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

Run, don’t walk…: To the nearest mega-bookstore to purchase a copy of Diana West’s The Death of the Grown-Up: How America’s Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization. West is second only to the great Mark Steyn in her ability to make you laugh out loud while bringing you the grimmest of news about our society's chances for survival.

On second thought, better order your copy online, since the nearest mega-bookstore is probably stocked with so many Chomsky tomes and the collective “wisdom” of the rest of the Bush=Hitler crowd that there’s likely little room left (pun intended) on the groaning shelves for the likes of West. To whet your appetite, here’s a tasty sample:

It is surely a paradox that the rest of the world—meaning the nations of the non-Western world about which the Western world is so assiduously “inclusive”—remains strikingly, immovably and unapologetically nondiversive, uniform even, in every way: ethnically, religiously and culturally. For example, you may speak Urdu, Arabic, Pashtun and Turkish in British, French, Dutch and German schools; they don’t, however, speak English, French, Dutch and German in Pakistani, Arab, Afghani and Turkish schools. Mosque construction breaks ground all over Europe and the United States, but churches and synagogues do not rise in the Islamic world. The president of the United States adds a Koran to the White House library for Ramadan; Bibles are confiscated and destroyed by the Saudi Arabian government. Born in Benin, Achille Acakpo teaches traditional African dance and percussion in Vienna; who born in Vienna is teaching Strauss waltzes in Benin?

Good question. The conclusion to draw from this: multiculturalism is a one-way street that ultimately leads to our own dead end.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:00 | link | comments

The price of ricin: I’m not one to jump to conclusions every time something blows up or an odd white powder is detected in a plain brown package, but I had to giggle at this NYT report about an as yet unnamed individual who has fallen victim to deadly toxin found in his Vegas motel room. (To be clear, I wasn’t giggling at the man’s plight but at the way it was reported):

Police in Las Vegas said a man is in critical condition after staying in a motel room where ricin, a deadly poison, was later found.

Skip to next paragraph The victim called for an ambulance two weeks ago, while he was staying in the room, complaining of breathing difficulty. Police said a man identifying himself as a relative went to the room, which has been unoccupied since, on Thursday to retrieve personal items belonging to the sick man and discovered vials of powder in a plastic bag.

Local public health officials confirmed Friday that the powder is ricin.

The man who discovered the poison is one of seven people hospitalized in the incident, but six of those people were admitted only as a precaution. He was not identified by police.

Police said the ricin did not appear to be intended for use in a terror attack…

Of course not. No doubt it was intended solely for his personal use.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:39 | link | comments

Back from the dead: It's a miracle!

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:30 | link | comments

Scare mongers: Muslims are upset that Islam is being dragged into the campaign to scare people away from voting for Obama. From the San Jose Mercury News:

Muslim rumors have dogged Barack Obama throughout this presidential campaign, but the political arrows flew fast and furious this week, leaving Maha ElGenaidi anxious that her community would be further wounded in the aftermath.

"The outcome of this game they're playing amongst themselves is possibly tragic for Muslims in America," said ElGenaidi, founder of the San Jose-based Islamic Networks Group.

American Muslims complain their faith is being used as a scare tactic, possibly inflaming prejudices already heightened by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the subsequent war and terrorist bombings. The recent ploys, leaders say, insinuate that simply being or associating with Muslims is sinister.

This week, a photo of Obama in a turban surfaced, flashing across television and computer screens coast to coast. At a Republican campaign rally in Cincinnati, a speaker repeatedly stressed his full name, "Barack Hussein Obama." And during Tuesday's debate, the Democratic front-runner was questioned about support from the Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan.

The Muslim faith group also finds itself politically isolated. Though candidates have been courting voters in this tight race, none of the three top contenders has met with major Muslim groups. Neither, they say, have major interfaith groups and politicians rallied around them to loudly condemn the anti-Islamic strategies.

"It would be good if the president and leaders of both parties would say 'Enough. We're better than this,' " said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. "It's disconcerting to me they haven't."

Republicans have criticized some of the tactics, as has the National Council of Churches. Muslim leaders say while the politicians' admonishments are needed, they fall short of the full-throated defense other religions would receive.

"They're not apologizing for the bigotry, but rather it's unstatesmanlike to insult each other," ElGenaidi said.

John McCain repudiated the conservative radio host at the Cincinnati rally who kept referring to Obama by his full name and said he would "saddle up next to Hezbollah." The Republican candidate said it was wrong to disparage Obama or Hillary Clinton's integrity.

And after complaints, the Tennessee Republican Party altered a memo that used Obama's full name and a photo of him in tribal African garb, inaccurately labeled as "Muslim" dress.

Bill Hobbs, spokesman for the Tennessee GOP, said he didn't commonly use someone's full name and he couldn't remember why he made an exception for Obama. Obama is named after his late father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr. As for the photo, Hobbs found it on the Internet and it seemed relevant.

"The photo seemed to fit the issue being discussed - whether his policies would lean toward Israel," Hobbs said, "or whether he'd lean toward Israel's Muslim-dominated neighbors who are enemies of Israel."

He acknowledged that Obama isn't Muslim - he's a member of the United Church of Christ - but noted it was understandable that people questioned his religious affiliation. "His name, not just his middle name, brings that up, especially after Sept. 11," Hobbs said.

ElGenaidi wonders if such moves would be tolerated against another religious group. Imagine the furor, she said, if photos of a candidate wearing a yarmulke were circulated, along with whispers of, "You know his middle name is Jewish."

During the debate Tuesday, Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton took pains to "denounce" and "reject" Farrakhan for his past anti-Semitism. They've also met with Jewish groups and stressed their support for Israel.

Despite their concerns, Muslim leaders say they're careful not to overly criticize the candidates themselves.

"We know these candidates will do what they have to do to get voted in," said Safaa Ibrahim, director of the Santa Clara chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "Because there's such a negative outlook on Muslims, middle America would not smile upon candidates that are sensitive to Muslim issues."…

Hurray for “middle America”—the last line of defence against the kind of “sensitivity” that results in creeping (also galloping) sharia.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:57 | link | comments

Cute: The front of the Globe and Mail's review section has this header about the new Portman/Johansson flick --"Boleyn for dollars."

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:38 | link | comments

“Deep” thinker: The Globe and Mail’s resident aging radical, Rick Salutin, offers another of his embarrassing rants, today on the subject of Prozac, “change,” and Barack Obama:

In praise of placebos

It's been a Prozac world for 20 years now, yet an international team of researchers has just concluded that Prozac is no more effective than placebos or sugar pills. This is big news, considering all the lives in which antidepressants are lodged.

It's not an inherently negative finding. It doesn't mean Prozac doesn't work. Lots of people "improve" when they take it. But they feel about as good when they take placebos, which they think are Prozac.

This is complicated. Could you just take placebos, if your doc prescribed them, and get relief? No. Because placebos work when you think they're Prozac, which you think works. And if people stopped taking either, they'd stay depressed, whereas they now feel better.

It's a bit like organized religion. Almost any version seems to lighten people's load. So why can't they just tolerate other religions, letting them work for other people? Because often, it seems, if you aren't sure your faith is the "true" one, and others are false, then it won't work for you either.

Of course drug companies are defiant and say the study ignores clinical experience. But no one denies the experience. It's just that it isn't the ingredients in the antidepressants that produce the results, it's something else. What might that be? How about - hope? The doc says, "Take this, it should help." People yearn to get better - and SHAZAM! What does it prove? People want change, they need hope. It's the Obama effect!...

As for the restorative effect of Barack Obama, it may be "working" because expectations of actual change in the world have been ratcheted down so far that people are ready to settle for a strong feeling of hope for change, a feeling that change is merely possible, full stop. This seems to be an era of feelings and mood swings in politics, rather than action. What I've never got about fervid right-wingers is why they care so much who's in power. It doesn't affect their real lives - even if it's a Clinton or Chrétien. Yet they need to feel their side has won and that the dark side hasn't.

This kind of internalized politics may be just as well for Barack Obama, if he gets to be president, since there are vast limits on what any president can do.

Profound social change tends to be based on mass movements, such as civil rights, anti-war or labour movements - with vast numbers of ordinary people beavering away. I know the term is used for the Obama campaign, but it looks a lot like a sugar pill to me.

My letter:

Rick Salutin mentions new research showing that the anti-depressant Prozac—which is celebrating its 20^th anniversary—is no more effective than a placebo. At the same time, though, he wants us to swallow an even older, more radical “remedy”, one which dates back to the 1960s: the notion that we’re in desperate need of “profound social change.”

I’m not really sure what kind of “profound social change” Mr. Salutin is seeking; for some reason, those who advocate “change”—whether it’s “profound” or the shallower, Obama-esque variety—often tend to be fuzzy on the details. But for the short-and-long-term health of our society—which, all in all, is in pretty good shape—it’s probably best to opt for incremental “changes” rather than “profound” ones: History has shown that, all too often, “profound social change” can devolve into chaos and tyranny.

If Mr. Salutin finds the “go-slow” approach too depressing, he could always try taking a placebo.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:00 | link | comments (2)

Buh bye, mass gasser: "Chemical Ali" is toast--or will be soon:

Saddam’s “cuz”, Chem Ali, was defanged.

Though like him, he harrumphed and harangued.

But alack and alas, er,

Ali was a gasser,

And now he is going to be hanged.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:46 | link | comments

Dear Jews: Simon Rocker in The Jewish Chronicle picks apart a letter from “Muslim scholars” which, at first blush, seems to be quite conciliatory. In fact, as Rocker reveals, it’s about as conciliatory toward today’s Jews as Muhammad was to the Jews of his time:

Let me be clear from the start that this is not a criticism of the interfaith intentions of the letter from Muslim leaders covered in today’s news pages; rather, a critique of its inaccuracies, lack of sources and methodology, and the questionable overall efficacy of such a letter. I am fully aware of the several important Muslim names that are given as allegedly having written this letter (issued through the Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations in Cambridge).

However, it is unclear whether these

“Muslim scholars throughout the world” are generally supporting good relations between Jews and Muslims, or this particular letter with its naïve and condescending approach.

Having spoken with several Muslim academics, it seems to me that this letter is more appropriate as an RE essay by a 15-year-old than a scholarly letter addressed to “rabbinic leaders and the wider Jewish communities of the world”. To assume that the problems of Muslim-Jewish relations worldwide can be resolved simply because we all worship a Unity, give charity and eat kosher and halal food is intellectually offensive equally to both sides.

There are a number of inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the letter. However, there is only room to deal with a few here. The letter quotes several passages in English from the Qur’an to show the positive and ecumenical approach of Islam towards Jews and Christians. However, the letter does not inform us which particular translation has been used, which, firstly, leads to confusion regarding the numbering of the verses in different editions; and, secondly, the translation at times seems to be a free translation.

More importantly, for a letter supposedly written by scholars, it quotes the verses out of context — historical, geo-political, theological, and hermeneutical. This means, regrettably, that almost all the verses quoted are from chapters 2, 3 and 5, which contain the majority of the strongest anti-Jewish verses in the Qur’an. Therefore, each quote, put in its correct context, is actually an admonition of the Jews or the Children of Israel.

One example is Qur’an 2:62, the verse that opens the letter. This verse, which is part of the narrative of the rebellion of the Israelites against God during their wanderings in the wilderness, was part of the verses revealed during the period of strife and animosity between the Muslims and Jews in Medina. It shows similarities between the actions of the Jewish tribes of Medina and their Israelite ancestors.

The verse is preceded by Q.2:61 “And so, ignominy and humiliation overshadowed them, and they earned the burden of God’s condemnation: all this because they persisted in denying the truth of God’s messages and in slaying the prophets against all right: all this because they rebelled [against God], and persisted in transgressing the bounds of what is right” (The Message of the Qur’an, Translated and Explained, by Muhammad Asad).

No one denies that any positive interaction at any level between Muslims and Jews should be appreciated and supported. But if we genuinely want to appeal to the religious leaders and academics, which this letter intends to do, we need to have the academic courage and rigour to be impartial. Only then can we move on.

The letter also refers to a few hadiths (traditional sayings of the Prophet). The only one quoted with the source reference is about the Prophet standing up respectfully when the bier of a Jew is passing. Once again the letter gives an imaginative punch line translation.

When the companions of the Prophet ask him why he stands up in respect for a dead Jew, the letter quotes: “Is he not a human being!” The Arabic text of al-Bukhari reads: “Whenever you see a funeral procession, you should stand up.” Again, I question the scholarly value of jazzing up of classical text for effect. It could be misunderstood and misleading.

There are no source references for the other iconoclastic hadiths — unusual for a scholarly letter. One in particular is astounding. The letter states that Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet worked for a Jew: “She would spin for him in return for grain.” No one I spoke with has ever heard of such an illogical hadith. She was married to Ali, the Prophet’s cousin. By that time the Prophet was a wealthy man. Why should his daughter perform such a menial task in return for food?

The letter refers to the Jewish wife of the Prophet. He married one of the captured women after the fall of Khaybar, the Jewish stronghold near Medina. The letter calls her “Sofia”. Sofia is a Greek name; her name was Safiyya. It is an Arabic name with a completely different root to that of Sofia. It beggars belief that a Muslim scholar would make such a mistake.

The paragraph on the Constitution of Medina — the agreement between Muhammad and the Jewish and Arab tribes— suffers from the familiar absence of sources, free translation and re-adjustments of phrases and sentences. Furthermore, it is academically imbalanced. It fails to make any mention of the confiscation of land and property and exile of the two Jewish tribes of Medina and the beheading of all the males of the third tribe of Banu Qurayza, whose women were sold into slavery. This evasive approach and lack of academic rigour does not encourage bilateral trust and genuine dialogue.

Finally, no Muslim-Jewish talk or article is complete without the vapid and superficial reference to Maimonides, and this letter is no exception. The usual claims for Maimonides being the physician to the great “Sultan Salah-ud-din” abound, but this letter also states “philosophical exchanges between Ibn Rushd and Maimonides” without giving any source reference.

This is not surprising since this is a complete fantasy; no such document has ever existed. It seems to me that the information on Maimonides was gathered more from a Google search than academic research.

There is no shortage of Islamic scholars in the UK, I have known and worked with many of them for almost two decades. There is also no doubt about the goodwill from the majority of British Muslims. This “open” letter and its timing do not sit comfortably with all of that. One wonders.

One does indeed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 00:54 | link | comments

Paper tiger: When he held the post of UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan was well known for papering over some unpleasant truths. Like, say, ones pertaining to a certain oily little Saddam scam.

No surprise, then, that in his current guise as elder-statesman-at-large--he's currently trying to straighten out some tribal differences in Kenya--Kofi is still trying to paper things over.

Maybe he should just stay home and count his paper money.

Posted by: scaramouche at 00:39 | link | comments

Palestinian cannon fodder:

Maybe not. The "cannon-fodder" seems to be balking at its assigned role.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:15 | link | comments

Avi at A-J: It’s official! Clueless Ceeb spieler and Hirsi Ali scourge Avi Lewis has jumped ship and signed up with Al Jazeera. I know for a fact that his parents, Michele Landsberg and Stephen Lewis, are inordinately proud of their spawn. (Well, the apple certainly didn’t fall far from that tree.)

In “honour” of Avi’s new position, I’ve revised my song parody about the Arab TV station, a haven for useful Western media idiots. No doubt Avi will fit in there just fine.

 

Come on boys, we’re gonna paint the news,

And Al that Jaz.

We’re gonna praise some ‘rabs

And then we’ll slam some Jews,

And Al that Jaz.

Start your day with sights that will engage.

It’s sure to stir the blood, inspire fits of rage.

But then we’ll say again

It’s just like CNN

And Al that Jaz.

 

Come on friends, those scenes from Palestine

And Al that Jaz,

Are gonna rev you up and really blow your mind,

And Al that Jaz.

Who’s to blame?

You know it’s hard to tell

If it’s America

Or if it’s Is-ra-el.

There’s a conspiracy

Behind your misery

And Al that Jaz.

 

Oh, we’re gonna scoop with an Osama tape,

And Al that Jaz.

Then go on to show you who decapitates,

And Al that Jaz.

Poke some fun at Arab despots;

See who shows up in our guest spots:

Someone who thinks just like you,

And Al that Jaz.

 

Hey, there, Av, we got a spot for you,

Here at Al Jaz.

We know that you’re in synch,

And you know you are, too,

With Al that Jaz.

That wife of yours is such a smokin’ chick.

And such a famous feminine apparatchnik.

But will she be allowed

To ever wear a shroud

And Al that Jaz?

 

Oh, just tune us in and then turn off your brain,

And Al that Jaz.

You will soon be hooked and singin' this refrain,

And Al that Jaz:

 “Golly, it’s so good to see ya,

Better than al-Arabiya.

We’re so queer for al-Jazeer’

And all that Jazz.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:31 | link | comments (2)

Delusions of totalitarian grandeur: The Shoa-denying Shia supremacist crows, "We're numro uno!"

Must be all that "peaceful" nuclear energy that's making him feel so empowered.

 

 

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:05 | link | comments

The price of “nice”: Conventional (Democratic Convention-al) wisdom holds that the world will “like” America a whole lot more once that nasty rabble-rouser, GWB, saddles up his horse and moseys off into the sunset. Victor Davis Hanson takes out a sharp object (his mind) and bursts that bubble. From RealClear Politics:

…Won't adversaries back off when the Christian cowboy George Bush rides back to Texas -- and we have a kinder, gentler commander-in-chief who offers hope, or at least change, to the world?

Hardly.

There are plenty of problems that both antedated George Bush and are likely to continue well after he's left office.

For starters, the next American president will have to deal with Vladimir Putin's Russia, which is proud and angry for reasons that go well beyond the Bush administration. Russia is flush with petrodollars, still smarting over lost empire and tired of lectures about human rights from impotent European states.

Iran, which repeatedly snubbed the efforts of the Clinton administration to normalize relations, will still want a bomb, will still intimidate neighbors and will still threaten Israel. Indeed, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Hitlerian fashion, has called the Jewish state "filthy bacteria" and promised to wipe it off the map. He didn't say these things because George Bush is president, and he won't stop when Bush is gone.

Sen. Barack Obama, who looks more and more every day like he'll be the Democratic presidential nominee, has said he'd be in favor of taking out "high-value terrorist targets" inside Pakistan on our own if the Pakistani government won't. But so far we haven't done that because Pakistan is nuclear and friendlier to jihadists than it is to us. That won't change, either.

Osama bin Laden's attacks on Americans also predated George Bush. The war on terror started only when we finally decided to strike back in 2001. And it will end only when we destroy the jihadists and alter the conditions that created them -- or give in and return to the earlier policy of inaction.

Long-term global challenges are bipartisan concerns -- neither caused by conservative Republicans nor solved by easy answers from liberal Democrats.

Should we guarantee the new independence of Muslim-dominated Kosovo, if Christian Serbia and its Russian patrons seek to get it back by force? If so, consider the chance of another bloody war inside Europe, and no appreciation for our help in Kosovo from the Muslim world.

Should we press China to clean up its trade practices and grant basic human rights to its own citizens? If so, be ready to see hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese-held U.S. government bonds sold off.

Should we extend formal diplomatic recognition to Iran and begin talks? If so, be prepared that, with even less worry, Tehran will accelerate efforts to get the bomb.

It is a cop-out to say George Bush caused all these problems. They loom large mostly for two reasons. One, the United States promotes global democratic capitalism, and our military ensures international free commerce in the air and on the seas. This bothers regional dictators and terrorists eager to carve out their own spheres of influence, regardless of who's sitting in the Oval Office.

Two, billions of people in India, Russia, China, Asia and Latin America, having copied American business and culture, are now doing better, and demand the same good lives we take for granted.

Our rivals suspect that we are played out, short of energy, long on debt, and hogging the world's resources. They see no reason to stop pushing just because of our past strength and reputation. They think the future is theirs, the past ours. And so all over the globe they will surely challenge the next president, however nice, to prove them wrong.

The question is: Will a “nice” president be up to the challenge?

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:00 | link | comments

R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Rami Khouri offers a very Motown-esque explanation to account for Muslim glumness. From The Muslim News (U.K.):

…A fascinating new global poll by the Gallup organization, covering societies with 1 billion Muslims, clearly reaffirmed something that those of us who live in Muslim-majority societies have long recognized as a prevailing reality: Muslims most resent the West's "disrespect of Islam" and are critical of many American policies, not American values. The commitment to democratic norms, even the definition of democracy, is virtually identical among Americans and Muslims, the poll found. John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed have just published an important new book on the poll results, titled "Who Speaks for Islam."

Backed by massive polling data - not so new in itself, since other polls have shown similar results, but never on such a scale - they make a critically important point that cannot be over-emphasized: Muslims' sense that they and their religion are disrespected by the US leads to a widespread feeling of humiliation, and also of being threatened and controlled by others. This can spill over into radicalism in some cases.

The centrality of "respect" for Muslims, Arabs and others who resent American or Western double standards and mistreatment needs to be better appreciated. This is especially true if we wish to reduce global tensions and the violence now routinely practiced by the US armed forces and official and private armies throughout the Arab-Islamic world.

The good news is that this message is getting through to some Americans who make the effort to listen and understand, and in turn expect Arabs and Muslims to reciprocate the courtesy.  One example was the concluding review of the gathering by Brookings Institution Vice President Carlos Pascual. He acknowledged the "reinforcing paranoias" in both societies, affirmed the need for law-based regional and global orders that treat all people equally, and concluded that "respect" was the elusive point of convergence that could gather together the rights and aspirations of all concerned. This "call to coexistence," he said, requires reciprocal understanding, human capacity, good policies and action…

So you see, folks, it has nothing to do with global jihad in both its soft and hard forms. It’s all about the West “dissing” “Muslims, Arabs and others who resent American or Western double standards,” and how that can’t help but reinforce global “paranoias”. Give ‘em that full-blown Aretha treatment (“What you want/Baby I got/What you need/Do you know I got it?”) and, presto, reciprocal understanding and “peace” will prevail.

Of course, so, too, will Dar al Islam. But, hey, that’s a small price to pay for “peaceful” coexistence, right?

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:20 | link | comments

Hot zones: In an attempt to get a handle on a “home grown” problem, the Brits are getting set to “map” the areas of the country most prone to “extremism”. From the Daily Mail:

Every part of Britain will be mapped for its potential to produce violent Muslim extremists under a new strategy drawn up by senior police officers, it has emerged.

 

At its counter-terrorism conference in Brighton this week, the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) approved a blueprint for how to prevent al Qaeda recruiting fresh supporters.

The 40-page document aims to stop extremist ideas gaining hold in schools, colleges, prisons and over the internet.

It includes advice for parents on how to stop their children searching for jihadist websites.

"The internet is a potential area where a tendency towards violent extremism can be exploited..." it reads.

"Parents and carers have a need for advice on how to control access for their children and to understand what defines the legal-potentially illegal divide."

The strategy also outlines details of an anti-extremist agenda to be included at every level of state-maintained education from primary school to university by 2008-09.

It speaks of a "pressing need" to develop relationships between the police and the education sector "at every level" with regard to preventing violent extremism.

It also warns: "Research last year revealed that the police service would be very low on the list of agencies that the Muslim community would turn to if they had concerns about a member of their community who embraced violent extremism...

"The police service has a long way to go in building a relationship of trust around these issues."

The strategy will be rooted in "neighbourhood profiling" to establish what is normal and what is unusual behaviour.

An unnamed senior source told The Guardian that it was important to map areas of the country for their tendency to produce extremists…

Let me take a stab at it: the “neighbourhoods” (no-go areas?) with a higher concentration of radical mosques, jihad-spewing imams and impressionable Muslim youngsters are more likely to be spawning grounds for “extremism.”

There, and it didn’t cost the British government a farthing.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:37 | link | comments (1)

The man who should be Archbish: The Bishop of Rochester is as stalwart, brave and clued-in as his Archbish is invertebrate, craven and clueless. From FrontPage Magazine:

…Nazir-Ali’s father was a convert from Islam to Christianity, a decision that could have resulted in his death in Pakistan .  After himself becoming an Anglican bishop in Pakistan at age 35, Nazir-Ali had to resettle in Britain because of Islamist death threats. So this bishop has few illusions about the threat posed by creeping Islamization.  Nor is he a stranger to the possibly lethal consequences of challenging radical Islam.    

"If you disagree, that must be met by counter-arguments, not by trying to silence people,” he explained to The Telegraph about the latest dangers his remarks have aroused.  “It was a threat not just to me, but to my family. I took it seriously, so did the police. It gave me sleepless nights."

For many of Britain’s cultural and religious elites, Britain’s Islamic minority is merely an opportunity to burnish their multicultural credentials and atone for the real and imagined sins of Christendom across the centuries.  Just as British appeasers of 70 years ago sanctimoniously believed themselves virtuous because of their zeal to accommodate fascism, today’s multiculturalists are smugly blind.  They want to pretend that radical Islam will neatly fit into their dreams of a beautiful social mosaic.  They are loath to admit that multiculturalism is the hobby of Western liberals, who can freely enjoy their hobby only thanks to Western concepts of tolerance.   That which they seek to appease in fact would ultimately smash their rainbow kaleidoscope, if permitted the power.    

"The recovery of Christian discourse in the public life of this nation is so important,” Nazir-Ali told The Telegraph.  “It's that discourse that will allow us in a genuine way to be hospitable to those who come here from different cultures and religions."   Having come from the Global South, the Bishop of Rochester knows that humanity is overwhelmingly religious by nature.  Europe ’s brief flirtation with aggressive secularism will not persist.  "The real danger to Britain today is the spiritual and moral vacuum that has occurred for the last 40 or 50 years,” the bishop warned.  “When you have such a moral vacuum something will fill it.”

Nazir-Ali prefers Britain ’s historic religious traditions to the traditions of his native Pakistan :   "If people are not given a fresh way of understanding what it means to be a Christian and what it means to be a Christian-based society then something else may well take the place of all that we're used to and that could be Islam."  

The Telegraph reported that many Church of England clerics rallied to defend their chief prelate, Rowan Williams, when he was criticized around the world for his voluminous pontifications about possible civil recognition of Islamic Law.   Few senior prelates offered a similarly robust defense of Nazir-Ali, despite the death threats against him. 

"I don't court popularity,” Nazir-Ali told The Telegraph.  “If I say something it's because I think it's important enough to say it.”  But he is perplexed by the reluctance of other British bishops to address the Islamization of some British cities that even some British civil authorities openly acknowledge:  "I can't guess why they haven't talked on the issue. I'm not responsible for other people's consciences." When The Telegraph asked if Britain’s religious officials are silent due to cowardice, the Bishop of Rochester responded:  "You'd have to ask them."

Nazir-Ali told The Telegraph that Islamist teachings about polygamy, women’s rights and freedom of belief would undermine British civil concepts about equality:  "People of every faith should be free within the law to follow what their spiritual leaders direct them to, but that's very different from saying their structures should replace that of the English legal system because there would be huge conflicts."

The Bishop of Rochester speaks clearly when many of his fellow Church of England clerics, presiding over empty museum-churches, prefer to obfuscate.   But having fled his native land once in the face of Islamist threats, Nazir-Ali seems undeterred.

Reminds me of another encounter/collision between a brave individual whose family lived under oppressive sharia and who became champion of freedom, and a clueless lefty who couldn’t even begin to fathom what such oppression is all about.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:07 | link | comments (2)

Jews for Bambi: Apparently “he shares many of Judaism's values, including social justice, education, and family.” Good to know. In an ideal world, these “shared values” would be enough to offset the fact that he attends a racist, black power church whose leader, Bambi’s “spiritual advisor,” is a big fan of loopy NOI Jew-hater, LouFa (his rapper name). In the real world, however, the one that we’re stuck with, these “values” are likely to colour his perceptions of the Jewish state--and not in a good way.

Condi Rice, whose experiences growing up in pre-Civil Rights-era Mississippi, caused her to misperceive the problems and misrepresent the Palestinians as being the new Negroes, was bad enough. One cannot even begin to imagine what kind of fresh hell is in store for Israel when Bambi brings his “spiritual values” to the perpetual “peace process.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:36 | link | comments

Kent’s condensation: A friend sent me this—former TV news anchor and would-be Tory M.P. Peter Kent’s thumbnail sketch of the Canadian press:

The Globe and Mail is read by people who think THEY should run the country...

La Presse is read by people who USED to run the country...

The Ottawa Citizen is read by the WIVES of people who think THEY run the country...

Le Devoir is read by people who think the country ought to be run AS ONE COUNTRY...and ANOTHER country...

The Toronto Star is read by people who are convinced this country IS run by another country...

The Financial Post and Report on Business are read by people who OWN the country…

The National Post is read by people who THINK they need a few more seats to run the country better… 

And, the Toronto Sun is read by people who DON'T CARE who runs the country..so long as the Leaf's win..and there's a little cheesecake and beefcake…somewhere in the paper.

I would add one more item to the list—a broadcaster, not a newspaper, this time: The CBC is watched/listened to by people who think that anyone who runs the country should have a world view that’s in synch with the Ceeb’s. (Which is why they’re so miffed that Stephen Harper and his “scary” Tories are still in charge.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:00 | link | comments

A timely quote: In a blog post about the sources of Muslim zaniness re: “the Jews,” historian Andrew Bostom cites a quotation by Maimonides:

We have acquiesced, both old and young, to inure ourselves to humiliation…All this notwithstanding, we do not escape this continued maltreatment [by Muslims] which well nigh crushes us. No matter how much we suffer and elect to remain at peace with them, they stir up strife and sedition.

Maimonides made that statement 850 years ago: He could just have easily been commenting on the situation today, when the Canadian Jewish establishment finds it necessary to humble itself—and sell out basic Western values—in order to curry favour with Muslim faux-moderates, and the Israeli establishment continues to extend a hand of peace, even as the Islamic Jew-loathers laugh at such fecklessness, and stir up the strife and sedition meant to bring about Israel’s demise.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:30 | link | comments

(B)arf!: When last we heard from the Toronto Star’s Oakland Ross, he was breathlessly recounting how Palestinians in Gaza had formed themselves into a human chain to engage in a radical new tactic: peaceful protest.

How very John Lennon/Mahatma Gandhi of them.

My letter to the Star:

I can understand why Oakland Ross would want to make such a fuss about a peaceful protest in Gaza. In light of the usual commotion there—bloody civil unrest, rockets being hurled into Israel, barriers to Egypt being toppled—such behaviour is so atypical that it falls into the “man bites dog” category of news. I’m guessing that’s also the reason why, on the same day, a peaceful protest in Toronto which rallied an estimated 2,000 people to support Sderot, the Israeli city which for the past seven years has found itself in the crosshairs of Palestinian Qassam rockets, rated nary a mention in your paper.

A report about thousands of Israel supporters rallying peacefully to draw attention to a war crime—the tormenting of civilians though daily bombardment; children being purposefully targeted and killed: Ho hum. Just another one of those “dog bites man” stories, I suppose.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:19 | link | comments

Not every Anglican is a squish like the Archbish: I was surprised and delighted to find this.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:31 | link | comments (1)

Creative spin: When I heard Toronto’s new Israeli consul-general, Amir Gissin, at one of those lunch ‘n’ learn thingys at a downtown law firm not long ago, he was energized by his “new” idea for sprucing up Israel’s tattered image. The idea: “branding.” I won’t go into all the details. Suffice it to say that Gissin asserted that the only way ahead was to market Israel based on a number of key messages. The first message: “Israel is entrepreneurial.” Apparently, the world is supposed to be so blown away by its creative zest (“Did you know that the cell phone was invented in Israel?”), that it would forthwith be embraced by the international community.

My problem with the idea—aside from the fact that it ignored current realities as well as those associated with the “longest hate”: Some of the folks to whom you’re touting Israel’s creativity reached the height of their creativity back in the Middle Ages. Their last truly creative endeavour of note—and one they’re still mighty proud of, I might add—was when, quite some years ago, they supposedly invented algebra. And these folks don’t give a fig about the Jewish state’s contributions to humanity, impressive though they may be. They want Israel gone a.s.a.p. because it’s the Jewish state.

In FrontPage Magazine, the director of a news agency takes a look at Muslim “creativity,” i.e. the marked lack thereof:

…BetBasoo: Let me preface my remarks by saying that I do not claim that Muslims have made no accomplishments. Individual Muslims have been successful in the full range of the human scientific and artistic endeavor. But a closer examination of these successes reveals that they came about because these individuals stepped outside of the Muslim realm. For example, today Muslim scientists and scholars are trained in the West. I claim that Islam is not conducive to the pursuit of rational inquiry, and when Islam asserts itself, it borrows, co-opts and ultimately, when time has passed and memory forgotten, claims that these borrowed and co-opted things were originated by Muslims, not by the native cultures that preceded the Muslims.

If something cannot be so expropriated, it is often destroyed. The most recent example was the Taliban's destruction of the 2500 year-old Buddhist statues in Afghanistan . In Iran , the UNESCO world heritage sites, Pasargadae and Persepolis , are threatened by the construction of the Sivand dam, and the Mullahs simply don't care, though they claim the water line will be below these cities, which date back to 560 B.C..

In Iraq , history text books teach that the Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians were in fact Arabs -- never mind that these civilizationsexisted a good 5600 years before Arabs/Muslims came into Mesopotamia .

In the Middle East it is nearly impossible to separate Islam from Arabs, they are two sides of the same coin. Hence, if you are an Arab, you must surely be a Muslim, and your accomplishments as well. If you are not a Muslim, then you need to be.

In India , over 3500 Hindu temples have been occupied and converted to Mosques, the most famous being the Taj Mahal. In Kosovo, under the auspices of the UN "peace" keeping force, over 600 Serbian churches and monasteries have been occupied or destroyed by the Muslim Kosovars. Kosovo is the most important religious center for the Serbians.

FP: So how about Muslim claims of accomplishment that aren’t real?

BetBasoo: Muslims claim many, many accomplishments we know they had nothing to do with. Arabic numerals? From India . The concept of zero? From Babylonia . Parabolic arches? From Assyria . The much ballyhooed claim of translating the Greek corpus of knowledge into Arabic? It was the Christian Assyrians, who first translated to Syriac, then to Arabic. The first University? Not Al-Azhar in Cairo (988 A.D.), but the School of Nisibis of the Church of the East (350 A.D.), which had three departments: Theology, Philosophy and Medicine. Al-Azhar only teaches Theology.

Speaking of medicine, Muslims will claim that medicine during the Golden Age of Islam, the Abbasid period, was the most advanced in the world. That is correct. But what they don't say is that the medical practitioners were exclusively Christians. The most famous medical family, the Bakhtishu family, Assyrians of the Church of the East, produced seven generations of doctors, who were the official physicians to the Caliphs of Baghdad for nearly 200 years.

There are many more examples, but I think these are enough to make the point.

FP: Why, in your view, does Islam fail in producing scholars and thinkers?

BetBasoo: It is a bold assertion to say that Islam fails in producing thinkers. Yet one is lead to this conclusion by a historical examination of Islamic civilizations. The putative "Golden Age of Islam", the Abbasid period, has been shown to be not the product of Muslims, but of their Christian subjects. In his book How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs, O'Leary's lists 22 scholars and translators during the Golden Age of Islam; 20 were Christians, 1 was a Persian, and 1 was a Muslim. This covers about a 250 year period. This "Golden Age", incidentally, came to an end after the Caliphs had forcefully converted enough Christians to Muslims (through the Jizya) that the Christian numbers fell below the critical threshold needed for sustaining the intellectual enterprise.

Given that this intellectual enterprise during the Abbasid period was the product of Christians, we ask the question: has there ever been an Islamic golden age? There was none during the rule of the Mamluks, who overthrew the Abbasids. Can we say the Ottomans, who followed the Mamluks, ever had a golden age?

In his book Religion of Peace, Robert Spencer has offered a penetrating and incisive analysis of why Islam fails to produce thinkers. His explanation is theological and theoretical. I will summarize it now and then give my own complimentary explanation, which is practical.

According to Robert Spencer, the Muslim god, Allah, is capricious. He is not subject to any laws and can, in fact, change laws arbitrarily without restraint. Quoting the Pope, Spencer says:

“for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.”

Spencer continues:

"the Pope was not so much saying that in the Islamic view Allah would command his people to do evil, but that he might change the content of the concepts of good and evil. In other words, Allah would always enjoin “justice and kindness,” but what constitutes “justice and kindness,” just as what constitutes “innocent blood,” might change."

And

"He [Allah] was thus not bound to govern the universe according to consistent and observable laws. 'He cannot be questioned concerning what He does'" (Qur’an 21:23 ).

And

"Accordingly, there was no point to observing the workings of the physical world; there was no reason to expect that any pattern to its workings would be consistent, or even discernable. If Allah could not be counted on to be consistent, why waste time observing the order of things? It could change tomorrow. Stanley Jaki, a Catholic priest and physicist, explains that it was al-Ghazali, the philosopher that the authors of the Open Letter recommend to the Pope, who 'denounced natural laws, the very objective of science, as a blasphemous constraint upon the free will of Allah.' He adds that 'Muslim mystics decried the notion of scientific law (as formulated by Aristotle) as blasphemous and irrational, depriving as it does the Creator of his freedom.' Social scientist Rodney Stark adds that 'it would seem that Islam has a conception of God appropriate to underwrite the rise of science. Not so. Allah is not presented as a lawful creator but is conceived of as an extremely active God who intrudes in the world as he deems it appropriate. This prompted the formation of a major theological bloc within Islam that condemns all efforts to formulate natural laws as blasphemy in that they deny Allah’s freedom to act.'"

Thus there is no incentive for Muslims to pursue rational inquiry, since any results obtained can be invalidated by Allah at his whim…

Interesting that the marked absence of  rational inquiry and its resulting creative fruits hasn’t hampered their ability to “brand” themselves as being highly “creative.” Mr. Gissin: please take note.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:59 | link | comments (2)

Tinkering with the text: Great news! Those misogynistic, supremacist doctrines—the ones calling for the stoning of adulterers and perpetual warfare until the kafir submits—are getting an update. From the Beeb:

Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion.

The country's powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.

The Hadith is a collection of thousands of sayings reputed to come from the Prophet Muhammad.

As such, it is the principal guide for Muslims in interpreting the Koran and the source of the vast majority of Islamic law, or Sharia.

But the Turkish state has come to see the Hadith as having an often negative influence on a society it is in a hurry to modernise, and believes it responsible for obscuring the original values of Islam.

It says that a significant number of the sayings were never uttered by Muhammad, and even some that were need now to be reinterpreted.

'Reformation'

Commentators say the very theology of Islam is being reinterpreted in order to effect a radical renewal of the religion.

Its supporters say the spirit of logic and reason inherent in Islam at its foundation 1,400 years ago are being rediscovered. Some believe it could represent the beginning of a reformation in the religion…

I have a feeling it’s going to take a little time for a full-blown  Reformation to kick in (especially since, while the Turks may be able to “reinterpret” the Hadith, they’re no way to “revise” the foundational document; as every good Muslim knows, that text is perfect and thus unassailable). In the meantime, my attitude toward Islamic law remains the same as that of the Rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof when he was asked to recommend a blessing for the Czar. To paraphrase: “May God bless and keep sharia…far away from us.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:11 | link | comments (4)

Rally for Sderot: A very emotional evening yesterday—Toronto’s Rally for Sderot. More than 2,000 people, many of them teenagers and young adults, crowded into the ballroom on a downtown hotel. They were there to show solidarity with the Israeli town, a mile from the Gaza border, that, for the past seven years—that’s right, seven years!—has been bombarded by Palestinian Qassam rockets. All told, about 9,000 have fallen on the city in that time, an accurate count since every missile that falls is collected, catalogued and stored. In a live hook-up from Sderot, we saw the room where missiles lay, now inert and harmless, on shelves, a chilling archive of death and destruction.

But what damage those projectiles have wrought! What a toll they have taken on the lives of men, women and children, parents and families, who spend their lives waiting for the next “tzevah adom”—“code red.” Once the siren has been sounded, they have up to 15 seconds—and sometimes as few as five seconds—to seek shelter; sometimes, there’s no warning at all, and a wayward bomb (they have no guidance systems and, like chips, fall where they may) drops on and destroys your home.

And yet, there they are and there they remain—defiant, resolute, determined to hold their ground whatever the cost, because they refuse to let Hamas, a gang of evil-Jew-hating, jihadi thugs, chase then from their land—land that is rightfully theirs. It was both inspiring, and hugely depressing, to see the faces of the people of Sderot. They, too, had gathered for the rally, in the recently-opened community centre that doubled as a bomb shelter, built with funds donated by Toronto and Canadian Jews. It was 3 a.m. their time, on an especially difficult day, one that had seen a young child severely injured by rocket fire. Despite the advanced hour, they had filled the hall, cheered to see us in Toronto, cheering for them and waving our Canadian and Israeli flags. They told us of their fears, and the physical and emotional price they exact; teenagers in the audience, beautiful, spirited, yet tired of living under siege, wanting only to live a “normal” life. A woman sitting on the stage, a nurse who was born in Sderot (a community founded in 1951) recounted her recent brush with death; how, without any warning, a Qassam rocket made a direct hit on her house and how, miraculously, she her four-year old son and his five-year-old playmate managed to survive. We also heard from a mother direct from a home in Sderot. She was sitting in bed with her kids—she has six—and explained how the entire family sleeps in that one bedroom, “the safe room.” And, perhaps most movingly, a choir of Sderot teenagers performed "Al Kol Eyleh”—“On All These”—a song that describes how Israelis accept what life hands them, the bitter along with the sweet. (An amusing aside—because I, too, try to take the bitter with the sweet: as we were waiting for the event to begin, some jazzy music was being piped into the ballroom. The first song: “Straighten Up and Fly Right.” Given the reason we were all there, it may not have been the most sensitive song choice, but I have to admit it did appeal to my somewhat ghoulish sense of humour.)

There were a number of addresses from both sides of the live feed, but I will mention only two, both from the Toronto end: Israel’s consul-general, Amir Gissin, and the keynote speaker, Alan Dershowitz.

I mention Gissin not because anything he said was particularly inspiring—although he did praise the Toronto Jewish community for once again leading the way in support of Israel. (Yay us: we come through every time.) I mention him because of the weasely way he supported the Israeli’s government disgusting lack of action (only now, for instance, has it decided to spend money to fortify Sderot roofs—the least it could do), how he validated seven years of doing nothing to prevent the missiles from falling and how, in fact, the wimps and wishful thinkers who’ve been running the joint virtually guaranteed that the reign of missile terrorism would continue—and get even worse—when they decided to leave Gaza. Shame on you, Mr. Gissin, for spouting the government’s indefensible line.

I wasn’t taking notes, so I can’t quote chapter and verse from the Dershowitz speech. I can tell you it was thrilling—angry, passionate, emotional—an oratorical masterpiece which, unlike the empty oratory of B. Obama, was chock-full of content. Some highlights:

·         What’s being done to Sderot is a war crime, but for seven long years the international community has refused to acknowledge it as such, and has instead focused its efforts on condemning Israel for its defensive actions.

 

·         He was scathing in his criticism of UN Human Rights diva Louise Arbour, noting that she loves spending time in Lebanon and Gaza, but hasn’t once visited Sderot. He issued a challenge to her to accompany him during his next visit there, in three weeks.

 

·         The usual loathsome suspects—the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch—also came in for a lashing. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you why.

 

·         He noted the unfairness of the world’s double standard: Every other nation is allowed to defend itself except Israel. Russia can carpet-bomb Chechnya and the world doesn’t say boo. But let Israel harm a hair on the chinny-chin-chin or of a Palestinian—something which is unavoidable since the bad guys insist on using civilians as “human shields”—and the world goes ballistic. In defending itself, Israel kills fewer civilians than anyone else, but that’s still not enough to satisfy the international community, since Israel is held to an impossibly high standard.

 

·         What we are witnessing is a culture of death versus a culture of life. The terrorists (my one quibble is that he always called them terrorists, never jihadis) esteem death and martyrdom—especially the martyrdom of their own young children—as their highest value. Thus for them, terrorism is a win-win situation. They believe if they martyr themselves, it’s an instant ticket to Paradise, and if they get Israel to take action and defend itself against terrorism, it’s instant opprobrium for Israel. Heads they win; tails we lose.

 

·         He deplored the numbers game that’s going on—“What’s the big deal?” people keep asking him. “Only nine people have been killed.” “Only nine people,” he repeated several times. A number which doesn’t take in all the injuries, all the destruction, year after year after year of living in fear and living with stress. “Only nine people,” he said again. What will it take for the government to finally do something to stop the targeting of its civilians? A direct hit on a school bus? On a school? Is the government waiting for the death count to be sufficiently high before it feels justified in doing something? That’s outrageous. Far better to take action now, before more Jews are killed.

 

·         He challenged the leaders of the world's nations to put themselves in Israel’s place and ask themselves one question: “What would you do?” Would you allow your civilians to be sitting ducks, cannon fodder for terrorists? Highly doubtful. Like every other nation, Israel has the right to defend itself, even if that means some Arab lives will be lost.

 

·         He ripped to shreds the notion that Israel taking steps to counter Hamas (for example, by shutting off power to Gaza) is a form of “collective punishment.” The very idea is absurd, he said, akin to saying that WWII exacted “collective punishment” on the Germans. There are consequences for actions, and the Palestinians must face the consequence—and take responsibility for—electing Hamas. Same as the Germans had to face the consequences of electing Hitler.

 

·         Sderot is emblematic of Israel as a whole. As Sderot goes, so goes Israel, and, for that matter, so goes the West.

 

·         Quoting a Jewish prayer, he said that Jews must be “strong” before there can be peace. (Would that Israel’s government understood that message—the most crucial message. Because if it doesn’t, and it keeps on its present course, Israel cannot, it will not, survive.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:28 | link | comments (4)

Iran's willing executioners: "Iran wants to hang the Jewish state--and Germany and Austria are selling it the rope."

Update: Rope-seller in Tehran.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:07 | link | comments

No comparison: Israel—a vibrant, creative, entrepreneurially-minded democracy—is booming. Iran—a vapid, destructive, Armageddon-minded totalitarian theocracy—not so much. From MEMRI:

…Iran is not poor by necessity; it is poor by choice. Billions of dollars of oil windfall profits were squandered on subsidies (including gasoline), a vast armament industry, including a clandestine nuclear program, and financing of terrorism in many hot spots of the world. Operating under the weight of U.N., but more potent, US sanctions, Iran is going through hard economic times despite the quintupling of oil prices in the last three years, and economic growth of about 6 percent in the last Iranian year (which ended in March 21, 2007). Inflation was running at more than 19 percent in 2007 compared with 12 percent in 2006, unemployment is high in general but extremely high among the 15-24 age group (estimated at more than 30 percent), 50 percent of the population is poor, and more than 20 percent live below the poverty line. Drug abuse is rampant, and hoards of intoxicated Iranians sleep on street pavements. Corruption is rampant, particularly among the Mullahs who are in charge of enforcing the rules of religious orthodoxy and religious piety. And, for all intents and purposes, the country is isolated.

And yet, all systems are still go for the Big Kaboom—and much of the world will cheer if it comes off. That’s because much of the world could care less that Israel is a vibrant, creative, entrepreneurially-minded democracy. They want it gone for one reason and one reason only: because it’s Jewish.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:55 | link | comments

The lunacy of the left: Ha’aretz calls on the world’s only Jewish state to recognize the world’s newest Muslim one—a staging ground for the global jihad:

After half a century under Serbian sovereignty and nine years of autonomous rule under the aegis of the United Nations, Kosovo yesterday decided unilaterally to separate from Serbia, thus becoming the seventh country within the former Yugoslavia. The Belgrade government has said that it considers recognizing an independent Kosovo as undermining Serbian sovereignty. Although the Serbs constitute only about 5 percent of Kosovo's 2 million inhabitants, the Serbian leadership declared that Kosovo "will forever remain part of Serbia." NATO declared an alert, fearing the diplomatic tension would give rise to violent clashes.

The declaration of independence by the Kosovar parliament, like most of the political and security events in the Balkans in recent years, is dividing the international community. Russia demanded an urgent discussion in the UN Security Council in order to prevent the move. Countries including Spain, Greece and Cyprus, which are fighting separatist tendencies, are opposed to the declaration, arguing that the move is contrary to international law and constitutes a precedent that could threaten European security. In contrast, the United States and the leading members of the European Union, including Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy, are planning to recognize the new country by today.

Kosovo expects dozens of countries to recognize its independence. We have to hope that Jerusalem has properly weighed the reasons in favor of responding to the call of the new European state, in the face of pressure from Serbia. Although most of the residents of Kosovo are Muslims, the district has not identified with extremist Islamic tendencies and has kept a distance from Israel's opponents in the Arab world.

The Balkan experience has provided a cruel lesson in how difficult it is to repair national, ethnic and religious rifts. Joint sovereignty that lacks a social or political grounding does not erase historical tensions and cultural differences. Approximately 12,000 Albanians and 3,000 Serbians, who lived as neighbors for years, were killed in the bloody clashes that climaxed in 1998. Tens of thousands of Muslims fled or were expelled from their homes in what was described as ethnic cleansing. Only active intervention by the international community put an end to the violent conflict that caused an upheaval in central Europe, and Kosovo became a mandated area of the UN, under NATO military control.

Jerusalem's special relations with the U.S., its major ally, always have been a central factor in Israeli diplomacy. Washington's decision to recognize Kosovo makes it easier for Israel to do so, too. The struggle of the persecuted Kosovar people for independence is reminiscent of struggles by other nations for the right to self-determination. The State of Israel, which was established in the wake of the Jewish people's struggle for a national home, should stretch out a hand to other nations seeking self-determination.

Israel maintains diplomatic and economic relations with Arab and Muslim countries around the world. The government has a unique opportunity to stretch out a hand to the new state, and to prove that the Jewish state is not an enemy of the Muslims.

Yeah, that should do the trick.

A voice of sanity ‘splains why recognizing Kosovo is not in the West’s interests.

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

A brilliant disguise: By day, he’s “Clark” Soharwardy, who, is his guise as mild-mannered head of Muslims Against Terrorism has earned the admiration of the CJC and is solicited for his “expert” opinion by the Ceeb. By night, he’s “Superman” Soharwardy, head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, a caped crusader (er, sorry, unfortunate word choice—better make that “a caped Islamist”) who hauled Ezra Levant’s butt in front of the Alberta HRC because he dared to “blaspheme” the Prophet by printing some Danish Mo ‘toons.

The disguise is looking a bit threadbare these days, Syed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:09 | link | comments (1)

Rhyme time: The Globe and Mail reports on the latest craze sweeping Arab TV—competitive versifying:

ABU DHABI -- In the Arab world's answer to American Idol, the contestants carry prayer beads, the judges are tenured academics and the hostess wears a fuchsia abaya. It is Tuesday night and in a lavish theatre on the edge of Abu Dhabi, the live taping of Million's Poet, the most popular prime-time show in the Middle East, is about to begin.

Contestants are gathered in a green room, praying for God to bless them with a strong sense of rhyme and metre. The Crown Prince of Bahrain is in the audience. So are several of the ruling sheik's wives. Most of these poets come from poor Bedouin villages, where their ancient art of Nabati poetry - composed spontaneously and delivered in colloquial Arabic - was slowly dying. Tonight, they will perform for a live television audience and 70 million viewers, competing for a cash prize of one million dirhams ($275,000) and the greater goal of restoring their tribe's lost pride.

"This show is getting more response than soccer. More than soccer. Can you imagine that?" said Mahdi al-Wayli, a 33-year-old contestant from the village of Najan, Saudi Arabia.

Mr. al-Wayli's poetry is inspired by his two divorces and often lingers on the topic of lost love…

Better that than the topic of “kill the dhimmis who stole our land!”

My letter:

 

Re: Arabic TV takes a turn for the verse:

 

The new focus on verse is just dandy.

Glad so many “Longfellows” are handy.

‘Cause the usual cryin’

And kvetchin’ ‘bout Zion

Is hardly what I’d call “ear candy.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:33 | link | comments

The big chill: Remember that Twilight Zone episode where people were going crazy from the heat because the Earth was moving closer to the Sun, but the twist at end is that, in fact, the opposite is true and that a new Ice Age is underway?

Seems kinda prescient.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:42 | link | comments

Worlds apart: Diana West explains that a big difference between cons and libs is that cons are worried about the onward march/silent creep of sharia; libs think the whole thing’s been waaay overblown, since only a miniscule fringe of fanatics is involved. From the Washington Times:

The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne Jr. thinks there's "something peculiar" about conservatives who turn "Islamic extremism into a mighty ideological force with the power to overrun the world."

 

In a way, he's right. There is indeed something peculiar about portraying "extremism," Islamic or otherwise, as an ideological movement of sufficient mass and might to capture the world. After all, "extremism" is something "extreme" practiced by, well, "extremists." You know — a few far-out kooks on the margins. Why worry? There's always that disclaimer that we, as a post-September 11 society, invoke when we talk about "Islamic extremism" (or, plain "extremism," as President Bush now prefers): namely, that such "extremism" has nothing doctrinally or traditionally to do with Islam as practiced by the rest of the world's billion-plus Muslims. So much more reassuring to see things this way, at least as long as no one notes that Shariah (Islamic law) is advanced by "extremism" and Islam alike.

 

Of course, if Western society understands "extremism" merely as a marginal phenomenon, little wonder Mr. Dionne thinks it's "odd" that "so many" conservatives take it seriously — specifically, he writes, "Osama bin Laden's lunatic claims that he will build a new caliphate." Isn't bin Laden just an extremist fruitcake on Islam's fringe, who, naturally, makes "lunatic claims"? It should take not a war to subdue him, but a warden.

 

Personally, I doubt "so many" conservatives really take the prospect of a Shariah-governed world seriously — even a Shariah-governed Europe, or, for starters, a Shariah-governed Britain. And that goes whether such prospects are promulgated by a notorious al Qaeda jihadist or the Archbishop of Canterbury. After all, the threat to Western-style liberty posed not only by violent "extremism" but by creeping Shariah — with its dire implications for monogamy, women's rights, laws of evidence, freedom of belief and expression — has never even made it into the rationale behind Mr. Bush's so-called war on terror. It certainly hasn't been a topic on the campaign trail or most opinion pages. What seems to divide political thought these days is that conservatives still worry about "extremism" and liberals don't. Conservatives want to fight "extremism" in Iraq and Afghanistan, and liberals don't. Islam — even as a, yes, democratically spread conduit of liberty — shrinking Islamic law out of the political debate altogether.

 

Not surprisingly, then, Mr. Dionne thinks conservative concerns over mere "extremism" are a political liability that Democratic presidential candidates in their appeal to Americans bent on a leader "righting a jittery economy" and "rolling back extreme inequality" (did I miss the socialist takeover?) should exploit. Examining John McCain's stated belief that "radical Islamic extremists," or plain "extremists," pose the "transcendent challenge of the 21st century," Mr. Dionne argues that Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama should be knocking this contention, which seems to strike the liberal columnist as fantastic. He writes: "Does [Mr. McCain] mean that in the year 2100, Americans will look back and say everything else that happened in the century paled in comparison with the war on terrorism?"

 

Well, who knows? If, for example, Europe has become an Islamic continent by century's end, as predicted by the oft-cited Bernard Lewis, they just might. They might also wonder why in tarnation their post-September 11 forbears (us) failed to note the obvious connection between "extremists" like bin Laden and the millions of ordinary Muslims who Islamized the European continent, which is a roughly shared devotion to Islamic law.

 

What's notable here is that Mr. Dionne, and, presumably some significant swath of liberal thought, don't see the war on terrorism as the stand-out priority even now. That's why he wants Democratic candidates attacking Mr. McCain on it. "If McCain's 'transcendent challenge' claim falls apart on close examination," he writes, "the best rationale he has for his election would disappear."

 

In a way, he's right again. There is a transcendent challenge facing Americans, but we can't rise to it if our leaders can't explain it…

 

But they can’t (or won’t), so it looks like we’ll have to DIO—Do It Ourselves.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:17 | link | comments

What the CJC (and not just the CJC) needs to know (but doesn’t): By Andrew Bostom in FrontPage Magazine:

…More than a decade ago, Samuel Huntington observed appositely, and with a candor that is now exceedingly rare, 

The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture… 

During his recent debate with the cultural jihadist Tariq Ramadan, Ibn Warraq elucidated what is at stake should such Islamic supremacism prevail: 

The great ideas of the West—rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law and equality under the law, freedom of thought and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy—are superior to any others devised by humankind. It was the West that took steps to abolish slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in Africa, where rival tribes sold black prisoners into slavery. The West has secured freedoms for women and racial and other minorities to an extent unimaginable 60 years ago. The West recognizes and defends the rights of the individual: we are free to think what we want, to read what we want, to practice our religion, to live lives of our choosing. 

…Nor does the West need lectures on the superior virtue of societies in which women are kept in subjection under sharia, endure genital mutilation, are stoned to death for alleged adultery, and are married off against their will at the age of nine; societies that deny the rights of supposedly lower castes; societies that execute homosexuals and apostates. The West has no use for sanctimonious homilies from societies that cannot provide clean drinking water or sewage systems, that make no provisions for the handicapped, and that leave 40 to 50 percent of their citizens illiterate.

The CJC should be trying to “build bridges” with people like Ibn Warraq, not with faux-moderates who helm outfits like the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada. (You would think that that name alone would have been a dead giveaway, but some Jews are so needy, so desperate for Muslim approval, that they are willing to renounce Western values and grovel in abject dhimmitude before their “superiors”.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:53 | link | comments

Loopy Julie: During the pre-Oscar red carpet spectacle broadcast on Canadian TV, hosts Ben Mulroney and Jeanne Becker (showing a kilometre-long cleavage; a single engine aircraft could have taken off on that sucker) pulled aside Sarah Polley and Julie Christie. They were there together because Polley had written and directed the movie which had netted them both a nomination (Polley for best adapted screenplay; Julie for best actress). The two are now BFFs, separated by generations, but united, it seems, by their film and their devotion to lefty causes. Ben and Jeanne spoke to Sarah first, the usual blah blah blah about how thrilled she was to be there and blah blah blah about her firm friendship with Julie. Sarah then pointed to her new friend, resplendent in a shimmery, rust-coloured gown, and commanded the yackers to query her about a pin she was wearing, one of those ribbon loopy thingys. Was it for breast cancer? AIDS? Herpes? Female Genital Mutilation?

Don’t be silly.

It was to draw attention to the plight of—are you sitting down?—those prisoners of conscious still languishing in Gitmo. Yup, that’s right, Julie’s terribly concerned about all the incarcerated, She wants Gitmo shut down, “And I’m sure you are, too,” she said to her interlocuters.

What a shame that French chick scooped up the prize that everyone was so sure was going to go to Julie, and she never had a chance to display her loopy thingy to the captive audience.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:55 | link | comments

Still dhimmi after all these years: A few days ago, Ezra Levant has a post about his exchange with CJC vice prez, Manuel Prutschi:

...And then I remembered a brief e-mail exchange that I had with Manuel Prutschi, the vice president of CJC, two years ago, right when the Western Standard was about to print the Danish cartoons as part of a news story.

Here are those e-mails. Some excerpts:

A number of us have been working painstakingly and over the long term to build bridges between the Jewish and Muslim communities here in Canada.  This effort has borne some fruit as attested, for example, by the positive reaction from various Muslim leaders to CJC’s press release.

This is a version of Stockholm syndrome, when one is so desperate to appease one's tormentors that one psychologically begins to side with them. There are milder versions of this -- it's why foreign diplomats are rotated amongst countries, lest they "go local" and begin to advocate for the country to which they have been dispatched, rather than for their home country.

The CJC was more interested in its "relationship" with various Muslim leaders, than with freedom of speech or the separation of mosque and state.

These are the words of moderate Muslims who merit our respect and encouragement. They are individuals like those you met at CJC’s civil discourse conference in Vancouver and whose contributions you undertook to publish in your magazine.

Moderates, eh? The list of moderates on the CJC's list includes Syed Soharwardy in the form of two of his personal organizations, the Islamic Supreme Council and the ironically named Muslims Against Terrorism. No true moderates supported the fatwa -- moderates like Tarek Fatah, or the columnist we ran regularly in the magazine, Salim Mansur believe in freedom and pluralism too much.

We all share with you your disgust at the vile antisemitic cartoons, articles, television series, movies, statements, etc., many of them directed at our beloved State of Israel, that pollute sectors of the Muslim world, including in the West. But in the specifically current Canadian context does the publication of the cartoons serve as an antidote?

You, better than most, know Hillel’s dictum not to do unto others what we would not want others to do unto us. In other words, two wrongs don’t make a right. 

Huh? The Western Standard was a news magazine, and these cartoons were news. To imply that the publication of them was some weird Zionist conspiracy to "get even" with anti-Semitism is, well, something that Syed Soharwardy would say.

My favourite line is Prutschi's final note to me:

Your decision leaves me regretful

The above certainly rang some bells. In my e-mail exchange with CJC’s CEO Bernie Farber two years ago on the occasion of the CJC issuing a news release condemning the publication of the ‘toons in Jyllands-Postum as  “inexcusably provocative, insensitve and disrespectful of Muslim believers,” much the same dhimmitude and cluelessness was on display. Here’s a portion of that correspondence (my bolds):

From Bernie:

Thank you for your email. We understand fully the troubling issues that you raise but we had to limit ourselves to what, as we saw it, was most necessary under the specific circumstances.

As a religious minority we know full well the effects of free expression when it goes beyond the acceptable even if it is not illegal. By speaking out we retain our credibility with other minorities and the larger society as well as strengthen our capacity to respond when we are vilified, and when that vilification comes from sectors of the Arab and/or Muslim communities we are in a position to call on our developed Muslim contacts for a counter-response. If we are hoping that moderate Muslims will have the strength and the courage to take on the radicals we must bolster their sense that they are not alone.

We note as well that we unequivocally condemned the violence and the fanning of the flames by the radicals and expressed our strong solidarity with the Danish people.

We believe that the CJC statement is carefully balanced. We add that we are beginning to receive positive reactions to our press release from those sectors of the Muslim community to whom we have been reaching out, as follows:

Co-ordinator of the Islamic Council of Imams-Canada: “Thank you very much for a well worded Press Release. I have circulated to member Imams. Please convey our appreciation to CJC officials.

Immediate Past President, Muslims Against Terrorism, Canadian Chapter [yes, there is such an organization]: Thank you Manuel. I have sent a press Release to the Toronto Star denouncing the Iranian cartoons of the holocaust. I hope they'll print it otherwise I'll send it to you directly.

Past Chair, Federation of Muslim Women: Thank you for the press release. I am just as appalled by the violence and the antisemitic rhetoric that some of the Govts, eg Iran are spouting. These are hurtful and sad times for all. I must admit that given the human right history of Denmark I was very surprised that this kind of racism should have originated there. I pray for peace and calm.

Salaam and shalom

President, Islamic Supreme Council of Canada: Thanks for your email. I am thankful for the statement that the Canadian Jewish Congress sent out. I agree with you that violence is not the path to resolve issues. Hatemongering cartoons are very provocative but Muslims should not resort to violence in protesting against these insulting and racist cartoons. I am not sure you saw our press release regarding Iranian newspaper. Here it is for your information. Thanks again. God willing, we will meet one day.

Provocation from Muslims will not be Tolerated

Iranian Newspaper Must not Publish Any Cartoons Against Holocaust

This is not an easy matter but in our tradition we are told; What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary." Talmud, Shabbat 31a. and this is followed with "And what you hate, do not do to any one." Tobit 4:15. As Jews we are both the canary in the mine and a community that understands the pain of offense and derision. Our Rabbonim knew of what they spoke and we must try to work towards that highest ideal..

Thanks for your email. I hope this response gives you a different view of our goals as an organization on behalf of our community.

Cheers:

Email from me:

Bernie—The fact that you received positive feedback from the Muslim community shows that your statement sits very well with them. And no wonder. You are siding with them in the controversy. Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean the CJC took the right position, merely the one that was most likely to placate Muslim leaders. The fact is that the Danish cartoons were printed without incident back in September. The matter would have ended there had Danish imams not taken it upon themselves to go to Lebanon, where they systematically distributed these cartoons to Islamic leaders, including Yousef al-Qawadari—along with many more that were far more inflammatory and would never have appeared in a Western newspaper (although cartoons such as these with a Jewish theme appear regularly in the Muslim press). That is what lit the spark. It is also interesting to note that the same cartoons had previously appeared in an Egyptian newspaper—where they elicited no reaction at all.

Thus, the entire cartoon controversy is obviously much larger than a Danish newspaper daring to contravene Muslim doctrine. (And there again, there is some dispute as to whether it actually is Muslim doctrine, there being no specific restriction in the Koran about depicting the Prophet.) It is about Islamic extremists wanting to stir up trouble and widen the chasm between cultures for their own religious and political purposes. And it seems to me that your empathetic response to “the pain of offense and derision” is woefully misguided because it unintentionally plays right into their hands.

As for the kind words from Canadian Muslim leaders—that’s all very nice. I doubt, however, that these folks have anything positive to say about the existence of a sovereign Jewish state on their “occupied” land. Nor have I heard a single Canadian Muslim leader come out against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s statements denying the Holocaust and his desire to remove the “blot” of Israel from the map of the Middle East—an ambition he may be able to fulfill soon enough if the world continues to sit on its hands while Iran goes nuclear. And the existential threat to the Jewish state has just increased exponentially because the Palestinians have elected Hamas, a terrorist organization bent on Israel’s destruction. Let’s ask Canadian Muslim leaders, shall we, where they stand on that issue.

Obviously, I don’t have to tell you that these are incredibly perilous times for the Jews—and not just for the Jews. But, as the lesson of the Holocaust shows—tragically—acceding to the demands of fascists—whether secular or religious--can only pave the road to doom.

From Bernie:

Well we will have to agree to disagree on this one. We have had many emails form our community on this release and it is running about 3:1 in favour. Many understand that there are times for us to speak out even times when we walk arm in arm with Muslim Canadians as we continue to do in our battle for funding for Jewish and faith-based schools.

I am saddened to see those who wish to continue to polarize rather than within a Canadian context find some common ground that will eventually lead to civil discourse. We can vehemently disagree with many groups but in Canada we still must find a way to do so with dignity and emphasis.

Interestingly there were Muslim groups that spoke out against the Iranian President’s dictates including “Muslims Against Terrorism” and the “Muslim Canadian Congress”. It wasn’t necessarily what we would have written but it was a start...

Back then, of course, I had no idea that the guy in charge of Muslims Against Terrorism was the same guy who was in charge of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada; heck, I didn’t even know there was an Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, or anything about its Islamist-in-chief, Syed Soharwardy. What I did know what that it was madness, nay, suicide, to compromise basic Western values in a quixotic bid to get the province to pay for religious schools. I knew for sure it wasn’t going to fly because I had attended that anti-sharia rally at Queen’s Park the previous fall, and could see there was no way Ontarians, who had howled in outrage at the idea of sharia tribunals, were going to allow their hard-earned tax dollars to fund madrassahs.

But then, I’m no dhimmi.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:36 | link | comments (2)

Bambi’s background: The NYT’s Nicholas Kristoff is worried that Bambi’s humble family origins will be held against him by "snobbish," "paranoid" enemies:

…Mr. Obama’s late grandfather is said to have been the first person in the area to wear Western clothes rather than just a loincloth. For a time he converted to Christianity and adopted the family name Johnson.

Later he converted to Islam, taking four wives. Senator Obama’s father, who apparently converted to Catholicism while attending a Catholic school, was also polygamous in keeping with local custom, taking an informal Kenyan wife who preceded Mr. Obama’s mother but remained a consort, according to accounts by local people and the senator himself.

The father, also named Barack Hussein Obama, was as much of a pathbreaker as his son. He went from herding goats in Kogelo to studying in Hawaii and at Harvard, even if his career as an economist was frustrated in part by ethnic rivalries.

Senator Obama barely knew his father and does not know his Kenyan relatives well. He has visited Kenya three times, most recently very briefly in 2006.

On his last visit, Mr. Obama visited two area schools that had been renamed for him. The intention in renaming the schools seems to have been partly to attract funding. One person after another noted pointedly that it was a shame that a school named for a great American should be so dilapidated.

Some of Mr. Obama’s innumerable relatives also see him as a meal ticket. They have made arrangements with a tour group to bring buses of visitors to have tea with Mama Sarah.

They are also trying to raise money from interviews with her. I had made arrangements to visit Mama Sarah weeks ago, and she had agreed to speak. But when I showed up, she said that her children had told her to keep quiet. Frantic phone calls. Fierce arguments. Hints that money might make an interview possible. I didn’t pay. I didn’t get the interview.

That’s O.K. Having seen the poverty in Kogelo, I’m less offended by the outstretched palms than awed by the distance that the Obama family spans.

Frankly, I worry that enemies of Senator Obama will seize upon details like his grandfather’s Islamic faith or his father’s polygamy to portray him as an alien or a threat to American values. But snobbishness and paranoia ill-become a nation of immigrants, where one of our truest values is to judge people by their own merits, not their pedigrees. If we call ourselves a land of opportunity, then Mr. Obama’s heritage doesn’t threaten American values but showcases them…

Have no fear, Nick. Bambi’s “enemies” don’t really care if a candidate’s mishpacha comes from a shack in Kenya—or a log cabin in Illinois. Call them “paranoid,” but they’re far more concerned about a candidate’s philosophy than his provenance. And Obama’s affiliation with a church that holds Nation Islam bloviator Louis Farakhan in such high regard is very disturbing indeed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:10 | link | comments

A Streetcar Named Disaster: Caroline Glick minces no words in explaining why an independent Kosovo is a bad idea—for the West in general and Israel in particular. From JWR:

…The fledgling failed-state of Kosovo is a great boon for the global jihad. It is true that Kosovar Muslims by and large do not subscribe to radical Islam. But it is also true that they have allowed their territory to be used as bases for Al Qaida operations; that members of the ruling KLA have direct links to al Qaida; and that the Islamic world as a whole perceived Kosovo's fight for independence from Serbia as a jihad for Islamic domination of the disputed province.

According to a 2002 Wall Street Journal report, al Qaida began operating actively in Kosovo, and the rest of the Balkans in 1992. Osama bin Laden visited Albania in 1996 and 1997. He received a Bosnian passport from the Bosnian embassy in Austria in 1993. Acting on bin Laden's orders, in 1994 his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri set up training bases throughout the Balkans including a training center in Mitrovica, Kosovo. The Taliban and al Qaida set up drug trafficking operations in Kosovo to finance their operations in Afghanistan and beyond.

In 2006, John Gizzi reported in Human Events that the German intelligence service, BND confirmed that the 2005 bombings in Britain and the 2004 bombings in Spain were organized in Kosovo. Furthermore, "the man at the center of the provision of the explosives in both instances was an Albanian, operating mostly out of Kosovo…who is second ranking leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Niam Behzloulzi."

Then too, at its 1998 meeting in Pakistan, the Organization of the Islamic Conference declared that the Albanian separatists in Kosovo were fighting a jihad. The OIC called on the Muslim world to help "this fight for freedom on the occupied Muslim territories."

Supporters of Kosovo claim that as victims of "genocide," Kosovar Muslims deserve independence. But if the Muslims in Kosovo have been targeted for annihilation by the Serbs, then how is it that they have increased from 48 percent of the population in 1948 to 92 percent today? Indeed, Muslims comprised only 78 percent of the population in 1991, the year before Yugoslavia broke apart.

In recent years particularly, it is Kosovo's Serbian Christians, not its Albanian Muslims that are targeted for ethnic cleansing. Since 1999, two-thirds of Kosovo's Serbs — some 250,000 people — have fled the area.

The emergence of a potentially destabilizing state in Kosovo is clearly an instance of political interests trumping law. Under international law, Kosovo has no right to be considered a sovereign state. Even UN Security Council Resolution 1244 from 1999, which the KLA claims provides the legal basis for Kosovar sovereignty explicitly recognizes Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo.

For Israel, Kosovo's US-backed declaration of independence should be a source of alarm great enough to require a rethinking of foreign policy. Unfortunately, rather than understand and implement the lessons of Kosovo, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government is working actively to ensure that they are reenacted in the international community's treatment of Israel and the Palestinians. Today Israel is enabling the Palestinians to set the political and legal conditions for the establishment of an internationally recognized state of Palestine that will be at war with Israel.

By accepting the Roadmap Plan to a Two-State Solution in 2004, Israel empowered the US, the EU, Russia and the UN, who comprise the international "Quartet" to serve as judges of both Palestinian and Israeli actions towards one another. In November 2007, at the Annapolis conference, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government explicitly empowered the US to "monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitment of both sides of the road map."

That these moves have made Israel dependent on the kindness of strangers was made clear this week when Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni instructed Israel's ambassadors to launch a campaign to convince the international community that Israel and the Palestinians are making great strides in their negotiations towards the establishment of a Palestinian state…

Great: Tzipi, Ehud and the other clueless lefties have managed to turn Israel into Blanche DuBois.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:44 | link | comments

Rejection junkie: Ralph Nader announces his bid--his fifth--to become president of the U.S.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:47 | link | comments

A wake-up call: The Diana West of the West, the Calgary Herald’s Licia Corbella, urges Albertans grow a pair and not allow the clueless human rights types—and the Islamists—to strip them of their most basic right:

…The Alberta Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act is being used to stifle and trample our most fundamental human right. The human rights complaint brought against Ezra Levant, publisher of the now defunct Western Standard magazine, is proof positive of that.

For the past two years Levant has had the almost limitless power of the state grinding away against him, costing him about $100,000 for doing what he should have every right to do: publish news and images in a magazine. In this case, he published the now infamous Danish cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.

The cartoons caused murderous riots around the world -- mostly in countries where the citizens are kept illiterate and ignorant by their oppressive governments and are not free to live and speak as they please.

A Calgary imam and a Muslim group from Edmonton didn't like the cartoons, sought to have Levant first arrested and then, when that didn't work, they sicced the human rights commission on Levant to shut him up.

But Levant, to his credit, isn't the type to shut up or appease those who attack Canadian values, and so the threat to freedom of expression has become almost as big a news story as Britney Spears of late.

So, what can Albertans do to stop the tyranny of the state? Recently, the Calgary Herald editorial board had the honour of spending a couple of hours with one of the founders of human rights commissions, Alan Borovoy, the general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. He pointed out that as he and others toiled to establish Canada's first human rights commission "nobody ever foresaw this instrument being used to muzzle the expression of opinion." He says he worked to establish human rights laws primarily to stop discriminatory actions that denied housing or a job to a person based solely on their sex, race or other characteristic. "We didn't even fathom that this would be used this way and in fact there were then no provisions in human rights statutes comparable to the one that's been used here," he said, referring to Alberta.

The "provision" he's talking about was enacted in 1996 when the Alberta government added the following section to its now inappropriately named human rights act: 3(1) No person shall publish, issue or display or cause to be published, issued or displayed before the public any statement, publication, notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation that . . . (b) is likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt." Borovoy says speech that denies people equality is already well covered by the act and hate speech is covered by the Criminal Code. Borovoy therefore has a solution to restore human rights to Alberta's human rights commission.

"I think the removal of this section is necessary, but it may well not be sufficient," he warned. "I think there's no substitute -- as with so many other things -- for a lot of vigilance at the citizen level." Vigilance at the citizen level? He means you and I doing our bit to stand on guard for the values of this country, not the values of Saudi Arabia or Syria…

Power to the people—but not to the people who sit on, or support, HRCs!

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:05 | link | comments

More ROP hijinks: A suicide bomber has attacked a group of Shia pilgrims in Iraq, killing and wounding multitudes.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:27 | link | comments

Text and subtext: The thing about a Harpoon Siddiqui column is that, to understand what he’s really saying, you have to become adept at reading between his lines. Today, for instance, Harpoon notes that “demographic changes” in Canada’s population are having an impact on our foreign policy. What he’s really saying, though, is that he wants “demographic changes”—i.e. the burgeoning numbers of Muslims both here and abroad—to have an impact on Canada’s foreign policy, since—what’s that old expression again?—oh, yeah, “Might makes right.”

But here, judge for yourself:

…The greater demands of different communities prompt some to say that "ethnics" had better keep "old country" troubles out of Canada. That's not realistic. We see second- and third-generation Canadians taking a keen interest in ancestral nations. And newer diaspora communities are even more connected to where they came from.

Their input into foreign policy is perfectly legitimate, so long as it is done peacefully and within rules. Those who don't, make little or no headway or run afoul of the law.

Some feel that Ottawa listens only to powerful groups with strong lobbies. It should not be so but is. Democracy belongs to those who actively participate in it. However, the Canadian polity is far more amenable to change than others.

Foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy, a reflection of our collective values and, above all, our strategic and economic interests.

How this balance is, or should be, achieved is debated in a new book, The World in Canada: Diaspora, Demography and Domestic Politics (McGill-Queen's University Press), a collection of essays by experts.

Our demographic transformation is more and more of a factor, note co-editors David Bercuson of the University of Calgary and David Carment of Carleton University.

"Canadian foreign policy cannot be considered viable if it contradicts the preferences of ordinary Canadians."

A government may pay a political price for letting a democratic deficit develop on foreign policy. Which is what partially explains the inability of the Harper Tories to make inroads into urban Canada.

Hmmm. To which “powerful groups with strong lobbies” are you referring, Harpoon? Might one of them be the same "lobby" Walt and Mearslimer are so perturbed about?

Reading between the above lines it sounds to me like:

A)    Harpoon wants us all to chill and let those “second-and-third generation Canadians” who take a keen interest in ancestral laws—hello, sharia!—to connect with their roots, so long as they do so "peacefully" (even if said Canadians also have a keen interest in seeing those laws become rooted here in Canada); and

 

B)    Harpoon is warning the Harper government that if it doesn’t get with the international agenda (an agenda which, go figure, has also been heavily influenced by demographics) of defaming Israel and rendering its very existence morally indefensible, Muslims (who live in "urban Canada") won't vote for the Tories, and Harper won't get a majority in the next election.

But, hey, that’s just my take. I’m sure the Star’s receptive readers won’t read it that way at all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:57 | link | comments

The Sound and the Fuhrer: No, it's not a description of the Canadian Jewish Congress's obsession with geriatric Nazis and the non-existent White Power threat (the reason, "reasons" CJC bigwigs, why Jews need human rights commissions to protect them from such hate--even if it comes at the cost of allowing Islamists like Mo Elmasry to dictate what Canadians can and cannot say about matters Islamic). It's a description of a novel about non-existent fascists.

Jonathan Kay weighs in on the CJC's focus--and its dangerous ramifications:

…As far as Canadian Jews are concerned, there is another less obvious cost to putting the community's moral authority behind institutionalized censorship: It cements a collective self-identity based around victimhood. The message is: "We are so vulnerable, so incapable of arguing down the brain-dead lunatics who attack us with words, that we need state censors to act as our shield."

Though criminal prosecutions against anti-Semites are actually quite rare, the few that arise encourage the conceit of a community besieged by murderous hatred. This conceit, though useful in creating a shared sense of community solidarity, has served to distract Canadian Jews from the happy fact that anti-Semitism is completely extinct in our society's respectable mainstream. Canada is probably as close to a post-anti-Semitic society as has ever existed in any nation in Western history --including modern-day Israel. But you wouldn't know it from the lachrymose doom-speak emanating from the acronymed Jewish activist establishment.

That is one of the many reasons why the stakes are so high in the fight to reform human-rights law in this country. The ongoing sniping match between Levant and the Jewish establishment is essentially a proxy battle in a larger struggle for the political soul of the Jewish community. It is a fight between those Jews who support free speech, and those who support censorship; between those focused on the new threat of militant Islam, and those still worried about neo-Nazi kooks; between those who want Jews to take a vocal leadership role in the defining ideological battle of our time, and those who see themselves as passive victims who require protection from a nanny state.

Exactamundo.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:52 | link | comments

Unintended consequences, unpacked: David Warren on the Pandora’s Box that was opened when Bill Clinton persuaded NATO to go to bat for Kosovo:

Readers with exceptionally tenacious memories will recall that this pundit was opposed to the NATO intervention in Kosovo, nine years ago. This may come as a surprise to readers without tenacious memories, since it is widely believed that I never saw a war I didn’t like. Yet believe it or not, I was opposed not only to the wanton bombing of Serbia, but also to the whole “inevitable” project of carving a new European Muslim state out of the flesh of that Orthodox Christian country.

I was not without sympathy for the “plight of the Kosovars,” however. Like virtually all journalists at that time, not of Serbian ethnicity, I fell for a great deal of typically Balkan propagandist rubbish that has since been quietly withdrawn.

My rule of thumb, on wars, is to fight them with your enemies, when absolutely necessary; but never with your friends, and in particular, never in order to create new enemies. True, as we all know from personal experience, sometimes your friends are more irritating than your enemies, and the temptation to bomb them is always there. It is a temptation that must be resisted, however.

This temptation was surely in play with the Serbians, under the late Slobodan Milosevic, who seemed determined to inspire loathing and distrust, when not pointed suspicion that he was doing in Kosovo precisely what his nationalist allies had done in Bosnia: i.e. “ethnic cleansing,” also known as the massacre of innocents. Although not nearly as monstrous as, say, Saddam Hussein, nor anything like Saddam’s threat to the West, Milosevic missed as many opportunities to come clean with his diplomatic interrogators. The Serbs who allowed this vicious old Communist, turned chauvinist demagogue, to remain in power, showed very poor judgement.

But the fact that Kosovo had a significant ethnic majority of Albanian Muslims over Serbian Christians was not, in itself, sufficient argument to detach it from Serbia by main force. For if that is the argument, the state system which provides the only international order the planet currently enjoys will tend to disintegrate.

Strange to say, I am with Vladimir Putin on this one, and against George W. Bush. Mr Putin’s remarks on the inspiration Kosovo’s independence has given to violent separatists in Chechnya, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and elsewhere, are entirely to the point.

Verily, driving the Serbian government and people into the protective embrace of ex-Soviet Russia, and ultimately her ex-KGB strongman, was among several counter-productive dimensions in the war that Madeleine Albright organized, along with other ruinous Clinton interventions in areas of peripheral interest to the U.S. (Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, etc.)

The NATO action in Kosovo brought Mr Putin -- the hammer of the Chechens -- to power, by demonstrating that force and force alone will decide secession struggles, East or West. It restored anti-Americanism to its place in the Russian national security consensus, indirectly bringing an end to the Yeltsin reform era.

It was an incredibly stupid war to wage, and the product was on display in Brussels, yesterday, where the Russian ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogovin, actually threatened the use of force to prevent Kosovo’s declaration of independence from going any farther.

President Bush, who was prompt to recognize the self-declared Kosovar state (together with most European powers), feels obliged to accept the fait accompli he inherited from the preceding administration. He, or his successor, will then try to resist the next stage of demands, for a Greater Albania in which Albania and Kosovo attempt to merge, and insurrections begin in the adjoining Muslim-majority districts of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Greece, as each asserts its “right” to join them. By recognizing Kosovo, Bush et al. have validated exactly that: a deadly new round of Balkan troubles, ripe for Islamicization…

Because, Allah knows, there isn’t nearly enough Islam in the world.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:25 | link | comments

Their keeper’s brother: Cuba’s 31-member council of ministers is meeting today to decide who will succeed dictator-for-life (or, at least, dictator-until-too-infirm-to-function) Fidel Castro—and I’m sure, like me, you’re on the edge of your seat waiting to hear who it'll be. Will it be Fidel’s brother, Raul, who’s been the de facto leader for the past two years, or will it be…Raul, who’s been the de facto leader for the past two years?

Be still my racing heart.

Update: Pass me the smelling salts--Raul's the one! By the looks of it, though, (desiccated, shriveled, Yoda-esque)  Fidel's kid brother may only have a few good years of rule. Aren't there any younger Castros around? (If not, maybe they could import one of the Trudeau boys.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:13 | link | comments

Noonan nails it: Peggy Noonan pinpoints what’s missing in Bambi’s presentation:

Barack Obama's biggest draw is not his eloquence. When you watch an Obama speech, you lean forward and listen and think, That's good. He's compelling, I like the way he speaks. And afterward all the commentators call him "impossibly eloquent" and say "he gave me thrills and chills." But, in fact, when you go on the Internet and get a transcript of the speech and print it out and read it--that is, when you remove Mr. Obama from the words and take them on their own--you see the speech wasn't all that interesting, and was in fact high-class boilerplate. (This was not true of John F. Kennedy's speeches, for instance, which could be read seriously as part of the literature of modern American politics, or Martin Luther King's work, which was powerful absent his voice.)

Mr. Obama is magnetic, interacts with the audience, leads a refrain: "Yes, we can." It's good, and compared with Hillary Clinton and John McCain, neither of whom seems really to enjoy giving speeches, it comes across as better than it is. But is it eloquence? No. Eloquence is deep thought expressed in clear words. With Mr. Obama the deep thought part is missing. What is present are sentiments…

Like I’ve been saying, 100% content free. The packaging is very attractive, though.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:02 | link | comments

Shock! Horror! Outrage!: A few of the things you won't hear the international community expressing, even though Turkey has launched--what's that expression they like so much at the UN?, oh, yeah--a massive "disproportional response," and has pulverized at least 79 Kurds.

Poor Kurds. If only they'd had the good fortune to be pulverized by Zionists, all eyes would be on their tragic plight right now.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:43 | link | comments

In your dreams, Tiny Hitler: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants the U.S. and its allies to "apologize" for imposing sanctions on his glorious (actually, God-awful) theocracy.

Sure thing, T.H. Just as soon as all you and all the other holy rollers get a shave.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:23 | link | comments

Hirsi Ali’s insight: The bravest woman in the world explains “honor killing” to a crowd of people—some receptive, some not so much—in Dallas. From the Dallas News:

…Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a sleek, soft-spoken native of Somalia, does not shy away from accolades and accusations against her. She warmly greeted a crowd of more than 500 people gathered Thursday at the downtown Hyatt Regency Dallas as part of the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth global philanthropy series.

Ms. Hirsi Ali, who travels under constant security because of death threats, calmly laid out her cause against female genital mutilation and honor killings.

She began her speech by pointing to the killings of Sarah and Amina Said, Lewisville sisters whose father, Yaser Said, disappeared after the two were shot and left to die in his parked cab at an Irving hotel in January.

"I want to tell you why their father killed them," Ms. Hirsi Ali said.

Mr. Said's daughters were known to date non-Muslim men and dress in Western clothing, Ms. Hirsi Ali said, and in her estimation, the perceived loss of honor motivated Mr. Said, an Egyptian-born Muslim, to take his children's lives.

Mr. Said is accused by police in connection with his daughters' slayings. Family members have denied that his religion or culture had anything to do with the killings.

Ms. Hirsi Ali described a "cult of virginity" in Islam directed only toward women, wherein men are absolved of their sexual urges and are charged with protecting the honor of the family at all costs. The honor and shame code is an integral part of a culture that values virginity before marriage and fidelity afterward.

"The essence of a woman in this culture is reduced to the value of their hymen," she said. "In countries ruled by Islam, women are treated as slaves or pets."

She quickly pointed out, "I must add that not all Muslim men are perpetrators and not all Muslim women are victims."

Born in Somalia, she and her family moved to Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia, eventually settling in Kenya, where she practiced a strict form of Islam. A victim of genital mutilation, Ms. Hirsi Ali eventually sought asylum in the Netherlands after a forced marriage.

"There is no argument that can be made for tolerating the killing and abuse of women and girls," she said.

Yanina Vashchenko, an interfaith coordinator with Thanks-Giving Square, said Ms. Hirsi Ali's story is compelling. "A childhood like that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy," she said.

But she said that Ms. Hirsi Ali, who is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, had been heavily influenced by her own negative experiences and expressed concern that as a public speaker she would encourage people to take an unfairly negative view of Islam.

"It's very dangerous," she said. "They want somebody of the faith to talk bad about the faith."

Dr. Nia Mackay, a mother of two from Indonesia, said it was difficult to listen to the speech. "It makes me sad that she's blaming one religion instead of emphasizing a problem."

Dr. Mackay, 46, a Muslim and part-time aerobics teacher, was featured in the documentary American Ramadan and is president-elect for the nonprofit organization Peacemakers Inc….

“A Muslim and part-time aerobics teacher”—love it! I guess that means she's Muslim full time. Of course, I just had to google her nonprofit organization, and in so doing I turned up some delicious squish:

Very Bambi Obama-esque, I’d say.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:11 | link | comments

Loony toons: The Palestinians aren’t the only Mideasterners protesting the reprinting of those blasphemous ‘toons. Followers of “firebrand” Mahdi Army chief, Hakuna Muqtada, er, Muqtada al-Sadr, gave it that old jihadi jeer, too. From AP:

…U.S. attacks against Shiite splinter groups fed frustration among some al-Sadr followers, who had advised the cleric not to extend the cease-fire. But in the days leading up to al-Sadr's message, Sheik Jamal al-Sudani, one of his aides, had extolled fighting "by peaceful ways."

Following Friday's services in Sadr City, thousands of worshippers did just that.

They rallied against the republication by Danish newspapers of a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad — one of 12 cartoons that sparked major protests in Muslim countries in 2006. Protesters also took to the streets in the Shiite holy cities of Kufa and Najaf.

Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

The protesters set U.S. and Danish flags on fire, then stomped out the flames once they were consumed.

So “peaceful”— and very un-idolatrous. (Can you imagine the state these folks would get themselves into if they were idolatrous?)

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:47 | link | comments

Mariachi Bambi: Kind of catchy, too.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:34 | link | comments

Fidel’s Afterlife: When I was a kid, my father’s favourite group was The Limeliters. One of their songs I remember most fondly was called “The Ballad of Harry Pollitt”—a mock tribute to an English Communist leader who was quite well known in his time, at least in Britain, but who has long since faded into obscurity. I remember Glen Yarborough, the group’s short, squat tenor who sang with the voice of an angel, introducing the song by explaining that, when it was written, Harry Pollitt wasn’t really dead; he had “retired” because his man, Joe Stalin, had been renounced by short, squat Nikita Krushchev (who didn’t sing like an angel, but who could pound a shoe on a desk like nobody's business).The guy who wrote the song imagined Harry shuffling off—first to Heaven and then to a more “tropical” clime—and composed a cheeky musical eulogy to speed him on his posthumous journey. You can read it here.

The reason I bring it up is because the Maclean’s cover story this week is about another Communist, one who has just announced his retirement—Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. I had to smile when I read the words on the cover—HASTA LA VISTA, BABY—because only the other day I had used the same expression in a brief poem bidding the despot adieu. Inspired by both my triplet and the old Limeliters song (and also by  this “nostalgic” photo of a short, squat Russian Bolshevik and a tall, dark and handsome Cuban one—a stark reminder of how long Fidel has been around), I wove together a limerick and sent it to Maclean’s:

A canny old Commie, Fidel

Scammed his people exceedingly well.

The appropriate prize,

The one I’d advise:

Commissar of Soviet Hell.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:10 | link | comments

Still toothless, still feckless, still useless: Even though Iran has been less than forthcoming (in diplomatic lingo, failed to be completely “transparent”) about its nuclear program, the mullahs’ lapdog, er, UN nuclear watchdog has given the bearded ones an “E” for “effort”. From the Ceeb:

Iran has increased the transparency in its nuclear enrichment program, but has not shown enough evidence to demonstrate its goals are peaceful, the UN nuclear watchdog said Friday. 

The findings of the report, presented Friday by International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Mohamed ElBaradei to the agency's board of governors in Vienna, could bolster calls in the UN Security Council for a fresh set of sanctions against Iran.

The report outlined the state of ElBaradei's investigation into Iran's nuclear past, including experiments, materials and documents that could be linked to a weapons program.

In a statement accompanying the report, ElBaradei said there has been "quite good progress" on other issues, such as Iran's long-delayed decision to grant monitors access to its nuclear component development sites.

Iran has increased the transparency in its nuclear enrichment program, but has not shown enough evidence to demonstrate its goals are peaceful, the UN nuclear watchdog said Friday. 

The findings of the report, presented Friday by International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Mohamed ElBaradei to the agency's board of governors in Vienna, could bolster calls in the UN Security Council for a fresh set of sanctions against Iran.

The report outlined the state of ElBaradei's investigation into Iran's nuclear past, including experiments, materials and documents that could be linked to a weapons program.

But the report also said Tehran has shown no movement forward on key topics, including alleged experiments and research that the United States and other Western powers have said show the regime was trying to develop nuclear weapons.

"Iran in the last few months has provided us with visits to many places that enable us to have a clearer picture of Iran's current program," ElBaradei said. "However, that is not, in my view, sufficient."

Report backs up Iran's claims, official says

According to the Reuters news agency, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, said the IAEA report proved what Iran has insisted all along — that its nuclear research is for peaceful purposes.

"This report is another document which proves the Iranian nation was right about the nature of its nuclear activities," Reuters quoted him as saying.

Last fall, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared the nuclear issue was "closed" and vowed to defy any UN sanctions.

The report comes a day after Britain and France formally introduced a Security Council resolution calling for a third round of sanctions against Iran for its failure to suspend uranium enrichment.

Under the proposed new sanctions, all countries would have to ban the entry or transit of individuals involved in Iran's nuclear program — a step up from a previous call for vigilance over their travel.

For the first time, trade in equipment and technology that can be used in both civilian and nuclear programs would also be banned.

But since Russia and China would veto any such resolution, the whole question is moot. Iran has clearly been running rings around the lapdogs—and taken them for a ride—in an effort to tire them out. If Israel wants to keep Tiny Hitler and the Shia boychicks from nuking it to Kingdome Come, looks like it’s going to have to take matters into its own hands.

Was it only—what, two, three years ago?—that I acknowledged the mullahs’ plans for the Jews in a song parody of “Winter Wonderland”?

In  Iran if you’re lookin’

Yellowcake is still cookin’.

They’re makin’ some nukes

Despite our rebukes

Buildin’ an Islamist arsenal.

 

They’ll say,“Hey, glad to see ya”

As they practise taqiyah.

And tell Mo ElBee

There’s nuthin’ to see

Buildin’ an Islamist arsenal.

 

Underground is where they’ll hide the bombs now,

Then pretend it isn’t what we think.

They will tell us lies with such aplomb now.

If we buy them we all need to see a shrink.

Later on they’ll conspire.

Say they plan to retire.

They’ll sing us a song

And string us along

Buildin’ an Islamist arsenal...

Some song just never get old.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:08 | link | comments

You know things have reached a new--and likely never to be surpassed--level of surrealism/absurdity when...: You tune in to CBC radio and hear Harpoon Siddiqui interviewing Canadian Jewish Congress CEO Bernie Farber about CJC efforts to protect Canadian Jews by flagging the occasional Nazi who happens to pop up, and complaining about him to one or more of those helpful HRCs.

Methinks my noggin it did explodeth.

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

Two peas, one pod: How curious. “Secular,” “moderate” Fatah is behind an incendiary protest over the republication in Denmark of some blasphemous Mo ‘toons. From Middle East Online:

RAFAH, Gaza Strip - Around 200 Palestinians demonstrated in the Gaza Strip on Friday against Danish newspapers that reprinted a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed deemed offensive by Muslims.

They gathered in the southern town of Rafah on the Egyptian border in response to a call from the so-called mini-parliament, an organ of the Fatah party of moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Children burned Danish, American and Israeli flags and a banner read "to hell with Denmark. We will accept nothing less than an apology and a trial."

Last week, a number of Danish newspapers published the cartoon, vowing to defend freedom of expression a day after Danish police foiled a plot to murder the cartoonist.

The caricature, featuring the prophet's head with a turban that looked like a bomb with a lit fuse, was one of 12 cartoons published in September 2005 by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper that sparked bloody riots in the Islamic world...

But wait—there’s method to Fatah’s madness. It turns out it’s trying to play a game of catch-up with fanatical, radical Hamas (which has been there, done that):

Hamas, the Islamist group that ousted Fatah from power in Gaza in June, held a demonstration of its own last week.

Speaking to the crowd in the northern town of Jabaliya, Hamas MP Yussef Sharafi called on the Danish government to "apologise to Muslims for the offence to the prophet."

Hamas condemned the newspapers and called for those responsible to be put on trial, saying publication of the cartoon was an "offence to the feelings of tens of millions of Muslims.

"We call for the trial of those responsible for publishing these drawings in the Danish newspapers," Hamas said, demanding that "official apologies be made" to Muslims.

Danish police arrested a Dane of Moroccan origin and two Tunisians suspected of plotting to kill the creator of the turban cartoon, Kurt Westergaard.

You don’t suppose this means there’s actually not a whole lot of difference between the “moderates” and the extremists, do you?

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:41 | link | comments

Better duck: The Globe and Mail’s Marcus Gee explains why we shouldn’t be so quick to applaud Kosovo’s independence:

…The United Nations resolution that came out of the Kosovo war explicitly recognized the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia (in today's terms, Serbia, Yugoslavia's recognized successor state). That clearly meant that the UN was not endorsing the secession of Kosovo. Yet, the U.S., Britain, Italy and France have all recognized the breakaway Kosovo state. No wonder the Serbs feel angry and betrayed. They are losing a large part of their already diminished country. They are seeing many of their ethnic kin in Kosovo, the 120,000 remaining Serbs, marooned in a hostile Albanian sea.

Western governments argue (with considerable logic) that the horse has bolted the barn. The Kosovo Albanians are never going to agree to live under Serbian rule again, and every attempt at reaching some Serbian-Albanian compromise, such as autonomy for Kosovo within Serbia, has failed utterly. They say (again with logic) that, after nearly a decade in limbo, Kosovo has to be left to get on with its life as a free nation. As U.S. President George Bush put it, "The Kosovars are now independent."

But have they really thought through what this means? Other ethnic secession movements certainly have. "I salute the independence of Kosovo. No people can be forced to live under the rule of another," said Mehmet Ali Talat, leader of the Turkish Cypriots. The Basque regional government in northern Spain hailed Kosovo's independence as "a new example of the right of self-determination." Leaders of breakaway movements from the Transdniester region of Moldova to South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia chimed in, too. Even the Bosnian Serbs, who were the centre of the worst of the Balkan bloodshed in the 1990s, claim that Kosovo's secession justifies their own bid to be free of Bosnia-Herzegovina - the patched together federation that the West has tried for years to keep from coming apart.

Western governments can't just dismiss these as the wild claims of woolly foreigners. Many have secession movements close to home. Britain has Scotland, which has been part of the United Kingdom for a mere 300 years, considerably less than Serbia's claim to Kosovo. Spain has the Basques and the Catalans. That is why Madrid has refused to jump on the bandwagon and recognize Kosovo. It argues, quite rightly, that Kosovo's independence has neither the consent of both parties involved nor the assent of the Security Council (which is deadlocked on the issue).

Let's not even speak of Quebec. Canadian warplanes took part in the campaign against Serbia in 1999, a campaign that has resulted in the secession of a province on the basis of its people's demand to be maîtres chez nous. Is this what was intended when the West cheered victory in Kosovo?

Once again, the West is poleaxed by the boomerang of “unintended consequences”. Come to the aid of ethnic Albanians, and end up being midwife to a new Muslim nation and (maybe) heightening global tensions because other separatists will be inspired to break away. Secretly supply Afghan mujahedeen with weaponry to defeat the evil Soviet empire, and end up with holy warriors who feel so empowered—and so invincible—that they come gunning for you. Send your troops to fight—and die—for a “democracy” whose new constitution is grounded in sharia and end up….

 

I can’t bear to finish that sentence.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:21 | link | comments

Get ‘em while they’re young: It’s not enough to fill their minds with toxic sludge once they get to university. If you want them to pick up the torch and get on with the "virtuous" task of dismantling Israel, you’ve got to indoctrinate them when they’re even younger. From the Jewish Tribune:

TORONTO – A trustee at the Toronto District School Board said she is now launching a complete investigation into anti-Israel programs in public high schools, as a result of information obtained by the Jewish Tribune.

It appears that a new and serious development in the campaign to vilify Israel is infiltrating public high schools in Ontario through the use of virulent anti-Israel propaganda – labelling Israel as an apartheid state and challenging its legitimacy.

For several months, a group called High Schools Against Israeli Apartheid (HAIA) has been holding meetings in the University of Toronto’s OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) building. In fact, the details of a meeting to be held in December were placed on the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid web site.

When this reporter arrived, the gentleman at the information desk claimed no knowledge of any such event. However, a number of people showed up in the lobby, but only a few were quietly led to one of the many meeting rooms on another floor.

A group of young women in their late teens or 20s, when approached as to whether they know anything about a HAIA meeting, sarcastically responded that they were making wedding plans and didn’t appreciate the interruption.

“I’m getting married and I’m going to have lots of Palestinian children,” one of them declared.

Another HAIA meeting at the same location, on a Saturday, was publicized as part of Israeli Apartheid Week in February, but that meeting was advertised as open to high school students only.

It’s the secrecy surrounding these meetings that calls for concern.

Some questions need to be asked: Are there really high schools against Israeli apartheid? Are there educators at public secondary schools in Ontario who teach with a political agenda?

Last week the Jewish Tribune learned that one Jewish student felt compelled to leave the public school he had been attending because of the intense anti-Israel atmosphere that made him “feel like an alien,” his mother said.

Rachel Adelman, a post-doctoral fellow in Jewish Studies at U of T, said that last fall her son Eitan, a Grade 12 student, told her about an initiative launched by one of the students at the Student School – a small, alternative public school in downtown Toronto – to advocate for a boycott against Israel.

Eitan grew up in Israel – this is the first year he has lived outside the Jewish state – and he was shocked that Israel was being portrayed as an apartheid state. It was shortly after the showing of the anti-Israel film Occupation 101 at school, along with the proliferation of posters about Israel being an apartheid state adorning the walls, that Eitan enrolled at CHAT, his mother confirmed.

Otherwise, “it was such a nice, warm school,” Adelman said. “It’s such a shame. So many people are so naïve. They don’t have a clue about Israel.

They’re just getting on the bandwagon.”

Irene Atkinson, a Toronto District School Board trustee, was shocked by the allegations made by Adelman and found them hard to believe...

She was shocked—shocked!—to hear that the Big Lie has infiltrated the schools? I’m shocked—shocked!—by her astounding naivete.

And speaking of getting them while they’re young, nobody does it better than the Palestinians. Who else (save for perhaps the mullahs) would even think of producing a Sesame Street for widdle psychopaths?  Down the road, maybe the Apartheid types could get Farfour or Nahoul to drop by a few public schools and regale the kiddies with horrific tales of colonialist racist Zionists stealing their land and murdering them in cold blood.

After all, when it comes to Zionist crimes, Farfour, Nahoul and the CAIA are reading from the same playbook.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:07 | link | comments (1)

Addicted to O: Oh, my. Normally tough-as-nails Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Went has come down with a bad case of gush. The woman who some readers describe as a “Devil’s advocate” (the “Devil,” apparently, being Stephen Harper and anyone connected to the GOP) is head-over-heels for that clean favoured, imperially slim young dude, Barack Obama. It is not a pretty sight:

Sometimes, I watch Fox News so I can find out what those people on the Dark Side are saying. Funnily enough, a lot of Dark Siders (i.e., Republicans) are big fans of Barack Obama. They know he's a natural, one of the best politicians in a generation. On Tuesday night, I watched them watching him as he routed Hillary Clinton yet again. Karl Rove was shaking his head in awe. That's when it dawned on me: This man is going to be president.

Before you accuse me of mindlessly succumbing to Obamamania, it's only partly true. I don't think he walks on water, or will lead America to the promised land. He doesn't offer any policies that are particularly interesting or that will tackle the country's fundamental problems. I have no idea how he'd handle nukes in Iran, or the next big terrible thing. But he connects with people in a way we haven't seen since Ronald Reagan. Or Pierre Trudeau, in 1968. Or JFK. He's someone who can make people feel good about their country again.

Just to be clear, Hillary is toast. She can't recover. Wisconsin was supposed to be her kind of state, but the Illinois senator beat her by a whopping 58 per cent to 41 per cent. He beat her among the lunch-bucket set and he ran almost even among women. She needs overwhelming victories in Ohio and Texas to stay alive, and she won't get them. The only question is whether she'll go down ugly, or with grace.

Can Barack Obama beat John McCain? How can he not? The Arizona senator's natural constituency is aging white male Republicans, a shrinking demographic group that's out of touch with an increasingly multiracial America. John McCain is a maverick only when compared with other aging Republicans. They're the people, you may recall, who reminded David Letterman of "guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club."

Barack Obama's natural constituency is everybody who's not in the country club. It includes the 40 per cent of Americans who are Latino, black, Asian or otherwise visible. It includes a majority of women voters, and most people under 40. This isn't just an age divide, it's a cultural one. His campaign includes a Facebook strategy. I'd be amazed if John McCain has even heard of Facebook. After all, he's almost as old as Fidel Castro.

The Obama constituency also includes millions of middle-aged whites - even Republicans - who may disagree with his policies but find his candidacy compelling. All these people vow to turn out in record numbers on voting day. Meantime, the Republicans, with their two-term legacy of failure, are in a rotten mood.

The race factor is a huge advantage. Barack Obama's race makes him a visible symbol of change; it also makes him almost unassailable. As Republican commentator Peggy Noonan wrote, "The biggest problem for the Republicans will be that no matter what they say that is not issue oriented - 'He's too young, he's never run anything, he's not fully baked' - the mainstream media will tag them as dealing in racial overtones, or undertones." In other words, Obama is not Bambi (as Maureen Dowd would have it). He's bulletproof.

Americans are desperate for change. And they're desperate for a president they can be proud of. That's why they don't care about Barack Obama's policies...

Au contraire, Peggy. They don’t care about Obama’s policies because, as T.S. Eliot observed, human kind cannot bear very much reality. And who wants to deal with the unpleasant reality of radical Islam and civilizational peril when you can “feel good” by soaking in a nice warm tub of Obama bubbles?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:50 | link | comments (3)

On tonight’s episode of Cuddly, Non-Threatening Muslims and their Wee, Adorable Mosque: “Rayan and J.J. have decided to start dating. Now, in accordance with Muslim tradition all they need is a chaperone…”

In accordance with Muslim tradition, she might also want to scrape together a dowry and practise being submissive.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:58 | link | comments (2)

Jonesing for Bambi: With apologies to the late, great Robert Palmer:

The lights aren’t on and no one’s home.

Your will is not your own.

Your palms sweat, the room spins.

You can’t wait till he wins.

 

You feel faint, you start to sway.

You’re so convinced he’s JFK.

Your throat is tight, you gasp for air.

He’s just so cute, so debonair.

 

Whoa, you are so thrilled to go along for the ride, oh yeah.

So, please, take a pill and chill, and breathe in real slow

Because you’re gonna have to face it you’re addicted to O.

 

You’re all for “hope.” You want some “change”.

America all rearranged.

Don’t want no war. Let’s just make nice

And take George Soros’s advice (such crap advice).

 

You can’t be spared; you can’t be saved.

Oblivion is what you crave.

The mania has taken hold

And now all else will leave you cold.

 

Whoa, you like to think that you have still got a grip, oh, yeah.

But if you think that Bambi has a clue where you go

You know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to O.

 

Bama lama ding dong, you’re addicted to O-

Bama lama ding dong, you’re addicted to O-

Bama lama ding dong, you’re addicted to O-

Bama lama ding dong, you’re addicted to O.

 

There's also an Islamist version of the song: Addicted to Mo.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:26 | link | comments

Compliant felines: The mullahs have Mo ElBee and his nuclear watchkittens eating out of the palm of their hands—and aren’t shy about letting us know it. From mullah mouthpiece, the Tehran Times:

TEHRAN -– International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei will likely submit his report on Iran’s nuclear program to the Board of Governors on Feb. 25, an IAEA official who requested anonymity told the Mehr News Agency on Tuesday.

The Board of Governors is scheduled to discuss the report on March 3-7.

Iran has developed full cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog to address the ambiguities surrounding Plutonium, P-1 and P-2 centrifuge machines, the source of uranium contamination found at Tehran University, metal uranium, and Gachin mine, in line with a modality plan reached by the two sides in August 2007.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has submitted two official letters to Iran’s representative at the IAEA, confirming that the issues of the P-1 and P-2 centrifuges, and the metal uranium have been resolved and the nuclear diplomats are continuing talks on the remaining issues.

A report issued by UN nuclear watchdog on November 8 confirmed the transparency of Iran’s nuclear program, saying it found Tehran to be generally truthful about the key aspects of its nuclear history.

I’m glad they got those plutonium ambiguities sorted out. I was kinda worried about them.

In other mullocracy news, Khamenei's sock puppet, the truncated Hitler, has once again compared the Jews to "a filthy bacteria". Nothing a little plutonium wouldn't cure, no doubt.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:07 | link | comments

Sharia on the move: The thing about Islamic law is that it’s an all (i.e. an Allah) or nothing proposition. Believers believe there's no division between mosque and state, and thus you cannot select one portion of the sharia menu—say, laws pertaining to the marriage and divorce--and discard the rest. You are expected, nay, commanded to swallow the whole enchilada. That seems not to have penetrated to Adam Liptik, a New York Times scribe who opines that, while there are certain factors to consider before deciding to legally enshrine sharia tribunals here in the West, on the whole, they may not be such a bad idea.

A PRETTY good way to generate an outcry, as the archbishop of Canterbury learned in Britain recently, is to say that a Western legal system should make room for Shariah, or Islamic law. When the archbishop, spiritual leader of the world’s 80 million Anglicans, commented in a radio interview that such an accommodation was “unavoidable,” critics conjured images of stonings and maimings, overwhelming his more modest point. Skip to next paragraph

The archbishop, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, did not propose importing Shariah into the criminal law and was referring mostly to divorces in which both sides have agreed to abide by the judgment of a religious tribunal. His proposal was groundbreaking only in extending to Islamic tribunals in Britain a role that Jewish and Christian ones have long played in the judicial systems of secular societies. Courts in the United States have endorsed all three kinds of tribunals.

In 2003, for instance, a Texas appeals court referred a divorce case to a local tribunal called the Texas Islamic Court. In 2005, the federal appeals court in New Orleans affirmed an award in an employment arbitration by the Institute for Christian Conciliation, which uses Biblical teachings to settle disputes. And state courts routinely enforce the decisions made by a Jewish court, known as a bet din, in commercial and family law cases.

The outcry in Britain was apparently something of a visceral reaction to aspects of Islamic law, though the archbishop himself condemned what he called the inhumanity of “extreme punishments” and some Islamic countries’ “attitudes toward women.”

The larger question, legal experts in the United States said, is whether government courts should ever defer to religious ones. The answer may depend on whether the people involved authentically consented to religious adjudication, whether they are allowed to change their minds and whether the decisions of those tribunals are offensive to fundamental conceptions of justice.

All of that, said John Witte Jr., a law professor at Emory University, “is the big frontier question for religious liberty.”

The archbishop speaks in sonorous circumlocutions and he was not a model of clarity when he was interviewed by BBC radio on Feb. 7. Even his followers had a hard time untangling just what he meant.

“I’m an Episcopalian,” said Janice A. Schattman, the lawyer in the Texas case who persuaded the appeals court to defer to the Islamic one. “Rowan Williams, bless his heart, can be quite obscure.”

But the archbishop’s central point seemed to be that people should be able to agree to have family law cases resolved by religious courts if all concerned agree. By Monday the archbishop was backtracking, saying he had spoken clumsily with “a misleading choice of words.”

Azizah Y. al-Hibri, the president of Karamah, an international lawyers’ group based in Washington and made up of Muslim women, said she applauded the archbishop’s initial position.

“Muslims, Christians and Jews should all deal with their own family law issues in their own arbitration councils,” she said. “The government should stay out of the bedroom.”

That notion has met resistance where Islam is involved. After the authorities in Ontario raised the possibility that arbitrators might use Shariah to settle family disputes, formal recognition of all religious arbitrations there, including existing Catholic and Jewish ones, was withdrawn.

“There will be one law for all Ontarians,” Dalton McGuinty, the province’s premier, said in 2005.

Almost no one suggests that criminal law should take into account the defendant’s religion in meting out punishment. At the other extreme, few people object to allowing purely commercial disputes between sophisticated businesspeople to be adjudicated through private arbitrations. The hard questions, as the archbishop learned, arise in the area of family law, where the agreement to arbitrate may be uninformed or obtained by duress. State courts have occasionally refused to enforce separation agreements reached through bet din arbitrations on the ground that the woman involved had been pressured into participating.

Once consent is given, moreover, questions arise about whether and when it may be withdrawn. “People have a right in Western systems to change religions,” said Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Michigan. “Can they opt out after the dispute arises or after the judgment is given?”

Most fundamentally, some judgments from religious tribunals may be at odds with constitutional protections, human rights and basic notions of fairness…

Gee, ya think?  He couldn’t be more wrong (wronger?), though, about sharia devotees being satisfied with an itty bit of the law. Give ‘em a beachhead and they’re going to want to take over the whole blooming beach.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:46 | link | comments (1)

Hell, no, he won't go: Even though he was handed a resounding defeat by Pakistan voters, President Musharraf is refusing to step down and hand over power to a new government.

Anyone else not surprised by this turn of events?

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:16 | link | comments

Pass the caterpillars: The UN is finally doing something useful. It is trying to persuade people to consume a cheap and widely available (if singularly unappealing) source of protein. From the Globe and Mail:

'Today, monsieur, might I recommend the grubs au gratin to start followed by the crickets en croûte and perhaps the locusts with crème fraîche for dessert?"

Ah yes, but what wine to have with such a meal? How about lots.

Okay, insect eateries might not be coming to Canada any time soon, but insects are on the menu this week at a United Nations meeting in Thailand, where experts are considering the dietary value of bugs and ways to farm the creatures that are delicacies in some countries.

More than 1,400 insect species are eaten by humans worldwide, so they offer promising possibilities both commercially and nutritionally, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN said yesterday.

Among the most popular insect munchies are beetles, ants, bees, crickets and moths, the FAO said, noting that they can be nutritious, sometimes offering as much protein as meat and fish.

The FAO organized the three-day meeting in Thailand's northern city of Chiang Mai to examine how nutritious insects are, and to discuss ways of cultivating the ones most widely eaten.

While eating insects may seem unusual or even unappetizing to some, human consumption of insects is common all over the world. At least 527 different insects are eaten across 36 countries in Africa, while they are also eaten in 29 countries in Asia and in 23 in the Americas.

In some areas, insects are only occasionally eaten as "emergency food" to stave off starvation, but in many regions, they are a regular part of the diet.

In Thailand, nearly 200 different insect species are consumed, many of which are highly sought after as snacks and treats. Vendors selling insects are a common sight throughout the country.

Cultivation of insects could provide new sources of income for rural populations around the world, Patrick Durst, senior FAO forestry officer, said in a statement.

"Opportunities also exist for improved packaging and marketing to make edible insects more enticing to traditional buyers and to expand the market to new consumers, especially in urban areas," Mr. Durst said.

As for Canada, if you'd like to munch on an insect treat, one place you can head for is the gift shop at the Montreal Insectarium. "We have mealworms in candy lollipops," communications director Karine Jalbert said yesterday, "and you see the mealworm in the middle." Mealworms are the larval form of the mealworm beetle.

"We also we have them in boxes in different flavours such as barbecue and cheese."…

What, no ketchup bugs? 

Update: Next on the menu: rat dumplings?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:47 | link | comments (2)

Wahhabiwood: Saudi Arabia, being a puritanical Wahhabi kingdom where fun is strictly verboten (unless you’re a holy oily royal, in which case, party on), has neither a film industry nor any movie theatres. But, hey, why should that stop it from hosting a film festival? From the Ceeb:

Saudi Arabia, which has no cinemas, will be holding its first government-approved film festival in May, according to a local newspaper.

The five-day festival, starting May 20, will screen Arabic films from the region and is being co-sponsored by the Saudi Society of Arts and Culture and a literary club in the eastern city of Dammam.

The country banned the screening of movies in the early 1980s because the conservative clergy viewed it as a waste of time. There are no details on where the movies will be shown.

The Dammam literary club, though, has been hosting Sunday film screenings.

Last October, two Saudi hotels in Riyadh and Jeddah screened several American animated and family movies in celebration of the holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Hardline Saudi clerics criticized the showings in online forums, blaming the  Ministry of Culture and Information for failing to stop the screenings…

Hope festival organizers remembered to invite the chuckleheads from the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Those guys always add lots of colour (white; sometimes black) to the red carpet.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:22 | link | comments (2)

Sneaky Jews: Back in 2005, British authorities—spurred on by Arabs—almost manage to arrest an Israeli general for “war crimes,” but the wily Jew got away. The times online recounts how General Doron Almog, in London at the time for a Jewish fundraiser, was able to evade those who sought to bring him to “justice”:

An Israeli general wanted for alleged war crimes escaped arrest in the UK because police officers feared an armed confrontation with the airline’s armed air marshals.

Documents detailing why the Metropolitan Police failed to act in their own jurisdiction, despite being in possession of a warrant, have emerged today.

They show that the police were unable to obtain advice as to their right to proceed and feared risks to the public if its officers boarded the plane as well as “the international impact of a potentially armed police operation at an airport”.

Major General Doron Almog had flown to the UK in September 2005 for social and charitable visits to Jewish communities in Solihull, in the West Midlands, and Manchester. The Metropolitan Police, acting to execute a warrant for his arrest issued a day earlier at Bow Street court, had arrived to meet him at the airport, hoping to detain the general at immigration control.

Major General Almog would later tell Israel Army Radio how he came to be tipped off about the impending arrest. “We were about to get off the plane, and then one of the stewards came up to me and said the pilot had asked me to disembark last.'' He waited, then he was told the Israeli military attaché was on his way. "I phoned him and he told me not to get off the plane.''

El Al, Israel’s national airline, refused permission for officers to board and the stand-off continued. For two hours the Metropolitan Police held back from boarding the plane, which then flew straight back to Israel, with Mr Almog and his wife on board. Their failure to arrest the general prompted anger from the lawyers who had obtained the warrant, acting on behalf of Palestinian campaigners, and calls for an investigation. A decisions log prepared for the Independent Police Complaints Commission and seen by the BBC now answers some of the questions that arose over the incident.

Palestinian campaigners had lobbied for the Metropolitan Police to act over allegations that the general had ordered the destruction of over 50 Palestinian homes in the Gaza strip, in retribution for a Palestinian militant attack. Lawyers argued that this contravened the laws of war protecting civilian property.

The Met refused to get involved, citing massive pressures on its counter-terrorism teams in the wake of the July 7 bombings, but the legal team successfully applied to a judge to obtain a warrant for a private prosecution…

Sure, arrest the Jew for the “war crime” of bulldozing some property, but say nothing about the unadulterated chutzpah of those who defend the “militants” who blow up—i.e. murder, eviscerate, vaporize—actual human beings.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:20 | link | comments (2)

One Mo' rhyme: The list of suspects in the plot to kill Dodi and Di now includes Eeyore; Piglet; all the Seven Dwarfs, except for Sneezy; all the Spice Girls, except for Sporty; Rush Limbaugh; Nigella Lawson; and the late Luciano Pavarotti.

Just kidding, of course--although with mad Mo you never know. I'd say such lunacy merits a limerick, wouldn't you?:

A rich nutter named Mo Al-Fayed

Exclaimed, “It is just as I said:

Tony Blair and Prince Phil

Connived for to kill,

And now I say, ‘off with their 'ead!’”

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:19 | link | comments

Wahhabi humour: Who says there’s no comedy in the Arab world? Witness the outrageous tomfoolery of one Abdulaziz H. Al-Sowayegh, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Canada. In response to a piece by the Israeli ambassador about the Big Lie of “Israeli Apartheid,” Abdulaziz, or one of his minions, penned the following letter to the National Post:

While I acknowledge the Israeli ambassador's right to defend his country with respect to the "Israeli Apartheid Week" recently hosted by several Canadian universities, I don't think that he has the right to somehow implicate and attack the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in his article. The fact that his country is considered an apartheid regime has absolutely nothing to do with Saudi Arabia.

When I arrived in Canada I quickly realized that this country has a deep-rooted history of high principles and values and that everyone is equal before the law in terms of their rights and obligations. In this same spirit, I tried to avoid getting involved in confrontations with any of my colleagues, knowing that there is no such thing as absolute truth.

Thus, I was very keen not to get involved in any frictions with the Israeli ambassador, as I am convinced that the reality on the ground is sufficient enough to condemn Israel's conscience without any further contribution form my part.

For this reason, I leave it up to readers to learn about the reality on the ground in Israel by referring, for instance, to the American peace activist Rachel Corrie on the internet or Palestine: Peace not Apartheid by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter.

Rachel Corrie? Jimmy Carter? Stop it, Mr. Ambassador, you’re killing me. Jimminy “Cricket” Carter is an old anti-Semite, in the pay of the Wahabbis, whose animus to the Jewish state, like yours, is rooted in religious belief. Rachel Corrie was a clueless useful idiot who died defending the “right” of Arab supremacists to murder Jewish men, women and children by using terrorism. That you hold out these two cracked plaster saints, these pathetic Jew-haters, as exemplars of “the reality on the ground” shows how unmoored from reality comedians like you really are.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:26 | link | comments (1)

Old Communists never die, they just announce their retirement: After almost five decades of absolute rule, that old reprobate--and good friend of the Trudeau mishpacha--Fidel Castro, is stepping down. In honour of this momentous occasion, the retirement of an anachronism (Fidel's a relic of a Cold War that wrapped up some time ago), I have penned a brief poem:

Hasta la vista to you, Fidel.

You scammed your people very well.

Enjoy your retirement. Then go to Hell.

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

Simply irresistible: He’s so handsome. And slim. And young. And passionate. (Did you know that he’s black?) He cares about all the little people—the poor, the marginalized, the ignored. When he speaks, women swoon, young people get pumped, and strong men are reduced to mush. He’s for motherhood. And hope and change. And audacity. And “can’t we all just get along?”

Then why, oh why, does Barack Obama leave me strangely unmoved?

I think Naomi Ragan explains it pretty well. From Israpundit:

…But there are a number of other things circulating that haven’t yet been “debunked” and these are far more worrying because they are true. Like the fact that Mr. Obama’s church gave an award to the notorious Anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan. As Richard Cohen wrote in the Washington Post on January 15:” Barack Obama is a member of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. Its minister, and Obama’s spiritual adviser, is the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. In 1982, the church launched Trumpet Newsmagazine; Wright’s daughters serve as publisher and executive editor. Every year, the magazine makes awards in various categories. Last year, it gave the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award to a man it said “truly epitomized greatness.” That man was Louis Farrakhan.”

Huh?! Say what? You mean the Farrakhan who said: “The real anti-Semites are those who came out of Europe and settled in Palestine, and now they call themselves the true Jews, when in act, they converted to Judaism,” as Farrakhan told Al Jazeera on March 18, 2007. The Farrakhan who said in a Swing magazine interview: “Until Jews apologize for their hand in that ugly slave trade; and until the Jewish rabbis and the Talmudic scholars that made up the Hamitic myth — that we were the children of Ham, doomed and cursed to be hewers of wood and drawers of water — apologize, then I have nothing to apologize for.” Or as he said in the Mosque Maryam, Chicago, 3/19/95: “German Jews financed Hitler right here in America …International bankers financed Hitler and poor Jews died while big Jews were at the root of what you call the Holocaust…Little Jews died while big Jews made money. Little Jews [were] being turned into soap while big Jews washed themselves with it. Jews [were] playing violin, Jews [were] playing music, while other Jews [were] marching into the gas chambers…”

I suggest you google Farrakhan ADL or Nation of Islam and see some of the other things Mr. Farrakhan has said.

And yet, the man who would be president has a spiritual leader who has applauded Farrakhan’s: “depth of analysis when it comes to the racial ills of this nation.” He praised “his integrity and honesty.” He called him “an unforgettable force, a catalyst for change and a religious leader who is sincere about his faith and his purpose.” As Mr. Cohen wrote in the Washington Post: “These are the words of a man who prayed with Obama just before the Illinois senator announced his run for the presidency. Will he pray with him just before his inaugural?”

Now, Mr. Obama is no dummy. Following the Cohen outing of this information in the Washington Post,Obama’s aides issued the following statement on his behalf: “I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan. I assume that Trumpet Magazine made its own decision to honor Farrakhan based on his efforts to rehabilitate ex-offenders, but it is not a decision with which I agree.”

Yes, Mr. Obama distanced himself. Even Mr. Farrakhan understands why. As Farrakhen said recently on ABC’s Nightline: “I like him very much. …He has a fresh approach…If avoiding me would help him to become president, I’d be glad to stay in the background.”

Jews like Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation Committee are forgiving. “”When someone close to a political figure shows sympathy and support for an individual who makes his name espousing bigotry, that political figure needs to distance himself from that decision. Senator Obama has done just that.”

Well bully for Mr. Foxman! Having been in a suicide bombing attack which killed people- many of them Survivors and their children and grandchildren- at a Passover Seder in 2002, I’m a little less warm-hearted and forgiving. If I had a Rabbi, for example, who publicly supported and honored a despicable racist, I’d change shuls. Mr. Obama’s distancing himself, even during a political campaign, has not included either changing churches or spiritual leaders. In light of this, the fact that Mr. Obama’s father and step-father were both Muslim, and that he spent part of his childhood in a Muslim school in Indonesia perhaps should begin to concern us. Yes,indeed, depite the fact that CNN (which we all know has tremendous credibility) has taken great pains to put our minds at rest by visiting this school, assuring us that it is not a madrassa that educates suicide bombers.

But honestly, all this wouldn’t be enough for me to dismiss the very articulate and charismatic Mr. Obama if he wasn’t consistently exhibiting worrisome, non-debunkable evidence that he is neither a friend either of Israel, or the Jewish people. And please spare me the letter from the token Jew who “met him and spoke to him and is completely convinced he is a friend of Israel blah, blah.

Actions speak louder than words...

To which I would only add that I want the president of the U.S. to be someone who “gets it”—about the global jihad, about what needs to be done to stop the totalitarian supremacists and prevent Western civilization from sinking without a trace (the supremacists, as we know, being awfully fond of obliterating all evidence of the "jahilya" that preceded their ascendence). 

I want John Bolton; Obama, I fear, is more like Bambi. And you know what happened to Bambi when she met up with Godzilla…

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:51 | link | comments

Shirlene, we hardly knew ye: Ezra Levant’s star chamber inquisitor, the inquisitive Shirlene McGovern, has resigned her position with the Alberta Human Rights Commission. It seems she couldn’t stand the heat, so she got out of the human rights kitchen.

Shirlene may be gone, perhaps, but she will ne’er be forgotten. She will live on on You Tube as the bureaucrat who, when confronted by a torrent of Levantian eloquence, responded with the deathless Valley Girl-esque one-liner: “Well, you’re entitled to your opinions, that’s for sure.”

Fer shure. And while you’re at it, Shirl, like, gag me with a spoon.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:21 | link | comments (1)

A revert in Nashville: Yvonne Ridley, the Beeb reporter who was kidnapped by the Taliban and was so impressed by their ardour that she “reverted” while in captivity, touched down in the capital of Country music last month. Rachel Bynum, in the New English Review, has the details:

…Referring to President Bush and Prime Minister Blair she said [to an audience at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University], “Their brand of extremism brought us 9/11, the London bombings, Madrid and other carnage around the world,” and “I know 9/11 had a huge impact on the world, but it wasn’t really the start of something … it was the continuation of a legacy of US imperialism and its fear of Islam.”

She has warned Prime Minister Blair to “stay away from our areas” meaning the Muslim enclaves in England. She has also exhorted the Muslim community to "boycott the police and refuse to co-operate with them in any way, shape or form."  She has referred to the moderate Muslims academics who advise the Prime Minister (and who have suggested that British Muslims may nurse a false sense of grievance) as “rancid, spineless Uncle Tom house-slaves” who have “castrated themselves in their bid to please the government.” In her speech to the 2006 Global Unity and Peace Conference in London Ridley said,

The new slaves of the West criticize Islamist parties and governance by shari’ah. I call them the Happy Clappies. They are being flown in by the Government from the US, Canada, Yemen and Mauritania to preach a diluted form of Islam.

The end result of all this has been a dilution of the deen of Allah, a weak and pacified Islam willing to accept the status quo in which Muslims are oppressed and subjugated; an Islam in which Muslims condemn the actions of their brothers and sisters who courageously resist occupation and oppression with whatever they have.

She defended the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, when members of his own family distanced themselves from him after the 2005 bombing in Amman in which 60 people were killed and injured. And after the Chechen Muslim leader Shamil Basayev (the architect of the Moscow theater takeover and the especially heinous Beslan school massacre) was killed, Ridley wrote that Basayev was “loved and adored by many” and that he had become a Shaheed (a martyr for Islam) and was therefore assured a Muslim paradise. Here are her words:

However, for me personally, the arrival of this sad news provided one of those awful coincidences which make you shudder and reminds you of your own mortality ... you see moments earlier I had been leafing through a manuscript of his unpublished work called a Book of a Mujahiddeen. The paragraph I was reading said: "A Mujahid is looking closely into a child's eyes, for they are the ones that get to see the world without sorrows. When a Mujahid wants to know whether someone beside him is trustworthy, he tries to see it with the eyes of a child."

Basaev led an admirable fight to bring independence to Chechnya and resorted to targetting Russian civilians in the latter years of his struggle to try and bring the plight of the Chechen people to the wider world. He will probably be best remembered for masterminding the siege of the Moscow Theater and then the taking hostage of the children at a school in Beslan which sent shudders of revulsion around the world when both plans went tragically wrong.

On both occasions there were scores and scores of civilians deaths and injuries, but the overwhelming numbers of civilian killed actually died because of the actions of Russian troops who bungled rescue raids on both operations. No one could share the pain and loss of the Beslan parents more than Chechen mothers ... let's not forget that 42,000 Chechen children have been slaughtered in the last decade by Russian bombs and shells.

Ms. Ridley is openly aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood (the women’s wing is called the Muslim Sisters) and refers to the Brotherhood as a “disciplined intellectual organization” which has the potential to be “a shining power to lead the Middle East.” She even traveled to Egypt to campaign for the release of Brotherhood members held on terrorism charges. Said she, “The Muslim Brotherhood has an honorable and just cause, and enjoys strong public support which will enable it to withstand the [Egyptian] government’s oppressive campaigns against its members." She is also an avid reader of Sayyid Qutb, a founding intellectual in the Brotherhood, who was hanged by Nasser in 1966. She even met with Qutb’s sister, Amina, during her Hajj. She is also a great admirer of Hassan Al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and the grandfather of Tariq Ramadan whom Caroline Fourest has exposed as a master of “doublespeak” as he tirelessly promotes the cause of Islamic domination while claiming to be a reformer. Likewise Ridley is said to admire the work of Zeinab al Ghazali, a female founding member of the Brotherhood and clearly a fanatic, who was also imprisoned by Nasser and for whose book, Des jours de ma vie, Ramadan wrote an introduction.

Ridley’s television program “The Agenda” was taken off the Islam channel in Great Britain after she refused to shake hands with a visiting Saudi Prince. This was probably due to her Brotherhood sympathies. “The Agenda” is now being carried by Press TV which is funded by the government of Iran.

Ridley has described her viewpoint as “pretty much in line with Hamas” and has described Israel as "that disgusting little watchdog of America that is festering in the Middle East" and furthermore that her political party, the Respect Party, "is a Zionist-free party… if there was any Zionism in the Respect Party they would be hunted down and kicked out. We have no time for Zionists,” and that both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties are "riddled with Zionists." Ridley’s first husband was Daoud Zaaroura a former PLO colonel. And yet she warns “[I]f any of those Zionist idiots continue to try and paint me as an anti-semite I must warn you ... one of my closest friends is one of Britain's best defamation lawyers. Oh, and she happens to be Jewish (for some reason most of the best lawyers and hairdressers are).” Point taken...

 

Charming woman. She has all the appeal of a Magda Goebbels combined with the feminine elan of an Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS.

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

It’s still the jihad, Dad: Israel’s a “cancer” and Hezbollah’s “radiation” is the answer—merely the latest metaphor in Iran’s colourful linguistic arsenal. (Jews as a bacillus: Hmm, sounds strangely familiar.) And guess who’s given tacit approval to the impending genocide? All the nice “moderate” Muslims who plan to show up and pay their respects to the recently ‘splodiated terrormeister. From Ynet News:

Iran: Cancerous Israel to be destroyed by radiation

In letter of condolence to Hizbullah secretary-general following Imad Mugniyah's assassination, Revolutionary Guards commander says, 'In the future we will bear witness to the disappearance of this cancerous bacterium, Israel, by the radiation of Hizbullah fighters'

Dudi Cohen

General Mohammad Ali Jaafari, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, has sent a letter of condolence to Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah following the assassination of the organization's senior commander Imad Mugniyah, saying he believed "the cancerous bacterium called Israel" would vanish soon, the Iranian news agency Fars reported Monday.

According to Jaafari, "I am convinced that with every day that passes Hizbullah's power increases, and in the near future we will bear witness to the disappearance of this cancerous bacterium, Israel, by the radiation of Hizbullah's fighters."

In the letter comforting Nasrallah over the death of the "shahid" (martyr) Mugniyah, Jaafari wrote, "There is no doubt that the death of this loyal fighter will strengthen the determination of all the revolutionary and warrior Muslims in their battle against the Zionist regime, and particularly the determination of those fighting alongside this shahid."

Mugniyah was considered close to the Revolutionary Guards, and particularly to the Quds Force, which was recently designated by the United States as a supporter of terror. Together they trained Hizbullah fighters in Lebanon and Iran and planned terror attacks worldwide.

Upon hearing of Mugniyah's death, the Iranian leaders, headed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sent cards and letters of condolence to Nasrallah.

Their message was clear: Mugniyah's death would only strengthen Hizbullah, and he would be replaced by hundreds and thousands of other fighters ready to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the battle against Israel.

The commander of the Revolutionary Guards and other Iranian officials, including Vice President Perviz Daudi, took part Sunday in a memorial ceremony for Mugniyah at a Tehran mosque.

On Tuesday, the Tehran University will hold a ceremony in memory of the assassinated commander, which will be attended by Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad representatives and ambassadors from Islamic countries.

The ummah comes together to mourn one of its own.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:03 | link | comments (2)

Judenhass in the U.K.: A close relative of mine—English by birth—returned from a trip to the U.K. last fall and insisted that, according to her Jewish friends, Jews are as safe now as they were my relative left more than fifty years ago. So you see, she assured me, nothing much had changed since her girlhood. How, then, to account for the alarming reports in the media about anti-Semitic attacks, most at the hands of Muslims? Well, she explained, it could be that things look much worse from a distance than they are where you actually live there.

No point in arguing with that logic. Nor with this: Melanie Phillips—a woman who certainly has a grip on the situation—reports on to the alarming number of anti-Semitic attacks in Britain:

 

Violent attacks on British Jews hit record levels last year, although the overall number of anti-Jewish incidents was down slightly on the previous year to its second highest level ever. As the Guardian reports:

Overall, in 2007 there were a record 114 violent assaults, one of which resulted in life-threatening injuries, among 547 race hate incidents against the Jewish community.

To put this in context, there are around 280,000 affiliated Jews in Britain (out of a population of more than 60 million). Given how reluctant many Jews are to report the harassment to which they are subjected, I reckon these figures — which are high in relation to the size of the community — understate the true situation.

 

Seems to me the assimilated Jews of Germany used to feel pretty secure, too.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:23 | link | comments

 Mo’s dementia: The thing about being egregiously rich and owning Harrods is that you can be completely off your nut and people are still going to dignify your delusions. Case in point: Mohamed Al Fayed, father of the late playboy who died along with Di. From the Guardian:

Mohamed Al Fayed branded Prince Philip a "Nazi" and a "racist" in the high court today as he detailed his belief that his son Dodi and Diana, Princess of Wales were "murdered" at the request of the royal family.

The Harrods owner repeated to the court his claims that Diana was killed because she was pregnant at the time of her death, and that she and Dodi had been planning to announce their engagement.

"Diana told me on the telephone that she was pregnant," he told the inquest. "I was the only person that they told."

"They told me they were engaged and would announce their engagement on Monday morning. She would speak to her sons when she returned from Paris."

He said Diana told him "she knew Prince Philip and Prince Charles were trying to get rid of her" a month before the crash.

He named the photographer James Andanson, who has since died, as the most likely suspect to have carried out the murder on the orders of the security services.

"There was one paparazzi member in the pay of the security services. This is likely to have been James Andanson, who exacted the murder in his own Fiat, pushed the car and a strobe light having been used to blind Henri Paul," Fayed said.

A "steel wall from the security services" prevented him from providing proof of all his claims, Fayed said. "I have been fighting for 10 years to be where we are," he told the jury.

Fayed claims the royal family would never have accepted a marriage between the mother of the second heir to the throne and an Egyptian Muslim, and alleges the Queen's husband worked with the security services to stage the car crash in Paris in August 1997 that killed the couple and their driver.

"It's time to send [Philip] back to Germany from where he comes," Fayed said. "You want to know his original name - it ends with Frankenstein."

Charles participated in the hope that he would then be able to marry his long-term mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles, Fayed said.

Fayed described Parker Bowles as a "crocodile wife" and the Windsors as "that Dracula family", according to reports of his testimony by Sky News.

He disputed evidence that Henri Paul, the driver, was drunk. Paul was part of the plot, Fayed said.

"When he was killed, they find 20,000 francs in his pocket, because he disappeared three hours before the murder being briefed on what to do."

Fayed said it had been proved "black and white" that blood samples from Paul proving the driver was intoxicated were not his.

"The blood had been taken from someone in the mortuary who had been breathing carbon monoxide by the pathologist who refused to appear because they know their arguments are false and it's baloney and it's not facts," he said.

Fayed said the withholding of a lawyer's note recording Diana's fears for her safety proved she had been deliberately killed. He said she had kept letters from Prince Philip to be revealed in the event of her death, but those letters had now gone missing...

Quite the intricate plot there, Mo. Are you sure some shadowy Jewish elders and maybe the Mossad and a grassy knoll weren’t also involved? (Got a giggle out of "Frankenstein," "that Dracula family" and "crocodile wife," though.)

 

Update: Mo's on a real tear. His list of conspirators now includes Tony Blair, senior members of parliament, police chiefs, the CIA and Sarah McCorquodale, Diana's sister. (Let me guess--they all stabbed Di and Dodi on the Orient Express so that no one person could be held responsible.) The most amusing part of the proceedings, aside from the crack about the Royals resembling characters from old horror flicks, occurred when Mo insisted that, all evidence to the contrary, he wasn't a lunatic:

 

Mr Al Fayed particularly objected to being asked to produce evidence to back his claims, saying it was impossible to get hard proof because the intelligence agencies had erected a "steel wall" to stop him getting at the truth.

And his temper boiled when Richard Horwell QC, the barrister for two former Metropolitan Police chiefs whom he has accused of playing central roles in the plot, suggested he was more interested in "assumptions" than evidence.

With his voice raised and finger pointed in the air, Mr Al Fayed replied: "I am not a mad person, right, as you are trying to portray me, please.

"I am not taking any more questions from you."

Evidence or no evidence, Mr Al Fayed is pinning his hopes on the jury backing his claims of a major cover-up.

"I believe I am right," he said.

"I always win and I am going to - with God's blessing, with a fair-minded ordinary people, the jury, I will win."

With God's blessing you're going to end up in a nice padded room.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:55 | link | comments (2)

The next Theo van Gogh?: “Far-right” (as the hard-left likes to describe him) Dutch politician Gert Wilders is defying death threats and getting set to release his exposé  of the Koran. From the Ceeb:

Iranian officials have formally demanded the Dutch government stop the screening of a film in the Netherlands about the Qur’an that was produced by a politician.

The film, its title still under wraps, is by Dutch member of parliament Geert Wilders, who says his film shows the Muslim holy book as something that motivates people to murder.

The Iranian justice minister, Gholam Hussein Elham, wrote to his Dutch counterpart, Ernst Hirsch Ballin, calling for a ban.  He urged Ballin to prevent this "provocative and satanic act on the basis of European Convention on Human Rights.

"We must not allow the freedom of speech … to be used as a cover for assaulting the sensibilities, and exalted moral and religious values which are respected by all of humanity," Elham said in the letter.

The Dutch government has refused to intervene. At the same time, it also has plans for an emergency evacuation of its nationals and diplomats from the Middle East should the Wilders film be shown.

"It's like a walk through the Qur'an," said Wilders, describing his 10-minute film to the Guardian newspaper in an interview published Sunday.

"My intention is to show the real face of Islam. I see it as a threat. I'm trying to use images to show that what's written in the Koran is giving incentives to people all over the world."

The politician has said he has nothing against Muslims, just their faith. He has also argued that the Qur'an be outlawed in Holland, that immigration from Muslim countries be halted and that the building of new mosques be stopped…

Better make sure you have plenty of burly bodyguards on hand during your stroll through the text, Gert. (Since the whole thing lasts a scant ten minutes, it sounds more like a gallop.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:38 | link | comments (1)

 Hope the ballot's in Urdu Braille:

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:25 | link | comments

Sharia financing in Pakistan: Can’t pay your debts? Hand over your daughter. From the Washington Times: 

LAHORE, Pakistan--Humaira Shahid spent her first four years in Pakistan's National Assembly trying desperately to build support for a bill to outlaw a corrupt lending practice in which families — unable to keep up interest payments in excess of 100 percent — can be forced to hand over a daughter to settle their accounts.

 

"These women were used as collateral, to barter, and it turned into a mafia business overnight," said Mrs. Shahid, astounded that colleagues did not share her outrage.

 

"I said, 'You can outlaw usury and save these women, and it doesn't cost anything, not even politically.' But there was resistance."

 

Mrs. Shahid finally got her law passed in May, but she is an unusually powerful senator: Her husband's family owns a chain of newspapers, which she could use as both a soapbox and research department.

 

She is running for re-election today and is so sure of success that she is barely campaigning.

 

But the writer, newspaper editor and mother of three feels mainly contempt for most of the five dozen women who, like her, were elected to parliament five years ago in seats reserved for women.

 

"Most of them were the wives or daughters of party men, and even the most effective were, so to say, constituency-oriented," she said. "Or they were obsequious, always voting yes. And a lot of them took a lot of trips, cut a lot of ribbons. They were corrupt."

 

Today is election day in Pakistan, a tumultuous nation of 164 million people balanced between feudal or tribal traditions and the demands and expectations of the 21st century.

 

It is a country that elected Benazir Bhutto — the first female prime minister to serve in a Muslim country — but one in which local courts still recognize a Shariah-based law that makes it easier to prosecute the victim of a rape than the perpetrator.

 

It is also a nation in which just 10 percent of women work in formal jobs, and only 38 percent can read, according to U.N. agencies…

 

No society can thrive with those pathetic numbers.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:20 | link | comments (1)

Sharia? No thanks: In the name of “tolerance” and out of fear, the head of the British church would subject Muslim women in the U.K. to religious laws that enshrine male chauvinism. Mona Eltahawy, a New-York based journalist, decries the Archbish’s thoughtless, dangerous call. From the Globe and Mail:

…Remember, please, that Dr. Williams is the head of the global Anglican community, the U.S. branch of which ordained a gay priest in 2003. But the Archbishop clearly does not believe in wishing unto others as you would unto your own. He extends no such progressive ideals to Muslims. Most interpretations of sharia consider homosexuality an abomination.

He probably thinks his tolerance for sharia is progressive enough in light of the rabid Islamophobia that mars parts of Europe today. But it is a tolerance that condones only the most conservative options for Muslims. It is, at best, a form of the racism of lower expectations - the cheapest bargaining chip of liberal guilt.

Witness the Archbishop's insistence that he wasn't advocating the "inhumanity" of sharia à la Saudi Arabia or Iran, where adulterers are stoned and thieves have hands amputated. No, no, he told us. He was just referring to the use of sharia to resolve marital disputes, he insisted.

But that is precisely where the "inhumanity" of sharia lies for women. As a Muslim woman - born in Egypt, raised in Saudi Arabia - I can only laugh at the Archbishop's naiveté. In Egypt, as in many Muslim countries, the legal system has been completely modernized with the exception of one area that stubbornly remains caught in the web of edicts issued by Muslim scholars who lived centuries ago - family law.

Sharia is used only to govern the lives of women and children.

Sudanese-American law professor Abdullahi An-Nai'm long ago pointed out the lie at the heart of calls for sharia: They are essentially an attempt to "protect a patriarchal system."

There are already some sharia councils operating in Britain for Muslims who agree to abide by their rulings, but these are unofficial bodies not recognized by British law. It's not difficult to imagine women being pressured to agree to abide by such rulings. And it's just as easy to understand why a man would choose them over the secular legal system that would not be as tilted in his favour.

Why on Earth are these religious cop-outs allowed to exist in Britain? It's not just unofficial sharia councils, but Orthodox Jewish courts - and similar councils for British Sikhs. Women from those communities tell similar stories of how difficult it is to be granted divorces by their respective religious leaders.

What's wrong with the British legal system that religious groups are allowed to create parallel systems to it?

For the less naive view of just how humane sharia is to women in Britain, I refer the Right Honourable Rowan Williams to the recent study, Crimes of the Community: Honour-Based Violence in the U.K. by James Brandon and Salam Hafez. It makes for difficult reading. Women and activists mince no words in showing the hurdles for women with children who want to get divorced, and, tell the researchers that women are being forced to stay in violent marriages as a result of skewed decisions of the sharia council.

Tanisha Jnagel told the report that the Islamic Sharia Council hears both sides, but relies on religious texts to decide whether a divorce should be granted.

"In our experience, this isn't going to result in a solution that is fair for the woman."…

Here’s “fairness”: a woman may have to leap hurdles to obtain a divorce; all a man has to do is text message “I divorce thee” three times. Thus does high tech gadgetry facilitate Medieval  jurisprudence.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:55 | link | comments

Forever clueless: Shimon Peres, one of the architects of the travesty known as the Oslo Accords, that is. From the Jerusalem Post:

"The window of opportunity for peace is shrinking," President Shimon Peres said Sunday during a meeting with visiting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

"People are losing faith in peace," Peres said. "The Middle East has a policy of talk but not action - everybody talks, but nobody does anything. Only a fundamental change at the ground level, thousands of new workplaces and a raise in the quality of life in the West Bank will strengthen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] and the moderate peace camp."

The two also discussed the situation in the Gaza Strip and the Iranian nuclear program, according to a statement issued by the president's office.

Kouchner said there had been no real progress in the peace process since December's donors conference in Paris, in which the international community pledged billions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians over the next few years.

The French foreign minister told Peres he felt a great deal of despair, frustration and hopelessness among Palestinians regarding the prospects of establishing a Palestinian state. This, he said, was "a dangerous thing."…

Not nearly as “dangerous” as establishing a Palestinian state, which would undoubtedly be yet another Islamic backwater/terrorist enterprise.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:27 | link | comments

The real Corrie story: Rachel Corrie, so we were told at the time, was either intentionally or accidentally crushed to death while defending a Palestinian home from an Israeli bulldozer. She thus instantly became a martyr for the Palestinian cause, the "new" Anne Frank, a symbol of  innocence “crushed” by the brutal “occupation.”

New information has just come to light which suggests it was all a crock. Rachel Corrie may have been killed trying to defend a tunnel through which terrorists had been smuggling weapons. She was intentionally put in harm’s way by the Palestinians so they could make a martyr of her and make Israel look bad. And, go figure, it worked like a charm. (No doubt there would never have been a “My Name is Rachel Corrie” if the truth had been known at the time; it’s hard to make a martyr out of someone who died so that terrorists could be armed to kill civilians. Mind you, they managed to make a martyr out of someone who participated in this.)

Blogger Israel Matzav (a.k.a Carl in Jerusalem) has the astonishing—and sickening—details. (Hat tip: NY Nana)

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:45 | link | comments

Yeah, yeah, yeah: A piece on the American Thinker site argues that it’s “premature” to predict an Obama victory. Maybe so, but I can see a mania in the making, and, if that’s the case, there’s no way you can stop Beatle—or Obama—mania by offering the kids some Lawrence Welk (or his current non-musical Republican equivalent, old man McCain). In fact, there’s no way you can stop Beatlemania.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:13 | link | comments

They're reviewing the situation: Just so's you don't think Hezbollah lashes out blindly and reflexively, it's apparently reviewing the matter of that assassination with Syrian authorities before deciding whether or not to follow through on its threat of "open war" against Israel.

Open war in five, four, three...

Update: Israel kills terror chief with headrest bomb.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:08 | link | comments (2)

Stupid is as stupid does: Is America in peril because its citizens are so dumb? That’s the thesis of a new book by Susan Jacoby, who fears that the widespread prevalence of ignorance may even pose an existential threat. From the New York Times:

A popular video on YouTube shows Kellie Pickler, the adorable platinum blonde from “American Idol,” appearing on the Fox game show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” during celebrity week. Selected from a third-grade geography curriculum, the $25,000 question asked: “Budapest is the capital of what European country?”

Ms. Pickler threw up both hands and looked at the large blackboard perplexed. “I thought Europe was a country,” she said. Playing it safe, she chose to copy the answer offered by one of the genuine fifth graders: Hungary. “Hungry?” she said, eyes widening in disbelief. “That’s a country? I’ve heard of Turkey. But Hungry? I’ve never heard of it.”

Such, uh, lack of global awareness is the kind of thing that drives Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason,” up a wall. Ms. Jacoby is one of a number of writers with new books that bemoan the state of American culture.

Joining the circle of curmudgeons this season is Eric G. Wilson, whose “Against Happiness” warns that the “American obsession with happiness” could “well lead to a sudden extinction of the creative impulse, that could result in an extermination as horrible as those foreshadowed by global warming and environmental crisis and nuclear proliferation.”

Then there is Lee Siegel’s “Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob,” which inveighs against the Internet for encouraging solipsism, debased discourse and arrant commercialization. Mr. Siegel, one might remember, was suspended by The New Republic for using a fake online persona in order to trash critics of his blog (“you couldn’t tie Siegel’s shoelaces”) and to praise himself (“brave, brilliant”).

Ms. Jacoby, whose book came out on Tuesday, doesn’t zero in on a particular technology or emotion, but rather on what she feels is a generalized hostility to knowledge. She is well aware that some may tag her a crank. “I expect to get bashed,” said Ms. Jacoby, 62, either as an older person who upbraids the young for plummeting standards and values, or as a secularist whose defense of scientific rationalism is a way to disparage religion…

The stupid people worry me, because they’re apt to be led in the wrong direction. However, I’m far more concerned about the really smart people, who hate the West and who stupidly--and suicidally--want the forces of darkness to prevail.

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

Realism’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose: A blistering editorial in the New York Sun about American “realists” (i.e. “appeasers”) trying to cozy up to the Baathist thugs:

What in the world are advisers to both Senators Obama and Clinton doing in Syria in the middle of a presidential campaign — and why are the two campaigns so unforthcoming about the details of the visits? The same week that a terrorist mastermind harbored by the Baathist regime in Damascus was assassinated by a car bomb, both one of Mr. Obama's foreign policy counselors, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a long-time critic of Israel, and one of Mrs. Clinton's national finance chairs, Hassan Nemazee, were meeting with President Assad.

Mr. Brzezinski himself issued a statement to the Baathist controlled press in Damascus, where he was quoted by the official Sana News Agency as saying that the "talks dealt with recent regional developments, affirming that both sides have a common desire to achieve stability in the region, which would benefit both its people and the United States." There was no indication in respect of whether Mr. Brzezinski queried the Syrian regime, officially listed by our own State Department as a terrorist-sponsoring state, about the assassination of Hezbollah's Imadh Mugniyah, who was slain by a car-bomb as, according to the Lebanese Broadcasting Channel, he was leaving a ceremony at an Iranian school in Damascus.

When our Eli Lake, telephoned the Obama campaign to see what it had to say about its adviser's doings in Syria, a spokesman said it was the first they had heard about it. Mr. Nemazee's office would not say anything about the trip, nor would Mrs. Clinton's campaign. When Mr. Lake rang the Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus, he was informed that Mr. Nemazee had left with the delegation yesterday.

Where is the sense of reality about who President Assad is and what his regime is all about? To suggest, as the Syrians report Mr. Brzezinski said, that they share some kind of common interest in respect of "stability" is disingenuous. Mugniyah, whom the Syrians had been harboring, has been among the FBI's most-wanted terrorists since 1983, when he authorized the attack on the American Marine barracks in Beirut. Mr. Assad runs a police state. Dictatorships can only thrive if the population is in constant terror and convinced the state itself is all knowing.

This has lead some to speculate that the Syrian regime itself might have been complicit in the killing of Mugniyah. We wouldn't gainsay the possibility entirely. Terrorists like drug dealers and mafiosos fight over turf all the time. What we would gainsay is that a benign construction could be put onto the role of the Assad family's Baathist regime in Syria. If the assassination of Mugniyah is a sign of anything, it is most likely that the Baathist regime is itself losing its grip on power. After all Mugniyah was a valuable asset for Mr. Assad, who relied on his capabilities to continue to threaten the prospect of a stable Lebanon.

* * *

So where's the "realism" on the part of Mr. Brzezinski and other so-called foreign policy "realists," who have accused President Bush of foreign policy malpractice for downgrading relations with Syria after the Syrians threw in with the Iranians to sabotage Iraq? Why are advisers to Senators Clinton and Obama in the Syrian capital at a time like this? Are they pressing for a separate peace with the regime? It is something on which Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton will be challenged in the coming campaign, we have little doubt. Where do they stand in respect of Syria — and why can't they bring themselves to explain what their advisers are doing in the capital of one of the countries most hostile to America and Israel?

Actually, there’s no need to explain. Their presence there is self-explanatory.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:32 | link | comments

Don’t cancel her reservations: One of my favourite pudits, Diana West of the Washington Times, cuts through the crap and to the chase (the reason I like her so much):

Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates penned an op-ed this week to say it's time to negotiate "a basic framework for normalized relations with the Iraqi government." This, they wrote, will "set the basic parameters for the U.S. presence in Iraq" which must extend past 2008 "for progress in stabilizing Iraq to continue."

 

Has the administration's policy of "surge till they [the Iraqis] merge" changed to "keep surging because they're not merging"? Unclear. At the same time, the new framework they envision will not set troop levels, make security commitments or authorize permanent bases in Iraq — "something neither we nor Iraqis want," they added.

 

Me neither. U.S. forces should not ordinarily be engaged in nation-building — sorry, nation-stabilizing — nor should they ever be engaged in Shariah-nation-stabilizing, which is my core problem with our overall strategy in constitutionally Shariah-supreme Iraq as well as constitutionally Shariah-supreme Afghanistan (not to mention the constitutionally Shariah-supreme Palestinian Authority). But that's another column.

 

Meanwhile, Miss Rice and Mr. Gates are calling for more of the same — for U.S. "help" to fight al Qaeda, develop Iraq's security forces and halt Iranian interference. After that? They write: "In addition, we seek to establish a basic framework for a strong relationship with Iraq, reflecting our shared political, economic, cultural and security interests."

 

If your next question is, "What 'shared' political, economic, cultural and security interests?" I second it. The only unanimous expression of Iraqi political will I know of was a parliamentary vote in favor of Hezbollah in its 2006 war with Israel. Economically speaking, Iraq is not only an increasingly enthusiastic OPEC player, it enforces the Arab boycott on Israel. And when it comes to "common" cultural interests, Iraq is, as mentioned above, a Shariah-supreme state where one writer was recently found guilty of "blasphemy." Given the Shi'ism Iraq shares with nuke-seeking Iran, how many security interests does that leave us in common?

 

Not that many. Maybe this accounts for the secretaries' flat tone of understatement regarding the future of U.S.-Iraq relations. It certainly speaks to my own concern that when we finally walk away from "democratic" Iraq, we are unlikely to leave behind a staunch U.S. ally…

 

Can’t wait for “that other column” wherein West deals with the witlessness of Shariah nation-building.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:11 | link | comments

Harpoon hearts sharia: I missed this one the other day—Harpoon Siddiqui’s peroration about the Archbish of Squish, who had suggested that the Brits cry “uncle!” and embrace sharia. So, is Harpoon for him or agin him? What do you think?

…When there's conflict in a democracy between the secular law and religious belief, what gives?

This is a very Canadian question. Notwithstanding our own periodic disagreements over reasonable accommodation, we have developed more case law on it than others have.

The archbishop noted there is already a "conscientious opting out" by medical professionals on abortion. British Catholic adoption agencies resist gay couples as adoptive parents. Some groups oppose stem-cell research. Some Muslims use religious arbitration to settle family business disputes, just as some British Jews use the rabbinical courts.

Yet there is "a great deal of uncertainty about what degree of accommodation the law of the land can and should give to minorities with their own strongly entrenched legal and moral codes. This is not only an issue about Islam but about other faith groups," he said.

His sin was that he spoke of the sharia, even though he ruled out most of it: "Nobody in their right mind," he told the BBC, "would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that sometimes appears to be associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states – the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women."

Even for religious arbitration, he had caveats: that it be voluntary and its rulings conform to civil law.

This is precisely what Marion Boyd of the Ontario sharia panel had said. Many didn't want to hear her and many don't want to listen to the archbishop. It is instructive as to who opposed him the most:

·         Conservative Christians angry at his support for gay rights and not enough support for preserving the biblical basis of British law.

·         Those rightly angry at the plight of Christians in Muslim lands but who hold the wrong notion of holding Muslims in the West as hostage to obtain reciprocity.

·         Those who think there is a strict separation between church and state, when there isn't. In Britain, the Queen is the head of the Anglican church and in Ontario, there's funding for Catholic schools and – until Premier Dalton McGuinty finds a way out, as he says he will – there's the Lord's Prayer at the Legislature.

The invocation is innocuous. Religious arbitration involves a few hundred people at best. Most of us oppose funding for private schools. But we all should worry about this:

In the Muslim world, they take to the streets on the subject of Islam. Here, we get hysterical. One is often violent, the other never is. But the result is about the same: No "critical and intelligent" engagement of the sort the archbishop was looking for, even if he has a tin ear for prevailing public opinion.

What he seems to be saying, in his convoluted, ever-civilized way, is exactly what the Archish was saying: Submit to the inevitability of sharia, or be prepared to suffer the consequences. Not that the Star’s receptive readers would have gleaned that message. I was pleased to see, though, that at least one of them took umbrage at the revered columnist’s statement about our “hysteria” (Harpoon-speak for anyone who expresses reservations about Islamic law) being more or less equivalent to the Muslim variety:

Dissent in Islamic countries not like here 

Feb 17, 2008 04:30 AM

Getting past our hysteria over Islam

Column, Feb. 14

I find Haroon Siddiqui to be a reasonable and thoughtful writer. However, I am truly puzzled by the way he seems to be equating two vastly different approaches to dissent. He says: "In the Muslim world, they take to the streets on the subject of Islam. Here, we get hysterical. One is often violent, the other never is. But the result is about the same." I beg to differ!

They are as opposite as night and day. One produces blood, unimaginable horror and tragedy. The other, perhaps some irate letters. Bring on the democratic hysteria!

Jackie Di Caro, Richmond Hill

No doubt most of the Star’s readers find him to be “reasonable and thoughtful.” That's the problem.

Update: And speaking of undemocratic "hysteria"...

Update: More "hysteria".

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:37 | link | comments (6)

Hello, young lovers: Last week the Toronto Sun brought us the news that governments in Canada were underwriting polygamy (apparently, it’s okay so long as you get hitched—and hitched and hitched and hitched—back in the old country). Hard on the heels of that story comes word of another facet of the wacky world of sharia romance—quickie long-distance nuptials:

Long-distance telephone marriages can be dialled up under sharia law and then used to sponsor loved ones into Canada, Muslim leaders say.

Two Muslim leaders have told the Toronto Sun telephone marriages are permissible under Islamic law and require two witnesses and imams here and abroad to conduct the vows, which may have the bride in Pakistan and the groom in Toronto.

Once completed, a marriage certificate is obtained abroad legitimately in Muslim countries and can be used by the groom for sponsoring his new wife to Canada, one Mississauga imam said.

Mumtaz Ali, of the Canadian Association of Muslims, said he conducted a telephone marriage between a student in Toronto and his about-to-be wife in India.

"He was a university student and couldn't leave," Ali said. "It is a civil contract and the vows were conducted over the phone."

A marriage certificate was obtained and the student was able to sponsor his wife to Canada, he said.

The vow takes less than five minutes and a dowry is exchanged to seal the ceremony, Ali said.

'NOT WIDESPREAD'

"These telephone marriages are taking place but are not widespread," said the former lawyer for the Ontario attorney-general's office. "The parties must know each other and have developed a relationship. Most of the times the couple have been introduced by family members," Ali said. "In many cases one person may not be able to leave the country."

Imam Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi, of Ja'ffari Islamic Centre, in Toronto, said: "These marriages are perfectly acceptable under sharia law ... the marriage certificate is taken to the Canadian embassy where it is recognized."

Immigration spokesman Karen Shadd-Evelyn said her officials are aware of the telephone marriages.

"In spousal sponsorship applications, the validity of all marriages is evaluated," Shadd-Evelyn said. "It is incumbent on the applicant to prove the relationship was not entered into to benefit from immigration."

She’s kidding, right? Good to know that our immigration officials are on their toes, ever vigilant to detect potential immigration scams—and utterly, scarily clueless.

In honour of all the young lovers who have found wedded bliss over the phone, I have revised a song from My Fair Lady:

I’m getting married in the morning.

Don’t even need to rent a hall.

Wake from my slumber

And call up a number,

So please make sure she gets my call.

 

I’m gonna put her on a plane soon.

Maybe this summer or come fall.

She’ll do my bidding.

Compliant? No kidding.

So please make sure she gets my call.

 

If I am hungry, she’ll cook my food.

If I am horny, she’ll be in the mood.

 

Yes, sharia’s swell if you are lonely.

Get wed in just no time at all.

Give me a dowry,

So hearts and flow’ry.

So please make sure she gets,

Please make sure she gets,

For my sake please make sure she gets my call.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:18 | link | comments

Extry! Extry!: UN guy expelled from Afghanistan says two thirds of the Taliban can be persuaded to be peaceful.

Absolutely. All you have to do is say "Allah akbar!" and submit. Presto! Instant "peace".

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:19 | link | comments (1)

It won’t fly: Here’s an idea that’s likely to have all the appeal of overcooked escargot—French president Nicolas Sarkozy wants every school-age child in France to “adopt” a Jewish child who perished in the Holocaust. From Reuters:

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy, facing a tide of criticism over his call for schoolchildren to "adopt" Jewish child victims of the Holocaust, hit back on Friday saying France had to raise children "with open eyes".

In a speech praising faith that also drew fire from secularists, Sarkozy told France's Jewish community on Wednesday that every 10-year-old schoolchild should be "entrusted with the memory of a French child victim of the Holocaust".

The proposal unleashed a storm of protest from teachers, psychologists and his political foes who said it would unfairly burden children with the guilt of previous generations and some could be traumatized by identifying with a Holocaust victim.

More than 11,100 French Jewish children were deported from France to Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps in eastern Europe during the German World War Two occupation.

"The emotional burden can have negative consequences for a child who is developing," Gilles Moindrot, general secretary of the Snuipp-FSU trade union which represents most primary school teachers, said in a statement.

"One can not place on a child of 11 the responsibility for what happened back then."

The EMDH children's rights group said: "No educational project should be constructed on death."

But Sarkozy, speaking in Perigueux in central France, brushed off the uproar…

Sarkozy aside, the French still don’t “get it.” How can they, when the Judenhass that flourished in Petain’s time—heck, back in Dreyfus’s time—is still very much a fact of life. Actually, the Jew-hate today is probably even worse than it was in the past because there’s a large population of angry, banlieue car-b-cue boys to add fuel to the fire: Can you imagine the tumult that's likely to ensure when little Mohammed is told he has to "adopt" a Jewish child who was murdered during the course of a historical event which, according to many Muslims, never took place?

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:28 | link | comments

The indiscreet charm of S. Soharwardy: Calgary Herarld columnist Licia Corbella conducts a post mortum on l’affaire Levant ("mort" as far as the human rights complaint is concerned; in other respects it lives on).She reveals that she herself almost fell for the honeyed words of that slick-talkin' Islamist, Syed Soharwardy, he of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada. Luckily she recovered her senses and realized he was just shoveling the usual taqiyah:

…Soharwardy is a charmer. He convinced me that I must have misread his columns. But relistening to the tape of our meeting and rereading his original texts, one thing is clear: he cannot be believed.

To us, he said he lodged his complaint with the AHRC because he felt Muslim "youth were getting alienated" not because the cartoons subjected him to hatred.

This man with two master's degrees in engineering, who has lived in North America since 1980, now says he has just realized how important free speech is. For a fella who practises outrageous forms of it -- you would hope so.

To the CBC's The National on Wednesday, however, Soharwardy gave a different reason for dropping his complaint against Levant, who has spent two years and $100,000 in legal fees fighting this Orwellian battle: "People were looking at Ezra Levant as a martyr of freedom of his speech . . . taking this into a different direction that I did not want."

Soharwardy wanted to be the hero and martyr in his campaign against Levant.

It backfired on him.

Now he's the subject of a human rights complaint by women claiming sex discrimination at his mosque, Levant is planning an abuse of process lawsuit against him and he's being scrutinized on CNN and across Canada.

Soharwardy fell into his own trap. Changing his words, as is his way, won't likely be the salve to his reputation that he's looking for this time.

Far be it from me to kick a Supremacist when he’s down. In fact, to help him through these hard times, I’ve written him a poem:

A “charming” imam, Soharwardy

Made a move that some folks saw as tardy.

He had hoped that we’d see-a

The point of sharia

But then Ez went and pooped on his party.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:47 | link | comments

Pressing questions: Does sharia promote human rights?

I think I'll answer that question with another question: Is Islam a religion of peace?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:47 | link | comments

It’s the Joooos!: MEMRI Executive Director Steven Shalinsky has a run-down of the Arab/Iranian/Sudanese media’s cockamamie explanations for the ongoing genocide in Darfur. As expected, the Jews and their nefarious global Zionist plot as hatched long ago by some spectral elders seem to be at the heart of it:

Introduction

The Darfur region of Sudan first made headlines in February 2003 with news of massacres, rapes, mutilations, and other atrocities perpetrated by the Sudanese government and its allied armed Arab militia, the Janjaweed, against civilians in the black Arab and non-Arab south. Shortly thereafter, the Arab and Iranian media came out with reports explaining these events as the result of a conspiracy. The campaign was led by the most influential Arab and Iranian newspapers and TV channels, and was enhanced by leading Middle East religious figures, heads of state, members of academia, and other notable individuals.

According to these media reports, what was really happening in Darfur involved secret plans to create a Christian state in Sudan; a Jewish attempt to annex the African country to become part of Israel; a U.S. government effort to control Sudanese oil, uranium and other natural resources; plots by U.S. presidential candidates; and a U.S. government attempt to deflect attention from its actions in Iraq, as well as schemes by Jews, Freemasons, the United Nations, and the African Union. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion have also been cited as evidence to prove the existence of a conspiracy in Darfur.

As the conspiracy theories expanded, a new phenomenon developed - namely, downplaying and even denying the atrocities taking place in Darfur. The deniers have included the Sudanese and Iranian leaderships and the Arab government-controlled media. It must be noted that this phenomenon is strikingly similar to Holocaust denial, and in fact many proponents of the Darfur denial have been known to question the Holocaust…

Somewhere down in Hades that master manipulator of the media, Josef Goebbels, is reading this and saying, “Nice work, compadres!”

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

Round up the usual suspects: Westerners, non-Arabs, Zionists, etc.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:24 | link | comments

Passé preoccupation: A clueless lefty from Beaconsfield, Quebec, writes to the Globe and Mail:

Silence isn't an option

SHIRLEY GROVES

February 16, 2008

Beaconsfield, Que. -- Avi Benlolo is deeply upset over the protest against Israel's occupation called Apartheid Week (Free Speech Stops Here - letter, Feb. 15). I would have thought Israel's supporters would welcome non-violent opposition to Israel's occupation. But it seems what they really want is silence and acquiescence.

This they will never get.

Actually, Shirley, you’ve been misinformed. All “Israel’s supporters” really want is for the pathological Jew-haters in the Arab world (also Iran) to lay off Israel for a nanosecond and direct their attention to fixing their own pathetic, miserable, despotic backwaters instead.

But I guess that’s too much to ask.

As for that blather about “the occupation”—didn’t you get the memo? The occupation is soooo 1998. We’ve moved on to the “racist, apartheid state” smear now which, whadya know?, seems to be working very well.

Shirley's grudge against Israel appears to have a religious basis. Here's a letter of hers that appeared in a Catholic publication in 2006:

Thank you for the excellent article by Rosemary Ruether on Israel's shameful treatment of Palestinians (CNT, July 2). Canadian Christians have regretfully been far too timid in their criticism of Israel's brutal policies. Once a thriving community, the number of Palestinian Christians is dwindling, forced out by Israel's strangling of the Palestinian economy. We must support CUPE's courageous stand in its support of Palestinian rights. We must stand together with all people of conscience in insisting that Palestinians achieve their right of dignity, freedom and statehood. We must do this not only for the sake of justice, but also to safeguard a Christian presence in the birthplace of Christ.

Does she really believe the Christians have been forced out by the Jews and that the Arabs would safeguard a Christian presence in Christ's birthplace? What an ignoramus.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:57 | link | comments (1)

You, sir, are no JFK: Excerpts from an inaugural speech you’ll never heave BHO (or, for that matter, HRC) deliver:

And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe -- the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends.

To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required

Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.

We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:29 | link | comments

Funny way to show it: The young man who shot up an Illinois university yesterday is said to have been interested in  'peace and social justice.'

Of course.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:07 | link | comments

I'd take it as a sign if I were you: The day after Nasty Nasrallah threatens the Jewish state with an "earthquake," the earth moves--literally--and freaks out the Lebanese.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:47 | link | comments (1)

Speaking of a relative, but not relatively speaking: In 1985, Katherine Curtis Stethem’s brother-in-law, Robert, a U.S. Navy diver, was brutally tortured and murdered by Mugniyah’s minions when the airplane he was on was hijacking in Beirut. In today’s New York Sun, she explains what the execution of this mass-murdering jihadi thug means to her, her family and those who are not incapacitated by moral relativism:

…There is, of course, the hesitancy of the civilized mind in the actual rejoicing over the death of another human being. That being said, this particular death is one for which we are thankful and in which we find relief. The future will not be plagued by Mugniyah's black heart of contempt for the West and our allies. His work is over. Not another grave is to be filled by the work of his hand. Not another mother will drop to her knees, groaning in shock and disbelief as a result of his wicked ambition.

There is something satisfying in that the demise of Imad Mugniyah came two days before the third anniversary of the February 14, 2005 assassination of the former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri. Hariri was killed by explosives as his motorcade passed the Saint George Hotel in Beirut. Hariri was a friend of the West and a harsh and very open critic of Syria's domination of Lebanon. Blame for the loss of Prime Minister Hariri rests at the feet at Hezbollah and Syria.

A mastermind of terror, the right arm of Hezbollah, a bomb maker, Imad Mugniyah lived by the sword. It is fitting that he would meet the same kind of violent fate as did so many of his victims. This time, the blood on his hands was his own.

The evil mind that planned and implemented one scenario of terror, death, and destruction after another finally has been stilled. Hell's gates have swung wide open and swallowed one whom earth has regurgitated. He will not be comforted and his cries will be unheard. Imad Mugniyah is now denied the same mercy that he refused his victims.

The death of Imad Mugniyah does not bring back Robert Stethem. That son was ripped from his parents, snatched from his sister and brothers. He is a distant memory to one nephew and but a revered shadow to his other nephew and nieces. The murder of Robert Stethem was a devastating loss to his family. But it is the knowledge of Rob's unspeakably brutal suffering that was and remains their agony. Time heals the sting of a personal loss. What time cannot touch is an imagination haunted by thoughts of a loved one's torture for 15 hours, alone, on the other side of the world without a chance to be kissed goodbye or to be told how very much he would be missed.

This development cannot reach back into the past and dry tears or unwrench hearts. It does, however, soften the present. It does, however, brighten the future. At long last, it feels like a new day.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:43 | link | comments (1)

Dining out on delicious high dudgeon: A clueless moral relativist (is there any other kind?) works himself up into full-blown “shocked and appalled” mode re the demise of the FBI’s second- most wanted man (he was the Avis to Osama’s Hertz). From the Globe and Mail:

Moral high ground abandoned

TONY EBERTS

February 15, 2008

New Westminster, B.C. -- Your applause for the terrorist murder of suspected terrorist Imad Mughniyeh has all the rationale of a lynch mob (The Killing Of Imad Mughniyeh - editorial, Feb. 14). You take the moral high ground in condemning acts of terrorism, then approve an act of terrorism in the cowardly bomb-killing of a man because you choose to believe the allegations and labelling applied to him.

You forget international law. You forget the prime rule of our legal system that a person is innocent until proven guilty. You ignore the strong possibility that this assassination will start another chain of vengeance killings. You forget that sometimes intelligence agencies make mistakes, as in the case of the fictional Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that led to the unwarranted bloodbath of the Iraq invasion.

At best, you are saying the highly trumpeted "War on Terror" should be selective, so when those we are told to hate are blown away, we can grin for the cameras like Danny Yatom, bloody-handed former head of Mossad, Israel's spy agency.

At worst, editorials like yours encourage the kind of crimes that have in the past led to world war.

You couldn’t be more out to lunch, Tony. Had some “bloody-handed” agent pulled a Mughniyeh on Hitler in, say, 1938, the world would likely have been spared a global conflagration that cost untold millions of lives—including the lives of some six million Jews.

Update: It turns out that Tony Eberts is one of those environmental types. Figures.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:50 | link | comments (2)

Uneasy rider: Welcome to the multicultist Trudeaupia of Ontario, where a Sikh—but only a Sikh—gets to ride his hog sans helmet without fear of being fined. From the Toronto Star:

The Ontario Human Rights Commission has ridden to the defence of a Brampton man who says being forced to wear a motorcycle helmet instead of his turban runs counter to his religious faith.

Baljinder Badesha, above, who was charged by Peel police in September 2005 with failing to wear a helmet, said he understands the inherent dangers of riding a motorcycle without a helmet but is willing to take the risk to follow his Sikh tenets.

"I know it is for safety, but people die in car accidents all the time," the 39-year-old owner of a used car dealership said yesterday outside a Brampton court. He is fighting a $110 ticket he received for wearing his turban instead of a helmet while riding his motorcycle on Queen St. in Brampton near Hwy. 410.

Now the Ontario Human Rights Commission is siding with him, insisting Badesha is being discriminated against.

"Telling Mr. Badesha to choose between his religion or participating in the normal life of Ontario is discrimination," Scott Hutchison, an attorney for the human rights commission, told a Brampton court yesterday.

"Roads and riding a motorcycle are something that is available to everybody in Ontario provided they wear a helmet. But that condition makes it impossible for Mr. Bedesha and everybody of the Sikh religion. That amounts to discrimination."

He said the Human Rights code "prevails" over the Highway Traffic Act (HTA). Forcing him to wear his helmet "infringes on his human dignity," Hutchison said.

Badesha hasn't ridden his motorcycle since he received his ticket...

My letter:

I have no problem with Baljiinder Badesha being allowed to ride his motorcycle while wearing his turban. If he believes that his religious convictions take precedence over personal safety, that’s up to him, since he is obviously willing to suffer the consequences. (Paramedics don’t call them “donorcycles” for nothing.)

However, I have a big problem with the Ontario Human Rights Commission making an exception for one religion. Clearly, that is not fair, and may be cited as a precedent by those who want other exceptions to be made for them. The rules should either apply to everyone, or no one.

Alternatively, couldn’t someone design an impact-resistant turban?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:28 | link | comments (2)

The U.K.’s sad, slow slide: Mark Steyn, in conversation with Hugh Hewitt, adumbrates the tragedy of Britain--no longer “great”; a mere shadow, now, of its formerly muscular, confident self:

MS: Yes, I said a while back that I thought Britain was in danger of turning into Somalia with chip shops, that it’s a country that I think has been hollowed out by Islamism in many ways. What is particularly tragic about Britain is it’s a country that didn’t fall for any of the other great evils of the 20^th Century, for fascism or communism. It’s a country that has probably contributed more in terms of its ideas to civilization in the world. That’s why there are over fifty English speaking countries, that is why English common law can be found all over the world, English ideas, Westminster parliamentary system. The dominant powers in every corner of the world, the United States, South Africa, Australia, India, descended from Britain. And the death of Britain, the sort of suicide of Britain, is a tragedy to watch.  

“Somalia with chip shops”—that line epitomizes what I love best about Steyn: He manages to be funny and profound at the same time.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:39 | link | comments

Pizza balker: Times Foreign Editor Richard Beeston recalls his one encounter with ‘splodiated terrormeister Imad Mughnieh:

MY one short conversation with the world's second most wanted terrorist - Imad Mughnieh, killed in a bomb blast on Tuesday night - was about pizza. We spoke over a crackling radio from the control tower of Beirut International Airport to a hijacked TWA jet baking in the Mediterranean sunshine. Hijackings were so routine in Beruit in 1985 - one plane was even seized by the head of airport security over a pay dispute - that local officials were used to seeing the press corps show up. My only question was how to talk my way on board.

My resourceful Lebanese driver thought he had hit on the perfect solution. Several days into the hijacking, the Shia gunmen were complaining about poor food. We loaded up with bags of “manaish”, a traditional Lebanese breakfast of pizza bread covered in olive oil and served with yogurt.

“Control tower to TWA, are you there?” we asked.

“Who is this?” demanded a voice on the other end.

“We are journalists, we heard that you wanted some fresh food. We have brought you breakfast. Can we come and deliver it?” we replied.

Pause. “Let me check,” came the response. The driver and I exchanged hopeful glances. Then came a different voice, with greater authority.

“All journalists are dogs!” screamed Mughnieh. He leant out of the cockpit window and let off a volley of automatic rifle fire, forcing our colleagues to dive for cover...

Guess they forgot the extra cheese.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:13 | link | comments

Another “spicy” moniker: I was going to comment on Hezbollah’s declaration of ‘open war’ on Israel (something to the effect of “what have they been doing up to now—making nice and flying under the radar?). However, I was halted in my tracks by the AP reporter’s bewitching byline: Scheherezade Faramazi.

Why couldn’t my parents have named me Scheherezade?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:59 | link | comments (4)

Two for John: The spicily-named Cinnamon Stillwell (why couldn’t my parents have named me Cinnamon?) expostulates in FrontPage about academe’s foremost apologist for Islam.

Me, I’ve written him a poem:

An professor named John Esposito

Never had to go incognito.

With his magna cum laudes

He shilled for the Saudis

And prayed that the West was finito.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:45 | link | comments

Oops!: Jane Fonda explained to the Today Show’s Meredith Viera that the reason she didn’t do that play about the yapping vajayjays was because she was living in Georgia (as Mrs. Ted Turner) at the time, and had she appeared in a show where she had to say the word “c**t” in a monologue, she would have gotten in a whole heap o’ trouble (since the folks in Georgia aren’t sophisticates like the jaded urbanites of New York). Whereupon she got in a whole heap o’ trouble for uttering the word “c**t” on national TV.

After the commercial break, Meredith apolgized for Jane’s “c”-nility.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:27 | link | comments (1)

The enduring appeal of the non-threatening boy: One of the most memorable episodes of The Simpsons (memorable to me, at least, since I remember it) is the one where Lisa, an aficionada of Non-Threatening Boy Magazine, gets a mad crush on one of its non-threatening boys. (Today’s most popular non-threatening boy, bar none, is Zack Efron, star of those frenetic—and unwatchable if you’re a grownup— High School Musicals and the Hairspray movie; in my time it was Bobby Sherman and David Cassidy—so you know I’m really old).

Allow me to introduce you to the non-threatening boy of American politics—Barack H. Obama. From the American Thinker:

Barack Obama strikes nearly everyone as a nice guy. Part of that appeal is a distinct absence of aggression. Normally, when we think about charismatic political leaders, the mind conjures up dynamism, vocal modulation. He doesn't need them. Perhaps the drama of his background is enough.

His now-legendary ability to inspire crowds is no doubt a complex phenomenon, but his smile and his disposition certainly have their magnetism for those of us who long for racial healing. He has crafted an image of someone who wants to get along with everyone.

The contrast between Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's personalities could not be greater, at least along the dimension of aggressiveness. Her tightly-wound spring drives both her and Bill, a political team made for drama. 

 

A few days ago at the urging of Sean Hannity, Frank Luntz asked a polling group at a Democratic debate to name one of Senator Obama's accomplishments. A whole section was polled and no one could name a single feat. It didn't matter to them, they liked him. Obama profits hugely from his plainness. His oratory may stir liberals, but much of that perception comes from the juxtaposition against the blandness from which that it emanates.

 

Another Hannity moment illustrates Obama's success well. Awhile back, maybe a year or more, he was talking to some random teens on his radio show asking questions to demonstrate how poorly our young people are educated in government and politics. One young woman responded that she wanted Obama in the White House because she was "tired of all the drama" since 9/11.

 

Might I suggest for his campaign bumper sticker "No Drama Obama"?...

 

Personally, I prefer the Non-Threatening Boy Magazine bumper sticker: “Obama: You think he’s cute and so does yo’ mama.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:32 | link | comments (1)

9/11 denial: Guess who's jumped on the "troofer" bandwagon? The mullahs' in-house media organ, the Tehran Times. (Strange that there's no mention of the demise of the mullahs' pet, the 'splodiated terror thug. 

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:51 | link | comments

 Ballsy pres: You know things are seriously out of whack when the French president sounds more resolute and clued-in than the American one. From YNet News:

PARIS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday he would refuse to greet any world leader who refused to recognize Israel -- a remark apparently ruling out any face-to-face meetings with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Sarkozy made the off-the-cuff remark in a speech to the French-Jewish community in which he reaffirmed his strong support for international sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program.

 

"I won't shake hands with people who refuse to recognize Israel," Sarkozy declared at an annual event hosted by the Representative Council of Jewish Organizations in France (CRIF).

 

Ahmadinejad, Iran's hardline president, has in the past called for the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map".

France has led the way in pressing for sanctions at the UN Security Council and in the European Union to get Iran to halt atomic work which Western powers fear is aimed at making bombs.

'We have no other choice'

It recently urged energy companies Total and Gaz de France to refrain from investing in the OPEC country.

Iran says its nuclear program is a peaceful drive to generate electricity.

"Proliferation is a grave threat to international security. We cannot sit by and do nothing while Iran develops technologies which are in violation of international law," Sarkozy said. 

         

Given that Iran has chosen the fait accompli we do not have any other choice but to strengthen the isolation that involves new sanctions at the Security Council and the European Union," he said.

Sarkozy announced he would visit Israel in May to mark the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding after a March visit to Paris by Israel President Shimon Peres…

Any bets as to whether the American pres—whoever he or she is—will have the guts to show up at the same event?

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:42 | link | comments

Heil jihad: Hitler’s Islamic successors use a familiar salute in tribute to their “martyred” leader.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:52 | link | comments

The mileage of myths: Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Alan Baker, explodes “The poisonous myth of ‘Israeli apartheid’.” Too bad he does it in the National Post—where he’s preaching to the choir—instead of in the Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star.

And speaking of poisonous myths, a “fan” of Israel tries to torpedo the “myth” of “tiny, little Israel” and, in so doing, spreads some more poison. (I found the link two down from the Baker article on Google):

…There you have it, this “tiny, little, poor nation of Israel, just struggling to survive.” Let us now get rid of this myth; let us face the reality. This Israel is not the Israel Moses would have wanted, nor Jesus, nor the God these religions profess to believe in. For this Israel is a powerhouse of intrigue, lies, brutality and cunning with only destruction of others in mind—with lessons the Ashkenazim Jews learned from Hitler—so that even to this day, the Falasha (Ethiopian Jews), the Sephardic (the true Mediterranean Jews) are treated like second and third class citizens in their own land (they have lived there for thousands of years, the Ashkenazim of Europe, descendents of the Khazars, converts from Slavic tribes to Judaism, have only come to the Middle East in the 20th century), and of course, the Palestinians (Philistines in Arabic and Hebrew) who have lived there for several thousand years are being brutalized so that Sharon and his minions may push them out of this false Israel, aided by their ignorant American “Christian” allies who hope that when Armageddon comes, all the Jews will convert to Christianity.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:51 | link | comments (1)

Bumpy ride ahead?: The ‘splodiation of Hellzbollocks bigwig Imad Mughniyeh—he was second only to Osama on the FBI’s Most Wanted list—is, as Martha Stewart would say, a good thing. However, as Melanie Phillips notes, in coming days we Jews might want to fasten our seatbelts—and be even more vigilant about security:

…The blow to Iran from his death is severe — a rare and serious setback for the godfathers of terror in Tehran. It is therefore a great victory in the war for civilisation. But for Jews worldwide, it must also be a source of renewed anxiety. Iran may well want to take its revenge and, as we saw in Buenos Aires, Jews around the world are considered to be legitimate targets. As ever, we now hold our breath.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:25 | link | comments

Separated at birth (but with opposite coloring)?: Zaftig soul diva, Aretha Franklin:

 

And Little  Mermaid sea diva, Ursula:

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:42 | link | comments (3)

Dog show: As the owner of a show dog (IMHO he'd win every time, if not for his unfortunate habit of jumping on the judges), I got a special kick out these shots of New York City's Westminster canine extravaganza.

PETA, though, wants to poop on the party.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:22 | link | comments

No way, no how, no thanks: Retro-voiced chanteuse Amy Winehouse has prepared a special version of her Grammy-winning hit for the Archdhimmi and his synod:

The tried to make me take sharia

I say no, no, no.

They must be mad or think it’s a fad;

No, no, no.

I can’t wear no shroud.

Ya know it shouldn’t be allowed.

They tried to make me take sharia.

It’s no go, go, go.

 

I’d rather look like a Ronette.

A burqa’s hard to wear, I bet.

‘Cause there’s nowhere, nowhere for my beehive.

It’s tough enough as is to stay alive.

Don’t think sharia is my fate.

‘Cause I couldn’t sing, only procreate.

 

They’re tryin’ to make us take sharia.

We say no, no, no.

They say, “Submit,

It won’t hurt a bit.”

No, no, no.

 

Although the Archbish cowers

That law don’t go with ours.

He tried to make us take sharia.

We say blow, blow, blow.

 

We all say, “Why you want it here?”

He say, “’Cause there’s so much to fear.”

We’re gonna, we’re gonna lose our way

So you better keep a bottle near.

 

Say I just think it’s dhimmitude.

Kick ‘em, yeah baby.

And give ‘em attitude.

 

They tried to make us take sharia.

We said whoa, whoa, whoa…

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:37 | link | comments

Opaque cleric: Essayist Theodore Dalrymple brings his profound wisdom to bear on the Archbish of Squish and his gravest sin. Not Williams’s abject, clueless dhimmitude. His abject, alarming inability to utter a simple, declarative sentence. I quote the good Doctor’s entire piece on City Journal; it’s all so delicious I couldn’t bear to abbreviate it (hat tip: WriterMom):

British intellectual life has long harbored a strain of militantly self-satisfied foolishness, and the present archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is a perfect exemplar of the tendency. In an interview with the BBC on February 7, the archbishop said that it “seems unavoidable” that some aspects of sharia, or Islamic law, would be adopted in Britain: unavoidable, presumably, in the sense in which omertà seems unavoidable in the island of Sicily.

The archbishop spoke to the BBC on the same day that he delivered a lecture at the Royal Courts of Justice in London before an audience of distinguished lawyers, including the Lord Chief Justice. Williams suggested—or, given the opacity of the language that he habitually employs, apparently suggested—that some elements of sharia should enjoy joint jurisdiction with British law. The passage that caused an immediate furor and has led to calls for his resignation was that in which he spoke prospectively of a “transformative accommodation,” borrowing the phrase from a recent monograph by legal scholar Ayelet Shachar. Such an accommodation, he said, would allow individuals to “retain the liberty to choose the jurisdiction under which they will seek to resolve carefully specified matters,” and ensure that, in Shachar’s words, “power-holders are forced to compete for the loyalty of their shared constituents.”

Rarely does philosophical inanity dovetail so neatly into total ignorance of concrete social realities: it is as though the archbishop were the product of the coupling of Goldilocks and Neville Chamberlain. Those more charitably inclined point out that the archbishop is an erudite man, a professor of theology who reads in eight languages and who was addressing a highly sophisticated audience, employing nuanced, subtle, caveat-laden arguments. He was not speaking in newspaper headlines, nor did he expect to make any headlines with his remarks.

Charity is a virtue, of course, but so is clarity: and it is the latter virtue that the archbishop so signally lacks. He assumes that the benevolence of his manner will disguise the weakness of his thought, and that his opacity will be mistaken for profundity. Here is a telling passage from the lecture:

"Perhaps it helps to see the universalist vision of law as guaranteeing equal accountability and access primarily in a negative rather than a positive sense—that is, to see it as a mechanism whereby any human participant in a society is protected against the loss of certain elementary liberties of self-determination and guaranteed the freedom to demand reasons for any actions on the part of others for actions and policies that infringe self-determination."

 

Reading or hearing this, one wants to pull one’s hair out. Charity surely requires compassion not for Williams, but for the audience obliged to listen to him. The archbishop goes on for pages and pages in this vein:

 

"Earlier on, I proposed that the criterion for recognising and collaborating with communal religious discipline should be connected with whether a communal jurisdiction actively interfered with liberties guaranteed by the wider society in such a way as definitively to block access to the exercise of those liberties; clearly the refusal of a religious believer to act upon the legal recognition of a right is not, given the plural character of society, a denial to anyone inside or outside the community of access to that right."

 

There is only one word for a society in which such discourse can pass for intellectual subtlety and sophistication, and lead to career advancement: decadent.

To paraphrase George Orwell, a man who knew a thing or two about how opacity serves the agenda of totalitarians, “There are some things so stupid that only a decadent Archbish and his silly synod could believe them.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:57 | link | comments

Stones and the deplorable lack thereof: Jyllands-Poste has responded in the sanest, bravest way possible to the news that several zanies in their environs have been plotting to kill one of the Mo ‘toonists—by reprinting the ‘toons.

Mark Steyn contrasts the ballsy Danish approach and the wimpish Canadian one.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:21 | link | comments

Sleazy 'Ouisey: The despicable diva of "human rights" --and the Arabs' best friend.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:01 | link | comments (1)

Ezra off the hook?: The Islamist who wrote up some chicken scratch and submitted it the Alberta HRC (he was peeved because Ezra Levant published some purportedly hateful and blasphemous ‘toons) has apparently withdrawn his complaint.

Ezra, who doubts that the HRC-jihad is over, accuses Syed Sowarhardy, the head of the Islamic Supreme Council, of looking for a “hudna” and practising “taqiyaah.” (As an aside, one would have thought that by now someone would have pointed out to the newly-conciliatory imam that, purely from the standpoint of PR, putting the word “supreme” next to the word “Islamic” in your organization’s name might not be the smartest idea. Mind you, it doesn’t seem to have bothered anyone at the Ceeb, which called upon the Pakistan-born imam to offer his “expert” opinion when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. Of course, he wasn’t billed as the head of an Islamist outfit that considers itself "supreme". He appeared in his capacity as the head of  “Muslims Against Terrorism”--a group that sounds like it would not be out of place at that little mosque on the Prairie.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:49 | link | comments

An outrageous proposal: A very "clever" intellectual writing in the Toronto Star--a very lefty rag--poses an "interesting" question: Might it might not be a good idea to widen Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms umbrella to cover the Taliban?

Good thinking there, perfesser. Very "progressive." One petite drawback, though: We're at war with the Taliban, and, oh yeah, THEY AREN'T CANADIAN!

Aside from that, it's a topping idea--like extending charter rights to Nazis during WWII.

Thank God the Trudeaupian document wasn't around back then, or we might be sprechen Deutsch and toasting the 1000-year Reich (those of us that hadn't already been roasted, that is).

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:02 | link | comments (2)

Today's poem: With apologies to Edwin Arlington Robinson:

Whenever Barack Obama took the stage

We people couldn’t help but look at him.

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favoured, and imperially slim.

 

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always charismatic when he talked;

And impressed us so and fluttered pulses when he sang,

“Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes,” and he glittered when he walked.

 

And he was nice—yes, so much nicer than Bill and Hill,

And admirably schooled in every way;

In sum, we thought that there was everything

To make us think that he was JFK.

 

So on we worked, and waited for election day,

And swooned without shame, and cursed the GOP;

And Barack Obama, and his “audacity of hope,”

Got elected for a message that was 100% content free.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:36 | link | comments

More song lyrics: Hamas sings “We are the world,” urging Arabs to come together after one of their own, a loathsome Hellzbollocks bigwig (billed as “the bin Laden of the 80s”) ‘splodes in Damascus.

Israel sings “Put the blame on Mame, boys.”

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

Peace, hate and giant bunnies: The Toronto Star has an article by an L.A. Times scribe noting how Israeli plans to build apartments in East Jerusalem “rattles Palestinians” and is putting the kibosh on peace hopes. The subhead reads “’Give peace a chance’ by halting 1,120 apartments set for east part of city, Palestinian negotiators urge.”

Ah, yes. They’re such peace-lovers, those Palestinian negotiators.

Of course I had to respond, and, of course, the following letter has a snowball’s shot in Hades of showing up in print:

“Give peace a chance,” say Palestinian negotiators, echoing the words of noted peacenik, the late John Lennon. As if “peace” hinged on whether or not Israelis built a few more apartments in East Jerusalem. As if it wasn’t going to take a lot more than that—like, for starters, the Palestinians’ inability to come to terms with the reality of a Jewish state, something which, for going on six decades, has so far eluded them.

But since we’re quoting Beatles’ lyrics, here’s one for you: “All you need is love.” You might want to recall these words—and replace the “love” with “hate”—when viewing the latest example of Palestinian indoctrination of youngsters, now available online. There on a popular Hamas TV kiddie show, sort of a Sesame Street for psychopaths, an adorable giant bunny beseeches children to “eat” Jews. Yes, that’s right, “eat” Jews. The bunny follows in the footsteps of Nahoul, the giant bee, and Farfour, the Mickey Mouse clone, both of whom delivered a similarly hateful, demented message, and who both met their demise at the hands of “evil” Jews.

The great lyricist Oscar Hammerstein said it best in his famous song about prejudice and impressionable young minds:

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

Until the Palestinians stop carefully teaching their children to hate, “peace” doesn’t stand a chance.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:07 | link | comments

Dr. Death: Just when you think the whole ‘sploding shaheed business can’t get any sicker, it does. From the times online:

The acting director of a Baghdad psychiatric hospital has been arrested on suspicion of supplying al-Qaeda in Iraq with the mentally impaired women that it used to blow up two crowded animal markets in the city on February 1, killing about 100 people.

Iraqi security forces and US soldiers arrested the man at al-Rashad hospital in east Baghdad on Sunday. They then spent three hours searching his office and removing records. Sources told The Times that the two women bombers had been treated at the hospital in the past.

“They [the security forces] arrested the acting director, accusing him of working with al-Qaeda and recruiting mentally ill women and using them in suicide bombing operations,” a hospital official said.

Ibrahim Muhammad Agel, director of the hospital, was killed in the Mansour district of Baghdad on December 11 by gunmen on motorbikes. Colleagues suspect that he was shot for refusing to cooperate with al-Qaeda. Even before Sunday’s arrest, US officials believed that al-Qaeda was scouring Iraq’s hospitals for mentally impaired patients whom it could dupe into acting as suicide bombers. They said that al-Qaeda had used the mentally impaired as unwitting bombers before. “We have fairly good reason to believe this is not the first time they have recruited mentally handicapped individuals,” said one senior officer, though he did not think there had been more than half a dozen cases.

The attraction of mentally impaired women to al-Qaeda was obvious, he said. Being women they could get close to targets with less chance of being stopped or searched; being mentally impaired, they were “less likely to make a rational judgment about what they are being asked to do”...

Paging Dr. Mengele.

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

“Sweet” mujaheed: Ceeb correspondent Nancy Durham donned a black pup tent to interview a self-described “romantic”—now back home in Shariaville—about his recent stay at Gitmo:

…There is something of a young Woody Allen about the 29-year-old bespectacled Bender al-Jabry who readily told me, smiling, that yes he did go to Afghanistan to train to fight with Chechen rebels, fellow Muslims, against the Russians.

While in Afghanistan, he says, he was taken prisoner and sold to the Americans for $10,000. He says his torture started in Kandahar and continued for six years. He told me that while he was at Gitmo, he spent three and a half years in solitary confinement.

Both al-Dossary and al-Jabry say they live for the future now. Only Hamood, 34, said he could neither forget nor forgive his six-year ordeal.

His story is that he went to Afghanistan before 9/11 "just to help the poor people" and that afterward, when he saw "Americans threatening Afghans, Taliban and al-Qaeda," he decided "that's not my business" and left Afghanistan via the notorious Tora Bora region on the border with Pakistan, the presumed hiding place of Osama bin Laden.

Hamood says he turned to the Pakistani army for help, explaining that he was from Saudi Arabia and that he needed to call his embassy. "They told me 'OK that's fine, we're going to take you to a nice place to get some rest.'"

He shakes his head at the memory, explaining that he was then given to U.S. forces who took him first to Kandahar and then to Guantánamo Bay, in the American-controlled portion of Cuba, "asking myself for six years what did I do?"

Now he says, he keeps his anger under control. "But I don't forgive. I'm asking God to get me my revenge, soon, because I'm still a human being. How [can] I forget six years from my life? It's not a short time."

'I'm a romantic'

Ex-Guantanamo Bay detainees participate in art therapy sessions at rehab. Al-Jabry's work uses a bright yellow eye to represent Cuba in a sea of murky waters. His art therapist, Dr. Awad Alyami, says the "eye symbolizes seeing, observing things" and, studying the piece Alyami says, "things get confused for him so he just hurries up and leaves" the work unfinished.

Alyami also says the work shows al-Jabry is happy to be back among his family and people. "Most of them have told us they were not sure they would see their families again."

There were certainly times when al-Dossary thought he would never see his family again. When I said goodbye to him at the rehab centre, however, I left a man in an upbeat mood musing about finding a wife.

Then he added, "And by the way I'm romantic!" He insists he has forgotten the negative experiences of his detention since he has come home and that he has been "reborn" into a "new life" where every minute counts.

His first marriage ended in divorce and now he is getting reacquainted with his 13-year-old daughter. He told me his family comes first and he wants to spend as much time as possible with his mother, sisters and brothers. His father died while he was in Guantánamo Bay.

Better not send any roses or mushy cards to your “Valentine,” Bender. You don’t want to run afoul of the Wahhabi vice squad. Those guys make the Gitmo guards look like counsellors at a kids' summer camp.

Update: A "romantic" mujaheed sings Rodgers and Hart:

Isn’t it romantic?

Merely to be young

And fighting for jihad?

Isn’t it romantic?

Chattin’ with an infidelle

And tellin’ her I’m sad.

I hear the siren call a callin’ in the Prophet’s words.

So what if some still think that jihad’s for the birds?

Isn’t it romantic?

Hooking up with virgins who will pant and moan for me.

Sweet houris in the moonlight,

Do you mean that I will score with you perchance?

Isn’t it romance?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:35 | link | comments

The new View: In my dreams, I imagine Barbara Walters getting rid of the yentas on her chick chat show and replacing them with any combination of Wafa Sultan, Diana West, Melanie Phillips, Nonie Darwish, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Claudia Rosett, Phyllis Chesler and Bat Ye’or.

Here are the last two, in conversation in FrontPage magazine:

Chesler: What do you see is happening at this moment?

Bat Ye’or: The West is engaged in a very careful exercise of self-censorship. We are trying not to offend Muslim sensibilities. Western governments want to impose respect for Muslim sensibilities in the hope that this will avoid jihad. They are ready to suppress the truth.

Chesler: What do you think of an Obama Presidency?

Bat Ye’or: Obama and his supporters do not seem to understand that Europe has failed. Today, European dissidents are forming movements against the European Union whose policies have led to the Islamification of Europe. Europe is suffering from a huge Muslim immigration problem. The Muslim immigrants do not want to integrate into a modern, tolerant state and they want to impose Sha’ria law on us all.

Chesler: What does this remind you of?

Bat Ye’or: All these Western gestures of appeasement remind me of the dhimmi regulations. These are a whole set of regulations whose purpose is to respect Muslim sensibilities. Therefore, Christians must conduct “quiet” services and dhimmis (infidels) must wear special clothing so as not to shock or offend Muslims with their too-fashionable or too-expensive clothing. Long ago, infidels had to dismount from their donkeys when a Muslim approached and a dhimmi could only pass a Muslim on the left (or impure) side, not on the right side.

I am not in favor of inciting anyone but really, where will this all end? And why this super-sensitivity only to Muslims? There is only one answer. Our intellectuals and politicians want to have a good relationship with the Muslim world. They think they will always have the freedoms that they currently enjoy. They do not understand that those freedoms are at risk.

Chesler: Where does Israel fit into this picture?

Bat Ye’or: Europeans have imagined that the problem is only Israel. They were committed to allowing the Arabs to destroy Israel if that kept them, the Europeans, safe. But these Europeans do not seem to remember that Islam persecuted and then destroyed Christianity in Muslim lands. We see a repetition of this in Europe today.

Chesler: Such politicians and intellectuals are suicidal, don’t you think?

Bat Ye’or: Absolutely. But they want so much to be loved that they are reaching out to their enemy. This is the politics of self-destruction. They are making concessions about their basic security and freedom

Chesler: Some people are already discouraged, almost in advance, about the battle for America. What do you think?

Bat Ye’or: This battle is not yet lost. The handful of us who are working to alert others to the dangers specific to the 21st century are doing heroic work against all odds. We—you—have not failed. I believe that we are planting seeds. When America battled communism it had whole organizations committed to doing so. We—you—have nothing like that today in the war against Islamic terror…

Thanks, Bat. We needed that.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:19 | link | comments

Not ready for his close up: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed must be really bummed out. Not because there’s word that he’s finally going to be tried and may face the death penalty for his alleged role in plotting the 9/11 attacks, but because the news has given the media yet another opportunity to show this:

 

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:03 | link | comments

For it’s one, two, three strikes yer out at the old sharia game: Daniel Pipes on creeping sharia in the U.K (his links).:

Beneath the deceptively placid surface of everyday life, the British population is engaged in a momentous encounter with Islam. Three developments of the past week, each of them culminating years' long trend — and not just some odd occurrence — exemplify changes now underway.

First, the UK government has decided that terrorism by Muslims in the name of Islam is actually unrelated to Islam, or even anti-Islamic. This notion took root in 2006 when the Foreign Office, afraid that the term "war on terror" would inflame British Muslims, sought language that upholds "shared values as a means to counter terrorists." By early 2007, the European Union issued a classified handbook that banned jihad, Islamic, and fundamentalist in reference to terrorism, offering instead some "non-offensive" phrases. Last summer, Prime Minister Gordon Brown prohibited his ministers from using the word Muslim in connection with terrorism. In January, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith went further, actually describing terrorism as "anti-Islamic." And last week the Home Office completed the obfuscation by issuing a counter-terrorism phrasebook that instructs civil servants to refer only to violent extremism and criminal murderers, not Islamist extremism and jihadi-fundamentalists.

Second, and again culminating several years of evolution, the British government now recognizes polygamous marriages. It changed the rules in the "Tax Credits (Polygamous Marriages) Regulations 2003": previously, only one wife could inherit assets tax-free from a deceased husband; this legislation permits multiple wives to inherit tax-free, so long as the marriage had been contracted where polygamy is legal, as in Nigeria, Pakistan, or India. In a related matter, the Department for Work and Pensions began issuing extra payments to harems for such benefits as jobseeker allowances, housing subventions, and council tax relief. Last week came news that, after a year-long review, four government departments (Work and Pensions, Treasury, Revenue and Customs, Home Office) concluded that formal recognition of polygamy is "the best possible" option for Her Majesty's Government.

Third, the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, endorsed applying portions of the Islamic law (the Shari'a) in Great Britain. Adopting its civil elements, he explained, "seems unavoidable" because not all British Muslims relate to the existing legal system and applying the Shari'a would help with their social cohesion. When Muslims can go to an Islamic civil court, they need not face "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty." Continuing to insist on the "legal monopoly" of British common law rather than permit Shari'a, Williams warned, would bring on "a bit of a danger" for the country.

Prime Minister Brown immediately slammed Williams' suggestion: Shari'a law, his office declared, "cannot be used as a justification for committing breaches of English law, nor can the principle of Shari'a law be used in a civilian court. … the Prime Minister believes British law should apply in this country, based on British values." Criticism of Williams came additionally from all sides of the political spectrum — from Sayeeda Warsi, the Tory (Muslim) shadow minister for community cohesion and social action; Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats; and Gerald Batten of the United Kingdom Independence Party. Secular and Christian groups opposed Williams. So did Trevor Phillips, head of the equality commission. The Anglican church in Australia denounced his proposal, along with leading members of his own church, including his predecessor, Lord Carey. Melanie Phillips called his argument "quite extraordinarily muddled, absurd and wrong." The Sun newspaper editorialized that "It's easy to dismiss Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams as a silly old goat. In fact he's a dangerous threat to our nation." It concludes acerbically that "The Archbishop of Canterbury is in the wrong church."…

Actually, he’s in the right church (“progressive”, squishy, clueless); it’s the church that’s in the wrong.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:51 | link | comments

Time to alert the media: A story I have yet to encounter in the MSM--Al Qaeda in Iraq said to be in total collapse.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:31 | link | comments

Feminist tap dance: When I went to the library this afternoon, a book called A History of Women’s Seclusion in the Middle East: THE VEIL IN THE LOOKINGLASS by someone named Ann Chamberlin was on display. “Interesting,” said I to myself, thinking it had something to do with gender apartheid and pervasive misogyny is places like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Silly me. Turning the book over, the back cover quickly set me straight: “Learn how the seclusion of women can be used as a feminist defense (sic) against exploitation—and as an empowering force.”

Yes, Ms. Chamberlin, you bold feminist you, because powerlessness is just so…empowering.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:45 | link | comments

Thick-skinned, plodding and very horny? A baby rhino in Kenya is named for Kofi Annan

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:31 | link | comments

Go figure: The Archbish’s synod is as clueless as he is. From the times online:

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has apologised to the Church of England for "any unclarity" or "misleading choice of words" when he delivered his controversial speech on Islam and the law.

Resisting the temptation to blame anyone but himself for provoking a debate that surprised him by its ferocity, the Archbishop said he took responsibility for anything he had said that had caused "distress or misunderstanding among the public at large, and especially among my fellow Christians".

But in his speech to the Church of England General Synod today Dr Williams remained unrepentant for putting the subject on the agenda.

"I believe quite strongly that it is not inappropriate for a pastor of the Church of England to address issues around the perceived concerns of other religious communities and to try and bring them into better public focus," said the Archbishop.

He was greeted by a standing ovation and his speech was rounded off by a further round of extended applause from the members of the General Synod in Westminster.

Dr Williams was attempting to dampen the controversy that has flared up since he said in a speech and BBC interview last Thursday that the introduction of some aspects of Sharia into English law seemed "unavoidable". Reporting of his remarks led to unprecedented criticism from ministers, his own church and other religions.

The Archbishop said that last week's lecture had been intended as an opening contribution to a series on Islam and English Law mounted by the Temple Church and London University. He said that he had been trying to post the question to the legal establishment whether attempts to accommodate aspects of Islamic law would create an area where the law of the land doesn't run.

He said: "We are not talking about parallel jurisdictions; and I tried to make clear that there could be no 'blank cheques' in this regard, in particular as regards some of the sensitive questions about the status and liberties of women."

But he went on to repeat some of the propositions he put forward last week.

"The question remains of whether certain additional choices could and should be made available under the law of the United Kingdom for resolving disputes and regulating transactions. It would be analogous to what is already possible in terms of the legal recognition of certain kinds of financial transactions under Islamic regulation, including special provision around mortgage arrangements. And it would create a helpful interaction between the courts and the practice of Muslim legal scholars in this country."

Evangelical leaders called for the Synod to schedule a special debate on the issue, and at least one member urged that a Muslim scholar be invited to address synod…

The visiting scholar wouldn’t have to explain the concept of “abject dhimmitude” to the Anglicans. The Archbish and his feckless flock already have it down pat.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:27 | link | comments

Down with love: The annual day of romance is almost upon us and you know what that means—those wacky Wahhabis have dropped everything to do their annual anti-love freak out.  From the Beeb:

Religious police in Saudi Arabia are banning the sale of Valentine's Day gifts including red roses, a local newspaper has reported.

 

The Saudi Gazette quoted shop workers as saying that officials had warned them to remove all red items including flowers and wrapping paper.

Black market prices for roses were already rising, the paper said.

Saudi authorities consider Valentine's Day, along with a host of other annual celebrations, as un-Islamic.

In addition to the prohibition on celebrating non-Islamic festivals, the authorities consider Valentine's Day as encouraging relations between men and women outside wedlock - punishable by law in the conservative kingdom.

The Saudi Gazette reported that some people placed orders with florists days or weeks before Valentine's Day in anticipation of the ban, which is a regular occurrence.

"Sometimes we deliver the bouquets in the middle of the night or early morning, to avoid suspicion," one florist said.

Others were planning to travel to the more religiously liberal neighbouring countries, Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, to celebrate.

Saudi Arabian authorities impose a strict Islamic code that prevents men and women from mixing.

Oh, those Saudi Arabian authorities. E’er ready to spoil everyone’s fun (fun and frivolity being frowned on by their strict Islamic code).

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:14 | link | comments (5)

Capitalizing on our cluelessness: Abdul Kassem explains to FrontPage Magazine’s Jamie Glazov why the jihadists are thrilled that the West has embraced the social doctrine of multiculturalism. From their standpoint, the jihad and multiculturalism go together like a hand in a glove, or a pig in poop, or a bunch of Trojans and a big old wooden horse:

FP: There is the reality and policy of Western multiculturalism. There is also the agenda of Islamic multiculturalism. Introduce the concept to us.

Kasem: Many western governments have a lofty ideal—to create a society, where people of different race, religion, culture, and tradition live together in peace and harmony, without losing their root identity. For many years, this policy has sprouted large-scale migration from many impoverished Islamic nations to wealthy countries, such as the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, New Zealand, and a few European nations.

Happily adopting this Kafir (Islamic term for non-Muslim) multiculturalism, many migrants have successfully integrated with the host nation. This has enhanced their life style, quality of living, and a good perception of human bondage. They are pleased to practice their respective religions with full freedom, and maintain their tradition and culture without encroaching on others’ freedom to do so. There is, however, one exception—Islam. Islam is at odds with this Kafir Multiculturalism, even though Muslims use this policy to their advantage.

The Kafir Multiculturalism promotes religious tolerance, freedom of expression, and democracy. It accords equal opportunity for all, irrespective of race religion, ethnic origin, gender, and sexual orientation. In this policy of Kafir Multiculturalism, the Islamists have found a great opportunity to advance their agenda—to create a pan Islamic world. All the cardinal principles of Kafir Multiculturalism are working in favor of the Islamists. That is why all Islamists are in full support of Kafir Multiculturalism.

But Islamists’ support of Kafir Multiculturalism is just a deceptive ploy to hide their real motives. Behind the veneer of their broad smile, talk of peace, love for freedom and interfaith understanding, there is a vicious plan. This plan is the design to replace the Kafir Multiculturalism with Islamic Multiculturalism. This is similar to the Islamists’ attempt to replace the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948 with the 1981 Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. We should have no delusion that the Islamists are right on target with Islamic Multiculturalism, and they are advancing uncompromisingly, confidently, and stealthily towards their goal. Their weapon—it is none other than Kafir Multiculturalism—exactly the same way they had used UDHR as a weapon in the past.

FP: Ok, so what exactly does Islamic Multiculturalism entail?

Kasem: As I have noted, Islamists simply love the western concept of multiculturalism. It suits them perfectly to press on with their agenda of Islamization of western societies, by using the concepts of western democracy, freedom of expression, secularism, and respect for diverse culture, religion, language, and tradition. The Islamists cleverly use these noble ideals and good intentions to defeat the western policy makers in their own game.

We must comprehend that the Islamists have a totally different idea of multiculturalism. The foundation of Islamic Multiculturalism is solidly based on the supremacy of Islam, primacy of the Arabs, and the global Islamic Ummah. They find the western concept of multiculturalism too easy to use to their advantage.

For example, when Australia organizes ‘interfaith dialogue,’ the Islamists find in it an unparallel opportunity to espouse the ‘beauty’ of Islam. Mainly funded by the infidel tax payers, the ‘interfaith dialogue’ has become the best platform to advance Islam in the west. Thanks to those Westerners who are ignorant about Islam and are gullible useful idiots, the Islamists are laughing all the way to the mosques, knowing full well that Islam is totally safe in the hands of western politicians. The Islamists have nothing to worry about in terms of their agenda to eventually impose Islam on the infidel lands. The politicians of the infidel territories are doing the job for them (i.e., promoting Islam). These politicians even appoint the Islamists as advisors or consultative group in tackling Islamic terrorism. What could be more ironic than this?

FP: Well, while the Islamists enjoy our system of multiculturalism and are able to engage in their culture and religion freely here, let’s discuss how non-Muslims enjoy the right to multiculturalism and freedom in Islamic lands.

Kasem: The fate of non-Muslims living in Islamic paradises crystallizes this issue very well. Let the non-Muslims who are seeking ‘interfaith dialogue’ with the Islamists do so on Islamic territory and we’ll see what happens to them. What do you think will be the response from the Islamic governments?

Let us consider Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, just to name few. The world is fully aware how the religious minorities in such Islamic societies are treated. Despite mindless atrocities committed on the non-Muslims there, have we ever heard any of the governments of these Islamic countries organize such dialogues with the Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and the Jews living there? Have we ever wondered what will be the response of these Islamist governments if we talk of multiculturalism there? The reality is that the minority religions are completely subdued and under total mercy of the Islamist governments in these Islamic countries. The Islamists are fully aware of such cruel, unjust, and harsh treatment of religious minorities in Islamic societies, whereas, in the infidel territories, they themselves do whatever they want. The Islamists living in a Kafir’s Multicultural system find it so easy to demand and force the system to acquiesce to their agenda.

FP: Let’s go to the roots of the problem. Tell us about the Qur’an and multiculturalism. Use this as the basis to explain how Islamic Multiculturalism is simply the Islamists’ exploitation of our own policy of multiculturalism to destroy multiculturalism. They will use our tolerance to destroy all tolerance.

Kasem: The Qur’an makes it very clear that Allah is the owner of infidel lands. This is non-negotiable…

There’s no “multi” anything under sharia. There’s only one law, indivisible, with tyranny and injustice for all, especially chicks and kafirs.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:56 | link | comments (1)

Ross’s gaseous sob story: If I have to read one more account of how the poor, unfortunate people of Hamasistan are suffering because of Israel’s “collective punishment” or “punitive sanctions” or whatever other buzz phrases are out there, I might be forced to go door-to-door to take up a collection for the world’s Most Important Victims.

Just kidding. More likely I’ll do what I always do when I read something like the following—Oakland Ross in the Toronto Star: treat the nausea with some ginger root and then write a letter.

Here’s Ross:

GAZA CITY–At least one line of business still seems to be booming in this benighted land, and it does not involve firing rockets.

It involves tinkering with cars.

"We are under siege," says Ali Awad, 48, an automobile mechanic who is especially adept at a certain procedure ideally suited to the strapped circumstances that nowadays prevail in the Gaza Strip, where punitive sanctions imposed by Israel have crippled an already stumbling economy.

"We have to survive. We cannot just go out and steal."

Instead, Awad and tradespeople like him are performing a kind of modern-day alchemy, somehow keeping cars on the road in a territory where just about every gasoline station has been closed for weeks, owing to an acute and persistent shortage of fuel supplies.

Gasoline for automobiles has been especially hard hit, and not by accident.

"As far as I'm concerned, the residents of Gaza can walk," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said last month, "and they will not get gasoline because they have a murderous, terrorist regime that does not allow the residents of southern Israel to live in peace."

Olmert was referring to Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and condones the almost daily firing of mortars and improvised rockets, known as Qassams, toward Israel. For that reason, and also because Hamas refuses to formally recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state, Israel imposes a severe economic blockade on the territory, limiting the entry of most goods and sharply restricting the supply of fuel, especially gas for automobiles.

As a result, almost all of Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants should probably have blisters on their feet by now from so much walking.

But they have been at least partly spared that particular hardship, thanks in no small measure to mechanics like Awad, men who have mastered the trick of converting cars to run on a pressurized and flammable concoction that still manages to find its way into Gaza, albeit in diminished quantities.

It is called cooking gas…

And here’s the letter:

I took out an especially well-made tiny violin—a Stradivarius—for the Gaza automobile mechanic who kvetched that he and other Gazans “are under seige.” For solace, perhaps the gasoline-starved residents of the territory belly-aching about Israel’s “punitive sanctions” could commiserate with the folks of Sderot, the Israeli town which has been besieged by thousands of punitive Hamas missiles.

Better yet, perhaps Hamas could do something to curtail the rocket fire so Israel’s “siege” can end.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:36 | link | comments

Down and out to lunch: Times Comment Editor, Daniel Finkelstein (a nice, normal, non-Norman Finkelstein) kayos the Archbish of Squish with a one-two punch:

The Archbishop of Canterbury is often hard to follow - by which I mean hard to comprehend. But when a sentence peeks through the fog and makes itself understood, I frequently find I disagree with him.

Not long ago I attended a lecture by him about freedom of expression and when asked to describe it later I said: "It was too obscure for me to know when to heckle."

I do not have the same difficulty with today's extraordinary remarks about Sharia law.

He has just told the BBC that the adoption of certain parts of Sharia law is "unavoidable". He believes that if we do not adopt it, there will be a tension between the cultural customs of parts of the community and the requirements of the state.

Well, first of all this adoption is not unavoidable in the literal sense - we can avoid it by not doing it.

What makes this country a liberal, peaceable democracy is that we all live under the same laws, we are equal citizens before the law.

As I argued in my column yesterday, this is a Christian country, even if (unbelievably) the Archbishop himself wishes it were not so. Everyone is entitled to worship any religion or none but this under British law and with due respect for the way that British traditions hold in public space.

Fortunately these traditions include remarkable tolerance for others, a welcome and interest in the practice of others and great generosity of spirit. But such values are not abstract one, conjured out of nowhere. They are rooted in this country's history and practice as a Christian nation.

There are any number of places in the world where people can live under Sharia law. This isn't one of them.

Nor should it be.

Amen to that.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:53 | link | comments (2)

 Sheer madness: Israel pardons 32 Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade terrorists.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:29 | link | comments

Missing whistle blower: Last November, a South African woman working as a nurse at King Abdul Aziz Medical City in Riyadh blew the whistle on some “irregularities” at her place of employment. According to Arab News, she hasn’t been heard from since:

RIYADH - Attempts by the South African Embassy, relatives and acquaintances to find Dannelene Noach, a nurse who has been missing since November last year after whistle-blowing on alleged irregularities at a local hospital, have been unsuccessful.

"We have written more than half dozen letters to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a staggered timeframe to trace Noach, but to no avail," South African Ambassador John Davies said yesterday.

Adding to the intrigue in the case is that the family claims Noach contacted them about 10 days ago.

"It was a landline call; we were able to trace the number and passed it on to the South African Embassy in Riyadh," said Lee-Ann Noach-Pienaar, the daughter of the missing nurse.

"My mother sounded very desperate," she added.

The family says that they suspect Noach is being held captive and that her captors are allowing her to contact her family, but would only allow her to speak in English so they could understand the conversation.

"I don't know how it all happened, how she managed to call her family in South Africa from an undisclosed location after so many days," said Davies. "We have received general information about Noach from King Abdul Aziz Medical City, where she used to work, but we have failed to trace her so far."

Family members have contacted the Saudi and South African governments for help, but they say their efforts have been in vain. Noach, from Cape Town, worked in Riyadh for about seven years. The last time she spoke to her daughter before disappearing was on Nov. 20.

"We spoke on the phone every day. On the first day I couldn't contact her I thought there was probably something wrong with her phone, but when we didn't hear from her the next day then I knew something was wrong," said Noach-Pienaar.

"The embassy has already conveyed its concerns to the Saudi officials," said Davies. "And we have heard that the nurse is being kept captive somewhere in the city."

According to Noach-Pienaar, her mother, who worked as a clinical coordinator at the Riyadh hospital, was asked in May last year to conduct an audit of her department and had discovered financial discrepancies implicating some officials.

"As soon as she submitted her report, she was suspended without pay. She had taken the matter up with a local human rights organization because they cited (her use of) black magic as the reason for the suspension," said Noach-Pienaar.

A typical modus operendi in the Magic Kingdom: When an infidelle blows the whistle on your “irregularities,” call her a witch and silence her whistle.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:21 | link | comments (1)

A preview of coming attractions: Sharia law in U.K. may result in 'legal apartheid.'

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:57 | link | comments

Media blindness and leftist perversity: Aaron Klein, an Orthodox, American-born Israeli, had no trouble “Schmoozing with Terrorists”—the title of his new book—and getting them to reveal themselves as the hateful, genocidal, ideologically-driven bastards they are. Lori Lowenthal Marcus reviews the book on the American Thinker site and raises some crucial questions:

...First, Aaron Klein, a product of Philadelphia suburban Jewish religious schools, moved to Israel and within a few years was able to gain audiences -- as an identified Jew and a journalist -- with the most senior Arab Palestinian terrorists, who spoke to him frankly about their plans and their views.  This forces us to ask:  where is the rest of the press corps?  If these murder merchants happily speak at length about their desire to murder and torture those who don't fit their religious profiles, why are the rest of the hundreds of journalists who call Israel their beat unable to obtain the same information?  Do they prefer to stick with the standard mendacious narrative, either because they believe it or because they are too afraid to approach the terrorist leadership?  Neither answer says anything favorable about the press corps.

 

Second, why are all those on the political left, those who identify themselves as advocates for minorities, so convinced that Israel is the villain and the Arab Palestinians are the victim?  Anyone who claims to favor women's rights, gay rights, ideological tolerance, freedom of the press, of speech, of association, of religion, in fact, nearly all of the icons of the political left, should logically support the Israeli narrative.  Instead, most of those in this country who fit the profile of the left support the Arab Palestinian narrative.  Yet Klein's interviewees freely articulate their categorical rejection of the ideas these groups hold dear.  And when these people categorically reject an idea, we're not talking polite disagreement over cocktails:  we're talking beheading in the town square, as Klein's interviewees state in plain English.  Yet these groups -- QUIT (Queers Undermining Israeli Terror) is my own personal favorite -- continue to support terrorists who would happily slaughter their western advocates if they attained the power they seek. 

 

While Klein's book doesn't answer these questions, it provides the necessary proof that willful (sic) ignorance and cowardice play a strong role in the current widespread distribution of sympathy for the Arab Palestinian narrative.

 

Along with oodles of juicy, wilful Judenhass.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:27 | link | comments

More cartoon controversy: A Hamas court has come down hard on a Fatah-backed newspaper for printing a cartoon that made fun of Hamas and its nutbar-in-chief, Ismail Haniyeh.

Not surprisingly, cartoons like this, and this, and this, among many, many others, are still wildly popular with Palestinians of all stripes.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:24 | link | comments

Another drum roll, please: And the prize for most amusing—and obviously accidental—juxtaposition goes to…the Toronto Sun. Yesterday, it published yet another in a seemingly endless series of rambling rants by the four budding attorneys who have taken Maclean’s magazine to task for printing some unpleasant truths about Muslim demographics and its impact on Europe. Following this latest tirade, online readers could see this:

Previous story: New law a pile of fertilizer

Funny, “a pile of fertilizer” more or less describes the current story, too.

Update: Chew on this one, HRC kidz.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:10 | link | comments

Shanoff misses the boat: Toronto Sun columnist Alan Shanoff tells us to chill about the threat that Canada’s HRCs pose to our freedom of expression:

I have lost count of the number of writers who have lamented the human rights commission complaints against Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn. Please people, take a pill and relax. The sky isn't falling.

First, let's remember that there is no such thing as absolute free speech. We've never had it and never will. It never existed under the Magna Carta and it doesn't exist under our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Freedom of expression has always been subject to a myriad of limitations including defamation laws, contempt of court laws, Criminal Code incitement of hatred laws, breach of confidence laws and yes indeed, human rights codes.

Let's not feel sorry for Levant. As publisher of the now defunct Western Standard he knew that he could be subject to some form of legal action for publishing the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

I admire Levant for having made that decision and accepting the risks but I can't feel sorry for him, even if it means he has to spend thousands of dollars on legal fees.

I also can't feel sorry for Levant having undergone what many have called an interrogation before an Alberta Human Rights Commission employee. You can watch a video of it on You Tube.

That was hardly an interrogation. The questioning was part of the standard investigation that takes place in all human rights complaints.

I'm not shedding any tears for Steyn or Maclean's either. There's nothing wrong with someone challenging the publication in Maclean's of an excerpt from Steyn's book, America Alone, no matter how frivolous the complaint may be.

(The chapter describes what Steyn calls the "remorseless transformation" of Europe into "Eurabia" in a post 9/11 world of jihad.)

We in the media have to defend ourselves from attacks all the time, regardless of the merits of the attacks.

Sun Media has faced several human rights code complaints in the past. All were dealt with quietly and successfully.

There are two possible results that can come from the Levant and Steyn complaints.

First, they may be discharged without the necessity of a formal hearing. That is what I suggest should happen to frivolous complaints like these two.

Alternatively, the complaints could be the subject of a hearing. A hearing would be fabulous in both cases.

Levant could easily establish that the publication of the cartoons led to rioting and deaths in other countries and that he had the right to allow his readers to view the cartoons to see what all the fuss was about.

Similarly, Steyn can establish that the factual statements in his column were accurate and his views simply form part of the ongoing global debate on the future of Islam.

In each case, the only logical result is that the complaint will be dismissed. That will have a beneficial impact and limit future frivolous complaints.

If, however, the complaints for some bizarre are upheld, then the human rights codes will be exposed as flawed instruments and the human rights commissions will be widely attacked and ridiculed.

In either case, the result is beneficial. The media can't lose.

I don't accept the argument that Levant and Steyn shouldn't have to defend themselves. Why should they or the media be exempt from meritless claims?…

As an attorney, Shanoff should know what all the fuss is about. It’s about allowing matters of free speech to be decided by “courts” in which there is no presumption of innocence, the usual rules of evidence don’t apply, the verdict—guilty—is a foregone conclusion, and the defendant is always on the hook for costs, while the complainant, even if his is a “nuisance” suit, gets off without having to pay a nickel.

It’s the Kafkaesque, Soviet, Wahhabish madness of empowering such bodies—which have now been hijacked by Islamists who want to shut down all criticism of the one true faith—that disturbs us, Al. And if you had a clue, it would disturb you, too.

My letter to the Sun:

Alan Shanoff is awfully blasé about Human Rights Commissions having the power to decide what Canadians can and cannot say. As an attorney, though, he of all people should be concerned, since HRCs are “courts” in which there is no presumption of innocence, the usual rules of evidence don’t apply, the verdict—guilty—is a foregone conclusion, and the defendant is always on the hook for costs, while the complainant, even if his is a “nuisance” suit, gets off without having to pay a nickel.

Such kangaroo courts may have a place in totalitarian countries and the novels of Kafka and Orwell, but, clearly, they do not belong in a Western democracy like Canada.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:10 | link | comments (1)

Drum roll, please: And the prize for most egregious display of chutzpah goes to…the Palestinians, who are demanding—get this—an apology from Egypt.

Nice try, kids, but your dear Egyptian brothers don’t want to apologize to you. They want to break your legs.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:43 | link | comments

Kissing cousins: Marrying your first cousin—a popular match up in some cultures, but perhaps not the best strategy for ensuring the long-term health of your gene pool. From the times online:

A government minister has warned that inbreeding among immigrants is causing a surge in birth defects - comments likely to spark a new row over the place of Muslims in British society.

Phil Woolas, an environment minister, said the culture of arranged marriages between first cousins was the “elephant in the room”. Woolas, a former race relations minister, said: “If you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is there’ll be a genetic problem.”

The minister, whose views were supported by medical experts this weekend, said: “The issue we need to debate is first cousin marriages, whereby a lot of arranged marriages are with first cousins, and that produces lots of genetic problems in terms of disability [in children].”

Woolas emphasised the practice did not extend to all Muslim communities but was confined mainly to families originating from rural Pakistan. However, up to half of all marriages within these communities are estimated to involve first cousins.

Medical research suggests that while British Pakistanis are responsible for 3% of all births, they account for one in three British children born with genetic illnesses.

The minister’s comments come as Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, rejected calls to resign over claims that Islamic law should be introduced in Britain. “I’m not contemplating resignation,” he told friends.

Williams insists his remarks were misinterpreted and that he was not advocating a parallel sharia jurisdiction for Muslims, but Lord Carey, his predecessor, warned acceptance of Muslim laws in Britain would be "disastrous".

The archbishop is believed to have received hate mail since he made his controversial comments but has rejected offers of round-the-clock police protection.

Williams is set to clash with the government again this week by voicing opposition to plans to extend detention without charge for terrorist suspects to 42 days.

Woolas, who represents the ethnically mixed seat of Oldham East and Saddleworth, has previously warned that Muslim women who wear headscarves could provoke “fear and resentment”. Yesterday, he was similarly outspoken.

“If you talk to any primary care worker they will tell you that levels of disability among the . . . Pakistani population are higher than the general population. And everybody knows it’s caused by first cousin marriage.

“That’s a cultural thing rather than a religious thing. It is not illegal in this country.

“The problem is that many of the parents themselves and many of the public spokespeople are themselves products of first cousin marriages. It’s very difficult for people to say ‘you can’t do that’ because it’s a very sensitive, human thing.”

He added that the issue is not talked about. “The health authorities look into it. Most health workers and primary care trusts in areas like mine are very aware of it. But it’s a very sensitive issue. That’s why it’s not even a debate and people outside of these areas don’t really know it exists.”

Woolas was supported by Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley, who called for the NHS to do more to warn parents of the dangers of inbreeding.

“This is to do with a medieval culture where you keep wealth within the family,” she said.

“If you go into a paediatric ward in Bradford or Keighley you will find more than half of the kids there are from the Asian community. Since Asians only represent 20%-30% of the population, you can see that they are over represented.

“I have encountered cases of blindness and deafness. There was one poor girl who had to have an oxygen tank on her back and breathe from a hole in the front of her neck.

“The parents were warned they should not have any more children. But when the husband returned again from Pakistan, within months they had another child with exactly the same condition.”

 

I know. Maybe the Ceeb’s Little Mosque on the Prairie could help raise awareness about the problem by adding some new characters a la Newhart’s products of rural inbreeding, Larry, Darryl and Darryl. (“Hi. I’m Abdullah. This is my brother Mahmoud. This is my other brother Mahmoud.”)

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:57 | link | comments (1)

Love and marriage and marriage and marriage and marriage: In response to its article about provincial and municipal governments funding one of the most fundamental elements of sharia—polygamy—the Toronto Sun printed the following letter. (Annoyingly, the Sun always caps off letters with a “quip”):

Abuse of welfare

Re "Harems pay off for Muslims" (Feb. 8): So Mumtaz Ali, president of the Canadian Society of Muslims, believes "Canada is a very liberal-minded country." I think Ali is confusing "liberal-minded" with "stupid." These polygamists are abusing the spirit of the welfare laws -- and this must stop.

Norm Dykstra-Swain

Cambridge

(We're guessing the lawyers will be looking at the wording of the rules again)

Not content with this missive I just dashed off my own:

Sorry to be a stickler, but is inaccurate to refer to the quadruple wife arrangement allowed for under Islamic law as a "harem." Strictly speaking, a harem is comprised of an unspecified number of women who have not made a trip to the altar with the energetic gentleman keeping them as concubines. Said gentleman may or may not also have his full share of wives.

So while Ontarians may be willing to turn a blind eye to funding polygamy, I’m sure that not even the most ardent multiculturalist would have the chutzpah to demand that provincial and municipal authorities underwrite actual harems.

Then again…

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:11 | link | comments

Male chauvinist piggery in the Magic Kingdom:  A Saudi woman describes what it means to be a woman living in one of the most misogynistic places in the world. From Arab News, as translated by MEMRI:

"The Saudi Woman is Born Unwanted"

"The Saudi woman is guilty. She is guilty of being born in a male-dominated society. Her fault is that she grows up in a society that stigmatizes her sex as a sin. She is held accountable because society believes she is underage - even if she is in her 60s -and implements a guardianship system over her as if she were a second-class citizen. It is very common for a Saudi woman - a widow or a divorcee - to have her young son as her guardian, and she needs his written permission to carry out official paperwork. He is in control of her life and her destiny.

"The Saudi woman can be blamed for living in a male-dominated society that opposes many rights for women despite the fact that the Prophet (peace be upon him) - the best of all humans - consulted a woman and listened to her advice. The Saudi woman is guilty of living in a society that confuses tradition with Islamic obligations, and idolizes what it sees as the latter to the extent that when she wants to discuss or object, she is accused of rebellion. Her fault is that society considers her an item of her guardian's property. He can do anything he desires with her without asking her opinion or even listening to her.

"The Saudi woman is born unwanted. Everybody wants a male child rather than a female one.

"She is Guilty If She Remains Silent and Guilty If She talks"

"This innocent creature is forcibly taught what is prohibited and shameful before even knowing how to speak. She is guilty if she remains silent and guilty if she talks.

"She is guilty if she is divorced and guilty if she cleaves to her husband and children when someone tries unjustifiably to destroy her marriage. Her only refuge is prison, where she has the right to say no. She has lost all her rights and has fought for one that allows her to live only behind bars. Her sin is that she tried to protect her marriage and family. But traditions and customs challenged and destroyed her attempts.

"The Saudi Woman is Guilty for Being Raped"

"The Saudi woman is guilty for being raped, in darkness or in daylight, because her society wants her locked in, producing legal children and never leaving her house unless she is dead and of course accompanied by a guardian. She is guilty when brutal beasts tear her body and soul apart, threatening her with weapons and defamation because society believes she subjected herself to them and she deserves what happens to her.

"She is guilty because society prohibits her from driving and forces her to live at the mercy of a foreign driver. He might rape her one day or make money by allowing others to rape her, and then she will be the one who is blamed for having put herself in such position and went out with a driver without her legal guardian.

"The Saudi Woman is Guilty Because She is Part of her Guardian's Property"

"The Saudi woman is guilty because she is part of her guardian's property even when he is a criminal, serving time in jail and he marries her off to his colleague in prison who is awaiting execution. Society is aware of this and apparently sees no harm in such. In fact, the community blessed this marriage and arranged for them to be legally alone together. And the woman's fault is that she is the daughter of a criminal.

"She is Guilty when Others Confiscate Her Property... by Impersonating Her - And Her Greatest Sin is that Her Identity Stems From Her Guardian"

"The Saudi woman is guilty of being haunted by spinsterhood and not accepting misyar [2] and all other types of male-invented marriages. She is also guilty if she accepts being abandoned by her husband when he feels tired and bored with her and wants a new wife. She is guilty if she objects to anything and her legal guardian beats her until he breaks her ribs or permanently disfigures her. His right is to beat her and make her obey and listen, even if that means deforming her physical features as a woman and taking away her beauty.

"She is guilty when others confiscate her property or real estate by impersonating her, and her greatest sin is that her identity stems from her guardian. The Saudi woman is always guilty and anyone who thinks of dealing with her humanely is a criminal."

High time for Western feminists and other hyper-“virtuous” lefties to launch an annual “Saudi Arabian Gender Apartheid Week,” I’d say.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:42 | link | comments

Sprucing up the Brotherhood: The effort to sanitize one of the most despicable organizations on the planet, the Muslim Brotherhood, continues apace. It pops up in today’s Globe and Mail, in an article by Mark “Malarkey” MacKinnon—always up for a good whitewash of Arabs—and Orly Halpern. The article recounts how Egypt is running out of patience with Hamas and the residents of Gaza:  

…After initially showing sympathy for the Palestinians – Mr. Mubarak initially said the Gazans would be allowed to enter Egypt and stock up on supplies so they wouldn't “starve” under Israel's harsh blockade – the Egyptian regime's patience for Hamas appears to be rapidly running out.

After days of blaming Israel for the situation in Gaza, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit changed his tone this week and harshly criticized Hamas and other groups for firing rockets at Israeli towns when such attacks do little damage and draw heavy retribution from Israel. In a clear warning to Hamas, he said that anyone who tried to violate Egypt's border again “will get their legs broken.”

While Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, it maintains a separate leadership structure. Nonetheless Egypt's state-controlled media increasingly refers to the two groups as a single organization that poses a threat to the country's security. Such talk, Brotherhood members say, likely presages a coming crackdown on their members.

The Brotherhood, which seeks the non-violent creation of an Islamic state in Egypt, says 240 of its members were detained late last month for taking part in demonstrations in Cairo calling for the Gaza blockade to be lifted. Most were swiftly released, but Mr. Mubarak's regime has shown little tolerance for the group in the past and there's an expectation that more arrests are coming.

“There's a big push by the government to stigmatize the Brotherhood as a group that doesn't care about Egyptian nationalism or the security of Egypt,” said Khaled Salam, editor of the Brotherhood's website, ikhwanweb.com. “Because they're afraid of our increasing popularity, they're using Hamas and its reputation as a terrorist group to scare people.”…

Yeah, because unlike Hamas, which has all that blood on its hands, the M.B. is Simon pure. In a 2004 post on JihadWatch, Robert Spencer explained just how “pure” the Brotherhood really is:

…But in reality, the roots of today's war on terror lie in the creation not of Al-Qaeda, but of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt by Hassan Al-Banna in 1928. Al-Banna and the Brotherhood considered Islam to have an essential political and social character that needed to be reasserted in the face of the societal ills that had come to the Islamic world with secularism. Al-Banna's vision was in perfect accord with that of classical Muslim scholars such as Ibn Khaldun, who taught in the fourteenth century that "in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force." According to historian Brynjar Lia, "Quoting the Qur'anic verse 'And fight them till sedition is no more, and the faith is God's' [Sura 2:193], the Muslim Brothers urged their fellow Muslims to restore the bygone greatness of Islam and to re-establish an Islamic empire. Sometimes they even called for the restoration of 'former Islamic colonies' in Andalus (Spain), southern Italy, Sicily, the Balkans and the Mediterranean islands."

Such talk may have seemed laughable then, but it isn't so much now in these days of increasing jihadist activity in Spain, the Balkans, and elsewhere in Europe. For the Brotherhood was no gang of marginalized kooks. By 1944 its membership was estimated as between 100,000 and 500,000. It expanded beyond Egypt, setting up "several branches in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and Morocco, and one in each of Bahrain, Hadramawt, Hyderabad, Djibouti and," Lia adds matter-of-factly, "Paris." These many thousands, dispersed around the world, heard al-Banna's call to "prepare for jihad and be lovers of death."

One of the Muslim Brotherhood's principal children is the terrorist group Hamas, which identifies itself in its Charter as "one of the wings of the Muslim Brothers in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a world organization, the largest Islamic Movement in the modern era. It is characterized by a profound understanding, by precise notions and by a complete comprehensiveness of all concepts of Islam in all domains of life: views and beliefs, politics and economics, education and society, jurisprudence and rule, indoctrination and teaching, the arts and publications, the hidden and the evident, and all the other domains of life."…

Hardly the innocuous, Egypt-focused loyal opposition Malarkey and Halpern make the "bruthahs"out to be.

Update: My letter to the Globe:

One can understand Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s desire to “stigmatize” the Muslim Brotherhood by insisting it isn’t sufficiently focused on Egyptian affairs. After all, the Brotherhood is far more than Mubarak’s loyal—or, in this instance, disloyal—opposition. It is the largest, most influential Islamist movement of modern times, with an influence that extends far beyond Egypt’s borders and reaches around the world. And while in recent times it may have positioned itself as being “non-violent,” the Brotherhood is the Mothership of the global jihad, and continues to provide the ideological underpinnings for such terror affiliates as Hamas and al Qaeda.

 

Thus it is more than a little ridiculous to depict the Muslim Brotherhood as being a strictly Egyptian operation. It is also, quite frankly, an insult to all those who have perished at the hands of jihadists who have been inspired to kill because of the Brotherhood’s brand of toxic triumphalism.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:11 | link | comments

Diary of a mad Muslim housewife: In the middle of a blog post looking into the state of the Archbish of Cant’s mental health—is he bonkers, or what?—Times religious correspondent Ruth Gledhill offers this shocking revelation: Muslim women in the U.K. are being locked up in psychiatric hospitals against their will:

A few weeks ago, I was chatting to a woman who works in an advocacy role for Muslim women in an area that, quite independently of the Bishop of Rochester, she described as a 'no-go area' for non-Muslims. Her clients were women in the process of being sectioned into mental health units in the NHS. This woman, who for obvious reasons begged not to be identified, told me: 'The men get tired of their wives. Or bored. Or maybe the wife objects to her daughter being forced into a marriage she doesn't want. Or maybe she starts wearing western clothes.There can be many reasons. The women are sent for asssessment to a hospital. The GP referring them is Muslim. The psychiatrist assessing them is Muslim and male. I have sat in these assessments where the psychiatrist will not look the woman patient in the eye because she is a woman. Can you imagine! A psychiatrist refusing to look his patient in the eye? The woman speaks little or no English. She is sectioned. She is divorced. There are lots of these women in there, locked up in these hospitals. Why don't you people write about this?'

My interlocuter went very red and almost started to cry. Instead, she began shouting at me. I was a member of the press. 'You must write about this,' she begged.

'I can't,' I said. 'Not unless you become a whistle-blower. Or give me some evidence. Or something.'

She shook her head. 'I can't be identified,' she said. 'I would be killed. And so would the women.'

Ain’t multiculturalism grand?

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:13 | link | comments

No fly zone: The Toronto Star’s man on the Middle East scene, Oakland Ross, has yet another of his biased, manipulative pieces. While paying lip service to “balance”, Ross, as per usual, strives to wrest maximum sympathy for the left’s favorite “victims”. Today we learn that “Palestinian aviation dreams” in Gaza—previously, a “bustling air hub”—have been “grounded by years of internal conflict, looting and Israeli military strikes.”

Poor souls.

My letter to the Star:

Gaza’s bombed out shell of an airport is a fitting metaphor for what’s become of Palestinian statehood. When Israel disengaged from the territory in 2005, it handed the Palestinians a fully operational infrastructure, including hundreds of greenhouses, which could have provided their people with a wide array of fresh fruit and vegetables. Instead of using this infrastructure as the basis on which to build their new state—their supposed ambition—the Palestinians embarked on a frenzy of masochistic self-destruction, culminating in the election of Hamas and the bloody civil strife which ousted its rival, Fatah, from Gaza.

The result is plain for all to see: a pathetic economic basket-case; a blackened, devastated landscape; a “formerly busting air hub” mothballed for the foreseeable future.

That can all change, of course. If and when the Palestinians decide to throw out Hamas and turn the bulk of their efforts to building rather than destroying—including trying to destroy the thriving democracy next door—they will be able to move forward and pull themselves out of this rut. Until then, their dreams of a viable state, like their airport, will remain permanently grounded.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:25 | link | comments (2)

Brits give thumbs down to sharia: Yesterday the biggest dhimmi in the land, Archbish of Cant Rowan Williams, opined that it was all but “inevitable” that sharia law would be granted legal teeth in the U.K.  The Brits, who apparently have a lot more gumption than the extravagantly eye-browed Anglican (memo to the Archbish: please tweeze), have begged to differ. From the Telegraph:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has been widely criticised after he called for aspects of Islamic sharia law to be adopted in Britain.

Dr Rowan Williams said that it “seems inevitable” that elements of the Muslim law, such as divorce proceedings, would be incorporated into British legislation. The Archbishop’s controversial stance has received widespread criticism from Christian and secular groups, the head of the equality watchdog, several high-profile Muslims and MPs from all parties.

Amid the storm of protest, Downing Street moved quickly to distance itself from the Archbishop’s remarks, insisting that British law would and should remain based on British values.

A spokesman for Mr Brown said: “Our general position is that sharia law cannot be used as a justification for committing breaches of English law, nor should the principles of sharia law be included in a civil court for resolving contractual disputes.

“If there are specific instances like stamp duty, where changes can be made in a way that’s consistent with British law and British values, in a way to accommodate the values of fundamental Muslims, that is something the Government would look at.

“But the Prime Minister believes British law should apply in this country, based on British values.”

Former Labour home secretary David Blunkett said that sharia law would be “catastrophic” for social cohesion in Britain.

“I think this is very dangerous because the Archbishop used the term affiliations,” he said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“We have affiliations to football clubs, to cricket teams, to all sorts of things that aren’t central to our citizenship and the acceptance of that in terms of a common society.

“We don’t have affiliations when it comes to the question of the law. And when it comes to equality under the law, we have to be rigorous in terms of making sure people do not find themselves excluded from it because of cultural or faith reasons.”

Formalising sharia law “would be wrong democratically and philosophically but it would be catastrophic in terms of social cohesion”, he warned…

“Catastrophic” is the word I’d use too.

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

Hygomous pygomous, men are polygamous: A verity sanctioned by sharia and underwritten by the government of multicultist Ontario. From the Toronto Sun:

Hundreds of GTA Muslim men in polygamous marriages -- some with a harem of wives -- are receiving welfare and social benefits for each of their spouses, thanks to the city and province, Muslim leaders say.

Mumtaz Ali, president of the Canadian Society of Muslims, said wives in polygamous marriages are recognized as spouses under the Ontario Family Law Act, providing they were legally married under Muslim laws abroad.

"Polygamy is a regular part of life for many Muslims," Ali said yesterday. "Ontario recognizes religious marriages for Muslims and others."

He estimates "several hundred" GTA husbands in polygamous marriages are receiving benefits. Under Islamic law, a Muslim man is permitted to have up to four spouses.

However, city and provincial officials said legally a welfare applicant can claim only one spouse. Other adults living in the same household can apply for welfare independently.

The average recipient with a child can receive about $1,500 monthly, city officials said.

FAMILY LAW ACT

In addressing the issue of polygamous marriages, the preamble to the Ontario Family Law Act states: "In the definition of 'spouse,' a reference to marriage includes a marriage that is actually or potentially polygamous, if it was celebrated in a jurisdiction whose system of law recognizes it as valid. R.S.O. 1990, c. F.3, s. 1 (2)."

"There are many people in the community who are taking advantage of this," Ali said. "This is a law and there's nothing wrong with it."

Immigration officials said yesterday that polygamous marriages aren't allowed in Canada, but that contradicts the provincial law.

"Canada is a very liberal-minded country," Ali said. "Canada is way ahead of Britain in this respect."

He said Britain recently began permitting husbands to collect benefits for each of their wives.

The British government recently admitted that nearly a thousand men are living legally with multiple wives in Britain. Although the families are entitled to claim social security for each wife, the department for work and pensions said it has not counted how many are on benefits.

In Canada, Ali said, the man and his main wife and children enter Canada as landed immigrants. The other spouses are sponsored or arrive as visitors to join their husband to share one home…

How cozy.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:26 | link | comments

“Little Eichmanns” utterer imported for Judenhass fest: It’s the penultimate day of this year’s Leftist-Islamist Big Lie Bash (time sure flies when you’re slamming Jews). The centrepiece of today’s schedule—and perhaps of the entire repellent event: an appearance by cashiered professor Ward (No Relation to Winston) Churchill. He’ll be part of a panel discussion on “Nakba And the Right of Return” being held at Ryerson U (my alma mater) this evening. Here’s how he’s billed on the Leftist-Islamist Big Lie website:

Ward Churchill
Keetoowah Band Cherokee, is one of the most outspoken Indigenous activists and scholars in North America and a leading analyst of indigenous issues. He is
former tenured Professor of Ethnic Studies and Coordinator of American Indian
Studies at the University of Colorado, fired in retaliation for the exercise of
his First Amendment-protected speech and in violation of the doctrine of
Academic Freedom. He is also co-director of the Colorado chapter of the
American Indian Movement and vice chair of the American Indian Anti-Defamation Council. Churchill's many books include Fantasies of the Master Race, Struggle for the Land, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, From A Native Son, Critical Issues in Native North America, The COINTELPRO Papers, Indians R Us?, Agents of Repression, Since Predator Came, and A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas. In his lectures and numerous published works, Churchill explores the themes of genocide in the Americas, racism, historical and legal (re)interpretation of conquest and colonization, environmental destruction of Indian lands, government repression of political movements, literary and cinematic criticism, and indigenist alternatives to the status quo.

And here are some facts which, for obvious reasons, the organizers chose not to include (from Discover the Networks, an invaluable source of info about the moonbat-Islamist nexus):

·         Professor of Ethnic Studies at University of Colorado, Boulder

·         Regards the victims of 9/11 as "Little Eichmanns"

·         Regards America as a genocidal nation

·         Falsified his Indian background to qualify for an affirmative action position in Ethnic Studies

·         Accused of plagiarism

·         Lamented that the terrorism of 9/11 proved "insufficient to accomplish its purpose" of destroying the United States. Commented: "What the hell? It was worth a try."

Ward Churchill holds a BA and MA in Communications from Sangamon State, an "experimental" school for student radicals in Illinois. His academic expertise is as an artist. Yet on the basis of his claim to be a member of the Ketoowah Cherokee tribe (it has since been revealed that the membership was "honorary" and has been revoked and that Churchill is not an Indian), Churchill was made a tenured Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder and head of the Department (though he does not possess a Ph.D.). 

Professor Churchill's moment of fame came when an essay he had written was disclosed in which he waxed rhapsodic about the September 11 terrorist attacks as "chickens coming home to roost," while vilifying the innocent victims inside the World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns."

The essay was known to UC Boulder officials long before, and was considered normal academic fare. Less well known is the fact that Professor Churchill's academic career and academic oeuvre was built around the theory that the United States is a genocidal nation, worse than Nazi Germany because its genocides began with its settlement and have continued to the present. Professor Churchill regards American history as one unbroken procession of genocidal tyranny, beginning in 1492, which "unleashed a process of conquest and colonization unparalleled in the history of humanity." Always ready to draw sinister parallels with Nazism, Churchill routinely equates Columbus with Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler.

Churchill titled a 1997 book A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 through the Present. Other Churchill books, among them Fantasies of the Master Race (1992) and Colonization and Genocide in Native North America (1994), also equate the United States with Nazi Germany. Past students at the University of Colorado have reported that Churchill's conception of America as the newest rendition of the Third Reich invariably finds its way into his lectures, particularly in the undergraduate class he teaches titled, "American Holocaust."

While defending his notorious article and utterances as "free speech," Professor Churchill himself has been accused of stifling -- once by violent means -- speech he did not like. In 1993, following his ouster from the radical American Indian Movement, Churchill reportedly retaliated by spitting in the face of the Movement''s elderly leader, Carol Standing Elk, while a younger accomplice broke her wrist.

Ten years later, Professor Churchill and his political allies attempted to obstruct a Columbus Day Parade in Denver. He was acquitted by like-minded judges who accepted his claim that a parade celebrating Columbus was tantamount to "hate speech."

In Professor Churchill's view, revolutionary violence against oppressive America is not only justified, it is indispensable. "One of the things I've suggested is that it may be that more 9/11s are necessary. This seems like such a no-brainer that I hate to frame it in terms of actual transformation of consciousness." Lamenting that the terrorism of 9/11 had proved "insufficient to accomplish its purpose" of bringing the United States to its knees, Churchill shrugged, "What the hell? It was worth a try." 

"When I started out it was 'U.S. out of Vietnam,'" he declared in an August 2004 speech, "and then that was changed and it became 'U.S. out of Indochina,' and then it became 'U.S. out of Southern Africa,' and it was 'U.S. out of the Caribbean and Central America,' and then it became 'U.S. out of the Persian Gulf.' I agreed with every one of those, but ultimately there's only one way that any of them will be possible and that is: US out of North America, U.S. off the planet, and take Canada with you when you go!"

Professor Churchill is an Anglo-Saxon white man posing as an Indian. An in-depth genealogical investigation tracing Churchill's ancestry back over 100 years, conducted by the Rocky Mountain News, concluded that "there is no evidence of a single Indian ancestor in Churchill's long family history in America." Churchill nonetheless describes himself in the following way: "Although I'm best known by my colonial name, Ward Churchill, the name I prefer is Kenis, an Ojibwe name bestowed by my [Native American] wife's uncle." Far-Left presses have obligingly released books by the "Keetowah Cherokee" activist, Ward Churchill. In a recent speech in Vancouver, Churchill introduced himself thus, "I have to say, I have to bring you greetings from the elders of the Keetoowah Band of Cherokee, my people." But the Keetoowah Band, in which Churchill and Bill Clinton once had "honorary memberships" has disowned Churchill as an imposter.

Imposture is likewise the distinguishing feature of Churchill's academic work. A two-month investigation of the professor's scholarly portfolio, carried out by the Rocky Mountain News in June of 2004, revealed that Churchill had a long history of inventing historical facts to suit his polemical purposes, and on numerous occasions had passed off the work of others as his own. Among the paper's findings: Churchill baselessly accused the U.S. army of spreading smallpox among Missouri Indians in 1837, brazenly citing books that expressly contradict his claims; published a 1992 essay taken almost verbatim from the work of Canadian professor Fay Cohen, over Cohen's objections, and on at least four other occasions, had claimed credit for the work of others. Churchill could produce no evidence to disprove the paper's findings. Instead, he sought to explain away his serial plagiarism as harmless creative editing, not dissimilar, according to Churchill, to the efforts of a "rewrite man" at a newspaper who edits articles as he sees fit.

As a tenured professor in the field of American Indian studies at the University of Colorado, a position for which he has no evident qualifications, Churchill takes home a  $115,000 annual salary (for teaching three hours a week), not counting benefits and speaking fees.

In an 8 to 1 vote, the University of Colorado Board of Regents voted to fire Professor Ward Churchill from the Ethnic Studies Department in July 2007, as was recommended by school President Hank Brown. The decision was made on grounds of some 2006 academic committee findings that Churchill was guilty of academic misconduct, including plagiarism. After the decision was announced to the public, Churchill and his supporters participated in a Native American ceremony on campus. "I am going nowhere," said Churchill. "This is not about break, this is not about bend, this is not about compromise."

I wonder how much the unemployed Holocaust denier/faux indigenist is raking in for tonight's performance.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:50 | link | comments (1)

Merci:  France—or at least, French president (and newlywed) Nicolas Sarkozy—stands with Israel against Palestinian terrorists. From JTA:

…The French president sent Israel a letter of support following Monday's suicide bombing in Dimona.

"On my behalf, and on behalf of the French nation, I would like to send you my sincere condolences after the horrible terrorist attack which was once again aimed at the Israeli people," read the letter, a copy of which was released by Israeli President Shimon Peres' office. "My thoughts are with the victim's families and with the wounded.

"Terror activities are unacceptable and France condemns them and will always condemn them in the most firm way," Sarkozy said. "I would like to assure you that France remains on your side and will continue to do so in the battle against terror. My country will provide Israel with every support necessary to assist with your efforts to make the peace process succeed."

Merveillieux!

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:26 | link | comments (3)

Giving the Arabs a free pass: There’s not only a double standard when it comes to Israel, demanding of it behaviour not demanded of other nations. There’s a double standard when it comes to Arab nations, too—“the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Caroline Glick unpacks this latter double standard on the JWR site.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:12 | link | comments

2-4-6-8 see Archbish capitulate: Rowan Williams, that big, craven dhimmi, says “some sharia in Britian” is all but inevitable. It's okay, though, because the Brits don't have to let them bring in that nasty, brutish, Draconian stuff.

Problem is, Archbish, the believers aren’t going to allow you to tell them which parts of the law are acceptable, since as far as they’re concerned it's an Allah or nothing proposition.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:08 | link | comments

Appeasement, then and now: 75 years ago, an overweening Aryan supremacist, a crazed Jew-hater, came to power in Germany. The world responded to this obvious menace by cowering, grovelling, discounting it, or by attempting to placate this unappeasable monster. The result: WWII and the genocide of Europe’s Jews. 75 years later, it seems the world has leaned nothing, nothing, from the past. From the Weekly Standard:

…Hitler had his international critics, of course, but the dominant mood was one of accommodation, a desire to avoid confrontation at all costs. Political and religious leaders not only spent much of the decade exonerating German aggression, but blaming themselves for it--from the Treaty of Versailles to the "un-coordinated enterprise" of market capitalism. Baptist luminary Harry Emerson Fosdick, for example, voiced a typical complaint: "We, the democracies, are just as responsible for the rise of the dictators as the dictatorships themselves, and perhaps more so." As late as November 1941, with much of Europe under Nazi control, the editor of the liberal Christian Century, Charles Clayton Morrison, worried more about "a coming Anglo-American world hegemony" than a Nazi triumph. Morrison rejoiced in the fact that Franklin Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" speech had not mobilized Americans for war. Britain's struggle against Hitler should be seen as "a war for imperialism"--and rejected. After all, he claimed, "the American people were in no crusading mood."

Similar equivocations were served up to explain Nazi anti-Semitism. In 1933, shortly after Hitler became chancellor, the leader of the Federal Council of Churches (the forerunner of the National Council of Churches) urged a "less superficial appraisal" of the National Socialist Party--a shot at those who took offence at its anti-Jewish policies. Hitler's racist ideology drew criticism, but usually was dismissed as "bluster." Few bothered to read Mein Kampf, where his hatreds were laid bare. Even Hitler's ominous Reichstag address, in which he warned of "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe," got little attention in the Western press.

And thus we return to the Iranian president. As Hitler justified rearmament to combat the "Zionist Marxist" menace of communism, Ahmadinejad links Iran's nuclear ambitions to "the filthy Zionist entity." As Hitler blamed the Jews for stirring up American and British contempt for his regime, Ahmadinejad calls Israel an agent of Western sanctions against Iran. In early 2006 he announced his intension to enrich uranium, in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Shortly after that pledge came this dark prediction: "Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation. The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm." Elsewhere Ahmadinejad has spoken of the need to "wipe Israel off the map."

It's hard to see how talk like this fails to qualify as a violation of the U.N. Charter, Article 2, which prohibits member states from threatening the "territorial integrity or political independence" of any state. The Charter, in Article 5, offers a non-violent remedy for this behavior: expulsion from the United Nations. Yet no U.N. or European Union diplomats have ever suggested that the principles of the Charter be applied to Iran. Those who resist tough sanctions or military action argue that we can't be sure of the politics in Tehran. The extent or staying power of Ahmadinejad's influence remains unclear…

However, the extent and staying power of Hitlerian-style Judenhass—which continues to grip the Muslim world, and not only the Muslim world—remains crystal clear.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:50 | link | comments

A recipe for dhimmitude: I found this piece by Lee Harris on the FrontPage site—it first appeared in the Weekly Standard—to be extremely depressing. In a round-about sort of way, Harris seems to be saying that we have no choice but to behave like compliant dhimmis, since anything “provocative” we say about you-know-what has the potential to set off the zanies and result in the “death of innocents”:

…Fortunately, in the case of the Western Standard, there were no riots or deaths. It is true that Levant appears to have offended at least one Muslim, namely, the man who has filed the complaints against him. But Soharwardy did not stab Levant to death, or blow him up--and, to quote Gilbert and Sullivan, this is "greatly to his credit." Soharwardy may not be an Englishman, like the able seaman of the Pinafore, but at least he is behaving like one, vigorously availing himself of the law and its loopholes in order to get his way, and thereby avoiding the violence that so often accompanies expression of Muslim anger in other parts of the world. Canadian law has made the mere expression of hatred a crime, unlike American law, which must consider whether hateful speech is likely to lead to the actual physical harm of the person who is its object; and who can really fault Soharwardy for thus taking advantage of opportunities placed in his way? Levant may well object to Canadian law on this matter, and he may even be right to argue that the Alberta Human Rights Commission has exceeded its mandate by taking his case under consideration. But that is not Soharwardy's fault.

Levant appears to recognize the inherent absurdity of the situation when he compares his "interrogation" to a story by Franz Kafka. And if you watch the video on YouTube, you can see what he means. While Levant defiantly defends his ancient and inalienable rights, as if he were pleading before the Star Chamber, a lone bureaucratic inquisitor, Shirlene McGovern, sits across the table from him. Drab as the room itself, she is silent under Levant's ferociously indignant tongue-lashing. Every now and then McGovern squirms uncomfortably, raising her eyebrows at some of Levant's more extravagant claims, no doubt wishing that she could get her government paycheck without this kind of ordeal. Obviously, she is someone who, as the phrase goes, is just trying to do her job, and has no desire to abridge anyone's freedom of speech. Indeed, when Levant finishes castigating the commission that she represents, McGovern responds by saying, as any good Canadian might, "You're entitled to your opinion, that's for sure." And she obviously meant it.

McGovern has been condemned as the mindless functionary of the nanny state at its worst. But before we jump on this inviting bandwagon, let us at least try to give Nanny her due. If speaking of Islam runs genuine risks of inciting violence, we cannot just pretend that it isn't so. We can be indignant about this and declaim loudly against it--but what good does such an approach really do? If criticizing Islam promotes bloodshed, then criticizing even more hardly seems like an attractive solution. On the other hand, let us look at the possible upside to the nanny approach.

Let offended Muslims file complaints to their heart's content. Make outraged imams fill out tedious forms. Require self-appointed mullahs, representing imaginary counsels and committees, to provide documentation of their grievances. Encourage them to vent through the intrinsically stifling bureaucratic channels provided by panels like the Alberta Human Rights Commission. Show them, nanny-like, that you care about their injured feelings. Patiently and silently listen to their indignant complaints, and let them, ideally, get it all out of their systems. Humoring, let us remember, is not appeasement, but often a clever way to coax troublesome children of all ages into behaving like civilized human beings. Every good nanny knows as much. So perhaps there is something that the rest of the world can learn from the Canadian nanny's book of tricks. If it is a book of tricks. .??.??.

For here's the rub. If the Canadian government were using its "kangaroo courts" as a deliberate ploy to siphon off Muslim rage or to guide it into proper bureaucratic (and happily nonviolent) channels, then we could perhaps admire it for its prudence and cunning. But suppose these commissions and tribunals are not a cunning charade, designed to hoodwink ill-tempered Muslims into becoming good litigious Anglo-Saxons? What if the Canadian government actually thought that it could help matters by cracking down on writers like Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn, by fining them or by throwing them into prison, silencing those who have the courage to speak of Islam, while encouraging Muslim immigrants to feel that they can manipulate weak-kneed governments into stifling any criticism of their religion and culture? Obviously this naive approach would backfire disastrously, and would end by endangering the very domestic tranquility that it was trying to preserve.

Of one thing we can have no doubt: Short of a firing squad, there is nothing that the Canadian government can do that will have any effect on what Ezra Levant or Mark Steyn will say and write in the future. You couldn't have picked worse people to try to cow. But unfortunately, it is the nature of the nanny state to bring up citizens who have been trained not to rock the boat. Under a nanny regime, the good citizen is one who is reluctant to speak his mind merely out of fear of what other people might think. For people already this cowed, even the threat of a minor bureaucratic hassle would be a powerful argument for keeping one's mouth shut, and for standing by while our hard-won liberty of discussion is steadily eroded. Canada still has uncowable men like Levant and Steyn; but where will such men come from a generation hence?

Even worse, the threat of ongoing legal action, carried out in a number of different Canadian provinces, might be more than enough to keep less well-known writers and smaller news outlets from exposing themselves to the risk of legal costs that a magazine like Maclean's can afford to take. When faced with the threat of an endless hassle, draining away limited personal resources, many writers will simply take the safer course of not saying anything offensive about Islam. But since it is difficult to say in advance what will be offensive to men like Soharwardy, the safest course will be to say nothing at all. In short, gagging Canadians may not take a generation. It may work in a matter of a few months.

And is it just Canada that we are talking about? After all, if enough Muslims continue to react with violence to criticism of their religion and culture, all the other nations of the West will eventually be forced to make a tragic choice between two of our highest values. Either we must clamp down on critics of Islam, mandating a uniform code of political correctness, or else we must let the critics say what they wish, regardless of the consequences, and in full knowledge that these consequences may include the death of innocents. This is not a choice that the West has had to face since the end of our own furor theologicus several centuries ago, but, like it or not, it is the choice that we are facing again today.

The “choice” articulated by Harris: We can submit. On the other hand, we can refuse to submit, and be responsible for needless deaths. I believe that’s what’s known as a Hobson’s choice—that is, a choice of one (since who the heck wants to responsible for the "death of innocents"?), which, in fact, is no choice at all.

Then again, we could refuse to frame the "choice" in such a way, and lay the blame for such deaths at the feet of those who are actually responsible for them--the irrational, rampaging Islamist supremacists.

Does Harris really want us to grovel without argument to these religious crazies?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:57 | link | comments

 Woof!: A writer on the American Thinker site argues that we are hardwired to root for the underdog—which isn’t always such a good thing:

…Each of us begins life tiny and helpless.  Among our first, formative experiences are visceral feelings of powerlessness (can't walk, eat or go to the bathroom on our own) and it seems almost everyone around us holds greater power (parents, grownups, bigger children).

 

It doesn't stop there.  We go to school and find ourselves at the mercy of teachers, professors and perhaps even a few bullies.  We graduate and it starts all over again; with bosses who hold our very livelihoods in their hands.  And, as we move into our later years, many of us will find ourselves once again at the mercy of others: nurses, family and caregivers who keep us fed, mobile and alive.

 

The reason we all seem to love underdogs is because each of us knows what it feels like to be an underdog, to be a David in a world full of Goliaths.

 

But Underdogma is somewhat different.  The first part of Underdogma is the reflexive belief that those who have less power are automatically deemed virtuous and noble.  From Christ's blessed meek to Eli Manning to rock-throwing Palestinians; people tend to side with the little guy.

 

The second part of Underdogma is the equally reflexive belief that those who have more power are to be scorned - simply because they have more power.  That's why millions of people rooted for Tom Brady to lose, why Mitt Romney and his perfect hair, teeth and bank accounts get slammed, and it's why so many people around the world hate America.

 

Underdogma.  If it were any more obvious, this dog would bite you.

 

Hold up Underdogma to the issues of the day.  It's startling how many of them tilt on this "axis of power."   Those who have less power are deemed virtuous and noble, and those who have more power are scorned.

 

Just ask Exxon, Wal-Mart and Tom Brady.  Don't you just hate them?  Somebody should really knock them down a peg.  Who do they think they are?...

 

Same goes for Israel. Who do those Jews think they are, with their tanks and their walls and their thriving democracy? Don’t you just hate them for oppressing those poor Palestinian refugees, the “underdogs” whose land was stolen right out from under them? Somebody—the International Solidarity Movement or the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, say—should really knock them down a peg.

 

See there’s Underdogma. But there’s also “Overdogma” — as in "Islam is destined to prevail over all mankind," so saith the Big Kahuna. Israel, alas, has had the misfortune to be the cynosure of both dogmas.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:29 | link | comments

Oprah’s radical girl scouts: The most influential and virtuous woman in America, Oprah Winfrey (so influential that she’s spearheading a presidential candidacy; so virtuous that watching her for more than a few minutes at a stretch is virtually unbearable), has foolishly hitched her wagon to an Islamist organization bent on imposing sharia law on America.

Oh, well. No harm done so long as her adoring audience can still feel self-righteous and score lots of prezzies.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:21 | link | comments

The president responds: Welcome to multifrikkinculturalist Canuckistan, where a radical imam is allowed to call for jihad over Canadian airwaves, so long as he does it the Canadian way—politely—and the president of one of the pre-eminent academic institutions in the nation, the University of Toronto, is proud to permit a blood libel fête to take place on his campus. Here’s his response via an open letter in the National Post to an open letter to him from Avi Benlolo and Leo Adler, respectively President and Director of National Affairs of the Canadian branch of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, which appeared in the same paper (my bolds):

Dear Messers Benlolo and Adler:

On February 5, you addressed an open letter in these pages to me, as the president of the University of Toronto, regarding a series of events entitled “Israeli-Apartheid Week” sponsored by a small student group.

The University does not sponsor, organize or even implicitly endorse these events. We do, in fact, recognize that the term “Israeli-Apartheid” is upsetting to many people. We also recognize that, in every society, universities have a unique opportunity to provide a safe venue for highly charged discourse.

Why does U of T’s approach succeed? It succeeds because we work to help student organizers understand the difference between free speech and hate speech and monitor events very closely if there is any chance they will cross the line. It succeeds because we have the resources to respond to complaints of racism promptly and thoroughly, and because our policies prioritize safety and are based in Canadian and Ontario law.

Our approach also works because we do not, in fact, simply refuse controversial bookings. Cancelling events because of anticipated controversy rapidly changes the nature of debate. Instead of public attention focusing on the actual position of the speaker or sponsoring group (sometimes extreme and therefore lacking broad appeal), the focus shifts to the abrogated free speech rights of the affected groups and can create publicity and even sympathy for an extreme view.

We remain committed to the principles and policies that have made the University of Toronto a highly inclusive environment where ideas are exchanged, challenged and debated with mutual respect, tolerance and civility.

Yours sincerely,

Professor David Naylor, O.C., President

Got that, Messers Benlolo and Adler, you uppity Jews? If you complain about the Judenhass, sorry, Zionhass, you’ll only end up creating “sympathy” for it, “extreme” though it may be. So put up and shut up.

And anyway, it’s just a “small student group” that’s behind it. Nothing whatever to do with a well-organized-financed-and-orchestrated global campaign—can you say Wahhabi?—aimed at tearing down the “iniquitous” Jewish state.

I must give president Naylor (who dragged out the heavy artillery—his Order of Canada—to lend added heft to his words) credit for one thing, though. He has a terrific sense of humour. That punchline about U of T being “highly inclusive” and fostering “mutual respect, tolerance and civility”—hilarious!

Update: President Naylor claims that just because his university has offered its premises to the "small student group" shouldn't in any way be taken as an endorsement of its efforts. Bollocks! The mere fact that this blood libel is being allowed to occur at U of T lends it a legitimacy it does not deserve and would not otherwise receive. I would draw the O of C recipient's attention to the following quote from Phyllis Chessler's 2003 book, The New Anti-Semitism:

The world—including many people in the Jewish world—still seem to have one standard for the Jews and for the Jewish state (and it’s a high standard) and another, much lower standard for everyone else. Most barbarism goes completely unnoticed; no one is ever held accountable, the crimes are denied and covered up, the whistle blowers are killed or imprisoned. In contrast, Israel’s most minor imperfection is continually criticized; serious mistakes are demonized. This has led to a whole new rationale for stigmatizing Israel, and Jews all over the world who support it, as proponents of the most heinous political crimes.

As a result, we have what I call the new anti-Semitism. And what’s new about the new anti-Semitism is that for the first time it is being perpetrated in the name of antiracism and anticolonialism. Because the charges of apartheid Zionism are being levelled by those who champion the uprising of the oppressed, what they say, by definition, cannot be racist. Therefore, when such champions of freedom chant “death to the Jews” or “divest in apartheid colonialist Israel,” by definition these are not racist remarks. The new anti-Semites are not anti-Semites because they say they’re not. Even George Orwell would be astounded.

Orwell would be. To president Naylor, though, it's all part of the everyday discourse--sometimes heated, sometimes overheated--at the groves of academe. And what sanctimonious, clueless, anti-Semitic, moth-eaten groves they are.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:46 | link | comments (2)

(Sigh) they blow up so fast: The Daily Mail has a video of 10-year-old would-be shaheeds, aficionados of Al Qaeda.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:54 | link | comments

 Modern “justice” in Ayatollahville: In biblical times, convicted adulterers were stoned to death outside the city gates.

Also in today’s Iran. From the Telegraph:

Two Iranian sisters convicted of adultery face being stoned to death after the supreme court upheld death sentences against them, Iranian media have reported.

The penal court of Teheran province had already sentenced the sisters, identified only as Zohreh, 27, and Azar, to stoning, the newspaper said.

The Etemad newspaper quoted Jabbar Solati, their lawyer, as saying that the sisters had initially been tried for "illegal relations" and had received 99 lashes. However, they were convicted of "adultery" in a second trial for the same incident.

The pair admitted they were in the video but argued there was no adultery as no scene on the video showed them engaged in a sexual act.

Welcome to Teheran province, where everything old is new again.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:22 | link | comments

Virtue vampires: We’re into the day three of U of T’s annual anti-Israel bash, but don’t think the angry lefty droids attending the fête are confining their ire to the dastardly Zionist occupiers. No sireee! Why, they are so virtuous and empathetic that their anti-Zionism is bound up in all sorts or other completely unrelated “human rights” issues. Here’s the full run-down of today’s “anti-Apartheid” events:

Wednesday, Feb.6th
 
10am - 6pm
CHRY Anti-Apartheid Radio (full day of programming, schedule coming soon)
York University CHRY 105.5 fm radio www.chry.fm

2:30pm
Panel: BDS Movement and Academic Boycott of Israeli Apartheid
York University Room: RS 203

Featuring:
Sandra Sarner
Member Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA)
Alan Sears
Professor of Sociology at Ryerson University

7pm
Main Lecture: Gender and Apartheid
U of T St. George Campus Bahen Centre: 40 St. George Room #: 1180

Featuring:
Audrey Huntley
Audrey is speaking on behalf of No More Silence Coalition, she is of mixed
native and settler ancestry. She is director of 'The Heart Has Its Own Memory'
and 'Go Home Baby Girl' two documentaries about disappeared Native Women in
Canada.

Rafeef Ziadah
Third generation Palestinian refugee, founding member of Coalition Against
Israeli Apartheid (CAIA).
 
Farah Miranda
Founding member of No One Is Illegal (Toronto) fighting for refugee rights and
status for all campaign.

Tell me what the plight of Native Women and illegal immigrants has to do with the jihad against the Jews and we’ll both know. Do Israel’s enemies—who have already successfully libelled it as a racist, apartheid state—mean to imply that it is to blame for these Canadian problems, too?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:51 | link | comments (2)

Don’t miss: On tonight’s episode of Little Mosque on the Prairie, it’s Ramadan time and Amaar, the hunky imam, “challenges the congregation not to lie, gossip or get angry.”

Not even if Ezra Levant reprints some "blasphemous" Danish Mo ‘toons?

Wow. That is a challenge.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:14 | link | comments (1)

Loud and clear: A Jew calls upon the Brits to stand up for their Christian heritage, currently being drowned out by some Muslim loudspeakers (and loud speakers). From the Times Online:

...Imprisoned by communists and Nazis, expelled from their homes, seeing their relatives die, forced to start again with nothing, my parents found peace and freedom in this country. Because of its traditions and its culture. Because there is something precious about this place.

Now I'll tell you what I'd like to do. I'd like you to look after it. I'd like you to stand up for the principles that make this country what it is, even when it's mildly awkward to do so. And an awkward case has just arisen, as it happens. So I can test your resolve.

Over in East Oxford, the Central Mosque wants to issue a call to prayer by loudspeaker three times a day. As the mosque's spokeman, Sardar Rana, put it: “The call to prayer would be made in the central hall and then linked to three speakers in the minaret, which would point in different directions.” He then added, without, I think, trying to be funny: “I don't think it would disturb anybody.”

You can see why this is awkward, can't you? The first, and correct, instinct of the Englishman is to see if we can accommodate the request without any fuss. It is, however, hard to see how this is possible. With the best will in the world, the muezzin's electronically enhanced recitation is going to be an intrusion.

Yet I don't think it's enough to confine one's objection purely to the noise.

Let me dispense with a couple of minor - but in my view incorrect - arguments about the call to prayer. There's nothing all that wrong with the words that would be recited. Apart from anything else it would be in Arabic. And yes, the muezzin will announce that God is great, but fortunately we are entitled in Britain to disagree. I don't accept either the idea that this call to prayer would create a Muslim ghetto. Nor would I fear such a thing. It is natural that Muslims want to live near each other anyway, just as Jews do. And that they will wish to live near the mosque.

These arguments are diversions from the important principle involved. And that concerns this country's status as a Christian country with an established Church. Perhaps you feel reluctant to use this argument - feeling it a departure from inclusiveness. Well, I don't think you should be reluctant in the slightest.

Immigrants and their children in this country receive a fantastic deal. We are able to practise our religion in peace. We can openly enjoy our culture. Our colleagues tolerate our taking vacations on holy days and they even let their children be taught about some of our practices, which is most courteous, I must say.

In return I think it reasonable for us to show respect for the majority religion and for the established religious institutions. We could, after all, live somewhere else. We came here on purpose. And here we have a right to practise, but not to dominate the public space. We have the right to pray, but not to blare out our prayer across Cowley.

Let's say that the call to prayer, the sound of the muezzin from the minaret, is the most precious sound to you. You do not have to live in East Oxford. There are any number of mosques all over the world, loudspeakering away to their hearts' content. One of the reasons I support the existence of the state of Israel is that I feel there should be one place in the world where Jews can loudspeaker away. Although most of us Jews talk loud enough without a megaphone, so we can settle in Pinner.

Here, however, they have church bells. And the Queen is defender of the faith. Many members of the Church of England aren't very religious - my favourite Spitting Image joke involved a man knocking on a door and saying: “Jehovah's Witnesses here. Do you believe in God?” To which the man inside replied: “No, I'm C of E.” But even among the less religious many marry in church and are buried in a churchyard. And religiosity isn't the only issue here. It's also culture.

Why should the mild, gentle culture of the Anglicans not deserve the same preservation and respect as any other ancient culture? I regard the Jewish tradition as something I hold in trust for my children. What of the culture and sights and sounds of this country and its heritage?

I'm not calling for a retreat from the tolerance and mutual respect of this country. That's the last thing I want. I depend on it, don't I?

It's just that I don't think tolerance and mutual respect come from nowhere. There's a reason why this country shows it, why we have fought for it, and died for it. I am just saying that if this country doesn't protect its own heritage and culture, how can I expect it to protect mine?

Hard to see how a “mild, gentle culture” can survive an onslaught by an un-mild, un-gentle one. Especially if the mild ones are hobbled by self-contempt and a desire for self-abnegation that expresses itself as an all-consuming obsession with reducing one’s carbon presence. (Not to mention an all-consuming loathing for the world's only Jewish state.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:00 | link | comments (1)

The urge to purge: Just heard a promo for Ceeb radio program Q. Host Jian Ghomeshi promises than on today’s show we’re going to have a chance to “channel our inner Chomsky.”

No thanks. If I had an inner Chomsky, I wouldn’t want to channel it. I’d want to take some Ex-Lax or ipecac—maybe even both—to get rid of it as soon as possible.

An inner Chomsky can cause heartburn, indigestion and an irrational affection for the enemies of the Jewish people.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:09 | link | comments

Huckabee hearts Israel: The media are wont to depict Republican presidential contender Mick Huckabee as part rube, part kooky Evangelical. But if this piece he wrote for the Jerusalem Post is any indication, Americans would be far better served by this Arkansas “cracker” than by that clean favoured urban sophisticate, Obama:

I have had the pleasure of visiting Israel, our staunch ally, our great friend and the most exemplary democracy in the Middle East, a total of nine times. On one of those trips, I took my then 11-year-old daughter, Sarah, to Yad Vashem. As we faced the grimly surreal pictures from Dachau and Auschwitz, she confronted the horrors of the thousands of bodies stacked on top of one another like so much lumber - six million dead. At the end of our visit, Sarah went to the guest book and wrote simple words that I will never forget: "Why didn't somebody do something?"

That is all she wrote, but with those words, I knew that, in her own way, she "got it."

Unfortunately, some in America, even some running for president, don't get it. Those who don't understand that the war in Iraq is a critical part of the war on terror, don't get it. Those who pledge to withdraw our troops according to some politically-motivated rationale before this war is won, don't get it. Iraq must be stable and secure within its borders. It is not just Iraq's security that is at stake, but the security of the entire region and of the United States.

But among those who seem to want to leave as soon as possible, regardless of the strategic and humanitarian consequences, is Sen. Barack Obama, one of the two remaining Democratic candidates for the presidency.

I have another grave concern about Sen. Obama, which was well-expressed by Matt Brooks, Executive Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition:

"We are deeply troubled by Senator Obama's desire to 'hold a summit in the Muslim world, with all heads of state' many of whom have yet to renounce terrorism or refrain from anti-Semitic incitement. ...Senator Obama said he wanted to listen to the 'concerns' of these nations. For many, their biggest concern is Israel's existence. It's worrisome that Senator Obama wants to 'listen' to those calling for Israel's destruction."

AMERICA MUST be effective in the Middle East, and we must of course listen - and learn, and safeguard. But most of all, we need to be resolute in our strength, military and moral. Specifically, we must not pay any sort of tribute to terrorist states - including the honor of "listening" in some formal setting, where every splenetic utterance will be aired worldwide. For example, what would the president do in the face of some outrageously anti-American or anti-Semitic statement: Just sit there? Get up and walk out?

We shouldn't engage in impromptu diplomacy based on a misplaced sense of "empathy." That's why I am concerned about Sen. Obama's suggestion.

I don't want to hear the "concerns" of terrorist states - but I do want them to hear me.

I want everyone in the Middle East to know that America is committed to its strategic interests in the region, including a safe and secure Israel. Does Senator Obama really want to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, for example? Sen. Obama has said he wants to, both as part of his summit, and privately. Hard to believe, but true, according to his interviews with Paris Match (January 31, 2008) and the International Herald Tribune (November 1, 2007). Iran and its partner Syria bring danger and death to Americans and Israelis on a daily basis though their support of terrorists - in Gaza, Lebanon, and of course, in Iraq.

If the annihilation of six million Jews taught us anything, it is that appeasement doesn't work; it just results in the deaths of innocents and makes the job of eradicating evil all the more difficult…

But surely if Winston Churchill and FDR had convened a sit-down with that “reasonable” Herr Hitler prior to his invasion of Poland and allowed him to air his grievances (something to do with the Treaty of Versailles, a paucity of lebensraum and, oh yeah, his nutty belief that the Jews were a plague) they could have forestalled World War II and the Holocaust. After all, as Winnie once said, isn’t “jaw jaw” much better than “war war”?

No? But surely President Obama, being so earnest and empathetic and all, will have greater success when he sits down with the "reasonable" leaders of Muslim nations and allows them to air their grievances (something to do with America being Great Satan, the Holocaust being a con and, oh yeah, their nutty belief that the Jewish state is a terminal cancer in the Middle East’s body politic).

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:41 | link | comments

Bravo, Friends: The following open letter to Professor David Naylor, President of the University of Toronto, takes up the entire back page of the National Post’s front section:

Re: Israeli Apartheid Week at U of T

Dear President Naylor,

We understand that the University has an unflagging commitment to freedom of speech. However, we would hope that the University would never allow the principle to be hijacked by a blatantly racist event sponsored and conducted on its campus. We are writing today to express our deep dismay that, in fact, this is exactly what is about to occur.

The University notes its commitment to decency by pointing to its Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office. If fighting racism and protecting diversity are to mean something,  the University should not be blind to the biggest display of racism on its campus—“Israeli Apartheid Week”.

“Israeli Apartheid Week” is not really about apartheid. Indeed, the title is a slap in the face to those who fought against South Africa’s apartheid regime. It is a contrived extravaganza to ignite false fury. Israel is a pluralistic democracy where Christians, Bahai, Jews, Muslims, Druze and others have freedoms and rights that are utterly lacking in neighboring Arab countries.

Criticism of Israel is not of itself anti-Semitic. However, the specific targeting of Israel alone is anti-Semitic. Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination by claiming that the existence of Israel is a racist endeavour is anti-Semitic. Applying a double standard by requiring of Israel behaviour not demanded of any of its neighbors is anti-Semitic.  “Israeli Apartheid Week” brings this and more to your campus.

We deeply believe that freedom of speech should be protected. But, we also believe that the University of Toronto should not lend its implied support and its campus to facilitate this baseless racism.

“Israeli Apartheid Week” is a transparent masquerade of an ancient evil. We believed that the University of Toronto can do better.

The letter is signed by Avi Benlolo, President and CEO Friends of Simon Wiesenthal, Canada, and Leo Adler, Director of National Affairs.

The two are right to connect today’s Judenhass, which manifests itself as an irrational hatred of the Jewish state, with the “ancient evil”, the irrational hatred of the Jewish people. (As I like to say, not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, but most of it is.) Would the University, even in the name of “free speech”, host something called “Protocols of the Elders of Zion Week”? Or “Jews Kill Juicy Young Gentiles for their Blood Week”? Of course not. But make no mistake: There is no difference between those two libels—that Jewish alte kachers are plotting to take over the world; that Jews drain the blood of young lads to add piquancy to festival baked goods—and the one that equates the Jews of Israel with the white supremacists of South Africa. And, irony of ironies, this latest libel is being orchestrated by those who are convinced of Islam’s supremacy, and who want to tear down Israel because they see its very existence as an insult to and a mockery of that belief.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:36 | link | comments

Israel’s titanic death wish: Yossi Klein Halevi on the catastrophe of leaving Olmert at the helm. From JWR:

…Olmert's fatal flaw, and the source of his failure in Lebanon, is arrogance. No Israeli leader ever decided to go to war faster than Olmert did — in a matter of hours. And no Israeli leader was worse prepared: Not only did Olmert have no security expertise, but neither did his defense minister. The one member of his cabinet with top military credentials — former IDF chief of staff Shaul Mofaz — was serving as transportation minister, and Olmert didn't include him in his inner circle. Olmert failed to establish clear goals for Israel's counter-attack or to inquire whether the IDF had alternative plans. Olmert's policy was, in effect: Let's go to war and see what happens.

Israelis, who are repeatedly called upon to defend their country, have to trust their leaders' integrity. Even if Olmert has been vindicated of the accusation that he sacrificed 33 soldiers for personal gain, he remains the first Israeli prime minister widely perceived to place his own interests above those of the nation. Olmert still faces nearly a half-dozen criminal investigations and, according to a recent poll, is seen by Israelis as the country's most corrupt leader, a clever lawyer who's managed to keep one step ahead of the law. That perception could undermine morale in wartime. Israelis may well ask whether a leader who failed so miserably in war and then refused to take personal responsibility for that failure has the right to send their sons into war again.

Olmert's political longevity will also have devastating consequences for his political party, Kadima, the first centrist party to form a government. In linking the center to his own persona, Olmert will drive many Kadima voters back to the right or the left. Olmert's failure is ideological, too. The hope of Kadima was to free Israeli politics from the contest between two equally non-viable alternatives: "greater Israel" of the right, "peace now" of the left. Yet Kadima under Olmert has failed to articulate a coherent centrist position, especially after the collapse of the unilateral withdrawal option following the withdrawal from Gaza, which has resulted in daily rocket attacks on Israeli towns in the south. The result is that the next election may well be a contest between Likud and Labor, back to the old mode of left versus right.

With Gaza burning and Iran approaching the nuclear threshold, Olmert will continue to be preoccupied with political survival, in the face of both ongoing corruption investigations and coalition unrest. In allowing Olmert to once again remain one step ahead of the law, the Winograd commission committed the same mistake it attributed to the prime minister's conduct during the Lebanon War: missing an opportunity to extract Israel from danger.

Prepare to watch the cap’n hit an Arab iceberg (or be hit by a mullah-nuke) and go down with his ship of state.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:15 | link | comments

Obama’s “guru”: From the Jewish perspective, Obama’s “spiritual advisor” ain’t exactly bucking to be one of those “righteous Gentiles.” From FrontPage magazine:

Barack Obama, in a way that recalls John F. Kennedy, a politician to whom he's frequently compared, has carefully controlled and burnished his image to create the impression of an independent figure, free from dogma and ideological entanglements. But there is one man who threatens to undermine Obama's appealing narrative as a man above the ugly quarrels and divisive partisanship of the past: his longtime pastor and spiritual adviser, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

On March 1, 1972, Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. became the pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC), a position he still holds to this day. Because he has been a revered figure in the life of presidential aspirant Barack Obama for two decades, Wright's political views, which he commonly draws from the tenets of liberation theology, are worthy of some scrutiny—if only to shed light on the teachings that have had enough resonance to retain Obama as a TUCC congregant since 1988. So great is Obama's respect for Wright, that the former sought the Reverend's counsel before formally declaring his candidacy for U.S. President. Moreover, Obama and his wife selected Wright to perform their wedding ceremony and to baptize their two daughters. These are honors of considerable magnitude, and it is reasonable to speculate that if we learn more about Rev. Wright, we may gain some insight into the personal qualities and belief systems Barack Obama holds in high regard.

When we read the writings, public statements, and sermons of Rev. Wright, we quickly notice his unmistakable conviction that America is a nation infested with racism, prejudice, and injustices that make life very difficult for black people. As he declared in one of his sermons: "Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!... We [Americans] believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God."

In a similar spirit, Wright laments "the social order under which we [blacks] live, under which we suffer, under which we are killed."[1] Depicting blacks as a politically powerless demographic, he complains that "African Americans don't run anything in the Capital except elevators."[2] On its website, Wright's church portrays black people as victims who are still burdened by the legacy of their "pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism," and who must pray for "the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people."

Wright detects what he views as racism in virtually every facet of American life. In the business world, for instance, he attributes the high unemployment rate of African Americans to "the fact that they are black."[3] Vis-à-vis the criminal justice system, he similarly explains that "the brothers are in prison" largely because of their skin color. "Consider the 'three strikes law,'" he elaborates. "There is a higher jail sentencing for crack than for cocaine because more African Americans get crack than do cocaine."[4] Notwithstanding Wright's implication that the harsh anti-crack penalties were instituted by racist legislators for the purpose of incarcerating as many blacks as possible, the Congressional Record shows that such was not at all the case. In 1986, when the strict, federal anti-crack legislation was being debated, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)—deeply concerned about the degree to which crack was decimating the black community—strongly supported the legislation and actually pressed for even harsher penalties. In fact, a few years earlier CBC members had pushed President Reagan to create the Office of National Drug Control Policy.[5]

In Wright's calculus, white America's bigotry is to blame not only for whatever ills continue to plague the black community, but also for our country's conflicts with other nations. "In the 21st century," says Wright, "white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01. White America and the western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just 'disappeared' as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns."

Remarkably, no mention of jihad—the ageless Muslim tradition of aggressive, permanent warfare whose ultimate aim is to achieve Islam's dominion over the human race at large—managed to find its way into Wright's analysis. Rather, he assured us that the 9/11 atrocities were ultimately traceable to the doorstep of U.S. provocations. In fact, Wright apparently sees no reason to suspect that Islam may be incompatible in any way with Western traditions. "Islam and Christianity are a whole lot closer than you may realize," he has written. "Islam comes out of Christianity."[6]…

I’m sure the Islamists would be interested to hear that. As they see it, Islam “perfects” all previous revelations, including Christianity, which, like Judaism, has apparently gotten things terribly wrong. (That’s how they explain why their book and ours are so often at odds when telling the same story.) Also, Islam can’t even get Jesus’s name right. The Koran calls him “Issa,” the equivalent of Esau.

Sounds like Mo may have been playing broken telephone with some bible stories he’d heard bandied about the oasis.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:06 | link | comments (1)

Stop the presses!: According to the useful idiots/BDS-sufferers at Rolling Stone Magazine, there is no "terrorist threat." It's something the Bush administration concocted our of sheer fascist bloody-mindedness in order to, um, terrorize people.

So feel free to vote for Barack Obama, the guy who promises that, once elected, he'll hold a confab with Muslim nations to find out what their beef with America is really all about. (My guess: it has something to do with a belief in Islamic supremacism--but, hey, what do I know?)

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:06 | link | comments

Star crap: The Toronto Star’s Middle East correspondent, Oakland Ross, takes a delightful story about First Nations women visiting Israel and defecates all over it:

HAIFA, Israel–It lasted only a few moments, but those moments were magical.

The place – a meeting room in the Golda Meir International Training Centre, high atop Mount Carmel, in Israel's third-largest city. The event – a farewell ceremony for 17 First Nations women from Canada who last week completed an 11-day study tour in the Jewish state.

Wearing a red-and-black traditional robe and matching headband, Marilyn Jensen of the Tagish First Nation in Carcross, Yukon, beat a tom-tom and crooned an uptempo number called the "Raven People Clan Song," rendered in the Inland Tlingit language.

Before very long, people of diverse cultural backgrounds were climbing to their feet and dancing, a mixed crew of revellers that included Israelis, Canadians, Ugandans, Kenyans and Latin Americans – all waving their arms and moving their hips to the indigenous rhythms of the Canadian north.

No one could have scripted a finer finale to a trip that might raise some eyebrows in Canada, but that most of its participants seemed to consider a rousing success, if not without a rough patch here and there – this being the Middle East and politics being what they are.

"We live in a very political community," said Cora Voyageur, a tour participant who, in her regular life, is a sociology professor at the University of Calgary and a member of the Dene Nation.

"If you want to stay out of politics in our community, you really have to work at it. In many ways, the political atmosphere here is very similar."

In many ways, the political atmosphere here is downright suffocating. But the trip was not wholly consumed by politics in general or by the long-running conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, a dispute that tends to affect almost everything that happens in this rancorous plot of terra firma.

In fact, the tour was designed to introduce a group of Canadian native women to Israel, to exchange ideas about women's empowerment, the alleviation of poverty, microcredit, and other social issues, and to improve relations between two groups that haven't always got on especially well – Jews and Canadian natives.

But politics are politics are politics, and this is the Middle East.

A sponsored journey to Israel by a delegation of Canadian First Nations chiefs two years ago drew criticism from some groups at home, perhaps partly because that trip seemed eerily reminiscent of a propaganda campaign carried out two decades ago by Glenn Babb, formerly South Africa's ambassador in Ottawa.

In 1987, Babb raised Canadian hackles by setting up an all-expenses-paid tour of his country for a group of First Nations leaders during the ebb years of apartheid, a ploy to highlight shortcomings in Canada's treatment of its indigenous people and make South Africa's racist policies seem less odious by comparison.

Organized by the Canadian Jewish Congress and financed by Larry Tanenbaum, chair of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, this year's Israel trip by First Nations women seems to have had a more benign cast. But the project undoubtedly included a propaganda component of its own...

Ross would have been far more honest had he said, “politics are politics, and this is the Toronto Star.”

My missive to the Star’s editor:

According to Oakland Ross, a visit to Israel by 17 First Nations women is being condemned by “some groups at home” who see it as being “eerily reminiscent” of a 20-year old South African propaganda campaign.

May I suggest that those who see it as such have been influenced by another “propaganda campaign”—the one which has vilified and defamed Israel by falsely comparing it to apartheid-era South Africa. The whole point of the visit by these women is to show them that such a comparison is patently absurd. In Israel, Arab citizens are accorded the full gamut of rights—certainly far more rights than they enjoy in neighbouring Arab lands, which, with the possible exception of Iraq, are ruled by despots and theocrats.

More to the point, Israeli Arabs do not live “apart”—the pivotal feature of the “apartheid” doctrine.

By that definition, Canada, where native peoples actually do live apart on reserves, qualifies as being far more of an “apartheid state” than Israel. Of course, you’re highly unlikely to hear anyone say that Canada is “eerily reminiscent” of South Africa, since no one is trying to bring about Canada’s demise by propagating the “big lie” that it’s inherently racist.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:41 | link | comments

A shot in the dark: A picture used to be worth a thousand words. Of course, that was back in the days before Paliwood and trick fauxtography messed with images and became another weapon in the ongoing propaganda war against Israel. Along with that obvious fakery, there’s another weapon in the arsenal: posed shots. Here’s one that turns up in today’s Globe and Mail.  It shows an adorable Palestinian moppet standing front and centre, encircled by spiky barbed wire. A crowd of men is pushed up behind him as he gazes into Egypt across the newly resealed Gaza border.

Oddly enough, the Globe could have, but did not, select the following shots taken at the scene by the same photographer: This one, showing a Hamas “security” guy in full combat gear. This one, showing armed Egyptian forces on their side of the border.Or this one, showing the same section of barbed wire in the moppet shot, only this time sans moppet.

Meanwhile, the Ceeb for once doesn’t succumb to the temptation to vilify Israel through the use of manipulative images. It has an AP photo of a very unfriendly-looking Hamas “security” guy strong-arming a Palestinian man who had been trying to sneak back into Egypt.

And I thought only Israelis, with their wicked “walls” and “checkpoints,” behaved like that.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:22 | link | comments

Orwell and Arbour: I wonder if it has occurred to Louise Arbour, a woman who benefitted from the rights and freedoms afforded by living in Canada and rose to become a justice of the highest court in the land, that, in supporting the Arab Charter (with one minor hesitation) she is keeping company with some mighty regressive and misogynistic bedfellows. It certainly seems to have occurred to the Calgary Herald. In a blistering editorial, the Herald blows the clueless Lou a big, wet and well-deserved raspberry:

Human rights are just that -- rights for all humans, regardless of political ideology, ethnicity, religion or other category. That simple message seemed at first to be lost on Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, when she uttered her support for an Arab charter on human rights that states "efforts must be deployed for (the) elimination" of Zionism.

Arbour backed away from those comments a day later, claiming she actually had qualms about the charter's wording. Someone behind the scenes must have told her that cherrypicking among human rights by political ideology brilliantly evokes that Orwellian observation from Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." As a Canadian, her cheerleading for a charter whose declarations reflect the stated goal of Hamas, Hezbollah and the late Yasser Arafat, of wiping out Israel, was a shameful mark on Canada, whose government has unequivocally affirmed its support for the only democracy in the Middle East. Arbour's early stance was also a reflection of the sadly misguided position of the left, which sees itself as a champion of the underdog. In this case, the underdogs are deemed to be the Palestinians, although unwilling to look any further into the reasons for that, this faction fails to comprehend that the Palestinians are underdogs because they are forced to live under the thumb of oppressive, dictatorial regimes. They are the victims, not of Israel, but of their own despotic leaders. Their poverty, lack of job opportunities, low levels of literacy and failure to make economic progress are the direct effects of living under such regimes, not of being neighbours with Israel. Those who attack "Zionism" which is merely the right of Israel to exist, would be highly unlikely to attack "Americanism" or "Canadianism," denying those countries the right to exist, in the same manner they deny Israel.

This type of skewed thinking also leads to the fostering of selective wrath -- for example, Israel is often bitterly assailed for building a wall in the West Bank, but the wall between Egypt and Gaza, erected by Arab nations, goes unmentioned and uncriticized. Israel continues to be the only nation that is condemned for defending itself against attack, and the only democracy that comes under fire by people living in other democratic countries, for trying to defend the principles of democracy which these same people otherwise approve. This type of thinking is epitomized by Naomi Klein in her new book, The Shock Doctrine, when she accuses Israel of attacking Lebanon in the summer of 2006, without ever mentioning that thousands of missiles fired by Hezbollah had rained down upon Israel first before Israel finally moved to retaliate and defend itself.

It was equally shameful for Arbour to be seen supporting a document which makes a mockery of Arab women's rights with its backhanded acknowledgment of "positive discrimination" established for women "by the Islamic sharia (and) other divine laws." Had Arbour never heard of how women suffer under sharia and other so-called "divine" laws, including everything from not being allowed to drive cars to the fairly common occurrence of honour killings of women by their own brothers and fathers?

Arbour should never have lent any stamp of legitimacy to this profoundly flawed Arab charter. True declarations of human rights advocate peaceful co-existence and equal rights for everyone. Arbour needs to re-read her copy of Animal Farm.

If she did, she’d find this in Chapter 2—the animals’ version of sharia:

THE (ORIGINAL) SEVEN COMMANDMENTS:
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:16 | link | comments

Sick assignment: Architecture students in the U.K. have been given a grim and morally dubious task. They have been told to design an ergonomically-and-ecologically-sound instrument of torture. From the Ceeb:

LONDON - Homework is not meant to be comfortable.

But one British professor's efforts to get his students to create fully operational torture devices has even some of his colleagues wincing.

Students at Kent University School of Architecture in southeast England were asked to manufacture the devices as part of an attempt to sensitize them to the principles of ergonomics - the science of reducing fatigue and discomfort.

A copy of the assignment - entitled "Torture" - was carried on the website of The Architect's Journal.

The journal said the assignment was written by Kent University tutor Mike Richards.

No one at the university or the Royal Institute of British Architects immediately responded to phone and e-mail messages seeking comment Saturday. But The Guardian newspaper quoted one of the institute's former presidents, Paul Hyatt, as saying he was appalled.

The copy of the assignment on the website showed a diagram of a Gestapo electric torture table and invited students to "look at the dark side of ergonomics."

"Proposals have to be realizable in 2008.... No Sci-Fi devices please," the assignment said. "It has to be fit for purpose, robust and effective and well thought out; it has to work."

The assignment suggested using recycled material.