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We're back next weekend. Until then, confusion to our enemies!

The Propagandist's Allies are on the warpath. Better get out of their way, bubba.

• Jailed Cuba dissident dies in hunger strike. "Villar launched his hunger strike shortly after he was arrested in November, put on trial and sentenced to four years in prison for crimes including disobedience, resistance and crimes against the state."
• Defend Freedom of Expression on 11 Feb. Gladly.
• Malawian women protest over 'trouser attacks'. Just try to imagine some retail vendor beating you up and stripping you down in the middle of the street because he doesn't like how you dress. Yes, this really happened.
• France gets a clue, suspends all operations with Afghan army after Afghan soldier murders four French troops. It happened again. "Scores of Nato troops have been shot dead in recent years by their Afghan partners raising fears of widespread Taliban infiltration and underlining the tense relations on the ground between the allies."
• Hamas says it will investigate attack on human rights activist. Sure. Foxes guarding the henhouse.
• The Arab spring through women's eyes. Not looking good.
• Are you now or have you ever been an Islamophobe. Nope.

Confusion to our enemies!

With the Russians now threatening to veto any more robust action against one of their biggest weapons-sales customers, it looks like there won't be any chance of a Libya-style intervention in Syria. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? You decide. Take our poll and tell us what you think should happen.

China doesn't play by the rules of international trade. Labor unions are illegal, workers are mistreated and underpaid and their companies run roughshod over any attempt at environmental protections. Naturally, their corrupt starvation-wages economy has allowed it to continue on as a low-cost provider, bankrupting the competition and closing factories all over the world. And now they're using that ill-gotten economic heft to buy up swathes of strategic resources as raw materials, bypassing what ought to be profitable processing operations on our end. Why do we let them do it?

Recommended reading: China has our forests. Now we're sending our oilfields, too

It's been going on for some time already. Script kiddies from all over the Arab Middle East routinely try to hack in to Israeli websites. But the hackers from Saudi Arabia who shut down the Tel Aviv stock exchange kicked it up a notch. Now the Israelis are hitting back and upping the stakes, taking down the stock exchanges of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Here's the message from the Israeli hackers (or at least someone identifying themselves as such) on pastebin:

## IDF-Team ##

Because lame hackers from Saudi Arabia decided to launch an attack against Israeli sites such as the airport site "EL-AL" and sites of Israeli banks, today, 01/17/12
Official stock exchange site of Saudi Arabia at the following address http://www.adx.ae not be available online and is only the beginning, in addition there may be disruption to the government's stock exchange site at the following:
http://www.sama.gov.sa/
If the lame attacks from Saudi Arabia will continue, we will move to the next level which will disable these sites longer term may come to weeks or even months.
You have been warned.

I assume he did. After all, when a religion is based on the conduct of a pedophilic genocidal mass-murderer who cursed all who chose to walk a different path, it's not surprising that his most vocal followers turn out to be violent dweebs. So much for freedom of speech in the UK:

Just before I was due to start, a young man entered the lecture theatre, stood at the front of the room with a camera and proceeded to film everyone in the audience. That done, he informed us that he knew who we were, where we lived and if he heard a single negative word about the Prophet, he would track us down. (I am told he made further threats as he left the building).
The organisers of the event, the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies called the police and the event was unfortunately cancelled.

If your country has to clarify that your next action "will be of a non-terrorist nature", that isn't exactly reassuring -- and pretty much gives the rest of the world a very blunt reminder about the overall nature of your regime.

If the only thing North Korea's new dictator Kim Jong Un has to do to consolidate power is improve the economy, that seems to be a very low benchmark.

NORTH KOREAN POLLSTER: How do you think our leader is doing on the economy?

NK CITIZEN: Last year, my family had one bag of rice between us. Now we have a bag of rice and a bottle of ketchup! Things really seem to be looking up. It's soooo much better than when that economic disaster Kim Jong Il was in charge.

NORTH KOREAN POLLSTER: Oh, really.

NK CITIZEN: No, wait!

NORTH KOREAN POLLSTER: Off to the gulag with you. And you can leave your ketchup on the table. You won't be needing it where you're going.

The Propagandist's Allies are resurgent, moving forward on all fronts. Here are the latest dispatches:

• What future for Afghan woman jailed for being raped? Afghanistan: where victims are jailed for "adultery by force" -- the force of their attackers, to be precise.
• Let's reframe the Israel debate. "The terms we use undermine Jewish rights to our ancestral homeland. ‘Settlements’ and ‘West Bank’ reinforce a sense that the land has always been Arab, and paint Israelis as colonialist imposters. Yet, until their ethnic cleansing in 1948, Jews had always lived beyond the Green line."
• Zero Tolerance to Prejudice. The rest is commentary. More shenanigans from the London School of Economics.
• Released Burma Dissident: We’re On a Leash. The junta's release of political prisoners should not be seen as a generous concession, but as a long-overdue and very incomplete restoration of some measure of justice.
• Shocker: Pakistan can't come up with a suspect in kidnapping and murder of journalist who criticized Pakistani intel agency. I'm so surprised over this.
• Mercedes-Benz uses mass murderer to sell cars. So what else is new?
• Christian Love. Not what is used to be. Or maybe this is what it has always been.
• Canada sells the oil sands to China. Then complains about ‘foreign interference’ Let's review what's really going on.

Confusion to our enemies!

Now don't start holding your heads up high, junta dudes. Yes, you released 302 political prisoners who shouldn't have been in jail in the first place. There are still hundreds more kept in detention under your barbaric regime. And we haven't even got to the slavery and genocide you've perpetrated against your own people for decades.

So don't start thinking the world owes you favors.