From the San Jose Mercury News there is great news regarding the tree-sitters:

A judge has ruled that officials at the University of California, Berkeley, may remove all tree-sitters protesting a planned new sports center.

I am very pleased the University will now be allowed to kick people off its property who are trespassing. The tree sit has been going on since last December and the hippies need to go.

In another sense, this ruling is timely. Over the weekend someone suggested I should be a lumber jack for Halloween. Also, the end of the tree sit will give Zachary Running Wolf more time to work on recalling Mayor Bates.

Check out these links for further coverage and photos of monday’s speaking event. Here at Michelle Malkin there is a post as well as our favorite undead reporter over at Zombietime. Zombie’s compilation of photos is particularly good; including some of the things I photographed during the evening. Also cross-posted at IncorrectU.

This week’s next IFAW event is tonight at 7pm: a free screening of the movie “Obsession”. It will take place in 60 Evans hall; no large bags or banners will be allowed.

Some preliminary links to keep you entertained while we wait for Nonie. Gateway Pundit detailing the events slated for tonight; with the exception of the event at Pepperdine, which is cancelled due to fires.

7:11 event begins with an introduction from BCR President Ross Lingenfelder. “The purpose of Islamo-Fascism awareness week is to bring attention to our common enemy, radical Islam”

Nonie, as you are aware, is the daughter of the general who invaded Israel in the 60’s, and was brought up in a Jihadist family. Her speech is sponsored by David Horowitz.

7:14 Ms, Darwish takes the stage to jeers of “Fascist; you are nothing but a tool of the United states”. Shouter is rebuked and removed.

Ms Darwish: “As an American, I cherish the freedom of speech”. What a fitting start. “This is not a discussion of good, peace-loving muslims…but an ideology of violence and hatred”

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The IFAW, or Islamo-fascism Awareness Week is sure attracting a lot of attention and opposition. My friend in Alabama had even heard of the counter-efforts going on and reminded me to bring a video camera. Here’s an update of some of the events:

Tonight, Nonie Darwish is speaking at 7pm in 10 Evans. It’s open to anyone, and free, but be advised no large bags or or signs will be allowed in, although there will be a space set aside to leave them safely.

Various members of the media will be in attendance, including (I have been informed) Al-Jazeera.

The opposition is holding a series of events called “Peace not Prejudice” and can be seen around campus in their green shirts.

This is a diverse crowd, containing members of the MSA, the SJP, and my old arabic professor.

Here’s another image of the stylish shirts. Green is assumed to be used here in the islamic context, not just because it’s a nice color. Recall the coloration of the Empire State building for Eid-al-fitr, the end of Ramadan.

Also created (likely those over at Revolution Books) is a poster adversiting the week’s counter-festivities, and it’s fairly interesting. Although not on par with the inflamatory posters over at GWU, it does take the typical crack at the CR’s hosting.

This poster wants opposition members to “expose and defeat” IFAW, which is disturbing, because the event is specifically for “Awareness”. It’s not a promotion of anything but education and is happening in order to bring in new perspectives, so “defeating” awareness sounds like supression of expression to me. How would the Berkeley community react if sexual-harassment awareness was called to be defeated, or awareness about racism?

Aside from this is the poster’s graphic:

It shows a crowd of who I presume to be Hitler Youth set on a college campus, it is tantamount to suggesting that CR’s (indeed anyone who opposes them) are fascist sychophants. Our campus, and indeed most, are predominantly liberal, and the idea that conservative youth are “an ice sheet spreading across campuses” and suppressing liberal values on American campuses is silly and patently false.

However, this is what they want to convey:

The panel “what about US fascism?” is claiming just that. Speaking on behalf of this cause is author Larry Everest, Robert Hernandez, and a video statement from Noam Chomsky.

Tonight is going to be a lot of crazy fun, and I encourage people to come see. I’m going to try to live-blog the event, and at the very least I will be taking photos.

Here’s my photo-update from the Wednesday event. It got some coverage on Drudge report, Instapundit, Michelle Malkin’s blog, as well as others.

Here is Melanie Morgan and another woman singing patriotic songs.

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This week in San Francisco, an idea has been floating around to create and sterile place where drug users can safely use their drugs. The San Francisco Chronicle has a summary of the idea:

About 150 people gathered Thursday in the Mission District to discuss an idea that some say is crazy even for San Francisco: opening a city-funded, legal center where intravenous drug users can congregate, get free needles and inject themselves in a safe environment.

Momentum for such a center seems to be gaining strength among drug reform advocates and some public health workers, who say it will help stop the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, prevent deaths from drug overdoses and keep dirty needles off city streets.

A center like this exists in Vancouver and many have been operating in Europe for several years. However, the article reports no politicians are championing the idea.

I don’t like this safe drug use center idea. It tells people even though it is illegal to use drugs, we are going to make it as safe and easy as possible for you to do so. If drugs are going to be illegal, then the city should not encourage people to break the law.

I would also like to know who would pay for this center. I hope public funds will not be used to buy needles for people who chose to spend their money on drugs.

Tonight was the education debate between the Cal Berkeley Democrats and the Berkeley College Republicans. It was moderated by the Informal Debate Society. The Cal Dems were represented by Ayesha and John, while BCR was represented by Kyle and Derek. Both sides had a freshman debate for them.

BCR’s plan was for the state to give each student a $5,500 voucher. This would allow many students to attend private schools of their parent’s choice. The Dems said privatization was bad and more money should be spend on public schools.

Both sides agreed No Child Left Behind had some bad aspects and standardized tests would only be useful if they tested the right things.

In the context of technology in the classroom, the Dems said doing math on slate boards like they did hundreds of years ago will not help a person with jobs today.

I commend the debaters for their participation. I think BCR came off looking better, but I can be biased.

An anti-CodePink rally in favor of the troops took place today on Shattuck. It was promoted by Melanie Morgan and had a fairly large turnout, including Republican Women’s Federated groups, Move America Forward, vets, and current military members and their families. It got some coverage here, as well as here. I was also in attendance, and will have some photos of both sides up for you soon.

The front page of the San Francisco Chronicle covers two men who dressed as nuns and went to a Roman Catholic church for the purpose of ridiculing it. (As a point of disclosure, I am a Roman Catholic.)

From the paper:

It was a typical Sunday Mass until two men in heavy makeup and nuns’ habits received Holy Communion from San Francisco’s top Catholic official.

On Oct. 7, Archbishop George Niederauer delivered the Eucharist to members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence - an activist group whose motto is “go forth and sin some more” - prompting cries of outrage from conservatives across the country and Catholics in San Francisco.

There is also this exchange of quotes:

Conservative Fox news commentator Bill O’Reilly, who has disparaged “San Francisco values,” called the latest flap another example of how the city is run by “far-left secular progressives who despise the military, traditional values and religion.”

On his Friday news show, O’Reilly called San Francisco “a disgrace on every level.”

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom dismissed O’Reilly’s comments.

“This debate really is about San Francisco values. The Bill O’Reillys of the world are threatened by San Francisco because we value diversity, universal health care and civil rights for all. They will exploit any controversy to attack our values.”

It is incidents like this that discredit the diversity so many people are proud to proclaim. Diversity as I know it involves a minimum level of respect for people, especially if they are different from you or you disagree with them.

The two men are the ones who should apologize. They chose to go into a church service for the reason of disrespecting and ridiculing it. In the same way it would be wrong for a person who disagrees with a gay person’s lifestyle to go into an LGBT meeting to disrupt it or make fun of those present.

Archbishop Niedarauer has nothing to apologize for. He did not withhold the Eucharist from anyone but instead trusted anyone who entered the church and approached him for Holy Communion did so with earnest and honest intentions in accord with the sacrament.

Sometimes when intentional disrespect of people or their beliefs occurs there is a call for hate crime legislation and diversity training. From what I have read online it is hard to say a majority of non-Catholic people condemn the actions of these two men.

The Los Angeles Times covers a program where some University of California campuses receive money for referring students to an online college. According to the LA Times, Capella University operating out of Minneapolis has paid $12,000 to UC Irvine for the students it has received from there. This program is being ended for “appearance of an ethical breach.”

UC Berkeley has a similar agreement, but has not profited from it:

Three of the eight University of California campuses that have extension programs — UCI, UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley — have credit-transfer agreements with Capella, said Chris Harrington, a spokesman for the UC president’s office. Santa Cruz does receive payments. Berkeley, which set up an arrangement similar to UCI’s in 2004, has not received any per-student fees because no one taking a class eligible for referral has transferred.

Berkeley also is ending the program because of the public perception of ethical problems, said Ann Guy, spokeswoman for the university’s extension program.

Shameless plug for Education Debate
If you like talking about education, the Cal Dems and BCR are having a debate on Thursday at 7 PM in 145 Dwinelle. The topic will be K-12 education in California and moderated by the Informal Debate Society.

This Daily Cal article is sort of like a Patriot Blog post in that it contains Ross Lingenfelder and Yaman Salahi in the same place. The Islamo-fascism awareness week that is happening here has getting some attention around the internet with the fake posters at GWU that were attributed to the Young Americas Foundation group there. The events are headed by David Horowitz, who we’ve seen speak here a few times since my freshman year, and are scheduled for Oct 22-26th. There should be some interesting speakers, including Nonie Darwish, and some interesting protesters, including the folks from Revolution Books. Maybe zombie will be there!

the quotes:

“(The week) is an attack on the Muslim community at Cal and in the country, and an effort to marginalize them,” said Yaman Salahi, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine. “It’s also an attack on the free discussion of political issues, especially about foreign policy and the Middle East.”

“The week is about exposing Islamo-Fascism—all different aspects of it” Lingenfelder said. “Women’s rights is a focus, but it’s not what the week is all about.”

I came across this event at Cal referenced at LGF, and upon checking the Daily Clog it doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal, but check it out anyway. the Clog comments are particularly amusing. This from the article:

The event had free food (thank you, Indus club) and reasonably comfortable seating. Not so much with the drama, though. As expected, the speeches were replete with opinions regarding the “Palestinian Question.” But unfortunately, nothing particularly Clogworthy happened.

That is, until the speeches were over. At the event’s conclusion, two men approached me. One grabbed my dysfunctional digital camera, and the other demanded to know “who I was working for.” They asked to “erase what’s on the camera.” I explained that the cam was broken and proceeded to demand its return in a politely profanity-laced manner (I’m sorry, but camera theft is a pet peeve of mine).

I found this article interesting as Hatem was my teacher, and he often speaks at events regarding Palestine. It will be interesting also to see what comes of this, if anything.

Many people in Berkeley do not observe Columbus Day, instead they celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day.

The Patriot would like to wish you a happy Columbus Day.

Painting by Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1547)

In the funny bin this morning, KCBS 740 is reporting an effort to recall Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates will start today.

Opponents of the mayor claim he is too close to developers and his alma mater, Cal Berkeley, and is only trying to get tough on the homeless in order to satisfy business interests. The petition drive is being headed by Zachary Running Wolf, a former mayoral candidate and an organizer of the Berkeley tree sitters, the group protesting the university’s plan to cut down an oak grove to make way for a new athletic training center.

If you want to know how close Bates is to the University, look at how many times the City of Berkeley has sued or threatened to sue UC Berkeley under his watch. Add in the election next year where the mayor will be voted on and the trees that will be killed to make the paper for the petitions and this is ridiculous.

I also think Zachary Running Wolf has less then selfless intentions. Just recently I heard Running Wolf refer to himself as “the next mayor of Berkeley.”