radio host, in which he was asked whether he supported a future invasion of the country. “Yeah, I guess so,” he responded, “I wish the first time it was done correctly,” a reference to the Persian Gulf war. The day of the invasion in 2003, he described it as a “tremendous success from a military standpoint.”


But in his speech, Mr. Trump quoted himself from an August 2004 statement to Esquire when the Iraq war was beginning to turn against the United States.


“It turns out that all the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong,” he said, 17 months after the invasion. “All this for nothing.” He noted that he had warned that “two minutes after we leave, there's going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over.”




Sunday, August 14, 2016

Saturday Night Cinema: The Card (1952)


Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema selection is The Card. In Edwardian Staffordshire, charming rogue Edward “Denry” Machin (Alec Guinness), the son of a washerwoman, believes he must give destiny a hand to rise in the world. Starting early in his youth, Denry maneuvers to get into a top public school. Later, by outwitting his employer, he becomes a rent collector, and eventually mayor. He uses the lovely Countess of Chell (Valerie Hobson) as his patron - but Denry's ambitions are brought up short by crafty dance instructor Ruth Earp (Glynis Johns).


The Card is a black-and-white film version of the novel by Arnold Bennett. Entitled The Promoter for its American audience, it was adapted by Eric Ambler and directed by Ronald Neame. It was released in 1952. It starred Alec Guinness as Denry Machin, Petula Clark as Nellie Cotterill, Valerie Hobson as the Countess, and Glynis Johns as Ruth Earp. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound.



THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; Alec Guinness and Glynis Johns Play a Crafty Pair in 'The Promoter' at Fine Arts

By BOSLEY CROWTHER, NY Times

Published: October 29, 1952


It is beginning to appear that Alec Guinness has a weakness for rascals and scamps-at least, insofar as they afford him with gay companionship on the screen. He frolicked and fenced with a mass murderer in “Kind Hearts and Coronets” and he gleefully joined in the depredations of robbers and smugglers in “The Lavender Hill Mob.” In “The Man in the White Suit,” he enacted a research chemist who pulled a fast one on his boss. And now, in his latest. “The Promoter,” he is playing an unabashed rogue.


Well, that may be putting it harshly, for the fellow whom Mr. Guinness plays in this new British comedy at the Fine Arts is not exactly a bona fide crook. He is simply an enterprising young man who, in order to make his way in a hard world, invents and resorts to maneuvers a scrupulous person might call sharp. And the only real competition he meets as he pursues his blithe career is an equally crafty young lady, played by Glynis Johns. Neither of these young folk is roguish. They're just fast at embracing the main chance. And the whole amusement and delight in the picture is watching how neatly they perform.


Mr. Guinness' character is a young man, son of a washerwoman in a British industrial town back in the Edwardian era, who, by cheating just a bit when very young, has got himself an education in a high-class public school. By forging his name on an invitation, he gets himself to the countess' ball, elevates his social position and marks himself as a fellow to watch. By outwitting his ponderous employer, he becomes a successful collector of rents, a slick operator of an installment-purchase combine and eventually Mayor of the town. Here and there he even picks up some loose change in a fast deal at salvaging a boat.


And Miss Johns-well, she's a young lady whom our artful promoter meets when he's trying to collect some back rent she owes on her dancing school. A very deceptive miss, this one. Before our hero, with his confident air, has so much as threatened to call the bailiff, she has boffed him with her innocent round eyes. And before the picture is over, she has knotted him up a few times until he-well, his trick on this young lady is the one slim surprise of the film.


And there lies the weakness of this picture. As a sketch of two characters, it is grand, even though the depths of the two characters are never revealed or even probed. Mr. Guinness' scamp is a cross-view of innocent-appearing treacheries-a seeming Milquetoast with monstrous cunning, on whom it is impossible to put your thumb. And Miss Johns' self-propelling young lady is a bundle of feminine guile, but she too is full of contradictions and apparent cross-purposes.


As the countess, Valerie Hobson is lovely and spirited, Petula Clark is sweet as a lady-like thing and Edward Chapman, George Devine and several others are excellent in small provincial roles.


But the script Eric Ambler has adapted from Arnold Bennett's old novel, “The Card,” is provokingly uninfested with dramatic compulsion or push. It just ambles along very gently from one situation to the next, permitting Mr. Guinness primarily to round out his faintly shocking sketch. The trick on Miss Johns is a contrivance with which to wrap up the film. “The Promoter,” while vastly amusing in spots, is not a first-rate Guinness show.


THE PROMOTER, screen play by Eric Ambler, based on the novel. “The Card,” by Arnold Bennett; directed by Ronald Neame; produced by John Bryan. A Ronald Neame Production presented by the J. Arthur Rank Organization and released here by Universal-International. At the Fine Arts Theatre.

Edward Henry Machin . . . . . Alec Guinness

Ruth Earp . . . . . Glynis Johns

The Countess of Chell . . . . . Valerie Hobson

Nellie Cotterill . . . . . Petula Clark

Mr. Duncalf . . . . . Edward Chapman

Mrs. Machin . . . . . Veronica Turleigh

Mr. Calvert . . . . . George Devine

Emery . . . . . Gibb McLaughlin

Police Superintendent . . . . . Frank Pettingell

Mrs. Codleyn . . . . . Joan Hickson

Bank Manager . . . . . Michael Hordern

Mrs. Cotterill . . . . . Alison Leggatt

Shillitoe . . . . . Peter Copley

Widow Hullins . . . . . Dierdre Doyle




Friday, August 12, 2016

“Historic” Muslim primary winner married her brother while she was already married


Islam in America. Respect it! Vote for it, Islamophobes!


“Ilhan Omar: Her back pages,” By Scott Johnson,  Powerline, (thanks to Dr. Andrew Bostom):


Somali American Ilhan Omar defeated 22-term incumbent Phyllis Kahn for the nomination of the DFL to serve as the representative of House District 60B in the state legislature. Omar came in first in a three-way primary race for the nomination in Tuesday's primary. When elected, Omar will be the first Somali American to serve in the Minnesota legislature.


The Star Tribune hailed Omar's victory as “historic” in a celebratory day-after story. How did Omar do it? They're pretty excited about it over at the Star Tribune, as they were when Keith Ellison secured the DFL nomination to represent Minnesota's Fifth Congressional District after a contentious four-way primary in 2006.

A reader has written us to point out that the Somali website Somalispot posted information last week suggesting Omar's involvement in marriage and immigration fraud. The post notes that Omar married Ahmed Hirsi in 2002. Hirsi is the father of Omar's three children. Omar is depicted with Hirsi and their children on Omar's campaign website here.

The post further notes that Omar married her brother Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009, implying that the latter marriage assisted his entry into the United States. Her brother was a British citizen. “As soon as Ilhan Omar married him,” the post continues, “he started university at her lma mater North Dakota State University where he graduated in 2012. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Minneapolis where he was living in a public housing complex and was later evicted. He then returned to the United Kingdom where he now lives.”

Let me note here that Omar's marriage to her brother, if it occurred in fact, is illegal under Minnesota law. I believe it would be void ab initio, as though it never occurred. If it occurred, I infer that it must have taken place for dishonest purposes.

Any such second marriage might be bigamous as well as fraudulent. That is not clear to me. Minnesota law defines bigamy as “knowingly having a prior marriage that is not dissolved” while also “contract a marriage in this state.” Bigamy is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison or a fine up to $10,000. The definition and penalty provisions of the crime of bigamy are set forth in Minn. Stat. § 609.355.

The Somalispot post has been taken down. The item was originally posted here; it is preserved in a Google cache here with accompanying comments. Comments on the Somalispot post suggest that the information is something of an open secret in the Somali community. Inputting the name Ilhan Omar, I have confirmed both marriages as noted in the Somalispot post via the online Minnesota Official Marriage System.

After confirming the marital information online, I reached out to Omar press spokesman Jean Heyer and Omar campaign manager Dan Cox this morning. I left voicemail messages with both of them explaining why I was calling and subsequently sent them the following email message:

I left a voicemail message for you this morning…I write for the website Power Line (powerlineblog.com). This is to request a comment by the close of business today on the information posted on Somalispot last week indicating that Ilhan Omar was married to her brother in 2009 following her marriage to Ahmed Aden (Hirsi) in 2002.


I assume you are familiar with the post. I am inserting the URL to the Google cache of it below my contact information.


I have related questions. Why did she marry her brother? Was the marriage to her first husband legally dissolved? If so, when?


Thank you for your courtesies.


Jean Heyer emailed me late this morning politely thanking me for my email message. Heyer advised me that Omar was out of town and that they would be in touch with me this afternoon. I responded:


Thank you for this timely response. Just fyi, I emailed my message to Dan Cox as well. I would appreciate a written statement


As I think about this, assuming the information I have is correct, it seems to me that the marriage to her brother would be void ab initio and entered into solely for dishonest purposes. I would appreciate your addressing that as well.


This afternoon I received the following email message from Minneapolis criminal defense attorney Jean Brandl on behalf of Omar:


Dear Mr. Johnson:


I have been contacted by the Ilhan Omar campaign. Their response to your email from this morning is as follows:


“There are people who do not want an East African, Muslim woman elected to office and who will follow Donald Trump's playbook to prevent it. Ilhan Omar's campaign sees your superfluous contentions as one more in a series of attempts to discredit her candidacy.


Ilhan Omar's campaign will not be distracted by negative forces and will continue to focus its energy on creating positive engagement with community members to make the district and state more prosperous and equitable for everyone.”


If you have any further questions regarding this matter, please direct them to me in writing so we have a record of any further communications.


Sincerely,


Jean Brandl


The Omar campaign's shoddy imputations of my motives speak loudly for themselves, but let me add that I find them disgusting. Putting the shoddy imputations to one side, however, I take Brandl's message to be the confirmation of a major local story with national implications in light of Omar's “historic” victory.

Any such second marriage might be bigamous as well as fraudulent. That is not clear to me. Minnesota law defines bigamy as “knowingly having a prior marriage that is not dissolved” while also “contract a marriage in this state.” Bigamy is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison or a fine up to $10,000. The definition and penalty provisions of the crime of bigamy are set forth in Minn. Stat. § 609.355.


The Somalispot post has been taken down. The item was originally posted here; it is preserved in a Google cache here with accompanying comments. Comments on the Somalispot post suggest that the information is something of an open secret in the Somali community. Inputting the name Ilhan Omar, I have confirmed both marriages as noted in the Somalispot post via the online Minnesota Official Marriage System.


After confirming the marital information online, I reached out to Omar press spokesman Jean Heyer and Omar campaign manager Dan Cox this morning. I left voicemail messages with both of them explaining why I was calling and subsequently sent them the following email message:


I left a voicemail message for you this morning…I write for the website Power Line (powerlineblog.com). This is to request a comment by the close of business today on the information posted on Somalispot last week indicating that Ilhan Omar was married to her brother in 2009 following her marriage to Ahmed Aden (Hirsi) in 2002.


I assume you are familiar with the post. I am inserting the URL to the Google cache of it below my contact information.


I have related questions. Why did she marry her brother? Was the marriage to her first husband legally dissolved? If so, when?


Thank you for your courtesies.


Jean Heyer emailed me late this morning politely thanking me for my email message. Heyer advised me that Omar was out of town and that they would be in touch with me this afternoon. I responded:


Thank you for this timely response. Just fyi, I emailed my message to Dan Cox as well. I would appreciate a written statement


As I think about this, assuming the information I have is correct, it seems to me that the marriage to her brother would be void ab initio and entered into solely for dishonest purposes. I would appreciate your addressing that as well.


This afternoon I received the following email message from Minneapolis criminal defense attorney Jean Brandl on behalf of Omar:


Dear Mr. Johnson:


I have been contacted by the Ilhan Omar campaign. Their response to your email from this morning is as follows:


“There are people who do not want an East African, Muslim woman elected to office and who will follow Donald Trump's playbook to prevent it. Ilhan Omar's campaign sees your superfluous contentions as one more in a series of attempts to discredit her candidacy.


Ilhan Omar's campaign will not be distracted by negative forces and will continue to focus its energy on creating positive engagement with community members to make the district and state more prosperous and equitable for everyone.”


If you have any further questions regarding this matter, please direct them to me in writing so we have a record of any further communications.


Sincerely,


Jean Brandl


The Omar campaign's shoddy imputations of my motives speak loudly for themselves, but let me add that I find them disgusting. Putting the shoddy imputations to one side, however, I take Brandl's message to be the confirmation of a major local story with national implications in light of Omar's “historic” victory.




The Meat You are Eat is HALAL but USDA Won't Label It


This is an outrage. If the roles were were reversed and it was Muslims being ignored, Muslims whose dietary religious traditions being violated, all hell would break loose.



Pamela Geller: USDA Ignores AFDI Petition to Require All Halal Meat Be Labeled as Such


A great deal of meat sold in this country is halal but is not labeled is such. It's a scandal - but an established practice: meat packers generally do not separate halal meat from non-halal meat, and do not label halal meat as such. We attempted to right that wrong. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture has for four years now ignored, shelved, or just plain refused to rule on our petition.



As many Americans do not, for a variety of reasons, wish to eat halal meat, back in February 2012, my organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), filed a citizen petition with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service, asking that a regulation be enacted to ensure that all halal food be clearly labeled as halal. In April 2012, we agreed not to publicize our petition in order to give the agency some space to review the document without any pressure from the public.


On May 11, 2012, we had a face-to-face meeting in the USDA offices with top FSIS officials. We discussed this petition and the need for halal meat to be clearly labeled. Present at this meeting was Dan Engeljohn, a longtime USDA official who is now Assistant Administrator for the Office of Policy and Program Development (OPPD) in the FSIS. This position makes him responsible for FSIS regulations.


Engeljohn and company have now had four years to rule on our petition. They've done absolutely nothing.


As far back as October 2010, I reported on little-noted but explosive revelations that much of the meat in Europe and the United States was being processed as halal without the knowledge of the non-Muslim consumers who bought it.


Then in November 2011, I penned an article that caused a firestorm across the political spectrum, revealing that Butterball turkeys were all halal, but were not labeled as such. Heads exploded on the left – not over Butterball's deception, but over my having the audacity to reveal it. And the clueless and compromised on the right were enraged as well: John Podhoretz tweeted, “I'd tell Pamela Geller to put a sock in it, but the sock might be halal.”


I was, of course, excoriated as a racist Islamophobic anti-Muslim bigot. In reality, however, we have no objection to halal meat being sold, as long as it is clearly labeled as such, and as long as non-halal meat is available. Meat that is halal must be labeled as such.


Our petition regarding ritual slaughter was posted on the FSIS website on February 14, 2012. It was a “ritual slaughter” petition that applied to all types of ritual slaughter: kosher, halal, etc. Every type of ritual slaughter holds some type of concern for some segment of the consuming public. We were not asking the USDA to single out a specific type of slaughter when dealing with this issue; our petition did not single out one type of ritual slaughter over another, nor did it wish to discriminate against a specific religious group.


We just wanted all meat that had been ritually slaughtered to be clearly labeled to that effect. Kosher meat is routinely marked accordingly; why not halal meat?


Our petition has since been taken down from the FSIS site, but here is a screenshot via the wayback machine.


This is strictly a false labeling and consumer choice issue. Religious people – Jews, Muslims, and others - should have the freedom to have meat and poultry products produced in a way that meets their needs. Conversely, consumers who don't wish to consume ritually slaughtered products have a right to sufficient labeling information.


Under the current system, ritually slaughtered meat and poultry is not sufficiently labeled for consumers to be able to choose exactly what they want. Labeling can be misleading and untruthful in what it does not say if key facts are omitted. Consumers should have the ability to be able to choose for themselves if they want to eat ritually slaughtered products. Some Christians see the New Testament prohibiting the consumption of meat sacrificed to idols, and some would view halal meat as meeting that definition. But under current law, they have no way to avoid eating it.


Just as those who buy meat and poultry products labeled halal or kosher should have a reasonable expectation that the meat they're buying was actually produced in that manner, so also those of us who don't want to eat halal meat for whatever reason should also have a reasonable assurance that meat not labeled halal was not actually slaughtered in accordance with Sharia rules. As halal slaughter increases in the US, the likelihood of unknowingly buying meat sacrificed under the present system also increases.


This is a matter of simple justice and common sense. So why is the USDA stonewalling on our petition?


Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of PamelaGeller.com and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter here. Like her on Facebook here.


 


 




Wednesday, August 10, 2016

In Dubai, 'Sharia Will' Smith calls for “CLEANSING” U.S. of Trump, while Gigi Gorgeous is abused, thrown out of country at @DubaiAirports


Oh, the irony. Will Smith has been lecturing us on diversity and tolerance from, of all places, Dubai. He addressed Trump's stance that Muslim immigrants should be temporarily banned from entering U.S. “As painful as it is to hear Donald Trump talk and as embarrassing as it is as an American to hear him talk, I think it's good,” said Smith. “We get to know who people are and now we get to cleanse it out of our country.”

Smith added the growing amount of Islamophobia in America is why he believes it's important to make stops in places like Dubai. “The Middle East can't allow Fox News to be the arbiter of the imagery.”

What a stupid, awful man.

While Smith was lecturing us, model Gigi Gorgeous was detained and harassed at Dubai airport. Gorgeous said “I was told you are transgender. You cannot come into the country.” Gorgeous should be glad she got out of alive.

Smith's tolerant Dubai and “imagery”:

-American rock drummer jailed for insulting Islam in Dubai during layover


–Rape Victim Charged with illegal sex under islamic Law in “moderate” Dubai


–Norwegian woman raped in “moderate” Dubai is jailed and convicted


-British woman kidnapped and gang-raped in Moderate Dubai… and then SHE is prosecuted for drinking alcohol


Islamic (Shariah) Law: 17 Young Sikhs on Death row in Dubai


Apparently Smith has no problem with the homophobia, creedophobia, Islamic Jew hatred and misogyny inherent in Muslim ruled countries.


While Smith was lecturing us on “Middle East imagery” ……


“Model Gigi Gorgeous Detained at Dubai Airport for Being Transgender,”


By Stephanie Petit, People magazine, August 9, 2016:

Gigi Gorgeous shared an emotional post on Instagram after airport personnel in Dubai detained her for several hours because she is transgender.


The Canadian model, who candidly documented her transition on YouTube, described the ordeal as “one of the scariest moments of my entire life.”


“After being detained and held at the Dubai airport for over 5 hours, this was the moment my baby came to rescue me,” Gorgeous captioned a photo embracing friend Nats Getty.


She continued, “Yesterday was one of the scariest moments of my entire life and I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. How you can be denied entry somewhere just because of who you are is seriously disgusting and also very scary. This further proves the need for CHANGE.”

The 24-year-old model added that she was “safe and sound and happy” and on her way to “somewhere much more accepting.”

Gorgeous recounted the incident to TMZ Tuesday, claiming that the immigration officer in Dubai said, “I was told you are transgender. You cannot come into the country.”

Gorgeous was born Gregory Allan Lazzarto, but she changed her name to Gigi Loren in 2014 and says that is the name that appears in her updated passport. The YouTube personality also says her passport describes her as female, despite airport police telling TMZ the passport has a male photo and describes her as male.

TMZ adds that the “imitation of women by men” is illegal in Dubai, which is part of the Muslim majority nation the United Arab Emirates.

In 2008, encouraged by friends and teachers, Gorgeous – who, at the time, identified as a homosexual male – began posting on YouTube under the moniker Gregory Gorgeous. Her makeup tutorials started out as “fun little projects,” but after a few months she said she was getting recognized at the mall and realized she'd perhaps found her calling.

Her mother died when she was just 19 years old, and the model knew she had to make a change.

“I never got to say it to her face,” she told PEOPLE last year. “ made me realize, 'Life is too short to not do what you want to do. Let's become the most authentic you that you can be.' “


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For more about Pressure Washing Melbourne

For more about Pressure Washing Canberra ACT

Learn about Gutter Cleaning Canberra ACT

Learn About Roof Cleaning Melbourne



Sunday, August 7, 2016

Saturday Night Cinema: A Matter of Life and Death


Tonight I return to a much loved era of film-making - the golden age of British cinema. Regular Saturday Night cinemaphiles are well acquainted with my affection for British World War II and postwar cinema and most particularly the extraordinary British film-making partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger - known as The Archers. Their collaborations - 24 films in all were original stories by Pressburger with the script written by both Pressburger & Powell. Past SCN selections include The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp and Peeping Tom. I have been unable to find two absolute Powell and Pressburger gems, The Red Shoes (brilliant!) and I Know Where I'm Going (delicious!), but we live in hope. Those two films are my own personal favorites, and I confess to recently watching I Know Where I'm Going a number of times.


Tonight's extraordinary film, A Matter of Life and Death (released in the States as A Stairway to Heaven), stars David Niven and Kim Darby. The screenplay for the film was partially inspired by Powell and Pressburger's desire to examine current U.S./Great Britain relations through a fantastical looking glass and by a true account of a Royal Air Force sergeant who leaped from a plane in flames and survived with only minor injuries. David Niven, who had so impressed Powell in his previous film, The Way Ahead (1944), was the director's first and only choice to play pilot Peter Carter. Niven, who had been out of the Hollywood spotlight for six years, later remarked, “Six months is too long for an actor to be out of business – six years is almost certain disaster.” Thanks to Powell, the actor's success in A Matter of Life and Death relaunched his career as an international leading man. The casting of female lead Kim Hunter, on the other hand, was attributed to Alfred Hitchcock who recommended her to Powell after working with the actress on several screen tests.



Stairway to Heaven (1946) is one of the most audacious films ever made - in its grandiose vision, and in the cozy English way it's expressed. The movie, which is being revived at the Music Box in a restored Technicolor print of dazzling beauty, joins the continuing retrospective at the Film Center of 15 other films by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the most talented British filmmakers of the 1940s and 1950s.


“This is the universe,” a voice says at the beginning of Stairway to Heaven. “Big, isn't it?” The camera pans across the skies - but the story, as it develops, is both awesome and intimate, suggesting that a single tear shed for love might stop heaven in its tracks.


The story opens inside the cockpit of a British bomber going down in flames over England in the last days of World War II. The pilot, Peter (David Niven), establishes radio contact with a ground controller, an American named June (Kim Hunter). Peter is unflappable in the face of death, and an instant rapport springs up between the two disembodied voices (“I love you, June. You're life, and I'm leaving it”). Then Peter jumps out of the plane before it crashes.


What follows is a breathtaking pastoral moment, as the pilot, somehow alive, washes ashore and sees a young woman, far away, riding her bicycle home. It is, of course, June, and soon they are deeply in love. But there is a problem. Peter was not intended to live. Heaven has made an error, and an emissary, Heavenly Conductor 71 (Maurice Goring) is sent to fetch him back. Peter refuses to go, and a heavenly tribunal is convened to settle the case. This fantasy is grounded in reality by a brain operation the pilot must undergo; perhaps his heavenly trial is only a by-product of the anesthetic. (Roger Ebert)


David Niven stars as Peter Carter, a dashing squadron leader who bails out of his stricken Lancaster bomber without a parachute. He awakens on a desolate Kent beach, completely unharmed. He goes on to fall in love with June (Kim Hunter), the American radio operator who talked him through what should have been his last few minutes on earth. Turns out Peter's miraculous survival is due to a clerical error in Heaven (although the word “Heaven” is scrupulously avoided in the script), and the celestial pencil-pushers dispatch an emissary to bring him back from the brink of life…


A Matter of Life and Death is one of Powell and Pressburger's warmest and wittiest pictures, and the pair are clearly having fun with all the visual effects at their disposal. The film inverts the famous switch of palette in The Wizard of Oz, presenting the fantasy world in stark monochrome and the earthly plane in vivid Technicolour, an effect still capable of drawing a gasp. It's eye-popping, from Jack Cardiff's luscious cinematography to Alfred Junge's awesome set design. The imagery remains influential, from the vision of an amusingly bureaucratic heaven to the vast stairway between the two worlds.


For all the eye candy on display, the film remains grounded due to the delightful chemistry between Niven and Hunter, and the ever-welcome presence of Roger Livesey as the charming doctor who believes Peter's visions could be the result of a brain injury.




Friday, August 5, 2016

Monk's dream on an open thread


August is jazz month here in the Atlasphere …. and so in keeping with the spirit of featuring true American geniuses in a truly American artform, tonight Monk is the man.



Thelonious Sphere Monk is recognized as one of the most influential figures in the history of jazz. He was one of the architects of bebop and his impact as a composer and pianist has had a profound influence on every genre of music.




Angeles City Martial Arts

Looking to train in Mixed Martial Arts? Are you looking for self-defense or just learning a new sport? These are serious questions you need to ask when you are looking for a school or teacher in martial arts.

​Our school of thought is the Self Defense method. We train in Jeet Kune Do, the original and Concepts method developed by Bruce Lee in the 1960s and early 1970s for self-defense. Many people consider Bruce Lee to be the father of modern-day Mixed Martial Arts. To some degree that may be true, but not as a whole. Bruce was truly only concerned with pure self-defense, he did not care for sports martial arts. He was interested in training for battle, not for trophies or plaques. 

Today at Angeles City Martial Arts we train in various self-defense arts, Jeet Kune Do being the core system. We also train in JiuJitsu, Combat Hapkido, Filipino Martial Arts of Arnis, Dumog and Panatukan, and we also train in Kyusho Jitsu and various techniques from Muay Thai. We only train adult students and teens 16 and older. What we do is not for children.

Although I have taught many children Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido at my schools in the USA, we only teach adults here. To try our Jeet Kune Do Philippines classes just check out our websites and Facebook pages at https://www.facebook.com/AngelesCityMartialArts and www.JKDCombatives.com and give us a call to setup a free class. We teach men and women, in friendly mixed co-ed classes.

Bring a bottle of water, towel and wear gym clothing and tennis shoes. See you in class!