Robert Spencer author Wikipedia. Robert Bruce Spencer born February 2. American author and blogger and a key figure of the counter jihad movement in the United States. He appears frequently on Fox News2 and has given seminars to various law enforcement units in the United States. Spencer, a self proclaimed expert on radical Islam,4 has published a number of books on the subject including two New York Times bestsellers. In 2. Jihad Watch, a blog which he describes as containing news of the international jihad, and commentary6 which is dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology plays in the modern world, and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern day conflicts. He has also co founded Stop Islamization of America SIOA and the Freedom Defense Initiative with blogger Pamela Geller, with whom he also co authored a book, The Post American Presidency The Obama Administrations War on America. MJ6RXco7B19G4zI18nIpu8IGMzrN_SGta_seb8JBpKVM9RBtJOWJj4pR3yytLGRhMC0=h900' alt='Watch What Drink Did Online Ibtimes' title='Watch What Drink Did Online Ibtimes' />NASA astronaut and biochemist Peggy Whitson will return to Earth as the planets new record holder for longest time cumulatively spent on space by an American or a. After more than 25 years of anonymity, the woman who played the teacher in Van Halens Hot for Teacher music video has come forward. Her name is Lillian Muller and. Scientists have identified neurons in the brain, which when triggered or suppressed, can increase or decrease the desire to drink water a basic instinct shared by. Screen Grabs Fox News contributor Erik Rush calls for death of all Muslims. Fox says 120 of the American public believe scientists may have falsified global warming. Watch What Drink Did Online Ibtimes IndiaHis viewpoints have been described as anti Islamic or Islamophobic,8 while he denies this and says he focuses his criticism on radical Islam and its violence. In 2. UK Home Office has barred Spencer and Geller from travel to the UK for 3 to 5 years for making statements that may foster hatred that might lead to inter community violence. Background. Spencer is a member of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the Eastern Catholic Antiochian Greek Catholic counterpart of the ancient Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch. It is a sui iuris church of the Catholic Church whose adherents are, according to Spencer, mostly concentrated in Lebanon and Syria, also in Jordan and the Palestinian territories. In a 2. Spencer stated that his grandparents were forced to emigrate from an area that is now part of Turkey because they were Christians. According to a 2. New York magazine, Spencers father worked for the Voice of America during the Cold War, and in his younger days, Spencer himself worked at Revolution Books, a Maoist bookstore in New York City founded by Robert Avakian. Spencer received an M. Watch Dead Story Online. A. in 1. 98. 6 in religious studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His masters thesis was on Catholic history. He has said he has been studying Islamic theology, law, and history since 1. He worked in think tanks for more than 2. Free Congress Foundation, an arm of the Heritage Foundation. Spencer named Paul Weyrich, also a Melkite Catholic, as a mentor of his writings on Islam. Spencer writes, Paul Weyrich taught me a great deal, by word and by example  about how to deal both personally and professionally with the slanders and smears that are a daily aspect of this work. Views on Islam. Spencer does not believe that traditional Islam is inherently terroristic but says he can prove that traditional Islam contains violent and supremacist elements, and that its various schools unanimously teach warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. However, he rejects the notion that all Muslims are necessarily violent people. He has said that among moderate Muslims, there are some who are genuinely trying to frame a theory and practice of Islam that will allow for peaceful coexistence with unbelievers as equals. Spencer co founded Stop Islamization of America SIOA and the American Freedom Defense Initiative AFDI with Pamela Geller in 2. Both organizations are designated as hate groups by the Anti Defamation League1. Southern Poverty Law Center. In an interview with The Washington Post he was. Spencer chuckled. Why not he asked. Its fun. 2. 2The Council on American Islamic Relations has also condemned Robert Spencer on various occasions. Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto accused Spencer of falsely constructing a divide between Islam and West. She said he was using the Internet to spread hatred of Islam by presenting a skewed, one sided, and inflammatory story that only helps to sow the seed of civilizational conflict. Spencer stated that the passage Bhutto cited was written by Ibn Warraq. Karen Armstrong has criticized Spencers work as showing entrenched hostility towards Islam, and contends that his citations of Islamic scripture are cherry picked,2. Spencer never cites the Korans condemnation of all warfare as an awesome evil, its prohibition of aggression or its insistence that only self defence justifies armed conflict. She concludes that His book is a gift to extremists who can use it to prove. Spencer responds Yet the verse she quotes 2 2. Persecution is worse than killing. Spencer accuses Armstrong of context dropping by omitting the fact that this was a defense for Muhammads war in response to his persecution. Abraham Foxman of the Anti Defamation League ADL called Spencer and Geller American anti Muslim writers because their writings promote a conspiratorial anti Muslim agenda under the pretext of fighting radical Islam. This belief system parallels the creation of an ideologicaland far more deadlyform of anti Semitism in the late 1. He continued, we must always be wary of those whose love for the Jewish people is born out of hatred of Muslims or Arabs. The Institute on Religion and Democracy said about him Spencers comprehensive understanding of his Christian faith and Islam along with lucidly insightful writing give the lie to his international notoriety as a bigoted Islamophobe. Dinesh DSouza, of the Hoover Institution, wrote that Spencer downplays the passages of the Quran that urge peace and goodwill to reach one sided opinions. He contends that Spencer applies a moral standard to Muslim empires that could not have been met by any European empire. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting FAIR listed Spencer as a Smearcaster in an article in 2. Islamic texts and commentaries, Spencer concludes that Islam is innately extremist and violent. During a chapter of ACT America in Mission Vejo in 2. Spencer said that When we see the Islamic State ISIS, we see not only that they embody Islam as I have explained here in this, thats all in the Quran what they do, but also that they embody what may be, the foremost evil force that the world has ever seen. Steve Bannon praised him Hes one of the top two or three experts in the world on this great war we are fighting against fundamental Islam. Reverend C. John Mc. Closkey praised him Robert Spencer, perhaps the foremost Catholic expert on Islam in our country. Author Peter D. Hannaford praised his book Did Muhammad Exist He has engaged in concerted detective work of a scholarly nature. His book is no polemic. It is a serious quest for facts. The ones wrapped up in the Muslim canon are, alas, elusive. This book is well written and moves right along despite considerable detail. Wolf Bachner from the website Inquisitr defended him in the introduction for an interview Spencer uses the authentic teachings of the Quran and the Hadith, decades of Islamic Jurisprudence and the actual words of living Islamic clerics and leaders to illustrate the undying hostility expressed towards the non Muslim world by centuries of Islamic doctrine. Controversies. On December 2. Pakistan announced a ban on Spencers book, The Truth About Muhammad, citing objectionable material as the cause. Onward Muslim Soldiers was banned in Malaysia on July 1. In 2. 00. 9, Spencer was asked to participate in an information session about Islam and Muslims designed for ethnic and multicultural librarians entitled Perspectives on Islam Beyond the Stereotyping, at the 2. American Library Association, which was sponsored by the ALAs Ethnic Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table EMIERT. After objections were raised by ALA members and the general public, the three other panelists withdrew in protest and the session was ultimately canceled. Navya driverless bus makes UK debut at Heathrow Airport. As Tesla and the rest of the car industry excites us with the promise of autonomous driving, it could be argued that more mundane modes of transport are already miles ahead. An example is the Arma, an electric and fully autonomous shuttle bus produced by French company Navya and already ferrying customers on the public roads of Australia, Singapore, Germany, Switzerland and Las Vegas. The bus, which can operate for up to 1. UK on 2. 4 January. IBTimes UK attended the event, which took place at the car park of Compass Centre, the nerve centre of Londons Heathrow Airport. Although Heathrow is yet to commit to using the buses, even on a trial basis, it is a prime contender for Navyas first UK fleet. The buses would be used to ferry customers from Heathrows car parks and into the terminal buildings. Henri Coron, vice president of sales at Navya, told IBTimes UK how the bus is aimed at the first and last mile of every journey. We carried more than 1. The demonstration at Heathrow saw the bus navigate a busy carpark during a lap of roughly 6. The Navya team spent six hours plotting the route and uploading it to the bus, which is then able to drive without assistance, comparing the route to what it can see with cameras and lidar sensors. The bus we rode in is an older experimental prototype and Navya say its newest vehicles as used during a trial in Las Vegas in January can navigate around surprise obstructions and read road signs. The Navya Arma is an electric and full autonomous bus capable of driving on public roads. IBTimes UKDespite its age, the bus provided an acceptable ride and at no point did we feel it had become confused or was likely to drive into another vehicle. However, sticking to the car parks 1. A member of the Navya team rode with us and could have taken over via an Xbox controller, but this wasnt necessary. Coron continued The machine can do better than a human, so whats the point of a human doing the same track 1. This vehicle doesnt drink, doesnt smoke, doesnt go on strike. But we dont know how to bring people from their house to the first collecting point of transport, or from the last stop to their offices. Instead, humans tend to use their own car for connecting the dots where public transport cant reach. Navya hopes its buses will offer a solution where commuters are collected from their home and taken to the train station, then from the station to their office, negating the need to drive and cutting both air pollution and road congestion. Steve Armitage, manager of IT futures at Heathrow, says the airport is all about innovating. Heathrow community. Armitage added that Heathrow is excited about this technology, but says it is still early days and admits the airport is not ready to discuss when such vehicles could be used just yet.