TEXAS MOVES TOWARD IRAN DIVESTMENT

Texas Governor Asks State Pensions to End Investments in Iran - Darrell Preston
Texas Governor Rick Perry asked the state's largest public pension funds to stop investing in companies doing business in Iran because of its support of state-sponsored terrorism and aggressive stance against Israel. Perry requested that the $24.9 billion Employee Retirement System and $108 billion Teachers Retirement System pull investments from some of the 400 companies with ties to Iran. "While Texas cannot set its own foreign policy, we can send a strong message that Texans will not condone Iran's continued support of those seeking to do harm to our men and women in uniform,'' Perry said. (Bloomberg)

TEXAS ISP HOSTS PALI ISLAMIC JIHAD WEBSITE

Lonely Planet by Jonathan V. Last (Weekly Standard)

I wrote a piece last week for THE WEEKLY STANDARD about American internet service providers who host websites for jihadists. In the course of reporting the piece I came across an Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Texas called The Planet. According to both MEMRI and a whois search, The Planet hosts the website of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

PIJ is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S. State Department for, among other things, killing 162 people by suicide attack over the last 12 years. There is more if you care to read it. The point is, PIJ is not a small, insignificant group. They're bad guys.

It should be noted that hosting the website of an FTO is illegal. As MEMRI points out:

section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act states that it is unlawful to provide a designated FTO with "material support or resources," including "any property, tangible or intangible, or services," including "communication equipment and facilities."

During the course of reporting the story, I interviewed Yvonne Donaldson, the PR director at The Planet. As I noted in my piece, when asked about her company's dealings with PIJ, Donaldson replied curtly, "We don't police the content of our websites."

I asked Donaldson if she was aware that her company hosted the website sarayaalquds.org. She said, "I've never heard of that website." I asked her if she knew of the site's connection to PIJ. She said, "I don't know anything about the site or this group." I asked her if she would like me to tell her about them. She responded, "No, I would not."

After a few moments of stunned silence--every other ISP I had spoken with was eager to keep jihadists off of their servers--I informed Donaldson that PIJ was designated as an FTO and that The Planet was likely in violation of federal law by doing business with them. She remained unmoved.

Later Donaldson emailed me a statement, reading:

As a service provider, we don't police or control the content of Web sites for any of our customers. By U.S. law – and the power of the Constitution – any person or organization is freely able to express their opinions, even if we don't agree with the content.

At The Planet, we absolutely comply with U.S. law and also clearly delineate our Acceptable Use Policy, known in the industry as an AUP. If we discover there is a credible threat or some type of pending harm, we notify and work closely with the appropriate authorities.

That was on July 26. Today, The Planet is still hosting the PIJ website, in apparent non-compliance with U.S. law.

TEXAS HOLOCAUST LESSON MAY HAVE CROSSED THE LINE

Did Holocaust lesson go too far? (CBS-Fort Worth, TX)
It was meant to be a lesson about the Holocaust. But a school experiment in Texas is coming under fire....

One parent, who did not want to be identified, has a child who participated in the three week project. Anywhere from 50 to 100 9th graders taking an advanced placement geography class were designated as Jews and made to wear a Star of David on their I. D. badge. Other students were designated as Germans.

Rumors circulated that some students had been spit on, pushed, kicked and tripped. The parent said, if the rumors were true, it was, "totally uncalled for. It should not have been allowed to happen. If they would have stopped it sooner, it wouldn’t of got to that point.”

Of the program, the school's principal, John Aune, said students were "learning about the problems of intolerance and the problems of discrimination and helping kids understand what some people went through to change the world.”

According to students and teachers, the assigned Jews were forced to stand against the wall as the German students passed by in the hallway. The Jewish students ate lunch last and had to pick up every one's garbage. But some students say things began to escalate.

"We made beating sticks to hit the kids with," said Texas Medley, a student at the school. They were spit on. It was a good lesson but it went on too long.”

"They would spit on them. They would push them down the stairs. They would be really rude," said student Tiffany Zimmerman. "I think it was too rough and over the edge. They took it too far.”

TEXAS, GEORGIA LAW MAKERS BLAME JEWS FOR EVOLUTION

‘Big bang’ Kabbalah campaign tied to lawmakers (JTA)
State lawmakers in Georgia and Texas have been tied to a memo blaming Kaballah for the “Big Bang” theory of the creation of the universe.

“Indisputable evidence — long hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that so-called ‘secular evolution science’ is the Big Bang, 15-billion-year, alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion,” the memo says, according to The Associated Press. “This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic ‘holy book’ Kabbala dating back at least two millennia.”

The memo has been tied to the offices of conservative Republican lawmakers who reject evolution. It was written by Marshall Hall, who ran an election campaign for Georgia State Rep. Ben Bridges. Warren Chisum, a powerful lawmaker in the Texas state house, has distributed the memo. On his Web site, www.fixedearth.com, Hall describes Albert Einstein as a kabbalist, and says the ancient Jewish mystical discipline is “anti-bible” and “anti-Christ.”

The Anti-Defamation League on Thursday asked Bridges to repudiate the memo’s contents. Bridges has distanced himself from the memo, which Hall originally distributed in Bridges’ name.