...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

 

Canada caves: It looks like Harpoon may be getting his wish (see post below). After months of standing up to the forces of darkness, Canada’s P.M. appears to be signalling that he's at least willing to entertain the idea of getting with the "new world order" program.

 

But I’m going to let the president of the Canadian Coalition for Democracy, Alistair Gordon, a brave and very funny man, describe the caving. Here’s the press release I just received from the CCD:

 

Canada Joins Running of the Jew at U.N. for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Canukistan*

 

For Immediate Release
 
Toronto, Thursday, November 30, 2006 – The Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD) is disappointed by the voting of the government of Canada in yesterday's slew of anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations.

"Canada has again legitimized the use of UN resolutions to demonize one nation, while ignoring the truly serious human rights violations of other member states," said Alastair Gordon, president of CCD. "Until resolutions are applied even-handedly to all UN members, Canada must express its condemnation by voting 'no' on all such resolutions."

In its first 42 years, the UN tabled 370 resolutions condemning Israel and zero resolutions critical of the PLO or any Arab state. When Syria slaughtered 20,000 of its own citizens at Hama in 1982, or when it sponsored the destruction and occupation of Lebanon, or even when Iraq massacred its Kurdish citizens with poison gas, there were no UN resolutions criticizing the perpetrators. In recent years, a handful of resolutions have targeted other Middle Eastern states, but the lion's share is still reserved for Israel.

In October 2005, former Prime Minister Paul Martin referred to "the annual ritual of politicized anti-Israel resolutions" at the UN. In November 2004, Canada's then ambassador to the United Nations, Allan Rock, announced to the General Assembly that "resolutions [against Israel] are often divisive and lack balance." Yet even with this recognition, both our past and present governments' anti-Israel voting pattern has barely changed.

 

The Fourth Committee yesterday tabled nine ritualized resolutions targeting Israel for criticism. Canada voted against Israel on seven, and supported Israel on two. The only change from last year's voting pattern was the change of one abstention to a 'no'.

 

"The Stephen Harper government has taken a number of principled foreign policy positions that Canadians can be proud of. Yet it is choosing to continue the despicable bullying of one nation, a travesty that was  identified by our former Prime Minister and UN ambassador," added Gordon. "Until UN resolutions are an unbiased tool applied equally to all member states, Canada's response to all ritualized anti-Israel resolutions must be NO."

 

* with apologies to Borat

 

No apologies necessary, Al. Borat’s merely a cruder, hairier version of Harpoon.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:24 | link | comments (1)

 

Diet aid: I have hit upon the easiest, most effective way to lose weight. Better than Atkins. Better than Jenny Craig. Before sitting down to a meal, read a column by the Toronto Star’s Harpoon Siddiqui. You will become so nauseated that your appetite will disappear for hours.

 

In today’s piece—good for at least five hours’ worth of appetite suppressant—Harpoon crows about Islam’s victory and smugly assures readers that it’s only a matter of time before Prime Minister Stephen Harper is forced to bow down in abject dhimmitude before the might of the Muslim world (as the Pope has done) and acknowledge what Harpoon calls “a new world order.”

 

As Stephen Harper takes satisfaction in the NATO decision to free up a few more troops for deployment in southern Afghanistan, Canada seems oblivious to a major reassessment underway in Washington and elsewhere away from the military and cultural confrontations with the Muslim world.

 

The Pope is making amends in Turkey, dropping his long-standing opposition to its entry into the European Union.

George W. Bush is in Jordan to try and find a political way out of Iraq, where the U.S. military engagement has now lasted longer than it did inWorld War II.

 

His host in Amman, King Abdullah, wants him to help avert a potential civil war in Lebanon, as well as the humanitarian crisis in the Israeli Occupied Territories. The same message was conveyed to Dick Cheney Saturday by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who said the Arab-Israeli dispute is "the core issue" in the Middle East.

 

On all three fronts, Washington needs the help of Syria and Iran — something the Iraqi government already understands. Baghdad has just normalized relations with Damascus after a 24-year break, and has been paying heed to Tehran.

 

All this is the exact opposite of what the Bush neo-cons had in mind in launching their war of choice on Iraq. A major oil producer and developed Arab state would be in American hands.

 

Arabs, Palestinians in particular, would be more amenable to American and Israeli dictates, as would Iran and Syria, the patrons of Hezbollah, Hamas and other anti-Israel militias.

 

Lebanon, too, now represents the opposite of what Israel had envisaged in invading and pulverizing it last summer. The pro-Western Siniora government is teetering, pushed by the pro-Syrian, pro-Iranian Hezbollah, which is also said to be training Shiite militias in Iraq.

 

It is these failed American-Israeli policies that Harper has committed Canada to. While he took pride in boarding Bush's sinking ship, the president is being counselled to bail out, and quickly.

 

A bipartisan Congressional commission, co-chaired by Jim Baker, the veteran diplomat and Republican troubleshooter, is likely to recommend that Bush enlist regional help in managing the crises roiling the Middle East...

 

Yeah, he's a real "troubleshooter," that "Jim" Baker. And the "trouble" he most often likes to "shoot" is that obdurate Jewish entity perched ever-more precariously in the heart of Dar al Islam. And looky at who else Harpoon elicits to "troubleshoot." Why, it’s none other than that Nobel Peace Prize-winning Mr. Peanutbrain hisself, Jimminy “Cricket” Carter, a man who certainly knows a thing or two about the new world order; heck, he helped invent it when he was president, and has been doing his utmost to serve its interests ever since.

 

...In interviews for his latest book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, the former president is also rejecting the accepted wisdom (endorsed by Harper as well as the main Liberal leadership candidates) that it's the Palestinians — Hamas, in particular — who are to blame for the lack of progress.

 

"There hasn't been one day of substantive peace negotiations in the last six years," Carter said in one interview. "You can't say the election of Hamas interferes with the peace efforts, because no peace effort has been going on."

 

He noted that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestine interlocutor favoured by both Israel and the U.S., was not called upon to negotiate when he was prime minister nor has he been since being elected president.

 

"The oppression of the Palestinians by Israeli forces in the Occupied Territories is horrendous," Carter said. "It is one of the worst cases of oppression that I know of now in the world.

 

"The Palestinians' land has been taken away from them. They now have an encapsulating or an imprisonment wall being built around what's left of the little tiny part of the holy land that is in the West Bank. Gaza is surrounded by a high wall. There's only two openings in it, one into Israel, which is mostly closed, the other into Egypt. The people there are encapsulated. And the deprivation of basic human rights among the Palestinians is really horrendous."

 

In another interview, Carter said:

 

"A minority of Israelis are perpetrating apartheid on the Palestinian people. It's not based on race. It's not a racist inclination. It is a desire for Palestinian land. Contrary to the United Nations resolutions, contrary to the official policy of the U.S., contrary to the Quartet's so-called road map, contrary to a majority of Israeli people's opinion, this occupation and confiscation and colonization of land in the West Bank is the prime cause of the continuation of violence."...

  

Harpoon touting Jimminy. I think my head has officially exploded.

 

My letter to the Star:

 

It seems almost pointless these days to try to refute the anti-Israel, anti-Western sentiments that Haroon Siddiqui purveys week after week. The big lies—about Israel being a racist apartheid state, about Israel and not Hamas, a regime of intransigent Islamists dedicated to Israel’s demise, being the impediment to progress in the region, about how it is the West, and not those who espouse the ideology of jihad who are responsible for our current world crisis—have been told so often that they are now taken to be truth by those who share Siddiqui’s worldview. I would hope, however, that before people accept these ideas as gospel, they have the presence of mind to ask whose interests will be served by what Siddiqui calls “a new world order.” If they are brave enough—and honest enough—they will be able to see what they stand to lose by making ever-greater accommodations to those forces in the world who revile freedom and democracy, and who seek to bring it down.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:59 | link | comments (3)

 

Reality check: Andrew McCarthy advises that it’s long past time to wake up and smell the rancid humus (in a manner of speaking). From NRO: 

This is a war of will. If we lose it, the historians will marvel at how mulishly we resisted understanding the one thing we needed to understand in order to win. The enemy.

In Iraq, we’ve tried to fight the most civilized “light footprint” war of all time. We made sure everyone knew our beef was only with Saddam Hussein, as if he were a one-man militia — no Sunni Baathists supporting him, no Arab terrorists colluding, and no Shiite jihadists hating us just on principle.

No, our war was only with the regime. No need to fight the Iraqis. They, after all, were noble. They would flock to democracy if only they had the chance. And, once they hailed us as conquering heroes, their oil wealth would pay for the whole thing … just 400 billion American dollars ago.

This may be the biggest disconnect of all time between the American people and a war government.

In the wake of 9/11, the American people did not care about democratizing the Muslim world. Or, for that matter, about the Muslim world in general. They still don’t. They want Islamic terrorists and their state sponsors crushed. As for the aftermath, they want something stable that no longer threatens our interests; they care not a wit whether Baghdad’s new government looks like Teaneck’s.

To the contrary, Bush-administration officials — notwithstanding goo-gobs of evidence that terrorists have used the freedoms of Western democracies, including our own, the better to plot mass murder — have conned themselves into believing that democracy, not decisive force, is the key to conquering this enemy.

So deeply have they gulped the Kool-Aid that, to this day, they refuse to acknowledge what is plain to see: While only a small number of the world’s billion-plus Muslims (though a far larger number than we’d like to believe) is willing to commit acts of terrorism, a substantial percentage — meaning tens of millions — supports the terrorists’ anti-West, anti-democratic agenda...

 

“Gulped the Kool-Aid”—heh.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:24 | link | comments

 

A turkey of an idea: The usually dependable National Post has an extremely wrong-headed editorial echoing the Pope’s call for Turkey’s entry into the EU. Here’s the paper’s “reasoning” (which to my mind is far from reasonable):

…Turkey is an officially secular nation. Indeed, it applies the division between church and state more strictly than any Western country. It is also a NATO member, a Western ally in the Middle East, a friend to Israel and a loyal partner in the war against terrorism. After over 40 years as an associate member of the European Union, and with an improving human rights record, the country deserves an opportunity for full membership.

That is not to say the Turks' membership application doesn't have its blemishes. For instance, the country is maddeningly stubborn in refusing to admit its genocidal treatment of Armenians during the First World War. Ankara also has shown itself inflexible in its quarrel with the EU over the status of Cyprus, itself an EU member. In particular, Turkey refuses to trade with the Greek-speaking half of the island. This, despite the fact that the EU made it clear more than a year ago that ending this dispute would be a condition for entering formal EU membership talks.

But such matters can be negotiated and should not be allowed to stand in the way of cementing Turkey's place in the Western camp by allowing it into the EU…

I felt compelled to send the following response to the editorial, knowing it was highly unlikely the paper would publish it because I had had something in the letters section last week, and the paper has a policy of requiring two weeks to elapse between the publication of letters by the same person:

Let’s see: at a time when the Muslim population of Western Europe is surging and some cities, like Rotterdam and Amsterdam, will shortly have Muslim majorities; on a Continent where the number of “no-go zones”—places where non-Muslims fear to tread and where civic authorities are incapable of maintaining order (in France alone there are said to be 751 of these sites) are increasingly almost daily; at a juncture in history when the very survival of Western civilization is up in the air—at a time like this, your editorial calls for the EU to allow entry of one of the most populous Muslim nations in the world, a move that would increase the Muslim population of Europe five-fold, to a total of 86 million.

 

My question for your editorialist: are you mad or merely suicidal?

 

True, Turkey is an ostensibly “secular” nation, and ostensibly a friend and ally of the West. But I would suggest that that friendship is superficial and largely expedient. You don’t have to dig too deeply to see that Turkey, which has been secular since Kemal Ataturk threw out the last caliph in 1922, is ruled by Islamists who want to undo Atarturkism, re-establish sharia law and bring back the caliphate. And while Turkey is also an ostensible friend of Israel, it is also a nation where Hitler’s Mein Kampf is a perennial best-seller and hatred of Israel and the Jewish people is pervasive. As well, Turkey is looking to act as the Sunni counterweight to a Shia Iran--a desire that, trust me, does not come out of its “secular” impulses.

 

Finally, I would point out that Europe managed to halt the previous invasion of Islam at the gates of Vienna in 1683. It would be a catastrophe of the first order if, more than 300 years later, the EU willingly lets down its guard and allows Turkey in.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:09 | link | comments (2)

 

A song for the Pope: As sung by a young and not-yet-surgically “enhanced” Michael Jackson:

 

Ben, you want to try and quell the storm

So you’re being very sweet and warm.

Saying, Islam’s really nice,

But please take my advice:

Appeasement doesn’t work.

They still think you’re a jerk.

(Still think you’re a jerk.)

 

Ben, you’re acting like a dhimmi now.

Can’t you see they love to see you bow?

Weakness doesn’t strengthen you.

You know what you should do.

You seem to have a clue.

We hope you still come through.

(Hope that you come through.)

 

Ben, you’re laying it on mighty thick.

Saying Islam’s so “affectionate.”

Such assertions sound quite mad

Especially since jihad’s

As kindly as a snake.

Oh, please, give us a break.

(Please give us a break.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:15 | link | comments

 

Mo’ Mo ‘toons: Jewish residents of a London, Ontario riding where a federal by-election was held on Monday received a surprise in their mailbox: some antisemitic hate ‘toons. They were put there courtesy Canada’s answer to David Duke, Mo Elmasry. Mo’s the excitable fellow who heads up the Canadian Islamic Congress and who once insisted that all Jews are fair game for aggrieved terrorists.

 

Topping chap, that Mo.

 

I heard about the hate story—once, and in an abbreviated version with no mention of Mo—on Ceeb radio Monday morning, but could find no trace of it anywhere else. Until now. It turned up in Ezra Levant’s blog on the Web site of the Western Standard, the magazine he edits. (Ezra’s has had his own run-in with ‘toons. He printed the Danish Mo ‘toons in his magazine, and is being hauled before the Alberta Human Rights Commission by a disgruntled true believer who took grave offence.)

 

Levant chastises the Canadian media, not only for ignoring the story of hate lit. in London, but for giving props and respect to an outright hate-monger who espouses views that we here in multi-cultist Canada are supposed to deplore:

…I don't think it should be a crime to be a Jew-hater. I don't think it should be a crime to distribute Jew-hating literature. That's part of freedom -- it's a little bit messy, and sometimes people say offensive things.

What I am against, though, is that Elmasry's anti-Semitism is ignored by the mainstream press -- who would crucify any WASP for saying and doing the things that he does. Because he's Muslim, brown-skinned, from Egypt and speaks with an accent, his David Duke act has been given a pass by a press corps that would normally be apoplectic. This is the same guy who told Michael Coren's TV show that any Jew 18 years or older in Israel is fair game for a terrorist attack.

It's not just the media -- even the federal government's grotesque Trudeau Foundation, stacked with Liberal hacks from Marc Lalonde to Alexandre Trudeau, is sponsoring a speech by Elmasry.

So the Trudeau Foundation’s in bed with Elmasry, eh?

 

Can’t say as I’m surprised.

 

Sickened, yes; surprised, no.

 

Just for “fun,” I googled the Trudeau Foundation. Lo and behold, Elmasry spoke at a conference that had a particularly ga-ga theme:

There is no "Islam" and there is no "West"…

‎In the light of international events over the last five years the theme of the third annual ‎Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Conference on Public Policy could not be more timely ‎and relevant: Muslims in Western Societies. Some of the most distinguished minds will ‎share their views in plenary and working group sessions in Vancouver from November ‎‎16 to 18.

The dialogue will focus on the relationships between Muslims and other citizens ‎of Western societies and tackle topics such as religious belief and secularism, ‎multiculturalism, women, political violence and security issues. The Trudeau Foundation ‎aims to generate informed debate and dialogue. The outcomes will be published after the ‎conference.

 

I can’t wait to read how the “distinguished minds” attempt to validate the lie on which the conference was predicated. Should make for some interesting (in the Orwellian sense of the word) reading.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:33 | link | comments (2)

 

A marriage sundered by Borat: Ordinarily I try to avoid posting anything to do with celebrity hijinks (unless they happen to involve Scientology, a creepy and oddly fascinating “religion”). But I found this one too yummy to resist. From The Showbuzz:

 

(CBS) After less than four months of marriage, and a handful of wedding ceremonies, Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock's marriage is already over.

A pal tells the New York Post that Rock's "male insecurity and major anger issues," are to blame and that a big fight over her participation in the film "Borat" caused tension between them.

"(Universal Studio chief ) Ron Meyer held a screening of 'Borat' at his house for a bunch of people, including Pam and Bob (Rock's real name is Robert Richie)," the model's pal tells the Post. "It was the first time Bob had seen the movie, and, well, he didn't like it."

In the film, Sasha Baron Cohen's character, Borat, falls for the "Baywatch" actress and travels the U.S. on a quest to ask her to marry him.

"Bob started screaming at Pam, saying she had humiliated herself and telling her, 'You're nothing but a whore! You're a slut! How could you do that movie?' — in front of everyone. It was very embarrassing," the source said. "Pam thought he could have a sense of humor about the movie. She was in on the gag from the very beginning and loved doing the movie. And on the eve of what was supposed to be a very positive thing, he made it an awful night."

Ever since the outburst, things cooled down between the couple…

 

I can see why. Maybe Pam would have been better off if she’d married Borat instead of Bob.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:39 | link | comments (1)

 

What goes around comes around: Welcome to 1938, folks. All in all, it was a very bad year—not unlike this one. From the American Thinker:

 

“It is 1938; Iran is Germany; and it is racing to acquire nuclear weapons.” Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly punctuated his speech in Los Angeles earlier this month with that sentence.  It was an effective rhetorical device, conveying both a sense of threat and a sense of urgency.

But 1938 may be relevant in more ways than as a rhetorical device.  Revisiting that year, through Winston Churchill’s compelling account in “The Gathering Storm,” is an instructive exercise, and one the Iraq Study Group might consider as it completes its deliberations. 

* * *

February 20, 1938:  Churchill spent the entire night without sleep, “consumed by emotions of sorrow and fear” -- the only time he went sleepless even after he became Prime Minister.  He had received a call late that evening informing him that Anthony Eden had resigned as Foreign Secretary. 

 

Eden, who shared Churchill’s views about Germany and Italy, had found himself almost isolated in the Cabinet, opposed by the Chiefs of Staff who “enjoined caution and dwelt upon the dangers of the situation.”  Churchill was despondent over the resignation:

I must confess that my heart sank, and for a while the ark waters of despair overwhelmed me. . . .  I watched the daylight slowly creep in through the windows, and saw before me in mental gaze the vision of Death.

 

A precipitating factor in Eden’s resignation had been Neville Chamberlain’s decision to enter into direct negotiations with Italy.  Chamberlain’s position was that:

His Majesty’s Government would be prepared . . . to recognize de jure the Italian occupation of Abyssinia, if they found that the Italian Government on their side were ready to give evidence of their desire to contribute to the restoration of confidence and friendly relations.

 

For Churchill, it was evidence that “in the dawn of 1938 decisive changes in European groupings and values had taken place.”  The Western democracies had “seemed to give repeated proofs that they would bow to violence so long as they were not themselves directly assailed.”

 

That same day, Germany had begun to raise the issue of Czechoslovakia, and “the usual techniques were employed” -- the de-legitimization of the target through the rhetoric of grievances, combined with the knowledge that the West lacked both the will (“owing to their love of peace”) and the means (due to their failure to rearm) to protect its broader interests…

 

The similarities are indeed mind-blowing, but there is one profoundly disturbing difference between then and now. This time around, there is noWinston Churchill.

 

We must also acknowledge that, while Churchill, through sheer force of personality and will was able to save Western civilization from falling into the abyss (at least until the attack on Pearl Harbor forced America’s hand and she entered the fray), he either could not or would not do anything to stop the Nazis from murdering six million Jews.

 

Not much comfort there, I’m afraid.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:26 | link | comments

 

Also, the religion of furry kittens, fuzzy bunnies, and warm, comfy slippers: It’s official. The Pope has bowed to a higher power (political correctness) and averred that Islam is a “peaceful and affectionate" religion.

 

I could be wrong, but I’m sure it was neither peacefulness nor affection Daniel Pearl was experiencing when the holy warriors put a blade to his throat and sliced off his head.

 

Just a hunch, mind you.

 

Update: Not to mention its “benevolence.”

 

Excuse me, your Eminence. But don’t you think you’re laying it on a bit thick?

 

Update: And it’s not like all the grovelling is doing him any good.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:58 | link | comments

 

Coping strategy: Some people deal with unpleasant reality by ignoring it, or by taking a long walk, or by turning to drink. And if that doesn’t do the trick, there’s always that old standby: blaming the Jews.

 

Me? I channel my angst into tasteless song parodies. Like this one, an update of Sir Paul McCartney’s jaunty tune about Maxwell Edison, a medical student and cold-blooded murderer whose weapon of choice was a silver hammer:

 

Moo was radical,

Also quite fanatical,

Mahdi was his man.

Does all that he can

So he’ll retur-ur-ur-urn.

Enrichin’ uranium

Ranting and explainium

That he feels the need.

Make the dhimmis blee-eed

To please Allah-ha-ha-ha.

And now he’s almost ready to roll.

Achieve his final goal.

 

Boom, boom,

Mahmoud’s shiny A-bomb

Rained down upon their heads.

Boom, boom,

Mahmoud’s shiny A-bomb

Made sure that they were dead.

 

P.C. reticence

Led to UN hesitance

Didn’t do a thing.

Moo felt like a king

And acted thus-us-us-us.

Russia helped him out,

Armageddon came about

Due to Putin's greed.

Serviced Mahmoud’s nee-eed

To be on tah-ah-ah-op.

And soon, where once

Jews were on the map,

You’ll see a great big gap.

 

Boom, boom,

Mahmoud’s shiny A-bomb

Rained down upon their heads.

Boom, boom,

Mahmoud’s shiny A-bomb

Made sure that they were dead.

 

Sad the world won’t learn

Fascists want the Jews to burn

But they won’t stop there.

‘Specially when they’re heir

To jihad imper-er-it-ives.

It’s dependable.

Jews are quite expendable.

Feed the crocodile.

But watch out for his smile

Because you're nex-ex-ex-ext.

And as you’re sleeping snug in you bed

His bomb’s headed your way.

 

Boom, boom,

Mahmoud’s shiny A-bomb

Rained down upon their heads.

Boom, boom,

Mahmoud’s shiny A-bomb

Made sure that they were dead.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:31 | link | comments

 

Two-four-six-eight-the-Pope-will-now-capitulate: Looks like that may become the new Turkish cheer—and with good reason. From Bloomberg:

Pope Benedict XVI said he backs Turkey's bid to join the European Union, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after meeting the pontiff upon his arrival in Ankara for his first visit to a Muslim country.

The Pope told Erdogan that while the Vatican seeks to stay out of politics it ``desires Turkey's membership in the EU,'' Erdogan said at a news conference after the 15 minute meeting that initiated his four-day visit to Turkey. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he had said in 2004 that allowing Islamic Turkey to join the EU would be a "grave error.'' The Vatican has yet to confirm Benedict's comments today.

The EU, backed by U.S. President George W. Bush, last year began membership talks with Turkey to build a bridge between the Christian and Muslim worlds and boost democracy in the Middle East. The pope's defense of Christian Europe and the violent reaction to his comments about Islam fed political resistance to a Muslim nation of 72 million people joining the EU's ranks.

Only 39 percent of Europeans support Turkey's accession to the EU, according to a July survey published by the European Commission. Turkish entry would boost the number of Muslims living in Europe more than five-fold to about 86 million.

And the Pope thinks that will serve the interests of Western civilization, not to mention the Holy Roman Catholic Church—how?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:49 | link | comments

 

Olmert’s “real peace” plan: Well, it looks like one of my greatest fears has been realized, and the Peace in Our Time process may be gaining traction. Ehud Olmert, who I’ve come to think of as Israel’s very own Jimminy “Cricket” Carter, i.e., a hapless, moist, self-loather who hasn’t a clue as to what motivates his enemies, is trying to reel in the secular nutter faction of Palestinian leadership (as opposed to the religion nutter wing) with a package of tasty incentives. The usual enticements have been offered—land for “real peace”; release of more than a thousand Palestinians currently enjoying the hospitality of Israeli prison in exchance for one Israeli soldier; and oodles of moolah, something the Palestinians are supposedly in short supply of these days, what with the dhimmis having turned off the jizya spigot when Hamas came to power. “I extend my hand in peace to our Palestinian neighbours, hoping it will not be rejected, “said the feckless P.M. as he extended his hand in peace, hoping it wouldn’t be rejected.

 

While not rejecting the outstretched hand outright, the Palestinians are said to be reacting “coolly” to the peacefully extended paw. From the Chicago Tribune:

"We want to see deeds, not words," said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Abbas. "What we are looking for is real negotiations, based on the road map and the Arab peace initiative. Land for peace."

Abu Rudeineh referred to a Saudi initiative adopted at an Arab League summit in 2002 that called for recognition and normal ties with Israel in exchange for a full withdrawal from territories it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

 

The “Saudi initiative,” huh? Isn’t that the one that pundit of pundits, Thomas L. Friedman was really keen on for a while? Too bad old Tom has washed his hands of the Israel-Palestinian contretemps (at least, that’s what he told a standing room only crowd of avid listeners at a Toronto synagogue several weeks ago) because he sees no way out of the impasse. But maybe Olmert could put a call into Tom, to see if he’s willing to jump back on the Saudi bandwagon.

 

As for me, I don’t know why Jimminy Olmert is bothering with all this intermediate stuff when we know the—what was that phrase head negotiator Saeb Erekat used yesterday?—oh, yeah, the “end game” the Palestinians are really playing, and it ain’t that proverbial “two state solution.” Why not save everyone lots of time and bloodshed and concede defeat now, right away? Give the Palestinians and their Arab/Muslim/international enablers what they want—the only thing they want, i.e. a Palestine which takes in all of Israel—and put an end to all this interminable P.I.O.T. claptrap once and for all. Then, pack up all the Jews and leave in a mass exodus.

 

Heaven knows, it’s not like they haven't had one of those before.

 

The only other option is to keep fighting and existing, but Olmert, a weary man, seems to lack the will for that.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:41 | link | comments (3)

 

Narrow focus: This morning I listened, my mouth opened in astonishment and horror, as former President and utopian internationalist Jimminy “Cricket” Carter (he won a Nobel Peace Prize, you know) expostulated on Ceeb radio about all the dirt the Jews of Israel have dished to the Palestinians. How they’re “oppressed.” How they’re the victims of “apartheid.” How they long for a “two state solution,” but how their dreams continue to be stymied by—wait for it—the Jews.

 

And I also waited—in vain, of course—for hostess with the leastest Anna Maria Tremonti to at least play Devil’s advocate and suggest that perhaps what’s occurring in Israel is merely one of the dots in the larger global jihad. But since Anna Maria herself is incabable of discerning a pattern that’s obvious to anyone who doesn’t look through the same lens as the Ceeb, she was—wait for it—worse than useless.

 

It’s bad enough that there is great evil at work in this world. What sticks in the craw is that it’s being enabled and abetted by those, like Jimminy Carter, who are absolutely certain they are working for the greater good.

 

An article on the American Thinker site blows at big, wet raspberry at Jimminy and the other international jihad-enablers who continue to focus obsessively and almost exclusively on the word's only Jewish state:

 

Every single day, hundreds of African tribesmen are killed in Darfur by militias acting with the blessing of Sudan's Arab Islamist government. Each day, Hamas bombs from Gaza deliberately target innocent Israeli civilians in Sderot: although the weapons are crude, they occasionally find their mark -- last week a Qassam killed Fatima Slutsker, a 57-year-old (Muslim) Israeli woman who was waiting for her (Jewish) Israeli husband at a bus stop. Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, has ratcheted up its campaign of violence this week, assassinating a Maronite Christian cabinet minister in Lebanon in a blatant attempt to provoke a constitutional crisis. (As of this writing, under the Byzantine Lebanese constitution, the terrorist group needs to eliminate only one more minister to bring about the collapse of the government.) The life-span of Zimbabweans is 34 years, and 550,000 have died over the past three years due to deliberate policies of the Mugabe dictatorship.

All of these barbaric crimes are human and moral tragedies that call for international action, prioritization, even obsession.  But that self-proclaimed source of international legitimacy, the United Nations is not obsessed or even particularly concerned with any of them. None of these abuses of human rights by authoritarian regimes or movements was the object of the General Assembly resolution "condemning the military assaults...which have caused loss of life and extensive destruction...of property...in particular the killing of many... civilians, including children and women." For none of these violations of the right to life did the UN summon righteous indignation to "emphasize the importance of the safety and well-being of all civilians" and demand "the immediate cessation of military incursions and all acts of violence, terror, provocation, incitement and destruction."

 

Rather, since November 7, the UN has been obsessed with one accident, committed in self-defense, by the world body's favorite pariah, the democratic State of Israel...

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:28 | link | comments

 

Knowledge is power: I know that the Pope wants to quell all that “clash of civilizations” stuff, but could someone please tell me why he has chosen to visit Turkey at this particular time? It’s not like the locals, who continue to take grave offence at his suggestion that Islam has some irrational and violent tendencies, are eager to host him on their soil—not unless he’s willing to eat crow and acknowledge Islam’s inherent goodness and niceness. And if, Heaven forefend, that it is the plan, then it would have been far better for us non-submissives if he’d stayed home in V.C. (a site which, for now anyway, remains outside Europe’s “no go” zones).

 

In order to help him gain an even better understanding of what he’s dealing with—although, so far he seems to "get it"—I’d direct the Pope to this piece in the Daily Telegraph.  It describes what's at stake in his visit, and warns of the dangers we in the West face if we ignore and/or miscomprehend the threat of triumphalist Islam. (link via RealClear Politics)

…To understand the life-or-death significance of what the Pope does and says when he arrives in Istanbul, it is necessary to see this confrontation for what it is. This will involve some traumatic re-adjustment for most of the opinion-forming class in Britain. The first assumption that will have to go is the premise that Islamist terrorism can be understood in pragmatic, politically rational terms: in other words, that it can be addressed with the usual mechanisms of negotiation, concession and amended policy.

The most readily accepted version of this is that a change to our policy in the Middle East will remove the grievances that "fuel" Muslim terrorism. The Cabinet has apparently been advised that all foreign policy decisions over the next decade should have the goal of thwarting terrorism in Britain and that this should involve "a significant reduction in the number and intensity of the regional conflicts that fuel terror activity". So Britain is contemplating constructing a foreign policy, specifically in the Middle East, that is designed to give in to terrorist blackmail.

Never mind that the hereditary grievance of almost all British-born Muslim terrorists is the Kashmir question, to which the almost entirely irrelevant Palestine issue has been tacked on by political manipulators with larger ambitions. (The easiest way to make a connection between the Palestine-Israel conflict and the problem of Kashmir is to construct a global theory of persecution in which British-born Muslims may see themselves as born into a victimhood perpetrated by all non-Muslim nations upon Islam.

That, as it happens, chimes perfectly with the true goal of Islamism, which is global supremacy.) So this ignominious posture – what you might call the "save our own skin; who cares what happens in the rest of the world?" view – is based on a false premise. It is not adjustments to our stance on Israel-Palestine that the international Islamist terror movement wants.

That demand was just a bin Laden afterthought that went down a treat with the old reliable anti-Semitic interest in Europe. What Islamic fundamentalism plans to achieve (and it has made no secret of it) is a righting of the great wrong of 1492, when the Muslims were expelled from Spain: a return of the Caliphate, the destruction of corrupt Western values, and the establishment of Sharia law in all countries where Muslims reside. That is what we are up against.

The Pope characterised it as a battle between reason and unreason. Scholars may debate the theological and historical soundness of his analysis. But what is indisputable is that this is not an argument that is within the bounds of diplomatic give and take, the traditional stuff of international policy argy-bargy. What we could plausibly offer to the enemy, even at our most craven, would never be sufficient.

What is being demanded is the surrender of everything that Western democracy regards as sacred: even, ironically, the freedom to practise one's own religion, which, at the moment, is so useful to Muslim activists. We are forced to accept the Islamist movement's own estimation of the conflict: this is a war to the death, or until Islamism decides to call a halt…

Memo to the Pope and all free thinking infidels: Read, learn, assimilate the above. It will help strengthen you for the dark days of conflict that lie ahead.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:29 | link | comments

 

'Real peace' pipe dream: Is it possible to survive if you refuse to acknowledge what motivates your enemies? Let’s ask Israel’s P.M., Ehud Olmert, who thinks “real peace” is possible if Israel gives up the West Bank—and the nation’s security—to the Palestinians so they can finally get down to their long-deferred project of building a viable state.

 

Major communication glitch here.  For Olmert, “real peace” is the cessation of hostilities and the acceptance of Israel's reality. For Arabs and Muslims, “real peace” is the peace that will pertain once every last bit of the planet, including Israel, is under the thumb of the religion of peace.

 

From the Jerusalem Post:

 

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered wide-ranging peace concessions to Palestinians on Monday if they turned away from violence, saying they would be able to achieve an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in real peace talks with Israel.

 

Olmert declared that Israel would leave "large territories" and "dismantle settlements" in exchange for real peace.

 

"We will agree to leave large territories and dismantle settlements that we have established," he said during a speech at a memorial service for former prime minister David Ben Gurion at Sde Boker. "We will be willing to do this in exchange for real peace."

 

The prime minister stressed that the border of a future Palestinian state would differ from the current settlement borders.

 

In what was billed as a major policy speech, Olmert said that Palestinians stood at a "historic crossroads" and could choose to continue on the path of violence or peace.

 

If they choose the peace path, Israel will ease checkpoints and release frozen funds to the Palestinian Authority.

 

Olmert also said that Israel planned to release "many Palestinian prisoners" after Palestinian militants free a captured IDF soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit.

 

Shalit's on June 25 sparked a widescale IDF offensive in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian militants demanded that Israel release hundreds of prisoners in exchange for Shalit, a demand Israel had publicly rejected.

 

But in recent days, there have been signs of progress between the two sides. Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to a cease-fire in Gaza that took effect Sunday morning, stirring hopes that further agreements could follow.

 

Olmert's speech Monday was an effort to entice the Palestinians to return to peace talks, with the Israeli leader promising an immediate improvement in their lives.

 

"We cannot change the past and we will not be able to bring back the victims on both sides of the borders," he said. "All that we have in our hands to do today is to stop additional tragedies."

 

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Palestinians were ready to negotiate a final peace deal.

 

"I believe Mr. Olmert knows he has a partner, and that is President Abbas. He knows that to achieve peace and security for all, we need to shoot for the end game," Erekat said…

 

And I think we all know what Abbas’s and Erekat’s “end game” is—and you can be sure it doesn’t include Jewish sovereignty in Israel.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:48 | link | comments (1)

 

Dear John: One of the few bright spots in the toxic environment of Turtle Bay has been U.S. Ambassador John Bolton. But now that the Dhimmicrats have taken Congress, Bolton’s days as a voice of sanity in the loony bin are probably numbered. Suzanne Fields, former utopian dreamer, now a wised-up realist, offers an impassioned argument for retaining Bolton. From JWR:

…To the liberal Democrat I was then, having grown up in a devout New Deal family, the U.N. was the great hope for humanity. In our Utopian imagination, the U.N. would be the place where different countries with different kinds of governments would put factionalism aside, discard tribal loyalties and every day in every way Make Nice.

We soon watched innocence and idealism swamped by greed and cynicism, as the U.N. became a fat and inefficient bureaucracy, riven with strife and anger, a mouthpiece for the most corrupt and incompetent leaders in the world. As if in a satire by Evelyn Waugh, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights became a platform for speeches by representatives of nations with the worst record of human rights abuses.

Our ambassadors to the United Nations have often been forced into isolation, to defend the United States from attacks by nations whose only contribution to the debate is insignificance, envy and hypocrisy. The likes of Adlai Stevenson, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Daniel Patrick Moynihan were powerfully eloquent defenders, and their rhetorical flourishes have recently found voice in John Bolton, whose recess appointment expires in January. President Bush has resubmitted the nomination, but despite what everyone says is his good job, he's unlikely even to get an up-or-down vote in the new, kinder, gentler Democratic Senate.

If the senators were to re-examine his record in the spirit of what we're told is the less partisan Democratic Congress, instead of preening with outdated cynicism, they could demonstrate that they mean what they say about eliminating cheap and thoughtless partisanship.

His eloquent arguments against the relentless attacks on Israel, while the U.N. ignores the nations that could use such attention to their brutality, demonstrates his ability — and his willingness — to display toughness with good sense. He shows how U.N. bias reveals a fundamental lack of seriousness about solving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Even Kofi Annan, no particular champion of the West, acknowledged the other day that the U.N.'s obsession with perceived human-rights abuses in Israel, to the exclusion of other abuses even in Darfur, encourages the public to see the U.N. as unfair. (Imagine.)

The report by the European-led U.N. Interim Force (UNIFIL) on what's happening in Lebanon exposes how the U.N. suffers destructive myopia. "UNIFIL was so obsessed with the Israeli reconnaissance flights above," writes Benny Avni in the New York Sun, "that it totally missed 720 Islamist fighters below who came from Somalia to join Hezbollah in its holy war."

Bias against the West in general and the United States and Israel in particular is not an isolated issue, but demonstrates clearly what's wrong at Turtle Bay. "Member states must choose," says John Bolton. "Do we desire a viable United Nations system, composed of agencies respected for their role in conflict resolution, human rights, economic development, education and culture, or will we continue to acquiesce to a narrow agenda of bias, stalemate and polemics?"…

I fear that Bolton is soon to be replaced by someone who, in an effort to play ball with and be “liked” by the international community, is planning to opt for acquiescence.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:06 | link | comments

 

Seasons of hate: I read this story about how “youths” now wield such immense power in France that there are literally hundreds of places in the Republic where infidels fear to tread. And you know me, sometimes I just can’t help a song parody from bursting forth. This one, in case you don’t recognize it, is a reworking of the big hit from the musical Rent:

 

Seven hundred fifty-one

Dhimmi “no go” zones in Fra-ance.

How do you measure the success of a jihad?

 

In torchings, in riots, in fear

And ‘timidation,

In inches, in metres,

In numbers who are mad.

 

Seven hundred fifty-one

Established “no-go” zones in Fra-ance.

How do you ever take the measure of jihad?

 

How about hate?

How about hate?

Measure in hate.

Seasons of hate.

Seasons of hate.

 

Seven hundred fifty-one

Established “no go” zones in Fra-ance.

How many are there in Spain and the U.K.?

 

Seven hundred fifty-one

Official “no go” zones in Fra-ance.

How many more 'til Eurabia’s a fait accompli?

 

In truths that they’ll learn.

By then it’ll be too late.

The faithful will reign—

A reign of rage and hate.

 

It’s time now to sing out

Tho’ they’ve waited too long.

They’ll all bow and scrape

To submission’s potent song.

 

Beware of the hate!

Beware of the hate!

Seasons of hate!

 

Oh, they better beware of the hate!

Remember the hate!

Remember the hate ‘cause it never will abate.

Seasons of hate.

Spread hate, share hate, feel hate.

Measure, measure their lives in hate.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:16 | link | comments

 

The jig is up: Oops! It looks like the UN’s arbiter of the world’s “human rights,” the Human Rights Council, has been so obviously and unduly focused on a single issue that no less a personage than Kofi Annan—yes, Kofi Annan—has felt compelled to criticize its obsessive anti-Israel bias.

 

And no, so far Hell has not developed permafrost and flying pigs have yet to be sighted on the radar. But you know if Kofi “The Buck Never Stops” Annan is forced to acknowledge the self-evident, it’s going to be awfully hard to keep trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the dhimmi sheep. (A metaphor worthy of that pundit of pundits, Thomas L. Friedman, n'est ce pas?)  From VOA News:

…Since the Council was inaugurated in June, it has held two special sessions dealing with the situation in the Gaza Strip and one special session on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon in August.

Even U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who pushed strongly for the creation of the Council, says it should broaden its focus and look at as many situations as possible.

"Whether their meetings coincided with the Lebanese war, or not, they have tended to focus on the Palestinian issue, and of course, when you focus on the Palestinian-Israeli issue, without even discussing Darfur and other issues, some wonder what is this Council doing?  Do they not have a sense of fair play?  Why should they ignore other situations and focus on one area?," Mr. Annan asked.

Some countries have severely criticized the 47-member Council for condemning Israel four times, while not taking up human-rights violations in countries such as Myanmar, North Korea, and Sudan.

The President of the Council, Mexican Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba, rates the work of the Council as fair.

"I would not say good.  I wish it could have been much better," de Alba says.

But, de Alba says he expects the Council to improve and notes that in the last session it dealt with a number of substantive issues.

"We addressed situations as complex as the question of religion, intolerance," de Alba says.  "The question of Guantanemo, the question of Sudan, the question of Sri Lanka.  We dealt with a lot of issues, not only the Middle East."...

Wow. How wide-ranging of you, Signor de Alba. Too bad that no matter what other issues you human rights types choose to explore, it always, always seems to come back to the Jews.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:25 | link | comments (2)

 

No Turkish delight: An article in the Turkish English language daily,  the Turkish Daily News, addresses the half-hearted reception the usually hospitable Turks are likely to accord Pope Benedict. The newspaper attributes the expected lackadaisical response to the fact that Benedict is “a polemical Pope.”

 

To translate for those not of the faith (the faith of submission, that is) a “polemical Pope” is one who so far has refused to genuflect before the pieties of political correctness.

 

It remains to be seen if the Pope will retain the courage of his convictions, but those of us non-Catholics who so far have seen him as a God-send (so to speak) can only pray that he finds the strength to keep speaking the truth, as unpopular as that’s likely to be in “secular” Turkey.

 

And watch out for those disgruntled Turks, Benedict. One of them almost got your predecessor.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:41 | link | comments

Oh, no, not that; anything but that: The dreaded Peace in Our Time process rears its revolting visage once more.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:26 | link | comments

 

Q: When is a ceasefire that’s not a ceasefire still called a ceasefire?:

 

A: Easy. When there’s no ceasefire, but everyone pretends there’s one.

 

If this were a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen (instead of a grim, all-too-real news story), the pretenders might say that the buck nekkid ceasefire is wearing a lovely new set of clothes.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:15 | link | comments

 

Ties that bind: A visit to Iran by Iraq’s President, Jalal Talibani, is on hold for the moment: too much commotion going on in Baghdad.

 

Uh, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Iran the bad guy, the enemy of Great Satan? Isn't it the Islamist entity that's getting set to hurl one or more nukes Tel Aviv-ward? Why is the President of Iraq, the nation where American troops are fighting and dying in order to help Iraqis make their country safe for democracy, consorting with Moo and the mully-bullies?

 

Might we say that bonds between Shias are a lot stronger than ones between democracies?

 

Update: From the above link:

The U.S. military said coalition forces killed four insurgents and captured 11 suspected terrorists during a Sunday morning raid targeting al Qaeda in Iraq members in the Diyala province near Baquba.

One of the terrorists detained was discovered hiding in a house dressed as a woman and pretending to nurse a baby, the military said.

Think Three Men and a Baby, jihad-style.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:58 | link | comments

 

Leave it to cleavers: The world for today is “cleave,” as in this headline—Leaders cleave to Gaza cease-fire, despite violations by rocket crews.

 

Funny word, “cleave,” because it has two definitions that are direct opposites.

 

To “cleave” means to adhere firmly, as in “If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem…let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.”

 

To “cleave” also means to detatch or sever, as in “the jihadis cleaved the infidel’s head from his body.”

 

I’m sure Israel’s leaders are looking for a “cleave” more in line with the first definition. However, I’m fairly certain the Palestinian leaders are looking for something more in keeping with the second meaning.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:02 | link | comments

 

“Palestinians”: Golda Meir once said, famously, “Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more that they hate us”—and if I had a shekel for every time someone has cited that quotation, I’d be a very rich anti-Jihadist.

 

And if Condoleezza Rice could only assimilate that single insight, she’d be a far more effective anti-Jihadist.

 

In acknowledgement of Golda’s wisdom and Condi’s cluelessness (see post below) I’ve revised Sting’s song “Russians.” The original song recalls that halcyon time when our enemies were deterred from nuking the living daylights out of us by considerations of mutually assured destruction, or MAD. Ironically, our current era is far madder, but our enemies not only don't care about MAD, but actually welcome it because to them it means Islam wins.

 

Anyway, here’s my take on Sting:

 

In America and Israel,

There’s a growing sense of the Islamists’ will.

Conditioned to respond to all the threats

Some Jews are expressing some regrets.

Mr. Ahmadinejad says we’ll wipe you off the map.

The Palestinians concur with that Hitler crap.

It would be such a foolhardy thing to do

To think that Palestinians love their children too.

 

How can Jews save their kids and all the rest

From shahids wearing semtex vests?

There is no monopoly on common sense

But little on the Arab side of the fence.

We share the same biology

But they’re warped by ideology.

Believe me when I say to you

I wished the Palestinians loved their children too.

 

There’s lots of historical precedent

Jihad’s been waged to the same extent.

And if we end up losing this war

Who knows what darkness lies in store?

Mr. Abbas says, "we will all return."

But hopes that first the Jews will burn.

Believe me when I say to you.

I wish the Palestinians love their children too.

 

We share the same biology

But they’re warped by ideology.

We can’t save me and we can’t save you

If we think that Palestinians love their children too.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:12 | link | comments

 

Jill without a jeep: One of the reasons I love Mark Steyn is because, like me, he is fixated on the ephemera of a bygone era, specifically, the movies and music of the 1930s, 40s and 50s. He builds his column today around Four Jills in a Jeep, a largely forgotten WW2-era flick designed to boost the spirits of the folks back home while the troops were trying to defeat fascism over in Europe. Standard fare for the time—a little song, a little dance, a little melodrama—it dealt with the mostly real-life adventures of four USO girls on tour, and was enlivened by the over-the-top antics of comedian Martha Raye, also known by her nickname “the big mouth,” and prettified by Carole Landis, a starlet who is most famous for committing suicide after being spurned by Rex “Henry Higgins” Harrison (and I promise, that’s all the trivia I’ll inflict on you today).

 

Steyn writes that one of the Jills of our times is none other than U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Now Condi’s a bright gal, a real brown nose, who, back in the day, seemed to “get it” about the current fascist threat, or at least appeared to while Colin Powell was in charge of State. Alas, the Foggy Bottom fumes (and hacks) have done dire damage to Condi’s cognitive powers, and she has joined the ranks of the diplomatic pod people, unfortunate souls whose brains have been turned to sawdust by a combo of Arabism, cluelessness and wishful thinking. This renders her all but incapable of seeing what’s what:

"The great majority of Palestinian people," said the secretary of state to Cal Thomas the other day, "they just want a better life. This is an educated population. I mean, they have a kind of culture of education and a culture of civil society. I just don't believe mothers want their children to grow up to be suicide bombers. I think the mothers want their children to grow up to go to university. And if you can create the right conditions, that's what people are going to do."

Cal Thomas asked a sharp follow-up: "Do you think this or do you know this?"

"Well, I think I know it," said Dr. Rice.

"You think you know it?"

"I think I know it."

Um, I don’t know which Palestinian people you’re describing, Condi; maybe the ones who dwell on another planet in an alternate universe. But the ones we’re stuck with here on the soon-to-be-late great planet Earth are, as Steyn mentions, just thrilled to bits (pun intended) that a raging granny, a woman in her 60s with scores of grandkids, has just self-detonated for Allah. She thus becomes the oldest—and the oldest woman—ever to strap on the semtex to off the brutal Zionist imperialist invaders.

 

Props all round, Bubbie, and I’ll be sure to alert the Guiness people to reserve a spot in their world records book just for you.

 

Recently, another “big mouth,” Rosie O’Donnell, opined from her bully pulpit on chick chat show “The View” that there is no reason to fear the terrorists because they’re “moms and dads,” like the rest of us.

 

How chilling is it that Condi Rice seems to be taking her talking points these days from Rosie O’Donnell?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:45 | link | comments (1)

 

Weekend off: Family festivities mean I’ll be away from the computer this weekend. Back on Monday.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:52 | link | comments (1)

 

Let ‘em eat carp: Today’s unintentionally hilarious headline comes from the Globe and Mail—UN fails to recommend ban on bottom trawling.

 

I’m not surprised. The UN has been serving the interests of bottom feeders for years. (Bah dah pum.)

 

And speaking of bottom feeders, the UN Human Rights Commission, er, Council, er, Cabal, er, whatever you want to call it (because whatever you call it, it’s the same old cesspool) is the focus of a Globe editorial. The editorial notes the Council’s obsessive interest in the world’s only Jewish state and, in another bit of unintentional hilarity, sees Kofi Annan, the UN’s outgoing (but hardly outgoing) Secretary General as someone who’s been working really hard to “fix” the UN’s problems.

 

Laugh? I thought I’d cry.

 

Anyone who cares to look honestly at the UN would see that Annan, a man for whom the buck has never stopped, is part of the problem, not part of the solution. And the problem cannot be fixed by applying paint and spackle to a rotten edifice.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:47 | link | comments

Grim fairy tale: Have I mentioned that I am convinced Cox & Forkum are the wisest, most adept political cartoonists of our time? Here's why:

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:00 | link | comments (1)

 

Kicking butt: Finally, an international organization that has the balls to stand up to Iran (link via Drudge).

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:31 | link | comments (3)

 

Thanksgiving: I’m not too thrilled that Americans were so foolish as to place Nancy Pelosi within two beating hearts of the presidency, but today, on the American Thanksgiving, I give thanks for America, the only real barrier to Islamist triumphalism--and triumphant Islamism.

 

I think novelist David Evanier expresses it best. In an interview in today’s Front Page Magazine about his early life as a Stalinist, and why he left it and all the delusional true believers behind he says, “I cannot imagine the barbarism that would engulf the world without the existence of America.”

 

As we say up here in darkest Canuckistan (made a little brighter, at least for the moment, by a Prime Minister who “gets it” about the global jihad), moi aussi.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:05 | link | comments

 

The new definition of “chutzpah”: It’s defying the world’s nuclear watchdog (admittedly, one much more Bichon Frise than Rottweiller) and going ahead and enriching uranium so you can make atomic bombs to nuke the Jews, and then asking the watchdog to help you work out a glitch in one of your reactors.

 

Now that’s chutzpah.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:59 | link | comments

 

Dying tree: David Warren on the tragedy of Lebanon, a county that, not long ago, was an oasis of the Arab  world, now torn asunder by fascists who seek to devour it:

 

…Here is a country that was once a little citadel of Christianity -- the last "Crusader kingdom", if you like -- and, only a few decades ago, by far the most economically advanced, the most free, and most liveable country in the Middle East (excepting Israel). Beirut was the entrepôt, through which commercial prosperity passed into many Arab lands. It was incidentally the centre for Arab music, as well as publishing, and the like -- the one place in the whole vast, squalid, backward region where, regardless of his religion, an Arab artist or intellectual could enjoy freedom of expression. It melts now in the hellfire of radical “Islamism”, and the exodus of its once-majority Christians is accelerating. The Cedar Revolution, that briefly promised a restoration of freedom and democracy, is coming to an end. Tyranny and death will now call the tunes.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:42 | link | comments

 

The world according to Jimminy “Cricket” Carter:  And as Alan Dershowitz writes, a weird, wacky, unwised-up world it is.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:36 | link | comments (1)

 

You want fries with that?: These guys must really have had the munchies. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Two employees of the [Boise, Idaho] city's ice skating rink have been fired for making a midnight fast-food run in a pair of Zambonis. An anonymous tipster reported seeing the two big ice-resurfacing machines chug through a Burger King drive-through and return to the rink around 12:30 a.m. on Nov. 10. The squat, rubber-tired vehicles, which have a top speed of about 5 mph, drove 1 1/2 miles in all.

The Zamboni operators, both temporary city employees whose names and ages were not released by Parks and Recreation Department, had to negotiate at least one intersection with a traffic light on their late-night creep from Idaho Ice World.

"They were fired immediately," said Parks Department Director Jim Hall. "We're pretty sure it was just the one time. When we interviewed them, they didn't seem to be too concerned about it. I don't think they understood the seriousness of it."

Hall said neither the $75,000 Zambonis nor their $10,000 blades appeared damaged, but the city could charge the employees with operating an unlicensed motor vehicle on a public street.

Also with freaking out the late shift at the Boise BK.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:30 | link | comments

 

You take the high road and they’ll take the low road and they’ll win the jihad afore ye: A piece on the American Thinker site takes notes of the practice of civilians volunteering to be “human shields” in order to serve the interests and advance the cause of terrorism—a new low in human behaviour that ranks down there with the human bomb:

…This new phenomenon seems to have been invented by Jamila Shanti, former philosophy professor and current Palestinian legislator, who also founded the women’s branch of Hamas. Shanti also led the successful human shield campaign in Beit Hanoun on November 8th. According to her shield theory:

“We consider it a new kind of resistance, highly successful, one that will serve us well against the Israeli enemy.”

In the most recent event, the human shields at Baroud’s house fired guns into the air and energetically chanted “Death to Israel!” and “Death to America!” One special shield at Baroud’s house was Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

“We are so proud of this national stand. It’s the first step toward protecting our homes, the homes of our children,” he said, while ascending to the roof.

Israel seems alarmed by all this. Also confused. According to military spokeswoman Noa Meir:

“What happened over the weekend is very worrisome to us. Not only are they using their civilians as human shields, they continue to endanger the lives of our own civilians with their rocket attacks. It presents us with a very difficult dilemma, because we want to do everything possible to keep civilians out of harm’s way.”

Such is Israel’s moral ignorance, weakness, and virtual bankruptcy. Humanity seems to have hit a new low with this. The Palestinians are using the Israelis’ well-known dedication to high principles and moral ideals against them. As one military spokesman foolishly put it, “We differentiate between innocent people and terrorists.”

The problem is those innocent people are acting completely in concert with the jihadis and support them utterly. They’re hardly innocent. They have made themselves into combatants.

Utlimately, the flawed moral beliefs of the Israelis need to be discarded and replaced with something far different. The Jewish State needs to reacquaint itself with the noble concept of self-defense—and recognize that all those jihadi-supporting “human shields” are properly subject to attack.

Ain’t never gonna happen—at least not with Ehud “The Invertebrate” Olmert in charge.

Personally, I think it’s a brilliant (though morally reprehensible) tactic—a win-win one for the ‘Slamists and a lose-lose one for the Israelis.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:21 | link | comments (1)

 

Punting on de Nile: And I bet you thought the Thames was the waterway that flows through London.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:10 | link | comments

 

Harpoon Hears a Jew: With more apologies profuse to Dr. Seuss:

 

On the fifteenth of May, in the burg of T.O.,

In a newspaper building, on a floor down below,

He was writing…enjoying the joys of composition

When Harpoon the pundit became aware of some fission.

So Harpoon stopped writing. He looked up at the screen.

“That’s funny,” said Harpoon. “I wonder, what can it mean?”

Then he looked up again. And he saw a great cloud.

And he said, little realizing he was talking out loud.

“Well, it looks like the Jews have bitten the dust.

Time to survey the damage and weigh in as I must.

“I believe,” wrote Harpoon, “a great horror has occurred.

And to say I don’t feel it, why, t’would be quite absurd.

‘Cause you know what I think. I’ve opined and I’ve nattered.

I’ve dealt with the facts—the one I thought have mattered.

And I’m telling you this: while I’m sorry they’re gone,

The Jews, er, the Zionists, were engaged in a con.

They were mean to some Arabs,

And wouldn’t “deal” with the Moo,

So he did what he said he was fated to do!

What else could he do? Because after all,

A Moo is a Moo, and the Jews had such gall.”

So, gently, and using the quintessence of care,

The pundit stretched his elastic mind and expressed his despair.

And he dredged up some pity and spread it all through his piece.

And placed it there, gently, with aplomb and much ease.

But just then…

“Humpf!” humpfed a voice. ‘Twas the ghost of an old Jew.

“You never did get it at all ‘bout the Moo.

Why, he’s been itching to off us since Khomeini’s revolution.

He promised to bring on the Jews’ execution.

But have you been list’ning? Have you heard him at all?

No, you’ve been bloviating about how the U.S.

Must have a great fall.

And now it’s too late, we’re history, we’re toast,

And the Moo, that fahrkakter, can swagger and boast.”

“Believe me,” said Harpoon. “I meant you no harm,

Why, I once even wrote that the Hassids had charm.

You cannot blame me if the Moo did his feat.

So don’t you be goin’ and flappin’ your sheet.

(Not that ghosts wear a sheet, but you know what I’m saying.)

Now shoo, go away!

Stop your kvetching and braying.”

But the dead Jew stayed put. He hovered and haunted.

He flew through the newsroom. He shrieked, and he taunted:

“Tho’ you don’t think your thinking was dark and malevolent

And say in defence it’s pervasive and prevalent

And that Norman and Noam and Harold, et al,

Thought the Moo was a Moo, and the Jews had much gall.

But really, Harpoon, t’was the constant accretion

Of zings and zaps,

Of slams and slaps

That has finally resulted in Israel’s deletion.”

“Look, see this here on my forearm?” said the old Jew,

And he showed him a number.

“This was put here the last time the world was a-slumber.

I escaped when the first Holocaust was on the world’s menu.

But, oy, look at me now—new Shoah, different venue.”

“No, no, no,” said Harpoon, and he burst into tears.

“You misunderstand my kindly intentions.

I only want to acquaint infidels with some harmless conventions

Like wearing the veil, and bowing down in submission.

I never wanted the Jews to meet up with perdition.

I’m really a nice multiculturalist—see, look,  here’s my prize.”

And he wiped copious, coursing tears from his eyes.

The ghost looked at Harpoon with dismay and disgust

And said, “I can see my haunting is pointless, so pardon my dust.”

Then he disappeared—poof!—feeling most unfulfilled

And joined the millions of ghosts of the Jews who’d been killed.

And Harpoon—

He heaved one final crocodile sob

And looked down at his keyboard,

And went back to his job.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:23 | link | comments

 

Gaza melodrama: Mark “Malarky” MacKinnon, the Globe and Mail’s man on the scene in the Middle East, has an unbelievably overwrought story today about UN Human Rights High Commissioner Louise Arbour in Gaza. Here are the first few paragraphs:

BEIT HANOUN, GAZA STRIP -- The grieving Gazan mother looked the powerful former Canadian judge in the eyes and tried to explain, woman to woman, what had happened to her family. But Tahani Athamna couldn't find the words; instead she sobbed as she placed her hand on a picture of her 12-year-old son, Mahmoud, who was killed by an errant Israeli shell two weeks ago.

Louise Arbour was clearly moved by the encounter on the top floor of a home that had been repeatedly punctured by Israeli artillery fire two weeks ago, which helped lead the UN high commissioner to conclude that a human-rights "catastrophe" had occurred in the Gaza Strip.

"I was sleeping here with my husband when the artillery shell hit," Ms. Athamna told Ms. Arbour, taking her by the arm and guiding her across a floor that was covered with the rubble of what was once the roof of her family's home.

Until that point, Ms. Athamna's voice had been an angry shout, trying to convince her guest of the horror her family had experienced on Nov. 8, the day Israeli shells rained down on their simple concrete house and the building next door, killing 18 of her relatives.

But upon coming face to face with a photograph of Mahmoud -- short-haired and smiling -- that was taped to the otherwise bare white wall, Ms. Athamna broke down. "The children slept here," was all that she communicated through a translator before her words dissolved into a wail. Ms. Arbour said nothing, but clutched her own hand to her heart in sympathy…

And guess what? You don’t even have to conjure up a mental image of Louise and the weeping relatives. The Globe has thoughtfully provided an AP photo of the whole terrible scene, with a sobbing (at least I think she’s sobbing; her hands are covering her face) female relative posed in profile in the foreground, while Human Rights Czarina Louise Arbour and the rest of the extended mishpacha, stand, posed front, in a doorway. (Louise is the one with a blue shmatta draped on her shoulder. Beside her, standing sideways, slumped, with a hand on the wall is a guy who looks like he could be the center for the Palestinian basketball team. Obviously, he wasn't posed in the doorway with the rest of them because he’s too frikkin’ big to fit.)

 

I don’t remember reading such highly-charged, emotionally-manipulative scenes since Erich Siegel’s Love Story—and that was only a harmless novel, not an article in Canada’s leading newspaper designed to elicit mega-sympathy for Palestinians and boos and hisses for the Snidely Whiplash of the piece, those brutal Jews. (Just a mo—who’s that I hear whispering in my ear? Why it’s none other than the ghost of Thelma Ritter in her role as Birdy, Bette Davis’s mordant maid in the movie All About Eve. And she’s saying, “Everything but the bloodhounds snapping at her read end.” Which, oddly enough, is a scene that has yet to make it into one of Malarkey’s melodramas, but describes the kind of sob story modus operendi that infuses almost everything he writes from the region.)

 

If Malarkey’s real lucky, maybe he has an inside shot at writing the screenplay for Beit Hanoun Story.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:32 | link | comments

 

A real Lou-Lou: Louise Arbour, head of what is quite possibly the most ludicrous and discredited of all the UN’s many agencies and affiliates (and that’s saying something) is in the Middle East and, whadya know?, she thinks the Jews have been up to some major breaches of “human rights.” From the Ceeb:

"Massive" human rights violations are being committed in the Gaza Strip, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said Monday as she kicked off a tour of the region.

The former Supreme Court of Canada justice, on a five-day trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories, toured the area of Beit Hanoun, a northern Gaza town where 19 members of the Al Athamna family were killed earlier this month in an Israeli artillery attack. Israeli officials have claimed it shelled the town in error.

"I'm basically here to express my concern and bring some comfort, I hope, by showing these victims that the world has not abandoned them," Arbour told reporters.

Israel has been operating in the area to halt Palestinian rocket strikes. Last week, an Israeli woman was killed in a rocket attack. 

Arbour was swarmed by residents flashing pictures of their dead and wounded relatives and calling for punishment of the Israeli soldiers responsible for the attacks.

She acknowledged their concern but also said the Palestinian leadership must offer the residents some hope...

But they are, they are, Ms. Arbour. They’re telling their people that, if they only keep the faith, soon enough the Jews will be nothing more than an unpleasant memory.

 

But then, if Moo’s nuke veers off track by even a little bit, it’s likely that the Palestinians will be, too.

 

Gotta love how the Ceeb sticks in that “claimed,” though,  just to show it doesn’t buy the Jews’ excuses.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:50 | link | comments (1)

 

Two for Tony: I admit to be completely flummoxed by Tony Blair. There he is, a craven invertebrate, flopping around and announcing his plans to appease the Islamo-Nazi Ahmadinejad by including Iran and its Mini-Me, Syria, in the Middle East Peace in Our Time process. Here he is, only days later, summoning up a spine and vowing that British troops won’t leave Afghanistan until the Taliban have been defeated.

 

What gives?

 

Well, you might say that the two pronouncements show the two sides of Tony: the one side that doesn’t “get” Israel at all and enjoys vacationing en famille with Jordan’s Royals; the other side that, despite the slings and arrows of his outrageous fortune, manages to muster a semblance of the Churchillian now and then.

 

I’ve written two limericks. One for the spineless Blair:

 

Where on earth did Mr. Blair’s backbone go?

It was here just a minute ago.

Now his realpolitik

Is making me sick

And his "help" is so not à propos.

 

And one for the Blair with guts:

 

Tony Blair—he is one in a million.

Why, at times he is actu’lly Churchillian.

That “give ‘em hell” Tony

Is ballsy and stoney.

Heck, better make that one in a billion.

 

Personally, I have a sense that the first verse is more fitting.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:16 | link | comments (2)

 

Vital signs: President Bush is visiting Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation in the world, and lots of the locals are outraged (aggrieved, incensed, irate, full of piss ‘n’ vinegar, freakazoidal, etc.) that he’s there. They’re organized a massive protest, and there are reports that one of the faithful may try to self-detonate in his presence.

 

Bush claims to be unperturbed by the display, saying "I applaud a society where people are free to express their opinion," which, I heard him just say on the radio, is a sign of a society’s “health.”  

 

Hmmm. As I recall, the last time the President spoke about a Muslim society’s so-called “health” was when he said that participating in a free and democratic election, even one that put a genocidal Islamist terror regime into office, was a sign of the Palestinians’ “health.”

 

Alas, that isn’t health but it’s opposite—the pathogen of hatred that infests and warps the mindset of much of the Muslim world. That the regime of Indonesia allows its populace to vent their rage in this way is a sign of collective delusion, not societal “health.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:29 | link | comments

 

Ignoring the threat: No wonder the Brits are having a hard time standing up to the jihadist threat in their midst. They aren’t even willing to take the necessary steps when confronted by the obvious symptoms of a heart attack. From the Times Online:

The British stiff upper lip is costing thousands their lives by deterring them from seeking help when they are having a heart attack, according to the British Heart Foundation (BHF).

Almost half the population would ignore the chest pains that could be heart attack symptoms, preferring to wait and see if they improved before calling for medical help, a survey for the charity suggested.

As prompt treatment improves greatly the chances of surviving a cardiac arrest, this is almost certainly contributing to thousands of deaths each year. Anyone with chest pain should call the emergency services immediately, the charity said. While most people assume that the pain from a heart attack is intense, the first symptoms are often mistaken for indigestion and ignored.

The BHF survey indicated that 40 per cent of people would wait to see whether their chest pains went away before dialling 999. Sixty-four per cent said that they would call a friend, relative or doctor before calling for an ambulance. Four out of five people said they would doubt the seriousness of the symptoms.

The results were announced yesterday, as the BHF began its “Doubt Kills” campaign to encourage people to ring the emergency services if they experience symptoms consistent with a heart attack…

Doubt kills. And so do jihadis.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:06 | link | comments

 

All talk, little action: Tony Blair, formerly resolute British Prime Minister, currently the world leader spearheading the drive to “negotiate with,” i.e. appease, the fascist regime that is on the cusp of nuclear capability that will allow it to nuke the Jewish state, and Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani Prime Minister who has been playing a canny game of both sides against the middle in an effort to save his own neck, have resolved to “fight terror together.”

 

Good luck with that one, chaps. You might find it a bit of a rough go though, since it’s impossible to “fight terror” by acquiescing to it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:46 | link | comments

 

A step in the wrong direction: In the run-up to the Second World War, the Brits had a Prime Minister who moved them away from a policy of appeasement toward a resolve to defeat the fascist enemy no matter the cost (“We shall never surrender!’). Today, their Prime Minister is moving them in the opposite direction (“Let’s bring the fascists in from the cold”). From Zee News:

 

Islamabad, Nov 19: British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sunday indicated that the West's approach to the "war on terror" has changed, as Pakistan's leader called for less emphasis on military action in Afghanistan.

Blair gave a broad hint that western policy towards tackling global extremism had shifted amid anticipated changes to coalition strategy in Iraq and calls for US foes Syria and Iran to be involved in the Middle East peace process.

Asked whether the United States and its allies like Britain were winning the "war on terror", he told a news conference: "We begin to win when we start to fight properly and I think we are now fighting properly but we've got to do more."

His official spokesman told British reporters later that Blair was not criticizing a previous approach or a particular tactic.

Instead, he said Blair was referring to the "fuller appreciation" of what was required in fighting extremism as part of a "broader global issue" that included the middle east.

Blair has previously called for a change in western strategy on combating extremism, urging the use of "soft power" techniques like aid and economic development as much as military might.

His comments -- made after talks with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf -- suggest other allies are now coming around to that line of thinking in the face of growing sectarian violence in Iraq and Taliban resistance in Afghanistan.

 

If that’s the case, then all I can say is God help us all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:42 | link | comments

 

Judenhass in France: A blackly amusing story in the pages of the Independent. Seems Jean-Marie Le Pen, far-right ultra-nationalist and noted Jew-hater, has been trying to improve his changes of election by moseying over from the fringe to the centre, where more French voters are supposed to lurk (or cower, depending on how you see it). His daughter has been working hard toward this end and had invited a group of Jews to attend one of papa’s rallies so they could see firsthand how much more moderate he’s become. Trouble is, she failed to run these plans past papa. He’d already gone ahead and invited Dieudonné, France’s black Jew-hating “comedian,” to deliver one of his trademark anti-Semitic rants at the rally. Zut alors! C’est un grand faux pas!

 

Now stay with me here: Dieudonné (that’s his stage name—you know, like Borat) used to be “of the extreme left,” but in recent days he’s decided that, since all the problems in the world are due to a massive but secret Jewish conspiracy, he feels very comfortable aligning himself with the likes of far-right xenophobe, Le Pen.

 

So what have we learned here?

 

Left, right or even more to the centre, in France, Judenhass is a tie that binds and unites.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:23 | link | comments

 

Sounds painful:  In a Times Online story about Ségolène Royale, the woman who wants to become the next president of France so she can save her country from its "malaise,"  Royale describes herself as “the incarnation of rupture.”

 

Come again? The whosit of whatsit?

 

One cannot imagine a leadership contender in any other Western democracy (with the possible exceptions of Michael Ignatieff in Canada and John Kerry in the U.S.) using such highfalutin’ and bizarre phraseology.

 

To translate for those outside of France who don’t know what the heck she’s talking about (as I certainly didn’t), calling herself “the incarnation of rupture” is apparently Royale’s way of saying that she and not her arch-rival Nicolas Sarkozy is the true agent of change (that is, of a “rupture” with France’s past).

 

I’m so glad I could clear that up.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:22 | link | comments

 

Sneaky Siddiqui: In his column today, Harpoon Siddiqui comes out in favour of our accepting cultural and religious differences, for example, by allowing Hasidic Jews to erect an eruv, and not making a fuss should Muslim women decide to wear a niqab:

 

Should there be limits on multiculturalism? If so, how do we define and implement them?

 

Such questions are raised when there's a cultural conflict or an outright clash between "secular" and "religious" values.

 

There was the debate over what to do with conservative Muslim women who, for reasons of cultural practice or religious belief, want to wear not just the hijab (head scarf), but the niqab, the cloth that covers the face.

 

There was the legal row in 2001 over the Montreal Hasidic community stringing up a fishing line along utility poles to create an expanded eruv, the area in which the Orthodox may carry on activities which otherwise would be prohibited on the Saturday Sabbath. The Hasidim are in the news again:

 

·  A Montreal yeshiva, religious school, paid an adjacent YMCA to frost four windows, to remove the temptation for students to peep at scantily-clad exercising women.

 

·  The police force in Montreal is under the gun for suggesting that female officers call in their male colleagues to deal with ultra-Orthodox men who may not want to talk to women.

 

Harpoon is responding to a recent poll showing that, on the whole, Canadians are quite Islamophilic, but they draw the line at countenancing religious law that oppresses women and clashes with our cherished Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Harpoon wants to assure us that Islam is not the only religion that has laws proscribing female behaviour, and that “Multiculturalism is...not to blame for the discrimination against women in various faiths.”

 

Well, who said it was? Isn’t the whole point that the “various faiths” are responsible for it?

 

At first glance, Harpoon’s championing the rights of Hasidic Jews and Muslim women seems to be mighty accepting and Kumbaya-ish of him; he appears to be arguing for tolerance and, as Martha Stewart says, that’s a good thing. But delve a little deeper and you realize that what Harpoon is really asking for is, well, the same thing he’s always asking for: He wants Canadians to become accustomed to the kind of radical Islam that demands that women don a niqab. He also wants to drive a wedge between Canada and the only power in the world that stands in the way of the Islamist global agenda:

 

A multicultural and multi-faith environment demands of us suitable policies for our Christian majority but not Christian country.

 

Employers generally accommodate observant Jewish employees wanting to take Saturday off and let Muslim employees adjust their work schedules to take an hour or two off for the Friday noon prayers.

 

Urban schools wonder how Christian the Christmas Concert can be. Some draw the line at carols and the nativity scene. Others call it the Winter Concert.

 

Paradoxically, Canada, with a less rigid approach to the issue of church vs. state has ended up with a more secular political culture than the United States which, despite its strict constitutional separation between church and state, finds its secular space increasingly breached by religion.

 

This is a record to be proud of, not panic over, as the sensationalist media coverage of such issues tends to suggest.

 

Got that? Harpoon doesn’t want us to succumb to “the sensationalist media” no matter which religious issues it chooses to sensationalize. So Hasidic Jews lobbying for an eruv, Christians who want to sing Christmas carols at a school concert, and Muslims who choose to pursue a radical agenda that requires women to publicly acknowledge their nullity by wearing a black pup tent—it’s all the same to him. And he wants it to be all the same to the rest of us, too.

 

Very clever, that Harpoon. Scary clever, if you ask me.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:59 | link | comments

 

Clarity and blindness: Some straight talk from General John Abizaid, the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East. Notice, however, how Islam Online endeavours to pour cold water on it and twist it into something else:

 

CAMBRIDGE — The top US general in the Middle East has warned of a third world war over the rising "Islamic militancy", comparing the militant ideologies to the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s that set the stage for World War Two.

"If we don't have guts enough to confront this ideology today, we'll go through World War Three tomorrow," Gen. John Abizaid said in a speech at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, outside Boston, on Friday, November 17, Reuters reported.

The US commander said that failure to stop the militancy would allow extremists to "gain an advantage, to gain a safe haven, to develop weapons of mass destruction and to develop a national place from which to operate."

"And I think that the dangers associated with that are just too great to comprehend," he added.

The United States and its ally Britain have been accused of playing the terror card and employing the fear factor to boost plummeting ratings.

President George W. Bush's Republican Party has taken a drubbing in the November midterm Congress elections in which the Democrats wrestled control of both houses of Congress.

A recent report by British think tank, the Chatham House, said that five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Al-Qaeda group is losing sympathy in the broad Muslim world over discomfort about the association of Islam with violence and the indiscriminate civilian killings.

In a report presented to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday, November 13, a galaxy of world-renowned scholars, politicians and religious leaders blamed political conflicts rather than religious differences for a yawning divide between Muslims and the West…

So who’s right here—the tough talking General or the craven dhimmis in the U.S., the U.K. and the UN who think they can sit out the jihad by playing ostrich?

 

I’d say that one’s a no-brainer.

Posted by: scaramouche at 01:45 | link | comments (2)

 

Saud. House of Saud: As the newest James Bond flick, Casino Royale, swipes the box office title from a wiry Jew-hating faux Kazakhstani, there’s a scenario underway that’s worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster (but will never find its way onto movie screens because it’s far too politically incendiary). From the Sunday Times Online:

 

SAUDI ARABIA is threatening to suspend diplomatic ties with Britain unless Downing Street intervenes to block an investigation into a £60m “slush fund” allegedly set up for some members of its royal family.

A senior Saudi diplomat in London has delivered an ultimatum to Tony Blair that unless the inquiry into an allegedly corrupt defence deal is dropped, diplomatic links between Britain and Saudi Arabia will be severed, a defence source has disclosed.

The Saudis, key allies in the Middle East, have also threatened to cut intelligence co-operation with Britain over Al-Qaeda.

They have repeated their threat that they will terminate payments on a defence contract that could be worth £40 billion and safeguard at least 10,000 British jobs.

The Saudis are furious about the criminal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into allegations that BAE Systems, Britain’s biggest defence company, set up the “slush fund” to support the extravagant lifestyle of members of the Saudi royal family.

The payments, in the form of lavish holidays, a fleet of luxury cars including a gold Rolls-Royce, rented apartments and other perks, are alleged to have been paid to ensure the Saudis continued to buy from BAE under the so-called Al-Yamamah deal, rather than going to another country. Al-Yamamah is the biggest defence contract in British history and has kept BAE in business for 20 years.

At least five people have been arrested in the probe. They include Peter Wilson, BAE’s managing director of international programmes, and Tony Winship, a former company official who oversaw two travel and service firms that are alleged to have been conduits for the payments. Both deny any wrongdoing.

The Saudi threat was made in September after the royal family became alarmed at the latest turn in the fraud inquiry. Sources close to the investigation say the Saudis “hit the roof” after discovering that SFO lawyers had persuaded a magistrate in Switzerland to force disclosure about a series of confidential Swiss bank accounts...

To paraphrase Lord Acton, money corrupts, and an absolutely endless supply of oil money corrupts absolutely.

Posted by: scaramouche at 01:24 | link | comments (1)

Close but no cigar: After reportedly being a hair’s breadth away from working out a deal, talks between Hamas and Fatah have broken down. From AFP:

Unity talks between Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, prime minister Ismail Haniya and the man tipped to be the new premier ended on Saturday without agreement, a Palestinian source said.

Abbas, from the moderate Fatah movement, Haniya from the Islamist Hamas and his "neutral" replacement Mohammed Shubair declined to comment on the Gaza City talks, but presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said they had focused on "all the details connected to the national unity government."

"Things are going well," Abu Rudeina said. "We are going in the right direction and are close to reaching an agreement."

Meanwhile, senior Fatah and Hamas officials wrapped up a three-hour meeting aimed at hammering out the details of a future national unity cabinet, also without reaching a final agreement…

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:02 | link | comments

Islam gets a pass: Harold Evans, former editor of the London Times, recalls a telling incident from a couple of years ago. His anecdote shows that while the Brits have no trouble looking at Christianity’s “naughty bits” vis-à-vis the Jews, when someone is so politically maladroit as to raise the instances of Judenhass embedded in the Koran, there’s simply no discussion. From the New York Sun:

When I spoke at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival a couple of years back and criticized newspapers that headlined suicide bombers as martyrs, I was told by two angry leading intellectuals that I had lived too long in America.

Something similar happened at this year's Hay-on-Wye festival, sponsored by the Guardian, where a five-person panel discussed "Are there are any limits to free speech?" One of the Muslim panelists said if anyone offended his religion, he would strike him. A lawyer, Anthony Julius, responded that Jews had lived as minorities under two powerful hegemonies, Christian and Muslim, and had been obliged to learn how to deal nonviolently with offense caused to them by the sacred scriptures of both. He started by referring to an anti-Semitic passage in the New Testament — which passed without comment. But when he began to list the passages in the Koran that denigrate Jews, describing them as monkeys and pigs, the panelists went ballistic. One of them, Madeline Bunting of the Guardian, put her hand over the microphone and said words to the effect, "I am not going to sit here and listen to any criticisms of Muslims." She was cheered, and not one of the journalists in the audience from right or left uttered a word about free speech — not hate speech, mind you, but free speech of a moderate nature.

It is understandable that the leaders of the Muslim community are sensitive to a stereotype of Muslims as enemies of the people. The vast majority — in Britain and certainly here — are decent, law-abiding citizens, and they deserve our sympathy and respect. But it is undeniable that terrorist crimes are committed by Muslims, and leaders in their communities have an obligation to denounce the jihadists. Symptomatic of the moral queasiness is the protest in Britain by 38 Islamic organizations, together with three members of the House of Commons and three of the House of Lords, who blame terrorism not on the jidhadists but on the foreign policy of Tony Blair and George Bush.

This attitude is, at the least, unhistorical. Islamic radicals were using Afghanistan as a base to plot murder, climaxing in 9/11, long before the ill-judged invasion of Iraq. In fact, they were plotting when the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was moving to a peaceful resolution. By attacking Mr. Blair instead of Osama bin Laden, the protesters in the Muslim community and their nursemaids in news organizations give the radicals a free pass and feed a sense of grievance among perennially disgruntled youth. Maybe the latest terrorist news — a plot to flood the subways under the Thames — will give second thoughts to all those well-meaning battalions of left and right and leaders of the Muslim community who have yet to see an anti-terrorism measure they approve.

The free pass is extraordinary in light of the deaths in Britain, the conviction last week of a man plotting to blow up the London subways, and the public warning last week by the head of British intelligence, who traditionally remains anonymous, that 30 more plots were in the offing…

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:51 | link | comments

 

Peace, how? Peace Now, that organization of clueless but dangerous leftists who threaten Israel’s existence, are at it again. And it won’t rest until the Jews agree to “negotiate.” From YNet News:

Some 400 left-wing activists demonstrated Saturday opposite the Erez Crossing in northern Gaza, calling for Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians.

 The protest, organized by Peace Now, was held under the title, “Only negotiations will stop Qassams.”

 Addressing the rally journalist Gideon Levi declared that there is no room for comparisons between Sderot and Beit Hanoun . “Sderot is weeping over one victim, while Beit Hanoun mourns 80,” Levi said.

Fatah leader Sufian Abu Zaida was barred from entering Israeli territory, and therefore spoke to the crowds with the aid of a cell phone and loudspeaker. Abu Zaida asserted that solutions were not bound up in military action.

 “Whoever plans the next military operation, Defensive Shield 2 or 10, must be told, ‘You tried this a thousand times. It won’t stop the Qassams. The only solution is two nations for two peoples.’”…

Um, I’m pretty sure Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran and the majority of Muslims have a somewhat different take on the subject.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:16 | link | comments

 

Sins of the father: An interesting post on The American Thinker site by J.R. Dunn. After commenting on Charles Krauthammer’s most recent column in the Washington Post wherein he notes that Iraq seems to lack the kind of leadership necessary for democratic rule, Dunn lays the blame for this deficiency squarely in the lap of Bush père and his motley crew:

…One of the last mass slaughters carried out by Saddam occurred just after the First Gulf War, as a direct result of George H.W. Bush’s encouraging the Shi’ite and Kurdish resistance to take down the regime. Saddam reacted with all the force he had at his command (considerable, even after the whipping he’d just taken), particularly air power in the form of helicopter gunships. Tens of thousands were added to his tally, while the U.S. stood by under the specious and transparent excuse that we’d “guaranteed” not to interfere with Saddam’s helicopters. Two months passed before the U.S. stepped in to set up the northern and southern no-fly zones, effectively curtailing the massacre.

How many of those who died in that paroxysm were the leaders we look for today but can’t find?

We need to keep in mind is that this episode was the contribution of the realist school, now being touted as the saviors of American Middle East policy. It was their advice and influence that held back the orders to knock down those gunships. Ever enthralled by the mirage of “stability”, the realists did their best to save Saddam Hussein, thus playing a large part in creating the situation we find ourselves in today. 

Several of the principals behind the that policy, chief among them James Baker, are members of the Iraq Study Group, even now working up its final report on possible solutions for the Iraq “situation”. It would nice to think that the realists have learned from their errors. But the kind of leaks that have been appearing the past few weeks suggest that may be too much to hope for. In judging the findings of the Iraq Study Group, we should, among other criteria, consider whether it’s as bloodless, cruel, and futile as the advice they offered in 1991.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:02 | link | comments

 

Assad-licker: The prize for the most barf-inducing comment of the day goes to Guardian scribe Faisal al Yafai. Faisal calls on Tony Blair to demean himself and the entire Western world by appeasing one of world’s most loathsome despots, a man he describes thus:

 

Syria's president, Bashar Al Assad, has a rather boyish way of laughing. It's almost endearing, as if he's been caught playing at politics. That laugh must be ringing throughout the presidential palace these days. Certainly you can hear its echo at Damascene dinner parties…

 

Yeah, that Boy Assad—he’s such a scamp.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:23 | link | comments

 

Pappe’s pap: David Pryce-Jones has a delicious evisceration of Ilan Pappe and his new book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (link via Martin Kramer). The book is sure to be grabbed up by the same crowd eager to read Jimminy “Cricket” Carter’s new piece o’ fecal matter, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.  Pappe is a self-loathing Jewish academic of the Noam Chomsky/Norman Finkelstein school. Because he’s an Israeli, though, he focuses his obsessive self-hatred on efforts to bring down the Jewish state, which he sees as an (stop me if you’ve heard this before) illegitimate-colonialist-imperialist-apartheid entity.

 

Pryce-Jones writes that, despite the fact that Pappe’s ideas are “expressed with obsession and a degree of paranoia,” they can be unpacked in a rational way. First, he explains that Pappe is an old-style Stalinist (yes, such strange anachronisms still exist in the new millennium, although you would think that a far-leftist bleeding heart would be more than a little embarrassed to identify with one of history’s all-time great mass murderers). An ardent internationalist, Pappe sees nationalism (and, therefore, Zionism) as an impediment to the global worker’s utopia as promised by Karl Marx.

 

Second, Pappe is one of those Jews who, historically, have sought to expunge his/her own identity by “blending in” with Communists or Nazis—totalitarians with an immense animus toward the Jewish people.

 

And finally, there’s this point, which I quote because I am always thrilled when someone puts my own thoughts into words—and does so in such an eloquent, on-the-money manner:

 

Contemporary intellectuals have long been accustomed to glorying in an adversarial stance towards their own society, preening themselves as men of nobler spirits than the dull indifferent masses around them, and isolated not because they are foolish but because they are brave. It is a form of snobbery – moral snobbery – which is why intellectuals of this kind are so widely resented.

 

Snobbery, yes, but arrogance, too. These folks are convinced that, because of their intellectual gifts, they and they alone have the inside track on understanding and explaining the world. Ironically, despite their acumen, they usually manage to get almost everything wrong.

 

George Orwell had these preening dimwits pegged some time ago when he drolly commented: “Some things are so stupid, only an intellectual could believe them.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:06 | link | comments (2)

 

Standing pat: In a pointless waste of breath and energy, the U.S. has urged Hamas, the terrorist organization which has an agenda of genocide, to “change.”

 

Hamas has dispresectfully declined the request and invited Great Satan to stick it in his ear. Also, they’d be most appreciative if the U.S. were to do all the pertinent “changing”. From news.com.au:

THE Hamas-led Palestinian Government has said that the US, rather than Hamas, must change its policies if it hopes for peace.

Washington is preparing for a possible peace push that could include an international peace conference in Jordan at the end of the month.

But US diplomats said any such meeting hinged on a planned Palestinian unity government meeting the conditions of the Quartet of Middle East mediators: to recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by past agreements.

Hamas is sworn to Israel's destruction and has said that any unity government it joins will not recognise Israel's right to exist.

But Deputy Palestinian Prime Minister Naser al-Shaer said rival Palestinian factions had reached a "consensus" that the unity government's programme would be separate from Hamas's.

"There's an agreement that the government would go about its business and the factions would go about theirs. There's no need for combining the governmental and factional work," Mr Shaer said.

The comments raised the possibility that the unity government could try to meet at least some of the Quartet's conditions while Hamas remains committed to Israel's destruction.

"American policy is the biggest obstacle to bringing peace and security to the region," said Hamas's Ghazi Hamad, the Palestinian cabinet spokesman.

"The Americans should not demand from the Palestinian side to commit or to abide by the Quartet conditions. The Americans should change their own policy and ask Israel to change its policies toward the Palestinian people," he said.

Ismail Rudwan, a spokesman for Hamas, said the militant group would never recognise Israel's right to exist. Likewise, Mr Rudwan said he expected the platform of any unity government "not to recognise the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation".

Mr Hamad said progress was being made in weekend talks between Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah over forming the unity government.

"There is great hope that we will be able to form the government before the end of this month in a satisfactory manner to all parties," Mr Hamad said.

  Can’t hardly wait for that one.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:02 | link | comments

 

Sir David’s new role: There was an extremely mediocre movie back in the late 1960s called The Magic Christian. I don’t recall why it had that title—there didn't seem to be anything magical or religious about it. Just the opposite, in fact. It dealt with the quotidian and the decidedly unmetaphysical. The premise of the movie, which starred Peter Sellers and Ringo Star, was that people are irredeemably greedy, and, for the love of lucre, are willing to debase themselves in the most disgusting ways. The movie’s theme song, sung by a group of Beatles soundalikes, underscored the on-screen antics: “If you want it, here it is, come and get it, but you better hurry ‘cause it’s going fast.”

 

I haven’t thought of that movie or song in a very long time, but it bubbled up from the recesses of my memory this morning upon reading this story in the Times Online. It recounts how Sir David Frost, pre-senescent British TV yammerer, and a man about whom someone once quipped that he “rose without a trace,” has, for an undisclosed but no doubt immense amount of moolah, decamped from the Beeb to the English-language Al That Jaz. And in a coup of sorts, his first interviewee was none other than beleaguered British P.M., Tony Blair, the man who, in his dying days of leadership, hopes to buff up his tarnished image by bringing “peace” to the Middle East.

 

That should go over well with Al That Jaz’s viewers:

 

EVERY exit is an entrance somewhere else, says the Player in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

Sir David Frost’s entrance into the studios of al-Jazeera comes after his exit from the BBC after 12 years interviewing fame-hungry, preening, self-obsessed people — not all of them politicians.

His questions to Tony Blair, his prize catch of a debut interviewee, covered a topic that an admirer would say showed Frost’s professionalism in tailoring his interrogation to the audience’s area of interest. A cynic might wonder if the choice reflected an awareness of who is paying Frost’s salary.

Apart from asking Blair if he might consider staying on under a Brown Administration as Foreign Secretary (No — “When you step down as Prime Minister you step down”), and whether Cherie might consider doing a Hillary Clinton after Tony quit No 10 (“No”), the inquisition focused almost exclusively on the Middle East.

Frost asked Blair about his perceived hesitation in rapping Israel’s knuckles during the Israel/Lebanon conflict. Frost remarked on Iraq: “So far it’s been pretty much of a disaster.” The Taleban was still strong, Frost noted, even though Blair had said, in 2001, that they were in disarray. And what happened to finding Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan? You began to feel that Claire Short would have found little to complain about in Frost’s line of inquiry.

No doubt aware that Frost’s legendary interviews with President Nixon are currently being re-lived as a drama on the London stage, Blair was clearly not planning to be cast in the Nixon role — tearfully apologising to the world for mistakes that some sections of al-Jazeera’s audience might believe him to have made in the Middle East.

Blair was eloquent, confident and sticking to his guns. He cited peace between Israel and Palestine as “the single most important objective for us”, but wasn’t going to be drawn into regretting the invasion of Iraq.

Young hacks might gawp in wonder at how Frost became the worldwide phenomenon he has. It’s not just that he has made a calling-card of the catchphrase “Hello, good evening, and welcome”, the way Leslie Phillips did with “Ding dong!”, it’s that Frost’s questions sound so tame compared with the modern style of aggressive interviewing. His technique seems to be the interviewer’s equivalent of the tennis player who calculates that if he can just manage to keep lobbing the ball back over the net, however gently, the other guy is bound to slip up sooner or later and gift him a point.

Frost is the sort of shiny TV bauble that al-Jazeera must be hoping will catapult it from being regarded as a largely Arab mouthpiece into an international, English-language news channel that is spoken of in the same breath as CNN, Sky News and BBC World.

That might be too big a weight for Frost’s shoulders to bear, though he seems game to try. Frost is past retirement age, but you can’t see him ever ditching his clipboard: even after he’s dead it’s likely to be Frost asking the questions of St Peter rather than the other way round...

Indeed, but only if God agrees to pony up the cash to pay him for the interview.

 

Update: I’ve done some research and found out the “The Magic Christian” of the title was actually a cruise ship where some of the hijinks took place.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:33 | link | comments (1)

 

Campus crapola: Last week, I happened to be travelling on the subway, and on the seat beside me there was a copy of Excalibur, the newspaper of York University. Because of its extremely large and vocal population of Muslim students, York is less-than-fondly known by another moniker: Gaza U.

 

The front page of the paper had two main stories, side by side. The story to the right explained how the university was scrambling to meet the demand of all the Muslim students who needed to pray during their time at school. The story on the right dealt with the numerous anti-Semitic incidents that had occurred during Holocaust Education Week.

 

“Hmmm,” thought I, a former student of journalism who once had a hand in putting out a campus newspaper. “Isn’t it interesting that the editor didn’t see the unintentionally amusing juxtaposition here?" An outside observer—moi—could, without going out too far on a limb, see that the first story might have have had something to do with the second story, although, clearly, that observation flew right over the head of the Excalibur's oblivious editor. 

 

I thought about writing a letter to the editor pointing out the grimly comical placement of the two stories, but between one thing and another, I never got around to it.

 

As it turns out, one of the stories, the one about the spike in anti-Semitic incidents during Holocaust Education Week, did elicit a number of letter. Three, to be exact.  Two of them, quelle surprise, say that Israeli policies are a factor in the spike. The other, refreshingly, comes to Israel's defence.

 

I thought I’d post one of the letters—to my mind, the most revolting one. For while my expectations of students on North American (and European) campuses is extremely low—I know how hard it is for the timourous, the uninformed and the easily led to row against the surging tide of leftist, anti-Zionist propoganda—I find it particularly appalling when a Jew of any age uses the example of the Holocaust to score points against the Jewish state.

 

Here’s the letter:

 

Dear Editor,

    I just hate to whip out the "my grandparents were Holocaust survivors who fled to Palestine in 1948, and I am still a Jew who boycotts Israeli apartheid" card, but in response to Valary Thompson's erratic article, I feel as though I must.

    I was a student at a conservative Hebrew day school for 10 years and therefore, I feel that I'm greatly schooled in the meaning of anti-Semitism. To call the plastering of anti-Israeli apartheid stickers in the Student Centre elevator as such is nothing short of absurd.  

    There are many folks associated with the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA), including Jews (shocking isn't it?), and to make the assumption that this was an act of anti-Semitism when there could've very well been Jewish participation attests to this article as both poorly researched and ignorant.

    I would never deny the importance of Holocaust Education Week anywhere, as it allows for the retelling of histories, for myself as well. But Adam Hummel buries himself in his own irony when he makes the claim that the goal of Holocaust Education Week at York is to start talking about other genocides while he simultaneously denies that there is a genocide happening in Palestine. How typical.

    In fact, on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 28 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli Defense Forces. These included eight children and seven women who were sleeping in their homes when they were murdered. Call me a sensationalist; call me a self-hating Jew, and call me insensitive to my family's legacy of survival, but I will not stand idle when folks who speak out against Israel's mass extermination of Palestinians are named anti-Semites.  And as a testament to my grandparents, I will also not stand idle when a system of apartheid is maintained in the name of a Jewish state, in my name.

Okay, I'll bite: You're a sensationalist; you're a self-hating Jew; you're insensitive to your family's legacy of survival. Furthermore, I'm sure your grandparents (if they're still alive), people who survived the same kind of unhinged fascist hatred that now threatens to obliterate the world’s only Jewish state, must very proud of their idiot granddaughter.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:53 | link | comments (3)

 

Nazi crawls out of the woodwork: Now that Judenhass is once again acceptable, at least in certain quarters, it’s an opportune time for old-fangled Nazis to re-emerge from their holes. From Der Spiegel:

An avowed neo-Nazi in Saxony's state parliament has made a spectacle of himself this week with two outright -- and illegal -- statements of praise for Hitler. His German party, the NPD, hasn't distanced itself from his words, though it has kicked him out of its caucus.

Germany's far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) was busy with spin control this week after a member of its elected fraction in Saxony's state parliament praised Adolf Hitler -- not once, but twice.

Klaus-Jürgen Menzel, a 66-year-old farmer and member of Saxony's NPD caucus, told a TV interviewer over the weekend, "I support the Führer, just as I always did. Nothing's changed, and why should it?"

By Tuesday, he was out of the NPD fraction -- on a technicality, though, not for mentioning Hitler. "With his actions and words he has become a burden for the party," read an official statement.

But on Wednesday Menzel caused another uproar by stepping up to the podium in Dresden with two shotgun cartridges in his coatpocket and declaring support for vigilante justice. "This is how I would deal with child molesters," he said, producing the cartridges. Then he exchanged words with a left-wing, Austrian-born politician named Peter Porsch. "There are several kinds of Austrians," Menzel said to Porsch while he was still in the parliamentary hall. "But when I see someone like you in front of me, the other (Austrian) always seems more sympathetic."

A ranking member of the legislature later asked Menzel if he meant Hitler, who was Austrian-born. Menzel said it would make no sense to compare the last chancellor of the German Reich with a "Stasi snitch" -- a jab at Porsch, who had links to the East German secret police apparatus during the communist era.

Menzel was then barred from the plenary session. It was the first time in recent memory that Hitler had been praised in a German legislative hall…

The first, but doubtless not the last.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:11 | link | comments

 

A tree grew in Amsterdam: I have a bit of a problem with the whole Anne Frank business, how the diary of a young girl murdered by the Nazis became a vehicle for treacly uplift, how her saga has been sanitized and de-Judaised, and turned into a universal story about racial discrimination. (Cynthia Ozick has a brilliant essay on the subject.) Nonetheless, at a time when Jews are facing a reprise of the Holocaust, there is something disturbingly symbolic about this Der Spiegel story:

The famous chestnut tree which provided succor to Anne Frank during her years of hiding from the Nazis has succumbed to infection. It will soon be cut down – but will live on in the Internet.

After a long battle with illness and infection, the famous chestnut tree which provided Anne Frank inspiration and support during her years of hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam will now have to be cut down. For the last two years, the 150-year-old tree has been the victim of an aggressive fungus, as well as the dangerous horse chestnut leaf miner moth, for the last two years. It’s now at risk of falling over. The decision was announced on Tuesday by the Amsterdam city council.

The news comes after a long battle to keep the tree alive. Last year, the tree’s crown was cut back for stability. A number of botanists have also been performing tests and observing the chestnut in the past six months to do what they can to save it. In the 1990s, the city of Amsterdam spent €160,000 on a soil sanitation program after it was found that leakage of domestic fuel from a nearby underground tank was threatening the tree’s root system. All for naught.

“It’s very sad, but the decision has been taken,” Patricia Bosboom, spokeswoman for the Anne Frank House Museum, told the AP. “It’s one of the oldest chestnut trees in Amsterdam.”

The tree made several appearances in Anne Frank’s diary, written during the 25 months she and her family spent hiding from the Nazi occupiers from 1942 to 1944. It was the only bit of nature she could see from attic of the house in central Amsterdam – all the other windows in the apartment were blacked out.

“Nearly every morning I go to the attic to blow the stuffy air out of my lungs,” she wrote on Feb. 23, 1944. “From my favorite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind….”

In May of that year, she wrote: “Our chestnut tree is in full blossom. It is covered with leaves and is even more beautiful than last year….”

If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Hitler of our times, has his way, today’s Jews will also be cut down like Anne’s tree--and like Anne herself--and live on solely on the Internet.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:46 | link | comments

 

The anti-Zionist Beeboisie: The American Thinker site has a piece about the Beeb’s egregious biases, now because of the Balen report, exposed for all to see (or at least, for all who care to look). But, as the writer notes, the Beeb has lots of company in the British media (links from AT piece):

 

…Its [the Beeb’s] Europhilia, its nauseating culture of anti-Americanism and its associated loaded anti-Iraq war coverage – culminating in its public humiliation by the Hutton Inquiry – have all been well exposed. But, somehow, a misty-eyed romanticism about the BBC still persists despite the hard evidence. Indeed, such is the wholesale departure of the BBC from its own Charter on Informed Citizenship and its declared commitment to ‘accurate, impartial and independent’ journalism, that even a leftwing think-tank has called for its public service broadcast status to be revoked.

 

But if anything has created a strong moral distaste among media commentators it is the BBC’s increasingly blatant anti-Israel news coverage.  If anti-Semitism is on the ‘orchestrated’ rise across Europe, as even the BBC admits, then the left-dominated Western media is increasingly conducting the symphony. Nor is the BBC alone in being accused of anti-semitic prejudices in the UK media.

 

We have had the sick  Independent cartoon of Ariel Sharon swallowing a baby. The leftwing New Statesman published its famously bigoted Kosher Conspiracy over which its editor was forced to apologize. In August the Independent on Sunday ran Robert Fisk’s (yes, he famously of the beating at the hands of an Afghan Muslim mob ‘driven to it’, so he claimed, by US foreign policy) hysterical Slaughter in Qana. Fisk’s piece turned out to be yet another diatribe short on facts and long on anti-Israel propaganda. 

 

And perhaps you remember John McCarthy? The former hostage held by terrorists in Lebanon? Well it appears he’s now working for them. The Independent’s anti-Israel op-ed column that is, not the terrorists.

 

And only last month leading US lawyer Alan Dershowitz, having found the core thesis of his new book Preemption: a knife that cuts both ways had been entirely misrepresented in a Guardian book review, was reduced to drafting an Open Letter to set the record straight after Guardian editors refused a print redress.

 

I have often conjectured that if ever Oliver Stone re-made Casablanca it would be set in an Islamic Republic, star George Galloway or Mel Gibson as ‘Rick’ and the role of the iconic Transit Papers, conceived to achieve safe passage through the evil Taleban host, supplanted by a copy of The Guardian or New York Times.

 

But it is the culture of anti-Israel propaganda at the publicly-funded BBC with which we are concerned here. Even BBC Governors were forced to uphold a complaint of bias by numerous MP’s after the BBC’s Middle East correspondent revealed she had been “moved to tears” as Yasser Arafat was helicoptered away to die. And immediately after the Reuters photo fakery was exposed, BBC morning TV presenters actually diverted an on-screen report on the affair into an attack on “right-wing US bloggers” for “causing” the rumpus.

While I might prefer the BBC to own up to what Monty Python’s Cleese would call the “bleedin’ obvious” – its ideological ‘values-bias’, as the Balen Report may help to confirm beyond doubt – what I truly resent, as a Brit taxpayer, is being legally bound to subsidise ideologically left-biased ‘public service’ broadcasting – and, by nauseating extension, its iniquitous anti-semitic propaganda.  

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:31 | link | comments

 

Ripe for the picking: When Willie Sutton, a notorious American bank robber of the 1930s was asked why he robbed banks he is said to have replied, “Because that’s where the money is.”

 

Well, duh!

 

If one were to ask the jihadists why they’re looking for new recruits on university campuses, they might well paraphrase Willie and reply, “Because that’s where the anti-Zionism is.”

 

From the Telegraph:

 

Britain faces a sustained threat from extremist Islamic groups recruiting in British universities, the Government warned today.

 

Releasing new guidance designed to root out suspected terror cells, Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, said there was evidence that undergraduates were being "groomed" by groups infiltrating campuses disguised as ordinary students.

 

The document, released to all universities today, warns lecturers to be vigilant of students suspected of circulating extremist literature and extremist speakers visiting campuses.

 

It outlines a series of "scenarios" based on real events reported by university and college staff to illustrate the kind of threat being posed.

 

This includes a teacher who found pamphlets with titles such as "Who is a legitimate target?" and "From Jihad to a new world order" and a tutor who had been approached by students concerned about a speaker delivering a talk entitled "Terrorist or freedom fighter?".

 

It also describes how librarians have reported spotting students looking at computer images of men "dressed in military and civilian clothing holding guns" and concerns over extreme views being aired by members of Islamic societies.

 

Mr Rammell said: "This guidance provides a recognition - that I believe must be faced squarely - that violent extremism in the name of Islam is a real, credible and sustained threat to the UK, and that there is evidence of serious, but not widespread, Islamic extremist activity in higher education institutions."…

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:10 | link | comments

 

Thanks for coming and try the veal: Ladies and gents, I give you the inimitable song stylings of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or as he’s known on the Islamist lounge circuit, Old Black Eyes. Here’s his version of that old Knack fave, “My Sharona”:

 

Ooh my old and perfect law, perfect law.

When you gonna up and rule the world, Sharia?

Gotta have a big jihad, a big jihad.

Then infidels’ll have it as their law, Sharia.

Never gonna stop, give it up.

Such a stalwart bunch. Infidels won’t know what hit ‘em;

They’re all out to lunch.

My my my i yi woo.

Ma-ma-ma my Sharia.

 

Time is drawing near, ah do you hear?

Close enough that I can see it now, Sharia.

There’s no mystery, that’s the key.

Everyone can do it with no fuss, Sharia.

Never gonna stop, give it up.

Such a perfect law. Give it up for God,

His law’s without a flaw.

My my my i yi woo.

Ma-ma-ma my Sharia.

 

When you gonna give up, give it up?

It is just a matter of time, Sharia.

It’s your destiny, destiny.

It isn’t just a game in my mind, Sharia.

Never gonna stop, give it up.

Such a perfect tool. Use it so the world submits

To the Shia’s rule.

My my my i yi woo.

Ma-ma-ma my Sharia.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:52 | link | comments

 

Once and again: As more than a few have noted, there are eerie similarities between 2006 and 1938. The most disturbing parallel is that the world seems to have concluded that, once again, that the Jews are expendable. There's one big difference, of course. Back then, the Jews were completely powerless. Today, on the other hand, the Jews are, if not completely powerless, then unwilling to exercise the power they have. Which amounts to more or less the the same thing. Caroline Glick's conclusion: time to show Israel's feckless leaders the door. From JWR:

To the delight of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, an international coalition has coalesced around Iran's nuclear weapons program.

In his remarks Tuesday in Los Angeles before the delegates to the United Jewish Communities' General Assembly, Olmert explained his enthusiasm. First he stated, "America's leadership in preventing Iran's nuclearization is indisputable and unequaled. I just met my good friend, a true friend of Israel, President George W. Bush in Washington..His determination to prevent this most serious of developments is unquestionable. But America must have the support of the international community if we are to successfully defuse this mortal threat."

So from Olmert's perspective, it is America's responsibility — not Israel's — to prevent Iran from acquiring the means to destroy Israel. At the same time, he accepts that the US will take no action against Iran without first receiving permission from the French, Russians, Chinese and the Arabs.

Olmert then explained that the Arabs have to agree to let the US protect Israel. As he put it, "A coalition of moderate Arab countries can and must unite their common interest in preventing Iran from undermining stability in the Middle East. This coalition must struggle against the dangers of radical Islam that manipulate the very source of Islam itself."

For her part, Livni told the crowd in California that there is little doubt that the nations of the world will shortly unite to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear capabilities. As she put it, "If the promise of 'Never Again' is more important than the price of oil, then the time for international indifference and hesitation in the face of the Iranian threat has long passed."

Livni then explained that she is eager to give Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians and is working to "brand" Israel as a place where it is fun to live. She concluded by recommending that American Jews invite Israeli Nobel laureates to visit their communities.

In sum, our Foreign Minister is certain that the international community will act against Iran because it means it when it says it thinks that the Holocaust was a bad thing more than it means it when it says, "Fill it up with unleaded." Moreover, as far as Livni is concerned, the world will protect Israel because the Olmert government is so eager to render Jerusalem and Tel Aviv defenseless by surrendering Judea and Samaria Palestinian jihadists.

Aside from that, Livni trusts that the world will protect the Jews because thanks to her we have UN forces protecting Hizbullah on our northern border and we're rebranding ourselves to let the international community know that Jews are both good at science and really fun to drink with.

To their credit, Olmert and Livni are correct to say that today an international coalition made up of the US, the EU and some of the Arabs is forming around Iran. But what binds the members together is their collective opposition to taking any effective action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons...

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:37 | link | comments

 

Peace in Our Time alert: The EUro-weenies who, to mix two metaphors, wouldn’t touch the hot potato of Iran’s nukes with a ten metre pole (or a ten metre Pole) are mighty keen to put in their two peso’s worth (make that three metaphors) about the supposed “root cause” of all their agita. From MSNBC:

Spain, France and Italy plan are to present a new Middle East peace initiative to their European partners at an EU summit in December, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spanish prime minister, said on Thursday.

Spain hopes to gain the backing of Germany and Britain for the initiative, calling for an immediate ceasefire, the formation of an internationally recognised Palestinian unity government and a peace conference.

"We cannot remain impassive in the face of the horror that continues to unfold before our eyes," Mr Zapatero told reporters during a summit of Spanish and French leaders in Girona, Spain.

"Peace between Israel and the Palestinians means, to a great extent, peace at an international level," he said.

Mr Zapatero's government has struggled to carve out a role on the international stage, following the withdrawal of troops from Iraq after his election in 2003, despite the presence of Spanish troops in Afghanistan and Lebanon. His most high–profile international initiative, reviving the "alliance of civilisations" to foster better relations between Western and muslim countries, has been dismissed by critics at home as wishy-washy.

Jacques Chirac, French president, said Mr Zapatero had proposed the joint initiative when they met at the beginning of the summit, according to Reuters. The two had arranged to call Roman Prodi, the Italian prime minister, to discuss the initiative.

Mr Chirac said France would "act jointly" with Spain, Italy and other European countries to "try to initiate indispensable moral and political reforms in the Middle East."…

Pardonez-moi, but the thought of the likes of Zapatero and Chirac dispensing morality to anyone is, as M. Chirac might say, incroyable.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:09 | link | comments (2)

Nutty professors: Goddam you, Adolf Hitler. You and your Shoah are responsible for Palestinian suffering. At least, that’s the “educated” opinion of a number of highly-placed German academics. From the Jerusalem Post:

The German Embassy rejected on Thursday a call made by 25 German academics for the country to abandon its "special relationship" with Israel in favor of a stance recognizing Palestinian suffering as an outcome of the Holocaust.

 

In a lengthy petition published in the Frankfurter Rundschau regional newspaper Wednesday, the scholars said that, "The roots of this bloody 60-year confrontation in the Middle East are German and European. The Palestinian population doesn't have the responsibility to take on European problems in the Middle East," according to translations in English-language media.

 

The signers also questioned whether German backing for Israel was causing tension within German society, and objected to German sales of hi-tech weaponry to Israel despite its actions against the Palestinians.

 

In addition, the petition also requests a "friendship free from past burdens" between the two countries, in which Israel could be criticized, and, according to news accounts, states that "a large part of the German society has turned the shame and grief of the Holocaust into a ceremonial matter. That is how a problematic philo-Semitism has developed in Germany."

 

A German Embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv, however, dismissed the petition. "It in no way reflects the position of the German government. The position of the German government regarding the special relationship with Israel will not change."

 

He described that relationship as stemming from German behavior in the Holocaust.

 

"We accept fully that because of the Shoah, the German people and [government] have a special responsibility to the State of Israel," he said, emphasizing that all of Germany's top leaders have stressed their support for this policy in recent years.

 

"There's no way Germany can be a new Germany if we cannot accept this special relationship," he continued. "Our special relationship with Israel is one of the pillars of our foreign policy."

 

Despite media references to the professors who signed the petition as respected and employed by the state - as faculty of public universities - the spokesman said they didn't reflect the views of a majority of German academics, let alone the government that pays their salaries…

 

Good to know. Otherwise one would be tempted to conclude that Germans had the same Weltanshauung on this issue as that evil, blinkered Jew-hating Shoah-denier over in Iran.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:57 | link | comments

 

There are none so blind…: …as Kofi Annan, who seems to think that he’s leaving the world a much more peaceful place than it was when his term as UN secretary general began. From AHN:

Nairobi, Kenya (AHN) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has summarized his decade-long tenure as the world's leading diplomat on Wednesday by highlighting his contributions to the cause of poverty and diffusing conflicts in war-torn regions.

Annan said, "As Secretary-General I have put the issue of inequity and the question of poverty at the center of the U.N.'s work."

The Ghanian diplomat will step down after 10 years in office.

He also said, "Development assistance has already reached $100 billion."

Annan added, "We have had debt relief for about 18 countries and if we can settle the conflicts on this continent then I am sure investors would come."

The U.N.'s top diplomat was in Kenya for a conference on climate change. He mentioned as part of his success, the containment or ending of wars Burundi, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Eritrea and Ethiopia: "I am pleased to say there are fewer wars in the world today than 10 years ago ... so there is some progress, but there are still far too many conflicts, particularly on our continent."…

He’s kidding, right? Either that or he’s completely off his rocker.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:39 | link | comments

 

And speaking of global jihad-enablers…: Harpoon Siddiqui weighs in on —and gives a hearty nod of approval to—the Alliance of Civilizations’s just-released report. The report, a masterpiece of evasion, deceit and willful blindness, situates responsibility for world-wide Muslim terror (a.k.a the global jihad, although the pompously-named UN affiliate, for reasons of fear, stupidity and outright denial, refuses to acknowledge it as such) on one very tiny locus. It seems that Arabs and Muslims, not content with controlling vast swaths of the planet (and angling to control even more), can’t seem to let go of their obsession with that minute bit of land under Jewish rule. Those few puny hectares, say the Alliance’s “rift-healers,” are the alpha and the omega of all the world’s grief. Here’s Harpoon, making his way through the report’s key points:

 

·  "The Israeli-Palestinian issue has become a key symbol of the rift between Western and Muslim societies, and remains one of the gravest threats to international stability."

 

(UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan elaborated further: "We may wish to think of the Arab-Israeli conflict as just one regional conflict amongst many. It is not. No other conflict carries such a powerful symbolic and emotional charge among people far removed from the battlefield.'')

 

(Separately, Tony Blair made about the same point Tuesday.)

 

·  "Western military operations in Muslim countries contribute to a growing climate of fear and animosity that is spreading around the world. The spiralling death toll in Iraq and the conflict in Afghanistan help swell the ranks of terrorist groups."

 

·  "The perception of double standards in the application of international law and the protection of human rights is increasing resentment and the sense of vulnerability felt by many Muslims ... Reports of collective punishment, targeted killings, torture, arbitrary detention, renditions, and the support of autocratic regimes contribute to an increased sense of vulnerability around the globe, particularly in Muslim countries."

The group condemned those who link Islam to violence.

 

Such assertions "are at best manifestly incorrect or at worst maliciously motivated."

The panel did note that some of the extremism among Muslims emanates from their own deep divisions on social and political issues, as well as interpretations of Islamic law and traditions. Radicals are advocating "narrow, distorted interpretations of Islamic teachings."

 

The way to end the lure of radicals, radicalism and terrorism is not to launch more wars, unilateral ones at that, which "inflame the very sentiments they seek to eradicate," but rather to deal with the causes, not the symptoms, of terrorism.

 

The panel proposes a Canadian way forward: "The rule of law and an effective multilateral system, with the UN system at its core."

 

Even as we extend our full support to security and law enforcement agencies to ferret out potential terrorists, we cannot dilute the fundamentals of our democracy, namely, that suspects are entitled to know the charges against them and to speedy, fair and open trials.  

 

On the international scene, Canada should revert to its traditional role of consensus builder and become the leading voice in winding down the wars and conflicts that are destabilizing and dividing the world.

 

Oops! Calling Dr. Freud. By using the word “revert” in this context, it looks like Harpoon may have unintentionally tipped his hand. He’s showing himself to be a man who thinks there should a lot of Canadian “reverts,” if you know what I mean.

 

Update: The letter I sent the Star:

 

In the lead up to the Second World War, Adolf Hitler told the international community that the Jews were at the heart of everything that was troubling Germany and the world. In 2006, the international community, in its guise as the Alliance of Civilizations (which, even for a UN affiliate, is a particularly pompous name) is telling the world that the lion’s share of the civilizational conflict between Muslims and the West, including terror fomented by jihadists in the name of Islam, can be attributed to the world’s only Jewish state.

 

We all know what happened to the Jews of Europe in the wake of Hitler’s accusations. It is beyond madness that the international community, blind as always to the true source of the conflict, i.e. a fascist global agenda rooted in ancient Islamic doctrine, seems prepared to collude in a replay of the Holocaust.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:53 | link | comments (3)

 

Wrong venue: Item in the Toronto Star (sorry, no link):

 

Kofi Annan will give his last major speech as UN secretary general at the Truman Presidential Museum & Library in Independence, Mo.

 

Annan chose the location to recognize Harry Truman, who helped found the United Nations during the closing days of World War II.

 

Annan will deliver the speech, “Global Governance and the Role of the United States,” on Dec. 11. His second five-year term ends on Jan. 1.

 

And not a moment too soon for this dreadful, dreadful man, an enabler of the global jihad. But how ironic is it that Kofi, the man who deigned to take responsibility for anything, including one of the most lucrative scandals in history, one that ensnared his own son, should choose to take his parting shot at American power in the birthplace of Harry S Truman? Truman, you’ll recall, is the president who is famous for having a sign on his desk that read, “The buck stops here.” Kofi, conversely, is a man for whom the buck has never stopped, not even for a nano-second, but who, because there is very little justice in this world, will likely be scooping up mucho dinero in a lucrative post-UN speaking career.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:04 | link | comments

 

Al That Jaz—in English: As if the Arab language Al Jazeera wasn’t bad enough, the English-language version of Jihad TV has just been launched. And it sounds every bit as abysmal as it was expected to be. From the Times Online:

It made its name with dramatic pictures of conflict and exclusive scoops: the war against the Taleban, Bin Laden’s tapes, the bombings and US-led attack on Baghdad, the war in Lebanon, the rising anger in the Middle East. Al-Jazeera quickly became the voice of the Arab street, a must-watch station for Arabs and for newsmen around the world — assuming they could follow the Arabic.

Today everyone can watch. After much hype, slick publicity and a long delay, al-Jazeera’s English-language world service was lauched from its headquarters in Qatar. It began with a bang, focusing, naturally, on what had made its name: hard-hitting news from the world’s trouble spots.

First came the inevitable preview, with flashy images of earlier scoops during the broadcaster’s 10 year existence. Then there was a news summary — usual format of two presenters, man and woman, sharp, smart and standing up in the studio — and a preview of the features, interviews and exclusives for the next hour.

Luckily, al-Jazeera had a ready-made moving story, literally. A tsunami had been generated by a Pacific earthquake, and was expected to hit Japan — in five minutes. Talk about breaking news! More on that later.

Then it was back to the main report. It was the misery in Gaza. Well, al-Jazeera is an Arab station, and Gaza is, as Tony Blair and many have said, the core grievance in the Middle East. And the report was as grim as the pictures: the reality of “life under sanctions, siege and shellings”. We saw pathetic scenes of children in hospitals, mothers weepers, smashed houses and the latest disaster — malnutrition caused by the international sanctions on Hamas…

From the sounds of it, it’s probably far more edifying to stick with Teletoon (a station whose motto--It's unreal"--would also work for Al Jazeera).

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:48 | link | comments (1)

 

Return to sender: Watch out, America. Another missive from Moo is heading your way. From Reuters:

 

TEHRAN, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Iran's president said on Tuesday he was ready to talk to the United States if there was a change of attitude in Washington, which faces pressure to deal directly with Tehran to help ease violence in neighboring Iraq.

The White House responded that Tehran must end its uranium enrichment, which the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said on Tuesday it was unable to verify was peaceful, stop meddling in Iraq and play a constructive role in the Middle East.

"I don't think this is about a U.S. attitude adjustment," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.

Washington is leading efforts to press for United Nations sanctions on Iran over its nuclear work, but is also conducting a review of its policies in Iraq that is expected to recommend the administration engage with Iran and Syria.

Iranian officials have often said they were ready for talks with the United States, but have always made negotiations conditional on major U.S. policy changes.

"We have said from the beginning that we will talk with the American government, but under conditions," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.

"The conditions concern the attitude of the American government. If they correct their behavior, we will talk to them like others," he said at a news conference.

Ahmadinejad said he would soon send a message to the American people to explain his policies…

 

If I were an American, here’s the song I’d sing to the Moo. (The Beatles and The Carpenters sang versions of it, but I prefer the original Marvelettes rendition):

 

Stop, oh yeah, wait a minute, Mr. Jihad.

Wai-ai-ai-ait Mr. Jihad.

Please Mr. Jihad, we don’t want to hear

Your latest message, your latest jeer.

We’re very tired of you mishegas.

You oozing sore of revolting puss.

 

There’s nothing that you can say

That’ll make us want to go your way.

Please, Mr. Jihad, spare us your kvetch,

Because you know that it makes us all retch.

We’re been sitting here waiting, Mr. Jihad.

So-o-o patiently,

While you’ve enriched without any hitch

From the global com-mu-u-nity.

 

So many days have come and gone.

You say we’re bracing for a brand new dawn.

A golden age of Shia Islam,

To which we’re all supposed to say, “Salaam!”

 

Mr. Jihad.

Mister Jihad, don’t hand us no line.

And you can stick it where the sun don’t shine.

Oh yeah,

Please, please Mr. Jihad.

Why don’t you go and drink some cyanide?

 

You better wait a minute, wait a minute.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

Mr. Jihad, put a cork in your gob.

 

C’mon you know what to do:

Stick it up your wahzoo…

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:26 | link | comments

 

Hurst on the jihad-enablers: Lynda Hurst, the Toronto Star reporter who once suggested that we should take it upon ourselves to censor all images of the Prophet in deference to those distraught at the sight of Danish Mo ‘toons, (the photo of Islamic art accompanying the article was blacked out, as a sign of the Toronto Star's good will, in the appropriate places), has an article in today’s paper about one of the UN’s jihad-enabling bodies, the Alliance of Civilizations. Here’s a portion of her piece:

 

It isn't the only cause of spiralling tensions between the West and the Muslim world but, symbolically, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the root of the divide.

 

Unless it is solved quickly, says a high-powered international group of statesmen and scholars, all other efforts to end the mutual fear and suspicion will meet, at best, with limited success.

 

The UN-backed Alliance of Civilizations — whose 20 members come from a variety of religions and include the former president of Iran, Mohamed Khatami, and South Africa's Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu — says Israel must "not only accept but facilitate" the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

 

"The competing narratives of Palestinians and Israelis cannot be fully reconciled, but they must be mutually acknowledged," says the group's report, presented this week to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.

 

It calls for an urgent international conference to reinvigorate the Middle East peace process and to analyze "the Israeli-Palestinian landscape dispassionately and objectively, establishing clearly the conditions that must be met to find a way out of this crisis."

 

The alliance was proposed in 2005 by the prime ministers of predominantly Roman Catholic Spain and Muslim Turkey, and given the go-ahead by Annan to explore ways of tackling increasing global polarization.

 

Paul Heinbecker, former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations, welcomes its main recommendation, especially as it comes from countries such as Turkey and Spain.

"The idea of broadening the base of diplomacy is a very good one," he says. "We've had 15 years of a near-monopoly by the United States in Mideast diplomacy and there's not much to show for it."  

 

Heinbecker, now with the Centre for Global Relations, Governance and Policy at Wilfrid Laurier University, says he agrees the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the heart of unrest in the Middle East…

 

There’s more, if you have the stomach for it.

 

What follows is the e-mail I sent to the Star. I post it secure in the knowledge that it will never see the light of day in the paper’s Atkinson Principled pages:

 

One again the United Nations has demonstrated its astonishing capacity to get everything wrong. Its grandiosely-named Alliance of Civilizations has determined that politics, not religion, are at the bottom of today's global problems, and at the heart of it all lies a tiny Jewish state, the only one in the world. If only this tiny nation could somehow "accept and facilitate the establishment of a viable Palestinian state," then "the internal resentments in Middle East,” the ones supposedly fueling the problems, would evaporate.

 

What utter tommyrot. First, because it ignores the obvious—that there are millions of religious fanatics inspired by Islamic doctrine who have unleashed a global jihad. And while it's true the effort is "political," that’s only because, for the jihadists, the political and the religious cannot be separated. A small minority of these fanatics are actively engaged in committing acts of terrorism. The larger portion are involved in a mass movement that has captured the imagination of much of the Muslim world, controls the governments of several key states in the Middle East, like Iran and Saudi Arabia, and aims to take control of other nations—for example, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

 

Add to that Hamas, the Islamist terror regime that controls Gaza (the choice of the Palestinian people in a fair, “democratic” election), and it is clear that Israel is surrounded by enemies--religious enemies--who seek her demise precisely because they cannot and will not abide the presence of a self-ruling Jewish state in their all-Muslim region.

 

The Alliance of Civilizations has thus charged Israel with a task that is not only not its responsibility (it is up to the Palestinians, now in control of Gaza, to establish their own viable state), but is also impossible. Israel cannot “solve” this problem, nor should it have to. And the UN is fooling itself and us if it believes that resolving this conflict--merely one of the flashpoints in the larger global jihad—or, barring that, getting rid of Israel altogether, will be enough to halt the jihadists’ advance.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:43 | link | comments (1)

 

A book only Kofi (and his ilk) could love: The American Thinker site has a review of Jimminy “Cricket” Carter’s new book, Palestine: Peace or Apartheid. And no, that’s not a made up, satirical title. Jimminy actually thinks it’s either one or the other:

It is not difficult to understand why Democrats wanted the publication of Jimmy Carter’s slim new book (216 pages of text, large print and no footnotes), with its tendentious title and its superficial analysis, delayed until today, a week after the election.  The anti-Israel bias is so clear, the credulous description of Arab positions so cringe-producing, the key “facts” on which Carter relies so easily refuted by public documents, that the book is an embarrassment to Carter, the Democrats, the presidency and Americans.

It is hard to decide which is more discomforting—what Carter put in or what he left out.  Let’s start with his own words, and let him speak for himself, and then note what no knowledgeable observer of the Middle East could have ingenuously omitted.

Carter says he paid his first visit to Israel in June 1973 (when he was privately “planning a future role as president”), and he devotes an entire chapter to it.  The trip “formed most of my lasting impressions of Israel”—and they do not seem to have been good ones. 

On his trip, he traveled “along the paths of Jesus” around the Sea of Galilee and found that:

“It was especially interesting to visit with some of the few surviving Samaritans, who complained to us that their holy sites and culture were not being respected by Israeli authorities – the same complaint heard by Jesus and his disciples almost two thousand years earlier.”

He describes his visit to several kibbutzim and finds that Israel fails his religious test again (at least on one kibbutz):

“The next morning was the Sabbath, and at the appointed time we entered the synagogue, said a silent prayer, and then stood quietly just inside the door.  Only two other worshippers appeared.  When I asked if this was typical, [the guide] gave a wry smile and shrugged his shoulders as if it was not important either way.”

Later on the trip, when asked to participate in a graduation ceremony at an IDF training camp, Carter helps by presenting a Hebrew bible to each graduate,

“which was one of the few indications of a religious commitment that I observed during our visit.”

Carter states that he has

“to admit that, at the time, I equated the ejection of Palestinians from their previous homes within the State of Israel to the forcing of Lower Creek Indians from the Georgia land where our family farm was now located.”

(So far as the book indicates, he apparently has no plans to give any portion of his farm back).

At the end of his visit, he meets with Prime Minister Golda Meir and when asked to share his observations, responds to her as follows.

“I said that I had long taught lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures and that a common historical pattern was that Israel was punished whenever the leaders turned away from devout worship of God.  I asked if she was concerned about the secular nature of her Labor government.”

Carter writes that she “seemed surprised at my temerity.”  He comments that she could not know that four years later Menachem Begin would become prime minister, and

“[m]uch of Begin’s political strength would come from his deep religious convictions.”

Not that the “deep religious convictions” did Begin very much good later on with Carter.  Carter’s well-known antipathy for the Israeli prime minister continued even after Carter left office.  Here is Carter’s description of his meeting—as a private citizen in 1983—in Prime Minister Begin’s office in Jerusalem, discussing an alleged “commitment” that is in fact not contained in the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt (attached as appendices to Carter’s book):

“Although his nation and mine shared many beliefs and political goals, he and I had frequently been at odds across the negotiating table.  It was no secret that Begin and I had strong public disagreements . . . Unfortunately, these disputes had resulted in some personal differences as well.

“Now we were together again, and as had always been my custom, I expressed myself with frankness on some of the more controversial issues. . . . Then, as he sat without looking at me, I explained again why we believed he had not honored a commitment made during the peace negotiations to withdraw Israeli forces and to refrain from building new Israeli settlements in the West Bank. . . .

“I paused, expecting the prime minister to give his usual strong explanation of Israeli policy.  He responded with just a few words in a surprisingly perfunctory manner and made it plain that our conversation should be concluded.”

Perhaps that’s what happens when you show up as a private citizen and insult a head of state by “explaining” how he allegedly lied.

In contrast, Arab tyrants never receive the “temerity” and “frankness” that Carter visited upon Golda Meir and Menachem Begin.  Instead, they get jokes, and their word is taken down as truth and re-transmitted by the credulous Carter…

That’s our Jimminy—never met a Jew he liked or a despicable Arab despot he didn’t like.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:45 | link | comments (1)

 

Clueless internationalists: I’ve had to cull some of my son’s Hallowe’en goodies after reports that the Hershey’s factory in Smiths Falls has found salmonella in some of its candy.

 

I am now planning to send all my tainted chocolate to Kofi Annan.

 

From Zaman Online (with my comments in brackets):

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the main reason for tension between Muslim and Western societies was not “religion” but “politics” and emphasized, “We should start by reaffirming - and demonstrating - that the problem is not the Quran, nor the Torah or the Bible.” (Au contraire, Mr. Java Jive. The main reason for tension between Muslim and Western societies in Islamic supremacism and the jihad imperative as recorded not in the Torah or the Bible, but in the Koran.)

A High Level-group, part of the fourth Alliance of Civilizations Initiative, presented Annan a report on ways to overcome the divide in Istanbul, Monday afternoon. (The fourth Alliance of Civiliazations Initiative, huh? What, the first three didn't make any headway in that direction. Sorry to break it to the smug internationalists, but this report--based as it is on utterly bogus assumptions and conclusions, is unlikely to be any more effective.)

Taking the floor following the report’s presentation, Annan said that unveiling the report in Istanbul, a bridge between continents, was a very appropriate decision. (Now guarding the bridge, Islamists for whom, pace Kofi, there is no divide between the religious and the political.)

There are those who want to start a world war using certain symbols, Annan said. (Yes, and they are called “Jihadis.”)

“Good or bad, not one of us lived in a different civilization.” (Huh?)

Annan said that the growing rift between Muslim and Western societies did not have not religious reasons but rather political ones. (So you said. It’s just as fatuous the second time around.)

Annan said Muslims see the West as a threat to their own belief system and reject arguments to the contrary whereas the West sees Islam as a religion of fanaticism and violence. (The difference being that the portion of Islam devoted to waging jihad is fanatic and violent while the Western threat to Muslim beliefs is a figment of their overheated imaginations.)

“It is time we forgot our grudges and inspired confidence among societies,” Annan said. (“Someone’s dreamin,’ Lord, Kumbaya…”)

The U.N. Secretary-General pointed out that common values in all religions must be highlighted, Adding, “We must keep away from stereotypes, generalizations and prejudices and make sure crimes committed by individuals or small groups do not set our opinion for an entire population, region or religion.”

The report , prepared by 20 experts including former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, cited politics as the main reason behind the growing rift, though the concept of religion was exploited to stir passions, feed suspicions and support alarmist claims that the world is facing a new war of religion. (And I suppose all those goose-stepping, shmattah-wearing Islamists on view in the documentary Obsession are merely a function of those “alarmist claims” and pose no real threat to our civiliation. Wow. Good to know.)

“Furthermore, the Arab-Israeli conflict has become a critical symbol of the deepening rift. (I knew it was just a matter of time before they got around to the Jews. The report writers are correct about the conflict being a critical symbol, though—a critical symbol of the struggle against the jihad.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:57 | link | comments (1)

 

Clueless Canuks: Five years into what has mistakenly been called “the war on terror,” and Canadians have kept their mulitculturalist delusions intact. Sort of. According to a new poll, we’re still feeling all warm and fuzzy about all the wonderful cultures who’ve set up shop here, giving them free reign to be all colourful and vibrant in their own self-contained communities (because isn’t Canada like one big empty hotel with no particular identity of its own?), but it seems we draw the line at “cultural habits” (the Globe and Mail’s words) that “threaten gender equality”:

A majority of Canadians accept multiculturalism in principle, but that support evaporates when immigrant religious and cultural practices threaten gender equality, according to a new poll examining Canadians' views of Muslims.

The vast majority -- 81 per cent -- of 2,021 Canadians surveyed said immigrants should adapt to mainstream Canadian beliefs about the rights and role of women, an opinion that was shared almost equally across demographic, income, education, age and gender lines.

Half the respondents said immigrants and minority ethnic groups should be free to maintain their religious and cultural practices in Canada, while 40 per cent said immigrants should blend into Canadian society and not form separate communities.

The study revealed, however, that the majority of Canadians welcome the Muslim community as a vital part of the Canadian fabric, with 75 per cent saying that Muslim immigrants make a positive contribution to Canada. As well, half of Canadians say they have a positive impression of Islam, an increase of four percentage points from 2003.

"The survey underlines how important multiculturalism is, on the one hand, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is, on the other.

"Where they clash, Charter equality rights trump multiculturalism," said Fred Lowy, interim president of the Montreal-based Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, which commissioned the poll from Environics.

"At the same time, Canada is not retreating from multiculturalism, as several European countries are, including Sweden and Denmark, in light of 9/11 and terrorist attacks in London and Madrid."

A Globe editorial (available online by subscription) hails the survey results, especially our favourable view of Islam (well, it is a religion of peace, isn’t it?), and sees no apparent contradiction in an ideology—multiculturalism—that views every culture as being of equal value, even though some of their “cultural habits” are clearly at odds with those of a modern, tolerant, pluralistic society:

 

…Pierre Trudeau was the father of multiculturalism. He insisted that a nation draws its confidence from the strength of the individual’s identity, and that individuals should be free to be themselves. The test of his view was in a question that asked whether immigrants and minorities should blend into Canadian society or be free to maintain their religious and cultural practices. Even allowing for the question’s awkwardness (people can do both) the answer was instructive: 49 per cent said they should be free to maintain their practices, and 40 per cent said don’t blend…

 

With all due respect to the hallowed memory of Saint Pierre (bow, scrape, grovel, genuflect), he was full of crap. Multiculturalism is an ideology which posits that, while the host nation has much to gain from new arrivals, they have little to gain from the host. Canada is a mere receptacle, an empty husk into which they pour their cultures (along with the attendant cultural baggage). And since there is no overarching whole, or, to be more accurate, the sense that the overarching whole is little more than the sum of its discrete cultural parts, there is not much to hold onto when, say, a pervasive cleric with some radical “cultural habits” tells a second generation Muslim-Canadian that he is a Muslim first, last and always. And isn’t that more or less what the multiculturalists are saying?

 

Ah, but as the editorial asserts, multiculturalism “does not mean Canada does not stand for nothing. It does not mean everyone rides off in all directions at once. As much as at any other time in recent memory, Canadians need to rally around core values and institutions.”

 

But if your “core value” is multiculturalism, and your “core institutions” like the CBC (and the Globe) keep insisting that that value is the bee’s knees, even when it’s apparent that it is fatally and fundamentally flawed (as evidenced by the fact that some cultures have bad habits, like oppressing women) aren’t we all rallying around a false—and very dangerous—idol?

 

Canadians would be far better served if core institutions acknowledged this flaw, and pushed for pluralism instead of multiculturalism. Pluralism implies a willingness to get along with others and tolerate their cultural differences. However, it does not mean that every culture’s “cultural habits” are of equal value, and it also means there is a strong Canadian identity above and beyond the sum of our various cultures. And a country with a strong national identity is much likelier to elicit the allegiance of its young people, and make it easier for them to resist the siren call of the jihad.

 

Finally, isn’t it ironic that Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s vision of cultural amity, the one that core institutions like the Globe continue to tout, has ended up helping facilitate the holy war that, if successful, would spell the end of our multicultural paradise?

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:10 | link | comments

More Haass air: Der Spiegel has an interview with Richard Haass, the former Foggy Bottom functionary whose article in Foreign Affairs sat so well with Harpoon Siddiqui that he based his column in yesterday’s Toronto Star on it. Herr Haass has harsh words for the Bush administration, and would like to see the President use diplomacy instead of regime change in an effort to neutralize Iran. Haass says he “would be willing to have the United States engage in diplomacy directly with them, essentially offering them whatever mix of political and economic and security benefits in exchange for demanding a package of behavior changes. We need to get away from the idea that diplomatic interaction is a value judgment. History suggests that isolation reinforces hardliners.”

Unfortunately, so does appeasement and turning a blind eye to your enemy’s true intentions—like, say, a desire to usher in the End Times under the auspices of an occluded 12^th Century Shia cleric.

But, hey, Haass is the expert, so he must know what he’s talking about. Not that his dealings with the mullahs’ front man, the guy with “Mahdi” in his name, have been all that encouraging:

…SPIEGEL: You just invited Iran's President Ahmadinejad for a discussion in New York. Did you get the impression that he is interested in any kind of deal?

Haass: There was very little, if anything, in that two-hour meeting that was reassuring about his interest in finding any common ground on reasonable terms with the United States. His tactic is to answer questions with questions. At one point, someone raised questions about Iran's internal situation, democracy and human rights, and within 30 seconds, he was talking about what he saw as the imperfections of American democracy. His argument was that Iran was more democratic because it had more candidates for president than the United States.

SPIEGEL: The Israeli ambassador criticized you heavily, saying this was worse then inviting Adolf Hitler for talks.

Haass: I disagree. Meeting with somebody like Mr. Ahmadinejad doesn't mean we approve or endorse him. It's nothing else than accepting that he is the President of Iran and in that position, he matters…

Yes, Mr. Haass, but the point is there’s absolutely no “wiggle room” with a guy who thinks he has to incinerate all the Jews so his Messiah can come back. There is nothing you can offer that would pique his interest, save, perhaps, the annihilation of the Jews.

Or are you suggesting that that point is negotiable?

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:49 | link | comments (2)

 

The Beeb’s blood libel: Last month BBC Radio 4 broadcast a charming little story by an Iranian writer named Simim Daneshvar. The story, recited by a narrator with a trace of an Iranian accent, recounts the adventures of a young girl who gets lost in bazaar in an Iranian town. Short story short, she is picked up by a man who she suspects is the Jew her nanny has warned her about, a man “who snatches and kills Muslim children and makes bread with their blood.”

 

I told you it was charming.

 

The Chairman of the Simon Wiesthenthal Centre’s UK branch happened to be listening at the time, and was so sickened and outraged by what he heard that he complained to the Beeb. From EJP:

 

…In his complaint to the BBC Morris said: "I listened again to the story yesterday evening on your website and discovered that it was part of a series entitled Uncovering Iran and the story was Vakil Bazaar by Simin Daneshvar, an Iranian author.

’Offensive and abhorent’

The letter noted, "I also heard the ’health warning’ that ’extremely contentious views were expressed in the story’".

Morris rebuked the BBC, stressing that "what were expressed were not views and the material was not contentious but utterly offensive and abhorrent.

“In a country of free speech contentious views, however extreme, have their place but libel does not," he said.

The Centre demanded an apology, a condemnation of the programme in question and a pledge from the BBC to exclude material that incites to hate and violence that jeopardize Britain’s social cohesion

The letter concluded: "What was broadcast was the age-old blood libel which was the cause of many pogroms and murders of Jews over the ages"…

 

Well, it looks like Morris has finally heard back, and that the Beeb got one of its compliant Jewish employees to do its dirty work. (It’s been my experience that the Beeb’s Canadian counterpart, the Ceeb, often has the same “let the house Jew deal with the angry Jew” modus operendi.) From totallyjewish.com:

 

A Jewish anti-hate group has renewed its call for the BBC to apologise for broadcasting a story that made mention of the blood libel after branding the corporation’s explanation ‘contradictory’.

Graham Morris, Chairman of Simon Wiesenthal Centre UK, complained to the BBC last month after it aired a reading of Vakil Bazaar, a short story by Iranian author Simin Daneshvar, as part of its Uncovering Iran season.

The story left Morris shocked and a lengthy personal letter from Jenny Abramsky, the BBC’s Director of Radio and Music, failed to satisfy him.

In the letter, Abramsky wrote that the blood libel was “utterly abhorrent” but added that she felt the author had not intended that “the blood libel was to be, or even could be, taken seriously.”…

So as the Beeb sees it, blood libel is fit for broadcast over its airwaves, so long as the writer didn’t really mean it.

 

What an idiotic response. Whether or not the author meant it seriously is hardly the issue (and I have a feeling that Ms. Abramsky, company gal that she is, didn’t even bother to ask the author if he was serious or not). The issue is that there are millions of demented, conspiracy-minded Jew-haters out there—a whole whack of them hunkered down right there in the U.K.— who are more than willing to take such perfidious lies seriously.

 

What next, Beeb radio dramatizations of Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:22 | link | comments (2)

 

In a nutshell: The fecklessness of the international community can be expressed in a single headline—Iran expands uranium ability as UN considers sanctions.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:32 | link | comments

 

Kofi gets it bass-ackwards—again: Kofi Annan is still mouthing off, begging the question, can’t he shut his pie-hole already and fade into well-deserved obscurity?

 

In advance of shuffling off the UN coil, Kofi is determined to address one of those “root causes” which have so absorbed him during his interminable term as UN Secretary-General, to wit: the fact that the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian dispute is the source of so many of today’s problems.

 

Gee, and here I’m thinking that the “root cause” is the global jihad. My bad.

 

From Albawaba:

 

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Monday that any attempt to stop growing violence between Islamic and Western societies must include an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

 

Annan spoke after receiving a report from a high-level group of experts on ways to alleviate Muslim-Western clashes and misunderstandings. "We may wish to think of the Arab-Israeli conflict as just one regional conflict amongst many," said Annan, according to the AP. "It is not. No other conflict carries such a powerful symbolic and emotional charge among people far removed from the battlefield."

 

According to him, he will work along with his successor, Ban Ki-moon, to help implement the recommendations of the report, which called for renewed efforts toward the goal of establishing "two fully sovereign and independent states coexisting side by side in peace and security."

 

"As long as the Palestinians live under occupation, exposed to daily frustration and humiliation, and as long as Israelis are blown up in buses and in dance halls, so long will passions everywhere be inflamed," Annan said.

 

The report, drafted in the past year by a group of 20 prominent figures, including former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and South African activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, called for an urgent international conference "to reinvigorate the Middle East peace process."

 

It also called for the development of a report "analyzing the Israeli-Palestinian landscape dispassionately and objectively,"…

 

So Khatami and Tutu (a man who avers that Israel is a racist “apartheid” state) want to “reinvogate” the peace process, huh?

 

“Reinvigorate” the unceasing process to eliminate Israel, more like.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:23 | link | comments (1)

 

Separate and unequal: The Israel-bashers went into hyperdrive last week after an errant Israeli shell accidentally killed 18 members of a family in Gaza. The usual suspects tried to get an anti-Israel passed at the UN Security Council, a move that was thwarted by a U.S. veto. (In future, with John Bolton gone and the Democrats in charge of the CAIR-Congress, such resolutions may not face these stumbling blocks.)

 

Meanwhile, over in Darfur, a buncha da bruddas have sliced and diced a lot of the locals with nary a peep from the UN. From the Beeb:

 

About 30 people have been killed in Sudan's Darfur region, when pro-government militias raided a village, peacekeepers say.

Armed men on horses and camels rode into the village of Sirba, near the Chad border, killing those they found, say UN and African Union officials.

Meanwhile, the UN has offered at least $77m to help AU peacekeepers in Darfur.

Sudan has resisted plans for the UN to take over peacekeeping and this appears to be part of a compromise deal.

Neighbouring Chad has declared a state of emergency after the violence in Darfur spilled over the border.

Extra equipment

"The attackers were on camels and horses. Reports indicate up to 30 villagers killed and 40 injured and half of the village was razed," an AU official told the Reuters news agency.

A rebel official said the Sudanese army had taken part in the attack, 45km (30 miles) north of West Darfur capital, El-Geneina.

The government has repeatedly denied charges that its army has worked with the Janjaweed militias to drive black Africans out of Darfur.

The 7,000 AU peacekeepers in Darfur have failed to end the violence and some aid workers have left the region, saying it is too dangerous.

The UN Security Council has passed a resolution for 20,000 troops to be sent to Darfur but Sudan has refused to let the UN take control, saying that would infringe its sovereignty.

What do you suppose accounts for the Security Council’s disproportionate response to these two incidents? And why are there never any calls for the failed experiment that is a sovereign Sudan to cease to exist? And why is Sudan, which has set loose Arab militias to murder all the black Sudanese they can find, never described as an "apartheid state"?

 

May I be so bold as to suggest it's due to endemic hypocrisy, corruption and Jew-hatred?

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:48 | link | comments

 

We have a winner: And the prize for today’s most unintentionally amusing instance of understatement goes to the New York Times for the headline "As Hezbollah seeks power, Lebanon is feeling edgy."

 

“Edgy,” is it? I think “edgy” is how you feel when the dentist tells you you have a cavity, or when you’re standing in line to buy concert tickets, and you’re not sure if you’ll get to the box office before all the good seats are gone. “Edgy” does not describe the feeling of those who expect to be completely engulfed by Islamist goons who take their marching orders from Iran’s insane mullahs.

 

The word that describes that feeling is (pick one):

 

• terrified;
• horrified;
• frantic;
• hysterical;
• overwhelmed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:46 | link | comments

 

About face: A writer in Arab News argues that women living in the West shouldn’t have to wear the veil—and for a very practical reason: the sight of covered women is unlikely to win many “reverts” for Islam:

 

…Almost all Muslim countries consider the veil an unnecessary, imposed tradition. Many Muslim scholars neither encourage imposing it as a religious obligation nor deem lifting the veil as sinful.

 

Educated and enlightened Muslim women who know their Islamic rights should not be intimidated by the extremists who are working hard to propagate the trend and impose it as a basic requirement of Islam. This is a fate that all Muslim women should oppose.

 

The majority of Muslim women are not against the hijab, or head scarf, which is an accepted religious obligation among all Muslims, be they liberals or extremists. The niqab, or face veil, is considered an unacceptable tradition in most parts of the Muslim world.

 

Some might argue that women should have the freedom of choice and should be allowed to wear the face veil if they wish, without being discriminated against as in the case of the British school teacher. However, when the practice offends others or is a cause of discomfort or irritation then it becomes a problem that needs to be confronted and resolved. When women who are doctors, nurses, teachers, receptionists or broadcasters decide to veil their faces they do an injustice to their profession because they are projecting themselves to their clients, customers or patients.

 

In my view, working women who wish to remain faceless may do so if they work behind a desk at an office or if they work from their homes. Even in our own country [Saudi Arabia], some of the deviant men caught by police have sought to hide themselves behind the veil and abaya. Is it any wonder in a Western society that such might arouse the suspicions of some?

 

It is the duty of every Muslim woman to attract people to Islam — not to arouse their hatred and distrust. If a woman becomes a source of resentment, she does Islam an injustice. The black face veil, historically associated with executioners in the West, is not an attractive sight that would encourage anyone to become a Muslim…

 

On the other hand, it does obviate the need to wear sunscreen.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:28 | link | comments (3)

 

Problem solver: Israel is in the crosshairs of the global jihad, fighting for its very existence as the jihadis continue to close in. But a former French foreign minister seems oblivious to the obvious threat, preferring to blame Israel for being the architect of its own and everyone else’s misfortune (including the looming civil war in Lebanon). The solution to everyone’s problem is—quel surprise!—for the EU to act as midwife in the birth of a new Palestinian nation.

 

Yeah, that should do the trick.

 

From Le Figaro:

 

The Democrats' victory in the midterm elections not only provides George Bush with an opportunity, but also places him under an obligation, to redefine US policy in the Near and Middle East, and particularly in Iraq and Israel and Palestine. Such a redefinition is also of very great concern to us, because it is nothing short of world peace that is at stake.

 

Having recently returned from Beirut, which I visit regularly, I am more alarmed than ever before by the situation in the region, a situation which, unless it is remedied as a matter of the utmost urgency, combines all the ingredients of a general conflagration. My friends in Lebanon fear civil war, with which they are sadly all too familiar.  

 

This is the sad result of Israel's inconsiderate action in the Land of the Cedars, which, far from having "eradicated" Hezbollah this summer, as it aimed to do, has strengthened its position and has made it even more vindictive than in the past. The "Party of God" and its allies are indeed demanding a change of government and a blocking minority that would enable them to dictate their own policy to the rest of the country. Failing which Hasan Nasrallah, the Shi'i leader now adulated in all the Arab capitals and Iran, warns that his militants will go into the streets. We know the kind of chaos that this could threaten. At the same time, the Jewish state, destabilized by what we must indeed call its failure in Lebanon, is lapsing into increasingly violent repression of the Palestinians. The disengagement from Gaza desired by Ariel Sharon seems like a thing of the distant past, and prospects of peace, however tenuous they may have been, are constantly receding. The ghastly raid on Bayt Hanun, like all those that preceded it, has produced more hatred and gives Hamas the opportunity to further radicalize its position. It threatens to resort to suicide attacks again. So the bloodthirsty confrontation will continue, depriving moderates of any arguments for seeking the path to negotiations. I have in mind in particular Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and numerous political forces in Israel itself.

 

In Iraq the United States' deadlock and the disagreements within the Iraqi Government itself - the Sunnis are threatening to withdraw from the government - are resulting in a daily bloodbath, without any prospect of a solution of the crisis. The death sentence passed on Saddam Husayn further widens the gulf between the Sunnis and the other communities. Assassinations for religious reasons occur every day. The country is no longer "on the verge" of civil war, and we must be honest enough to say that it is experiencing it every day.

 

In Iran negotiations on nuclear are at a standstill, despite the efforts of the Europeans, and of Javier Solana in particular. Teheran believes it is proof against any threat of reprisals if it persists in its resolve to defy the international community. Its confidence has been further strengthened by the "victory" over Tsahal achieved by its ally in Lebanon. And not a week goes by without its president calling for Israel's destruction.

 

Even Afghanistan is threatening to burst into flames again. All the warning lights in the Near and Middle East are showing reds now, as was to have been expected. The situation can only deteriorate, clashes and deaths increase. This is no longer a time for procrastination. A new and stronger initiative is needed in order to avert the worst. The EU cannot remain idly standing by. It must now propose and demands the creation of a Palestinian state. A state whose borders are protected by a buffer force similar to UNIFIL II, which will also be tasked with guaranteeing Israel's security. The EU must also confirm that it is willing to participate on a major scale in funding the construction of this state, which no longer has the infrastructures necessary for its existence. Plans exist to achieve cohabitation between these two states of Israel and Palestine. Ever since Oslo we have also known what the parameters and borders of a new viable Palestinian state must be…

 

Une petit problème, M. Barnier. The Palestinians and their extra-national boosters also know where to draw those parameters and borders, and their cartography takes in the entire Jewish state.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:07 | link | comments (2)

 

Allahu Akbar!: Robert Spencer on the CAIR Congress.

 

Can’t wait to see Nancy Pelosi in a veil.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:49 | link | comments

 

Startling transformation: It’s with a heavy heart that I must announce that Tony Blair has officially morphed into Neville “Peace in Our Time” Chamberlain. From the Times Online:

Tony Blair…has promised to dedicate his remaining months in office to fostering peace between Palestinians and Israelis. In his Guildhall speech tonight, the Prime Minister will say that Iraq cannot be seen in isolation. He will argue for a “whole” Middle East strategy that addresses all the problems of the region, including Palestine and Lebanon, where yesterday five Shia ministers, including two from Hezbollah, resigned from the Cabinet, plunging the country into renewed political crisis.

Syria and Iran, Mr Blair will say, should be given the chance to come in from the cold and help the peaceful development of the Middle East while also being warned of the consequences of not doing so.

Let’s spark up the Wayback machine and set it to 1938, shall we? Here’s how the above might have been written in those perilous times:

 

Italy and Nazi Germany, Mr Chamberlain will say, should be given the chance to come in from the cold and help the peaceful development of Europe while also being warned of the consequences of not doing so.

 

Didn’t work back then; won’t work now. You can’t appease implacable totalitarians who harbour delusions of grandiosity: not Hitler, who wanted to bring about a Thousand Year Reich, and not Ahmadinejad, who wants to bring about Armageddon. If Tony doesn’t snap out of it, his legacy is doomed to be as ignominious as that of his misguided, Hitler-placating predecessor.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:30 | link | comments (1)

 

Nostalgic for Yasser: The Palestinians’ desperate plight—no money for food and wages but plenty for Jew-seeking missiles—is prompting many in the territories to pine for the good old days when Yasser was in charge.

 

If you listen closely, you can hear Saeb Erekat, Hanaan Ashrawi and a few other of Arafat’s fart-catchers singing the French selection from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat:

 

Do you remember the good years with Yasser?

The bigwigs who bowed at his feet?

The nights that he spent at Bill’s White House

With kudos and plenty to eat?

He’d swagger all round the mukta’a

And count all his loot as his ease.

Now Suha’s run off with our swag

She’s spending it on Fendi bags.

Et maintenant we’re far from easy street.

 

Those Yasser days,

We used to know,

Where have they gone?

Where DIIIIIIIIIIIIID they go?

And now, wear your shmat-tah

And bid those days ta-ta.

 

Do you remember the Oslo peace process?

The reluctant handshake on the lawn?

The glittering Nobel Peace parties?

All gone, mes amis, all gone.

It’s funny but since we lost Yasser

The joy has gone out of our lives.

Abbas is not our Arafat.

He keeps on talking through his hat

And, anyway, the jihad is still on.

 

Those Yasser days,

We used to know,

Where have they gone?

Where DIIIIIIIIIIIIID they go?

And now, wear your shmat-tah

And bid those days ta-ta.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:42 | link | comments

 

Free speech and hate speech: What happens when the government refuses to acknowledge that the jihadists are inspired to wage their holy war because of, not in spite of, religious teachings embedded in the Koran? The torch is taken up the far-right hyper-nationalist fringe, and any and all criticism of the one true faith can be dismissed as the hyperventilations of bigots and fascists. From Islam Online:

 

LONDON — Britain's racial and religious hatred laws may need reform after a court cleared a far-right leader for the second time this year over a speech in which he called Islam a "wicked, vicious faith", ministers said Saturday, November 11.

"Any preaching of religious or racial hatred will offend mainstream opinion in this country and I think we have got to do whatever we can to root it out," the Chancellor (Finance Minister) Gordon Brown told the BBC.

"If that means that we have to look at the laws again, I think we will have to do so."

Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, was found not guilty on Friday of inciting racial hatred during secretly filmed speeches in 2004.

Griffin, 47, and BNP worker Mark Collett, 26, were cleared on Friday of using words or behavior intended to incite racial hatred by a jury at Leeds Crown Court in northern England.

They were cleared of similar charges at a trial in February.

Griffin was charged after the BBC secretly filmed a speech he gave in 2004 during which he told supporters Islam was a "wicked, vicious faith" that was turning the country into "a multi-racial hell-hole".

Collett repeatedly called asylum seekers "cockroaches."

Griffin maintained throughout the trial that his comments were not racial and were designed to stir his audience to political activity.

Reassuring Muslims

Constitutional Affairs Secretary Charles Falconer said the country had to show it would not tolerate attacks on Islam.

"If you say Islam is wicked and evil and there is no consequence from that whatsoever, what is being said to young Muslim people in this country is that we ... are anti-Islam," he told the BBC.

Of Britain's 60 million people, some 1.8 million are Muslims.

Weyman Bennett, general secretary of Unite against Fascism and Racism, told the Guardian Saturday: "It's a tragedy that a fascist and racist organization can hide behind free speech ... But how do you prove intent without getting inside Griffin's head?"…

How, indeed?

 

I don’t much cotton to anyone being described as a “cockroach”; as someone whose people have historically been on the receiving end of such appellations, I’m cognizant of how dangerous it can be for those so described, as well as how disgusting and soul-destroying it is for those who describe people thus (or as other inferior creatures, like, say, rats, apes or pigs). However, as far as I can tell, even with the provocation of self-exploding home-grown shahids and the announcement the other day that there were far more where they came from, the infidels haven’t taken to vigilantism, or even called upon the British government to take more immediate and drastic action. No, the ones who are screaming the loudest seem to come from the community from whence the shahids have sprung.

 

You can see, though, why these folks would want to put the kibosh everyone—and not just the right-wing nutjobs like the British fascists—from saying nasty things about their faith. First, because they sincerely believe their religion is flawless. And second, because getting the dhimmi government to enact laws outlawing all criticism of Islam is, dare one say it, exactly the same as sharia law.

 

Wouldn’t it be ironic if Griffin and Collet winning their case had the unforeseen and unintended consequence of facilitating the implementation of sharia in the U.K.?

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:46 | link | comments

 

Life in modern, secular Turkey: It sounds an awful lot like life in not-so-modern Islamic Turkey. From the BBC:

In eastern Turkey family honour is all-important. People are killed because of it and so-called blood money is paid to restore it. One former butcher is dedicating his life to resolving feuds and ending family vendettas.

I met Metin in a funeral parlour in Diyarbakir.

He looked like he wanted to shrivel up and disappear. His head sagged sheepishly low and he had somehow twisted his upper body, like he was trying to take up as little space as possible.

Metin was in his twenties - and in serious trouble.

He had violated the strict code of honour that rules much of south-eastern Turkey, and he knew he was lucky to be alive.

Eighteen months ago, Metin married.

He had kidnapped the girl he loved because he could not afford a dowry. The couple have since had a baby but the bride's brothers are after them. They believe killing the couple will cleanse the family honour.

As he told me his sorry tale, Metin's eyes brimmed with tears of desperation. At one point he rounded on his elderly father, half deaf and stooped over a walking stick.

"I had to steal her," Metin wailed in accusation. "You never gave me any money for a dowry - you never even sent me to school!"…

The EU should let Turkey in on compassionate grounds alone—so that guys like Metin will have more money for dowries and won’t have to resort to kidnapping to get a wife.

Also, it might help cut down on the number of murders—a fate one hopes the well-meaning Metin avoids.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:54 | link | comments

 

Stumblebums: Reuters, a news agency that never misses an opportunity to demonstrate its anti-Israel bias, also never misses an opportunity to downplay the egregiousness of Israel’s most egregious enemies. Thus, a headline today about how "a disunited Lebanon" has “stumbled” into a political crisis.

 

The crisis? Hezbollah, the Islamo-genocidal terrorist outfit sponsored by the Islamo-genocidal mullahs of Iran, is getting set to suffocate Lebanon’s fledgling anti-Syrian government, and with it the country’s hopes for democracy.

 

I’d say that isn’t “stumbling” into a crisis. It’s being pushed, kicking and screaming, into a crisis by scheming, powerful, relentless jihadis.

 

Of course, that’s far too inflammatory (and accurate) an analysis for the likes of Reuters

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:29 | link | comments

 

Full of Haass air: I had hoped that the recent regime change at the Toronto Star meant that Harpoon Siddiqui, the paper’s resident Islamism-enabler, had been put out to pasture. After all, it’s not like he had anything new to contribute to the discussion; he’d been writing the same Muslims-are-helpless-victims-Westerners-are-powerful-victimizers shtick for years. Surely, the Star’s readers had grown weary of the same old offal, written in the same tired, humourless prose.

 

Never underestimate the capacity of Star readers to withstand the unendurable. Harpoon is back from wherever he’s been stashed these past few weeks, and he’s thrilled to announce that the “era of American militarism is coming to an end.” Yes, folks, the jihad’s over and the good guys (really, the bad guys) have won.

 

Let’s all watch as Harpoon does his happy dance.

 

Harpoon is most disturbed, however, because our Prime Minister has yet to acknowledge the new reality; that is, the reality of a chastened Bush, his doctrine in tatters, who’s unloaded his pro-Israel neo-Con advisers and surrounded himself with some new (really, some very old) pundits—yer Bakers, yer Gateses—who actively dislike the Jewish entity.  Harpoon quotes Richard Haass, a former Powell-era Foggy Bottom functionary who penned a scholarly article in Foreign Affairs. Haass writes that the “age of U.S. dominance in the Middle East has ended,” and the reason is partly due to the “demise of the Middle East peace process.”

 

Um, it’s kinda hard to kick-start a peace process when one side up and elects a regime of genocidal terrorists, but I’m sure Mr. Haass thinks that Bush could have made some headway had he simply tried harder. You know, like Bill Clinton did.

 

Harpoon and the Fogmeister are also mighty concerned about a possible pre-emptive strike on Iran. Not a good idea, they say, and here’s why:

 

A preventive strike on Iranian nuclear installations won't accomplish much. It would solidify the clerical regime, which could reconstitute the nuclear program and retaliate, through proxies, against American interests in Afghanistan or Iraq or directly attack the United States.

 

An attack on Iran "would further radicalize the Arab and Muslim worlds and generate more terrorism." It would "drive the price of oil to new heights, increasing the chances of an international economic crisis and a global recession."

 

Israel is clearly the other major power. But, weighed down by the occupation of Palestinian land and people, it faces "a multi-front, multi-dimensional security challenge." And strategically, it is "in a weaker position today than it was before this summer's crisis in Lebanon."

 

Haass thinks "militiazation" will continue in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. Terrorism will "remain a feature of the region." Islam will "increasingly fill the political and intellectual vacuum" in the Arab world.

 

Fixing this Bush-made mess requires a wholesale change of policy and outlook, one that Bush seems prepared to make.

 

How about Harper?

 

How about that Harper? He hasn’t budged from his “we support Israel over the terrorists” position, but, sadly, he doesn’t have to look too far afield to see how well that kind of resolve plays with war-weary voters.

 

This is the letter I sent the Star:

 

Haroon Siddiqui says that Israel faces an immense, multifaceted security challenge because she is “weighted down by occupation of Palestinian land and people.”

 

The challenge is indeed vast, but not because of the burden of occupation. That load was lightened a while ago when Israel withdrew completely from Gaza and left the Palestinians in that territory to their own resources. Israel had been planning to unburden itself of the West Bank as well, but since the Palestinians elected to be represented by Hamas, a terrorist regime committed to Israel’s destruction, and took the opportunity of self-rule to lob thousands of missiles into Israel, the eastern portion of the nascent Palestinian state is going to have to remain under Israeli control for the time being.

 

No, Israel faces the same challenges she always has—and for the same reason. Her neighbours have been unwilling to come to terms with the reality of a sovereign Jewish nation existing in the heart of the Arab world.

 

In that sense at least, it is about “the occupation”—the occupation of all of Israel by the Jews.

 

Often when I read Harpoon’s musings, I have the strange feeling that I’m stumbled into an alternate reality where truth is fiction, good is evil and freedom is submission. And then I realize that Harpoon, the Star’s Moby Dick-head, is, you should pardon the expression, just the tip of the iceberg, and that the Star and other mainstream outlets (like the Ceeb) have been perambulating in an alternate reality (call it a multicultist Shangri-la where the jihad, if acknowleged at all, can be countered by concerted niceness) for a long, long time.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:06 | link | comments

 

Look Pa, no hands: It’s astonishing how the most innocuous act, say like a little female self-pleasuring, have the most horrific consequences. According to Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi (link via Martin Kramer), a great scholar and Ken Livingstone’s favourite Islamic cleric, an unmarried chick should keep her hands above the danger zone because:

 

• Touching can lead to rupturing the hymen;
• If her hymen is ruptured, a girl is damaged goods and may open herself to charges of fornication;
• If she opens herself to such charges, her male family members may feel compelled to kill her to restore family honour, even though Islam expressly forbids this crime.

In other words, girls, pleasure yourself at your own risk.

 

The Sheik suggests that girls avert temptation by engaging in more wholesome and less potentially dangerous activies. Read a book, go for a long walk, do some charity work, suggests the Sheik, and in no time at all, the urges will pass.

 

Easy enough for him to say.

Posted by: scaramouche at 00:43 | link | comments

 

Big jihadis on campus: As there’s no assurance that suggestible cannon fodder are going to mosey on over to the local mosque for radical instruction, the U.K.  jihadis have decided to pursue some other likely venues for recruitment. And, whadya know, they’ve found a few spots where would-be shahids may be just ripe for the plucking. From the Times Online:

 

ISLAMIC extremists have infiltrated at least four British universities to radicalise Muslim students, says a “troubleshooting” imam who sends teams to campuses to tackle indoctrination.

Sheikh Musa Admani believes fundamentalists are bypassing campus bans on groups with radical links by presenting themselves as “ordinary Muslims” to fellow students or forming societies with alternative names.

Some students, says Admani, have been so deeply indoctrinated that they are close to travelling to Afghanistan and Iraq to engage in jihad, or holy war.

Admani, a Muslim chaplain at London Metropolitan University, runs a charity that helps to rehabilitate young men who have fallen prey to extremism. He is also an adviser on Muslim affairs to Bill Rammell, the higher education minister.

“We are dealing with people filled with hatred,” said Admani. “It’s hatred for the white man and the West in particular, because they have read the works of Qutb and Maududi (Islamist ideologues followed by Al-Qaeda) who set Muslims apart from everyone else.”

Admani’s claims come in the wake of a warning by Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, about the extent of the threat faced from home-grown Islamic extremists. She said the domestic security service has identified 200 terrorist networks involving at least 1,600 people, and 30 “Priority 1” plots to kill are being investigated.

“Radicalising elements within communities are trying to exploit grievances for terrorist purposes; it is the youth who are being actively targeted, groomed, radicalised and set on a path that frighteningly quickly could end in their involvement in mass murder of their fellow UK citizens, or their early death in a suicide attack or on a foreign battlefield,” said Manningham-Buller...

Who needs a university degree when you can matriculate in eternal nookie?

Posted by: scaramouche at 00:08 | link | comments

 

Mouths of babes: I apologize for the lack of posts today, but family obligations made it impossible to get to the computer. To make up for it, I’ve decided to share the words of my eight-year-old son. For a school assignment this week, he was asked to “create your own sentences of thanksgiving for Remembrance Day. Here’s what he wrote (“creative” spelling and all):

 

I am thankful that the soldiers gave their lifes (sic) for us. I am thankful that we are free. I am thankful for freinds (sic) and families (sic). I am thankful for a warm home. I am thankful for food and drinks (sic).

 

I, too, am thankful for these things. And on Remembrance Day, 2006, my fondest hope is that my son and all our children can continue to live in freedom, and that all the jihadis will decide to turn their “struggle” inward and leave the rest of us alone.

 

Well, I can dream, can't I?

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:50 | link | comments

 

Haniyah takes a bullet: So selfless, that Ismail Haniyeh. He says he’s willing to step aside as Palestinian leader so that the international money spigot can be turned back on.

 

Um, sorry to break it to you Izzy, but you’re not the problem. And by that I mean the problem is much, much bigger than you.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:36 | link | comments

 

The jihad in the U.K.: Ominous words today from the head of Britain’s MI5. She warned that, even as we speak, shadowy religious fanatics are plotting plots intended to sew terror as a prelude to eventual world conquest.

 

Hmm. Where have I heard that one before?

 

After issuing her dire warning/grim forecast, she started snapping her fingers and burst into song à la the late, great Bobby Darin:

 

Oh, jihadis have sharp knives, dear,

And they keep them loosely sheathed.

Decapitation is a rite, babe,

That their founder has bequeathed.

 

When jihadis strap on their bombs, babe,

Scarlet billows are the goal.

Suicide is just a means, babe,

For them to play a martyr’s role.

 

Now, on the sidewalk, cloudy mornin’

Lie some bodies blown apart.

Lots of planning, lots of plotting.

This success is just a start.

 

Ah, there’s some mosques babe,

All ‘round the country don’tcah know

Where they’re teaching lots of hate.

And the police they can’t do much, babe,

Because, frankly, it’s far too late.

 

Now, d’ja hear ‘bout Barot? He got shut down, babe,

‘Cause he liked those dirty bombs.

All the Christians should say their prayers now

While the Jews recite some psalms.

 

Now, "Islamophobia"…ho, ho…yeah…

Is what they trot out

So you won't know what they're about.

It keeps the kafirs on their toes, babe,

And consumed by their self-doubt.

Ah, Islamophobia…whoah…is the excuse they like to use

Divert attention from what this war’s about.

Yes the lies form on the left, babe,

Now that jihad’s back in town…

 

Look out old jihad is back!

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:09 | link | comments

 

Jew-hate in the U.K.: Old news, alas.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:57 | link | comments

 

Leaving Iraq: The ever-perceptive David Warren nails it—and in the space of one brief paragraph:

If Iraq is abandoned, the credibility of America and the West is lost. Iran's hopes of regional hegemony are assured. The Americans will have cut and run after enduring less than one-twentieth of the casualties they suffered in Vietnam; and from a battle more consequential, for it is against an Islamist enemy that is rising, instead of a Communist enemy in decline.

There are dark days ahead, my friends, and if you think Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi are the ones to steer us through them, you may as well recite the shahada right now in recognition of what’s to come.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:54 | link | comments

 

The enemy of my enemy is my…enemy?: I think this headline about says it all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:42 | link | comments

 

Denying the deniers: Yesterday and today mark the 68^th anniversary of  Kristallnacht, the “night of broken glass” during which Jewish premises in Germany, including many synagogues, were destroyed in an orgy of Jew-hate. Kristallnacht was a foreshadowing of what was to come, the murder of Europe’s Jews with the tacit approval of the most of the Continent.

 

Last night on The Agenda, the nightly public affairs program on TVO, host Steve Paikin led a panel discussion about denying that genocide, as well as the earlier genocide involving the Armenians, and whether or not it is appropriate for countries to have laws outlawing such denial. The panel included Ed Morgan, head of the Canadian Jewish Congress and a law professor at the University of Toronto, and Tarek Fatah, former communications director of the Muslim Canadian Congress, as well as two others, both academics. Morgan, head of an organization notoriously disinclined to rock any boats, has been popping up like Topsy with great regularity in the local media, now appearing as a talking head on one of these panel shows, now writing a scholarly comment piece for the Globe and Mail, now chatting with a Ceeb host on the radio. Fatah, a “secular Muslim”—isn’t that an oxymoron?—and a well-known voice of “moderation” in the local community, had resigned his position not long ago in the face of growing death threats from those members of his ummah who thought he was an apostate deserving of a death sentence. His retirement lasted approximately two weeks; he announced on an Agenda show last month that, since the death threats hadn’t abated but had increased since his announcement, he saw no point in maintaining his (short-lived) low profile. (During that discussion, about the merits and demerits of the veil, Fatah gave his credentials for being allowed to participate in the discussion. His “street-cred”? He’d been a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. As for what that had to do with his suitability for participating in a discussion about Islamist doctrine, your guess is as good as mine.)

 

For most of the hour, the discussion revolved around the denial of the Jewish Holocaust, although the top of the hour examined the Armenian Holocaust, and how the French government was considering whether or not to enact a law making denial of that Holocaust illegal (and the ramifications such a move might have on the impending vote on Turkey’s entry into the EU). When the discussion turned to the Jewish Holocaust, Tarek Fatah pointed out perceptively that the nations that had outlawed Holocaust denial—for example, Germany, Austria, Lithuania, Israel, etc—were ones which had had a direct stake in the Holocaust. (Canada does not have specific laws outlawing denial, but it does have laws against inciting hatred—but the way these laws are written make it exceedingly difficult for the Crown to win a judgement.) The discussion also dealt with David Irving, the historian and famous Holocaust denier who lost a libel case in England he’d brought against another historian, Deborah Lipstadt. Pursuing the case—as well as Holocaust denial—proved to be a bad career move for Irving: he's currently bankrupt and cooling his heels in an Austrian prison.

 

The panellists and host discussed whether it was appropriate to limit free speech—even the loathsome, denying kind—in a free society. The consensus was: it’s not. However, during an entire hour dedicated to Holocaust denial not once—not once—was there mention of that segment of the world where Holocaust denial is not only rampant, not only encouraged, not only woven into the fabric of society, not only broadcast with sickening frequency in the media. An hour of Holocaust denial, and no mention of how the Arab/Muslim world uses such denial as a rallying cry in its ongoing efforts to discredit and delegitimize the Jewish state that arose from the ashes of the Holocaust. An hour of Holocaust denial, and no mention of the mouthiest—and, not co-incidentally, the most dangerous—denier on the current scene: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

 

Instead, we heard a lot about the “right-wing fascists,” neo-Nazis, White-supremacist types, all of whom live and operate in Europe. We heard about Ernst Zundel and David Irving, both of whom are safely ensconced in European jails. And we heard about how Holocaust denial, while unsavoury and vile, is something we here in Canada must all grin and bear.

 

Maybe so. But it would have been far more honest—and far more valuable—if someone, anyone, on the show had had the guts to acknowledged the camel in the parlour: Islamic, I repeat, Islamic Holocaust denial. Without that acknowledgement, the show, while moderately diverting, was a pointless hour of self-satisfied wind.

 

I can understand why Tarek Fatah, card-carrying PFLP member, might want to avoid such discussion: It doesn’t exactly make his co-religionists look good. But Ed Morgan? The only reason I can think of for his avoiding the revolting dromedary on the set is that he didn’t want to antagonize Tarek Fatah and disrupt such an amiable conversation.

 

In which case, shame on him.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:41 | link | comments

 

Strange beast: When it comes to Israel, the Globe and Mail continues to be like a pushmepullu, that llama-like beast from the Dr. Doolittle books that has a four legs and two heads, each end pointing in the opposite direction. The Globe’s news coverage, as provided by that married tag team of Israel-bashers, Mark MacKinnon and Caroline Wheeler, is the pushme; the Globe’s editorials, which, for the most part, manage to unpack the issues in a clear-sighted way, is the pullyou.

 

An editorial in today’s paper is a case in point. It offers a sober analysis of the Beit Haroun tragedy and criticizes Hamas for using it as a pretext to heat up the conflict:

What happened this week to residents in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun was a terrible tragedy. A misdirected artillery barrage claimed the lives of 18 members of an extended Palestinian family, eight of them children, and injured 54 other people. The Israeli military, which had just withdrawn from the community after a six-day offensive, must shoulder the responsibility for the accident. But Palestinian authorities must share the blame. Because they did nothing to stop teams of militants from setting up in Beit Hanoun and brazenly firing Kassam rockets at Israeli communities, they set the stage for the inevitable Israeli response.

No nation could stand by indefinitely while its citizens' lives were put at risk by wanton violence rained down on them daily for months on end. Israel had no choice but to strike back. When another batch of rockets reached the suburbs of a town even deeper inside Israel after the withdrawal of its soldiers, Israel responded with artillery. The Israelis were apparently targeting an orange grove where rocket fire had been spotted, but missed their mark.

Sadly, Palestinian political leaders are all too ready to make a dreadful situation worse by escalating the violence. Hamas has declared that it will return after a two-year absence to its preferred terrorist tactic of sending suicide bombers into Israel. "The armed struggle is free to resume, and the resistance will be dictated by local circumstances," Khaled Meshaal, Hamas's exiled political leader, said in Damascus. "There must be a roaring reaction so that we avenge all those victims." Other militant groups have also vowed revenge, conveniently ignoring that they could have prevented the bloodshed in the first place.

When Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in August, 2005, it warned it would respond militarily to attacks stemming from the evacuated territory. At that point, Hamas, which controlled the Strip's political life, could have put its energies into providing badly needed basic public services, building communities and looking for solutions at the bargaining table. Instead, the terrorist organization maintained its fierce opposition to the continued survival of Israel and encouraged fresh attacks on Israeli troops and civilians.

Even after winning a landslide election last January to lead a government that would improve the sorry lot of Palestinians, Hamas could not bring itself to renounce violence, recognize Israel's right to exist or accept the peace accords signed by previous Palestinian governments. The result has been a crippling aid boycott by Western countries. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is still trying to forge a more moderate government of national unity with Hamas that would meet Western concerns. That is unlikely to happen as long as Hamas is prepared to use any excuse to pursue a course of destruction.

The problem with this assessment: in two words, Mahmoud Abbas. He is not a moderate. He is a Holocaust denying Israel-loather who fronts a movement, Fatah, that is as every bit as devoted to Israel’s destruction as is Hamas, but who, because he’s well-groomed, well-spoken and not a fire-breathing religious nutter, is seen as someone that an infidel can work with. That is unadulterated camel poopy, as is the notion that Abbas, of all people, the rival and sworn enemy of Hamas, can somehow persuade the Jihadists to pretend to get with the program, at least long enough to restart the jizya spigot and maybe dupe the Israelis into signing onto another Oslo-type faux peace agreement. Perhaps without realizing it, the Globe editorial iterates the obvious flaw in this scheme: Hamas would sooner let every single Palestinian live in perpetual squalor without so much as a crust of bread rather than come to terms with the reality of a self-ruling dhimmi infidel pig-and-chimp entity next door. And furthermore, there’s no way a metrosexual secularist, who himself harbours the same kind of feelings as his rivals but disagrees with their tactics, and who, in any case, is a figurehead without any power, can have any positive influence on the situation.

They got the “forge” part right, though. Abbas has managed to “forge” the false impression that he’s a moderate, and the Globe and other wishful thinkers (including far too many in Israel and the U.S. State Department) have fallen for his counterfeit act.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:45 | link | comments (1)

 

How the Jews Stole Moo’s Jihad: With apologies profuse to Dr. Seuss:

 

Every Jew down in Jew-ville liked living a lot.

But the Moo who lived due west of Jew-ville did not.

He hated the Jews, the whole Jew-ish entity.

He longed to expunge the Jew-ish identity.

Why?

It could be because he was warped like Khomeini,

And, as for his scruples, he hadn’t goteini.

But I think—and I’m certain I’m on the right track—

It’s because he thinks Mahdi is soon coming back.

But whatever the reason that one cares to use,

He stood there in Tehran, hating the Jews.

Staring down from his podium, a smirk on his face,

He announced he had plans for the whole Jewish race.

For, even though he contended the Shoah was a fraud,

He longed for another, for the sake of his God.

“They’ve no right to exist!” he snarled with a sneer.

“They have stolen the land out from those who were here!”

Then he danced a brief jig, saying, “Aye, here’s the rub.

We Shias have now joined the nuclear club.”

For,

Tomorrow, he knew

All the UN kowtowers

Would dicker and dally.

But do nothing to forestall the nuclear showers.

And then! Oh, the cloud! Oh, the cloud!

Oh, the big mushroom cloud.

That’s the one thing he longed for! The CLOUD! CLOUD! CLOUD! CLOUD!

Then the Jews, young and old, would all sizzle and glow.

And they’d go! And they’d go!

And they’d GO!

                        GO!

                               GO!

And once gone, he’d be finally able to boast,

That because of his efforts, the Jews were all toast.

And THEN

The occluded imam’s long-occluded occlusion

Would be more than collective religious delusion.

The Mahdi’d return, once the Jews were dispatched,

And get down to business he’d long ago hatched.

They’d rule! Yes, they’d rule!

Oh, they’d RULE! RULE! RULE! RULE!

And, in a thrilling  redress of historic unfairness

The world would wake up to a brand new awareness

That Shias were, fittingly, top of the heap.

And the Sunnis and kafirs would sleep the Big Sleep.

And then…

The Moo got an idea!

A wicked idea!

THE MOO GOT A DELICIOUSLY WICKED IDEA!

“I know just what to do,” said the Moo, who was very ambitious.

And he made a quick call to his terror militias.

And he coaxed and he coo’d, “I’ll send lots of nice missiles.”

Then he sat down and dashed off some lengthy epistles:

“Dear George, dear Tony, dear infidel leaders.

Here is your choice—submit, or be bleeders.”

But did Moo stop at that?

No! He packed a valise

And raced off to the UN, there to speak his full peace.

And he summoned his puppy, Hu Chavez, to join the mission,

The plan: first berate; then, cut bait and go fission.

SO

He arrived at the UN,

One of his favourite fora,

For ‘twas there

He’d espied his bright glowing green aura.

Then the Moo shouted, “Boo!”

And the gathered grew pale.

And the Moo told a wicked, delectable tale:

“I don’t want to kill Jews.

I mean them no harm.

So there’s no need for you to sound any alarm.

Why, it’s just that my oil has depleted a bit

And I need to enrich so my buildings stay lit.”

Then, he slithered and slunk, and grinned a great grin.

As he thought of which countries would fall for his spin:

France! And Great Britain! Holland! And Spain!

Outer Mongolia! Norway! Bahrain!

Then he sighed a big sigh, and knew all would be well,

And in no time at all there’d be Jews down in Hell.

So he oozed back to Tehran, full of bluster and thunder.

And the weak internationalists

Were left struck dumb with wonder.

He’d received a reception due a king, a great man,

Not the kind due an evil total’tarian.

Then he preened like a peacock with a glorious tail.

“And NOW!” smirked the Moo, “I KNOW I can’t fail.”

And in no time flat, another enricher was up and running

To enrich more nuclear stuff—the amount would be stunning!

But, just then, from on high, the Moo heard a strange hiss.

A strange Jew-ish hiss,

And he suddenly realized, “Something’s amiss.”

For up in the sky was a shiny Jew fighter

Which caused Moo to shriek,

“You bloody Jew blighter.

You’ll never, ever uncover my arsenal.

You’re all going to die—nothing parsenal.”

But we all know the Jews are so smart and so slick

And they’d sized up that Moo, and were on to his trick.

“Why, don’t worry, dear Moo, we aren’t here for your nukes.

We’ve come to get rid of your kookiest kooks.

So we’re taking the mullahs and their sock-puppet—you.

And here’s what we’re thinking we’re going to do.

First, we’ve hired a deprogrammer, to divest you of hate.

Next, we’re shipping you Stateside, before it’s too late,

Where you’ll connect and connoiter with some real holy rollers,

And become Pentecostal, from your toes to your molars.

Then, once you’ve found Jesus

We’re shipping you back,

And your fire-breathing believers will be on the attack

Because, as apostates, you’ll have no right to live.

So says sharia, which, as you know, has no ‘give.’”

So that’s what they did. The Jews stole them away,

And they had a sojourn in the U.S. of A.

Where they trembled for Jesus,

And spoke in strange tongues.

They rocked and they ranted. They shuddered and sung.

And at a quarter past dawn,

All the Shias still a-bed,

All the Jews still a-snooze.

They returned Moo and the mullahs—such an elegant ruse!

The true believers were stunned. They seethed! They wailed!

And packed Moo and the mullahs off to where they were jailed.

Then, lickety-split, they chopped off their heads.

And Moo and the mullahs, hurray!, were all dead…

And what happened then…?

Well…in Jew-ville they say

That the mem’ry of Moo has just withered away.

And the terror militias, with no more of his missiles,

Have dropped all the Jew-hate and penned peaceful epistles.

And the Jews—they no longer give anyone pause.

And if you believe that…

You probably believe there’s a Santa Claus!

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:54 | link | comments

 

The truth as I know it: I’ve been trying to sort out my feelings about yesterday’s Congressional elections and what the Democratic gains will mean to what the Bush administration has dubbed “the war on terror” (actually, a lame euphemism for “the war to counter the global jihad”). So here goes:

 

On the one hand: In a free and democratic society, people have every right to voice their dismay with those in power and vote for a change—which, clearly, is what happened yesterday	On the other hand: The change they voted for is unlikely to benefit the short or long-term interests of Israel which, being the world’s only Jewish state and stuck smack in the middle of Dar al Islam, finds itself a special focus and locus of the jihad.
Bush started out firm and resolute about fighting the “evil-doers,” but when the “insurgency” (really, the Shia jihadis and the Sunni jihadis vying for supremacy) heated up, he backed down from describing the problem as arising from “Islamo-fascism. He also set Condi Rice and the Foggy Bottom Arabists loose and, as a result, Condi described the Palestinians, who chose to be officially represented by jihadi terrorists, as the people most singularly deserving of their own state, comparing their plight to that of African-Americans in the U.S. prior to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.	Nancy Pelosi, who sits in the nosebleed section of the far-left, is a mere two beating hearts away from the presidency, and she and other newly-empowered (but clueless) Democrats are likely to call for that “peace in our time process” to get back on track. The are also likely to be more receptive to a newly-empowered segment of their supporters, those represented by CAIR and other not-so-moderate Muslim organizations, none of which are likely to be averse to the idea of redrawing the map sans Israel.
The idea of implanting democracy in the inhospitable soil of Dar al Islam now seems quixotic at best, sheer lunacy at worst. As Washington Post columnist, Diana West and Islam expert Robert Spencer have written, the U.S. policy shouldn't be one of pro-democracy but of anti-jihad. And even were the U.S. to “stay the course” for however long it takes to “defeat” the “insurgency, democracy would never be implanted there because the Iraqi constitution is based on sharia law, and, as such, is completely antithetical to democracy.	Were the U.S. to cut and run, as seems likely with the Dems in command, the jihadis will crow about their great victory against Great Satan and be further empowered to spread the jihad and obliterate Israel.

And my parting one hand/other hand: On the one hand, it’s too bad the Republicans lost because, on the whole, they certainly “get” the threat of global jihad a whole lot better than the Democrats do. (One of the few who does get it, Joe Lieberman, is persona non grata in the party and won re-election as an Independent.) On the other hand, because they don't get it, the Democrats, are bound to mess up big time, and that may prevent a Democratic president (Hillary? Barak?) from being elected in two years time.

 

With that in mind, I have two words that may help boost the spirits of anyone feeling downcast today: Rudy Giuliani.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:02 | link | comments

 

Truce and fiction: An Israeli shell went astray near Beit Hanoun and accidentally killed 18 Palestinians, including 10 children, in Gaza, and now Hamas is saying that the “truce” is over.

 

Um, what truce?

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:18 | link | comments

 

Barot's plots: Such a busy little beaver, that Barot. The soft-spoken Hindu who “reverted” to Islam and planned to irradiate the unreverted (not that a dirty bomb can distinguish between infidels and true believers) had targeted hotels, banks, public transit and, of course, synagogues for destruction. And we might never have known about any of it had the British media not convinced a judge to overturn a gag order forbidding details of Barot’s trial from being released to the public.

 

An editorial in the Times hails the decision and argues for the public’s right to be aware of the real and present threat posed by Barot and other jihadis. As well, Britian must be flexible enough to adapt to the threat—a challenge in any free society:

 

…It is vital, however, that the threat posed by such men is understood. Had it not been for a determined effort by this newspaper, together with the BBC and the Associated Press, no detail of what Barot was planning or of his sentence could have been made public. Confronted with overwhelming evidence, he pleaded guilty. But seven co-accused are currently on trial, and the courts had refused to lift any reporting restrictions for fear of prejudicing trials that may not end for two years.

Such gagging would have been utterly unacceptable. Ruthless, religiously inspired terrorism is the greatest danger this country faces. Britons were shaken from earlier complacency by the London suicide bombings in July last year. Many, though, still do not comprehend the aims or methods of those who would slaughter thousands to create “a black day for the enemies of Islam”. Simple vigilance is not enough. The security services mounted one of the largest operations undertaken to monitor and unravel his plot, but were up against a level of sophistication and terrorist training rarely seen until now. Their success in cracking encrypted messages, penetrating hidden computer data and identifying electronic keys and terrorist paraphernalia is remarkable.

None of this would have been known had the reporting restrictions not been lifted. This case has already led directly to the change in law allowing police to hold suspects for 28 days (but not the 90 days that the Prime Minister wanted) rather than 14 days, before charging them. It must surely now provoke a full debate on how terrorist cases are prepared, tried and reported. Dozens of suspects face trial on terrorism charges, and the virus has a long way to run before it is eradicated. British justice had yet to find ways of accommodating old and fair procedures to this challenge.

The Barot case underlines the character of terrorism, its international tentacles, chameleon adaptability and ability to exploit Western fads and weaknesses. It should, and will, make more urgent the need to penetrate and disarm the mindset that kills in the name of a deity. It is a threat that no democratic society can ignore.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:47 | link | comments (1)

 

Seeing is believing—but not always: Melanie Phillips says that Obsession, the documentary about the global jihad and its connection to Nazism should be required viewing for every politician and pundit who still deigns to connect the dots:

…The similarities to the Nazis are indeed overwhelming. The screaming demagogues, the wholesale indoctrination of children into the cult of hatred and death, the repeated use of diabolical propaganda, the aims of genocide and global domination – and the fact that although such aims are constantly reiterated, although the deeds that follow plumb unimaginable depths of barbarity, although the lies are as transparent as they are systematic, the watching world still refuses to acknowledge that this is indeed a global war that is being waged. Just as in the thirties, it takes refuge in fantasies and excuses and refuses to act; worse than in the thirties, it elevates Islamic fascists to downtrodden martyrs and heroes. There are Muslims in this film who speak the truth plainly and unmistakably: the Palestinian correspondent for the Jerusalem Post Khaled abu Toameh, who says that the Islamic world has hijacked his religion and has declared holy war upon the west in order to destroy its civilisation and Christianity; or Nonie Darwish, born and brought up in Gaza, who relates how as a child she was taught jihad, to wage holy war and conquer the world for Islam, and how her classmates would cry with the emotion of declaring themselves ready to die as martyrs for the cause. And Nonie Darwish is a middle-aged woman. The widespread belief in the west that jihadism, suicide bombers and the rest of it are merely responses to recent actions by Israel or America, or to ‘oppression’ by Israeli occupiers, is demonstrably ridiculous.

This is a film about fanaticism. It does not make easy viewing. It destroys the fiction that Islamic terror is the product of ‘grievances’ about specific conflicts. It demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is instead the product of fanatical, hysterical, paranoid, medieval hatred, bigotry and power-mania. What it shows above all is that we are up against an ideology which turns millions towards madness and savagery – but we are totally failing to combat that ideology. Indeed, we don’t even recognise it for what it is. This film goes a long way towards opening our eyes.

But only for those who care to look. I recall, for instance, a review of the movie that appeared some months ago in NOW Magazine, a local freebie rag that fancies itself an influential voice in the city. The reviewer admitted that the movie almost got him—until he realized in the nick of time that it was all just Zionist propaganda and was avoiding what he called “the elephant in the living room.” And just what was this beast (an elephant to him, but really, a faux pachyderm)? Why, the “occupation,” of course. That’s the “root cause” of all the problems in the world—certainly all the problems in the Middle East—isn’t it? And all that guff about a global jihad is needless fear-mongering that ill-behoves a multicultural utopia such as exists in Toronto, a Burg universally acknowledged as the ne plus ultra of multiculturalism.

 

I used to think that, confronted with the truth, even one that conflicts with their cherished narrative, people would be willing to embrace fact over fiction. I realize now I was wrong. For far too many people, including that NOW magazine reviewer, the truth is whatever Noam Chomsky and those of his kind (the kind who write for NOW Magazine; the kind who march in pro-Hezbollah rallies; the kind who call for boycotts of Israel because it’s an “apartheid state”) say it is. Such people seem unwilling and unable to perceive the truth, even when it shows up on screen in the form of an utterly terrifying--and utterly truthful--docmentary.

 

Or, as someone with the NOW mindset once said to a close friend of mine (you know who you are) when she dared correct some of his anti-Israel nonsense: “Don’t confuse me with the facts.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:51 | link | comments (1)

 

Of witches and jihadis: A Muslim police officer who belonged to the unit assigned to protect senior dignitaries, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, was reassigned when it was discovered that his children—he has five—attended a mosque whose cleric had ties to a suspected terrorist group.

 

And don’t you know that all hell has broken loose as a result. The police officer has initiated a legal action against his employers, charging them with, what else?—“race and religious discrimination.” And the usual suspects are snorting fire about how Muslims in the UK are unfairly singled out for no good reason, and how such treatment has overtones of, get this, the Salem Witch Trials. From the Independent:

…PC Farooq's solicitor, Lawrence Davies, of the law firm Equal Justice, said last night he was unable to comment in detail about the case, but did say: " We live in a society where it is possible to point a finger at a Muslim abroad and say that they have WMD and are a threat to national security and no questions are asked. Now those who 'protect' us feel emboldened to point the same finger at British Muslims. Muslims are labelled guilty by association. Doubt is insufficient to save them. They are assumed guilty before being proven innocent. We are very close to living in the days of Salem. If the head of counter-terrorism becomes a Witch-Finder General then any Muslim or Muslim-looking person or sympathiser best take cover."

PC Farooq declined to comment about the case.

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said details of Mr Farooq's case would "not come as a great surprise to many British Muslims. Smear and innuendo appear increasingly to have taken the place of hard evidence when it comes to finding Muslims guilty of misdemeanours. There is no suggestion that Amjad Farooq himself represented any kind of security risk or that the cleric in the mosque had been convicted of any actual crime."

Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the "British Muslim Parliament" , said: "Unless the individual has close links with a terrorist organisation there is no reason to take these kind of decisions. I think it is a dangerous precedent to set and we have to be very careful about going beyond what is direct evidence, particularly when the allegation concerns the children of the person involved."…

The Salem Witch trials, huh? I know that Arthur Miller wrote a famous play that was meant to show the eerie similarities between the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Salem Witch-hunt adjudicators, and that ever since, at opportune moments, certain folks like to raise the specter of “witch hunts,” primarily as a scare tactic. But, really, is there anything at all alike between Salem witches and jihadis? For one thing—and I believe this is key—THERE WERE NO WITCHES. There are, however, oodles of jihadis (one of whom has just been sentenced to a 40 year stretch for plotting to detonate some shmutzy nukes in the US and the UK), and they are determined to do whatever it takes to turn the UK into a Islamic state. (There already appears to be something called a “British Muslim Parliament”—surely I can't be the only one who finds that alarming.)

And, no, it’s probably not 100% fair that this police officer, who was probably one of those “moderate” Muslims who kept his head down, did his job, raised his kids, and had no more thought of involving himself in the jihad than I do, had to be reassigned because of what amounts to the sins of his children. But is that “discrimination”? Or is it merely exercising due caution? After all, it’s not like he was summarily fired from the force. He was simply given another assignment—and a very high profile one at that. And the fact is that, along with "reverts" like shoe bomber Richard Reid and dirty bomber Barot, those most likely to partake in the jihad in the UK are home-grown Muslim young'uns who have come under the influence of radical teachings--witness the explosive lads from Beeston and Leeds.

Let’s look at another way. If, during WW2, it came to light that a police officer guarding Churchill had kids who were Blackshirts or Nazis, would it have been considered “discriminatory” to give that officer another job? I venture to say that in those politically incorrect times he would have been thrown out altogether, and that would have been that.

So when people scream about “innuendo” and “smear” and “witch hunt,” what they’re asking for are special privileges. For the sake of sparing some feelings (and perhaps for some other reasons as well), they are asking society not to exercise caution or vigilance or common sense. At a time of war—and lest we forget as Remembrance Day looms, we are at war—that is an impossible request.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:04 | link | comments (1)

 

The wages of jihad: It’s 40 years in the slammer (a very Biblical-sounding sentence) for ambitious “revert,” Dhiran Barot. From the Times Online:

A British al-Qaeda terrorist who planned to carry out a series of explosions at prestigious London hotels and mainline stations, killing thousands of people, was jailed for life today.

Muslim convert Dhiren Barot, 34, who admitted planning "back-to-back" attacks on London and also planned to attack iconic buildings in America, was told by a judge at Woolwich Crown Court that he would serve a minimum of 40 years before he would be considered for release.

Judge Mr Justice Butterfield said Barot’s plans would have caused carnage on a "colossal and unprecedented scale" if successful.

He told Barot: "This was no noble cause. Your plans were to bring indiscriminate carnage, bloodshed and butchery first in Washington, New York and Newark, and thereafter the UK on a colossal and unprecedented scale."

He added: "Your intention was not simply to cause damage, panic or fear. Your intention was to murder, but it went further. It was designed to strike at the very heart of democracy and the security of the state.

"And if successful, would have affected thousands personally, millions indirectly and ultimately the whole nation of the US and the UK."

As the judge finished speaking Barot, wearing a khaki zip-up cardigan, black shirt and white t-shirt, picked up a stack of papers and marched out of the dock to the cells, all the while staring angrily at the bench…

 

Surly and angry, just as I described him.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:03 | link | comments

 

High-tech past control: My sole encounter with lice, those pesky scalp-clinging varmints, came many years ago. My youngest sibling had caught them at school, and I was charged with the delightful task of, first, shampooing her hair with a dreadful-smelling potion, then searching through her scalp with a fine-tooth comb and removing their tiny eggs—the nits—one by one.

 

To make this revolting assignment a little less revolting (although not by much), as I searched through her hair I sang her the following song, a parody of the Everly Brothers’ “Bye Bye Love.” (Yes, I was writing song parodies way back when):

 

Bye bye lice.

Bye by happy nits.

Farewell lonely nits.

I thinks you’re gonna duh-hie.

Bye bye you lice buh buh-hye.

 

Until now, shampooing and nit-picking have been the only way to get rid of these pests—and even then there was no assurance they wouldn’t return because the current crop of critters seem to have developed an immunity to the treatment. But it looks like scientists have finally come up with a new and more effective approach. From the Times Online:

 

PARENTS may soon be spared the painstaking combing of children’s hair and the unpleasant stench of head lice lotions after the development of what could be the most effective treatment yet for nits.

 

A team of American scientists has designed a novel form of hairdryer, which tests suggest could eradicate 80 per cent of lice and 98 per cent of their eggs. The surviving lice were unable to breed.

 

Dale Clayton, from the University of Utah, has developed a hairdryer that works at a lower temperature but with a faster airflow than a conventional one. It has a nozzle that is held close to the scalp and destroys the parasites by drying them.

 

Professor Clayton had been researching lice infestation in birds and had discovered that in Utah’s dry air it was impossible to keep samples alive unless they were kept in a humidifier. When his children came home with head lice he wondered whether the nits could similarly be dried to death.

 

Initial experiments with conventional hairdryers proved disappointing, but he eventually devised a machine, nicknamed the LouseBuster, that blows air heated to 60C (140F) and is effective when combined with a special comb. “Head lice have evolved resistance to many of the currently used pediculicides,” the team reported in the journal Pediatrics. “Hot air is an effective, safe treatment and one to which lice are unlikely to evolve resistance.”

Professor Clayton said that a conventional hairdryer held close to the scalp could burn the skin and that parents should continue to use alternative treatments until his new device came on to the market.

 

And if you’d like, you can always borrow my lice song.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:36 | link | comments (1)

 

The motivations for voting: Oh, that demonically manipulative Karl Rove—timing the Saddam verdict so it would be of maximum benefit to the flagging fortunes of his puppet-dupe, George W. Bush, and the Republicans. From the New York Daily News:

 

WASHINGTON - Could the hangman's noose for Saddam Hussein be a lifeline for President Bush and the Republican Party?

 

Democrats downplayed the possibility the ex-dictator's election-eve death sentence yesterday could help the rival party stay in power.

 

But GOP candidates facing strong public discontent with the war seemed to hope it will help.

 

"The news is going to get absorbed over the next 24 to 36 hours once it becomes clear exactly what it all means," Maryland GOP Senate candidate Michael Steele told Fox News. "I think it ends a very sad and terrible chapter in the history of Iraq."

 

House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) saw the death sentence for Saddam as an important step in Iraq and the broader war on terror.

 

"If we don't win in Iraq, we're going to embolden terrorists all over the world, and today's victory is a victory for the Iraqi people," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

 

Politicians across the spectrum praised the verdict almost uniformly. But Democrats pitched it as a chance to correct Bush administration missteps in the war and said it was too little to help the President's party at the polls tomorrow.

 

"I don't think his conviction makes much of a difference in this election," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said.

 

"I think when Dick Cheney says we're staying the course this week, when the President refuses to rule out finding a new defense secretary and firing Donald Rumsfeld, that's going to have far more of an effect on the election than this," he said…

 

Meanwhile, mainstream outlets like the Toronto Star want to make sure we know that the verdict will have no impact whatsoever on the morass that is Iraq as it “won’t heal wounds.”

 

Maybe not, but the fact that an Iraqi court could, despite numerous challenges, hand down such a sentence is, pace mainstream spin, a positive sign.

 

If you ask Christopher Hitchens, though, what’s spurring Americans to cast a ballot has very little to do with Saddam’s sentence or American foreign policy and much more to do with some really crucial issues—like cowboy hats, pervy politicians and a football team with a politically incorrect name. From the Times Online:

 

…A common American expression for a general agreement on a common topic is to say that we are “all on the same page”. Today this homely usage from the schoolroom would reek of a faint indecency. From nowhere, the hidden issue of 2006 turns out to be possible impropriety between a hitherto obscure right-wing congressman and a group of young congressional attendants named for the days when Europe had courts and courtiers.

 

I write that last sentence and then I wonder what I am going to tell the interviewer from the BBC World Service when he calls me later for our chat about the fate of the world’s most powerful democracy.

 

How am I to explain, to listeners in New Zealand and Argentina, that a Congress that makes big decisions for the entire world is being selected in this way? This audience is educated enough to have heard a great deal about President Bush, whose policies might be assumed to be an important element in the discussion, but recently the chief executive announced that he did not consider himself to be an issue in the election at all. (This may be an historic first: I shall have to check the political almanacs.) More astonishingly still, candidates from his own party and from the Democratic side appear to concur. They would all much rather talk about something else.

I live in the nation’s capital, which isn’t allowed representatives in Congress, so the nearest race that concerns me is in neighbouring Virginia.Here, a rich menu of issues confronts the electorate. The incumbent senator, George Allen, a Republican, was considered until recently to be a safe bet for re-election and a possible standard bearer for his party in two years’ time. Now he is in the deepest of trouble because — let me see if I have this right — he isn't “really” from the South, wears cowboy boots though there are no cowboys in Virginia, made a cryptic remark to a questioner from the Indian sub-continent and reacted oddly to the news of his mother’s hidden Jewish parentage.

 

These are the issues that the pundits are squabbling over, yet this race is taking place in a state where the military adds $34 billion to the economy annually and employs more than 208,000 Virginians, according to the state commission. Ninety-three residents have been killed while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not to mention that Democratic challenger James Webb, a Vietnam vet and former Secretary of the Navy, contends that US troops should pull out of Iraq and fight the war from neighbouring countries.

 

Most reasonable people would predict that US foreign policy would be an important issue in this race. They’d be wrong. Yes, I assure the polite BBC man. If you give me some extra airtime I can indeed explain all this. I can also elucidate the significance of the combat boots worn by Webb: boots apparently worn in solidarity with his son, who’s serving in Iraq. They appear to have turned the tide against non-existent cowboys…

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:49 | link | comments

 

A tale of two Muslims: Here’s the scoop: Borat is the ebullient Kazakhstani, a not-so-innocent abroad, who exposes the bigotry and foolishness of those unfortunate enough to be ambushed by his fish-out-of-water act. At the moment, he has the most popular movie in North America. And one more thing: he’s a fictional character, the creation of comedian Sasha Baron Cohen, a Jew.

 

Barot is a former Hindu, a “revert” to Islam, who planned to irradiate a large portion of the populations of the US and the UK through simultaneous explosions involving a dirty nuclear bomb. At the moment, he’s on trial in London and will be sentenced shortly for his grandiose scheme. Barot, alas, is all too real, a genuine jihadi, the creation of an ideology of hate.

 

What a difference the placement of a couple of vowels makes. From the BBC:

 

A Muslim convert planned to detonate a dirty bomb and launch an attack on London's Tube, a court has heard.

Former Hindu Dhiren Barot, 34, from London, planned "massive explosions" in a synchronised attack in the US and UK.

Barot, who admitted conspiracy to murder last month, planned to pack limousines with gas cylinders and also use a radioactive "dirty" bomb.

Lawyers for Barot have insisted that he had neither funding nor bomb-making materials at the time he was caught.

Barot, from Kingsbury in north-west London, is to be sentenced on Tuesday.

The would-be bomber planned attacks on various unspecified targets in Britain, prosecution QC Edmund Lawson said.

"There were plans for the detonation of a radiation dispersal device, more commonly known as a dirty bomb, the use of a petrol tanker to cause an explosion, and an attack on London's rail or Underground network, including the Heathrow Express, of an explosion on a Tube train while in a tunnel under the River Thames."

The prosecution said Barot had written: "Imagine the chaos that would be caused if a powerful explosion were to rip through here [London] and actually rupture the river itself.

"That would cause pandemonium, what with the explosions, flooding, drowning etc that would occur."…

Fun guy, but he’s no Borat.

 

Update: For those having trouble telling the two apart, here’s a handy chart for quick reference.

                       

Full name	Borat Sagdiyev	Diren Barot
Hometown	Kasic (sp.?), Kazakhstan	London, England
General demeanour	Cheerful, ebullient	Surly, angry
Mother tongue	Kazahk, although the way he speaks it, it sounds suspiciously like Hebrew	English
Religion	Unclear. Probably Muslim (non-practicing), although creator Sasha Baron Cohen is Jewish	Born a Hindu, converted (or in Muslim parlace, “reverted”) to Islam
Facial hair?	Yes, a luxuriant moustache, his trademark	Yes, a trace of a moustache and goatee ringing his mouth
Favourite song	“Throw the Jew Down the Well”	Unknown, although perhaps he’s familiar with the work of another “revert,” Hamas-supporter Yusuf Islam (the former Cat Stevens)
Favourite expression(s)	“Hi-five”; Very nice!; “I like”; “Wahwahwoowah”	“Allah akbar”
Stated goal in life	To “make sexytime” with lavishly-endowed bombshell Pamela Anderson in California	To make dirty bombs and kill countless infidels in unspecified locales in the US and the UK
Salient quote	From the New York Times Magazine: “I have made a pitchings for U.S. and A. remakes of popular Kazakh movies ‘Dirty Jew,’ ‘Dirty Jew 2,’ ‘Attack of the Jew Claw,’ ‘Help There Is a Jew in My Kitchen’ and ‘Where Is My Money, I Think It Was the Jews That Take It.” The man have said my pitchings were interesting, but they weren’t necessarily what Disney were in the markets for at the moment.”	From the Times Online: "Imagine the chaos that would be caused if a powerful explosion were to rip through here [London] and actually rupture the river itself. That would cause pandemonium, what with the explosions, flooding, drowning etc that would occur."
Future prospects	Excellent: Hopes to make mega-bucks from three-picture deal with a major Hollywood film studio, plus extra shekels from merchandising tie-ins	Poor: Tied up for the time being in a British prison
Is he funny?	Often hilarious, in a crude, unsettling, in-your-face kind of way	Not so much

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:40 | link | comments (1)

 

Ready for his close-up: Borat’s a hit, and, as he explains in the New York Times Magazine, he has some fabulous ideas for future projects:

 

…Eager to parlay the success of his first movie into something bigger — maybe a three-picture deal? Borat says he dropped in on a few studios a few weeks back to take part in a noble Hollywood tradition: the pitch meeting. “I had a very good meetings with a moviefilm executive,” Borat recounts. “I have made a pitchings for U.S. and A. remakes of popular Kazakh movies ‘Dirty Jew,’ ‘Dirty Jew 2,’ ‘Attack of the Jew Claw,’ ‘Help There Is a Jew in My Kitchen’ and ‘Where Is My Money, I Think It Was the Jews That Take It.”’ His projects remain in limbo, Borat explains: “The man have said my pitchings were interesting, but they weren’t necessarily what Disney were in the markets for at the moment.”…

 

If he were really clever, he’d be pitching these ideas in a more receptive environment, say like Teheran, or Riyadh, or Damascus, or Cairo. Everyone knows that Hollywood is run by a powerful though far from secret Jewish cabal. (I’m told that gays, Jewish and non, also wield a great deal of influence.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:04 | link | comments

 

Sing a song of justice: In honour of Saddam’s death sentence, I’ve dusted off that old WW2 chestnut, “Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line.”

 

They’re going to hang Saddam Hussein from his big, thick neck.

Are your noose and gallows ready, hangman dear?

They’re going to hang Saddam Hussein from his big, thick neck

As the people he oppressed stand up and cheer.

 

Whether AI complains, “He needs a fairer shake,”

He’s going to swing, for justice' sake.

They’re going to hang Saddam Hussein from his big, thick neck

As the people they all cheer.

 

Hangman, dear, I’m writing you from Canada far away,

Hoping you’re resting up.

Papers say Saddam will pay, a sentence fair and just.

There’s applause that’s deafening; it won’t make Saddam laugh.

 

They’re going to hang Saddam Hussein from his big, thick neck.

Are your noose and gallows ready, hangman dear?

They’re going to hang Saddam Hussein from his big, thick neck

As the people he oppressed stand up and cheer.

 

Whether Ramsay Clark avers, “He’s really rather swell,”

He’s going to swing, then toddle down to Hell.

They’re going to hang Saddam Hussein from his big, thick neck

And the people will all cheer.

 

Update: But are they cheering? Time magazine says, maybe not.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:31 | link | comments

 

Sex and death and marriage: The other day, Michael Coren had a piece in the National Post in which he quoted a Muslim pundit who insisted that the reason so many Sunni boys found the idea of martyrdom so appealing was because they were, in a word, horny. It seems Shias, who allow for “temporary” marriages, just so male young’uns can displace some of their pent-up sexual tension, are disinclined to shuffle off this mortal coil in search of compliant virgins, but that Sunni lads--who aren’t permitted these “quickies”--are far more likely to see this as an option. Thus, we may be well advised to think of a suicide bombing as the ultimate orgasm, a release that the blaster believes will propel him into an eternity of bliss.

 

I don’t know if I completely buy that theory; after all, the lads can and do seem to resort to rape an awful lot, and sharia law, which requires four male witnesses to testify that the “crime” has taken place, seems to be far more accommodating to the rapist than the rapee (yes, I know that's not a word--but it should be). Also, martydom is a core Islamic--and not just a Sunni--concept. That said, it’s not such a stretch to see that misogyny and gender inequality can and often do lead to sexual disfunction, of both societies and individuals.

 

An Egyptian physician, a devout Muslim, says that sexual disfunction is rampant (no pun intended—okay, maybe it's the teeniest bit intentional) in the Arab world, and explains why this is so. From MEMRI:

Egyptian physician Dr. Hiba Qutb, who received her Ph.D. in medicine from the University of Cairo and her Ph.D. in sexology from Maimonides University in Florida, is the first female sexologist in the Arab world. The goal that guides her work is, as she puts it, is "to fix the cracks in the collapsing building [of marriage] caused by failed sexual relations." ^[1]

According to Dr. Qutb, "sexual problems are very widespread in the Arab world, and it is estimated that they are the cause of more than 80% of divorce cases." In her estimation, "it is possible that the true figures are even higher, since the Arab world has been suffering from sex problems for hundreds of years. After [the era of] the Prophet, there was a turn for the worse, and the topic became covered in shadows."

The following is a collection of statements by Dr. Qutb from various sources.

"The Prophet Instructed Men to Satisfy Their Wives before They Satisfy Themselves"

In her research, Dr. Qutb found that "things discovered by modern science in the second half of the previous century, which were considered to be great discoveries, have existed in the Koran and the Sunna for the last 1400 years... [For instance,] the Prophet instructed men to satisfy their wives before they satisfy themselves when having sex, and thus the woman's right to enjoy [sexual] relations is equal to that of the man." [2]

However, "unfortunately, the Eastern man approaches sex selfishly, thinks only about his own needs, and ignores [the necessity] to satisfy the woman's needs. The woman acts in one of two opposing ways: either she is extremely submissive to her husband and does not reveal what her needs are, or else she is rebellious. What we need to do, and to teach our children, is that the woman has rights and the man has rights, and when each of them receives his or her rights this leads to full and healthy marital relations."

Dr. Qutb admits that she does not have one single prescription to solve all sexual problems, but she advises every couple to regard the Sunna as the basic guide for Muslims in all aspects of life: "In the Sunna, one can find [instructions for] how the husband should act with his wife and with his children, starting from the moment he enters the house - helping his wife, joking with her, kissing her, and so on.

"When I ask men today 'Why don't you help your wives at home?' they reply that that is not their business, and that they work outside of the home as providers. I say to them, 'Are you better than the Prophet, who used to work, fulfill his [prophetic] mission, and help his wives?' Likewise, when I ask women why they do not reveal their feelings for their husbands, since a man needs to feel that his wife desires him, most women answer that they do not have the courage to do this. My question is: Are they better than [the Prophet's wife] 'Aisha, who used to call the Prophet to come to bed?" [3]…

Of course, when Aisha first used to call the Prophet to come to bed she was probably much too young to have developed any secondary sexual characteristics. But, in Western society, that’s a whole ‘nother issue that falls under the general heading of inappropriate sexual partners.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:22 | link | comments

 

Afghanistan’s caged women: Hamid Kharzai seems to be a nice man with a colorful wardrobe, but, in terms of women’s rights, his nation seems to have advanced not a whit since the crazed Islamists were thrown out of power. The Sunday Times has a truly horrifying story about how some teenage girls in Afghanistan prefer self-immolation to the prospect of being married off to a much older man, and how, despite the best efforts of NATO forces (among them, Canadians), women are not really any better off than they were when the Taliban were in charge.

 

But then, how could their lives be any better off when Sharia remains the law of the land?

…In 2001 the West’s most-cited criticism of the Taliban regime was its oppression of women. Not only did the Taliban forbid women from working and girls from being educated, they also beat them for wearing lipstick or shoes that clicked on the ground. The all-encompassing burqa, with its ugly shape and cage-like grille over the eyes, became a symbol for a heartless regime.

Laura Bush, America’s first lady, took over her husband’s weekly radio address to highlight the plight of Afghan women. Cherie Blair made an impassioned speech at 10 Downing Street, saying: “Women could have their nails torn out for wearing nail polish.”

“The recovery of Afghanistan must entail the restoration of rights of Afghan women,” insisted Colin Powell, then the US secretary of state.

Five years on there is just one woman in government — the minister for women’s affairs. Symbolic photographs of women throwing off their burqas after the Taliban had fled were no more than that. Apart from a small educated elite in Kabul, the overwhelming majority of women are still forced to cover their entire bodies and faces. The United Nations recently circulated a memo to all staff in Afghanistan, advising women to cover their heads even in Kabul…

In other words, the UN has sanctioned the words of Meatman, the Aussie sheik who compared an unveiled woman to a piece of meat that the cat had dragged in.

 

I guess you could call that progress—though not in the right direction.

 

And speaking of Meatman, he has some firm views about the ongoing jihads in Afghanistan and Iraq. He’s all for ‘em, so long as the brethren kill the infidels instead of each other. From the Australian:

TAJ Din al-Hilali has praised militant jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling them men of the highest order for fighting against coalition forces - which include Australian soldiers - to "liberate" their homelands.

In an interview on Arabic radio two weeks ago, the imam based at Sydney's Lakemba mosque said he was opposed to terror attacks in Madrid, London and New York but strongly endorsed fighters in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the interview, Sheik Hilali pays tribute to Sayyid Qutb, the ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood and intellectual mentor of Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida.

"Jihad of the liberator of Palestine, that's the greatest and cleanest and highest ... jihad which lifts our heads in pride in south Lebanon," Sheik Hilali says in the October 17 interview.

He tells broadcaster Abrahim Zoabi that he endorses jihad for liberation. "We are talking about ... jihad of liberating our land, jihad of Muslim Afghanis in their land - that's jihad.

"Jihad of Iraqi Muslims is jihad, but not when Sunnis and Shias are killing each other - that's not jihad."…

Please, someone toss this guy a nice Porterhouse steak—so he can choke on it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:23 | link | comments

 

Firm friends: A “new and improved” Daniel Ortega has turned up like a bad peso in Nicaragua, and he’s been using John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” to endear himself to the electorate in the hopes of geting himself elected president again. In this he's being assisted immeasurably by Columbia’s man of the people, Hugo Chavez, who has reportedly shipped tons of fertilizer on Ortega’s behalf to a particularly impoverished area of Nicaragua.

 

Well, he’s always been exceptionally adept at shovelling the shit, has our Hu.

 

And speaking of shovelling it, I hear that over in Tehran, one of Hu’s other pals, Moo Ahmadinejad, has decided to use the Lennon song in his next election bid. Here’s a preview of the lyrics:

 

Two, one, two, three, four

Ev’rybody’s talking ‘bout

Islamism, bomb-ism, Shiism, we-ism,

Bushisms, bashisms,

This-ism, That-sim, is-m, is-m, is-m.

All we are saying’s

Give jee-had a chance.

All we are saying’s

Give jee-had a chance.

C’mon

Ev’rybody’s talking about

Zionists, lyin’-ists, dyin’-ists,

And martyrs, charters, explosive self-starters,

Map-wiping, land-swiping, tripe, tripe, gripe, gripe.

All we are saying’s

Give jee-had a chance.

All we are saying’s

Give jee-had a chance.

Let me tell you now

Armageddon, fear-spreadin’, messianic,

Big panic, Dark Ages, hate rages,

Mediations, United Nations,

Conflagrations.

Ev’rybody’s talking about

Mahdi-bringer, mud-slinger, Satan-zinger,

Mullah-wrangler, West-tangler,

Taqiyah-spewer, “kill-the-Jew”-er,

Spawning hate, Allah is Great

Allah

Is

Great.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:44 | link | comments

 

Verdict in Baghdad: Justice has been served in Iraq and the former tyrant has been sentenced to hang from his wretched neck until dead.

 

No virgins for you, Mr. Saddam Hussein.

 

There are two parties who are none too pleased with the verdict: Saddam and his Sunni supporters—no surprise there; and Amnesty International.

 

That’s right. Amnesty International. The London-based human rights organization says the judicial proceedings were “flawed” and Saddam was unable to receive a fair trial. From VOA:

Amnesty International is questioning the fairness of an Iraqi court's trial of Saddam Hussein.

Officials of the London-based human rights group said Sunday the court proceedings were "marred by serious flaws," and were "not impartial."

Amnesty International also condemned the death sentences given to the ousted Iraqi president and two of his former senior aides after they were found guilty of crimes against humanity. 

The organization opposes capital punishment.

Meanwhile, Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, addressed the nation on television afterwards, saying the court verdict was aimed not only at Saddam, but also at the entire "dark" period of his rule.

Mr. Maliki says Saddam's eventual execution may provide comfort to the families of the many thousands of people killed by his regime.

Today's death sentence immediately triggered an automatic appeal process, expected to last about four weeks...

Two observations: Let’s say for the sake of argument that AI is right, and that Saddam’s trial was flawed. Is there any reason to expect that, even if the proceedings had been flawless, the verdict and sentence would have come out any differently? It’s not like the defense team was counting on “reasonable doubt” or anything, or that, “if the plastic shredder (into which Saddam’s flunkies inserted many of Saddam’s enemies) don’t fit, you must acquit.”

Also, it strikes me that AI’s concern for the “human rights” of this wicked man is absurdly misplaced, and only serves to make AI look ridiculous.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:31 | link | comments

 

Turkey reverts to old form: Turkey has been officially secular since 1922, but in recent times the one true faith has thundered back, and secularism is becoming more and more passé. And you know when Islam makes a comeback, the first thing to go is female freedom and inappropriate items of infidel arts and letters. From Der Spiegel:

 

At first glance, the "Sah Inn Suite" Hotel in Alanya looks no different from the average sunny resort along the Turkish Mediterranean coast: a bulky construction with a honeycomb of balconies, looking out over a generous swimming pool surrounded by parasols and lounge chairs. But, in fact, only men are allowed to take a refreshing plunge into these shimmering blue waters. Women vacationers at the Sah-Hotel swim in a strictly isolated pool for women. And what about a cold beer? Forget it. There is no alcohol here; instead, a mosque offers communion with God.

Why the piety? It's an effort by hoteliers to show their consideration for observant Muslims who want to enjoy "a vacation in keeping with religious laws." And the options for such devout holidays are growing in secular Turkey. Islamic-style swimsuits are the new rage on the beaches and around pools across the country. Nowadays, observant women venture onto the sands clad head-to-toe. Manufacturer of these chaste outfits is the Istanbul fashion firm Hasema, whose customers include the wives of leading politicians of the governing AKP, the religious-conservative Justice and Development Party.

The Cumhuriyet newspaper, which tends to be critical of the AKP, already considers Turkey to be "besieged by Islamic dress regulations." The secular press meticulously covers all violent incidents that appear to be religiously motivated: a young, bikini-clad student attacked by cloaked religious fanatics for example; or a couple assaulted for openly drinking beer during the fasting month of Ramadan. A police officer hit a girl because she was supposedly wearing a skirt that was too short. These are shocking incidents in Turkey, where laws are supposed to protect against religious paternalism, where restaurants are open during Ramadan and where headscarves are banned at universities, schools and public offices.

The state radio-control has visited Islamist broadcasters that -- under names like "Radio Full Moon" or "Tulip Rose" in -- rail against Christians and Jews in so-called "religious talk shows," or warn women not to shake men's hands and remind them to behave modestly.

The Muslim Three Muskateer

Even political censorship, which in itself is not unheard of in Turkey, is now practiced in the name of religious modesty. Last week, for example, the ministry of education set off a storm of anger with its regulation decreeing that images of the well-known Delacroix painting "Liberty Leading the People" be removed from schoolbooks. The reason: the bare breasts of the standard-bearer in the depiction of France's 1830 July Revolution.

Recently, the ministry of education itself was outraged over the fact that several publishing companies had, on their own initiative, rewritten children's books that the ministry had recommended for classroom use. In the edited versions, Pinocchio, Heidi and Tom Sawyer live in an Islamic world where inhabitants wish each other a "blessed morning" or ask for food "in Allah's name." Aramis, one of the Three Musketeers, even converts to Islam...

 

Also, I hear in the new version of Heidi, the delightful orphan gets frisky with a goatherd, and her Grandfather is forced to slit her throat in order to restore the family’s “honour.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:56 | link | comments

 

Par-tay in Iran: They sure know how to have a bang-up good time over there in the Islamist dystopia, especially when there’s something to celebrate. From BBC News:

Thousands of school children and students in Tehran have marked the anniversary of the hostage-taking at the American embassy in 1979.

The speaker of the Iranian parliament compared the event to the current nuclear row, saying America always wanted to put Iran under pressure.

It was a rowdy celebration of student power, with boys and girls segregated outside the former American embassy.

A huge red flag saying "Death to America" was burned.

Many people carried banners with the same slogan and even puppets of Uncle Sam.

Addressing the crowd, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Gholam Ali Hadad-Adel, warned America that Iranians were ready to react to any attempt to limit their access to nuclear power.

He said Iran was willing to pay the price of its independence once again.

No regrets

Iran's former President, Mohammad Khatami, had expressed regret for the seizure of the American embassy and its staff but today - with a new more conservative government in power - there is little sign of remorse.

Instead the speakers asked why America had not learned its lesson from the hostage-taking…

If the U.S. (a.k.a. Great Satan) allows the Shias to go nuclear, we’ll all be asking the same question.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:29 | link | comments

 

One passport, please: Displaying some of the much-vaunted Atkinson Principles which inform its reportage and of which it remains so proud, the Toronto Star does some cheerleading for the multiculist dementia which holds it’s a good thing to posses a Canadian passport while your heart and true allegiance belong to another country, of which you also happen to be a citizen:

 

Last summer, Canadians cheered as some 15,000 citizens stranded in Lebanon were rescued during Israel's war with Hezbollah.

 

But when the fog of war lifted, some of the evacuees who had Lebanese passports returned to Lebanon, and the cheers turned to questions: Should the Canadian government have had to foot the bill for people like them?

 

While some critics dwelt on the cost of the evacuation — at least $63 million — others talked of "divided loyalties," and suggested that those with foreign residences were merely "citizens of convenience."

 

In the midst of the debate, the government weighed in. Citizenship and Immigration Minister Monte Solberg announced that a review of the "rights and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship" was on the agenda. He hinted that it could focus on dual citizenship and the responsibilities that people with two passports have to Canada when living abroad.

 

The government has not laid out the terms of its pending review. But minorities in Canada are anxious, and immigration counsellors have received many questions about a possible rollback of dual citizenship. In Hong Kong, too, media hints have rattled the 250,000 or more residents there who carry Canadian passports.

 

"If this happens, people with dual citizenship will have to renounce their Chinese nationality and void their local passports," a Hong Kong immigration spokesman told the South China Morning Post, one of several local news organizations that has prominently featured the story.

 

Regardless of the emotional climate after the Lebanon evacuation, some say a review is overdue for the Citizenship Act that came into effect nearly 30 years ago, when the world was a very different place…

 

Amen to that. I say a Canadian is someone whose primary allegiance is to Canada; someone who considers Canada to be more than a convenience to be tapped whenever warfare rages in your real home and native land, who doesn’t bitch and complain when the rescue conveyances sent by Ottawa don’t have the same amenities as a Carnival Cruise, and who doesn’t return from whence s/he came as soon as things have calmed down. The days of thinking that any value accrues to Canada from those who are Canadian in name only have long since past. Time to wake up from our Trudeapian reveries and do what’s right and good for Canada—and that doesn’t entail having double, triple or quadruple hyphenate Canadians.

 

For the love of God and Her Majesty, pick a country and stick with it, already.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:09 | link | comments

 

Move over, Moo: Six Arab nations are angling to join the nuclear club.

 

You didn’t thing they were going to let the Shias have the biggest dick (weapon and leader) in the Muslim world, did you?

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:35 | link | comments

 

Kofi’s big idea: A parting shot from Kofi Annan, the UN’s outgoing Secretary General: He wants to set up yet another UN bureaucracy devoted exclusively to those poor, oppressed, hard-done-by (i.e., done hard by the Jews) Palestinians.

 

As if UNRWA hasn’t done enough damage.

 

From JTA:

 

Kofi Annan proposed a registry of damages to Palestinians caused by Israel’s West Bank security barrier.

The proposal by the outgoing U.N. secretary-general derives from a 2004 ruling against the barrier, which cuts through portions of West Bank land, by the U.N.’s international court. The registry would entail setting up a new office, Annan says, but would not be a “compensation commission or a claims-resolution facility, nor would it be a judicial or quasi-judicial body.”

The International Court of Justice ruling was not binding, raising questions about enforcement.

 

So the registry wouldn’t be able to resolve or compensate anyone, nor would it have any legal teeth.

 

In other words, another toothless, feckless, useless UN body designed to bolster the Palestinians and bash the Jews.

 

That’s our Kofi. Always coming up with new ways to do the same old thing.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:20 | link | comments

 

Indigo fights back: Canada’s national bookstore chain monopoly is outraged that Mark Steyn has accused it of “boycotting” his book, America Alone. The charge is utterly false, counters an Indigo flak in a letter to the National Post. Here’s what she wrote:

Re: Steyn's Book Can't Be Found In Canada, Nov. 3.

Charges that Indigo is "boycotting" Mark Steyn's book, America Alone, are ludicrous. Mr. Steyn's book was for sale at Indigo's channels in September of this year and it promptly sold out. Indeed we should have purchased more initially but the moment we realized the error, we immediately placed a reorder for several thousand more books. As of this moment, we, as well as most other book retailers in Canada, are still awaiting new copies from the publisher, which we are told will arrive in mid-November.

It is regrettable that Mr. Steyn doesn't acknowledge that he wrote his Maclean's piece even though his Canadian sales representative had fully informed him of his book's reorder status with Indigo. We find it also curious that he chose to unfairly attack Indigo, while most other book retailers in the country are also sold out.

While one has to admire Mr. Steyn's self-promoting efforts, there is a fine line between publicity and defamation. To make an accusation of "boycott" is a serious allegation and one should not be able to make it just to create buzz and sell more books.

Sorya Ingrid Gaulin, vice-president, public relations, Indigo Books & Music Inc., Toronto.

Um, channels? Weird book-retail lingo, that.  Is a “channel the same as an “outlet,” or does it also include online sales? If so, I find it "curious" that, while America Alone cannot be had from any of Chapters-Indigo-Coles channels, it took about 24 hours for the copy I ordered from amazon.ca (which, unlike other Canadian retailers, seems to be flush with copies) to arrive at my doorstep.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:30 | link | comments

 

Today’s riddle: Q: What do you call reprehensible cowards who deliberately put the most helpless members of their society in harm’s way in order to make an escape?

 

A: Hamas.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:09 | link | comments

 

Bushwacked Canucks: I love this juxtaposition of stories on the Toronto Star site. The lead story in the paper’s World section: Terror attack warnings raise fear in East Africa. The story explains how the jihad in Somalia is now threatening to ooze out of those borders and wreak havoc in neighbouring infidel (my word, not the Star’s) nations, Kenya and Ethiopia.

 

The story directly underneath it—Canadians believe Bush is a threat to peace: Poll.

 

Were I to be polled, I would say that Canadians are clueless, stupid Candides who have been sleeping for the past five years when they should have and could have been learning about the jihad ideology and the existential threat it poses to their multicultural utopia.

 

Sigh. Abandon hope, all ye who count on the perceptiveness of the denizens of the Great White North.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:03 | link | comments

 

Art for hate’s sake: It was a tough decision, but he deranged Shia Nazis over in Iran have finally found a worthy recipient for their loony ‘toon prize.

 

It’s essential to read the entire AP report in the Toronto Star in order to fully savour the lunacy:

 

TEHRAN—Ignoring widespread condemnation, Iran awarded the top prize in a Holocaust cartoon contest to a Moroccan artist for his depiction of Israel's security wall with a picture of the Auschwitz concentration camp on it.

 

The organizers of the exhibit — meant as a response to the Danish cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad that enraged many Muslims — awarded Abdollah Derkaoui $13,600 on Wednesday for his work depicting an Israeli crane piling large cement blocks on Israel's security wall and gradually obscuring Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. A picture of Auschwitz appears on the wall.

 

The mosque is Islam's third-holiest site.

 

The contest generated little coverage in the Iranian press and many ordinary Iranians criticized the exhibit as unnecessarily provocative.

 

"Drawing cartoons isn't a good way to solve real and old problems," said Ahmad Nasiri, a 23-year-old student. "Denying the Holocaust through cartoons doesn't contribute to humanity.''

 

Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however, has called for Israel to be destroyed, and Tehran has several times announced plans to host a conference to examine the scientific evidence supporting the Holocaust, dismissing it as exaggerated.

 

"The Iranian regime has unfortunately joined the obscene chorus of Holocaust denial," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said. "It is surely a historic tragedy that the leadership of a country has adopted such a hateful agenda.''

 

The exhibit in Tehran displayed 204 entries but drew few crowds, apart from students in state-run schools who were brought by their teachers. Entries came from around the globe, including France, Brazil, the U.S., Indonesia and Turkey.

 

Thus does history repeat itself, but in an unexpected way. When the Nazis exhibited “degenerate art”—actually, some great modern masterpieces—in order to make fun of it, the effort completely backfired because the German public adored the work and lined up for blocks to see it. When the Shia Nazis exhibit their loony ‘toons, they can't even draw a crowd.

 

So along with having a leader who’s a dangerous crackpot with a hankering for a Jewish genocide, today’s Iranians and the Nazi-era Germans have something else in common: their exceptionally good taste in art.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:36 | link | comments

 

The pause that refreshes (and re-arms): Things are going too well in Gaza these days, what with faux peace talks off the rails for the time being, Fatah and Hamas at each other’s throats and Palestinian “gunmen” getting themselves killed by Jews. Under these circumstances, it’s no wonder that at least one Palestinian thinks the time is ripe for one of those “hudnas.” From the International Herald Tribune:

GAZA: Here in Gaza, few dream of peace. For now, most dare only to dream of a lack of war. It is for this reason that Hamas proposes a long-term truce during which the Israeli and Palestinian peoples can try to negotiate a lasting peace.

A truce is referred to in Arabic as a "hudna." Typically covering 10 years, a hudna is recognized in Islamic jurisprudence as a legitimate and binding contract. A hudna extends beyond the Western concept of a cease-fire and obliges the parties to use the period to seek a permanent, nonviolent resolution to their differences.

The Koran finds great merit in