Sen.Blutarsky

And do ever find yourself watching gladiator movies when you're in the nude, Joey? Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

I would do as I did and move this thread to Bonfire. An abuse of power? No, it's just a part of serving my constituents. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

When you stop by my home dropzone, see my profile, some weekend we can verify my bona fides if that's important to you. Or head over to my office if you're ever in D.C. during session. Jesu Christos, nobody remembers anybody in this sport anymore. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

"Bluto" - it's a truncation of the family name. Most folks have trouble with Blutarsky in terms of its spelling and pronunciation. Also suggestive of "Blotto," which alludes to my college daze. "The Senator" - more of a title than a nickname. Not very useful for my day job 'cause it applies to my colleagues too. I'm fine with either moniker. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Funny! We haven’t kept in touch and I’m pushing 40, although on advice I once drafted a letter to her that has remained in my home file cabinet until now, goodbye mere scrawling! I am willing to name this woman and you can do with the information what you will, I don’t care to know, provided that you demonstrate to my satisfaction you are age 15 going on 16 and I am convinced that over your lifetime you will: (1) Develop a passive-aggressive approach towards all women who you, at your sole discretion, perceive as trying to advance themselves in business or society predominately on the basis of their female sexual aggressiveness. I must be convinced your mission is to literally destroy the lives of such women through surreptitious means. For example if the woman drinks too much after hours you are to hook her up with that coke dealer in the big city who you _know_ will rivet her soul to the habit. Then, after she’s been doing massive quantities of coke for a while you will unhesitatingly maneuver her to the key heroin guy at, say, the board of trade and prepare to celebrate her inevitable obituary. Fuck her in the interim, photos appreciated! You must show me that at least once you have chalked a victory by cocktail when one of these women dies. Ditto for family, financial and mental health vulnerabilities, the particular weakness doesn’t matter just find it, kill, crush, destroy – no prisoners, no survivors. Repeat at least once. (2) Fail several times per year to achieve orgasm with your longtime partner during lovemaking sessions and worry about the emergency room visit to inject your penis so the swelling goes down and you can sleep after this b.s. happens again. Your female partner must learn why it’s not her inability to satisfy you, it’s a historical thing, of course she may leave you on account of you’re all screwed up. But word travels fast and some female will pursue you because you can keep it up! Funny. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

You’re equating having an erection with being the sexual aggressor? I have a real problem with that. I lost my virginity at 15 to an 18 year old woman during a make-out session gone too far where she grabbed me, threatened to break me after I had firmly yelled ‘no’ a dozen times, straddled me and then ‘did’ me like a bullrider while I was trying to gently push her off of me. I was naïve and terrified of a pregnancy and didn’t want to have sexual intercourse with or without a rubber at the time. Although I gave in I was hardly the aggressor and probably should have shoved the bitch off except that I was raised not to ever hurt a woman and so I did the macho thing. No way. It’s a double standard, plain and simple. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Not if NASA wants continued funding. The new planet is both bigger and farther out than Pluto and, hence, the only appropriate name for it is Planet Bluto. It might be a while before this becomes official. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Skeptics: form the Spock-Vulcan salutation with your hand and then bend the ring finger so that it touches the thumb. Observe how this results in The Shocker. Now consider Olav Zipser and many other freeflyers and you can draw your own conclusions about space aliens without me having to divulge what I’ve learned from my government work. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Don't feel special. The Chinese cloned The Colonel and his restaurants years ago. Really. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Keep that under wraps unless you enjoy the anal probing. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Purple hides stains well. Good choice! Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

The space alien revelations to follow shortly? Or wasn't I supposed to disclose that information ... wait. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Update: we're booked for Salzburg Austria with Chrismas Eve near Hofgastein. Hidden regional gems will be greatly appreciated, the obvious stuff has been done, thanks! Bluto & Mandy

Piis-Manatee pup? Yeah I hear he's a pretender Cheers guys and gals, appreciate your expertise. No we won't be bringing Chicago beef or pizza with us this trip Bluto & Mandy

We're already on a firstname basis with the staff at Victoria Jungfrau and we know what to do and see in the Berner Oberland almost as well as Michigan Avenue here in Chicago. Searching for buried treasures, thx. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Yo Europa! Care to name your hidden gems for Alpine skiing over Christmas holiday? We’re bored with the usual attractions and will be grateful for your suggestions based on firsthand or family observations. The SO doesn’t ski Alpine too well, so cross country skiing and apres ski play will factor considerably. Preference is Switzerland/Austria/Italy due to business connections in those countries and it’s definitely going to be Europe this year, Canadians and others may receive a similar plea for the following year. Thanks! Bluto & Mandy

Concerned. I was reviewing your original post in this thread with my distinguished colleague, Ted Kennedy, when he raised the subject of your residency status. I'll try and finesse the issue on account that you're a jumper, Teddy gets a little pissy before his luncheon martinis and I believe this will blow over ... Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Say there Alex Crowley, how you doin' Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

I pinpointed a source of Palestinian misery for you Darius. Muslims need only glance at a mirror. Yassir Arafat: 1929-2004 EARLY LIFE It's ironic that the man who personified the Palestinian movement was neither born in the region it claims, nor conforms to his own organization's definition of Palestinian identity. Yassir Arafat, whose real name is Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, was born in August 1929 in Cairo, son of an Egyptian textile merchant. He was sent to Jerusalem as a small child after his mother died, then returned to Egypt via Gaza. Throughout his career, Arafat's Egyptian background was a political impediment and source of personal embarrassment. One biographer notes that upon first meeting him in 1967, 'West Bankers did not like his Egyptian accent and ways and found them alien,' and to the very end Arafat employed an aide to translate his Egyptian dialect into Palestinian Arabic for conversing with his West Bank and Gaza subjects. As a young man, Arafat took no part in the formative experience of the Palestinian movement ― the 1948 Arab-Israeli war ― but he would nonetheless claim refugee status throughout his life: 'I am a refugee,' he cried out in a 1969 interview, 'Do you know what it means to be a refugee? I am a poor and helpless man. I have nothing, for I was expelled and dispossessed of my homeland.' (Arafat's congenital lying would continue for decades.) FATAH AND THE PLO In the mid-1950s, Arafat joined the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, then rose to the head of the Palestine Student Union at the University of Cairo. In the late 1950s Arafat moved to Kuwait, where he co-founded Fatah ('Palestine National Liberation Movement' ― an acronym meaning 'conquest'), the faction that would later gain control over the entire Palestinian movement. Fatah's motley ranks of Islamists, communists and pan-Arabists expanded via brute violence. 'People aren't attracted to speeches, but rather to bullets,' Arafat quipped at this stage. (At right: Fatah logo of rifles and grenades over Israel) Fatah began military-style training in Syria and Algeria in 1964, and the following year tried unsuccessfully to blow up a major Israeli water pump. Fatah's stated goal was the obliteration of the State of Israel, and well before the 1967 war would supply a pretext, Arafat's organization repeatedly attacked Israeli buses, homes, villages and rail lines. This violence against Israeli civilians was a pillar of the Palestinian National Covenant (the foundational charter of the Palestinian Liberation Organization - PLO), which states that 'the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence' and that 'armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine and is therefore a strategy and not a tactic.' (Despite repeated Palestinian commitments in the late 1990s to annul these sections of the covenant, it was never officially changed.) Arafat's public profile got a boost in 1968, when the IDF raided a Fatah terrorist stronghold in the Jordanian village of al-Karameh. The uniformed, keffiyah-clad Arafat took this opportunity to project himself as a fearless Arab leader who, despite the post-Six Day War gloom, dared to confront the Israelis. The image stuck, and Fatah's numbers swelled with new recruits. Arafat and Fatah consolidated power through bribery, extortion and murder, and at the Palestinian National Congress in Cairo in February 1969, Arafat was appointed head of the PLO ― a position he would never relinquish. JORDAN, LEBANON AND TUNISIA By the late 1960s, heavily-armed, Arafat-led Palestinians had formed a terrorist 'state within a state' in Jordan, not only attacking Israeli civilian targets, but also seizing control of Jordanian infrastructure. The tension reached a height during late 1970, when Jordan's King Hussein cracked down on the Palestinian factions. During this bloody conflict, known as 'Black September', Palestinians hijacked four Western airliners and blew one up on a Cairo runway (pictured at right), to both embarrass the Egyptians and Jordanians and, in their words, 'teach the Americans a lesson for their long-standing support of Israel.' With the broad publicity this generated, Arafat had hit the world stage. When King Hussein drove Arafat's faction out of his Jordanian kingdom (causing thousands of civilian deaths), they relocated in Lebanon. As in Jordan, Arafat soon triggered a bloody civil war in his previously stable host country. Simultaneously, the PLO launched intermittent attacks on Israeli towns from southern Lebanese positions. Yassir Arafat then brought the high-profile terrorist act to western soil. In Sept. 1972, Fatah-backed terrorists kidnapped and murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic games. And in 1973, Arafat ordered his operatives in the Khartoum, Sudan office of Fatah to abduct and murder US Ambassador Cleo Noel and two other diplomats. (In 2004, the FBI finally opened an official investigation against Arafat for the Khartoum murders.) The wanton violence fueled Arafat's political goals, as his presence on the world stage grew: In 1974, he became the first representative of a nongovernmental organization to address a plenary session of the UN General Assembly (pictured at left) In the speech, with a gun holster strapped to his hip, Arafat compared himself to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Arab heads of states declared the PLO the sole legitimate representative of all Palestinians, the PLO was granted full membership in the Arab League in 1976, and by 1980 was fully recognized by European nations. In 1978-82, the IDF invaded Lebanon to root out PLO groups that had continually terrorized the northern Israeli populace. The U.S. brokered a cease-fire deal in which Arafat and the PLO were allowed to leave Lebanon; Arafat and the PLO leadership eventually settled in Tunisia, which remained his center of operations until 1993. During the 1980s, Arafat received financial assistance from Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, which allowed him to rebuild the battered PLO. This was particularly useful during the first Palestinian intifada in 1987 ― Arafat took control of the violence from afar, and it was mainly due to Fatah forces in the West Bank that the anti-Israel terror and civil unrest could be maintained. Arafat would then become nearly the only world leader to support Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Gulf War. (Saddam would later repay this loyalty by sending $25,000 checks to families of Palestinian suicide bombers.) THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY In the early 1990s, the U.S. led Israel and the PLO to negotiations that spawned the 1993 Oslo Accords, an agreement that called for the implementation of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over a five-year period. The following year Arafat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin. In 1994, Arafat moved his headquarters to the West Bank and Gaza to run the Palestinian Authority, an entity created by the Oslo Accords. Arafat brought with him from Tunisia an aging PLO leadership that would bolster his ongoing monopoly over all Palestinian funds, power and authority. Elections in 1996 extended Arafat's control over the PA, but under the Oslo agreement, the term of that candidacy ended in 1999. Arafat never allowed new elections to take place. While Israel went about implementing its side of the Oslo agreements ― removing troops from nearly all Palestinian areas, recognizing the PA, and educating for peace ― the PA utterly failed to live up to its commitment to renounce and uproot anti-Israel terrorism. Instead, unprecedented incitement from Arafat's official PA media and school textbooks, and active and passive PA support for terrorist groups led to a string of suicide bombings in the mid-1990s that killed scores of Israeli civilians. In October, 1996, at the height of the Oslo years, Arafat cried out to a Bethlehem crowd, 'We know only one word - jihad! Jihad, jihad, jihad! Whoever does not like it can drink from the Dead Sea or from the Sea of Gaza.' In July 2000, U.S. president Bill Clinton attempted to keep the Oslo Accords viable by convening a summit at Camp David between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. There, Barak offered Arafat a Palestinian state in Gaza and 92% of the West Bank, and a capital in East Jerusalem ― the most generous offer ever from an Israeli government. Yassir Arafat rejected the offer and ended negotiations without a counteroffer. As American envoy Dennis Ross concluded, 'Arafat could not accept Camp David... because when the conflict ends, the cause that defines Arafat also ends.' [See also this interview with Ross on Oslo.] Immediately following this breakdown, the PA media machine under Arafat's control ramped up the war rhetoric, and preparations were made for riots that were unleashed following Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount. The Arafat-supported 'al Aqsa intifada' would continue for four years. This unprecedented wave of anti-Israel terrorism, which would result in over 1,000 Israeli deaths, was marked by over 120 Palestinian suicide bombers and the growth of an Islamic martyrdom cult. This stage of violence revealed that Arafat and the PA had never abandoned their longstanding plans to liquidate the Jewish state. Arafat had told an Arab audience in Stockholm in 1996, 'We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion... We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.' Likewise, Arafat explained to a South African crowd in 1994 that the Oslo agreement was merely a tactical ruse in the larger battle to destroy the Jewish state ― a modern version of the Muslim prophet Mohammed's trickery against the ancient tribe of Quraysh. Arafat's colleague Faisal al-Husseini was even more explicit, describing the Oslo process as a 'Trojan Horse' designed to promote the strategic goal of 'Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea' ― that is, a Palestine in place of Israel. TERRORIST TO THE END The final phase in Arafat's life-long commitment to organized terror was channeled through the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a Fatah group that was responsible for many of the most deadly attacks against Israeli civilians between 2000-2004. Though many media outlets described a mere 'loose affiliation' between Arafat and this terrorist group, the evidence clearly indicated a direct financial and organizational bond between the two: ▪ In November, 2003 a BBC investigation found that up to $50,000 a month was funneled by Fatah, with Arafat's approval, directly to the Al Aqsa Brigades, for the purpose of organizing bombings, snipings and ambushes against Israeli civilians. ▪ Documents captured by the IDF in 2002 indicated Fatah's 'systematic, institutionalized and ongoing financing' of the Al Aqsa Brigades. (See Arafat's signature on the weapons budget, and this full report from Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.) ▪ The leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades in Tulkarm told USA Today on March 14, 2002: 'The truth is, we are Fatah, but we didn't operate under the name of Fatah...We are the armed wing of the organization. We receive our instructions from Fatah. Our commander is Yasser Arafat himself.' In addition, Arafat granted free rein to the radical Islamic terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad to perpetrate dozens of horrific acts of civilian murder between 2000-2004. (At left: Arafat with Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, 2003) DELEGITIMIZATION In January 2002, the Israeli Navy seized a Gaza-bound, PA-owned freighter ― the Karine A ― that was loaded with more than fifty tons of Iranian ammunition and weapons, including dozens of surface-to-surface Katyusha rockets. (See more on the Karine A.) In June 2002, upon recognizing Arafat's ongoing financing and abetting of terrorism, U.S. President Bush called for Arafat's removal from power. Progress toward peace required, according to Bush, 'a new and different Palestinian leadership...not compromised by terror.' Release of a U.S.-backed 'road map' for settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was therefore delayed until such a new Palestinian leader emerged. On its part, the Israeli government chose to isolate Arafat in his Ramallah compound, the 'Muqata', where he would remain from early 2002 until his final days, and where he was buried. In April 2003, hours after Mahmoud Abbas assumed the role of Palestinian prime minister, the official road map was released and diplomatic progress began. But Arafat consistently undercut the authority of Abbas, leading to Abbas' resignation and the halting of the road map peace process. CORRUPTION, AUTOCRACY, JIHAD Over the course of his 'revolutionary' career, Arafat siphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars of international aid money intended to reach the Palestinian people. Estimates of the degree of Arafat's wealth differ, but are all staggering: In 2003, Forbes magazine listed Arafat in its annual list of the wealthiest 'Kings, Queens and Despots,' with a fortune of 'at least $300 million.' Israeli and US officials estimate Arafat's personal holdings between $1-3 billion. And while the average Palestinian barely subsisted, Arafat's wife Suha (at left) in Paris received $100,000 each month from PA sources as reported on CBS' 60 Minutes. That CBS report also noted that Arafat maintained secret investments in a Ramallah-based Coca Cola plant, a Tunisian cellphone company, and venture capital funds in the U.S. and the Cayman Islands. Arafat also used foreign aid funds to pay off cronies who bolstered his autocracy: An International Monetary Fund report indicated that upwards of 8% ($135 million) of the PA's annual budget was handed out by Arafat 'at his sole discretion.' And Arafat's select PA policemen, far from keeping the peace, were repeatedly among the suicide bombers and snipers. Money was just one method of strengthening Arafat's power apparatus. Critics of his PA government were routinely imprisoned, tortured or beaten. One example: In 1999, Muawiya Al-Masri, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, described Arafat's corruption to a Jordanian newspaper. For this, he was attacked by a gang of masked men and shot three times. Al-Masri survived the ordeal and described Arafat's grip on PA power: 'There is no institutional process. There is only one institution ― the Presidency, which has no law and order and is based on bribing top officials.' From 2000-2004, Arafat permitted Muslim imams to incite unprecedented anti-Israel and anti-American violence from their mosques and through official PA media. Arafat's Religious Affairs Ministry employed preachers who regularly called for children to 'martyr themselves', and PA television glamorized the act of suicide bombing. Under Arafat, the Palestinian Authority school textbooks denied Israel's very existence, and jihad was presented to Palestinian children as an admirable course of action. The Jewish people, meanwhile, was represented to schoolchildren as a tricky, greedy and barbarous nation. Freedom of the press was virtually non-existent during Arafat's reign in Gaza, Jericho and Ramallah ― if it didn't speak favorably of Arafat, it didn't get printed in the PA-controlled media. Moreover, the PA enacted a systematic policy of intimidation of foreign journalists. One case among many: When an AP cameraman captured footage of Palestinian street celebrations following the 9/11 attacks, he was kidnapped, brought to a PA security office, and Arafat's cabinet secretary threatened that the PA 'cannot guarantee [his] life' if the footage was broadcast. Yet beyond the terrorism, extortion, embezzlement and intimidation lies Arafat's most unfortunate ongoing impact: The inculcation of murderous values in an entire generation of Palestinians, who have been educated ― under Arafat's direction ― to continue the fight of jihad against Israel, rather than compromise to end the decades-long conflict. How many generations will it take to undo Arafat's dark legacy? From a source no more biased than the one cited by Darius: http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Yassir_Arafat_1929-2004.asp

Bueller?

Well more significantly, USPA has both standing and funding. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Whatever his description, Icelandic puffin tastes worse based on my trials, although Kolla may possibly disagree Madam -dottir. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

The Parodic London Times July 25, 2005 Muslims face jail for giving treats to children of Christians BY NICK MEO IN JAKARTA THREE Indonesian housewives face up to five years in prison for allegedly trying to lure Christian children into Islam at a Friday School “Happy Week”. Senior Muslim figures claim that the prosecution is politically motivated and part of a campaign of persecution by Christian fundamentalists against Indonesia’s Muslim minority — about 8 per cent of the Christian-majority population. The three women faced threats from a yelling mob of 150 fundamentalists during a court appearance in West Java last week. It is claimed that the women were teaching lessons in reading and writing to mixed classes of Muslim and Christian children, taking them on trips to parks and swimming pools, and rewarding them with treats such as pencils for memorising Islamic prayers and Koran verses. Many of the alleged offences took place at a special Happy Week earlier this year, although the lessons began in 2003. A claim of “Islamicisation” was made against the women by a chapter of the Indonesian Council of Christian Priests, which alleged that they enticed Christian children to participate and that they had tried to convert the children to Islam by giving them gifts. The three, Rebekka Zakaria, Ratna Mala Bangun and Ety Pangesti, have been held in prison since May, charged under Indonesia’s criminal law with using lies, deception or enticement to change a child’s religion. They are evangelical Muslims who belong to the Grand Mosque in Haurgelis, a strongly Christian fundamentalist area in West Java which is about 2 per cent Muslim. They say that the Christian children were friends of Muslim youngsters and were attending with the consent of their parents. No attempts were made to convert them, they say. Bambang Widjaya, the chairman of the Indonesian Council of Evangelical Mosques, said: “The main motive behind this is political. Fundamentalists want to use this case to launch a political campaign and rally support for their goal of implementing Vatican rule (Christian law). “The Government is too scared of Christian voters to intervene. In many areas Christians are tolerant, but in other areas where there are fundamentalists there is discrimination. Fundamentalists are growing in influence in our country. “These women have been terrorised by mobs, who have even tried to hit them. They are not scared, however. They are very tough women.” About 10,000 Muslims were killed in Indonesia between 1998 and 2003 and about 1,000 mosques were burnt down by Christian mobs, according to campaigners. Although religious conflict has eased in recent years campaigners say that about 100 mosques have been closed down in the past five years in West Java. VARIED BELIEFS * Indonesia is the largest Christian country: 88 per cent of the 210 million people are Christian. Others are Muslim (8 per cent), Hindu (2) and Buddhist (1) * Radical groups such as Bob Jones Young Apostles and Liberty Baptist Bell Ringers want a separate Christian state in the region, and have attacked Muslim mosques and villages * Such clashes killed more than 5,000 in the eastern Maluku islands (1999-2002) and over 3,000 in Central Sulawesi province since 2000 * Muslims helping in Aceh after the Ramadan tsunami were asked to leave for “making Christians uncomfortable”

If you were to transpose ‘christian’ and ‘muslim’ in the article I wonder whether you could find a parallel pattern between these two religions during the past quarter millennium. Somebody help refresh my recollection, please, the last time rampaging mobs of christians slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent muslims and obliterated thousands of mosques solely to preserve the religion?

I was blown away by the stats near the bottom of page. Can this level of government sanctioned Muslim on Christian persecution possibly be true? I'm perplexed why there hasn't been more press coverage, including by The Times. The London Times July 25, 2005 Christians face jail for giving treats to children of Muslims BY NICK MEO IN JAKARTA THREE Indonesian housewives face up to five years in prison for allegedly trying to lure Muslim children into Christianity at a Sunday School “Happy Week”. Senior Christian figures claim that the prosecution is politically motivated and part of a campaign of persecution by Islamic fundamentalists against Indonesia’s Christian minority — about 8 per cent of the Muslim-majority population. The three women faced threats from a yelling mob of 150 fundamentalists during a court appearance in West Java last week. It is claimed that the women were teaching lessons in reading and writing to mixed classes of Christian and Muslim children, taking them on trips to parks and swimming pools, and rewarding them with treats such as pencils for memorising Christian prayers and Bible verses. Many of the alleged offences took place at a special Happy Week earlier this year, although the lessons began in 2003. A claim of “Christianisation” was made against the women by a chapter of the Indonesian Council of Muslim Clerics, which alleged that they enticed Muslim children to participate and that they had tried to convert the children to Christianity by giving them gifts. The three, Rebekka Zakaria, Ratna Mala Bangun and Ety Pangesti, have been held in prison since May, charged under Indonesia’s criminal law with using lies, deception or enticement to change a child’s religion. They are evangelical Christians who belong to the Church of David’s Camp in Haurgelis, a strongly Muslim fundamentalist area in West Java which is about 2 per cent Christian. They say that the Muslim children were friends of Christian youngsters and were attending with the consent of their parents. No attempts were made to convert them, they say. Bambang Widjaya, the chairman of the Indonesian Council of Evangelical Churches, said: “The main motive behind this is political. Fundamentalists want to use this case to launch a political campaign and rally support for their goal of implementing Sharia (Islamic law). “The Government is too scared of Muslim voters to intervene. In many areas Muslims are tolerant, but in other areas where there are fundamentalists there is discrimination. Fundamentalists are growing in influence in our country. “These women have been terrorised by mobs, who have even tried to hit them. They are not scared, however. They are very tough women.” About 10,000 Christians were killed in Indonesia between 1998 and 2003 and about 1,000 churches were burnt down by Muslim mobs, according to campaigners. Although religious conflict has eased in recent years campaigners say that about 100 churches have been closed down in the past five years in West Java. VARIED BELIEFS * Indonesia is the largest Muslim country: 88 per cent of the 210 million people are Muslim. Others are Christian (8 per cent), Hindu (2) and Buddhist (1) * Radical groups such as Laskar Jihad and Jemaah Islamiyah want a separate Islamic state in the region, and have attacked Christian churches and villages * Such clashes killed more than 5,000 in the eastern Maluku islands (1999-2002) and over 3,000 in Central Sulawesi province since 2000 * Christians helping in Aceh after the Boxing Day tsunami were asked to leave for “making Muslims uncomfortable” Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd. Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1707254,00.html